diff --git a/hpr_metadata/comments.json b/hpr_metadata/comments.json index 2d4eace..d29ea2a 100644 --- a/hpr_metadata/comments.json +++ b/hpr_metadata/comments.json @@ -4209,7 +4209,7 @@ {"id":4228,"eps_id":4315,"comment_timestamp":"2025-02-14 15:08:35","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"Welcome!","comment_text":"Hello Shane, and welcome to HPR. This was an awesome introduction. \n\nYou mentioned working to ensure you have high quality audio and equipment, while remaining within the open source arena. I would love to learn more about your selections and processes. \n\nEven though HPR is very tolerant of a wide range of audio quality, I feel like it is time for me to make some upgrades, and my first step is to learn more about what others are doing.\n\nLooking forward to hearing more fromyou on HPR","last_changed":"2025-02-24 14:50:53"}, {"id":4229,"eps_id":4314,"comment_timestamp":"2025-02-14 19:23:26","comment_author_name":"Dave Morriss","comment_title":"My 'fix_tags' script and Ken's difficulties with it.","comment_text":"There have always been a few problems with the Perl script I called 'fix_tags'. It needs a library called 'TagLib' (and a Perl module called 'Audio::TagLib') which can be difficult to install successfully.\n\nA while ago I made a binary version of the script, which Ken and Honkey used, but I recently discovered there was a problem with that as well. The tool that packaged the script includes all the Perl modules the script needs, but not the external libraries. This wasn't obvious (to me anyway at the time) - the binary just looked for them on the system it was being run on - but over time it became a problem as OS stuff was upgraded.\n\nI recently found a way to ensure that all external libraries were packaged with the modules and the script, and this solved the problems Ken and Honkey mentioned in this episode. They both have updated binary versions, but I have yet to update the GitHub version. I also plan to do an HPR show about this stuff soon...","last_changed":"2025-02-24 14:50:53"}, {"id":4230,"eps_id":4168,"comment_timestamp":"2025-02-14 20:01:40","comment_author_name":"Sem Luz em Saint Louis","comment_title":"Piracy may be not so straight-forward","comment_text":"Enjoying the show time later.\nI didn't know what to expect from the show, as I was not familiar with the works of an archivist. Now, having listened it, I learned.\n\nUntil now, I thought about downloadable items (games, as per the show) without permission to be piracy, and I did not comprehend how Archive.org had so much... as you said, it might not be legal in some cases, but it is also a matter of \"safe\". Thanks for giving this perspective.\n\nLiked your audio and voice quality.\nThanks!","last_changed":"2025-02-24 14:50:53"}, -{"id":4231,"eps_id":4315,"comment_timestamp":"2025-02-14 20:37:45","comment_author_name":"SolusSpider - Peter Paterson","comment_title":"Feeling older & impressed","comment_text":"Shane, great to hear your first show mate.\nI must admit that I felt old when you mentioned that you *started* with Windows. I had the 80s with 8-bit, and most of the 90s with Amiga, before my first PC with Windows in 1997, aged 30 by that point.\nYou impress me with your dedication to the LUG and to your shared podcast. Linux and hacker-space continues to drag us into involvement.","last_changed":"2025-02-24 14:50:53"}, +{"id":4231,"eps_id":4315,"comment_timestamp":"2025-02-14 20:37:45","comment_author_name":"SolusSpider - Peter Paterson","comment_title":"Feeling older and impressed","comment_text":"Shane, great to hear your first show mate.\nI must admit that I felt old when you mentioned that you *started* with Windows. I had the 80s with 8-bit, and most of the 90s with Amiga, before my first PC with Windows in 1997, aged 30 by that point.\nYou impress me with your dedication to the LUG and to your shared podcast. Linux and hacker-space continues to drag us into involvement.","last_changed":"2026-07-07 10:25:09"}, {"id":4232,"eps_id":4314,"comment_timestamp":"2025-02-17 23:19:18","comment_author_name":"freeplay","comment_title":"Transcode script dependencies","comment_text":"Just wanted to give some feedback and offer a code contribution if necessary. \n\nIn the beginning of the episode, Ken mentioned his transcode script was broken by updating some libraries on his Fedora machine. This is a great use case for a docker image. If we containerize the whole toolchain needed for transcoding, we can ensure the dependencies are never updated, regardless of what happens on the host machine. \n\nIf you’re not familiar with that process, I would love to help with that. Just let me know. \n\nWe could create an image (ex: hpr-transcode) and kick off the transcode using ‘docker run … hpr-transcode:latest’ \n\nAnyway, love the conversation on this one. Thanks. ","last_changed":"2025-02-24 14:50:53"}, {"id":4233,"eps_id":4315,"comment_timestamp":"2025-02-17 23:44:32","comment_author_name":"Steve Barnes","comment_title":"Hi and merci!","comment_text":"Hi, Shane – thanks for the introductory ramble. It was nice to hear from a remote neighbour on a walk.","last_changed":"2025-02-24 14:50:53"}, {"id":4234,"eps_id":4315,"comment_timestamp":"2025-02-21 06:05:24","comment_author_name":"Torin Doyle","comment_title":"Bliss of discovering GNU/Linux for the first time.","comment_text":"Hi Shane.\n\nA fellow Irishman here.\n\nI remember well, my first time discovering GNU/Linux. I started in 2008 with my first actual install on a HDD. It was Ubuntu 7.10 with the glorious GNOME2 DE. I later switched to Linux Mint and eventually settled with Debian Stable.\n\nWhen I hear the term, 'Stranded Output', I picture a guy sitting at a computer terminal with green text on a black background and he's stranded on a remove planet.\n\nHappy computing! :-)","last_changed":"2025-02-24 14:50:53"}, @@ -4486,4 +4486,283 @@ {"id":4510,"eps_id":4509,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-19 18:34:36","comment_author_name":"ClaudioM","comment_title":"Both are Tasty!","comment_text":"Thanks again for this episode and this Beer Garden series, fellas! Both of these I've had here in the USA, and they are pretty good. My eldest son likes the Schöfferhofer and I'm quite fond of the Edringer Dunkel. I only get the Dunkel every once in a while as it's not something I'd be drinking consistently. Just something to enjoy every now and then when I'm feeling a little dark. ;-)","last_changed":"2025-11-19 19:46:10"}, {"id":4511,"eps_id":4397,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-19 20:53:10","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"issues with qrcp...","comment_text":"I remember having a lot of issues with qrcp on corporate networks where like it doesnt let you connect to other devices directly, i'd personally reccomend something like 0x0.st over qrcp for a lot of cases as long as you know how curl works","last_changed":"2025-11-19 21:10:06"}, {"id":4512,"eps_id":4397,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-20 11:35:22","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"qrcp is private 0x0.st is not","comment_text":"Even if you trust what people say on their sites about keeping it private, it still is putting your files into the public domain in some form or another. The site can be compromised, or can be ordered to disclose your information by the local authorities.\n\nEven if that were the case that this did not occur, on a corporate network it's also very likely our out and inbound traffic is also been analyzed. \n\nUsing qrcp keeps it local, and that means transfer is as fast as it can be, but it also means it never goes out.","last_changed":"2025-11-20 11:37:08"}, -{"id":4513,"eps_id":4506,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-21 18:21:23","comment_author_name":"Trixter","comment_title":"This was very well done","comment_text":"I really enjoyed this dive into the UCSD P-System/Pascal. I have always wanted to know what it was like from someone who actually used it, and this episode delivered on that many times over. I hope WhiskeyJack does more episodes.","last_changed":"2025-11-21 20:02:33"}] +{"id":4513,"eps_id":4506,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-21 18:21:23","comment_author_name":"Trixter","comment_title":"This was very well done","comment_text":"I really enjoyed this dive into the UCSD P-System/Pascal. I have always wanted to know what it was like from someone who actually used it, and this episode delivered on that many times over. I hope WhiskeyJack does more episodes.","last_changed":"2025-11-21 20:02:33"}, +{"id":4514,"eps_id":4517,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-25 17:19:26","comment_author_name":"mirwi","comment_title":"Explanation of \"silent key\".","comment_text":"Trey said \"...which once belonged to a close friend of mine who is now silent key.\", but missed to explain the term for those, to whom it might not be obvious.\n\"Silent key\" is the amateur radio jargon for a deceased person.\n\nRegards,\nmirwi ","last_changed":"2025-11-25 17:53:51"}, +{"id":4515,"eps_id":4517,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-26 03:35:05","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"Thank you, Mirwi. Silent Key episode link","comment_text":"Thank you, Mirwi for sharing that explanation. I sometimes forget to explain items like this when I am recording. \n\nIf anyone wants to learn more about the term \"Silent Key\", please listen to episode 3922 which I recorded about it back in 2023 at https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr3922/index.html","last_changed":"2025-11-26 05:41:55"}, +{"id":4516,"eps_id":4518,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-29 05:55:56","comment_author_name":"Torin Doyle","comment_title":"I like this news feature.","comment_text":"Hi to all at HPR. I like the re-design of the HPR website.\n\nHey Daniel. I enjoy episodes like this that cover FLOSS/Linux/etc news stories. I hope it becomes a regular fixture. Thanks.","last_changed":"2025-11-29 07:40:03"}, +{"id":4517,"eps_id":4521,"comment_timestamp":"2025-11-30 15:48:22","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Silent key","comment_text":"I heard again about the 'silent key', and was reminded that an Electronics instructor of mine in a local college was a fan of the paddle key as a Ham radio operator. I'm left wondering and on a mission to find out if he is 'silent key' or still alive. This graduating class was 30 years ago (1995), and he also taught me to use the 8080 processor assembler, which the chip could only be re-written after erasure from exposure to a UV light.","last_changed":"2025-11-30 16:08:32"}, +{"id":4518,"eps_id":4521,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-01 15:45:59","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"Silent Key Archive","comment_text":"Hello Archer72,\n\nYou might try checking the ARRL Silent Key Archive https://www.silentkeyhq.com/\n\n","last_changed":"2025-12-01 17:10:49"}, +{"id":4519,"eps_id":4521,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-01 15:48:20","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"TuxJam CYD Episode","comment_text":"Thank you, Kevie, for the shoutout concerning CYD.\n\nYou sent me on a quest to find and listen to your podcast. It took me a bit to figure out how to spell TuxJam, but I finally got it and am listening.\n\nNicely done!!","last_changed":"2025-12-01 17:11:00"}, +{"id":4520,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-02 17:24:00","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Checking for أحمد المحمودي to see if there are issues.","comment_text":"There are extra checks when you upload a comment on an episode outside the main feed, so in the future feed or episode going back 10 slots.\n","last_changed":"2025-12-02 17:27:44"}, +{"id":4521,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-03 17:36:47","comment_author_name":"أحمد المحمودي","comment_title":"download-filename-format for HPR podcasts","comment_text":"Hello,\n\n I've set: download-filename-format \"%t.%u\"\nwhich works fine for all podcasts except for HPR, where the filename extension is php instead of mp3. Is there a method to have a special downliad-filename-format for HPR podcast ?\n","last_changed":"2025-12-03 18:26:48"}, +{"id":4522,"eps_id":4523,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-04 17:21:44","comment_author_name":"bjb","comment_title":"Love your show/series, thank you","comment_text":"I listened to the first episode of this series, it is super interesting. Thank you! I am eagerly looking forward to the rest of the series.","last_changed":"2025-12-04 18:53:30"}, +{"id":4523,"eps_id":4523,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-04 21:38:03","comment_author_name":"Kevin O'Brien","comment_title":"Looking forward to more","comment_text":"I think your plan is excellent, and I am eagerly awaiting the future installments","last_changed":"2025-12-04 21:42:01"}, +{"id":4524,"eps_id":4523,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-09 17:03:49","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"Looking forward to this series","comment_text":"Very well done. \n\nMany decades ago, we learned about some of this in a college physics class. We even had the opportunity to visit a research reactor at a local university, where we participated in the daily start-up process, observed Cerenkov radiation first hand, and even experimented with the effects of certain types of radiation exposure on semi-conductors.\n\nI am looking forward to the remaining episodes in this series.","last_changed":"2025-12-09 20:08:05"}, +{"id":4525,"eps_id":4526,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-09 17:09:11","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"SDRs","comment_text":"Well done, sir.\n\nSDRs have really opened up parts of radio technology experimentation to a wider community. I have noticed a significant difference in performance and quality between inexpensive SDR dongles and higher end devices like the SDRDuo I prefer. \n\nI have not tried the SDR++ software, but regularly use SDRConnect and SDRangel.\n\nContinuing to experiment is the best way to learn and grow.","last_changed":"2025-12-09 20:08:12"}, +{"id":4526,"eps_id":4521,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-12 22:39:28","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"thoughts","comment_text":"decided to put my responses into one bc i didnt want to spam the comments, uhh let me know if thats not allowed and stuff sorry\n\n- im suprised someone recorded a 8 HOUR SHOW?? that seems way too long to keep talking for :(\n\n- i mmaybe will make an episode or two on my scripts, tho ill start with the taskwarrior one (which doesnt use xclip) since thematic followup to my first ep :>\n\n- peertube is a cool concept but i only occasionally watch videos on the anonradio/sdf instance, so i dont have the experience to make a episode about it :P\n\n- agreed, ai freaking S U C K S as both an artist and coder\n\n- you cant listen to regular books, lol\n\n- happy late birthday to archer :) (also my birthday is in 2 days :))\n\n- either the news list has been going to spam or i missed it bc i completely forgot about it :( ill double check that once i finish listening\n\n- RE: Trey - thanks for introducing me to TuxJam, i have another podcast to dump into gPodder :)","last_changed":"2025-12-13 08:25:06"}, +{"id":4527,"eps_id":4522,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-13 00:50:23","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"peek into the community","comment_text":"i think this is a really cool peek into a community that while i've heard of in passing had never really looked into until now. the interview was entertaining and its clear that elsbeth is well integrated into the community and has a lot of experience","last_changed":"2025-12-13 08:25:35"}, +{"id":4528,"eps_id":4532,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-16 13:30:40","comment_author_name":"norrrist","comment_title":"starting small ","comment_text":"This is a good tip for any new project. I like to see success early, so I try to start with something small just to see something work. It is good motivation to keep going, and a solid foundation to build on. ","last_changed":"2025-12-16 13:36:00"}, +{"id":4529,"eps_id":4533,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-18 17:41:37","comment_author_name":"bjb","comment_title":"Thank the host for interesting series","comment_text":"I'm greatly enjoying this series, thank you.","last_changed":"2025-12-18 21:25:17"}, +{"id":4530,"eps_id":4535,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-19 16:09:51","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"cool setup!","comment_text":"I also have to use a laptop for my main computer, though it is nice to have the same exact setup both at home and when I'm not.\n\nI will say that TLP supports setting charge limits directly, and I'd reccomend setting it up there since it persists after boot.\n\nLocalsend looks interesting, I'll check it out!","last_changed":"2025-12-19 16:13:20"}, +{"id":4531,"eps_id":4521,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-19 21:34:55","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Re: thoughts","comment_text":"Hello, candycanearter07\n\nI'm glad you are enjoying our community, and a happy belated birthday.\n\nYou mentioned SDF, which I have an account on but rarely used\n- I should try it out again\n- anonradio is good to hear on a road trip :)\n- Do you use an instance on Matrix or Mastodon?\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2025-12-19 21:39:08"}, +{"id":4532,"eps_id":4535,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-19 21:40:13","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Tmux","comment_text":"Hi Al,\n\nIf you like tmux, check out hpr3845 :: Using tmux\n- it uses tmux-resurrect to auto save multiple sessions between reboots.\n\n- Archer72","last_changed":"2025-12-19 21:50:06"}, +{"id":4533,"eps_id":4521,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-21 05:29:07","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"Re: Re: Thoughts","comment_text":"Thanks for the happy bday :)\n\n- sdf is fun but i keep forgetting to check in on the com chat\n- i actually just got a little handheld media player and have been loading podcast episodes onto :D\n- wafrn","last_changed":"2025-12-21 07:49:38"}, +{"id":4534,"eps_id":4536,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-21 20:19:16","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Brilliant!! ","comment_text":"Brilliant episode!\n\nHey Ken, \nIs there room in the About page to list this a top episode?\n\nArcher72","last_changed":"2025-12-22 08:07:20"}, +{"id":4535,"eps_id":4536,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-22 15:32:16","comment_author_name":"Torin Doyle","comment_title":"Deltaray did a fine job in covering GNU/Linux aka Linux, here.","comment_text":"Thank you Deltaray, for this concise coverage of Linux. You spoke very well.","last_changed":"2025-12-22 16:00:58"}, +{"id":4536,"eps_id":4536,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-22 20:05:48","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Agree","comment_text":"Should be a link on every distros desktop page.","last_changed":"2025-12-22 20:06:11"}, +{"id":4537,"eps_id":4538,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-24 03:39:01","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"interesting peak of behind the scenes!!","comment_text":"hi,\n\ni find it pretty cool how the intro/outro is all automated, and im legitimately suprised that people dislike it! the music is really calming and sets the mood well, and i was always kinda wondering what tts you were using since its a lot more understandable than espeak is (or at least the default voice for it)\n","last_changed":"2025-12-24 07:09:39"}, +{"id":4538,"eps_id":4538,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-24 23:14:54","comment_author_name":"Steve Barnes","comment_title":"Merci!","comment_text":"I don't imagine this is a dire subject for most people, but thank you for the overview and the rationale. It's nice to hear about the trivia.","last_changed":"2025-12-25 08:14:44"}, +{"id":4539,"eps_id":4536,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-26 14:24:34","comment_author_name":"Deltaray","comment_title":"Thanks","comment_text":"Thanks for the feedback and encouragement. I'm glad this landed well as I was a bit uncertain about it. Also, thank you to Sigflup for proof-listening to it. If you're serious about having this linked to from other places then maybe we just need to post it to some forums, Reddit, FB, etc.","last_changed":"2025-12-26 16:01:49"}, +{"id":4540,"eps_id":4538,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-29 08:34:37","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Re: candycanearter07","comment_text":"Hello,\n\nIf you are interested in Piper TTS, check out hpr4072 :: Piper text to speech engine. \nPiper can speak in multiple languages, if you want to check it out:\n\nhttps://rhasspy.github.io/piper-samples/#en_GB-alan-medium\n","last_changed":"2025-12-29 08:42:08"}, +{"id":4541,"eps_id":4536,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-30 13:32:10","comment_author_name":"Morhook","comment_title":"Good talk CliMagic","comment_text":"Nice hearing your voice for the first time CliMagic! I love Linux too and I’m liking a lot many tools that help you fix stuff like codex, gemini-cli and Claude code. They integrate very well and are awesome way to learn new commands. This year I’ve learned about aseqdump, ss, iw, loginctl and wowlan magic-packet wakeonlan. ","last_changed":"2025-12-30 13:41:12"}, +{"id":4542,"eps_id":4520,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-30 13:49:27","comment_author_name":"morhook","comment_title":"programmer and content creator","comment_text":"Nice podcast episode! I agree that Arthur C Clarke made a very good book on \"Rendezvous with Rama\"! Science Fiction without killer robots, or evil aliens is so uncommon! ","last_changed":"2025-12-30 14:19:01"}, +{"id":4543,"eps_id":4520,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-30 22:10:18","comment_author_name":"Kevin O'Brien","comment_title":"Glad you liked it","comment_text":"I am glad you enjoyed it. There is more to come from Arthur C. Clarke, Dr. Who, Robert A. Heinlein, and E.E. \"Doc\" Smith. ","last_changed":"2025-12-31 07:09:08"}, +{"id":4544,"eps_id":4529,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-31 11:30:41","comment_author_name":"Paulj","comment_title":"Thanks - great show","comment_text":"Hi Brian, Thanks for a very informative show. I have and use three X270 Lenovo laptops, and I am writing this on an X390. I have never considered a Yoga version (with the touch screen), but may well do so in the future. I also appreciate the other information you have shared.\n\nBest wishes for the New Year!\n\nPaul","last_changed":"2025-12-31 14:51:20"}, +{"id":4545,"eps_id":4543,"comment_timestamp":"2025-12-31 19:50:43","comment_author_name":"L'andrew","comment_title":"Praise for this series","comment_text":"Excellent series on nuclear technologies - thanks for this educational opportunity!","last_changed":"2025-12-31 20:16:52"}, +{"id":4546,"eps_id":4543,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-01 12:51:36","comment_author_name":"Kevin O'Brien","comment_title":"Really enjoying this series","comment_text":"I find I am looking forward to each installment of this series. Well done!","last_changed":"2026-01-01 13:23:22"}, +{"id":4547,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-03 16:43:41","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Some podcast aggregators show ccdn.php as file name #321","comment_text":"https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_generator/issues/321","last_changed":"2026-01-03 16:44:05"}, +{"id":4548,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-05 15:30:45","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Re: download-filename-format for HPR podcasts","comment_text":"Hello أحمد المحمودي, \n\nIn the short term, you can use\n\n`download-filename-format \"%F: %t.mp3\"`\n\nwhich forces all feeds to download and show up as mp3.\nI know this is not ideal, and I am working on a better solution.\nIn the mean time, you can use\n`newsboat -C custom-hpr-config` for just the HPR config. \n\nCheers,\nArcher72\n\nP.S. HPR would like to hear you on a microphone of any sort. \n","last_changed":"2026-01-06 08:41:13"}, +{"id":4549,"eps_id":4536,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-05 16:25:09","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Re: Good talk CliMagic","comment_text":"Hello Morhook,\n\nQuite a variety of subjects that would sound great on a recording or 3. \n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-01-06 08:41:46"}, +{"id":4550,"eps_id":4546,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-06 16:53:29","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Nuclear Reactor series","comment_text":"Hello all,\n\nA show with WhiskeyJack as Homer Simpson on the Beer Garden series would be interesting, I'm sure.\n\nCheers, *clink*\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-01-06 18:07:22"}, +{"id":4551,"eps_id":4546,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-07 21:47:01","comment_author_name":"Henrik Hemrin","comment_title":"Linux","comment_text":"Nice community news, as usual. Thanks for this one! \n\nKevin said that to encourage someone to migrate to Linux desktop, is the best start to use software available for Linux already when on the other desktop, then will the hurdle to step over to Linux OS be relatively low. Good advice! ","last_changed":"2026-01-08 06:06:38"}, +{"id":4552,"eps_id":4532,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-10 11:14:14","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Possible Graphics Library","comment_text":"Having done zero research I submit a link that I got from Hackaday\n\nroo_display is a feature-rich, fast, and easy to use library intended for building 'smart home' and similar controllers with graphical UI and optionally touch control.\n\nhttps://hackaday.com/2026/01/09/a-ui-focused-display-library-for-the-esp32/\n\nhttps://github.com/dejwk/roo_display\n","last_changed":"2026-01-10 11:14:59"}, +{"id":4553,"eps_id":4572,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-13 07:22:35","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"My future self thanks you","comment_text":"I'm wondering how log it will be before I use this in prod ?","last_changed":"2026-01-13 07:23:45"}, +{"id":4554,"eps_id":4551,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-15 20:15:10","comment_author_name":"operat0r","comment_title":"White Male","comment_text":"not that anybody care about the angle from a white male but I did a eps on some this stuff... LMK if I can help in \n anyway!","last_changed":"2026-01-15 20:22:23"}, +{"id":4555,"eps_id":4555,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-16 18:19:25","comment_author_name":"KarldaTech","comment_title":"Christmas Ale","comment_text":"In the states, several breweries have Christmas Ales. My favorite is Old Fezzwig Ale. Not very spiced, malty, has a chewy quality. Thanks for your show.","last_changed":"2026-01-16 18:31:21"}, +{"id":4556,"eps_id":4576,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-16 18:59:23","comment_author_name":"Elsbeth","comment_title":"Thank you","comment_text":"Thank you for sharing your perspective here that was prompted by Lee and I’s discussion on women in IT. I want to formulate my thoughts better and see about recording a response to your response here. I Believe that would be more thought out than merely replying here, now. Just wanted you to know that while I have thoughts on your show both positive and confused (not negative) and hat I do listen to the whole show and appreciate the time and effort you put into it.","last_changed":"2026-01-16 21:32:34"}, +{"id":4558,"eps_id":4554,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-17 03:42:49","comment_author_name":"brian-in-ohio","comment_title":"Welcome","comment_text":"Great show, I'll have to try it out.","last_changed":"2026-01-17 07:44:26"}, +{"id":4559,"eps_id":4569,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-18 17:33:34","comment_author_name":"operat0r","comment_title":"weee","comment_text":"Can't think of any other files but other than the home folder you want to be cognizant of /tmp I just remember the old days of PHP having binaries running out tmp folders... I had a script that would go through every single virtual machine and search for binaries running out of weird places and it would find root kits all over the place!","last_changed":"2026-01-18 18:04:59"}, +{"id":4560,"eps_id":4557,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-20 03:11:33","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"interesting experiment","comment_text":"I never realized that tar compressed files are better at compressing than zip files! imo, its more of a mentality thing, like tar is literally just a series of files stitched together with some headers meaning it makes a lot more sense to apply a single-file compressor to it than something that is already applying some level of compression. There's also a bit of a compatibility issue, since most non technical users dont know what a tar file is or even that a zip file is a file, so zip is the lowest common denominator.\n\nOn that note, I think looking at 7zip would be an interesting experiment, since its newer and a lot more \"well known\"","last_changed":"2026-01-20 07:14:23"}, +{"id":4561,"eps_id":4313,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-23 15:54:56","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Spammer","comment_text":"Nice try but we can smell spammers a mile away.","last_changed":"2026-01-23 15:55:16"}, +{"id":4562,"eps_id":4559,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-23 16:06:56","comment_author_name":"ClaudioM","comment_title":"Just What I Needed!","comment_text":"Looks like you uploaded this episode the day after I was looking for a solution like this. Thank you for this episode. I'll give LocalTranslate a go, though I would prefer something that I could install outside of a flatpak that would run on a BSD system as well.","last_changed":"2026-01-23 16:28:39"}, +{"id":4563,"eps_id":4554,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-24 00:34:58","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"good first show!","comment_text":"i think this is a really good first show and the way you covered it was pretty cool. i use taskwarrior for mine, which i covered in another episode","last_changed":"2026-01-24 02:53:48"}, +{"id":4564,"eps_id":4552,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-24 00:38:56","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"printer issues","comment_text":"From what I've heard online, printers infamously have tons of issues with wasting ink and forcing vendor lock-in, so I would not be surprised if the official drivers do intentionally destroy output to force you on the upgrade treadmill.","last_changed":"2026-01-24 02:54:04"}, +{"id":4565,"eps_id":4559,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-26 15:00:05","comment_author_name":"mnw","comment_title":"Great Recommendations!","comment_text":"I was chatting on Mastodon and was directed to this episode. Great one! I have downloaded and tried out the android app and it works as described. They have all the big languages I would need or want. Just brilliant! Thanks for the episode.","last_changed":"2026-01-26 15:20:53"}, +{"id":4566,"eps_id":4561,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-27 21:41:03","comment_author_name":"Henrik Hemrin","comment_title":"Happy to learn about the project","comment_text":"First, welcome as a host at HPR! \n\nIt was interesting and encouraging to learn and hear about Mission:Libre, which is new to me. Best wishes to you and your mission!","last_changed":"2026-01-27 21:42:08"}, +{"id":4567,"eps_id":4561,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-28 01:09:31","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"cool project","comment_text":"This seems like a promising project, and I think you explained it well despite it being your first episode. Best of luck!","last_changed":"2026-01-28 07:00:52"}, +{"id":4568,"eps_id":4563,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-29 12:44:44","comment_author_name":"mnw","comment_title":"Great Series","comment_text":"I am enjoying and look forward to the rest of the series. Do you think the US will ever wake up and start recycling its spent fuel? It seems like such a huge waste just to try and keep a small amount of fuel away from\"the bad guys\" or whatever they are imagining. ","last_changed":"2026-01-29 13:31:50"}, +{"id":4569,"eps_id":4563,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-29 20:26:39","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"hpr4563 :: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 5 Fast Reactors","comment_text":"@mnw - Spent fuel from civil nuclear power plants is not suitable for making nuclear weapons as it has the wrong proportions of plutonium isotopes. Plutonium comes in multiple isotopes just like virtually all other heavy elements, and weapons require a high percentage of one specific isotope, which you don't get from spent civil fuel. Weapons grade plutonium is made in military reactors which are designed for that purpose and the fuel is rapidly cycled through to minimize the build up of undesired (for weapons purposes) isotopes.\n\nAs such, there is no direct connection between recycling commercial spent fuel (I covered a number of different recycling technologies in one episode) and nuclear weapons. I don't live in the US, but if there is a public perception there that there is such a connection, then it is likely this is the result of a misconception about the nature of the different isotopes of plutonium. \n\nThe main reason that most countries don't bother with recycling spent fuel is that a once through fuel cycle is cheaper. Those countries that do recycle fuel do so mainly for reasons of national security of energy supply. They simply wish to minimize their uranium imports by reusing fuel they already have. \n\nA secondary reason is to reduce the amount of high level waste that must be stored by \"burning up\" the fissile isotopes of plutonium in a reactor. Much of the long lived part of nuclear waste is simply fissile isotopes of plutonium which can be re-used in a reactor as fuel. \n\nIf enough people have questions on this series, including topics that I have not covered, and post them as comments on HPR I would be willing to do a follow up episode covering those after the end of the series.","last_changed":"2026-01-29 20:38:17"}, +{"id":4570,"eps_id":4552,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-31 03:08:58","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Yep","comment_text":"Uhum, Epson releases (or released) their printers drivers interested in making money even if it means artificially hindering the work you need it to and which it could do.\n\nI had an Epson Stylus CX4500. The official driver would not print, simply couldn't force to try, if it detected the ink cartridge was empty.\n\nThat means, not only you could not force it to try: it would not print a 100% yellow document if it though, and pointed, the only black cartridge was empty.\n\nThere was a little device you could buy online, used to reset a cartridge. It had 3 pins that you used to touched the 3 little metal areas of an \"empty\" Epson cartridge (of that model) to reset its identification to the printer — a \"resetter\" of cartridge. I bought, and after this procedure, I would put again the same cartridge (without even shaking, no mechanical idea to help, only deceiving the printer with the resetter); and the CX4500, with its official driver, read the cartridge as if it was full. And did the work with the previously \"empty\" cartridge. For at least 40 or 50 pages.\n\nI searched now, the CX4500 is from 2004; I used it for years, at least until 2020, but, using only a little, even with cheap and good quality third-party cartridges, I faced the clogging you mentioned, not worth using weekly only to avoid the problem; so I abandoned it (I think it is by here somewhere, maybe would work after a little maintenance).\n\nTo the end: official driver support ended when I eventually updated Windows, would not work under it. But I had dual-boot, and it worked flawlessly in Linux. Without need of the reseter, because the open source driver was only interested in serving the best it could, no deceiving.\n\nNice content, and audio and voice. Thanks for the show, MrX!","last_changed":"2026-01-31 09:04:49"}, +{"id":4571,"eps_id":4511,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-31 09:11:44","comment_author_name":"Lee","comment_title":"Further correction","comment_text":"I the episode I confused The Cuckoo's Egg about the the black hat hacker Markus Hess with Breaking and Entering about the white hat hacker Sherri Davidoff","last_changed":"2026-01-31 09:50:10"}, +{"id":4572,"eps_id":4548,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-31 11:26:18","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Interesting mix","comment_text":"Hi Ahuka,\n\nThis is an interesting mix of channels, and I'm sure is appreciated by all. I am enjoying this series, and especially like the science and space channels.\n\nCheers,\n\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-01-31 11:59:15"}, +{"id":4573,"eps_id":4550,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-31 11:51:45","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Great series!","comment_text":"Hi Ahuka,\n\nI would like to appreciate this continuing series. \nThis deep dive into the game mechanics has been interesting.\n\nCheers,\n\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-01-31 12:15:08"}, +{"id":4574,"eps_id":4556,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-31 11:55:19","comment_author_name":"Arche72","comment_title":"Fun hobby!","comment_text":"Hi Operat0r,\n\nThis is an interesting and potentially expensive hobby.\nSound fun!\n\nCheers, \n\nArcher72\n","last_changed":"2026-01-31 12:15:21"}, +{"id":4575,"eps_id":4554,"comment_timestamp":"2026-01-31 21:13:41","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore","comment_title":"Updates - too soon!","comment_text":"This system has been chugging along for years. A few days ago the Simpletask app on my phone stopped syncing to Dropbox. Simpletask is no longer in development. Simpletask still worked with the local file, so I stopped using Dropbox and I'm now using Synchthing to sync while I'm at home. No access while off the home network, so this may be another episode once I figure that out.","last_changed":"2026-02-01 07:43:59"}, +{"id":4576,"eps_id":4562,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-02 23:52:36","comment_author_name":"Steve Barnes","comment_title":"(Yeah!)","comment_text":"Great general proposition that software isn't \"finished\" until it's easy to install.","last_changed":"2026-02-03 07:34:54"}, +{"id":4577,"eps_id":4567,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-03 19:06:36","comment_author_name":"Kinghezy","comment_title":"Office space lumbergh","comment_text":"I thought the ending had accidentally slowed down to 1/2 speed, until I realized it was a Lumbergh impression. Well done.","last_changed":"2026-02-03 20:36:04"}, +{"id":4578,"eps_id":4566,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-03 19:08:14","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Community News for January - Scheduling of Episodes","comment_text":"I am a relatively new contributor, having sent in my first episode in November. Before that I was a long time listener. I have submitted 10 episodes so far, with some which are yet to be aired. \n\nI think the current system is pretty good and should be kept with only a few minor changes. I like being able to pick slots. I feel additional motivation to contribute by being able to pick a slot and know that my episode would air on a predictable schedule rather than go in a long queue and turn up at some distant date in the future. I contribute episodes to have them aired, not to fill a queue.\n\nI will make three short points:\n\n1) Your own scheduling guidelines encourage existing contributors to leave some near term slots open for new contributors. Inevitably this will result in shows from the reserve queue being required to be used if a new contributor does not show up. If that is not what you intend, then you need to clarify those guidelines.\n\n2) The messages calling for new shows may sometimes sound a bit alarming. If people interpret these as signs that HPR is dying, that may act to discourage them from contributing. I think the contribution requests need to be careful to spur people to action without sounding overly alarming.\n\n3) Make it easier to post show notes. Currently the text box to paste the show notes into seems to be limited to about 4,000 characters. It would be easier for contributors if they could simply copy-paste their entire script into this box instead of jumping through additional hoops. \n\nI'm currently working on new episodes and hope to post them in a few weeks. Thanks to the volunteers for all their efforts.\n","last_changed":"2026-02-03 20:37:14"}, +{"id":4579,"eps_id":4567,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-04 03:15:18","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"An attractive invitation to watch","comment_text":"I felt urged to watch some movies on this list. I may have watched 2 or 3 only. The show was very good, an attractive invitation to see the ones you comment.\n\nThanks!","last_changed":"2026-02-04 05:23:40"}, +{"id":4580,"eps_id":4566,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-04 12:20:56","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"response to Whiskeyjack","comment_text":"re 1) I think the guide lines are clear on the point, but if you can suggest an improvement then please do so.\n\n3. Always try and fill any free slots that are available in the upcoming two weeks.\n4. When the queue is filling up then leave some slots free for new contributors.\n\nre 2) Yip we'll tone it down depending on how urgent it is.\n\nre 3) The limit is removed but we need to redo the how to page","last_changed":"2026-02-04 12:21:16"}, +{"id":4581,"eps_id":4567,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-04 14:15:57","comment_author_name":"Henrik Hemrin","comment_title":"Inspiring recommendations","comment_text":"Several in your list that I get inspired to watch and some to watch again. \n\nI first watched the movie The Lives of Others first time when I took the course Integrity, technology and surveillance as part of the Human Rights program. It is really good and very relevant today although the methods are different. \n\nBy coincidence this HPR episode has a nice connection to the episode next day. ","last_changed":"2026-02-04 14:46:28"}, +{"id":4582,"eps_id":4566,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-04 16:20:12","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"response to Ken Fallon - Episode Scheduling Guidelines","comment_text":"Rule 3 says to always try to fill slots in the upcoming 2 weeks.\nRule 4 says when the \"queue is filling up\" to leave slots free for new contributors.\nRule 5 says to post non-urgent shows into the first empty week. \n\n3 and 5 seem to contradict one another, as most shows will be non-urgent. 4 is unclear as to what \"filling up\" means in practical terms.\n\nLong time contributors will have a good feel for what they should be doing and first time contributors should use the first free slot, but someone on his second or third episode can find navigating the rules a bit confusing. \n\nThings like this should always be looked at from the perspective of someone who is relatively new to contributing podcasts when judging how clear the guidelines are. ","last_changed":"2026-02-04 16:25:01"}, +{"id":4583,"eps_id":4566,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-04 16:30:35","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"You're right","comment_text":"I've always considered them to be in order as in if not rule 1, then if not rule 2, etc.\nPerhaps that's why people have struggled with them for so long.\n\nI'm genuinely open to suggestions to improve it, but would appreciate moving the conversation to the gittea ticket\n\nhttps://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_documentation/issues/17","last_changed":"2026-02-04 16:30:50"}, +{"id":4584,"eps_id":4569,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-05 03:44:49","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"very informative!","comment_text":"i most likely won't need to use this any time soon, but its always good to have things like this in your toolbelt! its also great practice","last_changed":"2026-02-05 06:38:48"}, +{"id":4585,"eps_id":4564,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-05 05:11:00","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"regression testing?","comment_text":"I'm surprised there wasn't any regression testing to prevent a forced downgrade. Did you try submitting a bug report to the devs?","last_changed":"2026-02-05 06:39:39"}, +{"id":4586,"eps_id":4596,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-05 11:54:36","comment_author_name":"folky","comment_title":"Interesting solution, but annoying ","comment_text":"Thank you for your interesting show. Great how you solved all the issues. But I won't use it. \nI remember seeing those films on TV-sets in Poland while buying something. I always thought \"How can they stand out with this annoying voice destroying the film.\" Luckily it often were dumb soap operas, so I didn't even try to understand the original voices. And you're right, it's worst when the original is in a language you understand. Which is the case in the example you used. Especially, because the male voice in swedish is mumbling a bit. ","last_changed":"2026-02-05 12:29:30"}, +{"id":4587,"eps_id":4567,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-05 13:55:25","comment_author_name":"ClaudioM","comment_title":"Awesome Episode!","comment_text":"Thanks for this awesome rundown of these hacker-influenced movies. It sure was fun to listen to the ones you discussed. I was especially curious about The Lives of Others, and yes, the following HPR episode did have a good connection with this. Looking forward to watching The Lives of Others in German as I'm trying to improve my learning of the language.\n\nAnother movie that is hacker-based is called Whoami, also in German. It's very actiony from what I saw of the trailer, but sure caught my interest due to the topic and the language. Might want to check that one out as well.","last_changed":"2026-02-05 14:11:33"}, +{"id":4588,"eps_id":4566,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-05 23:36:17","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"my two cents","comment_text":"I think a good middle ground could be to have a \"short term queue\" that a show could go into if the creator doesn't care when exactly it appears? That way the explicit date reservations can have more priority. ","last_changed":"2026-02-06 07:00:54"}, +{"id":4589,"eps_id":4567,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-06 01:56:48","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore","comment_title":"Great Show!","comment_text":"I collect movie recommendations and try to watch them when they appear on one of my streaming services. What a great list - I have only seen about half of this list.","last_changed":"2026-02-06 07:01:30"}, +{"id":4590,"eps_id":4569,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-06 02:19:21","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore","comment_title":"I learned some things that I will try out","comment_text":"Agreed -- a guest account is great for visitors to my home for all the reasons cited. I have wondered how you added hooks for login and logout -- in my case, for mapping SMB shares. Would the GDM hooks work for that?","last_changed":"2026-02-06 07:01:49"}, +{"id":4591,"eps_id":4569,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-06 16:23:36","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"RE: I learned some things that I will try out","comment_text":"For mounting network drives, I would recommend using rclone. Also, many display managers scan for a .xprofile file on login.","last_changed":"2026-02-06 18:26:21"}, +{"id":4592,"eps_id":4566,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-06 20:52:38","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to candycanearter07 on episode scheduling","comment_text":"I think the existing episode scheduling system is really good. It could possibly be improved with a few minor tweaks, but I think the existing system is the product of long experience and shouldn't be overthrown without good reason. \n\nOnce such tweak may be to let the maintainers reschedule shows which don't need to be on a specific date forwards or backwards to some degree to open up slots for newcomers or to fill empty slots. They may do this already for all I know. This perhaps could be automated with a script. \n\nThe root of the problem is not enough *new* contributors. It would only take a handful of new regular contributors to keep HPR going with plenty of new episodes. ","last_changed":"2026-02-07 10:07:25"}, +{"id":4593,"eps_id":4554,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-07 02:48:34","comment_author_name":"Gumnos","comment_title":"Fun with todo.txt and transitioning to other plain-text TODO management","comment_text":"Hey, great episode.\n\nOne trick I learned is that I symlink my `todo.txt` file to my `~/.plan`\n\n $ ln -s path/to/todo.txt ~/.plan\n\nand because I also run `fingerd(8)` on my VPS, that lets me\n\n $ finger gumnos@myvps.example.invalid\n\nfrom any machine that supports `finger(1)` to get my todo list.\n\nThat said, within the last year, the incredible CLI calendaring tool `remind(1)` added todo functionality, so I've migrated most of my todo tasks to the `remind` format. That gives me a *lot* better control over scheduling repeating events/todos. The only downside: it's just not quite as `finger`-able :-)","last_changed":"2026-02-07 14:42:26"}, +{"id":4594,"eps_id":4566,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-07 12:31:24","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"re \"reschedule shows which don't need to be on a specific date forwards or backwards\"","comment_text":"Before a show is posted, it's ID is more or less the key you get when you upload, once it's posted the unique id is the hpr episode number. \n\nMoving the primary key leads to a mess with the synchronization of files between the HPR site, the Internet Archive, and the HPR CCDN. \n\nWe've had to do it in the past, so I'm again speaking from experience. We moved a show from a host which happened to be part 2 and it would have gotten aired before the part 1. This meant we had 4 shows to move. So we will never move a show without getting permission from the Host, and if they do not get back to us, or we feel that it's important enough, the mail list. \n\nMoving shows breaks some RSS readers that *only* look at the enclosure/@url element. If that remains the same, then they have no reason to download it again. So anyone who has already downloaded *any* of the moved shows will not download them again. Which basically breaks the future feed entirely.\n\nMoving a show can easily spiral into a lot of work. We will and have done it on occasion, but if it's urgent enough, you should reserve a slot.\n\nThe janitors really - and I mean really - do not like to move shows around once they are posted.\n","last_changed":"2026-02-07 13:15:59"}, +{"id":4595,"eps_id":4571,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-10 08:57:35","comment_author_name":"Henrik Hemrin","comment_title":"Conversation","comment_text":"I liked your conversation.","last_changed":"2026-02-10 09:20:53"}, +{"id":4596,"eps_id":4572,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-10 15:44:41","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"fantastic learning and debugging tool!","comment_text":"This is such a cool tool I wish I knew about earlier. The ability to see what syscalls and opened files are used by a program, without even needing the source code, is amazing!!","last_changed":"2026-02-10 18:18:09"}, +{"id":4597,"eps_id":4572,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-11 03:32:12","comment_author_name":"Some Guy on the Internet","comment_title":"It's MAGIC!","comment_text":"Thank you for this knowledge; now I have UNLIMITED POWER! Time to `strace` everything. Spoiler alert, do not `strace` `top`. Happy hacking.:wq","last_changed":"2026-02-11 07:26:41"}, +{"id":4598,"eps_id":4574,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-12 01:47:30","comment_author_name":"brian-in-ohio","comment_title":"This will be a good series","comment_text":"I enjoyed episode 0, thanks for producing the show. I'm looking FORTH to future episodes!","last_changed":"2026-02-12 05:43:21"}, +{"id":4599,"eps_id":4574,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-13 23:47:34","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Thanks, brian-in-ohio!","comment_text":"The next episode is all written and will be coming soon. I have to admit I have no experience with FORTH at all, so that won't be a subject I cover. Hope you find the topics I choose to be interesting anyway. :-)","last_changed":"2026-02-14 09:27:48"}, +{"id":4600,"eps_id":4581,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-17 10:56:14","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"First episode","comment_text":"Hi, not_toby \n\nThis was an interesting first episode, with a lot to unpack.\n- yes, Microsoft did ruin everything\n- BMX and skateboarding might be an interesting topic\n- Would like to hear more about automation scripts, definitely of interest to hackers.\n- Computer is the bicycle of the mind - 100% yes\n- BSD's and Macbooks is interesting\n- Linux Outlaws - Thank you for reminding me of these guys\n- Good comparison and contrast of OpenBSD vs FreeBSD\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-02-17 11:41:09"}, +{"id":4601,"eps_id":4578,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-17 12:08:44","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Congrats!","comment_text":"Hi Alex,\n\nCongratulations on your Foundation license.\nThis was a really nice father-son episode.\n\nCheers,\nArcher72\nKD9VMW","last_changed":"2026-02-17 12:13:50"}, +{"id":4602,"eps_id":4574,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-18 11:56:52","comment_author_name":"Paulj","comment_title":"Thanks for your first show, and upcoming series!","comment_text":"Welcome to HPR Vance, and thanks for your first show. I don't have a beard, but I first had an account on a Unix system (running on a Pyramid mainframe) in 1986, and I am still learning!\nI look forward to your future shows!\n","last_changed":"2026-02-18 12:08:57"}, +{"id":4603,"eps_id":4572,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-18 11:58:27","comment_author_name":"Paulj","comment_title":"Great Information","comment_text":"I have used strace on a few occasions, but never developed a real understanding of its capability. Many thanks for explaining clearly what it can do - I shall have a closer look!\n","last_changed":"2026-02-18 12:09:21"}, +{"id":4604,"eps_id":4571,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-18 15:21:50","comment_author_name":"Beeza","comment_title":"A Special Episode","comment_text":"I really enjoyed this conversation with your mum. It is inevitable that one day you will treasure this recording more than you can ever imagine now.\n\nI just I'd had the foresight to do something similar.","last_changed":"2026-02-18 20:27:19"}, +{"id":4605,"eps_id":4577,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-18 18:48:03","comment_author_name":"Gan Ainm","comment_title":"\"Scotch\" Ale from the Baltic Sea","comment_text":"German Brewery Störtebeker from Stralsund has a \"Scotch Ale\" at 9% ABV. \n\nHowever, aside from the ABV, it's one of those styles brewed with peat-kilned barley that they describe as a \"peaty and malty extraordinary taste.\" Slàinte mhath!","last_changed":"2026-02-18 20:28:03"}, +{"id":4606,"eps_id":4578,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-18 22:47:13","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"Congratulations! ","comment_text":"Congratulations Alex. What a wonderful episode sharing your experience on this learning journey.\n\nI wish you the best as you continue to learn more, whether it is an amateur radio or any of your other interests. Stay curious.\n\n73\nKB0JH ","last_changed":"2026-02-19 07:40:02"}, +{"id":4607,"eps_id":4579,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-20 14:49:04","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"timing","comment_text":"This episode happened to come at the perfect time for me, since I'm currently going through massive drama with another creative group that is DESTROYING me right now so. thanks for this","last_changed":"2026-02-20 16:21:32"}, +{"id":4608,"eps_id":4567,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-23 03:56:47","comment_author_name":"hobs","comment_title":"Loved the show!","comment_text":"Added these all to my (re)watch list! Thought you might also want to add HCF (Halt and Catch Fire) to your list. The first couple seasons on HBO are classic Silicon Valley meets Mr. Robot. One of my favorite hacker/maker shows if all time.","last_changed":"2026-02-23 05:09:58"}, +{"id":4609,"eps_id":4581,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-23 14:31:28","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"Welcome!","comment_text":"Fantastic first episode! It was a pleasure getting to know you in this episode. I look forward to your next episodes. :)","last_changed":"2026-02-23 14:53:11"}, +{"id":4610,"eps_id":4581,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-23 23:22:58","comment_author_name":"Steve Barnes","comment_title":"Potted Plant Emoji","comment_text":"Congratulations on finally contributing an episode! I enjoyed the acquainting ramble while giving my cat a little time outdoors. ^ ^","last_changed":"2026-02-24 09:14:53"}, +{"id":4611,"eps_id":4596,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-25 00:29:08","comment_author_name":"Carsten","comment_title":"Amazing project","comment_text":"I love projects like this. I might even be doing it for KDramas.\n\nBut just as a whole one can recycle elements of your script for other projects.\n\nGreat stuff! Thanks!","last_changed":"2026-02-25 06:59:06"}, +{"id":4612,"eps_id":4579,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-26 00:37:55","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Re # 1 -","comment_text":"Hey, candycanearter07. Thanks for the support and comment. \nWhat a deep situation there. =| May it come fine, with, in the end, love. \nHug.","last_changed":"2026-02-26 06:07:47"}, +{"id":4613,"eps_id":4577,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-26 18:14:16","comment_author_name":"Kevie","comment_title":"Upcoming beers","comment_text":"Just a wee update for the styles upcoming on the Beer Garden:\nep 11: Belgian Scotch Ale\nep 12: Baltic Porter","last_changed":"2026-02-26 19:03:51"}, +{"id":4614,"eps_id":4584,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-27 08:33:24","comment_author_name":"Dave Lee (thelovebug)","comment_title":"Audio quality","comment_text":"Anyone who knows me knows my opinions on audio quality, and particularly as it relates to HPR. \n\nListening to the results of your three microphones:\n\n* the Zoom H1 sounded utterly beautiful\n* the Tozo earbuds were moderately awful\n* the Soundcore earbuds were quite decent, but your voice sounded a bit robotic.\n\nYou'll never experience decent audio recording quality from devices that weren't intended for that purpose. Earbuds are notoriously bad for quality due to the audio processing needed to handle the distance between the bud and your mouth.\n\nI'd always recommend an audio recorder or decent quality microphone first, a mobile phone recording app second, a laptop's built-in microphone third, and anything else as a last resort.\n\nThis sounds a bit snobby, I'll grant you, and I know that it conflicts with Ken's stance that quality doesn't matter, but you really do need to consider the audience. It's also worth mentioning that any difficulties experienced through bad audio quality get compounded when listening at higher playback speeds.","last_changed":"2026-02-27 09:01:02"}, +{"id":4615,"eps_id":4584,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-27 17:29:43","comment_author_name":"Kevin O'Brien","comment_title":"The Zoom was perfect","comment_text":"I thought the Zoom microphone was perfect. The other ones were OK, though. I'd accept a show recorded with either of them.","last_changed":"2026-02-27 17:37:12"}, +{"id":4616,"eps_id":4585,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-28 01:55:28","comment_author_name":"Windigo","comment_title":"mpv fanclub","comment_text":"I've been using mpv as my primary media player for years, but have only used bash scripting to extend its functionality - an approach that seems rough and uncivilized, compared to your lua examples.\n\nThanks for the informative and inspiring episode! I'm excited to give this a try.","last_changed":"2026-02-28 08:21:56"}, +{"id":4617,"eps_id":4575,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-28 15:51:52","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Good to hear 73's","comment_text":"Hello Ken,\n\nI have gotten behind on comments, but did listen.\nDid you get the idea for using the Baofeng UV-5R mini from the NYE show? Just curious.\n\nCheers,\n73\nArcher72 aka KD9VMW","last_changed":"2026-02-28 17:41:20"}, +{"id":4618,"eps_id":4573,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-28 16:59:15","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Interesting series","comment_text":"Hi Whiskeyjack,\n\nThanks for this series, I have been listening with interest to each one.\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-02-28 17:41:54"}, +{"id":4619,"eps_id":4573,"comment_timestamp":"2026-02-28 23:06:46","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Archer72","comment_text":"Thank you for the feedback. The last episode in the series is coming up on the 11th of March in episode hpr4593. If anyone has any questions or related topics that they would like me to follow up on, I can make a follow up episode to address those topics.\n\nI have another series ready on a completely unrelated topic that I will start posting after this one is done, but I will delay that if anyone wants a follow up episode to this series.","last_changed":"2026-03-01 07:58:24"}, +{"id":4620,"eps_id":4585,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-01 05:07:24","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"Re: mpv fanclub","comment_text":"If you do want to hook into mpv with external bash scripts, you can set up a socket with --input-ipc-server and pipe command line input/output through that. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work as well with multiple mpv windows, but its great if you only plan to have one window open at once","last_changed":"2026-04-06 13:08:16"}, +{"id":4621,"eps_id":4585,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-01 08:52:41","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Second in mpv fanclub","comment_text":"Hi Windigo,\n\nMy skill are lacking in this area, with only one improvement made to mplayer/mpv. I pretty much forgot about it, because it get copied to a new system in the form of .bash_aliases\n\nalias mplayer=\"mplayer -af scaletempo\"\n\nwhich I borrowed from Ken\n\nhttps://kenfallon.com/speeding-up-speech-with-mplayer\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-03-01 10:16:30"}, +{"id":4622,"eps_id":4574,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-01 19:21:46","comment_author_name":"murph","comment_title":"Great show, looking forward to more.","comment_text":"Glad to see that you picked up the call and submitted. Very well done, too! Looking forward to more.","last_changed":"2026-03-01 20:38:00"}, +{"id":4623,"eps_id":4585,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-01 22:35:38","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"updated script","comment_text":"local function resolve_missing_cover(domain)\n print(\"looking for \" .. (domain or \"nil\"))\n local extico = {\n [\"hub.hackerpublicradio.org\"] = \"https://hackerpublicradio.org/images/hpr_logo.png\",\n -- yes using a product picture is silly but so is not featuring your icon ANYWHERE else\n [\"anonradio.net\"] = \"https://sdf.org/store/thumbs/anon3.jpg\",\n [\"archives.anonradio.net\"] = \"https://sdf.org/store/thumbs/anon3.jpg\",\n [\"hashnix.club\"] = \"default\",\n [\"radio.kingposs.com\"] = \"https://kingposs.com/assets/buttons/PossBadge.gif\"\n }\n\n if domain then\n local force = extico[domain]\n if force == \"default\" then return resolve_missing_cover() end\n if force and mp.commandv(\"video-add\", force, \"auto\", \"domainhardcode.png\") then return end\n\n local favico = \"https://\" .. domain .. \"/favicon.ico\"\n print(favico)\n if mp.commandv(\"video-add\", favico, \"auto\", \"favico.png\") then return end\n end\n\n mp.command(\"video-add ~~/cover.png auto default.png\")\nend","last_changed":"2026-03-02 07:41:16"}, +{"id":4624,"eps_id":4586,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-01 23:39:18","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"41:40","comment_text":"thanks for the well wishes! things got so much worse <3","last_changed":"2026-03-02 07:41:45"}, +{"id":4625,"eps_id":4583,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-02 21:10:12","comment_author_name":"brian-in-ohio","comment_title":"good shows","comment_text":"Loving this series. Maybe Whiskey Jack could give some cost comparisons between large and small reactors. He could also give us a realistic look at nuclear plant safety/accidents compared to conventional power production. Looking forward to the episode on FORTH generation reactors ;-)","last_changed":"2026-03-03 07:26:43"}, +{"id":4626,"eps_id":4584,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-03 15:08:13","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Bad mic","comment_text":"Hi Dave,\n\nI wouldn't record with either earbud on a regular basis, but it works in a pinch. \n\nMy preference, if away from a proper mic, is to use the Axet Audio Recorder which mysteriously disappeared from the F-droid app.\n\nActually, this is not so mysterious considering the state of Google's current relationship against the developers of FOSS apps.\n\nI have also heard the results of the android recorder with a lapel mic in a previous episode, which shows semi-decent quality.\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-03-03 15:18:10"}, +{"id":4627,"eps_id":4587,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-03 15:15:19","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Continuing series","comment_text":"Hi Vance,\n\nI have kept this series the future feed so I can hear it sooner. :)\n\nOh and I have just now looked at your great show notes.\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-03-03 15:18:26"}, +{"id":4628,"eps_id":4571,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-03 15:44:12","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"previous generation","comment_text":"Hi Lee,\n\nI wish more people could record thoughts of the previous generations, not only about tech but about life outside this subject. \n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-03-03 16:21:07"}, +{"id":4629,"eps_id":4586,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-03 23:11:25","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"HPR Commnity News discussion on audio","comment_text":"In HPR4586 Community News for February at around the 50 minute mark, you talked about automating the audio process for HPR. \n\nI have a 4 part series ready to go which may be relevant to some of this. Episode 2 covers basic filtering, de-essing, and normalizing using FFMPEG in a shell script. I was planning to release this as soon as my present series on nuclear reactor technology was done (there's one more episode in the schedule). \n\nI'm definitely not an audio expert, as I only started learning about this in order to fix audio problems that were the first few HPR episodes that I did. \n\nI listened to the Linux Matters podcast that you referred to with respect to their automated processing software, so I do have some idea of what they are talking about. I do have some concerns about the practical problems which may arise when dealing with episodes sent in by just anybody using all sorts of different hardware however.\n\nI had assumed that you were already doing some sort of normalizing for HPR, as the volume levels are fairly consistent. In fact I emphasized to listeners in the series to send an non-normalized copy to HPR so as not to conflict with whatever processing you are doing. \n\nPerhaps someone at HPR could do an episode or talk about it in the community news explaining what HPR actually does currently in terms of audio processing as that may help in generating some discussion as well as being interesting in its own right. ","last_changed":"2026-03-04 07:02:49"}, +{"id":4630,"eps_id":4583,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-03 23:38:55","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to brian-in-ohio for HPR4583 Small Modular Reactors","comment_text":"I can do a follow up episode on small modular reactors comparing some of the pros and cons of SMRs versus large reactors and what factors may favour either. I will also cover any other questions that may come up. \n\nAs for safety, that could possibly be a controversial subject and so probably not a good fit for HPR. There will be people who have strong politically based opinions either way, and I would like to stick to just explaining how the technology works and let other people in other forums address non-technical issues. ","last_changed":"2026-03-04 07:03:28"}, +{"id":4631,"eps_id":4509,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-04 06:47:39","comment_author_name":"Gan Ainm","comment_title":"Hefeweizen","comment_text":"The word \"Heferweisen\" does not exist in German. The correct composite noun is \"Hefeweizen\" from \"Hefe\" (yeast) and \"Weizen\" (wheat).\n\nHowever, there are German words Hafer (oats) and Weisen (some homonyms like wise men, manners, to indicate), that do not have any relationship to beer. The word \"Hefer\" does not exist in German.","last_changed":"2026-03-04 07:04:30"}, +{"id":4632,"eps_id":4587,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-05 01:47:53","comment_author_name":"xmanmonk","comment_title":"uuencode/uudecode on Solaris","comment_text":"I worked for the infamous Inference Corporation years ago when they still existed, and the corporate server ran Solaris (I don't recall which versions were running when I was there). That server had uuencode and uudecode on it. It may not have been installed with the OS, but it was there. Someone put it there. So I know it at least ran on Solaris, which wouldn't require much more than a compilation of the sources.\n\nAnyway, great show! Thanks so much!","last_changed":"2026-03-05 04:41:11"}, +{"id":4633,"eps_id":4597,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-05 05:58:31","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Time to active use","comment_text":"The length of my commute","last_changed":"2026-03-05 06:13:31"}, +{"id":4634,"eps_id":4565,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-06 19:25:26","comment_author_name":"Aleman","comment_title":"Beer Garden","comment_text":"I've had HPR in my feed for a long time - always hopeful something will spark with me. Then: you 2 come up with \nBeer Garden! And: you like what I like! I'm writing from Oklahoma, where a state legislator funded her senate campaign with money from the liquor distributors in exchange for monopoly control over what we drink, but I think before the law changed I actually had some scotch silly. Anyway, RREally enjoy your show, ","last_changed":"2026-03-06 19:52:11"}, +{"id":4635,"eps_id":4573,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-07 11:30:14","comment_author_name":"Clinton","comment_title":"Modern situation.","comment_text":"I would like some commentary in the current situation, why has hinkley gone off the rails, the new american approach, the odd things done after fukushima, the new radiation rules in the states.","last_changed":"2026-03-07 14:02:23"}, +{"id":4636,"eps_id":4573,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-07 18:42:23","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Clinton","comment_text":"I will do a follow up episode on nuclear power technology and try to cover your questions and others. \n\nI have a four part series on audio recording ready to go, but I will slot in the nuclear power follow up for after that and start working on it now.\n\nAnyone else who would like me to address these or other points is welcome to add their questions or comments as well. ","last_changed":"2026-03-07 20:51:04"}, +{"id":4637,"eps_id":4587,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-07 20:10:08","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Thanks, and Solaris","comment_text":"I appreciate the positive comments!\n\nRegarding Solaris (and SunOS and AIX), I don't recall exactly how I determined that uuencode wasn't included with the base OS. Probably a set of man pages online somewhere. Of course, it would be easy to compile and install uuencode from source and I'm sure it happened frequently. Similarly, it was common for GNU versions of some utilities to be installed by people using commercial UNIX systems because they often had additional capabilities.\n\nMore episodes are coming; hope you enjoy them!","last_changed":"2026-03-07 20:52:03"}, +{"id":4638,"eps_id":4591,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-09 04:58:24","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"anecdotal teaching is the best kind","comment_text":"I think that the way you explained all of these features using a real story and going through your thought process, while weaving explanations of each command, is such an interesting way to teach about a program! I found the story interesting, and learned a lot about git that i didnt know about.","last_changed":"2026-03-09 08:01:04"}, +{"id":4639,"eps_id":4576,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-10 01:39:18","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"relatable episode","comment_text":"I haven't been lucky enough to get a job in the IT space, but what you talked about with struggling with people resonated with me. I am EXTREMELY bad with like talking to people if its not a topic I'm super familiar with, and kinda fall back to generic responses or making little dad jokes during the conversation.","last_changed":"2026-03-10 06:09:38"}, +{"id":4640,"eps_id":4592,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-10 04:20:16","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"interesting!","comment_text":"I think that hearing what other people do in their day to day life is extremely interesting and wouldn't mind a third episode. In particular, the idea of learning how to share things is something I struggle with, since outside of sharing drawings and stuff I've made, its difficult. Best of luck to you","last_changed":"2026-03-10 06:10:22"}, +{"id":4641,"eps_id":4509,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-13 15:28:45","comment_author_name":"Kevie","comment_title":"Thanks Gan","comment_text":"Thank you for pointing this out, I hadn't noticed the spelling error, I shall attempt to get it sorted.","last_changed":"2026-03-13 21:12:13"}, +{"id":4642,"eps_id":3711,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-13 16:44:12","comment_author_name":"m0dese7en","comment_title":"Additional details on cars","comment_text":"I enjoyed your episode and appreciate you discussing cars on an HPR episode. I want to point out that your facts on electrics are inaccurate as well as some of the details about charging infrastructure.\n\nI have never encountered evidence of laws forcing you to replace an electric battery before selling a car.\n\nThe battery chemistry you sited was Nickel Cadmium but that is not what they are using. They are using various lithium chemistries. Also, most people are not depleting their battery capacity on a daily basis and a 240v charging plug is more than adequate for most uses.\n\nThanks again for making a show!","last_changed":"2026-03-13 21:12:57"}, +{"id":4643,"eps_id":4596,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-16 13:38:03","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"interesting!!","comment_text":"I wouldn't personally use this, but I find it extremely crafty and a cool way to modify movies for your own enjoyment! I also often forget that mpv supports multiple audio tracks :P. As an additional tip to improve watching experience, on mpv you can define a global subtitles folder with --sub-file-path and name the srt file the same as the audio file (or use --sub-auto=fuzzy to make the subtitle matching more lenient), and it should be loaded by default along with the original file.","last_changed":"2026-03-16 14:44:10"}, +{"id":4644,"eps_id":4593,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-17 01:13:51","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore","comment_title":"Great series!","comment_text":"As an engineer with an insatiable curiosity about way too many topics, I loved this series. A nice overview that I doubt I could find anywhere else.","last_changed":"2026-03-17 07:37:21"}, +{"id":4645,"eps_id":4587,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-17 01:19:46","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore","comment_title":"Thanks for the trip down memory lane!","comment_text":"Great episode. I especially enjoyed shar and remembering all the issues I once had with attachments. I still have them at times, but that is generally due to security forbidding executable file types...","last_changed":"2026-03-17 07:37:42"}, +{"id":4646,"eps_id":4593,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-17 13:46:31","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to Jim DeVore","comment_text":"Thank you for your encouragement. It always helps to know that people are actually listening to these episodes. \n\nA number of listeners have posted questions about topics covered in this series and I promised to answer them in a follow up episode.\n\nI have the script written for the follow up and will record it in early April and it currently has about 20 minutes of content. I currently have a couple of episodes uploaded for slots in April for an unrelated series and will post the follow up episode after the second one in the new series. This means It should be out in late April. \n\nIf anyone has any more questions they would like me to address, please post them in the comments to any episode in this series. ","last_changed":"2026-03-17 15:30:12"}, +{"id":4647,"eps_id":4597,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-18 03:34:11","comment_author_name":"L'andrew ","comment_title":"Nice job explaining *grep features.","comment_text":"You've done a great job of explaining when to use each type of grep. I taught an in-house class on regular expressions, and you're explanations would have helped the crew know why there are these different versions. \n\nThanks for helping to keep *nix alive!","last_changed":"2026-03-18 07:52:43"}, +{"id":4648,"eps_id":4597,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-18 03:52:52","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"informative","comment_text":"I always brushed off egrep and fgrep as niche tools, but this episode inspired me to use it more often! Thanks for providing another tool for my toolbelt. As a general grep tip, you can use . to avoid escaping certain patterns in the shell (ie if your pattern has a space)","last_changed":"2026-03-18 08:15:08"}, +{"id":4649,"eps_id":4605,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-18 11:09:45","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Congratulations","comment_text":"Congratulations to you both","last_changed":"2026-03-18 11:18:55"}, +{"id":4650,"eps_id":4553,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-18 12:41:35","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Were/are the designs patented?","comment_text":"Hi, Whiskeyjack.\nNice ep.\nYou said AGR, based on Magnox, was a nuclear reactor type that did not sell well outside the UK. I then started thinking if it were (is) possible to another countries to develop by themselves based on that project, or if it had (has) a commercial restriction for exploration of the technology.\nI have yet to listen to the following episodes (doing little by little) and may learn better on the choices, but I felt free to present the question by now...\nThanks!","last_changed":"2026-03-18 13:40:52"}, +{"id":4651,"eps_id":4553,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-19 03:31:50","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Antoine","comment_text":"Yes, there were numerous patents on commercial nuclear technology. \n\nHowever, most of the basic principles were discovered early on and any early patents had expired by the time that nuclear power was being exploited commercially on a widespread scale.\n\nI am currently in the process of recording a follow up episode to this series and I will add your question to the script as I think it offers an opportunity to address an interesting topic.\n\nSo, listen to that episode for more details.","last_changed":"2026-03-19 07:22:13"}, +{"id":4652,"eps_id":4598,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-19 10:39:24","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Great tips!","comment_text":"Hi Shane,\n\nGreat tips on recording and how environment plays into recording quality. I never knew to the Blue Yeti was not worth it, because it has been touted by 'professional' podcasters. \n\nKen, I think this episode should be listed on the Recording page. :)\n\nCheers!\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-03-19 14:28:19"}, +{"id":4653,"eps_id":4597,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-20 18:16:09","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Expressions","comment_text":"Thanks for the encouragement, everyone!\n\nIt is indeed weird that there are two types of regular expressions (or I guess three, if you count Perl-compatible regexes). On top of that, the shell's pattern-matching (glob) notation does the same type of job in another different way.\n\nI guess that is a result of tools being developed by different people at different times.","last_changed":"2026-03-20 18:30:47"}, +{"id":4654,"eps_id":4592,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-21 02:27:17","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Sharing (response to candycanearter07)","comment_text":"Happy that this was in some measure good to you. Sharing is difficult, especially what is relevant to us (which may be irrelevant to others and make us shameful for having different priorities needs and tastes); or simply because we are afraid of not only being mocked, but, worse, being not understood, ignored. My vision only, my fears, barriers that block me to others and others to me. \nBut it's good to remember, or to learn, the blessing that we are different.\nSharing drawings feels interesting. ","last_changed":"2026-03-21 07:24:03"}, +{"id":4655,"eps_id":4553,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-21 02:30:29","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"I will","comment_text":"Thanks, Whiskeyjack, for the answer-information.\nI'll do my best to be here and catch the Q&A (or Q&A-alike) show about NRT. ","last_changed":"2026-03-21 07:24:21"}, +{"id":4656,"eps_id":4600,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-21 15:22:59","comment_author_name":"Kevie","comment_title":"Great series","comment_text":"Hi Ahuka, that was fantastic look at the first Doctor, looking forward to hearing the rest in this series. I also went back and watched every episode, there are some good reconstructions out there so that the story can be followed for the missing episodes (archive.org was my friend there). \n\n I hope that you change your mind and continue the series right up to the present Doctors","last_changed":"2026-03-21 16:37:46"}, +{"id":4657,"eps_id":4600,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-21 21:23:38","comment_author_name":"Kevin O'Brien","comment_title":"I think I will","comment_text":"I am now thinking I might just cover all of Classic Doctor Who, and then stop. I don´t think there is any need to cover the revived series that began in 2005. But when did that become 21 years ago? Can anyone stop this train?","last_changed":"2026-03-21 21:25:03"}, +{"id":4658,"eps_id":4600,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-21 22:35:05","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Great series and 2nd continuation ","comment_text":"Hi Ahuka and Kevie,\n\nI 2nd the request to keep the series going to the end. Although I have not seen many episodes, this is an interesting series.\n\nCheers, \nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-03-22 08:35:09"}, +{"id":4659,"eps_id":4598,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-24 01:50:51","comment_author_name":"Ole Aamot","comment_title":"GarageJam 6.0.1","comment_text":"Hi,\n\nI wrote GNOME Music Studio Recording Software: GarageJam.\n\nIt records from USB Audio Class devices and built-in microphones instantly and you can annotate Meta Data about the recording.\n\nSee https://discourse.gnome.org/t/garagejam-1-0-0-music-studio-recording-software-for-gnome-45/16744 as well as the project home page with source code on https://www.garagejam.org/\n\nSource Code:\nhttps://www.garagejam.org/src/garagejam-6.0.1.tar.xz\n\nBinary x86_64 Fedora Core 43:\nsudo dnf install http://www.garagejam.org/fedora/RPMS/x86_64/garagejam-6.0.1-1.fc43.x86_64.rpm\n\nCommand:\ngaragejam\n\nLook in $HOME/Music and $HOME/GNOME.xspf for recordings.\n\nHappy Hacking,\nOle Aamot","last_changed":"2026-03-24 08:58:04"}, +{"id":4660,"eps_id":4333,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-25 15:18:15","comment_author_name":"Marc","comment_title":"New online home for Dauug|36 and Dauug|18","comment_text":"Many links to Dauug|36 broke due to its relocation to The Dauug House, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization. Dauug|36 is alive and well and lives now at https://dauug.org\n\nThe Dauug House has also broken ground on Dauug|18, an 18-bit, transparently functioning, postcard-sized processor for applications where a \"full CPU\" would be overkill. As with Dauug|36, Dauug|18 does not employ any \"complex VLSI\" (no microprocessor, FPGA, PLD, ASIC, or DRAM) within the architecture.","last_changed":"2026-03-26 08:54:01"}, +{"id":4661,"eps_id":4605,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-27 11:10:10","comment_author_name":"Elsbeth","comment_title":"Thank you!","comment_text":"We appreciate the felicitations!","last_changed":"2026-03-27 11:27:27"}, +{"id":4662,"eps_id":4605,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-27 12:58:38","comment_author_name":"Trollercoaster","comment_title":"Congrats - and now we want all the fun puns!","comment_text":"First off... congratulations!\n\nNow we're expecting a follow-up episode with all the nerdy jokes or puns that your friends made about your nerdy wedding!","last_changed":"2026-03-27 13:39:17"}, +{"id":4663,"eps_id":4605,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-29 22:39:06","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"=)","comment_text":"Ho, what a show! So, just coming by to give congratulations, dear Couple Lee and Elsbeth!","last_changed":"2026-03-30 06:38:47"}, +{"id":4664,"eps_id":4605,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-30 13:22:43","comment_author_name":"ClaudioM","comment_title":"Congratulations to You Both!","comment_text":"Wow, congratulations to both of you! Wishing you all the best in your new journey together. :-)","last_changed":"2026-03-30 15:17:24"}, +{"id":4665,"eps_id":4606,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-30 14:24:54","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"Trip down memory lane...","comment_text":"Thank you for the trip down memory lane. It very much reminded me of my own experiences during that time. \n\nI believe that we developed a certain set of skills, for troubleshooting, for experimenting, and for learning because we did not have an internet to lookup everything. \n\nThis is what made us hackers! Not in the criminal sense, but like MIT and HackerOne have defined it.\n\nHacker: \"One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming limitations\" HackerOne. What's in a Name. Retrieved from HackerOne: https://www.hackerone.com/blog/whats-in-a-name","last_changed":"2026-03-30 15:17:57"}, +{"id":4666,"eps_id":4606,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-30 16:23:43","comment_author_name":"xmanmonk","comment_title":"Great Episode!","comment_text":"Ah, the memories! I'm a bit older, but I wanted to say that the sound effects in this episode brought back all kinds of memories! Thanks for a great show!","last_changed":"2026-03-30 17:41:04"}, +{"id":4667,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-31 00:54:19","comment_author_name":"أحمد المحمودي","comment_title":"Not fixed","comment_text":"Hello Ken,\n\n Sorry for late reply, I just listened to Jan & Dec news a few days ago. No, the problem did not get fixed. I don't think that it would be fixed from thr HPR website, since if I used wget to download an episode, it does get properly renamed to hpr.mp3","last_changed":"2026-03-31 07:21:24"}, +{"id":4668,"eps_id":4606,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-31 08:24:58","comment_author_name":"Trollercoaster","comment_title":"Back to you...","comment_text":"Hey Trey... why don't you flip out your PDP11 and show off your skilzz!\n\nIf you're into the old school definition of hackers and you're frustrated that those youngsters are spoiled... make sure to pick up next week's episode on Age Verification! It will be the best thing ever.\n\nxmanmonk glad you liked the sound effects. I had to edit out the occasional fart - at a certain age bowel movements are a thing. But then again... luckily podcasts don't also spread the smell... ","last_changed":"2026-03-31 08:26:10"}, +{"id":4669,"eps_id":4606,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-31 08:26:06","comment_author_name":"Trollercoaster","comment_title":"Not to janitors","comment_text":"Hey Janitors,\n\njust realized that you'll have to read my previous comment out loud. May I suggest to NOT add sound effects to that comment?","last_changed":"2026-03-31 08:27:05"}, +{"id":4670,"eps_id":4607,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-31 14:19:12","comment_author_name":"xmanmonk","comment_title":"Great episode!","comment_text":"Love the UNIX Curio series. Thanks so much for offering it. It's always good to review BASH things as well as commands that are useful.","last_changed":"2026-03-31 17:51:54"}, +{"id":4671,"eps_id":4606,"comment_timestamp":"2026-03-31 17:20:34","comment_author_name":"ClaudioM","comment_title":"Nerdy Nostalgia!","comment_text":"Great episode, Trollercoaster! Really enjoyed this one. Had me all nostalgic for those early days of computing. I recorded hpr1541 back in 2014 (*ding* for shameless plug lol) where I covered my early days of computing and how it all led up to me coming to Linux, and I think I made mention of BSD as well, and this reminded me of that. Thanks for sharing!","last_changed":"2026-03-31 17:53:09"}, +{"id":4672,"eps_id":4608,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-01 10:06:46","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Listening ahead","comment_text":"Hi Whiskeyjack,\n\nThis has been a great series, as I have been listening ahead with anticipation.\n\nMight I suggest having tags added for each show to reflect using `sox` and `ffmpeg`. \n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-04-01 10:18:56"}, +{"id":4673,"eps_id":4608,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-01 12:27:46","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Archer72 on HPR4608","comment_text":"Thank you for your kind comments on this series. I am pleased to hear that at least one person liked it.\n\nAs for adding tags for `sox` and `ffmpeg` to the show notes after the episode has been uploaded, I'm not sure what the proper method to go about this is. Perhaps someone could make a suggestion. ","last_changed":"2026-04-01 12:45:48"}, +{"id":4674,"eps_id":4608,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-03 07:49:58","comment_author_name":"Reto","comment_title":"It reminds me about Solocast","comment_text":"Hi Whiskeyjack, \nI really liked your podcast and the topic. I cannot remember about your last, but the sound quality of this one was good on my mobile speakers :)\n\nThe concept reminded me about the program from Norrist (another host on HPR), while similar does it have some differences HPR 3496 https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=3496\n\nAs I am not on the future feed, I look forward to your next episode.\n\nCheers, Reto","last_changed":"2026-04-04 08:41:56"}, +{"id":4675,"eps_id":4584,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-03 17:28:05","comment_author_name":"jezra","comment_title":"false advertising! ","comment_text":"So far this morning, I've listed to this episode 3 times in an attempt to hear some 'crappy' audio. What i'm hearing is various levels of 'not-perfect' audio, but nothing crappy. :)\n\nThis is probably the first time I have heard audio recorded from an earpiece, and this is one of my favorite genres of HPR shows: the hardware used to record a show. \n\nthank you\n\n\n\n","last_changed":"2026-04-04 08:42:13"}, +{"id":4676,"eps_id":4609,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-04 14:19:15","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore","comment_title":"It is the only proper date format","comment_text":"Thanks for spreading the word! I have been using this for over 20 years -- sorts well in any file system. Sorts well in note taking app titles. I have a keyboard macro in my home Linux machines and in my work Windows machine that bangs out today's date in that format. It is the only proper date format!","last_changed":"2026-04-04 14:56:14"}, +{"id":4677,"eps_id":4608,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-04 18:19:25","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to Reto comment on HPR4608","comment_text":"I wasn't aware of Solocast. I have just downloaded the episode and will listen to it to see if the concept of how to use it is the same. If it is the same method, the author of that may have a better overall solution in terms of using it as he puts everything together in a single Python program.\n\nGiven that my series is 4 episodes rather than 1 though, it is possible that I have more explanation of what is happening to the audio. I also had some fun with gratuitous hackery when analyzing audio with GNU Octave and Libre Office Calc and it is more important to have fun than to be useful. \n\nI have looked at the source code and see that he is using a technique with SOX which sounds similar to what drew the interest of one of the show hosts in the February Community news (hpr4586) published at the beginning of March when talking about another piece of podcast software. \n\nI will have a play with that audio technique. I may get enough material from that audio processing technique to make another podcast episode.\n\nAnyway, thanks again for the tip on Solocast. I will try it to see if it suits how I want to make podcasts. ","last_changed":"2026-04-04 19:19:34"}, +{"id":4678,"eps_id":4605,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-04 19:52:01","comment_author_name":"Paulj","comment_title":"Congratulations","comment_text":"Lee and Elspeth! Congratulations, and thank you for sharing your joyous occasion with us!\n\nCould you please share the reference to the poem Elspeth read out? I looked into the transcript, but it didn't come through too clearly!\n\nBest wishes for your life together in the future!\n\nPaul","last_changed":"2026-04-04 20:38:24"}, +{"id":4679,"eps_id":4608,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-04 22:21:38","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Further response to Reto comment on HPR4608","comment_text":"I have just listened to the HPR episode on Solocast, and it appears to me that the method he uses is indeed the same concept, that of recording a series of very short segments and stitching them together later as opposed to trying to edit a single big audio file later with an audio editor. \n\nSolocast approaches it from a different way and offers a more automated process. \n\nMy series requires a number of manual steps but I focus more on what is going on under the lid. I also use a different filtering method. \n\nThis sounds like it's worth another podcast episode from me in which I will mention Solocast plus also talk more about filtering. \n\nThanks again for telling me about Solocast. ","last_changed":"2026-04-05 07:06:39"}, +{"id":4680,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-05 14:09:24","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Summary of findings","comment_text":"https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_generator/issues/321#issuecomment-2927\n\nThe option to add a Content-Disposition Header in the ccdn.php did not work as the clients don't support it.\nIt has just been added to curl -J\n\nUsing apache redirect will redirect the traffic via the server, resulting in pushing the bandwidth back to AnHonestHost.com, so this is not an option.\n\nChanging the url to be unique per download server would also not work as the next time the enclosure@url would change and some podcatchers see this as a new version. This would result in the clients downloading each episode times the number of nodes in the community content delivery network.\n\nThe only option that would work is having each server behind a download dns, but that means that all nodes would need to serve A) all the files, and B) all the files from the same path.\nA) is not the case for the internet Archive.\nB) is not the case for some of the other nodes.","last_changed":"2026-04-05 14:28:26"}, +{"id":4681,"eps_id":4605,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-05 15:59:54","comment_author_name":"Lee","comment_title":"Quotation","comment_text":"Paul, here is a permalink on the Internet Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20230326072654/https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/35908-do-not-confuse-duty-with-what-other-people-expect-of","last_changed":"2026-04-05 16:47:17"}, +{"id":4682,"eps_id":4611,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-06 03:24:30","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"misattributed comment","comment_text":"HOLY i just realized I accidentily put Windigo's name in when typing the reply for the mpv util scripts and didnt notice until just now im so sorry","last_changed":"2026-04-06 08:13:08"}, +{"id":4683,"eps_id":4609,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-06 09:37:47","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"sensical date format","comment_text":"It's definitely handy to use with alphabetical sorting, especially if dealing with a cross-filesystem archive since access/modify times are rarely consistent longterm.","last_changed":"2026-04-06 10:33:48"}, +{"id":4684,"eps_id":4611,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-06 13:50:17","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Fixed","comment_text":"No problem. I renamed it. Contact the janitors for these type of issues.","last_changed":"2026-04-06 13:58:45"}, +{"id":4685,"eps_id":4606,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-06 15:28:34","comment_author_name":"Trollercoaster","comment_title":"Damn you Nerdy Nostaliga!","comment_text":"Now you made me listen to a decade old episode of HPR! That's nostalia over nostalgia. So Nostalgia² ... for sure that can't be negative (unless it's complex nostaliga).","last_changed":"2026-04-06 16:15:28"}, +{"id":4686,"eps_id":4605,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-06 16:44:28","comment_author_name":"Paulj","comment_title":"Thanks!","comment_text":"Many thanks for sharing the link to the passage.","last_changed":"2026-04-06 18:34:08"}, +{"id":4687,"eps_id":4603,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-09 05:46:52","comment_author_name":"Trollercoaster","comment_title":"Hopper did time traveling!","comment_text":"OMFG! Hopper went time traveling to steal my idea and actually say the opposite that he suggested when interviewing me on this topic. I'm confident that he vibe coded a time traveling machine after interviewing me... JUST TO STEAL MY THUNDER!!\n\nGo have a look at episode HPR4616 where we sing the love song on the merits of Age Verification and how further extending it will make the world a better place! But here he's all against it?\n\nOMFG again!\nTrollercoaster\n\n\nTo avoid misunderstandings: OMFG means \"Offering My Finest Greetings!\"","last_changed":"2026-04-09 06:15:29"}, +{"id":4688,"eps_id":4614,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-12 03:15:44","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore","comment_title":"Is this the best approach for privacy?","comment_text":"I suspect this was about computer design, and a fascinating presentation of that subject.\n\nFor privacy, wouldn't it make more sense to use old hardware? Things were so much more transparent in the DOS days.","last_changed":"2026-04-12 08:11:34"}, +{"id":4689,"eps_id":4600,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-12 16:16:00","comment_author_name":"Kevin O'Brien","comment_title":"Maybe I will","comment_text":"My intention was to only cover the classic stories of Doctor Who, but I suppose there is no reason I couldn't cover the renewed series as well, I've certainly seen all of them","last_changed":"2026-04-12 16:30:24"}, +{"id":4690,"eps_id":4614,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-13 16:43:22","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"interesting!","comment_text":"I find obscure hardware designs cool, and this is no exception! Deviating from the common 8-bit design is something I've rarely seen, and though I didn't understand a lot of the deeper mechanics, the way you explained it was captivating.","last_changed":"2026-04-13 16:51:48"}, +{"id":4691,"eps_id":4585,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-14 20:41:28","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"perpetually updated script(s)","comment_text":"I set up a small git repository so i dont have to keep writing comments here when its changed\n\nhttps://git.sr.ht/~ccaesap/dotfiles/tree/main/item/mpv/scripts","last_changed":"2026-04-14 21:34:55"}, +{"id":4692,"eps_id":4569,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-17 09:56:49","comment_author_name":"0xf10e","comment_title":"Preconfiguring browsers profiles? and re-replies ;)","comment_text":"Great episode! A nice example of using (and adjusting!) Free Software in a public setting like, well, a library! \nBtw: An example for \"Public Money, Public Code\" I tend to use is creating a platform for libraries to catalog and manage their books ;)\n\nSo, what about copying a preconfigured browser profiles into `~libraryguest` for some adjustments?\n\nAnd clearly not over thinking: What about having swap encrypted with a new throwaway key every time? ;P I'm sure there is an option for this…\n\n@#1 /tmp is the only other place I could think of, too, where a user's files could end up in. Maybe run `find /tmp -user libraryguest -exec rm -rf {} \\+` before login/at logout.\nAnd cleanup of ~libraryguest even on a ramdisk setup, just in case? ;)\n\n@#3 \nSmb most probably can be mounted at login via pam like an encrypted homedir. In a \"bigger\" setup with a bunch of underpowered thinclients you could even mount ramdisks from the one box without soldered-on RAM. \n\n@#4 Oh, RcloneView looks great! Any special permissions/group memberships a user would need?","last_changed":"2026-04-21 11:48:49"}, +{"id":4693,"eps_id":4619,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-17 16:37:29","comment_author_name":"Gan Ainm","comment_title":"Störtebeker - again","comment_text":"Störtebeker (the same Ö sound as Kevie's Öö!) once had a Nordik-Porter at 9.5% ABV which was an Eisbock (Ice Bock) made from their Stark-Bier (strong beer) at 7.5% ABV which is a Doppelbock (Double Bock), a strong, often dark, German lager (which might be mentioned in the upcoming episode about strong lagers).\n\nThe malty Nordik-Porter came in 0.5 l bottles and had heavy coffee and espresso notes and was really the perfect drink for a long cold winter evening.\n\nHowerver, it's not available anymore, but they now offer Grand Marnier and Whisky cask-matured versions in 0.33 l bottles which I did not taste (yet).","last_changed":"2026-04-17 19:29:03"}, +{"id":4694,"eps_id":4616,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-20 01:37:33","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"'Jus'do the age verification'","comment_text":"Just do the age verification, we can write the law.\n\nFor protection of what people of what ages shall or shall not have access to.\n\nYes, online.\n\nOffline? we have not thought of that, we may have a proposal about it in a near future, thanks, Trollercoaster.\n\n\n(Great show, thanks.)","last_changed":"2026-04-20 04:31:18"}, +{"id":4695,"eps_id":4618,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-20 12:50:09","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Applying filters - exp. with declicking - Compression?","comment_text":"Worthy content! (for use and \"for the fun of it\"). Actually, as an Audacity user, may not use the command-line editing, but the underlying concepts are the same.\nAbout de-esser, maybe it's better to apply it to the excerpts one need (or want) to improve. With my first uses of click removal, I liked it so much that applied to the entire recording. The result : almost no audible clicking, but a lot of lost missing \"t\"s in some phonemas. (Best is to don't click the tongue, but, if not, there is declicking — for specific regions.)\nI don't remember using de-esser you presented, but the idea may be the same, to check the result where applied.\nAaand, I shall wait for the entire series, but one tool that I would like to listen to is compression. Let's see whether it is going to be adressed on the shows or not, anyway, thanks for sharing.","last_changed":"2026-04-21 11:47:26"}, +{"id":4696,"eps_id":4621,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-21 18:58:54","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"intended double entendre?","comment_text":"I like the double meaning in the title \"volume control\" in both the literal issue and \"control\" of the \"volume\" of your device (like how drives are called device volumes). I also agree that the progressive locking down is annoying, and it intentionally creates a feedback loop of \"well people don't understand the systems because its locked down, so we need to lock it down more so people don't break anything\"","last_changed":"2026-04-22 04:18:27"}, +{"id":4697,"eps_id":4616,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-22 13:24:48","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"good strategy","comment_text":"I like how you use exaggeration and parody to make your points, it makes your points both memorable and hit hard.","last_changed":"2026-04-22 16:58:29"}, +{"id":4698,"eps_id":4618,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-22 15:59:57","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to Antoine on de-essing in HPR 4618","comment_text":"I knew absolutely nothing about audio before making my first two HPR episodes. \n\nI learned a little bit about filtering in order to try to fix audio noise problems I noticed in those ones before making the 8 part series which followed.\n\nMost of what I know now has come about from having to address the subject more systematically while making this 4 part series. \n\nThere is still a lot I don't know, including how to use audio compression properly. \n\nI had never even heard about de-essing until I started making this series. I found out about it while researching filters.\n\nI am currently making a follow up episode which concentrates on filtering methods and what sorts of noise situations each method may be useful in when making a podcast. So far it looks like there are pros and cons to different methods depending on the situation rather than there being a panacea which fixes all audio problems. \n\nSo far as clicks go, the recording method that I use of making many small segments and then stitching them together rather than speaking fluidly and continuously seems to inherently need de-essing more because the clicks seem to be most common when you start speaking from a resting state. Given this situation, I have some ideas that I may try which address this specifically rather than using de-essing. \n\nI will add compression to the list of experiments that I will do. We'll have to see if I come up with any useful results.\n\nI am currently about to go buy a new microphone to create a new category of recording set up to collect test samples. \n\nThank you for your feedback. I got the idea for this project from a comment by an HPR listener on a previous episode. ","last_changed":"2026-04-22 16:58:47"}, +{"id":4699,"eps_id":4624,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-23 08:36:28","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Great to hear your success","comment_text":"I need to work on my cyd","last_changed":"2026-04-23 09:18:44"}, +{"id":4700,"eps_id":4625,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-24 03:38:13","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"electron charged opinion","comment_text":"On one hand, I don't really like webapps in general, they always feel incredibly sluggish and give me a headache. On the other hand, it DOES increase Linux support...","last_changed":"2026-04-24 06:00:16"}, +{"id":4701,"eps_id":4596,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-24 19:33:03","comment_author_name":"Windigo","comment_title":"Great usability win","comment_text":"After my wife and I started enabling subtitles a couple years back, I've found it hard to watch media without them.\n\nI love the concept you've outlined here. I know some people have difficulty reading subtitles, so being able to add an audio option is a great tool in the toolbox. :)","last_changed":"2026-04-24 20:13:25"}, +{"id":4702,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-25 11:02:26","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Not fixed from أحمد المحمودي","comment_text":"Hello أحمد المحمودي\n \nThis issue with Newsboat is not forgotten.\nI am working on a macro to enqueue, download rename to the 'corrected' filename i.e. \nhpr4580 ; The First Doctor, Part 4.ogg\n\nP.S. How did you find HPR or get into tech or any Hacker related subject? We would definitely like to hear about it. :)\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-04-25 11:10:40"}, +{"id":4703,"eps_id":4618,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-25 14:31:40","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Click removal","comment_text":"Antoine, thanks for mentioning the click removal capability in Audacity! While I already knew about its noise removal filter, I wasn't aware it also had click removal.\n\nIt might have helped me for HPR4637, where some sort of electromagnetic signal was picked up by my microphone/recorder, a Zoom H2 (the tapping sound was *not* present in the room where I recorded).\n\nWhile click removal does seem to distort speech when applied to it (though to my ears, it doesn't sound as weird as when noise removal is done with speech), I could have applied the filter only to the pauses, where the \"tapping\" is most noticeable. I will consider doing this in the event that I'm not able to eliminate the source of interference in the future, which would be the best way to go.","last_changed":"2026-04-25 17:01:27"}, +{"id":4704,"eps_id":4616,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-25 15:37:22","comment_author_name":"Trollercoaster","comment_title":"Looking forward at next steps","comment_text":"Hello Antoine,\n\nplease notify me in what state you are going to submit that proposal. I will move to that state and run around with a banner \"Antoine for president!\"\n\nHey Candycanearter07,\nI don't get it. Do you hate hackers?","last_changed":"2026-04-25 17:01:56"}, +{"id":4705,"eps_id":4616,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-26 23:55:45","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Our State. The Invitation.","comment_text":"Hey, Trollercoaster, I'm a member of the Legislative in Atlantis. (The underwater one.) Nevertheless, we are going to emerge soon, the making of the e-banners can begin. \n(Our language is the Atlantean, we don't understand if not it — the translation, if you can read it, is in real time, by scanning of the legitimate eyes that should see the message.)\n\nParlament members can't roll for the Executive though. Never. You, if you can read, may come to the Palace. If so, please just let me know so I can wake both eyes of the editorial whales for the making of your Presidential Propaganda.\n\nAhibvederti! **–end_of_italic_atlantean_intimate_translatxxxx___**","last_changed":"2026-04-27 06:17:26"}, +{"id":4706,"eps_id":4618,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-27 00:48:11","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Vance in HPR4618 - Click Removal","comment_text":"I had a look at your HPR 4637 episode to see what the \"clicks\" were like. I did some experiments to try to find a technique which could remove the clicks. \n\nThe \"click removal\" effect in Audacity does nothing useful to deal with this. The same was true for most of a number of other common filter techniques that I tried. The ones which did have an effect on the clicks introduced noticeable distortion in the voice which was more of a problem than the clicks.\n\nWhat does work is the \"noise gate\" effect (which is agate in ffmpeg). You set a threshold in dB and any part of the signal which falls below that level is suppressed to zero. In other words, quiet parts of the audio are made quieter. I set a threshold of -20dB and all of the clicks were completely removed without introducing distortion in the voice signal. \n\nIn a few spots, short initial syllables on a few sentences were also cut out, but I didn't spend any time adjusting parameters to get it perfect. I suspect that another solution to this would be to not apply the effect on those few parts of the audio where this happens. \n\nWould it be alright with you if I used a short (5 second) clip of your podcast as a noise sample in my own upcoming episode on audio filtering? This is not a noise problem that I can easily recreate and it would make for an interesting problem and solution to address. \n\nThe more I look at things the more I am convinced that there is no one size fits all solution to audio problems, only collections of tools that we can keep in our toolboxes. ","last_changed":"2026-04-27 06:18:03"}, +{"id":4707,"eps_id":4618,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-28 00:43:11","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"To Whiskeyjack - Click Removal","comment_text":"Thanks for your ideas! Looking at the Ogg/Opus/MP3 files on HPR, I see that they have some additional noise during pauses that makes the click removal filter in Audacity less effective. On the original WAV file, I *was* able to remove most of the tapping noise by applying that filter to pauses with a Threshold value of 50 and a Max Spike Width of 30. Trying the same values on pauses in the MP3 file was less effective, but did improve things a little bit.\n\nI agree that applying the click filter to the sections where I'm speaking produces undesirable distortion. It would be possible to manually highlight just the pauses and remove clicks from each one, but that would be tedious. I considered blanking out those areas, but it would be just as tedious and I thought it might sound weird for there to be total silence.\n\nHowever, your suggestion of using ffmpeg's agate filter would eliminate the problem of having to manually highlight the pauses. I see that it doesn't totally zero out the waveform, just reduces it, so it shouldn't sound weird.\n\nI would be happy to send you a WAV or FLAC file to play around with, and you are welcome to use as much of this episode as you like in your own work. E-mail me at the address on my host page.\n\nInitial testing seems to indicate that it was likely my mobile phone that caused the problem to begin with. If that is the case, it's easy enough to get rid of the problem at its source by moving it away from the microphone (it was in my shirt pocket) or just turning it off.","last_changed":"2026-04-28 07:14:06"}, +{"id":4708,"eps_id":4618,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-28 17:16:54","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Vance on Click Removal in HPR4618","comment_text":"I already have the 5 second audio sample that I need from your HPR 4637 episode from the MP3 release, but I thought it would be polite to ask you first before using it as we were already corresponding in these comments.\n\nI have most of the script written for a new HPR episode and will begin recording the dialogue and making the audio samples used to illustrate each point. I will describe in detail what I did to the sample from your podcast in that episode and show a before and after example. \n\nThis new episode is entirely inspired by comments from listeners, and your comment describing a click problem provided a very interesting subject for discussion in it. Thank you for your feedback on this. ","last_changed":"2026-04-28 17:31:42"}, +{"id":4709,"eps_id":4627,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-29 11:57:27","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"kill and killall","comment_text":"Nothing to aggregate, only to say– loved learning about Kill. In my first times of Linux, maybe a problem of mine, I had to use it almost daily (in the main purpose, not knowing until now that the command can pause or only return the running status (: ).\nI found it magical, because the ctrl+alt+del of Windows was not always responsive in times of trouble, but, in Linux, accessing a terminal to uss \"killall X\" (or whatever program) was always possible.\nThank you, Vance, 4dshow.","last_changed":"2026-04-29 13:26:09"}, +{"id":4710,"eps_id":4627,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-29 15:14:31","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"killer episode","comment_text":"I didn't know about kill -0, thats a cool POSIX way to check if a process is existing or not. In most of my scripts, I used the p* commands instead (pgrep, pkill, pwait) since usually getting a specific process by pid didn't matter and they all support passing a pidfile directly with -F ","last_changed":"2026-04-29 15:54:00"}, +{"id":4711,"eps_id":4627,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-29 20:58:44","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Glad you enjoyed it","comment_text":"Antoine: Not sure if they still support it, but under some window managers you used to be able to press Ctrl-Alt-Esc and the cursor would turn into a large X or a skull and crossbones. You could then click on a window to kill the program that owned it. Similarly, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace would end the entire X session. I think this is no longer common and it might not even be possible under Wayland.\n\ncandycanearter07: Very cool, thanks! I've used 'killall' a bunch but was not aware of 'pgrep', 'pkill', and 'pidwait'. They look to have some neat capabilities - maybe you could consider doing an episode on them? (Of course, none of these are in POSIX, so you wouldn't want to use them in a script unless you knew the systems it would be used on have those utilities.)","last_changed":"2026-04-30 07:00:16"}, +{"id":4712,"eps_id":4627,"comment_timestamp":"2026-04-30 18:58:50","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"Re: Glad you enjoyed it","comment_text":"Vance: The Ctrl-Alt-Esc keybind is actually calling a binary, xkill, and it's pretty easy to just set a keybind in your desktop enviroment to call it. On my system, its bound to shift+alt+x, since its really easy to hit with only my left hand.\n\nAlso, I figured those weren't POSIX but they're still useful for day to day terminaling and little personal scripts","last_changed":"2026-04-30 20:00:53"}, +{"id":4713,"eps_id":4631,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-04 05:13:02","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to Ken Fallon in HPR4631 Community News","comment_text":"Ken Fallon had said in response to something that I had said in HPR 4628 with regards to me wanting to avoid subjects that some people may view as being politically controversial. He had made the same statement in the previous community news with regards to a comment that I had made in response to another listener.\n\nI first want to clarify that HPR 4628 was recorded and uploaded before Ken had stated this the first time, so when I said this in HPR 4628 it was without the benefit of his earlier clarification on this.\n\nMy assumptions were based on what I observed as being the community practice of posting fairly low stress topics that people can relax to and not getting into flame wars. I had assumed this was an unwritten rule that had arisen through common practice.\n\nI was going to attempt to very briefly answer in this comment brian-in-ohio's question on the relative safety of different types of electric power generation. However the answer was getting long enough that I suspect that one of the community news presenters would probably tell me to put it in an episode. I will therefore make a short episode on it and submit it after the episodes I currently have in the schedule.\n\nSpoiler alert however, so far as I can determine, the data upon which to make any sort of objective relative ranking of electric power generation sources simply does not exist in a form which would allow an apples to apples comparison across all industries. \n\nThe net result is that any discussion of this topic comes down to belief and opinion rather than provable fact. \n\nI will however attempt to provide some context in which to think about these questions. \n","last_changed":"2026-05-04 06:38:10"}, +{"id":4714,"eps_id":4631,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-04 18:47:39","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"new episodes","comment_text":"thanks for the episode suggestion about the process programs but i still dont really want to work on any episodes im still recovering from the stuff that happened feb/march","last_changed":"2026-05-04 20:13:00"}, +{"id":4715,"eps_id":4631,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-05 09:00:00","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"new candycanearter07 episodes","comment_text":"Sorry if you feel under pressure. Take your time, hope it goes better soon.","last_changed":"2026-05-05 09:02:00"}, +{"id":4716,"eps_id":4634,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-06 20:05:43","comment_author_name":"YourName","comment_title":"Why is the audio so bad OMG sorry","comment_text":"I guess I had the mic in my ear but it was not working so you got the mic in my pocket I guess ... sorry folks ","last_changed":"2026-05-06 20:28:38"}, +{"id":4717,"eps_id":4634,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-06 20:35:49","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Already reported and fixed","comment_text":"Hi YourName,\n\nWe already received a report that there were problems with the audio, and as such we replaced the episode with another from operat0r from the back up queue. \n\nAs you are listening to this before it is released I assume it's coming from the Future Feed. You will need to refresh your cache on the podcatcher you are using for to get that episode. Thankfully this is only on the future feed, and the listeners to the main feed will get the updated episode without issue.\n\nKen","last_changed":"2026-05-07 05:05:19"}, +{"id":4718,"eps_id":4587,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-07 18:18:05","comment_author_name":"Dave Morriss","comment_title":"Great reminder! I had forgotten shar","comment_text":"I'm way behind with listening to HPR episodes, so sorry for the late comment!\n\nIn the early 1990s the university I worked for (in Edinburgh) installed DECAthena, a commercial version of the MIT Athena Project. As a consequence I ended up with a DEC MIPS workstation on my desk running Ultrix.\n\nWe had a USENET feed by then and we would download stuff like pictures from various newsgroups, using a tool that I assume was shar. Files arrived as a series of posts with encoded contents, which we would reassemble in a newsreader and decode.\n\nI had forgotten about this! Thanks for the reminder :-)\n\nPrinting coloured images was challenging in those days (for us anyway), and I recall we had a Thermal Wax printer to do it!\n\nDave","last_changed":"2026-05-07 19:52:09"}, +{"id":4719,"eps_id":4587,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-08 22:02:23","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Color printing","comment_text":"Glad you enjoyed it, Dave! I did work at one place that had a color thermal transfer printer and got to use it a couple times.\n\nThey also had a film recorder, though I never used it myself. This would put a computer-generated color image onto photographic film. After being developed by a photo lab, the resulting film slides could then be shown using an ordinary slide projector. Very fancy stuff, until digital projectors became available.","last_changed":"2026-05-09 14:54:58"}, +{"id":4720,"eps_id":4607,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-12 01:03:12","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Correction","comment_text":"In a recent conversation, a friend pointed out that historical BSD versions were not necessarily developed or released in numerical order. Instead, 2.xBSD versions were created to run on the PDP-11 while 3BSD and 4.xBSD ran on the VAX (until support was added to 4.x for other processors); both evolved alongside each other.\n\nIn the audio for this episode, I implied that the 'basename' utility first appeared in BSD in version 2.9 (1983), while it actually was in 3BSD from 1979, shortly after Bell Laboratories' Seventh Edition UNIX came out. Similarly, I incorrectly said that the first BSD 'dirname' appeared in was 4.4 (1993), when it was in the Net/2 release from 1991. Sorry about that!\n\nProbably others like me have fallen into the trap of assuming a larger version number always came later, but I should have paid closer attention to dates. (Discussion of the history does not appear in the show notes above, just the audio.)\n\nP.S. Glad you are liking these, xmanmonk! More are on the way.","last_changed":"2026-05-12 05:26:39"}, +{"id":4721,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-12 17:16:07","comment_author_name":"أحمد المحمودي","comment_title":"How did I find HPR","comment_text":"I found about HPR from another podcast, I think it was called Linux UK LUG cast or something. It ended anyway","last_changed":"2026-05-12 17:43:48"}, +{"id":4722,"eps_id":4631,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-12 17:18:20","comment_author_name":"أحمد المحمودي","comment_title":"Thanks for the encouragement","comment_text":"Thanks Dave for encouraging me to record an episode, I hope to able to do so soon. Currently I have very limited access to electronic devices (30 mins every 3 days), except for an MP3 player","last_changed":"2026-05-12 17:44:08"}, +{"id":4723,"eps_id":4424,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-12 19:36:04","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"Re: How did I find HPR","comment_text":"I found HPR through this old program called gPodder, its reccomended podcasts list has it in there and it seemed like a cool thing to tune into","last_changed":"2026-05-13 06:57:13"}, +{"id":4724,"eps_id":4637,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-13 03:43:37","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"still useful!","comment_text":"IMO, at and batch still have plenty of uses in things like scripts. It does provide a POSIX way to schedule a task in the future, which could be useful for scripts that want to offset certain effects without having to run its own daemon. Something like batch could also be used with cron as a sort of \"run at some point after this time\" trick, so if you happen to be doing something intensive at that time then it can put it off until its more optimal.\n\nAlso, at can just be used to plain run some process a few hours from now, its pretty useful for like starting an intensive process overnight without having to remember to start it before going to bed","last_changed":"2026-05-13 06:57:35"}, +{"id":4725,"eps_id":4618,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-14 19:59:46","comment_author_name":"Henrik Hemrin","comment_title":"Generating sine wave","comment_text":"Very interesting show. One thing in particular I find useful for testing speakers is the command to genererate a sine wave at various frequencies. I've tried the ffmpeg command version. ","last_changed":"2026-05-14 20:14:32"}, +{"id":4726,"eps_id":4618,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-15 15:22:16","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Henrik Hemrin on Sine Waves in HPR4618","comment_text":"I am glad you found this episode interesting, including the part about generating sine waves using FFMPEG.\n\nI cover this topic again in hpr4658 Audio Revisited, which comes out on Wed 2026-06-10 and in which one of the topics I discuss is characterizing hardware such as speakers and microphones in order to understand their limits. It also helps to understand the limits of your own ears as well. \n\nIn that episode I also cover generating a \"chirp\" signal, which is a tone which sweeps across the audio frequency range from low to high, which is also useful in understanding hardware.\n\nI can recall many years ago salesmen in stereo shops using special CDs which had these signals on them which they would use to demonstrate the capabilities of the high end speakers they were selling. If you have ever wanted to have such a thing for yourself, you can generate it using FFMPEG or Sox. ","last_changed":"2026-05-15 17:37:32"}, +{"id":4727,"eps_id":4637,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-16 19:41:04","comment_author_name":"norrist","comment_title":"at for scheduled reboots","comment_text":"I use at to schedule reboots for systems that have kernel updates installed, but I dont want to reboot right now.\n\nSomething like:\n@midnight ENTER\nreboot ENTER\nCRTL-d","last_changed":"2026-05-16 20:08:25"}, +{"id":4728,"eps_id":4640,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-17 00:22:01","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Nice tips","comment_text":"Great tips for writing. He chose well, ones without subjectivity, no further questions needed to answer with those pah-pum (direct) lines.\n\nNice to know Heinlein from your show. o/","last_changed":"2026-05-17 07:48:08"}, +{"id":4729,"eps_id":4628,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-17 00:24:23","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"o/","comment_text":"Liked too much. There are more nuances than I could expect. Thanks for answering my question!","last_changed":"2026-05-17 07:48:28"}, +{"id":4730,"eps_id":4637,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-17 03:03:47","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Good points","comment_text":"Nice to hear that others find \"at\" to be helpful! Perhaps some of these curios are not as obscure as I thought.\n\nTo delay running something on a personal system, I would probably be more likely to use \"sleep [time] ; [command]\" as a quick-and-dirty method. This would also put the output in the same terminal session. But I can see how \"at\" could be more elegant.\n\nFor rebooting, a lot of systems have the \"shutdown\" command (in looking around, it's far more common than I expected). This takes a time argument for when to execute the shutdown. So you could also use \"shutdown -r 00:00\" as a way to reboot your system at midnight (some implementations might differ on how the time is expressed). As with Perl, in the UNIX world often there's more than one way to do it!","last_changed":"2026-05-17 07:49:05"}, +{"id":4731,"eps_id":4628,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-17 18:08:18","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Antoine on HPR4628","comment_text":"Thank you for your comment. Questions like the one that you asked are very helpful because they cause me to look into and think about things that I might otherwise have overlooked.\n\nWhen doing the research to answer your question about MAGNOX reactor patents I was struck by some of the parallels between Open Source / Free Software and the early history of nuclear energy. \n\nWhile this may seem like a stretch, in both fields we see how things like patents are more likely to hold technology back than they are to advance it, and how personal connections between people can matter more than the technology itself. \n\nI have just finished the script for another follow up episode in this series and hope that people find this one interesting as well.","last_changed":"2026-05-17 18:53:17"}, +{"id":4732,"eps_id":4637,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-17 18:35:11","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"At and batch in HPR4637","comment_text":"I happen to have a number of VMs set up that I use for testing, so I was able to do a quick check to see which distros have \"at\" and \"batch\" installed by default.\n\nIt turns out that Debian, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi, Suse, and Alpine do not have it by default. Alma (a Red Hat clone), FreeBSD, and OpenBSD do. \n\nWhile they can be installed later, it may be that they are not more commonly used now because you cannot rely on them being there as a standard feature.\n\nI was struck by the thought that \"batch\" may be useful for things like testing software by being able to kick off a long series of tests that are run in the background while you get on with doing other things without these background tests affecting whatever else you are doing too much. Audio and video processing may possibly be the same. \n\nPerhaps some other listeners could think up some creative ways of using \"at\" and \"batch\" and tell us about it in an episode in future. This sounds like it could lead to some interesting ideas. ","last_changed":"2026-05-17 18:53:26"}, +{"id":4733,"eps_id":4640,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-17 19:14:19","comment_author_name":"Kevin O'Brien","comment_title":"I enjoyed doing it","comment_text":"As you can tell I am a big fan so it was pleasure to start writing about him. But I am a fan of many of the older science fiction writers, and I have more to come on Heinlein as well as some other writers.","last_changed":"2026-05-17 19:36:52"}, +{"id":4734,"eps_id":4502,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-19 15:00:39","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Morse code","comment_text":"Hi Trey,\n\nI heard this episode on Morse code, and thought this link would be useful.\n\nhttps://www.whiskeytangohotel.com/2025/09/graphing-average-speed-wpm-of-morse.html\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-05-19 15:27:21"}, +{"id":4735,"eps_id":4627,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-21 05:28:05","comment_author_name":"Steve Barnes","comment_title":"Thanks for the context!","comment_text":"It's great not just to learn new commands, but to hear someone explain some of the history and fundamentals behind UNIX.","last_changed":"2026-05-21 06:17:41"}, +{"id":4736,"eps_id":4646,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-27 00:24:58","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"my opinion of mobile gaming","comment_text":"I used to play a lot of mobile games back in the day but nowadays I really can't stand most of them due to the predatory nature of them and every single one using the same freaking artstyle that feels like a 3d version of corporate artstyles\n\nTechnically, I do actively play the desktop ports of 2 mobile games being Progressbar95 (a really simple old-computer themed game about filling a progress bar, im going for 100%) and Balatro (because im actively developing a mod), but besides those I haven't played one in years...\n\nAs for the ADHD stuff, I usually have my laptop or a mp3 player with me to help with that, but also i sometimes play 2048 or solitare on my laptop as well","last_changed":"2026-05-27 05:42:48"}, +{"id":4737,"eps_id":4647,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-27 00:29:32","comment_author_name":"xmanmonk","comment_title":"Great Series","comment_text":"This has been a great series, and I hope you do find more topics to cover. If I can think of any, I'll add another comment here.","last_changed":"2026-05-27 05:43:05"}, +{"id":4738,"eps_id":4567,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-27 03:33:12","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Some watched!","comment_text":"From this show, and because of this show, I came to watch (1) Gattaca, (2) Surrogates, and (3) Matrix.\nThe first, oh - wow, what an epic. s2 :)\nThe 2nd, loved a lot too. A bit \"melo\" dramatic in the message it aims to inspire, but very well done.\nThe 3rd, at first I lost interest in the beginning and stopped, seemed that the movie aged bad, but tried again days later and loved to know Matrix. Very worth it, thanks for the recommendation. (The 1st only, the 2nd I didn't like from the beginning so no.)\nAh, also (4) The lives of others. Applauses to it.\nIn a few weeks, I came to watch more movies than I had for many months, and it was very enjoyable. I may come here futurely, when wanting to see something, to check another recommendation. Thanks!","last_changed":"2026-05-27 05:43:35"}, +{"id":4739,"eps_id":4647,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-27 13:20:13","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"thoughts","comment_text":"It's always annoying when a good technology is locked behind a patent, but at least this time it backfired.\n\nI'll miss this series, its one of my favorites","last_changed":"2026-06-01 08:24:28"}, +{"id":4741,"eps_id":4650,"comment_timestamp":"2026-05-29 14:21:14","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Puppetting and Happiness","comment_text":"If I could ask: why pupeting other States (City-states) reduces internal happiness? Could it be explained by the perception of wasting internal resources for power, without benefits to the population?\nIf I could note: marvelous exclusive little Building for Austria, the Coffee House!: increases in 25% the generation of Great People! This tells a lot about the reality of coffeee! (or about the perception of the developers.)\nHere is a non-player. The size of the episodes, and the cadence, make them a pleasure to learn even without prior knowledge. \nIt. Thanks, Ahuka!","last_changed":"2026-05-29 19:19:58"}, +{"id":4742,"eps_id":4650,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-01 21:13:58","comment_author_name":"Kevin O'Brien","comment_title":"That's the algorithm","comment_text":"Itihnk the main reason is that the algorithm at the heart of the game reduces Happiness both as your population goes up and as the number of cities goes up. Now I can tell a story about how large, sprawling empires tend to not pay attention to the desires of average citizens, and that might be plausible, but my recollection is that Rome did reasonably well for a few centuries nonetheless.","last_changed":"2026-06-02 05:25:34"}, +{"id":4743,"eps_id":4651,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-02 02:38:55","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"busy weeknd","comment_text":"hi! sorry i had to go before recording started i was pretty busy over the weekend/friday volunteering at a convention and i had to go do something. hopefully next community news i can pop in ^^\n\nalso things are slowly starting to maybe swing back to going good again so i MAY go record a show again soon","last_changed":"2026-06-02 05:26:10"}, +{"id":4744,"eps_id":4649,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-02 10:52:54","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"Love PHP","comment_text":"Great episode, and I agree with your views on how nice PHP is","last_changed":"2026-06-02 10:57:10"}, +{"id":4745,"eps_id":4633,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-02 11:22:47","comment_author_name":"RJ","comment_title":"Very interesting as always","comment_text":"Very interesting show as always. I love your podcasts (I'm new to HPR (just found it a few weeks ago) and you've been one I know I can always go to for an interesting show). \n\nIs 'uppy downy thing' the technical term in the test for an aerial? ;) ","last_changed":"2026-06-02 11:33:19"}, +{"id":4746,"eps_id":4633,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-02 16:44:45","comment_author_name":"Lee","comment_title":"Aerials","comment_text":"Thankfully the foundation exam is multiple choice, but it is important to recognise the following terms:-\n- Pointy signal-spikey bit\n- Long wire dangly-doo\n- Metal pokey-poke\n- Linear wave catch-a-me-bob\n- Bendy frequency rubber-stub\n- Wire stretchy-poo\n- Scoping prong-a-me-jig","last_changed":"2026-06-02 16:50:09"}, +{"id":4747,"eps_id":4649,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-02 17:24:01","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"Re: Love PHP","comment_text":"I think PHP is ok for what it does, but I really don't like the language that much. I've been considering moving my site to Ruby or Go for a while now...","last_changed":"2026-06-02 18:30:17"}, +{"id":4748,"eps_id":4650,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-04 23:25:42","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"#2 Thanks!","comment_text":"Hey, Dear Ahuka, Thanks, Help'd understanding!","last_changed":"2026-06-05 04:35:17"}, +{"id":4749,"eps_id":4653,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-04 23:37:27","comment_author_name":"Antoine","comment_title":"Reading always has been a life-saver for me, this alone makes this show Very Nice","comment_text":"The books on your list have beautiful covers!\nAbout the Cardio code, I was expecting some sharing of the specifics of the content (so we all could do better cardio!).\nNice to see you accomplishing your audacious (20-a-year) reading goal! Thx 4 'dā' share! \\o","last_changed":"2026-06-05 04:36:08"}, +{"id":4750,"eps_id":4655,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-05 12:11:33","comment_author_name":"Trey","comment_title":"Avoid hand soap ","comment_text":"Great recommendations. I do avoid hand soaps, as many included a lotion residue.\n\nI may check out those mid-range progressives. I use dedicated computer glasses which are great, but I need to remember to change back to my progressive lenses when I get up to walk around and such.\n","last_changed":"2026-06-05 14:04:24"}, +{"id":4751,"eps_id":4644,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-07 22:26:34","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Not quite a complete script","comment_text":"Ken,\n\nI did some more testing, and the script is not quite ready and breaks on some renamed files, leaving i.e. hpr1234.ogg in Podboat\n\nI'll try again.\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-06-08 06:13:49"}, +{"id":4752,"eps_id":4656,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-08 13:12:08","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"wishlist!","comment_text":"i often listen to podcasts and stuff when i go to bed so using one of these would be very useful!! the only downside would be figuring out how to use it with my mp3 player since it doenst have bluetooth","last_changed":"2026-06-08 13:55:08"}, +{"id":4753,"eps_id":4644,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-08 18:01:33","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to hpr4644","comment_text":"I have been following this saga on downloaded podcast filenames and am still as confused now as ever when it comes to understanding what this is all about. I still don't understand why Newsboat needs to come into the picture. \n\nI use a cron job to run a bash script to automatically download podcasts, including HPR. They just appear in a directory that I have set aside for holding new podcasts.\n\nWhile some podcasts have rubbish audio file names in their RSS feed that have to be fixed, HPR isn't one of them. Their URL is just fine. \n\nWhat you need to do is to extract the audio file name from the RSS feed using something like basename, and then specify that name to wget using the -O option for output file name. This results in a file with a name such as \"hpr4644.mp3\" being saved. No after the fact file renaming is necessary. \n\n\nI'll do an episode on a simplified version of what I use that just does HPR podcasts.The next slot I can use is in July, so I will plan to have it for then. ","last_changed":"2026-06-08 19:01:15"}, +{"id":4754,"eps_id":4657,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-09 23:31:58","comment_author_name":"xmanmonk","comment_title":"Great Show (again)","comment_text":"Another great show on these often forgotten commands. Glad to hear you have some more episodes in the works! Looking forward to them!","last_changed":"2026-06-10 05:35:10"}, +{"id":4755,"eps_id":4653,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-10 08:11:43","comment_author_name":"Kevie","comment_title":"Nice episode","comment_text":"Thank you very much for posting this, I've never read any of the Battletech books, but I may keep an eye out for them. I enjoy reading physical books, I've tried ebook readers but I really don't like the experience, although I have found myself listening to audiobooks more, especially in the car or when stuck doing a mundane task.\n\nThanks for the tip on Openreads, I've never come across it before but I think we will take a look at it for a review on an upcoming episode of TuxJam.","last_changed":"2026-06-10 10:16:28"}, +{"id":4756,"eps_id":4654,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-10 08:14:12","comment_author_name":"Kevie","comment_title":"Geeks are ahead of their time","comment_text":"In an age of recycling and re-purposing items, I find that geeks are always a step ahead as we have been doing this for years. I laughed out loud when you said that you weren't sure why you kept an item and thought: good, it isn't just me.\n\nAn excellent show as always MrX; keep up the good work.","last_changed":"2026-06-10 10:16:37"}, +{"id":4757,"eps_id":4656,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-10 08:15:59","comment_author_name":"Kevie","comment_title":"Interesting","comment_text":"I have never heard of these before but think the concept is great. My wife has recently been asking me to research a set of headphones for her to use at the gym: I will suggest these. Thanks for sharing.","last_changed":"2026-06-10 10:16:45"}, +{"id":4758,"eps_id":4657,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-11 16:57:57","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"comparisons","comment_text":"cmp is, while not as useful as it may have been, still quite useful for testing whether two files are bit copies of each other. ","last_changed":"2026-06-11 17:02:01"}, +{"id":4759,"eps_id":4644,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-12 16:50:42","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Response to WhiskeyJack","comment_text":"Hi,\n\nI tend to go down rabbit holes, and this is one such time. After a quick response to أحمد المحمودي, I decided to try a 'fix'. This is further proof that I am not a programmer and should not be asking too many questions of AI. Still, it was a fun endeavor for me, and see it as useful to see where I went wrong.\n\nThank you for the constructive critique and hope to hear your next episode. :)\n\nP.S. A useful reason to rename the episodes is a project I may talk about later when use Rockbox on an Ipod classic. A titled show as a file name is easier to see what I want to listen to than hpr1234.mp3.","last_changed":"2026-06-12 18:17:59"}, +{"id":4760,"eps_id":4644,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-13 11:13:49","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to Archer72 on HPR4644","comment_text":"If you want to get the episode title from an HPR podcast episode and use it to modify the name further, then you can do that by extracting the tag information from the MP3 file using \"id3v2\". On Debian and derivatives, I believe this comes in the eyeD3 package. This hands v1 as well as v2 tags. \n\nI will add this to the episode script that I am currently writing. \n","last_changed":"2026-06-13 11:21:26"}, +{"id":4761,"eps_id":4657,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-13 11:47:53","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"HPR4657 - use of comm","comment_text":"comm is actually a very, very, useful program in scripts if you know how to make good use of it. \n\nFor example, bash can be fairly slow when used in a classic looping algorithm over a large amount of data. \n\nHowever, if you can reformat the data so that it can be compared with comm, then you can use comm as a filter without any loops.\n\nAs an example, in one application a simple loop took 3.7 seconds to work its way through the data, which was far too long.\n\nHowever, by using awk and sort to reformat one file, and a combination of find, cut, sort, uniq, and awk on the directory structure to generate a second file and then comparing them with comm, I was able to filter the information down to just the records that had relevant changes, and then use the slower looping algorithm on those.\n\nThis cut that time down to 0.150 seconds, which was more or less instantaneous from a user perspective. Despite this method appearing to have a lot more transformations in it, it was 25 times faster. This is because there are actually far fewer calls to commands in the second algorithm, even though more different commands are involved. \n\nSo comm is a very useful command to know, and if you have a lot of information to process it should be one of the tools that you turn to when figuring out the best way to do it. ","last_changed":"2026-06-13 13:25:59"}, +{"id":4762,"eps_id":4644,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-13 21:10:48","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"EyeD3","comment_text":"Hi WhiskeyJack,\n\nCool!\n\nCan't wait to hear it. :) ","last_changed":"2026-06-14 07:04:52"}, +{"id":4763,"eps_id":4657,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-15 03:16:05","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Appreciate the comments","comment_text":"When I was uploading this episode, I started to feel like maybe I was selling \"comm\" short a bit. Nice to hear that it's been useful for you, Whiskeyjack. While its functionality can't be easily replicated with \"cut\" or \"awk\", those utilities can certainly make good use of the output from \"comm\".\n\nInteresting to read about your experience in terms of runtime. I have taken to using a single call to \"awk\" in situations where I might otherwise call on several utilities in a pipeline. Your comment is a good reminder that if something will be used repeatedly, it's best to measure its runtime instead of automatically assuming that one tool or set of tools will be faster than another.","last_changed":"2026-06-15 05:39:58"}, +{"id":4764,"eps_id":4659,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-15 11:58:49","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"ffmpeg concatenation","comment_text":"Concatenation is frustratingly confusing in ffmpeg, but according to the wiki https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Concatenate you can just use\n\nffmpeg -f concat -i listoffilenames.txt output.flac\n\nfor some reason it forces you to use a file thats a list of filenames instead of being able to use a glob, but it works pretty ok","last_changed":"2026-06-15 13:14:13"}, +{"id":4765,"eps_id":4659,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-15 16:53:16","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to candycanearter07 on HPR4659","comment_text":"When concatenating audio files using FFMPEG, you can create the text file listing the audio files with the following command.\n\nprintf \"file '%s'\\n\" *.flac > podseglist.txt\nffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i podseglist.txt fullpod.flac\n\nIf you are using Sox, you can concatenate the files using the following:\n\nsox *.flac fullpod.flac\n\nI covered concatenating audio files using FFMPEG in HPR4608 in my series on Simple Podcasting and these examples are in the show notes as reference for anyone who is interested.\n\nThe FFMPEG list file is probably useful for cases where you want to order the files manually rather than using shell globbing order.\n\n(If there turns out to be a double post from me on this subject, the electric power went out just as I was attempting to send it the first time so I didn't think the first one went through.)","last_changed":"2026-06-16 05:18:37"}, +{"id":4766,"eps_id":4657,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-15 17:02:57","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to Vance on awk in HPR4657","comment_text":"Awk is another extremely useful command to know in terms of improving performance in cases where you might otherwise need to use a loop. \n\nI don't have any relative numbers to hand in this instance, but I know that I have increased performance very significantly by structuring an algorithm to allow use of awk. \n\nThe history of awk may be a good subject for a Unix Curio episode. \n\n\"Expect\" would be a good command to cover as well. I have used this for scripted log-ins to test VMs over SSH in cases where SSH keys wouldn't work for some reason. ","last_changed":"2026-06-16 05:18:53"}, +{"id":4767,"eps_id":4661,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-16 15:04:20","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"uses :)","comment_text":"It's always nice seeing a repair win, especially if its done with reused parts! Makes me feel justified for refusing to get rid of any of my devices...","last_changed":"2026-06-16 15:10:14"}, +{"id":4768,"eps_id":4661,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-17 04:37:48","comment_author_name":"xmanmonk","comment_title":"Great show!","comment_text":"Hey Claudio, great show! Enjoy hearing about BSD, even if it's hardware-related! Thanks!","last_changed":"2026-06-17 06:46:56"}, +{"id":4769,"eps_id":4661,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-17 14:02:17","comment_author_name":"ClaudioM","comment_title":"Thanks! (In reply to candycanearter and xmanmonk)","comment_text":"Thanks for the comments! Feels good to be able to use what I have left over in parts to repair devices still in action. BTW, an update on the Evoo laptop: My son's grandfather was able to find the problem, a shorted MOSFET caused by the blown cap. He tested with one he had on hand and it turned on and booted. Once he finds a MOSFET with the correct rating, it should be back in action!","last_changed":"2026-07-07 10:24:43"}, +{"id":4770,"eps_id":4655,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-21 00:10:45","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore ","comment_title":"Geeks are lazy, too","comment_text":"After years of experiments, I settled out on clean 100% cotton washcloths and shampoo. \n\nBefore I shower each day, I put a bit of shampoo on my glasses, wash them in the shower as it warms up, then dry with the fresh washcloth. I use it after cleaning my glasses to shower and after drying it goes into the laundry hamper on the next cycle. \n\nCheap, fast, easy, and i'm not managing any small microfiber cloths or fancy eyeglass cleaner chemicals.","last_changed":"2026-06-21 06:11:28"}, +{"id":4771,"eps_id":4667,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-23 13:23:06","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"learned something new :)","comment_text":"I had no idea that you could use %s and multiple arguments to repeat the same line multiple times! That would definitely be useful for some bash scripts\n\ni personally moved to using ruby for my own scripts but its still really cool to know :D","last_changed":"2026-06-23 13:36:18"}, +{"id":4772,"eps_id":4667,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-24 03:54:20","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"HPR4667 - printf","comment_text":"This is a very interesting series, and I hope that you continue with it.\n\nHere's a few other very useful things that you can do with printf that have made use of.\n\nIn a previous episode I mentioned that if you wish to concatenate several audio files into one using ffmpeg you need to create a file containing the names of the files plus some additional text.\n\nYou could write a loop writing out each line of the file one at a time.\n\nOr you could do this with a single printf command as follows:\n\nprintf \"file '%s'\\n\" *.flac > podseglist.txt\n\nThis will create a file consisting of multiple lines of text, each in the form of the word \"file\" followed by the name of the file and then a line feed. No loop is necessary.\n\nAnother example came up with something that I was working on yesterday. I needed to print a floating point time value by combining separate seconds and microsecond numbers. \n\nHowever the microsecond number is not zero padded on the left and so would give an incorrect value if used it as is. This was readily solved however by using printf to zero pad the number.\n\npadusec=$( printf '%06d' $timeusec )\n\nI was then able to take this result and append it to a string containing the time in seconds followed by a decimal separator and then the zero padded time in microseconds.\n\n\nIt is things like these that make shell scripting fun to use. ","last_changed":"2026-06-24 06:10:28"}, +{"id":4773,"eps_id":4667,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-24 21:15:22","comment_author_name":"xmanmonk","comment_title":"Another great show!","comment_text":"Thanks again for all your work on these episodes. Lots of good info about printf. I usually futz around with echo to get it to work on my machine, but may not work on others. There are good reasons here to use printf instead.","last_changed":"2026-06-25 05:25:08"}, +{"id":4774,"eps_id":4666,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-26 02:24:48","comment_author_name":"Windigo","comment_title":"Nice to meet you","comment_text":"Thank you for the introduction episode, Lennart! I really enjoyed hearing about your path through computing.\n\nI thought it was very amusing that you thought you arrived to computing \"late\", as you predated my own introduction to computing by a decade.\n\nLooking forward to hearing your next episode!","last_changed":"2026-06-26 05:04:37"}, +{"id":4775,"eps_id":4655,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-26 18:53:44","comment_author_name":"Operat0r","comment_title":"Glasses","comment_text":"I want to say thank you. I am glad the queue was empty because I recently bought new glasses at Costco. I feel like I overpaid for them (which makes sense since I have not worn glasses or contacts in 15 years). My vision is changing as I age (I am now 46). Even with a large 49 ultrawide monitor, I must increase the font size to read comfortably. I ordered 2 monitors today. Wish me luck.","last_changed":"2026-06-27 05:26:25"}, +{"id":4776,"eps_id":4666,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-27 15:04:02","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"hello!","comment_text":"I liked this episode, its nice seeing other peoples introduction to the hobby. I agree with Windigo that its amusing you got into computing \"late\", since I also got into it very much later :P","last_changed":"2026-06-27 15:53:29"}, +{"id":4777,"eps_id":4181,"comment_timestamp":"2026-06-29 21:55:12","comment_author_name":"Jan","comment_title":"subtitles","comment_text":"If you want the subtitle as well\n\nyt-dlp --write-subs --sub-format srt --proxy socks5://localhost:9150 ","last_changed":"2026-06-29 22:21:50"}, +{"id":4778,"eps_id":4674,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-02 10:50:38","comment_author_name":"The Librarian","comment_title":"Ook ?","comment_text":"Ook !","last_changed":"2026-07-02 11:15:56"}, +{"id":4779,"eps_id":4644,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-06 13:48:39","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Ken on Community Show HPR4676","comment_text":"Hi Ken,\n\nI believe that you did sign up for a show about using XML Starlet for feeds.\n\n;-)\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-07-06 14:53:39"}, +{"id":4780,"eps_id":4644,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-06 15:07:47","comment_author_name":"Ken Fallon","comment_title":"hpr3962 :: It's your data","comment_text":"Ken shows a safer way to get episodes from HPR\n\nhttps://www.hackerpublicradio.com/eps/hpr3962/index.html","last_changed":"2026-07-06 15:16:02"}, +{"id":4781,"eps_id":4677,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-07 21:17:41","comment_author_name":"xmanmonk","comment_title":"Another great show","comment_text":"Really happy with this series. At the end, you asked about ideas for further episodes. Perhaps a brief introduction to systemctl and journalctl commands (in the systemd world) would be a good topic. As a greybeard, I was reluctant to embrace systemd, but eventually came around as it seemed nearly inevitable. Both are very useful for tracking down system problems, especially journalctl.\n\nThanks again for a great episode!","last_changed":"2026-07-08 08:05:15"}, +{"id":4782,"eps_id":4672,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-08 09:46:44","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Another great show!","comment_text":"Hi Ken,\n\nGreat show, and also laughed at 'Look at this great thing I did'\n\nI get the same response in my household :-)\n\nCheers,\nArcher72","last_changed":"2026-07-08 11:08:04"}, +{"id":4783,"eps_id":4677,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-08 11:32:04","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"cool show :D","comment_text":"cksum seems pretty useful! seems like a useful cross-platform way to make hashes, and its age does sort of work for its advantage there!\n\nalso, you can use comm to pretty easily check a list of chksums :)\n\nim still most likely going to still just use md5sum, but its nice to know that theres a UNIX alternative ^^\n\nalso, for topics you could cover busybox or apropos maybe?","last_changed":"2026-07-08 20:31:29"}, +{"id":4784,"eps_id":4677,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-09 01:50:23","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Thanks, and systemd as a future topic","comment_text":"Whiskeyjack, I appreciate your support on this and past episodes. There's another UNIX Curio coming, life got in the way of me recording it but things have settled down now. Another episode is mostly written, and I have two more solid ideas. However, these will require more research than usual so it will likely take me longer to get them out.\n\nAgreed that systemd is a great topic, but I am not the person to explain it. I have not adapted to it well and need to look up man pages most times I want to do some basic thing. However, this makes me think that the subject of UNIX init systems over the years might be up my alley (though would also require significant research). Will give that idea some consideration, thanks!","last_changed":"2026-07-09 05:07:13"}, +{"id":4785,"eps_id":4678,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-09 14:38:32","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"cool ep","comment_text":"I didn't know there were so many ways to measure the exact time, I just usually use $EPOCHREALTIME for stuff.\n\nDid you know you can also catch DEBUG on bash to implement a \"time last command took\" field to your prompt? It's a bit of a hacky solution but it works pretty well.","last_changed":"2026-07-09 16:08:57"}, +{"id":4786,"eps_id":4678,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-09 22:48:47","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Reply to candycanearter07 on HPR4678","comment_text":"I'm glad that you found this episode interesting.\n\nI wasn't aware that you could use DEBUG to measure the time that an episode took to run.\n\nPerhaps you could do an episode on this to tell us how to do it? I am sure that a lot of people would find that very interesting.","last_changed":"2026-07-10 05:54:54"}, +{"id":4787,"eps_id":4677,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-12 03:20:02","comment_author_name":"Vance","comment_title":"Sorry, xmanmonk","comment_text":"Oops, I was switching between tabs when editing my comment and forgot who I was replying to. My apologies for misidentifying you!","last_changed":"2026-07-12 07:24:12"}, +{"id":4788,"eps_id":4685,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-21 10:53:42","comment_author_name":"Lucinda","comment_title":"Thank you","comment_text":"Hi Lennart, I enjoyed your broadcast. Thank you for sharing. \n\nCheers,\n-Lucinda\n56F, UK/US, Field Scientist, and Analog builder, tinkerer ","last_changed":"2026-07-21 11:31:41"}, +{"id":4789,"eps_id":4669,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-22 02:07:59","comment_author_name":"The_Dud3","comment_title":"Favorite Malt Liquores/Super Strong Lagers","comment_text":"Dunno how they are sold in Europe, but in the USA we drink that stuff in 40oz bottles, like men LMAO. Although sadly they switched to making the bottles out of plastic which ruins the taste. In college my go tos were Hurricanes which were $1.99 per 40oz and Mickey's which were in 40z ore smaller wide mouth bottles shaped like hand grenades, which yes I played baseball with. anyway I love the series guys and can't wait till you cover Cream Ale (recommend Genesee Cream Ale since it's the essential brand for the style)","last_changed":"2026-07-22 06:08:59"}, +{"id":4790,"eps_id":4681,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-22 13:43:46","comment_author_name":"Archer72","comment_title":"Reading","comment_text":"Hi Antoine,\n\nThank you for sharing your story.\n\nFor those interested, these are the 2 book descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuareg_(novel)\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_Exile\n\n\n- Archer72","last_changed":"2026-07-22 15:40:42"}, +{"id":4791,"eps_id":4688,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-22 23:14:22","comment_author_name":"candycanearter07","comment_title":"cool solution","comment_text":"It's always cool seeing other peoples solutions to similar problems! I use a python script to parse my rss reader's sqlite database to download podcasts :P","last_changed":"2026-07-23 04:41:24"}, +{"id":4792,"eps_id":4688,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-23 19:14:55","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Response to candycanearter07 in HPR4688","comment_text":"That sounds like a fascinating idea. I hadn't thought of that. I have my RSS reader follow the various podcasts that I listen to, but I hadn't thought of using that data for anything. \n\nPerhaps you should do a podcast episode on that topic. ","last_changed":"2026-07-23 19:26:28"}, +{"id":4793,"eps_id":4684,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-28 03:43:23","comment_author_name":"Jim DeVore ","comment_title":"Great episode!","comment_text":"While I'm not a sim racer myself, I love the intersection of computers and hardware and I love glimpses into other people's hobbies. This provided both. Thank you!","last_changed":"2026-07-28 06:17:28"}, +{"id":4794,"eps_id":4677,"comment_timestamp":"2026-07-31 00:37:40","comment_author_name":"Whiskeyjack","comment_title":"Checksums and HPR4677","comment_text":"Checksums of various sorts were used in serial communications protocols to detect errors. There are a variety of different algorithms for these and they were intended to detect transmission errors. They were an additional step beyond simple parity bits. \n\nIt probably didn't take much imagination to extend this concept to files which may be transmitted over communications links which may not have error detection or correction built in. \n\nIn my upcoming series on industrial controls, I mention one industrial serial protocol which originated around the late 1970s. There were two variants of that one protocol, one optimized for serial links, and the other for radio links, and they used different checksum algorithms! \n\nI get the impression that this just wasn't really seen as a problem in those days, so it's perhaps not too surprising to see Unix file checksum utilities using different checksum methods. The reasons may have been as simple as the two were optimized for different use cases, although we may never know at this point in time. ","last_changed":"2026-07-31 05:48:59"}] diff --git a/hpr_metadata/episodes.json b/hpr_metadata/episodes.json index 0cfe136..68be2aa 100644 --- a/hpr_metadata/episodes.json +++ b/hpr_metadata/episodes.json @@ -3019,7 +3019,7 @@ {"id":3019,"date":"2020-02-27","title":"Linux Inlaws S01E02 FOSDEM shenanigans","duration":3929,"summary":"Linux Inlaws - a podcast about on topics around free and open source software","notes":"

Linux Inlaws - a podcast about on topics around free and open source software, any associated contraband, communism / the revolution in general and whatever else fancies your tickle.

\n

Links:

\n","hostid":384,"series":111,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"free open source software, revolution, FLOSS","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3020,"date":"2020-02-28","title":"Validating data in Haskell","duration":1500,"summary":"Tuula talks about wow to validate incoming http request before acting on them","notes":"

Background

\n

The space game I working on needs a admin interface that can by used by game masters to view and modify the simulation.

\n

For start, I added interface for viewing, modifying and creating new people. It has three HTTP endpoints that are defined below. In this episode, I’ll concentrate on creating a new person and especially making sure that parameters used are valid.

\n
/api/admin/people              AdminApiPeopleR     GET\n/api/admin/people/#PersonId    AdminApiPersonR     GET PUT\n/api/admin/addPerson           AdminApiAddPersonR  POST
\n

Types and parsing

\n

There are two important approaches on making sure that data is valid. Making illegal state unpresentable and parsing instead of validation.

\n

If it’s impossible to create invalid data, you don’t have to validate it. Instead of using Integer and checking that given parameter is 0 or more, you should use Natural. Since Natural can’t have negative values, you don’t have to validate it. Similarly, instead of using a list, you could use NonEmpty to make sure that there’s at least one element present in the collection.

\n

Parse, don’t validate is similar approach. Instead of having a lax parser and then validating the result, parser should reject data that doesn’t make sense. By selecting suitable datatypes to represent data in the system, simply parsing incoming message is sometimes enough to validate it at the same time.

\n

Person creation

\n

Function in charge of generating a new person has signature of generatePersonM :: RandomGen g => StarDate -> PersonOptions -> Rand g Person. Given a current StarDate and PersonOptions describing what kind of person is needed, it will return a computation that can be executed to generate a random person.

\n

PersonOptions is very barebones. There’s only one field to tell what kind of age the person should have and even that is an optional field.

\n
data PersonOptions = PersonOptions\n    { personOptionsAge :: Maybe AgeOptions\n    } deriving (Show, Read, Eq)
\n

AgeOptions has two possibilities. AgeBracket describes case where age should be inside of given range. ExactAge specifies exactly what age should be.

\n
data AgeOptions =\n    AgeBracket Age Age\n    | ExactAge Age\n    deriving (Show, Read, Eq)
\n

Age is newtype wrapping Natural, thus Age can never be less than zero.

\n
newtype Age = Age { unAge :: Natural }\n    deriving (Show, Read, Eq, Num, Ord)
\n

Hand written FromJSON instance takes care of rejecting numbers that aren’t integers and at least zero. One could skip the checks here and parsed Age still couldn’t be negative. Advantage of explicit checks is that we get much nicer error message instead of just annoying runtime exception.

\n
instance FromJSON Age where\n    parseJSON =\n        withScientific "age"\n            (\\x -> case toBoundedInteger x of\n                Nothing ->\n                    mempty\n\n                Just n ->\n                    if n >= 0 then\n                        return $ Age $ fromIntegral (n :: Int)\n\n                    else\n                        mempty)
\n

So, when creating a new person, you can have:

\n\n

There’s still possibility of error. Nothing ensure that age bracket makes sense. It could be AgeBracket (Age 10) (Age 5) (bracket from 10 to 5). We need to add a bit of validation.

\n

Data.Validation is “a data-type like Either but with an accumulating Applicative”. What this means to me is that I can validate multiple aspects and collect errors in a list. It’s handy for getting all the problems at once, instead of having to fix them one by one and retry after each fix.

\n

Our validation function has signature validateAddPerson :: PersonOptions -> Validation [ErrorCode] PersonOptions. Given PersonOptions, it will give list of ErrorCode and original PersonOptions. Multiple validation functions can be combined for more complex validations.

\n

In our example validateAgeOptions validates only age related options of the data. validateAddPerson is supposed to validate whole data, but currently it just delegates to validateAgeOptions. In the future, we can add more validations by adding more functions and chaining them with <* operator.

\n
validateAddPerson :: PersonOptions -> Validation [ErrorCode] PersonOptions\nvalidateAddPerson opt =\n        pure opt\n            <* validateAgeOptions opt\n\nvalidateAgeOptions :: PersonOptions -> Validation [ErrorCode] PersonOptions\nvalidateAgeOptions opt =\n    case personOptionsAge opt of\n        Nothing ->\n            _Success # opt\n\n        Just (AgeBracket a b) ->\n            if a <= b\n                then _Success # opt\n                else _Failure # [ AgeBracketStartIsGreaterThanEnd ]\n\n        Just (ExactAge _) ->\n            _Success # opt
\n

Putting it all together

\n

Function that handles POST message and creates a new person is shown below:

\n
postAdminApiAddPersonR :: Handler Value\npostAdminApiAddPersonR = do\n    _ <- apiRequireAdmin\n    msg <- requireJsonBody\n    date <- runDB $ starDate\n    _ <- raiseIfFailure $ validateAddPerson msg\n    g <- liftIO newStdGen\n    let person = evalRand (generatePersonM date msg) g\n    pId <- runDB $ insert person\n    returnJson (Entity pId person)
\n

It does several things: - check that current user is admin - get json content and parse it to PersonOptions - get current star date from database - validate PersonOptions and return error if validation fails - get new random number generator - generate new person - insert it into database - return tuple of (PersonId, Person)

\n

Closing

\n

Types should represent only valid states. By having invalid state unpresentable, we can avoid many errors. Likewise, parsing should reject invalid data. This usually follows from having invalid states being unpresentable (you can’t parse invalid message to invalid data if you don’t have way to represent that invalid data).

\n

Questions, comments and feedback welcome. Best way to reach me is either by email or in mastodon, where I’m Tuula@mastodon.social.

\n","hostid":364,"series":107,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"validation, algebraic data types, json","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3021,"date":"2020-03-02","title":"HPR Community News for February 2020","duration":3272,"summary":"Call for shows is open. Ken and eventually Dave discuss the shows, media and development plans.","notes":"\n\n

New hosts

\n

\nWelcome to our new host:
\n\n monochromec.\n

\n\n

Last Month's Shows

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
IdDayDateTitleHost
3001Mon2020-02-03HPR Community News for January 2020HPR Volunteers
3002Tue2020-02-04World of Commodore 2019 Episode 8: Vote of thanksPaul Quirk
3003Wed2020-02-05Hacker Public Radio 2019 2020 New Year Show Episode 4Kevin Wisher
3004Thu2020-02-06Fixing simple audio problems with AudacityDave Morriss
3005Fri2020-02-07Is ActivityPub Paving The Way to Web 3.0?Ahuka
3006Mon2020-02-10Hijack Auxiliary Input of your car!operat0r
3007Tue2020-02-11Photography 101Paul Quirk
3008Wed2020-02-12Hacker Public Radio 2019-20 New Year Show Episode 5Kevin Wisher
3009Thu2020-02-13Linux Inlaws S01 E01monochromec
3010Fri2020-02-14FOSDEM first impressionsAndrew Conway
3011Mon2020-02-17Linux is HARD rant with Intel graphicsoperat0r
3012Tue2020-02-18Sample episode from WikipediapoddenKen Fallon
3013Wed2020-02-19Bash Tips - 21Dave Morriss
3014Thu2020-02-20A Headless Raspberry Pi Streaming RadioJon Kulp
3015Fri2020-02-21ActivityPub Conference 2019 - The Semantic Social NetworkAhuka
3016Mon2020-02-24Nixie tube clock and friends!operat0r
3017Tue2020-02-25Developing Black and White FilmPaul Quirk
3018Wed2020-02-26Encrypted editklaatu
3019Thu2020-02-27Linux Inlaws S01E02 FOSDEM shenanigansmonochromec
3020Fri2020-02-28Validating data in HaskellTuula
\n\n

Comments this month

\n\n

These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows.\nThere are 16 comments in total.

\n

Past shows

\n

There are 3 comments on\n2 previous shows:

\n\n

This month's shows

\n

There are 13 comments on 6 of this month's shows:

\n\n\n

Mailing List discussions

\n

\nPolicy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This\ndiscussion takes place on the Mail List which is open to all HPR listeners and\ncontributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under\nMailman.\n

\n

The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.org/pipermail/hpr_hackerpublicradio.org/2020-February/thread.html\n\n\n

Events Calendar

\n

With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to\nThe LWN.net Community Calendar.

\n

Quoting the site:

\n
This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track\nevents of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software.\nClicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web\npage.
\n\n

Any other business

\n

Tags and Summaries

\n

Thanks to the following contributors for sending in updates in the past month:
\nClaudio Miranda, Windigo, Dave Morriss

\n

Over the period tags and/or summaries have been added to 16 shows which were without them.

\n

If you would like to contribute to the tag/summary project visit the summary page at https://hackerpublicradio.org/report_missing_tags.php and follow the instructions there.

\n\n\n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":3022,"date":"2020-03-03","title":"FOSDEM 2020 Stand Interviews","duration":5578,"summary":"Interviews with some of the stands at FOSDEM 2020","notes":"

Table of Contents

\n\n\n\n

Previously Interviewed Projects

\n\n\n

Projects we did not get to Interview (yet)

\n\n\n

0 A.D.

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\n0 A.D. is a free and open-source, real-time strategy game under development by Wildfire Games. It is a historical war and economy game focusing on the years between 500 BC and 1 BC for the first part, and a planned second part for the years 1 AD to 500 AD. The game is cross-platform, playable on Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, Linux, and OpenBSD. It aims to be entirely free and open-source, using the GPLv2+ license for the game engine and CC BY-SA for the game art. \n
\n\n
\nWildfire Games is a global group of volunteer game developers. We create open source games and mods.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Stanislas Dolcini from 0 A.D.

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

AdoptOpenJDK

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nPrebuilt OpenJDK Binaries for Free!
\nJava™ is the world's leading programming language and platform. AdoptOpenJDK uses infrastructure, build and test scripts to produce prebuilt binaries from OpenJDK™ class libraries and a choice of either the OpenJDK HotSpot or Eclipse OpenJ9 VM. All AdoptOpenJDK binaries and scripts are open source licensed and available for free.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Stewart X Addison AdoptOpenJDK

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Apache Camel

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nApache Camel is an open source framework for message-oriented middleware with a rule-based routing and mediation engine that provides a Java object-based implementation of the Enterprise Integration Patterns using an application programming interface (or declarative Java domain-specific language) to configure routing and mediation rules. The domain-specific language means that Apache Camel can support type-safe smart completion of routing rules in an integrated development environment using regular Java code without large amounts of XML configuration files, though XML configuration inside Spring Framework is also supported. Camel is often used with Apache ServiceMix, Apache ActiveMQ and Apache CXF in service-oriented architecture projects. \n
\n

Listen to the interview with Rachel Yordán from Apache Camel

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Checkmk

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nBest-in-class infrastructure and application monitoring. Helping you stay up and running from simple to the most complex environments.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Marcel Arentz from Checkmk

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Coderdojo

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nCoderDojo organizes free coding workshops (called Dojo’s) for girls and boys from 7 to 18 years old. A Dojo is entirely prepared and led by volunteers. If you are older, then you can help out at an existing Dojo or start your very own CoderDojo! \n
\n

Listen to the interview with Coderdojo

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Eclipse Foundation

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nThe Eclipse Foundation provides our global community of individuals and organizations with a mature, scalable, and business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation. The Foundation is home to the Eclipse IDE, Jakarta EE, and over 350 open source projects, including runtimes, tools, and frameworks for a wide range of technology domains such as the Internet of Things, automotive, geospatial, systems engineering, and many others.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Mikaël Barbero, Release Engineer, Eclipse Foundation

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

GitLab

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nGitLab is a web-based DevOps lifecycle tool that provides a Git-repository manager providing wiki, issue-tracking and CI/CD pipeline features, using an open-source license, developed by GitLab Inc.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with David Planella Director Of Community Relations at GitLab

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

GNU Health

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nGNU Health combines the socioeconomic determinants of health with state-of-the-art technology in bioinformatics and clinical genetics. It manages the internal processes of a health institution, such as financial management, stock and pharmacies or laboratories (LIMS)\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Axel K. Braun about GNU Health

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Javascript

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nHackages is a community-based tech company with education at its core. We help you boost your skills and realise your projects through our expertise in training, product development, consultancy and community building.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Marta Moliz about Javascript

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Jenkins-x

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nJenkins X provides pipeline automation, built-in GitOps, and preview environments to help teams collaborate and accelerate their software delivery at any scale.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Kara de la Marck, Open Source Community Manager at CloudBees, about Jenkins-x

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Kopano

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\n100% Open source collaboration tools: email, calendaring, Mattermost chat, webRTC video meetings, document collaboration with LibreOffice Online, integration with file storage services and more.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Brian Joseph about Kopano

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

KubeVirt and Metal3

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nVirtual Machine Management on Kubernetes. Building a virtualization API for Kubernetes. KubeVirt technology addresses the needs of development teams that have adopted or want to adopt Kubernetes but possess existing Virtual Machine-based workloads that cannot be easily containerized. More specifically, the technology provides a unified development platform where developers can build, modify, and deploy applications residing in both Application Containers as well as Virtual \n
\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nThere are a number of great open source tools for bare metal host provisioning, including Ironic. Metal3.io aims to build on these technologies to provide a Kubernetes native API for managing bare metal hosts via a provisioning stack that is also running on Kubernetes. We believe that Kubernetes Native Infrastructure, or managing your infrastructure just like your applications, is a powerful next step in the evolution of infrastructure management.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with KubeVirt and Metal3

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Micropython and Espruino

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nMicroPython is a lean and efficient implementation of the Python 3 programming language that includes a small subset of the Python standard library and is optimised to run on microcontrollers and in constrained environments. \n
\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nEspruino is an open-source JavaScript interpreter for microcontrollers. It is designed for devices with small amounts of RAM (as low as 8kB). Espruino was created by Gordon Williams in 2012 as an attempt to make microcontroller development truly multiplatform. It was made open-source in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign for a development board running the software.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Christine Spindler from Micropython and Gordon Williams from Espruino

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Nuspell

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Sander van Geloven from Nuspell

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

openHAB

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nEmpowering the smart home. A vendor and technology agnostic open source automation software for your home.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Thomas Bail about openHAB

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

OpenStack Foundation

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nThe OpenStack Foundation promotes the global development, distribution and adoption of open infrastructure with more than 105,000 community members from 187 countries around the world. The OpenStack Foundation was founded in September 2012 to provide an independent home for the OpenStack cloud operating system, which has since become one of the largest and most diverse open source projects in history.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Jeremy Stanley about OpenStack Foundation

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

OpenTAP

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nOpenTAP is an open source project for test automation. An open source test sequencing engine. The project is available online at \nhttps://Gitlab.com/OpenTAP/OpenTAP\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Michael Dieudonné about OpenTAP

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

OpenUK

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nWe are a UK organisation committed to develop and sustain UK leadership in Open Technology. We promote businesses, projects and people, who use Open. We strive to collaborate across all existing organisations for Open.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Amanda Brock about OpenUK

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

openWifi

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nopenwifi: Linux mac80211 compatible full-stack IEEE802.11/Wi-Fi design based on SDR (Software Defined Radio).\n
\n

Listen to the interview with XianJun Jiao about openWifi

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

OWASP

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nThe Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a nonprofit foundation that works to improve the security of software. Through community-led open source software projects, hundreds of local chapters worldwide, tens of thousands of members, and leading educational and training conferences, the OWASP Foundation is the source for developers and technologists to secure the web.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Antonis Manaras about OWASP

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Percona

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nPercona is a leading provider of unbiased open source database solutions that allow organizations to easily, securely and affordably maintain business agility, minimize risks, and stay competitive.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Evgeniy Patlan about Percona

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

PineTime

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nAn Open Source Smartwatch For Your Favorite Devices. Low Cost, High Fidelity.\n
\nThe PineTime is a free and open source smartwatch capable of running custom-built open operating systems. Some of the notable features include a heart rate monitor, a week-long battery as well as a capacitive touch IPS display that is legible in direct sunlight. It is a fully community driven side-project, which means that it will ultimately be up to the developers and end-users to determine when they deem the PineTime ready to ship. \n
\n

Listen to the interview with Koen Zandberg about PineTime

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

PostGraphile

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nExtensible high-performance automatic GraphQL API for PostgreSQL\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Benjie Gillam, OSS Maintainer PostGraphile

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Skolelinux / AlekSIS / Teckids

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nAt Teckids, all children and adolescents become part of the Free Software community - as users and contributors. Our young tutors aged between 9 and 16 regularly work together on their workshops, which they then lead for children and adolescents of the same age.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Niels Bradek from Skolelinux / AlekSIS / Teckids

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Technoethical

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nTechnoethical is an online shop that sells hardware compatible with operating systems that fully respect users' freedom as defined by the GNU Project. We are based in Bucharest, Romania (European Union) and we ship worldwide.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Tiberiu Turbureanu about Technoethical

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Tiny Go

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nTinyGo is a project to bring the Go programming language to microcontrollers and modern web browsers by creating a new compiler based on LLVM. You can compile and run TinyGo programs on several different microcontroller boards such as the BBC micro:bit and the Arduino Uno. TinyGo can also be used to produce WebAssembly (WASM) code which is very compact in size.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Ron \"Dead Program\" Evans about Tiny Go

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

XCP-ng

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nTurnkey Open Source Hypervisor. Based on XenServer, XCP-ng is the result of massive cooperation between individuals and companies, to deliver a product without limits. No restrictions on features and every bit available on GitHub! \n
\n

Listen to the interview with Olivier Lambert about XCP-ng

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Zenroom

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nZenroom: easy cryptography to the people. Zenroom is a tiny and portable virtual machine that authenticates and manages access to data using human-readable smart contracts. Zenroom is easy to program to performs fast cryptographic operations for end-to-end encryption and runs on: desktop, embedded, mobile phones, clouds and web browsers.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Denis \"Jaromil\" Roio from Zenroom

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Fenster

\n

Fenster - Free Software Song

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n
Track name : Free Software Song\nPerformer : Fenster\nRecorded date : 2002\nCopyright : Copyright (C) 2002, \nFenster LLC. Verbatim copying of this entire recording is permitted in any medium, \nprovided this notice is preserved. \nPerformers: \nPaul Robinson (vocals), \nRoman Kravec (guitar), \nEd D'Angelo (bass), \nDave Newman (drums), \nBrian Yarbrough (trumpet), \nTony Moore (trumpet). \n
\n\n","hostid":30,"series":78,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"FOSDEM 2020","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":3022,"date":"2020-03-03","title":"FOSDEM 2020 Stand Interviews","duration":5578,"summary":"Interviews with some of the stands at FOSDEM 2020","notes":"

Table of Contents

\n\n\n\n

Previously Interviewed Projects

\n\n\n

Projects we did not get to Interview (yet)

\n\n\n

0 A.D.

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\n0 A.D. is a free and open-source, real-time strategy game under development by Wildfire Games. It is a historical war and economy game focusing on the years between 500 BC and 1 BC for the first part, and a planned second part for the years 1 AD to 500 AD. The game is cross-platform, playable on Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, Linux, and OpenBSD. It aims to be entirely free and open-source, using the GPLv2+ license for the game engine and CC BY-SA for the game art. \n
\n\n
\nWildfire Games is a global group of volunteer game developers. We create open source games and mods.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Stanislas Dolcini from 0 A.D.

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

AdoptOpenJDK

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nPrebuilt OpenJDK Binaries for Free!
\nJava™ is the world's leading programming language and platform. AdoptOpenJDK uses infrastructure, build and test scripts to produce prebuilt binaries from OpenJDK™ class libraries and a choice of either the OpenJDK HotSpot or Eclipse OpenJ9 VM. All AdoptOpenJDK binaries and scripts are open source licensed and available for free.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Stewart X Addison AdoptOpenJDK

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Apache Camel

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nApache Camel is an open source framework for message-oriented middleware with a rule-based routing and mediation engine that provides a Java object-based implementation of the Enterprise Integration Patterns using an application programming interface (or declarative Java domain-specific language) to configure routing and mediation rules. The domain-specific language means that Apache Camel can support type-safe smart completion of routing rules in an integrated development environment using regular Java code without large amounts of XML configuration files, though XML configuration inside Spring Framework is also supported. Camel is often used with Apache ServiceMix, Apache ActiveMQ and Apache CXF in service-oriented architecture projects. \n
\n

Listen to the interview with Rachel Yordán from Apache Camel

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Checkmk

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nBest-in-class infrastructure and application monitoring. Helping you stay up and running from simple to the most complex environments.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Marcel Arentz from Checkmk

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Coderdojo

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nCoderDojo organizes free coding workshops (called Dojo’s) for girls and boys from 7 to 18 years old. A Dojo is entirely prepared and led by volunteers. If you are older, then you can help out at an existing Dojo or start your very own CoderDojo! \n
\n

Listen to the interview with Coderdojo

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Eclipse Foundation

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nThe Eclipse Foundation provides our global community of individuals and organizations with a mature, scalable, and business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation. The Foundation is home to the Eclipse IDE, Jakarta EE, and over 350 open source projects, including runtimes, tools, and frameworks for a wide range of technology domains such as the Internet of Things, automotive, geospatial, systems engineering, and many others.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Mikaël Barbero, Release Engineer, Eclipse Foundation

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

GitLab

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nGitLab is a web-based DevOps lifecycle tool that provides a Git-repository manager providing wiki, issue-tracking and CI/CD pipeline features, using an open-source license, developed by GitLab Inc.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with David Planella Director Of Community Relations at GitLab

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

GNU Health

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nGNU Health combines the socioeconomic determinants of health with state-of-the-art technology in bioinformatics and clinical genetics. It manages the internal processes of a health institution, such as financial management, stock and pharmacies or laboratories (LIMS)\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Axel K. Braun about GNU Health

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Javascript

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nHackages is a community-based tech company with education at its core. We help you boost your skills and realise your projects through our expertise in training, product development, consultancy and community building.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Marta Moliz about Javascript

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Jenkins-x

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nJenkins X provides pipeline automation, built-in GitOps, and preview environments to help teams collaborate and accelerate their software delivery at any scale.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Kara de la Marck, Open Source Community Manager at CloudBees, about Jenkins-x

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Kopano

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\n100% Open source collaboration tools: email, calendaring, Mattermost chat, webRTC video meetings, document collaboration with LibreOffice Online, integration with file storage services and more.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Brian Joseph about Kopano

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

KubeVirt and Metal3

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nVirtual Machine Management on Kubernetes. Building a virtualization API for Kubernetes. KubeVirt technology addresses the needs of development teams that have adopted or want to adopt Kubernetes but possess existing Virtual Machine-based workloads that cannot be easily containerized. More specifically, the technology provides a unified development platform where developers can build, modify, and deploy applications residing in both Application Containers as well as Virtual \n
\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nThere are a number of great open source tools for bare metal host provisioning, including Ironic. Metal3.io aims to build on these technologies to provide a Kubernetes native API for managing bare metal hosts via a provisioning stack that is also running on Kubernetes. We believe that Kubernetes Native Infrastructure, or managing your infrastructure just like your applications, is a powerful next step in the evolution of infrastructure management.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with KubeVirt and Metal3

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Micropython and Espruino

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nMicroPython is a lean and efficient implementation of the Python 3 programming language that includes a small subset of the Python standard library and is optimised to run on microcontrollers and in constrained environments. \n
\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nEspruino is an open-source JavaScript interpreter for microcontrollers. It is designed for devices with small amounts of RAM (as low as 8kB). Espruino was created by Gordon Williams in 2012 as an attempt to make microcontroller development truly multiplatform. It was made open-source in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign for a development board running the software.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Christine Spindler from Micropython and Gordon Williams from Espruino

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Nuspell

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Sander van Geloven from Nuspell

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

openHAB

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nEmpowering the smart home. A vendor and technology agnostic open source automation software for your home.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Thomas Bail about openHAB

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

OpenStack Foundation

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nThe OpenStack Foundation promotes the global development, distribution and adoption of open infrastructure with more than 105,000 community members from 187 countries around the world. The OpenStack Foundation was founded in September 2012 to provide an independent home for the OpenStack cloud operating system, which has since become one of the largest and most diverse open source projects in history.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Jeremy Stanley about OpenStack Foundation

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

OpenTAP

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nOpenTAP is an open source project for test automation. An open source test sequencing engine. The project is available online at \nhttps://Gitlab.com/OpenTAP/OpenTAP\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Michael Dieudonné about OpenTAP

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

OpenUK

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nWe are a UK organisation committed to develop and sustain UK leadership in Open Technology. We promote businesses, projects and people, who use Open. We strive to collaborate across all existing organisations for Open.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Amanda Brock about OpenUK

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

openWifi

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nopenwifi: Linux mac80211 compatible full-stack IEEE802.11/Wi-Fi design based on SDR (Software Defined Radio).\n
\n

Listen to the interview with XianJun Jiao about openWifi

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

OWASP

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nThe Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a nonprofit foundation that works to improve the security of software. Through community-led open source software projects, hundreds of local chapters worldwide, tens of thousands of members, and leading educational and training conferences, the OWASP Foundation is the source for developers and technologists to secure the web.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Antonis Manaras about OWASP

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Percona

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nPercona is a leading provider of unbiased open source database solutions that allow organizations to easily, securely and affordably maintain business agility, minimize risks, and stay competitive.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Evgeniy Patlan about Percona

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

PineTime

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nAn Open Source Smartwatch For Your Favorite Devices. Low Cost, High Fidelity.\n
\nThe PineTime is a free and open source smartwatch capable of running custom-built open operating systems. Some of the notable features include a heart rate monitor, a week-long battery as well as a capacitive touch IPS display that is legible in direct sunlight. It is a fully community driven side-project, which means that it will ultimately be up to the developers and end-users to determine when they deem the PineTime ready to ship. \n
\n

Listen to the interview with Koen Zandberg about PineTime

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

PostGraphile

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nExtensible high-performance automatic GraphQL API for PostgreSQL\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Benjie Gillam, OSS Maintainer PostGraphile

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Skolelinux / AlekSIS / Teckids

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nAt Teckids, all children and adolescents become part of the Free Software community - as users and contributors. Our young tutors aged between 9 and 16 regularly work together on their workshops, which they then lead for children and adolescents of the same age.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Niels Bradek from Skolelinux / AlekSIS / Teckids

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Technoethical

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nTechnoethical is an online shop that sells hardware compatible with operating systems that fully respect users' freedom as defined by the GNU Project. We are based in Bucharest, Romania (European Union) and we ship worldwide.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Tiberiu Turbureanu about Technoethical

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Tiny Go

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nTinyGo is a project to bring the Go programming language to microcontrollers and modern web browsers by creating a new compiler based on LLVM. You can compile and run TinyGo programs on several different microcontroller boards such as the BBC micro:bit and the Arduino Uno. TinyGo can also be used to produce WebAssembly (WASM) code which is very compact in size.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Ron \"Dead Program\" Evans about Tiny Go

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

XCP-ng

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nTurnkey Open Source Hypervisor. Based on XenServer, XCP-ng is the result of massive cooperation between individuals and companies, to deliver a product without limits. No restrictions on features and every bit available on GitHub! \n
\n

Listen to the interview with Olivier Lambert about XCP-ng

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n

Zenroom

\n

\"Logo\"

\n
\nZenroom: easy cryptography to the people. Zenroom is a tiny and portable virtual machine that authenticates and manages access to data using human-readable smart contracts. Zenroom is easy to program to performs fast cryptographic operations for end-to-end encryption and runs on: desktop, embedded, mobile phones, clouds and web browsers.\n
\n

Listen to the interview with Denis \"Jaromil\" Roio from Zenroom

\n

\"headshot\"

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n\n

Fenster

\n

Fenster - Free Software Song

\n

\n

Links

\n\n\n
Track name : Free Software Song\nPerformer : Fenster\nRecorded date : 2002\nCopyright : Copyright (C) 2002, \nFenster LLC. Verbatim copying of this entire recording is permitted in any medium, \nprovided this notice is preserved. \nPerformers: \nPaul Robinson (vocals), \nRoman Kravec (guitar), \nEd D'Angelo (bass), \nDave Newman (drums), \nBrian Yarbrough (trumpet), \nTony Moore (trumpet). \n
\n\n","hostid":30,"series":78,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"FOSDEM 2020","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3023,"date":"2020-03-04","title":"Critique My Script, Episode 1 - Qots-Crew-Gen","duration":782,"summary":"Discussion of using a shell script to randomly generate a ten man aircrew.","notes":"

This is my second HPR episode and the first in what could be a series about shell scripts I have written. This episode goes through a short script which randomly generates first and last names for a ten man aircrew to use with the Avalon Hill game B-17 Queen of the Skies.

\n

You can see the basic script in action here:
\nhttps://www.sodface.com/misc/qots-crew-gen

\n

and a more complicated version here, though based on the same underlying methodolgy:
\nhttps://www.sodface.com/misc/qots-crew-gen2

\n

Here’s the script:

\n
#!/bin/sh\n\nfirst_names='./firstnames.txt'\nlast_names='./surnames.txt'\ncrew_positions='./positions.txt'\ncrew_ranks='./ranks.txt'\n\nlen_first_names=$(wc -l < ${first_names})\nlen_last_names=$(wc -l < ${last_names})\n\nnum_pairs=$(printf "10 ${len_first_names} ${len_last_names}" | \\\n    awk 'BEGIN { srand() }\n    { for (i=1; i<=$1; i++) {\n        for(f = 2; f <= NF; f++) {\n        num=int(rand() * $f + 1); printf num"," } printf "\\n"\n    }\n    }')\n\ni=1\n\nfor crew_member in ${num_pairs}\ndo\n  line_num=$(printf "${crew_member}" | cut -d',' -f1)\n  first_name=$(sed -n ${line_num}p ${first_names})\n\n  line_num=$(printf "${crew_member}" | cut -d',' -f2)\n  last_name=$(sed -n ${line_num}p ${last_names})\n\n  crew_position=$(sed -n ${i}p ${crew_positions})\n  crew_rank=$(sed -n ${i}p ${crew_ranks})\n\n  #\n  # Use the variables above to generate HTML.\n  # Omitted here to simplify this example.\n  #\n\n  i=$((( ${i} +1 )))\ndone
\n","hostid":380,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Shell Script,Random Numbers,Awk","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3024,"date":"2020-03-05","title":"A funny thing happened the other day","duration":259,"summary":"Describing a funny thing that happened the other day.","notes":"

Equipment used

\n\n","hostid":201,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"story, audio, sound","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3025,"date":"2020-03-06","title":"Keep unwanted messages off the Fediverse","duration":881,"summary":"ActivityPub Conference 2019, techniques for fighting SPAM and unwanted messages in the Fediverse.","notes":"

The ActivityPub Conference of 2019 was held in Prague. This is about a talk about how we can keep SPAM and unwanted messages off of our platforms in the Fediverse. https://www.zwilnik.com/?page_id=1089

\n

Links:

\n","hostid":198,"series":108,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"social media, alternative, Fediverse, ActivityPub, SPAM","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -3291,7 +3291,7 @@ {"id":3291,"date":"2021-03-15","title":"The New Audacity and Batch Processing Macros","duration":501,"summary":"A brief look at at the new Audacity and how I got it working for me","notes":"

When Audacity upgraded it caused some changes that affected my use of it to prepare podcasts I listen to. I did find the answer, though, and I am sharing it with you.

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Audacity, macros, batch processing","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3292,"date":"2021-03-16","title":"Squirrel FSF blog","duration":2785,"summary":"The trouble with HUMANS and HUMAN things.... ","notes":"\n","hostid":377,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"banning software, banning ideology, modernizing, re-evaluating, prejudice","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3293,"date":"2021-03-17","title":"HPR RPG Club reviews Dungeon Raiders","duration":3269,"summary":"Klaatu, Beni, and McNalu review an OSR DnD clone","notes":"

\nDungeon Raiders is a D&D \"retroclone\", designed to mimic old school gaming.\nIt's a simple system, but is it too simple?\nFind out in today's episode!\n

\n\n

\nYou can download Dungeon Raiders for free from Drivethrurpg.com\n

\n\n

\nYou can play games with the RPG club.\nSubscribe to the HPR mailing list to learn about our schedule, or email Klaatu at this domain.\n

\n","hostid":78,"series":95,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"dnd,osr,tabletop,rpg","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":3294,"date":"2021-03-18","title":"Update to MakeMKV to back up media","duration":378,"summary":"Update to MakeMKV to back up media, now on Raspberry Pi","notes":"

This is an update on my previous episode hpr3179 :: MakeMKV to back up media.

\n

In the past month, MakeMKV.com has been updated to include Raspberry Pi support.

\n

Sources:

\n\n

It was a very uneventful \"It's here\"

\n

MakeMV on Raspberry Pi (ARM)
\n\"MakeMV
Click the thumbnail to see the full-sized image

\n
wget https://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv-bin-1.16.1.tar.gz\nwget https://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv-oss-1.16.1.tar.gz
\n

Unpack both packages and starting from source package and do the following steps:

\n

For makemkv-oss package:

\n
./configure\nmake\nsudo make install
\n

For makemkv-bin package:

\n
make\nsudo make install
\n

Install ccextractor and necessary packages

\n
sudo apt install libtesseract-dev autoconf sysconftool\n\ngit clone https://github.com/CCExtractor/ccextractor.git\ncd ccextractor/linux/\n./build
\n

nnn: command line file browser with vim-like keybindings

\n

https://github.com/jarun/nnn

\n

Script to rip TV episodes

\n

makemkv.tv.sh

\n
#!/bin/bash\n#echo "Series?"\nseries=Battlestar\necho "Series: $series"\necho "What Season is this?"\nread season\necho "Season: $season"\necho "Which disc # is this?"\nread disknum\necho "This is disk #$disknum"\necho "Starting with which episode?"\nread episode\n\neject -x20\nmkdir ""disc."$disknum"\nmakemkvcon mkv --progress=-same --minlength=2100 disc:0 all ""disc."$disknum"\ncd ""disc."$disknum"\n\n#episode=1\nepisode=$episode\nfor track in *.mkv\ndo\n  mv $track $series"_S"$season"_D"$disknum"_E"$episode.mkv\n  episode=$((episode+1))\ndone\n\ncd ..
\n

Script to convert multiple episodes

\n

mkv2mkv_mult.sh

\n
#!/bin/bash\nmkdir encoded\nfor i in *.mkv\ndo\n  HandBrakeCLI --first-subtitle --subtitle-default=none -i $i -o "encoded"/"`basename -s .mkv $i`.mkv"\ndone
\n

Before and after the rename loop

\n

Before rename
\n\"Before

\n

After rename
\n\"After

\n","hostid":318,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"dvd, blu-ray, backup, nnn","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":3294,"date":"2021-03-18","title":"Update to MakeMKV to back up media","duration":378,"summary":"Update to MakeMKV to back up media, now on Raspberry Pi","notes":"

Hello, this is your host Archer72 for Hacker Public Radio. In this\nepisode, I share my overly complicated media ripping setup, and hope it\nhelps someone.

\n

First of all, I have revised my media ripping setup since HPR3294 - Update to\nMakeMKV to back up media

\n

I’ve changed my mind about only using a terminal for ripping media,\nand it was time to make a change. Now, I start both MakeMKV and\nHandbrake from a remote GUI, either on my laptop or phone.

\n\n
sudo apt install tigervnc-common
\n\n
mark-hpprodesk600g2dm\n    description: Space-saving Computer\n    product: HP ProDesk 600 G2 DM (Y0E36UP#ABA)\n    vendor: HP\n    serial: xxxxxxxx \n    width: 64 bits
\n
sudo apt install nfs-kernel-server
\n

Added symbolic links to /srv/ for ease of use

\n
Oct 28 05:34 dvdrip -> /mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/DVDrip/\nOct 28 05:30 movies -> /mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/Movies/\nOct 30 05:20 tv -> /mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/TV
\n
192.168.50.20:/mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/DVDrip /mnt/dvdrip nfs users,defaults,_netdev,nofail 0 0\n192.168.50.20:/mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/TV /mnt/tv nfs\nusers,defaults,_netdev,nofail
\n\n
*-cdrom\n     description: DVD-RAM writer\n     product: BDDVDRW CH20L\n     vendor: hp\n     physical id: 0.0.0\n     bus info: scsi@9:0.0.0\n     logical name: /dev/sr1\n     version: BC33\n     capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
\n\n

MakeMKV\nvia Remmina

\n

Handbrake\nvia Remmina

","hostid":318,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"dvd, blu-ray, backup, nnn","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3295,"date":"2021-03-19","title":"Renewing a Let's Encrypt cert for Home Network use","duration":195,"summary":"How to update a cert when the automatic processes don't work","notes":"

\nBack in hpr3289 :: NextCloud the hard way, I showed you how to install a Let's Encrypt SSL cert for use on your home network. One of the problems was the fact that the automatic renew tools won't work.\n

\n

\nToday I got a reminder email from Let's Encrypt and I used the exact same command to renew it as I did to create it in the first place. The tool is smart enough to know this is a renewal process. \n

\n

\nOne thing I forgot to do last time was to remove the TXT record from DNS after I was done. So I had to delete the record and wait a while for the Time To Live (TTL) to expire.\n

\n

\nI set about doing a check list so the next time the process can be even faster.\n

\n
    \n
  1. Run the command 
    certbot certonly --manual --preferred-challenges dns
    2. \n
  2. Deploy a DNS TXT record under the name _acme-challenge.nextcloud.example.com
    3. \n
  3. Finish the challenge.
    4. \n
  4. When successful, remove the DNS TXT record as it's not needed for another two months.
    5. \n
","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"SSL, Let's Encrypt, Intranet","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3296,"date":"2021-03-22","title":"Spam Bot Honey Pot","duration":364,"summary":"Implementing a honey pot style spam filter for your HTML forms","notes":"

In this episode of Hacker Public Radio, I will describe the method I chose to combat spam bots filling out my company's contact form. About 99% of the submissions we receive are spam, which makes filtering for valid messages painful. After some research into different methods, I decided to go with the honey pot method.

\n

The honey pot method uses an extra text input field to lure the spam bot into filling it out. There are different suggestions for how to hide this extra field from valid users by using either javascript or CSS. With javascript, the honey pot section of the form is removed from the DOM when the page loads, hiding it from your users. The argument for this method is most bots don't implement javascript, so the honey pot field will not be hidden from them. I think that is a valid argument but I didn't want to include extra javascript in my page--so I went with the CSS method.

\n

There are references at the end of the show notes to a couple of the articles I read on implementing the honey pot with either javascript or CSS. My take away was, one, don't use the CSS display property set to the value of none to take the input out of the DOM. Sufficiently smart enough bots may know to scan for this, especially if applied directly to the element. Also don't name your classes something obvious to your intent like \"anti-spam-filter\". My guess is the majority of the bots out there aren't that sophisticated, but I figured it couldn't hurt to follow those suggestions.

\n

I was already using Bootstrap CSS for our site, so I decided to use Bootstrap's \"sr-only\" class. This class is used for elements that you only want visible to screen readers. It takes the element and uses a combination of absolute positioning, setting the size and width to 1 pixel, setting a negative left margin, and hiding content overflow to prevent the honey pot showing up visually. I figured if the bot was scanning CSS for classes or properties, this wouldn't trigger any warnings. It does bring up the issue of how to prevent impacting the experience of people using screen readers. I applied the aria-hidden attribute with a value of true to the label element surrounding the honey pot input field. \"[this] removes that element and all of its children from the accessibility tree.\" So we now have the field hidden both visually in the browser and from assistive technologies. Given the short end of the stick accessibility usually gets, I doubt there are any spam bots scanning for that ARIA attribute. For the minority of users who might be viewing with the classic lynx browser, I put 'For office use' as the label text before the honey pot, hoping this would get the message across without tipping off the bot to the intended purpose of the related input field.

\n

The other main issue with this method is the value of the name attribute used for the input field. Some argue to use obfuscated values like \"mmxxName\" instead of \"name\", or \"sxysPhone\" for \"phone\". Apparently some bots will skip fields they don't recognize. By using more standard names for multiple honey pot fields, it easier to determine if it is a bot. The counter argument to this naming scheme is about the user experience, by obfuscating the name, then browsers won't auto-fill the valid fields of the form. This also brings up the matter of not auto-filling the spam fields by the browser of your users. This is done by setting any of your honey pot input elements' \"autocomplete\" attributes to \"off\".

\n

So far this spam filtering method is working nicely. I currently send any messages flagged as spam to a different email address with the subject prepended with the words \"[Spam review]\". Once I am confident there are not that many false positives, I will just skip sending flagged messages. The one issue I have experienced with this method is when using the tab key to move through the form. Since the input field is only visually hidden, it still receives focus as you tab through. If you happen to hit another key while still in the hidden field, it will get captured by the honey pot and then the submission will be flagged as spam.

\n

I have created a sample form on my personal site. Please visit URL: https://www.horning.us/hpr/SpamBotHoneyPot.php to try it out. It is a simple PHP page using the GET method when submitting the form. Once you press the submit button you will see the form fields and their values, along with the result messages. I chose to use \"URL\" as the name for my honey pot input field. I use it on my example form, and I use it for my work form. For my work form, a URL is not something we ask to be submitted, and being a common field in forms, makes it very tempting for bots. In my example code, the CSS for hiding the honey pot section is from the minicss.org websites. Their \"visibility-hidden\" class is very similar to Bootstrap's \"sr-only\" class. I would be interested to hear if others have implemented something similar. I would also love to hear from someone who uses a screen reader. Does it prevent the honey pot section from being read?

\n

References

\n\n","hostid":293,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Spam, HTML, Forms","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3297,"date":"2021-03-23","title":"Nextcloud Application Updating","duration":136,"summary":"Automatically Update Nextcloud Applications via Cron","notes":"

Simple method to autoupdate nextcloud apps. An email is sent as summary of actions.

\n

Scheduled for 5 AM Sunday - Cron Entry

\n
MAILTO=MYEMAILADDRES@MYDOMAIN.com\n0 5 * * 0 /usr/bin/php /var/www/nextcloud/occ app:update --all 2>&1\n# * * * * * command to be executed\n# - - - - -\n# | | | | |\n# | | | | +----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)\n# | | | +------- month (1 - 12)\n# | | +--------- day of month (1 - 31)\n# | +----------- hour (0 - 23)\n# +------------- min (0 - 59)
\n","hostid":273,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Nextcloud,SysAdmin,Admin","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -3645,7 +3645,7 @@ {"id":3645,"date":"2022-07-22","title":"How to set up a small Linux Wireguard VPN","duration":855,"summary":"I set up a small VPN and wrote a blog post about it. This is just an audiorecording of that","notes":"

The blogpost where I describe how to set up a Wireguard VPN network:
\nhttps://www.jeroenbaten.nl/the-complete-guide-to-setting-up-a-multi-peer-wireguard-vpn/

\n","hostid":369,"series":61,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"wireguard,linux, vpn","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3646,"date":"2022-07-25","title":"arm, slackware, forth oh my!","duration":834,"summary":"a description of a laptop ","notes":"

Image 1
\n\"Image

\n

Image 2
\n\"Image

\n

Image 3
\n\"Image

\n

pi-top the company

\n\n

my pi-top 3

\n\n","hostid":326,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"raspberry pi, hardware","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3647,"date":"2022-07-26","title":"Weekend projects","duration":1004,"summary":"Rho`n rambles about some weekend projects","notes":"

Synopsis

\n\n

In this episode, Rho`n rambles about some recent weekend repair projects. The main focus of this episode is fixing a bent patio table umbrella pole, along with his attempts to fix a punctured basketball. There are some successes, some failures, and some side stories along the way.

\n\n
\n
\n\t\"Initial\n\t
\n
Intial fix using 1.25\" dowel rod and wood screws.
\n
\n
\n \"Fixed\n\t
\n
Fixed pole with epoxy resin wrap.
\n
\n
\n \"Fixed\n\t
\n
Fixed pole in regular position.
\n
\n
\n","hostid":293,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"diy, repairs, umbrella, basketball","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":3648,"date":"2022-07-27","title":"A response to tomorrows show","duration":1682,"summary":"Ken brings the DeLorean up to 141.6Kph to address monochromec's comment on stats","notes":"
\n

\nCounter Point\n

\n

\nThis show is a counter point to: hpr3649 :: Linux Inlaws S01E61: 20 years in review\n

\n
\n

There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics

\n

In today's show we discover that Hacker Public Radio is not a Podcast Hosting Platform.

\n

Each day your show will be heard by as many people as can squeeze into the main auditorium at FOSDEM, or between two and three Airbus A380-800. You know the big double decker passenger plane. Every month we have on average 33,584 downloads, that's about 40 fully loaded Airbus A380-800.

\n

\"\"

\n

Podcast \"Hosting\" Sites, like Spotify, Apple Podcast or Google Podcasts, etc. do not host the media, they are essentially monetizing Hacker Public Radio content. And we are all absolutely fine with that because our shows are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

\n

\"actual_hpr_downloads\"

\n

Every one of those dots is a download that is not without cost, but is provided entirely free of charge to us by our kind hosting Provider AnHonestHost.com and the volunteer project the Internet Archive. Both of which donates terabytes of storage and data transfer to us for free.

\n

The people to thank are our own Josh Knapp over at AnHonestHost.com, who provides the Hacker Public Radio web site.

\n

And the Internet Archive which is an American digital library with the stated mission of \"universal access to all knowledge\", who provide hosting for the media.

\n

\nFor more details, see the full show notes.\n

\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"statistics,syndication,reality","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":3648,"date":"2022-07-27","title":"A response to tomorrows show","duration":1682,"summary":"Ken brings the DeLorean up to 141.6Kph to address monochromec's comment on stats","notes":"
\n

\nCounter Point\n

\n

\nThis show is a counter point to: hpr3649 :: Linux Inlaws S01E61: 20 years in review\n

\n
\n

There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics

\n

In today's show we discover that Hacker Public Radio is not a Podcast Hosting Platform.

\n

Each day your show will be heard by as many people as can squeeze into the main auditorium at FOSDEM, or between two and three Airbus A380-800. You know the big double decker passenger plane. Every month we have on average 33,584 downloads, that's about 40 fully loaded Airbus A380-800.

\n

\"\"

\n

Podcast \"Hosting\" Sites, like Spotify, Apple Podcast or Google Podcasts, etc. do not host the media, they are essentially monetizing Hacker Public Radio content. And we are all absolutely fine with that because our shows are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

\n

\"actual_hpr_downloads\"

\n

Every one of those dots is a download that is not without cost, but is provided entirely free of charge to us by our kind hosting Provider AnHonestHost.com and the volunteer project the Internet Archive. Both of which donates terabytes of storage and data transfer to us for free.

\n

The people to thank are our own Josh Knapp over at AnHonestHost.com, who provides the Hacker Public Radio web site.

\n

And the Internet Archive which is an American digital library with the stated mission of \"universal access to all knowledge\", who provide hosting for the media.

\n

\nFor more details, see the full show notes.\n

\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"statistics,syndication,reality","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3649,"date":"2022-07-28","title":"Linux Inlaws S01E61: 20 years in review","duration":4319,"summary":"The last 20 years in review","notes":"
\n

Counter Point

\n

A counter point to this show is available: hpr3648 :: A response to tomorrows show\n

\n
\n

In this episode, Martin and Chris take a closer look at twenty years of Linux Inlaws\nhistory. Why, you may ask, given the fact that this podcast has only been in existence\nfor roughly over two years, are we reviewing this history? The answer - of course - is\nstraight forward: by sheer coincidence our two heroes got hold of a future episode\nwhich traveled back in time from the future. If you ever wondered about time-travel,\nthe paradoxes associated with this and what the next twenty years have in store not\njust from a Linux Inlaws perspective, this episode is for you.

\n\n

Links:

\n\n","hostid":384,"series":111,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Time-travel, DeLorean, D-Wave, Hello! Magazine, Calico Labs","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3650,"date":"2022-07-29","title":"Major Destinations","duration":910,"summary":"Building a plan around major destinations, and using memberships to get discounted stays.","notes":"

We continue our look at the planning process by looking at how to build a plan around major destinations, and add memberships that give discounted stays like Escapees and Passport America.

\n

Links:

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":119,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Travel, trip planning, Google Maps, Escapees, Passport America","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3651,"date":"2022-08-01","title":"HPR Community News for July 2022","duration":2963,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in July 2022","notes":"\n\n

New hosts

\n

\nWelcome to our new hosts:
\n\n binrc, \n Celeste.\n

\n\n

Last Month's Shows

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
IdDayDateTitleHost
3630Fri2022-07-01Planning an RV TripAhuka
3631Mon2022-07-04HPR Community News for June 2022HPR Volunteers
3632Tue2022-07-05Intro to web scraping with PythonKlaatu
3633Wed2022-07-06The collective history of RAID controller brandsJWP
3634Thu2022-07-07Everything You Always Wanted to Know About PEX Part 05 - PEX and the Single InstallerTrey
3635Fri2022-07-08A short podcast on a nice tool called system-monitoring-centerJeroen Baten
3636Mon2022-07-11The Importance of Data ReductionLurking Prion
3637Tue2022-07-12HPR feed to Sqlitenorrist
3638Wed2022-07-13Ken drops a bear on his android phoneKen Fallon
3639Thu2022-07-14Linux Inlaws S01E60: The Job Interviewmonochromec
3640Fri2022-07-15Expert DIR useAhuka
3641Mon2022-07-18Turntable audio capture Part 2Archer72
3642Tue2022-07-19Interview with a Hacker: Vitaliyoperat0r
3643Wed2022-07-20My computing history and the software I usebinrc
3644Thu2022-07-21Pinball Machine Repair TipsCeleste
3645Fri2022-07-22How to set up a small Linux Wireguard VPNJeroen Baten
3646Mon2022-07-25arm, slackware, forth oh my!Brian in Ohio
3647Tue2022-07-26Weekend projectsRho`n
3648Wed2022-07-27A response to tomorrows showKen Fallon
3649Thu2022-07-28Linux Inlaws S01E61: 20 years in reviewmonochromec
3650Fri2022-07-29Major DestinationsAhuka
\n\n

Comments this month

\n\n

These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows.\nThere are 18 comments in total.

\n

Past shows

\n

There are 2 comments on\n2 previous shows:

\n\n

This month's shows

\n

There are 16 comments on 9 of this month's shows:

\n\n\n

Mailing List discussions

\n

\nPolicy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This\ndiscussion takes place on the Mail List which is open to all HPR listeners and\ncontributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under\nMailman.\n

\n

The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.org/pipermail/hpr_hackerpublicradio.org/2022-July/thread.html\n\n\n

Events Calendar

\n

With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to\nThe LWN.net Community Calendar.

\n

Quoting the site:

\n
This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track\nevents of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software.\nClicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web\npage.
\n\n

Any other business

\n

Olly Clark

\n

The UK Tech community has been saddened to hear of the death of Oliver (Olly) Clark, a well known presence at OggCamp, Barcamp and Raspberry Pi meetings. He apparently died in November 2021 as a consequence of COVID-19. His family did not know who to contact in the wider community, so this news only became apparent recently.

\n\n

Older HPR shows on archive.org, phase 2

\n

Now that all shows from number 1 to the latest have been uploaded to the Internet Archive there are other tasks to perform. We are reprocessing and re-uploading shows in the range 871 to 2429 as explained in the Community News show notes released in May 2022. We are keeping a running total here to show progress:

\n\n\n\n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -3742,7 +3742,7 @@ {"id":3742,"date":"2022-12-06","title":"Battery","duration":626,"summary":"The wikipedia article on the Battery","notes":"

A battery converts chemical energy into electrical energy by a\nchemical reaction. Usually the chemicals are kept inside the battery. It\nis used in a circuit to power other components. A battery produces\ndirect current (DC) electricity (electricity that flows in one\ndirection, and does not switch back and forth).

\n

Using the electricity from an outlet in a building is cheaper and\nmore efficient, but a battery can provide electricity in areas that do\nnot have electric power distribution. It is also useful for things that\nmove, such as electric vehicles and mobile phones.

\n

Batteries may be primary or secondary. The primary is thrown away\nwhen it can no longer provide electricity. The secondary can be\nrecharged and reused.

\n

Continue Reading\non Wikipedia

\n","hostid":30,"series":43,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"battery, cell, ham, wikipedia","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3743,"date":"2022-12-07","title":"HPR News","duration":575,"summary":"News for the Community, by the Community.","notes":"

HPR NEWS

\n

News for the community,\nby the community.

\n\n

User space.

\n\n","hostid":391,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Malware, Security Breach, Meta, HPR News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3744,"date":"2022-12-08","title":"Advent of code Day 1 - 4","duration":308,"summary":"Talking about my experience of advent of code so far","notes":"

Advent of code:

\n

https://adventofcode.com/

\n

Here are some links to the recording of my puzzle-solving:

\n\n","hostid":382,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"advent of code, aoc, java","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":3745,"date":"2022-12-09","title":"Pinecil walkthrough","duration":525,"summary":"Details of the Pinecil soldering iron menu with a secret menu","notes":"

Pinecil – a RISC-V powered, open and versatile soldering iron. It can\nbe
powered via USB-C PD as well as a DC5525 jack, and runs\ncommunity developed
software. Moreover, it is compatible with\npopular TS-100 tips. All this at half
the price of the\ncompetition.

\n

Pine64 Pinecil

\n

Version

\n\n

Secret setting

\n\n

\n

\n

Menu

\n\n","hostid":318,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"soldering, soldering iron, Pinecil, menu","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":3745,"date":"2022-12-09","title":"Pinecil walkthrough","duration":525,"summary":"Details of the Pinecil soldering iron menu with a secret menu","notes":"

Pinecil – a RISC-V powered, open and versatile soldering iron. It can\nbe
powered via USB-C PD as well as a DC5525 jack, and runs\ncommunity developed
software. Moreover, it is compatible with\npopular TS-100 tips. All this at half
the price of the\ncompetition.

\n

Pine64 Pinecil

\n

Version

\n\n

Secret setting

\n\n

\n

\n

Menu

\n\n","hostid":318,"series":103,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"soldering, soldering iron, Pinecil, menu","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3746,"date":"2022-12-12","title":"Cpuinfo","duration":894,"summary":"How to get CPU info on Linux","notes":"

Various ways to get information about your CPU on Linux.

\n","hostid":78,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"cpu,utilities,programming","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3747,"date":"2022-12-13","title":"Twitter and Dinner with the Humans","duration":1614,"summary":"I talk about Twitter after dinner with some Humans","notes":"

Reality 2.0 Podcast
\nhttps://www.reality2cast.com/

\n","hostid":377,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Dinner,Humans,Twitter","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":3748,"date":"2022-12-14","title":"The Squirrels gift to HPR","duration":569,"summary":"The Squirrels have modified Bash Podder to do something different","notes":"

Humans,

\n

Download the following compressed tar file containing the Squirrels\nPodcast thingie.

\n

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1akf74fhM6s1DtDFPhrVvvbKXkzCCa4JQ/view?usp=sharing

\n

Untar the thingie;

\n
tar -zxvf PODTHING
\n

explore the subdirectories it created.

\n

You can copy the Media_Gift directory to where ever you want it to\nreside and even rename it\nmv Media_Gift /home/me/mythingie

\n

install your own korn shell {KSH} or modify the bashpodder.shell\nscripts located inside to point to where ever you keep bash on your\nsystem.

\n

Run the entire script from the Media_Gift directory

\n
./get_all_podcasts
\n

Enjoy Humans. All Squirrels love all humans. Happy Holidays. Eat more\nnuts.

\n","hostid":377,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"podcastcatcher,bashpoddermod","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -4197,7 +4197,7 @@ {"id":4197,"date":"2024-09-03","title":"After 5 years away, OggCamp is back in 2024!","duration":1083,"summary":"Ken interviews Gary Williams about rebooting the OggCamp meetup","notes":"\n

Ken interviews Gary Williams about rebooting the OggCamp meetup

https://oggcamp.org/

\n\n

After 5 years away, OggCamp is back in 2024!

\n\n

Want to talk on our scheduled track? CfP is now open!

\n\n

OggCamp Tickets are now available! Visit tickets to find out more and secure your place.

\n\n

We’re at The Manchester Conference Centre in the Pendulum Hotel near Piccadilly Station the weekend of October 12th and 13th 2024.

\n\n
\n\n\n

STAY IN TOUCH

\n\n

Follow us on Mastodon,\nBluesky,\nTwitter or Facebook and we’ll update you with any important news. There is also a Telegram group, an IRC channel (also available via WebChat), a Matrix Room and a Discord Server.

\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"OggCamp, Manchester, BarCamp.","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4198,"date":"2024-09-04","title":"Are hobbies pathological?","duration":755,"summary":"Personal reflections on hobbies, obsessive interests and mental health","notes":"

\"Science

\n\n

Atari\n8 bit computers Atari ST

\n

RM Nimbus

\n

Dark\nConspiracy

\n

Autism

\n

Local\nExchange Trading Systems

\n

PowerBook

\n","hostid":403,"series":29,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"retro-computing, mental health, role-playing","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4199,"date":"2024-09-05","title":" HPR New Years Eve Show 2023 - 24 ep 7","duration":7179,"summary":"The HPR community comes together to converse","notes":"\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"new years, linux, community.","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4200,"date":"2024-09-06","title":"Intro to Doctor Who","duration":1128,"summary":"An introduction to one of my favorites, Doctor Who","notes":"

This introduction is an overview of Doctor Who from its beginnings in\n1963 right up to the end of 2023. We look at the television series and\nmovies, as well as appearances in other media. Many of these will be\nthings we go into more detail about later, but this helps to put the\npieces in place first.

\n

Links:

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, TV, movies","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4200,"date":"2024-09-06","title":"Intro to Doctor Who","duration":1128,"summary":"An introduction to one of my favorites, Doctor Who","notes":"

This introduction is an overview of Doctor Who from its beginnings in\n1963 right up to the end of 2023. We look at the television series and\nmovies, as well as appearances in other media. Many of these will be\nthings we go into more detail about later, but this helps to put the\npieces in place first.

\n\n\n

Intro

Intro to Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n\n

As you can easily see looking at this site, I am a fan of Doctor Who. And I have been for many years. For me it started in the early 1970s when I came across the Jon Pertwee stories on a UHF channel in Boston. I really liked the stories, but didn’t know anything about the background. Jon Pertwee was actually the third person to portray the Doctor, but I didn’t know anything about that. He dressed in evening clothes and a cape, and drove a classic yellow car that he called Bessie. Then one day I tuned in and they had some goofy looking guy in big floppy hat and a long scarf running around and calling himself the Doctor. I was totally put off by that, which delayed my introduction to Doctor #4, Tom Baker.

\n\n\n\n

After moving from Boston to Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1981, I found that my local Public Television station was playing stories of Doctor Who late on Saturday night, and got back into the show. It was very popular on that station, and I have since learned that many of our Public Television stations similarly played Doctor Who. And I quickly learned that many different actors had portrayed the Doctor over the years. But the first two were never shown on our Public Television station because they were black-and-white. I did see them later on, though. And it looked like the show ended in 1989 when the BBC announced an “indefinite hiatus”. Then there was a movie done in 1996 as a co-production between the BBC and the Fox Network. It was intended as a pilot for a revived series which thankfully never happened, because the Fox Network would have made it an American show, and Doctor Who should always be British.

\n\n\n\n

Other Options

\n\n\n\n

But the idea would not die. A company called BBV Productions was founded in 1991 and created videos using the original Doctor Who cast members. A good example is The Airzone Solution, whose cast includes Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3), Peter Davison (Doctor #5), Colin Baker (Doctor #6), Sylvester McCoy (Doctor #7), and Nicola Bryant (companion to Doctors 5 and 6). Another company called Reeltime Pictures was founded in 1984 by Keith Barnfather, a founding member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and created documentaries about the series, as well as spin-off stories using characters they could license from the authors. You see, in Britain it was apparently normal for the authors to retain the commercial rights to the characters they created, the most important example being the Daleks which were created by Terry Nation and are still owned by his Estate. Reeltime brought in a British actor named Nicholas Briggs to act as host for some of their documentaries. He later became a principal member at Big Finish, which started to created audio dramas of Doctor Who in 1996, and later added dramas from other shows like The Prisoner. Nicholas Briggs has gone on to be the voice of the Daleks. But as you can see fans demanded more Doctor Who, and since the BBC wasn’t giving it to them, other companies stepped in to fill the void.

\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile there were print properties for fans to get their fix. Doctor Who Magazine was started in 1979, and has published continuously ever since. You can get it in the USA, but it is expensive since it is shipped from England, so unless you are a total fan you might skip it. And there have been novelizations of the stories in a series from Target which fans enjoy because the novelizations expand on the story as presented on television and offer additional information.

\n\n\n\n

The Return of Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

All of this activity eventually caught the attention of the BBC. Following the 1996 movie co-production, which Fox declined to pick up an option on, the BBC attempted to find backers for another movie, without success. As this was going on, BBC Wales approached a successful writer from Wales named Russell T. Davies to see if he would create a new show for them. His response was that he did not want to do a new show, he wanted to bring back Doctor Who, and everything aligned. in 2003 the BBC announced that Doctor Who would be coming back with Davies as the head writer and showrunner. This new series of shows began in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, and became an immediate hit. But because of the 26 year gap between shows, many things had changed. The budgets had gotten a bit larger, the technology had improved, and there was a distinct difference. So now people refer to Classic Who as the series from 1963 to 1989, and Nu Who as the series from 2005 on.

\n\n\n\n

And there may be another breakpoint coming up. In 2015 two of the original BBC Wales production team for Doctor Who, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter, left BBC Worldwide to set up their own production company called Bad Wolf Ltd., the name being taken from the 2005 series of Doctor Who. Then in 2017 they set up a new studio in Cardiff called Wolf Studios Wales. and in 2021 they announced two things: first, that Bad Wolf would take over production of Doctor Who beginning in 2023; and second, that Sony Pictures had purchased a majority share of Bad Wolf bringing in more money. Then in late 2022 it was announced that Disney Plus had made a deal with the BBC to get all streaming rights to Doctor Who outside of the UK. For UK residents, the BBC would still be the source for Doctor Who, and all available episodes, over 800, plus other material would be found on what they call the Whoniverse, an online platform that is for UK residents only. Disney Plus would get streaming rights to the 3 David Tennant specials in 2023, and then everything going forward from there. Davies has said that this will provide a lot of cash to help improve the show further, which is all to the good, but I hope they don’t screw it up.

\n\n\n\n

Davies has said that he thinks Doctor Who should be another big sprawling property like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and has plans for additional spin-offs from Doctor Who. It seems pretty clear right now that one of them will probably be series around UNIT, a kind of military organization the show has had going back to the 1960s. And he has done this before, such as with Torchwood, which was reasonably successful.

\n\n\n\n

Getting Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

Streaming

\n\n\n\n

If you are in the UK, it is simple: Whoniverse is your one-stop shopping for all Doctor Who streaming. Outside of the UK, it is bit more complicated. Starting from the 2023 specials and going forward, Disney Plus has the rights in every country of the rest of the world. I would imagine their global reach is pretty inclusive. But what about everything that went before? I think this may depend on where you live, and I cannot tell you anything about other countries. In the US, the Classic Who series from 1963 to 1989 can be streamed from BritBox, and the Nu Who series prior to 2023 can be viewed on Max. Tubi.TV is a free streaming service that has a lot of the Classic shows. Apple TV Plus also has most of the new stuff and some of the Classic stuff. And you can purchase episodes at the usual places like Amazon Prime Video and Google Play

\n\n\n\n

DVDs

\n\n\n\n

The BBC has been licensing BluRay box sets of all of the shows up through the end of 2022. What will happen going forward with Disney in the mix is anyone’s guess. The Classic Who shows from 1963 to 1989 have been coming out as one year at a time sets, with each year being a single series. They are not all done yet, they have been coming out at the rate of about 2 a year. But they are good value, since they not only have all of the shows but a lot of extras. I have been buying them as they have been released. Generally thy are released first in the UK, and hit the US about 6 months later. For the NuWho from 2005-2022, you can get sets of the entire run of a given doctor (often 3 years worth), which is even a better value.

\n\n\n\n

Internet

\n\n\n\n

There are other sources of Doctor Who content on the Internet such as Web sites, discussion boards, and Usenet News Groups. You can find them using the usual search engine strategies

\n\n\n\n

Summary

\n\n\n\n

This has been a general introduction to a revered classic program, and has only scratched the surface. I plan to dive into some topics in more detail, looking at the Classic show in particular since I think fewer people know much about them. And I will start by looking at how the program actually started in 1963, and how those early shows set the pattern for what is being produced today.

Intro to Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n\n

As you can easily see looking at this site, I am a fan of Doctor Who. And I have been for many years. For me it started in the early 1970s when I came across the Jon Pertwee stories on a UHF channel in Boston. I really liked the stories, but didn’t know anything about the background. Jon Pertwee was actually the third person to portray the Doctor, but I didn’t know anything about that. He dressed in evening clothes and a cape, and drove a classic yellow car that he called Bessie. Then one day I tuned in and they had some goofy looking guy in big floppy hat and a long scarf running around and calling himself the Doctor. I was totally put off by that, which delayed my introduction to Doctor #4, Tom Baker.

\n\n\n\n

After moving from Boston to Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1981, I found that my local Public Television station was playing stories of Doctor Who late on Saturday night, and got back into the show. It was very popular on that station, and I have since learned that many of our Public Television stations similarly played Doctor Who. And I quickly learned that many different actors had portrayed the Doctor over the years. But the first two were never shown on our Public Television station because they were black-and-white. I did see them later on, though. And it looked like the show ended in 1989 when the BBC announced an “indefinite hiatus”. Then there was a movie done in 1996 as a co-production between the BBC and the Fox Network. It was intended as a pilot for a revived series which thankfully never happened, because the Fox Network would have made it an American show, and Doctor Who should always be British.

\n\n\n\n

Other Options

\n\n\n\n

But the idea would not die. A company called BBV Productions was founded in 1991 and created videos using the original Doctor Who cast members. A good example is The Airzone Solution, whose cast includes Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3), Peter Davison (Doctor #5), Colin Baker (Doctor #6), Sylvester McCoy (Doctor #7), and Nicola Bryant (companion to Doctors 5 and 6). Another company called Reeltime Pictures was founded in 1984 by Keith Barnfather, a founding member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and created documentaries about the series, as well as spin-off stories using characters they could license from the authors. You see, in Britain it was apparently normal for the authors to retain the commercial rights to the characters they created, the most important example being the Daleks which were created by Terry Nation and are still owned by his Estate. Reeltime brought in a British actor named Nicholas Briggs to act as host for some of their documentaries. He later became a principal member at Big Finish, which started to created audio dramas of Doctor Who in 1996, and later added dramas from other shows like The Prisoner. Nicholas Briggs has gone on to be the voice of the Daleks. But as you can see fans demanded more Doctor Who, and since the BBC wasn’t giving it to them, other companies stepped in to fill the void.

\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile there were print properties for fans to get their fix. Doctor Who Magazine was started in 1979, and has published continuously ever since. You can get it in the USA, but it is expensive since it is shipped from England, so unless you are a total fan you might skip it. And there have been novelizations of the stories in a series from Target which fans enjoy because the novelizations expand on the story as presented on television and offer additional information.

\n\n\n\n

The Return of Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

All of this activity eventually caught the attention of the BBC. Following the 1996 movie co-production, which Fox declined to pick up an option on, the BBC attempted to find backers for another movie, without success. As this was going on, BBC Wales approached a successful writer from Wales named Russell T. Davies to see if he would create a new show for them. His response was that he did not want to do a new show, he wanted to bring back Doctor Who, and everything aligned. in 2003 the BBC announced that Doctor Who would be coming back with Davies as the head writer and showrunner. This new series of shows began in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, and became an immediate hit. But because of the 26 year gap between shows, many things had changed. The budgets had gotten a bit larger, the technology had improved, and there was a distinct difference. So now people refer to Classic Who as the series from 1963 to 1989, and Nu Who as the series from 2005 on.

\n\n\n\n

And there may be another breakpoint coming up. In 2015 two of the original BBC Wales production team for Doctor Who, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter, left BBC Worldwide to set up their own production company called Bad Wolf Ltd., the name being taken from the 2005 series of Doctor Who. Then in 2017 they set up a new studio in Cardiff called Wolf Studios Wales. and in 2021 they announced two things: first, that Bad Wolf would take over production of Doctor Who beginning in 2023; and second, that Sony Pictures had purchased a majority share of Bad Wolf bringing in more money. Then in late 2022 it was announced that Disney Plus had made a deal with the BBC to get all streaming rights to Doctor Who outside of the UK. For UK residents, the BBC would still be the source for Doctor Who, and all available episodes, over 800, plus other material would be found on what they call the Whoniverse, an online platform that is for UK residents only. Disney Plus would get streaming rights to the 3 David Tennant specials in 2023, and then everything going forward from there. Davies has said that this will provide a lot of cash to help improve the show further, which is all to the good, but I hope they don’t screw it up.

\n\n\n\n

Davies has said that he thinks Doctor Who should be another big sprawling property like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and has plans for additional spin-offs from Doctor Who. It seems pretty clear right now that one of them will probably be series around UNIT, a kind of military organization the show has had going back to the 1960s. And he has done this before, such as with Torchwood, which was reasonably successful.

\n\n\n\n

Getting Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

Streaming

\n\n\n\n

If you are in the UK, it is simple: Whoniverse is your one-stop shopping for all Doctor Who streaming. Outside of the UK, it is bit more complicated. Starting from the 2023 specials and going forward, Disney Plus has the rights in every country of the rest of the world. I would imagine their global reach is pretty inclusive. But what about everything that went before? I think this may depend on where you live, and I cannot tell you anything about other countries. In the US, the Classic Who series from 1963 to 1989 can be streamed from BritBox, and the Nu Who series prior to 2023 can be viewed on Max. Tubi.TV is a free streaming service that has a lot of the Classic shows. Apple TV Plus also has most of the new stuff and some of the Classic stuff. And you can purchase episodes at the usual places like Amazon Prime Video and Google Play

\n\n\n\n

DVDs

\n\n\n\n

The BBC has been licensing BluRay box sets of all of the shows up through the end of 2022. What will happen going forward with Disney in the mix is anyone’s guess. The Classic Who shows from 1963 to 1989 have been coming out as one year at a time sets, with each year being a single series. They are not all done yet, they have been coming out at the rate of about 2 a year. But they are good value, since they not only have all of the shows but a lot of extras. I have been buying them as they have been released. Generally thy are released first in the UK, and hit the US about 6 months later. For the NuWho from 2005-2022, you can get sets of the entire run of a given doctor (often 3 years worth), which is even a better value.

\n\n\n\n

Internet

\n\n\n\n

There are other sources of Doctor Who content on the Internet such as Web sites, discussion boards, and Usenet News Groups. You can find them using the usual search engine strategies

\n\n\n\n

Summary

\n\n\n\n

This has been a general introduction to a revered classic program, and has only scratched the surface. I plan to dive into some topics in more detail, looking at the Classic show in particular since I think fewer people know much about them. And I will start by looking at how the program actually started in 1963, and how those early shows set the pattern for what is being produced today.

to Doctor Who\n\n\n\n\n

As you can easily see looking at this site, I am a fan of Doctor Who. And I have been for many years. For me it started in the early 1970s when I came across the Jon Pertwee stories on a UHF channel in Boston. I really liked the stories, but didn’t know anything about the background. Jon Pertwee was actually the third person to portray the Doctor, but I didn’t know anything about that. He dressed in evening clothes and a cape, and drove a classic yellow car that he called Bessie. Then one day I tuned in and they had some goofy looking guy in big floppy hat and a long scarf running around and calling himself the Doctor. I was totally put off by that, which delayed my introduction to Doctor #4, Tom Baker.

\n\n\n\n

After moving from Boston to Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1981, I found that my local Public Television station was playing stories of Doctor Who late on Saturday night, and got back into the show. It was very popular on that station, and I have since learned that many of our Public Television stations similarly played Doctor Who. And I quickly learned that many different actors had portrayed the Doctor over the years. But the first two were never shown on our Public Television station because they were black-and-white. I did see them later on, though. And it looked like the show ended in 1989 when the BBC announced an “indefinite hiatus”. Then there was a movie done in 1996 as a co-production between the BBC and the Fox Network. It was intended as a pilot for a revived series which thankfully never happened, because the Fox Network would have made it an American show, and Doctor Who should always be British.

\n\n\n\n

Other Options

\n\n\n\n

But the idea would not die. A company called BBV Productions was founded in 1991 and created videos using the original Doctor Who cast members. A good example is The Airzone Solution, whose cast includes Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3), Peter Davison (Doctor #5), Colin Baker (Doctor #6), Sylvester McCoy (Doctor #7), and Nicola Bryant (companion to Doctors 5 and 6). Another company called Reeltime Pictures was founded in 1984 by Keith Barnfather, a founding member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and created documentaries about the series, as well as spin-off stories using characters they could license from the authors. You see, in Britain it was apparently normal for the authors to retain the commercial rights to the characters they created, the most important example being the Daleks which were created by Terry Nation and are still owned by his Estate. Reeltime brought in a British actor named Nicholas Briggs to act as host for some of their documentaries. He later became a principal member at Big Finish, which started to created audio dramas of Doctor Who in 1996, and later added dramas from other shows like The Prisoner. Nicholas Briggs has gone on to be the voice of the Daleks. But as you can see fans demanded more Doctor Who, and since the BBC wasn’t giving it to them, other companies stepped in to fill the void.

\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile there were print properties for fans to get their fix. Doctor Who Magazine was started in 1979, and has published continuously ever since. You can get it in the USA, but it is expensive since it is shipped from England, so unless you are a total fan you might skip it. And there have been novelizations of the stories in a series from Target which fans enjoy because the novelizations expand on the story as presented on television and offer additional information.

\n\n\n\n

The Return of Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

All of this activity eventually caught the attention of the BBC. Following the 1996 movie co-production, which Fox declined to pick up an option on, the BBC attempted to find backers for another movie, without success. As this was going on, BBC Wales approached a successful writer from Wales named Russell T. Davies to see if he would create a new show for them. His response was that he did not want to do a new show, he wanted to bring back Doctor Who, and everything aligned. in 2003 the BBC announced that Doctor Who would be coming back with Davies as the head writer and showrunner. This new series of shows began in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, and became an immediate hit. But because of the 26 year gap between shows, many things had changed. The budgets had gotten a bit larger, the technology had improved, and there was a distinct difference. So now people refer to Classic Who as the series from 1963 to 1989, and Nu Who as the series from 2005 on.

\n\n\n\n

And there may be another breakpoint coming up. In 2015 two of the original BBC Wales production team for Doctor Who, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter, left BBC Worldwide to set up their own production company called Bad Wolf Ltd., the name being taken from the 2005 series of Doctor Who. Then in 2017 they set up a new studio in Cardiff called Wolf Studios Wales. and in 2021 they announced two things: first, that Bad Wolf would take over production of Doctor Who beginning in 2023; and second, that Sony Pictures had purchased a majority share of Bad Wolf bringing in more money. Then in late 2022 it was announced that Disney Plus had made a deal with the BBC to get all streaming rights to Doctor Who outside of the UK. For UK residents, the BBC would still be the source for Doctor Who, and all available episodes, over 800, plus other material would be found on what they call the Whoniverse, an online platform that is for UK residents only. Disney Plus would get streaming rights to the 3 David Tennant specials in 2023, and then everything going forward from there. Davies has said that this will provide a lot of cash to help improve the show further, which is all to the good, but I hope they don’t screw it up.

\n\n\n\n

Davies has said that he thinks Doctor Who should be another big sprawling property like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and has plans for additional spin-offs from Doctor Who. It seems pretty clear right now that one of them will probably be series around UNIT, a kind of military organization the show has had going back to the 1960s. And he has done this before, such as with Torchwood, which was reasonably successful.

\n\n\n\n

Getting Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

Streaming

\n\n\n\n

If you are in the UK, it is simple: Whoniverse is your one-stop shopping for all Doctor Who streaming. Outside of the UK, it is bit more complicated. Starting from the 2023 specials and going forward, Disney Plus has the rights in every country of the rest of the world. I would imagine their global reach is pretty inclusive. But what about everything that went before? I think this may depend on where you live, and I cannot tell you anything about other countries. In the US, the Classic Who series from 1963 to 1989 can be streamed from BritBox, and the Nu Who series prior to 2023 can be viewed on Max. Tubi.TV is a free streaming service that has a lot of the Classic shows. Apple TV Plus also has most of the new stuff and some of the Classic stuff. And you can purchase episodes at the usual places like Amazon Prime Video and Google Play

\n\n\n\n

DVDs

\n\n\n\n

The BBC has been licensing BluRay box sets of all of the shows up through the end of 2022. What will happen going forward with Disney in the mix is anyone’s guess. The Classic Who shows from 1963 to 1989 have been coming out as one year at a time sets, with each year being a single series. They are not all done yet, they have been coming out at the rate of about 2 a year. But they are good value, since they not only have all of the shows but a lot of extras. I have been buying them as they have been released. Generally thy are released first in the UK, and hit the US about 6 months later. For the NuWho from 2005-2022, you can get sets of the entire run of a given doctor (often 3 years worth), which is even a better value.

\n\n\n\n

Internet

\n\n\n\n

There are other sources of Doctor Who content on the Internet such as Web sites, discussion boards, and Usenet News Groups. You can find them using the usual search engine strategies

\n\n\n\n

Summary

\n\n\n\n

This has been a general introduction to a revered classic program, and has only scratched the surface. I plan to dive into some topics in more detail, looking at the Classic show in particular since I think fewer people know much about them. And I will start by looking at how the program actually started in 1963, and how those early shows set the pattern for what is being produced today.

Intro to Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n\n

As you can easily see looking at this site, I am a fan of Doctor Who. And I have been for many years. For me it started in the early 1970s when I came across the Jon Pertwee stories on a UHF channel in Boston. I really liked the stories, but didn’t know anything about the background. Jon Pertwee was actually the third person to portray the Doctor, but I didn’t know anything about that. He dressed in evening clothes and a cape, and drove a classic yellow car that he called Bessie. Then one day I tuned in and they had some goofy looking guy in big floppy hat and a long scarf running around and calling himself the Doctor. I was totally put off by that, which delayed my introduction to Doctor #4, Tom Baker.

\n\n\n\n

After moving from Boston to Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1981, I found that my local Public Television station was playing stories of Doctor Who late on Saturday night, and got back into the show. It was very popular on that station, and I have since learned that many of our Public Television stations similarly played Doctor Who. And I quickly learned that many different actors had portrayed the Doctor over the years. But the first two were never shown on our Public Television station because they were black-and-white. I did see them later on, though. And it looked like the show ended in 1989 when the BBC announced an “indefinite hiatus”. Then there was a movie done in 1996 as a co-production between the BBC and the Fox Network. It was intended as a pilot for a revived series which thankfully never happened, because the Fox Network would have made it an American show, and Doctor Who should always be British.

\n\n\n\n

Other Options

\n\n\n\n

But the idea would not die. A company called BBV Productions was founded in 1991 and created videos using the original Doctor Who cast members. A good example is The Airzone Solution, whose cast includes Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3), Peter Davison (Doctor #5), Colin Baker (Doctor #6), Sylvester McCoy (Doctor #7), and Nicola Bryant (companion to Doctors 5 and 6). Another company called Reeltime Pictures was founded in 1984 by Keith Barnfather, a founding member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and created documentaries about the series, as well as spin-off stories using characters they could license from the authors. You see, in Britain it was apparently normal for the authors to retain the commercial rights to the characters they created, the most important example being the Daleks which were created by Terry Nation and are still owned by his Estate. Reeltime brought in a British actor named Nicholas Briggs to act as host for some of their documentaries. He later became a principal member at Big Finish, which started to created audio dramas of Doctor Who in 1996, and later added dramas from other shows like The Prisoner. Nicholas Briggs has gone on to be the voice of the Daleks. But as you can see fans demanded more Doctor Who, and since the BBC wasn’t giving it to them, other companies stepped in to fill the void.

\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile there were print properties for fans to get their fix. Doctor Who Magazine was started in 1979, and has published continuously ever since. You can get it in the USA, but it is expensive since it is shipped from England, so unless you are a total fan you might skip it. And there have been novelizations of the stories in a series from Target which fans enjoy because the novelizations expand on the story as presented on television and offer additional information.

\n\n\n\n

The Return of Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

All of this activity eventually caught the attention of the BBC. Following the 1996 movie co-production, which Fox declined to pick up an option on, the BBC attempted to find backers for another movie, without success. As this was going on, BBC Wales approached a successful writer from Wales named Russell T. Davies to see if he would create a new show for them. His response was that he did not want to do a new show, he wanted to bring back Doctor Who, and everything aligned. in 2003 the BBC announced that Doctor Who would be coming back with Davies as the head writer and showrunner. This new series of shows began in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, and became an immediate hit. But because of the 26 year gap between shows, many things had changed. The budgets had gotten a bit larger, the technology had improved, and there was a distinct difference. So now people refer to Classic Who as the series from 1963 to 1989, and Nu Who as the series from 2005 on.

\n\n\n\n

And there may be another breakpoint coming up. In 2015 two of the original BBC Wales production team for Doctor Who, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter, left BBC Worldwide to set up their own production company called Bad Wolf Ltd., the name being taken from the 2005 series of Doctor Who. Then in 2017 they set up a new studio in Cardiff called Wolf Studios Wales. and in 2021 they announced two things: first, that Bad Wolf would take over production of Doctor Who beginning in 2023; and second, that Sony Pictures had purchased a majority share of Bad Wolf bringing in more money. Then in late 2022 it was announced that Disney Plus had made a deal with the BBC to get all streaming rights to Doctor Who outside of the UK. For UK residents, the BBC would still be the source for Doctor Who, and all available episodes, over 800, plus other material would be found on what they call the Whoniverse, an online platform that is for UK residents only. Disney Plus would get streaming rights to the 3 David Tennant specials in 2023, and then everything going forward from there. Davies has said that this will provide a lot of cash to help improve the show further, which is all to the good, but I hope they don’t screw it up.

\n\n\n\n

Davies has said that he thinks Doctor Who should be another big sprawling property like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and has plans for additional spin-offs from Doctor Who. It seems pretty clear right now that one of them will probably be series around UNIT, a kind of military organization the show has had going back to the 1960s. And he has done this before, such as with Torchwood, which was reasonably successful.

\n\n\n\n

Getting Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

Streaming

\n\n\n\n

If you are in the UK, it is simple: Whoniverse is your one-stop shopping for all Doctor Who streaming. Outside of the UK, it is bit more complicated. Starting from the 2023 specials and going forward, Disney Plus has the rights in every country of the rest of the world. I would imagine their global reach is pretty inclusive. But what about everything that went before? I think this may depend on where you live, and I cannot tell you anything about other countries. In the US, the Classic Who series from 1963 to 1989 can be streamed from BritBox, and the Nu Who series prior to 2023 can be viewed on Max. Tubi.TV is a free streaming service that has a lot of the Classic shows. Apple TV Plus also has most of the new stuff and some of the Classic stuff. And you can purchase episodes at the usual places like Amazon Prime Video and Google Play

\n\n\n\n

DVDs

\n\n\n\n

The BBC has been licensing BluRay box sets of all of the shows up through the end of 2022. What will happen going forward with Disney in the mix is anyone’s guess. The Classic Who shows from 1963 to 1989 have been coming out as one year at a time sets, with each year being a single series. They are not all done yet, they have been coming out at the rate of about 2 a year. But they are good value, since they not only have all of the shows but a lot of extras. I have been buying them as they have been released. Generally thy are released first in the UK, and hit the US about 6 months later. For the NuWho from 2005-2022, you can get sets of the entire run of a given doctor (often 3 years worth), which is even a better value.

\n\n\n\n

Internet

\n\n\n\n

There are other sources of Doctor Who content on the Internet such as Web sites, discussion boards, and Usenet News Groups. You can find them using the usual search engine strategies

\n\n\n\n

Summary

\n\n\n\n

This has been a general introduction to a revered classic program, and has only scratched the surface. I plan to dive into some topics in more detail, looking at the Classic show in particular since I think fewer people know much about them. And I will start by looking at how the program actually started in 1963, and how those early shows set the pattern for what is being produced today.

\n\n

Links:

\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, TV, movies","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4201,"date":"2024-09-09","title":"Today I learnt (2024-08-23)","duration":1301,"summary":"Some random technical items this time","notes":"
\n

TIL 1:\nIncrementing times with the date command

\n\n
    $ date -d '16:27:16 + 3 hours' +%T\n    15:27:16
\n\n
    $ date -d '16:27:16 UTC + 3 hours' +%T\n    20:27:16
\n\n
    $ date -u -d '16:27:16 UTC + 3 hours' +%T\n    19:27:16
\n\n
    $ current='06:27:55'\n    $ next=$(date -u -d "${current}UTC + 3 hours 3 minutes" +%T); echo "$next UTC / $(date -d "${next} UTC" +'%T %Z')"\n    09:30:55 UTC / 10:30:55 BST\n    $ current=$next\n    $ next=$(date -u -d "${current}UTC + 3 hours 3 minutes" +%T); echo "$next UTC / $(date -d "${next} UTC" +'%T %Z')"\n    12:33:55 UTC / 13:33:55 BST\n    $ current=$next\n    $ next=$(date -u -d "${current}UTC + 3 hours 3 minutes" +%T); echo "$next UTC / $(date -d "${next} UTC" +'%T %Z')"\n    15:36:55 UTC / 16:36:55 BST
\n

TIL 1: Links

\n\n
\n

TIL 2: Merging lines of\nfiles with paste

\n\n
    paste [OPTION]... [FILE]...
\n\n
    $ printf '%s\n' {1..10} | paste -s -d, -\n    1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
\n\n
    $ paste -s -d, <(printf '%s\n' {1..10})\n    1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
\n\n
    $ paste -d'|' <(printf '%d\n' {1..7}) <(printf '%s\n' {A..G}) <(printf '%d\n' {100..106})\n    1|A|100\n    2|B|101\n    3|C|102\n    4|D|103\n    5|E|104\n    6|F|105\n    7|G|106
\n\n
    $ paste -s -d'|' <(printf '%d\n' {1..7}) <(printf '%s\n' {A..G}) <(printf '%d\n' {100..106})\n    1|2|3|4|5|6|7\n    A|B|C|D|E|F|G\n    100|101|102|103|104|105|106
\n\n
    $ echo "select episode_id from repairs where repair_date is null order by episode_id desc limit 5" |\\n    sqlite3 -list ~/HPR/InternetArchive/ia.db | paste -s -d',' -\n    1959,1952,1951,1946,1941
\n

TIL 2: Links

\n\n
\n","hostid":225,"series":123,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"TIL, date, paste","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4202,"date":"2024-09-10","title":"Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood HF Radio Part 3","duration":1110,"summary":"Part 3 deals with the replacement of the clock backup battery on my TS-940S","notes":"

Picture 1
\n
\nshows the radio hanging over the edge with the front panel rotated down\nbefore rotating it back into place. It shows the cramped working\ncondition I had to deal with.

\n

Link to the\nYouTube video I used that described the process of removing the two\nbackup batteries in a Kenwood TS-940S. The video was very useful and\ninformative however as usual it looked far easier than it actually was\nor perhaps I’m just rubbish at taking radios apart.

\n

Picture 2
\n
\nshows the clock display immediately after first switch on with the\ndisplay not working properly.

\n

Picture 3
\n
\nshows the correct clock display after pushing an internal reset button.\nI think the picture shows the alarm and timer settings. It eventually\ndisplays the correct time once it was setup. Unfortunately I forgot to\ntake a picture of the final clock display.

\n

Link to\nTechMoan You-tube episode where the hi-fi was destroyed by a leaking\nbattery (Sony’s self-destructing MD Recorder from 2070).

\n

Wikipedia\narticle about an S0239 connector. This being the Antenna connector which\nI had to re-connect before being able to work on the radio.

\n","hostid":201,"series":43,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Amateur, Radio, DIY, repair, electronics, soldering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4203,"date":"2024-09-11","title":"Setup DuckDNS on a Raspberry Pi","duration":1036,"summary":"Kevie discusses Dynamic DNS and how to setup DuckDNS on a Raspberry Pi","notes":"

Kevie, co-host of TuxJam, discusses what a Dynamic DNS is and also introduces the free service DuckDNS. To complete this project you are going to need:

\n\n

The first thing that we will need to do is to go to the DuckDNS website, sign in using your preferred method, once you complete the captcha then you will be given your unique token (copy or take a note of it, but don't share this with anybody).

\n

Next you will want to create your own unique address, type in your chosen domain and click on Add Domain.

\n

Now it is time to setup your Raspberry Pi. Log into your Pi and open a terminal. The first thing that we will do is make sure that it is up to date:

\nsudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y\n

Install Curl using the command:

\nsudo apt install curl\n

You will now create two new folders, the first is where the script will be kept, the second to store the logs:

\nsudo mkdir /opt/duckdns/ && sudo mkdir /var/log/duckdns/\n

We need to add a bash script that will update your IP with the DuckDNS service. First of all create a new file called duck.sh with the code:

\nsudo nano /opt/duckdns/duck.sh\n

At this point the file is empty, we need to enter in the command below. However you must replace DUCKDNSDOMAIN with the domain that was created on the DuckDNS website and replace DUCKTOKEN with your DuckDNS Token:

\necho url=\"https://www.duckdns.org/update?domains=DUCKDNSDOMAIN&token=DUCKTOKEN&ip=\" | curl -k -o /var/log/duckdns/duck.log -K -\n

Now save and exit (ctrl+X, Y, enter on Nano).

\n

Next we can set the script's permission so that nobody else will gain access to your token:

\nsudo chmod 700 /opt/duckdns/duck.sh\n

Last step: we need to set a cron task so that your Pi will update DuckDNS domain every 5 minutes:

\nsudo crontab -e\n

Navigate to the bottom of the page and add the line:

\n*/5 * * * * /opt/duckdns/duck.sh >/dev/null 2>&1\n

Save and exit and your dynamic DNS should be up and running within five minutes.

\n","hostid":296,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Dynamic DNS,Raspberry Pi,remote access,Linux","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -4210,14 +4210,14 @@ {"id":4210,"date":"2024-09-20","title":"Playing Civilization IV, Part 1","duration":914,"summary":"We start our dive into the mechanics of this game","notes":"

Civilization IV made some changes, and in this episode we look at the\nVictory types, how the tiles work, and how the game can be modded.

\n

Links:

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization IV","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4211,"date":"2024-09-23","title":"Rapid Fire 1","duration":1083,"summary":"Neuro diverse TV/Movies, DIY Liquid Conductive paint, cold hands / feet, Linux CPU info apps","notes":"

cat /usr/local/sbin/TOP

\n
clear\necho `date` INFO: Showing any processes with videos open with ps aufx\n# use LSOF insted .. ps aufx|grep -iaE "(\\.avi|\\.mpg|\\.mov|\\.flv|\\.wmv|\\.asf|\\.mpeg|\\.m4v|\\.divx|\\.mp4|\\.mkv|\\.sub|\\.iso|\\.264|\\.vob|\\.srt|\\.img|\\.sfv)" ps aufx|grep -iaE "(\\.avi|\\.mpg|\\.mov|\\.flv|\\.wmv|\\.asf|\\.mpeg|\\.m4v|\\.divx|\\.mp4|\\.mkv|\\.sub|\\.iso|\\.264|\\.vob|\\.srt|\\.img|\\.sfv)"\n\nlsof -w | awk '{for (i = 1; i < 9; i++) $i = ""; sub(/^ */, ""); print}'|sort -u |  grep -iaE "(\\.avi|\\.mpg|\\.mov|\\.flv|\\.wmv|\\.asf|\\.mpeg|\\.m4v|\\.divx|\\.mp4|\\.mkv|\\.sub|\\.iso|\\.264|\\.vob|\\.srt|\\.img|\\.sfv)" | grep -vE "(Beakman|\\.movie)"\n\n\nsleep 8\npkill -f tmux\ntmux new-session -s asdf -n myWindow -d 'btop'\\; \\\nsplit-window -d 'nethogs -v 3 -p'\\; \\\nsplit-window -d 'intel_gpu_top'\\; \\\nselect-pane -t 0 \\; \\\nresize-pane -y 24 \\;  attach-session
\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"hacking","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4212,"date":"2024-09-24","title":"Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood TS940S HF Radio Part 4","duration":1209,"summary":"Part 4 deals with getting access to the PLL backup battery.","notes":"

Link to the\nYouTube video I used that described the process of removing the two\nbackup batteries in a Kenwood TS-940S.

\n

I mention\nthe acronym PLL which stands for Phase Locked Loop. Here is a Wikipedia\narticle about PLL.

\n

Picture 1
\n
\nshows a top down view of the radio. The large black square section\nlocated at the front left of the picture contains the speaker left and\ncontrol board right. With the top cover fitted the control board is\naccessible via s sliding cover. Both the speaker and control board need\nto be removed in order to get access to the PLL backup battery. Both\ncome out as one piece.

\n

Picture 2
\n
\nshows the first three connectors that need removing from the control\nboard. All six connectors need removing before lifting the control board\nand speaker.

\n

Picture 3
\n
\nshows the second three connectors that need removing from the control\nboard. Notice they are marked with the letter F.

\n

Picture 4
\n
\nshows one of the connectors removed. I was nervous removing these.\nFortunately I was able to remove them without causing any damage.

\n

I\nmention the terms pigtail and screened cables. Here is a link to a\npigtail soldered to a screened cable.

\n

Picture 5
\n
\nshows the speaker and control board lifted out of place and swiveled to\nthe side to reveal the PLL unit which is encased in a metal box for\nscreening. There are eight screws on the top lid that need removing to\ngain access to the inside of the screened PLL unit.

\n

Picture 6
\n
\nshows the top cover removed from the screened PLL unit revealing the\nbackup battery located in the middle of the picture (Silver disc with\norange outer rim). The top cover is swiveled to the left hand side out\nof the way.

\n

Picture 7
\n
\nshows a close up of the PLL backup battery. From the picture droplets of\nliquid can clearly be seen on the right hand connecting terminal\nindicating that the battery is leaking and must be removed before damage\noccurs. On the right hand side of the picture notice the two connectors\nattached to the circuit board that are terminated with unused sockets. I\nhave no idea what these sockets are used for. There are brass pillars\neither side of the connectors. I assume some sort of add on board could\nbe purchased and perhaps this is what the unused connectors are for. I\nalso mention an unpopulated IC socket that can be seen in the top left\nhand side of the picture. This is probably for another optional\nextra.

\n","hostid":201,"series":43,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Amateur, Radio, DIY, repair, electronics, soldering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4213,"date":"2024-09-25","title":"Making Waves Day 1","duration":2331,"summary":"The Hallway track from Spectrum24 day 1","notes":"

Making Waves Day 1

\n

\"HPR

\n

The Conference for Creative Use of the Radio Spectrum in Open\nSystems, that brings users of the radio spectrum together. For over a\ncentury, technology has made it possible to transfer more data, faster,\nfurther. Today, wireless technology is everywhere and commonplace.\nHowever, it remains a playground and a ground for innovation for many\ncommunities. The spectrum24 conference provides an opportunity to\npublicize projects and to allow the different communities that use the\nspectrum to meet in person over a weekend.

\n

President of the IARU Region\n1

\n

It's only right to start with\nSylvain Azarian F4GKR the\npresident of the International\nAmateur Radio Union (IARU) | Region 1

\n

The IARU represents the interests of the Amateur Radio Service\nworldwide to relevant international organisations, promoting the\ninterests of amateur radio and seeking to protect and enhance its\nspectrum privileges.

\n

\"IARU

\nRadioastronomy\nactivity with the Paris radio-telescope and EME\n

Next we chat with\nFrançois-Xavier Hugo and\nJules Benkemoun F4IEY talking\nabout the Radiotelescope in the form of a 10m dish parabolic mesh disk\noperated at the\nClub\nRadioAmateur F4KLO.

\n

\"Image

\nSetting\nup an Amateur Radio Station at a Technical School\n

Anthony Le Cren - F4GOH,\nteaches electronics and computer technology at a Technical School and\ntells us about the science projects they got up to. He also managed to\nget a hour a week where he and his students set up an Amateur Radio\nStation in the school. What can you do in a hour a week ? Turns out\nquite a lot.

\n

Have a look at his site\nProjets radio for more\ninformation.

\n

\"Image

\n

Meshcom

\n

We chat with Michael Zwingl\nOE3MZC who is president of the\nInstitute of Citizen Science for Space\nand Wireless Communication about\nMeshCom 4.0

\n

\"The

\n

MeshCom is a project to exchange text messages via LORA radio\nmodules. The primary goal is to realize networked off-grid messaging\nwith low power and low cost hardware.

\n

The technical approach is based on the use of LORA radio modules\nwhich transmit messages, positions, measured values, telecontrol and\nmuch more with low transmission power over long distances. MeshCom\nmodules can be combined to form a mesh network, but can also be\nconnected to a message network via MeshCom gateways, which are ideally\nconnected via HAMNET. This enables MeshCom radio networks, which are not\nconnected to each other via radio, to communicate with each other.\n

\n

\"A

\n

Satdump

\n

Although Alan Antoine\nF4LAU was unfortunately not able to attend in person, his shoes were\nfilled by Jacopo Cassinis,\nand Zbigniew Sztanga who\nchatted with us about\nSatDump.

\n

SatDump is a general purpose satellite data processing\nsoftware. It is a one-stop-shop that provides all the necessary stages\nto get from the satellite transmission to actual products

\n

\"Jacopo

\n","hostid":30,"series":78,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"IARU,F4KLO,F4GOH,Meshcom,Satdump","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4213,"date":"2024-09-25","title":"Making Waves Day 1","duration":2331,"summary":"The Hallway track from Spectrum24 day 1","notes":"

Making Waves Day 1

\n

\"HPR

\n

The Conference for Creative Use of the Radio Spectrum in Open\nSystems, that brings users of the radio spectrum together. For over a\ncentury, technology has made it possible to transfer more data, faster,\nfurther. Today, wireless technology is everywhere and commonplace.\nHowever, it remains a playground and a ground for innovation for many\ncommunities. The spectrum24 conference provides an opportunity to\npublicize projects and to allow the different communities that use the\nspectrum to meet in person over a weekend.

\n

President of the IARU Region\n1

\n

It's only right to start with\nSylvain Azarian F4GKR the\npresident of the International\nAmateur Radio Union (IARU) | Region 1

\n

The IARU represents the interests of the Amateur Radio Service\nworldwide to relevant international organisations, promoting the\ninterests of amateur radio and seeking to protect and enhance its\nspectrum privileges.

\n

\"IARU

\nRadioastronomy\nactivity with the Paris radio-telescope and EME\n

Next we chat with\nFrançois-Xavier Hugo and\nJules Benkemoun F4IEY talking\nabout the Radiotelescope in the form of a 10m dish parabolic mesh disk\noperated at the\nClub\nRadioAmateur F4KLO.

\n

\"Image

\nSetting\nup an Amateur Radio Station at a Technical School\n

Anthony Le Cren - F4GOH,\nteaches electronics and computer technology at a Technical School and\ntells us about the science projects they got up to. He also managed to\nget a hour a week where he and his students set up an Amateur Radio\nStation in the school. What can you do in a hour a week ? Turns out\nquite a lot.

\n

Have a look at his site\nProjets radio for more\ninformation.

\n

\"Image

\n

Meshcom

\n

We chat with Michael Zwingl\nOE3MZC who is president of the\nInstitute of Citizen Science for Space\nand Wireless Communication about\nMeshCom 4.0

\n

\"The

\n

MeshCom is a project to exchange text messages via LORA radio\nmodules. The primary goal is to realize networked off-grid messaging\nwith low power and low cost hardware.

\n

The technical approach is based on the use of LORA radio modules\nwhich transmit messages, positions, measured values, telecontrol and\nmuch more with low transmission power over long distances. MeshCom\nmodules can be combined to form a mesh network, but can also be\nconnected to a message network via MeshCom gateways, which are ideally\nconnected via HAMNET. This enables MeshCom radio networks, which are not\nconnected to each other via radio, to communicate with each other.\n

\n

\"A

\n

Satdump

\n

Although Alan Antoine\nF4LAU was unfortunately not able to attend in person, his shoes were\nfilled by Jacopo Cassinis,\nand Zbigniew Sztanga who\nchatted with us about\nSatDump.

\n

SatDump is a general purpose satellite data processing\nsoftware. It is a one-stop-shop that provides all the necessary stages\nto get from the satellite transmission to actual products

\n

\"Jacopo

\n","hostid":30,"series":78,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"IARU,F4KLO,F4GOH,Meshcom,Satdump","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4214,"date":"2024-09-26","title":"Making Waves Day 2","duration":2199,"summary":"The Hallway track from Spectrum24 day 2","notes":"

Making Waves Day 2

\n

\"closing

\n

The Conference for Creative Use of the Radio Spectrum in Open\nSystems, that brings users of the radio spectrum together. For over a\ncentury, technology has made it possible to transfer more data, faster,\nfurther. Today, wireless technology is everywhere and commonplace.\nHowever, it remains a playground and a ground for innovation for many\ncommunities. The spectrum24 conference provides an opportunity to\npublicize projects and to allow the different communities that use the\nspectrum to meet in person over a weekend.

\n

M17

\n

Let's start the day off with a talk with\nMorgan Dieport ON4MOD from\nthe M17 Protocol.

\n

M17 is a community of open source developers and radio\nenthusiasts. We're building understandable systems in support of the\nhackers and experimenters' history of ham radio.

\n

\"A

\n

OpenRTX

\n

Silvano Seva IU2KWO

\n

OpenRTX is \"Free and Open Source\nFirmware for Digital Ham Radios. Top-down designed with modularity,\nflexibility and performance in mind.\" The code is available on\ngithub.

\n

\"OpenRTX

\n

RF Swift

\n

We next caught up with Sebastien\nDudek who had just presented a talk about the project\n

\n

Introducing our Go and shell script-based toolbox, designed\nto streamline the deployment of Docker containers for your preferred RF\ntools. This evolving toolkit promises even more features in the near\nfuture, making it an essential asset for RF enthusiasts.

\n

\"Sebastien

\n

VLF receivers design

\n

The say that in Space no one can hear you scream, but here at\nspectrum24 I'm not so sure.

\n

The talk from Thierry Alves\nF4EOB, CT2JTZ spoke\nof listening to cosmic wind.

\n

So how low can you go ? Head over to\nhttp://www.vlf.it to find out.

\n

\"Thierry

\n

trx-control

\n

What do you do when you're not organizing conferences ? Hacking a\nproject to contrail radios, and a lot more besides, using Linux.

\n

trx-control is a modern and extensible software system for\nLinux to control transceivers and other devices over the network. It can\nas well be used to integrate third-party applications or databases.\n

\n

\"Marc

\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"M17,OpenRTX,RF-Swift,VLF,trx-control","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4215,"date":"2024-09-27","title":"My home lab","duration":910,"summary":"About setting up a rack mounted home lab","notes":"\n

3 servers, a Mac\nMini, and some old networking kit

\n

Lee talks about building a home lab consisting of several servers and\nsome networking equipment.

\n

The home lab on Reddit: 3_servers_a_mac_mini_and_some_old_networking_kit

\n

Rack is limited to 30cm deep due to closet dimensions. All three\nserver cases have been modded in one way or another (most drastic was\nthe DVR, cut down from 40cm deep with an angle-grinder). To save money /\nenergy, the DVR is the only one always on, except in winter when I can\njustify the others heating the apartment.

\n

The (fairly obsolete) Cisco Router and old WiFi broadband router\ntogether can provide a Wireless LAN filtered with an IP deny list.

\n

Top to bottom

\n
    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
  • NAS Server (1U)\n
      \n
    • CPU: Intel Celeron N4505 NUC
      • \n
    • OS/Software: Ubuntu 22.10
      • \n
    • Mem: 8Gb
      • \n
    • Storage: 4 TB
      • \n
    • \n
  • DVR (2U)\n
      \n
    • CPU: 12-core 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700
      • \n
    • OS/Software: Manjaro / Jellyfin
      • \n
    • Mem: 16Gb
      • \n
    • Storage: 16 TB
      • \n
    • \n
  • Secondary WiFi\n
      \n
    • Old TalkTalk Router
      • \n
    • \n
  • Switch\n
      \n
    • Cisco SG-100-16
      • \n
    • \n
  • Router\n
      \n
    • Cisco 1841 Router
      • \n
    • \n
  • Mac Mini\n
      \n
    • CPU: quad core Intel Core i7-2635QM
      • \n
    • OS/Software: Manjaro
      • \n
    • Mem: 16 GB
      • \n
    • Storage: 1 TB
      • \n
    • \n
  • Proxmox Box (2U)\n
      \n
    • CPU: 8-Core AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
      • \n
    • OS/Software: Proxmox 7
      • \n
    • Mem: 64Gb
      • \n
    • Storage: 3 TB
      • \n
    • \n
\n

\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"homelab, server, self-hosting","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4216,"date":"2024-09-30","title":"Down the rabbit hole.","duration":1863,"summary":"Sgoti talks about Good Samaritan laws. Good Heavens!","notes":"

Down the rabbit hole.

\n

Sgoti talks about Good\nSamaritan laws.

\n
    \n
  • Tags: Good Samaritan laws, Duty to rescue
    • \n
\n

Good Samaritan laws offer legal protection to people who give\nreasonable assistance to those who are, or whom they believe to be\ninjured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated. The protection is\nintended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being\nsued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death.
\n

\n

A duty to rescue is a concept in tort law and criminal law that\narises in a number of cases, describing a circumstance in which a party\ncan be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party\nwho could face potential injury or death without being rescued. The\nexact extent of the duty varies greatly between different\njurisdictions.
\nA duty to rescue arises where a person creates a hazardous situation. If\nanother person then falls into peril because of this hazardous\nsituation, the creator of the hazard – who may not necessarily have been\na negligent tortfeasor – has a duty to rescue the individual in\nperil.
\nSpouses have a duty to rescue each other in all U.S. jurisdictions.

\n

A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a\nclaimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the\nperson who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with\ncriminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable by\nthe state. While criminal law aims to punish individuals who commit\ncrimes, tort law aims to compensate individuals who suffer harm as a\nresult of the actions of others.
\nIn common, civil, and mixed law jurisdictions alike, the main remedy\navailable to plaintiffs under tort law is compensation in damages, or\nmoney.
\n

\n

Title: Good Samaritan Law.
\nLicense: Text is available under the Creative Commons\nAttribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply.
\nSource(s):
\nwikipedia: Good Samaritan Law.
\n

\n

Title: Duty to rescue.
\nLicense: Text is available under the Creative Commons\nAttribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply.
\nSource(s):
\nwikipedia: Duty to rescue.
\n

\n

Title: Tort.
\nLicense: Text is available under the Creative Commons\nAttribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply.
\nSource(s):
\nwikipedia: Tort.
\n

\n","hostid":391,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Good Samaritan laws, Duty to rescue","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4217,"date":"2024-10-01","title":"Episode 2 - Dirt Simple Photo Gallery","duration":585,"summary":"Dirt Simple Photo Gallery put me on the path to Plain Text Programs","notes":"

Episode 2 - Dirt Simple\nPhoto Gallery

\n

Dirt Simple Photo Gallery is the program that started me down the\nPlain Text Programs path. It predates my own thinking about Plain Text\nPrograms by at least a decade. Ever since I wrote it I use it all the\ntime. It is now my preferred web page generator for all kinds of web\npages, not just galleries.

\n

Like most of my programs I wrote it because I needed it. Vivian and I\nwere putting on music events like Blues Fest, Sunday In The Park, Jazz\nThursday, New Jazz In Jonesboro, and Bebopalooza. I recorded all the\nshows. Sometimes video, always audio. And we loved taking pictures of\nthe musicians singing and playing.

\n

After the shows we would dump the photo files to a hard drive, make\nall the original photos read only, and back them up to a CD or DVD. We\nreally enjoyed scrolling through the photos, picking the ones we liked,\ncropping them and enhancing them, and resizing them for the\ninternet.

\n

And then that's where it fell apart. We recorded the show. We took\nthe pictures. We cropped the pictures and had them ready to go for our\nDelta Boogie website. And we didn't want to write the html.

\n

Some days we would have five or six bands playing. We usually had ten\nto twenty photos of each band that we picked out of hundreds of photos\ntaken. Do the math. That's a lot of typing HTML code like a href =, img\nsrc, etc. A lot a captions to write. A lot of work to get done in a\nweek. Because the next weekend we had another show. Another set of\nphotos. Another bunch of html backlog.

\n

And the thing I found out. If we didn't get the pages posted right\naway we almost never had time to post them later. I mean we had kids to\nraise, cooking to do, cars to fix, school to attend, not to mention\nwork.

\n

So, I loved writing programs more than I loved marking up html. And I\ncould write one program and avoid marking up tons of html. And so I\nwrote the Dirt Simple Photo Gallery.

\n

Even back in the dark ages of the internet also known as the nineties\nthere were photo gallery programs. And just like today they were\ncumbersome and running them was a lot like data entry. You know what I\nhate worse than writing html? Data entry.

\n

I had this idea. I would take all the photos we had ready for a\ngallery and I would upload them to a directory on our server. Then I\nwould upload an index.php file and we'd have a photo gallery.

\n

And that's just how Dirt Simple Photo Gallery works. And if that's\nreally all you need you're done.

\n

It wasn't quite all we needed. So I added a title.txt file and a\nnotes.txt file so there could be a bit more than just the photos and\ncaptions on the web page. I was careful that I didn't have to write any\nhtml in the notes.txt file. The program even automatically turns copy\nand pasted links into hot links.

\n

Now, you can include html in the notes.txt file. You can even embed\niframes if you want to include an audio or video player. But you don't\nhave to. Also, iframe embeds are just a copy and paste exactly like\nlinks. Easy peasy.

\n

There's also the problem of the captions and the sort order of the\nphotos.

\n

Captions

\n

I use the file names to carry the meta data required for captions and\nsort order.

\n

These are the characters I use in the file names. Alphanumeric,\ncommas, apostrophes, dashes, and underscores. I don't use spaces but the\nunderscores are converted to spaces in the captions. I use Thunar and I\nlove the bulk rename option where I can search and replace a set of file\nnames and change all the spaces into underscores.

\n

I have code that allows you to include special characters in your\ncaptions by using html character sets but it's confusing to think about.\nAnd I discovered the only special characters I really needed were\ndashes, commas, and apostrophes. All three of these characters are legal\nin file names on all major systems. Dashes are not problematic. Commas\ncan cause problems if you are using comma delimited data but, I'm not,\nso no worries. Apostrophes can also be an issue because in php they are\nused as single quotes and can be used to delimit strings in the code.\nThere is a way around this with php. Use double quotes to surround the\nentire string. If there is a place inside of that string where you would\nuse single quotes, which is not uncommon in html, replace the single\nquotes with escaped double quotes, that is \". So that's what I did.

\n

So now I can use all the apostrophes I want in my file names and they\nfly right through my code, never accidentally truncating a string and\nthrowing errors.

\n

Commas and apostrophes are important in captions. Captioning group\nshots without commas leads to misunderstanding people's names. And if\nyour caption has a possessive in it like Joe's Garage leaving the\napostrophe out is just wrong.

\n

Using double quotes in a file name will truncate strings in the php\ncode and throw errors. Usually, anywhere you would want a double quote a\nsingle quote will do.

\n

There are other special characters, like dashes, that aren't\nproblematic. Forward slashes and back slashes should not be used in file\nnames ever. Some special characters may work on some systems and not on\nothers. I've been using this program for almost 25 years and I really\nwant commas and apostrophes and don't really care about other special\ncharacters in captions. You may have special needs for special\ncharacters I don't. That's why it's open source. If you need something\nthe program isn't designed to provide test it. Fix it. Right now there\nare fewer than 100 lines of code in the program. I have confidence in\nyou.

\n

Sorting

\n

Default sorting of images is alphabetical by file name. If you just\nname your files with good captions and don't add any numbers as a prefix\nthat's what you'll get. Alphabetical by caption. This may be just what\nyou need.

\n

If, however, you want some other sort order you can prefix your files\nwith nnn- where n is any integer.

\n

000-filename.ext displays the picture at the top of the page. If the\nphoto is narrow enough, the text from notes.txt will wrap around it to\nthe left.

\n

All the photos numbered 001- to 999- will display in a single column\nbelow the text. Unnumbered photos will also display below the text in\nalphabetical order. So if you want a photo at the top of the page add\nthe prefix 000- to the file name. If alphabetical order is what you want\nfor the rest of the photos you don't have to rename them.

\n

Permitted extensions are jpg, png, or gif. (It's hapeg stupid!) It's\neasy to add other permitted extensions in the code but, of course, they\nhave to be rendered by a browser. I did not include the jpeg extension\nchoosing to rename jpeg files to jpg. This made it slightly easier to\ncode.

\n

There is a config.inc file where you can set your table width. The\ndefault is 700. I resize my photos to be 600 max width. I usually use\njpg files with a quality level of 90. This reduces storage space and\nenables fast loading of images. The config.inc file also allows you to\nchange background color, text color, link color, etc. There is also a\nCSS section in the config.inc file so you can change the font, the\nheadline sizes, etc. Or add your own CSS.

\n

If you have trouble getting the text wraparound to look good on your\npage there is a way to disable it in the config.inc file.

\n

Install the page with ftp. Make a directory, where you want it on\nyour website, and give it a good name. Upload index.php, title.txt,\nnotes.txt, config.inc, and the image files into the directory. Go to\nyour website and check it out. That's it.

\n

Page maintenance is the same. Fix captions by renaming files. Add and\ndelete images. Update the title or the text in notes.txt and upload the\nchanges. Change the font, colors, or CSS in config.inc and upload the\nchanges.

\n

I have put up a demo site on infinityfree.com.

\n

And I am posting my show notes on my blog at
\nhttps://home.gamerplus.org/

\n

I will include links there to the demo site, the link to the comment\nthread for this podcast on Mastodon, and the link to the git repository\non Codeberg.

\n

If you can't find Dirt Simple Photo Gallery use the search\nfeature.

\n

To Network With Hairy Larry I have another plain text program\nat
\nhttps://deltaboogie.net/

\n

If you use or have written Plain Text Programs please let me know. I\nwant to do a podcast about them.

\n

Thanks for listening.

\n

More Links

\n\n","hostid":436,"series":25,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"programming,plaintext,gallery,images,photos","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4218,"date":"2024-10-02","title":"Crazy Battery Story","duration":517,"summary":"Got the wrong batteries and had to walk to get the right ones","notes":"

My telegram is t.me/forthenerdsremix

\n

irc is #forthenerds on libera

\n","hostid":297,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"batteries, remote control, tv","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4219,"date":"2024-10-03","title":"Black diamond head lamp and other gear","duration":1456,"summary":"Sgoti talks about using his head lamp and backpack during his day job","notes":"

Black diamond head lamp\nand other gear.

\nSgoti\ntalks about using his head lamp and backpack during his day job.\n
    \n
  • Tags: headlamp, backpack
    • \n
\n

black\ndiamond spot 400 headlamp

\n
    \n
  • Features\n
      \n
    • Dual-fuel design allows you to power the headlamp with 3 AAA\nalkaline batteries (included) or the rechargeable BD 1500 lithium-ion\nbattery and charger (not included)
      • \n
    • Settings include proximity and distance modes, dimming, strobe, red\nLED night vision, and lock mode
      • \n
    • White LED outputs up to 400 lumens on max setting, 200 lumens on\nmedium and 6 lumens on low
      • \n
    • PowerTap™ Technology allows instant adjustment between max output\nand dimmed power
      • \n
    • Brightness Memory allows you to turn the light on and off at a\nchosen brightness setting without it reverting back to the default\nsetting
      • \n
    • Red LED night vision has dimming and strobe modes, and is quickly\nactivated without cycling through the white mode
      • \n
    • Multifaceted optical efficiency lens technology
      • \n
    • Integrated battery meter display shows the percentage of power\nremaining so you know when to replace the batteries
      • \n
    • Digital lockout feature prevents accidental use when stored in a\npack or pocket
      • \n
    • IPX8 waterproof protection rated to operate at least 1.1 meters\nunderwater for 30 minutes—perfect should you be caught in a\ndownpour
      • \n
    • If submerged, water may enter the battery compartment, but it will\nstill operate; it should be completely dried out after use in wet\nconditions
      • \n
    • \n
\n

Fieldsmith\nLid Pack 28L

\n

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons\nAttribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

\n","hostid":391,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"headlamp, backpack","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4220,"date":"2024-10-04","title":"How Doctor Who Began","duration":877,"summary":"A look at the very first serial of Doctor Who","notes":"

This is a look at the very first serial of Doctor who, and how the\ncast was first put in place. It is in many ways an unlikely story for a\nshow that has gone on for 60 years and counting. I find the early\nstories to be charming and worth a look, and many things from these\nearly stories come back in later stories as well.

\n

Links:

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4220,"date":"2024-10-04","title":"How Doctor Who Began","duration":877,"summary":"A look at the very first serial of Doctor Who","notes":"

This is a look at the very first serial of Doctor who, and how the\ncast was first put in place. It is in many ways an unlikely story for a\nshow that has gone on for 60 years and counting. I find the early\nstories to be charming and worth a look, and many things from these\nearly stories come back in later stories as well.

\n\n

How Doctor Who Began

\n\n

We now get to take a look at how all of this started. How did a BBC Science Fiction show that would last 60 years and counting come into being? There are more detailed explanations, but here is the short version.

\n\n\n\n

A Canadian by the name of Sydney Newman had come to England to work at ABC Weekend Television, an independent channel. There he created a fantastic spy fiction series called The Avengers. This is still one of my favorites, and I have a box set of the series when Diana Rigg was part of the cast. That alone would be enough to make his reputation, but then he was lured to the BBC where he became the Head of Drama. It is there that he had the idea for Doctor Who. He had always been a Science Fiction fan, and when he got to the BBC he was determined to shake things up. When he was approached by BBC management to fill a hole in the schedule, he thought a Science Fiction show would be the way to go. He had the initial ideas of a time machine that is bigger on the inside, and that it would star a mysterious character known only as “The Doctor”.

\n\n\n\n

And that is, in fact, the only name he goes by. We know from a Nu Who story called The Silence in the Library that he must have revealed his name at least once, to River Song, and later we learn that in fact he had married her, but now is not the time to get into that tangled story line. Doctor Who is not the name of a character, it is the name of a show, and it is intended to be read as a question. In the very first episode Ian refers to him as Doctor Foreman, since the TARDIS is standing in Mr. Foreman’s junk yard, and the Doctor replies “Doctor Who?” because he is not named Foreman at all.

\n\n\n\n

So Sydney Newman had a great idea, but when he took it to the BBC, none of their established producers wanted to take it on. After all, it was a Science Fiction show aimed at children and not anything prestigious. So Newman tapped a production assistant from his days at ABC Weekend Television, a young lady named Verity Lambert. She had never produced, written, or directed previously, but agreed to take on the production of this new show. This came up in the Nu Who story Human Nature, when the Doctor, who had gone into deep disguise as a human, said that his parents were named Sydney and Verity. In any case, it was an inspired choice. Although she was the first female producer at the BBC, as well as the youngest, she made the show a success and went on to a very successful career as a film and television producer.

\n\n\n\n
\n

“I think the best thing I ever did on that was to find Verity Lambert,” he told Doctor Who Magazine in 1993. “I remembered Verity as being bright and, to use the phrase, full of piss and vinegar! She was gutsy and she used to fight and argue with me, even though she was not at a very high level as a production assistant.”[

\nHearn, Marcus (22 December 1993). “The Dawn of Knowledge”. Doctor Who Magazine. Marvel UK (207): 8–18.
\n\n\n\n

Lambert had a number of decisions to make. First, she hired Waris Hussein to direct the initial story. Then she needed to cast the show, and the most important role was of course the Doctor. For this, she picked William Hartnell, a 55 year old British actor known chiefly for playing military roles in TV and movies. So the role of the Doctor was quite a change for him. He was uncertain about it, but Lambert and Hussein convinced him. He came to love the role and how he went from a “heavy” in his roles to a beloved grandfather figure.

\n\n\n\n

Then the Doctor needed companions. A young lady named Carole Ann Ford was cast to play his granddaughter Susan. Susan was a teenager in the show, though Carole Ann Ford was 23 years old, already married, and had a child. Susan was enrolled in the Coal Hill School under the name of Foreman, and had two teachers there. One was Barbara Wright, played by Jacqueline Hill, who was a History teacher, and the other was Ian Chesterton, played by William Russell, who was a Science teacher. These were not accidental choices. The show was started on the premise that they would feature both historical dramas and science fiction dramas, so these teachers could provide insights into the situations.

\n\n\n\n

in 2013, for the 50th anniversary of the show, a “docu-drama” was created to show how Doctor Who came together, and interestingly Sacha Dhawan, who would play the Master opposite Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, was cast as Waris Hussein. This “docu-drama” was called An Adventure in Space and Time, and it is really a good look at how this unlikely hit came together. It nearly didn’t. They filmed a pilot, and it wasn’t quite right. Sydney Newman didn’t like it, and you would normally expect that to be the end of it; they would just write off the investment and move on to something else. But Newman did the unexpected: he gave them his critique, and told them go back and redo it. They did, and on November 23, 1963 the first episode, An Unearthly Child, was broadcast. Now if that date gave you a momentary pause, that is because it was one day after US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Hardly the best time to debut a new show and grab an audience. But the BBC rebroadcast it the following week right before the second episode, The Cave of Skulls, part of the story 100,000 BC.

\n\n\n\n

The Unearthly Child of the first episode is Susan Foreman. She took the name Foreman from name of the owner of the Junk Yard that the TARDIS was in, and we don’t know anything else about her name. She is a student at the Coal Hill School, an institution that reappears in Doctor Who and spin-offs. Two of her teachers find her very strange. She seems to be unaware of things that other teenagers would be expected to know, and then claims to have knowledge of things that would seem impossible. In History, she reads about the French Revolution, and then says that the history book is wrong, it didn’t happen that way at all. The teachers decide to investigate further, and follow her back to her “home” when she leaves school. They track her to the junkyard of I.M. Foreman and go inside, where they find a blue police call box, which is not what one normally finds in a junkyard. As they observe, they see an older man, and when they confront him, he is somewhat hostile. Eventually they force their way into the call box, and discover that it is much larger inside than it could possibly be. Susan explains to the older man, who she calls Grandfather, that these two are teachers of hers. Eventually this man says that he is called the Doctor, and he locks the doors and takes off. Then the TARDIS lands, and we see it in a kind of desert landscape, where an ominous shadow of a man appears, and then the episode is over.

\n\n\n\n

A characteristic of Classic Doctor Who is that it was broadcast as a serial. The first story is composed of 4 episodes of 25 minutes each, and what we just outlined was Episode #1. You wanted people to keep coming back each week, so you would end each episode with a cliffhanger so that they would come back to see how it played out the following week. And often they would put a cliffhanger at the end of a completed story to get people to come back for the next story. Now sometimes the cliffhanger was the Doctor being in danger, and you had to know that he would get out of it somehow, but you would still want to know how he did it.

\n\n\n\n

Well, if you came back the following week you would have discovered several things. The first is that the Doctor is upset to see that the TARDIS still looks like police call box. Apparently it is supposed to blend in with its surroundings, and while a police call box blends in nicely in 1963 London, it is out-of-place wherever they are. It turns out the TARDIS is supposed to have a Chameleon Circuit, but on this TARDIS it is broken. And it has stayed broken through all 60 years of the program. By now it is famous, but all along it had the useful characteristic of allowing them to reuse the prop without spending more money. And then they are captured by cavemen, and dragged back to the cave they all inhabit, called the Cave of Skulls. The Doctor had been seen lighting a pipe, and they are all desperate to discover the secret of making fire. Now I tend to think that by 100,000 BC people knew how to make fire, in fact the date of 1 million BC seems more accurate. But lets not nitpick. Over the next 3 episodes the Doctor and his companions manage to avoid being killed and eventually make an escape. One notable incident is during the escape when the Doctor attempts to kill one of the cavemen and is stopped by Ian. This is notable because the Doctor generally avoids doing things like that as the show went on through the years. I think at this point people were still figuring out who the Doctor would really be, and it hadn’t quite gelled yet.

\n\n\n\n

We will pick up the pace from here. I want to look more at the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his stories, but I think I can cover them more briefly now that cast is set and the basic premise is in place.

\n\n

Links:

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4221,"date":"2024-10-07","title":"HPR Community News for September 2024","duration":4221,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in September 2024","notes":"\n\n

New hosts

\n

\nWelcome to our new host:
\n\n hairylarry.\n

\n\n

Last Month's Shows

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
IdDayDateTitleHost
4196Mon2024-09-02HPR Community News for August 2024HPR Volunteers
4197Tue2024-09-03After 5 years away, OggCamp is back in 2024!Ken Fallon
4198Wed2024-09-04Are hobbies pathological?Lee
4199Thu2024-09-05 HPR New Years Eve Show 2023 - 24 ep 7Honkeymagoo
4200Fri2024-09-06Intro to Doctor WhoAhuka
4201Mon2024-09-09Today I learnt (2024-08-23)Dave Morriss
4202Tue2024-09-10Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood HF Radio Part 3MrX
4203Wed2024-09-11Setup DuckDNS on a Raspberry PiKevie
4204Thu2024-09-12LibreOffice Importing External Datagemlog
4205Fri2024-09-13Trollercoasting almost getting a heart attackTrollercoaster
4206Mon2024-09-16New to GNU/Linux resources.Some Guy On The Internet
4207Tue2024-09-17Re: The Kindle/Kobo Open Reader (KOReader)dnt
4208Wed2024-09-1801 Plain Text Programshairylarry
4209Thu2024-09-19 HPR New Years Eve Show 2023 - 24 ep 8Honkeymagoo
4210Fri2024-09-20Playing Civilization IV, Part 1Ahuka
4211Mon2024-09-23Rapid Fire 1operat0r
4212Tue2024-09-24Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood TS940S HF Radio Part 4MrX
4213Wed2024-09-25Making Waves Day 1Ken Fallon
4214Thu2024-09-26Making Waves Day 2Ken Fallon
4215Fri2024-09-27My home labLee
4216Mon2024-09-30Down the rabbit hole.Some Guy On The Internet
\n\n

Comments this month

\n\n

These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows.\nThere are 23 comments in total.

\n

Past shows

\n

There are 6 comments on\n6 previous shows:

\n
    \n
  • hpr4109\n(2024-05-02) \"The future of HPR \"\nby knightwise.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 9:\nKen Fallon on 2024-09-13:\n\"Interesting post by Alan Pope\"

    \n
  • hpr4156\n(2024-07-08) \"Badger 2040\"\nby Kevie.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 2:\nKen Fallon on 2024-09-12:\n\"Heading to spectrum24\"

    \n
  • hpr4175\n(2024-08-02) \"what's in my bag part 2\"\nby operat0r.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 1:\noperator on 2024-09-11:\n\"operator\"

    \n
  • hpr4177\n(2024-08-06) \"Blender 3D Tutorial #1\"\nby Deltaray.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 3:\nSome Guy On The Internet on 2024-09-09:\n\"Great show.\"

    \n
  • hpr4182\n(2024-08-13) \"Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood TS940S HF Radio Part 1\"\nby MrX.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 2:\nMrX on 2024-09-11:\n\"Re Thank you for the reminder\"

    \n
  • hpr4195\n(2024-08-30) \"Hacking HPR Hosts\"\nby Ken Fallon.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 1:\ndnt on 2024-09-01:\n\"Scheduling and the reserve queue\"

    \n
\n

This month's shows

\n

There are 17 comments on 8 of this month's shows:

\n
  • hpr4196\n(2024-09-02) \"HPR Community News for August 2024\"\nby HPR Volunteers.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nTrollercoaster on 2024-09-03:\n\"Why!?\"
    • Comment 2:\nbrian-in-ohio on 2024-09-03:\n\"single board computer\"
    • Comment 3:\nKen Fallon on 2024-09-03:\n\"@Brian\"

    \n
  • hpr4198\n(2024-09-04) \"Are hobbies pathological?\"\nby Lee.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\ndnt on 2024-09-10:\n\"Pathologies\"

    \n
  • hpr4200\n(2024-09-06) \"Intro to Doctor Who\"\nby Ahuka.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nhammerron on 2024-09-06:\n\"Streaming Doctor Who\"
    • Comment 2:\nbrian-in-ohio on 2024-09-08:\n\"Shows\"
    • Comment 3:\ndnt on 2024-09-10:\n\"Dr Who\"
    • Comment 4:\nDave Morriss on 2024-09-16:\n\"Excellent start!\"

    \n
  • hpr4207\n(2024-09-17) \"Re: The Kindle/Kobo Open Reader (KOReader)\"\nby dnt.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nDave Morriss on 2024-09-18:\n\"How to say \"Calibre\"\"

    \n
  • hpr4208\n(2024-09-18) \"01 Plain Text Programs\"\nby hairylarry.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nClaudioM on 2024-09-18:\n\"Hello there, fellow SDFer! Great Episode!\"
    • Comment 2:\nbrian-in-ohio on 2024-09-18:\n\"The hook\"
    • Comment 3:\nBeeza on 2024-10-03:\n\"Plaintext Programs\"
    • Comment 4:\nDave Morriss on 2024-10-04:\n\"Regarding VMS and indexed files\"

    \n
  • hpr4212\n(2024-09-24) \"Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood TS940S HF Radio Part 4\"\nby MrX.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nHenrik Hemrin on 2024-09-30:\n\"Engineering\"
    • Comment 2:\nMrX on 2024-09-30:\n\"Re Engineering\"

    \n
  • hpr4214\n(2024-09-26) \"Making Waves Day 2\"\nby Ken Fallon.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nTrey on 2024-09-26:\n\"Love these!\"

    \n
  • hpr4216\n(2024-09-30) \"Down the rabbit hole.\"\nby Some Guy On The Internet.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nBeeza on 2024-10-03:\n\"Good Samaritans\"

    \n
\n\n

Mailing List discussions

\n

\nPolicy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This\ndiscussion takes place on the Mail List which is open to all HPR listeners and\ncontributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under\nMailman.\n

\n

The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

\nhttps://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2024-September/thread.html\n\n\n

Events Calendar

\n

With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to\nThe LWN.net Community Calendar.

\n

Quoting the site:

\n
This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track\nevents of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software.\nClicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web\npage.
\n\n

Any other business

\n

Repairing\nshows where external files have been lost

\n
    \n

  • The further back in time we go with these repairs, the more\nchallenging they tend to become because of the variations in the way\nshows were put together. It has been difficult to process more than five\na day, and there have been a few breaks along the way!

    • \n

  • The current state of the project is that it has been\ncompleted:

    • \n
\n
    +------------+------------+--------------+------------------+\n    |    date    | repairable | repair_count | unrepaired_count |\n    +------------+------------+--------------+------------------+\n    | 2024-10-03 | 352        | 352          | 0                |\n    +------------+------------+--------------+------------------+
\n
    \n
  • All of the processed shows have access to their transcripts, which\nare held on archive.org. However, there remains the need to make\ntranscripts available to the older shows which have no external\nfiles.
    • \n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4222,"date":"2024-10-08","title":"Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood TS940S HF Radio Part 5","duration":969,"summary":"Part 5 deals with the removal of the original 40 year old PLL backup battery.","notes":"

Picture 1
\n
\nShows the EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) fitted with a\nlabel marked JAF7. EPROM's can be erased by removing the sticker and\nexposing the device to strong ultraviolet light. I incorrectly refer to\nit as a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory. Below it is the old leaking\nPLL backup battery.

\n

Wikipedia article about\nEPROM’s (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory)

\n

Link\n/ example of a Fluke 77 DMM (Digital Multi Meter) I mention that I\nused it to check the battery voltage of the original PLL backup battery\nwhich I think was manufactured around 1984. I was very surprised to find\nthat the battery which is likely 40 years old had a battery voltage of\n3.2V which is a healthy voltage. The battery still needed changed due to\nliquid (probably acid) which can be seen in picture 1 being present on\nthe top surface of the battery.

\n

Picture 2
\n
\nShows me extending the new battery terminal using the leg of a 1.8 kilo\nohm resistor. Note that the resistor leg is shiny because this time I\nscraped away the surface oxidation using pliers prior to soldering it in\nplace. This improves the final solder joint.

\n

I mention I have\nan EC2000 Weller Electronically controlled soldering station. Here is a\nlink to an example I found

\n","hostid":201,"series":43,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Amateur, Radio, DIY, repair, electronics, soldering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4223,"date":"2024-10-09","title":"Movie review of The Artifice Girl","duration":2067,"summary":"Sgoti butchers a movie review of The Artifice Girl","notes":"

Movie review of The Artifice\nGirl

\n

Sgoti\nbutchers a movie review of The Artifice Girl

\n
    \n
  • Tags: movie review, LinuxLUGcastz
    • \n
\n

Welcome\nto Episode 237 the LinuxLUGcastz

\n

The\nArtifice Girl

\n

The Artifice Girl is a 2022 science fiction psychological thriller\nwritten and directed by Franklin Ritch, produced by Aaron B. Koontz and\nreleased direct to VOD. It stars Tatum Matthews, Sinda Nichols, David\nGirard, Lance Henriksen, and Franklin Ritch. NGO agents discover a\nrevolutionary Artificial intelligence (AI) computer program that uses a\ndigital child to catch online predators, it advances far more rapid than\nthey could have imagined, posing unforeseen challenges for the\nrelationship between humans and AI.

\n

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons\nAttribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

\n","hostid":391,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"MovieReview, LinuxLUGcastz","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -4237,7 +4237,7 @@ {"id":4237,"date":"2024-10-29","title":"My First OggCamp Experience","duration":1344,"summary":"Kevie shares his thoughts on his first ever OggCamp","notes":"

Having recently attended OggCamp 2024 in Manchester. Kevie shares\nsome of his thoughts on the event and on the whole experience in\ngeneral.

\n","hostid":296,"series":62,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Manchester, OggCamp, Conference","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4238,"date":"2024-10-30","title":"Snaps are better than flatpaks","duration":916,"summary":"Sgoti reminds everyone on the joy of using snap packages.","notes":"

Snaps are just better.
72 hours or I'm 100% correct.

Get your snaps here
https://snapcraft.io/

\n","hostid":391,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"snaps, SnapPackages, FlatPak","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4239,"date":"2024-10-31","title":"Android Tasker and Automation","duration":903,"summary":"operat0r talks about Android automation and Tasker","notes":"

Anything \"tasker\" in https://rmccurdy.com/.scripts/downloaded/ complete dump of all of the Tasker scripts!!!

\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Android, hacking, automation","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4240,"date":"2024-11-01","title":"The First Doctor, Part 1","duration":921,"summary":"A look at the first season of Doctor Who","notes":"

This is a look at the rest of the first season of Doctor Who. We look\nat the problems of producing weekly show on a year-round schedule, and\nthen give a brief description of each of the stories.

\n

Links:

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4240,"date":"2024-11-01","title":"The First Doctor, Part 1","duration":921,"summary":"A look at the first season of Doctor Who","notes":"

This is a look at the rest of the first season of Doctor Who. We look\nat the problems of producing weekly show on a year-round schedule, and\nthen give a brief description of each of the stories.

\n\n\n

The First Doctor, Part 1

\n\n\n\n\n

The Daleks

\n\n\n\n

The intention of the show’s creators was that they would alternate between historical stories and futuristic science stories, so following the historical story of the cavemen they wanted some science fiction. This ended up being the Daleks, even though Sydney Newman had said he didn’t want any “bug-eyes monsters” in the show. But as it happened, they didn’t have another script ready to go. This happened more frequently than you might imagine in the early days of the show. The weekly schedule was generally to rehearse the episode Monday through Thursday, videotape it on Friday, and broadcast it on Saturday. Then the following week do it again with the next episode. And they were on a relentless schedule since the first season was comprised of 42 weekly episodes. They did not have the luxury of a backlog of scripts that were ready to go, let alone a chance to get ahead in shooting the shows. In fact, this was extremely close to live television. It was videotaped the day before it was broadcast, but the idea was that the cameras would roll without stopping because a stop would just cost more money. If an actor desperately wanted to stop and redo a scene, the trick was to use an obscenity because then the director would be forced to stop shooting.

\n\n\n\n

The script that was available and ready was called The Daleks, and was written by Terry Nation. He based the Daleks on the Nazis and their obsession with exterminating other races, but he had nothing to do with the look of the Daleks. This was originally going to be done by a designer named Ridley Scott (who went on to be a famous director), but when he had a schedule conflict the job went to Raymond Cusick. The way the copyrights worked at this point in the BBC, Nation retained the copyright to the Daleks, and he became very wealthy as a result. Cusick, on the other hand, got his weekly paycheck from the BBC. To this day no one, not even the BBC, can use the Daleks without buying a license from the Estate of Terry Nation.

\n\n\n\n

As to the plot of the story, after escaping from the Stone Age, the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), which is the name of that Police Call Box they travel in, takes them to the far future, where they meet The Daleks. It seems that the TARDIS has landed on the planet Skaro, where two opposed races have waged nuclear war, and one of those races has mutated into the Daleks, who live inside mechanical boxes. The other race, the Thals, are essentially blond beauties who have become very pacifistic, which is an odd choice when facing the Daleks who are out to exterminate you. The TARDIS crew gets the Thals to fight back against the danger of the Daleks, and then escape in their TARDIS. This story plays out over 7 episodes, which is at least one too many. There is a long sequence of the Thals being led by Ian through a cave system to attack the Daleks that is seriously plodding. In any case, the story ends with the Daleks supposedly exterminated themselves, but the characters were so popular they had to be brought back. And ever since then, they have been supposedly wiped out many times, and always manage to come back as a horde.

\n\n\n\n

The Edge of Destruction

\n\n\n\n

Following the science fiction story of the Daleks, the next story should have been an historical one, but it was a sprawling 7-part story that was not quite ready. So the script editor, David Whitaker whipped up a quick two-parter to fill the gap while the historical story was made ready. In this story, there is a small explosion which knocks people out, and then when they come to they have slight amnesia and start acting strangely. Eventually Barbara gathers enough clues to force the Doctor to find the problem, which is a broken spring in the Fast Return mechanism, which instead of taking them back to Earth kept going and took them back to the beginning of time. The strange things happening to them are explained as the TARDIS trying to warn. The Doctor fixes the switch and everything goes back to normal. In terms of story, this is completely skipable, but is worth watching for seeing Susan turn violent and paranoid.

\n\n\n\n

Marco Polo

\n\n\n\n

This was the historical story that needed more time, and the plot is that The Doctor is supposed to be trying to get everyone back to 1963 London, but it seems he is not entirely capable of navigating the TARDIS, so they bounce around a lot. In this case, they end up in the 13th century in Central Asia, where they meet up with Marco Polo. Polo has been entrusted with a mission for the Great Khan, but political infighting is the backdrop. A difference in this story is that it takes place over a number of weeks, whereas most Doctor Who stories are no more than a few days.

\n\n\n\n

This is one the stories that no longer exists in video form. At one point the BBC thought it would be a good idea to reuse the videotapes, and a number of shows have been lost from the early days. Fortunately, since Doctor Who was shown in a number of foreign markets, from time to time one of these missing shows turns up in a dusty storeroom in Nigeria, Hong Kong, or wherever. Sadly this is not one of those rescued shows. But there is team that was working on recovery (primarily Loose Cannon) that used production stills and audio recordings of the programs to put out reconstructed versions, which is how I watched this program. From that I can see that it was gorgeous, and to this day I think it ranks as the number one story fans want to recover. And some missing episodes of other stories have been replaced by animations from Planet 55 Studios. What has enabled all of these alternatives is the many fans recorded the sound tracks of the episodes when they were first broadcast, and those soundtracks are the basis for animations and reconstructions. This problem has seriously affected the stories of the first 2 Doctors, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. Starting with Doctor #3, Jon Pertwee, we have all episodes.

\n\n\n\n

The Keys of Marinus

\n\n\n\n

This is a rather confused jumble. Set on the planet Marinus, you have a peaceful race, who have developed a conscience machine that erases all of the baser human emotions like greed, hatred, and violence, but they are opposed by an evil race, the Voord, who are devoting themselves to taking over, but first they need to control the conscience machine. 5 keys are necessary to operate it, and the 5 keys are dispersed. Our travelers have to regain all 5, which means a travelogue adventure where each episode is set in a different environment. You might notice that the Doctor seems to be missing for a couple of episodes here, and when that happens it means a vacation break for the actor. When these stories were done it was a full year-round schedule for the filming. Fortunately Ian and Barbara carry things just fine. The one with the brains in jars is not bad, but doesn’t the “bad race out to destroy good race” remind you a bit of The Daleks? (Story #2). And wouldn’t you know, Terry Nation is also the author of this one. Coming between two outstanding historical stories (Marco Polo and The Aztecs) does not improve the rank of this story. Pleasant enough, but not one of the milestones in Doctor Who history. Again, note the alternation in this season between SF stories and historical stories.

\n\n\n\n

The Aztecs

\n\n\n\n

This is another very good historical story that has the TARDIS materialize in Aztec Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, when the Aztecs were at their height of power. It is interesting that they directly tackle the issue of human sacrifice, which of course both the Aztecs and the Maya were known to do. Barbara finds an ornate bracelet and puts it on, only to discover that it is for the Goddess, and she is now taken for being this Goddess. She tries to use the power this gives her to stop the practice of human sacrifice, but discovers that the social inertia of this society is too powerful. The practice of human sacrifice would not stop until the Aztecs were basically wiped out by a combination of disease and conquest. This is a story well worth watching. Carole Ann Ford is mostly missing (vacation time), but the other three all deliver great performances. This is the exemplar of a great Doctor Who historical.

\n\n\n\n

The Sensorites

\n\n\n\n

Again, after the previous historical story, we get an SF story set on an alien planet with an alien race, the Sensorites. It starts with the TARDIS materializing on a spaceship from Earth, with two people who are apparently dead, but it shortly develops that they have been placed in a catatonic state by the Sensorites. Then the door lock to the TARDIS is removed, stranding the travelers until they can get it back. It turns out the Sensorites have mental powers, and they communicate through Susan, who also now seems to have some unusual powers. Had the producers gone further with this, Carole Ann Ford might well have stayed with the show longer! The costumes are little hokey, but honestly that is the case throughout classic Doctor Who. But the basic plot is good, revolving around a people who are mostly transparently honest and trustworthy, but who have some evil appearing in their midst. But is the greater evil among the Sensorites, or among the humans?

\n\n\n\n

The Reign of Terror

\n\n\n\n

After the previous SF story, another historical one, this time set in revolutionary France during the ascendance of Robespierre. There is the first small appearance of outside location shooting, though there would be much more next season in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. This is another good story, with the ever-present threat of the Guillotine hanging over everyone, which is pretty accurate for Robespierre’s rule. Hartnell in particular shines in this story.

\n\n\n\n

This is a story with a couple of missing episodes (4-5), which I saw reconstructed using production stills and the soundtrack

\n\n\n\n

This brings us to the end of the first season of Doctor Who. Like any TV show, it is a mixed bag. There were some very good stories, and a few not so good. But this is where it all began.

\n\n

Links:

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4241,"date":"2024-11-04","title":"HPR Community News for October 2024","duration":5730,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in October 2024","notes":"\n\n

New hosts

\n

\nThere were no new hosts this month.\n

\n\n

Last Month's Shows

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
IdDayDateTitleHost
4217Tue2024-10-01Episode 2 - Dirt Simple Photo Galleryhairylarry
4218Wed2024-10-02Crazy Battery StorySwift110
4219Thu2024-10-03Black diamond head lamp and other gearSome Guy On The Internet
4220Fri2024-10-04How Doctor Who BeganAhuka
4221Mon2024-10-07HPR Community News for September 2024HPR Volunteers
4222Tue2024-10-08Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood TS940S HF Radio Part 5MrX
4223Wed2024-10-09Movie review of The Artifice GirlSome Guy On The Internet
4224Thu2024-10-10Auto shop interactionArcher72
4225Fri2024-10-11Chewing the rag with Kristoff and KenKen Fallon
4226Mon2024-10-14JAMBOREE and Taco Bell!operat0r
4227Tue2024-10-15Introduction to jq - part 3Dave Morriss
4228Wed2024-10-16Auditing Audio Files For YoutubeDave Hingley
4229Thu2024-10-17Neurodiversity and HackingLee
4230Fri2024-10-18Playing Civilization IV, Part 2Ahuka
4231Mon2024-10-21Duplicating Multiple USB Flash Drives with DD and Tmux on FreeBSDClaudio Miranda
4232Tue2024-10-22Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood TS940S HF Radio Part 6MrX
4233Wed2024-10-23OggCamp 2024 Day 1Ken Fallon
4234Thu2024-10-24OggCamp 2024 Day 2Ken Fallon
4235Fri2024-10-25What Is Plain Text Programming?hairylarry
4236Mon2024-10-28History of NintendoLochyboy
4237Tue2024-10-29My First OggCamp ExperienceKevie
4238Wed2024-10-30Snaps are better than flatpaksSome Guy On The Internet
4239Thu2024-10-31Android Tasker and Automationoperat0r
\n\n

Comments this month

\n\n

These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows.\nThere are 25 comments in total.

\n

Past shows

\n

There are 8 comments on\n4 previous shows:

\n
    \n
  • hpr4208\n(2024-09-18) \"01 Plain Text Programs\"\nby hairylarry.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 3:\nBeeza on 2024-10-03:\n\"Plaintext Programs\"
      • \n
    • \nComment 4:\nDave Morriss on 2024-10-04:\n\"Regarding VMS and indexed files\"
      • \n
    • \nComment 5:\nhairylarry on 2024-10-07:\n\"Thanks for the comments\"

    \n
  • hpr4211\n(2024-09-23) \"Rapid Fire 1\"\nby operat0r.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 1:\nSun Yat Babo on 2024-10-25:\n\"neuro diverse film\"

    \n
  • hpr4213\n(2024-09-25) \"Making Waves Day 1\"\nby Ken Fallon.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 1:\ndmt on 2024-10-12:\n\"satdump\"

    \n
  • hpr4216\n(2024-09-30) \"Down the rabbit hole.\"\nby Some Guy On The Internet.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 1:\nBeeza on 2024-10-03:\n\"Good Samaritans\"
      • \n
    • \nComment 2:\nReto on 2024-10-23:\n\"The humor\"
      • \n
    • \nComment 3:\nKen Fallon on 2024-10-24:\n\"The View from NL\"

    \n
\n

This month's shows

\n

There are 17 comments on 10 of this month's shows:

\n
  • hpr4221\n(2024-10-07) \"HPR Community News for September 2024\"\nby HPR Volunteers.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nDave Morriss on 2024-10-05:\n\"Show notes for the HPR New Years Eve Show 2023-24\"
    • Comment 2:\nbrian-in-ohio on 2024-10-07:\n\"best price?\"

    \n
  • hpr4222\n(2024-10-08) \"Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood TS940S HF Radio Part 5\"\nby MrX.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nBeeza on 2024-10-08:\n\"Old Batteries\"
    • Comment 2:\nMrX on 2024-10-10:\n\"Re Old Batteries\"

    \n
  • hpr4224\n(2024-10-10) \"Auto shop interaction\"\nby Archer72.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nA. Listener on 2024-10-12:\n\"issue with downloading shows\"

    \n
  • hpr4228\n(2024-10-16) \"Auditing Audio Files For Youtube\"\nby Dave Hingley.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nKevie on 2024-10-26:\n\"Youtube's copyright strikes\"

    \n
  • hpr4231\n(2024-10-21) \"Duplicating Multiple USB Flash Drives with DD and Tmux on FreeBSD\"\nby Claudio Miranda.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nGumnos on 2024-10-29:\n\"Getting status of dd in OpenBSD\"
    • Comment 2:\nhairylarry on 2024-10-30:\n\"Similarly\"
    • Comment 3:\nClaudioM on 2024-10-31:\n\"Re: Similarly\"
    • Comment 4:\nClaudioM on 2024-10-31:\n\"Re: Getting status of dd in OpenBSD\"

    \n
  • hpr4236\n(2024-10-28) \"History of Nintendo\"\nby Lochyboy.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nSteve Barnes on 2024-10-29:\n\"Ahhyes.\"
    • Comment 2:\nClaudioM on 2024-10-31:\n\"Virtual Boy?\"

    \n
  • hpr4237\n(2024-10-29) \"My First OggCamp Experience\"\nby Kevie.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nPeter - SolusSpider on 2024-10-30:\n\"OggCamp Dining Experience\"

    \n
  • hpr4238\n(2024-10-30) \"Snaps are better than flatpaks\"\nby Some Guy On The Internet.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nTrey on 2024-10-30:\n\"Ethernet cable\"
    • Comment 2:\nElliot B on 2024-11-01:\n\"Snaps are the least worst\"

    \n
  • hpr4240\n(2024-11-01) \"The First Doctor, Part 1\"\nby Ahuka.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nKevie on 2024-10-31:\n\"Keep them coming\"

    \n
  • hpr4266\n(2024-12-09) \"What's the weather?\"\nby Lee.
    • \n
  • \n
    \n
\n\n

Mailing List discussions

\n

\nPolicy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This\ndiscussion takes place on the Mail List which is open to all HPR listeners and\ncontributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under\nMailman.\n

\n

The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

\nhttps://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2024-October/thread.html\n\n\n

Events Calendar

\n

With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to\nThe LWN.net Community Calendar.

\n

Quoting the site:

\n
This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track\nevents of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software.\nClicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web\npage.
\n\n

Any other business

\n

HPR Updates

\n
    \n

  • There has been a lot of activity this month on the Gitea repos\nwith rho`n catching up on outstanding bugs. We also had a\nlot of changes due to the ongoing Internet Archive outage that is still\nimpacting us. A quick fix was to host the 10 day feed directly from the\nHPR server, but since then we have made all the media available on the\nHPR Community Content Delivery Network.

    • \n

  • We will have three sources but if you meet the requirements for\nhosting, and wish to help out please get in touch.

    \n
      \n
    • 24/7 Home Service
      • \n
    • Fixed IP address
      • \n
    • Unlimited bandwidth
      • \n
    • Fast > 500mb/sec upload
      • \n
    • Large > 1T of storage
      • \n
    • Permission from your ISP to run a web server
      • \n
    • Contact information known to the Janitors
      • \n
    • Optional: UPS
      • \n
    • \n

  • We added a html link to the comments page to provide direct\nfeedback from any app that supports it. Eg: gPodder opens Firefox at the\ncomment form.

    • \n

  • We have consolidated a lot of repositories on Gitea, removing\nsome and moving others. https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR

    • \n

  • Documentation is now available and includes:

    \n
      \n
    • Community Content Delivery Network (CCDN) A location to\ntrack the deployment of the HPR Community Content Delivery Network, that\nprovides a mirror network for our content.
      • \n
    • HPR Website Design This is literally in the whiteboard\nphase of the HPR website redesign.
      • \n
    • Podcatcher and Podcasting Platform Compatibility Where we\ncan track Compatibility of the clients subscribed to our feeds.
      • \n
    • Useful Resources Where we can link to other free culture\nsites that provide useful services.
      • \n
    • Requested Topics Where we can track topics that have been\nrequested, and link to shows that addressed them.
      • \n
    • Workflow issues.
      • \n
    • \n
\n

Message from Dave Morriss

\n
    \n

  • I am planning to \"retire\" from the Hacker Public Radio Janitorial\nTeam. I have been helping to administer HPR for over 12 years now. I\nfirst offered help to Ken in 2012 in response to an appeal he made. We\nmet at OggCamp in that year, and I joined the Community News recording\nfor episode 1066 in September\n2012. My first show was 1091 in October\nthat year.

    • \n

  • I will turn 75 in December 2024, and am finding that I don't have\nthe energy to do as much as I could when I first joined. I also want to\nbe able to devote more time to the various personal projects I\nhave.

    • \n

  • I plan to consolidate all my scripts on the HPR Gitea\nrepositories, and document all the processes I have been looking after.\nI want to have completed the handover by the end of March 2025.

    • \n

  • I will continue as an HPR host for as long as I can after\nthat.

    • \n

  • I have had a wonderful 12 years as an HPR Janitor and will always\nlook back on it with great pleasure.

    • \n
\n\n\n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4242,"date":"2024-11-05","title":"Interview with Lorenzo 'kelset' Sciandra","duration":658,"summary":"Ken tracks down a Lorenzo to talk about his presentations at OggCamp2024","notes":"

Links

\n
    \n
  • website: https://kelset.dev/
    • \n
  • mental health project: https://debug-mind.com/
    • \n
  • talk about STF at OGGCamp: https://speakerdeck.com/kelset/sustaining-oss
    • \n
  • talk about mental health at OGGCamp: https://speakerdeck.com/kelset/mental-health-in-tech-oss-edition
    • \n
  • ofc STF's website: https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/
    • \n
  • https://mastodon.online/@kelset
    • \n
\n","hostid":30,"series":78,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"OggCamp2024,STF,Mental Health","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4243,"date":"2024-11-06","title":"Hand Warmer, long term product review","duration":924,"summary":"Long term product review of my electric hand warmer. Inspiration from Ken Fallon during OggCamp","notes":"

Background

\n

Ken suggested at Oggcamp to do a long term product review of my hand\nwarmer.

\n

Product information

\n
    \n

  • The model: OCOOPA 10,000 mAh capacity

    • \n

  • Purchase date: December 2020

    • \n

  • Cost: £25

    • \n

  • Description: It has a single button used to turn it on and to\nadjust the heat level.

    • \n

  • It has three different USB sockets. These are used when either\ncharging the hand warmer or using it as a power bank to charge other\ndevices.

    • \n
\n\n

Fast\ncharge model from Ocoopa. My model charges slower which might be gentler\non the battery. Actually the real reason I bought the slow charge model\nwas it was cheaper

\n

Amazon\nseem to sell the model I have and amazingly it’s still £25!

\n

Story

\n

During OggCamp I mentioned to Ken that I had an electric hand warmer\nand he asked me if it was any good. He suggested I do a long term\nproduct review of it. So here is my review

\n

I do lots of dog walking and suffer from cold hands.

\n

I've had different hand warmers over the years:

\n
    \n
  • Ones that you boil in water. Don’t last long
    • \n
  • One that is activated by removing from its packet. Lasts for many\nhours actually too long. They seems very wasteful as they are single\nuse.
    • \n
  • Zippo hand warmer works well but is a faff to setup and sometimes\ngoes out.
    • \n
\n

This electric hand warmer is by far the best solution I've found.

\n

It saved me twice during OggCamp as I used it on two occasions to top\nup my phone. When arriving and leaving OggCamp.

\n

This was the first time I’d used the hand warmer to charge anything.\nI was very glad it worked.

\n

At the time of purchase I was rather sceptical about the whole idea\nof electric hand warmers.

\n

The batteries are not used in ideal conditions. They get very hot and\nwhen in use a lot of current is drawn from them.

\n

My Hand warmer is now almost 4 years old and is still going strong\nwith no noticeable degradation in capacity.

\n

It has a rated capacity is 10,000 mAh. The highest charge it achieved\nwas about 1 year into use. It accepted 8034 mAh of charge. I haven’t\nchecked again since November 2021. However it still continues to last\nmany hours / multiple dog walks.

\n

I always get a bit nervous over the summer months as it is left for a\nnumber of months unused. Luckily living in Scotland I don’t need to wait\nlong until the weather gets cold. Did I mention before about the\nhorrible weather in Scotland?

\n

How I look after the battery

\n
    \n

  • Always wait for the battery to return to room temperature before\nputting it on charge.

    • \n

  • Don’t leave the hand warmer for more than a few days at 100%\ncharge.

    • \n

  • Try not to completely flatten the battery. If you do flatten the\nbattery then charge it up soon afterwards.

    • \n

  • If storing it for a number of months then try to store it at\napproximately 50% charge.

    • \n
\n

Top view
\n\"Top

\n

Underneath
\n\"Underneath\"

\n

USB ports
\n\"USB

\n","hostid":201,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Review, Gadget, Outdoors, Walking","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -4330,7 +4330,7 @@ {"id":4330,"date":"2025-03-07","title":"GIMP: Fixing Photos","duration":952,"summary":"How to fix some of the common problems in photos","notes":"

\n If you you take a lot of photos, some of them will show problems.\n But you don't need to throw them away. With GIMP, you can fix\n these common problems and restore your photos. In this episode I\n look at getting rid of fingers in photos, fixing red eyes in\n photos, and fixing common artefacts caused by a speck of dust or\n damage to the negative.

\n \"The\n

\n Links:

\n \n","hostid":198,"series":113,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"GIMP, Red eye, photo artifacts","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4331,"date":"2025-03-10","title":"Re-inventing the light switch","duration":576,"summary":"Lee does some home automation with Bash, Python and Apache Cordova","notes":"\n

\nBulbs

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nWiz Connected smart light bulbs\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nExploit

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nArticle about hacking the lights\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nSource Code

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSource code of the hack\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nCordova

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nApache Cordova framework for mobile apps\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nCordova Plugin

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSSH Connect Cordova Plugin\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nKDE Widgets

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nMobile Interface

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nCode

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nPython Script

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nwiz-hack.py\n

\n
\nimport socket\nimport time\nimport random\nimport sys\n​\nif len(sys.argv) < 3:\n     print(help)\n     exit()\nIP = sys.argv[1]\n​\non = \"\"\"{\"params\":{\"orig\":\"andr\",\"state\":true},\"id\":6,\"method\":\"setPilot\"}\"\"\"\noff = \"\"\"{\"params\":{\"orig\":\"andr\",\"state\":false},\"id\":6,\"method\":\"setPilot\"}\"\"\"\n​\ns = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)\ns.connect((IP, 38899))\nif sys.argv[2] != \"on\" and sys.argv[2] != \"off\":\n   print(\"Changing lights color\")\n   b = sys.argv[2]\n   color_send = \"\"\"{\"method\":\"setPilot\",\"params\":{\"r\":\"\"\" + str(255) + \"\"\",\"g\":\"\"\" + str(255)  + \"\"\",\"b\":\"\"\" + str(255) + \"\"\",\"dimming\":\"\"\" + str(b) + \"\"\"}}\"\"\"\n   print(color_send)\n   s.sendall(bytes(color_send, \"utf-8\"))\n   s.close()\nelif sys.argv[2] == \"on\":\n    print(\"Turning on the lights\")\n    s.sendall(bytes(on, \"utf-8\"))\n    s.close()\nelif sys.argv[2] == \"off\":\n    print(\"Turning off the lights\")\n    s.sendall(bytes(off, \"utf-8\"))\n    s.close()\n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\nShell Scripts

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\non.sh\n

\n
\n#!/bin/sh\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.94 on\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.177 on\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.207 on\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.254 on\n​\n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\noff.sh\n

\n
\n#!/bin/sh\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.94 off\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.177 off\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.207 off\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.254 off\n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nlight.sh\n

\n
\n#!/bin/sh\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.94 \"$1\"\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.177 \"$1\"\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.207 \"$1\"\n/usr/bin/python /usr/local/bin/wiz-hack.py 192.168.0.254 \"$1\"\n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\nMobile App

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nindex.html (excerpt)\n

\n
\n...\n<h1>Light Control</h1>\n​\n<button id=\"onButton\">On</button>\n<button id=\"offButton\">Off</button>\n​\n<br><br>\n​\n<label for=\"brightnessSlider\">Brightness:</label>\n<input type=\"range\" id=\"brightnessSlider\" min=\"0\" max=\"100\" value=\"50\">\n​\n<script src=\"cordova.js\"></script>\n<script src=\"js/index.js\"></script>\n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nindex.js\n

\n
\nconst user = \"user\";\nconst password = \"redacted_password\";\nconst host = \"192.168.0.218\";\nconst port = \"22\";\n​\nvar sshConnect;\n​\nfunction on() {\n   sshConnect.connect(user, password, host, port, () => {\n       sshConnect.executeCommand('on.sh', function() {\n           sshConnect.disconnect();\n       });\n   });\n}\n​\nfunction off() {\n   sshConnect.connect(user, password, host, port, () => {\n       sshConnect.executeCommand('off.sh', function() {\n           sshConnect.disconnect();\n       });\n   });\n}\n​\nfunction brightness(level) {\n   sshConnect.connect(user, password, host, port, () => {\n       sshConnect.executeCommand('light.sh '+level, function() {\n           sshConnect.disconnect();\n       });\n   });\n}    \n​\ndocument.addEventListener('deviceready', onDeviceReady, false);\n​\nfunction onDeviceReady() {\n   sshConnect = cordova.plugins.sshConnect;\n​\n   document.getElementById(\"onButton\").addEventListener(\"click\", () => {\n     // Send \"on\" command to light\n     console.log(\"Light turned on\");\n     on();\n   });\n​\n   document.getElementById(\"offButton\").addEventListener(\"click\", () => {\n     // Send \"off\" command to light\n     console.log(\"Light turned off\");\n     off();\n   });\n​\n   document.getElementById(\"brightnessSlider\").addEventListener(\"input\", () => {\n     const level = document.getElementById(\"brightnessSlider\").value;\n     // Send brightness value to light\n     console.log(\"Brightness set to:\", level);\n     brightness(level);\n   });\n}\n
\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":125,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"python, bash, cordova","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4332,"date":"2025-03-11","title":"Top 5 mistakes every new terminal user makes","duration":1465,"summary":"And how to avoid them","notes":"\n
\n

Learning to use the terminal is an important step in becoming a\n true power user of Linux, but it’s easy (and normal) to make\n mistakes along the way. Here are the top 5 mistakes new terminal\n users make, and what you can learn from them.

\n

1. Current working directory

\n

When you first open a terminal, your current working directory\n is your home folder. You have access to all those directories\n you see in your home directory every time you open a file\n manager (Desktop, Documents, Downloads,\n Music, Pictures, and Videos).\n You can verify your location with the pwd command:

\n 
$ pwd\n/home/seth
\n

You can list the files and folders within your current\n directory with the ls or dir or tree\n commands:

\n 
$ ls\nDesktop  Documents  Downloads\nMusic    Pictures   Videos
\n

But you don’t usually stay in one place while using the\n terminal. You frequently move from folder to folder so you can\n open or modify or edit files. It’s easy to get lost, forgetting\n what directory you’re in and what files are around you.

\n

Lesson learned: When working in the terminal,\n it’s important to regularly verify your current working\n directory with pwd so you don’t accidentally issue\n a command you intended to run in a different location.

\n

2. Use interactive options when using\n wildcards

\n

Wildcards are great shorthand to make command entry faster, and\n to perform bulk actions on lots of files. However, they can be\n dangerous when you get them wrong.
\n It’s easy to process hundreds of the wrong files by using a\n wildcard in the wrong directory, or by using a wildcard that’s\n too broad.

\n

For example, suppose you want to run a sed\n command on all HTML files in a directory, so you run this:

\n 
$ sed --in-place 's/day/night/g' *ml
\n

Job done, until you find out that you accidentally ran that\n command on all your XML files, too.

\n

Lesson learned: Run a safe test command on the\n wildcard you think you want to target before making a\n change. Some commands have a literal --dry-run\n option. Others have an --interactive option that\n forces the command to prompt you to confirm that you want to\n carry out the action. Sometimes the logic is reversed: a command\n refuses to make a major change unless you use a command (for\n example, sed doesn’t write changes to a file\n without the --in-place option or redirection).

\n

When in doubt, improvise. You can always “expand” a wildcard\n using the echo command:

\n 
$ echo ./*ml\n./four.html ./one.xml ./three.html ./two.xml\n$ echo ./*tml\n./four.html ./three.html
\n

3. File paths

\n

Many new terminal users don’t understand where files are\n located within the file system. It’s not a common mistake to\n make on the desktop because there are visual reminders there.\n You wouldn’t try to double-click on a document to open it if\n there was no icon to double-click. It’s easy to assume that the\n terminal application contains all your files all at once, but\n the terminal is, by design, limited in scope. Were the terminal\n to have access to every file everywhere on your system all at\n once, you’d end up accidentally renaming and moving and copying\n a lot more files than intended. Specificity is a super power,\n and it’s defined by the file path.

\n

A file path describes where a file exists in a file system. A\n full (or “absolute”) file path always starts from the single\n folder at the start of your operating system, indicated by just\n a /, and then lists each folder within that folder\n until it traces the path to a specific file. For example, I have\n a file called IMG_0001.JPG in my Pictures\n directory. You probably have a mental image of where that file\n is and how you’d get there on the desktop. But for the terminal\n to understand how to find it, the location must be expressed as\n /home/seth/Pictures/IMG_0001.JPG.

\n

An absolute file path is definitive. The terminal always\n understands an absolute file path, no matter what your current\n working directory is.

\n

The absolute path to a file can be unwieldy, though. Once you\n understand absolute paths, you can abbreviate any path to a relative\n file path.

\n

A relative file path is based on your current location in the\n terminal. As long as you’re in the Pictures\n folder, the full path /home/seth/Pictures/IMG_0001.JPG\n can be shortened to just IMG_0001.JPG, or ./IMG_0001.JPG\n for added clarity (the . indicates no movement\n from your current location, and the / is a\n directory separator as usual).

\n

But suppose your current working directory was your home\n directory. Your Pictures folder is located in your\n home directory, so to get to IMG_0001.JPG you have\n to enter Pictures first. The relative path in that\n case is ./Pictures/IMG_0001.JPG or just Pictures/IMG_0001.JPG.

\n

Lesson learned: An absolute file path always\n starts from the start of a file system. A relative file path\n changes based on your location. The terminal understands both.\n For new users, the absolute file path is the most explicit and\n exact way to reference a file, so practice using them until\n you’re comfortable with the concept of file paths.

\n

4. Executable permissions

\n

By default, most files aren’t executable. You can’t run them\n like an application, because most files are meant to be opened in\n an application. That’s not true for shell scripts, though.

\n

Shell scripts are text files containing a list of commands, and\n they’re meant to be run like an application. They’re a powerful\n way to string existing commands together to form a new custom\n command. However, because a shell script starts out as a regular\n text file, it’s not seen by your terminal as an executable\n entity.

\n

To execute a file as an application, you can grant it\n executable permission with the chmod command:

\n 
$ chmod +x ./example.sh
\n

Alternatively, you can run the file in a sub-shell:

\n 
$ bash ./example.sh
\n

Notice that in these examples, I use the ./\n notation as if the example.sh shell script exists\n in my current directory.

\n

5. Typing errors

\n

It sometimes feels like the more you type, the more you’re\n getting done. In a terminal, though, typing too much is one of\n the best ways to introduce mistakes.

\n

When you try to type a long and complex command, you’re liable\n to spell something wrong or use the wrong option. When you try\n to type a filename or a file path, you might forget to escape\n special characters (like spaces). The errors aren’t usually\n catastrophic, but they’re frustrating and time consuming.

\n

Lesson learned: There are several ways to\n ensure you’re entering the correct commands into your terminal:

\n
    \n
  • Copy and paste: If you’re using a command\n you found on a trusted website, copy it in your browser and\n then paste it into your terminal using Ctrl+Shift+V\n or right-click and select Paste.
    • \n
  • TAB: You can type part of a command or file\n path, and then press the TAB key on your\n keyboard for either auto-completion or for suggested\n completions. Use it even when you don’t think you need it.\n It’ll save you errors every single time, even when\n it appears to not work (hint: it’s not working because you’re\n trying to auto-complete something that’s not where you think\n it is).
    • \n
  • Drag-and-drop: It’s the 21st century! You\n can drag a file or folder from anywhere on your computer, and\n drop it into your terminal. It gets replaced by its absolute\n path automatically.
    • \n
\n

Practice makes perfect

\n

To get good in the terminal, you have to use it as often as you\n can. You don’t have to use it for “serious” work at first, and\n you arguably shouldn’t, but you can and should do simple\n exercises in the terminal. Understand file paths, get used to\n wildcards, learn shortcuts, use the TAB key.\n The biggest mistake you can make when learning the terminal is\n to not use the terminal, so open it up every day, do your\n exercise, and you’ll be an expert in the terminal in no time.

\n
","hostid":78,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"linux, terminal","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4333,"date":"2025-03-12","title":"A Radically Transparent Computer Without Complex VLSI","duration":1116,"summary":"Short talk about Dauug | 36, the world's most advanced transparently functioning computer.","notes":"\n

\n TITLE

\n

\n A Radically Transparent Computer Without Complex VLSI

\n

\n VENUE

\n

\n 1st IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy CyberInfrastructure\n for IoT and Microelectronics (SaTC 2025), Wright State University,\n February 25-27, 2025.

\n

\n This is a recording of the final rehearsal that occurred three\n hours before this invited talk. No slides were used.

\n

\n ABSTRACT

\n

\n Foreign adversaries have colonized America’s computers from at\n least 1986. Four decades later, online safety is the largest\n failure in the history of human engineering. Radical stewardship\n in cybersecurity would bring radical progress, but responsibility\n for losses will need to flow from the bottom up. The buck stops\n with victims, who must accept all blame for cyberattacks. Only\n then will people at risk properly vet the products and vendors\n they select.

\n

\n A leading challenge in stewardship is balancing the opaque,\n proprietary nature of VLSI complex logic with the owner’s need for\n complete control. Since these aspects are incompatible and owner\n control is essential, it’s necessary to design computers that\n avoid complex VLSI entirely. One such architecture, Dauug | 36, is\n being developed at Wright State University to deliver 36-bit\n computing, preemptive multitasking, paged virtual memory, and\n hundreds of opcodes, all without using a single microprocessor or\n anything like one.

\n

\n BIOGRAPHY

\n

\n Marc Abel is an engineer-scientist specializing in technology that\n supports civil rights, economic security, and geopolitical\n stability. He holds a 1991 B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science\n (focused on computer science) from Caltech, and a 2022 Ph.D. in\n Computer Science and Engineering from Wright State University.

\n

\n Marc is the sole inventor, architect, implementer, maintainer,\n documenter, and promoter of the Dauug | 36 open-source\n minicomputer for critical infrastructure. He is the original and\n still only author of Dauug | 36’s firmware, designer and\n implementer of Dauug | 36’s assembly language and assemblers,\n writer of several related software tools, especially open-source\n electronic design automation and simulation tools, and the sole\n author of Osmin, a real-time operating system (RTOS) kernel for\n the architecture. He is the writer of 200,000 words of system\n documentation, including his dissertation and its online\n continuation called The Dauug House.

\n

\n
\n

","hostid":443,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY","tags":"Dauug|36, solder-defined computers, transparently functioning computers, cybersecurity","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4333,"date":"2025-03-12","title":"A Radically Transparent Computer Without Complex VLSI","duration":1116,"summary":"Short talk about Dauug | 36, the world's most advanced transparently functioning computer.","notes":"

\n TITLE

\n

\n A Radically Transparent Computer Without Complex VLSI

\n

\n VENUE

\n

\n 1st IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy CyberInfrastructure\n for IoT and Microelectronics (SaTC 2025), Wright State University,\n February 25-27, 2025.

\n

\n This is a recording of the final rehearsal that occurred three\n hours before this invited talk. No slides were used.

\n

\n ABSTRACT

\n

\n Foreign adversaries have colonized America’s computers from at\n least 1986. Four decades later, online safety is the largest\n failure in the history of human engineering. Radical stewardship\n in cybersecurity would bring radical progress, but responsibility\n for losses will need to flow from the bottom up. The buck stops\n with victims, who must accept all blame for cyberattacks. Only\n then will people at risk properly vet the products and vendors\n they select.

\n

\n A leading challenge in stewardship is balancing the opaque,\n proprietary nature of VLSI complex logic with the owner’s need for\n complete control. Since these aspects are incompatible and owner\n control is essential, it’s necessary to design computers that\n avoid complex VLSI entirely. One such architecture, Dauug | 36, is\n being developed at Wright State University to deliver 36-bit\n computing, preemptive multitasking, paged virtual memory, and\n hundreds of opcodes, all without using a single microprocessor or\n anything like one.

\n

\n More information about Dauug | 36 and transparently functioning\n (solder defined) computers in general is available at The Dauug House.

\n

\n BIOGRAPHY

\n

\n Marc Abel is an engineer-scientist specializing in technology that\n supports civil rights, economic security, and geopolitical\n stability. He holds a 1991 B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science\n (focused on computer science) from Caltech, and a 2022 Ph.D. in\n Computer Science and Engineering from Wright State University.

\n

\n Marc is the sole inventor, architect, implementer, maintainer,\n documenter, and promoter of the Dauug | 36 open-source\n minicomputer for critical infrastructure. He is the original and\n still only author of Dauug | 36’s firmware, designer and\n implementer of Dauug | 36’s assembly language and assemblers,\n writer of several related software tools, especially open-source\n electronic design automation and simulation tools, the sole\n author of Osmin, a real-time operating system (RTOS) kernel for\n the architecture, and about 200,000 words of documentation.

\n","hostid":443,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY","tags":"Dauug|36, solder-defined computers, transparently functioning computers, cybersecurity","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4334,"date":"2025-03-13","title":"24-25 New Years Eve show episode 3","duration":6691,"summary":"The HPR community comes together to say happy new year and chat","notes":"\n

\n
\n

\n

\n-----------------

\n

\nNYE 2025 3

\n

\n------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nViolin \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/violin/structure/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nViola \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nViolin Vs Viola \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.gear4music.com/blog/viola-vs-violin/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nGuitar \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nGuitar Frets

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.liveabout.com/what-guitar-frets-are-and-why-they-matter-4686563\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nNyckelharpa (aka Key Harp)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.nyckelharpa.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyckelharpa\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nAspbergers Syndrome\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/mental-health-aspergers-syndrome\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMumble\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.mumble.info/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nJitsi\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://jitsi.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSweden and the relationship with the Nyckelharpa\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://ich.unesco.org/en/BSP/nyckelharpa-network-an-innovative-dissemination-of-a-music-and-instrument-building-tradition-with-roots-in-sweden-01976\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nClarinet\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/clarinet/structure/structure002.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMandolin\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.britannica.com/art/mandolin\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nLap Steel Guitar\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttp://www.frets.com/FretsPages/General/Glossary/LapSteel/lapsteel.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nJacksonville, Florida\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.jacksonville.gov/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBoston\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.boston.gov/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nUrban Sprawl\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://campuspress.yale.edu/ledger/urban-sprawl-a-growing-problem/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nFort Myers, Florida\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.cityftmyers.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSouth Carolina\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.britannica.com/place/South-Carolina\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nNorth Cackalacky\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://avltoday.6amcity.com/examining-the-origins-of-ncs-nickname-north-cackalacky\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMissoula, Montana\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nCloud Chamber\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.iop.org/explore-physics/physics-around-you/understanding-surroundings/cloud-chamber\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nVinyl Records\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://victrola.com/blogs/articles/how-do-vinyl-records-work\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nginx\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://nginx.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPython\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.python.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nThe Linux Lugcast\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://linuxlugcast.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nArchive Dot Org\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://archive.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPine 64\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://pine64.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nWordpress\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://wordpress.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nPowerPress

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://wordpress.org/plugins/powerpress/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nBluberry Press

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://blubrry.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nRSS Feed\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://rss.com/blog/how-do-rss-feeds-work/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nOrangePi Zero 3\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttp://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/details/Orange-Pi-Zero-3.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nOGG file format\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://xiph.org/ogg/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMP3 file format\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.geeksforgeeks.org/mp3-file-format-mp3-extension/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nRaspberry Pi Pico / Pico W\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nNextcloud\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://nextcloud.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nNextcloud Calendar Plugin\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/calendar\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nHPR Episode 4058 \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4058/index.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nReal ID\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.dhs.gov/real-id\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBank of America\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.bankofamerica.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nKnow Your Customer Policy\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/knowyourclient.asp\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBullet Button (firearms)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.bulletbutton.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBrowning 50 caliber rifle\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Browning\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBarrett Arms\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.browning.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBarret 416 \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://barrett.net/products/accessories/ammunition/416barrett/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSoviet 8mm anti-tank rifle\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-ptrs-41-and-other-russian-anti-tank-rifles/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nTungstun Core German Bullet ( Spitzgeschoß mit Hartkern)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://panzerworld.com/german-ammunition-nomenclature\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nLargest Cal air rifle \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.outdoorlife.com/gear/aea-zeus-review/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nArmy Core of Engineers\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.usace.army.mil/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nDeer Island Sewage Treatment Plant\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.mwra.com/your-sewer-system/sewer-treatment-facilities/deer-island-wastewater-treatment-plant\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMethane as an energy source\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://archive.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/solutions/technologies/methane.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBeetlejuice Beetlejuice\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beetlejuice_beetlejuice\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nGame of Thrones DVD Set\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://collider.com/game-of-thrones-complete-collection-review/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nArmbian\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.armbian.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nEtherpad\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://etherpad.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nYunohost\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://yunohost.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nDocker\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.docker.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nWyse Computer Thin Client\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyse\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nHarmonies (Board Game)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/414317/harmonies\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nTapple (Board Game)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129556/tapple\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPeanut Butter Whiskey\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.skrewballwhiskey.com/en/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSalted Caramel Whiskey - old Smokey brand\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://olesmoky.com/products/salty-caramel-flavored-whiskey\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMaple Flavor Crown Royal\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.crownroyal.com/canadian-whisky/crown-royal-maple\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nJack Daniels Tennessee Honey\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.jackdaniels.com/en-us/whiskey/tennessee-honey\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nJim Beam Honey Bourbon\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.jimbeam.com/en-us/bourbons/jim-beam-honey\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nJim Beam Vanilla Bourbon\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.jimbeam.com/en-us/bourbons/jim-beam-vanilla\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMaine\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.maine.gov/portal/index.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nRaspberry Pi 5\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nX2Go \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nUNIX\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://unix.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPFSense\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.pfsense.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nVLAN\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/definition/virtual-LAN\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nVPN\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-a-vpn\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nNord VPN\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://nordvpn.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nVerizon Cellular\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.verizon.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nGoogle Voice\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://voice.google.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nGoogle Drive\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://drive.google.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nThunderbird\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nUsenet \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nGoogle Groups\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://groups.google.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSymlinks\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.komprise.com/glossary_terms/symbolic-link/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nTubi\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.komprise.com/glossary_terms/symbolic-link/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nYoutube\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nuBlock Origin\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://ublockorigin.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPIE (Youtube/Twitch ad blocker)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://pie.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBitcoin\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://bitcoin.org/en/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nElon Musk\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPeter Dinklage\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Dinklage\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nDothraki\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://dothraki.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nValyrian\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/High_Valyrian\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\nKhaleesi\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Khaleesi\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nManscaping\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.usa.philips.com/c-e/mens-grooming/body-grooming/how-to-manscape.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://gillette.com/en-us/shaving-tips/manscaping/pubic-area-grooming-guide\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nCutting Back the Forest\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.brooklyngrooming.com/blogs/news/10984365-manscaping-cant-see-the-tree-for-the-forest\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nHitler Stash\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hitlerstache\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMr. T\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMullet\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pubic%20mullet\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMatrix\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://matrix.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nOld Growth Forest\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/mature-and-old-growth-forests-tech.pdf\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBattle of Saipan\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1944/saipan.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n60 Minutes special - Vietname war solider returns severed arm\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23124347\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBig and Rich - 8th of November song\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.8thofnovember.com/lyrics/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nJellyfin\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://jellyfin.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nRound Robin Load Balancer\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.f5.com/glossary/round-robin-load-balancing\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nWGET\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.gnu.org/software/wget/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSuper Mario Odyssey\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Mario_Odyssey\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nCappy (Super Mario Odyssey)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.mariowiki.com/Cappy\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMineTest\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.luanti.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMineCraft\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.minecraft.net/en-us\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMastadon\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://joinmastodon.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBetter Bachlor Podcast (Youtube)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/betterbachelor\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nDistro Hoppers Digest\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://distrohoppersdigest.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nMintcast

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://mintcast.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nProtonVPN\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://protonvpn.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nChromebook\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.google.com/chromebook/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nAOSP\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://source.android.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nThorium Browser\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://thorium.rocks/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nThorium OS\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://thorium.rocks/thoriumos\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBliss OS\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://blissos.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nReact OS\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://reactos.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nGNUHerd\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPineTab2\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://pine64.com/product/pinetab2-10-1-8gb-128gb-linux-tablet-with-detached-backlit-keyboard/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nArch Linux\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://archlinux.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nDebian Linux\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.debian.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPlasma Mobile\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://plasma-mobile.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nKDE 4\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Plasma_4\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nKDE 5\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Plasma_5\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nI5 Processor\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/processors/core/i5.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nI7 Processor\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/processors/core/i7.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBodhi Linux\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.bodhilinux.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nMX Linux\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://mxlinux.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSecure Boot\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/oem-secure-boot\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nXubuntu\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://xubuntu.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nFull Circle Weekly News\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://fullcirclemagazine.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nRonnie Tucker \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://ronnietucker.co.uk/about\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBandCamp\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://bandcamp.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nVentoy\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nChris Fisher\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/hosts/chris/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nLibreBoot\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://libreboot.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSilicon Power USB \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.silicon-power.com/web/category/usbdrives\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nMoksha Desktop 

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.bodhilinux.com/moksha-desktop/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nEnlightenment Desktop\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.enlightenment.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nManjaro

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://manjaro.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nRobert Wiley - Bodhi Linux Dev\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.bodhilinux.com/2019/06/11/new-lead-developer-robert-ylee-wiley/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nEscuelas Linux\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://escuelaslinux.sourceforge.io/english/index.html\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nLeaf Browser\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://leafbrowser.com/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nChromium\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.chromium.org/chromium-projects/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"new years,HPR,community","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4335,"date":"2025-03-14","title":"Responce to Antoin's H P R 4 3 1 3 ","duration":540,"summary":"Responce to Antoin's H P R 4 3 1 3 Converted to English Audio ","notes":"\n

\n Response to Antoin's HPR4313\n \"Why I made a 1-episode podcast about a war story. \"
\n Used https://huggingface.co/Jmica/audiobook_maker/blob/main/audiobook_maker_v3.0.zip\n with trained model of NOT Jenna Ortega :P

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"tts,F5TTS,Transcoding,audio,AI","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4336,"date":"2025-03-17","title":"The Everything-I-Know 20-minutes Show","duration":1198,"summary":"From Microsoft Word \"templates\" to Microphone types (starting with Embracing the Core)","notes":"\n

\nIn here:

\n

\n1- Carrying weight more safely

\n

\n- When picking up weight in front of your body, embrace the core (tighten the abdomen);

\n

\n- it gives you more stability, so you are more capable to do the task.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n2- Microphone types

\n

\na) by connection

\n

\ni) USB: connects \ndirectly\nto the computer, in the universal serial bus port. Plug and use!

\n

\nii) XLR: \nneeds a USB audio interface\n, with XLR input, to connect to the computer. There are more options of microphones and, if you can spend on an interface, quality is generally better.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\nXLR connectors: female (left) and male. (\n\n\nImage\n\n\nby Michael Piotrowski / Wikimedia Commons – \n\n\nCC BY-SA 3.0\n\n\n.)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nb) by diaphragm

\n

\ni) condenser: captures the voice in more detail, with deeper bass, more detailed treble… Most of the USB microphones uses this technology. As a disadvantage, they catch even minimal sound details of the environment, vibrating with little sound waves around, even distant. That’s why you might get as recording result the clear details of noise from the street, or reverberation (echo) of an untreated room if you use it without the best environment. \n(If it’s ok for you even in these situations, it’s a merit of other factors, not a merit of the condenser diaphragm)\n. \nUsage\n: A favorite of singers in studio, among several other applications. As you can see on videos of professionals singing, one don’t talk on top of it (which might produce a low and undesired muffled sound) but on the side — and on the correct side, because most models of microphones have a cardioid pollar pattern.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\nA side-adress microphone (captures the sound from one specific side), condenser-type. (Image by Arthur Fox / https://mynewmicrophone.com/diaphragm.)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nii) dynamic: responds to the audio source (voice, instrument) very close to the diaphragm, do not capture sound more than some centimeters (or some inches) away. It’s the best for amateur use, or in a room without acoustic treatment. \nUsage\n: \nMusicians\nperforming live use dynamic microphones so the instruments (and crowd) around don’t get their sound amplified by this artist’s microphone. \nRadios\nprefer dynamic mics, because it goes to a more impactful voice, rejects eventual sounds from noisy mixers or keyboards nearby that the radio host might be operating.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\nA top-adress microphone (captures the sound from the top), dynamic-type. (Image by Arthur Fox / https://mynewmicrophone.com/diaphragm.)\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThe \nRE20 from Electro-Voice\n(not the photo above) is a favorite of radio stations, in part for being dynamic, in part for reducing the proximity effect (that is, the sound “exploding” when the source gets too near to the capsule) because of its technology, named Variable-D.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nA word about captation pattern (no, the name is polar pattern): it says about the directional response. For example, some are omnidirectional (captures sound equally from all the sides); most of them are cardioid, capturing the sound coming from the front (the speaker, the instrument directed to it), but rejects sound from the rear.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n3- Microsoft Word (or Libreoffice Writer) “templates”

\n

\n- So, you do use templates for text archives, to facilitate the doing of commonly used documents. To know what to change, you highlight in yellow, right? Or do you put the text in red?

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- Well, my recommendation is to use, instead, * or {} : asterisk, curly brackets or any other symbol that you can type easily and not use as text in any document.

\n

\n. So you can easily find what is the part you have to change or write, and only delete the * when you do that part. At the end, you can check if there is any * remaining, if not, the document is ready.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- So, isnt’ it the same with colors, to indicate what to change in the document?

\n

\n. No. For formatting you need to use your vision (and may lose something) and have to remove the formatting manually. It’s possible to use the Find tool, but not as easily as finding a character.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\n\nTo illustrate:\n\n\nprint of an official document template for the bidding process for information and communication technology services. (Author: Brazil, Advocacia-Geral da União. Modelos da Lei 14.133/21 para bens e serviços de TIC. Link: https://www.gov.br/agu/pt-br/composicao/cgu/cgu/modelos/licitacoesecontratos/14133/bens-e-servicos-de-tic). Changes to be made were marked in red and italics, but brackets [] and “XXXX” were used also.\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- Ah:

\n

\n. there are forms, real templates you can use, but, hey, if you're part of the 90% that saves “templates” in the common format (.docx, .odt) and does not use the very special tools for the template kind of document, knowing and using some tips like this is ok and is satisfying.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- Not on templates, but in editing, I have worked on the revision of books using this, to know where to come back later to check, or where I have stopped on some day, with good result. Extra: give a look on the comment options, they are easy to use and practical, see if you adapt with it for your necessities.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n4- A \nrecooording\ntip

\n

\n- Always record at least 3 seconds, totally quiet, before starting the show (that is, before talking). This “silence” is the room tone, which you may use:

\n

\n. as adequate silence in the editing proccess (in place of a cut part), or

\n

\n. you may take it for noise reduction profile \nIF \nneeded, or

\n

\n. which you can only delete in the end if you don't find what to do with it.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- Recording knowledge number 2 and final: save an uncompressed version of the raw of your recording, and keep it intact. Work on copies, keep the original saved as .wav (or, if prefered, .flac).

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n5- Permissions for apps

\n

\nBe careful with free apps. Don’t install any and everything. See their permissions.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- Ads? Why more things being offered to you, trying to give insatisfaction? If there is an option without ads, you may prefer.

\n

\n. Also, the ad system of some apps uses more battery (downloading different ads, sending more information of you to personalize ads, using the notification system, meaning running in the background).

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- In-app purchases: with it, you’ll get angry with an app, because it’s not free to do what you thought it would do when you installed. And it may use recurring payments, pay for each feature, and worst, you don’t know beforehand. If it’s to pay, prefer the ones you buy (once) in the download and has no in-app purchases.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- With apps in that you input your data (like e2ee, or “e2ee” communicating, or browsers): see permissions, what data they keep and share, or at least choose open source and well-renowed developers.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- Please don't download any app that promises performance enhancement. The system (Android or iOS) is already optimized for what it is, third party apps can do little or, most commonly, nothing, and is more space and features loading your system.

\n

\n. Want speed? Delete the apps that are not absolutely necessary (I’m talking to you, solitaire game with access to internet and that notifies you to play from time to time), or disable notifications of every app and put them to deep sleep (so they don’t run in background, only when you open them).

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- So much said, let’s take it in one sentence: install only what needed, and see permissions and ads before choosing.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n6- Mobile phone battery

\n

\n- You use your phone all day and still have more than 20% of battery? Or recharges 2 times a day? (or 3!)

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n- If it’s the last option, and your phone is less than 3 years old and you never use uncertified chargers, you can try to have a worry-free all-day phone usage doing what said before: disabling apps that run in the background (uninstall, or put to deep sleep). It’s a one by one process, but once for all.

\n

\n. If it’s this way because of intense use, nothing to do; enjoy your product!

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n✶ Final word

\n

\nWe did not enter on details: no explanations or reasons abounding, no. We didn’t even go to number \n7\n, which would be \nperfection\n; because I have not a seventh good idea.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nOnly the bits of what I think I know & that I value as precious. A hug!

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nbye!

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nCredits: sound used (author – sound)\n

\n

\n\nluvvoice.com\n, English (Nigeria), Abeo (Male) voice – tts “20 minutes show”.

\n

\n\nluvvoice.com\n, English (UK), Ryan (Male) voice – tts on the paragraph about polar pattern of microphones.

\n

\nCrab_Audio / Pixabay – \nMy Style\n[Transitions]

\n

\nfreesound_community / Pixabay – \nDictaphone\n.

\n

\nRobinhood76 / Freesound.org – \n01893 do it again spell\n(CC-BY-NC 4.0).

\n

\nattic13 / Pixabay – \ncalm background piano\n[beautiful, thank you; I hope the simple use here honors your work, friend].

\n

\nSieuAmThanh / Freesound.org – \nRớtĐônHổ\n[angry expression] (CC0 1.0).

\n

\npatchen / Freesound.org – \nBeautiful 85\n(CC BY 4.0).

\n\n\n","hostid":441,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Embrace the core, Android, how-to, Mobile phone tips, microphones, Word, Libreoffice Writer The Eve","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -4417,7 +4417,7 @@ {"id":4417,"date":"2025-07-08","title":"Newest matching file","duration":1322,"summary":"Writing a function or script to find a given file","notes":"\n
\n\n

\nOverview

\n\n

\nSeveral years ago I wrote a Bash script to perform a task I need to\nperform almost every day - find the newest file in a series of\nfiles.

\n\n

\nAt this point I was running a camera on a Raspberry Pi which was\nattached to a window and viewed my back garden. I was taking a picture\nevery 15 minutes, giving them names containing the date and time, and\nstoring them in a directory. It was useful to be able to display the\nlatest picture.

\n\n

\nSince then, I have found that searching for newest files useful in\nmany contexts:

\n\n
    \n\n
  • \n

    \nFind the image generated by my random recipe chooser, put in the\nclipboard and send it to the Telegram channel for my family.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nGenerate a weather report from \nwttr.in\n and send it\nto Matrix.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nFind the screenshot I just made and put it in the\nclipboard.

    \n
    • \n\n
\n\n

\nOf course, I could just use the same name when writing these various\nfiles, rather than accumulating several, but I often want to look back\nthrough such collections. If I am concerned about such files\naccumulating in an unwanted way I write \ncron\n scripts which\nrun every day and delete the oldest ones.

\n\n

\nOriginal script

\n\n

\nThe first iteration of the script was actually written as a Bash\nfunction which was loaded at login time. The function is called\n\nnewest_matching_file\n and it takes two arguments:

\n\n
    \n\n
  • \n

    \nA file glob expression to match the file I am looking\nfor.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nAn optional directory to look for the file. If this is omitted,\nthen the current directory will be used.

    \n
    • \n\n
\n\n

\nThe first version of this function was a bit awkward since it used a\n\nfor\n loop to scan the directory, using the glob pattern to\nfind the file. Since Bash glob pattern searches will return the search\npattern when they fail, it was necessary to use the\n\nnullglob\n (see references) option to prevent this, turning\nit on before the search and off afterwards.

\n\n

\nThis technique was replaced later with a pipeline using the\n\nfind\n command.

\n\n

\nImproved Bash script

\n\n

\nThe version using \nfind\n is what I will explain here.

\n\n
\n\nfunction newest_matching_file {\n    local glob_pattern=${1-}\n    local dir=${2:-$PWD}\n\n    # Argument number check\n    if [[ $# -eq 0 || $# -gt 2 ]]; then\n        echo 'Usage: newest_matching_file GLOB_PATTERN [DIR]' >&2\n        return 1\n    fi\n\n    # Check the target directory\n    if [[ ! -d $dir ]]; then\n        echo "Unable to find directory $dir" >&2\n        return 1\n    fi\n\n    local newest_file\n\n    # shellcheck disable=SC2016\n    newest_file=$(find "$dir" -maxdepth 1 -name "$glob_pattern" \\n        -type f -printf "%T@ %p\n" | sort | sed -ne '${s/.\+ //;p}')\n\n    # Use printf instead of echo in case the file name begins with '-'\n    [[ -n $newest_file ]] && printf '%s\n' "$newest_file"\n\n    return 0\n}\n
\n\n

\nThe function is in the file \nnewest_matching_file_1.sh\n,\nand it's loaded (\"sourced\", or declared) like this:

\n\n
\n\n. newest_matching_file_1.sh\n
\n\n

\nThe \n'.'\n is a short-hand version of the command\n\nsource\n.

\n\n

\nI actually have two versions of this function, with the second one\nusing a regular expression, which the \nfind\n command is able\nto search with, but I prefer this one.

\n\n

\nExplanation

\n\n
    \n\n
  • \n

    \nThe first two lines beginning with \nlocal\n define\nvariables local to the function holding the arguments. The first,\n\nglob_pattern\n is expected to contain something like\n\nscreenshot_2025-04-*.png\n. The second will hold the\ndirectory to be scanned, or if omitted, will be set to the current\ndirectory.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nNext, an \nif\n statement checks that there are the\nright number of arguments, aborting if not. Note that the\n\necho\n command writes to STDERR (using\n\n'>&2'\n), the error channel.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nAnother \nif\n statement checks that the target\ndirectory actually exists, and aborts if not.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nAnother local variable \nnewest_file\n is defined. It's\ngood practice not to create global variables in functions since they\nwill \"leak\" into the calling environment.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nThe variable \nnewest_file\n is set to the result of a\ncommand substitution containing a pipeline:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nThe \nfind\n command searches the target directory.\n
        \n\n
      • \nUsing \n-maxdepth 1\n limits the search to the chosen\ndirectory and does not descend into sub-directories.
        • \n\n
      • \nThe search pattern is defined by\n\n-name \"$glob_pattern\"\n
        • \n\n
      • \nUsing \n-type f\n limits the search to files
        • \n\n
      • \nThe \n-printf \"%T@ %p\n\"\n argument returns the file's last\nmodification time as the number of seconds since the Unix epoch\n\n'%T@'\n. This is a number which is larger if the file is\nolder. This is followed, after a space, by the full path to the file\n(\n'%p'\n), and a newline.
        • \n\n
      \n
      • \n\n
    • \nThe matching file names are sorted. Because each is preceded by a\nnumeric time value, they will be sorted in ascending order of age.
      • \n\n
    • \nFinally \nsed\n is used to return the last file in the\nsorted list with the program \n'${s/.\+ //;p}'\n:\n
        \n\n
      • \nThe use of the \n-n\n option ensures that only lines which\nare explicitly printed will be shown.
        • \n\n
      • \nThe \nsed\n program looks for the last line (using\n\n'$'\n). When found the leading numeric time is removed with\n'\ns/.\+ //'\n and the result is printed (with\n\n'p'\n).
        • \n\n
      \n
      • \n\n
    • \nThe end result will either be the path to the newest file or nothing\n(because there was no match).
      • \n\n
    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nThe expression \n'[[ -n $newest_file ]]'\n will be true\nif \n$newest_file\n variable is not empty, and if that is the\ncase, the contents of the variable will be printed on STDOUT, otherwise\nnothing will be printed.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nNote that the script returns 1 (false) if there is a failure, and\n0 (true) if all is well. A null return is regarded as success.

    \n
    • \n\n
\n\n

\nScript update

\n\n

\nWhile editing the audio for this show I realised that there is a flaw\nin the Bash function \nnewest_matching_file\n. This is in the\n\nsed\n script used to process the output from\n\nfind\n.

\n\n

\nThe \nsed\n commands used in the script delete all\ncharacters up to a space, assuming that this is the only space in the\nlast line. However, if the file name itself contains spaces, this will\nnot work because regular expressions in \nsed\n are\n\ngreedy\n. What is deleted in this case is everything up to and\nincluding the \nlast\n space.

\n\n

\nI created a directory called \ntests\n and added the\nfollowing files:

\n\n
\n\n'File 1 with spaces.txt'\n'File 2 with spaces.txt'\n'File 3 with spaces.txt'\n
\n\n

\nI then ran the \nfind\n command as follows:

\n\n
\n\n$ find tests -maxdepth 1 -name 'File*' -type f -printf "%T@ %p\n" | sort | sed -ne '${s/.\+ //;p}'\nspaces.txt\n
\n\n

\nI adjusted the \nsed\n call to\n\nsed -ne '${s/[^ ]\+ //;p}'\n. This uses the regular\nexpression:

\n\n
\n\ns/[^ ]\+ //\n
\n\n

\nThis now specifies that what it to be removed is every\n\nnon-space\n up to and including the first space. The result\nis:

\n\n
\n\n$ find tests -maxdepth 1 -name 'File*' -type f -printf "%T@ %p\n" | sort | sed -ne '${s/[^ ]\+ //;p}'\ntests/File 3 with spaces.txt\n
\n\n

\nThis change has been propagated to the copy on\n\nGitLab\n.

\n\n

\nUsage

\n\n

\nThis function is designed to be used in commands or other\nscripts.

\n\n

\nFor example, I have an alias defined as follows:

\n\n
\n\nalias copy_screenshot="xclip -selection clipboard -t image/png -i \$(newest_matching_file 'Screenshot_*.png' ~/Pictures/Screenshots/)"\n
\n\n

\nThis uses \nxclip\n to load the latest screenshot into the\nclipboard, so I can paste it into a social media client for example.

\n\n

\nPerl alternative

\n\n

\nDuring the history of this family of scripts I wrote a Perl version.\nThis was originally because the Bash function gave problems when run\nunder the Bourne shell, and I was using \npdmenu\n a lot which\ninternally runs scripts under that shell.

\n\n
\n\n#!/usr/bin/env perl\n\nuse v5.40;\n\nuse open ':std', ':encoding(UTF-8)';    # Make all IO UTF-8\n\nuse Cwd;\nuse File::Find::Rule;\n\n#\n# Script name\n#\n( my $PROG = $0 ) =~ s|.*/||mx;\n\n#\n# Use a regular expression rather than a glob pattern\n#\nmy $regex = shift;\n\n#\n# Get the directory to search, defaulting to the current one\n#\nmy $dir = shift // getcwd();\n\n#\n# Have to have the regular expression\n#\ndie "Usage: $PROG regex [DIR]\n" unless $regex;\n\n#\n# Collect all the files in the target directory without recursing. Include the\n# path and let the caller remove it if they want.\n#\nmy @files =  File::Find::Rule->file()\n    ->name(qr/$regex/)\n    ->maxdepth(1)\n    ->in($dir);\n\ndie "Unsuccessful search\n" unless @files;\n\n#\n# Sort the files by ascending modification time, youngest first\n#\n@files = sort {-M($a) <=> -M($b)} @files;\n\n#\n# Report the one which sorted first\n#\nsay $files[0];\n\nexit;\n
\n\n

\nExplanation

\n\n
    \n\n
  • \n

    \nThis is fairly straightforward Perl script, run out of an\nexecutable file with a \nshebang\n line at the start indicating\nwhat is to be used to run it - \nperl\n.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nThe preamble defines the Perl version to use, and indicates that\n\nUTF-8\n (character sets like Unicode) will be acceptable for\nreading and writing.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nTwo modules are required:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\nCwd\n: provides functions for determining the pathname of\nthe current working directory.
      • \n\n
    • \n\nFile::Find::Rule\n: provides tools for searching the file\nsystem (similar to the \nfind\n command, but with more\nfeatures).
      • \n\n
    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nNext the variable \n$PROG\n is set to the name under\nwhich the script has been invoked. This is useful when giving a brief\nsummary of usage.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nThe first argument is then collected (with \nshift\n)\nand placed into the variable \n$regex\n.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nThe second argument is optional, but if omitted, is set to the\ncurrent working directory. We see the use of \nshift\n again,\nbut if this returns nothing (is undefined), the \n'//'\n\noperator invokes the \ngetcwd()\n function to get the current\nworking directory.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nIf the \n$regex\n variable is not defined, then\n\ndie\n is called to terminate the script with an error\nmessage.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nThe search itself is invoked using \nFile::Find::Rule\n\nand the results are added to the array \n@files\n. The\nmulti-line call shows several methods being called in a \"chain\" to\ndefine the rules and invoke the search:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\nfile()\n: sets up a file search
      • \n\n
    • \n\nname(qr/$regex/)\n: a rule which applies a regular\nexpression match to each file name, rejecting any that do not match
      • \n\n
    • \n\nmaxdepth(1)\n: a rule which prevents the search from\ndescending below the top level into sub-directories
      • \n\n
    • \n\nin($dir)\n: defines the directory to search (and also\nbegins the search)
      • \n\n
    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nIf the search returns no files (the array is empty), the script\nends with an error message.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nOtherwise the \n@files\n array is sorted. This is done\nby comparing modification times of the files, with the array being\nreordered such that the \"youngest\" (newest) file is sorted first. The\n\n<=>\n operator checks if the value of the left operand\nis greater than the value of the right operand, and if yes then the\ncondition becomes true. This operator is most useful in the Perl\n\nsort\n function.

    \n
    • \n\n
  • \n

    \nFinally, the newest file is reported.

    \n
    • \n\n
\n\n

\nUsage

\n\n

\nThis script can be used in almost the same way as the Bash variant.\nThe difference is that the pattern used to match files is a Perl regular\nexpression. I keep this script in my \n~/bin\n directory, so it\ncan be invoked just by typing its name. I also maintain a symlink called\n\nnmf\n to save typing!

\n\n

\nThe above example, using the Perl version, would be:

\n\n
\n\nalias copy_screenshot="xclip -selection clipboard -t image/png -i \$(nmf 'Screenshot_.*\.png' ~/Pictures/Screenshots/)"\n
\n\n

\nIn regular expressions \n'.*'\n means \"any character zero or\nmore times\". The \n'.'\n in \n'.png'\n is escaped\nbecause we need an actual dot character.

\n\n

\nConclusion

\n\n

\nThe approach in both cases is fairly simple. Files matching a pattern\nare accumulated, in the Bash case including the modification time. The\nfiles are sorted by modification time and the one with the lowest time\nis the answer. The Bash version has to remove the modification time\nbefore printing.

\n\n

\nThis algorithm could be written in many ways. I will probably try\nrewriting it in other languages in the future, to see which one I think\nis best.

\n\n

\nReferences

\n\n
    \n\n
  • \nGlob expansion:\n
      \n\n
    • \n\nWikipedia\narticle on glob patterns\n
      • \n\n
    \n
    • \n\n
\n\n
    \n\n
  • \nHPR shows covering \nglob\n expansion:\n
      \n\n
    • \n\nFinishing\noff the subject of expansion in Bash (part 1)\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nFinishing\noff the subject of expansion in Bash (part 2)\n
      • \n\n
    \n
    • \n\n
\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n","hostid":225,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Bash,function,Perl,find","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4418,"date":"2025-07-09","title":"My Desktop Applications","duration":856,"summary":"Kevie goes over his must have applications whenever he installs a new distro","notes":"\n

\n \n TuxJam co-host \n Kevie goes over the desktop applications that he currently\n uses, January 2025 at the time of recording. These include:

\n ","hostid":296,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Linux, desktop, applications","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4419,"date":"2025-07-10","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #1","duration":972,"summary":"Part one of my list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

\n I am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing\n them with you.

\n

\n Links:

\n \n

\n
\n

","hostid":198,"series":106,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4420,"date":"2025-07-11","title":"The First Doctor, Part 2","duration":706,"summary":"A continuing look at the first Doctor Who.","notes":"\n

\n This is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor,\n portrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s

\n

\n Links:

\n ","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4420,"date":"2025-07-11","title":"The First Doctor, Part 2","duration":706,"summary":"A continuing look at the first Doctor Who.","notes":"

\nThis is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor,\nportrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s

\n\n

The First Doctor, Part 2

\n\n\n\n\n

In the second season some interesting developments occurred, and some very nice stories were broadcast. Unlike today, when a season would last a couple of months and then no Doctor Who for most of another year, in the 1960s it was close to a year-round broadcast schedule. So when the first season ended with Reign of Terror which finished up on September 12, 1964, the first show of the second season, Planet of Giants, aired on October 31, 1964. So there was a small break in the schedule, but only a few weeks.

\n\n\n\n

Also I want to remind everyone that many episodes from these early stories are missing. The BBC, in a badly conceived cost-cutting move, reused the videotape from many, and discarded all copies they had from other stories, leaving gaps. Collectors have produced a few, but some that were found in 2024 are still in private hands because the owner is reluctant to return them to the BBC. But at the time of writing there are 97 episodes still missing for the First Doctor, William Hartnell, and the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, and that is out of a total of 254 episodes produced. For the missing episodes I have used the reconstructions from projects like Loose Cannon.

\n\n\n\n

Planet of Giants

\n\n\n\n

This story was actually filmed during the production block for the first season, but held over to the second season. It was originally 4 episodes, but after the shooting was done the producers decided it was dragging, so they edited the footage down to 3 episodes. The main gimmick here is that somehow the TARDIS, moving from Revolutionary France to modern London, has malfunctioned in such a way that it, and everyone inside, has shrunk to the size of insects (literally). And somehow they materialize in the yard of an evil business man who kills a government scientist to protect his investment in an insecticide. The attraction of this story lies in how these tiny people come up with ways to cope while trying to both stay alive and bring justice to the bad guy. In the days before CGI this was probably pretty exciting since it was done with trick photography.

\n\n\n\n

The Dalek Invasion of Earth

\n\n\n\n

The Daleks had become a bit of a sensation on their introduction in story #2, and would prove to be the most successful and enduring of all the Doctor’s opponents. In this story, the TARDIS materializes back on Earth, and in London, but this time it is the 22nd century, and things are just wrong. It turns out the Daleks had found a way to invade the Earth, and enslave or kill all of the inhabitants save a few resistance fighters. Our four travelers soon join up with the resistance and eventually dispatch all of the Daleks, and leave the humans to rebuild their planet. Only not all of them. The Doctor’s grand-daughter, Susan, has fallen for one of those resistance fighters and stays behind to share the life of the man she has come to love. Behind the scenes, Carole Ann Ford felt that all she was doing was screaming and getting rescued, and wanted to do more challenging roles than Doctor Who could ever provide her, so she elected to leave the show, somewhat to the consternation of William Hartnell, who could not imagine why anyone would leave a successful production. But Carole Ann Ford, despite her appearance, was not a young teenager, she was married and had a child at the time of this show. She just looked like a teenager. So this story marks the first of many times in the show’s history that a principle character would leave. It also marked one of the first times the show did extensive outdoor location shooting, rather than using studio trickery to imitate locations.

\n\n\n\n

The Rescue

\n\n\n\n

This two-part episode was primarily written as a vehicle to introduce the replacement for Carole Ann Ford, a young lady named Vicki, played by Maureen O’Brien. Apparently Verity Lambert and the BBC thought it very important that there be a young girl in the cast that the kids could “identify” with. The story is set in the 26th century, so she observes that Ian and Barbara must be 550 years old! To which they smile and agree that in some sense that is true. The plot is not outstanding, but has its moments of charm. Note that in the credits for the first part of this two-parter, a certain “Sidney Wilson” is credited for being the alien creature, Koquillion. This is made-up fiction, using the names of Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson, two BBC department heads associated with the show. Why would they do that instead of using the real actor’s name? Part 2 would explain that. The development of this story has Vicki become an orphan, which helps for getting her on the TARDIS.

\n\n\n\n

The Romans

\n\n\n\n

This is another historical story, with the TARDIS landing near Rome. The group initially finds an abandoned villa and become squatters, but soon the Doctor takes Vicki and heads for Rome. But along the way he finds a body in the bushes, and is then mistaken for the dead man and taken to meet the Emperor, who of course is Nero, though nothing like the actual historical Nero. Still, the violence and savagery of Rome is not sugar-coated at all. Meanwhile, Ian and Barbara get captured by slave traders, and are taken to Rome to be sold. Of course, Barbara becomes a slave to Nero’s wife, and Ian is sold to be a gladiator. They all wind up around Nero, but somehow the Doctor and Vicki never meet up with Ian and Barbara until after they all escape and get back to that still-abandoned villa. This is the kind of story that you can nit-pick some details, such as the portrayal of Nero, but on the whole it does an admirable job of displaying Rome’s serious issues such as poisonings, slavery, and violence.

\n\n\n\n

The other thing this story demonstrates is humor. It is just a fun watch. One example is Hartnell’s scene where he does a variation on “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and plays (so to speak) a tune on the lyre that is so refined that only the most discerning listener can hear it. Of course, he is not playing anything at all, but no one will admit they can’t hear anything. And Nero chasing Barbara around in the palace is pretty standard, but still fun. This is a story where you can see Hartnell really digging in to his role of The Doctor.

\n\n\n\n

The Web Planet

\n\n\n\n

Having just done an historical story, it is of course time for a science fiction story to balance it out. In this case, you can either decide to make fun of it for being cheesy, or just go with it and realize it is in fact a nice story. This planet, Vortis, has several insectoid races. One is the ant-like Zarbi, who are controlled by an evil being called The Animus, which lives in a gradually spreading web city. The other, the Menoptera, are supposed to be like butterflies, but look more like bees with butterfly wings attached. Then later on they find an underground race, the Optera, who are descended from the Menoptera, but are hostile to anyone from the surface. What may be harder to appreciate today is that for its time this was a very radical concept to have a planet populated entirely by insectoid races. Sure, the special effects budget was so small that the costumes are cheesy, but I admire the fact that they dared to think big. This is a classic story from the early days.

\n\n\n\n

What you always have to keep in mind with these early stories is that the budget was tiny. When they started out the budget per episode was 2,500 pounds. And that was for everything: salaries, props, costumes,locations, filming, and the whole works. And one of those expenses was for writers, and they had some good ones. These days we can watch a TV episode that costs $1,000,000 and not think twice about it. Doctor Who always prioritized getting good stories, and when you watch the old shows you always need to be looking at the story, not the special effects.

\n\n\n\n

The Crusade

\n\n\n\n

And after a classic science fiction story, back to an historical story. This takes place during the Third Crusade, pitting the Europeans led by Richard the Lion-Hearted against the Arabs led by Saladin. Julian Glover plays Richard, and is suitably kingly. His sister, Princess Joanna, is played by Jean Marsh, who would appear again in The Daleks’ Master Plan. Barbara is captured by the Arabs, and is destined for harem life. Ian has to rescue her, and is suitably heroic. The Arabs are little hokey, and some are evil and some are good. The story was written by David Whitaker, who had been the show’s story editor during the first season, and was directed by Douglas Camfield, who is highly regarded as one of the best director’s of The Doctor’s early years

\n\n\n

\nLinks:

\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4421,"date":"2025-07-14","title":"Content Moderation","duration":2569,"summary":"Lee talks to Elsbeth about the role of content moderation on the internet","notes":"\n

\nFrom Wikipedia - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_moderation\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\"On websites that allow users to create content, content moderation is the process of detecting contributions that are irrelevant, obscene, illegal, harmful, or insulting. The purpose of content moderation is to remove or apply a warning label to problematic content or allow users to block and filter content themselves.\"

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nFacebook Community Standards - \nhttps://transparency.meta.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nTikTok Community Guidelines - \nhttps://www.tiktok.com/community-guidelines/en\n

\n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"social media, online safety","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4422,"date":"2025-07-15","title":"hajime - part 2 - in depth","duration":1024,"summary":"Hajime episode 2 a more in depth look to it's workings and some questions answered.","notes":"\n

Where oxo answers some of the questions about hajime

\n

oxo/hajime -\n Codeberg.org

\n

hajime/prep/make-recov\n at main - oxo/hajime - Codeberg.org

\n

hajime/prep/isolatest\n at main - oxo/hajime - Codeberg.org

","hostid":448,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"oxo,bash,commandline,archlinux,installation,script,hajime","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4423,"date":"2025-07-16","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #2","duration":957,"summary":"Part two of my list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

\nI am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nLinks:

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -4440,7 +4440,7 @@ {"id":4440,"date":"2025-08-08","title":"The HOPE conference.","duration":58,"summary":"A quick introduction to the Hackers on Planet Earth conference.","notes":"\n

\n Hackers on Planet Earth

\n

\n Now an annual conference

\n

\n Inspired by 2600 magazine, a creative and diverse event.

\n

\n You'll see villages, live performances, demonstrations, vintage\n computers, ham radio, lockpicking, learn to solder. Too much to\n see.

\n

\n It's reasonably priced, always fun.

\n

\n August 15-17th in Queens New York. More details at https://hope.net If you're in the\n area, try to make it!

","hostid":444,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"hope,hackers,NY,conference,2600","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4441,"date":"2025-08-11","title":"Voice Over IP","duration":662,"summary":"Lee talks about using a Voice Over IP Telephone","notes":"\n

\n \n Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony,\n is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication\n sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the\n Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as data\n packets, facilitating various methods of voice communication.\n

\n
    \n
  • \n Voice over IP - \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_IP\n
    • \n
  • \n Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) - \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_old_telephone_service\n
    • \n
  • \n Retirement of circuit-switched public switched telephone network\n (in the UK) - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephony_copper_plant_retirement_in_the_United_Kingdom\n
    • \n
  • \n Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) - \n https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3261.txt\n
    • \n
  • \n Network Address Translator (NAT) - \n https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2663\n
    • \n
  • \n Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN) - \n https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5389\n
    • \n
  • \n Voice over IP Companies - \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_VoIP_companies\n
    • \n
  • \n Voice over IP Hacking - \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VoIP_vulnerabilities\n
    • \n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"voip, telephony","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4442,"date":"2025-08-12","title":"Orthopedagogiek - what it is.","duration":502,"summary":"Manon explains what this field of care is and why we need it.","notes":"\n

\n In today's show, Manon describes the field of Orthopedagogiek is,\n This is an established field in care in the Netherlands and other\n European Countries. It takes a broader view of identifying issues\n with people in relation to their surroundings.

\n

\n Links.

\n \n

\n
\n

\n

\n

","hostid":449,"series":71,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Orthopedagogiek, Mental Health, Netherlands","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4443,"date":"2025-08-13","title":"The First Doctor, Part 3","duration":709,"summary":"A continuing look at the first Doctor Who.","notes":"\n

\n \n This episode was originally posted as hpr4440, with thanks to\n Ahuka for allowing us to move it.\n

\n

\n This is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor,\n portrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s.

\n

\n Links:

\n \n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

","hostid":198,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4443,"date":"2025-08-13","title":"The First Doctor, Part 3","duration":709,"summary":"A continuing look at the first Doctor Who.","notes":"\n

\n\nThis episode was originally posted as hpr4440, with thanks to\nAhuka for allowing us to move it.\n

\n

\nThis is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor,\nportrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s.

\n

The First Doctor, Part 3

\n

The Space Museum

\n

And having done an historical story (The Crusade), it is back to space! This is a very clever story that plays with the idea of traveling in time. The Tardis has somehow jumped time tracks and the crew arrives before they arrive! When they enter the Museum, they see themselves as exhibits and figure out what must have happened. So they decide they have to stay there until time catches up with itself. The Museum was created by an invading race, the Moroks, to glorify their conquering empire, though the empire is declining at this time. The indigenous inhabitants of the planet, the Xerons, want to overthrow the Moroks and take back their planet. A lovely scene is when Vicki reprograms the computer guarding the Armory to allow the Xerons to grab the weapons they need. This story did suffer from budget problems because other stories had turned out to be more expensive so director Mervyn Pinfield tried to economize by using just a few sets. But Willam Hartnell and Maureen O’Brien delivered good performances that help rescue the story.

\n

The Chase

\n

While the Tardis crew was leaving Xeros after the revolution, someone was watching. The Daleks have now been able to build their own time-and-space machine and are out to get the Doctor! This Terry Nation story has some very funny moments, and each episode has a different setting. First, the Tardis lands on a desert planet called Aridius, and the Daleks land shortly afterwards. They threaten the local inhabitants to get the Doctor surrendered to them, but the Doctor and the companions manage to escape. They know they need to find the right place to confront the Daleks who are closing in. They show up first on the top of the Empire State Building, where Peter Purves does a comic bit reminiscent of Gomer Pyle. Then it is on the the deck of the Mary Celeste, a haunted house (featuring Frankenstein and Dracula), and finally the planet Mechanus, where they are captured by the Mechanoids. In the cell, they meet a spaceship pilot, also played by Peter Purves, called Steven Taylor. The Daleks land, they and the Mechanoids fight, and the Daleks are wiped out. The Tardis crew escape and get back to the Tardis, saddened by the fact that Steven Taylor didn’t make it. At the Tardis, Ian and Barbara tell the doctor they want to go home and leave the Tardis, so the Doctor programs the Dalek ship and sends them back. So now none of the original three companions are left, just the Doctor.

\n

This story was written by Terry Nation, who owned the rights to the Daleks, and he had cashed in big when when Dalekmania hit Britain. All of the Dalek toys and merchandise paid him a royalty, and he and the BBC were both hoping lightning would strike twice with the Mechanoids. But they never caught on and disappeared after this one story. But the Daleks would be here to stay, no doubt about it. This story was very expensive to make, what with all of the sets and props, and explains why the preceding story, The Space Museum, had to be made cheaply.

\n

The Time Meddler

\n

And back to an historical story, but iwth an interesting twist. To begin with, it turns out that Steven Taylor did make it, and was in the Tardis when they left Mechanus. So now the Doctor has two companions, Steven and Vicki. And they land in Northumbria in 1066. If you have read your history, you know that Harold, the King of England, had to march his army north to repel a Viking invasion of Northumbria, in which he was successful, before turning around and marching south where he was defeated by William the Conqueror. So what is up here? There is an abandoned monastery nearby, and a monk seems to have moved in, but something doesn’t quite add up. The Doctor discovers that this monk in 1066 is using a record player to play the sound of groups of monks chanting. Then Steven and Vicki discover that he has a Tardis! This is the Meddling Monk, as he has become known, and he is a classic character, a renegade Time Lord, that many fans would love to see brought back. His plan is to change the outcome so that William the Conqueror is not successful. And Doctor Who sometimes likes to emphasize that you shouldn’t try to change history. Of course, other times that gets ignored. (see, for instance, The Fires of Pompeii). An excellent story, and it illustrates the importance of good writing. Because of the expense of The Chase, this was made on a tight budget, but you don’t notice it as you go along because the story is suspenseful.

\n

Movies

\n

With Dalekmania running rampant in Britain it should come as no surprise that the film industry wanted a piece of the action. An option was purchased to produce three films, but while the first was modestly successful, the second showed a drop-off and the third movie was never made. The biggest change is that The Doctor is no longer an alien, but rather an eccentric scientist played by Peter Cushing, the king of the “B” movies

\n

Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965)

\n

In 1964 Dalekmania hit England, so you shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that a movie studio looked to cash in on it. They took the basic story from William Hartnell’s The Daleks, but recast all of the roles, with Peter Cushing as Doctor Who, Roy Castle as Ian Chesterton, Jennie Linden as Barbara, and Roberta Tovey as Susan. In this version, however, Susan is a much younger girl, not a teenager. And Barbara is yet another, older, granddaughter of the Doctor, and Ian is her boyfriend. The movie is oddly put together. The plot is different in several ways from the original TV story, but many of the specific scenes are retained. At 1 hr, 23 mins. it is shorter than the TV original story, but for some reason I didn’t seem to think anything was missing. This was not a critically regarded movie, but was commercially successful to a degree that the same studio made a movie out of the second Hartnell Dalek story. If you have a little over an hour and need to fill it, this is might be worth looking at, but if you pass it by you haven’t really missed anything. But if you want the pleasure you can get from The Internet Archive

\n

Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)

\n

This second movie recapitulates the main plot points from the Hartnell serial, but as in the first movie the casting is different. Peter Cushing and Roberta Tovey return as The Doctor and Susan, But in place of Barbara there is now a niece Louise, played by Jill Curzon. And in place of Ian we now have a police constable played by Bernard Cribbins, who returns many years later during David Tennant’s run as Wilf, the grandfather of Donna Noble, though he previously appeared in a small role in Voyage of the Damned as a newspaper seller. As in the first movie, many of the scenes from the TV serial are retained, but details are changed. It is interesting that Cribbins, playing a Police Constable, enters the TARDIS thinking it is a police call box, which is exactly what happened with Dodo Chaplet. At 1 hr, 24 mins this is scarcely longer than the first movie, and like the first, cannot be considered essential. And no further movies about the Daleks were made after this, which may be a commentary on its success. As with the first movie, this ca be found on The Internet Archive should you wish to view it.

\n

BTW, please allow me a brief aside at this point to suggest that if you aren’t already supporting The Internet Archive, you should consider doing so. They provide an essential service to the Internet, and I personally send them $5/month.

\n

\nLinks:

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4444,"date":"2025-08-14","title":"Introduction into the E.R.P. application called Odoo","duration":1475,"summary":"In this podcast I give a small introduction into the E.R.P. application called Odoo. ","notes":"\n

\n Odoo is a business management software suite developed in\n Belgium. It includes modules for customer relationship\n management, e-commerce, billing, accounting,\n manufacturing, warehouse operations, project management, and\n inventory management.
\n

\n \n

Links

\n ","hostid":369,"series":126,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"odoo,erp,application","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4445,"date":"2025-08-15","title":"doodoo one","duration":580,"summary":"episode 1 of a miniseries about creating a todo app","notes":"

Can't keep track of a notebook ?
\n

\n

Always know where your phone is ?
\n

\n

Want to keep track of your doodoo ?

\n

microdot web\n framework

","hostid":243,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"python, html, javascript, todo","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4446,"date":"2025-08-18","title":"Calling on AI to resque HPR","duration":1183,"summary":"LLM chatbots are going to explain us how to save Hacker Public Radio","notes":"\n

\nToo much episodes came from the reserve queue. So this is the ideal moment to give myself a good feeling and upload an episode to HPR - feeling really important about how I helped out the project.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nBut then again... I'm lazy... so I called in the help of AI

\n

\nAnd I'm not a bit lazy... so I called in the help of SIX LLM chatbots.

\n

\nI asked them all how we can save HPR from oblivion.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThe good news: all six chatbots agree that HPR isn't going away.

\n

\nThe bad news: they have different opinions on all the rest.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nReviewing the differences between different chatbots and how they answer questions...

\n

\nHere are the threads:

\n\n

\nFor Mistral (Le Chat) - I accidentally copied the wrong link, so I don't have it anymore.

\n

\nFor Deepseek: this one doesn't have a share function. I have it in offline form though.

\n\n\n","hostid":433,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"AI, llm, comparison","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -4506,7 +4506,7 @@ {"id":4506,"date":"2025-11-10","title":"The UCSD P-System Operating System","duration":1252,"summary":"This episode is about the UCSD p-System operating system. ","notes":"\n

\n01 Overview

\n

\nThis episode is about the UCSD p-System operating system. 

\n

\nUCSD p-System is an operating system from the late 1970s which carried on into the 1980s. 

\n

\nIt ran on a variety of different micro and mini computers. 

\n

\nThe notable thing about it is that it ran programs on a portable virtual machine rather than directly on the native hardware.

\n

\nThis podcast episode overview will give a very brief overview of the operating system, its features, and its history.

\n

\nThis episode is for people who are interested in some of the more obscure history of the early microcomputer era. Don't expect to find something here that you can put to use in a practical way.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n02 Pascal and UCSD

\n

\n03 Commercialization

\n

\n04 UCSD p-System Versions

\n

\n05 Hosted Versions

\n

\n06 Basic Concepts

\n

\n07 File System

\n

\n08 Virtual Memory and Multitasking

\n

\n09 Architecture Independence with P-Code

\n

\n10 Programming languages

\n

\n11 The Fading Away of the p-System and its Demise

\n

\n12 A Quick Tour of the p-System - Running it on Modern Hardware

\n

\n13 A Quick Tour of the p-System - the User Interface

\n

\n14 A Quick Tour of the p-System - OS Level Menu

\n

\n15 A Quick Tour of the p-System - ASE Editor

\n

\n16 A Quick Tour of the p-System - Filer

\n

\n17 A Quick Tour of the p-System - Xecute

\n

\n18 A Quick Tour of the p-System - DOS Filer

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n19 Conclusion

\n

\nThe UCSD p-System is an example of an operating system from the early days of microcomputers that did not follow the conventions that we are used to today.

\n

\nIt had features that were in many ways ahead of its time.

\n

\nHere are some examples of this.

\n

\nIt was almost entirely written in a high level language, Pascal.

\n

\nPrograms compiled to p-code (or Pascal code) that ran on an architecture indepedent virtual machine.

\n

\nPerformance critical parts of the p-code could be compiled to native code.

\n

\nThe user interface did not use a command line, indeed there was none. Instead it used a menu driven user interface.

\n

\nOn the other hand it remained stuck on 8 bit limitations in a 16 bit world. 

\n

\nIt was closed source proprietary product, and when the vendor lost interest, the product died.

\n

\nIt's an interesting bit of history, but I can't really recommend that anyone should expect to do anything useful with it today. 

\n

\nI still have a copy that I bought when it was a current product, but it has been many years since I even looked at it, and I only resusitated it for the sake of making an HPR episode. 

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n20 Adendum - Performance Benchmarks

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"OS,UCSD","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4507,"date":"2025-11-11","title":"What's in the bag ?","duration":1001,"summary":"Ken describes in detail what his daily carry is.","notes":"\n

\nDaily Carry

\n

\n\nEnrico Benetti Cornell rugzak laptop 15 inch\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\"\"\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nDell Precision 3571\n

\n

\n
\n

\n
\nOS: Fedora 42 Adams\nKernel: x86_64 Linux 6.17.7-200.fc42.x86_64\nShell: bash 5.2.37\nResolution: 5760x2160\nWM: OpenBox\nDisk: 1,7T / 1,9T (91%)\nCPU: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12800H @ 19x 4.7GHz [57.0°C]\nGPU: Mesa Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics (ADL GT2)\nRAM: 12022MiB / 31765MiB\n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\"\"\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\npiccolo by x+ n100\n

\n

\n
\n

\n
\nOS: SparkyLinux 7.8 orion-belt\nKernel: x86_64 Linux 6.1.0-40-amd64\nShell: bash 5.2.15\nDisk: 845G / 907G (99%)\nCPU: Intel N100 @ 4x 3.4GHz [53.0°C]\nGPU: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N [UHD Graphics]\nRAM: 1594MiB / 15737MiB\n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\"\"\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nGoogle Pixel 6a\nrunning \nCalyxOS\n

\n

\n
\n

\n
\nMemory 6 GB RAM\nStorage 128 GB\n
\n

\n\niPhone 12\n

\n

\n
\n

\n
\nMemory 4 GB\nStorage 128\n
\n

\n\nJabra Evolve2 65 headset\n

\n

\n\nFresh'n Rebel Twins Blaze ear buds\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nWork

\n\n

\nVarious Adapters

\n\n

\n\n\"\"\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nVarious Personal Items

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":30,"series":23,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"daily carry, laptop bag, mobile","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4508,"date":"2025-11-12","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #8","duration":959,"summary":"Ahuka shares part eight of his list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

\nI am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nLinks:

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":106,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4509,"date":"2025-11-13","title":"HPR Beer Garden 5 - Heferweisen","duration":2080,"summary":"Dave and Paul talk about Heferweisen","notes":"\n

\nAs Kevie is down with the cold, Dave is joined by Paul to talk about Heferweisen beer. Paul shares his experience from Germany and they review. Paul samples \nErdinger Dunkel\nwhilst Dave tries out \nSchöfferhofer Grapefruit\n.

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

\n

\n
\n

\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

\n

\n
\n

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4509,"date":"2025-11-13","title":"HPR Beer Garden 5 - Heferweisen","duration":2080,"summary":"Dave and Paul talk about Hefeweizen","notes":"\n

\nAs Kevie is down with the cold, Dave is joined by Paul to talk about Hefeweizen beer. Paul shares his experience from Germany and they review. Paul samples \nErdinger Dunkel\nwhilst Dave tries out \nSchöfferhofer Grapefruit\n.

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

\n

\n
\n

\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

\n

\n
\n

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4510,"date":"2025-11-14","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 5","duration":745,"summary":"We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civlization V.","notes":"\n

\n In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we\n examine the topic of Wonders and related Special Projects, and\n consider how this should affect your strategy.

\n

\n Links:

\n ","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, Wonders","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4511,"date":"2025-11-17","title":"Audio-books","duration":1787,"summary":"Lee walks through his audio book library","notes":"\n
\n| Title                | Author               | Narrated By          | Duration | Released   |\n|----------------------|----------------------|----------------------|----------|------------|\n| Excession - Culture  | Iain M. Banks        | Peter Kenny          | 15:55:00 | 2013-03-07 |\n| The Martian          | Andy Weir            | R. C. Bray           | 10:53:00 | 2013-03-22 |\n| Alien: Out of the Sh | Tim Lebbon, Dirk Mag | Rutger Hauer, Corey  | 04:28:00 | 2016-04-26 |\n| The Best Science Fic | Neil Clarke - editor | Amy Tallmadge, Jerem | 28:04:00 | 2016-06-07 |\n| Aurora: CV-01 - Fron | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 07:15:00 | 2013-05-13 |\n| The Rings of Haven - | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 05:45:00 | 2013-06-03 |\n| The Legend of Corina | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 06:39:00 | 2013-06-17 |\n| Freedom's Dawn - Fro | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 09:06:00 | 2013-07-08 |\n| Rise of the Corinari | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 10:54:00 | 2013-07-29 |\n| Head of the Dragon - | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 12:41:00 | 2013-08-19 |\n| The Expanse - The Fr | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 10:19:00 | 2013-12-10 |\n| Celestia CV-02 - The | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 09:00:00 | 2013-12-23 |\n| Resistance - Frontie | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 09:07:00 | 2014-01-20 |\n| Liberation - The Fro | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 10:40:00 | 2014-04-15 |\n| Monkey               | Wu Ch'êng-ên, Arthur | Kenneth Williams     | 13:39:00 | 2015-10-02 |\n| Artemis              | Andy Weir            | Rosario Dawson       | 08:57:00 | 2017-11-14 |\n| Born of the Ashes -  | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 12:00:00 | 2014-07-16 |\n| Rise of the Alliance | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 10:46:00 | 2015-01-20 |\n| A Show of Force - Fr | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 13:09:00 | 2015-06-23 |\n| Frontiers Saga Serie | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 10:20:00 | 2015-11-24 |\n| That Which Other Men | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 14:28:00 | 2016-03-29 |\n| Colorless Tsukuru Ta | Haruki Murakami      | Michael Fenton Steve | 09:07:00 | 2014-08-12 |\n| Celtic Mythology: Cl | Scott Lewis          | Oliver Hunt          | 03:23:00 | 2018-07-18 |\n| Children of Dune     | Frank Herbert        | Scott Brick, Simon V | 16:51:00 | 2008-02-05 |\n| Dune                 | Frank Herbert        | Scott Brick, Orlagh  | 21:02:00 | 2006-12-31 |\n| Dune Messiah         | Frank Herbert        | Scott Brick, Katheri | 08:57:00 | 2007-10-01 |\n| Bandersnatch - C.S.  | Diana Pavlac Glyer   | Michael Ward         | 06:29:00 | 2016-09-26 |\n| The Fighters         | C. J. Chivers        | Scott Brick          | 13:45:00 | 2018-08-14 |\n| Masters of Doom - Ho | David Kushner        | Wil Wheaton          | 12:43:00 | 2012-07-12 |\n| Salvation - The Salv | Peter F. Hamilton    | John Lee             | 19:02:00 | 2018-09-06 |\n| Cibola Burn - Book 4 | James S. A. Corey    | Jefferson Mays       | 20:07:00 | 2015-05-07 |\n| Lost at Sea: The Jon | Jon Ronson           | Jon Ronson           | 15:22:00 | 2012-10-11 |\n| Data Science: The Ul | Herbert Jones        | Sam Slydell          | 05:18:00 | 2018-11-28 |\n| The Coen Brothers    | Adam Nayman          | Rob Shapiro          | 09:55:00 | 2018-09-11 |\n| Nemesis Games - The  | James S. A. Corey    | Jefferson Mays       | 18:06:00 | 2015-06-02 |\n| The Ten Types of Hum | Dexter Dias          | Tom Clegg            | 26:32:00 | 2017-07-06 |\n| Delta-v              | Daniel Suarez        | Jeff Gurner          | 16:42:00 | 2019-04-23 |\n| God Emperor of Dune  | Frank Herbert        | Simon Vance          | 15:48:00 | 2007-12-30 |\n| Dreaming in Code - T | Scott Rosenberg      | Kyle McCarley        | 12:01:00 | 2012-12-18 |\n| Ghost in the Wires - | Kevin Mitnick, Willi | Ray Porter           | 13:59:00 | 2011-08-15 |\n| Gibraltar Sun - Gibr | Michael McCollum     | Ramon De Ocampo      | 10:05:00 | 2013-02-28 |\n| The Tragedy of King  | William Shakespeare  | full cast            | 01:46:00 | 2009-08-28 |\n| Blind Faith          | Ben Elton            | Michael Maloney      | 04:22:00 | 2007-11-07 |\n| Talking to Strangers | Malcolm Gladwell     | Malcolm Gladwell     | 08:42:00 | 2019-09-10 |\n| The Hidden Life of T | Peter Wohlleben      | Mike Grady           | 07:33:00 | 2016-09-13 |\n| Orcs                 | Stan Nicholls        | John Lee             | 24:43:00 | 2011-09-08 |\n| Behave               | Robert M. Sapolsky   | Michael Goldstrom    | 26:27:00 | 2018-08-16 |\n| The City and the Sta | Arthur C. Clarke     | Mike Grady           | 09:42:00 | 2013-01-20 |\n| The Forbidden City - | Charles River Editor | Colin Fluxman        | 01:13:00 | 2017-02-27 |\n| Foundation - The Fou | Isaac Asimov         | William Hope         | 08:56:00 | 2019-09-26 |\n| Children of the Mind | Orson Scott Card     | Gabrielle de Cuir, J | 13:30:00 | 2004-08-04 |\n| Shahnameh - The Epic | Ferdowsi             | Marc Thompson, Franc | 12:01:00 | 2017-12-22 |\n| The Cuckoo's Egg - T | Cliff Stoll          | Will Damron          | 12:46:00 | 2020-01-31 |\n| We the Living        | Ayn Rand             | Mary Woods           | 18:01:00 | 2007-12-24 |\n| The Clock Mirage - O | Joseph Mazur         | Keith Sellon-Wright  | 08:52:00 | 2020-05-19 |\n| The Psychology of In | Leron Zinatullin     | Peter Silverleaf     | 02:12:00 | 2018-11-27 |\n| On Psychology - Illu | JZ Murdock           | JZ Murdock           | 01:49:00 | 2018-07-02 |\n| GCHQ - Centenary Edi | Richard Aldrich      | Peter Noble          | 25:48:00 | 2019-07-11 |\n| Project Hail Mary    | Andy Weir            | Ray Porter           | 16:10:00 | 2021-05-04 |\n| Sid Meier's Memoir!  | Sid Meier, Jennifer  | Charles Constant     | 08:32:00 | 2020-11-10 |\n| Docker in Action     | Jeff Nickoloff       | Aiden Humphreys      | 10:12:00 | 2018-11-08 |\n| Cryptonomicon        | Neal Stephenson      | William Dufris       | 42:44:00 | 2020-08-08 |\n| The Testament of Mar | Colm Tóibín          | Meryl Streep         | 03:06:00 | 2014-05-01 |\n| Anathem              | Neal Stephenson      | Oliver Wyman, Tavia  | 32:25:00 | 2020-08-08 |\n| The Stranger in the  | Michael Finkel       | John Chancer         | 06:08:00 | 2018-09-27 |\n| Xenos - Eisenhorn: W | Dan Abnett           | Toby Longworth       | 09:55:00 | 2017-09-27 |\n| Have Space Suit - Wi | Robert A. Heinlein   | Mark Turetsky        | 08:53:00 | 2014-02-11 |\n| Malleus - Eisenhorn: | Dan Abnett           | Toby Longworth       | 10:19:00 | 2017-09-27 |\n| Klara and the Sun    | Kazuo Ishiguro       | Sura Siu             | 10:16:00 | 2021-03-02 |\n| Hereticus - Eisenhor | Dan Abnett           | Toby Longworth       | 09:48:00 | 2017-09-27 |\n| Ravenor - Warhammer  | Dan Abnett           | Toby Longworth       | 11:50:00 | 2018-03-27 |\n| Sun and Steel        | Yukio Mishima        | Matthew Taylor       | 02:36:00 | 2021-04-12 |\n| The Silver Ships - T | S. H. Jucha          | Grover Gardner       | 10:27:00 | 2015-06-30 |\n| Globe - Life in Shak | Catharine Arnold     | Clare Staniforth     | 09:22:00 | 2021-11-30 |\n| The Buried Giant     | Kazuo Ishiguro       | David Horovitch      | 11:48:00 | 2015-03-03 |\n| Damned               | Chuck Palahniuk      | Sophie Amoss         | 07:42:00 | 2021-10-12 |\n| Fallen Dragon        | Peter F. Hamilton    | John Lee             | 26:30:00 | 2016-11-17 |\n| Escalation - Frontie | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 07:15:00 | 2020-02-11 |\n| The Revenant         | Michael Punke        | Jeff Harding         | 09:54:00 | 2015-05-07 |\n| Rescue - Frontiers S | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 08:00:00 | 2016-12-06 |\n| Resurrection - Front | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 08:26:00 | 2017-04-18 |\n| Titus Groan - Gormen | Mervyn Peake         | Saul Reichlin        | 21:39:00 | 2014-06-19 |\n| Rebellion - Frontier | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 08:16:00 | 2017-08-01 |\n| The Edgar Allan Poe  | Edgar Allan Poe      | Jonathan Keeble, Pet | 59:59:00 | 2022-02-04 |\n| Ravenor Returned - W | Dan Abnett           | Toby Longworth       | 10:56:00 | 2018-03-27 |\n| Not Forever, but for | Chuck Palahniuk      | Raphael Corkhill     | 08:37:00 | 2023-09-05 |\n| Gormenghast          | Mervyn Peake         | Saul Reichlin        | 22:56:00 | 2014-06-19 |\n| British Woodland - H | Ray Mears            | Ray Mears            | 09:22:00 | 2023-05-04 |\n| A Canticle for Leibo | Walter M. Miller Jr. | Tom Weiner           | 10:55:00 | 2011-08-01 |\n| Weaving the Web - Th | Tim Berners-Lee      | Tim Berners-Lee      | 03:29:00 | 1999-12-16 |\n| Balance - Frontiers  | Ryk Brown            | Jeffrey Kafer        | 10:53:00 | 2017-08-30 |\n| The Plum in the Gold | David Tod Roy - tran | George Backman       | 17:35:00 | 2014-04-18 |\n| Stranger in a Strang | Robert A. Heinlein   | Martin McDougall     | 23:33:00 | 2012-12-06 |\n| Ravenor Rogue - Warh | Dan Abnett           | Toby Longworth       | 12:30:00 | 2018-01-31 |\n| Freakonomics - A Rog | Steven D. Levitt, St | Stephen J. Dubner    | 07:50:00 | 2005-07-27 |\n| The Pragmatic Progra | David Thomas, Andrew | Anna Katarina        | 09:55:00 | 2019-12-26 |\n| I'm Starting to Worr | Jason Pargin         | Ari Fliakos          | 12:44:00 | 2024-09-24 |\n| Birdsong             | Sebastian Faulks     | Harry Lloyd, Pippa B | 15:49:00 | 2023-06-15 |\n| The Luzhin Defense   | Vladimir Nabokov     | Mel Foster           | 08:37:00 | 2010-12-20 |\n| The Three-Body Probl | Cixin Liu, Ken Liu   | Daniel York Loh      | 14:46:00 | 2023-02-23 |\n
\n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audiobooks, literature, fiction, non-fiction","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4512,"date":"2025-11-18","title":"HomeAssistant - Nmap (\"Network Mapper\")","duration":2214,"summary":"Presence detection in Home Assistant and more","notes":"\n

\n\nA Deeper Look\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nTriggers & Conditions:

\n

\nThe blueprint uses both a state change from not_home to home for your PC tracker and a motion sensor activation. A numeric state condition ensures that the automation only runs when ambient lighting (from your illuminance sensor) is below the defined threshold (default 37 lux). This minimizes unnecessary operations when the area is already well lit.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nLight Brightness Based on Sun:

\n

\nUsing the built-in sun condition, the automation distinguishes between a day period (starting 30 minutes after sunrise) and a night period (adjusted using offset around sunset). This means your light’s brightness is automatically tailored to the natural light context, setting it to the day brightness (default 81%) or to the night brightness (default 69%).

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nHandling PC Presence & Motion:

\n

\nTwo branches further refine the control:

\n

\nIf the PC is not_home, the blueprint waits until motion ceases before turning off the light.

\n

\nIf the PC is home and ambient light remains low, the light is ensured to remain on until the PC changes to not_home, at which point the light turns off with a smooth transition and a flash effect.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThis \ndesign\n is ideal for scenarios where a PC’s presence and environmental conditions are combined to manage indoor illumination dynamically.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nXiaomi Aqara motion sensor RTCGQ11LM \nwww.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/RTCGQ11LM.html\n

\n

\nTRADFRI bulb E27 white opal 1000lm

\n

\nXiaomi Mijia Thermo-/Hygrometer \nBluetooth\n LYWSD03MMC flash \nhttp://pvvx.github.io/ATC\\_MiThermometer\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nBlueprint \nhttps://gist.github.com/tido-/e486e7504081a1cfdcd837afba43ebf4\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nMy forum post \nhttps://community.home-assistant.io/t/nmap-to-detect-running-tower-pc/888689\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nRadiation of radio transmission\n

\n

\nHeart rate using the WiFi signal \nhttps://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/heart-rate-monitoring-via-wifi/\n

\n

\n\nwww.consumerreports.org/radiation/do-i-need-to-worry-about-radiation-from-wifi-and-bluetooth-devices/\n

\n

\n\nwww.elektrosmog.com\n

\n

\n\nwww.gigaherz.ch\n

\n\n\n","hostid":421,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HASS, HomeAssistant, Presence, NMAP, Blueprint","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, @@ -4515,21 +4515,233 @@ {"id":4515,"date":"2025-11-21","title":"Privacy? I don't have anything to hide...","duration":172,"summary":"Archer72 implements some tips from a Youtube author","notes":"\n

\nHello, this is your host, Archer72 for Hacker Public Radio

\n\n

\nIn this episode, what do you have to hide?

\n\n

\nThis topic was brought to my attention when I came across this video\nfrom \nThe Hated\nOne\n.

\n\n

\nThis youtube host is extremely privacy focused, and has interesting\nopinions on not only US privacy and security topics, but also\ninternationally.

\n\n

\nThis particular video was regarding \nlocking down the\nsettings on Firefox.\n

\n\n

\nThe claim besides increasing security is to lower bandwidth and\nmemory usage and double rendering speeds.

\n\n

\nWhile a lot of these steps the author took seemed excessive, they\nmight help you. I use a few of these settings as a takeaway to this\nvideo, as well as an extension that I find very useful.

\n\n

\nThe author is correct in saying that our browsing habits track a lot\nabout your personal life, so here are a few steps that I did follow.

\n\n

\nFirst, I selected \nStrict Blocking\n under\n\nContent Blocking\n

\n\n
\n\nabout:preferences#privacy\n
\n\n\n

\n\nStrict blocking Firefox setting\n

\n\n\n

\nNext, I did not set my history settings to\n\nUse custom settings for History\n and\n\nAlways use private browsing mode\n, this is maybe useful for\nsome.

\n\n

\nUnder \nAddress Bar\n I left everything unchecked, besides\n\nSearch Engines\n

\n\n\n

\n\nFirefox address bar settings\n

\n\n\n

\nNext, check the box in Ublock origin settings enable Advance User\nsettings to enable more granular control.

\n\n\n

\n\nUblock Origin settings\n

\n\n\n

\n\nUblock Origin granular control\n

\n\n\n

\nNow, change the default behavior of Ublock origin to

\n\n
    \n\n
  • \nBlock media elements
    • \n\n
  • \nBlock remote fonts
    • \n\n
  • \nDisable JavaScript
    • \n\n
\n\n

\nBy checking the boxes for these items

\n\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":318,"series":74,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Privacy, Security, Script blocking, Content blocking","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4516,"date":"2025-11-24","title":"Browser User Agent","duration":295,"summary":"A web site did not work for me. The User Agent has an important role.","notes":"\n

\n A while ago I visited a web site that is an archive for old\n historical documents. It is a data base from where documents can\n be downloaded as pdf-files. As a visitor I can login to the\n archive as a guest. 

\n

\n When I find a document of interest after search I can right click\n on the pdf icon and download the document. 

\n

\n But I can not. No download when I click on the pdf icon. This is\n the first time I visit this archive so I do not know exactly how\n it works. 

\n

\n It was time to investigate the root cause.

\n

\n I use Firefox on a Linux machine. I tested several methods to see\n if any would solve the issue. I tried by changing settings for\n pop-ups. I changed Firefox security settings. I disabled VPN. I\n disabled Firefox extensions for blocking trackers. 

\n

\n I tested also the Chromium browser as well as the Epiphany\n browser. 

\n

\n All those methods resulted in no difference; nothing\n happened. 

\n

\n I was in contact to a friend on Windows and also staff at the\n Archive, both telling me that from Windows it worked, including\n with Firefox. So now I knew the archive works and that it works on\n Firefox.

\n

\n So I thought, can this somehow be related to Linux? 

\n

\n I asked in a Linux forum if someone on Linux could test to\n download. 

\n

\n One person in the forum tested and solved the problem. I would not\n define it as a Linux problem, but a site design that affected\n Linux users. 

\n

\n The trouble was something I had not thought of: The User\n Agent. 

\n

\n When my browser contact a web site, my browser can tell the site\n what kind of browser I use, which operating system I use and more.\n This information can be used by the site to optimize the\n presentation of the content for me. 

\n

\n For to me unknown reason, maybe a mistake, maybe related to some\n old design compatibility issue, this site did not accept the\n information my user agent provided. 

\n

\n The solution is to tell the web site I am something else. 

\n

\n In the browser has Developer tools. When opening the developer\n tools from meny, typically a developer window with tools and\n analytics is opened at the bottom part of the web page. One tool\n is network. Within network I can simulate how the site looks on\n different devices, with different network connections and also\n with different User Agents. 

\n

\n The tools are similar in both Firefox and Chromium. The exact list\n of standard options differ and Chromium has more options\n preloaded.

\n

\n In this specific case, when I in Developer tools on Firefox change\n User Agent to Chrome Desktop, which relates to Chrome on Windows\n as I understand, and then reload the web page I can now download\n the pdf file from the archive. 

\n

\n When this web site interpret me to be this other type of user,\n they can understand each other without any issue. 

\n

\n I have reported back to the site owner and hopefully this specific\n site will not need this work around for the browser User Agent in\n the future.

","hostid":429,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"browser, user agent, internet","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4517,"date":"2025-11-25","title":"Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 4: The hardware ","duration":679,"summary":"Explanation of the hardware which will be used for this project","notes":"\n

\n\nHello, again. This is Trey. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nWelcome to part 4 in my Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) Project series. If you have hung in there with me so far on this journey, thank you. If you have missed earlier episodes, you can find them on my \n\nHPR profile page\n\n\n\nhttps://www.hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0394.html\n\n  \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nIf you have questions, comments, concerns, or other feedback, please leave an episode comment, or drop me an email (Using the address in my profile). Even better, you could record and upload your own show which shares your viewpoint or expertise. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nTo review, I finally have an actual project to build using the CYD. It is a portable, programmable morse code \"Keyer memory\" which can be connected to any of my HF transceiver radios by simply plugging it in to the code key input port. Then I could transmit stored messages by simply touching their specific icon on the touch screen. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nSo, now I purchased a pair of CYDs. Each arrived in an anti-static zipper bag with a USB C cable, a 6 inch long 4 pin PB1.25mm to Dupont 2.54mm cable harness, a plastic case holding the CYD itself and a small plastic stylus. There are pictures in the show notes. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nDepending on how many IO connections I may need, and how I plan to power this, I am probably going to need more 4 pin PB1.25mm wired connectors. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nYou can see a description of the various features and connectors on \n\nRandomNerdTutorials\n\nwriteup about this board (\n\nhttps://randomnerdtutorials.com/cheap-yellow-display-esp32-2432s028r/\n\n). The only difference I can see between this description and what I received is that mine have both a MicroUSB and USB C port.   \n\n \n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nOf course, first thing, I had to plug it in and see what happens. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nIt appears to be running some kind of simulation of a web site. The backlit display looks alright. It is not super high resolution, but for the price, it will suite my needs. The touch screen is responsive, but it is pressure sensitive and works best using the provided stylus or a fingernail and not your finger tip. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nSo, I have the CYD. What other hardware do I need? \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nI need to address how one of these will actually connect to my radios. Modern amateur radio transceivers which support continuous wave (CW) transmission (Which is another name for Morse code) generally can use one of two different pieces of hardware for input. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nThe first is what we call a straight key. Below is a photo of the one I own. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nThis is a classic, old fashioned telegraph style code key. It is designed to quickly and easily be pressed down to close a circuit and when released the circuit is opened, effectively making it a normally open push button switch. To send a dot, the operator holds down the key for a short period of time, then releases it. To send a dash, the operator holds down the key for a longer period of time, before releasing it. (We will discuss actual timing specifications for morse code in a future podcast) Connectivity for the switch has been standardized to use a 3.5 mm mono male phone connector which has only sleeve and tip connections.   \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nThe second option is a paddle style electronic keyer. There are many styles of these, and I am including a picture of the one I use, which once belonged to a close friend of mine who is now silent key. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nIn general, the paddle is two separate normally open switches. In the most common configuration, if an operator presses and releases the paddle on the right, a dash is sent. If the paddle on the right is held, a continuous series of dashes will be sent until that paddle is released. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nThe left paddle works similarly. If it is pressed and released, a single dot is sent. If it is pressed and held, a series of dots is sent until it is released. The function of these paddles can be swapped from left to right using the radio configuration. There is additional functionality which can be configured in some radios for when both paddles are pressed simultaneously, but I am not going to describe those here.   \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nThe paddle generally uses a 3.5mm stereo male phone connector with the sleeve being common. The tip of the phone connector is wired to the left paddle and ring of the connector is wired to the right paddle. Most modern radios have a built in keyer which can be configured for a paddle and will automatically transmit the dots or dashes at whichever speed is configured based on the paddle pressed. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nYou can see this phone connector illustrated on \n\nWikipedia's phone connector page.\n\n. \n\nhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio\n\n)  \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nYou can learn more about all the various devices which can be used for sending morse and how they function at \n\nMorse Code World\n\n. \n\nhttps://morsecode.world/keys.html\n\n  \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nIdeally, controlling all the morse code timing within the CYD would be best. That way, it could be connected as a straight key and any keyer settings already configured within the radio shouldn't matter. However, If I wish to also be able to manually send morse code myself using my paddles, without disconnecting the CYD and reconfiguring the radio, that could be problematic. I may need to factor in the possibility of connecting my paddle to the CYD and then building in code to respond to inputs from the paddles.  \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nAs I mentioned in a previous episode, I have an Arduino Nano on my desk as a practice oscillator for my paddles. I may be able to reuse some of that code on the CYD. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nSo, if I want the CYD to appear to the radio like a straight key, I will need it to be able to control a switch quickly and accurately. But I also want the CYD and the radio to be electrically isolated from each other. This calls for a relay. I was able to find and order some inexpensive relay modules which work nicely with Arduino and ESP32.   \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nThese allow connectivity to 5v power and to one of the CYD's GPIO pins. These feed an optocoupler circuit, which, in-turn, drives the coil of the relay. This provides inductive kickback protection to the CYD and can drive a coil which would require more current than the GPIO can provide.   \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nInductive kickback rabbit trail: An inductor is simply a coil of wire. Direct current flowing through any wire generates a magnetic field. Within the inductor, because the wire is coiled, the magnetic field builds from each pass of the wire in the coil. If you include an iron core, it sustains the magnetic field even better. This is the basis for an electro magnet. A relay is simply a momentary contact switch controlled by an electromagnet.\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nOne unique property of an inductor is that, current wants to keep flowing in the direction it was applied. To be specific, when the current source is removed, the magnetic field still exists for a while, and it effectively \"generates\" an electric current within the coil, in the same direction as the one which initially created the magnetic field to begin with. If it has a path to flow, this current will create another weaker magnetic field, which creates its own electric current, in a diminishing loop. If the circuit which drives the coil of a direct current relay is not ready for this continued push of current, damage can be done. Many times this is countered by wiring a \"flyback diode\" in parallel with the coil and in the opposite direction in which current will be applied. This way, when the current source is stopped, the diode gives a path for the inductive kickback current to safely flow while the magnetic field dissipates. Explained in greater detail at \n\nhttps://inductive-kickback.com/2019/04/inductive-kickback-made-simple-to-grasp-easy-to-handle/\n\n  \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nThe switch side of the relay is a single pole double throw (SPDT) and makes connections available for common, normally closed (NC), and normally open (NO). It will be easy to connect the common and NO connections to a 3.5mm mono male connector so that it may be plugged into the \"key\" port on any radio transmitter. I will need to do some testing on the speed of the relay, but I think it will work just fine. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nOnce I start writing some code for the CYD, I will be able to connect and test the relay. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nWell, this is a good place to end this episode, and it is one of the longest in this series so far.  \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nIn the next episode, we will begin to look at how we design the user interface for our program, something I do not know anything about (yet). \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nStay tuned weekdays for additional exciting episodes of Hacker Public Radio, and, at some point, the next episode in this series. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nIf you like what you have heard, please leave an episode comment, or drop me an email (Using the address in my profile). If you have more than a single sentence to contribute on the subject, I encourage you to record an episode with your thoughts and expertise. If you dislike what you have heard, you are encouraged even more strongly to record and upload your own show which shares your viewpoint or opinion. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nUntil next time. \n

\n\n\n","hostid":394,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"CYD, electronics, ESP32, Adruino, Cheap Yellow Display, morse code, cw, amateur radio, ham radio","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4518,"date":"2025-11-26","title":"Cosy News Corner for Week 46 - Your source for Open Source news","duration":1167,"summary":"This week’s open-source roundup.","notes":"

\nWe just found out that Daniel Persson has his own YouTube Channel.\n

\n

\nHe's currently doing a series called \"Cosy News Corner - Your source for Open Source news\", and we're posting the audio of one sample episode here.\n

\n

\nThe link to the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zZCa2neliA\n

\n

\nThe channel url is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnG-TN23lswO6QbvWhMtxpA and you can add the channel to your rss reader opml using the following line.\n

\n\n\n<outline text="Daniel Persson" title="Daniel Persson" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCnG-TN23lswO6QbvWhMtxpA"/>\n\n\n

\nThe link to the RSS for the Cozy News Corner podcast is https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLP2v7zU48xOIq-TXWuBrhGKNJCyZkblMZ\n

\n\n

Title: Debian Mandates Rust for APT, Reshaping Ubuntu and Other Linux Distros

\n

By: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols - TheNewstack

\n

https://thenewstack.io/debian-mandates-rust-for-apt-reshaping-ubuntu-and-other-linux-distros/

\n

The Complexity of Simplicity

\n

Keynote given at TalosCon by Oxide Co-Founder and CTO Bryan Cantrill in Amsterdam on October 17, 2025.

\n

"He went into Rust pretty skeptical honestly and it came back realizing that there were so many things that he viewed to be essential complexity that were actually accidental complexity."

\n

If you have not learned Rust and you are unfamiliar with the most important thing about Rust to someone who's new to Rust is the way it handles errors, right?

\n

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cum5uN2634o

\n

Title: Ubuntu's Rust Transition Hits Another Bump as sudo-rs Security Vulnerabilities Show Up

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/sudo-rs-issue-ubuntu/

\n

Title: Snapchat Open Sources Cross-Platform UI Framework

\n

By Loraine Lawson - TheNewstack

\n

https://thenewstack.io/snapchat-open-sources-cross-platform-ui-framework/

\n

https://github.com/Snapchat/Valdi

\n

Title: # Solo.io Open Sources Agentregistry, With Support for Agent Skills

\n

By: Heather Joslyn - TheNewstack

\n

https://thenewstack.io/solo-io-open-sources-agentregistry-with-support-for-agent-skills/

\n

Title: FFmpeg Calls Google's AI Bug Reports "CVE Slop"

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

By: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols - TheNewstack

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/ffmpeg-google-fiasco/

\n

https://daniel.haxx.se/

\n

Title: Ubuntu's New 15-Year Commitment Targets Long-Lived Enterprise Systems

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/ubuntu-15-year-support-commitment/

\n

Title: Mozilla Unveils Plans for New 'AI Window' Browsing Mode in Firefox, Opens Signups

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

By: Ajit Varma - Distilled

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/mozilla-ai-window-plans/

\n

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-window/

\n

https://www.firefox.com/en-US/ai/

\n

Title: Nitrux 5.0.0 Released: A 'New Beginning' That's Not for Everyone (By Design)

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/nitrux-5-release/

\n

https://nxos.org/

\n

Title: You Can Play Classic D3D7 Games on Linux With This New Project, But Don’t Expect Perfection

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/play-d3d7-games-on-linux/

\n

https://github.com/WinterSnowfall/d7vk

\n","hostid":382,"series":75,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"OpenSource,Firefox,Linux,Wine,FFMpeg","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":0}, +{"id":4518,"date":"2025-11-26","title":"Cosy News Corner for Week 46 - Your source for Open Source news","duration":1167,"summary":"This week’s open-source roundup.","notes":"

\nWe just found out that Daniel Persson has his own YouTube Channel.\n

\n

\nHe's currently doing a series called \"Cosy News Corner - Your source for Open Source news\", and we're posting the audio of one sample episode here.\n

\n

\nThe link to the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zZCa2neliA\n

\n

\nThe channel url is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnG-TN23lswO6QbvWhMtxpA and you can add the channel to your rss reader opml using the following line.\n

\n\n\n<outline text="Daniel Persson" title="Daniel Persson" type="rss" xmlUrl="https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCnG-TN23lswO6QbvWhMtxpA"/>\n\n\n

\nThe link to the RSS for the Cozy News Corner podcast is https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLP2v7zU48xOIq-TXWuBrhGKNJCyZkblMZ\n

\n\n

Title: Debian Mandates Rust for APT, Reshaping Ubuntu and Other Linux Distros

\n

By: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols - TheNewstack

\n

https://thenewstack.io/debian-mandates-rust-for-apt-reshaping-ubuntu-and-other-linux-distros/

\n

The Complexity of Simplicity

\n

Keynote given at TalosCon by Oxide Co-Founder and CTO Bryan Cantrill in Amsterdam on October 17, 2025.

\n

"He went into Rust pretty skeptical honestly and it came back realizing that there were so many things that he viewed to be essential complexity that were actually accidental complexity."

\n

If you have not learned Rust and you are unfamiliar with the most important thing about Rust to someone who's new to Rust is the way it handles errors, right?

\n

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cum5uN2634o

\n

Title: Ubuntu's Rust Transition Hits Another Bump as sudo-rs Security Vulnerabilities Show Up

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/sudo-rs-issue-ubuntu/

\n

Title: Snapchat Open Sources Cross-Platform UI Framework

\n

By Loraine Lawson - TheNewstack

\n

https://thenewstack.io/snapchat-open-sources-cross-platform-ui-framework/

\n

https://github.com/Snapchat/Valdi

\n

Title: # Solo.io Open Sources Agentregistry, With Support for Agent Skills

\n

By: Heather Joslyn - TheNewstack

\n

https://thenewstack.io/solo-io-open-sources-agentregistry-with-support-for-agent-skills/

\n

Title: FFmpeg Calls Google's AI Bug Reports "CVE Slop"

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

By: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols - TheNewstack

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/ffmpeg-google-fiasco/

\n

https://daniel.haxx.se/

\n

Title: Ubuntu's New 15-Year Commitment Targets Long-Lived Enterprise Systems

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/ubuntu-15-year-support-commitment/

\n

Title: Mozilla Unveils Plans for New 'AI Window' Browsing Mode in Firefox, Opens Signups

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

By: Ajit Varma - Distilled

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/mozilla-ai-window-plans/

\n

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-window/

\n

https://www.firefox.com/en-US/ai/

\n

Title: Nitrux 5.0.0 Released: A 'New Beginning' That's Not for Everyone (By Design)

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/nitrux-5-release/

\n

https://nxos.org/

\n

Title: You Can Play Classic D3D7 Games on Linux With This New Project, But Don’t Expect Perfection

\n

By: Sourav Rudra - It's FOSS

\n

https://itsfoss.com/news/play-d3d7-games-on-linux/

\n

https://github.com/WinterSnowfall/d7vk

\n","hostid":382,"series":75,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"OpenSource,Firefox,Linux,Wine,FFMpeg","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4519,"date":"2025-11-27","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #10","duration":1000,"summary":"Ahuka shares part ten of his list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

\nI am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nLinks:

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":106,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4520,"date":"2025-11-28","title":"Arthur C. Clarke: Rama and Sequels","duration":716,"summary":"A look at Arthur C. Clarke's other famous series.","notes":"\n

\n This brings us to a look at Arthur C. Clarke's other famous\n series, Rendevous with Rama and its sequels. This is frequently\n refered to simply as the Rama series.

\n

\n Links:

\n ","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke, Rama","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4521,"date":"2025-12-01","title":"HPR Community News for November 2025","duration":0,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in November 2025","notes":"","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4521,"date":"2025-12-01","title":"HPR Community News for November 2025","duration":4224,"summary":"HPR Volunteers Kevie and Ken talk about shows released and comments posted in November 2025","notes":"

New hosts

Welcome to our new host:
Whiskeyjack.

Last Month's Shows

Id Day Date Title Host
4501 Mon 2025-11-03 HPR Community News for October 2025 HPR Volunteers
4502 Tue 2025-11-04 Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 3: Reverse beacon network Trey
4503 Wed 2025-11-05 One time passwords using oathtool Whiskeyjack
4504 Thu 2025-11-06 YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #7 Ahuka
4505 Fri 2025-11-07 New site - looks great! Archer72
4506 Mon 2025-11-10 The UCSD P-System Operating System Whiskeyjack
4507 Tue 2025-11-11 What's in the bag ? Ken Fallon
4508 Wed 2025-11-12 YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #8 Ahuka
4509 Thu 2025-11-13 HPR Beer Garden 5 - Heferweisen Kevie
4510 Fri 2025-11-14 Playing Civilization V, Part 5 Ahuka
4511 Mon 2025-11-17 Audio-books Lee
4512 Tue 2025-11-18 HomeAssistant - Nmap (\"Network Mapper\") Reto
4513 Wed 2025-11-19 Living the Tux Life Episode 2 - Ventoy Al
4514 Thu 2025-11-20 YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #9 Ahuka
4515 Fri 2025-11-21 Privacy? I don't have anything to hide... Archer72
4516 Mon 2025-11-24 Browser User Agent Henrik Hemrin
4517 Tue 2025-11-25 Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 4: The hardware Trey
4518 Wed 2025-11-26 Cosy News Corner for Week 46 - Your source for Open Source news Daniel Persson
4519 Thu 2025-11-27 YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #10 Ahuka
4520 Fri 2025-11-28 Arthur C. Clarke: Rama and Sequels Ahuka

Comments this month

These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows. There are 22 comments in total.

Past shows

There are 8 comments on 8 previous shows:

  • hpr3753 (2022-12-21) \"Some thoughts on \"Numeronyms\"\" by Dave Morriss.
    • Comment 3: Ken Fallon on 2025-11-03: \"Just linked to this\"
    • Comment 4: Dave Morriss on 2025-11-05: \"Thanks Ken\"

  • hpr4397 (2025-06-10) \"Transfer files from desktop to phone with qrcp\" by Klaatu.
    • Comment 2: Ken Fallon on 2025-11-18: \"I knew this would come in handy\"
    • Comment 3: candycanearter07 on 2025-11-19: \"issues with qrcp...\"
    • Comment 4: Ken Fallon on 2025-11-20: \"qrcp is private 0x0.st is not\"

  • hpr4485 (2025-10-10) \"Git for Github and Gitlab\" by Archer72.
    • Comment 3: Archer72 on 2025-11-01: \"candycanearter07 and Sayaci: Thanks!\"
    • Comment 4: candycanearter07 on 2025-11-05: \"Re: candycanearter07 and Sayaci: Thanks!\"

  • hpr4491 (2025-10-20) \"Thibaut and Ken Interview David Revoy\" by Thibaut.
    • Comment 3: dnt on 2025-11-04: \"Great interview\"

  • hpr4493 (2025-10-22) \"HPR Beer Garden 4 - Weissbier\" by Kevie.
    • Comment 5: TA Spinner on 2025-11-10: \"Great episode, I look forward to more!\"

  • hpr4494 (2025-10-23) \"Exploring FUTO Keyboard\" by Antoine.
    • Comment 1: Archer72 on 2025-11-01: \"Keyboards use\"

  • hpr4498 (2025-10-29) \"Living the Tux Life Episode 1\" by Al.
    • Comment 1: candycanearter07 on 2025-11-10: \"cheers for taking the plunge!\"

  • hpr4499 (2025-10-30) \"Greg Farough and Zoë Kooyman of the FSF interview Librephone lead developer Rob Savoye\" by Ken Fallon.
    • Comment 1: Henrik Hemrin on 2025-11-05: \"Good interview pod to learn more about the Librephone project\"

This month's shows

There are 14 comments on 8 of this month's shows:

  • hpr4501 (2025-11-03) \"HPR Community News for October 2025\" by HPR Volunteers.
    • Comment 1: Archer72 on 2025-11-01: \"If you do something cool...\"
    • Comment 2: candycanearter07 on 2025-11-05: \"Re: If you do something cool...\"
    • Comment 3: Archer72 on 2025-11-08: \"Tip from operat0r\"

  • hpr4503 (2025-11-05) \"One time passwords using oathtool\" by Whiskeyjack.
    • Comment 1: interesting, but... on 2025-11-10: \"candycanearter07\"
    • Comment 2: Whiskeyjack on 2025-11-12: \"One time passwords using oathtool\"

  • hpr4505 (2025-11-07) \"New site - looks great!\" by Archer72.
    • Comment 1: folky on 2025-11-04: \"Thank you\"

  • hpr4506 (2025-11-10) \"The UCSD P-System Operating System\" by Whiskeyjack.
    • Comment 1: L'andrew on 2025-11-11: \"A blast from the p-code past...\"
    • Comment 2: brian-in-ohio on 2025-11-17: \"good show\"
    • Comment 3: Trixter on 2025-11-21: \"This was very well done\"

  • hpr4509 (2025-11-13) \"HPR Beer Garden 5 - Heferweisen\" by Kevie.
    • Comment 1: ClaudioM on 2025-11-19: \"Both are Tasty!\"

  • hpr4511 (2025-11-17) \"Audio-books\" by Lee.

  • hpr4517 (2025-11-25) \"Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 4: The hardware \" by Trey.
    • Comment 1: mirwi on 2025-11-25: \"Explanation of \"silent key\".\"
    • Comment 2: Trey on 2025-11-26: \"Thank you, Mirwi. Silent Key episode link\"

  • hpr4518 (2025-11-26) \"Cosy News Corner for Week 46 - Your source for Open Source news\" by Daniel Persson.
    • Comment 1: Torin Doyle on 2025-11-29: \"I like this news feature.\"

Mailing List discussions

Policy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This discussion takes place on the Mailing List which is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under Mailman.

The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2025-November/thread.html

Events Calendar

With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to The LWN.net Community Calendar.

Quoting the site:

This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track events of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software. Clicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web page.
","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4522,"date":"2025-12-02","title":"Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop event","duration":2744,"summary":"In this episode, Lee asks me questions about a shopping event I was accepted into to sell my product","notes":"\n

\nIn this episode, Lee sits down with Elsbeth Starling — fae-coded creator, mesh-maker, scripter, and accidental caffeine-fueled entrepreneur — to talk about what it \nreally\n takes to get accepted into Second Life’s legendary \nShop & Hop\n as a relatively new business owner.

\n

\nAt just about a year and a half into her SL journey, Elsbeth breaks down the whole process:

\n

\n
\n

\n
    \n
  • \nhow she applied,
    • \n
  • \nwhat the organizers look for,
    • \n
  • \nand why imposter syndrome is basically the unofficial application form.
    • \n
\n

\nLink to the last \nShop and Hop\n information

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nShe shares her behind-the-scenes workflow using \n\nGIMP\n\n\n, \n\n\nBlender\n\n\n, and \n\n\nLSL scripting\n\n to turn simple mesh ideas into fully interactive creations. (Spoiler: it involves equal parts stubbornness and fairy dust.)

\n

\nWe dive into \nSLRead\n, the virtual HUD-based e-reader system she and Lee created — a tool that brings the joy of real-life reading into the digital world, complete with pages, collections, and a whole lot of cozy vibes.

\n

\nElsbeth also reveals her newest item premiering at Shop & Hop: an \ninteractive story-time décor piece\n that lets ANY avatar sit down, pick one of six sweet stories, and be read to in local chat. Think “campfire storytelling,” but with lag and better fashion.

\n

\nWe wrap up by talking through the practicals:

\n

\n
\n

\n
    \n
  • \nthe cost of participating,
    • \n
  • \nhow sales work at large SL events,
    • \n
  • \nthe realities of being a smaller creator in a massive marketplace,
    • \n
  • \nand why Shop & Hop can be one of the best visibility boosts for emerging designers.
    • \n
\n

\nIf you’re an SL creator dreaming of Shop & Hop — or just curious how creators bring magic into the \nmetaverse\n — this episode is a must-listen.

\n\n\n","hostid":446,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"secondlife, metaverse, inworld shopping, inworld, shopping, vendor, virtual currency, currency","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4523,"date":"2025-12-03","title":"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 1 - Nuclear Basics","duration":684,"summary":"This episode is the first in an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. - Nuclear Basics","notes":"\n

\nThis episode is the first in an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. 

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThis is a politics free series and the focus is on the technology of the reactors.

\n

\nThis series will focus on the civil nuclear industry, with a particular focus on electric power generation reactors.

\n

\nI will discuss the technology, what it is, how it works, and some of the pros and cons of different technologies, but I will try to avoid offering too many opinions on what is the best or worst of anything. 

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nEpisode 1 will cover nuclear basics, including basic terminology and civil versus military nuclear material.

\n

\nEpisode 2 will cover nuclear fuel, including the different types, recycling of spent fuel, uranium and thorium resources, and medical isotopes. 

\n

\nEpisode 3 will cover reactor basics, including slow versus fast reactors, moderators, coolants, steam generation, refuelling methods, and the three main commercial reactor types.

\n

\nEpisode 4 will cover the less common reactor types, including types which are no longer used, some historical developmental dead ends, and some types which may possibly be making a come back.

\n

\nEpisode 5 will cover fast reactors, including the different types, some of their history, why they were developed, and why they have so far only seen limited use.

\n

\nEpisode 6 will cover thorium reactors, including what is thorium and how it differs from uranium, why there is interest in thorium, what sorts of reactors can use thorium, and why thorium has not yet seen widespread use.

\n

\nEpisode 7 will cover small modular reactors or SMRs, what the reason is for developing them, what are the different ways they may be used, and where they are currently being built.

\n

\nEpisode 8 will cover \"Generator IV\" reactors which is a collection of future technologies.  

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n08 Isotopes

\n

\n09 Isotopes of Uranium

\n

\n10 Nuclear Fission

\n

\n11 Half Life

\n

\n12 Fissile versus Fertile

\n

\n13 Enrichment of Isotopes

\n

\n14 Civil Versus Military Nuclear Material

\n

\n15 Uranium

\n

\n16 Plutonium

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n18 Conclusion

\n

\nIn the first episode of this series we have discussed what the series will cover,

\n

\nsome of the basic nuclear physics terminology,

\n

\nand the differences between civil and military nuclear material.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nIn the upcoming episodes we will discuss some of the basic engineering aspects of reactors,

\n

\nThe various types of commercial reactors, including common and uncommon ones,

\n

\nnuclear fuel, including uranium, plutonium, and thorium,

\n

\nmedical isotopes,

\n

\nsmall modular reactors,

\n

\nand the areas of research being conducted into new reactor technologies.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nIn the next episode however we will cover types of nuclear fuel, recycling of nuclear fuel, uranium and thorium resources, and medical isotopes.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThis concludes the first episode of an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. 

\n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"energy, nuclear, engineering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4524,"date":"2025-12-04","title":"Living the Tux Life Episode 3 - Automating the Install","duration":376,"summary":"How i automate my mint os install ","notes":"\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSetting up Linux Mint with Custom LVM and Luks\n

\n\n

Linux Mint with Custom LVM on LUKS

\n

Overview

\n

The current Linux Mint installer doesn't support custom partitions when setting up a new machine with LUKS encryption using LVM. I prefer having a separate partition for my home directory and a backup partition for Timeshift, so that reinstalling or fixing issues won't overwrite my home directory.

\n

I found several approaches to achieve this. One method involves setting up partitions first and then using the installer to select them, but this requires extensive post-installation configuration to get boot working with the encrypted drive.

\n

I discovered this blog which explains how to repartition your drive after installation. Combined with my guide on setting up hibernation, I created this documentation to help remember how to install a fresh copy of Linux Mint with LVM and LUKS.

\n

Tested on: Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon

\n

Partition Layout

\n

For this guide, I'm working with a 1TB drive that will be split into the following logical volumes:

\n
    \n
  • Root - 100GB (system files and applications)
    • \n
  • Swap - 32GB (for hibernation support)
    • \n
  • Home - 700GB (user files and documents)
    • \n
  • Backup - 100GB (Timeshift snapshots)
    • \n
  • Unallocated - ~68GB (reserved for future expansion)
    • \n
\n

This setup ensures that system snapshots and user data remain separate, making system recovery much easier.

\n

Installation Guide

\n

Step 1: Initial Linux Mint Installation

\n

Start the Linux Mint installation process as normal:

\n
    \n
  1. Boot from your Linux Mint installation media
    2. \n
  2. Follow the installation wizard (language, keyboard layout, etc.)
    3. \n
  3. When you reach the Installation type screen:
      \n
    • Select "Erase disk and install Linux Mint"
      • \n
    • Click "Advanced features"
      • \n
    • Enable both options:
        \n
      • ✓ Use LVM with the new Linux Mint installation
        • \n
      • ✓ Encrypt the new Linux Mint installation for security
        • \n
      \n
      • \n
    • Click Continue
      • \n
    \n
    4. \n
  4. Enter a strong encryption password when prompted
    5. \n
  5. Complete the rest of the installation (timezone, user account, etc.)
    6. \n
  6. When installation finishes, do NOT click "Restart Now" - we'll repartition first
    7. \n
\n

Important: Do NOT reboot after installation completes. We need to repartition before the first boot.

\n

Step 2: Access Root Terminal

\n

After installation finishes, open a terminal and switch to root:

\n
sudo -i\n
\n

This gives you administrative privileges needed for disk operations.

\n

Step 3: Check Current Disk Layout

\n

View your current partition structure:

\n
lsblk -f\n
\n

This displays your filesystem layout. You should see your encrypted volume group (typically vgmint) with a large root partition consuming most of the space.

\n

Step 4: Resize Root Partition

\n

Shrink the root partition from its default size (nearly full disk) to 100GB:

\n
lvresize -L 100G --resizefs vgmint/root\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • -L 100G sets the logical volume size to exactly 100GB
    • \n
  • --resizefs automatically resizes the filesystem to match
    • \n
  • This frees up ~900GB for our other partitions
    • \n
\n

Step 5: Resize Swap Partition

\n

The default swap is usually small (a few GB). We need to increase it to 32GB for hibernation:

\n
lvresize --verbose -L +32G /dev/mapper/vgmint-swap_1\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • -L +32G adds 32GB to the current swap size
    • \n
  • --verbose shows detailed progress information
    • \n
  • This ensures enough swap space for RAM contents during hibernation
    • \n
\n

Note: For hibernation to work, swap should be at least equal to your RAM size. Adjust accordingly.

\n

Step 6: Create Home Partition

\n

Create a new logical volume for your home directory:

\n
lvcreate -L 700G vgmint -n home\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • -L 700G creates a 700GB logical volume
    • \n
  • vgmint is the volume group name
    • \n
  • -n home names the new volume "home"
    • \n
\n

Step 7: Create Backup Partition

\n

Create a logical volume for Timeshift backups:

\n
lvcreate -L 100G vgmint -n backup\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Creates a dedicated 100GB space for system snapshots
    • \n
  • Keeps backups separate from user data
    • \n
  • Prevents backups from filling up your home partition
    • \n
\n

Step 8: Format New Partitions

\n

Format both new partitions with the ext4 filesystem:

\n
mkfs.ext4 /dev/vgmint/backup\nmkfs.ext4 /dev/vgmint/home\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Creates ext4 filesystems on both logical volumes
    • \n
  • ext4 is the standard Linux filesystem with good performance and reliability
    • \n
\n

Step 9: Mount Partitions

\n

Create mount points and mount your partitions:

\n
mkdir /mnt/{root,home}\nmount /dev/vgmint/root /mnt/root/\nmount /dev/vgmint/home /mnt/home/\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Creates temporary directories to access the filesystems
    • \n
  • Mounts root and home so we can configure them
    • \n
\n

Step 10: Move Home Directory Contents

\n

Move the existing home directory contents from the root partition to the new home partition:

\n
mv /mnt/root/home/* /mnt/home/\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Transfers all user files and directories from the old location to the new home partition
    • \n
  • Preserves your user account settings and any files created during installation
    • \n
  • Without this step, your home directory would be empty on first boot
    • \n
\n

Step 11: Update fstab

\n

Add the home partition to the system's fstab file so it mounts automatically at boot:

\n
echo \"/dev/mapper/vgmint-home /home           ext4    defaults        0 2\" >> /mnt/root/etc/fstab\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Appends a mount entry to /etc/fstab
    • \n
  • Ensures /home partition mounts automatically at startup
    • \n
  • The 0 2 values enable filesystem checks during boot
    • \n
\n

Step 12: Clean Up and Prepare for Reboot

\n

Unmount the partitions and deactivate the volume group:

\n
umount /mnt/root\numount /mnt/home\nswapoff -a\nlvchange -an vgmint\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Safely unmounts all mounted filesystems
    • \n
  • Turns off swap
    • \n
  • Deactivates the volume group to prevent conflicts
    • \n
  • Ensures everything is properly closed before reboot
    • \n
\n

Step 13: Reboot

\n

Now you can safely reboot into your new system:

\n
reboot\n
\n

Enter your LUKS encryption password at boot, then log in normally.

\n

Verification

\n

After rebooting, verify your partition setup:

\n
lsblk -f\ndf -h\n
\n

You should see:

\n
    \n
  • Root (/) mounted with ~100GB
    • \n
  • Home (/home) mounted with ~700GB
    • \n
  • Swap available with 32GB
    • \n
  • Backup partition ready for Timeshift configuration
    • \n
\n

Setting Up Timeshift

\n

To complete your backup solution:

\n
    \n
  1. Install Timeshift (if not already installed): sudo apt install timeshift
    2. \n
  2. Launch Timeshift and select RSYNC mode
    3. \n
  3. Choose the backup partition as your snapshot location
    4. \n
  4. Configure your backup schedule (daily, weekly, monthly)
    5. \n
  5. Create your first snapshot
    6. \n
\n

Additional Resources

\n\n

Conclusion

\n

This setup gives you the best of both worlds: the security of full-disk encryption with LUKS, and the flexibility of custom LVM partitions. Your home directory and system backups are now isolated, making system recovery and upgrades much safer and more manageable.

\n\n
\n\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nAutomating Your Linux Mint Setup After a Fresh Install\n

\n\n

Automating Your Linux Mint Setup After a Fresh Install

\n

Setting up a fresh Linux Mint installation can be time-consuming, especially when you want to replicate your perfect development environment. This guide will show you how to automate the entire process using Ansible and configuration backups, so you can go from a fresh install to a fully configured system in minutes.

\n

Why Automate Your Setup?

\n

Whether you're setting up a new machine, recovering from a system failure, or just want to maintain consistency across multiple computers, automation offers several key benefits:

\n
    \n
  • Time Savings: What normally takes hours can be done in minutes
    • \n
  • Consistency: Identical setup across all your machines
    • \n
  • Documentation: Your setup becomes self-documenting
    • \n
  • Recovery: Quick recovery from system failures
    • \n
  • Reproducibility: Never forget to install that one crucial tool again
    • \n
\n

Discovering Your Installed Applications

\n

Before creating your automation setup, you need to identify which applications you've manually installed since the initial OS installation. This helps you build a complete picture of your custom environment.

\n

Finding APT and .deb Packages

\n

To see all manually installed packages (excluding those that came with the OS):

\n
comm -23 <(apt-mark showmanual | sort -u) <(gzip -dc /var/log/installer/initial-status.gz | sed -n 's/^Package: //p' | sort -u)\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • apt-mark showmanual lists all manually installed packages
    • \n
  • /var/log/installer/initial-status.gz contains packages from the initial installation
    • \n
  • comm -23 compares the two lists and shows only packages you installed after setup
    • \n
  • This helps you identify exactly what to include in your Ansible playbook
    • \n
\n

Tip: Save this output to a file for reference:

\n
comm -23 <(apt-mark showmanual | sort -u) <(gzip -dc /var/log/installer/initial-status.gz | sed -n 's/^Package: //p' | sort -u) > manually-installed-packages.txt\n
\n

Finding Flatpak Applications

\n

To list all installed Flatpak applications:

\n
flatpak list --app\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Lists all Flatpak applications installed on your system
    • \n
  • The --app flag filters out runtimes and shows only applications
    • \n
  • Use this list to populate the Flatpak section of your Ansible playbook
    • \n
\n

Getting more details:

\n
# Show application IDs (needed for Ansible)\nflatpak list --app --columns=application\n\n# Show with origin (where it was installed from)\nflatpak list --app --columns=application,origin\n
\n

Creating Your Package Inventory

\n

Use these commands to build a comprehensive inventory:

\n
# Create a directory for your automation files\nmkdir -p ~/linux-mint-automation\n\n# Save APT packages\ncomm -23 <(apt-mark showmanual | sort -u) <(gzip -dc /var/log/installer/initial-status.gz | sed -n 's/^Package: //p' | sort -u) > ~/linux-mint-automation/apt-packages.txt\n\n# Save Flatpak apps\nflatpak list --app --columns=application > ~/linux-mint-automation/flatpak-apps.txt\n
\n

Now you have a clear reference of what needs to be included in your automation setup!

\n

Overview of the Automation Strategy

\n

This guide uses a three-part approach:

\n
    \n
  1. Ansible Playbook - Automates software installation and system configuration
    2. \n
  2. Configuration Files - Backs up and restores application settings from .config
    3. \n
  3. dconf Backup - Preserves desktop environment settings (Cinnamon/GNOME)
    4. \n
\n

I store all configurations in a private repository to protect any sensitive information while keeping everything version-controlled and easily accessible.

\n

Prerequisites

\n

Before you begin, make sure you have:

\n
    \n
  • A fresh Linux Mint installation
    • \n
  • Terminal access
    • \n
  • An internet connection
    • \n
  • Basic familiarity with the command line
    • \n
\n

Step-by-Step Setup Process

\n

Step 1: Update Your System

\n

First things first—let's make sure your system is up to date:

\n
sudo apt update\nsudo apt upgrade -y\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Updates the package index to get the latest package information
    • \n
  • Upgrades all installed packages to their latest versions
    • \n
  • The -y flag automatically confirms all prompts
    • \n
\n

Step 2: Install Ansible

\n

Ansible is a powerful automation tool that will handle the bulk of our software installation. Add the official Ansible PPA and install it:

\n
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ansible/ansible\nsudo apt update\nsudo apt install ansible\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Adds the official Ansible Personal Package Archive (PPA)
    • \n
  • Refreshes package information to include Ansible packages
    • \n
  • Installs the latest version of Ansible
    • \n
\n

Step 3: Create Your Ansible Playbook

\n

Create an Ansible playbook that defines your entire system configuration. This YAML file will automate software installation from multiple sources.

\n

Create a file named localsetup.yml:

\n
- hosts: localhost\n  become: true\n\n  vars:\n    # Add any variables here (URLs, versions, etc.)\n\n  tasks:\n    # Install prerequisites\n    - name: Install prerequisites for Ansible to install .deb via apt module\n      apt:\n        name:\n          - xz-utils\n        state: present\n\n    - name: Ensure wget and gpg are installed\n      apt:\n        name:\n          - wget\n          - gpg\n        state: present\n\n    # Install applications from .deb packages\n    - name: Install Google Chrome\n      apt:\n        deb: https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb\n\n    # Add third-party repositories\n    - name: Add signing key for Tailscale\n      get_url:\n        url: https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/ubuntu/jammy.noarmor.gpg\n        dest: /usr/share/keyrings/tailscale.gpg\n        mode: '0644'\n\n    - name: Add Tailscale repository\n      apt_repository:\n        repo: \"deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tailscale.gpg] https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/ubuntu jammy main\"\n        filename: tailscale\n        state: present\n\n    - name: Update package cache after adding repositories\n      ansible.builtin.apt:\n        update_cache: yes\n\n    # Install standard packages from Ubuntu/Mint repositories\n    - name: Install essential applications\n      apt:\n        pkg:\n          - tailscale\n          - git\n          - diodon          # Clipboard manager\n          - pavucontrol     # PulseAudio volume control\n          - guake           # Drop-down terminal\n          - vim\n          - curl\n          - htop\n        state: present\n\n    # Install Flatpak applications\n    - name: Install Flatpak applications\n      community.general.flatpak:\n        name:\n          - org.gimp.GIMP\n          - org.inkscape.Inkscape\n        state: present\n
\n

Understanding the playbook structure:

\n
    \n
  • hosts: localhost - Runs on your local machine
    • \n
  • become: true - Executes tasks with sudo privileges
    • \n
  • tasks - List of operations to perform
    • \n
  • apt module - Installs packages from repositories or .deb files
    • \n
  • apt_repository - Adds third-party repositories
    • \n
  • flatpak module - Installs Flatpak applications
    • \n
\n

Customization tips:

\n
    \n
  • Add more packages to the pkg list under "Install essential applications"
    • \n
  • Include additional .deb packages using the deb: parameter
    • \n
  • Add more third-party repositories following the Tailscale example
    • \n
  • Extend with Flatpak apps, snap packages, or pip packages as needed
    • \n
\n

Step 4: Run the Ansible Playbook

\n

Navigate to the directory containing your localsetup.yml file and execute the playbook:

\n
sudo ansible-playbook localsetup.yml --connection=local\n
\n

What this does:

\n
    \n
  • Executes all tasks defined in your playbook
    • \n
  • Installs all specified software automatically
    • \n
  • Configures repositories and signing keys
    • \n
  • Runs with local connection (no SSH required)
    • \n
\n

Note: This may take several minutes to complete, depending on your internet connection and the number of packages being installed. You'll see progress output for each task.

\n

Step 5: Restore Configuration Files

\n

Application settings are typically stored in the ~/.config directory. If you have a backup of your configuration files, restore them:

\n
# Clone your private configuration repository\ngit clone https://github.com/yourusername/your-config-repo.git\ncd your-config-repo\n\n# Copy configuration files to your home directory\ncp -r .config/* ~/.config/\n
\n

What this restores:

\n
    \n
  • Application preferences and settings
    • \n
  • Custom keyboard shortcuts
    • \n
  • Editor configurations (VS Code, Vim, etc.)
    • \n
  • Terminal emulator settings
    • \n
  • Any other application-specific configurations
    • \n
\n

Tip: Press Ctrl + H in your file manager to show hidden files and folders (those starting with .).

\n

Important configurations to backup:

\n
    \n
  • ~/.config/ - Most modern application settings
    • \n
  • ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc - Shell configuration
    • \n
  • ~/.gitconfig - Git configuration
    • \n
\n

Step 6: Import Desktop Environment Settings

\n

Restore your Cinnamon/GNOME desktop environment settings using dconf. This includes themes, panels, applets, and all desktop preferences.

\n

Creating a dconf Backup (do this on your working system first):

\n
# Export all settings\ndconf dump / > my_dconf_backup.conf\n\n# Or export specific paths\ndconf dump /org/cinnamon/ > cinnamon_settings.conf\n
\n

Restoring dconf Settings:

\n
# Navigate to your dconf backup location\ncd /path/to/your/backups/dconf\n\n# Restore all settings\ndconf load / < my_dconf_backup.conf\n
\n

What this restores:

\n
    \n
  • Desktop themes and appearance
    • \n
  • Panel configuration and applets
    • \n
  • Keyboard shortcuts
    • \n
  • Window manager preferences
    • \n
  • Display settings
    • \n
  • Power management settings
    • \n
  • All other desktop environment preferences
    • \n
\n

Note: You may need to log out and log back in for all changes to take effect.

\n

Advanced Tips and Best Practices

\n

Maintaining Your Automation Setup

\n
    \n
  1. Version Control: Keep your playbook and configs in a Git repository
    2. \n
  2. Regular Updates: Update your backup after making configuration changes
    3. \n
  3. Test on VMs: Test your automation on a virtual machine before using on production
    4. \n
  4. Document Changes: Add comments to your playbook explaining custom configurations
    5. \n
\n

Securing Sensitive Information

\n
    \n
  • Use Ansible Vault to encrypt sensitive data in your playbooks
    • \n
  • Never commit SSH private keys or passwords to repositories
    • \n
  • Use environment variables for sensitive configuration values
    • \n
  • Keep your configuration repository private
    • \n
\n

Extending Your Automation

\n

You can extend this setup to include:

\n
# Install development tools\n- name: Install development tools\n  apt:\n    pkg:\n      - build-essential\n      - docker.io\n      - python3-pip\n      - nodejs\n      - npm\n\n# Install VS Code\n- name: Add VS Code repository key\n  apt_key:\n    url: \"https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc\"\n    state: present\n\n- name: Add VS Code repository\n  apt_repository:\n    repo: \"deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main\"\n    filename: vscode\n    state: present\n\n- name: Install VS Code\n  apt:\n    name: code\n    state: present\n\n# Configure git\n- name: Configure git user\n  community.general.git_config:\n    name: \"{{ item.name }}\"\n    value: \"{{ item.value }}\"\n    scope: global\n  loop:\n    - { name: 'user.name', value: 'Your Name' }\n    - { name: 'user.email', value: 'your.email@example.com' }\n
\n

Troubleshooting

\n

Common Issues

\n

Ansible not found after installation:

\n
# Verify installation\nansible --version\n\n# If not found, check PATH\necho $PATH\n
\n

Permission denied errors:

\n
    \n
  • Ensure you're running the playbook with sudo
    • \n
  • Check file permissions on your playbook: chmod 644 localsetup.yml
    • \n
\n

Package conflicts:

\n
    \n
  • Run sudo apt update before running the playbook
    • \n
  • Check for PPA conflicts: sudo apt-cache policy <package-name>
    • \n
\n

dconf restore doesn't seem to work:

\n
    \n
  • Log out and log back in after restoring
    • \n
  • Verify the backup file format: head my_dconf_backup.conf
    • \n
  • Try restoring specific paths instead of all settings
    • \n
\n

Conclusion

\n

Automating your Linux Mint setup transforms a tedious manual process into a quick, repeatable procedure. With Ansible handling software installation, configuration file backups preserving application settings, and dconf managing desktop preferences, you can rebuild your perfect development environment in minutes rather than hours.

\n

The time invested in creating these automation scripts pays dividends every time you set up a new machine, recover from a failure, or help a colleague replicate your environment.

\n

Additional Resources

\n\n

Next Steps

\n
    \n
  • Customize the playbook with your preferred applications
    • \n
  • Create backups of your current configuration files
    • \n
  • Export your current dconf settings
    • \n
  • Test your automation on a virtual machine
    • \n
  • Set up a private Git repository for your configurations
    • \n
\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":290,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"linux","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4525,"date":"2025-12-05","title":"Using mail merge in thunderbird","duration":493,"summary":"Use thunderbird to send out multiple emails based on a csv file","notes":"\n

\nAs the new year show is upon us, Ken needs a way to send out some mail messages to fellow \nFree Culture Podcasters\n.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nRather than just putting every one on the bcc, a more personal mail list can be done using the \nThunderbird Mail Merge\nadd on.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nInstall

\n

\nDownload it, and then open Thunderbird, select \"Tools\", \"Add-ons and Themes\".

\n

\nThen press the Cog icon ⚙, and select \"Install Add-on From File...\",

\n

\nFinally select the downloaded file and confirm.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nCreating the CSV

\n

\nTo use it create a list of emails with a heading, \"PrimaryEmail\" in our example.

\n

\n
\n

\n
\n$ cat maillist2025.csv\nPrimaryEmail\njblogg@example.com\nmissing@example.nl\njanvanduck@example.nl\n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\nUsing Mail Merge

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nJust add each column field to the address boxes, or the body of your message, surrounded by double \ncurly brackets\n.

\n

\nIn our case we add \"{{PrimaryEmail}}\", in the to field.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\"\"\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThen press the new \"Mail Merge\" button in the top right.

\n

\nSelect \"CSV\" and select the file you prepared before.

\n

\nIf you are sending now, then you can put in a random delay, so that when you press send there will be a delay between each of the mails been sent.

\n

\nIf you select the default send later, then after pressing send the mails will be placed in the outbox so you can send them later.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nLinks

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Mail List,Mail Merge,Thunderbird","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4526,"date":"2025-12-08","title":"Baofeng and SDR++","duration":573,"summary":"Lee tries transmitting and recording on VHF and UHF","notes":"\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nGoal: send a voice signal on VHF or UHF, receive and record with SDR via RTL dongle

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nCore Problem and Resolution\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nAn issue may have been a \nhardware I/Q Imbalance\n in the RTL-SDR, which suppressed the desired signal, resulting in very low output volume that required excessive manual amplification.

\n

\n
\n

\n
    \n
  • \n\nInitial Problem:\n Very quiet, barely audible recorded audio, initially on UHF 433 MHz
    • \n
  • \n\nKey Discovery:\n An \nI/Q imbalance\n caused a repeating signal \"image\" in the spectrum,
    • \n
  • \n\nFrequency Change:\n Switched to the \nVHF 145.500 Mhz\n band,
    • \n
  • \n\nGain Override: \nTo overcome the defect and the failing AGC, gain stages were manually adjusted:
    • \n
  • \n\nSquelch:\n \nSquelch (SQL) was set to OFF (0)\n to prevent the software from muting the quiet, legitimate signal.
    • \n
  • \n\nAdjusted the final Sound Output/Recording Gain\n on the host OS to match the maximized digital output, achieving audible voice.
    • \n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSummary of Key Radio and Software Settings\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nTransmitting Radio (Baofeng UV-5R):\n

\n
    \n
  • \nOperation: Simplex (direct radio-to-SDR).
    • \n
  • \nMode: Narrowband FM (NFM).
    • \n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nReceiving Software (SDR++):\n

\n
    \n
  • \n\nAGC:\n Disabled (Crucial override).
    • \n
  • \n\nRF/Tuner Gain:\n Adjust (Inject best signal power).
    • \n
  • \n\nAF Gain:\n Adjust (Produce loudest digital audio).
    • \n
  • \n\nSquelch (SQL):\n OFF (0) (Prevent muting of quiet signal).
    • \n
  • \n\nFilter Bandwidth:\n 12.5 kHz(Correct setting for NFM).
    • \n
\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThe ultimate resolution was forcing input and output gain in SDR++ and volume adjustment in Audacity

\n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":43,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"sdr, amateur radio, uhf, vhf, fm","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4528,"date":"2025-12-10","title":"Photography software","duration":471,"summary":"My software related to photography on my computer.","notes":"\n

\nToday I will list and talk briefly about software related to photography that I have installed on my computer. 

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nDigiKam

\n

\n\nhttps://www.digikam.org/\n

\n

\nRawTherapee

\n

\n\nhttps://rawtherapee.com/\n

\n

\nGIMP

\n

\n\nhttps://www.gimp.org/\n

\n

\nRapid Photo Downloader

\n

\n\nhttps://damonlynch.net/rapid/index.html\n

\n

\nPIX

\n

\n\nhttps://github.com/linuxmint/pix\n

\n

\nVueScan

\n

\n\nhttps://www.hamrick.com/\n

\n

\nEntangle

\n

\n\nhttps://entangle-photo.org/\n

\n

\nDisplayCAL

\n

\n\nhttps://displaycal.net/\n

\n

\nDarkTable

\n

\n\nhttps://www.darktable.org/\n

\n\n\n","hostid":429,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"photography, digikam, rawtherapee, gimp, pix, rapidphotodownloader, vuescan, entangle, darktable","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":0}, +{"id":4527,"date":"2025-12-09","title":"Overly Complicated Media Ripping setup","duration":387,"summary":"Archer72 shares a somewhat complicated version of a DVD/Blu-ray ripping setup","notes":"

Hello, this is your host Archer72 for Hacker Public Radio. In this\nepisode, I share my overly complicated media ripping setup, and hope it\nhelps someone.

\n

First of all, I have revised my media ripping setup since HPR3294 - Update to\nMakeMKV to back up media

\n

I’ve changed my mind about only using a terminal for ripping media,\nand it was time to make a change. Now, I start both MakeMKV and\nHandbrake from a remote GUI, either on my laptop or phone.

\n
    \n
  • VNC server for remote GUI\n
      \n
    • virt-manager server
      • \n
    • \n
\n
sudo apt install tigervnc-common
\n\n
mark-hpprodesk600g2dm\n    description: Space-saving Computer\n    product: HP ProDesk 600 G2 DM (Y0E36UP#ABA)\n    vendor: HP\n    serial: xxxxxxxx \n    width: 64 bits
\n
sudo apt install nfs-kernel-server
\n

Added symbolic links to /srv/ for ease of use

\n
Oct 28 05:34 dvdrip -> /mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/DVDrip/\nOct 28 05:30 movies -> /mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/Movies/\nOct 30 05:20 tv -> /mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/TV
\n
192.168.50.20:/mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/DVDrip /mnt/dvdrip nfs users,defaults,_netdev,nofail 0 0\n192.168.50.20:/mnt/USBdrive-12Tb/TV /mnt/tv nfs\nusers,defaults,_netdev,nofail
\n
    \n
  • Blu Ray writer
    • \n
\n
*-cdrom\n     description: DVD-RAM writer\n     product: BDDVDRW CH20L\n     vendor: hp\n     physical id: 0.0.0\n     bus info: scsi@9:0.0.0\n     logical name: /dev/sr1\n     version: BC33\n     capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
\n\n

MakeMKV\nvia Remmina

\n

Handbrake\nvia Remmina

","hostid":318,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"MakeMKV, Handbrake, DVD, Blu-ray, Plex, Jellyfin, VNC, Remmina, Tailscale","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4528,"date":"2025-12-10","title":"Photography software","duration":471,"summary":"My software related to photography on my computer.","notes":"\n

\nToday I will list and talk briefly about software related to photography that I have installed on my computer. 

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nDigiKam

\n

\n\nhttps://www.digikam.org/\n

\n

\nRawTherapee

\n

\n\nhttps://rawtherapee.com/\n

\n

\nGIMP

\n

\n\nhttps://www.gimp.org/\n

\n

\nRapid Photo Downloader

\n

\n\nhttps://damonlynch.net/rapid/index.html\n

\n

\nPIX

\n

\n\nhttps://github.com/linuxmint/pix\n

\n

\nVueScan

\n

\n\nhttps://www.hamrick.com/\n

\n

\nEntangle

\n

\n\nhttps://entangle-photo.org/\n

\n

\nDisplayCAL

\n

\n\nhttps://displaycal.net/\n

\n

\nDarkTable

\n

\n\nhttps://www.darktable.org/\n

\n\n\n","hostid":429,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"photography, digikam, rawtherapee, gimp, pix, rapidphotodownloader, vuescan, entangle, darktable","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4529,"date":"2025-12-11","title":"yoga370 review","duration":676,"summary":"a laptop to rule them all","notes":"\n

\n1 intro

\n

\n═══════

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n non-forth show!

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n2 inspiration

\n

\n═════════════

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n episode 4402, looking for a single device to be able to do forth work,

\n

\n read documents, some web browsing discussed the ups and downs of using

\n

\n a pinetab2 and how i used fluxbox and some scripts to bend the device

\n

\n to my needs device was ok but underpowered

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n interview with david revou, episode 4491 mentioned blog section of

\n

\n hardware, led me to lenovo yoga 370

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n3 yoga 370

\n

\n══════════

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n i purchased one used on ebay, $250 USD 2 in 1 device, can be used as a

\n

\n laptop or tablet 13\" ips touch screen display x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)

\n

\n i7-7600U CPU @ 2.80GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux 500G nvme 16G ram

\n

\n suprisingly fixable, replacable battery, memory, nvme

\n

\n [picture][picture]

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n4 installing slackware

\n

\n══════════════════════

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n installing slackware: stop secure boot in the bios, reformat the

\n

\n hardrive using gdisk mkfs, efi boot using elilo (not grub2)

\n

\n <https://superuser.com/questions/764799/how-to-create-an-efi-system-partition>

\n

\n had to reboot between each disk drive change. when complete the

\n

\n slackware installer did all the rest of the work, installing elilo and

\n

\n the boot entry after the install i did my normal slackware post

\n

\n install stuff, and everything works (maybe not the fingerprint reader

\n

\n but i do't use that anyway )

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n5 scripting

\n

\n═══════════

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n modified the scripts from the pinetab2 to activate laptop (landscape)

\n

\n and tablet (portrait) mode. using xrandr to rotate the screen, xinput

\n

\n the touch screen, the keyboard is disabled in tablet mode created

\n

\n .desktop entries and added some graphics to get buttons that i pin to

\n

\n the kde task manager to activate

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n6 setting up okular

\n

\n═══════════════════

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n a great document reader, okular. to read documents in tablet mode i

\n

\n use presentation mode in the settings menu under configure okular/

\n

\n presentation mode you'll find enable touch navigation and then tapping

\n

\n on the left/right side of the screen will move the page forward and

\n

\n backward. great for reading especially pdf's

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n7 tablet mode software

\n

\n══════════════════════

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n xournal++, <https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp>, hand note-taking

\n

\n software, exploring using this for things like d-charts for forth

\n

\n developement

\n

\n <https://archive.org/details/flowcharting-with-d-charts-donald-d-meyer-nasa>

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n8 outro

\n

\n═══════

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n Lets all work to stamp out and abolish redundancy

\n

\n
\n

","hostid":326,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"laptop, slackware, linux, desktop","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4530,"date":"2025-12-12","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 6","duration":759,"summary":"We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.","notes":"\n

\n In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we\n examine the topic of War and Combat. This is a complex topic, and\n we are just hitting the high points here, but we also provide a\n link to the War Academy for furhter study.

\n

\n Links:

\n ","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, War, Combat","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4531,"date":"2025-12-15","title":"HPR Beer Garden 6 - Imperial Stouts","duration":2706,"summary":"Kevie and Dave talk about Imperial Stouts","notes":"

\nKevie and Dave continue their look at winter beers with the a look at Imperial Stouts. In this episode Kevie tries Knight of Ren by Yorkshire based microbrewery \nTartarus\nand Dave samples \nToffee Nut Latte Imperial Stout\nby Edinburgh based \nVault City\n.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

\n

\n
\n

\n\n

\n
\n

\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4532,"date":"2025-12-16","title":"Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 5: Graphical User Interface ","duration":791,"summary":"Trey experiments with Squareline Studio to build a GUI for this project","notes":"\n

\n\nHello, again. This is Trey. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nWelcome to part 5 in my Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) Project series. If you are still listening to me ramble about this project, thank you. If you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my \n\nHPR profile page\n\n\n\nhttps://www.hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0394.html\n\n  \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nTo review, My project is to build a portable morse code \"Keyer memory\" which can be connected to any of my HF transceiver radios by simply plugging it in to the code key input port. Then I could transmit stored messages by simply touching their specific icon on the touch screen. I also want to be able to program each macro individually from the graphical user interface (GUI). \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nTo do this, I need to learn how to build a GUI. Most of the CYD resources I have been referencing recommend using Squareline Studio for GUI development on the CYD. Sadly, Squareline Studio is not open source. If any of you have experience with a good, open source alternative to Squareline Studio, please record a show to help the rest of us. Squareline does have a free trial and a free single user / single computer license, which I am using for this project. It will run on Windows, Linux, and Mac.\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nAfter watching several videos about using the CYD with Squareline, I started to outline the functionality I needed. \n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nSquareline provides a wide range of pre-configured boards and interfaces to choose from, in addition to widgets and controls which you can drag onto your screens, and it will automatically generate the supporting code in the background.\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nThe initial page needs to have the macro buttons, with labels for the message they will send when pressed. There also needs to be navigation buttons to move from one page to others. Another important page will be the configuration page, where the user can store the contents of each macro and set the speed at which code will be sent. I would like to have a keyboard page where the user can type a custom message and send it. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nI made a few GUI sketches on post-it-notes, then I installed Squareline Studio on my Ubuntu laptop to start designing. There is a bit of a learning curve. Even with guide videos, I found the user experience to be... challenging. \n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nTheir own GUI leaves much to be desired. It was not designed to run on the laptop's screen size/resolution. I had to switch to a much higher resolution monitor and rearrange frames within the app itself in order to see many of the controls. Button size adjustments, alignments, and label text did not work quite as expected. Getting things sized and aligned properly took quite a bit of fiddling. The text displayed on a button is a separate object from the button itself, so I have had to put some thought into object naming so that I can write code which will change button labels dynamically.  \n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nI am including some screenshots from Squareline for the interface I designed.  \n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nOne great feature is that you can define actions and conditions for objects in your project. For example, there are buttons on the left which will navigate to specific screens. I defined actions within Squareline, such that when the specific navigation button is pressed, it will change the button appearance to look like it has been pressed and will then scroll left or right to a specified screen. Actions were also valuable for the Speed (WPM) slider on the Config screen. When this slider is moved left and right, the GUI will change the actual number for WPM to the right of the slider. \n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nNext, there is a simulator function which can be used to test how well the GUI works. It took some trial and error, but I was able to build and successfully test, navigational actions and the WPM slider. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nAs I was working on building the afore mentioned WPM slider, and thinking about the default words per minute of Morse to use, my ADHD interrupted me (As usual). I decided to change the default speed that I use for the Arduino Nano based Morse code practice keyer which I keep on my desk. You can learn more about this keyer in episode 3 of this series. And we will also discuss Morse code speed in a future episode in this series. The original code (As found on \n\nhttps://github.com/jmharvey1/ArduinoCPO\n\n )\n\n specified 12 words per minute (WPM) as the default speed, with buttons to increase or decrease this. However, I am practicing at 20 WPM. Every time I turn on the practice set, I need to turn up the speed and guess when I am close to 20. I went ahead and opened the PracticeOscilator project in Arduino IDE and updated the wpm variable to a value of 20. No, you will not see this change reflected in my own GitHub repo because:\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nA) I wanted to test it locally first \n

\n

\n\nB) 20 WPM may be a little fast for a default \n

\n

\n\nC) I do not use git the way that it is meant to be used, or the way I SHOULD be using it, with pull requests and all. Bad Trey. \n

\n

\n\nD) I was distracted \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nANYWAY, the reason I bring this up is that it is the first time I have used the Arduino IDE to program a board with this system since I upgraded from Ubunto 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04. Try as I might, I was not able to get the Arduino Nano's USB port to be recognized in Linux so that I could upload the updated keyer code. I spent several days troubleshooting, using other Arduino devices, different USB ports, and different cables, all to no avail. If anyone has any recommendations, I am open to suggestions.\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nSo, I dug out my son's old Windows 10 PC and started again. I had to install the Arduino IDE, load all the necessary libraries, and my code from Github (Which I had to manually change once again, because I don't fully get git). Finally I was able to update the Arduino Nano with its new code, and it works perfectly.\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nBut this revealed the same problem for the CYD. I also could not get it to connect over USB to my Ubuntu system. Time to migrate the entire project to Windows.\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nMy next step was to install Squareline Studio on Windows. Here, I ran into another snag, as my trial license was only for one system, so I had to uninstall Squareline from Linux before I could activate the license on Windows. Did I mention that I would love to find an open source, free software product to use instead? If you know of one, please ping me or post a comment.\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nI wasted more time trying to get the GUI project I had written on the Linux machine imported into Squareline on Windows, all the while thinking of improvements I could make if I started again from scratch. It would not load, and would not load. \n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nIn the end, I started all over again.   \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nAfter much blood sweat and tears, my GUI code was working again, and this time in Windows. I was able to run it in the simulation mode and move from page to page successfully and also use the WPM slider.  I exported the UI from Squareline, and I loaded the code it generated into a new project within Arduino IE.\n\n \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nNow was the moment of truth. I followed instructions found on the Pang YouTube channel video \n\n[ESP32 + LVGL] Configuration input device rotary encoder\n\n (\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGM6gu9OpbA\n\n ).  I connected the CYD and uploaded the code. SUCCESS!! \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nYou can see my \"Send\" screen loaded perfectly! Now to try other screens.  \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nWait. Drat. It does not seem like my navigation buttons work. Actually, it does not appear that the touch screen is responding at all.   \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nI spent the next several days trying to figure out what went wrong. I checked and double checked interrupt and configuration settings (Such as those described in another of Pang's videos, \n\n[CYD + LVGL] Configuration Cheap Yellow Display | Easy Guide\n\n (\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmR-mjJVumU\n\n ). Nothing worked. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nI came to realize that I bit off more than I could chew, and I should NOT have started with such an ambitious project. Instead I should have started with a simple equivalence of \"Hello World\", where I could build and test simple functionality to make sure I knew exactly what I was doing, then expand on it. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nLessons learned, and a good stopping point for this episode. I am open to your feedback on what you would recommend, what I should do differently, etc. You can post simple feedback as a comment or send me an email using the address in my HPR profile. As usual, if your feedback is more than a sentence or two, you might want to record it as an episode so that other listeners can benefit from it as well. \n

\n

\n\n \n

\n

\n\nTime for an espresso. Maybe I will make it a double. Or even a triple! \n

\n\n\n","hostid":394,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"CYD, electronics, ESP32, Adruino, Cheap Yellow Display, morse code, cw, GUI, Squareline","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4533,"date":"2025-12-17","title":"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 2 Nuclear Fuel","duration":1145,"summary":"Types of nuclear fuel, recycling of fuel, uranium and thorium resources, and medical isotopes.","notes":"\n

\n01 Introduction

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThis episode is the second in an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. 

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThis episode will cover types of nuclear fuel, recycling of nuclear fuel, uranium and thorium resources, and medical isotopes.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n03 Types of Nuclear Fuel

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n03 Natural Uranium

\n

\n04 Enriched Uranium

\n

\n05 Mixed Oxide Fuel, or MOX

\n

\n06 Thorium Fuel

\n

\n08 Plutonium in Uranium Cycle Reactors

\n

\n09 Depleted Uranium

\n

\n10 Oxide or Ceramic versus Metallic Fuel

\n

\n12 Recycling Spent Fuel

\n

\n13 Once Through Fuel Cycles

\n

\n14 Reprocessing Spent Uranium Fuel into Mixed Oxide or MOX Fuel

\n

\n16 Reprocessing and Thorium Fuel

\n

\n17 Direct Reuse of Spent Light Water Fuel in Heavy Water Moderated Reactors

\n

\n18 DUPIC - Direct Use of Used PWR Fuel in CANDU

\n

\n20 RepU - Reprocessed Uranium Fuel in CANDU

\n

\n21 Uranium and Thorium Resources

\n

\n21 Uranium Mining

\n

\n22 Uranium in Sea Water

\n

\n23 Thorium

\n

\n24 Medical Isotopes

\n

\n25 Examples of Common Medical Isotopes

\n

\n26 How Medical Isotopes are Made

\n

\n27 Producing Isotopes in Research Reactors

\n

\n29 Producing Isotopes in Power Reactors

\n

\n31 Summary

\n

\nThe basis of nuclear fission is nuclear fuel.

\n

\nThere are three main types of nuclear fuel in commercial use today.

\n

\nThese are natural uranium, enriched uranium, and mixed oxide or MOX uranium-plutonium mixtures.

\n

\nIt is possible to use thorium in a sort of thorium-plutonium or thorium-uranium MOX fuel, but this not currently economically viable at this time when uranium is so cheap and abundant. 

\n

\nSpent fuel can be recycled and used in a reactor again.

\n

\nMedical isotopes are an important byproduct of the nuclear industry, and a large share of the world's population has benefited from this at one time or another.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n32 Conclusion

\n

\nIn the next episode I will describe the basic features and characteristics of reactors together with descriptions of the most widely used commercial reactor types.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThis concludes the second episode of an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. 

\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"energy, nuclear, engineering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4534,"date":"2025-12-18","title":"Reviving My Kawai K4 Synthesizer","duration":723,"summary":"Claudio describes how he revived his old Kawai K4 synthesizer after years of dormancy.","notes":"\n

Links

\n
    \n
  • Kawai K4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawai_K4
    • \n
  • Kawai K4 Battery Replacement (Japanese): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux3y2ClgP1I
    • \n
  • Neal Beard and his Machines - Kawai Battery Replacement: https://nealbeardahm.blogspot.com/2012/10/kawai-battery-replacement.html
    • \n
  • Kawai K4r: Rack-mount module version of the K4
    • \n
  • Kawai Downloads Page: https://kawaius.com/downloads/
    • \n
  • Standard MIDI Files (SMF): https://midi.org/standard-midi-files
    • \n
  • MIDI System Exclusive (SysEx) Messages Explained: https://blog.landr.com/midi-sysex/
    • \n
  • amidi(1): https://linux.die.net/man/1/amidi
    • \n
  • Syntaur Keyboard Parts & Accessories: https://syntaur.com/
    • \n
","hostid":152,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"kawai,synthesizer,kawaik4,k4,synths,synthesizers,synth,repair,music,musicalinstruments,midi,sysex","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4535,"date":"2025-12-19","title":"Living the Tux Life Episode 4 - Various software I have been using","duration":553,"summary":"Al goes over the Various software he have been using","notes":"\n

\nShow Notes

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nSystem Monitoring & Metrics

\n

\nPrometheus

\n

\nOpen-source monitoring and alerting toolkit for collecting and storing metrics.

\n\n

\nPrometheus Node Exporter

\n

\nHardware and OS metrics exporter for Prometheus.

\n\n

\nGrafana

\n

\nOpen-source analytics and visualization platform for monitoring metrics.

\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\nFeatured Grafana Dashboards

\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\nPower Management & Battery Tools

\n

\nTLP

\n

\nAdvanced power management tool for Linux that optimizes battery life.

\n\n

\nBattery Uptime Timer Script

\n

\nCustom script for monitoring battery usage and uptime.

\n\n

\nSetting Battery Charge Threshold

\n

\nLimit battery charge to extend battery lifespan:

\n
\necho 90 | sudo tee /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_stop_threshold \n
\n

\n\nNote: Adjust the value (90%) and BAT0 according to your system.\n

\n

\nCaffeine

\n

\nPrevents your system from going to sleep or activating the screensaver.

\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\nBackup & File Sharing

\n

\nLocalSend

\n

\nOpen-source cross-platform alternative to AirDrop for sharing files locally.

\n\n

\nDéjà Dup

\n

\nSimple backup tool for GNOME desktop environment.

\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\nFOX Clone

\n

\nSystem backup and cloning tool for Linux.

\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\nTerminal Utilities

\n

\nTmux

\n

\nTerminal multiplexer that allows multiple terminal sessions within a single window.

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":290,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"linux","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4536,"date":"2025-12-22","title":"Welcome to the Linux Community","duration":1827,"summary":"I invite you to participate in the Free Linux Open Source Community","notes":"

\nBelow are some links to help you find related software and resources:

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nBeginner-Friendly Distros\n

\n

\n\nhttps://linuxmint.com\n

\n

\n\nhttps://ubuntu.com\n

\n

\n\nhttps://fedoraproject.org\n

\n

\n\nhttps://pop.system76.com\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nHelp & Community\n

\n

\n\nLinux Questions —\n\n \n\nhttps://www.linuxquestions.org\n

\n

\n\nReddit r/linux4noobs —\n\n \n\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs\n

\n

\n\nStack Exchange Unix/Linux —\n\n \n\nhttps://unix.stackexchange.com\n

\n

\n\nAsk Fedora — https://ask.fedoraproject.org\n

\n

\n\nUbuntu Forums —\n\n \n\nhttps://ubuntuforums.org\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nLocal & Live Community\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.linux.org/forums/\n

\n

\n\nhttps://freegeek.org/\n

\n

\n\n \n\nhttps://mastodon.social\n

\n

\n\nhttps://fosstodon.org\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nSoftware Alternatives\n

\n

\n\nGIMP (image editing) —\n\n \n\nhttps://www.gimp.org\n

\n

\n\nKrita (digital painting) —\n\n \n\nhttps://krita.org\n

\n

\n\nInkscape (vector graphics) —\n\n \n\nhttps://inkscape.org\n

\n

\n\nBlender (3D modeling & animation) — https://blender.org\n

\n

\n\nLibreOffice (office suite) — https://libreoffice.org\n

\n

\n\nArdour (audio workstation) —\n\n \n\nhttps://ardour.org\n

\n

\n\nLMMS (music production) —\n\n \n\nhttps://lmms.io\n

\n

\n\nKdenlive (video editing) —\n\n \n\nhttps://kdenlive.org\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nLinux Gaming\n

\n

\n\nSteam for Linux —\n\n \n\nhttps://store.steampowered.com\n

\n

\n\nProtonDB compatibility reports —\n\n \n\nhttps://www.protondb.com\n

\n

\n\nLutris game launcher —\n\n \n\nhttps://lutris.net\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

","hostid":194,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"linux,welcome,open source,new users","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4537,"date":"2025-12-23","title":"“Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 1)","duration":2587,"summary":"Elsbeth talks to Lee about what it has been like since approx 1997 working in different parts of IT.","notes":"\n

\n\nA two-part conversation about what it’s really like being a woman in tech for almost three decades. Content Warning: The F word probably makes an appearance multiple times.\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nIn this episode, Lee sits down with Elsbeth to talk about her long, winding, sometimes ridiculous, often inspiring journey through the IT industry — starting all the way back in 1997. If you’ve ever worked helpdesk, ever had a customer say “my cup holder broke” (yes, the CD tray)… or ever felt underestimated in a room full of engineers, this one’s for you.

\n

\nBecause we throw around some tech terms in the conversation, here are a few friendly definitions so everyone can follow along.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nTerms We Mentioned (in plain English)\n

\n

\n\nQA (Quality Assurance)\n

\n

\nThink of QA as the people who try to break things \non purpose\n so regular users don’t break them \naccidentally\n.

\n

\n They test software, hardware, websites — you name it — to catch bugs before they cause chaos.

\n

\n If it’s glitch-free, a QA person probably saved the day behind the scenes.

\n

\n\nContent Moderation\n

\n

\nThis is the work of keeping the internet from turning into the Wild West.

\n

\n Moderators review posts, comments, images, and videos to make sure they follow community rules and don’t harm users.

\n

\n It’s a mix of tech tools and human judgment — and yes, it can get intense.

\n

\n\nBuilding PCs\n

\n

\nWhere many IT careers start! Building PCs is basically grown-up Lego:

\n

\n
\n

\n
    \n
  • \npicking parts
    • \n
  • \nassembling them
    • \n
  • \nhoping you don’t zap anything with static electricity
    • \n
  • \npraying the cable management gods smile upon you
    • \n
\n

\nIt’s one of the most empowering skills in tech and often the first time someone realizes,

\n

\n “Oh hey… I can actually \ndo\n this.”

\n

\n\nGender Equality & Inequality\n

\n

\nGender equality means giving everyone the same chance to succeed — no matter who they are.

\n

\n Gender inequality is what happens when that \ndoesn’t\n happen.

\n

\nIn tech, inequality often looks like:

\n

\n
\n

\n
    \n
  • \nbeing talked over
    • \n
  • \nbeing paid less
    • \n
  • \nbeing assumed “non-technical”
    • \n
  • \nhaving to prove yourself twice as hard
    • \n
  • \nbeing the only woman in a room… again
    • \n
\n

\nElsbeth has seen all of this firsthand since 1997 — and she’s got stories.

\n

\n\nEnd-User\n

\n

\nThe \nend-user\n is simply the person who actually uses the product.

\n

\n Not the engineer who built it.

\n

\n Not the manager who approved it.

\n

\n Not the QA who tested it.

\n

\nThe end-user is the human at the end of the chain who clicks the button, pushes the key, taps the app… and finds entirely new ways to break things no one expected.

\n

\nUnderstanding them is the secret superpower of tech.

\n

\n\nNeurodivergence\n

\n

\nNeurodivergence means brains come in many beautiful varieties — like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and more.

\n

\n Neurodivergent people often bring incredible strengths to IT, including creativity, pattern spotting, hyperfocus, and out-of-the-box problem solving.

\n

\nThey can also face misunderstandings in workplaces that weren’t designed with different brains in mind — something Elsbeth talks about openly and honestly in this episode.

\n\n\n","hostid":446,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"IT, women, work, ","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4538,"date":"2025-12-24","title":"HPR Branding","duration":593,"summary":"Ken explains why the intro and outro are as they are","notes":"

\nHPR Branding

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThis episode refers to the initial release of \nhttps://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_documentation/src/branch/main/branding.md\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThe Intro

\n

\nDuration

\n

\nIt will always be 30 seconds long and in some edge cases may be slightly longer. The following table will help put that into context. It gives the percentage of the show the intro takes related to the length of the shows.

\n

\n
\n

\n
\n  1.7% of an average show (29 minutes 30 seconds)\n  0.1% of our longest show (7 hours 27 minutes)\n187.5% of our shortest show (16 seconds)\n
\n

\nBreakdown

\n

\nGeneration

\n

\nThe intro is generated by the \nprocess_episode.bash\n script and uses the \nsay.php\n file to generate the data.

\n

\nThe text is \ncreated\n using \npiper test to speech\n. It was previously created using \nespeak\n, and we are open to \nsuggestions\n on how to improve it.

\n

\nThe text is played over the HPR Theme Music

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nTheme Music Credits

\n

\nThe background is an arrangement by \nMaestraccio\n which is released under the \nCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)\n license, of the HPR Theme, composed by \nslick0\n which has \nNo Copyright\n applied.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nMessage

\n

\nTo effectively communicate an event it’s important to convey the answers to \nWho?\n, \nWhat?\n, \nWhen?\n, \nWhere?\n, and \nWhy?\n

\n

\n
\n

\n
\nThe Five Ws is a checklist used in journalism to ensure that the lead contains all the essential points of a story. As far back as 1913, reporters were taught that the lead should answer these questions about the situation being reported.
\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nWhat?, When?, Where?

\n

\nThe first sentence is always \nThis is Hacker Public Radio episode (show id) for “(day of week)” the “(day number)” of “(month and year).\n

\n

\nSaying the name of the show at the beginning of an episode is called establishing \nbrand recognition\n. It is standard for podcasts, TV and Radio shows as well as on broadcast networks, not to mention the pre-rolls in a movie.

\n

\nWe started to do it because some of our Visually Impaired users appreciated knowing what show is playing. Now the same reason can be applied to everyone as the use of visual controlled \nUser interfaces\n have diminished. Most people control the playlist with headset or voice controls.

\n

\nSaying the show id, and date is common where there are a lot of episodes eg: news or weather shows. It is often skipped where the content is sufficient to identify the episode, eg “the last episode of the foo bar baz podcast, or the last Saturday Night Live”

\n

\nWe include the show id and date to allow the listener to refer to the episode easily. As we have literally thousands of shows, we need to help people identify which show they are now listening to, so that it can be easily shared, or commented on.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nWhat? Why?

\n

\nWe always include \nToday’s show is entitled. (title)\n. If the episode is part of a series then we also include \nIt is part of the series (series name)\n. We always include the show \n(synopsis)\n.

\n

\nThis tells the listener what the show is about. It allows them to skip the episode if they wish. They may wish to do this for many reasons, for example:

\n

\n
\n

\n
    \n
  • \nbecause they are not interested in the topic,
    • \n
  • \nthey wish to listen to it while in front of a computer to reference the accompanying show notes,
    • \n
  • \nthey are listening in public and the topic might not be appropriate.
    • \n
\n

\nWho?

\n

\nThe next part will either be \nIt is the first show by new host (host name)\n, \nIt is the (multiple of 10)th show of (host name)\n, or \nIt is hosted by (host name)\n

\n

\nWe are required by the \nCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)\n license to credit our hosts, so we do.

\n

\nWe think it’s important to highlight new hosts especially, so our community we encourage them to continue to contribute.

\n

\nIt’s also nice to call out hosts who have been contributing a lot by highlighting each 10th show they send in.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nWhere?

\n

\nWe always include \nand is about (minutes)minutes long\n to give people an idea of how long the show is.

\n

\nNormal broadcasts have to fit neatly into a standard TV/Radio Broadcast schedule. Many podcasters now follow the same tradition of having episodes of a predictable length. Eg: 30 minutes or an hour.

\n

\nOn HPR, \nthere is no restriction on how long the show can be\n so it’s desirable to give the listener a way to know how long the episode is so they can plan accordingly.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nWarning

\n

\nWe always include either \nIt carries a clean flag\n or \nIt carries an explicit flag\n.

\n

\nThis is also common for broadcasts where they are dealing with a topic that may be disturbing to some people.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nWhat

\n

\nWe always include \nThe summary is. (summary)\n.

\n

\nAs this also tells the listener what the show is about.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nLicense

\n

\nIn the event that the show is not released \nCC-BY-SA\n we include \nTodays show is licensed under a (license_long_name) license.\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nOutro

\n

\nTheme Music Credits

\n

\nThe background is an arrangement by \nMaestraccio\n which is released under the \nCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)\n license, of the HPR Theme, composed by \nslick0\n which has \nNo Copyright\n applied.

\n

\nOver the music is the following text recorded by \nManon\n which has \nNo Copyright\n applied.

\n

\nYou have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at \nhackerpublicradio.org\n.

\n

\nToday’s show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.

\n

\nIf you ever thought of recording a podcast, then click on our contribute link to find out how easy it really is.

\n

\nHosting for HPR has been kindly provided by \nanhonesthost.com\n, the \nInternet Archive\n and \nrsync.net\n.

\n

\nUnless otherwise stated, today’s show is released under a \nCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)\n license.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nDiscussions about the HPR Theme

\n\n

\n
\n

","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"branding,intro,outro,theme","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4539,"date":"2025-12-25","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #11","duration":1113,"summary":"Part eleven of my list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

\nI am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nLinks:

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":106,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4540,"date":"2025-12-26","title":"Arthur C. Clarke: Other Novels, Part 1","duration":860,"summary":"A look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other novels.","notes":"\n

\n This brings us to a look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other\n stories, The Sands of Mars (1951), The Deep Range (1957), and The\n Fountains of Paradise (1979). These are just a few of his\n well-regarded stand-alone novels.

\n

\n Links:

\n ","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4546,"date":"2026-01-05","title":"HPR Community News for December 2025","duration":0,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in December 2025","notes":"_","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4541,"date":"2025-12-29","title":"HPR Beer Garden 7 - UK Christmas Ales","duration":1328,"summary":"Dave, Kevie and Paul talk about UK Christmas beers.","notes":"\n

\nWith Christmas approaching (and actually gone by the time this is posted), Kevie, Dave and Paul try out a variety of Christmas ales from the UK. Dave opts for \nSt Peters Christmas Ale\n, Kevie samples \nSamuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale\nand Dave supports his local brewery, Purple Moose, with a mug of \nMerry X-Moose\n.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\n\n\n

\n

\nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

\n

\n
\n

\n\n

\n
\n

\n

\nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

\n

\n
\n

\n\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4542,"date":"2025-12-30","title":"Can Haiku Mumble?","duration":607,"summary":"Claudio makes good on a promise made during HPR's New Year's Eve Show 2024 and tests Mumble on Haiku","notes":"\n

Haiku: https://www.haiku-os.org/

\n

BeOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS

\n

Mumble: https://www.mumble.info/

\n

HPR NYE Show: https://hackerpublicradio.org/new_year.html

\n

How to Connect to HPR Community Room using Mumble: https://hackerpublicradio.org/mumble-howto

","hostid":152,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"haiku,beos,mumble","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4543,"date":"2025-12-31","title":"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 3 Reactor Basics","duration":682,"summary":"Basic features of reactors and descriptions of the most widely used commercial reactor types.","notes":"\n

\n03-Reactor-Basics

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n01 Introduction

\n

\nIn this episode we will describe the basic features and characteristics of reactors together with descriptions of the most widely used commercial reactor types.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n03 Fast Versus Slow Reactors

\n

\n04 Slow Neutron Reactors

\n

\n06 Fast Neutron Reactors

\n

\n08 Reactor Moderators

\n

\n10 Light Water

\n

\n11 Heavy Water

\n

\n13 Graphite

\n

\n14 Unmoderated

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n15 Coolants

\n

\n16 Common Coolants

\n

\n17 Alternative Coolants

\n

\n18 Primary and Secondary Coolant Loops

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n20 Steam Generation

\n

\n23 Brayton Cycle Gas Turbines

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n24 Refuelling Method

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n25 Main Commercial Reactor Types

\n

\n26 PWR - Pressurized Water Reactor

\n

\n28 BWR - Boiling Water Reactor

\n

\n29 PHWR - Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n33 Conclusion

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nWe have covered the main reactor characteristics. 

\n

\nThese characteristics can be mixed in various ways to give different reactor types.

\n

\nThe characteristics also affect the types of fuel that can be used.

\n

\nWe also covered the three main commercial power generation reactor types.

\n

\n
\n

\n

\nIn the next episode we will describe some of the less common historical reactor types.

\n

\n
\n

\n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"energy, nuclear, engineering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4544,"date":"2026-01-01","title":"Uncommon Commands, Episode 2","duration":709,"summary":"A summary of four commands, mtr, scrot, zless, and last","notes":"\n

\n\nRefs:\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=2BSD/man/last.u\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Util-linux&oldid=271104508\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux/+/612721dba838fe37af543421278416bb7acf770c/login-utils/README.admutil\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-haardt-9087023/details/experience/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/peterorbaek/details/experience/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nhttps://flameshot.org/\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\ncommands:\n

\n

\n\nping yahoo.com\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\ntraceroute -m 100 bad.horse\n

\n

\n\nmtr www.yahoo.com\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nscrot\n

\n

\n\nflameshot\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nzless messages.1.gz\n

\n

\n\nbzless messages.1.bz\n

\n

\n\nxzless messages.1.xz\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nlast -10\n

\n

\n\nlast reboot\n

\n

\n\nlast $USER -10\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nPeople involved:\n

\n

\n\nmtr:\n

\n

\n\nMatt Kimball\n

\n

\n\nRoger Wolff\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nscrot:\n

\n

\n\nTom Gilbert\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nzless and related commands:\n

\n

\n\nPaul Eggert\n

\n

\n
\n

\n

\n\nlast command:\n

\n

\n\nHoward Katseff\n

\n

\n\nMichael Haardt\n

\n

\n\nPeter Orbaek\n

\n\n\n","hostid":194,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":" cli, command line, linux, uncommon commands","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4545,"date":"2026-01-02","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #12","duration":988,"summary":"Part twelve of my list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

\nI am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you.

\n\n

\nLinks:

\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":106,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4546,"date":"2026-01-05","title":"HPR Community News for December 2025","duration":5521,"summary":"HPR Volunteers Kevie and Ken talk about shows released and comments posted in December 2025","notes":"

New hosts

\n

\nThere were no new hosts this month.\n

\n\n

Last Month's Shows

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
IdDayDateTitleHost
4521Mon2025-12-01HPR Community News for November 2025HPR Volunteers
4522Tue2025-12-02Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop eventElsbeth
4523Wed2025-12-03Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 1 - Nuclear BasicsWhiskeyjack
4524Thu2025-12-04Living the Tux Life Episode 3 - Automating the InstallAl
4525Fri2025-12-05Using mail merge in thunderbirdKen Fallon
4526Mon2025-12-08Baofeng and SDR++Lee
4527Tue2025-12-09Overly Complicated Media Ripping setupArcher72
4528Wed2025-12-10Photography softwareHenrik Hemrin
4529Thu2025-12-11yoga370 reviewBrian-in-Ohio
4530Fri2025-12-12Playing Civilization V, Part 6Ahuka
4531Mon2025-12-15HPR Beer Garden 6 - Imperial StoutsKevie
4532Tue2025-12-16Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 5: Graphical User Interface Trey
4533Wed2025-12-17Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 2 Nuclear FuelWhiskeyjack
4534Thu2025-12-18Reviving My Kawai K4 SynthesizerClaudio Miranda
4535Fri2025-12-19Living the Tux Life Episode 4 - Various software I have been usingAl
4536Mon2025-12-22Welcome to the Linux CommunityDeltaray
4537Tue2025-12-23“Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 1)Elsbeth
4538Wed2025-12-24HPR BrandingKen Fallon
4539Thu2025-12-25YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #11Ahuka
4540Fri2025-12-26Arthur C. Clarke: Other Novels, Part 1Ahuka
4541Mon2025-12-29HPR Beer Garden 7 - UK Christmas AlesKevie
4542Tue2025-12-30Can Haiku Mumble?Claudio Miranda
4543Wed2025-12-31Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 3 Reactor BasicsWhiskeyjack
\n\n

Comments this month

\n\n

These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows.\nThere are 27 comments in total.

\n

Past shows

\n

There are 2 comments on\n2 previous shows:

\n
    \n
  • hpr4424\n(2025-07-17) \"How I use Newsboat for Podcasts and Reddit\"\nby Archer72.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 5:\nKen Fallon on 2025-12-02:\n\"Checking for أحمد المحمودي to see if there are issues.\"
      • \n
    • \nComment 6:\nأحمد المحمودي on 2025-12-03:\n\"download-filename-format for HPR podcasts\"

    \n
  • hpr4520\n(2025-11-28) \"Arthur C. Clarke: Rama and Sequels\"\nby Ahuka.
    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • \nComment 1:\nmorhook on 2025-12-30:\n\"programmer and content creator\"
      • \n
    • \nComment 2:\nKevin O'Brien on 2025-12-30:\n\"Glad you liked it\"

    \n
\n

This month's shows

\n

There are 25 comments on 11 of this month's shows:

\n
  • hpr4521\n(2025-12-01) \"HPR Community News for November 2025\"\nby HPR Volunteers.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nArcher72 on 2025-11-30:\n\"Silent key\"
    • Comment 2:\nTrey on 2025-12-01:\n\"Silent Key Archive\"
    • Comment 3:\nTrey on 2025-12-01:\n\"TuxJam CYD Episode\"
    • Comment 4:\ncandycanearter07 on 2025-12-12:\n\"thoughts\"
    • Comment 5:\nArcher72 on 2025-12-19:\n\"Re: thoughts\"
    • Comment 6:\ncandycanearter07 on 2025-12-21:\n\"Re: Re: Thoughts\"

    \n
  • hpr4522\n(2025-12-02) \"Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop event\"\nby Elsbeth.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\ncandycanearter07 on 2025-12-13:\n\"peek into the community\"

    \n
  • hpr4523\n(2025-12-03) \"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 1 - Nuclear Basics\"\nby Whiskeyjack.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nbjb on 2025-12-04:\n\"Love your show/series, thank you\"
    • Comment 2:\nKevin O'Brien on 2025-12-04:\n\"Looking forward to more\"
    • Comment 3:\nTrey on 2025-12-09:\n\"Looking forward to this series\"

    \n
  • hpr4526\n(2025-12-08) \"Baofeng and SDR++\"\nby Lee.
    • \n
  • \n
    \n
  • hpr4529\n(2025-12-11) \"yoga370 review\"\nby Brian-in-Ohio.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nPaulj on 2025-12-31:\n\"Thanks - great show\"

    \n
  • hpr4532\n(2025-12-16) \"Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 5: Graphical User Interface \"\nby Trey.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nnorrrist on 2025-12-16:\n\"starting small \"

    \n
  • hpr4533\n(2025-12-17) \"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 2 Nuclear Fuel\"\nby Whiskeyjack.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nbjb on 2025-12-18:\n\"Thank the host for interesting series\"

    \n
  • hpr4535\n(2025-12-19) \"Living the Tux Life Episode 4 - Various software I have been using\"\nby Al.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\ncandycanearter07 on 2025-12-19:\n\"cool setup!\"
    • Comment 2:\nArcher72 on 2025-12-19:\n\"Tmux\"

    \n
  • hpr4536\n(2025-12-22) \"Welcome to the Linux Community\"\nby Deltaray.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nArcher72 on 2025-12-21:\n\"Brilliant!! \"
    • Comment 2:\nTorin Doyle on 2025-12-22:\n\"Deltaray did a fine job in covering GNU/Linux aka Linux, here.\"
    • Comment 3:\nKen Fallon on 2025-12-22:\n\"Agree\"
    • Comment 4:\nDeltaray on 2025-12-26:\n\"Thanks\"
    • Comment 5:\nMorhook on 2025-12-30:\n\"Good talk CliMagic\"

    \n
  • hpr4538\n(2025-12-24) \"HPR Branding\"\nby Ken Fallon.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\ncandycanearter07 on 2025-12-24:\n\"interesting peak of behind the scenes!!\"
    • Comment 2:\nSteve Barnes on 2025-12-24:\n\"Merci!\"
    • Comment 3:\nArcher72 on 2025-12-29:\n\"Re: candycanearter07\"

    \n
  • hpr4543\n(2025-12-31) \"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 3 Reactor Basics\"\nby Whiskeyjack.
    • \n
  • \n
    • Comment 1:\nL'andrew on 2025-12-31:\n\"Praise for this series\"

    \n
\n\n

Mailing List discussions

\n

\nPolicy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This\ndiscussion takes place on the Mailing List\nwhich is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open\nand available on the HPR server under Mailman.\n

\n

The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

\nhttps://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2025-December/thread.html\n\n

Events Calendar

\n

With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to\nThe LWN.net Community Calendar.

\n

Quoting the site:

\n
This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track\nevents of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software.\nClicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web\npage.
\n\n\n

Any other business

\n

\nThanks to all 57 HPR contributors in 2025!\n

\n

\n

\n
    \n
  • \nAhuka,\nAl,\nAntoine,\nArcher72,\nbeni,\nBrian-in-Ohio,\ncandycanearter,\n
    • \n
  • \nCeleste,\nClaudio Miranda,\nDaniel Persson,\nDave Hingley,\nDave Morriss,\nDeltaray,\ndnt,\n
    • \n
  • \nElsbeth,\nfolky,\nFredBlack,\ngemlog,\nhairylarry,\nHenrik Hemrin,\nHonkeymagoo,\n
    • \n
  • \nHPR Volunteers,\niota,\nJerm,\nJeroen Baten,\nJezra,\nKen Fallon,\n
    • \n
  • \nKevie,\nKirbotica,\nKlaatu,\nko3moc,\nLee,\nLochyboy,\nMajor_Ursa,\nManon,\n
    • \n
  • \nMarc W. Abel,\nmightbemike,\nMoss Bliss,\nMrX,\nmurph,\nnorrist,\noperat0r,\n
    • \n
  • \noxo,\nPaulj,\nReto,\nRho`n,\nShane - StrandedOutput,\nSolusSpider,\nSome Guy On The Internet,\n
    • \n
  • \nSwift110,\nthelovebug,\nThibaut,\nTrey,\nTrixter,\nTrollercoaster,\nWhiskeyjack,\nWojciech\n
    • \n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4547,"date":"2026-01-06","title":"Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 6: The speed and timing of Morse ","duration":651,"summary":"A discussion of the Morse code speed and timing considerations needed for our CYD project","notes":"\n

    \n\nHello, again. This is Trey. \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nWelcome to part 6 in my Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) Project series. Thank you for hanging in there with me on this rambling series. If you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my \n\nHPR profile page\n\n \n\nhttps://www.hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0394.html\n\n  \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nTo review, my project is to build a portable morse code \"Keyer memory\" which can be connected to any of my amateur HF transceiver radios by simply plugging it in to the code key input port. This is based around an ESP32 platform which comes prepackaged on a yellow PC board with a color touchscreen display, WIFI, and Bluetooth. We fondly call this contraption the Cheap Yellow Display.   \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nSo far, I have defined the necessities, collected the required hardware, and failed miserably building the graphical user interface (GUI).  \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nWhile I sort out the technical challenges getting my GUI code to play nicely with the CYD's touchscreen, it is important that we spend some time discussing Morse code itself, and the timing standards we will need to follow. \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nI am not going to dive too deeply into the history behind telegraphs and Morse code, but it is very interesting. If you want to learn more, Wikipedia has the origins and evolution written out quite nicely at \n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code\n\n  \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nFor our purposes, we will fast forward from the year 1820 (When telegraphy began) all the way to 1865 when the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)  standardized, what it called \"International Morse Code\". When I say Morse Code for the remainder of this podcast, I am referring to this ITU International Morse Code.   \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nMorse code typically includes the following characters: \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n
      \n
    • \n\nThe 26 letter basic Latin alphabet \n
      • \n
    • \n\nThe Indo-Arabic numerals 0 to 9 \n
      • \n
    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nThere is also a single accented Latin letter (É), which is written as an E with an accent mark, and a handful of punctuation marks. \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nThese characters are encoded using a sequence of short and long signals. Each short signal is referred to as a \n\ndit\n\n. Each long signal is referred to as a \n\ndah\n\n. At a young age, I began to refer to them as dots and dashes, as this is how they are usually written. For example, the letter \"A\" consists of a single dit followed by a single dah. When written out this would look like a period followed by a hyphen (what some might call a minus sign)   .- \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nThis encoding method allows messages to be sent by \n\nturning on and off an electrical signal. This could result in a light flashing or a tone sounding to the pattern of the signal. The timing of a dit and dah, along with the spacing between them is carefully defined.  \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nMorsecode.world does a great job explaining the timing, and you can find their explanation at \n\nhttps://morsecode.world/international/timing/\n\n  \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nIt all starts with the dit, or more accurately, the amount of time the dit signal is turned on. We will call this length of time 1 unit. We will get to the actual length of time for a unit later in this episode. For now, it is just one unit.\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nSo, if a dit is 1 unit long, a dah will be 3 units long, so there is an obvious and consistent difference between a dit and a dah. Also, empty space between elements of the same character is 1 unit long. The space between characters should be 3 units long.\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n    \n

    \n

    \n\nLet's demonstrate using the letters H, P, & R.   \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nAn \"H\" would be 4 dits ….\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nA \"P\" would be 1 dit followed by 2 dahs and ending with 1 dit  .--.\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nAn \"R\" would be 1 dit followed by 1 dah and ending with 1 dit   .-.\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nRemember when we send these grouped together like a word, we need 3 units of spacing between each character. You can hear this now. This is Morse code for the letters \"HPR\" at 15 words per minute  .... .--. .-. \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nThat is the perfect segue to the next section, words per minute. \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nThe speed of morse code is measured in \"words per minute\". But how do you calculate this when some characters are short (Like the letter \"E\" which is only a single dit long), and other characters are long (Like the letter \"J\" which starts with a single dit and is followed by 3 dahs)?\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nAnd that's just letters. What about words? We have short words and long words. How can we standardize on words per minute with so much diversity of length? \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nWell, thanks to the French, we have a quite elegant solution to this problem. Well, not the French in general. Just PARIS. \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nPARIS is the standard word which has been agreed upon to be used for determining the speed of Morse code. The word PARIS is 50 units long. \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n\"P\" = dit(1) + (1) + dah(3) + (1) + dah(3) + (1) + dit(1) = 11 units\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n{Space between letters} = 3 units \n

    \n

    \n\n\"A\" = \n\ndit(1) + (1) + dah(3) = 5 units\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n{Space between letters} = 3 units \n

    \n

    \n\n\"R\" = \n\ndit(1) + (1) + dah(3) + (1) + dit(1) = 7 units\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n{Space between letters} = 3 units \n

    \n

    \n\n\"I\" = \n\ndit(1) + (1) + dit(1) = 3 units\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n{Space between letters} = 3 units \n

    \n

    \n\n\"S\" = \n\ndit(1) + (1) + dit(1) \n\n+ (1) + \n\ndit(1) \n\n= 5 units \n

    \n

    \n\n{Space between words} = 7 units \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n11+3+5+3+7+3+3+3+5+7 = 50 units \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nHere is the word PARIS sent at 15 WPM  .--. .- .-. .. ... \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nMorsecode.world again does a great job explaining the maths for how many milliseconds long a dit should be for a specific WPM of code (\n\nhttps://morsecode.world/international/timing/\n\n ) But, no... We could not keep it that simple. Some guy named \n\nDonald R. \"Russ\" Farnsworth had to complicate things and increase the gaps between letters and words to make interpreting code much easier. There are even more maths for Farnsworth timing...\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nWait a minute. When did I start saying \"Maths\" instead of \"Math\" like a normal North American? What is the reasoning around pluralizing \"Math\" anyways? Which way is more original English, \"Math\" or \"Maths\"? This sounds like a show idea for someone other than me. If you know or are interested in researching it, I look forward to listening to your show in the future.\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nANYWAYS, there IS much more MATH about Farnsworth timing on another page on Morsecode.world. (\n\nhttps://morsecode.world/international/timing/farnsworth.html\n\n ). But I don't want to get into all of it in detail here. Not when there is a shortcut we can use in our code. Simplified, we can take 1,200 and divide it by the WPM we desire, and it will give us a close enough approximation of the number of milliseconds long a dit should be.\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nFor the 15 WPM messages you have heard throughout this episode, a dit was 1200/15 = 80 ms in length. If I speed it up to 20 WPM (The speed at which I try to practice) a dit will be 1200/20 = 60 ms long.\n\n \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nThis will be an important calculation for us as we develop the code we will later be using to construct our messages using the CYD.   \n

    \n

    \n\n \n

    \n

    \n\nAnd this is also a good stopping point so that I can get back to trying to build that infernal GUI. \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":394,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"morse code, cw, Ham Radio, Amateur Radio","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4550,"date":"2026-01-09","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 7","duration":888,"summary":"We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.","notes":"

    In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we examine the topic of Science and how to win a Science victory. This is something that has been in Civilization from the very beginning, but in Civilization V there are some changes worth addressing.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 7

    \n

    Science

    \n

    In most respects this is not all that different in Civ 5. Most of the techs are the same, there is a tech tree that is pretty similar, and you need to keep up in Science for any victory condition you are seeking. You may want to just beat your enemies into submission, but if you are using Chariots while they have Tanks, you aren’t going to have success. But also it is obvious that if you are going for a Science victory, you need to really focus on this. So many of these tips should be followed for any victory condition, but should be mandatory if you are going for a Science victory. The mechanics of researching technologies is that you have to accumulate a certain amount of Science to discover a new technology, but this amount goes up over time, so you have be continuously looking to increase your output of Science to keep up. for instance, one of your first Techs would be Pottery, which has a cost of 35 Science. But in your Capital city you get 3 Science from your Palace, and let’s say you have a population of 2, so you are generating 5 Science per turn. That means you will research Pottery in 7 turns. But the Education tech costs 485 Science, Astronomy costs 780, Scientific Theory costs 1650, Plastics 4700, and Particle Physics 6000. These are all key techs to advance your Science to a Science Victory. So you can see that you need to be continually increasing your Science.

    \n

    To start with, Population=Science. You get one Science for every one point of population. That does not, however, mean that you need to have a lot of cities to get there. 4-5 well developed cities are quite sufficient, and adding more cities can cause Unhappiness problems. Since higher population itself can cause Unhappiness there is no good reason to add to the problem.\nBuildings

    \n

    The next boost you can give to Science is by building city improvements. The first, which comes early in the game, is the Library, which is available once you research Writing. A Library boosts the Science output of a city by one Science for every two citizens (roughly a 50% boost, rounded down), so building those early pays off. Because advancing through the tech tree is a process of accumulating Science, the earlier you can get these boosts the better. The other population-based boost is the Public School (available when you research Scientific Theory), which also boosts Science by one for every two citizens, and also offers a Specialist slot for a Science Specialist. And since more population means more Science, the Granary (available when you research Pottery) is a good building because it helps to grow your population.

    \n

    There is one other building worth mentioning which is the Observatory (available when you discover Astronomy). It doesn’t depend on population, but on location. You have to have a city that is located directly next to a Mountain to build this, but it adds 50% to the Science output of the city. Mountains are otherwise useless (unless you are the Incas), but if you want a Science boost and happen to see good location (the ideal spot is an isolated mountain that is not part of a mountain range so you don’t lose farming and mining production) this can be great boost.\nScientist Specialists

    \n

    You can at a certain point take some of your citizens out of the farming and mining and turn them into Specialists, but you have to have a slot for them, and those slots come in buildings as well. We’ve already mentioned Public Schools providing one slot. Universities (available when you discover Education) provide 2 slots, as well as boosting the city output of Science by 33%. The other Science building, which comes late in the game, is the Research Lab (available when you discover Plastics) which adds another Specialist slot, plus 4 Science, and then adds 50% to the Science Output of the city. It comes too late to help much in most of the Tech Tree, but is essential to research the Space techs, which are very expensive.\nWonders

    \n

    The first one to try for is the Great Library. It gives you a free Library in the city, +3 Science per turn, and a free tech. Use the free tech to get an expensive tech like Philosophy. Oracle provides 1 Great Person Point per turn towards a Great Scientist. Hanging Gardens provides +6 Food per turn (boosting your population), and a free Garden which boosts your Great Person Points by 25%. Leaning Tower of Pisa increases your Great Person Points by 25% in all cities, plus a free Great Person of your choice when you build it. Porcelain Tower gives you +50% from Research Agreements, plus a free Great Scientist. and Hubble Space Telescope provides two Great Scientists, a free Spaceship Factory in the city where it was built, and +25% production for spaceship parts.

    \n

    All of the above are World Wonders, which means you are in competition with other players to build them, and only one player can be successful in each case, so you won’t get them all. You can sometimes rush a World Wonder by “chopping”, i.e. using your workers to cut down Forests for added production, but you need to have high production cities to build Wonders in general. There is one National Wonder to focus on, though, the National College. Every player can build their own version of any National Wonder. The National College can be built only when you have a Library in every one of your cities. Your strategy should be to build it as soon as possible, so don’t build more than 3-4 cities before you get to this. It gives you +3 Science, plus an increase of 50% in the Science output of the city you build it in.\nGreat Scientists

    \n

    As you work on your Science you will accumulate Great Person Points towards getting a Great Scientist. Some wonder produce Great Person Points, and all of your Science Specialists produce Great Person Points as well. As these add up you will suddenly see a Great Scientist appear. In the early game, the best thing to do is use this Great Scientist to build an Academy. Move the GS to any tile within your city and create the Academy there. It will yield at least +8 Science, bu there are also modifiers that can add to that. The alternative which is better later in the game is to use the Great Scientist to get a free Tech discovery. The reason is that early in the game that +8 Science is very significant, and it can accumulate over time. Combine that with things like an Observatory and a University that increase the city output and it can add up nicely over time. But by perhaps the Medieval Era, and certainly the Renaissance Era, you start running out of time for that accumulation. Meanwhile, the techs have gotten so expensive that a free Tech is the better option.\nResearch Agreements

    \n

    These become available once you research Education. You have to have a Declaration of Friendship with the other player to create one. You each put a certain amount of gold into the pot to fund the research, and after a period of time (usually 30 turns) you each get an amount of Science from it. The way it is calculated is based on the partner that produced the least amount of Science during the agreement. From a science standpoint if you are ahead in Science it probably won’t benefit you to enter into the agreement. But it does build your relationship with the other player so I wouldn’t avoid them altogether. If you are behind in Science it can help you, of course.\nPolicies and Ideologies

    \n

    Given that you should probably be building tall (4-5 cities) instead of wide (8-12 cities), it makes sense to start out with Tradition instead of Liberty. But once you get to the Renaissance you will want to enable the Rationalism tree to maximize your Science. When you get to Ideologies, you have a choice to make. Ignore Autocracy as that is not a Science-oriented choice. If you have 3-5 cities, Freedom is the best Ideology because Specialists require less food (Civil Society), and have reduced Unhappiness (Universal Suffrage). With a wide strategy (more than 5 cities) Order starts to look better. Getting Worker’s Faculties will give +25% Science from every Factory.\nExploration and Techs

    \n

    Exploration is generally a good idea for a variety of reasons, but one to focus on here is the effect of meeting other players. In the first place, if you find other players who have researched techs you do not yet have, you can trade for them. You do this whenever possible. Remember, the other players will all be trading with each other anyway, so if you don’t participate you will simply fall behind. If you have a nice tech and can trade it to just two other players, you will jump up two techs along the tech tree, and that can be huge. If you hold onto it as a secret, some other player will research it, and they will trade it and get that boost instead. So trade whenever you can. Another advantage is that when you discover that another player has a tech you don’t have yet, your cost to research it goes down.\nTrade

    \n

    This is the next Science boost we will cover. when you set up a trade route with either another player or a City-State, one of the benefits can be an increase to your Science. The main benefit of trade routes is money, at least the way I play, so I will always start by looking for the best addition to my Treasury, but if I can choose between equivalent monetary rewards but one trade route offers more Science I might prefer that if I am going for a Science victory.\nChoosing an Empire

    \n

    There are many Empires you can play, and some of them are oriented to a Science victory. The two obvious choices are Babylon and Korea. Babylon gets a free Great Scientist when you discover Writing, which is very early, so you should use it to put down an Academy. And it earns Great Scientists 50% faster. Korea’s advantage comes from +2 Science from all specialists and from all Great Person tile improvements, plus you get a tech boost each time a Science building or wonder is built in the Capital. Of course, you can win a Science victory with any Empire if you are careful about leveraging your Empire’s strengths. For example, Venice and Portugal can rake in the gold in huge amounts, and you can buy a lot of stuff that way. Or with the Celts you generate a ton of Faith, and that can be used to buy buildings and Great Scientists with the right Social Policies.\nConclusion

    \n

    This is just a quick overview of the Science path, and there is always more to learn. If you really want to dive into the Science options and get a Science Victory, the Civilization Fanatics site has a pretty good strategy guide at https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/science-victory-guide-any-difficulty.530940/.

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"mputer games, strategy games, Civilization V, Science","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4560,"date":"2026-01-23","title":"Arthur C. Clarke: Other Works, Part 2","duration":859,"summary":"A look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other works.","notes":"\n

    This brings us to a look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other stories, A Time Odyssey (1951), Tales From the White Hart (1957), The Nine Billion Names of God (1954), The Star (1955), Dolphin Island (1964), and A Meeting With Medusa (1971. These stories will wrap up our look at Clarke's Science Fiction and we have seen a lot of good stuff here. And as a final note, we cover CLarke's Three Laws.

    \n

    Arthur C. Clarke: Other Works, A Time Odyssey

    \n

    A collaboration between two of science fiction’s best authors: what could possibly go wrong? Well, something went wrong. This series is not bad, but I hesitate to describe it as good. This series was described by Clarke as neither a prequel nor a sequel, but an “orthoquel”, a name coined from “orthogonal”, which means something roughly like “at right angles”, though it is also used in statistics to denote events that are independent and do not influence each other. And in relativity theory Time is orthogonal to Space. And in multi-dimensional geometry we can talk about axes in each dimension as orthogonal to all of the others. It is something I can’t picture, being pretty much limited to three dimensions, but it can be described mathematically.

    \n

    It is sort of like the 2001 series, but not really. It has globes instead of monoliths. And the spheres have a circumference and volume that is related to their radius not by the usual pi, but by exactly three. Just what this means I am not sure, other than they are not sphere’s in any usual sense of the word. In this story these spheres seem to be gathering people from various eras and bringing them to some other planet which gets christened “Mir”, though not in any way to the Russian Space Station. It is a Russian word that can mean “peace”, “world”, or “village”. I have seen it used a lot to refer to a village in my studies of Russian history. Anyway, the inhabitants include two hominids, a mother and daughter, a group of British Redcoats, Mongols from the Genghis Khan era, a UN Peacekeeper helicopter, a Russian space capsule, an unknown Rudyard Kipling, the army of Alexander The Great… Well at least they have lots of characters to throw around. They end up taking sides and fighting each other. In the end several of the people are returned to Earth in their own time.

    \n

    But the joke is on them. The beings behind the spheres are call themselves The Firstborn because they were the first to achieve sentience. They figure that best way for them to remain safe is to wipe out any other race that achieves sentience, making them to polar opposite of the beings behind the monoliths in 2001, for whom the mind is sacred. Anyway, the Firstborn have arranged for a massive solar flare that will wipe out all life on Earth and completely sterilize the planet, but conveniently it will happen in 5 years, leaving time for plot development. Of course the people of Earth will try to protect themselves. Then in the third book of the series an ominous object enters the solar system. This is of course a callback to the Rama object. It is like they wanted to take everything from the Rama series and twist it.

    \n

    While I love a lot of Clarke’s work and some of Baxter’s as well, I think this is eminently skippable. The two of them also collaborated on the final White Hart story, which isn’t bad\nOther Works\nTales from the White Hart

    \n

    This collection of short stories has a unity of the setting, a pub called White Hart, where a character tells outrageous stories. Other characters are thinly disguised science fiction authors, including Clarke himself. Clarke mentions that he was inspired to do this by the Jorkens stories of Lord Dunsany, which are also outrageous tall tales, but lacking the science fictions aspects of Clarke’s stories. Of course this type of story has a long history, in which we would do well to mention the stories of Baron Munchausen, and of course the stories of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt as found in Tales from Gavagan’s Bar. And Spider Robinson would take this basic idea and turn it into a series of books about Callahan’s Place. Stories of this type are at least as much Fantasy as anything, but quite enjoyable, and I think I can recommend all of these as worth the time to while away a cold winter’s evening while sitting by a warm fire with a beverage of choice.\nThe Nine Billion Names of God

    \n

    This short story won a retrospective Hugo in 2004 as being the best short story of 1954. The idea is that a group of Tibetan monks believe that the purpose of the universe is to identify the nine billion names of God, and once that has been done the universe will no longer have a purpose and will cease to exist. They have been identifying candidates and writing them down, but the work is very slow, so they decide that maybe with a little automation they can speed it up. So they get a computer (and in 1954, you should be picturing a room-sized mainframe), and then hire some Western programmers to develop the program to do this. The programmers don’t believe the monks are on to anything here, but a paycheck is a paycheck. They finish the program and start it running, but decide they don’t want to be there when the monks discover their theory doesn’t work, so they take off early without telling anyone, and head down the mountain. But on the way, they see the stars go out, one by one.\nThe Star

    \n

    This classic short story won the Hugo for Best Short Story in 1956. The story opens with the return of an interstellar expedition that has been studying a system where the star went nova millennia ago. But the expedition’s astrophysicist, a Jesuit Priest, seems to be in a crisis of faith. And if you think it implausible that a Jesuit Priest could also be an astrophysicist, I would suggest you look into the case of the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître, who first developed the theory of the Big Bang. Anyway, in the story, they learn that this system had a planet much like Earth, and it had intelligent beings much like Earth, who were peaceful, but in a tragic turn of events they knew that their star was going to explode, but they had no capability of interstellar travel. So they created a repository on the outermost planet of the system that would survive the explosion, and left records of their civilization. And when the Jesuit astrophysicist calculated the time of the explosion and the travel time for light, he is shaken:

    \n

    “[O]h God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?”\nDolphin Island

    \n

    This is a good Young Adult novel about the People of the Sea, who are dolphins. They save a young boy who had stowed away on a hovership that subsequently had crashed, and because no one knew about him he was left among the wreckage when the crew takes off in the life boats. And from here it is the typical Bildungsroman you find in most Young Adult novels. The dolphins bring him to an island, where he becomes involved with a research community led by a professor who is trying to communicate with dolphins. He learns various skills there, survives dangers, and in the end has to risk his life to save the people on the island. If you have a 13 year old in your house, this is worth looking for.\nA Meeting With Medusa

    \n

    This won the 1972 Nebula Award for Best Novella. It concerns one Howard Falcon, who early in the story has an accident involving a helium-filled airship, is badly injured, and requires time and prosthetics to heal. But then he promotes an expedition to Jupiter that uses similar technology, a Hot-Hydrogen balloon-supported aircraft. This is to explore the upper reaches of Jupiter’s atmosphere, which is the only feasible way to explore given the intense gravity of this giant planet. Attempting to land on the solid surface would mean being crushed by the gravity and air pressure, so that is not possible. The expedition finds there is life in the upper clouds of Jupiter. Some of it is microscopic, like a kind of “air plankton” which is bio-luminescent. But there are large creatures as well, one of which is like jellyfish, but about a mile across. This is the Medusa of the title. Another is Manta-like creature, about 100 yards across, that preys on the Medusa. But when the Medusa starts to take an interest on Falcon’s craft, he decides to get out quick for safety’s sake. And we learn that because of the various prosthetics implanted after the airship accident Falcon is really a cyborg with much faster reactions than ordinary humans.

    \n

    As we have discussed previously, Clarke loved the sea, and in this novella he is using what he knows in that realm to imagine a plausible ecology in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Of course when he wrote this novella no one knew about the truly frightening level of radiation around Jupiter, but then a clever science fiction writer could come up with a way to work around that.\nClarke’s Three Laws

    \n

    Finally, no discussion of Arthur C. Clarke can omit his famous Three Laws. Asimov had his Three Laws of Robotics, and Clarke had his Three Laws of Technology.

    \n
    When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.\nThe only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.\nAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\n

    This concludes our look at Arthur C. Clarke, the second of the Big Three of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. And that means we are ready to tackle the Dean of Science Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein.

    \n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4548,"date":"2026-01-07","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #13","duration":936,"summary":"Part thirteen of my list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

    \nI am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you.

    \n

    \nLinks:

    \n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":106,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4549,"date":"2026-01-08","title":"[deprecated] Pomodoro Task Tool (pomotask.sh)","duration":269,"summary":"Going over a small bash script I used to use to help with tasks","notes":"
    \n\nlrest=0;\nwhile true; do\n    echo refreshing project list;\n    tsk=$(task +PENDING _unique project | shuf);\n    for x in $tsk;\n    do\n        echo proj:$x;\n        dispmd=\"task proj:$x ready || task ready\";\n        [[ $lrest -eq 0 ]] && dispmd=\"task ready\";\n        timeout 1500 watch $dispmd;\n        ((lrest=lrest+1));\n        echo \"begin break with enter...\";\n        read;\n        resttime=5;\n        if [[ $lrest -gt 3 ]]; then\n            resttime=15;\n            lrest=0;\n        fi;\n        while [[ $resttime -gt 0 ]]; do\n            echo $resttime minute rest;\n            sleep 60;\n            ((resttime=resttime-1));\n        done;\n        echo \"break over, enter to continue...\";\n        read;\n    done;\ndone\n\n
    \n\n","hostid":454,"series":42,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"bash,code,productivity,taskwarrior","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4550,"date":"2026-01-09","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 7","duration":888,"summary":"We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.","notes":"

    In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we examine the topic of Science and how to win a Science victory. This is something that has been in Civilization from the very beginning, but in Civilization V there are some changes worth addressing.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 7

    \n

    Science

    \n

    In most respects this is not all that different in Civ 5. Most of the techs are the same, there is a tech tree that is pretty similar, and you need to keep up in Science for any victory condition you are seeking. You may want to just beat your enemies into submission, but if you are using Chariots while they have Tanks, you aren’t going to have success. But also it is obvious that if you are going for a Science victory, you need to really focus on this. So many of these tips should be followed for any victory condition, but should be mandatory if you are going for a Science victory. The mechanics of researching technologies is that you have to accumulate a certain amount of Science to discover a new technology, but this amount goes up over time, so you have be continuously looking to increase your output of Science to keep up. for instance, one of your first Techs would be Pottery, which has a cost of 35 Science. But in your Capital city you get 3 Science from your Palace, and let’s say you have a population of 2, so you are generating 5 Science per turn. That means you will research Pottery in 7 turns. But the Education tech costs 485 Science, Astronomy costs 780, Scientific Theory costs 1650, Plastics 4700, and Particle Physics 6000. These are all key techs to advance your Science to a Science Victory. So you can see that you need to be continually increasing your Science.

    \n

    To start with, Population=Science. You get one Science for every one point of population. That does not, however, mean that you need to have a lot of cities to get there. 4-5 well developed cities are quite sufficient, and adding more cities can cause Unhappiness problems. Since higher population itself can cause Unhappiness there is no good reason to add to the problem.\nBuildings

    \n

    The next boost you can give to Science is by building city improvements. The first, which comes early in the game, is the Library, which is available once you research Writing. A Library boosts the Science output of a city by one Science for every two citizens (roughly a 50% boost, rounded down), so building those early pays off. Because advancing through the tech tree is a process of accumulating Science, the earlier you can get these boosts the better. The other population-based boost is the Public School (available when you research Scientific Theory), which also boosts Science by one for every two citizens, and also offers a Specialist slot for a Science Specialist. And since more population means more Science, the Granary (available when you research Pottery) is a good building because it helps to grow your population.

    \n

    There is one other building worth mentioning which is the Observatory (available when you discover Astronomy). It doesn’t depend on population, but on location. You have to have a city that is located directly next to a Mountain to build this, but it adds 50% to the Science output of the city. Mountains are otherwise useless (unless you are the Incas), but if you want a Science boost and happen to see good location (the ideal spot is an isolated mountain that is not part of a mountain range so you don’t lose farming and mining production) this can be great boost.\nScientist Specialists

    \n

    You can at a certain point take some of your citizens out of the farming and mining and turn them into Specialists, but you have to have a slot for them, and those slots come in buildings as well. We’ve already mentioned Public Schools providing one slot. Universities (available when you discover Education) provide 2 slots, as well as boosting the city output of Science by 33%. The other Science building, which comes late in the game, is the Research Lab (available when you discover Plastics) which adds another Specialist slot, plus 4 Science, and then adds 50% to the Science Output of the city. It comes too late to help much in most of the Tech Tree, but is essential to research the Space techs, which are very expensive.\nWonders

    \n

    The first one to try for is the Great Library. It gives you a free Library in the city, +3 Science per turn, and a free tech. Use the free tech to get an expensive tech like Philosophy. Oracle provides 1 Great Person Point per turn towards a Great Scientist. Hanging Gardens provides +6 Food per turn (boosting your population), and a free Garden which boosts your Great Person Points by 25%. Leaning Tower of Pisa increases your Great Person Points by 25% in all cities, plus a free Great Person of your choice when you build it. Porcelain Tower gives you +50% from Research Agreements, plus a free Great Scientist. and Hubble Space Telescope provides two Great Scientists, a free Spaceship Factory in the city where it was built, and +25% production for spaceship parts.

    \n

    All of the above are World Wonders, which means you are in competition with other players to build them, and only one player can be successful in each case, so you won’t get them all. You can sometimes rush a World Wonder by “chopping”, i.e. using your workers to cut down Forests for added production, but you need to have high production cities to build Wonders in general. There is one National Wonder to focus on, though, the National College. Every player can build their own version of any National Wonder. The National College can be built only when you have a Library in every one of your cities. Your strategy should be to build it as soon as possible, so don’t build more than 3-4 cities before you get to this. It gives you +3 Science, plus an increase of 50% in the Science output of the city you build it in.\nGreat Scientists

    \n

    As you work on your Science you will accumulate Great Person Points towards getting a Great Scientist. Some wonder produce Great Person Points, and all of your Science Specialists produce Great Person Points as well. As these add up you will suddenly see a Great Scientist appear. In the early game, the best thing to do is use this Great Scientist to build an Academy. Move the GS to any tile within your city and create the Academy there. It will yield at least +8 Science, bu there are also modifiers that can add to that. The alternative which is better later in the game is to use the Great Scientist to get a free Tech discovery. The reason is that early in the game that +8 Science is very significant, and it can accumulate over time. Combine that with things like an Observatory and a University that increase the city output and it can add up nicely over time. But by perhaps the Medieval Era, and certainly the Renaissance Era, you start running out of time for that accumulation. Meanwhile, the techs have gotten so expensive that a free Tech is the better option.\nResearch Agreements

    \n

    These become available once you research Education. You have to have a Declaration of Friendship with the other player to create one. You each put a certain amount of gold into the pot to fund the research, and after a period of time (usually 30 turns) you each get an amount of Science from it. The way it is calculated is based on the partner that produced the least amount of Science during the agreement. From a science standpoint if you are ahead in Science it probably won’t benefit you to enter into the agreement. But it does build your relationship with the other player so I wouldn’t avoid them altogether. If you are behind in Science it can help you, of course.\nPolicies and Ideologies

    \n

    Given that you should probably be building tall (4-5 cities) instead of wide (8-12 cities), it makes sense to start out with Tradition instead of Liberty. But once you get to the Renaissance you will want to enable the Rationalism tree to maximize your Science. When you get to Ideologies, you have a choice to make. Ignore Autocracy as that is not a Science-oriented choice. If you have 3-5 cities, Freedom is the best Ideology because Specialists require less food (Civil Society), and have reduced Unhappiness (Universal Suffrage). With a wide strategy (more than 5 cities) Order starts to look better. Getting Worker’s Faculties will give +25% Science from every Factory.\nExploration and Techs

    \n

    Exploration is generally a good idea for a variety of reasons, but one to focus on here is the effect of meeting other players. In the first place, if you find other players who have researched techs you do not yet have, you can trade for them. You do this whenever possible. Remember, the other players will all be trading with each other anyway, so if you don’t participate you will simply fall behind. If you have a nice tech and can trade it to just two other players, you will jump up two techs along the tech tree, and that can be huge. If you hold onto it as a secret, some other player will research it, and they will trade it and get that boost instead. So trade whenever you can. Another advantage is that when you discover that another player has a tech you don’t have yet, your cost to research it goes down.\nTrade

    \n

    This is the next Science boost we will cover. when you set up a trade route with either another player or a City-State, one of the benefits can be an increase to your Science. The main benefit of trade routes is money, at least the way I play, so I will always start by looking for the best addition to my Treasury, but if I can choose between equivalent monetary rewards but one trade route offers more Science I might prefer that if I am going for a Science victory.\nChoosing an Empire

    \n

    There are many Empires you can play, and some of them are oriented to a Science victory. The two obvious choices are Babylon and Korea. Babylon gets a free Great Scientist when you discover Writing, which is very early, so you should use it to put down an Academy. And it earns Great Scientists 50% faster. Korea’s advantage comes from +2 Science from all specialists and from all Great Person tile improvements, plus you get a tech boost each time a Science building or wonder is built in the Capital. Of course, you can win a Science victory with any Empire if you are careful about leveraging your Empire’s strengths. For example, Venice and Portugal can rake in the gold in huge amounts, and you can buy a lot of stuff that way. Or with the Celts you generate a ton of Faith, and that can be used to buy buildings and Great Scientists with the right Social Policies.\nConclusion

    \n

    This is just a quick overview of the Science path, and there is always more to learn. If you really want to dive into the Science options and get a Science Victory, the Civilization Fanatics site has a pretty good strategy guide at https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/science-victory-guide-any-difficulty.530940/.

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, Science","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4551,"date":"2026-01-12","title":"“Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 2)","duration":2345,"summary":"Lee talks to Elsbeth about her experiences in IT as a woman, continued.","notes":"\n

    \n\nA two-part conversation about what it’s really like being a woman in tech for almost three decades. Content Warning: The F word probably makes an appearance multiple times.\n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIn this episode, Lee sits down with Elsbeth to talk about her long, winding, sometimes ridiculous, often inspiring journey through the IT industry — starting all the way back in 1997. If you’ve ever worked helpdesk, ever had a customer say “my cup holder broke” (yes, the CD tray)… or ever felt underestimated in a room full of engineers, this one’s for you.

    \n

    \nBecause we throw around some tech terms in the conversation, here are a few friendly definitions so everyone can follow along.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n\nTerms We Mentioned (in plain English)\n

    \n

    \n\nQA (Quality Assurance)\n

    \n

    \nThink of QA as the people who try to break things \non purpose\n so regular users don’t break them \naccidentally\n.

    \n

    \n They test software, hardware, websites — you name it — to catch bugs before they cause chaos.

    \n

    \n If it’s glitch-free, a QA person probably saved the day behind the scenes.

    \n

    \n\nContent Moderation\n

    \n

    \nThis is the work of keeping the internet from turning into the Wild West.

    \n

    \n Moderators review posts, comments, images, and videos to make sure they follow community rules and don’t harm users.

    \n

    \n It’s a mix of tech tools and human judgment — and yes, it can get intense.

    \n

    \n\nBuilding PCs\n

    \n

    \nWhere many IT careers start! Building PCs is basically grown-up Lego:

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n
      \n
    • \npicking parts
      • \n
    • \nassembling them
      • \n
    • \nhoping you don’t zap anything with static electricity
      • \n
    • \npraying the cable management gods smile upon you
      • \n
    \n

    \nIt’s one of the most empowering skills in tech and often the first time someone realizes,

    \n

    \n “Oh hey… I can actually \ndo\n this.”

    \n

    \n\nGender Equality & Inequality\n

    \n

    \nGender equality means giving everyone the same chance to succeed — no matter who they are.

    \n

    \n Gender inequality is what happens when that \ndoesn’t\n happen.

    \n

    \nIn tech, inequality often looks like:

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n
      \n
    • \nbeing talked over
      • \n
    • \nbeing paid less
      • \n
    • \nbeing assumed “non-technical”
      • \n
    • \nhaving to prove yourself twice as hard
      • \n
    • \nbeing the only woman in a room… again
      • \n
    \n

    \nElsbeth has seen all of this firsthand since 1997 — and she’s got stories.

    \n

    \n\nEnd-User\n

    \n

    \nThe \nend-user\n is simply the person who actually uses the product.

    \n

    \n Not the engineer who built it.

    \n

    \n Not the manager who approved it.

    \n

    \n Not the QA who tested it.

    \n

    \nThe end-user is the human at the end of the chain who clicks the button, pushes the key, taps the app… and finds entirely new ways to break things no one expected.

    \n

    \nUnderstanding them is the secret superpower of tech.

    \n

    \n\nNeurodivergence\n

    \n

    \nNeurodivergence means brains come in many beautiful varieties — like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and more.

    \n

    \n Neurodivergent people often bring incredible strengths to IT, including creativity, pattern spotting, hyperfocus, and out-of-the-box problem solving.

    \n

    \nThey can also face misunderstandings in workplaces that weren’t designed with different brains in mind — something Elsbeth talks about openly and honestly in this episode.

    \n\n\n","hostid":446,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"IT, neurodivergence, women, women in IT, ","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4552,"date":"2026-01-13","title":"Printer Conspiracy","duration":422,"summary":"This is an episode about a possible EPSON print driver conspiracy","notes":"\n

    \n\nBackground \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nI have a very old \nEPSON R300 inkjet printer\n It has served me well for many years. I thought it was at least 10 if not 15 years old. I got it before I even became interested in Linux. For many of those years now I have been using this printer extensively on Linux.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIt has been a really good printer and has been incredibly cheap to run. Many years ago I got a number of sets of ink for it. I think they only cost me £15! A colleague at work later on gave me more sets of ink. I ended up with a large bag full of ink cartridges which I have been working my way through ever since.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nI used the printer infrequently for many years. This is far from ideal for an ink jet printer as doing so tends to cause the ink jet nozzles to clog up. Unsurprisingly in later years it has become somewhat temperamental. The problems consisted of paper mis-feeds (Probably down to the rubber take up rollers going hard over time) and missing bits of print (This I assume due to infrequent use of the printer and age of ink jet cartridges all of which were well out of their expiration date).

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe mis-fed paper could be solved by individual feeding each sheet through the printer. The poor / missing print could be solved by a combination of running the print head clean routine or by replacing the offending cartridge.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nLatterly I had print problems again and as per usual after cleaning the heads and then finally changing the cartridge the printer resumed printing normally.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nShortly after this I bought myself an Apple iMac mini and thought it could be useful to be able to print from it. I visited the EPSON website downloaded and installed the EPSON print driver for my trusty R300 printer.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nI tried printing from my iMac and received a warning stating something like some of the components within your printer are worn and may need servicing. I’d never seen a message like this before as I normally print using open source print drivers on Linux which never report such things.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nWhen I tried printing on my Apple Mac no black text was visible on the page. I tried running the head cleaning routine and this made no difference. I eventually had to resort to changing the colour of the text within the LibreOffice document. This allowed me to print text that was at least legible.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nAt the time I was a little suspicious of all this as the printer had been working so well just a few days previous. I plugged my trusty printer back into my trusty PC running an old version of Ubuntu using the open source printer drivers. Fired up LibreOffice and tried to print a document. To my surprise the printout was very good. While it was not as good as when the printer was new the quality of the black and coloured text was actually very good.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nMy suspicion though I can’t prove it is that the EPSON print driver has worked out that the printer is 10 plus years old and needs to be returned to EPSON for servicing (or to purchase a new printer). To ensure this the driver is crippling the output from the printer.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe Open Source print drivers have none of the nefarious nonsense and allows the printer to operate. As I said I cannot prove any of this however I’ll leave this up to you decide what you think is going on here.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nAt this point I was going to end the podcast however the story didn’t end there.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n\nThe story continues\n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nMy mother wanted me to print out some holiday insurance documents for her. She sent me a copy of her documents as I told her my printer was working again. The first page printed out slightly faintly but was readable the other pages seemed to print using invisible ink. I tried cleaning the heads but it made no difference. It’s looking a bit like my printer or at least the cartridge is past its expiry date.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nClearing out our loft I found the original box for my EPSON R300 printer and discovered that it was purchased in May 2005. This means the printer is now over 20 years old! At this point I decided that it was maybe about time that I replaced our ageing printer.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nWe use the printer very infrequently and rarely need colour. For this reason I decided this time to buy a laser printer since I believe these don’t tend to dry out like ink jet printers and are less likely to suffer with infrequent use. Only time will tell though I don’t expect this one to last 20 years!

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nFinally after all this I am not sure if using the EPSON driver had anything to do with the final demise of my printer though who knows. As Klaatu would say I leave that up to you dear listener to decide.

    \n\n\n","hostid":201,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computing, Hardware, Printing, Conspiracy","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4553,"date":"2026-01-14","title":"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 4 Less Common Reactor Types","duration":1054,"summary":"Some of the less common historical reactor types.","notes":"\n

    \n02 Less Common Reactor Types

    \n

    \nIn this episode we discuss some of the less common historical reactor types.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThese are a mixture of less common commercial types and some experimental or research reactors.

    \n

    \nI will cover advanced or future designs in another episode. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n03 Minor Successes

    \n

    \n04 Magnox

    \n

    \n07 AGR - Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor

    \n

    \n10 LWGR - Light Water Graphite Moderated Reactor (RBMK)

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n14 Historical Oddities or Dead Ends

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n15 Organically Cooled Reactors

    \n

    \n16 Organically Cooled and Moderated

    \n

    \n18 Organically Cooled and Heavy Water Moderated

    \n

    \n24 HTGCR High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor

    \n

    \n28 HWLWR - Heavy Water Light Water Reactor or SGHWR - Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n31 Reactors Making a Comeback

    \n

    \n32 Pebble Bed Reactors

    \n

    \n33 AVR

    \n

    \n35 THTR-300

    \n

    \n36 South Africa, China, and the US

    \n

    \n39 Making a Come Back?

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n40 MSR - Molten Salt Reactors

    \n

    \n41 Slow or Fast Neutron Reactors

    \n

    \n42 Fuel

    \n

    \n43 Salts

    \n

    \n44 Why Some Variants Use Dissolved Fuel

    \n

    \n46 History

    \n

    \n47 Types of Molten Salt Reactor

    \n

    \n48 Pros and Cons

    \n

    \n52 Overall

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n53 Conclusion

    \n

    \nIn this episode we discussed some of the less common historical reactor types.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nAs we have seen, there have been a number of different reactor designs which were less commercially successful for one reason or another. 

    \n

    \nSome of them may make a come back however, particularly as the basis for a small reactor.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIn the next episode we will describe fast neutron reactors.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"energy, nuclear, engineering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4554,"date":"2026-01-15","title":"How I do todo","duration":1020,"summary":"This is how I manage my personal todo list. ","notes":"\n

    \nReferences in order of first mention

    \n

    \nDaytimer - \n\nhttps://www.daytimer.com/\n\n

    \n

    \nPalmPilot - \n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmPilot\n\n

    \n

    \nGina Trapani - \n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Trapani\n\n

    \n

    \nTodo landing page - \n\nhttp://todotxt.org/\n\n

    \n

    \nTodo file format - \n\nhttps://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt\n\n

    \n

    \nDropbox - \n\nhttps://www.dropbox.com/\n\n

    \n

    \nSimpletask -\n \n\n\nhttps://github.com/mpcjanssen/simpletask-android/\n\n

    \n

    \nQTodoTxt - \n\nhttps://github.com/QTodoTxt/QTodoTxt\n\n

    \n

    \nSynology DS220J NAS - \n\nhttps://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/Hardware/DataSheet/DiskStation/20-year/DS220j/enu/Synology_DS220j_Data_Sheet_enu.pdf\n\n

    \n

    \nIce_recur - \n\nhttps://github.com/rlpowell/todo-text-stuff\n\n

    \n

    \nPy_recur - \n\nhttps://github.com/TASpinner/py_recur\n\n

    \n

    \nMicrosoft todo - \n\nhttps://to-do.office.com/tasks/\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":457,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"#todo","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4555,"date":"2026-01-16","title":"HPR Beer Garden 8 - Belgian Christmas Ales","duration":2043,"summary":"Dave and Kevie talk about Belgian Christmas beers.","notes":"\n

    \nDave and Kevie bring the HPR listeners another festive edition of the Beer Garden, with the focus turning to Belgian Christmas ales. Kevie discovered a scan of the original advert in the Journal De Charleroi from 1896

    \n

    \n\n

    \n

    \nTranslation: Christmas beer has arrived at the Arabian horse and the globe, these two establishments so famous for Anglaise beers. Go and taste it, because Christmas is only sold for a short time.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIn this episode Dave samples \nBaby Jesus by Brouwerij 't Verzet\nand Kevie tries out \nLa Binchoise Speciale Noel\n.

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nDave\n
      2. \n
    2. \n\nKevie\n
      3. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/mixtus/sounds/329806/\n
      2. \n
    2. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/j1987/sounds/123003/\n
      3. \n
    3. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/greatsoundstube/sounds/628437/\n
      4. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4556,"date":"2026-01-19","title":"Nitro man! RC Cars","duration":972,"summary":"I talk about run with Nitro RC Cars","notes":"\n

    \n\nToday it's a special Christmas episode, it's such a kind of part for the RC cars.\nSo we're going to have to talk to them about the Metro cars.\nThe Metro cars are RC cars that run off of this like 20% oil gas thing.\nSo the oil is in the gas, it has a little motor and you can pay you know $800 for a motor\nor you can pay, you know, the 50 bucks for a motor.\n
    \nhttps://traxxas.com/products/models/electric/rustler-bl2s

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"hobby, nitro cars, RC Cars, DIY","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4557,"date":"2026-01-20","title":"Why I prefer tar to zip","duration":1972,"summary":"The ways tar is better than zip as a command and archive format","notes":"

    Why I prefer tar to zip

    \n

    I love having choices when it comes to computing, and especially in the world of open source we’re spoilt when it comes to archiving files. There’s TAR, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, XZ, 7Z, AR, ZOO, and more. Of all compression formats, it seems that ZIP has gained ubiquity. It’s the one you can use to archive and extract data on nearly every system, including Linux, UNIX, FreeDOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and more. The problem is, ZIP isn’t the best tool for the job of archival. Here’s why I use TAR instead of ZIP whenever possible.

    \n

    Each archiving format has an associated command, such as tar, zip, gzip and gunzip, xz, and so on. In terms of compression, they all tend to be basically the same at this point. You might save a few kilobytes or megabytes with one compression algorithm given a specific combination of file types, but it’s fair to say that they all result in broadly similar results. Where they differ is in what each command makes available, and what each file format retains.

    \n

    The tar and zip command showdown

    \n

    At first glance, tar and zip are similar in capability.

    \n

    By default, the tar command generates an archive that’s not compressed. It’s just a single file object that contains smaller file objects within it. The resulting object is basically the same size as the sum of its parts:

    \n
    $ tar --create --file archive.tar pic.jpg file.txt\n$ ls -lG\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux 46049280 Jan  7 10:55 archive.tar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux 45965374 Jan  7 10:55 file.txt\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux    77673 Jan  7 08:34 pic.jpg
    \n

    You can use the -0 option to simulate this with the zip command:

    \n
    $ zip -0 archive.zip pic.jpg file.txt\n  adding: pic.jpg (stored 0%)\n  adding: file.txt (stored 0%)\n$ ls -lG\n$ ls -lG\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux 46049280 Jan  7 10:55 archive.tar\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux 46043355 Jan  7 10:57 archive.zip\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux 45965374 Jan  7 10:55 file.txt\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux    77673 Jan  7 08:34 pic.jpg
    \n

    The most common use case of each command, however, definitely includes compression.

    \n

    Level of compression

    \n

    The balance in choosing either an algorithm (in the case of tar) or a compression level (in the case of zip is between compression speed and size. In theory, the slower you let the command compress, the smaller the resulting archive. The faster the compression, the bigger the archive.

    \n

    Both commands strive to provide you with some control over this.

    \n

    By default (without the -0 option), the zip command also compresses the archive it has created. You can adjust the amount of compression with an option ranging from -0 to -9. The default level is -6.

    \n

    To add compression to the tar command, you can either use a separate command entirely to compress the resulting TAR file, or you can one of several options to choose what compression algorithm gets applied to the TAR file during its creation. Here’s an incomplete list:

    \n
      \n
    • -z or --gzip: Filters the archive through gzip
      • \n
    • -j or --bzip2: Filters the archive through bzip2
      • \n
    • -J or --xz: Filters the archive through xz
      • \n
    • --lzip: Filters the archive through lzip
      • \n
    • -Z or --compress: Filters the archive through compress
      • \n
    • --zstd: Filters the archive through zstd
      • \n
    • --no-auto-compress: Prevents tar from using the archive suffix to determine the compression program so you can specify one (or not) yourself
      • \n
    \n

    Decoupling the process of archiving from compression makes sense to me. While the zip command is stuck with basically the same old algorithm year after year, a TAR archive can be compressed using whatever compression algorithm you think is best. In some cases, you might make that determination based on the type of data you’re compressing, or you might be limited to the capabilities of your target system, or you might just want to test a hot new compression algorithm.

    \n

    Here’s what the zip command does with a 44 MB text file and a JPEG file, at maximum compression:

    \n
    $ zip -9 archive.zip file.txt pic.jpg \n  adding: file.txt (deflated 90%)\n  adding: pic.jpg (deflated 14%)\n$ ls -lG\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux 4.4M Jan  7 11:17 archive.zip\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux  44M Jan  7 10:55 file.txt\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux  76K Jan  7 08:34 pic.jpg
    \n

    A compressed archive of 4.4 MB down from a little more than 44 MB isn’t bad.

    \n

    Similarly, the tar command with the --gzip option produces a 4.5 MB archive. However, filtering tar through --xz makes a significant improvement:

    \n
    $ tar --create --xz --file archive.tar.xz file.txt pic.jpg \n$ ls -lG\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux users 3.3M Jan  7 11:17 archive.tar.xz\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux users  44M Jan  7 10:55 file.txt\n-rw-r--r-- 1 tux users  76K Jan  7 08:34 pic.jpg
    \n

    At 3.3 MB, it seems that a newer compression algorithm has outperformed ZIP, at least in this particular test. I’m the first to admit that compression tests are subject to many variables, so it’s not globally significant that XZ has done better than ZIP in this one example. With some experimentation, I could [probably] devise a test that gets better results from ZIP. However, this example does demonstrate that it’s useful having an archive tool that is modular enough to allow for the development of new algorithms.

    \n

    Output manipulation

    \n

    When you extract data from a TAR or ZIP archive, you can choose to either extract specific files or to extract everything all at once. I believe it’s most common to extract everything, because that’s the default behaviour on major desktops like GNOME and macOS. With both the tar and unzip commands, even when you choose to extract everything all at once, you still have a choice of where to put the files you’ve extracted.

    \n

    By default, both the tar and unzip commands extract all files into the current directory. If the archive itself contains a directory, then that directory serves as a “container” for the extracted files. Otherwise, the files appear in your current directory. This can get messy, but it’s a common enough problem that Linux and UNIX users call it a “tarbomb” because it sometimes feels like an archive has exploded and left file shrapnel in its wake.

    \n

    However, a tarbomb (or zipbomb) isn’t inherently bad. It’s a valid use case when you want to essentially overlay updated or additional files into an existing file system. For example, suppose you have a website consisting of several PHP files across several directories. You can take a copy of the site to your development machine to make updates, and then create an archive of the files you’ve updated. Extract the archive on your web server, and each new version of any file is extracted exactly where it originated from because both tar and unzip retain the filesystem’s structure. I use this feature when doing dot-release updates of several different content management systems, and it makes maintenance pleasantly simply.

    \n

    Both the unzip and tar commands provide an option to change directory before extraction so you can store an archive in one directory but send extracted files to a different location.

    \n

    Use the --directory option with the tar command:

    \n
    $ mkdir mytar\n$ tar --extract --file archive.tar.xz --directory ./mytar\n$ ls ./mytar\nfile.txt   pic.jpg
    \n

    Use the -d option with unzip:

    \n
    $ mkdir myzip\n$ unzip archive.zip -d ./myzip\n$ ls ./myzip\nfile.txt   pic.jpg
    \n

    The feature unzip doesn’t have is the ability to drop directories from the archive before extraction. For example, suppose you want to extract files directly into myzip, but you’ve been given an archive containing a leading directory called chaff:

    \n
    $ unzip archive+chaff.zip -d ./myzip\n$ ls ./myzip\nchaff\n$ ls ./myzip/chaff\nfile.txt   pic.jpg
    \n

    You don’t want chaff, but there’s no option in unzip to skip it.

    \n

    Frustratingly, the unzip command essentially encourages this anti-pattern. In order to avoid delivering a zipbomb to someone, you thoughtfully nest your files in a useless folder. But by nesting everything in a useless folder, you’ve also prevented your user from extracting only the files required.

    \n

    The tar command solves this problem elegantly. You can protect your users from a tarbomb by nesting your files in a useless directory because tar allows any user to skip over any number of leading directories.

    \n
    $ tar --extract --strip-components=1 \\\n  --file archive+chaff.tar.xz --directory ./mytar\n$ ls ./mytar\nfile.txt  pic.jpg
    \n

    Permission and ownership

    \n

    The ZIP file format doesn’t preserve file ownership. The TAR file format does.

    \n

    You might not notice this when using ZIP or TAR archives just on your own personal systems. Once a file is extracted, you own the file. However, using tar as a superuser or with the --same-owner option extracts each file with the same ownership it had when archived, assuming the same user and group is available on the system. There’s no option for that with unzip command because the ZIP file format doesn’t track ownership.

    \n

    The zip command can preserve file permissions, but again tar offers a lot more flexibility. The --same-permissions, --no-same-permissions, and --mode options let you control the permissions assigned to archived files.

    \n

    Better archiving with tar

    \n

    It’s easy to use either ZIP or TAR interchangeably, because for most general purpose activities their default behaviour is similar and suitable. However, if you’re using archives for mission critical work involving disparate systems and a diverse set of people, TAR is the technically superiour choice. Whether TAR is the “correct” choice depends entirely on your target audience, because there’s no doubt that ZIP has greater support. But all things being equal, TAR is the archive format and tar is the archive command I prefer.

    \n

    Show notes taken from https://www.both.org/?p=13268

    ","hostid":78,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"tar,zip,compression,archive","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4558,"date":"2026-01-21","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #14","duration":1026,"summary":"Part fourteen of my list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

    \nI am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you.

    \n

    \nLinks:

    \n\n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":106,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4559,"date":"2026-01-22","title":"Enkele off line vertaaltools ","duration":234,"summary":"Ken presents two offline translation tools for phone and desktop that just work","notes":"\n

    \nOffline Translator tools

    \n

    \nTranslate text offline

    \n

    \nLocalTranslate is an offline translation application that uses Firefox's neural translation models (from the mozilla/firefox-translations-models project) to perform high-quality translations locally on your device.

    \n

    \nNote: LocalTranslate is not affiliated with The Mozilla Foundation in any way.

    \n

    \nLinks

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nLocalTranslate by Shriram Ravindranathan on flathub.org\n
      2. \n
    2. \n\nGPL-3.0 license\n
      3. \n
    3. \n\nSource Code\n
      4. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nOffline Translator - On-device translation of text and images

    \n

    \nA translator app that performs on-device translation of text and images without sending your data to external servers.

    \n

    \nFeatures:

    \n
      \n
    1. \nOn-device translation using Mozilla's translation models
      2. \n
    2. \nTransliteration of non-latin script
      3. \n
    3. \nOCR (Optical Character Recognition) for translating text in images
      4. \n
    4. \nAutomatic language detection
      5. \n
    5. \nImage translation overlay that preserves original formatting
      6. \n
    6. \nSupport for multiple language pairs
      7. \n
    7. \nNo internet required for translation once models are downloaded
      8. \n
    8. \nAll translation happens locally
      9. \n
    \n

    \nLinks

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nOffline Translator by David Ventura on F-droid\n
      2. \n
    2. \n[GNU General Public License v3.0 or later](\nhttps://spdx.org/licenses/GPL-3.0-or-later.html\n
      3. \n
    3. \n\nSource Code\n
      4. \n
    4. \n\nhpr3315 :: tesseract optical character recognition\n
      5. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Translator,Tesseract, OCR","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4560,"date":"2026-01-23","title":"Arthur C. Clarke: Other Works, Part 2","duration":859,"summary":"A look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other works.","notes":"

    This brings us to a look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other stories, A Time Odyssey (1951), Tales From the White Hart (1957), The Nine Billion Names of God (1954), The Star (1955), Dolphin Island (1964), and A Meeting With Medusa (1971. These stories will wrap up our look at Clarke's Science Fiction and we have seen a lot of good stuff here. And as a final note, we cover CLarke's Three Laws.

    \n

    Arthur C. Clarke: Other Works, A Time Odyssey

    \n

    A collaboration between two of science fiction’s best authors: what could possibly go wrong? Well, something went wrong. This series is not bad, but I hesitate to describe it as good. This series was described by Clarke as neither a prequel nor a sequel, but an “orthoquel”, a name coined from “orthogonal”, which means something roughly like “at right angles”, though it is also used in statistics to denote events that are independent and do not influence each other. And in relativity theory Time is orthogonal to Space. And in multi-dimensional geometry we can talk about axes in each dimension as orthogonal to all of the others. It is something I can’t picture, being pretty much limited to three dimensions, but it can be described mathematically.

    \n

    It is sort of like the 2001 series, but not really. It has globes instead of monoliths. And the spheres have a circumference and volume that is related to their radius not by the usual pi, but by exactly three. Just what this means I am not sure, other than they are not sphere’s in any usual sense of the word. In this story these spheres seem to be gathering people from various eras and bringing them to some other planet which gets christened “Mir”, though not in any way to the Russian Space Station. It is a Russian word that can mean “peace”, “world”, or “village”. I have seen it used a lot to refer to a village in my studies of Russian history. Anyway, the inhabitants include two hominids, a mother and daughter, a group of British Redcoats, Mongols from the Genghis Khan era, a UN Peacekeeper helicopter, a Russian space capsule, an unknown Rudyard Kipling, the army of Alexander The Great… Well at least they have lots of characters to throw around. They end up taking sides and fighting each other. In the end several of the people are returned to Earth in their own time.

    \n

    But the joke is on them. The beings behind the spheres are call themselves The Firstborn because they were the first to achieve sentience. They figure that best way for them to remain safe is to wipe out any other race that achieves sentience, making them to polar opposite of the beings behind the monoliths in 2001, for whom the mind is sacred. Anyway, the Firstborn have arranged for a massive solar flare that will wipe out all life on Earth and completely sterilize the planet, but conveniently it will happen in 5 years, leaving time for plot development. Of course the people of Earth will try to protect themselves. Then in the third book of the series an ominous object enters the solar system. This is of course a callback to the Rama object. It is like they wanted to take everything from the Rama series and twist it.

    \n

    While I love a lot of Clarke’s work and some of Baxter’s as well, I think this is eminently skippable. The two of them also collaborated on the final White Hart story, which isn’t bad\nOther Works\nTales from the White Hart

    \n

    This collection of short stories has a unity of the setting, a pub called White Hart, where a character tells outrageous stories. Other characters are thinly disguised science fiction authors, including Clarke himself. Clarke mentions that he was inspired to do this by the Jorkens stories of Lord Dunsany, which are also outrageous tall tales, but lacking the science fictions aspects of Clarke’s stories. Of course this type of story has a long history, in which we would do well to mention the stories of Baron Munchausen, and of course the stories of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt as found in Tales from Gavagan’s Bar. And Spider Robinson would take this basic idea and turn it into a series of books about Callahan’s Place. Stories of this type are at least as much Fantasy as anything, but quite enjoyable, and I think I can recommend all of these as worth the time to while away a cold winter’s evening while sitting by a warm fire with a beverage of choice.\nThe Nine Billion Names of God

    \n

    This short story won a retrospective Hugo in 2004 as being the best short story of 1954. The idea is that a group of Tibetan monks believe that the purpose of the universe is to identify the nine billion names of God, and once that has been done the universe will no longer have a purpose and will cease to exist. They have been identifying candidates and writing them down, but the work is very slow, so they decide that maybe with a little automation they can speed it up. So they get a computer (and in 1954, you should be picturing a room-sized mainframe), and then hire some Western programmers to develop the program to do this. The programmers don’t believe the monks are on to anything here, but a paycheck is a paycheck. They finish the program and start it running, but decide they don’t want to be there when the monks discover their theory doesn’t work, so they take off early without telling anyone, and head down the mountain. But on the way, they see the stars go out, one by one.\nThe Star

    \n

    This classic short story won the Hugo for Best Short Story in 1956. The story opens with the return of an interstellar expedition that has been studying a system where the star went nova millennia ago. But the expedition’s astrophysicist, a Jesuit Priest, seems to be in a crisis of faith. And if you think it implausible that a Jesuit Priest could also be an astrophysicist, I would suggest you look into the case of the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître, who first developed the theory of the Big Bang. Anyway, in the story, they learn that this system had a planet much like Earth, and it had intelligent beings much like Earth, who were peaceful, but in a tragic turn of events they knew that their star was going to explode, but they had no capability of interstellar travel. So they created a repository on the outermost planet of the system that would survive the explosion, and left records of their civilization. And when the Jesuit astrophysicist calculated the time of the explosion and the travel time for light, he is shaken:

    \n

    “[O]h God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?”\nDolphin Island

    \n

    This is a good Young Adult novel about the People of the Sea, who are dolphins. They save a young boy who had stowed away on a hovership that subsequently had crashed, and because no one knew about him he was left among the wreckage when the crew takes off in the life boats. And from here it is the typical Bildungsroman you find in most Young Adult novels. The dolphins bring him to an island, where he becomes involved with a research community led by a professor who is trying to communicate with dolphins. He learns various skills there, survives dangers, and in the end has to risk his life to save the people on the island. If you have a 13 year old in your house, this is worth looking for.\nA Meeting With Medusa

    \n

    This won the 1972 Nebula Award for Best Novella. It concerns one Howard Falcon, who early in the story has an accident involving a helium-filled airship, is badly injured, and requires time and prosthetics to heal. But then he promotes an expedition to Jupiter that uses similar technology, a Hot-Hydrogen balloon-supported aircraft. This is to explore the upper reaches of Jupiter’s atmosphere, which is the only feasible way to explore given the intense gravity of this giant planet. Attempting to land on the solid surface would mean being crushed by the gravity and air pressure, so that is not possible. The expedition finds there is life in the upper clouds of Jupiter. Some of it is microscopic, like a kind of “air plankton” which is bio-luminescent. But there are large creatures as well, one of which is like jellyfish, but about a mile across. This is the Medusa of the title. Another is Manta-like creature, about 100 yards across, that preys on the Medusa. But when the Medusa starts to take an interest on Falcon’s craft, he decides to get out quick for safety’s sake. And we learn that because of the various prosthetics implanted after the airship accident Falcon is really a cyborg with much faster reactions than ordinary humans.

    \n

    As we have discussed previously, Clarke loved the sea, and in this novella he is using what he knows in that realm to imagine a plausible ecology in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Of course when he wrote this novella no one knew about the truly frightening level of radiation around Jupiter, but then a clever science fiction writer could come up with a way to work around that.\nClarke’s Three Laws

    \n

    Finally, no discussion of Arthur C. Clarke can omit his famous Three Laws. Asimov had his Three Laws of Robotics, and Clarke had his Three Laws of Technology.

    \n
    When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.\nThe only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.\nAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\n

    This concludes our look at Arthur C. Clarke, the second of the Big Three of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. And that means we are ready to tackle the Dean of Science Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein.

    \n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4561,"date":"2026-01-26","title":"A bit about Mission:Libre, a new project for 11-14 year olds in free software","duration":135,"summary":"Carmen talks about her project for 11 to 14 year olds in free software","notes":"\n Mission:Libre is a new project for 11 to 14-year-old kids who're\n interested in free software.
    \n
    \n Mission:Libre website: https://missionlibre.org
    \n
    \n Carmen's e-mail address: carmen@missionlibre.org
    \n
    \n \"Libre!\" issue 0: https://missionlibre.org/files/libre0.pdf
    \n
    \n Mission:Libre's Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/MissionLibre","hostid":458,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"freesoftware,teenagers,youth,missionlibre,newzealand","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4562,"date":"2026-01-27","title":"Software development doesn't end until it's packaged","duration":676,"summary":"Creating an installable package for your application is a great quality assurance step","notes":"

    Development isn’t over until it’s packaged

    \n

    Most software development I’ve done has been utilities for highly specific workflows. I’ve written code to ensure that metadata for a company’s custom file format gets copied along with the rest of the data when the file gets archived, code that ensures a search field doesn’t mangle input, lots of Git hooks, file converters, parsers, and of course my fair share of dirty hacks. Because most software projects I work on are designed for a specific task, very few of them have required packaging. My utilities have been either integrated into a larger code base I’m not responsible for, or else distributed across an infrastructure by an admin. It’s like a magic trick, which has made my life conveniently easier but, as magic does, it has also tricked me into thinking that my development work is done once I can prove that my code does its job. The reality is that code development isn’t actually done until you can deliver it to your users in a format they can install.

    \n

    I don’t think I’m alone in forgetting that software delivery is the real final product. There are many reasons some developers stop short of providing an installable package for the code they’ve worked on for weeks or months or years. First of all, packaging is work, and after writing and troubleshooting code for months, sometimes you just want your work to be over just as soon as everything functions as expected. Secondly, there are a lot of software package formats out there, regardless of what platform you’re delivering to. However, I view packaging as part of quality assurance. There are lots of benefits you gain by packaging your code into an installer, and you don’t have to target every package format. In fact, you get the benefits of packaging by creating just one package.

    \n

    Checking for consistency

    \n

    When you package your code as an installable file, whether it’s an RPM file or a Bash script or a Flatpak or AppImage or EXE or MSI or anything else, you are checking your code base for consistency. Pick whatever package format you’re most comfortable with, or the one you think represents the bulk of your target audience, and you’re sure to find that the package tooling expects to be automated. Nobody wants to start packaging from scratch every time they update code, so naturally packaging tools are designed to be configured once for a specific code base and then to create updated packages each time the code base is updated. If you’re building a package for your project and discover that you have to manually intervene, then you’ve discovered a bug in your code.

    \n

    Imagine that you’ve got a project repository with a name in camel-case. You hadn’t noticed before, but your code refers to itself in a mix of lowercase and camel-case. Your package build grinds to a halt because a variable used by the packaging tools suddenly can’t find your code base because it was set to a lowercase title but the archive of your code uses camel-case. If this happens to you, it’s also going to happen for every software packager trying to help you deliver your project to their users. Fix it for yourself, and you’ve fixed it for everyone.

    \n

    Discover surprise dependencies

    \n

    For decades, one of the most common problems of software troubleshooting has been the phrase “well, it works on my machine.” No matter how many tools we developers have at our disposal to make it easy to build and run software on a clean system, it’s still common to accidentally deliver software with surprise dependencies. It’s easy to forget to revert to a clean snapshot in a virtual machine, or to use a container that just happens to have a more recent version of a library than you’d realised, or to get the path of an important executable wrong in a script, or to forget that not all computers ship with a thing you take for granted.

    \n

    Not all packaging tools are immune to this problem, but very robust ones (like RPM and DEB, Flatpak, and AppImage) are. I can’t count the times I’ve tried to deliver an RPM only to be reminded by rpmbuild that I haven’t included the -devel version of a dependency (many Linux distributions separate development libraries from binaries.)

    \n

    You may not literally fix every problem with dependency management by building a single package, but you can clearly identify what your code requires. It only takes a single warning from your packaging tool for you to add a note to other packagers about what they must include in their own builds.

    \n

    As an additional bonus, it’s also a good reminder to double check the licenses your project is using. In the haze of desperate hacking to get something to just-work-already, it’s helpful to get a gentle reminder that you’ve linked to a library with a different license than everything else. Few packaging tools (if any?) detect licensing requirements directly, but sometimes all it takes is a reminder that you’re using a library that comes from a non-standard repo for you to remember to review licensing.

    \n

    Every package is an example package

    \n

    Once you’ve packaged your code once, you create an example for everyone coming to your project to turn it into a package of their own. It doesn’t matter whether your example package is an RPM or a DEB or just a TGZ for a front-end like SlackBuild or Arch’s AUR, it’s the interaction between a packaging system and the input script that counts. Even a novice package maintainer is likely to be able to reverse engineer a packaging script enough to reuse the same logic for their own package.

    \n

    Here’s the build and install section of the RPM for GNU Hello:

    \n
    %prep\n%autosetup\n%build\n%configure\nmake %{?_smp_mflags}\n%install\n%make_install\n%find_lang %{name}\nrm -f %{buildroot}/%{_infodir}/dir\n%post\n/sbin/install-info %{_infodir}/%{name}.info %{_infodir}/dir || :
    \n

    Here’s the GNU Hello build script for Arch Linux:

    \n
    source=(https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.gz)\nmd5sums=('5cf598783b9541527e17c9b5e525b7eb')\nbuild(){\ncd \"$pkgname-$pkgver\"\n./configure --prefix=/usr\nmake\n}\npackage(){\ncd \"$pkgname-$pkgver\"\nmake DESTDIR=\"$pkgdir/\" install\n}
    \n

    There are differences, but you can see the shared logic. There are macros or functions that abstract some common steps of the build process, there are variables to ensure consistency, and they both benefit from using automake as provided by the source code. Armed with these examples, you could probably write a DEB package or Flatpak ref for GNU Hello in an afternoon.

    \n

    Package your code at least once

    \n

    Packaging is quality assurance. Even though a packaging system is really just a front-end for whatever build system your code uses anyway, the rigour of creating a repeatable and automated process for delivering your project is a helpful exercise. It benefits your project, and it benefits the people eager to deliver your project to other users. Software development isn’t over until it’s packaged.

    Shownotes taken from https://www.both.org/?p=13264

    ","hostid":78,"series":25,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"code,package,app,software","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4563,"date":"2026-01-28","title":"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 5 Fast Reactors","duration":727,"summary":"Fast neutron reactors","notes":"\n

    \nFast Reactors

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n03 Fast versus Slow Neutrons

    \n

    \n\"Fast neutron\" reactors are ones which use the \"fast neutron\" reaction.

    \n

    \nThis is as opposed to \"slow\" or \"thermal\" neutron reactors which use a slow neutron reaction.

    \n

    \nNearly all reactors in use today use a slow neutron reaction.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n04 Moderators

    \n

    \n06 No Moderator in Fast Neutron Reactors

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n07 Burners versus Breeders

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n08 Fast Fission Fuel Cycle

    \n

    \n08 \"Typical\" Fuel

    \n

    \n09 Other Methods

    \n

    \n10 Reprocessing

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n11 Fuel Types

    \n

    \n11 Oxide

    \n

    \n12 Metal

    \n

    \n13 Nitride

    \n

    \n14 Carbide

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n15 Coolant

    \n

    \n16 Liquid Sodium

    \n

    \n18 Liquid Lead or Lead-Bismuth

    \n

    \n19 Helium Gas

    \n

    \n20 Molten Salt

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n21 History of Fast Neutron Reactors

    \n

    \n21 Origins

    \n

    \n22 Reasons for Developing Them

    \n

    \n23 Reasons They are Still Being Developed

    \n

    \n24 This is a Proven Technology

    \n

    \n25 Plutonium Stockpiles

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n26 Pros and Cons of Fast Reactors

    \n

    \nIf fast reactors are more expensive and difficult to operate than slow reactors, why is there any interest in them?

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n27 Pros

    \n

    \nFast neutron reactors can use all of the uranium supply by converting the U-238 to plutonium as well as using the U-235.

    \n

    \nSlow neutron reactors can only use the U-235 plus converting a very small proportion of the U-238 to plutonium.

    \n

    \nThis means that a given amount of fuel will go much further when used with a fast neutron reactor than a slow one.

    \n

    \n28

    \n

    \nSome (but not all) fast neutron reactors can produce more plutonium than they use.

    \n

    \nThis extra plutonium can be used to make uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (or MOX) fuel to be used in slow reactors, or it can be used to power a thorium fuel cycle. 

    \n

    \nSo the higher cost of the fast neutron reactors can be offset by having it produce fuel for several slow neutron or thorium reactors.

    \n

    \n29

    \n

    \nThey can also use up or \"burn\" radioactive waste. That is, highly radioactive elements which are a byproduct of fuel use but not usable as fuel by themselves can be separated from the spent fuel and fed back into the reactor where the additional radiation will convert them into elements or isotopes which are either not radioactive or which are otherwise easier to dispose of.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n30 Cons

    \n

    \nThere are a number of cons however, as otherwise there would be a lot more fast neutron reactors in the world.

    \n

    \nSince water, even \"light\" water, is a moderator, fast neutron reactors cannot use water as a coolant.

    \n

    \nOther alternative coolants must be used, and these complicate the design of the reactor and make it more difficult to operate.

    \n

    \n31

    \n

    \nAlternative compatible coolants may be corrosive, and so new materials may need to be developed for both the reactor vessel and the fuel cladding.

    \n

    \nAlternative coolants are often opaque, making it difficult to inspect the reactor.

    \n

    \nThe fuel cycle requires reprocessing spent fuel, which means that reprocessing facilities have to be set up, which is an additional expense.

    \n

    \n32

    \n

    \nFast neutron reactors were primarily developed on the premise that uranium supplies were limited and would soon become very expensive. However new very large and very high grade uranium deposits were discovered in Canada, Australia, and Kazakhstan, causing uranium prices to fall rather than rise. As a result it is much cheaper to operate a once-through fuel cycle than to build fast neutron reactors.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n33 Future Prospects

    \n

    \nCurrently fast neutron reactors are not economically competitive with slow neutron reactors for electric power generation so there isn't a lot of interest from prospective customers.

    \n

    \nOriginally interest in them was driven by a belief that the world would run short of uranium.

    \n

    \nHowever, higher uranium prices sparked increased mineral exploration which resulted in finding large high grade reserves of low cost uranium, undercutting the need for economizing on its use.

    \n

    \n34

    \n

    \nThere is still ongoing R&D though as they offer several other use cases.

    \n

    \nOne is to get rid of radioactive waste elements by turning them into non-radioactive or less radioactive isotopes or elements.

    \n

    \nThe other is to provide a supply of plutonium for fuelling thorium reactors.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n35 Conclusion

    \n

    \nThis has been a short overview of fast neutron reactors, including their history, uses, and underlying design features.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIn the next episode we will describe the use of thorium in nuclear power, including what thorium is, how it differs from uranium, and what sort of reactors can use it.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"energy, nuclear, engineering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4564,"date":"2026-01-29","title":"MakeMKV error","duration":235,"summary":"Archer72 leaves a solution to a problem with a Blu-ray drive using MakeMKV","notes":"
      \n

    1. I am using MakeMKV version 1.18.2, the most updated version of the program

      \n
      2. \n

    2. USB Blu-ray drive BD-MLT UJ240AS reads a DVD or Blu-ray disc correctly

      \n
        \n
      • Matshita
        • \n
      \n
      3. \n

    3. SATA Blu-ray drive BDDVDRW CH20L stalls with ad DVD or Blu-ray disc

      \n
        \n
      • Hewlett Packard
        • \n
      • The disc does not stall with Handbrake
        • \n
      • There is enough power, using an adapter that provides 12v
        • \n

        \n\nBefore:\n

        \n\n

        \n\n\n\n

        \n
      \n
      4. \n

    4. MakeMKV v1.18.1 linux(x64-release) stuck when launched

      \n
      5. \n

    5. How do I download older versions?

      \n
      6. \n

    6. MakeMKV old version repo

      \n
      7. \n

    7. makemkv-bin-1.17.7.tar.gz 2024-05-15 16:29

      \n
      8. \n

    8. makemkv-oss-1.17.7.tar.gz 2024-05-15 16:31

      \n
      9. \n
    \n

    \n\nAfter:\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    Recorded with:

    \n

    Zoom H1 Essential Microphone

    \n

    Monitored with:

    \n

    soundcore V20i open ear headphones

    \n\n","hostid":318,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"MakeMKV, Blu-ray, Handbrake, troubleshooting","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4565,"date":"2026-01-30","title":"HPR Beer Garden 9 - Barley Wine","duration":1641,"summary":"Dave and Kevie talk about Barley Wines.","notes":"\n

    \nWith winter in full swing in the UK, Dave and Kevie continue their look at winter warmer ales with a review of a couple of British Barley Wine ales. Dave samples Ridgeway's \nCriminally Bad Elf \nwhilst Kevie tries out a lmited release from Chiltern Brewery \nRoger Bodger's Barley WIne.\n

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nDave\n
      2. \n
    2. \n\nKevie\n
      3. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/mixtus/sounds/329806/\n
      2. \n
    2. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/j1987/sounds/123003/\n
      3. \n
    3. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/greatsoundstube/sounds/628437/\n
      4. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4566,"date":"2026-02-02","title":"HPR Community News for January 2026","duration":3313,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in January 2026","notes":"

    New hosts

    \n

    \nWelcome to our new hosts:
    \n\n Jim DeVore, \n Carmen-Lisandrette.\n

    \n\n

    Last Month's Shows

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    IdDayDateTitleHost
    4544Thu2026-01-01Uncommon Commands, Episode 2Deltaray
    4545Fri2026-01-02YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #12Ahuka
    4546Mon2026-01-05HPR Community News for December 2025HPR Volunteers
    4547Tue2026-01-06Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 6: The speed and timing of Morse Trey
    4548Wed2026-01-07YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #13Ahuka
    4549Thu2026-01-08[deprecated] Pomodoro Task Tool (pomotask.sh)candycanearter
    4550Fri2026-01-09Playing Civilization V, Part 7Ahuka
    4551Mon2026-01-12“Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 2)Elsbeth
    4552Tue2026-01-13Printer ConspiracyMrX
    4553Wed2026-01-14Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 4 Less Common Reactor TypesWhiskeyjack
    4554Thu2026-01-15How I do todoJim DeVore
    4555Fri2026-01-16HPR Beer Garden 8 - Belgian Christmas AlesKevie
    4556Mon2026-01-19Nitro man! RC Carsoperat0r
    4557Tue2026-01-20Why I prefer tar to zipKlaatu
    4558Wed2026-01-21YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #14Ahuka
    4559Thu2026-01-22Enkele off line vertaaltools Ken Fallon
    4560Fri2026-01-23Arthur C. Clarke: Other Works, Part 2Ahuka
    4561Mon2026-01-26A bit about Mission:Libre, a new project for 11-14 year olds in free softwareCarmen-Lisandrette
    4562Tue2026-01-27Software development doesn't end until it's packagedKlaatu
    4563Wed2026-01-28Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 5 Fast ReactorsWhiskeyjack
    4564Thu2026-01-29MakeMKV errorArcher72
    4565Fri2026-01-30HPR Beer Garden 9 - Barley WineKevie
    \n\n

    Comments this month

    \n\n

    These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows.\nThere are 20 comments in total.

    \n

    Past shows

    \n

    There are 6 comments on\n5 previous shows:

    \n
      \n
    • hpr4313\n(2025-02-12) \"Why I made a 1-episode podcast about a war story\"\nby Antoine.
      \n
    • \n
        \n
      • \nComment 3:\nKen Fallon on 2026-01-23:\n\"Spammer\"

      \n
    • hpr4424\n(2025-07-17) \"How I use Newsboat for Podcasts and Reddit\"\nby Archer72.
      \n
    • \n
        \n
      • \nComment 7:\nKen Fallon on 2026-01-03:\n\"Some podcast aggregators show ccdn.php as file name #321\"
        • \n
      • \nComment 8:\nArcher72 on 2026-01-05:\n\"Re: download-filename-format for HPR podcasts\"

      \n
    • hpr4532\n(2025-12-16) \"Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 5: Graphical User Interface \"\nby Trey.
      \n
    • \n
        \n
      • \nComment 2:\nKen Fallon on 2026-01-10:\n\"Possible Graphics Library\"

      \n
    • hpr4536\n(2025-12-22) \"Welcome to the Linux Community\"\nby Deltaray.
      \n
    • \n
        \n
      • \nComment 6:\nArcher72 on 2026-01-05:\n\"Re: Good talk CliMagic\"

      \n
    • hpr4543\n(2025-12-31) \"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 3 Reactor Basics\"\nby Whiskeyjack.
      \n
    • \n
        \n
      • \nComment 2:\nKevin O'Brien on 2026-01-01:\n\"Really enjoying this series\"

      \n
    \n

    This month's shows

    \n

    There are 14 comments on 9 of this month's shows:

    \n
    • hpr4546\n(2026-01-05) \"HPR Community News for December 2025\"\nby HPR Volunteers.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\nArcher72 on 2026-01-06:\n\"Nuclear Reactor series\"
      • Comment 2:\nHenrik Hemrin on 2026-01-07:\n\"Linux\"

      \n
    • hpr4551\n(2026-01-12) \"“Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 2)\"\nby Elsbeth.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\noperat0r on 2026-01-15:\n\"White Male\"

      \n
    • hpr4552\n(2026-01-13) \"Printer Conspiracy\"\nby MrX.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\ncandycanearter07 on 2026-01-24:\n\"printer issues\"

      \n
    • hpr4554\n(2026-01-15) \"How I do todo\"\nby Jim DeVore.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\nbrian-in-ohio on 2026-01-17:\n\"Welcome\"
      • Comment 2:\ncandycanearter07 on 2026-01-24:\n\"good first show!\"

      \n
    • hpr4555\n(2026-01-16) \"HPR Beer Garden 8 - Belgian Christmas Ales\"\nby Kevie.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\nKarldaTech on 2026-01-16:\n\"Christmas Ale\"

      \n
    • hpr4557\n(2026-01-20) \"Why I prefer tar to zip\"\nby Klaatu.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\ncandycanearter07 on 2026-01-20:\n\"interesting experiment\"

      \n
    • hpr4559\n(2026-01-22) \"Enkele off line vertaaltools \"\nby Ken Fallon.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\nClaudioM on 2026-01-23:\n\"Just What I Needed!\"
      • Comment 2:\nmnw on 2026-01-26:\n\"Great Recommendations!\"

      \n
    • hpr4561\n(2026-01-26) \"A bit about Mission:Libre, a new project for 11-14 year olds in free software\"\nby Carmen-Lisandrette.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\nHenrik Hemrin on 2026-01-27:\n\"Happy to learn about the project\"
      • Comment 2:\ncandycanearter07 on 2026-01-28:\n\"cool project\"

      \n
    • hpr4563\n(2026-01-28) \"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 5 Fast Reactors\"\nby Whiskeyjack.
      • \n
    • \n
      • Comment 1:\nmnw on 2026-01-29:\n\"Great Series\"
      • Comment 2:\nWhiskeyjack on 2026-01-29:\n\"hpr4563 :: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 5 Fast Reactors\"

      \n
    \n\n

    Mailing List discussions

    \n

    \nPolicy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This\ndiscussion takes place on the Mailing List\nwhich is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open\nand available on the HPR server under Mailman.\n

    \n

    The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

    \nhttps://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2026-January/thread.html\n\n

    Events Calendar

    \n

    With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to\nThe LWN.net Community Calendar.

    \n

    Quoting the site:

    \n
    This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track\nevents of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software.\nClicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web\npage.
    \n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4567,"date":"2026-02-03","title":"Movie Recommendations for Hackers","duration":1844,"summary":"An overview of movies related to cybersecurity and hacker culture.","notes":"

    \nWarning, this episode containers some spoilers for movies.

    \n\n

    \nThe following movies are in my cybersecurity movie library. The ones marked * are included in review in this episode.

    \n\n\n\n

    \nSlashdot \"Best Hacker movie\" poll (August 2001): \n\nhttps://slashdot.org/poll/683/best-hacker-flick\n

    \n

    \nThis episode contains short except clips from some of these movies used under free use for demonstration.

    \n","hostid":194,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"films, movies, cybersecurity, culture, hackers","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4568,"date":"2026-02-04","title":"Book reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll","duration":532,"summary":"About the book The Cuckoo's Egg, starting by looking back at my experience from that time period.","notes":"\n

    \n 1985, I started to work at a telecom equipment manufacturer. We\n had a main frame computer in our combined office- and lab room. We\n were four sitting in the room and it was this one terminal for all\n of us and maybe even for someone more.

    \n

    \n Downstairs, we at component technology department had our big\n climate controlled laboratories. I used an HP 85 computer\n having the Basic programming language to automize measurements of\n resistors. And there were several more of them for other\n measurements of various electronic components. Also more advanced\n computers were used in the labs and as I recall also with other\n languages than Basic. I remember I learned briefly a bit about one\n of those languages but have forgotten which one.

    \n

    \n The secretary at the department could send Telex messages around\n the world. We handed a hand written manuscript to her and she\n typed it into the Telex\n system. And she had a Xerox computer with big, at least the\n 8 inch floppy discs.

    \n

    \n Not so many years later my manager got a Personal computer running\n DOS and some years later it DOS computers also\n to the staff. But also very early we had a Sun Unix station. And\n for many years Unix became my daily driver at work.

    \n

    \n Before I started to work, in school we had some education in Basic programming.\n We were using the at least in Sweden very successful and good Luxor ABC 80\n computer. At the end of my school time, my school got the top\n notch ABC 800 with colour screen.

    \n

    At home so I could get a chance to learn somewhat more about\n computers and Basic programming in my own pace, I got a Zinclair ZX 80\n computer, which I later upgraded to ZX 81.

    \n

    \n One summer job when I was a student I was at Televerket,\n the Swedish PTT. It meant that I visited numerous of exchange\n stations. Many at the country side, some with very few subscribers\n so I could hear the relay start when someone was making a call. At\n bigger stations it was noise from relays all the time.

    \n

    \n As I mentioned, after studies were completed I was working with\n telecom equipment in particular for land line telephony. Not at\n least I worked with components for the line cards, the card at the\n telephone exchange that is facing towards the end user.

    \n

    \n The book The_Cuckoo's_Egg is a hacker thriller based on a\n true story that happened in the mid-1980's going on for a year. It\n was written by the hunter shortly after.

    \n

    \n Cliff Stoll describes Unix commands, which are similar to\n Linux. He talks about passwords, about encryption and a lot more.\n Many technical details he describes by using analogy with more\n common non technical life examples.

    \n

    \n A security hole in GNU-Emacs\n software, a software still around today, plays a central\n role in how the hacker could penetrate. To fix and update security\n holes are very relevant today as well.

    \n

    \n Many things in computers and technology have changed. But at the\n same time very much of the problems are valid today although they\n are somewhat different. And the way he describes technical details\n for the non-technical reader are relevant also today, I believe.

    \n

    \n At the same time as the book has many technical details, he also\n describes the daily life at home, the left wing culture he\n belonged to at the university, his long hair and the dress code he\n belonged to. And the music. He also describes his contacts to\n numerous authorities and frustration in those contacts. I am very\n impressed of his analytical research approach, his persistence,\n his skills and inventiveness including inventiveness of his girl\n friend and others.

    \n

    \n One take away for me is that he kept a detailed log book. It is an\n important research tool. The log book together with the print outs\n of exactly what the hacker did were core references for analyzing\n and make conclusions, retract and change conclusions when new\n information lead to that earlier assumptions were wrong.

    \n

    \n He also wrote a technical paper about it before he wrote the book.\n For those interested, there are several videos with him of later\n date on various topics.

    ","hostid":429,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"books, reading, cliff stoll, the cuckoo's egg, hacker, computers, telephony","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4569,"date":"2026-02-05","title":"Kiosk with guest mode on Linux","duration":1437,"summary":"Use GDM and either a ramdisk or systemd to create a guest profile with self-removing user data","notes":"

    Create a Linux kiosk at your library

    \n

    Start without a guest account

    \n

    The first few steps of this process don’t actually require a guest user directory to exist, so do NOT create your guest user account yet. However, you do need to choose what your guest user account is going to be called. A reasonable account name for Don’s purposes is libraryguest. On my personal computer I call my guest account guestaccount, and I’ve used kioskguest on some installations. I avoid just the name “guest” because in modern computing the term “guest” gets used in a few other ways (such as a “guest operating system” in a virtual environment), and it’s just easier to find something unique in logs.

    \n

    Choose a unique name for you guest account, but don’t create it yet. For this article, I’m using libraryguest.

    \n

    Create the PostSession script

    \n

    By default, GDM recognises several states: Init, PostLogin, PreSession, and PostSession. Each state has a directory located in /etc/gdm. When you place a shell script called Default in one of those directories, GDM runs the script when it reaches that state.

    \n

    To trigger actions to clean up a user’s environment upon logout, create the file /etc/gdm/PostSession/Default. You can add whatever actions you want to run upon logout to the Default script. In the case of Don’s library, we wanted to clear everything from the guest’s home directory, including browser history, any LibreOffice files or GIMP files they may have created, and so on. It was important that we limited the very drastic action of removing all user data to just the guest user. We didn’t want the admin’s data to be erased upon logout, so whatever rule we added to /etc/gdm/PostSession/Default had to be limited to the guest user.

    \n

    Here’s what we came up with:

    \n
    #!/usr/bin/sh\necho \"$USER logged out at `date`\" >> /tmp/PostSession.log\nif [ \"X$USER\" = \"Xlibraryguest\" ]; then\n    rm -rf \"$HOME\"\nfi\nexit 0
    \n

    The first line is for logging purposes. The /tmp directory gets cleared out on most distributions automatically, so we weren’t worried about creating a file that’ll grow forever and eventually crash the computer. If your distribution of choice doesn’t clean out /tmp automatically, create a cron job to do that for you.

    \n

    GDM knows what user triggered the logout process, so the if statement verifies that the user logging out is definitely the libraryguest user (that’s the literal name of the user we created for library patrons).
    Note that the whitespace around the square brackets is important, so be precise when typing!

    \n

    As long as it is libraryguest, then the script removes the entire user directory ($HOME). That can be extremely dangerous if you make a mistake, so do thorough testing on a dummy system before implementing a script like this! If you get a condition wrong, you could erase your entire home directory upon logout.

    \n

    In this example, I’ve successfully limited the rm command to a logout action performed by user libraryguest. The entire /home/libraryguest directory is erased, and the computer returns to the GDM login screen. When a new user logs in, a fresh directory is created for the user.

    \n

    You can put any number of commands in your script, of course. You don’t have to erase an entire directory. If all you really want to do is clear browser history and any stray data, then you can do that instead. If you need to copy specific configuration files into the environment, you can do that during the PreSession state.

    \n

    Just be sure to test thoroughly before committing your creation to your users!

    \n

    What happens when the guest doesn’t log out

    \n

    At this point, the computer erases all of the user’s data when the user logs out, but a reboot or a shutdown is different to a logout. GDM doesn’t enter a PostSession state after a reboot signal has been received, even if the reboot occurs during an active GDM session.

    \n

    The easiest and safest way to erase an entire home directory when there’s a cut to system power is to use a temporary RAM filesystem (tmpfs) to house the data in the first place. If the systems you’re configuring have 8 GB or more, and the system is exclusively used as a guest computer, you can probably afford to use RAM as the guest’s home directory. If your system doesn’t have a lot of RAM, then you can use the systemd work-around in the next section.

    \n

    Assuming you have the RAM to spare, and that your systems are supported by a backup power supply, you can add a tmpfs entry in /etc/fstab. In this example, my tmpfs is mounted to /home/libraryguest and is just 2 GB:

    \n
    tmpfs     /home/libraryguest    tmpfs    rw,nosuid,nodev,size=2G   0 0
    \n

    That’s plenty of space for some Internet browsing and even a few LibreOffice documents to be saved while a user works.

    \n

    Mount the new volume:

    \n
    $ sudo mount /home/libraryguest
    \n

    Next, you must create the libraryguest user manually in a terminal.
    The useradd command creates user profiles:

    \n
    $ sudo useradd --home-dir /home/libraryguest libraryguest\nuseradd: warning: the home directory /home/libraryguest/ already exists.\nuseradd: Not copying any file from skel directory into it.
    \n

    Because you’ve already created a location for the home directory, you do get a warning after creating the user. It’s only a warning, not a fatal error, and the guest account is automatically populated later.

    \n

    Create a password for the new user:

    \n
    $ sudo passwd libraryguest
    \n

    That’s it! You’ve created a guest account that refreshes with every logout and every reboot. You can skip over the next section of this article.

    \n

    Using systemd targets instead of a ramdisk

    \n

    Assuming you can’t create a ramdisk for temporary user data, you can instead create a systemd service that runs a script when the reboot, poweroff, and multi-user targets are triggered:

    \n
    [Unit]\nDescription=Kiosk cleanup\n[Service]\nType=oneshot\nExecStart=/usr/local/bin/kiosk-cleanup.sh\n[Install]\nWantedBy=poweroff.target reboot.target multi-user.target
    \n

    Save the file to /etc/systemd/system/kioskmode.service and then enable it:

    \n
    $ sudo systemctl enable --now kioskmode
    \n

    The script, like the GDM script, removes the libraryguest directory. Unlike GDM script, this one must also recreate an empty home directory and grant it user permissions:

    \n
    #!/usr/bin/bash\nrm -rf /home/libraryguest\nmkdir /home/libraryguest\nchown -R libraryguest:libraryguest /home/libraryguest
    \n

    Grant the script itself permission to run:

    \n
    $ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/kiosk-cleanup.sh
    \n

    Now the libraryguest user data is erased after:

    \n
      \n
    • Logout
      • \n
    • Reboot
      • \n
    • Shutdown
      • \n
    • Startup
      • \n
    \n

    Essentially, no matter how the computer loses its session or its power, the libraryguest account starts fresh when a new session is started.

    \n

    Security and privacy

    \n

    Using systemd to erase data at shutdown and startup isn’t strictly as secure as using a temporary ramdisk for all user data. Should the computer lose power suddenly, all saved user data in the libraryguest account is present during the next boot. Of course, it’s erased as soon as multi-user.target is called by systemd, but it is technically possible to interrupt the boot process and mine for data. You must use full drive encryption to protect data from being discovered by an interrupted boot sequence.

    \n

    Why not just use xguest

    \n

    On many Linux distributions, the xguest package is designed to provide the Guest account, which resets after each logout. It was an extremely useful package that I installed on every machine I owned, because it’s handy to be able to let friends use my computer without risking them making a mess of my home directory. Lately, it seems that xguest is failing to launch a desktop, however, presumably because it relies on X11.

    \n

    If xguest works for you in your tests, then you may want to use it instead of the solution I’ve presented here. My solution offers a lot of flexibility, thanks to GDM’s autodetection of session states.

    \n

    Kiosks in libraries

    \n

    Privacy and personal information is more important than ever. Regardless of how you setup a kiosk for your library, you have an obligation to your users to keep them informed of how their data is being stored. This goes both ways. Users need to know that their data is destined to be erased as soon as they log out, and also they deserve to be assured that their data is not retained.

    \n

    However, it’s also your responsibility to admit that glitches and exceptions could occur. Users need to understand that the computer they’re using are public computers on a public network. Encryption is being used for traffic and for data storage, but you cannot guarantee absolute privacy.

    \n

    As long as everyone understands the arrangement, everyone can compute with confidence. Linux, GDM, and systemd are great tools to help libraries create a sustainable, robust, honest, and communal computing platform.

    \n

    Show notes taken from https://www.both.org/?p=13327","hostid":78,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"useradd,gnome,systemd,fstab","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, {"id":4570,"date":"2026-02-06","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 8","duration":735,"summary":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, diplomacy, spies","notes":"\n\n \n

    In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we examine several related topics: Diplomacy, Spies, and Religious Pressure. They are all ways to interact with other players without the force of arms being involved. And we will discuss the Diplomatic Victory, which is a new victory type added in Civilization V and can be fun to play.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 8 - Diplomacy

    \n

    Other Players

    \n

    With other players you have a relationship based on their approach to you. They are:

    \n
      \n
    • Neutral – This is not Friendly nor is it Hostile. Trades you make with them will be fair from their point of view
      • \n
    • Friendly – They like you, and will accept requests from you more often. Trades will be slightly in your favor from their point of view.
      • \n
    • Afraid – This only happens if you have a a very substantial advantage in strength, so this is rare. They will readily accept requests from you, and trades will be in your favor
      • \n
    • Guarded – They are suspicious and defensive, and will be more likely to be unfriendly. Trades will be harder to achieve, and favor them rather than you.
      • \n
    • Deceptive – They will pretend to be friendly, but they are plotting against you. They may bribe other players to declare war on you. They will not accept requests for help, and trades will be hard to achieve.
      • \n
    • Hostile – They hate you, and are completely open about it. Trade deals, if you can get them, will be heavily against you.
      • \n
    • War – This means they have decided to go to war with you. But they need the right conditions, so they may pretend to be Friendly, Neutral, Guarded, or Hostile while they wait for those conditions to mature.
      • \n
    \n

    These are not set in stone, as you can modify how the other player feels towards you by your actions. If you have friends in common that will improve your relationship, or if you have enemies in common. Agreeing to their requests will also improve things. But if you cannot agree, just say so. The worst negative modifier is when you agree to do something, and then do the opposite. Saying no is also negative, but not as bad. Finally, remember that negatives will erode over time if they are not reinforced. If you want a very detailed look at the mechanics and details of this, check out https://civ-5-cbp.fandom.com/wiki/Detailed_Guide_to_Diplomacy.

    \n

    City-States

    \n

    City-States are also important diplomatic partners. We’ll cover all of the benefits in a different section, but here I want to focus on how they enable the Diplomatic Victory. At a certain point the United Nations will be born out of the World Congress, and when this happens a Diplomatic Victory is possible. This will occur when any player reaches the Information Era, or whenever half of the players have reached the Atomic Era. Diplomatic Victory requires that you get the votes of a certain number of delegates to the United Nations. Each player gets delegates based on their population, and there are also some additional delegates you can earn, such as through building the World Wonder Forbidden Palace which gives you two additional delegates. Anyone planning for a Diplomatic Victory should consider building this Wonder as mandatory.

    \n

    But each City-State gets one delegate, and if you are allied with them their delegate is yours. The mechanics of City-State relationships is that they love gifts, and cash is always the best. So anyone planning a Diplomatic Victory would be well-advised to focus on building a large Treasury. You will know when a World Leader vote is coming up in the United Nations, and can make cash drops on any City-States that are not already allied with you before the vote. But watch out that another player doesn’t do the same thing after you and snipe away some of your allies. Also, you can place your spies in City-States to rig elections, and that is another way to get them to ally with you.

    \n

    Spies and Espionage

    \n

    Spies are simply awarded to you whenever any player enters the Renaissance Era. After that you receive another spy each time to advance to another Era. So you can in general have as many as 5 Spies, but if you build the National Intelligence Agency you get one more. This is a National Wonder, and should be a mandatory build if you are going for a Diplomacy victory. And England starts with 1 extra Spy, so if you play as England you could get as many as 7 Spies.

    \n

    Spies can be used for offense or defense. If you station one of your spies in one of your cities it can operate as a counter-spy, and may thwart or even kill an enemy spy. If you are well ahead in technology, that might be a good use, since other players will be trying to steal your tech. But if you are behind, you might want to use your spies to steal tech from other players. You may be successful in this, but the theft does not go unnoticed, and other player may use one of his spies to counter your operation. If you spy is killed, you will get another one in 3-5 turns, but if your spy was a high-rank spy with promotions, that is a serious loss, so you may want to move that spy elsewhere for a while.

    \n

    Diplomats

    \n

    When you assign a spy to the capital of another player you can designate them as a Diplomat. They will take a few turns (depends on game speed, but around 6 turns on normal speeds) to get set up. This is called “Making Introductions”, but the point is that if you need an effective diplomat, don’t wait until the last minute. Diplomats can be useful in several ways. Early on, they allow you to trade votes in the World Congress. And they will bring you intelligence about intrigues, and you can then share that with other players. And it can also give you a view of the other player’s City Screen. Once you have researched Globalization your Diplomats can help with a Diplomatic Victory because each one counts as one additional vote in the United Nations for World Leader.

    \n

    You can change a spy into a Diplomat and vice versa just by moving the Spy/Diplomat from its current location to another location, which will trigger the ability to change the job assignment. This means that when you first get Spies, and they cannot yet be used to get additional Delegate votes as Diplomats, you can assign them to City-States, where they can help you get alliances. Then as you start to research Globalization, move them to the capitals of other players and turn them into Diplomats. This of course assumes you want to win a Diplomatic victory. If instead you are going for a Science victory and are ahead in Science, it is probably best to station them in your own cities to do counter-intelligence work. If you are ahead in Science, other players will be trying to steal tech from you.

    \n

    Religious Pressure

    \n

    If you have researched all of the Piety Social Policy Tree, you will have option to choose a Reformation Belief to add to your religion. One of these, Underground Sect, allows your spies to exert religious pressure against the city they have been sent to. However, this effect is fairly small. If there is not a Follower of your religion in the city, it seems to do nothing. But in combination it can flip cities to your religion. Start by sending in a Missionary to spread your religion, then your spy can add to that. And you should also combine that with a trade route to add additional religious pressure. And by gradually moving your spies, missionaries, and trade routes from city to city, you can make your religion dominant in a region.

    \n

    Diplomatic Victory

    \n

    This can be a fun way to win, and I have done it. If you want to get a leg up, start with a Civ that gives you advantages, such as Greece or Venice (although my last diplomatic Victory was achieved with Ethiopia, which is generally regarded as a military/domination Civ. You can win any victory type with any civ, and it can be fun to “play against type”). Greece gets an advantage from relations with City-States, which are key to a Diplomatic Victory because each one gets a vote for World Leader. And Venice is interesting because you cannot build settlers. But you can use cash to puppet City-States, and you can purchase units in puppeted City-States as well. Cash is king in the Venice strategy, and you will want to get as many Trade Routes as possible. The first two should send Food to Venice to help boost your population. Since you will only ever have one city as Venice you will want to max it out. All trade routes after that should focus on cash. Use your cash to purchase or upgrade military units, and employ a defensive strategy. You want enough military to deter any aggression against you, but you should avoid making any hostile moves against others if possible. Remember, this is a strategy for a Diplomatic Victory. If you want to go to war, don’t choose Venice. Instead choose one of the Domination Civs, like the Zulus or the Mongols.

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, diplomacy, spies","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4580,"date":"2026-02-20","title":"The First Doctor, Part 4","duration":900,"summary":"A continuing look at the first Doctor Who.","notes":"\n

    This is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor, portrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s.

    \n

    The First Doctor, Part 4

    \n

    Galaxy 4

    \n

    This science fiction story is focused on the idea of not judging a book by its cover. The Tardis lands on a deserted, dying planet. They see a funny looking robot that Vicki calls a “Chumbley”. Then another one appears, and they investigate, but are rescued by three beautiful women who tell them they were in great danger, and take the three travelers back to their ship, where they meet the leader, Maaga, another beautiful woman. But somehow these women are odd and cold. They tell of how they met another ship from a evil race, the Rill, and that in a space battle the ships damaged each other and landed on this planet. Then later the travelers meet the Rill, who initially refuse to reveal their appearance because it would frighten the humans. Turns out they were very alien in appearance, but not at all evil, and it was the beautiful women who were evil.

    \n

    Mission to the Unknown

    \n

    This short little story takes place on the planet Kembel, and agents from Earth realize that the Daleks are here, and up to no good. This is really a prequel to The Daleks’ Master Plan, and is notable as the only Doctor Who story in which none of the regular cast appears. The reason is that this is an extra episode slot given to the Doctor Who team late in the day, and the regular cast were already given vacation time off. So it is best to take this as Episode 0 of The Dalek’s Master Plan, not as a stand-alone story. The original story has been lost, like so many episodes of early Doctor Who, but a very nice version was done by the University of Central Lancashire, and you can view it on YouTube. It is introduced by Edward de Souza, who played Marc Cory in the original, and is worth a look. They really did a good job.

    \n

    The Myth Makers

    \n

    This is another “historical” story, though instead of verified history it is historical legends at play here, in the form of the Seige of Troy by the Greeks. So you have all of the Homeric cast here: Achilles, Priam, Hector, Odysseus. The Doctor is taken for a God by Achilles, though Odysseus has his doubts. Vicki is captured by the Trojans and taken to Troy, calls herself Cressida, and is taken for a Goddess. Steven goes to Troy to try and free her, but is seen as a Greek, and so Vicki is now suspect. She falls in love with a son of Priam named Troilus, and you think something might happen here, particularly if you are familiar with play of Shakespeare called Troilus and Cressida. This story only has faint echoes of the play, preserving that Cressida is Greek and Troilus is Trojan. In this case it is Cressida staying with Troilus, so instead going back to the Tardis Vicki is now out. One more companion gone.

    \n

    This marked the departure of Verity Lambert as producer, and she was replaced by John Wiles. Wiles tried to implement changes, such as making the show a bit darker, but ran into opposition from both Hartnell and BBC Management, and resigned after producing four stories ( The Myth Makers through The Ark). And the popularity of other SF shows on television made a move to more SF and less history desirable. And as for Hartnell’s opposition, it is notable that he had become quite identified with the role of The Doctor and was very proprietorial with it. This would come to pose problems later as his health declined.

    \n

    The Daleks’ Master Plan

    \n

    This story arc takes twelve episodes, or thirteen if you add Mission to the Unknown, as you indeed should. The reason for such a long story arc is that Sir Huw Wheldon, the Director-General of the BBC at that time wanted a “monster length” Dalek story because his mother was a big Dalek fan. And this story has a lot going for it. The length means that you can do more character development.

    \n

    The story starts out with Steven recovering from a sword-thrust during the fall of Troy, and being attended by Katarina, a Trojan maiden, who is now in the Tardis. They arrive on the planet Kembel, and meet with Space Special Security agent Bret Vyon, played by Nicholas Courtney, who in a few years would become the beloved Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Vyon tries to force the Doctor to take him to Earth so he can warn the planet, but the Doctor recognizes the Daleks and wants to find out more about their plans. And this brings us to one the most evil villains in Doctor Who, Mavic Chen. You see, the Daleks have assembled a group of villainous aliens to join together in conquering the Earth, and Mavic Chen is part of the group. He is also the idolized Guardian of the Solar System. So he is a traitor! Katarina, the Trojan maiden, sacrifices herself to save the others from a convict they meet on a prison planet. Another wonderful character is Sara Kingdom (played by Peggy Marsh), head of Space Special Security, who has been told by Mavic Chen that Vyon and the others are traitors, and who kills Vyon, who is in fact her brother! But they manage to convince her that Chen is the real traitor, and she joins them. In the middle of this story arc Christmas happened, and this resulted in the most absurd episode ever of Doctor Who, called The Feast of Steven, capped by the Doctor breaking the fourth wall. The episode is now among the missing. but you can find reconstructions on YouTube if you want to see the absurdity of it. And there is a re-appearance of The Meddling Monk.

    \n

    This is a sprawling story, but overall worth a look. Mavic Chen, played by Kevin Stoney, is delightfully evil, and Stoney would return to play another villain in the Troughton story The Invasion. and it is interesting to see Nicholas Courtney before he got the role he would always be identified with. Doctor Who would not do anything this large again until _The Flux_ in 2021, and frankly this story makes more sense.

    \n

    The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve)

    \n

    You will often see this as simply The Massacre, which is fine since there is no other story with a similar title. And after that massive science fiction story, another historical story. This involves the true story of Protestants in France being massacred by the Catholics, and the main feature worth calling our here is that William Hartnell plays two roles in this story. He is the Doctor, of course, but also the Abbott of Amboise, a leader among the Catholics looking to rid France of the Protestants. This idea of playing two parts became even more nicely done by Patrick Troughton later in Enemy of the World. In any case, this leads to confusion by Steven who thinks the Abbott is actually the Doctor. In the story a servant girl named Anna Chaplette is rescued, and this opens up the interesting possibility that she is the ancestor of Dodo (i.e. Dorothea) Chaplet, a companion who appears at the end. She witnesses a car crash, and barges into the Tardis thinking she can call the police.

    \n

    While the novelty of Hartnell playing two parts may stand out on first look, this story is really a showcase for Peter Purves, in his role of Steven Taylor. Because Hartnell is not on screen very much, Purves really has to carry the plot, and does so admirably. Hartnell was on vacation when the second episode was filmed, and so didn’t appear at all. And his health problems were beginning cause problems which contributed to this situation. He was having a lot of trouble with remembering his lines, which is a real problem for an actor. He was not that old by current standards, as he was 58 when this story was produced, and as I am 73 as I write this, 58 seems more like late youth to me.

    \n

    The Ark)

    \n

    The Tardis materializes on a spaceship in the far future. It is carrying the future of the human race to a new planet, Refusis 2, because the Earth is falling into the sun. But it also has an odd race called the Monoids, who have one eye. They are an alien race who came to Earth when their own planet was dying, and now they serve the humans. Unfortunately, the Tardis crew carries germs for which humans and Monoids on the Ark have no immunity, and sickness breaks out. One faction wants to kill the Doctor and his companions, but instead the Doctor finds a cure for the disease, and they leave on the Tardis. Then the Tardis materializes back on the Ark, but they discover that hundreds of years have passed. The Monoids have rebelled and taken over, and now the humans serve them. As the old saying has it, be kind to those you meet on the way up, for you will meet them again on the way down.

    \n\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4590,"date":"2026-03-06","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 9","duration":857,"summary":"We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.","notes":"\n

    In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we examine a new feature in Civilization 5, City-States. These are independent cities controlled by the computer that are also players to some degree in the game, and you can interact with them. And they are key to winning a Diplomatic Victory.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 9 - City States

    \n

    This was a newly introduced feature in Civ 5, and they play an important role in the game. They represent the small countries that are not running the world. They do not produce Settlers, so they do not expand beyond the one city, though that city can, and will expand its borders in a similar way to how your cities can grow. They do not start with a military unit, but they can produce military units and defend themselves. They can also build buildings in the city, but not Wonders. They do have a single vote each in the World Congress (or later the United Nations), making them a key to a Diplomatic victory.

    \n

    City States start out neutral with regards to the players, but your interactions with them can affect how they feel about you. For example, if you send units through their territory they will get hostile, but if you give them gifts they will get friendly. And if you wish you can go to war with them and take them over. This will affect your diplomatic relations with other players and other city states, but if you have decided on a war of conquest as your victory type, that won’t matter to you, right? As mentioned, if you want to go for a Diplomatic victory you want to be allied with as many of them as possible to get their votes in the World Congress or the United Nations. But even if you don’t need their votes, there are other benefits from friendly relations. There are two levels to friendly relations: Friendly, and Allied, and the benefits get better as the relations improve.

    \n

    City State Types

    \n

    With the expansions there are 5 types of City State: Militaristic, Maritime, Cultured, Mercantile, and Religious. The benefits you get are:

    \n
      \n
    • Militaristic – If you are friends the city state will periodically gift you a unit, which will appear in your city which is closest to the city state. If you are allies the units will show up more often.
      • \n
    • Maritime – If you are friends they will add two food to your Capital city. If you are allies they will add one more food to every city you have.
      • \n
    • Cultured city states share their culture with you, at one rate if you are friends and at double the rate if you are allies.
      • \n
    • Mercantile city states give you an added 3 Happiness when you are friends. If you are allies you keep the added happiness, but in addition get access to a luxury resource that cannot be obtained any other way, and that also adds Happiness.
      • \n
    • Religious city states give you a one-time bonus of Faith when you first meet them, then provide added Faith per turn.
      • \n
    \n

    Note that Cultured and Religious city states increase the amount of Culture or Faith they provide with each new era, so the earlier you develop your relations with them the better the benefit.

    \n

    Managing Relations With City States

    \n

    There is a mechanism in the game which keeps track of points to define your relations with city states. On this numerical scale, Neutral has a value of 0, Friendly 30 or above, and Allied 60 or above. In the other direction, once you go into negative numbers they become Angry, if if you go negative enough it becomes War. A city state can only ever have one ally. If only one player has more than 60 influence points, that player will become the patron of the city state and they will ally to that player. If two or more players have more than 60 influence points, the player with the most points gets the ally. As the game goes on, you may get a message that a city state you had as an ally has suddenly allied to someone else. This is the result of the other player gaining influence points in some way, often by gifts. You can also gain influence points by promising to protect a city state, but do this with your eyes open. If you do not follow through on your promise it will enrage the city state and you will lose a lot of influence with them.

    \n

    Your influence with a city state has a natural resting point at 0, or Neutral. That means that barring other factors, a positive number will fall over time, and a negative number will rise over time. So if you sent one of your units through their territory they will be angry for a period, but if nothing else happens they will return to Neutral. But on the other side, you don’t stay allied with them forever unless you find ways to keep adding influence points. One way is to eliminate barbarian camps near to the city state. In fact, this is one exception to the rule about sending units through their territory. If you are doing it to attack the barbarians, you are seen as a protector, not an invader, and there is no penalty. Another way to gain influence is by completing a quest from a city state. Each city state you are in contact with will periodically give you a quest, and if you fulfill it you will gain influence points. This can include killing a barbarian camp or killing nearby barbarian units (though you can do that at any time, you don’t need a quest). Some others include acquiring a Great Person of a certain kind, building a certain World Wonder, bullying another city state, finding a Natural Wonder, and so on. You do not need to fulfill a quest. For example, if your strategy calls for allying with other city states, you might want to pass on bullying another city state. There is no penalty for not fulfilling a quest, just a bonus when you do fulfill one.

    \n

    Another way to gain influence is with gifts. The most effective is Gold, and one large sum is more effective than several small ones. For a Diplomatic victory strategy, you should plan on having a large Treasury as you approach the end game so that you can buy allies in time for the crucial vote. You can also gain a small amount of influence points by gifting units. I make it a practice to do this whenever I have units that I don’t want any longer. These could be obsolete units that have no upgrade path, for instance. I don’t want to pay maintenance on them as that is a drain on my Treasury, and I could just delete them, but gifting them to a city state gives me a small amount of influence. Another way to get a big jump in your influence with a city state is to capture and then a return one of their Workers. Most often this happens when a barbarian has captured the Worker, and then you capture it. You have the option of keeping the Worker for yourself, and in the early game I would probably do that because the Worker is so valuable. But at a certain point I have enough Workers, and getting the 45 influence points for returning it starts to be more effective. Remember that you have to keep earning influence points to keep up your relations, so even if you get an ally of a city state for a few turns. it will naturally decay back to Neutral. By around the middle of the game if you playing well you can start to invest the resources needed to maintain your relationships.

    \n

    City States and War

    \n

    If you are allied with a city state and you get into a war with another player, a city state you are allied with will join you in the war. Of course, the same is true for the other player, so the war between the two players could also involve 3-4 city states dragged in as allies. You cannot make peace with a city state while it is allied to a player you are at war with. You have to first make peace with that player (or wipe them out if that suits you). However, if you can get more influence with that city state and supplant the other player you can get that city state to ally with you can turn around and attack your enemy. Generally a large cash gift can do this, once again showing the utility of a fat Treasury.

    \n

    Exploration

    \n

    You cannot have diplomatic relations with a city state you haven’t met, so this reinforces the idea that you have to explore the map as soon as possible. Of course, you have to balance this with other priorities, such as expanding your cities and defending them, but finding the right balance is what all the Civilization games are about. On most maps this means you should be giving some attention to developing your naval power and technologies. There seems to be a bias to city states being coastal, and in many cases they are on small islands. Of course there are a number of motivations for exploring the map. First of all, you need intelligence of what you are up against with the other players. And unless you are on a very large land mass, you will want to find added lands for settlement. Finding Natural Wonders adds to Happiness in your Empire, so finding them all is important. And last, the unexplored sections of the map have a strong tendency to spawn barbarian units against you.

    \n

    Early on you cannot traverse Ocean tiles and need to stick to Coastal tiles. The unit here is the Trireme, which you can build once you discover Sailing. I will usually build 1-2 Triremes in a coastal city to go around the coast of the land mass I am on and scout out the situation. If another land mass or island is sufficiently close I can cross to it without entering an Ocean tile and extend my exploration. But to really explore the whole map you need to get to Caravels. This Renaissance Era unit becomes available when you discover Astronomy, and is essentially a naval scouting unit. It can enter Ocean tiles.

    \n\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, diplomacy, City-States","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4600,"date":"2026-03-20","title":"The First Doctor, Part 5","duration":926,"summary":"A continuing look at the first Doctor Who.","notes":"\n

    This is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor, portrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s.

    \n

    The First Doctor, Part 5

    \n

    The Celestial Toymaker

    \n

    This is a wonderful story, and the Toymaker is another foe many Doctor Who fans wanted to see return, and in 2023 it happened. In the story The Giggle he returned, played this time by Neil Patrick Harris, and it is a very good story. But in this introduction of the character he is played by Michael Gough in a Fu Manchu-like costume, and he has great powers, but is bound by certain rules, which makes this interesting. When the Tardis lands in his world, he sets them games they have to survive to escape. They are games based on children’s games you might be familiar with, but they have a twist. The Doctor is told he must solve the Trilogic puzzle in exactly 1023 moves, and Steven and Dodo must win their games before the Doctor wins his. This story is pure entertainment but very well done.

    \n

    But Hartnell’s decline continued. In this story there are scenes of The Trilogic Puzzle where a hand moves a piece, but it is not Hartnell’s hand, it is another actor. And Hartnell does not appear at all in episodes 2 & 3. Producer John Wiles had a plan to replace Hartnell whose contract was up at the end of the season, but he was over-ruled by BBC Head of Serials, Gerald Savory, who extended Hartnell’s contract, leading to John Wiles quitting the production. Hartnell would continue for now, but something would have to happen eventually.

    \n

    The Gunfighters)

    \n

    This is another historical story, but is embarrassingly bad. It takes the Tardis to Tombstone, Arizona at the time of the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral. Steven Taylor is mostly silly trying to act out childish fantasies of cowboys. The set up comes from the end of the previous story when the Doctor bites into a candy and yells in pain. He needs to see a dentist, and Doc Holliday, aside from being a gunfighter, is a dentist. Mistaken identities happen all over. This is light fluff, but is enjoyable if you give in to the silliness.

    \n

    The Savages)

    \n

    This is another story about who are the bad guys really, similar to Galaxy Four. In this case, Dodo and Steven are captured by what appear to be Stone Age savages. The Doctor, meanwhile, is taken to the city of the Elders, is greeted warmly. It seems they have been following his travels for some time and are great admirers of him. Steven and Dodo are rescued by soldiers from the City, and reunited with the Doctor. Then Dodo slips away and stumbles on experiments being conducted on human beings. So the Elders turn out to be the real Savages here. The lab is destroyed, the two groups decide to live together in peace, but they realize they need a leader who is from neither group and choose Steven to be their leader. So another companion goes. Only Dodo is left.

    \n

    The War Machines

    \n

    This is an “AI gone bad” story. A professor has built a computer to help manage the communications in the new Post Office Tower, which in fact was a new building in London. But the computer turns out to be more than anyone realized. But Doctor gets it right away when the computer correctly gives the meaning of TARDIS. Then it turns out that the computer can hypnotize people and make them its slaves. It does this to several of the professors involved, and has them build the War Machines that will enable it to take over the world. Dodo is hypnotized and tries to trap the Doctor, but he figures it out and restores her, then she is sent away to recuperate. We won’t ever see her again. Meanwhile the secretary to one of the professors, by the name of Polly, and young sailor named Ben, join up with the Doctor, and they defeat the computer. At the end, they realize they have Dodo’s TARDIS key and enter just before it takes off. So now we have two new companions.

    \n

    This is a fun episode. The props are the usual for this time in Doctor Who, cheap. But the writing is good, and story has enough twists and turns to carry you right along. Hartnell was really good in this story despite the problems he was having.

    \n

    The Smugglers

    \n

    This is another historical story, but instead of being based on any particular incident it tells of a general occurrence in English history. The English government chose to support itself primarily through customs duties on imports, which of course created an incentive to avoid those duties by smuggling, and that definitely happened a lot in the Cornwall area. It was also one the issues that started the American Revolution, but that is not our story here. The TARDIS crew encounters a former pirate, now turned church warden, who tells them a secret before being killed by another pirate. Ben and Polly capture a man who they think is the murderer, but he is in fact an undercover Revenue agent, and in the end helps to defeat the pirates. It is a good story, and the most memorable character has to be Cherub, the pirate who murdered the church warden and who kills other people and is very sinister.

    \n

    This is a story where all episodes have been lost, so I had to get it through reconstructions.

    \n

    The Tenth Planet

    \n

    This is Hartnell’s final story, and it takes the TARDIS to Antarctica, where the travelers are taken to the Snowcap base of the International Space Command. They are managing the return of the manned space mission Zeus IV, and everything goes wrong when a new planet appears, dooming the mission. Then we meet the second most memorable enemies of the Doctor, the Cybermen. They explain that they are from the planet Mondas, which is Earth’s twin (hence the Tenth Planet), and need the energy from the Earth to keep their planet going. The General running the base is of course pig-headed and does everything possible to make things worse than they have to be. This adventure turns out to be too much for the Doctor, who explains that his old body is just wearing out, and when they get back to the TARDIS he collapses and starts to change. In the end his replaced by the of Patrick Troughton.

    \n

    Hartnell was becoming increasingly difficult to work with as far back as The Time Meddler, where you could really see him losing his lines, and there are lots of stories about him hiding notes to remind himself of what he was supposed to say. But the BBC didn’t want the show to end, so they did something unprecedented and replaced the lead actor in a popular series. To explain it away, they invented regeneration, something the Doctor’s race could do. We now call them the Time Lords of Gallifrey, but that part did not appear until the end of Troughton’s run as the Doctor. For now, the Doctor was just a member of an unspecified alien race, and the only other member we had met was the Meddling Monk. At least we assume he is of the same race since he has a TARDIS.

    \n

    The First Doctor Era

    \n

    Whatever else you might want to say about Hartnell he created a franchise that has lasted for over 60 years at the time I write this. And after a slow start, he really developed the character and became identified with it. In the beginning he was a very stubborn and unlikable old man, but as the series progressed he mellowed and his humor started to come through even more. Hartnell himself returned to the role one more time in the Third Doctor story The Three Doctors) (1973), which was the first time Doctor Who had a story featuring multiple incarnations of the character, in the case the First Doctor (William Hartnell), the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), and the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee). But due to his declining health he has a limited role appearing only on a TV Screen. He passed away in 1975.

    \n

    He was portrayed by Richard Hurndall in another multiple Doctor story, _The Five Doctors_ (1983), which was broadcast for the 20th anniversary of the program during Peter Davison’s run as the Fifth Doctor. In recent times David Bradley has portrayed the First Doctor, particularly in the docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time (2013) which was produced in honor of the 50th anniversary of the program. This show tells the story of the First Doctor and the how the program came together in a dramatic form, and I recommend it highly. Bradley would reprise the role in 2017 in _The Doctor Falls and Twice Upon A Time) where he played opposite Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor, and then again in The Power of the Doctor_ (2022), where he appears alongside other previous Doctors. It is perhaps notable that the first three Doctors, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee, have all passed away, but only Hartnell’s First doctor has been revived so often.

    \n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, -{"id":4610,"date":"2026-04-03","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 10","duration":1096,"summary":"We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.","notes":"\n\n

    In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we three key ideas: Great People, Trade, and Empires/Civilizations.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 10 - Great People

    \n

    Gaining Great People

    \n

    You earn Great People by accumulating Great Person Points (GPP). Each type of Great Person has its own type of GPP, and they are earned independently, so you can easily accumulate points for several different types of Great People at the same time. You can earn these points through specialists, through Wonders, and through Social Policies. While you can accumulate points towards any and all Great People, you should focus on ones that fit your game strategy. If you are going for a Domination victory, you should focus on Great Generals and Great Admirals in preference to Great Artists and Great Musicians. But if you are going for a Culture victory you might want to reverse that. That is not to say you won’t gain a few random other Great People along the way, just that you should know what you are trying to achieve. And Great Generals and Great Admirals are a little different in that you earn them by winning battles.

    \n

    Types of Great People

    \n
      \n
    • Great Artist – Can start Golden Age, or create Great works
      • \n
    • Great Musician – Can do Concert Tour (+Tourism), or create Great Works
      • \n
    • Great Writer- Can write a Political Treatise (+Culture), or create Great Works
      • \n
    • Great Engineer – Can hurry production (including Wonders). Can create Manufactory
      • \n
    • Great General – combat bonus to units within 2 tiles, or steal land when creating a Citadel
      • \n
    • Khan – Unique to Mongolia, replaces Great General, moves faster and heals adjacent units, and can create Citadel
      • \n
    • Great Merchant – Trade Mission (+Gold and +Influence with a city state). Create Customs House
      • \n
    • Merchant of Venice – Unique to Venice, replaces Great Merchant. +100% Gold and +100% Influence from Trade Mission, or can puppet a City-State. Can create Customs House
      • \n
    • Great Scientist – Can Hurry Research, or create Academy
      • \n
    • Great Admiral – Combat bonus to naval units within 2 tiles. Can repair adjacent naval and embarked units
      • \n
    • Great Prophet – Can Found or enhance Religion, can spread Religion, or can create Holy Site
      • \n
    \n

    Every type except Great Admiral can create something, but that uses up the Great Person. And the main action for each also uses up the Great Person (e.g. do a Concert Tour, Hurry Production, etc.). So you need to consider which one works best for you. As a general rule, compare which option pays off the best. For example, if it is early in the game and you get a Great Scientist, creating an Academy will give you science points per turn that will pay off over the whole game. But once you hit the mid-to-late stages the one time hit of science points from Hurry Research makes more sense because you don’t have the time left for the per-turn bonus from an Academy to add up. And if there is a key Wonder you need to make your strategy works, keeping a Great Engineer on hand to hurry it up can pay off very nicely. This is the only way to Hurry Production on a Wonder.

    \n

    Trade

    \n

    In Civilization V, the amount of Gold you earn from terrain is much lower, so the path to a full treasury requires that you set up Trade Routes. You have limited number of Trade Slots available, but that limit grows over time. You can earn slots two ways. The first is through discovering techs:

    \n
      \n
    • Ancient Era: Animal Husbandry, Sailing
      • \n
    • Classical Era: Engineering
      • \n
    • Medieval Era: Compass
      • \n
    • Renaissance Era: Banking
      • \n
    • Industrial Era: Biology
      • \n
    • Modern Era: Railroad
      • \n
    • Atomic Era: Penicillin
      • \n
    \n

    So just from keeping up your research you can get up to 8 Trade Routes. In addition, the Wonders Colossus and Petra each provide an additional Trade Route.

    \n

    You can establish trade route with your own cities, with City-States, and with other Empires. Trade routes are always city-to-city, and are limited by distance, so it can make sense sometimes to move your trade unit to a different city. The city that produced the unit will always be where it shows up first, but you can make a move on its first turn to transfer the unit to another city, though note that Cargo Ships can only be placed in coastal cities. This can bring a desired destination city within range. Note that for land units (Caravans) you can increase the range by building roads.

    \n

    Effects of Trade

    \n

    Trade is generally pursued for the gold, but there can also be Science, Culture, and Religious effects, so it is worth paying attention here. Even if Gold is the main object, you may have several options that provide equivalent amounts of Gold, and a potential gain of Science or Culture might be the tie-breaker, depending on your strategy for victory. If you establish a trade route with a City-State, you can receive Gold, provide religious pressure to convert them to your religion, and gain influence with them, This can be very helpful if you are going for a Diplomatic Victory, But I would not accept a large difference in Gold just for that minor Influence gain. You can gain far more influence with Gold in long run. Setting up trade between your own cities can be helpful in giving a boost to a city because you can send Food and Production. In the earlier phases of the game that might be a good idea to get a city up to full development. The city where the route originates does not lose Food or Production, but some added amount shows up in the destination city. However, for Food trade to happen you need to have a Granary in each city, and for Production you need to have a Workshop in each city.

    \n

    Plundering

    \n

    Trade routes can be plundered by Empires you are at war with, or more often, by Barbarians. When that happens, the route disappears, and you need to build another trade unit and set up another route.

    \n

    Empires/Civs

    \n

    There are 43 possible Civilizations in Civ 5, so I don’t propose to discuss all of them in depth here, but if you want to dive into this more you can go to the Civ Wiki) for a chart that shows them all. Instead, I want to discuss why they are different and how you should make choices depending on the Victory type you are choosing. Of course, if you let the game make the choice for you randomly, knowing what each Civ is good for can help you to determine what type of strategy to pursue for your best chance of a victory.

    \n

    The first thing to know about each Civ is that they have a starting bias for where they will spawn at the beginning of the game. This can be either positive or negative, i.e. you are either more likely to spawn in certain terrain, or less likely to spawn in certain terrain. England, which is a naval power, will be biases to spawn on the Coast. Whereas Egypt, a famously desert country, will have a negative bias to avoid Jungle or Forest locations.

    \n

    Second, all Civs have one or more Unique Abilities. For example, the Carthaginians have two abilities that come from history. The first is Phoenician Heritage, which means that all Coastal cities get a free Harbor. And once they have earned a Great General, their military units can cross Mountain tiles, and they are the only ones that can do this. And the French have the City of Light ability, which grants doubled theming bonuses for Museums and wonders that are in the Capital.

    \n

    Third, each Civ has a Unique Unit. These units replace one of the regular units in the game, but are enhanced in some way. Spain has two of these. The first, the Tercio, replaces the Musketman, but it has a +50% bonus against mounted units and an increased Melee strength, making it a combination of Musketman and Pikeman. The other unit, the Conquistador replaces the Knight, but it has some interesting abilities. It can move after attacking if it still has movement points, embarked units have double defense, it can see two tiles further, and has no penalty when attacking cities. Finally, the Conquistador unit can be use to establish a city, though that uses up the unit.

    \n

    Finally, most (but not all) Civs have Unique Building or Improvement. As with units, these tend to replace ordinary buildings/improvements but offer something better. Arabia, for instance, has the Bazaar, which replaces the Marketplace. But it provides an additional 2 Gold per turn more than the Marketplace, it adds one additional copy of each improved luxury resource near the city, and provides +2 Gold for each Oasis and each source of Oil.

    \n

    What you need to consider is how each of these unique attributes of a Civ will fit in to your strategy. And timing matters. The American Unique Unit of the B-17 Bomber is nice, to be sure, but comes very late in the game. It probably won’t help you conquer the world. But the Roman units of the Ballista and the Legion are excellent for an early campaign of conquest. For a Trade-oriented strategy, Portugal is excellent, as all of its Unique attributes help with generating Trade and Gold. And Gold is the key to many possible paths to victory. So keep these points in mind as you plan your strategy. And to illustrate all of the things we have been discussing in the Civilization V series, I will play a game where I aim for a Diplomatic Victory.

    \n\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, Great People, Trade, Empires","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}] +{"id":4571,"date":"2026-02-09","title":"Data processing retrospective","duration":2600,"summary":"Lee talks to his Mum about her history with computers","notes":"\n

    \nWe start with \nOrwellian depictions of the future\n read about in the 1950/60s. Working in the 1970s at companies such as \nBritish Telecom\n and the L\nurgie\n. We hear about \ntelex\n, \nmainframes\n with \nmagnetic tape\n, \ntype-writers\n, and the upskilling of the workforce by the \nlabour-exchange\n. How did a cold and lack of a home telephone lead to businessmen arriving in a foreign land sans camels? Why were \nfiling cabinets\n replaced by \ndatabases\n (or were they)? We hear about gaming from a home made version of \nPong\n all the way to \nAlone in the Dark\n. Then modern times: we hear about some favourite \nyoutube\n streams and discover that living in the 2020s is (just about) possible without a \nsmartphone\n.

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":29,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"telex, typing, mainframe, databases, youtube","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4572,"date":"2026-02-10","title":"Uncommon Commands, Episode 3 - strace","duration":1021,"summary":"An overview of how to run and read the output of the strace command.","notes":"

    These are the commands mentioned in the You may need to use\n \"sudo\" to run these commands depending on how your system is\n configured.

    \n

    strace uptime

    \n

    strace ls 2>&1 | grep open

    \n

    strace -e openat ls /

    \n

    strace ls /does/not/exist

    \n

    strace -o ls-trace.log ls

    \n

    strace -ff -o pid12345-trace.log -p 12345
    \n

    \n

    HISTORY

    \n

    \n The original strace was written by Paul Kranenburg for SunOS and\n was inspired by its trace utility. The SunOS version of strace was\n ported to Linux and enhanced by Branko Lankester,\n who also wrote the Linux kernel support. Even though Paul released\n strace 2.5 in 1992, Branko's work was based on Paul's strace 1.5\n release from 1991.\n

    \n

    \n In 1993, Rick Sladkey took on the project. He merged strace 2.5\n for SunOS with the second release of strace for Linux, added many\n features from SVR4's truss(1), and produced a ver‐\n sion of strace that worked on both platforms. In 1994 Rick ported\n strace to SVR4 and Solaris and wrote the automatic configuration\n support. In 1995 he ported strace to Irix (and\n became tired of writing about himself in the third person).\n

    \n

    \n Beginning with 1996, strace was maintained by Wichert Akkerman.\n During his tenure, strace development migrated to CVS; ports to\n FreeBSD and many architectures on Linux (including\n ARM, IA-64, MIPS, PA-RISC, PowerPC, s390, SPARC) were introduced.\n

    \n

    \n In 2002, responsibility for strace maintenance was transferred to\n Roland McGrath. Since then, strace gained support for several new\n Linux architectures (AMD64, s390x, SuperH), bi-\n architecture support for some of them, and received numerous\n additions and improvements in system calls decoders on Linux;\n strace development migrated to Git during that period.\n

    \n

    \n Since 2009, strace has been actively maintained by Dmitry Levin.\n During this period, strace has gained support for the AArch64,\n ARC, AVR32, Blackfin, C-SKY, LoongArch, Meta, Nios\n II, OpenRISC 1000, RISC-V, Tile/TileGx, and Xtensa architectures.\n In 2012, unmaintained and apparently broken support for non-Linux\n operating systems was removed. Also, in 2012\n strace gained support for path tracing and file descriptor path\n decoding. In 2014, support for stack trace printing was added. In\n 2016, system call tampering was implemented.\n

    \n

    \n For the additional information, please refer to the NEWS file and\n strace repository commit log.\n

    \n

    Links

    \n ","hostid":194,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":" cli, command line, linux, uncommon commands","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4573,"date":"2026-02-11","title":"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 6 Thorium Reactors","duration":1017,"summary":"The use of thorium in nuclear power, what thorium is, what sort of reactors can use it.","notes":"\n

    \nThorium Reactors

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n

    \nIn this episode we will describe the use of thorium in nuclear power, including what thorium is, how it differs from uranium, and what sort of reactors can use it.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n03 What is thorium

    \n

    \n05 How thorium differs from uranium

    \n

    \n07 Sources of Thorium

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n09 Why there is interest in using thorium as a fuel

    \n

    \n10 Abundance of Thorium

    \n

    \n11 Some Countries Have a Lot of It

    \n

    \n12 Thorium Breeder Reactors are Simpler than Uranium Breeder Reactors

    \n

    \n14 Supposed Lower Nuclear Weapons Potential

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n16 What is Thorium Breeding

    \n

    \n20 Breeding Ratio

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n21 What sorts of reactors can use thorium

    \n

    \n22 PHWRs - Heavy Water Reactors (Including CANDU)

    \n

    \n24 HTR - High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors

    \n

    \n26 MSR - Molten Salt Reactors

    \n

    \n29 Light Water Reactors (PWR, BWR)

    \n

    \n31 Fast Neutron Reactors

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n32 The Challenges Facing Thorium Fuelled Reactors

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n37 Thorium in India - An Example Use Case

    \n

    \n39 Why is India Pursuing Using Thorium?

    \n

    \n40 How a Thorium Fuel Cycle Would Work in India

    \n

    \n43 Current Status

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n46 Conclusion

    \n

    \nThorium is an abundant material that is seen as an alternative to uranium in nuclear power.

    \n

    \nExperimental thorium power reactors date back to at least the 1960s.

    \n

    \nNo new reactor technology is required to use thorium.

    \n

    \nExisting well proven reactor designs which have been in use for decades can use thorium as fuel.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe common light water reactor designs that popular in some countries however are not well suited to using thorium. 

    \n

    \nInitial interest in thorium was mainly driven by a perception that uranium would be in short supply in future, and slow neutron thorium reactors were cheaper and simpler than fast neutron uranium reactors.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nHowever, huge new high grade supplies of uranium were found in a number of countries, causing uranium prices to fall and reducing interest in finding alternatives.

    \n

    \nWhile some R&D continues on thorium fuel in a number of countries, the mainstream of development continues to be on uranium based fuel.

    \n

    \nSome countries with abundant thorium reserves though maintain a major interest in thorium, with India being the prime example. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIn the next episode we will describe small modular reactors.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"energy, nuclear, engineering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4574,"date":"2026-02-12","title":"UNIX Curio #0 - Introduction","duration":589,"summary":"Overview of the series plus the hierarchy of files","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nAs the zeroth entry of this series, we'll have a little introduction to what it is supposed to be about and why you might want to listen. So that you don't leave without getting at least one piece of useful information, it will end with a little curio that you might find helpful someday.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nBack in 2010, I was the editor of the newsletter, titled The Open Pitt, for the Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group in Pittsburgh. We distributed it as a two-page PDF, so had to have enough material to fill each issue. Because we were having some trouble getting contributions, I started writing columns in a series called \"UNIX Curio\" to occupy the empty space. They were inspired in large part by examples I had seen of people re-inventing ways to do things when utilities for the same purpose had already existed for a long time.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe obvious question is: just what is a UNIX Curio? Let's start with the first word, UNIX. While a lot of people write it \"Unix\" instead, I have chosen to put it in all capitals because that is the way The Open Group, which controls the trademark and the certification process to use it, spells the word\n1\n. The history of UNIX is complex (search online for more details\n2\n)—the short version is that many variants emerged, often introducing incompatibilities. Even within AT&T/Bell Laboratories, two major branches came out. The Research UNIX lineage, which includes Seventh Edition (sometimes called Version 7), was often used in universities and government while System III and its more popular successor System V were clearly intended as commercial products\n3\n. The University of California's BSD was also very influential. My intention is to talk about things that are relatively common; ideally, they would be present on a large majority of systems so you can actually \nuse\n them.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nLuckily, there were people who recognized the value in compatibility, so in the mid-1980s they initiated the development of the POSIX standards\n4\n. Publication of these not only caused commercial UNIX versions to aim for conformance—it gave Free Software implementations of utilities and operating systems a stable base to shoot for rather than having to chase multiple moving targets. As a result, today's GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD systems generally behave as specified in POSIX, even if they haven't officially earned the UNIX or POSIX labels, so I treat them as part of the UNIX world.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nMoving on to the second word, \"curio,\" it just means \"an object of curiosity, often one considered novel, rare, or bizarre.\" There are many well-used utilities in the UNIX world, but people forget about others because they are only useful in specific circumstances. And when those circumstances arise, these obscure ones don't always get remembered. One purpose of this series is to point out some of them and describe where they can be appropriately put to use.

    \n

    \nWith the flexible tools available on UNIX systems and the ability to string them together, it shouldn't be surprising that people come up with new ways to accomplish a task. I don't want to claim that these curios are always the \nbest\n way to do something, just that it can be helpful to know they exist and see the way someone else solved the problem. Also, if you're using an unfamiliar system, sometimes programs you are accustomed to employing might not be installed so it's good to know about options that are widely available.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nSo why am I the person to talk about this subject? I am \nnot\n a UNIX graybeard with decades of professional computing experience. If I did grow a beard, it would only be partially gray, and my working life has been spent in the engineering world mainly around safety equipment. Sadly, there I have been forced to use Windows almost exclusively. However, in my academic and personal pursuits, I have been involved with using UNIX and Linux for more than 30 years, so I do have a bit of a historical perspective. For some reason, when I encounter an unusual or obscure tool, I want to learn more about it, especially so if I find it to be useful in some way. After gaining that information, I might as well share it with you. In addition, I have been involved with Toastmasters International, a public speaking organization, for about 15 years so I have experience in presenting things orally. I was inspired to turn this article series into podcasts by murph\n5\n, who delivered a presentation at the 2025 OLF Conference describing how and why to contribute to Hacker Public Radio\n6\n.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe show notes for curios 1 through 3 will consist of the articles as they were originally written (though with references added). Because some examples, especially code, can be difficult to understand when they are read out loud, the podcasts will sometimes present the information in a different way. Show notes for this curio 0 and for curios 4 and later will be written with the podcast format in mind, so they will more closely match what I say.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nLet's end with an actual curio to kick off the series. Have you ever needed a quick reminder about whether the file you're looking for can be found under the /usr or /var directories? On many UNIX systems, \nman hier\n will give you an overview of how the file hierarchy is organized. This manual page is not a standard, but was present in Seventh Edition UNIX\n7\n and many descendents, direct and indirect, including every Linux distribution I have ever used. There \nare\n attempts to standardize the layout; in the Linux world, the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)\n8\n, now hosted by Freedesktop.org\n9\n, intends to set a path to be followed. It should be noted that systemd has its own idea of how things should be laid out based on the FHS; if it is in use, try \nman file-hierarchy\n instead as it will likely be a more accurate description.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nI hope this gives you a good idea of what to expect in future episodes. The first one will be about shell archives, so keep an eye on Hacker Public Radio's schedule for it to appear.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nReferences:

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nThe Open Group Trademarks\n https://www.opengroup.org/trademarks
      2. \n
    2. \n\nHistory of Unix\n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix
      3. \n
    3. \n\nThe Unix Tutorial, Part 3\n https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1983-10/page/n133/mode/2up
      4. \n
    4. \n\nPOSIX Impact\n https://sites.google.com/site/jimisaak/posix-impact
      5. \n
    5. \n\nCorrespondent: murph\n https://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0444.html
      6. \n
    6. \n\nOLF Conference - December 6th, 2025\n https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyEunLtqbrA&t=25882
      7. \n
    7. \n\nFile system hierarchy\n https://man.cat-v.org/unix_7th/7/hier
      8. \n
    8. \n\nFinding a successor to the FHS\n https://lwn.net/Articles/1032947/
      9. \n
    9. \n\nFreedesktop.org now hosts the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard\n https://lwn.net/Articles/1045405/
      10. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix, hierarchy","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4575,"date":"2026-02-13","title":"Making First Contact","duration":1756,"summary":"Ken finally makes his first contact with Kees ","notes":"\n

    \n Making First Contact

    \n
    \n An amateur radio contact, more commonly referred to as simply a\n \"contact\", is an exchange of information between two amateur radio\n stations. The exchange usually consists of an initial call, a\n response by another amateur radio operator at an amateur radio\n station, and a signal report. A contact is often referred to by\n the Q code QSO. It is often limited to just a minimal exchange of\n such station IDs. Stations who have made a contact are said to\n have worked each other. An operator may also say that he has\n worked a certain country.
    \n

    \n \n QSO: (amateur_radio)\n

    \n

    \n \n Making your first QSO\n

    \n

    \n Kees's history

    \n
      \n
    1. \n 1990 PD1OOY VHF/UHF only, 25 Watt, only F3E. (NED, BEL, LX, DL)
      2. \n
    2. \n 1991 PE1OOY CEPT Class II
      3. \n
    3. \n 1995 G7TWO 1st British callsign CEPT Class II
      4. \n
    4. \n 1997 PE7TWO First vanity callsign CEPT Class II
      5. \n
    5. \n 2000 M5TWO CEPT Class A+B+ CW included
      6. \n
    6. \n 2000 PA7TWO CEPT Class I + CW included
      7. \n
    7. \n 2002 M5TWO CEPT Class I + CW included
      8. \n
    \n

    \n Ken's history

    \n
      \n
    1. \n \n COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom\n
      2. \n
    2. \n 2020-08-21 \n Amateur Foundation Examination\n
      3. \n
    3. \n 2021-01-28 \n Amateur Intermediate Examination\n
      4. \n
    4. \n 2021-08-05 \n Amateur Full Radio Licence\n
      5. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Links

    \n
      \n
    1. \n \n UK Amateur Licensing\n
      2. \n
    2. \n \n Baofeng UV-5R Mini 5W Dual Band Radio\n
      3. \n
    3. \n \n BangGood\n
      4. \n
    4. \n \n Tech Minds\n video \"\n This Baofeng UV-5R Mini Is Almost Perfect - And It's Only $25!\n \"
      5. \n
    5. \n \n QSO: amateur_radio\n
      6. \n
    6. \n \n QSL Card\n
      7. \n
    7. \n \n IARU Region 1 HF band plan\n
      8. \n
    8. \n \n QRZ.com\n
      9. \n
    9. \n \n Club Log\n
      10. \n
    10. \n \n Modulation Codes\n , \n Types of radio emissions\n
      11. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    ","hostid":30,"series":43,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HAM, QSO, QSL, Baofeng, UV-5R Mini","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4576,"date":"2026-02-16","title":"Responce to Lee/Elsbeth eps","duration":2358,"summary":"Yet Another White Male Opinion","notes":"\n

    \nI don't even know where I went with this but the idea was just to say the stuff Elsbeth expereanced was typical for corp-o's and that some of the issues she had getting work or jobs could be exponentially compounded by the result of neurodiversity.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n

    \nMore private ADHD resources

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n[ ]\t12 Principles for Raising a Chi - Russell A. Barkley.epub\t2024-03-08 10:43\t453K\t

    \n

    \n[ ]\t12 Principles for Raising a Child with ADHD - Russell A. Barkley.epub\t2021-08-11 19:34\t967K\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tADD and Loving It.mp4\t2023-10-24 09:11\t260M\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tADHD - Understanding the Superpowers Within [ezwOHAo3O_k].webm\t2022-07-01 09:36\t161M\t

    \n

    \n[IMG]\tAutism+Spectrum.png\t2024-03-03 08:50\t520K\t

    \n

    \n[SND]\tBC_200_Answering_Your_Questionsa1qb8-BC_200_Answering_Your_Questionsa1qb8.mp3\t2022-12-12 17:41\t71M\t

    \n

    \n[TXT]\tBC_200_Answering_Your_Questionsa1qb8-BC_200_Answering_Your_Questionsa1qb8.txt\t2023-01-03 10:58\t32K\t

    \n

    \n[ ]\tBubble Gum Brain A Picture Book About Growth Mindset 17.epub\t2024-11-13 09:37\t1.0M\t

    \n

    \n[DIR]\tBubble Gum Brain_ A Picture Boo - Julia Cook/\t2024-03-08 10:46\t-\t

    \n

    \n[DIR]\tCognitive.Behavioral.Therapy.for.Daily.Life-xpost/\t2024-06-14 10:29\t-\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tDrugging Our Kids [L7lHeosq-FY].webm\t2018-03-30 20:28\t432M\t

    \n

    \n[SND]\tFull Audiobook _ You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy [A-4-OKGaLDs].mp3\t2020-11-01 18:52\t49M\t

    \n

    \n[ ]\tGary Chapman - The Five Love Languages How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate (retail) (epub).epub\t2021-08-11 19:34\t914K\t

    \n

    \n[ ]\tGary Chapman - The Five Love Languages How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate (retail) (epub).pdf\t2021-08-11 19:34\t1.7M\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tLearning Differently (ADHD Documentary) [9JMroyfJtO4].webm\t2023-09-18 22:29\t463M\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tLiving With ADHD BBC Documentary [5lrcxmOolB8].webm\t2015-04-08 01:15\t138M\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tTake Back Control - Presentation by Dr. Edward Hallowell [HhoXGXtShGs].webm\t2019-10-28 18:32\t163M\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tThe Disorder That Will Affect Us All (Dopamine Secrets)- ADHD Documentary [48JKfl0ggPI].webm\t2022-12-21 08:32\t1.3G\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tThe Disruptors (2021) - [WEBRIP-1080P][AAC 5.1][X264]-RARBG.mp4.mp4\t2023-10-24 09:42\t774M\t

    \n

    \n[ ]\tThe Explosive Child.pdf\t2024-11-13 06:21\t714K\t

    \n

    \n[TXT]\tThe Explosive Child.txt\t2024-11-14 01:20\t338K\t

    \n

    \n[SND]\tThe Explosive Child Audiobook.mp3\t2024-11-14 09:30\t161M\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tTrevor Noah on Depression, ADHD & Ketamine Therapy [eKQTS-hAAcI].webm\t2024-05-21 14:32\t181M\t

    \n

    \n[VID]\tVideo by adhdoers Markiplier.mp4\t2024-06-20 21:39\t4.3M\t

    \n

    \n[ ]\tYou Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid o - Kate Kelly.epub

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"adhd, neurodiversity","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4577,"date":"2026-02-17","title":"HPR Beer Garden 10 - Scotch Ale/Wee Heavy","duration":2265,"summary":"Dave and Kevie talk about the Wee Heavy ale style.","notes":"\n

    \nKevie and Dave discuss the history of the Wee Heavy and also sample some of these hard to find gems. Dave samples \nInnes & Gunn Original\nwhilst Kevie opts for \nTraquair House 2000th Brew\n

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nDave\n
      2. \n
    2. \n\nKevie\n
      3. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n
      \n
    1. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/mixtus/sounds/329806/\n
      2. \n
    2. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/j1987/sounds/123003/\n
      3. \n
    3. \n\nhttps://freesound.org/people/greatsoundstube/sounds/628437/\n
      4. \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4578,"date":"2026-02-18","title":"Alex's journey into Amateur Radio","duration":814,"summary":"Dave talks to his son, Alex, about his experiences as a newly-licensed amateur radio operator","notes":"\n

    \nDave interviews Alex about his journey into Amateur Radio, given that he only passed his Foundation licence at the end of December.

    \n\n

    \nWhat we forgot to mention is that he managed to get his callsign just before Christmas, so that was a rather lovely gift!

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLinks to stuff spoken about in the episode:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe hope you enjoyed this episode, and we'll be happy to follow up any questions!

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73 de Dave M7TLB and Alex M7OUO

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":314,"series":43,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"ham radio, amateur radio, m7tlb, m7ouo, foundation licence, rsgb, essex ham, ham train, gb3rs","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4579,"date":"2026-02-19","title":"Happy by shower","duration":465,"summary":"On what makes me joyfull when I’m destroyed (spoiler: an anchor, hope)","notes":"\n

    \nHello, dear beloveds. Here with you, at HPR: Antoine.

    \n

    \nThe message of this episode is the following: life comes in waves. ~~ Circumstances are volatile. For the majority of them, we have no control of what happens. Things happen, in climate events, in health (ours or another one’s), financially, emotionally. Many depend on choices that others make, or outside events that we, as humans, cannot trace cause-and-effect route — \nhamla\n! [interjection], we can’t even tell the weather precisely yet.

    \n

    \nOur emotions are subject to the same phenomenon. As far as they are tied to that events, our feelings of sadness, of relief, will come and go, also, as ~~ waves! Unpredictable, impetuous, imprecise. It ruins the health. Do you listen to your heartbeat? It can be 80 or 110 bpm from one second to another by the choices of your thinking, without you moving a muscle. A basketball player can be a better player only training in his mind, in imagination, in comparison to one that does not practice al all. Your mind, and by it we mean now the choices of your thinking, have influence in your muscular abilities and in your body chemicals. These regulate basically the entirety of your sensations, and contribute to your health or lack of it.

    \n

    \nSo, when one believes, he have a stable point in which to be firm. Even though the circumstances are waves, he is not floating on them. He’s anchored. That’s why, if firm (true) in this faith, he’s more stable and happier than an ordinary person, one that has no hope at all, but lives by what the world has to offer today.

    \n

    \nIn summary, the instability is not beneficial. And we are taken to this thinking, for the pursuit of something we believe is worth it, and may be not. Then, when someone presents something we “need”, that may not be the case. We can think. Then, we choose: what we live for? How I choose to feel, and behave, because \nor\n in spite of what happens around and around? and around. No matter the point of the universe one person has reached, physically or perceptually, that does not define him for eternity. Because it is not in that past, it is happening right now, has not ended, yeah?

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nNow, a point of experience of me. I have days of very low mood and uncertainty. The feeling of serving for absolutely nothing. (Even in good days, that may feel true, but does not define me as when I go to the ground on this thinking.) I have been said things like this, from people I value, or valued then, more than family of blood. These are days I eat not healthily, I don’t have the appropriate care of my body, I don’t shower.

    \n

    \nUntil recently, those were days of much suffering. But I perceived that, in the next day of each of these days, in keeping trusting the hope I have, I can have a night of rest. I can wake up and take a shower, and after all start anew, having lived the bad experience the day prior as an experience that, at that moment, I only wanted to go away as soon as possible. But after going through the entirety of it, on its full duration, I would not replace this feeling-and-learning experience by anything else. Someone has said that anguish is what makes us do something. In comfort, we only go, comfortable. The purpose, or the action, comes from the need to change. Every little experience (and not only the great and abnormal) contribute to mould someone in his trajectory.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nBye bye.

    \n\n\n","hostid":441,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"thinking healthily, hope","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4580,"date":"2026-02-20","title":"The First Doctor, Part 4","duration":900,"summary":"A continuing look at the first Doctor Who.","notes":"

    This is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor, portrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s.

    \n

    The First Doctor, Part 4

    \n

    Galaxy 4

    \n

    This science fiction story is focused on the idea of not judging a book by its cover. The Tardis lands on a deserted, dying planet. They see a funny looking robot that Vicki calls a “Chumbley”. Then another one appears, and they investigate, but are rescued by three beautiful women who tell them they were in great danger, and take the three travelers back to their ship, where they meet the leader, Maaga, another beautiful woman. But somehow these women are odd and cold. They tell of how they met another ship from a evil race, the Rill, and that in a space battle the ships damaged each other and landed on this planet. Then later the travelers meet the Rill, who initially refuse to reveal their appearance because it would frighten the humans. Turns out they were very alien in appearance, but not at all evil, and it was the beautiful women who were evil.

    \n

    Mission to the Unknown

    \n

    This short little story takes place on the planet Kembel, and agents from Earth realize that the Daleks are here, and up to no good. This is really a prequel to The Daleks’ Master Plan, and is notable as the only Doctor Who story in which none of the regular cast appears. The reason is that this is an extra episode slot given to the Doctor Who team late in the day, and the regular cast were already given vacation time off. So it is best to take this as Episode 0 of The Dalek’s Master Plan, not as a stand-alone story. The original story has been lost, like so many episodes of early Doctor Who, but a very nice version was done by the University of Central Lancashire, and you can view it on YouTube. It is introduced by Edward de Souza, who played Marc Cory in the original, and is worth a look. They really did a good job.

    \n

    The Myth Makers

    \n

    This is another “historical” story, though instead of verified history it is historical legends at play here, in the form of the Seige of Troy by the Greeks. So you have all of the Homeric cast here: Achilles, Priam, Hector, Odysseus. The Doctor is taken for a God by Achilles, though Odysseus has his doubts. Vicki is captured by the Trojans and taken to Troy, calls herself Cressida, and is taken for a Goddess. Steven goes to Troy to try and free her, but is seen as a Greek, and so Vicki is now suspect. She falls in love with a son of Priam named Troilus, and you think something might happen here, particularly if you are familiar with play of Shakespeare called Troilus and Cressida. This story only has faint echoes of the play, preserving that Cressida is Greek and Troilus is Trojan. In this case it is Cressida staying with Troilus, so instead going back to the Tardis Vicki is now out. One more companion gone.

    \n

    This marked the departure of Verity Lambert as producer, and she was replaced by John Wiles. Wiles tried to implement changes, such as making the show a bit darker, but ran into opposition from both Hartnell and BBC Management, and resigned after producing four stories ( The Myth Makers through The Ark). And the popularity of other SF shows on television made a move to more SF and less history desirable. And as for Hartnell’s opposition, it is notable that he had become quite identified with the role of The Doctor and was very proprietorial with it. This would come to pose problems later as his health declined.

    \n

    The Daleks’ Master Plan

    \n

    This story arc takes twelve episodes, or thirteen if you add Mission to the Unknown, as you indeed should. The reason for such a long story arc is that Sir Huw Wheldon, the Director-General of the BBC at that time wanted a “monster length” Dalek story because his mother was a big Dalek fan. And this story has a lot going for it. The length means that you can do more character development.

    \n

    The story starts out with Steven recovering from a sword-thrust during the fall of Troy, and being attended by Katarina, a Trojan maiden, who is now in the Tardis. They arrive on the planet Kembel, and meet with Space Special Security agent Bret Vyon, played by Nicholas Courtney, who in a few years would become the beloved Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Vyon tries to force the Doctor to take him to Earth so he can warn the planet, but the Doctor recognizes the Daleks and wants to find out more about their plans. And this brings us to one the most evil villains in Doctor Who, Mavic Chen. You see, the Daleks have assembled a group of villainous aliens to join together in conquering the Earth, and Mavic Chen is part of the group. He is also the idolized Guardian of the Solar System. So he is a traitor! Katarina, the Trojan maiden, sacrifices herself to save the others from a convict they meet on a prison planet. Another wonderful character is Sara Kingdom (played by Peggy Marsh), head of Space Special Security, who has been told by Mavic Chen that Vyon and the others are traitors, and who kills Vyon, who is in fact her brother! But they manage to convince her that Chen is the real traitor, and she joins them. In the middle of this story arc Christmas happened, and this resulted in the most absurd episode ever of Doctor Who, called The Feast of Steven, capped by the Doctor breaking the fourth wall. The episode is now among the missing. but you can find reconstructions on YouTube if you want to see the absurdity of it. And there is a re-appearance of The Meddling Monk.

    \n

    This is a sprawling story, but overall worth a look. Mavic Chen, played by Kevin Stoney, is delightfully evil, and Stoney would return to play another villain in the Troughton story The Invasion. and it is interesting to see Nicholas Courtney before he got the role he would always be identified with. Doctor Who would not do anything this large again until _The Flux_ in 2021, and frankly this story makes more sense.

    \n

    The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve

    \n

    You will often see this as simply The Massacre, which is fine since there is no other story with a similar title. And after that massive science fiction story, another historical story. This involves the true story of Protestants in France being massacred by the Catholics, and the main feature worth calling our here is that William Hartnell plays two roles in this story. He is the Doctor, of course, but also the Abbott of Amboise, a leader among the Catholics looking to rid France of the Protestants. This idea of playing two parts became even more nicely done by Patrick Troughton later in Enemy of the World. In any case, this leads to confusion by Steven who thinks the Abbott is actually the Doctor. In the story a servant girl named Anna Chaplette is rescued, and this opens up the interesting possibility that she is the ancestor of Dodo (i.e. Dorothea) Chaplet, a companion who appears at the end. She witnesses a car crash, and barges into the Tardis thinking she can call the police.

    \n

    While the novelty of Hartnell playing two parts may stand out on first look, this story is really a showcase for Peter Purves, in his role of Steven Taylor. Because Hartnell is not on screen very much, Purves really has to carry the plot, and does so admirably. Hartnell was on vacation when the second episode was filmed, and so didn’t appear at all. And his health problems were beginning cause problems which contributed to this situation. He was having a lot of trouble with remembering his lines, which is a real problem for an actor. He was not that old by current standards, as he was 58 when this story was produced, and as I am 73 as I write this, 58 seems more like late youth to me.

    \n

    The Ark

    \n

    The Tardis materializes on a spaceship in the far future. It is carrying the future of the human race to a new planet, Refusis 2, because the Earth is falling into the sun. But it also has an odd race called the Monoids, who have one eye. They are an alien race who came to Earth when their own planet was dying, and now they serve the humans. Unfortunately, the Tardis crew carries germs for which humans and Monoids on the Ark have no immunity, and sickness breaks out. One faction wants to kill the Doctor and his companions, but instead the Doctor finds a cure for the disease, and they leave on the Tardis. Then the Tardis materializes back on the Ark, but they discover that hundreds of years have passed. The Monoids have rebelled and taken over, and now the humans serve them. As the old saying has it, be kind to those you meet on the way up, for you will meet them again on the way down.

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4581,"date":"2026-02-23","title":"Sharp Intake of Breath City (A.K.A.) How I learnt to stop worrying about the fork bomb","duration":2191,"summary":"My journey into the magickal world of beastie bits on disks and daemons all the way down...","notes":"\n

    \nNote: The following code `:(){ :|:& };:` was replaced with Fork Bomb in the title.\n

    \n
    \n\n

    \nEver wanted to hear a middle age man waffle on incoherently for half an hour about how he went from BMX bum to BSD botherer (1) ????

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWell then, you've come to the right place :-) Behold my banal FLOSS adventure of 15 very odd years in all it's hax & glory!

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nYou're got to give it away to keep it ;-)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \nWeirdly there is a wonderful Scottish BMX brand called BSD... If you ever want some cool BSD stickers or T-Shirts they make some funky stuff...
      2. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nP.S. Apologies for the endless extravagant sharp intakes of breath... to be fair it's a better filler than \"like\" or \"do you know what I mean\"... :-/

    \n\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":460,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"freebsd, openbsd, apple, woz, BMX, magick, esoterica, skateboarding, yoga, arthritis, hpr","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4582,"date":"2026-02-24","title":"Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 1","duration":6269,"summary":"the hpr community comes together to converse","notes":"\n

    \n\nHackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEpisode 1\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFacebook \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinkedIn\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nlinkedin.com/\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMatrix\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://matrix.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTwitter / X\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://x.com/home\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTelegram\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://telegram.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMastadon\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://joinmastodon.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIndia\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.incredibleindia.gov.in/en\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPoland\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.poland.travel/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHacker Public Radio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMumble\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mumble.info/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinux Lugcast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linuxlugcast.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJitsi \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://jitsi.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTon Roosendaal (former Blender CEO)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_Roosendaal\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.blender.org/press/blender-foundation-announces-new-board-and-executive-director/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinus Torvalds\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://github.com/torvalds\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHack A Day \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://hackaday.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTerry Pratchett\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://terrypratchett.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUTC\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.timeanddate.com/time/aboututc.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDMCA\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.eff.org/issues/dmca\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSpotify\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://open.spotify.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nYoutube\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPeertube\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://joinpeertube.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDay Trading\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/05/011705.asp\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nerdwallet.com/investing/best/online-brokers-platforms-for-day-trading\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOgg Camp\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.oggcamp.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFosDem\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://fosdem.org/2026/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBrussels\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.visit.brussels/en/visitors\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOhio Linux Fest\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://olfconference.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJacksonville, Florida\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.visitjacksonville.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEbike\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/what-is-an-electric-bike\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nElectric Scooter\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://engineerfix.com/what-is-an-electric-scooter-and-how-does-it-work/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nElliptical \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://ellipticalking.com/what-is-an-elliptical/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPanera Bread \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.panerabread.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTech and Coffee \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://techandcoffee.info/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHTC Phones\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.htc.com/us/smartphones-learn/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nApple\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.apple.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWindows \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLG\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.lg.com/us/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n2FA (2 Factor Authentication)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/twofactor-authentication-2fa.asp\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSymantec VIP\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://vip.symantec.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAndroid\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.android.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDiscord\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://discord.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNewPipe\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://newpipe.net/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\niCloud\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.icloud.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBloomberg Terminal\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.bloomberg.com/professional/terminal-introduction/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinux Mint\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linuxmint.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSuse\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.suse.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEndeavourOS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://endeavouros.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPop OS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://system76.com/pop/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDebian\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.debian.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRed Hat\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.redhat.com/en\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEB / Electronics Boutique / EB Games)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EB_Games\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRockBox\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rockbox.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHi Fi Walker\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://hifiwalker.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMPEG \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mpeg.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMP3\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.magix.com/us/music-editing/audio-formats/mp3/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMicroSD Card\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.businessinsider.com/reference/what-is-a-micro-sd-card\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRSS Feed\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15kfcsm/eli5_what_is_rss_feed_and_how_is_it_useful/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nYouTube DL\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/index.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJupiter Extras Podcast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/jupiter-extras/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLate Night Linux Podcast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://latenightlinux.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSound Show Podcast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://grokipedia.com/page/the_sound_show\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinux Lugcast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linuxlugcast.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTux Jam\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://tuxjam.otherside.network/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHacker Public Radio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n3D Printing\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://3dprinting.com/what-is-3d-printing/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRaspberry Pi\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.raspberrypi.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNextcloud\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://nextcloud.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJellyfin\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://jellyfin.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDVD Ripping\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.tomshardware.com/software/how-to-rip-your-dvds-with-handbrake-preserve-your-dvd-library-before-bit-rot-claims-another-victim\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPort Forwarding\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.noip.com/support/knowledgebase/general-port-forwarding-guide\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNginX \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://nginx.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLiquidSoap\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.liquidsoap.info/doc-dev/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIceCast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://icecast.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDYN DNS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://account.dyn.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEtherpad\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://etherpad.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAudio Bookshelf\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.audiobookshelf.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFunk Whale\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.funkwhale.audio/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPixel Art\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.sandromaglione.com/articles/getting-started-with-pixel-art\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAseprite\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.aseprite.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKrita\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://krita.org/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRPG Maker \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rpgmakerweb.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStable Diffusion\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://stablediffusionweb.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGIMP\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.gimp.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBalatro\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.playbalatro.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMagic The Gathering Balatro MOD\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://balatromods.miraheze.org/wiki/Magic:_the_Jokering\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nYoshi \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mariowiki.com/Yoshi\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGungeon (Enter the Gungeon)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://enterthegungeon.fandom.com/wiki/Enter_the_Gungeon_Wiki\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nClover Pit\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/3314790/CloverPit/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTrackball\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/trackball\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHumble Bundle\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.humblebundle.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDungeons / Dungeons II / Dungeons III \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttp://www.realmforgestudios.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDeltarune\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://deltarune.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUndertale \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://undertale.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDNS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-dns/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUniversal Studios\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/theme-parks/universal-studios-florida\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nElectric Blanket\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.silentnight.co.uk/blog/guides/tips-for-using-your-electric-blanket\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nElectric Vests\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.fieldandstream.com/outdoor-gear/hunting/hunting-apparel-and-accessories/best-heated-vests\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLG Neckband Headphones\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.lg.com/us/neckbands/view-all\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLotus Notes\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCL_Notes\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJohn Deer\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.deere.com/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDairy Queen\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.dairyqueen.com/en-us/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAlco (retail store)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALCO_Stores\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAMI Pro\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/18775/Ami-Pro-for-Windows/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDisgraphia\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23294-dysgraphia\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCursive\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://brainspring.com/orton-gillingham-weekly/what-is-cursive-why-is-it-used/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSUNLU Wood PLA\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://store.sunlu.com/collections/wood/products/optimized-wood-pla-3d-printer-filament-1kg-optimized-and-upgraded-wood-texture\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHobby Lobby\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hobbylobby.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHobby Lobby Branded PLA \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hobbylobby.com/crafts-hobbies/kids-crafts-activities/arts-crafts-supplies/white---3d-printing-filament/p/81250151\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHot End\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://e3d-online.com/blogs/news/anatomy-of-a-hotend\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n2.5 GB Network Switch\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.servethehome.com/the-ultimate-cheap-2-5gbe-switch-mega-round-up-buyers-guide-qnap-netgear-hasivo-mokerlink-trendnet-zyxel-tp-link/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nfsck\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linux.die.net/man/8/fsck\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nProxMox\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.proxmox.com/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOpen Media Vault\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.openmediavault.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nReadarr\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://github.com/Readarr/Readarr\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRSYNC\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linux.die.net/man/1/rsync\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMario Kart T Shirt\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/mario-kart-jersey-t-shirt-119900-1/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSuper Nintendo World\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/epic-universe/worlds/super-nintendo-world\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMario Kart Ride (Universal Studios - Super Nintendo World)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/things-to-do/rides-attractions/mario-kart-bowsers-challenge\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDonkey Kong Country (Universal Studios - Super Nintendo World)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.zeldadungeon.net/forum/threads/donkey-kong-themed-area-to-open-at-usj-dec-11-2024.77660/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDonkey Kong Country (video game)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://donkeykong.fandom.com/wiki/Donkey_Kong_Country\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMario Games\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Mario_games\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMario World 2\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Mario_World_2:_Yoshi%27s_Island\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHarry Potter Ride\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/things-to-do/rides-attractions/harry-potter-and-the-forbidden-journey\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/things-to-do/rides-attractions/hagrids-magical-creatures-motorbike-adventure\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHarry Potter Wands\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/things-to-do/shopping/potter-wands\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHarry Potter Wand Holder (3D printable)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://makerworld.com/en/models/917744-wand-stand-harry-potter#profileId-879432\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBronze PLA \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hatchbox3d.com/products/3d-pla-1kg1-75-brnz\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinux Mint\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linuxmint.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nClem (Linux Mint)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://blog.linuxmint.com/?author=1\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNew Harry Potter TV Show\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.teenvogue.com/story/harry-potter-tv-reboot-hbo-everything-you-need-to-know\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJK Rowling\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.jkrowling.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHBO\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hbomax.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIraq\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.state.gov/countries-areas/iraq\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nArcane Casebook (Author - Dan Willis)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.goodreads.com/series/259903-arcane-casebook\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAltered Carbon (Book)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://elitistbookreviews.com/2018/04/05/altered-carbon/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nArcanum Unbounded (Author - Brandon Sanderson)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.brandonsanderson.com/blogs/blog/introducing-arcanum-unbounded\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAmazon Music\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://music.amazon.com/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRichard Pryor\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.richardpryor.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJohn Pinette\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.dead-frog.com/comedians/comic/john-pinette\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStormlight Archive \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.brandonsanderson.com/pages/the-stormlight-archive-series\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMistborn Saga\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.brandonsanderson.com/pages/the-mistborn-saga-the-original-trilogy\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe Last Airbender\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWax and Wayne\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.brandonsanderson.com/pages/the-mistborn-saga-the-wax-wayne-series\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTress And The Emerald Sea\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.brandonsanderson.com/pages/standalones-cosmere\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIsles of the Amber Dark\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLegion\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.brandonsanderson.com/pages/collections-non-cosmere\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWheel of Time (Sanderson books)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.brandonsanderson.com/pages/the-wheel-of-time-series\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSunreach \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.brandonsanderson.com/pages/skyward-flight\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBenedict Jacka\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://benedictjacka.co.uk/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nProject Hail Mary (Andy Weir)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://andyweirauthor.com/#project-hail-mary\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe Martian (Andy Weir)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://andyweirauthor.com/#the-martian\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nArtemis (Andy Weir)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://andyweirauthor.com/#artemis\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLibby\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://libbyapp.com/interview/welcome#doYouHaveACard\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAnalog Hole\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HPR,community,new years eve show","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4583,"date":"2026-02-25","title":"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 7 Small Modular Reactors","duration":822,"summary":"This episode covers Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs.","notes":"\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n

    \nThis episode is the seventh in an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIn this episode we will describe a topic which has been in the news in recent years, which is \"small modular reactors\", or SMRs for short.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n03 What is an SMR?

    \n

    \nBasic Definition

    \n

    \nA small modular reactor is a nuclear reactor that is designed to be largely built in a factory and subject to as little on-site assembly as possible.

    \n

    \nThe main goal is to lower costs by reducing construction times and allowing a more rapid start of return on investment.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n04 Sized Based Definition

    \n

    \nSome people put a numerical size limit on SMRs, saying that they must be no larger than 300 MW to qualify as an SMR.

    \n

    \nHowever this limit is not universally accepted, and not all SMR designs fall within this arbitrary limit.

    \n

    \nI will ignore this numerical limit and just consider anything to be an SMR if it meets the criteria of being largely built in a factory with minimal on-site assembly.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n05 The Actual Goal of the SMR Idea

    \n

    \nThe actual goal of the SMR idea is to build reactors rapidly and efficiently on more or less an assembly line basis rather than hand crafting each one.

    \n

    \nOne engineer in the nuclear industry has compared building reactors to building ships.

    \n

    \nTraditional shipbuilding techniques involved assembling each ship from the keel up on the slipways from individual components.

    \n

    \n06

    \n

    \nNewer shipbuilding techniques assemble ships as separate \"blocks\" inside factory-like buildings and then join completed blocks together in a final assembly stage.

    \n

    \nThis requires careful planning and tight quality control, but it results in building ships much more rapidly and economically.

    \n

    \nThis engineer said that SMRs are attempting to bring this newer way of doing things to the nuclear reactor industry as well. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n07 SMR Categories - Small Versus Micro

    \n

    \n08 Small SMRs

    \n

    \n09 Small SMRs and Small Grids

    \n

    \n10 Micro SMRs for Micro Loads

    \n

    \n13 Micro SMRs for Large Industry

    \n

    \n14 SMRs to Power Data Centres

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n15 What's This Nonsense About \"Micro Small Modular Reactor\" You Ask?

    \n

    \n17 Small Reactors and Modular Reactors That Are Not SMRs

    \n

    \n20 Standard Versus Proprietary Fuel

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n23 Where SMRs are Currently Being Built

    \n

    \n24 HTR-PM in China

    \n

    \n28 Repurposed Ship Reactors in Russia

    \n

    \n31 300 MW BWR in Canada

    \n

    \n33 470 MW PWR in UK

    \n

    \n35 25 MW PWR in Argentina

    \n

    \n37 Various Experimental SMRs

    \n

    \n38 Modular Large Reactors

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n40 Conclusion

    \n

    \nSMRs are a new trend in nuclear reactor design.

    \n

    \nHowever, they are really two different things which fill two different needs.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nOne style is intended to adopt designs which allow for more rapid construction with more of the work being done in the factory and less on the construction site, with the overall goal of reducing costs.

    \n

    \nThe other style is to provide very small reactors to power remote communities and mines, or to provide process heat to large industries.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe first SMRs are in operation or under construction.

    \n

    \nThe most promising grid scale designs at present are simply scaled down and simplified conventional designs that use standard commercial fuel.

    \n

    \nLarger reactors will incorporate modular construction techniques, blurring the lines between them and SMRs.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIn the next episode we will talk about future reactor technologies, particularly what are referred to as \"Generation IV\" reactors.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"energy, nuclear, engineering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4584,"date":"2026-02-26","title":"Recording a show, and crappy audio","duration":444,"summary":"Archer72 demonstrates 3 forms of microphones, some better than others.","notes":"\n

    \n\nI record on a couple of earbuds, and a Zoom Essential microphone, and compare audio quality.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nWikipedia : Microphone\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nZoom Essential mic\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nZoom Essential mic specs\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nTozo Open Ear Earbuds with mic\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nSoundcore Open Ear Earbuds with mic\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAxet Audio Recorder : Alternative install F-droid no longer hosts this Android app Original app, now a 404 error\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nAxet Audio Recorder : 404 page\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAxet Audio Recorder : v3.5.23 released 2025-08-16T12:36:09.841Z\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nAxet Audio Recorder : v3.5.23 release page\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nAxet Audio Recorder : v3.5.23 apk file\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nF-droid : Obtainium\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":318,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio, microphone, earbud, wikipedia, F-droid, Obtainium","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4585,"date":"2026-02-27","title":"mpv util scripts","duration":715,"summary":"a collection of hand-written scripts for mpv and explaining how the mpv api works","notes":"\n

    \nsorry about the computer fan i didnt realize how loud it was until after everything was recorded

    \n\n

    \nall scripts are prefixed with a_ for personal organization

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n_a_props.lua

    \n\n
    \nmp.observe_property(\"path\", \"native\", function()\nlocal domain = string.match(mp.get_property_native(\"path\") or \"\", \".*://w*%.*(.-)[:/]\")\nif domain then mp.set_property(\"user-data/domain-path\", domain)\nelse mp.del_property(\"user-data/domain-path\") end\nend)\n\nmp.observe_property(\"playtime-remaining\", \"native\", function (_, tr)\nif tr then mp.set_property(\"user-data/playtime-remaining-seconds\", math.floor(tr)) end\nend)\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \na_aspectratio.lua

    \n\n
    \nlocal targetw = 16\nlocal targeth = 9\nlocal marginerror = 0.1\n\n\nlocal function resetgem()\nlocal dim = mp.get_property_native(\"osd-dimensions\")\nif not dim or dim.w == 0 then return end\nmp.set_property(\"geometry\", dim.w .. \"x\" .. dim.h)\nend\n\nlocal function dimensionhop(_, dim)\nif dim.w == 0 or dim.h == 0 then return end\n\nlocal cd = dim.w / dim.h\nlocal td = targetw / targeth\n\n-- floating points my beloved\n-- checking we're in a good range so it doesnt inf loop\n-- also it updates the geometry field so profile restore can work\nif cd > (td - marginerror) and cd < (td + marginerror) then resetgem(); return end\n\nlocal setw = dim.h * td\nlocal newdim = setw .. \"x\" .. dim.h\nmp.set_property(\"geometry\", newdim)\nmp.osd_message(\"setting \" .. newdim)\nend\n\nmp.observe_property(\"osd-dimensions\", \"native\", dimensionhop)\n\nmp.register_event(\"start-file\", resetgem)\nmp.register_event(\"end-file\", resetgem)\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \na_cover-visualiser.lua

    \n\n
    \nlocal function resolve_missing_cover(domain)\nlocal extico = {\n[\"hub.hackerpublicradio.org\"] = \"https://hackerpublicradio.org/images/hpr_logo.png\",\n[\"yellowtealpurple.net\"] = \"https://yellowtealpurple.net/forums/data/assets/logo/favicon-32x32.png\",\n-- yes using a product picture is silly but so is not featuring your icon ANYWHERE else\n[\"anonradio.net\"] = \"https://sdf.org/store/thumbs/anon3.jpg\",\n[\"hashnix.club\"] = \"default\",\n[\"radio.kingposs.com\"] = \"https://kingposs.com/assets/buttons/PossBadge.gif\"\n}\n\nif domain then\nlocal force = extico[domain]\nif force == \"default\" then return resolve_missing_cover() end\nif force and mp.commandv(\"video-add\", force, \"auto\", \"domainhardcode.png\") then return end\n\nlocal favico = \"https://\" .. domain .. \"/favicon.ico\"\nif mp.commandv(\"video-add\", favico, \"auto\", \"favico.png\") then return end\nend\n\nmp.command(\"video-add ~~/cover.png auto default.png\")\nend\n\nlocal function inject_needed()\nlocal tracks = mp.get_property_native(\"track-list\")\nlocal needed = true\n\nfor _, v in ipairs(tracks) do\nif v.type == 'video' then\nif not v.image then return end\nneeded = false\nend\nend\n\nif needed then resolve_missing_cover(mp.get_property_native(\"user-data/domain-path\")) end\n\nmp.set_property(\"file-local-options/lavfi-complex\",\n\"[aid1] asplit=3 [a0][a1][ao] ; \" ..\n\"[vid1] scale=sws_dither=none:flags=neighbor:w=max(iw\\,256):h=max(iw\\,256):force_original_aspect_ratio=increas\ne:force_divisible_by=8, scale=h=-1:w=720, split=3 [vref0][vref1][vfin] ; \" ..\n\n\"[a0] showfreqs=size=hd720, hue=h=220 [rawfreq] ; \" ..\n\"[rawfreq][vref0] scale=flags=neighbor:w=rw:h=rh/2 [freq] ; \" ..\n\"[a1] showvolume=f=0.5:h=14 [rawvol] ; [rawvol][vref1] scale=flags=neighbor:w=(3*rw)/4:h=-1, geq=p(X\\,Y):a=255\n[vol] ; \" ..\n\"[vfin][freq] overlay=y=main_h-overlay_h [prevo] ; [prevo][vol] overlay [vo] \")\nend\n\n-- mp.register_event(\"start-file\", inject_needed)\n-- mp.observe_property(\"current-tracks/audio\", \"native\", inject_needed)\nmp.add_hook(\"on_preloaded\", 50, inject_needed)\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nmy cover.png (640x480)

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nexample with hardcoded image

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n(notice theres only one volume bar because hpr is mixed to mono)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nexample with favicon detection

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n(youll probably see this one a lot since its the default icon for icecast servers)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nexample with default/no cover

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n(my art!!)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \na_playlist.lua

    \n\n
    \nmp.register_script_message(\"full-clear\", function()\nmp.set_property(\"playlist-pos\", -1)\nmp.command(\"playlist-clear\")\nend)\n\nmp.register_script_message(\"playlist-next-to-last\", function()\nlocal target = mp.get_property_native(\"playlist-pos\")\nif target < 0 then return end\ntarget = target + 1\nmp.osd_message(\"moved \" .. mp.get_property_native(\"playlist/\" .. target .. \"/filename\"))\nmp.commandv(\"playlist-move\", target, 999)\nend)\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \na_rcfill.lua

    \n\n
    \n-- relative cache refill\n-- sets cache-pause-wait based on how fast the playback and download speed is\n\nlocal function set_pause(_, incache)\nif not incache then return end\n\n-- rate of bytes incoming\nlocal ds = mp.get_property_native(\"cache-speed\")\nif not ds then return end\n\n-- rate of bytes consumed * 2\nlocal kbc = (mp.get_property_native(\"audio-bitrate\") or 0) + (mp.get_property_native(\"video-bitrate\") or 0)\nkbc = (kbc/8) * (mp.get_property_native(\"speed\") or 1) * 3\n\nlocal secs = math.min(kbc/ds, 20)\nif secs < 1 then secs = 2 end\n\nmp.set_property(\"file-local-options/cache-pause-wait\", secs)\nmp.osd_message(\"buffering \" .. math.floor(secs) .. \" secs...\")\nend\n\nlocal function jump_to_ecache(amt)\nif not amt then return end\nlocal endtime = mp.get_property_native(\"demuxer-cache-time\")\nif not endtime then return end\nmp.commandv(\"seek\", endtime - amt, \"absolute\")\nmp.osd_message(\"jumped to realtime-\" .. amt .. \"s\")\nend\n\n\nmp.observe_property(\"paused-for-cache\", \"native\", set_pause)\nmp.register_script_message(\"jump-to-ecache\", jump_to_ecache)\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \na_titlebar.lua

    \n\n
    \nmp.set_property(\"user-data/dynatitle-default\", mp.get_property(\"title\") or \"mpv\")\n\n\nlocal function title_update()\nif not mp.get_property_native(\"media-title\") then\nmp.set_property(\"title\", mp.get_property_native(\"user-data/dynatitle-default\"))\nreturn\nend\n\nlocal pl = mp.get_property_native(\"playlist-pos\")\nif pl ~= -1 then pl = mp.get_property_native(\"playlist-count\") - pl - 1 end\n\nlocal tr = mp.get_property_native(\"playtime-remaining\")\nif not tr then\n-- file currently loading\n-- since this is a slow changing value, we can just set this literally\nlocal disp = \"\"\nif pl ~= -1 then\ndisp = \"( \" .. pl .. \" files remaining )\"\nend\nmp.set_property(\"title\", \"loading ${media-title} \" .. disp)\nreturn\nend\n\n\nlocal progress = \"${percent-pos} \"\nif tr < 100 then\nlocal emg = \"-\"\nif pl < 1 then emg = \"-!\" end\nprogress = emg .. \"${user-data/playtime-remaining-seconds} \"\nend\n\nif mp.get_property_native(\"paused-for-cache\") then\nprogress = \"B${cache-buffering-state} \"\nend\n\nlocal netspeed = \"\"\nif mp.get_property_native(\"demuxer-via-network\") then\nnetspeed = \"${cache-speed} \"\nend\n\nlocal domainlabel = \"\"\nif mp.get_property_native(\"user-data/domain-path\") then\ndomainlabel = \"via ${user-data/domain-path} \"\nend\n\n\nmp.set_property(\"title\", \"${?pause==yes:P}\" .. progress .. netspeed .. \"${media-title} \" .. domainlabel)\nend\n\nmp.observe_property(\"percent-pos\", \"native\", title_update)\nmp.observe_property(\"cache-buffering-state\", \"native\", title_update)\nmp.register_event(\"start-file\", title_update)\nmp.register_event(\"end-file\", title_update)\nmp.register_event(\"playback-restart\", title_update)\nmp.add_periodic_timer(5, title_update)\n
    \n\n

    \n\nupdated script\n\n

    \n\nlocal function resolve_missing_cover(domain)\nprint(\"looking for \" .. (domain or \"nil\"))\nlocal extico = {\n[\"hub.hackerpublicradio.org\"] = \"https://hackerpublicradio.org/images/hpr_logo.png\",\n-- yes using a product picture is silly but so is not featuring your icon ANYWHERE else\n[\"anonradio.net\"] = \"https://sdf.org/store/thumbs/anon3.jpg\",\n[\"archives.anonradio.net\"] = \"https://sdf.org/store/thumbs/anon3.jpg\",\n[\"hashnix.club\"] = \"default\",\n[\"radio.kingposs.com\"] = \"https://kingposs.com/assets/buttons/PossBadge.gif\"\n}\n\nif domain then\nlocal force = extico[domain]\nif force == \"default\" then return resolve_missing_cover() end\nif force and mp.commandv(\"video-add\", force, \"auto\", \"domainhardcode.png\") then return end\n\nlocal favico = \"https://\" .. domain .. \"/favicon.ico\"\nprint(favico)\nif mp.commandv(\"video-add\", favico, \"auto\", \"favico.png\") then return end\nend\n\nmp.command(\"video-add ~~/cover.png auto default.png\")\nend\n\n
    \n

    \n\n

    \nI set up a small git repository so i don't have to keep writing comments here when its changed\n
    \nhttps://git.sr.ht/~ccaesap/dotfiles/tree/main/item/mpv/scripts

    \n\n","hostid":454,"series":42,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"mpv,lua,scripting","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4586,"date":"2026-03-02","title":"HPR Community News for February 2026","duration":4332,"summary":"HPR Volunteers Kevie and Ken talk about shows released and comments posted in February 2026","notes":"

    New hosts

    Welcome to our new hosts:
    Vance, not_toby.

    Last Month's Shows

    Id Day Date Title Host
    4566 Mon 2026-02-02 HPR Community News for January 2026 HPR Volunteers
    4567 Tue 2026-02-03 Movie Recommendations for Hackers Deltaray
    4568 Wed 2026-02-04 Book reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll Henrik Hemrin
    4569 Thu 2026-02-05 Kiosk with guest mode on Linux Klaatu
    4570 Fri 2026-02-06 Playing Civilization V, Part 8 Ahuka
    4571 Mon 2026-02-09 Data processing retrospective Lee
    4572 Tue 2026-02-10 Uncommon Commands, Episode 3 - strace Deltaray
    4573 Wed 2026-02-11 Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 6 Thorium Reactors Whiskeyjack
    4574 Thu 2026-02-12 UNIX Curio #0 - Introduction Vance
    4575 Fri 2026-02-13 Making First Contact Ken Fallon
    4576 Mon 2026-02-16 Responce to Lee/Elsbeth eps operat0r
    4577 Tue 2026-02-17 HPR Beer Garden 10 - Scotch Ale/Wee Heavy Kevie
    4578 Wed 2026-02-18 Alex's journey into Amateur Radio thelovebug
    4579 Thu 2026-02-19 Happy by shower Antoine
    4580 Fri 2026-02-20 The First Doctor, Part 4 Ahuka
    4581 Mon 2026-02-23 Sharp Intake of Breath City (A.K.A.) How I learnt to stop worrying about the fork bomb not_toby
    4582 Tue 2026-02-24 Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 1 Honkeymagoo
    4583 Wed 2026-02-25 Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 7 Small Modular Reactors Whiskeyjack
    4584 Thu 2026-02-26 Recording a show, and crappy audio Archer72
    4585 Fri 2026-02-27 mpv util scripts candycanearter

    Comments this month

    These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows. There are 37 comments in total.

    Past shows

    There are 2 comments on 2 previous shows:

    • hpr4562 (2026-01-27) \"Software development doesn't end until it's packaged\" by Klaatu.
      • Comment 1: Steve Barnes on 2026-02-03: \"(Yeah!)\"

    • hpr4564 (2026-01-29) \"MakeMKV error\" by Archer72.
      • Comment 1: candycanearter07 on 2026-02-05: \"regression testing?\"

    This month's shows

    There are 35 comments on 11 of this month's shows:

    • hpr4566 (2026-02-02) \"HPR Community News for January 2026\" by HPR Volunteers.
      • Comment 1: Whiskeyjack on 2026-02-03: \"Community News for January - Scheduling of Episodes\"
      • Comment 2: Ken Fallon on 2026-02-04: \"response to Whiskeyjack\"
      • Comment 3: Whiskeyjack on 2026-02-04: \"response to Ken Fallon - Episode Scheduling Guidelines\"
      • Comment 4: Ken Fallon on 2026-02-04: \"You're right\"
      • Comment 5: candycanearter07 on 2026-02-06: \"my two cents\"
      • Comment 6: Whiskeyjack on 2026-02-06: \"Response to candycanearter07 on episode scheduling\"
      • Comment 7: Ken Fallon on 2026-02-07: \"re \"reschedule shows which don't need to be on a specific date forwards or backwards\"\"

    • hpr4567 (2026-02-03) \"Movie Recommendations for Hackers\" by Deltaray.
      • Comment 1: Kinghezy on 2026-02-03: \"Office space lumbergh\"
      • Comment 2: Antoine on 2026-02-04: \"An attractive invitation to watch\"
      • Comment 3: Henrik Hemrin on 2026-02-04: \"Inspiring recommendations\"
      • Comment 4: ClaudioM on 2026-02-05: \"Awesome Episode!\"
      • Comment 5: Jim DeVore on 2026-02-06: \"Great Show!\"
      • Comment 6: hobs on 2026-02-23: \"Loved the show!\"

    • hpr4569 (2026-02-05) \"Kiosk with guest mode on Linux\" by Klaatu.
      • Comment 1: operat0r on 2026-01-18: \"weee\"
      • Comment 2: candycanearter07 on 2026-02-05: \"very informative!\"
      • Comment 3: Jim DeVore on 2026-02-06: \"I learned some things that I will try out\"
      • Comment 4: candycanearter07 on 2026-02-06: \"RE: I learned some things that I will try out\"

    • hpr4571 (2026-02-09) \"Data processing retrospective\" by Lee.
      • Comment 1: Henrik Hemrin on 2026-02-10: \"Conversation\"
      • Comment 2: Beeza on 2026-02-18: \"A Special Episode\"

    • hpr4572 (2026-02-10) \"Uncommon Commands, Episode 3 - strace\" by Deltaray.
      • Comment 1: Ken Fallon on 2026-01-13: \"My future self thanks you\"
      • Comment 2: candycanearter07 on 2026-02-10: \"fantastic learning and debugging tool!\"
      • Comment 3: Some Guy on the Internet on 2026-02-11: \"It's MAGIC!\"
      • Comment 4: Paulj on 2026-02-18: \"Great Information\"

    • hpr4574 (2026-02-12) \"UNIX Curio #0 - Introduction\" by Vance.
      • Comment 1: brian-in-ohio on 2026-02-12: \"This will be a good series\"
      • Comment 2: Vance on 2026-02-14: \"Thanks, brian-in-ohio!\"
      • Comment 3: Paulj on 2026-02-18: \"Thanks for your first show, and upcoming series!\"

    • hpr4576 (2026-02-16) \"Responce to Lee/Elsbeth eps\" by operat0r.
      • Comment 1: Elsbeth on 2026-01-16: \"Thank you\"

    • hpr4577 (2026-02-17) \"HPR Beer Garden 10 - Scotch Ale/Wee Heavy\" by Kevie.
      • Comment 1: Gan Ainm on 2026-02-18: \"\"Scotch\" Ale from the Baltic Sea\"

    • hpr4578 (2026-02-18) \"Alex's journey into Amateur Radio\" by thelovebug.
      • Comment 1: Archer72 on 2026-02-17: \"Congrats!\"
      • Comment 2: Trey on 2026-02-18: \"Congratulations! \"

    • hpr4579 (2026-02-19) \"Happy by shower\" by Antoine.
      • Comment 1: candycanearter07 on 2026-02-20: \"timing\"
      • Comment 2: Antoine on 2026-02-26: \"Re # 1 -\"

    • hpr4581 (2026-02-23) \"Sharp Intake of Breath City (A.K.A.) How I learnt to stop worrying about the fork bomb\" by not_toby.
      • Comment 1: Archer72 on 2026-02-17: \"First episode\"
      • Comment 2: Trey on 2026-02-23: \"Welcome!\"
      • Comment 3: Steve Barnes on 2026-02-24: \"Potted Plant Emoji\"

    Mailing List discussions

    Policy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This discussion takes place on the Mailing List which is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under Mailman.

    The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

    https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2026-February/thread.html

    Events Calendar

    With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to The LWN.net Community Calendar.

    Quoting the site:

    This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track events of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software. Clicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web page.
    \n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4587,"date":"2026-03-03","title":"UNIX Curio #1 - Shell Archives","duration":728,"summary":"Putting an archive into a self-extracting shell script","notes":"\n
    \nThis is the first column in a series dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nThis month's column was inspired by an \narticle on the \n\n\n\n\nLinux Journal\n\n\n\n\n web site\n\n\n1\n describing a custom-built script that would contain a binary tar archive and, when run, would extract the contents onto the user's system. Upon reading this, memories immediately came rushing back of the days of Usenet, before \nMIME-encoded e-mail made sending file attachments standard\n\n\n2\n, and where we walked ten miles each way to school (uphill both ways!) in three feet of snow.

    \n\n

    \nYes, at that time, you had to put everything into the body of your message. But what if you needed to send a bunch of files to someone? There was \ntar\n, but the format differed between systems, and e-mail and Usenet could only reliably handle 7-bit plain-text ASCII anyhow. You could send separate e-mail messages (but what if one goes missing?) or put \"CUT HERE\" lines to designate where one file ends and another one begins (tedious for the recipient). The solution was a shell archive created by the \nshar\n program. This wraps all your files in a neat shell script that the recipient can just run and have the files magically pop out. All he needs is the Bourne shell and the \nsed\n utility, both standard on any UNIX-like system.

    \n\n

    \nSuppose you had a directory named \"foo\" containing the files bar.c, bar.h, and bar.txt, and wanted to send these. All you'd need to do is run the following command, and your archive is on its way.

    \n\n
    \n$ shar foo foo/* | mail -s \"Foo 1.0 files\" bob@example.com\n
    \n\n

    \nWhen the recipient runs the resulting script, it will create the foo directory and copy out the files onto his system. You can also pick and choose files; if you wanted to leave out bar.txt, you could do \nshar foo foo/bar.c foo/bar.h\n or, more simply, \nshar foo foo/bar.?\n.

    \n\n

    \nDifferent versions of \nshar\n have varying capabilities. For example, the \nBSD\n\n\n3\n and \nOS X\n\n\n4\n editions can only really manage plain-text files. If you had a binary object file bar.o, it'd likely get mangled somewhere along the way if you tried to include it in an archive. They also require, as in the examples above, that you name a directory before naming any files inside it (the typical way is to let the \nfind\n command do the work for you; it produces a list in the right order).

    \n\n

    \nThe GNU implementation is more flexible and can take just a directory name, automatically including everything underneath. It can also handle binary files by using uuencode—a method for encoding data as ASCII that predated the current base64 MIME standard. GNU \nshar\n rather nicely auto-detects whether the input file is text or binary and acts accordingly, and can even compress files if asked. However, unpacking encoded or compressed files from such an archive requires the recipient to have the corresponding decode/uncompress utility, and the \ndocumentation is littered with (now somewhat anachronistic) warnings about this\n\n\n5\n.

    \n\n

    \nLooking at other UNIX systems, \nthe HP-UX version\n\n\n6\n also can uuencode binary files, and as a special bonus adds logic to the script that will compile and use a simple uudecode tool if the recipient doesn't already have one. It will even handle device files and put the corresponding \nmknod\n commands into the script, probably making it the most full-featured implementation of all. IBM's AIX doesn't appear to come with \nshar\n. Neither do SunOS and Solaris, which seems quite odd as original development of the program is \ncredited to James Gosling\n\n\n5\n!

    \n\n

    \nAnd so we bid farewell to \nshar\n. Next time you're considering rolling your own script for a particular purpose, consider whether such a tool might already exist, just waiting on your system for you to use it.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nAdd a Binary Payload to your Shell Scripts\n https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/add-binary-payload-your-shell-scripts
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nMIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One\n https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1521
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nBSD shar manual page\n https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=shar&sektion=1&manpath=4.4BSD+Lite2
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nmacOS 26.2 shar manual page\n https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=shar&sektion=1&manpath=macOS+26.2
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nGNU shar utilities manual\n https://www.gnu.org/software/sharutils/manual/sharutils.html
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\nHP-UX Reference (11i v3 07/02) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)\n https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c01922474&docLocale=en_US
      7. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nThis article was originally written in May 2010. The podcast episode was recorded in February 2026.\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,archive,shar","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4588,"date":"2026-03-04","title":"HPR Beer Garden 11 - Belgian Scotch Ale","duration":1955,"summary":"Dave and Kevie talk about Belgian Scotch Ales.","notes":"\n

    \nDave and Kevie return with another episode of the Beer Garden, this time with a focus on Belgian Scotch Ales. Dave samples \nSilly Scotch\n, whilst Kevie goes for \nMc Chouffe\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4589,"date":"2026-03-05","title":"YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #15","duration":871,"summary":"Part fifteen of my list of subscribed channels","notes":"\n

    With permission of Ahuka the warning about\n the reserve queue was removed to the policy change on the\n mail list https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2026-January/004951.html
    \n

    \n

    I am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing\n them with you.

    \n

    \n Links:

    \n \n

    \n

    ","hostid":198,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"YouTube, Channels, Subscriptions","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4590,"date":"2026-03-06","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 9","duration":857,"summary":"We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.","notes":"

    In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we examine a new feature in Civilization 5, City-States. These are independent cities controlled by the computer that are also players to some degree in the game, and you can interact with them. And they are key to winning a Diplomatic Victory.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 9 - City States

    \n

    This was a newly introduced feature in Civ 5, and they play an important role in the game. They represent the small countries that are not running the world. They do not produce Settlers, so they do not expand beyond the one city, though that city can, and will expand its borders in a similar way to how your cities can grow. They do not start with a military unit, but they can produce military units and defend themselves. They can also build buildings in the city, but not Wonders. They do have a single vote each in the World Congress (or later the United Nations), making them a key to a Diplomatic victory.

    \n

    City States start out neutral with regards to the players, but your interactions with them can affect how they feel about you. For example, if you send units through their territory they will get hostile, but if you give them gifts they will get friendly. And if you wish you can go to war with them and take them over. This will affect your diplomatic relations with other players and other city states, but if you have decided on a war of conquest as your victory type, that won’t matter to you, right? As mentioned, if you want to go for a Diplomatic victory you want to be allied with as many of them as possible to get their votes in the World Congress or the United Nations. But even if you don’t need their votes, there are other benefits from friendly relations. There are two levels to friendly relations: Friendly, and Allied, and the benefits get better as the relations improve.

    \n

    City State Types

    \n

    With the expansions there are 5 types of City State: Militaristic, Maritime, Cultured, Mercantile, and Religious. The benefits you get are:

    \n
      \n
    • Militaristic – If you are friends the city state will periodically gift you a unit, which will appear in your city which is closest to the city state. If you are allies the units will show up more often.
      • \n
    • Maritime – If you are friends they will add two food to your Capital city. If you are allies they will add one more food to every city you have.
      • \n
    • Cultured city states share their culture with you, at one rate if you are friends and at double the rate if you are allies.
      • \n
    • Mercantile city states give you an added 3 Happiness when you are friends. If you are allies you keep the added happiness, but in addition get access to a luxury resource that cannot be obtained any other way, and that also adds Happiness.
      • \n
    • Religious city states give you a one-time bonus of Faith when you first meet them, then provide added Faith per turn.
      • \n
    \n

    Note that Cultured and Religious city states increase the amount of Culture or Faith they provide with each new era, so the earlier you develop your relations with them the better the benefit.

    \n

    Managing Relations With City States

    \n

    There is a mechanism in the game which keeps track of points to define your relations with city states. On this numerical scale, Neutral has a value of 0, Friendly 30 or above, and Allied 60 or above. In the other direction, once you go into negative numbers they become Angry, if if you go negative enough it becomes War. A city state can only ever have one ally. If only one player has more than 60 influence points, that player will become the patron of the city state and they will ally to that player. If two or more players have more than 60 influence points, the player with the most points gets the ally. As the game goes on, you may get a message that a city state you had as an ally has suddenly allied to someone else. This is the result of the other player gaining influence points in some way, often by gifts. You can also gain influence points by promising to protect a city state, but do this with your eyes open. If you do not follow through on your promise it will enrage the city state and you will lose a lot of influence with them.

    \n

    Your influence with a city state has a natural resting point at 0, or Neutral. That means that barring other factors, a positive number will fall over time, and a negative number will rise over time. So if you sent one of your units through their territory they will be angry for a period, but if nothing else happens they will return to Neutral. But on the other side, you don’t stay allied with them forever unless you find ways to keep adding influence points. One way is to eliminate barbarian camps near to the city state. In fact, this is one exception to the rule about sending units through their territory. If you are doing it to attack the barbarians, you are seen as a protector, not an invader, and there is no penalty. Another way to gain influence is by completing a quest from a city state. Each city state you are in contact with will periodically give you a quest, and if you fulfill it you will gain influence points. This can include killing a barbarian camp or killing nearby barbarian units (though you can do that at any time, you don’t need a quest). Some others include acquiring a Great Person of a certain kind, building a certain World Wonder, bullying another city state, finding a Natural Wonder, and so on. You do not need to fulfill a quest. For example, if your strategy calls for allying with other city states, you might want to pass on bullying another city state. There is no penalty for not fulfilling a quest, just a bonus when you do fulfill one.

    \n

    Another way to gain influence is with gifts. The most effective is Gold, and one large sum is more effective than several small ones. For a Diplomatic victory strategy, you should plan on having a large Treasury as you approach the end game so that you can buy allies in time for the crucial vote. You can also gain a small amount of influence points by gifting units. I make it a practice to do this whenever I have units that I don’t want any longer. These could be obsolete units that have no upgrade path, for instance. I don’t want to pay maintenance on them as that is a drain on my Treasury, and I could just delete them, but gifting them to a city state gives me a small amount of influence. Another way to get a big jump in your influence with a city state is to capture and then a return one of their Workers. Most often this happens when a barbarian has captured the Worker, and then you capture it. You have the option of keeping the Worker for yourself, and in the early game I would probably do that because the Worker is so valuable. But at a certain point I have enough Workers, and getting the 45 influence points for returning it starts to be more effective. Remember that you have to keep earning influence points to keep up your relations, so even if you get an ally of a city state for a few turns. it will naturally decay back to Neutral. By around the middle of the game if you playing well you can start to invest the resources needed to maintain your relationships.

    \n

    City States and War

    \n

    If you are allied with a city state and you get into a war with another player, a city state you are allied with will join you in the war. Of course, the same is true for the other player, so the war between the two players could also involve 3-4 city states dragged in as allies. You cannot make peace with a city state while it is allied to a player you are at war with. You have to first make peace with that player (or wipe them out if that suits you). However, if you can get more influence with that city state and supplant the other player you can get that city state to ally with you can turn around and attack your enemy. Generally a large cash gift can do this, once again showing the utility of a fat Treasury.

    \n

    Exploration

    \n

    You cannot have diplomatic relations with a city state you haven’t met, so this reinforces the idea that you have to explore the map as soon as possible. Of course, you have to balance this with other priorities, such as expanding your cities and defending them, but finding the right balance is what all the Civilization games are about. On most maps this means you should be giving some attention to developing your naval power and technologies. There seems to be a bias to city states being coastal, and in many cases they are on small islands. Of course there are a number of motivations for exploring the map. First of all, you need intelligence of what you are up against with the other players. And unless you are on a very large land mass, you will want to find added lands for settlement. Finding Natural Wonders adds to Happiness in your Empire, so finding them all is important. And last, the unexplored sections of the map have a strong tendency to spawn barbarian units against you.

    \n

    Early on you cannot traverse Ocean tiles and need to stick to Coastal tiles. The unit here is the Trireme, which you can build once you discover Sailing. I will usually build 1-2 Triremes in a coastal city to go around the coast of the land mass I am on and scout out the situation. If another land mass or island is sufficiently close I can cross to it without entering an Ocean tile and extend my exploration. But to really explore the whole map you need to get to Caravels. This Renaissance Era unit becomes available when you discover Astronomy, and is essentially a naval scouting unit. It can enter Ocean tiles.

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, diplomacy, City-States","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4591,"date":"2026-03-09","title":"A Bit of Git","duration":853,"summary":"Lee relates the git adventure that occurred while working on a work logging project","notes":"\n

    When attempting to push commits to a remote repository, git rejected\nthe push with an error. The branches had diverged! git status

    \n

    Result:

    \n
    On branch main\nYour branch and 'origin/main' have diverged,\nand have 7 and 1 different commits each, respectively.\n\nThe problem:\n* 79085bb (HEAD -> main) Improve mobile responsiveness for very narrow viewports\n* eec46f5 Improve responsive layout for narrow viewports\n* 79c71eb Fix sync dialog modal instantiation\n* 33fd501 Add markdown rendering to session notes in desktop app\n* 1a119f7 Increase hierarchy panel bottom padding to 9rem in web app\n* c557299 Constrain session notes width with word wrap\n* f2ab785 Add bottom padding to hierarchy navigation panel\n| * 7459345 (origin/main) fix: address bug on Desktop with Sync dialog\n|/\n* c8cc83d Fix routing for Dashboard action after renaming from Index
    \n

    After resolving with git rebase there was a new problem. commit\nmessages contained

    \n
     Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)\n​\nCo-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>\n\nThe solution was to use interactive rebase with --exec to amend each commit:\ngit rebase -i 7459345 --exec 'git commit --amend -m "$(git log --format=%B -n1 | sed -e "/ Generated with/d" -e "/Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet/d" | sed -e :a -e "/^\\n*$/{\\$d;N;ba" -e "}")"'\n\nStill the branches differed\ngit log --oneline --graph --all -12\n* 4205e86 Improve mobile responsiveness for very narrow viewports\n* a5947ee Improve responsive layout for narrow viewports\n* 012a78f Add markdown rendering to session notes in desktop app\n* d5227d2 Increase hierarchy panel bottom padding to 9rem in web app\n* aed5405 Constrain session notes width with word wrap\n* bcc32e8 Add bottom padding to hierarchy navigation panel\n| * 64a4118 Improve mobile responsiveness for very narrow viewports\n| * cbf2c68 Improve responsive layout for narrow viewports\n| * 731eee2 Add markdown rendering to session notes in desktop app\n| * 197fdb8 Increase hierarchy panel bottom padding to 9rem in web app\n| * 09377c9 Constrain session notes width with word wrap\n| * 6714c35 Add bottom padding to hierarchy navigation panel\n|/
    \n

    The solution

    \n

    git push --force

    \n

    Git Commands Reference

    \n

    Here are all the commands used in this adventure, in order:

    \n

    Check current status

    \n

    git status ​

    \n

    Fetch latest from remote

    \n

    git fetch origin ​

    \n

    View commit history graph

    \n

    git log --oneline --graph --all --decorate -15 ​

    \n

    View specific commit details

    \n

    git show origin/main --stat\ngit show 79c71eb WorkLog.Desktop/src/qml/main.qml ​

    \n

    Rebase local commits onto\nremote

    \n

    git rebase origin/main ​

    \nDuring\nconflict: stage resolved files and skip duplicate commit\n

    git add WorkLog.Desktop/src/qml/main.qml\ngit rebase --skip ​

    \n

    Check commit message

    \n

    git show --stat HEAD\ngit log --format=\"%B\" -1 HEAD ​

    \n

    Attempt to filter\ncommit messages (didn’t work)

    \n

    git filter-branch -f --msg-filter 'sed ...' 7459345..HEAD\n​

    \n

    Interactive\nrebase to amend all commits (successful)

    \n

    git rebase -i 7459345 --exec 'git commit --amend -m \"$(git log --format=%B -n1 | sed ...)\"'\n​

    \n

    Verify messages were cleaned

    \n

    git log --format=\"%B\" -1 HEAD\ngit log --format=\"%B\" -1 HEAD~3 ​

    \n

    Force push to update remote

    \n

    git push --force

    \n\n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":104,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"git, llm, rebase, fair-use, dot net, kirigami","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4592,"date":"2026-03-10","title":"Happy by shower # 2","duration":321,"summary":"Other things that make me happy","notes":"\n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nI also happen to be happy when I see my dogs well. They’re both a little old and have had grave sicknesses. One, the girl, is taking medication because of a problem, maybe on the spine, that interferes with walking, but in general both her and the little white male (who almost died because of stone in the ureter at around the pandemic) are today good, and I’m grateful seeing them in this state. And I suffer when they suffer.

    \n

    \nThe hot weather is also more comfortable for them, so, even though we are having \ntoo much hot\n weeks here in Curitiba [Brazil], it’s a soft, nice, weather.

    \n

    \nGenerally I take a cup of coffee on the early morning. Sometimes I give a little run, or go cycling to my duties, without coffee and even without bread. Only then, hours later, I take the coffee and maybe eat something, hours after awake. The exercise, the bath with nothing on the stomach, and, oh, the coffee after (specially the espresso, or american, my current favourite, espresso with hot water), does good, it’s a good feeling outside of the routine.

    \n

    \nI learned to like to share things. I like to share what I judge important. As much as I appreciate doing that, they feel as a burden; an account, or a published content, are like something I’m constantly carrying, that may condemn what I come to be, or may create expectations on others that I can’t fulfil, or are “me in the world”, in a manner that I feel so unsecure. So I feel good, and safe, in erasing everything under my control some time after having created an account or published something.

    \n

    \nI feel well, and it makes me happy, to have a night of sleep in which I don’t wake up more than once. If I wake up early spontaneously, and rested, better yet, good sensation, makes me happy.

    \n

    \nTo be true, when I spend the first time on the morning reading the Bible, with prayer, even when I’m not keen on doing that, man, my head and my body end up being marvellous. Martin Luther, the one of the reform, is said to having said: “I have so much to do that I will spend the first three hours praying”.

    \n

    \nA piece of opinion, unasked, if you’re constantly doing something you think it’s too easy, you may not be doing it right, or you’re not doing the right thing. Let’s see what’s wrong and do the right thing.

    \n

    \nOne last thing that makes me happy is when my swimming pool is clean. It’s been for years now. As with the other facts, it’s good by itself, yeah, but has more meaning as I had many dirty problems with its water, to the point that the neighbours called sanitary authorities. I don’t want to have any more problems in this area, or in any other area of living, but I know now, and have to guide my heart to feel accordingly to what I know, that any problems that arise are to result in my good and good to other people and other living creatures too. So the difficulties, even the hardest ones, can be faced with peace, because I know the future, and being in a bad state will not help in hiking up and overcoming whatever there is here now or right ahead.

    \n

    \nOur posture, our internal condition in doing something, \ncounts much\n together with the external things, visible or invisible, that we do.

    \n

    \nI thank you for listening [reading]. Bye.

    \n\n\n","hostid":441,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"good sensations, happiness","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4593,"date":"2026-03-11","title":"Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 8 Generation Four Reactors","duration":689,"summary":"Future reactor technologies, particularly what are referred to as Generation Four reactors.","notes":"\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n

    \nThis episode is the eighth and final one in an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nIn this episode I will talk about future reactor technologies, particularly what are referred to as \"Generation IV\" reactors.

    \n

    \nSome of these will be simply additional developments of reactors that have already been discussed in this series, but this will show what technologies are seen as most promising today.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n03 What is Generation IV

    \n

    \nGeneration IV International Forum is an international organization whose membership is composed of many of the countries that are researching advanced fission reactors.

    \n

    \nTheir goal is to conduct a number of joint research projects to advance the state of the art.

    \n

    \nThe members agree to participate in and share research on advanced technologies.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n04 Research Subjects

    \n

    \n05 Lead Fast Reactors (LFR)

    \n

    \n08 Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR)

    \n

    \n10 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR)

    \n

    \n13 Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR)

    \n

    \n16 Molten Salt Reactors (MSR)

    \n

    \n19 Super Critical Water Reactors (SCWR)

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n27 Episode Conclusion

    \n

    \nIn this episode we looked at the reactor types being studied under an international organization called the \"Generation IV International Forum\".

    \n

    \nAll of these reactor types except for supercritical water reactors are not new and we have looked at them previously.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nSupercritical water reactors themselves represent the natural evolution of water cooled reactors.

    \n

    \nI expect that many of these research projects will not result in commercially successful results. Such is the nature of R&D.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThe supercritical water reactors would on the surface seem to have the most promise in terms of commercial use, as they focus on bringing two very well established technologies together, water cooled reactors and supercritical water.

    \n

    \nHowever, I'm not an expert in this field, so I'm just making an educated guess on that.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n30 Series Conclusion

    \n

    \nThis is the end of the series on nuclear reactor technology.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nEpisode 1 covered nuclear basics, including basic terminology and civil versus military nuclear material.

    \n

    \nEpisode 2 covered nuclear fuel, including the different types, recycling of spent fuel, uranium and thorium resources, and medical isotopes. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nEpisode 3 covered reactor basics, including slow versus fast reactors, moderators, coolants, steam generation, refuelling methods, and the three main commercial reactor types.

    \n

    \nEpisode 4 covered the less common reactor types, including types which are no longer used, some historical developmental dead ends, and some types which may possibly be making a come back.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nEpisode 5 covered fast reactors, including the different types, some of their history, why they were developed, and why they have so far only seen limited use.

    \n

    \nEpisode 6 covered thorium reactors, including what is thorium and how it differs from uranium, why there is interest in thorium, what sorts of reactors can use thorium, and why thorium has not yet seen widespread use.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nEpisode 7 covered small modular reactors or SMRs, what the reason is for developing them, what are the different ways they may be used, and where they are currently being built.

    \n

    \nEpisode 8 covered \"Generator IV\" reactors which is a collection of future technologies.  

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nI hope that this series has been useful and informative on how nuclear reactors work and what the different types of reactors and different types of fuel are. 

    \n

    \nI have focused on the past and present without looking very much beyond what is already developed except in this final episode.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nI have focused on the reactors, fuel, and medical isotopes, without much discussion of mining, refining, converting, enrichment, fuel fabrication, or disposal. 

    \n

    \nI also haven't talked much about the rest of a functioning power plant, which includes cooling, steam turbines, generators, transformers, control systems, refuelling systems, switch gear, transmission grid connections, grid coordination, and many, many other things.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nAnd of course there's the entire grid itself, a very complex thing when operated at scale. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nNone the less we count on the lights going on when we turn on the light switch while seldom thinking about all the things that go on behind the scenes to make that happen. 

    \n

    \nAs the recent blackout in Spain shows, that is something that we can't take for granted. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nWith plans for \"Net Zero\" amounting essentially to the further electrification of everything, we need reliable sources of electrical energy to make that happen. Without reliable energy available at the touch of a switch, we don't even have a stone age civilization, let alone a modern one. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nSo think about that the next time you turn on the lights or listen to a podcast or do nearly anything else in your daily life. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \nThis concludes the eighth and final episode of an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. 

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"energy, nuclear, engineering","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4594,"date":"2026-03-12","title":"Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 2","duration":6089,"summary":"the hpr community comes together to converse","notes":"\n

    \n\n### Eps 02 Start ###\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAmazon Alexa\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Alexa\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHome Assistant\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Assistant\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.home-assistant.io/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSteelseries: Arctis 9X\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://steelseries.com/gaming-headsets/arctis-9x\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://headphonereview.com/over-ear/steelseries-arctis-9x-gaming-headset-review/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRazer: Nari series\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.razer.com/pc/gaming-headsets-and-audio/nari-family\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://mysupport.razer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3636/~/razer-nari-ultimate-%7C-rz04-02670-support-%26-faqs\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSkullcandy: crusher\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.skullcandy.com/collections/skullcandy-crusher-bass\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAudio-Technica ATH-M50x\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/ath-m50x\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHyperX: cloud\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://hyperx.com/collections/gaming-headsets\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlantronics Headset\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://plantronicsstore.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSkullcandy: Hesh 3® Wireless\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://support.skullcandy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008277374-Hesh-3-Wireless\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCentauri Carbon\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.elegoo.com/pages/elegoo-centauri-carbon\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://us.elegoo.com/products/centauri-carbon?srsltid=AfmBOooFOZ2ms1EDtl2TiIAajyqMjkLFTkPb0hMFzis2PZs8sbdgpfRn\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEnder-3\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.creality.com/products/ender-3-3d-printer\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/official-creality-ender-3-3d-printer\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMonoprice Maker Select V2\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://monopricesupport.kayako.com/article/278-maker-select-v2-manual-quick-start-guide-part-13860\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.treatstock.com/machines/item/237-maker-select\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nbaha GmbH\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.baha.com/?culture=en-US&ts=1768855891246\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHP Elite Mini 600\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/mdp/desktops-and-workstations/hp-elite-mini-600-3074457345617692179--1\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHP 9000\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_9000\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFull Circle Magazine\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://fullcirclemagazine.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMintcast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://mintcast.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPodcatcher\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_podcast_clients\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPodcast addict\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://podcastaddict.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAntenna pod\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://antennapod.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRobinhood: Trading & Investing\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://robinhood.com/us/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nE-Trade is an investment brokerage and electronic trading platform\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://us.etrade.com/home\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDistrohoppers' Digest Podcast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://distrohoppersdigest.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSpotify\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://open.spotify.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSoftware-defined radio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFilk music\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filk_music\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOggCamp 2026\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.oggcamp.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMoss music\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://mordewis.bandcamp.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDiscord\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://discord.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030853132-Server-Folders-101\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBaofeng BF-50\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.baofengradio.com/products/5r-mini\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWtbDtMyqMA\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBaofeng UV-5R Mini Dual-band Radio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.radioddity.com/products/baofeng-uv-5r-mini\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPi Day\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGNU World Order\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://gnuworldorder.info/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSDF Public Access UNIX System\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://sdf.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNetBSD\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.netbsd.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRaspberry Pi 1 Model B+\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-1-model-b-plus/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOpenBSD\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.openbsd.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFreeBSD\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.freebsd.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSomething about \"ports\"?\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/4/html/security_guide/ch-ports\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChapter 4. Installing Applications: Packages and Ports\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/ports/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://freebsdfoundation.org/resource/installing-a-port-on-freebsd/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOpenBSD Ports - Working with Ports [Handbook Index]\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.openbsd.org/faq/ports/ports.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSerenityOS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://serenityos.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SerenityOS\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLadybird is a brand-new browser & web engine.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://ladybird.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUnix\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unix_systems\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUNIX System V\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUNIX V4 tape successfully recovered.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/recovered-unix-v4-tape-quickly-yields-a-usable-operating-system-nostalgia-addicts-can-now-boot-up-unix-v4-in-a-browser-window\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.theregister.com/2025/12/23/unix_v4_tape_successfully_recovered/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNewsboat is an RSS/Atom feed reader for the text console.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://newsboat.org/index.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPodboat\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://man.archlinux.org/man/extra/newsboat/podboat.1.en\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEPR: Terminal/CLI Epub reader written in Python 3.6.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://github.com/wustho/epr\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRuby Programming Language\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.ruby-lang.org/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://rubyonrails.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCrystal is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://crystal-lang.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_(programming_language)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlasma is a Desktop\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://kde.org/plasma-desktop/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nVim is a highly configurable text editor\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.vim.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_(text_editor)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSublime Text\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.sublimetext.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nsed, a stream editor\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.gnu.org/software/sed/manual/sed.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sed\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEnglish punctuation\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_punctuation\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nList of typographical symbols and punctuation marks\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typographical_symbols_and_punctuation_marks\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPluma (text editor)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluma_(text_editor)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://github.com/mate-desktop/pluma\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKate (text editor)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://kate-editor.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_(text_editor)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nVimium\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://vimium.github.io/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://github.com/philc/vimium\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nZen Browser\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://zen-browser.app/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Browser\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nVivaldi\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://vivaldi.com/download/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThunderbird\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUniden\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://uniden.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nArduino\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.arduino.cc/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRaspberry Pi\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.raspberrypi.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlex\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.plex.tv/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nQualcomm to Acquire Arduino\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2025/10/qualcomm-to-acquire-arduino-accelerating-developers--access-to-i\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.arduino.cc/qualcomm\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/qualcomms-buying-arduino--what-it-means-makers/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPerfboard Hackduino\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.instructables.com/Perfboard-Hackduino-Arduino-compatible-circuit/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDIY Arduino\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.instructables.com/DIY-Arduino-UNO-How-to-Make-Your-Own-Arduino-Uno-B/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://docs.arduino.cc/hardware/make-your-uno-kit/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.electronicshub.org/make-your-own-arduino-board/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNotacon\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notacon\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nhak5 / bashbunny-payloads\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://github.com/hak5/bashbunny-payloads\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HPR,community,new years eve show","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4595,"date":"2026-03-13","title":"WATER WATER EVERYWHERE!","duration":1274,"summary":"operat0r talks about various home related water things","notes":"\n

    \nI'm talking about water meters

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"home repair","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4596,"date":"2026-03-16","title":"Adding voice-over audio track created using text to speech on the movie subtitles","duration":1689,"summary":"Ken uses piper to convert srt subtitle files into a new audio track to add to foreign language movie","notes":"

    \nWe’ll explain why we’re doing it, what it is, and cover some useful tools along the way.

    \n

    \nI’ve been watching movies recommended to me by my colleagues.

    \n

    \nAs I work for a global company, the recommendations are often “Foreign Language”, which by definition is every movie to someone.

    \n

    \nIt’s often difficult to read the subtitles, or they are distracting from the acting.

    \n

    \nSo I thought of converting the subtitles to speech for inclusion as an audio track, to produce a Voice Over or Lectoring audio track.

    \n

    \nLectoring aka Voice Over Translations

    \n

    \nFirst used is soviet countries to read the news and propaganda from a lectors - the first podcasts ?

    \n
    \nIn Polish, lektor is also used to mean “off-screen reader” or “voice-over artist”. A lektor is a (usually male) reader who provides the Polish voice-over on foreign-language programmes and films where the voice-over translation technique is used. This is the standard localization technique on Polish television and (as an option) on many DVDs; full dubbing is generally reserved for children’s material.
    \n\n

    \nExample: Night of the Living Dead

    \n

    \nTo give you an idea of what this sounds like I’m going to play you an example of the out of copyright movie, \nNight of the Living Dead\n.

    \n
    \nIn the United States, Night of the Living Dead was mistakenly released into the public domain because the original distributor failed to replace the copyright notice when changing the film’s name
    \n

    \nOriginal

    \n

    \nFirst the original sound track, then the same clip with the voice over track.

    \n\n

    \nVoice Over

    \n\n

    \nProof of Concept

    \n

    \nAs a native English speaker I find it difficult to follow those Voice Over tracks as I am trying to focus on the underlying audio. In discussions with Polish friends, it seems that this is not a problem when Polish is your native language. To put that to the test I wanted to try it out on a movie to see if that were indeed the case.

    \n

    \nI asked on Mastodon for a non English movie that was Creative Commons but did have English Subtitles, and HPR host \nWindigo\nhad the answer.

    \n
    \n\n2009 Nasty Old People\nis a 2009 Swedish film directed by Hanna Sköld, Tangram Film. It premiered on 10 October 2009 at Kontrapunkt in Malmö, and on file sharing site The Pirate Bay. The film is available as an authorized and legal download under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA.
    \n

    \nSo my idea was to take each bit of subtitle text, convert it to audio, then have the generated audio play at the same time the subtitle appears on the screen.

    \n

    \nWe use \npiper\nto process shows here on HPR, and we also generate \nsrt, or SubRip subtitle files\nfor each show.

    \n

    \nSRT or SubRip files are the easiest subtitle file to work with.

    \n

    \nFrom \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubRip\n

    \n

    \nThe SubRip file format is described on the \nMatroska\nmultimedia \ncontainer format\nwebsite as “perhaps the most basic of all subtitle formats.”

    \n

    \nSubRip (SubRip Text) files are named with the \nextension\n\n.srt\n, and contain formatted lines of plain text in groups separated by a blank line.

    \n

    \nSubtitles are numbered sequentially, starting at 1. The \ntimecode\nformat used is hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds with time units fixed to two zero-padded digits and fractions fixed to three zero-padded digits (00:00:00,000).

    \n

    \nThe comma (,) is used for \nfractional separator\n.

    \n
      \n
    1. \nA numeric counter identifying each sequential subtitle
      2. \n
    2. \nThe time that the subtitle should appear on the screen, followed by \n–>\nand the time it should disappear
      3. \n
    3. \nSubtitle text itself on one or more lines
      4. \n
    4. \nA blank line containing no text, indicating the end of this subtitle
      5. \n
    \n

    \nI downloaded \nthe movie from the Internet Archive\n, and then used \nPiper voice\nto convert a minutes worth of subtitles.

    \n
    \npiper_voice: A fast and local neural text-to-speech engine that embeds espeak-ng for phonemization. GPL-3.0 license
    \n

    \nOnce I had the audio prepared for a sample of the subtitles, it was over to audacity to create a new subtitle audio track.

    \n
    \nAudacity is the world’s most popular audio editing and recording app GPL v2 or later,
    \n

    \nTiming the segments would be a problem, if it were not for the fact that Audacity supports srt files as Labels.

    \n

    \nFile > Import > Lables. Then select the srt file

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \nThe subtitle track with the text of the audio will be displayed. I could then Import each Audio segment and line them up with the subtitle track for to get the correct timing.

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nEach subtitles segment created a new separate audio file which I then exported.

    \n

    \nI then used \nKdenlive\nto open the video and import the audio and subtitle tracks.

    \n
    \nKdenlive: is the acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor. It works on Linux, Windows, macOS, and BSD. GPL-3.0-or-later
    \n

    \nThere is a good article on adding \nby Jean-Marc on How to Add Subtitles Easily in Kdenlive\n

    \n

    \nProject > Subtitles > Add Subtitle Track

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nSelect the Subtitle file

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nAlign the subtitle and audio track.

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nAfter rendering the segment out I was satisfied that this was something worth doing.

    \n

    \nThe script

    \n

    \nThe \nscript\ncan be found on the episode page for this show on the HPR site, and I put it together as a proof of concept.

    \n

    \nIt creates a new audio track for the subtitles, and merges this with the original sound track to create a new selectable sound track.

    \n

    \nIt begins by creating a length of silent audio that is as long as up to the first subtitle time segment begin timestamp.

    \n

    \nThe first subtitle segment is converted from text to speech using \nPiper voice\n

    \n

    \nThat segment of audio is added to the initial silence track.

    \n

    \nWe check the total length so far, and then see if there is supposed to be silence between the last and next subtitle segment begin timestamp.

    \n

    \nIf there is, then a filler piece of silence is added until the next subtitle should appear.

    \n

    \nIf not then the audio for both subtitles play immediately after one another.

    \n

    \nI was worried that the subtitle audio would then lag behind the on screen dialogue but it works surprisingly well. Even long series of dialogue sort themselves out after a bit.

    \n

    \nWe do this over and over again for each subtitle, right up to the very end of the movie.

    \n

    \nThis new subtitle to speech audio track is then merged back into the media file as a new audio track.

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n
    \n96\n00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:10,640\nIt will be two years before it's this big\n
    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n
    \n97\n00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:17,840\nBut don't you bother. By then I'll be long gone\n
    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n
    \n98\n00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:22,400\nIt was just a question\n
    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n
    \n99\n00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:25,480\nPorridge?\n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \nOriginal

    \n

    \nFirst the original sound track, then the same clip with the voice over track.

    \n\n

    \nVoice Over

    \n\n

    \nLessons learned

    \n

    \nNow that I have done this for a lot of movies, there a few tips for getting the best output.

    \n

    \nThe creation of the audio track usually goes well, but you can run into issues with the merging of the new track back into the movie.

    \n

    \nPreparation

    \n

    \nThe first thing you need is a subtitle file which will be the basis of the voice you will be listening to. It should be good quality so that it matches when the actors speak.

    \n

    \nIt’s important to clean up this before you use it, fixing spelling mistakes and removing html that will get rendered. Listening to three hours of “I L Zero ve y Zero u”, or “less than forward slash I, greater than”, or “L am from Lndia” can get a bit tedious.

    \n

    \nYou should also try and get versions that translate the songs as well.

    \n

    \nGetting a SRT file from the media.

    \n

    \nAs many Subtitles are taken from a DVDs they can often be poor \nOptical character recognition\nversions of the bitmap-based streams. So a picture of string “Hello World” rather than the letters.

    \n

    \nffmpeg

    \n

    \nBy far the easiest and best way to get the subtitles is to extract it from the movie itself, provided it’s a separate track.

    \n
    \nffmpeg is a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. LGPL-2.1-or-later, GPL-2.0-or-later
    \n\n

    \n\nffmpeg -y -hide_banner -loglevel error -txt_format text -i \"${this_movie_file}\" \"${this_srt_file}\"\n

    \n

    \nGetting a SRT file from the web.

    \n

    \nIf that fails you can try to get the subtitle files from the Internet.

    \n\n

    \nSelect your language with the highest subtitle rating.

    \n

    \nYou can check the media using the \nmpv\nmedia player.

    \n
    \nmpv is a media player based on MPlayer and mplayer2. It supports a wide variety of video file formats, audio and video codecs, and subtitle types. GPLv2+, parts under LGPLv2.1+, some optional parts under GPLv3
    \n\n

    \nName the srt file with the same prefix as the movie and \nmpv\nwill play it. You can also use the \n--sub-files=\noption as well.

    \n

    \n\nmpv \"${this_movie_file}\" --sub-files=\"${this_srt_file}\"\n

    \n

    \nScrub through the file to see if the timing is correct. The subtitles can be toggled using the \nj\nkey.

    \n

    \nFixing Timing issues

    \n

    \nIt’s very important to get the subtitles to align, otherwise the voices will be out of sync.

    \n

    \nWhen the subtitles don’t match up, it’s usually that they need to have the start offset corrected.

    \n

    \n\nffsubsync\nwill automatically try and adjust the offset of the first subtitle to the first use of speech in a movie.

    \n
    \nffsubsync: Language-agnostic automatic synchronization of subtitles with video, so that subtitles are aligned to the correct starting point within the video. MIT license
    \n\n

    \n\npip install ffsubsync\n

    \n
    \nffs video.mp4 -i unsynchronized.srt -o synchronized.srt\n
    \n

    \n\nLosslessCut\nwill allow you to quickly remove additional trailers, or ads, at the beginning, so that ffsubsync will have a better chance of working if they are trimmed away.

    \n
    \nLosslessCut: aims to be the ultimate cross platform FFmpeg GUI for extremely fast and lossless operations on video, audio, subtitle and other related media files. GPL-2.0 license
    \n\n

    \nIf that fails to match up the subtitles, you can use \nmpv keyboard shortcuts\n, move to the first speech segment an then press the \nCtrl+Shift+Left\nand \nCtrl+Shift+Right\nto adjust subtitle delay so that the next or previous subtitle is displayed. It will also show a number giving the miliseconds the delay is, eg \n-148416\nmiliseconds or \n-148.416\nseconds.

    \n

    \nYou can use many tools to adjust the subtitles, and I tried out \nSRT Offset\n.

    \n
    \nsrt-offset: A simple command-line tool to offset SRT subtitle files. This tool allows you to adjust the timing of subtitles in SRT files, which can be useful when subtitles are out of sync with the video. MIT license
    \n

    \n\nsrt-offset -i input.srt -offset -148.416 -o output.srt\n

    \n

    \nManually adding the new subtitle to speech audio track

    \n

    \nIf that presents an issue then you can use \navidemux\nto just add the new audio track.

    \n
    \nAvidemux: is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. GPL V2
    \n

    \nOpen Avidemux, and select “File > Open”, to select the movie.

    \n

    \nThen go to “Audio > Select Track”

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nSelect the next unselected track and tick “Enabled”, “Add Audio Track”

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nThen pick the new mixed track, in this example \n.~NastyOldPeople_mixed.mp3\n

    \n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n

    \nConclusion

    \n

    \nI now find it much easier to watch a movie with the voice over track. It gets to a point where I don’t even notice it is there and just hear the actors speak in their own language, and I just know what they are saying.

    \n

    \nLinks

    \n\n

    \n

    \r","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"voice over, Lectoring,mpv,srt,movie,ffmpeg,kdenlive,audacity,subrip,avidemux,LosslessCut,ffsubsync","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4597,"date":"2026-03-17","title":"UNIX Curio #2 - fgrep","duration":710,"summary":"Searching without regular expressions","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nImagine, if you will, a Jane Austen novel about three sisters. The first is well-known and celebrated by everyone; the second, while slightly smarter and more capable, is significantly less popular; and the third languishes in near-total isolation and obscurity. These three sisters live on any UNIX-like system, and their names are \ngrep\n, \negrep\n, and \nfgrep\n.

    \n\n

    \nWe will assume you are already familiar with \ngrep\n—\negrep\n works pretty much the same, except she handles \ne\nxtended regular expression syntax. (When writing shell scripts intended to be portable, be careful to call \negrep\n if your expression uses \n+\n, \n?\n, \n|\n, or braces as metacharacters. Some versions of GNU grep make no distinction between basic and extended regular expressions, so you may be surprised when your script works on one system but not another.)

    \n\n

    \nBut our subject for today is poor, unnoticed \nfgrep\n. While the plainest sister of the three, she really doesn't deserve to be ignored. The \"f\" in her name stands either for \nf\nixed-string or \nf\nast, depending on who you ask. She does not handle regular expressions at all; the pattern she is given is taken literally. This is a great advantage when what you are searching for contains characters having special meaning in a regular expression.

    \n\n

    \nSuppose you have a directory full of PHP scripts and want to find references to an array element called \n$tokens[0]\n. You can try \ngrep\n (note that the single quotes are necessary to prevent the shell from interpreting \n$tokens\n as a shell variable):

    \n\n
    \n$ grep '$tokens[0]' *.php\n
    \n\n

    \nBut there is no output. The reason is that the brackets have special significance to \ngrep\n; \n[0]\n is interpreted as a character class containing only 0. Therefore, this command looks for the string \n$tokens0\n, which is not what we want. We would have to escape the brackets with backslashes to get the correct match (some implementations may require you to escape the dollar sign also):

    \n\n
    \n$ grep '$tokens\\[0\\]' *.php\nparser.php:   $outside[] = $tokens[0];\n
    \n\n

    \nInstead of fooling with all that escaping (which might get tedious if our pattern contains many special characters), we can just use \nfgrep\n instead:

    \n\n
    \n$ fgrep '$tokens[0]' *.php\nparser.php:   $outside[] = $tokens[0];\n
    \n\n

    \nOne place where \nfgrep\n can be particularly handy is when searching through log files for IP addresses. With ordinary \ngrep\n, the pattern \n43.2.1.0\n would match 43.221.0.123, 43.2.110.123, and a bunch of other IP addresses you're not interested in because the dot metacharacter will match any character. To make sure you only matched a literal dot you'd have to escape each one with a backslash or, better yet, use \nfgrep\n.

    \n\n

    \nBut what about the claim that \nfgrep\n is fast? On GNU systems, there is usually one single binary that changes its behavior depending on whether it is called as \ngrep\n, \negrep\n, or \nfgrep\n. (Actually, this is in line with the \nPOSIX standard\n\n\n1\n, which deprecates \negrep\n and \nfgrep\n in favor of a single \ngrep\n command taking the \n-E\n option for using extended regular expressions and the \n-F\n option for doing fixed-string searches.)

    \n\n

    \nIn testing, we found that when specifying a single pattern on the command line, \nfgrep\n wasn't really any faster than \ngrep\n. However, when using the \n-f\n option to specify a file containing a list of a couple dozen patterns, \nfgrep\n could consistently produce a 20% time savings. On systems where \ngrep\n and \nfgrep\n are different binaries, there can potentially be a more dramatic difference in speed and even memory usage.

    \n\n

    \nIn our hypothetical Austen novel, the neglected sister would probably be driven to a bad end, to be only spoken of afterward in hushed whispers. Don't let that happen! Whenever you need to search for a string, but don't require the power of regular expressions, get into the habit of calling on \nfgrep\n. She can be very helpful and deserves more attention than she gets. You'll save yourself the trouble of worrying about metacharacters and maybe some running time as well.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nGrep specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/grep.html#tag_04_63_18
      2. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nThis article was originally written in June 2010. The podcast episode was recorded in February 2026.\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,grep,egrep,fgrep","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4598,"date":"2026-03-18","title":"Recording good audio using open source tools","duration":2424,"summary":"This is my advice from several years of podcasting and tinkering with audio software.","notes":"\n

    \nHere is some no nonsense advice for recording decent sounding audio using Linux and open-source software!

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSome of my links:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n","hostid":442,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio, foss, linux, podcasting","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4599,"date":"2026-03-19","title":"Women in digital and games event","duration":228,"summary":"Raising awareness of a forthcoming event to encourage more women into digital and games","notes":"\n\n

    Women in Digital and Games

    \n\n

    By Digital and Creative Technologies - West Suffolk College
    \n73 Western WayBury St Edmunds, England
    \nFriday, Mar 27 from 6 pm to 8 pm
    \n

    \n

    \nJoin us in person to celebrate and empower Women in Digital and Games with talks, networking, and fun!\n

    \n

    \nGet ready to connect, learn, and be inspired at this awesome in-person event celebrating amazing women in the digital and games industries. Whether you're a student, professional, or just curious, come hang out, hear stories, and boost your network. Don’t miss out on an empowering evening filled with energy and inspiration!\n

    \n

    \nSource: Eventbrite https://share.google/SXD66BhsftLmQ3Yfx

    \n\n\n\n\r","hostid":430,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Women, digital, games,career,networking ","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4600,"date":"2026-03-20","title":"The First Doctor, Part 5","duration":926,"summary":"A continuing look at the first Doctor Who.","notes":"

    This is a further look at the stories of the First Doctor, portrayed by William Hartnell, during the 1960s.

    \n

    The First Doctor, Part 5

    \n

    The Celestial Toymaker

    \n

    This is a wonderful story, and the Toymaker is another foe many Doctor Who fans wanted to see return, and in 2023 it happened. In the story The Giggle he returned, played this time by Neil Patrick Harris, and it is a very good story. But in this introduction of the character he is played by Michael Gough in a Fu Manchu-like costume, and he has great powers, but is bound by certain rules, which makes this interesting. When the Tardis lands in his world, he sets them games they have to survive to escape. They are games based on children’s games you might be familiar with, but they have a twist. The Doctor is told he must solve the Trilogic puzzle in exactly 1023 moves, and Steven and Dodo must win their games before the Doctor wins his. This story is pure entertainment but very well done.

    \n

    But Hartnell’s decline continued. In this story there are scenes of The Trilogic Puzzle where a hand moves a piece, but it is not Hartnell’s hand, it is another actor. And Hartnell does not appear at all in episodes 2 & 3. Producer John Wiles had a plan to replace Hartnell whose contract was up at the end of the season, but he was over-ruled by BBC Head of Serials, Gerald Savory, who extended Hartnell’s contract, leading to John Wiles quitting the production. Hartnell would continue for now, but something would have to happen eventually.

    \n

    The Gunfighters)

    \n

    This is another historical story, but is embarrassingly bad. It takes the Tardis to Tombstone, Arizona at the time of the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral. Steven Taylor is mostly silly trying to act out childish fantasies of cowboys. The set up comes from the end of the previous story when the Doctor bites into a candy and yells in pain. He needs to see a dentist, and Doc Holliday, aside from being a gunfighter, is a dentist. Mistaken identities happen all over. This is light fluff, but is enjoyable if you give in to the silliness.

    \n

    The Savages)

    \n

    This is another story about who are the bad guys really, similar to Galaxy Four. In this case, Dodo and Steven are captured by what appear to be Stone Age savages. The Doctor, meanwhile, is taken to the city of the Elders, is greeted warmly. It seems they have been following his travels for some time and are great admirers of him. Steven and Dodo are rescued by soldiers from the City, and reunited with the Doctor. Then Dodo slips away and stumbles on experiments being conducted on human beings. So the Elders turn out to be the real Savages here. The lab is destroyed, the two groups decide to live together in peace, but they realize they need a leader who is from neither group and choose Steven to be their leader. So another companion goes. Only Dodo is left.

    \n

    The War Machines

    \n

    This is an “AI gone bad” story. A professor has built a computer to help manage the communications in the new Post Office Tower, which in fact was a new building in London. But the computer turns out to be more than anyone realized. But Doctor gets it right away when the computer correctly gives the meaning of TARDIS. Then it turns out that the computer can hypnotize people and make them its slaves. It does this to several of the professors involved, and has them build the War Machines that will enable it to take over the world. Dodo is hypnotized and tries to trap the Doctor, but he figures it out and restores her, then she is sent away to recuperate. We won’t ever see her again. Meanwhile the secretary to one of the professors, by the name of Polly, and young sailor named Ben, join up with the Doctor, and they defeat the computer. At the end, they realize they have Dodo’s TARDIS key and enter just before it takes off. So now we have two new companions.

    \n

    This is a fun episode. The props are the usual for this time in Doctor Who, cheap. But the writing is good, and story has enough twists and turns to carry you right along. Hartnell was really good in this story despite the problems he was having.

    \n

    The Smugglers

    \n

    This is another historical story, but instead of being based on any particular incident it tells of a general occurrence in English history. The English government chose to support itself primarily through customs duties on imports, which of course created an incentive to avoid those duties by smuggling, and that definitely happened a lot in the Cornwall area. It was also one the issues that started the American Revolution, but that is not our story here. The TARDIS crew encounters a former pirate, now turned church warden, who tells them a secret before being killed by another pirate. Ben and Polly capture a man who they think is the murderer, but he is in fact an undercover Revenue agent, and in the end helps to defeat the pirates. It is a good story, and the most memorable character has to be Cherub, the pirate who murdered the church warden and who kills other people and is very sinister.

    \n

    This is a story where all episodes have been lost, so I had to get it through reconstructions.

    \n

    The Tenth Planet

    \n

    This is Hartnell’s final story, and it takes the TARDIS to Antarctica, where the travelers are taken to the Snowcap base of the International Space Command. They are managing the return of the manned space mission Zeus IV, and everything goes wrong when a new planet appears, dooming the mission. Then we meet the second most memorable enemies of the Doctor, the Cybermen. They explain that they are from the planet Mondas, which is Earth’s twin (hence the Tenth Planet), and need the energy from the Earth to keep their planet going. The General running the base is of course pig-headed and does everything possible to make things worse than they have to be. This adventure turns out to be too much for the Doctor, who explains that his old body is just wearing out, and when they get back to the TARDIS he collapses and starts to change. In the end his replaced by the of Patrick Troughton.

    \n

    Hartnell was becoming increasingly difficult to work with as far back as The Time Meddler, where you could really see him losing his lines, and there are lots of stories about him hiding notes to remind himself of what he was supposed to say. But the BBC didn’t want the show to end, so they did something unprecedented and replaced the lead actor in a popular series. To explain it away, they invented regeneration, something the Doctor’s race could do. We now call them the Time Lords of Gallifrey, but that part did not appear until the end of Troughton’s run as the Doctor. For now, the Doctor was just a member of an unspecified alien race, and the only other member we had met was the Meddling Monk. At least we assume he is of the same race since he has a TARDIS.

    \n

    The First Doctor Era

    \n

    Whatever else you might want to say about Hartnell he created a franchise that has lasted for over 60 years at the time I write this. And after a slow start, he really developed the character and became identified with it. In the beginning he was a very stubborn and unlikable old man, but as the series progressed he mellowed and his humor started to come through even more. Hartnell himself returned to the role one more time in the Third Doctor story The Three Doctors (1973), which was the first time Doctor Who had a story featuring multiple incarnations of the character, in the case the First Doctor (William Hartnell), the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), and the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee). But due to his declining health he has a limited role appearing only on a TV Screen. He passed away in 1975.

    \n

    He was portrayed by Richard Hurndall in another multiple Doctor story, _The Five Doctors_ (1983), which was broadcast for the 20th anniversary of the program during Peter Davison’s run as the Fifth Doctor. In recent times David Bradley has portrayed the First Doctor, particularly in the docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time (2013) which was produced in honor of the 50th anniversary of the program. This show tells the story of the First Doctor and the how the program came together in a dramatic form, and I recommend it highly. Bradley would reprise the role in 2017 in _The Doctor Falls and Twice Upon A Time) where he played opposite Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor, and then again in The Power of the Doctor_ (2022), where he appears alongside other previous Doctors. It is perhaps notable that the first three Doctors, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee, have all passed away, but only Hartnell’s First doctor has been revived so often.

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, William Hartnell","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4601,"date":"2026-03-23","title":"How to be a better writer","duration":599,"summary":"By taking apart large language models' writing style, we can learn to be better writers.","notes":"\n

    \nSome tips on how the text you write can be improved.

    \n\n

    \nWith the pestilence of AI spreading out over the once-human internet, doing what LLMs don't is a pretty good starting point to improve one's own writing.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \nMake mistakes.
      2. \n\n
    2. \nEdit yourself.
      3. \n\n
    3. \nAvoid the tics that are dangerously close to becoming the norm.
      4. \n\n
    \n\n

    \nSee this Wikipedia page, aimed at editors of user submissions:

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing\n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe sections on content, language & grammar, and style are particularly relevant.

    \n\n\n","hostid":415,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"writing, grammar, llm, ai","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4602,"date":"2026-03-24","title":"Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 3","duration":6676,"summary":"the hpr community comes together to converse","notes":"\n

    \n\nBluetooth\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.bluetooth.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSound Core Headsets\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.soundcore.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBaoFeng Mini \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.baofengradio.com/products/5r-mini\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNOAA Weather Channel\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.weather.gov/mob/nwr\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChirp APP\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://chirpmyradio.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHAM Radio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEcholink APP\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.echolink.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nYAGI Antenna\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.everythingrf.com/community/what-is-a-yagi-antenna\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nISS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDry January\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://alcoholchange.org.uk/help-and-support/managing-your-drinking/dry-january\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAPRS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.aprs.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nQuebec\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.quebec-cite.com/en\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChicago\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.choosechicago.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLexington, Kentucky\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.lexingtonky.gov/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIT (Movie series)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://stephen-kings-it-series.fandom.com/wiki/It_(film_series)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/it_2017\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/it_chapter_two\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBurn Notice\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/burn-notice\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBill Skarsgard \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/771821133\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nVillians \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/villains\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBecky (movie series)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/becky_2020\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_wrath_of_becky\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKevin James\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/1148922-kevin_james\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKrampus \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/krampus\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBruce Campbell\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/bruce_campbell\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe Perfect Host\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-perfect-host\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDavid Hyde Pierce\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/david_hyde_pierce\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJohn Dies At The End\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/john_dies_at_the_end\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThis Book Is Full of Spiders\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12924261-this-book-is-full-of-spiders\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe Owners\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_owners_2020\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGames of Thrones\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/game_of_thrones\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMaisy Williams\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/maisie_williams\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSylvester McCoy\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/sylvester_mccoy\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDon't Breath\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dont_breathe_2016\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTerrifier Movie Series\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terrifier\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terrifier_2\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terrifier_3\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nV/H/S Movie Series\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/v_h_s_halloween\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/v_h_s_beyond\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vhs\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vhs94\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vhs99\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/v_h_s_85\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vhs2\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vhs_viral\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLast Christmas\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/last_christmas_2019\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSanta's Slay\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/santas_slay\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nViolent Night\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/violent_night\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n8 Bit Christmas\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/8_bit_christmas\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRare Exports\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rare_exports\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSilent Night, Deadly Night\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silent_night_deadly_night_2025\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCarnage for Christmas\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/carnage_for_christmas\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAll The Creatures Were Stirring\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/all_the_creatures_were_stirring\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFull Circle Weekly News\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://fullcirclemagazine.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTreevenge\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/treevenge_2009\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe Killing Tree (aka Demonic Christmas Tree)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_killing_tree\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBambi The Reckoning\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bambi_the_reckoning\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWinnie The Pooh Blood and Honey\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/winnie_the_pooh_blood_and_honey\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFive Nights At Freddys\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/five_nights_at_freddys\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFive Nights At Freddys 2\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/five_nights_at_freddys_2\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStranger Things\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/stranger_things\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAlien Vs Predator\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/alien_vs_predator\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSnakes On A Train\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/snakes_on_a_train\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLOST\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/lost\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFrom \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/from\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKingfast SSD Drives\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://kingfast-ssd.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFloorp\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://floorp.app/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJellyfin\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://jellyfin.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPrimeval \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/primeval\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nShetland \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/shetland\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFallout\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/fallout\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFallout 4 (viideo game)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://fallout.bethesda.net/en/games/fallout-4\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTwisted Metal\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/twisted_metal\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlaystation \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFarscape\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/farscape\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPeace Keeper Wars\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/farscape_the_peacekeeper_wars\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAltered \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/altered_2025\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFirefly\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/firefly\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRunning Man \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_running_man_2025\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSuits\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/suits\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPeacemaker\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/peacemaker_2022\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTulsa King\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/tulsa_king\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDeadpool and Wolverine\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/deadpool_and_wolverine\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGuardians Of The Galaxy 3\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/guardians_of_the_galaxy_vol_3\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGuardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_guardians_of_the_galaxy_holiday_special\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAll Dogs Go To Kevin (Knoxville)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.dogstokevin.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAtlanta\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://discoveratlanta.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBohdi Linux\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.bodhilinux.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinux Mint\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linuxmint.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFeren OS \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://ferenos.weebly.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMokka \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://dev.to/jliter/garuda-mokka-the-new-distro-for-developers-who-want-power-and-polish-3eif\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMate \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://mate-desktop.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCinnamon\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://thenewstack.io/what-makes-the-cinnamon-desktop-so-appealing/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLittle Ceasars\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://littlecaesars.com/en-us/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJets Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.jetspizza.com/stores/kentucky/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSouth Coast Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://southcoastpizza.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPluribus\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/pluribus/s01\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRick and Morty\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/rick_and_morty\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStadia Controller\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Controller:Stadia_Controller\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSystem 76\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://system76.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPop OS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://system76.com/pop/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nElementry OS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://elementary.io/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFMAN\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://fman.io/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThunarr\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://docs.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/start\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPCMAN FM\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCManFM\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nESP 32 \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://randomnerdtutorials.com/getting-started-with-esp32/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nESP 32 Cheap Yellow Screen\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://randomnerdtutorials.com/cheap-yellow-display-esp32-2432s028r/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGanesh\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hinduamerican.org/blog/5-things-to-know-about-ganesha\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBlack Shirt Bleach (Tie Dye)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.clorox.com/learn/how-to-bleach-tie-dye-patterns/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDischarge Paste for Fabric\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://store.jacquardproducts.com/products/decolourant\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlastisol\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://latem.com/blog/what-exactly-is-plastisol\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPotato / Tapioca Starch\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.unnatisilks.com/blogs/fiber-talk/21850-2\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCorn Starch (garment printing)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.biopacktech.com/Corn-Starch-PLA-Sustainable-Digital-Printing-Design-Clothes-Packaging-pd44247194.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nXanthum Gum\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://thedreamstress.com/2024/04/making-18th-century-buckram-gum-arabica-vs-tragacanth-vs-xantham/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGnu Wolrd Order\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://gnuworldorder.info/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDrawing Fluid (screen printing)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.melissadettloff.com/blog/2023/5/10/drawing-with-drawing-fluid-for-screen-printing-paint-pen-squeeze-bottle-four-tools-tested\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nScreen Filler\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://thediningtablestudio.uk/blog/screen-printing-with-screen-filler-and-drawing-fluid/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhoto Emullsion\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.instructables.com/Photo-emulsion-Screen-Printing/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPHP\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.php.net/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nProton Drive\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://proton.me/drive\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGRUB\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.gnu.org/software/grub/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nArch Linux\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://archlinux.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nProxmox\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.proxmox.com/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAllen Americans Hockey Team\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://allenamericans.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDallas Stars Hockey \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nhl.com/stars/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nArlington, Texas\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.arlingtontx.gov/Home\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDallas, Texas\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://dallascityhall.com/Pages/default.aspx\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKnoxville Ice Bears\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://knoxvilleicebears.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSkrewball Whiskey\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.skrewballwhiskey.com/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFireball\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.fireballwhisky.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDr. McGillicuddys\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://drmcgillicuddy.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGuacamole\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/14064/easy-guacamole/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nInkscape\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://inkscape.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCricut Cutting Machine\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://inkscape.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSouth East Linux Fest\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://southeastlinuxfest.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSeinfeld\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/seinfeld\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSimpsons\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_simpsons\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n24 (TV Show)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/24\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEveangelion\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/evangelion_111_you_are_not_alone\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRobotech\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/robotech\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStarGate\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stargate\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMakeMKV\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.makemkv.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHandbrake\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://handbrake.fr/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe IT Crowd\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_it_crowd_2006\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJimmy Carr\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.jimmycarr.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIT Crowd (American version)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.asteroidg.com/index.php?section=articles&page=20240327_it_crowd_2007_pilot\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIT Crowd (German version)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt1101236/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRed Bull \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.redbull.com/us-en\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLiquid Death (Mountain Water\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://liquiddeath.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDeathwish Coffee\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.deathwishcoffee.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFanta\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/brands/fanta\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOrange Crush\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.crushsoda.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMezzo Mix\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://germanfoods.org/shop-german-foods/mezzo-mix-cola-orange-soda-in-can-11-2-oz/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLiquid Death (energy drinks)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://liquiddeath.com/products/scary-strawberry\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLiquid Death (iced teas)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://liquiddeath.com/products/variety-tea\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTang\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mondelezinternational.com/our-brands/tang/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKool Aid\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.kraftheinz.com/kool-aid\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTrue Citrus\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.truecitrus.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HPR,community,new years eve show","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4603,"date":"2026-03-25","title":"On the Erosion of Freedom in Open Source Software","duration":1051,"summary":"I discuss recent events and an unfortunate discovery while attempting to compile software.","notes":"\n

    \nDISCLAIMER: \"Hill willing to kill on\" is an idiom. I do not condone or tolerate open calls for violence and want to make this very clear here. Due to the incredibly unfortunate nature of the topic at hand, I have also taken the liberty to mark this episode as explicit.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis episode was recorded while I had some short downtime. There are filler phrases and pauses throughout. I apologize in advance.

    \n\n\n","hostid":420,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"freedom, licensing, principled, law, state","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4604,"date":"2026-03-26","title":"Quick Tips for January 20 26","duration":845,"summary":"Quick Tips for January 20 26","notes":"

    It's going to be pretty short, I'm going to go through my quick\ntips. Looks like I've got enough to kind of do a little short\nepisode for you guys. Quick tips are basically just, you know,\nkind of things that I think about, that add value, kind of like\nthose stupid viral videos on social media where they show, like\nhow to make a pancake with a square, like it, you know.

    \n
      \n
    • Prevent messiness when making Matcha
      • \n
    • Baking soda and super glue to get an epoxy type of seal.
      • \n
    • "Tile batter pad on top of speaker in middle" - even operat0r has no clue !
      • \n
    • How to blowing out a candle
      • \n
    • Request for more shows on rsync inspired by hpr4341 :: Transferring Large Data Sets sent in by hairylarry
      • \n
    • How to make a foam machine
      • \n
    • Fixing garden chairs by replacing the Vinyl straps
      • \n
    • How to use a Fabric belt
      • \n
    • YTDLnis Full Featured Downloader using yt-dlp, available on F-Droid
      • \n
    • Use a wet paper towel over Microwave food.
      • \n
    • Use binder clips instead of chip clips
      • \n
    • Things To Get Me since Amazon got rid of their add arbitrary item to wish list feature.
      • \n
    \n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"quick tips,diy","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4605,"date":"2026-03-27","title":"Lee locks down his wifey poo","duration":505,"summary":"Lee and Elsbeth get hitched","notes":"\n

    \nTwo geeky people, both HPR hosts, decide to sign on the dotted line and do the darn thing and get married.

    \n\n\n","hostid":446,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Wedding, marriage, gummibears, porcupines, lifelong happiness, nod to Heinlein","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4606,"date":"2026-03-30","title":"My Nerdy Childhood: From Floppy Disks to Dial-Up Dreams","duration":930,"summary":"Trollercoaster talks about his childhood and first years of nerdlyhood","notes":"\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

    \n It all started at \n Flanders Technology International in 1987... a tech\n expo where an eleven-year-old watched a wooden block move across a\n desk and an arrow follow it on screen. That was it. That was the\n moment. He \n had to have a computer with a mouse.

    \n

    \n What followed was a story of after-school showroom squatting,\n summer jobs, game piracy, a modem bill that nearly gave his\n parents a heart attack, and an education in computing that no\n school could have provided.

    \n

    \n From the \n Amstrad PC1512 and the GEM windowing system, to the\n Schneider Euro PC with its infamous \n Turbo button that turned Ms. Pac-Man into a half-second\n blur — this episode is a love letter to the glorious chaos of home\n computing in the late 1980s.

    \n

    \n Along the way: the satisfying clatter of a \n matrix printer\n , the dark arts of \n config.sys and \n autoexec.bat\n , \n Digger\n , the allure of the \n Commodore 64\n , forbidden floppy disks at computer club, a 2400-baud modem, and\n the very first taste of online community — long before anyone\n called it the internet.

    \n

    \n The computers

    \n \n

    \n Play the games

    \n
      \n
    •  Digger — play in your browser
      • \n
    •  Ms. Pac-Man — play in your\n browser
      • \n
    •  Samantha Fox Strip\n Poker (C64)\n
      • \n
    •  Leisure Suit Larry —\n Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places — play in your\n browser
      • \n
    \n

    \n

    \n \n","hostid":433,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"childhood, humor, nostalgia","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4607,"date":"2026-03-31","title":"UNIX Curio #3 - basename and dirname","duration":788,"summary":"Pulling apart filenames","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nHopefully it doesn't seem like I'm picking on \nLinux Journal\n, but like UNIX Curio #1 (HPR4587), this column has been inspired by \nan article of theirs\n\n\n1\n. The author was demonstrating a clever \nbash\n script that would take a filename and send the file to standard output or, if the filename ended in .gz, decompress it and send the result to standard output. Slightly rearranged, he had:

    \n\n
    \nF=`echo $1 | perl -pe 's/\\.gz$//'`\nif [[ -f $F ]] ; then\n  cat $F\nelif [[ -f $F.gz ]] ; then\n  gunzip -c $F\nfi\n
    \n\n

    \nHe took some heat on the web site and in letters to the magazine for cranking up a whole Perl interpreter just to chop the .gz off the end of a filename. Our curio for today is a standard UNIX utility made for just this purpose called \n\n\nbasename\n\n\n\n\n2\n. Along with its brother \n\n\ndirname\n\n\n\n\n3\n, it is used to pull apart pathnames to get the part you want. What \nbasename\n does is remove any leading path on the name given to it, and if a suffix is specified as well, removes that also. If a directory path with a trailing slash is given, it returns the last part with no slashes. Here are some examples:

    \n\n
    \n$ basename /bin/gzip\ngzip\n$ basename /bin/gzip .so\ngzip\n$ basename /usr/lib/libz.so .so\nlibz\n$ basename /usr/lib/\nlib\n
    \n\n

    \nThe counterpart, \ndirname\n, does essentially the opposite. It removes the last part of the pathname and returns a directory name (with no trailing slash):

    \n\n
    \n$ dirname /usr/lib/libz.so\n/usr/lib\n$ dirname /usr/lib/\n/usr\n$ dirname file_in_this_dir\n.\n
    \n\n

    \nSo we can replace the first line of the script up top with \nF=`dirname $1`/`basename $1 .gz`\n, get the same result, and be sure it will work on any UNIX-like system, no Perl necessary. The more observant among you may be thinking \"\nsed\n could do that, too!\" and you're right; \nF=`echo $1 | sed 's/\\.gz$//'`\n also would work anywhere.

    \n\n

    \nOne might suspect that as a general-purpose text processor, \nsed\n would be slower than \nbasename\n and \ndirname\n. To see how they compared, we ran each method against a randomly-generated list of 5,000 filenames. Turns out the critics were right, as Perl ran the longest at 59 seconds. Using \nbasename\n/\ndirname\n took 44 seconds—a nice improvement, but \nsed\n blew past it at 34 seconds. Probably the fact that only one call to \nsed\n was needed versus two for \nbasename\n and \ndirname\n made the difference.

    \n\n

    \nHelpful suggestions in response to the article revealed a shell curio. You may have seen the brace syntax for parameters. For example, to show a filename $F with an \"X\" appended, you can't use \necho $FX\n because that means a parameter named \nFX\n. Instead, you'd use \necho ${F}X\n and the shell only interprets what's inside the braces as the parameter name.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nModifiers can also go inside the braces\n\n\n4\n and one of these, %, is just what we need to chop off that extension. This works in \nbash\n, \nzsh\n, and any shell conforming to the current POSIX standard, but not \ncsh\n and friends or older implementations of the Bourne shell. We can rewrite the first line of the original script as simply \nF=${1%.gz}\n and forgo any outside utilities. Performance? Under half a second to process those 5,000 filenames. Not bad at all.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nTreating Compressed and Uncompressed Data Sources the Same\n https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/treating-compressed-and-uncompressed-data-sources-same
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nBasename specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/basename.html
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nDirname specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/dirname.html
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nShell Command Language: Parameter Expansion\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06_02
      5. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nThis article was originally written in July 2010. The podcast episode was recorded in March 2026.\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,filenames","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4608,"date":"2026-04-01","title":"Simple Podcasting - Episode 1 - Preparation and Recording","duration":1388,"summary":"This episode is the first in an 4 part series on simple podcasting covering Preparation and Recordin","notes":"

    \nSimple-Podcasting

    \n\n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n

    \nThis is the first episode in a four part series on a simple way to create your own HPR podcast episode.

    \n\n\n

    \n02

    \n

    \nIf it sounds contradictory to have four episodes on a simple subject, you only actually need the first episode to see how to create podcasts.

    \n

    \nThe remaining episodes are on steadily more complex subjects, with the later ones being more in the realm of gratuitous hackery for the fun of it.

    \n\n\n

    \n03

    \n

    \nI am fairly new to podcasting. I have done an HPR episode on Oathtool, another on the UCSD P-System, and an 8 part series on nuclear power.

    \n

    \nPrior to this I have never done a podcast before.

    \n

    \nDespite that, a number of people wrote into HPR to say that they really liked what I did.

    \n

    \nThis means that you too can make a first podcast and have other people find it very interesting.

    \n\n\n

    \n04

    \n

    \nSince I am fairly new to this, I thought I would document how I went about it for the benefit of anyone who wants to do the same.

    \n

    \nThis describes things from the perspective of someone who is very new to this sort of thing.

    \n\n\n

    \nLater on I will get into some more advanced topics and then finish off with some blatant gratuitous hackery like how to use Libre Office Calc or GNU Octave in place of an audio editor for some things.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n05 Initial Hurdles

    \n

    \nThere were several hurdles to get over before I could record an episode though.

    \n

    \nThe most obvious one to me was that I'm not the sort of person who can simply babble into a microphone.

    \n

    \nThat meant that I needed to have a way of recording things that would let me exclude pauses and repeat sentences that I had messed up.

    \n\n\n

    \n06

    \n

    \nHowever, since I was new to podcasting, I didn't know how to use an audio editor such as Audacity.

    \n

    \nAfter a bit of thinking though I came up with a very simple solution to that which I will get into a bit later in this episode.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n07 Picking a Topic

    \n

    \nWith the recording process solved, the next thing to do was to find something to talk about.

    \n

    \nThe key to this is to have some place to keep notes.

    \n

    \nI use a note taking program for this, called Zim.

    \n\n\n

    \n08

    \n

    \nThere are other programs which do something similar, but Zim is the one that I use.

    \n

    \nWhenever I came up with an idea of a topic, I would add a note for it.

    \n

    \nWhenever I came across any information relevant to one of the topics, I added it to the note.

    \n\n\n

    \n09

    \n

    \nYou might think that you don't know of anything interesting, but the fact is that a lot of the rest of us are fairly sad individuals who are just as boring as you are and so find things like verbal tours through obsolete and obscure operating systems to be quite fascinating.

    \n\n\n

    \n10

    \n

    \nI am sure that you too know something obscure but equally interesting.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n11 Writing a Script

    \n

    \nOnce you have a topic, the next thing is to write a script.

    \n

    \nIf you are good at talking off the cuff, then all you may need is an outline.

    \n

    \nIf you are like me however, then you will need to write down exactly what you are going to say in a way which you can read back later.

    \n\n\n

    \n12

    \n

    \nIn this case, start with an outline and fill in the detail after the outline is written.

    \n

    \nAgain, I use Zim for writing my scripts.

    \n

    \nIt provides a simple way of organizing my scripts as I am putting them together.

    \n

    \nIt also provides character and word counts so I can estimate how many minutes of material that I have.

    \n

    \nWhen I started I decided that I should target about 10 to 20 minutes for the length of an episode.

    \n

    \nThat's a personal decision and not something you need to follow for yourself, but it gives me a guideline to work to.

    \n\n\n

    \n13

    \n

    \nAs a rule of thumb I find that if I multiply the character count by 0.0011, that gives me the approximate number of minutes of audio when recorded.

    \n

    \nYour own number may differ from this, but it's a good starting point to work from.

    \n

    \nIf you think the episode is getting too long, don't worry. You can split it up into multiple episodes.

    \n\n\n

    \n14

    \n

    \nOnce you have the script written and have, if necessary, split it into separate episodes, start numbering the paragraphs.

    \n\n\n

    \nThis is related to the recording method, which I will go into more detail later.

    \n\n\n

    \n15

    \n

    \nEach paragraph or section should be equivalent to 30 seconds to a minute of audio.

    \n

    \nIf you are just starting out in podcasting, this may be roughly how much you are comfortable with recording without pausing to collect your thoughts or stumbling over what you are saying.

    \n

    \nWe will knit these sections together with a very simple bit of software later.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n16 Recording Equipment

    \n

    \nYou will need some sort of recording equipment.

    \n

    \nWhile some people may talk about using a phone or an MP3 player with record function, or something like that, I'll stick with recording onto a PC.

    \n\n\n

    \n17

    \n

    \nMy recording equipment consists of a Maxwell headset with headphones, boom mic, and USB connection.

    \n

    \nThere is no part number on it and can't identify it further than that.

    \n

    \nThe cost was probably around $20.

    \n

    \nSimilar ones sell for $5 to $35, depending on where you buy it.

    \n

    \nI already had this, so I didn't have to go out and buy it when I decided to make a podcast.

    \n\n\n

    \n18

    \n

    \nA boom mic, that is a microphone that is on an arm attached to the headset, is good because it keeps the microphone at a consistent distance from your mouth without any effort.

    \n\n\n

    \n19

    \n

    \nThe disadvantage of the particular model that I have is that there is noise in the signal, which you can hear in my first two podcast episodes.

    \n

    \nDespite the noise, people still liked the episodes so don't get too hung up on audio quality.

    \n

    \nI will talk later about how to fix noise issues like this by filtering.

    \n

    \nHowever at this point I am just going to stick to the basics.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n\n

    \n20 Recording Software

    \n

    \nFor recording software, I used Gnome Record on Ubuntu.

    \n

    \nThis is licensed under GPLv2 or later.

    \n\n\n

    \n21

    \n

    \nIs very basic

    \n

    \nThe only options are to select the file format, and select stereo or mono

    \n

    \nThe sample rate for flac is fixed at 44.10 kHz, which is what HPR wants.

    \n\n\n

    \n22

    \n

    \nIf you are using different software, possibly on another operating system, the principles are the same.

    \n

    \nThere are probably equivalents which you can find if you look for them.

    \n

    \nPerhaps you or other listeners could make an HPR episode recommending one.

    \n\n\n

    \n23

    \n

    \nWhen using Gnome Record, use the menu located in the upper right of the window bar, which has three small horizontal lines as an icon.

    \n

    \nSet the preferred format to FLAC.

    \n

    \nSet the audio channel to mono.

    \n\n\n

    \n24 Recording

    \n

    \nGet comfortable at your desk.

    \n

    \nGet a cup of tea ready as your throat may get dry.

    \n

    \nSet up the hardware.

    \n\n\n

    \n25

    \n

    \nIf using a boom mic on a headset, adjust the mic so that it is roughly at chin level.

    \n

    \nAvoid putting a boom microphone directly in front of your mouth. You should speak over the top of the boom microphone, not directly at it. This will prevent you from breathing on the microphone, causing noise problems.

    \n\n\n

    \n26

    \n

    \nIf you have a different type of microphone, you may have to experiment a bit using short test recordings to find the optimal position.

    \n\n\n

    \n27

    \n

    \nUsing your recording software, make a test recording and listen to it.

    \n

    \nIf it is too quiet and the input volume is already up all the way, we can adjust this later with software.

    \n\n\n

    \n28

    \n

    \nIf the test recording sounds OK though, then you are ready to start.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n29 Recording using Gnome Sound Recorder

    \n

    \nI will now describe how to use Gnome Sound Recorder.

    \n

    \nIf you are using different software the details may be different, but the basic principles should be similar.

    \n

    \nUsing the mouse, click on the \"Record\" button.

    \n

    \nIt will start recording, showing the waveform of the recording as it goes.

    \n\n\n

    \n30

    \n

    \nTo stop recording, click on the square \"stop\" icon that appeared at the bottom.

    \n

    \nGive the recording a name, using a numbering system starting at 01.

    \n

    \nTo accept the recording, click on the check mark button on the right.

    \n

    \nTo save the recording, click on the down pointing arrow on the right.

    \n

    \n31

    \n

    \nThe file name will default to the name of the recording which we just gave it.

    \n

    \nThe numbers should match the paragraph numbers in your script.

    \n

    \nThe recording will be saved as a flac file in your home directory. there is no option to save it anywhere else and you will need to move it to your preferred destination manually.

    \n

    \n32

    \n

    \nYou can now delete the copy of the recording which Sound Recorder keeps by clicking on the garbage can on the left. This does not affect the copy on your disk. You will want to delete these extra copies as you go along, as there's no easy way to do this later and an extra copy of the recordings will accumulate in a dot directory somewhere and take up space.

    \n

    \n33

    \n

    \nIf you make a mistake or are otherwise dissatisfied with that paragraph, just delete the file and record it again.

    \n

    \nKeep the pauses at the start and end of each audio segment equivalent to normal pauses between words. This is actually fairly easy to do.

    \n

    \nWhen you are done you may have anywhere between 2 and 4 dozen separate flac files.

    \n\n\n\n\n

    \n34 Using the keyboard shortcuts with Gnome Sound Recorder

    \n

    \nHere are the two most useful keyboard shortcuts for Gnome Sound Recorder.

    \n

    \nPress Ctrl - R to start recording.

    \n

    \nPress \"S\" to stop recording.

    \n

    \n35

    \n

    \nYou still need to use the mouse to click on the check mark button to accept the recording.

    \n

    \nThere are supposedly keyboard shortcuts to save the recording to disk and to delete the recording, but these don't seem to work, at least not in version 43.beta on Ubuntu 24.04

    \n

    \nStarting and stopping via keyboard shortcuts is still useful however.

    \n\n\n

    \n36

    \n

    \nYou can use other software, and I will talk later in another episode about using command line software such as ffmpeg to record.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n37 Tips on Recording

    \n

    \nIf you are new to podcasting or just are not good at making long speeches, keep each recording segment short, a minute or less being a good target.

    \n

    \nIf you stumble over what you are trying to say, don't worry, just repeat the recording for that section.

    \n

    \n38

    \n

    \nTalk clearly in even, measured tones at a reasonably constant volume.

    \n

    \nRemember who your audience are.

    \n

    \nThey are people who are listening to your podcast while they are doing housework, or gardening, or driving a car, or walking down a street, or taking some exercise.

    \n

    \nVery few will be sitting at a desk in a quiet room like you are when you are recording.

    \n

    \n39

    \n

    \nTry to make sure that what you are saying comes across clearly.

    \n

    \nIf the loudness of your voice varies too much, they won't be able to hear you in the quiet parts.

    \n

    \nThe worst thing to do is to trail off into an imperceptible mumble at the end of each sentence.

    \n

    \nListeners will not be able to follow you if you do that and may give up trying to listen to your episode.

    \n\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n40 HPR Audio File Requirements

    \n\n\n

    \nHPR episodes are mono, not stereo.

    \n

    \nIf you send in a stereo file, they will convert to mono.

    \n

    \nHowever, you may wish to convert to mono yourself for the purposes of better duplicating the final result when you review your own work.

    \n\n\n

    \n41

    \n

    \nThe easiest way to create a mono recording is to record it as mono in the first place, if your recording software has this option.

    \n

    \nIf you are using Gnome Sound Recorder, there is a setting for this.

    \n

    \nI described how to set Gnome Sound Recorder to mono just a few moments ago.

    \n\n\n

    \n42

    \n

    \nIf your software doesn't have a mono option, or if you have already recorded it and now wish to convert to mono, you can use ffmpeg to do the conversion.

    \n\n\n

    \nffmpeg -i stereosample.flac -ac 1 monofile.flac

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n43 Alternatives to Gnome Sound Recorder

    \n\n\n

    \nAn alternative to Gnome Sound Recorder is KDE Recorder.

    \n

    \nThis is also available as a snap on Ubuntu.

    \n

    \nThe license is GPL-2.0-or-later.

    \n\n\n

    \n44

    \n

    \nHowever, I found it to be a bit more difficult to use than Gnome Sound Recorder.

    \n

    \nSelecting the microphone source was difficult.

    \n

    \nIt shows several sources rather than just taking what the OS says is standard.

    \n

    \n45

    \n

    \nThis may be because it is a KDE app running on Gnome. Perhaps this is easier if you are using KDE.

    \n

    \nEvery time I unplugged my headset and plugged it back in, it added more audio sources to its list.

    \n

    \nNone of them worked however until I selected the correct one, exited the program, and then started it back up.

    \n

    \n46

    \n

    \nAll files are saved to the Music directory, there is no choice offered.

    \n

    \nAudio format selection is more difficult, it being a two step process.

    \n

    \nThere was no option for mono recordings, only stereo.

    \n

    \nFlac recordings were 48 kHz rather than HPR's preferred 44.1 kHz. Converting this would require more post-processing using audio software to change it.

    \n

    \n47

    \n

    \nIt seems to offer no advantages over Gnome Sound Recorder on Ubuntu, while making selecting sound sources more difficult.

    \n

    \nIf you are using a Gnome desktop you are better off with Gnome Sound Recorder.

    \n

    \nHowever, it is all a matter of personal preference, and if you find that you like KDE Recorder better, then go ahead and use it.

    \n\n\n

    \n48 Other Alternatives

    \n

    \nThere are of course still other alternatives.

    \n

    \nMany people recommend using Audacity to record.

    \n

    \nHowever, I don't know how to do that, and the premise of this podcast episode is that you have something you would like to make an HPR episode but are put off by the difficulty of learning how to do so.

    \n

    \n49

    \n

    \nHowever, Audacity is a very capable audio program and I have nothing against it.

    \n

    \nI will describe how to use a feature in Audacity to help overcome an audio problem that I encountered, but I will save that for another episode.

    \n\n\n

    \n50

    \n

    \nAs well as GUI programs, there are also programs which allow you to record audio from the command line.

    \n

    \nI will describe a couple of these in another episode.

    \n

    \nIf you are wondering why you may want to use a command line program for this purpose, one of the advantages of this is that it lets us write scripts which automate the recording process and eliminate some of the manual steps that I outlined above.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n51 Combining the Segments into a Single Audio File

    \n\n\n

    \nAt this point you will have recorded your podcast episode as a series of several dozen flac files.

    \n

    \nWe will now stitch the separate flac files into a single file.

    \n

    \nWe do this using either ffmpeg or sox.

    \n\n\n

    \n52 FFMPEG and Sox

    \n

    \nFFMPEG is a set of command line programs for converting and manipulating audio and video files.

    \n

    \nVarious parts are licensed under the LGPL V 2.1 or later, and GPL v 2 or later.

    \n\n\n

    \n53

    \n

    \nSox is also a set of command line programs, but for audio only.

    \n

    \nSox stands for Sound Exchange.

    \n

    \nSox is licensed under similar terms as FFMPEG.

    \n

    \nIn fact Sox actually uses FFMPEG for certain operations.

    \n\n\n

    \n54

    \n

    \nFor our purposes here, with one exception you can do everything audio related with either FFMPEG or Sox, except for one thing which I will get to in another episode. That one is related to doing some gratuitous hackery when analyzing audio files, so it may be irrelevant to anything you need to do.

    \n\n\n

    \nSince the two are more or less equivalent for our purposes, I will provide examples using both.

    \n\n\n

    \n55 Combining Audio Segments

    \n

    \nThe best way to combine multiple audio segments is with a simple shell script.

    \n

    \nA copy of this will be in the show notes.

    \n\n\n

    \n56 Using FFMPEG

    \n

    \nDoing this with FFMPEG requires just two lines.

    \n\n\n

    \n# First create the list file.

    \n

    \nprintf \"file '%s'\\n\" [0-9][0-9].flac > podseglist.txt

    \n\n\n

    \n57

    \n

    \nThis first line creates a file called \"podseglist.txt\" which contains a list of all the two digit numbered flac files in the current directory, together with some other necessary text.

    \n

    \nI have assumed you wish to give these files two digits. Add more digits out if you feel this is necessary.

    \n

    \nThe file name \"podseglist.txt\" is purely arbitrary and you can use whatever name you wish.

    \n\n\n

    \n58

    \n

    \nNow we need to concatenate the files.

    \n

    \n# Now concatenate them

    \n

    \nffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i podseglist.txt fullpod.flac

    \n\n\n

    \nThe second line calls ffmpeg, tells it to perform a concatenation operation, turning the multiple files listed in \"podseglist.txt\" into one and saving it in a file called \"fullpod.flac\".

    \n\n\n

    \n59 Using Sox

    \n

    \nThe Sox version is simpler.

    \n\n\n

    \nsox [0-9][0-9].flac fullpod.flac

    \n\n\n

    \n60

    \n

    \nThis will concatenate all the two digit numbered flac files in the current directory into one file called \"fullpod.flac\".

    \n\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n61 Review the Combined Audio File

    \n

    \nNext you need to review your combined audio file.

    \n

    \nListen to the resulting file.

    \n

    \nIf you are satisfied with it, you are done recording and are ready to upload.

    \n

    \nIf you are unhappy about some part of it, you can re-record just that section and run the combining script again. The numbers in your script will help you find the appropriate file.

    \n

    \n62

    \n

    \nThe people running HPR will worry about adding the introductory and concluding music, converting it to mono if it is currently stereo, and adjusting the output level to make the volume consistent with other HPR episodes.

    \n

    \nIf there are noise problems that you want to try to correct I will cover that in another episode in this series.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n63 Prepare the Show Notes

    \n

    \nYou will need to have a few things ready when you go to upload your episode.

    \n

    \nThese are the title, summary, tags, and show notes.

    \n

    \nThe title should be something short but descriptive.

    \n

    \nIf this episode is part of a series, you probably want to use a consistent title and include an episode number.

    \n

    \n64

    \n

    \nNext, you need a summary. This is a brief description of what the episode is about. Try to be clear about what it is you will be talking about.

    \n

    \nHowever, there are limits on the length of the summary. The limit was 100 characters at the time that I was writing this.

    \n

    \n65

    \n

    \nThe title and summary will be automatically added by HPR to the beginning of your episode, so put some thought into what you write here.

    \n

    \nThe title and summary are read out by a text to speech program, so avoid difficult abbreviations or words that the software may not know how to pronounce.

    \n

    \n66

    \n

    \nNext you will need to pick some tags. These are used for search purposes. I will let someone else recommend how you should pick tags.

    \n

    \n67

    \n

    \nNext, you need to have show notes.

    \n

    \nIf you have written a script, you can simply copy-paste the whole thing into the show notes.

    \n

    \n68

    \n

    \nAt one time there was a limit on the size of the show notes, but that limit was removed recently.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n69 Uploading the Episode

    \n

    \nI will let someone else describe the process of uploading the audio file and associated title, summary, and show notes.

    \n

    \nHowever, you will need to have an email address ready to use as part of that process, so if you have multiple email accounts you need to settle on which one will be used as your HPR contact address.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n70 Conclusion

    \n

    \nThe preceding is how I created my first two podcast episodes, which were on Oathtool and the UCSD P-System operating system.

    \n

    \nPlenty of people wrote in to say that they liked them.

    \n

    \nNobody complained about the quality of my narration or the technical quality of the audio.

    \n

    \nYou should be able to do the same.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n\n

    \n71 Further Episodes in this Series

    \n

    \nI have covered the basics, but there is more that we can do to improve the audio quality if you are so inclined or if you encounter an audio problem. In further episodes in this series I will cover the following:

    \n

    \n72

    \n

    \nBasic filtering with FFMPEG and Sox to cover general cases. It's a good idea to use this sort of basic filtering on your audio whether you notice any problems or not.

    \n

    \n73

    \n

    \n\"De-essing\" to improve perceived voice quality slightly in order to overcome sound artifacts inherent to using at least some microphones.

    \n

    \n74

    \n

    \nNormalizing audio to adjust the sound levels for easier reviewing.

    \n

    \n75

    \n

    \nAnalyzing the audio signal with Audacity to discover the characteristics of any noise problems that you may hear.

    \n

    \n76

    \n

    \nAdvanced filtering with with FFMPEG and Sox so solve specific problems such as I had with my headset or which you may have with environmental noise such as fans.

    \n

    \n77

    \n

    \nCommand line recording and playing of audio using FFMPEG and Sox. This can help automate the process by automatically numbering the small audio files which are part of the recording process which I have described.

    \n

    \n78

    \n

    \nI promised some gratuitous hackery, and I will provide it in the form of describing how to do audio spectrum analysis using Libre Office Calc spreadsheets and GNU Octave mathematical software in place of Audacity when troubleshooting audio problems.

    \n\n\n

    \n79

    \n

    \nThis concludes the first episode in a four part series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n\n
    \n

    \nScripts for this episode.

    \n\n\n
    \n\n#!/bin/bash\n# First create the list file.\nprintf \"file '%s'\\n\" [0-9][0-9].flac > podseglist.txt\nffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i podseglist.txt fullpod.flac\n\n
    \n
    \n
    \n\n#!/bin/bash\nsox [0-9][0-9].flac fullpod.flac\n\n
    \n
    \n\n\r","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio recording,sox,ffmpeg","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4609,"date":"2026-04-02","title":"Proper Date Format","duration":439,"summary":"There is only one logical date format","notes":"\n

    \nThis is about how dates are formatted, and I demonstrate that the ISO 8601 Format is the only logical one to use, and will make your life easier if you learn to use it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSomething you quickly run into if you correspond with people in both the U.S. and Europe, which I have done over my career as well as in my personal life, is that we don’t write dates the same way. If you think March 14th is Pi day because in the U.S. it is written as 3/14, people in most of Europe will wonder why you think there is a 14th month to the year. And if you want to make a joke about May 4th, as in “May the fourth be with you”, it is 5/4 in the U.S., and 4/5 in most of Europe. And it can be even more complicated once you drag in the rest of the world. There is simply no uniformity. You can see this with this page at \nWikipedia\n. And we are not even consistent in how we talk about dates. In the U.S. we might well say “May 4th”, and that does indeed match how we write dates. But then we will insist that our independence day is the “Fourth of July”, almost like we are not a British colony any longer, but let’s use their date format for one of our most important dates.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn my experience, each side thinks the other is a bit odd, but regards it as a harmless eccentricity. But which side is correct in this? The answer, of course, is neither. The one absolutely correct date format has been defined, and you can find it in the \nISO 8601\n standard. The correct date format is YYYY/MM/DD, because that puts the elements of the date in a logical order. Why is this the logical order? Well, suppose you were filing documents by date. Would you start by putting all of the documents from the 4th day (without regard to month or year) into a group? Or would you first collect all documents for a given year? Now, you might argue that filing documents is something people don’t do as much of these days. We have computers and digital documents, we don’t need any filing cabinets. But that only strengthens my argument, as you can easily verify. For example I am writing this on February 13, 2025. If I use a date code for my digital file, and I make it 02132025, what happens if I later on create file on January 6, 2026? That would then be 01062026. Try this, and you will see that in your file manager 01062026 will appear before 02132025, because all computers treat the significance of digits from left to right.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nBut if you follow the ISO 8601 standard, the most significant part of the date is on the left, and all of your files will be in order. And once you get used to it, your life is easier. An example of this is photos. My wife and I like to travel, and we take a lot of photos using our smart phones. And every photo we take uses date/time stamp as part of the file name, and the dates all follow the ISO 8601 standard. So I can easily sort my photos in the order in which they were taken. And since I have over 13,000 photos in my Flickr Pro account, a little help with sorting them is really nice. I now use this format not just for digital file names, but for most of my dating purposes. It just makes sense.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLinks

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Date Format","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4610,"date":"2026-04-03","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 10","duration":1096,"summary":"We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.","notes":"

    In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we three key ideas: Great People, Trade, and Empires/Civilizations.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 10 - Great People

    \n

    Gaining Great People

    \n

    You earn Great People by accumulating Great Person Points (GPP). Each type of Great Person has its own type of GPP, and they are earned independently, so you can easily accumulate points for several different types of Great People at the same time. You can earn these points through specialists, through Wonders, and through Social Policies. While you can accumulate points towards any and all Great People, you should focus on ones that fit your game strategy. If you are going for a Domination victory, you should focus on Great Generals and Great Admirals in preference to Great Artists and Great Musicians. But if you are going for a Culture victory you might want to reverse that. That is not to say you won’t gain a few random other Great People along the way, just that you should know what you are trying to achieve. And Great Generals and Great Admirals are a little different in that you earn them by winning battles.

    \n

    Types of Great People

    \n
      \n
    • Great Artist – Can start Golden Age, or create Great works
      • \n
    • Great Musician – Can do Concert Tour (+Tourism), or create Great Works
      • \n
    • Great Writer- Can write a Political Treatise (+Culture), or create Great Works
      • \n
    • Great Engineer – Can hurry production (including Wonders). Can create Manufactory
      • \n
    • Great General – combat bonus to units within 2 tiles, or steal land when creating a Citadel
      • \n
    • Khan – Unique to Mongolia, replaces Great General, moves faster and heals adjacent units, and can create Citadel
      • \n
    • Great Merchant – Trade Mission (+Gold and +Influence with a city state). Create Customs House
      • \n
    • Merchant of Venice – Unique to Venice, replaces Great Merchant. +100% Gold and +100% Influence from Trade Mission, or can puppet a City-State. Can create Customs House
      • \n
    • Great Scientist – Can Hurry Research, or create Academy
      • \n
    • Great Admiral – Combat bonus to naval units within 2 tiles. Can repair adjacent naval and embarked units
      • \n
    • Great Prophet – Can Found or enhance Religion, can spread Religion, or can create Holy Site
      • \n
    \n

    Every type except Great Admiral can create something, but that uses up the Great Person. And the main action for each also uses up the Great Person (e.g. do a Concert Tour, Hurry Production, etc.). So you need to consider which one works best for you. As a general rule, compare which option pays off the best. For example, if it is early in the game and you get a Great Scientist, creating an Academy will give you science points per turn that will pay off over the whole game. But once you hit the mid-to-late stages the one time hit of science points from Hurry Research makes more sense because you don’t have the time left for the per-turn bonus from an Academy to add up. And if there is a key Wonder you need to make your strategy works, keeping a Great Engineer on hand to hurry it up can pay off very nicely. This is the only way to Hurry Production on a Wonder.

    \n

    Trade

    \n

    In Civilization V, the amount of Gold you earn from terrain is much lower, so the path to a full treasury requires that you set up Trade Routes. You have limited number of Trade Slots available, but that limit grows over time. You can earn slots two ways. The first is through discovering techs:

    \n
      \n
    • Ancient Era: Animal Husbandry, Sailing
      • \n
    • Classical Era: Engineering
      • \n
    • Medieval Era: Compass
      • \n
    • Renaissance Era: Banking
      • \n
    • Industrial Era: Biology
      • \n
    • Modern Era: Railroad
      • \n
    • Atomic Era: Penicillin
      • \n
    \n

    So just from keeping up your research you can get up to 8 Trade Routes. In addition, the Wonders Colossus and Petra each provide an additional Trade Route.

    \n

    You can establish trade route with your own cities, with City-States, and with other Empires. Trade routes are always city-to-city, and are limited by distance, so it can make sense sometimes to move your trade unit to a different city. The city that produced the unit will always be where it shows up first, but you can make a move on its first turn to transfer the unit to another city, though note that Cargo Ships can only be placed in coastal cities. This can bring a desired destination city within range. Note that for land units (Caravans) you can increase the range by building roads.

    \n

    Effects of Trade

    \n

    Trade is generally pursued for the gold, but there can also be Science, Culture, and Religious effects, so it is worth paying attention here. Even if Gold is the main object, you may have several options that provide equivalent amounts of Gold, and a potential gain of Science or Culture might be the tie-breaker, depending on your strategy for victory. If you establish a trade route with a City-State, you can receive Gold, provide religious pressure to convert them to your religion, and gain influence with them, This can be very helpful if you are going for a Diplomatic Victory, But I would not accept a large difference in Gold just for that minor Influence gain. You can gain far more influence with Gold in long run. Setting up trade between your own cities can be helpful in giving a boost to a city because you can send Food and Production. In the earlier phases of the game that might be a good idea to get a city up to full development. The city where the route originates does not lose Food or Production, but some added amount shows up in the destination city. However, for Food trade to happen you need to have a Granary in each city, and for Production you need to have a Workshop in each city.

    \n

    Plundering

    \n

    Trade routes can be plundered by Empires you are at war with, or more often, by Barbarians. When that happens, the route disappears, and you need to build another trade unit and set up another route.

    \n

    Empires/Civs

    \n

    There are 43 possible Civilizations in Civ 5, so I don’t propose to discuss all of them in depth here, but if you want to dive into this more you can go to the Civ Wiki for a chart that shows them all. Instead, I want to discuss why they are different and how you should make choices depending on the Victory type you are choosing. Of course, if you let the game make the choice for you randomly, knowing what each Civ is good for can help you to determine what type of strategy to pursue for your best chance of a victory.

    \n

    The first thing to know about each Civ is that they have a starting bias for where they will spawn at the beginning of the game. This can be either positive or negative, i.e. you are either more likely to spawn in certain terrain, or less likely to spawn in certain terrain. England, which is a naval power, will be biases to spawn on the Coast. Whereas Egypt, a famously desert country, will have a negative bias to avoid Jungle or Forest locations.

    \n

    Second, all Civs have one or more Unique Abilities. For example, the Carthaginians have two abilities that come from history. The first is Phoenician Heritage, which means that all Coastal cities get a free Harbor. And once they have earned a Great General, their military units can cross Mountain tiles, and they are the only ones that can do this. And the French have the City of Light ability, which grants doubled theming bonuses for Museums and wonders that are in the Capital.

    \n

    Third, each Civ has a Unique Unit. These units replace one of the regular units in the game, but are enhanced in some way. Spain has two of these. The first, the Tercio, replaces the Musketman, but it has a +50% bonus against mounted units and an increased Melee strength, making it a combination of Musketman and Pikeman. The other unit, the Conquistador replaces the Knight, but it has some interesting abilities. It can move after attacking if it still has movement points, embarked units have double defense, it can see two tiles further, and has no penalty when attacking cities. Finally, the Conquistador unit can be use to establish a city, though that uses up the unit.

    \n

    Finally, most (but not all) Civs have Unique Building or Improvement. As with units, these tend to replace ordinary buildings/improvements but offer something better. Arabia, for instance, has the Bazaar, which replaces the Marketplace. But it provides an additional 2 Gold per turn more than the Marketplace, it adds one additional copy of each improved luxury resource near the city, and provides +2 Gold for each Oasis and each source of Oil.

    \n

    What you need to consider is how each of these unique attributes of a Civ will fit in to your strategy. And timing matters. The American Unique Unit of the B-17 Bomber is nice, to be sure, but comes very late in the game. It probably won’t help you conquer the world. But the Roman units of the Ballista and the Legion are excellent for an early campaign of conquest. For a Trade-oriented strategy, Portugal is excellent, as all of its Unique attributes help with generating Trade and Gold. And Gold is the key to many possible paths to victory. So keep these points in mind as you plan your strategy. And to illustrate all of the things we have been discussing in the Civilization V series, I will play a game where I aim for a Diplomatic Victory.

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, Great People, Trade, Empires","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4611,"date":"2026-04-06","title":"HPR Community News for March 2026","duration":3643,"summary":"HPR Volunteer Ken talks about shows released and comments posted in March 2026","notes":"

    New hosts

    \n

    \nThere were no new hosts this month.\n

    \n\n

    Last Month's Shows

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    IdDayDateTitleHost
    4586Mon2026-03-02HPR Community News for February 2026HPR Volunteers
    4587Tue2026-03-03UNIX Curio #1 - Shell ArchivesVance
    4588Wed2026-03-04HPR Beer Garden 11 - Belgian Scotch AleKevie
    4589Thu2026-03-05YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #15Ahuka
    4590Fri2026-03-06Playing Civilization V, Part 9Ahuka
    4591Mon2026-03-09A Bit of GitLee
    4592Tue2026-03-10Happy by shower # 2Antoine
    4593Wed2026-03-11Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 8 Generation Four ReactorsWhiskeyjack
    4594Thu2026-03-12Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 2Honkeymagoo
    4595Fri2026-03-13WATER WATER EVERYWHERE!operat0r
    4596Mon2026-03-16Adding voice-over audio track created using text to speech on the movie subtitlesKen Fallon
    4597Tue2026-03-17UNIX Curio #2 - fgrepVance
    4598Wed2026-03-18Recording good audio using open source toolsShane - StrandedOutput
    4599Thu2026-03-19Women in digital and games eventDave Hingley
    4600Fri2026-03-20The First Doctor, Part 5Ahuka
    4601Mon2026-03-23How to be a better writerenistello
    4602Tue2026-03-24Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 3Honkeymagoo
    4603Wed2026-03-25On the Erosion of Freedom in Open Source SoftwareHopperMCS
    4604Thu2026-03-26Quick Tips for January 20 26operat0r
    4605Fri2026-03-27Lee locks down his wifey pooElsbeth
    4606Mon2026-03-30My Nerdy Childhood: From Floppy Disks to Dial-Up DreamsTrollercoaster
    4607Tue2026-03-31UNIX Curio #3 - basename and dirnameVance
    \n\n

    Comments this month

    \n\n

    Past shows

    \n\n

    This month's shows

    \n\n

    Mailing List discussions

    \n

    Policy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This\ndiscussion takes place on the Mailing List\nwhich is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open\nand available on the HPR server under Mailman.\n

    \n

    The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

    \nhttps://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2026-March/thread.html\n\n

    Events Calendar

    \n

    With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to\nThe LWN.net Community Calendar.

    \n

    Quoting the site:

    \n
    This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track\nevents of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software.\nClicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web\npage.
    \n\n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4612,"date":"2026-04-07","title":"Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 4","duration":6757,"summary":"the hpr community comes together to converse","notes":"

    \n\nAldi\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.aldi.us/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDoes Aldi's Summit Diet Cola Contain Aspartame?\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.thedailymeal.com/1465489/does-aldi-cola-contain-aspartame/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAspartame and Other Sweeteners in Food\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/aspartame-and-other-sweeteners-food\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8227014/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSugar: THE BITTER TRUTH\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHow to Make Up Comebacks when Somebody Calls You Fat\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.wikihow.com/Make-Up-Comebacks-when-Somebody-Calls-You-Fat\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSwimming With Men - You Calling Me Fat?\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbD_sk0ih0g\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\"Weird Al\" Yankovic - Fat (Official Video)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mU6USTBRE\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSam's Club\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.samsclub.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n3rd Rock from the Sun\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Rock_from_the_Sun\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nInterstate Highway System\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHistory of the Interstate Highway System\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://highways.dot.gov/highway-history/interstate-system/50th-anniversary/history-interstate-highway-system\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.gbcnet.com/ushighways/history.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.history.com/articles/interstate-highway-system\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.historicushighways.com/history-of-us-highways\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://vividmaps.com/evolution-interstate-highway-system/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF16uDPGi14\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n99% Invisible\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://99percentinvisible.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99%25_Invisible\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDevhack is a Queer-focused hackerspace\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://wiki.hackerspaces.org/%E2%88%95dev/hack\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://devhack.net/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBeyond The Exit\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/@BTE4172/videos\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAmtrak\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amtrak.com/home\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPalmer Raids\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMumble project\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mumble.info/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinuxLugCast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linuxlugcast.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nn scale piedmont northern boxcar\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/scale-kadee-piedmont-northern-40-1840448079\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nN scale\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_scale\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHO scale\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HO_scale\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRail transport modelling scales\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_modelling_scales\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNavy Pier\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Pier\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://navypier.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe IT Crowd\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IT_Crowd\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0487831/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nA Christmas Story\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Story\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDie Hard\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://theconversation.com/nine-reasons-why-die-hard-really-is-a-christmas-film-173801\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe Fifth Element\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Element\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFootloose\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footloose\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTom Cruise's Couch Jump\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://people.com/tom-cruise-couch-jump-on-oprah-is-20-years-old-11737728\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCruise control\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_control\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBlind spot monitor\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_monitor\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKenworth T680\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.kenworth.com/trucks/T680/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze05NW6UJOE\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKnight Rider\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Rider_(1982_TV_series)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KITT\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChristine (King novel)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_(King_novel)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSWAT\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe Blues Brothers (film)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blues_Brothers_(film)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSpeed limits in the United States\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HPR,community,new years eve show","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4613,"date":"2026-04-08","title":"Adding functionality to an Odoo installation","duration":1190,"summary":"Learn how to download and install extra Odoo apps not yet available on your system","notes":"\n

    \nA show about downloading and installing extra Odoo addons.

    \n\n

    \nThere are 18780 lines of Python code in the core of Odoo (18)

    \n\n

    \nThe standard set of available apps are usually installed in /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/odoo/addons/

    \n\n

    \nTake note of the Linux File Hierarchy Standard

    \n\n

    \nSo install your own stuff somewhere under /usr/local.

    \n\n

    \nFor this show we standardize on /usr/local/lib/python3/odoo/addons

    \n\n

    \nBut some use /opt/odoo.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEdit /etc/odoo/odoo.conf and add:

    \n\n

    \naddons_path = /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/odoo/addons, /usr/local/lib/python3/odoo/addons

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFind extra apps for example in: https://apps.odoo-community.org/shop

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFirst example:

    \n\n

    \n\"Web Responsive\", \"https://github.com/OCA/web/\", subdirectory \"web_responsive\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNext go to:

    \n\n

    \nMenu->Settings->Enable developermode->Goto Apps app->Update list of apps: to scan for all apps

    \n\n

    \nInstall the app you just installed in /usr/local/lib/python3/odoo/addons

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSome more apps:

    \n\n

    \n\"Web No Bubble\" ,\"https://github.com/OCA/web/\", subdirectory \"web_no_bubble\"

    \n\n

    \n\"Remove odoo.com Bindings\", \"https://github.com/OCA/server-brand/\", subdirectory \"disable_odoo_online\"

    \n\n

    \nTo unhide accountancy: https://github.com/OCA/account-financial-tools/tree/19.0/account_usability

    \n\n

    \nTo add a helpdesk: https://apps.odoo-community.org/shop/helpdesk-management-4839

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWant more support? : jeroen@jeroenbaten.nl

    \n\n\n","hostid":369,"series":126,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"odoo, erp, application","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4614,"date":"2026-04-09","title":"Dauug|18: Faster Than a '286, but Inspectable Like a Soroban","duration":2226,"summary":"What would MacGyver build when he can't trust complex VLSI? I don't know, so here's what I'd build.","notes":"

    In this show, Marc Abel presents an introduction to Dauug|18, an 18-bit controller developed by The Dauug House. About the size of a postcard, Dauug|18 avoids the use of complex VLSI such as microprocessors, FPGAs, PLDs, ASICs, and DRAM. Instead, the architecture is built from trivial glue logic and synchronous static RAM, using components that can be hand-soldered and verified for connectivity after assembly.

    \n

    The motivation for Dauug|18 is to provide refuge in situations where transparency, auditability, and supply chain integrity are priorities. Rather than relying on high-integration silicon, Dauug|18 is auditable at the logic-gate level, allowing owners to verify the integrity of their hardware.

    \n

    This show covers key architectural details, the decision to use SRAM for both memory and logic, and system constraints that stem from Dauug|18's brutal simplicity, limited component selection, and succinctness. The practical effect of these constraints on programming Dauug|18 is also discussed in detail.

    \n

    Anticipated uses for Dauug|18 include privacy assertion, critical infrastructure, and curricula for fields relating to computer engineering.

    \n

    Files supplied with this show include a short PDF of Dauug|18 architectural details, as well as word-accurate, spell-checked subtitles and their matching transcript.

    \n

    More information, technical documentation, and updates on related projects like Dauug|36 can be found at https://dauug.org.

    \n","hostid":443,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY","tags":"Dauug|18, Dauug|36, solder-defined computers, transparently functioning computers, cybersecurity","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4615,"date":"2026-04-10","title":"Clicking through an audit","duration":3478,"summary":"Lee complies with a company audit by clicking 'next' a lot","notes":"\n

    \n\nISO 27001\n

    \n

    \n\nfrom Wikipedia.org:\n

    \n

    \n\nISO/IEC 27001\n is an \n\ninformation security standard\n\n. It specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving an \n\ninformation security management system\n\n (ISMS). Organizations with an ISMS that meet the standard's requirements can choose to have it certified by an \n\naccredited certification body\n\n following successful completion of an \n\naudit\n\n.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n\nInformation security audit\n

    \n

    \n\nfrom Wikipedia.org:\n

    \n

    \nAn \ninformation security audit\n is an \n\naudit\n\n of the level of \n\ninformation security\n\n in an organization. It is an independent review and examination of system records, activities, and related documents. These audits are intended to improve the level of information security, avoid improper information security designs, and optimize the efficiency of the security safeguards and security processes.

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n\nFactors contributing to cybersecurity fatigue\n

    \n

    \nSource: Adapted from Factors contributing to cybersecurity fatigue by L. J. J. S. (2024), Abertay University.

    \n

    \nAvailable at: \n\nhttps://rke.abertay.ac.uk/en/publications/factors-contributing-to-cybersecurity-fatigue/\n\n

    \n

    \nIn cloud-based environments, the push for high-security standards often leads to \"cybersecurity fatigue,\" which creates unintended psychological strain on employees.

    \n
      \n
    • \nConstant interruptions from repetitive access requests.
      • \n
    • \nOverload of security checks and decision fatigue.
      • \n
    • \nLack of clear understanding regarding actual cybersecurity risks.
      • \n
    \n

    \n\nImpact on Behavior\n

    \n
      \n
    • \nFatigue frequently leads to negative outcomes, including the bypassing of security protocols, abandonment of necessary tasks, and total disengagement from mandatory training.
      • \n
    \n

    \n\nKey Concept\n

    \n
      \n
    • \nThe study highlights \"attitudinal fatigue\" (an employee's negative mindset toward security) as a major barrier to organizational resilience and compliance.
      • \n
    \n

    \n\nStrategic Recommendations:\n

    \n
      \n
    • \nTransition to \"contextualized training\" that uses relatable, real-world scenarios.
      • \n
    • \nStreamline security workflows to minimize disruption to daily productivity.
      • \n
    • \nDevelop targeted interventions.
      • \n
    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n\nNational Institute of Standards and Technology\n

    \n

    \n2011 Report: \n\nInformation Security Continuous Monitoring (ISCM) for Federal Information Systems and Organizations\n\n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n\n\n(Tangentially\n) related Episodes\n

    \n\n

    \n
    \n

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"information security, audit","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4616,"date":"2026-04-13","title":"Thoughts about age control and further suggestions","duration":645,"summary":"Big Deborah interviews Trollercoaster, who is an avid fan of implementing Age Control.","notes":"\n

    \n \n HPR EXCLUSIVE: THE INTERVIEW THAT WILL SAVE CIVILIZATION (OR AT\n LEAST YOUR KITCHEN DRAWER)\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n Hopper sits down with the legendary Trollercoaster for a\n completely serious policy discussion with absolutely zero\n sarcasm whatsoever\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Tired of living in a world where ANYONE can just... open a drawer?\n Where CHILDREN can casually access spatulas and spicy condiments\n without proving their age to a licensed algorithm? Where your VCR\n doesn't run a background check before spooling up a tape?

    \n

    \n WELL, WORRY NO MORE.

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n In this landmark interview, visionary tech policy thinker \n Trollercoaster lays out the roadmap to a safer tomorrow\n — one age-verified gunshot wound at a time. Topics covered\n include:

    \n
      \n
    • \n \n System 76's courageous capitulation — actually a 5D\n chess move to manufacture the next generation of hackers by\n making Linux mildly annoying again
      • \n
    • \n \n Two-factor authentication for firearms — SMS-based\n triggers considered, reluctantly rejected (reception is bad at\n most crime scenes)
      • \n
    • \n \n GPS injections at birth — like circumcision, but for\n helicopter parents. Kids won't remember. Probably.
      • \n
    • \n \n Kitchen-as-a-Service (KaaS™) — powered by Microsoft,\n mandated by your government, billed monthly, support tickets\n routed to Bangalore
      • \n
    • \n \n Biannual maturity exams — because some people's\n brains start \"deteriorating\" and they end up making sarcastic\n podcasts that lawmakers might accidentally take seriously
      • \n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n The liability framework is elegant in its simplicity: if anything\n bad ever happens to anyone, \n sue the manufacturer\n . Philips. IKEA. Smith & Wesson. Your kitchen. It doesn't\n matter. Someone made a thing, someone got hurt, somebody owes\n somebody lunch money.

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n If you \n agree with any of this: contact your lawmakers\n immediately. They are waiting by the phone.

    \n

    \n If you \n disagree\n : too late, buddy. The lobbyists are already having the soup\n course.

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n The lawmakers need your insights. They are, as noted, extremely\n narrow-minded.\n

    \n

    The comment section is open.\n

    ","hostid":433,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"sarcarm, policy","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4617,"date":"2026-04-14","title":"UNIX Curio #4 - Archiving Files","duration":957,"summary":"Utilities and file formats, especially \"pax\"","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nWhen you think about creating and managing archives on a UNIX system, \ntar\n is probably the utility that comes to mind. But this was not the first archiving program; \n\n\nar\n\n\n\n\n was in First Edition UNIX\n\n\n1\n and \n\n\ncpio\n\n\n\n\n also pre-dates it, sort of\n\n\n2\n. According to the NetBSD manual page, \ncpio\n was developed within AT&T before \ntar\n, but did not get widely released until System III UNIX after \ntar\n was already well known from the earlier release of Seventh Edition UNIX (a.k.a. Version 7).

    \n\n

    \nYou might think that \nar\n and \ncpio\n are old and irrelevant these days, but these formats do live on. Each \nDebian package file\n\n\n3\n is an \nar\n archive which in turn contains two \ntar\n files. On Red Hat, Fedora, SUSE, and some other distributions, each \n.rpm package file\n\n\n4\n contains a \ncpio\n payload. So these may very well still be in use on your modern Linux system.

    \n\n

    \nBut let's get back to the subject of what you might want to use to create archives today. The \ntar\n utility has persisted in its popularity over the decades, and you most probably have a version installed on your UNIX-like systems. One of the problems with \ntar\n, however, is that it has not kept a consistent file format. Also, different implementations have used differing syntax at times.

    \n\n

    \nThere are excellent reasons for the \nfile format changing\n\n\n5\n. The names people give files have gotten longer over time, and the original Seventh Edition \ntar\n format could only handle a total pathname length of 100 bytes for each archive member. In addition, filenames were in ASCII format, and modern filesystems now accommodate richer encodings with characters that aren't in ASCII. The size of each archive member was limited to 8 gigabytes—unthinkably large back then, but not so big these days. User and group ownership could only be specified by numeric ID, which can vary from one system to another. Many other types of files and information simply couldn't be stored: block and character device nodes, FIFOs, sockets, extended attributes, access control lists, and SELinux contexts.

    \n\n

    \nAs a result, the \ntar\n format had to evolve over the years. One important version was the \nustar\n format, created for the 1988 POSIX standard. The POSIX committee wanted to try standardizing both the file format and syntax for the \ntar\n command. While the \nustar\n format addressed some shortcomings, progress marched on. Filesystems started allowing filenames in different character sets and more types of information to be attached to files, so for the 2001 revision of POSIX they gave up on standardizing the \ntar\n utility and came up with a new format and utility, which is our actual UNIX Curio for this episode: \n\n\npax\n\n\n\n\n6\n. Since the \npax\n program didn't have historical baggage, they could specify its options, behavior, and file format and be sure everyone's implementation would match. Developers of different \ntar\n implementations had been reluctant to change away from their historical option syntax to the standard. The \npax\n utility was also an attempt to avoid taking sides between those who advocated for \ntar\n and fans of \ncpio\n. The \npax\n file format was an extension of \nustar\n with the ability to add arbitrary new attributes tied to each archive member as UTF-8 Unicode. Some of these attribute names were standardized, but implementers could also define their own, making the format more future-proof. Older versions of \ntar\n that could handle the \nustar\n format should still be able to process \npax\n archives, but might not know what to do with the extra attributes.

    \n\n

    \nGNU \ntar\n developed its \ncurrent archive format\n\n\n7\n alongside the standardization of the \nustar\n format. The GNU format was based on an early draft which later underwent incompatible changes, so the two unfortunately are not interchangable. Unlike \nustar\n, the GNU format has no limits on the size of files or the length of their names. In addition to its own format, GNU \ntar\n is able to detect and correctly process both \nustar\n and \npax\n archives. In situations where its native format can't store necessary information about a file (such as POSIX access control lists or extended attributes), GNU \ntar\n will automatically output the \npax\n format instead (called \"posix\" in documentation). However, it still uses the GNU format by default, though the documentation has been \nthreatening to move to the POSIX format for at least 20 years\n\n\n8\n.

    \n\n

    \nThe good news is that the \nustar\n, \npax\n, GNU \ntar\n, and Seventh Edition \ntar\n formats are well documented and utilities across many UNIX-like systems\n2,7,9,10,11\n are able to handle these, depending on which formats existed when the utility was developed. While your system may not have \npax\n itself installed, there are other archiving utilities that can read the file format, including GNU \ntar\n. (Somewhat amusingly, Debian and some other Free Software operating systems package a \n\n\npax\n\n\n\n\n utility developed by MirBSD\n\n\n12\n which largely follows the POSIX-specified interface, but doesn't support reading or writing archives in \npax\n format!) Look at the manual page for the \ntar\n, \ncpio\n, or \npax\n utilities on your system to see if they can handle \npax\n archives.

    \n\n

    \nPerhaps one aspect that has worked in favor of \ntar\n and other UNIX archive formats is that they only concern themselves with storing files and make no attempt at compression. Instead, it is common for a complete archive file to be compressed \nafter\n creation; many utilities can be told to do this step for you, but it is not typically the default behavior. Therefore, if a better compression method comes along, the archive format doesn't need to change. If you do use compression, be careful to choose a method that is available on the destination system. Compressing files is a big enough subject to deserve its own episode, so we won't talk more about it here.

    \n\n

    \nSo which format should you use when creating an archive? Unfortunately, there is no single answer that applies in all circumstances. The \npax\n format is supported among modern UNIX-like systems and can represent all types of files and metadata. While other systems, their filesystems, and archive utilities might not be able to properly make use of all the metadata, they should at least be able to extract the data contained in files and, if Unicode is supported, give them appropriate filenames. If you intend to unpack the archive on an older system, more research might be needed to figure out what formats it is able to handle. The Seventh Edition \ntar\n format (often called \"v7\") is widely supported, including by older systems, but has limitations in what it can contain as described earlier.

    \n\n

    \nMoving beyond the UNIX world, things get even more complicated. Apple's macOS, with its FreeBSD underpinnings, easily handles \ntar\n files. However, when it comes to MS-DOS and Windows, it's a bit different. There, a multitude of archiving programs and formats arose, usually combining archiving with compression. \nPKZIP\n was probably the most popular of these and its .zip format became common in many places, helped by the fact that PKWARE openly published the specification. While there is only a single .zip format, it has many options, some proprietary, and different implementations have diverged in the way some aspects are handled (or not handled). An \nISO/IEC standard for .zip\n\n\n13\n was published in 2015 giving a baseline profile, and sticking to it produces files that can be widely extracted successfully. Other file formats like OpenDocument use the .zip format and typically hew to the standardized profile.

    \n\n

    \nWindows' File Explorer, starting with Windows XP, can \nnatively extract .zip files\n\n\n14\n. The \nInfo-ZIP program\n\n\n15\n is a Free Software implementation for a wide variety of systems (even rather obscure ones); while it might not be installed on yours, if you're copying the archive file over, you can probably copy over its \nunzip\n utility at the same time to unpack it. So .zip probably has the broadest support, although it might not already be present on every system. However, as Klaatu points out in \nHacker Public Radio episode 4557\n\n\n16\n, .zip files and applications handling them aren't always great at maintaining metadata about files. The .zip format doesn't seem to have any way to represent UNIX file permissions, and user/group ownership can only be included as numeric IDs. Other types of metadata on UNIX-like systems are not saved at all. This is probably not a problem in some cases, such as with a collection of photos, but for others it might be a concern.

    \n\n

    \nWhile \npax\n as a utility does not seem to have gained much popularity or support, except on commercial UNIX systems where including it was required to conform to the POSIX standard, its file format has persisted. Free Software systems have generally avoided the \npax\n interface, preferring to stick with the \ntar\n utility on the command line, but usually have good support for archive files in the \npax\n format. Outside of UNIX-like systems, .zip seems to have become the most common file format, and support for it is also good in the UNIX world, though it might not be built in.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nArchive (library) file format\n https://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/5/archive
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nNetBSD 10.0 cpio manual page\n https://man.netbsd.org/NetBSD-10.0/cpio.1
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nDebian binary package format\n https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/dpkg-dev/deb.5.en.html
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nRPM V6 Package format\n https://rpm.org/docs/6.0.x/manual/format_v6.html
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nNetBSD 10.0 libarchive-formats manual page\n https://man.netbsd.org/NetBSD-10.0/libarchive-formats.5
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\nPax specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/pax.html
      7. \n\n
    7. \n\n\nGNU tar manual\n https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html
      8. \n\n
    8. \n\n\nGNU tar manual for version 1.15.90\n https://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/*checkout*/tar/tar/manual/tar.html?revision=1.3
      9. \n\n
    9. \n\n\nFreeBSD 15.0 libarchive-formats manual page\n https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=libarchive-formats&sektion=5&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+15.0-RELEASE+and+Ports
      10. \n\n
    10. \n\n\nOpenBSD 7.8 tar manual page\n https://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-7.8/tar
      11. \n\n
    11. \n\n\nHP-UX Reference (11i v3 07/02) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)\n https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c01922474&docLocale=en_US
      12. \n\n
    12. \n\n\nMirBSD pax(1) manual page\n http://www.mirbsd.org/htman/i386/man1/pax.htm#Sh.STANDARDS
      13. \n\n
    13. \n\n\nISO/IEC 21320-1:2015 Information technology - Document Container File Part 1: Core\n https://www.iso.org/standard/60101.html
      14. \n\n
    14. \n\n\nMastering File Compression on Windows\n https://windowsforum.com/threads/mastering-file-compression-on-windows-how-to-zip-and-unzip-files-effortlessly.369235/
      15. \n\n
    15. \n\n\nAbout Info-ZIP\n https://infozip.sourceforge.net/
      16. \n\n
    16. \n\n\nHPR4557::Why I prefer tar to zip\n https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4557/index.html
      17. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,archive,tar,cpio,pax","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4618,"date":"2026-04-15","title":"Simple Podcasting - Episode 2 - Basic Filtering","duration":2236,"summary":"This episode is the second in an 4 part series on simple podcasting covering Basic Filtering","notes":"\n

    \nBasic-Filtering

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \nThis is the second episode in a four part series on a simple way to create your own HPR podcast episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nThis episode will cover the following topics:

    \n\n

    \nBasic filtering..

    \n\n

    \nDe-essing to improve voice quality.

    \n\n

    \nAnd normalizing to adjust audio levels for easier reviewing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nFiltering is removing unwanted noise from an audio signal.

    \n\n

    \nThere are several ways of doing this.

    \n\n

    \nIt is possible to do this with Audacity, but I don't know how so I won't try to describe that method.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt is possible however to filter using command line tools such as FFMPEG and Sox.

    \n\n

    \nWhen assembled into shell scripts, these tools can become part of an automated process that you can use over and over again for each HPR episode that you record.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04

    \n\n

    \nIn a later episode I will discuss how to analyze audio signals to find the sources of noise that can be reduced or eliminated with filters.

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode however I will discuss basic filtering that you can apply routinely without doing any analysis beforehand.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05 Sources of Noise

    \n\n

    \nA question that you may have is \"why is there noise in the recording?\"

    \n\n

    \nThere are many sources of undesirable noise.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nA very common one that you may not be aware of is electrical noise that works its way into the electronic recording circuits and is imperceptible to you until you play back the recorded audio.

    \n\n

    \nThe most common noise signal is what is commonly called \"line noise\" and is a low frequency hum at 50 or 60 Hz from the electric power lines and reflects the 50 or 60 Hz frequency of the AC power lines feeding your recording hardware.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nYou may be familiar with this low frequency hum from when it emanates from large electrical hardware such as transformers as it makes the laminations vibrate. However, it can also work its way indirectly into electronic equipment as well.

    \n\n

    \nGood quality audio hardware may filter all or most of this out, but it is present in a lot of consumer grade hardware.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nOther sources of electrical noise may reflect specific problems in your recording hardware. I will discuss one such problem with my microphone that I had to address.

    \n\n

    \nStill other sources of noise may reflect actual physical audio noise around you, such as fans. Placing the microphone close to your face will help in dealing with a lot of these problems, but you may find filtering to be of some help here as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09 Audio Frequency Range

    \n\n

    \nLet's start with some basics.

    \n\n

    \nA good quality stereo of the type you may have at home is typically rated to perform between 20 Hz and 20 kHz.

    \n\n

    \nThis is the widest possible range that we need to consider.

    \n\n

    \nIn reality, this is a far wider range than is needed for a voice oriented podcast.

    \n\n

    \nIt is also well beyond the range of the hardware that many of your listeners will be using to listen to the podcast.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nFor example, the speakers that I have connected to my PC and a number of headphones and earphones that I have tested drop off drastically below 80 Hz or above 8 kHz, or even above 6 kHz in many cases.

    \n\n

    \nThis is not audiophile quality hardware, but it is representative of the sort of hardware that a lot of your listeners will be using when listening to podcasts.

    \n\n

    \nAnd to be honest here, a lot of people will have difficulty hearing anything above 8 kHz even with the best quality audio hardware due to hearing loss from environmental noise exposure or age.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nYou can get a good idea of what different frequencies sound like by generating sine waves using either FFMPEG or Sox.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere's an example of generating a 1 kHz sine wave using FFMPEG. A copy of this will be in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -f lavfi -i \"sine=frequency=1000:sample_rate=44100:duration=3\" 01000hz.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis creates a sine wave at 1 kHz and at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz for a duration of 3 seconds and saves it to a flac file named 01000hz.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nHere's the same using Sox.

    \n\n

    \nsox -n -r 44100 -b 16 01000hz.flac synth 3 sine 1000

    \n\n

    \nThe -b 16 specifies using 16 bit audio to encode it, and the \"sine 1000\" element specifies the frequency in hertz.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nYou can test this out at different frequencies to get a feel for how your hardware responds.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhat the effective limits on typical hardware audio range means is that we can quite safely filter out a large part of what is considered to be the \"audio range\" without any noticeable loss of quality.

    \n\n

    \nFor the purposes of our discussion here then I will limit the frequency range to between 80 Hz and 12 kHz, and that is being generous. You can probably narrow that, particularly at the top end, without any problems.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nAt the low end, the typical rule of thumb recommended by most people seems to be that for the average male voice you can set the lower threshold at 80 Hz, and for the average female you can set it at 160 Hz.

    \n\n

    \nNote that you don't *have* to set the threshold higher for a female. Rather, it is just that you typically *can* set it higher if you wish. Note also that these are averages, and may not reflect an actual individual.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15 Simple Filters

    \n\n

    \nWe will now create some simple filters using the same command line software mentioned in a previous episode in this series.

    \n\n

    \nThese are FFMPEG and Sox.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16

    \n\n

    \nFirst let's define some terminology.

    \n\n

    \nA high pass filter passes through frequencies which fall above a certain threshold and blocks frequencies which are below that frequency.

    \n\n

    \nA low pass filter passes through frequencies which fall below a certain threshold and blocks frequencies which are above that frequency.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nIn reality there isn't an abrupt cut-off in the filters. Instead there is a gradual roll off or sloping off of amplitude below or above the specified filter frequency.

    \n\n

    \nThis is for two reasons. One is that if there was an abrupt cut off then it would risk introducing audible distortion in the signal for frequencies on the margin.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nThe other reason is that this is how hardware filters traditionally inherently worked when they were made out of electronic components such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors.

    \n\n

    \nThe sharpness of this cut off can be adjusted, but we won't be fiddling with it in that sort of detail.

    \n\n

    \nYou will sometimes see filters specified in terms of \"poles\". This has to do with describing how filters were constructed using electronic components. Don't worry about it, it doesn't really matter.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19

    \n\n

    \nHere is a typical high pass filter using ffmpeg which filters out frequencies below 80 hertz.

    \n\n

    \n# High pass filter.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i inputfile.flac -af \"highpass=f=80\" outputfile.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere is a typical low pass filter using ffmpeg which filters out frequencies above 12 kHz.

    \n\n

    \n# Low pass filter.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i inputfile.flac -af \"lowpass=f=12000\" outputfile.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20

    \n\n

    \nHere is a filter which combines the two.

    \n\n

    \n# Combined filters.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i inputfile.flac -af \"highpass=f=80, lowpass=f=12000\" outputfile.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAnd here is the same thing using Sox.

    \n\n

    \nsox inputfile.flac outputfile.flac highpass 80 lowpass 12000

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21 Filtering Out Specific Frequencies

    \n\n

    \nRecall that I mentioned that a common source of noise is the 50 or 60 Hz AC power line frequency working its way through the electronics of your recording device.

    \n\n

    \nBecause filters operate gradually and the 80 Hz lower filter threshold is close to 60 Hz, the high pass filter may not deal with this adequately.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nNow it happens that your listeners may not be able to hear this 50 or 60 Hz noise anyway because their audio hardware won't reproduce it.

    \n\n

    \nThat by the way includes you not being able to hear it either when you review your recording before uploading it.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, there may be some HPR listeners who are sitting back sipping a glass of wine and listening to your episode on their stereo and who can hear it.

    \n\n

    \nThat suggests that we ought to do something about it just in case.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nI will get into how to analyze audio signals in a later episode, but for now just accept that I looked at the frequency spectrum of a sample recording using my hardware and found a large 60 Hz noise spike which I wanted to address.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nExperimenting with additional high pass frequencies up to 120 Hz did not improve things much with respect to the 60 Hz problem. There are other parameters which could be tweaked, but at this point it would seem most promising to attack the 60 Hz spike problem directly using a different filter method.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo deal with the this 60 Hz spike we can use a \"band reject\" filter, which removes a specific band of frequencies. We will use this in combination with the filtering that we have already done above.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nAfter a small amount of experimenting I came up with the following. I also added in a 50 Hz filter while I was at it, for the benefit of those living in areas with 50 Hz electrical supply.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese filters will be included in the show notes, so don't worry if you can't quite understand all the details from a verbal description.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nHere's the FFMPEG version.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Using ffmpeg

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i input.flac -af \"highpass=f=80, lowpass=f=12000, bandreject=f=60:width_type=h:w=20, bandreject=f=50:width_type=h:w=20\" output.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \nThis as the following elements

    \n\n

    \nA high pass filter at 80 Hz,

    \n\n

    \nA low pass filter at 12 kHz,

    \n\n

    \nA band reject filter centred at 60 Hz and with a width of 20 hertz.

    \n\n

    \nA similar band reject filter centred at 50 Hz.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nHere's the Sox version.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Sox version.

    \n\n

    \nsox input.flac output.flac highpass 80 lowpass 12000 bandreject 60 20 bandreject 50 20

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNote that with sox, don't quote the filter definition strings or else it will result in an error as sox doesn't see enough parameters. This is not a problem with ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29

    \n\n

    \nThe band reject filter knocks the stuffing out of the 60 Hz line noise, and the 50 Hz parameter should do the same for that frequency as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis basic filter should be able to be applied to any podcast audio recording without causing any problems. You can probably reduce the low pass frequency from 12 kHz down to 8 kHz without any problems, but I would suggest that you test it with your voice before making that decision.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nI will come back to filtering out specific frequencies again later when I discuss how I solved a specific problem with the hardware that I am using. However, we have to discuss how to analyze audio signals before we can do that sort of technical troubleshooting, and I will cover that in a later episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31 De-Essing

    \n\n

    \nAn additional type of filtering is \"de-essing\".

    \n\n

    \nWhen recording audio, the microphone or environment may result in \"s\", \"sh\", \"ch\" and possibly other sounds to be exaggerated.

    \n\n

    \nThese are all higher frequency elements of voice recordings.

    \n\n

    \n\"De-essing\" attempts to soften these sounds by selectively reducing the volume on the frequency band which contains these sounds.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 Software Filters

    \n\n

    \nDe-essing is accomplished via software filters.

    \n\n

    \nFFMPEG and Sox both have de-essing filters.

    \n\n

    \nFor FFMPEG, the de-essing filter is built in.

    \n\n

    \nFor Sox however, we must install an optional plug-in. I will cover this is more detail when I discuss using Sox for de-essing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33 Do You Need De-Essing?

    \n\n

    \nThe first thing to make clear however, is that you may not need to worry about this.

    \n\n

    \nIf you think the audio sounds just fine the way it is, you don't need to do any de-essing to it.

    \n\n

    \nDe-essing is a very subtle change, and you would probably need to do some careful before and after comparisons of audio samples to tell the difference.

    \n\n

    \nI didn't know that a thing called de-essing even existed before I started doing the research to make this podcast episode.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, at this point we are doing things more for fun than out of necessity, so I'll describe it anyway.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34 De-Essing with FFMPEG

    \n\n

    \nDe-essing with FFMPEG is relatively simple.

    \n\n

    \nThe filter is built in, and there are just three values to adjust.

    \n\n

    \nOn the other hand, it is not really obvious what these values mean in practical terms.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nI will however warn you to not rely on the AI search results from Google to understand this feature.

    \n\n

    \nThe AI, in my experience, just makes stuff up about it and tells you to use options that don't exist and values that are not valid.

    \n\n

    \nI found that the only useful information came from FFMPEG's own web site, and from examples written by actual humans.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nI then experimented with different values to see what effects they had.

    \n\n

    \nSince the results are rather subtle, fine tuning isn't really that necessary and I found that I could arrive at some reasonable values fairly quickly.

    \n\n

    \nI will provide the parameters that I found useful for me, and I suspect they would probably work for you as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37

    \n\n

    \nHere is a typical de-essing command.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i inputfile.flac -filter_complex \"deesser=i=0.5:m=0.5:f=0.5:s=o\" -b:a 336k -sample_fmt s16 outputfile.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \nThe important arguments are i, m, and f.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ni is intensity for triggering de-essing.

    \n\n

    \nThe allowed range is 0 to 1. The default is 0.

    \n\n

    \nBy experimentation I found that \"0\" means no de-essing, and \"1\" is maximum de-essing.

    \n\n

    \nI found that setting it to \"0.5\" gave satisfactory results.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nm is the amount of \"ducking on the treble part of sound\".

    \n\n

    \nThe allowed range is 0 to 1. The default is 0.5.

    \n\n

    \nBy experimentation I found that \"1\" means no de-essing, and \"0\" is maximum de-essing.

    \n\n

    \nI found that setting it to \"0.5\" gave satisfactory results.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nf is how much of the original frequency content to keep when de-essing.

    \n\n

    \nThe allowed range is 0 to 1. The default is 0.5.

    \n\n

    \nBy experimentation I found that \"1\" means no de-essing, and \"0\" is maximum de-essing.

    \n\n

    \nI found that setting it to \"0.5\" gave satisfactory results.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41

    \n\n

    \nSetting \"m\" or \"f\" too high can result in a distorted output as too much of the original sound is cut out.

    \n\n

    \nThe defaults of 0.5 in both cases gave audible improvements without noticeable distortion.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42

    \n\n

    \nThere is an additional parameter called \"s\". This controls whether the de-essing filter does anything.

    \n\n

    \nSetting it to \"o\" is the normal and default mode.

    \n\n

    \nSetting it to \"e\" causes it to output just the components that it would normally have filtered out. This is useful for testing purposes so you can see what and how much is being filtered. You only use this when experimenting with different values.

    \n\n

    \nSetting it to \"i\" causes the input to be passed through without de-essing. This would be useful in scripts where you want to use a variable to control whether or not to use the de-esser while still creating the expected output file.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nThere are two other elements of the command which were included but are not strictly speaking part of the de-essing filter itself .

    \n\n

    \nThese are \" -b:a 336k\" and \"-sample_fmt s16\".

    \n\n

    \n \" -b:a 336k\" sets the audio bit rate to 336k.

    \n\n

    \n\"-sample_fmt s16\" sets the audio sample format to 16 bit.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI found it necessary to specify these in order to prevent the de-essing filter from changing formats.

    \n\n

    \nThey are not part of de-essing however.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44 De-Essing with Sox

    \n\n

    \nYou can also de-ess with Sox.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this is more complex for several reasons.

    \n\n

    \nOne reason is that Sox does not have its own de-essing filters. Instead it uses optional plug-ins, and you must find and install these.

    \n\n

    \nThe actual plug in may vary depending on what operating system you are using.

    \n\n

    \nThe other reason is that it deals with the issue in fairly low level parameters, and so is a bit more complex to describe.

    \n\n

    \nBecause of this I will skip over describing this in detail and just give a very brief overview. If anyone would like me to describe in more detail how to de-ess with Sox, then send in a comment and I will do a short episode on it later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45 Sox De-Essing Overview

    \n\n

    \nTo de-ess with Sox, you first need to install the plug-ins.

    \n\n

    \nOn Linux, these will be the TAP ladspa plug-ins.

    \n\n

    \nTAP stands for \"Tom's Audio Processing\" plugins.

    \n\n

    \nladspa stands for \"Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin API\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo install the TAP plugins on Ubuntu, using the following command.

    \n\n

    \nsudo apt install tap-plugins

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe plug-in we need is called \"tap_deesser.so\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nIn order to use the plug-ins, you need to set the path as a variable.

    \n\n

    \nOn Ubuntu this is.

    \n\n

    \nexport LADSPA_PATH=\"/usr/lib/ladspa:\"

    \n\n

    \nI put the above in the shell script which calls the Sox de-esser.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nTo use the Sox de-esser, you do the following:

    \n\n

    \nsox inputfile.flac outputfile.flac ladspa tap_deesser tap_deesser -30 4500

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48

    \n\n

    \ntap_deesser tap_deesser tells it which plugin to use. We need to state tap_deesser twice because the first is the name of the \".so\" file and the second is the name of the plugin. A single \"so\" file can contain multiple filters, although in this case there is only one.

    \n\n

    \n-30 is the threshold in dB at which to start to apply the filter.

    \n\n

    \n4500 is the frequency in Hz that the filter centres around.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nThe TAP web page has a table of recommended frequencies. These are:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nMale 'ess'\t4500 Hz

    \n\n

    \nMale 'ssh'\t3400 Hz

    \n\n

    \nFemale 'ess'\t6800 Hz

    \n\n

    \nFemale 'ssh'\t5100 Hz

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nYou will need to do some trial and error to find what works best for you.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50 De-Essing Summary

    \n\n

    \nDe-essing can be used to make minor improvements to voice quality by reducing certain harsh sounds which may be exaggerated by a microphone.

    \n\n

    \nIf it sounds like a lot of work you can probably simply not bother with it and not really miss it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51 Normalizing

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNormalizing a signal means adjusting it to meet a specified level.

    \n\n

    \nFor audio it means adjusting the volume or sound level.

    \n\n

    \nYou may wish to normalize the audio of your recording to make it easier to listen to when reviewing it.

    \n\n

    \nThe copy that you send to HPR however should be the original un-normalized version.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52

    \n\n

    \nSound level is measured in two ways, dB and LUFS. The latter is a more sophisticated way of measuring things which takes into account how the human ear perceives loudness. I won't go into a lot of detail in that regards, other than to say that just accept LUFS as a unit of perceived loudness that is the international standard. LUFS stands for \"Loudness Units referenced to Full Scale\", and is part of the EBU R128 standard, where EBU stands for European Broadcast Union.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn both cases the measured value is a negative number, with numbers smaller in magnitude being louder. Smaller in magnitude means closer to zero.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nHPR will adjust the sound level for publication, but if you wish to check the audio before uploading it can help to adjust it to something close to what HPR will do so that you can listen to it at a volume which most listeners will hear.

    \n\n

    \nIn my case full volume on the audio system input produced a sound level which was much lower than a typical HPR episode.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the volume level in the flac file itself can be adjusted using ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54 Measuring Volume Level

    \n\n

    \nFirst we need to see what the volume level is for a typical HPR podcast.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo do this we use ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \nIn this example we are using an episode named \"hprpodcast.mp3\".

    \n\n

    \nPick an episode which you think is suitable and copy the file to the working directory.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55

    \n\n

    \nIn the following script we use a volumedetect filter.

    \n\n

    \nThe text we want normally outputs to standard error, so we have to do a bit of bashery to redirect this to standard output so it will go through a pipe.

    \n\n

    \nWe then grep for the string \"I:\".

    \n\n

    \nThis will have the average volume level in \"loudness units\" (LUFS).

    \n\n

    \nThen we extract the number, giving us a target LUFS level.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i hprpodcast.mp3 -filter:a ebur128=framelog=quiet -f null /dev/null 2>&1 | grep \"I:\" | cut -d: -f2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57

    \n\n

    \nUnfortunately I can't find a Sox feature which handles EBU loudness, so we need to work in dB instead.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere is the sox version.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, note that this may not work on mp3s if sox mp3 handing is not installed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nsox hprpodcast.mp3 -n stats 2>&1 | grep \"RMS lev dB\" | rev | cut -d\" \" -f1 | rev

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nYou can use either of these for measuring the volume or sound level of an audio file.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, note that individual episodes from HPR may vary a bit in terms of loudness. In the samples that I looked at, this however was less than 1 LUFS or dB while my own recording was roughly 5 LUFS lower in volume than a typical HPR episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60

    \n\n

    \nIf you Google for the EBU R128 standard the AI result will confidently tell you to use a target of -23 LUFS. However, this is wrong, which shouldn't be of any surprise if you are familiar with using AI.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nThe -23 LUFS figure is for broadcast television. There is in fact no standard level for podcasts. However, there is apparently a general industry convention of using somewhere around -17 LUFS. If I look at the first two HPR episodes that I did, HPR normalized them to -16.8 LUFS and -17.8 LUFS, while the original FLAC files that I submitted were -21.6 LUFS and -22.3 LUFS respectively.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62

    \n\n

    \nSo HRP appear to be targeting somewhere around -17 LUFS as well. We will therefore use -17 LUFS as our target for our own copy for review.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63

    \n\n

    \nThe nice thing about using the EBU filter in FFMPEG is that this is very simple.

    \n\n

    \nHere is the FFMPEG version.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i inputfile.flac -af loudnorm=I=-17:TP=-2.0:LRA=7.0 -ar 44.1k outputfile.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65

    \n\n

    \n\"I\" is the LUFS target.

    \n\n

    \nLRA is the loudness range target. The default value is 7.0 so I used that.

    \n\n

    \nTP sets the maximum true peak. The default value is -2.0. so I used that.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \nWith Sox things are a bit more difficult. There is no direct method of setting the loudness that I am aware of, so we need to measure the current sound level in dB, do some calculations, and then apply that as a gain factor to the output.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67

    \n\n

    \nFirst we need to subtract the measured db level from our flac file from the target db level from the HPR episode we decided to use as a sample.

    \n\n

    \nBash by itself normally just does integer math.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, we would like to have at least one decimal point of resolution to work with.

    \n\n

    \nThe simple solution is to do this calculation using bc, the shell arbitrary precision calculator.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68

    \n\n

    \nThen take this new value and use it in a \"volume\" filter.

    \n\n

    \nThe number which we give sox is the amount to increase or decrease the volume by.

    \n\n

    \nSox will then output a new file with the new volume level.

    \n\n

    \nYou can now listen to this file under conditions more closely approximating what it will be like after HPR have done their own audio adjustments and normalizaton on it

    \n\n

    \nThis helps when listening to the file for any problems before you upload it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nRather than reading 5 lines of complex shell script to you, I will put a copy of it in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nlevel=$( sox $inputfile -n stats 2>&1 | grep \"RMS lev dB\" )

    \n\n

    \nleveldb=$( echo \"$level\" | rev | cut -d\" \" -f1 | rev )

    \n\n

    \ntargetdb=\"-18.9\"

    \n\n

    \nvolumechange=$(echo \"scale=2 ; $targetdb - $leveldb\" | bc )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nsox $inputfile $outputname gain \"$volumechange\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nNormalization should be the last thing you do to the file.

    \n\n

    \nIt should be done after any noise filtering, such as low pass, high pass, bandreject, etc.

    \n\n

    \nIf you normalize first, you will be amplifying the noise as well as the desired signal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71

    \n\n

    \nThe exact normalization level used for review purposes doesn't matter, as HPR will apply their own later.

    \n\n

    \nAll we are doing at this point is adjusting the volume to something which approximates a normal episode so you can listen to it for final review.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72

    \n\n

    \nWhen you send your file to HPR, send the original *unnormalized* version, not the normalized version.

    \n\n

    \nWhen you normalize an audio signal, if you are not careful you may introduce things which cause problems with later additional processing.

    \n\n

    \nHPR probably do more things to the audio than just normalizing and so they need the unnormalized file so that they can do their own normalizing last.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73

    \n\n

    \nIf at this point you are happy with the recording as is, you are ready to send the *unnormalized* version to HPR.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe scripts to implement the features discussed in this episode will be in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74 Conclusion

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we covered basic filtering using ffmpeg and sox.

    \n\n

    \nWe discussed what noise was and some of the origins of noise.

    \n\n

    \nWe talked about the audio frequency range and the limitations of common hardware used to record and listen to podcasts.

    \n\n

    \nWe covered basic high and low pass filters used to limit the audio frequency range in order to remove possible low and high frequency noise.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75

    \n\n

    \nWe discussed specific filters to eliminate 50 and 60 Hz electrical power noise.

    \n\n

    \nWe talked about de-essing, what it was, why you may wish to use it, and some basic de-essing filter implementation details.

    \n\n

    \nWe discussed normalizing, what it is, why you may wish to use it, and how it relates to podcasting conventions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n76

    \n\n

    \nIn the next episode we will discuss analyzing audio signals to help find the sources of noise problems.

    \n\n

    \nWe will also discuss creating filters to eliminate any problems that we found.

    \n\n

    \nIn my case I had a problem with the microphone that I use, and I describe how I used filters to deal with that problem.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n77

    \n\n

    \nThis has been the second episode in a four part series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEBU R128 Loudness Measurement using FFMPEG

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \necho \"EBU r128 loudness measurement using FFMPEG\"

    \n\n

    \nfor inputfile in *.flac *.mp3 ; do

    \n\n

    \n\tlevel=$( ffmpeg -i $inputfile -filter:a ebur128=framelog=quiet -f null /dev/null 2>&1 | grep \"I:\" | cut -d: -f2 )

    \n\n

    \n\techo $inputfile $level

    \n\n

    \ndone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDB Sound Level Measurement using Sox

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n# Sox version. May not work for mp3 if an mp3 format handling is not installed.

    \n\n

    \necho \"dB sound level measurement using Sox.\"

    \n\n

    \nfor inputfile in *.flac *.mp3 ; do

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\tlevel=$( sox $inputfile -n stats 2>&1 | grep \"RMS lev dB\" )

    \n\n

    \n\tleveldb=$( echo \"$level\" | rev | cut -d\" \" -f1 | rev )

    \n\n

    \n\techo $inputfile $leveldb

    \n\n

    \ndone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEBU R128 Loudness Normalization using FFMPEG

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Adjust the volume to a desired level.

    \n\n

    \nfor inputfile in *.flac ; do

    \n\n

    \n\tj=$( basename $inputfile \".flac\" )

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=\"$j\"\"-normff.flac\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile -af loudnorm=I=-17:TP=-2.0:LRA=4.0 -ar 44.1k $outputname

    \n\n

    \n\techo $outputname

    \n\n

    \ndone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDB Sound Level Normalization using Sox

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Adjust the volume to a desired level.

    \n\n

    \nfor inputfile in *.flac ; do

    \n\n

    \n\tj=$( basename $inputfile \".flac\" )

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=\"$j\"\"-normff.flac\"

    \n\n

    \n\t# Measure the volume level and extract the mean volume.

    \n\n

    \n\tlevel=$( sox $inputfile -n stats 2>&1 | grep \"RMS lev dB\" )

    \n\n

    \n\tleveldb=$( echo \"$level\" | rev | cut -d\" \" -f1 | rev )

    \n\n

    \n\t# Calculate the difference in dB desired. Scale specifies the number of decimal places.

    \n\n

    \n\t# Target db is the volume measured on hpr4506 (UCSD-P-System).

    \n\n

    \n\ttargetdb=\"-18.9\"

    \n\n

    \n\tvolumechange=$(echo \"scale=2 ; $targetdb - $leveldb\" | bc )

    \n\n

    \n\techo \"Using sox: File: $inputfile Original level: $leveldb Change by: $volumechange\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Adjust the volume.

    \n\n

    \n\tsox $inputfile $outputname gain \"$volumechange\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ndone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFull processing pipeline for making simple podcasts using FFMPEG

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Full processing pipeline for making simple podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n# Concatenate multiple flac files into a single flac file.

    \n\n

    \n# This is used to combine podcast recorded segments into a single

    \n\n

    \n# flac file for uploading to HPR.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nconcataudio ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=\"$1\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# First create the list file.

    \n\n

    \n\tprintf \"file '%s'\\n\" [0-9][0-9].flac > podseglist.txt

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Now concatenate them

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i podseglist.txt \"$outputname\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\trm podseglist.txt

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Basic filters.

    \n\n

    \nfilter ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\tinputfile=$1

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=$2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Using ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# The high and low pass filters.

    \n\n

    \n\thlpfil=\"highpass=f=80, lowpass=f=12000\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Band reject filters filter for 60Hz and another for 50Hz.

    \n\n

    \n\tlinefil=\"bandreject=f=60:width_type=h:w=20, bandreject=f=50:width_type=h:w=20\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Using ffmpeg

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile -af \"$hlpfil, $linefil\" $outputname

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# De-Essing.

    \n\n

    \ndeessing ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\tinputfile=$1

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=$2

    \n\n

    \n\toption=$3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# De-essing filter.

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile -filter_complex \"deesser=i=0.5:m=0.5:f=0.5:s=$option\" -b:a 336k -sample_fmt s16 $outputname

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n# Normalizing the audio to EBU R128 standard for review using ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \nnormffmpeg ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\tinputfile=$1

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=$2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Normalize to EBU R128 standard.

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile -af loudnorm=I=-17:TP=-2.0:LRA=4.0 -ar 44.1k $outputname

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Output an MP3 version to help with reviewing.

    \n\n

    \nmp3convert ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\tinputfile=$1

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Get the name of the file and then create the output file name.

    \n\n

    \n\tj=$( basename $inputfile \".flac\" )

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=\"$j\"\".mp3\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Convert to MP3.

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile $outputname

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Concatenate the separate audio files.

    \n\n

    \nconcataudio fullpod-unfiltered.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Basic filtering.

    \n\n

    \nfilter fullpod-unfiltered.flac filtered.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# De-essing. This is the version to send for publishing.

    \n\n

    \n# The third argument should be \"o\" for de-essing, or \"i\" for pass through without de-essing.

    \n\n

    \ndeessing filtered.flac fullpod.flac o

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Normalized for review.

    \n\n

    \nnormffmpeg fullpod.flac fullpod-norm.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Output an MP3 copy for review.

    \n\n

    \nmp3convert fullpod-norm.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio recording, ","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4619,"date":"2026-04-16","title":"HPR Beer Garden 12 - Baltic Porter","duration":1907,"summary":"Dave and Kevie talk about Baltic Porters.","notes":"\n

    \nDave and Kevie continue the HPR Beer Garden series with a look at a less known (and maybe a hidden gem to many) style of beer that originates from the north-eastern area of Europe: the Baltic Porter. Kevie Samples Öö from the \nPojala\nBrewery in Estonia, whilst Dave samples Wave Tactics from another Estonian Brewery: \nPühaste\n.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4620,"date":"2026-04-17","title":"The Second Doctor, Part 1","duration":796,"summary":"We start a look at the Second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton.","notes":"

    This starts our look at the stories of the Second Doctor, portrayed by Patrick Troughton, during the 1960s.

    \n\n

    The Second Doctor, Part 1

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

    Patrick Troughton is the reason we are still talking about Doctor Who all these years later. He took over the lead role in a popular and successful show and continued the success. It might have been a disaster, but it wasn’t. And Troughton did not attempt to be another Hartnell, he had his own distinct way of playing the part. He established the principle that the personality of the Doctor changes when he (or she) regenerates. This made it much easier on all the actors who followed him in the role, and each one has been very distinctive in how they embodied the Doctor. Sadly, many of his episodes, and some complete stories, are missing now due to the short-sighted policy of the BBC the discard older shows, in many cases wiping video tapes for reuse. Of course, you can’t blame them too much since I doubt anyone in the 1960s would have believed that the show would still be going over 60 years later. But there is always hope that some more episodes will be recovered. There are people who collect old TV shows in various formats such as film and video tape, and it is virtually certain that some missing Doctor Who episodes still exist in private collectors’ hands, though how many is not known.

    \n\n\n\n

    To take the place of the missing episodes we have reconstructions using telesnaps (photos taken of the monitor screen), animations, and for a few Troughton stories fans have re-staged the stories as stage plays. So there are ways to experience at least a little of these missing episodes. And even as I write this there are indications that more episodes may be found and returned to the BBC .

    \n\n\n\n

    Troughton took over in the third story of Season 4, which aired in late 1966.

    \n\n\n\n

    Power of the Daleks

    \n\n\n\n

    This is the first story for Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, and starting with the Daleks was a smart move. They were so popular that they guaranteed a good audience and would get Troughton off to a good start. The TARDIS lands on a planet called Vulcan, where a scientist has found a derelict ship containing a few Daleks. He thinks he can bring them back to life, and won’t listen to the Doctor who tries to warn him. Meanwhile, rebels on Vulcan are trying to overthrow the government there. In the end, the scientist sacrifices himself to help stop the Daleks, the rebels succeed in overthrowing the fascist dictator, and all is well. For now. Ben and Polly are along as the companions continuing their stay on the TARDIS after starting with the First Doctor in the War Machines

    \n\n\n\n

    This is one of the completely missing stories, but there is an animated version which is available on DVD, or you can watch it on YouTube.

    \n\n\n\n

    The Highlanders

    \n\n\n\n

    And another historical story, taking us to the Battle of Culloden in 1746, where the last gasp of the Jacobite rebellion was snuffed out by the English army. The TARDIS crew are first captured by the Scots, who are not kindly disposed to people who are obviously English. Then they are captured by the English, who have decided they are traitors and want to hang them. After various adventures, they get away, and bring with them a young Scottish lad named Jamie, who becomes the third member of the TARDIS team when he promises to teach the Doctor to play the bagpipes. An average historical story made memorable by the introduction of the next truly beloved companion, Jamie. He would stay with the Doctor all the way through the end of Troughton’s run, and is still in high demand as a guest at Doctor Who conventions around the world. He was not actually intended to be a companion at first. They had shot two endings, one where he joins the Doctor, and another where he is left in Scotland. They did decide to keep him, but in the next few stories, for which the scripts had already been written, he is less central to the plot and sometimes get lines originally written for another character.

    \n\n\n\n

    This is another story where all of the episodes are missing, though there are reconstructions available.

    \n\n\n\n

    The Underwater Menace

    \n\n\n\n

    The TARDIS team arrives on an island formed by an extinct volcano, where they are brought underground to a sunken city. They are told that their arrival was foretold by the goddess of the city, and that they would be sacrificed. They are rescued by a scientist known to the doctor, but it turns out he has gone quite mad. The city is Atlantis, and he says he will raise it, but his plan involves blowing up everything with nuclear bombs. The underwater scenes of swimming ladies are quite hilarious, but it is an inventive little story. The scene of the mad scientist raging as he disappears under the water is pretty good too, in a campy way.

    \n\n\n\n

    Early in Patrick Troughton’s run as The Doctor the show dropped much of the history and focused more on monsters and SF to compete with shows like Lost in Space and Land of the Giants.

    \n\n\n\n

    This story is missing two of the 4 episodes, but reconstructions exist for the two missing episodes.

    \n\n\n\n

    The Moonbase

    \n\n\n\n

    The Cybermen are back, and this time they are attacking a base on the Moon. They have been infiltrating the base through a hole in a basement wall, which is where you scratch your head and wonder why the air doesn’t all leak out through this hole. And since the Cybermen are still significantly organic, how are they breathing in vacuum? Still, the Doctor puts the emphasis on science as the way to defeat them. The return of the Cybermen was sufficiently popular for them to become the acknowledged second best enemy of the Doctor, after the Daleks, of course. And as such they would come back again in several of the Troughton’s stories, and continued up to the present to be featured in Doctor Who.

    \n\n\n\n

    This story is also missing two of its episodes, but they have been animated so you can get a decent experience of the story now. And there is at least one decent jump scare here.

    \n\n\n\n

    The Macra Terror

    \n\n\n\n

    The Macra made an appearance in the David Tennant story Gridlock, but this is where they began. The TARDIS materializes on a planet where a colony seems very happy, except for one malcontent who claims he has seen huge crab-like beings at night. Then the Doctor sees them as well, but no one else seems to notice them. It turns out these creatures are good at conditioning people to not see them, and to believe what they are told to believe. Ben ends up brainwashed by them, though the others escape this. And the colony is busily engaged in producing some kind of gas, and this turns out to be essential to the Macra. Oxygen is poisonous to them, they need the gas. Finally Ben breaks his conditioning and rescues the others, and the Macra are defeated. Why they reappeared in Gridlock was never clear to me, it looked like an Easter Egg for long-time fans that was never explained or justified.

    \n\n\n\n

    This is another story that is missing all of its episodes in original form, but an animated version has been released, and is available on DVD and on YouTube.

    \n\n\n\n

    The Faceless Ones

    \n\n\n\n

    This is a very good, inventive story that purports to take place at Gatwick Airport, though it is of course not really shot there, but at a smaller place nearby. The TARDIS materializes there, and the first problem is that none of them have passports! This is the only thing matters to the immigration people at the airport. Meanwhile, something puzzling is going on with a company called Chameleon Tours. One young lady, played by Pauline Collins, is trying to find out what happened to her brother, who went on a tour with them, sent a postcard, and then vanished. It turns out that the folks running Chameleon Tours are an alien race of Shape-shifters, hence the “Faceless Ones”, who are kidnapping people to help repopulate their planet. The obvious plot hole is that this would involve repopulating with people, not Chamelelons, but never let that get in the way of what is otherwise a nice romp full of action and suspense. The production team was hoping to get Collins as a companion, but she turned them down. At the end, Ben and Polly take advantage of the fact they are on Earth at the proper time, and decide to leave the TARDIS and get on with their lives. So now only Jamie is left. I bet that won’t be true for long.

    \n\n\n\n

    For this story 4 of the 6 episodes are missing, but again this is a story that got the complete animation treatment. You can purchase the DVD, or watch it on YouTube.

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4621,"date":"2026-04-20","title":"Android volume control help","duration":674,"summary":"I rant about the certification of Android in the internet","notes":"

    In this episode we takel Android volume help. Where the audio gets too loud gives a warning.\nJoin us as we search for a way to bypass ?\nIf you got root you can try to use Magix but you have to catch it before reboot.\nDisabled play\nGoing degoogled

    \n

    Links

    \n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"android, ranting","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4622,"date":"2026-04-21","title":"Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 5","duration":6482,"summary":"the hpr community comes together to converse","notes":"\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNova Scotia \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://novascotia.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAkron, Ohio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.akronohio.gov/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStow, Ohio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.stowohio.gov/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKent , Ohio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.kentohio.gov/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKent State Riots\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.britannica.com/event/Kent-State-shootings\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCuyahoga Falls\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.downtowncf.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHAZMAT Truck Certification\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.tsa.gov/for-industry/hazmat-endorsement\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n1095-C Form\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1095-c\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBoston City Hall\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_City_Hall\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGive Me 40 Acres (To Turn This Rig Around) - Willis Brothers (song)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://genius.com/The-willis-brothers-give-me-40-acres-to-turn-this-rig-around-lyrics\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_Me_Forty_Acres_(To_Turn_This_Rig_Around)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBrutalist Architectural Style \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.riba.org/explore/riba-collections/architectural-styles/brutalism-movement/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n105 MM Howitzer\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://americangimuseum.org/collections/restored-vehicles/m2a1-105mm-howitzer-1941-1953/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n1812 Overture\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.kdfc.com/articles/tchaikovsky-1812-overture\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBoston Tunnel Project aka The Big Dig\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mass.gov/info-details/the-big-dig-project-background\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCamel Nose In Your Tent\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://markeckel.com/2024/06/18/the-camels-nose/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nManhatten Project\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nps.gov/mapr/learn/manhattan-project.htm\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMorgentown, West Virgina\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.morgantownwv.gov/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMount Blue State Park\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://apps.web.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/doc/parksearch/details.pl?park_id=18\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBelgrade Lakes\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://visitmaine.com/articles/belgrade-lakes/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nT-34 Airplane\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.military.com/equipment/t-34c-turbo-mentor\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nF5 Fighter\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/aircraft/f5-tiger\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDC 3\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.britannica.com/technology/DC-3\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nC-47 \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/douglas-c-47-skytrain\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nT-6 \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104548/t-6a-texan-ii/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCivil Air Patrol\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nF4U Corsair \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nationalww2museum.org/visit/museum-campus-guide/us-freedom-pavilion/george-hw-bush-aviation-gallery/vought-f4u-corsair\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBlack Sheep Squadron (TV Show)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/black_sheep_squadron\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHawaii\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.gohawaii.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nF4 Phantom\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.collingsfoundation.org/aircrafts/f-4d-phantom/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nVietnam\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://vietnam.travel/node/1336\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThailand\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.tourismthailand.org/Home\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nF14\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/grumman-f-14dr-tomcat/nasm_A20040156000\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nF15\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.military.com/equipment/f-15-eagle\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFort Bliss\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.military.com/equipment/f-15-eagle\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNo Toilet Paper For Russian Troops \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tamarisk\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBoston Linux User Group\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://blu.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nKit Carson Scout\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=4467\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBattleship New Jersey\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://battleshipnewjersey.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUSS Newport News\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/ships-us/ships-usn-n/uss-newport-news-ca-148.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUSS Iowa\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://pacificbattleship.com/#dipipopup-60889\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHarpoon Missle\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.navair.navy.mil/product/Harpoon\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTomahawk Missle\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/sea/tomahawk-cruise-missile\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPredator Drones\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104469/mq-1b-predator/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nM50\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-m50-reising-submachine-gun/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nM249 SAW\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.peosoldier.army.mil/Equipment/Equipment-Portfolio/Project-Manager-Soldier-Lethality-Portfolio/M249-Squad-Automatic-Weapon/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nM60 Machine Gun\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.thearmorylife.com/taking-the-pig-for-a-walk-history-of-the-m60/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nM 240 Machine Gun\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://armyhistory.org/the-m240b-general-purpose-machine-gun/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nM79 Grenade Launcher\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-m79-grenade-launcher/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMark 19 Grenade Launcher\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.peosoldier.army.mil/Equipment/Equipment-Portfolio/Project-Manager-Soldier-Lethality-Portfolio/MK19-Grenade-Machine-Gun/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFletchette Round\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-m79-grenade-launcher/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nM16 Rifle\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.secureitgunstorage.com/the-history-of-the-m16-with-fun-facts-trivia/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nM14 Rifle\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.britannica.com/technology/M14-rifle\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMIT \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mit.edu/education/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRaufoss Mk 211 anti-materiel high-explosive incendiary/armor-piercing ammunition projectile\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://smallarmsreview.com/raufoss-multipurpose-ammo/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBarrett Rifles\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://barrett.net/products/firearms/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPort Arms\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/port-arms\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPTSD\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nM1 Garand\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://thegca.org/m1-garand-history/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMeet Boston\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.meetboston.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChop Logic\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hilotutor.com/archives_chop-logic.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMumble \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mumble.info/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nProxmox\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.proxmox.com/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSpice\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.spice-space.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nVAX Computers\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.stromasys.com/resources/vax-computer-systems-an-in-depth-guide/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMIT Radar Lab Development WW II\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.technologyreview.com/2024/10/22/1104766/how-mits-rad-lab-rescued-d-day/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDOS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/DOS\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPDP-11\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.computercollection.net/index.php/pdp-11-family/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlayboy\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.playboy.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPDP-1\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://computerhistory.org/exhibits/pdp-1/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\ned - The Unix Line Editor\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://medium.com/predict/using-ed-the-unix-line-editor-557ed6466660\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMicroVax\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/10535/Digital-MicroVAX-3100/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChaosNet\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://chaosnet.net/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nVampire Tap\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.pcgamer.com/the-year-is-1983-and-im-about-to-vampire-tap-my-thick-ethernet/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMIT Project Athena\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-looking-back-project-athena-distributed-computing-for-students-1111\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nXWindows\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.x.org/wiki/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWindows 3.1\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://classicreload.com/win3x-windows-31.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWindows 3..11\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://winworldpc.com/product/windows-3/311\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFTP\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-science-fundamentals/file-transfer-protocol-ftp/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTeletype Model 33 ASR\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.curiousmarc.com/mechanical/teletype-asr-33\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBoston Molasses Flood\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.boston.gov/news/100-years-ago-today-molasses-crashes-through-bostons-north-end\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPDP-8 \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/minicomputers/11/331\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nToll House Cookies\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.verybestbaking.com/toll-house/recipes/chocolate-chip-cookies/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBoston Bruins\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nhl.com/bruins/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHit Somebody (Song by Warren Zevon)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://genius.com/Warren-zevon-hit-somebody-the-hockey-song-lyrics\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSlapshot \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/slap_shot\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSkrewball Whiskey\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.skrewballwhiskey.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChicago\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.chicago.gov/city/en.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HPR,community,new years eve show","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4623,"date":"2026-04-22","title":"A brief infodump on the Broadcast Address and Routing","duration":346,"summary":"Jon gives a little information on what the Broadcast address is and IPv4 Routing in general","notes":"\n

    \n\nHello Hacker Public Radio, this is JonTheNiceGuy.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOn the \n\nHPR Community News for January 2025\n\n, Ken, Kevie and Some Guy On The Internet were talking about network addresses. As this was part of my job for several years, I thought I might talk about this for a couple of minutes.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAll IP Networks now use what we refer to as \n\nCIDR\n\n based addressing, so you'll often see these expressed as \"/24\", \"/16\" and so on. This is \"how many '1s' are in the binary representation of the local portion of this network. Windows is one of the last remaining platforms to refer to these as Netmasks, and express them as the four octets in decimal representation of those 1s, so /24 is 24 1s in a row, or 255.255.255.0, /16 is 255.255.0.0 and so on.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBut what does this have to do with networks and networking? There are two pieces to this, the first is for Broadcasts, or how a node with an IPv4 address asks all the local nodes in an IPv4 network address range how to find other things, and the other is for routing.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLet's talk about Broadcasts. Right, so back when IPv4 (or just TCP/IP as we knew it then) was being developed to integrate into operating systems, most developers read the Request for Comments document about this new IP protocol and put the address that the devices should contact to talk to all the hosts on the local network segment, or the \"broadcast address\" as it's better known, as the last available IP address in that subnet. In a /24, that would be the .255 address in the subnet. The engineers at, from memory, either Sun Microsystems or DEC, read the same document and called that address the \"Network Address\" and made it the first available IP address in the subnet, the .0.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIn the end the \"Broadcast\" address won out in IPv4 networks, and the Network address was left to history, but there are still just enough of those legacy systems knocking around that it was always seen as a bit of a risk to allow the Network Address back into the pool of addresses...\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThis is most often currently seen in printer setups, or for ARP address requests, but has largely fallen out of favour, in favour of Multicasts. In fact, so much so, that IPv6 has dropped the broadcast address entirely, and uses multicast.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBut why does the number of bits matter?\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThis now comes back to routing.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRouting is where a host works out what the most specific route is to get to a given IP address. On a typical home IPv4 network this is fairly binary - you have a default gateway, usually on either .1 or .254 in your /24, and most of the traffic goes to that. In networks which need a highly available, or HA, router setup, you may see up to three IP addresses being used by your router, with some method of mapping the \"virtual\" address of the next hop gateway to a physical device. That said, even on that simple home network, there are at least two other networks which are used, and that's your \"local\" or \"loopback\" interface, which is able to use all the addresses in the range 127.0.0.0/8, but typically only binds to 127.0.0.1, and the network you are connected to, which doesn't require routing. Most home routers use 192.168.0.0/24 or 192.168.1.0/24.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIn order to work out how to get the next hop to the IP address you're trying to reach, the computer turns both the IP address you're trying to reach, and all the CIDR masks in the routing table into binary numbers, and then matches the one which is most specifically accurate to work out what to do with it.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSo, for example, if you have an IP address of 10.0.0.1/8, then your network mask is 00001010. If you are trying to find another address in that network, you only need to match that first 8 bits. An address of 11.0.0.1 doesn't match, because the first 8 bits, 00001011 doesn't match the routed network. More specific routes will take longer to match, which is why some of the routing tables on the core networks dedicate whole CPU cores to matching parts of the routing table. It's also why in the pre-IPv4 exhaustion days, IP addresses were typically sold in large blocks, usually to single geographic regions, so that you only had to match a large supernet, or large block of subnets in one go, not lots of smaller subnets.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOnce you understand this about IPv4, IPv6 works the same way for routing, except the address space is four times larger, with the number of bits in a network area being 128, as opposed to IPv4's 32 bits.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThanks to the janitors for triggering this bit of an info dump, and I hope it's been of interest to you! \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThis is jontheniceguy, signing off from HPR.\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":439,"series":61,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"IPv4, Routing, IP Networking","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4624,"date":"2026-04-23","title":"Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 7: GUI Trying a Simple Hello World ","duration":1307,"summary":"The continuing saga of the Cheap Yellow Display graphical user interface","notes":"\n

    \n\nHello, again. This is Trey.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlease note: I did the work described in this episode, and wrote the script more than 6 months prior to this recording. But then life got in the way and I didn't get it recorded, and I didn't even look at the project until recently. But, that dear friends is a story for another episode. In literature, we call that \"foretelling\". Right now, however, it is time to record and publish \n\nthis\n\nepisode.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWelcome to part 7 in my Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) Project series. If you are still listening to me ramble about this project, thank you. If you have lost track of it over the months of silence from me, you are not alone. Frankly, I have lost track of it, too. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIf you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my \n\nHPR profile page\n\n\n\nhttps://www.hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0394.html\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nToday I am not going to blather on about all the things we have done so far, and the current state of the project. No, today we are getting back to basics, beginning with the Random Nerds Tutorial \"Introducing the ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display\" (\n\nhttps://randomnerdtutorials.com/lvgl-cheap-yellow-display-esp32-2432s028r/\n\n).\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWhy am I going back to basics? I really don't want to talk about it. If you have not listened to episode 5 of this series, you may go back and suffer through it at HPR4532 - \n\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4532/index.html\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSuffice it to say that, when you choose to jump in the deep end of something you think you understand a little about, but about which you really know much less, you can find yourself flailing about, gasping for air, and trying not to sink. Thus was my case.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHowever, a recurring theme has been evident to me in several podcasts & YouTube videos I have experienced over the last few weeks. That theme is \"Embracing Failure\". The most recent of these was Mark Rober's YouTube video \"Uncovering America's Underwater City\" (\n\nUncovering America's Underwater City\n\n). His successes and misses in that video gave me a glimmer of hope.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI have been programming computers in various forms since the early '80s. Over the years, I worked with BASIC, Pascal, various flavors of C and of assembly, Perl, Java, JScript, Python, and more. And every time I started a course to learn a new language, the first program to write was... Yep! You guessed it. Hello World.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRandom Nerds Tutorial post \"Introducing the ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display\" (\n\nhttps://randomnerdtutorials.com/lvgl-cheap-yellow-display-esp32-2432s028r/\n\n) includes a starter program that creates 2 different buttons on the screen, which do 2 different things, a slider, and, of course, displays \"Hello World\". In the show notes, you can see an image of this screen, captured from the tutorial.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIt was time for me to get started.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCopy, paste, RUN, right? Nope. Not this time. The article also explains, section by section what the code does. My goal here is NOT simply to make the CYD do my bidding, but to learn the \"Why\" and the \"How\" which I need in order to become proficient.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFirst, we start with loading the necessary libraries. These include (Pun absolutely intended):\n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\nLVGL (Light and Versatile Graphics Library)\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nTFT_eSPI (Graphics library for output to the display itself)\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nXPT2046_Touchscreen.h (A Resistive touch controller library, used for touchscreen inputs from the CYD)\n\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nInstructions earlier in the tutorial described how to make certain these are properly installed into the Arduino IDE. One thing that I noticed almost immediately is that the previous GUI building tool I used in episode 5, called Squareline Studio, only supported up to LVGL Version 8, while the tutorial recommended LVGL 9.01. I wonder if this contributed to some of my issues?\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWhat is LVGL anyway? LVGL stands for Light and Versatile Graphics Library. According to lvgl.io, \"LVGL is the most popular free and open-source embedded graphics library to create beautiful user interfaces for any micro controller unit, microprocessor unit and display type.\" It is built to make UI development easier with animations and more than 30 different widgets.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNow that we have included the necessary libraries, there is some initialization to do for the touchscreen. The touchscreen is a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI). You can see in the tutorial that XPT2046 requires you to define the following:\n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\nThe interrupt (IRQ) used\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nThe MOSI (Master Out Slave In) pin used. This is the pin which the microcontroller uses to send data to the touchscreen.\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nThe MISO (Master In Slave Out) pin used. This is the pin which the microcontroller uses to receive data from the touchscreen.\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nThe clock pin which the microcontroller uses to send clock signals to SPI devices. \n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nThe Chip Select (CS) pin on the microcontroller, used to enable/disable communications with the touchscreen.\n\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWith these defined, we can create specific instances for \"touchscreenSPI\" and \"touchscreen\". Next, we define the screen height, width, and font size, along with integer variables x & y for input coordinates when the screen is touched, and z for pressure used when the screen is touched. These values are important when configuring the draw buffer. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThere is also a setup function which is used to basically launch the touchscreenSPI, the TFT Display, and LVGL. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThat was a lot. But wait! There is more!\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThere is a decent sized function which creates the main GUI screen, and it begins with the \"Hello World\" text label. Here we can see specifically how the text label is created, named, assigned the text it will display, and sized and positioned.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe same goes for buttons one and two and their associated labels, and the slider and it's label.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFinally, there are event handler functions for when button 1 or button 2 are pressed and for when the slider is moved. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWhen button 1 is pressed, it shows that it is clicked until it is released. When button 2 is pressed, it actually changes the state of the button between \"off\" and \"on\" to the opposite of the state it was in before it was pressed and alters the button 2 color accordingly. Button 2 effectively toggles from \"off\" to \"on\" or from \"on\" back to \"off\" again each time it is pressed. If it is \"off\" and I push it, it goes \"on\" and stays \"on\" until I push it again. I hope my explanation of that simple function did not make it even more confusinger. Back to the code!\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWhen the slider is moved, it changes the value of the text for the slider label.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAll fairly simple. Now for the test. In episode 5 you can witness me building my morse code keyer app and downloading it to my CYD, only to have the touchscreen input fail spectacularly. I know there wasn't a hardware failure because the application which was pre-installed when I purchased the CYD worked perfectly. Additionally a pre-compiled application built for the CYD which I loaded from Brian Lough's WitnessMeNow GitHub site (\n\nhttps://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display\n\n) also worked perfectly.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSo, now it was time to, once again verify that the proper libraries are loaded in the library manager, and then copy the \"Hello World\" TFT Display & Touchscreen test code from Random Tutorials and paste it into Arduino IDE, section by section, making certain, again, that I understand what each section does.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlease note: I spent years of my youth manually typing programs from magazines into computers. Back then, my eyes worked better and my brain worked better. And I often spent more time troubleshooting and trying to find all my typos than I did actually typing the program. So, YES, I will copy & paste other people's programs every time I can (And include proper attribution). After all, this is a test, and if it works, it could even be the foundation upon which I build the application I really want.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI connected my CYD's USB-C port to my computer and verified the COM port Windows has chosen to assign to it. Next, per the instructions in the tutorial, within Arduino IDE, I selected the \"board\" type that I was using as \"ESP32 Dev Module\", and specified the COM port to which it is connected. With a deep breath and a short prayer, I clicked the \"Upload\" button.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAfter what seemed like an eternity compiling, but was actually closer to 36 seconds, I saw the screen on my CYD showing exactly what it should, and proudly displaying \"Hello, world!\"\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNow will the touchscreen work? I clicked button 1.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe button changed color when I was pressing it, and returned to normal when released. Now for button 2. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nA tap toggled it from orange to blue and another toggled it back to orange again.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFinally, the slider test.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMoving the slider did work, and changed the percentage value being displayed below the control.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEverything worked! Now we are getting somewhere. There are photos in the shownotes. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWhat next? I had a few options:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\nI could use what I had learned from \"Hello World\" to begin building my GUI once again, part by part, but this time manually as code directly within Arduino IDE. To start with, I would need to learn how to build different screens and navigate between them.\n\n
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\nI was not thrilled with my experience using SquareLine Studio. It is a commercial tool, and the licensing is a pain. I recently discovered an open source option called EEZ Studio. I could load it and try to rebuild the GUI a little at a time, examining the code produced as I go along.\n\n
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\nOther options? I'm sure there are dozens, but I need more information before I can make a choice.\n\n
      4. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIn the end, I chose \"None of the above.\" I decided to take a closer look at the code which SquareLine built for my GUI and try to learn what in there.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIt turns out there was quite a bit. Granted, I had built 3 different screens with quite a number of buttons and some other controls. But where \"Hello World\" included all the code in a single .ino file, SquareLine had created a number of files:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\nCMakeLists.txt & Filelist.txt seem to be artifacts from when the GUI code was exported from SquareLine.\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nui.ino is an Arduino C file with several of the same foundational structures found in \"Hello World\" for configuring and initializing libraries to work with the CYD. Some of these differ from \"Hello World\", and will require comparison.\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nui.c starts with a \"Variables\" section for defining screen, control and label names. It also has a \"Functions\" section with code for event handling. Finally, it has a \"Screens\" section which defines functions for each of the different application screens built within SquareLine: Send, Config, and Keyboard.\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nui.h really does not have much in it. I will need to research what it does\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nui_Send_Screen.c, ui_Config_Screen.c, & ui_Keyboard_Screen.c create all the controls and labels on each screen, specifying location, size, and some functionality.\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nui_events.h also seems to have very little in it, like ui.h. More research is needed.\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nui_comp_hook.c simply includes the list of libraries with their versions along with the project name header, common to most of the files in this list.\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nui_helpers.c has code related to properties for several of the controls in the project\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nui_helpers.h is the only of the .h with any real amount of code in it.\n\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nYou can find all of these files on my github repository at \n\nhttps://github.com/jttrey3/CYD_MorseSender-v0.4\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThis was interesting, but it didn't really get me anywhere. Remember I mentioned a YouTube video by LVGL_BEGINNER where I first saw reference to EEZ Studio. It was titled \"LVGL ESP32 2432S028R CYD example with EEZ Studio\" (\n\nLVGL ESP32 2432S028R CYD example with EEZ Studio\n\n). In this video, the author shows how to use EEZ Studio to build a button. Then he exports the code (A bunch of files like SquareLline did), copies all the created files into the same folder where his .ino file resides, and he integrates it into a \"Template\" .ino file designed by RandomNerds for the CYD, using an include statement and a function call.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI went back to my old ui.ino file from SquareLine. It seems to only interact with the remainder of the ui files through an \"#include <ui.h>\" line and through a \"ui_init();\" function call. What if, my issues were within ui.ino itself in the way it configured the board or instantiated the libraries or something? \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI have a working foundation to build on. I made a copy of the template and moved it into a new test folder. I copied all the SquareLine created ui files into the same folder except for \"ui.ino\" Next, I edited this version of \"Hello World\" and removed all the event handlers and the entire \"lv_create_main_gui\" function. Finally, I replaced the \"lv_create_main_gui();\" function call with \"ui_init();\"\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThis couldn't work, could it? It was worth a shot. I could always revert back to my saved copy of \"Hello World\" and try something different.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI reconnected the CYD to the USB-C cable and clicked the \"Upload\" button in Arduino IDE, then waited for what seemed like another eternity while the code compiled. This time, much longer than 36 seconds. I pondered searching YouTube for the Jeopardy game show theme music to play in the background while I waited.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFinally, the screen on the CYD went black, and, amazingly, it displayed the \"Send\" screen I had originally built in SquareLine. \"Okay, Trey\", I thought to myself, \"Don't get your hopes up. You have seen this before.\" The real test is if any of the buttons work.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI tapped the \"Config\" button...\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe \"Send\" screen began to slide to the left, to be replaced with the \"Config\" screen. It worked! \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI tapped the \"Keyboard\" screen... The \"Config\" screen slid to the left, and the \"Keyboard\" screen slid into its place.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI shouted loud enough to scare both cats, and they jumped from their sleeping spots on the bed in my office and ran out the door. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIt worked. I still have a ton of work to do, in the GUI and on the actual program to send Morse. But this is a good place to stop and savor a bit of success.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI look forward to any feedback you might have. Please post it as a comment or send me an email using the address listed in my HPR profile. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHave an amazing day, and I will talk to you again in my next episode.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":394,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"CYD, electronics, ESP32, Adruino, Cheap Yellow Display, morse code, cw, Ham Radio, Amateur Radio ","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4625,"date":"2026-04-24","title":"Site Specific Browsers","duration":457,"summary":"Lee talks about using Progressive Web Apps on the desktop","notes":"\n

    \nA progressive web application (PWA), or progressive web app, is a type of web app that can be installed on a device as a standalone application. PWAs are installed using the offline cache of the device's web browser.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nPWAs were introduced from 2016 as an alternative to native (device-specific) applications, with the advantage that they do not require separate bundling or distribution for different platforms. They can be used on a range of different systems, including desktop and mobile devices. Publishing the app to digital distribution systems, such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, or the Microsoft Store on Windows, is optional.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n-- Wikipedia.org\n\n

    \n\n\n\r","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"pwa, web apps, linux","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4626,"date":"2026-04-27","title":"Cable Management / PC Speakers ","duration":1101,"summary":"operat0r talks about his Cable Management ,speakers and green screens","notes":"\n

    \n\nCable Management / PC Speakers ... \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBoao 3 Pieces Cord Protector Wire Loom Black Tubing Cable Sleeve Split Sleeving for USB Charger Cord Cover Audio Video Cable, Each Size 10 ft 3/4 Inch, 1/2\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JPV4NRJ\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSplit-Sleeve Wire Loom for High-Temperature Automotive Harness and Home Cable Management, 25ft - 1/2 inch Braided Cable Management Sleeve Cord Protector, Self-Wrapping Split Wire Loom\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4LD8FP3\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPreSonus Eris 3.5 Studio Monitors, Pair — Powered, Active Monitor Speakers for Near Field Music Production, Desktop Computer, Hi-Fi Audio\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C88ZB3D9\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWood Hangboard Rock Climbing Holds - Sturdy Hang Board for Climbers\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X58S696\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPOWER GUIDANCE Hangboard Rock Climbing Holds Finger Strengthener for Pull-up Grip Arm Training Indoor and Outdoor Double-Sided Non-Slip Portable\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VTG6RZN\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCosmos 1 Pc Green Screen Backdrop 43 in / 110 cm Diameter Foldable Portable Photography Background Green Screen Chroma Key Backdrop for Photography Photo Video Studio, Live Streaming, Video Meeting\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQNRWL7K\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nKey Points:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nNew Monitor Setup:\n\n
        \n\n
      • \nOrdered a new 49-inch curved monitor.
        • \n\n
      • \nCurrent setup involves a steering wheel that needs to be moved for gaming and work.
        • \n\n
      • \nDetailed process for switching between gaming and work modes.
        • \n\n
      \n\n
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nCable Management:\n\n
        \n\n
      • \nDiscussed different brands of wire loom: Boao and teziicus Store .
        • \n\n
      • \nBOA is cheaper and see-through, while teziicus Store is more expensive but better quality.
        • \n\n
      • \nExplained the use of split sleeve wire loom for easier cable management.
        • \n\n
      • \nTips on using heat shrink tubing and a heat gun for a better seal.
        • \n\n
      • \nMentioned using Gorilla Glue for expanding and sealing large dongles.
        • \n\n
      • \nRecommended sizes for wire loom: three-fourths inch for larger cables, one-fourth inch for smaller cables.
        • \n\n
      \n\n
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nLabeling and Organization:\n\n
        \n\n
      • \nEmphasized the importance of labeling cables using a label maker.
        • \n\n
      • \nSuggested using specific tape for patch cables and placing labels a few inches away from the plug for easy identification.
        • \n\n
      • \nMentioned using twist ties for temporary cable management and Velcro for more permanent setups.
        • \n\n
      \n\n
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nAdditional Tools and Tips:\n\n
        \n\n
      • \nUsed binder clips and paracord for temporary setups.
        • \n\n
      • \nMentioned using power guide holds for rock climbing practice during calls.
        • \n\n
      • \nDiscussed the potential for a dual monitor setup to avoid moving the monitor frequently.
        • \n\n
      \n\n
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nPC Speakers:\n\n
        \n\n
      • \nNoted the shift from traditional PC speakers to studio speakers.
        • \n\n
      • \nMentioned entry-level studio speakers costing around $99.
        • \n\n
      • \nHighlighted the need for a subwoofer for better bass.
        • \n\n
      • \nDiscussed bass shakers for haptic feedback in racing games.
        • \n\n
      \n\n
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\nWorkspace Cleanliness:\n\n
        \n\n
      • \nEmphasized the importance of keeping the workspace clean and organized.
        • \n\n
      • \nMentioned using a green screen for video calls, hung from the ceiling for a flat surface.
        • \n\n
      \n\n
      7. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nConclusion:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nEncouraged listeners to keep their workspaces clean and organized for better productivity and aesthetics.
      • \n\n
    • \nProvided practical tips and tools for effective cable management and workspace setup.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nClosing Remarks:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nWished listeners a good day and encouraged them to record their own episodes.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nAdditional Notes:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nMentioned the use of a standing desk and the challenges of dual-use with a steering wheel setup.
      • \n\n
    • \nDiscussed the potential for a separate office table for gaming and work to avoid frequent adjustments.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nHost's Personal Note:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nAcknowledged the change in format for better show notes and clarity for listeners.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Cable Management, PC Speakers, Workspace Organization, Monitor Setup, Gaming Setup, Heat Shrink Tubi","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4627,"date":"2026-04-28","title":"UNIX Curio #5 - Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!","duration":875,"summary":"Sending signals to processes, or just checking if they exist","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nLet me start by admitting that I've never actually seen the film referenced in the episode title, but I couldn't resist using it anyway.

    \n\n

    \nIf you've used the UNIX command line to any extent, chances are good that you are familiar with the \nkill\n command. A common use is to terminate a misbehaving program. But there is more behind how \nkill\n works, including a curio you might not know about.

    \n\n

    \nThe \nkill\n utility works by sending a \"signal\" to the targeted process. This signal is selected from a pre-defined list, and triggers the process to interrupt its normal flow and handle the signal before potentially returning back to its work. This \"signal handler\" can do whatever activities are written in its code, but typically it will take actions connected to the purpose of the specific signal received.

    \n\n

    \nOne option is for the process not to have a signal handler at all; in that case, there is a default action that the operating system will take on behalf of the process, depending on what the signal is. The possible default actions are to terminate the process, take some implementation-defined action (usually writing a core file to disk) and then terminate the process, stop (pause) execution of the process, continue execution of a stopped process, or ignore the signal.

    \n\n

    \nBy default, \nkill\n sends the TERM signal to the process, an indicator that it should terminate. Each signal has a name and a number assigned to it; SIGTERM is the name of the \"terminate\" signal. You can use the \n-s\n option with the name to choose which signal to send. The 'kill' command is specified to take these names without the SIG prefix, though some implementations will accept them either way. Also, \nkill\n is supposed to be case-insensitive when it comes to these names, but the convention is to write them in all upper case. The assigned numbers for signals can vary depending on the operating system, and on Linux, depending on what processor architecture you're on. However, there is a \nshort list of signals\n\n\n1\n that have a stable number assigned to them. Despite this, I recommend using the signal name in your scripts to make them clearer and to ensure maximum portability to different systems.

    \n\n

    \nWell-behaved programs will have a signal handler that responds to the TERM signal by stopping what they are doing, cleaning up any open resources like temporary files, and promptly exiting. However, not every program behaves well, so sometimes it becomes necessary to send them the KILL signal. This one is special and \ncannot be handled or ignored by the program\n\n\n2\n; the operating system will immediately terminate the program, possibly leaving a mess behind.

    \n\n

    \nTwo other signals that can come in handy sometimes are STOP and CONT. As you might expect, STOP forces a process to pause in the middle of whatever it was doing. Its counterpart, CONT (short for \"continue\"), causes it to resume execution. This can be useful if a program consumes CPU time when not actually doing anything worthwhile—sending it the STOP signal will end that, and when you're ready to use it again, CONT will cause it to pick up right where it left off. Like the KILL signal, STOP cannot be handled or ignored by the program. I have used this to pause the game FreeCiv when I wanted to break away to do something else, but didn't want to have to deal with exiting my current game and having to reload it later. Take note, though, that the program might get confused if it expects the system clock not to suddenly jump forward, as that is exactly how the situation will appear to it. Network connections or other resources the process is using that change while it is stopped are other potential trouble spots. Also be aware that a stopped graphical program will not update its window, so I find it best to minimize the window before stopping it and then continuing the process before trying to raise the window again.

    \n\n

    \nPrograms are not necessarily \nrequired\n to interpret signals in the way they are described. For example, the HUP signal was originally intended to be sent when a modem or serial connection hang-up occurred. Today, some daemons use it for other purposes and take a specific action in response. For example, the \nApache web server will restart\n\n\n3\n, and \nNetworkManager will reload its configuration\n\n\n4\n. These uses of signals are usually described in the daemon's manual page, often in a separate section dedicated to signals.

    \n\n

    \nWhile all this background might be interesting (or maybe not), it's pretty commonly known, so isn't really a curio. Our UNIX Curio for today is the \"0\" signal. This is actually not a signal at all; instead, it tells the \nkill\n utility to just check for the existence of a process. If the process exists, \nkill\n will exit with a status of 0. If it doesn't exist, the exit status will be greater than 0. This provides a handy way to check whether a particular process is still around. A shell command can use this exit status with its control structures like \nif\n to take a particular action depending on whether a particular process exists. Somewhat oddly, \"0\" is both the number \nand\n the name of this pseudo-signal.

    \n\n

    \nWhy would you want to do this? I have used it for a script to analyze log files that runs daily on a web server. Depending on how much traffic the site is getting, the log files can grow to the point where it takes longer than a day for the script to get through them. If a second instance of the script is started while one is still running, it will slow down both and if more keep being added, eventually the machine will run out of memory.

    \n\n

    \nMy solution was to create a .pid file containing the process ID number of the running script. You might see examples of these if you look in /run or /var/run on your system. The script creates a file named something like \"myscript.pid\" in this directory containing its own process ID, which can be accessed in the shell with the variable \n$$\n. When my script starts, it checks to see whether this file exists. If so, it uses \nkill -s 0 $(cat /run/myscript.pid)\n to see if the previous process still exists. If the process is no longer around, that's a sign that it exited abnormally before it had the chance to delete the .pid file, so the script removes the abandoned .pid file, replaces it with a new one containing the current process ID, and continues with its work. If the previous process is still around, my script exits with a message to that effect. This way, I can be sure that only one instance of the script will ever be running at one time.

    \n\n

    \nBe aware that the \nkill\n utility might also return a non-zero exit status if the user running it does not have privileges to send a signal to the process with the specified ID. This is not a concern if you are running a script as the root user, but could be if you are not. This can occur even if you aren't actually sending a signal, just using the \"0\" pseudo-signal to check if a process exists.

    \n\n

    \nThere \nis\n a weakness in this method. UNIX-like systems generally have a limit to the quantity of process ID numbers that can be issued, so they are reused over time. (However, there will never be two processes with the same ID number running at the \nsame\n time.) Typically, the first process that is run on start-up will be given the ID number 1, and each subsequent process will get the next higher number. Once the maximum is reached, the system starts again at the beginning with the lowest number not in use. It is possible for the script to crash and leave behind the .pid file, then the same process ID could be recycled and actively used for another program, causing a new instance of the script to give up. The chances of this are small enough that for my purposes, it's not worth worrying about. But you should be aware that it could happen.

    \n\n

    \nI should also note that it's not strictly necessary to use \nkill\n for the purpose I described. The \nps\n utility can also be given a process ID with the \n-p\n option; if the process exists, the exit status will be 0, otherwise it will be greater than 0. In this case, you could also use the output to check that the name of the command matches what you expect, helping avoid the problem of a recycled process ID. In addition, \nps\n doesn't concern itself with permissions for sending signals, so it will report on the existence of a process no matter what user you are running it as. From an efficiency standpoint, \nkill\n generally requires fewer resources to run (in fact, it is built in to some shells), but functionally \nps\n can also do the job.

    \n\n

    \nSo keep in mind that \nkill\n is capable of doing more than just killing off programs—maybe you can put it to one of these uses for your needs.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nKill specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/kill.html
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nsignal.h specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/signal.h.html
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nStopping and Restarting Apache HTTP Server\n https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/stopping.html#hup
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nNetworkManager: Signals\n https://networkmanager.dev/docs/api/latest/NetworkManager.html#id-1.2.2.9
      5. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nAppendix 1\n - example script:

    \n\n
    \n#!/bin/sh\n\n# Use your own unique name here - be sure you can write to this location\npidfile=\"/var/run/myscript.pid\"\n\n# Exit if previous run hasn't completed yet\nif [ -f \"$pidfile\" ] ; then\n  oldpid=$(cat \"$pidfile\")\n  if kill -s 0 $oldpid ; then\n    echo \"${0}: Not running script, older process $oldpid still active\"\n    exit 1\n  else\n    echo \"${0}: Removing old pidfile from nonexistent process $oldpid\"\n    rm -f \"$pidfile\"\n  fi\nfi\n\n# Create pidfile\necho $$ > \"$pidfile\"\n\n## Insert commands to do the actual work of the script here\n\n# Remove pidfile\nrm -f \"$pidfile\"\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nAppendix 2\n - another version of the script using \nps\n instead of \nkill\n, checking that an existing process ID is actually the same command, and with extra validation of the contents of the pidfile; perhaps better for use by a non-root user:

    \n\n
    \n#!/bin/sh\n\n# Use your own unique name here - be sure you can write to this location\npidfile=\"$HOME/myscript.pid\"\n\n# Exit if previous run hasn't completed yet\nif [ -f \"$pidfile\" ] ; then\n  oldpid=$(( 1 * $(cat \"$pidfile\") ))\n  if [ -n \"$oldpid\" ] && [ \"$oldpid\" -gt 1 ] ; then\n    :\n  else\n    echo \"${0}: Not running script, $pidfile contents invalid\"\n    exit 1\n  fi\n# Test if old process ID exists\n  if oldcmd=\"$( ps -o comm= -p $oldpid )\" &&\n# Also test if command name of old process is same as current script\n  [ \"$oldcmd\" = \"${0##*/}\" ] ; then\n    echo \"${0}: Not running script, older process $oldpid still active\"\n    exit 1\n  else\n    echo \"${0}: Removing old pidfile from nonexistent process $oldpid\"\n    rm -f \"$pidfile\"\n  fi\nfi\n\n# Create pidfile\necho $$ > \"$pidfile\"\n\n## Insert commands to do the actual work of the script here\n\n# Remove pidfile\nrm -f \"$pidfile\"\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,signals,kill,ps","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4628,"date":"2026-04-29","title":"Nuclear Power Technology Follow Up","duration":2400,"summary":"Answers to questions posed by listeners in the comments to the series on nuclear power technology","notes":"\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is a follow up to my 8 part series on nuclear power.

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode I will answer questions posed by listeners in the comments to the series.

    \n\n

    \nI would like to start by thanking these people for taking the time to submit interesting questions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCosts of Small Versus Large Reactors

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nbrian-in-ohio asked two questions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe first was for a cost comparison between large and small reactors.

    \n\n

    \nThe second was for nuclear plant safety compared to conventional power plants.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03 Answer

    \n\n

    \nI think that any answer to the second question is going to be perceived by some people as politically controversial, so it's probably not a good topic for HPR to address.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04

    \n\n

    \nThe first question though about cost of small versus large reactors is an interesting one, although not one that is easy to give an answer to.

    \n\n

    \nI will restrict the answer to just grid scale electric power production and ignore use cases such as industrial process heat or power for remote mines and communities.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nThis question comes down to economies of scale versus economies of replication.

    \n\n

    \nEconomies of scale centre around increased efficiencies of use of materials and labour when making something bigger.

    \n\n

    \nFor example, the amount of steel used by a pipe increases linearly with its diameter, but the amount of fluid that it transports increases with the square.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nEconomies of replication come from increasing efficiencies which result from serial production. As you repeat the same design over and over again, you learn how to do things better and make fewer mistakes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nThe exact same principles apply to shipbuilding.

    \n\n

    \nIndeed, a lot of the inspiration for Small Modular Reactors comes from the shipbuilding industry.

    \n\n

    \nIf you build a series of identical ships, then each subsequent ship will cost less and be built faster.

    \n\n

    \nThere are of course diminishing returns to this process, so the improvements are less with each additional unit and after a sufficient number of units the cost and time reductions level off.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this doesn't discount the benefits of economies of scale.

    \n\n

    \nWhat it does mean is that there are two ways of approaching the problem, and which way works in any given scenario depends on such conditions as

    \n\n

    \nhow big the local electricity market is

    \n\n

    \nhow fast the demand for electricity is growing,

    \n\n

    \nthe ownership and financing structure of the electricity market, and

    \n\n

    \nthe geography of the area, which may pose limits on the number of sites.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09

    \n\n

    \nAccording to the finance people who have crunched the numbers, there are two sizes of reactor which make the most sense in the above context.

    \n\n

    \nThese are 300 MW and 1000 MW.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, take those as very rough numbers rather than immutable laws of nature and other sizes may work as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nThe key point is that there are cases to be made for both small and large reactors, with the large reactor being several times the size of the small one.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nAn additional factor is that building only one reactor does not reap the benefits of efficiency of replication.

    \n\n

    \nYou need to build a series of them on the same site.

    \n\n

    \nSo if you are building a power plant, you don't build a power plant that has just one reactor unless you are in a small market which can only use that much power.

    \n\n

    \nInstead, you should build between 4 and 6 reactors in sequence next to one another.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nIf you are supply a large population with a growing demand for electricity, then 4 or 6 large 1000 MW reactors gains both economies of scale and economies of replication.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are supplying a smaller population with slow growth in demand for electricity, then 4 or 6 300 MW reactors at least gets you economies of replication.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nThere is what could be viewed as an interesting example in terms of the above taking place just east of Toronto.

    \n\n

    \nThere they are building four 300 MW SMRs on a site next to an existing nuclear power plant.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nHere are the cost estimates from the Government of Ontario.

    \n\n

    \nAll costs are in Canadian dollars.

    \n\n

    \nUnit 1 is $6.1 billion, plus $1.6 billion in costs which are shared by all four unit.s

    \n\n

    \nUnit 2 is $4.9 billion.

    \n\n

    \nUnit 3 is $4.2 billion.

    \n\n

    \nUnit 4 is $4.1 billion.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15

    \n\n

    \nAs you can see, building a series of reactors sequentially on the same site results in declining overall costs.

    \n\n

    \nThey are very confident in these costs as they used data from a series of major nuclear power plant refurbishment projects in Ontario which have been coming in on time and on budget.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16

    \n\n

    \nConstruction began last year and the plant is expected to have a 65 year operating life.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the province of Ontario also has plans for expansion of electrical generation by about 15,000 MW by 2050 in order to meet net zero targets.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nGiven the heavy concentration of population in the Toronto region,

    \n\n

    \nand the very high cost and difficulty of building long distance transmission lines,

    \n\n

    \nand the limited number of sites which could host new power generation facilities of any sort,

    \n\n

    \nI suspect it is quite likely that subsequent reactors will be large 1,000 MW ones rather than SMRs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19

    \n\n

    \nThe Wesleyville site (which is further east of Toronto) is tentatively scheduled for a 10,000 MW nuclear power plant.

    \n\n

    \nThat would seem to make ten 1,000 MW reactors more likely than 34 300 MW reactors.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20

    \n\n

    \nI don't have a comparable set of numbers for building large reactors to give an exact apples to apples comparison of costs.

    \n\n

    \nDifferent countries use different accounting and financing systems, and finance makes a huge difference to overall costs for nuclear power as operating costs are a relatively small share of the total.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nNow to look at another side of this equation, the provinces of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick wish to replace their coal fired power plants with nuclear power plants.

    \n\n

    \nThe populations of these provinces are too small to absorb a large new power plant into their grids, and studies assuming large reactors have foundered on this issue.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nNew Brunswick already have a nuclear power plant, but it was build in the days when reactors were much smaller.

    \n\n

    \nBoth provinces however are very interested in small reactors, even individual ones, in order to replace the coal fired plants that are of similar size.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nI think this covers the cost versus size issue.

    \n\n

    \nThe more I look into it, the more it becomes apparent that there is no simple one size fits all answer but rather there are a series of trade-offs which must be taken in light of local circumstances.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nMOX Fuel in the USA

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nThe next question comes from mnw who asked about the use of MOX fuel in the USA.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nmnw asked

    \n\n

    \nI am enjoying and look forward to the rest of the series. Do you think the US will ever wake up and start recycling its spent fuel? It seems like such a huge waste just to try and keep a small amount of fuel away from\"the bad guys\" or whatever they are imagining.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAnswer

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nMy answer to this is as follows.

    \n\n

    \nI think I've addressed this in the original series, although not directly with respect to the US so I can provide some more detail on that aspect of it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \nFirst though I will review what plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel is.

    \n\n

    \nAs mentioned in previous episodes, military grade plutonium is not the same as the plutonium which comes out of commercial power reactors.

    \n\n

    \nJust as military grade uranium requires nearly pure U-235 isotope, military grade plutonium requires nearly pure Pu-239 isotope.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nWhat comes out of a commercial power reactor as spent fuel is not usable for weapons purposes as the proportion of Pu-239 is much too low.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, plutonium recovered from spent fuel can be used as fuel for nuclear reactors in place of uranium 235 when mixed with uranium 238 either left over from enrichment or extracted from spent fuel.

    \n\n

    \nThis is what is known as MOX fuel.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29

    \n\n

    \nTo look at the US history of this however, here's the sequence of events.

    \n\n

    \nThe US banned fuel reprocessing in 1976.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this ban was repealed in 1981.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nIn 2005, the US began building a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel plant at Savannah River in the state of South Carolina.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this plant was not intended as a normal commercial operation and it was not intended to recycle commercial nuclear power plant fuel.

    \n\n

    \nIt was instead intended to convert surplus military grade plutonium into commercial fuel in order to get rid of it as part of an arms control program.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nThe program was suspended in 2018.

    \n\n

    \nThere were apparently many complex political issues involved in these on-again off-again decisions and I won't pretend to have the time or interest to explore all the details nor do I think most listeners would be interested in hearing abou them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32

    \n\n

    \nAs of March 2026, the US are looking at reviving part of the Savannah River plant to produce limited amounts of fuel for testing of advanced reactors.

    \n\n

    \nThe issue driving this is the shortage of uranium enriched to just below 20%.

    \n\n

    \nThis fuel is used in certain types of small SMR.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33

    \n\n

    \nThe main commercial supplier of this material was a plant in Russia, but \"certain events in Europe in recent years\" shall we say, have resulted in that supply no longer being available to commercial operations in the US.

    \n\n

    \nMOX fuel based on surplus weapons grade plutonium is intended as a short term quick fix for that problem.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nAnother driving force is legal requirements following from domestic commitments for the US government to dispose of certain stockpiles of weapons grade plutonium from certain sites in the US where it is \"temporarily\" stored, and the solution to that is seen as burning it up in power reactors.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nSo the history is the US banned fuel reprocessing.

    \n\n

    \nThen a few years later they un-banned it.

    \n\n

    \nThen the US government started building a MOX plant which was intended to get rid of surplus weapons grade material by burning it up in power reactors.

    \n\n

    \nThen they decided they didn't want to do that.

    \n\n

    \nThen they decided they may want to make MOX fuel after all to replace supplies of special grades of fuel for experimental or prototype reactors.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nWhat is missing from the above history is any actual interest from the US commercial nuclear industry in MOX fuel.

    \n\n

    \nThe reason for this is, as mentioned in the previous episodes, uranium is so cheap and abundant that fuel made from fresh uranium is cheaper than MOX fuel.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37

    \n\n

    \nSome countries such as France wish to recycle spent fuel to reduce their dependence upon imports.

    \n\n

    \nRecall that France's drive to build nuclear power plants was in response to the 1970s era energy crisis when oil imports from the Middle East were suddenly cut off.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the US are not concerned about this issue and so do not make it national security policy as France did.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \nAs a result, US commercial demand is for cheaper fuel made from fresh uranium rather than for MOX fuel.

    \n\n

    \nUntil such time as fresh uranium greatly increases in price there is little economic incentive for the use of MOX fuel in the US.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nHowever, there is another aspect to this.

    \n\n

    \nIf you recall in previous episodes I described molten salt reactors which used dissolved uranium fuel.

    \n\n

    \nThese reactors inherently reprocess fuel as part of their normal operation.

    \n\n

    \nThey just do it as part of maintaining the molten salt chemistry at the correct values rather than doing it as a separate process.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nIf these types of reactors become widely used then they would be achieving the same thing as creating MOX fuel, but without an explicit separate step.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41

    \n\n

    \nAs a final footnote to the above, the US has almost exclusively use enriched uranium light water reactors.

    \n\n

    \nAs mentioned in previous episodes, there are ways of recycling spent fuel from light water reactors which do not involve chemically reprocessing it to make MOX fuel.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42

    \n\n

    \nExperiments have been done involving South Korea, China, and Canada which take spent fuel from light water reactors and repackage it to fit it into natural uranium heavy water reactors.

    \n\n

    \nWhat is used up or \"spent\" fuel for a light water reactor is high grade fuel to a natural uranium reactor.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the US has, for whatever reason, never built commercial natural uranium reactors such as are used in a number of other countries around the world.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nIf they were to do so, then nuclear fuel could be used twice, once in a light water reactor, and again in a natural uranium reactor, all without having to turn it into MOX fuel in a separate reprocessing step.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this particular alternative would likely face the same issue in the sense that fresh fuel would still be cheaper than reusing spent fuel.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA Variety of Questions from Clinton

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44

    \n\n

    \nNext we have a variety of questions from Clinton.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nClinton asked

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI would like some commentary in the current situation,

    \n\n

    \nwhy has hinkley gone off the rails,

    \n\n

    \nthe new american approach,

    \n\n

    \nthe odd things done after fukushima,

    \n\n

    \nthe new radiation rules in the states.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45 Question 1

    \n\n

    \nwhy has hinkley gone off the rails,

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46 Answer

    \n\n

    \nThe question refers to cost overruns at the Hinkley Point nuclear power project in the UK.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe UK government looked into this issue in a more general sense in 2025.

    \n\n

    \nThey published a report on it titled

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNuclear Regulatory Review 2025

    \n\n

    \nEnabling nuclear delivery through regulatory reform

    \n\n

    \nJohn Fingleton

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere is a link to the report in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \nhttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/692080f75c394e481336ab89/nuclear-regulatory-review-2025.pdf

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nAs the report is 162 pages long, I won't try to cover it all in this answer. I will however give a few simple examples.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe report focuses on civilian nuclear power and the defence nuclear industry as well.

    \n\n

    \nHowever it also draws examples from outside the nuclear industry to show that the problem is not limited to nuclear.

    \n\n

    \nIt shows that the same problems exist in the offshore wind industry, and in the HS2 High Speed Rail project.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48

    \n\n

    \nIn the view of the authors of the report, the essence of the problem seems to be a lack of any degree of proportionality in terms of mitigating negative effects from any project.

    \n\n

    \nBig nuclear projects make the headlines because they are inherently big projects, but as I have just mentioned, they affect things like wind power development and rail transport as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nI will pick one example from Hinkley Point specifically.

    \n\n

    \nThis is \"Case Study: Hinkley Point C Fish Protection\"

    \n\n

    \nA summary of this is that they spent £700 million of additional money on the cooling water intakes to protect an estimated 0.083 salmon per year, along with 0.028 sea trout, 6 river lamprey, 18 Allis shad, and somewhere between 100 and 528 twaite shad.

    \n\n

    \nThe report points out that there are ways to protect far more fish for far less money by spending it in other areas, and gives some examples.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAgain, this problem is not limited to nuclear power, and they give similar examples connected with offshore wind development and HS2 High Speed Rail.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50

    \n\n

    \nI would like to emphasize that I am not expressing an opinion on whether or not any of these decisions were good or bad ones or whether the money was well spent.

    \n\n

    \nI am just summarizing the report's explanation of why large projects of all sorts initiated and approved by the UK parliament were not turning out as initially expected.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will leave it up to people in the UK to decide whether or not they are satisfied with the current situation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51 Question 2

    \n\n

    \nthe new american approach,

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52 Answer

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe US have apparently announced changes to their regulatory system.

    \n\n

    \nI don't know enough about the subject to really judge the practical effects of regulation within the US.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I have read and listened to many interviews of people from both the industry and the regulatory side of things who are from outside the US but are familiar with it.

    \n\n

    \nThey generally contrast two different approaches to regulation.

    \n\n

    \nOn the one hand there is the US approach, which they see as being more of a box ticking exercise than an in depth safety review.

    \n\n

    \nThis makes it very hard to get a design other than a traditional PWR or BWR approved in the US.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nIt has the advantage from the regulator side of things though in that it reduces the amount of work required as it primarily requires just following a set of defined procedures.

    \n\n

    \nThese people then contrast that approach with the one used in the UK and in Canada, both of which they see as being very similar to one another.

    \n\n

    \nIn those two countries, regulators work with industry to review designs from basic principles rather than just seeing if it meets a pre-defined list of criteria.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a results oriented system rather than a process oriented system as used in the US.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nAs a result of this, designers of new nuclear reactors are going to the UK and Canada first to go through preliminary review there, and only going to the US later.

    \n\n

    \nWhat designers are looking for is feedback on their design as they go along in order to align the design with what safety regulators see as being required from their standpoint.

    \n\n

    \nThey want to go into a review process before the design is finalized so they can get guidance on how they should approach things rather than trying to add safety as additional features on top of a finished design.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55

    \n\n

    \nIt would take someone with deep familiarity with nuclear regulation systems to understand the practical effects of recent changes in US regulatory systems, but it is quite possible that people within the regulatory structure in the US have been taking the above on board and trying to adapt to current circumstances.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I can only speculate on that.

    \n\n

    \nThis is about the best answer that I can give.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56 Question 3

    \n\n

    \nthe odd things done after fukushima,

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 Answer

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis covers a lot of topics, some of which are probably political and so are not suited to HPR.

    \n\n

    \nI will try to list a few events however.

    \n\n

    \nAs a brief summary if the Fukushima events go however, a historic scale earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011 caused huge loss of life and widespread damage.

    \n\n

    \nAbout 20,000 people were killed by the earthquake and tsunami.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThree nuclear reactors based on 1960s era GE BWR designs were seriously damaged by hydrogen explosions caused by loss of power to backup generators when they were flooded by the tsunami.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, there were no radiation related deaths or cases of radiation sickness.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nFollowing events in Japan was a general review of designs around the world, with various improvements made in some areas, particularly backup generators and hydrogen management.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt seems to be conventional wisdom that the Fukushima event caused a number of countries to decide to phase out nuclear power.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nHowever, when I tried to make a list of such countries for this episode I found things were not as is often heard.

    \n\n

    \nThe countries which decided to get rid of nuclear power had largely started down that road at least a decade before then and generally for reasons unrelated to any specific events outside of their own country.

    \n\n

    \nIn other cases they reversed that decision or are in the process of doing so.

    \n\n

    \nJapan itself has restarted many of their nuclear power plants and plant to replace decommissioned nuclear power plants with new ones, although many of the older and smaller ones were considered not economically worth upgrading at this point in their life to restart them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60

    \n\n

    \nThe one possible exception to this may be Taiwan which decided to phase out nuclear power in 2016.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I don't know enough about Taiwanese politics to state with any confidence that their decision in 2016 was based on anything related to events in Japan, or whether in fact they were a byproduct of other political changes within Taiwan and the shut down of nuclear plants happened to be carried along with those.

    \n\n

    \nCurrently Taiwan get their electricity primarily from natural gas and coal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nMeanwhile across mainland Asia from Turkey to China, large numbers of nuclear power plants were built or are under construction.

    \n\n

    \nTaken together on a global scale, did anything really change after Fukushima, or did the countries which had already decided to close down their nuclear power plants simply continue to do so, and those countries who decided they wanted more of them continue to build them?

    \n\n

    \nThat's a good question for which I don't think anyone has the perspective to answer at this point.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62

    \n\n

    \nAnother side of this which is hard to disentangle from it though is the increased use of natural gas for electric power generation which was happening at around the same time.

    \n\n

    \nIncreased use of fracking in a number of countries, plus increased supplies from Russia and LNG from the Middle East and other places resulted in falls in natural gas prices in many places.

    \n\n

    \nSince combined cycle natural gas turbines form the main competitor to nuclear power, anything which improves the economics of natural gas will act to reduce demand for nuclear power.

    \n\n

    \nThis makes it hard to decide to what degree the reduction in the number of reactors being built was due to the political effects of the earthquake and tsunami and to what degree it was due to cheaper natural gas through fracking and other means.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI'll leave that question at that.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63 Question 4

    \n\n

    \nthe new radiation rules in the states.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64 Answer

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI'm not deeply familiar with US radiation rules, but I will attempt to answer the question.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nApparently there are wide variety of different things being addressed, only some of which have any relevance to the nuclear power industry.

    \n\n

    \nOne of these is an epidemiological study on the current exposure limits for workers in the nuclear industry.

    \n\n

    \nThis study will take place over about 5 years.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the end it may not result in any changes.

    \n\n

    \nThis is for a number of reasons.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65

    \n\n

    \nOne is that US exposure thresholds for workers are currently aligned with international standards.

    \n\n

    \nIt would be difficult for the US industry to operate on a different basis than the rest of the world when supply chains are global and kit is designed to meet currently recognized standards.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAnother is that apparently the nuclear industry are not, so far as I can discern, asking for any changes to limits.

    \n\n

    \nThey instead are looking for changes to how some of the details are being applied, such as for example the criteria for deciding when respirators are required in low risk environments.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \nSome point to recent changes in UK regulations as an example of what they are looking for.

    \n\n

    \nI will post a link to the new (November of 2025) UK regulations in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-industry-principles-to-guide-the-application-of-as-low-as-reasonably-practicable-alarp-and-best-available-techniques-bat/ways-of-working-principles-to-guide-the-application-of-alarp-and-bat-in-the-nuclear-industry-accessible-webpage

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is about as much detail as I think I can comment on when it comes to this question, as I think it is a subject that requires a fair bit more practical knowledge of than I have in order to give a thorough and balanced answer.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67 Question from Antoine

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWere/are the designs patented?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHi, Whiskeyjack.

    \n\n

    \nNice ep.

    \n\n

    \nYou said AGR, based on Magnox, was a nuclear reactor type that did not sell well outside the UK. I then started thinking if it were (is) possible to another countries to develop by themselves based on that project, or if it had (has) a commercial restriction for exploration of the technology.

    \n\n

    \nI have yet to listen to the following episodes (doing little by little) and may learn better on the choices, but I felt free to present the question by now...

    \n\n

    \nThanks!

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68 Answer

    \n\n

    \nThis is a very good question because it offers the opportunity to talk about a number of interesting things that haven't been touched on yet.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLet's cover a bit of background first.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nA patent is a time limited right to exploit a defined bit of valuable technical knowledge.

    \n\n

    \nPatents were involved from the very earliest days of commercial nuclear power, and I will give an example of this later.

    \n\n

    \nA key point to keep in mind though is that the nuclear power field moves very slowly and it takes a long time for new knowledge to make it from the lab to commercial application.

    \n\n

    \nPatents will often expire before they reach the point where they can be used.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nContracts on the other hand are legally enforceable agreements between two parties.

    \n\n

    \nA contract may have a time limited life, but that is an arrangement between the parties.

    \n\n

    \nA commercial nuclear power plant is a very large and complex bit of kit and not easily copied in detail.

    \n\n

    \nIt can be far more effective to cover designs under contracts and licenses than to rely on patents.

    \n\n

    \nIf a country wished to build their own nuclear power plants rather than buying them from someone else, there are a large number of companies who have commercial designs they are willing to license to third parties for them to build themselves.

    \n\n

    \nIndeed a number of these companies base their business around licensing of designs or have other reasons for wishing to do so.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71

    \n\n

    \nFrom a licensee perspective, it could take decades of work and hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars to take a design from first principle to the ready to build state, wheras licensing a design give you a proven design right away.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAs mentioned in previous episodes, there many types of reactor in the world.

    \n\n

    \nThe selection of what sort of reactor a country decides to buy often depends more on commercial considerations revolving around licensing terms and conditions than it does with respect to any technical considerations.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere's an example which shows how South Korea decided to license a design, build it for themselves, and then export it to other countries.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72

    \n\n

    \nKunMo Chung - Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, stated in an interview in 2019 that South Korea wanted to standardize on a single reactor technology in the early 1980s.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThey had reactors from multiple different vendors, but wanted to license an existing successful design to produce for themselves and for the export market. One of the major factors in deciding to standardize was to allow them to improve operator training by focusing on one design.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nProfessor Chung stated that one of the key factors in selecting a design from ABB-Combustion Engineering was that he personally knew and had a good relationship with the Chief Technical Officer of ABB-Combustion Engineering going back to a time when Professor Chung had been studying and working in the USA.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73

    \n\n

    \nOn their side, ABB-Combustion Engineering were having financial problems and they needed a partner to help further develop their new PWR design. Also they stood to gain revenue from this partnership as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nBased on this relationship, the two sides came to a business agreement and South Korea began producing reactors based on this design, while also continuing to develop and improve it further.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74

    \n\n

    \nHere's an example of a case where the developers of a promising technology decided that they had more to gain by not patenting their technology.

    \n\n

    \nInstead they decided to freely share their information in order to get other researchers elsewhere to help to advance the technology so that all could benefit from it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75

    \n\n

    \nIn an interview Wacław Gudowski - Prof. Emeritus, Royal Institute of Technology KTH Stockholm

    \n\n

    \nstated that the Soviets and later the Russian were the leaders in lead-bismuth cooled reactors.

    \n\n

    \nThese reactors use lead-bismuth liquid metal alloy as a coolant.

    \n\n

    \nIn the 1990s the Russian institute working on commercializing this technology were working with Western partners on nuclear technology in general.

    \n\n

    \nThey considered patenting this technology, but in the end decided to simply publish it openly.

    \n\n

    \n76

    \n\n

    \nProfessor Gudowski had even smuggled $60,000 in cash into Russia to finance the patent application in order to get the Russian institute to publish their technology, but the money was not needed.

    \n\n

    \nThey based this decision on the judgment that it would take 20 years of R&D before the technology was ready for the commercial market, so they wouldn't see a penny on any patents anyway.

    \n\n

    \nThey were right on this, as it was another 20 years of R&D in Europe, Russia, China, and Korea before lead-bismuth technology was ready for commercial use.

    \n\n

    \n77

    \n\n

    \nIt had already seen use in submarine reactors, but the commercial market demanded a more thoroughly developed technology to satisfy commercial needs.

    \n\n

    \nBy deciding to not patent the technology, the original developers gained from shared R&D rather than chasing the illusary gains from patent licenses on technology that was not ready for the commercial market anyway.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n78

    \n\n

    \nI said that patents were involved in nuclear technology from the very earliest days, and I will now turn to that story.

    \n\n

    \nWhen I say the earliest days, I mean probably earlier than you are imaging.

    \n\n

    \nI am talking about before WWII.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n79

    \n\n

    \nFirst though I need to give some background information.

    \n\n

    \nFrance and Britain were working on nuclear weapons from the very earliest days of WWII.

    \n\n

    \nIn Britain's case this was called Tube Alloys.

    \n\n

    \nCanada also was conducting nuclear experiments, including building an \"atomic pile\", but it's not clear if this had any clear practical goals or was done to understand the physics better.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n80

    \n\n

    \nIf you read the Wikipedia version of history, it states that Tube Alloys was merged into the Manhattan Project.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, participants have stated in interviews that this was not the case, and the Quebec Agreement which supposedly merged them makes no such mention of any merger of the projects, just the setting up of a board to coordinate efforts between the three countries, that is the US, UK, and Canada.

    \n\n

    \nIn fact the two projects didn't get along that well, and as we shall see below, a big part of that was disputes over patents.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n###

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n81

    \n\n

    \nThe following is based on a paper written by Bertrand Goldschmidt, a French nuclear scientist.

    \n\n

    \nTwo of his colleagues, Hans Halban and Lew Kowarski played a critical role in early nuclear research.

    \n\n

    \nHalban in particular was one of the greatest scientific names in nuclear fission.

    \n\n

    \nIn March of 1939 Halban conducted an experiment showing that neutrons were emitted by the fissioning of uranium.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n82

    \n\n

    \nIn April Joliot, Halban, Kowarski and Perrin had a pretty good idea of how to use nuclear fission to produce energy and to make an explosive device and decided to file patents on their invention. Each of the four would receive a 5% share of any benefits and the other 80% would go to the research instittute they worked at in Paris.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will now quote from Goldschmidt's paper.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n83

    \n\n

    \nThe first two patents concerned energy production and were entitled \"Device for energy production\" and \"Method for stabilizing a device for energy production.\" They roughly defined the principles of the main components of our present power reactors: moderator in heterogeneous or homogeneous arrangements, cooling fluid, control rods, protection shield. The third patent called \"Method for perfecting explosive charges\" was less brilliant from a foresight point of view though it proposed valid solutions for the trigger, the tamper, and the rapid obtainment of the critical assembly of a possible explosive device. Finally, nearly a year later, after Alfred Nier's experimental confirmation in March 1940 of Niels Bohr's theoretical prediction that uranium 235, the rare isotope of the mixture in natural uranium, was responsible for fission by slow neutrons, the French took out an additional patent on the advantage of using enriched uranium for the chain reaction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEnd of quote.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n84

    \n\n

    \nIn May of 1940, the CNRS, the French research institute in Paris, negotiated an agreement with Belgian mining company Union Miniere, who were the world's biggest producer of uranium, at the time a byproduct of radium mining, about a partnership for the world wide exploitation of these patents. However the agreement was not finalized due to the ongoing events in the war.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAt the beginning of the war, the French government had approved the development of an energy generator - or a nuclear reactor as we would say today, with the intention of creating an engine for submarines.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n85

    \n\n

    \nWith the fall of France, Halban and Kowarski travelled to the UK with their supply of heavy water where they were received by their UK counterparts, James Chadwick and John Cockroft. The British were already working on an atomic bomb.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the UK the two conducted an experiment showing that it was possible to create nuclear energy using natural uranium and heavy water.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn 1941 the British nuclear project was reorganized and given the name Tube Alloys. In 1942 it was decided to move the work on a plutonium bomb to Canada, and Canada would pay for the project. A lab was set up in Montreal and Halban was put in charge of the project.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n86

    \n\n

    \nHalban had negotiated this arrangement by offering to arrange to have the French patents for world wide rights outside of France and the French empire transferred to the UK. In return the French team were to be given a key role in the British nuclear project.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe author of the paper I am referencing, Bertrand Goldschmidt, was a section leader in Montreal and a colleague of Halban from France.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Montreal group cooperated with the American Manhattan Project and the two shared information and exchanged visits.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n87

    \n\n

    \nHowever, relations between the two began to break down, with a major cause of this being the Americans being unhappy about the French patents and Halban's arrangement to give the British world wide rights to them. The postwar commercial potential for nuclear power was seen to be huge, and this was a major bone of contention. The extensive participation of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) engineers in the Tube Alloys project was also objectionable to the Americans. Presumably this had something to do with potential for ICI being involved in future commercialization of the technology. The American Dupont company, a commercial rival of ICI, was also heavily involved in the American atomic bomb project. The eventual result of this was that the US cut off cooperation with the UK-Canada nuclear project.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n88

    \n\n

    \nFinally Halban was forced out of the project at the insistence of the Americans, and he was replaced by John Cockroft who moved to Montreal to take charge of the project. The Americans now restore limited cooperation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nKowarski was put in charge of building a heavy water moderated natural uranium reactor at a new site north of Ottawa at Chalk River. This reactor was turned on on the 5th of September, 1945, three days after Japan's surrender.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSo in what was supposedly a titanic war for survival, key allies were falling out with respect to their ultimate weapon over issues of patents covering post war commercialization.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n89

    \n\n

    \nWith the end of the war, the nuclear weapons project in Montreal and Chalk River was wound up.

    \n\n

    \nHalban, Kowarski, and Goldschmidt returned to France and Cockroft to the UK where they all played senior roles in the nuclear programs of their respective countries.

    \n\n

    \nJohn Cockroft played an important role in the development of the Magnox reactors which Antoine asked about.

    \n\n

    \nThe Chalk River Site remains as Canada's main nuclear research centre to this day, and Canada was to continue development of heavy water moderated natural uranium reactors.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n90

    \n\n

    \nThe first commercial nuclear power plant was commissioned in the UK in 1956, roughly 17 years after the original French nuclear patents.

    \n\n

    \nAt that time, UK patents had a term of 16 years.

    \n\n

    \nWhile I am not a patent lawyer, it would appear that these patents would likely have expired before nuclear power was ever commercialized.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSo to answer the question about patents, the first patents on nuclear energy date to before WWII started, and the very first two were about nuclear power plants and it was only the third one which covered nuclear weapons.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n91 Thanks to other listeners.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA number of other listeners made comments saying they were really enjoying the series. I would like to thank the following for their kind words of encouragement. They helped make the work required to do this worthwhile.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThey are

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nbrian-in-ohio

    \n\n

    \nmnw

    \n\n

    \nClinton

    \n\n

    \nAntoine

    \n\n

    \nbjb

    \n\n

    \nKevin O'Brien

    \n\n

    \nTrey

    \n\n

    \nL'andrew

    \n\n

    \nArcher72

    \n\n

    \nJim DeVore

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you have commented but I have forgotten your name, or if the show was recorded before I got a chance to read your comment, I would still like to thank you.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n92 Conclusion

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI would like to thank all the listeners for their kind comments and insightful questions.

    \n\n

    \nI hope that I have answered these questions to the satisfaction of everyone.

    \n\n

    \nI look forward to hearing from all of you in future podcast episodes including those on other topics.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nProceedings of the 29th annual conference of the Canadian Nuclear Association and 10th annual conference of the Canadian Nuclear Society. V. 1-3

    \n\n

    \nhttps://inis.iaea.org/records/m2s41-40917

    \n\n

    \nThis has a paper by Bertrand Goldschmidt about the work of the French scientists in Canada.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":" energy, nuclear, engineering.","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4629,"date":"2026-04-30","title":"What did I do at work today? Part 2","duration":2573,"summary":"Lee does some coding implementing the user interface toggling availability of a list of resources.","notes":"\n

    \nThis show is about developing features for a web application. The technology used is \nASP.Net WebForms\n, the programming language is \nVisual Basic .Net\nalong with HTML and CSS and the development environment is Windows 11 running under a virtual machine in Linux, with \nVisual Studio\nand \nSQL Server\nas the database. Other tools used are \nGit\n, \nGithub\n, \nJoplin\nand \nDropbox\n, \nGoogle Gemini\nand a tool called \nBeyond Compare\n.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nResourceRowControl.ascx.vb\n\n

    \n\n
    \nPublic WriteOnly Property ResourceObject As Resource\nSet(obj As Resource)\nIf obj IsNot Nothing Then\nHiddenResourceID.Value = CStr(obj.ResourceID)\nHiddenResourceTypeID.Value = CStr(obj.ResourceTypeID)\nResource.Text = obj.ResourceName\nType.Text = obj.ResourceTypeName\nAvailable.Checked = obj.ResourceAvailable\nEnd If\nEnd Set\nEnd Property\n\nPrivate Sub Available_CheckedChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Available.CheckedChanged\nDim objResource As New Resource\nWith objResource\n.ResourceID = ResourceID\n.ResourceName = Resource.Text\n.ResourceTypeID = ResourceTypeID\n.ResourceAvailable = Available.Checked\nEnd With\nobjResource.Add()\nEnd Sub\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nResourceRowControl.ascx\n\n

    \n\n
    \n<tr>\n<td>\n<asp:Label runat=\"server\" ID=\"Resource\"></asp:Label>\n</td>\n<td>\n<asp:Label runat=\"server\" ID=\"Type\"></asp:Label>\n</td>\n<td>\n<asp:Button runat=\"server\" ID=\"Edit\" CssClass=\"Pointer fa\" BackColor=\"White\" ForeColor=\"#741E43\" BorderStyle=\"None\" Text=\"&#xf044;\" />\n</td>\n<td>\n<asp:Button runat=\"server\" ID=\"Delete\" CssClass=\"Pointer fa\" BackColor=\"White\" ForeColor=\"#741E43\" BorderStyle=\"None\" Text=\"&#xf1f8;\"\nOnClientClick=\"return DeleteResourceRow(this.id)\" />\n</td>\n<td>\n<label class=\"toggle-checkbox\">\n<asp:CheckBox runat=\"server\" ID=\"Available\" AutoPostBack=\"true\" />\n<span class=\"slider\"></span>\n</label>\n</td>\n</tr>\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"web development, programming, windows","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4630,"date":"2026-05-01","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 11","duration":787,"summary":"We finish our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V.","notes":"

    In our final look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we look at all of the players and their unique attributes. This helps you to see that certain Empires can be better suited for particular victory strategies.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 11

    \n

    The Players

    \n

    By the time you got to the last expansion and all of the DLC, there are 43 possible Empires you can play as. But they are not all alike. Each Empire has a particular Leader, a Unique Ability, and a Unique Unit. In addition most of them have some kind of Starting Bias, and many have a Unique Building or a Unique Improvement. Understanding how to make use of these is important to your strategy. If you let random chance assign you to an Empire, you need to know what kind of strategy will work with that Empire. And if you want to pursue a particular strategy you will want to know how to pick an appropriate Empire to fit strategy. There is a chart that lists all 43 Empires with all of their parameters at the Civilization Fandom Wiki and you might want to bookmark that page for future reference. Also, you want to know what to expect concerning your opponents in a game.

    \n

    Leader

    \n

    You don’t have a choice of leaders. When you choose a particular Empire you get the Leader that comes with it. But these leaders are distinct in various ways. To see what I mean, go to the Leader page for one by clicking on the link under the Leader picture. You will see a long list of AI Traits. These describe in numerical terms how competitive the Leader is various ways, how prone to war, which kinds of units it will build, and so on. It is a long list, so your eyes may glaze over, but the significance is that it may give you some insight if this Leader is one of your opponents in a game. This list is how the AI is programmed. There is also more approachable summary under Personality and Behavior, and here is what it says about Pedro II of Brazil:

    \n
    \n

    “Pedro will most commonly try for a cultural victory. If he pursues a different victory condition, he is likely to choose a diplomatic one over a scientific or domination victory.

    \n

    Pedro is exceptionally friendly and loyal, and will readily befriend anyone but the most warlike leaders. He is more willing to denounce than to wage war himself, but will maintain a defensive militia comprised of a variety of units. He also has a habit of building a fairly large navy.

    \n

    Fittingly, Pedro’s highest priority is the Happiness of his people, followed by the development of his lands and Culture. He will not claim a large territory, but his cities will be highly populated and the land and water around them will be full of improvements. He will sometimes try to build wonders that enhance his Culture and Tourism output.

    \n

    Pedro is friendly toward city-states in his sphere of influence and will often pledge to protect them. He will hardly ever attack or bully them.”

    \n
    \n

    Now, the point is that this describes your AI opponent. If you choose to play as Pedro II of Brazil, you can make entirely different decisions from what the AI would do

    \n

    Starting Bias

    \n

    Each Empire will spawn on the map in ways that reflect their Starting Bias, if any. Some Empires (e.g. China, France, etc.) have no Starting Bias at all, which means they can spawn anywhere on the map, though there is programming to ensure that the location is not a disaster, like all Tundra and Ice, or the middle of the ocean. So it will certainly be playable. Still some players like to try 2,3, or 4 times to spawn to see if they can get a good place to start.. For the Empires with a Starting Bias, it can be either positive or negative. For example, the Mongolian Empire has a bias towards starting on plains, which makes sense historically since they came from the plains of Central Asia. The Russian Empire has a bias to start in Tundra, which again seems to fit. The Songhai Empire has a negative Starting Bias, which is to avoid Tundra. The Songhai Empire historically was an empire in sub-Saharan Africa, so this makes sense. And the Siamese Empire avoids Forests. The Roman and Shoshone Empires have no Starting Bias at all, so they could spawn anywhere. This Starting Bias will apply to whichever Empire you choose to play, so if you would prefer to not play with a lot of Tundra, you would de well to not choose Russia. But Russia can do more with Tundra than some other Empire might, so it all balances out.

    \n

    Unique Ability

    \n

    Generally speaking each Empire will have a Unique Ability. For example, the Austrian Empire has the Unique Ability called Diplomatic Marriage, which allows them to spend Gold to annex or puppet any City-State that they have been allied to for at least 5 turns. If the City-State is annexed, it becomes part of the Austrian Empire, but if it is puppeted the City-State technically remains separate but is under the control in some ways of the Austrian Empire. India has a Unique Ability called Population Growth. This doubles the unhappiness caused by more cities, but reduces by 50% the unhappiness caused by increased population. So if you were playing India it is even more important to build Tall rather than Wide.

    \n

    Unique Units

    \n

    Every Empire has at least one, and sometimes two Unique Units. These units replace a normal unit, but are a little better in some respect. They are worth having, but some are more useful than others. And a key factor is when they are available to you. For example, the Celtic Empire gets the Pictish Warrior, which replaces the Spearman. Since the Spearman is generally the first unit you learn to build, it comes very early in the game. So if you were interested in a strategy of early warfare, this might matter to you. The Pictish Warrior is actually weaker than the Spearman in one respect, though, in that it gets no bonus against mounted units. So if you are the Celts, and you are facing the Mongols, you will have a problem. But the Pictish Warrior can pillage without any movement cost. Normally when you use a unit to pillage it ends your turn, but the Pictish Warrior could pillage and then move if it still had movement left. And the Pictish Warrior also has the Foreign Lands Bonus, which gives it a 20% bonus when fighting outside of Celtic territory. And finally the Pictish Warrior gets a Faith bonus when it kills an enemy unit, equal to 50% of the killed unit’s strength.

    \n

    The American Empire is one that has 2 Unique Units. One is the B-17 bomber, which replaces the regular Bomber. It comes with 2 promotions (Siege I, and Evasion), and is slightly stronger (70 vs. 65). The problem with this is that it comes so late in the game that it is hard to see what good it will do you. If you are pursuing a Domination strategy you should have already gone most of the way to conquering the world before you actually get the B17. The other Unique Unit the Americans get is the Minuteman, which replaces the Musketman. It comes with a Drill I Promotion, ignores Terrain restrictions, and earns points towards a Golden Age. This is more useful than the B17, but not useful enough to push you towards a Domination victory. But since you need good units for any strategy, if only for defense, it is worth having. Personally, if I was playing as the Americans I would rather go for a Science victory.

    \n

    Unique Buildings/Improvements

    \n

    The last parameter for these Empires is the possible Unique Building or Unique Improvement. Some Empires, such as the Byzantines or the Japanese, do not have one, but they can be useful. For example, the Portuguese Empire has a unique building called the Feitoria which has the interesting property of being built outside of Portugal’s territory. The Feitoria, which becomes available once you discover Navigation, can be built in the territory of a Coastal City-State on a Coastal Land tile that has no resources on it. It has three properties:

    \n
      \n
    • Portugal gets one copy of each Luxury Resource the City-State has. This is great for either increasing Happiness or as something that can be traded with other Empires.
      • \n
    • +50% defensive strength for any combat units on the tile.
      • \n
    • Pillaging the Freitoria constitutes an Act of War against Portugal, which means Portugal gets no penalties for going to war.
      • \n
    \n

    Another example is the Dutch Polder, which can be built on any Marsh or Flood Plain tile. It gives +3 Food, and once you discover Economics it will also yield +1 Production and +1 Gold.

    \n

    Summary

    \n

    Studying the chart of the Empires can help you in picking strategies for the Empire you are playing, or help you to pick an Empire that is well suited to the strategy you want to try. And knowing how the AI is programmed for other Empires helps you to know what to expect in your game. But here are some suggestions. Note that you can win with any Civ, but these are ones that lend themselves to a particular strategy. That said, I usually let the game give me a random choice and then formulate my strategy when I see what I get.

    \n

    Domination

    \n
      \n
    • Germany
      • \n
    • Japan
      • \n
    • Rome
      • \n
    • Songhai
      • \n
    • Mongols
      • \n
    \n

    Science

    \n
      \n
    • Babylon
      • \n
    • Korea
      • \n
    • Poland
      • \n
    • America
      • \n
    \n

    Culture

    \n
      \n
    • Brazil
      • \n
    • Polynesia
      • \n
    • Poland
      • \n
    • France
      • \n
    \n

    Diplomatic

    \n
      \n
    • Greece
      • \n
    • Arabia
      • \n
    • Portugal
      • \n
    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, Empires, Unique attributes","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4631,"date":"2026-05-04","title":"HPR Community News for April 2026","duration":5507,"summary":"HPR Volunteers Clinton, Ken and Kevie talk about shows released and comments posted in April 2026","notes":"

    New hosts

    \n

    \nThere were no new hosts this month.\n

    \n\n

    Last Month's Shows

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    IdDayDateTitleHost
    4608Wed2026-04-01Simple Podcasting - Episode 1 - Preparation and RecordingWhiskeyjack
    4609Thu2026-04-02Proper Date FormatAhuka
    4610Fri2026-04-03Playing Civilization V, Part 10Ahuka
    4611Mon2026-04-06HPR Community News for March 2026HPR Volunteers
    4612Tue2026-04-07Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 4Honkeymagoo
    4613Wed2026-04-08Adding functionality to an Odoo installationJeroen Baten
    4614Thu2026-04-09Dauug|18: Faster Than a '286, but Inspectable Like a SorobanMarc W. Abel
    4615Fri2026-04-10Clicking through an auditLee
    4616Mon2026-04-13Thoughts about age control and further suggestionsTrollercoaster
    4617Tue2026-04-14UNIX Curio #4 - Archiving FilesVance
    4618Wed2026-04-15Simple Podcasting - Episode 2 - Basic FilteringWhiskeyjack
    4619Thu2026-04-16HPR Beer Garden 12 - Baltic PorterKevie
    4620Fri2026-04-17The Second Doctor, Part 1Ahuka
    4621Mon2026-04-20Android volume control helpoperat0r
    4622Tue2026-04-21Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 5Honkeymagoo
    4623Wed2026-04-22A brief infodump on the Broadcast Address and RoutingJon The Nice Guy
    4624Thu2026-04-23Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 7: GUI Trying a Simple Hello World Trey
    4625Fri2026-04-24Site Specific BrowsersLee
    4626Mon2026-04-27Cable Management / PC Speakers operat0r
    4627Tue2026-04-28UNIX Curio #5 - Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!Vance
    4628Wed2026-04-29Nuclear Power Technology Follow UpWhiskeyjack
    4629Thu2026-04-30What did I do at work today? Part 2Lee
    \n\n

    Comments this month

    \n\n

    Past shows

    \n\n

    This month's shows

    \n\n

    Mailing List discussions

    \n

    Policy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This\ndiscussion takes place on the Mailing List\nwhich is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open\nand available on the HPR server under Mailman.\n

    \n

    The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

    \nhttps://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2026-April/thread.html\n\n

    Events Calendar

    \n

    With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to\nThe LWN.net Community Calendar.

    \n

    Quoting the site:

    \n
    This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track\nevents of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software.\nClicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web\npage.
    \n\n","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4632,"date":"2026-05-05","title":"Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 6","duration":6334,"summary":"the hpr community comes together to converse","notes":"\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSauced\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sauced\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChevrolet Vega\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Vega\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChevrolet small-block engine (first- and second-generation)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_small-block_engine_(first-_and_second-generation)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.chevrolet.com/performance-parts/crate-engines/small-block-engines/350-engine\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStraight-six engine\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-six_engine\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHalf marathon\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_marathon\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMammoth March\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mammothmarch.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWhat Is Sleep Apnea?\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep-apnea\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apnea\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSpaceballs\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceballs\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAle 8 One Special Edition Cherry Zero Sugar\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://ale8one.com/varieties/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/Ale-One-Special-Bottles-Kentucky/dp/B09JBBDKM1\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.kroger.com/p/ale-8-one-zero-sugar-cherry-soda-bottles/0007227546202\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAlcoholism\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholism\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJitsi\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://jitsi.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitsi\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSurface Pro 6\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-pro-6-specs-and-features-ade5cfc2-e99a-6fd1-abbe-c0e8a8a3942d\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nXfce Desktop Environment\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.xfce.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfce\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTrinity Desktop Environment\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.trinitydesktop.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Desktop_Environment\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCheese\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Cheese\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAltered\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt32123395/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFinal fireworks sales take off with a bang as countdown begins.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/12/final-fireworks-sales-take-off-with-a-bang-as-countdown-begins/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/09/dutch-netherlands-fireworks-ban-new-years-eve\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFireworks policy in the Netherlands\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireworks_policy_in_the_Netherlands\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nQuarter of idiom\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/%28a%29%20quarter%20of\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLinuxLugCast\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linuxlugcast.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNeeds must idiom\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/needs-must.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTech and Coffee.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://techandcoffee.info/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJanuary 6 United States Capitol attack\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOggCamp 2026\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.oggcamp.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nList of benchmarking methods and software tools\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_benchmarking_methods_and_software_tools\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWatchhouse\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://watchhouseband.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nProper feline supervision (Just because)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://blog.catbandit.com/why-does-my-cat-always-watch-me-exploring-the-reasons-behind-feline-observation/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.cats.org.uk/cats-blog/why-does-my-cat-stare-at-me\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://thepurrfectguide.com/cat-supervised-introduction-guide/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://catvets.com/clinical-resources/practice-guidelines/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWYSIWYG\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPandoc a universal document converter\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://pandoc.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRendering on the Web\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://web.dev/articles/rendering-on-the-web\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nF-Droid\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Droid\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://f-droid.org/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGet UTC time in seconds\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://stackoverflow.com/questions/24547655/get-utc-time-in-seconds\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nContent delivery network\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAudio feedback\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_feedback\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLoopback\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopback\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nList of conspiracy theories\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nJason Scott\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Scott\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBug vs Feature\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://devrev.ai/blog/bug-vs-feature-request-a-distinction-without-a-difference\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://blog.codinghorror.com/thats-not-a-bug-its-a-feature-request/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nchronic dehydration\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehydration\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dehydration/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://medlineplus.gov/dehydration.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.healthline.com/health/chronic-dehydration\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAtlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Compliance Guides\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/atlantic-highly-migratory-species/atlantic-highly-migratory-species-fishery-compliance-guides\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/highly-migratory-species\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-50/chapter-VI/part-635\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFederal Bridge Gross Weight Formula\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bridge_Gross_Weight_Formula\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/FREIGHT/publications/brdg_frm_wghts/index.htm\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nConvenience store\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convenience_store\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nListing Linux Users and Groups: A Comprehensive Guide\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linuxvox.com/blog/list-linux-users-and-groups/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPlugable 250x Digital USB Microscope with Observation Stand\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://plugable.com/products/usb2-micro-250x\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWhat’s the difference between Medicare and Medicaid?\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hhs.gov/answers/medicare-and-medicaid/what-is-the-difference-between-medicare-medicaid/index.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.medicare.gov/basics/costs/help/medicaid\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HPR,community,new years eve show","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4633,"date":"2026-05-06","title":"Ham Radio Licence","duration":863,"summary":"Lee talks about the curriculum of the Radio Society of Great Britain Foundation Licence","notes":"\n

    \n\"The Foundation licence is your gateway to the world of amateur radio

    \n\n

    \nThe course and exam that leads to the licence provides you with an exciting introduction to the hobby while ensuring you can operate safely and without causing issues to other radio users. The licence entitles you to a unique call sign which you use to identify yourself when transmitting.

    \n\n

    \nFoundation licences are issued by Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator.\"

    \n\n

    \nFrom: \nhttps://rsgb.org/main/clubs-training/for-students/foundation/\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":43,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"radio, electricity, RF, antennae, circuits, signals","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4634,"date":"2026-05-07","title":"Upgrade Failsause","duration":1246,"summary":"operat0r goes over how he rebuit his Plex root FS","notes":"\n

    \nhttps://rufus.ie/en/

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nKasa Smart Plug Mini with Energy Monitoring, Smart Home Wi-Fi Outlet Works with Alexa, Google Home & IFTTT, Wi-Fi Simple Setup, No Hub Required (KP115), White

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n INIT STUFF

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSudoers

    \n\n

    \nApps

    \n\n

    \napt update && apt install -y psmisc screen net-tools snapd pipx xbindkeys xbindkeys-config git nmap mono-runtime etherwake cloudflare-ddns mlocate samba

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# python pipx gahh

    \n\n

    \nsu plex -

    \n\n

    \npipx install python-kasa

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# sudo

    \n\n

    \nmkdir /root/PYTHONVENV/

    \n\n

    \npython3 -m venv /root/PYTHONVENV/

    \n\n

    \npipx install python-kasa

    \n\n

    \npipx ensurepath

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# update db

    \n\n

    \nmount -a

    \n\n

    \nsed 's/\\/media//g' -i.bak /etc/updatedb.conf

    \n\n

    \nupdatedb

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nContab

    \n\n

    \n0 0 * * * /usr/local/bin/cloudflare-ddns --update-now

    \n\n

    \n0 7 * * * /usr/local/bin/etherwake -i enp1s0 -D \"d8:bb:c1:a2:2c:0b\"

    \n\n

    \n0 3 * * * /usr/bin/veracrypt -d

    \n\n

    \n0 0 5 * * /usr/local/sbin/BSA.sh

    \n\n

    \nMounts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ncat /etc/fstab

    \n\n

    \nUUID=2317187b-c592-46a7-8d8e-45c7d1eae7fc / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1

    \n\n

    \nUUID=61A0-586A /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1

    \n\n

    \nUUID=db166a45-1afb-47dc-85cd-cbfcb06a9766 none swap sw 0 0

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# data

    \n\n

    \nUUID=dbb20dc6-9487-4510-9ab1-c7bbc3014cdb /media/data ext4 defaults,nofail,noatime 0 2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# moredata

    \n\n

    \nUUID=5df24408-36ae-4205-8ecb-9d523dc4d820 /media/moredata ext4 defaults,nofail,noatime 0 2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# backup

    \n\n

    \nUUID=c1aac0d2-73ca-4d95-883f-5e1f43b5cd13 /media/backup ext4 defaults,nofail,noatime 0 2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTunefs

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nsudo tune2fs -c 5 -i 7d -C 1 /dev/sdd2

    \n\n

    \nsudo tune2fs -c 5 -i 7d -C 1 /dev/sdb1

    \n\n

    \nsudo tune2fs -c 5 -i 7d -C 1 /dev/sda1

    \n\n

    \nsudo tune2fs -c 5 -i 7d -C 1 /dev/sdc1

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nXFCE

    \n\n

    \nAutologin

    \n\n

    \n# /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

    \n\n

    \n[Seat:*]

    \n\n

    \nautologin-user=plex

    \n\n

    \nautologin-user-timeout=0

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Enable service

    \n\n

    \nsystemctl enable lightdm

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nUPower ( do not run pwrstatd )

    \n\n

    \ncat ./UPower/UPower.conf

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n[UPower]

    \n\n

    \nEnableWattsUpPro=false

    \n\n

    \nNoPollBatteries=false

    \n\n

    \nIgnoreLid=false

    \n\n

    \nUsePercentageForPolicy=true

    \n\n

    \nPercentageLow=10

    \n\n

    \nPercentageCritical=3

    \n\n

    \nPercentageAction=2

    \n\n

    \nTimeLow=1200

    \n\n

    \nTimeCritical=300

    \n\n

    \nTimeAction=120

    \n\n

    \nCriticalPowerAction=HybridSleep

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nPLEX

    \n\n

    \nRESTORE/BACKUP

    \n\n

    \n/home/plex/Library

    \n\n

    \n/media/moredata/_PLEX/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/

    \n\n

    \nBackup ?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://github.com/sinicide/ansible-vm/blob/master/roles/plex/files/pms-backup.sh

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAutostart Plex

    \n\n

    \n/home/plex/.config/autostart# cat PLEX_STARTUP.desktop

    \n\n

    \n[Desktop Entry]

    \n\n

    \nEncoding=UTF-8

    \n\n

    \nVersion=0.9.4

    \n\n

    \nType=Application

    \n\n

    \nName=KODI_STARTUP

    \n\n

    \nComment=KODI_STARTUP

    \n\n

    \nExec=/home/plex/.local/bin/Plex.sh

    \n\n

    \nOnlyShowIn=XFCE;

    \n\n

    \nStartupNotify=false

    \n\n

    \nTerminal=false

    \n\n

    \nHidden=false

    \n\n

    \nRunHook=0

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOMBI

    \n\n

    \nSabnsbd+

    \n\n

    \nIDK ... ?!!?!?!?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n251 pipx install git+https://github.com/sabnzbd/sabnzbd.git

    \n\n

    \n 252 pipx install sabnzbd

    \n\n

    \n 253 pipx inject sabnzbd feedparser configobj cherrypy portend chardet cheetah3 puremagic guessit babelfish tmdbsimple

    \n\n

    \n 254 pipx install sabnzbd

    \n\n

    \n 255 python3 -m venv venv

    \n\n

    \n 256 source venv/bin/activate

    \n\n

    \n 257 pip install -r requirements.txt

    \n\n

    \n 258 cat > ~/sabnzbd/sabnzbd-wrapper.sh << 'EOF'

    \n\n

    \n 259 #!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n 260 cd ~/sabnzbd

    \n\n

    \n 261 source venv/bin/activate

    \n\n

    \n 262 python3 SABnzbd.py \"$@\"

    \n\n

    \n 263 EOF

    \n\n

    \n 264 chmod +x ~/sabnzbd/sabnzbd-wrapper.sh

    \n\n

    \n 265 sudo ln -s ~/sabnzbd/sabnzbd-wrapper.sh /usr/local/bin/sabnzbd

    \n\n

    \n 266 sudo apt install unrar par2 unzip p7zip-full

    \n\n

    \n 267 sudo apt install par2 unzip p7zip-full

    \n\n

    \n 268 sudo apt install unrar par2 unzip p7zip-full

    \n\n

    \n 269 which sabnsbd

    \n\n

    \n 270 /usr/local/bin/sabnzbd

    \n\n

    \n 271 apt-cache search unrar

    \n\n

    \n 272 apt install unrar-free

    \n\n

    \n 273 sudo unrar-free

    \n\n

    \n 274 sudo apt install unrar-free

    \n\n

    \n 275 /usr/local/bin/sabnzbd

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ncat > ~/sabnzbd/sabnzbd-wrapper.sh << 'EOF'

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \ncd ~/sabnzbd

    \n\n

    \nsource venv/bin/activate

    \n\n

    \npython3 SABnzbd.py \"$@\"

    \n\n

    \nEOF

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSonarr

    \n\n

    \nRadarr

    \n\n

    \nScripts

    \n\n

    \nLights

    \n\n

    \nWatchDog

    \n\n

    \n# see kasa stuff ...

    \n\n

    \n/root/.local/pipx/venvs/python-kasa/bin/kasa --host WATCHDOG.localdomain off

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSunshine/Moonlight

    \n\n

    \n# client

    \n\n

    \nsnap install moonlight

    \n\n

    \nPlex HTPC (Snapd)

    \n\n

    \nsnap install snapd

    \n\n

    \nsnap refresh snapd

    \n\n

    \nsnap install plex-htpc

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSMB/NFS

    \n\n

    \n apt install samba

    \n\n

    \n/etc/samba/smb.conf

    \n\n

    \nsystemctl restart samba

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nVeraCrypt

    \n\n

    \nBlueTooth (Xbox)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \napt install bluetooth bluez bluez-tools rfkill

    \n\n

    \nbluetoothctl

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# hold little button on top ...then type scan on to turn scanning on

    \n\n

    \n# devices to list connected devices

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#1 under the batt cover

    \n\n

    \nremove 40:8E:2C:3A:9F:DA

    \n\n

    \npair 40:8E:2C:3A:9F:DA

    \n\n

    \ntrust 40:8E:2C:3A:9F:DA

    \n\n

    \nconnect 40:8E:2C:3A:9F:DA

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \nremove 40:8E:2C:3A:A4:2F

    \n\n

    \npair 40:8E:2C:3A:A4:2F

    \n\n

    \ntrust 40:8E:2C:3A:A4:2F

    \n\n

    \nconnect 40:8E:2C:3A:A4:2F

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"media,debian,linux,hardware,support","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4635,"date":"2026-05-08","title":"What did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 1","duration":3251,"summary":"Lee narrates a portion of his working day, this episode is section 1 of 2","notes":"\n

    \nThis is part of the documentation of an API class, documenting a particular a feature:-

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
    \n**Field:** actions\n\n**Value:** Create extra relationships\n\ne.g. set the type to 'contact'\n\n```\n{ \"trigger\": \"update\", \"action\": \"add\", \"relationship\": \"7024\", \"child\": \"2085\"}\n```\n\n*Currently \"update\" is the only trigger and \"add\" is the only action.*\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nTools\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nJoplin\n - Joplin is an open source, cross platform note-taking app. - \nhttps://joplinapp.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nPHP\n - A popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development. Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world. - \nhttps://www.php.net/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nMySQL\n - MySQL is an open-source relational database management system. MariaDB is community driven fork of MySQL, often installing the MySQL package on a Linux distribution will actually install MariaDB. - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL\n - \nhttps://mariadb.org/\n - \nhttps://www.mysql.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nSublime Text\n - Cross platform text editor - \nhttps://www.sublimetext.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTypora - A simple yet powerful markdown reader - https://typora.io/

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nUbuntu / KUbuntu\n - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nGoogle Drive / Google Docs\n - Cloud based workspace, storage and office tools. - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Drive\n - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Docs\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nGraph databases\n - A graph database is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the graph (or edge or relationship). The graph relates the data items in the store to a collection of nodes and edges, the edges representing the relationships between the nodes. - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_database\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nAutojump\n - autojump is a faster way to navigate your filesystem. It works by maintaining a database of the directories you use the most from the command line - \nhttps://github.com/wting/autojump\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nObject Oriented Programming\n - a programming paradigm based on the concept of objects. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and implemented in code). - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nGrep, Silver Searcher & RipGrep\n - grep is a command-line utility for searching plaintext datasets for lines that match a regular expression. The Silver Searcher is a code searching tool similar to ack, with a focus on speed. ripgrep is a line-oriented search tool that recursively searches the current directory for a regex pattern. - \nhttps://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher\n - \nhttps://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nSwagger & OpenAPI\n - The OpenAPI Specification defines a standard, language-agnostic interface to HTTP APIs which allows both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of the service. - \nhttps://swagger.io/specification/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nZeal\n - an offline documentation browser for software developers. - \nhttps://zealdocs.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nOllama\n - a tool to get up and running with large language models, especially allowing installation on a local machine. - \nhttps://ollama.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nSSH Config\n - A file typically with the path \n'~/.ssh/config'\n used for setting options of the secure shell client that connects the terminal to remote computers. - \nhttps://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/ssh_config.5.html\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"software development, linux","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4636,"date":"2026-05-11","title":"7 seconds memory","duration":331,"summary":"[no subtitle]","notes":"\n

    \nThere are two themes of the human experience that influence greatly our feelings and our behaviours: the memory, and the pain.

    \n\n

    \nToday we are going to talk about the first.

    \n\n

    \nClive Wearing was a conductor, a musician, that lost a part of his brain. A virus, herpes simplex, that causes fever, in his case trespassed the barrier between blood and brain and caused an inflammation that damaged permanently the hypothalamus, responsible for memory.

    \n\n

    \nImmediately — after being cured of the infection by antiviral medicine —, he was a man with no memory. He couldn’t recognize his children — who, later, recognized they kind of abandoned the father, ceased the visits to him, because that condition was too sad for them.

    \n\n

    \nIn the first moments, Clive was too angry, “I can’t think” was a constant. “Prisoner of the consciousness”, is the title of the TV documentary produced on him soon after the event.

    \n\n

    \nHis wife — the second, not the mother of his two sons and one daughter — was his fullest “item” of memory — if we could picture memory as drawings in a piece of furniture, what of course is inexact, to say the minimum. He could still know, ever, that she, Deborah, was his wife; and, apart from his own’s, Deborah’s name was the only one he still knew.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHis angriness was surplice by a calm and gentle and gistful personality. Like, apart from the loss of memory, he kept two thirds of this personality: he definitely was Clive. (That observation is from one of his sons, in the documentary made 20 years after the first, called “7 seconds memory”). That is why Deborah, after divorcing him, and couldn’t having find another love (she was searching for Clive in other experiences, which she couldn’t find), later renewed the wedding vows with her husband; even though they couldn’t live together because of his need of constant supervision.

    \n\n

    \nThe doctors — as the 2nd documentary, that is the line for this program, says — could not explain how he became more peaceful. I have a guess. Clive lost memory of events, he could not live in his mind any happenings. He knew her wife was his wife, but had no memory of the wedding; remembered having worked for BBC, but not one thing, not one activity, that he has done or participated. Maybe he have retained a little bit of what we could call (and I lack any technical precision here) descriptive memory. He could retain the old relations of a name with a characteristic, a face with the level of proximity he had with the person, as long as they (these relations) were verbalized in his understanding. Because he could not evoke any fact, he lost the (other term with precision) narrative memory — but words still made sense to him. So, in living the same day every day, with no time, no continuity, maybe some perception could have been engraved in his mind, unconsciously or not, even with the damaged memory, in the direction of going on \n(letting go)\n without despair. This is only a guess.

    \n\n

    \nThank you.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":441,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"memory loss, personality","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4637,"date":"2026-05-12","title":"UNIX Curio #6 - at and batch","duration":666,"summary":"Running a non-interactive job at a particular time, or just now","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nI would imagine that most users of UNIX-like systems have heard of \ncron\n—certainly any system administrator should have. Briefly, \ncron\n is a way of running a job repeatedly based on the time and date; for example, a job could run every hour, at 5:00am every Tuesday, or the 3rd of every month. It is commonly used for administrative or maintenance tasks that should be done on a regular schedule, such as checking for software updates, rotating log files, or updating the database for the \nlocate\n command.

    \n\n

    \nAs well-known as \ncron\n is, there is a similar utility that very few seem to be aware of: \nat\n. This is the word \"at\", and has nothing to do with the at symbol \"@\". An \nat\n job is very much like a \ncron\n job, except that an \nat\n job only runs one time. A job is submitted by running \n\n\nat \n\n\n\n\ntimespec\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1\n, where \ntimespec\n is the time and date the job is to be run. The linked POSIX specification page describes acceptable formats for \ntimespec\n; some examples are \"\nnow\n\", \"\n14:00\n\", \"\nnoon tomorrow\n\", \"\n14:00 + 3 months\n\", and \"\n14:00 January 19, 2038\n\". The utility then waits on standard input for you to enter a set of commands to be run in the job. You end input by typing \nControl-D\n to mark the end of text. (As an alternative to typing in the job, you could instead use the \"<\" symbol to redirect standard input to come from a file containing the commands you want to run.)

    \n\n

    \nWhen the specified time arrives, the job will be run. That is the theory, anyway, but some things may interfere. The normal configuration for some implementations only checks for due \nat\n jobs every five minutes, so there can be a delay before a job is actually run. Also, if the system isn't running, obviously it can't execute any jobs. When it comes back up, typically it will check for any pending \nat\n jobs that are currently or past due and run those. It is best to think about an \nat\n job being run no earlier than the time it was scheduled for, and probably soon after, provided the system is up. The POSIX standard doesn't specify anything about when jobs are actually run, just that they are \nscheduled\n for a particular date and time.

    \n\n

    \nThe user does \nnot\n need to be logged in for a job to run—if the job outputs anything to standard output or standard error, that text will be e-mailed to the user, presuming the system is set up to send mail. This is often true for a server, which might be running a Mail Transfer Agent like \nsendmail\n, \npostfix\n, or \nexim\n, but many desktops are not. If nothing is output to standard output or standard error, or if that output is redirected to a file, then mail will not be sent on job completion. This behavior can be changed with the \n-m\n option; in that case, mail will always be sent when the job finishes whether or not there is any output.

    \n\n

    \nThe \n\n\nbatch\n\n\n\n\n command is very similar\n\n\n2\n—POSIX specifies it as being equivalent to \nat now\n with two differences. First, jobs are put into a different queue, and second, mail is always sent when a job completes as if the \n-m\n option was used with \nat\n. In practice, however, certain aspects of the behavior of \nbatch\n depend on the implementation.

    \n\n

    \nOn the large majority of systems I investigated\n3,4,5,6,7,8\n, but not all\n9\n, \nbatch\n jobs will only be run when the system load level drops below a certain point. This can typically be configured by the administrator but has a default value—the manual pages for a couple systems don't actually list a default value and just say \nbatch\n jobs will run \"when system load levels permit\". Basing execution on the load level makes sense if the \nbatch\n utility is seen as a way of running potentially resource-intensive jobs when the system is not being heavily used. However, this behavior is not required by POSIX.

    \n\n

    \nAnother question that the standard leaves unanswered is how queues behave. From the normal understanding of the word \"queue\", you might expect that each successive job is run one at a time once the previous job completes. However, this is not stated in POSIX, and some implementations explicitly allow a configurable number of jobs to run simultaneously. Manual pages for other systems simply don't mention the subject. (I researched this episode by looking at documentation for a number of BSD, Linux, and commercial UNIX systems, but didn't actually test out how they behave.) POSIX only requires systems to have two queues, one named \"a\" for \nat\n jobs and one named \"b\" for \nbatch\n jobs, but allows implementations to have more. It says nothing about how different queues compete for resources—one implementation assigns a higher \nnice\n value to jobs in a queue whose name comes later in the alphabet, giving them a lower priority in the process scheduler.

    \n\n

    \nSo what good are \nat\n and \nbatch\n? While I think they certainly meet the \"obscure\" requirement for a UNIX Curio, I have to admit they aren't particularly useful today. They were designed for an era where a typical UNIX-like system would run around the clock and had multiple users who might log in at various times of the day but weren't connected 24/7. In that context, using \nbatch\n to run a job when the system is lightly loaded might be useful; nowadays, you can just run it whenever you like on your own machine. I have never actually used \nbatch\n myself. On a machine where there is serious competition for resources among users, \nbatch\n is probably not a sophisticated enough tool to manage their jobs—the NetBSD and Debian manual pages explicitly suggest using something different\n3,6\n. Supercomputing environments have even more complex requirements and a number of specialized solutions exist for scheduling jobs there.

    \n\n

    \nI \nhave\n used \nat\n a couple of times. One example was for an organization I was part of that had paid for its domain name registration several years into the future. On the organization's server, I set an \nat\n job to e-mail the administrator a reminder to renew it a few months before the domain was due to expire. It was useful in that case because I didn't know whether I would even continue to be involved then, so a personal reminder for myself wouldn't necessarily help. But in my experience, administrative tasks don't tend to be one-off events. Instead, they repeat, making \ncron\n the right tool to use. For reminders, a calendar app is probably a better solution in most cases.

    \n\n

    \nWhile you might never have a use for \nat\n and \nbatch\n, I still think it's good to know that they exist. Just be aware that you'll probably need to read the manual page on your system to fully understand how they will behave.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nAt specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/at.html
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nBatch specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/batch.html
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nNetBSD 10.0 at manual page\n https://man.netbsd.org/NetBSD-10.0/at.1
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nFreeBSD 15.0 at manual page\n https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=at&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+15.0-RELEASE+and+Ports
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nOpenBSD 7.8 at manual page\n https://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-7.8/at.1
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\nDebian 13 at manual page\n https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/at/at.1.en.html
      7. \n\n
    7. \n\n\nopenSUSE 42.3 at manual page\n https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=at&sektion=1&manpath=openSUSE+42.3
      8. \n\n
    8. \n\n\nHP-UX Reference (11i v3 07/02) - 1 User Commands A-M (vol 1)\n https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c01922490&docLocale=en_US
      9. \n\n
    9. \n\n\nOpenSolaris 2010.03 at manual page\n https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=at&sektion=1&manpath=OpenSolaris+2010.03
      10. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nApologies for the \"tapping\" sound that occurs in parts of this episode. I think my microphone must have picked up some electromagnetic interference.\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,at,batch,cron","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4638,"date":"2026-05-13","title":"Simple Podcasting - Episode 3 - Analyzing and Filtering","duration":1179,"summary":"This episode is the third in an 4 part series on simple podcasting covering Analyzing and Filtering","notes":"\n

    \n01

    \n\n

    \nThis is the third in a four part series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we will cover the following topics:

    \n\n

    \nAnalysis of audio noise problems and filtering methods used to deal with specific problems that we may find.

    \n\n

    \nCommand line recording.

    \n\n

    \nCommand line playback.

    \n\n

    \nGetting information about an audio recording.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03 Introduction

    \n\n

    \nWhen I did my first couple of podcasts I didn't notice that there was a quiet high pitched whine or buzz in the background.

    \n\n

    \nNobody complained about it, but I thought I could do better in subsequent episodes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04 Creating an Audio Sample

    \n\n

    \nIf you have a similar problem, the first step is to find out where it is coming from.

    \n\n

    \nIf there is no audible noise where you are recording, there is a good chance the problem is in the microphone or another part of the audio system.

    \n\n

    \nPlug in your microphone and record 2 or 3 seconds of quiet audio where you do not speak into the microphone or make other noise.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nYou will need a minimum amount of data in order to analyze it.

    \n\n

    \nFor a flac file sampled at 44.1 kHz, 2 to 3 seconds of data should be enough.

    \n\n

    \nTo get a sample of just electronic noise you can put the microphone in a drawer or somewhere like that if you want to be sure of getting a quiet signal.

    \n\n

    \nAny sound recorded in this way should be mainly from the microphone or other electronic elements in the analogue pathway.

    \n\n

    \nTo get a sample of possible ambient noise, such as fans, make sure the microphone is in the open air in an area which is representative of where it will be when you are recording.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06 Analyzing using Fourier Transforms

    \n\n

    \nNext you need to look at the wave form.

    \n\n

    \nAt this point I will describe this using Audacity.

    \n\n

    \nI will show other ways later, but Audacity is actually the easiest if you are starting from nothing.

    \n\n

    \nYou don't need to become an expert in Audacity to use it, just follow the steps I will describe.

    \n\n

    \nI myself don't know how to use Audacity beyond using this one feature.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nWe are going to analyze the sound spectrum in our sample.

    \n\n

    \nThe technique being used is a Fourier Transform.

    \n\n

    \nA Fourier transform, often called an \"FFT\" for fast fourier transform, is a mathematical method of showing a signal in terms of frequency along the x axis instead of time.

    \n\n

    \nThis allows us to spot troublesome noise frequencies which appear when we don't want them to.

    \n\n

    \nThe FFT is a very common mathematical technique which is widely used in signal processing, not just in audio.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nThere is software which will create pretty coloured animations of sound waves, but this is not what you want. These are simply decorative patterns and won't tell us what we want to know.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09 Using Audacity

    \n\n

    \nInstall Audacity if you haven't already.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nStart Audacity.

    \n\n

    \nSelect file > import > audio,

    \n\n

    \nthen navigate to your sample and select \"open\".

    \n\n

    \nThe file should load.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nIn the wave form part of the window, click anywhere and then type Ctrl-S to select all data points.

    \n\n

    \nThe chart should turn a slightly darker colour.

    \n\n

    \nFrom the menu, select Analyze > Plot Spectrum.

    \n\n

    \nA new window will open, showing magnitude in db on the Y axis, and frequency in hertz on the x axis.

    \n\n

    \nFor \"algorithm\" be sure it is set to \"spectrum\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nThere are now two settings that we need to play with while we look for problems.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOne is \"size\"

    \n\n

    \nThe default for this is 1024.

    \n\n

    \nThe other is \"axis\".

    \n\n

    \nThe default for this is \"log frequency\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12 What to Look For

    \n\n

    \nWhat we are looking for are large obvious spikes that stand out in the data.

    \n\n

    \nSince our test signal has very little to no actual audio data, any spikes should represent electrical or other noise that doesn't belong there.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nI have found two combinations of settings to be most helpful in finding problems.

    \n\n

    \nThese are

    \n\n

    \nSize 2048, axis linear frequency.

    \n\n

    \nSize 32768, axis log frequency.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nA small size value can help very narrow spikes stand out from the background more, while a large size value can help separate spikes from surrounding noise.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA linear frequency axis can help with seeing all spikes across the full frequency range, while a log frequency axis can help to better see what is happening in the often very crowded lowest frequency range.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15 A Real Example of an Audio Problem

    \n\n

    \nIf you have good audio equipment you may find nothing obvious. If you cannot hear any noise in the signal, there may be none of any consequence and there is nothing for you to do.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16

    \n\n

    \nHowever, in my case I found two main problems and one lesser one.

    \n\n

    \nOne problem was a spike at 60 Hz, which is the AC line frequency.

    \n\n

    \nThere is also a lesser problem of a collection of a broad frequency range of noise below 60Hz.

    \n\n

    \nBoth of these however will be taken care of by the basic filtering that we looked at earlier so we do not need to worry about them here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nThe other main problem is I had a large spike at every 1 kHz interval from 1 kHz to 19 KHz.

    \n\n

    \nThis was noise generated within the head set electronics, or the result of noise on the USB power supply.

    \n\n

    \nThis is the product of a cheap headset.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nThese spikes are not very large compared to the volume of my voice, but if I do the same sort of analysis of samples where I am speaking, they appear in the intervals between words.

    \n\n

    \nThis results in a high pitched whine or buzz.

    \n\n

    \nThis was the source of the background noise or buzz in my first two podcast episodes.

    \n\n

    \nI need to get rid of this.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19

    \n\n

    \nOne option would be to get a better microphone, but, well, that wouldn't be any fun would it. It would also cost money and I don't want to spend any of that if I don't have to.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you analyze your own signal, you may find a different pattern, or even no noise at all.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you did not find anything when shielding your microphone from ambient audio noise, repeat the same test but with the microphone exposed to acoustic noise in the room.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20 Advanced Filtering

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe next step is to figure out how to get rid of this noise.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI have called this section \"advanced filtering\", but we are actually just making use of a technique that was already covered in basic filtering.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nTo deal with the remaining spikes we can use additional \"band reject\" filters, each of which removes a specific frequency at 1 kHz intervals from 1 kHz to 12 kHz.

    \n\n

    \nWe will use this in combination with the filtering that we have already done previously, so we don't need to worry about anything above 12 kHz as we already remove that with a low pass filter.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAfter a small amount of experimenting I came up with the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nBecause I am applying a total of 16 filters, 4 for basic filtering and 12 to deal with the specific microphone problems that I have, I have broken up the filters into separate strings.

    \n\n

    \nI then generate the 12 new band reject filters from a template.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNote that I don't show the \"de-esser\" filter here.

    \n\n

    \nI would recommend adding it as a separate step after doing the sort of filtering we are talking about here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nRather than reading out multiple lines of bash script, I will post them in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \nI will give a brief description of them here which you can refer to when reading the show notes.

    \n\n

    \nThe FFMPEG and Sox versions are very similar in concept so I don't need to go over the Sox version in detail. See the show notes for it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFFMPEG Version

    \n\n

    \nHere's the FFMPEG version.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# The high and low pass filters.

    \n\n

    \n\thlpfil=\"highpass=f=80, lowpass=f=12000\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Band reject filters filter for 60Hz and another for 50Hz.

    \n\n

    \n\tlinefil=\"bandreject=f=60:width_type=h:w=20, bandreject=f=50:width_type=h:w=20\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Create a series of band reject filters, from 1 kHz to 12 kHz.

    \n\n

    \n\t# Change or remove this part if your recording hardware does not require it.

    \n\n

    \n\tftemplate=\"bandreject=f=%s000:width_type=h:w=100\"

    \n\n

    \n\tkilospikefil=$( seq 1 12 | xargs printf \"$ftemplate,\" )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Using ffmpeg

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i input.flac -af \"$hlpfil, $linefil, $kilospikefil\" output.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nThere are a total of 5 lines of bash script.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the first line, we create a string called \"hlpfil\" which is just the high and low pass filters copied from our previous discussion on basic filtering.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the second line, we create a string called \"linefil\" which is just the simple bandreject filters to cover 50 and 60 hertz AC line noise filters also from basic filtering.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nIn the third and fourth lines, we create a string called \"kilospikefil\" containing the new filters.

    \n\n

    \nThe \"f\" parameter represents the frequency we are targeting.

    \n\n

    \nThe \"w\" parameter represents the \"width\" of the frequency range we are filtering in terms of hertz.

    \n\n

    \nThe filter is applied gradually rather than with a sharp cut-off, so to get more filtering action we need to have larger width. In this case I decided to hammer the spike quite aggressively and so used a relatively wide width of 100 hertz. Testing with a voice file did not show any noticeable distortion, so it's an acceptable solution.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nFor this filter we need to create a dozen filter command so we use the shell \"seq\" command to generate a sequence of numbers from 1 to 12.

    \n\n

    \nWe then pipe that into the xargs command which applies each number to the next command.

    \n\n

    \nThe next command is \"printf\", which takes the number it gets from xargs and applies it to the \"ftemplate\" string template in a manner very similar to C programming printf string templates.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \nWe also have a comma in there to separate each of the individual filters.

    \n\n

    \nWe then surround this with a $ and () so we can run the command and capture the output into a variable.

    \n\n

    \nThen we call ffmpeg and pass it the filters we created by putting the variable names inside a double quoted string, separated by commas.

    \n\n

    \nAll of this will be in the show notes, so don't worry about trying to get the exact details right now.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSox Version

    \n\n

    \nHere's the Sox version.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# The high and low pass filters.

    \n\n

    \n\tsxhlpfil=\"highpass 80 lowpass 12000\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Band reject filters filter for 60Hz and another for 50Hz.

    \n\n

    \n\tsxfilter=\"$sxhlpfil $sxkilospikefil bandreject 60 20 bandreject 50 20\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Create a series of reject filters filters, from 1 kHz to 12 kHz.

    \n\n

    \n\tsxftemplate=\"bandreject %s000 100\"

    \n\n

    \n\tsxkilospikefil=$( seq 1 12 | xargs printf \"$sxftemplate \" )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Using SOX.

    \n\n

    \n\tsox input.flac output.flac $sxhlpfil $sxfilter $sxkilospikefil

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nThe Sox version is very similar with the exception that the command arguments representing the filters must not be in quoted strings as Sox wants to see them as separate arguments instead of parsing a string.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29 Confirming the Effect

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf we apply the above filters and look at this headset noise output file in the Audacity spectrum analyzer we will now see that these noise spikes are almost completely gone.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe can now confirm how well this works by using a test audio file. Any normal short voice audio file will do for this. Just talk into the microphone normally and create a voice sample file that is 5 or 10 seconds long, or whatever you feel comfortable with.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nWith the original unfiltered voice audio I can hear a distinct high pitched whine overlaying the voice.

    \n\n

    \nWith the filtered audio that whine or hum is not detectable.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf we then look at the voice file in the Audacity spectrum analyzer, we can see distinct \"notches\" at the 50 Hz and 60 Hz frequencies, and at every 1 kHz from 1 kHz to 12 kHz.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese notches are narrow enough that they won't cause a noticeable problem with voice signals.

    \n\n

    \nIf we apply this filter to voice samples, the buzz or whine is gone and the voice signal sounds fine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDespite using a very cheap microphone, I now have acceptable quality audio for a podcast.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nAgain I want to emphasize that in this instance I am dealing with deficiencies with my hardware instead of buying a better microphone.

    \n\n

    \nThese additional filters are intended to deal with the specific hardware problem I am facing.

    \n\n

    \nYou don't need these additional filters if you cannot detect an audible problem.

    \n\n

    \nOn the other hand, if you have a different problem you may wish to deal with a different set of frequencies.

    \n\n

    \nFinding these problems is the reason for using a spectrum analyzer.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32

    \n\n

    \nFFMPEG has other filtering methods as well.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, as I didn't end up using them I can't really do an adequate job of describing them.

    \n\n

    \nIf anyone has used them successfully, they are welcome to make a podcast on the subject.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33 Completing the Process

    \n\n

    \nWith these new filters added into the middle of the processing steps, you can now complete the processing by doing the de-essing, normalizing, and review steps as described in the previous episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34 Command Line Recording

    \n\n

    \nI will now cover a separate topic, which is recording using command line programs.

    \n\n

    \nI am covering it in this episode as it is a short topic and it is convenient to talk about it here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nAs well as using GUI based recording programs such as Gnome Sound Recorder, it is possible to record podcast episodes using command line tools such as FFMPEG.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAs for why you may wish to use command line tools to record audio, there are several reasons.

    \n\n

    \nOne is that you may simply prefer to do it this way because it pleases you to do so.

    \n\n

    \nAnother is that it allows the recording step to be included in a script that encompasses other parts of the process, automating what may have otherwise been separate manual steps.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nHowever, if you don't find these arguments particularly compelling, then I'm not going to attempt to persuade you to use the command line to record audio. I am doing this part of this episode out of a desire to have a bit of fun and I probably won't be using it much myself.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will however use one of these methods to record this part of this episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37 Recording with FFMPEG - The Basics

    \n\n

    \nOne of the common command line tools you can use is FFMPEG, a package which I have previously mentioned with respect to filtering audio files.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere is an example of how to record using FFMPEG. We call FFMPEG specifying the audio input system as the FFMPEG input, and then specify a file to output to.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \n# Record audio.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -f pulse -i default ff.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nPress 'q' to stop.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis uses pulse audio on Linux for input \"-f pulse\",

    \n\n

    \nand the default input \"-i default\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this does not specify the the sample rate or mono recording. To do that we need to add a few more parameters as in the following

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -f pulse -i default -ac 1 -ar 44100 ff.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41

    \n\n

    \n\"-ac 1\" specifies mono output

    \n\n

    \n\"-ar 44100\" specifies 44.1 khz bit rate.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42 Playback with FFMPEG - The Basics

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFFMPEG can also play back music. In this case however we need to call the \"ffplay\" program rather than FFMPEG itself.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo play an audio file, simply call ffplay and give it the name of the audio file as an argument to the command.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor example:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \n# Play an audio file.

    \n\n

    \nffplay podcast.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44

    \n\n

    \nWe can also call it with the \"autoexit\" option, which tells ffplay to automatically exit when the audio file has finished playing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nffplay -autoexit ff.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45

    \n\n

    \n-autoexit means Exit when the audio file is done playing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nTo exit in the middle of the recording, press \"q' or ESC.

    \n\n

    \nTo pause the playback, press \"p\" or space bar.

    \n\n

    \nTo decrease the volume press \"9\" or \"/\".

    \n\n

    \nTo increase the volume press \"0\" or \"*\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nTo seek forward 10 seconds, press the right cursor button.

    \n\n

    \nTo seek backward 10 seconds, press the left cursor button.

    \n\n

    \nTo seek forward 1 minute, press the up cursor button.

    \n\n

    \nTo seek backward 1 minute, press the down cursor button.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48

    \n\n

    \nThe \"0\" and \"9\" keys mentioned above are those on the top row of the keyboard, not the ones on the separate numeric pad.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nWhile the recording is playing, a graphical window will open which shows a cascading waveform based on the current content. This is purely decorative and does not serve any particularly useful purpose.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Record a podcast episode segment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Get the next file name.

    \n\n

    \n# First we check if any matching file patterns exist. If they don't,

    \n\n

    \n# then we create the first one starting counting at 1.

    \n\n

    \nfcount=$( ls [0-9][0-9].flac 2>/dev/null | wc -l )

    \n\n

    \nif (( $fcount < 1 )); then

    \n\n

    \n\tfname=\"01.flac\"

    \n\n

    \nelse

    \n\n

    \n\t# If there are any matching file patterns, we find the highest number

    \n\n

    \n\t# and increment it by 1.

    \n\n

    \n\tfilenum=$( ls [0-9][0-9].flac 2>&1 | cut -d. -f1 | sort | tail -1 )

    \n\n

    \n\tnewfilecount=$(( 10#$filenum + 1 ))

    \n\n

    \n\tfname=$( printf \"%02d.flac\" $newfilecount )

    \n\n

    \nfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \necho \"Recording to: $fname\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Record using ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \n# This makes use of pulse audio and the input is the default audio input.

    \n\n

    \n# The sample rate is set to 44.1 kHz, and it is recorded as mono (1 channel).

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -f pulse -i default -ar 44100 -ac 1 $fname

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \necho \"Recorded audio to: $fname\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Report on basic information about the audio file that was just recorded.

    \n\n

    \nffprobe -hide_banner $fname

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50 Sox - Not so Good

    \n\n

    \nI did not find the recording or playback features of Sox to be as useful as those of FFMPEG, so I won't bother to cover them here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51 Getting Information About an Audio Recording

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere are also command line tools which can be used to retrieve information about audio recordings.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52 FFMPEG Version

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWith FFMPEG this is called \"ffprobe\". For example:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nffprobe hpr4566.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nThis will print out a lot of information about FFMPEG itself. To skip that use the hide_banner option.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55

    \n\n

    \nffprobe -hide_banner hpr4566.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56

    \n\n

    \nThis will print out information about the audio recording. This will include things like the duration, bit rate, sample rate, stereo or mono, etc.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf the author added metadata tags to the file, it will also show those. HPR add things like the title, author, copyright license, comment, etc. You can extract the ones you want using something like grep and cut.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 Sox Version

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSox has a similar feature, called \"soxi\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nsoxi ff.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it may not work on mp3 files if you do not have an mp3 handler for it installed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60 Conclusion

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we took a brief look at an example of how to solve an audio problem through filtering.

    \n\n

    \nWe looked at how to use Audacity to find where the problems were.

    \n\n

    \nWe then looked at how to apply filters to remove these sources of noise.

    \n\n

    \nWe also looked at how to record podcasts and get information about audio files using command line tools.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nIn the next episode we will look at alternatives to Audacity for analyzing audio. While Audacity works just fine, this is an opportunity to have a bit fun with some gratuitous hackery.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62

    \n\n

    \nThis has been the third episode in a four part series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFull Audio Processing Pipeline

    \n\n

    \nThis version includes the special filters used to fix my headset problems.

    \n\n

    \nUse the version from the previous episode if you do not have the same

    \n\n

    \naudio hardware problems.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Full processing pipeline for making simple podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n# Concatenate multiple flac files into a single flac file.

    \n\n

    \n# This is used to combine podcast recorded segments into a single

    \n\n

    \n# flac file for uploading to HPR.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nconcataudio ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=\"$1\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# First create the list file.

    \n\n

    \n\tprintf \"file '%s'\\n\" [0-9][0-9].flac > podseglist.txt

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Now concatenate them

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i podseglist.txt \"$outputname\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\trm podseglist.txt

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Basic and advanced filters.

    \n\n

    \nfilter ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\tinputfile=$1

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=$2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Using ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# The high and low pass filters.

    \n\n

    \n\thlpfil=\"highpass=f=80, lowpass=f=12000\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Band reject filters filter for 60Hz and another for 50Hz.

    \n\n

    \n\tlinefil=\"bandreject=f=60:width_type=h:w=20, bandreject=f=50:width_type=h:w=20\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Create a series of band reject filters, from 1 kHz to 11 kHz.

    \n\n

    \n\tftemplate=\"bandreject=f=%s000:width_type=h:w=100\"

    \n\n

    \n\tkilospikefil=$( seq 1 11 | xargs printf \"$ftemplate,\" )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Using ffmpeg

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile -af \"$hlpfil, $linefil, $kilospikefil\" $outputname

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# De-Essing.

    \n\n

    \ndeessing ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\tinputfile=$1

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=$2

    \n\n

    \n\toption=$3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# De-essing filter.

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile -filter_complex \"deesser=i=0.5:m=0.5:f=0.5:s=$option\" -b:a 336k -sample_fmt s16 $outputname

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n# Normalizing the audio to EBU R128 standard for review using ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \nnormffmpeg ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\tinputfile=$1

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=$2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Normalize to EBU R128 standard.

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile -af loudnorm=I=-17:TP=-2.0:LRA=4.0 -ar 44.1k $outputname

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Output an MP3 version to help with reviewing.

    \n\n

    \nmp3convert ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\tinputfile=$1

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Get the name of the file and then create the output file name.

    \n\n

    \n\tj=$( basename $inputfile \".flac\" )

    \n\n

    \n\toutputname=\"$j\"\".mp3\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Convert to MP3.

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i $inputfile $outputname

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Concatenate the separate audio files.

    \n\n

    \nconcataudio fullpod-unfiltered.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Basic filtering.

    \n\n

    \nfilter fullpod-unfiltered.flac filtered.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# De-essing. This is the version to send for publishing.

    \n\n

    \n# The third argument should be \"o\" for de-essing, or \"i\" for pass through without de-essing.

    \n\n

    \ndeessing filtered.flac fullpod.flac o

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Normalized for review.

    \n\n

    \nnormffmpeg fullpod.flac fullpod-norm.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Output an MP3 copy for review.

    \n\n

    \nmp3convert fullpod-norm.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio recording","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4639,"date":"2026-05-14","title":"NLUUG Spring Conference 2026","duration":2129,"summary":"Ken interviews Ronny Lam, Nico Rikken, and Geert-Jan Meewisse","notes":"

    NLUUG Spring Conference 2026\n

    \n

    \n \"NLUUG is the association of (professional) Open Source and Open\n Standards users in the Netherlands\" You can follow them on \n @nluug@nluug.social\n on Mastodon.

    \n

    \n I was particularly interested to attend their \n 2026 Spring Conference 2026\n as our own \n Jeroen Baten\n was giving a talk on \"Getting started with CI/CD using \n Forgejo\n Actions and why this is important AF\"

    \n

    \n He assures me he will post it as a show. \n cough\n owes me a show \n cough\n .

    \n

    \n While there the urge to record came upon me, so I was able to snag\n a few interviews.

    \n

    \n Ronny Lam representing NLUUG

    \n
    \n NLUUG is the association for (professional) developers,\n administrators and users of UNIX/Linux, Open Source, Open Source,\n Open Systems and Open Standards in the Netherlands. The NLUUG\n community includes, system administrators, programmers and network\n specialists.
    \n
    \n If you are working as an open professional, then NLUUG is the\n excellent association where you can keep track of your technical\n knowledge, for example during our six-monthly conferences. The aim\n of NLUUG is to disseminate the application and knowledge of open\n standards and UNIX/Linux.
    \n
    \n NLUUG maintains close ties with many organizations and individuals\n who pursue the open mind.
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n

    \n Nico Rikken representing the FSFE

    \n
    \n The Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers\n users to control technology. Software is deeply involved in all\n aspects of our lives. Free Software gives everybody the rights to\n use, understand, adapt, and share software. These rights help\n support other fundamental rights like freedom of speech, freedom\n of press, and privacy. \n Learn more\n
    \n

    \n While we are no strangers to chatting with the \n Free Software Foundation Europe\n (\n hpr857\n , \n hpr1957\n , \n hpr2223\n , \n hpr2945\n , \n hpr2946\n , \n hpr3388\n , \n hpr3407\n , \n hpr3833\n ), this was the first time we had a chance to interview \n Nico Rikken\n .

    \n

    \n We chat about freedom and \n Ada and Zangemann - A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and\n Raspberry Ice Cream\n by \n Matthias Kirschner\n and \n Sandra Brandstätter\n .

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n Geert-Jan Meewisse representing Coalition for Fair Digital\n Education

    \n
    \n The Coalition for Fair Digital Education (CEDO) is a group of\n concerned parents, IT professionals, teachers, and privacy\n advocates committed to enabling fair and sovereign digital\n education. The coalition operates as a working group within\n Internet Society Netherlands (ISOC). We have drafted a manifesto\n calling for improvements in digital education.
    \n
    \n Today, children in education receive an online account from a\n foreign Big Tech company at an early age. Through this account,\n data can be collected, profiles can be built, and personal\n information can be used and exploited by these companies. This\n profiling leads to children being categorized and receiving\n tailored content that companies deem relevant—before they even\n discover things for themselves. And that’s not the only issue.\n Since schools exclusively use “standard” Big Tech solutions,\n children do not learn about alternative programs or tools. As a\n result, real digital skills and critical thinking are not\n developed, making children dependent on a company that profits\n from their data. The privacy and sovereignty of digital education\n are under severe pressure, affecting not only students but also\n teachers and parents, who are forced to use the same systems.\n Other countries are already ahead in this regard: in Denmark,\n Google products have been banned in schools in Helsingør\n municipality, and the German state of Baden-Württemberg has\n prohibited Microsoft 365.
    \n
    \n We advocate for the development of an open-source digital\n infrastructure for learning and educational tools, based on public\n values such as autonomy, equality, sovereignty, democracy,\n transparency, accessibility, academic freedom, and\n privacy-by-design.
    \n
    \n To achieve this, raising awareness among students, parents,\n teachers, and school boards is crucial. Additionally, we aim to\n involve policymakers by presenting our manifesto.
    \n

    \n \n https://eerlijkdigitaalonderwijs.nl/english/\n

    \n

    \n A working group of the \n Internet Society\n , Geert-Jan was here to tell us of their work to build a FLOSS\n alternative for Education.

    \n

    \n You can get in touch with him at \n gj -at- eerlijkdigitaalonderwijs .nl\n , or \n @geert-jan:matrix.org\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n
    \n

    \n

    \n Conclusion

    \n

    \n I had great conversations with the sponsors who were a little shy\n about doing an interview. They do have a range of jobs available\n for those of us with Dutch nationality, and have lived in the\n Netherlands for the last 10 years.

    \n

    \n The event was fantastic, professional, held in a great venue, and\n the closest thing to real life \n xkcd: Shibboleet\n as you are likely to get.

    \n

    \n I would like to thank the NLUUG team, volunteers, venue staff and\n of course the attendees for a wonderful day. With any luck this\n will not be the last time you hear about this team on HPR.

    \n

    \n The recordings will be available on the \n NLUUG FTP Server\n

    ","hostid":30,"series":78,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Coalition for Fair Digital Education,fsfe,nluug","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4640,"date":"2026-05-15","title":"Robert A. Heinlein","duration":648,"summary":"An introduction to Robert A. Heinlein","notes":"

    Robert A. Heinlein

    \t\t\t\t\t\t\n

    Robert A. Heinlein was the author who many people claim kicked off the Golden Age, though that can be the subject of many a barroom argument. E.E. “Doc” Smith was already an established writer by this time, and A.E. van Vogt was contemporaneous with Heinlein. But Heinlein managed to outshine everyone in very short order. He was widely known as “The Dean of Science Fiction Writers,” which testifies to his stature in the community, and along with Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov he was one of the Big Three of the Golden Age. He was the first person to be named a Science Fiction Grand Master in 1974. Four of his novels won Hugo Awards (Double Star, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), and 7 more works were given Retro-Hugo awards, which are awarded for works that were written before the Hugos were established. He also had many more works nominated for both awards, as well as many other awards like Nebula Awards. In short, he was a big deal to the science fiction community at large, and to me personally. I was, for a short time, managing the web site for The Heinlein Society, and I have read every work of his that I am aware of.

    \n

    Heinlein Background

    \n

    Robert Anson Heinlein was born in 1907 in Butler, Missouri, and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, which he described as the middle of the Bible Belt, and this background is reflected in some of his stories, particularly the later ones. His family tradition had it that the Heinlein’s had fought in every American war beginning with the War of Independence, and Robert and his brothers all joined the armed forces. Robert lied about his age when he was 16 in order to enlist in the Missouri National Guard, and a few years later obtained an appointment to the Naval Academy, graduating in 1929 with the equivalent of a bachelors degree in engineering (the Naval Academy did not award degrees at the time). His engineering background is very apparent in his writings. He served on several ships, rising to the rank of Lieutenant, before being discharged in 1934 due to pulmonary tuberculosis. It seems likely that if he did not contract this illness he would have continued his career in the Navy, and with World War II coming, well, who knows what might have happened. But he did get ill, and had to find things to do. He notably got involved with Upton Sinclair’s socialist organization EPIC (End Poverty in California). He ran for office unsuccessfully, running as a left-Democrat in a conservative district. And while he had a disability pension from the Navy, he turned to writing to pay off his mortgage.

    \n

    Heinlein’s Writing

    \n

    Heinlein was originally known as a “hard” science fiction writer, meaning one who puts plausible and accurate science at the heart of the story. But looking at his entire career, he was equally comfortable writing fantasy, though not the faux medieval kind that many writers. In fact, he coined the term “speculative fiction” to describe the kind of stories he wrote. And if he wanted to he was quite capable of mixing the hard science and the fantasy, particularly in his later novels. And his output was very substantial. Asimov wrote more than Heinlein, but Heinlein stuck to fiction, while Asimov wrote in a variety of fields, so Heinlein’s output in the general area of science fiction/fantasy is the greater. And he is known for works of all lengths from short stories to novels. A useful guide to his works is the book Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader’s Companion, by James Gifford. This book covers all of his science fiction/fantasy works known as of 2000, and gives additional information about the writing and circumstances of the stories. But in 2003 an early work was discovered and published. It was a novel called For Us The Living, and while you can see the germ of Heinlein’s style in this novel, it is also a very early work written in 1938 and is not one of his best. He would get a lot better than this. In any case, it was not published at the time, and is mostly of interest to Heinlein superfans or scholars.

    \n

    Heinlein got his real start in 1939 with a short story called Life-line, which was published in John W. Campbell’s Astounding magazine. Isaac Asimov had published a few stories by this time, and his first for John W. Campbell’s Astounding was in the previous month, July 1939, so as you can see this was a very fertile time in the development of the genre. Heinlein’s story was about a scientist who developed a technology to predict a person’s time of death. This totally threatens the insurance industry, and one of the CEO’s put out hit on the scientist, which he of course already knows about having tested himself. This is not the best short story, but it was quite competent, and John W. Campbell immediately asked for more.

    \n

    More short stories followed. In the November 1939 issue of Astounding the story Misfit appeared. It introduces the character of Andrew Jackson “Slipstick” Libby, a young man with little education but a great ability to do mathematics in his head. And his ability turns out to be just what is needed during a construction project in space when things go wrong. And in 1940 he had 9 more stories published. And at this point he faced a problem. He was becoming so prolific that for a number of reasons he had to employ pseudonyms for some of his stories. One reason was that he couldn’t have too many stories in one magazine in his name, it made the editor look bad. In any case all of the stories are now published under Heinlein’s name. And of the 9 stories, 6 were either nominated for or won Retro Hugo awards, and several also won Prometheus Hall of Fame Awards, for the best libertarian or anti-authoritarian works. So you can see that his was a talent that exploded on the scene, so that you could legitimately divide the science fiction history into pre-Heinlein and post-Heinlein periods.

    \n

    11 more stories of various lengths followed in 1941, and 5 in 1942. There were mostly short stories, but a few novellas and novelettes appeared. But he was really a short fiction writer at this time, and there are some extraordinary stories in this group. He was the most successful writer of speculative fiction of the time, and passed along some advice to anyone who wanted to be a successful writer.

    \n

    Heinlein’s Rules of Writing

    \n

    Because he was so successful, it should come as no surprise that aspiring writers frequently wrote to him for advice, and in response he formulated his Rules of Writing. This is taken from his On The Writing of Speculative Fiction :

    \n
      \n
    1. You must write.
      2. \n
    2. Finish what you start.
      3. \n
    3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
      4. \n
    4. You must put your story on the market.
      5. \n
    5. You must keep it on the market until it has sold.
      6. \n
    \n

    He goes on to say in this article : “The above five rules really have more to do with how to write speculative fiction than anything said above them. But they are amazingly hard to follow—which is why there are so few professional writers and so many aspirants, and which is why I am not afraid to give away the racket!”

    \n

    This is very good advice, but as Heinlein points out his rules are indeed hard to follow. For example, Rule #1: You must write. Many people want to be a writer, but not as many really want to write, and there is a very distinct difference. Just as many people want to be a rock star, but don’t want to spend years dead broke playing in dive bars to get there.

    \n

    But it is also fair to point out that Heinlein was a rare talent, and I doubt if simply following his rules would make anyone else a similar success. They are good rules, no doubt, but Heinlein was already very familiar with and well-read in the field before he started writing.

    \n

    That finishes this particular exploration of where Heinlein came from and how be began his career. And since it all started with short fiction, I next want to focus on that. beginning with his Future History.

    \n

    This starts our look at the works of Robert A. Heinlein, the third of the Big Three authors of the Golden Age.

    \n

    Links:

    \n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Heinlein","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4641,"date":"2026-05-18","title":"Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE)","duration":1872,"summary":"Ken interviews Peter van Ginneken who is chair of T-DOSE","notes":"\n

    \nTechnical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\"Peter\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nKen interviews Peter van Ginneken who is chair of the \nTechnical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE)\n.

    \n\n

    \nIt is a free conference to promote the use and development of Open Source software. This event has is organized yearly since 2006 in the Brainport region, near Eindhoven, The Netherlands. During this event, Open Source projects, developers and visitors can exchange ideas and knowledge.

    \n\n

    \nT-DOSE wil take place on \n6 and 7 June 2026\nat \nthe Weeffabriek\nin Geldrop (near Eindhoven).

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://t-dose.org/2026/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nContact Information

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTravel Times

    \n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
    CountryTypical Travel MethodExample DestinationApprox DurationTypical Budget Cost (One Way)
    BelgiumTrain / FlixbusAntwerp1–1.5h€10–25
    GermanyTrain / FlixbusCologne1.5–2h€20–40
    United KingdomRyanair flightLondon Stansted1h05€20–70
    IrelandRyanair flightDublin1h40€25–80
    DenmarkTransavia flightCopenhagen1h25€40–100
    AustriaRyanair flightVienna1h40€30–90
    Czech RepublicTransavia flightPrague1h20€35–90
    PolandRyanair / Wizz AirKraków1h50€25–80
    HungaryWizz AirBudapest1h55€30–90
    ItalyRyanair flightMilan Bergamo1h35€25–85
    SpainRyanair / TransaviaBarcelona2h05€35–120
    PortugalRyanair / TransaviaPorto2h40€45–130
    CroatiaRyanair flightZagreb1h50€35–90
    SlovakiaRyanair flightBratislava1h40€25–70
    RomaniaWizz AirCluj-Napoca2h20€40–110
    BulgariaRyanair / Wizz AirSofia2h35€35–100
    AlbaniaRyanair / Wizz AirTirana2h30€35–110
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"T-DOSE, Floss Events","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4642,"date":"2026-05-19","title":"Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 7","duration":7924,"summary":"the hpr community comes together to converse","notes":"\n

    \n\nPFSense\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.pfsense.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChromebook\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.google.com/chromebook/discover-chromebook/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAMD Sempron 140\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/sempron-140.c820\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTrinity\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.trinitydesktop.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nXFCE\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.xfce.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChrome OS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://chromeos.google/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSSH\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.ssh.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOnshape\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.onshape.com/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTinkerCAD\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.tinkercad.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThorium OS\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://thorium.rocks/thoriumos\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTech And Coffee\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://techandcoffee.info/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPanera\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.panerabread.com/en-us/home.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIHOP\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.panerabread.com/en-us/home.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWaffle House\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.wafflehouse.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIn And Out Burger\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.in-n-out.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEconomies Of Scale\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economiesofscale.asp\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDunkin Donuts\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.dunkindonuts.com/en\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nF-Droid\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://f-droid.org/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCheap Yellow Display\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://blog.decryption.net.au/posts/cyd-for-beginners.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNTP Server\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.ntppool.org/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBeagle (Dog)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/beagle/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSiamese Cat\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.life-with-siamese-cats.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBsides InfoSec Conference - Knoxville, TN\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.papercall.io/bsides-knoxville-2026\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCI/CD Pipeline\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://circleci.com/blog/what-is-a-ci-cd-pipeline/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStrace Command\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.geeksforgeeks.org/linux-unix/strace-command-in-linux-with-examples/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHigh Pass Filter\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.izotope.com/en/learn/6-ways-to-use-a-high-pass-filter-when-mixing\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWaters & Stanton - Radio Shop\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hamradiostore.co.uk/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHome Assistant\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.home-assistant.io/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nESP 32\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEMF Camp\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.emfcamp.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nYAML\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://yaml.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChatGPT\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://chatgpt.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTOR\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.torproject.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIPTables\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linux.die.net/man/8/iptables\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/man/man8/ipchains.8.html\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRSYNC\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://linux.die.net/man/1/rsync\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSYM Link\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://stackoverflow.com/questions/1951742/how-can-i-symlink-a-file-in-linux\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCDN (Content Delivery Network)\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/what-is-a-cdn/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMastadon\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://joinmastodon.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDuoLingo\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.duolingo.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFedora\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPea Coat\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.artofmanliness.com/style/clothing/mans-guide-pea-coat/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHaiku\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.haiku-os.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHunt Brothers Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.huntbrotherspizza.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPapa Johns Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.papajohns.com/omni/en\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPIzza Hut\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.pizzahut.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDominos Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.dominos.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMarcos Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.marcos.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nLittle Ceasars Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://littlecaesars.com/en-us/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHungry Howies Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.hungryhowies.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMOD Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://modpizza.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPapa Murphys Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.papamurphys.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWolfman Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://wolfmanpizza.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFuel Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.fuelpizza.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nShallow Hal\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/shallow_hal\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSouth Coast Pizza\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://southcoastpizza.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCasa Dora\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.casadoraitaliancusinepizzeria.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNational Pizza Day\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-pizza-day-february-9\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSagitarius\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.zodiacsign.com/zodiac-signs/sagittarius/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAlexa\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://alexa.amazon.com/userProfile?redirectTo=%2F\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nGemini\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://gemini.google.com/app\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNetscape\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://isp.netscape.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSeamonkey\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.seamonkey-project.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThunderbird\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nULC Minister\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.ulc.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChurch Of Spiritual Humanism\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://spiritualhumanism.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOberon Zelle Ravenheart\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_Zell-Ravenheart\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTemple of Wicca \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.wiccanfamilytemple.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nChurch Of All Worlds\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://caw.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nProgressive Universal Life Church\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.thepulc.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPine Time\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://pine64.org/devices/pinetime/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAmazFit Watch\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://us.amazfit.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nZepp App \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.huami.watch.hmwatchmanager&hl=en_US&pli=1\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPegasus Mail\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.pmail.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEudora\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_(email_client)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nProton Mail\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://proton.me/mail\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAOL\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.aol.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOpenSuse\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.opensuse.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nMandrake Linux\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.mandrakelinux.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nVirtualbox\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.virtualbox.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBitcoin\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://bitcoin.org/en/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNorway\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.visitnorway.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nXFCE\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.xfce.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":269,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"HPR,community,new years eve show","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4643,"date":"2026-05-20","title":"HPR Beer Garden 13 - Triple IPA","duration":1812,"summary":"Dave and Kevie talk about Triple IPAs.","notes":"\n

    \nDave and Kevie continue the Beer Garden series with a look at a relatively new style of IPA known as a Triple. Dave samples \nTriple Hazy Jane by Brewdog\n, whilst Kevie tries out \nGlory Triple IPA\nby \nNorthern Monk\n.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4644,"date":"2026-05-21","title":"Response to comments on HPR4424: Newsboat...","duration":428,"summary":"Archer72 shares a fix to the Newsboat question about 'ccdn.php'","notes":"\n

    \n Hi this is your host, Archer72 for Hacker Public Radio.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n In this episode I share some of my findings about a problem with\n the Newsboat naming of the HPR feeds,

    \n

    \n which was brought up in comments about my Newsboat show, HPR4424.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n hpr4424: How I use Newsboat for Podcasts: comment #6 :\n download-filename-format for HPR podcasts\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Ken already had some findings of his own about the \n ccdn.php extension in the feed.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n hpr4424: comment #10 : Summary of findings\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n I thought that this might be able to be fixed on an invididual\n basis, and set out to ask Claude.ai a few questions.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n But first, some colaboration from Dave Morriss about a good\n renaming format. This was definitely more on Dave’s side than\n mine, but came up with this.

    \n

    \n You can tell Dave’s handywork from the short variable names, which\n stems from his extensive experience on Unix type machines in the\n University days.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n exif-rename-hpr-dave.sh\n

    \n

    \n

    \n 
    #!/bin/bash\n\nURL=\"$(cat /tmp/hpr-url.txt)\"\necho \"DEBUG URL: $URL\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n\nAUDIO_URL=\"$(curl -s \"$URL\" | grep -Eo 'https?://[^\"]*\\.(ogg|mp3)' | head -1)\"\necho \"DEBUG AUDIO: $AUDIO_URL\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n\nif [[ -z \"$AUDIO_URL\" ]]; then\n    echo \"ERROR: Could not find audio URL from: $URL\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n    exit 1\nfi\n\n# Changed destination to HPR-queue\nDEST=~/podcasts/hub.hackerpublicradio.org/HPR-queue/\n\n# Record files present before download\nBEFORE=\"$(ls \"$DEST\"*.{ogg,mp3} 2>/dev/null | sort)\"\n\nwget -nc --content-disposition -P \"$DEST\" \"$AUDIO_URL\"\n\ncd \"$DEST\"\n\n# Record filename just downloaded (new file not in BEFORE)\nAFTER=\"$(ls \"$DEST\"*.{ogg,mp3} 2>/dev/null | sort)\"\nDOWNLOADED=\"$(comm -13 <(echo \"$BEFORE\") <(echo \"$AFTER\"))\"\necho \"DEBUG DOWNLOADED: $DOWNLOADED\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n\n~/bin/exif-rename-hpr-dave.sh\n\n# Find renamed file — newest file that wasn't in BEFORE\nAFTER_RENAME=\"$(ls \"$DEST\"*.{ogg,mp3} 2>/dev/null | sort)\"\nRENAMED=\"$(comm -13 <(echo \"$BEFORE\") <(echo \"$AFTER_RENAME\"))\"\necho \"DEBUG RENAMED: $RENAMED\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n\nif [[ -n \"$RENAMED\" ]]; then\n    echo \"\\\"$AUDIO_URL\\\" \\\"$RENAMED\\\" downloaded\" >> ~/.local/share/newsboat/queue\nelse\n    echo \"WARN: Could not determine renamed file\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n    echo \"\\\"$AUDIO_URL\\\" \\\"$DOWNLOADED\\\" downloaded\" >> ~/.local/share/newsboat/queue\nfi\n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n At first the question was about something simple. The input was a\n query on one of the lines from Kevie’s\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n hpr4398 :: Command line fun: downloading a podcast\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Particularly, the section on To get the latest episode of TuxJam\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n wget \n curl https://tuxjam.otherside.network/feed/podcast/ | grep -o\n 'https*://[^\"]*ogg' | head -1\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Which I re-wrote to:\n

    \n

    \n

    \n 
    wget -nc -P ~/podcasts/TuxJam $(curl https://tuxjam.otherside.network/feed/ogg | grep -Eo 'https*://[^\"]*ogg' | sort -u | xargs | head -1)\n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n The reason for $() instead of backticks to enclose a command was\n that the former was being deprecated.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n GNU Bash Reference Manual - 3.5.4 Command Substitution\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n -nc –no-clobber is to not re-download a podcast -P specifies\n download directory\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n I went on a different direction than downloading TuxJam and asked\n to download the last 2 hpr shows, but \n head -2 did not work as expected. This turned out to be\n an issue with the placement of \n xargs joining all URLs and passing them to \n wget all at once.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Original:\n

    \n

    \n

    \n 
    wget -nc --content-disposition -P ~/podcasts/hub.hackerpublicradio.org/HPR-newsboat-test/ $(curl [http://hackerpublicradio.org/hpr\\_ogg\\_rss.php](http://hackerpublicradio.org/hpr_ogg_rss.php) | grep -Eo 'https\\*://\\[^\"\\]\\*ogg' | sort -u | xargs | head -2)\n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n New:\n

    \n

    \n

    \n 
    curl http://hackerpublicradio.org/hpr_ogg_rss.php | grep -Eo 'https?://[^\"]*\\.ogg' | sort -u | head -2 | xargs wget -nc --content-disposition -P ~/podcasts/hub.hackerpublicradio.org/HPR-newsboat-test/\n
    \n

    \n Key fixes:\n

    \n

    \n

    \n
      \n
    • \n Removed the premature \n xargs before \n head -2\n , so \n head actually limits the list to 2 URLs\n
      • \n
    • \n Moved \n xargs wget ... to the end, after the list is already\n trimmed\n
      • \n
    • \n Cleaned up \n https* → \n https? (the original would also match \n httpssss\n , etc.)\n
      • \n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Now I wanted the downloaded file to go the the queue file, located\n in \n ~/.local/share/newsboat/queue\n

    \n

    \n After several iterations in \n Claude\n , it was determined that the audio URL was not being expanded by\n the \n %u in the download macro.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n The solution was to add a /tmp file to hold the actual audio URL\n

    \n

    \n

    \n 
    macro d set browser \"echo %u > /tmp/hpr-url.txt && ~/bin/download-and-rename-hpr.sh\"; open-in-browser ; set browser \"your-normal-browser\"\n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n A few Claude questions later… After asking to add a function to\n the macro in order to add the resulting downloaded file to the\n queue, the file name hpr1234.ogg was being added to the queue\n instead of the renamed file.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Two things to fix:\n

    \n

    \n

    \n
      \n
    1. \n The renamed file isn’t being found because \n ls -t runs before the rename has fully settled, or the\n glob isn’t matching the new filename format (which includes\n spaces and semicolons)\n
      2. \n
    2. \n The existing queue entries show the correct format: \n \"url\" \"path\" downloaded — we need to match that, with \n downloaded status and the full renamed path including\n extension\n
      3. \n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Exif rename script\n

    \n

    \n

    \n 
    #!/bin/bash\n# ~/bin/download-and-rename-hpr.sh\n\nURL=\"$(cat /tmp/hpr-url.txt)\"\necho \"DEBUG URL: $URL\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n\nAUDIO_URL=\"$(curl -s \"$URL\" | grep -Eo 'https?://[^\"]*\\.(ogg|mp3)' | head -1)\"\necho \"DEBUG AUDIO: $AUDIO_URL\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n\nif [[ -z \"$AUDIO_URL\" ]]; then\n    echo \"ERROR: Could not find audio URL from: $URL\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n    exit 1\nfi\n\nDEST=~/podcasts/hub.hackerpublicradio.org/HPR-newsboat-test/\n\n# Record files present before download\nBEFORE=\"$(ls \"$DEST\"*.{ogg,mp3} 2>/dev/null | sort)\"\n\nwget -nc --content-disposition -P \"$DEST\" \"$AUDIO_URL\"\n\ncd \"$DEST\"\n\n# Record filename just downloaded (new file not in BEFORE)\nAFTER=\"$(ls \"$DEST\"*.{ogg,mp3} 2>/dev/null | sort)\"\nDOWNLOADED=\"$(comm -13 <(echo \"$BEFORE\") <(echo \"$AFTER\"))\"\necho \"DEBUG DOWNLOADED: $DOWNLOADED\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n\n~/bin/exif-rename-hpr-dave.sh\n\n# Find renamed file — newest file that wasn't in BEFORE\nAFTER_RENAME=\"$(ls \"$DEST\"*.{ogg,mp3} 2>/dev/null | sort)\"\nRENAMED=\"$(comm -13 <(echo \"$BEFORE\") <(echo \"$AFTER_RENAME\"))\"\necho \"DEBUG RENAMED: $RENAMED\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n\nif [[ -n \"$RENAMED\" ]]; then\n    echo \"\\\"$AUDIO_URL\\\" \\\"$RENAMED\\\" downloaded\" >> ~/.local/share/newsboat/queue\nelse\n    echo \"WARN: Could not determine renamed file\" >> /tmp/hpr-debug.log\n    echo \"\\\"$AUDIO_URL\\\" \\\"$DOWNLOADED\\\" downloaded\" >> ~/.local/share/newsboat/queue\nfi\n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Using \n comm -13 on sorted before/after file lists is more\n reliable than \n ls -t — it finds exactly which file is new regardless of\n timing. Check \n /tmp/hpr-debug.log after the next run to see what \n DOWNLOADED and \n RENAMED show.\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n GNU Coreutils - Comm invocation\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Newsboat config snippet\n

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n key changes\n

    \n

    \n

    \n 
    download-filename-format \"%t.%e\" \nmacro d set browser \"echo %u > /tmp/hpr-url.txt && ~/bin/download-and-rename-hpr.sh\"; open-in-browser ; set browser lynx\n
    \n

    \n

    ","hostid":318,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Newsboat, Podboat, podcasts, Claude.ai","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4645,"date":"2026-05-22","title":"ZERO HOUR: FRIDAY AFTERNOON APK HACKING ","duration":3306,"summary":"APK VIBE HACKING LIKE A BOSS","notes":"\n

    \n\nWARNING AI GENERATED NOTES AHEAD YMMW \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nHere is a summary of the recorded training session regarding Android hacking from Hacker Public Radio, including web references for the main topics discussed.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOverview\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe recording features a security consultant performing a live assessment of an Android application. The consultant uses a custom tool suite called \"Jamboree\" and various other utilities to test a location-sharing and vehicle management app. The session highlights the increasing complexity of mobile app security, specifically dealing with SSL pinning, encrypted traffic, and anti-tampering mechanisms \n\n1\n\n.\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEnvironment and Tools\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe assessment is conducted on a rooted Android emulator. The speaker utilizes several tools to set up the environment and intercept traffic:\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nJamboree\n\n: A custom automation tool developed by the speaker over six years to handle rooting, proxy setup, and app installation within minutes \n\n1\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nBurp Suite\n\n: The primary interception proxy used to analyze traffic between the app and the production server \n\n1\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nFrida\n\n: Used to bypass anti-root detection and SSL pinning \n\n1\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nGhidra\n\n: A decompiler used to analyze the app's code, specifically helpful for patching the Flutter-based application \n\n1\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nAndroid Debug Bridge (ADB)\n\n: Used for troubleshooting, debugging, and analyzing logs (\n\nlogcat\n\n) to extract user IDs and location data \n\n1\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\nTechnical Challenges: SSL Pinning and Flutter\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe target application is built using Flutter and implements rigorous security controls, including SSL pinning, which prevents standard Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks. The app's HTTP client ignores system and user-installed certificates, and it does not respect device Wi-Fi proxy settings \n\n1\n\n.\n

    \n\n

    \n\nTo overcome this:\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nTraffic Redirection\n\n: The speaker uses \n\niptables\n\n commands to force all HTTP and HTTPS traffic through the proxy's IP address at the network layer, bypassing the app's proxy ignorance \n\n1\n\n.\n
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nPatching with AI\n\n: The speaker leverages AI (specifically mentioning Claude and access to \"Kuro\") to assist in patching the APK. The AI helped navigate Ghidra and generate Python scripts to bypass the app's protections, allowing the modified APK to trust the auditor's certificate \n\n1\n\n.\n
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nFrida Scripts\n\n: \"Frida anti-root SSL pinning\" scripts are executed to further mitigate detection mechanisms \n\n1\n\n.\n
      4. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\nKey Vulnerabilities Identified\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n1. Geolocation Spoofing\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe consultant successfully spoofed the device's GPS location using emulator settings (e.g., setting the location to Puerto Rico or Costa Rica). The application accepted this falsified location data as valid, indicating a lack of server-side verification for location origin \n\n1\n\n.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n2. Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) / Broken Access Control\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe most critical finding involves the app's user tracking feature.\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\nThe consultant discovered that the API allows querying a user's location via a \n\nuser_id\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nBy intercepting traffic and analyzing \n\nadb logcat\n\n logs, the consultant extracted their own \n\nuser_id\n\n and the \n\nuser_id\n\n of a second test account \n\n1\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nWhile authenticated as one user, the consultant was able to send a request substituting the \n\nuser_id\n\n with the target's ID. The server responded with the target's GPS coordinates. This confirms that an authenticated user can track any other user's real-time location if they possess the target's ID \n\n1\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\nProof of concept was created by copying the request as a \n\ncurl\n\n command to demonstrate the exploit \n\n1\n\n.\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\n3. Potential Information Disclosure\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe consultant began testing a feature that allows users to add vehicles by license plate. The concern is that querying a license plate might return excessive PII (Personally Identifiable Information), such as VIN numbers or registration details, beyond what the UI strictly requires (least privilege issue) \n\n1\n\n.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n4. Access Control (Calendar Feature)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe consultant tested whether calendar events could be accessed by switching \n\nuser_id\n\n parameters. This test resulted in a \"401 Unauthorized\" error, indicating that this specific endpoint had proper access control in place \n\n1\n\n.\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWeb References and Resources\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBelow are references for the main tools and concepts discussed in the training:\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Android Hacking, Mobile Security, Burp Suite, Frida, Ghidra, SSL Pinning, IDOR,","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4646,"date":"2026-05-25","title":"Mobile Gaming","duration":3386,"summary":"Elsbeth and Lee have a conversation about gaming, neurodivergence and other topics","notes":"\n\n

    Games Mentioned

    \n\n\n\n

    Apologies, Lee's mic is a bit metallic due to filtering out background noise from a fan

    \n\n\r","hostid":446,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"gaming, mobile, adhd","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4647,"date":"2026-05-26","title":"UNIX Curio #7 - Compression","duration":1107,"summary":"Making your files smaller","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nIn UNIX Curio #4 (\nHPR episode 4617\n), I teased the subject of file compression. Today I'm circling back to that.

    \n\n

    \nThe history of data compression goes back at least to the 1970s, and in contexts outside UNIX and computers, probably even earlier. Somehow, it is refreshing to learn that humans have always struggled to have enough storage space to keep all the data they want to hang on to. One way around this limitation is to use some form of compression.

    \n\n

    \nI am only going to dive into \nlossless\n compression for this episode—that is, a compression method that can be reversed and will spit out the original data bit for bit. Lossy compression methods also have their places: you might be familiar with their use for audio (such as Ogg Vorbis or MP3); it's also used for images (such as JPEG). Lossy compression allows some of the original data to be thrown away, resulting in a smaller file than is possible with lossless compression, but the intent is for the result to still sound or look \"good enough\" to a human observer. Also, I am going to limit my discussion to generic methods used for many types of data; while FLAC does lossless compression, it is specifically designed just for audio.

    \n\n

    \nI should make clear that I have never studied computer science or information theory, so this episode will not get into the science behind various types of compression algorithms and how they differ. But in general, these methods take advantage of the fact that many types of data have recurring patterns. English text mostly consists of words that often re-appear many times—source code similarly has keywords and variable names that recur. Compression is accomplished by representing a piece of data that occurs multiple times with a symbol that is shorter in length.

    \n\n

    \nThe first compression program in the UNIX world I could find is called \n\n\npack\n\n\n\n\n, from 1978\n\n\n1\n. It was shortly followed in 1979 by a similar program called \n\n\ncompact\n\n\n\n\n2\n. Both of these used a technique called Huffman coding, but with some differences between them. Files compressed with \npack\n were given a \n.z\n extension and \ncompact\n gave filenames a \n.C\n extension. Roughly every five or ten years after this, a new program would come along and achieve lasting popularity.

    \n\n

    \nThere were, and still are, two opposing forces facing any new form of compression. Working in favor was the advantages it provided—first among these was achieving a better compression ratio, but performance improvements such as speed or reduced memory usage could also be compelling. The force against any new method was the fact that it was not yet widely supported—it doesn't much help to have a smaller file if the people you share it with cannot decompress it.

    \n\n

    \nThe next major advance in compression arose out of three scientific papers: two in 1977 and 1978 by Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv (called LZ77 and LZ78), and one by Terry Welch in 1984 which built on LZ78. This last method is typically referred to as LZW. Our UNIX Curio for today is a \nprogram called \n\n\n\n\ncompress\n\n\n\n\n3\n that implements the LZW method. Files compressed this way are named with the extension \n.Z\n. I had always assumed that this was to honor Jacob Ziv, but now that I've researched the history, it seems more likely to be a follow-on from how files compressed by \npack\n were named. Since \npack\n did not use any of the Lempel-Ziv methods, I would guess that it used \n.z\n because that wasn't already taken by anything else, but that's pure speculation.

    \n\n

    \nI do recall encountering \n.Z\n files in the wild, but feel certain that hasn't happened in the last 25 years, maybe longer. If you need to expand one of these, \n\n\nuncompress\n\n\n\n\n4\n is the program to use (\nGNU's \n\n\n\n\ngunzip\n\n\n\n\n can also handle them\n\n\n5\n). However, there was a serious problem that arose with the LZ78 and LZW compression methods. Both of them were patented, and the owner became aggressive in seeking payment from developers and users. The \ncompress\n utility was developed within two months of the publication of Welch's 1984 paper and was included in Bell Laboratories' Eighth Edition UNIX before these shakedowns started. The paper did not disclose that a patent had been filed, and apparently Spencer Thomas and the other developers of \ncompress\n were unaware of it. The utility became popular for a while, and was even standardized by POSIX, but people moved away from LZW once the legal threats started.

    \n\n

    \nAnother important advance came in 1991 and was called the DEFLATE compression method. It combined the un-patented LZ77 method with Huffman coding to achieve a similar level of compression as LZW (actually, often better) without the legal trouble. DEFLATE was developed for \nPKZIP\n and was soon adopted by the GNU project's \ngzip\n compressor. While Phil Katz (the \"PK\" in \nPKZIP\n) patented one way of implementing the DEFLATE method, \nit was possible to write a compressor and decompressor without infringing\n\n\n6\n; also, he apparently \nnever tried to enforce the patent\n\n\n7\n.

    \n\n

    \nAs I mentioned in UNIX Curio #4, .zip is both an archive \nand\n a compression format. Each archive member can be compressed with one of several possible methods (or stored without compression). Unlike a \ntar\n file where compression can be applied to the entire archive, in .zip each archive member is compressed individually. This often means a .zip file will be slightly bigger than a \ntar\n file with the same contents compressed with \ngzip\n, because the .zip format cannot take advantage of duplication that occurs among more than one member of the archive. The vast majority of .zip files use only the DEFLATE and uncompressed storage methods and these are the only options if you want to follow the profile standardized in ISO/IEC 21320-1. Actually, since they both use DEFLATE, \ngzip\n is able to extract a .zip file in the special case where it only holds one member compressed with that method.

    \n\n

    \nFrom the 1990s onward, people paid significant attention to avoiding patent landmines, so only methods that didn't have that problem became broadly popular. While the patents on LZ78 and LZW have since expired, I feel like their most successful legacy was in discouraging people from using those methods, leading to DEFLATE taking the popularity crown.

    \n\n

    \nThe next step came in 1996 and 1997 with the development of \nbzip\n and \nbzip2\n by Julian Seward. The original method was quickly followed by \nbzip2\n, which was the version that achieved true popularity. They use the Burrows-Wheeler transform, which does not itself compress data but re-arranges it to make it more compressible; \nthis is combined with other techniques\n\n\n8\n. (At least, that's my understanding. I told you, I'm not up on information theory.) This provides a significant reduction in the compressed size of the data compared to earlier methods—however, it is slower than DEFLATE both during compression and decompression.

    \n\n

    \nSeparate projects have developed parallel versions of \ngzip\n and \nbzip2\n that can take advantage of multi-processor machines, but the original utilities run single-threaded.

    \n\n

    \nAnother five years later, in 2001, Igor Pavlov added the Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm (LZMA), an enhancement to LZ77, to his 7-Zip compression tool. This was followed a few years later by LZMA2, a container format that allowed for LZMA compression to be split between multiple threads. Broad LZMA2 support came to the UNIX world in 2009 with the \n\n\nxz\n\n\n\n\n utility\n\n\n9\n. It offers roughly similar compression ratios to \nbzip2\n, though it can be better or worse depending on the data to be compressed. While compression generally takes even longer than \nbzip2\n, decompression is significantly faster (though still not as fast as \ngzip\n). The Linux kernel relatively quickly supported \nbooting from xz-compressed images\n\n\n10\n because it was a good match for that use case—compression, the time-consuming activity, only has to be done once while the more frequent decompression during boot happens relatively fast.

    \n\n

    \nThe last method I will cover is \nZstandard\n\n\n11\n, often written as \nzstd\n. This came about in 2015, and is another variation on LZ77 that uses finite-state entropy (which means nothing to me, but you might understand it). It performs about as well as DEFLATE in terms of compression ratios, but is much faster both when compressing and decompressing data. I should say that these statements are true with the typical default settings—depending on the compression level selected, it can compress more slowly, but compress the data smaller. However, decompression is always speedier than DEFLATE. This makes it attractive for some uses, and it is heavily promoted by Meta/Facebook, where Yann Collet developed it. For example, shipping large amounts of actively-used data between machines in a data center can go more quickly when the size is reduced; however, if the compression and decompression steps take too long that benefit is lost. A speedy method can be valuable even if it doesn't result in the greatest reduction in size. This use case stands in contrast to, say, a compressed backup file which might only be accessed in a disaster recovery scenario or never accessed at all, making size more important than speed.

    \n\n

    \nBoth the \nxz\n and \nzstd\n utilities have some built-in support for multi-threading, but the default is to run in a single thread. While \nxz\n can use multiple threads for decompression (but only if the file was compressed in multi-thread mode), the reference \nzstd\n utility can only use more than one thread for compression, not decompression.

    \n\n

    \nThere are many other methods of lossless compression that have been developed over the decades, but I believe these are the ones you are most likely to encounter in the world of UNIX-like systems. This is a personal opinion, and others might choose a different set. As mentioned, it can be tough for a new method to gain popularity and 35-year-old DEFLATE is still probably the most commonly used despite not being the fastest or offering the greatest reduction in size. Even systems like FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD that do not like to include GNU tools supported it by developing their own version of \ngzip\n based on the permissively-licensed \nzlib\n library.

    \n\n

    \nTechnically, the LZW method used by the \ncompress\n utility is still standardized by POSIX, so one might expect it to have the widest support. However, aggressive patent enforcement discouraged adoption, especially by Free and Open Source Software systems—even though the patent has expired, it is still out of favor compared to DEFLATE. For this reason, I feel justified in calling it a curio.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nEighth Edition UNIX pack.c\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V8/usr/src/cmd/pack/pack.c
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\n2.9BSD compact.c\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=2.9BSD/usr/src/ucb/compact/compact.c
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nCompress specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/compress.html
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nUncompress specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/uncompress.html
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nGNU Gzip manual\n https://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/manual/gzip.html
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\nRFC 1951: DEFLATE Compressed Data Format Specification version 1.3\n https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1951
      7. \n\n
    7. \n\n\nHistory of Lossless Data Compression Algorithms: The Rise of Deflate\n https://ethw.org/History_of_Lossless_Data_Compression_Algorithms#The_Rise_of_Deflate
      8. \n\n
    8. \n\n\nbzip2\n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bzip2
      9. \n\n
    9. \n\n\nXZ Utils\n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils
      10. \n\n
    10. \n\n\n2.6.38 merge window part 2\n https://lwn.net/Articles/423541/
      11. \n\n
    11. \n\n\nzstd\n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zstd
      12. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nAppendix\n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe table below demonstrates the results of compressing different types of data using tools described in this episode. While not totally rigorous, I did run each compression and decompression multiple times to ensure I was getting consistent results. The laptop I used has an Intel Core i5-6200U CPU running at 2.30GHz, and the system had at least 5 GB of free memory for each run. While this processor has two cores and can run four simultaneous threads, all utilities were run single-threaded.

    \n\n

    \nThe term \"best\" means the highest level of compression available (the exact level used is shown). For \nbzip2\n, the default \nis\n the best. For \nzstd\n, \"best\" is -19, which is the highest \"normal\" level, but \"ultra\" levels that are even higher also exist. Ratios are the percentage of the original size that the file was reduced to (other sources might instead express the compression ratio as the \nreduction\n in size achieved). In all results, smaller numbers are better.

    \n\n
    \n┌────────────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐\n│                            │    gzip     │    gzip     │    bzip2    │     xz      │     xz      │    zstd     │    zstd     │\n│                            │(default -6) │  (best -9)  │    (-9)     │(default -6) │  (best -9)  │(default -3) │ (best -19)  │\n├──────────────┬─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│              │Size (ratio) │ 22,036,508  │ 21,891,623  │ 15,795,698  │ 13,487,768  │ 12,938,464  │ 20,454,657  │ 13,709,078  │\n│              │             │ (24%)       │ (24%)       │ (17%)       │ (15%)       │ (14%)       │ (23%)       │ (15%)       │\n│English Text  ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│(90,532,092   │Compression  │ 4.8s        │ 7.6s        │ 8.5s        │ 49.8s       │ 58.8s       │ 0.6s        │ 65.2s       │\n│bytes         │time         │             │             │             │             │             │             │             │\n│uncompressed) ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│              │Decompression│ 0.7s        │ 0.8s        │ 3.7s        │ 1.2s        │ 1.2s        │ 0.4s        │ 0.4s        │\n│              │time         │             │             │             │             │             │             │             │\n├──────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│              │Size (ratio) │ 125,291,122 │ 124,189,544 │ 98,016,512  │ 84,882,492  │ 81,954,344  │ 120,604,855 │ 87,298,645  │\n│              │             │ (21%)       │ (21%)       │ (17%)       │ (14%)       │ (14%)       │ (20%)       │ (15%)       │\n│Source Code   ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│(590,008,320  │Compression  │ 22.0s       │ 39.3s       │ 54.8s       │ 241s        │ 298s        │ 3.7s        │ 348s        │\n│bytes         │time         │             │             │             │             │             │             │             │\n│uncompressed) ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│              │Decompression│ 5.1s        │ 5.1s        │ 20.3s       │ 8.1s        │ 7.8s        │ 2.4s        │ 2.4s        │\n│              │time         │             │             │             │             │             │             │             │\n├──────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│              │Size (ratio) │ 32,830,905  │ 32,371,241  │ 26,856,579  │ 20,717,288  │ 20,352,880  │ 28,538,810  │ 23,154,582  │\n│              │             │ (19%)       │ (19%)       │ (16%)       │ (12%)       │ (12%)       │ (17%)       │ (13%)       │\n│Binary Program├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│(171,972,264  │Compression  │ 6.4s        │ 22.4s       │ 18.6s       │ 62.2s       │ 67.8s       │ 0.8s        │ 111s        │\n│bytes         │time         │             │             │             │             │             │             │             │\n│uncompressed) ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│              │Decompression│ 1.5s        │ 1.5s        │ 5.6s        │ 2.3s        │ 2.3s        │ 0.7s        │ 0.7s        │\n│              │time         │             │             │             │             │             │             │             │\n├──────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│              │Size (ratio) │ 146,397,772 │ 146,397,757 │ 144,485,451 │ 131,950,232 │ 130,926,780 │ 147,154,979 │ 145,703,840 │\n│              │             │ (89%)       │ (89%)       │ (88%)       │ (80%)       │ (80%)       │ (90%)       │ (89%)       │\n│WAVE Audio    ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│(164,396,302  │Compression  │ 9.2s        │ 9.2s        │ 25.1s       │ 70.4s       │ 97.7s       │ 0.7s        │ 58.3s       │\n│bytes         │time         │             │             │             │             │             │             │             │\n│uncompressed) ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│              │Decompression│ 2.0s        │ 2.0s        │ 13.5s       │ 12.2s       │ 12.1s       │ 0.6s        │ 0.8s        │\n│              │time         │             │             │             │             │             │             │             │\n├──────────────┴─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤\n│                            │     gzip    │    gzip     │    bzip2    │     xz      │     xz      │    zstd     │    zstd     │\n│                            │(default -6) │  (best -9)  │    (-9)     │(default -6) │  (best -9)  │(default -3) │ (best -19)  │\n└────────────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘\n
    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nEnglish text consists of Titles 1 through 10 of the 2020 U.S. \nCode of Federal Regulations\n.
      • \n\n
    • \nSource code consists of a \ntar\n file containing the Linux kernel source, version 4.0.
      • \n\n
    • \nBinary program consists of an ELF-format executable of the \npandoc\n application, version 2.17.1.1 found on Debian 12.
      • \n\n
    • \nAudio consists of a 24-bit Signed Integer PCM WAVE file with 2 channels at 44.1kHz, about 10:21 in length. For comparison, the audio-specific \nflac\n lossless compression utility reduced this file to 97,962,711 bytes (60%) in 2.6 seconds at the default (-5) level and to 97,714,876 bytes (59%) in 5.4 seconds at the highest (-8) level.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,compression","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4648,"date":"2026-05-27","title":"Simple Podcasting - Episode 4 - Audio Analysis Fun","duration":1569,"summary":"This episode is the fourth in an 4 part series on simple podcasting covering Audio Analysis Fun with","notes":"\n

    \n01

    \n\n

    \nThis is the fourth episode in a four part series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02 Introduction

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we will discuss alternatives to Audacity when it comes to analyzing audio spectrums to find the sources of unwanted noise.

    \n\n

    \nI previously promised some gratuitous hackery, and we will get into that in this episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nRecall that with Audacity you first import the audio file, then select the part of the audio you wish to analyze (or ctrl-A for all), and then select analyze > plot spectrum.

    \n\n

    \nThis is in fact the only feature of Audacity that I know how to use. I am definitely not an audio expert.

    \n\n

    \nI do however have some background in processing and analyzing other signals, so some of the basics are familiar to me.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04

    \n\n

    \nWe can accomplish the same thing that Audacity does in this instance provided we can do the following.

    \n\n

    \nFirst, we need to get the data out of the audio file and into a form which we can import into other software.

    \n\n

    \nSecond, we need to perform certain mathematical operations on this data.

    \n\n

    \nFinally, we need to be able to plot the results of these calculations on a chart.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05 Fourier Transforms

    \n\n

    \nFirst though, we need a bit of mathematical background.

    \n\n

    \nWhat Audacity is doing when it shows a plot of frequency versus amplitude is that it is showing the results of a Fourier Transform.

    \n\n

    \nA Fourier Transforms is a mathematical operation that converts the time domain into the frequency domain.

    \n\n

    \nAny complex signal, audio or otherwise, can be broken down into a collection of sine waves of various frequencies.

    \n\n

    \nFor example, a simple square wave signal of say 100 hertz can be represented as a sine wave of frequency 100 hertz plus a collection of higher frequency sine waves which add together to give the sharp corners.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nA Fourier Transform finds these sine waves and sorts them out into separate bins, with each bin representing an individual frequency or a collection of closely related frequencies, depending on how fine grained the sorting is.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nThis is exactly what we want when we are trying to figure out how to filter out noise.

    \n\n

    \nRecall that earlier in this series we had to solve a problem with a high pitched background noise which was originating in my cheap microphone.

    \n\n

    \nAnalyzing this audio by frequency showed that it was a series of individual tones at 1 kHz intervals.

    \n\n

    \nWe were then able to use filters targeted at those frequencies to get rid of that noise.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nThere are several optimized versions of the Fourier Transform algorithm.

    \n\n

    \nA very common one is the Fast Fourier Transform, common abbreviated to just \"FFT\".

    \n\n

    \nThis is so common that the term \"FFT\" is often used to simply mean any Fourier Transform even though this is not technically correct.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09

    \n\n

    \nTypical FFT algorithms require that the number of data samples is exactly a power of two.

    \n\n

    \nSo the number of samples we need may be something like 4096, 8192, or 65536, to give a few random examples.

    \n\n

    \nWhen we transform from the time domain to the frequency domain, each sample becomes a single frequency \"bin\". So the more samples we have, the finer the resolution we get in terms of frequency.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nIf we assume we are dealing with flac files recorded at a 44.1 kHz sample rate, that is, 44100 samples per second, then if we have 32768 samples, each \"bin\" represents slightly more than 1 hertz.

    \n\n

    \nIf we have 65536 samples, then each \"bin\" represents a fraction of a hertz.

    \n\n

    \nFor our purposes we will pick 65536 samples.

    \n\n

    \nThat means we need 1.48 seconds of data.

    \n\n

    \nFor simplicity's sake we will record at least 2 seconds of data and then just discard the samples that we don't need.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nThere is a further complication here. Fourier Transforms normally work with complex numbers.

    \n\n

    \nRecall from your school days that as well as integers and real numbers there are complex numbers.

    \n\n

    \nEach complex number consists of two parts, a real component and an imaginary component.

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into the details of this, just accept that each sample needs to have two components.

    \n\n

    \nFortunately, if we don't have complex number data we can just set the imaginary component to zero and use that.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is enough talking about the theory, let's get into the practical details.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12 Extracting Data from Audio Files

    \n\n

    \nFirst we will look at how to extract the data from the audio files.

    \n\n

    \nFortunately, one of the programs which we have already been using can do this.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo do this we will use Sox.

    \n\n

    \nI am not aware of an equivalent feature in ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nSox calls itself \"SoX - Sound eXchange, the Swiss Army knife of audio manipulation\"

    \n\n

    \nSox is free software and is licensed under the GPLV2 or later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this case we want to use a feature which allows us to convert a binary audio signal file to a text data file.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo convert the file to text data we just give the output file a \".dat\" file extension and Sox will do this for us.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nHere is a command example.

    \n\n

    \nsox inputfile.flac tdata.dat

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15

    \n\n

    \nThis gives us a file in the following format, assuming this is a mono audio recording.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n; Sample Rate 44100

    \n\n

    \n; Channels 1

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\t 0 0.045471191406

    \n\n

    \n 2.2675737e-05 0.055023193359

    \n\n

    \n 4.5351474e-05 0.048217773438

    \n\n

    \n 6.8027211e-05 0.053192138672

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \netc.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe first line states the sample frequency

    \n\n

    \nThe second line states that the data is for channel 1.

    \n\n

    \nThe data starts on the third line.

    \n\n

    \nColumn 1 is the time in seconds.

    \n\n

    \nColumn 2 is the waveform data point.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16

    \n\n

    \nTo analyze the data we want a subset of these samples.

    \n\n

    \nWhen we convert from the time domain to the frequency domain, our resolution will be determined by the number of samples. We would like therefore to have at least as many samples as the sampling rate.

    \n\n

    \nWe also want the samples size to be an even multiple of two.

    \n\n

    \nThe number of points we want to have is equal to the next even multiple of two above our chosen sampling rate, 44,100 Hz.

    \n\n

    \nThis number would be 65536.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nTo extract this data from the file we can do the following.

    \n\n

    \ntail tdata.dat -n+3 | head -n65536 | awk '{printf \"%s\\n\", $2}' > tdata.csv

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nWe use tail to skip over the first three lines.

    \n\n

    \nWe use head to take the next 65536 lines and discard the rest.

    \n\n

    \nWe use awk to extract the second column which we will use as the real component.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe now have this data as a csv file in one column.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19 Analyzing the Data

    \n\n

    \nTo analyze the data we need software which can calculate FFTs.

    \n\n

    \nI will now show two examples of this, a very simple case using Libre Office Calc, and a more complex but more complete one using GNU Octave.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20 Using Libre Office

    \n\n

    \nWe can do fourier analysis and plot charts using Libre Office.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTake the csv file of data that we previously created.

    \n\n

    \nFor this example I used data from a recording of silence so that I could see what internal noise was being generated by the headset.

    \n\n

    \nOpen the csv file and import it into Libre Office Calc.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nNow select all 65536 rows of column A.

    \n\n

    \nThe Fourier function will automatically fill the imaginary component with zeros if we don't provide an column of imaginary numbers, so we don't need to provide a column of zeros.

    \n\n

    \nThen select Data > Statistics > Fourier Analysis.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nA window will open allowing you to select various parameters.

    \n\n

    \nFor Results to:, enter \"D1\".

    \n\n

    \nGrouped by Columns.

    \n\n

    \nSelect OK.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nNew data should now appear starting in cell D1.

    \n\n

    \nThe first line will say \" Fourier Transform\"

    \n\n

    \nThe second line will state the input range.

    \n\n

    \nThe third line will state \"Real\" in column D, and \"Imaginary\" in column E.

    \n\n

    \nThe data will start in row 4.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nFor our simple example we will ignore the imaginary data and just use the real data, which will form our Y component when we plot it on a chart.

    \n\n

    \nWe now need to create the X axis data.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nEach cell is a \"bin\" of frequencies.

    \n\n

    \nEach cell therefore represents (sample frequency) / (Number of samples) Hz.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nTo create the X axis data showing frequency, enter the following formula in to column C to the left of each D column number.

    \n\n

    \n=((44100/65536) * (ROW() - 4)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \nWe can now create an XY chart showing the frequency analysis.

    \n\n

    \nYou may need to exclude the first couple of dozen rows as very low frequency components which cannot be heard may otherwise overwhelm the data we are interested in.

    \n\n

    \nAlso, you only need the first half of the chart.

    \n\n

    \nThe FFT mirrors the data from the first half of the array into the second half.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nBecause characterizing a sine wave requires a minimum of 2 points, although we have a sample frequency of 44.1 kHz, we really only have sound waves up to a maximum of half that, or 22.05 kHz.

    \n\n

    \nCreate the chart with lines only.

    \n\n

    \nIf you followed the above instructions, you should see something resembling what we saw in Audacity, except with each bin more sharply defined.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29

    \n\n

    \nIn the data that I had from a recording of unfiltered headset noise, I could see a distinct noise spike every 1000 hertz.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nHowever, we have taken several shortcuts.

    \n\n

    \nFirst, the imaginary component of the data was ignored.

    \n\n

    \nSecond, the magnitude (that is, Y axis) has both positive and negative peaks.

    \n\n

    \nThird, the data is not scaled to dB sound units, so we just have a relative measure.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, that by itself is enough to tell us where the frequencies are that we need to construct filters to deal with.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nWe could refine this spreadsheet a bit more to deal with the above issues, but I think we have demonstrated the basic principle, and working with a spreadsheet can be a bit awkward.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, if working with a spreadsheet is what you want to do, then you can add more columns and more formulae to improve on it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 Other Analysis Software

    \n\n

    \nI will go on to GNU Octave in a moment, but I want to get a few other alternatives out of the way first.

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into any detail on them other than to point them out to people who want to have a go at trying these themselves.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33 Grace

    \n\n

    \nThere is math and plotting software called Grace.

    \n\n

    \nThis is free software, released under the GPL V2.

    \n\n

    \nAccording to the documentation, it seems to have the features we need, including an FFT function.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I could not get it to work properly on Ubuntu 24.04.

    \n\n

    \nI could not get it to load a data file and plot data.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nThe error messages were vague and unhelpful.

    \n\n

    \nThe file navigation system didn't work.

    \n\n

    \nThere was no obvious path to success, and if it isn't easy to use then there is no point to it.

    \n\n

    \nThis is fairly old software, designed for X Window and Motif.

    \n\n

    \nI gave up on it as not suitable for this series as I am looking for some fairly low effort things for people to try themselves.

    \n\n

    \nIf someone else can get it to work on their PC, perhaps they could do an HPR episode on this themselves.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35 Command Line FFT Packages

    \n\n

    \nThere are several command line FFT packages.

    \n\n

    \nThey will read data from std in or from a file and output the FFT.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, these are not packaged for Ubuntu and appear to be distributed as C source code which you would download and compile.

    \n\n

    \nYou can experiment with those if you wish, but I felt they were a bit out of scope for discussion here as I am looking at common tools that are ready to use.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nHere are two examples.

    \n\n

    \nOne is

    \n\n

    \nCommand-line Fast Fourier Transform utility

    \n\n

    \nhttps://github.com/gregfjohnson/fft

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAnother is

    \n\n

    \ncli-fft

    \n\n

    \nhttps://github.com/jonolafur/cli-fft

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37

    \n\n

    \nI have not tried these and cannot say whether they are any good or not.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSimilarly, there are a number of FFT packages that are libraries for languages such as Python.

    \n\n

    \nIf you want to take the time to write a short program to go with them, you can create a dedicated FFT command line program.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I felt that this too was out of scope for what I was trying to do here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38 Doing it the Hard Way

    \n\n

    \nHypothetically, it may be possible to write an FFT function in bash bc, which is the arbitrary precision calculator language which is part of the standard shell package.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI say hypothetically, because I have not tried it.

    \n\n

    \nI think it would be an interesting challenge, but I don't have the time at the moment to try it.

    \n\n

    \nIf anyone feels motivated to give it a try, they're welcome to give it a go and then do a podcast episode on it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39 GNU Octave

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe have seen that as well as using features built into Audacity to analyze the audio spectrum to see the frequencies of undesired noises, we were able to do the same using a Libre Office spreadsheet.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nNow we'll look at another bit of software, GNU Octave. GNU Octave is free software, licensed under the GPL V3 or later. It is a mathematical scripting language, very similar to Matlab. People use it for mathematical, engineering, and scientific work. It can be found in most Linux distros and is available for some other operating systems as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41

    \n\n

    \nOctave has two features built in that we need for our purposes. It does FFTs, and it has a plotting system built in to produce graphs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42

    \n\n

    \nWe will take the same audio test file that we used with Audacity and Libre Office and use it here as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe bash script to convert the flac file to text data is essentially the same, with the exception that file extension on the output file as is \".txt\" instead of \".csv\". This latter change was an arbitrary decision on my part.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nAs a quick review, this bash script uses sox to convert a flac file to a text \".dat\" file.

    \n\n

    \nThen it uses tail, head, and awk to extract the first 65536 rows of data, skipping over the header information and ignoring the first column of time data.

    \n\n

    \nThis script will be in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# This version is for use with the GNU Octave script.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nsox hsnoisemono.flac hsnoisemono.dat

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ntail hsnoisemono.dat -n+3 | head -n65536 | awk '{printf \"%s\\n\", $2}' > hsnoisemono.txt

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44

    \n\n

    \nWe now have a 1.1 MB file containing 65536 samples of data in text format.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNow the next thing we need to do is to create a short Octave script file.

    \n\n

    \nI will just give a brief overview of the script here, the full script will be in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45

    \n\n

    \nI put the script in a file called \"octavespectrum.m\". I have never used Octave before now, but the convention seems to be to give the script a \".m\" ending.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe \"she-bang\" line is \"#!/usr/bin/env octave\". If you make the file executable you can run it like any other script, or you can type \"octave\" and then the name of the script to run.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nI won't read out the script in detail, as that would be too hard to following along in a podcast.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I pass several arguments to the script including the name of the data file, and then two integers that I use to limit the display area in the Y and X axes so I can have the chart focus on the areas of interest that I want to see.

    \n\n

    \nI also pass a string containing the name of the graphic file that I want the chart exported to.

    \n\n

    \nThis was an arbitrary decision on my part and you can just hard code these values in if that is what you want to do.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nThe arguments are accessed by calling the \"args()\" function, which returns an array of strings.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNext, it reads in the specified file using the \"dlmread()\" function. This reads all of the data into an array.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48

    \n\n

    \nNext, it performs a hamming windowing function on the data. I'll explain that briefly.

    \n\n

    \nIt is standard practice when doing FFT signal processing to \"window\" the signal.

    \n\n

    \nSince the signal sample is of finite length, it will stop at each end of the array.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nUnless you were lucky enough for this to happen exactly at a zero crossing, this would produced an abrupt transition in the data which looks like \"noise\" to the FFT.

    \n\n

    \nThe solution is to taper the signal off gradually towards the ends so that when it gets cut off the signal is fairly small at that point anyway.

    \n\n

    \nThere are a variety of different windowing functions, but \"hamming\" seems to be the most commonly used.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50

    \n\n

    \nNext, it does an FFT using the \"fft()\" function.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51

    \n\n

    \nThis gives us real and imaginary outputs.

    \n\n

    \nThese are combined by summing the squares of each corresponding real and imaginary element and then taking the square root of each and storing that in a new array. This gives a single array of the same length as the originals, but combining the two output components.

    \n\n

    \nIf anyone wants to tell me that this isn't how things are done in the audio world, they're welcome to make an HPR episode telling us all the right way to do things.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52

    \n\n

    \nThen it does some scaling and selection of subsets of data so we get the X axis in hertz and just the number of samples that we wish to look at.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you are looking at the script, the thing to keep in mind is that Octave will work on entire arrays of data in a single operation. You don't need to write explicit loops for this. The looping is handled implicitly as part of the syntax.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nIt also does various other things that make the chart easier to read. The comments in the script describe these in more detail. Since this is a script it's easier to add these sorts of refinements than is the case for a spreadsheet so I have made the effort to add them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFinally it calls the \"plot()\" function.

    \n\n

    \nIf an output graphics file name was provided, it also creates a PNG file containing the same image using the \"saveas\" function.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nWe now see the chart, and it looks more or less as expected.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this chart is interactive.

    \n\n

    \nYou can zoom and pan the data, something that you can't do with either Audacity or Libre Office.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe chart window doesn't have a function for exporting the resulting chart to a \"png\" file, it will only save to an \".ofig\" file. The ofig file is not a standard graphics file, it is a serialization of the chart data that can only be looked at using the Octave chart viewer.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55

    \n\n

    \nAlternatively, you can just take a screenshot of the chart after you have interactively zoomed and panned to a point of interest.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAt the bottom left of the chart window is a pair of x-y coordinates which tell you the current position of the mouse pointer in chart units.

    \n\n

    \nThis is very handy as it can be used to get the exact (or close to exact) frequency of each noise spike.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56

    \n\n

    \nThe Y axis is not scaled in any particular units such as dB, as I'm not sure how to do that according to audio industry conventions.

    \n\n

    \nOn the other hand, I'm not sure that it's really necessary, as I don't know what dB means in tangible terms anyway.

    \n\n

    \nIt does show relative sizes, so it helps to determine whether you have one noise frequency or multiple frequencies to worry about.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57

    \n\n

    \nIf anyone is familiar with how to scale the raw data from a flac file as exported by Sox into dB units according to audio industry convention, then they are welcome to create an HPR episode telling us how to do it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58 Comments on GNU Octave

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI had never used GNU Octave before this, although I had heard of it and it is quite a significant piece of software for a specific segment of users.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nThe syntax is a bit odd especially in how it deals with array operations, but I was able to google various examples and answers to eventually get this working.

    \n\n

    \nA few other peculiarities are that it uses the percent \"%\" character to denote a comment, and leaving out the semi-colon at the end of the line causes it to print the answer to the console after executing the statement.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60

    \n\n

    \nThe GNU Octave solution was harder to get working than the Libre Office method.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, once it was working it is easier to use repeatedly.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf I were to want to automatically generate audio files with different filtering or other options and wanted to script the creation of a large number of images showing the results, this would be the way to do it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nWhen your run the Octave script you may get a warning which says something like

    \n\n

    \n\"QSocketNotifier: Can only be used with threads started with QThread\".

    \n\n

    \nThis is apparently a routine warning message from the Qt graphics system which has no real significance in this context and can be ignored for our purposes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62

    \n\n

    \nWe now have a bash script which will use sox to extract the data from a flac file, and a GNU Octave script which can be used to display the resulting frequency spectrum.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis does more or less the same thing as \"Plot Spectrum\" does in Audacity, but allows for zooming and panning to get a more detailed look at the data.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63

    \n\n

    \nHowever it doesn't give you an absolute reading of the sound levels in dB, something that Audacity does provide.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhat I wanted it for though was to find the frequencies of the audible noise in the signal, something that it does quite well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/usr/bin/env octave

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Perform an FFT on the data in a file and plot the results.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% The sampling frequency. This must be changed to accommodate the

    \n\n

    \n% actual sampling frequency if it was something else.

    \n\n

    \nsamplefreq = 44100;

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Thickness of line on plot.

    \n\n

    \nlinewidth = 2;

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% The name of the data file is passed as a argument.

    \n\n

    \nargs = argv();

    \n\n

    \nif length(args) < 3

    \n\n

    \n\tquit

    \n\n

    \nendif

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% File name.

    \n\n

    \nfname = args{1};

    \n\n

    \n% Clip the peak values.

    \n\n

    \npeakclip = str2double(args{2});

    \n\n

    \n% How much data to show, in kHz.

    \n\n

    \nrbound = str2double(args{3}) * 1000;

    \n\n

    \n% The optional file name to save a chart image to.

    \n\n

    \nif length(args) > 3

    \n\n

    \n\tchartfile = args{4};

    \n\n

    \nelse

    \n\n

    \n\tchartfile = \"\";

    \n\n

    \nendif

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n% Read the data in from the file.

    \n\n

    \nsampledata = dlmread(fname);

    \n\n

    \n% Number of samples.

    \n\n

    \nsamplecount = length(sampledata);

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Window the data. This helps deal with the discontinuity of data at

    \n\n

    \n% each end of the array and the effects this has on introducing apparent

    \n\n

    \n% noise into the signal.

    \n\n

    \nwindoweddata = (hamming(samplecount) .* sampledata);

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Do the actual FFT.

    \n\n

    \nfftresults = fft(windoweddata);

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Get real component.

    \n\n

    \nr = real(fftresults);

    \n\n

    \n% Get the imaginary component.

    \n\n

    \ni = imag(fftresults);

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Combine the real and imaginary. In order to square each element of each

    \n\n

    \n% array, we must use the \".^\" operator, not just \"^\".

    \n\n

    \nrfft = sqrt(r.^2 + i.^2);

    \n\n

    \nrealfft = rfft(1:samplecount);

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Scale factor for frequency.

    \n\n

    \nfscale = samplefreq / samplecount;

    \n\n

    \n% X axis scale, scaled to frequency.

    \n\n

    \nf = (0:samplefreq/2) * fscale;

    \n\n

    \n% Take a subset of the data if specified. rbound has to be re-scaled

    \n\n

    \n% from kHz to array increments.

    \n\n

    \nfreq = f(1:min(rbound / fscale,length(f)));

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% y axis. We take the absolute value and then limit (clip) the peaks

    \n\n

    \n% so that a few large peaks don't obscure the smaller ones.

    \n\n

    \nmag = min(abs(realfft(1: length(freq))), peakclip);

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Plot the results.

    \n\n

    \nfigure;

    \n\n

    \nwhandle = plot(freq, mag, 'LineWidth', linewidth);

    \n\n

    \ntitle([\"Audio Spectrum of \", fname]);

    \n\n

    \nxlabel(\"Frequency (Hz)\");

    \n\n

    \nylabel(\"Unscaled Magnitude\");

    \n\n

    \ngrid on;

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% If the appropriate optional argument was specified, save the chart

    \n\n

    \n% to a file of that name.

    \n\n

    \nif length(chartfile) > 4

    \n\n

    \n\tsaveas(gcf, chartfile, \"png\");

    \n\n

    \nendif

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% Need this so the plot window stays open.

    \n\n

    \nwaitfor(whandle);

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n% ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is the shell script used with the above Octave script.

    \n\n

    \nThe arguments are

    \n\n

    \n1 - the file name for the input data file.

    \n\n

    \n2 - The value to clip the peaks at.

    \n\n

    \n3 - The upper frequency bound in kHz.

    \n\n

    \n4 - The output graphics file name.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \noctave octavespectrum.m hsnoisemono.txt 10 12 hsnoisemono.png

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64 Episode Conclusion

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we covered the following topics.

    \n\n

    \nWhat Fourier transforms are.

    \n\n

    \nExtracting data from audio files using Sox.

    \n\n

    \nAnalyzing the data using Libre Office.

    \n\n

    \nAnalyzing the data using GNU Octave.

    \n\n

    \nAnd, several alternative analysis methods.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65 Series Conclusion

    \n\n

    \nThis is the end of a four part series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the first episode, we covered a simple podcast recording method. This first episode is all you really need to make a podcast.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \nIn the second episode we covered basic filtering and a few other simple topics. The methods discussed in that episode provide basic improvements to your audio if you feel the need for it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67

    \n\n

    \nIn the third episode we covered how to analyze audio noise problems using Audacity and additional filtering techniques to deal with specific problems that we may find.

    \n\n

    \nWe also covered command line recording, playback, and getting information about an audio recording.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68

    \n\n

    \nIn the fourth episode we engaged in a bit of gratuitous hackery for the fun of it and showed how to use alternative software methods to analyze audio signals.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nI hope that this series has been both useful and entertaining and that you will use the knowledge gained here to create and submit your own HPR podcast episodes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio recording","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4649,"date":"2026-05-28","title":"What did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 2","duration":3829,"summary":"Lee narrates a portion of his working day, this episode is section 2 of 2","notes":"\n

    \n\n\nIt is suggested reviewing the episode \nWhat did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 1\n prior to listening\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nTest driven development\n - a way of writing code that involves writing an automated unit-level test case that fails, then writing just enough code to make the test pass, then refactoring both the test code and the production code, then repeating with another new test case. - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nJoplin\n - Joplin is an open source, cross platform note-taking app. - \nhttps://joplinapp.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nPHP\n - A popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development. Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world. - \nhttps://www.php.net/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nMySQL\n - MySQL is an open-source relational database management system. MariaDB is a community developed fork of MySQL, often installing the MySQL package on a Linux distribution will actually install MariaDB. - \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL\n - \nhttps://mariadb.org/\n - \nhttps://www.mysql.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nSublime Text\n - Cross platform text editor - \nhttps://www.sublimetext.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nNmap\n - Network Mapper is a free and open source utility for network discovery and security auditing - \nhttps://nmap.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nMarkdown Fenced code blocks\n - \"A code fence is a sequence of at least three consecutive backtick characters (`) or tildes (~). (Tildes and backticks cannot be mixed.) A fenced code block begins with a code fence, preceded by up to three spaces of indentation. The line with the opening code fence may optionally contain some text following the code fence; this is trimmed of leading and trailing spaces or tabs and called the info string. ... Although this spec doesn’t mandate any particular treatment of the info string, the first word is typically used to specify the language of the code block.\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
    \n```ruby\ndef foo(x)\n return 3\nend\n```\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nfrom CommonMark Spec at \nhttps://commonmark.org/\n (CommonMark is a standard, interoperable and testable version of Markdown.)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nWriting to a Database with PHP\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe following PHP method is implemented within a database access class:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
    \nfunction create_with_id($id, $name) {\n  $born = time();\n  $id = mysqli_real_escape_string($this->db, $id);\n  $name = mysqli_real_escape_string($this->db, $name);\n  $sql = \"INSERT INTO object\n      (object_id, display_name_text, born, died)\n    VALUES\n      ($id, '$name', $born, 0);\n  \";\n  db_run_sql($this->db, $sql);\n}\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nNote \n\n\n\n\ndb_run_sql\n\n\n\n\n is a helper function defined elsewhere, not a built in function, and the property \n\n\n\n\ndb\n\n\n\n\n is a previously initialized \n\n\n\n\nmysqli\n\n\n\n\n object.\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"software development, linux","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4650,"date":"2026-05-29","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 12","duration":870,"summary":"We begin a sample game of Civilization V.","notes":"

    In our sample game we look at playing as Austria and aiming for a Diplomatic Victory. And our focus is on puppeting Citty-States, but be I misunderstood and instead of making a Diplomatic Victory easier, it makes it harder. I still managed to get my Diplomatic Victory, but a Science or Domination Victory would definitely have been easier in this scenario.

    \n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 12

    \n

    A Diplomatic Victory Strategy

    \n\n

    Civilization V introduced a new Victory type and I thought it might be fun to try this strategy for a sample game to see broadly how this would work. I decided I would play as Austria on Prince level, which means that all players are equal and no one is favored. For my map I chose Fractal, Map Size = Standard, Game speed = Standard. My only Advanced Option was Quick Combat, because I didn’t need to see that drawn out, particularly since I plan to avoid combat as much as necessary. My leader is Maria Theresa, and her Austria has a unique ability called Diplomatic Marriage. This allows us to either Annex or Puppet any city-state that has been allied to us for 5 turns with the proper expenditure of Gold. My plan was to use this to Puppet the city-states to control their votes for the Diplomatic Victory, but that was a misunderstanding. I actually implemented one of the hardest ways to win a Diplomatic Victory. But that is what I did. Now to get them to ally with me the most effective way to do this is with cash and lots of it, and of course even more cash to actually effect to Puppeting of them. So my overriding objective in this game is to amass a large Treasury. But of course I cannot ignore my military either, since a weak military invites attacks form greedy neighbors. And I may need to “liberate” the occasional city-state if another player conquers them. Austria also has a Unique Unit, the Hussar, which replaces the Cavalry unit. It can move after attacking, has a flanking bonus, and has one extra movement. And the Unique Building is the Coffee House, which increases the generation of Great People in the city by 25%. So you can expect me to build these in every city as well.

    \n\n

    With that in mind, I started the game and settled in place, I had Mountains nearby, but also Sheep and Silver within my city, so some useful resources. I immediately started to produce a Scout as my first unit, and sent my Warrior out to explore. In the very early stage I focus on exploring the surrounding area and finding any Goody Huts, i.e. Ruins. My initial city site is not exactly ideal, as it is all hilly with Jungle nearby. After building my two Scouts, my next priority was to build a Worker unit to increase the productivity of my city. And for my first social policy I unlocked Tradition. When I got my second policy I picked Oligarchy, and plan to complete all of the Tradition tree. I cleared out a Barbarian encampment, and then discovered my first City-state, Vilnius. Then I needed to clear out another Barbarian encampment that was blocking me from finishing my exploration. Meanwhile I am focusing on getting techs for sailing the ocean blue, because that is how I plan to get trade routes, discover City-states I can puppet, and so on.

    \n\n

    Because money is key to my strategy I made a beeline for Currency in the my Science research. And while headed there I completed the Tradition tree. When I can get there I will work on the Commerce tree to maximize my cash, but until then the Patronage tree will let me improve my City-state relations, which is important for improving my relationships with City-states. After all, you need to be allies with them for 5 turns before you can puppet them. I now have three cities, and can probably squeeze out a few more, which should be sufficient to my needs.

    \n\n

    At Turn 141 I have 6 cities, which is all I will build in this game. I now have the technology to build Workshops, which are the first productivity boosters available, so I set all my cities to building them. For Research my immediate object was to get to Compass so I could build the Galleass, which would let me do more ocean exploration. But to go into deep Ocean I will need to go further to get Astronomy, which will let me build the Caravel which can enter deep ocean. Once I got that I switched to Banking, not just for the money, but as a prerequisite to building the Forbidden Palace, which grants two additional delegates in the World Congress/United Nations. When I get Banking I’ll go back to Astronomy, and then Navigation, to advance my seagoing capabilities.

    \n\n

    By Turn 216 I had gotten Banking and started on the Forbidden Palace. And by luck, just as I got started I got a Great Engineer. I am holding him in reserve in case I need to hurry production, since Great Engineers are the only way to do that in Civ 5. I also picked up Astronomy, which will let me build Caravels to explore the whole ocean. My next research priority will be Gunpowder since it is time to beef up my defenses.

    \n\n

    At Turn 240 my Caravels started to come out, and I found several new City-States. And since my Treasury is healthy (I started with 6,000 gold, and I’m bringing in 100 each turn), I began the process of puppeting the City-states.

    \n\n

    Puppeting City-states as Austria

    \n\n

    Let’s look at this in detail since it is important. The requirements are 2 things:

    \n\n
      \n
    • Be allied with the City-state for 5 consecutive turns
      • \n\n
    • Have the cash needed. This amount is not too much early on, but it rises over time.
      • \n
    \n\n

    So, how do you become allies with a City-state? There are a number of things you can do to improve your relationship. You can take on a quest that a City-state has published, which can be things like “Find another Natural Wonder” or “Create a Great Admiral”. These quests pop up continuously throughout the game, and you are free to ignore them, but fulfilling one will improve your relationship. Trade will also improve your relationship, so in this game all of my Trade routes were made with City-states. If you are in a position to have a successful war, you can find a former City-state that was conquered by one of the other Empires, liberate it, and then it will be your ally for the rest of the game. Giving them presents is how I usually do it, though. You can give them units or money. If your purpose is to get allies, money works best. But I do gift units in 2 circumstances. First, if I have obsolete units, giving them away might be better then deleting them. Second, if a City-state is under attack by another Empire. Gifting them units might help them hold out and make life difficult for a rival.

    \n\n

    The place where all of this is done is the City-state screen which opens up when you click on the bar above the City-state, which is where you handle all of your relationships. At the top of this screen you see your current status, which more often than not will be Neutral, which is how all City-state relationships start out. But you can get them angry by, for instance, moving a unit of your into their territory. If you only do it once, and give them time to get over it, they will go back to Neutral. You can also improve the relationship by pledging to protect them, but be careful. If they get attacked and you do not try to protect them, they will get very angry. Giving a gift opens a pop-up to say what kind of gift: 250 gold, 500 gold, 1000 gold, or a Unit. Note that a Unit is only worth 5 influence points, while 250 Gold is worth 20, so as I said Money is more powerful if your aim is to improve your status with them.

    \n\n

    So at Turn 242 I found the City-state of Singapore, and it appears that I was the first Empire to find them. So I immediately pledged to protect them. My Influence with them was 20, which is Neutral. We just met, and that is where things stand on first meeting. The be Friends you need to get to 30, and to be allies you need to get to 60. When I clicked Next Turn, I got a Quest from Singapore. They were worried about a Barbarian Encampment nearby, and if I cleared it out I would get additional influence with them. In this case, though, I let that go by. I want to move more quickly, and Singapore is across the Ocean from me. My influence with them at this point was 21, so only a modest increase. But I have 6038 Gold in my Treasury, and I am bringing in 102 per turn. So let’s see what a gift of 500 Gold will do. It brings me to 65 influence, so we are now Allies. But when I mouse-over Singapore, the pop-up window reminds me that my Influence will decrease by 1.12 per turn. For an Empire other than Austria this would mean a regular infusion of cash to keep up your status. And I have won Diplomatic victories with other Empires by saving up a lot of cash and dumping it on City-states just before the United Nations vote.

    \n\n

    But for Austria you have special ability called Diplomatic Marriage that lets you turn the City-state into a Puppet, and that is permanent. But it also presents some obstacles as we will see. We are allies now, but my influence will drop by 1 each turn, and I might lose my allyship before I can puppet them. But I can gift a unit and get another 5, and I happen to have a very obsolete Warrior unit that will serve the purpose. However, it takes three turns for the Unit to arrive, so I lose few more points. At Turn 247 I can now use the diplomatic Marriage option to make a puppet of Singapore. Prior to doing this I was fourth in score with 604, while the leader had 729. My Happiness Level was +25, and I now had 5833 Gold in my Treasury. Then I made Singapore a puppet, and now I am third in the game with a score of 664. My Treasury has fallen to 5258, which means it cost me 575 Gold. But most significant is that my Happiness fell from +25 to +9, which is a huge loss. I have enough gold to puppet 4-5 more City-states at this time but if I did I would have rebellions breaking out and my Empire would eventually collapse.

    \n\n

    This is the obstacle that Austria has to face. We need to promote Happiness before we go much further with making puppets. Civ is always a game of balances.

    \n

    Links

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, sample game, Diplomatic Victory","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4651,"date":"2026-06-01","title":"HPR Community News for May 2026","duration":2964,"summary":"HPR Volunteers Josh, Ken, Rhon talk about shows released and comments posted in May 2026","notes":"

    New hosts

    There were no new hosts this month.

    Last Month's Shows

    Id Day Date Title Host
    4630 Fri 2026-05-01 Playing Civilization V, Part 11 Ahuka
    4631 Mon 2026-05-04 HPR Community News for April 2026 HPR Volunteers
    4632 Tue 2026-05-05 Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 6 Honkeymagoo
    4633 Wed 2026-05-06 Ham Radio Licence Lee
    4634 Thu 2026-05-07 Upgrade Failsause operat0r
    4635 Fri 2026-05-08 What did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 1 Lee
    4636 Mon 2026-05-11 7 seconds memory Antoine
    4637 Tue 2026-05-12 UNIX Curio #6 - at and batch Vance
    4638 Wed 2026-05-13 Simple Podcasting - Episode 3 - Analyzing and Filtering Whiskeyjack
    4639 Thu 2026-05-14 NLUUG Spring Conference 2026 Ken Fallon
    4640 Fri 2026-05-15 Robert A. Heinlein Ahuka
    4641 Mon 2026-05-18 Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) Ken Fallon
    4642 Tue 2026-05-19 Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 7 Honkeymagoo
    4643 Wed 2026-05-20 HPR Beer Garden 13 - Triple IPA Kevie
    4644 Thu 2026-05-21 Response to comments on HPR4424: Newsboat... Archer72
    4645 Fri 2026-05-22 ZERO HOUR: FRIDAY AFTERNOON APK HACKING operat0r
    4646 Mon 2026-05-25 Mobile Gaming Elsbeth
    4647 Tue 2026-05-26 UNIX Curio #7 - Compression Vance
    4648 Wed 2026-05-27 Simple Podcasting - Episode 4 - Audio Analysis Fun Whiskeyjack
    4649 Thu 2026-05-28 What did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 2 Lee
    4650 Fri 2026-05-29 Playing Civilization V, Part 12 Ahuka

    Comments this month

    Past shows

    This month's shows

    Mailing List discussions

    Policy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This discussion takes place on the Mailing List which is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under Mailman.

    The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

    https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2026-May/thread.html

    Events Calendar

    With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to The LWN.net Community Calendar.

    Quoting the site:

    This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track events of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software. Clicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web page.
    ","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4652,"date":"2026-06-02","title":"simon says","duration":405,"summary":"a game for my grandsons","notes":"\n

    \nFrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(game)\n

    \n\n

    \nSimon is an electronic game of short-term memory skill invented by Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison, working for toy design firm Marvin Glass and Associates, with software programming by Lenny Cope. The device creates a series of tones and lights and requires a user to repeat the sequence. If the user succeeds, the series becomes progressively longer and more complex. Once the user fails or the time limit runs out, the game is over. The original version was manufactured and distributed by Milton Bradley and later by Hasbro after it took over Milton Bradley. Much of the assembly language code was written by Charles Kapps, who taught computer science at Temple University and also wrote one of the first books on the theory of computer programming. Simon was launched in 1978 at Studio 54 in New York City and was an immediate success, becoming a pop culture symbol of the 1970s and 1980s\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n\n\r","hostid":326,"series":91,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"retro computing","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4653,"date":"2026-06-03","title":"Starting the Habit of Reading","duration":1499,"summary":"Thaj talks about how he's developed the habit of reading daily, and talks about books he's read.","notes":"

    \"Get\n\"Get\n\"Get\n\"Download

    \n\n

    Openreads is a privacy oriented and open source cross-platform app written in Flutter available for Android and iOS for keeping track of your books.

    \n\n\n

    There are four lists provided so you won't get confused:

    \n\n
      \n
    • books you finished,
      • \n
    • books you are currently reading,
      • \n
    • books you want to read later,
      • \n
    • books you didn't finish.
      • \n
    \n

    You can use custom tags and filter through them.

    \n\n

    A book can be added by:

    \n\n
      \n
    • looking it up in the Open Library database,
      • \n
    • scanning its barcode,
      • \n
    • adding its details manually.
      • \n
    \n\n

    You can also view some cool statistics!

    \n\n

    Links:

    \n\n","hostid":270,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"reading, ebooks, android apps","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4654,"date":"2026-06-04","title":"What's in my component Box?","duration":1671,"summary":"Describing the contents of an old storage box I have.","notes":"\n

    \nBackground

    \n\n

    \nThis episode describes the contents of an old fishing tackle box I got as a birthday present very many years ago. I used it over the years to gather a pile of mostly useless electronic components and junk.

    \n\n

    \nI came across it recently when we were doing a clear out. Mrs X wanted to throw it out. I had a lot of sentimental value due to the long time I’ve had it. I am a bit of a hoarder and it took a bit of persuasion on my part to be able to keep it especially since I could not think of a single use for any of the contents!

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI’ve not had time to add links against all the items. Hopefully I’ve managed to add links to most of the more unusual items. Apologies if I’ve missed any.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nContents of Box

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTop row left to right, back to front

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 1

    \n\n

    \n\n\nStereo Jack plug & socket\n\n

    \n\n

    \nDouble pole double throw (2-way) switch

    \n\n

    \n\n\n12V dc relay from RS\n\n

    \n\n

    \n3 legged semiconductor (voltage regulator?)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 2

    \n\n

    \nMultiple fuses mostly for cars

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 3

    \n\n

    \nSmall silica jelly pouch

    \n\n

    \n\n\nMicro Switch\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nReed switches (Not reed relays as I call them in my show)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 4

    \n\n

    \nPotentiometers, Rheostat, variable resistors \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiometer\n\n

    \n\n

    \nControl knobs

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 5

    \n\n

    \nLarge selection of miniature panel mounted toggle switches \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch#Toggle_switch\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 6

    \n\n

    \nTwo crocodile clips \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_clip\n\n

    \n\n

    \nHalf of a Hi Fi speaker plug \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Speaker_din_male_and_female.jpg\n\n

    \n\n

    \nWasher

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 7

    \n\n

    \nMostly chocolate block connectors \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leuchterklemme_75dpi.jpg\n\n

    \n\n

    \nSmall selection of glass cartridge Fuses

    \n\n

    \nSingle 13 Amp mains fuse for UK plug

    \n\n

    \nAssortment of soldering iron tips

    \n\n

    \nCrocodile clip

    \n\n

    \nAir adapter for foot pump for blowing up an air bed or similar

    \n\n

    \nSpare nozzle for a de-soldering tool. Made from PTFE \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desoldering#/media/File:Vacuum_plunge.jpg\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene\n\n

    \n\n

    \nFerrite ring \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrite_bead\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 8

    \n\n

    \nRubber Grommets and a heatsink

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nMiddle row left to right, back to front

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 1

    \n\n

    \nLarge selection of glass cartridge fuses

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 2

    \n\n

    \nAnother large selection of glass cartridge fuses

    \n\n

    \nSmall selection of diodes, some quite Large \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 3

    \n\n

    \nTwo multi turn precision variable resistors \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiometer#/media/File:Beckman_Helipot_potentiometer_SA1400A_2007.075.002.jpg\n\n

    \n\n

    \nCheap variable resistor with in built switch

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 4

    \n\n

    \nBag of multi coloured LED’s (Cheap for Pi add on board)

    \n\n

    \n2 inch 8 ohm speaker

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 5

    \n\n

    \nPanel mounted heavy duty toggle switch, two pole one way

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 6

    \n\n

    \nLight Dependent Resistor (LDR) \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoresistor\n\n

    \n\n

    \nLarge Tricolour LED

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 7

    \n\n

    \nVariable capacitors PCB (Printed Circuit board) mounted

    \n\n

    \nSpare nozzle for de-soldering tool. Made from PTFE

    \n\n

    \nLight Dependent Resistor (LDR)

    \n\n

    \nPanel mounted heavy duty rotary switch, two pole one way

    \n\n

    \nBag of various fuses

    \n\n

    \nHalogen 12V car headlight bulb

    \n\n

    \nVariable resistor with long plastic spindle, panel mount

    \n\n

    \nHeatsink possibly for heavy duty transistor

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCompartment 8

    \n\n

    \nVariable resistor PCB (Printed circuit board) mounted

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nBottom row

    \n\n

    \nThis is just a big jumble of stuff, listed in no particular order

    \n\n

    \nDC red and black power lead with inbuilt fuse

    \n\n

    \nSmall solder-less breadboard for prototyping

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadboard\n\n

    \n\n

    \nBag of various plugs & connectors mostly Jack plugs and sockets

    \n\n

    \nBag of quartz crystals and a components receipt from 1985 I added crystals to an old PMR (Private mobile radio) boot mount radio. Possible a Pye Westminster Radio. I looked but couldn’t find picture of the radio

    \n\n

    \nSeveral bits of Perfboard or strip board

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfboard\n\n

    \n\n

    \n1 Watt audio amplifier kit with instructions not built!

    \n\n

    \nD-type serial port mounted to PCB with screw down connections

    \n\n

    \nBag of resistors \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistor\n\n

    \n\n

    \nLarge bag of LED panel mount holders

    \n\n

    \nElectronic Instruction guide XH79L (Maplin) price 25p

    \n\n

    \nChocolate block connecting block \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leuchterklemme_75dpi.jpg\n\n

    \n\n

    \nTelephone pickup for recording phone calls. (Never worked) \nhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Telephone-Pickup-Sensitive-Microphone/dp/B000L1OZG8\n\n

    \n\n

    \nMulti coloured ribbon cable

    \n\n

    \nPlastic trimming tool screwdriver set. \nhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/C-K-T4857-Precision-Plastic-Trimmer/dp/B000WKIYTW\n\n

    \n\n

    \nPanel mounted BNC socket (Baby Neill Constant)

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_connector\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":201,"series":103,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Electronics, hobbies, DIY","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4655,"date":"2026-06-05","title":"Tips for Glasses","duration":590,"summary":"Cleaning Glasses and Mid Range Progressive Lenses","notes":"\n

    \nHPR and Glasses

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \nHPR community members are nerds
      2. \n\n
    2. \nWe know from movies that nerds wear glasses
      3. \n\n
    3. \nWe can conclude that HPR community members wear glasses
      4. \n\n
    \n\n

    \nCleaning Background

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nI have very oily skin and am constantly smudging my glasses
      • \n\n
    • \nAll lenses wipes are too small.
      • \n\n
    • \nI accidentally touch the lenses with my fingers when I am trying to clean them And smudge them up again
      • \n\n
    • \nI heard an eye doctor say, the best way to clean glasses is with dish soap and dry with a microfiber cloth
      • \n\n
    • \nI tried this method It is a great solution because you wash glasses and fingers tips at the same time
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \nCleaning Method

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nHand soap is OK to use on glasses.
      • \n\n
    • \nget the soap on you fingertips
      • \n\n
    • \nThen hold your glasses one of the lenses
      • \n\n
    • \nUse your thumb and finger tips to clean the glasses
      • \n\n
    • \nthe soap removes the excess oil from your fingertips
      • \n\n
    • \nno smudges when you dry with the microfiber cloth
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \nProgressives

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nWith regular progressives the top of the lenses is for distance vision and the bottom of the lenses is for up close vision
      • \n\n
    • \nThere is a zone in the middle for medium distance, but it is very narrow
      • \n\n
    • \nUsing a computer at work I kept having to move my head up and down to find the best position for working.
      • \n\n
    • \nComputer Glasses have more space for intermediate distances
      • \n\n
    • \nFrom \nhttps://iotlenses.com/blog/eight-types-of-progressive-lenses.html\n\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n
    \nComputer progressive lenses, also known as occupational designs or enhanced readers, are optimized for intermediate and near vision, making them ideal for tasks like prolonged computer work or activities at mid-range distance
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":342,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"glasses","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4656,"date":"2026-06-08","title":"My review of musicozy sleep/exercise bluetooth headband","duration":589,"summary":"I give a review of the musicozy bluetooth sports headband","notes":"\n

    \n Sound quality, ease of use, comfort, battery life, price
    \n

    \n https://themusicozy.com/products/headband/index.html
    ","hostid":297,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio bluetooth","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4657,"date":"2026-06-09","title":"UNIX Curio #8 - Comparing Files","duration":860,"summary":"Finding out what's the diff, without using \"diff\"","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nMost users of UNIX-like systems are probably familiar with the \ndiff\n utility. It is widely used with source code to compare two files and see what the differences are between them. Non-programmers, like me, also use it to examine what has changed in different versions of scripts or configuration files. Quite a few pieces of newer software can compare different versions of data and express changes in a format either identical to or similar to \ndiff\n output.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, there are two other long-standing tools for this purpose that are far less known and deserve in my view to be termed UNIX Curios. The first of these is \n\n\ncmp\n\n\n\n\n1\n. While \ndiff\n is primarily intended to be used on text files and compares them line by line, \ncmp\n compares files byte by byte. In my experience, its main use is to see whether two binary files are in fact identical—if they are, \ncmp\n outputs nothing and returns an exit status of 0. Back when methods of transferring files were not as reliable as they are today, this was a tool I would reach for sometimes. For example, you could use it to confirm that the data on a CD-ROM you burned was the same as the original.

    \n\n

    \nIf there is a difference between the files, \ncmp\n will return an exit status of 1. By default, it will also print the location (byte and line number) of the first differing byte. When used with the \n-l\n option, it will print the location and value of \nevery\n byte that differs. There is one exception to these: if the files are the same except that one is shorter than the other, it will print a message to that effect. The exit status will still be 1 in that case.

    \n\n

    \nUsing the \n-s\n option with \ncmp\n will cause it to be totally silent and output nothing. Only the exit status will indicate whether the files are the same, different, or if the exit status is greater than 1, that an error occurred. This makes it useful for scripting, for example in case you wanted to confirm that a file copied to another location arrived fully intact.

    \n\n

    \nIt is worth noting that \ndiff\n is also capable of comparing binary files—however, it is not required by POSIX to report what is actually different or where differences occur. The same exit status as in \ncmp\n is returned: 0 if the files are the same, 1 if they are different, or greater than 1 if an error occurred. While many implementations offer an option to suppress the output, \nthis is not in the standard\n\n\n2\n so the most portable method would be to instead redirect output to \n/dev/null\n. On my system the \ndiff\n utility is three times the size of \ncmp\n, so if you don't need its extra capabilities, it is a less efficient way of doing the job.

    \n\n

    \nThe other UNIX Curio for today is \n\n\ncomm\n\n\n\n\n, and this utility\n\n\n3\n is also intended to compare two files to see what is common between them. Ken Fallon briefly talked about it a few years ago in \nHPR episode 3889\n. Compared to the others, it has a much more specific use case. The two files are expected to be text files that are already sorted. What \ncomm\n will do is print a tab-separated list of all the lines appearing in either or both files. Lines only in the first file will appear in the first column, lines only in the second file will be in the second column, and lines in both files will be in the third column.

    \n\n

    \nAny combination of the options \n-1\n, \n-2\n, and \n-3\n can be used with \ncomm\n to suppress printing of the first, second, or third column respectively. Using all three options at the same time \nis\n supported but it results in no output, so that isn't very useful. Unlike the other utilities, the exit status of \ncomm\n doesn't tell you anything about the two files. It will be 0 if the program ran successfully, and greater than 0 if it didn't.

    \n\n

    \nI'm not sure if I have ever actually used \ncomm\n for anything practical. I find its default output a bit difficult to meaningfully interpret, plus you need to ensure the two files are already sorted. It seems to be best suited to comparing lists, and one use case that Ken Fallon mentioned would be comparing two lists of files to see if any are missing. The command \ncomm -3 listA listB\n would print files that only appear in \nlistA\n in the first column and those only in \nlistB\n in the second column. This would let you ignore all the filenames that appear in both and focus on those that were absent from one or the other. If on the other hand you only wanted to see the filenames that \nare\n on both lists, \ncomm -12 listA listB\n would give you that.

    \n\n

    \nSome more frivolous potential uses also come to mind. If for some reason the \ncat\n utility is broken on your system, you could use \ncomm listA /dev/null\n to print the file \nlistA\n instead. If you want to insert tab characters before every line of a file but have an aversion to using \nsed\n or \nawk\n, then \ncomm /dev/null listA\n would output \nlistA\n with one tab before each line, and \ncomm listA listA\n would insert two tabs. A bit silly, but it would work. The GNU implementation of \ncomm\n even lets you \nchoose something other than a tab to separate the columns\n\n\n4\n, so you could go wild with that.

    \n\n

    \nAccording to the POSIX specifications for \ncmp\n and \ncomm\n, one of the two filenames given as arguments, but not both, can be a \"\n-\n\", in which case standard input will be used for that \"file\" in the comparison. Also, the results are undefined if both arguments are the same FIFO special, character special, or block special file. Some implementations might not have these limitations, but you shouldn't rely on that everywhere.

    \n\n

    \nAll three of these were developed quite early. The \n\n\ncmp\n\n\n\n\n utility\n appeared in 1971's First Edition UNIX\n5\n, while \n\n\ncomm\n\n\n and \n\n\ndiff\n\n\n seem to have made their debut in Fourth Edition UNIX\n6,7\n from 1973. The original versions might not have behaved exactly like their modern counterparts, and newer implementations (especially of the \ndiff\n utility) have acquired additional options and capabilities, but the basic operation of each has stayed the same.

    \n\n

    \nThe next time you need to compare files against each other, consider whether \ncmp\n or \ncomm\n might be appropriate before automatically reaching for \ndiff\n. They all have their uses in different situations.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nCmp specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/cmp.html
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nDiff specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/diff.html
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nComm specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/comm.html
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nGNU coreutils manual: comm\n https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/comm-invocation.html
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nFirst Edition UNIX cmp manual page\n http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/cmp
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\nFourth Edition UNIX comm manual page\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V4/usr/man/man1/comm.1
      7. \n\n
    7. \n\n\nFourth Edition UNIX diff source\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V4/usr/source/s1/diff1.c
      8. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,diff,cmp,comm","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4658,"date":"2026-06-10","title":"Audio Revisited","duration":3023,"summary":"This is a follow up to the series on Simple Podcasting showing the results of filtering experiments","notes":"\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is a follow up to my 4 part series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode I will discuss a number of experiments with audio filtering.

    \n\n

    \nThese experiments were inspired by comments by listeners and by other discussions about audio on HPR.

    \n\n

    \nI am not an audio expert, so I am doing this partly in order to learn something, but mainly in order to have a bit of fun.

    \n\n

    \nI hope that you find this entertaining as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn a comment on the first episode a listener mentioned something called Solocast and said that the method bore a resemblance to the method that I was using.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere is his comment

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nComment #3 posted on 2026-04-03 07:49:58 by Reto

    \n\n

    \nIt reminds me about Solocast

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHi Whiskeyjack,

    \n\n

    \nI really liked your podcast and the topic. I cannot remember about your last, but the sound quality of this one was good on my mobile speakers :)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe concept reminded me about the program from Norrist (another host on HPR), while similar does it have some differences HPR 3496 https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=3496

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAs I am not on the future feed, I look forward to your next episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCheers, Reto

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nEnd of comment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI did not recall having heard the episode on Solocast, but this sounded very interesting. Solocast was in HPR episode 3496 and was released by norrist on the 27th of December 2021.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI listened to that episode and does indeed use use the same basic concept of recording short segments of audio and combining them later instead of creating one big recording and editing it with an audio editor.

    \n\n

    \n04

    \n\n

    \nThe main difference is that the work flow that I described involves a lot of manual steps, while Solocast is a short Python program that automates the entire process of presenting your script, recording the segments, combining the segments, and filtering and normalizing the result.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI won't try to describe Solocast in detail, instead I would recommend just listening to HPR episode 3496 to get norrist's explanation directly.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nWhile I wanted to make sure that I credited norrist with having come up with this concept four years before I did, this won't be the focus of this episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nInstead I will talk about audio filtering and various experiments that I ran on several different methods.

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nWhile looking at the source code for Solocast I noticed that it used a filtering method that resembled one used by Jivetalk, a podcast production program that caught the attention of one of the HPR community news presenters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis method involves taking a sample of quiet audio where there is no speaking taking place, and then using this as input to a noise reduction filter which is applied to the voice recording.

    \n\n

    \nThe filter subtracts the quiet sample from the voice audio, which should theoretically remove the ambient noise.

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nI decided to apply this method to a number of different audio test recordings which were recorded under different circumstances using different hardware.

    \n\n

    \nIn this way I could see if the method worked equally well under all circumstances or if there were some sorts of noise which it was suited to and some sorts that were not.

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nWhile I was at it, I also picked several other filter methods to see how they worked as well.

    \n\n

    \nPotentially, some methods may be better under some conditions while other methods were better suited to others.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n09

    \n\n

    \nI won't present all of my experiments, as that would be a bit dull to listen to.

    \n\n

    \nInstead I will describe each method and then present audio samples which illustrate my conclusions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere are two pieces of audio software involved, both of which were also used in my series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nThe first is Sox, spelled s o x , and which is short for Sound Exchange.

    \n\n

    \nSox is a command line program for audio manipulation.

    \n\n

    \nSox is Free Software, released under the GPLv2 or later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe other is FFMPEG, which is also a command line program.

    \n\n

    \nFFMPEG is also Free Software, released under the LGPL V 2.1 or later, and GPL v 2 or later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSox actually uses FFMPEG for certain operations.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11 Audio Hardware

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor recording hardware I used the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12 Maxwell Headset

    \n\n

    \nThe first is a cheap Maxwell headset that has an electrical noise problem. Unfortunately I don't have a model number for this headset.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI described this hardware, the noise problems that I had with it, and how I created filters to deal with the noise in my series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \nBriefly though, this is a headset that has a build in microphone on a boom which allows the microphone to be positioned close to the mouth.

    \n\n

    \nIt connects with a USB cable.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13 Borne Earpiece and In-line Microphone

    \n\n

    \nThis is a set of earplugs that go in your ears and connected by wires and a very small microphone built into a small bulge in the cable. It connects using a 3.5mm jack.

    \n\n

    \nThe model number seems to be BUD250-BL.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14 XTrike Headset

    \n\n

    \nThis is a gaming headset similar to the Maxwell headset described above.

    \n\n

    \nThe model number is GH-510

    \n\n

    \nIt uses a USB connection.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15 Yanmai Condenser Microphone

    \n\n

    \nThis is a microphone that comes with a small tripod stand.

    \n\n

    \nThe model number is SF-910

    \n\n

    \nIt uses a 3.5mm audio jack.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16

    \n\n

    \nThis is not a review of the hardware.

    \n\n

    \nRather, I was trying to create audio problems so that I could test ways to fix them.

    \n\n

    \nTherefore, do not take the above list as a recommendation of what to buy.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, you can see that I am not using any expensive audio hardware.

    \n\n

    \nIf you want to make an HPR podcast, you do not need professional level hardware.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17 Audio Samples

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe audio samples are as follows

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18 Quiet

    \n\n

    \nThis was recorded in a quiet environment at my desk.

    \n\n

    \nThis is my normal podcasting environment and represents optimal conditions.

    \n\n

    \nThe main reason for this method is to see how the various filter methods perform when dealing with the electrical noise from the Maxwell headset.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19 Small fan

    \n\n

    \nThis is a small USB powered table fan approximately 10 cm in diameter.

    \n\n

    \nIt was located roughly 40 cm or less to the left of the microphone, although this varies depending on the microphone.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20 Traffic

    \n\n

    \nThis was along a busy street with traffic noise in the background.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21 Filter Methods

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSox noisered Filter with Audio Profile

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis method uses the Sox noisered filter. Here is a brief quote from the Sox documentation on this filter.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nQuote

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nReduce noise in the audio signal by profiling and filtering. This effect is moderately effective at removing consistent background noise such as hiss or hum. To use it, first run SoX with the noiseprof effect on a section of audio that ideally would contain silence but in fact contains noise - such sections are typically found at the beginning or the end of a recording.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEnd of quote

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor these tests I recorded a separate noise profile to go with each test.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22 Basic Manual Filter

    \n\n

    \nThis is a basic high and low pass filter pair based on the work I had done in my previous series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, based on the tests that I have done for this episode, I decided to get a bit more aggressive in terms of filtering.

    \n\n

    \nI use a high pass filter of 120 Hz, and low pass filter of 8 kHz.

    \n\n

    \nThe each filter is then applied twice to increase its effect.

    \n\n

    \nI also added band reject filters to deal specifically with 50 and 60 Hz line noise.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23 Complex Manual Filter

    \n\n

    \nThis uses the manually constructed filter described in my series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \nThis uses the basic manual filter plus a series of custom bandreject filters to fix specific noise problems with the Maxwell headset.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24 FFMPEG afftdn Filter

    \n\n

    \nThe documentation describes this as

    \n\n

    \n\"Denoise audio samples with FFT.\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25 FFMPEG arnndn Filter

    \n\n

    \nThe documentation describes this as

    \n\n

    \n\"Reduce noise from speech using Recurrent Neural Networks.\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26 FFMPEG agate Filter

    \n\n

    \nI will pronounce this as \"agate\" for convenience.

    \n\n

    \nThe documentation describes this as

    \n\n

    \n\"A gate is mainly used to reduce lower parts of a signal.

    \n\n

    \nThis kind of signal processing reduces disturbing noise between useful signals.\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27 Method

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe experimental method used was to take each noise sample and apply the different filter methods to it.

    \n\n

    \nWhere there are parameters which can be adjusted, a script was used to generate a series of different sample files with different parameter values.

    \n\n

    \nNot all possible parameters were experimented with, as the goal is to see which method produces what sorts of results under different circumstances, not to get the best possible result for the samples that I happen to have.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe method in each case was as follows

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28 Step 1

    \n\n

    \nConvert the audio file to FLAC if it is not already in that format.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29 Step 2

    \n\n

    \nApply a basic high and low pass filter described previously to each sample.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe reason for this basic filtering is that it eliminates at least some undesired noise in a fairly fool proof manner, leaving less for the more advanced filter to deal with.

    \n\n

    \nThis should allow for a better test of the filter under realistic conditions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30 Step 3

    \n\n

    \nApply the noise reduction filter being tested.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31 Step 4

    \n\n

    \nNormalize the filtered sample to 17 LUFS according to the EBU R128 standard.

    \n\n

    \nThe EBU standard is described in my series on simple podcasting.

    \n\n

    \nNormalizing adjusts the audio signal to a desired loudness level.

    \n\n

    \nThis allows for more more consistent sound levels and allows us to hear the results under realistic conditions.

    \n\n

    \nI normalize the audio individually for each sample as different recording hardware requires different amounts of loudness adjustment.

    \n\n

    \nThis is different from the typical podcast process where normalizing takes place as the very last step in the process, but it was necessary in this case.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 Step 5

    \n\n

    \nConcatenate selected sample audio files to one another to allow for better review and comparing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33 Results

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe results are grouped according to the type of noise which is being mitigated. This allows for easier comparison of the effectiveness of each technique under different circumstances.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI have only picked a few examples of interest out of the numerous experiments that I conducted.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34 Quiet Recording Environment with Maxwell Headset

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis compares how well the various filtering methods work on the noise induced by the electronics in the Maxwell headset.

    \n\n

    \nThis electronic noise consisted of a noise spike every 1 kHz.

    \n\n

    \nThis should be representative of electronic noise caused by problems in recording hardware.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35 Manual Filter

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe manual filter applied a narrow band reject filter every 1 kHz from 1 kHz to 12 kHz.

    \n\n

    \nThis completely removed the otherwise audible whine caused by the noise.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36 FFMPEG afftdn

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis method allows for setting a noise floor and then specifying how much the noise floor should be reduced by.

    \n\n

    \nThe method is very sensitive to getting the noise floor correct for that recording. Set the floor too low and nothing happens. Set it too high, and some distortion results.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever it seemed to be moderately effective, but it would seem to require checking it and possibly adjusting it each time it is used.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37 FFMPEG agate

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis method allows setting a noise floor and then suppressing all sound which falls below that level.

    \n\n

    \nThis method is very sensitive to getting the noise floor correct for that recording.

    \n\n

    \nIf set too low (or quiet), it is ineffective.

    \n\n

    \nIf set too high (or loud), it distorts words which come after a pause, which would typically be between sentences.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \nWhen set correctly, it completely removes noise in the silences between sentences.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the noise is still audible during speech.

    \n\n

    \nThis is because the noise in this case is a higher frequency than normal speech, and so stands out more.

    \n\n

    \nIt may not be a significant problem for noise which is closer to the main vocal frequency band.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOverall, this method is not suitable for this particular problem.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39 FFMPEG arnndn

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis method used the standard model.

    \n\n

    \nA variety of different noise reduction models are available.

    \n\n

    \nI only tested it with one, std.rnnn

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt does not seem to introduce much distortion in the voice signal even with a high amount of mix parameter.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it is only slightly effective at removing the whine from the signal, even with a high amount of mix parameter.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOverall, this method does not appear to be useful for this sort of noise problem.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41 Sox noisered Filter

    \n\n

    \nThis was effective in removing noise between words, but noise can be heard while words are being spoken. It was better than agate however.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42 Overall Conclusion for the Maxwell Headset Noise

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhen dealing with narrow noise bands that occur at known frequencies, the manual filter is leagues ahead of any of the other tested alternatives.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43 Sample Audio

    \n\n

    \nHere is a sample audio recording showing the best overall results

    \n\n

    \nThe sample is repeated, first with only basic low and high pass filtering, and then with the manually constructed filtering.

    \n\n

    \nIn the first sample you should hear a high pitched background whine.

    \n\n

    \nIn the second sample, the high pitched whine is completely removed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44 (Audio sample inserted here.)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45 Traffic Noise

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis was recorded using the Borne in-line microphone connected to a mobile phone while walking along beside a busy street.

    \n\n

    \nThis was in dry cool spring weather, and the road was paved with asphalt.

    \n\n

    \nThis should be reasonably representative of podcasting while walking outdoors in a noisy environment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46 Basic Manual Filter

    \n\n

    \nThis used the basic manual filter with high and low pass filters. This did nothing very useful in this case as the signal was already filtered within those limits by the recording hardware anyway. The low sample rate of 8 kHz in the phone limited the upper frequency to 4 kHz. Recall that the sample rate has to be twice the highest frequency that you want to detect.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOverall, this is not suitable for this sort of problem.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47 FFMPEG afftdn

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWith a high noise floor, background noise is reduced, but not eliminated. There was not much distortion in the voice.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is only slightly useful for this sort of problem.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48 FFMPEG agate

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWith a high threshhold, background noise is reduced, but not eliminated. There was some distortion in the voice.

    \n\n

    \nThe background noise could also be heard when speaking, but because the frequency of the background signal was similar to the louder voice signal, it was not as noticeable as it would have been if the two were very different.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is moderately useful for this sort of problem. It may be more useful in situations where the background noise was not quite as loud.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49 FFMPEG arnndn

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWith high amounts of noise reduction, much of the background noise is suppressed, but there is not a lot of distortion in the voice.

    \n\n

    \nThe background traffic noise is still present, but is significantly less.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis offers only a moderate improvement.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50 Sox noisered Filter

    \n\n

    \nWith small amounts of noise reduction voice is clear but traffic noise is present as a very significant continuous warbling sound in the background.

    \n\n

    \nThis is no improvement on the original and in fact could be seen as making it worse.

    \n\n

    \nWith moderate amounts of noise reduction, traffic noise is mostly gone, but there are still various squeaks present. Voice is noticeably distorted.

    \n\n

    \nWith large amounts of noise reduction, traffic noise is gone but voice is highly distorted.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is moderately useful for this sort of problem, but requires careful adjustment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51 FFMPEG arnndn Followed by FFMPEG agate

    \n\n

    \nThis combined two different filters.

    \n\n

    \nFirst, it used arnndn to suppress the background noise to a lower level without much voice distortion.

    \n\n

    \nThen it applied the agate filter to suppress the noise levels between words still further.

    \n\n

    \nThis used the same amount of mix and threshold as was found to be most effective when each of these filters was used on its own.

    \n\n

    \nThe background noise is almost completely gone while distortion of the voice signal is low.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52 Overall Conclusion for Traffic Noise

    \n\n

    \nThe arnndn combined with agate filters was the most successful at suppressing background noise while limiting the amount of voice signal distortion.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53 Sample Audio

    \n\n

    \nHere is an audio sample for what I felt to be the best overall results, the arnndn filter combined with the agate filter.

    \n\n

    \nFirst is the original audio with basic filtering.

    \n\n

    \nThis is followed with the same audio after being passed through the arnndn and agate filters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54 (Insert arnndn plus agate audio sample here)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55 Another Sample

    \n\n

    \nHere is a second audio sample showing the Sox noisered profile based filter.

    \n\n

    \nI have included this to show how a profile based filter can make things worse if you are not careful how you use it.

    \n\n

    \nThis repeats the test audio 4 times.

    \n\n

    \nThe first is with basic filtering only.

    \n\n

    \nThe second uses low amounts of noise reduction.

    \n\n

    \nThe third uses moderate amounts of noise reduction.

    \n\n

    \nThe fourth uses high amounts of noise reduction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56 (Insert noisered audio sample here)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 Small Fan Noise with Yanmai Microphone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis was recorded using the Yanmai condenser microphone.

    \n\n

    \nA small fan was set up behind and to the left of the microphone.

    \n\n

    \nThis is intended to represent situations where someone may have a fan or air conditioner running in the background due to hot weather, or has a loud computer fan.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nA condenser microphone was used for this test as they are more prone to picking up unwanted noise.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, for practical recording purposes, this sort of microphone is unsuitable for this type of environment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59 Basic Manual Filter

    \n\n

    \nThis used the basic manual filter with high and low pass filters.

    \n\n

    \nThis did nothing useful as the fan noise was in the same frequency range as the voice signal.

    \n\n

    \nThis may be of more help in cases where the noise is below the 120 Hz cut off used in the low pass filter.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60 FFMPEG afftdn

    \n\n

    \nWith high amounts of noise reduction, much of the background noise is suppressed, but there is some distortion in the voice.

    \n\n

    \nThe background fan noise is still present, but is significantly less.

    \n\n

    \nOverall this is moderately effective.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61 FFMPEG agate

    \n\n

    \nThis was effective in removing noise between words, but noise can be heard while words are being spoken.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this was a small voice sample and it is possible that more problems could occur.

    \n\n

    \nWith less fan noise than was in this sample this technique may work much better.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62 FFMPEG arnndn

    \n\n

    \nWith high amounts of noise reduction, much of the background noise is suppressed, but there is not a lot of distortion in the voice.

    \n\n

    \nThe background fan noise is still present, but is significantly less.

    \n\n

    \nOverall this was fairly effective.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63 Sox noisered Filter

    \n\n

    \nWith small amounts of noise reduction voice is clear but fan noise is present as a slight warbling sound in the background.

    \n\n

    \nWith moderate amounts of noise reduction, fan noise is gone, but voice is somewhat distorted.

    \n\n

    \nWith large amounts of noise reduction, fan noise is gone but voice is very distorted.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64

    \n\n

    \nIn general this method is fairly successful at dealing with this sort of problem.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, there is a trade off between background noise and voice quality.

    \n\n

    \nGetting that trade off correct takes experiment and judgment for each specific situation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65 FFMPEG arnndn Followed by FFMPEG agate

    \n\n

    \nThis combined two different filters.

    \n\n

    \nFirst, it used arnndn to suppress the background noise to a lower level without much voice distortion.

    \n\n

    \nThen it applied the agate filter to suppress the noise levels between words still further.

    \n\n

    \nThis got rid of virtually all of the background noise between words.

    \n\n

    \nIf you listen carefully however, there is a slight buzzing sound in the voice signal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66 Overall Conclusion for Fan Noise with Yanmai Microphone.

    \n\n

    \nOf the methods tested, the arnndn followed by agate filter seemed to offer the most improvement for the least effort and least voice distortion.

    \n\n

    \nThe arnndn filter on its own seemed the next most preferable to me despite leaving some fan noise in the background.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67 Audio Sample

    \n\n

    \nHere is an audio sample for what I felt to be the best overall results, the arnndn filter combined with the agate filter.

    \n\n

    \nFirst is the original audio with basic filtering.

    \n\n

    \nThis is followed with the same audio after being passed through the arnndn and agate filters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68 (Insert audio sample here)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69 Small Fan Noise Recorded with Headset

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe following is an observation rather than a filtering technique.

    \n\n

    \nWhen a recording was made using the Maxwell headset and listened to on the headset later or with speakers, the fan was virtually inaudible.

    \n\n

    \nWhen the same recording was listened to with the XTrike headset, it was barely audible with careful listening and only identifiable as a fan because I knew it was there.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nIn situations where there is ambient noise, the best noise reduction technique is probably to move the microphone as close to your mouth as possible, although not directly in front of it, and reduce the gain if there is a gain adjustment in the microphone.

    \n\n

    \nThis will work far better than trying to remove the noise later.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are recording an HPR episode at a desk, then an inexpensive headset with boom mike may do the job just fine with minimal effort and expense.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71 Conclusions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI have tested three noise scenarios -

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nElectronic noise in the audio hardware at specific frequencies.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRecording outdoors with an inline microphone in a noisy traffic environment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA noisy fan creating background noise in an office.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nMy conclusions on these are as follows.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72 Electronic Noise in the Audio Hardware at Specific Frequencies

    \n\n

    \nIf you can use Audacity or some other means to find the frequencies which are causing the noise, the best solution, assuming you don't just replace the hardware, is to manually construct filters to remove those specific frequencies.

    \n\n

    \nThis is the safest solution in terms of only doing what you tell it to and not producing unexpected surprises some time down the road when something changed in the environment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73

    \n\n

    \nIf you are looking for a fairly automatic filtering method, the Sox noisered profile based filter seems to work fairly well.

    \n\n

    \nThere is an equivalent filter in ffmpeg, but I did not include that in my experiments as it is harder to use in a script because it does not use a separate noise profile file.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74 Recording Outdoors with an Inline Microphone in a Noisy Traffic Environment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this situation, the FFMPEG arnndn combined with agate filters seem to be the most successful.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Sox noisered filter may work, but at the cost of more distortion in the voice than is seen in the other methods.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75

    \n\n

    \nAn inherent problem with any profile based noise reduction method is that if the background noise is not constant, which it seldom is in that sort of environment, the profile may not represent the background noise which is present later on in the recording.

    \n\n

    \nThis risks adding more distortion in the voice as the profile and later environments diverge.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n76

    \n\n

    \nHowever, for this application a different microphone that provided a better recording would appear to be advisable.

    \n\n

    \nA solution which brought the microphone much closer to the mouth and so resulted in a better ratio of voice signal compared to background noise would appear to be necessary, after which the question of what sort of noise reduction to use would need to be re-evaluated.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n77 A Noisy Fan Creating Background Noise in an Office.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Sox noisered filter and the FFMPEG arnndn, afftdn, and agate methods all work to some degree.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, they all need correct selection of parameters to achieve the proper results.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhen I compared all four methods side by side, I found the arnndn combined with the agate filter to be preferable in terms of the trade off between background noise reduction and distortion of the voice signal.

    \n\n

    \nThe arnndn filter on its own seemed the next most preferable to me despite leaving some fan noise in the background.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n78

    \n\n

    \nHowever, that is a subjective judgment of a specific noise sample when recorded using a specific microphone.

    \n\n

    \nKeep in mind though that many listeners will not be listening in an idea environment.

    \n\n

    \nThey may be doing things where background noise is present rather than in a very quiet room and so may find a small amount of background noise in the recording to be less of a problem than distortion in the voice signal which may make some words harder to understand.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n79

    \n\n

    \nWhen I conducted the same experiment recorded with the XTrike headset I found that arnndn seemed to offer no noticeable improvement.

    \n\n

    \nThis may be because the amount of audible fan noise was far less with the XTrike headset to begin with.

    \n\n

    \nIn other words, there is no single best solution here, and you may have to be prepared to try different options to see which one works in your situation.

    \n\n

    \nThe important thing is to avoid making things worse by applying filtering that is not appropriate for that situation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe best method may be to use a recording method that doesn't pick up the fan noise to begin with.

    \n\n

    \nThis can include just using a gaming headset with boom mic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n80

    \n\n

    \nI have one final observation on this point regarding headsets.

    \n\n

    \nThe Maxwell headset has a foam cover over the microphone while the XTrike headset does not.

    \n\n

    \nThere was some slight audible wind buffeting noise picked up by the XTrike headset that was not observed with the Maxwell.

    \n\n

    \nThis seemed to cause particular problems with the Sox noisered profile based filter, as this noise was irregular and after filtering would show up as a warbling sound.

    \n\n

    \nIf you use a headset and plan to use it in conjunction with a fan, it may be advisable to apply some sort of wind cover over it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n81 Combining Complex Filters

    \n\n

    \nIn several cases I found that combining several complex filters offered better results than using any single one on its own.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe basic strategy though is to first use a method which is good at reducing undesirable noise without introducing excessive voice distortion.

    \n\n

    \nThen apply a different filter which is good at reducing small levels of background noise to an even lower level while affecting the voice signal as little as possible.

    \n\n

    \nThis uses the relative strengths of different filter types to compensate for the weaknesses of the other.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n82

    \n\n

    \nDifferent combinations of filters were most effective for different types of problems.

    \n\n

    \nI did not try all possible combinations however.

    \n\n

    \nPerhaps a further exploration of this would be worth doing in a later podcast.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n83 Case Study - Noise in Another HPR Episode Audio

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the comments to my second episode on Simple Podcasting (which is HPR4618) where I discussed basic filtering, a couple of listeners brought up an interesting point.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAntoine mentioned \"declicking\" in a post.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nVance replied

    \n\n

    \n84

    \n\n

    \nAntoine, thanks for mentioning the click removal capability in Audacity! While I already knew about its noise removal filter, I wasn't aware it also had click removal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt might have helped me for HPR4637, where some sort of electromagnetic signal was picked up by my microphone/recorder, a Zoom H2 (the tapping sound was *not* present in the room where I recorded).

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhile click removal does seem to distort speech when applied to it (though to my ears, it doesn't sound as weird as when noise removal is done with speech), I could have applied the filter only to the pauses, where the \"tapping\" is most noticeable. I will consider doing this in the event that I'm not able to eliminate the source of interference in the future, which would be the best way to go.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n85

    \n\n

    \nEnd of quote.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI found this interesting as it sounded like another audio problem that could be experimented with.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI found a sample of the episode which had the clicks and cut a copy of that segment out to experiment with.

    \n\n

    \nThese sounds are a series of clicks, or \"ticks\" would be another way to describe them, in the quiet part of the audio between sentences or phrases.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n86

    \n\n

    \nNext I used Audacity to study the sound spectrum.

    \n\n

    \nI found a massive 60 Hz noise spike.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, my speakers won't reproduce sound that low, and filtering this out didn't reduce the clicks.

    \n\n

    \nThe clicks turned out to be bursts of noise across the 100 to 800 Hz band, which is right where the main vocal band also is.

    \n\n

    \nThis makes it difficult to filter based on frequency.

    \n\n

    \nThe most promising approach would seem to be to filter based on sound level.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n87

    \n\n

    \nI tried all of the individual audio filter techniques mentioned in the other experiments above.

    \n\n

    \nNone produced satisfactory results except for agate, which makes quiet audio quieter.

    \n\n

    \nThis completely suppressed the clicks.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, when applied to the entire episode it also distorted the start of a few sentences which began with single short syllables.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n88

    \n\n

    \nThe agate filter has a number of parameters which could be adjusted to try to deal with these cases, although I did not spend the time to do so.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAnother solution to this distortion problem is to simply not apply the filter to those parts of the audio which are affected.

    \n\n

    \nIf you record the audio as a series of small individual files, it would be easy enough to filter before concatenating the files together while skipping those files which contain audio which is not suited to this method.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere are the results of the experiments.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n89 FFMPEG afftdn

    \n\n

    \nThis reduces the size of of the ticks, but they are still present.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, they may be reduced to a level which is considered acceptable.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n90 FFMPEG agate

    \n\n

    \nThis was very effective in removing ticks with the right parameters.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it can introduce some voice distortion in the form of cutting out the start of a few sentences which began with single short syllables.

    \n\n

    \nThis can be corrected with a very short \"attack\" parameter to turn off the filter when it detects sound above a set threshhold.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n91 FFMPEG arnndn

    \n\n

    \nThis was relatively ineffective.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n92 Sox noisered

    \n\n

    \nThis was effective in removing the sounds between phrases.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it introduces some distortion in the voice signal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n93

    \n\n

    \nI also tried combining filters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFFMPEG afftdn Followed by agate

    \n\n

    \nThis combined two different filters.

    \n\n

    \nFirst, it used afftdn to suppress the background noise to a lower level without much voice distortion.

    \n\n

    \nThen it applied the agate filter to suppress the noise levels between words still further.

    \n\n

    \nThis got rid of virtually all of the background noise between words.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n94

    \n\n

    \nHere is a short audio sample from HPR4637.

    \n\n

    \nFirst is the unfiltered audio.

    \n\n

    \nSecond is the filtered audio using the combined afftdn plus agate filters.

    \n\n

    \nSince the \"clicks\" are very quiet, you may not hear them unless you are in quiet environment.

    \n\n

    \nQuite a few listeners would probably not be aware of the perceived audio problem in this episode if it had not been discussed here.

    \n\n

    \nNone the less, it makes for an interesting experiment.

    \n\n

    \nHere it is:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n95 (Insert sample audio here)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n96 Overall Conclusion for Noise \"Ticks\"

    \n\n

    \nThe afftdn combined with agate filters seemed to offer the best overall results when used with the right parameters.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the author, Vance, speaks very clearly and evenly, and so his voice is ideally suited for use with this filter.

    \n\n

    \nAnother author's voice may not be as suited to this filter.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n97

    \n\n

    \nThe Sox noisered profile based filter offers various degrees of trade off between suppressing noise and distorting the voice signal.

    \n\n

    \nAs to whether this is an acceptable trade off depends on the particular voice in question and how easily understood it is under normal circumstances with out additional distortion.

    \n\n

    \nThe afftdn filter may be a fairly safe filter to use on its own while producing acceptable if not perfect output.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n98 Overall Conclusions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI have presented only a few of the experiments that I conducted.

    \n\n

    \nMy overall conclusion after all of this is that there is no universal audio filtering method that works best in all circumstances.

    \n\n

    \nThere are instead a number of tools in the toolbox, and picking the right one for the job takes a bit of trial and error.

    \n\n

    \n99

    \n\n

    \nHowever, if you have a repeatable recording environment, then once you have decided what tool you need you should create a script for it so you can have a repeatable processing setup.

    \n\n

    \nThese conclusions apply to voice podcasting.

    \n\n

    \nMusic has a different set of criteria and techniques that work well with basic voice podcasting may produce poor results when applied to music which has a broader range of frequency and just as importantly, a broad range of loudness.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n100

    \n\n

    \nIf you are used to using filters and effects in Audacity, many of the settings on those correspond to arguments in the command line version of ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \nIt is worth learning how to use ffmpeg directly to automate your recording process.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n101

    \n\n

    \nThe experiments that I conducted were greatly assisted by writing scripts which created multiple versions of audio files with different settings, thereby allowing me to try many different alternatives relatively easily.

    \n\n

    \nIt also allowed me to concatenate different audio samples into a single audio file and so listen to different versions in quick succession, making subjective listening judgments more reliable.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n102

    \n\n

    \nIt is important to keep in mind in all this that I am playing with audio filtering mainly to have fun.

    \n\n

    \nIt is not necessary to do any of this if you think your podcast episode sounds just fine without it.

    \n\n

    \nSo, don't let any of what I have talked about in all this discourage you from simply recording a podcast and sending it in as is.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will include copies of the filters I have described here in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n103 Related Matters

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHardware Characterization Using Audio Signals

    \n\n

    \nI found it useful to characterize the hardware that I had in order to understand its limitations better before starting the experiments.

    \n\n

    \nThis involved playing a signal out through a set of speakers and then recording it through a microphone.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n104

    \n\n

    \nI used two types of signal for this.

    \n\n

    \nOne is type of signal is known as a \"chirp\" signal.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a sine wave that steadily increases in frequency as it sweeps across the audio spectrum.

    \n\n

    \nThe standard audio range is 20 Hz to 20 kHz, but for my purposes I limited the upper frequency to 15 kHz to save time as anything beyond that is not very useful for voice podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n105

    \n\n

    \nBy recording the chirp signal with a microphone and analyzing it with a Fourier transform, I could quickly see what each device was capable of.

    \n\n

    \nSee my previous series on simple podcasting for an explanation of what a Fourier transform is and what software to use to see the results of it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere is a chirp signal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n106 (Insert Audio Sample Here)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n107

    \n\n

    \nIn addition to a chirp signal, I also used a series of simple tones of specific frequencies.

    \n\n

    \nBy using these tones of known frequency I could gain an understanding of the limitations of my speakers and headphones, and just as importantly, my own ears.

    \n\n

    \nBy understanding these limitations I was able to narrow the range of frequencies that I need to deal with quite considerably and set the high and low pass filters accordingly.

    \n\n

    \nThese tones are a series of flac files generated with ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n108

    \n\n

    \nHere is a a sample audio tone at a 2 kHz frequency.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n109 (Insert Audio Sample Here)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n110

    \n\n

    \nCopies of the script to create the chirp signal and the tones are in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n111 A \"Not a Review\" of some of the Hardware that I Used

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI said that I would not do a review of the hardware that I used.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, some of it deserves mention for either how good or bad it was.

    \n\n

    \nI will record each section using the hardware being described.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n112 Maxwell Headset

    \n\n

    \nThis is my original recording hardware.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a headset with boom mic and USB connection.

    \n\n

    \nThere is no model number on it, so I don't know the model.

    \n\n

    \nThis probably cost somewhere between 10 and 25 dollars.

    \n\n

    \nThe earpieces sit on the ears and do not fully enclose them.

    \n\n

    \nThis makes it light weight and comfortable to wear for extended periods of time.

    \n\n

    \nIt has a problem however with electronic noise consisting of a noise spike every 1 kHz.

    \n\n

    \nI was able to fix this with a series of filters using FFMPEG.

    \n\n

    \nFixing this problem is what got me started in understanding audio.

    \n\n

    \nI will probably continue to use this headset to make podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n113 XTrike Headset, Model GH-510

    \n\n

    \nThis is also a headset with boom mic and USB connection.

    \n\n

    \nI purchased this headset for the purposes of experimentation for this podcast episode.

    \n\n

    \nIt cost $12.88.

    \n\n

    \nI found it to be surprisingly good for the price.

    \n\n

    \nIt has fully enclosed ear pieces however, which may make it uncomfortable to wear in hot weather.

    \n\n

    \nI may try doing some of my future podcasting using this headset.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n114 Borne Earpiece and In-line Microphone

    \n\n

    \nThis is a set of earplugs that go in your ears and connected by wires and a very small microphone built into a small bulge in the cable. It connects using a 3.5mm jack.

    \n\n

    \nThe model number seems to be BUD250-BL.

    \n\n

    \nIt cost approximately $3.00.

    \n\n

    \nI bought several sets of these and use them for listening to podcasts from an MP3 player.

    \n\n

    \nThe ear pieces are pretty good for listening with.

    \n\n

    \nThe microphone works reasonably well when used in a quiet location.

    \n\n

    \nIt is less good when in a noisy environment.

    \n\n

    \nIt is very important however to secure the microphone to your lapel or other location reasonably near your mouth and to point the microphone (that is the small hole) outwards and not simply let it dangle freely.

    \n\n

    \nIf you let it just hang, you will get poor quality and inconsistent audio.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n115 Yanmai Condenser Microphone, Model SF-910

    \n\n

    \nI purchased this microphone for the purposes of experimentation for this podcast episode.

    \n\n

    \nIt cost $3.88.

    \n\n

    \nAs it is a condenser microphone, it is prone to picking up background noise more and as such is probably not a good choice for podcasting by single person sitting at a desk.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it is none the less a surprisingly good microphone for surprisingly little money.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n116 iCan USB Microphone, Model M-306

    \n\n

    \nI purchased this microphone for the purposes of experimentation for this podcast episode.

    \n\n

    \nThis has a USB connection.

    \n\n

    \nThis was also relatively inexpensive at $7.99, or roughly twice the price of the Yanmai microphone.

    \n\n

    \nUnlike the Yanmai however, it is absolutely wretched.

    \n\n

    \nThere was such a high degree of distortion when recording through it that I found I could not use it in the fan experiments which I had bought it for.

    \n\n

    \nI ended up buying the Yanmai microphone for that instead.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n117 Easy Effects Software

    \n\n

    \nThe techniques described so far all involve recording audio files and then processing them later to produce the desired result.

    \n\n

    \nThis is probably the simplest and most straightforward way of doing things if you are making a typical podcast.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, there may be instances where you want to apply filtering or other effects on the \"live\" signal immediately and not after the fact.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n118

    \n\n

    \nThere is audio software which can hook into your computer's audio system and do this with a live signal.

    \n\n

    \nFor Linux, there is a package called \"Easy Effects\".

    \n\n

    \nThis is Free Software and comes under a GPL V3 or later license.

    \n\n

    \nI installed it from the Debian repository under Ubuntu 24.04.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n119

    \n\n

    \nYou can create various filters and even chain them together to combine them.

    \n\n

    \nI played with it a bit but do not know enough about it to discuss it seriously at this time.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I thought it would be worth mentioning for the sake of those who may wish to try it out themselves.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n120 Episode Conclusion

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAfter having had some fun with audio and listening to other HPR members talk about audio, I thought I would have some more fun by playing with noise reduction filters.

    \n\n

    \nI have no intention of becoming an audio professional, but by doing some experiments I learned a few things and had some fun doing it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI hope that the rest of you found this interest as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will see you all again later in another episode of Hacker Public Radio.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nScripts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nBasic Filter

    \n\n

    \nThis shows basic high and low pass filters ( 120 Hz and 8 kHz respectively)

    \n\n

    \nand band reject filters for 50 and 60 Hz.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# The high and low pass filters.

    \n\n

    \nhlpfil=\"highpass=f=120, highpass=f=120, lowpass=f=8000, lowpass=f=8000\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Band reject filters filter for 60Hz and another for 50Hz.

    \n\n

    \nlinefil=\"bandreject=f=60:width_type=h:w=20, bandreject=f=50:width_type=h:w=20\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Filter using ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i inputfile.flac -af \"$hlpfil, $linefil\" outputname.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nafftdn Filter

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# noisefloor should be between 20 and 80.

    \n\n

    \nnoisefloor=$1

    \n\n

    \n# Run the noise reduction.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i testrec-filtered.flac -af \"afftdn=nr=10:nf=-\"\"$noisefloor\" tmptestrec.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nagate Filter

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# threshold shoud be between 10 and 80.

    \n\n

    \nthreshold=$1

    \n\n

    \n# Run the noise reduction.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i testrec-filtered.flac -af \"agate=threshold=-\"$threshold\"dB:range=-60dB\" tmptestrec.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \narnndn Filter

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# mix should be between 0 and 1.

    \n\n

    \nmix=$1

    \n\n

    \n# Run the noise reduction.

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i testrec-filtered.flac -af 'arnndn=model=std.rnnn:mix='\"$mix\" tmptestrec.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nsox noisered Filter

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Generate the noise profile from a sample of background noise.

    \n\n

    \nsox silencefiltered.flac -n noiseprof noise.prof

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# nramount shoudl be between 0 and 1

    \n\n

    \nsox testrec-filtered.flac noiseout-testrec.flac noisered noise.prof \"$nramount\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nManual Filter for Maxwell Headset Noise

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Create a series of band reject filters, from 1 kHz to 11 kHz.

    \n\n

    \nftemplate=\"bandreject=f=%s000:width_type=h:w=100\"

    \n\n

    \nkilospikefil=$( seq 1 11 | xargs printf \"$ftemplate,\" )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Using ffmpeg

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -i testrec-filtered.flac -af \"$kilospikefil\" tmptestrec.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCreate a \"chirp\" signal

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Start frequency.

    \n\n

    \nf0=20

    \n\n

    \n# End frequency.

    \n\n

    \nf1=15000

    \n\n

    \n# Duration of signal.

    \n\n

    \nduration=10

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nffmpeg -f lavfi -i \"aevalsrc=sin(2 * PI * (0.5 * ($f1 - $f0)/$duration * t^2 + ($f0 * t))):s=44100:d=$duration\" -c:a flac -af \"aformat=sample_fmts=s16\" chirp.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nGenerate Audio Tones

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ntoneout () {

    \n\n

    \n\t

    \n\n

    \n\tprintf -v freqval \"%05d\" $1

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -f lavfi -i \"sine=frequency=$freqval:duration=3\" tmptone.flac

    \n\n

    \n\t# Normalize

    \n\n

    \n\tffmpeg -i tmptone.flac -af loudnorm=I=-17:TP=-2.0:LRA=4.0 -ar 44.1k -sample_fmt s16 tone$freqval.flac

    \n\n

    \n\trm tmptone.flac

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# List of frequencies in hertz.

    \n\n

    \nfreqlist=\"50 60 100 120 130 140 150 160 170 200 500 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nfor freq in $( echo $freqlist ); do

    \n\n

    \n\ttoneout $freq

    \n\n

    \ndone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio recording","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4659,"date":"2026-06-11","title":"Command Line Fun - Recording a show","duration":799,"summary":"Kevie uses FFMPEG tool to record an episode of HPR","notes":"\n

    \nIn this episode Kevie does a step-by-step approach to record an episode of HPR using the FFMPEG tool on the Linux command line.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nBefore beginning please ensure that FFMPEG is installed, it is available in the vast majority of Linux repositories.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nStart by making a new folder to keep all your files in and move into the new folder (these will be numerous by the end of your recording):

    \n\n
    \nmkdir Podcast\ncd Podcast\n
    \n\n

    \nTo start recording audio use the command:

    \n\n
    \nffmpeg -f pulse -i default file01.flac\n
    \n\n

    \nand finish the recording by pressing ctrl+c. I would recommend recording a test piece of audio to ensure that you are recording from your desired microphone and that the levels are to your liking.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo listen to the audio file we use ffplay:

    \n\n
    \nffplay file01.flac\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOnce all of the files have been recorded, to reduce the need for editing I would recommend recording several short segments, we need to put these together using:

    \n\n
    \nffmpeg -i file01.flac -i file02.flac -i file03.flac -i file04.flac -i file05.flac -filter_complex \"[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a][4:a]concat=n=5:v=0:a=1\" filedone.flac \n
    \n\n

    \nNot that the number of sets squared brackets [] should be the same as the number of files (these start at zero) and the number after n= should be the actual number of files you wish to combine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo remove any extended periods of silence then we can use:

    \n\n
    \nffmpeg -i filedone.flac -af silenceremove=stop_periods=-1:stop_duration=1:stop_threshold=-45dB filefinished.flac\n
    \n\n

    \nPlease note that this is a bit flaky at the time of recording (my results have been mixed) and it will re-encode the audio file so never do this with a lossy file such as ogg or mp3 as this will reduce the quality, keep this for lossless versions such as flac or wav files.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you want to spend a bit more time editing the files and getting a better final audio file then the most effective way (but not quick) is to trim the audio from the end and beginning. Listen to the audio files and note the times of any periods of silence. As these normally are at the beginning and end, especially when we are recording in short segments then I will limit the instructions to avoid these becoming silly in length.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFirstly clip off the end silences first, if you start with the beginning then it will change the starting position of the end silences. To remove audio from the end of a track use:

    \n\n
    \nffmpeg -i file01.flac -vn -acodec copy -to 00:01:30 file01cut.flac\n
    \n\n

    \nIn this example anything after 1 minute and 30 seconds will be removed. The edited audio file will then be saved as file01cut.flac. This method does not re-encode the audio so there is no loss of quality.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo remove audio from the start of a track use:

    \n\n
    \nffmpeg -ss 30 -i file01.flac -c copy file01cut.flac\n
    \n\n

    \nIn the above example the first 30 seconds of the file will be removed and saved as file01cut.flac

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOnce you have edited each audio file then they will need to be merged together again to make a complete show.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":45,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"record, audio, command line, FFMPEG","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4660,"date":"2026-06-12","title":"Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 1","duration":837,"summary":"We start looking at the works of Robert A. Heinlein.","notes":"\n

    In his early days as a writer, Heinlein wrote his stories in the context of a shared universe that he called the Future History. These were mostly short stories at first, with hte occasional novella. But they inclode some great stories.

    \n\n

    The Future History, Part 1

    \n\n

    One thing Heinlein became well known for was his Future History. This placed many of his stories in a common framework of a future environment, and allowed events from one story to influence events in other stories. Here is what he had to say about it, in a post I found on the Heinlein Society Facebook site:

    \n\n
    \n

    “I never “created” or “invented” a “Future History.” On April Fool’s Day 1939 I started to write commercially; by the middle of August I had written 8 shorts & a serial. As 5 of these items were more or less to the same fictional background, I found that I was continually having to check back to keep from tripping over my own feet.

    \n\n

    So I took an old navigation chart, about 3×4 feet, turned it over, made the time scale vertical, then set up 5 columns: stories, characters, technical data, sociological, remarks. Then I checked those first 5 stories, filled data into proper columns at the proper height for the fictional date—and continued to do this with other stories later. The chart was on the righthand wall near my elbow and was unusually messy as I never took the chart down to add to it—just reached over and scrawled on it.”

    \n\n

    Source: https://www.facebook.com/HeinleinSociety/posts/i-never-created-or-invented-a-future-history-on-april-fools-day-1939-i-started-t/1092968002874634/

    \n
    \n\n

    One thing that became clear as his Future History developed is that he was not looking at our future exactly. He was very clear in his mind that he was writing fiction, and not issuing prophecies. If you are reading it today, it is best to think of this as a kind of alternate timeline, and this is something that holds true through a lot of his work. Even in his later novels, which were never formally part of his Future History, he would mention events from that past group of works, which may implicitly incorporate them. But this is an area where scholars are in disagreement as to which if the later novels, if any, should be incorporated. And there were unwritten stories that appeared on the chart that would have given further background to the stories that were written. They were stories Heinlein seems to have intended to write at some point, but never got around to writing. You can get more information about this in his book Revolt in 2100.

    \n\n

    The Future History stories were initially collected primarily in three books: The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950), The Green Hills of Earth (1951), and Revolt in 2100 (1953). Each of them fleshes out this hypothetical world in different ways. The first one, The Man Who Sold The Moon, introduces us to a businessman named D.D. Harriman, who is obsessed with going to the moon. But he thinks it should be done by private enterprise rather than by government. So he concocts a scheme to do this. He promotes a legal theory that the rights to the moon belong to the countries that it directly flies over, sort of like air rights taken to infinity. Then he uses the chaos of competing interests to throw this into the United Nations, and then gets the U.N. to give him the rights. He finally gets to launch a mission to set up a Moon base, but cannot join the expedition because the corporation considers him too valuable to risk. In a sequel story, Requiem, he does get to the moon just in time to die there. Heinlein was never above writing a tear-jerker.

    \n\n

    Of course, the book has other stories not linked to D.D. Harriman. Heinlein’s fist story, Life-Line, is also collected here. And his second story, Let There Be Light, anticipates the development of solar power panels, but similarly to Life-Line, this earns the enmity of corporate interest, in the form of the Power Syndicate. The Roads Must Roll postulates moving roadways in the future, but the story really is about the sociology of technology in the future. And Blowups Happen, originally from 1940, anticipates nuclear fission as a power source, but it proves to be dangerous. They claim that the craters on the moon were really caused by a series of explosions to reactors that wiped out an earlier civilization. So they move the reactor into space for safety. And this feeds back into The Man Who Sold The Moon when this reactor in space blows up.

    \n\n

    In these early stories we can already see that Heinlein has a complex view of society. In Life-Line and Let There Be Light corporate power is the villain of the story, and some of this also shows up in Blowups Happen. But in The Man Who Sold The Moon we see that private enterprise is preferred to government action. I think the way this can be reconciled is to see that Heinlein is always concerned with individual personal freedom and opposed to anything that might endanger that, whether from too much government or too powerful corporate interests.

    \n\n

    The Green Hills of Earth contains the story of the same name, which concerns a former space engineer, Rhysling, now blinded by radiation and unemployable, who is also a poet. And one of his poems has that title. The crew of Apollo 15 named a crater on the moon “Rhysling”, and they planned to read a bit of it at the crater, but those trips could get very busy. Still, as they were getting ready to leave the moon there was this exchange. Note that Allen is the Capcom, and Scott and Jones are the astronauts :

    \n\n
    \n

    “Allen: As the space poet Rhysling (the blind poet in Robert Heinlein’s The Green Hills of Earth) would say, we’re ready for you to “come back again to the homes of men on the cool green hills of Earth.”

    \n\n

    [Scott – “That’s from the Green Hills of Earth. That’s one we talked about before the flight. Have you read that one?”] [Jones – “Oh, yeah! That was a favorite when I was a kid. Had you read it?”]

    \n\n

    [Scott – “Sure. (Quoting from memory):

    \n\n

    We pray for one last landing
    on the globe that gave us birth
    To rest our eyes on fleecy skies
    and the cool green hills of Earth.”

    \n
    \n\n

    Although two of the stories in this collection were older, from 1941, most of them are from 1948 and 1949. And there is a reason for that. On December 7, 1941, the United States found itself at war with Imperial Japan, and few days later Nazi Germany. Coming from a family that had fought in every American war you would expect Heinlein to get involved somehow. He could not enlist due to his medical retirement from the Navy, but since he had an engineering background so he became a civilian employee at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where he was joined by fellow science fiction writers Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. A nice retelling of this can be found at Kirkus Reviews, and Asimov also discusses this in his biography. The upshot is that there is a gap of about 5 years when Heinlein did not publish anything.

    \n\n

    It is also notable that Heinlein by this point had escaped from the pulp science fiction magazines and gotten published in what were called the “slicks’, so-called because the paper they were printed on was slick and higher quality than the pulps. His stories began to be published in places like The Saturday Evening Post, Argosy Magazine, and Town & Country. And these outlets paid higher rates than the pulps, a significant matter for any writer. Heinlein always maintained that the only reason anyone would write was to make money.

    \n\n

    And the stories were getting to be quite good as well. Delilah and the Space Rigger (1949) tells the story of a woman who joins a construction crew on a space station and faces discrimination, but wins out in the end, which was pretty progressive for the time, but not atypical for Heinlein. Space Jockey is a fairly pedestrian story about a rocket pilot dealing with his every day life. But The Long Watch is an important story to Heinlein’s view of the important things in life. A young officer is assigned to duty on the lunar base, where there are nuclear weapons stored. His superiors want to stage a coup, using those weapons, which can threaten the Earth while being beyond the reach of retaliation. The young officer sacrifices himself to prevent their plot from succeeding, and becomes recognized in a death as a great hero. And this becomes part of the background to a later juvenile novel Space Cadet, as well as being referenced occasionally in other stories, so you can see that he regarded it as an important statement. Gentlemen, Be Seated is a cute little story about a man who saves people when a leak happens in a tunnel on the Moon by plugging the leak with his rear end. The Black Pits of Luna is little thing about a boy scout who is able to rescue his little brother, but it foreshadows the Juvenile novels he later wrote.

    \n\n

    It’s Great To Be Back! is about a couple who have moved to the Moon, but continually find fault with the living arrangements. They finally decide to go back to Earth, but discover that it was not really the place they had remembered, and they then return to the Moon, which they now realize is home. -We Also Walk Dogs is a gem of a story concerning a company called General Services that basically does things for their clients. Their advertising slogan is “Want somebody murdered? Then DON’T call General Services. But for anything else, call…. It Pays!” They deal a few different problems in this story, but the main one is the development of anti-gravity, and it features a Chinese porcelain bowl. Ordeal in Space is about a spaceman who has an accident that gives him a fear of heights and washed him out of space. But he has to face his fear when he needs to rescue a kitten from the 35th floor. One thing about Heinlein is that he was a firm and devoted cat fancier, so it no accident that a kitten is the one that has to be rescued. And the final story, Logic of Empire, he discusses the development of slavery in the Venus colony as a natural consequence of machinery being expensive and humans being cheap. And in this story there is a background reference to Nehemiah Scudder, who will soon be important in the Future History.

    \n\n

    One of the things that is worthy of a brief discussion at this point is exemplified by the story Logic of Empire, and that is the reference to the Venus colony. We now know that Venus can best be described as hellish, with crushing air pressure and temperatures high enough to melt metals. The best designed landers can last no more than minutes before being destroyed. But this was not known when Heinlein was writing these early stories. The prevailing view at that time was that Venus was shrouded in clouds because it was very wet and swampy, so that is what Heinlein went with. Similarly his Mars had canals and was inhabited. You just have to go with it in these stories, as you have to do with so much of Golden Age science Fiction, let alone pre-Golden Age.

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Heinlein, Future History","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4661,"date":"2026-06-15","title":"Laptop Computer Woes, or How I Learned to Love My Tech Hoarding","duration":1570,"summary":"Claudio rambles on about problems with his two laptops and how his tech hoarding came to the rescue.","notes":"\n
      \n
    • \n Blog post: https://claudiomiranda.wordpress.com/2026/05/19/laptop-computer-woes-or-how-i-learned-to-love-my-tech-hoarding/
      • \n
    • \n HP ProBook 4540s specifications: https://support.hp.com/au-en/product/product-specs/hp-probook-4540s-notebook-pc/
      • \n
    • \n Tonymacx86 forum post on the 1920x1080 screen upgrade for the\n ProBook 4540s: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/4540s-lcd-screen-1080p-replacement.88212/
      • \n
    • \n Panelook.com link to the LG156WF1 screen variants: https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LP156WF1&search_id=1839426
      • \n
    • \n HP ProBook 4540s teardown and screen upgrade video by JSnake\n Repair: https://youtu.be/3ceZ1m7JFYw?t=1252
      • \n
    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n \n \n \n

    \n

    \n

    ","hostid":152,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"RightToRepair,Computers,Laptops,HP,PCrepair","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4662,"date":"2026-06-16","title":"“What Are the Answers I Need, To the Questions I Don't Know Enough to Ask?”","duration":230,"summary":". Aswers in need of a question. A podcast on an HPR suggestion","notes":"\n

    \nWandering along the suggestion of topics in Hacker Public Radio, we come to this: how to obtain the answer to something that I don’t even know how to ask?

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \nMy opinion is: you can’t get an answer without the desire, be it represented by a question or a quest.

    \n\n

    \nSo, how to pose the correct question? There are a few steps!

    \n\n

    \n1st, \ninterest\n. Get motivated to know, even if you don’t know exactly what you want specifically.

    \n\n

    \n2nd: be open to deconstruction. To learn is to recognize you didn’t know before (self-pride has to give place for learning). And when confronted with the new, things you thought you knew — even ones you relied on before — may need to be now rejected, if incompatible with the truth you only now receive.

    \n\n

    \n3rd: when the barriers are down, it’s possible to \nstudy\n the theme. Because, at the moment, you don’t know what you don’t know; while one ignores something, he’s only ignorant. One have to listen to others, to practice and\n/or\n reflect on the subject until he reaches something specific (and not easily or promptly answerable) worth being the object of his quest or question.

    \n\n

    \n4th: with the question in hand, go for the answer. If it’s valuable for you, more time or less time you are definitely going to get it. If it’s too broad, or you lose interest, or if you need \nmore\n after getting the initial answer, no problem: you can reformulate and start from the beginning. Great part of the necessary questions only come after the answer already came by a long course of inquiries [questions] (natural consequence of studying with a desire).

    \n\n

    \n* * *

    \n\n

    \nCredits:

    \n\n

    \n1) Writing is putting thoughts in order and being able to detect what is loosen or unfounded (needing refinement of discard). “The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it’s fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.” (\nhttps://paulgraham.com/writes.html\n)

    \n\n

    \n2) “What Are the Answers I Need, To the Questions I Don't Know Enough to Ask?” (\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.com/about.html#requested_topics\n)

    \n\n

    \n(\n1 and 2 came at a particular time together and where more deterministic to the line of this episode.\n)

    \n\n

    \n3) Teacher Roosevelt, a course administrator (coordinator) of my post-graduation at Escola Paranaense de Direito, that ministered about the end of course paper and how to pose the question you are going to pose in order to write about a topic.

    \n\n

    \n4) Gym \nexercises\n (because doing seated leg curls is difficult and gives strange sensations to many men; as \nthinking\n, gives a strange feeling one can’t even discern immediately if it’s good, bad, or only odd).

    \n\n

    \nSound effect for credits numbering: “Number pad 1”, by phatkatz4 on Freesound (\nhttps://pixabay.com/sound-effects/musical-number-pad-1-105399/\n)

    \n\n

    \nThank you!

    \n\n\n","hostid":441,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"method of learning, how to obtain an answer (formulate the question to pursue)","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4663,"date":"2026-06-17","title":"The hallway track at T-DOSE","duration":4798,"summary":"Ken talks to the hosts at The Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) booth village.","notes":"

    T-DOSE

    \n\n

    TDOSE 2027

    \n\n

    \nMark you calendars #TDOSE 2027 on 5 and 6 June '27 in the Weeffabriek, Geldrop.\n

    \n\n\n\n

    The Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE)

    \n

    \n\n

    \n

    \nIn \nhpr4641 :: Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE)\n, Ken interviewed Peter van Ginneken about the \nT-DOSE\nconference.

    \n\n
    \nThe Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) is a free conference to promote the use and development of Open Source software. This event has is organised yearly since 2006 in the Brainport region, near Eindhoven, The Netherlands. During this event, Open Source projects, developers and visitors can exchange ideas and knowledge.
    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nPeter van Ginneken Opens the Event.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe catch up with him at the start of Day 2.

    \n\n

    \nInfo Booth

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe backbone of any event is the Info booth and catering.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere we talk to Nick Hibma who when not serving on the Info Booth is treasurer of the T-DOSE organisation.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nReady to serve sandwitches, sell T-Shirts, Magic Mugs, and \nclub-mate\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nT-Shirts

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nclub-mate\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nMagic Mugs

    \n\n

    Hackalot

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \nHackalot is the Eindhoven and surrounding area hackerspace. A hackerspace is a place where hackers can work on their own or collaborative projects. You can work and talk together, but you can also do your own thing. Together we can also purchase a lot of cooler tools such as lasercutters and 3d printers. Often there is no suitable place for equipment at home. So if you know someone, you are either an electronics/computer/technical hobby that got out of hand, come on by!

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nBoekenwuurm at the Hackalot stand.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Hackalot stand.

    \n\n\n\n

    Laptop Revive

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLaptop Revive collects discarded laptops, that are still working. We then install Linux Mint to provide a working laptops to students who cannot afford laptops. We are socially involved, sustainable and open.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nAlex Kok Laptop Revive

    \n\n\n\n

    Free Software Foundation Europe

    \n\n

    \nFree Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) information booth, with information material, stickers and merchandise.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nNico was so busy that we were unable to snag an interview this time. However check out our talk with him at the \nNLUUG Spring Conference 2026\n.

    \n\n\n\n

    Doeidag and Banray

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe also interviewed Geert-Jan Meewisse in \nhpr4639 :: NLUUG Spring Conference 2026\nbut this time he is here talking about \nbanray.eu\n\n

    \n\n
    \nIn 2025, Meta sold over seven million pairs of camera-equipped glasses that look like regular Ray-Bans. The person wearing them looks like anyone else. But these people are now products, as is everyone they interact with.
    \n\n

    \nHe then also mentioned the \nDoeidag\nproject where they encourage people to drop one service at a time on the first Sunday of the month

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nGeert-Jan Meewisse Doeidag and Banray

    \n\n

    Debian

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Debian Project is an association of Free Software developers who volunteer their time and effort in order to produce the completely free operating system Debian.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nKen Talks to Joost van Baal Llić from the Debian Project

    \n\n

    \n\n\nDebian\n\n

    \n\n

    Angry Nerds Podcast

    \n\n

    \nAngry Nerds, met extra cyber!

    \n\n

    \nThe Angry Nerds is a Dutch Language podcast about privacy and security

    \n\n

    \nIt's a live show that is topical and often humorous tech podcast where a group of enthusiastic nerds discusses current technology, IT and cybersecurity topics. The hosts combine technical depth with background conversations, humor and the occasionally a good dose of cynicism. Expect conversations about everything from network infrastructures to software development, from privacy issues to bizarre tech trends.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nKen on the Angry Nerds Podcast

    \n\n

    You can listen to the recording at Angry Nerds op T-DOSE 2026 deel 2 (prikkelarme versie).

    \n\n\n\n

    Freie Software Freunde - Free Your Model Train

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe are a non-profit organization. We are committed to Free Software and Open Standards. Software is not just technology, it's an important part of our daily life.

    \n\n

    \nWe want to raise awareness of the importance of Free Software and Open Standards. That is why we are concerned with topics outside of technology: politics, education, ethics, psychology, ecology and economics, licenses, ... One of our projects is \"Free your model train\". Our goal is to raise awareness of the benefits of open standards.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nBirgit Hücking (@akkolady) standing at the \nfreie-software.org\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe \nfreie-software.org\ntable with two large train loops, a smaller internal one. Two knitted Tux Mascots. And a lot of information.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\nClose up of the two knitted Tux Mascot.

    \n\n\n\n

    Hacker Public Radio: The community Podcast

    \n\n
    \nHacker Public Radio is a technology focused podcast that releases shows every weekday Monday to Friday. Our shows are created by people like you, and can be on any topic that is of interest to hackers, hobbyists, makers, etc. We are a welcoming community that offers positive feedback and encourages respectful debate. This is our 21st year of operation, and we will release our 5,000th show in August. Everything we do is released under a Free Culture License. We do not vet, edit, moderate or in any way censor any of the audio you submit, we trust you to do that. We will be available to guide you in sharing your knowledge with the community. Having had a stand at FOSDEM (BE), OggCamp(UK), Linux Fest North West(US), Spectrum (FR), we are available to show you how easy podcasting can be. We will be answering your questions, and conducting interviews with anyone with anything interesting to say.
    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe HPR booth.

    \n\n\n\n

    UBports

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n
    \nWe are developing an open source Linux mobile OS built to be your daily driver... ...and we'd like to welcome you to our community.
    \n\n

    \nNext up is a chat with Sander Klootwijk about UBports and Ubuntu Touch. Their website has a list of \nsupported devices\n.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe talk with Sander Klootwijk

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nProof it's running on actual hardware

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nYumi The UBports Installer Mascot was not available for comment.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nUbuntu Touch on a Fairphone

    \n\n\n\n

    Adfinis

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n
    \nAccelerate your business with open source-driven automation, security, cloud, and DevSecOps solutions from Adfinis, your end-to-end partner for robust, flexible IT that drives growth and innovation at any scale. Welcome to Our World Full of Open Source
    \n\n
    \nAt Adfinis, we believe in the transformative power of open source technology to foster innovation, transparency, and collaboration. We are committed to providing solutions free from vendor lock-in, ensuring our clients retain full control and flexibility over their systems. Digital sustainability lies at the heart of our approach, as we strive to create technologies that not only serve the present but also support a long-term, environmentally responsible future. Additionally, we champion digital sovereignty, empowering organizations and communities to own and control their data, infrastructure, and technological destiny. These principles drive us to build a more open, sustainable, and inclusive digital world.
    \n\n

    \nFinally we chat to \nCoen hamers\n, \nRobert de Bock\n, and \nAnnebelle van Waardenburg\nfrom \nAdfinis\nwhose sponsorship made the event possible.

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    Credits

    \n\n\n\n\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"T-DOSE,Hackalot,Laptop Revive,FSFE,Doeidag,Banray,Angry Nerds Podcast,FYMT,HPR,UBports,Adfinis","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4664,"date":"2026-06-18","title":"No Input Mixing Tutorial and How to Build a Drone Box ","duration":800,"summary":"A tutorial on some of the techniques used in Noise, Industrial, and Experimental music","notes":"\n

    \nSome links to other tutorials (in case you need a visual element, these helped me out)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nMixing board tutorial

    \n\n

    \nhttps://youtu.be/H-7kQmpjBds

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDrone Box tutorial

    \n\n

    \nhttps://youtu.be/50C6DBsqy24

    \n\n\n\n","hostid":354,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"No Input Techniques, Noise Music Tutorial, Industrial Music Tutorial, Expiramental Music Tutorial ","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4665,"date":"2026-06-19","title":"Pokémon GO","duration":796,"summary":"Benno talks to Lee about an augmented reality mobile game","notes":"\n

    \n\n\nPokémon Go (stylized as Pokémon GO) is a 2016 augmented reality (AR) mobile game developed and published by Niantic, in partnership with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, for iOS and Android devices. The game uses GPS to locate, capture, train, and battle Pokémon. It is free-to-play, featuring a freemium model that includes local advertising and offers in-app purchases for additional in-game items. Pokémon Go launched with approximately 150 Pokémon species, with new species regularly introduced.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n-- Wikipedia.org

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"gaming, mobile","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4666,"date":"2026-06-22","title":"How I got into tech","duration":1140,"summary":"Lennart describes the computers he used, what he ran on them and what he liked about them.","notes":"\n

    \nI started out with Basic on the TI-99/4A in 1984. The bare machine could not be programmed by the user in machine code. In 1985 I bought a ZX Spectrum, that gave me total control over the machine.

    \n\n

    \nI wrote two FORTH systems on the ZX-Spectrum.

    \n\n

    \nIn 1988 I got my first 8088 PC, also programming it in FORTH.

    \n\n

    \nIn 1992 I got an 80386 PC and I ran Linux on it. MCC Interim Release from v. This was the first Linux distro.

    \n\n

    \nI have been using Linux ever since.

    \n\n

    \nFrom then on I obtained newer PCs, such as a Pentium in 1995, a Pentium-2 in 1998, a Pentium-4 in 2003 and a Core-2 Duo in 2006.

    \n\n

    \nI used several Linux distributions: but I always return to Debian.

    \n\n

    Links:

    \n\n\n","hostid":461,"series":29,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"BASIC, FORTH, Linux","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4667,"date":"2026-06-23","title":"UNIX Curio #9 - printf","duration":1239,"summary":"Displaying text without the echo","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nThe \necho\n command is very useful—it prints the arguments given to it, followed by a newline character. (The newline is sometimes also called a linefeed character depending on who is writing or speaking, and has the ASCII decimal value 10.) It has many uses, either in a script or interactively on the command line. The \necho\n utility is used to display text, the value of a variable, or the result of a pathname expansion. It can also feed text to another command in a pipeline.

    \n\n

    \nAs useful as \necho\n is, it should come as no surprise that it \nfirst appeared early on in Bell Laboratories' Second Edition UNIX\n\n\n1\n in 1972. This \ninitial version accepted no options\n\n\n2\n—although the manual page doesn't explicitly say output is followed by a newline character, the description of writing \"as a line\" seems to imply it. In \nSeventh Edition UNIX, the manual page\n\n\n3\n makes that clear, and also features the addition of the \n-n\n option, which causes \necho\n to print the arguments \nwithout\n a trailing newline character. \nEighth Edition UNIX's \n\n\n\n\necho\n\n\n\n\n4\n gained the \n-e\n option, which allows certain escape codes from the C programming language to be used.

    \n\n

    \nThese variations caused differences in behavior between different versions of \necho\n. Will running \necho -n something\n on your system output the text \"something\" without a newline, or \"-n something\" followed by a newline? Things get even trickier when the command arguments include parameter or pathname expansions. If there are files named \"-n\" and \"something\" in the current directory, what does \necho *\n output? Like the previous question, that depends on whether or not your version of \necho\n treats \n-n\n as an option. You can't get around this ambiguity by quoting or escaping the \"*\", because that just causes \necho\n to print a literal asterisk.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nExample using GNU utilities on Debian 12; both the \"echo\" utility and the \"echo\" builtin of bash recognize \"-n\" as an option.\n\n

    \n\n
    \n$ ls -1\n-n\nsomething\n$ echo *\nsomething$ #Shell prompt is on the same line because \"-n\" was treated as an option to echo\n$ echo \"*\"\n*\n
    \n\n

    \nThe solution was to create a new utility, which is the first UNIX Curio for today: \nprintf\n. This command allows a user to print text similar to the way the identically-named function works in the C programming language. You \nrun \n\n\n\n\nprintf\n\n\n\n\n5\n followed by a format string, followed by zero or more arguments. No newline characters are printed unless specifically indicated by the format string or the arguments.

    \n\n

    \nTo use \nprintf\n to print \"something\" without a newline, that would just be \nprintf something\n. This demonstrates that you don't need any arguments—in this example, the format string is just a set of regular characters to be displayed. If you wanted a newline character at the end, \nprintf \"something\\n\"\n would give you that. (In this case, the format string needs to be quoted so the \"\\n\" isn't interpreted by the shell.) In addition to \"\\n\" for a newline, you can also use \"\\a\" for an alert (rings the terminal bell), \"\\b\" for a backspace, \"\\f\" for a formfeed, \"\\r\" for a carriage return, \"\\t\" for a horizontal tab, \"\\v\" for a vertical tab, and \"\\\\\" to get a literal backslash. In addition to these special characters, any arbitrary byte can be included using a backslash followed by one to three octal digits; however, it might be difficult to predict what will be output because it can differ based on the character set the terminal is using. It is safer and more portable to stick to the pre-defined characters if possible.

    \n\n

    \nThe \nreal\n magic of the \nprintf\n utility comes from using \"conversion specifications\" in the format string. Probably the simplest of these to explain is the \"%s\" conversion specification—it represents a string of any length. The command \nprintf \"Hi, %s, how are you?\\n\"\n followed by a list of names would print the greeting for each name, putting it in the place occupied by the \"%s\".

    \n\n
    \n$ printf \"Hi, %s, how are you?\\n\" Alice Bob Carol\nHi, Alice, how are you?\nHi, Bob, how are you?\nHi, Carol, how are you?\n
    \n\n

    \nThe format string is reused as many times as needed to consume all of the arguments. Take, for example, the command \nprintf \"Hi, %s, have you met %s?\\n\"\n. If this is run with two name arguments, it would print the sentence on one line, using both names. If run with four name arguments, it would print the sentence twice, once with the first two names and again with the second two names. If you only gave it three names, the last \"%s\" conversion specification would be replaced with a null string.

    \n\n
    \n$ printf \"Hi, %s, have you met %s?\\n\" Alice Bob\nHi, Alice, have you met Bob?\n$ printf \"Hi, %s, have you met %s?\\n\" Alice Bob Carol David\nHi, Alice, have you met Bob?\nHi, Carol, have you met David?\n$ printf \"Hi, %s, have you met %s?\\n\" Alice Bob Carol\nHi, Alice, have you met Bob?\nHi, Carol, have you met ?\n
    \n\n

    \nThree other items can also be given in each conversion specification: flags, the field width, and the precision. The exact meanings of these depend on which type of conversion specifier character you are using. For \"%s\", using a \"-\" as the flag causes the text to be left-justified instead of the default right-justified, a field width causes the printed field to be at least as long as the number given, and a precision limits the number of bytes written from the string to the number given.

    \n\n
    \n$ #Example of %s with a precision value\n$ printf \"Hi, %.3s, how are you?\\n\" Alice Bob Carol\nHi, Ali, how are you?\nHi, Bob, how are you?\nHi, Car, how are you?\n$ #Example of %s with a field width\n$ printf \"Hi, %8s, how are you?\\n\" Alice Bob Carol\nHi,    Alice, how are you?\nHi,      Bob, how are you?\nHi,    Carol, how are you?\n$ #Example of %s with a left-justify flag and a field width\n$ printf \"Hi, %-8s, how are you?\\n\" Alice Bob Carol\nHi, Alice   , how are you?\nHi, Bob     , how are you?\nHi, Carol   , how are you?\n$ #Example of %s with a left-justify flag, a field width, and a precision\n$ printf \"Hi, %-8.3s, how are you?\\n\" Alice Bob Carol\nHi, Ali     , how are you?\nHi, Bob     , how are you?\nHi, Car     , how are you?\n
    \n\n

    \nWhile \"%s\" is probably the most commonly-used conversion specification, others are available. A whole set of them are dedicated to printing integer values as a signed decimal, an unsigned decimal, an unsigned octal, or an unsigned hexadecimal number. These also can take flags, a field width, and a precision. I think the details and nuances of all this are too complex to clearly explain here, so I will just refer you to the \nPOSIX \"file format notation\" specification\n\n\n6\n.

    \n\n

    \nBe aware that unlike the \nprintf\n function in the C programming language, the \nprintf\n utility is \nnot\n obligated to accept conversion specifications for floating-point numbers. While some implementations might support this, scripts intended to be portable should limit themselves to the restricted set required by the POSIX standard (%d, %i, %o, %u, %x, %X, %c, and %s, plus %b and %% described below).

    \n\n

    \nTwo more conversion specifications are worth mentioning. The first is \nonly\n required by the standard for the \nprintf\n utility, not the C function, and is \"%b\". This is the same as \"%s\", except that certain backslash escape sequences in the argument will be treated specially. This includes all the ones described above \nexcept\n for the one using octal digits to represent a byte. In an argument, this is instead represented by \"\\0\" followed by one to three octal digits. An additional backslash escape sequence accepted is \"\\c\"—this does not print anything itself, but causes \nprintf\n to immediately halt output.

    \n\n

    \nThe final conversion specification is \"%%\", which just outputs a literal \"%\". You can't use a bare \"%\" in the format string, because \nprintf\n expects that to introduce a conversion specification. Be careful not to be tripped up by this when trying to print some value as a percentage.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nExample assuming that the hypothetical \"/dev/batterycharge\" file on your laptop outputs the battery charge level (42% in this case). As you can see, in some cases an error message might be displayed, but in others it might just behave in a way you didn't intend without complaining. GNU's \"printf\" utility and the \"printf\" builtin of bash both support \"%e\" as a conversion specification as an extension to POSIX.\n\n

    \n\n
    \n$ cat /dev/batterycharge\n42\n$ #Wrong\n$ printf \"Your laptop's charge level is $(cat /dev/batterycharge)%.\\n\"\nbash: printf: `\\': invalid format character\nYour laptop's charge level is 42$ #Shell prompt appears here from the error\n$ #Right\n$ printf \"Your laptop's charge level is $(cat /dev/batterycharge)%%.\\n\"\nYour laptop's charge level is 42%.\n$ #Next one treats %e as the specifier, with the space and \"l\" as flags\n$ printf \"Your laptop has $(cat /dev/batterycharge)% level of charge.\\n\"\nYour laptop has 42 0.000000e+00vel of charge.\n$ #Because no arguments were given, \"0\" was used for the value to convert\n
    \n\n

    \nLet's go back to the situation I was describing with \necho\n—we have files named \"-n\" and \"something\" in the current directory and want to print all their names, separated by spaces. We could do that with \nprintf \"%s \" *\n, which would not treat the \"-n\" as an option. However, the output might look a little weird because there wouldn't be a newline character at the end. We could insert a newline by using \"%b\" instead of \"%s\" and following the asterisk with a \"\\n\\c\" as the second argument. The \"\\c\" is there to prevent the final space in the format string from being printed after the newline.

    \n\n
    \n$ ls -1\n-n\nsomething\n$ printf \"%s \" *\n-n something $ #No newline was printed here\n$ printf \"%b \" * \"\\n\"\n-n something\n $ #There's a newline, but also a spurious space before the shell prompt\n$ printf \"%b \" * \"\\n\\c\"\n-n something\n$ #No space before the shell prompt this time\n
    \n\n

    \nUsing the \"%b\" conversion specification can therefore solve one problem, but it also introduces another. Arguments which include a backslash can be interpreted as escape sequences, and many systems are fine with allowing backslashes in filenames. In cases where you're just using the \nprintf\n utility to \ndisplay\n text, it's usually not a big deal if the output looks a little wonky. Where you really need to be careful is when the text is being piped to another program, as control characters and other oddities might cause unexpected results, and can potentially create security problems if processed by a script or utility running as a privileged user.

    \n\n
    \n$ #GNU \"ls\" displays filenames containing a backslash in single quotes\n$ ls -1\napple\nbanana\n'\\cherry'\ndurian\n$ printf \"%b \" * \"\\n\\c\"\napple banana $ #\"\\c\" in \"\\cherry\" stops output immediately\n
    \n\n

    \nThe \nprintf\n utility \nlooks to have shown up first in 1986's Ninth Edition UNIX\n\n\n7\n, though the \nearliest manual page I could find\n\n\n8\n is from the Tenth Edition. Its first appearance in BSD \nseems to be from 1990 in the 4.3 Reno release\n\n\n9\n. Two years later, it was added to Issue 4 of The Open Group's CAE Specification. From what I can tell, it did not seem to be in AT&T's System III—presumably the \nprintf\n utility did make it into System V at some point but I found it difficult to track this down.

    \n\n

    \nWhile \necho\n is still suitable for use where you know for certain that you want a newline character printed at the end and none of the arguments will start with a hyphen, consider using the \nprintf\n utility instead for displaying text. It offers more flexibility and features than you are guaranteed to get with \necho\n, although it does require a bit of forethought in constructing a proper format string and arguments. That is not necessarily a bad thing, because a script's author \nshould\n be thinking about what might happen if it is called with \"strange\" text or filenames.

    \n\n

    \nThis episode also provides a good case for being careful when naming files—many filesystems will allow you to use hyphens, control characters, quotation marks, and potentially any character other than a slash or a null byte in a filename. As we've seen, some of these characters can create problems for standard utilities. While it can feel limiting, especially for people not using English, the safest filenames to use on a UNIX-like system consist only of characters in the \n\"portable filename character set\" as defined by POSIX\n\n\n10\n and where the first character is \nnot\n a hyphen. This set includes the lowercase and uppercase letters \"a\" through \"z\", the numerals \"0\" through \"9\", and the period, underscore, and hyphen. Notably, it does \nnot\n include the space character.

    \n\n

    \nThat leads me to another UNIX Curio that I only just now discovered while researching this episode. This is \nthe \n\n\n\n\npathchk\n\n\n\n\n utility\n\n\n11\n. It can be run with one or more strings as arguments, checks each one against a set of rules for pathnames, and outputs an error message for each problem found. By default, it checks against the following limits on the system where it's being run: maximum number of bytes in the full path, maximum number of bytes in any component of the path, all byte sequences must be valid in the given directory, and the user running the program must have access to all directories referenced. If run with the \n-p\n option, instead of those limits, it checks against POSIX limits: a maximum of 256 bytes in the full path, a maximum of 14 bytes in each component of the path, and each component must only include characters from the portable set. The \n-P\n option adds warnings if any component starts with a \"-\" or if the pathname is completely empty. While the exit status will tell you if the checks succeeded or not, I don't feel like the \npathchk\n utility is well suited to be used in an automated fashion, as the exact wording of its output is not specified and checks cannot be selected individually. However, it can be used interactively to validate pathnames you aren't sure about. See the linked specification for full details.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nA Research UNIX Reader: Combined Tables of Contents\n https://archive.org/details/a_research_unix_reader/page/n99/mode/1up
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nA Research UNIX Reader: Second Edition UNIX echo manual page\n (although this page has \"v1\" typed at the top, the date and the tables of contents indicate it first appeared in v2, a.k.a. Second Edition) https://archive.org/details/a_research_unix_reader/page/n22/mode/1up
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nSeventh Edition UNIX echo manual page\n https://man.cat-v.org/unix_7th/1/echo
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nEighth Edition UNIX echo manual page\n https://man.cat-v.org/unix_8th/1/echo
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nPrintf specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/printf.html
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\nFile Format Notation specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap05.html
      7. \n\n
    7. \n\n\nA Research UNIX Reader: Ninth Edition Table of Contents\n https://archive.org/details/a_research_unix_reader/page/n95/mode/1up
      8. \n\n
    8. \n\n\nTenth Edition UNIX echo/printf manual page\n https://man.cat-v.org/unix_10th/1/echo
      9. \n\n
    9. \n\n\n4.3BSD Reno printf manual page\n https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=printf&sektion=1&manpath=4.3BSD+Reno
      10. \n\n
    10. \n\n\nDefinitions: Portable Filename Character Set\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap03.html#tag_03_282
      11. \n\n
    11. \n\n\nPathchk specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/pathchk.html
      12. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,echo,printf","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4668,"date":"2026-06-24","title":"Nuclear Power Technology Follow Up on Safety","duration":2166,"summary":"Response to a question posed by a listener on the comparative safety of different energy sources","notes":"\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is the second follow up to my 8 part series on nuclear power. In this episode I will attempt to answer a question posed by brian in ohio in a comment on HPR4583. In that comment he said:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLoving this series. Maybe Whiskey Jack could give some cost comparisons between large and small reactors. He could also give us a realistic look at nuclear plant safety/accidents compared to conventional power production. Looking forward to the episode on FORTH generation reactors ;-)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nEnd of quote.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe first question I answered in my previous follow up, which was HPR4628. In this episode I will attempt to answer the second question, which was about the safety of nuclear power compared to other sources of electrical power generation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOne of the HPR janitors encouraged me to make this episode, so I think we can thank him for getting another HPR episode made.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04 Defining the Scope

    \n\n

    \nFirst, let's define the scope of the question.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis will cover electrical power generation only.

    \n\n

    \nWithin that scope I will consider only the following sources of energy.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nCoal

    \n\n

    \nOil

    \n\n

    \nNatural Gas

    \n\n

    \nHydroelectric

    \n\n

    \nNuclear

    \n\n

    \nWind

    \n\n

    \nSolar

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI won't cover geothermal, wave, or tidal power as these are only used in very small amounts and so there simply isn't enough literature on them to base a discussion on .

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06 Foreshadow Conclusion

    \n\n

    \nI should mention right away that I cannot provide absolute answers to this question in the form of a nice, neat ranking table based on numbers from peer reviewed scientific sources.

    \n\n

    \nThe reasons for this will become apparent, but to put it briefly, the data on which to base such a ranking simply doesn't exist.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will however provide context within which people can think about the issue.

    \n\n

    \nWherever possible, I will provide links to the references that I used in the show notes so you can read further on this yourself.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07 Energy Catastrophism versus Energy Uniformitarianism

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFirst though I need to go off on a slight geological detour in order to explain an important analogy that I will use.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nIn the 19th century there was a great debate among geologists over what is known as catastrophism versus uniformitarianism.

    \n\n

    \nIn seeking to explain the origins of the earth and of the landscape that we see around us, there were two points of view.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09

    \n\n

    \nOne was \"catastrophism\".

    \n\n

    \nThis is the belief that the mountains, valleys, and plains that we see around us were formed as a result of great catastrophes which occurred relatively recently in earth's history.

    \n\n

    \nThis explanation was necessary in order to fit geological features into an earth that was believed to be only a few thousands of years old.

    \n\n

    \nThis view was heavily influenced by religious belief.

    \n\n

    \nIn this view Noah's flood was the great catastrophe and the fossils of dinosaurs were the remains of animals who had not been saved on the ark and so had died in the flood.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nThe other point of view was uniformitarianism.

    \n\n

    \nThis was the hypothesis that the landscape we see around us can be explained by the very slow accumulation of very small changes over very long periods of time.

    \n\n

    \nFor this to be true however, the earth had to be far older than the few thousand years that a literal reading of the bible would suggest.

    \n\n

    \nThe earth in fact had to be many, many, millions of years old.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nEventually, the uniformitarian view won out and people understood that while some catastrophes can take place, the shape of the landscape is overwhelmingly due to small changes over very long periods of time.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12 How is this Relevant to this Episode You Ask?

    \n\n

    \nHow this is relevant is that I will use this analogy to explain how we need to think about energy and safety.

    \n\n

    \nVery small numbers of deaths and injuries multiplied over many occurrences can add up to big numbers, comparable in scale or possibly even larger than a single catastrophe or even several of them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nI don't know if anyone else has used this analogy before, I have just thought of this when writing the script for this podcast.

    \n\n

    \nNone the less, I think it is a very useful way of helping to understand the issues.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nAs an example of this, think about the well known case of the safety of flying versus the safety of travelling in your car.

    \n\n

    \nAir crashes are catastrophes that make the headlines.

    \n\n

    \nAutomobile crashes are seldom more than local news at best.

    \n\n

    \nYou have probably heard many times the claim that if you making a trip somewhere, you are safer to fly than to drive yourself in your car.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15 Example - Hydro versus Solar

    \n\n

    \nI will now present an example of this.

    \n\n

    \nHydro electric power has some notable large scale catastrophes associated with it.

    \n\n

    \nRoof top solar power does not have any notable catastrophes that I am aware of.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, which is safer?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16 Hydro Catastrophes

    \n\n

    \nHere are three examples of hydro electric catastrophes in just one country, Italy.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Vajont Dam which collapsed in1963

    \n\n

    \nAn estimated 1,917 to 2,500 people died.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Sella Zerbino dam which collapsed in 1935.

    \n\n

    \nMore than 100 people died.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Gleno Dam which collapsed in 1923.

    \n\n

    \nAn estimated 350 people died.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://damfailures.org/

    \n\n

    \nhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4997708/

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nI haven't tried to compile a global list of the worst hydro electric dam collapses, as this sort of information is actually very difficult to find, even on web sites dedicated to dam failures.

    \n\n

    \nAn additional problem is that information on whether a dam was used for electric power generation or not is often not available.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nDam failures where contradictory or insufficient information is available on whether there was an associated hydro power plant include the 1975 Banqian Dam failure, where death estimates range up to a quarter of a million.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19 Solar Panel Slow Accumulation

    \n\n

    \nContrast this with roof top solar panels.

    \n\n

    \nMany small accidents can add up to big numbers as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20

    \n\n

    \nHealth and safety literature discussing solar panel safety mention things such as

    \n\n

    \nFalls from roofs.

    \n\n

    \nElectric shock.

    \n\n

    \nArc flash (burns from electrical arcing).

    \n\n

    \nNormal electrical safety procedures which are based around locking out sources of energy do not work with solar panels which makes safety more difficult.

    \n\n

    \nHeat stress due to working exposed in the hot sun.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWarning from US government on falls by solar panel installers.

    \n\n

    \nhttps://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/228946

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.osha.gov/green-jobs/solar

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21 Why We Cannot Compare the Two

    \n\n

    \nHydro catastrophes are not well documented, but we can at least find records of some of the most notable ones.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, even those have very large variations in estimates of deaths.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nRoof top solar deaths however are largely undocumented.

    \n\n

    \nThe industry is largely unregulated.

    \n\n

    \nThere is no central authority which accumulates many individual deaths or injuries.

    \n\n

    \nAt best there are worker and public safety bodies who simply accumulate those statistics into general construction or household injuries.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nThus we have no reliable means of comparing the two energy sources on a comparable basis.

    \n\n

    \nWe face the same problem with all other major electrical energy sources.

    \n\n

    \nSo far as I am aware, there are no peer reviewed scientific studies which compare the relative safety of all of the major electrical energy sources we are considering here based on actual numbers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24 Safety Risks

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will now try to list some the major hazards for each of energy sources we are considering.

    \n\n

    \nThere is however limited data available.

    \n\n

    \nIn many cases we just have reference to worker safety organizations as to what the hazards are.

    \n\n

    \nI will not attempt here to put numbers to these here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCategories

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25 Coal, Oil, Natural Gas

    \n\n

    \nThe hazards are

    \n\n

    \nAir pollution

    \n\n

    \nMining and oil field accidents

    \n\n

    \nPipeline explosions

    \n\n

    \nTransportation accidents. These- move a lot of material so these are significant.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26 Hydroelectric

    \n\n

    \nThese include

    \n\n

    \nDam collapse

    \n\n

    \nDrowning

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27 Nuclear

    \n\n

    \nThese include

    \n\n

    \nRadiation exposure

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28 Wind

    \n\n

    \nThese include

    \n\n

    \nFalls

    \n\n

    \nConfined space deaths (there is not much detail on this)

    \n\n

    \nElectric shock

    \n\n

    \nIce throws (that is, throwing pieces of ice off the blades)

    \n\n

    \nThis technology has a significant problem with people working alone which greatly increases risks associated with other dangers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29 Solar

    \n\n

    \nThese include

    \n\n

    \nFalls

    \n\n

    \nElectric shock

    \n\n

    \nArc flash

    \n\n

    \nHeat stress

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nI have not tried to cover all possible risks associated with each category, just the ones which each industry considers to be the risks they concern themselves with.

    \n\n

    \nThere does not exist any means by which risks of similar types are compared across different industries.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31 Reliability of Supply is Also Safety

    \n\n

    \nIn a completely electrified net zero society, reliability of supply is a safety matter.

    \n\n

    \nPeople will die in very large numbers in cold climates if they do not have heat.

    \n\n

    \nIf we have no fossil fuels, we need to also consider how reliably does a grid based on any of the options work.

    \n\n

    \nI have not seen anyone attempt to address this question and will not attempt to address it here.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it must be addressed in any comprehensive attempt to rank safety.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 Studies or Articles on Estimates of Relative Safety

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDespite the difficulties of comparing the safety of different sources of energy, some people have attempted this anyway.

    \n\n

    \nDifferent estimates done at different times had different focuses, so unfortunately we do not have a nice set of studies that we can neatly use to cross check one another.

    \n\n

    \nI will however list the names and the authors and summarize the results.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33 The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear

    \n\n

    \nBy Dr. Petr Beckman

    \n\n

    \nPublished in 1976

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe author of this book tried to address the relative safety of different sources of energy in the mid 1970s.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it is old at this point, so I won't bother digging through its pages to find his figures.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nHe mainly focused on comparing electric power generated with coal to nuclear.

    \n\n

    \nHis conclusion was that if the goal was to prevent deaths or ill health in the process of generating electricity, then the logical conclusion was to replace coal fired power plants with nuclear.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nThe book was relatively well known at the time, as least as far as books on energy are concerned, so I thought it was still worth mentioning.

    \n\n

    \nI happen to have a copy of this book which I bought back in that time period

    \n\n

    \nIt was the 8th printing of the book, so it would appear to have had relatively good sales.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nThe author did address the issue of what I have termed \"catastrophism\" in his comparison of different energy sources, although I don't know if he used this phrase.

    \n\n

    \nI don't know if he was the first to use this sort of analysis, but he certainly was very influential in terms of popularizing it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37 Risk of Energy Production

    \n\n

    \nby Herbert Inhaber

    \n\n

    \nPublication AECB 1119

    \n\n

    \nMarch 1978

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis study is a scientific paper from the same time period as the book \"The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \nHe based his risk estimates largely on estimates of the amount of material which was used in the construction and operation of various power sources.

    \n\n

    \nWhile we could argue over whether or not this is a valid methodology, I think any such argument would be pointless as I think the age of the study alone renders it not relevant today anyway.

    \n\n

    \nAdvancements in materials have changed the basis results significantly by now.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, as it exists I thought I would mention it to show that the idea of comparing energy sources to each other is not a new one.

    \n\n

    \nThe author compared a wider variety of potential sources than Beckman did.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nHere's his conclusions.

    \n\n

    \nHe assumes equal amounts of energy produced by each method.

    \n\n

    \nThe numbers are normalized such that the total sums to 100%.

    \n\n

    \nYou can think of it in terms of what proportion of total deaths or injuries would result from each source if each were equally used.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nCoal 27.5%

    \n\n

    \nOil 25.6%

    \n\n

    \nMethanol 16.7%

    \n\n

    \nWind 10.8%

    \n\n

    \nSolar photovoltaic 9.2%

    \n\n

    \nThermal 8.1%

    \n\n

    \nSolar space heating 1.5%

    \n\n

    \nOcean thermal 0.4%

    \n\n

    \nNuclear 0.13%

    \n\n

    \nNatural Gas 0.08%

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41

    \n\n

    \nHis natural gas estimate is drastically different from that of other authors.

    \n\n

    \nI am not going to worry about explaining it however, as the study is as I said old enough to be not very relevant anyway.

    \n\n

    \nI am mainly including this here out of historical interest.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42

    \n\n

    \nAs a footnote, the methanol he refers to would be synthesized from wood. This was a popular idea in that era as a means of providing liquid fuels for transportation. Practical battery electric cars in those days were strictly science fiction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nThe ocean thermal category is a real blast from the past and I had forgotten all about that concept.

    \n\n

    \nIt was a very popular idea at that time and was supposed to be *the* big and upcoming thing in renewable energy.

    \n\n

    \nIt involved various means of attempting to extract energy from differences in water temperature at different depths in the ocean.

    \n\n

    \nIt gradually faded away however, as despite great efforts being put into it, designs never proved to be practical.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44 Electricity generation and health

    \n\n

    \nAnil Markandya, Paul Wilkinson

    \n\n

    \nPublished in the Lancet, Vol 370, 15 September 2007

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45

    \n\n

    \nThis is more recent than the previous one, although it is nearly 20 years old at this point.

    \n\n

    \nUnfortunately it doesn't cover wind or solar, just fossil fuels and nuclear.

    \n\n

    \nHowever it is still useful, and the Lancet is a very reputable peer reviewed journal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nI will present just the results rather than discussing the whole paper.

    \n\n

    \nThe authors break it down into deaths among the public, occupational deaths, and air pollution related deaths, serious illness, and minor illness.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nThey break the energy sources down into lignite, coal, gas, oil, biomass, and nuclear.

    \n\n

    \nLignite is a type of very low grade coal used mainly for electric power generation.

    \n\n

    \nIn this paper biomass refers to energy crops and forest residues.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48

    \n\n

    \nI will summarize the results by category rather than trying to describe a table that has 6 rows and 5 columns.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAll numbers are normalized in terms of deaths or cases per TWh.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nOccupational deaths from accidents

    \n\n

    \nlignite 0.1

    \n\n

    \ncoal 0.1

    \n\n

    \ngas 0.001

    \n\n

    \n oil no data

    \n\n

    \nbiomass - no data

    \n\n

    \nNuclear is 0.019.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50

    \n\n

    \nDeaths among the public from accidents

    \n\n

    \nlignite 0.02

    \n\n

    \ncoal 0.02

    \n\n

    \ngas 0.02

    \n\n

    \n oil 0.03

    \n\n

    \nbiomass no data

    \n\n

    \nNuclear 0.003

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51

    \n\n

    \nAir pollution deaths

    \n\n

    \nlignite 32.6

    \n\n

    \ncoal 24.5

    \n\n

    \ngas 2.8

    \n\n

    \n oil 18.4

    \n\n

    \nbiomass 4.63

    \n\n

    \nNuclear 0.052

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52

    \n\n

    \nAir pollution serious illnesses

    \n\n

    \nlignite 298

    \n\n

    \ncoal 225

    \n\n

    \ngas 30

    \n\n

    \n oil 161

    \n\n

    \nbiomass 43

    \n\n

    \nNuclear 0.22

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nAir pollution minor illnesses

    \n\n

    \nlignite 17,676

    \n\n

    \ncoal 13,288

    \n\n

    \ngas 703

    \n\n

    \n oil 9,551

    \n\n

    \nbiomass 2,276

    \n\n

    \nNuclear no data

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nNatural gas edges out nuclear power slightly in terms of occupational safety, but in every other category nuclear is drastically lower in terms of ill effects than any of the alternatives.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55 2020 Fatalities for US Roofers Increased 15% as Solar Roof Installations Increase

    \n\n

    \nPublished in The Next Big Future

    \n\n

    \nJuly 6, 2021 by Brian Wang

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56

    \n\n

    \nThis seems to be written by someone who has a popular science blog.

    \n\n

    \nI'm not familiar with it personally, but he addresses the subject so I'll list it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe title implies that it's all about rooftop solar, but he provides comparative numbers for the other energy sources of interest, so that is useful for our purposes.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, he doesn't describe his methodology, so we need to treat them with some caution.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere are his results

    \n\n

    \nThese are deaths per thousand terawatt hours.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57

    \n\n

    \nCoal - 100,000

    \n\n

    \nOil - 36,000

    \n\n

    \nNatural gas - 4,000

    \n\n

    \nHydro - 1,400

    \n\n

    \nRooftop solar - 440

    \n\n

    \nWind - 150

    \n\n

    \nNuclear - 90

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nIf we plot these numbers on a bar chart, coal and oil are so large that all of the others are squished to the bottom of the chart and are difficult to see at all.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLet's therefore look at these in terms of orders of magnitude.

    \n\n

    \nKeep in mind that this is a logarithmic scale.

    \n\n

    \nThis means that the difference between 4 and 5 is much greater in linear terms than the difference between 1 and 2.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nCoal - 5

    \n\n

    \nOil - 4

    \n\n

    \nNatural gas - 3

    \n\n

    \nHydro - 3

    \n\n

    \nRooftop solar - 2

    \n\n

    \nWind - 2

    \n\n

    \nNuclear - 1

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60

    \n\n

    \nEach of these numbers represents an order of magnitude, that is a power of ten.

    \n\n

    \nWe can see that with rooftop solar, wind, and nuclear, the numbers are so close and the uncertainties are so great and their relative values so small compared to say coal that they can be seen as equivalent so far as safety is concerned.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61 What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?

    \n\n

    \nby Hannah Ritchie

    \n\n

    \nPublished in Our World in Data

    \n\n

    \nFirst published in 2017, updated in 2022 and 2024

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62

    \n\n

    \nThe author of this study addressed both deaths and greenhouse gas emissions.

    \n\n

    \nDeaths from accidents and air pollution are normalized to per TWh of electricity, while greenhouse gas emissions are normalized to GWh of electricity over the life cycle of the plant.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63

    \n\n

    \nHere are the death figures.

    \n\n

    \nCoal 24.6

    \n\n

    \nOil 18.4

    \n\n

    \nBiomass 4.6

    \n\n

    \nNatural Gas 2.8

    \n\n

    \nHydro power 1.3

    \n\n

    \nWind 0.04

    \n\n

    \nNuclear 0.03

    \n\n

    \nSolar 0.02

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64

    \n\n

    \nFor greenhouse gas emissions the figures are

    \n\n

    \nCoal 970 tons

    \n\n

    \nOil 720 tons

    \n\n

    \nNatural gas 440 tons

    \n\n

    \nBiomass 78 to 230 tons

    \n\n

    \nSolar 53 tons

    \n\n

    \nHydro power 24 tons

    \n\n

    \nWind 11 tons

    \n\n

    \nNuclear 6 tons

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65

    \n\n

    \nIf we take the death figures and rank them by order of magnitude as we did with the previous article, we get the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \nCoal - 4

    \n\n

    \nOil - 4

    \n\n

    \nBiomass - 3

    \n\n

    \nNatural Gas - 3

    \n\n

    \nHydro power - 3

    \n\n

    \nWind - 1

    \n\n

    \nNuclear - 1

    \n\n

    \nSolar - 1

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67

    \n\n

    \nKeep in mind that the previous article covered only rooftop solar and not large industrial installations, and so is not directly comparable.

    \n\n

    \nAlso the units are different, with the previous article being in terms of thousand TWh, and this one being in TWh.

    \n\n

    \nIf we exclude solar (as the numbers are not comparable), Brian Wang's numbers are between 1.5 to 4 times higher than Ritchie's, except for hydro which are almost identical. I think this latter is due to both sets of numbers are dominated by one exceptionally big hydro accident.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68

    \n\n

    \nOverall however, the relative rankings are quite comparable.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRitchie's numbers for deaths from coal, oil, and natural gas appear to be directly from the study by Markandya and Wilkinson mentioned above.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor the benefit of those who are wondering, Ritchie specifically states that her numbers for nuclear include the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.iaea.org/publications/magazines/bulletin/21-1/solar-power-more-dangerous-nuclear

    \n\n

    \nDirect link to file

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull21-1/21104091117.pdf

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7/abstract

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/07/2020-fatalities-for-us-roofers-increased-15-as-solar-roof-installations-increase.html

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69 Conclusion from Studies

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRemember that in engineering terms, when comparing groups of numbers which contain both both very small numbers and one or more very large numbers, the differences between the small numbers are often not significant.

    \n\n

    \nThe differences between the small numbers may be the product of our ability to measure these things rather than any real differences.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nFor example, in the article by Ritchie wind power would appear to be twice as dangerous as nuclear.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the difference between them is 0.02 compared to 24.6 for coal.

    \n\n

    \nIn other words, the difference between apparently \"dangerous\" wind and apparently \"safe\" nuclear is equivalent to 0.08% of the total for coal.

    \n\n

    \nIt's therefore meaningless and a red herring to even worry about.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71

    \n\n

    \nWith the above taken into consideration, generally the different sources of energy fall into two broad categories in terms of number of deaths, injuries, and illnesses.

    \n\n

    \nThe fossil fuels and biomass fall into one group and wind, solar, and nuclear into another group.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72

    \n\n

    \nHydro power would seem to fall into the higher risk category or at least somewhere between the two, but this I suspect is mainly due to one exceptionally large dam collapse in China, the Banqian Dam failure in 1975.

    \n\n

    \nThis is mentioned as being specifically included in the article written by Ritchie.

    \n\n

    \nThis was a multi-purpose dam, and information on this dam is difficult to find.

    \n\n

    \nIt is not clear to me whether it had a hydro electric generator associated with either it or another dam that was part of the same system.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73

    \n\n

    \nSome people therefor may argue for its exclusion from the numbers.

    \n\n

    \nOf course some people may argue for its inclusion anyway, as it was a dam regardless of whether it actually had an electric generator attached.

    \n\n

    \nIf we exclude it, then I think the numbers for hydro power would fall into the same range as for nuclear, wind, and solar.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74

    \n\n

    \nMost people would consider hydro power to be safe and clean enough regardless of this and I will rank it as such in any conclusions that I come to.

    \n\n

    \nAs you can see, even if we have numbers, it can be a matter of opinion as to how to interpret them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75 Taking a Systems Approach

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNow let's take a look at the broader energy picture today and into the future.

    \n\n

    \nMany countries in many parts of the world have committed to the concept of \"Net Zero\", which means eliminating carbon emissions on a net basis.

    \n\n

    \nNet zero essentially means the complete electrification of society.

    \n\n

    \nWe must therefore have electrical energy on demand and at low cost.

    \n\n

    \nWe must as a result of this look at complete electrical systems rather than individual sources in isolation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n76

    \n\n

    \nAt one time many electrical systems were entirely coal or entirely hydroelectric.

    \n\n

    \nThis is no longer the case.

    \n\n

    \nThere are now major amounts of wind and solar involved in many countries.

    \n\n

    \nHowever these are inherently intermittent.

    \n\n

    \nThis means that other sources of energy are inherently also required to have a functional system.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n77

    \n\n

    \nIf any particular solution inherently requires fossil fuels to meet part of the demand, then the safety, pollution, and climate issues relating to those fossil fuels have to be factored in to that complete system when trying to come up with a relative ranking.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTalking about Individual sources in isolation are therefore meaningless in these countries.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n78

    \n\n

    \nThere are battery systems, but these are mainly used to stabilize and regulate the grid plus to a lesser degree to smooth out short term daily peaks in demand.

    \n\n

    \nThey do not have the ability to store large amounts of electricity on a large scale for an entire grid for days, weeks, and months to make up for intermittency.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n79

    \n\n

    \nSo a serious attempt to rank sources of energy would need to look at a variety of representative countries and for each one come up with a plan that involves 'x' megawatts from source 'a', 'y' megawatts from source 'b', etc., and total up the values for each.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n80

    \n\n

    \nI am not aware of anyone who has studied this larger issue.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the problem has to be addressed from this perspective in order for any answer to be useful.

    \n\n

    \nNot taking this into account is like ordering a diet soft drink to go with with a high calorie meal and assuring yourself that your plans to diet are fine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n81

    \n\n

    \nThis is not to imply there is anything inherently wrong with wind or solar.

    \n\n

    \nIt does mean that if your goal is to achieve both net zero and a clean environment, you have to look at your entire energy system as a complete system rather than focusing on what you feel are the most reassuring parts of it while ignoring the rest.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis does however add to the argument that it is in fact inherently very difficult to come up with a system of ranking energy sources for safety.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n82 Nuclear, Climate, and Clean Air - Contrasting Examples

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo give a tangible example we will now look at two different places that followed two divergent paths at roughly around the same time frame.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese are the province of Ontario in Canada, and Germany.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n83

    \n\n

    \nOntario had a mix of coal, hydro electric, and nuclear generating plants.

    \n\n

    \nGermany had a mix of coal, nuclear and natural gas plants.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOntario shut down their coal fired plants and kept their nuclear plants.

    \n\n

    \nGermany however shut down their nuclear plants and kept their coal fired plants.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n84 The Phase Out of Coal in Ontario

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn 2003 Ontario decided to close all of its coal fired generating plants, which consisted of 19 units (that is boilers and turbines) totalling 8,800 MW.

    \n\n

    \nThis phase out was completed by 2014.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n85

    \n\n

    \nHere are the figures for amount of power generated by each energy source in 2003 and 2014.

    \n\n

    \nNuclear went from 42% to 60%

    \n\n

    \nHydro went from 23% to 24%

    \n\n

    \nGas went from 11% to 9%

    \n\n

    \nCoal went from 25% to 0%

    \n\n

    \nNon-hydro renewable went from 0% to 7%.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n86

    \n\n

    \nAs you can see, the bulk of that replacement came from increased use of nuclear power.

    \n\n

    \nFurthermore, this did not result in simply replacing coal with natural gas.

    \n\n

    \nWhile gas is cleaner than coal, it still has emissions and if you recall from the studies that we looked at earlier, had an estimated death rate roughly 2 orders of magnitude greater than nuclear, solar, or wind.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n87

    \n\n

    \nTo put this in more practical terms, at one time Toronto regularly had clouds of smog obscuring it, to a large extent due to these coal fired power plants

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWith the phase out of coal, smog days went to zero in 2015 compared to 53 a decade earlier.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe 2023 figures for Ontario show carbon emissions of 53 grams per kWh of electricity generated.

    \n\n

    \nWe can use this as a rough benchmark comparison for total emissions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n88 The Phase out of Nuclear in Germany

    \n\n

    \nUntil March of 2011, Germany generated one quarter of its electrical power from nuclear.

    \n\n

    \nStarting in 2011 however, they began shutting down their nuclear power plants.

    \n\n

    \nThese were then phased out over the next decade.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the coal plants were to be kept to 2038.

    \n\n

    \nIn 2026 Germany began talking about increasing use of coal in order to save gas.

    \n\n

    \nIn the same year the German chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that the phase out of nuclear was a

    \n\n

    \nquote “serious strategic mistake”.

    \n\n

    \nEU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was \"a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n89

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into the details of the phase out, but let's look at some emissions numbers for Germany.

    \n\n

    \nIf we look at the official numbers from the European Environmental Agency for 2024, for Germany their emissions were 298 grams per kWh of electricity generated.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRecall that we are using emissions as a very rough guide to amount of air pollution, and that this has a direct effect on the safety of the overall electrical energy system.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n90

    \n\n

    \nSo, who actually made their people safer, Ontario who phased out their coal plants and kept their nuclear plants, or Germany who phased out their nuclear plants and kept their coal plants?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n91

    \n\n

    \nIf you want a comparison directly within Europe, then Germany has one of the highest rates of emissions per kWh of electricity generated, whereas France, who use mainly nuclear power, have one of the lowest at 43 grams per kWh of electricity generated.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAgain, who is making their people safer, Germany or France?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n92

    \n\n

    \nI don't want to make it sound like I am picking on Germany.

    \n\n

    \nI am also not going to tell them how they ought to run their country.

    \n\n

    \nHowever they provide a good real world example of how we need to look at things in overall context when we are thinking about the choices that we make.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/smog-study-shows-significant-decreases-in-pollutants-in-ontario-1.4151183

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/greenhouse-gas-emission-intensity-of-1

    \n\n

    \nhttps://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.politico.eu/article/friedrich-merz-is-right-to-reject-germanys-nuclear-phase-out-says-iea-chief-fatih-birol/

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.politico.eu/article/germany-considers-ramping-up-coal-power-to-avert-energy-crisis/

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.iea.org/countries/estonia/electricity

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.iea.org/countries/malta/electricity

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n93 Conclusions

    \n\n

    \nAs we can see, there don't appear to be an abundance of peer reviewed scientific studies that we can simply point to in order to answer the question of safety of all possible major different energy sources once and for all.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCollecting the data to even attempt to answer the question is inherently very difficult as we cannot readily conduct experiments to answer the question, and sources of data are not collected or consolidated in a manner which can answer this question adequately.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n94

    \n\n

    \nThe essence of the problem is that most energy industries are not as tightly regulated and monitored to the same degree that say nuclear power or commercial airliners are, so this data is simply not being systematically recorded.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, a number of people have attempted to make estimates.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n95

    \n\n

    \nTheir conclusions would seem to be that nuclear, wind, and solar are roughly equivalent in terms of safety.

    \n\n

    \nAll fossil fuels are much less safe than nuclear, wind, and solar, by as much as several orders of magnitude.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n96

    \n\n

    \nWe can however say with a reasonable degree of certainty that if a country shut down their nuclear power plants and kept their fossil fuel plants, particularly coal, then they probably made their people less safe than if they had done things the other way around.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n97

    \n\n

    \nI hope that I have provided some context in which to think about the issue.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThanks again to brian in ohio for providing the question upon which this episode is based.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":" energy, nuclear, engineering.","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4669,"date":"2026-06-25","title":"HPR Beer Garden 14 - Super Strong Lager","duration":1959,"summary":"Dave, Kevie and Paul talk about the infamous range super strong lagers.","notes":"\n

    \nIn the 14th episode of the HPR Beer Garden, Dave and Kevie are joined by regular guest Paul to sample super strong lager. Known in the media as 'Tramp Juice', the guys look at whether this infamous style is worth a try and how it rates as a beer when you look past the stigma. Dave samples \nSkol Super,\nKevie tries \nKestrel Super\nand Paul opts for \nPetra Mocna\nfrom Poland.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nUpcoming beers:\n\n

    \n\n

    \nDouble IPA

    \n\n

    \nBelgian Blonde

    \n\n

    \nDouble Dry Hopped (DDH) IPA

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on \nUntappd\n:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4670,"date":"2026-06-26","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 13","duration":909,"summary":"We continue a sample game of Civilization V","notes":"

    In our sample game we look at playing as Austria and aiming for a Diplomatic Victory. And our focus is on puppeting City-States, but I misunderstood and instead of making a Diplomatic Victory easier, it makes it harder. I still managed to get my Diplomatic Victory, but a Science or Domination Victory would definitely have been easier in this scenario.

    \n\n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 13

    \n\n

    Playing for a Diplomatic Victory, Part 2

    \n\n

    So, how do you solve a Happiness problem? For a full discussion, you can check out this section of the Civilization Wiki. In Civilization V you have these options:

    \n\n
      \n
    • Trade for luxuries – Luxury resources are the best way to get a quick hit of Happiness, and trade is the best way to do this quickly. But to trade you have to have met the other civ, so my drive to explore pays off here. Every luxury resource I can obtain adds +4 Global Happiness to my Empire. Note that only the first unit of the resources adds happiness. So if you have multiple copies of a luxury resource you should keep one and trade the others if you can.
      • \n\n
    • Buildings – Buildings like the Circus (+2), Colosseum (+2), Zoo (+2), and Stadium (+4) provide local happiness in the city that builds them. That still gets added to your total happiness number, but local happiness can never exceed the size of the population. So if you have a city with 5 population, building a Circus and a Colosseum might make sense, but building a Circus and a Stadium would not since 2 of the Happiness would not count. Buildings take longer than Trade deals, so if you need a quick hit start with trading for Luxuries.
      • \n\n
    • Wonders – Chichen Itza (+4), Notre Dame (+10), Taj Mahal (+4), Eiffel Tower (+5), Neuschwanstein (+1 for every Castle you have), Prora (+1, plus +1 for every 2 Social Policies you have adopted), and CN Tower (+1 per city). Wonders are even harder to build, and you may not get them since you are competing with other players. But there is a National Wonder worth getting, the Circus Maximus (+5)
      • \n\n
    • Social Policies – Every policy tree has policies that can add to Happiness or decrease Unhappiness, which is just as good.
      • \n\n
    • Natural Wonders – Each Natural Wonder grants +1 Global Happiness to each empire that has discovered it. So again exploration is key.
      • \n\n
    • Mercantile City States grant +3 Global Happiness to each Empire that is at least Friends with it.
      • \n
    \n\n

    So you have a lot of options here, and they are listed in order of how you should pursue them. Trading for Luxury Resources can be done quickly and provide an immediate boost, so you should be actively trading all along. Buildings and Wonders should definitely be pursued, but here you will probably be balancing demands for other investments as well. Natural Wonders are nice, but you need to explore the whole map to max that out. I was able to trade one of my Whales to Patchacuti for one of his Ivory, which helped push my happiness up. Then with Askia I traded one Spice for one Copper. I also made a small gift to the City-State of Manila to make them my ally. Once 5 turns have elapsed, I can take them over via Diplomatic Marriage. And I have started on Colosseums in several of my cities to push up my Happiness further.

    \n\n

    Meanwhile I continued my exporations, and became the first to discover all of the the other Empires in the game. This makes me the host for the World Council, which is good for one additional vote. I will keep exploring since there are probably some Natural Wonders out there worth finding yet. And indeed on the next turn I found Mount Fuji, pushing my Happiness to 24. Then I Puppeted Manilaa, and over a couple of turns it dropped to 18. But a Colosseum got built, and I found a Natural Wonder,so I am back to 21. I am not the leader in this game, and I think I can afford to Puppet another City-State. For now I am avoiding doing this to Mercantile City-States since they can add to my Happiness. But there’s lots of City-States in this game. I picked Kathmandu for my next target, but also dropped 250 on Ragusa to become Friends with them. You have to look to the future sometimes. I am currently pulling in 144 Gold per turn, so I can afford it.

    \n\n

    At turn 267 my Happiness was up to 30, but as soon as I puppeted Kathmandu it dropped to 22. This is why you need to manage your Happiness carefully. This pushed me another 100 points up on the Leader board, so I am in good shape. But with 22 Happiness, I can probably afford to start on puppeting Ragusa. At turn 272 I have 5766 Gold, and I am earninig 163 Gold per turn. My Happiness is at 27, so I am in good shape. I puppet Ragusa, and my Happiness falls to 18, but my status on the leader board goes up another 100 points, putting me 200 ahead of my nearest competitor. But a few turns later and my Happiness is back up to 24, so I am starting the process to puppet Bucharest. At turn 280 I have 6584 Gold, I am earning 179 per turn, and my Happiness is 26. Then I puppet Bucharest, and my Happiness drops to 16. But I am nearly 300 ahead of my nearest competitor on the leader board, so not bad.

    \n\n

    Also, we are getting near to the first World Council, where I am the host. I have put a proposal on the agenda to enact a World’s Fair. The number 2 player has put a proposal on the ban Whales as a luxury resource, and I have a lot of whale resources. I suspect the World’s Fair will pass without my votes since many other players supported it, so I will put my votes into denying the Whale ban. We’ll see how it goes. I have the most votes, but if everyone else gangs up on me they can get it passed.

    \n\n

    And as I expected, the World’s Fair passed without my votes, and the Whale ban was defeated. I tabled a proposal to enact Arts Funding for the next Council. It looks to be very popular. Right now I starting to snowball. On turn 287 I now have 6476 Gold, and I am earning 231 each turn. I have puppeted 6 City-States, and my Happiness is at 31. I can now start to puppet another. In the World Council I have 4 votes, and every other player has 1. My main strategy right now is to keep on friendly terms with the other players since everything is going well. But I am also starting to build factories to improve my Production capacity, which in turn wil let me update my Military. I picked up a Great Scientist, and used him to construct an Academy to boost my Science output. And every city next to a mountain has gotten an Observatory for added science . And then I constructed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and got one free Great Person of my choice, and I chose a Great Scientist and constructed another academy. And I hit a Golden Age good for 10 turns.

    \n\n

    My Golden Age ended, but on the next turn I finished the Taj Mahal which gave me another 10 turn Golden Age, in addition to =4 Global Happiness. And I used some of my big cash balance to upgrade my military units, because in this game the best way to keep the peace is to have a strong military. Then on the next turn I was able to choose an ideology, so I picked Freedom, and for my two policies I chose Universal Healthcare and Capitalism, each of which added Happiness. I have earned a couple of Great Artists, and I plan to use them to create more Golden Ages since accumulating Culture is not part of my strategy. On turn 309 I puppeted Bratislava and started on Wittenberg. And now that I have expxlored the entire map I don’t need my Caravels any longer, so I deleted them. then on turn 314 my closest competitor, Japan, denounced me, and was in turn denounced by Brazil. I have been building up my military, so I am not worried. Basically, Japan has realized I am opening up a bigger lead, and that is why they denounced me. I’d like to win without going to war, but if he attacks me I can handle it. Meanwhile, I am also building up my Science to open up a lead there.

    \n\n

    On the next turn I built the Red Fort, which improves my defensive strength. Brazil approached me to join in a war on Japan, but I declined. I am not seeking a military victory in this game, so I don’t want to be distracted. However I just puppeted two more cities, and looking at the map I now have 3 cities on the border of Japan. So maybe there will be a war in my future. I got another policy to choose, and picked Universal Suffrage, which increases the length of Golden Ages, since I plan a few. And I am starting to build more military units, starting with riflemen which are good for defending cities. If I am given time I will ship them to my puppeted cities near Japan. But if he attackes me before then, they are still worth having.

    \n\n\n

    Links

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, sample game, Diplomatic Victory","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4671,"date":"2026-06-29","title":"Protocal AI","duration":2257,"summary":"De-Centering Google: Local Note-Taking, the RAG vs. Ripgrep Debate, and Building a \"Protocol AI\"","notes":"\n

    \nIn this episode, Operator dives into his ongoing journey to migrate away from centralized cloud ecosystems specifically moving his daily workflow off Google Keep and onto \nObsidian\n hosted locally on a Debian server. Operating purely over a secure VPN to minimize his external attack surface, he discusses the security considerations of managing personal data in local plain-text markdown files.

    \n\n

    \nThe episode features a deep dive into local AI infrastructure, sparked by technologist Daniel Miessler’s recent shift away from \nRAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)\n in favor of a simpler, localized file-system-as-context approach (using fast search tools like ripgrep). Operator shares his own mixed results experimenting with RAG noting great success with massive, structured car repair manuals, but incredibly poor fidelity when indexing conversational podcast transcripts.

    \n\n

    \nTo find the sweet spot, Operator is testing a \ndual approach\n: combining flat-file local search with a PostgreSQL vector database (\npgvector\n). He also rants about the frustrating \"hype cycle\" of online tutorials that claim to teach \"local\" setups but secretly rely on expensive, cloud-hosted frontier models.

    \n\n

    \nFinally, the host introduces his ambitious roadmap for \n\"Protocol AI.\"\n Designed as a localized, read-only dashboard to help manage his ADHD and \"time blindness,\" this system will scrape, aggregate, and summarize his cluttered digital life including multiple Gmail accounts, Yahoo spam, calendars, and a massive array of social media feeds (Signal, Discord, Mastodon, BlueSky). The long-term goal? Transitioning from a read-only local summarizer to a safe, \"human-in-the-loop\" execution assistant that keeps his data out of the hands of mega-corporations.

    \n\n

    \nReferences\n

    \n
    \nObsidian is a proprietary personal knowledge base and note-taking application that operates on Markdown files. The software is free for personal and commercial use; only the offered cloud services, optional commercial licenses, and early access versions are paid. It is available as desktop versions for macOS, Windows and Linux as well as for mobile operating systems such as iOS and Android, but not as a web application. \n
    \n

    \n\nObsidian - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia\n

    \n\n\n
    \nRetrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a technique that enables large language models (LLMs) to retrieve and incorporate new information from external data sources. With RAG, LLMs first refer to a specified set of documents, then respond to user queries. These documents supplement information from the LLM's pre-existing training data. This allows LLMs to use domain-specific and/or updated information that is not available in the training data. For example, this enables LLM-based chatbots to access internal company data or generate responses based on authoritative sources. \n
    \n\n

    RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

    ","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"SelfHosting,,Obsidian,RetrievalAugmentedGeneration,RAG,OpenSource","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4672,"date":"2026-06-30","title":"Hey Mum, I'm on Spotify ! ","duration":2249,"summary":"Ken gives a presenatation about HPR at The Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) ","notes":"\n

    \nThe Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) is a free conference to promote the use and development of Open Source software. This event has is organised yearly since 2006 in the Brainport region, near Eindhoven, The Netherlands. During this event, Open Source projects, developers and visitors can exchange ideas and knowledge.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nKen gave a presentation, you can watch the recording \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmX-Ap7knI&t=10912s\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"T-DOSE,HPR,Presentation","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4673,"date":"2026-07-01","title":"First contact conversation","duration":1804,"summary":"Archer72 talks with Keith (KO4BWJ) about first contact and general practices","notes":"\n

    Hello, this is your host, Archer72 for another episode of Hacker Public radio.

    \n

    In this episode, I make my first contact off a local repeater in a small town in Kentucky.

    \n

    What got me to try my hand at radio? It was when I started to capture ISS (International Space Station) Ham radio transmissions. From Kentucky, I have logged receiving from Texas and Oregon and as far as a brief transmission over Great Britain.

    \n

    My next step was to have a first contact, which I botched at first when I said my call sign, and didn’t leave enough time for someone to respond.

    \n

    I thought that a repeater was the best place to start, so found this one on RepeaterBook.com

    \n

    The repeater was found in RepeaterBook at RepeaterBook : My local Cynthiana, Kentucky repeater

    \n

    Youtube : Harrison County Amateur Radio Club

    \n

    QRZ : Harrison County Amateur Radio Club

    \n

    Facebook : Harrison County Amateur Radio Club

    \n

    The callsign for this repeater is Kilo-Four-Kilo-Juliett-Quebec

    \n

    It is currently On Air (and quite active near club time and the weekend)

    \n

    The base frequency is 147.165 MHz with an offset of plus (+) 600 KHz and a tone to open the repeater, of 67.0 Hz

    \n

    It is hosted by the Bluegrass Amateur Radio Society

    \n

    The RepeaterBook entry was updated on 2025-10-27

    \n\n
    \nK4KJQ\nOn-Air\nOpen\n 147.16500 (+) MHz 67.0\n\nCynthiana • Harrison County • Kentucky\n\nUpdated 2025-10-27\n\n\nTechnical\nDownlink    147.16500\nUplink  147.76500\nOffset  +0.600\nUplink Tone 67.0\nDownlink Tone   67.0\nAntenna (AGL)   125 feet\nSponsor: Bluegrass Amateur Radio Society\nSponsor: BARS \nLocal Time  04:30 (EDT UTC-04:00 DST)\nAmerica/New_York\nReviewed    2025-10-27\n
    \n\n

    Bluegrass Amateur Radio Society

    \n\n

    RepeaterBook Worldwide

    \n\n

    RepeaterBook is a worldwide amateur radio repeater directory

    \n

    So, with after all that being said I programmed a Baofeng BF-F8HP to this frequency manually. You can also use open source Chirp software, but I wanted to know my radio to program it on the fly.

    \n

    This brings me to a recording with permission from Keith (KO4BWJ) who is located outside this little A notable feature of this the town of Cynthiana, Kentucky is the hometown of the artist \nRobert Kirkman for the Television series The Walking Dead, and home to the mural depicting the main characters of the show. This mural had some controversy over the rights to have it depicted, or so I thought. The actual story is story is that some groups did not want a Zombie theme representing their town.

    \n

    Cynthiana, Kentucky: Walking Dead Mural

    \n

    Without further delay, here is the promised recording.

    \n

    …

    \n

    I hope you enjoyed and learned from this little piece of an experience Ham vs a new (to the airwaves) Ham.

    \n

    This has been Archer72 (Kilo-Delta-Niner-Victor-Mike-Whiskey)

    \n

    73

    \n\r","hostid":318,"series":43,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Ham radio, Amateur radio, Repeater, HAM, Baofeng, BF-F8HP, Ham radio club","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4674,"date":"2026-07-02","title":"Audiobooks","duration":616,"summary":"A response to Lee about my own history with audiobooks.","notes":"\n

    \nLee recorded a show 4511 which aired on November 17, 2025. Since I had some observations of my own I decided to record a show in response. I have enjoyed some significant series of audiobooks, both in Science Fiction and in History, as they are both topics I greatly enjoy. And many of these are available online.

    \n\n

    \nLinks

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Audiobooks, history, acting","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4675,"date":"2026-07-03","title":"Yard Inflatables","duration":680,"summary":"modular inflatable systems, emphasizing durability and efficient design for lawn ornaments.","notes":"\n

    \nSUMMARY

    \n\n

    \nPresenter discusses modular inflatable systems and challenges with lawn ornaments.

    \n\n

    \nIDEAS

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Modular inflatable systems for improved durability.
      2. \n\n
    2. \n Use of zip ties and 3D-printed parts for connectivity.
      3. \n\n
    3. \n Challenges with air flow and electrical connections.
      4. \n\n
    4. \n Need for modular lighting systems.
      5. \n\n
    5. \n Repair techniques for inflatable seams.
      6. \n\n
    6. \n Importance of quality materials for longevity.
      7. \n\n
    7. \n Combining air and electrical systems in one tube.
      8. \n\n
    8. \n DIY solutions for extending inflatable life.
      9. \n\n
    9. \n Issues with cheap lawn ornaments and their components.
      10. \n\n
    10. \n Industrial blow fans for large inflatables.
      11. \n\n
    11. \n Protecting wires from weather damage.
      12. \n\n
    12. \n Replacing faulty motors in inflatables.
      13. \n\n
    13. \n Balancing air pressure to prevent leaks.
      14. \n\n
    14. \n Modular design for easy maintenance.
      15. \n\n
    15. \n Cost-effective solutions for outdoor decorations.
      16. \n\n
    16. \n Challenges with outdoor charging boxes.
      17. \n\n
    17. \n Enhancing durability through adhesive treatments.
      18. \n\n
    18. \n Need for seamless integration of components.
      19. \n\n
    19. \n Longevity of inflatables under continuous use.
      20. \n\n
    20. \n Practical approaches to inflatable system design.
      21. \n\n
    \n\n

    \nRECOMMENDATIONS

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Use modular designs for easier repairs.
      2. \n\n
    2. \n Incorporate 3D-printed connectors for durability.
      3. \n\n
    3. \n Protect electrical components from moisture.
      4. \n\n
    4. \n Opt for industrial-grade fans for large inflatables.
      5. \n\n
    5. \n Combine air and electrical systems in one tube.
      6. \n\n
    6. \n Apply adhesive treatments to prevent seam splitting.
      7. \n\n
    7. \n Replace faulty motors with compatible alternatives.
      8. \n\n
    8. \n Balance air pressure to avoid overfilling.
      9. \n\n
    9. \n Use high-quality materials for longer lifespan.
      10. \n\n
    10. \n Implement DIY repair solutions for cost-effectiveness.
      11. \n\n
    11. \n Design seamless connections for improved functionality.
      12. \n\n
    12. \n Prioritize weather-resistant components.
      13. \n\n
    13. \n Create modular lighting systems for flexibility.
      14. \n\n
    14. \n Test inflatables under continuous use conditions.
      15. \n\n
    15. \n Use spray adhesives to extend inflatable life.
      16. \n\n
    16. \n Simplify assembly for user-friendly installation.
      17. \n\n
    17. \n Explore cost-effective materials without compromising quality.
      18. \n\n
    18. \n Address common failure points in inflatable systems.
      19. \n\n
    19. \n Develop standardized repair techniques.
      20. \n\n
    20. \n Focus on integrated design for longevity.
      21. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"DIY, holliday lights,leds, Outdoor Decor, Inflatables","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4676,"date":"2026-07-06","title":"HPR Community News for June 2026","duration":2093,"summary":"HPR Volunteer Ken talks about shows released and comments posted in June 2026","notes":"

    New hosts

    Welcome to our new hosts:

    Last Month's Shows

    Id Day Date Title Host
    4651 Mon 2026-06-01 HPR Community News for May 2026 HPR Volunteers
    4652 Tue 2026-06-02 simon says Brian-in-Ohio
    4653 Wed 2026-06-03 Starting the Habit of Reading Thaj Sara
    4654 Thu 2026-06-04 What's in my component Box? MrX
    4655 Fri 2026-06-05 Tips for Glasses norrist
    4656 Mon 2026-06-08 My review of musicozy sleep/exercise bluetooth headband Swift110
    4657 Tue 2026-06-09 UNIX Curio #8 - Comparing Files Vance
    4658 Wed 2026-06-10 Audio Revisited Whiskeyjack
    4659 Thu 2026-06-11 Command Line Fun - Recording a show Kevie
    4660 Fri 2026-06-12 Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 1 Ahuka
    4661 Mon 2026-06-15 Laptop Computer Woes, or How I Learned to Love My Tech Hoarding Claudio Miranda
    4662 Tue 2026-06-16 “What Are the Answers I Need, To the Questions I Don't Know Enough to Ask?” Antoine
    4663 Wed 2026-06-17 The hallway track at T-DOSE Ken Fallon
    4664 Thu 2026-06-18 No Input Mixing Tutorial and How to Build a Drone Box TheDUDE
    4665 Fri 2026-06-19 Pokémon GO Lee
    4666 Mon 2026-06-22 How I got into tech Lennart Benschop
    4667 Tue 2026-06-23 UNIX Curio #9 - printf Vance
    4668 Wed 2026-06-24 Nuclear Power Technology Follow Up on Safety Whiskeyjack
    4669 Thu 2026-06-25 HPR Beer Garden 14 - Super Strong Lager Kevie
    4670 Fri 2026-06-26 Playing Civilization V, Part 13 Ahuka
    4671 Mon 2026-06-29 Protocal AI operat0r
    4672 Tue 2026-06-30 Hey Mum, I'm on Spotify ! Ken Fallon

    Comments this month

    Past shows

    This month's shows

    Mailing List discussions

    Policy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This discussion takes place on the Mailing List which is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under Mailman.

    The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

    https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2026-June/thread.html

    Events Calendar

    With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to The LWN.net Community Calendar.

    Quoting the site:

    This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track events of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software. Clicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web page.
    ","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4677,"date":"2026-07-07","title":"UNIX Curio #10 - Checksums and Hashes","duration":1101,"summary":"Another way to compare files","notes":"\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nIn UNIX Curio #8 (\nHPR episode 4657\n), I talked about using standard utilities to compare files. Left unmentioned, however, was a method commonly used today—the hash function.

    \n\n

    \nAs I've stated in previous entries, while I am an engineer, I don't have a background in computer science, so my understanding of the mathematics is limited. But I can give a practical description of what a hash function does. It takes an input, performs a set of calculations on it, and produces an output. As hash functions are practically used, the input is a set of bytes, such as a file or another piece of data like a password. The output is a numerical value in a fixed range—most often, expressed as hexadecimal characters. Because this \"hash value\" can always be represented in a certain number of bytes, its length as printed is usually a constant number of characters, padded with leading zeros if necessary. This episode will not cover the use of hashes in programming, focusing instead on using them to validate data.

    \n\n

    \nA hash function, or more specifically, a cryptographic hash function, has an additional property. It should be very difficult to predict what changes to the input would be required to produce a specific change in the output.

    \n\n

    \nAn older, related concept is called a \"checksum\". While these are designed to vary when the input data is damaged or digits are transposed, they do not necessarily have that last property mentioned for cryptographic hashes. You have probably already encountered a checksum, even if you didn't recognize it. On a \n16-digit number assigned to a Mastercard or Visa\n\n\n1\n credit or debit card, the first six digits identify the card issuer (such as a bank), the next nine digits are assigned to you by the issuer, and the last digit is a check digit. The check digit is calculated using the values of the previous 15 digits, and it is a simple way to avoid typos in entering a card number.

    \n\n

    \nIn another example, every \nEthernet frame that your devices send or receive includes a checksum\n\n\n2\n to help ensure that the contents weren't scrambled in transit. This is 32 bits long and is called a cyclical redundancy check, commonly referred to as a CRC. A CRC is also used in many other places—for example, the .zip file format includes one for each archive member, and this allows a program extracting files from the archive to identify if any were damaged.

    \n\n

    \nOur UNIX Curio for today is another example, \nthe \n\n\n\n\ncksum\n\n\n\n\n utility\n\n\n3\n. It generates a 32-bit CRC based on the Ethernet algorithm. It operates on either a named file or standard input and outputs the CRC value, the length of the input, and the pathname if a file was given as an argument. Unlike most modern hashing programs, the checksum is printed as a decimal integer and is not padded, so it can be anywhere from one to ten digits long. The length value is the number of bytes in the input (actually specified as the number of \noctets\n, as systems could potentially use a byte that isn't eight bits long), also expressed as a decimal integer.

    \n\n

    \nThere are two major ways that one could use \ncksum\n to check the validity of a file. First, if you are transferring a file from one UNIX-like system to another, you could run \ncksum\n against it on both systems and check that the CRC and length are the same. The utility can also be given multiple filenames as arguments, which would generate a list that can then be compared. The second way would be for someone publishing a file or set of files to also publish the CRC values, lengths, and names so that people downloading them could verify that they match. However, I don't think the practice of publishing lists like this really started until more recent hash functions like MD5 and SHA-1 came about so it is unlikely that anyone would publish CRC values instead.

    \n\n

    \nThe advantage of these tools should be pretty obvious in comparison to \ncmp\n, one of the utilities discussed in UNIX Curio #8. To verify a file using \ncmp\n, you need two files to compare—if you're trying to check a large file you downloaded, you would need to spend the time and bandwidth to download a second copy. And if they didn't match, you would have no idea which of the two, if either, was correct. By contrast, \ncksum\n is quicker to run, doesn't require downloading a massive amount of excess data, and if run against the original file, makes clear what the correct value is.

    \n\n

    \nThis utility is a follow-on from a program called \nsum\n, which operated very much the same. I had a bit of trouble tracking down the exact development history, but what seems clear is that \ntwo different variants\n\n\n4\n were popular: a BSD version and a System V version. Both output 16-bit checksums, but used different algorithms so they didn't give the same results. Also, the BSD version printed the length of the input data as the number of 1,024-byte blocks, while the System V version instead gave a count of 512-byte blocks. (Some sources \nclaim that System V \n\n\n\n\nsum\n\n\n\n\n generates a 32-bit checksum\n\n\n5\n, which could possibly be true internal to the algorithm, but I have tested several independent implementations of the utility and all of them output a 16-bit value for both the System V and BSD algorithms.)

    \n\n

    \nFrom what I can tell, \nthe BSD version\n\n\n6,7\n came first; it was in 3BSD but probably appeared even earlier. An identical \ncopy of BSD's \n\n\n\n\nsum\n\n\n\n\n was included with UNIX/32V\n\n\n8,9\n, which was AT&T's 1979 port of Seventh Edition UNIX to the VAX and became one of the ancestors of System III. The divergence seems to have started with System III, released in 1980; \nits version of the \n\n\n\n\nsum\n\n\n\n\n utility\n\n\n10,11\n changed to a new default algorithm, though it could be made to use the BSD algorithm via the \n-r\n option. System V looks to have kept the same behavior as System III. It's not clear to me why this algorithm is universally called the \"System V algorithm\" rather than the \"System III algorithm\"; perhaps it is because System V saw much more widespread use.

    \n\n

    \nInstead of trying to reconcile these differences, the POSIX committee decided to create a new utility with a unique name, use a separate algorithm entirely, and avoid the block-length dispute by printing the length in octets instead of blocks. I should point out that POSIX states that the CRC algorithm for \ncksum\n does not strictly meet the mathematical definition of a \"checksum\". I don't know enough to say exactly \nwhy\n it doesn't qualify or to say whether either of the \nsum\n algorithms do. However, in less-formal usage the term \"checksum\" has gathered the meaning of any value used to represent or validate a set of data, so I am fine with using it no matter the technical details of the algorithm.

    \n\n

    \nWhen two different inputs produce the same checksum or hash value, this is called a \"collision\". Because the output value has a limited range, there are an infinite number of possible inputs that could produce a collision. From a practical standpoint the possibilities are more limited—the majority of these inputs are larger than the number of atoms in the universe, which can't fit on any machine. Unlike a cryptographic hash algorithm, the CRC is not specifically designed to resist an attacker crafting a malicious input that would cause a collision. However, it should be sufficient to detect accidental damage.

    \n\n

    \nPrograms implementing more modern cryptographic hash algorithms are superior to the checksum utilities in avoiding collisions (whether malicious or accidental), but there are still three advantages that the older programs have. First, a system running a historical operating system might not have the hash programs available, but is more likely to have \ncksum\n or \nsum\n already included. Second, the checksum values are much shorter than the hashes output by the newer programs, making them easier for a user to compare by looking at them. This advantage is not as great as it might appear at first, because a common way to check a hash these days is to save a list of hashes and filenames—the hash programs can use that and do the comparison themselves, sparing the user from having to validate it character by character. The third advantage is that \ncksum\n prints the input length in bytes. This greatly limits the number of inputs that could be maliciously crafted to create a collision.

    \n\n

    \nI did a moderate amount of research on implementations of modern cryptographic hash algorithms and found that some, such as MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-2, do use the length of the input (often termed \"message length\" in the literature) as part of the material fed in to the algorithm, but none of the hashing utilities present this length to the user as part of its output. There are two possible reasons for this that seem evident to me. First, if one is hashing a password, you would certainly not want to give a clear indication of its length—that would give any attacker a massive head start on guessing the password. However, that doesn't explain why one would avoid printing the input length for a file that is made publicly available. Second, it is convenient in many contexts, such as database entries or in software (such as \ngit\n), for the hash to be a fixed length. Including an extra value that can be of variable length would complicate those use cases. However, the length value could simply be dropped and they would be no worse off than they are currently.

    \n\n

    \nHistorically on UNIX, password hashing was treated differently from checksumming files—\nthe \n\n\n\n\ncrypt()\n\n\n\n\n function\n\n\n12\n was used for passwords while \nsum\n and later \ncksum\n were used to confirm a file's integrity. So even rather early on, these two use cases employed algorithms with different properties, but I haven't dived into the history deeply enough to know how intentional this was. My discussion in this episode focuses on the file use case, so understand that I'm largely avoiding the topic of password hashing. Digital signatures are yet another use case, one that I'm ignoring entirely.

    \n\n

    \nEvery few years, some security researcher declares a particular hash algorithm to be \"broken\" and that everyone should move over to a new one, which generally has a longer hash. While the larger hash space certainly reduces the opportunity for collisions, this disrupts workflows, such as publishing information about software releases by e-mail, which still tends to observe a \n78-character limit on each line\n\n\n13\n, making it harder to include a list of hashes with filenames next to them. This is in addition to the work of modifying software and scripts to use the new algorithm and managing how to treat past data. It seems to me that publishing the input length along with the hash would make it far more difficult to craft a malicious input that matches both, but I haven't found discussion of that during my investigation. (See the Appendix for a possible implementation.) Perhaps someone listening can record a response episode for HPR explaining that.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nPayment card number\n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nEthernet frame: Frame check sequence\n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_frame#Frame_check_sequence
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nCksum specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/cksum.html
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nGNU coreutils manual: sum\n https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/sum-invocation.html
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nFreeBSD 15.0 sum manual page\n https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sum&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+15.0-RELEASE+and+Ports
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\n3BSD sum manual page\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=3BSD/usr/man/man1/sum.1
      7. \n\n
    7. \n\n\n3BSD sum source\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=3BSD/usr/src/cmd/sum.c
      8. \n\n
    8. \n\n\nUNIX/32V sum manual page\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=32V/usr/man/man1/sum.1
      9. \n\n
    9. \n\n\nUNIX/32V sum source\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=32V/usr/src/cmd/sum.c
      10. \n\n
    10. \n\n\nSystem III sum manual page\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=SysIII/usr/src/man/man1/sum.1
      11. \n\n
    11. \n\n\nSystem III sum source\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=SysIII/usr/src/cmd/sum.c
      12. \n\n
    12. \n\n\nCrypt specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/crypt.html
      13. \n\n
    13. \n\n\nRFC 2822: Internet Message Format: Line Length Limits\n https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2822#section-2.1.1
      14. \n\n
    14. \n\n\nOpenSSH 10.1 released\n https://lwn.net/ml/all/dd12623ae86aa5eb@cvs.openbsd.org/
      15. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nAppendix\n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe MD5 hash algorithm was (and still is) widely used, but many people characterize it as being \"broken\" and discourage its use. Let us imagine a variant of this, called MD5.L, where the normal MD5 hash is followed by a \".\" character and the input length expressed as a hexadecimal number.

    \n\n

    \nTake, for example, the \ne-mail message announcing the release of OpenSSH 10.1\n\n\n14\n. At the bottom, it includes an SHA-1 hash and an SHA-2 256-bit hash for the available gzipped \ntar\n files. That longer hash is encoded with Base64 because if it were given as a hexadecimal number, it would make the line longer than 78 bytes. The MD5.L hash of the file would be one character shorter than the SHA-1 hash, as shown below. (The extra length of the \nname\n makes them both consume the same number of characters. The hashes shown are for the \"portable\" version of OpenSSH.)

    \n\n

    \nSome people claim SHA-1 is also broken, seeking to have people use newer and longer hash functions. For an attacker to compromise MD5.L in this example, they would not only have to create a valid \ntar\n file compressed with \ngzip\n containing a malicious payload having the right MD5 hash, that file would have to be exactly 1,972,831 bytes long (the decimal equivalent of 1e1a5f). While there are still many possible inputs that could be tried (256\n1972831\n, to be exact*), this is far fewer than the infinite possibilities for plain MD5, SHA-1, or SHA-2.

    \n\n

    \nIf for some reason it is super important to have a fixed hash length, let's imagine another variation called MD5+L. In this one, instead of L being the input length, it is the input length \nmodulo\n one terabyte (2\n40\n bytes), which can be represented by 10 hexadecimal characters, left-padded with zeros. While this approach substantially increases the number of possible inputs an attacker could try, it is likely that an intended victim would notice that the file they downloaded is larger (or smaller) than expected by that much. The MD5+L hash is longer than a SHA-1 hash, but still shorter than a 256-bit SHA-2 hash.

    \n\n
    \nSHA1 (openssh-10.1p1.tar.gz) = 7fd17b99d1beffb47cd380d64079e920bb0bd91f\nSHA256 (openssh-10.1p1.tar.gz) = ufx6K4JXlGem8vQ+SoHI4d/aYU3bT5slWq/XAgu/B1g=\nMD5.L (openssh-10.1p1.tar.gz) = 80dd9bb00a86519934710d05903fdf07.1e1a5f\nMD5+L (openssh-10.1p1.tar.gz) = 80dd9bb00a86519934710d05903fdf07+00001e1a5f\n
    \n\n

    \nOf course, if MD5 is considered to be too weak even with the inclusion of the length, one could produce a \".L\" or \"+L\" version of any hash function. However, longer hashes \nwill\n end up running into the 78-character limit.

    \n\n

    \n\n\n*This is a number with 4.75 million digits that the \n\n\n\n\nbc\n\n\n\n\n utility on my laptop took almost 5 minutes to calculate.\n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,hashing","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4678,"date":"2026-07-08","title":"High Resolution Elapsed Time in Shell Scripts","duration":1729,"summary":"Surprises encountered when measuring elapsed time in shell scripts","notes":"\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode I will describe how to calculate elapsed time in bash or other shell scripts.

    \n\n

    \nWhile this may sound like a very simple and basic thing to do, there is a slightly more complex aspect to it if you wish to calculate elapsed time to a higher resolution than one second.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nThere are many reasons for calculating elapsed time in a shell script.

    \n\n

    \nFor example you may wish to simply report how long an operation took to run.

    \n\n

    \nAnother reason may be that you are trying to speed up a script and need to calculate benchmark data to see how different alternative methods perform.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nWhat may seem like a simple task gets a bit more complicated if you want to do it for multiple different operating systems even if they are all unix related, as we shall see.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04 Operating Systems Tested

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor the purposes of this episode, I ran tests on the current version of the following operating systems.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAlma

    \n\n

    \nAlpine

    \n\n

    \nDebian

    \n\n

    \nFreeBSD

    \n\n

    \nOpenBSD

    \n\n

    \nRaspberryPi

    \n\n

    \nOpenSuse

    \n\n

    \nUbuntu 2604

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAlma is a close copy of Red Hat that we can take as representing Red Hat style distros.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05 Simple Low Resolution Timing

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will start with the simple and obvious method before describing the less obvious ones.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis uses the date command to get the current time in seconds since the unix epoch.

    \n\n

    \nThis is simply

    \n\n

    \ndate '+%s'

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nSave this to a variable using whatever method you prefer.

    \n\n

    \nFor example.

    \n\n

    \nstarttime=$(date '+%s')

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nNext, do whatever operations it is you wish to time.

    \n\n

    \nUse the date command to get the current time again.

    \n\n

    \nendtime=$(date '+%s')

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nNow simply subtract the start time from the end time using shell arithmetic.

    \n\n

    \nThis should be very obvious and basic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09 Higher Resolution Timing

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, suppose we wish to measure time to greater than one second of precision.

    \n\n

    \nWe need to do two things.

    \n\n

    \nThe first is to obtain the current time at a higher degree of precision.

    \n\n

    \nThe second is to conduct the calculations to a higher degree of precision.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nUnfortunately, the standard time precision for POSIX shells seems to be 1 second.

    \n\n

    \nSome shells offer a higher precision, but others do not.

    \n\n

    \nFurthermore, standard shell arithmatic uses integer, which limits calculations to 1 second of precision.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11 Bash High Resolution Shell Variable

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFortunately, bash is one that does offer a high precision date.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you are using bash 5.0 or newer, there is a shell variable called EPOCHREALTIME which offers time since the the unix epoch (that is, since the first of January 1970, at 00:00:00 UTC) in seconds to 6 decimals of precision.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nExample

    \n\n

    \necho $EPOCHREALTIME

    \n\n

    \n1779634800.184926

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nThis is related to the similar bash variable known as EPOCHSECONDS which gives the number of seconds since the unix epoch.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nExample

    \n\n

    \necho $EPOCHSECONDS

    \n\n

    \n1779634800

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15

    \n\n

    \nSo if you are using bash, measuring time is very simple.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16 But is it Really Bash?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIs your script however actually using bash?

    \n\n

    \nDebian and derivatives actually have two shells.

    \n\n

    \nThe first, the interactive shell is bash.

    \n\n

    \nThe second, the non-interactive shell is dash, which stands for \"debian almquist shell\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nIf you open a terminal, you get bash.

    \n\n

    \nIf your script starts with a \"bin/bash\" shebang line, you get bash.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, if your script starts with a \"bin/sh\" shebang line, you get dash.

    \n\n

    \nSome people find themselves getting caught out by this one when they try something out in a terminal but find that it doesn't work in their script which started with \"bin/sh\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nMany other, but not all, Linux distros use bash for both the interactive and non-interactive shells, so \"bin/sh\" and \"bin/bash\" work the same with those ones.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSo if you intend to use bash, make sure your script calls for bash in the first line.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19 The SHELL Variable

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSo how can a script tell what shell it is running under?

    \n\n

    \nThere is a shell variable called \"SHELL\" which will tell you the name of the shell.

    \n\n

    \nWell, sort of.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20

    \n\n

    \nOn Debian and derivatives \"SHELL\" will say \"bash\" regardless of whether the actual shell is bash or dash.

    \n\n

    \nOn some other operating systems \"SHELL\" will simply say \"sh\" even if it is something else entirely.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSo we need to do some additional levels of checking to see what we have.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nTo start with though, here's what each of the test distros reports for SHELL.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAlma : bash

    \n\n

    \nAlpine : sh

    \n\n

    \nDebian : bash

    \n\n

    \nFreeBSD : sh

    \n\n

    \nOpenBSD : ksh

    \n\n

    \nRaspberry-Pi : bash

    \n\n

    \nSuse : bash

    \n\n

    \nubuntu2604 : bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22 Bash Versus Dash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFirst, let's try to see which ones are bash and which ones are dash.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe first thing we can check is for the shell variable BASH_VERSION.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nExample

    \n\n

    \necho $BASH_VERSION

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf the shell is bash, then it will report a version string.

    \n\n

    \nIf the shell is not bash, then it will return an empty value.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nUsing this test, we can see that Alma and Opensuse are indeed using bash.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe however need to check Debian, Raspberry Pi, and Ubuntu when running in an \"sh\" script.

    \n\n

    \nTo check this we can use the \"which\" command to see what \"sh\" actually is.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nExample

    \n\n

    \necho $( ls -l $(which sh ) | rev | cut -d\" \" -f1 | cut -d/ -f1 | rev )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \n\"which sh\" shows us the path to \"sh\"

    \n\n

    \nHowever, that is a link so we need to use

    \n\n

    \n\"ls -l\" to find the actual executable.

    \n\n

    \n\"rev\" reverses the string.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \n\"cut\" takes the first element separated by spaces.

    \n\n

    \nThe second

    \n\n

    \n\"cut\" takes the first element separated by the \"/\" characters.

    \n\n

    \nThe final \"rev\" takes that string and reverses it again to get it in the correct order.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nIn the case of Debian, Raspberry Pi, and Ubuntu it tells us that this is \"dash\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29 Openbsd

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOpenbsd reports its shell as \"ksh\", which stands for Korn Shell.

    \n\n

    \nIt is indeed Korn Shell, so we simply leave that one as is.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30 Alpine and Freebsd

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNext we have Alpine Linux and Freebsd, which both report as \"sh\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the case Freebsd there doesn't appear to be any further we can go that I am aware of.

    \n\n

    \nIt's simple \"sh\".

    \n\n

    \nIt is a basic POSIX shell which seems to be similar to the original unix shell, the Bourne Shell.

    \n\n

    \nOlder versions of Freebsd used a different shell known as tsch (the C shell), but I haven't tested that so I will ignore that here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nWith Alpine Linux however, we can get the actual shell using the same method that we used for Debian Linux.

    \n\n

    \nThis reports as being \"busybox\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32

    \n\n

    \nBusybox is a limited shell intended for use in embedded systems.

    \n\n

    \nAlpine was originally an embedded distro, but some people started using it for containers.

    \n\n

    \nAlpine is Linux, but it is not GNU/Linux, and there are a number of areas which can trip you up if you are not aware of them.

    \n\n

    \nSo, be extra careful if you are using it for anything, and test everything.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33 Summary of Actual Shells

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere is our revised list with the actual shell used when asking for \"sh\", so far as we can determine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAlma : bash

    \n\n

    \nAlpine : busybox

    \n\n

    \nDebian : dash

    \n\n

    \nFreeBSD : sh

    \n\n

    \nOpenBSD : ksh

    \n\n

    \nRaspberry-Pi : dash

    \n\n

    \nSuse : bash

    \n\n

    \nubuntu2604 : dash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nThere are other shells, but none of them are the default shell for any of the distros on our list, so I haven't tested them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35 Solutions for Measuring Time

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNow we need to find solutions for bash, dash, ksh, sh, and busybox.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36 Bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor bash, we can simply use EPOCHREALTIME, as mentioned above.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37 Dash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor dash, we can use the date command.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a very conventional method, and is probably the first answer that anyone would give for this situation.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, while it will work in most cases, it will not work in all cases, so it is not a universal solution.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \nTo use date we simply call it with the correct format string.

    \n\n

    \nThis uses %s to get seconds since the epoch, and %N to get nanoseconds of the current second.

    \n\n

    \nIf you put a decimal separator between the two it will appear in the output.

    \n\n

    \nYou can use the correct decimal separator for your locale, but I won't go into that here.

    \n\n

    \nInstead I will just assume a period or dot.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nExample

    \n\n

    \ndate '+%s.%N'

    \n\n

    \n1779634800.358916385

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40 Problems with Date on Alpine and Openbsd

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDate will work for bash, dash, and sh on Freebsd.

    \n\n

    \nHowever it will not work for ksh on Openbsd, or for busybox on Alpine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41

    \n\n

    \nWith busybox on Alpine, it simply ignores the %N format specifier and prints out the epoch in seconds only followed by the decimal separator.

    \n\n

    \n=

    \n\n

    \nExample

    \n\n

    \ndate '+%s.%N'

    \n\n

    \n1779634800.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42

    \n\n

    \nWith ksh on Openbsd it prints the epoch in seconds followed by the decimal separator and then the %N as a literal N.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ndate '+%s.%N'

    \n\n

    \n1779634800.N

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nFortunately we have alternatives for these two cases.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44 Openbsd

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOpenbsd has the \"ts\" or timestamp utility installed by default.

    \n\n

    \nts prints a time stamp in front of every line it receives from standard input.

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into details on all aspects of ts here, I'll leave that to someone else.

    \n\n

    \nInstead I will focus on how to use it for our specific purposes here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45

    \n\n

    \nWe need to provide a format specifier to ts, which in this case is \"%.s\"

    \n\n

    \nWe also need to provide something for standard input, or otherwise ts will simply sit there and wait for input.

    \n\n

    \nSo what we need to do is to echo nothing through a pipe to ts while also giving ts the proper format specifier.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nExample

    \n\n

    \n echo | ts \"%.s\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nThis will output the epoch time in seconds to six decimals of precision.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nts is installed in Openbsd and Freebsd by default and can be used in either.

    \n\n

    \nIt can also be installed in many other distros.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48 Busybox on Alpine

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNone of the methods discussed so far will work for busybox on Alpine though.

    \n\n

    \nHowever there is a way, but it's a bit non obvious and somewhat hacky.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nBusybox includes a command called \"adjtimex\".

    \n\n

    \nThis is normally used to adjust the time hardware.

    \n\n

    \nHowever if it is run without arguments, it will report the current settings.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50

    \n\n

    \nThese include the current epoch time in seconds , and in another field the time in microseconds.

    \n\n

    \nThese are reported as key value pairs.

    \n\n

    \nSo what we need to do is to do the following

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51

    \n\n

    \nRun adjtimex

    \n\n

    \nCapture the output.

    \n\n

    \nGrep for \"time.tv_sec\"

    \n\n

    \nGrep for \"time.tv_usec\"

    \n\n

    \nUse cut to extract the time value in each case.

    \n\n

    \nUse tr to get rid of excess spaces in each case.

    \n\n

    \nCombine the two in a string with a decimal separator between them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52

    \n\n

    \nThis takes a total of 4 lines of shell script.

    \n\n

    \nI will just describe them breifly here, see the show notes for details.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nFirst we want to capture the output of adjtimex in a single operation.

    \n\n

    \nRun adjtimex and pipe the output through grep to capture lines containing \"time.tv_\"

    \n\n

    \nand save this to a variable.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Extract the current high resolution time from adjtimex.

    \n\n

    \n# We want two key value pairs, identified by time.tv_sec and time.tv_usec.

    \n\n

    \ntvals=$( adjtimex | grep \"time.tv_\" )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nNext echo the contents of this variable and pipe it through grep, cut, and tr to get first the seconds and then the microseconds while also removing excess spaces.

    \n\n

    \nSave these to two separate variables.

    \n\n

    \n\"time.tv_sec\" is the time in seconds since the epoch.

    \n\n

    \n\"time.tv_usec\" is the number of microseconds in the current second.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Get the time since the unix epoch in seconds and micro-seconds.

    \n\n

    \ntimesec=$( echo \"$tvals\" | grep \"time.tv_sec\" | cut -d: -f2 | tr -d \" \" )

    \n\n

    \ntimeusec=$( echo \"$tvals\" | grep \"time.tv_usec\" | cut -d: -f2 | tr -d \" \" )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55

    \n\n

    \nAdjtimex does not zero pad the microsecond time value to provide leading zeros, so we need to take care of this using printf before we can append it to the seconds value. We didn't need to do this with date where the %N format character does this automatically.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this instance, the printf format string is '%06d'

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \npadusec=$( printf '%06d' $timeusec )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNow, combine these into a single number with a decimal separator by using simple string concatenation.

    \n\n

    \n# Combine them into a single number.

    \n\n

    \ntimehires=\"$timesec\"\".\"\"$padusec\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56 Summary of Methods

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLet's summarize where we are so far in terms of methods we can use to get the current time as a high resolution number.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAlma : use EPOCHREALTIME or date

    \n\n

    \nDebian (bash) : use EPOCHREALTIME or date

    \n\n

    \nRaspberry-Pi (bash) : use EPOCHREALTIME or date

    \n\n

    \nubuntu2604 (bash) : use EPOCHREALTIME or date

    \n\n

    \nSuse : use EPOCHREALTIME or date

    \n\n

    \nDebian (dash) : use date

    \n\n

    \nRaspberry-Pi (dash) : use date

    \n\n

    \nubuntu2604 (dash) : use date

    \n\n

    \nAlpine : use adjtimex and parse the output

    \n\n

    \nFreeBSD : use date or ts

    \n\n

    \nOpenBSD : use ts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 Other alternatives

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere are a few alternatives that we haven't discussed yet.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58 Bash with Dash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the case of Debian, Raspberry Pi, and Ubuntu running dash, since bash is available it is possible to write a separate bash script which simply echos EPOCHREALTIME and then call it from the dash script and capture the output.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhile this would work, there's probably not a lot of point to it.

    \n\n

    \nIf you can rely on bash being there, then just change the first line of the script and make it a bash script.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59 Adding Packages to Alpine

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe ts or timestamp utility is a common unix utility that can be installed if it is not present by default.

    \n\n

    \nThis does produce high resolution timestamps on Alpine.

    \n\n

    \nOn Alpine Linux this comes as part of the \"moreutils\" package.

    \n\n

    \nTo add the package, use the following

    \n\n

    \nsudo apk add moreutils

    \n\n

    \necho | ts \"%.s\"

    \n\n

    \n1779634800.959948

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60

    \n\n

    \nYou can also add the GNU coreutils, which will provide a high resolution date command which works like in the other examples.

    \n\n

    \nTo add the package use the following

    \n\n

    \nsudo apk add coreutils

    \n\n

    \ndate '+%s.%N'

    \n\n

    \n1779634800.212897332

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nIf you can install more packages into your Alpine system, either of the above two is probably going to be preferable to parsing the output of adjtimex.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62 Custom Timestamp Programs

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nYou can also write a very short program in python, perl, tcl, or some other language and have it output the current epoch time.

    \n\n

    \nI won't discuss that here though.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63 Calculating Time Differences

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nShell arithmetic is integer only.

    \n\n

    \nIf we wish to use high resolution timing data, we need to do something so we don't lose the precision we have worked so hard to get.

    \n\n

    \nThere are several possible solutions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64 Change the Time Base

    \n\n

    \nOne method is to change the time base from seconds to milli, micro, or nanoseconds.

    \n\n

    \nThis can be done by simply multiplying the time values by the appropriate amount (e.g. 1000, 1,000,000, etc.) before subtracting them.

    \n\n

    \nThis allows for integer arithmetic on high resolution values without losing precision.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65 Use the Shell bc Arbitrary Precision Calculator

    \n\n

    \nThe bc command line calculator will perform calculations using real numbers and is easy to use in scripts.

    \n\n

    \nIt is present by default in most distros.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \necho \"scale=9; $endtime - $starttime\" | bc

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nwhere endtime and starttime are variables containing time values.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \nHowever, for some inexplicable reason, neither Debian nor Opensuse install it by default.

    \n\n

    \nIt is present in Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi which are Debian derivatives, and it can be added to distros which lack it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67 Use awk

    \n\n

    \nawk can also perform calculations using real numbers and it is present in nearly all distros including in all of the ones we tested here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \necho \"$endtime $starttime\" | awk '{printf \"%.6f\\n\", $1 - $2}'

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68 Benchmarks

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAnd of course no comparative evaluation would be complete without benchmarks where we see how each method compares to another in terms of speed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the benchmark test I ran each method in a loop through multiple iterations, measured the elapsed time, subtracted out the time for an empty loop, and then compared it to alternate methods.

    \n\n

    \nFor anything other than EPOCHREALTIME, the empty loop time is negligible and has no real effect on the results.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nRather interestingly I came across a bug which caused date to run very slowly if called immediately after using EPOCHREALTIME in bash.

    \n\n

    \nThe effect of the bug was to make the date benchmark test roughly 24 times slower.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis has been fixed in newer releases, but if you are using an older distro release then beware of this bug.

    \n\n

    \nI was able to get around it either putting a sleep delay between benchmarking EPOCHREALTIME and benchmarking date, or by simply testing date before testing EPOCHREALTIME.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nTo be able to conduct additional tests I installed ts in Ubuntu and Alpine, and the GNU version of date in Alpine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71 EPOCHREALTIME Versus date in Ubuntu 2604 bash

    \n\n

    \nThe EPOCHREALTIME method is 3103 times faster than date.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, when the same test is run on Ubuntu 2404 when the date test is run before the EPOCHREALTIME test, EPOCHREALTIME is 1240 faster than date.

    \n\n

    \nOther Linux distros show performance to Ubuntu 2404.

    \n\n

    \nIt appears that a side effect of fixing whatever the bug is has the effect of slowing down date.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this is probably not a significant issue in normal circumstances.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72 date versus ts in Ubuntu 2604 bash

    \n\n

    \nThe date method is 3.7 times faster than ts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73 date versus ts in Ubuntu 2604 dash

    \n\n

    \nThe date method is 4.9 times faster than ts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74 date versus ts in Freebsd sh

    \n\n

    \nThe date method is 2.5 times faster than ts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75 date versus adjtimex in Alpine Busybox

    \n\n

    \nThe date method is 6.0 times faster than adjtimex

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n76 date versus ts in Alpine Busybox

    \n\n

    \nThe date method is 20.0 times faster than ts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n77 bc versus awk in Ubuntu 2604

    \n\n

    \nI compared calculating the difference between two numbers when using bc versus awk.

    \n\n

    \nThe difference is negligible, with bc being only 7% faster than awk.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n78 Conclusion for Benchmarks

    \n\n

    \nBased on these results, if you need to measure elapsed time to high resolution and care about runing the command with as little overhead as possible, then the order of preference should be the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n79

    \n\n

    \nIf you are using a newer version of bash, then use EPOCHREALTIME.

    \n\n

    \nIf that is not available, then use date, provided it allows for high resolution times.

    \n\n

    \nIf the above two cannot be used, then use ts.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are using Busybox and cannot install either GNU date or ts, then use adjtimex.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDate is the closest in terms of being the universal portable solution, but it does not work in all cases.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n80

    \n\n

    \nI have not compared different platforms to each other in terms of performance, as that would be a much more involved problem that is outside the scope of this episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, different operating systems implement different commands in different ways.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n81

    \n\n

    \nFor example, on Openbsd and Freebsd, ts appears to be an ELF binary. That is, it is executable machine code, possibly written in C.

    \n\n

    \nOn Ubuntu however, ts appears to be a perl script.

    \n\n

    \nAs a result of this, the advantage that date has over ts is much less in Freebsd than it is with Ubuntu (and likely other Linux distros) as on Freebsd it doesn't need to load a perl interpreter to run ts.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n82 Overall Conclusion

    \n\n

    \nYou no doubt thought that measuring elapsed time was going to be so simple, and how could someone get an entire podcast out of such a simple subject?

    \n\n

    \nAnd yet here we are half an hour later with just a basic overview of the subject.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n83

    \n\n

    \nI hope you found this interesting and informative.

    \n\n

    \nPlease let us know in the comments if you think that I have done anything incorrectly, or if you have another way of doing things.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI hope to see you all again in another future episode of HPR.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Bash Scripting","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4679,"date":"2026-07-09","title":"HPR Beer Garden 15 - Double IPA","duration":1665,"summary":"Kevie, Paul and Dave talk about Double IPAs","notes":"\n

    \nKevie, Paul and Dave are back once again with the HPR Beer Garden, this time focusing on the relatively new style of beer called Double IPA. Kevie samples \nMan Overboard\nby \nCromarty Brewing\n, Paul tastes \nRumble\nby \nBeavertown\nand Dave opts for \nUltra Phase by North Brewing\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe next 3 beer styles to be reviewed:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nBelgian Blonde
      • \n\n
    • \nDDH IPA
      • \n\n
    • \nAmber Ale
      • \n\n
    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4680,"date":"2026-07-10","title":"Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 2","duration":783,"summary":"We continue our look at Heinlein's Future History.","notes":"

    In his early days as a writer, Heinlein wrote his stories in the context of a shared universe that he called the Future History. These were mostly short stories at first, with the occasional novella. But they include some great stories.

    \n

    The Future History, Part 2

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

    There were a few key themes running through Heinlein’s body of work. One we have already remarked upon, individual freedom, which had to be protected from any source of power, including both government and private corporations. This was essentially a libertarian perspective, but unlike many of today’s libertarians he was equally averse to the corporate type of power as a threat. But he had a complex view of the world which has resisted some attempts to pigeonhole him. He started out as a socialist, and while he didn’t remain one, he never became a knee-jerk reactionary either. In fact, he clearly despised them just as much. One way of looking at his body of work is that he explored the ramifications of different social policies through his stories, but in most cases the needs of a good story came first in the early years. In his later works he often surrendered to the temptation to pontificate, which reduced the enjoyment of them somewhat for anyone who was not already in agreement with his opinions

    \n\n

    The second major theme you see throughout all of his works is the idea of the competent individual. He admired anyone who could do a job well, and clearly did not care whether they were man or woman, nor black or white. Alexei Panshin writes, in Heinlein in Dimension:

    \n\n
    \n

    “There is one unique and vivid human Heinlein character, but he is a composite of Joe-Jim Gregory, Harriman, Waldo, Lazarus Long, Mr. Kiku, and many others, rather than any one individual.  I call the composite the Heinlein Individual.  . . .  It is a single personality that appears in three different stages and is repeated in every Heinlein book in one form or another.

    \n\n

    “The earliest stage is that of the competent but naïve youngster. . . .  The second stage is the competent man in full glory, the man who knows how things work. . . .  The last stage is the wise old man who not only knows how things work, but why they work, too.”

    \n
    \n\n

    Harriman we have already encountered in The Man Who Sold The Moon, and the others appear later. The Heinlein Individual, as he is often referred to, appears in many of Heinlein’s stories.

    \n\n

    A third major theme has to do with morality and religion. Heinlein grew up in what he considered the heart of the Bible Belt, in Missouri, and saw first-hand how the evangelical Christians operated, and despised what he saw. As someone who believed in individual freedom, he could never surrender to someone else’s idea of how he should live his life. He saw them as a danger to his ideal libertarian society, and this shows up very early in his work. He personified the good, upright, church-going folk as “Mrs. Grundy”, and while you might want to draw the drapes to keep her from knowing what you were doing, you should never let her dictate how you would live your life. Revolt in 2100 begins the exploration of this in detail.

    \n\n

    There is a chart of the future history at Baen Books, and in it we see that the 1960s were what Heinlein called The Crazy Years. (Remember, he conceived this in the 1940s and 1950s.) But in 2012 the major thing occurred when Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher, managed to get elected as President. This would be the last election held under the U.S. Constitution as he established a religious dictatorship that lasted a couple of generations. IS this plausible? Heinlein wrote about this:

    \n\n

    “As for … the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past.

    \n\n

    “It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.“

    \n\n

    His background in the Bible Belt is what informs a lot of his thinking. He goes on to describe how this might happen:

    \n\n

    “Throw in a Depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-“furriners” in general and anti-intellectuals here at home, and the result might be something quite frightening — particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington.”

    \n\n

    As the science fiction author David Brin points out, Heinlein accurately predicted much of what we are going through in the United States right now. There is an emerging dictatorship in the United States, promoted by right-wing religious groups. The “material heaven here on earth” is represented by the Prosperity Gospel, prominent in the Trump movement, and so on. Where the Prophet used a restored Ku Klux Klan as his muscle, we have The Proud Boys, and so on. It really does track very closely. Read David Brin’s article for more on this.

    \n\n

    But nothing lasts forever. Empires rise and fall, governments change, and in this case a resistance movement arises. The revolt is depicted in the novella If This Goes On— (1940), and it is set in the year 2100, giving the title to the book. The main character is John Lyle, who is a young army officer assigned to the group protecting The Prophet in his capital of New Jerusalem. In the beginning he is thoroughly indoctrinated, but then begins to question his beliefs when he falls for one of The Prophet’s virgins, Sister Judith. He has an older companion in the military who is not only unshocked when John confides in him about his doubts, but offers to help him. It turns out this companion, Zeb Jones, is a member of the underground group called The Cabal that is working to overthrow the theocracy. In the end they are successful, and in the course of this John Lyle does a lot of growing up. In this we see another common characteristic of Heinlein stories: a young, naive boy meets up with an older and wiser man who helps him to grow.

    \n\n

    In 2016 If This Goes On— won the Retro-Hugo Award for best novella of 1940. And in a personal note, I have T-shirt that says “Scudder for President 2012”. This baffles most people, but I enjoy the in-joke.

    \n\n

    What is interesting in this book is that Heinlein doesn’t stop with a successful revolution. He then goes on in a second novella to describe the government that arose following the revolution, and this story is called Coventry (1940). The new government that arises after the revolution is called The Covenant, and it is an attempt to make sure that what happened with Scudder in 2012 could never happen again. It is a strongly libertarian government based on an agreement to be non-violent. In this society, scientists can cured criminal or violent tendencies, but any citizen convicted of such must agree to the treatment. The alternative to treatment is that they can be exiled to a place called Coventry. Coventry is outside of the Covenant society, and the Covenant society has nothing to do with them.

    \n\n

    Our protagonist, David McKinnon, is convicted of assault, and chooses to go to Coventry instead of getting treatment. He imagines it is a peaceful anarchy, but is disabused of this notion when he is robbed of all of this possessions upon entry and thrown in jail. A fellow inmate, Fader Magee, helps him escape, and we learn he is an agent of the Covenant government. They learn that two of the factions in Coventry have joined forces, and found a way to break through the barrier that surrounds Coventry. They plan to attack and overthrow the Covenant government. David and Fader separately work to escape and get back to warn the Covenant government, which they do successfully. And by doing this, David has demonstrated that he is no longer a danger to the Covenant society and no longer subject to treatment.

    \n\n

    This story won a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, which is awarded by the Libertarian Futurist Society. And the Covenant society certainly has libertarian features. But this is not the Randian version of libertarianism, as exemplified by the fact that David is restored to the society because he demonstrated his concern for others. Heinlein always promoted individual freedom, but also the idea that people have a responsibility towards others.

    \n\n

    Finally, Revolt in 2100 contains the short story Misfit, w2hich we have looked at previously.

    \n\n

    The Past Through Tomorrow (1967) is a one volume collection of most of the Future history stories. I say most because just which stories belonged in this group could change from time to time. It also has the last version of the Chart of the Future History, and a few stories we have not yet mentioned (Methusaleh’s Children, and The Menace From Earth). And many of his other works contain back references to these events that imply that they might be set in the same alternate universe. Heinlein gets the last word on this:

    \n\n
    \n

    “I have never been sure whether or not publishing that chart was a good idea or a bad mistake. Possibly it helped to sell some stories later—but certainly it caused me and still causes me to receive a lot nuisance mail from nitpickers. I have never felt bound by that chart; it was to serve me, not the other way around. If I found myself with a good story notion which fitted fairly well into the chart but not perfectly, I shed no tears—I went ahead and let the inconsistencies stand.

    \n\n

    I want each story to be internally consistent . . . but I won’t let myself be painted into a corner through trying to fit that chart perfectly. I may start another “Future History” story tomorrow . . . and find that to make it a good yarn I must violate some item on that chart. I’ll give the nitpickers something to pick, for I will not hurt a good yarn for the sake of “logic”—logic is not involved, as that chart is fiction, not Holy Writ.”

    \n
    \n\n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Heinlein, Future History","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4681,"date":"2026-07-13","title":"My Disabilities","duration":246,"summary":"(reading a story with more than two characters)","notes":"\n

    \nAs a child, I was so fond of reading what I saw as beautiful. Even when above [lacking] the understanding.

    \n\n

    \nThe perception of beauty came mainly from the cover and the fonts used (\nsame today\n) or from the place the book occupied on my father’s shelf.

    \n\n

    \nOne of them was Tuareg. More than once I took this classic from the home library, only to glance at the first page with no interest. It was only decades later — some years ago — that I saw the title again, and read with pleasure and no difficulties. It’s not a hard read, even to a 12 year-old, probably only the argument, the plot, didn’t catch me by then.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAnyway, I was attracted to the book, as if simply wanting to read it made me part of the classic, the intellectual.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI have less of this today. [I mean,] Not the inability to read a lot of books, but the urge to be a consumer of certain cultural product. Maybe due to not greeding to build a personal image, content without exposition.

    \n\n

    \nStill, sometimes, wanting to consume a piece of media and being unable to.. I wanted a story of robots, the book I though was not available [(All Systems Red)], so I bought one of scientific fiction.

    \n\n

    \nSomehow it attracted me when I flipped the few pages of Planet of Exile at the bookstore, an item that could lead me to a travel outside of this place, an escape. At home, I immediately saw I couldn’t grasp it. There were too many characters (too many = more than two in the first page, specially when another atmosphere is the location, a new physics to grasp). Too much information, can’t retain the minimum necessary in the way to the second, third… fifth page, by when more is being presented. This was always a disability of mine, focused on a little tiny thing, intensely, for some time, all lost in some weeks or months. I know it happens to \nme\n, because people are able to remember the names of the cars of the movie Cars. Not an incredible feat \nfor them\n (maybe they haven’t paid attention, nor actively tried to remember, only did), and something \nstrange\n to me.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt was decided to register this because when I saw myself unable to read the [Ursula] Le Guin’s book, I got nervous. I’ve already been forgetting more ultimately, take confused steps, and now I can’t center on a book?! What’s happening?

    \n\n

    \nBut then I took a breath: much can be going way too wrong from current circumstances outside and inside, but your limited comprehension of the world (and its art) is very part of you. This trace, or frailty, of your character, is not your brain rotting, it’s part of what you have been since always.

    \n\n

    \nThank you.

    \n\n\n\r","hostid":441,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"typography, cognition, reading difficulty, media consumption","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4682,"date":"2026-07-14","title":"Behind the Keyboard: A Cybersecurity Operator’s Real-World Workflow","duration":4996,"summary":"The presenter outlines a practical cybersecurity workflow, covering ergonomic setups, browser isolat","notes":"\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSUMMARY

    \n\n

    \nThe presenter outlines a practical cybersecurity workflow, covering ergonomic setups, browser isolation, virtual machine troubleshooting, AI-assisted scripting, and network tunneling methods utilized during active security assessments.

    \n\n

    \nONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

    \n\n

    \nIsolate browser environments, utilize automation scripts, and verify network paths before starting security tests to avoid workflow interruptions.

    \n\n

    \nTOOLS

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nTalon Voice\n – Open-source voice recognition software enabling hands-free computer control and command execution.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nObsidian\n – Local-first markdown note-taking application supporting secure, AI-friendly knowledge management.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nAutoHotkey\n – Windows scripting utility for creating custom macros and remapping keyboard inputs.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nChrome Debug Commands\n – Browser developer tools allowing direct inspection of extensions, cookies, and storage.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nWhisper Diarization\n – Audio processing script that separates speaker tracks and converts recordings to searchable text.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nHyper-V / WSL\n – Microsoft virtualization platforms enabling isolated guest environments and Linux subsystem integration.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nOpenConnect / OpenVPN\n – Command-line tunneling clients used for establishing secure, split-tunnel network connections.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nJamboree Framework\n – Portable PowerShell environment that dynamically provisions development tools without altering system paths.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nMOBA Portable\n – Feature-rich terminal emulator supporting static/dynamic tunnels, auto-reconnect, and embedded X-server capabilities.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nNmap\n – Network discovery and security auditing tool utilized for comprehensive port scanning and service detection.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n00:00:00 Ergonomic Workspace Configuration

    \n\n

    \nConfigures physical workstation elements to reduce strain during extended testing sessions. Proper alignment prevents repetitive stress injuries while maintaining focus on technical tasks.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nMonitor Positioning\n – Displays should align with eye level to maintain neutral neck posture; the speaker notes their curved 49-inch screen sits slightly high due to chair adjustments.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nSplit Keyboard Layout\n – Utilizes a Freestyle 2 mechanical keyboard, allowing natural shoulder-width arm placement and reducing wrist deviation during prolonged typing.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nPostural Adaptation\n – Acknowledges that ergonomic equipment requires matching body alignment; elbow rests should sit between hip and shoulder height for optimal leverage.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n01:45:00 Voice Control & Note Synchronization

    \n\n

    \nUtilizes auditory input methods and localized knowledge bases to streamline documentation workflows. Separating secure work notes from casual observations prevents data contamination.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nTalon Voice Integration\n – Runs continuously to handle navigation, text entry, and application switching without manual keyboard interaction.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nObsidian Migration\n – Transitions from cloud-based keep apps to local markdown files, enabling direct querying by local AI models while maintaining offline accessibility.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nNote Categorization\n – Divides information into secure work records and insecure personal logs, ensuring clean data pipelines for future retrieval and analysis.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n03:50:00 Browser Extension Management & Security Isolation

    \n\n

    \nSeparates web browsing activities from primary work processes to minimize attack surfaces. Running dedicated user profiles prevents plugin conflicts and credential leakage.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nJailed User Accounts\n – Creates restricted system profiles that only launch the browser, isolating extensions from core workstation operations.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nShared Folder Synchronization\n – Establishes a single directory path bridging work and browsing users, allowing seamless file transfers without cross-contamination.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nExtension Audit Process\n – Leverages Chrome debug commands to enumerate installed plugins, verifying functionality before deployment on target networks.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n06:15:00 Training Optimization & Audio Processing

    \n\n

    \nAccelerates mandatory compliance viewing through speed manipulation and automated transcription. Converting video content into searchable text enables rapid information retrieval.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nGlobal Speed Control\n – Increases playback rates up to sixteen times normal speed, drastically reducing time spent on repetitive corporate training modules.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nWhisper Diarization Pipeline\n – Downloads video tracks, separates speaker voices, and generates timestamped transcripts for quick reference during assessments.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nDownload Management\n – Employs multi-threaded swarm downloaders and classic turbo managers to handle bulk media retrieval without interrupting active workflows.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n10:40:00 Virtualization & Network Tunneling Protocols

    \n\n

    \nEstablishes isolated testing environments using Windows virtual machines while managing connectivity constraints. Proper session handling prevents unexpected disconnections during remote engagements.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nEnhanced Session Mode\n – A Hyper-V feature providing higher resolution and shared clipboard functionality; disabling it is required before initiating certain VPN clients to avoid routing conflicts.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nSplit Tunneling Mechanics\n – Routes specific traffic through the virtual network while keeping local resources accessible, preventing complete internet loss during connection tests.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nCertificate Verification\n – Identifies self-signed SSL mismatches early in the process, documenting them as preliminary findings before proceeding with authentication steps.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n15:30:00 Macro Automation & Input Remapping

    \n\n

    \nRemaps frequently used keyboard shortcuts to reduce physical strain and accelerate command execution. Running scripts with elevated privileges ensures reliable input registration across virtual environments.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nCaps Lock Repurposing\n – Converts the caps lock key into a primary modifier, assigning copy/paste functions to adjacent letters for faster workflow navigation.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nPhysical Typing Macros\n – Simulates keystrokes with deliberate delays, allowing seamless data entry into restricted VM consoles that block standard clipboard operations.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nAdministrator Execution Requirement\n – Highlights that macro scripts must run with elevated privileges to successfully inject inputs across different desktop sessions.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n20:15:00 Portable Development Environments & Python Management

    \n\n

    \nDeploys lightweight scripting frameworks that dynamically provision necessary tools without modifying host configurations. Verifying package contents prevents dependency conflicts during testing.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nJamboree Framework\n – A PowerShell-driven utility that downloads and configures development stacks on demand, resetting environment variables to maintain system cleanliness.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nNuGet Package Filtering\n – Queries Microsoft's repository API to retrieve specific Python versions, ensuring compatibility with legacy tunneling scripts.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nBinary Verification Process\n – Checks extracted archives for bundled \npip.exe\n or \npip3.exe\n executables, eliminating manual module installation steps during rapid deployments.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n28:40:00 AI-Assisted Scripting & Debugging Workflows

    \n\n

    \nGenerates and refines PowerShell functions through iterative conversational prompts. Validating AI output against actual system behavior prevents silent configuration errors.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nVibe Coding Approach\n – Relies on continuous feedback loops with language models to draft, minimize, and debug automation scripts in real-time.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nParameter Standardization\n – Enforces strict formatting rules for PowerShell commands, avoiding hardcoded paths and ensuring cross-environment compatibility.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nTemporary Storage Management\n – Monitors extraction directories to prevent disk saturation, redirecting large package downloads away from constrained system partitions.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n35:10:00 Terminal Emulation & Advanced Tunneling Strategies

    \n\n

    \nFacilitates complex network routing through dedicated terminal applications. Configuring dynamic and static tunnels enables reliable reverse connections for remote assessments.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nMOBA Portable Configuration\n – Utilizes an INI-based tunnel manager that automatically maintains connections across changing IP addresses or Wi-Fi networks.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nReverse Shell Routing\n – Establishes outbound channels back to the tester, then proxies all subsequent traffic through those connections for consistent monitoring.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nProxy Chain Integration\n – Forces non-proxy-aware applications to route through Burp Suite or custom interceptors using Windows utility wrappers like Priboxy.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n42:30:00 Final Connectivity Testing & Engagement Wrap-Up

    \n\n

    \nExecutes comprehensive port scans to verify target accessibility before documenting findings. Acknowledging workflow detours ensures realistic time management during active engagements.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nNmap Verification\n – Runs full-port scans with verbose output to confirm host responsiveness and identify open services prior to credential testing.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nConnection Refusal Documentation\n – Captures screenshot evidence of failed routing attempts, providing clear proof of network restrictions for client reporting.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nWorkflow Reflection\n – Recognizes that exploratory debugging adds value but requires time boundaries; balancing thoroughness with engagement scope maintains professional efficiency.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Cybersecurity, InfoSec Workflow, Network Tunneling, AI Automation, PowerShell Scripting, Virtualizat","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4683,"date":"2026-07-15","title":"Recording the hallway track","duration":1276,"summary":"Ken gives tips on how to record interviews at events","notes":"\n

    \nRecording Kit

    \n\n

    \nGeneral

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nLanyard - HPR - Your Name
      • \n\n
    • \nHPR Business Cards - Your email address
      • \n\n
    • \nHPR Stickers
      • \n\n
    • \nPen
      • \n\n
    • \nA6 Notebook
      • \n\n
    • \nAndroid Mobile phone \nOpenCamera\n\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \nZoom H2

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nZoom H2 Handy Recorder\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \nSet format to best and date format to ISO8601
      • \n\n
    • \nReplacement Batteries
      • \n\n
    • \nMicro USB Cable
      • \n\n
    • \n2.5 mm headphones
      • \n\n
    • \n3.5 mm Male to Male cable
      • \n\n
    • \n3.5 mm earbuds
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \nBackup 1

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nSansa Clip\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nRockbox\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \nRemove before flight key fob
      • \n\n
    • \nSet format to best and date format to ISO8601
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \nBackup 2

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nAndroid Mobile phone \nAudioRecorder\n\n
      • \n\n
    • \nSet format to best and date format to ISO8601
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":30,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Hallwaytrack,recording,interviews","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4684,"date":"2026-07-16","title":"Sim Racing on the cheap!","duration":1271,"summary":"Insights on sim racing costs, setup, and game choices, emphasizing time and investment.","notes":"\n

    \nThrustmaster TMX Force Feedback Pro Black Xbox One / Xbox Series X/S / PC

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.ebay.com/itm/157554569422\n\n

    \n\n

    \nDayton Audio DAEX25 Audio Exciter Pair - Sound Exciter Pair Audio Transducer - 5 Watts RMS, 8 Ohms Impedance - 2 Pack - Turn Any Surface into a Speaker System

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B001EYEM8C\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.simhubdash.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.accsetupcomparator.com/ \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.iracing.com/\n ( they have buy 2 years get discount during holiday but still can't afford it .. )

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://forza.net/horizon\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDiRT Rally 2.0 GOTY

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://k4g.com/store?distribution[]=3&q=DiRT%20Rally%202.0%20GOTY&sort=price\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCrewChiefV4

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://thecrewchief.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://app.tracktitan.io/sessions/3ebbf63b-93de-4309-9a42-9311a745209d/20241228052252\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSUMMARY.

    \n\n

    \nUser discusses sim racing challenges, costs, and setup tips.

    \n\n

    \nIDEAS.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Sim racing requires time and investment.
      2. \n\n
    2. \n I Racing is expensive with annual costs.
      3. \n\n
    3. \n Set of Courses offers one-time payment.
      4. \n\n
    4. \n Proper setup enhances sim racing experience.
      5. \n\n
    5. \n Cable connections can complicate setup.
      6. \n\n
    6. \n Upgrading hardware improves performance.
      7. \n\n
    7. \n Arcade games like Forza offer casual play.
      8. \n\n
    8. \n Realistic sim racing demands dedication.
      9. \n\n
    9. \n License requirements vary between platforms.
      10. \n\n
    10. \n Remote gaming systems save space.
      11. \n\n
    11. \n Steering wheel upgrades improve smoothness.
      12. \n\n
    12. \n Dedicated spaces optimize sim racing.
      13. \n\n
    13. \n Balancing fun and realism is key.
      14. \n\n
    14. \n Multi-launchers manage gaming platforms.
      15. \n\n
    15. \n Hacked accounts may cause issues.
      16. \n\n
    16. \n Monitoring hardware wear is important.
      17. \n\n
    17. \n Shifting mechanisms enhance control.
      18. \n\n
    18. \n Curved monitors improve immersion.
      19. \n\n
    19. \n Time constraints affect sim racing participation.
      20. \n\n
    20. \n Exploring multiple games adds variety.
      21. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRECOMMENDATIONS.

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Consider Set of Courses for a one-time payment.
      2. \n\n
    2. \n Invest in a proper setup for serious sim racing.
      3. \n\n
    3. \n Use a multi-launcher for managing games.
      4. \n\n
    4. \n Upgrade hardware for smoother performance.
      5. \n\n
    5. \n Buy specific tracks and cars to avoid costs.
      6. \n\n
    6. \n Opt for a dedicated space for sim racing.
      7. \n\n
    7. \n Check for license requirements before purchasing.
      8. \n\n
    8. \n Remote into gaming systems to save space.
      9. \n\n
    9. \n Replace plastic parts with bearings for smoother operation.
      10. \n\n
    10. \n Use a 7-speed shifter for better control.
      11. \n\n
    11. \n Avoid hacked accounts for reliability.
      12. \n\n
    12. \n Purchase multiple accounts for different players.
      13. \n\n
    13. \n Focus on arcade games for casual play.
      14. \n\n
    14. \n Prioritize a curved monitor for immersion.
      15. \n\n
    15. \n Use a standing desk for accessibility.
      16. \n\n
    16. \n Monitor cable connections to prevent setup issues.
      17. \n\n
    17. \n Upgrade steering wheel components for better experience.
      18. \n\n
    18. \n Balance fun and realism based on personal preference.
      19. \n\n
    19. \n Consider time investment for sim racing.
      20. \n\n
    20. \n Explore different racing games for variety.
      21. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"sim racing,games,cideo games,DIY","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4685,"date":"2026-07-17","title":"Listening to SSB stations in the early 1980s","duration":912,"summary":"Lennart tells how he could listen to SSB stations on shortwave on a radio without SSB capability.","notes":"\n

    \nLennart tells about the shortwave radio he had in the early 1980s and what he could hear on it, for example he marine band, amateur radio, CB and of course broadcast stations. The radio did not have a BFO to demodulate SSB stations, but using a second radio close by and using its local oscillator he could still make those signals intelligible.

    \n\n\n","hostid":461,"series":43,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Shortwave, SSB, Radio","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4686,"date":"2026-07-20","title":"Debugging Security Cameras: Firmware Updates, Python Scripts and Windows Workarounds","duration":2512,"summary":"Debug a Uniview camera using Python scripts, firmware updates and Windows hacks.","notes":"\n

    \n Show Notes

    \n\n

    \n Episode Overview

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nOperator kicks off the episode feeling under the weather but shares a quick tip for making perfect egg drop soup before diving into his main project: diagnosing why his front-door security camera stopped sending alerts and recording events. What follows is a live-debugging session covering network config, script logging, Windows permission hacks, NTP time drift, and firmware flashing.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n Key Topics & Breakdown

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n
        \n\n
      • \n\n\nEgg Drop Soup Hack:\n How to get that perfect ribbony texture by creating a boiling swirl before pouring in the eggs, plus broth-to-egg ratio tips.
        • \n\n
      • \n\n\nCamera Setup & Network Config:\n Using static DHCP via MAC address binding on a UniFi Dream Machine (UDM) for local domain resolution instead of hardcoding IPs.
        • \n\n
      • \n\n\nPython & Cron Automation:\n Running a custom Python script every 2 minutes to check for new recordings, parsing logs with \ngrep -v\n, and navigating massive log files in \nvi\n.
        • \n\n
      • \n\n\nWindows Troubleshooting Tangent:\n Deleting the stubborn \nWindows.old\n folder using the TrustedInstaller service hack (\nExecTI.exe\n) instead of taking ownership manually.
        • \n\n
      • \n\n\nTime Sync & Firmware Quirks:\n Discovering the camera's system clock was stuck in 2011/2026, causing missed events. Downloading firmware via a slow third-party link, renaming \n.bin\n to \n.zip\n, and extracting with 7-Zip.
        • \n\n
      • \n\n\nPre-Flash Backup Routine:\n Exporting camera configuration before upgrading, storing it in Google Drive for searchable documentation, and clearing old log/trigger files to reset the event pipeline.
        • \n\n
      \n\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n️ Tools & Techniques Mentioned

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n
        \n\n
      • \n\n\ncrontab\n + Python scripts for automated monitoring
        • \n\n
      • \n\n\ngrep -v\n, \ncat\n, \ntail\n, and \nvi\n (line navigation with \n:1000\n)
        • \n\n
      • \nObsidian for note-taking & AI assistant integration
        • \n\n
      • \nFirefox/Playwright for headless browser testing
        • \n\n
      • \nTurbo Download Manager & Bolt Media Downloader for multi-threaded/sniffing downloads
        • \n\n
      • \n7-Zip for archive extraction
        • \n\n
      • \nGoogle Drive for searchable config backups
        • \n\n
      \n\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n Resources & Links

    \n\n\n\n

    \n Quick Takeaways

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n
        \n\n
      1. \n Always verify NTP/time sync on IoT cameras before troubleshooting missed events or alerts.
        2. \n\n
      2. \n Use \ngrep -v \"noise\"\n to quickly filter out repetitive log entries when debugging automation scripts.
        3. \n\n
      3. \n Windows system folders can be stubborn; running commands as \nTrustedInstaller\n bypasses hidden file locks without manual ownership changes.
        4. \n\n
      4. \n Always export and back up device configs before flashing firmware, even if the upgrade seems straightforward.
        5. \n\n
      5. \n Third-party download links often use temporary tokens or \n.bin\n wrappers; renaming to \n.zip\n and verifying with 7-Zip can save headaches.
        6. \n\n
      \n\n
      2. \n\n
    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nThanks for listening! Stay curious, keep your logs clean, and remember: defense in depth starts at home.\n
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nExample trusted installer hack

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Shhhh I can't IR ... Defender, ForcePoint, SMS Agent Host ...I just can't anymore ...

    \n\n

    \nsc config TrustedInstaller binPath= \"Reg add \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\Sense\" /v Start /t reg_dword /d 4 /f\"

    \n\n

    \nsc start \"TrustedInstaller\"

    \n\n

    \nsc config TrustedInstaller binPath= \"Reg add \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\Fppsvc\" /v Start /t reg_dword /d 4 /f\"

    \n\n

    \nsc start \"TrustedInstaller\"

    \n\n

    \nsc config TrustedInstaller binPath= \"Reg add \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\CcmExec\" /v Start /t reg_dword /d 4 /f\"

    \n\n

    \nsc start \"TrustedInstaller\"

    \n\n

    \nsc config TrustedInstaller binPath= \"Reg add \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\WinDefend\" /v Start /t reg_dword /d 4 /f\"

    \n\n

    \nsc config TrustedInstaller binPath= \"C:\\Windows\\servicing\\TrustedInstaller.exe\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"homelab, security cameras, python automation, windows troubleshooting, diy tech","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4687,"date":"2026-07-21","title":"UNIX Curio #11 - Merging Files","duration":681,"summary":"Bringing your data together","notes":"\n

    \nether

    \n\n
    \nThis series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.
    \n\n

    \nI frequently find myself reaching for the \ncut\n utility when writing scripts to extract one piece of data from a line, or to select specific fields from a log file. While I am familiar with its counterpart, \npaste\n, I don't employ it very often because I don't typically need its functionality.

    \n\n

    \nThis perhaps has to do with the fact that I rarely work with text files containing lists. For shorter lists, I usually end up using a spreadsheet and for larger ones, a relational database. Both are valuable tools with their own strengths and weaknesses, but it is good to also know about standard utilities for working with lists. After uploading UNIX Curio #8 (\nHPR episode 4657\n), I felt like maybe I had been too dismissive of the \ncomm\n utility in that episode and should talk more about tools that are useful when managing lists.

    \n\n

    \nI don't frequently find myself using \n\n\npaste\n\n\n\n\n1\n, but can explain how it works. Briefly, it is a rough opposite of \ncut\n—when given multiple files as arguments, it assembles the first line from each one separated by tabs, then the second line, and so on. Instead of tabs, a different delimiter can be chosen with the \n-d\n option. Another option is \n-s\n, which swaps rows and columns so that the contents of each named file would appear on one line. While \npaste\n itself doesn't qualify as a UNIX Curio in my opinion, there is one feature that does: a hyphen can be given as an argument multiple times. In this special case, the output is taken line by line from standard input, but is spread across as many columns as there are hyphens.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nExample of using \n\n\n\n\npaste\n\n\n\n\n to turn the output of \n\n\n\n\nls\n\n\n\n\n into columns. Because these columns are separated by tabs, they don't necessarily line up when a filename is eight or more characters long. The \n\n\n\n\n-1\n\n\n\n\n is not required for the second \n\n\n\n\nls\n\n\n\n\n command since that behavior is implied when output isn't going to a terminal. The \n\n\n\n\n-C\n\n\n\n\n option to \n\n\n\n\nls\n\n\n\n\n usually gives nicer-looking output on a terminal—also, it lists in ascending order down by column. (Most implementations default to \n\n\n\n\n-C\n\n\n\n\n when output goes to a terminal.) If you want items ascending along rows like the \n\n\n\n\npaste\n\n\n\n\n example does, try \n\n\n\n\nls -x\n\n\n\n\n instead.\n\n

    \n\n
    \n$ ls -1 /proc/net\nanycast6\narp\nbnep\nconnector\ndev\ndev_mcast\ndev_snmp6\nfib_trie\nfib_triestat\nhci\nicmp\nicmp6\nif_inet6\nigmp\nigmp6\nip6_flowlabel\nip6_mr_cache\nip6_mr_vif\nip_mr_cache\nip_mr_vif\nip_tables_matches\nip_tables_names\n[...35 more entries not shown...]\n$ ls /proc/net | paste - - - -\nanycast6        arp     bnep    connector\ndev     dev_mcast       dev_snmp6       fib_trie\nfib_triestat    hci     icmp    icmp6\nif_inet6        igmp    igmp6   ip6_flowlabel\nip6_mr_cache    ip6_mr_vif      ip_mr_cache     ip_mr_vif\nip_tables_matches       ip_tables_names ip_tables_targets       ipv6_route\nl2cap   mcfilter        mcfilter6       netfilter\nnetlink netstat packet  protocols\npsched  ptype   raw     raw6\nrfcomm  route   rt6_stats       rt_acct\nrt_cache        sco     snmp    snmp6\nsockstat        sockstat6       softnet_stat    stat\ntcp     tcp6    udp     udp6\nudplite udplite6        unix    wireless\nxfrm_stat\n$ ls -C /proc/net\nanycast6      if_inet6           l2cap      rfcomm        tcp\narp           igmp               mcfilter   route         tcp6\nbnep          igmp6              mcfilter6  rt6_stats     udp\nconnector     ip6_flowlabel      netfilter  rt_acct       udp6\ndev           ip6_mr_cache       netlink    rt_cache      udplite\ndev_mcast     ip6_mr_vif         netstat    sco           udplite6\ndev_snmp6     ip_mr_cache        packet     snmp          unix\nfib_trie      ip_mr_vif          protocols  snmp6         wireless\nfib_triestat  ip_tables_matches  psched     sockstat      xfrm_stat\nhci           ip_tables_names    ptype      sockstat6\nicmp          ip_tables_targets  raw        softnet_stat\nicmp6         ipv6_route         raw6       stat\n$ ls -x /proc/net\nanycast6           arp              bnep               connector     dev\ndev_mcast          dev_snmp6        fib_trie           fib_triestat  hci\nicmp               icmp6            if_inet6           igmp          igmp6\nip6_flowlabel      ip6_mr_cache     ip6_mr_vif         ip_mr_cache   ip_mr_vif\nip_tables_matches  ip_tables_names  ip_tables_targets  ipv6_route    l2cap\nmcfilter           mcfilter6        netfilter          netlink       netstat\npacket             protocols        psched             ptype         raw\nraw6               rfcomm           route              rt6_stats     rt_acct\nrt_cache           sco              snmp               snmp6         sockstat\nsockstat6          softnet_stat     stat               tcp           tcp6\nudp                udp6             udplite            udplite6      unix\nwireless           xfrm_stat\n
    \n\n

    \nThe \npaste\n command has limitations—the files you give it must all be already arranged in the same order, and if any file is missing a value, it must have a blank line so that subsequent lines will match up correctly. The files do \nnot\n necessarily have to be sorted alphabetically, but whatever order they are in has to be the same. Check out HPR episodes \n962\n and \n4201\n for some more background on the \npaste\n utility.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nExample of using \n\n\n\n\npaste\n\n\n\n\n with files where some values are empty. Bob works from home so doesn't have an office assigned, and the laboratory Carol works in doesn't have a phone. This relies on the fact that the same line number in every file relates to the same person/entry.\n\n

    \n\n
    \n$ cat names\nAlice\nBob\nCarol\nDave\n$ cat offices\n203\n\nLab6A\n117\n$ cat phones\n+1 212-555-1234\n+1 919-555-2345\n\n+1 212-555-1278\n$ paste names offices phones\nAlice   203     +1 212-555-1234\nBob             +1 919-555-2345\nCarol   Lab6A\nDave    117     +1 212-555-1278\n
    \n\n

    \nOur second UNIX Curio for today is \na utility called \n\n\n\n\njoin\n\n\n\n\n2\n, which has a bit more sophistication. It operates on two files, which can have multiple columns, and combines them using the join field. By default, the first column/field in each file is the join field, and only entries that exist in both files are printed. The \n-1\n and \n-2\n options can be used to join on a different field, and \n-o\n selects specific fields to be output. To make it so lines with missing entries also appear, you need to use the \n-a\n option, but an actual empty string with separator won't be printed unless \n-o\n is also present and includes the field.

    \n\n

    \nThe default field separator character is one or more \"blanks\" in the current locale—for the POSIX locale, this means a space or a horizontal tab. The \n-t\n option selects a different character and also removes the treatment of multiple occurrences as a single separator, making it possible to have an empty field in one or both of the files. By default, a single space is used to separate fields in the output. If \n-t\n is given, the same character is used for separating fields in both input and output. You would need to pipe output through another tool like \ntr\n if you wanted to have a different separator in the output.

    \n\n

    \nThe \njoin\n utility might be an improvement over \npaste\n in some cases, since the join field makes it a little easier to identify which entries match up across files. It is limited to operating only on two files (one of which can be standard input), so combining more than that requires either creating temporary intermediate files or chaining together \njoin\n commands in a pipeline. Another requirement is that all files must already be sorted in the current locale.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nExample showing how \n\n\n\n\njoin\n\n\n\n\n can be used with two tab-separated lists. The LC_ALL assignment forces \n\n\n\n\njoin\n\n\n\n\n to sort using the C (POSIX) locale instead of whatever might be set in your environment. The \"@\" on the header line has no special meaning; it is just there to make sure it sorts before any letters or numbers (in the C locale; it might not in other locales). Note that if \n\n\n\n\n-t\n\n\n\n\n were not specified, \nplist\n would be treated as having three fields because of the space separating the country code from the rest of the phone number.\n\n

    \n\n
    \n$ export tab=\"$(printf '\\t')\" #To more easily use tab characters below\n$ cat olist\n@Name   Office\nAlice   203\nCarol   Lab6A\nDave    117\n$ cat plist\n@Name   Phone\nAlice   +1 212-555-1234\nBob     +1 919-555-2345\nDave    +1 212-555-1278\n$ LC_ALL=C join -t \"$tab\" olist plist\n@Name   Office  Phone\nAlice   203     +1 212-555-1234\nDave    117     +1 212-555-1278\n$ LC_ALL=C join -t \"$tab\" -a 1 -a 2 olist plist\n@Name   Office  Phone\nAlice   203     +1 212-555-1234\nBob     +1 919-555-2345\nCarol   Lab6A\nDave    117     +1 212-555-1278\n$ #By default, join acts as if empty fields don't exist; use -o to include\n$ LC_ALL=C join -t \"$tab\" -a 1 -a 2 -o 0,1.2,2.2 olist plist\n@Name   Office  Phone\nAlice   203     +1 212-555-1234\nBob             +1 919-555-2345\nCarol   Lab6A\nDave    117     +1 212-555-1278\n$ #The -e option sets a placeholder to use for empty fields\n$ LC_ALL=C join -t \"$tab\" -e \"(none)\" -a 1 -a 2 -o 0,1.2,2.2 olist plist\n@Name   Office  Phone\nAlice   203     +1 212-555-1234\nBob     (none)  +1 919-555-2345\nCarol   Lab6A   (none)\nDave    117     +1 212-555-1278\n
    \n\n

    \nThe brief description for \njoin\n is \"relational database operator\"—I won't dispute that, but in my view it offers far fewer capabilities than people would expect from today's relational databases. I would imagine that when most people think of those they have Structured Query Language (SQL) in mind, which offers a lot more flexibility and functions to operate on data. However, I can see how \njoin\n could be suitable for simple operations.

    \n\n

    \nOur last UNIX Curio for today relates to \nthe \n\n\n\n\nsort\n\n\n\n\n utility\n\n\n3\n. While, as you might expect, it is well-known for its ability to sort data, it has another feature that is more obscure. When used with the \n-m\n option, instead of sorting the files given as arguments, it merges them together. All of the files are expected to already be sorted—once combined, the list that is output will also be sorted. The order in which the files are named does \nnot\n matter; it is not required for the contents of the first file to start before the second, just that both are sorted.

    \n\n
    \n$ cat women\nAlice\nCarol\n$ cat men\nBob\nDave\n$ sort -m men women\nAlice\nBob\nCarol\nDave\n
    \n\n

    \nImagine that you organize an annual event and have a separate pre-sorted list of attendees' e-mail addresses for each of the past three years. You are planning this year's event and want to send out an announcement to all of these people, as they will probably be interested. The command \nsort -m -u 2023list 2024list 2025list\n would spit out a combined list that you can use for your e-mail blast. Because it is likely that some people would have attended in more than one year, I included the \n-u\n option—it removes any duplicate entries.

    \n\n

    \nIt is probably no surprise that the \nsort\n utility appeared early on—it was in 1971's First Edition UNIX, though it didn't \ngain the merging functionality until Fifth Edition\n\n\n4\n in 1973. What \ndid\n come as a shock to me is that both \ncut\n and \n\n\npaste\n\n\n\n\n didn't show up until 1980 with System III\n\n\n5\n, and were actually preceded by \n\n\njoin\n\n\n\n\n, which was in Seventh Edition UNIX\n\n\n6\n from 1979. I assumed that at least \ncut\n would have been around far earlier, given its usefulness and how firmly established it is, but I suppose it just \nseems\n to have been with us forever.

    \n\n

    \nAs mentioned, I don't typically manage data as text files containing lists, and I probably won't start using the \njoin\n utility or these features of \npaste\n and \nsort\n very much. But it is still useful to know that they exist and how they work. Hopefully this episode has taught you a bit about them.

    \n\n

    \nReferences:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\n\nPaste specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/paste.html
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\n\nJoin specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/join.html
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\n\nSort specification\n https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/sort.html
      4. \n\n
    4. \n\n\nA Research UNIX Reader: Fifth Edition sort manual page\n https://archive.org/details/a_research_unix_reader/page/n19/mode/1up
      5. \n\n
    5. \n\n\nSystem III paste manual page\n https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=SysIII/usr/src/man/man1/paste.1
      6. \n\n
    6. \n\n\nSeventh Edition UNIX join manual page\n https://man.cat-v.org/unix_7th/1/join
      7. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix curio,unix,paste,join,sort","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4688,"date":"2026-07-22","title":"Downloading Podcasts with a Shell Script","duration":1819,"summary":"The basic principles of downloading podcasts using your own shell scripts.","notes":"\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode I will describe techniques for downloading podcasts using basic shell commands such as wget.

    \n\n

    \nI will illustrate this using a bash script that can be used to download HPR podcasts.

    \n\n

    \nEven if you do not have any interest in downloading your podcasts using this method, you may find some of the methods useful or interesting.

    \n\n

    \nIt is the principles that are discussed here that are important, rather than the implementation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nI realize that there are already a number of different podcast download programs available, including at least one written in bash.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, you may feel that none of these suit how you wish to do things and want to create your own system tailored to your specific needs.

    \n\n

    \nIf so, then I hope the following is of some use to you.

    \n\n

    \nIf not, then you may still find some of the things discussed here to still be of interest.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSome of the subjects I cover include

    \n\n

    \nwget to a user defined file name.

    \n\n

    \nparsing xml with xmllint.

    \n\n

    \nusing inotifywait to trigger an action when a file is created or modified.

    \n\n

    \nusing notify-send to send a message to the notification area.

    \n\n

    \nand

    \n\n

    \na way of allowing a cron job to send a message to the user interface.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03 Background

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere has been an ongoing discussion in comments to some HPR episodes about problems downloading HPR podcast episodes.

    \n\n

    \nApparently some people have been experiencing problems with the way the episode URLs are structured.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04

    \n\n

    \nI am afraid that I don't fully understand the nature of these problems, so I won't be addressing that problem directly.

    \n\n

    \nInstead, I will present a bash script that I have written which can be used to download HPR podcasts.

    \n\n

    \nThis bash script can be run using cron to automatically fetch new HPR podcasts and save them to a designated directory.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a simplified version of a script that I have used for years to download HPR and other podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nI won't try to read the full bash script out in this podcast, as that would be a bit dull to listen to.

    \n\n

    \nI will instead describe what each section does and why I chose to do things that way.

    \n\n

    \nPerhaps other people can offer suggestions of better ways to do things.

    \n\n

    \nI will post the full bash script in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06 Fetching Podcasts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe standard way of distributing podcasts is to publish an RSS feed containing URL links to the audio files.

    \n\n

    \nRSS is a very long established and widely supported mechanism for this and other purposes.

    \n\n

    \nAn RSS feed is basically an XML document which can be accessed over HTTP.

    \n\n

    \nThese URLs contained in the RSS XML document can then be used to download the actual audio files, such as MP3 or OGG files.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nBasically what we need to do is the following

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n• Download the RSS XML document.

    \n\n

    \n• Extract the URL links to the audio files.

    \n\n

    \n• Compare the list of these links to a previously saved list to see which ones are new and which ones are ones that we previously downloaded.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \n• Make a list of the new URLs.

    \n\n

    \n• Go through this list of new URLs and download each of the new audio files.

    \n\n

    \n• Check to see that we actually received the new audio file.

    \n\n

    \n• Add the URLs of the files we successfully downloaded to our saved list of podcast URLs

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09

    \n\n

    \nIn addition to this, we would like to have the above happen automatically in the background without our having to take any action on our own.

    \n\n

    \nWe may wish to receive a notification of when a new podcast has arrived however.

    \n\n

    \nWe would probably also wish to receive notification of any errors or failures.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10 Fetching Podcasts - The Preliminaries

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOur desire to be able to run the script automatically imposes some requirements on our solution.

    \n\n

    \nTo schedule the script we will use cron.

    \n\n

    \nCron is a Linux facility to run scripts on a schedule.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nOne of the side effects of using cron however is that we need to specify the full path to the locations where we intend to keep any data files, plus also the full path to where we intend to put the downloaded podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nSo the first thing we need to do in our script is to specify a number of different values for things like file location, the URL for the HPR RSS feed, and several other things as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will skip over the details of these, although I may make reference to them later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13 Get the RSS Data

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe first thing of real substance to do is to fetch the current RSS feed data.

    \n\n

    \nI have put this in a bash function called getrssurldata

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe contents of this function are a one liner, but with a number of elements chained together through pipes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14 Downloading the RSS XML Document

    \n\n

    \n• First we use wget, which is a standard command on most Linux distros.

    \n\n

    \n• We specify four things.

    \n\n

    \n• First we set a timeout. I have chosen 20 seconds.

    \n\n

    \n• Next we set the retry limit. I have chosen 3.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15

    \n\n

    \n• Then we specify that the output of wget is sent to stdout rather than saved as a file.

    \n\n

    \n• This is done by using the -O option followed by a space and then a dash.

    \n\n

    \n• The O option is usually used to specify a file to save the output to, but when used with a dash causes output to go to stdout.

    \n\n

    \n• Then we specify the URL of the HPR RSS feed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16 Contents of the XML Document

    \n\n

    \nThis gives us the HPR RSS XML document.

    \n\n

    \nThere are about 5,000 lines in this RSS document.

    \n\n

    \nMost of those lines are the show notes which are also included in the feed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17 Extracting the Podcast Episode URLs

    \n\n

    \nThere are only 10 lines of the document that contain information that we are interested in however.

    \n\n

    \nThese lines are enclosed in \"enclosure\" XML tags.

    \n\n

    \nWe just need to find those lines and separate out the URLs

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18 Standard Command Line Tools

    \n\n

    \nThere are two ways that we can do this.

    \n\n

    \nOne is to use a combination of grep, sed, and cut.

    \n\n

    \nGrep can find the lines containing the enclosure tags.

    \n\n

    \nSed and cut can extract the URL from the surrounding extraneous data.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this method does not discriminate between real enclosure tags in the data portion of the RSS feed and enclosure tags in the show notes which are included in the feed from episodes such as this one.

    \n\n

    \nThis may be an acceptable problem in practical terms, but we can do better.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20 Using an XML Parser

    \n\n

    \nThe other method is to actually parse the XML document.

    \n\n

    \nthere are at least two command line XML parsers that I am aware of.

    \n\n

    \nThese are \"xmllint\", and \"xlmstarlet\".

    \n\n

    \nI have used xmllint in this example.

    \n\n

    \nI have not used xmlstarlet, so I can't offer any comment on how easy or difficult to use it is.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nI won't give a detailed explanation of all the things that xmllint can do.

    \n\n

    \nIt has many features, most of which, as the name suggests, have to do with finding formatting problems with the XML itself.

    \n\n

    \nDescribing everything it can do would be at least one episode in itself.

    \n\n

    \nI will instead just give the particular command used and explain each element of it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nIn this example assume that we are piping the output of wget directly into xmllint.

    \n\n

    \nThe complete command is

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nxmllint --xpath \"//channel/item/enclosure/@url\" - | cut -d'\"' -f2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nIn this example,

    \n\n

    \nxmllint is the name of the command.

    \n\n

    \n--xpath tells it to parse the document according to the string which follows.

    \n\n

    \n\"//channel/item/enclosure/@url\" tells it to find a series of tags in the hierarchy of channel, followed by item, followed by enclosure, and then extract the url attribute from the enclosure tag.

    \n\n

    \nThe \"-\" which follows tells it to look for input from stdin rather than from a file.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nThe result is a string which has the url attribute name, an equal sign, and the URL that we want enclosed in quotes.

    \n\n

    \nTo get just the URL itself, we pipe the output from xmllint into cut, using the doublequote characters as delimiters.

    \n\n

    \nWe then save the result in a temporary file.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25 Finding the New Episodes

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNext we wish to find the new podcast episodes.

    \n\n

    \nEach HPR episode is identified by a unique URL.

    \n\n

    \nThis means that if we save the URLs of episodes that we have already downloaded, we just have to look for the URLs that do not appear in this saved list.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4659/hpr4659.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nThe easiest way to do this is to take our two lists of URLs, sort each into temporary files, and then compare the sorted URLs using the \"comm\" command.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \nThis is simple, but has a drawback.

    \n\n

    \nSome podcasts occasionally change distributors.

    \n\n

    \nWhen they do this, the old podcasts are re-published with new URLs and you end up downloading a lot of old episodes over again.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nWith HPR we could get around this by extracting just the file name and looking for that instead of the full URL.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will however leave that problem as an exercise for the student and just accept that if the URL format changes we may end up downloading old episodes over again.

    \n\n

    \nSince the feed has a maximum of only 10 episodes in it however, that isn't really that big of a problem.

    \n\n

    \nIt would be more of a problem with podcasts which have very large numbers of episodes in their feed, but the solutions to those will be feed specific.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29 Downloading the New Podcasts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe should now have a list of URLs for the new podcasts we do not already have.

    \n\n

    \nTypically this should be only one file, but there could be several, or even as many as 10, if we have not turned on our computer in a while.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTherefore, we need to iterate through the file of new podcast URLs and download each one.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nBefore we do that however, we should check to see if there is in fact anything new to download.

    \n\n

    \nTo do this, simply use \"wc -l\" to count the number of lines in the list of new URLs and save the resulting number.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nIf this number is zero, there is nothing to download, we can skip the download step.

    \n\n

    \nAs an additional check, we should see if the number of downloads exceeds some threshold value that we wish to set.

    \n\n

    \nThis is not a major problem with HPR, but some podcasts have hundreds of files in their RSS feed rather than just the most recent ones.

    \n\n

    \nIf we do exceed our download limit, then we need to log an error and skip downloading.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32

    \n\n

    \nAssuming there are no problems so far however, the first thing we need to do is to extract the name of the audio file from the URL.

    \n\n

    \nWe can do that using the \"basename\" command.

    \n\n

    \nWe will use this to specify the name that we use when we save the audio file.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33

    \n\n

    \nHPR has a very well formed file name.

    \n\n

    \nSome podcasts do not however, and for those you would need to construct some sort of suitable name either using information found in the URL or simply creating a name using a time stamp.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nNext we download the audio file using wget.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is similar to how we downloaded the RSS feed, but with a few changes.

    \n\n

    \nOne is that I have increased the timeout to 90 seconds.

    \n\n

    \nThis may not have been necessary, but seemed like a good idea.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nThe next is that when specifying the output file name using -O, we use the file name we extracted from the URL.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe third is that we specify a destination directory using the -P option.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nAfter wget has finished, including any retries that it had to do, we next check that the expected new file is both present and not empty.

    \n\n

    \nWe did this using an \"if\" statement with the \"-s\" option.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf the file was found and not zero, then we add that URL to a temporary list of downloaded URLs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37

    \n\n

    \nIf the file was not present, or was zero length, we output an error message to an error log.

    \n\n

    \nI will come back to this point later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \nNext, if there is more that one podcast to download we sleep for 3 seconds.

    \n\n

    \nWhile not strictly necessary, it is considered to be \"polite\" to not hammer a server repeatedly, but rather to put a small delay between file downloads..

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nAfter we have downloaded all the audio files in our list, we can add the list of URLs for the files downloaded to the permanent list.

    \n\n

    \nWhile we are at it, we should use \"tail\" to trim the permanent log to keep it from growing indefinitely.

    \n\n

    \nThis limit should be several times bigger than the number of files in the RSS feed.

    \n\n

    \nIn this case I selected 50.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nFinally we write any errors to the permanent error log, and also write these same errors to another file used to signal errors for display to the user.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe have now successfully downloaded at least one HPR podcast.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41 Notify the User of Events

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt would be convenient to be informed of new podcast downloads when they occur, and also be notified of any errors.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOne of the limitations of cron jobs is that they cannot access the user interface.

    \n\n

    \nThis means that we cannot readily send a message directly to the notification system to inform the user of the presence of new podcasts or of errors.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42 inotifywait

    \n\n

    \nThe solution to this is to use \"inotifywait\" to monitor particular files and directories for changes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe man page for inotifywait states the following -

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \ninotifywait efficiently waits for changes to files using Linux's inotify(7) interface. It is suitable for waiting for changes to files from shell scripts. It can either exit once an event occurs, or continually execute and output events as they occur.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEnd of quote.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44

    \n\n

    \nIn many Linux distros, inotifywait is provided by the \"inotify-tools\" package.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI won't go over all the features of inotifywait.

    \n\n

    \nInstead, I will just describe how to use it for our purposes here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45 inotifywait Modes

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI should point out first though that inotifywait operates in two different modes.

    \n\n

    \nIn the normal default mode, it exits after being triggered by an event and must be re-established again in order to resume monitoring.

    \n\n

    \nIn monitor mode, which is enabled by using the \"-m\" option, it runs indefinitely, responding to events.

    \n\n

    \nI will use the default mode here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nThe man page for inotifywait provides a simple example that we could copy and modify for our purposes.

    \n\n

    \nA great many examples that you will find are based on this example.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it doesn't quite do what we want, so we need to change a few things.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47 podfetchnotify

    \n\n

    \nThe first shell script is one which monitors for the arrival of new podcasts and sends a notification to the user.

    \n\n

    \nI will call this \"podfetchnotify\".

    \n\n

    \nThe complete scripts are in the show notes, I will just provide a brief description here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48 Setting Up Event Watches Using inotifywait

    \n\n

    \nThe script is enclosed in a while loop which run indefinitely.

    \n\n

    \nIn the first line inside the while loop, we call inotifywait.

    \n\n

    \ninotifywait will then block until the event it is told to look for occurs.

    \n\n

    \nIn short, execution of the script will wait there until an event occurs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nThe names of the events are listed in the man file.

    \n\n

    \nIn this case we are looking for \"modify\", \"create\", and \"moved_to\".

    \n\n

    \nEach of these does pretty much as you would expect, reacting to modifying an existing file, creating a new file, or moving a file to that directory.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50 Problems When Testing Using Text Editors

    \n\n

    \nI should point out that if you are testing a script which uses inotifywait, then modifying a file with a text editor may not produce the results that you may think it would.

    \n\n

    \nInstead it treats this as a new file with the same name, with the original file being erased.

    \n\n

    \nSince inotifywait attaches itself to the inode rather than the filename, it sees the file that the text editor changed as being a new file.

    \n\n

    \nIf you wish to test this realistically, then use \"echo\" to overwrite the file by using I/O redirection.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51 Capturing Output

    \n\n

    \nIn my example I capture the output from standard out into a variable, but I don't do anything with it.

    \n\n

    \nIf you wish to for example display the name of the newly downloaded podcast file, then use the --format option along with an appropriate formatting code.

    \n\n

    \nThere are details about this in the man page.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOn the next line we capture the exit code using \"$?\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52 Responding to Exit Codes

    \n\n

    \nIf the exit code was zero, then a monitored event was triggered and there should a new podcast in the directory.

    \n\n

    \nIn this case we display a message indicating that a new podcast has arrived.

    \n\n

    \nI will describe how to send notifications shortly.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf the exit code was not zero, then an error occurred.

    \n\n

    \nAn example of such an error would be if the directory were not present when monitoring was started.

    \n\n

    \nIn this case we display a message indicating that a fatal error has occurred and then exit.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53 Delay for More Podcasts

    \n\n

    \nFinally, we use \"sleep\" to wait for some arbitrary period of time to prevent notifications from being triggered multiple times if several podcasts were being downloaded in succession.

    \n\n

    \nIn this case I chose to wait for 60 seconds.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nWe have now completed the process and can return to the top of the loop and resume waiting using inotifywait.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55 Sending Notifications to the User

    \n\n

    \nI mentioned above about sending notification messages to the user.

    \n\n

    \nIn the Gnome desktop, notification messages appear from the centre of the top bar in a list.

    \n\n

    \nOther desktops or operating systems may have something similar.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56

    \n\n

    \nTo send a notification message to the notification area, you use the \"notify-send\" command.

    \n\n

    \nSimply follow notify-send with a quoted string and it will be displayed in the notification area.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 podfetcherrornotify

    \n\n

    \nThe second shell script is one which notifies the user of errors.

    \n\n

    \nI will call this \"podfetcherrornotify\".

    \n\n

    \nWith this shell script we set up a watch on a file which contains any error messages from podfetch.

    \n\n

    \nThis script is very similar to podfetchnotify.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nThe exceptions are

    \n\n

    \nWith inotifywait we only monitor for \"modify\".

    \n\n

    \nThere is no sleep command at the end of the loop.

    \n\n

    \nInstead we sleep for a few seconds just after getting the exit code from inotifywait.

    \n\n

    \nThis helps prevent problems caused by race conditions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nNext we check the inotifywait exit code.

    \n\n

    \nIf it was zero, then we read the error report file and send a notification message to the user containing that error message.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60

    \n\n

    \nIf it was not zero, then we check to make sure that the directory that should contain the error log exists.

    \n\n

    \nIf it does not exist, then we send a notification message to that effect to the user and terminate the script.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nIf the directory exists, then we check to see if the error message file used for signalling exists.

    \n\n

    \nIf the file does not exist, then we create it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62

    \n\n

    \nOne of the reasons for an inotifywait error is that if the file that it is told to monitor does not exist, it cannot set up a watch condition.

    \n\n

    \nBy creating the file we correct the cause of the error and allow inotifywait to operate normally.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63

    \n\n

    \nFinally we increment an error counter and check to see if the limit is exceeded.

    \n\n

    \nIf there are excessive errors, then send a notification message to the user and exit.

    \n\n

    \nThe reason for this is to give the user an indication that the error notifications are not working for some reason and there may be a problem that needs looking into.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64

    \n\n

    \nThe error counter is reset every time the inotifywait exit status is ok, so occasional unexpected glitches should be something that is ignored.

    \n\n

    \nOf course podcast fetching errors are something that will probably happen only rarely if at all, so this final step may be seen as an unnecessary embellishment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65 Installing the Scripts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNext I will describe how to install and prepare the scripts to run.

    \n\n

    \nWe need to perform the following steps.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \n• First, we need to create a directory to hold the scripts and their associated data files.

    \n\n

    \n• Next we need to create a directory to hold the downloaded podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n• Then we must copy the scripts to these directories and make them executable.

    \n\n

    \n• Then, we must edit the scripts to have the file path in the script match the locations of the new directories that we created.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67

    \n\n

    \n• Then we need to install xmllint, or alternatively modify the download script to comment out the use of xmllint and enable the alternative method using grep and sed instead.

    \n\n

    \n• Then we need to run each script manually from the command line to check for errors.

    \n\n

    \n• If podfetch ran correctly, it should download the most recent 10 podcasts during this test.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68 Adding podfetch to the Crontab

    \n\n

    \nThe above describes how to run the scripts manually.

    \n\n

    \nIn order to fetch podcasts automatically, we need to add the podfetch script to the cron schedule.

    \n\n

    \nTo do this, open a terminal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nType \"crontab -e\", and then press return.

    \n\n

    \nA text editor should open up containing the crontab file.

    \n\n

    \nOn Ubuntu, this editor is GNU nano.

    \n\n

    \nEnter the appropriate cron parameters.

    \n\n

    \nI will provide an example here for running it 12 minutes past the hour every three hours.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \n12 */3 * * * /home/username/pathtofiles/podfetch.sh

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71

    \n\n

    \nI won't explain cron in detail here.

    \n\n

    \nThe example that I have just given should be good enough for most people.

    \n\n

    \nThe \"*/3\" parameter will cause it to run every three hours.

    \n\n

    \nThe \"12\" parameter will cause it to run 12 minutes past the hour when it does run.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72

    \n\n

    \nChecking every three hours should be good enough for most people, but you can adjust that as you see fit.

    \n\n

    \nI would recommend however that you don't check more frequently than once per hour.

    \n\n

    \nChecking more frequently than necessary puts extra load on the distribution servers.

    \n\n

    \nIt is very unlikely that you really do need each new episode the moment it is available.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73

    \n\n

    \nI would also recommend changing the \"12\" parameter to some other random minute value.

    \n\n

    \nI would suggest avoiding on the hour or on the half hour, as a lot of other people are probably checking at those times, and it would be better to spread the load out more evenly over time.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74

    \n\n

    \nThe file path parameter should of course match the actual path to wherever you have located the script, including the correct user name.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75 Making the Notification Scripts Start Automatically

    \n\n

    \nThe two notification scripts can be made to start automatically.

    \n\n

    \nThe exact method to do this may vary according to distribution or desktop.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n76

    \n\n

    \nOn Ubuntu this is done using the Startup Applications Preferences GUI program, which should come already installed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n77

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into details on this here, it should be fairly self evident how to use it once you see it.

    \n\n

    \nWhat this program does is to create \".desktop\" files in the \".config/autostart\" directory in your home directory.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n78

    \n\n

    \nThese \".desktop\" files are all run automatically on start up.

    \n\n

    \nOnce you have added the notification scripts, you will need to log out and then log back in to make them active.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n79 Conclusion

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI this episode I explained how to write a set of simple shell scripts to automatically download each new episode of HPR as it comes out and to notify you of its arrival.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n80

    \n\n

    \nThe download script described here is tailored specifically for use with HPR only.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it was derived from a larger script that downloaded other podcasts as well, based on information read in from a text file.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are feeling ambitious, you can add those features back into this to handle all of the podcasts that you listen to.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n81

    \n\n

    \nIn a comment to another episode of HPR I had said that I would cover ID3 tags in MP3 files, but this episode is long enough now, so I will leave that subject for later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI look forward to seeing you again later on another episode of Hack Public Radio.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \npodfetchdownloader

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Fetch pending HPR podcasts listed in the HPR RSS feed.

    \n\n

    \n# 8-Jun-2026

    \n\n

    \n# Licensed under GPLv3 or later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Today's date and time as YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.

    \n\n

    \npodttimestamp=$( date +\"%Y%m%d%H%M%S\" )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# The absolute path to the script. This is necessary when running it

    \n\n

    \n# using a cron job.

    \n\n

    \npodpath=\"/home/me/Apps/hprfetch\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# This is the absolute path to where to store the podcast files.

    \n\n

    \npodfilepath=\"/home/me/Music/Podcasts/HPR\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Create the full path names here for all the text files used.

    \n\n

    \npodcastsfetched=\"$podpath/podcastsfetched.txt\"

    \n\n

    \npoderrorslog=\"$podpath/poderrorslog.txt\"

    \n\n

    \npoderrorsreport=\"$podpath/poderrorsreport.txt\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ntmpoldurlssorted=\"$podpath/tmpoldurlssorted.txt\"

    \n\n

    \ntmppodsnew=\"$podpath/tmppodsnew.txt\"

    \n\n

    \ntmppodstodownload=\"$podpath/tmppodstodownload.txt\"

    \n\n

    \ntmppodserrors=\"$podpath/tmppodserrors.txt\"

    \n\n

    \ntmppodcastsfetched=\"$podpath/tmppodcastsfetched.txt\"

    \n\n

    \ntmplog=\"$podpath/tmplog.txt\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# The URL for the HPR RSS feed.

    \n\n

    \nPodURL=\"http://hackerpublicradio.org/hpr_rss.php\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Limit on number of podcasts to download.

    \n\n

    \nDownloadLimit=11

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Name of the podcast.

    \n\n

    \nPodName=\"Hacker Public Radio\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Check if the required paths exist.

    \n\n

    \n# If this path does not exist, cannot log the error.

    \n\n

    \nif [[ ! -d \"$podpath/\" ]]; then

    \n\n

    \n\techo \"$podttimestamp Error - Could not find $podfilepath.\"

    \n\n

    \n\texit 1

    \n\n

    \nfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Where to store the podcast file fetched.

    \n\n

    \nif [[ ! -d \"$podfilepath/\" ]]; then

    \n\n

    \n\techo \"$podttimestamp Error - Could not find $podfilepath.\" >> $tmppodserrors

    \n\n

    \n\t# Copy the errors log from the temporary errors file to the permanent files.

    \n\n

    \n\tLogErrors

    \n\n

    \n\texit 1

    \n\n

    \nfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Check if the podcast log exists. We read it before we write to it,

    \n\n

    \n# so it must exist or we will hang on it not being present.

    \n\n

    \nif [[ ! -e $podcastsfetched ]]; then

    \n\n

    \n\ttouch $podcastsfetched

    \n\n

    \nfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Delete the specified files if they exist.

    \n\n

    \n# This accepts multiple file names in a variable number of parameters.

    \n\n

    \nCleanupFiles ()

    \n\n

    \n{

    \n\n

    \n\t# $@ accepts multiple parameters.

    \n\n

    \n\tfor f in \"$@\"; do

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Check if the file exists.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tif [ -e \"$f\" ]; then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\trm \"$f\"

    \n\n

    \n\t\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\tdone

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Copy the errors log from the temporary errors file to the permanent files.

    \n\n

    \nLogErrors () {

    \n\n

    \n\tif [ -e $tmppodserrors ]; then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# The permanent log.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tcat $tmppodserrors >> $poderrorslog

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# This file is monitored for display by other scripts.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tcat $tmppodserrors > $poderrorsreport

    \n\n

    \n\tfi

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Get the URL data from an RSS feed

    \n\n

    \nGetRSSURLData () {

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\twget --timeout=20 --tries=3 -O - \"$PodURL\" \\

    \n\n

    \n\t| xmllint --xpath \"//channel/item/enclosure/@url\" - | cut -d'\"' -f2 \\

    \n\n

    \n\t| sort > $tmppodsnew

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# This is an alternate method that does not use xmllint.

    \n\n

    \n\t# However, it is not as robust. If someone were to include the

    \n\n

    \n\t# first grep search pattern in their show notes, then it would

    \n\n

    \n\t# look for that as a valid tag and output the following text

    \n\n

    \n\t# as a URL.

    \n\n

    \n\t#wget --timeout=20 --tries=3 -O - \"$PodURL\" | grep \"<enclosure url=\" \\

    \n\n

    \n\t#\t| sed -n 's/^.*enclosure//p' | sed -n 's/^.*url=//p' \\

    \n\n

    \n\t#\t| cut -d'\"' -f2 | sort > $tmppodsnew

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Find which podcasts we do not already have.

    \n\n

    \nFindNewPodcasts () {

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\tcat $podcastsfetched | sort > $tmpoldurlssorted

    \n\n

    \n\tcomm -13 $tmpoldurlssorted $tmppodsnew > $tmppodstodownload

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\trm $tmpoldurlssorted

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Download the podcasts.

    \n\n

    \nDownloadPodcasts() {

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Clear out previous temporary list of downloaded podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n\ttrue > $tmppodcastsfetched

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\tfor i in $( cat $tmppodstodownload )

    \n\n

    \n\tdo

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Extract the file name from the URL.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tfname=$( basename $i )

    \n\n

    \n\t\toutputpodname=\"$podfilepath/$fname\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Download the file.

    \n\n

    \n\t\twget --timeout=90 --tries=3 -P $podfilepath $i -O \"$outputpodname\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Check if the file exists and is not empty.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tif [[ -s \"$outputpodname\" ]]; then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\techo $i >> $tmppodcastsfetched

    \n\n

    \n\t\telse

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\techo \"$podttimestamp Error - $outputpodname was not found or is empty.\" >> $tmppodserrors

    \n\n

    \n\t\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Delay a reasonable length of time between multiple downloads.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tif (( $PodCount > 1 )); then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\tsleep 3

    \n\n

    \n\t\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\tdone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Add the list of files downloaded to the log.

    \n\n

    \n\t# Check if the list exists and is not empty.

    \n\n

    \n\tif [ -s $tmppodcastsfetched ]; then

    \n\n

    \n\t\tcat $tmppodcastsfetched >> $podcastsfetched

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Trim the log file to keep it from growing indefinitely.

    \n\n

    \n\t\ttail -n50 $podcastsfetched > $tmplog

    \n\n

    \n\t\tmv $tmplog $podcastsfetched

    \n\n

    \n\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Remove the tmp file now that we are done with it.

    \n\n

    \n\trm $tmppodcastsfetched

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n}

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Clean up any left over files.

    \n\n

    \nCleanupFiles \"$tmppodsnew\" \"$tmppodstodownload\" \"$tmppodserrors\" \"$tmppodcastsfetched\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Get the RSS data.

    \n\n

    \nGetRSSURLData

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Find which podcasts are new.

    \n\n

    \nFindNewPodcasts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Count how many new podcasts there are.

    \n\n

    \nPodCount=$( cat $tmppodstodownload | wc -l )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# If no podcasts to download, skip this.

    \n\n

    \n# If too many podcasts for this feed, then log an error and skip.

    \n\n

    \n# This error will keep repeating until something is done about it.

    \n\n

    \nif (( $PodCount > 0 )); then

    \n\n

    \n\tif (( $PodCount > $DownloadLimit )); then

    \n\n

    \n\t\techo \"$podttimestamp Too many podcasts for $PodName : $PodCount.\" >> $tmppodserrors\t\t

    \n\n

    \n\telse

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Download the podcasts listed in the temp file.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tDownloadPodcasts

    \n\n

    \n\tfi

    \n\n

    \nfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Copy the errors log from the temporary errors file to the permanent files.

    \n\n

    \nLogErrors

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Clean up temp files.

    \n\n

    \nCleanupFiles \"$tmppodsnew\" \"$tmppodstodownload\" \"$tmppodserrors\" \"$tmppodcastsfetched\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEND OF FIRST SHELL SCRIPT

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSTART OF SECOND SHELL SCRIPT

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \npodfetchnotify

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Part of Podfetch.

    \n\n

    \n# This monitors for new files appearing in the new podcasts directory.

    \n\n

    \n# This should be run as a background task.

    \n\n

    \n# Install it using the \"Startup Applications\" utility in Ubuntu.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Path where new podcasts are to be stored.

    \n\n

    \npodfilepath=\"/home/me/Music/Podcasts/HPR\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Wait for the podcast directory to be modified.

    \n\n

    \nwhile true; do

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Check for new files.

    \n\n

    \n\terrmsg=$( inotifywait -e modify -e create -e moved_to $podfilepath )

    \n\n

    \n\tresult=$?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Check if exited due to new podcast, or if some error.

    \n\n

    \n\tif (( result == 0 )); then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Success, signal new podcast.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tnotify-send \"New HPR podcast available.\"

    \n\n

    \n\telse

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Check to make sure the directory exists.

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# If it doesn't exist, there isn't much we can do to fix it.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tif [ ! -e \"$poderrorspath\" ]; then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\tnotify-send \"Podfetch error: Podcast directory not found $poderrorspath\"

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\texit 1

    \n\n

    \n\t\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Wait a bit so that multiple new files don't keep re-triggering the notification.

    \n\n

    \n\tsleep 60

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ndone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEND OF SECOND SHELL SCRIPT

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSTART OF THIRD SHELL SCRIPT

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \npodfetcherror

    \n\n

    \nCreated Tuesday 23 June 2026

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n#!/bin/bash

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Part of Podfetch.

    \n\n

    \n# This monitors the Podfetch error reporting file for new errors.

    \n\n

    \n# This should be run as a background task.

    \n\n

    \n# Install it using the \"Startup Applications\" utility in Ubuntu.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Where the Podfetch program error report file is located.

    \n\n

    \npoderrorspath=\"/home/me/Apps/hprfetch\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# The full path and file name.

    \n\n

    \npoderrorsreport=\"$poderrorspath/poderrorsreport.txt\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Error counter.

    \n\n

    \nerrcount=0

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# Wait for the poderrorsreport file to be modified.

    \n\n

    \nwhile true; do

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\terrmsg=$( inotifywait -e modify $poderrorsreport )

    \n\n

    \n\tresult=$?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t# Wait a bit to ensure that writing to the file is complete.

    \n\n

    \n\tsleep 3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\tif (( result == 0 )); then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Get the latest error message.

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Cut out the date stamp at the start of the line and take the rest.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tpoderr=$( tail -n $poderrorsreport | cut -d\" \" -f2- )

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t\tnotify-send \"Podfetch error: $poderr\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Reset the error counter every time there is a successful result.

    \n\n

    \n\t\terrcount=0

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\telse

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Check to make sure the directory exists.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tif [ ! -e \"$poderrorspath\" ]; then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\tnotify-send \"Podfetch error: error report path not found $poderrorspath\"

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\texit 1

    \n\n

    \n\t\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Check if the file we are trying to monitor exists.

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# If not, then create an empty file for error signaling.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tif [ ! -e \"$poderrorsreport\" ]; then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\techo > $poderrorsreport

    \n\n

    \n\t\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\t\t# Increment the error counter.

    \n\n

    \n\t\tcount=$(( count + 1 ))

    \n\n

    \n\t\tif (( count > 3 )); then

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\tnotify-send \"Podfetch error: Excessive unknown errors, exiting.\"

    \n\n

    \n\t\t\texit 1

    \n\n

    \n\t\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\tfi

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ndone

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n# ======================================================================

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"bash","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4689,"date":"2026-07-23","title":"Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 8: Writing the code ","duration":1173,"summary":"How we wrote the code to make this whole thing work","notes":"\n

    \n\nHello, again. This is Trey.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWelcome to part 8 in my Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) Project series. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIf you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my \n\nHPR profile page\n\n\n\nhttps://www.hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0394.html\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIt is hard to believe that I started this project and the HPR series to document it more than a year ago. Time flies. Life happens. I spent the last 8 months so focused on work related activities that I had to set the project aside. And once I set it aside, it was difficult to get back to again. The one time I tried, I found that my son's old Windows laptop, which I had commandeered to use for the project, was once and truly dead. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWe live in a different world now than we did when I began this project. Today, everything is about AI – how it is changing our world, increasing efficiencies, and even displacing certain types of jobs. \"Vibe coding\" is transforming the way we make software, and now everyone is a developer.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWithin my organization, we are all being strongly encouraged to learn more about AI and apply it in our daily work. We are blessed to have access to a wide range of training and to powerful tools which support the process. Several colleagues within my organization and outside my organization have recommended Claude Code -- for development, for organization, for brainstorming, and for much more. My role is not that of a developer, and I have had no need for Claude Code at work. There are plenty of other tools for me to use.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBut at home, I thought... I could install Claude Code at home to experiment with and to learn. And then it hit me. I wonder if I could use Claude Code to help me with my stalled CYD project. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\"Hello, my name is Trey, and I am a fraud.\"\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOK. I don't think I am a fraud, but having never used such a powerful tool to help me code, I feel a little bit like a fraud, with Claude doing the work for me. Let's talk through what we did.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAs I mentioned, I was unable to use the laptop on which I created the original GUI code. But no worries, because It was all on GitHub, right?\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSo, I began by trying to install Claude Code on one of my Ubuntu machines. That failed miserably, and all the instructions I found online recommended running it on Windows. So I transitioned to installing Claude Code on a freshly built Windows 10 system using some old hardware which will not support Windows 11. Surprisingly, It seems that Claude wants to run within Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOnce I went through all the hoops for installing and setting up my basic subscription, I got to work. I created a new directory to use for all my project files, and another one for Claude to write all its output files to.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEverything I have read and heard about using Claude Code for a project like this recommended beginning by using Claude to create the project plan. So my first prompt was as follows:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\"I am building a project using an ESP32 cheap yellow display. The final goal is to have a device with a graphical user interface which will allow me store several text messages, each assigned to their own specific button. Then, when one of the buttons is pressed, the message will be converted into morse code, and the message will be sent by blinking an onboard LED. I already have the initial design for the GUI coded in my github repository. Please construct a detailed step by step plan for building this application\"\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI wanted to keep it simple at the beginning, so even though I plan to use an opto-isolated relay for the output, I am starting out using the built in LED.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nClaude asked me for the URL for my Github repository, and I provided it. After thinking for a bit, it produced a project plan.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nCYD Morse Sender — Step-by-Step Build Plan\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWhat You Already Have\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n- 3 fully designed LVGL screens (Send, Config, Keyboard)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n- 7 send buttons with green styling on the Send Screen\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n- Speed slider (5–30 WPM) and program slot dropdown on Config Screen\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n- Text area + LVGL keyboard widget on Keyboard Screen\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n- Display driver and touchscreen hardware initialized (but touch read was stubbed out)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n---\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhase 1: Fix Touchscreen Input\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nInitialize the XPT2046 on VSPI, replace the hardcoded touched = false with real touch data, calibrate raw ADC coordinates to screen pixels, and verify all three nav buttons transition screens correctly. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhase 2: Persistent Message Storage\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUse Preferences.h / NVS to store 7 messages (\"msg0\" – \"msg6\") that survive power cycles. Load on boot and populate send button labels.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhase 3: Config Screen — Slot Selection & Speed\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWire the Program dropdown to g_selectedSlot, wire the Speed slider to g_wpm with a live WPM label, and wire the Set button to clear the text area and navigate to the Keyboard Screen.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhase 4: Keyboard Screen — Capture and Save Text\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nOn keyboard OK (LV_EVENT_READY): read the text area, save to NVS, update the send button label, navigate back. On Cancel: navigate back without saving.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhase 5: Morse Code Engine\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBuild morse.h with the full A–Z / 0–9 lookup table, a textToMorse() converter, and Paris-standard timing (unit_ms = 1200 / wpm).\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhase 6: Non-Blocking LED Transmission\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nState machine (IDLE / LED_ON / LED_OFF) driven by millis() in a morseUpdate() function called every loop — no delay(). LED on GPIO 17 (blue).\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhase 7: Wire the Send Buttons\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nEach button calls startMorse(getMessage(slot)) if not already transmitting. Disable all send buttons during TX; re-enable when the state machine reaches the end.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPhase 8: Integration & Polish\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nStop button, WPM persistence, empty-slot guard, serial debug output, final touch calibration, end-to-end test checklist.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n---\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nRecommended order: Phase 1 → 2 → 7 (partial) → 5 → 6 → 7 (full) → 3 → 4 → 8\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThis was wild! Claude determined exactly how far along I was in the project, and also alerted me to the fact that the \"touch read was stubbed out\". Ugh. This means that the files I had uploaded to GitHub were my original GUI files (Episode 05 – HPR4532 - \n\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4532/index.html\n\n) and not the ones that I finally got working properly (Episode 07 – HPR4624 - \n\nhttps://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4624/index.html\n\n). That was my own fault. Did I mention that I don't get Git? I REALLY need to learn to properly use Git!\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBut, we have a plan, broken down by eight numbered phases. And they seem to address all the functionality I wanted with a few additional things I had not thought about. Interestingly, even though these phases are sequentially numbered, Claud recommended that we approach them in a bizarre order: Phase 1 → 2 → 7 (partial) → 5 → 6 → 7 (full) → 3 → 4 → 8 .\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAlright. Let's see what we can do. The first phase is to fix the touchscreen input. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nClaude took me through it step-by-step, asking as it needed to read specific project files.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFinally, it wrote a new ui.ino code file to my speficied output directory for me to test. I copied it into the correct file location, said a quick prayer, compiled in Arduino IDE, and downloaded to the CYD.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWell, that is... interesting. The display looked nothing like it was supposed to. There were vertical green bars with smaller dashed green vertical stripes in them. I will include a picture in the show notes so that you can see what it looked like and why it was so difficult to describe. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI spent the next hour or so trying to explain what I was seeing to a chat bot. Claude recommended potential fixes which either did nothing or made the situation worse. I began questioning whether this was a good idea, how people actually gained efficiencies talking to a bot, and even several life choices. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThen I had a thought. I prompted Claude:\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIf I were to take a picture of the screen on the cheap yellow display and copy it into the output folder, would you be able to analyze it to better determine what is wrong and how to fix it?\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nShockingly, Claude answered in the affirmative, and told me to copy the picture to the output folder and let it know when to proceed. It analyzed the picture and more of the supporting files it had copied from my GitHub, asking each time if it could access that file. It determined that my original code was written for a flavor of LVGL version 8 and I was now using LVGL 9.5. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIt recommended changes, and then asked permission to make those changes, file by file. .h files & .c files, Finally, I just gave it permission to edit the files in the project folder without asking for permission for each file each time. Claude was still explaining each change, showing me exactly what would be changed, and asking for permission, so that I could review all of the changes. But now it was not asking additional permission to write to each of the impacted files.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNext, Code compiled and downloaded. Different screen, but not right. Again, I took a picture and gave it to Claude to analyze. So, Claude paused and altered the code to generate a specific test pattern overtop of the GUI.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThe test pattern was supposed to cover the entire rectangular screen. But parts of the pattern were in a square on the screen and parts were not. Another photograph and analysis, told Claude that there were some rotation/screensize issues.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWe repeated this several times. Some resulted in improvement, and others did not.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThis is the point where I noticed something interesting. Not about Claude, specifically, or about the app. But I noticed something interesting about myself and about the process.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nPreviously, when I was working through some of these challenges without Claud, I found myself becoming more and more stressed, frustrated, and angry, until I found a solution. Then another problem would repeat the cycle. Success in the end was great, but the emotional extremes during the process were not always pleasant. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNow, I was effectively managing the project, and relaying information to the resource responsible for fixing the problems -- a very different experience.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nBut I also ran into another issue. Claude became absolutely certain that the problem revolved around the device not accurately knowing where the 4 corners of the screen were. But in reality, the output of the test pattern was rotated 90 degrees from the actual screen. It took several iterations of me insisting that the problem had to do with screen orientation and not corner coordinates. It was interesting to experience the tool doubling down on an obvious mistake, but we finally resolved that.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAgain, while it was frustrating, it was much less stressful.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nWe proceeded to \n\n\n\nPhase 2: Persistent Message Storage\n\n\n\nwhere we ensured that the button labels on the send screen were stored in the devices persistent storage, so that, when they are edited to contain the message they should send, that information would survive a reboot.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nNext, we combined elements of \n\n\n\nPhase 5: Morse Code Engine\n\n\n\n, \n\n\n\nPhase 6: Non-Blocking LED Transmission\n\n\n\n, and \n\n\n\nPhase 7: Wire the Send Buttons\n\n\n\ntogether. Building the morse code engine was an area I had been thinking about for a while. I already had working parts of something similar in the Arduino practice oscillator I have referenced a few times in this series. The code for the practice oscillator may be found on my GitHub, but it was all based on original code from jmharvey1, with my only contribution being making pin assignments variables so that the code could easily be ported to different devices. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nSo, I was happy that we were building the morse code engine directly. The code for it may be found in morse.h, which uses a constant character lookup table to define each character. Without any specific direction from me, Claude used the PARIS timing methods I have already described within Episode 6 of this series. It defines timing for DOT, DASH, LETTER_GAP, and WORD_GAP, and all are based on a simple calculation of 1200 ms / the number of words per minute (WPM) we wish to transmit.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nAlong the way, we discovered that, if we tried to use the delay() function, it would crash the program due to a conflict with the LVGL timer used for touchscreen inputs. Claude altered all the delays accordingly.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThen, \n\n\n\nPhase 3: Config Screen — Slot Selection & Speed\n\n\n\nallowed us to configure the WPM we wished to use in addition to selecting a specific Send button to reconfigure. This forced us to work on \n\n\n\nPhase 4: Keyboard Screen — Capture and Save Text\n\n\n\nwhich is used to type the entries for each Send button. At this point, I also decided that we would want to also use the Keyboard Screen to send ad hoc morse as we typed it.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDuring this phase we discovered several bugs which seemed to cause random freezes. Careful troubleshooting with messages output to the Arduino IDE's serial console helped us narrow down the causes and remedy them.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nFinally all the tests worked and I am able to merrily pre-configure macro buttons with custom messages and use the CYD to send the morse code for those messages to the on-board LED at whichever rate I specify.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI have noticed in my presentation of this narrative that I repeatedly slip into the first person plural terms \"we\" and \"us\" instead of the first person singular terms \"I\" and \"me\". I have unconsciously personified Claud and recognized it as an integral part of my (formerly one person) development team.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI finally configured Claude to connect to my GitHub repo and upload all the files and documentation. We additionally created a CYD-Narrative.md file which describes in more detail all the work which was done on the project. I still do not 100% get git, but we are successfully using it.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nYou can find all these files in my GitHub repo (\n\nhttps://github.com/jttrey3/CYD_MorseSender\n\n) where they are shared under a GPL 3.0 license.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nThere are still several additional steps I plan to complete in the next few months. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n1. I will be integrating an opto-isolated relay which will allow me to plug the device into the straight key input on any amateur radio. This will require a battery power source, charge controller, and more hardware.\n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n\nI... make that \"We\" (Claude & I) will be modifying the code to support an audio side tone through an attached speaker when sending code\n\n
      2. \n\n
    2. \n\nWe will add an output selection switch to the config page to choose any combination of speaker, relay, or LED as output.\n\n
      3. \n\n
    3. \n\nWe will develop a downloadable firmware which I hope to share with the Cheap Yellow Display community.\n\n
      4. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIf you can think of any additional features you would like to see integrated, please drop me an email using the address in my HPR profile.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI may also work with a friend to attempt to 3d print a case for the entire contraption, and I will be sure to record additional episodes sharing the process.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI have learned so much throughout this project, about the CYD, ESP32, GUIs, Claude Code, GitHub, and most of all, about myself. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDoes using AI to develop this code make me a fraud? It still feels like it in some ways. \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDoes it make me more productive? ABSOLUTELY! I made consistent forward progress when I only had 30-60 minutes each day to work on it, and everything discussed in this episode was completed in less than a week. If I had been able to work on it for a few hours uninterrupted, it may have only taken me 3-5 hours.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nDoes it empower and inspire me to do more projects like this? 100% I feel like I had support working with me the whole way. I was less stressed overall, and it had less of an impact on the amount of and quality of time I spent with my family.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nI will be wrapping up this series soon, without any more 6 month gaps, I hope.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\nUntil next time...\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":394,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"CYD, electronics, ESP32, Adruino, Cheap Yellow Display, morse code, cw, Ham Radio, Amateur Radio","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4690,"date":"2026-07-24","title":"Playing Civilization V, Part 14","duration":348,"summary":"We conclude a sample game of Civilization V","notes":"\n

    In our sample game we look at playing as Austria and aiming for a Diplomatic Victory. And our focus is on puppeting City-States, but I misunderstood and instead of making a Diplomatic Victory easier, it makes it harder. I still managed to get my Diplomatic Victory, but a Science or Domination Victory would definitely have been easier in this scenario.

    \n\n

    Playing Civilization V, Part 14

    \n\n

    Now I am at turn 340, I just puppeted another City-State, and I have one more on the way. I have sent a large number of military units, both land and sea, to the City-States that are on Japan’s border. If he tries anything now he will likely regret it. Now I am starting to build things I had not bothered with before, like Granaries and Amphitheaters. I got a couple of Great Engineers, and used them to rush build Wonders. I am nearly finished puppeting all of the City-States, and my Happiness and Income are both quite healthy. I am in such good shape I started to build the World’s Fair, which I initally proposed then ignored.

    \n\n

    At this point I only have one more City-State to puppet, then I will have puppeted every City-State in the game. So it is time to put my large income to use in other ways by giving gifts to the other players. I may want to get a few more votes on my side to get over the top in the World Leader vote when it happens. On turn 357 I completed the puppeting of all of the City-States in the game. Meanwhile, I am building up my Science and building Wonders as they become available. I didn’t build any in the early game because I had other priorities, but now I have a strong military, high income, and no other pressing needs. My score on the Leader Board is now double that of my nearest competitor which is still Japan. And their denunciation me of just expired with them taking no action.

    \n\n

    I used a Great Engineer to rush build the Porcelain Tower, earning me another Great Scientist, which I then used to build another Academy. At this point it is mostly a slog to the finish. Since I was so dominant and so wealthy I could afford to pursue a couple of other options just in case. One was a Science victory, which looked like a possibility, though it would be close. I had to be very focused in my Science Research. The other option was a Culture victory, and I had dominated two other empires culturally without half trying, and I was generating Great Artists, Great Musicians, and Great Writers pretty rapidly. So I built Museums, then Archeologists, and grabbed every artifact I find to stuff into the Museums. But the final Victory came when I researched Globalization. This tech allows you to get an extra vote in a World Council for every Spy you send to another empire’s capital and designate as an Ambassador. I immediately sent my spies out (they had previously been in my cities doing counter-espionage since I had a tech lead). And a few turns later a vote for World Leader came up and I won.

    \n\n

    This was my first time using Maria Theresa of Austria as my leader, and it was fun, but in the end puppeting all of the City-Staters actually made it harder to win a Diplomatic victory. In other games I have played, every City-State that was an ally was an extra vote in the World Council, and I assumed that making them puppets would mean I would get that many votes. But that didn’t happen. Of course, if I had read more carefully in the Civilization Wiki I would have realized this, because it says there very clearly that Austria is one of the worst Empires to pick if you are going for a Diplomatic victory. So the fact that I managed it anyway is nice. I think I actually could have done a Science victory as I had my Spaceship half-built when I won the Diplomatic Victory. But I hope this analysis of how I actually played this game will be helpful to someone else.

    \n\n

    Links

    \n\n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, sample game, Diplomatic Victory","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4691,"date":"2026-07-27","title":"Viva la Coda","duration":531,"summary":"or C++ and all its friends","notes":"\n

    \n C++ is a high-level, general-purpose programming language created\n by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup. First released in\n 1985 as an extension of the C programming language, adding\n object-oriented (OOP) features, it has since expanded\n significantly over time adding more OOP and other features

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Serenity OS - https://serenityos.org

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n The C Programming Language, Kernighan and Ritchie -

    \n

    \n

    \n

    https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Books/The%20C%20Programming%20Language%20%28Kernighan%20Ritchie%29.pdf

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n C++ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n The Ghost of Unix SVR4 - https://github.com/macsplit/unix_doc

    ","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"c, c , serenityos, unix","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4692,"date":"2026-07-28","title":"Noise Music Tutorial 2: Using Audacity to Make Noise","duration":528,"summary":"A tutorial and explainging different ways to make Noise music using audacity","notes":"\n\n \n\n \n \n \n \n

    \n Links to a more in depth way to do the musique concrete method and\n harsh noise wall (they don't use audacity, but it all can be done\n on audacity, just gives you an idea what I'm talking about)

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n visual of generating noise on audacity (for harsh noise, you want\n to have a larger amplitude or any thing that makes the noise\n louder)

    \n

    \n https://youtu.be/CkZS1C7JUmM?si=qGe7g94lrBE-fAh6

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Musique Concrete

    \n

    \n https://youtu.be/hvI0URwiCJc?si=l_7N3DASLu4Cw7qQ

    \n

    \n

    \n

    \n Harsh Noise Wall

    \n

    \n https://youtu.be/_zwgleyfBgQ?si=IgtK3ydM0queuHBX

    \n

    \n

    \n \n","hostid":354,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Noise, Music, Audacity, expiramental","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4693,"date":"2026-07-29","title":"Amateur Radio Field Days","duration":674,"summary":"Archer72 talks briefly about the worldwide Amateur Radio Field Days","notes":"\n

    \n\nHi, this is Archer72 for another episode of Hacker Public Radio.\n

    \n\n

    \n\nIn this episode, the ARRL Field Days was in the past month, so I thought this would be a good time to highlight events in the US as well as around the world.\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nField Day (amateur radio : edited on 4 June 2026, at 13:51)\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nExperience the power of ham radio at 2025 ARRL Field Day Harrison County Amateur Radio Club Jun 12, 2025 \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nUpdated Jun 17, 2025\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nAmateur Radio Club to host annual field day By Keith Clifford Harrison County Amateur Radio Club Jun 15, 2026\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nHarrison County Amateur Radio Club Field Day Jun 22, 2026\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nPreceding collage used with permission by Keith Clifford of the Harrison County Amateur Radio Club (K4HSN)

    \n\n\n","hostid":318,"series":43,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Amateur radio, Ham radio, HAM, ARRL, Ham radio club, Field Days","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4694,"date":"2026-07-30","title":"HPR Beer Garden 16 - Belgian Blonde","duration":2062,"summary":"Kevie and Dave talk about Belgian Blonde Ales","notes":"\n

    \nDave and Kevie are back with another HPR Beer Garden and this time they turn their attention to Belgian Blonde Ales. Kevie samples \nLeffe Blonde\n, whilst Dave opts for \nLa Chouffe\n.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on Untappd:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe next 3 beer styles to be reviewed:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nDDH IPA
      • \n\n
    • \nAmber Ale
      • \n\n
    • \nLager
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4695,"date":"2026-07-31","title":"Try not to buy a phone","duration":611,"summary":"Phone setup alternatives, SMS solutions, and challenges with VoIP numbers.","notes":"\n

    \nIDEAS:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Using a cheap phone plan with SMS for authentication.
      2. \n\n
    2. \n Mighty Text as a free SMS solution.
      3. \n\n
    3. \n Google VoIP number for shared accounts.
      4. \n\n
    4. \n Issues with SMS verification blocking VoIP numbers.
      5. \n\n
    5. \n Avoiding carrier-specific number blocks.
      6. \n\n
    6. \n Multiple SIM cards for cost-effective SMS.
      7. \n\n
    7. \n Rooting a phone to manage apps.
      8. \n\n
    8. \n Security concerns with third-party apps.
      9. \n\n
    9. \n Limited data usage for minimal phone plans.
      10. \n\n
    10. \n Challenges with app compatibility on rooted devices.
      11. \n\n
    11. \n Short-term phone solutions for SMS needs.
      12. \n\n
    12. \n Shared Google accounts for streamlined access.
      13. \n\n
    13. \n Avoiding premium SMS services like $15/month plans.
      14. \n\n
    14. \n Using Wi-Fi for data instead of cellular plans.
      15. \n\n
    15. \n Importance of SMS for MFA (multi-factor authentication).
      16. \n\n
    16. \n Transitioning from old phones to new setups.
      17. \n\n
    17. \n Balancing convenience and cost in phone plans.
      18. \n\n
    18. \n Reliance on SMS for banking and insurance access.
      19. \n\n
    19. \n Difficulty finding non-blocked SMS verification options.
      20. \n\n
    20. \n Preference for minimal, low-cost phone solutions.
      21. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRECOMMENDATIONS:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Use a shared Google account for SMS access.
      2. \n\n
    2. \n Opt for a cheap phone plan with unlimited texting.
      3. \n\n
    3. \n Try Mighty Text as a free SMS alternative.
      4. \n\n
    4. \n Avoid premium SMS services with high fees.
      5. \n\n
    5. \n Use Wi-Fi instead of cellular data for minimal plans.
      6. \n\n
    6. \n Choose carrier numbers over VoIP for critical services.
      7. \n\n
    7. \n Root a device to manage app settings.
      8. \n\n
    8. \n Test SMS compatibility with banks and providers.
      9. \n\n
    9. \n Consider multiple SIM cards for redundancy.
      10. \n\n
    10. \n Prioritize SMS for MFA over other verification methods.
      11. \n\n
    11. \n Monitor app updates for compatibility with rooted devices.
      12. \n\n
    12. \n Select phones with flexible data plans.
      13. \n\n
    13. \n Use downloaded content instead of streaming.
      14. \n\n
    14. \n Check for SMS blockages with new services.
      15. \n\n
    15. \n Explore low-cost phone options for minimal use.
      16. \n\n
    16. \n Maintain backup SMS methods for emergencies.
      17. \n\n
    17. \n Simplify phone setups to reduce costs.
      18. \n\n
    18. \n Verify SMS support before switching providers.
      19. \n\n
    19. \n Combine Wi-Fi and SMS for reliable connectivity.
      20. \n\n
    20. \n Share accounts to streamline digital access.
      21. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"DIY,hacking ,Android","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4696,"date":"2026-08-03","title":"HPR Community News for July 2026","duration":3052,"summary":"HPR Volunteers Kevie, and Ken talk about shows released and comments posted in July 2026","notes":"

    New hosts

    There were no new hosts this month.

    Last Month's Shows

    Id Day Date Title Host
    4673 Wed 2026-07-01 First contact conversation Archer72
    4674 Thu 2026-07-02 Audiobooks Ahuka
    4675 Fri 2026-07-03 Yard Inflatables operat0r
    4676 Mon 2026-07-06 HPR Community News for June 2026 HPR Volunteers
    4677 Tue 2026-07-07 UNIX Curio #10 - Checksums and Hashes Vance
    4678 Wed 2026-07-08 High Resolution Elapsed Time in Shell Scripts Whiskeyjack
    4679 Thu 2026-07-09 HPR Beer Garden 15 - Double IPA Kevie
    4680 Fri 2026-07-10 Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 2 Ahuka
    4681 Mon 2026-07-13 My Disabilities Antoine
    4682 Tue 2026-07-14 Behind the Keyboard: A Cybersecurity Operator’s Real-World Workflow operat0r
    4683 Wed 2026-07-15 Recording the hallway track Ken Fallon
    4684 Thu 2026-07-16 Sim Racing on the cheap! operat0r
    4685 Fri 2026-07-17 Listening to SSB stations in the early 1980s Lennart Benschop
    4686 Mon 2026-07-20 Debugging Security Cameras: Firmware Updates, Python Scripts and Windows Workarounds operat0r
    4687 Tue 2026-07-21 UNIX Curio #11 - Merging Files Vance
    4688 Wed 2026-07-22 Downloading Podcasts with a Shell Script Whiskeyjack
    4689 Thu 2026-07-23 Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 8: Writing the code Trey
    4690 Fri 2026-07-24 Playing Civilization V, Part 14 Ahuka
    4691 Mon 2026-07-27 Viva la Coda Lee
    4692 Tue 2026-07-28 Noise Music Tutorial 2: Using Audacity to Make Noise TheDUDE
    4693 Wed 2026-07-29 Amateur Radio Field Days Archer72
    4694 Thu 2026-07-30 HPR Beer Garden 16 - Belgian Blonde Kevie
    4695 Fri 2026-07-31 Try not to buy a phone operat0r

    Comments this month

    Past shows

    This month's shows

    Mailing List discussions

    Policy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This discussion takes place on the Mailing List which is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under Mailman.

    The threaded discussions this month can be found here:

    https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2026-July/thread.html

    Events Calendar

    With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to The LWN.net Community Calendar.

    Quoting the site:

    This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track events of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software. Clicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web page.
    ","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4697,"date":"2026-08-04","title":"Correcting the Dates of Files","duration":717,"summary":"Making file modification times of photos match their names","notes":"\n

    \nI recently had an experience where UNIX tools proved very useful. A relative had an old mobile phone running Android that stopped connecting to the carrier's network and bought a new one to replace it. I took on the job of trying to copy their files (consisting of just photos and videos) off of the old phone.

    \n\n

    \nGoogle's software was desperate to convince me to upload everything to the cloud, but I wasn't interested. It offered the option of copying the files over to an SD card, but failed on repeated attempts to do that. The option I tried next was to transfer them to another device via Bluetooth—that one did actually work, although it was slow and would only handle sending about 100 files at a time.

    \n\n

    \nThey came over to my laptop OK, but the problem with that method was that all of the file times were set to the time when they were transferred. I'm not super familiar with how mobile apps manage metadata, but would presume that they look to file times for organizing photos by date. Fortunately, the \nnames\n of each of the files included the date and time they were created. I recognized that I could write a bit of shell script to parse the filenames and set the file times accordingly.

    \n\n

    \nWhile there were over 800 files, the good news is that there were only three different categories of filenames, so the logic to extract the information needed was relatively simple. Each file had eight numerical digits representing the date and six digits representing the time. It would definitely be an option to come up with a more sophisticated parser that could handle a wide variety of filenames, but I went the lazy way and just handled those three cases. Another nice aspect was that none of the filenames contained spaces, which allowed me to be a bit less careful when using them in command lines. I didn't need to worry about time zones because my laptop was set to the same time zone as the phone—also, if a time was off a by a few hours it wouldn't make a practical difference.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nExamples of the three different types of filenames I had to deal with, labeled with the relevant values: YYYY=year, MM=month, DD=day, hh=hour, mm=minute, and SS=second.\n\n

    \n\n
    \n00001IMG_00001_BURST20250525140124.jpg\n                    YYYYMMDDhhmmSS\n\nIMG_20220223_124023.jpg\nVID_20221017_095024.mp4\n    YYYYMMDD hhmmSS\n\n20191224_195939.jpg\n20161021_122620-1.jpg\n20191130_134317_Burst01.jpg\n20200129_223612_010.jpg\nYYYYMMDD hhmmSS\n
    \n\n

    \nI considered \nawk\n as an option (see \nWhiskeyjack's comment on HPR episode 4657\n), but realized it has no built-in way to change file times, so I set it aside. Don't worry, I \nwill\n come back to that later.

    \n\n

    \nMy approach was to use an \nif-then\n shell construct to choose how to treat the three categories of filenames. For the \nif\n condition, I fed the filename into the \ngrep -q\n command with an appropriate regular expression to test whether it matches. The \n-q\n option to \ngrep\n causes it not to output anything—it returns a zero exit status if there's a match and a status greater than zero if there isn't. Then, there is an \nelif\n statement with another \ngrep -q\n test for the second category of filenames. Finally, an \nelse\n statement is followed by the command to run for all other filenames. The whole thing is wrapped in a \nfor\n loop that runs over all the files in the current directory.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nThe \n\n\n\n\ntouch\n\n\n\n\n command\n, when used with the \n-t\n option, can be given a string consisting of the year, month, day, hour, minute, and second. These are all numerals that are run together, \nexcept\n that a period sits between the minute and second. So we need a way to extract these numbers and to insert the period.

    \n\n

    \nThat's where \nthe \n\n\n\n\ncut\n\n\n\n\n utility\n comes in. It can be given a set of characters to select, and I specified a different set representing the appropriate ones depending on which category a filename fit into. To insert the period, I used \n\n\nsed\n\n\n to replace the last two characters with a period followed by those characters.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nThe first script was to test out that I was getting the correct results.\n\n

    \n\n
    \nfor fn in *\ndo\n  if echo \"$fn\" | grep -q BURST\n  then\n    printf \"$fn \"\n    echo $fn | cut -c '21-34' | sed 's/..$/.&/'\n  elif echo \"$fn\" | grep -q -E '^(IMG_|VID_)'\n  then\n    printf \"$fn \"\n    echo $fn | cut -c '5-12,14-19' | sed 's/..$/.&/'\n  else\n    printf \"$fn \"\n    echo $fn | cut -c '1-8,10-15' | sed 's/..$/.&/'\n  fi\ndone\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nThis one actually sets the file times. The \n\n\n\n\n-c\n\n\n\n\n option to \n\n\n\n\ntouch\n\n\n\n\n prevents it from creating a file if one with that name doesn't already exist.\n\n

    \n\n
    \nfor fn in *\ndo\n  if echo \"$fn\" | grep -q BURST\n  then\n    touch -c -t \"$(echo $fn | cut -c '21-34' | sed 's/..$/.&/')\" \"$fn\"\n  elif echo \"$fn\" | grep -q -E '^(IMG_|VID_)'\n  then\n    touch -c -t \"$(echo $fn | cut -c '5-12,14-19' | sed 's/..$/.&/')\" \"$fn\"\n  else\n    touch -c -t \"$(echo $fn | cut -c '1-8,10-15' | sed 's/..$/.&/')\" \"$fn\"\n  fi\ndone\n
    \n\n

    \nThe script ran over all the files in less than 15 seconds and correctly set the file time on each. Job done, right? Well, after I did this, it struck me that there was room for improvement. The script would probably run more quickly if I used \na \n\n\n\n\ncase\n\n\n\n\n construct\n instead of an \nif\n construct that called \ngrep\n multiple times. While the pattern-matching notation used with \ncase\n is not as flexible and can handle fewer situations than the regular expression syntax available with \ngrep\n, in this case (see what I did there?) it is sufficient. Testing it out, using \ncase\n reduced the running time by 45%.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nReplacing \n\n\n\n\nif\n\n\n\n\n with \n\n\n\n\ncase\n\n\n\n\n—the commands to be executed for each category of filename can remain exactly the same.\n\n

    \n\n
    \nfor fn in *\ndo\n  case \"$fn\" in\n  *BURST*)\n    printf \"$fn \"\n    echo $fn | cut -c '21-34' | sed 's/..$/.&/'\n  ;;\n  IMG_*|VID_*)\n    printf \"$fn \"\n    echo $fn | cut -c '5-12,14-19' | sed 's/..$/.&/'\n  ;;\n  *)\n    printf \"$fn \"\n    echo $fn | cut -c '1-8,10-15' | sed 's/..$/.&/'\n  esac\ndone\n\nfor fn in *\ndo\n  case \"$fn\" in\n  *BURST*)\n    touch -c -t \"$(echo $fn | cut -c '21-34' | sed 's/..$/.&/')\" \"$fn\"\n  ;;\n  IMG_*|VID_*)\n    touch -c -t \"$(echo $fn | cut -c '5-12,14-19' | sed 's/..$/.&/')\" \"$fn\"\n  ;;\n  *)\n    touch -c -t \"$(echo $fn | cut -c '1-8,10-15' | sed 's/..$/.&/')\" \"$fn\"\n  esac\ndone\n
    \n\n

    \nI couldn't completely put \nawk\n out of my mind, though, and I eventually came up with an \nawk\n script for the same purpose. This is \nfar\n faster, probably because everything can be done within \nawk\n except actually modifying the file times, which is possible using \nthe \n\n\n\n\nsystem()\n\n\n\n\n function\n to call \ntouch\n. I was able to knock 90% off the running time, which for 800 files isn't a big deal but might make a difference if you have hundreds of thousands of files.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nThe \n\n\n\n\nawk\n\n\n\n\n counterparts to both scripts above. Unlike those, \n\n\n\n\nls\n\n\n\n\n is used to feed it with the list of filenames. We have the full power of extended regular expressions available to use for matching against the filenames. The \n\n\n\n\nnext\n\n\n\n\n statement causes \n\n\n\n\nawk\n\n\n\n\n to skip any remaining pattern-action pairs and go to the next line of input.\n\n

    \n\n
    \nls | awk '/BURST/ { print $0, substr($0, 21, 12) \".\" substr($0, 33, 2)\n  next }\n/^(IMG_|VID_)/ {\n  print $0, substr($0, 5, 8) substr($0, 14, 4) \".\" substr($0, 18, 2)\n  next }\n{ print $0, substr($0, 1, 8) substr($0, 10, 4) \".\" substr($0, 14, 2) }'\n\nls | awk '/BURST/ {\n  system(\"touch -c -t \" substr($0, 21, 12) \".\" substr($0, 33, 2) \" \" $0)\n  next }\n/^(IMG_|VID_)/ {\n  system(\"touch -c -t \" substr($0, 5, 8) substr($0, 14, 4) \".\" \\\n    substr($0, 18, 2) \" \" $0)\n  next }\n{ system(\"touch -c -t \" substr($0, 1, 8) substr($0, 10, 4) \".\" \\\n    substr($0, 14, 2) \" \" $0) }'\n
    \n\n

    \nA further optimization that came to me later was to not call \nsystem()\n from within \nawk\n, but to instead just have \nawk\n print out a set of command lines. These can then be piped to \nsh\n to actually be executed. This cut the running time down by 95% compared to my original script.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nThe fastest version I was able to come up with. If you run it without the \n\n\n\n\n| sh\n\n\n\n\n on the end, you can check that it's outputting the right information before actually modifying anything. The backslash on the end of a couple lines causes the subsequent line to be treated as a continuation of the existing line. Normally I would just keep everything on one line even if it runs longer than 80 columns, but for display purposes this looks nicer.\n\n

    \n\n
    \nls | awk '/BURST/ {\n  print \"touch -c -t \" substr($0, 21, 12) \".\" substr($0, 33, 2) \" \" $0\n  next }\n/^(IMG_|VID_)/ {\n  print \"touch -c -t \" substr($0, 5, 8) substr($0, 14, 4) \".\" \\\n    substr($0, 18, 2) \" \" $0\n  next }\n{ print \"touch -c -t \" substr($0, 1, 8) substr($0, 10, 4) \".\" \\\n    substr($0, 14, 2) \" \" $0 }' | sh\n
    \n\n

    \nIt is probably true that this could have been carried out just as easily on Windows using Microsoft's PowerShell. I'm not very familiar with it, but would imagine (or hope) that it includes commands for managing these basic things like text manipulation and modifying file times. If you are stuck in an environment where you don't have a UNIX-like system available, investigate how to accomplish a task with the tools you do have.

    \n\n

    \nWhile I had the necessary information in the filenames to use, that might not be the case in all situations. You could look for other sources of dates—most digital cameras will add EXIF tags to a JPEG file giving the date and time it was created. (Hopefully, the clock in the camera will be set accurately.) While there is no standard UNIX utility to read those tags, free and open source software tools are widely available for that purpose. I found one called \nexiftags\n that included the utility \nexiftime\n, which specifically outputs EXIF data relating to time. The output format was a little trickier to handle, but \nawk\n was able to manage it with a little coaxing.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nExample of output produced by \n\n\n\n\nexiftime\n\n\n\n\n. Note that the first line with the filename is \nonly\n printed if more than one filename is given as an argument. Also, for \n\n\n\n\namusing-sign.jpg\n\n\n\n\n, apparently I edited that photo after taking it and the editing software updated the \"created\" tag but left the others intact. Not all images will necessarily have created, generated, and digitized tags; we will just take whichever ones exist. I redirected standard error to \n\n\n\n\n/dev/null\n\n\n\n\n to get rid of error messages for files that don't have EXIF tags; we'll handle those below.\n\n

    \n\n
    \n$ exiftime *.jpg 2>/dev/null\n20260508_154743.jpg:\nImage Created: 2026:05:08 15:47:43\nImage Generated: 2026:05:08 15:47:43\nImage Digitized: 2026:05:08 15:47:43\n\n20260508_155044.jpg:\nImage Created: 2026:05:08 15:50:44\nImage Generated: 2026:05:08 15:50:44\nImage Digitized: 2026:05:08 15:50:44\n\n3704a78e771c2a25a894ef2f0b5a2a629f1eba80.jpg:\n\namusing-sign.jpg:\nImage Created: 2017:01:24 23:14:04\nImage Generated: 2017:01:24 21:18:07\nImage Digitized: 2017:01:24 21:18:07\n\ndscf3011.jpg:\nImage Created: 2015:01:01 00:02:19\nImage Generated: 2015:01:01 00:02:19\nImage Digitized: 2015:01:01 00:02:19\n\nwindow-view.jpg:\n$ \n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nWe can take advantage of the fact that different records are separated by a blank line. In \n\n\n\n\nawk\n\n\n\n\n, when \n\n\n\n\nRS\n\n\n\n\n is set to a null string and \n\n\n\n\nFS\n\n\n\n\n is set to a newline character, each set of non-blank lines is treated as a record and each line within those sets is treated as a field. One or more blank lines separate each record. For the output of \n\n\n\n\nexiftime\n\n\n\n\n, this means that \n\n\n\n\n$1\n\n\n\n\n will contain the filename and \n\n\n\n\n$2\n\n\n\n\n will contain the first line after the filename. For those files without an EXIF date tag, \n\n\n\n\n$2\n\n\n\n\n will be a null string, which is treated by \n\n\n\n\nawk\n\n\n\n\n as FALSE, so the pattern will not match, the action will not be taken, and nothing will be printed. If a file has multiple tags, I will just use the first one reported by \n\n\n\n\nexiftime\n\n\n\n\n (contained in \n\n\n\n\n$2\n\n\n\n\n). The \n\n\n\n\nsub()\n\n\n\n\n function call removes the colon that \n\n\n\n\nexiftime\n\n\n\n\n prints after the filename, and the \n\n\n\n\ngsub()\n\n\n\n\n function call removes all non-numeric characters from the date and time in the tag. (After a comma within a \n\n\n\n\nprint\n\n\n\n\n statement, a backslash is not necessary to continue a line.) Also, this time I bothered to print quotation marks around the filename in case it contains spaces.\n\n

    \n\n
    \n$ exiftime *.jpg 2>/dev/null | awk 'BEGIN { FS = \"\\n\" ; RS = \"\" }\n$2 { sub(\":$\", \"\", $1)\n  gsub(\"[^0-9]\", \"\", $2)\n  print \"touch -c -t\", substr($2, 1, 12) \".\" substr($2, 13, 2),\n    \"\\\"\" $1 \"\\\"\" }'\ntouch -c -t 202605081547.43 \"20260508_154743.jpg\"\ntouch -c -t 202605081550.44 \"20260508_155044.jpg\"\ntouch -c -t 201701242314.04 \"amusing-sign.jpg\"\ntouch -c -t 201501010002.19 \"dscf3011.jpg\"\n$ \n
    \n\n

    \nI would imagine that there's some photo management program out there that I could have used to accomplish this. But then I would have had to locate it, verify that it wasn't some malware-loaded garbage, download, and install it. And chances are it would want to take over all the photos on my laptop. Instead, with standard UNIX tools and shell capabilities like \nif\n, \ncase\n, process substitution, and pipelines, I was able to complete the task without having to install anything.

    \n\n

    \nThe techniques I described can be used in different circumstances and with the output of different utilities. My intention was not just to explain how to solve this specific problem, but to hopefully teach you some things that you can apply in many situations. Perhaps if you use them to tackle a challenge of your own, you'll record an episode for HPR to share what you know.

    \n\n\n","hostid":459,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"unix,file times","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4698,"date":"2026-08-05","title":"ID3 Tags and Vorbis Comments","duration":1975,"summary":"A look at metadata in audio files and how to read it","notes":"\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn a response to a post on a previous episode, I said that I would take a look at ID3 tags.

    \n\n

    \nID3 tags are text information that is added to an MP3 audio file, such as the author, date, name, and other information.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nWhile I am at it I will also look at Vorbis comments, which perform a similar function for vorbis, the container format for \"ogg\" audio files.

    \n\n

    \nAs example audio files, I will use a recent HPR episode, hpr4678 in both mp3 and vorbis formats plus also one from another podcast as well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nThere is Free Software which you can use to view, edit, or remove both types of tags or comments, and I will describe how to use it in this episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04

    \n\n

    \nI will cover how to view tags and extract the text information, as well as how to strip the tags from a file and why you may wish to do so under certain very specific circumstances.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI won't cover how to add to or edit tags in an MP3 or OGG file, as that is a more involved subject that I don't have much experience with.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nI will mainly talk about ID3 MP3 tags rather than vorbis comments for the simple reason that the situation with MP3 files is an utter mess while vorbis comments are very straightforward and so there isn't as much to say about them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nAs often happens when researching a subject to write a podcast script, I have learned quite a bit that I didn't know previously, and discovered that things that I thought I did know were wrong.

    \n\n

    \nI hope that you may learn a few things from this episode that you didn't know previously either.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07 Background

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI won't go over the detailed history of ID3 tags, as I don't have a reliable source for this.

    \n\n

    \nBriefly however, so far as I can determine, there is no official independent standard for ID3 tags or vorbis comments.

    \n\n

    \nBoth seem to be more in the nature of a convention that was created by an unofficial group of contributors rather than something issued by a standards body.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I don't see the lack of a conventional standards body as necessarily a problem with respect to the use of ID3 tags or vorbis comments.

    \n\n

    \nI just am not familiar enough with the industry to know who to regard as being an authoritative source when it comes to the history and development of them

    \n\n

    \nSince I am unsure as who to credit with what developments, I will avoid that sort of detail.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09 ID3 Tags

    \n\n

    \nThere is a web site with the URL of ID3.org that seems to have the best reference material on the topic of ID3 tags.

    \n\n

    \nAccording to this site, the term \"ID3\" means \"IDentify an MP3\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10 Vorbis Comments

    \n\n

    \nFor vorbis, the reference site seems to be xiph.org.

    \n\n

    \nAlthough the implementation details may differ from ID3, from our perspective as podcast listeners, they can be seen as more or less equivalent in terms of what I am going to address here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11 ID3 Details

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nVersions

    \n\n

    \nOne of the problems with ID3 is that there are multiple incompatible versions, particularly from the very early days.

    \n\n

    \nID3v1 tags are located at the end of the audio file in the last 128 bytes.

    \n\n

    \nThis was done for compatibility reasons to allow early MP3 players to simply ignore the tags if they didn't know how to deal with them.

    \n\n

    \nThe tags would simply appear as a short burst of static from the perspective of these early players.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nID3v2 moved the tags to the start of the MP3 file to allow players to scan the tags for information such as titles without having to read to the end of the file to find them.

    \n\n

    \nThere are far fewer limits on the amount of information that can be placed in ID3v2 tags.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nID3v1 is obsolete and only very old players will require it.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it is still used by some publishers for backward compatibility reasons.

    \n\n

    \nID3v1 included numerical musical \"genre\" category codes which apparently turned out to be a very bad idea in practice.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nFurthermore, all genre categories above 70 were defined by an audio software company called Nullsoft who created software such as Winamp.

    \n\n

    \nThese codes were never actually part of the ID3 standard, although there was never really a standard to begin with.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15

    \n\n

    \nThe current ID3 version is 2.3. There is a version 2.4, but apparently it is not actually generally accepted and may be a developmental dead end.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16

    \n\n

    \nThe id3.org web site contains a copy of the ID3v2.3 standard, but I am not going to address the technical details here.

    \n\n

    \nThis would only be of interest to someone who was creating software to read and write ID3 tags.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17 ID3v2 Frames

    \n\n

    \nThe ID3v2 information is encoded into what are called \"frames\".

    \n\n

    \nThe text information is contained in text information frames.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nText information frames start with a set of four character identifiers, all starting with the capital letter 'T'.

    \n\n

    \nExamples

    \n\n

    \n\"TALB\" is the \"Album/Movie/Show title\" frame.

    \n\n

    \n\"TIT2\" is the \"Title/Songname/Content description\" frame.

    \n\n

    \n\"TYER\" is the \"Year\" frame.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere are many more, but I won't go into more detail here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19 HPR ID3 Tags

    \n\n

    \nHPR makes an interesting case study because they use both ID3v1 and ID3v2 in the same file.

    \n\n

    \nThis can cause some interesting problems with software that tries to read those tags.

    \n\n

    \nThis is because most software appears to expect one or the other, but not both.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, so long as this does not cause problems with anything that actually plays the files, this is not a problem so far as people who just want to listen to podcasts are concerned.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt does mean though that we have more to talk about than we would otherwise would have had.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20 Vorbis Comment Fields

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe situation with Vorbis comments is much simpler, as there seems to be just one standard that was adhered to from the start rather than a succession of hacks.

    \n\n

    \nInformation is stored in \"fields\", which xiph describes as being like Unix environment variables.

    \n\n

    \nThese consist of a field name followed by an equal sign and then the information intended for that field.

    \n\n

    \nField names are case insensitive.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nThe field names are not firmly defined at this stage, but there is a list of recommended names.

    \n\n

    \nExamples are

    \n\n

    \n\"TITLE\" is the Track or Work name.

    \n\n

    \n\"ARTIST\" is the person responsible for the work.

    \n\n

    \n\"LICENSE\" is the license information.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nYou can see the complete list for yourself on the comment field and header specification page at xiph.org

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23 Software for Listing, Adding, and Modifying Tags and Fields

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere are three software packages that I will now describe which allow you to list, add, modify, and remove tags and fields.

    \n\n

    \nThere are other packages which can do the same, including some which offer a GUI interface.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I will limit myself to describing these three.

    \n\n

    \nThe principles should be the same for others.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24 ffprobe

    \n\n

    \nffprobe is part of the ffmpeg package.

    \n\n

    \nIf you have listened to my previous episodes on audio, you will have heard me talk about ffmpeg.

    \n\n

    \nffprobe is used to display information about media files rather than for modifying them.

    \n\n

    \nffprobe is licensed under the GPLv2 or later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nffprobe can be used to display information about both MP3 and OGG Vorbis files.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25 ID3v2

    \n\n

    \nThe next is the rather aptly named id3v2 and works with MP3 files.

    \n\n

    \nOn Linux systems, this should be provided by the id3v2 package.

    \n\n

    \nOn Debian derivatives this can be installed as follows

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nsudo apt install id3v2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nThis also installs a man page which provides a brief list of the options.

    \n\n

    \nAccording to the README file in the source tarball, this is published under the LGPL

    \n\n

    \nID3v2 is particularly useful for displaying ID3v1 tags.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27 vorbiscomment

    \n\n

    \nThe third is \"vorbiscomment\" and works with OGG files.

    \n\n

    \nOn Linux systems this should be provided by the \"vorbis-tools\" package.

    \n\n

    \nOn Debian derivatives this can be installed as follows

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nsudo apt install vorbis-tools

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nThe vorbiscomment program is used to list or edit comments in Ogg Vorbis files.

    \n\n

    \nThis also installs a man page which provides a brief list of the options.

    \n\n

    \nAccording to the license.lgpl file in the source tarball, this is published under the LGPL version2.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29

    \n\n

    \nThe display format for vorbiscomment follows the data definition format in the vorbis standard, whereas ffprobe re-formats it to match its own preferred appearance.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30 Examples from HPR

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWith the background out of the way, I will now give several examples of how to list the tags or fields.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31 Listing ID3v1 Tags

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAs previously mentioned HPR uses both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags in the same file.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, so far as I can tell, most software seems to look for ID3v2 tags first, and don't display the ID3v1 tags if both are present.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32

    \n\n

    \nThe ID3v2 program however seems to do the opposite, at least with HPR podcasts.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the number of samples that I have which have both are rather limited, so I can't be sure if this is always the case or if this is a side effect of something else.

    \n\n

    \nI did mention that ID3 tags were a mess, didn't I?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33

    \n\n

    \nLet's go on to our example however.

    \n\n

    \nIf we want to see the ID3v1 tags, then using hpr4678 as an example, if we type

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nid3v2 -l hpr4678.mp3

    \n\n

    \n=

    \n\n

    \nwe get the following result.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nid3v1 tag info for hpr4678.mp3:

    \n\n

    \nTitle : High Resolution Elapsed Time i Artist: Whiskeyjack

    \n\n

    \nAlbum : Hacker Public Radio Year: 2026, Genre: Unknown (186)

    \n\n

    \nComment: https://hackerpublicradio.or Track: 0

    \n\n

    \nhpr4678.mp3: No ID3v2 tag

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nThe first line tells us that this information is ID3v1 tags.

    \n\n

    \nThe last line tells us that there are no ID3v2 tags.

    \n\n

    \nThis last line is incorrect, but we will come back to that later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nIn between are three lines of text.

    \n\n

    \nThe first line contains the title and the artist.

    \n\n

    \nThe title is the name of the HPR episode, or at least part of it.

    \n\n

    \nThe artist is the HPR contributor who made that episode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37

    \n\n

    \nThe second line contains the album name, the year, and the genre.

    \n\n

    \nThe album name is this case is simply Hacker Public Radio, as the concept of an album doesn't really fit a podcast.

    \n\n

    \nThe year is the year that the episode was recorded, or at least the year in which the MP3 file was assembled with the HPR intro and the tags added.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \nThe genre is listed as \"unknown 186\".

    \n\n

    \nRecall that with ID3v1 tags there is a one byte numeric genre code, but that no genres above 70 were ever officially assigned.

    \n\n

    \nIt seems to be a general convention though to use a code 186 for podcasts.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nThe third line contain a comment and track number.

    \n\n

    \nThe comment in this case is the HPR web site URL.

    \n\n

    \nThe track is zero.

    \n\n

    \n\"Track\" would appear to serve no useful purpose in this instance.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it may be there for reasons of compatibility that I am unaware of, so I would be very reluctant to remove that without very good reason.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nIf we look at the above information in detail we can see that two of the tags appear to have cut their text information off short.

    \n\n

    \nThe title is cut off in mid word after the 30th character.

    \n\n

    \nThe final \"g\" in \"hackerpublicradio.org\" is cut off in the comment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41 Alternative Method for ID3v1

    \n\n

    \nWe can confirm whether the text being cut short is due to a problem with the id3v2 program, or whether it really represents the data in the file by using a rather simple check.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42

    \n\n

    \nRecall that ID3v1 tags are simply the last 128 bytes of the MP3 file.

    \n\n

    \nAll we need to do is to extract the last 128 bytes of the file.

    \n\n

    \nWe can do this using the standard tail command.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \ntail -c128 hpr4678.mp3 | tr '\\0' ' ' | tr -c '[:print:]' 'x'

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nThe -c128 option used with tail tells it to extract the last 128 bytes of the file.

    \n\n

    \nWe then pass the result through the \"tr\" command and tell it to replace null bytes with new line characters.

    \n\n

    \nThen we replace any remaining non-printable characters with an 'x'.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhen we do that we get the following

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTAGHigh Resolution Elapsed Time iWhiskeyjack Hacker Public Radio 2026https://hackerpublicradio.or x

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45

    \n\n

    \nThe first three characters are capital TAG.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a flag which indicates that what follows are ID3 tags.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nNext, we have 30 characters which specify the title.

    \n\n

    \nThe next 30 characters specify the artist.

    \n\n

    \nThe next 30 characters are the album, or in this case just \"Hacker Public Radio\".

    \n\n

    \nThe next 4 characters are the year.

    \n\n

    \nThe next 30 characters are a comment, or in this case the HPR URL, except for the final \"g\".

    \n\n

    \nThe last character is the genre code, which we have replaced with an \"x\" because it is otherwise non-printable.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nTaken together, these add up to 128 bytes.

    \n\n

    \nWe can see that the field lengths are of fixed length with pre-defined meanings based on position.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48 ID3v2 Using ffprobe

    \n\n

    \nNow lets move on to ID3v2 tags, which is probably more useful for most people.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor this, we will switch to using ffprobe.

    \n\n

    \nThe command for this is

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nffprobe -hide_banner hpr4678.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe -hide_banner option suppresses extra data about the codecs which doesn't interest us much and leaves mainly the tag information plus a few other things.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nThe output gives us the full data that is associated with the podcast episode from the HPR web site.

    \n\n

    \nThis includes the episode number, year, full title, author, license, and full summary text.

    \n\n

    \nYou can see a full copy of this in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nInput #0, mp3, from 'hpr4678.mp3':

    \n\n

    \n Metadata:

    \n\n

    \n\ttrack : 4678

    \n\n

    \n\tyear : 2026

    \n\n

    \n\ttitle : High Resolution Elapsed Time in Shell Scripts

    \n\n

    \n\tauthor : Whiskeyjack

    \n\n

    \n\tcopyright : CC-BY-SA

    \n\n

    \n\tartist : Whiskeyjack

    \n\n

    \n\talbum : Hacker Public Radio

    \n\n

    \n\tcomment : https://hackerpublicradio.org Clean; Surprises encountered when measuring elapsed time in shell scripts The license is CC-BY-SA

    \n\n

    \n\tgenre : Podcast

    \n\n

    \n\tencoder : Lavf61.7.103

    \n\n

    \n\tdate : 2026

    \n\n

    \n Duration: 00:30:10.18, start: 0.023021, bitrate: 64 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, mono, fltp, 64 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50

    \n\n

    \nThe ID3v2 tag version contains all of the information which was provided by the author, including the full title and description without the 30 character limit of ID3V1.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you want any of this information for some reason you should be able to extract it from the MP3 file using a combination of ffprobe, grep, and cut rather than trying to scrape the HPR web site and matching it to the MP3 later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51 ID3v1 Using ffprobe

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI previously mentioned that HPR MP3 files have both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags in the same file, and that ffprobe will default to using ID3v2 tags if present.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, what happens if we remove the ID3v2 tags and leave the ID3v1 tags?

    \n\n

    \nI will describe how to strip tags later on in this episode, but let's just assume for now that I have done this.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf we then use ffprobe to read the ID3 tags using the same command as before, we get the following output.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52

    \n\n

    \nWe get a series of lines in the same format as with ID3v2, but with each data element limited to at most 30 bytes.

    \n\n

    \nThese include title, artist, album, date, comment, and genre.

    \n\n

    \nYou can see the full output in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nInput #0, mp3, from 'test.mp3':

    \n\n

    \n Metadata:

    \n\n

    \n\ttitle : High Resolution Elapsed Time i

    \n\n

    \n\tartist : Whiskeyjack

    \n\n

    \n\talbum : Hacker Public Radio

    \n\n

    \n\tdate : 2026

    \n\n

    \n\tcomment : https://hackerpublicradio.or

    \n\n

    \n\tgenre : Podcast

    \n\n

    \n Duration: 00:30:10.18, start: 0.023021, bitrate: 64 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, mono, fltp, 64 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nThe information is the same as when read by the id3v2 program, but formatted for display in the manner that ffprobe uses.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis shows that ffprobe can indeed read ID3v1 tags if they are the only ones present.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54 Reading Vorbis Comments

    \n\n

    \nNow let us turn our attention to vorbis comments, which are the equivalent to tags for ogg files.

    \n\n

    \nWe will look at this using two methods.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55 Using vorbiscomment

    \n\n

    \nThe first method we will look at is using the vorbiscomment package.

    \n\n

    \nThe command is

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nvorbiscomment -l hpr4678.ogg

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56

    \n\n

    \nThe output of this is a series of lines with key value pairs separated by equal signs.

    \n\n

    \nThe output is also exactly the same as the MP3 file, except that there is an additional \"language\" field, \"track\" becomes \"TRACKNUMBER\", and there is no \"date\" field.

    \n\n

    \nYou can see the full output in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nencoder=Lavc61.19.101 libvorbis

    \n\n

    \nTRACKNUMBER=4678

    \n\n

    \nyear=2026

    \n\n

    \nlanguage=English

    \n\n

    \ntitle=High Resolution Elapsed Time in Shell Scripts

    \n\n

    \nauthor=Whiskeyjack

    \n\n

    \ncopyright=CC-BY-SA

    \n\n

    \nartist=Whiskeyjack

    \n\n

    \nalbum=Hacker Public Radio

    \n\n

    \nDESCRIPTION=https://hackerpublicradio.org Clean; Surprises encountered when measuring elapsed time in shell scripts The license is CC-BY-SA

    \n\n

    \ngenre=Podcast

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 Using ffprobe

    \n\n

    \nNow lets do the same again using ffprobe.

    \n\n

    \nThe command for this is

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nffprobe -hide_banner hpr4678.ogg

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nThe output content is the same of course, but the field names have all been forced to lower case, and instead of an equal sign as a separator between the key and value, this has been replaced by a colon and white space has been added to make the output look a bit nicer.

    \n\n

    \nYou can see the full output in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nInput #0, ogg, from 'hpr4678.ogg':

    \n\n

    \n Duration: 00:30:10.14, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 86 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n Stream #0:0(English): Audio: vorbis, 192000 Hz, mono, fltp, 4294967 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n\tMetadata:

    \n\n

    \n\t encoder : Lavc61.19.101 libvorbis

    \n\n

    \n\t track : 4678

    \n\n

    \n\t year : 2026

    \n\n

    \n\t title : High Resolution Elapsed Time in Shell Scripts

    \n\n

    \n\t author : Whiskeyjack

    \n\n

    \n\t copyright : CC-BY-SA

    \n\n

    \n\t artist : Whiskeyjack

    \n\n

    \n\t album : Hacker Public Radio

    \n\n

    \n\t comment : https://hackerpublicradio.org Clean; Surprises encountered when measuring elapsed time in shell scripts The license is CC-BY-SA

    \n\n

    \n\t genre : Podcast

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59 Another Example from Another Podcast

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe above is interesting, but it's a sample of one podcast. Let's look at another different one altogether.

    \n\n

    \nFor this test I used two episodes of the Linux Matters podcast, episodes 68 and 82. As to why I am using two different episodes I will explain in a moment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60 Episode 68

    \n\n

    \nWe will start with examining episode 68

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nUsing id3v2

    \n\n

    \nThe command using id3v2 is

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nid3v2 -l LMP68.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nThis provides output as a series of lines containing the official 4 character identifiers from the standard, a description of the identifiers, and the text provided by the authors.

    \n\n

    \nThe identifiers include TIT2 indicating title, TALB indicating show title, TRCK indicating track number, and a number of others.

    \n\n

    \nYou can see the full output in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nid3v2 tag info for LMP68.mp3:

    \n\n

    \nTIT2 (Title/songname/content description): 68: Frameworks, Filesystems and Fixes

    \n\n

    \nTPE1 (Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s)): Linux Matters

    \n\n

    \nTALB (Album/Movie/Show title): Linux Matters

    \n\n

    \nTYER (Year): 2025

    \n\n

    \nTRCK (Track number/Position in set): 68

    \n\n

    \nCOMM (Comments): ()[]: https://linuxmatters.sh/

    \n\n

    \nAPIC (Attached picture): (LMP-3000-moon.jpg)[, 3]: image/jpeg, 554576 bytes

    \n\n

    \nLMP68.mp3: No ID3v1 tag

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62

    \n\n

    \nFrom this we can see what the id3v2 program would normally do with ID3v2 tags.

    \n\n

    \nNote that it outputs the actual 4 character identifiers, plus a description of what they mean, and then the actual data.

    \n\n

    \nThis helps when trying to understand the actual encoding of the data.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63 Using ffprobe

    \n\n

    \nNow let's try that with ffprobe.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe command is

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nffprobe -hide_banner LMP68.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64

    \n\n

    \nThis provides the same publisher provided data as before.

    \n\n

    \nHowever it does not display the 4 character identifiers but instead uses its own format for display.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAlso note in both cases that there is a picture embedded in the MP3 file which is used to generate an icon for display in your file manager.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWith ffprobe this results in there being two keys called \"title\" and two keys called \"comment\".

    \n\n

    \nThis makes grepping for the metadata more complicated, but it should still be possible.

    \n\n

    \nYou can see the full output in the show notes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nInput #0, mp3, from 'LMP68.mp3':

    \n\n

    \n Metadata:

    \n\n

    \n\ttitle : 68: Frameworks, Filesystems and Fixes

    \n\n

    \n\tartist : Linux Matters

    \n\n

    \n\talbum : Linux Matters

    \n\n

    \n\tcomment : https://linuxmatters.sh/

    \n\n

    \n\ttrack : 68

    \n\n

    \n\tdate : 2025

    \n\n

    \n Duration: 00:28:12.45, start: 0.025056, bitrate: 114 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, mono, fltp, 112 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n\tMetadata:

    \n\n

    \n\t encoder : LAME3.100

    \n\n

    \n Stream #0:1: Video: mjpeg (Progressive), yuvj444p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 4166x4166 [SAR 72:72 DAR 1:1], 90k tbr, 90k tbn (attached pic)

    \n\n

    \n\tMetadata:

    \n\n

    \n\t title : LMP-3000-moon.jpg

    \n\n

    \n\t comment : Cover (front)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65 Episode 82

    \n\n

    \nNow lets try that again with a different episode, 82.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nUsing id3v2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe command for id3v2 is

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nid3v2 -l LMP82.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis results in id3v2 saying

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLMP82.mp3: No ID3 tag

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhat happened here?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66 Using ffprobe

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLet's try that again with ffprobe.

    \n\n

    \nThe command

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nffprobe -hide_banner LMP82.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nprovides the expected output.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nInput #0, mp3, from 'LMP82.mp3':

    \n\n

    \n Metadata:

    \n\n

    \n\tdate : 2026-05

    \n\n

    \n\ttitle : 82: Ditching Grammarly for Open Sauce

    \n\n

    \n\talbum : Linux Matters

    \n\n

    \n\ttrack : 82

    \n\n

    \n\tartist : Linux Matters

    \n\n

    \n\tcomment : https://linuxmatters.sh

    \n\n

    \n Duration: 00:33:37.83, start: 0.025056, bitrate: 113 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, mono, fltp, 112 kb/s

    \n\n

    \n Stream #0:1: Video: png, rgb24(pc, gbr/unknown/unknown), 3000x3000, 90k tbr, 90k tbn (attached pic)

    \n\n

    \n\tMetadata:

    \n\n

    \n\t title : Linux Matters Logo

    \n\n

    \n\t comment : Cover (front)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67

    \n\n

    \nThis results in a few minor changes from episode 68, but otherwise it looks the same.

    \n\n

    \nSo there are ID3 tags, but for some reason id3v2 couldn't recognize them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA bit more research and experimentation shows that this change appears to have happened right after episode 68, when they changed hosting and processing arrangements.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI suspect that something changed with respect to the ID3v2 tag formatting somewhere along the way in the change over, and this in turn has affected the ability of the id3v2 program to recognize the tags.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will come back to the implications of this later in my conclusions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68 Stripping ID3 Tags

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNow let's turn to a differen topic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nStripping ID3 tags refers to removing the ID3 tags from the audio file.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will start off by emphasizing that normally, you don't want to do this.

    \n\n

    \nYou should only be doing it if you suspect the ID3 tags are causing a problem with the playback or ordering of the files.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nIn my case I do it when I have problems with my MP3 player when playing certain podcasts.

    \n\n

    \nThis MP3 player orders files according to ID3 tags rather than by file name.

    \n\n

    \nThis can result in the podcasts being played in an unpredictable order which I find undesirable.

    \n\n

    \nThis is particularly a problem with podcasts from certain publishers where the title data does not follow any consistent pattern, but is whatever someone felt like doing that day.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nI also often have to normalize the files from the same publishers to get a consistent audio loudness.

    \n\n

    \nSee my series on Simple Podcasting for information on how to use ffmpeg to normalize the audio loudness.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe solution to the inconsistent tag formats in these cases is to simply strip the ID3 tags altogether.

    \n\n

    \nThe player then falls back on using the file names, and I can readily rename the files to a consistent format.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI have never had these sorts of problems with HPR podcasts.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are not having any problems of this nature, then as I said, don't bother stripping the tags.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71

    \n\n

    \nTo strip the ID3 tags from an MP3 file use the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nid3v2 -D hpr4678.mp3

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nid3v2 will strip the tags and overwrite the existing file.

    \n\n

    \nIf you wish to keep a copy with the tags, be sure to keep a backup before you try things.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72

    \n\n

    \nWhen it comes to stripping tags, the options are

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\"-s\" deletes ID3v1 tags.

    \n\n

    \n\"-d\" deletes ID3v2 tags.

    \n\n

    \n\"-D\" deletes both v1 and v2 tags.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73 Conclusions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we took a very brief look at ID3 tags and vorbis comments and ways of reading them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74

    \n\n

    \nID3 tags and Vorbis comments provide a means of allowing information about an MP3 or OGG Vorbis file to be embedded in the file itself.

    \n\n

    \nPodcast publishers very often use this to label the file with information such as title, publisher, and author.

    \n\n

    \nWe can read this information using Fee Software tools such as ffprobe, ID3v2, and vorbiscomment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75

    \n\n

    \nID3 tags seem to be a mess with more than one incompatible versions, and difficulties in reading them even within the same version.

    \n\n

    \nThey are difficult to test for because there is so much hardware out there of varying ages, much of which you will never have heard of let alone had access to.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are recording episodes for HPR you do not have to worry about this, as HPR will do this behind the scenes for you.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, if you are responsible for producing a podcast or other similar audio and you have a setup that works, it is probably best not to change anything without good reason.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n76

    \n\n

    \nVorbis comments seem to be much less of a problem.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, there are far fewer devices which can play OGG files compared to MP3, so simply switching to OGG may not be a realistic solution to the ID3 tag problem.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n77

    \n\n

    \nIf you wish to have one tool that can read ID3 tags of all sorts and vorbis comments, then ffprobe is your obvious choice.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n78

    \n\n

    \nThe ID3v2 program will provide more information about the ID3 tags, including the actual identifiers used. However, it does not work in all cases.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n79

    \n\n

    \nThe vorbiscomment program will read Vorbis comments from OGG files in a manner which is closer to the actual vorbis format than ffprobe does, which uses its own display format.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n80

    \n\n

    \nHPR includes both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags in its MP3 files.

    \n\n

    \nffprobe can be used to read the ID3v2 tags, and the id3v2 program can be used to read the ID3v1 tags.

    \n\n

    \nYou can also read the ID3v1 tags using the tail command.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n81

    \n\n

    \nI have barely scratched the surface of this subject and have not talked at all about creating tags or comments.

    \n\n

    \nIf anyone else would like to take up the challenge of providing more detail, or of correcting any mistakes that have made, please send in a podcast episode on the subject.

    \n\n

    \nIf you have any comments you would like to make, leave them in the comment section below this episode on the HPR web site.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n82

    \n\n

    \nI hope to see you all again in future in another episode of HPR.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nReferences

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nhttps://id3.org/Introduction

    \n\n

    \nhttps://www.xiph.org/

    \n\n

    \nhttps://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisComment

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"audio, mp3, vorbis","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4699,"date":"2026-08-06","title":"Sunshine, Moonlight, Playnite !?","duration":1232,"summary":"Technical challenges with Sun Shine, Moonlight, and Play Night setups.","notes":"\n

    \nsunshine / xbox contlers / plex / steam / UWPHook / Bluetoothctl restart / HDMI dongle

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM4FbA4-W_c\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nUGREEN USB C Hub 5 in 1 Multiport Adapter Revodok 105 4K HDMI, 100W Power Delivery, 3 USB-A Data Ports, USB C Dongle for MacBook Pro/Air, iPad Pro, iMac, iPhone 16 Pro/Pro Max, XPS, Thinkpad

    \n\n

    \n\n\nhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BR3M8XHK\n\n

    \n\n

    \nDetached Command:

    \n\n
    \n@ECHO OFF\ncd \"C:\\backup\\gamestream_launchpad\"\nc:\\windows\\System32\\HdrSwitcher.exe disable\nstart /MIN gamestream_launchpad.exe 1920 1080 gamestream_playnite.ini\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
    \n.bindkeys rc \ncat .xbindkeysrc\n/bin/bash /home/plex/.local/bin/Plex.sh\n/bin/bash /home/plex/.local/bin/Steam.sh\n/home/plex/.local/bin/kasa --host 192.168.1.239 --port 9999 --type dimmer on; /home/plex/.local/bin/kasa --host 192.168.1.239 --port 9999 --type dimmer brightness 100;xgamma -gamma 1.3\n/home/plex/.local/bin/kasa --host 192.168.1.239 --port 9999 --type dimmer on; /home/plex/.local/bin/kasa --host 192.168.1.239 --port 9999 --type dimmer brightness 40;xgamma -gamma 1.3\n/home/plex/.local/bin/kasa --host 192.168.1.239 --port 9999 --type dimmer on; /home/plex/.local/bin/kasa --host 192.168.1.239 --port 9999 --type dimmer brightness 12;xgamma -gamma 1.3\n/home/plex/.local/bin/kasa --host 192.168.1.239 --port 9999 --type dimmer off;xgamma -gamma 1.3\"\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
    \ncat /home/plex/.local/bin/Steam.sh\n# requires wmctrl -l and xbindkeys\n#\n# xdotool windowactivate ```xdotool search --name 'window  name'```\n# 0\nStartSteamLink(){\n echo \"restarting bluetooth\"\n sudo systemctl restart bluetooth\n echo \"Waking Game PC\"\n sudo /usr/sbin/etherwake -i enp1s0 -D \"d8:bb:c1:a2:2c:0b\"\n echo \"Starting steamlink\"\n killall -9 steamlink\n killall moonlight\n sleep 20\n# /snap/bin/moonlight\n /home/plex/.local/bin/Moonlight-6.1.0-x86_64.AppImage    \n}\nStartSteamLink\n\n\n
    \n\n

    \nSUMMARY:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Speaker discusses technical challenges with Sun Shine, Moonlight, and Play Night setups.
      2. \n\n
    \n\n

    \nIDEAS:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Sun Shine and Moonlight enable remote game streaming.
      2. \n\n
    2. \n Play Night acts as a multimodal launcher for Steam.
      3. \n\n
    3. \n Resolution changes cause display issues during gameplay.
      4. \n\n
    4. \n Proper exit sequence is critical to revert settings.
      5. \n\n
    5. \n Ultra-wide resolutions are unusable in some configurations.
      6. \n\n
    6. \n Multiple launchers require separate logins for different games.
      7. \n\n
    7. \n Environment variables can adjust client dimensions.
      8. \n\n
    8. \n Background commands improve system stability.
      9. \n\n
    9. \n Cat named Mojo is mentioned during the discussion.
      10. \n\n
    10. \n 5G networks support slower-paced gaming.
      11. \n\n
    11. \n Technical glitches include frame drops and latency.
      12. \n\n
    12. \n Steam accounts are tied to specific game libraries.
      13. \n\n
    13. \n Detached commands run in the background without user interaction.
      14. \n\n
    14. \n GameStream Launchpad manages resolution and launcher paths.
      15. \n\n
    15. \n Magical system behavior simplifies remote gaming.
      16. \n\n
    16. \n Star Wars and Baldur’s Gate are cited as example games.
      17. \n\n
    17. \n 22nd Millie thing refers to network latency.
      18. \n\n
    18. \n Multiple Steam accounts complicate game access.
      19. \n\n
    19. \n Task killing reverts system settings automatically.
      20. \n\n
    20. \n Cross-platform streaming solutions are highlighted.
      21. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRECOMMENDATIONS:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    1. \n Use environment variables for client resolution adjustments.
      2. \n\n
    2. \n Exit applications properly to revert settings.
      3. \n\n
    3. \n Set up detached background commands for stability.
      4. \n\n
    4. \n Monitor ultra-wide resolution compatibility.
      5. \n\n
    5. \n Utilize Play Night for Steam account management.
      6. \n\n
    6. \n Avoid multiple logins for different game libraries.
      7. \n\n
    7. \n Opt for cross-platform streaming solutions.
      8. \n\n
    8. \n Check network latency for smooth gameplay.
      9. \n\n
    9. \n Use bat files for automated task execution.
      10. \n\n
    10. \n Configure GameStream Launchpad for resolution changes.
      11. \n\n
    11. \n Prioritize proper task termination to prevent glitches.
      12. \n\n
    12. \n Test 5G networks for slower-paced gaming.
      13. \n\n
    13. \n Leverage environment variables for client settings.
      14. \n\n
    14. \n Ensure all applications exit before shutting down.
      15. \n\n
    15. \n Use detached commands for background processes.
      16. \n\n
    16. \n Verify resolution compatibility with ultra-wide displays.
      17. \n\n
    17. \n Combine Sun Shine and Moonlight for reliable streaming.
      18. \n\n
    18. \n Log in once for multiple Steam accounts.
      19. \n\n
    19. \n Address frame drops in low-latency networks.
      20. \n\n
    20. \n Stream games universally across platforms.
      21. \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":36,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Reserve,DIY,Video games,Streaming","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4700,"date":"2026-08-07","title":"Robert A. Heinlein: The Juveniles","duration":888,"summary":"Some of Heinlein's best works were the Juveniles.","notes":"

    Heinlein wrote a series of books under contract to Scribners that were aumed at younger readers, pre-teen and teen. Today we would call them Young Adult, but back then they were called Juveniles. But even an adult reader can enjoy many of these books. Because they were aimed at younger readers, he could not always be as explicit as he might have liked, but if you pay attention you just might noticed he slipped in something subversive.

    \n\n

    Heinlein: The Juveniles

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

    As a boy I read voraciously. I remember my mother organizing weekly trips to the town library, where I would load up on books, and I quickly became focused on Science Fiction, along with the usual stuff kids read, like the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, and the Walter Farley horse books. But the idea of going into space grabbed me very early. And one of the first authors I read was Heinlein. He had taken a leave from publishing during World War II, when he was doing research at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. But when the war was over, he set out to move beyond the “pulps” and expand the market for his stories. And one big market for him was what were called “juveniles” at the time, and would today be called “Young Adult”. I was reading adult fiction by the time I was 11 or 12, but before that (and even after that, in fact) I read these Heinlein novels with great relish.

    \n\n

    Heinlein’s target audience for these novels was teenage boys. He did a few stories aimed at girls, but mostly he wrote for boys. And these were mostly “coming of age” stories where the teenage protagonist has adventures, and as a result grows and develops. They are very loosely related via some internal references, but should really be thought of as stand-alone stories. They also in some cases have references to his other stories, including the Future history stories. He wrote 13 of these novels, one per year, from 1947 to 1959. The series was published by Scribners until the last one was rejected by them. Heinlein then published it with a different publisher, and stopped writing these novels altogether in favor of more adult fiction. The novels roughly form a progression telling the story of space exploration. It starts with a trip to the Moon, then Venus, Mars, Jupiter’s moon, and so on until we reach the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.

    \n\n
      \n
    • Rocket Ship Galileo (1947) – While readable, this initial effort was not up to Heinlein’s later standards. The plot concerns three teenagers who assist an uncle to build a rocket ship and go to the Moon. When they get there they discover Nazis have already arrived. The Nazis try to kill the group, but they succeed in turning the tables, stealing the Nazi ship, and returning to Earth as heroes. This novel became the basis (loosely) for the movie Destination Moon (1950), and I personally would consider the movie to be superior to the novel. It is also worth noting that the theory brought up in Blowups Happen reappears in this novel. They find evidence of an ancient Lunar civilization that was destroyed, and theorize that the craters on the moon were caused by the explosion of nuclear reactors that caused the extinction of the civilization.
      • \n\n
    • Space Cadet (1948) – This was in part the inspiration for the Tom Corbett franchise, which licensed the name Space Cadet from Heinlein. It is about a young man who is accepted to the Academy for the Space Patrol. It follows him through his education in the Academy, and then into his first mission after graduating. This holds up better than the previous novel. And it is tied back to the story The Long Watch from the Future History. Part of the story takes place on an inhabited Venus that is cloudy and swampy.
      • \n\n
    • Red Planet (1949) – This is set on Mars, as it is also portrayed in Stranger In A Strange Land (1961). Mars is inhabited by native Martians, but also by human colonists. It has the canals, and with seasonal changes the colonists migrate from north to south and back. A pair of teenage boys get caught up in a revolution when the evil corporation that controls the colony pushes the colonists too far. In the end you wish there really were canals and Martians.
      • \n\n
    • Farmer In The Sky (1950) – This is one of the best, as seen by the Retro Hugo this novel won in 2000. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is being terraformed because Earth is overcrowded and food is rationed. A teenage boy and his family emigrate to Ganymede and try to make a life there, which they eventually succeed in doing. The Green Hills of Earth is mentioned here, tying this into the future History. There are frequent references to the Boy Scouts, due to the fact that the story ran as a serial in Boy’s Life magazine.
      • \n\n
    • Between Planets (1951) – A teenage boy is caught up in interplanetary intrigue. Venus and Mars have colonies, but Earth is trying to control them too much. So revolution is on the menu. This is clearly patterned in the colonial wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the American Revolution against England. By this point the so-called “Juveniles” are really having more adult content, and reviewers re starting to rate them in comparison with adult science fiction. This novel was also first serialized in Boy’s Life magazine.
      • \n\n
    • The Rolling Stones (1952) – Here we have teenage twin boys, Castor and Pollux, as the protagonists. They and their family live on the Moon, but decide to travel, so this novel is a kind of travelogue as they go to Mars, then to the Asteroid belt. The grandmother, Hazel Stone, appears in Heinlein’s later works as well. One interesting episode in this story involves “martian flat cats”, which are furry, lovable, and reproduce like mad with the right conditions. If this sound like Star Trek’s Tribbles, that is also what the Star Trek producers thought, so they got permission from Heinlein to use the idea.
      • \n\n
    • Starman Jones (1953) – We are now further into the future, and the human race is exploring the stars. Unfortunately, very restrictive guilds closely control who can participate in this. A teenage boy named Max, who happens to have an eidetic memory, has memorized the Astrogation tables from his uncle’s books, and wants to join the Guild, but is turned down. He lies his way onboard a ship, and through a series of events becomes the only one who can guide the ship home.
      • \n\n
    • The Star Beast (1954) – A teenage boy has an alien “pet” his great-grandfather had brought back that has grown very large, and is considered a nuisance. A court decides the beast must be killed, but that proves easier to say than to do. It appears that the beast isn’t even aware that people are trying to kill it. Meanwhile, a powerful and hitherto unknown alien species demand the return of one of their own, or they will destroy the Earth. Of course, it is this beast, who is actually royalty to the alien species. One interesting point is that government officials in this story are portrayed sympathetically as intelligent and dedicated.
      • \n\n
    • Tunnel In The Sky (1955) – In the future humanity is colonizing other planets, and a group of teenagers are taking their final survival test. They are sent to a planet and told that they have to survive for 10 days, But more than 10 days go by with no pickup, and they know something went wrong. So they have to establish their own little society to keep surviving. An interesting note is that the protagonist, Rod Walker, is black. It was never explicitly stated in the text, but Heinlein was firm in stating this. The clue is when the others expect Rod to end up with Caroline, who is explicitly stated to be black. This was Heinlein being subtly subversive. To have a black protagonist for a boy’s story in 1955 in America would be impossible. but Heinlein was completely anti-racist, among other things.
      • \n\n
    • Time For The Stars (1956) – This is a novel that takes Relativity seriously, which was not common in the 1950s. Researchers have discovered that some twins and triplets can communicate telepathically (and instantaneously), and so when a group of ships is sent out to explore other star systems, one twin is on the ship and the other remains on Earth to provide communication. The twin on Earth ages must faster than the one in space, of course, and eventually the Earth twin dies, But they discover that the connection sometimes passes down through the family, so the protagonist, Tom Bartlett, becomes connected first to his niece, then his grandniece, and finally his great-grandniece.
      • \n\n
    • Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) – This book is about a future slave trade, which Heinlein strongly hated. The protagonist is a boy who is bought at a slave auction by an old beggar, but the beggar is more than he seems. He is actually spying and gathering data regarding the slave trade. When discovered, he commits suicide, but he had prepared the young boy, Thorby, who then contacts the Free Traders who spirit him away. He has to adapt to this new society, but then is delivered to the Hegemonic Guard. It turns out his “father” (i.e. the man who bought him) was an officer in this organization. And when they run the background checks, they discover that he is the heir to a large conglomerate, and that conglomerate may be implicated in the slave trade.
      • \n\n
    • Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958) – Clifford “Kip” Russell dreams of going to the Moon, and enters a contest with that as the top prize. Unfortunately, he wins the somewhat lesser prize of a used spacesuit. The first few chapters focus on him doing repairs and maintenance to make it functional again, and this displays Heinlein’s engineering background. It is more engaging than you might think. Then while wearing the spacesuit he receives a radio message, and he is kidnapped along with an alien called “The Mother Thing” and a young girl who is a genius. The kidnappers are a group of aliens who consider anyone not of their race to be animals. The trio first try to escape on the Moon, but are recaptured, then taken to Pluto, where they succeed in killing the alien kidnappers. Then they are taken to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud to be put on trial to determine if the human race should be allowed to live.
      • \n\n
    • Starship Troopers (1959) – This is the novel that Scribners rejected, and which brought the Juvenile series to an end. And it bears absolutely no resemblance at all to the movie, to the point that for Heinlein fans the word Verhoeven is considered an obscenity. A young man, Juan “Johnny” Rico joins the military, where he has to grow up and then take part in a war against an insectoid race, but that is all background really. The book is primarily a glorification of military service, which is not surprising given Heinlein’s background. And it focuses on a series of discussions under the heading of “History and Moral Philosophy”, which lets Heinlein expound on his values and beliefs. The novel won a Hugo, but it is an add one given that the plot is secondary to the philosophizing. One of the most controversial ideas is that in this society the right to vote is limited to people who have been in Federal Service. Heinlein said this didn’t have to be military, but the only ones we see are in fact military veterans.
      • \n
    \n\n

    So, these are the Heinlein Juveniles. In my opinion, many of them are quite good reading for adults. The thing that separates them from adult novels in Heinlein’s body of work is the lack of any sex element. That would become prominent in Heinlein’s later adult novels, but it was not something you could put in a book aimed at teenagers, certainly not in the 1950s, and arguably the case today as well.

    \n\n

    Links

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Heinlein, Juvenile, Young Adult","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4701,"date":"2026-08-10","title":"Elsbeth muses with Lee on her experiences and opinions on AI","duration":3267,"summary":"Elsbeth Starling on ethical AI, protecting artists' IP, and AI's promise for neurodivergent minds.","notes":"\n

    \n\n\nOverview:\n Elroy sits down with Elsbeth to unpack her perspective on AI ethics — where the technology helps, where it risks harm, and what responsible use actually looks like in practice.

    \n\n

    \n\n\nTopics covered (In no particular order, as the rabid squirrels of Elsbeth's AuDHD brain don't do \"order\"):\n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nElsbeth's path into AI evaluation and content moderation, and how that shaped her thinking on ethics in practice
      • \n\n
    • \nWhat \"ethical use\" of AI means day-to-day, not just in the abstract
      • \n\n
    • \nRespecting intellectual property — the case for protecting artists and creators as AI tools become more capable and widespread
      • \n\n
    • \nFinding the balance: supporting AI's genuine benefits without letting them come at creators' expense
      • \n\n
    • \nAI as an accessibility tool — its particular promise for neurodivergent people, and where it can lower barriers others don't face
      • \n\n
    • \nWhere the conversation is heading next, and what listeners should watch for
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n\nClosing thoughts:\n Elsbeth's take is one of cautious optimism — a call to hold both truths at once: AI can do real good, and that good has to be built on respect for the people whose work made it possible.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFurther Reading & Resources

    \n\n

    \n\n\nOn AI, Ethics, and Intellectual Property\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\nOn AI and Neurodivergent Accessibility\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nShow rated *explicit* for possible course language and strong opinions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":446,"series":0,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"ethical ai, ai use, neurodivergence, opinions are like..., elbeth indodumps","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4704,"date":"2026-08-13","title":"HPR Beer Garden 17 - Double DDH IPAs","duration":1430,"summary":"Kevie, Paul and Dave talk about a very recent beer style: the DDH IPA","notes":"\n

    \nIn the seventeenth episode of the HPR Beer Garden, the guys look at a beer style (or label) that has recently appeared from across the pond: DDH IPA. Kevie tries out \nSmug DDH IPA by Northern Monk\n, Paul samples \nHazy Jaipur by the Thornbrige Brewery\nand Dave enjoys \nPinball by Brewdog\n.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on \nUntappd\n:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe next 3 beer styles to be reviewed:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nAmber Ale
      • \n\n
    • \nLager
      • \n\n
    • \nMild
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4705,"date":"2026-08-14","title":"Free Software Is Wasted On You Teens","duration":1454,"summary":"Asked (sort of) to sell teens on FOSS, Trollercoaster spends an episode telling them not to bother.","notes":"\n

    \n\n\nFreedom 0–3 (verbatim reference)\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\nNamed FOSS figures (freedom 3 list)\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\nInfrastructure block (post beer 1)\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\nLicensing block (beer 2–3)\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\nIndustry acquisitions (beer 4)\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\nFOSDEM field report (beer 4–5)\n\n

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n\nHomework block (beer 5)\n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n","hostid":433,"series":69,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"foss, software freedom, opensource, teens, grumpy old geeks, sarcasm","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4706,"date":"2026-08-17","title":"Quirks and Customisations","duration":3612,"summary":"Lee talks about customisations on his Linux system","notes":"\n

    \nSystem Quirks & Tweaks

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nSystem Info:-\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nCPU:\n\n 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (-MT MCP-) \n\nspeed/min/max:\n\n 2433/2200/4761 MHz \n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nKernel:\n\n 6.8.0-134-generic x86_64 \n\nUp:\n\n 18h 28m \n\nMem:\n\n 17.58/62.73 GiB (28.0%) \n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nStorage:\n\n 3.64 TiB (81.9% used) \n\nProcs:\n\n 616 \n\nShell:\n\n Bash \n\ninxi:\n\n 3.3.34\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\nSome of the hacks:-\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nShell & Terminal Setup

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nVisual Host Identifiers:\n I use custom terminal prompt colors and styles on different boxes so I can immediately see which machine I am logged into.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nCommand Line Overrides:\n Standard tools are aliased to modern alternatives (\ncat\n to \nbatcat\n, \ndf\n to \nduf\n, \ndu\n to \ndust\n, \nls\n to \neza\n).
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nWord-Break Tweak:\n My shell config strips \n-\n and \n.\n from word-break rules so tab-completion handles hyphenated or dotted filenames as single words.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nHistory Search:\n I mapped \nCtrl+F\n (instead of \nCtrl+R\n) to run a custom, colorized, interactive fuzzy history search using \nfzf\n.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nLocal AI Tooling:\n I use AI coding interfaces, with \nollama\n aliased to run Qwen Coder by default.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nComplex Toolchains:\n My system runs multiple co-existing environments, including conflicting Java runtimes (8 and 17), Android SDK, Rust, Go, and local Perl/Python libraries.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAutostart & Background Services

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nAudio & RGB Tweaks:\n Custom services handle Bluetooth switching for my Bose QC35 headphones, and cycled my keyboard lighting profiles based on the time of day.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nPassive Time Tracker:\n A custom background system tracks files via \ninotifywait\n and polls network connections to log my work hours into a 15-minute rounded log file.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nTypo Alert Keylogger:\n A root-owned background script buffered my keystrokes globally to run a spellcheck, firing a desktop alert when I made a typo.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nWork/Life Balance:\n Discord is configured to launch only on weekends or after 17:30 on weekdays.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCustom Applications & Launchers

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nLocal LLM Voice Assistant:\n A desktop launcher opened \"Marvin,\" a private local voice-chat assistant.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nCustom Remote Control:\n A custom script used ADB and Monkeyrunner to mirror and control an Android tablet screen in a local window.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nKWin Layout Fixes:\n Joplin is set to bypass the taskbar.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCustom Panel Widgets

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nWeather & Brightness:\n Custom scripts feed my desktop panel with weather emojis from the 7Timer! API and let me change external monitor brightness using \nddcutil\n over I2C.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nNotification Pipelines:\n Custom shell scripts polled for SMS and email alerts, using MD5 hashes of the text blocks to ensure I never got duplicate notifications.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nFake GPS Server:\n A tiny local server on port 22222 returns my home coordinates to any local app requesting geolocation.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRepurposed \"Radio\" Panel

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \n\n\nHardware Recycling:\n An old Android tablet with a broken screen is used as a green-screen terminal. It runs a custom WebView app to display ambient data.
      • \n\n
    • \n\n\nGmail Push Pipeline:\n A local PHP script runs via cron every 10 minutes to fetch new email alerts and send them to the tablet over the local network.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"linux, customization, tweaks, scripts","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4708,"date":"2026-08-19","title":"Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 1","duration":1192,"summary":"A brief overview of industrial control systems.","notes":"\n

    \nIntroduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01

    \n\n

    \nThis is the first episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nThis series is on programmable logic controllers, or PLCs as they are commonly known.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhat is a PLC you ask?

    \n\n

    \nIn short, it is a general purpose programmable industrial control device.

    \n\n

    \nThey are used all through industry in factories, utilities, and anywhere industrial machines need to be controlled.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nThey are a fully integrated system of hardware, software, and development environment tailored specifically for automatic industrial equipment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt is probably easiest to describe them by first giving a bit of historical background as to what preceded them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04 The Early Days of Automation

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nYou have probably heard of the Jacquard loom of the early 19th century and its use of punch cards with respect to it being one of the technologies which eventually lead to computing.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, for our purposes here, its significance is that it was an early form of industrial automation control system, since it was after all controlling a machine in a factory.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nFor other types of machines, a common purely mechanical means of having the various parts of a complex machine move in a coordinated manner was through the use of shafts and cams.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA series of cams located on a shaft or set of shafts connected by gears, could move parts of a machine, turn valves on or off, and generally coordinate the parts of a machine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWith the spread of the use of electricity in factories in the early 20th century, it was now possible to use the new electrical technology to perform control and automation functions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06 The Background of Relay Logic

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will need to explain some electromechanical terminology here as it is necessary to understand these terms and the concepts behind them in order to understand PLCs, as the latter is an evolution of its predecessors and uses the same terms.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhat preceded PLCs was what was commonly known as \"relay logic\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07 What is a Relay

    \n\n

    \nA relay is an electromechanical device that responds to and controls the flow of electric current.

    \n\n

    \nA relay has a \"coil\" which as the name implies is a coil of conductive wire.

    \n\n

    \nWhen you energize the coil, that is you apply electric current to it, it forms an electromagnet.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nThis electromagnet draws in an armature.

    \n\n

    \nThe armature is a moving piece of metal which is attracted to the coil when the latter is energized.

    \n\n

    \nThe relay being activated is referred to as closing.

    \n\n

    \nDeactivating is referred to as opening.

    \n\n

    \nAlternative names for these states are \"pulls in\" and \"drops out\" respectively.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09

    \n\n

    \nThe armature in turn is attached to one or more contacts.

    \n\n

    \nYou can think of a contact as being like a switch.

    \n\n

    \nWhen the switch is turned one way, the electrical path is closed and current can flow.

    \n\n

    \nWhen it is turned the other way, the electrical path is broken and current flow is interrupted.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nContacts can be normally open, in which case the path is closed and current can flow when the relay turns on.

    \n\n

    \nAlternatively, they can be normally closed, in which case the path is closed and current can flow when the relay turns off.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA relay can, and typically does, have multiple contacts, including both normally open and normally closed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nRemember these terms, coil, contact, normally open, and normally closed.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11 What is a Latching Relay

    \n\n

    \nThere is a special type of relay known as a latching relay.

    \n\n

    \nThis was only occasionally used in relay control circuits, but the concepts behind it will become more important when we talk about actual PLCs.

    \n\n

    \nA latching relay has two coils.

    \n\n

    \nOne coil is used to turn on or \"set\" the relay.

    \n\n

    \nThe other coil is used to turn off or \"reset\" the relay.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nThe relay has either a mechanical latching mechanism or a magnet which is used to hold the relay in the set (or in other words, closed) position even if the set coil is de-energized.

    \n\n

    \nYou must energize the reset coil in order to reset or \"open\" the relay.

    \n\n

    \nA latching relay provides the equivalent of one \"bit\" of memory which retains its last state even if the power to the machine is turned off.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nLatching relays were used in applications where it was important that the relay logic circuit remember its last state.

    \n\n

    \nWhile not frequently used in relay control circuits due to their greater cost and complexity, the concept was to be more extensively used in PLC programs when set and reset instructions were provided which performed the equivalent function in software where there were no similar cost considerations to worry about.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nThus set and reset were to be much more frequently used in PLC programs than they were when they were actual relays.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAdd these terms to your list of things to remember - latch, unlatch, set and reset.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15 What is a Contactor

    \n\n

    \nI will mention another term now in case it happens to come up later.

    \n\n

    \nThis is \"contactor\".

    \n\n

    \nA contactor is basically just a large relay.

    \n\n

    \nIt is typically used to control large electrical loads such as motors and heaters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16

    \n\n

    \nSmaller relays are typically just called \"relays\", or sometimes \"control relays\".

    \n\n

    \nThese be used to create either logic circuits or control smaller electrical loads such as lights or pneumatic or hydraulic valves.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis may seem like a lot of jargon, but bear with me, I will make analogies to computers when appropriate.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17 Input and Output Devices

    \n\n

    \nIf you want to do some useful work, you will need some I/O.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTypical input devices include the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nPush buttons.

    \n\n

    \nThese are buttons which are pressed by the operator to command the machine to do something.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19

    \n\n

    \nSelector switches.

    \n\n

    \nThese are switches which are typically rotated to turn on or off and maintain their position.

    \n\n

    \nThese can have multiple positions, each of which can activate a separate input.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20

    \n\n

    \nPilot lights. These are lights which are used to provide feedback to the operator.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nLimit switches.

    \n\n

    \nThese are mechanical switches which parts of the machine activate, rather than the operator activating them.

    \n\n

    \nThis can be used to determine what position the various parts of the machine are in at any given time.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nProximity sensors.

    \n\n

    \nThese are essentially solid state limit switches which are more reliable than mechanical switches as they are less subject to wear and tear.

    \n\n

    \nThese are often colloquially abbreviated as \"proxies\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nSolenoid valves.

    \n\n

    \nThese are like relays in that an electromagnetic coil is activated.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, instead of activating another electrical contact, it activates a pneumatic or hydraulic valve.

    \n\n

    \nThis valve in turn typically allows air or hydraulic fluid to move a piston within a cylinder, which then moves some mechanical part of the machine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA typical machine will have lots and lots of proximity sensors and solenoid valves.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24 Relay Logic

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAll of these inputs and outputs require some sort of logic to coordinate them.

    \n\n

    \nThis is where control relays came in.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nIf having the output of one electrical device being able to control another electrical device sounds a bit like a transistor, then yes relays are analogous to electronic transistors.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, while transistors are a mid 20th century invention, relays date from the mid 19th century.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nLike with transistors, it is possible to encode logic into a network of wires connecting relays together, along with inputs from switches and other input devices.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nBy wiring sensors and relays together in the right order, it is possible to create reasonably complex sequences of operation to control a machine in an automatic manner.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27 Relay Boolean Logic

    \n\n

    \nWiring relay contacts in series creates \"and\" conditions.

    \n\n

    \nWiring them in parallel creates \"or\" conditions.

    \n\n

    \nUsing normally closed relay contacts creates \"not\" conditions.

    \n\n

    \nBy feeding a relay's own contacts back into the circuit leading up to its coil, it is possible to have a relay remember its own state.

    \n\n

    \nEach relay therefore could be thought of as one bit of logic in a boolean logic circuit.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28 Timers and Counters

    \n\n

    \nSpecial timing relays could be used to create a time delay between the relay energizing or de-energizing, and the contacts closing or opening.

    \n\n

    \nA timing relay which imposed a delay after being energized is an \"on delay timer\".

    \n\n

    \nA timing relay which imposed a delay after being de-energized is an \"off delay timer\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29

    \n\n

    \nTiming relays were often pneumatic.

    \n\n

    \nThey had a small rubber bellows that leaked air slowly through a adjustable orifice.

    \n\n

    \nThe bellows would prevent the relay from opening or closing, depending on the type, until enough air had leaked out for it to close or open.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor more accuracy or for longer time delays, motor driven clock timers could be used.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nSpecial counter relays could be used to require an input to turn on or off a specified number of times before activating the relay outputs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCounters typically used a ratchet mechanism to count up to a preset before activating.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nLater timing and counting relays used electronic timers and counters, but these arrived relatively late at a time when relay logic was on its way out.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 Electrical Panels

    \n\n

    \nLarge numbers of relays would be mounted on panels in large electrical enclosures, with the wires running between them, and also out to the limit switches, valves, and other devices mounted on the machine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33 Designing the Logic Circuit

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe logic or program would be encoded in the selection of the devices and in the wires running between them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTo design and document this logic, the designer would create electrical drawings.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese drawings would follow one of two different styles.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nIn one style, the two power wires, either hot and neutral in the case of AC power, or positive and negative in the case of DC power, were drawn as vertical lines down each side of the page of the drawing.

    \n\n

    \nThese vertical lines are known as the \"rails\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWires would then be drawn horizontally across the page from left to right showing the connections between push buttons, switches, and relay contacts across to the relay coils or pilot lights on the right.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nThe physical connections between relay coils and relay contacts were not normally shown on the drawings, although they may in the case of push buttons or selector switches with multiple contacts.

    \n\n

    \nInstead you would rely on the labels or names to see which contacts were associated with which relay coils, limits switches, or push buttons.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nThere are standard naming conventions for devices which I won't go into here.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this means that the relay coils could be on one page of the drawing set, and the contacts could be anywhere else in the drawing set.

    \n\n

    \nIt was convention to write a cross reference beside the relay coil to list where its contacts are used in the drawing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37 Ladder Rungs

    \n\n

    \nIn practical terms, what this meant is that the logic drawing tended to take the form of many independent horizontal sets of wiring and contacts looking rather like the rungs of a ladder.

    \n\n

    \nThus these drawings came to be known as \"ladder diagrams\" or \"ladder drawings\".

    \n\n

    \nThe horizontal elements were known as \"rungs\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38 Standard Symbols

    \n\n

    \nEach type of device had a standard symbol so you could see at a glance what it was.

    \n\n

    \nFor example a relay coil was a circle.

    \n\n

    \nA normally open relay contact was two short vertical lines separating a break in the wire circuit.

    \n\n

    \nA normally closed relay contact was just a normally open contact with a diagonal line drawn across it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39 Logic Flow

    \n\n

    \nBy convention, drawings were read from top to bottom, left to right.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn actual practice operations could happen in parallel and you had to be careful to avoid introducing what was called a \"relay race\" where the outcome of an operation depended upon which of two parallel operations completed first.

    \n\n

    \nA relay race could produce unpredictable results depending upon which of the operations completed first and therefore must be avoided.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nEngineers, technicians, and electricians were expected to become proficient in reading and understanding these ladder diagrams in order to design and troubleshoot equipment.

    \n\n

    \nTo someone who was experienced in the field, reading and understanding these diagrams became second nature.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41 DIN Drawings

    \n\n

    \nI mentioned there were two styles of drawings.

    \n\n

    \nThe other style is known as DIN, which stands for Deutsches Institut fur Normung, or German Standards Institute in English.

    \n\n

    \nThis is basically just a ladder diagram turned on its side, with the rails running horizontally from left to right, and the rungs running vertically from top to bottom.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI have mentioned DIN drawings here for completeness, but even those countries which still use DIN style drawings for documenting wiring use vertical ladders when ladder logic went electronic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42 Comparison to Electronic Logic Gates

    \n\n

    \nIf you are familiar with electronic and, or, nand, and nor gates some of the above concepts should familiar to you.

    \n\n

    \nSome of the concepts are indeed analogous.

    \n\n

    \nHowever these electromechanical conventions predate the existence of solid state.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nThe drawings also follow completely different principles.

    \n\n

    \nWhereas solid state logic gate drawings show inputs and outputs on a single device grouped together in a single block with complex interconnections, electrical ladder drawings separate them, which has a number of very significant consequences.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44

    \n\n

    \nFirst it greatly simplifies drawing the interconnections.

    \n\n

    \nSecond, it allows inputs and outputs to be grouped together by function rather than by physical packaging.

    \n\n

    \nThirdly it allows drawings to be spread over many smaller standard size sheets which in turn allows a functional collection of related rungs to be viewed in a single glance.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese three factors were to be of great significance when physical relays were replaced by software.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45 Historical Origins and Development

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOrigins

    \n\n

    \nNobody seems to know when or where industrial relay logic was first introduced.

    \n\n

    \nBest guesses seem to say some time after the widespread electrification of factories in the early 20th century.

    \n\n

    \nAutomation in the era of steam power seemed to rely mainly on the profile of mechanical cams mounted on shafts to time machine operations.

    \n\n

    \nMost sources seem pretty confident that relay logic was widespread by the 1940s or 50s.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46 Solid State

    \n\n

    \nThe introduction of transistors did not immediately displace relays for control purposes.

    \n\n

    \nRelays had the ability to handle significant amounts of power directly, allowing them to interface with inputs and outputs directly.

    \n\n

    \nTransistors would have still required interposing relays anyway, increasing the component count and complicating the system for little benefit.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nThere were solid state logic modules developed specifically to replace relays in control logic, but these were not widely used.

    \n\n

    \nThese solid state logic modules still required wiring connections between them, limiting their advantages over electromechanical relays.

    \n\n

    \nA number of families of electromechanical control relays were developed by a number of companies, and these tended to be very robust and reliable, although rather expensive.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48 Conclusion

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode I have covered the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhat is a relay.

    \n\n

    \nCommon input and output devices.

    \n\n

    \nHow relays are used to create boolean logic systems.

    \n\n

    \nDesigning relay logic systems and the electrical drawings used to document them.

    \n\n

    \nThe brief history of relay logic systems.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49 Terms to Remember

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHere are some terms you may wish to remember.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nProgrammable Logic Controller, also known as \"PLC\"

    \n\n

    \nControl relay

    \n\n

    \nCoils

    \n\n

    \nContacts

    \n\n

    \nNormally open

    \n\n

    \nNormally closed

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50

    \n\n

    \nLatch

    \n\n

    \nUnlatch

    \n\n

    \nSet

    \n\n

    \nReset

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51

    \n\n

    \nOn delay timers

    \n\n

    \nOff delay timers

    \n\n

    \nCounters

    \n\n

    \nPush buttons

    \n\n

    \nPilot lights

    \n\n

    \nLimit switches

    \n\n

    \nProximity switches, also known as \"proxies\"

    \n\n

    \nLadder diagrams

    \n\n

    \nLadder rails

    \n\n

    \nLadder rungs

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52 Next Episode

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the next episode I will discuss the following

    \n\n

    \nThe origins of PLCs.

    \n\n

    \nHow they evolved from relay logic.

    \n\n

    \nHow and why physical relays and wiring became virtual relays in software.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nDid you think that visual or graphical programming was something new?

    \n\n

    \nListen to the next episode and find out that people were doing it in factories half a century ago back when you were still trying to get your first Fortran program to run on a mainframe.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nThis has been the first episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"technology","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4710,"date":"2026-08-21","title":"Civilization VI","duration":808,"summary":"A first look at the next version of Civilization from 2016, Civilization VI.","notes":"

    Civilization VI, released in 2016, was a further evolution of the franchise that added interesting new features. We introduce it in this episode.

    \n\n

    Civilization VI

    \n\n

    Released in 2016, Civ VI is probably still the most played version of the game. Although there has been a general gap of 5-6 years between versions, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic slowed down many things. Since early 2025 we have had Civilization VII come out, but in my opinion it is still being tweaked and refined. In the meantime, Civilization VI is the game I play now when I play Civ. I’ve played all of them from the first, and put in many hours here. Since I now play Civ on Steam mostly, I have statistics! I played Civ V for a total of 769 hours, and so far I have played Civ VI for 689 hours, but since this is what I play for now I will probably exceed my Civ V hours pretty soon. BTW, I probably have well over 1000 hours on Civ II, which I think I have played the most, and certainly more than 3000 hours total over all all versions.

    \n\n

    I’m going to cover this without worrying too much about whether it is the base game or an expansion. Fact is, Firaxis have started moving to something more akin to a subscription model when they introduced the New Frontier Pass, which works very well when you are on Steam. The idea was that you bought this pass, and very few months got new content, and on Steam it would automatically be downloaded to your account. That is not to say that there weren’t actual expansions, but since the last thing they released was this “pass”, i’m kind of wondering what they will do with Civ VII. In any case, let’s take a look at this.

    \n\n

    Gameplay

    \n\n

    Again, you start with a tribe in 4000BC which founds your first city, and you immediately begin building units, exploring, researching, and developing your city. this is a time-tested mechanic that never changes. but there are some interesting changes that make this game fascinating.

    \n\n

    First, in the earlier versions of Civ you thought of yourself as playing a particular civ, which came with a particular leader. In different versions of Civ the name of the leader might change, like for France you might have Napoleon on some versions, or Joan of Arc in another, but in each case one civ gets one leader, so you tended to think of yourself as playing the nation. Rome might be Caesar in one version, Augustus in another, or Trajan in yet another. (Fun fact: Sid Meier says he always plays as Rome because it just feels right to him). In Civ VI this linkage is broken. One leader, Eleanor of Aquitaine, can be played as the Queen of England, or she can be played as the Queen of France. And each version has different abilities and strengths. If you want a fairly easy Culture victory, play her as Queen of France, and watch as other players’ cities rebel and join your Empire because they admire you so much. Teddy Roosevelt also has two different manifestations, Rough Rider Teddy, and Big Stick Teddy, when you have all the expansions. China has two possible leaders, with different strengths: Qin Shi Huang, and Kublai Khan. And Kublai Khan can be either Chinese or Mongolian, with different strengths. So in Civ VI you don’t think of what Civ you want to play, you think of which leader you want to play.

    \n\n

    Every leader comes with a Civilization Ability, a Unique Unit, and a Unique Infrastructure. These matter a lot. For example, take John Curtin, the leader of the Australian civilization. His Civilization Ability is called Land Down Under, and it gives him +3 Housing in coastalcities. Building a Pasture triggers a Culture Bomb, claiming surrounding tiles. Campus, Commercial Hub, Holy Site, and Theater Squaredistricts gain +1 to their yields in tiles with Charming Appeal, and +3 in tiles with Breathtaking Appeal. Then his Unique Unit is the Digger, a melee military unit that replaces the Infantry unit. And his Unique Infrastructure is tile improvement called the Outback Station. This gives you increased food, production, and housing, some of which varies according to what is on surrounding tiles. The point is that each leader gives you very specific advantages that you should play to. In Civ VI it is even more important to tailor your strategy to the particular leader. Leaders like Frederic Barbarossa or Simon Bolivar are very good for Domination, while Peter the Great and Saladin are very good for Religious victories. If you take a random leader be ready to adapt your play style and strategy to fit, or alternatively decide what kind of victory you want to achieve and pick a leader who is good at it. Or if you want a real challenge, pick a leader who is not suited to the victory condition you are aiming at. But keep in mind that the game may take you in places you didn’t expect. One game I picked Wilfrid Laurier of Canada, who is ideal for Diplomatic and Cultural victories, and I thought I would be going for a Cultural victory. But Wilfrid’s strengths come from his advantages on Tundra land tiles, and I somehow managed to spawn in the middle of the map with no Tundra tiles at all in my empire. I had work hard to manage a Science victory in that case.

    \n\n

    Districts

    \n\n

    This is a major change in Civ. In earlier versions you built buildings inside of cities, and you tended to build the same buildings in most or all cities. You were only limited by your ability to generate Production to get them done. Civ VI is different. You have to place Districts on specific tiles, and and you can then develop the district with added buildings. If you want to develop your industry, you can place an Industrial Zone, and then add a Workshop, then a Factory, then a Power plant, and so on, each one increasing your Production. For Science you place down a Campus District, then a Library, then a University, then a Research Lab. And the game mechanic means you cannot built everything in every city. You can place one district at the start, then one more when your city reaches a population of 4, then a third one when you reach 7, and so on with each added population of three allowing one more district. The point is to force you to make choices. Districts get adjacency bonuses which increase their output. The Campus (generates Science) and the Holy Site (generates Faith) both benefit from adjacent Mountains, and the effect is additive. So if you find a tile with three mountains around it, you will want to place one of these districts there. Districts also get adjacency bonuses from other districts, so the planning the layout of your cities is really important to maximize these bonuses. And they can get bonuses even with adjacent Districts that belong to a different city!

    \n\n

    Another key district is the Encampment, which let you build better, more veteran military units. Since building units requires Production, you should build build an Encampment in a city which has a lot of Production, and that probably means one with an Industrial Zone. A Harbor District would go in a city with coastal tiles, of course. All of this requires planning. Expert players will usually start out by exploring to see what the map looks like around them, what terrain features they have to work with, what resources are available, and so on. Then, around turn ten they will plan out their next cities, and figure out where they want to place districts and so on. There is a built-in “map pin” system for this, and it can be improved by installing the right mod. While you don’t have to do this, it does help you to be successful.

    \n\n

    Maps and Terrain

    \n\n

    Terrain features matter a lot in this game. We already mentioned adjacency bonuses of Mountains for Holy Sites and Campuses, but there is much more. The map is divided into Continents, and it is quite normal for a contiguous land mass to contain two or more continents if it is large enough. Think of how Europe and Asia are really just one large land mass to see what I mean. This matters because certain units may defend differently depending on which continent they are on, or some civilizations may be affected from having cities on a different continent. Terrain features like Rivers are extremely important for the placement of cities because they provide fresh water. You can sometimes get around that by building an Aqueduct to bring water from a Lake or a Mountain, but that means using up one of your city tiles, and spending production to build it. If you can place your city on a river you can avoid that problem and get off to a fast start. But the downside is that rivers can flood, and that can wreck your improvements. A big idea for terrain is Appeal. Each tile has an Appeal level ranging from Disgusting to Breathtaking, and it is determined by a combination of the tile’s features themselves and by adjacencies. The modifiers are added together to determine the Appeal level of the tile, and there is a lens you use to view your Appeal levels on all tiles, which are color coded. This matters particularly if you are trying for a Culture victory. Culture victories are own by generating Tourism, and while some that can come from things like Museums and Wonders, you will really want to maximize your Tourism to win this game, and two good ways to do that are building National Parks and Seaside Resorts. You can only do that if the appeal is at least Charming (or even better, Breathtaking). If you find you cannot build them in what seems like a good spot, chances are Appeal is the problem. So check that out. You can, for instance, remove marshes (which give negative appeal), and plant forests (which add appeal), and that might be all it takes to get these going.

    \n\n

    The underlying issue in managing your cities is that you only have so many tiles, and a tile that might be great for a farm might also be great for a District. You need food to grow, and you need to grow to put down Districts, so you are always making choices about this, and that is what makes this a great strategy game.

    \n\n

    Other Resources

    \n\n\n\n

    Links

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization VI","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4714,"date":"2026-08-27","title":"HPR Beer Garden 18 - Amber Ale","duration":1479,"summary":"Kevie and Dave talk about Amber ales","notes":"\n

    \nThe HPR Beer Garden returns for it's eighteenth episode with a look at Amber ales. Dave tries out \nHobgoblin Amber\n, whilst Kevie samples \nBanks's Amber\n.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on \nUntappd\n:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe next three beer styles to be reviewed are:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nlager
      • \n\n
    • \nmild
      • \n\n
    • \nbitter
      • \n\n
    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4718,"date":"2026-09-02","title":"Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 2 ","duration":1854,"summary":"A brief overview of industrial control systems.","notes":"\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is the second episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nIn the previous episode we discussed the predecessors of PLCs, in particular relay logic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we will discuss how relay logic came to be expressed in software rather than in actual hardware components.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nThe topics to be covered include

    \n\n

    \n* Early computers in industry.

    \n\n

    \n* The first PLC.

    \n\n

    \n* PC versus PLC - what's in a name.

    \n\n

    \n* Who the major brands are.

    \n\n

    \n* What does a PLC actually look like.

    \n\n

    \n* Machine architecture.

    \n\n

    \n* PLC programs.

    \n\n

    \n* The scan.

    \n\n

    \n* PLC programming languages.

    \n\n

    \n* Relative popularity of PLC programming languages versus more conventional computer programming languages.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04 Early Computers in Industry

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nComputers came to be used in industry fairly early on.

    \n\n

    \nMinicomputers were used in some large industries to control things like electric power plants.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFor example, the DEC PDP8 was used to control the refuelling machines in CANDU nuclear power plants.

    \n\n

    \nThese would load and unload fuel from the reactor, which happens continually on a daily basis while the reactor is running.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nThe first microprocessor based computer sold on the commercial market was the MICRAL from France, based on the Intel 8008.

    \n\n

    \nIt was sold as a cost effective replacement for minicomputers used in industry.

    \n\n

    \nIt preceded what are generally considered to be the first Personal Computers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSo you can see that industry were not reluctant to adopt new technology.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nHowever, mini computers were large complex systems that did not fit well into a factory floor.

    \n\n

    \nThey had particular niches in very large complex integrated systems, but were not suited to controlling many individual machines in a factory that produced things like automobiles or appliances.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nWhat was needed was something that would fit into a standard electrical enclosure,

    \n\n

    \nwithstand the temperatures found in a factory,

    \n\n

    \ncould stand up to vibration and noise,

    \n\n

    \nwas tolerant of voltage fluctuations,

    \n\n

    \ninterfaced directly to sensors and actuators,

    \n\n

    \nand could be readily programmed by engineers, technicians, and tradesmen who were familiar with the processes to be controlled, but had little or no experience with computers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nThis required a complete integrated package covering hardware, software, and product distribution through industrial supply retailers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSomething that could meet these criteria is what was needed to become the PLC.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09 History

    \n\n

    \nMany histories point to a US developer that became Modicon.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, their first hardware was more a proof of concept than a viable commercial product.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn fact multiple companies in the US, Europe, and Japan were working on the problem and released comparable products all at around the same time in the early 1970s.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nThe idea preceded the implementation by a number of years.

    \n\n

    \nFor example, General Motors had asked industrial control equipment suppliers in the mid 1960s for some sort of programmable control device to replace relay logic.

    \n\n

    \nThis showed potential suppliers that there was a market for this sort of thing, and gave them a clearer idea of what customers were looking for.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nWhat made this possible was the development of the first 8 bit microprocessor in that time period, combined with readily available bit slice processors from the minicomputer industry and other components.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nPeople knew what to do, the problem was waiting for the development of suitable component hardware.

    \n\n

    \nMinicomputers were already being used in industry, but were normally located in control rooms.

    \n\n

    \nPLCs were an effort to take that technology out of control rooms and put it on the shop floor.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13 PC Versus PLC - What's in a Name

    \n\n

    \nIn the early days, these systems were known as either PLC, which means \"Programmable Logic Controller\", or PC, which means \"Programmable Controller\".

    \n\n

    \nDifferent vendors favoured different terminology, but both were common.

    \n\n

    \nI have a book which was at one time one of the standard reference handbooks for this industry which was published in 1989, and refers to them as Programmable Controllers, or PCs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14

    \n\n

    \nThe term PC was also used to mean \"Personal Computer\", but that wasn't really a problem in the early days.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, a certain large company decided to call their entry into the personal computer market the \"IBM PC\", and suddenly \"PC\" became a generic term for desktop computers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15

    \n\n

    \nAfter a long struggle to keep referring to their products as \"PCs\", even the biggest vendors caved in and gave up the fight and switched to using the \"PLC\" term.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will therefore use the term \"PLC\" in this podcast series even when talking about products which were originally called \"PCs\" at the time they were introduced.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16 Who the Major Brands Are

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe companies that came to dominate the industry fairly early on were generally companies that already made industrial electrical hardware.

    \n\n

    \nThese were

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSiemens

    \n\n

    \nAllen Bradley, later known as Rockwell

    \n\n

    \nSchneider

    \n\n

    \nMitsubishi

    \n\n

    \nOmron

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nThese are still the dominant companies in the business, although there are many small brands, particularly at the cheaper end of the market.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAll of them were suppliers of a wide range of industrial control hardware, such that you could build all or nearly all of the parts of your control system using only their products.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18

    \n\n

    \nEach of these sells an integrated hardware and software package, including development software, that is completely proprietary.

    \n\n

    \nIf you thought that the mainframe business had a lot of vendor lock-in, you haven't seen the industrial market.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19 What Does One of These Things Actually Look Like?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAt this point you are probably still very confused as to what a PLC actually is.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will attempt to describe one in basic terms by giving an example of one.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe smallest and simplest ones are what are termed \"shoebox\" PLCs.

    \n\n

    \nThese are basically a rectangular box with a plastic case.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20

    \n\n

    \nHere are the dimensions for a typical low end model, a Mitsubishi FX3U-32M.

    \n\n

    \nAccording to specs in the manual, it is 150mm wide, 90mm high, and 86mm deep.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nIt can be mounted to the panel in an electrical enclosure by snapping it onto what is termed a DIN rail.

    \n\n

    \nDIN rails are standard mounting systems which use a strip of metal which is U shaped with a lip at the top of each end of the U.

    \n\n

    \nYou screw the DIN rail to the electrical panel in the enclosure, and most industrial components such as PLCs, terminal blocks, circuit breakers, and all sorts of other things will simply snap onto it and be ready to wire together.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nAlong the top and bottom of the PLC are terminals to which you can attach wires from the things you want to sense or control in the rest of the machine, such as push buttons, pilot lights, proximity sensors, and valves.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nInputs are along the top, and outputs are along the bottom.

    \n\n

    \nThe FX3U-32M has 16 inputs and 16 outputs.

    \n\n

    \nThese I/O can be 24 volts DC, or 100 to 120 volts AC, depending on the model.

    \n\n

    \nAlternatively it may have small relays for outputs.

    \n\n

    \nWhile AC I/O once predominated, 24VDC became the standard in most industries several decades ago as it interfaced with electronic devices more readily and also allowed for cheaper and more compact wiring.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nMore inputs and outputs can be added by connecting additional I/O modules to the main PLC next to it on the same DIN rail, up to a total of 256 I/O

    \n\n

    \nThe connection is typically via short ribbon cables which plug into the adjacent module.

    \n\n

    \nThese I/O modules look like the main PLC, but just add I/O.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nInside the PLC are a CPU, memory, and firmware.

    \n\n

    \nThis model has 64K \"steps\" of memory, which can be thought of as how many instructions you can have.

    \n\n

    \nThe program runs in RAM, but you can add a small flash memory device to save the program to.

    \n\n

    \nThere is a run/stop switch that allows you to start or stop the user program.

    \n\n

    \nThere is a port that you can use to connect the PLC to a laptop computer with a cable so you can download your program to it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nThe biggest part of the market for PLCs is for these \"shoebox\" style.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, there are bigger ones as well which have more I/O, more memory, faster CPUs, etc.

    \n\n

    \nThese are meant for tasks such as coordinating large assembly lines and things like that.

    \n\n

    \nThese are what are termed rack systems, where the rack is an empty box which is open at the front and has a backplane bus running along the back.

    \n\n

    \nYou plug the main CPU into the bus, normally in the leftmost position, and then plug I/O modules into the rack.

    \n\n

    \nThe I/O modules are tall, thin, fully enclosed boxes with the I/O terminals along the front.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \nYou should have a rough idea of their appearance at this stage, so I'll leave the physical description aside for now and go on to the concepts behind how they actually work and what makes them different from something like say a Raspberry Pi.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28 Machine Architecture

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt is not really the hardware which defines the PLC.

    \n\n

    \nRather, it is the software system architecture.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEvery PLC that I am aware of has a common set of features.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29 Data Table

    \n\n

    \nA data table is simply a block of memory which may or may not be subdivided into different parts.

    \n\n

    \nAll logic, and all, or nearly all, I/O works by writing to and reading from addresses in the data table.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30 I/O

    \n\n

    \nEvery input and output point maps to a fixed memory address in the PLC.

    \n\n

    \nTo read the state of an input, you read its memory address.

    \n\n

    \nTo change the state of an output, you write to its memory address.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nThese digital I/O appear as single bit boolean values.

    \n\n

    \nThe PLC programming language has instructions which allow single bits to be read or written to directly without have to mask off other bits as you would have to do if you were using a conventional programming language.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI have so far only mentioned digital I/O, which are single bit on/off values.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 Other types of I/O

    \n\n

    \nMany PLCs also have other types of I/O such as

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAnalogue I/O, which represent variable voltages rather than just on/off values.

    \n\n

    \nFor example you may wish to read a temperature from a thermocouple where the voltage level varies with the temperature.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOften these are mapped into the data table as byte or word values.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33 Internal Bit or Boolean Memory

    \n\n

    \nThere will be a range of single bit or boolean memory which is used for internal logic state.

    \n\n

    \nYour program may need to come up with a series of intermediate logical values, and you store them in these internal bits or flags.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34 Timers and Counters

    \n\n

    \nControl of machinery often involves timing and counting.

    \n\n

    \nTimer and counters are mapped into the data table.

    \n\n

    \nTimer and counter presets and values can be read as words, and there will be bit addresses which indicate the status of the timer or counter, such as whether it has reached its preset and is \"done\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35 Integer and Floating Point Values

    \n\n

    \nThere will be word addresses where integer and floating point words can be stored.

    \n\n

    \nIf you need to do some mathematical calculations and store the results, you would save them in an integer or floating point word.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36 Typed Memory

    \n\n

    \nUnlike when programming something like a PC where you simply have a range of undifferentiated bytes and it is up to your software to impose meaning on it, PLC data table memory has defined types and meanings and the system firmware enforces the correct memory access methods.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37 Size of Data Table

    \n\n

    \nData tables vary greatly in size.

    \n\n

    \nA bigger data table allows for bigger and more complex program.

    \n\n

    \nGenerally, new PLCs will have bigger data tables than older ones,

    \n\n

    \nand more expensive PLCs will have bigger data tables than cheaper ones of the same generation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38 Example

    \n\n

    \nHaving picked a current PLC as an example for physical dimensions, I will pick an old and obsolete one for an example of a data table.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Siemens S5-100 series was a small PLC that came in several sizes.

    \n\n

    \nThe basic S5-100 had the following data table size.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nDigital I/O had a maximum of 128 inputs and outputs taken together.

    \n\n

    \nAnalogue inputs and outputs had a maximum of 8 taken together.

    \n\n

    \nFlag, or bit, memory was 1024

    \n\n

    \nTimers - 16

    \n\n

    \nCounters - 16

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nThe S5-103 offered more of everything in the same basic package, but of course at a higher cost.

    \n\n

    \nDigital I/O had a maximum of 256 inputs and outputs taken together.

    \n\n

    \nAnalogue inputs and outputs had a maximum of 32 taken together.

    \n\n

    \nFlag, or bit, memory was 2048

    \n\n

    \nTimers - 128

    \n\n

    \nCounters - 128

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41 The PLC Program

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA PLC will come with what amounts to an operating system and virtual machine built into it.

    \n\n

    \nYou as the programmer use the vendor's proprietary development software, what is generally called the \"PLC programming software\" to write an application for it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42

    \n\n

    \nYou then connect your PC to the PLC using a cable of some sort, and download your program into it.

    \n\n

    \nThe program gets stored in the PLC's RAM.

    \n\n

    \nThere may be flash memory which serves to back up the RAM when the power is off so you don't lose the program.

    \n\n

    \nBefore flash was available, a battery was typically required to hold the static RAM memory.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nThere is just one program in the PLC.

    \n\n

    \nThere is no file system, just the program memory and the data table.

    \n\n

    \nWhen the PLC starts up, it runs the program that you wrote.

    \n\n

    \nIt continues running the program until you turn off the power or you set the run/stop switch to the stop position.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44

    \n\n

    \nI will come back to programming later, but we needed to cover these basic points before I could describe some further concepts we need to cover.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45 The Scan

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA key thing to understand about PLCs is the \"scan\" concept.

    \n\n

    \nThis works as follows.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere is a repeated cycle called the scan.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nFirst, the PLC reads all the physical inputs and updates the corresponding input addresses in the data table.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNext it runs the user program once.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFinally it reads the output addresses in the data table and writes them to the corresponding physical outputs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThen it repeats the scan from step 1.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47

    \n\n

    \nA scan can take anywhere from a few milliseconds to hundreds of milliseconds, depending on the model of PLC.

    \n\n

    \nOlder PLCs and cheaper PLCs tended to be slower.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, as integrated circuit technology advanced, programs got faster.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48

    \n\n

    \nThe PLC has a watchdog timer.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a timer which runs in the background and resets at the start of a scan.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nIf a scan takes too long, the watchdog will trip and stop the program and set the outputs to some defined state, either turning them all off or holding them at the last value.

    \n\n

    \nThis is known as \"faulting\" the processor.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50

    \n\n

    \nA watchdog fault may be caused by a program that is too long, or uses a lot of very slow instructions, or in some cases it may be due to a bug in your program.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, this last cause is not as common or as easy to cause as you may think when it comes to faults.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51 PLC Programming Languages

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe key to all of this is the unique way in which the programming languages used in PLCs work.

    \n\n

    \nI will first briefly describe the two main programming languages and then explain how they work in a PLC as part of a complete system.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52 Ladder Logic

    \n\n

    \nThere are several programming languages, but the main one is called ladder logic.

    \n\n

    \nIf you listened to the previous episode, the word \"ladder\" will ring a bell.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhen machines were controlled by electromechanical relays, the electrical drawings which specified and documented the types of relays and the connections between them were called \"ladder diagrams\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nPLCs simply take these ladder diagrams and reproduce them on your computer screen in the programming software using the same standard schematic symbols.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nYou do not need to draw the symbols like it was CAD.

    \n\n

    \nInstead you simply use your keyboard or mouse to say that you want this symbol to be entered in the current cursor location or you want this wire to be connected from here to there.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWhen your rung is complete the software will check at some point if it is syntactically correct.

    \n\n

    \nYou then go on to entering the next rungs one after another until you have your complete program.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55 Instruction List

    \n\n

    \nAn alternative representation is something called \"instruction list\", although various vendors may use other terms.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is a text representation that looks like a sort of assembly language.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it's actually really ladder, just shown in a different way as text and some types of programming software will allow you to toggle between ladder and instruction list mode, translating between them automatically.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56

    \n\n

    \nThis should give you a clue as to how a PLC can execute a schematic diagram.

    \n\n

    \nBehind the scenes the programming software will translate the diagram into instruction list, and then the PLC will either execute those instructions in an interpreter, or compile them to machine code and execute those.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 Other Programming Languages

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere are other programming languages, but they are rarely seen.

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into detail in terms of describing them, just briefly mention them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nOne is called Sequential Function Chart.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a type of flow chart which is designed to show complex sequences, including ones with alternate or parallel paths.

    \n\n

    \nThe original name for this is Grafcet, spelled G R A F C E T.

    \n\n

    \nThis stands for \"Graphe Fonctionnel de Commande Étape Transition\".

    \n\n

    \nAs well as being a programming language, it is also a very good design and analysis tool even if the PLC being used doesn't support it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nAnother is Function Block Diagram.

    \n\n

    \nThis is another graphical language which resembles flow diagrams used in process industries.

    \n\n

    \nThis is supposedly used mainly in industries such as chemical manufacturing.

    \n\n

    \nHowever it appears to be very niche and most people who use PLCs will never have seen it, and many will not have even heard of it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60

    \n\n

    \nYet another language is Structured Text.

    \n\n

    \nThis is very obviously derived from Modula-2 and strongly resembles it.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are not familiar with Modula-2, it was created by Nikolas Wirth and intended as the successor to Pascal, which it was derived from.

    \n\n

    \nStructured Text seems to be much loved by a small number of academics, but seems to have little actual use in the field.

    \n\n

    \nYou lose pretty much all of the monitoring and debugging facilities built into a PLC if you use it, so it's kind of pointless except perhaps for a few niche applications.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere are a few other languages as well, mainly proprietary ones, often using flow charts or the like.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61 PLC Languages are Non-Blocking

    \n\n

    \nThe important thing about a PLC program is that it executes from top to bottom, left to right, without stopping or blocking.

    \n\n

    \nThere is no waiting on input or output or for a system call to return.

    \n\n

    \nEach rung immediately yields a result which is written to a memory address or which enables a timer or counter.

    \n\n

    \nEvery rung is executed every scan.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62

    \n\n

    \nYou can reproduce this in a traditional computer programming language.

    \n\n

    \nIn ladder logic it is inherent to the syntax and it is either very difficult or impossible to do it any other way.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI'll give an example in Python of what I mean.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63

    \n\n

    \na = (b or c) and not d

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64

    \n\n

    \nIf b or c are true and d is false, then a is set to true.

    \n\n

    \nIf b and c are false or d is true, then a is false.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65

    \n\n

    \nNow imagine that we are not executing this statement once, but rather are executing it repeatedly.

    \n\n

    \nThis statement will never block execution.

    \n\n

    \nIt will always immediately yield a result.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nNow let's modify that a bit.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \na = (b or a) and not d

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67

    \n\n

    \nNote that we have replaced c with a.

    \n\n

    \nNow the value of a depends the previous value of a as well as b and d.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, once a becomes true, the value of b no longer matters because b is in an or condition with a.

    \n\n

    \nNow if we execute it over and over again, only d becoming true will make a go false.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68

    \n\n

    \nThis is a standard push button circuit, also known as a \"seal in circuit\", because it \"seals\" around the start condition.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nb is the start push button with a normally open contact.

    \n\n

    \nd is the stop push button with a normally closed contact.

    \n\n

    \na is a relay with one of its contacts being used to hold it on.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nIf you wired this up with actual push buttons and relays or if you programmed it into a PLC with ladder logic it would work the same way.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA PLC program will consists of rung after rung of logic like this and executes it repeatedly scan after scan, only pausing to update its I/O.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71 Async Programming

    \n\n

    \nSome of you may be thinking that this cyclical scan sounds like the async programming that is all the rage with web server applications these days.

    \n\n

    \nEssentially it is exactly the same principle.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72

    \n\n

    \nWith async programming, your program must never use blocking instructions and execution proceeds on a repeated cycle.

    \n\n

    \nPLCs solve this by not having any instructions which block, and many PLCs do not allow backwards jumps.

    \n\n

    \nTradesmen in coveralls in factories were doing async programming decades before the cool kids heard about it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73 Most PLC Programming Languages are Visual or Graphical Languages

    \n\n

    \nIf ladder, Sequential Function Chart, or Grafcet and Function Block Diagram sound like visual programming languages, they are.

    \n\n

    \nIn fact ladder is probably one of the earliest visual languages in commercial use.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWikipedia defines a visual programming language as:

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74

    \n\n

    \nIn computing, a visual programming language (visual programming system, VPL, or, VPS), also known as diagrammatic programming, graphical programming or block coding, is a programming language that lets users create programs by manipulating program elements graphically rather than by specifying them textually. A VPL allows programming with visual expressions, spatial arrangements of text and graphic symbols, used either as elements of syntax or secondary notation. For example, many VPLs are based on the idea of \"boxes and arrows\", where boxes or other screen objects are treated as entities, connected by arrows, lines or arcs which represent relations. VPLs are generally the basis of low-code development platforms. Scratch is an example of a VPL

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75

    \n\n

    \nEnd of quote.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAs you can see, what is cool today was on the factory floor more than 40 years ago.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n76 Popularity of PLC Programming Languages

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nPLCs are about as proprietary as you can get.

    \n\n

    \nPretty much every vendor has his own proprietary take on each language.

    \n\n

    \nHow you can program any particular PLC is determined by that vendor's programming software.

    \n\n

    \nIf the vendor doesn't support it, you can't use it.

    \n\n

    \nAn individual vendor may even have multiple incompatible product lines which have to be programmed in different ways with different software, although that is not as common these days as it once was.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n77

    \n\n

    \nNearly all PLCs support programming in Ladder.

    \n\n

    \nSome support programming in instruction list as well as ladder.

    \n\n

    \nAnything else is much less common.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n78

    \n\n

    \nLadder logic happens to be on the Tiobe Index by the way.

    \n\n

    \nFor those who have not heard of it, the Tiobe Index, that is T I O B E, is a web site that lists the popularity of numerous programming languages based on various criteria.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n79

    \n\n

    \nNumber one on their list happens to be Python, currently at 19.98%.

    \n\n

    \nNumber two is C, at 11.55%.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n80

    \n\n

    \nAt the time of writing this script, Ladder Logic was at number 46 with a 0.28% rating, which put it just below Erlang and just above Haskell.

    \n\n

    \nI'm not sure whether that means that Ladder Logic is not as obscure as you thought it was, or whether it means that Erlang and Haskell are in fact more obscure than you thought they were.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n81 Episode Summary

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we covered we covered

    \n\n

    \nThe early history of computers in industrial control

    \n\n

    \nThe early history of PLCs, including how they got their name

    \n\n

    \nWho the major brands are

    \n\n

    \nWhat they look like physically

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n82

    \n\n

    \nA basic description of the abstract machine architecture

    \n\n

    \nA very brief look at what a PLC program is like

    \n\n

    \nThe scan concept

    \n\n

    \nThe main PLC programming languages

    \n\n

    \nThe minor PLC programming languages

    \n\n

    \nThe relative popularity of each of the programming languages

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n83

    \n\n

    \nIn the next episode we will take a look at one of the early PLCs from the era when they began seeing widespread use.

    \n\n

    \nThis PLC was hugely successful and was for many companies the first PLC they used.

    \n\n

    \nThis is the Allen Bradley PLC2.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n84

    \n\n

    \nThis has been the second episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"technology","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4720,"date":"2026-09-04","title":"Robert A. Heinlein: Earlier Novels","duration":757,"summary":"We look at some of the earliest novels written by Robert A. Heinlein.","notes":"

    Heinlein published his first novel in 1948, and within a decade had published some major works. What distinguishes these early novels from his later ones is that he has not pushed the boundary of what he can write about to the degree he does in the 1960s and later. But there are fine novels in this period.

    \n\n

    Heinlein’s Earlier Novels

    \n\n

    During the 1950s Heinlein was busy with his Juvenile series, but also found time to write some adult novels, and some of them are very good. A few of them were expansions of earlier, shorter works that he turned into full novels.

    \n\n
      \n
    • Beyond This Horizon (1948) – This is Heinlein’s first novel after the lackluster For Us The Living (which never was published during his lifetime; Heinlein knew it was sub-par). It is set in a future society that is practicing a form of eugenics, with a breeding program designed to produce the perfect human by selecting for health, longevity, and intelligence. The protagonist, Hamilton Felix, is not the one, but he is near to the end. And this society has also made it a point to keep a certain number of people who are not part of the breeding program, as a form control for the experiment. Hamilton Felix is in fact the penultimate step in this program, but has so far shown no interest in marriage or procreation. But in the course of the novel he is persuaded. His children are shown to be the end point of the program at the end of the novel. A sub-plot involves his friend Mordan Claude (in this book everyone puts their family name first) who falls for a woman he meets. When she sneezes, he begins to suspect she is one of the “control naturals”. They are protected, but clearly this is a class society, which is to be expected in any society that practices eugenics, and should be off-limits for Claude. But love conquers all, and then he discovers that she is not a control natural after all, which to my mind is a somewhat weaker outcome.

      Another aspect of this society is that most people are armed, and dueling is common. This is explained as “An armed society is a polite society,” since if you offended someone you could find yourself in a duel very quickly. A lot of gun enthusiasts have picked up on this and repeated it as if it was revealed truth, but even a cursory examination of societies with a lot of guns shows it to be false.
      • \n\n
    • Sixth Column (1949) – This novel was originally a serial written in 1941, when the Sino-Japanese war was in full swing, and this motivates some of the ideas in this book. The setting is a United States that has been conquered by the Pan-Asian Federation. This Federation had previously absorbed the Soviet Union and India, and is portrayed in very much Yellow Peril manner. John W. Campbell had a lot to do with this, and it makes the novel something that you can skip without losing much. The Pan-Asians regard the Americans as slaves. And their policy towards their slaves is “Three things only do slaves require: work, food, and their religion.” In an American military outpost hidden in the mountains of Colorado a miracle weapon is found that can kill, and it can somehow be tuned to only affect the Asians and not the Americans. Since the Pan-Asians have allowed religion (better to pacify the slaves), the Americans create a religion and use that to infiltrate the Pan-Asian facilities. Heinlein himself had a low opinion of this novel, and deservedly so.
      • \n\n
    • The Puppet Masters (1951) – This novel is a product of the paranoia of the times regarding Communists. But this novel is more of an allegory than a direct anti-Communist screed. It is fundamentally about “the enemy within”, in the form of alien parasites called slugs that can take over a human by controlling the nervous system, making the human a powerless slave to the alien. And they are attempting to conquer the world, though all of the action we see takes place in the United States. This is essentially The Body Snatchers plot, and has been done many times. But both this novel and the previous Sixth Column reflect the feeling of paranoia prevalent in society when people thought there were communists under every bed looking to corrupt the youth and subvert The American Way of Life. And it is notable that the organization that leads the fight against the slugs is a top secret outfit established without the knowledge of Congress and responsible only to the President.
      • \n\n
    • Double Star (1956) – This is when Heinlein as a novelist starts to really click, and it was shown by his winning his first Hugo for best novel. The plot is somewhat reminiscent of Prisoner of Zenda. In a future solar system, Earth, Venus, Mars, and the Jovian satellites are united under a parliamentary democracy, which is in turn under a constitutional monarchy. Think of it as similar to the UK, only in this case it is the House of Orange that are the monarchs. A politician named John Joseph Bonforte is the leader of the Expansionist coalition, and one of the most prominent politicians in the solar system. And he has been kidnapped sat a crucial time. His staff find an actor, stage name The Great Lorenzo, who is similar enough physically to impersonate Bonforte, while they try to get the real Bonforte back. They do succeed, but he has been very badly treated by the kidnappers, so the actor has to continue for the election campaign. And he wins the election, but the real Bonforte dies. The actor then continues to impersonate him to the point of really becoming him.

      The two things that make this novel so interesting are first, the focus on acting as seen through the eyes of Lorenzo; and second, the focus on the machinery of politics. And this draws upon Heinlein’s own experience in electoral politics. Though he was not successful in getting elected, he clearly had absorbed a lot about the how-to of the process. And he did write a non-fiction book called Take Back Your Government (1992), which was published posthumously. It was subtitled A Practical Handbook for the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy to Work, and was originally written in 1946. It was based on his experience with EPIC and in trying to get Upton Sinclair elected Governor of California in 1934.
      • \n\n
    • The Door Into Summer (1957) – This is another good novel, which features several themes that would reappear through Heinlein’s work. The first is that Heinlein was a very confirmed cat lover. The title comes from a cat who went from door to door in the middle of winter, trying to find the door into summer. Second, the protagonist is an engineer, which is of course Heinlein’s background. The third is the time travel element. People can travel into the future through a type of suspended animation called Cold Sleep. But for the purposes of the plot a scientist has invented a time travel device that sort of works. It sent a grad student named Leonard Vincent a few centuries back in to Italy where he became Leonardo da Vinci. But it sends our hero, Daniel Boone Davis, back exactly where he wanted to go. We see a few things in this novel that are of interest. First, the cat, Pete, has the full name of “Petronius the Arbiter”, who was the author of the Satyricon, so Heinlein’s interest in sex is starting to make an oblique appearance. Second, when Dan goes back in time, he lands in the middle of a nudist camp, and that is also something Heinlein was very interested in.

      The plot can be summarized as Dan gets robbed of his inventions by his business partner and his secretary/fianceé, gets put into Cold Sleep, then goes back in time to just before he got robbed and fixes things to his satisfaction, then takes the Cold Sleep again to finish his plans. It is a pretty good yarn.
      • \n\n
    • Methusaleh’s Children (1958) – This was originally a novella written in 1941, then expanded into a novel. It is part of the Future history. It introduces Lazarus Long, who would go on to be Heinlein’s alter ego through many of his future books, and thus implicitly makes those books part of the Future History, though most scholars will dispute this. What cannot be disputed is that this novel is a cornerstone for where Heinlein would go in many of his future stories.

      The story begins with a successful businessman named Ira Howard who dies of old age at around the age of 49 in the 19th century. In his will he leaves his estate to trustees with the mandate to find a way to extend human life span. The best they can come up with is to encourage (financially) people who had long-lived grandparents to marry each other and have children. They carry this on and by the 22nd century the Howard Families, as they call themselves, have an average life span of 150 years. But they have to hide this form the rest of society, and arrange from time to time to “die” and then become someone else. This masquerade helped them survive the years of Nehemiah Scudder and his successors, but a few of them reveal themselves during the Covenant government. This has a bad result because people want the secret that they assume the Howard families are hiding, and they might be willing to kill to get the secret. So the Howard families steal a starship and make their escape. One of the people onboard is Andrew Jackson “Slipstick” Libby, who we first met in the short story Misfit, and he manages to come up with a Faster-Than-Light drive. They finally decide to go back to Earth, where they discover that scientists have found ways to prolong human life and they are no longer enemies, in fact they are welcomed for bringing the FTL drive.

      This is definitely a must-read novel for anyone who wants to get into the Heinlein universe. So many other works are based on it.
      • \n\n
    \n\n

    Links

    \n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Heinlein","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4721,"date":"2026-09-07","title":"HPR Community News for August 2026","duration":0,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in August 2026","notes":"","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4724,"date":"2026-09-10","title":"HPR Beer Garden 19 - Lager","duration":1831,"summary":"Kevie and Dave talk about lagers.","notes":"\n

    \nAs we are currently going through a warm patch (well, at the time of recording anyway), the HPR Beer Garden returns to provide some refreshment in the heat with a glass of cold and refreshing lager. Dave chooses \nSuper Bock\nfrom Portugal, whilst Kevie picks \nCity Limits Amber Lager\nfrom the tiny \nDog Falls Brewing Co\nin Inverness.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nConnect with the guys on \nUntappd\n:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe intro sounds for the show are used from:

    \n\n\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nUpcoming beers:

    \n\n
      \n\n
    • \nMild
      • \n\n
    • \nBitter
      • \n\n
    • \nPale Ale
      • \n\n
    \n\n\n","hostid":296,"series":14,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"beer, beergarden","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4728,"date":"2026-09-16","title":"Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 3 ","duration":2014,"summary":"A brief overview of industrial control systems.","notes":"\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is the third episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nIn the previous episode we covered

    \n\n

    \n* The early history of computers in industrial control

    \n\n

    \n* The early history of PLCs, including how they got their name

    \n\n

    \n* Who the major brands are

    \n\n

    \n* What they look like physically

    \n\n

    \n* A basic description of the abstract machine architecture

    \n\n

    \n* A very brief look at what a PLC program is like

    \n\n

    \n* The scan concept

    \n\n

    \n* The main PLC programming languages

    \n\n

    \n* The minor PLC programming languages

    \n\n

    \n* The relative popularity of each of the programming languages

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we will begin by taking a look at one of the early PLCs from the era when they first began seeing widespread use.

    \n\n

    \nI will not even attempt to try to be comprehensive, I will just give a broad overview in the limited time I have available here.

    \n\n

    \nI have started with an older model because its simplicity and limited features allow for an easier introduction to the topic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04 Allen Bradley PLC/2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Allen Bradley PLC/2 was introduced to the market in 1977.

    \n\n

    \nIt was not their first foray into this field, but it was their first really successful one.

    \n\n

    \nI am not aware of a comprehensive history of their early product line, but one of their early major selling models was the PLC2/30.

    \n\n

    \nThis is also known as their 1771 series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05 Physical Layout

    \n\n

    \nThe CPU module was a large metal box which sat beside the I/O rack and connected to it with a cable.

    \n\n

    \nThe I/O rack was a box with an open front and an series of slots into which tall narrow boxes containing the I/O could be slotted.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nA backplane ran across the back, connecting the I/O to the CPU.

    \n\n

    \nMultiple racks could be connected together by cables.

    \n\n

    \nFor the PLC2/30, you could have a maximum of 896 digital I/O points.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \nRacks were 315mm high, and between 247mm to 610mm wide, with racks coming in 4, 8, 12, and 16 slot varieties.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe CPU was the same height as the rack and roughly square in outline.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nAs micro electronics advanced, the CPU module was able to be shrunk down in size such that it would fit into a slot in the rack, which became the norm for PLCs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09 The Electronics Inside

    \n\n

    \nEarly model PLC/2s used some sort of 8 bit processor, some sources say an Intel 8080.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nThey also used four AMD 2900 bit slice processors as a logic co-processor.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are not familiar with bit slice processors, these are chips which are like a 4 bit vertical slice through a processor, and can be joined together with logic chips to form a complete CPU.

    \n\n

    \nThese are what were used to construct minicomputers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nThey were used as coprocessors in early PLCs because microprocessors on their own were simply too slow to handle running the user program rapidly enough to allow a useful size program.

    \n\n

    \nOne or more microprocessors were used as well in order to coordinate the overall operation and system management.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nAs microprocessors grew faster and more powerful, the need for logic coprocessors declined and they were eventually dropped.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nEarly versions used magnetic core memory.

    \n\n

    \nLater ones switched to some sort of solid state RAM, probably static RAM of some sort.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nDetails of what sort of processors are inside any PLC are actually very hard to come by as manufacturers don't generally talk about that sort of thing.

    \n\n

    \nThey wish the user to see it as just a black box.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14 The Data Table

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFrom a programmer's perspective, the most important thing to understand first is the data table.

    \n\n

    \nThe data table is the PLC's data memory.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15

    \n\n

    \nFor a PLC2, this is an array of 16 bit words.

    \n\n

    \nEach word consists of two 8 bit bytes.

    \n\n

    \nAddressing for both bits and words is in octal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16

    \n\n

    \nFor those not familiar with them, octal numbers follow a counting system that goes from 0 to 7.

    \n\n

    \nThe next number after 7 is 10.

    \n\n

    \nCounting then proceeds from 11, 12, 13, etc. going to 17, 20, 21, etc.

    \n\n

    \nEach octal digit takes exactly 3 bits.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nIndividual bits in PLC2 notation may be addressed by specifying the word followed by a slash, and then the bit.

    \n\n

    \nFor example, 030/12 is the 12 bit in word 030. Remember that this is octal, so 12 is not the 12th bit if you are counting in decimal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18 Memory Organization

    \n\n

    \nOn the PLC2/30, the data table has the following organization.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19

    \n\n

    \nWord addresses 000 to 007 are Processor Work Area number 1.

    \n\n

    \nThis is not accessible by the user.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20

    \n\n

    \nWord addresses 010 up to, but not including, 100 are the Output Image Table.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a memory mapped image of the I/O outputs.

    \n\n

    \n010 to 077 is for Rack 1.

    \n\n

    \n020 to 027 is for Rack 2.

    \n\n

    \nThis pattern continues up to Rack 7, which is 070 to 077.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nWord addresses 100 to 107 are Processor Work Area number 2.

    \n\n

    \nThis is also not accessible by the user.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nWord addresses 110 up to, but not including, 200 are the Input Image Table.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a memory mapped image of the I/O inputs.

    \n\n

    \nThis is laid out in the same way as the output image table, and goes from 110 to 177.

    \n\n

    \n110 to 117 is for Rack 1.

    \n\n

    \n120 to 127 is for Rack 2.

    \n\n

    \nThis pattern continues up to Rack 7, which is 170 to 177.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23

    \n\n

    \nYou will notice that the output image table and input image table appear to address the same rack slots.

    \n\n

    \nThey do in fact do this.

    \n\n

    \nAs to which address a specific slot in a specific rack maps to depends on whether there is an input card or an output card in that slot.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nAddresses 200 to 277 are for Timer/Counter accumulated values.

    \n\n

    \nAn accumulated value is the current time or count.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nAddresses 300 to 377 are for Timer/Counter preset values.

    \n\n

    \nA preset value is the target time or count which when reached causes the timer or counter to indicate that it has reached the desired value.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nThe memory above 400 can be configured to split it into a data storage area and user program area.

    \n\n

    \nThe data storage area is where you would store data that your program needs to use which is not part of the I/O or times and counters.

    \n\n

    \nYou need to strike the correct balance between user data and program size.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \nThere are various things that can be changed and configured with respect to the above, but I am not going to cover that in any depth as this is not a tutorial on the PLC2.

    \n\n

    \n=

    \n\n

    \nYou should however have a pretty good idea of the memory of an early model PLC.

    \n\n

    \nThe things to understand are that I/O are mapped to memory addresses, and

    \n\n

    \ndifferent memory ranges are used for different purposes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nAll memory management was manual.

    \n\n

    \nIt was up to the user to keep track of which memory addresses were to be used for what purposes.

    \n\n

    \nAllen Bradley helpfully provided paper forms which you could photocopy which you could use to plan out and document what each address would be used for.

    \n\n

    \nPart of the programmer's job was to make efficient and logical use of memory, while also leaving space for future changes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29 The User Program

    \n\n

    \nThe user program is made up of instructions.

    \n\n

    \nEach instruction typically takes one word of memory.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, complex instructions can take up to 8 words of memory.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nThere is a main program.

    \n\n

    \nYou can think of this as like the \"main\" function in C.

    \n\n

    \nIf you don't find that analogy helpful, then just think of it as this is where your program starts.

    \n\n

    \nThe main program continues with one rung after another until it reaches the END statement.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nThere is also a subroutine area.

    \n\n

    \nThe main program calls a subroutine by using a Jump to Subroutine, or JSR instruction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 The T3 Programming Terminal

    \n\n

    \nWhen the PLC2 came out, things like laptops were still far in the future.

    \n\n

    \nEven the first Compaq Portable suitcase style PC was still some years away.

    \n\n

    \nIndeed, the first PLC/2 came out not long after the first Altair PC kit.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33

    \n\n

    \nProgramming initially therefore was done using a special programming terminal known as a T3.

    \n\n

    \nThe T3 was a suitcase size box with a small CRT in the end of it, and a keyboard attached to it below the screen.

    \n\n

    \nIf this sounds like the early portable PCs, keep in mind that this in fact predated them by a number of years.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nThe keyboard was not a typewriter or QWERTY style.

    \n\n

    \nIt had a membrane keypad with graphical symbols.

    \n\n

    \nRecall the previous episode on control diagrams using relays and how these were documented using schematic symbols on drawings.

    \n\n

    \nThe T3 terminal keypad had symbols corresponding to a simplified and modified version of the symbols used in those schematic drawings.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nWhen a programmer pressed one of those symbols on the keypad, the corresponding symbol appeared on the screen in the current cursor location.

    \n\n

    \nThe programmer could then enter the data address that the symbol was to correspond to using the numeric part of the keypad.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nAn engineer, technician, or electrician could therefore create and enter programs using a fully graphical environment that used his existing knowledge of control using hardware components.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThey did not see this as programming a computer, they saw it as something else entirely which was unrelated to computers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37

    \n\n

    \nProgramming took place with the T3 connected to the PLC while the PLC was in program mode.

    \n\n

    \nThe instructions were entered directly from the terminal into the PLC memory.

    \n\n

    \nPrograms could be saved or restored to cassette tape.

    \n\n

    \nThe program would run when the PLC was set to run mode.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38

    \n\n

    \nWhat is more, the T3 terminal allowed on line debugging of programs.

    \n\n

    \nWhen the T3 was connected in run mode, the ladder diagram would update live.

    \n\n

    \nWhen a logic condition was true, it would be highlighted.

    \n\n

    \nWhen the logic condition was false, it would be shown in an non highlighted state.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nBy observing a specific rung, you could see if the expected series of graphical instructions were all highlighted in a pattern which would result in the final output of the rung to be true or false as expected.

    \n\n

    \nThis was an invaluable troubleshooting aid in finding both software bugs and hardware faults.

    \n\n

    \nProgramming terminals became an indispensable part of an industrial maintenance electrician's essential equipment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nEventually as portable PCs and later laptops became available, the T3 became obsolete and these functions were transferred to software that ran on standard PCs.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, they still work essentially the same way.

    \n\n

    \nAdditional capabilities were added, such as the ability to write programs while not attached to the PLC.

    \n\n

    \nDescriptive labels and comments could be added to memory addresses to document them and aid in reading the program,

    \n\n

    \nCross referencing functions would make it easier to find which addresses were used for what,

    \n\n

    \netc.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41 Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will now turn to listing the sorts of instructions which were available to use.

    \n\n

    \nI won't try to explain everything, but it should at least give you a vague idea of how these were programmed.

    \n\n

    \nI will use Allen Bradley's names for these, which I should emphasize do not correspond to what other manufacturers call them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42 Relay Type Instructions

    \n\n

    \nThese are boolean instructions and consist of the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43 Input instructions

    \n\n

    \nThese examine bits in memory and yield a logic state depending on the value of the bit they address.

    \n\n

    \nInput instructions start at the left of the rung and work their way right as more are added.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nExamine on - This is true when the addressed bit is set to 1.

    \n\n

    \nExamine off - This is true when the addressed bit is set to 0.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44 Output Instructions

    \n\n

    \nThese turn bits on or off depending on the sum of the boolean logic conditions leading up to them.

    \n\n

    \nOutput instructions are on the right of the rung.

    \n\n

    \nThere must always be at least one output instruction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOutput Energize -When the logic conditions leading up to it are true, it sets a bit to 1.

    \n\n

    \nWhen the logic conditions leading up to it are false, it sets a bit to 0.

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n45

    \n\n

    \nOutput Latch - When true, the bit is turned on.

    \n\n

    \nWhen false, it does nothing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOutput Unlatch - When true, the bit is turned off.

    \n\n

    \nWhen false, it does nothing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46 Branch Instructions

    \n\n

    \nThese do nothing themselves, but they make wiring connections on the diagram.

    \n\n

    \nThese are important to allow the instructions listed above to be placed in parallel in the same rung so that they can do things like specify OR conditions.

    \n\n

    \nYou can think of them as essentially turning an examine on or examine off into an OR or OR NOT instruction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47 Timer and Counter Instructions

    \n\n

    \nTimers and counters are as the name implies, instructions which do timing and counting operations.

    \n\n

    \nThey have separate preset and accumulated values.

    \n\n

    \nThey are a type of output instruction in that they reside on the right side of the ladder rung and their operation depends on the state of the rung logic to their left.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48

    \n\n

    \nTimers and counters work in Binary Coded Decimal, or BCD values.

    \n\n

    \nBCD values each take 4 bits of memory.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, unlike hexadecimal, only values from 0 to 9 are valid.

    \n\n

    \nWhat would be values from A to F in hexadecimal are not valid values in BCD.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nThe preset and accumulated values are stored in 16 bit words. The first 12 bits are used to store up to 3 BCD digits.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe remaining uppermost 4 bits are used to store instruction status bits such as whether the timer or counter is done and various other features.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50 Timers

    \n\n

    \nThe timer time base corresponds to the timer resolution.

    \n\n

    \nThe time bases are 1.0 second, 0.1 seconds, and 0.01 seconds.

    \n\n

    \nSo a timer with a 1 second time base can time from 0 to 999 seconds to one second of resolution.

    \n\n

    \nA timer with a 0.1 second time base can time from 0 to 99.9 seconds to 0.1 seconds of resolution.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51

    \n\n

    \nThere are three types of timer,

    \n\n

    \nTimer On Delay (or TON),

    \n\n

    \nTimer Off Delay (or TOF),

    \n\n

    \nRetentive Timer (or RTO).

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52

    \n\n

    \nOn delay timers time while the rung condition is true and reset when it goes false.

    \n\n

    \nOff delay timers time after the rung condition goes false and reset when it goes true.

    \n\n

    \nRetentive timers are like on delay timers but retain their accumulated value until reset by the Retentive Timer Reset (or RTR) instruction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nGenerally, you start a timer and then monitor its \"done\" bit somewhere else in your logic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53 Counters

    \n\n

    \nCounters count events.

    \n\n

    \nThese come in the following varieties.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nUp-counter (or CTU).

    \n\n

    \nDown-counter (or CTD)

    \n\n

    \nCounter Reset (or CTR)

    \n\n

    \nScan Counter (or SCT)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55

    \n\n

    \nUp counters count upwards from zero, and down counters count downwards from the preset.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe scan counter counts the number of program scans.

    \n\n

    \nThis is not something you would typically find a use for, although you can use it to for example calculate the scan time.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56 Data Manipulation Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nData manipulation instructions are used to read, write, and compare byte and word data.

    \n\n

    \nOperations take place when the rung goes true.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57

    \n\n

    \nGET reads a 16 bit word from a memory location.

    \n\n

    \nPUT writes a 16 bit word to a memory location.

    \n\n

    \nLES resolves to true if the value read by the GET instruction is less than a specified value.

    \n\n

    \nEQU resolves to true if the value read by the GET instruction is equal to a specified value.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nThe LES and EQU instructions can be combined in various ways with each other and with GET to give all the possible comparison permutations such as greater than, less than or equal to, etc.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nGET BYTE reads a 8 bit byte from a memory location.

    \n\n

    \nLIMIT TEST resolves to true if a byte value is between the limits stored in the upper and lower bytes of a word.

    \n\n

    \nLIMIT TEST is used in combination with GET BYTE.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60 Arithmetic Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nArithmetic instructions also operate on BCD word values.

    \n\n

    \nOperations take place when the rung goes true.

    \n\n

    \nThe uppermost byte is used to indicate things like arithmetic overflow or underflow.

    \n\n

    \nThese include

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nAdd

    \n\n

    \nSubtract

    \n\n

    \nMultiply

    \n\n

    \nDivide

    \n\n

    \nConvert BCD to Binary

    \n\n

    \nConvert Binary to BCD

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62 Block Transfer Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nBlock Transfer Instructions are output instructions that are used to transfer up to 64 16 bit words of data between the data table and I/O modules.

    \n\n

    \nThese are used with intelligent I/O that worked with words rather than individual bits.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63

    \n\n

    \nExamples of these are things like

    \n\n

    \nAnalogue I/O that read and write varying voltages rather than just on or off.

    \n\n

    \nPID that handle closed loop control of things like temperature.

    \n\n

    \nThermocouples that read temperatures.

    \n\n

    \nServo motor control that command positions of servo motors.

    \n\n

    \nStepper motor control.

    \n\n

    \nPosition encoders.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into details on block transfers, but this should be enough to give you a general idea of how the PLC could handle that sort of equipment as opposed to the simple on/off states of digital modules.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nObviously these can be used in combination with GET, PUT, and other data manipulation instructions which can read and write memory locations.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65 Jump Instructions and Subroutine Programming

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese include the following instructions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \nJump (or JMP)

    \n\n

    \nLabel (or LBL)

    \n\n

    \nJump to Subroutine ( or JSR)

    \n\n

    \nReturn (or RET)

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67

    \n\n

    \nJump will jump execution to a label position.

    \n\n

    \nYou can think of it like a GOTO instruction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68

    \n\n

    \nLabels are numeric and can be from 00 to 77 in octal.

    \n\n

    \nJump instructions are rung outputs, and when the rung goes true, execution jumps to the label number specified in the instruction.

    \n\n

    \nLabels are input instructions and appear at the start of the rung where execution resumes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nNormal jumps cannot jump into a subroutine, and they can only jump forward, not backwards.

    \n\n

    \nThis means that loops are not possible using jump.

    \n\n

    \nThis would be a deliberate design decision to prevent programs from getting stuck in a loop and preventing the scan from proceeding.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nSubroutines appear after the end of the main program.

    \n\n

    \nThey are defined by numerical octal labels using the label instruction.

    \n\n

    \nSubroutines are called using the Jump to Subroutine (or JSR) instruction.

    \n\n

    \nAt the end of the subroutine, the Return (or RET) instruction returns execution to the next rung following the JSR which called it.

    \n\n

    \nYou can nest calls to subroutines up to 8 deep.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71 Data Transfer File Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nDespite what you may think from the name, there are no disk files in the PLC2.

    \n\n

    \nA \"file\" instruction rather moves blocks of words from one data memory location to another.

    \n\n

    \n=

    \n\n

    \nThese include source and destination addresses, and various other parameters which control the operation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere is actually quite a bit involved in these, but I'm not going to bother going into the details.

    \n\n

    \nYou just need to know that it is possible to move blocks of data memory around.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72 Shift Register Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese operate on entire series of words and include

    \n\n

    \n=

    \n\n

    \nShift File Up

    \n\n

    \nShift File Down

    \n\n

    \nFIFO Load

    \n\n

    \nFIFO Unload

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73

    \n\n

    \nThese can operate on 1 to 999 words.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nA typical use for this sort of instruction would be to track a part as it moves through the various stations of a machine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n

    \n\n

    \n74 Bit Shifts

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese operate on individual bits and include the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75

    \n\n

    \nBit Shift Left

    \n\n

    \nBit Shift Right

    \n\n

    \nExamine Off Shift Bit

    \n\n

    \nExamine On Shift Bit

    \n\n

    \nSet Shift Bit

    \n\n

    \nReset Shift Bit

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n76

    \n\n

    \nThese do pretty much as you would expect in terms of shifting bits left or right.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the shift register can be defined to be anywhere from 1 to 999 bits long, so it is not confined to the size of a word.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n77 Sequencer Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSequencer instructions are a software emulation of electromechanical drum controllers.

    \n\n

    \nDrum controllers allowed a long sequence of operations to be performed.

    \n\n

    \nThese used a rotating drum which had a regular series of parallel holes in the outer surface.

    \n\n

    \nAbove one row of these holes was a row of limit switches.

    \n\n

    \nBy inserting pegs into some of these holes which made contact with the limit switches, the drum controller could turn on patterns of relays or valves.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n78

    \n\n

    \nSome of the limit switches could be connected to sensors on the moving elements of the machine.

    \n\n

    \nWhen the parts of the machine were in the correct position for that step in the sequence, the pattern of pegs would cause an electrical path to complete through the limit switches and energize a solenoid which would ratchet the drum to the next step.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n79

    \n\n

    \nThis is often compared to a music box or to an old style of washing machine control.

    \n\n

    \nHowever in the case of the drum controller, the pegs would program the input match conditions as well as the desired output.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe PLC/2 drum controller would emulate this sequencer.

    \n\n

    \nThis feature came to be very widely used in equipment used in the automotive industry and other assembly oriented manufacturing processes and often formed the heart of the PLC/2 program.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n80

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into details of the sequencer instructions, but there are separate input and output sequence instructions.

    \n\n

    \nThe input sequence instruction would try to match the states of the sensors, and the output sequence instruction would turn the various outputs on or off, controlling things like solenoid valves.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe sequence itself would be defined by a series of words in memory, with each bit corresponding to an individual input or output.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n81 File Logic Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFile Logic instructions amounted to array operations on words, although the term \"file\" is used for what in computer terminology would be an \"array\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese instructions included

    \n\n

    \nAND

    \n\n

    \nOR

    \n\n

    \nEXCLUSIVE OR

    \n\n

    \nComplement

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n82 Special Programming Techniques

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese are miscellaneous instructions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese consist of the following.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOne Shot Leading Edge

    \n\n

    \nOne Shot Trailing Edge

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n83

    \n\n

    \nA one shot is an output instruction that causes the addressed bit to turn on for one scan upon a change of state in the rung logic condition.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOne shots could be triggered on a false to true change or a true to false change, depending on which of the two instructions were used.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n84 Why Did the PLC2 Use BCD?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nYou are probably wondering why the PLC2 used BCD numbers instead of normal integers.

    \n\n

    \nThis reflects the operating environment that an early PLC would have to work in.

    \n\n

    \nEarly operator panels using mechanical numerical input devices and simple electronic output displays which typically worked in BCD.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n85

    \n\n

    \nThumbwheel switches were small drum like rotating devices with numbers 0 to 9 printed on the periphery.

    \n\n

    \nSeveral wheels would be stacked beside one another.

    \n\n

    \nThey looked somewhat like the mechanical odometer that you would find in an older car.

    \n\n

    \nThe operator could however move each digit wheel separately.

    \n\n

    \nEach digit would be read by wiring 4 wires back to 4 inputs on the PLC.

    \n\n

    \nThus each digit was inherently BCD due to how the thumbwheel hardware worked.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n86

    \n\n

    \nBy turning the individual wheels separately, the operator could adjust things like temperatures, speeds, time delays, etc., and so modify process parameters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOutput operator displays were typically 7 segment LED, neon, or vacuum fluorescent displays.

    \n\n

    \nThese displays or devices similar to them preceded PLCs and so were common industrial devices that had to be handled.

    \n\n

    \nEach numeric digit had 4 inputs that would be wired to 4 outputs on the PLC.

    \n\n

    \nSeven segment displays can use hexadecimal, but that wasn't very useful if you are trying to display a temperature in Celsius to an operator.

    \n\n

    \nThus again, BCD was the most practical sort of number to work with.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n87

    \n\n

    \nAs PLCs and their user programs grew more capable and more sophisticated, they began working with normal integers and even floating point numbers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, many if not most PLCs were to retain instructions to translate to and from BCD.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n88 The Influence of the PLC2

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe PLC2 was a hugely successful product for Allen Bradley and firmly established them as one of the leading PLC vendors, with a number one position in the North American market, and in the top 5 world wide.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it had a number of weaknesses, particularly the very primitive memory and subroutine architecture and the focus on octal and BCD numbers.

    \n\n

    \nIt was focused on replacing control relays and it did this fairly well.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n89

    \n\n

    \nThe next really successful successor to the PLC2 for Allen Bradley was the PLC5.

    \n\n

    \nThis took the basic PLC2 instruction set and married it to a new memory system with new data types, separate name spaces, and parameterized functions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n90

    \n\n

    \nIt was like switching from programming in Basic with line numbers and jumps to Pascal.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, it could still use PLC2 I/O racks and modules, an important consideration given that the bulk of the cost of a PLC was in the I/O system.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n91

    \n\n

    \nThe PLC 5 was in turn succeeded by the Contrologix series which modernized things still further, while being in a smaller form factor.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAllen Bradley remain one of the major PLC vendors today, operating under the Rockwell name.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n92 Conclusion

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we focused on one specific but very widely used early PLC, the Allen Bradley PLC2.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWe covered the following subjects.

    \n\n

    \nThe internal electronics.

    \n\n

    \nThe data table.

    \n\n

    \nThe user program.

    \n\n

    \nThe T3 programming terminal.

    \n\n

    \nAnd a very brief overview of the instruction set.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n93

    \n\n

    \nThis was a fairly simple and in some ways primitive PLC, but you should have a very rough idea of the concepts behind a PLC, including the data table and scan concept and the relay-like instruction set.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n94

    \n\n

    \nIn the next episode we will take a look at a PLC from the largest vendor word wide, Siemens.

    \n\n

    \nIn this example we will look at a model from slightly later than the PLC2, the S5 series.

    \n\n

    \nThis could be seen as a second generation PLC.

    \n\n

    \nSince we won't need to repeat the basic concepts covered already, we can focus more on what is new and different about the S5 compared to the PLC2.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n95

    \n\n

    \nThis has been the third episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"technology","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4730,"date":"2026-09-18","title":"Playing Civilization VI Part 1","duration":1007,"summary":"We begin our look at the mechanics of this next version of Civilization.","notes":"

    Civilization VI, made a number of changes, and one of the biggest was the introduction of Districts. Buildings that perviously would have just been part of the city now had to be built in special districts, and the game limited how many of them you could build in any one city. This forced you to make choices, and making choices is the heart of the Civilization series.

    \n\n

    Playing Civilization VI, Part 1

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

    Districts

    \n\n

    As we have said before, the rule for each new version of Civilization is that 1/3 stays the same, 1/3 is tweaked, and 1/3 is new. So among things staying the same is the Hexagonal grid first introduced in Civ V, along with the usual roaming tribe in 4000BC. But the handling of terrain that a city can use has changed. The old Big Fat Cross was dropped in Civ V, and replaced with a large Hexagon. And how you use the terrain has changed. In older versions of Civilization, the terrain was mostly used for either farming or mining. It was all about resource extraction, in other words. All of the Buildings you constructed you could think of as abstract, or as all living in the City Center. The only reason you had for making different choices in the Build queue was if you didn’t have enough time or resources to build everything. As a result, many cities looked very similar in what got built. You would put a Granary in each city to help it grow, a Barracks in each to build your troops, a Temple in each city to gather Faith, and so on. There wasn’t much a decision here, or at least not enough to satisfy Ed Beach, the Chief Designer of Civ VI. So he came up with a new land use system involving Districts.

    \n\n

    With this system, you had to allocate land in your city for most things you would build. If you wanted to focus on Science, for instance, you would have to allocate a tile to a Campus district. Then, inside this district you could build a Library, a University, an Obervatory, and a Research Lab. But that is the only place they could be built. Furthermore, to prevent you from building every district, they limited the number of districts each city could have based on its population. You can always build one district with a new city, but to build another you need to get to a population of 4, and you get the ability to add a District with each additional increment of 3, so at Population 7, 10, 13 you get the ability to add a District. And these Districts have to be constructed as part of the normal city Build process. So in the above example, you would first have to build the Campus district, and when that was complete you could then build the Library to put inside it. And for both the Districts and the buildings inside of them you need to research certain technologies before they become available to you.

    \n\n

    Where to locate your districts becomes an issue as well. First of all, the tiles available to you are also your stock of tiles for building Farms and Mines, so you need to make choices here. Of course, making choices is the basis them of all Civilization games. Then there are the adjacency effects of terrain tiles. Both Campus (Science) and Holy Site (Faith) districts benefit from being adjacent to Mountains, and the adjacency effects are cumulative, so a tile with mountains on 3 sides can have major bonuses. But since this affects both kinds of Districts, again you have to make a choice. If you are aiming at a Science Victory, or a Religious victory, the choice will be easier, but in case you need to choose. As to placing a District, when you decide to build one you will get a highlight on the map of locations that are permissable. But if you have several such sites, you need to choose which one fits your strategy best.

    \n\n

    District Types

    \n\n

    There are a lot of Districts you can build and listing every one of them here would be tedious. Some are only relevant to late-game situations, others address issues like Housing and Amenities, which we will discuss separately. But there is group of core Districts that every player will need to deal with from the beginning:

    \n\n
      \n
    • City Center – This is one you get automatically when you build a city, and can hold a Granary, a Monument, a Water Mill, and various levels of Walls, ranging from Ancient to Renaissance.
      • \n\n
    • Campus – This is the Science district, and is unlocked by discovering Writing. That comes pretty early so you will get this capability quite easily, but if you are going for a Science victory you might want to make a beeline for Writing. Remember that if you go into the Tech Tree you can click on a tech to select it, and the game will automatically research it and all of its prerequisites. This is very handy for simplifying Research choices. As mentioned, an adjacency bonus is +1 Science for every adjacent Mountain, but you can also get #1 Science for every 2 Rainforest or District tiles. Don’t worry about memorizing these bonuses, they will appear on the map when you are selecting a spot to place your District. Campuses contain Libraries, Universities, Observatories, and Research Labs. And the more built up your Campus Disctrict is, the more Great Scientist points you accumulate. If you want a Science victory you should make it a priority to get Camapus districts put down ASAP in at least a couple of cities, since the effects build like compound interest.
      • \n\n
    • Theater Square – This is the Culture District, and is unlocked by discovering Drama and Poetry. That is a somewhat later tech, use the technique of clicking on it in the Tech Tree to get there quickly if you want to pursue a Culture victory. It contains the Amphitheater, Art Museum, Archeaological Museum, and Broadcast Center. It gives +2 Culture from each adjacent Wonder, and +1 Culture from each 2 adjacent Discrticts. The buildings all have slots for holding Great Works, and generate points for Great Writers, Great Artists, and Great Musicians.
      • \n\n
    • Holy Site – This is the Religious district, and is unlocked when you discover Astrology, which is a fairly early tech. This district contains Shrines, Temples, and other Worship buildings. It generates Faith, which can be surprisingly useful. Civ VI introduced a new system of relgious warfare and new Religious victory type, but in some circumstances you can use Faith to purchase Units and Buildings, so even if you are not intending a Religious victory you should not overlook it. This district generates Great Profit points. It has adjacency bonuses of +1 Faith from every adjacent Mountain tile, and +2 Faith from every adjacent Natural Wonder, so if you are lucky enough to have a Natural Wonder in your city keep this in mind.
      • \n\n
    • Encampment – This is the Military district, and is unlocked by discovering Bronze Working, a very early tech. By building an encampment you can build units that start out with higher Veteran status. In Civ VI I like to build one or two of these in my Empire and use them to construct all of my units. Remember, in Civilization you always want to maintain a strong military to deter your rivals. Buildings include Barracks, Stable, Armory, and Military Academy. This District produces Great General points. It has no adjacency bonus, and cannot be built next to the City Center. But it has strong Defense and can function like the City Center in terms of defense and bombardment capabilities. All newly produced or purchased units will appear in this District, not in the City Center as would otherwise happen. I like to build this on land that is otherwise of low value, like a Desert tile.
      • \n\n
    • Commercial Hub – This is the Commerce district, and is unlocked by discovering Currency. The Buildings you can place in this include the Market, the Bank, and the Stock Exchange. Adjacency bonuses include +2 Gold from an adjacent Harbor, and +2 Gold for each Adjacent river. So if your city includes a river that runs into the ocean, place a Harbor in the right spot and then a Commercial Hub and watch the Gold pile up! The Commercial Hub generates Great Merchant points. In addition, a Commercial Hub gives you one additional Trade Route, another way to generate more cash. As we have seen in this series, in all Civilization games a healthy Treasury is a major part of a successful game no matter what Victory type you are pursuing.
      • \n\n
    • Harbor – This is the Seafaring District and is unlocked when you discover Celestial Navigation. Buildings in this district include Lighthouse, Shipyard, and Seaport. And if you don’t have a Commercial Hub in the city, adding a harbor can give you one additional Trade Route. Adjacency bonuses include +1 Gold from each adjacent Coastal resource, and +1 Gold from every 2 adjacent District tiles. There is also a bonus of +2 Gold if adjacent to the City Center. This district has to be built in Coastal waters adjacent to Land, but note that the City Center does not need to be on the Coast to build this. You just need to have Coastal Waters available within your city. This district generates Great Admiral points. While this district is important for projecting Maritime power, it is equally useful for generating Gold, reflecting the fact that historically Maritime powers have been the most successful traders and the wealthiest nations.
      • \n\n
    • Industrial Zone – This is the Production district, and is unlocked when you discover Apprenticeship. Its buildings include the Workshop, the Factory, and the Power Plant. Adjacency bonuses include +1 Production from each adjacent Quarry or Mine, and +1 from each two adjacent Districts. One interesting thing is that some of the prodction bonuses from this district can applly to any City whose City Center is within 6 tiles, so it is possible by careful placement to have one Industrial Zone that benefits 2-3 cities. This district generates Great Engineer points.
      • \n
    \n\n

    These are the major districts you will be dealing with, and note that each one generates Great Person points. But note also that there are 7 of them. You can certainly have a large Empire that contains at least one of each. But to have all of them in one city would require a population of 22, which can happen if you aim for it, but also would mean very little in the way of farming or mining. I have seen expert players do a “one city challenge” where they attempt to win a victory with only one very large city, but I have never been interested in that sort of thing. I play to relax and enjoy myself. And one more thing about adjacency bonuses: you get bonuses even from Districts in a different city. As an example if you place a Commercial Hub from City A next to a Theater Square from City B, both Districts can benefit from the adjacency.

    \n\n\n

    Links

    \n\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization VI, Districts","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4731,"date":"2026-09-21","title":"A Website Hacked","duration":828,"summary":"About an encounter with wp2shell that was not so bad","notes":"\n

    \n\n\n[WP2Shell is] a \npre-authentication RCE in WordPress Core\n. The attack has no preconditions and can be exploited by an anonymous user in a stock install of WordPress with no plugins.\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n- from \nwp2shell.com\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nWordpress.org - \nhttps://en-gb.wordpress.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSearchlight WP2Shell Website - \nhttps://wp2shell.com/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCVE-2026-63030 - \nhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-63030\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nCVE-2026-60137 - \nhttps://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-60137\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOpenSSH - \nhttps://www.openssh.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFileZilla - \nhttps://filezilla-project.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nGNU Tar - \nhttps://savannah.gnu.org/git/?group=tar\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nGZip - \nhttps://www.gzip.org/\n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":403,"series":74,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"wordpress, security","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4738,"date":"2026-09-30","title":"Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 4 ","duration":1777,"summary":"A brief overview of industrial control systems.","notes":"\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is the fourth episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nIn the previous episode we looked at the Allen Bradley PLC2, one of the very early successful Programmable Logic Controllers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we will look at another early PLC, the Siemens S5 series, and use it as an example of both how PLCs became more sophisticated, as well as an example of a different approach to the overall software architecture.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAgain, I will only touch on this topic lightly, this is not a course on how to program PLCs.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I will give you enough technical detail to give you are rough idea of what they were like.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03 S5 Historical Background

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSiemens are the largest PLC vendor on a global basis, and have been since the early days.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nTheir first PLC was the S3, released in 1975, two years before Allen Bradley released the PLC2.

    \n\n

    \nThere seems to be almost no information available on the S3, so I can't say much about it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn 1978 or 1979, sources are unclear about the exact date, Siemens released the S5 series.

    \n\n

    \nThis was a huge step forward in capability and was the foundation of their PLC product line until replaced by the S7 series in the mid 1990s.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode I will focus on the U series, which were an upgrade to the original S5.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04 A Complete Family of PLCs

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFully developed, the Siemens S5 series was a complete family of products covering the entire size spectrum from smallest to largest.

    \n\n

    \nSiemens covered the entire industrial control market, and there was almost nothing they didn't have somewhere in their catalogue.

    \n\n

    \nYou could spend an entire career using nothing but Siemens products for everything.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05

    \n\n

    \nAt the lowest end were the S5-100 series, consisting of the S5-100, 102, 103, 90, and 95.

    \n\n

    \nThese covered everything from the small \"shoebox\" all in one form factor to ones which overlapped the mid range in terms of capability except for their compact I/O cards which were smaller and slower than the full size models.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe S5-115 formed the mid range, coming in a \"full size\" form factor in terms of packaging and rack size.

    \n\n

    \nThe S5-135 and S5-155 extended the S5-115 in terms of speed and memory.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode I will focus on the lower end S5-100 series for the sake of simplicity, and will not make any reference to any additional capabilities of the larger models.

    \n\n

    \nIt will be much too time consuming and confusing to try to cover everything, and there wouldn't be much point to it.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07 Data Memory Types

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you recall the previous episode, the Allen Bradley PLC2 had a data table, or memory system, that was a single linear range of memory with all I/O and internal capabilities mapped into fixed numerical addresses.

    \n\n

    \nAllen Bradley were to abandon this approach in their later PLC5 series introduced in the mid to late 1980s, but we won't cover that here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe Siemens S5 series however took the approach of having different types of memory addresses for different purposes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI will describe those for the S5-100 series now.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08 Input and Output Addresses

    \n\n

    \nThe standard I/O modules for these compact PLCs had 8 inputs or 8 outputs per I/O module.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese module plugged into a flat bus (as opposed to an enclosed rack) with slots numbered from 0 through 31 in decimal.

    \n\n

    \nEach of these slots had an associated byte number, and each I/O point on the individual modules had a bit number.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09

    \n\n

    \nInput and output addresses had the following format.

    \n\n

    \nLetter , number, decimal point, number.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe letter was either I or Q.

    \n\n

    \nI indicated inputs.

    \n\n

    \nQ indicated outputs.

    \n\n

    \nThe first number was the byte number, which corresponded to the physical I/O module slot.

    \n\n

    \nThe second number was the bit number within the byte, starting from zero.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nSo \"I2.3\" indicated an input module located in the third slot (numbered from zero) and addressed the fourth input (numbered from zero) on that module.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOutputs worked the same way.

    \n\n

    \nFor example \"Q 5.1\"

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11

    \n\n

    \nAnalogue modules could be located slots 0 through 7.

    \n\n

    \nAnalogue if you recall, refers to voltages which have varying levels rather than just on or off, and can represent things like temperature.

    \n\n

    \nEach analogue module was assigned 8 bytes per slot, starting at address 64 and going up to 127.

    \n\n

    \nIn practice many of these so called \"analogue\" modules had nothing to do with actual analogue voltages, but rather any advanced module which needed more address space was used here.

    \n\n

    \nEven later high density digital I/O used these addresses.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12

    \n\n

    \nEach of these addresses could be addressed as bytes or words.

    \n\n

    \nIn this case input bytes were indicated by an \"IB\" prefix, and input words were indicated by a \"IW\" prefix.

    \n\n

    \nOutput bytes used a \"QB\" prefix and output words used a \"QW\" prefix.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13 Flags

    \n\n

    \nFlags are individual bits of internal memory that are used for storing intermediate logic values.

    \n\n

    \nThese began with an \"F\" prefix.

    \n\n

    \nAn S5-103 had a total of 2048, numbered from F0.0 to F255.7.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14 Counters

    \n\n

    \nCounters started with a \"C\" prefix.

    \n\n

    \nAn S5-103 had 128 of these numbered from C0 to C127.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15 Timers

    \n\n

    \nTimers started with a \"T\" prefix.

    \n\n

    \nAn S5-103 had 128 of these numbered from T0 to T127.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16 Data Blocks

    \n\n

    \nPrograms needing to deal with byte and word memory could create what were known as \"Data Blocks\".

    \n\n

    \nThese were blocks of PLC memory that could be created as the discretion of the programmer.

    \n\n

    \nAn S5-103 could have a maximum of 254 data blocks numbered from DB2 to DB255.

    \n\n

    \nTwo additional data blocks were reserved for the PLC's internal operations.

    \n\n

    \nData blocks could contain up to 255 16 bit words.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the actual number and size of data blocks would in practice be limited by available memory.

    \n\n

    \nEven 20 kilo bytes was considered to be a large memory, and this had to be shared with the program.

    \n\n

    \nA data block would be \"called\" to make it the current data block.

    \n\n

    \nThen individual words would be addressed with the \"DW\" prefix.

    \n\n

    \nFor example \"DW5\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18 Program Blocks

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIf you recall with the PLC2, there was a \"main\" program and a series of optional numbered subroutines.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the S5, programs were split into \"blocks\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese were

    \n\n

    \nOrganization Blocks

    \n\n

    \nProgram Blocks

    \n\n

    \nFunction Blocks

    \n\n

    \nSequence Blocks

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAn S5-103 could have up to 256 of each of these blocks.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19 Organization Blocks

    \n\n

    \nWhen the PLC started up, it would look for Organization Block 1 and begin execution there.

    \n\n

    \nYou could consider this to be the equivalent of the \"main\" function in a C program.

    \n\n

    \nOrganization blocks had an OB prefix.

    \n\n

    \nFor example OB1.

    \n\n

    \nWith a very simple program in a very small S5 PLC, all of the program logic could be simply put in OB1.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, with larger programs , it was convention to put the logic in subroutines and simply have OB1 call each subroutine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20 Program Blocks

    \n\n

    \nThese had a PB prefix.

    \n\n

    \nFor example PB10.

    \n\n

    \nNormal ladder logic style programming would go in these.

    \n\n

    \nIt was convention to split up a program into pieces and put piece in its own program block.

    \n\n

    \nNormal practice was to have a program block correspond to a particular part of the machine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21 Function Blocks

    \n\n

    \nThese had an FB prefix.

    \n\n

    \nFor example FB64.

    \n\n

    \nFunction blocks differed from program blocks in that they could take parameters.

    \n\n

    \nThis allowed you to write an FB that performed some sort of complex data transforms and re-use it by calling it with different parameters.

    \n\n

    \nSome instructions could only be used in FBs, not in other types of blocks.

    \n\n

    \nThere were also built in FBs in some CPU models which performed certain operations such as converting BCD (or Binary Coded Decimal) to normal integer.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22 Sequence Blocks

    \n\n

    \nThese has an SB prefix.

    \n\n

    \nFor example, SB25.

    \n\n

    \nThese were like PBs, but were intended for controlling sequences of operations where each SB performed as single step of the sequence and multiple blocks were used for a sequence.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23 Programming Languages

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe S5 series offered four different programming languages.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThese were

    \n\n

    \nLadder (abbreviated as LAD)

    \n\n

    \nStatement List (abbreviated as STL)

    \n\n

    \nControl System Flowchart (abbreviated as SCF)

    \n\n

    \nGRAPH 5

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24

    \n\n

    \nYou should be familiar with ladder if you listened to previous episodes.

    \n\n

    \nBriefly however, it is a graphical programming language which followed the appearance of electrical ladder wiring diagrams which were familiar to engineers, technicians and electricians working with manufacturing equipment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25

    \n\n

    \nStatement List is a text based programming language which resembles an assembly language for an abstract processor architecture.

    \n\n

    \nBoolean logic results were calculated and saved on a stack, while integer values were operated on directly from memory or in two accumulators, ACCU1 and ACCU 2.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26

    \n\n

    \nControl System Flowchart is a graphical language that takes the form of rectangular blocks with one or more inputs and an output.

    \n\n

    \nThese blocks are laid out on a screen and then wired together rather like logic gates in a electronic schematic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27

    \n\n

    \nGRAPH 5 is Siemens' implementation of the GRAFCET (Graphe Fonctionnel de Commande Étapes Transitions) IEC 60848 flow chart standard.

    \n\n

    \nThe IEC are the International Electrotechnical Commission, an international standards organization.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28

    \n\n

    \nI will focus on Ladder and Statement List, as these were by far the most commonly used and we have limited time to discuss the S5.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29 Statement List

    \n\n

    \nAs mentioned above, Statement List can be thought of as the assembly language for an abstract CPU architecture.

    \n\n

    \nThe firmware in the S5 PLC will run the instructions in an interpreter.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30 The RLO

    \n\n

    \nBoolean or bit oriented instructions operate on a logic stack known as the RLO, or Result of Logic Operation.

    \n\n

    \nBoolean operations typically take one operand.

    \n\n

    \nWhen a boolean operation is executed, if the RLO is empty it simply loads the operand onto the RLO.

    \n\n

    \nIf the RLO is not empty, then the instruction is executed using the operand and the RLO, and the result replaces the value on the top of the RLO stack.

    \n\n

    \nSome boolean instructions do not take an operand, but rather work on the two topmost values on the RLO.

    \n\n

    \nIf you are familiar with languages such as FORTH, this should sound very familiar.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31 The Accumulators

    \n\n

    \nWord oriented instructions work on two accumulators, ACCU 1 and ACCU 2.

    \n\n

    \nA load instruction will load a word or byte value from a memory location or a constant into ACCU 1.

    \n\n

    \nThe value that was in ACCU 1 then gets shifted into ACCU 2.

    \n\n

    \nA transfer instruction will write the value in ACCU 1 to memory.

    \n\n

    \nThe remaining word oriented instructions will operate on the values in ACCU 1 and ACCU 2, and place their result in ACCU 1, overwriting the existing contents.

    \n\n

    \nSo for example, an add instruction will add the value in ACCU 2 to the value in ACCU 1, leaving the sum in ACCU 1.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 Ladder

    \n\n

    \nAs mentioned above, ladder is a graphical programming language which has the appearance of an electrical control ladder diagram as used with actual relays.

    \n\n

    \nThe is by far the most common programming language used with PLCs.

    \n\n

    \nA ladder program however is just another way of presenting statement list.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33

    \n\n

    \nTo put it another way, a statement list program can be displayed on a computer screen as either lines of text, or a graphical symbols laid out in a meaningful pattern.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAll valid ladder programs can be represented as statement list.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, not all valid statement list sequences can be represented as ladder.

    \n\n

    \nStatement list is inherently more flexible than ladder, which means that you simply can't always translate both ways fully.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nNone the less, most typical control logic can be represented as ladder, and ladder is the preferred representation as it is quicker to understand at a glance when debugging a software or hardware problem.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nOn the other hand, some statement list instructions have no ladder equivalent, or the algorithm may not lend itself to being represented in ladder.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn these cases normal practice is to put the simple control logic in ladder in Program Blocks, and put the non-translatable statement list logic in Function Blocks.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35 Control System Flowchart and GRAPH 5

    \n\n

    \nLike ladder, CSF and GRAPH 5 are actually implemented in statement list, and many of the considerations mentioned above apply to those as well.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, I won't go into any further detail on these here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36 Programming Software and Hardware

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere were two ways of entering a program into an S5 PLC.

    \n\n

    \nOne way was the hand held programming terminal.

    \n\n

    \nThe other was via the STEP 5 programming software.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37 Hand Held Terminal

    \n\n

    \nLike many if not most PLC vendors, Siemens sold a hand held programming terminal.

    \n\n

    \nThere were a series of these, an example being the PG 605.

    \n\n

    \nThis was a box like a large calculator which had buttons and a small display.

    \n\n

    \nThe buttons corresponded to various instructions and a numeric keypad, and the display would show the current instruction being entered.

    \n\n

    \nTo use it you would plug a cable attached to the hand held terminal into the programming port on the front of the PLC CPU module.

    \n\n

    \nYou could then enter or view the program, one instruction at a time.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38 STEP 5 Programming Software

    \n\n

    \nThe other way of programming was to use software running on a PC.

    \n\n

    \nSiemens called their software STEP 5.

    \n\n

    \nThis was an integrated editing and debugging program.

    \n\n

    \nOriginally it ran on CP/M.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nSiemens sold their own portable PCs with the software preloaded, and with additional built in hardware features such as an EPROM burner.

    \n\n

    \nThese computers were also known as \"PGs\".

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSTEP 5 was later ported to MS-DOS by running it on a CP/M emulator which people would use to run it on an off the shelf PC such as a laptop.

    \n\n

    \nLater still a native MS-DOS port was produced.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40

    \n\n

    \nThis had modes for Statement List. Ladder, and Control System Flowchart.

    \n\n

    \nGRAPH 5 was a separate program.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nYou could toggle between STL, LAD, and CSF modes, and if the software could translate what was there form one mode to another, it would.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41

    \n\n

    \nThe PC would be connected to the PLC by a cable which had an interface box in the middle.

    \n\n

    \nThis could be used to download a program to the PLC,

    \n\n

    \nupload a program to take a backup,

    \n\n

    \nmodify a running program,

    \n\n

    \nor debug a running program.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42 Instructions

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nI won't list all the instructions, as that would take too long.

    \n\n

    \nI will instead give a brief overview of them.

    \n\n

    \nI will deliberately skip over obscure instructions that would take too long to explain.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43 Basic Operations

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nBoolean Operations

    \n\n

    \nThere is a full set of boolean operations including and, and not, or, or not, set, reset, and assign.

    \n\n

    \nThe assign operation would assign the RLO value to the address of the specified operand.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44 Load and Transfer

    \n\n

    \nThe Load instruction would load the value of a memory address word or byte or a constant into accumulator 1.

    \n\n

    \nThere are about 2 dozen variations on the load instruction.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThe transfer operation would write a word or byte from accumulator 1 into memory.

    \n\n

    \nThere are about a dozen variations of the transfer operation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45 Timers and Counters

    \n\n

    \nThere are 5 different types of timers.

    \n\n

    \nTimers take the value in accumulator 1 as their preset when started.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThere are up counters and down counters, which count up and down respectively.

    \n\n

    \nAgain, these take the value in accumulator 1 as the preset.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46 Arithmetic Operations

    \n\n

    \nThe only native arithmetic operations in the S5-100U series are addition and subtraction.

    \n\n

    \nThese add or subtract the values in accumulator 1 and 2.

    \n\n

    \nAnother set of add instructions allows adding a constant.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, the 103 and 95 CPUs offered integer multiple and divide as integrated function blocks, FB242 and FB243.

    \n\n

    \nYou would call these function blocks with the desired parameters and they would return their results in other parameters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47 Comparison Operations

    \n\n

    \nThere are a complete set of integer comparison operations which operate on the values in the two accumulators.

    \n\n

    \nThese include greater than, greater than or equal to, etc.

    \n\n

    \nThe boolean result is saved on the RLO.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48 Block Call and Return

    \n\n

    \nThere is a complete set of unconditional and conditional call operations to call all of the various types of blocks.

    \n\n

    \nThere are also unconditional and conditional return operations.

    \n\n

    \nCalling a data block makes it the current data block, for load and transfer operations on data words

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49 NOP or No Op

    \n\n

    \nAs implied these instructions have no result.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50 Stop

    \n\n

    \nThis stops the program executing

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51 Binary Word Operations

    \n\n

    \nThese operate on words in the accumulators.

    \n\n

    \nThese include AND, OR, XOR, Shift Left, and Shift Right.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52 Bit Operations

    \n\n

    \nThese test, set, or reset individual bits in data words or in timers and counters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53 Conversion Instructions

    \n\n

    \nThere are instructions to perform one's complement or two's complement of the value in accumulator 1.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54 Jump Operations

    \n\n

    \nThere are unconditional and conditional operations to jump forward or back to a label.

    \n\n

    \nThis is equivalent to a GOTO operation.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55 Indirect Addressing or \"DO\" operations

    \n\n

    \nThese instructions allow jumping to a block or selecting a data word or flag word according to a number stored in another address.

    \n\n

    \nEssentially, these instructions are like pointers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56 Miscellaneous

    \n\n

    \nThere are also various other instructions that do things like copy blocks of words,

    \n\n

    \nor swap the contents of the accumulators,

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 Other Instructions

    \n\n

    \nThere are still more instructions which I have skipped over as it would take too much time to explain them.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58 Instruction Summary

    \n\n

    \nAs you can see the S5 PLC offers a very comprehensive set of operations which go well beyond what most people would think of as what a PLC does.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a very powerful instruction set.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nOn the one hand this is a good thing, as you can do nearly anything.

    \n\n

    \nOn the other hand, this is a bad thing, as some people take this as license to do nearly anything.

    \n\n

    \nIn the hands of the wrong person, this results in a complex mass of spaghetti code that not even the person who wrote it can figure out later.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n60

    \n\n

    \nThis goes against the philosophy of PLC programming, which is to make things as simple and obvious as possible.

    \n\n

    \nWith a PLC program, perfection is achieved not when it has as many advanced features as possible, but rather when it is not possible to make it any simpler.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n61

    \n\n

    \nWhile Siemens gave the programmer a range of powerful low level instructions from which he could construct nearly anything, many other vendors took a different approach.

    \n\n

    \nThey instead studied what was needed in major market segments and provided the programmer with instructions that operated at a higher level of abstraction, allowing programs to be written in less time and with fewer instructions.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n62 Execution Speed

    \n\n

    \nExecution speed of instructions varied depending on the PLC CPU model.

    \n\n

    \nHere are some typical values for the low end S5-100 series CPUs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n63

    \n\n

    \nA boolean AND instruction executed in 70 microseconds on a S5-100U,

    \n\n

    \nor in 4 microseconds on an S5-102U,

    \n\n

    \nor in 1.6 microseconds on an S5-103U.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n64

    \n\n

    \nAdding two words in the accumulators executed in 55 microseconds on a S5-100U,

    \n\n

    \nor in 23 microseconds on an S5-102U,

    \n\n

    \nor in 1.6 microseconds on an S5-103U.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n65

    \n\n

    \nThe S5-103U had a custom logic coprocessor chip, known as the M5.

    \n\n

    \nInstructions that were executed on the M5 coprocessor tended to take a uniform 1.6 microseconds.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, complex instructions that were not executed on the M5 coprocessor were often slower than on CPUs that didn't have a coprocessor, such as the 100 or 102.

    \n\n

    \nI suspect this is due to some sort of overhead relating to coordination of the two processors.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n66

    \n\n

    \nHowever, most instructions in a normal program are boolean logic, so very fast boolean execution time is what matters.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nSince every instruction is executed every scan cycle, large programs require faster instruction execution in order to keep up with demand.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n67 The S7 Series Replaces the S5

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the mid 1990s, Siemens began introducing the S7 series which would ultimately replace the S5, although that took a number of years to happen.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n68

    \n\n

    \nThe hardware was all new, but from a programmer's perspective, the S7 was an evolution of the S5.

    \n\n

    \nSome statement list instructions were dropped and others were added.

    \n\n

    \nMost of the basic concepts however remained the same.

    \n\n

    \nPorting an S5 program to an S7 was a complete re-write, but it was a fairly straightforward one.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n69

    \n\n

    \nThe exception to this was the S7-200 series, which came into Siemens from the outside as part of their take over of of the PLC division of Texas Instruments.

    \n\n

    \nThe S7-200 was an American knock off of a Japanese PLC and sold as a German product.

    \n\n

    \nIt was none the less an excellent PLC and sold in very large numbers.

    \n\n

    \nThe S7-200 was eventually replaced by something that was compatible with the rest of the S7 line

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n70

    \n\n

    \nThe S7 series has gone through a number of hardware revisions and remains Siemens' main PLC line today.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIt can via the S5 trace its lineage back to the 1970s and the early days of PLCs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n71 Other Developments

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nJapanese PLC Vendors

    \n\n

    \nI haven't covered any Japanese PLC vendors in the same way that I covered the PLC2 or S5.

    \n\n

    \nI had planned on doing another episode on one but I don't think it would really add much to what we have already discussed.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, PLCs from Japan are among the top sellers world wide and are generally very highly regarded.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n72 Pace of Innovation

    \n\n

    \nIn terms of general history across the industry, in the early days of PLCs evolution was fairly rapid.

    \n\n

    \nLater on, innovation slowed down as compatibility with the existing install base became a bigger factor.

    \n\n

    \nTechnology has become fairly static, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing from a business perspective.

    \n\n

    \nI will return to this subject later however.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n73 Conclusion

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we covered the Siemens S5 series of PLCs.

    \n\n

    \nWe covered the history of the S5,

    \n\n

    \nit memory and addressing,

    \n\n

    \nthe different types of subroutines,

    \n\n

    \nprogramming languages,

    \n\n

    \nthe instructions,

    \n\n

    \nand how it was succeeded by the S7 series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n74

    \n\n

    \nWe saw how PLCs had rapidly evolved from their very early relay-replacement origins to become powerful programmable devices.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn the next episode we will look at I/O modules and how they allow a PLC CPU to interface to hardware and control machines.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n75

    \n\n

    \nThis has been the fourth episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"technology","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4740,"date":"2026-10-02","title":"Robert A. Heinlein in the 1960s","duration":710,"summary":"In the 1960s Heinlein reached his peak.","notes":"

    The 1960s were when Heinlein produced some of his most famous works. And they started to bring him fame outside the Science Fiction community, which was most unusual.

    \n\n

    Heinlein in the 1960s

    \n\n

    Heinlein had interests that he tended to keep hidden in the early years while he was establishing himself as a writer, particularly as he was feeding the lucrative Juvenile market. These included things like sex, nudism, and unusual political and religious views. But when Scribners rejected Starship Troopers he not only abandoned writing Juveniles, but decided he could be a lot more open about his views. And this resulted in his most famous novel. This is the one novel that people who are not science fiction fans are likely to have read, particularly in the 1960s.

    \n\n

    Stranger In A Strange Land (1961)

    \n\n

    This novel won just about every award possible: Hugo, Locus, Prometheus. It was the first science fiction novel to crack the New York Times Best Seller list. And the Library of Congress named it as one of 88 “books that shaped America”. And it even introduced a new word to the English language: grok.

    The stranger in the title is Valentine Michael Smith, an infant born to one of the astronauts, and then raised by Martians. He is brought back to Earth by a later mission, and his adventures in this strange land are what the book is mostly about. But in so doing, Heinlein writes a satire on religion and also espouses very different approach to love and sexuality than was considered proper at the time. And this attracted the hippies of the 1960s, for whom it became a Bible, much to the annoyance of Heinlein who did not appreciate them knocking on his door. The book had the original title of “The Heretic”, and was intended to challenge social norms about religion and monogamy. Heinlein’s own take on the reaction to the novel was that he was surprised that some readers thought the book described how he believed society should be organized, explaining: “I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers … It is an invitation to think – not to believe.”

    The book also exemplifies the characters that Heinlein managed to put into most of his stories. Michael is the naive young man who needs to learn better, and Jubal Harshaw is the wise old man who becomes his mentor.

    \n\n

    Podkayne of Mars (1963)

    \n\n

    The heroine of this book, Podkayne, is a teenage girl who is invited along with her younger brother on a luxury cruise with their uncle Tom from their home on Mars to go to Earth. We learn along the way that Mars was once a prison colony (echoing Australia), and that Podkayne’s family are of Maori ancestry. In the United States, at least, this would count as “colored”, and reflects Heinlein’s subversion of racist ideas in his works. Much of the travelogue on the luxury liner reflects Heinlein’s own experiences as depicted in his non-fiction book Tramp Royale which covers his own world cruise. But old uncle Tom is actually a diplomat using the kids as cover, and they get kidnapped by people who want him to take a certain position at talks to held at Luna. Podkayne’s brother Clarke is portrayed as a genius but lacking certain qualities of empathy, and in the end he manages to get her killed. The publisher rejected this ending an insisted on one where she lived. Later Heinlein published a version with both endings and invited people to vote on which one they preferred, and the one where she died won. Heinlein’s own objection was that it was like changing the ending to Romeo and Juliet into one where they both lived happily ever after. Since then the book has been published with Heinlein’s preferred ending.

    \n\n

    Orphans of the Sky (1963)

    \n\n

    This is basically a couple of novellas from 1941put together as a complete novel. The first novella, Universe, was recognized by the Science Fiction Writers of America by including it in their volume The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two. This is a story about a generation ship, i.e. a ship that will take generations to arrive due the speed of light limit. In this case, the people who understood what this was all about are long dead, and we learn that at one point there was a mutiny and the the ship’s officers were killed. In Universe, the descendants of the remaining people think the ship is all there is, it is the Universe to them. In the second novella, Common Sense, a few people find some of the old records and work out what the situation is. Then, seeing a star growing larger ahead of them, they take a life boat and land on a habitable moon of a giant planet.

    This is part of the Future History, as Rhysling and his “Green Hills of Earth” are brought up, and it is also referred to in Time Enough For Love, where it is revealed that this ship is the sister ship to the one the Howard Families stole in Methusaleh’s Children. But being that this is from 1941 it does not show the polish and mastery of Heinlein’s other work of the 1960s.

    \n\n

    Glory Road (1963)

    \n\n

    Some stories make you wonder if they are Fantasy or if they are Science Fiction, and this is one of them. Of course, Heinlein would just call it Speculative Fiction and not worry about it. A former soldier has just been discharged from a war in Southeast Asia. The country is not mentioned, but this is 1963 and Vietnam was just bubbling up into people’s consciousness. With nothing to do, he meets up with a gorgeous woman who invites him on a quest. This takes them to other worlds and involves a certain amount of swordplay, culminating in a sword fight against Cyrano de Bergerac. The woman turns out to be the Empress of many worlds, and the quest was to retrieve the Egg of the Phoenix, a cybernetic device containing the memories and personalities of most of her predecessors, and now she has to absorb all of this, which is fine for her but leaves or hero pretty useless. Finally he goes looking for another quest.

    This is a really good novel, and was nominated for the Hugo, but it lost out to Clifford Simak’s Way Station. We should probably discuss Simak at some point, he was an important writer with a distinct style.

    \n\n

    Farnhams’ Freehold (1964)

    \n\n

    This novel attempts to be satire on race relations, but is in my view a failure. A nuclear war happens, and a group of people in a fallout shelter find that they have been transported into the future (or is it an alternative universe?). The war pretty much destroyed the societies of the northern hemisphere, leaving things open for the Africans and other southerners to become dominant. And of course the blacks enslave the whites and re-enact the worst excesses of the ante-bellum American South. When I am in the mood to go back and re-read some Heinlein, this is not one I pick.

    \n\n

    The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (1966)

    \n\n

    This is one of Heinlein’s best novels, set on a lunar colony. The moon has been used as a penal colony, but of course most of the people there now are descendants of the people originally exiled there. The Warden runs things, but as long as the grain shipments are on schedule he doesn’t bother much with the affairs of the “Loonies”. The background here is fascinating, describing a nearly anarchic society. Men out number women two to one, leading to some interesting marriage customs, including something called “line marriage” which is a type of group marriage. The wise old man role is played by Professor Bernardo de la Paz (Prof), while the young man he mentors is Manuel O’Kelly-Davis (Mannie). Mannie is computer technician who discovers the big mainframe computer that runs everything has become sentient. And since the computer has the acronym HOLMES, he names it Mycroft Holmes (Mike), for Sherlock’s smarter brother. They all become involved in a revolution against the Earth government, which in theory is led by Prof, but in fact is led by Mike. Since he is a computer, and keeps his sentience a secret, he creates a persona of Adam Selene to be the figurehead

    I said that the background of this lunar colony is fascinating in itself, but the book is also a discourse on the nature of government, libertarianism, and what it means to be free. That was something Heinlein was prone to do, and it did not always work well. In some of his last works he tended to pontificate in a way that left the story behind, but in this novel the story is interesting all the way through. This the novel that popularized the acronym TANSTAAFL, which means There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, and which is the motto of the Loonies. Hazel Stone, of The Rolling Stones, appears here as a 12-year-old girl involved in the revolution, and both she and Mike also appear in later works of Heinlein. I recommend this book highly.

    This novel won the Hugo award (by the fans), was nominated for the Nebula Award (by the writers), was named one of the Top 10 novels in the Locus poll, and won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award.

    \n\n\n

    Links

    \n\n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Heinlein","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4741,"date":"2026-10-05","title":"HPR Community News for September 2026","duration":0,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in September 2026","notes":"","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4748,"date":"2026-10-14","title":"Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 5 ","duration":1273,"summary":"A brief overview of industrial control systems.","notes":"\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n01 Introduction

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis is the fifth episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n02

    \n\n

    \nIn the previous two episodes we looked at the Allen Bradley PLC 2 and the Siemens S5 series of PLCs.

    \n\n

    \nIn those episodes we mentioned I/O modules, but didn't really go into any detail on them.

    \n\n

    \nInstead we looked at the CPU units and focused on things from the programmer's perspective.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n03

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we will look at the I/O modules, what they are, how they work, and the purpose that they serve in the system.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn addition to this, I will discuss machine safety systems and also claims made by certain people about cyber security and industrial safety.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n04 What is I/O?

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nFirst though, we must address the question of what I/O is.

    \n\n

    \nWhile the CPU module may run the program, in order for the program to do anything useful it must interact with the real world outside the PLC.

    \n\n

    \nIt must sense the state of the machine it is controlling through inputs, and it must affect the operation of the machine through outputs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n05 A Simple Example

    \n\n

    \nLet's take a very simple example to try to make the above a bit more tangible.

    \n\n

    \nAssume that we wish to press two parts together, such as pressing a bearing into a housing.

    \n\n

    \nThis is a very common industrial process.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n06

    \n\n

    \nLet us assume we have the following items which connect to the inputs.

    \n\n

    \n* An emergency stop circuit.

    \n\n

    \n* A safety system to protect the operator.

    \n\n

    \n* A part presence sensor used to detect that the housing was correctly placed in the tooling.

    \n\n

    \n* Another part presence sensor used to detect that the bearing was correctly placed in the tooling.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n07

    \n\n

    \n* A sensor which indicates the hydraulic cylinder is fully retracted.

    \n\n

    \n* Another sensor which indicates the hydraulic cylinder is fully extended and the part was fully pressed home.

    \n\n

    \n* A button which the operator uses to initiate the press cycle.

    \n\n

    \n* Another button which the operator can use to abort the press cycle in the event of a fault.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n08

    \n\n

    \nWe also have the following items which connect to the outputs

    \n\n

    \n* A hydraulic valve with two solenoids (down and up).

    \n\n

    \n* A pilot light which tells the operator that the cycle was completed successfully and the part is good.

    \n\n

    \n* A pilot light which tells the operator that the cycle was not completed successfully and the part is bad.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nThis gives us a total of 8 inputs and 4 outputs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n09

    \n\n

    \nA typical very small PLC would be suitable for this application.

    \n\n

    \nThe PLC program would look at the state of the inputs, and apply the necessary logic to turn the outputs on or off at the appropriate time.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nAs you can see, what makes a PLC useful is its ability to control I/O.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n10

    \n\n

    \nSmall PLCs typically have a limited amount of I/O built into the same package as the CPU and can be used as is right out of the box.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nMedium to large PLCs will interface to racks of I/O, and the number of I/O points can be in the dozens to hundreds and even the thousands.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n11 Types of I/O

    \n\n

    \nThe above example is very simple.

    \n\n

    \nThere are in fact many types of I/O.

    \n\n

    \nI will outline the most common ones here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n12 Digital I/O

    \n\n

    \nThe first is \"digital\" I/O.

    \n\n

    \nThis is overwhelmingly the most common type.

    \n\n

    \nDigital I/O are basic on-off signals.

    \n\n

    \nA digital input will detect if a switch is on or off.

    \n\n

    \nA digital output will turn a relay or valve on or off.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n13

    \n\n

    \nDigital I/O comes in three main types categorized by the type of electronic device used.

    \n\n

    \nThese are

    \n\n

    \n* AC

    \n\n

    \n* Relay

    \n\n

    \n* DC

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n14 AC

    \n\n

    \nAC I/O was the earliest type, but has largely faded away by now.

    \n\n

    \nThis works with 100 to120 VAC or 230 VAC.

    \n\n

    \nInputs detect the presence or absence of these voltages, and outputs output these voltages when turned on.

    \n\n

    \nThe relay logic that PLCs replaced was largely driven by these voltages, so being able to interface with existing systems was an important design consideration for early PLCs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n15 Relay

    \n\n

    \nRelay outputs were an alternative to triac devices used for solid state AC outputs.

    \n\n

    \nThese were very small relays built into the output modules.

    \n\n

    \nTheir main attraction was they were usually somewhat cheaper than solid state outputs.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, they suffered from being much less durable and had a shorter life.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n16 DC

    \n\n

    \nBy the 1980s and 1990s, AC and relay I/O had been largely replaced in new applications by 24VDC.

    \n\n

    \nThis allowed for more compact and less expensive control wiring, and fewer electrical safety concerns.

    \n\n

    \nBoth inputs and outputs worked with 24VDC.

    \n\n

    \nAll of the standard sensors, solenoid valves, relays, push buttons, lights, and pretty much all other devices were designed to be compatible with 24VDC.

    \n\n

    \nIn cases where you had large motor contactors or relays, or large solenoid valves which required higher voltages for practical reasons, an additional interposing relay could be used to amplify the control signal.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n17

    \n\n

    \nI/O modules or cards came in 8, 16, 32 point sizes, and there were modules which combined both inputs and outputs in a single module.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n18 Analogue I/O

    \n\n

    \nAs well as simple on-off voltages, PLCs could also work with variable voltages, where the actual voltage or current represents a measurable value, such as temperature or dimension.

    \n\n

    \nThese are known as analogue values.

    \n\n

    \nThese can be inputs or outputs and are known as analogue inputs or analogue outputs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n19

    \n\n

    \nThe simplest is voltage.

    \n\n

    \nThe most common standard voltage ranges are

    \n\n

    \n* 0 to 10V.

    \n\n

    \n* Plus or minus 10V.

    \n\n

    \n* 0 to 5V.

    \n\n

    \n* 1 to 5V.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n20

    \n\n

    \nAnother type is current.

    \n\n

    \nThis is where the amount of current rather than the level of the voltage is what is significant.

    \n\n

    \nCurrent has an advantage over voltage in that it is less affected by resistance losses in long wiring runs and is also less prone to being influenced by electrical noise due to the lower impedance.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n21

    \n\n

    \nThe most common standard current ranges are

    \n\n

    \n4 to 20 mA.

    \n\n

    \n0 to 20 mA.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n22

    \n\n

    \nAnother common type is thermocouple inputs.

    \n\n

    \nThese have special circuitry built into them to interface with thermocouple devices, which are a common device used to measure temperature by measuring the voltage generated when two dissimilar metals are heated in contact with each other.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n23 Serial Communications

    \n\n

    \nA number of PLCs have serial communications ports, mainly used to interface with things like label printers or bar code readers.

    \n\n

    \nSome of these have even had basic interpreters built into them, mainly to allow for better string formatting or parsing.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n24 Servo and Stepper

    \n\n

    \nAnother category of I/O are servo and stepper motor controllers.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n25 High Speed Counter Timer

    \n\n

    \nAnother type are counter/timer modules, which allow for high speed counting of events, or very precise timing of events in hardware, or interfacing with rotary or linear encoders.

    \n\n

    \nEncoders are measuring devices which have a series of very small but precise marks which interrupt beams of light when they move, allowing measurements to be made.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n26 Networking

    \n\n

    \nMany PLCs also support some sort of networking.

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into any detail on that here, but will instead address this area in another episode.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, network ports may be built into the CPU, or may reside in separate network I/O modules.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n27 Specialty

    \n\n

    \nAs well as the preceding there are many other specialty modules which I won't bother to describe here.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n28 Operator Panels

    \n\n

    \nThe original operator panels were arrays of push buttons, pilot lights, and other basic operator controls mounted in boxes for an operator to interact with the machine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nLater on these were replaced by specialty electronic devices which were also known as operator panels as they served the same function.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n29

    \n\n

    \nModern operator panels are screens and keypads which are used to display information to an operator or to allow data to be entered into the PLC.

    \n\n

    \nWhile not strictly speaking a type of I/O, operator panels typically look like I/O to the PLC CPU.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nButtons on a touch screen may be effectively the same thing as actual hardware buttons from the PLC's perspective, and analogue values output to the operator panel for display are like hardware analogue devices.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n30

    \n\n

    \nAll of these data are mapped to memory locations in the PLC, with the details of how this is done varying according to the make and model of PLC.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n31

    \n\n

    \nI won't go into any detail on this as this could be a separate subject on its own.

    \n\n

    \nGenerally though, you would use software to create screens to display on the operator panel.

    \n\n

    \nThe indicators and buttons defined in your screens would be mapped to addresses in the PLC, either directly or indirectly.

    \n\n

    \nThis configuration would then be downloaded into the operator panel.

    \n\n

    \nYour PLC program could then interact with the operator panel using ordinary ladder logic.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n32 Safety Systems

    \n\n

    \nUp to now I have mentioned only PLCs in any detail.

    \n\n

    \nThere is however more to a complete machine control system than just a PLC.

    \n\n

    \nOne of these is safety systems.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n33

    \n\n

    \nI will leave out historical safety systems and just focus on modern ones.

    \n\n

    \nI will also leave out large process industries involving things like boilers or chemical reactors and just focus on assembly operations in industries such as automobiles, appliances, and other similar things.

    \n\n

    \nThis won't be a tutorial on safety design, just a very brief overview.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n34

    \n\n

    \nAn industrial machine must be designed with safety as one of its fundamental design principles.

    \n\n

    \nIf the machine cannot be operated safely, then it cannot be put into use.

    \n\n

    \nSafety must take into account the operators, bystanders, and maintainers.

    \n\n

    \nYou must assume that people will be inattentive or make mistakes.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n35

    \n\n

    \nYou must also assume that the PLC program will have bugs and that the electronics will fail in a state which could cause a hazard if it is permitted to.

    \n\n

    \nIn other words, the PLC and your PLC program are not part of the safety system.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n36

    \n\n

    \nThe safety system will decide when the PLC will be permitted to act and when it will not.

    \n\n

    \nThe PLC in turn must monitor the safety system in order to understand when it can and cannot act.

    \n\n

    \nYour PLC program must take this into account so that it can differentiate between not being able to act because the safety system has decided it is not safe to cycle, versus there being something wrong with the machine which prevents it from operating.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n37 A Few Basic Safety Devices

    \n\n

    \nHere are a few basic safety devices.

    \n\n

    \nI will not attempt to be comprehensive.

    \n\n

    \nRather, I am just giving a few common examples so that you will understand the environment in which the PLC can operate.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n38 Emergency Stop Circuit

    \n\n

    \nA basic element of nearly all industrial machines is some sort of emergency stop circuit.

    \n\n

    \nWhen the \"on\" button is pressed, a relay will close and hold itself on.

    \n\n

    \nThis will enable power to the machine, including the compressed air supply if there is one.

    \n\n

    \nIf the \"stop\" or \"e-stop\" button is pressed, the relay will open and remove energy from the machine, rendering it safe.

    \n\n

    \nIf the electrical power supply to the machine goes off, due to for example the building losing electrical power, the emergency stop circuit will also \"drop out\" or open, and remain off until the start button is pressed again.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n39

    \n\n

    \nWhile every, or nearly every, machine will have an emergency stop circuit, is it often not sufficient on its own.

    \n\n

    \nIn other words, it is necessary, but not always sufficient.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n40 Guard Switches

    \n\n

    \nEquipment hazards must be enclosed by protective guarding.

    \n\n

    \nMovable guards, such as access doors, must be interlocked with the safety circuit such that when the guard is opened, the machine is rendered safe.

    \n\n

    \nTo achieve this, there will be safety rated switches on each access door which are connected to the safety circuits of the machine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n41 Two Hand Control

    \n\n

    \nAnother common safety circuit is two hand control, often called \"anti tie down\", although that latter phrase actually describes one of the design principles rather than being the proper name.

    \n\n

    \nWith two hand control, the operator station will have two large buttons which the operator must press simultaneously and hold to enable the machine to operate.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n42

    \n\n

    \nWith both hands on the buttons, you know where the operator's hands are.

    \n\n

    \nThe operator must remove both hands from the buttons in order to enable the circuit again.

    \n\n

    \nIf one button remains closed and the operator attempts to activate the machine again with the other button, then the safety system will detect this and refuse to enable the machine again until both buttons are de-activated.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n43

    \n\n

    \nThis is the \"anti tie down\" feature.

    \n\n

    \nThe operator cannot tie one button down and cycle the machine repeatedly with just the other button.

    \n\n

    \nThe buttons will be connected to a special relay which monitors and self tests to ensure it operates correctly.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n44

    \n\n

    \nThe PLC will monitor an auxiliary contact on this relay so that it knows when to start its sequence of operation, but the redundant safety contacts on the relay lie in between the PLC and whatever hazards are being guarded against.

    \n\n

    \nThe safety device has ultimate control over whether the machine moves or not.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n45 Light Curtain

    \n\n

    \nAnother basic safety device is the light curtain.

    \n\n

    \nThis has a series of closely spaced light beams across the opening which forms the operator's access to the working area of the machine.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n46

    \n\n

    \nIf any of these light beams is interrupted, the light curtain controller will not permit the machine to move.

    \n\n

    \nLight curtains can usually be used in places where two hand control systems can be used.

    \n\n

    \nThey have an advantage over two hand control in that the operator can be performing other tasks while the machine is cycling instead of being occupied with holding the two hand control buttons down.

    \n\n

    \nThis allows for productivity improvements which can usually more than pay for the higher cost of the light curtain compared to simple two hand control.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n47 Other Devices

    \n\n

    \nThere are many other safety devices, many of which address niche applications.

    \n\n

    \nI won't bother listing any more than I have so far however, as you should understand the basic principles by now.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n48 Safety PLCs

    \n\n

    \nThere are special safety PLCs which have redundant CPUs which monitor one another, and which have redundant mutually interlocked I/O, and which run safety reviewed software.

    \n\n

    \nAnything connected to a safety PLC must itself be safety rated if it could affect the safety of the machine.

    \n\n

    \nHowever, these are quite rare and are only used in certain special industries.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n49

    \n\n

    \nThese are normally used in places where some programmed sequence of operations is required to render a system safe.

    \n\n

    \nThis is more commonly found in places such as oil refineries, chemical plants, or electric power generating plants than in typical factories.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n50 Safety and Cyber Security

    \n\n

    \nThis is a good place to bring up the question of safety and cyber security.

    \n\n

    \nThere have been a number of articles in the IT press recently about how PLCs could be indirectly affected by computer viruses and how this could cause dangerous safety problems in manufacturing equipment.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n51

    \n\n

    \nThe premise is that they found security holes in software which runs on personal computers running Windows operating systems which are used to do things like record production data.

    \n\n

    \nThere are a number of software systems which are designed for this purpose, although SCADA systems are usually the ones mentioned.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n52

    \n\n

    \nI will briefly describe SCADA systems in a later episode.

    \n\n

    \nFor our purposes here however, just understand it as specialized industrial software that runs on a PC and conducts monitoring and display using data from a PLC that it is networked to.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n53

    \n\n

    \nAccording to these security researchers, a virus could exploit these security holes to send commands to the PLC and cause it to do arbitrary things which could cause injury or death.

    \n\n

    \nThe PLCs being referred to in this instance are ordinary PLCs, not safety PLCs.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n54

    \n\n

    \nI find these claims to be highly implausible for the reasons that I have stated above when describing safety systems.

    \n\n

    \nAn ordinary PLC is not a safety device, and so the safety of the machine should not be affected by a malfunctioning PLC, regardless of whether any viruses were involved or not.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n55

    \n\n

    \nI have seen PLCs malfunction due to memory corruption errors, but these posed loss of production problems, not safety problems.

    \n\n

    \nA malfunctioning PLC may cause property damage to the machine and loss of money, but the control system, of which the PLC is only a part, should not permit it to pose a hazard to personnel.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n56

    \n\n

    \nI have not seen any of these security researchers offer any plausible mechanism by which their claims of safety problems may be realized.

    \n\n

    \nAs a result of this, I take all such claims with a very, very, very, large grain of salt.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n57 Conclusion

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn this episode we looked at the I/O modules, what they are, how they work, and the purpose that they serve in the system.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \nIn addition to this, we discussed machine safety systems and also claims made by certain people about cyber security and industrial safety.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n58

    \n\n

    \nIn the next episode I will cover networking, including a detailed look at one industrial network protocol, called Modbus.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n59

    \n\n

    \nThis has been the fifth episode in an 8 part series.

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n--------------------

    \n\n

    \n\n

    \n\n\n","hostid":455,"series":0,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"technology","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4750,"date":"2026-10-16","title":"Playing Civilization VI Part 2","duration":838,"summary":"We continue our look at the mechanics of this next version of Civilization.","notes":"

    Civilization VI brought in one new Victory type, Religious, and made modifications to the other familiar types. So in thie episode we do a survey of different ways you can win this game.

    \n

    Playing Civilization VI, Part 2

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

    Victory Types

    \n\n

    Another area with some changes from previous versions is Victory Types. Of course, some things stay the same. You can always win by building a big military and going on a rampage and wiping out all opposition. This never changes, and it can be a lot of fun. But the existing Victory types have received some modifications, and one brand new one, Religious victory, has been added. In this discussion I will assume you are at least up to the Gathering Storm expansion, since that has the latest Victory rules.

    \n\n

    Science Victory

    \n\n

    This is still basedon getting out to the stars, but the details have changed, Up to Civ V it was based on building or launching a spaceship, with Building being the major part of it. But in Civ 6 it is more based on achieving certain projects before anyone else. It all starts with researching Rocketry, then building a Spaceport, and then completing the Launch Earth Satellite project. But that is only Phase 1. You then need to research Satellites. And you might wonder why that isn’t necessary to research before you do the Launch Earth Satellite project. Well, the answer is they did it this way, so deal with it. Think of it as the difference between simply achieving a launch, like Sputnik, and developing the advanced satellite technologies like Remote Sensing, Communications, GPS, etc. In any case, once you have researched Satellites, you can do the Launch Moon Landing project.

    \n\n

    Then you research Nanotechnology, which lets you complete the Launch Mars Colony project. From there you research Smart Materials, and that lets you finish the Exoplanet Expedition project. This expedition then needs to travel 50 light years, and normally it travels one light year per turn, so you would need to wait 50 turns to win. Meanwhile, any other player could win while you are waiting. But you can speed up your expedition by building Laser facilities, some in orbit, others on Earth.

    \n\n

    While you obviously need to do a lot of research to get to these technologies, you also need a lot of Production to build the projects. So make sure you have a high production city and place your Spaceport there for maximum benefit. And make sure your enemies cannot take out your Spaceport.

    \n\n

    Culture Victory

    \n\n

    Although it is called a Culture victory, it is more technically a Tourism victory in terms of the mechanics. This is a fun Victory type to go after. What you want to do is make all of your cultural offerings so compelling that your own people would stay home rather than travel abroad, and so that you attract tourists from other players. Keeping your tourists home is your defense against other players, and attracting their tourists is your offense. If your number of tourists attracted from other players exceeds any other player’s domestic tourists, you become culturally dominant over them. And when you are culturally dominant over all other players you win a Culture victory. So how do you do this? Mainly by focusing on things tourists like to visit. This can be great works of Art, Writing, and Music, but it can also be things like National Parks and Seaside Resorts. And there are Policy cards that can increase your Tourism.

    \n\n

    Domination

    \n\n

    This should be simple, just build a lot military units and start laying waste, right? Well, of course isn’t that simple. While you are doing this you don’t want your future victims to gang up on you. The basic criterion for a Domination victory is that you control all of the original capitals of the original players, whether or not they are still in the game. Original capitals cannot be destroyed or plundered, but they can be captured. Now, capturing someone’s original capital is likely to cause harsh feelings on their part. But if Player A has captured player B’s original capital you can then conquer it without the same level of penalties. And there are penalties built in to the process. If you are viewed as a warmonger other players wil start to gang up on you. So what you want to do is never fight a 2-front war, to begin with. Only have one war going on at any time, and ideally allow a cooling off period after you capture the original capital. You want to keep the other empires on your side as much as possible. and a good way to do that is wait until you have a Casus Belli with them. This means they have done something to you that entitles you to righteous reaction. There are a number of them, but one my favorites is when they steal one of your technologies and are identified as the thief. That will give you a Casus Belli. If I would rather be at peace, I will usually ignore that, but if I wanted to go to war I would gratefully sieze the excuse. Also note, your objective is to get original capitals, not to wipe them out totally. Conquering the last city of another empire will give you major warmonger penalties.

    \n\n

    Religion

    \n\n

    This is another major change in Civilization VI. The whole Religion thing is completely new, and there is a Religion victory you can win. This is another fun victory type to experiment with. The victory condition is simple to state, you just need to have your religion be the majority religion in every empire still in the game. It is how you get there that makes this very interesting. Some of your religion spreads naturally from your cities to other cities nearby, but you can also create Missionary and Apostle units to speed up the process. But there is a defense to this as well. The other empire can create their own Missionary and Apostle units to evangelize against you. And they can engage in Theological Combat. This can only be initiated by Apostles and Inquisitors, but it can result in the losing unit being killed. Think of it as if they are calling on God to smite the devilish heathens and it actually happens. And in some circumstances when an Apostle is killed in theological combat a Holy Relic is created, and this can add to your Culture and Tourism.

    \n\n

    We’ll talk more about Religion and Theological Combat in a more detailed look at Religion in this game.

    \n\n

    Diplomatic

    \n\n

    This is a bit different from the Civ V Diplomatic victory. Instead of winning a vote in the World Congress/United Nations, you accumulate Diplomatic Victory Points. If you accumulate 20 Diplomatic Vicgtory Points you win the game. So where are these to be gathered?

    \n\n\n
  • The first is that being on the winning side of a vote to Target or to cause an Outcome in the World Congress is worth 1 Diplomatic Victory Point for each such vote.
    • \n\n
  • Building certain Wonders. The Mahabohdi Temple is worth 2 points, the Potala Palace is worth 1 point, and the Statue of Liberty is worth 4! Since machinations in the World Congress can take away points, a good strategy is to get within 2-3 points of Victory and then complete the Statue of Liberty.
    • \n\n
  • Seasteads, a Future Era Tech, and Global Warming mitigation, a Future Era Civic, each are worth 1 point.
    • \n\n
  • Periodically you will get a chance to respond to an aid request from another player in the World Congress. If you provide the most aid, you get 2 points. Having a big Treaasury makes it a lot easier to pull this off.
    • \n
\n\n

Score

\n\n

Should no player win by any of the above Victory types, the winner will be the person with the highest score. This doesn’t happen often, but it can happen.

\n\n

Changing Horses

\n\n

You should also be flexible. Circumstances can change as the game goes on, and the original Victory type you were aiming for is looking like bad bet. When that happens you should re-evaluate your options and perhaps pursue a different Victory type. And I have played games where a different Victory type just kind of happened. But any decision you make should be an informed decision, and the game interface is helpful here. In the upper right there are a few buttons, and one of them is called World Rankings. Clicking this button will tell you where you are versus your competitors for each of the Victory types. This is is a popup window that you should consult periodically as the game gets going. One thing you need to watch out for is that you might be leading for your planned Victory, but another player may be moving quickly to a different Victory. It is nice to be heading toward your Diplomatic Victory, but if one of your competitors is doing Space projects for a Science Victory that can be a bad thing for you. Of course, you can just play it for fun and not worry about who is winning, but I suspect most people would like to win a game after they have put in something like 10-12 hours playing

\n\n

Links

\n\n","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization VI, Victory","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4760,"date":"2026-10-30","title":"Robert A. Heinlein: Later Works","duration":831,"summary":"In the last years of his life, illness took a toll on Heinlein.","notes":"

Beginning in 1970 Heinlein started to have health issues whihc affected his writing. One novel was a bit of a mess because he was physically unable to fix and polish, and in otghers you can discern that he is revisiting his past as he comes to terms with his own mortality.

\n\n

Heinlein’s Later Works

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1970 marked a turning point in some ways in Heinlein’s writing. First, health issues intruded, and not unexpectedly, intimations of his own mortality became more prominent. This is just my personal opinion, but I think his works became a little more uneven in this last stage of his career.

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I Will Fear No Evil (1970)

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in 1970 Heinlein had the first of his major health issues with an attack of peritonitis. He did manage to publish one novel but it is a bit of a mess. I Will Fear No Evil tells the story of Johann Sebastian Bach Smith, a billionaire whose body is failing, so he decides on transplanting his brain into another body. He offers $1 million for the donation of a brain dead body. Then his secretary is killed, and her body is used. When Bach wakes up after the surgery he discovers that the secretary is still there and he can talk to her. Or maybe it is all a hallucination on his part. Sex becomes a major part of the story, as would become a theme in Heinlein’s later works. The now female person takes the name Joan, and then decides to have child using sperm frozen by the billionaire. They then decide to marry the lawyer, then he dies, and his personality seems to join the other two. This is certainly consistent to the hallucination hypothesis, but who knows. Heinlein had only done one rough draft when the peritonitis hit, and that laid him up for two years. So this novel at the very least did not receive the polishing he usually gave to his novels. You can safely skip it, in my opinion.

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Time Enough For Love (1973)

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This is a collection of shorter pieces with linking narration. It concerns the life of Lazarus Long, who we first encountered in Methuselah’s Children. He now becomes a kind of alter ego for Heinlein himself. Lazarus has lived thousands of years, and is tired of it. But he has an audience for his stories, so he will keep on as long they are listening. You can see the parallels, and maybe Heinlein, after a long illness, wondered how much longer he could tell stories. Part of the book is inclusion of extracts “From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long”, which consist of sayings and aphorisms. At the end, he travels back in time and has sex with his mother, before shipping off to France to fight in World War I. If you are a fan, you will want to read this. This book was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards, but did not win. It did win a Prometheus award.

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Heinlein has a rare blood type, and had needed multiple transfusions to combat the peritonitis. As a result in the mid-1970s he got involved in organizing blood drives within the SF community. This reduced his writing. Then in 1977 he had a series of transient ischemic attacks, which were traced to a blocked carotid artery. This set him up to be one of the very early recipients of a carotid bypass operation.

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The Number of the Beast (1980)

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This novel has 4 protagonists, and different chapters are narrated from each of their perspectives. The four are Zebediah John Carter, Dejah Thoris Burroughs Carter, her father the mathematician Jacob Burroughs, and Hilda Corners. And if you think there is a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs clues in those names, you are correct. In this novel Heinlein creates his “World As Myth” idea, which basically states that fictional worlds also exist in the Multiverse. If you take the idea of infinite universes seriously, it follows that in infinite universes there must be one for every world written about in stories. In this novel they have a craft that can navigate between universes, and end up visiting Barsoom, Oz, the Lensman universe, etc. before finally joining up with Lazarus Long. This is a fun read in many respects, but he redid it later as The Pursuit of the Pankera, which I prefer, though that may in part be because it has a much long stay in the Lensman universe. I am a big fan of that series as we shall see. This novel was nominated for a Locus award.

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Friday (1982)

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In his later works Heinlein frequently depicted the world in a violent and chaotic state (for example, see I Will Fear No Evil). And that is certainly the case in this novel. This brings us back to the world of Gulf and Kettle Belly Baldwin. Friday is a genetically engineered person employed by quasi-military organization (the same one we saw in Gulf) as a courier. She has adventures in the chaotic mess that is North America divided into many smaller countries. Sex is part of the story of course, but also we see Heinlein reaching back to his earlier works bring in people and settings from those works. Writing this in the time of Donald Trump I cannot really discount Heinlein’s pessimism, even though I am by nature more of an optimist. This novel was nominated for Locus, Hugo, Nebula, and Prometheus awards. This is a novel I will reread.

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Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984)

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This is a fantasy novel about Alex, a Christian activist, and Margrethe, a Danish Norse cruise ship hostess. Alex is being corrupted by Margrethe, and quite loving it, when things start to go pear-shaped on them. Jehovah has given Loki permission to torment the couple, which he does through a series of world changes. This is the parallel to the Biblical Job. Along the way the couple spend some time with Satan while not knowing that, and then are separated by the Rapture, because Margrethe is a pagan who worships Odin, and thus ineligible for Heaven. After a bit of Heaven, Alex is tired of it and prefers to be with Margrethe. And of course the book makes the claim the Hell is a much nicer place than Heaven. This is a fun book I can recommend. It won the Locus award for best Fantasy novel, and was nominated for both Hugo and Nebula awards. This would be the last Heinlein novel to get Hugo and Nebula nominations.

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The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)

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At this point Heinlein is starting to dwell on his past, and he drags in all kinds of characters from his previous novels and stories, and starts to tie together all of those stories into one whole. Of course, early in his career he tied together stories into his Future History, so perhaps not such a departure. And Asimov did much the same with his Foundation and Robot stories. The story here is a type of thriller with the first killing in scene one, and the protagonist not knowing who is doing this or why. There is a certain charm to this novel but it has to do with how Heinlein uses his words in the writing. He does have a distinctive style. But the plot is bit of a mess. It was nominated for a Locus award.

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To Sail Beyond The Sunset (1987)

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This last novel continues several themes from his later work: The World as Myth, Lazarus Long, sex (including voluntary incest), and is connected to his earlier works as in the previous novel. This time the protagonist is Lazarus’ mother, introduced at the end of Time Enough For Love. Partly it tells her story in the early days of the Howard Families, introduced in Methusaleh’s Children. Then it continues to the episode with Lazarus, but now seen from her perspective. This is a prime example of why some people refer to Heinlein’s last few works as his “dirty old man” period. It was nominated for the Locus and Prometheus awards.

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Heinlein passed away in 1988 from emphysema and heart failure. But a few things made an appearance that are Heinlein-related.

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For Us The Living (1938, 2003)

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This novel, written in 1938, is Heinlein’s earliest. But he never submitted it for publication in his lifetime, which perhaps tells you what he thought of it. It is not up to the standard of his mature works, but you can discern the DNA of his style in it. It was lost for a long time, and then rediscovered and published in 2003, fifteen years after Heinlein’s death. It still managed to get nominated for a Locus award, but if the same novel were submitted by an unknown author I doubt it would have been nominated. It was all about Heinlein’s name and stature within the field. Only for completists. A man has an accident and wakes up in the future, and the novel describes this future world as the man experiences it.

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Variable Star (2006)

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This novel was written by Spider Robinson from an 8-page outline written by Heinlein in 1955. So the plot is Heinlein’s, but the words are Robinson’s. But Robinson is a huge fan of Heinlein, one reason he was chosen, and it reads pretty much like a Heinlein novel. Heinlein had intended it to be one his Juvenile novels for Scribners, but clearly Robinson took it an a more adult direction. A young man with no money has a girlfriend whom he believes to be equally impecunious, only she was lying and is the heiress to the solar system’s largest fortune. She has their future all planned out, but the young man decides he wants no part of it, and signs up for a one-way trip of exploration to the stars. The telepathy angle from Time For The Stars reappears here.

I enjoyed it. It did not receive any nominations.

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The Pursuit of the Pankera (2020)

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This manuscript was found in Heinlein’s papers, and the first third is identical to The Number of the Beast. But then it goes in a slightly different direction. There is still The World As Myth, they still visit Barsoom, and there is longer section in the Lensman universe that I quite liked. I find I prefer this version to the original.

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Links

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Civilization VI made major revisions to the Trade system, totally changed how Roads are made, and created an entirely new mechanism around Civics. You need to adapt your play style to these new systems, as we explain.

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Playing Civilization VI, Part 3

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Trade and Roads

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The next major system to be upgraded is the Trade system. And this is an important system to master since it is the major way of obtaining gold in the game. If you neglect Trade, you will be in continual financial difficulty, but use it wisely and you can have all gold you need, and then some. I’ve had games where I am bringing in as much as 900 gold per turn! And with a healthy treasury you can buy buildings and military units as needed, plus have all the gold needed for maintenance and upkeep. The other reason to master this system is that in Civ VI workers (now called Builders) do not build roads. Instead, roads are created by your Trade units when they travel between cities. This is a major change in the game dynamic.

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Sometimes you need to send a trade unit to a city purely for the road it creates. Within your Empire you might send a Trade unit between two of your cities just to get the road. And you can send one to the city of another Civ to build the road, and then use the road for your military to invade! One thing to watch out for is that when you are looking at setting up a Trade Route, the game interface shows you the path your trader will take, and if you watch closely you might be able to send a trader to a foreign city but have it go through one of your own cities. So you can get a road connecting two of your own cities as part of a Trade Route that goes to a foreign city and brings in Gold. The one exception to the rule on roads from Trade is that later in the game when you discover Steam Power you can use Military Engineers to build Railroads. This does not use a charge from the Military Engineer, but does use one Iron and one Coal, which adds to your CO2 emissions. You would not want to overbuild Railroads, but if you are aiming for a Domination victory you will want to get the new units you build to front quickly, and there is no better way to do that than a good Railroad system.

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But the primary reason to build Trade units to set up Trade Routes to bring in Gold (primarily), and perhaps other resources as well. You begin when you discover the Civic ForeignTrade, which gives you the capability of having exactly 1 Trade Route. You can gain the capacity for additional routes in several ways. You can build a Harbor and Lighthouse, and that will give you 1 more. Or you can build a Commercial Hub and Market, which also gives you 1 more. However, you cannot build both in any one city and get 2 extra trade routes. But since you can get one more route in each city where you do this, one way to get more trade routes is to get more cities, an approach known as “building wide”. There are also Wonders and Great Merchants that can give you additional capacity.

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Once you have the capacity you have to build the Trader and send it. Unlike in previous games where your Trade routes were totally virtualized, in Civ VI the Trader is a unit that travels between the cities, and it can be attacked by enemies or by Barbarians. If this happens your route is pillaged and you have to start over by building another unit. But if nothing goes wrong you will eventually get a Trading Post in each city when the route is complete. This matters because Trade Routes are limited by distance. They can go up to 15 tiles for a Land route, or 30 tiles for a Sea route. But a Trading Post increases the range by another 15 or 30 tiles, and if you can go from Trading Post to Trading Post you can go clear across the map. However, this is not usually the most important consideration. Trade Routes are also important for gaining a Culture victory since they add to the tourism you get from your trading partner. Trade Routes also last for a fixed time according to a complex formula I won’t try to replicate, but suffice it to say you will get a chance to use your Trader again as long it has not been killed. So you can use it to build a road, then some turns later use it to get Gold from a City-state, for instance.

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Civics

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I mentioned Civics in the previous section. In Civ VI this is a whole new system that is parallel to the Science/Technology tree. It is a tree of Civic advancements, and you really need to advance along this tree to keep up. And just like the Technology tree requires you to earn Science to make progress, the Civics tree requires you to earn Culture. You can do this in a variety of ways. First is through buildings, beginning with the Monument, which is available to you immediately without any Research. Many players like to build a couple of units first, then a Monument so they can start building up the Culture. Then Theater Squares give you a place to put your Amphitheaters,, Museums, and so on. Anyone who wants to get a Culture victory will be building a lot of Theater Squares and the buildings for them. You can also get Culture from Trade Routes, from Wonders, from some tiles, and so on.

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You need to advance along the Civics tree just as you do on the Science tree. So you have two quasi-research tracks going on, and you can use the same selection methods. You can simply pick individual Techs and Civics from the options the game gives you, or you can open the tree, find a goal you want to achieve and click it. The game will then select that and all of the prerequisites, and take them in order. And a number of things that used to be on the Research tree in earlier versions have moved to the Civics tree in this version. For example, Trade has always been a technology you would research, but in this game Foreign Trade is now a Civic. So I just think of it as researching Techs and researching Civics.

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At the bottom of the Civics Tree is a progress bar that shows where you and other players you know have progressed in terms of Eras. If several players are in the same Era, you will see a number for the number of players in this Era, but if only one is in this Era you will see the portrait of the player. Since it is only based on Eras it is not very detailed, but it is information. To access the Civics Tree use the button on the Top Left.

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Policy Cards

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The new Civics system in Civ 6 gives you a lot more flexibility than the Civics system in Civ 5, and this is accomplished through the system of Policy Cards. As you progress through the Civics tree you will be given slots into which you can insert Policy Cards that affect your Empire in different ways, and some Civics will give you additional Policy Cards. In addition, the slots you have available are subject to your Government choice. There are 5 categories and they are color-coded in the Policy screen. They are

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  • Military – Red color
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  • Economic – Yellow color
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  • Diplomatic – Green color
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  • Wildcard – Purple color
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  • Dark Age – Black color
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The flexibility comes from the fact that you can remove and replace cards as your circumstances change. And as you move through the Civics tree you will gain more cards. You should expect that as the game goes on you will have more cards available to you than you can use at any time because of limited slots. Cards have to go in the appropriate slots, so if you have a slot for a Military policy you have to put a Military Policy Card in that slot. The exception is with Wildcard slots. Wildcard Policy Cards have to go into Wildcard slots, but the slots can also accept other cards as well.

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When you start the game you will be in the default Government type of Chiefdom, and that will give you one Military slot and one Economic slot. A good example of a Military Policy Card you might to use at this point is Discipline, which gives you +5 combat strength when fighting Barbarians. In the early game you will be fighting a lot of Barbarians so this will come in handy. But as the game goes on and you progress into further Eras you don’t encounter so many Barbarians so you would want to switch this card out for something more useful in your given circumstance. A good Economic card in the early game makes producing Settlers easier. Since producing Settlers and founding cities is something you mostly do in the early game, this is useful. But once you have set the cities down you will need to develop them, and that requires Builder units. So this could be good time to switch out the Settlers card for one that makes it easier to produce Builders. You can make a free swap whenever you research a new Civic, or whenever you change Eras, otherwise you would have to pay for the privilege. So again a healthy Treasury is a big help.

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As you progress through the Civics tree you will get access to more Government types, and this also affects the slots you get. Tier 1 governments get 4 slots, tier 2 get 6, tier 3 get 8, and tier 4 get 10. But the kinds of slots can vary when you change governments. As we saw before, Chiefdom has 1 Military and 1 Economic slot. But if you move up to Classical Republic, a tier 1 government, you get 2 Economic slot, 1 Diplomatic, and 1 Wild Card. But you don’t have a Military slot available. So when you change to this government (if you choose to, there are two other tier 1 government types available), whatever Military card you had previously selected goes away until such time as you get another Military slot.

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You can also gain slots from certain Wonders. And certain Empires come with an extra slot, so you can pick one of them and get one more slot from the start.

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Links

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While Heinlein's fame to the general public is built on his novels, he had a number of shorter works that are are quite worthy of mention. These are all separate from the sotries found in the Future History, but are really good on their own terms.

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Heinlein’s Other Short Works

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Outside of the Future History lies a large number of shorter works by Heinlein, which are nearly all from the 1940s and 1950s, before he made his primary focus the writing of novels. I will only cover a few of them that I consider to be particularly good, so you can consider these as recommendations.

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  • Magic, Inc. (1940) – This novella is a charming fantasy about a world where magic is simply normal and taken for granted. But there is company called Magic, Inc. that is trying to corner the market with a protection racket, and they are doing very well. It turns out the being behind this is actually a demon from the underworld. A couple of businessmen who are trying to hold out against this protection racket find a white witch to help them, and they travel to the underworld to find and confront the demon responsible, and the witch proves to be more powerful than the demon. You will most likely find this in book form combined with Waldo. This novella was nominated for a retro Hugo.
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  • They (1941) – This short fantasy story combines paranoia with solipsism. It is about a man confined to mental hospital because he is delusional. But you may have heard the saying that you aren’t paranoid if they are really out to get you. This is similar in some respect to The Truman Show.
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  • And He Built A Crooked House (1941) – What happens when you combine architecture with extra-dimensional topology? Well, maybe it is what happens in this story. An architect has an idea to create a house modeled on an unfolded tesseract, a four dimensional cube. If two dimensions gives you a square, and three dimensions gives you a cube, then four dimensions give you a tesseract. And they do build it, but they built it in California, so of course an earthquake comes along, and causes the house to collapse into the fourth dimension, with interesting results.
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  • By His Bootstraps (1941) – This is one of two Heinlein stories to explore the paradoxes of time travel. A fellow named Bob is writing a dissertation in the field of metaphysics to explain how time travel is simply impossible, when he is interrupted by a time traveler who tells him not to bother, it is all rubbish anyway. If you understand the bootstrap paradox you already know where this is going: the time traveler, and other people Bob interact with, are all Bob. But it is very well done.
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  • The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (1942) – This novella is a fantasy as well as a horror story. A husband and wife team of detectives is consulted by a man named Jonathan Hoag who says he has no idea what he does during the day. He has found a reddish-brown substance under his nails which could be blood, but he doesn’t know. They try following him, but experience some problems. In one case he turns on them nastily, in another they trace him to the thirteenth floor of a building that doesn’t have a thirteenth floor. Then other beings called The Sons of the Bird get involved. In the end it turns out that Jonathan Hoag’s profession is art critic, and the art he is judging is Earth. It was created by a promising student, but is it worthy of keeping? This novella was nominated for a retro Hugo.
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  • Waldo (1942) – This novella concerns a man called Waldo Farthingwaite-Jones, who was born with myasthenia gravis and as a result is congenital weakling who could not even hold his head up to drink or hold a spoon to feed himself. But it seems to have focused his intellect while also giving him a repellent personality. He is arrogant and considers himself superior. But in part due to his condition he invents what come to be known as “waldos”, devices which can multiply his strength, or conversely give him minute control. He put his hands into a device, and whatever action he does is duplicated on a larger or smaller scale in another device. These devices exist now, and are called waldos as result of this story, even by NASA. So this is the second time Heinlein gave a new word to the English language (the other being “grok”).

    He is brilliant, and as a result is consulted when major technical problem with power receptors that are failing. And at this point what had been a straightforward science fiction story becomes a fantasy. The solution lies in another adjacent dimension. Apparently you can pull power from this dimension all you want, and not just for the power receptors that power automobiles, but also for people. Waldo eventually heals himself this way and becomes a famous ballet dancer. This novella is usually found in book form paired with Magic, Inc. This novella won a retro Hugo.
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  • Goldfish Bowl (1942) – Two massive pillars of water mysteriously appear in the Pacific Ocean. Is this a natural phenomenon or the work of aliens? It looks like one sucks water up into a cloud which no one can enter, and the other seems to return the water. Scientists investigate, and it turns out to be aliens. The Earth is essentially their goldfish bowl.
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  • Jerry Was A Man (1947) – This is a very interesting story about a genetically modified chimpanzee that has had his intelligence increased so that he can be put to work in agriculture, and he has to go to court to claim rights. His lawyer presents evidence that he shares the essential traits of humans and wins the case.
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  • Gulf (1949) – This starts off as a James Bond type of story about an agent who we don’t know anything about. It is a good example of being dropped into the middle of a story, since he is being tracked by other forces we know nothing about. They eventually capture him, and he is confined with “Kettle Belly” Baldwin. This is the same Baldwin we see later on in the novel Friday, and he runs an organization of people who are of superior intelligence and devoted to protecting humanity. This is of course the same organization that Friday was a part of before Baldwin’s death put an end to it. The agent he rescued ends up joining the organization, there he receives advanced training. Here Heinlein brings in two of his enthusiasms. The first is the General Semantics of Alfred Korzybski, concerning which we may say more when we get to A.E. van Vogt. The other is the work of Samuel Renshaw, which also featured in Citizen of the Galaxy. The point of these two ideas is that people can be trained to think more rapidly and accurately. And the title in part refers to the gulf between people who have been so trained and ordinary untrained people.
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  • The Year Of The Jackpot (1952) – A statistician who works for insurance companies has a hobby of tracking cycles, and has noted that when a certain number of cycles peak together it can mean serious consequences for society. As an example, he saw that three of the cycles he tracks all peaked in 1929 when the stock market crashed. And now he is seeing a bunch of cycles lining up. And he notes odd behavior in society, like people suddenly taking off all of their clothes in public places for no reason. What can it all mean?
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  • The Man Who Traveled In Elephants (1957) – This is in my mind a very charming example of magic realism, which of course places it in the fantasy category. A salesman and his wife traveled the country looking for locations to sell elephants, accompanied by imaginary elephants. Now he is a widower, and still traveling. The attraction here is not the plot, but the atmosphere. This was one of Heinlein’s favorites of the stories he wrote.
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  • “—All You Zombies—” (1959) – This is Heinlein’s other classic time travel story. A man who was intersex goes back in time, and impregnates his younger female self, and she duly delivers a baby before getting sex assignment surgery to become the man who impregnated her. But the baby she delivers also turns out to be the same person, so in effect we have a person who is his/her own mother and father. This is the kind of thing that could conceivably happen if time travel is possible, which is why most physicists think it has to be impossible.
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There are other Heinlein short works that a completist would want to look up, but I don’t consider them to be particularly significant And with that I am wrapping up the discussion of Heinlein, the last, but not least, of the Big Three of the Golden Age. He was given the unofficial title of the Dean of Science Fiction, which certainly testifies to the esteem he was held in by the science fiction community. But next I want to look at the origin of Space Opera, in the person of E. E. “Doc” Smith.

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Links

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\n Civilization VI made Religion a major aspect of the game in a way\n it had never been before. There is even a religios victory you can\n achieve, and religious combat is now a feature.

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Playing Civilization VI, Part 4

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Religion

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This is a major change from the previous versions of Civilization. In the earliest versions, Religion served as the “opiate of the masses”. Giving them Religion always made them happier. In Civ IV individual religions made an appearance, and you could start to have competition in this area. But the actual religions were pretty much the same. It was in Civ V that each religion started to take on individual characteristics that made it meaningful for you to found a religion. But while founding a religion could give you tangible bonuses, there was not a lot of competition between religions. This changed in Civilization VI. You can now win a victory by making your religion dominant over all other religions, and there are players in the game who if controlled by the AI will definitely pursue this strategy. And if you want to try it yourself, they are the players you should choose to be. It is a fun way to play this game, and very different from anything you have done before.

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To begin with you have to start accumulating Faith. In the game, Faith is a resource that you can spend in certain ways, making it valuable. You can start by picking a Policy Card like the Economic card God King. This gives one Gold and one Faith in your Capital each turn. But saying it is “in your Capital” is somewhat misleading since both Gold and Faith are resources that accumulate in your Empire as a whole. This will be enough to get you to the first step on the road to Religion, which is to found a Pantheon. These show up early in the game, and in historical terms might represent the Gods and Religions of the Ancient City-States. They are somewhat primitive compared to the major World Religions like Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam. In the game they primarily give you terrain bonuses which are linked either to the underlying terrain or to terrain improvments like Farms and Mines, or adjacency bonuses. And what they offer is Faith, Culture, Production, and Food. And these will stay with you for the entire game. Even if your Religion gets wiped out, your Pantheon bonuses continue.

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A good example of choosing a bonus is Peter the Great of Russia. Being Russia, there is a bias towards spawning near Tundra tiles, and while other Civs would consider Tundra tiles undesirable, Russia can do things with them. And the other thing about Russia is that it is one of those Civs that will always be biased towards a Religious victory. If Russia is in your game, be prepared to see masses of Russian Missionaries spreading out to convert every city they can. Well, once you understand this, you see that the pantheon Dance of the Aurora is a natural fit. It says that Holy Sites will get +1 Faith frm every adjacent Tundra tile. And if you are Russia, you will have Tundra tiles, and you will be building Holy Sites, so this is pretty straightforward. There are similar Pantheons that offer Faith for adjacent Desert tiles, or adjacent Jungle Tiles.

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So choosing the right Pantheon can add to your accumulation of Faith, but there are other paths to consider. Certain Wonders can also be helpful here. Stonehenge, an Ancient Era Wonder, not only gives you two Faith per turn, but gives you a free Great Prophet when completed, and you cna use that Great Prophet to create a religion in Stonehenge itself, even if you don’t have a Holy Site. Another Wonder worth going for if you want more Faith is the Mahabodhi Temple. This is a Classical Era Wonder that gives +4 Faith per tuen, and gives you two free Apostles.

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But to go further and to get a Religion you need to create at least one Holy Site. And if you want to seriously pursue a Religion victory you will want to create several Holy Sites. These are Specialty districts that you have to create. As mentioned above, some Pantheons give you adjacency bonuses to beef up your Faith production at Holy Sites. But you should also keep an eye out for Mountains, since each adjacent Mountain is always good for +1 Faith. And because Mountains usually are found in groups, it is often possible to place a Holy Site on a tile with 2 or 3 Mountains adjacent. And once you finish building the Holy Site it will add Faith per turn. But then you will want to develop the Holy Site further, This starts by adding a Shrine, the first Faith building available. And as you progres you can add a Temple, and then later one of a number of Worship Buildings depending on the Religion you have picked. These can be buildings like a Cathedral, a Mosque, or a Pagoda, to name a few.

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Faith can be used to purchase Units, but to found a Religion you need a Great Prophet, and that requires accumulating Great Prophet Points. These are also generated by your Holy Sites, and once you have enough you may have a chance to recruit a Great Prophet and start your religion. I say “may have a chance” because by design the number religions in any game is always less than the number of players. So if your strategy absolutely requires getting a Religion, you had best not dawdle at it. Set down at least one Holy Site in one of your first two Cities and you will probably be fine.

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Units

\n\n\n\n

There are several Religious Units in Civ 6, and they are purchased with Faith as long as this is done in a city with both a Holy Site and a Majority religion. And when purchased they will be from the Majority religion of that city. If your city has a Majority Religion different from the one you founded, you don’t want to purchase units there. You should instead go to a different city that has a Holy Site and the correct Majority Religion, purchase units there, and use them to convert the first city back your Religion. And note that Apostles and Missionaries can ignore national boundaries. So you can send your Missionaries, etc. into any other player’s territory to try and convert people. The only defense against this is Theological Combat. Units you can purchase include:

\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Apostles – Must be purchased in a city with a Holy Site, Temple, and Majority Religion. These have 3 charges for spreading religion, and they can initiate Theological Combat.
    • \n\n\n\n
  • Inquisitor – Must be purchased in a city with a Holy Site, Temple, and Majority Religion. Must have an Apostle in the Holy Site to convert into an Inquisitor. Has 3 charges to Remove Heresy.
    • \n\n\n\n
  • Missionary – Must be purchased in a city with a Holy Site, Shrine, and Majority Religion. The first and weakest Religious unit, it can defend (poorly) against Theological Combat, but not initiate it. They have three charges for Spreading Religion.
    • \n
\n\n\n\n

In addition, there were some other units added in Scenarios and later DLC, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

\n\n\n\n

Theological Combat

\n\n\n\n

This follows many of the same rules as military combat. If you have an Apostle or Inquisitor, you can initiate combat by attempting to move your unit onto a tile occupied by a religious unit from another player. From here it is just a matter of comparing the religious strength of the two units, applying a random number, and assessing damage to each unit. So in this respect it is very analogous to regular combat. The one exception is that you cannot initiate Theological Combat against any religious unit that is in either a City Center or an Encampment. And both City Centers and Encampents exert Zones of Control over Religious units if you are at war with the player that owns them, and that reduces their movement. Normally such units have a movement of 4 per turn, which lets them move rapidly across the map. Terrain effects can also apply, such as requiring 3 movement points to cross a river. And of course religious units always exert Zones of Control against opposing units.

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Terrain effects do not apply to Theological combat the way they do to Military Combat. You won’t get a defensive bonus from being on a Forest tile, for instance. But you do get a defensive bonus if you are in the territory of a city following your religion of +5. And if you are in the territory of the Holy City of your religion, the bonus is +15. When combat occurs, each unit can lose Hit Points, just as in Military Combat. And if a defending unit’s Hit Points fall to Zero, the unit is eliminated, and the attacking unit enters the tile, just as in Militry Combat. If the dying unit is an Apostle with the Martyr promotion, a Relic is created which can be displayed in an appropriate place and help generate Tourism.

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Religious units suffer damage from Theological Combat just like Military Units do from Military Combat. But Military units can recover by just staying in one place anad healing. Religious units can only heal by standing on or adjacent to a Holy Site in your own territory. And the amount of hit points recovered is proportional to the Faith output of the Holy Site, so you will get better results from moving the damaged units to your top Holy Site in terms of Faith Output.

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Finally, a general rule is that you should think of Theological Combat as occuring separate from Military Combat. Religious units cannot attack Military units, but if you are at war with another player you can use your Military units to attack their Religions units using the “Condemn Heretic” option. But otherwise Military and Religious units just ignore each other and can even be on the same tile.

\n \n \n

\n Links:

\n ","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization VI, Religion","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4800,"date":"2026-12-25","title":"The Second Doctor, Part 2","duration":905,"summary":"We continue our look at the Second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton.","notes":"

\n This continues our look at the stories of the Second Doctor,\n portrayed by Patrick Troughton, during the 1960s.

\n

\n

\n \n

The Second Doctor, Part 2

\n\n

The Evil of the Daleks

\n\n

At the end of The Faceless Ones, the Doctor and Jamie see the Tardis being driven away in the back of a truck, and track it down to an antiques dealer who is offering suspiciously new-looking antiques. But they are genuine, he is actually a time traveler from the 19th century who has been sent forward specifically to lure the Doctor back to his time. The time travel experiments he did with a colleague brought in the Daleks, and they kidnapped his daughter to force him to do their will. The Doctor is forced into doing experiments with Jamie to isolate the “Human Factor” that must have caused all of the previous defeats of the Daleks. Hilarity ensues, and in the end all of the Daleks are dead of course. The Doctor says we won’t see them any more. Really? Meanwhile, the antiques dealer has died fighting the Daleks, and the Doctor promises to look after his daughter. I guess we got our next new companion, after Ben and Polly left at the end of the previous story. This is a really good story. It has humor, Daleks, fight scenes..what’s not to like?

\n\n

This story was initially intended to be the last Dalek story since the creator, Terry Nation, was trying to sell them in the U.S. market, and he owned the rights. But as we know every time it looks like the Daleks have been defeated, they somehow come back. This story is missing 6 of the 7 episodes, but it received an animation replacement. You can watch this on YouTube.

\n\n

The Tomb of the Cybermen

\n\n

This is a strong start to one of the strongest seasons of Doctor Who. An archaeological expedition is on the planet Telos, home of the Cybermen. What is that you say? Didn’t they come from Mondas? Well, forget that, now they come from Telos. Later, with David Tennant, they will come from an alternate universe. It doesn’t matter as long as the story is good, and this is a good story. Anyway, the expedition was financed by a group of “logicians” who are not interested in science, they want to revive the Cybermen and use them, but of course in the end the Cybermen kill them because, you know, they are Cybermen. Little insect-like creatures called Cybermats are introduced here. The Doctor finally succeeds in locking up the remaining Cybermen, but you know they will be back somehow.

This story was missing for a long time, but turned up with a Hong Kong company in 1991. It is the earliest complete Troughton story, and the only complete Cybermen story from the 1960s.

\n\n

The Abominable Snowmen

\n\n

The TARDIS lands in the Himalayas so that the Doctor can return a bell entrusted to him 300 years ago to the monastery Det-Sen. But he is accused of killing the companion to a scientist who is tracking down the Yeti, then accused of killing three monks. Of course, he is not the killer, but who is? The Yeti appear, but in the end are determined to be robots covered in fur. And when they trace the signals controlling them, they come from the monastery itself! It runs out the old master has fallen under the control of the Great Intelligence, which is trying to attain physical form to conquer the Earth. Travers, the scientist, comes around to seeing the truth and becomes a more attractive character, which is good because we’ll meet him again later. BTW, the “Himalayas” filmed here are actually mountains in Wales. And the actor playing the scientist, Jack Watling, is the father of the actress playing Victoria, Deborah Watling. When she read the script she suggested her father for the part.

There is a sequel story later this season called The Web of Fear. And the Great Intelligence returns in a couple of stories with the Eleventh Doctor where he appears to be finally disposed of in a dramatic fashion. This story is missing 5 of the 6 episodes, but has received the animation treatment. It is available on DVD or on YouTube

\n\n

The Ice Warriors

\n\n

In the future (3000 AD) there is a Second Ice Age, and much of England is covered by a glacier. The TARDIS lands near a station that is operating an “ionizer” to hold back the glacier. Then a body is discovered in the ice. It turns out to be a Martian, the captain of a ship buried in the ice, and he has a crew to revive. He kidnaps Victoria, and now it is on. The leader of the station is a martinet who blindly trusts the computer to answer all questions, and there is a scientist who has had enough and becomes a fugitive from the station. Of course, he will join the Doctor to save the day in the end. Computers are good, but don’t trust them unreservedly.

\n\n

The Ice Warriors would return later in The Seeds of Death, then in both Peladon stories with the Third Doctor, Cold War with the Eleventh Doctor, and Empress of Mars with the Twelfth Doctor. This story is missing 2 of the 6 episodes but also received the animation treatment. It is available on DVD.

\n\n

The Enemy of the World

\n\n

This a tour-de-force for Patrick Troughton, who gets to play two parts in this story. Similar to what William Hartnell did in The Massacre, he is the Doctor, but also a villain, and in this case the main villain, the titular enemy of the world. This person, named Salamander, was a scientist who was revered by most people for discoveries that ended hunger, but he was also grabbing more and more power. And areas where anyone resisted him seemed suspiciously likely to experience “natural” disasters. Was Salamander causing them? And if so, how? In the end, justice prevails, and Salamander makes the mistake in the TARDIS of activating the take-off before the doors are closed, and gets sucked out into space. Remember kids, always close and lock the doors and put on your seat belts.

\n\n

This story is one of the few complete stories from Patrick Troughton.

\n\n

The Web of Fear

\n\n

This is a sequel to The Abominable Snowmen, and we again meet the scientist Travers, who is now a Professor some years later. The TARDIS is caught in a web of some kind, but breaks free and lands in what is Covent Garden station of the London Underground. It turns out there is a killer mist on the surface, a foam of some kind in the tunnels, and robotic Yeti now armed with guns that shoot webs. Travers had apparently brought back some Yeti pieces and a controlling sphere, and was experimenting to see how they worked. He did succeed in reactivating one, which gave The Great Intelligence an opening, and this was the result. The British Army had forces in the subway tunnels trying to fight back, and who should appear but Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart! Obviously this was before his promotion to Brigadier. The Doctor has a plan to eliminate the Great Intelligence, but is foiled by his own companions who think they are helping him! The Great Intelligence does make an appearance much later in the revived series of Doctor Who, so maybe this failure is all for the best.

\n\n

An interesting note is that the production team applied for permission to film in the actual London Underground but were turned down so they built sets and shot it in studio. When it aired, the London Underground complained to the BBC that the Doctor Who team had clearly used the Underground without permission. As you might think, the set designers were very proud about this. This story is only missing one episode which was reconstructed via animation and is available on DVD.

\n\n

Fury from the Deep

\n\n

The TARDIS materializes just off the coast of England, and the Doctor takes a dinghy to the beach where there are some pipes. The Doctor is curious and investigates the pipes (using something called a “Sonic Screwdriver”, introduced for the first time, and actually used to, you know, drive screws) , hearing what sounds like a heartbeat. But he doesn’t know that they are in a restricted area, and they are shot with tranquilizer darts and taken prisoner. It turns out that they have found a facility that is bringing in natural gas from off-shore rigs, and the facility has been having trouble with a fall in the gas pressure. The man leading the project is bull-headed and determined to keep going full steam when other scientists here suggest maybe they should stop pumping and figure out what is going on. Eventually we learn that some kind of sentient seaweed creature has been awakened by the drilling activity and is trying to take over. A chilling scene is when a woman who has been taken over and controlled just walks out into the surf and keeps going underwater.

\n\n

This was Deborah Watling’s final story as the companion Victoria, but you saw it coming. She has been complaining for several stories that they never go anywhere nice and safe, but instead are always in danger and fighting baddies. She elects to stay behind and live with a couple from the story.

\n \n

\n Links:

\n ","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4806,"date":"2027-01-04","title":"HPR Community News for December 2026","duration":0,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in December 2026","notes":"","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4810,"date":"2027-01-08","title":"Playing Civilization VI Part 5","duration":719,"summary":"We continue our look at the mechanics of this next version of Civilization.","notes":"\n

\n Civilization VI turned Civics into a researchable tree, just as\n with Science. And since they operate similarly, I cover them\n together in this episode.

\n

\n

\n\n

Playing Civilization VI, Part 5

\n\n\n\n

Science and Civics

\n\n\n\n

Because these are essenitally the same in terms of mechanics it makes sense to cover them together. They are just two different kinds of research that you can do. One kind, the Science tree, is called Research in the game, but I just think of it as Science. Here you will find things like Archery, Navigation, and Animal Husbandry. Civics is where you research social advances instead of technologies. But they operate pretty much the same way. Each of them has a tree which you can peruse by clicking on a button on the upper left of the screen, and if there is a Technology or a Civic that is your goal, you can click on it, and the game will fill in all of rhe prerequisites as well and resedarch them in order. You can see a complete list of the Technologies and the Civics at the Civ Wiki. And while both of them are “researched” in some sense, the mechanism is different. Technologies are researched by accumulating Science points, and you promote this by building a Campus district and then building improvements in the district like a Library, University, and Research Lab. In addition, your Campus District will earn Great Scientist points, by which you earn actual Great Scientists. These can then be moved to a Campus District and used to give you a benefit. Some of them increase your Science output over time, such as Hypatia who will give you +1 Science per library. And since she is one of the early Great Scientists, this bonus can accumulate over a long time. Other Great Scientists can provide bonuses to specific technologies. These bonuses in effect make part of the research points needed for a technology already earned, so finishing the research goes much faster.

\n\n\n\n

Civics work in a similar manner, but instead of accumulating Science you need to accumulate Culture. The key here is the Theater District. You need to build one, and it will start accumulating culture. Then you add buildings to the District. In this case, you start with the Amphitheater, which produces Great Writer points, and has 2 slots for holding Great Works of Writing. Your second level building is a choice between the Art Museum and the Archaeological Museum. You can only build one of these, so if you already have an Art Museum in your Theater District you won’t be able to build an Archaeological Musuem. Art Museums produce 2 Great Artist points per turn and has 3 slots for Great Works of Art. Archaeological Museums produce 1 Great Writer point and 2 Great Artist points per turn. But the slots are for Artifacts, and as long as you have free slots you can produce an Archaeologist to go and dig up artifacts for your museum. The final building you can add to your Theater District is the Broadcast Center. This building produces 1 Great Artist point and 2 Great Musician points per turn, and holds 1 Great Work of Music slot.

\n\n\n\n

Other Science Sources

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Certain Civs have unique terrain improvements that add Science. An example is Sumeria, which can build Ziggurats on tiles, and each one adds +2 Science for turn. And some Civs have unique buildings, such as Arabia which has the unique building Madrasa, which replaces the University building and adds 1 additional Science per turn (5 instead of 4). You can get Science from Trade Routes, from relationships with certain City-States, from Research Agreements or Research Alliances with other players, and from certain Wonders. Policy Cards can also add Science per turn. And some Pantheons give you Culture. For a detailed look at this consult the Science page on the Civilization Wiki.

\n\n\n\n

Other Culture Sources

\n\n\n\n

This is pretty similar to Science although you rarely will get Terrain bonuses to Culture. But you do have a building available right away, the Monument. This building does not require any research to be available, you can build it right away. You might want to build a Scout or two first, but then building a Monument gets your Culture going right away. And the reason to do this is that the accumulation of Culture is how you get Policy Cards and more advanced forms of Government, so it should not be something you ignore. Of course, Great Works provide Culture, that is the point of getting them. Each Great Writer, Great Artist, and Great Musician produces a Great Work of the appropriate type. Luxury Resources such as Coffee, Jade, Marble, Silk, and Amber provide additional Culture when you work them in your Empire, so looking for them when you are settling your cities is not a bad idea. Some Pantheons can give you additional Culture, as can certain Policy Cards. Some Wonders and some Natural Wonders offer bonus Culture. Again, there are a lot of details here, so if you want to dive into this in detail the Culture page on the Civilization Wiki.

\n\n\n\n

Science and Culture Boosts

\n\n\n\n

There is a mechanism for getting boosts to specific technologies which we call Eurekas, and a similar mechanism for specific Civics called Inspirations, and they both work in very similar ways. The very beginning technologies do not have these boosts, but they quickly come into play. For example, if you found a city on the Coast, you get a boost to Sailing. And if you kill a unit with a Slinger, you get a boost to Archery. If you want to progress rapidly through the Science tree, you would do well to pay attention to these boosts. You can see these by looking at that Technology that was boosted because each Technology will have a circle next to it to represent progress. As you research the Technology the circle will gradually fill. But if it is boosted, the circle will be partly filled already. And at the bottom of the Rectangle for each Technology you can see if there is a boost available by looking for an arrow that turns up. And if you mouse over that it will tell you what you need to do to get a boost. And if you want to see which Technologies have already been boosted, just open the Tech tree, and you will see some of them have partly filled circles. You may find a several because one the things may Great Scientists do is give you boosts to future technologies.

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For Civics, the first one, Code of Laws, does not have an inspiration, but after that if you improve 3 tiles that gives you a boost to Craftsmanship. And discovering a second Continent gives you a boost to Foreign Trade. And there is a similar circle for your progress on researching a Civic, but it is purple instead of blue. But all of the Civics have the same Rectangles and you can see if there is a boost available the same way. And you can see which have been boosted in the same way by opening the Civics tree and looking for Civics where the circle is partially filled. But you are less likely to find future Civics boosted because you don’t get the kinds of boosts that Great Scientists give.

\n\n\n\n

Choosing Your Next Tech Or Civic

\n\n\n\n

Whenever you complete a Tech or a Civic, you will be asked to choose the next one to research. In some cases you may have a long term goal, as we have discussed, and you can open the tree, click on it, and in essence a research queue is set up with the chosen item and all of the prerequisites selected, and they will be researched in the correct order. But when you don’t have a long range objective, you still need to choose. For Techs, you will see icons that tell you what you can do with this Tech. Just mouse over the icons, and you might see that you would unlock the ability to build a certain Wonder, or perhaps build a building, or maybe some more advanced units. For example, the tech of Celestial Navigation unlocks the Ability to build the Harbor District, and the ability to build a Lighthouse. It also unlocks the ability to build the Wonder The Great Lighthouse. And as we saw earlier, once you have a Harbor and a Lighthouse you can add a Trade Route, as long as you haven’t build a Commercial Hub in the city. And if you want to get a boost, you need to improve two sea resources. So if you haven’t already improved two sea resources, you might want to send a Builder unit to do that before you start researching Celestial Navigation.

\n\n\n\n

Civics are again pretty similar, but the benefits to each one are different . First, you will see that researching this Civic gives you some additional Policy Cards, and can tell which ones by mousing over the icons. Then you might find that a Wonder has been unlocked, or a certain building. You might get policy abilities, like being able to enforce your borders and grant Open Borders to another player in your diplomacy. Two things you might want to pay particular attention to are gaining Envoys to City-States, and gaining Governor Titles. Envoys matter because that is how you build your relationship with City-States. If you have more envoys with a given City-State than any other player, you will be the Suzerain of that City-State. And even if you aren’t the Suzerain, having a certain number of Envoys can give you bonuses, such as added Science or Culture. And Governor Titles allow you to recruit Governors, or to give a promotion to one you have already recruited. We’ll discuss these things in more detail later, but they should be a factor in your decision as to what to research on the Civics tree.

\n \n \n

\n Links:

\n \n \n ","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization VI, Science, Civics","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4820,"date":"2027-01-22","title":"The Second Doctor, Part 3","duration":1096,"summary":"We conclude our look at the Second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton.","notes":"\n

\n This concludes our look at the stories of the Second Doctor,\n portrayed by Patrick Troughton, during the 1960s.

\n

\n

\n \n

The Second Doctor, Part 3

\n\n\n

The Wheel in Space

\n\n\n\n

The TARDIS materializes on a deserted rocket in space, only it isn’t really deserted. There is at least one robot on board, and the Doctor is knocked unconscious. But Jamie succeeds in holding it off. Then they send a message to a nearby space station, the titular Wheel in Space, and are brought on board, where the Doctor receives medical attention. The director of the station wants to destroy the rocket, but since the Tardis is on there Jamie sabotages the laser, only then they discover the laser is needed to confront a meteor shower coming towards the station. Finally it is revealed that the Cybermen are behind everything, and they are trying to take over the station so that they can use it to guide their invasion fleet. And the Cybermats make a return appearance. Of course, in the end they are stopped. A librarian on the station named Zoe is a stowaway on the TARDIS, and wants to join them, so the Doctor weaves his thought patterns into a story about the Daleks to give her an idea of what she will face. So we have another new companion to join the ever-faithful Jamie.

\n\n\n\n

The Dominators

\n\n\n\n

The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe land on the planet Dulkis for some rest and relaxation. The Doctor knows this planet is peaceful as they have forsaken all wars and violence. But someone else has landed, and they are The Domininators, and as the name implies they are the furthest thing from being pacificists. They kill three of the native people for no good reason in the early minutes, which kind of sets the stage for the conflict. It has been said that the only reason nonviolence worked for Gandhi was that he was confronting the relatively civilized British, and that if he tried that strategy with the Nazis the only result would be a lot of dead Indians. And if this story has a theme, this would be it. The Dulcians are pretty bland, and tend to get killed a lot. The two Dominators, an advance party of their race, are planning to turn Dulkis into a molten ball of radioactive magma that they can use as a power source for their ships. And these two are in conflict right from the start. The leader wants to turn the Dulcians into slaves, and his subordinate is constantly killing them and getting into trouble for that. Troughton had some fantastic stories as The Doctor, but this isn’t one of them.

\n\n\n\n

The Mind Robber

\n\n\n\n

This is an excellent story that plays on the idea of reality vs. fiction. That is something Heinlein explored in The Number of the Beast and in The Pursuit of the Pankera, but this story has different take on the problem. The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe have to escape from the lava of the volcanic eruption on Dulkis, and The Dcotor resorts to an emergency module that takes them out of reality space altogether. There they are induced to leave the TARDIS and enter a weird forest where the trees turn out to be letters. They meet people who are very odd, and come to realize that they are characters from fictional stories, and only react and speak as they are written. One interesting scenario has a new Jamie when The Doctor uses the wrong face parts to solve a puzzle. The background to this is that it was a clever solution to a problem. Frazer Hines had come down with chicken pox, so he had to be quarantined for a week. But the show was on a tight schedule and could not stop working, so they invented a way that worked within the reality of the story to bring in a different actor, Hamish Wilson, to play Jamie until Frazer could return. It is interesting that the antogonist calls himself The Master, but it is not the canonical villain of Doctor Who, who would only appear later in Jon Pertwee’s run as the third Doctor. All in all, this is a cleverly written story that stands up quite well as one of Troughton’s better stories.

\n\n\n\n

The Invasion

\n\n\n\n

The TARDIS materializes above the far side of the Moon, and almost immediately a missile is launched to blow them up. They manage to dematerialize and get to Earth, where they discover a sinister corporation has cornered the market on all things computer and electronic, and the corporation has security forces that shoot to kill. The TARDIS needs some help with a couple of circuits, so they go looking for a professor they know, but end up meeting Lethbridge-Stewart, who is now a Brigadier, and has been placed on charge of a new organization called the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (U.N.I.T.). This is the beginning of a long relationship between the Doctor and U.N.I.T., which will form the backbone of Jon Pertwee’s coming series. U.N.I.T. is still going strong in 2022, but it was the creation of Director Douglas Camfield in this story. The Invasion turns out to be an invasion of the Cybermen, and this is the source of the classic clip of Cybermen on the streets of London in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. An interesting note is that the head of the sinister corporation and main antagonist, Tobias Vaughn, is played by Kevin Stoney, the same actor who protrayed Mavic Chen in The Dalek’s Master Plan, though he looks completely different here. All in all this is a good romp with tense battle scenes and lots of intrigue.

\n\n\n\n

Missing 2 episodes (1,4), but there are animated versions of the missing episodes.

\n\n\n\n

The Krotons

\n\n\n\n

This is a nice little 4-part story that has the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe land on a strange planet where apparently there are two races, one human, the other something called Krotons. There was a war long ago, and as a result the outside world was turned into a poisonous wasteland, except that the Doctor and friends just proved it is no longer poisonous, at the very least. Periodically the Krotons select the two brightest students from the humans to join them, except that the Doctor and companions just witnessed one of them being killed, and just a barely manage to save the other. And no one has ever seen the Krotons, so it is all very mysterious. This is on no one’s list of the top Doctor Who stories, but for all of that it is a nice enjoyable little story to while away an evening.

\n\n\n\n

The Seeds of Death

\n\n\n\n

The Ice Warriors are back, and once again looking to cause problems. One of the things about Doctor Who is that time rarely works the way you expect. It is that “Wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey” thing. The Doctor encountered the Ice Warriors previously, but obviously in the far future since Britain was buried by glaciers in an Ice Age. Now he meets them in a time that is about 100 years in our future. That is not a problem for the Doctor, but apparently Earth fought off an invasion and forgot all about it by the time of the Ice Age. It seems that the Ice Warriors come from Mars, which is very cold and has a low Oxygen content in its atmosphere, which turns out to be surprisingly accurate for when this was written. Now they want to make the Earth a very cold place with a low Oxygen content in its atmosphere so thay can move in. This would of course mean that they will kill all the people here now. It is good fun, and the 6-part story did not feel to me like they had to stretch too-thin content to fill it.

\n\n\n\n

The Space Pirates

\n\n\n\n

With 5 of the 6 episodes missing, I had to get this through telesnap recreations. It is a decent story, but not one of the best by any means. It appears that a group is attacking beacons in space to get the Argonite they are made of, an extremely valuable mineral. The International Space Corps is hunting these pirates down, when an old prospector, sort of a Gabby Hayes character, comes along, and they jump at the idea that he is behind it all. But that is a mistake. Hilarity ensues, and the Doctor sorts it all out in the end. If you are a completist you will of course want to watch this, but if 5 telesnap episodes makes you think you wouldn’t want to watch it, I can assure you it contains nothing essential to the story of Doctor Who

\n\n\n\n

Missing 5 episodes (1,3-6), and at this time they have not been reconstructed in any way.

\n\n\n\n

The War Games

\n\n\n\n

Patrick Troughton had already announced his intention to leave Doctor Who, and Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury decided they would leave as well. Meanwhile, the production team was having script problems, and went to Terrance Dicks and said “We need a 10-parter, and we need it tomorrow. Or at least by next week” Dicks decided to take it on, and enlisted Malcolm Hulke to assist him. The way it worked out they were writing the later episodes whiles the earlier ones were being filmed. That sounds like a recipe for disaster, but in fact this is a really good story. Someone has been taking soldiers from various earth wars, transporting them to a strange place, and having them fight each other for some strange reason. There is a 1917 zone with British, French, and German soldiers from World War 1, an American Civil War zone with Union and Confederate soldiers, a Roman zone with Roman legionaries, and so on. The possibilities this gives you to be in different places with different characters makes it possible to have a 10-parter without it bogging down. But the key thing this story gives us is the Doctor’s people, the Time Lords. We of course knew that there were others of his race from the stories with the Meddling Monk, who was of the same people and had a similar TARDIS, but now we know that they have a name and a planet, though the planet was not named at this time. One little note is that machines used to shuttle people around on this planet are called “SIDRATs”, and of course SIDRAT is just TARDIS spelled backwards,

\n\n\n\n

Doctor Who was facing competition from other shows with larger budgets, like Lost in Space from the U.S. The BBC did not offer those kinds of budgets, so to economize they decided to keep Doctor Who on Earth to save on special effects budgets. This is explained at the end of this story as a sentence by the Time Lords. Arguably that whole sequence of the Doctor facing the Time Lords was simply an elaborate justification for eliminating relatively expensive shots in space and on other planets.

\n \n

\n Links:

\n ","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4826,"date":"2027-02-01","title":"HPR Community News for January 2027","duration":0,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in January 2027","notes":"","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4830,"date":"2027-02-05","title":"Playing Civilization VI Part 6","duration":1215,"summary":"We continue our look at the mechanics of this next version of Civilization.","notes":"

\n Civilization VI Made some changes to the combat system. WE review\n how military units and combat work in this game.

\n

\n

\n

Playing Civilization VI, Part 6

\n

Military and Combat

\n

Building Units

\n

In comparison with some of the other mechanics of this game, the military and combat has not changed as much. Land units can be produced in any city, but if you want veteran units you should build an Encampment district. Naval units can be built in an Coastal city, or in any city with a Harbor. So both land units and naval units can be built in cities without specialty districts, the districts only help make better units. But Air units require you to first build an Aerodrome district before you can build the airplanes. Building units in the appropriate specialty districts gives the more Hit Points (HP), they accumulate Experience Points (XP) more quickly, and they earn more promotions. And in some cases building a unit may require that you have specific resources available. An early example is Iron. You can find this resource fairly early, typically in Hills, and you need it to create Swordsman units, an early powerful Melee unit in the Classical Era. And it takes more Iron, and some Gold, to upgrade them to Men-at-Arms, a powerful Medieval unit. What you will usually experience, as soon as you find Iron, is that all of the other players will hit you with trade requests to get some or all of your Iron. If you are in short supply, refuse those trade requests, but if you have a lot of Iron and the player is not on your border it might pay off if the trade offer is decent. And units can also be purchased with Gold, and if you have the Theocracy government they can be purchased with Faith.

\n

Types of Units

\n

There is a complete list of Units on the Civilization Wiki site. There are a lot of them, with lots of detail about each, so I won’t repeat all of that here. You should consult the list. Land units basically break down into Melee units, Cavalry Units, and Ranged units. Melee units engage in hand-to-hand combat. Examples include Warriors, Spearmen, Swordsmen, and so on. Over time the units available improve, so you can get Pikemen and Men-at-Arms in the mid-game, and Riflemen and Infantry later. Cavalry start out as Horsemen and Heavy Chariots, then Knights in the mid-game, and Tanks and Helicopters later. Range units start out as Slingers and Archers, then Crossbowmen in the mid-game, and Cannons and Machine Guns later. You can upgrade units to a better unit, but only within its category. So if you have a Warrior, you can spend Gold and Iron to upgrade it to a Swordsman. Later you can upgrade it to a Man-at-Arms. But cannot upgrade a Swordsman to a Knight, that is on a different path entirely. And within the Melee units, some are specialized for defense against Cavalry units. These include Spearmen, Pikemen, and Anti-Tank units. As a general rule when you are putting a unit in the City Center as a Garrison unit, you should choose one of these as Cavalry are some of the best offensive units for capturing cities.

\n

Unit Statistics

\n

Each unit is defined by certain statistics. These include Hit Points which determine how much damage they have sustained, Combat Strength which detrmines how much damage they can deal out in combat. and Movement, which determines how fast they can move. Hit Points work the same for all units. Every unit starts out with 100 Hit Points, but lose some amount after a combat. Generally this will only be a partial loss for both combatants. After one player initiates combat on their turn, the other player will have a chance to respond on their turn. They can attack back, or they can attempt to withdraw. You can see a measure of each units remaining hit points by looking an arc on the left of the unit. If the unit has all of their hit points (100) there is nothing to see. If they lose a few, the arc will be green, lose some more and it will be yellow, and if hits red the unit is close to dying. Once the hit points reach 0 the unit is dead.

\n

Combat Strength determines how many hit points each unit loses. There is a random dice roll element to this, but in general a unit with a higher Combat Strength will lose fewer hit points. But because of the random element it will occasionally go the other way. And Movement determines how many tiles a unit can travel through in a turn, allowing for modifiers like Terrain. As an example of these statistics, you start out with a Warrior unit as soon as you begin the game. This unit has a Combat Strength of 20, and a Movement of 2. The Swordsman, the next level Melee unit, also has a movement of 2 (both units move on foot), but a Combat Strength of 35. So in general a Swordsman will defeat a Warrior, but with a lucky roll or two the Warrior could get victory. And if the Warrior is at full Hit Points, and the Swordsman is in the red on Hit Points, the Warrior could win.

\n

Modifiers

\n

There are a number of modifiers that can affect the combat strength of each unit. Modifiers can be either positive or negative. Examples include Terrain, Fortification, Promotions, and Lost Hit Points. Terrain can give you a bonus if you are on Hills, Woods, or Rain Forest. But a penalty applies if you are on Marshes or Floodplains. Fortifying a unit gives you a +3 after one turn has elapsed, or +6 after 2 turns have elapsed. This means that if you Fortify your unit just before it gets attacked, you will get no bonus from it. And if you have a Garrison unit in your Gity Center and have set it to Fortified, you will usually have it sitting there for at least 2 or more turns before anyone tries to attack, so that is good. Promotions are important, and a unit that has accumulated enough XP will be offered the opportunity to take a promotion. Each type of unit has its own Promotion path that makes sense for that type of unit. The first promotion can come fairly easily, but the cost in terms of XP goes up with each promotion the unit gets. And while you can delay actually taking the promotion, you should note that the unit does not gain any additional XP until the promotion is applied. Finally when you lose Hit Points your Combat Strength will go down a little bit.

\n

Pillaging

\n

All military units have the abillity to pillage tiles, which wrecks any improvements on them. This can do significant damage to an opponent you are at war with. And it does not generate any additional grievances beyond the ones you have for being at war in the first place.

\n

Combined Units

\n

As in Civilization V, you can only have one unit per tile in general, so no more Death Stacks. But in Civilization VI they introduced an Escort option. With Settlers, you can have a military unit Escort the Settler unit. That becomes a movement option for the Military unit if it is adjacent to the Settler unit. In the early game particularly you might want to have a Warrior escort your Settler unit so it doesn’t get attacked by those pesky barbarians, or other players for that matter. And Light Cavalry units can achieve the Escort promotion.

\n

But the big new option is that you can form Corps, Armies, Fleets, and Armadas in Civ 6. To do this, you need to research the appropriate Civics. When you have researched Nationalism, you will be able to form Corps and Fleets. These are combinations of 2 units of the same kind, and they get a bonus to their strength. And the resource cost per turn (typically something like Coal of Oil) is just the cost of one unit, so if you are resource constrained that can be handy. The Gold maintenance cost per turn is reduced to 75% of the combined cost of the two units, another nice bonus. When you have done this, your Corps or Fleets are in effect one more powerful unit. If you have gotten to this level, any time you have two of the same unit next to each other you will have an option to combine them.

\n

You can also build them directly if you wish. They will take longer than one unit to build, but the total cost of building a Corps is less than the cost of building the two units. However, if you build the individual units in two different cities you can get your Corps or Fleet more quickly.

\n

One you have researched the Mobilization Civic you can then create Armies and Armadas. These are similar except they consist of three units each instead of two. They get an even larger bonus strength, a larger reduction in Gold maintenance costs , and in terms of per-turn resource costs an Army or Armada only uses as much as one unit in terms of things like Coal and Oil.

\n

Flanking Bonuses & Sieges

\n

Having adjacent units of yours next to the one involved in combat gives you a Flanking or Support bonus. These are pretty similar, except flanking happens on attack and support happens on defense, but each adjacent unit that is also facing the enemy unit adds to your Combat Strength. There is a somewhat similar mechanism for attacking cities. Normally a city under attack will repair 20 points per turn, which can make it harder to capture unless you can amass a lot of firepower. But if you can exert a Zone of control over every surrounding tile to the city, the city will be under siege and cannot repair its hit points. This does not necessarily mean you need 6 surrounding units because some units may exert a Zone of Control over adjacent tiles. The rules are first, that a unit can only exert a zone of control in its domain, i.e. land units can only control land tiles and sea units can only control sea tiles. However, an embarked land unit can control the tile they occupy. Also, no land unit can exert a Zone of Control across a river. So if you are attacking a city that is on the coast and adjacent to a river (a very popular place for a city), you might actually need 6 units to place it under siege. However, if it is a city inland and not on a river, you might get away as few as 3 units.

\n

Great Generals/Great Admirals

\n

Great Generals are earned through the accumulation of Great General points, which can come from Encampments and developed buildings in them, through some Wonders, and the Strategos policy card. A Great General can accompany your military units and provide +5 Combat strength and +1 Movement to units within 2 tiles. They do not engage in combat directly, but make your units more powerful. They are very useful to have along on a siege or a miliatry campaign. Great Admirals are the corresponding Naval great person. They are earned through Great Admiral points, which come from Harbor districts and the improvements thereon, like Lighthouse, Shipyard, and Seaport. And they also provide +5 Combat strength and +1 movement to naval units with 2 tiles.

\n

Both Great Generals and Great Admirals can also be used to get a beneft specific to the General or Admiral. That uses up the unit, however, so you need to consider your options. But it is worth noting that both Great Generals and Great Admirals come from specific Eras when they are earned, and they can only provide the bonuses to Combat Strength and Movement to units that are up to two Eras more advanced. That means there is a point where they should be retired, and you can then take their special benefit if it still useful.

\n \n \n

\n Links:

\n \n \n ","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization VI, Military, Combat","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4840,"date":"2027-02-19","title":"The Third Doctor, Part 1","duration":1050,"summary":"We begin our look at the Third Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee.","notes":"

\n This begins our look at the stories of the Third Doctor, portrayed\n by Jon Pertwee. And this brings us into the 1970s, and into the\n world of color television. And it bringds to an end the era of\n missing episodes. From now on every story is complete and\n available.

\n

\n

\n \n

The Third Doctor, Part 1

\n

Patrick Troughton decided to retire from the role after three seasons so they had to find a new Doctor. Jon Pertwee was an unexpected choice because he was mostly known for playing comedy. But he wanted to stretch out, and approached the Doctor as a James Bond type of hero, which was very much in the zeitgeist of the time.

\n

In order to save money otherwise spent on special effects, the BBC decided to keep Doctor Who on Earth at the beginning of Pertwee’s run. This was of course explained as a sentence by the Time Lords at the end of War Games. The other economy move was to reduce Doctor Who to a half-year instead of a full year. For the balance of the year the BBC slotted in an SF program from America called Star Trek. I guess buying programs is cheaper than making them. As part of this Earth-grounding, the Doctor became the Science Advisor to U.N.I.T. (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), lead by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Watch for other Lethbridge-Stewarts to show up in other stories in the future. Of course, the Brigadier was well known from the Troughton years where he was introduced to the show, so now he has to get used to the idea of regeneration. It takes him some time, but it helps to set up his reaction when the fourth Doctor appears, where he says wearily “Well, here we go again.”

\n

This is when the show switched over from being black-and-white to color.

\n

Spearhead from Space

\n

And we get to meet a new monster, the Autons. They appear a few more times, most notably in the very first story of the new Doctor Who in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston. And we have a new companion as well, Liz Shaw, who is herself a scientist called in by the Brigadier before the Doctor has even made an appearance, because he needed some scientific help with the apparent landing of 60 “meteorites”, which of course were nothing of the sort. The new Doctor and the new age of color get off to a good start in this story that moves right along. The Autons are made of plastic and controlled by the Nestene Consciousness, and they want to take over the Earth of course. Their best trick is to animate shop window mannequins and turn them into killers.

\n

Doctor Who and the Silurians

\n

OK, this is a classic story. The Silurians are a just a bit cheesy, the science does not bear too close inspection, but it hits the ground running with a mystery that unfolds over several episodes. The Silurian period in paleontology/geology runs from 443.8 million years ago to 419.2 million years ago, and while land animals were starting to appear by this time, reptiles and mammals were far in the future. That the Silurians as an advanced race of reptiles with a high degree of scientific achievement makes no sense, and neither does them having a war with the monkeys. So just ignore that, and enjoy another “base under seige” story that skewers race prejudice. Both the Humans and the Silurians have many members who only want to kill the other, and only the Doctor thinks there might be a way to live together.

\n

The Ambassadors of Death

\n

This is a thriller in the James Bond mold. Somehow Britain in the 1980s is sending manned missions to Mars, and latest, Mars Probe 7, has come back to Earth orbit, but the astronauts are not responding. So they send up a recovery capsule with another astronaut, and now he is not responding either. They manage to bring back the capsule, but mysterious bad guys try to steal the capsule, and do succeed in taking whoever was inside. We suspect alien life forms because of the high radiation readings. Humans could not survive such high radiation, but whoever these things are they seem to need the radiation to stay alive. There are lots of action scenes and mysteries about who the baddies are and what they want, partly because they don’t all want the same thing.

\n

A few of the episodes are in black-and-white because the BBC continued its short-sighted policy of scrapping the tapes after the shows were transmitted, but all of the episodes are there.

\n

Inferno

\n

This is a fun little romp that takes the Doctor into a Bizarro-world analog to our Earth, but in a sideways dimension. Britain is no longer a monarchy, but a Fascistic Republic, and the UNIT people are now sort of Nazi SS types. The plot is based on something that really did happen around this time called Project Mohole, which was about drilling into the Mohorovičić discontinuity, which is the boundary between the Earth’s crust and mantle. This was a very real program, but suddenly it stopped, and apparently the reason for stopping it was highly classified, or so the writers claimed. So they made a similar project the focus of this story, and gave a reason for stopping it. The main area where you have to suspend disbelief is that the drilling program was supposedly bringing up some green goo, and if you touched the green goo you gradually turned into a green-skinned, hairy werewolf-like creature called a Primord. The Doctor “explains” this as a retrogression, but then Pertwee’s Doctor was always good for scientific-sounding babble. Still, this is a favorite of the Pertwee era for many Doctor Who fans, and is a fun story that carries you right along.

\n

Terror of the Autons

\n

The Autons are back! And we are introduced to the Master. One of the classic villains of Doctor Who made his appearance here. It all started with a conversation between Producer Barry Letts and Script Editor Terrance Dicks, noting that the relationship between the Doctor and the Brigadier resembled that between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. But then, what about Moriarty? The Doctor needed a Moriarty, and thus the Master is born. Played by Roger Delgado, he oozes evil and is for my money still the best Master to ever play the part. Sadly, he died in a car crash in 1973, cutting short his run, but they used him a lot while they had him, possibly too much.

\n

As for the Autons, somehow they had hooked up with the Master, and he was helping them to take over the Earth. The thing about the Autons is that they can turn anything made of plastic into a tool or weapon, and gosh there are a lot plastic things around. Plastic chairs can kill you, plastic dolls can kill you, even plastic daffodils can kill you. And then there is the telephone cord. By the end of the story, the Doctor has managed to steal a key component from the Master’s TARDIS, thus stranding him on Earth as well, good for a few more stories.

\n

Jo Grant (Katy Manning) is the new companion, and is not a scientist like Lis Shaw was, and this was a deliberate choice by the producer, Barry Letts. He felt that Liz was taking some of the attention away from the Doctor. She is fine in this episode, and does more than just ask questions and scream on cue.

\n

The Mind of Evil

\n

A nice little six-parter here. A Dr. Keller has created a machine that can extract the evil thoughts from people’s brains and make them harmless. So the government decides that this is better than executing criminals, just remove the bad stuff and leave them alone. The Doctor attends a demonstration at Stangmoor Prison, and he thinks something is wrong. They bring in a violent offender, strap him into the machine, and he screams in agony as the machine is used, which appears to be an unusual reaction. Meanwhile, the First World Peace Conference is happening in London, and something is going wrong in the Chinese delegation. Some documents are reported missing, then the Captain who reported them missing is seen burning some documents. Then the chief delegate from China is found dead. It turns out all of this is related, and the Master is behind it. In the end he is defeated, but he does get his Dematerialization Circuit back and can again travel through Space and Time. But don’t worry, we haven’t seen the last of him.

\n

The Claws of Axos

\n

A UFO lands on earth, and golden aliens are offering a mineral of untold riches. What could possibly go wrong with that? When you learn that the Master is involved, well, quite a lot. An American agent is involved who is trying to end the threat of the Master, but of course he does not succeed of there would be no more stories and we know that there will be more stories with the Master. Roger Delgado continues to shine in the role he invented and still does better than anyone else. And is the Doctor really betraying everyone on Earth? A good 4-part story with satisfying action, and a suitably venal British government official for the Doctor to despise and to clash with the Brigadier.

\n \n

\n Links:

\n
    \n
  • \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearhead_from_Space
    • \n
  • \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Silurians
    • \n
  • \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_of_Death
    • \n
  • \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Doctor_Who)
    • \n
  • \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_of_the_Autons
    • \n
  • \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_of_Evil
    • \n
  • \n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Claws_of_Axos
    • \n
  • https://www.palain.com/science-fiction/intro-to-doctor-who/the-third-doctor-part-1/
    • ","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4846,"date":"2027-03-01","title":"HPR Community News for February 2027","duration":0,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in February 2027","notes":"","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4850,"date":"2027-03-05","title":"Playing Civilization VI Part 7","duration":830,"summary":" We continue our look at the mechanics of this next version of Civilization.","notes":"

    \n City-States were intrduced in Civilization V, but Civilization VI\n made some changes to how they work and how you can influence them.

    \n

    \n

    \n

    Playing Civilization VI, Part 7

    \n

    City-States

    \n

    This is another place where changes have been made since Civilization V. City-States made their first appearance in Civilization V, and played an important part there, including as a key to winning a Diplomatic Victory, which we demonstrated in a sample game. As before, City-States occupy a single city, but they have surrounding territory and can improve their tiles to gain additional resources. They can research Technologies, and build Units. But they can never build Settlers and can never add any additional city to their territory. You can trade with them, and City-States can be conquered by the other players.

    \n

    Your relations with City-States are different from what they were in Civ V. Instead of an Influence meter where your influence declines each turn, you gain influence by sending Envoys to the City-States. You earn Envoys on an Empire-wide basis; you can decide which City-State to send them to, but only among the ones you have actually met in the game. As in all Civ games, exploration is a key imperative for a variety of reasons, but certainly among them is that you want to meet all of the City-States. You earn Envoys throughout the game from a variety of souces. First is your Government type. When you start at Chiefdom, you earn one Influence point per turn, but move up to a Level 1 Government like Oligarchy or Autocracy it jumps to 3 points per turn. At Level 2 such as Monarchy or Merchant Republic it jumps again to 5. Certain policy cards can give you additional points per turn, and the Diplomatic Quarter district has some buildings that give more. Fulfilling a quest from a City-State is good for another Envoy, and the Governor Amani can increase your envoys.

    \n

    The point of this is to gain benefits from your relationship with the City-State, and the more Envoys you have, the better the benefits. The general pattern is that 1 Envoy will confer a +2 bonus in the Capital, and the nature of the bonus depends in the City-State. For example, a Cultural City-State will give a bonus of +2 Culture in the Capital, and a Religious City-State will grant a bonus of +2 Faith in the Capital. The next level comes when you have 3 Envoys in the City-State. In general, this gives additional bonuses based on specific Districts. For the Cultural City-State, this will be +2 Culture in each Theater District, and for the Religious City-State (to stay with our examples) it would be plus 2 Faith in every Holy Site District. And if you have multiple districts of the right kind, they all get the bonus, so you can see how this can mount up. And when you get to 6 Envoys, you get an additional bonus of +2 per district on top what you got previously. The one exception to the +2 bonus rule is Trade City-States, which give a bonus of +4 Gold.

    \n

    Adding additional envoys beyond 6 does not add any more bonuses, so it might make sense to spread your Envoys around to different City-States if you start getting a lot of them. But there is one added level of relationship you can achive, which is to be the Suzerain of the City-State. To be the Suzerain you have to have at least 3 Envoys, and more than any other player. This means that the Suzerain status can change hands multiple times per game, so you might get a message that you are no longer the Suzerain of a particular City-State. This happens when another player has just sent in some Envoys and now has more than you. You can of course fight back by putting in more Envoys of your own, or by using the Governor Amani. There are reasons why being a Suzerain is worth fighting for:

    \n
      \n
    • Unique Bonus – For example, Geneva provides a Suzerain bonus of +15% Science to each of your cities as long as you are not at war with any other player.
      • \n
    • Visibility – You have a full view of the City-State and up to three hexes outside its borders.
      • \n
    • Friendly Territory – Your units can enter the City-State territory, and will heal as if they were on your own territory.
      • \n
    • Diplomatic Allegiance – If you go to war with another player, the City-State will join in the war. But note that if anyone else, including the player you are at war with manages to get some Envoys in there and take away your Suzerain status, the City-State will immediately make peace. There is some clever strategy available here.
      • \n
    • Diplomatic Repercussions -If anyone attacks the City-State, you immediately gain a Casus Belli called Protectorate War that lets you declare war with fewer Diplomatic Repercussions from other players.
      • \n
    • Resource Sharing – All of the City-State’s resourcers are automatically exported to the Suzerain, and the Suzerain can increase these resources by building Tile Improvements using Builder units.
      • \n
    • Levying Units – The Suzerain can pay an amount of gold to levy military units from the City-State for 30 turns. This can make the difference for a short war. Matthias Corvinus is a leader that can particularly benefit from Levying.
      • \n
    • Other Benefits – Pericles gains a 5% Culture bonus for each City-State he is Suzerain of.
      • \n
    \n

    So as you can see there are a lot of benefits to be gained from your relationships with the various City-States in the game. Generally your Envoys are permanent, but you can lose them in two ways. First, if you declare war on the City-State you will lose all of your Envoys. But note that this does not happen if you go to war with the Suzerain of the City-State and you are therefor drawn into war with the City-State. And if the City-State is conquered by another player, your Envoys all disappear.

    \n

    Types of City-States

    \n

    The game has 48 City-States it can choose from, but you won’t see all of them in games. And different expansions of the game have added and removed certain City-States. The number of City-States is based on Map size as follows:

    \n
      \n
    • Tiny – 6-10
      • \n
    • Small – 9-14
      • \n
    • Standard – 12-18
      • \n
    • Large – 15-22
      • \n
    • Huge – 18-24
      • \n
    \n

    So as you can see the maximum number you will see is 24 if you are playing on a Huge map, but even on a Huge map you will often have fewer. These City-States come in 6 types, and each type has 8 possible choices. The types are color-coded in the game.

    \n
      \n
    • Cultural (Purple) – Antananarivo, Ayunthaya, Caguana, Kumasi, Mohenjo-Daro, Nan Madol, Rapa Nui, Vilnius
      • \n
    • Industrial (Orange) – Aukland, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Cardiff, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Singapore, Toronto
      • \n
    • Militaristic (Red) – Akkad, Carthage, Granada, Kabul, Lahore, Ngazargamu, Preslav, Valleta, Wolin
      • \n
    • Religious (White) – Armagh, Chinguetti, Jerusalem, Kandy, La Venta, Nazca, Vatican City, Yerevan
      • \n
    • Scientific (Blue) – Anshan, Babylon, Bologna, Fez, Geneva, Hattusa, Mitla, Nalanda, Palenque, Seoul, Stockholm, Taruga
      • \n
    • Trade (Yellow) – Amsterdam, Antioch, Bandar Brunei, Cahokia, Hunza, Jakarta, Lisbon, Mogadishu, Muscat, Samarkand, Venice, Zanzibar
      • \n
    \n

    Keeping Track

    \n

    There are two places on the screen where you can keep track of where you are with the City-States and Envoys. On the Upper Right of the screen there is a button that looks like a dome on a building, and if you mouse-over it it will say “City-States”. You can click on it and see the status of every state you have met. I have a saved game right now where I am at turn 340, in 110 BC. I can see that I have met 5 City-States, I am the Suzerain of 3 of them, another player is the suzerain of 1, and another City-State has no Suzerain yet. There are players I have not yet met, and City-States I have not yet met, and no doubt when I do meet them they will have a Suzerain, perhaps one of the players I have not yet met. One City-State I am suzerain of is Bandar Brunei, a Trade City-State where I have 4 Envoys. I can see that I am getting my bonuses from my first Envoy, and from having at least 3 Envoys. And I can see what I would get if I make it to 6 Envoys, and what I get as a Suzerain bonus. So you don’t need to memorize all of the benefits, it is presented for you right on screen.

    \n

    Then in the Upper Left there is a small icon that looks like the Dome icon only smaller, and it tells me how I am doing at getting Envoys. When I mouse-over it, I see that I will get1 Envoy when I accumulate 300 Influence points, that I currently have 11 points, and I am earning them at 3 per turn. It also says that the main sources of Influence Points are Governments and Policies. My government right now is Classical Republic, and as a Level 1 government it is supposed to give me 3 per turn, so that accounts for it. As for Policies, I have taken the Diplomatic League policy card, which says that the first Envoy you send to a City-State counts as 2.

    \n

    Strategic Considerations

    \n

    You should be selective about where you place your Envoys to get the best result. Note that the Types of City-States match up with types of Victories you can pursue. So if you are aiming for a Culture Victory your first choice should be Culture City-States that can aid your victory. Of course not all City-States match up this way. Trade and Industrial City-States can help with any kind of victory since Gold and Production are always useful. And if you haven’t met any of the type of City-State you want to make friends with, you can always close the screen without assigning any Envoys. And note that you can be in competition with other players to become Suzerain, and your efforts here may have repercussions regarding your relations with the other players. Which may mean you need to keep up your military. Actually, you always need to keep up your military in this game.

    \n \n

    \n Links:

    \n \n \n ","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization VI, City-States","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4860,"date":"2027-03-19","title":"E.E. \"Doc\" Smith and the Birth of Space Opera","duration":719,"summary":"We begin our look at the father of Space Opera, E.E. \"Doc\" Smith.","notes":"\n

    \nAlthough there can be disagreement among fans, the consensus\nchoice for the father of Space Opera is E.E. \"Doc\" Smith. With his\nfirst story, The Skylark of Space, he started something that led\nto modern favorites like Star Wars and Star Trek. He is one of my\nfavorite authors, and I grew up on these stories and they have\nstayed with me to this day. Periodically I have to revisit them\nlike old friends.

    \n

    \n

    \n\n

    E.E. “Doc” Smith and the Birth of Space Opera

    \n

    If you have ever enjoyed Star Wars or Star Trek, you have enjoyed Space Opera, whether you knew it or not. But is all Science Fiction the same as Space Opera? No, there are dividing lines, though authors sometimes like to blur those lines when they can. But there are a few defining characteristics that will help identify a work as Space Opera. First, the setting is primarily in space. You may land on planets, but the action doesn’t tend to stay on any one planet. Second, the setting is big. An astronaut going into orbit around the Earth might be science fiction, but it wouldn’t be Space Opera. For this we are talking about multiple star systems, if not galaxies. In the early days, it meant purple prose, and female characters, if any, were closer to cardboard. But like all literary genres, it has evolved over time. The Culture novels of Iain Banks and the Revelation Space stories of Alastair Reynolds are excellent current examples of Space Opera. And Alastair Reynolds’ work also tend to be hard science fiction, showing how categories can overlap. But the generally recognized father of Space Opera is Edward Elmer Smith, Ph. D.

    \n

    That is not to say no one did before he did, but that he created a body of work whose roots lie in the pulps, and which set the expectations that subsequent authors had to meet to write good Space Opera. And Smith started early, preceding the Big Three of the Golden Age by several decades. And where he went, others followed. John W. Campbell wrote his Arcot, Morey and Wade series in a way similar to Smith, but not as well written, in my view. for example, Sirius is often called The Dog Star because it is the brightest start in the constellation Canis Major (Greater Dog). And Campbell has aliens from Sirius and makes them canine in appearance. Smith never does anything like that. And in fact his aliens are some of his best creations, imaginative and plausible. Most of them do not in any way resemble any creatures we know, and are truly alien, particularly in the Lensman series.

    \n

    While Smith was legitimately a Ph.D., with a Doctorate in Chemical Enigineering, his career was in food chemistry, particularly the manufacture of donuts and pastries. But his early career gave him material to use in his writing. After college, he moved to Washington, D.C. to be a Junior Chemist at the National Bureau of Standards (while getting his Masters in Food Chemistry at George Washington University). This particular episode becomes part of the background for Richard Seaton, the hero of Skylark. Then, for his Ph.D. at George Washington University he studied under Doctor Charles E. Munroe, who he described as “probably the greatest high-explosives man yet to live”. This forms the background for one the stories in Triplanetary.

    \n

    Skylark

    \n

    Smith’s first work was the novel Skylark. He began working on it in 1915 while in Washington. It started with a discussion with some friends when he was expounding on his ideas of how the future in space might play out. His friends were Dr. Carl Garby, a former classmate, and his wife Lee, and when they suggested he should write a novel with his ideas, Smith hesitated because he felt a novel would have to have some romance in it, he did not feel comfortable doing it. So Lee Garby offered to help write that part. By the end of 1916 they were about one-third of the way done when they ran out of steam. Then in 1919, Smith, who had moved to Michigan, resumed work on it, and finished it in the spring of 1920. He started submitting the work to various publishers, without success, until in 1927 he submitted it to Amazing Stories (launched by Hugo Gernsback the previous year), where it ran as a three-part serial. It was so successful that they asked for a sequel before the second installment had run.

    \n

    The novel starts with the protagonist, Richard Seaton, working as a chemist in the Rare Metals Lab in Washington D.C. In this Smith was clearly using his own life as a basis. But for Seaton, something very strange happened, He was plating some copper with an unknown metal when his apparatus suddenly takes off, leaving a wreckage of broken glass behind. The metal is simply called X because no one knows what it is. He has a colleague in the Rare Metals Lab named Marc “Blackie” Duquesne who was working on some apparatus of his own in a nearby lab, and that apparatus turns out to be a key part in this event. Seaton is also engaged to a Washington socialite named Dorothy Vaneman, and has a best friend Martin Crane who happens to be a millionaire, which is handy because money will be needed. Seaton and Crane decide to build a spaceship that uses Se4aton’s discovery as a method of propulsion, but DuQuesne gets wind of it and kidnaps Dorothy Vaneman to get it for himself. And he has another kidnapped hostage, Peg Spencer, and that completes the main characters for the series.

    \n

    Duquesne’s space ship runs out of fuel and is captured by that is called a “cold dead star”, but Seaton catches up and rescues everyone. Seaton is low on fuel, though, so they go looking for more of X, and then for more copper, which brings them to a green system, where Seaton resolves some conflicts and is recognized as the Overlord of the system. While they are there, Dick Seaton and Dorothy Vaneman are married, as are Martin Crane and Peg Spencer. The people of this system have scientific discoveries not known on Earth, and rebuild the Skylark to make it better. Finally they return to Earth, but as they are landing DuQuesne sneaks out with a parachute, but don’t worry, he will be back.

    \n

    This novel had a major impact on the developing field of Science Fiction. It was not the first story to be written in this genre, in fact we can find examples as far back as 2,000 years ago, such as Lucian of Samasota, who had a story involving space travel in the 2nd century. But most stories before Smith were flat-out fantasies, while Smith brought in at least a veneer of science to his story, making his hero a chemist, and starting with something that was at least plausible as the key invention. As the story goes on subsequent developments themselves become more fantastical, which is typical of early Space Opera. But Smith can be fairly credited with inventing what we know as Space Opera. And he had a great influence on other writers. For instance, I know of a picture of Robert A Heinlein’s bookshelf containing a copy of The Skylark of Space, and it is clear that John W. Campbell’s own books resemble Smith’s in many respects. Arthur C. Clarke, in his novel Islands in the Sky, has a spaceship named Skylark of Space in obvious homage.

    \n

    But while it was influential, it has obvious flaws. The characters are not well developed, in fact calling them cardboard would not be out-of-place. Smith himself felt he could not do convincing “romance”, and this novel seems to prove that he was correct in this judgement. As R.D. Mullen wrote in the November 1975 issue of Science Fiction Studies

    \n

    The great success of the stories was surely due first of all to the skill with which Smith mixed elements of the spy thriller and the western story (our hero is the fastest gun in space, our villain the second fastest) with those of the traditional cosmic voyage. It is not only that Dick Seaton discovers anti-gravity, builds the Skylark, flies it through various dangers, and explores strange worlds (the principal one being very much like the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs); it is also that he is relentlessly pursued by Blackie DuQuesne, a scientist backed by all the resources of World Steel, determined to take over Seaton’s inventions so that with them he may rule the world, and casually killing everyone who gets in his way.

    \n

    And he gives us a clue here with the reference to Westerns. Western stories were very popular in the United States for a long time, and were known as “Horse Operas”. And that is the background to what was intended to be a pejorative description of the new type of space story, the Space Opera. These early stories are important to the history of Science Fiction and are worth reading for that reason, but as literature they fall flat. But to an eleven-year-old boy who was in love with the idea of space travel, it was fantastic. Space Opera would get better, and indeed Smith would get better. But this set the template for those who came later.

    \n\n

    \nLinks:

    \n
      \n
    • \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera
      • \n
    • \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks
      • \n
    • \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds
      • \n
    • \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Stories
      • \n
    • \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian
      • \n
    • \nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islands_in_the_Sky
      • \n
    • \nhttp://www.depauw.edu/sfs/birs/bir7.htm#Smith2
      • \n
    • https://www.palain.com/science-fiction/e-e-doc-smith-and-the-birth-of-space-opera/
      • \n","hostid":198,"series":124,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Science fiction, Doc Smith, Space Opera","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4870,"date":"2027-04-02","title":"Playing Civilization VI Part 8","duration":1180,"summary":"We continue our look at the mechanics of this next version of Civilization.","notes":"

      \nIn a game of Civilization VI you play as a particular leader of a particular Empire, and each empire and each Leader are different and have their strengths and weaknesses. In this episode we discuss your options and see which choices are well-suited to which victory types.

      \n

      \n

      \n

      Playing Civilization VI, Part 8

      \n

      The Players

      \n

      In Civilization VI, you have multiple Empires you can play as, which is the same as all prevous versions of Civ. But now you can have different Leaders with some Empires, and even some Leaders that can lead different Empires. So the selection of who you will play as just got more complicated. And to add to the complications, Civilization VI had several expansions and DLC that kept changing what was available. To the best of my knowledge I have all of the Expansions and DLC, so if you have just the original vanilla version you might be missing some of what I describe here. The fact is that as they provided added DLC, expansions, and updates, a lot of it was about adding Empires and Leaders, and modifying what went before. As an example of what I mean, the American Empire initially was led by Teddy Roosevelt. Then in 2020 they added the Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack, which now gave you two versions of Teddy Roosevelt, one called Rough Rider Teddy, and the other Bull Moose Teddy. Rough Rider Teddy had Military bonuses, while Bull Moose Teddy had Scientific and Cultural bonuses. Then in 2022 they added the Great Negotiators Pack which brought in Abraham Lincoln as a possible leader of the Americans. What we were seeing here, I submit, is a change in their marketing model. In previous versions of Civ they would typically do a vanilla version, then do 2 expansions, roughly at 2 year intervals, until it was time for a new Civ game. Now it started moving to something a lot more like a subscription model. You need to shop carefully therefor if you are looking to pick up this game now. Look for the Civilization VI Anthology to pick up most of the DLC as a bundle for a decent price.

      \n

      The Empires available include:

      \n
        \n
      • American
        • \n
      • Arabian
        • \n
      • Australian
        • \n
      • Aztec
        • \n
      • Babylonian
        • \n
      • Brazilian
        • \n
      • Byzantine
        • \n
      • Canadian
        • \n
      • Chinese
        • \n
      • Cree
        • \n
      • Dutch
        • \n
      • Egyptian
        • \n
      • English
        • \n
      • Ethiopian
        • \n
      • French
        • \n
      • Gallic
        • \n
      • Georgian
        • \n
      • German
        • \n
      • Gran Columbian
        • \n
      • Greek
        • \n
      • Hunagarian
        • \n
      • Incan
        • \n
      • Indian
        • \n
      • Indonesian
        • \n
      • Japanese
        • \n
      • Khmer
        • \n
      • Kongolese
        • \n
      • Korean
        • \n
      • Macedonian
        • \n
      • Malian
        • \n
      • Maori
        • \n
      • Mapuche
        • \n
      • Mongolian
        • \n
      • Norwegian
        • \n
      • Nubian
        • \n
      • Ottoman
        • \n
      • Persian
        • \n
      • Phoenician
        • \n
      • Polish
        • \n
      • Portuguese
        • \n
      • Roman
        • \n
      • Russian
        • \n
      • Scottish
        • \n
      • Scythian
        • \n
      • Spanish
        • \n
      • Sumerian
        • \n
      • Swedish
        • \n
      • Vietnamese
        • \n
      • Zulu
        • \n
      \n

      That is quite a lot. 50 possible Empires. If you played each one for just one time it would probably take you over year just to run through the list. And a number of them have more than one possible leader. We mentioned two versions of Teddy Roosevelt. There are also two versions of Eleanor of Aquitaine, one as Queen of France, the other as Queen of England. (And yes, she actually was both of those things.) And for Greece you can have either Pericles of Athens or Gorgo of Sparta. And this is just a few of the options you get.

      \n

      For the Empires you get a Civilization Abililty, a Unique Unit, and a Unique Infrastructure improvement. For example, take Egypt. Their Civilization Ability is called Iteru, and it gives them +15% Production towards Districts and Wonders built next to a river. And Districts, improvements and units are immune to damage from floods. Their unique unit is the Maryannu Chariot Archer, which replaces the Heavy Chariot. It has a slightly lower Melee strength (25 instead of 28), but adds a Ranged option with a Range of 2 and Ranged Strength of 35. That makes it a very powerful military unit early in the game. and the unique infrastructure improvement is the Sphinx, which can be built on a tile by one of your Builder units and will provide additional Culture and Faith, depending on what it is adjacent to. So when you are looking at these different Empires you can play as, consider their strengths and weaknesses and formulate a strategy that fits. Or you can decide on a strategy and then pick an Empire to fit it.

      \n

      Leaders

      \n

      There are 67 possible Leaders, so obviously many Empires have multiple options. And each leader has a Leader Ability and a Leader Agenda. For example, the Ottoman leader Suleiman has the Leader Ability of Grand Vizier, which grants him access to a unique Governor (Ibrahim, the Grand Vizier). He also has a unique unit, the Janissary, and gains an additional Governor title when he researches Gunpowder. The Janissary replaces the Musketman, and is stronger. His Leader Agenda is Lawgiver, which means he tries to keep his cities loyal and happy, and he likes other players who do the same, particularly if they have conquered cities in their Empire. But he dislikes players who strugle with happiness and loyalty, or who have few conquered cities.

      \n

      In addition you have to look to the Alternate Personas that some leaders have. We have already mentioned Teddy Roosevelt and Eleanor of Aquitaine, but Suleiman (discussed above) also has two personas. In addition, Catherine de Medici, Cleopatra, Harald Hardrada, Qin Shi Huang, Saladin, and Victoria all have two personas you choose from. And between Eleanor of Aquitaine and Victoria, you have three possible leaders for England. So there are tons of choices here.

      \n

      But what do you do with all these choices? Your strategy is to match the Empire and the Leader. with the Victory type you will pursue. For some examples:

      \n
        \n
      • Science – Korea has a unique District, the Seowon which replaces the Campus but is cheaper to build and has good bonuses. And it gives you Science as a bonus from every Mine you build. Seondeok as a leader gives you +3 Science for every promotion a Governor has in a city with a Governor which can mount up nicely. Babylon, although it takes a penalty to its Science generation, can instantly discover any technology as soon as it gets a Eureka, so you can race through the Science tree pretty quickly. Sumeria can build a unique Infrastructure Improvement called the Ziggurat that gives +2 Science per turn.
        • \n
      • Domination – For a fast start, Macedon is good. Their unique unit the Hypaspist replaces the Swordsman, so it is available early, and their unique building the Basilikoi Paides replaces the Barracks and is also available early. The Leader, Alexander, has a unique unit called the Hetairoi which replaces the Horseman. All of this says go to war early. And you can keep going to war because none of Alexander’s cities experience war weariness. Mongolia gives its units added combat strength, and their unique unit the Keshig is a ranged cavalry unit of the Medieval era. Their unique building the Ordu replaces the Stable. The leader Genghis Khan gives +3 Combat Strength to all Cavalry units plus a chance to capture enemy Cavalry units which then get added to his army. Kublai Khan, your other choice, is great for building a large treasury which in itself is always helpful.
        • \n
      • Culture – Greece has a unique District the Acropolis which replaces the Theater Square. And they get an additional Wildcard Policy slot in all governments. That slot can be used to get added Culture. The leader Pericles gets +5% Culture for every City-State thay are Suzerain over. Or you can go with the Spartan leader Gorgo and get Culture for each enemy unit you kill. Kongo is also good because they get 4 extra slots for Great Works in the Palace, so they are available from the beginning (and early slots are really great because you haven’t had to build the buildings). They also get +50% Great Artist and Great Musician points, and in turn all Relics, Artifacts, and Sculptures provided bonuses of Food, Production, Faith, and Gold.
        • \n
      • Religion – Arabia is always guaranteed to get a Great Prophet, and with Saladin the Vizier as leader, the Worship building is 90% cheaper to purchase with Faith. Russia gets +1 Faith from all Tundra tiles, and their unique District the Lavra replaces the Holy Site.
        • \n
      • Diplomatic – Sweden gets +50 Diplomatic Favor from every Great Person recruited. They also bring three Nobel Prize competitions into the game. They are great for a combined Diplomatic/Science game which lets you choose at the end which one to choose for the final push. Canada is also good because they gain Diplomatic Favor from Tourism, and bonus Diplomatic Favor from completing Emergencies and Competitions.
        • \n
      \n

      Nows these are just a few suggestions of good candidates for each Victory type. You can get addditional suggestions at the Civilization Wiki. But you can win any type of victory with any civilization as long as you understand how to use their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. For example you can play as Mali with the leader Mansa Musa and be rolling in Gold almost from the start. And with a lot of Gold you can buy what you need for many kinds of Victories.

      \n

      Evaluate Your Opponents

      \n

      A useful skill is to evaluate your opponents in a game. If you are playing Single Player against the AI, it will play its players according to their strengths. For instance, I never yet played a game against Russia where they weren’t sending wave after wave of Religious units into my territory and everyone else’s to get conversions. And Mongols in the game guarantee there will be fighting. To illustrate how I might approach this, I will take a Saved Game that is still pretty early so I haven’t yet met everyone in the game. But I want to gather what information I can at this point to plot my best strategy. I am playing as Ludwig, the leader of Germany. Germany is strong in Production, with a unique District the Hansa which replaces the Industrial Zone. It also can construct one District more than would usually be allowed for a given level of Population, so for example a city of size 4 which normally could build 2 Districts can build 3 Districts. Now Production is not a Victory type, but it can support many other types. Ludwig as a Leader can get a lot of Culture bonuses, so it makes sense to use the German production to support Culture and go for a Culture victory. But the Production makes it even better to go for a Science Victory.

      \n

      My opponents are only partially known at 110 BC. But so far I have:

      \n
        \n
      • Trajan – Leader of Rome. Their Civilization Ability is called All Roads Lead to Rome and it gives Trade bonuses. Their Unique Unit is the Legion which replaces the Swordsman, making a good early game unit. Trajan’s Leader Bonus is that his cities each get a free building in the City Center. His Agenda is to expand as far as possible, which can make him a threat.
        • \n
      • Amanitore – Leader of Nubia. Their Civilization Ability is +30% Production for Ranged Units. Their Unique Unit is tha Pitati Archer which replaces the Archer. Their Unique Infrastructure is the Nubian Pyramid, a tile improvement which gives bonus Faith and Food, and other bonuses that depend on adjacencies. Amanitore’s Leader Bonus is +20% for producing Districts, and her Agenda is for maximizing the number of Districts in each city.
        • \n
      • Lady Six Sky – Leader of Maya. Their Civilization Ability gives Farms added Production and Housing. Their Unique Unit is the Hul’che, which replaces the Archer, and their Unique District is the Observatory which replaces the Campus. Lady Six Sky’s Leader Bonus gives increased yields to any of her cities within 6 tiles of her Capital, and her agenda is to be left alone in her little Empire.
        • \n
      \n

      All three of these opponents get their Unique Unit early in the game, so their biggest military threat is in the early game. And by definition they are my closest competitors. So I will want to keep up a good military. The Maya will probably go for a Science victory, but the others are not clear. So far I am not seeing anything like a Religion Civ in this game, but there are 4 Civs I have not yet met. Meanwhile, I can monitor where we all are using the World Rankings screen, accessed from a button on the upper left. You should get in the habit of checking this screen regularly through the game.

      \n

      \nLinks:

      \n\n

      \n

      \r","hostid":198,"series":122,"explicit":0,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Computer games, strategy games, Civilization VI, Empires, Leaders","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4871,"date":"2027-04-05","title":"HPR Community News for March 2027","duration":0,"summary":"HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in March 2027","notes":"","hostid":159,"series":47,"explicit":1,"license":"CC-BY-SA","tags":"Community News","version":0,"downloads":0,"valid":1}, +{"id":4880,"date":"2027-04-16","title":"E.E. \"Doc\" Smith and the Rest of Skylark","duration":834,"summary":"We continue our look at the father of Space Opera, E.E. \"Doc\" Smith and Skylark.","notes":"

      \nDoc Smith continued the Skylark series with three additional novels that explored the adventures of Seaton and Crane. One of the characteristics of these novels is that events which should take centuries, millenia, or even longer, happen to one person in just a few years. This is not just something Smith did, other early Space Opera did very similar things. You don't come to these books for deep philosophy, you come to them for adventure.

      \n\n

      E.E. “Doc” Smith and the Rest of Skylark

      \n

      Skylark Three

      \n

      The Skylark of Space was a hit, and a sequel was asked for before it finished running in serialized form in Amazing Stories. So he began work on a follow-up novel, Skylark Three. And why Skylark Three? Well in The Skylark of Space the original ship was built on earth by Seaton and Crane. Then in the that novel, the ship was rebuilt with better technology by the Osnomians of the Green System, and that became Skylark Two. In this novel, we find that “Blackie” DuQuesne had arrived back on Earth, where he took a parachute and escaped during the landing. And he also brought back rare gems from the Green System, and with that wealth bought a controlling interest in the World Steel Corporation, a ruthless corporation that he can bend to his nefarious needs. He finds a henchman and takes off to search for races with advanced technology he can acquire to try and keep up with Seaton.

      \n

      Seaton, who was proclaimed the Overlord of the Green System in the previous novel, gets a message that they need help. A neighboring planet called Urvan is invading them. And so Seaton, Crane, their wives, and a Japanese valet Shiro take off in the Skylark Two headed for the Green System. Along the way Seaton is experimenting with a new idea, a Zone of Force, which seems like the prefect defense because nothing can get through it. But a big drawback is that they cannot see out of it either, so if they want to do a bit of reconnaissance they have to drop the Zone of Force, and that leaves them vulnerable. As they approach the Green system, they are attacked by a ship of the Fenachrone, a race that is embarking on conquest, first of the Galaxy, and then of the whole universe. And they have better weapons than anything Seaton has. So he retreats behind the Zone of Force, where he has to consider when it might be safe to to turn off the Zone. He works out a strategy and uses the zone by turning it on and off to chop up the Fenachrone ship, then interrogates one of them that survived.

      \n

      Then it is off to the Green System, where he enforces peace. But the Fenachrone menace is still out there, so Seaton starts looking for other races who may be more advanced and eventually finds the Norlaminians who seem to have mastered control of both matter and energy. With their help a more advanced Skylark Three is built, and with this ship Seaton now feels ready to tackle the Fenachrone. He goes to their planet and gives them a warning, which they ignore. so he destroys their planet, then destroys a fleeing colony ship of theirs. It looks like 100% successful genocide, but they will reappear.

      \n

      Skylark of Valeron

      \n

      At the end of Skylark Three, Seaton and Co. were at the edge of the galaxy, and there was another one up ahead that looked interesting. So they set out to take a look since they had built up great speed on their way to Fenachrone. Seaton had deduced previously that thought was a “sixth order” vibration, and had built a Thought Projector on that basis, and was experimenting with it. But attracted the attention of a group of disembodied intellectuals, and these intellectuals want Seaton to join them, but he refuses. So they attack the Skylark. The resources of the Skylark are finite, which is a problem. They are now using uranium instead of copper, but the Intellectuals can make use of the cosmic energy all around them. When Skylark’s uranium runs out, they will all be killed by the intellectuals. So in this desperate time, they try something desperate: they all get in the Skylark Two, which was kept inside of Skylark Three to act as a tender boat, and rotate it into the Fourth Dimension. This is a fascinating part of the book, since Smith imagines how a three-dimensional person would perceive and interact with a four-dimensional world. Of course, there are inimical forces here that need to be resisted, but that is par for the course in Space Opera. Eventually they survive this and re-enter the three dimensional universe, but now they are nowhere near where they were when they fist encountered the intellectuals and rotated out.

      \n

      They find a planet called Valeron with human-like beings who are locked in a struggle with Chlorans, amoeba-like inhabitants of planets with chlorine atmospheres. In the Universe Smith has created, there are two kinds of planets and two types of races. Human-type people live on Earth-like planets, and chlorine-breathing Chlorans live on planets with chlorine atmospheres. And this will hold true on planets in all different galaxies. This is obviously not how we see exoplanets now in the 21st century, but it was an acceptable speculation for the time when it was written. With older science fiction stories you have to give them that. In any case, the Skylark helps the Valeronians to defeat the Chlorans, and in return for the help Valeron builds a new and even bigger Skylark, now up to 1000km in diameter. At its heart is a mechanical brain, or super-computer, running on all bands of the sixth order, and incorporating the Thought Projector. With that they are able to map the visible universe and locate where they are in a relation to the Milky Way galaxy and get back home. There, Duquesne has used Seaton’s absence to take over the Earth, but Seaton enlists the Norlaminians to capture the disembodied intellectuals and adds DuQuesne to their number as well. So finally all is well.

      \n

      Skylark DuQuesne

      \n

      This is an interesting bookend to Smith’s career. The Skylark of Space had been his very first novel which he finished in 1921. Skylark DuQuesne was his very last novel, published in 1965 shortly before his death, which was also in 1965. As a later and more mature work, it is better written, but we are still talking about early space opera here. The opening scene is Seaton trying to run an entire Galaxy on his own, which is of course impossible. Then the Norlaminians break in to tell him that the disembodied intellectuals, plus DuQuesne, who had been imprisoned at the end of Skylark of Valeron and whom they thought would be imprisoned for a very long time, would in fact be released very soon, if not already. This is an interesting scene because it reads like Kimball Kinnison and Mentor from the Lensman series, which had been written in the intervening years, and which we will discuss next. This is not that surprising, since many authors tend to write the same characters even in unrelated works, so I merely note that in passing. In any case, they need to get moving. The Norlaminians explain that the disembodied intellectuals are actually no threat since they were merely toying with Seaton. But Seaton knows that “Blackie” DuQuesne will be threat to him and his family, which now includes a Richard Seaton Junior.

      \n

      Then the novel switches to a remote galaxy where an empire of the Llurdi exists. The Llurdi are mammalian, but definitely not human. And within this realm are the Jelmi, who are definitely human, and who are subjugated by the Llurdi. This is an echo of a situation in the Subspace Explorers series. The Llurdi are purely logical, in their own eyes, sort of like the Vulcans of Star Trek, but as such they cannot make intuitive leaps in science. For that they rely on the Jelmi, but the Jelmi are not cooperating because they don’t like being subjugated. And when another group of Fenachrone, who had escaped Seaton’s genocide and fled to a remote galaxy, meet the Llurdi, they attack. Meanwhile, DuQuesne is on the loose and meets up with another race who like to practice Eugenics. They are impressed by DuQuesne and arrange to get a “sample” of his genes, in the way that is never exactly specified but you can fill in the blanks. And the Jelmi have managed to escape from the Realm of the Llurdi.

      \n

      Then the Chlorans make another appearance. They aren’t exactly the ones from Valeron’s galaxy, but in this universe all Chlorans are alike. Seaton goes undercover as a mining engineer on a planet enslaved by the Chlorans to get more information. Now as an aside, Smith had an extended bit in First Lensman about mining, and it is obvious he was familiar with it and used it in his stories. I find it adds to the stories. In any case, the Chlorans are a threat, which Seaton analogizes as cancer that needs to be cut out. DuQuesne has meanwhile met up with the Fenachrone who had attacked the Llurdi and enlisted them as his crew on his own gigantic starship. And at this point another of Smith’s interests pops up, his interest in the paranormal, ESP, etc. This is manifest in one way in his classic Lensman series where it operates through the agency of the Lens of Arisia. But it also appears in the Subspace Explorers series, and in the stand-alone novels Galaxy Primes and Masters of Space, for example. In this novel, it shows up in the method used to commit genocide against the Chlorans. It turns out that Seaton, DuQuesne, and some others are strongly psychic, and are “poles of power”. And this power can be put to use to exterminate the Chlorans. And after this, DuQuesne takes off to find a galaxy he can take over for himself.

      \n

      Summary

      \n

      This is what space opera was in the early days. In the space of a handful of years, Seaton and DuQuesne go from chemists working in a lab in Washington D.C. to traveling among distant galaxies wielding unimaginable power. So if you are looking for a plausible future this isn’t it. But it can be a lot of fun, and I am a huge fan of Smith. And good news for you if you want to try some out is that many of his works are available for free on Project Gutenberg, or in audio form on Librivox. But while the Skylark series is what kicked off Smith’s writing career and made him a successful author, what he is best known for is his Lensman series, which we will get to next

      \n

      \nLinks:

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      No longer completely Irish, not yet completely Dutch, trying to be completely FLOSS.\n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"23B68D4377311169","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Ken Falun"}, +{"hostid":30,"host":"Ken Fallon","email":"ken.nospam@nospam.fallon.ie","profile":"

      No longer completely Irish, not yet completely Dutch, trying to be completely FLOSS.\n


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"23B68D4377311169","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Ken Falun"}, {"hostid":31,"host":"Xcalibur","email":"xcalibur1337.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"https://www.google.com","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Xcalibur"}, {"hostid":32,"host":"Metatron","email":"metatron.nospam@nospam.fbillradio.com","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Metatron"}, {"hostid":33,"host":"dual_parallel","email":"admin.nospam@nospam.hackerpublicradio.org","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"dual_parallel"}, @@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ {"hostid":75,"host":"fawkesfyre","email":"purplepentester.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-NC-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"fawkesfyre"}, {"hostid":76,"host":"Chess Griffin","email":"chess.nospam@nospam.chessgriffin.com","profile":"linuxreality.com","license":"CC-BY-NC-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Chess Griffin"}, {"hostid":77,"host":"Dave Yates","email":"dsyates.nospam@nospam.lottalinuxlinks.com","profile":"lottalinuxlinks.com","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Dave Yates"}, -{"hostid":78,"host":"Klaatu","email":"klaatu.nospam@nospam.mixedsignals.ml","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"klaatu"}, +{"hostid":78,"host":"Klaatu","email":"klaatu.nospam@nospam.member.fsf.org","profile":"


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      \nStephen Ward, a Brit in Croatia. Accidental specialist subject: Internet Radio.\n

      \n

      \nMore info at https://aukondk.com\n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"AukonDK"}, {"hostid":192,"host":"Seetee","email":"kenneth.nospam@nospam.aiit.se","profile":"

      \nKenneth \"Seetee\" Frantzen\n

      \n

      \nAn IT professional and teacher living in Gothenburg, the second largest city of Sweden. Listen to my own podcast as well, the All In IT Radio!\n

      \n","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Seetee"}, {"hostid":193,"host":"Kevin Granade","email":"kevin.granade.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Kevin Granade"}, -{"hostid":194,"host":"Deltaray","email":"deltaray.nospam@nospam.slugbug.org","profile":"From the \"mid-west\" of the US. I am the creator/host of the @climagic account on Mastodon and (cough) Twitter.","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Deltaray"}, +{"hostid":194,"host":"Deltaray","email":"deltaray.nospam@nospam.slugbug.org","profile":"

      From the \"mid-west\" of the US. I am the creator/host of the @climagic account on Mastodon and (cough) Twitter.

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      \nA Linux enthusiast who enjoys making stuff work.\n
      \nhttps://www.pineviewfarm.net\n

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      A dork that likes Minecraft, FLOSS development, and coffee. Not in that order.

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      I am a long-time office software geek, and also a promoter of Free Software, so LibreOffice is a natural fit for me. I also have a series on HPR called Security and Privacy, and occasionally record shows that are non-series. I am also the former Tech Track organizer for Penguicon, an event in southeast Michigan, USA. Since I retired my interests have shifted to Travel, computer games, and Science Fiction.Visit one of my sites at:\n

      \n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"ah-who-ca"}, +{"hostid":198,"host":"Ahuka","email":"zwilnik.nospam@nospam.zwilnik.com","profile":"

      I am a long-time office software geek, and also a promoter of Free Software, so LibreOffice is a natural fit for me. I also have a series on HPR called Security and Privacy, and occasionally record shows that are non-series. I am also the former Tech Track organizer for Penguicon, an event in southeast Michigan, USA. Since I retired my interests have shifted to Travel, computer games, and Science Fiction.Visit one of my sites at:\n

      \n


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      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Mister X"}, @@ -255,7 +255,7 @@ {"hostid":267,"host":"Underruner","email":"plushgeek.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Underruner"}, {"hostid":268,"host":"Andrew Conway","email":"nalumc.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

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      \nblog.mcnalu.net\n

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      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Toe Jet"}, @@ -285,7 +285,7 @@ {"hostid":298,"host":"tcuc","email":"infotcuc.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      The American viking.

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      \n

      \nmy handle at gnusocial is @andresinmp@loadaverage.org\n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"A MunizP"}, +{"hostid":301,"host":"Amunizp","email":"amp-hpr.nospam@nospam.c4ad.eu","profile":"

      \nI am an engineer for mainly scientific equipment as my day job and in my free time I enjoy being with my family, learning, reading and punk folk concerts. I support hackspaces. More info on https://c4ad.eu/\n

      \n

      \nmy fediverse contact is: @amunizp@fosstodon.org\n

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      \n

      \nIf you want to know more about me, look here: https://offend.me.uk/about/ and feel free to get in touch.\n

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      \n

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      Professionally: works in InfoSec and AppSec.

      Spare time: podcasting, amateur radio, 3D printing, musician.\nLives: South Yorkshire in the UK.\n

      \n

      Mastodon: @thelovebug@mastodon.me.uk\nTelegram: thelovebug

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      \nSee more on my webpage https://www.noxbanners.net/ and follow me on https://loadaverage.org/ericxdu23\n

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      I got started in Linux in 2002, with a set of Mandriva KDE CD's and have enjoyed using variations ever since.

      Currently switched to Debian 13 testing.


      Contact:


      Mastodon: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@archer72


      Matrix: @archer72:matrix.org


      IRC: #Oggcastplanet @archer72


      Email: ricemark20.nospam@nospam.gmail.com


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      Help us take The Linux Experiment to the next level!

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      \nChristopher \"Cov\" Covington is a fan of libre projects, currently living in North Carolina, United States of America. His personal site is https://covlibre.net/\n

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      \n","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"fth"}, {"hostid":353,"host":"venam","email":"patrick.nospam@nospam.iotek.org","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"venam"}, -{"hostid":354,"host":"TheDUDE","email":"jstahlman13.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"
      \nTheD|_|D3\n
      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"TheDUDE"}, +{"hostid":354,"host":"TheDUDE","email":"jstahlman13.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"TheDUDE"}, {"hostid":355,"host":"Knox","email":"jrknox1977.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      \nI am a life long tech geek. I love all things tech. I started with a TRS-80 Model 3 in 6th grade and have never looked back! \n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Knox"}, {"hostid":356,"host":"Mongo","email":"mongo.nospam@nospam.mailfence.com","profile":"

      \nI am a retired former Systems Administrator. The last almost 20 years was supporting Windows servers. After retiring, I still wanted to play with computers, but need to keep costs reasonable. When Windows XP went unsupported, I found a nice Linux replacement for my old netbook. Now, a couple years later, I am getting serious about switching. This project is part of my path to freedom.\n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Mongo"}, {"hostid":357,"host":"bjb","email":"bjb.nospam@nospam.sourcerer.ca","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"bjb"}, @@ -346,7 +346,7 @@ {"hostid":365,"host":"Bookewyrmm","email":"tasettle.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"A man, out, standing, in his field","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"bookworm"}, {"hostid":366,"host":"Philip","email":"philip.nospam@nospam.shutdown.network","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Philip"}, {"hostid":368,"host":"Xtrato","email":"james.nospam@nospam.jamesdotcom.com","profile":"

      Interested in Network security and Technology

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Xtrato"}, -{"hostid":369,"host":"Jeroen Baten","email":"jbaten.nospam@nospam.i2rs.nl","profile":"

      I have been in IT for more than 40 years and since 1998 mainly in open source and Linux doing technical stuff. Lately I do more with burn-out prevention.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Jeroen Baten"}, +{"hostid":369,"host":"Jeroen Baten","email":"jbaten.nospam@nospam.i2rs.nl","profile":"

      I have been in IT for more than 40 years and since 1998 mainly in open source and Linux doing technical stuff. Always looking for both hobby and paid projects to work on

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Jeroen Baten"}, {"hostid":370,"host":"Yannick","email":"yannick.nospam@nospam.frenchguy.ch","profile":"

      \nI'm Yannick. I'm french, I live in Switzerland. Hence, the french guy from Switzerland !
      \nI'm a geek, a father, a podcaster.
      \nI'm interested in programming, of all sorts, in all kinds of languages.
      \nI like to tinker with basic electronics components, especially LEDs !
      \nI have half a dozen Raspberry Pis, and probably twice that amount of micro controllers of all sorts.
      \nI have many websites :\n

      \n","license":"CC-0","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Yannick"}, {"hostid":371,"host":"desearcher","email":"desearcher.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      Hello, World!

      I'm just a TRS-80 that grows algae while my code compiles.

      Sometimes I beep.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"de searcher"}, {"hostid":372,"host":"Edward Miro / c1ph0r","email":"c1ph0r.nospam@nospam.protonmail.com","profile":"

      \nJust an old dude from the internet.\n
      \n
      \nI gave a talk at a local hacker con once about vehicle based surveillance.\nI also contributed to a privacy/hacking project called Shadowlink with the main focus being the NetP Wiki (The NetP Wiki is a fully collaborative and dynamic guide designed to help navigate the world of privacy & anonymity).\n
      \n
      \nCurrently moving prior blogs and content over to my GitHub Page:\nhttps://c1ph0r.github.io/ \n
      \n
      \nPrevious episodes:
      \nhpr2707 :: Steganalysis 101 \n

      \n","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Edward Miero"}, @@ -379,7 +379,7 @@ {"hostid":399,"host":"dnt","email":"dnt.nospam@nospam.revolto.net","profile":"

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"D. N. T."}, {"hostid":401,"host":"Mechatroniac","email":"anarch0re.nospam@nospam.tutanota.com","profile":"

      \nThe Mechatronics Maniac\n
      \nhttps://www.bitchute.com/channel/mechatroniac/\n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Mechatroniac"}, {"hostid":402,"host":"takov751","email":"takov751.nospam@nospam.protonmail.com","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"takov 7 5 1"}, -{"hostid":403,"host":"Lee","email":"leehanken.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      https://github.com/macsplit

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Lee"}, +{"hostid":403,"host":"Lee","email":"leehanken.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      https://github.com/macsplit

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Lee"}, {"hostid":404,"host":"Sarah","email":"sarah.nospam@nospam.giammarco.ca","profile":"

      Librarian. Spends too much time on the internet.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Sarah"}, {"hostid":405,"host":"Lurking Prion","email":"LurkingPrion.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      \nLurking Prion (He/Him/His) is a cybersecurity enthusiast, evangelist, mentor, and professional with 20+ years experience in the Healthcare, Financial, Telecommunications, Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), Hybrid Cloud Service Provider (CSP), and other unspecified business sectors...\n

      \n

      \nBeginning as a network administrator, Lurking Prion's career followed security as it progressed throughout the years in roles including:\n

        \n
      • Linux/Windows Systems Administrator
        • \n
      • Network Engineer
        • \n
      • Telecommunications Engineer
        • \n
      • Security Engineer and Architect
        • \n
      • Ethical Hacker
        • \n
      • Security Consultant
        • \n
      \n

      \n

      \nLurking Prion also has a passion for teaching. It is his mission to help build a new generation of cyber security professionals with a security mindset.\n

      \n

      \nLurking Prion may occasionally refer to himself as Robert.
      \nLurking Prion likes coffee, dark beer, and dirty martinis.
      \nLurking Prion only refers to himself in the third person when there is a lack of coffee or an abundance of stupidity.
      \nLurking Prion's eye starts to twitch when all hell is about to break loose.
      \nLurking Prion's spirit animal is DeadPool.\n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Lurking Prion"}, {"hostid":406,"host":"binrc","email":"binrc.nospam@nospam.protonmail.com","profile":"https://0x19.org\nthanks for listening :)","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"bin R. C."}, @@ -390,12 +390,12 @@ {"hostid":412,"host":"m0dese7en","email":"m0dese7en.nospam@nospam.mykolab.com","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Mode Seven"}, {"hostid":413,"host":"CCHits.net Team","email":"show.nospam@nospam.cchits.net","profile":"CCHits.net is a website which produces a daily, weekly and sometimes even a monthly music podcast. Find out more at cchits.net","license":"CC-BY","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"CCHits dot net Team"}, {"hostid":414,"host":"Kinghezy","email":"cbart387.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Kinghezy"}, -{"hostid":415,"host":"enistello","email":"enistello.nospam@nospam.tuta.io","profile":"@enistello@fosstodon.org","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"ennis tello"}, +{"hostid":415,"host":"enistello","email":"enistello.nospam@nospam.tuta.io","profile":"

      @enistello@fosstodon.org

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"ennis tello"}, {"hostid":416,"host":"screwtape","email":"screwtape.nospam@nospam.sdf.org","profile":"Hi everyone! I like to write on the gopher and in common lisp. I am experimenting with idiomatic inclusion of formal ACL2 first order logic as part of larger ASDF3 common lisp system definitions that include side-effect modules.\n\nYou might know me from the gopher. gopher.club/1/users/screwtape\nI normally use openbsd, but in different contexts I often use NetBSD or FreeBSD and I also use Gentoo and Debian linux.","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"screw tape"}, {"hostid":417,"host":"StarshipTux","email":"wakko222.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"Linux Enthusiast, Podcast Addict","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Star ship Tux"}, {"hostid":418,"host":"David Thrane Christiansen","email":"david.nospam@nospam.davidchristiansen.dk","profile":"

      \nI love programming languages and their implementations, and I especially love exploring new paradigms of writing programs. I'm online at https://davidchristiansen.dk.\n

      ","license":"CC-BY","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"David Thrane Christiansen"}, {"hostid":419,"host":"Ryuno-Ki","email":"andre.jaenisch.nospam@nospam.posteo.de","profile":"Web-Developer and Consultant as a freelancer since 2023.\n\nHomepage: https://jaenis.ch/\nProfessional email: andre.jaenisch.wdc@posteo.net","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Ryuno-Ki"}, -{"hostid":420,"host":"HopperMCS","email":"gage.nospam@nospam.gages.blog","profile":"I science the computers! https://madcompscientist.com","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"gage hopper"}, +{"hostid":420,"host":"HopperMCS","email":"gage.nospam@nospam.gages.blog","profile":"

      I science the computers!

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"gage hopper"}, {"hostid":421,"host":"Reto","email":"reto007.nospam@nospam.yahoo.com","profile":"

      Tech enthusiast from Switzerland

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"ray toe"}, {"hostid":422,"host":"FredBlack","email":"fred.nospam@nospam.svenskaa.net","profile":"

      A nonbinary musician who can't stop yapping about their nyckelharpa...


      Pronouns page https://en.pronouns.page/@fred_black

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Fred Black"}, {"hostid":423,"host":"Noodlez","email":"contact.nospam@nospam.nathanielbarragan.xyz","profile":"Hello all! I'm Noodlez, an HPR listener and now contributor. I like anything to do with Linux and Linux-adjacent (Like other Unixes), and programming, and other random things like retro gaming.","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Noodlez"}, @@ -408,7 +408,7 @@ {"hostid":430,"host":"Dave Hingley","email":"anim8or_2000.nospam@nospam.yahoo.co.uk","profile":"

      Comic book artist using primarily open source and free resources to make comics.\n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Dave Hingley"}, {"hostid":431,"host":"Moss Bliss","email":"bardmoss.nospam@nospam.pm.me","profile":"

      Linux User since 2002, podcaster since 2018. Currently featured on Full Circle Weekly News and mintCast, and I have stepped away after 50 episodes of Distrohoppers' Digest. I live in Eastern Tennessee, not far from Knoxville.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":" ","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Moss Bliss"}, {"hostid":432,"host":"mnw","email":"mnw.nospam@nospam.member.fsf.org","profile":"I like beer, computers, and motorcycles. I'm never really good at these things. My SDF about me page kind of sums it up \n\nhttps://mnw.sdf.org\n","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"M. N. W."}, -{"hostid":433,"host":"Trollercoaster","email":"jurgen.nospam@nospam.digitalfreedomfoundation.org","profile":"

      Enthusiastic about Software Freedom Day and Digital Freedoms!

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Troller coaster"}, +{"hostid":433,"host":"Trollercoaster","email":"jurgen.nospam@nospam.digitalfreedomfoundation.org","profile":"

      Get off my lawn! I've been a hacker for way too long,

      I'm not sarcastic! I just enjoy explaining stuff so you understand it.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Troller coaster"}, {"hostid":434,"host":"Lochyboy","email":"alexandersmacphail.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      Son of Kevie. I'm a gamer and Linux user from the Isle of Lewis. My interests are History, YouTube and classic TV comedies.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Lochy boy"}, {"hostid":435,"host":"Bob","email":"omsfpmqo.nospam@nospam.sharklasers.com","profile":"","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"bob"}, {"hostid":436,"host":"hairylarry","email":"hairylarry.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      Hairy Larry is my stage name. I'm into music, gaming, free culture, and programming the internet. On mastodon @hairylarry@gamerplus.org

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"hairy larry"}, @@ -416,12 +416,12 @@ {"hostid":438,"host":"Paulj","email":"Paul.nospam@nospam.teulu.org","profile":"

      Blog: https://teulu.org\n\nMastodon: @paul_j@hachyderm.io\n\nHam radio contact details:\nCallsign: MW7PAJ\nHamshack hotline: 5501062\nHamsOverIP: 200307\n

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Paul Jay"}, {"hostid":439,"host":"Jon The Nice Guy","email":"jon.nospam@nospam.sprig.gs","profile":"

      He/Him. Linux advocating Geek. Co-Host on the Admin Admin Podcast. Occasional Conference Speaker.

      ","license":"CC-0","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Jon The Nice Guy"}, {"hostid":440,"host":"iota","email":"davidfung.nospam@nospam.amgcomputing.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"iota"}, -{"hostid":441,"host":"Antoine","email":"antoine.nospam@nospam.antoine.com.br","profile":"

      Love learning.

      Thanks!

      ","license":"CC-BY-NC","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Antoine"}, +{"hostid":441,"host":"Antoine","email":"antoine.nospam@nospam.antoine.com.br","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-NC","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Antoine"}, {"hostid":442,"host":"Shane - StrandedOutput","email":"info.nospam@nospam.strandedoutput.com","profile":"

      Hi, I'm an omni-nerd known as Shane but I also go by StrandedOutput on that there interwebs. I host a podcast called Linux Lads, I'm involved in the Dublin Linux Community and TOG Hackerspace. I also love technology, making music, electronics, history, politics, science fiction, game development, Blender and more.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":" ","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Shane A.K.A Stranded Output"}, {"hostid":443,"host":"Marc W. Abel","email":"hpr2025.nospam@nospam.marcabel.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Marc W. Abel"}, {"hostid":444,"host":"murph","email":"murph.nospam@nospam.weirdness.com","profile":"

      You can find me on the fediverse at @murph@hackers.town

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"murph"}, {"hostid":445,"host":"Jerm","email":"jerm.nospam@nospam.the-wyrms-hoard.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":" ","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Jerm"}, -{"hostid":446,"host":"Elsbeth","email":"dolphinraver.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Elsbeth"}, +{"hostid":446,"host":"Elsbeth","email":"dolphinraver.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Els beth"}, {"hostid":447,"host":"ko3moc","email":"ante.nospam@nospam.ko3moc.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"koemoc"}, {"hostid":448,"host":"oxo","email":"2oxo.nospam@nospam.protonmail.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"oxo"}, {"hostid":449,"host":"Manon","email":"manon.nospam@nospam.fallon.ie","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":" ","valid":1,"espeak_name":"manon"}, @@ -430,4 +430,9 @@ {"hostid":452,"host":"Kirbotica","email":"kirbotica.nospam@nospam.protonmail.com","profile":"

      A self-proclaimed success story in the tradition of Tom Vu, Kirbotica is living the hacker dream surrounded by the rich and beautiful things that matter most: family, friends, pets, computers, old signs and obsolete electronics. When he is not found endlessly walking the local streets and ravines, much of Kirbotica's time is spent trying to convince others to get involved in one of his \"great\" new ideas. On weekends, he works early in the morning at the local science centre while listening to his favorite podcasts echoing loudly through the empty halls. The voices of Hacker Public Radio, Late Night Linux, Off the Hook, Malicious Life and Darknet Diaries all keep him company as he gets the exhibits and artifacts ready for the day's visitors. A 30 year veteran in the computer industry, Kirbotica’s artistic sense has been so toned down by ex-employers, that he can only see in 2 bit color without the use of special glasses.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Kir botica"}, {"hostid":453,"host":"Thibaut","email":"thibaut.nospam@nospam.thibaut.dev","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Tea Bow"}, {"hostid":454,"host":"candycanearter","email":"candycanearter.nospam@nospam.gmail.com","profile":"

      tech nerd and long time linux user, likes hacking scripts together

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Candy can arder"}, -{"hostid":455,"host":"Whiskeyjack","email":"kb432.nospam@nospam.gmx.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Whiskey Jack"}] +{"hostid":455,"host":"Whiskeyjack","email":"kb432.nospam@nospam.gmx.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Whiskey Jack"}, +{"hostid":457,"host":"Jim DeVore","email":"jim.nospam@nospam.jimandcindydevore.com","profile":"

      I am an engineer currently working with embedded software in construction equipment. I have been involved at the intersection of computers, electronics, and controls for about 50 years. I have a strong tendency to build and repair things myself, even when it doesn’t make economic sense - I simply enjoy learning new things and working with my hands.

      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Jim DeVore"}, +{"hostid":458,"host":"Carmen-Lisandrette","email":"carmen.nospam@nospam.missionlibre.org","profile":"I'm the organiser of Mission:Libre, a project for 11 to 14 year olds in free software. \n\nMastodon: @carmenlisandrette@mastodon.social\n\r","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Carmen Lisandrette"}, +{"hostid":459,"host":"Vance","email":"hpr.nospam@nospam.happylemur.com","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Vance"}, +{"hostid":460,"host":"not_toby","email":"tslight.nospam@nospam.pm.me","profile":"
      (0x2b)||(!0x2b) = 0xff


      Nobbled mind, more things in heaven and earth and all that jazz...


      A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought... in jolly good company ;-)


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":1,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"not toby"}, +{"hostid":461,"host":"Lennart Benschop","email":"lennartb.nospam@nospam.xs4all.nl","profile":"


      ","license":"CC-BY-SA","local_image":0,"gpg":"","valid":1,"espeak_name":"Lennart Benschop"}] diff --git a/hpr_metadata/series.json b/hpr_metadata/series.json index 30513aa..1e59586 100644 --- a/hpr_metadata/series.json +++ b/hpr_metadata/series.json @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ {"id":44,"name":"Read 'n Code","description":"The Read 'n Code podcast, the only podcast about literature and computer programming.","private":0,"image":"","valid":1}, {"id":45,"name":"Podcasting HowTo","description":"This series is designed to help the new host begin podcasting and to give the experienced host some tips and tricks.
      The series is open to all.","private":0,"image":"","valid":1}, {"id":46,"name":"Urban Camping","description":"Tips and tricks for the Urban Camper","private":1,"image":"","valid":1}, -{"id":47,"name":"HPR Community News","description":"A monthly look at what has been going on in the HPR community. This is a regular show scheduled for the first Monday of the month.","private":1,"image":"","valid":1}, +{"id":47,"name":"HPR Community News","description":"

      This is a monthly show for, and by the HPR community.

      \n

      A rotating team of volunteers provide a summary of the months shows, \nas well as cover any news or discussions of note.\nIf you have topics that you want to make about a given show, then please leave a comment and we will read it out.

      \n

      \nThis is a reserved slot scheduled for the first Monday of the month.\nYou are invited to participate, but participants are expected to have listened to all the shows.\nIt is recorded during the last week of each month, usually on the Friday before the first Monday of the Month using Mumble.\nWe can adapt to suit.\n

      \n

      Please contact the janitors if you are interested in participating, or if you have any news or announcements for inclusion.

      ","private":1,"image":"","valid":1}, {"id":48,"name":"The Language Frontier","description":"In this miniseries Skirlet discusses various different aspects of language.","private":1,"image":"","valid":1}, {"id":52,"name":"THEATER OF THE IMAGINATION","description":"

      \n

      This is my series on Dramatic Audio Media, such as Old Time Radio (\"The Shadow\", \"Gunsmoke\", etc.), BBC Radio, and other classics -- but also, and most especially, the current renaissance of this art form, and how a person (like me, like you) can begin producing your own audio fiction or poetry or whatever for the enjoyment of countless others. This will be a learning process for me, and my mistakes might very well help you avoid any similar such in your own endeavors.

      \n

      ","private":1,"image":"","valid":1}, {"id":53,"name":"HPR_AudioBookClub","description":"HPR AudioBook Club","private":1,"image":"","valid":1}, diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4516.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4516.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d693b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4516.txt @@ -0,0 +1,55 @@ +Episode: 4516 +Title: Browser User Agent +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4516/hpr4516.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:04 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4516, for 2025-11-24 +Today's show is entitled, "Browser User Agent" +The host is Henrik Hemrin and the duration is 00:04:55 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A web site did not work for me. The User Agent has an important role." +Welcome to Hacker Public Radio. My name is Henry Kimlin and I'm your host today. +A while ago I visited a website that is an archive for old historical documents. +It is a database from where documents can be downloaded as PDF files. +As a visitor, I can login to the archive as a guest. +When I find a document of interest of the search, I can write click on the PDF icon and download the document. +But I can not. No download starts when I click on the PDF icon. +This is the first time I visit this archive so I do not know exactly how it works. +It was time to investigate the root course. I use Firefox browser on a Linux machine. +I tested several methods to see if any would solve the issue. I tried by changing settings for +pop-ups. I changed Firefox security settings. I disabled VPN. I disabled Firefox extensions +for blocking game trackers. I tested also the Chromium browser as well as the Epiphany browser. +All those methods resulted in no difference. Nothing happened. +I was in contact with a friend on Windows and also staff at the archive. Both telling me that +from Windows it worked, including with Firefox. So now I knew the archive works and that it works on +Firefox. So I thought, can this somehow be related to Linux? +I asked in a Linux forum if someone on Linux could test to download. +One person in the forum tested and solved the problem. I would not define it as a Linux problem, +but the site designed that affected Linux uses. The trouble was something I had not thought of +the user agent. When my browser contacted website, my browser can tell the site what kind of +browser I use which operating system I use and more. This information can be used by the site to +optimize the presentation of the content for me. For to me, unknown reason, maybe a mistake, +maybe related to some old design compatibility issue, this site did not accept the information +my user agent provided. The solution is to tell the website I'm something else. +In the browser, there are developers tools. When opening the developer tools from the menu, +typically a developer window with tools and analytics is opened at the bottom part of the web page. +One tool is network. Within network, I can simulate how the site looks on different devices +with different networks connections and I can also choose different user agents. +The tools are similar in both Firefox and Chromium. The exact list of standard options, +different and Chromium has more options pre-loaded. In this specific case, when I, +in developers on Firefox, change user agent to Chrome desktop, which relates to Chrome on Windows +as I understand and then reload the web page, I can now download the PDF file from the archive. +When this website interprets me to be this other type of user, they can understand each other +without any issue. I have reported back to the site owner and hopefully this specific site will not +need this workaround for the browser user agent in the future. Thank you for listening, +take care and goodbye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4517.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4517.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4b14f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4517.txt @@ -0,0 +1,114 @@ +Episode: 4517 +Title: Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 4: The hardware +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4517/hpr4517.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:06 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4517, for 2025-11-25 +Today's show is entitled, "Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 4: The hardware " +The host is Trey and the duration is 00:11:19 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Explanation of the hardware which will be used for this project" +hello again this is trey welcome to part four in my cheap yellow display project series +if you have hung in there with me so far on this journey thank you if you have missed earlier +episodes you can find them on my hpr profile page and there's a link in the show notes +if you have questions comments concerns snide remarks or other feedback please leave an episode +comment or drop me an email using the address in my profile even better you could record and +upload your own show which shares your viewpoint or expertise to review i finally have an actual +project to build using the cheap yellow display it is a portable programmable morse code key or memory +which can be connected to my hf transceiver radios by simply plugging it into the code key input port +then i could transmit stored messages by simply touching their specific icon on the touch screen +so now i purchased a pair of cheap yellow displays each arrived in an anti-static zipper bag with a +usb-c cable a six inch long four pin pb 1.25 millimeter to dupont 2.54 millimeter cable harness +a plastic case holding the cheap yellow display itself and a small plastic stylus there are +pictures in the show notes depending on how many i-o connections i may need and how i plan to power +this i am probably going to need more four pin pb 1.25 millimeter wired connectors you can see a +description of the various features and connectors on random nerd tutorials right up about this board +and there's a link in the show notes the only difference i can see between this description and +what is what i received is that mine have both a usb micro usb and a usb-c port on them +i'm going to include some pictures for you of course the first thing i had to do was plug it in and see +what happens as you can see in the pictures it appears to be running some kind of simulation of a website +the backlit display looks all right it's not super high resolution but for the price it will suit my needs +just fine the touch screen is responsive but remember it is pressure sensitive and it works best using the +provided stylus or a fingernail and not your fingertip all right so i have the cheap yellow display what +other hardware do i need well i need to address how one of these will actually connect to my radios +modern amateur radio transceivers which support continuous wave transmission which is another +name for morse code generally can use one of two different pieces of hardware for input +the first is what we call a straight key below is a photo of the one that i own +this is a classic old-fashioned telegraph style code key it is designed to quickly and easily be pressed +down to close a circuit and when released the circuit is opened effectively making it a normally +open push button switch to send a dot the operator holds down the key for a short period of time then +releases it to send a dash the operator holds down the key for a longer period of time before releasing +it we will discuss the actual timing specifications for morse code in a future podcast connectivity for the +switch has been standardized to use a 3.5 millimeter mono mail phone connector which has only sleeve and tip +connections the second option is a paddle style electronic keyer there are many styles of these and i'm +including a picture of the one which i use which also belong to a close friend of mine who is now silent key +in general the paddle is two separate normally open switches in the most common configuration when an +operator presses and releases the paddle on the right a dash is sent if the paddle on the right is held a +continuous series of dashes will be sent until the paddle is released the left paddle works similarly +if it is pressed and released a single dot will be sent if it is pressed and held a series of dots +will be sent until it is released the function of these paddles can be swapped from left to right +using the radio configuration there is additional functionality which can be configured in some radios +for when both paddles are pressed simultaneously but i am not going to describe these here +the paddle generally uses a 3.5 millimeter stereo mail phone connector with the sleeve being common +the tip of the connector is wired to the left paddle and the ring of the connector is wired to the right +paddle most common radios have a built-in keyer which can be configured for a paddle and will +automatically transmit dots or dashes at whichever speed is configured within the radio based on which +paddle is pressed you can see this phone connector illustrated on wikipedia's phone connector page +and i'm including a link in the show notes you can learn more about the various devices which can be +used for sending morse code and how they function at morse code world ideally controlling all the morse code +timing within the cheap yellow display would be best that way it could be connected as a straight key +and a any key or settings already configured within the radio should not matter however if i wish to +also be able to manually send morse code myself using my paddles without disconnecting the cheap yellow +display and reconfiguring the radio that could be problematic i may need to factor in the possibility +of connecting my paddle to the cheap yellow display as well and then building in code to respond to inputs +from the paddles as i mentioned in a previous episode i have an arduino nano on my desk as a practice +oscillator for my paddles i may be able to reuse some of the code on the cheap yellow display +i'm including a picture of that arduino nano circuit in the show notes +so if i want the cheap yellow display to appear to the radio like a straight key +i will need it to be able to control a switch quickly and accurately +but i also want the cheap yellow display and the radio to be electrically isolated from each other +here this calls for a relay i was able to find and order some inexpensive relay modules which work +nicely with arduino and esp32 and i'm including a picture in the show notes these allow connectivity +to a 5 volt power display or power source and to one of the cheap yellow displays gpio pins +these feed an octocoupler circuit which in turn drives the coil for the relay this provides inductive +kickback protection to the cheap yellow display and can drive a coil which will require more current than +the gpio is able to provide all right time for a rabbit trail an inductor is simply a coil of wire +direct current flowing through any wire generates a magnetic field within the inductor because the +wire is coiled the magnetic field builds from each pass of the wire in the coil if you include an iron core +it sustains the magnetic field even better this is the basis for an electromagnet you've probably played +with one as a kid a relay is simply a momentary contact switch controlled by an electromagnet +one unique property of an inductor is that current wants to keep flowing in the direction it was applied +to be specific when the current source is removed the magnetic field still exists for a while +and it effectively generates an electric current in the coil in the same direction as the one which +initially created the magnetic field to begin with if it has a path to flow the current will create +another weaker magnetic field which creates its own electric current in a diminishing loop if the +circuit which drives the coil of a direct current relay is not ready for this continued push of current +damage can be done many times this is countered by wiring a flyback diode in parallel with the coil +and in the opposite direction in which the current will be applied this way when the current source is +stopped the diode gives a pass for the inductive kickback current to safely flow while the magnetic +field dissipates i'm going to include a link in the show notes that explains this in greater detail +all right back to our topic the switch side of the relay is a single pole double throw and makes +connections available for common normally closed and normally open +it will be easy to connect the common and normally open connections to a 3.5 millimeter mono mail phone +connector so that it may be plugged into the keyport on any radio transmitter i will need to do some +testing on the speed of the relay but i think it will work just fine once i start writing code for the +cheap yellow display i will be able to connect and test the relay +all right this is a good place to end this episode and it is one of the longest in this series so far +in the next episode we will begin to look at how we design the user interface for our program +something i do not know anything about just yet stay tuned weekdays for additional exciting episodes of +hacker public radio and at some point the next episode in this series +if you like what you have heard please leave an episode comment or drop me an email using the +email address in my profile if you have more than a single sentence to contribute to the subject +i encourage you to record an episode with your thoughts and expertise if you dislike what you have +heard you are encouraged even more strongly to record and upload your own show which shares your +your viewpoint or opinion until next time +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4518.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4518.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2bde69e --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4518.txt @@ -0,0 +1,166 @@ +Episode: 4518 +Title: Cosy News Corner for Week 46 - Your source for Open Source news +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4518/hpr4518.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:06 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4518, for 2025-11-26 +Today's show is entitled, "Cosy News Corner for Week 46 - Your source for Open Source news" +The host is Daniel Persson and the duration is 00:19:27 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This week’s open-source roundup." +Hello and welcome to the cozy news corner for open source news and this is going to be for the week of 46 +and this is not something that I will produce highly. It's just talking through a bunch of news and then +publishing so this will go out on my youtube channel and I also will publish it on hacker public radio as a podcast +so let's switch over so we can see some screens here but I'm going to talk about it +it's just so you get some visuals on youtube and the first news is Debian that now mandates that +rust should be used for a PT the advanced packaging tool and this is something that is +talked about in their news group by a person called Julien and Ress Claude and he's a long time +developer in the Debian community and also in lead maintainer for this tool so he him going out and +saying that this is the way forward you should switch over so all the ports are using rust going forward +and you have about six months to do it or else pretty much so Debian will switch over to +using rust for this tool and a lot of different things in Debian it's actually switching over to +using rust and a lot of things in the Linux world is starting to use rust as well we have +some things in the kernel that is using rust and more and more of the tools in the +guinea libraries will also go over to using rust and one thing that I want to mention here +that I listened to a talk about this by Brian Cantrell and this was the complexity of simplicity +and this was a keynote that he was given at the tallest cone and he's the oxide co-founder and +CTO and this was in Amsterdam in October the 17th and to quote him he went into rust pretty +skeptical and honestly he came back realizing that there were many things that he viewed to be +essential complexity that weren't that were actually accidental complexity and when it comes to rust +one of the big things there was the error handling so what did he mean by this so the whole talk +is about complexity and making things that are simple is actually pretty hard you need to put a lot +of work into make something simple but if something is simple and easy to understand it's less error +and when it comes to C and so on you can write wonderful applications in C but they might +become very complex and when you take that concept and take a new look at it you can produce something +like rust that has taken a lot of thought and worked a lot in order to make the code less brittle +more simplistic and easier to talk about and understand so that is pretty much what he is aiming at here +I would guess after looking at this talk I would recommend you look at a look at his talk as well +and listen to it's a lot of good and fun information is a great speaker I think +next up you're going to talk about some vulnerabilities in rust not particularly rust but one thing +written in rust so this is the pseudo errors so the pseudo command written in rust not public +any at the moment not the main thing used in the piano or a banto but it's a rework and they are +working against it and trying to get it into a banto as a stable release and they have found two +bugs and they are not great but it's good that they actually find these before any release so the first +vulnerability was that the password could be exposed due to timeouts that isn't ever good and +another thing is that incorrectly recorded it incorrectly recorded the wrong user in a time stamp +and the reason that but is that some authentication could be reused if you have cash credentials +so it's something that they need to look into and both these were reported by +two different medias here so the first media about the bian rust was reported by Steven Vogue +Nichols at the news stack and then we also have this report by pseudo errors by Sudrov Ronda +that is writing for its false so I'm gonna mention these as well so you know who have written +the story and who should have created for it. Next up I was also reading another story at the news stack +was written by Lorraine Larson and this is about snapshot and snapshot has actually released an open +source framework that they are using in order to write applications for iOS, Mac OS and also Android +and it's writing code in JavaScript in order to create GUI components and work with those kind of tooling +in native code so you write JavaScript and then this framework will compile it to native apps +so if you're looking for a crossplot form UI from framework then perhaps this snapshot +open source library is something that you need to look into and it could be an option for you at least +and now over to our first piece of AI news and there is a bunch of AI news out there and now +we're going to talk about a company called solo I oh so not AI I oh so this is another +title that is written by Heather Yoshlin the news stack and this is talking about an agent +registry for AI agents so when you have these kind of endpoints with mpc this protocol this +model context protocol where you can talk to agents on different sites there is a bunch of different +agent regicies out there but most of them are close source and behind pay walls and so on but +solo I oh has a solution that they have been using for a while now and they have now released their +agent registry as open source so if you need this then you can install that and use it locally +on your organization um I have not looked into either agents or agent registries yet that is still +a blind spot of mine but perhaps in the future if it's interesting I could look into this more +so next up we have a little bit of a controversy and it has been a problem for a while +still in the AI field and this was reported by sort of ruda and from it's false and it's ffm peg +and they are pretty angry about a lot of different complex contributions from AI so again we +create these kind of CVSs where we say this is a very bad bug that you have in your application you +need to fix it and it's AI slot pretty much in this CVS and they are pretty fed up with it and they +are just a bunch of volunteers that are trying to create the best movie viewing and movie +managing system so ffm peg is where you can take a bunch of different clips either audio or movies +and you can do operations on them and they can read pretty much any video filed that has +have been made it's an awesome application but it's just made by a couple of interesting +parties and none of them are working for none of them are really getting paid for it or at least +not paid well so they are pretty fed up they are swarmed with all these kind of issues and they +don't have the actual capacity to solve them all and they have reached out to Google and said +we need some funding here if we're going to work on this full time and so it has been a really +bad time for the ffm peg guys and this is not the first time that AI has been used in order to swamp +developers with either bad PRs or with the problems that isn't really a problem it's just +something that someone found and reported because they thought that that could be a huge problem +and another person that I've talked about this is Daniel Steinberg and he has is the sole developer +of the curl project and he had a time where he just ignored CVEs because there were so many of them +and they were not really good either pull requests or actual issue reports so AI will create a lot +bunch of slop and will make it much harder to do development in this case another person that also +has reported this is Steven J. Vaughn Nicholas at the news stack so I read both of those +reports but they are talking about similar things behind the ffm peg and they're problem with all +these CVEs. Next up we have Ubuntu that is now released information about their commitment +for handling releases and LDS releases and giving security and support and this have been a +big topic in the Microsoft world where they now not give any more security fixes for Windows 10 +and they are leaving a lot of people behind that can't install Windows 11 because they have +two old computers and so on so this have been in the news a lot and a lot of people are angry +on Microsoft and Microsoft have been pretty good bit creating both security fixes and supporting +their operating system. I looked back and both Windows 8 and Windows 10 has had 10 years of support +from their initial release until pretty much a month ago where they stopped supporting +Windows 10 and then they said okay if you're in the EU or if you have enough Microsoft +points or want to send some information to us so we can benefit of having all your information +and you can still continue using Windows 10 or else you need to upgrade to Windows 11 +but they have a 10 years support cycle and remember how large the team at Microsoft is. +Ubuntu is a very serious player in the Linux world but they are not as large as Microsoft +and they have now released and said we will support our operating system up to 15 years +with some caveats so the standard maintenance window for each release of LTS which is the long-term +support conversion will be five years so they give support and security fixes for five years +for all their customers even if you have not given them any money at all and if you are a +pro subscriber which I am as well and if you are an individual not the company those are also +free or at least there were free when I became a pro subscriber you will get another five years so +year 6 to 10 will also be supported by this pro subscription and you can also call in and get +support by their support team. Next five years a year 11 to 15 is something they call a legacy +add-on for security coverage and support and this is also for pro subscribers but they will add +an extra fee of 50% for those five extra years but still I think that is a very small cost if +you really need to have old versions of a bonto and having something that you can run in production +for 15 years without upgrading that is pretty cool so I think this is actually a really cool thing +that they have come out with and it's also perhaps a little bit of pointing at Microsoft that +you could have done this as well you have the resources and I think it's a pretty cool this was +reported by Sirov Rudai again at it's the boss and another thing reported by the same person is the +firefox built in AI so firefox has had built in AI for a while now where you had an extra +feature that you can open up in order to summarize pages and so on and do different queries to +different AI agents online and because we all are starting to use AI they have now taken it away +forward so before you have this classical tabs where you search for things or browse the web +and if you were in a case where you needed to be more privacy minded perhaps you needed to visit +the site that you didn't want it to be saved on your computer you could go into privacy mode of course +still every call goes through your ISP and so on so somebody could look up what you have actually +looked at but at least it doesn't store any information on your computer that's privacy mode +the next mode that they have is the AI window so if you're open up an AI window then you have +those tools ready at hand in that concept and there here have been a bunch of backlash on this AI +window people don't really want it and so on or at least they try to be before anyone creating a +lot of information about this so they are saying that this is something that is optional +you don't need to use it it's available to you if you have the need but you don't need to use it +so don't be angry at us but they haven't really come out and tell told us what it actually could +do it's a way of browsing the web in a gigantic way but they haven't really told us how it actually +how it will look or anything like that it's something that they are working for but it's +coming soon so that is something that could be interesting to look into and see when it actually +is released and have some first hand knowledge about and check out when it actually is released +so that was the report by Citroen Rudolf from its force and also from Ajit Varma at the +distilled so next up we're going to talk about a Linux distro called Nitrox 50 oh so this is the +five big release that came out this week as well and it's a some Linux system for modern computers +on an immutable foundation and it's powered by open RC instead of system D and it has hyperland +and so on so before simplicity and predictability and main attainability is their catchphrase +for this operating system and looking at it is very Mac like so it looks like any of the newer Mac +OS and perhaps that's good you have familiarity it seems like you have multiple desktop and so on +and also some performance and other metrics right in the operating system I haven't worked with +this haven't tried it out but it's an option and it looks interesting and it was released this week +and last but not least we are going to talk about a new project that has been open sourced +and it pretty much have been open sourced all the way it's just started off +this week that they released that it was in the making and looking at the commits it's very very +they are actually working on it right now so last commit was yesterday and this is a +Vulcan based implementation of DirectX7 so for applications and games that are pretty old +they are now trying to create this layer that you can use in order to play them in Linux under +so this is interesting and something that is in the making and we'll probably get into +some wine release later on but it's just starting work now so we already have a bunch of +implementation for DirectX12 and so on so we already have a lot of Windows native support for newer +games and applications but they are slowly but surely working it they're very back in order to +support even more applications and games so this was what I wanted to cover today I hope that you found +this interesting +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4519.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4519.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4115f0f --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4519.txt @@ -0,0 +1,234 @@ +Episode: 4519 +Title: YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #10 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4519/hpr4519.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:09 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4519, for 2025-11-27 +Today's show is entitled, "YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #10" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:16:40 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ahuka shares part ten of his list of subscribed channels" +Hello, this is a hookah welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode +And this one is coming to you from the reserve queue. So you know what that means? +We didn't have enough shows +Hacker Public Radio is a community project and it relies on the community to produce and submit shows +To keep things going and if we don't get enough shows at some point this whole thing shuts down +I'm gonna assume you don't want that to happen. I know I don't want that to happen. I think Hacker Public Radio is a wonderful resource +But keep it going got to get some shows. It's easy to do +So please record something get up there if you've never done it before +Traditionally people will post a first show about something like how they got into technology +So I'm going to now continue with my look at my +Different YouTube subscriptions +And talk about them +So the next one I'm gonna talk about is is one called parlagram +Parlagram is a music +Related site most of what they do, but not all +has to do with the Beatles and +So that might be thought they did +For instance some very interesting ones about +Some of the tapes +Original recording masters and things like that that they're able to look at and +He did a +a tour inside +Abbey road studios and got to talk to some of the people who work there +So stuff that I find interesting +So the next one is Paul Whitewick +I don't remember how I stumbled across this one +but +Paul Whitewick is +Very interested in the history of England +I say England because I think that's really what he focuses on +Not great Britain or the United Kingdom +And a lot of it is historical so +He will take a look at old Roman roads and +Look for historical sites that might be 2000 years old +A lot of what he does is getting out into +The outdoors and +Walking around to sites and showing them to you +And if you have an interesting history +Particularly English history +You might be interested in that +Then there's PBS Eons now +PBS is in America the public broadcast system and +What they did is they set up an arm called PBS digital and they are +Linked I don't know the exact +Contractual details they're linked with complexity which does crash course and some of those things +And so Eons is about +Prehistoric history so it's it's going back +Into deep time it could be dinosaurs it could be prehistoric hominids +Yeah, so it's long ago +Now these shows +They can vary +They've started the thing called deep time and these are like hour-long +Life and death on a tiny +Dinosaurs island could you survive the end of the triassic stuff like that +Others are you know the 10 to 15 minute range +So one of them +Good example of that how animals got anuses +which is you know it's a scientific problem to figure out +No one was when the Amazon flowed backwards +So interesting stuff and +Another one from PBS is PBS origins +Now this is a history show and because PBS is the American +Public broadcast system it's they're talking about American history and +Trying to look at why things are the way they are in this country +So they did things like +History of America's highways +um +Who can identify as a native American? +Things like that +So it's it's American history and then there's PBS space time +This is a very interesting one for me at least this is hardcore physics +um so +Typically these episodes that come out once a week they're gonna be 15 to 20 minutes long +So you know is the way function the building block of reality +What is the new ultimate energy limit of the universe? +What if the universe did not start with the big bang +This is some of the things that they have tackled +You know you over time you get a pretty good +Education in relativity and what's involved in that and black holes and all of those good things +um +Next channel is +PCJ Law +Now this is someone who's a gamer +so +He does a lot mostly civilization +Which you might expect for me you know that I would find someone who does a lot of sieve +um +And so he did for instance and his videos tend to be longer +so +Mastering the Civ5 early game on deity and he does kind of a walk through of what you need to do if you +Want to accomplish that +um +Or +Civ5 beginner tactics to win more wars +How to build big cities +And so on +A lot of it is Civ5 +uh +Well, you know in our civilization series I've pointed out that different versions of Civ +There are people who are still playing them to this day and think they're you know +There there are people who think Civ3 was the best +Civ ever released +Another group of people think no it was Civ4 was the best and Civ5 and so on and as I'm recording this Civ7 is going to be out in a few weeks +Well, you know +That's how it is so this channel PCJ Law is uh it's gonna have a lot of Civ5 information +uh +The next channel is periodic videos +And this is another one of those ones by Brady Haran and I mentioned that he +He has a channel about chemistry +uh and this is that channel the periodic part is a +Reference back to the periodic table and +What it is is each video +It's kind of like takes a look at +A particular element and +There's a well-known chemist who is one of the main hosts of this channel +And +There will do experiments and see you know what happens if you take this and you know you take a particular mineral and +Um +What happens if you +File it into powder and then drop the powder into a flame, you know will it produce a particular color or something like that? +If you like +Chemistry this this is pretty good +Then there's a fellow named Philip Hawkins +And he calls his channel +Culture Phil culture filter, sorry +But the Phil coming from his name and this is another +Mostly doctor who occasionally does something else, but primarily doctor who related +Reviews analysis stuff like that +Then there's photo advanced +uh and this is a channel that is devoted to +Gimp +Inkscape and blender and it does tutorials +And so if you want it to learn more about any of those three software things +You know this would be a good place to go to get more information +um +So there's a Gimp beginners guide tutorial course which is a series of videos that take you through that +Gimp text blenders beginners guide blender tutorials and so on +Next is physics girl +Now this it right now is +Sort of on hiatus unfortunately the host +Diana Cohen +Got long COVID +And so she is just just recently got to the point that she could get out of bed and stand +Which tells you how bad it got +She spent several years basically just in bed I'm able to do anything +But she did some very nice +Videos about physics and I'm hoping she gets back to it and so I'm sticking with the channel see how she's doing and +Hoping that +Eventually she'll get back to doing the videos that she's known for +The videos that she did on physics is really good +So +Then there's a channel called politics girl and this is +You know news and +Public affairs stuff in the United States +So if you're not interested in American politics and I +Realize a lot of people aren't then skip over it but if that's something that is of interest to you +this is +And as you might expect given my leanings it did so +It's kind of a view from the left on this +Then there's popular cruising +And these videos +They're a little bit +longer than some of the ones I do it's +Generally reviews of either a cruise ship or some activity +and they tend to be +20 to 30 minutes +long +You know if you want that sort of thing and you want to know about what's the newest ship and and +What was it like traveling on that ship? +This will be one to check out +Next is one called postmodern jukebox +This is a fascinating one +The postmodern jukebox is +What they do is they take +Contemporary +What they call today's hits +And do them in an earlier musical style +So +Some of the ones +You know what if they did the boys are back in town by thin lazy +But did it as a 50s rock and roll +um +Or +You know chapel-runs good luck babe done as a 1960s Leslie Gorson +um +I love it +My wife and I have been to see them live they they do have a +A touring organization as well +And the live shows are also fascinating and and we've enjoyed them a great deal +And there is potato mick whiskey +Little ethnic stereotyping going on here +Potato mick whiskey is from Ireland and +He is +Another one of those people who is a gamer +Primarily sieve but +Really strategy for ex games in general +He does videos some of them are tutorial videos many of them are +He'll do a series of videos that take you through an entire game from start to finish +Now sieve games +Can take a long time to play so doing it from start to finish might mean 12 hours worth of video +And then he'll he'll break it up into you know 12 one hour segments or something like that +It's good stuff if you're into it +as is +Pravis PRA v u s +and again +More than just sieve so +He will tackle other games like +You know one is surviving Mars which is a real-time strategy game +um +Another game is rebel incorporated +Or some of the others plague incorporated +So +You know if he's doing a game that I'm interested in then I'll watch the video otherwise I'll say yeah skip it +So that's enough for now. This is a hookah for hacker public radio signing off and encouraging you to support free software. Bye bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4520.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4520.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e817bfa --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4520.txt @@ -0,0 +1,125 @@ +Episode: 4520 +Title: Arthur C. Clarke: Rama and Sequels +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4520/hpr4520.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:09 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4520, for 2025-11-28 +Today's show is entitled, "Arthur C. Clarke: Rama and Sequels" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:11:56 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A look at Arthur C. Clarke's other famous series." +Hello, this is a hookah for Packer Public Radio, welcoming you back to another exciting +episode in our series on science fiction and fantasy, and what we're going to do this +time, continuing our look at Arthur C. Clark, is to take a look at the other series +that he is known for. It's a little bit different from the 2001 that we had previously +discussed. This is the Rama series, and it starts with a novel called +Drondivu with Rama published in 1973, and that kicked off this series. The setup is +that an object has been tracked entering the solar system at a high velocity, and +only one spaceship is close enough to investigate. As we have seen with Umoa Moa, +the scenario is accurate. Umoa Moa entered the solar system from outside, traveling very fast, +and there was no way to prepare and launch a mission in time to intercept and investigate the +object. In the case of Rama, we're in a future time, it's set in the year 2131, when travel through +the solar system is more developed, and there can be a ship capable of interception. Now that +ship is called the endeavor, it is duly dispatched, and finds Rama to be a perfectly smooth +cylinder, 50 kilometers long, and 20 kilometers in diameter, so clearly of artificial origin. +It is a spaceship of some kind, and the crew find a way inside through a triple airlock system, +and inside they find three identical staircases. The Rama is rotating, +which provides artificial gravity, and has two circular planes separated by a circular ocean. +The crew investigates, and as the Rama gets closer to the sun, it starts to warm up and come to life. +Now, if this creates problems for the crew, storms start to brew, and one crewman is stranded +when a static electricity field wrecks his airbike, leaving him on the other side of the ocean. +As they explore an island, which they call New York, they notice that the structures there +always seem to come in threes, but there are no openings in their purposes unknown. +Creatures start to appear, but again the pattern of three is noticed. A spider-like creature +has three eyes and three legs, and comes to inspect the crew in their equipment. +One such creature falls from a cliff and is destroyed, so the crew decides to dissect it. +And they discover it as a combination of mechanism and biologic material, +so they dub the creatures by-outs. They decide that these creatures must have been designed by the +Romans, whoever those are. As Rama continues to get closer to the sun, the planet Mercury decides +it is a danger, and launches a nuclear weapon, but the crew managed to intercept it, +and taking advantage of the time lag between Mercury and Narama, they disarm it. +But now it's getting too close to the sun to stay, so the crew leaves and goes back to the end +ever. Shortly afterwards, the engines of the Rama come to life, and it speeds around the sun +and out of the system in the direction of the large Magellanic cloud. But as it speeds away, +scientists on the Rama committee realize that Romans always do things in threes. +Certainly sounds like a setup for a sequel. +This novel won lots of awards, including the Nebula for Best Novel in 1973, and the Hugo for Best +Novel in 1974. There was a planned film version that got stuck in development hell before being abandoned, +but recently there was a report that it might be back on, with Morgan Freeman producing +and Dennis Villanov directing. There was also a computer game made by Sierra Online in 1996. +This was directed by Gentry Lee, who mostly took over the Rama series. +Now the next is Rama II, published in 1989, and it is listed as by Arthur C. Clark in Gentry Lee, +but as Clark confirmed Lee did most of the writing and Clark's role was limited. +Now this takes place 70 years after the first book, and Arthur's ready, when yet another +such vessel enters the solar system. A ship has been ready, and learning from the experience +of the Endeavor crew, they have some better equipment for the task. Their ship, the Newton, +carries a crew of 12, and addition to the equipment, but interpersonal conflict surries even before +they launch. Then the commander of the expedition is killed while they're still outside the +Rama Investible vessel, and they have trouble deciding who the new leader will be. +Also, they investigate, but three of the crew are left inside the Rama Investible +when it speeds away from the solar system. Now the writing here is very different, +and it is fair to consider this Lee's story rather than Clark's. In comparison to the first +Rama book, there is a bit more characterization, which was never Clark's strong suit, but then it +never won any awards either. But it persisted, so in 1991, the garden of Rama comes out, and in this +book, those three astronauts left behind on the Rama ship, they consist of one woman and two men, +the woman duly produces children by each of the men, three girls and two boys. In a journey of 12 +years, they finally arrive at the star serious. Now, since serious is just under nine light years +from Earth, this suggests that the Romans have good engines, but no faster than light propulsion. +At serious, they find there is a ramen node where they undergo physiological tests for a year, +while the ship is being refurbished. Then the ship, the ramen ship is being sent back to Earth, +and the Romans request that the Earth send them 2,000 more humans to study. +This request is kept secret from the public, and instead the secret government agency comes up with a +cover story about a new Martian colony and starts gathering people. Okay, this already sounds like a +disaster in the making, but then the secret of agency starts to select convicts, promising them +freedom if they agree to be colonists. Well, now we know it's going to be a disaster. +They divide the people into 3 groups and put them on 3 ships named the Nina, the Pinta, +and the Santa Maria. Yes, that's exactly what he did. And the people who are mostly convicts +are starting to suspect that they have been hoaxed. Once they arrive on the ramen ship, +a mob boss seizes control of the humans and begins a war against one of the other species +on this giant spacecraft. The 3 original astronauts, from the previous novel, +and the 5 children, are powerless to stop this genocide, but it has not gone unnoticed. Another +species is paying attention and starting to make plans of their own to deal with this. +The Rama 3 spaceship is also paying attention, and has transmitted an emergency signal back to its +creators. And as one of the original astronauts is set to be executed, the book ends on a cliffhanger, +because of course it does. You can't end it here. Then Rama revealed 1993. +The astronaut Nicole Wakefield manages to escape the death in store for her at the cliffhanger +of the previous novel. At this point, the humans had met on the ship two alien species, +the octospiders and the Mermicats. Now these are interesting species. The octospiders had +led simple lives until a space-faring species made contact with them and everything changed. +They focused on biological technology and genetic enhancements, and were able to form +kind of a utopia of sorts for themselves. The Mermicats were named that by the humans because +they seemed to combine traits of both ants and cats. Now they could form a connection with humans +through a network of fibers that enter the human brain. And they do this to inform Richard Wakefield +of their fears from the aggressive humans and get them to take some of their eggs to a safe place. +The murderous mob of humans, of course, are continuing their attacks and they're now focused +on getting those astronauts from Rama too and their children. These folks flee to the New York +place as it was named in the original Rama, but then the genocidal humans come after them. +They then flee to the octospider colony, but then the humans start bombing that area. +The octospiders retaliate and then the Romans decide that enough is enough and send the humans +and the octospiders into hibernation for the rest of the voyage. Finally, the ramen ship reaches +Tau Setti, where another ramen node is located, which is devoted to studying races capable of +spaceflight. Overall, I would have to say that the first novel written by Arthur C. Clark is +deservedly a classic, but the continuation by Gentry Lee is eminently skipable. +It is a jarring change of direction and voice from Clark and not terribly interesting. +The whole idea of ramen's doing everything by three seems to have been +disappeared along the way. I would have thought that should have been a key focus of the whole thing. +So anyway, if you decide to skip those novels, I don't play you in the least. +Just for the sake of completion, Gentry Lee did three more novels +that are not directly part of the Rama plot, but they take place in the same universe. +They are bright messengers, published in 1996, double full moon night 1999, +and the tranquility wars 2000. Now, if you love everything connected to Rama and you are a +completeist, you will of course want to check them out, but that's not anything I have the ambition +to pursue. Arthur C. Clark has written some other standalone novels that are not part of any +series and some of them deserve attention. So that's where we will go next in our look at Arthur C. Clark. +But for now, this is a hookah for our Hacker Public Radio, signing off, and as always, +encouraging you to support Free Software. Bye-bye! +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4521.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4521.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d021ba --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4521.txt @@ -0,0 +1,991 @@ +Episode: 4521 +Title: HPR Community News for November 2025 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4521/hpr4521.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:10 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4521, for 2025-12-01 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Community News for November 2025" +The host is HPR Volunteers and the duration is 01:10:24 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "HPR Volunteers Kevie and Ken talk about shows released and comments posted in November 2025" +Greetings! It's almost time, once again, for the Hacker Public Radio slash Free Culture Podcast New Year's Eve show, +a 26-hour recorded audio stream where you can come on, say hello to the many members of the Hacker Public Radio or Free Culture Podcast community. +It starts at 10 UTC on December 31st, also known as 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. +If you want to participate, all you need to do is install Mumble. Mumble clients are available on all platforms. +Then check out Hacker Public Radio for the survey details. +It will run until January 1st, 12 UTC, or 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. +We look forward to talking to you. +Hello and welcome to another episode of the HPR Beer Garden. +So, joining me tonight is Ken. How are you tonight, Ken? +I'm fine, Kevi. I'm going to open up a bronze out of brown here. +And what are you having? Hold on. Let's check the agenda. +This isn't the beer garden. You fooled me. +This is HPR Community News for the month of November 2025. +So, you lured me here with false promises. I've already got the bottles open here. That's terrible. +That's terrible. +It's terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, father. +So, Kevi, what is Community News? +Well, the Community News is a show, a monthly show, where we take a look back over the previous month's episodes, and we give a short talk about them, and also read out the comments, which are on every episode. +By, as you often say yourself, comments are the wages and the currency in which our volunteers are paid. +So, it's very important that we go over these, as well as any other stuff that's coming up, whether it's new hosts, whether it's other news that might be coming up that will affect the community. +Speaking of new hosts, we are thrilled to introduce two new hosts, Whiskey Jack and Elspeth. +We know Whiskey Jack from previous shows, and Elspeth has done lots of shows in cooperation with Lee, and of course, was on the episode here in the Netherlands. +So, welcome to both of you guys. Thank you for stepping up and volunteering to help out here with HPR. +I did not realise she hadn't done a show of her own, but yeah, definitely already a part of the HPR family, I would say, but great to see she's actually recording one for herself. +Very much so. +So, as you said, we go back and have a look at all the shows that were played out in this month, so that everybody has at least some feedback on their episodes. +And the first episode last month was the HPR Community News for October 2025. +And there are three comments on that. +The first one was from Archer72, one of our janitors here. +This is followed by comment two by CandyCaneArter07. +A lot of what I do falls into that, but it's also too small to make it to a proper episode, to which I would actually say, I have to confess, we've actually had some very short shows, especially in recent times. +They are not too small for an episode. Definitely not. +Absolutely. One of the things about HPR is there's no limit on the topic you can be, and there's no limit on how short or long the episode can be. +I think the shortest one now is down to 30 seconds or something, and the longest one is something like eight hours. +So, anywhere within that spectrum is absolutely fine. +Then the next one was Archer72 responding tip from operator, responding to that. +If you have heard operators record several tips at one sitting that he's gathered over a few months of time, or possibly more. +It makes for some interesting listening. Couldn't agree more. +Absolutely. Now, the next day was a 4502, where we had Trey talk about a cheap yellow display project, part three, reverse beacon network. +Actually, I've got a bone to pick with Trey. He's introduced me to the cheap yellow display. +I have wasted far too much time, and also now I'm on number three of this. +So, thank you, but also I'm also cursing you for actually producing me to this piece of hardware. +Every time one of these episodes come up in the feed, I get even more guilt than I haven't had the time. +I have something like three or four of them in the box here, literally here. +And this sounds like something that might actually be useful to do. +So, thank you very much, Trey, for that episode. +No doubt people were unable to comment due to their busyness with hacking their cheap yellow displays. +Yes. Actually, I suppose the one issue, as you've said, is that what goes on to a cheap yellow display, it's about the same question as what goes on to an episode of HPR. +Exactly, yeah. +What I would like to do, actually, is just make the perfect alarm clock, you know, with ISO 8601 dates, year-month thingy, and time synchronized. +That would be thing number one. That's what I'd like in my cheap yellow display. +And then after that, I would like it synchronizing with an NTP time server. +And then after that, I would like it having the temperature inside. +And then after that, I would like it to have, like, little icons for the weather, etc., etc., etc. +Oh, I've done your fourth project there. I've got a wee weather map right in front of me. +If this was a video feed, I would show you, but it's not. +But, actually, if you check out last month's Tux Jam, we did an episode purely, because of Trey, actually, because of Trey's influence, +we did an episode purely devoted to the cheap yellow display, and we each did our own project. +And I just did a wee weather forecaster. +And it was actually a great project, I must admit. +Is that out? Is that podcast out? +Yes, yes, that is out. Yep, definitely out. +Okay. I'm behind on my feeds, then. +So, the following day, we had one password using OAuth tool. +And if you are living on planet Earth and dealing with computers at the moment, +you are definitely using two-factor authentication and stuff like that. +And this was an introduction to how you would do that on the command line using the command line OAuth tool, +and then getting a UI using the Xenity tool, which you can wrap scripts in. +So, we had candycanator07 said, +I think it's really cool that you can generate one-time passwords locally, +but I'm a bit annoyed that companies don't let you do this in the first place. +But I think it would be a bit impractical for me to actually use daily, +since you need to figure out the secret code for each website individually, +as well as a show version they're using. +Also, there's a pretty easy way to automatically copy the code to the clipboard. +It's something I use a lot in my own scripts. +Printf, dollar code, which is the variable. +Pipe that into xclip, space, dash, selection, space, C, lowercase. +The printf to remove the leading new line. +Interesting. +And this is, sorry. +This is from somebody who, but moments ago, said they had nothing to do a show on. +Folly, sir. Folly. +He's proven himself wrong. +That was a whole show in itself. +That was a show right there. +Absolutely. +Yeah. +Did you know that you can copy commands from the console to the other day? +I've basically written the show for him. +All he needs to do is record it. +Yeah. +So, okay. +We had another comment, though, on this by Whiskeyjack. +And it was, he said, +The reason that I started using OathTool was because GitHub and PyPy made OTPs mandatory. +After putting it off as long as possible, I was determined to find a solution that didn't involve giving either of them a phone number to send an SMS message to or to install their OTP app. +I thought there must be a way to do this with a free software application on my PC. +And there was. +It just took a bit of digging to figure out. +Any website that uses an Oath standard OTP will have some sort of key that they need to give to you, typically by going to a web page where you generate one after logging in. +It's not any more difficult than, say, changing your password and you only have to do this once for each site. +The main issue is, as said, GitHub and PyPy at least do not document their Oath options. +Or at least they didn't when I started using it a while ago. +So, anyone who wants to use OathTool for GitHub or PyPy, though now knows what options are needed after having listened to this podcast episode. +Actually, I think we had two shows here. +These shouldn't have been common. +These shouldn't have been shows. +Couldn't agree more. +Couldn't agree more. +So, moving on to the next day, if you can hear me. +Yes, can you find me? +We had part seven of my list of subscribed channels. +Which means, can only mean one thing. +That we didn't have a show that day. +We didn't have a show. +Very sad. +Actually, we should have had two shows for the next two days. +Correct. +I'm not sad. +I'm just a little disappointed, you know. +You know, we had expected. +You're here at the parent-teacher meeting and you're sitting down and we're looking at you a bit sad and a bit disappointed. +You know, you could have applied yourself. +You know that thing that you did this month where you thought, gosh, that would have made a good HPR episode and you didn't bother taking out your phone and recording it, you know. +When you knew we wanted to hear about it. +But, that's okay. +New beginnings. +Spring. +Next month is a new beginning. +And we always give you a second chance here at HPR School. +School of Podcasting. +So, feel free to submit a new episode. +Well, I like that, school of podcasting. +Yes, that's what I like. +Yes. +But, that's not to say that this wasn't an excellent episode. +Because every single time with, yeah, Ahuka likes cruises and he likes space stuff. +But, there's occasionally, which very much Venn diagram overlapping with my own interests. +So, I am glad to see these coming out of the reserve queue. +And, that's what the reserve queue is there for, is to fill up with shows. +So, if you are submitting in shows, submit one to the main queue, one to the reserve queue if you can. +And, that will keep us chugging along nicely. +Absolutely. +And, of course, you know, the thing is, people will say, oh, I'm not that technically minded. +I'm, you know, not into coding. +You know, this just proves you don't have to be into coding. +You know, it's not all about giving it a bunch of terminal commands as part of a show. +People are interested in this. +You know, and it's, any of us can just say, right, what are podcast listens? +What do we subscribe to? +What YouTube channels or peer tube channels do we follow? +So, and especially with something like, you know, peer tube. +I mean, if people here are regular users of peer tube, I think the one issue there is just the, it's so fragmented, it's difficult to find a lot of stuff. +So, if you do that, that to me would actually be an amazing show to do, to say, here's what I find interesting, and here's the links. +What is peer tube? +I look forward to hearing your episode. +My problem is, these days, I've got so many dash beer gardens, I'd be breaking my own rules if I was to submit more than just a beer garden. +Well, you can submit it to the reserve queue, and we'll get it through. +That's a good point. +Actually, yes, I should, actually. +Yes, I'll do that. +By this time next month, I shall have a peer tube show done. +Excellent. +So, we have the next episode, new site looks great from Archer72, helps somebody blinded by the light of a HPR new episode, HPR new website even. +And this was because, because if you don't know, Roan and the lads have done a new version of the website based on loosely on a whiteboard drawing that I did, and they made it actually work. +But some people use dark readers, and Archer72, a bug was reported, and Archer72 took it upon himself to find a fix for that, and it's awesome. +Well done. +Absolutely, yes. +And it was actually, it was amazing how quickly that was implemented. +And I have to say, yes, because I missed last month's recording. +Yeah. +I love the new website. +Really do like it. +And this one was something that, you know, he actually, in the show notes, if you go and have a check out of it, he actually goes through some screenshots as well, showing the dark theme, and also showing how to change it as well. +So, yeah, really good. +But we had one comment on this episode, and that was by Foki, and it was, thank you. +Thank you very much for your help, Archer72. +It works perfectly on LibraWolf, and I would guess other browsers in the family too. +Well, I can confirm it works on WaterFox. +That's all I can see. +Perfect. +Perfect. +Perfect. +Well done. +And there was a short episode, short sweet to the point, basically. +Here's something cool I did, and they, it's actually quite good. +They, Git, Git team people are starting to log requests over there, feature requests, and have a look at stuff. +And if you want to help out, you can. +And there's a lot of, like, tidying up documentation and moving it from the HPR main site into the wiki. +That's stuff that's going on as well. +So you don't need to be super technical in order to help out here at HPR Towers. +Absolutely. +Absolutely. +It's, yeah. +Please do, like I said, any way you can. +And the thing is, you might think, oh, I can do so limited. +But remember, it's those wee cogs that make a machine run. +You know, one of these cogs missing, the machine won't run as well. +And you only need to, yeah, target your audience. +You found it interesting. +So you're one hacker. +One other hacker is all that needs to find it interesting in order to be able to justify of interest to hackers. +So send it on in. +The following day was a UCSD space P dash operating system. +And this was by Whiskeyjack. +This came out of nowhere. +And I was removing the floor in my daughter's new bathroom, old bathroom in her new house, new to her house. +And I was listening to this episode while I was baiting away at the floor. +It was fascinating. +I had no idea this existed. +And my life is enriched as a result of this episode. +Absolutely. +Yeah, I was. +I listened to this one on the way to work. +And it was a case of, wow, this is brilliant. +And it was like, I actually want to try this. +And I was listening going, I can't try this. +There's no way to try this unless you've got a very, very great eBay find or something. +But absolutely. +Very interesting. +The whole, you know, touched on the history of Pascal and touched on loads of other stuff. +And just fantastic episode. +Well done. +Keep them common is all I can say. +And we had people answer or people have commented. +Andrew says, a blast from the P code past. +This was a fun blast from the past for me. +I remember working on several projects using the LSI 11 UCSD Pascal system in our computer science laboratory back in uni. +Thanks for the trip down memory lane. +Brian in Ohio added a comment with, good show. +I enjoyed this. +Hope Whiskey Jack can walk us down other parts of memory lane. +And Trickster said, this was very well done. +I really enjoyed this dive into UCSDP system Pascal. +I've always wanted to know what it was like from somebody who actually used it. +And this episode delivered on that many times over. +I hope Whiskey Jack does more episodes. +Spoiler, yes. +Actually, I remember doing Pascal programming in school on the RISCOS and on the Archimedes. +Now, if anybody's actually interested in doing that, Open RISCOS is still available. +I don't think it's available on 64-bit architecture. +I think it's only available in ARM. +But we did this before. +We tried it out. +And it works nicely on a Pi as long as you've got a lovely big screen to connect it to. +So there's a wee tip. +The following day, I did a What's in My Bag episode. +Largely because we were short of shows. +But also because I was wondering why my bag was so heavy all of a sudden. +So there's why. +Yes, I must admit, I'm always actually interested in these What's in Your Bag episodes. +And no different there. +You did not disappoint. +Anything weird? +Nothing. +I didn't feel that was out of the ordinary. +But then again, people say I'm weird. +So it may just be great minds think alike. +So the following day, we had another one from the reserve queue. +We're chugging through them. +Number eight. +We're almost finished. +The Ahooka ones anyway. +And let's see. +Some language ones. +Some science ones, obviously. +There was, and of course, some Doctor Who. +So if you know Ahooka, you will not be surprised by the selection here. +And again, at least one, if not two, of the subscriptions I already have in my tool bag. +And at least one, if not two, of every one of these episodes gets added to my subscription list. +So Ahooka is a great opportunity to, or it's a great idea. +Excuse me. +It's a great idea, and I hope other people will join. +Now, I'm actually disappointed that you, being a good Irishman, didn't pick up on the Michigan Irish Music Festival one. +Oh, yes, I did. +Or so you didn't mention it. +No, no, yeah. +Well, I do listen to, I find that Irish, the Celtic, the traditional Irish music, depending on where you find it, I actually do like Scottish Celtic music. +It's, and Breton Celtic music, and of course Irish Celtic music. +So, yeah, good stuff. +Now, the next day we had episode 4509, and it was HPR Beardgarten 5, and this was Heferweizen, which, if you guys actually listen to this one, you will get there's a bit of a joke in here. +Because we decided to do HPR Beardgarten episode 4, and looked at German wheat beers, and then we decided to do Heferweizen on the recommendation of somebody, only to find out that a Heferweizen is a German wheat beer. +Yeah, but I was absolutely fine with that, and I was, when I was doing this, I was cleaning the upstairs attic in my daughter's new house, just as a by the way, and I really enjoyed this episode. +Did I, I remember sending in a comment to you guys about how one can review beer themselves, because I'm drinking a brand, this brand out of brown, and it's a really nice beer, +but I'd like the formula for describing it for your show, maybe as a drive-by, and this week, this month, Ken sent in this review of this beer. +Well, you could, but it could be actually a, it could certainly be a review left in the comments, or it could be a review as a show in itself. +Yes, but I'd like the formula for, here's how you do, you know, like a template. +We should maybe have that on the wiki, or on the episode, so on your beer garden episode, if you want to do one of these shows, here's, here's what you fill out, and then in this section, describe the taste, or whatever, yeah. +Okay. +Yep, no problem, I shall do, I'll speak to David about that. +We've already got, I think, two recorded, so it'll be a few episodes down the line. +That's absolutely fine, absolutely fine. +And I do wish to point out, before we move on from this one, is that I actually missed this one, just because I was choked up with a cold, and I had no desire to drink beer that night. +Yeah. +So this was actually, Paul, Paul Jewell was actually joining the show for the first time, and I missed it. +That's rather annoying. +But it was nice to have, like, a guest host on. +I really think this is something cool that you can do from time to time. +And people, if people don't drink beer, but there are, and I think you've mentioned this before, it is the HPR Beer Garden, but it can be non-alcoholic stuff, and it can be, you know, specialty drinks from your region, or whatever, if I understand you correctly. +Yes, anybody can request it, like I say, can put in comments for that, and also even their own shows, you know, so, yes, please do. +I mean, a pub garden, a beer garden, which is part of a pub in the UK, certainly, doesn't have to just serve beer. +Yeah, actually, you might describe what a beer garden is to people. +I imagine everybody knows it, but I'm just so used to the concept. +It's far more popular in the UK than it is in, for example, Ireland or the Netherlands, having a beer garden. +Really? I'm shocked. +Well, okay, then. +This is something that, to be honest, I assume we just borrowed this from continental Europe, because, to be honest, the last place you would want a beer garden in reality is actually the UK. +Maybe with the exception of Antarctica, but all it is, is essentially, in the UK, no, not 100% of the UK, but in 99.9% of places, it is illegal to consume alcohol outside of a designated area. +And that designated area is generally inside a bar or inside your home or something like that. +And, yeah, it's just essentially, it is tables and chairs outside. +Now, it's got to be an enclosed area. +It doesn't have to be a walled area. +It can, certainly in Scotland, it can just be like a roped area, a temporary barrier set up, but it does have to be marked out. +And that is literally all it is. +It's a place where you can go, you can sit, have a drink outside. +Even in the middle of July, right, and off here, you still want to wear a puffer jacket or something similar just to kind of keep warm. +Either that or drink a bit of whiskey. +But it's also the one reason it's probably quite popular in the UK as well is many beer gardens, not all, more and more are banning it now, +but many beer gardens, that's the only place you can smoke, and smoking was banned indoors here. +I, my brother and I, when I went over to visit him, he, we would go for a walk around the, you know, the canals or wherever. +And then halfway, you know, you'd stop for lunch at a beer garden and then move on. +And then halfway again, you'd stop for another beer or two, a real ale, and then head home. +That sounds ideal. +Yep, sounds absolutely perfect. +Lovely, lovely afternoons. +Claudio says, both are tasty. +Thanks again for this episode and this beer garden series, fellas. +Both of these I've had here in the US of A, and they're pretty good. +My eldest son likes that word, which is Schoenheifer. +Schoenheifer. +Schoenheifer, is it? +Obviously, I pronounced it correctly, but fine. +Yeah, good. +Right, okay, I was just thinking it was Paul who said it, I remember, to us. +So that's what I was just thinking. +I'm going to go for his. +Yes. +In the long-continuing tradition of butchering words, Ken Fallon continues his narration of the comment. +And I'm quite fond of the Erdinger Dunkel. +I only get the Dunkel every once in a while, as it's not something I'd be drinking consistently. +Just something to enjoy every now and then when I'm feeling a little dark. +Smiley face. +There's, by the way, there is another person on our requested guests list for the beer garden. +Absolutely, yes. +Perfect. +Actually, in saying that, it would actually be quite good to maybe have a beer garden from +different areas because obviously somebody from America, you know, being on the show the +same time as us, or that side of the pond anyway, they're going to be either drinking very early +in the morning or we're going to be up during the day. +Yeah. +So it probably might be a bit better if you actually get people from roughly the same time +zone. +Yeah. +This, of course, would be a good reason, you know, if you happen to be somewhere with +somebody, you know, do a live episode of the HBR beer garden. +And then you go up, you get two different beers and you sit down and you drink them. +Actually, oh, I mean, I'm going to miss the next dog camp, sadly, just due to what commitments. +But I think this is something, Ken, you need to do. +Because, I mean, one thing I did discover, certainly, when I was at dog camp was a lot +of the beers do, a lot of the geeks do enjoy their beers and especially ales. +So just go with that. +We recorded a year and fired it down on the pub table, right? +Review you two. +I've had a review and this one is very good. +Episode 74 of the HBR beer garden. +Anywho, playing Civilizations 5, Part 5, we continue our look at the game mechanics of +Civilization, Part 5. +And this one, oh, by the way, this is just a series about Civilization, which is a game. +And this one is about world wonders and natural wonders and guilds and projects and international +projects you can do and stuff like strategic consideration, science, domination, culture +and diplomatic wins. +So you actually started playing Civilization 5. +I'm impressed. +Oh, yeah. +Yeah, absolutely. +And I'm definitely not reading the show notes here. +Yeah, actually, I enjoyed this one. +Like I said, I'm not that familiar with Civilization, the series, but I know plenty of games like +it. +But it was quite interesting just because obviously if you have one of the wonders of the world, +then you get a bonus. +But depending which one it is, it's very different. +I mean, some of them will give you cultural points. +Some of them will give you military points. +Some of them will give you religious points. +So it depends on the kind of victory you're going for. +And yeah, the other thing I actually thought was quite interesting, I hadn't thought of +this before, because you can only have one of these, you know, so let's just say you +produce or your goal is to produce the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, for example. +Then you can go and set out to make it. +Now, it's not a case of one move. +There you go. +There's your gardens. +A big project like this will take several moves and a lot of resources. +You could actually spend, let's just say it took, you know, 15 moves. +I'm just saying as an example, right? +And you were on day 14 of it and somebody else finishes the day before. +You can only have one. +So you could have spent 14 days working on it and you don't even get much of the benefit. +You will get a monetary boost, but you don't actually get the benefit that that specific +wonder brings. +Oh, that would hurt. +So you play this game, you can play this game against other people, is it? +As far as I know, no, but you do play it against other civilizations. +Right. +I don't think it's an online, it's still an old school world builder or empire builder +it actually is. +Yeah. +So I don't think it was ever initially designed. +Guys, I'm not, like I said, I'm not that familiar with the civilization series myself. +I played it years ago and I played the open Civ. +But as far as I'm aware that certainly the early ones didn't have online multiplayer, the +new ones may have. +Actually, given the way the gaming's going these days, the new ones probably do. +Well, at least when the license server breaks, that you can continue to play it, which is +always a good thing. +Absolutely. +Absolutely. +Yes. +And the next day, episode 4511, we had audiobooks with Lee. +And actually, just like a hook as listening, viewing pleasures on YouTube, this one was really +interesting. +And the one thing I liked about it was just the fact it was not, I mean, you tend to get +will people, especially about, if anyone says, right, oh, Geeks audiobook listening series, +that must be really exciting. +You know, you're thinking it's all books about, you know, Python programming or something or +network management. +But, you know, no, it's not. +And it's amazing just to see the complete broad range stuff. +I would never have put Lee down as that person. +He goes through the entire series of basically audiobooks he's listened to. +And it was really good, really interesting. +I went through this. +I thought I'll throw these show notes into ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to look for the author +on Wikipedia. +And if you can't find them, then link to their Goodreads profile. +Yeah. +And do the same for the book. +And it completely gave me, beep, made up answers. +Absolute, 100% conviction, links to Wikipedia articles that didn't exist. +And then I go, but they don't exist. +Oh, I'm terribly sorry. +Let me do that again for you. +And it links to the exact same one. +So it's complete tangent there. +Having Wikipedia help you out, or having ChatGPT help you out. +Yeah, and it just shows you, you cannot rely on these AI-generated answers. +I would have been far better off just writing a bash script to generate, to guess at what +the link was on Wikipedia. +But anyway, that's a by-the-by. +The following, oh, did we go through the comment? +No, we got a comment. +And from Lee himself, which says, SimCity was created by Will Wright, which is Maxit, +not Sedmider. +Sedmider is renowned for the video game civilizations. +And number two, inspiration for listening to the Forbidden City actually came from watching +the TV drama series Ming Dynasty, which was running from 2029 to 2020. +Thank you, Lee, for that. +But that's a good one for the all-reserve queue there, lads. +What's, what audiobooks am I listening to? +What's, yeah, or what regular books am I listening to? +Yes, absolutely. +Absolutely. +So the next day we had episode 4512 with Home Assistant, Nmap, Network Mapper, and this +one, why have I just blanked here? +Oh, this one. +It's by Reto. +Yeah, it's by Reto, yeah. +And I should have put this into the Home Assistant series section. +And I just realized it's in general at the moment, but we can pop that in there. +This is definitely something on my list and a great addition. +Thank you, Reto, for this. +Forums and how to do this. +And it's something that I really would like to do. +But as yet, half of that time. +Yeah, it's one of these things that's always on the list, but it's, for me, it's just never +that high up the list. +So it always keeps on getting pushed down. +But I do need to get around to it one of these days. +Well, I intend to have it linked to my work clock in, clock out system. +You know, when I'm working down here, then I must be working. +So therefore, add some task lists to my work system. +Okay, the following day, we have had Al with Living the Tux Life, Episode 2, show notes. +And Al broke my upload script. +He broke the upload script because he has a valid host name that is two characters long. +So right out there now, some host is deciding that they're going to be a one-letter host name. +Yeah, I like this one. +Al's just documenting. +Actually, this one shocked me. +Given Al's a co-host of Tux Jam, is purely the fact that he is not 100% user of Linux, +or wasn't up until he started doing this. +Well, if you're using it at work all the time, it's just, you know, as your daily driver, that's a different thing. +I think it's interesting that people draw the line. +You know, I find that interesting that you work on Linux servers, and that you don't run a Linux desktop. +I always found that interesting. +I'm not judging or anything. +We're judging. +No, we're not judging. +Yeah, well, so he's talking about just basically journaling his whole thing. +And actually, I'll tell you one thing. +For doing it for the very first time, and you as daily driver, he's blooming brave doing it from a laptop. +Because that's the one place I've always found Linux can be a bit on that. +Nah. +I'm personally starting a desktop, personally. +It's like the introduction of one of the FOSSTEM guys where he was doing hibernation on Linux. +It always works 50%. +We're 50% done. +We can do the hibernation part. +It's the wake-up part that's the problem. +So, anywhoos, the next day we had another one from the Reserve Q. +So, guys, that's a lot from the Reserve Q this month. +And a lot of these were from NASA because, essentially, let's face it, a hookah is doing it alphabetically and we're in the ends. +A bit sad that some of these YouTube channels have been shut down due to reasons. +But I guess you have that. +And, again, quite a few that I've listened to. +So, a lot of the NASA stuff, stuff about photography, some cruise line stuff, learning Spanish, and OLF conference as well. +And history recommendation. +Great, great topics, all of them. +Absolutely, yes. +And, like we say, please do, you know, keep some of those shows coming. +Keep a recording. +Because, yeah, like you say, we've gone through an awful lot of a hookah's YouTube subscriptions this month, which is no bad thing for listening. +But it also means that we're not getting the shows pushed in. +But, yeah, so, but one person who's certainly been also a hookah, and there's also been Archer72, who's done his bit. +Because this is a second show. +And I like this one. +Privacy, I don't have anything to hide. +Dot, dot, dot. +The dot, dot, dot being very important. +Absolutely. +I do quite a lot of the stuff in this, but quite a few of them were ones that I hadn't even considered. +So, thank you, Archer. +I've considered them, and I've implemented some, but not all. +I didn't actually know about the advanced controls on uBlock Origin. +That was one that really got me interested. +Yeah, very scary stuff, though. +Yeah, yeah. +Six months later, you go, why is this app not working anymore? +So, but good recommendations. +Excellent little episode. +And, like, two minutes, 52 seconds, you're telling me this isn't a valid episode. +Yeah? +Oh, but it's amazing, though, just how much I got from a two-minute episode. +That's what I was really impressed with. +Yeah. +And one, like, one minute of that is the intro and outro. +So, there you go. +Yes, actually, yeah. +The following day, we had Henrik Hemeren with another very useful episode, and I can speak +to this myself, which is browser use an agent strings and why websites don't work. +So, if you're not aware of it, have a listen to this episode. +If you have sudden weirdness occurring on websites and, they say, unsupported browser, simply +changing your user agent might be an easy way to get around the problem. +Absolutely. +And those of us, certainly, who came to Linux, I would say, more than 15 years ago, we all +knew this because, oh, my word, I remember that when I first came, the amount of websites +I wouldn't go, you're not running Internet Explorer. +I'm like, I'm deliberately not running Internet Explorer. +Yeah, exactly. +Yes. +So, oh, that one, I'm actually surprised that one didn't actually get a comment there. +Yeah. +Well, you see, we're getting to the end of the month now, so. +Ah, yes. +Yeah. +It was only four days ago, so lots of people have stuff in the queue, so they haven't got +to it yet. +Then we had the cheap yellow displays, part four, the hardware. +Now, this is where Trey goes through, basically describing the box and showing you how it works +and his key and paddles and straight key and stuff. +So his key, when, of course, I'm using the word key and paddle like as if everybody on +the planet is a ham radio operator. +So it's for sending Morse code. +It's called a Morse code key where you're keying, where you're sending out signals for +the dits and the dals. +And then a paddle is like a faster way of sending and receiving. +One side is dits and the other side is dals. +Oh, it's got two paddles vertically instead of horizontally like a straight key, as they +call them. +But yes, you don't, by the way, you don't have to learn Morse code in order to be an +amateur radio operator. +And in fact, as I prove, you don't even have to have transmitted in order to be an amateur +radio operator. +But we will fix that at some point. +I'm loving that old school key. +I mean, it literally looks like it has just recently been stolen from a museum. +It's brilliant. +Yeah, I agree. +Real old school style. +Yeah. +You know those films from the cowboy films where they rush into the stage. +The stage has been robbed. +And the guy, the clerk, is there with his shirt with the black things around his arm. +You know what I'm talking about? +Oh, yes. +Yeah, yeah. +Yes. +And he's there placing on that. +Yes. +Quick. +And then meanwhile, you cut to the cowboys cutting the telegraph lines further. +The telegraph's been cut. +Quick, sure. +Call the Marshall. +Anywho. +Mere Wee says, explanation of silent key, Trey said, which once belonged to a close friend +of mine who is now silent key, but missed to explain the term for those to whom it might +not be obvious. +Silent key is an amateur radio jargon for deceased person. +Took me ages to figure out that one. +And Trey, now I have to confess actually before I say that, is that I didn't actually hear the +word key. +So I just heard that they were silent. +I said, I assumed there was a deceased person. +So actually, me not hearing the term key made me understand that. +So Trey commented with, responded to the comments saying, thank you, Mere Wee, silent key episode +link. +Thank you for sharing that explanation. +I sometimes forget to explain items like this when I'm recording. +If anyone wants to learn more about the term silent key, please listen to episode 3922 when +I recorded about it back in 2023 and link provided. +Yeah, I think I also need to put in a bug. +Archer, if you're listening, can you create a bug? +Oh my God, I'm terrible. +Allow HTML links in comments. +I stripped them out at the moment, but now we are manually reviewing every single comment +that comes in. +So, well, we've always been doing that. +So I think it's okay to do that. +I'm getting more relaxed in my old age. +Ah, you're allowed to be. +Right. +So speaking of relaxed, what better way than to get some cozy stuff? +I mean, this is a cozy news corner for week 46. +So this is episode 4518, Cozy Corner for week 46, your source for open source news. +And this is hosted by Daniel Person. +And yeah, actually, when I listened to the title of this, I was like, cozy news. +Why in the world am I wanting to listen to cozy news? +It actually was like, okay, when you actually listen to it, not that. +I thought it was going to be very, very lighthearted news. +I have to confess that. +So that's my mistake listening to it. +Yeah, just a roundup of a bunch of different Linux and open source news things. +And I actually thought this was great. +This would almost be something I'd almost want to hear on a monthly basis. +Like, not instead of the community news, obviously, but alongside it. +Well, there has been various different news items on HPR in the past. +And there's complications related to timing and who you're going to get to do it and stuff like that. +So, yeah, there's history there. +Yeah. +I mean, I suppose, to be honest, if it's news and you want to keep it up to date, HPR is probably not the best one. +Because, you know, the best it's going to be usually is, well, let's just say in an ideal world, it's about 10 days before you can post. +And you posted something that happened 10 days ago and there's already been updates and then they don't work anymore. +Yeah, that can be an issue. +And then we had YouTube subscriptions part 10. +And as we know, everybody knows what this means. +And we're in the P's section and hit upon one of my favorite links was postmodern jukebox. +And he was actually at the live concert of them. +Tremendously jealous, Kevin. +Kevin, I'm tremendously jealous of a hookah for being at that. +But I'm sure they had a lovely time. +Absolutely, yes. +Absolutely. +Actually, one that I must admit that I had not heard of before, which I was, I mean, to check out. +I do enjoy, I am a gamer. +I do enjoy watching people play the Let's Plays. +So he mentioned one there. +Was it Parvis? +Parvis, something like that, gaming. +So that one actually caught my eye. +So that's something that I did not know about. +So thank you, Hookah, for pointing that one out. +And the following day, we had a hookah again. +The rule about 10 days between episodes doesn't apply if I'm pulling it from the reserve queue, as you can imagine. +And in fairness to Hookah, he is rock solid on his every two weeks. +From the science fiction and fantasy series, Arthur C. Clarke. +And he covers Rama and the sequels. +Yeah, that was interesting. +I didn't actually realize that the sequels to Rama weren't Arthur C. Clarke. +I was listening to this episode, and I knew they were kind of co-authored, but he admitted himself that, he was saying that Arthur C. Clarke admitted himself that he didn't really have very much input into the sequels, although he was classed as co-author. +But, I mean, it's one of these, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, these guys, they were always one of these kind of on my to-read list. +And actually, since I Hookah started doing this, I've started reading them, and I'm really enjoying them. +I really loved That City and the Stars. +It was one that had been on my wish list for far too long. +So I've not long finished that. +But I'm taking a wee break over Christmas, because I'm reading something Christmassy just now, but I'm going to get straight back to this. +And, you know, if anybody really does dearly love me and wants to buy me the Arthur C. Clarke I just put on my wish list, please feel free. +Feel free. +I put, I think it was a six-book set. +Oh, very good. +You're a funny guy, Kevin. +Funny guy. +Well, I mean, they say comments out of the currency we're paid. +I'm quite happy we're paid in books too. +You're happy to be paid in actual currency. +And that, I'm afraid, folks, was the end of the shows for this month. +And some of the comments that we missed when we were recording the show earlier. +The first one is by myself. +And it was on a show by Dave Morris, which was some thoughts on numerisms, a.k.a. alphanumeric algorithms, alphanumeric abbreviations. +Or numeric goal contractions. +So, that's where accessibility goes to a 11y. +Or kubernetes goes to k8s. +Just linked to this. +Thanks, Dave, for the example. +Just linked to this and work and found I was no longer embarrassed to look at the HPR website. +Dave replied. +I was surprised to see the show being referenced again after three years or so. +I had fun preparing it since there's a bit of opinion in it and a script. +An ideal combination, in my view. +I'm glad if anyone is able to get some benefit from it. +Smiley face. +The site looks magnificent, by the way. +Couldn't agree more. +And the next one was another comment that I put onto a show by Tlatu, which was transfer files from desktop to phone using qrcp. +And basically, you type qrcp and a link to the file and a QR code comes up on your desktop and you scan it on your phone and bada boom, you have file transfers. +Or not, as the case may be. +I knew this would come in handy, and I said I ran into two issues using it, which qrcp-help allowed me to get round. +The first was which of the many network interfaces to bind to. +So, dash dash bind space 192168.0.123 or whatever your IP address fixed that. +And the next one was the port. +So, I could open a firewall rule to allow that file out. +So, I used dash dash port space 43210. +And then I opened up my firewall daemon GUI and added that as an exception. +Kang Deaconator07 said, issues with qrcp. +I remember having a lot of issues with qrcp on corporate networks, where, like, it doesn't let you connect to other devices. +I'd personally recommend something like 0x0.st over qrcp for a lot of cases, as long as you know how curl works. +To which I replied, qrcp is private, 0x0.st is not. +And then the body, even if you trust what people say on their sites about keeping it private, it is still putting your files in the public domain in some form of another. +The site can be compromised or can be ordered to disclose your information by the local authorities. +Even if it were the case that this did not occur on a corporate network, it is also very likely that out and inbound traffic is also being analysed. +Using qrcp keeps it local, which means the transfer is fast as it can be, and it means it also never goes out. +Then we had a comment by Candy Canator saying thanks for Archer72 saying thanks to Candy Canator and Sakaya for comments on Git for GitHub and GitLab. +And that was where Archer72 talks about GNU privacy guard and SSH keys for Git. +He says thanks, it's always a good feeling when the show helps a couple of people smile. +The comments happened to be close to my birthday and that helped. +Candy Canator then replies saying to that comment, glad we made you happier on your birthday. +Huge smiley face. +Or, well, early birthday. +Then we had a comment on Beer Garden 4, Vice Beer, which Kevi did. +And T.A. Springer says, great episode, I look forward to hearing more. +I thought it was good coverage of my current favourite style. +I too, and constrained by what I can find in America, but sampled and loved both Erdoganer and Francis Craner while living in Germany. +They may be mass produced, but they are good, and I look forward to reviews of new brews to explore. +Antoine had an episode called Exploring FUTO Keyboard, and Archer72 had one comment, Keyboard Use. +That was episode 4494. +Keyboard Use. +Hi Antoine, I have been using FUTO Keyboard since you mentioned it in HPR 4325, and I'm enjoying it as an offline speech to text. +Thanks, Archer72. +And then we had one comment on Living the Tuck's Life, Episode 1 by Al. +Candy Canator says, cheers for taking the plunge. +And congrats on trying out Linux. +It's way more fun over here, smiley face. +For the multiple browser thing, I found using two different profiles and creating a separate desktop link for each is useful. +And there was one comment on the free software interview of Libraphone that I did, and Henrik Hemmerman says, well I posted, it was actually an interview by the Free Software Foundation. +I said, good interview pod, learn more about the Libraphone project. +Free software for phones is very interesting to me. +This conversation gives me an understanding of the Libraphone project after having read news releases earlier. +So that brings us on to the news from the mail list. +Let me call that up for you, Kevin, and I'll send you a link in the thing one second time. +And there was hardly worth our while putting that link in, because there was only one comment, and that was for the community news itself. +But yes, sadly, yeah, just that one. +Some days, some months, there's a lot of stuff, and some months there isn't. +That's just the way, that's how we roll here, folks. +That's how we roll. +But yes, there has been a lot. +Sorry, go on ahead over. +I was just going to say, absolutely. +And, you know, the other thing is, you know, if you're a regular listener to the HPR, please do come along and join us. +Because I was almost very worried I was doing this on my own as of three o'clock UK time. +And, of course, I was getting everything ready, right, okay, because I can't, I don't even have the choice of the luxury of having a delay. +So please do come along and join us. +But I do believe that is the only stipulation, isn't it, well, other than a microphone and an internet connection, is that you've listened to all the shows, yes? +Yeah, that's, and if you've listened to, you know, if there's a few you skipped, that's absolutely fine as well. +I do, I do think we send out the mailing list every month, the reminder that it's happening, and it's happening at a particular time. +But I actually think we should maybe come away from that, so that if you decide that you're going to be recording, you want to join on a particular month, that you tell us. +And then we can schedule around times that suits the people who are available. +So, as you mentioned earlier, if somebody's from the US, it might be a handy time now, but we could maybe find another time that would suit us as individuals. +So, keep that in mind, that we might maybe perhaps change the way we do it, that you, people are welcome to join, but it might be better just to schedule at a more, rather than at a fixed time. +We must do it at this time, and we do it at a time that suits the people who are available for a given month. +What do you think about that, Kevin? +Absolutely, yes. +I mean, at the end of the day, as long as you can make it, I would say, on this day. +I mean, it's always the Friday before the first Monday of the month, so we can't really negotiate that, but certainly the timing could easily be negotiable. +Well, there is a bit of flexibility on the Tuesday to the Thursday to the Saturday, because if you've listened to the Friday episodes before I come out, then we might be able to adjust slightly. +But that's basically it, that's basically it, all the news. +There's been quite a lot of contributions on to the HPR. +I see Dave has submitted the show notes, an update to the show notes, which is good because I need to run it now for the community news. +We had Gordon's comment on the HPR generator script and had some good recommendations for podcast 2.0 namespace specification. +I'd like to get some more clarification on what's useful to use from that. +I've done some work on HPR documentation, which is where we keep the wiki stuff. +We're working on the RSS feeds that are coming from the HPR generator and not dynamically generated from the PHP script. +So that's not urgent, but it's still stuff that we should be doing. +Um, HPR tools, um, uh, utility to check the feeds, uh, Roan, uh, had some stuff is working on the XML parser, uh, archer 72 found a bug on how to record a podcast page. +Uh, I pushed in some episodes updates to, um, uh, oh yeah, that was something I did do. +So up until now we've been getting, when something goes wrong, there's just a random cryptic error code. +So behind each of those error codes, now you get a short synopsis of what has gone wrong, that your IP address may have changed, or we couldn't find your email or your, uh, the show title isn't long enough for every comment. +So I did that for all the, all the episodes, except for the one that we use for the CCDN, because anybody over there is hacking the system. +Um, so they remain cryptic, uh, we changed the, uh, closed some outstanding bugs on the duration table. +Let's see. +Uh, that was, Roan was working on that. +Um, Archer had a new feature request to open, uh, links to the show note tab. +Uh, we did some work on today with a techie as well. +Uh, Roan did an awful lot of work on, on that. +Uh, in fact, the entire page is, is those changes. +He updated the tags. +Um, he modified tag query to return shows up to current date and then older ones. +And this is all just last week, folks, uh, HPR generator. +Uh, uh, uh, we fixed the bug and the layout individual hosts screen page. +Um, there is now an M3U playlist for all shows, all hosts. +So you can take the M3U file and play that and it'll give you all the hosts episodes or +for a series, all the series episodes. +He did, uh, this is Roan again, fixed white spaces and, uh, cosmetic changes to the website. +And this was all last week. +Still all last week, uh, working on the M3U stuff. +I was working on the better explanations two weeks ago. +Uh, scrolling, fix code blocks. +Uh, Roan was fixing comments on the series page and then fixed highlighting for code blocks +and did a fix for replace lane button image with linear gradient, fixed layouts of episode +nav links, remove, restored highlighting, show notes, pre-formatted text. +Whoa, this is still three weeks ago. +Loads of changes. +Add links to the host page for the listing of episodes. +And so, okay, uh, and loads more changes. +So very busy on the, um, with the HPR site. +Um, and I'm going to be, well, I had hoped to finish off the setup of the next node for +the content distribution network to bring it down to my brother-in-law tomorrow. +Uh, but, uh, I had a production outage all day today, so I had to work an extra day that +I hadn't intended. +So that may have to wait for another, another opportunity. +Kevin, do you have anything else? +No, don't think so. +I mean, I think after all that, uh, speaking of beer garden, I think you're actually going +to need a beer. +That was an awful lot of talking. +That was an awful lot of talking, yes. +Uh, but speaking of beer, one thing that is consumed in Scotland, certainly, I love a +lot, uh, around New Year time particularly is, uh, beer. +So if you want to grab your beer or whatever beverage you wish, whether it's alcoholic or +not, we do have a certain event coming up before the next HPR news, don't we? +Do we? +We, the New Year show. +Absolutely, yes. +So what was the length of last year, Swan? +I'm trying to remember now. +Oh, no idea. +But it was fell on the weekend, so it got quite long. +Uh, yeah, it seemed like it was quite a bit longer than last, last time, but I always +seem to be away during New Year. +We'll have to move New Year some other time. +Bye. +I, uh, I, yeah, I should have, uh, sent out a reminder to the mail list. +I did send out a mail list to, um, a email to all the other podcasters. +Uh, that I'm aware of to make them aware of and give them the bumper. +So we need to do some work on that. +Thanks, Kevi, for reminding me that that is coming up. +Oh, is it that time of year already? +It is that time of year. +Uh, yes. +So we've got that coming up. +So, yeah. +So, I mean, it's, there's no set routine or any set thing. +It is literally come along. +Are we doing both Mumble and Jitsi server again this year? +So, um, this is, before I get to answering your question, in case people don't know, +um, we have a 26-hour show. +Um, and this will be the 14th annual time that we've run it. +Uh, it'll start on New Year's Eve at 10, uh, 10 o'clock UTC, which is 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. +And we'll be recording along on the Mumble server for anybody who wants to say Happy New Year and talk about whatever they want. +And we will leave the recording going until at least the 1st of January at 12 o'clock UTC, which is 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. +And we'll also keep it going until the conversation stops. +So the idea is you, you drop in, you say hi. +If there are people there, you join in the conversation and other listeners and contributors. +And it's, it's usually good crack. +Um, this was originally, um, so this was actually originally suggested by Popey, um, because podcasts tend to be a one-way conversation. +So he thought it would be nice to be able to get, uh, the Floss, Linux, Free Culture, Hackers, whatever, podcasts and listeners in one place to chat in person. +So initially it was planned to be just a few hours long, a bit like the Linux in Tech Show or something like that. +Uh, but people kept missing it because they were in different time zones. +And so it extended to every time zone in the world. +And there are 38 different time zones in the world, which span 26 hours. +There are plenty of YouTube videos out there explaining the intricacies of that, but that's normal. +So we, that's why we record for 26 hours. +And then afterwards we keep the after show going. +Um, so if you don't have mumble, you can join. +And I think they is mostly run by the, um, uh, Linux log guys. +Um, the Linux log cast. +So, um, Hunky Magoo and those guys, uh, come on and do a great job on just running it. +And when they're recording their show, they record and mumble. +So you get the text and mumble and they have a Jitsi, a Jitsi meeting room going as well so that you can visually see the people. +It's not required, but it does help, um, the conversation. +It was quite interesting last year. +So, yes, absolutely. +And I must admit, I've not been able to make it for the past few years. +I'm going to make a point of trying to at least get on even for half an hour or something. +And even if you can just come in and just go, wait, you know, you come in, if nobody's there, uh, or nobody's just talking, just say, hi, this is Kevi. +Just wishing everybody a happy new year. +That's all some ground rules, by the way, that, that have developed over the last, what, 14 years, um, use push to talk and a headset. +Do don't come on thinking, oh, the rules don't apply to me. +They do. +Uh, you're, if you're coming on with, uh, without using push to talk and without using the headset, you're making it, uh, a very difficult editing job for the rest of us. +So please don't do that. +Okay. +So, um, if you have a problem, drop off into the sound booth, which is up there, the audio test sound booth, somebody will follow you and we'll get your audio sorted. +Obviously be polite. +Um, so when you enter the room and there's a conversation in full fledge, um, you know, don't, don't normal rules apply in social situations. +You kind of wait for the conversation to, to, uh, end and stuff. +If you're in a bit of a rush, type it into the channel and say, hi, can I just introduce myself? +And somebody will, uh, hopefully notice that. +And then you can speak. +Yeah. +Um, and be aware that, you know, some random person might come on that you don't know. +Um, but that person might be some good friend that we haven't heard about or seen in years. +So, uh, you know, kind of be, be cognizant of that fact. +Uh, and also do not announce the time zones. +There's no point. +Truncate silence. +We'll get rid of them. +It just, uh, we've had situations where people are in the flow of a conversation and the crack is great. +And then somebody announces the time zone and people go, oh, okay, well, sorry, then I better go. +So just don't announce the time zones. +There's no need to do that. +And the second part of that is don't fill dead air. +So if you're on the show and nobody's talking, that's fine. +There's no need to talk just for the sake of talking. +Um, if you want, if you're on there talking to yourself, then actually don't just record a show with what you would say and release it as a separate episode. +The HPR community thing is about discussions and, uh, uh, you know, don't fill dead air. +Don't fill dead air. +Uh, and also don't monopolize the conversation. +So if you find yourself talking a bit too much, um, particularly if you've had a beverage or two, uh, be, yeah, basically you're a guest. +Be respectful and remember that the attendance of the new year, and this is very important, does not constitute a show. +So there you go. +Yes. +I think that's actually very, very important. +That final one. +That doesn't mean just because you appeared on a new year show does not mean that you are, uh, you have submitted a show for that year. +However, what it will do is, um, make us aware that you exist and, uh, open you up to hour long tirades of why you should do a show. +So be aware of that. +Absolutely. +Absolutely. +Kevin, I think we've flogged this dead horse as much as we can, and we should stop now and ask people to join us tomorrow for another, perhaps even more exciting episode of Hacker. +Public. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio static. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +Radio. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4522.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4522.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e0e8805 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4522.txt @@ -0,0 +1,402 @@ +Episode: 4522 +Title: Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop event +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4522/hpr4522.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:12 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4522, for 2025-12-02 +Today's show is entitled, "Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop event" +The host is Elsbeth and the duration is 00:45:44 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "In this episode, Lee asks me questions about a shopping event I was accepted into to sell my product" +Emily and I'm here with Elsworth and today we're going to talk about an aspect of the +three-dimensional world second life which is an event that is called the 2025 holiday +stop and hop and it is a shopping event in world in second life where creators can submit +an application and it's kind of random on whether you get accepted or not +this will be my second shopping hub. To outline the context for this in second life there's a +virtual currency called Linden and people trade in that currency for all sorts of goods and services +that can be consumed mainly within the second life world. So in that virtual 3D world +many of the people who use it or some proportions of people use it are actually creators +who are creating products, be they objects, be they scripts or all sorts of things that they +can sell within that virtual world and if you are a creator you have to look for ways to market +your products. Is that about summarizing? Yeah there's numerous ways to market your products in +second life events like the shop and hop are big ones because well there's there's better +known events and then there's lesser known events. Shop and hop is the one that everybody wants to +get into because it's if you get selected they don't charge you to be a part of the event. There +are event organizers who will have different events where they will charge the creators of the +to be able to have their store displayed in their event. Do you attend these events yourself +like when you as a as a user as a shopper? Oh yeah all the time that's how you find out what the newest +creations in the newest skill set is developed in creations currently when I started second life +like 20 years ago everything was user made with blocks so you had to shape the blocks to create +objects and everything was some derivative of a block. Now it's meshed. Right so what we took +about is something that they call prims which are the most basic sort of object in second life +and by blocks you're meaning like very simple geometric shapes and the mesh is more like a +sculpted shy person like something that has a very natural like look to it. Yeah so I need to +delineate that there is a difference especially if somebody that is a second life user and has +been a person time. So there's the primitives so the the primitives can come in different shapes but +the the the base one is just a cube. Yeah and you can shape that cube or turn it into a +circle or a donut or a any real shape. There's several me and shapes that you can select to +build from. Yeah. That was the original building blocks. Then the next iteration over time +became something called sculpties. Right which was using different sorts of computer programs +to be able to shape those blocks into something that would look a little more natural. +Now when you're sculpting something now you're using mesh like blender or kinkercad or you know +something like that to create a mesh and then you have to have textures to texturize the mesh to +make it look realistic. It's like this the outer skin of it is that for the textures. Yes. I'm +all right in thinking that with more modern ways of displaying graphics textures is not just about +the color and the pattern it's also about how it reflects light, how it seems to have bumps and +so on. Right. Yes. So before PBR. Yeah. And I'm going to be honest I would have to look up what +PBR is exactly the same thing. I've heard it so many times. Yeah. PBR materials is a form of +a physically based rendering. Yes. So basically with the PBR materials +light can reflect off of it to the point where in game you can have an actual mirror that +reflects what's going on around it including the avatar. Right. That was impossible until recently. +So now there's a difference between mesh and PBR mesh. So if it's been textured with PBR it's +going to have the light reflections and when you move the lights going to change. So the material +has to be that is put on at the texture that's put on it has to be developed in a way that light +can refract over that. Because I think we're talking the other day about or you're demonstrating +that in the second life viewer you can have your standard viewing mode or a legacy viewing mode. +But you can also have a viewing mode which is the PBR viewing mode. And when you've got that switched +on suddenly you see a whole new world of visual effects like you see shadows shining for a window +or shining for tree branches and just it just looks so realistic. Yeah. Compared to +I mean it's not necessarily easier to see. I mean you then have troubles like something +some places to shadowy or sometimes your dazzled kind of thing. Oh yeah the visual story telling +that can come from PBR is phenomenal. But it takes a lot of graphic like you have to have a really +really good graphic card to be able to see everything properly. Yeah. But it's amazing. Yeah. +Now you have to have that legacy mode though for people that have computers that the graphic cards +well enough. How is this affected like the products that you sell on shop and how many of +them detail of the PBR and how many of them or do you make sure it will work with both? +All of my current products your PBR because that is the future of second life. +Just to somehow label them as such so that someone coming along and buys it and then +thinks how this looks actually. To be honest I didn't think about it until recently +because I have been dabbling with PBR since it came out and I know a lot of people put +PBR in their descriptions. I didn't even think about doing it in my naming description on the market +place and then the vendors I didn't even consider like you know this is PBR. +For as you use this PBR materials. Yeah. So this shop and hop will actually be my very first +where I have like officially labeled PBR materials. SL Read is actually all textured with PBR material. +Right. That's the book. It's like a physical book that you buy but then it would appear on your +screen as a book that you can read or it can read to you. So that's the product you may have worked on. +So as I'll read the the mesh for it is textured in PBR materials and you can attach it +as a HUD or you can res it in world. I think it works better attached as a head. So it comes +pre-configured so it'll just show up on your screen. That's pretty standard. +What you planning to put on this particular shop and hop and as it compared to what you've +done in the past for saying stuff. Actually so I'm going to be putting out a new collection of SL Read +a holiday collection. Currently what we're able to release on SL Read is all +public domain books. Yeah. So I'm going to try and have a diversified holiday collection of books +that is more than just standard Christianity based aspects of Christmas. I'm not bashing +Christianity at all. It's just I believe that everybody has the right to have a little bit of +diversity. There's a lot that can be learned from learning other people's +other cultures, celebrations and what what the root of them are and all that is. So there's +going to be a collection of public domain books that are released both as audiobooks and +readable books on the SL Read which is kind of like it's an e-book. Like it looks like an e-book. +It scrolls like an e-book. It fills like the physical tangible e-book you'd hold in your hand. +It's just on your screen in the computer. That's going to be the SL Read holiday collection. +Okay. Then I'm going to be releasing that shop in hop. But I'm also making a very +fun new form of reading in the world. Yeah, especially people that are peeing and there's a lot of +family RP and second life and other sorts of RP and our peace stands for role play. +Yes, role play. We're not just talking dungeons, the dragons role play here. We're just talking people +who act out a normal life, but just within the second life. Yeah, because they absolutely do that. +Basically, it's like using second life to have a much more beautifully rendered version of the Sims. +Yeah. I never played the Sims. I mean, I've played Sim City. I've played that theme hospital +and the same park, but maybe we could go on a little deep dive into what the Sims is because +you seem to know something about that. Well, it's a simulation. It's your simulating +developing a character and having them go to work and have a family and have kids and build +a house. It's a real life simulation as what it is. Is it maxis still who the same company that +did Sim City? Who do the Sims? No, I believe Sims is EA. All right. It was kind of a way to get. +Like, I think the Sims was a way to get like acknowledge women in gaming because females don't necessarily +like to always do the whole hack and flash, then. And guys, very much like to play it, too. I know a lot of +guys that play it. It's a multiple type game. Like you can go crazy buildings. Yeah, +didn't create it. Did you choose the first, the virtual current? Did they have the virtual currency +thing as part of it? So as part of the simulians? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And um, did that effort? +Did that ever branch out in the same way that second life did to it having some +money to do? No. No. No. Second life is a metaverse. It is a virtual world. You live. +It's just like real life. You know, you create something you either establish a business or, +you know, there's even churches in the world. You know, there's, and not just +Christian churches. There's all sorts of community. There's like the, the community that you tell +me about, which is called the commune, I think. And the area of land that you kind of occupies, +you've made links between that area of land and the, uh, the community place and this, +kind of, oh, we haven't, yeah. Yeah. We have a teleportation where you can just walk through our land +into their land. Yeah. Which if you look at the virtual map of the world is way, way far away from +each other. And you, you had to, you like forge those links kind of thing. It didn't just happen overnight. +It's like you've got into discussions with people. You said, like, you have this to offer your +following and, you know, that they can contribute to our sort of part of the world as well. +And I think you've had like varying roles with that. And I think what you're telling me is, at the moment, +you're kind of concentrating on reimagining the land that you, that you and your +immediate associates have controlled over kind of, they are very much my family. I have, +I have developed real world relationships with my second life family. Yeah. And that has happened +over the course of 11 years. Yeah. I think I think that's the longest standing regular +interactions that I've had with people in second life. But I, there are people that I've known +superficially longer. But yes, you have to develop those relationships to be able to make those connections. +Yeah. As she is, I've got an interesting question actually. What percentage would you +say is just hanging out what percentage is active role playing, what percentage is like +crafting and what percentage is like playing very specific games like, I don't know, just +hand in foot. I know we've played in the past where you just engage with a very specific game +not rather than just a general role playing game. I don't know that I can give you like consistent +percentages. Yeah. I'd say 90% of it. No, I'd say 100% of it is social. Maybe 95. +Yeah. There are times that I get on like I'm in world right now where there's people that I know +that are on but I don't like actually interact with like on discord and voice and stuff like that +regularly. The commune people are on and I can like interact with them, you know, as I want to. +But I'm up on my build platform working on these items at build platform is sort of a +private space where you're not going to get interrupted while you're crafting stuff. +Yes. Yeah. It's just an area that I have set up that I can work on my items. You know, +just stand there and be separated. So I'm not actually down in the land area where people might +actually interact with or try and interact with me because our region is open to the public. +And since we are connected through that experience where you can just teleport through a tunnel +and arrive into the commune, people can kind of over that way as well. There's my two sisters, +the in-second life. We co-own this island and then we have +boo another one of our second life family who has her island that she owns. +There's a sub island of your island. Really? No, it's her island. It's just connected to ours. Yeah. +Because when you're showing me the other day, it was like it was seamless. It was +no teleportation to get from one to the other. Well, that's because it is in fact, +it is in fact on the map just north of the island. It's adjacent. It's a Jason. +Yeah. You have to get permission from the because this is a private region. You have to get permission +from. So boo had to get permission from a kasha who officially owns our region. But nami and i +kasha all split the cost and we have developed this region together. We have chosen to break it into +quadrants. So we have like a commercial area where because nami and kasha and i all have our own +individual stores that we have things that we sell in world. So kasha has her store little adventures +and it's kind of a tour system for kids and second life because now for the record, +everyone that plays second life is 18 or older. So they're all legal because that's really important +to distinguish when families role play in second life. Some people choose to role play as children. +They are adults controlling the avi and we do not allow and there's very, very strict guidelines +for no inappropriate behavior. So i want to clarify that real quick right up front. But a kasha's +store is a children's store. Basically a toy store where parents can or the kids can come and get +chores and a chore chart and a sticker book and do chores through interacting with an object +and then either sitting on it or clicking and holding or there's different ways you can interact +with objects but each of these chores has some sort of animation or something where if you +complete the chore completely then you get a star that is calculated on a HUD that's on your +screen. It's a whole system but basically they can come in and they can do chores or even adults +can buy them because i use my doll avi to do the chores too and to collect the stickers. +And anyway so kids earn a certain amount of stickers and they can come in and trade 35 stars for +a sticker and then there's collections of stickers that they can collect that go into a sticker book. +It's it's a lot of fun. I mean what range of skills is involved to create something as +a lot for us that and how do you get the stage of having those skills? +You have to want to learn or pay for somebody to assist you. So S.L. Read you and I +developed this together and I came up with the idea and I curate the stories and +you've written the scripting and the code that goes into it and then I set up the HUD so that it +can go through and I also set up each collection and package it and whatnot. So every single thing +that is sold in second life you either have to have all the totality of the skills to either create +the mesh, create the texture or you have to collaborate with people and this is where it comes +down to. This is a social game. You have to collaborate with people to get just like if you want +to crochet something you have to go to the store and you have to get the yarn and the needles +and the the crochet hooks and the needles to thread and all that stuff and then you have to +have a pattern for the project or know what you're doing. There is a process to creating everything. +So like this. Unlike many game I mean there are role playing type games and I'll play the +Witcher as one where they have a crafting element but really that's it's a very kind of pre-determined +way of what you can craft and it's decided by the designers of the game. This seems very different +in that you can almost craft anything or you know have a service for anything and +it's really limited more by the imagination of the people doing it and they're +drive to get it done and they're able to collaborate, they're resources to have currency that they +can expend on these things to have time and energy and it's not limited in the way that you +would imagine crafting in a role playing like a massive role playing game where there is a specific +tech tree of you need these materials and it crafts this object. This is very very of a whole order +level order of magnitude different to that. Absolutely. It's a virtual world and I keep emphasizing +that because the only limitation is your ability to create and collaborate. You can +do anything in second life that you want to do. The only restrictions that you have are essentially +the terms of service so you're not doing anything that's illegal and also they're really strict on +you know not cheating people you know you don't steal other people's creations in that you know +there can be real life legal repercussions to stealing people's material that they've created +there is something called full permit people create measures and you can use those under +certain terms of service yet you have to do specific things to alter it enough to be able to sell it. +Yeah so convers if that is some objects you've just got they've given you the object that's it you've +got it and you cannot use it only as that object of objects you could modify it you could change +the colors you could actually add bits to it you could add scripts to it you couldn't do more things +with it you could even give it to us but I think often they will specify their terms if you're +going to give it to someone else you can't just resell it you have to have actually +quite a lot of creative input into the new thing that you're creating with it because I've always used +everything the guy off. Yeah that's what I'm saying there has to be a noticeable change that's +unique like in my case a lot of my changes if I'm using full perm items is scripting I'm using +the mesh as a visual to allow someone to interact in a way that they couldn't do with just a +mesh itself yeah if that makes sense. So what I was curious about asking was could you explain +kind of give an overview and some of your experiences of what like the economics of the whole thing +is buying and selling the cost of goods the cost you know in the LinkedIn currency what sort +of figures are we talking about what kind of income might you be getting and what you have to bear +in mind with that. Well there isn't any real regulations on how to price things and second life +you kind of have to go to the marketplace and look at what it is that you're selling. What is +something a similar not the exact same obviously because you don't want to you know give the exact +same item as somebody else that would you know be silly but you have a similar product how much +does it cost in world what's the range you know and there is a pretty disparate range in market +place because there is no you know some people will sell stuff for real cheap and they're undercutting +themselves some people sell it for way way way too much which means that if it's not a really high +quality current product nobody's actually going to buy it or people who have and I've experienced +this people that have all sorts of money that they just don't care what they do with it they'll buy +products just because they want to when it comes to like say shop and hop these events they will +have you have to have an item that is a free gift so that anyone that comes to the event can actually +collect items from different vendors and different stores and incentivizes people to come along +in the first place kind of right but shop and hop itself is kind of a a linden expo if you will +the linden's are the people that run second life and create make make certain it's maintained and +let you know they created it and they get the real profits from it as well from the people who +subscribe to well the linden's okay so there's the the linden's that created the game and then +there's the linden's actually work for linden labs right okay and then they have volunteers +who are people that actually work for the public horse like they keep the day to day +land maintenance stuff they keep an eye on stuff and they have events for the linden +you know they're called the malls that's the linden public's works department or l +kdw i think is the acronym that they is but the malls will maintain that so the there are the +people that actually run the back end of things or keep the the world livable and functioning +kind of thinking right right and they're with the technical aspects of it as well and running the +service and all that sort of thing physically the computers that they're making this so happen +well there are also the ones that will investigate issues so if there is a report of somebody +doing something that is against the terms of service they're the ones that will go investigate that +they'll also you know people there are things especially back in the day there used to be a +really really large amount of trolls but linden labs has done a lot to kind of diminish that +but trolls would come in and just harass people they were just there to annoy people +and they wouldn't make or buy items that would just crash people's computers because it was +throwing so many particles out you know too fast cause people to lag whatnot they're just there to +do harm well the bowls will go investigate you know is this person putting stuff up that's +garrish and just it's they're doing it on you know some people don't do it because they're trying +to some people will do it because they bought something off of the marketplace it just wasn't +really good quality and they threw it up really big and on linden land on the mainland which is +that's a whole different conversation yeah in a way people who are paying for a subscription +they might feel entitled I can do whatever I like but I mean the terms of service say no you can't +do whatever you like is certainly it's to that because we have to be nice to each other kind of thing +and keep it a functioning society of sorts right when I first started second life there was a +period of time where I just while I love the idea of it I walked away from it because if you are +playing a female character back then you would just get harassed constantly because second life +and then the labs have tried to let this be a user created world back early on there was and there +are still adult areas in second life but they have since changed that where adult type activities are +restricted to a different continent that is cut off it from people that don't want to be there like +you you don't have to be a part of the adult stuff in second life but everybody knows it's there +that being said they've they've done a good job of minimizing that harassment over time but +it took a while and I think you sometimes had the kind of content moderation rolling that and +it like very volunteering work youth take every community that I've been a part of I've +usually wound up stepping in and are stepping up to the plate and just being one of the people that +would you know help people figure out how to interact in the social community and in the communities +that we're in and you you haven't specifically been paid to do that but no you you you you have to +actually have a successful business to make real world money in in second life +yeah I mean you are not paid work yeah so when you were doing that community these community roles +even then you weren't really been paid in the linden currency either no it's all volunteer yeah +so just do you feel that you've reached some of the rewards of the effort you've put in or it's +uh it's kind of I have spent in a learning experience or just a living experience I treat this as if it's +my hobby I don't some people will you know play golf and they'll buy golf clubs and you know +golf balls and you know a membership to a golf you know a country club or something like that +to play golf you know or if they're gamers they'll invest in games or you know whatnot +in this case I invest in my hobby a lot of my fair funds go to this game because I love playing it and +I love creating and decorating and while like maybe could have eventually chosen to +go down the path of my campusness making decorating yeah okay um and because I'm more creative +I've chosen to go through some you know do something that I love and it's taking longer to be profitable +yeah um in second life but I think you're using you're kind of you're taking a full +part is a part of role in lots of different aspects of of what the world has to offer +of what the simulation however running a business running a you know being part of a community +um and that's like creating crafting and doing social playing games and so I was saying before +I know I'm aware that you've had you've been inspired recently to start really imagining +and you and the and the people you work with there have to kind of reimagine +the area that you're that you inhabit kind of as a different role play setting to what it was originally +I think this is something that's been like in the works for some time it's just been a matter of +all all of us being able to be on the same page at the same time and have the same you know +willingness to invest in time because role play is a +you know it's a it's a time investment but we found a way that we think is going to work pretty well +that will allow role play to take place both in world and out of world +so we're going to use a combination of it so we have the visual aspect where we've we've been +redoing our area to create the environment that we want but you've also been in this story telling +behind that yeah we've been yeah definitely so I know sort of a world back you have +seemed to very heavily invested in like a farming system and is that now taking a back burner +that has taken a back burner just because the amount of money it costs to do it like that if you're +going to do a farming system in second life you're going to spend real world money +regularly on it and we have chosen to prioritize working on our businesses in the land that we're in +so it's fun though yeah should I guess come back to the shop and how is there anything +else about the shop and the hope that you can think that we haven't talked about the thing about +shop and hop and this is for anyone who might actually play second life and be curious about it +shop and hop itself is really really great to get into because it's free but to enter +but it takes several times of getting in and you'd not guarantee getting in every single time so +the last I've applied for the last three including the one coming up the last three shopping hops +I got the first one I applied to I actually did get into which surprised me +the next one I did not get into but my sister did she got her story into the shopping +hop and that was pretty cool let's see so I was just thinking actually you've had some experience +and she's had some experience too so what was the outcome of the shop I mean what was the benefit +to you or at least how did it go basically so the first time it didn't really go real well I +wound up being on a region where there was one I think I missed categorized my store +for one and to the other aspect of it was is I was in a region so there's multiple regions +and shop and hop there's a lot of them so it's a huge huge shopping event you if you don't get +around to all the regions you're not gonna get around to all the stores so most people will look +for the big name stores that they know about and go there because they guaranteed to get a high +quality item or free because in this event you there's a free get so is there a bit of potlock +who you're next to that was exactly what I encountered where I was in a region that +not a lot of people got around to because there was no recognition of names so basically you just +really have to keep trying to get in and keep getting your name out there now I did have +some sales not near as many as I could have hoped for but it was my very first event so I +felt like I did pretty well now last shop and hop a kasha got into it and her store is a little more +well known it has had a bit more success so she had some sales there and part of her store she +has me put children's collections books out for S.L. Read so she had me put out a +an S.L. Read collection there and I did actually get one sale on S.L. Read for that +in her store for the shop and hop the one that you weren't attending the one that she was +yeah her store has a specific collection of children's books that S.L. Read puts out +this makes me wonder is there and it's just me wondering like is there a sort of business +business market the products that you have like you would sell to other businesses and they would +then sell it on and they would maybe brand it and they put their own content or you would specifically +give it to other businesses and I might have better connections for selling the stuff +but you're there on producer there are people that market in second life that way I do not +do that a whole lot unless I actually know the person so like in this case it's kind of a +we had like a collaboration where it's it's S.L. Read it's mine but it's for little adventures +right I can't make sense it is also available in my store as well the children's collections are +so you wouldn't really want a generic middle man sort of selling on your stuff just because they +happen to have a better reach to the market but then you'll look kind of the control of how it's +been distributed really exactly and that's yeah yeah that's why I don't do it that way +there are people that do I do not because I want the autonomy of my store being my brand +actually makes me wonder if there are other like real world business models that exist in +second life like other franchises for example yeah there are franchises you could sell +store based on someone someone else's brand and you just pay them like for the brand and then +you stop the store but because people know that brand they would but I mean does it does the fact +that physical locality is not as important kind of hinder that geographical spreading out of +businesses because obviously someone can in it in effect they can just teleport from anywhere to anywhere +I mean like would you have like a hundred McDonald's so you know spread about in different +parts of second life or is that pointless because you could just go to the one there are businesses +like that it's all about how you want to make your money in second life and I want to be known +for my stuff not selling someone else's stuff if that makes sense like I may buy the rights to use a +mesh yeah but then what comes out that is your own product right exactly because I'm doing something +to change it I'm doing something to you know it's it's kind of like upcycling if you will you know +it's it's taking something that was used for one purpose but is now used for another +you know I see where you're going with the concept but that's definitely not the way I want to +do business in second life sure because I want to be you know I'm branding if that makes sense yeah +so I guess I guess my other thing that I was kind of that I referred to there was the physical +locality so in general can you think about what difference does it make between second life and the +real world that you can just teleport anywhere instantly how does it make it a materially different +existence or the way that the society is structured the fact you can just that there is no form +of transport as it were other than just a role play that you're driving a car role play that you're +in an airplane so well actually on mainland you can drive all sorts of places you can drive +somewhere and then take a ship to another continent or fly a plane to another continent like all +of the basic concepts of transport the only restriction you have as far as travel and second life +is if you're on private regions having the teleport experience that we have that allows us to just +walk through a tunnel into the commune teleportation is is just a way of life and second life just +like flying is yeah yeah of course your your avatar can just type anyone's avatar can just type +off jump 100 feet in the air and just take an overview of what's going on fly back down and that's +just taken for granted there's just one of the mechanics of the world so when you're talking about +there is a shopping hop and it's on certain regions it doesn't matter what region you're in in the +world you can immediately get to the shopping hop you just need to know an address for it +well it's advertised it's advertised all over second life it's going to be on the main page of your +your viewer it'll be on the website you know it's one of those things it's it's very widely +advertised and everybody knows about it yeah and if you don't know about it you haven't been in +second life very long or you don't pay attention you know because you I guess you could choose +not to know stuff on second life but it's very well again I guess geography in second life is a bit +more dominated by reputation than it is by proximity I guess is it is would that be a fact yes +if I think that's very earnest yeah the more place is now and the more accessible it is to get there +yeah well there's also a marketing system and you know you can advertise your land +you can pay to advertise your land to get your land more known yeah it more business there +how much more profit like selling a shopping hop type of thing compared to just having a store in your +little region that people generally have to come to people that don't know about falls haven +yeah we'll learn about falls haven right because the store is located so when you're at shopping +hop we'll have a group joiners so people can learn about the new stuff and then there's also going +to be a landmark where people can teleport to the main store because I'm not going to have +every single one of my products in the shopping hop yeah and of course when you sell up product +you often include a no card with it that says you know if you want to visit our store here's the +here's the link to get there so it's a bit like internet it's better I'm selling on the internet +really it's just it's a has that quality to it yeah absolutely well website it does the internet +yeah yeah exactly so a website it doesn't necessarily matter where you're living you can order +something from that website and get it to you whether it's 100 miles away or a thousand miles away +within reason yeah that's been very informative and I think we've covered not just stuff +about this particular event but so a more insight into the the world second line of matters +into the metaverse yeah be it be it is a kebugs metaverse or or this particular in the +labs metaverse just just to throw you a big loop here not only do they have shopping experience there's +actually universities real life universities yeah okay you have classes and stuff in world +you can get qualifications from it's more like a certification type thing it's basically +it's basically advertising for you know they're university but there's there's all sorts of +real world businesses are actually in world okay they've chosen to just have this as another avenue +for reaching they're using for the people you have to participate in their things yeah okay +anyway thank you very much else with and thanks for asking me the questions that +lets me get the little squirrels out of my brain okay all right so goodbye from me and +bye from hell's death thanks for listening +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4523.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4523.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae84f49 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4523.txt @@ -0,0 +1,152 @@ +Episode: 4523 +Title: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 1 - Nuclear Basics +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4523/hpr4523.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:13 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4523, for 2025-12-03 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 1 - Nuclear Basics" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:11:24 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This episode is the first in an 8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. - Nuclear Basics" +This episode is the first in an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +What this series will cover? +I'm not a nuclear engineer or physicist, just an amateur with a hobbyist's interest in +the subject. +This is a politics-free series and the focus is on the technology of the reactors. +This series will focus on the civil nuclear industry with a particular focus on electric +power generation reactors. +I will discuss the technology, what it is, how it works, and some of the pros and +cons of different technologies, but I will try to avoid offering too many opinions on what +it's the best or worst of anything. +I won't cover military or naval reactors or nuclear weapons production reactors. +I won't cover fusion power as it is still in the experimental stages and I don't know too +much about it. +I won't cover research or experimental reactors with a few exceptions needed to illustrate +a point. +I also won't cover mining, refining, converting, enrichment or disposal. +I won't cover the parts of an electric generating plant outside of the reactor, such +as turbines, generators, transformers, cooling systems, and everything else that is needed +to make a functioning power plant. +I will instead focus on reactor technologies which are in commercial use today, plus some +of the more interesting samples of things being developed in some of the historical dead +ends. +I'm not interested in discussing any politics, just to nuts and bolts of technology. +I will try to keep explanation simple, and so will skilm over a lot of details, there +is far more that could be discussed on this subject than I have the time to make podcasts +on. +Also, I'm probably not the best version to get into that sort of detail. +Episode 1 will cover nuclear basics, including basic terminology and several versus military +nuclear material. +Episode 2 will cover nuclear fuel, including the different types, recycling of spent fuel, +uranium, and thorium resources, and medical isotopes. +Episode 3 will cover reactor basics, including slow versus fast reactors, moderators, +coolants, steam generation, refueling methods, and the 3 main commercial reactor types. +Episode 4 will cover the less common reactor types, including types which are no longer +used, some historical developmental dead ends, and some types which may be possibly making +a comeback. +Episode 5 will cover fast reactors, including the different types, some of their history, +why they were developed, and why they have so far only seen limited use. +Episode 6 will cover thorium reactors, including what is thorium, and how it differs +from uranium, why there is interest in thorium, what sorts of reactors can use thorium, +and why thorium has not yet seen widespread use. +Episode 7 will cover small modular reactors or SMRs, what the reason is for developing +them, what are the different ways they may be used, and where they are currently being built. +Episode 8 will cover generation 4 reactors, which is a collection of future technologies. +Nuclear basics, first we need to start with the basics. +I won't explain what an atom is, or what a nucleus or proton or neutrons are. +I assume you already learned that in school. +We need to define some basic terms first, however. +Isotopes. +The first is an isotope, an element is defined by the number of protons and electrons +that it has in it, an atom can also have neutrons. +Neutrons do not affect the chemical properties of an element. +To be a bit more precise, they do not affect it in ways that are easy to detect. +The number of neutrons, however, can affect the nuclear properties. +The number of neutrons in the atoms of an element can, in some case, vary, +resulting in multiple forms of each element. +Isotopes of uranium. +Uranium, as it occurs in nature, has two main isotopes. +One isotope of uranium is U235, which makes up approximately 0.7% of natural uranium. +The U is the chemical symbol for uranium, and the number 235 is the number of protons, +plus the number of neutrons in the nucleus of the atom. +Virtually all of the rest is U238. +U235 has the same number of protons as U238, but has three more neutrons. +Nuclear fission. +Nuclear fission is a random atomic nucleus is split, producing energy as a byproduct. +This will normally result in the atom becoming either a different element, +or a different isotope of the same element. +Some radiation is given off in the process in the form of neutrons or other particles, such as +alpha or bedic particles, or electromagnetic radiation, such as gamma rays. +Some small part of the matter is converted into energy in the process of this, +and it is this energy we are mainly interested in obtaining. +This is distinct from nuclear fusion, where two or more atoms or particles are merged +into one, producing a larger element or form of the same element. +Fission may happen spontaneously, or it may be induced by being struck by another particle, +usually a neutron. +Half-life. +Radioactive isotopes which decay spontaneously have what is called a half-life. +Half-life is a term to describe how quickly something spontaneously fissions. +The half-life is a time required for half of the existing material to spontaneously +fission. This can happen repeatedly, so there is no end to the process as long as any of the original material remains. +This half-life could be anywhere from a fraction of a second to billions of years. +An isotope with a very short half-life gives out more radiation in a given period of time than one +that has a very long half-life. For example, the common element potassium 40, which is found in many +rocks such as granite, has a half-life of 1.25 billion years. This means that it will be around for a very long time. +However, that also means that it is not very radioactive as a rate of decay is very slow. +Fisile versus fertile. U235 is fisile. That is, it will take active part in initiating and +contributing to a nuclear reaction. U238 is fertile. It will not initiate a nuclear reaction. +However, if U238 is hit by a neutron, it can be converted into another element which is fisile. +It is very important to understand a remember what isotopes are and the difference between +fisile and fertile in order to understand nuclear power. +Enrichment of isotopes. Enrichment is a complex process which increases the percentage of +U235 isotope in fuel from the natural 0.7% to a higher level. Typically between 3 and 5% +in standard commercial fuel. It does this by extracting some of the U238, leaving behind a mixture +which has a higher proportion of U235. While many nuclear reactors are designed to use and +rich to uranium, it is not strictly necessary in order for them to work and some commercial +reactors use natural uranium. There are a number of different ways that enrichment can be performed, +but it won't be covering them in this series. Civil versus military nuclear material. Under +international convention, nuclear material is divided into civil and military categories. +The difference between the two is based on the proportions of different isotopes. +Military material has many more restrictions on who can have it and how it is accounted for +than civil material. Civil material hover must still be accounted for and tracked under +international treaty. These rules have a direct effect on reactor designs as we shall see. +Uranium. Civil uranium is uranium that has less than 20% U235. Military uranium is 20% or higher +U235. This is why you see so many small reactor designs as state they use fuel and rich to 20%. +It's actually typically 19.75% in order to stand with the limit. This is the highest +taken go in civilian hands. Most civilian nuclear power reactors which use in rich uranium +use 3 to 5% enrichment due to economic reasons. The higher the enrichment level, the more expensive +the fuel. Also, to supply a fuel higher than normal commercial that has 3 to 5% levels, +is very limited and there are very few sources. Plutonium, just like with uranium, +several versus military plutonium, is defined by the ratio of isotopes. Plutonium does not +exist in nature and significant quantities but can be created artificially. In spent fuel +from civilian power reactors, the Bain isotopes are PU238 239 240 240 1 and 2402. Typically in +spent fuel this is 50 to 60% PU239 25 to 30% PU 240 10 to 15% PU241 and a few percent each +of PU238 and PU242. PU239 and PU241 our fizzile will PU242 is fertile. Civil plutonium is defined as +having 20% or more PU242. The PU239 is an is the isotope desired for making weapons, +and PU242 is considered to be a serious contaminant from that perspective. Unlike with enriching +uranium, it is not feasible to separate PU242 from PU239. The only feasible way to create plutonium +with a high level of PU239 and a low level of 240 is to avoid making PU242. Weapons great plutonium +is made in special military reactors, although two of the UK's magnox reactors were designed +as dual use models intended as military reactors but producing electric power as a buy product. +I won't go into how military reactors for producing weapons great plutonium operate +as it is not relevant to our discussion on civil nuclear power plants. It is also not a topic +with very much public information being available or for which I have much personal knowledge. +Conclusion in the first episode of this series we discussed what this series will cover +some of the basic nuclear physics terminology and the differences between civil and military +nuclear material. In the upcoming episodes we will discuss some of the basic engineering +aspects of reactors, the various types of commercial reactors including common and uncommon ones, +nuclear fuel including uranium plutonium and thorium, medical isotopes, small modular reactors, +and the areas of research being conducted into new reactor technologies. +In the next episode, however, we will cover types of nuclear fuel, recycling of nuclear fuel, +uranium and thorium resources and medical isotopes. This concludes the first episode of +an eight-part series, a nuclear reactor technology. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4524.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4524.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ea04625 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4524.txt @@ -0,0 +1,119 @@ +Episode: 4524 +Title: Living the Tux Life Episode 3 - Automating the Install +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4524/hpr4524.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:14 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4524, for 2025-12-04 +Today's show is entitled, "Living the Tux Life Episode 2 - Automating the Install" +The host is Al and the duration is 00:06:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "How i automate my mint os install " +Hi, I'm on episode 3 of Live in the Tax Life, where I document me, my journey of running +with Linux has my daily driver, since last time I got new laptop, then a new VOT14 as AMD +would stick to thinking around. +I'm recording the episode and I'm still running the experiment, and I'm absolutely loving +it. +I haven't had anything that forces me to use Windows yet, I've been automating my installation +progress, which I'll deep dive into during this episode. +Regarding the TE4S laptop, it's brilliant, it's fast and a battery life is amazing. +Intesting on getting around about 6 to 7 hours of constant use, since I've brought +it second hand, I checked the battery capacity, and it was at 98% and I had an 48 cycles, +so it was unbelievable. +I was going to get new battery, but there's no point. +In future episodes, I want to talk about using something like Perfucius, to monitor the +battery usage and also RAM usage, because I'd really like to have a laptop with 30 +kgm, but the problem is that they're very rarely used when you get the memory is sold +on the board. +So I've been automating my setup, pick up and try, and next, I've been on a number of +laptops, I had lying around, I haven't automated the actual installation of it in +the next minute, but actually it's not like this is possible. +As I mentioned before, I like to have my laptop hard drive and cryptid, in case I need +to deal the haste. +I've been a second new option to install Mint with LVM and setting the encrypted drive +part, dives option. +The problem is that I want to have a custom partition setup on my laptop, I put in a +mini, one terabyte m.2 drive into the laptop, I want to have a 100 gigabyte root partition +phase gig, gig, swap partition, a 700 gig, home drive, and a 100 gig as a backup drive +for time shift. +The rest of the space can be used if I want to expand any of the partitions in the future, +I've talked more about time shift they do in the episode. +I want to separate the space out so that if I need to reinstall my home drive wouldn't +be affected. +I looked at how to set up a custom partition with an experiment, but it looks like it's +not possible to do an installation when you're using LVM. +There are two options, setting up the partitions first and installing the instrument on them. +But it is quite in-depth, and if you want to use LVM encrypted drive, I find a guide +that suggests that you select the standard install with LVM and encrypt the drive, then +after the install you can strengthen the drive to create extra partitions. +I'll link in a show next to my guide how I do this. +So after the install while the LVM is still loaded on the system, I shrunk the main +repartition down to 100 gig, as I resize the spot tissue to 30 gig, and then create the +partition home for home at 100 gig and 100 gig for backups. +I then run a number of commands to move the home directly to new partition, I had set +up. +They are mounted to the LVM volume, rebooted, and there it was, or working. +So I wanted to install all my apps, fight, act, and flatback, and restore my configs. +I'll even link again in the show notes where details of all these commands. +Firstly, I wanted to find out what applications I had to install via app, and flatback. +I tried a number of commands, but I found that the one that worked for me, it showed +instance in the show notes, as managed to just show all the application is stored, since +we're including one to sort it when you install the OS. +But I wanted to just list dusting ones and stores into the installing the expense. +I'm using a program called Ansible to auto setup my machine, it's a tool used by default +to people to configure and make machines using SSH. +But by using the connection load collection, it can be used to configure your load +call machine. +You can store Ansible by app, then you need to create a Yamaha, I'll click example in my blog +As you can see, you can store app for repositories and sorts of certificates for them. +Each second is a different part, you can see, I then install the apps, fire app, adding +this, you pulled earlier. +And then you can see, I added a list of all the fat packs I wanted to install too. +You can run the Ansible Highfirm Paybook command, point into the Yamaha, and you'll see +it come back showing what where it is in installing each section, after it run, you can +see all my apps were installed. +I haven't, I have all my Ansible Yamaha's going to just to a private Git repository, +just in case I'll put some sense of information in there. +Next I wanted to list all preferences, like Git configs, the great preferences, either +normally are in the dock config folder in your home directory. +These are the hidden files, so you'd have to normally go to the top and go to view and show +a hidden file to you, or to see them. +At the moment, I manually copy these from a working laptop and commit them to my repo. +I can then go into my Git repo, I can go into Git repo into another podcast. +If anyone is interested in a manual of PC config files on my new install, you can configure +Ansible to check out these repo and copy them to the OECM machine by haven't done +this yet. +Next I'll things like setting up all papers and keyboard shortcuts. +I have configured. +To transfer these over, you need to use decomp, this dump to get a name config to a file. +I have lots of trouble setting this, but if because I was using cd to run decomp, you +don't need to. +You basically export the root of the decomp to a text file on the source OS and then import +it up onto your new OS. +I reviewed by that top and it was all set up. +I reached the conference guide to this, on my blog. +Defining each step, the last thing I wanted to talk about is time shift, which is a backup +tool. +I'll go into more details about my plan to back get my laptop in the future. +What I wanted to do is help with your reddit against a bad update, time shift is installed +by default in the X-Men by default, it's not used to back up your home directory, but +it can be used to back up the root directory. +So if sometimes you can use it to help, you will get restored and get your system working +up again. +I can forget to back up back up to the partition I created earlier, and I can forget +it to back up one to day. +I haven't tried restoring from it yet as a system failure, but I have tested it to restore +file from the back up and that works. +And that's it for this episode. +Thank you for watching. +See you in the next video. +Until next time. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4525.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4525.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f328cc9 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4525.txt @@ -0,0 +1,78 @@ +Episode: 4525 +Title: Using mail merge in thunderbird +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4525/hpr4525.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:16 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4525, for 2025-12-05 +Today's show is entitled, "Using mail merge in thunderbird" +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:08:13 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Use thunderbird to send out multiple emails based on a csv file" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Falon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio and yes, it's that time of year where we're start planning the new year show +Normally I send out the emails to all the hosts and the other podcasters +We're involved in the free labor open source hacking scene Linux scene to invite them and their listeners to join the event +And normally we forget let's face it both this time upward in reminder of my calendar to do that and instead of sending out all the emails one at a time +I wanted to use a mail merge program and I was thinking there's got to be something in Thunderbird to allow me to do this +And there is if you go to the add-on add-ons for Thunderbird.net link in the show notes +You get a link to this mail merge program that was written by Alexander Bergman. I would like Firefox where you can just click and install from there +You need to first download it and then you can go into Thunderbird and I always tend to forget where exactly in Thunderbird.net is so that's why I'm kind of recording the show +So tools add-ons and themes within Thunderbird and then where it says manager extensions +A button, a cog, a cog gear wheel type thing, tool thread-ons and it says install add-on from file and that will allow you to install the mail merge program +So once you've done that if you've ever used a mail merge program before it'll read in from in this case it'll read in from a database or a CSV file or JSON file or a Microsoft Excel +And each column is a different field so it'll go across the row under your like email first name last name +Teleform number or something you could use the delimitor which is squiggly brackets squiggly brackets primary email squiggly brackets where primary email is the field name at the top +Then it will create an email for each row using the values that are in each of the columns +So it's not that complicated. In my case, I'm just using the email address and what I've got is like my email address cannot fall under the head +And then on the very first line I've just got the word primary email +I'm using that as the delimitor so then in my mail program I create a new email, but instead of writing cannot fall under a I put in +Cardi brackets curly bracket also to opening curly brackets primary email with the cases exactly like they are on the first line of my CSV file comma separation of value file +And two closing curly brackets and then I put in my subject low and then the body is world and then I press the mail merge thing and then that mail merge button within Thunderbird is on the email +The image of this and the show notes, but you won't get it you won't you'll be able to get everything from this so the source +It's got four different sections source attachments back and send so the source allows you to select the sources in the dress book see it CSV file JSON file or Excel spreadsheet which I've already told you about +I'm going to browse on the CSV and select its UTFAs and fields and images and automatic so nothing nothing crazy there. I'm not going to be sent on the attachment, but I guess you could +The batch size would be if your email provider wants to is looking for spam and does someone like thousands of emails coming in at the one time +So what I did there was I just added three seconds and set it random and they start on the stop not sure what they do, but it's pretty much worked for me. +Then the send we have three different types of delivery modes save as draft we'll just save the thing as a draft saved later, which is the default and send now which I'm +Which will give you a warning as I'm only using test addresses. I'm just going to send now when I press send I get the our warning message and then I press start and then there is a random +Three second delay as it sends out the six email must just that come in and then the emails just go +Each of them are sent individually as separate, but if I wanted them and I see that I received all the email addresses to myself +Which is fantastic and if I wanted to do the same thing again, I will go open curly brackets and two closing curly brackets and +This time I'm just going to select the same file and instead of actually sending them I'm going to use the save later option and +It makes no sense to have any of the batch options there because they're just going to go into my inbox. So when I do that, it pops up I press start and there in my local box folder and there I can review them and I can right click on them, edit them further +So +Cool utility let's face at this show was more reminder for me that this is what I need to use next year when I forget so for those of you who don't know they +New year show will be running from the first time zone going into the last that's a total of +37 times zones and spanning +26 hours or something something notes like that and what we do is we come together on the mobile chat +Then that gets recorded and released +Laser on was a podcast so +Some of the ground rules you must use push to talk and a headset so please just don't come on and +Run the audio for everybody +There's no way we can fix 26 hours of audio so head says push to talk if you can't that's fine +You're just going to go into listen mode +You got to be polite so when you enter the room +Please don't interrupt an ongoing conversation wait for a pause on the conversation and say hi +It's quite common for people that you might know to join as they wish to speak with other people in the room +They may have been waiting all year for this chance to meet so please give people the space to have their conversations +The next thing is do not introduce the time zones. There are lots of time zones and adjust interrupts the flow of the conversation and would +Put trunk aid silence. It doesn't matter anyway. It's all going to get truncated down. Don't monopolize the conversation +As I said, people lots of people are coming on there +So if you find that you're talking too much just step back +If you're planning on being there the whole time +You know just don't don't bother even talking if the flow is going just wait until it dies down a bit +And then say hi to new people coming in that's your role. Don't fill dead air +Truncate silence will do is there's no need to fill dead air just let it be and there's no need to mention that there's dead air people +What know if you didn't mention it truncate silence would kick in nobody would ever know so be respectful to each other and remember that the attendance of the new year shall +Does not +Constitute issue itself and everything is released under CC by essay +Okay, so that is tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker public radio +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4526.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4526.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e84094c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4526.txt @@ -0,0 +1,144 @@ +Episode: 4526 +Title: Baofeng and SDR++ +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4526/hpr4526.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:18 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4526, for 2025-12-08 +Today's show is entitled, "Baofeng and SDR++" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:09:33 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee tries transmitting and recording on VHF and UHF" +Hello, I'm Lee. +Sturmgren's talk about dipping my turn in the water of Imterradio. +I took the UK Imterradio Foundation license exam in March 2025, for a while I've been +experimenting with software to find Rageau and had been trying to pick up signals such +as commercial FM and DAB Rageau with my SDR dongle on my PC running event too. +But up until now I've not even tried transmitting. +Back in 2024, I'd obtained two handsets that look like walkie talkies. +After Mr. X showed me this type of unit, that old camp, the making model of the ones +I had, is a bow-fing UV-5R, six mobs after taking the exam. +I finally got around to finding out my cool sign, and downloading my license from off-com, +who are the regulators. +I record from my study for that exam, that according to the license terms, is mandatory +to announce your cool sign in the station, which is basically meaning where you're transmitting +from, when commencing a session that includes transmissions on amateur bands, also why +you can transmit live signals and conversing real time. +We've even then coded a bit not encrypted non-voice signals, actual broadcastings such as playing +pieces of music, but commercial radio station is not permitted. +Furthermore, the power of the transmissions should not exceed 10 watts, and a handset +like the ones I have, indeed, does full below this level, even at the highest transmit +power setting. +For this initial experiment transmitting, I wanted to speak a voice message from my handset, +and pick it up on my PC with the real-tech chipset SDR.com, and even record it. +To decide how to transmit and receive my signal, first I need to consider its parameters. +First the distance. +This would be very short, indeed, within another room in the same building, a power much +less than the allowed ten watts would be more than adequate, than the frequency range. +To transmit spoken voice signals clearly, frequencies up to 8 kilohertz need to be accurately +conveyed. +The Vows are low frequency, say, less than 1,000 hertz, consonants in general range up +to around 2,000 hertz, those specific consonants could civilen some more like 4,000 or +more. +So this set my approximate bandwidth I would need to be of the order of magnitude of +10 kilohertz. +Then I wanted to choose what channel and modulation scheme to use. +Frequency modulation seemed most apt, as it's a fairly simple mechanism that offers reasonable +protection against distortion. +Then the two meter wavelength band, with frequency 145.5Mhz, is channel V40, which can +be used for FM. +Alternatively, in the 70 cm band, with frequency 4, 3, 3.5Mhz, those channel U280, which +can also be used for FM. +Both these channels have made bands for UKM to radio, license holder, transmissions. +Channel V40 is apparently what used, so I decided to try U280 at first. +This my transmission was for test purposes, rather than deliberately contact other amateur +radio uses. +While using FM, there is narrow band or wide band FM, wide band as you would expect +uses more bandwidth, and this hence use commercially for music, which tends to need frequencies +up to 44 kilohertz. +For my purpose, it's narrow band was fine, and it's more conservative in its use of +the radio spectrum, hence impacting any other uses less. +What I was aiming for was to communicate in one direction from transmitted to receiver. +This mydi is nine as simplex, with two-way comms, nine as duplex. +I started my experiment setting up STR++, which is some software capable of reading data +from the USB-Dongol, and extracting specific radio signals, then plotting as both a real-time +horizontal spectrum and a vertically scrolling calicoid frequency trace. +It also demodulates the chosen signal, so the actual audio of it can be listened to or +recorded for further processing. +I plan to set the frequency modulation scheme and bandwidth for other receiver, the 433.5 +narrow band FM, and a standard 12.5 kilohertz respectively, then on the handset set this +same frequency and try transmitting and see what happened. +So as soon as I told software to start listening, I got a load of white noise coming in. +So options to adjust the gain as well as scale and offset white plot, so the background noise +would be near the bottom, and then he signal near the top of the fluctuating graph. +It seemed to be very little else I was seeing using this part of the spectrum. +As soon as I pressed the push to talk button, my handset, I saw the noise disappear, and +the signal centered on the carrier frequency of 433.5 mHz. +Actually, after zooming in later, I realized it was slightly off-center, but the software +allows the centering to be slightly adjusted for a closer match. +The spike I saw was clearly the carrier wave. +I knew the signal itself would manifest the symmetrical bumps to the left and right of the spike. +What surprised me though, was there were slightly diminishing amplitude, go signals appearing +at regular frequency intervals, falling off an either side of my actual signal. +After a little research I summarized this was to do with eye-strike U imbalance, an artifact +of the signal demodulation process. +Those are setting in the software that's meant to counter this. +For the gain, which is how much the signal will be amplified and diminished to fit the +desired output range, there were options to handle this automatically via the real tech +chip set of either software, or alternatively it could be set manually, so from zero +decibels, meaning a 1 to 1 input to output correspondants up to 48 decibels, that corresponds +to the output being about 150 times the input. +The result of my experiment was I got a very quiet reception of why I spoke into the transmitter. +To the extent I had not noticed it was there until I happened to share the signal with +a naïe, tell me troubleshoot, or surprised when it was able to tell me exactly what I'd +said in the transmission. +After this I realized I could use the compression filter, or amplification filter and +audacity, and did actually see the spoken message was there. +The troubleshooting I went through almost every relevant setting on the transmitter, as well +as receiving software. +I actually even switched band down from UHF to VHF, and was using the 145.5MHz channel called V40, +thinking this would make a material difference. +Also I tried to adjust in the bandwidth for the receiving end, thinking the signal may +be being restricted by sampling to a narrow band. +Offerating the handset menu, meant pressing menu, then up or down or key numerically, +the menu option desired, then pressing menu to edit, up or down to choose the setting +value, then menu again to save, and exit to go back to the frequency display. +There was also an orange key to the top left, this switch between choosing a frequency +numerically, or letting the up and down keys page free set standard channels, the punctuate +the whole spectrum. +One of the things I tried was checking on my handset, if the squelch was set up, which +silence is noise when nothing is being said, or whether there was a transmit tone out +of audible range being said, called CTCS or DTS. +These features are used to signal to a receiver, something is on air, even if that's +something is silence. +This allows automatic activation of squelch, or can help a repeat and note the signal +is there, and the SFTD is another setting that determines the offset frequency to allow +it to be relayed slightly further up or down on the spectrum, while repeat achieving +greater range. +But these settings were all turned off, there was a setting for busy channel lock-out +to stop accidentally transmitting over the top of someone else. +But this was off too, there were a load of other settings in the menu, the related +tenset operation rather than characteristics of the radio signal send. +But I eventually figured out, it's my problem was this, before transmitting there was +a lot of loud white noise, just random radio noise in the air, for picking up my voice +on the recording, I had the recording sensitivity set low, otherwise this white noise +was incredibly loud, but as soon as I transmitted the white noise was gone, replaced +by my signal, however, because the recording level was very low, my voice came through +very, very quietly, while I had to do was counting intuitively, so the recording level +up to their maximum, even though this meant very loud white noise prior to an after transmission, +only then when I did actually transmit was my voice order one recording, I had to cut +out the very loud noisy bit before an after transmission in audacity, before then amplifying +the recording to something I could hear easily, anyway, here's the recording I made of my signal. +So that was my first experience transmitting on nanometer bands, and now now a lot better +how to operate the handset, as well as making the fairly theoretical stuff I learned for the +exam more tangible to me. Anyway, with that I'll sign off from hack public radio, and thank you +for listening, over and out. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4527.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4527.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1219f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4527.txt @@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ +Episode: 4527 +Title: Overly Complicated Media Ripping setup +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4527/hpr4527.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:19 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4527, for 2025-12-09 +Today's show is entitled, "Overly Complicated Media Ripping setup" +The host is Archer72 and the duration is 00:06:27 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Archer72 shares a somewhat complicated version of a DVD/Blu-ray ripping setup" +Hello, this is your host, Archer72, for Hacker Public Radio. +In this episode, I share my overly complicated media ripping setup and hope it helps someone. +First of all, I have revised my media ripping setup since HPR 3294. +I've changed my mind about only using a terminal for ripping media, and it was time to make a change. +Now I both start, make MKV and handbrake from a remote GUI, either on my laptop or phone. +I'm using an Intel Mini PC to install my VNC server on, and it's running Debian 12, +so it's only a sudo apt install tigervnc-common from getting the VNC server. +And then to start it, it's VNC server, and I space an ampersand, and then it runs it in the background, +so I can close the terminal from there. +And then for the remote VNC viewer, I used Remina, R-E-M-M-I-N-A, VNC viewer, +and it has tab viewing, which is a nice feature. +And I use it on my Debian 13 desktop on my laptop. +And I've also installed VNC client for Android, which is a VNC, and I'll show the FDroid link in the show notes. +Where I keep the Rift files is on an NFS server on a Raspberry Pi, +because that's where I originally had them, and I didn't want to change anything over. +The NFS server is so that I can have the Intel machine write the files that I ripped to the Raspberry Pi +with a hard drive attached to it. +And that is only a sudo apt install nfs-kernel-server away from installing that. +Then I added symbolic links to the slash srv directory, +and so that points to my mount point for USB drive 12 terabytes for DVD rips and to where I can move movies from there. +On the Intel side, I actually have to use the full path. +I thought I was going to make it easier by using symbolic links in the srv directory on the Raspberry Pi, +but instead I have to write it out as, for example, +192.168.50.20 colon slash mnt slash usb drive dash 12tb dash dvdrip space mnt slash dvdrip. +And then I'll follow the rest of that in the show notes for where you would mount it in your FS tab. +From here, I have a Blu-ray writer and Blu-ray reader +that was meant to go inside a PC. +Instead, I have a SATA adapter going to USB. +And on the Make MKV portion, +I was having trouble having it read the disk completely into Make MKV. +And I found out from one of the forums +that other people had the same problem +and they had to downgrade to a different version. +And that solved the problem. +After I ripped the disk, +then I can graphically add the files to Handbrake. +And I select the Make MKV output format +and output the compressed file into 1080p. +And it still makes a file for a movie under 2GB. +And that's only if I'm starting with a Blu-ray. +Otherwise, the movie is under 1GB once it's compressed with Handbrake. +From here, I scanned the library for both Plex and Jellyfin +because I've been trying out both lately. +And Plex turned out to be a little more useful +on the Roku side +with the Roku app +to be able to play anything +because I had trouble with Jellyfin connecting to Roku. +The last moving part to this setup +is using TailScale +which I'll leave the link to in the show notes +on how to set it up on Debbie and Trixie. +And also, I'll leave a note about +where the app is in the F-Droid store. +TailScale is what I use to remotely access VNC +and it treats the connection like a local connection. +That's all I have. +This has been Archer72. +If you have anything that's of interest to hackers +that you do that's cool +that nobody else gets in the household, +feel free to record a show of your own +or leave a comment on this show. +Thanks. +Goodbye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4528.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4528.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a55994c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4528.txt @@ -0,0 +1,65 @@ +Episode: 4528 +Title: Photography software +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4528/hpr4528.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:19 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4528, for 2025-12-10 +Today's show is entitled, "Photography software" +The host is Henrik Hemrin and the duration is 00:07:51 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "My software related to photography on my computer." +Welcome to Hacker Public Radio. My name is Henley Cameron and I'm your host today. +Today I will list and talk briefly about software related to photography that I have installed on my computer. +I run them on Linux Mint Debian Edition. Many of them are also available for Windows and Mac OS. +Link to the websites are in the show notes. +Digicam is the center of my photography tools. For me it's very important with a good catalog software, +or in another term digital asset manager, DAEM. +I was a long time user of Adobe, Album and Photoshop elements. +Three years ago I migrated to Digicam. I also consider it specifically dog table. +A major reason for selecting Digicam in favor of a dog table was that Digicam had face tagging, which dog table did not have. +I believe it is still the case for dog table. +Although Digicam has its major strength as a digital asset manager, it can also do most things needed for photography. +For example, I've tested editing and post processing in Digicam, but I have not made up my mind if I will learn it more in detail. +If Digicam is good enough for my needs or how I will continue to also use other tools. +So for now I use several tools where some have overlap on each other. +To develop raw photos I mostly use raw therapy. It is a focus tool for that purpose. +It is in my view a very competent tool and is relatively easy to learn for my basic operations. +Raw therapy stores its record in its unique PP3 side core, which both means it is no risk for conflict with the XMP side core. +I update in Digicam, but it also means I do not change any method from raw therapy. +Dog table should also be possible to use for this purpose if you want to investigate that alternative. +For other editing of photos, I also have GIMP in my toolbox. GIMP is probably the most well known of my tools. +Pix is a photo tool that comes with Linux Mint, is one of Mint's own tools. +I often use it for viewing photos in general, but it is capable of more than that. +To import photos from my camera memory card into my file catalog system for photos, I use rapid photo downloader. +Also this function exists in Digicam itself. I started to explore rapid photo downloader at the time when Digicam had an issue with iPhone or Linux, which rapid photo downloader did not have. +This is not an issue for me anymore because I do not use iPhone anymore, and this you may have been solved as well. +However, I have kept on using rapid photo downloader because it has a good file naming function, and because it can store the photos in two locations in parallel, which means I get one, +photo to my work in directory for photos, and also an untouched photo to a separate backup disk. +A drawback when I use rapid photo downloader is that it adds one step. I must offer the photos are imported, go to Digicam and search for the new objects to add them into Digicam. +Next tool is the use scan. It is the only software in this presentation that is not free and open source. It is developed by a small family business company. +The use scan is a very well known independent scanning software. It is also a good software for advanced uses, and I'm not aware of any scanning software available for Linux that is close in its features, and one of the best for an operating system. +It works for very many scanners from many manufacturers, so when learning to use the use scan it means I can reuse the knowledge for almost any scanner on any platform. +I have an interest in to Digitize analog photos, both my own analog photos, but also all the family photos and other printed material. The use scan is a very useful software to me. +But another method to Digitize analog material is reproph photography. It means to use a digital camera to take a photo of the analog material. +It is also a very good method, and some use this method only. I use both scanner method and reproph photography method currently. +When I use a Digitile camera for reproph photography, I connect the camera to a computer, so I can view the ongoing task on a big monitor, and just the camera settings, trigger the shot, and also store the photo directly to a computer. +This method to use the computer is often called Tethered Shooting. I use a Tangle for this. +And Tangle may not work for all cameras. In that case, dark table has added this feature, so that can be an alternative, alternative, although I have not tested it. +Finally, a software for monitor calibration. I do not calibrate the laptop monitor, but I do calibrate the external monitor. +I use DisplayCell, together with my hardware data call or Spyder 5. DisplayCell relies on RGL CMS. The latest release of DisplayCell is currently from 2019. +It means that maybe if you have a more reason to color emission meant device, it may not work. +Also, the RGL CMS is said not to work on the way land, and it looks as colour management on the way land is a big topic of itself. +That was the software for photography. I wanted to cover in this episode. +Except for dark table, I use all of them to some degree, and except for views can all of free and open source. +If you have any alternative suggestion or feedback as a user of any of them, I spoke about please free to tell in the episode comments or record a show. +Thank you for listening. Take care and goodbye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4529.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4529.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5998e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4529.txt @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@ +Episode: 4529 +Title: yoga370 review +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4529/hpr4529.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:20 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4529, for 2025-12-11 +Today's show is entitled, "yoga370 review" +The host is Brian-in-Ohio and the duration is 00:11:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "a laptop to rule them all" +Hello, Hacker Public Radio, Brian and Ohio here. I'm out from under my rock and I'm doing a non-fourth show for HPR. +It's great for this show came from episode 442 where I talked about I was looking for a single device to be able to do +fourth work and read documents and do web browsing and be able to take it on the road to have it be one device that does it all. +So the device I ended up using was a pine tab too and I discussed in that episode the ups and downs of using a pine tab too +about how I used flexbox and some scripts to bend the device to my needs. +About the device is underpowered and it had random crashes and I think development might be stopped on it. +So it's just not as good as I thought it would be. +Then in episode 4491 there was an interview with David Revo which I really enjoyed. +David Revo is the artist that does pepper and carrot. +In the episode they mentioned his blog post or his blog site and in that blog of his there's a section for hardware. +I clicked on there and it led me to this the discussion of the device he uses which is a Lenovo Yoba 370 and the different software he's installed on a pretty good blog post. +I had over there and read it. +So with that inspiration and with his words about the device I bought used Yoba 370 a Lenovo Yoba 370. +On eBay cost about $250 which is for the device you get pretty pretty inexpensive. +It's a two in one device so it can be used as a laptop or you can put the screen over and it becomes it. +It can be used as a tablet. +It has a 13 inch IPS touch screen. +Intel Core i7-7600 CPU that's got four cores. +It runs a 2.8 gigahertz. +The one I found on eBay had a 500 gigabyte NVMe 16 gigabytes of RAM and an offer to install Windows 11 audit if you were so desired. +I purchased the device came in a couple days which is still pretty amazing to me and it's. +I took it apart I opened up the back of it surprisingly it's very fixable. +It's got a replaceable battery nothing soldered in like some manufacturers do. +The memories pulls right out if you need to replace the NVMe it's not soldered in. +I've got some pictures of the inside of the device in a picture of it how it folds up if you're not sure what I'm talking about. +So after I bought it I do what I do with all my laptops. +I installed Slackware. +I don't do a boot anymore. +I don't. +And I don't destroy hot. +I've been a Slackware user for years since it's the distribution of choice. +And I quit doing this this time for sure I when the last laptop I purchased had Windows 10 and I and for a while I did dual boot it. +But now it's become such a hassle to dual boot and this one was even funnier when you opened it up and you. +Basically to install Windows 11 you have to log onto your network and then it must in must download the whole Windows system. +Anyway I didn't do any of that and so I just started out and had to get rid of. +The Windows installer essentially on that device which is surprisingly not that easy. +I took a little bit of work I had to stop secure boot in the BIOS which is normal. +And then in the end I had to reformat that hard drive completely. +I used the the Slackware installer as a live installation and it gives you the tools you need. +You need G disk which is a disk partitioner. +You need to use the make mkfs tools to create the. +The be fat partition for the for the boot sector and then the Linux section for the rest of the device. +A swap partition and a regular partition. +Slackware doesn't natively come with grub 2 it uses e-lilo for eFI booting which works fine for me. +You can install grub 2 but I've never have done that I gave up on grub 1 and went to grub 2. +And there's a link in the show notes about how to create an eFI system partition and that's a pretty helpful. +Post about how if you're going to do that with any other distribution. +I did have to reboot between each disk drive change so I've you know created the eFI boot sector reboot create the rest of the device. +That was how in the end I had to do it and that might not be that might be devices. +So if you're not sure but in the end I had a hard drive or an NVMe format or partition correctly and ready to go for the slackware installer which. +Does everything else for you it installs the system and installs the installs e-lilo it does a boot entry for the eFI partition and then the device starts right up. +When I did my normal post slackware install stuff and everything on the device works as normal. +Maybe not the fingerprint reader but I never used that anyway. +So I got slackware installed everything working and then I the next thing I did was I modified the scripts from the pintap 2 that I used to activate laptop and tablet mode. +And what I mean by that is in laptop the screens and landscape mode and tablet mode it's in portrait mode. +Instead of using us maybe a some kind of inertial sensor or something like that to for the device to automatically shift between these. +I for right now I just did it with some buttons that I created that are on the KDE task manager. +And so I with modifying the scripts in these scripts are just using x rander to rotate the screen x input to rotate the touch screen and the keyboard actually is disabled must be in hardware when you flip it in the screen all the way around the keyboard is disabled. +So modify those those scripts so that those x rander commands in x input commands will work for this device. +I created a couple of dot desktop entries added some some icon pictures for the buttons. +Pin them to the task manager and now I have two little buttons that once a tablet picture, once a laptop picture and I can press those and go from laptop to tablet mode really easily. +Well after that started working I was pleasantly surprised with a piece of software that comes with slack or when I come trouble with KDE I think is ocular. +Accular is a great document reader it will open just about anything and allows you to read and and look at different documents. +It just is a great piece of software. +And then I was pleasantly surprised that in tablet mode if you use presentation mode for ocular you can then configure it by going into the ocular configure settings in the presentation mode there's a enable touchscreen navigation and putting the device into tablet mode. +Opening up ocular whatever you want to read and then going to presentation mode it allows you to just tap the screen on the left and right edges to move forward and backwards and to the document that you're reading and then a little swipe down from the top you can get out of presentation mode pretty easily. +And it has a great feel and works just like in a e-reader. +Although it's a little bit bigger than a normal e-reader not tiny by any stretch of imagination but very nice especially if you're reading PDFs, data sheets and stuff like that. +The other kind of cool thing that I've just started playing with in tablet mode is a piece of software called. +It's a external plus plus it's a x-o-u-r-n-a-l plus plus I put a link in the show notes for the repository for that it's basically hand note taking software so. +It opens up it's got a piece of paper you know line piece of paper and then you can use the little stylus that the device comes with and you can draw and and take notes and I get and you can annotate PDFs and things like that. +I'm exploring the use use of this piece of software for doing things like d-charts, d-d-struct charts those were developed way back in the sixties I think by I think his name is letter dixtra who is a very famous famous computer scientist and the d-d-charts are flow charting system that's better than regular flow charts and I'm using it for. +Early forth development for before I start writing code I try to use d-charts to flow out the program that I'm developing. +I've got a link to an archive.org flow charting with d-charts by a guy from NASA, Donald Mayrow, something like that. +Love the device it's working great for me now it's it does it fits the need of being able to have a laptop and an e-reader all in one without having to bring extra devices it's powerful. +I can do all the forth development work in that I'm doing now very easily and just like usual slack where we're in perfect on it so. +With that I'd like to say if you have a piece of hardware a new laptop or something that you want to talk about or that you've just purchased why you'd record a show tell us about it why you love it why you don't love it whatever the case maybe. +If you have any questions or comments just go ahead and ask me and I'll get back to you and I just want to remind people let's all work to stamp out and abolish redundancy bye bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4530.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4530.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1439677 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4530.txt @@ -0,0 +1,163 @@ +Episode: 4530 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 6 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4530/hpr4530.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:21 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4530, for 2025-12-12 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 6" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:12:39 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V." +Hello, this is a hookah. Welcome to you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode +Inner ongoing series of computer strategy games and we're in the middle of discussing Civilization 5 and +Now I'm gonna get to one that probably a lot of people are gonna want to get into and that is +War and combat crushing your enemies +Making their women weep +All right, so how do you do that in this game? +Well, it's various ways of doing it, of course +And a lot of it depends on terrain and it's things like that. Let's start with land combat +Now +You are gonna have to fight in this game no matter how peaceful you may wish to be early on the barbarians will come after you +And they cannot be reasoned with you either kill them or they kill you. It's as simple as that +And then you may attract the greedy attention of other empires who want what you have +So you have to be ready and that means you have to build military units and learn how to use them effectively +There are three types of military units available in this game land sea and air and they take the stage in that order +When you start out you have a settler unit that can found your first city and a warrior unit +Now, I will generally use my warrior unit to explore for the first 20 or so turns because +Experience tells me that is safe +If it turns out to be a disaster, I'll just restart +And while I'm doing that, I will build at least one and often two scout units to take over the exploration +By turn 30, I've probably discovered a few barbarian encampments +Taking them out is a good idea because clearing them can yield a bit of cash +As long as encampments are left alone, they will turn out barbarian units that will harass you and anyone else in the area +If an encampment is near to a city state +You can earn some increased status with the city state by clearing it out +Now a warrior unit is the earliest military unit available in it is not particularly strong +You might want to be careful to not just charging and maybe lose it +If you can get archery and build an archer +You can stand outside the encampment and fire arrows inside to wipe out the inhabitants +But watch out that the encampment doesn't spawn another unit +The unit inside the encampment will not come out to attack very often +But a newly spawned unit will be outside and will attack +I like to bring a warrior in an archer together, so if anything happens, I have a little muscle to protect the archer +Now one of the big changes in syphive compared to previous versions is that you cannot stack military units together on a tile +This matters a lot for your strategy since each unit has to be on its own tile +This means you have to think about positioning of each unit +And that in turn means taking advantage of terrain features +If you refer back to our discussion of terrain features and I've put a link in the show notes to help with that +You can see that each type of terrain +And each terrain feature came with a defensive bonus +Looking at the terrain types +We see that grassland, plains and desert which are the main terrain types you will be on +All come with a defensive bonus of minus 33 percent +That means you are caught out in the open and therefore have a penalty tier defense +But many of the tiles will have a terrain feature added +Hills forest and jungle all have a defensive bonus of plus 25 percent +So if you are on a tile that is grassland plus forest you only suffer an 8 percent penalty on defense +Same with desert plus hills or plains plus jungle and so on +So if you think you may be attacked moving onto hills or into a forest is good +Also, it is worth noting that attacks across a river penalize the attacker with a 20 percent reduction in their attack strength +So learning how to use the terrain to your advantage is a key skill in combat operations +Now let's see how this works with a warrior the unit you have from the start +It has a combat strength of 8 +So in the early game you might encounter a barbarian equivalent called the brute +But which is an identical unit otherwise and also has a combat strength of 8 +If you meet each other on grassland tiles with no features you each have the same defensive penalty of minus 33 percent +So you're evenly matched +But the other factor is the health of each unit this is measured is hit points +And you can see the shown in a colored bar next to the unit +If you see no bar at all the unit has all of its hit points and is at a hundred percent health +If the bar is green and is lost a few points +If it's yellow you're starting to get into a danger zone +And if it's red it's very likely to be killed in any combat +So even if the combat strength is equal if one unit has a green bar and the other a red bar +There is an excellent chance that the unit with the red bar will be killed in any combat +Now you can recover your hit points for any unit just by resting it +resting in general recovers 10 percent per turn +But 20 percent per turn if it's in your territory and 25 percent if it's in one of your cities +Now there are other modifiers such as medics and faith healers that can add recovery +And heal your units even faster +Units can also earn promotions +These add to their abilities in various ways +There's a good chart of promotions at the civilization wiki site and I've put a link in the show notes for that +For melee units such as warriors the main ones would be shock which gives bonus an open terrain +Drill which gives a bonus in rough terrain like hills and forest and cover which gives a defensive bonus against ranged attacks such as archers +Now you're in promotions in combat +And if you have a unit that has a few promotions +It's generally a good idea to upgrade it to a new +Unit rather than delete it and build a newer unit because it keeps the promotions +Now you do this by using gold stuff grade the unit so don't neglect your treasury +The first ranged unit is the archer which you get by discovering the archery technology and an building one +They can attack up to two tiles away but they only have a combat strength of five +Now that means a warrior attacking an archer has an advantage +So you'll want to protect your archers +They're well suited to city defense since the city helps protect them and they can drop arrows on an attacker before it can hit the city in many cases +Otherwise it is a good idea to put your warriors on the front lines of combat and station the archers behind them +This is also how you attack cities early on +Use the warriors to absorb any attacks from the city while your archers drop arrows into the city from behind the warriors +Cities themselves also have hit points and you can see how they are being eroded by colored bars above the city using the same green yellow red standard +But note that once the defenses are down you need to use a melee unit to capture the city +Ranged units cannot make the final capture +As the game goes on your units will become better because you'll discover new technology +So instead of warriors you'll get to spearmen and then after spearmen you get to swordsmen and so on +But the principles don't change +Now it's the naval combat which is also fun +When you research the right technologies you'll discover ships and you can start using them in combat +Now the earliest vessels you will get are try reams +They have a combat strength of 10 but are vulnerable to ranged attacks +They can clear barbarians ships from your waters and are good for exploring the coastlines +But they cannot travel on ocean tiles which are a deeper blue than coastal tiles +They can attack cities and as a melee unit could actually capture them +But in practice this is rare since they would probably be bombarded in sunk +Still if you were in some odd circumstance where your archers had reduced the city defenses to nothing +And you had a try ream on the spot it would work +Later on you'll get caravel which is the first ocean going vessel and you should probably use them right away to +Explore the rest of the map as soon as you get them +And the reason that you want to do that is you're going to find other players +You're going to find other city states +You're going to find other +Natural one you know there's +All sorts of things you can do it once you've explored the map so never neglect that option +Now after the caravel you get a private tier which is a powerful ship that is not only good for +Rating coastal cities, but can actually capture enemy ships and add them to your fleet +There are also naval ranged units the first is the galley ass +Followed by the frigate the frigate is a powerful mid game unit +That they are ranged means they can stand off shore and bombarded units or cities on land +If you want a fun game with naval warfare try an archipelago map get your privateers and +frigates and go out and conquer +As with land units you can get promotions for naval vessels and there is a upgrade path as well +The try-ream can upgrade to a caravel which can upgrade to an ironclad +The galley ass can upgrade to a frigate which can upgrade to a battleship +Then there's air combat +This comes along late in the game obviously arriving in the modern era +Your two main unit types or fighters and bombers fighters are mostly for attacking other air units +They can do damage to ground units as well, but that's not really what they're suited to +The first fighter unit is the triplane +It is also useful as a reconnaissance unit since it can see six tiles in every direction +You can station them by a city and set them to intercept mode where they will respond to any air attacks from other players +The other major area unit is the bomber +The first of these is the great war bomber +It is designed to carry a load of bombs and can be very effective in reducing the defenses of a city +It is weaker on defense though +So a good strategy is to send in a few fighters first +Use up any of the city's anti air capabilities then follow up with the bombers +Now air units can also get promotions from combat and they also have hit points just like all other units +And they have an upgrade path +Try planes become fighters become jet fighters +Great war bomber becomes regular bomber become stealth bomber +So in conclusion +This is just a very brief introduction to combat in syphive +You could probably write an entire book on all of the strategies involved, but this will get you started on the basics of the combat system +Now civilization fanatics has a section called the syphive war academy +Where you can go in a much more depth if you really want to master combat and strategies and I have placed a link to that in the show notes +So this is hookah for hacker public radio signing off and is always encouraging you to support free software. Bye. Bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4531.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4531.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e7878e --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4531.txt @@ -0,0 +1,415 @@ +Episode: 4531 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 6 - Imperial Stouts +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4531/hpr4531.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:22 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4531, for 2025-12-15 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 6 - Imperial Stouts" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:45:06 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Kevie and Dave talk about Imperial Stouts" +Hello and welcome to episode number 6 of the beer garden so you may think yeah we have that familiar +face back or you may think oh no not him again but the bad news dash could use is I'm +back I've recovered but unfortunately that also means we've lost a poll G but we are still joined by Dave +how are you Dave I am very well thank you well that's a I'm just getting over a cold or a +virus or something but you don't want to hear about that well in that case then we have got the absolute +perfect medicine will be for you tonight because in fact this was actually meant to be my choice +but local limitations for you which sounds very odd that's not my problem local limitations for +you mean we're delaying that one but instead we're looking at another fine this could be the first +of our cities of winter ails you know can have very timingly winter we're not going to go into +each individual one just now but we're starting with imperial state which I do believe is one of your +favorites you are not wrong I think I may have revealed this on the first episode of the beer garden +when we were going through and saying what is your favourite beer style and imperial was absolutely +mine people listening to that episode probably came out way from that episode thinking guys I can +that's a peed but no that is that is not what you want to point is that not what we're doing +this show well yes that's not the reason why I like imperial styles which I will definitely +go on to as we explore this variety the style a little bit later um let's just have a quick +exploration is to what an imperial style actually is I have my own opinions but apparently +opinion of fact do not align so imperial if imperial stout actually originated in London for exports to +Russia there was a brewery back in the 18th century called Thrails Anker which I've never heard of +I'm assuming they don't exist anymore they created this style called imperial stout or otherwise +known as a Russian imperial stout and it was brood for export to Catherine the Great of Russia +in 1781 so obviously this was created prior to that the Thrails Anker brewery changed hands +and the beer became Barclay Perkins imperial brown stout that is actually the same family as +you owns Barclay's bank ah biganims big money that is interesting so Barclay's bank started off +as a brewery yeah so it was originally shipped out to Russia by somebody by the name +of Albert von Lecoc who was a Prussian German brewery owner who then became an archaeologist +who knew but the beer that was shipped out this Barclay Perkins imperial brown stout was then +awarded a Russian royal warrant which is where he then became entitled to use the name imperial +and that's where the name come from and analysis of the beer from between the middle of the 19th +and the middle of the 20th century showed that the beer had typically an alcohol content of +a roundabout 10% ABV and during that entire period the ABV didn't really change +Barclay's brew was then taken over in 1955 by the Courage brewery when it was renamed +obviously Courage imperial Russian stout but it wasn't a regular brew it's kind of a sporadic +brew they would do it every so often but the cap on the bottle still said Barclays so obviously +the name has carried through since then imperial stout was also produced in Canada in a +place called Prince Albert in Saskatchewan by somebody by the name of Fritz Sick now I hope that wasn't +as a result of drinking the beer but so whatever but then in Canada it was then taken over by the +Molson brewery in 1958 and in Denmark the weebro brewery launched an imperial stout in 1930 +at 8.2% now remember that because we're gonna have a very brief conversation about where we think +the definition of imperial stout actually starts but the first brewery in the US to brew +an imperial stout was the Yakima brewing company which I think was based in Yakima Washington +in 1982 it first opened so Kevin what would you say would be like the minimum standard the +minimum ABV for something you would consider as an imperial stout oh partially I would say 8 +I don't think anything lower than 8 as far as the sky's the limit or I mean I've seen them +really high yes I mean yeah things I identified as imperial I think I've seen 15 16 +yeah that's what I was thinking about I think I was thinking about 15 to 17 this is how strong +I've seen yeah there are beers that have a higher ABV by which time you don't really care what it's +called anyway but according to the research that I've done apparently imperial stout's typically +started about 9% which is fair enough some of your smith brewery actually brewed a version of +imperial stout for export to the 90 states and the early 1980s and apparently imperial stout +is one of the most popular beer styles with US craft brewers that doesn't surprise me but there you go +yeah but in America they often include additional ingredients such as vanilla chili maple syrup +and of course marshmallows I would say is a regular inspiration for some see I think now we're +kind of getting into the desert stout yeah exactly imperial also is not limited to to stouts of course +even though the origin of the of the word imperial comes from the court of Russia imperial this +has now become to be known as something that is strong of over eight or nine percent because you +can get imperial IPA you can get imperial pills and I'm sure I've seen imperial portus as well +but I know we have this determined previously that there's not really that much in +difference between a porter and a stout it's really interesting given the kebby you said that +anything over eight percent or sorry an imperial stout can be eight percent or more when I went +out to bunny the beard I'm having tonight I also picked up a couple of other lovely strong ones as +well and I've got this one from northern monk called even small death remember I mentioned +marshmallows earlier on yes you've had it before over you no no I I've never heard of them +to last night when a certain person near beer chat posted but I've never seen it on the website +oddly enough I want this is so much exclusive it must be it must be what I like like this one is +as well at the moment yeah yeah it's not going but yeah this some northern monk one +marshmallow and biscuit imperial stout at eight point four percent now eight point four percent +of course as both kebby and I know without looking is also the ABV of northern month monks +bertha but that is a stout not an imperial stout by their labeling I should say I would argue +it probably is an imperial stout based on its strength alone so I was trying to find out weather +imperial stouts actually had their own technique that made them unique from other normal stouts +that were over eight or nine percent I wasn't able to find anything out so I don't know whether +imperial is just given to the strength or whether it is to do with a particular style or mechanism +through brewing as I said before imperial stouts for me is the experience of them the flavor is very +much often sweeter it's very much often a thicker chewy more viscous mouth feel for a stout +and it is also something that I often make huge mistakes with so I do enjoy a beer festival +as I'm sure a lot of our listeners will do as I'm sure you do as well and I always go to a +beer festival with the phrase I will start low and work my way up but I would say in excess of +probably 75 percent of the beer festivals I've been to I've gone and looked around and thought +okay well this is probably a start low it's going to find myself in like a nice session IPA or +something a little bit on the lower maybe appeals nor something just to start with and I'll go +around again oh 13 percent that looks nice I'll take a third of that please and I start +with the imperial stouts and it is not a great thing to do because unfortunately if you have the +appreciation of the flavor and the taste and the style and the feel of an imperial stout everything +from that point onwards is down oh yeah it's funny and you can I mean how I'm assuming you've +had an instant gun beers I have had an instant gun but it's fairly flavorful yeah I remember +my mate gave me a nerd brewing we split up a little between us which was actually quite nice +it was 13 percent splitting the 330 balls it was actually just nice and then he poured on this +and gun and you know there was no flavor of it whatsoever I couldn't get in there I'm like this +is bland there's like water but yet I know this is a flavorful beer it chose you how deadly +can be to start without very strong yes yes but it's not it's not just the strength of it though +no it's not just the strength of it it's it's the flavor and well and that's just natural then +it's so eager you get the bolder flavor that you're paladin just to that and then in the other +schools yeah you know to be honest for our day-to-day comparison it's a bit like us growing up +of a certain age everybody took two two sugars in their tea and coffee growing it was just part of it +and then when you started kind of reducing the sugar when you eventually cut out the sugar and +somebody gave you some with two sugars like oh that's far too sweet you know the taste buds do +you just yes yeah sorry just before we actually go on there was and you do something I had read +and this is we going back to my my bestie for all beer researches this Roger Proads +hmm he now this talk with the the balcly imperial stout they started shipping them from London +to Danzig and then into the Baltic on route to Russia the voyage was hazardous during the +depolyonic wars as they was a blockade and the Baltic ports and spite of these difficulties +supplies did get through and it became a culture in the court of the search cases were sent to +Russian fighting troops in the Crimea in order to cope with demand barkless agent in the region +a Belgian called the cock built a brewery in Tartou Estonia and they moved their imperial +stout brewing to the air oh that makes a lot of sense yes so they I knew I'd read it somewhere +it was when you had said it and I was like I know that name I can't reparate it but they +it was enough my other beer not my beer Bible that one's called the taste of beer +okay excellent the word imperial was intended to signal the recipient of the state +but it had an undisguised double meaning these stouts gorgeous huge aged beers were not +only fit for royalty they became royalty themselves long after the association with the SARS +lapse the word imperial came to donate the beer status other beers I love this tried to co-op this +meaning imperial IPAs are in regular rotation yeah but I've also seen imperial prisoners to imperial +heffir vices never seen that imperial heffir vices yep that's according to this book +the best I look for yet in their power authority imperial stout are the only ones to maintain +their status as the king of beers I like that excellent right well I think it's probably time +to crack these open that so what I've got here this is a really odd shaped can actually it's a +330 but it's tall I was actually good to see is it a vault city one because every +18 years that I've had on deserves to have had from vault city has been that like yeah for for the +benefit of the listeners it's like when you go to the continent and you buy a can of sprite or cook +or something they never had in the dumpy cans we have to tall ones yeah yeah exactly that +it was alongside a number of other really strong hails and it just it looked almost like kind of +lonely studs sat there because it was both slightly shorter and slightly thinner than normal +size 440 mil can and I took pity on it and then looked at it and thought oh I love that so it is +the vault city brewery it's an imperial stout arguably probably getting towards the dessert stout +by puny by name I'll let you know how it tastes when I crack it open but it's a toffee nut +latte now anybody who knows me I do enjoy my coffee as well so toffee and coffee and on an +imperial stout it ticks a lot of boxes it comes in at 11% and this is where I need to get my glasses on +because I've made them a steak and not being fully prepared for this let's have a look at the label +decadent silky and nutty full-bodied seasonal stout showcasing layers of chocolate, +molten oats, smooth toffee and creamy vanilla for a velvety mouthful and a rich nutty finish +that's a big expectation that it's just set for itself and of course false it is um +isn't it gone if I'm mistaken anybody yeah nice so I'm gonna crack this open I'll go to pour it into my +pile of Harris brewery class because if you listen to the last episode where we Paul and I went through +and discussed half a license in a bit more detail you'll know the story of how this mark two +glass came about so here we go this cracker zone oh that sounded nice oh okay so that aroma is quite +quite astounding so here's the oh so if they're in here so you can hear it oh +that Paul's very very smoothly what if I something to do with the size the design of the can +so it didn't kind of bubble out yes just poured so there it is it is absolutely pitch black there's +next to no foam on it a little ringer foam around the outside and it is slightly carbonated +so it is um it is fizzing a little bit and just by swirling it slightly I can't spell it too much +otherwise it'll then pull over my keyboard um it doesn't actually appear to be as as viscous +as I would have expected it to be at 11 percent but I'm gonna stop admiring it I'm gonna try it so here we +go wow that is extraordinary it really is that's a say it looks quite fluid in the glass but actually +it feels really really nice it is smooth it is viscous it has a marginally seripy feel to it +taste wise it is very sweet you're getting everything that it promised so you're getting the +top where you're getting the coffee you're getting the nut as far as the beer itself is concerned +yes you do know you're drinking an imperial stout with this there's no question about that whatsoever +but the obvious characteristics of a stout as in the bitterness the smokiness +none of that comes through probably because it's been completely wiped out by the +disweetness and the intensity of the flavours that are coming through from it and it hangs around for a bit +as well which is really nice that is quite amazing I would be inclined to go to go and get some more of those +actually one thing I will say those you who are fans of all city will know that they made their +name based on service there are server companies that they produce servers so if you like it go +get some because they're short-lived their states I think there's a bit of an irony here you've +gone for a Scottish brewing company you've gone for an English one this company is based in the +leads and it's called Tartara Spears now I can't remember I do apologize if you were the one who +sent to me but I can't remember who on Master Don said try these beers I'm guessing not because +I hadn't heard of them and bearing them on the leads is about 50 miles in my mouth that's what +I was thinking that's what I was quite surprised now I will say be warned if you decide this is +definitely I kind of a lug shitty beer I think I paid about 60 or pound for 96 cans that was +including delivery but yeah everything they had was very high ABV but also price to match so I have this +one I have it is so do I it's the Magical Rain this one is also on the dessert side coconut pistachio +and chocolate and pideal stout at a 12.2% blast so one thing it is probably worth noting is that +pideal stout generally come into styles that either come more dessert like which is what we +generally quite like or they'll do what I don't particularly like and they'll do battle ageing +which the reason I don't like it is because it tends to just dominate I've got like a it just +reminds me of having a stout where somebody has poured in like a brandy or something into it and +it's like it's just too strong it's like it's over time and it's the beer that's my tastes you very +rarely get one that's not either one we are to others so right in shoot right +oh that's fizzy of them my one yeah there's a wee bit of a head no it didn't say in the book +the beer bible that they actually recommended because they were trying to go for the higher quality +that they recommended drinking at a brandy glass so instead I've got my snifter glass which is an +oversized brandy glass okay but as you can see there's no head on that whatever no that's a +full moon candle in that grace of poor oh she weighs oh my lord that is boozy +this if you've ever had no brains imperial stout that's what this reminds me of +very very strong this chocolate this is just on the nose right this is on the nose just on the +nose the chocolate I'm not getting any of the pistachio or coconut though not on the nose +on those it's boozy and it's chocolate oh that's good now I'm getting coconut but not don't +think I hit a bit like a bounty it's just more like a hint of coconut there's coconut there's +a nuttyness would I see pistachio I don't think it's just think to not be pistachio it's nutty +but chocolate not as boozy as the smell nowhere near as boozy as the smell sweet yeah yeah and +literally you could you could have that one I for fuck that is thick oh that that's that's my kind +of smell to really yes in fact don't know how well you're seeing it there that's really +less in quite thickly the side of the glass yeah yeah that is nice yeah I'd recommend that +I might have to try and well the challenge we that I had certainly is where we are we have a +large a number of large supermarkets certainly like the big four here in the UK we have a large +one of near us and I went to two of them earlier on today in search of something that would +fit the profile of what it is we were reviewing tonight and what I walked away with was pretty +much everything they had in the Imperial Stout section well they're isn't a section they're just +dumping anywhere in the end of it I thought I managed to find these by looking at the price of them +oh man and that my I've only got one worry about this it is so thick it is so so thick +I read yoga struggle they are shared that yeah between us and it's only a three thirty can there's +and if you see there's in five hundred please don't be tempted it is you would not finish that I don't +buy a can sailor gives mouth yes what audience it or something buy something or buy or if you've +got a growler poor than the growler well obviously clean it first hopefully actually to be honest +I'm surprised how nice it is because on the nose I was fully expecting this to be tasting +barrel aged it was so strong and boozy on nose and it's not it's so so sweet very rich yeah like I said +if you taste the nerd brewing Imperial Stout that's what it's like that's what reminds me of +right I will definitely have a look at that brewery +to say it's not one I'd heard of before and the fact that they're locally they're local +I may be able to get some from some of the off licenses or something locally so I'll have a look +for those I mean the process is trying to do this episode what I did in the last one which was +to call one of the kids in and to a live off camera tasting I pulled Ethan in last time for him to +try the shop on ho offer the fruit juice if you're not a fan of strong but if you're a +lagger drinker forget it you're not even gonna appreciate that at all you spit it out I think it's also +it's worth noting though if you're gonna have a few beers don't have this one first because +everything else is gonna take pretty blind yes definitely I'm gonna take my time with it that's a +danger though it's sort of sweet and I think you've probably found the same thing it's actually +silky smooth that's dangerous it's very very thick to be chuggle but you could easily drink it +quickly I know exactly what you mean but before we go on to what you were gonna say +towards the end just wanted to revisit the the vault city story that I mentioned +Caroline and I went to the theatre in Sheffield and we went in by public transport because we knew +that we could either pop for a drink before or after the performance I went to the head of steam +which if you're familiar with the Sheffield you've got the crucible and the lyceum +crucible where the sneaker is done and the lyceum almost like opposite each other and then at the +confluence of where the exit of the lyceum and the exit for the crucible is is the head of steam +huge pub loads and loads of proper ails and I can't remember what I had before this +but I said can I try this one it was some kind of IPA and he said yeah yes no problem he just +pulled me some out yeah I'll have a bite of that thank you and then he said don't try this one +and he he pulled it like it's just a tiny amount like a symbol full of this thing out and it +looked like a strawberry yogurt as in it was opaque it was quite a dark almost like a mucky pink +and I'm like oh what's this and I'm like oh my word what is this and apparently +vault city do a range called stupid and the stupid range are all pretty much the same kind of thing +very thick very chewy very viscous not to be alike beers because as you said vault city are +very much known for their hours and they're also celebrating I think it's 70 years since they formed +and I'll just read you what I wrote whilst I was a few beers down the line +it's called the white chocolate raspberry cherry that's a lot of very very strong influences +there and I said oh man this is like a raspberry smoothie out of the gorgeous thick and creamy +with a sharp and tangy flavour with a little more of a hint of acidity it pulls like a drinking +yogurt with a dry feeling in the aftertaste divine and what's it a sour it was supposed to be yes +but I think it was a sour that was sweet enough to take a lot of the back of the jaw +sourness if you're not a mucky out of it so it was very much like you were drinking a smoothie +and I think if somebody if you're given that to somebody without telling them what it was +and this is a 6% brew they may not have known that's how strongly it was +amazing yes just thought I'd share that no just thinking before we actually move on I think we're +bare score of these good grief now this is going to be difficult well I very rarely give five +and that's the way our proper beer drink or should score it should there should be if if you +score everything five then head you know what you genuinely like you know I've see I see plenty +people do this on untapped and it's like everything they have's a five and you're like see the +yes me no I work on the basis that if it's good if it's nice it's not offensive and +you know you're not turned off by it then I would that's a three just to be able to mind +though this is untapped was out of five we're talking here we tend to score in a 10 not sure +yeah so it's just some people think that oh yeah it's yeah it's got to be perfectly going to five +or heck you guys are harsh no so out of the out of 10 which is what we're doing these at +the moment oh hang on a second we are about to have a live on recording but off recording +he's just stuck his nose as loop by the way she's stuck his nose in the wind +that's a no loop look I'm surprised oh I think that was a no which I'm surprised at +because he usually likes the stronger ones oh right yeah I've lost a couple of cans in +Imperial sound to him I said do you want to try this one yeah I'll try it really nice do you want +it yeah okay no I was only being polite I didn't actually mean for you to have it seriously +then out of 10 I would score this a 10 mmm this this is up there it really is I don't think I +have it scored the bertha the five out of five so this is but I think I used to wear the +astonishing earlier um this is astonishing I'm actually struggling to score this one I'll tell you why +I am absolutely loving it but you can see how much I've still got left and I'm almost feeling +like it's enough I've had enough you know it is so so rich you can't let that influence your score +no I have to learn not to finish it I always consider drinkability right and I'm not saying it's +bad I'm not saying I'm going to tell you too much but my general rule is I mean I'll obviously +I'll check my own comments on untapped mm but one of my general rules is if I struggle with +the drinkability then generally I'll score it a bit of four still very good but I know then okay +right it's very good but it's not something you could take much of in saying that that's better +than a four on untapped so I'll go I'm gonna knock a point of it like I said you're almost +in a steak knife to go through this such a meal I'm gonna give this nine out of ten okay that is +better so nine out of ten it's very nice it's very sweet it's rich a boy it's flipping rich +but it's very very nice so I was gonna challenge you if you'd knocked it down to uh to an +eight hour ten purely on the basis that if the only issue you have with it is the fact that you +weren't able to finish it if it was served as a double shot or maybe a third of a pint yeah I think +you may finish this and bond for this yeah your opinion would have been better would have been different +I mean this is why I saw really good fives five has to be a combination of phenomenally +good flavour but also drinkable to the point where I don't want this drink to end +you get what I mean I do but that also suggests that you'll never score an imperial +status as if it was a five possibly but and seeing that nine out of ten I'd still see it's very +very good not to speak in that at all generally my ruling is if it's drinkable but I'm like +me but yeah all except I must admit I am actually going through it there's an absolutely +wheelchair where I would have another one so it's yeah it's a one and done it's treated like a +Christmas prudy but that's the best way to think of it you may think oh that's not much yeah it is +when you when you say you're one and done does that mean you would never have that one again +no no tight like if I'm not right you know we had touch on other one tonight did you happen +other one did you get one no hey are those prices I got one of each what if I didn't like it +no fair no no I would I can't have one yes but not for a few weeks +I'd delay it up it well I've got other five well the reason I've not actually tried any of them +is because they're all different styles and I thought that all styles we haven't covered +so I'm actually leaving some of them for that because there's some which I don't have any others +like they've got I got our Belgian style quadruple oh I'm saying I don't have any quadruples at all so +I'm like right I'm gonna leave that for the shoe and the I think that's triple as well so +you know things are got yeah remind me of the name of the brewery on that one sorry +uh the brewery is I think I'm gonna tell you I'll tell you how to tartar us or tartar us +I just think of tartar sauce tartar us us yeah tartar us beers +well day listeners we have actually completed out our biz +yeah yeah one is enough honestly one is definitely enough and now it's nap time +yes uh hand me my pipe and slippers yes and a co-coat yes +they're right there okay before I forget I did listen to the episode with Paul and +yourself obviously yeah I thoroughly enjoyed it now had I been on I'd it's funny I did actually +find the local one local off licenses now this I'm not talking about ab chains +a very localized one they do stuff from the crommarty brewery and they do jungle hijinks +and they have a heffirvesnt beer brood and crommarty which of course those you had no +the north of Scotland this is inside and we're nice so it's you they're thinking um +actually I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed it it's just got more flavor I had the urging our last +time and I found it to be a wee bit lacking I mean it was okay but I think I think I said it was +six out of ten or something this I would say is an easy eight out of ten so I thoroughly it's just +got more flavor it's got that yeah banana flavor clove e-flavor it's kind of linguri clove e-flavor +uh the one thing I would say if anybody wants to try a crommarty beer if you're interested +buy the stuff as soon as you can because crommarty undertorias for not doing regular beers they do +special runs and then advantages forever and you never get it again so yeah they've recently +released a few different ones and I couldn't eat that they're that exclusive I couldn't get them at +the shop the guy in the shop says to me we can't get that orange online so just yeah to double a +pre-warning actually very good delivery I think I ordered one day I was here the next so very that's +good very good service yeah so yeah good job actually in fact a poll jaded far too good at +job and the last one I was wondering you're going to replace me no I don't think anybody could replace +you they could succeed you they could not replace you um I I I have warned +poll that he it's going to come back at some point in the future because I'm sure you would you +but enjoy the service show with him I'm really gutted he wasn't but in all honesty I didn't +invite him because he was talking about he prefers to continent little style I was thinking +I don't think a period of time it's going to be his style at all probably not oh I'll be honest +I think you're probably right there yes indeed right do do we have anything else well talking of +feedback we have had quite a bit of feedback I'm just looking at the last to I'm just +concentrating on the last couple of episodes obviously we have the most recent one that's not +been released yet has it the one with all the time we're going to know it is not released until next +week and my browser's just crashed and wow why don't you not responding that's weird so +we have had some feedback on episode three which was the porters and that was Archie 72 +saying I'm not a beard drinker gasp but this was an interesting history lesson in how +porters are made yes and actually if you're if you enjoy the history part of that then please +do listen for the next episode for the type that we're going because we're actually developing +on that history of porters so there's something for you excellent yes and we also had my word +we had a shedload of responses on the hefford one episode in yeah yeah so we do want we just +do want about so first one was by comment one by folkie hefford vice and is best smiley face no +winky smiley face coming from the northeastern part of Germany from the beginning that means +former GDR I believed I hit beer because we only had pilsner and lager styled +and they all aren't in my taste in any way just disgusting and repulsive bitter but then after +the reunification someone from the southern part of Germany introduced me to hefford vice and +wow beer can taste good herdinger is good but when somebody when you sometime get the chance you +should taste chauffeur hoffard that's what it was was it that was so good chauffeur hoffard +storks head all back at her storker becker or the dark variant of franzis scanner now +I've never seen that actually the only franzis scanner we get is that light one +right and don't believe they all come from the barrier two of those I named aren't from the home of +october fist hmm interesting yes so the second comment we have was actually from pole +who joined us on the last episode and he said great episode thanks Jen's great show some comments +franzis scanner is definitely a half a vice and beer did you chill them no you actually said it +right you said it right for me care visapuris he's not going to chill no I don't know +there should be drunk from the fridge or draft or this of chill great for a summer evening in the +beer garden in my opinion all German vice and beers of this type of heather vison based on my +experience in Germany my wife is German and comes from the south if you ask for a vison beer you will +get a heather heather's heather vison beer often you will get beer from a local brewery and not +from the big brewers that beer doesn't make it to the UK sadly there are actually three types +of heather vison dunkel which is the dark one heather's light which is what we both rank on +their episode and crystal which is and this is the heather's heather vison with the yeast and +wheat proteins proteins filtered out often drunk with a slice of lemon in the top I agree with +your comment about not mixing it I've had many great evenings treating those as a session beer +looking forward to the next episode thank you Paul yes actually that's quite positive a statement +to Louis says sadly it's actually quite a positive statement because if you go into a bad here +and you just say give us a beer then chances are you're going to get a tenons or possibly +something like a carling you know it's just not local in the slightest not I'm not even good +not even good so actually it's good to see that promoting the independent breweries in Germany +right so comment three was by Claudio we both well know from identical days I think +yes you must have done great episodes I can relate to thoroughly enjoyed this episode because +I'm familiar with Franz's scanard and Erdinger beers we have a store here in Miami floated +that called total wine which carries a wide range of alcoholic drinks as well as non-alcoholic +beverages for using an cocktails sorry I'm not familiar with that concept so you love to explain +that one not alcohol beverages yeah yeah total wine is my go to place for getting German beers +like Franz's scanard and Erdinger as well as a variety of warstiner beers to me warstiner +seems to be the most mass produced beer if I've no one actually heard of this one I don't think +maybe I'll see if I see the label but I can't think of it and the first one I've tried +of the German beers as it's the only one I've found in one of the supermarkets here usually the +total wine will carry a variety pack of warstiner that includes person or dunkel and brewers +gold which all of which are pretty good however I find Erdinger and Franz's scanard to taste +much better and you both nailed it on the head with Franz's scanard I've only had Erdinger +dunkel because I do like the darker beers and I find it to be my favourite of the two very eager +to try this Erdinger that was reviewed so I will be paying total wine a visit soon by the way +I chuckled when you poured the Erdinger and described it just from the sound and you what you will +get in but that is somebody who is definitely dedicated to the cause absolutely fantastic +comment number four was from again a him who said scottish bevarian IPW +was that a typo I don't know about three years ago I tasted a fine bottle of broodog +scottland versus Vyhens Stefan from Bavaria Indian Pale India Pale Vyzen that was a real +taste bomb wheat beer sweetness with hoppy bitterness a perfect collaboration so I guess that was not +typo it was IPW but right now then we had one from T.A. Spinner great episode I look forward +to more I thought this was good coverage of my current favourite style I too and constrained by +what I can find in America but sampled and loved both Erdinger and Franz's scanard while +living in Germany they may be mass produced but they are good I look forward to reviews of new +produced to explore mass produced doesn't inherently mean awful it really does depend because +if you they remind though he's from the U.S. which he's probably thinking about Budweiser +yeah so I get that I get that I guess in Scotland tenants would be the one I think of so yeah +yeah no that okay put the one and good point well made and I think one thing is I mean he's talking +I mean we're not focusing so much on the individual BS more the beer styles purely so that +people run the word can more chance of sampling rather than one specific beer yes absolutely awesome +well thank you everybody for your feedback and I'm going to say this it's going to sound a bit +controlling but I'm going to say anyway at least one of those episodes one of those comments +could have been an episode absolutely yes yes support Hacker Public Radio people +absolutely most definitely yes so right I think that is so if you would actually like to +us to try any specific style then please do actually mention it in a comment and we will try +we do have the next few months sorted because we are focusing on our favourite styles both +myself and they will tend to like the winter beers yeah so we're probably sorted but if you +actually have a favourite style winter beer please mention it and we'll try our bass to actually +fit it in yeah I'm sure the arms can be twisted oh yeah well yeah with a bit of effort I'm sure +yes so please do comment support the support Hacker Public Radio please post a show +and join in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4532.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4532.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6392c03 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4532.txt @@ -0,0 +1,132 @@ +Episode: 4532 +Title: Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 5: Graphical User Interface +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4532/hpr4532.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:22 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4532, for 2025-12-16 +Today's show is entitled, "Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 5: Graphical User Interface " +The host is Trey and the duration is 00:13:11 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Trey experiments with Squareline Studio to build a GUI for this project" +Hello again, this is Tray. Welcome to Part 5 in my cheap yellow display project series. +If you are still listening to me ramble on about this project, thank you. I really do appreciate +you. If you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my HDR profile page +and there's a link in the show notes. To review, my project is to build a portable +Morris code, cure memory, which can be connected to any of my HF Transsever radios +by simply plugging it into the code key input port. Then, I could transmit stored messages +by simply touching their specific icon on the touch screen. I also want to be able to +program each macro individually from within the graphical user interface. +And as you can probably tell from the background noise, we are in my office where I'm +surrounded by clocks that all seem to want to strike or kuku or chime all at the same +time, so please forgive the extra noise. Where was I? Right. To accomplish this project, +I need to learn how to build a graphical user interface for the cheap yellow display. +Most of the cheap yellow display resources I have been referencing recommend using a product +called SquareLine Studio for GUI development on the cheap yellow display. By the way, throughout +this, I made interchangeably use the term GUI GUI or GUI or graphic user interface. I just +I may use them interchangeably, so be aware of that. Anyways, SquareLine Studio. Sadly, +it is not open source. If any of you have experience with a good open source alternative +to SquareLine Studio, please record a show to help the rest of us or at least send me an +email. SquareLine does have a free trial with a free single user single computer license, +which I am using for this project. It will run on Windows or Linux or Mac, so it's very +very versatile. So, after watching several videos about using the cheap yellow display with +SquareLine, I started to outline the functionality I needed. SquareLine provides a wide range +of pre-configured boards and interfaces to choose from, in addition to widgets and controls, +you can drag onto your screens and it will automatically generate the supporting code +in the background. The initial page for my project needs to have macro buttons with labels +for the message that they will send when they are pressed. There also need to be navigation +buttons to move from one page to another. Another important page will be the configuration +page where the user can store the contents of each macro and set the speed at which code +will be sent. I would like to have a keyboard page where the user can type in a custom +message and send it to. I made a few GUI sketches on post-it notes, then I scratch them +out and made more because my drawing skills are even worse than my GUI coding skills. +Then I went ahead and installed SquareLine Studio on my Ubuntu laptop to start designing. +I do use Ubuntu for my daily driver. It's what sets out my desk, it's what I use all +the time. For those of you who may be paying attention, that is for telling. So, I installed +SquareLine Studio, there is a bit of a learning curve, even with the guide videos that +I found online. The user experience within SquareLine is challenging. Their own graphically +user interface leaves much to be desired. It is not designed to run on the laptops screen +size screen resolution that I had it running on. I had to switch to a much higher resolution +monitor and rearrange frames within the app itself in order to see many of the controls +that were just hidden and I couldn't get to them. Then, as I'm building the GUI itself, +button size adjustments, alignments and label text did not work quite as I expected. For +instance, a label text item is not part of something like a button. So, the text that +displayed on the button is actually a separate object completely from the button itself. +So, I had to put much more thought into the object naming so that I could write code +that will change button labels dynamically. I'm also including some screenshots from the +user interface that I designed within SquareLine and you'll see those in the show notes. +One great feature is that you can define actions and conditions for objects in your project. +For example, there are buttons on the left which will navigate to specific screens, +like the send screen or the config screen or the keyboard screen. I defined actions within +SquareLine such that when a specific navigation button is pressed, it will change the +buttons appearance to look like it has been pressed and will then scroll left or right to +the specified screen. Actions were also valuable as I was working on this speed word +per minute slider in the config screen. When the slider is moved left or right, the GUI +will change the actual number which represents the word per minute and is seen to the +right of the slider on the screen. Next, there is a simulator function which can be used +to test how well the GUI works. It took me some trial and error but I was able to build +and successfully test navigational actions and the word per minute slider. As I was working +on building the aforementioned word per minute slider and thinking about the default words +per minute of Morse code to use, my ADHD interrupted me as it usually does. I decided to change the default +speed that I use for the Arduino Nano-based Morse code practice here that I keep on my desk. You +can learn more about this here in episode 3 of the series. We will also discuss Morse code +speed in a future episode of this series. The original code, as is found on a link that +I'll include in the show notes, specified 12 words per minute as the default speed, with +buttons to increase and decrease this. However, I am practicing it 20 words per minute. Every +time I turn on the practice set I need to turn up the speed and guess if I'm close to 20 words +per minute. I went ahead and opened the practice oscillator project in our Arduino IDE and +updated the words WPM variable that represents words per minute in the code to a value of 20. +No, you will not see this change reflected in my GitHub repo. Why? Well, A, I wanted to test it locally +first. B, 20 words per minute may be a little bit fast for default for people that are just +getting started with it. C, confession. I do not use get the way it was meant to be used or the +way it should be used for that matter with pull requests and all that stuff. Bad tray. D, I was +distracted. The reason I bring all this up is this is the first time I've used the Arduino IDE to +program a board with this system since I upgraded it from a boom to 20.04 to a boom to 22.04. Well, +now, try as I might. I was not able to get the Arduino Nano's USB port to be recognized in +Linux so that I could update the key or code. I spent several days troubleshooting using other +Arduino devices different USB ports different cables all to no avail. None of them would be +recognized within Linux or within the Arduino IDE. If anyone has any recommendations, I'm open to +suggestions. What did I do? Well, I dug out my son's old Windows 10 PC which should slow down +to the point where he couldn't use it and I wiped it and started all over again with a new fresh +clean install of Windows and all the chaos that comes with that removed and then I went ahead +and installed the Arduino IDE and loaded up all the necessary dry libraries and the code from my +GitHub which I had to manually change once again because I do not fully get Git. Finally, I was able +to update the Arduino Nano with its new code and it works perfectly. But this revealed the same +problem for the cheap yellow display. I also could not get it to connect over USB to my Ubuntu system. +Time to migrate the entire project to Windows. My next step was to go ahead and install +Square Line Studio on Windows. Here, I ran into another snag because my trial license was only +for one system. So I had to uninstall Square Line from Linux before I could activate the +license on Windows. Did I mention that I would love to find an open source free software product +that I could use instead? If you know of one, please ping me or post a comment or something. +I wasted more time trying to get the GUI project which I had written on the Linux machine +imported to Square Line on Windows. All the while thinking of improvements I could make if I just +started over again from scratch. It would not load. It would not load. It would not load. +In the end, I started all over again from scratch. After much blood, sweat, and tears. My GUI code +was working again. And this time in Windows, I was able to run it in the simulation mode and move +from page to page successfully and also use my word per minute slider. I exported the UI from +Square Line and loaded the code it generated into a new project within the Arduino IDE. +Now was a moment of truth. I followed the instructions found in the Pang YouTube channel +video that I've posted within the show notes. I connected the Chipila display and uploaded +the code success. You can see in the picture in the show notes, my send screen loaded perfectly. +Now to try the other screens. Wait, draught. It does not seem that my navigation buttons work. +Actually, it does not appear that the touch screen is responding at all. +I spent the next several days trying to figure out what went wrong. I checked and double-checked +interrupt and configuration settings such as those that are described in another of Pang's videos +which I'll post a link to in the show notes. Nothing worked. I came to realize that I had +bit off more than I could chew and I should not have started with such an ambitious project. +Instead, I should have started with a simple equivalence of hello world where I could build and +test simple functionality to make sure I knew exactly what I was doing and then expand on it. +Lessons learned and a good stopping point for this episode. I'm open to your feedback on what +you would recommend what I should do differently, etc. You can post simple feedback as a comment or +send me an email using the address in my HPR profile. As usual, if your feedback is more than a +sentence or two, you might want to record it as an episode so that other listeners can profit from it as +well. Time for an espresso. Maybe I'll make it a double or even a triple. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4533.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4533.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f830d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4533.txt @@ -0,0 +1,283 @@ +Episode: 4533 +Title: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 2 Nuclear Fuel +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4533/hpr4533.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:23 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4533, for 2025-12-17 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 2 Nuclear Fuel" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:19:05 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Types of nuclear fuel, recycling of fuel, uranium and thorium resources, and medical isotopes." +This episode is the second in an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +This episode will cover types of nuclear fuel, recycling of nuclear fuel, uranium and +thorium resources, and medical isotopes. +Types of nuclear fuel, natural uranium. +This is the simplest of nuclear fuels that use purified natural uranium that has not been +enriched. +The enrichment is not necessary if you use an efficient moderator and reactor design. +Natural uranium is the least expensive of nuclear fuels. +It also allows countries to have an independent fuel cycle without having to build a uranium +enrichment industry. +It has been in use in numerous large-scale commercial power reactors around the world +for decades, with more due ones recently announced to be built. +An enriched uranium. +This is the most familiar to many people. +And rich uranium is more expensive than natural uranium, but it allows for more compact +reactors and less efficient but cheaper moderator. +It has a disadvantage that you need access to uranium enrichment facilities, which are +very large and expensive industrial plants. +Most commercial enriched uranium fuel has between 3 and 5% you to 35. +Some reactors have been designed to use fuel enriched to only around 1.2%. +This is commonly referred to as slightly enriched uranium. +Some reactor designs require a fuel and rich to just below 20%. +Mixed oxide fuel or marks. +Mixed oxide fuel is a blend of plutonium and natural depleted or recovered uranium. +Recovered uranium is extracted from used nuclear fuel. +The plutonium is extracted from used nuclear fuel and takes the place of the U235 +in a reactors that use enriched uranium. +Plutonium is produced when U238 interacts with neutrons, producing a variety of different plutonium +isotopes. +Using mox fuel allows for spent fuel to be recycled, reducing the amount of fresh uranium +required, and also reducing the amount of stored space required for spent fuel. +8% plutonium content is roughly equivalent to 5% enriched uranium. +France uses mox fuel extensively and mox fuel constitutes about 10% of their fuel usage. +Thorium fuel. +Thorium is not nuclear fuel when used by itself. +It is almost entirely thorium 232 which is not a fizzile isotope. +Instead, thorium can be used in a mixed oxide or mox fuel where it takes place of U238. +This is added either in rich uranium or plutonium with most studies indicating that plutonium +is the most feasible. +While in the reactor, some of the TH232 is converted to U233. +U233 is a fizzile isotope and can take the place of the U235 in reactor fuel. +Some of the U233 will be consumed in the reactor, but the rest will come out in a spent +fuel and can be recycled to make new fuel taking the place of some of the plutonium. +Even with the reuse of the re-covered U233, it general opinions seems to indicate that +he studies supply of plutonium from uranium cycle reactors will still be deated to keep +the cycle going. +No new reactor technology is required to use thorium fuel. +Existing reactors based on natural uranium designs that have been in large-scale commercial +operation for decades can use thorium fuel either as is or with mitermotification. +Natural uranium reactors are suitable for this because they make very efficient use of +neutrons that is they have good neutron economy, something that is important for thorium. +Thorium is not used now because thorium-based mox fuel is more expensive to make than +the natural uranium that the reactors which could use thorium normally run on. +The main advantage of thorium is for countries that have large thorium reserves but much +less uranium. +India in particular has a long-interm interest in thorium fuel due to their abundant reserves +of it and they also use natural uranium reactors whose design can be changed to use thorium +fuel. +Plutonium in uranium cycle reactors, in uranium cycle reactors plutonium is produced as part +of the reaction. +Some of that plutonium is then consumed while still in the reactor. +This actually constitutes a significant share of the total energy output. +In typical light water reactors we'll get to reactor types later. +About a third of the total energy output comes from plutonium that was created and then +consumed while still in the reactor. +For heavy water natural uranium reactors it's actually about 60% of the total energy. +Plutonium is strictly speaking not a type of fuel by itself. +Rather it is what is left over after most of the U-235 has been extracted from fresh +uranium in order to make enriched uranium. +To put it in another way in order to get U-235 to make enriched uranium you must extract +it from other uranium. +What is left over is mainly U-238 with a small amount of left over U-235. +This is called depleted uranium. +But cannot be used directly as nuclear fuel itself. +It can be used to make dew fuel by adding plutonium to make mixed oxide or mox fuel. +There are currently very large stock piles of depleted uranium. +If fast reactors become commercially viable these stock piles of depleted uranium could +be used to make fuel for them. +Oxide or ceramic versus metallic fuel. +Nuclear fuel is usually in the form of a ceramic pellet. +That is it is a uranium oxide powder pressed into a small cylindrical pellet and then +heated to a high temperature to form a ceramic. +This is known as sintering. +In ceramic form it is very durable and with a high melting point. +Some reactors use uranium in metallic form but these are quite rare. +Metal has a higher heat conductivity than ceramic but is less durable and more prone to corrosion +or other chemical influences. +In oxide form the fuel pellets are normally inserted into hollow metal tubes which hold +the fuel in place. +Multiple tubes may then be assembled into bundles for handling purposes. +The size and length of these bundles will vary depending on the reactor type. +Some unusual reactor designs use completely different fuel designs. +I will cover these in episodes where I talk about the reactors themselves. +Recycling spent fuel. +Once fuel has been used up it is considered to be spent. +However there are ways of recycling or reusing spent fuel. +Once through fuel cycles both commercial reactors run in a once-through fuel cycle. +They load fresh fuel in the form of enriched natural uranium in the reactors. +Use it until it is spent and then put it in the storage or disposal. +Many countries consider this to be the cheapest option as fresh uranium is relatively inexpensive +and no reprocessing facilities required to be built or operated. +Reprocessing spent uranium fuel into mixed oxide or mocks fuel. +However some countries with France being the best known example reprocessors spent fuel so they +can use it again. +Spent nuclear fuel contains elements and isotopes that were created in the nuclear +act reaction that interfere with the reaction by absorbing neutrons without contributing +to further fission. +Processing fuel is basically a chemical process to extract uranium and plutotium from +the spent fuel and leaves the undesired elements behind. +These undesired elements become waste. +The recovered uranium still contains a fair bit of fizzile U235. +In the case of reactors that use enriched uranium the amount of leftover U235 is typically +higher than is found in natural uranium. +This recovered uranium can then be put back through the enrichment process to be turned +into a regular enriched fuel. +The plutonium however contains the greatest amount of unused energy. +This plutonium is mixed in with natural uranium recovered uranium or depleted uranium and made +it to mix oxide or mocks fuel. +This mocks fuel can then be used in the reactor. +Apparently in France mocks fuel amounts to 30% of the fuel they use. +The spent mocks fuel cannot be used again because too much of the fizzile isotope of plutonium +have been used up, leaving the non-fizzile isotopes and it is not practical to separate +the two. +Fast reactors do not face this limitation but that is a subject for later episode. +Reprocessing and thorium fuel. +With thorium fuel reprocessing is inherent to an indifuel cycle that I am aware of. +Actually the process is similar to reprocessing uranium fuel except that U233 takes +a place of plutonium and thorium takes place of U238. +Direct reuse of spent light water fuel and heavy water moderated reactors. +We haven't covered heavy water moderated reactors yet that will come in a later episode. +However at this point just accept that there are reactors that use fuel more efficiently +than the common light water reactors. +These reactors can use natural uranium without any enrichment at all. +As a result of this what is used up fuel from a light water reactor is equivalent to high +grade fuel for these more efficient reactors. +This means you can use a fuel twice once in a light water moderated reactor and again +in a heavy water moderated reactor. +Work has been done on two processes which take advantage of this. +To pick direct use of used PWR fuel and can do. +This is a process for reusing spent fuel from common light water moderated pressurized +water reactors or PWR and using them in a type of heavy water reactor don't as can +do. +I will cover both types of reactors in more detail in a later episode. +At this point you just need to know that these are two of the three most commonly used +commercial nuclear reactors. +The third common type may be compatible with this as well but I don't know if it has +been tested. +The fuel rods in a PWR are longer than those in a can do fuel bundle. +The PWR rods are therefore cut to the correct length. +The ends are sealed and they are assembled into a can do compatible bundle. +This fuel bundle is now ready to use as fuel in a can do style reactor. +The do pick process destroys a lot of the actinized plutonium in the spent PWR fuel. +It extracts up to 25% more energy from the fuel compared to other PWR use fuel recycling +technologies. +It reduces a deed for PWR fuel disposal by up to 70%. +It reduces fresh uranium requirements by 30%. +This was jointly developed by South Korea and Canada. +So far as I'm aware, South Korea, who have both PWR and can do reactors, have not put +this into commercial operation. +The major problem is that these re-manufactured fuel bundles are as radioactive as spent +fuel and so are more difficult to handle and load into a reactor than fresh fuel. +Repue reprocess uranium fuel and can do. +This is similar to the do pick process except instead of simply cutting the fuel rods +at the correct length, they are opened up and the fuel pellets are crushed and blended +with fresh uranium additive necessary and then re-centered. +This gives a more consistent product than do pick process but they at the expense of additional +manufacturing steps. +However, this is still less involved than making traditional mocks fuel which includes +chemical processes to separate different elements. +This process has been demonstrated in China who also use PWR and can do reactors. +Uranium and Thorium resources start with uranium. +The top six producers of uranium are in order, Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada, Namibia, +Russia and Niger. +Between them they produce roughly two-thirds of total world output. +However, uranium production is driven by market forces and other supplies can be brought +online at its higher cost. +Since the cost of uranium is a very small proportion of the cost of the electricity produced +by a nuclear reactor, prices can increase substantially without increasing the cost of +electricity significantly. +Uranium and sea water. +Uranium is soluble in sea water and there is estimated to be 1,000 times as much uranium +in the sea as this found in commercial deposits on land. +Successful experiments have been done on extracting uranium from sea water. +If uranium were to be extracted from sea water, it would be replenished by natural erosion +of minerals from rocks at a faster pace than humans could extract it from the sea so it +can't be used up. +With current technology extracting uranium from sea water is about 3 to 20 times the cost +of mining it on land. +Thorium is not currently used as nuclear fuel in a significant amount, so it's not +meaningful to talk about production. +The top 3 countries though in terms of thorium deposits are India, Brazil, and Australia. +However, if thorium were to be a valuable nuclear fuel, exploration would undoubtedly turn +up far more in places where nobody has bothered to look. +Medical isotopes, medical isotopes are an important part of modern medicine. +Most of you will be familiar with their use in the treatment cancer and in medical diagnostics. +However, they are also used to sterilize single-use medical instruments such as syringes. +Most of you listening to this have therefore probably benefited from medical isotopes even +if you didn't encounter them directly. +Examples of comemetical isotopes, some examples of comemetical isotopes are, molabdenum 99, +or chemical symbol M099. +This decays into Technitium 99, TC99, and is extensively used in medical diagnostics. +The TTM177, which is LU177, this is used for prostate cancer therapy. +Yetrium 90, which is a chemical symbol Y90, this is used to treat several types of cancer. +A colbalt 60, which is CO60, this is extensively used to sterilize single-use medical +instruments. +It is also used for some types of cancer treatments such as gamma-niphrate radiotherapy. +I-dine 131, this is used to treat thyroid cancer. +How medical isotopes are made? +The typical way that the above isotopes are made is to bombard a source material with +neutrons in a reactor and transmuted into the desired isotopes. +A material known as a target is made from a specific isotope or element. +It is in place in a reactor and bombarded with neutrons, sometimes for years. +At the appropriate time it is removed from the reactor and process further into medical +grade material. +For isotopes with short half-lives, what follows then is a very tightly coordinated logistics +operation to get the isotopes into the customer quickly and reliably to ensure they +are still useful when they arrive. +Using isotopes and research reactors, the traditional way of manufacturing medical isotopes +is to make them a what are called research reactors. +I won't be speaking much about this type of reactor because I will focus on power generation. +Research reactors do not normally generate electric power. +Instead they are used as a source of neutrons. +They usually fairly small if you megawatts in thermal output. +As they don't require high temperatures, they are usually not required to be pressurized +and so operate at or near atmospheric pressure. +They are usually what are called pool-type reactors. +These are basically very large pots filled with lighter heavy water with a lid that can +be removed to access the interior. +Material, whether fuel, test samples or isotope targets are added and removed through +the top or inserted in a removed through dedicated tubes which penetrate your reactor walls +for this purpose. +Using isotopes and power reactors, in recent years medical isotopes have begun to be made +in large commercial power reactors as a byproduct alongside of generating electricity. +Since the medical isotopes are a byproduct of electricity production, overall costs are much +lower than operating a dedicated research reactor for this purpose. +Many power reactor types, however, are not suited to this role as they do not allow +material to be readily added or removed from the reactor except by shutting it down and +opening it up. +However, pressurized heavy water reactors such as can do have a large, un-pressurized +Kalandria holding the moderator and it is a relatively simple matter to add or remove +target material from locations where the target will receive appropriate neutron radiation. +Cool-Balt 60 is mainly made in can-do reactors in Canada, Argentina, China, and South +Korea. +It is also made using RBMK reactors in Russia. +Other isotopes such as the Malebton 99, Dutitium 177, and Itrium 90 are also made in +can-do reactors in Canada. +Romania are building additional can-do power generation reactors and they intend to equip +them with isotope production gear for medical isotopes. +The ability to produce medical isotopes at a large scale, low cost, and routine availability +has sparked more interest in developing still more types of medical isotopes for +additional treatments. +The basis of nuclear fission is nuclear fuel. +There are three main types of nuclear fuel and commercial use today. +These are natural uranium and rich uranium and mixed oxide or mox uranium plutonium mixtures. +It is possible to use thorium in a sort of thorium plutonium or thorium uranium mox fuel, +but this is not currently economically viable at this time when uranium is so cheap and abundant. +Fuel can be recycled in use in a reactor again. +Medical isotopes are an important byproduct of the nuclear industry and a large share of +the world's population has benefited from this at one time or another. +Conclusion. +In the next episode, I will describe the basic features and characteristics of reactors +together with descriptions of the most widely used commercial reactor types. +This concludes the second episode of an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4534.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4534.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e3c17e --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4534.txt @@ -0,0 +1,104 @@ +Episode: 4534 +Title: Reviving My Kawai K4 Synthesizer +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4534/hpr4534.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:25 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4534, for 2025-12-18 +Today's show is entitled, "Reviving My Kawai K4 Synthesizer" +The host is Claudio Miranda and the duration is 00:12:03 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Claudio describes how he revived his old Kawai K4 synthesizer after years of dormancy." +Hey, Hacker Public Radio, this is Claudio Miranda, and I'm recording this episode on how I revive my Kawaii K4 digital synthesizer. +So this is made by Kawaii, and it came out in 1989. +I purchased this supposedly brand new in the early 90s. +So it's quite a bit old. You could say it's a vintage synthesizer. +It's a digital synth. It's not an analog synth, but it does have digital samples of different samples, and you can actually program them. +And it was, like I said, it was my main synth for a good while I used it for sequencing with Kawaii K8i tabletop sequencer that I purchased used some couple of years afterwards. +And that was before I migrated to using software on the computer for sequencing. +So around 2005, I purchased another synth, which eventually became my main synth, and this one was kind of put to pasture for some time. +And in my constant moves throughout the years, it's been sitting unused or stored away either in storage or my dad's garage or different places, +but it has been used until recently that I decided to set everything up and kind of set up my own digital studio with using QTractors to record everything mini tracks. +So I decided to buy a power adapter for this, and for some other Kawaii devices I have, which I may talk about in QTractors. +But this one, I went ahead and I ordered a generic one on Amazon, it meant the requirements for power, and it was just hopeful that it would turn on and work. +So the, once the adapter arrived that went ahead and plugged it in, you know, prayed to the midi gods and lowly hold it came to life. +However, it did give me a message saying there's to check the internal battery. +Now, I, this kind of what I was expecting from when I had been reading online, and based on an experience I had with a Corg M1. +That, I remember it was at a school that I used to work at, and they had it, and they decided to power it on because they were going to get rid of it. +And it also said that it was having issues with the battery. +So checking online, I found this page called Neil Beard and his machines, and he talks about, he has a blog post, actually, of how to replace the battery on the Kawaii. +Now he's talking about the Kawaii K4R, which is the Rack Mountain version of this synthesizer. +Basically, meaning it goes on a rack and it doesn't have keyboard, it's controlled via MIDI. +And he goes through the steps and everything and provides a few links there. +So I went ahead and took this Thanksgiving break that we had here in the US. +I went ahead and I decided to open up the Kawaii save. +Now, I didn't do this without following some instructions. +I actually, ironically enough, I found a video on how to tear down how to open up the Kawaii and get to the battery. +Now, even though the video wasn't Japanese, I kind of got to just the what he was talking about because if he was tearing down and trying to get into the part with the battery. +Thankfully, it's very easy to get into. +So I went ahead and took all the screws off from the bottom. +And I looked at the battery, looked for the battery. +Thankfully, it's a CR2032 battery, which goes on any computer you can find in any store as relatively cheap. +So I went ahead and I bought a pack of two and I went ahead and I replaced that battery. +And once I put it all together, I went plugged it back in, turned it on. +And thankfully, the message was gone. +So, but the problem was that every sound for every patch, every patch that the synthesizer had was the same. +And even the drum sounds were the same. +So I had to find a way to get the original default factory sounds back into this device. +So thankfully, Neil Beard on his blog post about replacing the battery, provides some links that show you where you can actually still get the original sounds for the K4. +And the K4R. +You know, you can talk, like I said, he talks about the K4R, but this also pertains to the K4. +Same device, just one has a keyboard and sound effects and the other one does. +And thankfully, Kawai has all of their patches and documentation and everything for their musical instruments on their downloads page. +And I'm going to find this along with information about the K4R in the show notes. +Now, the way to do this is, once you download the sound sets, there's two ways to install them. +Either through standard mini file, which you would play as a mini file and it would transfer over to the synthesizer, depending on what mini channel it's in. +Or using what's called MIDI system exclusive messages, or SISX, MIDI SISX. +So I've dealt with this in the past using some older software, but I had never done it on minutes or BSD. +Since I was working with my Slackware installations for my music stuff, I decided to do it on there. +So I went ahead and downloaded the patch set, the system X. +It's a zip file if I'm not mistaken. +For the K4, I went ahead and I downloaded that. +And then I had to configure my, I had to configure the synth to receive MIDI system exclusive messages. +So I had to unprotect the internal bank so that I can be written. +And then I used a MIDI, which is spelled A and IDI. +It's a command line tool, and I'll provide the link for that in the show, as well, along with what MIDI system exclusive messages are. +And I used that to actually transmit the MIDI system exclusive messages from the Slackware box to the K5K4. +And it does that because I've got a MIDI interface connected to the computer that goes to the synthesizer. +So doing that, I was able to get the patch sounds back in. +I decided to do a test by powering it off and then powering it on again, and thankfully the sounds were still there. +So the battery's working, everything's working. +However, I did notice, and I had forgotten about this, that one of the black keys had, +had broken. +So the way that key works actually is that there's, and there's a spring on the inside to give it that, that, that, that, that. +You know, it's just to give it that, that feel of a piano key work, you know, it goes down, comes up. +So the problem was that one of the tabs, the notches, and the back of the black key, that keeps it in place. +So the spring is causing it to lean to, the, the, the force of the spring is causing the key to lean to a side and rub against the other key. +So it gets stuck. +So I'm saying to myself, how am I going to fix this? Because I've got to find some place where I can actually get a replacement. +Now, I could probably 3D print it, which is a suggestion from a friend of mine on, master it on, but I don't have a 3D printer, nor do I know of anyone that has a 3D printer. +So I decided to look in the eBay and a few other places. +Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find it there, and if I did, it was very expensive, but I did find this one website that specializes in parts for synthesizers and keyboards. +As well as accessories. And the name of the company, and this is not to, you know, they're not promoting them or anything. +But, you know, it's just in case any body needs a replacement part for a synthesizer in the US, it's a company called Sintar. +So like Sintar, like a Sintar, but Sintar, so SYNTA, you are keyboard parts and accessories, and I'll provide the link in the show notes for that. +They actually have the key that I needed, and only cost me the key itself was about a little over $10 US, including shipping and taxes, came out to about 20 in change US dollars, which is not bad. +So that one I'm going to save for a future HPR episode on how I went about and replaced that, and it's going to be a little more involved because I have to actually remove the board that has the keys to get to the battery. +It was much easier because there's just one board on top, and just replacing the coin battery. +It's a solder room because I've heard situations where other synthesizers have that battery soldered on, but this sits in a receptacle that's there, and you just replace the battery. +So thankfully it was that easy. I am able to use it. I can't use that one key until I replace it, but I can still use it as a sound module, and I can control it from my Yamaha S08 through MIDI. +So, not all is lost, you know, it's still usable, and I'm just glad that it's functioning, and there are no other issues with it, and I pray it stays that way. +So anyway, that's how I revived my K4, and I've already recorded some tracks on something that I'm working on, so we'll see if I close it up here. +Anyway, if you haven't shown that you'd like to record, be sure to do so, send it up, grab an audio recorder, or grab your computer, and microphone, and record something that would be of interest to hackers, and HPR, the HPR website talks about that, what would be of interest to hackers, and go ahead and record it, upload it, and that should be your first show. +Do anything that interests you, or it can be how you got into particular technology, or how you resolve this problem, or anything, but be sure to upload an episode, as we are always in these shows, because everyone's in a while, especially during the holidays, and during the summer, the queue gets pretty low, and we have to dip into the reserve queue. +So that's going to do it for me today, hopefully I'll be able to record some more before the end of the year, I have one that I'm still promised I'm just going to do it. +So yeah, this is going to be it for me, and tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4535.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4535.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5330b50 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4535.txt @@ -0,0 +1,131 @@ +Episode: 4535 +Title: Living the Tux Life Episode 4 - Various software I have been using +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4535/hpr4535.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:26 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4535, for 2025-12-19 +Today's show is entitled, "Living the Tux Life Episode 4 - Various software I have been using" +The host is Al and the duration is 00:09:13 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Al goes over the Various software he have been using" +Welcome to Episode 4 of Live in the TechSife. +A podcast series where I document my journey of using Linux so that you drive up. +So I still haven't needed to go back to Windows recently. I had to join a single. +When I looked in a software's end of the experiment, there was no CMotch in Twinstall. +No problem, I just went to the same website, downloaded the dev package, clicked on it, +and it installed perfectly, connected to the meeting with no problems at all. +I'm still really happy with this experiment. I like that so far. +Every time I have a problem, it's already been answered and it's been formed. +I was looking forward to the beta version of the next experiment, which is 22.3, +which is coming back at the end of the December. +Can we mention that I was brave starting on that laptop and should have started with a desktop? +The thing is, I don't actually have a desktop. I main desktop for work has two monitors +clicked to a docking station. At the end of the day, I'm probably worked at that top, +like in my thing, and I plug in this sync pad, and it works like a treat. +I've been deep diving into monitoring the uses of my laptop, +especially memory usage and practical usage. One thing I was looking was trying to do is to pick +an idea of that laptop that would last me next couple of years. As I mentioned before, the +sync pad T14S has built in memory, that is solid on. So you can't replace it. +My laptop has a six-sinking around, and I was wondering if I needed to look at it, +and that to with more memory, the T14S comes with more memory, can come with more memory, +but the very rarely on eBay. The L3 does come with two sorts of supporting DDR, or DDR5, depending +on the model. But looking at the current RAM prices, did AI requirements and data trends. +How does the recording in December 26, RAM prices have gone through the roof? +So I started, okay, the X and I sat with the monitoring solution. I'm not very good at saying this +name, it's Perifius. So I serve a Docker container for one of the servers using Perifius, +which is a time-see monitoring tool. This Docker container was set up and scraped the +host to get matrix. On my laptop, I installed the no-lix water, which exposed metrics like RAM, +use, and battery, battery performances. And then the service scraped these data every few +minutes and stores them in a database. And you can use a cool tool like Grafana, which draws nice +graphs, using a data clicked by the Perifius. Again, you can install a disbar Docker +and run it in the container. You then point Grafana to Perifius again, and then you can see +the nice graphs. I will clear the link in the show notes for the graphs and diagrams I'm using, +or the dashboard I'm using. As I'm running tail scales on my devices, this is a message +VPN network, meaning that all the devices with tail scan and scores, even if I'm a separate +network, different IP address range, can speak to each other using host name until DNS. It means +I don't have to open up ports on my phone. So whenever my laptop has internet tests, it can be queries. +I can see that my daily users are back for gigabytes, and when I record a podcast, it spikes +up to between 8 and 12 because of the using audacity and telegram. So I don't think I need to +worry about getting more RAM at the moment. I probably would, if the current prices weren't so high, +and so I need to go find a you can pick free defined dashboards, and then where you can see +things like RAM and disc usage. I also have one that shows battery metrics like photoshoot +numbers, the cycles, the percentages. I'll leave the link again in the show notes to the dashboards. +I've been looking at a way to say battery power in the next, giving more me to a package +called TLP, with optimization system when I'm battery, like turning things off when I not need +also with the firm on live on batteries to make them last on you shouldn't charge them all +way to 100% as this makes more sure, more energy to fill, the last dream is an anchor destroyer +battery life. So tools like TPL set of values, so when they stop battery charging, I have set +mine to 9% to test. All the monitoring I have done on a battery didn't quite satisfy well +and intended to do, like when you put the mouse over the battery icon it showed you had four +hours left, but when I went to actually know how many hours I actually got, per charge, like a stop +port. So I wrote a script with the Helicopite which worked pretty well, it puts our put link in the +show notes. It's basically a basket that rent every minute and write details to a log file, +and then checks as a laptop is on battery or plugged in. When it detects it is unplugged, it +records the time, records the time has happened and starts the timer, it records battery percentage +and then when it detects the next time it plugged in it will work out, how long it's battery, it's +being on battery. Next problem I wanted to solve was, what happens when it goes to sleep, I had +the function show that it has it if the script text at last time ran was great then two minutes, +it notes laptop has been asleep, it then subtracts the sleep time from the battery runtime. +However, observation suggests that TPL might actually be causing words about life and having it +installed, I've removed TPL because I was only getting about three hours compared to six +eight hours glad it, but I still need to wait to find to limit the battery charge to 90%. +You can use U-Path to this, you have to edit a file, but I couldn't do this for a reach, +which is very odd, didn't have the permission, even though if you looked at the permissions on +the file, you should have. You had to do an echo, a lot of the echo 90 piping it to the T-command, +which seemed to sound as you just set the value. I also came across a problem called caffeine when I was +testing, which in an application that stopped your laptop going to sleep. I wanted to test how long +my laptop would run the battery without power settings interfering. Now I think I came across when +my testing with a local send, which is a great way to send Trant for a file between devices. +It's like airdrop from Apple. I had to find this my phone and wanted to +transfer to my laptop. The local send was easy to install on a laptop for the software sender, +and both my iPhone and Android apps have the nearest headset tentative app store. +You just set, start the app on both devices, on the laptop I left it to receive mode and then +displayed a couple of random words, and on my phone you select what you want to send and +click send, it's cant network for devices. You select where you want to send it to, and you +confirm the random words match. You can save devices as favourites so you don't have to deal with +them in the future. I also used it to send far between Linux laptops. It worked quite well. +I wanted to skip out a shout to Teamux. I heard of it before, but I thought it was +complicated to set up. Actually, it's surprising easy. Here's a problem, it solves. +If you SSH into a remote machine, say you want to train in the connection, keep stopping. +When you get to scan any command running on the remote server, get killed. That's really frustrating. +With Teamux, you just SSH into the box, run the command, Teamux, and you get +connected to a virtual terminal session. The beauty is, you just connect from that session, +it keeps running in the background. When you reconnect for SSH, you +can type T-Max LS to list your sessions. Mine, this is one called zero. +Which shows you where the sessions are open. You can then run T-Max I-F and T-Zero, +and it reconnects to the terminal zero. You're right back where you left off. So, +and so cool, and there's no extra setup on the S-H side, it just works. +The last thing I want to power cover is the way back up, so track the T. +I'm trying to keep in mind that everything on my laptop, I shouldn't, +but I should be happy to lose. If I'm working on things like photos or something, +I don't want to lose, I'll make sure I have a copy of them somewhere else. +Anything I'm working on like well-exiled documents is stored in the cloud, +and then it says we'll buy our web browser, and these are backed up from TeclerBuy, +never workflow. As I'm going to go for, I've used time shift to backup the OS files in the +route partition to separate volume. However, these don't back up my home directory. For this, +I've chosen a U-D-U-B-D-U-B. Backing up to my one drive one today. This is quite easy to set up +for the software centers. Part of this is an installation U-Q to the encryption password. +Thanks to your one drive you can take to remote share or Google Drive, +but I've got one terabyte for my one drive, I've just backed up to there. +And then to the fill backup, then takes it, I told it to an exclusive thing like my +download folder, VM files, because I've got a couple of virtual machines that are running +home on your backup and cash files, and after good cut browse, it backed up successfully. +I tested the restore process by doing a fresh install of the X-Men. +A son, D-G, began on this machine, taken into my one drive, and I entered my +decryption password, and now I was able to restore my files. +The other thing I had about the other day was think of the Fox clone, which is like +cloned to there, but it's got a GUI, which is a beautiful eye, so it means that you can use +to take backups of entire void or a drive. This gives you a full image backup of your system. +Doing something like a big upgrade, I might use this, but I might do not have a podcast on this +once I've tested that. But this is it for this episode, tune in tomorrow for another exciting +episode of Pack Up Public Radio! +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4536.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4536.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebebece --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4536.txt @@ -0,0 +1,306 @@ +Episode: 4536 +Title: Welcome to the Linux Community +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4536/hpr4536.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:26 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4536, for 2025-12-22 +Today's show is entitled, "Welcome to the Linux Community" +The host is Deltaray and the duration is 00:30:27 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "I invite you to participate in the Free Linux Open Source Community" +Hi, I wanted to welcome you to the Free Linux Open Source BSD software community that we're +all part of. +We're glad that you're here. +You might be here recently because some operating system or piece of software has made +you frustrated, maybe it's invader privacy, changed its policies, caused your system to +not be supported anymore or whatever. +You want more control over your system, you want to have more privacy and maybe you want +something free. +Our community is vast and multifaceted and has a lot to offer and things like Linux can +feel confusing it first. +I'm mostly because it's based on a different system. +It's based around Unix and not around maybe being super user-friendly at first, but it's +gotten there over the years. +It expects the users to be a bit more self-guided and self-motivated and trying to figure +out their own problems, you know, there's not like a support number that you can call +or a genius bar that you can go to in major cities. +There's going to be a lot less hand-holding, you know, you're going to have to do some +of the stuff on your own. +But honestly, all that has improved quite a bit over the decades and we've all been +through the stage, you know, as everyone was a beginner once for myself, you know, I've +been using Linux for almost 30 years and in the beginning when I tried to use it as a +desktop, I was able to install Linux, but it took six months before I had a working graphical +interface because, you know, my video card wasn't supported or something like that. +But now it's gotten much easier, there's a lot more support for all the different hardware +out there. +So it's likely that you're going to be able to, you know, use it almost immediately. +If not, it might be because you're using like some, you know, piece of hardware that just +hasn't had its drivers written for it in the Linux community. +But you don't have to prove anything to anyone to belong, you know, you, you don't have +to learn everything either, like there's, it can feel overwhelming at first and you might +be thrown a lot of documentation that seems irrelevant and that's fine, it's there for +you when you need it and it gives you the opportunity to explore different things. +And if you're wondering if Linux can do something, run some piece of software or some +piece of functionality, the answer is very likely yes, but it's going to be in a different +way, you know, you're going to not have, for instance, Adobe Photoshop, you're going to +have the GNU Image Manipulation Program or Critta or Inkscape or Blender or, you know, +one of these programs that does the same functionality, but just as a different software +package, whether it be web browsing, you know, there's web browsing as a huge part of daily +life these days and oftentimes we're running a lot of cloud applications through our web +browsers and the web browsers almost become an operating system itself, but, you know, Linux +has several options for different web browsers that you can use, whether it's Firefox or Brave +or Conqueror or Chromium and then the commercial options like Chrome and Opera have Linux versions +that you can use. Audio production, you know, there's, there's lots of different audio production +applications. In fact, I would say that a lot of people don't really explore the incredible array +of music production applications that the open source community has. I've only recently started +to discover how much is there and I've been using Linux for a long time, but there's like +these digital audio workstation software that you can use to do all kinds of music production +and some people are actually preferring to use Linux for music production because it's a bit more +stable or offers some things that the other platforms don't and also with the window management +capabilities that Linux has it, it makes it sometimes easier to lay things out and so on. +And games, games have long been a concern for people moving to Linux, they want to be able to +that they can play the games that they want but that has come an a long way over the past 30 +years. It used to be that mostly we were just using games playing games that had been made for Linux +natively but with the advent of software like wine that has really matured and then has forked +off into a few different varieties of software emulation that make it possible for roughly about, +I don't know, 80, maybe even 90% of the games on Windows now work under Linux. +I regularly play games through Steam, the Steam environment on Linux that normally only run on +Windows or we're only made for Windows but actually can work on Linux through +through proton and wine emulation. And then of course there's a wide variety of options for programming, +you can do office work and that works fine for the most part. I use Linux, I'm like a cyber +security professional but I work in office environment and I have to collaborate with different +people and I'm able to interact and do things with them without significant issues, you know, +no problem. Video conferencing works, stuff like Zoom and Teams work under Linux. So I mean there's +a lot of different things that you can do. A lot of people think of Linux as being a server +operating system and that's, you know, that's maybe what, well I won't even want to say that's +what it's best at. I mean it does, it does that stuff and that's what, you know, a lot of the +internet infrastructure is running on Linux and BSD operating systems and I'm kind of lumping +everything into, you know, just saying Linux and kind of meaning like the entire free and +open source community but, you know, it's a shorthand way of saying it but there's lots of different +possibilities out there for you to get involved in and I don't want to just welcome you to the +community. I want to invite you into the community and the reason why I say invite is because +the open source Linux BSD community what it needs most is people. It needs people to participate +in it, you know, and not just writing code, writing code is just one aspect of developing open source +software. You can participate in forums and ask questions and that's actually helping to develop the +community because you never know when your question might end up with an answer that other people +end up referencing later. So it's important to ask the questions that are on your mind or, you know, +when you're having some kind of issue to try to help figure them out. Chat with other users. +There's user groups out there. There might be like a local Linux users group in your area +then you can connect with and you might make new friends and be able to solve some of your +problems that you have and so on. Show your friends and colleagues what's about, you know, just +maybe say, hey, I'm exploring this Linux stuff. You want me to show you or whatever, maybe they +end up using, you know, maybe they'll end up using Linux or maybe they already do and they can help you. +Submitting bug reports. If you find a problem in a piece of software, something doesn't +seem to be working the way it's supposed to find the place where that software is actually hosted +and where they would want bug reports to be submitted and then give them a good bug report, +including details about the problem, what version you're running, what distribution of Linux you're +running and so on. You can help out with the user experience and UI design of, you know, of both +command line software and GUI software, command line software has a user experience to it that +sometimes needs to be refined and, you know, GUI software, sometimes isn't laid out the best way +or whatever, maybe it takes too many steps to accomplish a task. And so if you have experience +in these types of things, you can help out in that regard. One great example of this is Blender, +Blender 3D is this 3D modeling and animation package that is widely used now and has had this +great story of its development over three decades where it's greatly improved and some of the +those improvements came about through a user that had ideas for how the user experience and the UI +could be improved and made up a thoughtful, you know, demonstration and mock-up of what those things +could be and then the leadership of that project was receptive to it, you know, and they were +the coders there were receptive to the ideas and were willing to slowly work towards those goals +and now Blender is, you know, better than ever it's this amazing piece of software and there's +no reason why that can't happen to some other programs. Maybe you have a talent for making +artwork or, you know, sounds or media or something like that. There's always a need for, you know, +themes or refinements to themes like in the GUI, making icons, maybe it's making graphics for +websites that are needed or splash screens for programs as they load up. Also, having example documents, +that can give new users an idea of what's possible or how to do something, that kind of stuff +can be very useful and very helpful for new users and so you can help out new users in that regard. +You can make tutorials, you know, whether it's using a blog format or, you know, a YouTube video +or TikTok video, a mastodon poster or social media post of some kind, maybe you make a get hub page +or whatever that kind of explains how things work. You could write up documentation officially +for the software or improve the documentation that's there. Maybe you find that the documentation +doesn't explain something well and you can reach out to that project and say, how can I +improve this documentation? And that's a great way to help new users that are coming to that software. +And then, you know, you can also, these software projects, they, they actually have services +that they have to pay for like hosting and supportive the project in various different ways or +they might even have legal fees and so on. So sometimes they have a way of contributing monetary +funds to them so that you can help them or maybe you actually can offer services of your own, +like maybe you run a web hosting provider or maybe you're a lawyer or maybe, you know, you can +help be a community leader in some way. There's all kinds of ways to help out. +The community needs people to survive is long and short of it. So I really would like you to +invite you to participate in the community, not just be a consumer of the software. +And one of the great things about open source and our community that we've created over the decades +is that it offers unlike a lot of commercial software. It offers you the ability to control your +own destiny. You can do, you know, what you want with the operating system with the software and +nobody's going to really tell you no, you know, you can't do that unless it's illegal. But for the +most part, you know, if you want to have your computer boot up into just the command line mode +or maybe you want to make everything pink or something like that, you can, you know, it can +become a form of self-expression for you. And it's unlikely that down the line, the, you know, the +software that you're using is going to start restricting what you can do. Maybe sometimes that happens +but usually there's so many options out there that you can just switch to another distribution +or another desktop or something that does give you those abilities. I've, I've actually switched +distributions of Linux probably six times over my career. I started out on Red Hat. Back +when it was Red Hat Linux, the original Red Hat Linux and then I switched to Gen 2 which was, you know, +more for having the ability to get down and dirty with the operating system compile your own software +and make everything run just a little bit faster. It was like having a hot rod and it was great +that I had that ability to continue to develop my Linux skills in the same community but just a +different sub-community but in a new way, you know, with, with another operating system that just +might not be possible. It might be a one-size-fits-all situation and they'll say, well, tough or, +our operating system doesn't do those things. But with the Linux community, you have the choice. +You have the choice to do what you want to do and find a distribution that fits your needs as a +professional or as a user and customize it the way you want. Linux and the, you know, the +dust tops and the the window managers which is kind of a new concept for people coming to Linux. +Everything is kind of modular so it can be switched out. So, you know, whereas on Windows or Mac, +you just have the set, you have one GUI and you don't think of like how the Windows are decorated +and stuff like that. You can actually change the way Windows are decorated. You can make it so that +instead of having to click on a window to focus it so that it has the, you know, the cursor and the +keyboard and mouse input. You can actually make it so just moving your mouse between Windows +actually gives them focus without you having to click on it. That's called focus follows mouse. +There's also sloppy focus. You know, I mean, there's all kinds of different interesting +concepts that you can do. And virtual desktops, Mac has this now, but this has been a part of X +Windows and Unix and Linux since the beginning, you know, it's like it's been around forever. +The ability to have different desktops that you can switch between and keep your applications +kind of organized on these different desktops. This is one of the concepts that keeps me on +Linux. You know, it's like, I mean, I have no real reason to switch away from Linux, but it's one of the +things that, you know, if it went away, I'd have to really think about it because I love the ability +to switch between virtual desktops and you can like stick Windows to the different desktops to +to move them around or you can make it so that Windows is always on top of other Windows or +always below, you know, you can do all these different kinds of interesting things that aren't built +into the other operating systems. And then, you know, there's the different desktops themselves. +You might start out with something like GNOME or KDE, but then there's other options like +Mate or XFCE or, you know, the different tiling window managers and many other options. +And these all function in slightly different ways and give you different options, but mostly the +same options. But they're targeted at people who want to accomplish different things. So you may +find that you don't like the way GNOME works. And so before you just give up on Linux all together, +you might try out the different distributions or the distant, different desktops. You don't have to +try a different distribution, but a lot of times certain distributions have been tailored for a specific +desktop experience. But you can still switch between them. You know, I mean, you can run Fedora +and then if you don't like the GNOME environment that comes with it, you can install KDE on Fedora +and then switch to that or install XFCE and switch to that. You can even do it between different +users. You know, it's like each user can have their own desktop environment or you can change it by the +day. You know, it's like on Mondays or on No on Tuesdays or on KDE or whatever. And so, you know, +there's nothing stopping you from doing that. And a lot of people seem probably think that Linux +is all about the terminal and that, you know, we live and breathe and stuff in the terminal. And some +of us do, you know, it's like we're still using the GUI, but we're using the command line quite a bit, +but you don't have to. You know, a lot of the functionality that you will need to +use a link system. You don't have to use the command line for it. There'll be some stuff that you do, +you know, to like fix something or install driver or something. But usually, when every +you encounter this, you're following some tutorial to explain how to do it. So I wouldn't sweat that too much. +And then there's lots of different editors out there for editing, you know, VI, EMAX, Nano, +Kate, whatever you want to use. You know, there's no right answer. There's just what you prefer. +And in the end, I think it's about having fun, you know, you get to take around your system a lot +more to discover new options and possibilities and new ways of using your computer. And when you +do figure stuff out, you can take pride in that aha moment that made you progress and +learning something new and doing something different with your system. And you might change those +preferences later and so on. So yeah, in the community, you're probably going to find that there's +a lot of people with strong opinions on things. And some of that comes with people's ability to +choose and they stand by their choice and so on. And don't, you know, don't worry about that too much. +If you are one of those people who, like, gate keeps or something, try not to do that. Remember, +the ability to choose your platform is what makes free Linux open source great. +Or at least it's one of the things that makes a great. So you shouldn't try to +oppress somebody for, you know, for their ability to choose what software they want to use. +You're also building a lot of skills that are in demand, you know, a lot of cloud environment and +internet services and like the top 500 super computers and science research and stuff is based on +around Linux systems. You know, a lot of the virtual private servers that you can set up or servers +on stuff like Amazon web service or Azure or whatever is running Linux by default. And so +getting down and dirty with it and like learning how to do things is going to give you skills that +might land you a job or make new connections or something or give you new abilities to do stuff +that lands you new job or whatever. And also, I mean, people have been using Linux for a long time. +I'm one of those old people that, you know, is close to getting closer to retirement, not quite +at retirement. But, you know, as the old guard retires, there's going to be new positions opening +up and those positions opening up and so on. That's going to demand those skills. So working at it now +may help you to land a job later. The other thing is, E-Waste. E-Waste is a big problem in our +world. You know, we're becoming too much of like a throw away society that has created toxic +things that don't sit well and land fills and so on and isn't good for the environment. And the +commercial community really thrives on forcing users to retire hardware that's just, you know, +like a couple years old, operating systems that no longer support a computer that's only +three or four or five years old is is kind of unacceptable. You know, it's like we're causing people +to constantly have to upgrade and throw away their old computers. Hopefully you're taking it to an +E-Waste or cycling center, but some people aren't. And so on. And so Linux offers the ability to +bring new life into those old pieces of hardware because oftentimes, you know, unlike something like +windows or Mac, which says, you can't run, you know, or lay a top ring system. It's like, well, +first of all, they force you to upgrade. They say, like, you have to upgrade to this new operating system. +But then they say, well, your old computer won't run our new operating system. So you have to upgrade +your computer. And so what are you supposed to do then? Run an old insecure operating system that +opens the door for viruses and malware and stuff? Well, Linux can often run on much older hardware +and, you know, a lot of people, they're refreshing their computers every, you know, three years, +or something. You'll find that Linux users often are running their same hardware for as much as a +decade or even more than that. I once ran a piece of hardware like my home desktop computer +for something like 12 years. And I did a few upgrades to it and stuff. But in the end, in the end, +when I went to go replace the motherboard, I still kept the case, you know, and I still kept like +the drives and stuff like that. So, you know, the modular way of doing things on a desktop computer +allows you to not have to cause things to go obsolete faster. And the same can be true with laptops, +too. Wow, it's hard to replace, you know, the motherboard and a laptop. There are laptop +makers out there like framework that allow you to treat a laptop more like a desktop computer +and that it makes it kind of modular. So, you might consider things like that. And I wanted to +close by just talking about how, you know, open source matters and how much of a difference it's +made in the world. So, back in the 90s, it was becoming common for commercial software vendors +to force you to upgrade to some costly upgrade. Maybe it costs a hundred dollars, $200, +maybe even $500 to upgrade to the next major version of a piece of software. But then that new +version would hardly have anything really new in it. They might move the icons around and update +the graphics and stuff like that of the icons. But people would be waiting for certain features +to come along and they wouldn't make it into a new version, they get frustrated. And that's because +the commercial vendors wanted to keep pulling you along, you know, putting a carrot in front of +you and having you follow the carrot. But with open source, there's no reason to do that, right? +If you want to feature, just, you know, build it in if it's possible if it makes sense to and so on. +And so people do that. You find that oftentimes open source software is far more +featureful than the commercial software. Sometimes there's stuff that can't do easily because, +you know, it takes time for the open source developers to do it because it's a tough thing to do +when you're working for, you know, for free. But for the most part, we've pretty much accomplished +most of the major things that you expect to be able to use your computer for. The developers +and the community that makes the software cares a lot more. You know, they're, they're making it +for their own use, but they're, they're really make, you know, they're trying to make something +that is quality, that is stable, that is secure, because they want their reputation is on the line. +It's not just that like a company's reputation. It's like their own personal reputation is on the line. +So they have a lot more skin in the game to get it right. We care a lot about privacy and we +don't want to see ads on everything. And so that's one, I mean, that's one major difference +in just the user experience. When you, when you sit down at stuff like windows, you're bombarded +with ads everywhere and stuff like that. And that's just not the way we operate in the Linux world. +You know, it's like, if we see an ads somewhere, we're like, kill it, kill it from, from orbit, +or whatever. You know, it's like we don't want that kind of system. If any of the distribution +start going down that road, then, you know, new distributions pop up that say, well, we're going +to do the same thing, but we're not going to do it with ads. Or we're going to make sure that, +you know, your privacy is preserved and we're not sending telemetry data back to some central +repository that's keeping track of what you're doing or something like that. Or, you know, +Microsoft's recent delve into taking screenshots of your desktop and stuff like that. What's that +all about? So a lot of this stuff really, you know, from a free software, Linux, open source +software point view, it's just like it doesn't make any sense. You hear me talking about free software +and open source. These are two different terms for mostly the same thing. It just depends on who you +ask. But essentially, the reason why open source software matters is because as Red Hat's founder +Bob Young said, he said, close source software is like buying a car with the hood welded shut. +You know, it's like, who would buy that? Why would, you know, but yet consumers more and more are +being forced to buy stuff that's like this, where you don't have the ability to open it up and fix +it yourself and see what the actual hardware product is doing. And so you don't know, you know, +it's like what it essentially becomes a black box and you don't know what it's doing. You have to +like put sensors around it to try to figure out what's doing. But with open source software, +you can actually open up the code and look and be sure that it's not sending your data away +or it's not like scanning your hard drive to find stuff or and send it back to the author or whatever. +And it gives you the privilege to change the software. One of the problems that comes up a lot +with commercial software is that eventually, you know, a company might go out of business or stop +making a piece of software. But there were people that were depending on being able to use that software. +A great example of this in my life is a family tree and genealogy software. My dad +once put a whole bunch of information into some family tree software and then the vendor went away +and that software no longer works or more modern versions of windows. You know, what what do you +to do? You can't open up this file format anymore. Fortunately, I'm able to, you know, run +older versions of it in like a virtual machine that runs older version of windows or something like that. +And then I can export the data. With open source, you can just port the software to work on +the new operating system or work on a new architecture or whatever. You know, you have that ability +to to keep that software alive and keep it going so that the next generation has that ability +and passes it along. Security bugs can be discovered faster. Although if people aren't looking, +they might not get discovered for a long time. But in general, you know, you'll see a lot more +bug reports on open source software and a big part of that is simply because you can look directly +at the code. But that ideally causes it to have less vulnerabilities over time. And also, +the vulnerability is tend to be fixed a lot faster. They get fixed quickly and patches get sent out. +And since we're all trying to help each other, you know, there's no reason to like hold them back +or whatever. So, yeah, let me just, I just want to say again, welcome to our community and I invite +you to participate in it. If this is your first time listening to a hacker public radio podcast, +I encourage you to also participate in this community. There's thousands of episodes out there +covering all kinds of topics, you know, Linux, relate, open source stuff, but a broader range than that. +And you might consider recording your own episode. So, thanks, take care. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4537.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4537.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37d6f96 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4537.txt @@ -0,0 +1,513 @@ +Episode: 4537 +Title: “Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 1) +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4537/hpr4537.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:27 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4537, for 2025-12-23 +Today's show is entitled, "“Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 1)" +The host is Elsbeth and the duration is 00:43:07 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Elsbeth talks to Lee about what it has been like since approx 1997 working in different parts of IT." +Hi, I'm Lee, I'm joined today with Elzbeth and we're going to talk a bit about her experiences in the IT field and some of the larger issues around that subject +So let's start here. What first drew you into the IT field back in the early 2000s and what did the industry look like for women at that time? +My first computer that I have was shared with my ex husband who had decided that that was something that he wanted to get into. He wanted to learn how to fix and repair computers +Which at that point in time you didn't have to have a degree just had to have some experience and practice and usually in a plus certification +That could get your foot in the door somewhere like geek squat or best buyer somewhere to help 10 people's computers +Or even work independently +As he started pittling around with computers and what not that was my introduction to +The idea that maybe I could do that because I would help him learn how to do what he was doing and I would +I would build along with him and tear apart and you know what not +It was kind of like being the only female in a D&D group +Right, where it was really cool that you wanted to be a part of it, but you know, no, you're a place +I wouldn't say that he necessarily had that mentality but over time as we both were learning to +Build our own computers and repair other people's computers and learning a little bit about software and just communications and whatnot +It became more and more apparent that +While it was nice to have a female that could talk the talk +When it got to the point of where I could walk the walk and maybe just a little better than some of the guys +That's when it became kind of a shut down thing all you if it's really isn't +This isn't your niche, you should be looking for something more, you know, something different to do +And it didn't come all at once, it wasn't like a +I'd probably say between like 90s +95, 96 to probably about +2005 and I'm going further than that first marriage because that's where I got introduced to this +But when I moved on and I was in another relationship with somebody who was also in the software side of IT +That mentality was still there of +It's nice, it's cute that you know the girl can do something but leave it to the voice +Right, so we working with other people at that point +It was all independent in 2000 I started working as tech support +It a call center so basically people would call that was 2000 was when everybody wanted to have their own ISP for their business +So that it would draw people to their business +Every store would have a dial up ISP that people could get for free and they could get on to the internet and explore this new world +And it was, it was a new experience +And it was like being able to be in that and it was I only worked there for six months +Because there was a lot of sexism in that industry +And like there was her sexual harassment and other things that were going on that was just not addressed whatsoever +You know inappropriate comments made by co-workers +And people trying to like inner office affairs and other people trying to push affairs and whatnot +It was kind of like females entering the military a few years before account about five or ten years before +Men could not handle women being in the industry that they wanted to dominate +And I know that that's not a popular thing to hear but that's what was going on +Guys trying to in the call center that we're doing tech support way way more poorly than you were as a female +Would sexually harass you to get you to quit so that they could get the promotion within the corporation +And I was actually the first one in our little my ex husband and his little core group of friends to actually get a job in IT at all +And I mean core group there were other people that we knew that worked in different aspects of IT +But I didn't realize it back then, but I realized now that my getting that job actually was an ego blow +Right to and it was kind of the final nail in the coffin of my marriage at that time because +My working in that industry and my doing well even though I was being sexually harassed and bullied in the workplace +By both co-workers and managers of the opposite sex +That was a confidence boost because I was like oh I can do this +Yeah, and maybe I did get bullied out of that position, but I never fully got out of IT +Until about +Two two years ago +Okay, so actually over the years and that span that whole period +What kind of roles did you hold so throughout your IT career and how did your responsibilities above over those years +Well after that particular position until I went into QA in a call center +Every single other position or any sort of work that I did in IT was under the table +And part of startup companies where I would do quality assurance work through +Basically, I worked for a startup company that someone started and had hired and gave my ex-husband +Ownership shares of the company because of the amount of work that he did that so it isn't actually charged for +This was the OSecond husband. Yes, yes, I will not name names. I'm not doing that +But it was great. I loved I learned how to do QA with minimal guidance +At the time I think he was trying to show me that I could actually do something in the IT industry +The problem was during the time that I worked for him to the point in time that I wasn't working for him anymore +It became +The so many people had gotten into IT and so many people were getting degrees in IT that it became +Standard to request that you had at least a bachelor's degree in computer science +To get any role that I had already been doing without any education +How was it being self-taught and how are you treated being someone who was self-taught +Might be like running your career versus someone who'd gone through the degree route +Well, the degree route pot people a standardized version just like most education systems +Teach a standardized way to do things +And because this was IT software developers would create the next big software program or methodology that would +Be the industry standard of quality assurance +Sigma six is what's that and that started in the manufacturing industry +And I have actually done the Sigma six training I worked as a quality assurance analyst or assistant +Associate analyst in a call-centered environment for a company that had I love this company +I think they're really really good +I think as all companies do they make some poor choices and they have to deal with the consequences of them +And I unfortunately because I was contract and was an on full-time permanent not I was working full-time +But I was still contracting and I lost my contract because of a an error in a different department +It's put that way that affected the entire company +But they had a great education suite for their employees +And when you had time off the clock +Or not off the clock but on the clock, but if you had time you could use your lunch break or something to do some studies +And I went through the entire Sigma six training through them +The only thing I didn't do was didn't get certified because that costs a crap ton of money +Here's the thing though +Sigma six is a great quality assurance training for the manufacturing industry +And software that deals with manufacturing that would be great too +But when you're talking about software development and QA and testing and sources and whatnot, there are other options +That I think are just as valuable to be self taught in that +You have to have an element of logic, you have to have an element of tracking your data +There are aspects to that but to be able to get in the quality assurance software industry now +You have to have a degree and you have to have Sigma six training +Okay, so actually back then, would you say my colleagues had an advantage even if they were self taught and didn't have a degree? +Absolutely +I want to keep this a moderate rating for this podcast, but I cannot emphasize enough +But a self taught man could walk in with a resume and what they had experienced +And I could have even better qualifications and that man would still get the job +Okay, so whether moments when you thought that what you contributed to the companies you were at or the situations you were kind of overlooked or minimized at all +Just like every other industry including let's go back to aid a love life +Who gets credited for creating the first computer? +Wasn't it Charles Babbage? +Except for it was aid a love life +Yeah, right did she mail that this is now Mike or so that night she might be invented programming techniques +Where is Babbage was putting the gaze together? +Except for he gets all the credit for it +Right in the geek community, especially within the female geek community +I mean, it's known it's it's put out there, but common knowledge is going to I would almost but if I looked it up on chat GPT right now +Before hers, it would be mentioned, but his name would come up before hers +Right, right, yeah, goes what good is it light of coax unless you can write a program for it? +Exactly. Yeah, my experiences in IT in role plane and anything that was traditionally a male dominated role or +We're not have been taken and put under somebody else's name. I have no way to prove that I have done what I've done in the IT industry +Because it's all been under a man's name +Like I told you that I did 15 years in QA and start up software development company +Yeah, I did all the QA. My name is +No where they are other than a minor portion of ownership shares to a company where that software is not even used anymore +Yeah, actually I'm just thinking and I've got a little smile on my face, but I'm just thinking about those buttons that we worked on for the website for this podcast +And the graphical design for it and +What you did was instrumental, but then I kind of versioned it with CSS or whatever +And you weren't too happy with my version of it and so I ended up +No, I liked your version of it, but it was directly, they say imitation is of the most sincerest form of flattery +As an artist and as a writer in this case, it was a +Direct inspiration of what I created, but it wasn't what I created. Yeah, yeah, if that makes sense +And I'm not mad about it. It looks great +The point I was coming to is if you look at the githy repository, it's got my name when it doesn't have your name at all +The original thing, so it's almost like history repeating itself +You've done the thing that actually was quite the thing is, I don't necessarily need credit for it +But I believe that I should be able to work in an industry that I can prove myself that if you just let me do my job +Yeah, you know +And I think maybe my feelings on that are a little heightened because of my neurodivergence +Because I'm currently sitting in a position where I can't work in that industry and receive a salary that will help support me +And there's a lot of consequences to that, like I can't get in health insurance, I can't get +I can't even work in a job where I'm not physically in pain because I don't qualify +Yeah, I remember when I back in the 90s I worked fairly well known software company +I mean they've changed their name, but then now more well known +Most of the managers were actually female +There was a pretty much a 50-50 mix of men and women working in +I mean more of the programming side of things were maybe favourite being male +But more engagement side of things favourite being female in the mid 90s +Okay +Do you think that and this was in the UK basis in the international company +Do you acknowledge is there a difference in this in the culture of the things between the different countries? +Well, there's a distinction there that you are probably missing +They worked as managers +Were they actually software developers? +Were they actually QA or were they just the people that were the person that could be bullied +Into getting somebody else to do something that they wanted them to do +I think they were managing the projects and the part of their role might have been software development as well +Some of the software as you'd hands on software developers were female +I'm asking this because it's a communications thing +So let's say one of these project managers really wanted to be in the IT industry +They had the IT knowledge +But they couldn't get on as a developer +Right +But they would get hired on as a project manager because the project manager is the person +The person that is the the glue between the stakeholders and what they want financially +But they also want put into the system +And the developers who are like, dude, I'm trying to make what you're telling me you want +But this isn't going to work +The project manager is that communications connoisseur +Who will let the stakeholders know that the developers are doing the best that they can do +And the expectations that they have, however they need a deadline extension +So that they can complete the extra items that you have asked them to put into something they've already developed +And then they have to go back to the developers and be like, the stakeholders want you to, you know, this is a communications thing +It's about somebody who can manage their emotions and not lose their ever living minds +When two distinctly different personalities are disagreeing on how something should be done +The developers look at the world a certain way and the stakeholders look at things a certain way +I'm getting there with this because the stakeholders are mostly men +And the developers are mostly men +If there was a male project manager and any one of those individuals had a bad day or was in their ego +That could cause some serious conflict and it could cause days if not weeks of delay and development +Okay, I've probably there right there repeated one +So what other stereotypes about women in tech that you encounter most often +And how did they sharpen daily work life +stereotypes +In no way could I be more intelligent or more capable than any other man +Like it didn't matter if I did something that was just innovative +That innovation would either be stolen and credited to somebody else that was a male +Or it would be like there's no way you got that from somebody else +What they would you know what forum you know or what you know where did you get that information from that had to have been some guy +It couldn't possibly have been I observed the situation analyzed it +And realized that if we looked at it from a different perspective and tweaked +This by the certain way to make it look a different way it could be more cohesive that way +And any more productive +I think that the other stereotype is and this is something that's +I don't think it's talked about enough is that technology isn't just for the coder +The developers can make amazing things happen +But if they don't make it visually +Accessible +And pleasing to the user who is not a developer +Their code isn't worth anything but to themselves +I've heard it actually said more than once recently that the term user is a bit of a +And if he term and this is something I've thought about +Because you have you have drug users and certainly in my past I've been called a service use a bit of use +Like to health services +Or autism services I've been called a service use and there's always seems to be there's a power imbalance between the user who's forced the use the system +And the developer of the creator who creates the system +Can you think of a better way of framing that that is not just changing terminology but is actually +Generally re-empowering the people who are actually the part of the software being there in the first place +I love the term end user +Because it's the person beyond the developer and the stakeholders that are creating something +So the person is actually going to use it's the end of the line that's the last person that's going to use the software +Or the system or whatever +User isn't a negative term if it's used with the correct definition +You know it's not a user somebody who abuses +The system it's not you know that's not what the term user means +User means the person is interacting +You know if I have a radio a physical radio like we had back in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s +If I had that radio I am the user that turns the knob on that turns the music but then I also tune it +That's not a negative connotation and that's exactly what I mean when you're talking about user in software in hardware +So on and so forth +So I like the term end user because that's the last person in the development process +It's going to use this and that could be multiple people +And the reason I like that is that end user isn't the exact same +It's going to be whoever actually is using the product at any given time +So part of and just to go on to my some of my interests a little bit in this a little bit more +This is perhaps why like things like Linux systems where you're not just assumed to be a user in quotes +You have an equal part and maybe it's because I'm in a privileged position because I understand +I have the ability to actually +Technically tune reengineer even what's in front of me +I'm not just rely and in fact if I'm in it if I'm presented with something where I have no opportunity to customize and reengineer it +I feel like I'm disempowered +I mean is that how you see things or do you think there is a place for just software to be a black box that you just does what it's supposed to +And there's and it doesn't have this openness that you can actually reach open the box reach inside and tinker around with it +I'm trying to formulate a response here because I never considered +Software being static if you will +Like once it's done it's done +Because I don't think that that's how software is +Software is a continual work and progress +So it's hard work for that matter. I mean look how fast new the new latest greatest thing comes in +It seems of it seems a bit paradoxical +Doesn't it that you'd think a proper specific problem could be just solved once and for all solved +And yet we in the world where the problem has to be resolved over and over again by countless +Well, if you were solving for just one user +Then there is an end +There is an end +Software +Incorporates like the accessibility to multiple users multiple individuals who are different ways of thinking ways of learning ways of putting things into practice +So software is an ultimately is an ever changing ever developing thing +At some point in time +It may become antiquated and there's a new development and a new piece of software works better +So in that sense then yes, but then it just doesn't get used +Do you think actually software would be better or would have been better or has become better because there are more +There's more input from that there's to have more gender equality in software production +Actually improves the software in numerous ways +I think that while a younger generation than me of females have and other +Diversity's have gone into education that has taught them +In a sense that gets them into a degree that would allow them to be hired by these +You know companies as a whole because right now self-taught people are not being hired +Unless they have a resume that is consistent and when you are a female who has chosen to prioritize raising your kids +And yet still has worked under the table as QA you don't get that +So these younger women that have come up they have become more vocal about the inequalities +And yet until there is a change how corporate politics are done +That doesn't make it easy to cover up the inequalities +And until we have made more progress in that regard +It will not be fully equal between men and women in the industry +I guess what I'm trying to say is there isn't equality in the industry now +Even though we've come a long way +Okay, so to talk with you, you mentioned there other types of diversity +So for example, how did you balance your neurodivergence with the expectations in the culture of the early 2000s? +I didn't know I was neurodivergent until 2000s +18 or 19 +So I think that's a valid question to ask though because I would not when I was working in the call center that I mentioned earlier on +Doing tech support +There were +Triggering to me in that environment +But I think the work from home for call centers things that started in COVID was the best possible thing ever +Because I think that people that work in call centers should be able to be at home +Well, I know that comes with a bunch of other aspects of what if they're not doing their drag ride +There's some issues there that I can expand upon +But I will say that because of the neurodivergence aspect, there are aspects that people that are neurodivergent that could profit from working from home +And that was not something that was even on my radar +Even when my second husband was regularly doing software development jobs from home +It would have never been on my radar that I could have worked from home +With what I had learned and whatnot +And I think a lot of that comes from the aspect of I didn't have the degree +So I kind of let that be the hang up +But the elements that working from home would have allowed me to prosper in the industry +Would have been I could have kept the lights at the level that were comfortable to me +I could have got a blue screen in front of my monitor and what not to be able to be more productive +And not have my eyes weary from staring at a screen all the time +I could stem without causing other people to make comments about my stemming +There's a lot of aspects that +Not knowing I was neurodivergent if I'd had known that maybe I could have been more successful +Because I would have already been able to know how to communicate my different abilities in the way I think and process +And how that manifests where I could have maybe self-advocated that I could prove better +That I was able to do these things +Whether it be QA or even building computers or without having the pressure of being forced to mask in a corporate environment +So if I wanted to work at Best Buy I would have had to be able to work on a computer in an open space where people +Customers could see me working on the computers and I would have felt like I had to +When I'm working on a computer, I'm talking to myself, I'm doing this that and the other +I'm not trying to perform like a corporate stage +That's not how I best build a computer or work with the software or test software +The industry as I started working in building computers and repairing them +My neurodivergence would not have allowed me to be successful in that industry as far as in a store +And that's maybe why it never happened +Yeah +All right, let's move on a little bit +What was the main thing that pushed you to leave the IT space +I couldn't get a QA position +I had been working for 15 years +Yes, I know 15 years is a long time, but it was a startup company +Back company was in the process of restructuring as another company +And I had been doing the software testing and quality assurance +Kind of being kind of go between +I would not label myself as project +Being a position that I performed some project manager role +It's actually just taking a step back +So you were working an IT as you described your working for an internet service provider +And +No +Blue, was it blue space +Who's like.com? +I worked for a call center that did the tech support for BlueLight.com +I think I can say that now because that's long been sent shut down +Yeah, yeah +Like that was back in 2000 +Dial up ISPs aren't a thing anymore +Yeah, I mean, I think the telecom providers like would set up as ISPs +But then even you had like supermarkets itself as an ISP +And that's like that +Yeah, that's what I'm saying +Everybody in their dog wanted their own dialogue to get some advertising for their own business +And you also mentioned it's trying to piece these bits to give you also mentioned your building computers +So what context was that? +I mean what who were your customers +At friends +Right people you knew +Friends and friends of friends +It was all mostly under my first husbands +You know, he would build I would build you know +Yeah, so it's like almost like a micro business +Yeah, I was a mom though +Like I was a young mom, you know, I could do all that stuff +And I could do it as a young mom, but I you know +And I'm very I'm very genuine when I say that +I am not bashing him for taking credit for it at this point in time that's so long passed +But I probably did just as much computer builds as he did +For stuff that he had done for other people +It does kind of fall under the I didn't get credit for it aspect of it +But that was the way the industry was at the time +Then you ended up transitioning to you mentioned so tech support was this like first line support or second line support +Or the or you mentioned QA was like like QA within a tech support role +Well the next +role that I had after doing that because I was a stay at home mom and just building computers and studying for my A plus and all that +Was as the tech support for blue light calm +Right that was through a call center +It wasn't directly paid through blue light just clarifying there +So that course into that course into the due when you with calls to do then progress +Did you the escalate calls to another department after handling the call or you had to be like hands on of +Self in the problem self in the technical problems as as they kind as with any call center even today +They want the first line of +You know the first person that takes the call to solve the issue. Yeah, that is the goal +You have to have people that are very very empathetic +And yet able to set very very firm boundaries that you can help take care of their issue +And make them feel confident +You're always going to get somebody that wants to speak to a supervisor or the manager or whatever +My job was to +Help the customer feel confident enough that they didn't need to be escalated to a supervisor +So were you overseeing yeah, so were you overseeing other +Cool handlers or you were handing the calls yourself +Well, when I was speaking earlier about the whole +Sexual harassment in the workplace +Yeah, I never got to that point because I was good. I should have been promoted +But I wasn't because there were other people that were trying to +I was being sexually harassed by different individuals +To make me feel like they were trying to make me seem crazy and erratic in the worst place +So I wouldn't get promoted +Because I was reporting these issues to HR +Okay +Once you get HR involved back then it was a mess +So I never was able to be promoted because of that +Okay, so what your job was to take a call +And tell the customer what they needed to do to solve their specific problem +Okay, so wouldn't +Okay, so an example would be +Best murderals and says +Something's wrong with my cup holder and he helped me fix it +And yes, I know this is a big you know old school geek joke +But it happened +I'm not kidding +And I have to explain to that individual that that was not in fact a cup holder +But if they pulled their cup out of it +And it was still not sliding in and out +Then they would need to take it to get their computer repaired +That was not an issue with the ISP +That wasn't an issue +They needed to actually use that +But the disk in to dial up to the ISP +Yeah, so it's like it was a bit difficult +Because you're not just hand holding people through you dialing up on the modem +You're like basically providing the complete sweet of support +The people need to use the computer in the first place +Because that people just don't distinguish between that +And the technicalities of putting it in the password and a phone number +So you love a particular show +And we watched it together when I was there +And he says, well did you turn it off and turn it back on again? +Yes, Roy says that +That +That was probably the phrase I used the most +During that job +Because you're dealing with a time period when the average individual +If they had enough money to have a computer +And have a phone line could get on to the internet +If they knew how to do it +You know how to use the equipment +And my job mostly was teaching people how to use the computer +So when I was talking about escalating +I wasn't necessarily mean reporting to your manager +About a complaint, I just mean that they were... +Oh, you mean escalating in the call +Yeah, they might have actually been a genuine problem +I mean I noticed unlikely +I actually have been a genuine problem that wasn't just the customer +Not knowing how to do things +But then might actually be a problem with the ISP +I was hoping +Probably clarify you that my job was also to make the customer +Not realize there was a problem +Right, okay +So let's say the ISP was having a glitch and just was not working +It was my job +In three minutes or less by the way +To convince the customer that it was their computers problem +Right, okay +That is what we instructed to do +You're temporarily out of RAM +It's not that we're having a power case that you're temporarily out of RAM +You just have to wait till the RAM subsides a little bit +And then you'll be after dialing +Yeah +Yeah, that was a fun time +Trying to convince people that +I, that's exactly it was a big issue for me +So I would just basically explain to the customer that +They needed to turn their computer off +And let it set for ten minutes and then come back and try +I would say something like that, you know +In ten minutes somebody's going to scroll and do something else +Look it back to it when they get it back to it +And hopefully by then the ISP was back up and they could use it +Yeah, realistically if you have somebody +They'll offer a period of time to do something else away from the computer +They're going to get just at that point in time +They're going to get distracted enough +That the computer can wait +But that was also a time period when +We didn't have a computer being held in our hands +Yeah +Yeah, so you'd been doing that textbook role +That wasn't necessarily QA +So how did that evolve into doing quality assurance? +Well that was a job that I got out of necessity +The call center job was a job I got out of necessity +But trying to be in the IT industry to some degree +My time period of that call center came to an end +Because I literally could not, I want I could not get to work +Because I did not have a vehicle +Two I was also like mentally dealing with the other issues +That I had spoken about before when I misunderstood your comment about escalation +And at that point in time all of that came to a head +And I suddenly found myself in the middle of a separation and divorce +I needed to get a job that I could actually get to +And because I didn't have a car because of the separation +I had to choose to do something else for work +Yeah, I had it QA come about +QA came about when my second husband who +He was a suffered developer when I met him +And had been for quite some time +He was asked by you know I'm trying to remember how he and the creator of the company +Interacted somehow or another he got connected with this gentleman +That had an idea for software but was not a developer himself +And it was for something all I'm going to say is it was for something in the health care wellness bubble +And he started decoding that software for him +And over time they needed somebody my ex husband needed somebody to test the software for him +But they didn't have the funds to pay somebody that had a degree +Or had more experience so he asked me to look at it +And he had been asking me to look at it and trying things out +And eventually he realized I'm pretty good at this because I have +An act of seeing things from different angles and trying things different ways +And he ultimately wound up having me do the QA portion +He would send a bill for his software development stuff +But then there would be a QA invoice as well +And that was just the work I did +It was never officially under my name +And that's how I got into QA +I taught myself how to effectively +Look at every aspect of the software from both a usability and a practicality standpoint +And do test studies and keep data records and whatnot +Okay +We'll continue with this chat in the future episode +Thanks for listening +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4538.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4538.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c6363b --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4538.txt @@ -0,0 +1,149 @@ +Episode: 4538 +Title: HPR Branding +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4538/hpr4538.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:28 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4538, for 2025-12-24 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Branding" +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:09:53 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken explains why the intro and outro are as they are" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +Today I want to talk to you about the HPR branding because there was a comment on Mastodon where somebody was getting irate over the intro and outro. +Not 100% sure it was related to the intro and outro as we make it or whether somebody else had added on an additional wrapper on top of that. +I tried contacting the person in various different ways and I'm still waiting on them to get back to me. +But if you're listening to this on a platform that is adding additional information other than what is described in this episode, +can you please get in touch with me or any of the other janitors here at HPR with the email address admin at hackerpublicradio.org +or even put a comment here on this episode with a link to the platform and RSS feed. +So first of all, let me explain about the HPR branding, what it is, why we do it. +So the branding itself has got an intro and an outro and mostly I think people are worried about the intro. +So let's talk about the duration. +It'll always be 30 seconds long and in some edge cases it might be slightly longer. +The following table is going to help you put some context on that and it gives the percentage of each show related to the intro length related to the length of the show itself. +So an average show of 29 minutes 30 seconds, it comprises 1.7% of the show. +Of our longest show, 7 hours and 27 minutes, it comprised 0.1% of the show. +And of our shortest show, which is 16 seconds long, it comprised 187.5% of the episode. +But I think keeping it around the 30 seconds is not too bad. +So the generation of the intro is done using the process underscore episode script, which is on our GitLab repository and it pulls down information from the database using the say.php file, which is also on our repository. +The text is created using the Piper text-to-speech engine and we previously used eSpeak and Mary TTS and we're always open to suggestions and how to improve it. +The text is played over the HPR theme music and the theme music is provided by SlickZero without a copyright requirement. +And the arrangement that we're currently using is by Mastiasio. +Apologise for getting that wrong. +And it's released under a Creative Commons share like 4.0 international license. +And the text message itself conforms to the who, what, when, where and why are the five W's as Wikipedia refers to it. +The five W's is a checklist used in journalism to ensure that the lead contains all the essential story points. +As far back as 1913, reporters were thought that the lead should answer these questions about the situation being reported. +So I'll break down each of the components that make up the message that we deliver in the intro and explain which of those that we're addressing. +So with the first sentence, we address what, when and where. +And the first sentence is always, this is hacker public radio episode with the show ID for like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then the day, number of the month and the month of the year. +Saying the name of the show at the beginning of an episode is called Establishing Brand Recognition. +It's standard for podcasts, TV, radio shows, as well as broadcast mentions, not to mention pre-rolls in a movie. +We started to do it because some of our visually impaired users appreciated knowing what show is playing. +Now, the same reason can be applied to everyone as the use of visual controlled user interfaces has diminished. +With most people controlling their playlists via headsets, voice controls or just automatic playlists. +Saying the show ID and date is common where there are a lot of episodes, for example, a news or a weather show. +But it is often skipped over in places where the content is sufficient to identify the episode. +For example, the last episode of the Foo Bar podcast or last week's Saturday Night Live. +We include the show ID and date to allow the listener to reference an episode easily. +As we have literally thousands of shows, we need to help people identify which show they're listening to so that it can be easily shared and commented on. +The next sentence is always today's show is entitled and then the title of the episode. +And if the episode is part of a series, we will say it is part of a series and we will always include this show synopsis. +And that covers the what and the why aspect. +This tells the listener what the show is about. +It allows them to skip the episode if they wish. +And they may wish to do that for many reasons. +For example, because they're not interested in the topic, +they may wish to listen to it while they're in front of a computer so that they can reference the accompanying show note. +They might be listening in public and the topic might not be appropriate for general public consumption. +The next part then will either be this is the first show of our new host with the host name, +or this is the multiple of 10 show of host name. +So this is the 10th, 20th, 100th show of host name, +or simply it is hosted by and the person's name. +And that covers the who aspect of the five W's. +We are required by the Creative Commons Attribution Share, +like International CC by SA Licence that we use, +to credit our hosts. +And this is where we do that. +We also think it's important to highlight new hosts especially, +so our community will encourage them to continue to contribute more. +And it is also nice to call out hosts that are contributing a lot +by highlighting each 10th show that they send in. +We continue then saying that, +and it is about so many minutes long. +And this covers the where aspect, +more, yeah, like giving people an idea of the duration. +This tells people how long the show is. +Now, normal broadcasters fit neatly into a standard TV and radio schedule. +They have to do it. +And many podcasters follow the same tradition +of having episode of a predictable length, +30 minutes and an hour. +But there's never been a reason in podcasting to do that. +And HPR places no restriction on them. +That is the effect though, that as we saw earlier, +the shows can range from 16 seconds up to seven and a half hours. +So, depending on the length of your commute, +you do really need to know how long the show is going. +We do include a warning. +Additionally, the six Ws, to be honest. +And we include, it carries a clean flag +or it carries an explicit tag. +And this is common with broadcasters +when dealing with a topic that might be disturbing to some people. +Quite often they'll give a phone number of a support line +that you can contact if it troubles you. +And then back to the what again, +we include the summary saying the summary is, +and we read out the summary. +This also tells the listener what the show is about. +And then finally, we close off in the event +that the show is not released under a Creative Commons CC by SA license. +We say today's show is licensed under a, +maybe a FreeBSD license or something else, +whatever is appropriate. +And that is required by the licensing terms we're releasing episodes. +So, that covers the intro. +There's been lots of discussion about it, as I said. +And then we have the outro. +Same theme music, same length. +Arrangement by Slick Zero and Maestrasio. +So, the voiceover text is recorded by Manon +and there's no copyright applied. +And it goes, +you have been listening to Hacker Public Radio +at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +Again, we are saying what you have been listening to +and we're plugging the fact that this is a community podcast +where the shows are recorded by community volunteers. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, we continue, +then click on the contribute link to find out how easy it really is. +Here we are trying to get hosts in, +trying to keep new episodes, +trying to keep the community alive. +And then we go on to hosting for HPR +has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, +the Internet Archive and rsync.net. +And there we're thanking the people who provide +the hosting for our platform, +without which we could not distribute our media. +And then the final de facto, +unless otherwise stated, +today's show is released under a Creative Commons CC by SA license. +Now, a lot of people on other platforms +may not even know what that is. +And this, listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, +may be the first introduction to what Creative Commons is, +what free culture is, licensing and they. +So thank you very much for listening +and tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4539.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4539.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5ccae8 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4539.txt @@ -0,0 +1,222 @@ +Episode: 4539 +Title: YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #11 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4539/hpr4539.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:30 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4539, for 2025-12-25 +Today's show is entitled, "YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #11" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:18:33 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Part eleven of my list of subscribed channels" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. We are airing it now because we had free slots that were not filled. This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive. Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio. +Hello, this is Ahuka. Welcome you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode. And this is coming to you from the Reserve Q. You know what that means. There aren't enough shows being submitted. +Hacker Public Radio is a community project that relies on shows being recorded and submitted by members of the community. And it can only continue to exist as long as that happens. +So, you know, when shows are down, and that's been happening more lately, you know, that's a sign that maybe the community doesn't really want to do this anymore. +Now, if you would like Hacker Public Radio to continue, you need to record some shows and submit them. +So, enough of the public service announcement. I'm continuing with my discussion of the YouTube, +channels that I'm going to do this. +And the next one I'm going to go to is Professor of Rock. +These are generally 20 to 30 minute long videos. +And they come out every day. +Now, that doesn't mean I necessarily listen to or watch each one of these. +But, you know, frequently he's telling a story about something that happened in rock history. +You know, like, one of them was, +Catchy Hit was so happy it irritated the hell out of the band whenever they played it. +Well, okay. +Is that something you want to hear more about? +Rebuked his cheating wife in 1981's song. +It became a classic. +What the hell does this song mean? +Song was so popular MTV quit playing it to give other bands a chance. +Now, a lot of what he does in this is just his own analysis. +But, frequently, he will interview some of the people involved. +And so, he's interviewed a whole lot of musicians. +Primarily musicians. +Sometimes writers and other things. +So, if you're interested in that sort of thing. +If you like knowing about music. +Good. +The next one is Prog Axia. +Now, this is also a music channel. +Devoted, really, just to progressive rock. +And things like that. +So, it's going to be talking about Yes. +And, gentle giant. +King Crimson. +All of those kinds of things. +I happen to love progressive rock. +So, this is a channel that I enjoy subscribing to. +And I enjoy the videos. +Then, there's Quill 18. +This is another one of those channels that is someone who is a gamer. +And does a lot of Civ stuff. +Does other things. +So, in addition to Civ. +You know, he's done things like Disco Elysium. +Path of Exile 2. +Stellaris. +He's been doing a lot of Stellaris lately. +So, then there's Rachel Flowers' music. +Now, Rachel Flowers is a blind musician. +Very good musician. +It's not unusual for a blind person to be a really good musician. +Because, generally, what happens is they are more focused on what they can hear, since they can't see anything. +And, that tends to make them really good musicians. +And, so, she has a channel. +And, you can subscribe to it and listen to the music. +I think she's done a lot with things like Emerson Lake and Palmer and those kinds of things. +She did one video on Little Arabella, which is a song by The Nice. +Now, if you don't know about your history in these things, The Nice is the band that Keith Emerson was in before he formed Emerson Lake and Palmer. +And, so, obviously, she knows that history. +And, then there was a video that she did playing with Dweezil Zappa on one of Zappa's songs. +One of Frank Zappa's songs. +So, I like her stuff. +Then, there is Radio Free Scarro. +Now, Radio Free Scarro is a YouTube channel. +It's also a podcast. +And, the podcast is really just the audio from the YouTube channel. +Now, sometimes they will actually be on camera. +It's three people from Canada who are Doctor Who fans. +And, so, they will do a weekly program. +Generally, an hour or so long. +Sometimes longer. +And, it might be a review. +If there's been a recent episode of Doctor Who for them to review, they'll do that. +Otherwise, they might talk about a topic of some kind. +For instance, one of the older Doctor Who shows, a Patrick Troughton thing called The War Games. +They recently put out a new version that has been edited down to not last as long, but also colorized. +Because, those was done in the days when it was all black and white. +And, so, they did an hour-long program reviewing that. +And, next is the Ralph Towner's channel. +Now, Ralph Towner is a really excellent guitar player, among other things. +Also plays piano. +He's pretty good with that, too. +And, he was in a band called the Paul Winter Consort, going back decades ago. +Then, with three other gentlemen, who were also in the Paul Winter Consort, +they split out and created a group called Oregon, +which was their own and one of my favorite groups. +And, then, Ralph Towner has been doing solo work and recording with other musicians. +For instance, he did an album recently, you know, with Eddie Gomez and Jack Dejeanette. +And, he's recorded with, you know, a number of jazz musicians, you know, +that you would probably recognize. +Andy Middleton, Dave Holland, stuff like that. +And, so, he's got two channels. +One is sort of, you know, about what's going on in his life. +And, the other is the music channel. +And, that puts out videos that were taken of him performing in various places and times. +So, those are usually just little clips. +So, they might range anywhere from five minutes to 15 minutes, depending on how long a piece it is. +The next one is Randy Rainbow. +This is a comedy channel. +And, Randy is pretty outrageous. +I think flamboyantly gay would not be a false description. +And, he does these musical videos. +He does these songs that poke fun at people. +I like it. +Now, the next one is a channel called Real Fast Spanish. +And, this is another one of those channels that helps me with my Spanish. +And, videos are not terribly long. +Generally speaking, you know, 8 to 10 minutes. +Sometimes, as high as 15. +And, it's on a particular topic of some kind. +Like, K versus Qual. +When to use each of those. +They're similar, but they're not identical. +So, knowing when to know which can help. +How to think in Spanish and stop translating in your head. +Este versus esta versus esto. +What is the best translation in each case. +Tener versus haber. +Three ways to use to have verbs in Spanish. +So, you know, if you want to learn Spanish, there might be one to pick up. +Now, the next one is real-time history. +I first found out about these guys when they did, basically, a series on World War I. +And, what happened was, they looked at the calendar and realized, okay, the 100th anniversary is coming up. +So, when I say coming up, they started working on this stuff back in the years prior to 2014. +World War I started in 2014. +But, they started producing ahead of time to get ready. +And, the idea was that what they would do is, they would each week produce, they would each week air a video that covered that specific week in the history of World War I. +So, you know, in August of 1914, as armies were mobilizing. +Well, in the video for that same week in 2014, they would present it like a newscast of, well, here's what's going on. +And, it was really good. +And, what happened was, they finished World War I. +And, then, the group sort of split into two. +Real-time history is one of the offshoots. +And, the other one is Time Ghost. +And, I'm subscribed to both of them. +And, they're both fantastic. +So, real-time history, once they finished that, they started looking at some other things, like the Vietnam War, the Franco-Prussian War, stuff like that. +As well as, just individual videos about a particular topic, like, in World War II, the Battle of the Atlantic. +Or, how the U.S. turned Iran into a dictatorship. +So, very interesting. +They did a long one on Napoleon's invasion of Russia. +Well, the next channel I want to talk about is called Real Life Lore. +And, this is, these videos are generally more than a half hour, but less than an hour. +So, in the 40, 40 to 50 minute range. +And, just takes a particular topic and gives this person's slant on it. +So, why did NATO expand? +And, in the subtitle, what Russia doesn't want you to know about your history. +Another one, why Afghanistan is headed to war with all its neighbors. +Now, occasionally, this channel puts out a short video. +But, those were generally older ones. +They seem to be doing the long form ones now. +Why this part of Africa is erased on every map you see. +And, it's talking about the Western Sahara. +And, it's basically because it's in dispute about who actually controls that and owns it. +So, that's an interesting channel for me. +Next one is Rich Hudson. +And, this is another Doctor Who channel. +Rich was originally on the What Culture Network doing Who Culture. +And, then left and now has his own channel. +Doing much the same thing. +Talking about episodes of Doctor Who. +And, reviewing or analyzing them in various ways. +Then, there's Richie Castellano. +He's a musician. +And, he plays guitar for Blue Oyster Cult. +And, has done some other things as well. +He did some things with the band Geeks. +And, they've done some covers of Yes. +Or, of Bohemian Rhapsody. +So, it's fun. +It's a music channel. +Another music channel. +Rick Beato. +Rick does analysis. +He's had a series on, you know, what are the Spotify, you know, top ten songs on Spotify. +And, he'll play each one of them and comment about whether he thinks they're good or not. +He has been a record producer. +He is a musician himself. +He has a lot of knowledge about music. +And, also, he set up a second channel called Rick Beato 2. +And, that has focused more on interviews with musicians. +So, Steely Dan, in their own words. +An interview with Warren Haynes. +An interview with Rick Rubin about producing Johnny Cash's masterpiece. +He's interviewed all of the members of the police, individually. +So, Andy Summers, Sting, Stuart Copeland. +He's interviewed all of them. +And, so on. +So, and it's very interesting. +He's interviewed a number of jazz musicians. +Like Ron Carter, who is a great jazz bassist. +Or, Brad Meldow, a pianist. +And, because he knows their music, he can start talking technically about what's going on. +You know, to the point of sometimes, you know, talking about the chord changes that they used. +And, I like that kind of music geek. +So, that's Rick Beato. +And, that sounds like enough for another episode. +So, I'll stop it here. +So, this is Ahuka for Hacker Public Radio. +Signing off and encouraging you to support free software. +Bye-bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4540.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4540.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f95ceaf --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4540.txt @@ -0,0 +1,143 @@ +Episode: 4540 +Title: Arthur C. Clarke: Other Novels, Part 1 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4540/hpr4540.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:30 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4540, for 2025-12-26 +Today's show is entitled, "Arthur C. Clarke: Other Novels, Part 1" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:14:20 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other novels." +Hello, this is Huka welcome you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in our ongoing +series on science fiction and fantasy and we've been working through some of the works of Arthur +Seek Clark. We looked at two of his big series. Now I want to get back to some of his +other novels of interest. We might get several shows on those and there's just one more series that I can +talk about. But the first thing I want to do is just kind of slip this in as a footnote +so to speak to all of this. Something called the Clark Azimov Treaty. Now this is kind of a in-joke +sort of thing. But the fact is that both Clark and Azimov were well-known for writing both science fiction +and science fact and there was a good nature rivalry between them as result. Now they eventually +settled on something called the Clark Azimov Treaty which explained that if either of them was +ever asked who was the best, they would agree to say that Clark was the best science fiction writer +and that Azimov was the best science fact writer. Of course they were both aware that this was a joke. +They both lost out to Ray Bradbury for the rich row Hugo and of course Robert A. Heinlein was +very active as a writer at this time. But it's a footnote worthy of mentioning and inject a little +humor into the discussion so to speak. So the first novel I want to talk about in this episode is +called the Sands of Mars published in 1951 and it's an early novel of Clark since the date would +suggest. This was later collected in an anonymous omnibus volume called the space trilogy +along with two other novels. Islands in the sky written in 1952 which is a juvenile +is what they call it back then. Now today we would call these young adults and that's a story +about a boy getting to visit a space station and the other novel is Earthlight from 1955 a story +about a spy on a moon observatory. Now the three novels are not in any way related and the title +of the collection can be confusing because there's a much better known space trilogy being that +written by CS Lewis. We may talk about that at some point I don't know. But you know you might see +that you know if you're hunting a used bookstore you might see that space trilogy and now that you +know what's in it you can decide if it's something you'd want to pick up. Now this novel the +Sands of Mars is to me another example of the careful use of the best science of the time though +things have changed since it was written. Now by the time Clark was writing this we had figured out +there weren't any canals on Mars so you don't see any Mars canals appear in the story. +We did see color changes that looked to be seasonal and vegetation was a plausible explanation +for this so we do see vegetation in the novel. The protagonist of the story is a famous science +fixture author named Martin Gibson. He's been invited to travel to Mars as a guest of the crew of +the spaceship Aries and of course Aries is the name of the Greek god equivalent to the Roman god Mars +so it's a natural name for a ship that is devoted to traveling between Earth and Mars. +Now Gibson starts his journey by heading for the space station orbiting Earth before transferring +to the Aries and this is another good example that even in the 1950s Clark had figured out that this +made a lot more sense than trying to lift off directly from the Earth and indeed it is how NASA +plans to move forward though they're looking at a space station orbiting the moon as the gateway to both +the moon and Mars. Now back to the story the most junior member of the crew who is still +training to be an astronaut is assigned to Gibson to answer any of his questions and this provides +an opportunity for what's essentially a flashback of Gibson when he was at university but it plays out +his you know conversations between him and this junior crew member. Well when he was at university +had a relationship with the lady and they broke up and what we find out is of course this young +astronaut trainee is actually Gibson's son from those days. Then they land on Mars and Gibson meets +with the people on Mars. They go exploring outside the colony and meet some native wildlife +which they find munching on vegetation. Now later we discovered that these plants are part of a +secret project that Earth does not know about to add oxygen to the atmosphere of Mars. +Then we learn that the scientists on Mars have a plan to ignite photos and turn it into a second +son to help warm Mars. Now this can be done using a mason resonance reaction which frankly is just +plausible sounding techno babble and if you think hey wait a minute this sounds just like what he did +with Jupiter in 2001 well you can give yourself a gold star. The Gibson is very attracted by what +he has learned on Mars and applies to be a permanent resident he's accepted and has given the +job of selling Mars to the people of Earth pretty much a director of public relations for the planet +which is something a famous science fiction writer should be well qualified to do. +This novel is a good example of a mostly plausible hard science fiction novel of its time. +Some of its extrapolations would be disproved later but when they were written they were plausible +that was put in was definitely impossible. Now the next novel I wanted to discuss here is +the deep range which was published in 1957. Now earlier when we gave a little biographical +information on Clark we mentioned he was very interested in the ocean and in scuba diving. +He in fact moved to Sri Lanka and made some underwater archaeology discoveries there +and it should not be surprising that this interest would show up in his writing. +As has been pointed out by marine scientists we know more about the surface of Mars than we do +about the ocean floor of our own planet. Of course in some sense it's easier to get to Mars +than to get to the ocean floor so perhaps this isn't surprising. +Now the protagonist of this novel is a former astronaut named Walter Franklin. +The reason he is a former astronaut is that an accident happened during a spacewalk that left him +floating and isolated for a long time and the resulting psychic stress gave him the severe case +of aquifobia. This washes him out of any further spacework and permanently separates him from +his family on Mars. On Earth he transfers to the marine division which is responsible for feeding +a major part of the world's population through the farming of plankton and the hurting and slaughter +of whales. Now that last plot would not go over well now in the 21st century from a lot of people +and in the novel it does become a controversial point which Clark takes on directly. +Now the book follows Walter's journey in three parts. The first shows him as a trainee adapting +to his new career choice and in this section he meets a woman who will become his second life +since he's cut off from his first life on Mars. In the second section he has risen from being a +trainee to being a veteran warden and you should think of warden as in game warden. +His job is protecting the whale herds from predators. Mostly these are orchids and sharks +and the wardens patrolled in their single person's subs to manage the herds and protect them. +Then it gets a bit more interesting when a giant squid seems to be praying on the whales +and then there is the giant sea serpent. In the third section of the book Walter is now the +director of the Bureau of Whales and he has to deal with the usual administrative +details you would expect for a director. But then a challenge appears that threatens the very +existence of the Bureau. A Buddhist monk has started a campaign to stop completely the harvesting of +whales even though this represents an eighth of the world's food supply. As this campaign goes on +Walter finds he's starting to come around to agreement with the monk. In the last chapter +Walter and his second wife say goodbye to their son who is going to space where he will meet +up with the family that Walter had to leave behind on Mars. Now this book illustrates the point +that science fiction is about the future and not necessarily space travel and you know they say +you should write what you know and Clark's love of the sea made this the kind of book he had to write. +It's not the only one. Other novels with an ocean setting include Dolphin Island from 1964 +which is another juvenile slash young adult novel and the ghost from the Grand Banks 1990 which is +about the Titanic. Now the last one I wanted to discuss in this episode is called The Fountains of Paradise. +1979. This book is about the construction of the first space elevator. The idea is that you could build +a massive structure going from the earth to space and use it to bring materials from the bottom of the +gravity well into space without needing to use rockets. Now Clark puts the other end of this elevator +in a space station located in geosynchronous orbit about 36,000 kilometers above the earth's surface. +One of the prerequisites for this is a new fiber material that is immensely strong and light. +And the opening of the book is in fact a demonstration of such a material which he calls hyperfilament +and described as an I quote continuous pseudo one dimensional diamond crystal. +Now in later interviews he suggested it was more likely to be some kind of carbon tubes +made out of something like Buckminster Fullerry. At present this is perhaps more likely +but most scientists do not see this as practical in any near term way. +And the development of reusable rockets has already reduced the cost for sending materials into space +to the degree that the economic incentive for space elevators has been greatly reduced. +Now the book is mostly concerned with all of the challenges involved in getting this project done. +Some of them are technical but others are more political and social. +This in some ways relates this book to Heinlein's story the man who sold the moon 1950. +The engineering concerns suggest a location on the equator as the earth end of this elevator +and Clark had Sri Lanka in mind for this but in the book he creates a fictionalized version +of Sri Lanka and island he called taprobane. The deals, the details of this fictional island match up +mostly with those of Sri Lanka. There are also two other stories that frame the main story. +One is set in the past and concerns a fictional king Khalidasa and this is based on the stories +of the Sri Lankan King Kashpaya the first. The other story is set in the future and tells +of the first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. By now there is a circular structure +surrounding the earth and six space elevators connect to it. And in the middle of the story +an uncrewed robotic ship of alien origin passes through the solar system. If this reminds you of +rendezvous with Rama, give yourself another gold star. Now this novel, a fountain's paradise won +the Nebula Award for Best Nothel in 1979 and the Hugo Award for Best Nothel in 1980. I explained this +before but I'll do it again. The Nebula Award is voted on by other science fiction writers. +It's an award by the science fiction writers of the America organization. +And the Hugo Award is voted on by the fans. And the Nebula Award comes out first and Hugo +Award comes out later. So that's why frequently you'll see two different years for these awards. +So anyway that is the story of some of these other novels from Arthur C. Clark. +And this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio signing off and encouraging you to support +pre-software. Bye-bye! +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4541.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4541.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35a4051 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4541.txt @@ -0,0 +1,250 @@ +Episode: 4541 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 7 - UK Christmas Ales +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4541/hpr4541.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:31 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4541, for 2025-12-29 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 7 - UK Christmas Ales" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:22:08 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave, Kevie and Paul talk about UK Christmas beers." +Hello and welcome to Episode 7 of the Beer Garden. +Now you can't expect us to approach Christmas without giving us a great chance to get +some festive beers in. +So I'm really looking forward to this episode. +In fact, it's maybe as a secret, I'm gonna let the cat to the bag, we're gonna have +not one but two Christmas beer episodes. +But before we actually want to talk about this, let us introduce my co-hosts because +it's not just co-host, it is co-hosts. +Dave, how are you tonight? +I am very well thank you, after the slight panic this morning of thinking my car was +there. +It is now back up and running. +But no, I'm doing very well indeed, thank you very much indeed. +Good, good. +No. +I'll tell California, you can try and check out but you can never leave. +So we have drag back Paul for this, how are you tonight Paul? +I'm fantastic, thank you very much, Kelly and good to see you, because last time I was +here, you weren't able to join us sadly. +Yes, I was absolutely full of the cold, yeah, good to see you. +Yes, thank you and welcome back once again to the show. +Thank you very much. +We split this up into two different countries more or less, so tonight we are going to +look at Christmas ails from the UK. +Actually, I found this one really interesting, researching it. +So I found out that for our actual style of British Christmas ails, we've got Charles Dickens +to thanks and in particular the novel, a Christmas carol which was published at first in 1843. +The Victorians only got into the swing of Christmas, and the way we know it now after Charles +Dickens actually gave them his rendition of Christmas through his well-known festive +novel. +Prior to this, Christmas in the UK had not been considered up for always for particularly +pious time for Christian reflection. +However, Dickens had borrowed the lavish feasts from mostly Germanic and Scandinavian +cultures, and of course, and that's where we get the tables full of meat, the rich +buildings, the plum puddings, all of the fantastic vegetables that we're also known +to love, and that thing that always makes us a bit extra at Christmas, the plates are +piled up at higher, and of course, what comes with that, but are lovely beer. +And this beer was a design specifically to cut through the rich food that the season +brought. +And the beer was specifically designed to be strong, it was designed to be spiced, it was +always dark, and it was always at the time, we'd want to say at the time, aim to be stronger +than 10%. +So this is the one that you thought you liked as snooze on Christmas Day. +You have one of this for Christmas dinner, you're going to be snoozing by the fire. +It is also worth noting that at this time, the vast majority of Britons did not touch +wine at all, so the beer was brought in because it was a more British style of drink. +Although this is classed as the Christmas beers of Britain, this was the original birth, +it wasn't actually until the 1980s that the term Christmas beer came into popular use. +That's relatively recent for this style to be called that. +And thankfully it hadn't, but the style almost died of completely following the first +word, where beer taxation laws and brewers were basically forced to water these down +from the post 10% to the sub 3% levels, and this led to a huge lack in popularity because +of these bold, rich flavors were essentially watered down, and it is a bit sad to see when +you think that today, unless you go to a specific beer shop or maybe a special of license +that specializes in craft beer, then realistically the most strongest you're going to get, +is really just going to range between five and seven percent ABV. We have the micro breweries +over the past kind of 30 years rising up, who are actually to thank for actually bringing back +the more traditional style of ale's, let's see. Right, so that is what my research came up with. +Does anybody have anything to add to that? Not from my side, Kerry. It sounds like you've +done a pretty good job in looking into that. Yeah, likewise, I'm not that OFA or up to speed with +Christmas Isles anyway, so I think it's going to be a more of an education for me than the +thing else. Right in, so I've spoken for a long enough, I think. I think it's about time we start +cracking some of these beers open. Now, I think given we've forced them back, I think it's only +right Paul can actually go first here. So Paul, what do you have as your Christmas ale? Well, +I can tell you a story about my Christmas ale because when you invited me last week, I went down +to the supermarket to have a look. Not the supermarket is necessarily the best place to buy craft beer, +but I thought I would try and there was nothing there. So I tried bargain booze and they told me +that they would be having a delivery in a week or two. So I thought, well, that's no good. So I contacted +my daughter who lives in Manchester and she said, oh, I know where I can get Christmas ale from +and she's come back with a selection of over half a dozen. Anyway, while she was doing that, +I was over in Ritham, which is another town quite close to where I live here in Mold. And I was in a +shop there and they actually did have a Christmas ale called Mary X-Mousse from Purple Mousse Brewery +who are based in Port Maddox. So it's a Welsh beer. It's a strong winter ale. They say it's +deep red, has a multi-hoppy winter fruit nose and rich warm molasses taste and it's 5% +a by volume. So yeah, so it's a nice looking beer. I do like the Purple Mousse beers. I +have been entering some of their other varieties as well. So I'm going to crack this open and see what we +have. I'm not sure if you'll get a sound effect, but we'll give it a hand. Yeah, got that. Yeah. +So it isn't pouring out the bottle, which is a good sign. Very nice. So I should hold that up +so they're my colleagues and see it. So it's quite dark. Oh, yes. Probably it looks dark on the +picture actually than it isn't real. But it is a dark red. It does have a very nice nose. +Well that's very nice. I could definitely sit down in front of the fire and have one or two of +those. They're very nice indeed. So I would definitely recommend that and you can buy them online as +well. So Purple Mousse Brewery do have a shop. So I'd definitely recommend giving them a go. +What did you bring Dave? Well, if I show you the bottom of the bottle, you should recognize the +brewery immediately. Yeah. It's in Beadish. It's some peaters. Now I looked around for a number of +different beer pavayers. It is worth pointing out. Forget the supermarket. Particularly this time of +year. There is nothing available in any of the major supermarket at this time of year at all. +Even as we were talking earlier about the delirium, they had delirium on the shelves, but it wasn't +a Christmas one. So I had to resort to Amazon to get this in available in time. Now I actually ordered +two batches. I ordered some from the the Keltel Brewery, which is down in Cornwall. But I ordered +these ones as well because these are the ones I actually wanted to try because it sounded really +nice. So I read the label. Toffee and caramel aromas with rich Christmas spice flavour. And I'm like +that really appealed to me. I have a love hate relationship with a St. Peter's brewery. They look +nice. They smell nice. The bottles look great. But very often they tend not to deliver. Particularly +the plum portal, which is the first one I've ever had and I thought, oh, this is going to be amazing. +Yeah, that definitely goes for one of the most disappointing beers I think I've ever had. It looked +smell of everything and then it was all. Yeah, precisely. So there's some openness. It's a +site say it's a Peter's Christmas aisle. It's 7% which isn't anywhere near the 10 plus that you +mentioned earlier. But hopefully this will, or didn't hear it, here's on the hotel. Oh, smells +boozy. So we get some sound effect. That is an amber ale. No question at all. You can't see that. +That's more of my money from airport interview. No, it's definitely there. Yeah, you can't +kind of see through it. Yeah. You can see my face. They all are a little woo. It looks nice. It's a +little bit of a head on the top. I can smell the spices, but I can't smell much else. Unfortunately, +in the glasses is, is relying even less than the, um, a different the bottle. So let's give this a bit of a +sweet and see. Oh, that is nice. Oh, good. What did I say to that? Topping caramel aromas with rich +Christmas spice flavour. Well, the aromas don't deliver. It doesn't smell of anything at all. +Um, maybe I have COVID. I don't know. But in terms of the flavours of it, there's a lot of spice +in there. And I can't necessarily articulate anything specific. It does a taste Christmasy. +Would you see? Kind of. Does that work? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, kind of. It's not unpleasant at all. +It is actually quite a nice, uh, a nice beer, which I think coming from some Peter's, +they would have to take that as an accolade. But I'm, I'm not getting the topping caramel, +which is a wing. Maybe they're maybe I'm getting the topping caramel, but from the flavour +rather than from the aroma. But yeah, it's, it's very pleasant. Very pleasant. I'm glad I bought +three of them now. I bought three to just to be, to make myself happy that it was as bad as I was +expecting it to be. And on that, on that scope, I've been disappointed. This is quite nice. +Right then. So I've gone, I must admit, I've actually got a few different Christmas +deals. The problem is the vast majority of them aren't what you would call a Christmas sale. +You know, there, there's theme. They're like, I've got a few stouts and a Christmas themed. I've +got barley wines and a Christmas themed. But I actually wanted some of the Christmas deals. So I +kind of went boarding. And that's the reason I asked you Dave, where was yours from? Because I have +gone with a very well-known brewery. Oh, it's life, yeah, it's time to smith. So this one says, +the seasonal beer is a limited edition brew for the short days and long nights of winter. The +full body resulting from fermentation and stone Yorkshire squares and the luxurious multi-character, +which will appeal to a broad range of drinkers, is balanced against a whole dried +fuggle and golden hoops with nuances and complexities that should be contemplated before an open fire. +And I like this. I like this part. I'm sick of all these dirt beers in, +best served chilled nonsense. They served at 11 degrees C. That is better. Do not chill at +a dark beer. I don't chill any beer in my mouth. Don't chill any air. Don't chill your hair +for vids and I kept it cool, right? Not chilled. Right, so let's get this one open. No, okay, +I've got our red ball loop and a bit of a Christmas one, so this is actually my porpy one. +Right, so let's see. Oh, no, no, we're in here as dark as I was expecting. +There we go. This is more than kind of umberial. Nice, decent size head on it. +Quite a lovely quality. No, actually like I said, not what I was expecting at all, but +lovely clarity, decent size head quite a lively yield by the looks of it. So, oh, that reminds me of +something from the nose. Not heavily spice and getting a very well balanced nose. There's +maldiness, barley, and there's hops. There's maybe a faint, very, very faint spice on the +back end. Give me a sec, I'm going to sniff the ball, it'll actually help give me a better one to the +spices. There's more of a toffee node coming through when you sniff the bottle. Definitely a sweet +or no one from the bottle compared to the glass. Oh, that's nice. Yes, I do like that. There's +maldiness to it. I've been scored. There's some half-expecting that burnt caramel to come through. +There's no burnt caramel. But there is a mild caramely taste to it, and then there's a mildly +peppery mildly. I think it's more nutmeg more than cinnamon. And then you could have hoppy +lingeringness on the back end. It's, yeah, that's actually quite, that's not what I was expecting, +but it's very nice. That's deceptively drinkable. I think I could knock that back, would you +what is me? What percentage is this? 6%. So about the average of what is expected, these days +for a Christmas sale. So yes, yeah, I'm certainly going to be finishing off this one. This is not, +no I'm going to end up going down the drain. Good. Is it? But is it what I would consider +Christmas sale? There's spices in it. I'd say it's bordering. To me, it's more like a Christmas +bitter, rather than what I think of a Christmas sale. Which probably does the extent +come in the fact that it's English. They've probably taken a base bitter to start with. Interesting. +Actually, Dave, that's how you think I'm just taking the picture and you're looking directly at the +ball. I'll close that. That's actually really funny. +How would you say it measures up to your expectation of a summer you'll Smith Bear? For a summer you'll +be the quality is there. I mean, I generally like Samuel Smith. The quality is definitely there. +Like I said, just from again, it's probably me being a fan of the Belgians, a fan of the +Scottish Christmas sales. I was expecting a bit more multi-via, a bit more caramelty for me. That's +just my purse. But that was me. It doesn't say that anywhere on the actual bordel. +There's a nice link getting spicy, hopiness in the back end. I actually think this would +actually be really good, I think, with Christmas dinner. Because it wouldn't dominate your dinner, +but it would complement, especially with being Turkey, which isn't overly flavorful. I think it +would complement it quite well. So I would say, especially if you could somebody in the family +who people always tend to bring balls of wine and things like Christmas, if somebody's not a +wine drink and they're a beer drinker, give them this for Christmas dinner. I think they would +really, really be a police to be that. Is that not the test for a Christmas +sales to whether it goes well with a Christmas dinner? I wouldn't say so. No, okay. +Purely because I tend to find Christmas here, they don't go well with anything. +They're so bold and flavorful, after the time. Okay, partially. That means they're more +I kind of, to me, that if you want an equivalent, I would say Christmas sale would be more +equivalent of a port. You'd have it before or after, you know, that kind of beside the fire, +you know, something nice and warm. That kind of idea. That's just me. I don't know. That's 100% right. +You actually preempted me on something I was going to say because having Luke tried this by the way, +actually quite like it. Couldn't explain why. It tasted like an ale, but he couldn't necessarily +pick anything specifically Christmasy out of it. But just poking my nose in now, this given a +chance to settle, I'm getting port. I'm getting the aroma and the back of the throat +flavours of port, which I wasn't expecting. But actually, I'm pleased with it. Yes, I'm so, so +right. So Paul, if you're going to score this out of 10, what would you score? Oh my word, that's terrible. +What's your new, what's your beer's name again? Experts. Mary, ex-muse. +Mary, ex-muse. That's what it was. Yes. 100s or thousands of years ago, when most used to +roam whales, apparently in the summer they would eat, they had them, and that would make them +give them a purple sheen, hence the purple mousse name. I don't know. I mean, obviously, +it was no one around to prove that, so it's a good story, isn't it? You never let the truth +get in the way of a good story. Exactly, you know. Yeah, I would probably give it. I'd +probably give it 9 out of 10. I mean, obviously, as a relative newcomer to untapped and scoring, +but I would buy this again and drink it, definitely. I think it's a very nice beer. Like you say, +how much of it's Christmas-y or how much of it's just a nice, well good-bodied, tasty ale, +because I tend to prefer that type of ale rather than the lighter, you know, kind of honey-ails +and so on, while I will drink them. So this is kind of up my street. I quite like this. So yeah, +I'll give it a good mine at 10, I think. Good, good, good. Dave, what would you score the +Saint Peter's Festival? It's good. I'm enjoying it, so it's at least a three. For me, I'm sorry, +that I'm an untouched farmer, I guess. So it's okay, so it'll get a three. +I just double my in-tapsicles, but a four is a good solid decent beer. What I would actually go +back to. It doesn't quite reach that. So I'm going to rate this on untapped. Three and three quarter, +3.75. So that's come down to about 7.5. Yeah, so 7.5. 7.5. Right, actually, I think that's +what I am on this one roughly. It's, I think this has got the problem in that if I was reviewing +this purely as a beer, any beer subline tasting, I may actually give it a bit more, but the fact +it's called a winter warmer. No, sorry, winter welcome, winter welcome is what it's called. +I've expecting a bit more from it. Is that maybe unfair on my part? And it's not bad. It just +falls short of, I mean, to me, on untapped, four is very, very good, but there's room for improvement, +but it is still very good. Five is just something I really give out. I mean, it has to, I have +going to end the pass, but it has to be something I absolutely love. And three is something I'll say. +That's okay. Two and a half is I didn't pour down the sink, but I didn't particularly enjoy anything +if I thought it's below two and a half. So, you know, going on that, I think this is somewhere +in between, it's okay and it's good. It's, it's neither, it's kind of, in between, it's better than +okay. It's not quite up to the good standard. So I would go that kind of 7.5-ish range as well. +Would I recommend it? Yes, would I recommend you hunt it down and go and pay quite a bit for +no, no, definitely not. And especially given, as we've all found out, Christmas deals right now +are not available in the supermarkets, and I don't have an awful lot of choice for local places +outside the supermarkets, so I had to order this one online. So, yeah, it's, like I said, it's a +solid one. I put it this way, normally I can get Santa's bud porter, which we spoke a bit before, +which, in spite of the name, it does not taste earthly, you know, definitely not. It's a very +pleasant, festive porter. I would have that over this. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a solid, it's a decent, +well, maybe say decent, rather than solid. It's decent, it's a bit of a solid. So, I'm glad we've +all got something we like. I see, I think I do have to perhaps spend some time drinking some +of beers you're drinking, and just look at the comparative scoring on an attempt to get my +calibration a little bit tighter. But I'm going to stick with the score I gave this, and I think it's a +good beer, and I'm going to enjoy it. And I did buy two of them, so I will enjoy the second one as +well at some point in the, not too distant future. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's, it's actually, +it would be quite good to actually hear your thoughts as well, and the other ones are hopefully +up with them on untapped. Hmm. Yes, I'm trying to get in the habit. Yes. I believe you'll not be +with us for the next one, Paul. Is that right you're heading away? That is correct. I'm off to Germany +next Monday, and I'll be away for a week, so I'll miss your next recording, which is a shame, +because I do actually have a delirium Christmas here, which is probably right up your streak, +and is a nice 10%. So, I will enjoy it in, in an, in an abstentia from the show. +Well, you've actually got both myself and Dave's favorites, because you've got delirium for Dave, +and you've got gardens for me. Indeed. I haven't even get that this year. It's better stock everywhere +for me. You see, Manchester has everything. It's my daughter would tell me again and again. +So, if you want to get in contact with us, then please leave a comment, or you can act +generally, tag us on untapped. I'll put little aerodolinks or we're using them in the show notes, +check over there, but thank you once again for joining us, and Joyce Login tomorrow for another +exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4542.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4542.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9967d74 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4542.txt @@ -0,0 +1,226 @@ +Episode: 4542 +Title: Can Haiku Mumble? +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4542/hpr4542.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:34 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4542, for 2025-12-30 +Today's show is entitled, "Can Haiku Mumble?" +The host is Claudio Miranda and the duration is 00:10:07 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Claudio makes good on a promise made during HPR's New Year's Eve Show 2024 and tests Mumble on Haiku" +This is a fun video, this is fun. +Hold on a second. +Ah, much better. +Hello, Hacker Public Radio, this is Claudio Miranda, +and I'm recording this episode for HPR to see if Haiku can mumble. +Now, the reason I'm recording this episode is because +during the Hacker Public Radio New Year's Eve show last year, 2024, +I was wondering if Haiku actually was able to run mumble +in order to be able to connect for the HPR show or to record HPR episodes +or even to just the chat. +And I said I was going to check it out this year, +and it's taken me up until now to record this episode, +so we're going to be testing this. +So I'm sure you're wondering, or not, but I'm going to say it anyway. +What is Haiku? +Aside from a 575 poem, it is an operating system. +It's actually the open source successor to the B operating system +from B incorporated, or it's been shortened as BOS. +It was an operating system that came out in the 90s, early to mid-90s, +and was way ahead of its time with preemptive multitasking +compared to Microsoft Windows or macOS at the time, +which only used cooperative multitasking. +And it almost became the operating system for Macintoshes +when Apple was known as a beleaguered company +until Steve Jobs made an offer to Apple +with his next operating system. +And they ended up purchasing it for much less +than what B was selling it for. +And they got Steve Jobs in the package +as interim CEO and then CEO. +And the rest is history. +That eventually became macOS 10 and today's macOS. +As for B-Inc, B-Inc not having been able to sell to Apple, +tried various other ways to bring BOS to the market, +but it was unsuccessful thanks to a lot of what Microsoft +was doing at the time and with their OEM partners. +But anyway, all of that I'm sure you can find. +I'm going to put it on the show notes +the Wikipedia page for BOS and its history +and also the homepage for Haiku. +So if you want to check it out. +Now I've also included the homepage for Mumble +so that you can be familiar with it in case you're not. +Anyway, so once B-Inc ceased to be +and the B operating system was sold to other companies, +some developers wanted to kind of bring it back +as an open source project, +taking what was already open source +and trying to build off of that +to recreate an open source version of what was BOS. +And it originally became known as OpenBOS, +but then it changed a few names. +And eventually, as the project started to come together +and really take off, it was called Haiku. +It's been around for a good while +and the latest version is R1 Beta 5, +which you can download from the website in the show notes. +But I am using a nightly snapshot. +So this one I have been using +and I updated it to the latest snapshot +for December 19th, 2025. +And that is hrev59233. +So I'm going to go ahead and install Mumble. +First, I'm going to check in Haiku Depot, +which is the graphical software package manager for Haiku. +Let's see if I can find it. +Haiku Depot, there it is. +Now, you'll find a number of apps here +that have been ported over since. +The project is quite old at this point. +I guess you can say it's around 20 years old at this point. +So I would say it's pretty mature, +even though it is still in beta form. +Quite usable. +It's a single-user operating system. +So that's the way it was designed. +They wanted to keep that as the... +They wanted to keep that... +The Haiku developers wanted to keep that +as one of the features of the operating system, +even though it's... +They wanted to keep it more as a personal operating system, +as opposed to having it be multi-user. +So anyway, back to Haiku Depot. +Searching for Mumble. +And there it is on the list. +I already have it installed. +The version in here is 1.5.634-1. +So that's already installed. +And I'm going to set it up right now. +Oh, one other thing that I wanted to say +is that there's also a command line package... +PackageManager command called pkgman +that works very much like apt on Linux, +on Debian-based systems. +So if you do a packageman-h, +it should give you all the commands. +But there's both ways to do it. +So let's go ahead and launch Mumble. +I already have it installed, as I said. +All right, Mumble here. +Now, initially, what it will... +It may go through the... +Because I've already sort of set this up +on this installation of Haiku. +You may get the audio wizard. +Now, one of the things... +Because I like to use push-to-talk. +And I recommend that everybody does as well. +And I think for the HPR New Year's Eve show, +this is required. +You can go through that. +But the problem is that +when you get to the part of push-to-talk, +when you want to add the keys to use +to trigger push-to-talk, +it doesn't really work. +So what I'm going to do first, +I'm going to connect here +to the Mumble server, +which for the HPR, +which is chatter.skyhaven.net. +Okay. +I'm going to add new +when I want to connect to the server. +And then I will put that there. +The port is 64738. +My name is Claudio M. +And then select connect. +Oh, okay. +Sorry. +Once I have that set, +I'm going to select +chatter.skyhaven.net. +Connect. +And I should be connected. +It says server connected. +Perfect. +So I'm going to set up push-to-talk. +I'm going to go to configure. +Settings. +And I'm going to go to audio input. +And where it says transmission, +I'm going to set it to push-to-talk. +And then when I scroll down, +because for whatever reason +this has the audio cue, +I disable that for push-to-talk +because it's very annoying. +So once you have that set, +say okay. +Oh, one other thing that I set also +because you can't configure the keys. +There is, under transmission, +there is a box to check +that says display push-to-talk window. +It basically opens a little window +where you push it +and it activates push-to-talk. +So I have that somewhere +in the window here. +Sounds. +So I'm going to move my user, +my username, +over to the audio test section +so that I get the repeater. +Okay, it's all set up. +I have the mimic-claudio-m user there now. +And I'm going to test it out. +And you should be able to hear it. +Testing, one, two, three. +Takes a little longer. +Testing, one, two, three. +And there you go. +So push-to-talk is working on this. +Mumble is working. +I can actually set up a Haiku machine +and with Mumble +to connect to the HPR +Mumble server +so that I can chit-chat with everybody +when the HPR New Year's Eve 2025 show kicks in. +So that's it. +It works. +Mumble, HPR, +HPR. +Haiku can mumble. +Yes, it can. +And hopefully my mumbling in the beginning +didn't distract you. +Like I said, +I have all the information here in the show notes +including the link for the HPR New Year's Eve show +and also the page on how to connect +to the HPR community room using Mumble +because that one's not directly linked +on the HPR New Year's Eve show page. +So it's all going to be there. +Hopefully one of the janitors +will see if they can modify that +or make it easily available for visitors. +Anyway, it's going to do it for me. +This has been Claudio Miranda +and tune in next time +for another exciting episode +of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4543.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4543.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34dd8dd --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4543.txt @@ -0,0 +1,195 @@ +Episode: 4543 +Title: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 3 Reactor Basics +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4543/hpr4543.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:36 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4543, for 2025-12-31 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 3 Reactor Basics" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:11:22 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Basic features of reactors and descriptions of the most widely used commercial reactor types." +This episode is a third in an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +In the previous episode, we covered types of nuclear fuel, recycling of nuclear fuel, uranium +and thorium resources, and medical isotopes. +In this episode, we will describe the basic features and characteristics of reactors +together with descriptions of the most widely used commercial reactor types. +All commercial power-efficient reactors use similar principles, a nuclear reaction +in the fuel generates heat. +The heat is carried away by a coolant to a turbine which spends a generator to create electricity. +Fast versus slow reactors, reactors can be placed into more or less two categories, +fast and slow or thermal reactors, the latitude terms are equivalent. +The term refers to the type of nuclear-efficient reaction which predominates in the reactor. +Slow neutron reactors, slow or thermal reactors use slow or thermal neutrons. +Slow neutron reactors are by far the most common type in commercial service. +They are cheaper and easier to build and operate. +However, they can only use a small part of the nuclear fuel. +With a straightforward uranium fuel, they can only use the U-235 isotope, plus part of any +plutonium which is created during the reaction. +With uranium plutonium mox fuel, they can use the physal plutonium isotopes, but not the others. +Some U-238 will be converted to physal plutonium, and then consumed in the reaction, but for +most reactor types, the majority of the energy comes from the U-235. +Thorium plutonium, or Thorium uranium mox fuel, can be used as slow reactors, but the fuel +cycle requires a continual input of fresh physal fuel, plutonium in most proposals, from +uranium cycle reactors. +Nearly all commercial power reactors have been some form of slow reactor. +Fast neutron reactors, fast reactors use fast neutrons. +Fast reactors can use fuel more efficiently, but a more complex and expensive to build +and operate. +At least, some designs of fast reactors can produce more plutonium from U-238 than they +consume. +This allows a fast reactor to produce plutonium for several slow reactors using uranium +or Thorium-based mox fuel. +Only a small number of fast reactors have been built. +The commercialization of fast reactors will probably depend upon uranium becoming much +more expensive and so making recycling a few more attractive. +At present, uranium is so abundant and cheap that there isn't a lot of incentive to +economize on it. +Some most fuel is used in a one-through fuel cycle. +A reactor moderators, a moderator is a material that is used to slow down neutrons so +they are more likely to react with the nuclear items in the fuel. +Some sort of moderator is normally required to have a self-sustaining reaction for slow +neutron reactors. +The main moderator materials are water, heavy water, and graphite. +Fast reactors do not use a moderator, instead they use the unmotorated fast neutrons directly. +However, this means that fast reactors must be built from materials which won't unintentionally +moderate the reaction. +Light water. +Ordinary water is commonly referred to as light water to distinguish it from heavy water. +Light water is a moderately good moderator, although not as good as some of the common alternatives. +Reactors using light water as a moderator must use enriched uranium as fuel. +Heavy water. +Heavy water differs from ordinary water, and that is molecules contain heavy hydrogen, +more commonly known as deuterium. +While regular hydrogen has a nucleus containing only a proton, deuterium has a proton +and a neutron. +Deuterium is often used in the industry to refer to heavy water, although technically +it's only the hydrogen atoms which are deuterium. +Deuterium is extracted from normal water, but any of several different processes which +I won't go into here. +Heavy water is a very efficient moderator. +Due to this, reactors using heavy water moderators can be fueled on natural unenriched uranium. +Some proposed designs have used slightly enriched uranium, but this is just to reduce the +size of the reactor. +Graphite. +Graphite is a form of carbon. +Graphite is also a good moderator. +Reactors using a graphite moderator can also be fueled on natural uranium. +However, some graphite moderated reactors have used enriched uranium. +Unmoderated. +As mentioned previously, fast reactors not use a moderator as they use fast neutrons directly +in the reaction. +Coolants. +In commercial-fission power reactors, the nuclear reactions used to produce heat. +This heat is then usually used to boil water to produce steam, which a steam being used +to drive a steam turbine, which spins a generator to produce electricity. +Common coolants. +The common coolants in commercial-fission power reactors are light water, heavy water, or +a gas such as helium or carbon dioxide. +Alternative coolants. +Some alternative coolants which have been tried or proposed are a liquid metal of some +sort, an organic oil-coolant, molten salt. +Depending on the design, a reactor may use the same material for the coolant as it used +for the moderator, or they may be different. +Primary and secondary coolant loops. +The primary coolant is the coolant that comes in direct contact with the nuclear fuel +assemblies. +In many reactor types, this coolant is then passed through a heat exchanger to heat a secondary +coolant. +The secondary coolant will then typically be turned into steam to drive a turbine. +The primary and secondary coolant may be the same material or different materials. +The secondary coolant is usually light water. +Some reactor types do not have a secondary coolant loop. +Instead, they boil water directly in the reactor, and this steam is then passed directly +to the steam turbines. +Steam generation. +Most commercial power reactors are used to generate steam, which is used to drive a turbine, +which in terms spins a generator to make electricity. +The steam is normally created in one of two ways. +By far, the most common way is to run the hot coolant through a heat exchanger, known +as a steam generator. +The coolant boils the water in the steam generator. +The steam is then used to drive a turbine. +The steam that runs through the turbine is kept separate from the coolant material, and +the water that goes through the turbine never passes through the reactor itself. +This is the most common design. +The other common method is to allow the coolant water in the reactor to boil, and +then using that steam to directly to drive a turbine. +Braton cycle gas turbines. +An alternative to steam turbines is to use a hot gas such as helium to drive a gas turbine +directly. +This is called a Braton cycle. +That's BR-A-Y-T-O-N. +This removes the need to have steam generation equipment, but the very hot gas presents +other difficulties in terms of materials and design. +Braton cycle turbines have seen very little use in nuclear power. +Refueling method. +The uranium fuel must be replaced on a regular basis, with the fuel lasting no more than +a couple of years or so. +Offline refueling refers to shutting down the reactor to replace the fuel. +Online refueling refers to refueling a reactor continuously while it is in operation. +Refueling method used is determined by the reactor's design. +Main commercial reactor types. +The following gives a brief overview of the most common commercial reactor types. +I will cover the less common models, including some more unusual ones, later on in other +episodes. +PWR. +Percerized water reactor. +This is the most widely used style of commercial power reactor. +The name is usually abbreviated as PWR. +These are made by a number of companies in a wide variety of countries around the world. +It is characterized by the following features. +The moderator is light water. +The coolant is also light water. +The moderator and coolant are mixed together. +There is no distinguishing between them. +Steam is generated in a separate steam generator and does not boil in the reactor. +It uses enriched fuel, usually 3 to 5% uranium 235. +Refueling is conducted offline with the reactor shut down. +The reactor itself is a large metal pot called the reactor vessel, containing the fuel, +moderator, and coolant altogether. +PWR. +Boiling water reactor. +This is less common than the PWR, but there are a large number of them. +The name is generally abbreviated as PWR. +There are most common in the USA. +A PWR is very similar to a PWR, with the exception that the primary coolant is +allowed to boil in the reactor vessel and then drives a steam turbine directly. +There is no steam generator or secondary coolant. +Other than this, the PWR and PWR are very similar. +PHWR, pressurized heavy water reactor. +This is also known as a can-do reactor named after the most common model. +It was developed in Canada and also used by a number of other countries in Europe, Asia, +and South America. +India developed their own version based on Canadian technology and these are used in India. +It is characterized by the following features. +The moderator is heavy water, the coolant is also heavy water. +The moderator and coolant are kept separate and do not mix. +Steam is created in a separate steam generator and does not boil in the reactor. +It uses natural uranium fuel, no enrichment is required. +The reactor itself is a set of hundreds of separate pressure tubes, +running through large, un-pressurized tank of heavy water, known as the Kalandria. +Re-fielding is conducted online with the reactor running at full power by depressurizing +one-two at a time. +The Kalandria contains the moderator. +The heavy water in the Kalandria remains that ambient temperature and is not heated. +The fuel is in the pressure tubes in fuel bundles. +These fuel bundles are much shorter than the fuel rods used in PWRs or BWRs. +The coolant runs through the pressure tubes around the fuel bundles. +The reactor design is very flexible in terms of the sort of fuel it could run on due +to its excellent neutron economy. +Conclusion We have covered the main reactor characteristics. +These characteristics can be mixed in various ways to give different reactor types. +The characteristics also affect the type of fuel that can be used. +We also covered the three main commercial power generation reactor types. +In the next episode, we will describe some of the less common historical reactor types. +This concludes the third episode of an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4544.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4544.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4839bc1 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4544.txt @@ -0,0 +1,151 @@ +Episode: 4544 +Title: Uncommon Commands, Episode 2 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4544/hpr4544.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:38 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4544, for 2026-01-01 +Today's show is entitled, "Uncommon Commands, Episode 2" +The host is Deltaray and the duration is 00:11:49 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A summary of four commands, mtr, scrot, zless, and last" +Hello and welcome to Hacker Public Radio in Episode 2 of the Uncommon Command series. +The first command I want to mention in this episode is MTR. +You've probably used the pink command before to check to see if your network is working. +Back in the day I used to ping Yahoo.com all the time and it seemed like a lot of other +people like to use them too based on tutorials and presentations and documentation at +the time. +I suspect I picked up on the practice from some tutorial website somewhere or some colleague +back in the days of my early career. +I always wondered if Yahoo received so many ICMP Echo requests from around the internet +that they had to dedicate a person to deal with all that traffic. +Along the same lines as Ping, you may have also seen or used the Tracerout Command. +This is another network connectivity diagnostics program that has been around since the +early days of the internet. +It's fun to see the path that your packets take from your house or to get to various +websites and destinations around the globe. +One time someone even made a special Tracerout destination that listed out the opening +crawling text from Star Wars. +That host is long gone, but you can try running a Tracerout against another host called +bad dot horse for a similar experience. +After tracing to the destination it should cycle through a list of host that are the +lyrics to the song Bad Horse. +Just make sure that you give enough hops to get through the whole song. +Use the dash M option with it like this. +Tracerout space-M space 100 space bad dot horse. +To build on the functionality of Tracerout there's another program called MTR that isn't +as well known, but was created back in 1997 by Matt Kimball. +It originally stood for Matt's Tracerout. +In 1998 Roger Wolf took over the development, changed the meaning to my Tracerout, however +according to the GitHub repo Matt Kimball still involved with the development. +Instead of just being another Tracerout program, MTR combines the functionality of Tracerout +in ping with a real time display to create something new. +By using the EndCurse's library to draw on your terminal, MTR takes over your terminal +and instead of just a static printout it shows each leg of the journey and updates the +statistics to that leg and the host in real time. +This allows you to monitor over time and better pinpoint where the problem might be. +To start the program simply type MTR followed by the destination host name or IP address. +We can use Yahoo.com as our target. +If you're using Linux as your desktop and want to force MTR to run inside the terminal, +then use the dash T option for terminal or text, however you want to remember it. +So use the command MTR Space-T Space Yahoo.com. +It should open a Curse's Base 2E Interface or TUI Interface and start tracing through +the host to Yahoo.com. +One advantage you might notice depending on the path is that while Tracerout would stall +at any host that doesn't reply to an ICMP request, MTR will skip that host and come back +to it each cycle so you can see the complete path right away even if you don't get all +the routers to respond to you. +At each hop it will give you statistics to the router such as packet lost and round trip +ping time. +This can help you narrow down where a problem might be. +One thing to keep in mind through those that a lot of routers are set up to either ignore +ICMP requests like this or deprioratize them. +So packet loss at a router might not truly indicate the source of the problem. +It's more art than science, but it's definitely interesting and great for showing off. +Across the top you'll see a list of options. +One of which is display mode which you can cycle through the display modes by pressing +the letter D. This will give you a few different types of histograms which can show you +your connectivity metrics over time. +You can press the R key to reset the statistics and to quit MTR you can just press Q or Control +C. +The next command I'd like to talk about is Scroat or Scrot or however you want to pronounce it. +It's a screen capture utility for the command line. +It's spelled SCROT to use it from X Windows you simply run Scrot. +By default with no arguments it creates a screenshot of the whole screen and saves it to +a file according to the current date and time including seconds and the resolution of the +image captured. +It also saves as a PNG image type file by default for lossless capture of data. +But why take screenshots? +Well they are often useful for capturing a program you're having trouble with on your +system so that you can share it with tech support or some tech forum where you're trying to +show what you're seeing. +If you're helping a colleague friend or relative with their problem you might +ask them to take a screenshot so that you can see what they are seeing. +Or you might take a screenshot of your own to share it with them so you can show them what you're seeing. +Given the dynamic nature of computing it can also be useful to preserve history by +taking screenshots of web pages, applications, desktops and so on as they are prone to change +over time and they might not be possible layer to see the previous functionality or recreate it. +They also are more accepted as a form of proof although of course it's not that hard to +fake screenshots so your mileage may vary on trying to convince somebody. +It might also just be for nostalgic purposes so that you can go back later and remember +what your computing experience used to be like. +Scrot was originally written by Tom Gilbert and released on October 26th of the year 2000. +I first discovered it in 2012 when somebody recommended it to me so it's been around for a long time. +There are other screenshot programs out there as well but I find Scrot to be +nice minimal and scriptable through shell scripts of your own. +However, if you want more functionality you might look at a program called FlameShot, +spelled FL-A-M-E-S-H-O-T which allows command line control as well and has a nice compact on-screen +menu for quickly making changes and annotations that you're likely to make with a screenshot. +The next command is Zless. +Sooner or later you'll encounter a compressed file that you'd like to view or search in. +For me it's usually a rotated log file from a previous month that has been compressed. +But it's kind of a pain to have to decompress the file just to work with it and you might not even +have enough space when your storage to decompress it. This is where the command Zless comes in. +With a Zless you can view a file that has been compressed with GZIP. +Zless works by decompressing part of the file in memory. This way you don't create a new file in the +disk and don't modify the original file. You can do most of the things that less can do so it's very +handy when working with GZIP compressed files. But that's not the only command in the set of +commands. There's also Z-Grepp which allows you to prep transparently on GZi compressed files as well. +And there's also Z-More and Z-Cat and Z-Diff and Z-CMP which are the GZi compression counterparts +to the cat-diff and CMP programs respectively. These programs are part of the GNU version of the +GZIP package and should be installed when you install GZIP. But wait there's more. There are also similar +programs for other types of open source compression formats such as BZIP 2 format and the newer +XZ format. Instead of pre-fixing each command with Z you would instead use BZ or XZ as pre-fixes +to the same commands mentioned previously. So for example, BZ-Less and XZ-Less. +According to an early change log from the GNU GZIP source, Z-Less and some of the other +related scripts were first added to the GZIP source on October 14, 1998 by Paul Eger. +They might have an earlier origin though. And finally, but not least, we have the last command. I +literally mean a command that's called last LATST. This program has its origins from the early days +of Unix when systems ran on big monolithic servers that many people logged into from teletype +terminals and video terminals. It was very helpful to system administrators or curious users as to who +recently had logged into a system. To use last, you simply can run it and it will print every entry +in its log. But that can be somewhat overwhelming depending on your log rotation schedule or +popularity of the machine. So you might want to at least supply it with a username to search for +or an argument like the word reboot to see the previous reboot times in the log. You can also +limit the number of entries shown by specifying an option of a dash followed by a number. So dash 10 +would show the last 10 log in. In the output of the command, you'll see multiple columns. First, +the username followed by the terminal device they're attached to. If the connection was from +a remote system, the next column will be an IP address. If it's local, you might see colon 0, +if it's say a x-windows log in. The last column showed the initial log in date and log out +time followed by an elapsed time. If the user was logged in over multiple days, you'll see something +like the number of days plus the hours and minutes. In my research of the Unix Heritage website at +TUHS.org, I found that the program last was originally written in February of 1979 by Howard Katseff +and included in the second release of the Berkeley software distribution or BSD back in May of 1979. +After some extensive digging and older versions of the Wikipedia article for UTIL dash Linux +and using Archive.org, I found that the version of last used in Linux distributions was originally +ported in late 1992 by Michael Hart with some changes by Peter Orbeck. Sorry if I don't get those names +right. Both of these people seem to work on this at the start of their careers at the time. +The package it was included in was originally called ADM UTIL, but later became part of UTIL Linux +and then in the late 2000s, UTIL Linux dash NG after development of UTIL Linux Stoll. +Thanks for listening today as we cover some uncommon commands. If you have a favorite use for +one of these commands I mentioned, I'd love to hear about it in the comments on the HDR website. +Take care and I'll talk to you again soon. Bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4545.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4545.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc5f461 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4545.txt @@ -0,0 +1,122 @@ +Episode: 4545 +Title: YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #12 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4545/hpr4545.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:40 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4545, for 2026-01-02 +Today's show is entitled, "YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #12" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:16:28 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Part twelve of my list of subscribed channels" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. We are airing it now because we had +free slots that were not filled. This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute +shows in order to survive. Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio. +Hello, this is Ahooga for Hacker Public Radio. Welcome in you to another exciting episode. +And this is coming to you from the Reserve Q. So you know what that means? We're not getting +enough shows submitted. Hacker Public Radio is a community project that relies on members +of the community to record and submit shows. If that doesn't happen at some point, we +shut the whole thing down. I don't want that to happen. I'm assuming if you're subscribed, +you don't want that to happen either. So record a show and submit it. It's really +not that hard. So with the public service announcement out of the way, I'm going to +continue with my discussion of YouTube channels that I subscribe to. And I'm going to start +this one with Rick Steve's travel. Now Rick Steve is a travel writer. Also has a company +that leads tours primarily Europe. In fact, the company is called Rick Steve's Europe. +So these are a series of videos. They're long. So typically an hour and a half to two hours +at a time. So some of them might be check favorites beyond Prague, Normandy and D. D. B. +Which is Toledo in Spain. Ethical traveling in a warming world, Norway in a nutshell, you +know, all of these are over an hour. Now they come out once a week. I will sometimes skip +one. If I don't have the time, he's also got the Rick Steve's Europe channel by itself. And this +is the primarily the short form, relatively short. So a lot of these are like 25 minutes. And I +think what they are is rebroadcasts of the television show. In the United States, he's got a +program that heirs on the public broadcast system, PBS, called Rick Steve's Europe. So this is, +I think mostly just rebroadcasting those programs. There's a lot of them by now. He's been doing this +for years. The next channel I'm going to mention is Ringo Star. Yes, the ex beetle. So this is +partly news. If he has a new release, he may release a music video to go with the new song. +Typically, though, it's mostly just short stuff. And maybe four or five minutes max. +So then there's Robert Reich. Robert Reich was the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration +and this is another one of my news and politics things. He's a observer of what's going on in +comments on political developments in the United States. Now, these can vary between short and long. +So he did one like the ten biggest myths about our economy that was close to a half hour, +that he did one, why the super rich are killing social security. And that was like four minutes long. +So a little variety there. On the next one is called Rob words. Rob is the name of the host. +And he's a word geek. What that means is that he is taking a look at some of the interesting +things about language. These are typically in the 20 minute or so range, 17 to 23 kind of thing. +So one of them was the worst English phrase book ever written. That was interesting. +Did Shakespeare invent as many words as people claim? Untranslatable French words. +Words, the Vikings left behind. Old Norse words that are still in English. +Did one on the alphabet, the origin of all of these letters? And so on. +Okay, next channel is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's the official channel. +So usually it's going to be stuff about the induction ceremonies and who's getting inducted each year. +So it's kind of a news channel as much as anything. +Then there's Rowan J. Coleman. And he does what he calls in-depth retrospective reviews on science fiction +and superheroes and stuff like that. So he's talking about visuals stuff. TV movies, things like that. +Review and analysis. So might be Star Trek, Babylon 5, Robo Cop, Red Warp, and so on. +Then there's Royal Caribbean blog and Royal Caribbean is a cruise line. So this is about cruising. +These are, again, you know, probably about 10 minutes long. It comes out about once a week. +Things not to do on a cruise. The five big changes coming to Royal Caribbean in 2025. +How much do I tip everyone on a cruise? I'm not sure if this is actually an official one or +there's just some guy decided to do it because it reads like it's just some guy deciding to do it. +On the other hand, I've got to assume he's got some kind of relationship with Royal Caribbean +cruise line that enables him to do it, otherwise he'd probably get a cease and desist. +But there you have it. Then the Sabaton history. Sabaton is a Swedish heavy metal band and a lot of +their songs, possibly all of them. I'm not an expert. I have to do with war and related topics. +So the Sabaton history channel is hosted by Indy NIDAL. Now Indy NIDAL was the host of the World War +one series that we talked about when we were looking at real-time history. He's one of the people +that split off and is now hosting videos on time ghost, which we will get to because I'm going +through this thing alphabetical order. So he's the host of the Sabaton history channel and +so it will usually be a discussion of something in history and then there's a Sabaton song. +It's about that and then he'll talk to one of the members of the group and say, okay, when you wrote +this song, what were you trying to do, what were you thinking about? Then there's the next channel +be Sassy Gamer Lady and this is another one of those Gamer channels. Now she does a number of things +but occasionally Civ will be a part of that and so it's mostly the Civ that I'm interested in. +Then science news channel. Science news is a publication that for a long time has been coming, +it's been published in the United States for decades. I think it traces itself back to the +beginning of the 20th century. They had been publishing by weekly and I think in just now with +2025, they may have just switched to monthly because I just got a very different looking publication +that says it's the January issue. So if the publication is all about what's in the news and science, +very good stuff. The videos are really short. So when I say short, I mean typically less than a minute, +occasionally just over that but like see a vampire bat working out on a treadmill. +An animation one, how Pluto met its largest moon Karen. +Watch an Ethiopian wolf slurp nectar from a flower. Here's what work is praying on a whale shark looks +like. So and all of these are like you know 30 seconds long kind of thing. So just a short little thing. +Then there's science at NASA, another one of the NASA ones and this is from the Science Mission +Directorate. So it's talk about the science work that NASA is doing and that could be +experiments conducted in space or it could have to do with developing new scientific instruments +or what have you. Something going on on a space station could come on this channel but it's +basically science oriented. And there's a channel that I could probably drop at this point because +I don't think the the host is doing anything any more because he switched to a different name +channel. This channel is called scienceium an element of knowledge and the Derek the host +now has a channel called veritasium and seems to be doing everything over there. But there were some +a few good videos there. Then there's the Sci-Fi channel. Sci-Fi is short for science Friday and in the +United States that is a radio program that is on national public radio or American public radio. +I'm not sure either. I'm not never entirely sure what the difference is but it's a public radio +program. It's also a podcast and it's a YouTube channel and what they do on the YouTube channel is +usually somewhat shorter form. So you know we could be talking about anything from a couple of +minutes to seven or eight minutes occasionally something longer. They have a Sci-Fi book club and +that can engender longer videos because I have a group of people talking about a particular book +so that can go on longer. But most of these tend to be anywhere from a few minutes up to like 15 minutes. +And then there is Sci-Show. Sci-Show is another complexly +product and it's just a YouTube channel devoted to science. So these are the same people behind crash +course. They're the people that got involved with PBS digital and this is their specifically science +related channel and then they split out a couple after that. So there's also Sci-Show Psych +which is all about psychology. I haven't seen anything lately from them so I'm not sure if +they're still doing it or if it's on hiatus and then there's Sci-Show Space which is specifically +about space and that does seem to still produce a few things. So like they did one a few months back +about black holes and then there is security now. This is the twit network. This is the one with Steve +Gibson and I sort of just check in. Those are so long. The average video there seems to be at least +two hours long and I don't often have that much time but the nice thing is in the show notes they +list all of the topics. So what I tend to do is I scan that first and say okay is there anything +here I really want to know about. And you know frequently it is the case that I look at and say +nothing that's going to compel me to dig into a two hour long program. So I think that's enough +for this. This is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio signing off and it's always encouraging you +to support free software. Bye bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4546.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4546.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1a2641 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4546.txt @@ -0,0 +1,794 @@ +Episode: 4546 +Title: HPR Community News for December 2025 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4546/hpr4546.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:43 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4546, for 2026-01-05 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Community News for December 2025" +The host is HPR Volunteers and the duration is 01:32:01 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "HPR Volunteers Kevie and Ken talk about shows released and comments posted in December 2025" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public +Radio. This is HBR 4546, the community news for December 2025 and joining me live from Scotland +is Kevi. Hi Kevi. Hello and a happy new year given this is the first episode for me of +2026 and also the first community news of 2026. Yes, so happy new year to everybody and +we hope that one of your new year's resolutions that is totally achievable is sending into a show +for HBR. No, I'm not happy with that one. I actually would rather the resolution to be +multiple shows to HBR. Very good, very good. So how was your yard listening? How was the +switching of the year? Yeah, I had a family time over the holidays but the weather took a turn for +the worst so we were down in the south of Scotland and we decided we were due to come back today +actually but because of the weather we decided we'll travel up on new year's eve which was not a +good idea. But the reason I'm saying it wasn't a good idea was it was just such a horrible day +uh but on ash on a boat that normally has I think it caters for about 250 vehicles there was less than +10. You know I mean that's one thing. Hogmanay nobody travels in Scotland it's up it's a session day +essentially. Exactly, exactly. How about you? How was your uh holiday season? It was fine uh very much +acting as a taxi service to to people but uh it was nice um we had uh Christmas with the uh some +of the families of two of the kids have moved out all three were away for new year's which was the +first time ever which was uh nice they were all with friends and stuff. Oh that is excellent so uh +I mean people tend to get Christmas presents of course on the 25th but you know we get them on a +daily basis here at uh HPR Towers because of course when you guys send in your show that is a present to +HPR. Oh that's that's so smooth really you should be doing this professionally. I would dearly love to +give up the teaching and do this professionally. My phone allowed. Um so for those of you don't know +first time here Hacker Public Radio's uh community podcast that releases shows every weekday Monday +through Friday and last year we passed our where did we start give me one second I'm just going to go +to the stats page which is on our syndication page and you can get a list of the HPR stats and if you go +there you'll see that we've been running for 20 years three months 14 days 10 hours. Now is that +including today with the techie or is that purely HPR? Uh that's today with the techie yeah as well +so which brings up another point that if we go to uh for 2026 so this year it is 2026 this year uh the HPR +episodes once it hits uh 4 700 which will be on Friday the 8th uh so on August the 7th this year +we will have hit 5 000 episodes of HPR 5 000 episodes of HPR that is of course if people continue to be +generous and send in shows so let's talk about HPR. HPR is a community podcast that releases +shows every weekday Monday through Friday the shows are sent in by people very much like you +in fact exactly like you and we've had some fantastic submissions this year we've had some fantastic +submissions from new hosts and hopefully there'll be a lot of people who will uh be wanting to send in +episodes and one of the things that i heard over on the community news was either people don't have +ideas in which case do your introductory episode and kevi and i and whoever else is listening in the +comments archer will definitely come up with a list of show topics that you can record and the other is +when you don't have time to do it remember that HPR is a community podcast so therefore the barrier to +entry is a lot lower not saying that you should send in crappy audio but if you're out for a walk +and that's the only time that you have to record a show better to record the show then than not have +a show recorded at all what do you think kevi absolutely absolutely please do get stuff in and +bear in mind as well it's something that even if it's something that you do on like a daily basis and +you think oh that's not interesting well it's to hackers yes probably is because it may be something you +do but something we don't know about at all and let's be honest as well if you have a smartphone +the term crappy audio really is out the window these days because the microphones they're using +now on just the basic microphone on the smartphones are way better than what we were having on the +computers 20 years ago and we're still recording then exactly and even then there's a lot that we +can do with the audio when we take it in we can send it to uh audiophonic and they use hashtag ai to +remove a lot of the background noise yes there'll be artifacts and whatever but no any show is better +than no show so try recording uh an episode on your daily whatever and any time that you do have an +opportunity to record the show try send try sending one in anyway enough about that i think let's move +on to what this show is about and this show is community news which is recorded by hosts like ourselves +usually on the uh friday the friday before the first monday of the month so if the hbr new show is +coming out on the first then we record it four days earlier if it's coming out on the seventh we'll record it +four days uh earlier than that and that is just give us time to process it and send it out and what +we like to do is uh go through all the shows and read the comments from the community that have been +submitted on that show and if there are no comments we'll give our own impressions of the show itself +so everybody gets some constructive feedback and positive feedback on their episodes and then we'll go +through the rest of the comments and we'll give you uh rundown on anything that's in the mailing list +and of course anything that's been happening in the background uh with regards to the uh ongoing +developments on the hbr community and project itself let's see okay yep and you know before anyone asks how +much do i get paid for this well as you've said many to time yourself ken feedback is the currency on which +we pay our hosts absolutely it is and um there was a great episode uh last month uh about how to +contribute to open source but uh and free libra software and that is the number one thing you can +do the next big thing that you can do aside from sending in a show yourself is get somebody else to send +in a show so uh we should be uh i was out on a walk the other day and and thinking about hbr as i do uh +and podcasting in general is going through waves now every man and his mother has a podcast and now is the +time for us to be sowing the seeds for when they there is a dial in the waves coming up where people are +dropping off their shows and not recording as much now is the time for us to be having people +come in onto hbr because we will continue if there's anything that has happened that we know +that has happened in the last 20 years we are consistent so let's and you can help with that by +encouraging other people to submit shows and yourself one show a year it's not that difficult +absolutely and plus like you see 20 years this isn't a fad you know i mean podcasting it's sadly +as much as i hate to say this for a lot of people has become a fashionable thing just now you know +like you say every man this dog has got one absolutely we're still going to be carrying on +with it even when the dog has been put to the kennel right so we did actually have quite a number of +shows in this past month uh one uh one a working day what i should say working weekday so maybe we +should actually get to having a look at we should we should start the first one was on december the +first which was the community news for november 2025 let's start with that one shall we were there +any comments keby now we are rich the pair of us we are rich why do i say that because uh this was +one of the better commented episodes we i think there was six or seven six it is and the first one +was by archer 72 silent key i heard again about the silent key and was reminded that an electronics +instructor of mine in a local college was a fan of the paddle key as a ham radio operator i'm wondering +and on a mission to find out if he is silent key or still alive +the graduating class was 30 years ago 1995 and he was and he also taught me to use the 8080 processor +assembler which the chip could only be rewritten after erasure from exposure to uv light and trey says +silent key archive hi archer 72 you might want to check the arll silent key archive link in the show notes +and a rll is american radio right let me just wikipedia that while you're uh while you're looking +up the while you read the next trey comment yes so trey went on to say actually i'm glad i got this one +tux jam cyd episode thank you kevy for a shout out concerning cyd you sent me on a quest to find and +listen to your podcast it took me a bit to figure out how to spell tux jam but i finally got it and +i'm listening nicely done and on the subject of spelling trust me i'm dyslexic i don't go for fancy +spelling quite often it's purely phonetical when it comes to the to any of my shows or anything i see +and a rll is american radio relay league which is the big amateur radio uh league in the world actually +and in america so uh the next one next comment was from candy canator 07 and thoughts decided to put my +response into one bc i didn't want to spam the comment let me know if that's not allowed and +stuff sorry what i'm surprised somebody recorded an eight hour show that seems way too long to keep +uh talking for sad face uh next point is i maybe will make an episode or two on my scripts though i'll +start one with task warrior which doesn't use x clip since from the manic follow-up is my first +episode this might have is next one peer tube is a cool concept but i only occasionally watch +videos on the anon slash stf instances so i don't have the experience to make an episode about it +next point agreed ai freaking sucks as both an artist and a coder and next you can't listen to regular +books lol yes you can somebody reads them out to you uh next one ladies happy birthday to archer it's also +uh candy canator's birthday in two days happy birthday uh and he posted that on my birthday +as well either the news list has been going to spam or i'm missing it because i completely forgot about +it i'll double check once i'm finished listening and re-tray thanks for the introduction to tux jam +i have another podcast to dump into g potter yeah i like that yeah another listener except for they +i i can't speed it up two times because it ruins the music yeah we have had that actual comment uh +before uh yeah probably you know me no no not just for you actually a few different people but uh yeah +i had one actually commented saying uh could we have one without the music at all and i'm good well +the point is tux jam so i would just be tux which would be mega building you know it would just +uh purely be another linux podcast no no that's fine i've i've found a way to get around it +yeah right so we have archer 72 responding with hello candy cane r07 i'm glad you are enjoying our +community and a happy belated birthday you mentioned sdf which i have an account on but rarely use i should +try it out again and on radio is good to hear on a road trip uh do you use an instance on matrix or +mastodon cheers archer 72 and for probably the seventh different pronunciation of candy canators +zero sevens hashtag we have the comment thoughts thanks for the happy birthday stf is fun but i keep +forgetting to check in on the com chat i actually just got a little handheld media player which i've +been loading with podcast episodes and i'm confused myself as to his last comment what's w yeah before i +say it out loud i'm going to go to uh urban dictionary and find out no didn't find anything there and it's +it's whiskey alpha foxtrot romeo november warn warfender yep i'm old and unhip yep i'm happily joining you +there i haven't a clue what that means it's when uh how old did that make you feel when i think it was +archer said 95 was 30 over 30 years ago and i'm thinking that doesn't sound right no no no no i know what +it is it's an answer to his questions so uh he was going do you use uh archer asked do you use an +instance of matrix or mastodon and he uses warfin which is w-a-f-r-n the social network that respects +you warfin is a federated social media inspired by tumblr that connects with both fediverse and blue sky +well now if that isn't an episode right there kevi explain to us old folk how that uh what this +new up-and-coming social network is license where it's hosted how you get an instance who do you +contact what's the community like etc etc etc exactly definitely actually given the the sheer size of +that comment forward i think that could be about two or three episodes you're not wrong you're not wrong +so moving on to the next day we had an interview with elspeth about sl shop and the hop event +and i'm sure uh lee is cutting and pasting these comments and sending them out immediately +this this is something i discovered that lee does uh after the community news episode so what we should +actually do is comment about elspeth like 15 times during the episode and then you'll have to cut the +whole thing up and send it well she's appeared a few times so we could certainly have a good few +comments but yeah i really actually enjoyed this listen to this one the i had never heard of this +thing that the shop and hop uh sounded really good i was actually surprised to i don't want to say +political but um actually i don't know any word of saying it but i was quite surprised when she was +speaking about how difficult it was to get in and then even when you got in getting a good pitch so +to speak or plot or whatever you want you know it was amazing actually listening to the experience +so it was kind of a shame to hear uh with someone like that you'd almost kind of want +to kind of get the you know the the new people having the best places and then those who were maybe +more established being a wee bit further down because people are more likely to go search for them +uh and or a constant rotation but it doesn't sound i suppose it's like anything in life it's +it's not what you know it's who you know so if you're a member in the committee or something you're +going to get prime pitch but it was really good i was really pleased to uh actually hear about this +because it's something i'd never heard of and it's to me i it all these episodes you know it's so +foreign to me the second life stuff and selling stuff online but if you compare it to something like +the ibc which is the big broadcasting thing all the main pitches in the huge halls are like the big +cisco's and the oracles and the uh big broadcaster people are i've got the main ones and then you have +the small little boots around the site so it does follow the convention of of a normal um you know +exhibition or so or a normal exhibition like that and even getting a spot at one of those exhibitions is +really really difficult so in one way it's quite similar and the other way i found it fascinating +to be honest yes actually that's what i maybe thought it wouldn't follow because it is uh virtual +you know online life was a kind of alternative life almost turned to world um that's what i thought +maybe that might actually have a place to change because like you say you know in reality big companies +always dominate and it basically until they're broke they'll continue to dominate uh candy canator +zero zero seven says peek into the community i think this is a really cool peek into the community +that while i've heard of it in the past thing i've never really looked into it until now the +interview was entertaining and clear that elzabeth is well integrated into the community and there's +lots of experience i think she is definitely adding a lot to uh a lot to our community as well +more people we have from with diverse backgrounds doing different things the better say i absolutely +and speaking of slightly different things the next day whiskey jack started his first episode on +nuclear reactor technology now i have to confess when i first heard of this i was thinking +oh i'm interested but i then i then i remember being taught about nuclear physics in school +rule and thinking please let him be nothing like my physics teacher because it would just send me to +sleep but thankfully not i've really enjoyed this so he goes over the basics so uh basic terminology etc +and talking about uh and actually i didn't even know this was a thing i have to admit in my ignorance +i didn't know there was uh civil grade uranium compared to military grade things like that +uh so yeah this was all really good so this was the very first in i think a series of eight yeah +eight episodes so this is one that i have actually with by the end of the month we've had i think three +i think were released and i've enjoyed every single one of them so i mean this is something where you +know you're probably saying oh this isn't of interest to hackers i only know about this well yeah this is +something i mean am i a nuclear technician no do i work in the power industry no but this really interested me +absolutely and uh i had to laugh uh i met the comment you know +hpr consists of uh nuclear reactor technology and beer garden stuff what could possibly go wrong +especially coming from whiskey jack so it's fine i'm thinking of that homer simpson episode +working at the nuclear reactor but uh this is no we should definitely try and get that and you can +whiskey jack on for a nuclear uh power episode combined with beer and caught just call it the homer simpson +episode very good uh there's been a lot of comments on this uh bjb says love this show and series +thank you i listened to the first episode in this series and it's super interesting thank you i'm +eagerly looking forward to the rest of the series and kevin o'brien just makes a comment saying looking +forward to more i think your plan is excellent and i'm eagerly awaiting the future installments +trey says looking forward to the series very well done many decades ago we learned about some +of this in college physics class we even had the opportunity to visit a research reactor at a local +university where we participated in the daily startup process observed uh krennikov radiation +firsthand and even experimented with the effects of certain type of radiation exposure on semiconductors +i am looking forward to the remaining episodes in this series excellent and it's nice about this just +another side note it's nice that he is approaching this from a non-political point of view and we've +had issues this year uh where i must say hand on my heart i'm very impressed with the hbr community +where uh our approach to something that is political has been very fact-based and calm and collective as a +community so it's good to see this coming through that we can discuss topics that some people might not +like but in a honest and open way yes absolutely absolutely and it's uh it is a sign of a mature +community as well because we're in a day where so many if you disagree with me you must be my enemy +no that's just total nonsense we're not all gonna agree uh but uh yeah so carrying on with his uh +with his experience with his movement away from uh ms based operating systems al was on the next day in +four five two four living the tux life episode three now for somebody just moving on to linux yeah this is +not something i would really recommend anybody trying unless they're seriously going hardcore +al automates his own install of linux mint and is using looks with all sorts of volume resize stuff +yeah great well this is kind of interesting because obviously he's you know when he says this is the +first time i'm moving to linux is a little bit like asterix beside it i know a lot of people now are +linux experts in work so they're spinning up kubernetes clusters they're putting pods here left +right and center they're doing uh dynamic network changes so they're using linux on a daily basis +all the time so they're very close very familiar with they like console commands but now they're coming +from that to running a desktop environment so i find i find that's why i'm finding this super fascinating +yeah totally uh for those you don't know al's also a co-host of tux jam so when he actually said oh +i'm going to do moving to linux as a cds we're all kind of is this is this april the first are you +serious we're all are all the links users and he was saying no i'm not a full-time one i was like what +like the the hints are here like when you look at it oh yeah i'll just run an ansible playbook to +install my distro of choice okay that that's a perfectly logical same thing for a new linux user +to do yeah but to be honest though i'm really glad to hear him recording this and again you know people +saying they don't have time they don't have uh they don't have specifics they don't have media +expertise these have all been kind of five minute long episodes they've not been overly long it's just +literally him going through what he's done and it's just basically a diary of himself and this is +great it's great for us to hear it and it's also great for him to look back thinking oh yeah that's +what i did back then and also uh just on that note this month uh because we've had the uh end of year +show and people have been talking and i've been talking to people in person listen don't let the fact +that you're that you're embarrassed about your voice or uh that your your your native language +isn't english don't let that stand in the way of sending in the show or that that you can't speak at +all um don't worry about that write the script send it to us and we have the option of uh doing the +text-to-speech on it uh which is very good nowadays or uh we have a whole team of volunteer narrators +who are more than happy to take your script and read it as a human just like you you would if you +could but you can't yeah and we're very very tolerant of uh of people who um who english isn't their +first language or have do we even have a show on uh about somebody with a speech impediment uh how they +sent in a podcast so this is a normal thing we do uh so don't let any of that stop you from sending +in the show you have something to say you've done something cool in your house and nobody gets it +send in the show absolutely now speaking of done something cool in the house uh i'm actually going +to let you take the next one because i think you may be better to speak with than i am so this was +a missing male merging thunderbird by a certain ken fallon no i don't know him no no yeah uh this one +i have to admit there's another reason for doing the hbr episode is cause every single year i need +to do a when it comes up to the community news things there's a lot of things that i need to do +in preparation for it and they're simple but i keep forgetting how to do it because year has passed +so this year i said right i'm going to document this so that i have it for next year and where's the +the best place to document it uh wrote a little md uh a quick write-up of the notes so that i remind +myself and then i thought hey you know this would make a good episode so it's basically if you have +a small mailing list you're now we're not talking about spamming people but i don't know your local +club or something and you need to send out an email to people and you don't want what their addresses on +the bc uh you want everybody's addresses on the bcc and stuff this is how you can do it with a little +tool in thunderbird where you don't have to sign up to somebody's third party site or whatever +it's just a low tier low barrier to entry in a really really simple way to do a a mail merge list +without having to go to huge extremes now i know we do change things for granted but why would you +want everybody to appear as bcc why not just put everybody and click from your own email address +all the email address in your address book because that would be a violation of the general data +protection action equivalent legal things that are legal uh laws that are in effect around the world +so to protect people's privacy and on the bcc field the address of the other people's addresses +are not listed so you yeah that's why +yes i know good episode actually and actually quite a handy thing because i have done this in +the past and of course was especially with something i don't use too often and i've had to go through +manually and add them all to bcc so this is probably something i'm going to use myself so uh it's something +i hadn't thought of to be perfectly honest so i'm like and the thing is what's embarrassing is i did +mail mergers in school yeah once upon a time i should have once you start talking about it i remembered it +and i was like oh dash but bear in mind that was a long time ago yeah i've done it via um uh i've done +it via like back in the day with microsoft access databases and you know for work and mail runs and +all sorts of things like that and then i've done it a libra office with mail merging for you know christmas +letters and printing off uh you know printing off um mail stickers you know address labels and stuff +like that so this is very similar but it's fierce low barry barrier to entry you put the addresses into +a csv file and you can maybe if you had like four different things that you're that you involved that +you have four different csv files and you just have this thing within thunderbird do you know what shocks me +is that's uh some guy on the internet didn't send in this episode being the thunderbird expert on the +on the uh network yes well you know i mean if you if you were here you know it would be good to hear +his response to that but uh we'll need to remember that question for next month absolutely so we have +the bofang and the str plus plus where lee tries transmitting and recording on vhf and uhf uh lee is +um got his um got his technician license which is uh the introduction license in the uk there are +three levels and other countries are just two and some there's just one um but on his way and i have +to say that he is even though i'm fully licensed he's moved far further on his journey than i am and +that's okay too now am i right in saying lee actually only got into ham radio from kind of +listening to your talk and talking to other users in last year's old camp i believe so yeah so there +you go that's uh that that is amazing actually given how relatively short a term that is when was that +last october that's a quarter of a year and he's got this more it's a year and a half uh it wasn't last +year we didn't have another camp last in 2025 it was in 2024. oh was that a year okay right time flies +i genuinely thought that was last october oh fair enough but good episode i really enjoyed it i +really enjoyed it not just also it did all my ham thing and i was thinking yeah i should do that i have +i have everything here necessary to do that so i should actually do that um trey also said +strs well done sir strs and strs for those not in the know are software defined radios it's +essentially what everything's happening on uh ham radio now for the most part uh strs have really +opened up parts of radio technology experimentation to the wider community i have noticed a significant +difference in performance and quality between inexpensive str dongles and higher-end devices like +the str duo which i prefer i've not tried the str plus plus software and regularly use str connect and +str angel continuing to experiment is the best way to learn and grow uh side note within the terms of +your license of course of course of course but great episode love this and i have this one bookmarked in my +brain for that mythological day when i get time to play with radios that said i have moved my radio +here to physically where i can touch it so i now have two physical radios next to me none of them are +plugged in none of them and they have an antenna but still it's a start it's a start there you go so +they've moved up the list of the things ken hasn't done that's good editing a new year that's good +you've got that few things checked so yeah that's good do you want to do the next one yes i was actually +this one made me chuckle just before i quite get to it it's purely because i had completely forgotten +about that episode that i had done uh on cd ripping and then uh lee actually who we just spoke of the +last episode he actually included it in the the recent anniversary episode and the then out of the blue +we have archer 72 with overly complicated media ripping setup so and for you he does this is +overly complicated from what i would actually remember from uh from ripping software so actually +he's dealing with something though that i've never used nat's blu-ray because i've once kind of dvds +and that went out my i never bothered actually replacing the optical drive when it damaged uh +actually that's a lie the internal one uh so i do have an external one but it's not blu-ray i've um +got some quite some movies and i sometimes i will just like a movie so much i want to get the dvd so that +there's no uh there's no basically i want to get hug father from terry pratchett which is an excellent +excellent uh two-part series and it's on dvd but the dvd is twice the price of the blu-ray whoa yeah +this had me interested like do i save the money and get the blu-ray but then you need some software +from somebody who requires a license and he may at some point in the future take the license away so +that that was the only thing about the blu-ray ripping that's had me a little bit concerned yes and +i do like the fact of uh from from this uh layout he's got here it does appear that he's actually +putting it onto uh a specific drive for move a specific drive for movies which is probably on a +home server now you may think why in this day and age would anybody want to rip a dvd or blu-ray or +anything well plain and simply if your internet goes down you've still got media to watch if you don't and +you rely purely on internet provided uh forms of entertainment if your internet's down you've got +no form of entertainment left and the views expressed on the show do not necessarily reflect those of my +employer which i'm mentally required to say in this case also um what i find is that if i have it locally +then i can use mpv as a media player uh and then i can adjust the brightness and saturation and the +sound and i can add subtitles to it and i have a lot more control over it than i do skipping forward and +using the arrow keys and then you the drm keys get messed up on the server and then there's you're forced +to use the ui of the uh whatever streaming platform and it's invariably crap except the ones that we +work on of course uh so uh well i i end up actually just having the dvd ripping it and then playing it +on the dvd rather than looking at it on the streaming media that's available to me which i also pay for +but yes absolutely now the next day we had henrik hemron in episode 4528 with photography software +now uh yeah so he goes through essentially what he uses so he talks about digicam +uh raw therapy gimp rapid photo downloader pics view scan entangle display cal and dark table a good +proportion of which i've used but i'm not that big into photography photo editing and media editing +things like that but uh he's gone a bit uh further in than i would go but yeah it's actually see again +this is something you know people say they don't have the expertise they don't have this sort of +that this is just plain simply what they use to do a certain task and like i said there's things here +i don't know about i didn't know about always good to share and a good episode i'm really enjoying +this series which is actually should be a series now in itself because he's chugging along producing +these and going through it systematically um and giving us a view into what he's using i've found it +all super interesting some of the software i just barely touched and more of it he has encouraged me to +have a deeper view in it and what i'd like to do is if henrik for a start can people who are into +photography please get engaged and start adding some comments to this gives him some encouragement +about these shows because they're absolutely excellent and i would like deep dives into every +single one of them not well i am asking i was going to say not asking you to do what a hookah did with +libreoffice but yes i am asking you to do what a hookah did for libreoffice on every one of these +tools i know that may be a bit much but for some of the simpler ones yeah that's a possibility but i +think henrik has a plan in his mind and is continuing to do that so please and please comments in there and +note to self to uh convert this to a uh photography series or better yet can people tell me if you're +interested in photography should we have a dedicated photography series on the network and just talking +about the series people um hosts themselves don't get to decide the series anymore um there was always +a rule where you need to have three episodes for it to be considered to be a series uh but my view on +the series is very similar to and my view this is the as an administrator as one of the janitors is um +is it should be a bit like uh a room at foster and what i mean by that is that it's not it shouldn't +be about specifically a single product um it should be about encouraging collaboration under a more of +an umbrella so they've had a desktop environments room where they've got kde and gnome and various +other different people in the same room talking about it equally they have um they no longer have +an amateur radio they just have a radio room where software-defined radio satellite broadcasts +everything to do with rf is in the one room um and uh social medias so they'll have matrix along +with mastodon along with the various different people in the same in the same development track +and that's how i feel we should have our series done of course we can be overruled by the community +but there is an element of the administration of the whole thing here and what makes logical sense +so for each series ideally it should have its own icon it should have its own blurb it should have a +basic description of what's going on and i we're definitely discouraging clothes series where somebody +has um say taking clattu's urban camping series which was a unique thing in its on itself where it was +something that he did um but it's unlikely anybody else is going to be adding to that series in the future so +that's where we were about series sorry for the tangent uh kevi i understand that +at this rate you're going to uh you're going to miss your next appointment +well it's got a few hours left so hopefully not +the next day we had the yoga a review of the yoga oh sorry were you finished with that +yep fine on uh the next day we had one laptop to rule them all but brian in ohio a yoga 370 +and it was uh inspired by episode 4402 which i think was from me if i'm not mistaken which was the +which was the pine tab 2 episode by brian in ohio oh yeah it was episode 4491 was where uh we were +where and that was the interview with that was the interview that tibo uh and myself did with +david lavoy who was the pepper and carth author and he we were discussing the think pad which i have +here the yoga 370 and that inspired this mini series of shows and in this uh this is a show by +brand in ohio where he's putting slackware on and uh discussing the various different scripts and such +yeah this one was quite good they just got on about talking about again what he was doing to set +things up and am i remembering this right this is the one where the actual screen detached and became +like a tablet uh i think it falls around um at the back is that what it was yeah because he was +speaking about uh rotate and auto-rotating that i seem to remember that's the reason and i was just +i remember uh thinking it's one of those things that i i never get into uh for myself personally +i like a big computer i i like being able to upgrade it when i want so i'm actually always at this +to hear people's experience with laptops yes i have a laptop for when i'm traveling and things +but the fact is if you're a gamer and you want a laptop you you really do have to spend quite a lot +of money on it and then they become dashed heavy that was my other experience the one time i used a +gaming laptop it was physically like carrying the weight of a break around it was so dashed heavy +i should maybe look back into it but it is good to hear about yeah i mean people uh putting this i +like to spoke about i think was slack where he put on it uh speaking about as well the um +the software on there there for reading pdfs especially with ocular i think he used +uh yeah yeah it's absolutely great absolutely good it and i remember rightly did it used to be a +default nubuntu back in the day uh i thought i think kubuntu it was but i don't know it's a it seems like a +kd app to me all right because it definitely was in one of the ones that i i can't see anything i was +at his dropper for years but uh yeah that's what i came across it was in that and it was one of these +ones that i always actually used to put in uh yeah yeah i really like this one and it uh it was also +one that was enjoyed by paul jay who left the comment thanks great show hi brian thanks for the very +informative show i have and use three x 270 lenovo laptops and i am writing this on an x390 +i have never considered a yoga version with a touch screen but may well do so in the future i also +appreciate the other information you have shared best wishes for the new year paul and the following +day uh was a hookah continuing his series on playing civilization five part six and he was +looking at game mechanics and civilization now i don't want to end up taking this away from you +are you sure you don't want to go with the in-depth one here uh this one i'll just give you the summary +from the show notes playing war and combat long and basically land combat naval combat air combat and +his conclusion that was a very brief introduction blah blah blah blah so i'll go get a coffee and +you can start waffling on about gaming yeah he was talking about the the different not just the the +the basic mechanics of what although he did he did touch on that but also talking about the different +forms i mean of course civilizations are developmental games so you know you start simple and you do +you keep on going as that you progress your technology so obviously the the first ones you do +are literally going to be ground combat and your weapons are going to be severely limited pretty much +to clubs and throwing stones essentially but as you develop the technologies you go through you can +you can obviously decide as well we spoke about the different forms although there's different uh +transportation let's say so you can have eventually you can develop into land vehicles you develop into +sea vehicles uh develop into air vehicles but you know he even was talking there about +very often there are some which they are purely uh the the combat is a secondary thing you know like +there was some uh vehicles uh some uh vessels he was talking about there and the sea vessels and +they were saying that they were more scout although they do have combat on them uh it was quite +interesting the fact that he said that you you can actually overcome a city from the sea if it's a port +city but he said he actually had the caveat as well i've never done it myself so usually with these kind +of games the things like air and naval are very much uh ranged attacks and then to actually conquer the cities +you would send in the troops but yeah it was really good uh like i said i must admit i've never played +the civilization games i've played free civ i've never played in the civilization games themselves so +for me as an outsider who's interested in gaming i'm loving the series and a series that i am loving +is the next day hpr beer garden six imperial stouts wow this is a fascinating history lesson i yeah i i love +the way you're doing this it's just uh of course it's you kevy and dave the load bug um where you're taking +some beers discussing it and um giving us a little bit of the history as well and i'm sure you wouldn't be +opposed to uh people doing non-alcoholic drinks on this somebody wanted to give a rundown of uh +of other non-alcoholic beverages feel free to do so absolutely and in fact we don't want this to be our show +at the end of the day uh we want this to be a community show so if anybody has even if people want to do +beers if they wanted to do that do their own talk on it it's entirely up to you i mean we've actually just +recorded one that's going to go into the reserve queue that's talking about what we do for making +an episode and what we would recommend but they don't have to they don't have to follow that exact +thing it's not an exact science so yeah i've been actually enjoying doing this because +the we're we're taking a style and we're just talking about the history of it because we probably +don't appreciate and it's funny because dave himself says he was very often one for saying +i don't like borders i don't like borders until we actually looked into them and did the history of +them and now he started to appreciate them himself he just they weren't what he thought to be honest +and i'm just finding this interesting i mean it was i was saying that in one of the recent episodes +if all homework was like this i would have probably stayed on and got my master's and doctorate +oh well there are no comments on that um this one but let's move on to the next show +yes and the next show was oh it was trace a cheap yellow display part five the graphical user interface +so him talking about really uh getting the cheap yellow display say i had a problem with this by the +the way the graphical interface setting it up when i was doing it uh check out the tuxim episode if +you want to actually hear my uh annoyances but uh yeah him talking about the generally how he had got +things set up how it was tested how it was getting the touchpad and everything and the the layout it's +not as easy as it sounds that's actually one thing i will say so i totally felt his pain when i was +listening to this i'm going this sounds very dashed familiar um i was um weirdly enough i was wondering +why uh i hadn't heard your episodes in a while and then i realized that my download script was doing +something to check for org files and because you were anyway as a reason i had a whole year's backlog of +shows uh from tux jam to listen to and i was moving so i was moving furniture from my house to my daughter's +house and i got to listen to tux jam back to back the whole way from from home the whole way up to her +house so that was excellent and then i realized that ye had done a series on the cheap yellow display +yeah prompted by um train's episode yeah yeah that's it and uh it was uh a tree actually mentioned +that in the the comments on last month's community news and it was really good actually trying but the +one thing i did find i'm going to say this as a caveat to anybody that wants to do this the first thing you +need to do and the absolute first thing is find out what exact cheap yellow display you have because i +i stupidly assumed i first went on and got mine oh the cheap yellow display they must all be the +same okay there's different size i'll have to check for that but they must all be the same part of +matt no no no no no no no no they're all flipping different there is no standardization on them and +it's really annoying it was your comment last month that uh made me realize hold on it was his +comment last month that made me realize hold on i haven't heard tux jam in a while why is that so +then i found the bug in my uh in my script glad you got that rectified i mean that's a christmas +a whole year's worth of tux jam well it was great because it started off with the the uh the christmas +uh the first episode of last year because i had the christmas list from 2024 so uh i had the first +episode and then it was like oh it's the weather is cold the weather is warm it's getting warm it's +wet it's flooding it's it's cold again it was nice but with this trace episode they uh the thing about +the the ui having to use a windows piece of proprietary software that sounds very sad to me +yeah now i didn't actually experience that i have to confess so i'd forgotten about that part +actually because yeah he was just saying he just couldn't get it running i don't have a windows +partition on this pc and there's never been one in fact on this pc so i couldn't do that suppose i +want to unless i was going to use it run up a virtual machine but i didn't have that my biggest issue was +trying to find stuff that actually worked for the specific cheap yellow display that i had and but even +then there's so many different drivers and things it ended up my biggest problem was i had the wrong +driver installed for the display module and that's what caused me norris just says uh starting small +this is a good tip for any new project i like to see success early so i tried to start with something +small just to see something working good motivation to keep going and a solid foundation to build on +actually that is very good advice that i need to give myself +uh with regard to this cheap yellow display i have loads of plans for them but i need to just take +one out and put the time on it and be happy and move on absolutely yes that's what i would highly +recommend highly recommend indeed now so the next day it was a continuation by whiskey jack on the nuclear +reactor technology and this one was specifically nuclear fuel so again something i did not know +about i mean i knew about the fact it's just yeah well i i sorry i knew about the episode yes but what +i mean is i knew about natural uranium and rich uranium and then he goes on to talk about all the rest i'm +like whoa did not know all that so and even you hear words like natural and enriched and he went on +to explain what it was and what you know i've heard a lot about thorium and how it's going to save +everything and he kind of went into here's what it is and then the pros and cons so that was nice sorry +did i cut you off no no you didn't it was just what i was saying no i think you mentioned it already i +love the fact he's not coming from this with either a pro or anti thing he's just factual and he says +you know he's giving the the both sides uh the the pros cons like i said this yeah we need more episodes +like this uh in the in the shows absolutely brilliant and it seems that bjb is also in agreement thank you +for an interesting series i'm really enjoying this series thank you oh sorry i'm greatly enjoying this +series thank you even better the following day we had claudio reviving my kawai k4 synthesizer and he +describes how he brings it to life after years of dormancy and nice links in the show notes and good +tips on what he did didn't know absolutely into synthesizers and stuff so there's an avenue for +the next time i'm talking to claudio that we can start bugging him about uh all series perhaps and +what they are how they work etc etc totally and i thoroughly enjoyed this and the one thing can i +give a bit of constructive criticism here it's not no it's not criticism just an encouragement here +is i listened to this in the car and i was really thinking oh i'm loving this and he talked about links +in the show notes and when i finished my journey i went on the website i was hoping to really hoping +to see some uh pictures etc can we recommend some pictures like some pictures and what i would like +to have heard was a audio uh just a recording of him playing something non-copyrighted that we could +add to the show notes absolutely yes you fixed it so you should prove to us that you fixed it +it's not i'm sure we can do that in the next follow-up episode yeah but uh no i don't want +to be too too mean there now that was a really good episode really interesting uh yeah i'm talking +about the different parts as well yeah and i mean they even if you're not into synthesizers or whatever +if you have an old piece of kit the methodology that he used for replacing it is applicable to you know +a tiny thing that approach it in the same way and the logical steps that you do yes indeed now we +didn't have any comments on that so moving on to the next day and al is back with us for living the +tux life episode four various software i've been using and yeah so he goes on course of course +everybody just installs prometheus yes and this is what i'm still laughing this is definitely not a +newbie's guide to linux i think it is it is a newbie's guide it really is and he's highlighting +something here that you know there are people who've got like a macbook and work or windows and +work and they're working on all these servers and their knowledge is fantastically good it's just +they don't use linux and i see that with the guys i work with them work and they're on servers the +whole day but they're on them via their macbook or or their windows box and they could and yes josh i'm +looking at you uh they they could very well be running linux on their home pc so that's good yeah +absolutely but actually i i i did uh have pity on him because he has touched on something that i think +every linux user has battled with when they use laptops battery to management it's it's just that's +one thing i've found it's probably the other thing that's probably put me off using a laptop for +uh extended periods my word just even with battery saver on it's i i i think the best that i got out of +either of my laptops uh was i'm bearing in mind one of them actually came with linux pre-installed +it was from judo computers here in the uk and it's still with battery saver and everything turned down +i can get three and a half hours out of it yeah the thing is though i've been using laptops for years +as my main computer and i've never had an issue with batteries but before you go on and around the +reason for that is i have like a one and a half hour commute and if something goes wrong it's a +three-hour commute and then i plug it in in work and then i have another commute going home and then +i plug it in at home so i i'm never away from a power cord so long that it's a problem yeah i totally +get it the i just like i said i totally uh actually i will say one thing al is doing something i mean he +also goes on yeah i love the fact he talks about deja duper things like that as well you know straight +away back up and yep good and the fox clone uh uh tmux is is the terminal he seems to use as well so +he's certainly not going for your uh off the shelf stuff that's real but this is exactly why i love +linux and it's or you know linux can do links and the whole ecosphere and freely open source software +is that you can you can play to your own strengths in it you don't need to if these are tools that +he's comfortable using that he's used before in his daily life why make it harder on yourself use +those tools feel comfortable and then add another app and then add another app and then you know you +visit yourself in two years time and you go oh i completely changed the way i work and now i know all +this other stuff and that's knowledge that's never going to be lost absolutely absolutely i mean there's +a whole show in here but that would be one thing i would say if anybody comes to me and recommends +they're wanting what's my recommendations for using linux actually the first thing i would say +to them is install this this this this on your windows slash mac machine whatever you've got yeah +and the thing is when you're actually getting familiar with the software it's not that big a jump +you know when you're when you've got i mean most people go oh i can't get my software +if you prep them it's not a big issue at all yeah exactly you already know how to drive it's just +you've gone from uh at that point you're going from a uh uh petrol car to an ev yeah well that's it +that's it so candy cane art oh sorry no go ahead you do it i was going to say so well a couple of +comments on this episode candy cane art at 07 cool setup i also have to use my laptop for my main +computer though it's nice to have the same exact setup at both home and when i'm not i will say +that tlp supports settings charge limits directly and i'd recommend setting it up there since it +persists after boot local scent looks interesting i'll check it out and tlp is a feature reach utility +for linux saving laptop battery power without the need to delve deeper into the technical details +doesn't tell me what tlp stands for though but um al did mention that in the show notes +and by the way i need to when i'm posting stuff about al i need to use capital letters so it's clear that +it's a l and not a i that is a true archer 72 says tmux hi al if you like tmux check out hpr +3845 using tmux it uses tmux resurrect to also save multiple session between reboots +nice one there absolutely yes and going on to the next day we had +welcome to the linux community by delta ray uh thoroughly enjoyed this one actually +this was really a kind of quite a comprehensive episode lasting about half an hour uh and he +goes on to speak about everything you would probably want for the basics of somebody moving over so he +talks about beginner friendly distros um helping the community pardon where to get help +where to get help yes the local communities he links to some mastodon uh foster done free geek +yep and softer alternatives actually i quite liked the way he had put that in and of course most +importantly the gaming section although i am disappointed by his lack of the heroic game launcher +that needs to be in that comment comment or an episode uh this one i personally uh archer said it +uh in the let's let's just read the comment here archer 72 says brilliant brilliant episodes hey ken is +the room in the about page to list this as a top episode archer 72 not only would i uh and i asked archer +to make a ticket for that on our git t instance where anybody can recommend pretty much anything if they +want related to the website but this is such a generic introduction that um it's it should be like a +link on every single linux destro that's out there every single um any linux thing anything to do with +free libra and open software this is the thing that you should listen to first absolutely yep it was +utterly excellent now so the next uh comment is by torren doyle delta ray did a fine job in covering +gnu linux aka linux here thank you delta ray for this concise coverage of linux you spoke very well +and i'll skip over my one where i just said basically what i already said delta ray said thanks thanks for +the feedback and encouragement i'm glad this landed well as i was a bit uncertain about it and thank you to +sigflop for proof listening to it if you're serious about having this linked from other places then +maybe we just need to post it on some forums forums reddit facebook etc good to see that uh he's in +contact with sigflop yes and then the next comment is by morhoek good talk cli magic nice hearing your +voice for the first time i love linux too and i'm liking a lot liking a lot many tools that help you fix +stuff like codex uh gemini cli and claude code they integrate very well and are awesome way to learn +new commands this year i've learned about a secret dub thank you i'm looking at how am i gonna pronounce +that a sweet uh ss iw +launch and control and wolan magic pocket wake of wake on lan whoa wake on lan magic packet wake and +lan w-o-w lan i guess all right okay yeah that is interesting that's an interesting selection of +tools there by morhoek let me just check has morhoek ever submitted an episode sadly not what an opportunity +absolutely definitely there's there's i mean that's just too good an introduction not to that should +be wasteful if you don't submit that and there's uh like one two three four five five different +episodes right there like uh for example the wake on that what's waking on why would you use it uh magic +packets etc what are those uh how can you what are the benefits of using it what are the dangers of using +it what tools there are how you can install them what other alternatives are there there you go yep +definitely plenty of potential for new episodes there but another person who's relatively new although a +big part of the community almost in a short space of time is elspeth and she has put in elspeth in it +since 97 and this is part one the and actually i'm looking forward to hearing this because uh +this one was a 43 minute long episode where she talks about her uh she talks about her experience in +it and actually i took my take my hat off to her for this because she talked about some things that +you could tell even listening to her still upset her and she goes on about her history sorry say again +and i don't blame her for getting upset about them oh not at all no uh yeah so she's it talks about how +she's been in it uh i'm just talking about gender inequality that she's uh really had to put up with +being a female working in it for a long time and the generally as well just the amount of sexism +she's had to endure which is really sad to hear uh so yeah but it's it's it's not just a totally sad +episode it's really interesting the way she goes through uh everything and uh she was also i also found +it really quite sad and also interesting a bit sad uh overall the when she spoke about how these days +people who have been got the same or even less experience than her because back then there was +no real degree in computing or not many people had it and she says she's got more experience than many +but yet she struggles to get a job because uh now being a female if you don't have the degree they just +won't even look at you so yeah it was kind of sad to hear that but uh she's obviously a strong person +the fact she's still talking about this yeah well yeah it's uh it was a tough listen i have to say but +on the other hand i'm looking at it and i'm also saying it it was inspirational in a way that um that +she didn't have a degree yet she was able to learn all this stuff and knowledge and uh get herself up +to a point where she is capable of doing this and the fact that she is coming against these obstacles +with gender and neurodivergence is is unfortunate and i realize how lucky i have been um my first ig job +i the manager was a was a woman who was one of the best engineers i knew and one of the best managers +i knew and we had a more or less 50 50 team so it never entered my mind that the it sector wasn't +gender balanced or that there was any of this in quality inequality or sexism and that was the same +when i moved to another job uh in the netherlands and then i had one job where i was working for +a period of time i'm not going to say how long i was working there and it was like super macho and i +was going this is not a pleasant place to work and thankfully i am now working in a place where there's +a better gender equality and more diversity as well leads to a better team all in all so there you go +absolutely they actually i never think of this place where i live uh as being forward thinking +but uh when i think you're just gonna be thinking back in school i didn't know them well because +they're the it guys and not the teachers but uh but this is when i was a pupil there was always a mix of +male and female when i went to college here for one year the i was doing engineering and the computing +element was part of it now the computer side of it i think there was four manufacturers three women one +male yeah so actually i didn't see this but now come to think of it it was after i moved away +when i think about it you know the it has been 99.9 dominated by males so yeah this is actually +something it's worth bringing up yeah totally and uh i subscribe to the future feed and if you're +into in order to do the quality control and also to get the episodes earlier so i've listened to the +second part of this it's well worth a listen as well so the following day i did a show about hpr +branding why the intro is the way it is and it was part of i mean it was part of something that i had +wanted to be doing anyway which was move this explanation out to the git t instance and basically +the show notes of this is the git t instance so it's not that i had to do extra work for it +well i did have to do the extra work for it but it was on the to-do list anyway so now it's done +um basically going through and i think uh we had um nice wise mentioned about the intro and outro +before uh so i've been thinking about this episode that long back so it's not that big a jump to be +actually doing it um and in the show for those who didn't hear it it's breakdown of what the what +the intro is how long it is who who it's who who wrote it for us what tools we use to create it um +why why we're doing it who where what when and why basically and the outro same thing as well and also +links to discussions we've had about show notes and i realize now that i didn't put in um nightwise's +episode which was also a discussion so i'll add that now to the ever-growing list of my stuff i need +to fix after this episode so kevi if you can read the first comment that would be great right then so +it's by candy canard07 interesting peek of behind the scenes hi i find it pretty cool how the intro +outro is all automated and i'm legitimately surprised that people dislike it the music is really calming +and sets the mood well and i was always kind of wondering what tts you were using since it's a lot +more understandable than e-speak is or at least the default voice for it and steve burn says merci i +didn't imagine this a dire subject for most people but thank you for the overview and the rationale +it's nice to hear about the trivia and archer 72 comments with hello if you're interested in piper tts +check out hpr 4027 piper text to speech engine piper can speak in multiple languages if you want to check +it out links given archer 72 is becoming our official librarian here +yes and another reserve show youtube subscriptions part 11 professor rock +brock brock's annex quill 18 rachel flower music radio free shop uh some other channel +and he's going from the p to the ears this is uh a hookah put in a series of excellent shows about the +youtube channels that he listens to some of which i also listen to and some of which i go okay that's nice +not into uh cruising at the moment but when i do i know where to uh get my subscriptions +yeah absolutely so no it's it's good to actually hear uh this kind of thing uh sadly it does also +mean that we're lacking in shows when we do hear this kind of thing so it's a it's a kind of bittersweet +but it's also a good a good approach to the uh boston boom and i've felt that this year we really worked +on the um by using the reserve shows we're alerting the community that hey guys you know don't take +this for granted as prior to that we were sending out mails on the mailing list and then we only get +shows from people who are on the mailing list and not the community at large so when these shows go out +we deliberately put in there rather annoying uh could be pleasanter but it's kind of deliberately +annoying not really kind of um message in there that this is coming from the from the reserve queue +and that's what the reserve queue is there to fill the slots you know sometimes sometimes it happens +people are all busy um so if you have a show that's timeless you can put one in the reserve queue if +you have a show that you want on your birthday you can put it in the main queue easy peasy lemon squeezy +exactly yes indeed and i hope i didn't break the rules here because that was from the reserve queue +but this one the next day he had actually uh booked it as a normal slot so there you go that's another +benefit of adding to the reserve queue you might get to hear it yourself more than once every fortnight +so he did arthur c clark other novels part one uh i must admit i'm loving this series by +arthur c clark uh i've only read a couple of his books but i enjoyed them and i came back and re-read +one i think it's a city in the sky uh recently and of course uh i'm getting in trouble because +uh my wife's just asked what's this big box of books that's just arrived from arthur c clark +nothing dear ignore that you will ignore the box in the corner i i'm also uh downloaded some onto my +e-reader and i'm reading them but i haven't had time but it's i am reading like about half a chapter +every night so i will get to them but inspired by this series so thank you ahuka please keep keep +doing what you're doing absolutely yes please keep them coming really good and uh it actually +inspired me one thing i've never done is his last one on the 2001 series uh it inspired me to actually +i've watched the film i'm going to go back actually and read the whole thing when i actually get some +time uh well i've got to get through that box i bought there 2001 was not part of it but i'm going to +go back and read the 2001 series and while he's doing that he will also be doing beer garden seven +uk christmas ales i didn't even know this was a thing there you go so um it's well like i said it +in the show it kind of is and kind of isn't if you're a purist a christmas ale does not exist it's +just a certain type of ale that they've made christmasy but it has come into its own thing +and it's something i absolutely love and it's just they're different they're different enough to +have their own uh exactly their own style and yeah i really enjoyed this and it was good to actually +be joined by paul paul's now been on a couple so trying to get him back for another few but uh +we're going to see uh what happens in the future but yes so thoroughly enjoyed it uh yeah how did you +find this one i loved it i love this actually um aside from my only failing with every single one +of your episodes is i want the beer to be shipped to us you know your rss feed should deliver the +actual beer that you can so that you can play along and perhaps actually you know i was thinking maybe if +you could tell us what beers you're going to be reviewing in a few months time we could try and source +those beers to drink along as you're as you're uh doing the episode well now this is a secrecy here +but uh tell you what give me two six and i'll go and get my list no interesting um so love this episode +it was a little so for a little late on the 29th for christmas but it was christmas period here +so very good show yes and i can tell you um coming up if you oh my word right okay put it +as a comment into the next wednesday i was going to say next wednesday we're going to be doing barley +wines that's when we're recording that so if you want to come along you're more than welcome so this +comes out on monday make sure you've listened to it and if you if you're still there so now later on in +the month we are planning on doing the belgian scotch style ale oh right and the after that the +two we've got lined up they're all winter ones just now so we've got a scotch ale or a wee heavy +depend they both are interchangeable and then lastly we've got baltic porter so that's what's coming up +in january and february yeah but like my thoughts were for the listeners so that once you recorded the +show you could subscribe to a feed or something and you could then order because they're now +being posted three months in advance that will give enough time to order and ship them +so that when the episode is released you could drink along as you're doing the episode oh absolutely +that's why i just thought i'll give you that right now so any listeners can actually um +and i'll just make a note to add those to the show right and while you're doing that +we had an episode from claudio m the next day or claudio miranda actually then i'm using some +masters on title there can haiku mumble so this was actually quite interesting if you don't know what +haiku is haiku is an alternative operating system it's not linux based it's different again uh or should +say unix based uh however it's it's been on it's been in development for quite a while but it's one +of these things it's never really gained a lot of traction so a lot of things like drivers etc and +software just hasn't been written for it uh it's one of these things it's on my to-do list uh i've never +tried it i have to confess but like i said it's a bit like the herd kernel it's on my to-do list +uh but he goes on about getting uh haiku uh well sorry getting haiku to use mumble and how +effectively and i don't want to spoil the entire episode but uh it just talks about his experience +there so yeah so that was just in time as well for any haiku users to listen to the new year show +or take part in the new year show and he uh he just got it in before the end of the year his promise +so he got his uh his new year's resolution sorted at the very last moment and then the last episode +of this month and of course the last episode of 2025 was the third in our series of nuclear reactor +technology and i realized that my irish accent may have made that sound like something a dog might produce +the third nuclear reactor basics and there were several comments from leandro says praise for +this series excellent series on nuclear technologies thanks for this educational educational opportunity +and kevin o'brien makes the next comment saying really enjoying the series i find i am looking +forward to each installment of the series well done yeah i enjoyed this one as well him speaking +not so much about the fuel as he did in the last one but this is talking about the basics of the +reactor and the the different types as well so yeah again thoroughly enjoyed this one now going back to +the um comments from um the previous episodes and this was on how i use newsboat and reddit so the first +comment was checking for ahmed uh to see if there are issues as i said this is about newsboat for podcasts and reddit +and what was my comment about there are extra checks when you upload a comment on an episode outside of the main feed +so the future feed or episode going to 10 blank slots and this was why was i putting that there uh +i don't know why i put that there per se but um oh yeah no there was yes so there was a issue with uh +so ahmed uh posts in the next one download format for hpr episodes hello i've set download format to +uh download dash file name dash format space quote percent t dot percent you quote which worked fine for +all podcasts except hpr where the extension is php instead of mp3 is there a method to have a special +download file name format for hpr podcasts and my post something went wrong in posting that and i went to +check and it's basically because there are anti-spam questions um there are three additional anti-spam +questions if you are not if you're posting on an episode that's outside of the main feed so if you're +if it's not in the last two weeks so if you're posting a comment on a future feed i'm a bit suspicious +because okay why are you posting on something that hasn't even been released and if you're posting on +really old shows or older shows um spammers love doing that because uh they'll post on the show +that has been very popular and it's got lots of comments and now the moderator's brain is just +click i approve click i approve click i approve and then you've got spam in there and then um they've won +so that's why i posted that cryptic question in there um and i will put a comment into this comment +to say that we have opened a bug on this issue and we have implemented a change that may or may not have +fixed this so ahmed can you please check to see if that works now and also this year will be a great year +to do a show so i could get the pronunciation of your name perfectly are you still with me yeah yeah +i was just actually waiting for your link no i'll uh i'm putting it into the email that i'm writing to +myself because previously i could just tell dave to do it actually i could should have told archer to do +it what am i thinking uh but i'm writing an email to myself with all the fixes so i've got one two +three four five six seven different things i need to fix after this episode as i'm reading +oh there's a link missing here there's this missing there there's something else so the next +the next comment and the last comment from previous was uh more hook commented on arthur c +clark sequels by our uh hookah and he made a comment and uh a hookah responded it was episode +four five two zero and programmer and content creator nice episode nice podcast episode i agree that arthur +c clark made a very good book on rendezvous with rama science fiction without a killer robot or even +aliens is so uncommon yeah that one was a good episode actually i'll give that um was that the +only two did we only have two from previous yeah and then kevin kevy responded to that glad you liked +it i'm glad you enjoyed it there is more to come from arthur c clark dr who robert a hindman and ee duck +smith so something to look forward to absolutely yes please do keep the comments coming as long +as you're not a spammer please keep them coming absolutely so that rounds off the comments that +rounds off the episodes and then let's have a look at the list and the only thing that we had in the +mail list was the announcement of our four upcoming 14th believe it or not annual 26 hour new year show +which i know got to at least 32 hours the last time i checked in um and then we also +had a comment about the community news being recorded but as this is the last show of the year +i will start by thanking all 57 contributors who contributed to hpr in 2025 57 different people took the time to send +in a show to hpr last year absolutely fantastic thank you ahuka thank you al antoine archer 72 +benny brian in ohio candy canator yeah mate but i don't have the next i don't have the link to +for anything which makes no sense because i just typed in can you do the next line it's on the index for +this episode if you do a refresh to the bottom of the show notes uh sorry sorry we'll have to edit +this but not at all if you're putting yeah sorry that's why i wasn't able to help you in the last +ones purely because no you're you're you're winging it no sorry i updated the the show notes right so +yeah so we've got celeste claudio miranda daniel person dave hingley dave morris delta ray dnt +then we had elspeth folky fred black jim log harry larry henry cameron honky magoo hpr volunteers iota germ +jeroen batten jezra and a certain ken fallon then we had a certain kevy kerbotica clatu comic lee +lucky boy good lad there major ursa and manon mark w able might be mike moss bliss mr x murph norrist +and operator oxo paul j rito roan shane solo spider and some guy on the internet swift 110 +the love bug they bought trey trickster troller coaster whiskey jack and +wo-chick wo-chick how you how am i saying that sorry well how i say it is wo-chick but you know +wo-chick send us in another show to correct us yes please do and we apologize for that so yes thank you +to each and every one because if it wasn't for you guys then we wouldn't be here recording this +episode just now absolutely and for those who don't know hbr will eventually end at some point and what +we plan to do is end it with honor like um lost in bronx says in the episode old soldiers which +prompted me to help out here at hbr we continue when a podcast shouldn't pod fade it will finish +properly when we have no more shows coming in we'll post all the shows from the reserve feed we'll play +all the shows that have been scheduled in the future and we'll shut the podcast down with grace +hopefully i'll be decomposing in wherever i'm decomposing at that time uh the end comes to us +all but um hbr does rely on people sending in shows and we're not messing that is what we were going to +do when uh when we run out of shows yeah that's it and i i hope that's not in my lifetime either so +yes please keep him coming i want to keep on doing this for a good few years yet and absolutely and +like dave morris who was a long-time janitor able to retire and still continue continue sending in +shows even though he occasionally does come in to clean up the tea room from time to time thanks +dave for the script for generating the hosts at the end of the this episode uh and wishing everybody +and i genuinely mean this a fantastic 2026. absolutely yes you may you have a great year let us all in +fact have a great year so without further ado tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker +hacker public +Radio !!! +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4547.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4547.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b28c7e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4547.txt @@ -0,0 +1,104 @@ +Episode: 4547 +Title: Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 6: The speed and timing of Morse +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4547/hpr4547.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:43 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4547, for 2026-01-06 +Today's show is entitled, "Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 6: The speed and timing of Morse " +The host is Trey and the duration is 00:10:51 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A discussion of the Morse code speed and timing considerations needed for our CYD project" +Hello again, this is Tray. Welcome to Part 6 and my cheap yellow display project series. +Thank you so much for hanging in there with me on this rambling series. +If you wish to catch up on any of the earlier episodes, you can find them on my HPR profile page, +and there's a link to that in the show notes. +To review, +my project is to build a portable Morris code key or memory, +which can be connected to any amateur radio HF Transsever by simply plugging it into the code key input port. +This is based on an ESP32 platform which comes pre-packaged on a yellow PCB board with color touch screen display and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. +We commonly call this contraption the cheap yellow display. +So far, I've defined the necessities collected the required hardware and failed miserably at building the graphical user interface. +While I sort out the technical challenges getting my GUI code to play nicely with this cheap yellow display's touch screen, +it's important that we spend some time discussing Morris code itself, +and the timing standards that we will need to follow. +I am not going to dive too deeply into the history behind telegraphs and Morris code, but it is very interesting. +If you want to learn more, Wikipedia has the origins and evolution written out very nicely on a page that I've posted a link to in the show notes. +For our purposes, we will fast forward from the year 1821 telegraphy began all the way to 1865. +When the International Telecommunication Union, the ITU, standardized what it called, International Morris Code. +When I say Morris Code for the remainder of this podcast, I'm referring to this ITU International Morris Code. +Morris Code typically includes the following characters. +The 26-letter basic Latin alphabet. +The India-Arabic numerals 0-9. +And then there's also a single-accented Latin E. +And it's written as an E with an accent mark over the top of it, in a handful of punctuation marks. +These characters are encoded using a sequence of short and long signals. +Each short signal is referred to as a DIT. +Each long signal is referred to as a DIT. +At a young age, I began to refer to them as dots and dashes, as this was how they were usually written. +For example, the letter A consists of a single DIT, followed by a single DIT. +When written, it would look like a period, followed by a hyphen, or what some people might call a minus sign. +And you can see this written now, or typed out in the show notes. +This encoding method allows messages to be sent by turning on and off an electric signal. +This could result in a light flashing, or a tone sounding to the pattern of the signal. +The timing of a DIT and a DA, along with the spacing in between them, is clearly defined. +Morrisco.world does a great job explaining the timing, and you can find their explanation at the length that I've posted in the show notes. +It all starts with the DIT, or more accurately, the amount of time the DIT signal is turned on. +We will call this length of time one unit. +Everything else is based upon this one unit. +We will get to the actual length of time for that unit later in the episode. +For now, it's just one unit. +So if a DIT is one unit long, a DA will be three units long. +So there is an obvious consistent difference between a DIT and a DA. +Also, empty space between elements of the same character is one unit long, and the space between characters should be three units long. +Let's demonstrate this using the letters H, P, and R. +And H would be four DITs. +A P would be one DIT followed by two DAs, and ending with one DIT. +And R would be one DIT followed by one DA, and ending with one DIT. +Remember, when we send these grouped together like a word, we need three units of spacing between each character. +You can hear this now. This is the Morse code for the letters HPR transmitted at 15 words per minute. +And that is a perfect segue to the next section, words per minute. +The speed of Morse code is measured in words per minute. +But how do you calculate this when some characters are short, like the letter E, which is only a single DIT long, and other characters are long, like the letter J, which starts with a single DIT, and is followed by three DAs. +And that's just letters. What about words? We have short words and long words. How can we standardize on words per minute with so many diversity of length? +Well, thanks to the French. We have a quite elegant solution to this problem. Well, okay, not the French in general, just Paris. +Paris is the standard word, which has been agreed upon, to be used for determining the speed of Morse code. +The word Paris is 50 units long. How do we come up with that? +The letter P consists of a DIT, then remember another DIT, another unit in between the DIT and the next thing. So one for the DIT, one for the blank space, three for a DA, one in between again, and three for another DA, one in between again, and one DIT. That's 11 units. +And it also is very confusing when I spell it out. It's written in the show notes. +Then there would be three units of space in between the P and the A. All right. Now in A, we said before, it's a DIT and a DA, so that would be one unit for the DIT, one unit in between three units for the DA, five units. +Now another three units in between the letter A and the letter R. A letter R is DIT, DA, DIT. So that would be one unit for the DIT, one unit in between three units for the DA, one unit in between one unit for the DIT, seven units total. +Again, spacing in between letters is three units. Now the letter I, which is just two DITs. Oh, yeah, and there's a space in between. +So one for the DIT, one for the space in between one for the DIT, three in it. Another three units for the space in between the letter I and the letter S, an S, is three DITs. +So one unit for the DIT, one unit for the space in between another unit for the DIT, another unit for the DIT, another unit for the DIT, that's five units. And then we tack on seven units for the space in between words at the end of it. +So, if you take the 11 plus to 3 plus to 5 plus to 3 plus to 7 plus to 3 plus to 3 plus to 3 plus to 5 plus to 7, you end up with 50 units for the word Paris. +That was a lot. Again, if you want to visualize it, you can see it in the show notes. +Or if you want to hear it, here is the word Paris, sent at 15 words per minute. +More as code world does a great job explaining the maths for how many milliseconds long a ditch should be for a specific words per minute of code. +But no, we can't keep that simple. +Some guy named Donald R. Russ Farnsworth had the complicate things and increased the gaps between the letters to make the interpretation of the code easier. +So there's even more maths for Farnsworth timing. Wait, wait, wait a minute. +When did I start saying maths instead of math like a normal North American? +What is the reasoning behind pluralizing the word math anyways? +Which way is more original to the English language math or maths? +This sounds like a show idea for someone other than myself. +So if you know the reasons behind this or you're interested in researching it and sharing it with us, I look forward to listening to your show in the future. +Alright, back on track. Anyways, there is is much more math about Farnsworth timing on another page on Morris Code World and there's links to all of these in the show notes. +But I don't want to get into all of that detail there. Not when there is a shortcut we can use within our code. +Simplified we can take 1,200 and divide it by the number of words per minute we desire and it will give us a close enough approximation to the number of milliseconds long a dip or a unit should be for what we are doing. +So for example 15 words per minute the messages you've been listening to throughout this episode. +Addit was 1200 divided by 15 which equals 80 milliseconds in length. It was 80 milliseconds in length. +If I speed it up to 20 words per minute which is the speed that I try to practice at. +Addit would be 1200 divided by 20 which is equal to 60 milliseconds long. That's pretty short. +This will be an important calculation for us as we develop the code we will learn or we will use later on as we construct the our messages and how the. +And this is a good stopping point so that I can get back to trying to build that infernal GUI. +Goodbye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4548.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4548.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b3b01a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4548.txt @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@ +Episode: 4548 +Title: YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #13 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4548/hpr4548.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:44 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4548, for 2026-01-07 +Today's show is entitled, "YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #13" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:15:36 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Part thirteen of my list of subscribed channels" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. We are airing it now because we had +free slots that were not filled. This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute +shows in order to survive. Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio. +Hello, this is a hook up for Hacker Public Radio. Welcome me to another exciting episode, +and this one is coming to you from the Reserve Q. So you know what that means. That +means you need to record a show. Hacker Public Radio is a collective, and basically +it's a community project that relies on members of the community to record and submit shows +if it's going to continue in operation. I'd like it to continue in operation. I assume +if you're listening to this, you would like it to continue in operation. So you know, let's +get going there and record some shows, people. Now I'm going to continue what I have been +doing for the Reserve Q. And this is looking at the YouTube channel subscriptions I have as +of January 2025, which is when I'm recording this. When you're hearing it, I don't know. If +we're really lucky, you're not hearing it until 2027, but I don't know if we're going +to be that lucky. Many of that, let's pick up where we left off. And the first channel +I'm going to go to this time is called Sid Meyers Civilization, and it is the official +Sid Meyers Civilization YouTube channel. Now I happen to know that in an earlier episode, +I had mentioned another channel and said it was the official one. I lied. Really sorry +about that. I got confused because it said something like Sid Meyers Civilization. It sounded +like the official channel. I went back and looked and really what it was is occasionally +YouTube will create a sort of a virtual channel that will collect videos from different people +because they're on the same topic. And so it's a topic channel. And so the one that I thought +was the official channel was not. It was a YouTube-created virtual channel. And there's a few +of those that are somehow in my subscription list. I don't know if I subscribed to them or +if they just automatically get added to my list by YouTube. It's not like I spend hours and +hours on managing subscriptions. It's just something I do for fun. Anyway, the official +Sid Meyers Civilization channel, as you might expect, has a lot of stuff from the for +access, which is the company that makes civilization now. And currently, as I'm recording +this, the big thing is Civ 7, which is coming out in February of 2025. And so we're getting +a lot of videos having to do with the upcoming game release. Some of them are short little +videos introducing some of the players that you can play in the game, Ben Franklin, Harriet +Tubbin, Machiavelli. Others are longer videos in which the developers go online and go +through playing an aspect of the game, describing something about what they intended to do +with it. And those can last easily an hour and a half in length. Now, the next one is +60 symbols. And this is another one of Brady Heron's channels. And this is videos about physics +and astronomy. And I'm big on physics and astronomy. That's something I have an interest in. +So I enjoy these videos. The typical video here is anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. Occasionally +longer. I've seen half hour ones. It doesn't really go much past that. And a number of them are +fairly short. So 60 symbols if you're into that. Now, what Brady Heron has done here is he has +gotten involved with nottingham University in England. And so he has a number of these channels +that he works with faculty from the university to put the stuff together. So the astronomers +and physicists that you'd see on this channel are pretty much from the University of Nottingham. +Next channel is Sophie Alloway. Sophie Alloway is a drummer. She's a member of Lidian Collective +and I mentioned the Lidian Collective channel and that they're a group in England that I really like a lot. +And so Sophie has her own channel that deals with her drumming. And I happen to like the way she +drums. So how would I describe it? It's more like, you know, there are some drummers that are +out to convince you that they are absolute masters of technique and can drum 4,000 beats per second +and everything else. That's not what Sophie does. She does tasteful drumming that fits the music +and I appreciate that sort of thing. Then there's space rocket history. +Now space rocket history goes along with a podcast. So you could just get this as an audio podcast +or you could watch it or listen to it really on YouTube. I don't think there's really any video involved. +It's interesting. The fellow who does this started years ago +with some of the historical stuff. You know, talking about people like Robert Goddard and +Seal Kofsky and all of the early pioneers in rockets and getting into the space race with, you know, +the Russians sending up split neck and the United States responding with their space program. +And it's an ongoing historical thing. He's taking things in order of how they happened. +So he's finished all, he's got through all of the Apollo missions. +Space lab. It's now working on Apollo Soyuz and, you know, at some point, I assume if he has the strength +to keep going, he's done almost 300 of these already. I suppose if he keeps going, he'll get to the +space shuttle and it's interesting because he covers in the historical thing. He covers both +the Soviet and the American. I assume if he gets closer to contemporary times, we're going to start +hearing maybe about Ariana and the European Space Agency and India and China who are +Japan, all of whom have active space programs now, but right now it's back in the 1970s. +The next channel is Stam Fine. He reviews movies and TV and among the things he reviews are +Dr. Ho. And so I'm mostly subscribed for that, but it's occasionally, I might take a glance at some of +the others. He's done some Star Trek and other movies like some James Bond. +And the next channel is Stubagful, which is an odd name, but he's an odd person. I think his name +is Stuart, so that's where the Stu comes from. And he also does talks about TV shows and +uploads them. And among those TV shows is Dr. Ho and that was my primary interest. He does other things. +I'm not sure any of them are ones that I've gotten particularly interested in. But Dr. Ho is +enough. Next one is Swini. Now, Swini, I hope I'm pronouncing this right. +Because I think it's an Irish name. And the way it is spelled here is Swi, BH and E. +And what this channel does is an animated history of videos. Now a number of them are +20-minute long or longer. Some of them can even go up as long as an hour, but +most of them are more 15-20-minute length. And I love history, so that's all the more reason. +Then there's talk more talk. Talk more talk is a solo Beatles video cast. And one of the people +involved in there is Ken Michaels. And I mentioned the Ken Michaels radio is being one of my channels. +Another person is Joe Mayo, and I mentioned the mean Mr. Mayo. Tom Hanyati from the two-leg +spot guest is another one of these people. And you know, solo Beatles means they're talking about +stuff that happened after the Beatles broke up as a group. And as you may know, all four of the +Beatles went on to have a very successful solo careers. So that's really what they talk about. +And there is the Tadeski Trucks Band, Susan Tadeski and Derek Trucks. They're married couple. +And they have this band. And it is, I don't know, sort of a combination of mixture of +all-man brothers, grateful dead. You know, hard to describe, but they're a really good band. +And this is their official channel and they put out videos. And many of them are really short. +But I remember during COVID, they were actually putting out full concerts on this channel. And the way +they did it was they were asking you to donate money to, I don't remember now precisely what +organizations, but organizations that were trying to deal with the COVID pandemic. +So, you know, it was a good thing for them to do. I really like the band. +So this is their channel. The next one I have is called the Ark. Now, where I live in the +vicinity of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Ark is the home of live folk music, traditional music, +contemporary stuff. It's a wonderful place. The facility has, I think, about 400 seats. +And it's pretty difficult to not be close to the stage. You know, I think the worst seat there +is probably 50 feet from the stage. So, you get up close and personal. And they will put out concerts +on this. And that's the main thing. So, Lath al-Sadi is one of the people that they did recently. +You might know him from some of those America's got talent or something like that. But, you know, +he was a very well-received guitarist. And he's local here. So, they did a concert of his. And that +was like almost three hours. The next channel is the Beatles. And this is the official YouTube +channel of the Beatles. And obviously, I'm a big fan of the Beatles. So, this is mostly going to be +short things. Announcements or short videos like there was one about the cutting process for +they just did a box set of the 1964 U.S. albums of the Beatles. And so, they talked about what +the cutting process was like for that. So, I think that's probably enough for this particular +episode. I'm going to cut it off here. This is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio signing off. +And as always, encouraging you to support Free Software. Bye-bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4549.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4549.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..809dd14 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4549.txt @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ +Episode: 4549 +Title: [deprecated] Pomodoro Task Tool (pomotask.sh) +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4549/hpr4549.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:45 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4549, for 2026-01-08 +Today's show is entitled, "[deprecated] Pomodoro Task Tool (pomotask.sh)" +The host is candycanearter and the duration is 00:04:29 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Going over a small bash script I used to use to help with tasks" +Hi, and welcome back to me making an episode. +So I figured making a bunch of episodes to a young or random scripts have made for myself +and making a sub-look would be fun in an easy way to get some episodes out. +The full script will be in the notes, and most of the time will be bash or Python. +This script, in particular, I had rewritten, as I dropped a swing app. +So that's why it's deprecated in the title. +And one of the sort on this script is follow up on my last episode of Creeping How Well Task +where you're tied in the scripts, and over here, this deprecated one that are starting +with page on a script, which is much more difficult to discuss. +I made a circle back to the job erosion of the script at the end of the series, so we're +forward to that, if it ever happened. +This program act as a simple preliminary timer, but also printed a path for each project +in your task where you're interested in sequence. +The sub-cell lot for someone like me, who always sounds the focus on the most critical tasks +for getting to work on blog tasks, which end up picking up on me. +So now, let's start the part of my line analysis. +L-Rest equal 0 is just a pressure that they counter for a 15-minute break on a third +loop and resetting it. +For this, I don't know if the way I found a drill timer work, if I get 25 minutes of work +at 5-minute break, except for that on the third break, it's a 15-minute break. +This variable will keep track of that, and the plan of 15-minute break on the third +break. +This next line is the program in an event loop, as the program is designed to run until +the user-turn agent. +This current statement is mostly just here for debugging and to show the user with status +to program it in. +The inner loop runs once for each project in your list and then returns back to the top +of the loop in order to get more projects. +This line is actually, I guess, from your task where you're interested, if you think +a lot of bash magic, so let's take this step by step. +The dark sign in brackets is the common syntax to find a sub-shel and run a command in it. +It's uncaptured the output of the command. +This invoke a man is at the heart of many bash scripts due to its profitability. +We're invoking task warrior with the filter of a plus pendinger, pending a virtual tag that +captures any tag of the pending status. +This isn't needed because by default, the unique command will capture any task in this +history, including completed, deleted, or waiting tasks. +A unique and a special scripting command at that print is all unique elements of the given +field. +It's output is then typed into shop, which then rearranges the line that randomly. +This inner portal then gives over each project that was captured and displays its tasks +in a table. +Once the inner portal runs out of projects to display, it then returns to the outer +portal to collect more, just like a command is another debug. +The error, or just rather than a command, that's the play it to the user. +Passplayer displayed an error code if the provided filter returns nothing, and the uses +to make it to display the entire table if a project is completely clear if the force +timer is up. +The double bars intact is another bash vote in, that says to run the second command if the +first one returns an error. +This line is a simple bash syntax that can be used in place of a statement. +This is more of a personal preference and can be removed if needed, but the first display +after it falls, like it will always display the full task table. +Here is what a task table is actually displayed if we're using two built-in bash programs +being time out, but sure makes a program after they give a number of seconds, and watch, +which continuously runs the provided command and displays this output to terminal. +This also lets you skip a given or superior if needed by a basic control C. This is +the only term that it's a watch program. +Then we increment the rest timer, then we prompt the user to begin a break by crossing +enter, which is done through a basic read command. +The rest time is done for the 5th and 5th at the standard break time, but if we've got +this read break so far, then the rest time right instead such a 15 in the chapter is reset. +Then we do a basic timer where we set up another while with, to check for when the rest +time is greater than 0, and then say for 60 seconds and then document the rest timer. +And then another prompt and read for the user to enter, to continue back to another +work, and then draw the end marker for the two loops we use in the beginning. +And that's it, the two and that's the loop to keep it running forever, as long as there +is still working on stuff. This is extremely rudimentary in half some issues, like how +some hospitals keep the right period, or how the first period each cycle is completely +discarded for showing a full table, but it worked pretty well for my use case, and +maybe we can have you all too. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4550.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4550.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a436976 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4550.txt @@ -0,0 +1,149 @@ +Episode: 4550 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 7 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4550/hpr4550.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:46 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4550, for 2026-01-09 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 7" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:14:48 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V." +hello this is a hookah welcome to you the hacker public radio and another exciting episode +in our ongoing series on computer strategy gaming and we're still in civilization five +and the topic for today is science and how to get a science victory how to use science in +general for whatever victory types you're going for so everything having to do with science now +in most respects it's not all that different in Civ five because science has been the science +victory has been part of civilization from the very beginning and it has been more of an +evolutionary change compared to revolutionary most of the texts are the same as in previous versions +there is a tech tree that is pretty similar and you need to keep up in science for any victory +condition you are thinking you may want to just beat your enemies into submission and if so +look at our previous episode about war and combat but if you're using chariots while they have +tanks you aren't going to have success it's also obvious that if you're going for a science victory +you really need to focus on science now many of these tips should be followed for any victory +condition but should be mandatory if you're drawing for a science victory now the mechanics of +researching technologies is that you have to accumulate a certain amount of science to discover a new +technology but this amount goes up over time so you have to continuously be looking to increase your +output of science to keep up for instance one of your first texts would be pottery which is a cost of +35 science but in your capital city you get three science from your palace and let's say of a +population of two so you're getting five science per turn that means you will research pottery in seven +turns but the education tech costs 485 science astronomy costs 780 science +scientific theory costs 1,650 plastics 4,700 particle physics 6,000 these are all key +texts to advance your science to a science victory so you can see that you need to be continually +increasing your generation of science now to start with population equals science you will get one +science for every point of population that does not however mean you need to have a lot of cities to +get there four to five well developed cities are quite sufficient and adding more cities can +cause unhappiness problems since higher population itself can cause unhappiness there is no good +reason to add to the problem now the next boost you can give to science is by building city improvements +the first which comes early in the game is the library which is available once you research writing +a library boosts the science output of the city by one science for every two citizens +so roughly a 50% increase but it's rounded down in any case building it early pays off +because advancing through the tech tree is a process of accumulating science the earlier you can get +these boosts the better the other population base boost is the public school which is available when you +research scientific theory which also boosts science by one for every two citizens and also offers a +specialist slot for a science specialist and since more population means more science the grandary +available when you research pottery is a good building just because it does grow your population +now there's one other building worth mentioning which is the observatory available when you discover +astronomy it doesn't depend on population but on location you have to have a city that is located +directly next to a mountain to build this but it adds 50% to the science output of the city +mountains are otherwise useless unless you're playing as the ingas but if you want a science boost +and happen to see a good location the ideal spot is an isolated mountain that is not part of +a mountain range so you don't lose out on your farming and mining production and if you can put a +city right next to that mountain it can be a big boost now then there's also specialists you can at a +certain point take some of your citizens out of the farming and mining and turn them into specialists +but you have to have a slot for them and those slots come in buildings as well we've already mentioned +public schools providing one slot universities available when you discover education +provide two slots as well as boosting the city output of science by 33% +the other science building which comes late in the game is the research lab available when you +discover plastics which adds another special a slot plus four science and then adds 50% to the +science output of the city now it comes pretty late in the game so it's not going to be much of a +help for most of the tech tree but when you have to research the space techs and you're going for a +science victory you know those space techs are very expensive and so building the research labs +becomes really important for that now wonders the first one if you're going to go for a science +victory that you want to try for is the great library it gives you a free library in the city that +builds it plus three science per turn and a free tech now use the free tech to get an expensive tech +like philosophy if it's free why not get as much bang for the buck as you can now the +Oracle provides one great person point per turn towards a great scientist so that can be helpful +hang gardens provides plus six food per turn which will help boost your population +and a free garden which boosts your great person points by 25% +leaning tower of Pisa increases your rate person points by 25% in all cities plus a free +great person of your choice when you build it. Borsland tower gives you plus 50% from research +agreements plus a free great scientist and the Hubble Space Telescope provides two great scientists +a free spaceship factory in the city where it was built and a plus 25% production for spaceship +parts now all of the above are world wonders which means you're in competition with other players +to build them and only one player can be successful in each case so you won't get them all +now you can sometimes rush a world wonder by chopping that is using your workers to cut down for us +for added production but you need to have high production cities to build wonders in general +there is one national wonder to focus on though and that's called the national college +now every player can build their own version of any national wonder the national college +is good but it can only be built when you have a library in every one of your cities your strategy +should be to build it as soon as possible so don't build more than three or four cities before +you get to this it gives you plus three science plus an increase of 50% in the science output +of the city you build it in yeah great scientists as you work on your science you will accumulate +great person points toward getting a great scientist someone there's also produce great +person points and all of your science specialists produce great person points as well as these add up +you'll suddenly see a great scientist appear in the early game the best thing to do is use +this great scientist to build an academy move the great scientist to any tile within your city +and create the academy there it will yield at least plus eight science but there are modifiers that +can also add to that the alternative which is better later in the game is to use the great +scientists to get a free tech discovery the reason is that early in the game that plus eight science +is very significant and it can accumulate over time combine that with things like an observatory +and a university that increase the city output and it can add up very nicely but by perhaps the +medieval era and certainly the Renaissance era you start running out of time for that accumulation +of science to add up meanwhile the text have gotten so expensive that a free tech is really the better +option now another thing you can do to increase your science is to engage in research agreements +with other players these become available once you research education and you have to have a +declaration of friendship with the other player before you can create a research agreement +you each put a certain amount of gold into the pot to fund the research and after a period of time +typically about 30 turns you each get an amount of science from it the way it is calculated is +based on the partner that produced the least amount of science during the agreement from a +science standpoint if you're head in science it probably won't benefit you to enter into the agreement +but it does build your relationship with the other player so I wouldn't avoid them all together +now if you're behind in science of course it can help you a lot another thing you can do to +build up your science is policies and ideologies now given that you should probably be building tall +like four to five cities instead of wide which would be eight to 12 cities or more it makes sense to +start out with tradition instead of liberty as your policy tree but once you get to the +Renaissance you'll want to enable the rationalism treat him as your science when you get to ideologies +you have a choice to make ignore autocracy that is not a science oriented choice +if you have three to five cities freedom is the best ideology because specialists require less food +using civil society and have reduced unhappiness using universal suffrage +with a wide strategy of more than five cities order starts looking better as your ideology +getting workers faculties will give you a plus 25 percent science from every factory +now another thing that can help is exploration generally this is a good idea for a number of +reasons but one we want to focus on here is the effect of meeting other players +now in the first place if you find other players who have researched texts you do not yet have +you can trade for them and you should do this whenever possible remember the other players will +all be trading with each other anyway so if you don't participate you simply fall behind +if you have a nice tech and can trade it to just two other players you will jump up two +texts along the tech tree and that can be huge if you hold onto it as a secret some other player +will research it and they will trade it and get the boost instead so trade whenever you can +another advantage is that when you discover that another player has a tech you don't have yet +your cost to research it goes down now that was tech trading but what about trade in general +and that's the next science boost when you set up a trade route with either another person or a city +state one of the benefits can be an increased year science the main benefit of trade routes is +money at least that's the way I play so I will start always by looking for the best addition to my +treasury but if I have two possible trade routes that provide equal amounts of money but one offers +more science then I might prefer that particularly if I'm going for a science victory +now the last thing that is going to influence all of this is which empire are you going to play +some of them are really oriented to a science victory the two obvious choices are Babylon and +Korea Babylon gets a free great scientist when you discover writing which is very early +so you should use it to put down an academy right away and it earns great scientists 50% faster +Korea's advantage comes from plus two science from all specialists and from all great +person tile improvements plus you get a tech boost each time a science building or a wonder is built in the +capital now you can win a science victory with any empire if you're careful about leveraging your +empire's strengths for instance Venice and Portugal can rake in the golden huge amounts and you can buy a lot +of stuff that way or with the counts you can generate a ton of faith and that can be used to buy +buildings and great scientists with the right social policies so this is just kind of a quick +overview of the science path and there's always more to learn if you really want to dive into +science options and get a science victory the civilization fanatic site has a pretty good strategy +guide and I've put a link to that in the show notes so this is hookah for hacker public radio +signing off and as always encouraging you to support free software. Bye bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4551.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4551.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ee483d --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4551.txt @@ -0,0 +1,457 @@ +Episode: 4551 +Title: “Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 2) +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4551/hpr4551.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:46 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4551, for 2026-01-12 +Today's show is entitled, "“Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 2)" +The host is Elsbeth and the duration is 00:39:05 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee talks to Elsbeth about her experiences in IT as a woman, continued." +Here we continue to talk between myself, Lay and Ellsworth, about women in technology and Ellsworth's IT career. +When my second husband, who he was a software developer, when I met him, had been for quite some time, +he was asked by, you know, I'm trying to remember how he and the creator of the company interacted. +Somehow or another, he got connected with this gentleman that had an idea for software, but was not a developer himself. +And it was for something all I'm going to say is it was for something in the health care wellness bubble. +And he started decoding that software for him. +And over time, they needed somebody, my ex-husband needed somebody to test the software for him, but they didn't have the funds to pay somebody that had a degree or had more experience. +So he asked me to look at it and he had been asking me to look at it and try things out. +And eventually he realized, I'm pretty good at this because I have a knack of seeing things from different angles and trying things different ways. +And he ultimately wound up having me do the QA portion. He would send a bill for his software development stuff, but then there would be a QA invoice as well. +And that was just the work I did. It was never officially under my name. +And that's how I got into QA. I taught myself how to effectively look at every aspect of the software from both a usability and a practicality standpoint. +And do test studies and keep data records or whatnot. +Okay. So actually, what system were sort of systems were these back at least still dots in those days. +It was like Windows 3, but when Windows 95. +Oh, it was Windows xP? +When we started out, I think it was Windows xP, I think. +If it were 95, it would be right before the switch over. +And it was like 2007. +It's when? +Yes, so they were just starting when those face turns stuff. +You know what, I think I might have had this on my computer when I started testing. +Yeah. +I'm pretty certain I did. +Was that a lot of things across? +Well, as you've seen that from their full mentioned IT crowd. +So in the episode where the bomb disposal unit is running on Vista and Moshouts. +We're all going to die. +Yeah. +Yeah. +So the software, obviously, had back-end database. +Did it have internet connectivity as well? +It was meant to be used on an iPad. +It started out as like a... +It started out as like... +Almost... +I don't even want to compare it to YouTube. +But do you know Vimeo? +A little bit. +Yeah. +So it's basically... +It was basically a way for users to do exercises. +I'm not going to talk about the industry. +But I think I can see this. +It was a way for users to do exercises from home when they needed to. +It's kind of like... +I guess kind of... +Social media is kind of replaced all the time now, but... +Yeah. +It was basically... +This went like the internet, actually. +I picked Zypazan. +Come out. +Back in that day. +Well, eventually it was being developed for mobile. +It's what I'm saying. +Right. +Yeah. +Okay. +So, yeah. +So, quality assurance. +And yet all the things you've mentioned... +To the gender dynamics for different or the same when you are now doing this. +At this time period. +I mean, I was... +Yeah. +I was homeschooling my kids. +Old time. +They were getting older, so I had more time. +Like individually. +And so it was basically just... +Rather than pay somebody who had a resume to do this stuff. +The owner and my ex decided to just... +Bill... +You know, my ex would bill for the QA work under his name. +It was me doing the work. +But it wasn't me being recognized. +The only recognition I have is... +Every year I get a piece of paper saying that I have ownership shares to a company that has no value. +Okay. +Okay. +Yeah. +It's... +It's operating in the negative, so it's never, you know. +Yeah. +So, you're in a very different environment to your previous job. +Did any of those kinds of things follow you there? +No. +Actually, I pretty much thrived in that because it was just me interacting with the owner +and my ex who... +My ex and I had a really great working relationship when I came to that stuff. +We were able to talk about everything. +If there was a challenge, you know. +It was good. +I was able to communicate with the owner. +And when the owner would come to be in like, you know, +hey, why can't this release happen? +I was able to say, hey, you know, this is why it's taking so long. +You know, you need to allow them to have time to work through the update, you know. +Or he needs to focus on this particular thing, you know, so that he, you know. +It was basically kind of like a combination of QA and project management, +even though I will not take project management credit for it, if that makes sense. +You know, just that the skill set of being able to interact and translate between the developer and the stakeholder. +That, that was something. +Yeah. +And I, I thrived in it. +I loved it. +Yeah. And looking back, would you say you're triggered with more respect when you're doing this role? +Yeah. +My ex never really fully believed that women should fill less than in the industry. +He was really good about giving me credit, even though I, like it, +it wasn't officially a job that I can, you know. +You could put that you could put on your resume. +Right. +I mean, I can, I can put it on my resume, but like there's no. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Do you feel that experience? +How much of it was grounded in the technology of the day? +And how much of it would you say was transferable, even to the modern day? +What I didn't know at that point in time is that Sigma 6 was so important. +Like this was going, as it, this is a 15 year time period. +I didn't realize that like I had done my research on, you know, +QA techniques and software, you know, like logging notes and Jira and, you know, stuff like that, you know. +Like I have that sort of experience, but being told like when I was studying the Sigma 6 stuff +to actually look for a software development QA position, because I felt like I would thrive in that. +Again, especially if I could work from home. +I realized that there's a corporatization of QA that came into play that I never really experienced. +So qualifications that I don't deal as really necessary qualifications of somebody knows how to hunt a bug, track it, document it, explain it, you know, test it, retested again, you know. +Like everybody that plans their life may plan their life differently, some may use a planner, some may use, you know, post it notes, you know. +There are different ways to get to the same end goal. +And it's basically pigeonholed everybody into having to do something a certain way that I don't actually think is the best for the industry because it's all based on manufacturing. +And software isn't, maybe it's digital manufacturing to some degree if you want to put it that way, but it's not quantifiable in a stack of product. +And sigma 6 seems to be more focused on productivity from that perspective than from. +Okay, if you let somebody walk away from their computer for 10 minutes to decompress and think through the challenge that they're having and why they can't figure out why this bug is doing what it's doing. +And seeing if there's a way that could maybe make it work. +And then come back when they have some sort of inspiration, then just like, oh, and you go back and you go and you figure out whether there's another way to get it to work and then you document that and send it back to the developer. +You know, I don't think everything has to be translated through a book. +If I make sense. +Yeah, you can probably define lots of different approaches, holistic approaches. +That might be a good definition for my QA as holistic QA. +Yeah. +I've never even considered that. +Yeah, the idea that there's one way of doing something that you do it by numbers and that that's great for consistency. +If you want to minimize variables, but. +And it maybe works statistically on on mass, but. +You know, there's. +I think there's a lot of sustainability and there's a lot of variation in one size fits so just fits no one. +Yeah. +That right here. +Yeah. +I think one size fits off it's no one that you just said. +Yeah, sums up the entirety of this. +Yeah. +That a lot. +I mean, based it based on your lived experience. +What signs made it clear to you that the tech world hasn't progressed even in the years that. +That you've sort of been in the out of it. +Because women still don't have the you know, while there may be some women that have thought. +All of the issues that comes with being a woman in any industry. +To get where they are and there is more notable women in the industry. +And I still feel like. +I'm consistently seeing that women aren't paid as well. +Women do statistically make less than the industry than men do. +Women with all the progress in tolerance and the me to movement and trying to get, you know, no I'm not going to go into that but like the whole progression of maybe. +More acknowledgment of women's rights and whatnot. +We still have issues that are not addressed. +And it's gone from have, have they gone from war being I've, to being more inherent biases. +I am not going to name the company or when I worked for them, but it was within the last seven years. +Okay. +This was not in QA. +I will say that. +But this shows. +I've seen evidence of this in the IT industry as well. +When a female goes to HR to report issues. +She is not the majority of the time and I'm not going to say all, but even with women in HR. +A female that is reporting an issue is not treated with the same respect as a man reporting an issue. +There. +And I see this all over social media of women talking about it. +And it doesn't matter what the industry is. +A woman makes a report or a woman works really, really hard and gets the credit taken away from her by somebody else. +And in this case it could be. +Male or female it's just it's all about the competition somebody has a good idea. +You report that somebody stole your ideas or your work or to credit for your work and it just gets shoved under the rug. +And this has everything to do with the corporatization of everything in my opinion. +Now if you can't have control as a corporation then. +And it really just depends on the company. +Can you just clarify? +Can you maybe not give a real example? +Just give a made up example of exactly what you're talking about. +Let's see. +Dolly is has produced a new innovative piece of code that will change the way the users experience the software that a company is developing. +Payton. +I'm going to use Payton because that's a gender neutral name. +Payton sees Sally software and sees the potential of it. +And immediately starts criticizing her for what she could have done better in front of higher ups. +And then implies to the higher ups that. +The only reason Sally developed this was code was because Payton and Sally had a conversation that led to her developing this code. +Who knows what's true? +Only Payton and Sally. +But the higher ups have caused a question. +And Payton has socially. +Sally's one who's known to the grindstone just doing her job. +Payton's maneuvering for advancement. +So the higher ups that heard this conversation have had more interactions with Payton and have more trust in Payton. +Because they have a better social interaction. +Whereas Sally consistently has turned out. +Code. +Quality code. +Quality work. +What not. +They have no reason to question her ability to write the code. +But they have subsequently been. +Lead to believe that she couldn't process creative ideas and development in code. +So an innovative idea has to come through somebody that they can more socially understand. +And then Sally gets tossed under the bus when she goes to HR. +To report that Payton has taken credit for her idea. +HR is like trying to find out, you know, basically doing the whole Solomon and the, you know, two moms in the baby situation of okay. +Well, how do we know who's actually telling the truth? +It becomes corporate politics at that point in time. +And it's no longer about the code. +It's no longer about the ethics. +It's just drama. +And that happens all the time to get women to keep their mouth shut and just do their work. +So people profit off of our desire to not be a part of the drama at some point in time. +Okay, thank you for crystallizing what you're talking about by illustrating what you're talking about with a sort of concrete narrative about that. +How do you think it came about that workplace culture has failed to keep pace with the very real changes in society around the first in the inclusion? +I think it falls directly back to corporate politics. +Workplace environment is affected by how corporate politics are. +I think we made huge strides forward in the work from home movement during COVID. +I think mental health was better now hold on. +People that were able to keep their jobs during COVID by working remotely had better mental health than they did when they were working in the office. +I want to clarify that because COVID was a really rough time for everybody mentally. +But there was a movement to get work back into corporate culture. +Recently, at least here where I met in the United States, it's almost impossible for me to even get a call center position remotely. +For some reason, I think to some degree the people that took advantage of the work from home culture destroyed it for those who really thrived in it. +However, I think companies could have done a much better job of looking at the statistics of those regardless of what industry it was that we're working from home. +The work life balance was so much better then. +So right now when you ask that question, I'm kind of struck in the dichotomy of those that are still able to work at home and thrive and those who can't because that right now is having a huge impact. +Just a couple of sides. +Just on that subject, I have my experiences and thoughts that work from home sometimes is not a static thing. +Given time, it's dependent on what you've been doing before and even where you're going afterwards, like if you've been working in the office and then you go to work from home, you may see an improvement, but then over time that may degrade. +I don't see it as a panacea, even if someone is near a virgin, it's not really arguing your case, but if I could just fix it. +So I've had it bad experiences working from home in my very early career where it's led to severe mental health crisis, because it was not I was doing it in the wrong way maybe. +I've seen times in my life where it has very much enabled me to function a lot better. +So it's okay, here's the solution, just do that and that's the solution. +I think some people work really well. +I think some people work very well in office, I think some people work really well in home, but I think everyone needs to have. +And this was something that was making huge strides and it seems like we've just kind of reversed a little bit at least here, I don't I've only worked in the US, so I can't speak for anywhere else. +This isn't me trying to be critical per se, it's more of a just an observation that I saw mental health support within corporations, causing people to have a better work life. +And I don't see that right now. +I see that starting to be taken away. +I don't know about anywhere else, but I think that that supporting the whole person not just the employee makes a huge difference on the quality of work anyone can do regardless of whether they're working in the house or in home. +And when we were working in home, there were more social gatherings online to interact. +And that's kind of just faded away and I saw that happening during my last year working in a work from home position. +I saw it starting to fade away and I'm like that's that's really kind of a shame because when they do these little 15 minute corporate teams meetings and stuff like that and everyone's online, they've got somebody hyping them up and everybody's you know getting positive it helps when you have a mental health crisis line that you can call and not worry about what that's going to cost you. +That helps you cope with the intricacies whether it be in housework or in homework. +And until we start taking the employees mental and physical and emotional health into play, you're just going to wind up having employees that just find a getting beat down burnout and quit. +And it doesn't matter whether your neurodiverse or not, but it does tend to affect neurodiverse people a little more. +Do you think there's any danger of the increased interest in supporting employees of the mental health as virgin on this side of intrusive and almost being a means of manipulating people. +Okay, I think if it's done the right way and that is. +The mental health isn't coming from the company. +It's an added benefit so. +Well, here I'm trying to explain it because I'm coming at this from an American perspective, okay, so a lot of employees regardless of. +If you want to have a quality of life where you're able to go get a cup of coffee when you need to decompress. +But you have to choose between whether you go get a cup of coffee or you pay. +A copay. +To go to a therapist whether it's online or in person. +That's a problem and that's an issue that people are having all the way up to the middle class. +Income level for people in the U.S. because insurance is insanely expensive and if you don't get it through your. +If you don't get benefits through the company where your pain or reduced amount, but you're still paying a fee. +And that would be your. +Not just your copay. +You're, um, you have to pay your deductible. +You have to pay your premium. +So your premium is, you know, every month you pay a certain amount. +That means that you're covered. +Well, part of that coverage is as you have to pay a certain amount or a deductible of. +The total cost that's going to be put out on your health insurance. +If you have any health issues, whether you need to go regularly to account the. +The therapists just to deal with mental health stuff, whether you have any physical conditions. +That deductible your pain very, very quickly. +So usually it depends on what the insurance is and what the premium is and what it covers, +but that's usually between $48,000 a year. +But you have to pay up front or for they fully cut the insurance fully covers. +Your stop and then you still have a copay, which means, you know, $10 to $25. +If you're having to choose between self care and mental health or physical health, +you're never getting to enjoy life outside of work. +All you're doing is coping with existing. +And that's what the majority of Americans are dealing with. +If a company steps in and says, we are covering. +The full cost of you being able to call a mental health therapist at no cost to you. +Anytime you need to, which is. +Honestly, when it comes to hiring and firing and getting training employees and stuff like that, +it's cheaper for them to do that and provide that access. +Now it does come down to the employer actually choosing to do it for the employee actually choosing to, you know, +use the benefits, but it's there. +And those are two, you don't choose to use it. They wind up having a more loyal employee. +Is it is there any risk of it being used to make someone have more capacity to actually do things that actually they find unsustainable. +That have a much. +Oh, that's a good question. +They get, it just allows the company to increase the burden on that person before they write it. +My answer to that is companies can use that. +Companies can and I have seen it happen. +I cannot discuss this other than to say that I have worked. +Where I have had three access to mental therapy through the company that wasn't like it was not. +Like the company wasn't going to spy on my stuff from that. +But because of the nature of what I was doing, they offered that. +And yes, I did burn out. +That was a job where mental health therapy was absolutely necessary. +And I did burn out. +And I did have to say that I couldn't keep working even with that. +And it was literally the therapist that was provided for them was one of the people that helped me make the decision to walk away from that position. +Is that answer the question? +Yeah, that does that make sense. +I think you've touched on that and the previous podcast that episode that you recorded is community podcast. +So actually just to come back to how we started. +Have your personal experiences kind of shape your beliefs about whether women are truly been treated as equals in employment in the economy? +I will have to reiterate that I don't think that they are treated equally. +I think that some people choose to. +And the majority of companies choose not to make that a priority. +I think it depends completely on the societal culture that's around. +And I would be interested in seeing how it was treated in a different location just to see like a different geographical location to see if that made a difference. +But there's too much about society globally, but it's that it's very clear that it's still in a shoe. +It doesn't take a whole lot to see that it's not just about corporations and employees and whatnot. +It's just how our global community exists. +Okay. +So I know we've been looking at things with somewhat of a critical eye and but looking at very real experiences. +Right. +If we shift a little bit and maybe looking a bit forward and thinking what you wish had been different. +How would things have been different in a more ideal situation during your years in IT? +I wish I had been more confident. +This is more about introspection really to some degree. +I wish I'd been more confident to assert myself and say, I do even with the consequences. +I wish that I had been more confident to say, I did this and I did this well. +You know, you may be trying to switch the direction and trying to redirect it somewhere else, but my work is good. +I didn't have the confidence back then. +Today, if I were to look at getting back into the IT industry in any aspect of it, I would be interested in seeing how I was accepted based on my lack of academic achievement. +And yet, my skills at my abilities. +I'd be interested in seeing whether that was more accepted and more appreciated. +Okay. +So there are things like this. +I don't know if this is necessarily better or worse. +There is like the SFIA framework, which looks at skills and competencies. +I'm very much, it doesn't so much matter how you got them. +It's more that you can verbalise than communicate them, that you can demonstrate them. +Yeah, but is that something you have to pay for? +That's one of my big beefs. +I should pay for proof. +SFIA is a framework for employers to end for employees, potential employees. +It's just a framework of saying to do this is a certain role in the IT industry. +They divide the IT industry to hundreds and hundreds and dozens of different roles to do this role. +These are the things you need to be good at. +This is the kind of experience you have to have to do that role at a certain level. +Whether it's a simple level, like a junior level or a medium level or a senior level. +This is what it's composed of. +How do I know? +My personal opinion is it can be a bit restrictive because it's like assumes that you've come along a certain career path to get to where you are. +That you've been exposed to things in the same way that they're expected. +In the other hand, it sounds like, I mean, I'm not saying that there's not like a firewall as such that they won't even let someone get to that interview stage to do that demonstration without the degree. +I kind of think a good organization maybe will be looking not just at the qualification, will be looking at what can that person actually do. +What can they demonstrate that they can do? +Interesting. I have never heard of this before. +Do you know who? +He's happened to know who develops this and internationally. +I'm on the SFA page. +I'm really launching to that really. +It's just a collaborative community effort. +It's an initiative that goes back to like even the British computing societies industry structure model. +That was from the 80s. +But it's just developed from there. +I think the point at the point end of it and not done that well out there. +I think it has served lots of people quite well. +That's something I'll have to look into. +I love that this is. +I mean, there's some obviously there's some pay aspects to this. +But there's also mostly free. +That's interesting. +Not for profit organization. +Yeah. +It's free for most non-commercial use is basically what it's at. +You're just saying a minute ago that you'd be interested to see how someone was treated like coming into the workplace. +What you think companies should be doing maybe that they aren't at the moment. +Beyond perhaps the things that we've already discussed. +I think far too often a company may out that they have tolerance and inclusivity in what not. +And diversity in their company structure. +But I really believe just being one of the minorities in that in a couple different ways. +But the interview process is meant to call corporatized individuals. +Somebody who has a corporate mentality even if their skill set is, you know, coding or graphic design or whatever. +I think there needs to be more understanding of what it means to bring in a diverse individual. +And not just talking, I'm talking about somebody that has different ways of viewing things. +Different ways of performing than what is traditionally deemed as employable work quality. +And while this may vary from both company to company and country to country. +There is still very much the aspect of you cannot be an authentic individual if you're walking into an interview. +If I walk in their stimming. +That's going to create a prejudice immediately. +And if the person interviewing me is not familiar with somebody who's neurodivergent. +Then they immediately put a negative perspective on what my quality as an employee would be. +How do you think someone could be supported in that situation? +I think that that requires whether it's smaller big businesses to choose to educate themselves and their employees on the different ways individuals can interact with the world. +I hear people all the time saying that they have inclusivity in their company and I'm like, no, you don't. +You have a paragraph in your employee handbook that says that we are going to do this, but in practice it doesn't happen. +And that requires people choosing to get out and get to know what it's like to interact with somebody who functions things and processes differently when you do. +Do you have any advice that you think would be relevant for say young women or women who are neurodivergent or entering the world today? +Believe in yourself and your value. +As you are, do not conform yourself to be something that you're not because you're wind up paying for it either mentally or physically and the long run. +Don't compromise who you are. +Okay. +What if anything gives you hype even with everything that you've experienced will give you hype about the future? +People like you. +Honestly, people like you, people like Ken who having had multiple obviously conversations with you. +But also even the service that I had with Ken, I see people who want to see other people succeed in life and are perfectly okay with not dictating how success looks. +Sorry for calling you out there in a good way. +Sorry. +Okay. +Shall we wrap this up? +I know it's but we've talked quite a lot about, I mean it's quite some heavy stuff that we've talked about made. +You know, I hope we haven't, I hope the generalised would obviously if people have different views. +Those are welcome people can record their own episodes. +People will definitely, even if they don't have different views they might, they will definitely have different experiences. +And this, in based, just one part too, you know, just the two of us just talking, we're not really trying to prescribe things to other people. +You have all turned up views, those equally valid. +Just to clarify, I would like to openly state that anyone who wants to make a, you know, a response video to this or just express their own thoughts on it. +Tag me or, or let me know that you've done it and I'll go listen to it because I know that not all people have experienced the things I have. +Not even other women, you know, because there may be women here that have not experienced the same thing I have. +And they have wonderful success stories and I'd love to hear that. +But I'm not saying everything that I've said to bash all men. +And I think that's really, really important to note because. +Some of you may come listen to this and think, oh wow, she's pretty harsh. +And I was being harsh at the people that treated me poorly. +Not, you know, I tried to emphasize those that did bring good too, so. +Thank you for listening to all this. +Thank you very much help, Spith. +Goodbye from me and goodbye from. +Else that. +Bye bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4552.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4552.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..92fd0c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4552.txt @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +Episode: 4552 +Title: Printer Conspiracy +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4552/hpr4552.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:47 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4552, for 2026-01-13 +Today's show is entitled, "Printer Conspiracy" +The host is MrX and the duration is 00:07:02 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This is an episode about a possible EPSON print driver conspiracy" +Hello and welcome, how could a public video it ends? +My name is Mr. X and welcome to this podcast. +As usual, I'd like to start by thanking the people of HPR for making the service available +to us all on these here in two tubes. +Each HPR is a community podcast provided by the community for the community. +That means you can contribute to them. +If we all give just one show, we have more shows than we know what to do with, we've +gone to a great deal of effort to make the process as simple as possible. +This pick up a microphone, phone, an MP3 player, something got to hand at the record button, +send it in. +The website's got a few ideas you could introduce yourself if you're not sure what to send +in is your first show, so as you could start. +So I feel a bit rusty myself actually because it's been quite a while since I've done +a show myself, so I thought this would start for a good start for 20, 20, 6. +This all started when I was having issues with the printer, so I have a very old Epson +R-300-NJ printer, I'm serving for many years, although it was at least 10 years, all +if not 15, and I thought I got it even before I was interested in Linux, for many +of these years, now I've been using the printer extensively on Linux and not in Windows +at all, it's been a really good printer and has been incredibly cheap to run. +Many years ago I got a number of sets of links for it, I think that only cost about +15 pounds, and then shot well later a colleague at work gave me a set of links, so I ended +up with a large bag full of cartridges, which I was working my way through ever since. +I used the printer in frequent, for many years, this is far from ideal for an inkjet +printer, as doing so tends to cause the ink nozzles to clog up. +Unsurprisingly, in later years, it has become somewhat temperamental. +The problems consisted of paper mess feeds probably down to the rubber take up roller +going hard over time, and missing bits of printer, this is assumed due to the infrequent +use of a printer, and age of the inkjet cartridges all of which were well out of their +expiry dates. +The mess fed paper could be solved by individually feeding each sheet through the printer, +the poor slash missing print could be solved by a combination of running the print head, +pinned routine, or by replacing the fend and cartridge. +Laterally, I had print problems again, and as per usual after cleaning the heads, and then +finally changing the cartridge, the printer is imprinting normally. +Shortly after this, I bought myself, to splash in by myself, an apple mark, many, thought +it could be useful to be able to print from it. +I visited the Epson website, download it and stole the Epson print driver for my chassis +R300 printer. +I tried printing from the Mac, and received a warning stating something like some of the components +within your printer are worn and mini servicing. +I'd never seen a mess like this before, as a normally print using the open source print +drivers on my Linux PC. +When I tried printing on my apple mark, no black text was visible on the page. +I tried using the Hickling routine, and this made no difference. +I eventually had to resort to changing the color of the text within the Libra Office document. +This led me to print the text that was at least legible. +At the time I was a little suspicious of all this, a printer had been working so well +just a few days previously. +I plugged my trusty printer back into my trusty PC running an old version of Ubuntu using +the open source print drivers. +I fired up Libra Office and tried to print a document. +To my surprise, a printer was very good, while it was not as good as when the printer +was new, the quality of black and color text was actually very good. +My suspicion though I can't prove it is that the Epson print driver has worked out +that the printer is 10 plus years old and needs to be returned to Epson for servicing, +or to purchase a new printer. +To ensure that the driver is crippling the output from the printer, the open source print +drivers have none of this nefarious nonsense, and allows the printer to operate as normal. +As I said, I cannot prove any of this, however I leave this up to you to decide what +you think is going on here. +At this point, I was going to end the podcast, however the story didn't end there. +My mother wanted me to print out some holiday insurance documents for her. +She sent me a copy of her documents as I told her my printer was working again. +The first print out slightly faintly, but was readable. +The other page is seemed to print using invisible ink. +I technically need the heads, but it made no difference. +It looked a bit like my printer, or at least the cartridge, this past its expiry date. +Cleaning out our loft, I found the original box for my Epson R300 printer, and discovered +that it was purchased in May 2005. +This means the printer is now over 20 years old. +At this point I decided that it was maybe about time that I replaced a raging printer. +I used a printer very infrequently, and really need color. +For this reason I decided this time to buy a laser printer, since I believe these don't +tend to dry out like ink jet printers, but they're less likely to suffer with infrequent +use. +All the time we'll tell though, I don't expect this one to last 20 years. +Finally, I told this and I'm not sure if using the Epson drive had anything to do with +the final demise of my printer, though who knows. +As glad to see, I leave that up to you dear listener. +Okay, I think that's it for this episode. +If you want to contact me, you can contact me at MrX at HPR at googlemail.com. +As MRX, ATHPR, the Atsemble, googlemail.com. +So until next time, thank you, and goodbye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4553.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4553.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e3d23a --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4553.txt @@ -0,0 +1,200 @@ +Episode: 4553 +Title: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 4 Less Common Reactor Types +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4553/hpr4553.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:48 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4553, for 2026-01-14 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 4 Less Common Reactor Types" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:17:34 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Some of the less common historical reactor types." +This episode is the fourth in an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +Less common reactor types. In this episode we discussed some of the less common historical +reactor types. These are a mixture of less common commercial types and some experimental +or research reactors. I will cover advanced or future designs in another episode. +Miner successes. First I'll start with some reactors that had minor successes, but for +one reason or other, didn't find widespread sales. +Magnocks. This is a British design, but saw very limited use outside of the UK. +The name comes from the type of fuel used. This used a non-oxidizing, magnesium aluminum +sheath around the fuel. The first nuclear reactors anywhere to produce power for the grid +on a large scale were the Magnocks reactors at Calderhal with 460 megawatt units starting +in 1956. Other claimants to this title were experimental reactors that produced anywhere +between less than a kilowatt to no more than 5 or 6 megawatt. +It is characterized by the following features. The moderator is graphite. The coolant +is carbon dioxide. It used natural uranium. The moderator, fuel and coolant are contained +in a steel and concrete pressure vessel. The carbon dioxide coolant is used to create steam +and a steam generator, refueling is done online. This design was succeeded by the AGR. +The Magnocks reactors are currently all shut down or dismantled due to age. +AGR advanced gas cooled reactor. This is a British design, but not used outside of the UK. +These were based on the earlier Magnocks reactors. It is characterized by the following features. +The moderator is graphite. The coolant is carbon dioxide. It uses uranium and rich to 2.5 +to 3.5%. The older Magnocks reactors use natural uranium. The moderator, fuel and coolant +are contained in a steel and concrete pressure vessel. +The carbon dioxide coolant is used to create steam and a steam generator, refueling is +done online. The operating temperatures are much higher than for other reactors mentioned +so far. This allows for higher thermal efficiency and so allows more power to be generated +from a smaller reactor. This design is no longer being developed. The AGR reactors are being +faced out as a reach end of life. The design was successful from a technical perspective, +but did not sell well outside of the UK. +LWGR, light water graphite moderated reactor, also known as RBMK. This was originally +a Soviet design and never built outside of the Soviet Union. It was unusual in how it combined +features and ways not seen in other reactors. It is characterized by the following features. +The moderator is graphite. The coolant is light water. Fuel is contained in vertical +tubes running through the graphite moderator. Steam is boiled directly in the fuel channels +and there is no separate steam generator. It uses slightly enriched uranium, refueling +is conducted online with the reactor running at full power by depressurizing one tube at +a time. There is no containment building. The reactors at Chernobyl were of this design. +These are not related to the more common VVER designs which originated in the Soviet Union +at about the same time. The VVER reactors are fairly conventional PWR designs. +Historical oddities are dead ends. Next, I'll cover some historical oddities or dead +ends. Some of these designs may make a comeback, however, so don't write them off completely. +In many cases, there was nothing inherently wrong with the reactor design. The design +owners in many cases simply decided that there was a better market for some other design +they had. Organically cooled reactors. Organically cooled reactors use an organic oil compound +as either a coolant or both as a coolant and moderator instead of water. The reason +for using an organic oil was to allow higher operating temperatures without high pressures. +This allows for the reactor itself to be unpressurized and thus simpler and cheaper while +the high pressure parts are combined to the steam generator in steam circuit. Higher operating +temperatures allow for higher thermal efficiency in the steam cycle, allowing more power +to be produced from a given size of reactor. Organically cooled and moderated. This uses +the organic fluid as both coolant and moderator. The main example of this is the Pickwood +Nuclear Power Plant built as an experiment in the U.S. in the early 1960s. This generated +43.5 megawatts. The basic design was similar to the American PWR designs in that the fuel, +moderator and coolant were together in one tank and steam was generated separately. However, +the reactor vessel was an impressurized due to the high boiling point of the organic coolant. +The coolant was a standard commercially available heat transfer fluid used at industry. The +design suffered from the following of surfaces due to the breakdown of the organic fluid +and the build-up of sludge in the reactor vessel. It was shut down after less than three years +of operation. Organically cooled and heavy water moderated. This uses an organic coolant but the +moderator is heavy water and is separate from the coolant. The main example of this was the +WR-1 reactor in Canada. This was a research reactor and was not intended to produce electric power. +Nonetheless, it was large enough to produce 60 megawatts of heat. The design was similar to PHWR +or also known as Kando, reactors, and that it consisted of a number of tubes, +holding the fuel and coolant, which ran through a large, unpressurized tank of heavy water. +Unlike normal Kando designs, the tubes ran vertically rather than horizontally. +These tubes were unpressurized and the coolant operated at relatively high temperature. +Since this was a research reactor, there were also tubes which were used to hold experiments +which were to be irradiated. Fueling was online. Fuel was uranium carbide rather than the +normal uranium oxide. This was cheaper and easier to make than oxide fuel and was chemically +compatible with the organic coolant. Because the oil was non-corroso, the metals used to build +the reactor could be less complex and expensive than once it had to withstand both radiation +and high temperature water. The higher operating temperatures would have allowed for higher +efficiency if a steam cycle was added. It ran for two decades from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, +when it was shut down as Canada's national nuclear lab decided to start to consolidate operations +onto fewer sites. This used a different organic coolant than the Pekkor reactor in the U.S. did. +It did not suffer the same following in sludge problems. The lack of problems may have been +due to a combination of factors, including not using the coolant as a moderator, +and also better control the chemistry. The design of the Pekkor reactor in the U.S. was based on +their PWR designs and so inherently had large volumes of stagnant fluid, something that was not +possible with a two-based design such as WR1. Preliminary work was done on turning this into a +large power reactor design, but this did not proceed as Canada decided to focus on further +development of existing water-based designs instead. HTGCR, high temperature gas cooled reactor. +I have mentioned the bagnox and HDR reactors, but there were a variety of other gas cooled +reactor designs. Some of these were built but generally as one off prototypes. These other +reactors are all characterized by the following features, helium gas cooled, high temperature +operation, graphite moderator. The fuel is sometimes referred to as prismatic, as it is in +the form of blocks rather than the spheres used in pebble bed reactors. I'll mention pebble bed +reactors in more detail later. It's not clear to me how refueling is carried out. Some used +uranium thorium mixed oxide fuel. A variety of reactors are built in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, +but always as one off prototypes. No gas cooled reactor other than the U.K.'s +magnox and HDR designs have been commercial successes. However, there is renewed interest into +this type of reactor today, mainly in connection with using the heat to directly power large +process industries to replace burning fossil fuels in chemical or metallurgical applications. +HWLWR, heavy water light water reactor or, also known as SGHWR, steam generating heavy water +reactor. This was an odd style of reactor in that it combined features of several different +reactors. There were a number of different reactors designed in several countries which use this type, +although none went beyond single prototypes. Countries building them included Canada, the U.K., +Japan and Italy. Like a can do or PHWR reactor, they use a heavy water moderator in an +unpressurized calendria. However, the coolant was light water rather than heavy water. +The pressure tubes are oriented vertically rather than horizontally as found in a can do. +There were all boiling water reactors in which the coolant boiled directly in the +coolant channels, rather than an A separate steam generator. There seemed to be nothing inherently +wrong with the concept, it seems they just did not for any advantages over other reactors already +being built in those countries. Ractors making a comeback, next I will discuss a couple of types +of reactor that have been around for a long time, but have recently started making a major +comeback in terms of interest. Pebble bed reactors, this reactor type has a long history and its +basic ideas go back to the very early days of nuclear power. Series attempts at commercializing +it however, first took place in Germany or West Germany as it was known at the time in the early +1960s. AVR. The first one was the 15 megawatt AVR reactor in the western most part of Germany. +The concept behind the Pebble bed reactor is the fuel and graphite moderator where a single unit +contained in many small spheres, each about the size of a billiard ball. The reactor was basically +a bin full of these spheres. The coolant was helium gas which would circulate between the spheres. +Fresh fuel spheres would be added at the top of the bin and spent fuel removed through the bottom. +It ran from the late 1960s to late 1980s. +THTR 300. The AVR was succeeded by the larger THTR 300 in the early 1980s. +This supplied 300 megawatt's electricity to the grid, operating until the late 1980s. +The helium coolant fed a steam generator which in turn operated a conventional steam plant. +The reactor vessel was made from pre-stress concrete, the fuel with the mixture of uranium 235 +and thorium. South Africa, China and the US. Pebble bed technology was in licensed to a group in South +Africa who pursued development for many years before money ran out. +The technology was also licensed to a group in China. +Chinese development led to first the HTR 10 prototype reactor in the 1990s and early 2000s +and then the HTR PM reactors in which a pair of reactors feed a single +210 megawatt steam turbine generator. This started operation in 2021. +This Chinese plant is the one which people often refer to when they talk about small modular +reactors in China. Part of the South African design team were then hired by an American company +called X-energy who wanted to take the German and South African technology and sell it to the SMR market. +Making a comeback? At this point it's hard to say whether pebble bed technology is actually +making a comeback although there is renewed interest in it. MSR or molten salt reactors. +The distinguishing feature of molten salt reactors is that they use molten chloride or fluoride +salts as a coolant. Since the molten salt has a high boiling point, the reactor is +unpressurized and steam is created in a steam generator. Slow or fast neutron reactors, +molten salt reactors may be slow or fast neutron reactors. Slow neutron reactors would typically +have a graphite moderator. Fast neutron reactors would not have a moderator. I will discuss +fast neutron reactors in more general terms in another episode. Fuel. The fuel may be uranium, +plutonium, thorium or mixture of these. The fuel may be in separate fuel pins like +another reactor types or maybe dissolved in the salt. Some interest in molten salt reactors +seems to be focused on using them to consume stored spent fuel from other types of reactors, +such as light water reactors. The use of spent fuel is intended to provide a means of getting +rid of long-lived radioactive waste from spent fuel by burning it in nuclear reactions. +Salts. The salts are usually sodium, magnesium and calcium chloride or lithium fluoride salts. +Chloride salts are typically used with uranium fuel in fast neutron reactors. +Fluoride salts are typically used with thorium fuel in slow neutron reactors. +Chloride salts are much less expensive than lithium fluoride salts, +which require isotopically pure lithium-7. Why some variants used is all fuel? +One major reason for dissolving the fuel in the salt, coolant, is to allow the removal of +Protaktinium 233, which is produced as an intermediate product in the process of transmuting +thorium 232 to uranium 233. Protaktinium 233, or PO 233, is a major neutron observer, +and so interferes with the thorium reaction. To Protaktinium 233 decays into uranium 233 with a +half life of 27 days after which it could be fed back into the fuel stream. +Various design for thorium fuel would typically have a separate blanket of additional +thorium around the reactor core in order to produce more uranium 233 from neutrons that would +otherwise escape. Protaktinium 233 is not a significant problem in the blanket. +History experiments with molten salt reactors date back to the 1960s and 70s. +Recently interest has revived, with research being conducted in a number of countries on both +dissolved and solid fuel versions. Types of molten salt reactor, there are many different +variants of molten salt reactor, so I won't try to describe them all here. Some used solid fuel, +some used fuel dissolved in the coolant, some used spheres similar to those used in +pebble bed gas cooled reactors. Many of the reactor types described elsewhere in series have a +molten salt equivalent. Pros and cons, pros. On the positive side, molten salts remain liquid up +to a very high temperature, allowing that for the generation of high temperature steam which +can drive a turbine efficiently. The high coolant temperature also allows for creating high +temperature process heat for direct use in industry. The salts are non-corrosive to special +alloys develop to handle them. The salts are not damaged by radiation. The dissolved salt +reactors can be designed, such as an increase in temperature, cause a thermal expansion of the salt, +which in turn reduces the rate of reaction, providing a passive self-regulating safety feature. +Cons. In the dissolved fuel versions, the primary coolant is highly radioactive, +making maintenance more difficult. The chemistry of the salt must be carefully maintained to +prevent it from becoming corrosive. Lithium salts must be enriched, rather like uranium is often +enriched, to nearly pure lithium 7 since lithium 6 will produce radioactive tridium when +fissioned by neutrons. Supplies of fairly pure lithium 7 are limited as it is mainly produced +as a byproduct of producing tridium. Birlium is used in some compositions and is highly toxic. +Continuously chemically processing the coolant in the dissolved fuel variants adds complexity to the +system. Overall, there are a very large number of molten salt designs. Of the less common +reactor types, molten salt reactors are undoubtedly the ones which are seeing the most current +interest in terms of numbers of new designs and the amount of current R&D. Conclusion. In this episode, +we discussed some of the less common historical reactor types. As we have seen, there have been a +number of different reactor designs, which are less commercially successful for one reason or another. +Some of them may be making a comeback, however, particularly as the basis for a small reactor. +In the next episode, we will describe fast neutron reactors. This concludes the fourth episode +of a N8 part series on nuclear reactor technology. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4554.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4554.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94d117b --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4554.txt @@ -0,0 +1,169 @@ +Episode: 4554 +Title: How I do todo +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4554/hpr4554.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:48 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4554, for 2026-01-15 +Today's show is entitled, "How I do todo" +The host is Jim DeVore and the duration is 00:17:00 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This is how I manage my personal todo list. " +Hello, hacker public radio friends. I am Jim DeHore, a long time listener, first time show host. +I am an engineer currently working with embedded software and construction equipment. I have been +involved at the intersection of computers, electronics, and controls for about 50 years. +I have a strong tendency to build and repair things myself even when it doesn't make economic +sense. I simply enjoy learning new things and working with my hands. +This is an episode on how I manage my personal to do list using genetroponys to do.txttility, +send file format, and a collection of apps and scripts. The intent here is to not provide step +by step to plant some ideas that you might want to follow up on. Ironically, +creating a show has been on my to do list for at least a year. Checking that off today. +This show is not explicit. Looking back at my history with to do. I believe this show might +be relevant because it combines a need that most of us have for independence from services +in a hackable architecture. I was a daytime or paper-toting person for many years. It worked, +but it took a lot of effort to maintain. In the late 19, I switched to it to do app on my +Palm Pilot. Eventually that became a trio 755 phone slash PDA. The keyboard finally died on that +phone after four and a half years. I went to an Android-based phone about 2008. It replaced all the +PDA functions that I enjoyed on my Palm Pilots. I dimly recall having access to it to do app. +Maybe a commercial service that had shut down my memory as fuzzy. +I found Gina Trapani's file format and bash grip. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing her name correctly. +My pronunciation is from a guide to the city in Italy. I believe she was the founder of lifehacker +and that's how I found it. She created a simple structured text file format. +In the 2D.TXT, it has one line per task with this format. Each field is separated by a space. +First field is optional. It's an X that marks completion of that task. Second field is also optional. +It is a priority in capital and a capital letter in parentheses. Field 3 is optional. It is the +ISO completion date. Field 4 is optional. It's the ISO creation date which must be specified if you +have got a completion date specified. Field 5 is the free form to do.field.field 6 is one or more of the +following. TXT, this is a single word that starts with a plus character. A context is a single word +that starts with an AT character. Field 7 is optional key value tags. For example, a due date +might be represented. This DUE colon ISO formatted date. And there's other files in this system. +AttitudeDue.sh, the command line version of the utility. A configuration file that helps the +to do system find all its files and extensions. Done.TXT that holds the archive to do. +I replicate the to-dos through Dropbox. You can also use Google or the DIY sink or don't sink it all. +At home with my laptop, I don't sink. I read the file from a network share that is synced on my +NASBOX as Dropbox limits the number of devices on their free plan. I don't have anything against +paying, but Dropbox's prices are structured for heavy users. A handful of text files is all that I +think. You can learn more at http colon slash slash to do txt.org. Genus Focus was on the command line at +least initially, but what caught my attention was that it was a structured file format that was +being supported by other developers and was simple to manipulate with scripts. Her bash script +also supported extensions. I love that multiple apps support this format. +Linux desktop Windows Android Phone, and of course she can use a simple editor. I believe that Apple +is also supported. I'm just not in that ecosystem. She has links on her page to folks that have +created them as well as extensions and plugins that folks have written to extend its capabilities. +So what apps am I using? On my Android phone, I'm currently using simple tasks. It's not the +most full featured of them out there, but it has been very solid and bug-free in my use case. +On my Linux desktop, I use q2dxt. The about page as multiple credits based on the original code +base by David Ellen Talk. On my NAS box, I'm running Genus to do dot txt bash scripts with some +custom add-ons. Dropbox hosts that to do dot txt and done dot txt files to keep everything in sync. +This is a very hackable architecture. Harry Larry would love this. It's a text file format. +Here's what I really love. I've got a low-end Synology NAS that lets me run nightly scripts +and the resulting files are synced to my phone, desktop, laptop computers, through Dropbox and the +network shares. It also allows me to grab the to do dot txt and done dot txt for information. +For example, if you've got a new year's resolution exercise three times a week, you can grab +done dot txt to see how many times you check that off in a year. Hopefully this gives some ideas. +I love this because if I'm not happy with how it works, I can change it. I want something new. I add it. +I've got a script that runs on my NAS and does the following every night. +First of all, it checks all the files into get and tags that with the day's date. +This is nice, especially when I develop a script and I can retrieve earlier versions when things go +south. And I have done that. Nothing like waking up to a wiped out to do file. +I secondly, I scrub all high-asky from the files. I'm living in a seven-bit text world. Your localization +may have different requirements. This uses a simple TR command. For me, one of the web-based +interfaces I had previously used with this file had problems with high-asky. +And with apologies to my international audience, I think these tools work with other encoding. +I just don't have any experience there. Thirdly, I insert a daily affirmation into the +to-do file. This simply selects a single random line for a large text file collection using a +quick and dirty Python script. It then is appended as a priority A to-do, allow me to read it +and check it off. Fourthly, I remove blank lines. It's really easy to add blank lines during +copy and paste yet I don't want to waste any time manually deleting them. This is a simple +grab command. 5. I reconcile merge conflicts. Dropbox occasionally can't resolve a conflict where +changes have been made, perhaps by the nightly script and something that I had just done on my +phone. Dropbox names this in a way that I can easily run automated diffs. This is gone by calling +to do underscoremerge3.py. I don't recall where I found this script. I don't believe I wrote it +and it doesn't have any attribution. Differences are added to the working file with a tag and +a priority. It allows me to decide whether I need them or not. 6. I add creation dates on any lines +that don't have them. Some of the apps will include how old a particular task is or allows you to +sort by creation dates. Do this you have to have them and not all the apps I use have the option +to fully add a creation date. This is a simple Python script I wrote. 7. I inject recurring events. +I found a wonderful to do.txt extension called ice underscore rec u r or ice recur. +I was using version 1.6 by Robin Lee Powell. The source is posted on GitHub include a link +in the notes. The basic idea is that you have a configuration file with one line for each to +do line with additional instructions to indicate when to add it. This would not only support +it complicated calendar recurrence constructs but it would also do a laugh time since the date +was last completed. To do.txt is the working file but when you complete a task in it and +it is archived it is moved to done.txt. This script would look at the completion date for that +text and done.txt. It would not add it until it defined time had elapsed. It also would not +all add task if you had not completed it. Solving the problem of not generating duplicates with +and with my former to do configuration I had to do that manually. Not a good use of my time. +This ran well for years on my low powered custom built DIY server. One day I had a hardware +failure and I took the easy route and bought this Synology. It's DES220J NAS as an experiment. +As a side note, it has been a pretty good experience with hardware for a limited +Synology. Since I bought it, Synology has since introduced some shenanigans requiring +Synology-branded drives that run counter to my DRM-free preferences. When it dies, I will likely +go to the container route on another custom server. One of my migration problems is that ice +recurrent needed Ruby. Ruby wasn't available on my budget. Synology box. So I converted it to Python 3. +This was fun. It was a good excuse to learn some Python. I also kept the original structure largely +intact and included a clumsy test environment. It is called PIE underscore recur and I posted +the source on GitHub. I'll include that in the show notes as well. +Eight. I would grapple report of everything I did yesterday for the Nile Report. +This is dead sample. I'm not using the S. at the moment, but I've considered +opinion it to my daily journal, text files. Nine. I removed duplicates from the to do.txt file. +I still managed to get duplicates occasionally. For example, my daily affirmation pulls around +the line from file of affirmations. It doesn't check for duplicates. Genus page had an extension +for this that worked. Well, 10. I bumped down the priority of task based on time. Now this +is an experiment that I've since discontinued. I use priorities A, B, and C. I use C for follow-up +items and none. Based on the creation date, this utility moved a week old A to a B. It would +move a month old B to a C. It would move a six month old C to nothing. This is an attempt +to emulate how the human brain tends to forget. If you have an A priority task that hasn't been +touched in a week, it probably isn't a high priority task. If you keep adding stuff to the list +the next thing you know you have just second nearly six hundred tasks, nobody wants to look at +that glance. So A priority stuff is stuff I checked during the day. Stuff I'm trying to get done +that day. B priority is just stuff that I checked once a day. This is stuff I'm trying to get done +in the next two weeks. C priorities are stuff that I checked once a week. This is stuff I'm trying +to get done in the next three months. C priorities, as I said, are checked once a week. These are +follow-up items largely. Blank priorities rely on having a project or a contacts tag to bring +them up. Might have a list of things that I wanted to serve for more information for example. +This prompted me to create a tag to accept items from this process. If during review of a lower +priority task and I decided it really needs to be higher, I can reassign the priority and add an +at NV tag. I call this utility fergesson.py, where fergesson is German for and to forget. +NV is nished for Gesson which is to not forget. Now I'm not German, but I live there for short time +and I love their culture. Recently I noticed that I had a lot of NV tags that were pluttering my +file. I decided to remove them and comment it out this utility while I rethink the process. +11. I air check for orphans. In this step I check for tasks that have blank priorities and +no projects. This would be lost from review in the unprioritized pile so this utility bumps +them to an A and tags them with at orphan. This allows me to review and tag them correctly. +Other fun stuff I've done with this. I have template files. For example I've got a packing list and +I can manually concatenate this file to my to-do.txt file and now the packing list is on my phone and I +can check things off as I stuff them into my suitcase. Frozen cons. This environment is robust +its flexible. It's not perfect. One of my prior Android apps had three variants. One for Dropbox +Anking, one for Google Drive Sanking and one that did no Sanking. Apparently app rather Google's +App Store declared that they were too similar in my choice. A Dropbox Anking version is no +longer in the Play Store. Yes I can sideload it but where is the motivation for developer continuing +to develop it? My fear is that something would come along and it would be broken without a +correction on the horizon. Google is tightening up their security on each release and it drives changes +in the apps. There's a lot of varieties of apps supporting multiple platforms and I believe +Google's changes are a threat to this ecosystem. I don't use Google to sync my to-do files but that +is likely used by many. I do use an Android app on my phone while I love the command line I +believe a phone for this use case needs a simple touch interface. A lot is easy for me to customize +a nightly processing of the files on my NAS box maintaining an Android app is another level +that I'm not prepared for today. Years ago I decided to minimize the overlap between my personal +and work lives and for a variety of reasons I stopped using this ecosystem at work and started +using Microsoft's to-do and yes it work where you are in a Windows Office 365 environment which +is an all-bad Windows 11 now. It work is much better than the Linux PC system that I last ran +at home. I'm happy with Linux at home and would not use Windows 11 even if it were open source +at home. I spotted a Python IPPI for Microsoft's to-do recently and I planned to start playing with it. +I'm a bit torn. I'm near retirement and unlikely to use this once I leave the corporate work +place. It's recurring capabilities are much weaker than what I have at home. Given my tendencies +toward procrastination it will probably still be on my work to do list when I retire. So, +what are other folks using in this space? I'd love to hear back in the comments if you've got +something that you prefer perhaps that should be a show. I know there's a lot of paid services +in this space that just goes against my nature to pay for something and be at the mercy +of their decision to continue to offer the service or not. Thank you. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4555.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4555.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..92ddf27 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4555.txt @@ -0,0 +1,380 @@ +Episode: 4555 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 8 - Belgian Christmas Ales +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4555/hpr4555.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:51 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4555, for 2026-01-16 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 8 - Belgian Christmas Ales" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:34:03 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave and Kevie talk about Belgian Christmas beers." +Hello and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio and this is the HPR Beer Garden. +I believe this is episode 8, if my little abacus is working correctly. +My name is Dave and I'm joined this time by Kevy, good evening Kevy, how are you? +Good evening, I am well and whole whole Merry Christmas for their second of our Christmas +episodes. +Two Christmas is a year, lucky you. +Well actually, if you carried our tugs jam episode, that's actually four Christmas +a year. +We are spoiling you. +Excellent, dude. +Right, so on this episode, we're going to be continuing the Christmas theme, whereas we +did United Kingdom Christmas Beers on the last episode. +We are now going to pop across the North Sea and we're going to look at Belgian Christmas +Aels this time. +Now I'll be honest, I didn't even know that Christmas Aels was a style. +I just thought, oh, that's six of them extra spices in it will make it taste Christmas +eat. +But now apparently it is a thing, looking at the Belgian ones this time round and I believe +Kevy you have a little bit of speed to give us regarding Belgian Christmas Aels. +Absolutely, and I must admit, Belgian Christmas Aels have become one of my favourite +styles. +Now, technically speaking, there's a bit of, with the beer purists, there's actually +a bit of argument as to whether it's a style at all, I can't really speak. +So yeah, that was the problem that I found actually because I went to my usual sources. +I went to my beer Bible, I went to Roger Proz stuff and a few different other different +ones, a few camera ones. +And there was mentions of modern beers, you know, especially things like a Bustinuel +and all this. +It talks about them, but it's absolutely nothing but the history of the style. +And I know from kind of past experience that the Belgian Christmas Aels, they're normally +dark, they're heavy, they're multi, they're fruity, they're the very vast majority of them. +I usually like a dark mahogany or chesnut in colour, but I want to find out a bit more of +these that I've become honest with you, one of my favourite styles over the past 18 years. +So I started to enjoy the Christmas Aels on a visit to Tomlinson's Beer Shopping in +Venice, which I got very friendly with the owner and sadly they were tired in 2018. +They were getting older and the children didn't want to carry on the family legacy, which +I broke my heart, it was terrible. +But I wasn't really willing to move to the University to see a beer shop at the same +time, you know. +My dedication wasn't that good. +So until this point to be honest, they were actually the ones who had introduced me to +this a lot of the Belgian styles, because I, you know, I hadn't really had much in the way +a Belgian beer outside of what was available in the supermarket, it's the usual kind of +offering. +But thanks to the small shop, this took my Belgian beer shop totally new level. +The love of them was just through the roof. +So when I started to delve a wee bit deeper, what I hack to be found astonished me +about Christmas Aels. +The first reference made to Christmas beer in Belgium dates back to 20th of December, 1896, +when two cafes in Charlotte Roy, it was the La Chival Arab, which is literally translated +as the Arab's camel and the globe, I'll let you work with that one. +It's an advert in the journal De Chaleiroi. +This rate, now the interest in French, I picked up the re-tighted up the original advert +and actually put it onto a translate. +And it translated as Christmas beer has arrived at La Chival Arab and the globe. +These two establishments so famous for British beers go and taste it, because Christmas +is only sold for a short time. +So I was like, oh. +So this turned out to be Maccurin's Scotch ale sold as a Christmas beer with a Christmas +label on it. +And then subsequent years, this became actually really popular in these two cafes and +it started spreading to surrounding cafes as word got out in demand from the locals +became very high. +And of course the British brewer started to jump on this bandwagon. +William Younger started exporting a Christmas beer double Scotch ale in 1903 and there +was also all sorts of burden on print with Scotch ale Christmas beer and that was +bit later in 1911. +So to my hair had to have an basement, the very beer I thought is as fantastic. +I love this, it's a style which is actually grown from a Scottish wee heavy, which +actually was amazing. +But why, of course, you might ask, why would a country that exports 50% of its beer +want to import Scottish ones? +And this was another thing that actually surprised me, it turns out that at the time Belgian +beers were actually often very weak and made an old fashion methods that the amount +produced was actually quite low and exporting wasn't in an option because it would +have been highly unprofitable. +And at the time Belgium imported a lot with half of their beer imports coming from the UK, +their main styles that they liked were pale ale, stout and Scotch or the wee heavy. +And the Belgians sold Scotch ale with Christmas labels. +That's actually all the Christmas ale was, it was Scotch ale with Christmas labels. +As Belgium bar started to notice that this demand for the imported beers, they started +to panic up it. +But what they did was they actually started to imitate the British products and with +the first Christmas ale was released when I'm going to butcher this name, so I do +apologize if you can speak French, so possibly Dutch, I'm not sure what business. +Bodry Hay, Brewery in Liège, introduced its canterbody Christmas. +Now, that was the first one that was produced as a Christmas ale. +It is worth noting that Alfred Jaden Brewery in Damp Remi, near Charlie Roy, tried to sell a +beer called Beer Dennewell, but it was just simply their own trapele which was re-badged +and the locals didn't want it because it wasn't the Scotch ale style and that was in 1903, +but that was afloat. +Not the beer itself but just the Christmas edition. +A well known Belgian beer that still exists today and probably the best known is Gordon +Xmas which actually registered its trademark right the way back in 1934 and it was actually +by the imported John Martin and it actually still exists today and until relatively recently +it was made in Scotland and then exported out it was made in Scotland, exported only. +In recent times, production has been moved to Belgium, however, despite best efforts, +I spent about three hours on this yesterday trying to work this out. +They have kept it secret as to where it is and when the production was actually made, +it seems to be brewed under license by Palm Brewery. +Although that was only one source and I wasn't 100% so I'm not treatin' as gospel. +But Palm Brewery it turns out isn't a brewery, it's a bit like saying, +in Heinrich and Rekarsburg and the UK and it's a huge conglomerate which is worldwide essentially. +Or certainly, if it's not, maybe no, it's not one of worldwide but it's nationwide, +it's nationwide in Belgium. So as far as where it's brewed, I'm not really sure. +Now it's often referred to as the original Christmas beer, +the first Christmas beer which as we know from that and like I said, I've got the original +a scan of the original newspaper clipping. So I'll actually put that in the show notes because +I think it is worth including that. Like I said, that was 18, what did I say? +96, yeah, 18, 96. This was 38 years later that Gordon Xmas was actually registered. +So there's no way it can be the original one. However, it certainly is one of the Christmas +beers that is the oldest that it's been constantly produced. Now Belgium's gain is almost +so he puts like aerolossus, Belgium's gain because every brewery in Belgium pretty much has +Christmas beer. That is based around the wee heavy kind of the island he is. +The wee heavy is all but disappeared and it's so native country. There are a couple of places +you can get it. But generally if you walk into a shop in Scotland, +listen very specialized, you will not get a wee heavy off the shelf. But in saying that, +what's actually died off largely in Scotland has actually become a thriving business in Belgium. +And it's, I'd only be through Belgium that we can still get a wee taste of this through the +Christmas eel. Brilliant. So there you go. So there was my research. Actually this is a +best home work. I've never enjoyed home work so much. I found you all your homework was beer based. +Exactly. I would have had that first class honors. I'd probably gone from my doctorate. +Excellent. The beer I've got is from the brewery VERSET. I don't know how you pronounce it in Belgium. +Obviously. It's an imperial coffee porter that comes in at 10%. +Now, when it came to obtaining a Belgian Christmas eel, forget the supermarkets. +Because when I went around looking for Christmas eels, they just hadn't heard of them. +I would imagine they probably are out now but they weren't at the time. +So I went to beer's of Europe. Why not? So many beers. So many choices. +Except Belgian Christmas eels. The only two Belgian Christmas eels they had available were a four pack +plus a free glass of bush noel, which is a 12% Christmas eel and a dashed fine Christmas eel. +One of the best. Yeah. But not of that price. No. No. No. Wait, you said free glass. I'd +dubious of that free glass. I think the glass is probably what crank the price up to over eight +pounds of bottle. Well, it's yeah. One of you going to buy it normally is about five. So yeah, +you're spending so three, twelve pound in the glass. Yeah, it's actually not that. +Given how much my beers of Europe order had actually come to, I thought. +Oh, leave this for another day. And the other one they had is the one that I have here. +So I'm going to read you the translated description that it has on the bottle for this. +Halle Luja, hello. The savior of creation has arrived. A beer even darker than your darker +sides. An imperial porter that washes away your sins and purifies your little soul. +Coffee, bread crust and chocolate bring you into temptation. Caramel dried fruit and alcohol +keep you sweet until the day of judgment. The three wise men brought for this miracle, the things +that truly matter. Coffee beans from Mo. Carefully roasted and selected to let the best +aromas flourish in this beer. Give this beer to your loved ones and thus earn your place in the +hair after. I mean, that sounds good, right? Now, I really, I actually made a mistake and I actually +had a bottle of this deal today. Yeah, I didn't mean to spoil myself in that way. The beer itself +is and you cannot get a more Christmasy beer than name than this. It is called baby Jesus. +And it comes in a 330 bottle, which is as a brown bottle, very dark. The label has a bit of +irreverent is probably the right word here. Yeah, I can make it out beer. It's like a pencil +and drawing of a baby. Yeah, of a, of a, of a baby with a dummy with a cross on it wearing a pair +of 1980s slotted sunglasses. Oh, yes, okay. And what looks like a black current tart upside down +on his hair on his head. It is. The imagery is is unusual. Let's put it that way. +Yeah, like I say, Imperial coffee porter 10% I'm going to give this give this a pop and I will share +the, uh, the aromas with your work. Hello, call. That is, um, +misting quite significantly. So it's definitely there's a lot of coffee in there. No question at all. +But it does smell quite, quite strong. I think in my original review, I might have said boozy +and I think that's probably a fair description. So let's give that a pour and then we'll get +it up. Let me get a proper. That was a really odd pour. But as you can see, it's poured very cleanly. +It's got a slightly darkened head on it, which is going to probably last about another 10, 15 seconds. +So. Mm, the stigma knows in this. Mm, so that, that has got a really, really strong coffee, +uh, a coffee aroma, but it's just quite sweet coffee. Almost like a tiramisu. That kind of, +of aroma. The beer itself is absolutely opaque. No light is getting through that whatsoever. +Uh, maybe this is what they meant in the description by the dark side. So let me give this a taste. +Wow. So it said coffee, bread crust and chocolate. Yeah, I'm getting all of that. +Caramel dried fruit and alcohol. Not getting the caramel. They've dried fruit, certainly. I think +that's where the, the Christmas Eve flavor is coming from. But it's definitely a coffee +stout. There's no question in there at all. The bread crust is coming from, +it's almost a burnt toast flavor to it. But it's not, it's not unpleasant, like burnt toast +would be. And yeah, the chocolate, I don't know if I mentioned this comparison before. Do you +remember back in the 19, whatever it was? You used to get these little pencil erasers that was shaped +like Swiss rolls. Oh, yes. And they were fragrance. And yeah, that kind of, uh, right. +Okay, smell. So I think they were supposed to be vanilla-y. So there's a little bit of +that in there as well. But I haven't thought about them. No, yeah, like I said, that's a long time ago. +Yeah, a very long time ago. You're always just to get on a Christmas always. This is really nice. +There's, it's got the coffee is absolutely there. You get the bread flavors. You get the, +the chocolate caramel, not so much. I mean, it was often you kind of get a hint of +something that might be vaguely caramely to the dried fruit, the spice, the Christmas each feel +of the ale is most definitely there. There is bitterness, as you would expect from an imperial +porter. But given that this is 10%, I'm not getting the sweetness that you would expect from an +imperial porter at all. I would go as far as to say this is probably slightly thinner. +Then I would have expected. It's not watery, but it is thinner. But by goodness, is it +crammed full of a flavour and feel and, and after taste? I mean, there's almost a little bit of +spice left behind. Even, you know, a minute after you take it, you can still taste the, um, +the spices in there as well. But yeah, this is really nice. I mean, apart from the somewhat +questionable and, like I say, marginally irreverent imagery on the bottle itself, +this is a really nice beer. It really is. Good, good, good, good, good. Now then, now you've gone +for, um, yeah, what you've went for. You, you, you, you, you guys can see in the picture. Mine is +actually on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Very classically styled Christmas. +It's got a lie on there with a gold rounded. It's got, uh, it's not what they're focused, um, +it focused a second. Oh, there we go. Yeah, there it is. Do not move. And it's kind of special and +well. Okay. And then an English artisan Belgian ale. And that is with the only English on this +entire bottle. Everything else is saying, no, oddly enough, I don't know if you can see it, +8.5% can you see that in the bottle. Okay. Right. On the website, they're all this that's nine. +So now as far as I know, this one, they'll look doesn't see it. This was ordered as a labonchoice, +labonchoa, labonchoa, labonchoa, labonchoa, labonchoa, labonchoa. That's not that special, +no, well, I got this one from the real-style store. So I got out of each selection, but I actually +ordered a box of Christmas beers that haven't come yet. This was the only one I picked up. +I purely picked up this one because I haven't never tried this one before. So this could be +great. It could be terrible. I don't know. So I'm taking a real gamble here. So let's go for the +pop-off. Oh, do you want to find out? Very lively and I'm so good. Oh, no. I can hear how fizzy that is. +That was dashed for Z. Right. There we go. He can see the head on that. Yes. It's like, no, this one's +like, oh, my word. It is so fizzy. This one is kind of like a dark amber ear. It's almost dirty. +Yes. A lot of silence. It's the camera. I don't know. That's what, no, no, you're actually right. +Now it's looking the same as I'm looking at if I look at the screen. Right. There's shit. Yeah. +Okay. Let's go in the nose and oh, you see, very, you see, +which are mild spice in there, but I'm not. I'm trying to identify it. It's just faint. +Now from the bottle, I'm getting what I'm all tea, bready, +liver or scent, shall see. My jeans are probably going to give me another scent in the morning. +I'm so glad I moved back from the keyboard there. Right. So this is you learning your lesson from +absolutely, absolutely. So I'm going to try this if I can get past this very frothy head. +That's almost like a laggy kind of head. I'm just saying, I'm not near me. No. +Ooh, that's really different to how it smells. Really different. That's, it's +it's got molds, but it's not multi, it's a biscuity. There's fruits coming out in the back end. +It's, you know the way you get dried fruits and normally it's, you get things like raisins and +dark dried fruits. Yeah. You know the dried fruits you get that are more like citrusy dried fruits. +You know, they're much lighter in color. Yes. That's what it tastes like. It's not that it's +dried fruit, but it's not dark dried fruit. It's a much lighter one. Again, there's, there's that +spice in there that I can't identify. It's not strong. That's why I'm not identifying it. It's just +there in the back end. Yeah. I really am struggling to identify it. Actually, I must admit, see if you, +if I hadn't seen no well on that, I would never have put that as our belt and Christmas be at +at all. It's so unlike anything I've had before. In that respect. Are you querying the +Belgian nature of it or the Christmasy nature of it? No, I think it's just that probably +then modern take on it. Right. You know, it's, it's that like I said, it's not what I would, +I mean, if I, my favorite, it is probably Saint Bernardes, Christmas sale, +Nishuf Gordon Xmas, which that glass is a Gordon Xmas glass, or a bush in the well, any of those +del much multiplayer, very, very, very strong multi character to them. This doesn't have that. +That is multi there in the beginning, but not all the way through. Interesting. So that's actually, +it, it is, it is nice. I'm not dissing it. It's just not what I was expecting. I can't get over the +composition of it. It, it looks actually quite unappealing. It does. It looks, it looks like +you say it looks dirty here. I've drank and you're actually that's something that's +worried. That's incredibly easy to drink. But I did 0.5%. Right. I am going to let you score +you, as I think. Right. So how would I score this? This is interesting. I'm still quite taken by +the flavors in this, and I would go as far as to say that this is quite a unique ale for me. +I don't think I've had anything quite, quite like it. It is incredibly strong. It tastes +quite boozy. And yet, kind of like Kevin said, I'm about halfway through it already, even at +10%. I think that's because it doesn't feel heavy. It doesn't taste heavy. It tastes boozy, but this +knot is not a way down beer. I think in the grand scheme of things, I would probably score this +quite high one second. So I mean, it is a very bitter ale, which I normally I wouldn't have +scored quite highly, but the flavours that are in there, and it kind of delivers what it says +it's going to deliver. I would score this. I'm going to go for 8.5. 8.5 out of 10. I think the +bitterness of it is something that I'm not not a great fan of, so that's probably lost it at +point. But I'm not convinced that it's a 9. So I think 8.5, 8.5 would be a good +score out of 10 for this one, definitely. Okay, so that was something that you actually +quite enjoyed then. That's good. I'm glad to hear it. And actually, who don't know on this +time last year, if I had a said you'd have enjoyed a Christmas port, or you probably wouldn't have +believed me. No, probably not. Particularly with my misinterpretation of what as port are actually +is. I think I've said for quite a few years to you, when we've had a conversation about this, +the port or is definitely not my favourite style. But now that I've understood it better, +particularly when we went through imperial styles, I have a more of an appreciation of it, +which is weird, because nothing's changed. Actually, I suppose that's a bit of a problem sometimes. +We've got to get beyond. Well, see, this is weird. A lot of people that can't believe +sometimes I'll actually enjoy a larger, because I will go on over the big companies. But I'm like, +well, wait a minute, that I'll actually go to a larger there. I don't want to go down the route of +a hit lag, so every lag is evil. I certainly wouldn't drink a lag in the middle of this +end, but it's got a land, of course. No, no, probably not. But I'm especially in the same way that +I never used to like whiskey. I never used to like red wine. I never used to like porters. And yet, +those are amongst my favourite styles of their category. So taste do change. Yeah, taste change, +but also just because you don't like one, doesn't mean you're not gonna like them all. Good +okay, but you could probably take that a step further in how many people who have had +a Guinness or a particular kind of coffee or a whiskey, have actually, can actually put the +hands on the hands, say they enjoy the taste of it. Because I think in some cases, there are some +whiskeys I've tried, where I don't enjoy the taste, but by goodness, do I enjoy the experience? +And that's the reason why I will go back to them. But yeah, I used to +vehemently dislike whiskey until I was educated and given, you know, guidance on what +we're good whiskey is, what you're looking at for, the taste profiles, blah, blah, blah, a beer is +no different. No, absolutely no different. I mean, I think that's half this probably half the +problem. People have tried a mass produced lag and because it's what's available. And the thing +with a mass produced lag or shard, a lot of them aren't offensive, they're just bland and boring, +a lot of them. Yeah, so people think, oh, it's just this yellow fizzy stuff that's got no taste. +And you're like, no beer, it doesn't make a lot of taste. I mean, I've got people who are swear +blind to be, oh, that beer is all bitter. And this is how powerful that mind is and you're +mind can be as well, of course. Anybody's mind is I've given somebody a dessert stout, which is +a bit of a sweet as you can get. I could have understood them saying, sickly, I could have understood +them saying, too sweet. What I got was, oh, that's bitter and sour. And I was like bitter and +bitter and no, this is not bitter and sour. But it was just that was what they're mind, but into it. +Well, as I'm struggling to rate this to be honest, because it's definitely lacking in flavors +for Christmas sale. They're there, but they're very, very subtle. It doesn't mean it's horrible. +But as you see, I've drank that. And it's incredibly drinkable. You know what I'm saying? +See, if you'd have had me a bottle, like this bottle in a, what do you call those sleeves, +you know, the kind of coolest sleeves or whatever you call them, you know, the jackets? Yeah, +but on a hot day, I think I would have knocked that back. I'm not thought anything of it. It's +immensely drinkable and chuggable for an 8.5% beer, which is dangerous. You wouldn't have known +by drinking it. No, I mean, certainly the strength is not there. There is no everything in +it's subtle. See, had you told me this is like a Belgian ale, which is a Belgian Christmas ale, +which is normally kind of between 8 and 12 roughly. See, if you had told me, oh, that's a +4% version, I would have believed you, because the flavors are subtle. Yeah. And it also, +it's body is light. So it's really, it's, how can I describe this? I would class this more. +More closer to our English bitter. That's what it actually is more like. Okay, you know, there's, +it does have the bitterness. There is, there's a biscuitiness to it. There's a light fruitiness to it. +And it's not a dark fruit, whatever, I'd expect from a Belgian ale. It's, it's light fruit, +dried fruit, actually. Because again, it's subtle. It's more subtle. It's not in your face. It's subtle. +And I have to put that through on my, and my recording as well, because I have to give the caveat +that I almost feel like it's a false advertising on the bottle. You know, for this one. But as far +as a pure beer goes, it's very drinkable. The flavors are a bit on the boring side, +as I'm going down, because they're just, they're not staying. There's no, there's no aftertaste for +me. It's, there's the subtleness to it. And I'm kind of wanting to constantly go back and go, +there must be more flavor to this. And there's not. It's a shame. It, yeah, it's not horrible, +but this really for me, it's maybe better than average slightly. So I'm going to go down +five and a half. I'm going to go five and a half for the tin. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's not terrible. +Interesting. It just doesn't have flavor. And it, it's just especially surprising. Given this +one, this is a Belgian ale, and two, this is a Christmas ale, kind of, which should be exploding on my +taste buds. It's not. But even if I was just reviewing this as a normal bitter, I would say that, +okay, it's better than the likes of John Smiths, but I've had better bitter. I've had more flavor +for bitter than that. Hmm, yeah. I did notice on the side of the bottle it does say it's an Amber, +an Amber ale, or an Amber beer. Were they hecked, did you see all of this in the bottom left, yes? +Yeah, beer, beer, and breeze. And then underneath it, Amber beer. Yeah, which, which I would probably +associate with something like a dumbar or that kind of ale. And see, it's a step up from dumbar. +I mean, dumbar's fine. No, dumbar's one of those, it's fine. And it's available generally +most places and it's better than the mass produced lager. But it's nowhere near a good deal. +You know, that kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, probably wouldn't see it's too far off of a dumbar. Yeah. +But like broadside, broadside is another Amber ale. That will always get a five on +on tap whenever I drink it. It's a no brainer for me. But it just goes to go to show that +nor hope is at the same. No, definitely not. Definitely not. I was tempted to go from a regular +spathode. No, I want to try something different. And I'm glad I did. But from my past experience, +this is not what I would expect from my Belgian Christmas seal. That doesn't mean it isn't one. +It's just not what I would expect from one. Right. Yeah. Right. I suppose if it's something you've +never had before, and you're taking it at literally at face value, you're told that this is a +Christmas ale. But when you try it, you're like, this isn't a Christmas ale. Yeah. That's not your fault. +That's it. Absolutely. So I'm not saying that everybody, actually this would probably be +something special to give somebody who's a lager drinker at Christmas, because if they've never +ventured at a lager, this is probably quite a good addition. Let's see. But for them to get to the next +level. Well, you say that, but one of the principal characteristics of a lager is that it is crisp. +And by the sounds of it, that wasn't. No, I wouldn't see it was crisp. No. No. No. +Oh, but yes. Any living mind? That is us. So yes, so that this, yeah, I was on the naughty list this +year and Santa may be left me a bit of a lump of cool here. Oh, bless you. Right. So we have had some +feedback on a couple of our previous shows. The one we did episode four, which is where you and I +Kevin spoke about a vice beer before Paul came and joined us and actually told us the truth. +We've had a comment from T.A. Spinner, who said, great episode. I look forward to more. I thought +this was a good coverage of my current favorite style. I too, and constrained by what I can find in +America, but sampled and love both Erdinger and Franken Scarner whilst living in Germany. +They may be misproduced, but they are good. I look forward to reviews of new bruise to explore. +Yes, thank you very much. That was T.A. Spinner. No, the last one that was done and released +a time recording was the one yourself and Paul went on the time. It was because I had the cold +and it was Claudio M. And this is somebody we both know from, even going back to identical days, +I think. So it's both our tasty. Thanks again for this episode and this beer garden series, +fellas. Both of these have had hidden the USA and they are pretty good. My eldest sons like +chauffeur hofer and I'm quite fond of the Erdinger donkel. I only get the donkel every once in +a while as it's not something I'd be consistent drinking consistently. Just something to enjoy +every now and again when I'm feeling a little dark, winky face. I guess it about the donkels. +Yes, yeah. Foggy commented back on the vice beer one and he said Erdinger is good, which is +when I had, but when you get the chance you should test chauffeur hofer. And I can actually say +I tested chauffeur hofer myself and I did actually enjoy it. chauffeur hofer heffer vice. +So I did actually try that and yeah, I can recommend it. It was good. It was, I'd say it was an in-between. +It was to me, it was more tasty and erdinger, not quite as tasty as France's scanner. +All right, in-between. I would say it was more like a support I think of now after trying a few +of such traditional hair for vice and it had the banana, it had the weakness to begin with. +It lacked a clove that I'm peppering in there so that I've quite enjoyed with some of the +hair for vice and I've tried since then. So yeah, certainly very drinkable and the good news is +I can get the chauffeur hofer hair for vice and available locally at one of the local petrostations +of all things. Okay. That's decent. Of course, when you're talking about the chauffeur hofer, +you're not talking about the great breaches one that we had. No, no. I do have that chance +sitting at the garage. I am not touching the side of next summer. I thought you're going to +say the side of next Christmas, but I would imagine that we will be sitting here recording +I don't know if it's so 52 of the big garden and I'll ask you, I know. Oh yeah, it's +still in the garage. It's still the guy who's got a cobweb as a fan of his spiders thrown +at me, but it's still there. I thought that I would have got up and walked off by itself. +Probably possibly. There's a good chance of that actually. Yes, so yes, so please do actually +leave comments. If you, if you actually have one that beer that you'd like to review, +then please do, you don't have to actually leave it in a comment. You can actually go and review this +as one of the beer garden things. We don't have exclusivity on this. This is a community podcast, +so please do contribute. So tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4556.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4556.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f2e238a --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4556.txt @@ -0,0 +1,211 @@ +Episode: 4556 +Title: Nitro man! RC Cars +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4556/hpr4556.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:51 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4556, for 2026-01-19 +Today's show is entitled, "Nitro man! RC Cars" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:16:12 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "I talk about run with Nitro RC Cars" +Hello everyone, I'm looking to the episode of PackUpUpGradio with your host Operator. +Today it's a special Christmas episode, it's such a kind of part for the RC cars. +So we're going to have to talk to them about the Metro cars. +The Metro cars are RC cars that run off of this like 20% oil gas thing. +So the oil is in the gas, it has a little motor and you can pay you know $800 for a motor +or you can pay, you know, the 50 bucks for a motor. +I got this Traxxas Rustler Nitro Older Style model for a second hand for free and the +nice perceived spin hundreds and probably all together probably $200 to $300 so it's not like +any hobby. +It starts to get expensive if you don't know what you're doing. +So I spent probably $200 because I didn't know what I was doing and I wasn't taking +my time. +So it can be a cheap hobby if you are affected that DIY and repairing your own stuff. +But I replaced the RC radio module twice. +First time I drove it in the rain the second time I shorted it out by plugging in it +incorrectly. +So I'm out $100 just because of not reading the directions and taking my time and crushing +through things. +I have replaced the little servo thing. +So there's servos which turn the gears and turn the wheels and those little servos you +probably see them if you've done like a Arduino kit, you've got a servo in there. +These are like kind of medium performance servos that come with this stock. +You can get all metal servos at then whatever I'll talk about that later. +But the servo thing has up a little like a servo protector or whatever. +So the drive pin that the servo is attached to that turns the wheels. +It is on like a little almost like a plastic circle with a bunch of fins attached to it +and those fins grip onto a surface. +And so when it rotates around the fins can sort of crack or break or tear and it won't +destroy your servos. +So if you have a $50 servo or a very expensive servo you can put the servo protector +on there and that will protect it. +It comes stock with it already. +That'll protect you from getting wrecked when you hit an obstacle or should like that. +So that's kind of one thing that I had to replace. +I put scholastics on the radio transmitter. +Once I plugged everything in and I knew I wasn't going to move any of the wires around +I just glued it all in here with electric tape or liquid electric tape. +You can buy various forms of cleaners. +Deoxet D5 is very expensive. +You can go to your local store and buy a carb cleaner. +But you want to be careful on electronics or plastic parts. +But chances are by the time you gum up a plastic part on this thing you're going to get rid +of it anyways. +So like the whole thing about not strain plastics on with a carb cleaner or something +it's I wouldn't really worry about on this. +I have a printed 3D parts for it. +The shock absorbers tend to pop off all the time so you have to check those all the time. +They pop off all the time. +You can 3D print those. +You can 3D print the brakes. +You can order like carbon fiber brakes pads. +I had problems with brake pads because I don't know what I was doing. +What other things I've done to this guy? +I put just regular silken oil I had laying around the house to fill this thing to fill +the shocks or the shocks are filled with like a silicone silken silken and it's they're +both about the same jumping this. +They both handle the same amount but I know the fluid in there is not the correct 0.02 +whatever. +The fluid you put in there. +You have various exhaust things you can get in mind to stock plastic. +The thing with this one at least you can't go backwards and you cannot turn it off. +There's no like off button. +So your backwards is your brakes. +So most of your RC cars right you press the back button and that will be your brakes. +Well, you don't want to give someone that's used to using an ISO car and regular RC car +because they will destroy it because their first instinct is to like put the brakes on and +that bolts in the car and full speed backwards and run into something and the axle will +clip right off on somebody else's vehicle. +So be wary of if you're going to be racing somebody else's car and you're used to +an ISO cars you will destroy the other person's car oops sorry but they're in law. +So anyways, they have a little glow stick in them and that little glow stick is heated +by a battery pack that you put in the back. +They have hand crank once. +Nobody really does that anymore but you can buy kits just convert them back over to hand crank. +I had to mess with this one a lot so it doesn't run very well. +It doesn't start very well. +So I have to like start it way too long which you're kind of wear out your fuse, the glow +fuse thing in there or something. +So it takes a while for me to get it to start but when it runs pretty good and I had +problems with the idling well first I had problems with it it would really it was so it was +so fast like these things go and it's 90 miles an hour something crazy. +It would really and then when I had to replace the brakes like nine times it wouldn't +really really any more and then after a while it would it wouldn't idle it wouldn't +stay running because I'll fix my later so it wouldn't stay running it would there's three +different types of trim on the motor and that's really annoying it's it's it's an +arc form you got to be able to kind of understand the car and understand what each knob +does and play with it I've probably put an hour or two hours into just tuning it and I'll +get it perfect and then you know the weather changes or it's cold outside or you know +it's been sitting out and it's called gunked up and then God forbid you go in there +and start messing with the dials. +If you have it running and it's clean and it's nice and it's happy don't mess with it. +You're going to want to mess with it because it's not going to start. +If it doesn't start it's something else there's something else going on you don't have +fuel in it you the glow plug doesn't work there's it's not getting electricity there's +a little light at the top but it's fun it can be a money pit my brother-in-law went way +hardcore into it it's been a bunch of money and now he has a ridiculous car that you can't +even race anywhere because it's it's so fast you can't even do it in a parking lot it's +you go so fast this little guy you know I've racing around of I've like I said +I've jumped into two three hundred dollars on it what's all said and done but now it's +at the point where I know it enough to where I can fix most of the parts I haven't done any +of the transmission or the motor but I did replace the what happened was is it gave me a +fault since that idle and I took the whole thing apart and there's a thing called a +drive bill or a click clear drive clutch bill or whatever and the clutch has a spring around it +and when it when it spins at a certain speed the spring gives away and then that lets the car +move forward so if the car the car wasn't idling I had to like it would it would take off +and the only way to keep it running was just put my foot in front of it and while it's trying +to take off well the whole problem the whole time was one my slip slip clutch was really +which actually allowed me to run the car and not have the clutch even working so if you're +clutch spring dies you can actually just loosen your slip clutch like so loose that it just spins +around and it'll basically melt your clutch wheel your your fly wheel or whatever they call it +the gear wheel plus the gear wheel um and and that's how you can run it without a spring because +I ran it for probably I don't know 10 times without a spring and eventually it got so bad +that I would have to it would just take off on idle and I couldn't keep it running without like +it wanting to just run my foot over it was probably pushing two or three pounds of +of torque just trying to keep it running and then the the motor would crap out because it's trying +to push the the the motor and it would can't go anywhere because either I've tightened the +the fly wheel so tight it doesn't want to spin around so anyways I eventually realized that +the AI told me that it can give you a false sense of a bad idle if you don't have a proper +whatever I also ran it into a pull I full speed right in the middle and that shattered all kinds +of stuff I had to replace a bunch of stuff in the front I only remember what what I had to replace +but it broke a lot of stuff so you got to be really careful with the same thing with any kind of like +RC or helicopter that an RC helicopter for a very short time that's hard to do you got to +practice online with a simulator first but I'll say all and all you know you buy one of these for +like 600 bucks it's all plastic and then you're like oh well this plastic thing broke I'm +going to replace it with metal and then the problem with that is that okay you replaced the +the shock the what do you call the things that hold the wheel on the axles you replace the axles +or whatever with metal and then the thing behind that breaks and then your drive train breaks +and then the thing and then you now that all the your drive train all your tires and stuff +and your axles and all that stuff is all you know kind of glad then your gears are going to start +to open out because your tires and gears on the tires and all your supports for the tires are +stronger than the motor so then the motor starts giving out and yet the replace that all with metal +and then next thing you know you built what they call a bacher so which if you really want to get into +and you really think that you can fix it yourself and you've done RC before or you fixed small +electronics or even motors you're good at just by a thracer or bacher whatever because they are +much easier to take care of because they are stronger and they're all metal um this is plastic +there's some metal in it obviously but it's mostly plastic and it's you know 600 bucks for +the thing or so but the other ones are like you know 700 a hundred I don't even know three four +actually I think it's like three or four for this one and then your your bachers or whatever are like +you can go from five and up or four five six but if you want to not worry about having to fix it +as much and not having to worry about crashing in or whatever you want to get a bacher +or a thracer or whatever they call my brother-in-law ended up with one and it's kind of fun to play around +because it was all metal and you didn't have to worry about running into a tree as much +and you could actually do ramps and stuff with it which if I got one of those I wouldn't actually +do the ramps my wheel is really loose um so I've got it all put back together I thought I +lost this group and I would ape but it ended up being there is no there was no screw for it +but that's pretty much it you know it's it's fun to take out I keep it in the car mainly +so that I can use it but you kind of you kind of got to do of you know five point inspection +when you're you know you clean it up you clean it up and whatever and it's the whole thing takes +you know it's been hours and hours it's like any kind of RC hobby except for you had the +component of a motor and trying to get that fucker to work so if you want to skip the nitro +it is actually quite enjoyable and it gets people excited and riled up because you hear an actual +motor and like what and God's name is that it sounds like an alarm going off in the neighborhood +when it's going down street like I said they can go up to like the dining mouths and +hours I'm crazy and you can't really race these in the neighborhood so much +cold sack sort of kind of but they're so fast it's hard you'll hit a curb too quickly and if there's +any cars in the street you'll hit the car and the problem with the cars is that they will kind of +grab onto your tires and rip them apart and rip them rip the axles off so I've +wrecked two cars with just running into car tires um curbs will actually kind of bounce that +the thing bounce off of curbs but when it gets stuck under a tire it kind of grabs it and we'll just +rip it'll the car will rip itself apart anyways that's kind of where I'm at I put +rechargeable batteries in it I have two battery packs back up battery pack just in case it's dead I +keep plenty of gas the gas is stupid expensive you can buy it big size of it but they don't +really even let you order it like I guess because it's the giant thing of gas so the little containers +and they're still stupid expensive but it's fun to play around with like kids play around with +and they're pretty sturdy but you have to you know tell them hey no matter what happens just remember +to push this forward if something happens if it floats over or for anything happens if you don't +know what's going on or if you some of you get a wreck the only the best thing you could do is because +it'll spin and if the tires spin too fast they will literally rip themselves apart because they're just +kind of glued on there and there's a foam under them and when the tires start spinning when it's upside +down the thing will completely rip itself apart it's a little crazy so I've seen it have to +it and I've had to glue some of them back so I've replaced tires I think on once and of course I +bought the wrong tires and the wrong uh wrong sized tires and tried to make it up you know like a +third bike thing and I said no I'm not doing that you of course can replace the gears and +make the different strings so you can have it faster lower gear ratio or higher gear ratio if you +want what it revised or so if you want more torque then you can do that I did I just opted for more +torque because I don't want it to go as fast it's already stupid fast but the clutch slip thing I +did not have tight enough so it might actually do release now so hopefully it's all happy and I've got +the clutch spring on there and I've got the attention for the forever set correctly so it's it's +not difficult it just takes time a lot of time to learn so if you don't have a lot of time and you're +not really good at DIY but it'd be prepared to fix it a lot and it's in deal with that frustration +it just take it slow um if you want to you know go fast and hard I mean I've got like zip ties on the +thing because when I run into it my my exhaust falls off so I've zip tied the exhaust essentially +too the vehicle so that way when it gets a forward impact it doesn't fall off because it is so out +the exhaust is incredibly loud if it ditched detached to the point where you don't even want to be +next to it when it's running normally but if the exhaust comes off like it blows your ears out +especially indoors you don't want to do it indoors obviously for the reason of you know gas +fumes and whatnot but it's fun and hopefully this will work and maybe we'll go to the park +here in a second if I can make sure it works and and ride around you to big open space to +drive this thing you can't really drive it in a normal streets but anyways take it easy my +Christmas and happy new year and happy holidays and all that stuff take it easy +you +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4557.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4557.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc66efb --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4557.txt @@ -0,0 +1,151 @@ +Episode: 4557 +Title: Why I prefer tar to zip +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4557/hpr4557.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:53 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4557, for 2026-01-20 +Today's show is entitled, "Why I prefer tar to zip" +The host is Klaatu and the duration is 00:32:52 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "The ways tar is better than zip as a command and archive format" +Hey, everybody, this is Clat 2. I'm gonna talk about archiving specifically with tar and even more specifically why I prefer tar over zip. +I think it's fair to say at this point that especially in the world of open source, we are spoiled for choice when it comes to archiving files. +On my Slackware system alone, I've got tar, zip, gzip, bzip to x, z, a, r, zoo, packs, and 7 zip, p7 zip, whatever it's called, and probably more that I've forgotten about. +Just as obvious as that statement has been that we're spoiled for choice, I think it's also pretty obvious that out there in the real world, zip has gained ubiquity. +Everyone's got zip, it's the one that you can count on to archive and extract data on nearly any system. +I'm talking Linux, Unix, Freedos, Android, Windows, Mac OS, it's everywhere. +For a very long time now, I have defaulted it to tar over zip and there are several reasons for that. +One is just sort of habit. I mean, tar is, when you're learning Linux, tar is one of those commands that you learn pretty early on. I don't exactly know why, but at least when I was learning Linux 20 years ago now, if you can believe that, it was, it was one of those introductory lessons that you just for some reason got taught real of frequently and early. +So I've been using tar for a long time, and I do believe it's the superior choice out of all of these other choices, and I'm going to tell you why that is in this episode, but first let's just kind of set the, set the foundation. +So first of all, each archiving format has an associated command. So there's the tar command for a tar archive, there's zip for a zip, there's G zip for a dot G z file and gunsip to un to un to extract the data from that there's x z for and dot x z file and so on that's just a note because it's kind of, it's important to remember that the command and the format. +are two different things. It's a little bit of an esoteric differentiation, but it does matter a little bit, and you might see why later as we talk about what commands do and what actual file formats are able to do. +So anyway, in terms of compression, they all tend to be honestly in my tests, and I did some pretty rigorous tests on my old podcast, the getting world order. +I did actually do some pretty rigorous testing of compression algorithms, and in terms of compression, I found they basically broadly speaking, they're basically all the same. +Now, you might save a few kilobytes or megabytes even with one compression algorithm given a specific combination of file types, but it's fair to say that very broadly, the the end result is basically the same. +You're going to get a file object that contains lots of files and the size is going to be smaller than what you put into it, usually again, there are a lot of variables here. +So if you're if you're compressing and already compressed file, then you're not going to see a lot of compression because there's just not that much there that's to be compressed. +Whereas if you do if you compress something that has not been compressed, then you tend to see larger larger differences in file size, but between two algorithms, like the G-Zip and A-Zip, you're going to look at the if you do an L-S-L and you look at the factual file size of the end of the zipped object. +You're going to be within you know kilobytes or within megabytes depending on what file sort of category we're in here, but you're not going to it's going to be very rare, I think, for you to try a tar G-Z and discover that you've you've gotten something down to let's say 10 megabytes and then you use zip and it's like 50 megabytes like that kind of order of magnitude delta is not something that I tend to see. +So colloquially, casually, we could simply say it doesn't really matter what compression algorithm you use, they're they're all basically that they're all modern algorithms, they've been updated, they're they're doing the best that they can and they're basically all the same, but now let's talk about how they're not the same because in fact, the commands are quite different, so the end result might be basically the same casually speaking the same. +But the commands that you use to get to the end result are drastically different, but wait, I hear you say I've used both tar and zip and they're basically the same as well and you know what you're right at first glance tar and zip are pretty darn similar in capability, so by default the tar command generates an archive that's not compressed it's just a single file object that contains smaller file objects within it. +The result, the the tar file archive dot tar or whatever is going to be the same as the sum of its parts and you can try this out with both tar and zip it's an interesting experiment not because it's just super obvious and true, but but there is an edge case here that that I might as well mention so let's do a dd BS equals one, so this is bite size of one count equals let's do one at 1024 +in file i f equals slash dev slash u random out file o f equals file dot txt okay, so we've just created a one kiloby file and if you do an l l you see file dot txt exists and it's reading is one dot zero k that's it's perfect or I guess that was an l l h was er yeah l s dash l h that's what we've done and now let's create +a larger file to the tune of one megabyte, so we'll do a dd BS equals one count equals one m in file equals dev u random out file equals let's do dot slash file one dot txt and we'll do an l s dash l h and there's file one dot txt is one megabyte and one file I guess I could should have called it file zero dot txt is one dot zero k let's tar that up tar +dash dash create dash dash file archive dot tar let's call it and we'll include file dot txt and file one dot txt in our in our object in our archive okay and +let's do the same thing really quick well no let's let's stick with tar for now so l s dash l h one dot one megabyte is what archive dot tar is so I mean +really almost sort of exactly what you would have expected one megabyte one kilobite put them together add some some some kilobites of header in you know file header information and that's +sort of thing and you get an archive dot tar that is one one plus one one point one megabytes pretty much what you'd expect because there was no compression involved in +fact if anything where we're probably adding some bytes to these objects by combining them in some format that then needs magic cookie and kind of +information about where to find the next file and so on now you can do basically the same thing with zip and zip to do a zero compression zip container you use the dash zero option so that's +zip space dash zero and then the name of the file that you want to create which we'll say in this case is archive dot zip and then the names of the files that you want to include so again in this case we'll do file one dot txt and file dot txt and it tells me that it's +included those two files with zero percent compression if I do an LS dash LH I see that archive dot zip does in fact exist and do exactly the same size as the archive dot txt one dot one megabyte again this is the kind of a +demonstration of my of my initial point which is the end result is basically the same that that's the commands are really similar on at first glance you mean they're practically the same +target requires a few more options zip you just do zip and maybe an option of compression level and then the name of the archive and then the files but I mean they're really really similar and the +end result is really really similar the end result is a little bit deceptive the way that I'm presenting it I'm doing an LS dash L for human readable so it's kind of rounding up around and down whatever and and so that's that that's +giving us a very clean one dot one megabyte result for this demonstration if you do look a little bit closer LS dash L without the H you do get numbers that are a little bit different so you get one million 54,720 bytes for archive dot tar and one million 49,912 bytes for archive dot zip so +tar is a little bit bigger than the zip in this case because of the header information I'm assuming so that there is a slight difference but as I've said +basically casually we can say they're the same result and in both cases casual they're not it's it's that they're really really similar like both of them +tar no compression one file object containing lots of little files zip zero compression can contain lots of files one one file with lots of little files in it but the most common use case of each command +definitely includes compression so let's talk a little bit about compression and how that how each command handles that because that's where there what that's one place where the difference really comes into play +so the balance in choosing either an algorithm a compression algorithm in the case of tar or a compression level in the case of zip is a trade off between compression speed and the end result the size of your file object in the end in theory +the slower you let the command compress the smaller your resulting archive the faster the compression the bigger the archive so in +other words the more work it has to do the slower it runs or you could say at the other way the faster it goes the less work it's going to do both commands +strive to provide you with some control over this and we've already kind of mentioned the the zip control which is a dash zero for zero compression and you can go all the way up to dash nine for nine compressions or for you know maximum compression really more accurately it's not really nine compressions it's it's it's lots of compression like do lots of compression don't worry about speed just make it really good +default level is dash six according to the man page so whatever you use zip just kind of on its own without specifying anything you're getting a dash six which you know if you think about it it's +it's basically middle of the range but leaning toward being slower and smaller than faster and bigger which seems like a reasonable default now to add compression to the +tar command you have a couple of options and it's to me this is already one way that tar is superior to zip for me because with tar you do have this choice zip you're doing you're doing exactly the same thing with this command every time you're you're creating a singular object a file object and applying compression to it with tar you do have a choice you can either +use a separate command entirely to compress the resulting tar file so you can do the tar command and then take your tar file and run it through some compression or you can +you can use one of several options to choose a compression algorithm to integrate into the tar command while you are creating your tar file so dash z or dash dash g zip uses g zip dash j or dash dash b zip to uses b zip to dash capital j or dash dash x z filters your archive through x z dash slash l zip does that dash capital z or dash dash compress +filters it through the compress command dash dash z std filters the target through the your archive through z std and dash dash no dash auto dash compress prevents tar from using the archive suffix to determine the compression program so you can specify one or not yours yourself so you've got access to one two three four five six seven at least seven that I that I can think of seven compression algorithms +as part of the tar command so that's pretty convenient I like that level of choice and I mean heck you could even not use one of those options create your tar file and then run that through zip you can zip a tar file like +you you can have you can literally have the best of both worlds if you want I see this as a real bonus like the decoupling of +the process of archiving from compression I think that's a real power feature that tar kind of just casually gives you without making a big deal about it but if you think about it having that that option +like literally those options of seven options and the other that extra option of not using option and just using some you know just taking your tar file and running it through a compression +program of your choice that gives you a lot of flexibility so in some cases you might make the determination of which algorithm what compression to use based on maybe the type of data you're compressing +maybe you've done some tests and you found that this algorithm does text better and this one does I don't know music +better or something like that I for the record I've not done those kinds of tests or I haven't made note of the results of those kinds of tests +I think I did actually have a bunch of different file types in my tests but I never I wasn't monitoring like oh what how did how did this compression algorithm treat +this specific file type so I don't know if that's even a thing but it might be you might try it or you might be limited by capabilities of your target system +you maybe you know that your target system doesn't have XZ so you could choose GZIP instead or something like that or you might just want to test you know a really cool new algorithm +compression algorithm that you've heard about or that you didn't need to try you can try you know you can you can do that all with tar because tar gives you the option to either opt into a specific compression algorithm or +forgo it entirely and I guess technically in a weird way zip dash zero kind of gives you the flexibility to opt out +but it doesn't it absolutely does not give you the flexibility of changing what compression algorithm you're using +okay so I want to do another demo but I'm going to have to use different files for this because trying to compress stuff from you random is not really practical +so I'm going to get rid of file zero no file one and file dot TXT and I'm going to generate well you know what I'm just going to search my logs +for something that's suitably, suitably large yeah here's a 44 megabyte log so I'm going to I'm going to cat that log file into a new file called +log dot TXT I guess so now I've got a 44 megabyte file here in my directory and I'm going to do a zip dash nine so that's maximum compression I'm going to call it archive dot zip and I'm just going to include log dot TXT and that took I mean that took noticeably longer to compress I mean it took like a moment but I mean I saw the moment okay so gotten that down to four dot four megabytes down from 44 megabytes +it's four dot four megabytes so let's take a look at what TAR can do and again I've already said they're all basically the same right that's what I'm saying I might my premise and my my belief is +that like my sincere belief is that casually speaking they're all the same so this is not like a let's see how much we can compress things compared to other things this is just a demonstration of flexibility +so don't worry so much about the numbers worry more about the the way we got there so zip that's the one way we can get there right zip dash nine full compression of this file we've gotten it down to four point four megabytes +which is really really good 44 megabytes to four dot four megabytes that's a huge improvement you could email one and you could not email the other I mean you know on most emails systems +okay so let's do a tar dash dash creates dash dash jz dash dash file archive dot tar dot jz and will include obviously the log file because that's what we're +compressing all right now if we do an LS dash LH on this folder we got the archive dot zip at four dot four megabytes and the archive dot tar dot jz at four dot six megabytes so I know I said they're basically the same +right 4.6 megabytes 4.4 megabytes that's basically the same but what if what if there was a flex what if you had some flexibility here and we said well +jz is okay but it's kind of old I've heard a lot of great stuff about this new x z compression and when I say new it's like you know 10 years old now but anyway +let's try the x set one so we go tar dash dash create dash dash x z dash file archive dot x z and then log dot tx t you know that's taking a little bit longer and there it goes archive dot tar dot x z +LS dash LH we've got our archive dot zip at four point four megabytes we've got archive dot tar dot jz at four dot six megabytes and look at this one archive dot tar dot x z three point three megabytes again +basically the same it's only a difference of like a megabyte well one dot one megabyte compared to zip but I mean and that's that's not going to make her break something but the cool thing about what I just did really +is that it's the same command I just used tar and a different option and got a very sort of a a noticeably improved result now obviously that's not going to always be the case we can't predict what everything that we try to compress is going to +is going to be and and how well it's going to compare to some other algorithm but I think that's kind of my point is that with tar you have a bunch of different choices going in +you can choose the algorithm that you want whether it's for the end result file size or whether it's because of compatibility with other systems or whatever it might be you do have that option whereas with zip you're always going to be using the zip compression that that's your one choice with zip +there's no other choice there is no other algorithm to try or to fall back to or to opt into it's always zip all right let's talk about output manipulation because this is probably even a bigger deal for me so when you extract data from a tar or zip archive you can choose to either extract specific files one by one or to extract everything all at once and I think I will say casually it's most common to extract everything I mean that is certainly the default behavior on the major +desk tops like genome I think macOS probably still does that I think maybe one does I'm not sure but it usually if you right click on a file and you tell it to extract or if you double click on it in some the desk tops the default behavior is just to extract the whole thing that that's a very very common kind of thing now with both the tar and unzip commands even when you choose to extract everything all at once you still have a choice of where to put the files you've extracted and that is the that's the +default behavior on some desktop as well to prompt you where do you want to put the things that I'm about to to extract for you but with the commands you definitely have that option so by default both +tar and unzip extract all files into the current directory if the archive itself contains a directory then that directory serves as kind of a container for the +extracted files otherwise the files appear in your current directory this can get messy and it is a common sort of frustration we we've probably if you've I think +probably everyone is at some point opened a an archive and ended up with a directory full of files that you didn't expect it to be full of um that is like I mean not not a directory +but like you know in your current place you've suddenly all all the contents of that archive just go everywhere it's called a tar bomb +I mean maybe a zip bomb if it's a zip file I don't know it's it's not uncommon it does happen it is frustrating and it's so frustrating to the point +that the plasma desktop at least has an option when you extract an archive you can right click and choose to extract and auto +auto auto detect the subjectry and if there's no subjectry if there's no directory sort of sheltering your files from just going everywhere it creates a +directory with the name with the same name as the archive had before you extracted it so it's quite a useful tool I use it all the time when when doing this in the GUI +but the command of course you you have you have control to to decide these things before before you actually do something +the important thing here to note is that a tar bomb or probably a zip bomb it's not inherently bad it is a valid use case when you want to +essentially I think of it as an overlay you're kind of overlaying maybe updated or additional files into an existing file system for example +suppose you have a website consisting of a bunch of PHP files within lots of different directories you know you've got a config directory and a +data directory and lots of different directories and and there's PHP files all over the place you could take a copy of your site +maybe take it off the server copy it from the server put it on your development machine make some updates and then you create an archive of the files +you've updated so now what you've got essentially is a you've got a patch you've got an archive that contains all of the things that need to change +or that need to be changed on the server so if you extract you put in that archive back up to your web server you extract that archive in your web directory and each +new version of any file that you've changed is extracted exactly where it originated from because both tar and unzip or rather tar and zip retain the file systems structure. +I use this feature all the time when doing like a dot release update of a couple of different content management systems I mean I I administer on servers and it's a great trick. +It's like it makes it updates really really easy both unzip and tar the commands provide an option to change directory before extraction. +So you can store an archive in one directory but send to the extracted files to a different location here's how you do that you use the dash dash directory option with the tar command. +So let's say you do you've decided that you want to send all the files into a folder called my tar. +So you make directory my tar tar dash dash extract dash file archive dot tar dot xz dash dash directory path to my tar you do that and then you do you do a list of your path to my tar and sure enough there's file dot txt and pick dot jpeg and file dot php and whatever else you've got in there. +Okay, so for unzip you do the same thing basically except it's just dash d there's no dash dash directory it's just shortcut dash d so you make sure my zip somewhere on your system you unzip archive dot zip dash d path to my zip and then all of the files that was that was in the zip archive file dot txt pick dot jpeg file dot php appear in my zip now the feature unzip does not have. +is the ability to drop directories from the archive before extraction like excluding a directory clipping a directory off of the archive so for example suppose you want to extract files directly into my zip but you've been given an archive containing a leading directory called. +Chaff so you could do unzip archive dot zip dash d to my zip and then you list my zip and there's a directory called chaff do a list of my zip slash chaff and there's your file dot txt and your pick dot jpeg and your file dot php that's not what you wanted right you don't want chaff that's not the director you need. +Chaff was the directory that whoever sent you these files had to roll everything into in order to sort of cleanly zip them up. +Well there's no option in unzip to skip it and the worst thing about this conundrum is that the unzip command is essentially encouraging this anti pattern. +In order to avoid delivering a zip bomb to someone because you you don't want to do that you know how annoying is it bomb is so you very thoughtfully nest your files in a useless folder call it chaff but by nesting everything in this useless folder you've also prevented your user from extracting only the files they require to the location they want to extract to. +The tar command solves this problem I think pretty elegantly you can protect your users from a tar bomb by nesting your files in a useless directory we can call it chaff because tar allows any user to skip over any number of leading directories. +For instance tar dash dash extract dash dash strip dash components equals one dash dash file archive dot tar dot xz dash directory path to my tar this strips the components the first component of of whatever gets extracted it strips that off so while tar is extracting it it detects that there's this folder called chaff but you have passed the option dash dash strip dash components equals one. +So it it drops chaff as if though it just didn't even exist and everything in a side of chaff gets extracted to your target directory. +If if if chaff isn't the only useless directory maybe there's wheat slash chaff slash archive or no slash file dot txt log dot txt then you could dash dash strip dash components equals two and then you would be dropping the wheat you would be dropping the chaff and you would only be getting log dot txt to your target directory. +Which is exactly what you want so that level of control for output is I mean, it's for me is priceless. I mean, that's the kind of thing where you can do a tar. +Tvf whatever that stands for what is that something like list probably tar let's do man tar what is dash t list yeah dash dash list so tar dash dash list dash dash file archive dot tar that gives you the whole that give you the structure of everything inside of that tar that tar ball and if you see directories leading you know leading directories that you don't need then you can strip those components and extract the files where you want them to be. +Right final final thing is permission and ownership this is another kind of big deal the zip file doesn't preserve file ownership the tar file format does it's kind of as simple as that I'll elaborate a little bit but I mean it is what it is you might not notice this when you use zip or tar just like sort of on your own personal systems because once a file is extracted from an archive you own the file you've just created that file object on your system you it just inherits the normal. +ownership sort of policy that you have to find on your system but when using tar as a super user you might notice or with the option dash dash same dash owner. +Then when you extract each file it gets the same ownership it had when archived assuming that the same user and group is available on the on the system where you're you're extracting it to so by default when you extract a file from a tar archive. +It reassigned it assigns those files to you, but if you do if you extract something with from a tar archive as with pseudo or as root or with the option dash dash same dash owner then the original ownership policy the the the ownership of that file that you're extracting gets carried over onto the target system there is just no option for that with the unzip command because the zip file format itself. +does not track ownership it just drops that information the zip command can preserve file permissions but again tar offers a lot more flexibility you have options like dash dash same dash permissions dash dash no dash same permissions dash dash mode where you can change things so you've got a lot more control. +with for over permissions in the with the tar command and the tar file format I guess well no really the tar file the the command because the file formats both of them preserve file permissions the command the tar command gives you the ability to alter them so those are my sort of three big reasons why I keep. +I it's not that I just default the tar or it's not that I just prefer it on principle there's it's just it's feature for feature there are some really good features in the the tar command and as it turns out within the tar file format that zip the the command zip unzip and the zip file format simply don't have zip won't the command will not let you change. +your compression algorithm which could mean that you don't get as as good results or maybe that you don't have the same kind of flexibility depending on what system you're trying to target although let's be honest it's zip it's probably going to work on any system so. +it's mostly I think about flexibility in terms of of the end result for that one unzip doesn't give you any control over the permission file permissions and it does not give you any permission over any flexibility or control over. +I'm leading directories sort of the the way that you strip components you can't do that the tar command gives you that ability and then finally ownership zip doesn't do ownership tar does those are really good reasons to use tar. +I think tar is clearly the the technically superior choice here whether it is the quote unquote correct choice for your use case depends I think entirely on your target audience. +There's really no doubt that zip has greater support I mean like I said at the top zip is basically everywhere a lot of people if you told them that you were going to send them a tar file they wouldn't know what you were talking about and then once they got it they wouldn't know what to do with it. +I mean trust me a lot of people are not going to know what to do with a tar file so zip is obviously the superior sort of like choice for you I guess universal compatibility but tar the tar format and the tar command are definitely the compression algorithm and archiving tool. +of choice for me thank you very much for listening I'll talk to you next time. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4558.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4558.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b5a48b --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4558.txt @@ -0,0 +1,197 @@ +Episode: 4558 +Title: YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #14 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4558/hpr4558.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:54 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4558, for 2026-01-21 +Today's show is entitled, "YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #14" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:17:06 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Part fourteen of my list of subscribed channels" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. We are airing it now because we had free slots that were not filled. This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive. Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio. +Hello, this is Ahuka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode. And this one is coming to you from the Reserve Q. So you know what that means. It means there aren't enough shows. +Hacker Public Radio is a community project that relies on members of the community to record and submit shows if it's going to continue. +If at some point the shows are just not coming, we close the whole thing up and that's the end of it. I don't want that to happen. +I'm assuming if you're listening to this that you don't want it to happen. +But the only way to make sure that it doesn't happen is to record and submit shows. +So, with that, I'm going to continue what I have been doing for the Reserve Q this go-round. +And in January of 2025, I sat down with all of the YouTube channels that I subscribe to and I've been going through and talking about them. +And I'm going to do more of that. +So, the first channel I'm going to talk about is called The Bulwark. +And it's another one of those political and news-related channels. +It's kind of interesting. +It says their mission is to provide analysis and reporting in the defense of America's liberal democracy. +That's it. That's the mission. +This is interesting because a lot of the people involved in this are Republicans, which in the United States would be the conservative right-wing party. +But there's a difference between being conservative and being far-right. +And they're not far-right. +They see the far-right as a big danger. +And so, they are doing what they can to prevent that from happening. +So far, we haven't been terribly successful. +But, you know, what can you do? +The next channel is The Fab Foe. +Now, this is a group of musicians. +Many of them are fairly well-known as studio musicians. +The bass player, Will Lee, was in David Letterman's band when Letterman had his show on television. +And basically, this group of people, they're huge Beatles fans. +And they go around and do concerts. +Typically, what they'll do is they'll do an entire Beatles album from start to finish. +Even the ones that you would think, how are they going to do that? +Like they did the White Album and they were able to cover Revolution No. 9. +They travel with a horn section and a few strings players. +So, they were able to replicate to a reasonably good degree what the Beatles did. +It's interesting because the Beatles stopped touring because they didn't think they could do on tour what they did in the studio. +To some degree, I think the Fab Foe disproved that because they're able to do it. +But, anyway, it's a fun little channel. +They don't put out a whole lot of videos. +And I think their touring thing slowed down a lot when the COVID pandemic hit. +But, I enjoy them. +So, they're on my list. +Next one is called The Great War. +Now, we talked about this before. +This was the real-time look at World War I. +And this was the group that, in 2014, started doing weekly videos covering the corresponding week in 1914. +And continued up through 15, 16, 17, 18. +So, it was a really in-depth coverage of World War I. +And then, they split into two other groups. +One we'll get to is Time Ghost. +And one we've already looked at is Real Time History. +So, there's not a whole lot new coming out. +But, they do still put out new videos from time to time. +The last one was about two months ago on the major battles of World War I in 1916. +Okay, the next channel is something called The History Guy, who is a fellow who is into history. +And, his tagline is that, you know, history deserves to be remembered. +And, so, he'll post, you know, new things, generally three days a week. +Monday, Wednesday, Friday. +And, he'll take something like, let's see, Benedict Arnold's Raid on Richmond from the American Revolution. +The Stand at Elson Bourne Ridge from World War II. +Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line. +That was another Revolutionary War. +So, just anything that he thinks, you know. +And, I think the thing is, he'll look for the stuff that happened in history, but is not well known. +And, so, he'll do something on that and say, you know, this really deserves to be remembered. +And, most of his videos, I would say, are about 15 minutes. +So, that's a decent time. +Then, there is The Immediate Family. +Now, The Immediate Family is a group of musicians who are famous for their studio work. +They, you know, they've worked with a ton of people. +So, we're talking about people like Leland Sklar, who played bass with, I think, half the groups out there, probably. +And, Russ Kunkel. +So, they're well known within the music community. +They're not necessarily well known to casual music fans. +But, they're really good. +And, so, they're putting out their own music now. +Well, and, I have gotten some of it. +The next one is The Korean War. +Now, this is from TimeGhost. +That one of the groups that came out of that Great War thing. +They did World War II. +And, then, after wrapping that up, said, well, you know, maybe we should do the Korean War. +The setup is the same, okay? +So, what is happening is, right now, they're going through, they went through 1950. +And, it's like, okay, if we're in the first week of January right now, then, you know, what happened in the first week? +So, like, they just released, as I'm recording this, the Third Battle of Seoul, which was January 7th of 1951. +So, and, I'm recording this in January of 2025. +So, you know, it's just going to go through the whole war week by week following what's going on. +Interesting approach. +Then, there's a channel called The Language Tutor Spanish. +The Language Tutor has several channels. +It's a fellow named Danny Evans. +He's a teacher and teaches languages. +He has a doctorate. +And, he does podcasts or videos, what have you. +I mean, you can get them as podcasts. +You can get them as videos. +And, they're topic-oriented. +So, something like, lo or le in Spanish. +Learn the difference in five minutes. +Or, your regular verbs in the subjunctive. +And, that's a nine-minute video. +So, each video is really a topic-oriented kind of thing. +But, if you follow them all, you would certainly get a lot of education in the language. +Now, he also does one in French. +And, an interesting reversal. +He's got a channel he started up on English for Spanish speakers. +I'm an English speaker who's learning Spanish, but it can go the other way. +Now, the next channel I want to talk about is the Lincoln Project. +Lincoln Project. +Lincoln was the first Republican president of the United States. +He was the president during the Civil War. +In fact, you could make, I think, a pretty good argument that it was the election of Lincoln that caused the southern states to embark upon secession and war. +So, they're naming themselves after Lincoln because, again, these, again, are people who were traditional Republicans. +You know, many of them worked for Republican presidents. +And, they just don't like the direction that the country's going in with Donald Trump. +And, so, they're trying to do something to stop that. +The next channel is the Planetary Society. +And, that is the world's largest non-profit space interest group. +That's what they bill themselves as. +And, I'm a member of the Planetary Society. +And, that means I pay a membership dues. +Because, I'm a big space geek. +So, a lot of their videos are rather long. +I tend to skip over some of those. +But, the shorter ones I'm okay with. +Now, the next channel is called the Saxxy Gamer. +The Saxxy. +S-A-X-Y. +And, it has pictures of saxophones and stuff like that. +Now, he's a gamer. +And, does a number of things. +But, mostly Civ. +Which is my interest. +So, I watch his videos on Civilization. +And, you know, he's got some stuff up there about Civ-7 already. +But, he's been doing all of them going on. +He had a whole series on Civilization VI tips. +And, those were, you know, average maybe 10-minute videos. +Then, there's a channel called The Ship Life. +This is about cruising. +And, so, there's a fellow who was a crew member on cruise ships. +And, then got into being a travel agent and a YouTube vlogger, as the term is. +So, that's, you know, a few times a week. +Commentary, news, what's going on in the world of cruising. +Typically, eight or nine minutes long. +Then, there's the spiffing Brit. +Who is, he's got an act of being outrageously British. +And, it's very over the top. +I have no idea what his nationality actually is. +I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to discover that it has nothing to do with +Britain. +But, he does say his location is the UK. +So, whatever. +Now, he's a gamer. +He does sometimes do something about Civ. +But, he actually does all kinds of videos. +And, they're interesting because what he does is he finds ways, +to basically break the system, you know. +Go into a game and say, all right, if you do this, it's not what they intended to do. +But, look what happens when you do it. +And, you can basically get a gigantic victory out of it. +Okay, next one is The Vintage Space with Amy Shearer Title. +And, her whole thing is, it's space, but she really focuses on the earlier years. +So, there's a lot of stuff about the 60s, you know, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. +And, that's really her strongest focus. +Videos, most of them are relatively short. +You know, occasionally, she'll do a longer one. +But, the majority of them are probably, you know, 15 minutes or so in length. +And, the next one is called The Friel Sisters. +F-R-I-E-L. +I hope I'm pronouncing that right. +They are Irish musicians. +And, as I've mentioned before, I really love traditional Irish music. +And, that's kind of what they do. +So, it's a nice channel. +They put out videos. +Typically, you know, their typical video might be them doing a song. +So, you know, four or five minutes is probably enough. +So, I think that's enough for now. +So, this is Ahuka, signing off. +And, as always, encouraging you to support free software. +Bye-bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4559.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4559.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..518ebf2 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4559.txt @@ -0,0 +1,52 @@ +Episode: 4559 +Title: Enkele off line vertaaltools +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4559/hpr4559.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:55 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4559, for 2026-01-22 +Today's show is entitled, "Enkele off line vertaaltools " +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:03:54 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken presents two offline translation tools for phone and desktop that just work" +hi everybody my name is ken fallon you're listening to another episode of hacker public +radio today a little episode because i'm posting a show to fill a free slot otherwise you would +have three a hookah shows one after the other so as some of you might be aware i live in the +netherlands and here they speak dutch as well as english but occasionally i come across dutch +articles that i want to translate or i don't know a word or something so rather than using +online tools i've never felt super comfortable with that i have some translation tools that i use +on my phone and on my desktop so on my desktop i use a tool called local translate which is from their +description on flat hub it is local translate is an offline translation application that uses +firefox's neural transmission models from mozilla firefox transition models project +to perform high quality translations locally on your device it's not affiliated in mozilla in any way +it says when you open it you get a very very simple window doesn't have anything really anything in it +you select the language that you want to translate from and it gives in the text up there enter the +text to translate so you there's even a paste button in there so you can just press paste and then +translate and then underneath the language that you selected appears and we've got bulgarian bosnian +dutch estonian greek hindi japanese loads of languages and the translation appears there and then at the bottom +once it's translated you can press the copy button and it's genuinely that simple um it's all local if +you want to switch from one to the other so now i have a piece of text i'm maybe replying to an email +and i just want to get the wording right so i'll write it in english and then try and press the up down +button or swap button which will just swap nothing in it that gets in your way it's just simple it works +it's fantastic little app then i was thinking on my phone i have the need to have something similar +and i wanted to see was there anything available on the fdroid app store for my android phone +and there is and it is called offline translator or just translator in the fdroid store links to +everything here will be in the show notes um and the description says it is a translator app that +performs on-device translations of text and images without sending your data to external servers +it uses the same mozilla translation models it does translation of non-latin script it does optical +character recognition for translating text and images it does automatic image detection it does image +translation overlays that prefers preserves original formatting and it supports multiple language +pairs no internet is required for translations once the models are downloaded all translations happen +locally both of these applications are available the source code is available both of them are under the gpl +v3 license with the offline translator for android being version three or later that's it invaluable little tools +if you respect privacy and need to translate from one language to another super handy to have in your toolbox +tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker public radio which will be a hookah +for this long Ephesus +Paul +Paul +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4560.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4560.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ddf14c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4560.txt @@ -0,0 +1,189 @@ +Episode: 4560 +Title: Arthur C. Clarke: Other Works, Part 2 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4560/hpr4560.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:56 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4560, for 2026-01-23 +Today's show is entitled, "Arthur C. Clarke: Other Works, Part 2" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:14:19 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other works." +Hello, this is a hookah welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in our science fiction and fantasy series, and +This time what we're gonna do is we're gonna wrap up our look at Arthur C. Clark and +You know, we spent some time on this because he's a very important author in the history of science fiction +And there's a lot of good stuff there to take a look at +And so what we're gonna do now is sort of get some of the other miscellaneous works +That are perhaps worthy of a little attention and +Bring some attention to them and then at the end we're gonna cover +Arthur C. Clark's three laws +That should be fun +So the first story we're gonna talk about is a time Odyssey now +This is a collaboration +between +two of +science fiction's best authors +What could possibly go wrong? +Well, something went wrong. +This series is not bad, but I hesitate to describe it as good +This series was described by Clark as neither a prequel nor a sequel, but an Arthur quail +A name quaint from orthogonal which means something roughly like at right angles +Though it is also used in statistics to denote events that are independent and do not influence each other +And the relativity theory time is orthogonal to space +And in multi-dimensional geometry we can talk about axes in each dimension is orthogonal to all of the others +It's something I can't picture being pretty much limited to three dimensions, but it can be described mathematically +Anyway back to time Odyssey. It's +Has a small resemblance to the 2001 series, but not really +It has globes instead of monoliths +And the spheres have a circumference and volume that is related to their radius not by the usual +Pi but by exactly three +Just what this means I am not sure +Other than they are not spheres in any usual sense of the word +In this story the spheres seem to be gathering people from various eras and bringing them to some other planet which gets +Kristened mere +Though not in any way to the Russian space station +It is a Russian word that can mean peace, world or village +I've seen it used a lot to refer to a village in my studies of Russian history +Anyway the inhabitants include two hominids +Mother and a daughter a group of British red coats +Mongols from the Genghis Khan era a UN peacekeeper helicopter a Russian space capsule an +Unknown rigid kipling the army of Alexander the Great +Well at least they have a lot of characters to throw around +They end up taking sides and fighting each other in the end several of the people are returned to earth in their own time +But the joke is on them +The beings behind the spheres call themselves the firstborn because they were the first to achieve sentience +They figure that the best way for them to remain safe is to wipe out any other race to achieve sentience +It kind of makes them the polar opposite of the beings behind the monoliths in 2001 for whom the mind is sacred +Anyway the firstborn have arranged for a massive solar flare that will wipe out all life on earth and completely +Sterilize the planet but conveniently it will happen in five years leaving plenty of time for plot development +Of course the people of earth will try to protect themselves +Then in the third book of the series an ominous object enters the solar system +This is of course they call back to the Rama object +It's like they wanted to take stuff from the Rama series and twist it +So I love a lot of Arthur C. Clark's worth works +I like a lot of Stephen Baxter's work +But somehow I think this is eminently skippable +Now the two of them also collaborated on the final white heart story which isn't bad +And that brings us to tales from the white heart +Okay white heart in this case heart is H.A.R.T. so they're talking about a type of deer +So it's the name of a pub and in this pub there you know +There's a character who tells outrageous stories +Now other characters are thinly disguised science fiction authors including Clark himself +A Clark mentions he was inspired to do this by the Jorkins series of Lord Dunceney +Which are also outrageous tall tales but lacking the science fiction aspects of Clark stories +Of course this type of story has a long history in which we could do well to mention +For instance the stories of Baron Munchausen +And of course the stories that El Sprig de Camp and Fletcher Pratt has found entails from Gavigan's bar +And spider Robinson would take this basic idea and turn it into a series of books about +Callahan's place also known as Callahan's cross time saloon +The stories of this type are at least as much fantasy as anything but quite enjoyable +And I think I can recommend all of these as worth the time to while away and a cold winter's evening +while sitting by a warm fire with a beverage of choice +Now some of these are short stories such as the nine billion names of God +Now this was written in 1954 +In 2004 it got a retro-spective Hugo as the best short story of 54 +The idea is that a group of Tibetan monks believe that the purpose of the +Universes to identify the nine billion names of God +And once that has been done the universe will no longer have a purpose and will cease to exist +They have been identifying candidates and writing them down but the work is very slow +So they decide that maybe with a little automation they can speed it up +So they get a computer +Now this is 1954 so you should be picturing a room-sized mainframe +And then they hire some Western programmers to develop the program to do this +Now the programmers don't believe the monks are on to anything here, but you know a paycheck is a paycheck +They finish the program and start at running but decide they don't want to be there when the monks +Discovered their theory doesn't work +So they take off early without telling you and it had down the mountain +But on the way they see the stars go out one by one +The next classic short story +Is called the star and this one the Hugo for best short story in 1956 +The story opens with the return of an interstellar expedition that has been studying a system +Where the star went Nova millennia ago +But the expeditions astrophysicist who is a Jesuit priest seems to be in a crisis of faith +And if you think it implausible that a Jesuit priest could be an astrophysicist +I would suggest you look into the case of the Belgian priest George Lenneth +Who first developed the theory in the big bang +Anyway, in the story they learned that this system had a planet much like earth +It had intelligent beings much like earth who were peaceful +But in a tragic turn of events they knew their star was going to explode and they had no capability of interstellar travel +So they created a repository on the uttermost planet of the system that was survived the explosion and left records of their civilization +And when the Jesuit astrophysicist calculated the time of the explosion and the travel time for life +He has shaken and says oh God +There were so many stars you could have used +What was the need to give these people to the fire that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem +And +Now the often island +The often island is a young adult novel is +I think what we would say today +Probably what a call to the juvenile back then +So the people of the sea are dolphins +They save a young boy who had stowed away on a hover ship that subsequently had crashed +And because no one knew about him he was a stow away +He was left among the wreckage when the crew takes off in the light boats +Now from here it is the typical +Buildings robin you find in most young adult novels +The dolphins bring him to an island where he becomes involved with a research community led by a professor +Who's trying to communicate with dolphins? +He learns various skills there survives dangers +And in the end has to risk his life to save the people of the island +Now if you have a 13 year old in your house, this is worth looking for +It's a very good young adult novel and +You know 13 is probably just about perfect for this +Now we're going to discuss a novella it's called a meeting with Medusa +And this one the 1972 Nebula award for best novella now remember the Hugo awards are voted by the fans +The Nebula awards are voted by other writers so it's the science fiction writers +Association +So meeting with Medusa Nebula award in 1972 +It concerns one Howard Falton who early in the story has an accident involving a helium-filled airship +Is badly injured and requires time and prosthetics to heal +But then he promotes an expedition to Jupiter that uses similar technology a hot +Hydrogen balloon supported aircraft +This is to explore the upper reaches of Jupiter's atmosphere +Which is the only feasible way to explore given the immense gravity of this giant planet +Attempting to land on the solid surface would mean being crushed by gravity and air pressure so that is not possible +The expedition finds there is life in the upper clouds of Jupiter +Some of it is microscopic +Like a kind of air plankton which is bioluminescent +But there are large creatures as well one of which is like a jellyfish +But about a mile across +This is the Medusa of the title +Another is a mantle like creature about a hundred yards across that praise on the Medusa +But when the Medusa starts to take an interest in Falton's craft +He decides to get out quick for safety safe and we learned that because of the various prosthetics +Implanted after the airship accident Falton is really a cyborg +Which must faster reactions than ordinary humans +As we discussed previously Clark loved the sea +And in this novella he is using what he knows in that realm to imagine a +Possible ecology in the atmosphere of Jupiter of course when he wrote this novella +No one knew about the truly frightening level of radiation around Jupiter +But then a clever science fiction writer probably could come up with a way to work around that +So that concludes our look at Clark's fiction +But we couldn't look at Clark without also +Bringing up his famous three laws +I don't know why laws always have to come in threes as a mob had his three laws of robotics +And Arthur Clark had three laws of technology and they are number one +When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible +He is almost certainly right +What he states that something is impossible +He is very probably wrong +Number two +The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible +The number three +A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic +So this concludes our look at Arthur C. Clark the second of the big three of the golden age of science fiction +We first looked at Isaac Azamov +Now we've covered Arthur C. Clark and you know what that means +We are ready to tackle the dean of science fiction +Robert A. Heinlein and boy do we have a lot to talk about there +So this is a hookah for hacker public radio signing off and as always +Encouraging you to support free software +Bye bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4561.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4561.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a5608b --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4561.txt @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +Episode: 4561 +Title: A bit about Mission:Libre, a new project for 11-14 year olds in free software +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4561/hpr4561.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:56 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4561, for 2026-01-26 +Today's show is entitled, "A bit about Mission:Libre, a new project for 11-14 year olds in free software" +The host is Carmen-Lisandrette and the duration is 00:02:15 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Carmen talks about her project for 11 to 14 year olds in free software" +Hey everyone, my name is Carmen. I like to have a chat with you about Mission Libre, +which is my project for 11 to 14 year olds who weren't interested in Free Software. +I've chosen 11 to 14 year olds because that's when I got into Free Software. +I first learned about Free Software at age 13. I knew from the moment I heard about it that I +really wanted to be involved. Unfortunately, back then there weren't any projects from +people my actual interest in Free Software. I didn't really know who to ask or where to go +if I wanted to be involved. It's been about 20 years now and things still aren't much better. +I know there are some excellent projects like you've hacking the freedom but there's nothing +comprehensive or works of young people long term. Free Software needs young people and young +people need Free Software. This is my I'm starting Mission Libre. It's early days yet but I'm +still really excited about the future and I'm already hard of work. Mission Libre does several things +already. I've made materials to introduce young people to Free Software. I put out a cute little +zine every one or two months. I also help out young people who want to join the movement +individually or in small groups. In the near future I'm looking at studying some clubs. +There'll be hard of agencies so people can participate in a matter where they are in the world. +I'm really excited about these and I have a mountain of plans and the clubs still be +some programming tutorials, some opportunities for young people to share their projects +as well as discussions about how we can spread software freedom and near-run communities. +If your kids might want to join the clubs, please ask them to email me. My email address is in +the show notes. I can back to them as soon as I can. I'm also writing a book on everything and +you come at a free software my like to know. That's where it came from. Why it's important? +How to live your life without non-free software? How to tell others about software freedom? +It's one of lots of fun projects to do with free software. If you think Mission Libre is cool +and you'd like to see it succeed, there are a couple of things you can do to help. You can donate +on Mission Libre's Libre's Libre Pay which is linked in the show notes so on Mission Libre.org. +You can also help spread the word about Mission Libre and get it in the hands of young people who +might want to join the community. There's more information about Mission Libre on Mission Libre.org. +My email address is Carmen at Mission Libre.org. There are more links in the show notes. Thank you for +listening. Bye! +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4562.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4562.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c891f92 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4562.txt @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ +Episode: 4562 +Title: Software development doesn't end until it's packaged +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4562/hpr4562.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:57 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4562, for 2026-01-27 +Today's show is entitled, "Software development doesn't end until it's packaged" +The host is Klaatu and the duration is 00:11:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Creating an installable package for your application is a great quality assurance step" +Hey, everybody, this is Clattu. Most software development I've done has been utilities for highly specific workflows. +I've written code to ensure that metadata for a company's custom file formats gets copied along with the rest of the data when the file gets archived or +code that ensures a search field doesn't mangle its input. Lots of git hooks, file converters, parsers, and of course my fair share of +dirty hacks. And because most software projects I work on are designed for a specific task, very few of them have required packaging. +The utilities that I've written have often been just integrated into a larger code base that I'm not responsible for or else distributed across an infrastructure by some admin. +It's kind of like a magic trick which has made my life conveniently easier, but as magic does, it is also tricked me into thinking that my development work is done once I can prove that my code does its job. +The reality is I humbly submit that code development isn't actually done until you can deliver it to your users in a format they can install. +I don't think I'm alone in forgetting that software delivery is the real final product. There are many reasons some developers stop short of providing an installable package for the code they've worked on for weeks or months or years. +But first of all, packaging is work and after writing and troubleshooting code for months sometimes you just want your work to be over just as soon as everything functions is expected. +Secondly, there are a lot of software package formats out there regardless of what platform you think you're delivering to. +It's just not reasonable to expect any developer to be able to package for every single platform that might benefit from the code. +However, I view packaging as part of quality assurance. There are lots of benefits you gain by packaging your code into an installer and you don't have to target every package format. +In fact, I think you get the benefits of packaging by creating just one package. +If you package your code as an installable file, whether it's an RPM file or a bash script or a flat pack reference or an app image or an EXE or MSI or anything else, you're checking your code base for consistency. +You know it or not, possibly more likely the packaging tool that you're using is checking your code for consistency. +You can pick whatever package format you're most comfortable with or the one that you think represents maybe the bulk of your target audience. +And you're sure to find that the packaging tool expects to be automated and like nobody wants to start packaging from scratch every time they update code. +So naturally, most packaging tools out there, the vast majority of them are designed to be configured ones for your code base and then to create updated packages for you each time your code base is updated. +If you're building a package for your project and discover that you have to manually intervene, then you've probably discovered what you have discovered a bug in your code. +Imagine you've got a project repository with a name in camel case. +And you hadn't noticed it before, but your code refers to itself in a mix of lower case and camel case depending on where you know what the reference is. +Your package build grinds to a halt because a variable used by the packaging tool suddenly can't find your code base because it was set to a lower case title, but the archive of your code is titled with camel case. +There's a difference there case case sensitivity matters and in most cases I guess I guess there's probably some packaging managers that don't care or packaging tools that don't that don't do that. +But I mean certainly on the vast majority of on a sensible system there's case sensitivity let's put it that way. +So if that happens to you if this example happens to you and it doesn't have to be case sensitivity you could be underscores dashes whatever. +It's also going to happen to every software package package or trying to take your code and package it up for their users so if you fix it for yourself once you fixed it for everyone else another benefit is dependency management believe it or not for decades one of the most common problems of software troubleshooting has been the phrase well works on my machine and no matter how many tools we developers have our disposal to make it easy to build and run software on a clean system. +It's still common to accidentally deliver software with surprised dependencies that you would forgotten about it's really really easy to forget to revert to like a clean snapshot in your virtual machine or to a to a fresh container or or maybe to a maybe not to a fresh container that tends to happen on its own but although maybe not depends on how you're running it. +But I mean maybe you're container the container that you you're using happens to have like a more recent version of a library then you'd realize or maybe you get the path of an important executable wrong and a script or you forget that not all computers ship with the thing that you take for granted most packaging tools won't stand for this they will break if this happens. +I can't count the number of times I've tried to deliver an RPM only to be reminded by RPM build that I haven't included the dash developer version of a dependency that's because many Linux distributions separate development libraries from the binaries so little things like that they get caught by the packaging tools and you would not notice it during development because obviously you would have all the development tools right that's just something that you would have on your. +development machine you may not literally fix every problem with dependency management by building a single package because again different systems might require different things and maybe you don't know about that but you can clearly identify at least what your code requires. +It only takes a single warning from your packaging tool for you to add a note to other packages about what they need to include in their own builds in terms of like dependencies or be sure to include the development libraries or whatever as an additional bonus it's also a good reminder to double check the licenses your project is using. +I know that in the haze of sort of desperate hacking to try to get something to just work it's it can be helpful to get a gentle reminder that you've linked to a library with a different light license than everything else or something like that. +A few packaging tools if any detect like the actual licensing requirements directly but sometimes all it takes at least for me is a reminder that you're using a thing to then trigger that sort of thing in your head of like oh right that that's that one thing with with a different license or that has a license that I should double check about or whatever and then finally. +I think every package that you make for your code base is an example package every meaning any package is an example package. +Once you've packaged your code you create an example for everyone coming to your project to turn it into a package of their own. +It doesn't matter that your package might be an RPM or a dead or just a TGZ for a front end like Slack build or arches a you are. +It's just the interaction between a packaging system and the input script that really matters and I think even a novice package maintainer is likely to be able like if they've gotten that far to like investigate you know how to package something they probably could can generally reverse engineer or tell. +what a packaging script is doing not maybe maybe not exactly what it is doing but they can see sort of the flow of data like if you look at a just a sample RPM for GNU hello that they're kind of everywhere online you can see the the spec file for them and then look at like an arch build for GNU hello again that's online it's easy to find. +Not that dissimilar that they have a bunch of header information about sort of the name of the application the version where to find the applications code the will maybe the license of something like that and then they have the build section and that's usually filled with like either macros or functions like percent sign prep percent sign auto setup I don't know what those are you what I do but pretend like we don't know what those are. +look that up online what what is percent prep in an RPM build spec well it's a it's a macro it's got a bunch of like things that it does automatically auto setup again it's a macro it does stuff percent build a macro it does stuff and so on until you kind of understand the flow you see there's a setup there's a which is configuration there's like a build step and then there's the install step and then there's a post install step and sure enough if you look at the arch a you are for this there's the sort of the setup. +that there's the the build function and there's the package function and those are doing things like dot slash configure dash dash prefix equals slash USR make and then eventually there's in the packaging section section there's the make destitor equals your package directory install a slack build again would be quite similar to all of that so. +Once you kind of see one or three of them you've kind of seen all of the rest you still have to cross reference the actual documentation and the specifications of that packaging format but you understand the the flow of logic that happens there there are differences between the mall a lot of them can leverage sort of the the built in. +benefits of of other systems like auto make or and build or may sound or ninja all all of the different sort of build sort of systems that exist out there so sometimes a packaging is simply just a matter of like getting files into the correct place you know maybe it's in the. +maybe it's in a specific RPM build directory or maybe it's in a specific directory with with other assets right next to it like in a slack build whatever the the setup it's just a matter of getting things into the right place and then triggering. +the the extraction of the source code and the building of the source code and then kind of package packaging it all up into a well a package so seeing that as an example is is I think really helpful for people because if they can read around. +whatever you chose whatever packaging format you chose to set as an example that they can take that away as kind of a quick start for their own package again I think packaging really is a step of quality assurance even though a packaging system is. +really just a front end for whatever build system your code uses anyway the rigor of creating a repeatable and automatable process for delivering your project is a helpful exercise for both you and for the people who come after you to try to help distribute your software it's it's kind of a form of of documentation quality assurance and it really is I think part of software development software development it's not over until it's package. +Thanks for listening talk to you next time. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4563.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4563.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd8ec81 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4563.txt @@ -0,0 +1,193 @@ +Episode: 4563 +Title: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 5 Fast Reactors +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4563/hpr4563.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:57 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4563, for 2026-01-28 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 5 Fast Reactors" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:12:07 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Fast neutron reactors" +This episode is the fifth in an eight-part series, a nuclear reactor technology. +In the previous episode, we discussed some of the less common historical reactor types. +In this episode, we will describe fast neutron reactors. +Definition, fast versus slow neutrons. +Fast neutron reactors are ones which use the fast neutron reaction. +This is as opposed to slow or thermal neutron reactors which use a slow neutron reaction. +Nearly all reactors in use today use a slow neutron reaction. +Moderators. The normal nuclear reaction is the fast one. +However, reactors which use a slow reaction are simpler and cheaper to build. +Therefore, most reactors use a moderator to slow down the fast neutrons to bake them slow neutrons. +The most common moderators are ordinary light water, heavy water, and graphite. +Light water is not the best of moderators, so reactors which use it need to enrich the uranium fuel +to a higher percentage of U235 to compensate for this. +By their nature, fast neutron reactors do not use a moderator. +Indeed, a moderator is detrimental to the operation. +However, since even the coolant could moderate the reaction, fast neutron reactors generally use something other than water +to act as a coolant and carry the heat from the fuel to the steam generator. +Burners versus breeders. +While fast neutron reactors can produce more fizzile material than they consume, not all designs do. +Once which produce more fizzile material than they consume are called breeders. +Once which produces less fizzile material than they consume are called burners. +This described by the breeding ratio. +A reactor with a breeding ratio of less than one consumes more fizzile material than it produces. +A reactor with a breeding ratio of greater than one produces more fizzile material than it consumes. +Fast-fission fuel cycle, typical fuel. +Uranium visions more efficiently with slow neutrons than fast neutrons. +However, plutonium visions better than uranium does with fast neutrons. +Also, plutonium 239 produces 25% more neutrons than uranium. +Fast neutrons are more efficient at converting U238 to plutonium than slow neutrons. +There are multiple ways the fuel can be arranged in the reactor with different arrangements +giving different characteristics. +Other methods. +India are apparently working on fast neutron reactors that produce plutonium from uranium +and U233 from thorium at the same time. +The plutonium and U233 are then used with thorium in slow neutron reactors. +Reprocessing. +Reprocessing with spent fuel is fundamental to the fast-fission fuel cycle +in most fast reactor designs, as that is how excess plutonium is harvested and used in other reactors. +Reprocessing involves chemically separating different elements from one another +in order to keep the desirable ones for recycling and getting rid of the undesirable ones. +Fuel types. +Here are the common fuel types for fast reactors. +Oxide. +This is similar to how fuel is made for most reactors. +It has low thermal conductivity. +It does not react with sodium or lead. +The characteristics are well known. +Metal. +It has a high thermal conductivity. +It is easier to reprocess. +It has a tendency to self-regulate. +As temperature increases, the metal expands. +This causes the reaction to slow down as the atoms get further apart. +If the coolant stops flowing, the reaction tends to shut itself down. +This acts as an inherent safety feature. +Nitride. +Nitride fuel, that is fuel incorporating nitrogen, has a much higher thermal conductivity +than oxygen fuel. +However, this fuel is more difficult to make, and is still subject to further R&D. +Carbide. +Carbide fuel incorporates carbon. +The pros and cons are similar to those of nitride fuel. +Coolant. +Fast neutron reactors are generally categorized based on the type of coolant they use. +Coolant are generally either liquid metal, gas, or molten salt. +The coolant will transfer the heat from the reactor to a steam generator to produce steam +for the turbine. +Liquid sodium. +Liquid sodium is a common choice for fast neutron reactors. +Sometimes a sodium potassium alloy is used instead. +It does not interfere much with neutrons. +It is a good conductor of heat. +It is non-corrosive. +Premium cooled reactors are good for producing plutonium for further use in fuel. +It has a high boiling point, so the reactor can operate at ambient temperature. +On the negative side, sodium reacts chemically to air and water, meaning that a coolant +leak can result in a chemical fire. +Liquid lead or lead bismoth. +Lead or lead bismoth fast neutron reactors have advantages similar to those of sodium cooled +ones. +However, they are not as good at producing plutonium for fuel. +Helium gas. +This uses helium gas as a coolant. +This is subject to ongoing research and there isn't a lot of information about this +style. +The main advantage of gas cooling is to avoid the potential chemical reaction problems +of sodium coolant in the advent of a leak in the steam generator. +Maltons salt. +This uses a molten salt as a coolant. +I will discuss Maltons salt reactors separately, so I won't go into a lot of detail here. +History of fast neutron reactors. +The origins. +More than 2 dozen fast neutron reactors have been built. +The earliest ones date from the 1950s. +Most have been small to medium sized research or prototype reactors. +Several, though, were large power reactors. +They have been built in China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Russia, the UK and the US. +Reasons for developing them. +Interested them originated from a belief that uranium supplies were limited, so there +was a desire to design reactors that could use fuel more efficiently. +However, after the discovery of very large, high-grade uranium deposits in a number of parts +of the world, such as Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, and other places, interesting fast neutron +reactors waned as it became evident that fresh uranium fuel would be abundant and inexpensive. +Reasons there are still being developed. +Interest remained in some quarters for two reasons. +One is that some countries, such as India, have much more thorium than uranium, and they +wish to be able to produce plutonium in order to enable a thorium fuel cycle. +The other area of interest isn't using them to burn high-level waste in order to get rid of +it. +A fast neutron reaction can consume radioactive isotopes that cannot be consumed in slow neutron +reactors. +Fast neutron reactors are proven technology. +However, they are not currently an economic technology compared to slow neutron reactors +in a era of abundant fresh uranium. +They were developed to solve a problem that hasn't arisen, which is assured as your fresh +uranium. +plutonium stockpiles, several countries built up stockpiles of civil plutonium, with the intention +of using it to fuel the start-up of fast neutron reactors. +However, the canceling of plans for fast neutron reactors left these stockpiles with no immediate +purpose. +This led to the pursuit of plans to use these stockpiles in Mox fuel for slow neutron reactors, +or finding other ways of getting rid of it. +Pros and cons of fast reactors, if fast reactors are more expensive and difficult to operate +than slow reactors, why is there any interest in them? +Pros Fast neutron reactors can use all of the uranium supply by converting the U238 to plutonium +as well as using the U235. +The new neutron reactors can only use the U235, plus converting a very small proportion +of the U238 to plutonium. +This means that a given amount of fuel will go much further when used with a fast reactor +than a slow one. +Some, but not all, fast neutron reactors can produce more plutonium than they use. +This extra plutonium can be used to bake uranium plutonium mixed oxide or mox fuel to be used +in slow reactors, or can be used to power a thorium fuel cycle. +So the higher cost of the fast neutron reactors can be offset by having to produce fuel +for several slow neutron or thorium reactors. +They can also use up or burn radioactive waste. +That is, highly radioactive elements, which are a byproduct of fuel use, but not usable +as fuel by themselves, can be separated from the spent fuel and fed back into the reactor +where the additional radiation will convert them into elements or isotopes, which are +either not radioactive, or which are otherwise easier to dispose of. +Cons. +There are a number of cons, however, as otherwise there would be a lot more fast reactors +in the world. +Since water, evens, light water, is a moderator, fast neutron reactors cannot use water as +a coolant. +Other alternatives, coolants, must be used, and these complicate the design of the reactor +and make it more difficult to operate. +Alternative compatible coolants may be corrosive, and so new materials may need to be developed +for both the reactor vessel and the fuel cladding. +Alternative coolants are often opaque, making it difficult to inspect the reactor. +The fuel cycle requires reprocessing spent fuel, which means that reprocessing facilities have +to be set up, which is an additional expense. +Fast neutron reactors were primarily developed on the premise that uranium supplies were +limited and would soon become very expensive. +However, new very large and very high-grade uranium deposits were discovered in Canada, Australia, +and Kazakhstan, causing uranium prices to fall rather than rise. +As a result, it is much cheaper to operate a once-through fuel cycle than to build fast neutron +reactors. +After prospects, currently, fast neutron reactors are not economically competitive with +slow neutron reactors for electric power generation, so there is a lot of interest from +prospective customers. +Originally, interest in them was driven by a belief that the world would prud short of uranium. +However, higher uranium prices sparked increased mineral exploration, which resulted in finding +large high-grade reserves of low-cost uranium, undercutting the need for economic use. +There is still ongoing R&D, though, as they offer several other use cases. +One is to get rid of radioactive waste elements by turning them into non-radioactive or less-radioactive +isotopes or elements. +The other is to provide a supply of plutonium for fueling thorium reactors. +Conclusion, this has been a short overview of fast neutron reactors, including their history, +uses and underlying design features. +In the next episode, we will describe the use of thorium in nuclear power, including what +thorium is, how it differs from uranium, and what sort of reactors can use it. +This concludes the fifth episode of an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4564.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4564.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41a17a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4564.txt @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +Episode: 4564 +Title: MakeMKV error +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4564/hpr4564.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:00 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4564, for 2026-01-29 +Today's show is entitled, "MakeMKV error" +The host is Archer72 and the duration is 00:03:55 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Archer72 leaves a solution to a problem with a Blu-ray drive using MakeMKV" +Hello, this is archer 72 for hacker public radio. +In this episode, I would like to leave myself a reminder of how to fix a problem I had +before I had upgraded an NVMe drive and then I hadn't used MKV in a while, so I had to look +up the solution again. +I'm using version 1.18.2 as of this podcast. +Before coming to the conclusion that I did, I did a couple of troubleshooting steps. +One was to try a different drive, which was a much-eated drive, it was a pretty common drive +that you can get on eBay for about $20, and it did work with a Blu-ray without hanging +up the problem I ran into was a set of Blu-ray drive from HP, where it would start looking +like it was loading the disk and just hung there and stalled. +I read a couple of forums, and I checked the, what I thought was the fault disk with handbrake +and it read it just fine, and then I also checked to see if there was enough power and there +was because I was using it an adapter to provide 12 volts. +As of this recording on January 22nd, 2026, I needed to revert to version 1.17.7 to successfully +rip an MKV, because that was the one where it finally loaded up, and I will leave links in the +show notes of where I, in which form I found this information about the older release, +and also the repo where I would find it, and then links to the very specific ones of +1.17.7, the specific two files that need to be installed to make this work. +To install this version, you will have to go into the MKV-OSS directory and perform a dot slash +configure first, and then a make, and then a pseudo-making stall, and then go back into +the previous directory and go to make MKV-bin, and then perform make, and then pseudo-making stall, +and then the program will function as expected. I hope this tip helps somebody else to +and if you're interested in what I am recording this on, it is a Zoom H1 essential, +and I'm monitoring the recording with a sound core, open air earbud. +Feel free to leave a comment on this or other hard public radio shows, or even record a show of your +own. This has been Archer 72 for Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4565.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4565.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..595be32 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4565.txt @@ -0,0 +1,287 @@ +Episode: 4565 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 9 - Barley Wine +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4565/hpr4565.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:02 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4565, for 2026-01-30 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 9 - Barley Wine" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:27:21 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave and Kevie talk about Barley Wines." +Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio, and this is the HPR +Beer Garden episode 9, my name is David, I'm joined by Kevin, Kevin, how are you? +I am very well and I am also excited because I am got a very special Beer tonight, this +is a one-off, I will not be getting this again, I don't, so I'm very excited, I've +been saving it for this episode. +I'm keen to understand why, but I'm sure you will tell us, well why it's so exciting +and why you'd never have it again, but I'm sure you'll tell us later on, I'll be revealed. +On this episode of The Beer Garden, we are going to be exploring Bali Wine, which is +a style of beer that I was only recently introduced to. +But before we go and crack open these, well this one I've never had before, not what I've +never seen before, probably going to that, I'll just give you a little, little potted history +of Bali Wine from my not unreasonable amount of research, thank you Wikipedia. +So Bali Wine dates back to the mid-19th century when Bass or Bass Rat Cliff and Gretton, as +they were called at the time, based in Burton on Trent, here in the UK, they began +a production of a single brew Bali Wine that they simply called number one, that was +the name of it, Bass number one. +And the label was adorned with a single red diamond, and this single red diamond was actually +Britain's second registered trademark ever, which I didn't know and I find that quite interesting. +The first one was Bass's red triangle that you can still see on Bass beers even today. +Number one, as it is still known, was brewed almost continuously from 1854 through to 1995 +when it was discontinued. +There was a 10 year break between 1944 and 1954, but even though it is no longer being +made, it still is the gold standard of Bali wines, which other Bali wines are measured +against, which is really intriguing because up until the time I started to put this together, +they've even heard of Bass number one. +But Bass number one was not distinctive only for the method of production, but also because +it was so pale. +The reason it was so pale is because of the maltz that it was using. +Prior to this, Bali wines had mainly been like a dark amber to dark browning colour, +which were made with much cheaper and darker maltz. +But this pale Bali wine was quite novel at its time, but then after Bass started producing +their pale Bali wine, there were some other brewers that followed suit as well with pale +versions full of gold and pride, and also tenants gold label. +By the way, that's not tenants of Glasgow, that's tenants of Sheffield, so it's completely +different brewery, just seems to have the same name. +And as it happens, Kevin had mentioned gold label to me before, and I did manage to +bag an amazing deal on Amazon for 95, I think it was for four cans, but they arrived +tomorrow, which is really sad because I could have reviewed them tonight, had they arrived +sooner. +So, little bit disappointed, but I'm sure I'll enjoy them when they arrive. +But believe it or not, it wasn't until 1976 that the style was introduced to the United States, +with the anchor brewing company producing its old foc horn, Bali wine, or it says +it, Bali wine, style, ale. +Old foc horn was styled as Bali wine with what Bali wine one word rather than two, out +of fear that the mention of the word wine on a label would annoy the regulators, because +wines and beers obviously treat it separately. +Then in 1983, was that 70 years later, the Sierra Nevada brewery released a big foot +to Bali wine, becoming only the second Bali wine label in the United States. +With in Britain, it goes back to the 19th century, but in the US, well, it's less than +50 years old, it's really interesting. +Bali wine typically has an ABV of between six to 12%. +The use of the word wine is actually due to its strength, a good proportion of Bali wines +actually have a similar ABV to that of wine, but because it's made from grain rather than +from fruit, it is characterized as a beer. +This distinction blew me away. +My first encounter with the Bali wine was actually only three years ago at a beer festival +in Sheffield, and I had its life gym marked to from the Little Earth project. +And this one was 15.2% ABV, and it was divine, it was so, so nice. +So nice, in fact, I did actually give it a 5.0 on untapped, and I also managed to persuade +a friend of mine to buy me a bottle of it when they made an order with a retailer that +actually sold it. +So, yes, I did enjoy that. +From a brewing perspective, Bali wine is actually quite a difficult beer to produce, and +also very expensive, great amounts of materials, vigilance, and time, their time is said +to be the fifth vital element of Bali wine, malt, hops, water, yeast, and time. +But like it's early cousins of old and strong ails, Bali wine is intended to be stored +with the development of its flavours, sometimes requiring a year or so to mellow. +The alcoholic strength of a Bali wine also prescribes its sale in small glasses, and also +small, it's just how it's just a six ounce bottles, and I presume that's going to be six +US ounces, so that's probably going to be around 200 mil, I would say, but it could be called +a nip bottles. +And nip is a shot, isn't it? +Is that nice? +Yes, nip is called under certain me, I had a drum, you know, we, yeah, 30, 35, 25 if you're +old, right, the old school pubs were forced to actually change them under recent laws, +clubs can still sell quarter-gills, or 35, that's right, but not the bargees. +The sixth, the sixth, the sixth, yeah, yeah, noise, so there are, according to my research, +two primary styles of Bali wine, there's the American style, which tends to be hopier +and therefore a lot more bitter, but the colours tend to range from amber to lighter brown, +and then there's the English style, which tends to be a lot less bitter, and therefore +a lot less hopier, but with a lot more variety in colour, ranging from a ready goldie colour +through to black, it's not just between the British and American styles, but also if you look +at the North American continent, there's quite a wide variety of variations of style from +one side of the continent to the other. +So for example, the barley wines of the west coast of the US are substantially hopier than +the ones you find on the east coast, where British examples of barley wine are noted for +alcoholic and sherry and fortified wine style flavours, a pure bread north westeastern version +is very hoppy, very bitter, and full of aroma. The north-eastern Americans, which it suggests +has a stronger size to the UK brewing traditions and tastes of barley wine, generally produces +a barley wine in a kind of mid-Atlantic style, tending to be more sweet and strong, but with the +additional flavours that you would only get by storing and laying down a bottle for a long period +of time. Now I've got here a couple of quotes from her who I believe are established +beer commentators, as one called Michael Jackson, I don't think it's the singer. He referred to a +barley wine produced by smithics, which was actually brewed in Ireland until 2001 when Guinness, +who owned smithics at the time, decides to kill off that particular brew. He said, it's very distinctive +with an earthy hoppiness, a whiningness, lots of fruit and toffee flavours. I mean, I want some of +that, but I can't, I'm now 25 years too late. But then Martin Cornell, who again, I probably should +find out who he was, is then quoted as saying, there is no historically meaningful difference existing +between barley wines and old ales. He then later clarified, I don't believe there is actually +any such meaningful style as barley wine. I mean, that's rude. Yeah, Martin Cornell was a very +much a purist. Well, I'll maybe give a wee bit more background there. Sorry, I hope I'm not stepping +it over here. But no, no, no, there is reason, the actual original reason you said about old +old and strong ales. The original reason apparently according to Roger Prott's and Martin +Cornell, they both said that barley wine was just purely an invention, a name invention of bass +for the strong old ales. And it was done purely because people were starting to get interested +in French wines. And this was a way to keep them on the beer of Britten, rather than +sampling stuff from across the channel. So it was all they did was the aged the old wine, old +beers, even older. So Martin was very much a, it's not a style, it's a name that bass gave it. +But right, that's apparently the first time although bass had been producing number one since the +1850s, bass didn't actually call it barley wine until 1872. Right, that's the first ever time +is recorded as using the term barley wine. That's interesting. Okay. I'm not so much of a beer +reader at the moment. That will change. I'm sure, particularly as we said, we're going to do +some book reviews as part of this as well. For me, the whole concept of barley wine, you could +probably say that it's just a standard beer that happens to have a higher EBV. I would imagine +I will get a smack around the head for saying stupid things like that, so I'm not going to. +But I'll be honest, having had at least one barley wine consciously, the time will wear of. +I am really, really interested to know what this one that I've got in front of me is going to taste +because the ABV on this one is about half of the one that I mentioned earlier on. +But it's not all about the strength in the alcohol. It's more about how it's made and the +compounds that make it up. What I'll do is I'll end with something else that my research gave me, +which is there is an alternative to barley wine called wheat wine. So it's still made in the same way, +but then a large amount of wheat is added to the mash, creating what is referred to as wheat wine. +And that style actually originated in the United States in the 1980s. So by the same token of the +definition that I gave you a few moments ago that I'm now dissociating myself with, it's basically +it's a strong vise beer. I was going to say that wheat wine is actually German in its origins, +but it was made in the US. There's also a rye wine which I've never been able to get a hold on. +I know what exists, but I have that mess and never, ever been able to get a hold on. +Right. All right. So what did you tell us about your beer then, Kevin? +Oh, well, those of you have listened to this for a while now, we'll know that I am a beer reader. +Unlike my good friend, he had who, but we'll convert him yet. One of the guys who I really +respect as an author is Roger Protz. And I do like the children brewery. +Okay. Yeah. Some familiar with them. They do bodges barley wine. That is a standard barley wine +I've had it before. I like it. But in honor of Roger Protz, they have produced a limited run +of Roger Bodges barley wine. And that's him on the front. Excellent. So this is why I probably will +not be getting this again, because this is probably going to be very limited. I would to be honest, +I was delighted to actually get a bottle of it. So after I drink this, I am not throwing his bottle +away. It's going up there and try to place on the shelf. So this is a Roger Bodges barley wine. +So I'm really looking forward to this. So again, learn my lesson. I'm taking a step back. +Yes. We bit of spray there, but it wasn't it didn't fool me up, thankfully. Right. Oh, okay. +That's good. Oh, no. Quite a light barley wine this one. This must be a totally different +race because that other one is dark. So this must be purely a race before him. So this is that actually +looks a bit darker on the screen there, but it's more an amber light amber. That's a nice colour. +So that is quite a lively head. So I've stopped pouring. It's 8.4% actually not an awful lot of +scent coming from the glass. There is a mild barley note. There's a faint sweetness of kind of +toffee and then there's a grape scent. It's not citrus, but it's like a kind of green grapes. +I can do scent. Hmm. So just noticing, actually, I didn't notice that the first pour, it's not clear. +It does have quite a hazelnut. Cheers. Cheers. Hmm. That's nice. That's far too refreshing. That's +far too drinkable. That's got quite a hobby front end. Hopy front end. Develops into +toffee, not burnt toffee. It's not like a scorch shell. It's like a sweetness of toffee and then +there's something lingering. There's a fruit in it and I'm not quite deciphering what it is. +I'll maybe need to come back to this in a second. After you've probably said it, +I'll probably write, shout it around and fruit. But something better, but it's not citrusy +bitter. Maybe something like passion fruit. It's a passion fruit you know it on the end of that. +It's not a sweet fruit. Hmm. It's not citrus. I think, yeah, so I'm going to put down. So +it's good. Like I said, it's an initial hobbyness. If you were to actually take on the first sip, +you would probably think, you've got an old-fashioned IPA there. Not a session one, not a kind of +I think, but like a dad. Click a whole pool kind of IPA. That can away. Yep. Then it goes to that kind of +kind of toffeeish, sweet toffiness. And then it goes right back to that kind of passion fruit in +it. Oh yeah, that's something that I'm glad it's winter. Because I think if somebody handed me +a bottle of art, without looking at the label in the summer, I could quite easily chuck that down. +Because it's very, very refreshing. That's not a good thing. Well, it is, but it isn't. +Yeah, exactly. Not an 8.4. You don't want it to. You don't want it to be just refreshing as +a lag or something. No, no, probably not. No. So there you go. So I'll sound nicer. It is. +And I'll come back to the score at the end. No matter, I shall let you get to Euro snow. +How could you docus? So I teased this with Kevin before we started recording and he's probably +not got a clue what it is I've got here. I bought this from Biz of Europe before we started +doing the Christmas ails one. So it was probably either very late November or very early December. +And it was the only barley wine they had in stock. Now, bearing in mind for the time of year in which +I bought this, it will not come as too much of a surprise. This is actually a Christmas barley wine +from Richway Brewery in Oxfordshire. I think I know which one this is. You probably do. +I'm not want to to one up somebody. So I'm going to 0.1 up somebody instead. This is 8.5% +ABV. And it is called criminally bad elf. Noticing notes on the bottle at all. But actually, +it is incredibly clear that almost look at what you've been seeing through it. Almost like a +logger in terms of transparency. But let me pop the core on this and we'll see what we've got. +That's very sweet. I'll be very honest. I don't know what I'm smelling for. +But again, this is very, very sweet. There's actually a similarity here to some +loggers. And I don't mean that any disparaging whey either because there are some +loggers that as you smell a lot nice and they taste. I can't discern anything specific +from this at all. So I'm going to pour it and see if I get something else once it's poured into +the glass. And I'm getting the whole bottle as well. Oh, that is a beautiful color. It's almost +kind of an orangey pink. So again, we've both gone for a lighter and barley wines. I mean, +as you said, barley wines can be practically black like a stout or they can be really +kind of the light amber. No, I'm really not getting anything out of this. So what what would +the sweet but the sweet is becoming from the barley? See it depends. I mean, there'll be relatively +high sugars and as well. Doris, the stuff has become high sugard. Just to get the the alcohol +part. So that could be part of it. If British ones would rarely infuse them with fruit. It's +just more a fruity taste to get off it. You can actually something maybe we didn't mention. I've +noticed that if you go to like our Eastern Eastern Europe place, I think Estonia as a place where +I've had the most they tend to have barley wines that are quite fruity but the fruits added. It's +made from fruit. The fruit is added and you get like a plum barley wine or a peach barley wine. +It's a the polliala brewery there from Estonia and I'm sure I've also had one from +a round kind of Ukraine, Georgia that kind of way. I've had one from them and the person it was quite +strong fruity as well. But they were definitely darker barley wines. Right. Right. Okay. +Well, let's give this us wagons to see what we've got. That is incredibly bitter. Oh, what was +that? Oh, that's that's really odd. So it is very bitter. Possibly more bitter than I would like. +But weirdly, once the bitterness passes, it leaves behind quite a sweet post taste but all I've +got now that that's gone. It is just the the immense bitterness. Now I can't measure bit bitterness +to a scale that would fit anybody else because everybody's taste works differently. But I am +very much aware of actually got two more bottles of this to go through and I'm not too sure about it. +I'll be honest. Oh, well, I've got one in the cupboard which I haven't had yet and yet despite all +of that, I really do like this. Oh, that's good. There's not a lot going on in it. It doesn't seem +to have much character. Yes, yes, there is a sweetness but I can't articulate where that sweetness +comes from. There's a bitterness that seems like it's more than just the hops that's providing +it. So I don't know whether there's some other essence or or something that's making the bitterness +appear more harsh than it actually should be. But there is zero fruitiness in this at all. There's +no fruity flavours for a tea or fruitier roamers. It doesn't really smell anything much now. Oh, +that's a bit of a shame. Now one thing that's I've always found in Barney wines is +because it's a slow, long developing one. They're different in the stout and that you never get +anything like coffee or toastiness. You know, like I said, there was toffee in it but it wasn't +burnt toffee. It wasn't like a burnt toasted caramel. And that's one thing they will generally +despite their age, despite their strength. Be a bit more mellow compared to the likes of an imperial +state, you know, which is compatible, you know, in ABV. So you tend to find that a lot of them are quite +mellow. Going back to bass again, bass number one. Apparently the original one two three four five +it was purely based on number one was the strongest number five was the least strong. It wasn't +actually chronological order, but they released it. And there was one thing actually made to +say just to correct you slightly. It's not that I'm correcting you, you know. But there's a weak caveat. +Sure, weak caveat. We asked for a skier. They still producing it in 95 caveat. You can actually +still get it. If you go and do the bass brewery tour, they still have that as what you go +around. They are doing bass number one, barley wine. And you can get it on the tour. You can get +a pint of it. And that's the only place you can get it. They don't export it outside of the brewery. +Right. And I'm assuming here this is one they've made recently, not 25 plus years out. No, no, +this is one that they do brew it. Apparently they brew it. I can't confirm this. I've just read it. +But apparently they brew it in like the old fashioned style of brewing. So it's much +smaller. So that's the reason they only produce smaller amounts. So you're going around and you're +actually seeing the old fashioned brewing happening, brewing happening. And then at the end, you can +buy a pint of it if you want. But again, I'm just not not sure how to interpret this one. It's +not disgusting. But it's also not one that I would necessarily push people out of the way to get to +the front of the queue to buy it. Let me read you what it says on the front of the bottle. +Where it says 8.5% alcohol by volume it then says barley wine style L. Oh, okay. That was maybe +that's that meaning of the thing. Well, it's not a barley wine. It's a barley wine style. So I'll tell +you what that probably means is that it's not been aged. That's probably explains why you could +the bitterness or it's not been aged as long as a barley wine would be. All right. So +go back to your beer then. How would you score? Where would I put this? It's very good. I would +like the nose to be a bit more pronounced. The nose is very, very much kind of mooted. The flavors. +I mean, for me personally, I would like a barley wine a bit sweeter. But that does I'm not going +to knock that down. It's not that style of barley wine. As one thing you probably noticed when Dave +was talking about, but we didn't talk about the profile very much because barley wines don't +actually have an official profile. They just have to be aged for over a year. That's actually the +definition of the barley wine. So I'm going to score this and 8.5. 8.5 for the team. Okay. +I'm liking that. Like 8.5. That's good. So as far as minus concerned, I have a +quantity. I've learned over the years. I'm actually your partially to take the credit for this +penny. It's not just about whether you like the flavour a bit because there are some beers that +don't taste particularly nice. You still enjoy them. A lot of the the alcoholic drinks that I consume. +You couldn't say, oh, I like that. It tastes amazing because most whiskeys, you're like, +doesn't taste amazing. However, what I do enjoy is the experience and what it's telling me. +I have to rate this based on that because this doesn't taste very subtle. So I'm basing it on the +experience. So when you're rating something, if it makes you go, ooh, then that's above the average. +And I think for me, this has made me go, ooh, because I've stopped and I've thought and I've +considered what I'm actually getting from this beer. The fact that it's really bitter, I'm not +going to market down because that maybe what it was intended. It doesn't tell you, unfortunately, +it doesn't help. But I think that maybe what it was intended to be. So I'm going to start at 7 +and a half, but I'm going to knock it down to 7 purely on the basis that it doesn't taste of much. +But the experience of it, the fact that it's bitter, the fact that it's made me react to the +bitterness. I'm taking that as a positive. Does that make sense? Yes, I think so. So I'm going to, +I'm going to say 7 out of 10 for this. Well, so there we have it then. That's our +barley wine or in my case, barley wine style. Star review. No, before we go, Ken actually said to +me on the last community news that he would like us to announce the next style that we're doing, +so that people who don't want to listen and actually enjoy it with us can. And I thought, +okay, I never actually thought of that, but that's probably not a bad show. That's a great idea. +Can you remember what it is? Yes, it is. The Scotchale or we have it depending on what you want to +call it. It's they're both interchangeable names. It's the same drink. So Scotchale or we have it. +Notice I said Scotch, not Scottish. Yes, it is Scottish, but specifically Scotchale and we +heavy mean the same thing. So yeah, so that's what we've been looking at in the next few weeks. +Thank you very much indeed for listening. If you've got any comments, please leave them on the page +on Hackerpubby Radio for this episode. And of course, please feel free to record your own review +of a beer style as part of the Hackerpubby Radio beer garden. This is not just us. It is a, +I don't project for anybody within the community to contribute to. Absolutely. And the other +thing that we haven't had now, we while as a recommendation. So we've got the next few shows set up, +but please do give us your recommendations for beer styles that you would like us to look at. +Indeed. So then, join us tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hackerpubby Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4566.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4566.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50a0750 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4566.txt @@ -0,0 +1,749 @@ +Episode: 4566 +Title: HPR Community News for January 2026 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4566/hpr4566.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:04 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4566, for 2026-02-02 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Community News for January 2026" +The host is HPR Volunteers and the duration is 00:55:13 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "HPR Volunteers talk about shows released and comments posted in January 2026" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon. I'm here all by myself doing the HPR Community News for January 2026. +Everybody's probably all talked out after the New Year show. +And thanks to everybody who was involved in putting that show on and who came on to say hi. +This is the Community News for January 2026 and HPR is a community podcast where the shows are produced by the community. +For the community and by the community. +And this is the Community News show which is usually recorded on the Friday before the first Monday of the month. +And we record it on a Friday so we have time to process it and send it out. More about that later on in this episode. +So first things that we do is welcome our new hosts and I'm thrilled to say we've had two new hosts. +Jim DeVore and Carmen LeSyndrette. +So let's go through the shows that were aired last month so we can read out some of the comments and give some feedback. +The first episode that we had was 4544 and it was on the Thursday the 1st. +Uncommon Commands Episode 2 by Delta Ray. +Some of the commands here were MTR, SCROT and ZLESS for example. +MTR is one I'd come across before, haven't used it as much, prompted me to do so for tracing routes on the network. +So it's a network scanner. +Then we have SCROT which is a minimal command line screen capturing application. +Something that I will be definitely using and something I use all the time is ZLESS. +So fantastic tools, links in the shows there. +And there were no comments on that episode. +The next episode was from the Reserve Queue and it was YouTube Submissions Part 12. +And no surprises here for us. +There was no comments either but NASA, SCIENCE and the Beatles featured heavily in this one. +I am enjoying these subscriptions. +Then we had the Community News show itself and we had some feedback on that from Archer72. +Nuclear Reactor series, hi all, a show with Whiskeyjack as Homer Simpson and on the Beer Garden series would be interesting I'm sure. +Cheers, clink, says Archer. +Henry Cameron says Linux, nice Community News as usual, thanks for this one. +Kevi says that to encourage someone to migrate to the Linux desktop, it's best to start to use software available on Linux already when on the other desktops. +Then the hurdle to step over to the Linux OS will be relatively low. +Good advice. +Absolutely. +That is correct. +Then we had part six of the cheap yellow display project, the speed and timing of Morse. +And this is one where Trey is making a Morse practice tool from a cheap yellow display. +And this is a fantastic explanation to the timing of Morse, which has always confused me. +Absolute must episode for listening and why Paris, the word Paris appears so often in the timings. +Great episode there. +Makes me pity I can't put it into the Ham Radio series as well, as it's got its own series now. +YouTube subscriptions part 13, another of Ahooka's emergency shows, coming from the reserve queue. +Civilisations, Space again, some history stuff and more about the Beatles. +Quite a good episode. +There we have it. +The following day, just checking to make sure there are no comments on that, and there were none. +This one, there were also no comments on deprecated Promodoro task tool. +So this was a little timer script that Kendi Kinator sent in, telling himself to take a break and when the break was over. +Nice use of loops and stuff in there. +It's interesting to see other people's way of formatting episodes. +So Civilisation part 7 of Civilisation 5 by Ahooka was on the next day, Computer Strategy Games. +In this case, he was chasing down a science victory. +And it's nice to see him walk through this. +Fantastic explanations. +And the show notes are very detailed, taken from his blog. +There was one comment in the following episode, Elisabeth, Elisabeth, sorry, in IT since 97 part 2, where Lee and Elisabeth talk about their experience as a woman in IT. +There was one comment by operator, white male. +Not that anybody cares about the angle of a white male, but I did an episode on some of the stuff. +Let me know if I can help in any way. +Anyway, I was thinking about this episode today, actually. +It's one of these impactful episodes on how lucky I was to have a career where there was a nice balance of male and females. +It gives a completely different picture when you're working in a male-only environment. +So, the following day, we had Printer Conspiracy by Mr. X. +Is it possible that there is an Epson Print Driver Conspiracy? +And KandikaNature7 says, +From what I've heard online, printers infamously have tons of issue with wasting link and forcing vendor lock-in. +So, I would not be surprised if the official drivers do intentionally destroy output to force you to on the upgrade thread mill. +The next one was from Whiskeyjack Nuclear Reactors Part 4 The Less Common Types of Reactors. +And this series is gaining a lot of traction also on the Mastodons and in other locations. +And it was great to hear an explanation of some words that you hear going past, +give you a little bit more depth into the type of reactors and how they work. +Jim DeVore sent in an episode on how he manages his personal to-do lists. +Daytimers, Palm Pilot, Ginger Trevani's to-do list, etc, etc, etc. +Links in the show notes. +Brian in Ohio says, +Welcome. Great show. I'll have to try it out. +And KandikaNature says, +Good first show. +I think this is really a good first show. +And the way you covered it was pretty cool. +I used Task Warrior from mine, which I covered in another episode. +Then we had, slightly late, Belgian Christmas Ales from the Beer Garden 8. +And it was interesting how the Belgian beer actually originated in Scotland. +But I won't ruin it too much. +I would advise you to go listen to the show. +Even if you're not a huge big alcohol drinking fan. +I think the history around the beers is one of the things I enjoy the most about this. +There was one comment from Carl Duttec. +Christmas Ale. +In the States, several breweries have Christmas Ales. +My favourite is Old Fizzwig Ale. +Not very spicy. +Malty. +Has a chewy quality. +Thanks for the show. +Then we had Nitro Man. +RC cars. +Where Operator talks about Nitro RC cars. +And there was a comment on Mastodon. +I think it was from Kevi or somebody. +Where they said that I'm glad I got the background on this. +Because it's so expensive. +I'm glad I don't get into it. +But one of these episodes where I really got pulled in by what he was doing. +So much so that I had to turn it off for a while. +Because I was making something in the shed. +And then I had to turn it back on again. +So great episode. +Well done, Operator. +So from down under. +Or a little left of down under. +We have Tlaatu with Why I Prefer Tar to Zip. +And this is basically a rundown of why Tlaatu prefers Tar to Zip. +Tar being a Swiss Army knife. +And Zip being a one trick pony. +Candy Canater says. +Interesting experiment. +I never realised that Tar compressed files are better at compressing than Zip files. +In my humble opinion it's more a mentality thing. +Like Tar is literally just a series of files stitched together with some headers. +Meaning it makes a lot more sense to apply a single file compressor to it. +Than something that is already applying some level of compression. +There's also a bit of a compatibility issue. +Since most non-technical users don't know what a Tar file is. +Or even what a Zip file is. +So Zip is the lowest common denominator. +On that note. +I think looking at 7-Zip would be an interesting experiment. +Which is newer and more well known. +And from the reserve queue we had YouTube subscriptions part 14. +And this is from Ahuka. +Some history stuff here. +Many of which I am following. +The Great War. +And we also had some science. +And of course some Beatles in there as well. +I chucked in a show here that I'd just decided to do because it was a free slot. +And it was about some offline translator tools that you can use without having to go online. +And Claudio M says. +Just what I needed. +Looks like you uploaded this episode the day after I was looking for a solution like this. +Thank you for the episode. +I gave Local Translate a go. +Though I would prefer something that I could install outside of a flat pack. +And would run on the BSDs as well. +NMW says. +Great recommendation. +I was chatting on Mastodon and was directed to this episode. +Great one. +I have downloaded and tried out the Android app. +And it works as you described. +They all have all the big glamwages I would need and want. +Just brilliant. +Thanks for this episode. +The following day we had. +Ahuka with Arcee Clark's other works. +Some of which I had never heard of. +And weren't familiar with. +A Time Odyssey. +And Tales from Whiteheart. +Joseph Jorkins. +Etc. +Etc. +Etc. +Links in the show notes. +And full details in the show notes as well. +I know people are also enjoying these. +Seeing them on the Mastodon comments as well. +Then we had the first show by Carmen. +Welcome Carmen. +Thank you very much for sending in this episode. +And this sounds like a fantastic little project. +Mission Libra. +Getting 14. +11 to 14 year olds involved in free software. +Always kind of a difficult age. +And there's a new Libra PDF. +Links in the show notes. +Very well done. +Very cool looking. +You can just print it out. +And you're ready to rock. +So have a look at that. +Henry Cameron says happy to learn about the project. +First welcome as a host here on HPR. +And interesting and encouraging to learn and hear about more. +More about Mission Libra. +Which is new to me. +Best wishes to you and your mission. +Candy Canater says. +Cool project. +This seems like a promising project. +I think you explained it well. +Despite it being your first episodes. +Best of luck. +Then we had another episode from Clat2. +Making the valid point. +That software development doesn't end until it's packaged. +Creating installable packages for your application. +Is a great quality assurance step. +So it actually brings out quite a lot of points. +There were no comments on this episode. +Checking for consistency. +Looking for dependencies and stuff. +So it's basically a free quality control step that you can get. +Following day we had fast reactors. +Again from Whiskeyjack. +And this time we were talking about fast versus slow neutrons. +Burners versus feeders. +Etc etc. +NMW says. +Great series. +I'm enjoying and looking forward to the rest of the series. +Do you think the US will ever wake up and start recycling its spent fuel? +It seems like a huge waste just to try and keep a small amount of fuel away from the bad guys. +Or whatever they're imagining. +And then we had a response from Whiskeyjack himself saying. +Spent fuel from civil nuclear power plants is not suitable for making nuclear weapons. +As it has the wrong proportions of plutonium isotopes. +Plutonium comes in isotopes just like virtually all other heavy elements. +And weapons requires a high percentage of one specific isotope. +Which you don't get from spent civil fuel. +Weapons grade plutonium is made in military reactors which are designed for that purpose. +And the fuel is rapidly cycled through to minimize the buildup of undesired, for nuclear purposes, isotopes. +As such, there is no direct connection between recycling commercial fuel, I covered a number of different recycling techniques in one episode, and nuclear weapons. +I don't live in the US, but is there a public perception that there is such a connection? +Then it is likely this is a result of misconception about the nature of the different isotopes of plutonium. +The main reason that most countries don't bother with recycling spent fuel is that once through the fuel cycle is cheaper. +Most countries that do recycle fuel do so mainly for the reasons of national security of energy supply. +They simply wish to minimize the uranium imports by reusing fuels they already have. +The secondary reason is to reduce the amount of high level waste that must be stored by burning up the fissile isotopes of plutonium in a reactor. +Much of the long-lived part of nuclear waste is simply fissile isotopes of plutonium which can be reused in the reactor as fuel. +If enough people have questions on this series, including topics that I have not covered, post them as comments on the HBR, and I will be willing to do a follow-up episode covering those after the end of this series. +Well, you heard that there, folks. You know what to do. Put your comments over here, and then we'll get even more episodes. +We had another episode by Archer72 about MKV and a proprietary application to burn Blu-rays, and it didn't work. +So he had to jump through a few loops to get it working here on how to download an older version. +And then, we have episode, let me just check, were there any comments? In other words, no comments on the Make MKV episode. +On the Barley Wine episode, which is the last episode of the month, Dave and Kevi talked about Barley Wines, and as luck would have it, I actually happened to have a bottle myself about Barley Wines. +And it was interesting, again, I keep saying it, about the history of the different types of beers, and how relatively new some of this stuff is in the swing of things. +So, as luck would have it, I happened to have a Barley Wine in the fridge, and yeah, I could take it or leave it, to be honest with you. +Mostly, I would probably leave it. That would be my summary of Barley Wines. +But, as Dave says, it's about the experience of doing it, going through it, the taste, and the experience, rather than liking it. +So, nice one there. +So, that was all the shows. We moseyed through them pretty quick. +Then we have some of the comments for previous episodes. +And the first one was on one I made, on why I made a one-episode podcast about a war story. +And there were a few spam comments on this one. +So much so that I almost, almost improved them, but I didn't. +So, well done to the person who did that, and I've now been thinking of a few more ways to stop spammers getting through. +So, well done you. +And as I said before, if any spammers want to record an episode, feel free to do so. +Then we had a comment on how I use Newsboat for podcasts and Reddit by Archer72. +This was back in July 2017. +And that was the link to the bug that I opened last month about HPR not having the download format. +Archer72 replies back saying, for short-term use, use download format filename and forces an MP3 file at the end using Newsboat and gives the configuration file in there. +This one turns out to be quite a complicated little issue, actually. +And I'll just open the bug real quick. +Some podcast aggregators show cdn.php as the filename. +Now, you can try using content disposition as a header, which we've tried, and that doesn't work. +The reason that doesn't work is because the underlying libraries need to support it. +And I realized during this week, because I'm following curl and masternull, +that the content distribution header has just been added to curl now and needs to be rolled out. +So our options are we can use Apache to redirect traffic, Apache redirect. +Now, the issue with that, though, is that then all the traffic will be routed through AnonymousTools.com servers, +completely defeating the purpose of what we're trying to do here. +What we're trying to do is spread the load so that if we have distributed community content delivery network, +say we have 10 different servers around the world, we don't have that. +But if you do have a server, say you've got a, in my case, I've got a fiber connection with a gigabit Ethernet fiber connection. +And on top of that, connected to that, I've got a small, low-powered PC with a 4TB hard disk. +And I can serve all the files from there using just Apache, straight Apache files, or Nginx or some other server. +It doesn't really matter. +But if we want to, say, redirect traffic all over to different hosts on the Internet, +then we don't want it going back through the central node because we don't want all the bandwidth costs coming on AnonymousHost.com. +The majority of the bandwidth costs are from the media, as you can imagine. +So what we could do is, and I was talking to some of the guys at work and the platform and the content distribution team as well. +And so it's a bit of a puzzle because it's not normally what they come across. +So the other option will be to change the feeds in the RSS so that it gets a full feed to the server in my house. +And then the next one will be to the server in the U.S. +And the next one will be to the Internet Archive. +The thing is, if you do that round-robin, you need to maintain a sort of a hash of the people's IP addresses. +And if you do that round-robin and somebody's IP address changes, which happens all the time, +then you would end up re-downloading the episodes. +So that's not ideal either. +So the best way to do it would be to have a DNS entry. +And just straight entry like hub ccdn.hackerpublicradio.org for sashing the path to the file. +And that lookup would go to my server, and the next time it would be Rhone's server, and the next time it would be US server. +But the only way that that can work is if all the files are everywhere, and that the path is consistent everywhere as well. +So we have a bit of work to do there because some of the hosts only host the MP3 files and not the FLAC and the WAV files. +And also the Internet Archive, which we're slowly migrating from, has a different file naming structure than what we're using. +So that was that. +That was a bit of a puzzle. +But if we get enough people contributing nodes to the content distribution network, say four nodes, +I need an additional two or three nodes, then we could do that. +We would have enough redundancy that we could host everything everywhere and then just redirect people to those hosts, and that would fix that problem. +Otherwise, it's like podcatcher by podcatcher that you need to fix the file name extension, so it's not linked to us. +Okay, that's a huge, big, huge, big detour there. +I also put a comment in to Trey's episode on GPL-loaded displays, and I remember when I heard this that I was a bit disappointed that there was no free Libra open source graphic display thing. +And so I say, possible graphics library, having done zero research, I submit a link I got from Hackaday. +Roo display is a feature-rich, easy-to-use library intended for building smart home and similar controllers with graphical UI and optionally touch controls, +with a link to the Hackaday link and a link to the GitHub where you can get Roo display, which is D-E-J-W-K, Delta Echo, Juliet, Whiskey, Kilo, Roo display. +So that was that. +And welcome to the Linux community by Delta Ray. +Archer74 says, re-talk by command line magic. +Hey, Moorhook, quite a variety of subjects that would sound great on a recording or three. +Cheers, Archer72. +This is, Moorhook did a comment there about other tools like Gemini, CLI and Cloud Code, etc. +So asking for episodes as he should. +Kevin O'Brien, giving some feedback to Reactor Basics episode three, saying, +really enjoying this episode and saying, +I find I'm looking forward to each installment of this series. +Well done. +So that was it. +Let's mosey over to the mail list and have a look for the thread in this month. +So we have a comment from Vance and it says, +Hi there, I'm new to HPR and have been inspired by the presentation Murph gave at OLF conference a few months ago about contributing. +I started listening to some episodes and get to get the feel of things before trying to record myself. +I noticed that there seems to be an inconsistency in how licensing is presented. +The website is very clear that the Creative Commons attribute to share alike international licenses default and metadata in the audio I downloaded. +It likewise references CC by SA. +Discussions in HPR episode 4538 about the outro also states the license is CC by SA. +However, the actual outro voiceover instead states that the license is Creative Commons Attribution International, +aka CC by, lacking the share-like requirement, which is a different license. +Is this intentional or an oversight? +From an outsider's perspective, it seems like the latter, but perhaps there's a reason. +I know licensing isn't a fun topic and I'm sorry, I'm the one starting this conversation. +To which I reply, Hi Vance, welcome. +Sad to hear, sad to say that you're wrong. +Licensing is a fun topic and a very important one. +Our approach is detailed here on a link to the branding page. +Also sad to say that you're right, there is a bug in the outro. +Well spotted. +I opened an issue on it, issue two. +I contacted our voiceover department and will record it at the first opportunity. +Thanks for the link to Murph's video from OLF. +Amazing, this is not a HPR episode. +Fantastic to get the experience from somebody else using the site. +Food for thought on how to improve it there. +To answer the question about transcriptions, +this was not in the comments, this was in the video. +If you upload an SRT file with the same name as your show, we will automatically use that. +For example, if your episode is Murph underscore talk underscore at underscore olf dot flack, +then you would run whisper space and the Murph underscore talk dot flack space dash dash language space English space dash dash output underscore format space SRT. +And that will produce an SRT file and then you can upload that with the script and we'll just use it automatically. +So that's what's that. +And then I respond back saying we have a new outro recorded and ready for the next episode. +See what I did there. +And Vance replies, +Thanks so much for the quick turnaround on the outro and the information about the uploading transcript. +Perhaps you can convince Murph to turn this presentation into an HPR episode. +I can't speak for the whole OLF team, but it would surprise me if we would have a problem with him using the audio from the YouTube stream in the event he doesn't want to make a new recording. +He can work out the details with us. +And then I had the sad task of announcing to the community that K5 Tux Russ from the Linux in the Hamshack passed away and I supplied some links to that. +Claudio M says, +Wow, I lost touch with him years ago, but I remember meeting him in person at Self 2021. +My condolences to his family. +I left a message on his wife Cheryl's page, passing on our condolences from the HPR community. +And Klaatu says, +K5 Tux was such a great guy. +He'll be sorely missed. +I saw him often at OLF and Self and was hoping to see him at a St. Louis convention. +He was trying to get off the ground. +I think I designed the logo involving the gateway arch at some point. +He was a really nice guy. +Gave me lots of tips about Linux and sometimes life in general. +Klaatu. +Okay, there was a discussion on Telegram about the reserve queue and I asked Kevi and Dave to put it onto the main channel. +I don't think I was clear enough to them about what I, why I wanted that. +But, okay, it is what it is. +In response to another of Ahooka's fantastic YouTube subscription episodes being released from the reserve queue, Kevi said on Telegram. +And this is Dave Lee from the Love Bug posting. +Kevi said, +Whilst I enjoy these shows, it's a shame that we are seeing another one being released. +Personally, I think the shows from the reserve queue are being released too early. +Reserve queue episodes go in to fill a gap one week before release, +which means that another one will go in the queue from next Thursday, +if someone doesn't submit show 4564 by tomorrow. +I wonder if the role from the reserve queue has evolved into something that removes the criticality of submission. +Because, for as long as there are episodes in the reserve queue, +there will never be a gap in the next five weekdays. +Of course, once the reserve queue starts to empty, then there will be major panic. +But I think it's often the fact that there are empty slots in the next day or two that spurs hosts into action. +It's all about optics. +If it looks like there are episodes posted, where is the urgency? +Thoughts? +And Klaatu chimes in. +I think you're making an interesting point, Dave. +I wonder if scheduling could be opt-in, for example. +What if we could contribute an episode and leave it to fate to find the time for it to run? +But when you have a specific date in mind, like May the 4th for those clever Star Wars episodes and so on, +then you have the option to define a specific date. +In other words, everything goes into the reserve queue by default and posts on a first-in, first-out basis, +unless the contributor chooses to override the reserve and gaps are available date. +He goes on. +Or maybe psychology of seeing available days prompt more contributions, +and a big bucket of reserve shows doesn't have the same effect. +I understand that part of the structure of contribution is about tricking our brain into feeling urgency about contributing. +I respect that and benefit from it, probably. +John Spring says, +I must confess I wasn't bothered by when my two episodes were playing, +so I just put them into the reserve queue. +One of them still hasn't made it out yet, +and the first one played almost immediately because I was a new host. +Mark Rice says, +The opt-in idea might work. +Also, it might help, as Dave implies, +to release the shows from the reserve two to three days before we run out. +Okay, and then I go into what I didn't intend to be a rant, but apparently is a rant. +Anyway, I would like to take some time to thank, this is me, +I'd like to take time to thank Kevi and Dave for moving the conversation from the mail list. +The response brings up several points that I would like to address. +Reserve queue. +I'm glad to have the opportunity to discuss how the reserve queue is going. +The rationale of using the reserve queue is not new and was discussed by Dave Morris on the July billing-free slots from the reserve queue. +I go into more detail about the mechanics behind this in HBR 4195, Hacking HBR hosts. +Too long, didn't read. +It is that we use it as a mechanism to control the unstable nature of submissions versus the stable nature of postings. +And then I go on to quote Kevi's comment about, +Here, Kevi and others before him see shows coming from the reserve queue as a failure. +This is not the case. +We needed extra shows, so we took them from the reserve queue. +This is the system working exactly as it was supposed to do. +And in response to Dave saying, +I think it's often the fact that there are empty slots in the next day or two that spurs hosts into actions. +I reply saying, +The statement is predicated on the assumption that hosts monitor the queue and act once it is empty. +This is not the case. +We have had 51 times where the queue was so low that we needed to issue a call for shows. +In 2013, there was one. +2014, 12. +2015, 2. +2016, 6. +2017, 2. +2018. +And 2019, 3 each. +2020, 2. +2021, there was 5 call for shows. +2022, there was 10 call for shows. +2023, there was 4 call for shows. +And in 2024 and 2025, there were no calls for shows. +Who reading this, or even listening to this, can tell me now, without checking, when the next free slot is. +Not many, given that the calendar page is only being accessed by less than 200 unique IP addresses this month. +Many of those IP addresses are suspiciously in the same IP assignment range. +As in, it's 1, then 2, then 3, then 4. +Anyway, my feeling is that most common case for opening up the page is when you already have recorded a show and you're looking for the next free slot. +There are, of course, those people who engage in the unhealthy practice of tracking the queue. +At any given time, there may be one or two hosts who feel the responsibility to rush in a show to fill empty slots. +This is not good for HPR listeners. +This is not good for HPR, as listeners complain about too many shows from a particular host, or the quality of the rush shows was poor. +Worse, it's not good for the hosts in question, as it creates a never-ending, unnecessary stress on what should be an enjoyable project. +Just a side note, I am the first one. +In fact, I'm the one who's most susceptible to this because I'm constantly checking the queue, which is actually, in hindsight, which is why I only check the queue on a Friday. +Because then it's one day a week that you do it. +Okay, back to the comment. +Over the years, I have had to advise several hosts to stop looking at the queue, as it can become addictive. +If any host has submitted a show in a given year, all calls to action no longer apply to you. +Okay, back to the chart. +In the chart above, you may ask, if the reserve queue was so brilliant, why did the problems persist after 2022? +So, 2022, there were still calls after it, and there were four calls in the following year. +So, if you've ever had to deal with network congestion, you will know that at some point you'll need to signal back to the source, either to slow down or speed up. +In our case, we signaled back to the hosts to speed up by sending out a call for shows to the mail list. +Now, a mail list outage in 2023, in July of 2023, made me realise that a call for shows only reaches the 214 people on the mailing list, which is a small subset of the HPR listeners. +So, any episode gets maybe 10,000, 8,000 to 10,000 downloads, and a tiny link of the active subscribers, which is 130,000. +So, we're missing a large number of existing, and more importantly, potential hosts. +From then on, I added the warning, you are listening to our show from the reserve queue. +We are airing it now because we have free slots that were not filled. +This is a community of projects that need listeners to contribute shows in order to survive. +Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio. +I'm happy to say that at least five new hosts have reported that they've joined HPR specifically because they heard the show from the reserve queue. +Therefore, I believe we should keep the urgency where it belongs, out in the open, spurring people who have never contributed to do so. +If the project cannot continue without intense intervention from a small subset of hosts, then we should wind it up as it's no longer functioning as a community podcast. +So, basically, it's not a community thing. +It's just a core of central people releasing episodes. +Choice of scheduling. +This is Klaatu's dump everything into the reserve queue thing. +Again, I say this is not the first time that this was discussed and we support it already. +The very first option on the upload page is add to the reserve queue. +Post your show to the reserve queue if you don't care when it will be released. +Only after that are hosts given the option to pick a slot. +We do require that hosts put their first show in the main queue so that they get issued with a host ID in the database. +But, other than that, we do what you want to do today. +And, in the case of John Spriggs there, I posted the show on his behalf to the next available slot. +With his permission, obviously. +Just on a side note, if people want to subscribe to the shows as they're posted without having to wait for them to be released, +there's also a link on the subscription page, hackerpublicradio.org, rss-future.php, into your podcatchers of choice. +Okay, and then we go on to the actual topic of Dave's point about the reserve queue that posted them on Thursdays too early for next week. +And, I say, you have a point. +During the weekend, I fill the free slots that were not filled in the next week. +This means that, in practice, there may not be a free slot available in the next seven days. +The question is, what's a reasonable time to call it? +I post a reserve show in that free slot. +In my experience, excluding the queue watchers, it's very unlikely that somebody will rush in and fill a free slot, let alone multiple. +Over one-third of the reserve shows posted have been in weeks that there were multiple free slots available. +We need to have such a large delay due to the nature of HPR versus other podcasts that have control of their entire workflow. +And, what I mean by that is, if you're recording a podcast, say, the New World Order or whatever, you're recording it, maybe you're doing an interview with somebody else, you have control over both sides, you listen to the audio. +If there's a problem, you can go back immediately and get somebody to re-record it, you put it together, you upload it. +It's your big thing. +That's not the way with HPR. +We have a lot of issues. +And, I'll list just some of them. +For example, missing audio. +Slots kept open without posting. +Invalid links to the audio. +No permission on the link given to get the audio. +The link turns out to be a tar zip file requiring manual posting and hackery. +The audio for the wrong episode. +Audio with missing sections. +Audio with copyrighted content. +Audio with no show notes. +Audio that breaks FFmpeg or socks. +Audio that is in Audible and requires fixing by Audiophonic. +Audio that's actually an image. +An image that's actually an audio. +Show notes in HTML that is actually markdown. +Show notes in HTML that is actually rendered HTML code. +Show notes in format of your choice. +Show notes that contain UTF-A characters not supported by MSQL. +Show notes that refer to sites but there's no show notes there. +Show notes that refers to show notes but they're not licensed CC by SA. +Show notes with broken links. +Show notes saying there were no show notes. +Show notes with misspellings. +Show notes with breaks and images. +Show notes that refer to images but contain none. +Show notes that are just images. +Broken libraries for audio, transcripts, images, subtitles, metadata, pandoc, internet archive being done due to DDoS. +Internet archive bugs with their API. +Honesthost.com migration are running out of disk space on rsync.net. +And since I sent this out another one where a host sent in an image and the image broke the extraction tool because there was an embedded thumbnail in that. +That host was me. +And on the same episode that I sent in we had a holdup on the internet archive where the workflow stopped and I had to log in and restart the workflow over there. +And that cleared it after an hour or two. +And then we go on to say not to mention anything that involves the auditors. +Each and every one of these things cause a delay. +While I can fix some myself, some just have to wait for the service to be up or for me to come up with a workaround. +But by far the biggest delay is getting in touch with the hosts. +If you have a question tonight, I can expect an answer tomorrow and then at least a day to wait for a fix. +And only then is it resolved. +And in some cases the fix may need another fix, etc. +And it can go back and forth, can extend to weeks. +Waiting to the last minute to post the show means there is not time to resolve any given issue when they arise. +The situation is actually made worse when somebody has just picked a slot. +As then they need to get the auditors and or the list involved to release it. +That may take days to come to consensus when urgent action may need to be taken immediately. +And we saw that previously with somebody who was trolling us taking advantage of the summer period to mess around with shows like that. +So I go on to say posting to the reserve show can also close to the deadline can also be problematic if there are issues with it because the host needs to be available to deal with episodes that were authored a year ago. +So what I mean by that is if you dump everything into the reserve queue, they're not processed immediately. +They don't have a number. +They're not an episode. +They're just sitting there in limbo. +And any of the errors and bugs and issues that there are with them remain there and will not be fixed until I process them. +And if we're saying the first in, first out into the queue, then I can't post another episode because that episode needs to be fixed first. +So that host needs to be contacted and that host maybe have changed their email address, which has happened also quite often with the host might not be available, might be on vacation. +Who knows? And yet our queue is held up. +So lots of lots of issues around posting shows that we don't actually go into a lot of detail with. +But, you know, if you want, thankfully, Dave used to do this and I didn't need to bother with it. +But now I'm having to deal with it quite a lot. +So, OK, before we spend a lot of time on this, can I ask if this is a real issue people have faced? +The reason I'm asking is because we come up against this during normal operation all the time, even when there is not a reserve show posted. +So has anybody ever posted a show to a slot that was occupied by a reserve show? +Then, as soon as I said that, I realised I could probably have phrased all of that a lot better. +But anyway, I replied to the mail list saying, +As there was no response to this thread, I'm worried that the tone of the email may have offended some people. +If that's the case, I would like to unreservedly apologise. +It is definitely not meant to criticise or attack in any way. +When I get a question, I feel the need to give a detailed answer as to why it's been done the way it is. +But are the assumptions correct if we've already tried something or not? +This should never be done in a way that will alienate anyone in the community. +Everything we do should have a reason, and if it's not working, we should change it. +All the issues I pointed out below have happened since the start of the project, +and I, as much as anyone else, have done them. +I'm sure Dave Morris will testify to that. +My only intention in listing them was to explain why there can be a delay in posting the shows. +And as far as tracking the queue goes, I am and was the number one offender there as well. +I'd appreciate it. +People would call me out on stuff like that when they see it's happening. +So, that. +And Kevi says, +Hi all, just to be clear, I'm not offended. +I have a thicker skin than that. +However, I subscribed to the Digest version, so only we received all of them combined. +My comments about it is a shame to be here another show. +It was purely because I felt there had been a lot pulled in that week. +Not that it was an any failure. +Just wondering if the algorithm to pull the show could be reduced to what, or was it this an essential minimum. +I do think that things should be discussed and reasons given, and I'm always happy to hear feedback. +We don't have to agree with each other 100% of the time. +We often disagree a bit, but that doesn't mean we're falling out. +I'm actually quite happy at Ken's frank discussion and an explanation, and I'm not offended. +Again, thanks to all who contributed the feedback, and I continue to feel the openness is important. +Leander says, +Hi Ken, I want to at least speak my voice in agreement. +You say very clearly, and with good data and examples, +much of what I was feeling but struggling to articulate, +at least without calling myself out for not having submitted a show recently, +might just as well own up to that up front. +For me, the urgency comes from the automatic notice at the start of the shows. +We had free slots that were not filled. +But I do wonder if the way we talk about the urgency, +or the, at times, desperately sounding pleas, +included by hosts when recording a show for the reserve queue, +are a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. +We talk about the project as if it's struggling or even dying, +and I think that might come across to listeners and potential hosts +in a way that actually discourages them from submitting a show. +I generally don't like to speculate this way about, +without offering solutions or ideas, but I don't have one. +Probably best just to clear the clutter off my PC +and get to work on a show for 2026. +I just heard a new host, +and perhaps the variety of hosts is the best encouragement +to keep that happening. +To which I reply, +that is a very valid point. +With currently 28, five and a half weeks of shows in the reserve queue, +more sedate explanation is called for. +Actually, before that, I want to talk to Kevi's point, +because I only realised now, +doing the HPR community news, +how many shows we had from the reserve queue, +and we should maybe flag that up, +that there are periods of time +when we're getting a lot of shows from the reserve queue. +I wouldn't have normally expected January to be a month +where we would get a lot of shows from the reserve queue. +People tend to have time off over the holidays +and submit shows. +So there were quite a few, actually, +and Kevi does indeed have a point. +Anyway, going back to my comment about Leander's thing, +we could change it that if there are 15 or more shows in the queue, +we add something like, +you're listening to the show from the reserve queue. +This show was submitted, you know, however long ago, +to cover occasions like this where there are gaps in the queue. +Then when we get to under 10 shows, +you're listening to a show from the reserve queue. +We have now less than two-week shows in the reserve queue. +This would be a good time to consider submitting a show. +This show was submitted blah, blah, blah long ago. +And then when we get back to five, +we put in the topic that we have now. +And then when we go to zero, +we say thank you for listening to Africa Public Radio. +We're shutting down the project. +Goodbye, and thanks for the fish. +I like the idea of a more granular approach. +I think we should put things like, +should we put things like when the next free slot is, +there are 10 free slots coming up in the next week, +or something like that, ideas. +Roan says, +I'm up for this approach, +you know, having the granulated one, +and vote for adding the message urgency ramp up as described. +And then about, +goodbye and thanks for the fish. +I mean, if you're going out, +let's make sure we get the exact quote, +smiley face, +so long and thanks for all the fish. +And about adding more information in there. +I don't know if that would encourage more queue watching, +giving the exact count, +or maybe help with the urge, +since they know about it. +I'm okay with adding it. +Might try it out and see. +Sporless says, +I'm also in favour of Ken's purposeful plan +for increasing the urgency message +as the reserve queue empties. +And Jim Leonard says, +second it, +if it's not too difficult to implement +from a technical span point. +No, actually, +it would be quite easy to do. +I need to automate that anyway, +and that's a good way to do it. +Good reason to do it. +Henry Cameron says, +I can thank you for your, +the depth of explanation and reasoning, +and of course, +thank you to all who discuss and read this matter. +It's about two years since I gave my first show, +and somewhat longer since I became a listener. +Over time, +I've come to understand better +how the reserve queue works, +about the urgency of more shows, +and not to see the slots as too problematic. +The mail below helps me further to understand that, +so thanks. +I think looking back at my experience, +that at the same time as new shows are important +and essential for HBR to continue, +I have a minor feeling of urgency crisis +has been received to me +as somewhat more alarming than intended. +Thanks for all this discussion and clarification. +Good, good, good. +Jim Leonard also says, +I was saying, +if it has offended people, +no, not at all, he says. +However, +it somehow got flagged a spam for me, +so I had to give it, +and a few more replies to the thread, +out of my spam folder. +While I've only contributed a handful of shows, +and I'm not sure if my opinion has any weight, +I think the system is working as intended, +and don't see the need for changes, +especially since the upload hints text +on the website was clarified 18 months ago. +Okay, and that was it. +We had a community news message +asking people to come to the community news recording, +and that's it, I think. +Speaking of the queue, +maybe we should have a look at the queue. +We have some free slots. +One show just posted for next week, +and we have a free slot the week after, +and then after that, +it's pretty much lots of free slots. +There are still Kevies and Whiskey Jacks, +sorry, Ahookas and Whiskey Jack shows in there, +so you have plenty of slots +if you've got an episode. +Okay, with that, +tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode +of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4567.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4567.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9556964 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4567.txt @@ -0,0 +1,291 @@ +Episode: 4567 +Title: Movie Recommendations for Hackers +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4567/hpr4567.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:05 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4567, for 2026-02-03 +Today's show is entitled, "Movie Recommendations for Hackers" +The host is Deltaray and the duration is 00:30:44 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "An overview of movies related to cybersecurity and hacker culture." +Just a forewarning about this episode, it contains spoilers for the movies that I'm +going to talk about. So if you don't like spoilers, you might consider skipping this +episode. The show notes will have a list of the movies that I talk about, so you can watch them +on your own and then come back to this episode later. Hello everybody and welcome to another +episode of Hacker Public Radio. This is Delta Ray. I want to talk today about something a little +different than normal tools or commands, but still very much related to tech and cybersecurity. +I want to talk about movies. So where I work, I actually create a cybersecurity movie library that +has about 40 movies in it, all on DVD or Blu-ray, and I just put it on a shelf and I don't have any +requirement to like check it out or write your name down or anything like that. You just pick it up +because I want to try to reduce the friction it would take or cause somebody to want to watch +a movie, you know, so it's like it's, I want to make it as easy as possible for them. I do put +stickers on the movie cases that say, hey, this is from work so that hopefully they'll bring it back +sometime. But the original reason why I put this cybersecurity movie library together in a list was +pretty simple. I realized that I and a lot of other colleagues of mine would casually reference movies +when talking about cybersecurity. Stuff like, this is like what happened in war games, or it's like when +they magically decrypt the network stream in sneakers, or I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do +that. I started noticing that the younger colleagues often didn't have these reference points, not because +they weren't interested, but simply because they had never seen those movies or they didn't know +about them. So I created a small cybersecurity movie library at work to help reduce that friction. +If someone wanted to understand a reference, they could just borrow the movie, or hopefully they would +just watch through a whole bunch of the movies so that the next time they heard one, they'd realize +it right away. What I didn't realize at the time was a lot of people don't have DVD players anymore, +or Blu-ray players. So they didn't really know how to consume the movies. Unfortunately, I can't just +upload rips of the movies to someplace because this is a work-related function and stuff. And I don't +want to get in trouble with the law at work, or at all, really. But it also helped me to step back and +think that these movies weren't just about nostalgia. They're part of how our field developed a shared +language and even some of the technology and techniques that we use. Movies and TV shows that +are about computers and security do a few things for the public. They put a face on cybersecurity and +computers. They can show the motivations of attackers and defenders. They demonstrate the +threats and the exploits in a way that can be seen visually and better understood. And they show +security controls, even if they're not perfect. Sometimes they will show controls that are hard +to demonstrate, or even you'd only read about them in a textbook, but the movie will actually show how +they work. One example of that is in Mission Impossible. In Mission Impossible, they're trying +to break into the CIA into a protected computer enclave. And the system administrator, when he +needs to get into that room, he has to go through several security checks. And so you can just +plainly see this is how like an eye scanner works, or this is how a pressure sensor works, and so on. +And sometimes they even prophesize about future concerns, like, you know, the next movie that I'm +going to talk about. Another thing they do is they give us a common vocabulary to use when talking about +these things. For instance, War Games, you know, War Games was one of the early computer hacker +movies, but the term war driving, actually, and war dialing, comes from that movie. That's the war in +War Games became war and war dialing, and so on. And also, these movies can be entertaining to watch. You +know, you can watch it with friends and family, and it feels less like you're learning something, and it +usually takes less time than reading through a textbook or something like that. So the first movie +I want to start with is, let's go back to nearly the beginning of things. And this is a movie called +2001, A Space Odyssey, in which it talks about what it might be like to, when man ventures out into +space. And in the movie, there's a high-powered computer called HAL 9000, which runs the life +support systems and the communications for the spaceship. And it has some problems, or it makes a +mistake in the movie. I'm not going to give too much away, but basically, you know, it has some problems, and +they have to deal with those problems, and so on. It raises some ethical and social and +technological questions that we're still wrestling with today. Should AI be implicitly +trusted? What happens when it lies? Should it manage life-critical systems? What happens when +corporate pride overrides safety? You know, and we're still, you know, even though it's 60 years +later, we're still trying to figure these questions out. So HAL 9000 isn't necessarily evil, +and in the traditional sense, it's just constrained and conflicted and operating under bad incentives. +That alone makes the movie endlessly relevant. And culturally, references like Open the Pod Bay +Doors How are still shorthand for when automation goes wrong. You know, you'll hear professionals make +that reference. Or, I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. Fast forwarding about 13 years to +the 80s. And one thing you have to understand about the 1980s in society, it's when everybody started +to, you know, think about computers a lot more. You know, they started really showing up in people's +daily lives. And I mean, I'm kind of biased because I was young in the 80s, and so it just always seemed +like people were talking about computers to me and stuff. But from what I can tell, this is, the early 80s +is when people really started to fear, you know, what could happen with computers and how we're putting all +this data everywhere. And they're, you know, connected in our lives and so on. And you're basically just +turned into numbers in a computer. You know, your bank account balance and so on are just numbers in a +computer that can be modified and so on. And so Tron, which came out in 1982, kind of took that in an +interesting way. I would argue that Tron is kind of a, even though it's thought of as a digital +gladiator movie and stuff, and I think a lot of people don't quite get it. But I think it's actually +a modern telling of Jesus Christ as a digital form because there's a lot of things that actually +happen in the movie that, but I mean, it's just kind of obvious that, you know, it's making these +religious references and everything. But Tron isn't necessarily focused on being a cybersecurity +movie, but it does introduce a lot of security concepts. You know, passwords are in it, they break +into systems, they talk about access levels and so on. And of course, Tron is most known for being a +trailblazer of computer graphics before he is even called CGI. In fact, the movie was so far ahead of +the game that they were disqualified at the Oscars for special effects because they said, well, they +cheated by using computers, which is pretty funny now. But for a lot of people, it was their first +exposure to seeing terminals and mainframe and hearing about access levels and monitoring of +computers and command injections and passwords and so on. The AI concepts were pretty advanced for the +time. You know, the master control program, Intron, was basically a form of AI. And the guy in the real +world that communicates with it, he just talks to it plainly the same way we would talk to like chat GPT +now, and so on. And so that was not possible at the time, right? It was, you had to suspend your +sense of disbelief about that being a possibility. But of course, fast forward to today, that is a +possibility, except for the MCP had its own motivation and stuff. And we haven't really seen that play out +with computers yet. It was able to punch its own buttons, essentially. Tron helped normalize the +idea that computers are environments with rules and permissions and consequences, and that matters. And +people refer back to it. For a lot of people, it was very influential, myself included, and it kind of +kicked off having computers as themes in movies. The following year, a movie with very relevant +concerns came out called War Games. Now, one thing you have to understand, if you didn't grow up in the +80s or before, and maybe you were born in the 90s or something, you probably don't have the latent fear +about nuclear war. But back in the 80s, we were very worried about the escalation of nuclear weapons and +how the world could basically have ended in about 15 minutes, if, you know, one side, either the Soviet +Union or the US started launching nuclear weapons. And so this movie, it explores the idea that nuclear +weapons were starting to be, I don't want to say automated, but they were starting to be hooked up to +computers. And there was a lot of concern about that, you know, could somebody dial in to a computer +at a military base and start World War III? And that's basically the theme of this movie. And so +in the movie, David Lightman, he dials into just a random number, which he thinks is something else, +but ends up being NORAD, the, you know, the North American, I can't remember what the acronym stands +for. But it's basically where we control, you know, the nuclear weapons from. The movie was so +influential that Ronald Reagan, the president at the time, he approached Congress about it after +having watched the movie. And he asked if the scenario was possible. And essentially, his chief +of staff told him, yes, yes, this is technically feasible, I think is what he said. And that led to +some of the first presidential executive orders on computer security. So this movie had quite an +influence. But it introduced concepts about computer vulnerabilities, remote access, ethical +dilemmas, it showed some social engineering, which was great. One of the scenes that I really like is +in the movie, David Lightman, he gets into trouble in class in high school intentionally, they don't really +say that. But I think that he intentionally was getting himself into trouble so that he could be +sent down to the principal's office, so that he could actually see where they keep the passwords +on like a sheet of paper, because he knew where these, these passwords were kept for the school's +computer. So he gets himself into trouble so that he can go down to the office and see that list to see +what the latest updated password was, which was pencil. And they had basically crossed out all the +previous passwords. They had this practice of changing the password, which is good, but they +kept it in a place that was known. So that's, and that's bad. But so he sees it, and then he later +uses it to actually log in and change his grades. So it's, you know, it's this interesting social +engineering type of thing. And also like an insider threat, you know, you have to worry about who already +has access and what they can do. And also kicked off kind of a generation of hacker culture. You +know, lots of things in that movie became references. I remember even when I was a kid, I was about +seven or eight when this movie came out. I remember hearing about it at the time, and one of my friends +saying something, you know, he was trying to show off or whatever and talking about like, oh yeah, +our school has a computer too. And his password is pencil sharpener. And I'm just like, I'm like, +okay, probably was making that up. But yeah, but I mean, it shows how it was so influential that kids +were even talking about this movie. And unfortunately, nuclear escalation still remains relevant and a +concern, maybe even more so now. I don't know whether younger, the younger generation isn't probably +going to think of it as that big of a deal. But I mean, we went through a time that it was very +scary. That same year, and like I said, in the public mind, computers were starting to become +dangerous, you know, to them. And that same year, a movie called Superman 3 came out. Of course, +this was the third episode, you know, the third movie in a series of Superman movies from the 70s to +the 80s. People probably don't think of it as the computer Superman movie, but really it kind of +was. In the movie, he has to deal with computers kind of wrecking the lives of people and stuff like +that. And also, he has to deal with a supercomputer at the end that kind of takes over things and he has +to try to defeat it. You know, it shows lots of things about computers in people's daily lives and how +they're like doing things wrong, like spitting out money onto the street from ATMs, or the wrong +account balance was put into somebody's account or something like that. Among other things in the +movie, it demonstrates data manipulation, rounding errors in computers. It also shows two-factor style +controls. So there's a scene that's kind of interesting where one of the guys has to use two +keys at the same time to get access to this computer. Like you have to actually be two separate +people because it's too far away. You know, you can't reach out both hands and touch both key +spaces. So you need two people at the same time. So you kind of jury rigs this contraption to help +them to do it. But you know, that's like a two-factor control. So that's Superman 3. I think it's a good +one to watch. There are probably other movies in the 80s, you know, that dealt with computers, but +none that I could really think of until 1990. It's called The KGB, The Computer and Me. And this is +based on a book called The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. It's a movie that was made for PBS, +the program Nova, which was a popular science documentary series back then. But it's based on +a real event that happened at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs back in 1987, I think it was. +It's where Cliff Stoll, who is, you know, a system administrator at the time working at this national +lab, he finds a 70 cent discrepancy in accounting, and he tries to track it down. And he ends up on the, +you know, on the trail of trying to figure out how this hacker was gaining access to their systems. +It's really interesting. And I highly recommend reading the book, The Cuckoo's Egg, because it +goes into a lot of detail about how computers worked back then. I feel when I read that book, +I feel like I'm reading Genesis for cybersecurity, because so many of the concepts in there are like +the first time it was used. You know, it's like, you're reading about this stuff, and you realize, +oh, wait, Cliff Stoll actually came up with this, or something for tracking this down. So it's a +pretty interesting book. And the dramatization, you know, the KGB, the computer in me is a pretty good +representation of the events that are documented in the book. And it's actually reenacted by the +people who actually were there and doing it. So it's really cool to watch. You can find that +movie on YouTube. And, you know, you can get the Cuckoo's Egg, you can like buy it off of +online used bookstores or something. In that movie, you know, he talks about real networks, +how they're interconnected, how they worked, real accounts, how phone tracing worked back then, +how the investigative process took place, and how you have to be patient, and so on, +and looking for clues, and so on. And it does, it does it all pretty realistically. +If you only watch one thing on this list, on this list of movies, this might be the one. +I don't want to say you should skip the other ones, but this is definitely a must watch. +And then two years later, a movie called Sneakers came out. This was pretty prophetic as well. +It introduced to the public concepts like cryptography, and trust models, and who we're +trusting with our information, and unintended consequences of all that. Ethical dilemmas, +you know, like if you have access to be able to decrypt stuff, should you be allowed to do that, +and so on. And many of these issues it raises are still ones we're actively dealing with today. +You know, so it's fun. It's a nice movie. It has Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, and some others in it. +It's a good ensemble cast movie with an interesting story behind it and everything, and still relevant. +A few years later, and thinking about the actual history of the world at the time, this is the mid-90s, +is when the World Wide Web started showing up, and people started getting access through stuff like +AOL, and BBSs, and so on. And so people started getting access to the internet. But really, +1995 was still just about a year too early before you start really thinking about the broader adoption +of people getting access online. That probably didn't happen until 96 or 97. +But so in 95, this movie called The Net came out, which was a Sandra Bullock. At the time, +a lot of made fun of that movie, The Net, and I think it's because they felt like some of the +representations of computers were unrealistic and stuff like that. But it's funny, in hindsight, +this movie, The Net, was very telling of problems that we would face later, because it deals with +things like identity theft, isolation, what happens if, you know, the dangers of remote work, +and having all our data in computer systems that could be manipulated, and the importance of knowing +real people in real life, and not just living your entire life online. So this movie talks about +those kind of issues. And those are really relevant today, because today we have problems with identity +theft, and we have problems with all our information is only in digital form. And changing that could +really cause us problems. And it might be really hard to prove your existence if you don't have some +kind of reference of a person or somebody that can vouch for you or something like that. My dad just ran +into this. So he needs to get like a real ID star on his driver's license. He needed to look for his +actual birth certificate from, you know, a really long time ago. And in order to prove who he was, +so that he could actually get a real ID star on his driver's license. Well, first of all, I mean, +those can be faked, right? But second of all, it's like, some people don't have those anymore. +And so what are they supposed to do if we suddenly depend on everybody having a real ID star on their +driver's license? And they can't, you know, like elderly people can't get it because they don't +have their birth certificate anymore. That's not fair to them. So, you know, the net deals with these +kind of issues. And it's kind of fun. Yeah, it's a good movie. And then the same year, a movie called +Hackers came out. And this is basically a Hollywood portrayal of what computer hacking is like. +Very 90s in its visuals and everything. And, you know, like the hackers, they use rollerblades and +stuff like that. And they're dressed like it's the 90s and it's in New York City and stuff. The +visuals are very flashy. You know, it's the way that they represent certain things is so far-fetched. +You know, it's just like computers aren't really like that. I did leave off Jurassic Park from this +list, but that's another one that maybe you could have on this list. But that would be in 93. So I +didn't include Jurassic Park there. But that's another one where she uses a 3D file system viewer, +which really did exist. So, you know, the whole thing in Hackers where they show them going through +the file system and it's in 3D. Yeah, one could argue that that actually was possible, but it wasn't +how normal computers were. You know, you'd had to have a Silicon Graphics workstation to be able to do +stuff like that. But the movie does demonstrate real vulnerabilities. It talks about real things that +end up being cybersecurity terms. It demonstrates shoulder surfing. It's subtle when it happens, +but there's a scene in which you see somebody shoulder surfing to try to get somebody's password. +They talk about worms and viruses and that there's a difference between the two. And they show, +you know, like proxies and internet routing and so on. It also talks about operational technology risks. +You know, what happens if a computer is in control of a large ship and what that might mean. Its plot, +maybe at the time, seemed unrealistic, but it's really not. One of my roles in my professional +job as a cybersecurity researcher was talking about operational technology. And some of the stuff +that's shown in the movie Hackers from 30 years ago, I would say is not out of the realm of possibility. +Now, you know, computers are largely, I mean, ships and, and so on are largely computer controlled. And +this is obvious to us now, but back then it was maybe not so obvious and it seemed a little far +fetched. And it's funny because Superman three deals with the same thing. All the ships are computer +controlled and they all end up going to the center of the Atlantic ocean or something in the movie. So +it's kind of interesting throwback there, but it's, it's imaginative, it's stylized, and it was +influential. I think that if anything, it's kind of like a music video, you know, hackers was influential +at the time to the up and coming real hackers and techies of the day as to, you know, something to +have on in the background. So you can like, you know, enjoy just killing time or something like +that, or maybe while you're actually hacking or something like that. Again, some of the stuff is +not super realistic in it, but there is a lot of stuff that is. The next movie is not necessarily +a computer movie, but it does deal with stuff that we care about in cybersecurity. And that's +Gattaca. Gattaca was a movie from 1997. It looked at a future society, kind of like a dystopian +society in which everything is controlled through your DNA. Like they, your access to buildings is, +is done through like a pinprick on your finger to get a blood sample. And then they allow you in based +on that, you know, what jobs you're given and stuff is based on your DNA and your genes and so on. +And in the movie, somebody who wants to have, you know, they aspire to do something great is not +allowed to do it because their genes, you know, basically indicate that they wouldn't be able to do +it or something. So they overcome that. But it's a great movie for thinking about things like privacy +of health information and genetic data and how that can be misused and identity theft and stuff like +that. So it's, it's a cool movie to watch and kind of scary, honestly. And it, it really drives home +the idea of what is it that we're really protecting in cybersecurity when we're talking about things like +PHI and so on. And then two years later in 1999, a comedy came out called Office Space. Office Space is +great to watch just if you work in an office, you know, and if you work in IT, it's a great movie to watch +just so that you kind of, you know, you'll relate a lot to a lot of the things that happen in that movie, the +way different employees act and so on, and frustrations with corporate policies and stuff like that. Did you +remember to put the cover letter on your TPS report? You know, you'll finally understand that +reference. But in the movie, it also deals with several cybersecurity concepts, insider threats, +viruses, rounding errors. And this is, it's funny, in this movie, they, they make a reference to +Superman 3 by, they say, oh, it's like in Superman 3, or something like that, because they kind of do +the same thing that Richard Pryor, Pryor's character does in Superman 3. And it also talks about +the Y2K bug, not in detail, but in the movie, they're actually dealing with, you know, preparing +software for the Y2K switchover. And it gave us also a lot of cultural references, like the red +stapler and so on, and 35 pieces of flair, and so on. So by watching this movie, you'll understand a lot +of those references that get made by other people, you know, that you work with. One on here that I +didn't include is the Matrix Reloaded. If you, I mean, the Matrix, you know, it's all about living +inside of a computer simulation, stuff like that. But in the Matrix Reloaded, they actually use a real +SSH vulnerability in it to hack the power grid, and so on. So that can be interesting to watch, +because it was, it was real, you know, it was like they use SSH in a command line in the movie, +and they use a real vulnerability that existed at the time. Going forward to a more obscure one, +and one that isn't necessarily cybersecurity, but deals with surveillance a lot. And this is called +The Lives of Others. And it's from 2006. It's a German movie. And you, you know, you can get it and, +and listen to the, the dubbed English dialogue, or watch the subtitles. But you know, it goes slow +enough that, that you can read the subtitles fairly easily, and it won't be much of a problem. But +really good movie. Scary, not horror scary. But man, I, I was just kind of like taken aback. +After I watched this, I'm like, wow, the East German Stasi, which is their secret police, +had the ability to do a lot of stuff that, you know, you're just like, wow, I, you know, +is our government doing this to us? And we just don't know it. It shows surveillance, interrogation +techniques, which aren't really intense, but they're just very psychologically manipulative and +sneaky. You know, the, the stuff that they show, you're just like, whoa, that's, that's crazy. I +didn't even realize that that was a thing. State, you know, monitoring of things. And the ending is +really great. So The Lives of Others, it's a really great movie. Then there's a TV series that came after +that in 2011 called Person of Interest. And it deals with mass surveillance, you know, in the wake of +9-11. They basically hook all cameras and TV streams and people's email and everything. All this data +goes into a massive supercomputer that basically is AI and is able to try to detect when the next attack +will be. What it also does is it feeds off clues to its creator about other people who might get +murdered or who are likely to get murdered. And so in the series, they, they try to prevent those +murders. This is a really cool TV show and, you know, shows lots of tech at the time, some of which +is a bit far-fetched and they use some tech speak, techno babble that doesn't really work. But some of +the stuff they show actually was real and, and was, you know, real hacks and real security controls at +the time. So in the show notes, I'm going to include a list of cybersecurity movies and TV shows +that I've included in the cybersecurity movie library. If you have some others that you have +suggestions for, drop them in the comments. Also, you know, you might just, if you have other insights +into these movies that you think is relevant, please make a comment. And if you could go ahead and +record a Hacker Public Radio episode, that would be great. Thanks. End of line. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4568.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4568.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1afb1d --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4568.txt @@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ +Episode: 4568 +Title: Book reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4568/hpr4568.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:06 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4568, for 2026-02-04 +Today's show is entitled, "Book reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll" +The host is Henrik Hemrin and the duration is 00:08:52 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "About the book The Cuckoo's Egg, starting by looking back at my experience from that time period." +Welcome to Hacker Public Radio. My name is Henley Kimlin and I'm your host today. +In 1985, I started to work at a telecom equipment manufacturer. +We had a mainframe computer in our combined office and lab room. +We were four sitting in the room and it was this one terminal for all of us and maybe even for someone +more. Downstairs, we at the component technology department had our big climate control lab +laboratories. I used an HP-85 computer having the basic programming language to optimize measurements +of resistors and there were several more of them for other measurements of various electronic components. +Also more advanced computers were used in the labs and as I recall also with other languages +non-basic. I remember I learned briefly a bit about one of those languages but I have forgotten which one. +The secretariat department could send telex messages around the world. We handed a handwritten +manuscript to her and she typed it into the telex system and she had a Xerox computer with +big at least eight inch floppy disks. Not so many years later my manager got the personal computer +running those and some years later those computers also came to us in the department. +But also very early we had a son-unic station and for managers, unix became my daily driver at work. +Before I started to work in school we had some education in basic programming. We were using +the at least in Sweden very successful and good lucks for ABC80 computer. At the end of my school time +my school got the top notch ABC8 tanred with color screen. At home so I could get a chance to learn +somewhat more about computers and basic programming in my own pace. I got a single error said X80 +computer which later upgraded to said X81. One summer job when I was a student I was at televerket +the Swedish PETTT. It meant that I visited the numerous of exchange stations +many at the countryside, some with very few subscribers so I could hear the relay start when +some of was making a call. But big stations it was noise from the release all the time. +This was long before the phone number could be seen by us subscribers. It was impossible to +know who was calling. But televerket had such equipment a big wooden box with a print that could +be connected to a subscriber when the traffic needed to be monitored. One reason to monitor could +be that the subscriber had claimed the phone bill was too high, impossible they had been calling so much. +So televerket then monitored for a while and they could show +that there indeed had been many phone calls. But possibly by another person in the family +than the one claiming the bill. And possibly calls were going to a person of an external +lover fair that the partner did not know about until televerket presented their call list. +But the exchange station that were in some cases red plastic pieces indicating +the line was used for data communication and was not to be broken. But the station it was also +possible to connect a special phone to the subscriber line and call as well as listen and interrupt +the ongoing conversation when there was a need for service. Of course whatever was heard was to +be considered unhandled as confidential. As I mentioned after studies were completed I was working +with telecom equipment and in particular for landline telephony. Not at least I worked with components +for the line cards, a card at the telephone exchange that is facing towards the end user. +After this long introduction I better come to the book. I have read the Kukus egg by Cliff Stahl. +Many of you listeners probably have already read this book and even more of you have heard +about the book. Now I have read it. It is a hacker thriller based on a true story that happened +in the mid-1980s going on for a year. It was written by the hunter Cliff Stahl shortly after. +This is the same time frame as I relate to above from my personal life. I think the book can +be interesting for anyone. To me, if I even barely can do any programming or understand the telecom +network in depth, my background gives me another layer of relation to the book. Although I am +younger than the author, I have a bit of understanding. I have heard about both Vax and +Unix and the special dialect of Unix from Berkeley. Cliff Stahl describes Unix commands +which are similar to Linux. He talks about passwords about encryption and a lot more. +Many technical details he describes by using analogie with more common non-tech +nircal life examples. A security hole in GNU MX software, a software still around today, +plays a central role in how the hacker could penetrate. To fix an update, security holes are +very relevant today as well. Many things in computers and technology have changed. +But at the same time, very much of the problems are valid today, although they are somewhat +different. And the way he describes technical details for the non-technical reader are relevant also +today, I believe. At the same time, as a book has many technical details, he also talks about the +daily life at home, the left wing culture here belonged to, at the university, his long hair and +the dress code he belonged to, and the music. He also describes his context to numerous authorities +and frustration he had in those contexts. I am very impressed of his analytical research approach, +his persistence, his skills, and inventiveness, including the inventiveness of his girlfriend and others. +One takeaway for me is that he kept a detailed logbook. It is an important research tool +he wrote down what happened all details. The logbook together with the print outs of exactly +what the hack he did were core references for analyzing and make conclusions, +retract and change conclusions when you information led to that the earlier assumptions were wrong. +And without the logbook book and all print outs, it had been impossible to write this book. +He also wrote a technical paper about it before he wrote the book. +So, for a listener to hack a public radio, this is a book I really recommend, +and for those interested, there are several videos with him, +of a late date on various topics. +Thank you for listening, take care and goodbye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4569.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4569.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7b7e74 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4569.txt @@ -0,0 +1,243 @@ +Episode: 4569 +Title: Kiosk with guest mode on Linux +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4569/hpr4569.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:07 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4569, for 2026-02-05 +Today's show is entitled, "Kiosk with guest mode on Linux" +The host is Klaatu and the duration is 00:23:57 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Use GDM and either a ramdisk or systemd to create a guest profile with self-removing user data" +Hey, everybody. It's glad to. There used to be a sort of a really convenient mode or add-on. +I guess to most Linux distributions, I feel. And it was this guest mode. It was a guest user profile. +You could enable this through a package frequently called X guest. And it would add a user to your login screen called guest. +So you could let a friend or colleague use your computer as a guest. And they could, they would get their own profile. +They could do whatever they want to, you know, within within the bounds of what a user is normally allowed to do on the system. +And then when they log out, every all trace of their activity is simply discarded. +It's just removed. And so every time you log into the guest profile, it's a fresh profile. It's brand new as if no one had ever been there before. +It was a really useful thing because you don't really, I mean, a lot of people will just hand their laptop to someone else. +And just, sure, you can use the web browser or whatever. I never liked doing that for lots of different reasons. +But I mean, primarily, because I just don't want people accidentally or maliciously, but I didn't, +I didn't let people who I suspected of malice use my laptop. But accidental, just erasure of my data, +or even just messing up my environment, just moving a panel somewhere that I don't want it, +or adding an icon to a desktop by accident, by dragging it out of a folder or a menu or something. +So it's just kind of, it's safer and easier to give someone their own guest account. +Now, we don't really use X11 so much anymore. I mean, some of us do. I actually do on my slack +machine. I'm still running X11, but a lot of people have switched over to Wayland. And so the X guest package, +which does as its name sort of hints rely on Xorg, that doesn't really work. I mean, you can install the +package. You can try to log in as guest, but it doesn't deliver a desktop as I've recently found out. +So I, I needed a guest account for a project that I was working on. And the advantage of the +guest account was exactly as I mentioned. The total erasure of all user data, indiscriminate, +just don't need it anymore. When someone logs out, we want to lose all of that data. Now, +this particular project was brought to me by a friend in New York, upstate, New York. +And it's for a library. So the library wants to have guest computers that people can use, +surf the internet, search the card catalog, or whatever you call it, the stacks, whatever. And then +when they log out, or they could do other stuff too, they can research online, they can write +stuff in LibreOffice, they could, I don't know, do graphics and gimp or einkscape or whatever. You know, +like whatever is available on the computer, they have access to that. They can save files, +maybe to save it to the internal hard drives so that they can then move it to some cloud account, +or whatever mechanism. I'm not sure if they have physically as attached storage or not. But when +they log out, everything that they've done needs to be erased for privacy purposes, for data +security purposes, for all of the reasons. So my friend who's volunteering at this library, it was +looking for a solution to provide this guest account or this kiosk mode experience on just some +Linux distribution. I had Fedora 43 on hand, so I decided to kind of poke around and see what +I could come up with because I had it in my head that GDM, the Genome Display Manager, that's the +screen that you get when you first log in, or when you're about to log in to a Linux graphical desktop, +that's running the Genome Desktop. You generally see the GDM. It's not always true. They might use +their own display manager. They might use a different one that then activates Genome. But a lot of times +the Genome sort of the default setup for a Genome Linux distribution, a Linux distribution using Genome, +is going to be GDM for the login screen, and then that will pass you over to the Genome desktop +after you enter your credentials. So I had it in my head that GDM was aware of session states. +And I thought I wonder if GDM has some kind of mechanism to trigger shell scripts or applications +or actions of some type based on the session state. Yes, it does. Turns out that it absolutely +does. So the default behavior of GDM is to track I think four or five different states. There's +init. That's the initial state. The initialization state post log in. So that's the moment that +someone has entered their correct, authentic, their correct credentials. Pre-session. So that's the +time before the session actually begins. Like moments before the session begins. And then post +session, which is once the log out command or the log out signal has been sent to the Genome +desktop. Each of these states has a directory located in slash Etsy slash GDM. And it turns out +that when you place a, for instance, a shell script named default with a capital D default in one of +those directories, GDM runs the script when that state is reached. So if you want something to trigger +upon that at the post session stage, then you'd put a shell script called default into slash +Etsy slash GDM slash post session. In fact, there's there may already be a shell script there +called default with some sample commands or maybe just a header comment telling you what the +script does. But it, that's all you need to do is put default into slash Etsy slash GDM slash +post session in this case for, for a log out action to trigger that shell script. The shell script +needs to be executable. I think it needs to be a valid shell script. And that's it. Otherwise, +you have full control. You, you can do whatever you want to in that script. It's pretty cool. So +to trigger actions, for instance, to clean up a user's environment upon log out, I created +slash Etsy slash GDM slash post session slash default. You can add whatever actions you want +to run on log out in this script. And in my case, I wanted to clear everything all all data. +Couple of different ways to do this. I chose the really sort of hefty choice of just removing +dash RF dollar sign home. Now, I didn't do that outright because that would then clear every +user's data upon log out, bad idea. Instead, I mean, that might be what you want. But for me, +I just wanted the guest account to have the home removed. So I did an if statement, if space +square bracket space, quote, dollar sign user, close quote equals quote library guest, +close quote space square bracket, semicolon, then Rm space dash RF space dollars, uh, yeah, +quote dollar sign home, close quote, and then F i to end the if statement and then exit zero to +signal that yes, we are exiting with success. And so that's comparing the the environment variable +dollar sign user, which, which GDM specifically does recognize it uses. Even though I think that +this script is being run as root, I'm pretty sure it respects, it retains the old dollar sign +user value of the session. So I'm comparing dollar sign user to the the string library guest. And +that's a that's the name of the user that I'm going to create as my guest account. It's going to be +library guest. If your guest account is just called guest or my guest or some, you know, a +toxic penguin, whatever, then that's the name, that's the string you would want to use when +comparing dollar sign user to the name. The point is that this if statements, if statement ensures that +the the the home directory dollar sign home is only removed if the active user that has triggered +the log out signal is library guest. If you as an admin user log in as, I don't know, admin or +plateau or gore to whatever your name is. And then you log out that's not going to trigger this because +your dollar sign user variable would not be assigned to library guest in that case. It would be +plateau or admin or gore to whatever your name is. So that protects you from accidentally clearing +out your entire home directory. That's very important. You really need to test that before engaging +in this solution because otherwise you could just clear out every manner of home directory on your +system and that would be quite upsetting if that's not what you wanted. Okay, so the the GDM +solution is pretty simple. I mean, there's no library guest user yet and that is the next thing +that you have to configure here because you do need to think about, and the reason I don't have +a library guest user on my system yet it might my pretend system that I'm talking about yet +is because we have to decide where that library user is going to, where the home directory is +going to actually be located. I mean, it's going to be in slash home slash library guest. I get that. +But what file system and the reason this came to mind is because I was thinking about the, you know, +the erasure of all data on log out and I thought, well, what happens when a user doesn't log out? +There are lots of reasons a user might not log out. The system might be shut down out from under +them. The admin might send a shutdown signal or they might shut down. They might reboot. +There might be a power outage that the box could just lose power and shut off. None of those +involved a log out signal sent to GDM. That means that this erasure that the removal of the home +directory wouldn't be triggered, which would mean that data that you've claimed is going to remain +private and deleted upon the end of the session is now retained in this hard drive. So obviously, +you'd want to encrypt your hard drive to add a little bit of extra protection there. But it's +still didn't quite feel right to retain that data because that's a snapshot of that data, right? I mean, +that could be that that that's not great. So how can we get that data to absolutely go away +upon shutdown, reboot, or even a power outage? Well, I think the easiest way to do that is to just place +the entire home directory or the the guest users home directory in a RAM disk, a temporary file +system, saved to RAM. Now, if you've got a lot of RAM, you know, like, I don't know, eight gigabytes. +There's probably a lot in this context because you don't really need that much space in the home +directory. It's going to be a it's a temporary thing where people are just going to be browsing +the internet probably may be saving a couple of documents. Like literally you could probably make a +two gigabyte home directory and be fine. But, I mean, you have six gigs to run your system on. +But, I mean, obviously, more is better, so maybe 16 gigs, 20 gigs, 24 gigs, whatever. So you +got a lot of gigs of RAM, then you could just use a RAM disk and creating a temporary file system +on all the Linux's I know is pretty simple. You just add a line to your slash FS, +don't know slash Etsy slash FS tab. The line goes a little something like this. +Tmpfstmps and then tab slash home slash library guest. That's what that's the the +mount point we we're creating here. tab tmpfs. That's the file system type. tab rw's comma no +s uid comma no dev comma size equals 2g or 4g or however big you want to make that partition or +that mount point rather and then tab 0 space 0. You can look up all of those options in the +man page of sfst tab. But, essentially, that's making a mount point called slash home slash library +guest right within your RAM as if though it was a hard drive on your system. It's only being ram. +It's only going to last as long as it has power. So anything saved to that drive disappears +upon reboot or shut down or a power outage. I think two gigs honestly is probably plenty of space +for just internet browsing and making a few documents here and there. But you could make it bigger +if you anticipate that your guest users are going to be doing more than than those basic activities. +I have a RAM disk on my computer that I use for my downloads folder and it is I think eight +gigabytes and that's plenty of space for a bunch of you know a reasonable number of large downloads +and it all just goes away when I shut down. Okay, next you need to actually create the library +guest user. You have to do this manually because of no system setting panel that I've seen lately +lets you do advanced tasks like assigning a different home directory to a user. So if you do it manually +you can do that. I do that with user add. Sudo user add space dash dash home dash dur slash home +slash library guest. So we're just pointing the home dur to the the RAM disk that we're creating. +And then space library guest. Cool. Now that user exists you do get a warning here that the home +directory slash home slash library guest already exists or if you don't get a warning about that +I guess I forgot to mention after adding it to fs tab you would want to mount slash home slash +library guest. Then you can do the user add command. As I said you'll get a warning it might tell you +that it already exists. It's not going to copy any files from scale directory into it. It's okay +all of that's going to be created automatically upon login. So it doesn't actually matter. Those +are just warnings that are not errors. You can ignore them. You do need to create a password for the +library guest. I was playing around with automatic logins for library guest. Not sure if I love it +because eventually people are going to log out and then they're going to get back it. So I don't know. +I just I think probably just creating a simple password just kind of makes sense. So Sudo password +or PASS WD space library guest and then give it whatever you know password you want to give it. +And then that's it. That's the guest account. It's on a ram disk. It'll go away if the power is cut +or if the user manages to get into a reboot or a shutdown state and of course because of GDM +it also gets wiped if if there's a log out condition as well. So that's really that that's +a guest account. That's everything you need. Now there is another way around this potentially +if you don't have the space or the power for ram disk and back power mean compute power. Like you +just don't have enough ram for this to work. On some small devices like Raspberry Pi you might just +might not be reasonable to say oh I'm going to sacrifice like half of my ram for this temporary space +that people may or may not use and then may or may not use very often. So maybe that doesn't make +sense. You can do all of this with system D as well or whatever in its system you happen to be using. +I was doing this on a fedora system so I just used system D. In that case you can create your own +customs service. This service is what it could be called like kiosk.service for example. And the +unit file for that would be square bracket unit close square bracket description equals kiosk +clean up square bracket service close square bracket type equals one shot exact start equals slash +USR slash local slash bin slash kiosk dash cleanup dot s h that doesn't exist yet will create +it in a moment. Square bracket install close square bracket wanted by equals power off dot target +reboot dot target and multi dash user dot target. So what this service file does is it gets triggered +every time a power off or a reboot or a startup action or event rather is received or triggered by +system D. So that covers everything but log out log out is still being handled by gdm. But because +this isn't in a ram disk in this example. Instead we're listening to it for a power off from anywhere. +It's a system wide power off. Okay. Well it will trigger our kiosk cleanup script which we haven't written yet. +A reboot same thing and even a startup startup event. And I'm doing the startup event to mitigate +against power outages unintentional power outages. If if the power fails and your computer gets shut down +once again that wasn't a power off signal that wasn't a reboot signal. That's just there's no more +power. It goes away. So in that event in that case you need to catch the fact that we're starting +back up and there may still be data hidden away in a user account that shouldn't be there. Again that's +a little bit of a security hole and makes me not super confident in that particular work around. +I'd much rather I think go with the ram disk. Technically speaking there's not a whole lot +anyone can do as long as the disk if you're using full disk encryption then that data should +still be locked away until a startup sequence begins. At which point the data is then removed. +Is there a millisecond in there where the data still exists that could theoretically be sort of +manipulated or exploited? Probably haven't tested it but definitely the ram disk I think sounds like +the the more secure way to do this. But in this context I think where there has been no guarantee +of absolute just airtight privacy. I think this is more of a more of a solution for like casual +like look you don't I don't want all of your random search histories and your caches and +downloads and save documents on my computer so it's going to be removed anytime I start up. +I think that this works for those use cases. If this is an environment where absolute privacy and +data security is required I don't think I would be using system D for that I'd be using the ram +disk at the very least. So anyway that's the caveat there. The point is the system D power off +target reboot target and multi-user target ensures that a removal script is triggered when someone +shuts down or reboots or starts up the computer. The script that I used for this I saved to user +user local bin and I called it kiosk-cleanup.sh. It's a little bit of a repeat I guess +of the gdmscript but it has to be has to be a little bit more robust so or a little bit more +complete really. So I do an rm-rf of home library guest and then I make a directory called +slash home slash library guest and then I chone dash capital r library guest colon library guest +slash home slash library guest. So I'm recreating I'm removing and then recreating an empty library +guest home. The reason I'm doing that is because there's nothing here there's nothing in this process +to restore what I've removed in this case unlike where the the gdm thing manages the session +and sets up the environment. There's that's not what there's nothing to do that here so I'm recreating +it myself. I don't have to create all the sub-director's gdm does that for me but or I guess the +scale subsystem does that for me but certainly removing and then recreating and then restoring the +permissions is important. So grant the script itself permission to run pseudo-chmod plus x slash +user local bin kiosk-cleanup.sh and now the library guest user data is erased after a log out by +gdm a reboot a shutdown or a startup by system d and again that's only necessary if you just +don't if you don't have the capacity to do it as a ramdesk. If you do a ramdesk you can just +stop after gdm and creating the ramdesk in the user really really nice. As I say there's data +privacy concerns here like if you're doing this for for the general public or even for just +friends of yours it's obviously really important to make it known to people I mean I don't know if +they care but I mean I think it's think it's our obligation as just admins to make it known to people +that the scope of what you're assuring them or what you're guaranteeing them. So if it's on a +ramdesk and gdm as you're doing the erasure after a log out you probably have a pretty good cause +just to say that you know that yes their data is erased upon log out. I don't think the reboot +and shutdown power off really matters or that that'll go away so you don't have to I don't think +mention that but the log out thing assures them that their data will be removed but it's it's +fair warning as well like hey look don't keep your stuff here without putting it on the cloud +or on a thumb drive or something because it is going to be erased. They need to know that +people need to know what they're what they're signing up for when they're signing in to a computer. +I think it's also sort of our responsibility to admit that glitches and exceptions could occur. +I mean especially if you're using the system D work around in that case I think it would be +sort of I think it would be the right thing to say is that you know like while we're doing +our best to ensure that all data is removed you know it's not entirely impossible for the data to be +cashed for you know less than 24 hours and in some instances something like that so that +people know that there's a vague chance that data could be preserved beyond the expectation +and if they're not comfortable with that and that's that's perfectly all right then they know +what not to do on your on this system obviously telling people or reminding people that they're +on a public computer on a public network is probably a good thing as well so without going into all +of the security measures we would need to do to keep people somewhat protected from malicious +actors on all public computers I I think in terms of just getting that data erased that's what +I've come up with a GDM ram disk or system D in a pinch I hope this was useful uh give it a go try +it out see if it's a useful thing for your laptop a guest account I find it really kind of a nice +to have it's not necessary because realistically not that many people ask to use computers these days +again a pinch they have their mobile phones so it doesn't really matter but it's kind of a nice to +have it's kind of cool so um of course for me I also have to switch the keyboard over to from +divorce act to courties so that's a thing as well I haven't really looked into how to make that +automated on my guest account I'm not that concerned about it because again not that many people +ask but it's still a fun project and certainly it's very useful for a public installation so +hopefully this is uh informed you or giving you some ideas if you ever have to come up with something +like that for your library or a museum or or somewhere that you work where you want to provide +public computing services to people thanks for listening talk to you next time +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4570.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4570.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..73fefe7 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4570.txt @@ -0,0 +1,132 @@ +Episode: 4570 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 8 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4570/hpr4570.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:10 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4570, for 2026-02-06 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 8" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:12:15 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Computer games, strategy games, Civilization V, diplomacy, spies" +Hello, this is Huka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode +in our ongoing series about computer strategy games, and we're chugging along with Civilization +5, and I want to get into some related issues here about how you can interact with other players +and things that don't involve the force of arms. And you can get an interesting new victory +type called the diplomatic victory, which was added in Civilization 5, and we're going to discuss +that and even do an example of it. So diplomacy to start with with other players, you have a relationship, +and it's based on their approach to you. They are neutral, okay, neutral means they're not friendly, +they're not hostile. The trades you make with them will be fair from their point of view. +If they're friendly, they like you, and will accept requests from you more often. +Trades will be slightly in your favor from their point of view. They can be afraid of you. +This only happens if you have a very substantial advantage in military strength. So this is rare. +They will readily accept requests from you, and trades will be in your favor. +They might be guarded. That means they are suspicious and defensive, and will be more likely to be +unfriendly. Trades will be harder to achieve and favor them rather than you. +They can be deceptive, and that means they will pretend to be friendly, but they're plotting against you. +They may bribe other players to declare warn you. They will not accept requests for help, and trades will be hard to achieve. +They could be hostile, and this means they hate you and they're completely open about it. +Trade deals, if you can get them, will be heavily against you. +And finally, there could be a state of war. +So in that case, if their attitude towards you is war, it may not be war yet, but it's coming. +They need the right conditions, so they may pretend to be friendly, neutral, guarded, or hostile, +while they wait for those conditions to mature. +These are not set in stone, and as you can modify how the other player feels to you by your actions, +if you have friends in common, that will tend to improve your relationship. +Similarly, if you have enemies in common, agreeing to their requests will also improve things, +but if you cannot agree, just say so. +The worst negative modifier is when you agree to do something and then do the opposite. +Now saying no is also negative, but it's not as bad as saying yes, and then we're nagging on the deal. +Finally, remember that negatives will erode over time if they're not reinforced. +Now, if you want a very detailed look at the mechanics and details of this, +I put a link in the show notes to the Civ fandom site with a detailed guide to diplomacy. +Now, city states are also very important diplomatic partners. +Now, we'll cover all of the benefits in a different section, but here I want to focus on how they enable +the diplomatic victory. At a certain point, the United Nations will be born out of the world's +Congress, and when this happens, a diplomatic victory is possible. Now, this will occur when any +player reaches the information era, or whenever half the players have reached the atomic era. +So, diplomatic victory requires that you get the votes of a certain number of delegates to the +United Nations. Each player gets delegates based on their population, and there are also some +additional delegates you can earn, such as to building the world wonder for bidden palace, +which gives you two additional delegates. Anyone planning for a diplomatic victory should +consider building this wonder as mandatory. But each city state gets one delegate, and if you are +allied with them, their delegate is yours. The mechanics of city state relationships is that they +love gifts and cash is always the best. So, anyone planning a diplomatic victory would be well +advised to focus on building a large treasury. You will know when a leader vote is coming up +in the United Nations and can make cash drops on any city states that are not already allied with +you before the vote. But watch out that another player doesn't do the same thing after you do, +and snipe away some of your allies. Another thing you can do is place spies in the city states to +regulations, and that's another way to get them to ally with you. And it brings us to the topic +of spies and espionage. Spies are simply awarded to you at points along the way. The first one +comes when any player enters the Renaissance era. After that you receive another spy each time +you advance to another era. So, you can, in general, have as many as five spies. But if you build +the national intelligence agency, you get one more. Now, this is an national wonder and should +be a mandatory build if you're going for a diplomacy victory. And England starts with one +extra spy. So, if you play as England, you could have as many as seven spies. Spies can be used +for offense or defense. If you station one of your spies in one of your own cities, it can operate +as a counter spy and may thwart or even kill an enemy spy. If you are well ahead in technology +that might be a good use since other players will be trying to steal your tech. But if you're +behind, you might want to use your spies to steal tech from other players. You may be successful +in this, but the theft does not go unnoticed. And the other player may use one of his spies to counter +your operation. If your spy is killed, you will get another one in three to five turns, but if +your spy was a high rank spy with promotions, that's a serious loss. So, you may want to move +that spy elsewhere for a while. Now, diplomats, when you assign the spy to the capital of another +player, you can designate them as a diplomat. Now, that will take a few turns, depends on the +game speed, but around six turns on normal speeds, to get them set up. This is called making +introductions, but the point is that if you need an effective diplomat, don't wait until the +last minute. Now, diplomats can be useful in several ways. Early on, they allow you to trade +votes in the world congress, and they will bring you intelligence about intrigues, and you can then +share that with other players. And it can also give you a view of the other player's city screen. +Once you have researched globalization, your diplomats can help with a diplomatic victory +because each one counts as one additional vote in the United Nations for world leader. +Now, you can change a spy into a diplomat, or a diplomat into a spy, just by moving the spy +or a diplomat from its current location to another location, and that triggers the ability to +change their job assignment. This means that when you first get spies and they cannot yet be used +to get additional delegate votes as diplomats, you can assign them to city states where they +can help you get alliances. Then, if you start to research globalization, move them to the +capitals of other players and turn them into diplomats. This, of course, assumes you want to win +a diplomatic victory. If instead, you are going for a science victory, and in our head in science, +it's probably best to station them in your own cities to do counterintelligence work. +If you're a head in science, other players will be trying to steal tech from you. +Now, religious pressure. If you have researched all of the piety social policy tree, +you'll have the option to choose a reformation belief to add to your religion. +One of these, called underground sect, allows your spies to resort religious pressure +against the city they have been sent to. However, this effect is fairly small. +If there is not a follower of your religion in the city, it seems to do nothing. +But in combination, it can flip cities to your religion. +Start by sending an missionary to spread your religion, and then your spy can add to that. +And you should also combine that with a trade route to add additional religious pressure. +And by gradually moving your spies, missionaries, and trade routes from city to city, +you can make your religion dominant in a region. +Now, the diplomatic victory, which is the new one that was added in Civilization 5, +we didn't have diplomatic victory as an option previously. +That can be a fun way to win. I've done it. +Now, if you want to get a leg up, start with a save that gives you advantages, +such as Greece or Venice. +Now, you know, half to do that, my last diplomatic victory was achieved with Ethiopia, +which is generally regarded as a military domination kind of safe. +And you can win any victory type with any save, and it can be fun to play against type. +Now, Greece gets an advantage from relations with city states, +which are key to diplomatic victory because each one gets a vote for the world leader. +And Venice is interesting, because with Venice, in Sioux 5, you cannot build settlers. +So, you know, what can you do? Well, you can use cash that Venice generates to puppet city states. +And you can purchase units in puppet city states as well. +Cash is king in the Venice strategy, and you will want to get as many trade routes as possible. +The first two should send food to Venice to help boost your population. +Since you will only ever have one city as Venice, you'll want to max it out. +All trade routes after that, the first two should focus on cash. +Use your cash to purchase or upgrade military units and employ a defensive strategy. +You want enough military to deter any aggression against you, but you should avoid making any +hostile moves against others if possible. Remember, this is a strategy for a diplomatic victory. +If you want to go to war, don't choose Venice. Choose one of the other domination sives, +like the Zulu's or the Mongols. So, this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio, signing off, +and as always encouraging you to support Free Software. Bye-bye! +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4571.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4571.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f3c897 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4571.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1219 @@ +Episode: 4571 +Title: Data processing retrospective +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4571/hpr4571.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:12 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4571, for 2026-02-09 +Today's show is entitled, "Data processing retrospective" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:43:20 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee talks to his Mum about her history with computers" +Hi, I'm Lee. I'm here today with my mom Angela. Hi Angela. +Hi, Lee. I'm here today with Lee. +I'm going to ask a bit about her experience over the years of computers +from their earliest evolution until today. +What's your first impression or I did when did you first hear the word computer? +I think the first time, mind you, I'm probably read something about them, +but it seemed more like fiction when I read it was like big brother is watching you +and things like that. Right. So did you see that on a TV or anything like that? +No, I think we just sort of studied there at school. +Okay. They're from books. +Okay. Any book that you can think of? +Yeah, 1994. +All right, so really was Georgia or well, 1994? +Yeah, that's right. +The idea that they would have screens and they'd be watching you for the screen. +Yes, yes. +And like, of course, that's never going to happen. +There's never going to be a screen that can look back at you as there. +No. No. +Yeah, but, no, 1994, maybe, but, in the early 2024, +when did you first encounter computers in the workplace? +Was it taking messages to Charles' house for British telecoms? +All right, so what sort of job was that? +It was like a messenger. +It was a clerical assistant, but they used to send me on messages. +And I had to take what they called data. +Yeah. +And I had to take the data to be put into the computer. +What did it look like? +It was just a pile of paper, and then I used to take it. +So was it written there? +Yeah, it was written sort of out. +So I don't print it. +Yeah. +And I had to take it to Charles' house and give it to somebody who would be named. +And then they would take me through a big room that wasn't allowed to have any dust in it. +Yeah. +Now, I think I had to take my shoes off to go in there. +And there were two enormous spools of tape that looked really like a small tape. +You used to have in the tape. +Like magnetic tape? +magnetic tape, yes. +And it would be spinning around making a bit of a noise. +Did these machines have like blinking lights? +I didn't know to. +So it was mainly the main thing about them was the rills of magnetic tape. +Yes. +So the main thing that you would do that was happening was this day or that it got +was printed typed onto the paper. +Yes. +It was how it then had to be transcribed in some way onto the paper to get onto the magnetic tape. +Yes. +You know who was doing that or how that happened? +No, I didn't really know. +Do you think there was someone typing it? +How did you retip it? +Or do you think somehow it could look at what was on the paper? +Right. +I don't think it might have to guess. +I would say that it looked so sort of mechanical printing that I think it could be fed into +the computer and sort of translate it into adults. +What would you know what this information actually represented? +What it was doing? +Well, for us we were doing a telephones, you know, telephones bills and things like that. +Right, I can. +Yeah. +So if one had to land in those days. +Yes. +Because some people might not even know what land by this now, +that is, if one had to, everyone had to phone and it didn't have buttons and a dial. +Yes, that's right. +And so British telecom in this country, anyway, was the only company that would provide you +a phone and like, you got it through them. +Well, you got it through no one and everyone had one, you know? +Yes. +Well, no, everyone had to take some people where she didn't. +No, we used to where I used to live. +We used to go to the grounds that shall pay for it. +We wanted to make a phone call. +Yeah. +And you said that the gentleman's phone did you have to pay them? +No, he led us do it for nothing. +Okay. +His name was Jack Brinston and I was living in Cannon Street in Stolpons. +And he was just across the road to us. +Right. +So we used to go to his phone and use it. +And it was far from true that everyone had a phone. +Okay. +Because they didn't. +Did they have phone, but public phone boxes? +Oh, there were lots of those. +Yes, because everybody needed to. +Actually, there's another question I don't quite understand. +What's the difference between a police box? +Which is like what Doctor Who's tired of this, and a general phone box? +Well, I think the difference says we weren't allowed to open them all. +You know, we had to go in a police box. +I'm police officer. +Yes. +But basically, it was the same deal that the police officer would go in there and find the +station whenever. +Yes, I think. +So we just went in a red phone box and you had to have the right coins to keep feeding +in. +And if you wanted to say more, you have to add more coins. +And you press button A and button B. +But Brinston, they were doing the land lines that people had in their own homes. +Yes, I think. +And so they don't be people who have to pay a phone bill once a month. +Yes, I think so. +We will pay by check. +I think so. +I think I could have that option. +Yes. +Yes. +It's possible that I could have paid it at the post office. +Oh, I can't. +Yes. +They can't. +They can't. +They'll be able to go to the post office. +Yes. +British telecoms, I believe, used to be part of the post office. +Right. +Okay. +Civil servants. +Yeah. +But then we left the civil service and were just British telecoms. +Yes. +Not private, but you were still a public sort of company, but you were just a separate company. +Apart from that. +Apart from this, like, centralized government. +Yes. +Of course, they have a telephone tower and they used to telecom tower in London, in +it. +Yes. +And you still see it today, basically. +Yeah. +And by all the other buildings now. +Yes. +The first building had all these big, like microwave transmitters. +Yes. +Stop on it. +Yeah. +Even back in the 1980s, I know. +Was it amazing? +Yes. +Yes. +Yeah. +And then they was it in the 90s. +They split up. +They had mercury. +Yes. +Came as a competitor to the British telecom. +Yes. +They had two different companies. +Yes. +And like the only thing that's left of mercury was the mercury set up. +Sponsored a music price. +Oh. +Yeah. +I don't know if they're still going, but certainly quite some time after mercury had disappeared. +Yes. +They're still there. +And obviously now you've got on team different phone companies and the company is also +providing to net. +Yes. +And it's probably TV as well. +Just the case. +Yeah. +Yeah. +So back in the 70s, you're working for British telecom. +Yes. +Do you remember anything else about your experiences there? +Well, I can remember using a telex machine and wondered if that had anything to do with +the computers. +Right. +It was probably a communication device that encoded the data. +Yes. +Just got it out of the other end. +Yes. +We were processing the data. +Yes. +It would come up. +You would play the dotted tape. +Yes. +And it would print something. +When you say, do I take, do I have holes in it? +Yes. +You would type message. +Yeah. +And it would make holes in the tape. +Yeah. +A little holes. +A little pin prick holes. +Yes. +Right. +Then you could send the tele. +All right. +So after you left British telecom, when was the next time that you encountered computers? +Well, the next time I went to work for a company called Logi UK Limited. +Yeah. +And it was metallurgical company for engineers. +And the only computer thing I did. +There was work. +The telex machine. +Okay. +You already good at that. +Yes. +I was quite good at that. +Do you have any interesting stories about telepsis? +Well, one day, I was supposed to send an urgent message on the Monday. +And that Monday, I was ill with a very bad cold. +So I rang into the office and I said, oh, I won't be able to do much today. +I got a very streaming cold. +And they said to me, don't worry about that. +We'll do it. +And it was malt urgent. +I said, well, it's urgent. +I really should come in and just send that. +Because I think I was the only person there that knew how to use telex. +Yeah. +Nobody else knew how to do it. +Because it had just been installed. +But unfortunately, this lady said to me, don't worry about coming in. +You'll get itself better. +And I wish you better. +Bye-bye. +Well, the next day when I came into work, I got told of for not sending it. +Because some people had arrived in Dubai. +And they didn't have anybody there to meet them. +And if I had sent out telex in the morning, they would have had it. +I think some camels also said to come and meet them. +But the person who was asked to send it was so frightened +that the telex machine, she refused to send it. +I wish they could have contacted me. +Because I didn't have a telephone. +I'd go to a public phone to ring. +Right. +So that was a bit sad, but it didn't really matter. +You, actually. +Did you keep your job? +I did keep it for a little while longer. +Yeah. +And it was a German company. +So I thought I'd better try and learn German. +So actually, the telex is a bit like a tight ray or something. +Yes. +And you had already learned like writing and pitman scripts and stuff. +Yes. +The labour exchanges they called it, then had sent me on a course. +Yeah. +And I learned to type and to do pitman scripts. +So can you go into detail a bit of detail about what touch typing was like in those days? +Yes. +Well, actually, where I learned the most was my grandfather left me a little bit of money. +Yeah. +And I decided to, in his will, I decided to spend it on going on the typing course. +And there was a place in Oxford Street. +And it was called Sight and Sound. +And then you went in every day, you know, every week day. +And you started at level one and you worked your way up. +And if you made enough mistakes, you had to do level one the game. +But anyway, it was a very brilliant way to learn because they had a keyboard on the wall. +And it lit up the letters and their position. +So that when you typed them, you didn't have to look down at the typewriter. +You just looked at the picture on the wall, we lit up the letters and they'd start off by saying, +you, I said, WS to eggs and the soul. +Yeah. +So you learned the quality of typing with both hands and without looking down. +So I managed to pass that. +So that enabled me to get other jobs in offices, you know, different offices. +So I remember I was once helping a client with someone who's visually impaired. +We've sent up some typing software that would teach you touch typing, kind of thing. +And basically it would speak the letter. +And she would then be typing the letter on the keyboard. +Yes. +And it would either say, you know, would have given in an audible indication of where it's correct or not. +Yes. +And you go through all these exercises and stuff. +Yes. +So there is, like, quite a history of, like, you can learn touch typing just by going for doing these exercises. +Like, as you remember, when I was maybe a teenager, you were dead for us. +Like, it's a little red device. +Yes. +It was like a key, electronic keyboard was just had a single row LED display. +Yeah. +So it LCD display. +And like it would go through all these exercises if you put your hands on the keyboard in the right places. +Yes. +So you send to them on certain keys with your index finger. +Yes. +And you would just, and it would teach you a different, right, a certain row would teach you a different row. +Yes. +What you had to, you know, just, it would come out the letters and you press them and you would probably get score afterwards. +Yeah. +Or tell you, maybe you just pass a file. +Good thing. +But to be honest, I never, I never really learned touch typing. +I was always, just because I was using computers so much, I just naturally became able to. +Yes. +Use my fingers to make the letters come out. +Yes. +And I never, I never really had to go through that stage of specifically learning how to type it. +Yes. +Just by doing it so much, I just naturally could. +Yes. +So actually, what, what's your favourite typewriter that you ever had? +So I remember when I was a kid, we had one. +We had an olivate, someone gave me and I kept up for a while. +Yeah. +They were quite noisy things to write it. +Whereas the computers, it's pretty silent. +Yeah. +So I was like, clap, clap, clap. +Yes. +If you went into what was called then a typing poll. +Yeah. +It was clap, clap, all the time. +Yeah. +And so typing poll is literally people sitting there doing that data entry. +Yes. +So someone's handwriting stuff. +Yes. +They have to type out. +Yes. +And it was terrible when men had to open any person had bad handwriting because she would +get the words wrong. +And I remember getting laughed out on this. +Because I wrote, I typed out. +There says, this is for your entertainment and files. +And it should have been your information and files. +And they all thought, and somebody said, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. +They were quoted that from the Bible. +Right. +Because they knew I didn't know what I was doing. +Okay. +But I have to read type that. +Well, I don't know why it is. +But I've, maybe some bad being an engineer or whatever. +But I got in the habit of always writing blockapp tools. +Yes. +If I needed the person, someone to be able to read what I'd said. +Yes. +I would never, I would never kind of assume that I could just scroll. +And people would understand that. +Yes. +It's very kind of view. +It makes a huge difference. +Yeah. +All right. +So after you left the laggy. +Yes. +When did you next encounter at computers? +My next job. +I think was Project Office furniture. +Okay. +In Job Farm. +Yeah. +And I had to type things. +Oh, I forgot what you call them. +You know, when you've typed out. +Oh, for instance, it's in voice. +It's in voice. +If I had to type those. +Yeah. +So amazing amount of work. +We're just transcribing data from one format to the other. +That's correct. +You had an army of people doing that. +Yes. +And that's almost redundant. +Yes. +Because the computer can, within reason, can recognize any one format. +They can, they can convert picture to a, +Yes. +To, to, to text that can convert, +take, it can print out text. +It can form out. +And then you can, now even convert text to speech and understand speech. +Yeah. +To text, whereas in those days, +an entire industry was around, +conversing it from one, +converting written information or something. +Yeah. +From one format to another format. +Yes. +It was amazing. +The amount of work. +That took. +And again, there was large filing cabinets, +where you had to file all this paperwork. +Yeah. +And they had to be kept. +Right. +And obviously, obviously, when computers came, +I mean, even like 20 years ago. +Yes. +I was in an office that had filing cabinets. +Yes. +And that really had different files in those. +So it's not like it was even a recent, a long time ago. +But over the years, the databases have replaced that. +Yes. +Don't necessarily need to file them. +And the only reason why we kept the filing cabinets was +for confidential identity documents. +Yes. +And actually, even then, it came a point where the systems +were secure enough that you could store that. +And you could even store it in a cloud encrypted, +securely, even confidential information like that. +So then, at that point, the filing cabinets were just +purpose for putting letters in, because the main part of the company's job +was sorting letters and forwarding letters. +So the filing cabinets were repurposed just to 10, +pre-store for letters. +We had racks for that as well. +Yes. +I guess there were different types of letters, +maybe parcels or whatever, maybe still go in the filing cabinet. +Yes. +So it took a whole long time for filing cabinets to completely disappear. +Yes. +And I couldn't quite, you know, we've even got some up +in the office at home at your placement. +Yes. +Well, we've got your old Open University stuff. +Yes. +And we've got, I don't know, if we still have video cassettes, +I think we kind of, but we've got your old Open University books, +which was in the filing cabinets. +Yes. +And we've just got some old document, you know, just old archive documents, +and then we leave our files and stuff. +Yes. +But in principle, that's all been replaced by databases. +Yes. +So filing was a major bit of work, wasn't it? +Yes. +You'd get filing class who got specifically paid to do the filing. +Yeah. +Yes. +That's actually a career. +Yes. +Yes. +And right now, you know, when I was at school, +we learned algorithms for sorting and searching. +Yes. +We learned different ways of sorting information. +Yes. +And different ways of searching through information, using different, +you know, computer programs in effect. +Yes. +But it's a bit more abstract than a specific computer program. +It's the algorithm, which is like, when you're going to write the program, +you translate the algorithm, which is kind of a human level +understanding of what it's doing to the actual computer code. +Yes. +And that's basically telling it how to search for a long list of items +or sort them in our medical order, that kind of thing. +Yes. +And you've got built into databases. +I mean, the earliest databases were in the earliest, as we recognise, +and we're 60s and 70s. +But, you know, now databases have come a lot more complex. +I can handle much more data. +Yes. +At the same time, they've become a lot, you now get small, +very small database systems, as one called SQLite, +which can do the most powerful thing that the big databases did now days. +Yes. +You can just do that using very little, you know, just on a very small scale. +So it's like you've got database, everyone in their pocket +can have the most powerful databases that they had in those days. +That's amazing. +Yeah. +And actually even databases have moved on so that they're not just, +Yes. +Rose and columns, they can more handle more unstructured data, +partially structured data. +Yes. +Such that every row might not have the same data. +No. +I don't know what will be good example, but like, +you some customers might have their address. +Yes. +And it would store that. +If they had an address, that would be included in the record. +But if they didn't have an address, that wouldn't be included in the record. +It would just have their name or the telephone number or anything. +Yes. +And the relational databases are a bit unforgiving about that. +They like want to have that column and that row. +So that every single row has all that information. +Yes. +Whereas the more unstructured databases they have now are a bit more flexible. +Yes. +And you even get databases as well where you don't even have rows and columns. +You just have discrete pieces of information and just link to each other. +And it all goes through how they're differently linked to each other. +Yes. +So that there might have a person object and that's linked to an address object. +Yes. +And the address object might be linked to the town object. +Yes. +Rather than object or note, however you want to call it, rather than having a rows and columns +of each row has an address with the first line of the address, the second line of the address, +the town, the county, the post-code country with like a graph. +They call it a graph databases. +One that uses links and notes. +It just links. +The information it has. +It doesn't need to include the information it doesn't have. +No. +They're quite flexible in that you don't have to now up front. +What information you've got. +Whereas when you're designing the rows and the columns, you have to know to begin with. +What information you've got. +Whereas when it's just arbitrarily linked. +If you have the information you link it, if you don't have the information you don't link it, +it's still there. +You can still reach it, still search for it and access it and add stuff to it as needed. +That's just the way that things have moved on from in that sort of technology. +And it all goes back to filing cabinets. +Yes. +Yes. +So I mean actually what the story you're telling is a bit about. +That whole history of data processing really is just as you've experienced it through. +Yes. +For a stop that you've had. +Yes. +We must be coming up to the end of the semis to the 80s now. +Yes. +Did you ever do arcade games? +I think I might have. +Yes. +You mean now at the sea side? +Yeah. +I mean obviously they had amusement at the arcade. +But when did you ever see like Patman or things like that? +Space invaders? +The game of tennis that you play on the computer screen. +That was the first one. +Right. +So that was actually in your home. +Yes. +I remember that. +That had a game of pong. +Yes. +And he actually built it himself. +Why did electronics together? +Yes. +He sold it together and created a game of pong. +Yes. +Did it himself? +Yeah. +But you didn't ever go to a seaside and play it. +Have a game of space invaders or? +No. +Not that I can remember. +No. +Or did you see it on telly? +I might have seen it on telly. +Was it ever interest you or you thought that was like pointless? +Well I just didn't fully understand it. +Right. +You just saw people like stand up at this machine. +Yeah. +Pressing buttons. +Yes. +I still don't see them doing that. +Yeah. +Never something you've been interested in. +Well I try. +Yeah. +I have a goal of them now. +And of course those were the four runners of the game consoles. +Oh. +Yeah. +And as you said like that had the game of pong. +Yes. +I remember I didn't enjoy one game where you had to work your way through a house. +And you had to enjoy doing that. +I think it was you that you showed. +Right. +This was a line in the dark. +So this was the 3D game. +So this was the 3D game. +So this was light. +Yes. +And we were playing this game together where. +Yes. +You kept. +You know the ghosts will come and catch you and eat you. +Yes. +That's it. +But if you had to. +But you saved your position so you didn't go back to where you were. +Yes. +And tried to work out. +Try and work your way through the house. +Yes. +I'll cover. +Discover things. +It's quite addictive here. +Yeah. +I wanted to go back to it. +Yeah. +And I think we got quite away for it. +But then at some point we got stuck and then at that point we. +We gave up. +Well, we said we didn't we found. +We found like a guide that would guide you through. +Oh yeah. +We came through the rest of the game. +Yes. +So I think we might. +I can't remember. +I think we might have actually finished the game. +But we did it. +Yeah. +We did it by following a. +Like a cheat guy. +Yes. +Yes. +So did you remember that I get the dad got me different computers. +I remember when you were seven years old. +He said to me. +He wanted to get you in the Atari. +And I said yes. +That's a good idea. +Yeah. +He said because that's the way the world is going now. +Yeah. +The computers. +And I think he was right. +Yeah. +And he bought you your first computer. +When you was seven. +It was called Atari. +Yeah. +When did you first actually. +Start using the computer yourself. +Oh, not for a while. +Yeah. +Was it. +I mean, when you were studying for the Open University. +Did you you were writing your essays on the word processor? +Yes. +Yes. +So was it word that you had to learn? +Yes. +How did you learn how to use word and things like that? +I don't know. +Probably you showed me. +Well, I know. +But you didn't you go to classes? +Oh, yes. +I did. +A very nice man called Tim. +He used to show us various things you could do. +He used to write it down and try and do it. +And one of the things he used to get us to press control something. +Yeah. +And because he had one of his first pupils with a man with only one hand. +Yeah. +And couldn't do everything. +Yeah. +So he had to show him how to do it with one hand. +Yeah. +Press control. +And then press something else. +Yeah. +And that was it. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Because Windows has something called sticky keys. +Because it allows for that is then I probably have a operating systems too. +But if you like tap the same key at a certain number of times. +Yes. +It will like say, do you want to have sticky keys? +Yes. +And then you can then you don't have to hold down two keys at one. +Yes. +You just press the one key. +Yeah. +And then the next key. +And it combines them and performs the action. +Yeah. +When accessibility is quite good. +Yeah. +You know, say what you like about the different operating systems and their pros and cons. +Yeah. +But I think it's good that it was embraced from quite early on. +Yes. +For system. +And it probably was even a bit more embraced in the past than it had. +Although there's been advances in technology which has made software in general +more in general more accessible. +Yes. +And even the fact that stuff is now designed for mobile phones means that the way things +are designed and implemented it is it's like almost encourages things to be accessible. +Yes. +But then you have unfortunately because you can do something in any number of ways. +Yes. +People will find non-standard ways of doing things which may be make it look nice or or make it +more functional or whatever. +Unfortunately, those were often break to break the accessibility features that were inherent +in the system. +Yes. +And so you then have to go back and you have to reintroduce the accessibility objects. +Yes. +Okay. +So you're doing classes. +Yes. +And did you found that you got better at it? +Yes. +I think I did. +I think I did get better. +I mean, did the fact that you'd use typewriter's and telexes. +Yes. +And before that helped you. +Oh yes. +The fact that I used typewriter's did help me. +And I think it still helped me. +Yeah. +Today. +Yeah. +No. +I'm diary. +Yeah. +So actually, let's come up to date now. +So how what is your use of computers like nowadays? +I like to go on and do a game of scrapbook. +Yeah. +Against me sometimes. +Yes. +You. +I'm going to. +Yeah. +Sometimes. +Well, she's known on this podcast for self-worth. +Yes. +You do a computer game. +You do you have a puzzle isn't it? +You do each day. +I do. +Jigsaw puzzle. +Yeah. +Jigsaw puzzle. +Yes. +So people. +Those are the photos that that. +Yes. +Often, often your daughters have sent you. +Yes. +Or you and you and dad have taken or something like that. +Yes. +And your and dad will turn them into a jigsaw puzzle. +Yes. +Can they do this as a jigsaw? +Yeah. +So this is every. +This is like 10 o'clock at night. +Yes. +Dad's finally. +Dad's on the computer all day. +Yeah. +10 o'clock. +He'll just go. +He'll go and sit in front of the telly of it. +Yeah. +And I think things of it. +He'll watch things about mechanics. +Yeah. +And mechanics. +And gold mining and diamond mining. +And gold mining. +Yeah. +And things about. +Veterinary. +Yeah. +And things about. +Veterinary. +Yeah. +And was it off of the greatest in it. +Yes. +And in grand design. +So people building their own houses. +Yes. +People going out to the wilderness. +Yes. +Building their own. +Because that's an engineer. +Yes. +So this is what a profession. +Yes. +I've been trusted. +Yeah. +And these things. +So while he's doing that. +Yes. +You get your few hours on the computer to turn a clock and midnight. +Yes. +That's not two hours. +Yeah. +So do you get emails. +Yeah. +So do. +Yeah. +I probably like to send one or two sometimes. +Yeah. +I haven't done yet. +Yeah. +That usually does them for me. +Yeah. +So the main thing you're telling me. +You do your diary. +Isn't it? +Yeah. +It's not just right. +A little diary. +So what program do you use for that? +I'm not quite sure. +So most of words, isn't it? +Yeah. +That's right. +And then you go on YouTube. +Yes. +I love to go on that. +Because I love to see all the different interesting stories that people tell. +And last night I was watching one about during the war. +How a man saved a family by locking them up with his elephant in the carriage. +Everywhere was searched. +But he was a train driver. +And he also. +You know, every train driver has a pet elephant. +Yeah. +Yeah. +He was part of a circus. +Right. +A traveling circus. +Yeah. +So he was able to save this family by hiding them at the back of the elephant room. +Yeah. +And there's still survived. +I mean, I say elephants afraid of mice but apparently Nazis are afraid of elephants. +Yeah. +Oh, well. +It's interesting because you can find different stories from different eras. +Sometimes going back to the Victorian age. +Yeah. +So actually, you've gone and traced some of the places where you used to live. +Yeah. +People used to know like the school that you go to. +Yes. +Like 50, 60 odd years ago. +Yes. +And that was it. +You were working in a conference once. +Yes. +They're not many of them left. +No, no. +Imagine. +And what if you think of Google. +Was it Google Street View? +We can actually go to that you can actually see the places where you used to live. +Oh, you still love looking at those. +Yeah. +You still love that. +Yeah. +We're actually having to go back there. +Yes. +Which is a bit, I mean, a bit hard for you in this place. +Yes. +So other YouTube. +I know you watched YouTube videos. +People playing piano. +Yeah. +It sounds like anything music. +Yeah. +I liked it here. +Yeah. +Different music. +One of my favorite things is, oh, whatever they call it, flash mob. +Yeah. +Where you can go to a railway station or an airport. +One person will start playing along their own in the middle of the airport. +Yeah. +And then somebody will come and join them. +Oh, the whole little district gets there. +Yeah. +Yeah. +There reminds me a bit of that. +There used to be a TV series in the 1980s called That's Life. +Yeah. +They'd have something like statue. +Yeah. +A guy that was a statue was really a person. +And suddenly the statue would start moving. +And then start singing. +Yeah. +Then other things would start singing. +Yeah. +The bit of a surprise. +Yeah. +Everybody gets their phones out. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +When there was the pandemic, you would be watching some broadcasters on YouTube who would +talk about health issues. +Yes. +I don't talk to John Campbell. +He used to make a feel secure. +Just listening to him. +Yeah. +I mean, I think you've got a bit of a crush on him because you would be throwing a picture +of him every single day. +Yeah. +And he was always so welcoming. +A warm welcome to you. +And he would talk about different things. +Yeah. +They would somehow give you confidence. +Yeah. +To know what to do. +Yeah. +I wonder if there's any other that you generally watch. +And you also decluttering the stuff, isn't it? +Oh, yes. +I came upon Marie Kondo, Japanese lady who, you know, taught you how to pack a suit case. +You have to clear out your hand bag and the all kinds of ways. +Have you found computers that you'd be creative in any other ways, like, +artistically or anything like that? +No, you do a lot of art on painting and stuff. +Yeah. +But has that ever come across into computers or not? +Um, I'm not sure that I do like looking up other artists. +Right, okay. +On there. +And there's a new right that when you were doing the art lessons, we were not the ones +that the ones before that, they were told to research a certain subject. +Yeah. +You would get dad to find the pictures that you wanted. +Yeah. +Yeah. +And they were very helpful. +Yeah. +And my old art teacher called Ian. +He left the program and I'm still got it on the computer. +How to make different colors. +Yeah. +I was in his class, I never listened to him. +Yeah. +I used to do things my way. +Yeah. +But now I was can see the use of, um, knowing how to make the color. +Right. +So I often do well shit now. +Yeah. +Okay. +It's nice that it's lasted all this time. +Yeah. +No, I get going from looking at it. +And nice to see him there because he's lectured. +Yeah. +It doesn't teach. +Yeah. +Don't think it teaches there. +How about my buffines? +What's your experience with my buffines? +Well, I almost feel left out. +Not really having a proper one. +Yeah. +Because although the one I've got is useful for what I needed. +Yeah. +Yeah. +It doesn't have like the touch screen or the other. +No. +No. +And everybody else is a member of WhatsApp. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +And I do feel like I'm a bit left out and not in it. +Because I think that's might have WhatsApp installed. +But it's probably linked to his phone. +Yeah. +Not to your one. +Yeah. +So you can't easily have your own WhatsApp. +Yeah. +Yeah. +I do like having the phone to carry round with me. +Even though I keep it switched off both of the time it's there. +It keeps you in touch. +I mean, it's important for you if you're helpful. +Yes. +Yeah. +It's the time. +If I haven't needed help, I could ring. +Yeah. +I know you've got, you've only got so many speed dials. +So you've got dad and then you've got Allison. +Then you've got Jackie. +Jackie. +But you haven't got me. +I'm, I'm in the options. +But you have me as a, as one of the speed dials. +Yeah. +Sometimes it could be useful. +Like if you're downstairs in the entry. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Then I can. +You can see. +Get. +Get fruit. +Sometimes I think you have to ring dad and then that rings me. +Yes. +That's right. +It does. +How about a smart speakers? +I won't say her name because that might trigger the people listening. +Like trigger their smart speakers to. +Well, too. +What? +You can say, well, say it and I'll edit it out. +Oh, yes. +Because if I feel lonely and I'm on the talk to someone. +I'll just say, what's the better? +Yeah. +And she'll say, and I don't feel quite lonely. +Yeah. +Okay. +I quite enjoy hearing it in the car. +Yeah. +And we're driving somewhere. +Yeah. +I like that voice that comes and says. +Now turn left or turn right or whatever it says. +I was enjoying that. +Yeah. +We don't take any notice of it. +I know. +That knows where he's going. +Yeah. +And that doesn't listen to the. +Yeah. +No, not very often he doesn't. +Yeah. +But he doesn't need it for like if he's going along way. +Oh, yes. +Oh, yes. +He needs to know that he knows that the journey there most of it. +Yeah. +But just the last few turnings. +Yeah. +I almost aren't tuning. +Yeah. +There's not few turnings. +Yes. +It's voice. +Most of the journey is just ignoring it. +Yes. +Mostly. +Yeah. +Because I was in Holland with Ken. +Yes. +Ken's using one called Open. +Yes. +And apparently that's become very good in its life. +Completely free version of. +Of a lamp and a. +And a satnav as well. +Yeah. +That's good. +All right. +Have you got any last things to say about? +Well, I was just thinking that Holland and Venice are a bit similar because they've got a lot of canal. +Yeah. +Is that kind of thing to do with computers? +Well, they instead of having roads. +They have to follow a waterway. +All right. +You think the satnav. +The satnav would help. +They could help. +The satnav would help. +I don't think they have that number of junctions. +Oh. +To be honest. +No. +That you would need. +Yeah. +For. +Steering. +Is there anything about computers or technology or anything in general that. +You can think of that we haven't talked about. +But you think might be relevant. +Well, I think being as old as I am. +Which is quite old. +I think I've been lucky enough to see the whole of history. +Change. +Yeah. +Through them. +Because I do know they had computers in the ancient Egyptians had a form of a computer. +Right. +I had algorithms. +Yes. +There is means of what you could call a computer. +Yeah. +And I think it's been a wonderful thing. +For children's education. +Because I think if they don't know about the subject. +They only have to tap it in. +And they can get that information and it's fairly accurate. +Yeah. +I would say. +Yeah. +So I think it helps to advance children's education and learning. +And not at all. +So they enjoyed playing their games. +I'm not sure if social media has anything to do with computers. +Well, it requires computers to work. +I suppose there are other forms of social media about computers. +Yeah. +For what we're talking about when we refer to social media nowadays. +It does require computers. +Yes. +I suppose there are good aspects of that. +And there are some sounds. +Yeah. +I mean, Australia, they've just banned it for 16 years. +We don't have to see how that works out. +But it's hope it helps the kids. +I mean, you said you were just saying earlier today. +How? +Like your two grandchildren. +Yes. +From different. +Different houses. +Different houses. +Different daughters. +And then both. +It all went. +I feel when they. +Oh, no. +One was ill. +And the other one was the school shutdown. +Yeah. +They were just sitting there having a conversation. +They were playing games together. +And they could see each other on video. +Yes. +I didn't catch each other's codes. +Yeah. +Yeah. +They were amusing each other for hours. +Yeah. +Oh, miss game. +What was the game again? +No, I didn't. +Okay. +But you said they were building houses. +Yes. +Building houses. +They reminded me of you. +And that was both. +Yeah. +Yeah. +And it's sort of virtual reality. +Yeah. +And somebody's been coming up. +Okay. +Yes. +Oh, enjoy this conversation. +All right. +All right. +Sure, wrap up there. +Thank you very much, Angela. +Very welcome. +I'd like to say thank you. +Yeah. +I'd like to say thank you. +Thank you. +Thank you. +Very welcome. +I'd like to say thank you. +Thank you. +Thank you. +Thank you. +Thank you. +Thank you. +it here, it's not that difficult. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Bye. Bye bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4572.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4572.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9799e16 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4572.txt @@ -0,0 +1,199 @@ +Episode: 4572 +Title: Uncommon Commands, Episode 3 - strace +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4572/hpr4572.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:13 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4572, for 2026-02-10 +Today's show is entitled, "Uncommon Commands, Episode 3 - strace" +The host is Deltaray and the duration is 00:17:01 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "An overview of how to run and read the output of the strace command." +Hello everybody and welcome to Hacker Public Radio. This is Delta Ray before I explain anything today +I want you to actually see something if you're at a Linux system right now or can be later +Try this simple command in the shell S trace space up time. That's S T R A C E space U P T I M E +So you run that and just run it once and let the output scroll by +If this is your first time seeing S trace the output probably looks a little like the matrix +You know the code that goes by on the screens there. It's a lot of text. There's some weird function names and numbers and hex codes everywhere +And if your first instinct is wow, I have no idea what I'm looking at +That's completely normal and probably what has put off most people from learning the command +But here's the important thing. You don't need to understand everything to start learning from it as +Uptime runs look near the bottom of the output +You'll likely see references to files like slash at C slash local time and slash proc slash up time +Those should already feel a little familiar slash out at C slash local time tells the program +What time zone the system is in and slash proc slash up time is where the kernel exposes how long the system has been running +So even though the output looks a bit overwhelming you can already see okay +This program is reading some files. I recognize now look for a line that includes something like right +W-R-I-T-E and then parentheses the number one comma and then the string that normally gets print out from the +Uptime command. This is probably it depends on you know how long your system has actually been up +But it might have like a +A laps time like hours min seconds followed by days maybe how many users are logged in and load average +But that right call is where uptime actually prints the text that you actually see on your screen when you run the uptime command +The one that's after the parentheses there is the file descriptor number for standard output +Standard output, you know, it means we're to print the output to the place the program will started from in this case the terminal window +So uptime isn't magically printing text it's explicitly +Asking the kernel please write these bytes to standard out and the kernel does exactly that +This is the key thing I want you to notice right away +S trace isn't magic it's simply showing you the conversation between a program in the operating system +files get opened data gets red text gets written +Once you see that the output starts to feel a little less intimidating and it's core +Estrace just shows system calls +System calls are how user space programs talk to the kernel +User space programs being the programs that you normally run when you run your system and the kernel being the back end brain for the operating system +That actually talks to the hardware +Anytime a program opens a file reads data writes output talks to the network creates a process +It has to ask the kernel to do that work because the kernel is what talks to the hardware +Estrace just lets you listen in +It's very similar to a program like TCP dump or wire shark if you've ever used that to listen to the network +Let me give you a real example of where estrace earned its keep early in my system administration career +I forced myself to get comfortable reading estrace output because I saw other system administrators using it +Not memorizing everything about it, but just learning how to recognize patterns some of the basic system calls and how the output for those system calls was presented +I used it occasionally for myself to find out why something was not working for me +But the real place where it's shined was later when I was working as a Linux system administrator at a mid-sized enterprise company +And we had this commercially developed application that just wouldn't work. It was failing and some weird way +We were trying to figure out where it was light writing files to the logs were vague the documentation wasn't great +And nothing obvious was jumping out, so we were just kind of guessing us to what it was doing +The other system administrators had theory they suspected the program was trying to read from or write to some directory +It didn't have access to +But that was about all it was a theory. We didn't have any way of proving it and the application certainly wasn't volunteering that information +This is where I suggested using estrace. I sat down sshed in to the system and ran estrace on the already running process +Just grabbing its PID its process ID and traced it live within seconds +There it was in black and white the program was trying to write a file to a specific directory and then read it back +And the directory had the wrong permissions on it +So there was no guess work, no assumptions. It just gave us evidence +What was funny was the reaction from the other system administrators the other admins were kind of stunned +They hadn't realized you could attach to a running process like that and just watch what it was doing at the system level +It was like I'd cast some magic spell or hack the system +This was one of those moments. I realized that I could create the CLI magic feed +But it wasn't magic. It was just asking the operating system. Hey, what is this program actually doing? +System calls or how operating systems work? +There is no deeper hidden layer show commands GUI applications +Demons containers everything eventually boils down to system calls like open read right +Stat fork exec fee. There's a whole bunch more out there and there's some newer ones that you might have +seen in the in the output of S trace +But I'm not going to get into all that essentially if you see something like open or open to or open add +It's still probably reading a file or opening a file +So once you internalize that S trace stops being scary and starts being more obvious +Now let's simplify things further try to running this command S trace space dash e space open at +So O P E N A T space +LS +So you basically running the LS command from S trace so that it all attached to the LS command right away +The dash e option tells S trace only show me file open relayed system calls +In other words the open at system call you have to be specific to whatever system call +You're trying to actually filter out this cuts down on the noise quite a bit as it's only gonna show you +The open add functions +So instead of thousands of lines of output you'll see a short list showing which files LS asks the kernel to open +You might see something like open at +AT +Fd CWD +O +Rd only oh +Directory equals three and you know a lot of that stuff. I mean, I you know, I can't really read it +But you can kind of get it's to it's talking about you know read only access maybe and and +A directory or something and CWD might mean current working directory +But that's not what really matters here the equals three at the end is probably the most important part +You don't need to understand everything here just a few pieces so open at is the system call the dot +That's in the middle of the system call is just the path that's being opened so the dot meaning the current +Directory that you're in and the equals three at the end is the file descriptor that's returned by the kernel +If you're not familiar with programming and file descriptors don't worry too much about that +It's basically just a way of referencing the file like the data that it's accessing +So in this case, it's assigning it to the number three +File descriptors are are just usually small integers +You'll see something like zero for standard input one for standard output and two for standard error +So when you see something like three four five those are additional files the program is opened +In this case three being the current directory that you're in +If the program that you're running happened to open up more files those numbers would increase more +But it's important to note that those numbers might need to be referenced later if you're looking at a more +Sophisticated S trace output of a of a bigger program +You might have to keep track of those numbers so that you can see where it actually reads from a file that opens and so on +So those numbers can help you figure those things out +Now let's try something that doesn't exist if you run S trace space dash e +Open at space LS and then it doesn't matter which put here maybe just put in slash does slash not slash exist +And you'll see something like open at followed by you know those those capital letter flags and then the path that you actually tried to +Open or list and you know does not exist and then the important part is at the end the negative one +ENO ENT that's incredibly useful. It's it's the kernel is telling you very plainly +I was asked to open a file and it does not exist so there's no guessing or mystery you can see right there +What the the output error code was from the kernel +If you later read uh if you later trace the read calls you'll see lines like read +Followed by parentheses and then you know the file handle number so maybe it's a three and then +Some extra arguments to that function +Followed by a number at the end. It's probably gonna be something like 4,096 +It might be a different power of two but usually it's a power of two +Unless you're getting to the end of a file and then it might be whatever's left over +And so after that it's gonna say equals and then the last number is gonna be like 128 or +Something like that and that's how many bytes were actually read in +On that function call. So that's kind of useful. You can see how many actual bytes of data got read in +Not how many were requested but how many were returned +You don't need to master this right now. Just notice how explicit the kernel is being so that you can kind of get a sense of +Hey, this data is here. I can actually use this later and trying to diagnose a problem +There's another situation you're running into with strace. That's worth talking about +Sometimes you attach strace to a process and it just sits there. No scrolling no errors just one line +Maybe nothing at all and it usually means that it's waiting for something +So you might see something like read +Print the seeds three comma something and then 4,96 and then it's just sitting there and it doesn't return a prompt or anything +That means the program is waiting for input. So the program that it's stracing is waiting for some kind of data to come back +That could be data from a file from a +pipe from a socket from another process +It's not a crash. It's basically just blocking on IO +Waiting and you know at this point you might just yes say control c +But it could be that this will tell you you know that some things not what right with the program +Maybe something's not right with your file system or whatever +Most definitely if you try to hit control c here and it doesn't give you the prompt backed +And you can't cancel the strace process which I've run into before you probably do have some kind of problem with +Your storage device or something and the kernel isn't able to like give you back the data +The same idea applies to socket relayed calls if a process is just sitting in a network called +Offemines of swing for the remote service and a connection or data to arrive over the network +Again, it's not necessarily an error. It's just waiting +If you attach to if you attach strace and see no system calls happening that often means the program is busy doing work entirely in user space +Maybe calculations parsing compression, you know something like that until it needs to talk to the kernel again +There's nothing to show that distinction alone can save you a lot of time because you know, oh, it's actually doing something +Maybe it's stuck in infinite loop. It's it's hard to know but at least it gives you some kind of information +One thing that trips people up strace writes it's output to standard error +Not standard output. So you won't be able to do something like strace space LS pipe +Grap open. You're not going to actually be able to filter out those open requests that way +You can fix that by redirecting standard error to standard output +By using something like strace space LS space two greater than ampersand one which does the +Redirection and combining was standard output and then pipe that into Grap open +Or you can have strace right directly to a file which is what I usually do when I'm using strace and there's like a lot of output +So you use the dash oh option like this strace space dash oh space +The file that you want to log to so you might call like trace.log space LS or whatever command you want to run +So that dash oh option is very useful for when you're doing very large traces that you want to look at later +Maybe in using the less command or something like that +You can also attach strace to a running process. So for instance if you have like a demon or something like that +They want to monitor you can use the dash p option so it can be like strace space dash p space the process ID so make you know like one two three four five +And this lets you see what a program is doing right now as it's running when you're done you can press +Control c and it detaches strace in the process that you're you're monitoring keeps running in the background +Many programs also fork off in our words. They copy themselves and memory and make a new process +In the table and that can become confusing when you try to run strace again something because +The strace for the initial command will end and you won't actually +Continue tracing what you forked off and so in that case you need to use some options either dash f or dash f +In order to start following off the forked processes +So maybe you're running you know strace space dash f space my server or you know some some server +Command that you want to start +If you want to split the output in the separate files +So that you have an output file, but it creates a new file for every forked off process for instance like a web server +Does this kind of thing then you would use the dash f f option along with dash o and +You know the output file that you want and then it'll create a new file with the process ID and it's file name +For every forked off process so this way if you want to do something like monitor a web server +You can do that and you'll have a +Separate trace log for each of the requests that gets made. I've done this several times for for monitoring web servers +Astrace doesn't just help you debug it also changes your mental model instead of thinking this makes no sense +You start thinking what is a program asking the kernel to do? +You know behind each of those buttons in a gooey application and behind every one of those commands that you're +Running our system calls that are getting made to the kernel to do different things and that shift makes +Debugging comma more mechanical and much less emotional, you know, you're going to have a process to doing it +So if strace feels like black magic right now, that's normal +But it isn't magic it's literacy and +Once you have it you'll start seeing problems not as mysteries but as conversations between +Program and the kernel that you can finally listen to +Thanks for listening and as always welcome to hacker public radio +I hope that you take the time to actually record an episode in the future take care so long +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4573.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4573.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41d8f65 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4573.txt @@ -0,0 +1,220 @@ +Episode: 4573 +Title: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 6 Thorium Reactors +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4573/hpr4573.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:14 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4573, for 2026-02-11 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 6 Thorium Reactors" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:16:57 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "The use of thorium in nuclear power, what thorium is, what sort of reactors can use it." +This episode is the sixth in an eight-part series of nuclear reactor technology. +In this episode, we will describe the use of thorium and nuclear power, including what thorium +is, how it differs from uranium, and what sort of reactors can use it. +What is thorium? +Thorium is a slightly radioactive metal, which can be used for nuclear fuel, and which +is roughly three times as abundant as uranium. +Really all naturally occurring thorium is a single isotope, TH-232. +Other isotopes such as TH-228, TH-230, and TH-234 exist only in trace amounts, and so +can be ignored for our purposes. +Thorium oxide has long been used in applications such as gas, metals, and high-temperature +ceramics, but has seen little use in nuclear power beyond some experimental reactors. +While thorium differs from uranium, while thorium can be used in nuclear fuel, thorium 232 +is fertile rather than fizzile. +That means that pure thorium is not itself directly capable of sustaining a nuclear +reaction. +Instead, it must be turned into a fizzile isotope by bombarding it with neutrons. +In this respect, it is similar to uranium 238, which is the main isotope of uranium, which +can be turned into fizzile and non-fizzile plutonium. +In the case of thorium 232, it can be turned into uranium 233, which is a fizzile isotope +much like uranium 235. +However, unlike uranium 235, uranium 233 is not considered to be useful from making +nuclear weapons. +Sources of thorium Currently, the largest non-reserves of thorium are in India, followed +by Brazil and Australia. +However, since there is currently a very limited market for thorium, there has not been +a lot of exploration done, and it is possible that very large reserves exist elsewhere. +As a result of this, take attempts to list thorium reserves by country with a very large +grain of salt, except for a few very large cases. +India's large reserves of thorium, however, explains their interest in using it as fuel. +China also have an interest in thorium, such that it is often produced as a byproduct of +rare earthbinding and refining. +As a result of this, there are large reserves of thorium already mine there, which could +be used as fuel. +Why there is interest in using thorium as a fuel? +There are several reasons why people are interested in using thorium as a nuclear fuel. +Abundance of thorium Thorium is roughly three times as abundant as uranium in the earth's +crust. +This is based on statistical sampling of rocks, not in terms of finding commercial order +deposits. +However, the world is not currently short of uranium, so the relative abundance of +thorium is not a significant advantage at this time. +Some countries have a lot of it. +Some countries in India in particular have far more thorium than they do uranium. +As a result of this, they see thorium as a strategic and security advantage in giving them +a sovereign independent supply of energy. +Thorium breeder reactors are simpler than uranium breeder reactors. +Thorium 232 to uranium 233, the a neutron bombardment, is analogous to converting uranium 238 +to various plutonium isotopes in terms of turning fertile isotopes into fizzile ones. +Listen again to the previous episode on fast neutron reactors if you need to refresh +your on those, but fast neutron breeder reactors are more expensive and difficult to design +and operate than thorium reactors. +Thorium can be used in reactors similar to certain types which have been in large-scale +commercial use for decades, and so are less complex and expensive than, for example, a +liquid sodium-fast neutron reactor. +No new technologies required to use thorium in commercial power reactors. +Supposed lower nuclear weapons potential. +Some people are of the view that there is less potential for creating nuclear weapons if +thorium is used as fuel than is the case for uranium. +However, I am not convinced of this as an argument. +Commercial uranium cycle power reactors are not suitable for creating weapons-grade plutonium. +Plutonium or enriched uranium are required for thorium cycle reactors. +A country which has a large number of thorium cycle reactors will need either uranium +enrichment or plutonium processing facilities while natural uranium reactors require neither. +On this basis, the least problematic fuel would appear to be natural uranium. +What is thorium breeding? +As mentioned previously, thorium by itself cannot be used as a nuclear fuel. +By using plutonium or enriched uranium as driver elements, however, thorium can be converted +to fizzile uranium 233 which can be used to sustain a reaction. +There are different configurations for the fuel elements which I won't go into here as +this would require too much detail. +Essentially, though, a mix of thorium 232 and either plutonium or enriched uranium 235 +would be loaded into the reactor. +The reaction would be started off by the plutonium or uranium 235. +Bombardment of the thorium 232 by neutrons would gradually convert it to uranium 233. +As uranium 233 accumulated, it would also efficient and contribute to the power output, +making up for the using up of the plutonium and uranium 235. +By the end of the life of the fuel, all or nearly all of the energy would be coming from the +created uranium 233. +The fuel is then removed from the reactor and reprocess to recover the remaining uranium 233. +This uranium 233 may then be used as a driver fuel for a fresh fuel load. +For reactors that are refueled continuously while online, that is while operating, +fresh fuel is continuously fed in and used fuel extracted rather than being distinct +loading and unloading phases of operation. +Breeding ratio. +The amount of uranium 233 created in this process will depend upon the reactor and fuel design. +This may vary from not much uranium 233 generated all the way up to theoretically at least, +more uranium 233 being extracted from the spent fuel than the amount of driver fuel used to +start the reaction. +That is, the breeding ratio would be greater than one. +However, this has not been demonstrated and most fuel cycles assume that a continual source of +driver fuel will be required, generally from some sort of uranium cycle reactors. +What sorts of reactors can use thorium? +Most of the types of nuclear reactors we have discussed so far in the series can use thorium fuel to some extent. +However, some are more suitable for it than others. +pH WRs, that is heavy water reactors, including can do. +Large-scale commercial pressurized heavy water reactors have been used for decades around the world. +These have run on natural uranium but are also well suited to using thorium fuel due to their +efficient use of neutrons. +India is one of the countries using this type of reactor and they have done a great deal of R&D +on using them with thorium. +A typical thorium fuel for them would consist of 5% reactor-grade plutonium, +plus thorium, about 80% of the energy generated would come from the thorium portion of the fuel. +An alternative to plutonium would be low enriched uranium. +None of the commercial reactors of this type are currently running on thorium, +but this is an area of ongoing research, particularly in India. +HTR, high temperature gas-cooled reactors, as mentioned in a previous episode, +some of the experimental gas-cooled reactors have used thorium fuel. +Examples of these are the AVR and THTR 300 reactors in Germany in the 1960s to the 1980s. +These were pebble bed reactors in which the fuel was in the form of spheres of fuel, +enriched uranium and thorium, plus a graphite moderator, and formed into billiard ball size spheres. +The reactors were cooled by helium gas. +Pebble bed reactor technology is being revived for the small modular reactor market, +but these doer ones don't involve thorium. +Moulton salt reactors. Moulton salt reactors use molten salt as a coolant. +When used with dissolved thorium fuel, the salt would be a fluoride salt in order to be chemically +compatible with thorium. To be used in a thorium fuel cycle, they would normally have a graphite +moderator. From the perspective of thorium, there are two variants of molten salt reactor +that are of interest. One type contains a fuel inside separate fuel pins, like in most other +reactor types. The other dissolves a fuel in the molten salt coolant. +In the latter case, there would be a chemical processing loop that extracts unwanted +fission products that is elements that were created in the reaction that we don't want present, +and uranium 233 from the salt on a continuous basis. Moulton salt reactors were discussed in +another episode as they can use many types of fuel besides thorium. Not all developers of molten +salt reactors are convinced they are well suited to using thorium. With the head of one company +citing the difficult chemistry problems that thorium presents, and the effects this has on the +types of molten salt used as compared to uranium. Lightwater reactors. Lightwater reactors, +both the common pressurized water and boiling water reactor types, could use thorium fuel, +but are not well suited to it. They would not achieve very good breeding ratios in terms of +converting thorium 232 to uranium 233. A major drawback of these reactors is their lower +neutron economy due to the use of a less effective moderator. However, there is some attraction +in terms of using them to get rid of surplus plutonium if that is what is desired. +One of the features of thorium mixed oxide fuel is that unlike uranium-based mixed oxide fuels, +it can burn plutonium without creating more plutonium for uranium 238. +I'm not sure what the attraction of this is, although there are apparently +is at least some minor interest in this from some quarters. Fast neutron reactors, thorium +could be used in place if uranium 238 in fast neutron reactors. However, there is no real reason +to do this when surplus uranium 238 is available, and the latter provides a better breeding ratio +that is, produces more physon material from a given amount of fuel. The challenge is facing +thorium fuel reactors. The main challenge facing the use of thorium is that it does not +offer a lot of practical advantages over uranium. Like fast neutron reactors, using thorium +was seen as a solution to a perceived future shortage of uranium. However, that shortage didn't +materialize instead large new reserves of uranium were found. The cost of uranium is only a small +part of the total cost of electric power from nuclear power plant, so uranium prices could +rise significantly without affecting overall cost much. With enough of a rise in prices, +uranium could be economically extracted from sea water, opening up a very large potential +resource as there are very large amounts of it dissolved in the sea. Uranium fuel is already +tested, qualified, and available in quantity on the commercial market. Thorium is not, +and overcoming that will require a large investment. Thorium is more expensive the process of +defuel due to its chemical nature and the exceptionally high melting point of its oxide. +A practical thorium fuel cycle requires reprocessing of spent fuel, something that is not required +for a once-through fuel cycle with uranium, and is done with uranium in only a few countries today. +This reprocessing is another additional cost. The uranium 233 and leftover thorium in spent fuel +contain highly radioactive isotopes such as uranium 232 and thorium 228, which make reprocessing +difficult and expensive. This is not to say that thorium does not have some potential in the +long run. Rather, it means that the advantages of thorium are offset by problems which come along +with it. Overall, the balance of present in most countries favors using uranium in a once-through +fuel cycle. Thorium in India, an example use case, India is probably the prime example of a +country that has had a long-term interest in thorium-based nuclear power. This is an area they +have been researching and developing for decades. The main reactor types using India are also +well suited to being adopted to thorium fuel. These are pressurized heavy water reactors +originally derived from Canadian designs. Indian scientists and engineers continue to develop +these reactor designs into once which maintain the original principles, but are currently independent +Indian designs. Because of this reactor types of very efficient use of neutrons, it is well suited +to using thorium fuel. Why is India pursuing using thorium? The reason that India are pursuing +using thorium is that they have abundant supplies of thorium, but very limited supplies of uranium. +While Canada uses a similar type of reactor, it has abundant supplies of uranium and so has +had much less incentive to put much effort into thorium fuel. How would a thorium fuel cycle work in +India? The basic fuel cycle would work as follows. Uranium cycle fast-breeder reactors would produce +plutonium from uranium and uranium 233 from a blanket of thorium around the uranium core. +The plutonium in uranium 233 would be incorporated into mixed oxide fuel as plutonium +thorium and uranium 233 thorium fuel. This mocks fuel would be used in pressurized heavy water +reactors. Each fast-breeder reactor could supply fuel for multiple pressurized heavy water reactors. +The spent fuel in additional blanket material from the pressurized heavy water reactors +would be reprocessed to extract the leftover uranium 233. This recovered uranium 233 would then +be fed back into the fuel cycle to make more fuel with top-ups from fast-breeder reactors added +as required. This fuel cycle would allow India to use its thorium reserves with a relatively +small amount of uranium input. Current status India are working on the fast-breeder reactors +which would be used to provide the seed material for thorium fuel in their pressurized heavy water +reactors. India continue to pursue using thorium but they need to build up the rest of the fuel +cycle which enables it before they can switch to thorium on a large scale. +Reportedly they already use some thorium fuel in some of the fuel channels of their heavy water +reactors in order to smooth out the power profile but details of this are hard to come by. +India are expected to undergo rapid economic growth, industrial development, +and population movement into very large urban centers over the course of this century. +Meanwhile coal resources are becoming depleted as well as being a source of serious air pollution. +India hopes to use thorium to provide a secure domestic energy resource which can replace coal +and power their future development. Conclusion thorium is an abundant material that is seen as an +alternative to uranium and nuclear power. Experimental thorium power reactors take back to at least +the 1960s. No new reactor technology is required to use thorium. Existing well proven reactor +designs which have been in use for decades can use thorium as fuel. The common light water +reactor designs that are popular in some countries however are not well suited to using thorium. +Initial interest in thorium was mainly driven by a perception that uranium would be in short +supply in future and slow neutron thorium reactors were cheaper and simpler than fast neutron +uranium reactors. However huge new high-grade supplies uranium were founded in a number of countries +causing uranium prices to fall and reducing interest in finding alternatives. While some +R&D continues on thorium fuel in a number of countries, the mainstream of development continues to +be on uranium-based fuel. Some countries with abundant thorium reserves so maintain a major +interest in thorium with India being the prime example. In the next episode, we will describe +small modular reactors. This concludes the sixth episode of an eight-part series on nuclear +reactor technology. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4574.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4574.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d558ea --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4574.txt @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +Episode: 4574 +Title: UNIX Curio #0 - Introduction +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4574/hpr4574.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:14 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4574, for 2026-02-12 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #0 - Introduction" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:09:49 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Overview of the series plus the hierarchy of files" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio No. 0. +This series is dedicated to exploring little known, and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking +in the dusty corners of unix-like operating systems. +I'm calling this entry 0 of the series as it is mainly an introduction to what it's +supposed to be about and why you might want to listen. +So that you don't leave without getting at least one piece of useful information, it +will end with a little curio that you might not find helpful someday. +Back in 2010, I was the editor of the newsletter titled The Open Pit for the Western +Pennsylvania Linux User Group and Pittsburgh. +We distributed it as a 2-page PDF, so had to have enough material to fill each issue. +Because we were having trouble getting contributions, I started writing columns in a series +called Unix Curio to occupy the empty space. +These were inspired in large part by examples that I had seen of people reinventing +ways to do things when utilities for the same purpose had already existed for a long time. +The obvious question is, just what is a Unix Curio? +Let's start with the first word, Unix. +The history of Unix is quite complex. +I've put a link in the show notes to get you started if you want to go down that particular +rabbit hole. +The short version of the story is that many variants emerged, often introducing incompatibilities. +Even within AT&T Bell Laboratories, two major branches came out. +The research Unix lineage, which includes seventh edition, sometimes called version 7, +was often used in universities and government, while system 3, and it's more popular +successor system 5, were clearly intended as commercial products. +Traditionally, system 3 and system 5 are written with Roman numerals while research Unix +versions are written with Arabic numerals. +The University of California's BSD, the Berkeley Software Distribution, was also very influential. +My intention in this series is to talk about things that are relatively common. +Ideally, there would be present on a large majority of systems so that you can actually +use them. +Luckily, with these variants arising from different places, there were people who +recognized the value in compatibility. +So in the mid-1980s, they initiated the development of the POSIX standards. +Publication of these not only caused commercial Unix versions to aim for performance, +it also gave free software implementations of utilities and operating systems, a stable +base to shoot for, rather than having to chase multiple moving targets. +As a result, today's GNU Linux, Free BSD, Net BSD, and Open BSD systems generally behave +as specified in POSIX, even if they haven't officially earned the Unix or POSIX labels. +So I treat all these as being part of the Unix world. +Moving on to the second word, Curio, it just means an objective curiosity +often one considered novel, rare, or bizarre. +There are many well-used utilities in the Unix world, but people forget about others +because they are only useful in specific circumstances. +And when those circumstances arise, these obscure ones don't always get remembered. +One purpose of this series is to point out some of these and describe where they can be +appropriately put to use. With the flexible tools available on Unix-like systems, +and the ability to easily string them together, it shouldn't be surprising that people come +up with new ways to accomplish tasks. I don't want to claim that these Curios are always the best +way to do something, just that it can be helpful to know that they exist and see the way that someone +else solved the problem. Also, if you're using an unfamiliar system, +sometimes programs that you're accustomed to employing might not be installed. +So it's good to know about options that are widely available. +So why am I the person to talk about this subject? +I am not a Unix graveyard with decades of professional computing experience. +If I did grow a beard, it would only be partially gray, and my working life has been spent in the +engineering world, mainly around safety equipment. Sadly there, I have been forced to use windows +almost exclusively. However, in my academic and personal pursuits, I've been involved with using +Unix and Linux for more than 30 years, so I do have a bit of a historical perspective. +For some reason, when I encounter an unusual or obscure tool, I want to learn more about it. +Especially so if I find it to be useful in some way. +After gaining this information, I might as well share it with you. +In addition, I've been involved with Toastmasters International +a public speaking organization for about 15 years, so I have experience in presenting things +worldly. I was inspired to turn this article series into podcasts by another host, +Murph, who delivered a presentation at the 2025 OLF conference, describing how and why to contribute +to Hacker Public Radio. The show notes for Curios 133 will consist of the articles as they +were originally written, though with references added. Because some of the examples in these, +especially the code, can be difficult to understand when they are read out loud, +the podcasts will sometimes present the information in a different way. +The show notes for this Curios 0 and for Curios 4 and later will be written with the podcast format +in mind, so they will more closely match what I say. Now that I've given you the background, +let's end with an actual Curio to kick off the series. Have you ever needed a reminder +about whether the file that you're looking for can be found under the slash user or slash +bar directories? On many unique systems, there is a manual page that will give you an overview +of how the file hierarchy is organized. Try Man Higher that is spelled HIER or in the phonetic +alphabet, Hotel India Echo Romeo, it's an abbreviation for hierarchy. This manual page is not +a standard, but it was present in 7th edition Unix and many descendants direct and indirect, +including every Linux distribution that I have ever used. There are attempts to standardize the file +layout. In the Linux world, the file system hierarchy standard, now hosted by freedeskop.org, +intends to set a path to be followed. It should be noted that system D has its own idea of how +things should be laid out based on the file system hierarchy standard. If the system you're using +has system D, try Man, file, hyphen, hierarchy instead, as it will likely be a more accurate description. +I hope this gives you a good idea of what to expect in future episodes. The first Unix Curio +will be about shell archives, so keep an eye on hacker public radio schedule for it to appear. +If you have a question or a suggestion for a future topic, please comment on this episode on the +HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4575.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4575.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..076e1e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4575.txt @@ -0,0 +1,260 @@ +Episode: 4575 +Title: Making First Contact +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4575/hpr4575.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:15 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4575, for 2026-02-13 +Today's show is entitled, "Making First Contact" +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:29:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken finally makes his first contact with Kees " +hi everybody my name is ken fallon and you're listening to another episode of hacker public +radio wow this one has been a long time in the making ladies and gentlemen i am joined here by +elmer and you are i am case and the call sign is papa alpha seven tango risky oscar or m5 twr +yeah in five two in five two so um the reason that this we're actually recording after work +and uh case is a licensed amateur radio operator here in the netherlands and my first contact with +you was where some sort of i had some sort of aerial uh 5 8 whip thing and uh one of the guys +said yeah go down to case he knows all about this and ever since then case has been bugging me to do +uh to become amateur radio operator and it was actually you send me a link that the rsgb which +is the religious society of the great britain during cold war had switched their introductory licensing +to online for the first time yeah yeah which actually brings me to this episode because +they also removed the need to do the when you do the technician class in the uk you're supposed to do +go to a club and you're supposed to do your first contact and you're supposed to do the aerial and +stuff and all the physical stuff of course that wasn't allowed during covert times so i skipped over +that then when i got the intermediate they had put that also online and then when i had done that +the third one also came online so i ended up not having made a contact and getting my full license +and now i've got a dutch license due to the magic i'm haric and now i'm paranoid because i got this +lovely radio which i bought from you or via you and i'm very scared to turn it on because if i get yeah +get around i'll blow it up a little bit of background from my end then yeah 1990 was my first +license in the netherlands d license on the vhf what was it 25 watts or 10 watts or whatever in fm mode +1991 half year later i switched to f-class that was 50 megahertz yeah full license it was 15 megahertz +and up whereby the six meter band was the only possibility to do dx-ing +further than let's say 1500 to 2000 kilometers that lasted until the year 2000 where i took the +advantage of the switching from z class a and b to be to become more less so to say and in one of the very +last exams in the uk i did the cw uh uh yeah the moscow the moscow exam and hence me getting the uh the m5 +dw as i believe the one and only foreigner in a range of something like maybe 90 or left or so +and of course i'm uh range super and you're still bugging me to do sort of motorcycle absolutely +elementary cause yeah it would be nice it would be nice because as i said to you it would be nice +to get an irish call sign because they're they give you the ie then a number and a three debtor +if you don't have morse but if you do morse you have to you know it's just a subtle thing it's like +you've got horse i see you've got horse um that's the same with the m5 right yeah +it would be nice and it also bugs me that my license has got cw not included yeah yeah on the little +license card yeah okay now i might not be willing to blow up uh two grand amateur radio but i am +willing to blow these things up and these things here are both filing five or minis uhf vhf analog +amateur radios for i was able to get two of them for the price of 35 euros +to deliver to your house deliver to my house okay somebody somewhere has been exploited but okay fine +um the guys on the it's probably just one chip inside yeah exactly that's that's what it is and +that's right it's darn cheap uh the guys on the hbr um uh channel were talking about this so it was +like a no-brainer and tech minds video i'll put a link in the show notes also a link to pictures of this +in the show notes as well for this episode so what we're going to do is this is the plan we will open +this up oh and we will uh make a contact and we will make my first ever contact with an actual radio +and basically go through what would have gone through had i needed to do it back in the day okay +sound good yeah let's open the box oh look at that so what we're looking at here are two little +radios and by little i mean they're tiny they're like very tiny they're like remember the old +mobile phones yeah i got those specifically so there you go have one room and drill you're gonna +have one yeah i'll have the other here's here's the battery and the battery uh i did unpack these +last night on charge actually it's actually made from aluminium right yeah it feels oh basically it's +heavier okay yeah it feels nice and the battery's got a usb charger on it meaning you don't need any +additional proprietary connector or whatever however you would i i mean i've got bars of chocolate that +are bigger than this yeah it feels nice in them it does feel nice yeah you it's clicks together +it's okay quite well how do you put the box in presumably +it says bb turn them out okay um anything about the antenna on this +it says fm 136 to 174 400 to 520 megahertz +so i'll screw on the little tiny antenna and literally it is the width of my hand +okay how do i turn this off that is a little bit of a question right it's now in dual band mode so we +need to try to get rid of that i haven't i have a manual oh dear you didn't find it out first yeah +we can look at the manual or we can waste everybody's time here while we're talking about +amateur radios so this thing is um has got a little rubber duck antenna at the top +it's got a button that says volume on and off and when i turn that on i see the bowfine logo and it +says four three zero and then disappears menu +and we'll pause the recording here while we figure out how these radios work +so we got them working we don't know how but fine i don't know how you do so um what we're going to do +now is a qso what's what's a qso the qso is just an interaction between two radio licensed radio amateurs +in this case and just exchange some information and we start by asking whether the frequency is +actually free to use so no why well you can interfere others if you don't and that we should try to +avoid them you can just change the frequency take another one which is free and do the conversation +there so what what uh what spectrum are we using what button with all right this is to meet a bit +so one four five five uh five two seven megahertz so that means exactly the same thing so yeah which is +a simple simplex channel and so one four five six hundred and up are for repeaters right and for some +other uses as well but below that up to one four five what is it two hundred or something that's for +simplex traffic so when we talk about meters two meters we're talking about it's shorthand for a range +of frequencies it's about how long the wavelength is that is correct and then you can also say how +frequent the wavelengths come past is also a way of measuring it it all relates to the propagation speed +of light so it's essentially the same thing yeah um and that also depends on the antenna that you have +whether it can pick it up or not or whether it resonates uh better at least on the two on the +on the two frequency bands that are in this little handle uh yeah so super short of ship optimized so you've +got all the spectrum and then amateur radio gets a thin slice of the various different bands so you've got +the very little bands 20 meters 40 meters yeah and we've got a tiny little sliver of all of those and +then within a country those tiny or within a region those tiny slivers are further divided up so that +this this part is where you're going to get more schooled this part is where you're going to get +talky talky stuff yeah here's where our repeaters are recommended not a firm firm very firm depends on the +country but here in the netlands at least it is an advice yeah so let's do that yeah and you're also not +wasting time by being somewhere that somebody's not going to be so actually okay so what's next what +what next would be that we will exchange the callsigns does it matter so say identification i will go cq which +is a shorthand for or can i go cq talking to you and give your callsign you in example if you're just +querying whether somebody will respond to you uh beside that like for now we've got the appointment +here made to do the qso but you're just sending it out in the in the world so to say that radio +signal is there anyone around basically yeah yeah exactly and then you you provide your call sign +and then receiving stations on the other end now okay it's a guy from holland or from england or +whatever country they probably can even see your license class they can in the meantime if they +really quick look you up on qrz.com so they know your name already up front or at least the location +they are where you're probably transmitting from and then you exchange the two callsigns so i know that +you are valid licensed radio amateur and vice versa and then you can have a conversation about almost anything +you like except uh music in the netherlands that's still not allowed although you can talk about it +but you can't play it yeah i do hear qsrs whereby an example just a tiny little bit of music or or tiny +little bit a low volume of music is actually playing in the background i never heard of any problems around +that topic but what what needs to be avoided is like you are like a pilot's radio station yeah +broadcast our station yeah that is not what they like yeah and it's supposed to be for amateur use +and non-commercial exactly exactly so and we should also bear in mind that it's a public channel so +everybody can listen everybody can listen in so uh be aware that there are small kids or whatever could +be listening yeah that is of course with normal fm fm mode radios and nowadays we also use digital modes +whereby at least you can scribble some of it and there are specific propriety uh handles where you +program a specific code just between what uh let's say two or more handles but uh if you don't know that +specific programming goes then you cannot decide yeah i thought that's that's sort of gray area because +you're not supposed to encrypt anything either yeah yeah it happens yeah it happens fair enough okay +so can i suggest you go outside i'll stay here with the recording yes sure then i'll press the b button +i'll call qso rcq yeah then what do i do you start talking i just go is this frequency free first of all +then that is that's the first thing you always need to ask or or just determine whether the +frequencies you use yeah you want to know for sure you want to be certain then you ask if you can see +yeah and then uh then there's five and nine what's this five and nine that everybody keeps talking +about i actually wanted to take a side step and look at your transmitting lookbook what is what is +what is that about and why should why do you need here because we are here in the netherlands we're +here in the netherlands and there's not not it's not mandatory and it's not i don't think it's mandatory +in the uk either but it is mandatory in ireland and i personally think it would be nice to record of +course yes because i'm not i'm not dx-ing and dx-ing is something that you are very much into um which is +dx-ing will be contacting this distance stations i guess the action can be described as like a a distant +dcc entity yeah which can be okay when you start with uh with amateur radio and if the goal of of +doing the hobby is like okay i want to work as many possible countries or entities then any new country is +actually a dx for you yes but for me it is like the the very few remaining are all way past 15 000 +kilometers from from where i reside with my with my amateur radio station and yeah you need specific +conditions provided by mother nature number one politics yeah politics as well but with regards to +neighbors you mean no no with regard they might be there the it wouldn't happen oh yeah yeah look at +p5 like like north korea i mean the only way to contact that country is probably via if in the future +like it happened in the past is with the vn mission yeah and then for the vn mission at the time the only +way to to one of the ways to talk back to their home country was via the amateur radio yeah un mission yeah +so they're yeah exactly so yeah unless something funny happens so to say or something totally +unexpected with with regards to north korean uh north korea um yeah that will be one of the countries +you've also that i just can't work you also chase chasing dx is something that you've done you've done +different modes morse codes yeah yeah well all the different yeah there's in the in the united states +there's a award program uh dxc award program and you basically start with um contacting at least 100 +countries or 100 entities so to say you get all the digital or the paper confirmations or a paper +confirmation being a qsl card yeah yeah yeah qsl card those cards need to be checked by a field checker from +the dxc desk most countries have got one person assigned within the amateur radio community +to do their field checks and then the list will be sent to the usa to the desk and if they approve +your application then you get a nice award and that you have contacted and confirmed a conversation with +at least 100 countries but that's just the start next you can also do exactly the same +on all frequency bands that you are allowed on but you can also start and they've got the program as +well to do an example in single sideband mode in frequency mode or am mode or cw mode +so yeah that is rather a life a challenge for life yeah i think that's the right wording here +uh you probably be never ever complete uh you can never complete admission and some of us now are +at the stage whereby yeah most of the entities are being confirmed are confirmed and there's just +nothing new anymore no and then you need to take another look at the hobby you're like okay yeah +yeah yeah i'm going to do next there are many side steps like you can get all kinds of certificates +etc etc but the dx hunting so so working that specific entity which cannot on a normal circumstances +not be reached during the day or night or whatever period of time of the day and then you make the qso +after five years of waiting and trying and desperately sending emails like i can be please be on the +frequency in that time at that time of the day we should have at least one percent chance and if then +the qso completes then you're just happy days yeah of course and i've got several with whereby +we had to attempt so many qsrs yeah and one of the countries and a qso is sorry just in case +a qso is just a conversation conversation yeah yeah yeah and so we're going to be having a qso now here +exactly yeah of course that's very short distance well the vhf radio it'll be the longest distance +i've ever done yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly but at least it will be in the car my my main uh +last adventures uh with amateur radio was the 60 meter band 605 uh five megahertz and um the +the band before that one which i wanted to have completed was the one with 60 meter band +which is uh with our tiny gardens in the netherlands quite a mission to get accomplished yeah yeah and +that took me over three years in summer time during the summer months trying out antennas +up to the very moment where all of a sudden it all came together and then it was like in a half year's +time i did excellent excellent excellent good stuff and uh because of you i have this hobby now which +has been very useful um and i know you're interested in dx but for other people listening it's it's like +when somebody says oh you're in it you know you're you're going to a party at something and you go you're +in it and you're talking to somebody who's who's doing you know databases for ibm or you're talking +to somebody who's doing cobalt there's so many different facets of the hobby yeah yeah but the +good thing about it is once you get your uh once you get your full license uh all how to's and all +discussions are based on that level of assumption if you're having a conversation with somebody who's got +a full license you you don't need to start explaining how yeah you you can assume that they know the speed +of light you can assume that they know what uh when you when you go for the exam for the license right +you need to have basic knowledge of electronics in example but also about antenna also about propagation +safety safety safety uh so yeah it's just nice nice common knowledge as well yes it's nothing and only +anything that i've come up on the course that hasn't i haven't found interesting or yeah or in fact +useful later on particularly what we do here and work okay should we do this thing +is it so super okay i'll press pause +okay +papa alpha seven kilo echo november go ahead over +yeah papa alpha seven +thank you +what's your call sign again over +okay okay papa alpha seven +tango whiskey alpha this is papa alpha seven kilo echo november you're coming in loud and clear these +are very nice little hand cells and let's say +back to you +back to you or do you say over +yeah okay papa alpha seven kilo echo november this is papa alpha seven +tango whiskey oscar +yeah yeah +maybe it's one kind of menu setting in the little uh but uh the audio is very good um +very crisp uh nice mid and high pitch so um yeah this is not bad at all i wonder how much how much +how much output power how much rf is actually transmitted by the little radio whether it will be like +a few on the billy watts or maybe even a few watts but uh sounds very good indeed uh papa alpha seven kilo echo november this is papa alpha seven +tango whiskey oscar listening to +tango whiskey alpha is papa alpha seven kilo echo november +um yeah it sounds good here i think uh i think we can call this +done i did have one question should you um +should i be doing this in dutch or uh in english over back to you papa alpha seven +kilo echo november back to you yeah it's papa alpha seven kilo echo november this papa alpha +seven tango whiskey oscar w o returning um in english or dutch it doesn't really matter right +i mean as long as we can identify our call signs and we did which using the international spelling +alphabet alphabet the nato alphabet it's all fine okay though then we call it an end uh papa alpha +seven kilo echo november thanks for the qso and see you back upstairs in a few minutes from papa +alpha seven tango whiskey oscar papa alpha seven tango whiskey oscar closing your station cheers +so we're picking this up again so now i've got my logbook not everybody has to do this but it's also +no harm what you're doing it so i actually know that exactly the same time yeah so uh i'm filling +out the days the start time in utc oh utc so that would be 13 at the moment 13 28 and the frequency +that we were on 145 525 and it was fm frequency modulation power we don't know it was high power so i +assume they've got something like in the book station called was pa 7 it doesn't matter if +called or worked +t w o report was five and nine and received was five and nine +first contact contact +for +i'll fill in the number when i get it +they don't specify the rf power i'll uh i'll fill that i'll find out and put it in the show notes +for this episode look it's not in there the technical specifications with the output power is +lovely i think it's uh usually around five lots +so what happens now what would you what would happen normally if you were at home and doing this +all right then i lock it in my electronic electronic logbook and yet +that that lookbook i can manually upload to the dcc desk in the states yeah and or to clublog in germany yeah +and then the qso will be hopefully uploaded by you as well yeah and then we got the confirmation yeah that +indeed both parties uh both stations entered the same date frequency mode etc etc and then the qso is +being confirmed in a digital from a digital perspective and then count for the netherlands as +your first dcc you just work now your first country your first entity or country and next +uh if one like then one likes then uh we can exchange qso card which is a postcard sized +card uh often decorated uh however you want it to be with your call sign and the flag of the country +or or i have one of yours here which i'll put a photo in the show notes yeah sure and on the back of +that card or on the front depending on the back uh you write the qso data so the date of the day the +time the frequency used the mode used power used maybe some remarks and uh that will be exchanged uh +in uh can be exchanged two ways one is uh direct over the mail yeah or via the snail snail mail system +and the other way is via the qsl bureau which is a collective uh postal system for qsl cards amongst +countries or better to say amongst amateur radio unions within the country so it goes but then it +takes a long time in general like all the year is nothing somebody's going to germany so they'll bring +a bag to germany so you can probably imagine that if you send the qsl card to a distance uh dxcc uh it +can take up to many years before this even sent yeah but it's once it's it's not two euros to send a card +even to europe exactly so if you wait for 11 of them you can send 20 kilos of a box for that price +yeah you can probably also imagine that if you make your first qso like you did now you're very +eager to get the qso card yeah you can probably also imagine that if you were the thousand pa +yeah you're not really interested more in the cards yeah but if you still want to because of some +certificate or or or whatever award program is maybe maybe maybe used by yourself then you can +still request it by sending a card via bureau which will take ages general but the cards will be there +yeah the losses are minimal fortunately the other way is that you log in into club log one of the +electronic systems and you can directly request a qsl card being sent over the post you pay a few +dollars like two or three dollars just for the purchase costs and then you can expect your card +much quicker being at your own okay case we're hitting uh half an hour on that i think that was +uh absolutely excellent thank you for taking the time most welcome i'd like to be not sure i'm gonna +thank you for the fact that uh you got me into this thing in the first place but uh it's been uh it's been +a lot of hard work uh very rewarding and um i messed up my first qso but you know how you did we got there +in the end of course um thanks case and tune in everybody tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker public radio +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4576.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4576.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..982999b --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4576.txt @@ -0,0 +1,411 @@ +Episode: 4576 +Title: Responce to Lee/Elsbeth eps +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4576/hpr4576.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:16 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4576, for 2026-02-16 +Today's show is entitled, "Responce to Lee/Elsbeth eps" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:39:18 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Yet Another White Male Opinion" +Hello everyone, I want to do another episode of Hackable Public Radio with your host operator. +So this one's in response to episode four, five, two, two, this, +four, five, three, sevenish, and kind of four, five, five, oneish, where it talks to Elspith about +IT and women in the workplace and kind of neurodivergence, and I want to share, you know, as a white +male, like anybody needs my opinion, that some of those things is she struggled with or +conducive to just being in the corporate environment, and I'm sure everybody knows what I'm saying already, +but I just want to experience or share my experiences with some of the struggles that she had +as a white male. So it's going to be compounded, of course, if you are +of the minority and, you know, it doesn't matter what type of minority or all you're going to experience +these in a worst case, worst or case. So the only thing I can complain about is that I'm neurodivergent +and I struggle with that, but kind of the whole thing about, you know, people taking credit +is one that kind of sparked me, that's always going to happen across anything, and, you know, +I, when I did have a brief stint of being a manager of five or six people, I kind of read the +manager books and they said, you know, the general guidance is try to not take any credit for anything +and try to give the credit to your employees if they do the work, obviously. So, you know, +you take all the blame as the manager and your employees are the ones that are supposed to get the +credit and you, you know, stand on their shoulders or whatever. That's the general idea of the +quote unquote, good manager is to shield him from the bad and raise them up with the good, but +that's not what happens in corporate culture when people are trying to get jobs and whatever. +I didn't start out this way and probably the last job I had a director and I was talking +with him and he's like, yeah, Robert, you're so, you know, so negative or pessimistic or whatever +the term he used was, and I said, man, I haven't, I haven't always been this way, the industry made +me this way, working in defensive security at large organizations in corporate America has made +me this, it has made me defensive and, you know, not trust people and just generally having to, +you know, mask at scale and try to not, my famous, infamous term is, you know, your baby's ugly, +my baby's ugly and there's elephant in the corner of the room over here. I don't have time +or patience to establish relationships, any of that stuff, I just want to do my job and that conflicts +with, you know, how people normal people neurodifficult people work and that's what I struggle with, +but the whole credit thing, I think everybody can experience string set in some level. +I can't remember any time that it's specifically made me uncomfortable, but then again, +I'm the imposter syndrome is pretty heavy within the IT space and a lot of people have it, +but don't realize that they do have it. So the recipe for that scenario is you have imposter syndrome, +you do a thing or you make a thing or you build a thing or you help something and someone else takes +credit for it and you don't really notice that you should have stood up and take credit for it or +whatever the case may be. So that might have been some of the things that I experienced, +whereas like, well, you know, that wasn't really the expert here, but I'll just fall on the, +you know, on the guidance of whatever's messaging, my direct report or, you know, peer or whatever, +and let them take the credit, let them take the heat, I don't, you know, I call it mental gymnastics +to deal with people. Let them have the kudos, you know, if you're after kudos and acknowledgement +and taking credit and feel goods and working in industry or working in at least IT and +information security, you're in for the wrong reasons. There might be a snowflake job out there for you, +but that's not what I've experienced within these four to 500 companies at least. Maybe small +businesses and startups, but that is not what I've experienced. I get my kudos from local events, +helping people online, community doing workshops and presentations and helping people online. +That's where I get my fill, helping neighbors, things like that. +While the other part, I'll talk about is, you know, the work life, like COVID work life balance. +And I think it's kind of, everybody has their own view, but I think what happened is, you know, +people got stuck inside with each other and spouses, whoever, and one of them realized, +man, this person has messed up and they realized they are neurodivergent or have some other kind of +thing that they need to sort out. And so, you know, we're in that space where people, +more people have got diagnosed, people have figured out that, you know, the only reason they were +working out their job is because that's their job and they wake up and they go to work and +then they come home and they didn't have time to really think about how shitty their jobs were. +And I feel like a lot of people during COVID, you know, just stopped and looked around and thought, +you know what, my job sucks. And I need to, you know, find a new job that doesn't treat me +horribly. And I'll say, you know, the industry's jumping up and down, especially in an +infrastructure agency security, you've got people jumping up and down and say, oh, we can't, you know, +we can't, we can't, we can't retain time, we can't blah, blah, well, boohoo on you, you made +this industry this way. You're a product of treating people like trash and throwing them away +and, you know, when I walk into an organization, I fully expect them to disappear and evaporate +the next day like in that stock market movie where there's like telephone cables hanging from +the ceiling. That's what I expect. I'm pessimistically in that headspace, a lot of the times where I +just, I expect at any point in time, these stockerizer stations are just going to can tons of people +and I'm going to be in that that where we organization worked at, they let out 12 percent +and then they did a mandatory return to work and lost another, you know, three percent or whatever +and then they did another round of layoffs. So like, Thao's post-COVID, the trickle down, you know, +effect of that and it's just, I think people realized that they're, like, my, I've heard stories, +people, you know, here locally they worked in the job and they didn't like the job or whatever +and they started to pick up a hobby of making, be honeybee, honey, would be send next thing, +you know, they're selling honey and they get these big contracts for, you know, large organizations +to sell their honey to wherever that's they went from doing whatever it is they do to doing +something they actually enjoy doing or at least for that period of time enjoy doing. So I think +that people, help people realize how crappy they were being treated and hopefully people have +moved on to better things and I think retail is suffered a little bit, fast food chains, +everybody's looking for work but that's some of what it, you know, whatever. +Another thing of kind of a, we, you know, going the HR route for things. I, I don't even know +what the guidance would be but in my experience, HR companies are designed for, you know, +basically to protect the company. So if you go run to HR to something you better be prepared +to lawyer up and sue them essentially or don't say anything at all unfortunately that's how +corporate America works today and, you know, unless you have like specific proof of something +or your ironclad or even then it doesn't matter, you know, the lead will get buried and things +like that. I just kind of, the pessimistic angle I've got. So like, you know, kind of saying that, +I couldn't move up in an organization because of, you know, HR issues or whatever, that's, +that's just the nature of the piece. You know, if you, if somebody goes to HR about something, +they're going to be put on the radar as a risk to the organization because you are, +you're a risk of organization and they're going to treat you like that. I had an employee that was +sleeping and I warned him because he had a long commute. I honestly didn't give a shit the +few slept, but he would sleep in meetings with my direct reports and he would, you know, +kind of take these long commutes and I worried about him going home late or coming in early +and falling asleep at the wheel and killing himself or someone else more importantly and that was +what was important to me is, you know, I don't want you falling asleep in the car and killing someone. +I really don't have to give a shit if you fall asleep. Don't really care about the optics +of you falling asleep in front of my boss, but I'd have to care about those things because people +care about stupid shit like that and in, in my experience, if you want to move up an organization +that the fast track that I've seen people do is that they leave and go to a different organization +and then they come back. That is the fast track, the method that I've seen people jump back +at forth, especially in my security consulting space, you know, you leave an organization, +you work there for five years, six months and then you come back and you bounce back and forth +between it too and every time you get a job, you get a race. In my experience, to try to actually +get a race and fight for someone for a race is much more difficult than actually just getting a job +somewhere else for six months and then calling your coworker and saying, hey, I heard things are +upside down over there at insert companies used to work for. I have come back to several companies. +I've been fired more times than I'd like to admit. I've been laid off a lot of times and I'm +almost feel like I'm immune to it, but obviously, you know, I lose sleep over stuff like +that because I have a family and I support people and I try to pretend like none of it matters +and I can just get a job in IT or something but at the end of the day, I've been through +kind of every iteration of that type of thing and it kind of sort of immune to it and it's +kind of whatever, but for people that again have worked the same place for 15 years, 10 years, +whatever, they don't have that skill set and they don't, they're not as, you know, adapt that, +developing those skills to bounce back and looking for a job as a full-time job and it's hard +and it's difficult and, you know, AI can help with some of that stuff, you know, with language and +communication. But yes, you know, that's kind of my thought on moving up in an organization and +I just, all I hear is people complaining that they're not getting erased, they're not getting +erased and aren't getting erased and like what, what easier way is there to get erased and to +go somewhere else and whatever. And my experience has been, like, I want to work somewhere where +the people aren't terrible and this is everybody's experience that I love that I want to work +with people that I can tolerate that aren't toxic and that's really all people are asking for. +It's like, minimum, most people just want to work somewhere where they're, it's not a horrible +environment in toxic and that's pretty much the standard. We've learned to kind of accept at least +an IT and in fact like, and the people I talk to have that same kind of aspect, but if you're trying +to go get her and you're trying to, you know, excel yourself and move and quickly you're going to +have to work really hard and find the right people within an organization or you just swap +back and forth, jump around, do contract where take different jobs and kind of develop those skills +to be nimble in a market to move around and have different skill sets. I've been lucky where I've +gotten a lot of my jobs through, you know, knowing about who you know and also kind of mass +media using IT and my skills in IT to notify large amounts of people or apply for large amounts +of jobs or do things kind of at scale that most people wouldn't be able to do easily. That's kind +of how I've identified some of the stuff. Some of my opportunities that I've got but most of them are +kind of who I know. And I don't want to try to pretend on, you know, where she, you know, where she +was at the time or what her background is or what her interest was in education and furthering her +development or career path or whatever. But, you know, if you work the same place for a long time +and there's not any other history, there's not any other skillsets being built. It's probably +could be just a matter of, you know, that, again, that imposter syndrome where, you know, +get an AI prompt that tells you and walks you through each one of your things. I did one that +took about four hours and it expanded my resume out exponentially to ask me questions. Oh, yeah, +I have done this. Oh, I have done this. I, you know what? I have done this. I've done this. I did this. I did that. +And next thing you know, your resume is massive and those ATS systems can scan them and get +all the GCPits they need to get out to, hopefully push you up in the line a little bit. But I don't +have any professional training. I got a networking specialist diploma in school and my technical +skillset sharing my information online. I think has helped, you know, having my own website, +sharing, you know, through social media or sharing my experiences doing meetups and going to +conferences and just putting myself out there has, I think helped people understand who I am, +what I work on, what my skillset is very quickly. And that's kind of helped me get, you know, +get me connected to the right people. So that's, that might be some of the, you know, if you're an +introvert, like a lot of IT and if you're interested to hear people, I think I started out +being an introvert. And then as I got older, I realized that it's not really that difficult for me. +So I don't even know what I would classify myself. I have an end-gram type, whatever, +that conflicts with, with actually how I feel like I am. But yeah, I'm the Myers-Briggs ENFJ +in a tri-type in-gram 729. And this helps with prompting too. So you can get a prompt that says, +you know, don't use indexes, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have that on my AI notes. I'm kind of +tains any right now. But you can do the Myers-Briggs personality test and then figure out what your +tri-type is and put that in your prompt. And it will be more like you than the token, whatever. +And there's also some notes around diversity within LLMs without, you know, so they don't +send you the same answer. If you ask an LLM a joke, they'll tell you the same joke, like 15 times +in a row, no matter how you tell it to be creative. There's options. There's ways to get some +diversity in those response using specific prompting to kind of make it kind of force it to be +to go off those, to go off those grinded paths that they've been shortest distance paths that +they've been, whatever, to be more random creative if that's for like a better term. +So that kind of kind of help, you know, or hurt you. So I kind of broke out of my shell realizing that, +you know, what makes me feel good is sharing my knowledge with the community and if one person gets +or understands it or it helps them then I feel like that was all worth it. You know, because +out of the stuff I do feels very niche and then, you know, anything I try to do at the normal scale +feels like it's being washed out by all the other social media garbage or whatever. So I find myself +doing stuff. Hopefully that nobody else has done because again, the impuffer syndrome kind of rolls in +and says, well, you know what? I can't do a thing on that. That's already somebody else is an expert on +that. Well, somebody else is an expert on that. Well, they might be, but they're not sharing their content. +So I did a video on how to like swap out the locks on a pins on a door and somebody laughed at me +or make fun of how the way I did it and I was like, well, where's your video? Where's your documentation? +Where this is how I did it if you've got something better or you've got some other source of +truth or better way to do it. Let me know. And I would have done it that way, but this is based on +the research I did and it works. So like it may be hacky and that's the whole point. Is it works? +I did kind of going back on off tangent. I did management for, I think about six months +before I realized that it wasn't the right fit for me. It was probably the right fit for me, but I wasn't +ready. And I also was kind of an intoxic environment financial industry. It can be pretty toxic, +but that's a muckity muck, as they say. And my problem was I tried to solve people problems with +technology and that was one of the infamous quotes that my direct report was that you know, +trying to solve, I tried to solve people problems with the technology. And then he said, +all problems are people problems. And that kind of made a lot of sense to me at the time. And +you know, this gentleman at the time we love hate. You know, he respected me. I respected him. +He was he was a master at his craft and how's a master at my craft. But we were on like two +different planets. And you know, we kind of understood each other and we connected in a way that, +you know, at the time, didn't really understand. And then I realized later that he's, you know, +neurodivergent himself, which goes back to people getting late diagnosed, you know, in their 30s, +40s even, um, people doing presentations and having a blackout, realizing that they're +highly functioning autistic. Like this stuff goes on diagnosed, the testing is whatever, the stigma is +still bad. I have, you know, friends and family that have, you know, children that they're trying to, +you know, whatever. It's like we need to communicate and help each other out. Because +all these people have to people, more than have people listening to this podcast or probably +neurodivergent in some way. And if you don't, if you're not, you probably aren't just, +I don't realize it because it's a numbers game. There's, there's a, it's a lot of it. And, you know, +these, these people, again, you know, and the, and the podcast talked about, you know, having +having diversity, you know, whatever. And then that's not the case. I know I talked to someone +a group and I think it was a Nashville conference. And she was part of an organization that would +help leadership teach leadership about neurodiversity and understand how to work with people +that, you know, thinking a different way and how to deal with that, right? And that's not something +anybody gives us shit about, at a corporation. But, um, at some point, hopefully, uh, people in +an organization who realized that their staff is, their IT staff and security staff, and their +programmers are mostly neurodivergent. Um, they're probably hopefully going to get some kind of training. +And the stigma will be whatever and people will understand that, you know, people with neurodiversity +have to, you have to work with them a little bit more and meet them where they are and +do accommodations and all that good stuff. But, you know, that's not where we're at today, right? +And I'll share my one story. Um, I was at a big financial institution, you know, big heavy audit. +I don't think my head up. It's like 16 degrees outside today. And, you know, it's all hands on deck +where we're, we're audit compliance people out of the word work. I'm a highly, you know, specialized +skill, you know, uh, I have a very particular status skills. That's, that's the guy I was, um, they brought +me in consulting if they wanted something broken. And this was, you know, early, you know, 2015, +something like that, where there wasn't a whole lot out there. We kind of wrote the book on that stuff. +And, you know, at the organization I was working with that, I mean, as you can all upset, +you know, they didn't understand what I was doing or they didn't understand my approach or whatever, +and they're like, well, I'm like, I wrote the book on my job. Like, nobody told me, you know, +to your point, there was no path. There was no traditional path for my security back then. +And if it was, it was, I had already long blown past it. But, you know, I had my own processes, +my own documented flows that I went through. And he's like, what is this? This is, this isn't +make any sense to me. I'm a manager and you're, you know, how do you, you know, you're doing +your job wrong? It was like, how do you, how can you possibly tell me that I'm doing my job wrong? +When there's no one to tell me how to do my job. And, of course, now there is a framework +and things like that out there. But back then, there was, you know, even 2015 era, there was not really +anything that was concrete enough and whatever they could, they could give you that. And I, I followed +whatever we had back then, and I adapted it to my own technical processes, but it was all high-level +stuff, right? So this big financial institution, we had, you know, we had to be compliant +for something at some certain date. So every single, you know, consulting organization was there, +all hands on deck, you know, I had to like pull in a chair from a different part of the level +of the building just because we had like three people to one cube, three of our guys to one cube. +And that, actually, the next month that I came there, I brought my own hub, not a switch, +a hub, and then I brought my own folding chair that I put inside of my luggage, +so that wouldn't have to worry about having to grab a chair and make sure that Sally got it back +at the end of the engagement or whatever. So I brought my own chair and I brought my own hub because +it wasn't anything there. And we're going back and forth, we're going through processes, and kind of +like a, you know, we got these people that will do like, you know, kind of bounty hunting and they'll +there's a debt to be paid. They'll go out to these sort of mom and pop bounty places, +which have no security controls. They have no, they have people, people, PII, but they don't know +how to handle it. They don't know anything others supposed to do. So our job was to +kind of audit these off-soft audit these companies and help guide them through some kind of security +policy. So, you know, at first it was, whatever, and we were doing stuff in Excel, and then I started +building it out to know anything about SharePoint, build out a whole flow and SharePoint to send +people to the authoritative sources. I sent templates to our clients, kind of the bounty hunters, +and had them, you know, basically signed them, which I was told later that you can't do that. You +can't write their security policies. You can't help them, you know, develop it. I was like, +well, hey, then, then you're asking someone to do an impossible task. It's like asking an aunt +to, you know, create an understand metaphysics. It's not something they can do, and or had the time +pastes to do. So I would help them build out frameworks, and I would go over it with them, +and I would say, do you have this, do you have that, and they would say, no, yes, whatever, +and they would sign the document. Well, come to find out. That was, you know, I wasn't allowed to do that, +no, blah, blah, blah. So we went back to this old method of doing everything kind of in Excel, +and basically the whole process that are client, which is the manager or project manager on the +engagement, I basically replaced his job function with SharePoint. So that way, we wouldn't have +the weight on him, because we would, he would, he was flaky and being a person and having opinions, +and whatever, and when you're going through an audit process, it's like zero ones, zero ones, +zero ones, zero ones, zero ones, zero ones, zero ones, zero ones, zero ones, zero ones, zero ones, +if less greater than go, like that's not how my brain works as an engineer. So when my process +is a people, people are not fucking processes. My process was SharePoint, and sometimes people +are part of those processes where they have to, you know, approve something, so I had to build +into the process, and then, you know, we went, and he said, oh, I don't do that. We went back +to doing what we were doing, you know, two weeks or three weeks prior, and, you know, I didn't +realize at that time, but there was no space to have meetings, so we would have meetings in the +lunch room, and, you know, people would get upset on my team because I wasn't paying attention, +blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, because, you know, there's an ATM over here. +That's, you know, connected to the internet, and there's somebody walking over here, and, +oh, there's a point of sale machine. How does that work? You know, look, it's one of those +digital things. I went over the hidden menu, it's like, there were so many distractions in a lunch room +to try to have a meeting in the lunch room and a break room, not even a break room. It was a, it +It was a cafeteria that they were having me have meetings in and they would jump up and down +and say, oh, yeah, you know, I wasn't paying attention during the meeting. +Well, of course, I'm going to teach during the meeting. +I'm neurodiverse and there's all this other crap going on and this environment is not +conducive to have private conversations about information security in a, you know, +Fortune 500 bank institution for a great sake, but yet I was the one to feel like I was +the odd one out and I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. +So that's kind of a, you know, a story might, you know, poor white, white male story that +that kind of has kept me over the years at another company where these used to work +at where, um, I if it didn't find out to a later, but some of the leaders have had been kind +of more or less forcefully slash whatever removed and because of something that I found out +later that I did. So I had found out that I could essentially plug in my phone into any physical +workstation and log in without any credentials and I made a coworker make a video of me doing +this. So I'll walk up to a computer and somebody's laptop actually was another coworker's laptop, +walk up, you know, it controlled the click button pop shell and then, you know, sent that off +for the races and, you know, here I am not that was not part of engagement or anything. I just +realized that there was something weird with the authentication process or the log on process +and thought I'd take it a second step and see what I could discover. And I'm been on to me that +that video was used with leverage to let one of the ski key stakeholders or the people that +I joined the organization for. I interviewed for several people. My director for among others was +was in there and they were that was what I learned much later after they had already left +that that was kind of used and they were both kind of champions in that organization because they were, +you know, breaking down walls and breaking down barriers and burning bridges and, you know, +whatever. That that famous quote by Ashwa Wattu, whatever, the expansion. +It's like, she says, I learned all the bridges in front of me and behind me. I don't get the +fact. That's kind of sort of how they were at it. They were very precise and now they were dealing +with the organization but they were taking things seriously and trying to make changes and people +started realizing that these security people are getting on my last nerve. They're interfering with +the business and we're going to apply pressure and get them to essentially leave or get laid off +or whatever. So there were lots of shenanigans at that organization that led to that type of stuff. +But kind of those things, you know, that what you do impacts people in a real way and kind of +understanding that and thinking before I act and being for a little bit of her modest, +I learned pretty early on but sometimes you can't help yourself because you get excited about +you know, technology or showing somebody something or understanding how a piece of technology works +and just saying, hey, look, this thing is like, you know, putting plain text passwords all over to +our logs. By the way, and then people get offset when it's supposed to be into and encrypted all the +way to the vendor and you find out that in actuality, you know, the credit card number to be +sent to three, not one, but three different places in plain text and sitting on a log file somewhere +on some other server. But that's just, you know, understanding technology and being modest about +your approach to that and how you want to communicate it and being a manager made me kind of +realized that, you know, dealing with this from a security people and then throwing grenades and +is kind of a real thing and respecting leadership and management as long as they respect you, +you try to shield, try that they try to shield you from stuff. But at the same time, you have to kind of +try to use them and consult them before you go do anything, especially being nerd out there so you +don't understand, I don't understand, you know, the analogy is kind of, I'm an alien in the +human suit. I don't really understand how people's brains work, I'm very logical and if I can't +assign something logic or define what the problem is, people tend to get very, get very frustrated +with people if they don't, can't explain to me what problem they're trying to solve because of +bullshit, you know, politics and red tape, I can't help them, you know, I'll communicate that in +such a way that um, to peers or leadership, say, look, I want to help, I want to do work, I want to +solve problems, but you have to cut through the bullshit and help me help you and if you're trying +to get me to be the one to figure this out, you're asking the wrong person, you need to find somebody +that can help you with this because I don't, I don't do people, people can fees me and they're +illogical and a lot of times they don't mean, now with the exception of people that care about their +jobs, understand technology and can do the title that is in their email signature, I don't usually +have a problem with it's to people that don't know what they're doing, they don't know anything about +what the title of their title and their email is and their toxic and they don't want to do work +and they're, quote unquote, busy because they're ignorant or uh, people are like a better term +lazy and don't want help with automation or whatever, that's kind of where I get myself in trouble. +And I'll say, you know, when it comes to that what I experienced in, you know, the 2000s +early 2000s, yeah, I was bad, I'm sure some of the things I said or did with my peers and in +groups with other guys, women around on social media or not social media, but like just in person or +whatever, whenever it's a girl around, we're just stupid and we don't know how to handle our emotions +or whatever and we say or do stupid things. I can't excuse any of the things that I said or did, +but we don't know how to deal with our feelings and then we kind of say things because, you know, +we think with our, we lease sometimes. So that's a result of that going to conferences and +and things like that back in the day, yeah, it was bad. There weren't a lot of +and hardly any females there and then the ones that were there, I'm sure ahead. +Not a great time and over time that has improved, but I feel like now it's it's one +extreme or the other. It's divided. It's people are still like dudes are still just +dickheads, like absolute, like dude, you can't say shit. Like, like, +and you know, it hasn't really happened to me recently and then like 4 to 500, +but the smaller the organization, the smaller the said, the smaller the group, the more isolated +the situation, the more people are unprofessional, you know, those things come into your head and you +say them out loud. And that's, you know, reshaping that takes time. It wasn't that long ago, +we were, you know, confident women over the head, grabbing into the cave. I'm not saying any of +it's okay, but like, you know, it takes time. So for me, it's, you know, I was nervous before, +but now I'm even more nervous. So it's hard to like, you know, find people that are genuine, +women that are genuine and that space that haven't been, you know, already pushed off and +whatever. So when I meet someone that's generally excited about it for me, security, +that's very hard to talk to them because I don't, it's, it's, I have to be extra masky. I put +on my mask for professionalism and then I put on my mask for to not be sexist essentially, +or not say anything that's offensive and, you know, that's hard to do. As a person that's always +the jokes to, you know, everything like that and anything that's anything, a minority +ends up getting in trouble or ends up getting sort of made fun of. So, you know, being the +funny guy doesn't always work very well in this environment and I've said and done things that +are offensive to other nationalities and things like that. And, you know, you know, for better +worse, comedians have, you know, gotten better about that stuff and, you know, I'm free to make +fun of myself. I'll say that I'm particular things and my wife will say, you can't say that, +like, well, you know, one basically that I struggle. I'm neurodiverse. I can make fun of, +I feel like I have some capacity to make fun of people like that, because whatever, um, but then, +you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a struggle around people that care and, you know, you try to +approach women in tech or women in information security and it's so, there's so much +history there and so much trauma, I guess, that it's the whole thing is just, you can't +let your guard down at all. Um, and that's unfortunate and it's because, you know, kind of a product +of our brand environment and how I was raised, um, you know, like, you know, my, my, uh, you know, +direct relatives, like my grandfather was like super racist and it's like that bothered me as +even a young kid. I recognize stuff like that, but, you know, as you get older and you realize +that you can't make the jokes he used to make, because they're actually efficient and people +can gaked in the wrong way, but sometimes I'll say, sub to my wife, this is like, +sister's, it's actually true and it's, you know, love inches. I'm like, well, +yes and no, but it's something that's true and it's funny. Like, I'll give the example of, +I didn't know anything. I live in the language order and we have a big huge +door to tech and I knew all the smart people went to tour to tech and like, whatever and I was +down there doing some work or doing a presentation or something and, um, I was, when I was walking, +I was talking to somebody else and yeah, I was walking around the area and I saw like, like, +you know, I was near tour to tech or whatever and I saw a bunch of Asian people and I was like, oh, +it must be like Asian people a day or something and like, I didn't know, like, I genuinely thought +that like, it was like something because it was so many Asian people, I thought genuinely it was like +some kind of like Asian appreciation month or something and someone her overheard me and was like, +very offended and I was like, I wasn't, I was saying it to kind of bring up that like, +I didn't know that it was that, you know, whatever, I don't know what it is now but like, +I wasn't saying it to be mean and I didn't even know I was being racist. Like, I just +genuinely was like, I'm confused. I didn't know why so many Asian people were there and that was kind +of the thing that like, you know, that didn't realize before until it was like two they +and like, you know, sometimes being around other friends of family, you know, +I'll try to be the funny guy and that blows up in your face sometimes, you know, like, +being offensive aside sometimes you'll say something that triggers someone. +Plus over example, like, we were at a boat party a long time ago, one of those party boats +and we were with some of my wife's friends and we were all kind of having fun and I +didn't know particularly know this person very well but I was going to like push them in the +water and I triggered him because he had some trauma with something and it blew up in my face because +I thought I was going to be the funny person and push this guy into the water and it like triggered +and it was a big whole production and that's kind of the unfortunate thing about being +or a writer and kind of being the funny person and laughing at yourself and making jokes about +yourself, you still end up offending offending other people even though you're making one of +yourself and kind of using that as a mask to, you know, take, take the heat off your weirdness +and then be funny. So that's, you know, blowing up on my face a fair amount of times and I've +gotten better at like recognizing and thinking before the words come out of my mouth and just kind +of keep my mouth shut and try to be PC about stuff is sometimes starting because the more +comfortable I get around someone, the more things I say that, you know, aren't particularly funny +to people because that's just how I deal with stuff and that's how I've always done it +and that's kind of blown up on my face professionally and, you know, personally. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4577.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4577.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c479018 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4577.txt @@ -0,0 +1,346 @@ +Episode: 4577 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 10 - Scotch Ale/Wee Heavy +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4577/hpr4577.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:18 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4577, for 2026-02-17 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 10 - Scotch Ale/Wee Heavy" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:37:45 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave and Kevie talk about the Wee Heavy ale style." +Hello and welcome to the Hacker Public Radio Beer Garden, yet another phenomenally exciting +episode of what both the Beer Garden and also Hacker Public Radio, who we should thank for +allowing us to produce this series up as not a series yet, shush on the Hacker Public Radio +platform, the much obliged for that. My name is Dave and I'm joined as almost consistently +in the past by Kevy, hello Kevy, how are you? Hello, hello you've caught me in a good mood, +this is probably my favorite style of being able to be able to go into you, so you're +I'm good at it, like a Cheshire Catcher's name. Yes, I can vouch for this, I can vouch for this +definitely. So what we're going to be doing on this episode of The Beer Garden is we're going to +be reviewing the Scotch AL style. Now I have been told this is not Scotch AL's, this is Scotch AL, +this is something it's a style in and of itself. But before I hand over to Kevy to explain exactly +what a Scotch AL actually is, I do have a question, he's probably going to answer anyway, but I'm +going to get in there first. Is a Scotch AL a wee heavy or is it is a wee heavy a Scotch AL? +Yes, you're right on both counts. A Scotch AL is a wee heavy. Now, as you perfectly point it out, +there are Scotch AL's do not get that confused. Yes, a Scotch AL is a Scotch AL, but +not all Scotch AL's are Scotch AL's, right? It's now it's actually quite odd because people in +Scotland are very, very protective of that word Scotch. We are not, we would never use it to +describe ourselves. Scotch when you say it like that is nearly almost always reserved for whiskey. +Right, you know, so if you say Scotch up here, okay, most people wouldn't use the term, but they +would immediately associate with whiskey. They certainly wouldn't, they associate with something +being Scottish, that's different again. Although it does tend to get used and if you want to +annoy a Scottish person, call them Scotch, they probably will actually go to them off. +Or if more so, going to a part a part, but a nurse for a Scotch is whiskey. Yes, well, that's the +only type that are. You will be told that there is no other type of whiskey. In Scotland, +anyway. Yes, but I've been in mind, I'm no longer a whiskey drinker, so it doesn't affect +you. Yes, which is sad actually, in and of itself, do we need a minute silence? +Not quite, not quite. Okay. Oh, interestingly enough, you mentioned in whiskey. I mean, +I don't know whether there is a relevance between whiskey and the style we are reviewing today. +Well, actually, no, there's not. No, that isn't. Scotch sale as you wouldn't more likely get a +cold in Scotland than the wee heavy. And it's just that the only reason it's called a wee heavy. No, +this could be a series. That's could be Saudi. This could be a whole two-hour long episode, +which me that I was with complain about, but I think the the wives and my boss tomorrow might +if it was. The term heavy is very often referred to as a beer that is was just on the heavier side, +and it would be classed as when beers were essentially taxed for the first time in the 19th +century. They were taxed on their weight, their density, and also their alcohol amount. And +anything that was above a 70-show, no, the the shilling system was 60-shilling, which was light, +or an England would be called mild, it's same beer, light and mild and 60-shilling at all the same. +Then there was actually, it was usually called a pinder normal, which is 70, which would be more +akin to our kind of bitter, but they're totally different flavor profiles. But just to give you an +idea, heavier than our larger, but not a heavy yield. And then if you got a pint of heavy, that would +normally be the 80-shilling. So this is when you do get a bit literally quite a bit thicker. So +likes of 80-shilling to me is perfect, it's nice and it's got a nice thick body to it, but it's not a +strong ale, a heavy. The wee heavy was the next level up, which would be given in a small glass, +not a pint of it, and it would be usually from about 7% upwards. If you see 80-shilling generally in +pubs here, well, actually, in pubs, it could be in bottles, whatever, normally it's been four and five, +and that would be a pinder heavy, but a wee heavy would very often would always be served small. +As far as a history goes, if you actually look to the history of the first wee heavy, then you'll +find that it seems to suggest that it was from the 18th century, it's when it was first coined. +However, it was much further back than that. A wee heavy is always strong and multi, +and it would be very much more forward, it would generally have toasted caramel notes as well, +and would quite often have a dark, fruity character, and this is just purely down to geography. +So the climate in Scotland is weight, and you can vouch for that, you've been there many +a time, and the further north you go, it gets weighter, it's just part of the geography, so up here, +it rains, well, we never have a dry month, let's be honest, a bit like me in general, don't have a +dry month. So, and then north of Scotland, it's always weight, so hops and things don't grow, +so traditionally, people would actually make beer, generally for themselves, not so much for +commercial purposes, from what they had, and barley grows very well in a weight, so you get +multi barley, and that's what gives you your multi taste. The other thing that they would use instead +of hops would be Heather, which grows anywhere in the north of Scotland, so that would stop it +from being overly sweet, can give it a floral note, but only in lighter beers. If you get Heather, +if you put Heather into a dark ale, it's more or less ignored, it's just a wee bit like, +you know, when you put a tiny bit of sugar into a race of beef, where you've used like a lot of +toned tomatoes, or maybe some alcohol or something, just to kind of provide balance, it doesn't +make it sweet, it just provides balance, so that's all the hair that was for. When Scottish ale +became more popular than the lowlands, so when I mean by that it's essentially the central belt, +of Scotland. That started getting traction in the 18th century, and the term Scotchale was +coined, because it was a marketing gimmick more or less. It was to export this outside. +So it wasn't actually until the 19th century that it was properly exported, and that was always +it coincided with the industrial revolution, because they just couldn't produce that amount. +So you would have this small, very often traditionally taken in the evening after dinner, +and it would be served as a winter warmer. So this does a continuous theme quite nicely of winter +warmer beers. As I said, the wee heavy was considerably stronger than I heavy. It would literally go +up if you had a pint of traditional pint of 60 or a pint of light would normally mean between +two and three percent. A pint of what they called normal or ordinary would be between three and four, +and then pint of 80 or heavy would be between four and five, maybe up to five point five, +that would be a very strong heavy though. And then anything stronger than that would be the wee heavy, +which as I said, would be traditionally done as a late drink after dinner, somebody coming in +from the cold and it would be to warm up. So drank maybe off on a long side of whiskey as well +traditionally. Now, obviously the big problem is with people home brewing a lot of this stuff, +is that until a big brewer comes along and actually starts to produce it in quantity, +they will be different depending on what's grown locally. And the first brewer that I could find +to actually brew this commercially, where William Younger, so Younger's tart and special was +available until very recently, although no longer produced by the Younger's brewery, which is +long since close, and also Robert McCueen. One of the interesting factors that I just found out +actually, William Younger's brother was the founder of Brutanales, who produced one of my favorite +beers, the old joke. Yeah. So I found that actually, I thought something I didn't know. So when +I was doing this, I found this very interesting. So with the arrival of the recent craft brewing, +what I'm going to call it, a boom is it a boom yet or just an interest. But certainly, +one of the places which has developed a taste for the Scotchel or we heavy is the other side of the +pond. Now, the other place that did was Belgium, as we found out in the Christmas episode, +the Belgians liked it as well. But we're going to leave the Belgians for just now, because I need +something to say in the next episode. With the advent of it in America, the biggest difference you're +find between uscottchel or we heavy from Scotland. So if it's from Scotland, generally it will always +be what I've just described. It'll be multi, slightly toasted caramel with a fruity back end. +And it'll always be dark fruit. You'd never get citrus or orange or anything like that. +It'll always be like a dark dried fruit back end. However, with America taking it, they've done +almost the stereotypical Scottish thing. They have made it. And to be honest, as a huge fan of Scotchel +or we heavy, I generally don't like the American style we heavy, because they have made it a bit +of stereotypical as you could get for Scotland. Yes, they still have multi-ness. They still have +some fruityness, but they add a lot of smoke. They have this kind of peat smoke, fake peat smoke into +the thing, which is totally alien for a beer here. They're the odd one that does, but it's a newer +beer. None of the traditional ones seem to have had that. And the other thing they do is they make +them nearly all cask conditioned, which means they have a very strong taste of whisky with them as +well, which again, I'm just not a fan. I don't particularly like my beer's taste like whisky, +personally. So there we go. So there is the history that I have got from the We Heavy. And unfortunately, +there was a time when We Heavy was available in every bar, in every local place. To be honest, +no, you will struggle. Unless you're going to craft a deal, please, you will struggle to get a We Heavy. +You should still get a heavy, kind of heavy, but our We Heavy is something that has really lost popularity +in recent times, sadly. Right. However, I'm going to add the WeCaviat.dot, don't be too disheartened +to be continued. Okay. Well, thank you for that. I have questions. +Genuine questions. Now, you've kind of answered one of them about the definition of an 80 +shielding or a heavy. I expected the 80 shielding to be quite strong. And you said it was something +around 4, 5% maybe. Yeah. You share around that. Yeah. Right. So when I was looking for a suitable +Scotchale for this review, I discovered Bellhaven. Now, the Bellhaven 80 shielding is only 3.9% +which I would put down. Well, that's like we're in the session IP. I know you don't like that, +but we're in the session IPA region of beer strings. So to call that a heavy, it didn't +didn't sound right to me, because obviously I didn't know what the genuine definition is, +but I understand that now. So I'm happy. It's interesting you mentioned about +car's condition, particularly across the, across the puddle, but the beer that I've got this +evening is car's conditions conditioned and it's made in Scotland. Oh, no. So I'm not saying +you never get it. I'm saying traditionally. Traditionally. Right. Okay. That's interesting. +And now I have a little challenge. So I chat not to not acquire a challenge to what you said or +to something we said previously. Now, you said that we have a, +can be, I think you said, 7.8% give or take, and you're, did I notice between 7 and 9? I think +I said 7 and 9, not commonly. In fact, you said, you've actually helped my point here, +but you've also said they're really multi. Are we not sort of +encroaching into barley wine territory here? Yeah, very similar actually, but +there's not, not so much aging in it. Right. Yeah. Okay. That, okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. +So yes, yes, we are. There's a lot of similarities from a barley wine and a wee heavy, +certainly. And probably one of the reasons I love both styles, because they're not the same. +Yes. Yeah. No. Certainly get it. All right. No. Thank you. +Right. Well, I presume you would like me to try my first? No. But I see that because it's a +teeth, yes, you can do that. I'm good to make you, well, I mean, blessing, I have already made +heavy weight this evening, and I know he's, uh, he's quite keen to get on with this. I have really +struggled to try and find a Scotchale. Now, that's because I don't know what the Scotchales are. +I kept you mentioned earlier on, there was a number of beers that I probably could have chosen. +How do I realize they came under the heading of Scotchale? +Well, one of the ones that can be recommended to me, which is, well, we kept you actually mentioned +earlier on. I couldn't find anywhere. The large supermarket, you could get it online, +but you could not get it in this to horse. And I wasn't going to spend 40 quid to buy two +bottles of this stuff if that makes sense, because they're minimum. And this makes sense. No, +because they're minimum delivery charges. You have to spend 40 quid otherwise you get stiffed +three more charges. So, oh, she did your time to went into, uh, into Tesco and discovered this +Scotch beer. And I said, I said the picture to Kevin said, just, just this qualify, and he just +responded with thumbs up. So, that is why I've chosen it. And what I've got here is an inus gun, +which is brewed in, oh, Edinburgh. Uh, it's the original single malt cask beer. It doesn't seem +to have a name of its own. And maybe the original is the name, because I know they do other styles +and other strengths. But it says on the bottle a uniquely single malt whiskey cask matured +to be deliciously different and seriously smooth. Well, I remember when it came out, +it was originally called Innocent Gunn. I think it was called original Scotch eel. Right. So, +so that is the reason why I said stay away. Yes, I'll allow that. But that's really interesting, +because we were talking about McCune's champion earlier on, and they've stopped putting Scotch ale +on their label as well. Yes. So, it says, a romance of vanilla, malt, toffee, and the touch of oak. +Oh, with a perfect understated bitterness. Well, I'll be the judge of that. The color of it, +because the unusually, it comes in a clear bottle. And the color, in fact, it does come across quite +well on the camera, actually. It's a beautiful golden, almost honey-like color. So, let's crack this open +and see how it lands on the nose. Oh, hello. Oh, my goodness me, that is, that is very +hoppy. Oh, that's not the thing. Oh, that. That's all I've got at the moment, bear with. +Let's go away for the missed to disperse. So, all I'm guessing is that the hoppy hoppy +larga, it's really, really old. No, I'm hoping they haven't changed the recipe too much and +I last had that, because used to, whenever I get it, the first thing you notice was this faint +tooth whiskey. I'm not getting it from the bottle. So, which probably means you won't get it at all, +if you're not getting it from the bottle. If I'm getting nothing from the bottle now. +Okay, let's decence this. +Oh, that's a bit lively. She can hear it's a little bit on the, on the fizzy side. +Yep, certainly sounds like we all right. +I'm getting next to nothing off of this. +I've got a COVID test over there. I'll give that a go in a minute. +Well, it's when you, it's when you dig a drink of it and you realize it's no, +no teeth, something can break. Definitely sounded wrong. +Let's see, under normal circumstances, I want to check the label again to make sure it wasn't +brewed by some Peter's, but obviously, in this case, that isn't it. +In fact, while I'm waiting for this to settle, this is probably a good time to set the record +when we did the Christmas sale. I had the, some Peter's, was it the winter rail or the Christmas +sale I got? Oh, it's one of the two. I made this big deal of some Peter's, +having previously disappointed me. Well, as it happened, literally about two weeks after we recorded +that episode, a friend of ours gifted us a some Peter's mix box, 12 different beers, +most of them could chunk of them were up there. And the, the beer that I +rude the most was the plum Porter saying that when I tried it, it was quite disappointing. There was +no plum there. It was, it was relatively flavourless. But this did one that I had. It blew me away. +It was, it was, the plum was, was so in your face. And I, I really enjoyed it. I think I scored it. +I saw the 375 or 4 on untouched, which is, is, is good. Yeah, just been looking back at the +notes. It was the St. Peter's Christmas eel. It was the Christmas ale. Right, okay. Yeah. +Right. I'm still not getting much from the glass. Let's give this a, give this a try. +Oh, there's a lot going on in there. Oh, that is nice. +Okay. So it is quite sweet. So the, the, the multis is unquestionably in there. I, I, I'd mentioned it in the +color, but I'm actually getting tones of honey from this as well. Did I say that in the, +yes, yeah, you did mention honey here of vanilla, malt, toffee, and oak. +Oh, and I actually know it might be, it might be toffee I'm getting. No, I was going to say +actually, no, sorry. It was the old girl's thinking you're going to get a sweetness of that, +or, because well, so it's probably the combination of toffee, and it will actually that will give you. +Yeah. I'm, that, that, that, that is, is very, very sweet. It's, it's, it had that's really nice. +That is incredibly nice. And the bitterness that they, they spoke about, what do they say? +Understated bitterness, when you first take, take the beer in and you're holding onto it for +a second or two, you get the bitterness immediately. But once it's gone, the after taste remains +that's where the sweetness comes in. The bitterness is gone. The sweetness kicks in. You get that +toffee. I'm not really getting the vanilla, the vanilla. But there again, that could be +included in the, the general sweetness of the ale. But this is 6.6% ABV. And I would say it tastes like it. +It's not overly strong. I think the sweetness does a lot to dumb down the bitterness, +but the, the, the, the two, the two opposite ends of the spectrum. The bitterness and the +sweetness are actually working really well together. I'm going to enjoy this for the next few +minutes, Kevin, while you tell us what your beer choice is. I've actually got two beside me. +And I was trying to think, do I go for my traditional favourite one? Or do I go for a special one +that I actually got? And I think I'm going to go for the special one. That would have been my choice. +Yeah. Well, this is trick weird, the trick weird house brewery. And this is the 2000 beer. +So 9% in volume doesn't look overly dark, actually, through the glass. It's a brown bottle, +but I can see through it, which tells me this isn't going to be hugely dark. I have had a +couple of the trick weird house ones before. And they were very, very, very good. So I am looking +forward to this. So a strong, ill, brewed at trick weird house, people share Scotland. So that's +the border. So if you're thinking about the south of Scotland and freezing galleries on the +west, it's almost going to hang south of the border. The borders themselves are over 33 north of the +border between Scotland and England. So there we go. Oh, we better spray that. Oh, yes. +Oh, deep dark moths on with a trickle note, mildly boozey, which I would expect at 9%. +Oh, that smells, actually, that smells a lot darker, and I think this is going to pour. So let's get this +into glass. Oh, it did pour darker, that looks, oh, much darker, that looks in the bottle. +Hmm. So lovely lovely. You can see that it's actually dark brown, it looks a bit black. Yeah, +yes, not caramel. But it's, yeah, it's dark brown. Hmm. So let's even get this almost no head on this. +I poured it quite aggressively there. And there's a thin thin, it's like pouring a cook, +just thin, form that disappear instantly. +Right, so no head to speak of at all. There you go. That, okay. Yeah. +So from the glass, yeah, trickle, toasted moths, not as boozey from the glass. I must admit, +but let's give this a try. +Oh, yes, that is special. Yes, you've got those toasted moths. They're quite toasted, actually. +That's very toasted. toasted moths. There's a trickle going in there that adds bitterness to +the stop, it's been overly sweet. There's an alcoholic sweetness almost like a boozey toffee. +And there's something in the back end I'm struggling with. +Actually, I don't really know what that is. There's like a barley flavor on the back end. It's not +fruity as I was expecting it to be. It's like barley. +Oty. That's interesting because you call that out of the aroma. Mm-hmm. +But it's on the back end. It's a mildly spiced. It's like this Oty barley. And then +mildly peppery. It's really nice. That's different. That is really different. +I'll tell you what it kind of reminds me of. If, I mean, I know you should obviously +got the whisky connection. That would be a beer form of a black rum. +That's what it reminds me of. Would you get that sweet and bitter, nice old combined? And it's like a burnt +bitterness. Yes. Mm-hmm. Well, that's, yes, that is what I would highly recommend. +Yes, not what I would class a traditional wee heavy, but not a million miles from a +either. As actually, that's a special addition from truckware house. I would say it's very, +very good. It's actually not as nice if you get the chance. They're not overly expensive. If you go +to the tourist shops, you can pay a fortune for the truckware house sales. But you can get them +on most beer website to have sales score to sales. But three pound fifty. They're not overly +expensive. I think I paid three seventy five for that one. I would actually say the trickqueer house +regular ale is maybe slightly tastier, but I mean, I'm competing like in between a nine +at a ten and a ten at a ten kind of idea. Not a heck of a lot more. So yes, so definitely this is +one I would recommend. But I know I want a truck at nine percent. And especially because you +won't be able to get it involved, you know, don't chug it and waste it. Oh no. No. +Wonderful. So did you say nine out of ten? I haven't actually reviewed it yet. No, I was +meaning. Oh, sorry. If I was to compare them, it's like nine and one would get nine and a half +they'll get ten kind of idea. You know, it's very. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I think personally the +trickqueer house ale pips it for me. I don't know why. I think it's maybe just more traditional +we heavy. This one's different, but it's very good at the same time. Excellent. Okay. Do you want +to score yours now? Yes. Well, to be honest, I think you said nine out of ten and I'm pro. I'll probably +give it actually nine and a half out of ten. That's very, very, very good. Very good. Wow. That is +that is very good indeed. Well, be given that I have an extra no chance of actually getting that +without ordering it online. I will add that to my next beer order. You bought it locally, +I appreciate. No, no. I got it from realaelstore.co.uk. Worth worth a try and also they, the one thing +at Algnusia, but them is I've given them a shout out because they don't charge a fortune for shipping +up here. So that's one of us going to be a winner, isn't it? Yeah. So if you don't charge me +a fortune, they're going to charge anybody a fortune. Sorry, remind me of the name, and can you spell +it for much benefit and also the one, the website or the thing? No, the, the, the beer truck +queer T R A Q E I R. I think the next time I do an order and actually I think I'm, I'm currently on a +not moratorium. What's the word I'm trying to think of? I basically, I don't think I'm allowed +to order anymore beer at the moment because I'm just going to blame me anyway. Well, yes, but even +not for a while that gets a bit. I get a bit self-conscious about it. Oh, just plain kevy. +I'm just looking here on the website. Sorry, I, I, I, I did splash out a bit more on that. That's +over the yellow and the addition brew for the 2000. That one was actually five net if five +above all. The other is your clear house is three 75 above all and they've got to show a queer +jacket bite, which I also had and was phenomenally good. It's 395 above all. So not overly expensive. +No bad prices. But if you were to go to a tourist shop in Scotland, then you probably be easily +paying about six, seven pound of all. Where you can get it. It's not that common. You have to go +somewhere like the house of brew or somewhere like that to actually get someone like this. Yes, very +nice. Well, like I say, I will look out for it and whether I'm allowed to buy beer again. I will add +that to my, to my order. Beautiful. Yeah, so for mine then, I'm still very much enjoying it. It's almost +gone, which is probably a good testament to a decent ale. Starting to get a little bit of sweetness +off on the nose. But still nothing that garnered the same kind of reaction as you have with yours, +which a little bit surprised about. I'm enjoying this immensely. I do have another, +another bottle. Um, but I only bought the two. But now that I know I can get them from the test +go with them, not expensive. Uh, I may go for some more. And during your tasting, Luke came in +and tried this and gave it a very vehement, nodding of the head and thumbs up. Really good. Really good. +So I have to incorporate that into my, um, my repeat. You need to get him one for an actual episode +not a chance. Not a chance. He's, he's going to be joining us for, we've had a change in +circumstances. We are now going to the Sheffield Indian beer feast in March, where it's previously +we weren't able to. So we've now put the tickets for that so we're going to be going. He's coming along +as well. So he's happy to enjoy the beers and he will, he'll probably pace me quite well. +But he will not sit in my front of my phone and tell anybody about him. And this is from a man who is doing +media, film production as part of his college course, which also requires doing things like +voiceovers, which he absolutely hates. That's a shame. Anyway, it is. I'd love to get him +on the, on, on, on, well, I need my shows to be fair. Anyway, yeah, back to the point. So I'm +torn at the moment. So whether I'm going to give this, uh, at eight and a half or a nine, +I'm just good. I'm going to give this a nine. So upgrade that to a four and a half on on +tap. So yeah, nine out of ten for this because I've never had the style before and whether this could +be constituted as part of the, the, the formal style of a Scotch ale or a wee heavy is uncertain. +However, just from the experience of the ale itself, the fact that it has that beautiful sweetness +that offsets the, the bitterness that you first get when you first try it. It takes a lot of boxes +for me for, for an ale. So I, I feel I have to have to score it higher. And the fact that I know +I'm going to go out and buy some more of it as one of my allowed to is, it's got to go in +its favor. So yes, I'm going to score this a nine out of ten. Cheers. Very good, very good. Right, +before we actually wrap up this episode, actually I do wish to say thank you to everybody who's +been giving us really nice feedback. The problem is there've been doing it and passing messages +and things. So I don't need these are writing things down. So we have it a lot of nice feedback +from this. But one thing I actually do need to do up, we, but a house cleaning before we actually +get the feedback stage. And this is testament. Now last time we were on wee spoke or yours are +used spoke of Michael Jackson beer writers. Yeah. And I said that his articles still pop up and they +do. And this is testament to actually how influential he was and I just looked him up before +coming on here. I did not realize he actually died in 2007. Oh well, not particularly all day +either. Only a 65 when he died. But part of articles and things are still constantly coming up +and beer journal succeeded. So that's what he's actually thought he was still with us. So I said +he was still with us. But I thought he was, but no, it turns out he's not. And given that was 20 +years ago just about, then he roughly did die with Roger Prords. My other fear lap of author. +Yes, yes. Oh, interesting. I just do wish to put that out, actually. Yes. +Did you spot the fact we did have some feedback on HPR? So this is Carl DeTag who made a comment +on our Belgian Christmas ails episode Belgian Christmas ails that was released in the middle of +January. Yes, traditional time Christmas be a yes. And they said in the state several breweries +have Christmas ails. My favorite is old Fezweeg or old Fezweeg ails. Not very spiced, +multi has a chewy quality thanks for your show. Well, chewy ails. Hello. I'm having a huge fan of chewy +ails. You have a convertible. Yeah, absolutely. So I will have a look and see if that is available +on this side of the puddle. I would be very surprised if it was to be honest, but I'm happy to be +but thank you Carl DeTag for leaving your comments anyway. It's good to know you're listening +and enjoying the show. Yes, please do comment. Please do message as well. You can get a hold of us +on untapped. You can get a hold of us on mastered on telegram if you're so wish. And if you +actually wish to record an episode, please feel free to because like I said, this is a community podcast. +This isn't not our podcast. So we're going to be out as very much community based. Yes. Yeah. +One but I hope you keep in yes as well. I was recommended by Ken Faln on the last HPR community +news to unknowns what the next beer would be. And the sky for me actually we're going from Scotchale +we have a two Belgian Scotchales. And that's the reason I did not want to mention anything about +Belgian stuff in this show. But I will say if you find the history of beer interesting, +I found this mega interesting. So tune in for that. Looking forward to it. +Say tomorrow that's plain lies because we can for it for start. We actually aren't allowed to release +what close on two weeks apart. I don't want to get together. Sorry. I still have one yet to release. +So it's really to go right. Yes. That is right. Okay then. So if that is us, join us to model +for another exciting episode of Hacker. I'll break you. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4578.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4578.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..23bfccd --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4578.txt @@ -0,0 +1,135 @@ +Episode: 4578 +Title: Alex's journey into Amateur Radio +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4578/hpr4578.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:22 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4578, for 2026-02-18 +Today's show is entitled, "Alex's journey into Amateur Radio" +The host is thelovebug and the duration is 00:13:34 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave talks to his son, Alex, about his experiences as a newly-licensed amateur radio operator" +Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio. My name is Dave and you may +recall some time ago and I'm just actually just going to find out live. This is a live bit of research. +How long ago this was? It was back in 2021. I did an episode number 3473 talking about my journey +into amateur radio. What the reason that I've come back again is because someone else in this house +hold has just started theirs and that is my youngest son, Alex. Hello Alex. Hello. So, +Alex, you have recently passed your amateur radio license and I think what +listeners would be really interested to know is why you decided to go for your amateur license +in the first place. Yes, so I know you had an interest in it for a while and when I went to +maltbee for the first time for our radio club, I enjoyed it and I enjoyed learning about it. +So, I thought it would be an interesting thing to try and take part of. Okay, that's really interesting. +When you were coming along to the radio club with me, I'll be perfectly honest with you on +a main ever of actually said this to you before. I didn't actually seem as though you seemed +that bothered about it. Obviously, that was wrong. So, we know now that you do have an interest +because you've gone and got your sample license past your exam. What are incentives were you +given to actually get your license properly? Well, I did want to try and I thought it would be +interesting to communicate to other people and I was excited to try and learn and see what I could +do. That's nice. I like that because that's as a sense of personal progression. This is +you wanting to learn new things. And I will say that as you've been going through the process, +your desire to learn and your desire to question the things that you had been learning +has been really quite notable. Were you polite to tell? Well, there was a +the bet that we had in multiplayer. If I was the first to pass my license over the other junior +member, I would win was it 20, 10 pounds. That I think was 20 pounds. Yeah. And I did get that. +So, I did have 20 pounds and I also got already along with it. You did. Yeah, absolutely. +You also got a slight bribe for me because I did say I would pay for the license. They +fed the examination for you. So, we've tried to make the journey as painless as possible for you. +So, hopefully that hurts worked. But I think just keeping on that line for a second, when it +came to the training, how easy did you find it? So, the official foundation training book. +I didn't understand very easily because it was quite complicated. But there was the ham train +one which I found much easier to understand. So, I mostly use that one to study. +I've heard a lot of people say exactly the same thing. The ham train book, by the way, ham train +is the training arm of Essex Ham, which is the organization in the UK that is put on free. +Or one of the number of organizations that put some free training for at different levels. +But yeah, you're absolutely right. The ham train foundation book clip is designed more +at a more easy to understand element, where is the RSGB foundation license handbook or manual +which one it is? Is very technical, very matter of fact. And it's almost more of a curriculum guide, +syllabus guide than it is a training manual. So, what about the exam itself? You just spend a lot +of time going through the books and learning and watching the videos from Essex Ham. But when +it came to the examination, was it as difficult or complex as you had imagined that it was going to be? +No, I expected it to be much more difficult. But some of the questions I understood, some of +them I had to go back over. But in the end, I did get an understand most of it. So, I think that was +nice. No, that is good. What course on a GG shoes? I chose M70UO. Why? Well, we were looking over a few +ethics ham, the call sign checker. And I thought it looked nice because it was one of the +few that we found out was available. And it kind of looks like a face. Yes, it does. No, you're absolutely right. +It's a good course, I naturally. And it scans quite well in Elphabet as well, which is good. +So, now that you've got your course sign, you are licensed at the foundation level, which means you +are perfectly within your rights to pick up a microphone and make noise. How does that make you feel? +And it sounds a bit like sitting on a psychiatrist couch. But how does it make you feel that you +have this ability to do it? And I think I'm rather than, oh, it makes me feel excited. And what about +if you were to then pick up the microphone and press the button and speak into it, how would that +make you feel? Well, I'd probably be nervous at first, but once you get the hang of it, you're +sort of, it's easier. And also, I feel like it's more, it's an interesting hobby and I think it's +really nice to learn and get into. Okay, well, we'll come back to that because I do have a specific +question about that. Now, interestingly enough, you would have already made a number of contacts, +supervised contacts, on the air before you had your own license. There was one that we did, +you see my handheld radio when we did the field day outside the clubhouse. Do you remember that one? +Yes. You did how you had one contact on the HF radio at club when I think it was, was it +Liam was was going through it with you? Yes, it was Liam. Yeah. And then what I would consider +an immense privilege for you is you managed to get a contact whilst down at the radio center at +Bletchley Park in December. Yes, I do still have a postcard on my wall from there. Do you +remember which country you were at? You reached Sweden? Almost. Finland? No. No way. Switzerland. +Yes. Yes. As each of those experiences, I mean, specifically those in order because those +of the three you did before you took your exam, starting with the handheld going to HF with Liam +and then speaking to somebody on the rather nice radio installation at the National Radio +Center, how did you find those experiences? Well, the one handheld, I think that was my first ever +chance when it wasn't there. It was definitely a very scary experience. I didn't really know what to say, +but I got the hang of it after a while. For the HF one, which was Liam helped me that one, +I think it was definitely an interesting experience because also I got someone from my thing +Finland or somewhere like that because it was a while away. And for the one I bletchley park, +come actually really proud of that one because it's from, you get from a while away. And also it's an +official, the official radio center. So, financed a very good achievement, transmitting from there. +Well, being able to actually use the National Radio Center call sign, GB, +free RRS. I was going to say to GB2, RRS, but that's the news bulletin. GB3 of RRS is +internationally renowned and recognised as the National Radio Center. So, for you to use that, +is quite a privilege position to be in. Did you find that each of those three experiences got +easier with each one? I think the one at GB3 RRS was one of the scariest because it's from a +big place, but the one from the handheld to the HF, it definitely did get easier. Yeah. +So, I think, in a way, yeah. There was one more. Was that? On the way back from Bletchley Park. +Ah, when I was talking in convoy. When we were in convoy and I was speaking on the on the radio +and I said, right, I've had enough now, you can do it and I shove the microphone in your face. +And you just took to it completely naturally. As if it was something you'd done for +prages. Yes, I do remember that now. We were talking for a while and then you thought that I could +should have a try. Yeah. Well, as I'm sure supervised by somebody who has a license, +then really anybody, absolutely anybody can use the amateur radio bands. Yeah, and I think that's +a nice experience because that's only a recent rule, isn't it? It's a recent change to the rule. +Up until recently, I think you had to be either in this immediate or a full license holder to be +able to do it. So, I think it was about 18 months, two years ago, whether it changed the rules +that actually allowed foundation license, I hold us like myself, to be able to supervise +other users using their call sign. So, technically, either of your brothers who have no interest +in pursuing a call sign, if they wanted to and they want to speak to somebody on the radio, +they could use my call sign with me there. Yeah. So, how many new contacts have you made since you +became licensed in December? Since I became licensed, I believe, I did speak to you on the +last I was walking locally, other than that, I don't think I've made many contacts. That's the +answer I had. It was just me. As a matter of fact, there were two instances. The first one was actually +on the day you got your call sign, where you went out for a walk, and you tried, you had the +hand held and you tried to court. I remember the second time now. And yeah, and the one after that +is when you came and joined us on a walk. So, what's next for you? In terms of your amateur +radio journey, you know I am now studying for my intermediate. So, that's the next step on. +Do you have any inclination to move onto the next level, or are you going to stay where you are +for now, have a look around and see what things are like, just get used to it? +Well, I've not really had much experience in amateur radio yet, so I'll probably stay foundation +for a while. I think I definitely need to try and make a few more contact with people, go to +other places, and try and get contact there. So, now that you've been through the experience +of learning more about it and having a go and going through the training and going through the +examination, what was the best piece of advice you could go back and give yourself when you first +looked into this? And I suppose I actually suppose my extension, what was the best piece of advice +you could give to somebody else thinking about getting into amateur radio? Well, study hard. I think +studying is important to try and get your head into the mindset of amateur radio and for your exam. +Excellent. All right, well, I hope this has given you a bit of a taste of of what it's like +for somebody who has just passed their amateur radio exam, who's just starting to learn their +experiences. And of course, if you do have any questions you want to ask, then please feel free +to leave a comment on the show notes of this episode. Or of course, if you want to, if you want to +to make a bit more of a long comment, or you want to describe your own experiences of having +to have been gone through the same thing, then please do feel free to record an episode yourself. +So, Alex, thank you so much for speaking to me. I know this has taken about a week to +actually get around to doing. But I've been with you on this journey, and I even found this +conversation in lightning, so I'm hoping other people will as well. So, thank you. +Yes, it was a very nice experience. Thank you. So, join us again tomorrow for another exciting +episode of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4579.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4579.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96a9215 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4579.txt @@ -0,0 +1,142 @@ +Episode: 4579 +Title: Happy by shower +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4579/hpr4579.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:23 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4579, for 2026-02-19 +Today's show is entitled, "Happy by shower" +The host is Antoine and the duration is 00:07:45 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "On what makes me joyfull when I’m destroyed (spoiler: an anchor, hope)" +You're listening to Happy Bysher, where I show on HPR. +Hello dear beloveds here with you at HPR and Twan. +The message of this episode is the following. +Life comes in waves, circumstances are volatile. +For the majority of them, we have no control of what happens. +Things happen in climate events, and happen in health. +Our, our health, or another one's health, +financially, emotionally. +Many, many, many depend on choices that others make, +or outside events that we as humans cannot trace, +or interfere on cause and effect. +And lah, that's an interjection. +We can't even tell the weather precisely yet. +Our emotions, they're subject to the same phenomenon, +as far as they are tired to that events, +our feelings of sadness, of relief. +We'll come and go, also as waves, unpredictable, +and patrous in precise. +It ruins the health of anyone. +Do you listen to your heartbeat? +It can be 80 or 110 BPM. +From one second to another, +by the choices of her thinking, without you moving a musco. +Like a music you're hearing, it can change your heartbeat +even though you do nothing, but also, +if you think you can change everything. +Of your body chemicals, of your heartbeat, +of her feelings that, in lasting instance, +are our choices, our choice of feeling. +A basketball player, for instance, +can be a better player, and then there's a research innate. +Only training in his mind, +imagination and comparison to one that is not practice at all. +Your mind, and by it we mean, +now the choices of her thinking, your mind +have influence in your muscular abilities, +and in your body chemicals. +These regulate basically the entirety of your sensations, +that are different from the feelings, +and contribute your health or lack of it. +So when one believes, have a belief, +he has a stable point in which to be firm. +Even though the circumstances are waves, +he's not floating on them. +He's anchored. +That's why if firm, if true, and this fate, +this subject that this person is more stable and happier +than an ordinary person that has no hope at all, +but lives by what the world has to offer today. +In summary, the instability is not beneficial, +especially if it's not only tights that are infrequent +and the rise but are more precise, more stable, +but if there are waves, it's more unstable yet. +Well, we are taken to the thinking of instability +for the pursuit of something we believe, +or are made to believe, is worth it. +And maybe not, +then when someone presents something we, +quote-unquote, need, that may not be the case. +We can think, then, we choose what we live for. +How I choose to few, +how I choose to behave, +because or in spite of what happens around and around and around. +No matter the point of the universe when person has reached +physically or perceptually, his transcendence, +his conquests of the best of his life, anything, +that does not define him for eternity, +because it's not in the best. +It's happening right now. +Has not ended, yeah? +No point of experience of me. +I have days of very low mood and uncertainty, +the feeling of serving for absolutely nothing. +Even in good days that may feel true, +the feeling that thinking may feel true to me, +but does not define me, +as it defines when I am in the ground on this thinking. +I have been sad things like this, +from people who have value or value it, +value it then, more than family of blood. +These are days that it's not healthy. +I don't have the appropriate care of my body. +I don't shower. +Until recently, those were days of much suffering, +but I perceived that in the next day of each of these days, +the next day, +in having kept and keeping trust, +keeping trust in the hope. +I have, +I can have a night of rest. +I can wake up and take a shower +and after all, +start a new, +almost a new, +haven't lived the bad experience the day prior. +As an experienced dead, +at that moment, +I only wanted to go away as soon as possible, +like, +take me out of these, +I want to go out, +I want to sleep and forget, +I want to, +anything. +Wow, +but after going through the entirety of it, +and it's full duration, +no short cuts, +I would not, +I would not replace this feeling +and learning experience by anything else. +Someone has said that English is when makes us do something. +In comfort, +we only go comfortable. +The purpose or the action +comes from the need to change. +I will repeat this phrase. +The purpose or the action comes from the need to change. +Every little experience, +and not only the great and the normal, +but little ones, +or seemingly little, +contribute, +contribute to mode someone, +the rest trajectory. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4580.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4580.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b89e808 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4580.txt @@ -0,0 +1,135 @@ +Episode: 4580 +Title: The First Doctor, Part 4 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4580/hpr4580.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:24 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4580, for 2026-02-20 +Today's show is entitled, "The First Doctor, Part 4" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:15:00 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A continuing look at the first Doctor Who." +Hello, this is a hookah welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and into the +exciting episode in our series on Science Fiction and we're going to go back to the early +doctor who some of the classic stories and back to the very first doctor and so we're +going to pick up where we left off with some of our previous episodes here and the +first story we're going to talk about is one called Galaxy 4. +This is a science fiction story that is focused on the fairly common idea of not judging +a book by its cover. The Tardis lands on a deserted dying planet. They see a funny looking +robot that Vicki calls a chumbly. Then another one appears and they investigate but are +rescued by three beautiful women who tell them they were in great danger and they take the three +travelers back to their ship where they meet the leader Maga another beautiful woman but +somehow these women are odd and a bit cold. They tell of how they met another ship from an +evil race the real and that in a space battle the ships damaged each other and landed on +this planet. Then later the Tardis travelers meet the real who initially refused to reveal their +appearance because it would frighten the humans. As it turns out they were very alien and appearance +but not at all evil it was the beautiful women who were the evil ones in this story. +Then there is a very interesting there's nothing like this anywhere else in the +canon of Doctor Who. It's a little one episode story. Why one episode? Partly they had a +Tadahila gap and so it takes place on the planet Campbell. Agents from Earth realize the +Daleks are hearing up to no good. It turns out this mission to the unknown is a prequel +to the Daleks master plan which comes just a little bit later and is notable as the only +Doctor Who story in which none of the regular cast appears. That's because this was an extra +episode given to the Doctor Who team late in the day and the regular cast were already given vacation +time off so consider this episode zero of the Daleks master plan and not has a standalone story. +Now the original story has been lost like so many episodes of early Doctor Who but a very nice +version was done by the University of Central Lancashire and you can view it on YouTube. I've +put a link in the show notes. It's introduced by Edward DeSusa who played Mark Cory in the original +and it's worth a good look. They did a good job with the story and you know that's it's nice +that some of these missing stories from the first two doctors you know there are big gaps in +William Hartnull and later Patrick Trouton from when the BBC was just saying oh no one will ever +want to see this again we can just wipe the tapes or throw them out or whatever and it's really nice +that in some of these cases that they you know someone has done a different version to bring +the story to life. Some of the Trouton stories were done as stage place and then the stage play +was filmed and those are very interesting. Then we get the myth makers now this is another one of +the historical stories and we've talked about how in the early days there was a tendency to alternate +science fiction and history and they did a lot more historical stories than modern Doctor Who does +but in this case instead of verified history it's historical legends that play here in the form +of the siege of Troy by the Greeks. So you have all of the Homeric cast here Achilles, +Prime, Hector, Odysseus. The Doctor is taken for a god by Achilles although Odysseus has his doubts. +Vicky is captured by the Trojans and taken to Troy, calls herself Cressida and is taken for a goddess. +Stephen goes to Troy to try and free her but is seen as a Greek so Vicky is now suspect. +She falls in love with a son of Prime named Trojless and you think something might happen here +particularly if you're familiar with a play of Shakespeare called Trojless and Cressida. +Now this story only has faint echoes of the play preserving that Cressida is Greek and Trojless's +in this case it is Cressida staying with Troyless. So instead of going back to the Titus Vicky is +now out one more companion gone. Now this also marks the departure of Verity Lambert as the producer. +She had been the producer of Doctor Who from the very beginning but went on to have a very successful +career as a producer both with the BBC and with independent channels in England. +And she was replaced by a fellow named John Wiles. Wiles tried to implement changes such as making +the show a bit darker but ran into opposition from both heart and all and BBC management +and resigned after producing four stories the myth makers threw to the arc and the popularity of +other SF shows on television made a move to more SF and less history desirable. +As for Heartinel's opposition it is notable that he had become quite identified with the role of the +Doctor and was very proprietary with it. This would come to pose problems later as his health declined. +Now the Daleks Master plan this is the one that we said mission to the unknown could be thought of +as episode zero or the prequel to this story. This story arc takes 12 episodes or 13 if you +add mission to the unknown as indeed you should. The reason for such a long story arc is that +Sir Hugh Weldon the director general the BBC at that time wanted a monster-length +Daleks story because his mother was a big Daleks fan and this story does have a lot going for it. +The length means you can do a little more character development. Now the story starts off with +Stephen recovering from a sword thrust during the fall of Troy and being attended by +Katarina a Trojan maiden who is now in the TARDIS. Now I think at one point there was a thought that she +might become a new companion but that turns out is not what happened. Now they arrive on the planet +Campbell the same one that we saw in mission to the unknown and meet with space special security agent +Brett Vaien played by Nicholas Courtney who in a few years would become the beloved to Brigadier +Luthbridge Stewart. Vaien tries to force the doctor to take him to Earth so he can warn the planet +but the doctor recognizes the Daleks and wants to find out more about their plans and this brings +us to one of the most evil villains in Doctor Who, Mavic Chen. You see the docs have assembled +a group of villainous aliens to join together in conquering the Earth and Mavic Chen is part of the +group but he is also the idolized guardian of the solar system so he's a traitor. Now Katarina the Trojan +maiden sacrifices herself to save the others from a convict they meet on a prison planet. +Another wonderful character is Sarah Kingdom played by Peggy Marsh who is head of space special +security who has been told by Mavic Chen that Vaien and the others are traitors and so she kills Vaien +who is in fact her brother but they manage to convince her that Chen is the real traitor and she joins +them. In the middle of all of this Christmas happened and this resulted in the most absurd +episode ever of Doctor Who, it's called the Feast of Stephen, capped by the doctor breaking the fourth wall. +The episode is now among the missing but you can find reconstructions on YouTube if you want to see +the absurdity of it and there is a reappearance of the meddling monk. This is a sprawling story I mean +12 episodes good lord but overall worth a look Mavic Chen played by Kevin Stony is delightfully evil +and Stony would return to play another villain in the Troutin story the invasion +and it is interesting to see Nicholas Courtney before he got the role he would always be identified with +Doctor Who would not do anything this large again until the flux in 2021 and frankly this story makes +more sense and that brings us now to another historical called the massacre of St. Boatholmese Eve +you'll often see this as simply the massacre which works because the herrily is no other story with a similar +title and after that massive science fiction story you know another historical story that was the way +they did it. Now this involves the true story of Protestants in France being massacred by the Catholics +and the main feature worth calling out here is that William Hartnell plays two roles in this story +he is the doctor of course but also the habit of M. Was a leader among the Catholics looking to +rid France of the Protestants. Now the idea of playing two parts became even more nicely done by +Patrick Troutin later in the story called the enemy of the world in any case this leads to confusion +by Stephen who thinks the habit is actually the doctor. Now in the story a servant girl named Anna Chaplet +is rescued and this opens up the interesting possibility that she is the ancestor of Dodo +short for Dorothea Chaplet a companion who appears at the end. She witnesses a car crash and +barges into the tire that's thinking she can call the police that's Dodo we're talking about. +Now while the novelty of Hartnell playing two parts may stand out on first look the story is really +a showcase for Peter Purvis in his role of Stephen Taylor. Now because Hartnell is not on screen very +much, Purvis really has to carry the plot and he does so admirably. Hartnell was on vacation when +the second episode was filled and so didn't appear at all and his health problems were beginning +to cause problems which contributed to this situation. He was having a lot of trouble with remembering +his lines which is a real problem for an actor. He was not that old by current standards as he was +58 when this story was produced. I'm now 74 so 58 seems more like late youth to me but you know +for Hartnell it was nearing the end of the line. And then the last one will discuss on this episode is the arc. +The tireless materializes on a spaceship in the far future so after this historical back to science fiction +it is carrying the future of the human race to a new planet refuses to +because the earth is falling into the sun. But it also has an odd race called the +monoids who are on board and they have one eye so that's what monoid stands for. They're an alien race +who came to earth when their own planet was dying and now they serve the humans. +Unfortunately the TARDIS crew carries germs for which humans and monoids on the arc have no +immunity and sickness breaks out. One faction wants to kill the doctor in his companions but instead +the doctor finds a cure for the disease and they leave on the TARDIS. Then the TARDIS materializes +back on the arc but they discovered that hundreds of years have passed. The monoids have +rebelled and taken over and now the humans serve them. As the old saying has it be kind of those you +meet on the way up for you will meet them again on the way down. So that's enough for this particular +look at the first doctor where moving towards completing all of the first doctor's stories. +But this is enough for now so this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio signing off and is always +encouraging you to support free software. Bye bye! +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4581.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4581.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a8ceb4 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4581.txt @@ -0,0 +1,367 @@ +Episode: 4581 +Title: Sharp Intake of Breath City (A.K.A.) How I learnt to stop worrying about the fork bomb +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4581/hpr4581.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:24 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4581, for 2026-02-23 +Today's show is entitled, "Sharp Intake of Breath City (A.K.A.) How I learnt to stop worrying about the fork bomb" +The host is not_toby and the duration is 00:36:31 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "My journey into the magickal world of beastie bits on disks and daemons all the way down.." +How do I hack a public radio well I never thought I'd do this but here I am recording +finally it's been a long long road to get to this point I've actually trying to do this +I started listening to hack a public radio back in like 2011 probably no yes yes +2011 which is when I and I thought I don't want it to do is I've +remember back in the day people used to make these these podcasts about their sort of journey +into free software and hack a dumb if you like becoming a hacker you know in the in the +OG sense of the term you know multiple MIT model railway club hacking so I'm not a model railway +enthusiast but I I do like thinking with computers and have done since since yes about 2011 +is when I first cut my teeth on on Linux yeah I historically very much nerd most of my life but +more of a humanities nerd as a child I was very interested in kind of philosophy and literature +and sort of art house cinema and art the arts really the arts and the humanities were much more +my speed I sort of loathed or was poorly let's say I you know I didn't get you know I grew +I'm I'm to give some context I'm 41 now so I grew I missed the era of like BBC micro +and it sounds as though the generation prior to mine were sort of I don't know about this like +computers were exciting it sounded like computer sounded very exciting in the ACs you know +interesting and weird and quirky and it sounded like people who came of age around that time +had a different experience to to my generations which I see at school for me was essentially just +learning Microsoft utilities it was word power point XL right and I fucking sorry then I had to put +the explicit tag on this bugger but I do like to talk like say that sometimes yes it was fucking +awful and I and it turned me off computers completely but having said that I was also not a very +technically minded individual at least I didn't think I was maybe I was in other domains maybe I +had to find that out later this might be a really long episode by the way um maybe we would have split +it up in some parts I don't know it's wonderful what you guys do I haven't actually listened +to a public radio and sometime but I do I do mean to change that and get back into it um anyway +we'll get there we'll get there um yeah so very much not not didn't think of myself as a computer +person at all um didn't like math and science and I thought that was computers but I've kind of +kind of kind of since come to realise that computers are much more are actually potentially +much more about philosophy and linguistics and you know systems right systems and language um you +know obviously the math stuff is there and science stuff is there at the low level if you know +good which is actually what I'm really interested in I do struggle I struggle with the nitty gritty +of compsai but but try to push myself through that and again we'll get to that but um so yeah +2011 I uh I was um also very um got into skateboarding and BMX riding my teens and 20s which +have a lot I feel like those communities and if anyone knows about Chappard Rodney mother and he's +like one of the famous most famous skateboarders of all time and also kind of a genius and also +very interesting open source and he he actually makes these these kind of interesting +comparisons between open source communities and skateboarding communities or I like to think of +I like to think of like skateboarding BMX like roller-blading or you know parkour like these are what I +call I don't even think of them as sports I like or they're sports they're free sports and +free them right like they they encourage um playfulness and they encourage a kind of physical +start of hacking like hacking the environment which is like you know so there's a lot of +overlap I think in our communities um and it's also about pushing the standard forward so like +progression there's a there's a there's a constant turn of progression that happens in those activities +let's not call them sports I don't like the terms sports I think of them more as like performance arts +or um yoga really it's like a spiritual thing for me those activities um but they aren't +tremendously hard on the body and so what happened for me was I sort of destroyed my uh one of my +knees gradually and so the over time and so it's the right hold age of of 27 I was diagnosed +with the arthritis of someone twice my age and under when a um um a pretty significant procedure +where they they took the meniscus from a dava and implanted it into my knee because I destroyed my +meniscus and then they took some stem cells and and injected them into the you know some anyway it was +it was a it was a it was a big thing and I and I basically had to sort of sack off +that stuff which is really kind of consumed my time and energy prior to that and I was um +I sort of accidentally became interested in computers uh via one trying to revive the passions +out of the kit as I say for sort of arts photography filmmaking let's share I had to sort of +for one reason or rather I won't get into you know it's trying not to make this too much of a +low story but basically I sort of lost touch with that that side of myself and uh so I was trying +to get into photography and now when I was a kid photography was I just used a film camera because +it was just kind of prior to you know the advent of um you know just I mean I'm sure this +camera's around but they weren't really you know anyway I didn't use them so coming back to +trying to come back to photography and around sort of I know in 2010 obviously digital cameras +were all the rage now and film cameras were kind of rendered obsolete so I just get a film camera +actually but I mainly focused on digital and I suddenly all right I never until that point of +my life this is how much of a kind of Luddite techno-phobe sort of person I was I really did +consider myself quite anti-technology I've sort of done a strange um round robin and I've sort of +ended up back in the same place which again we'll get to hopefully find it interesting um if not +obviously you know there's plenty of other things to listen to but um no so god of computer for the +first time you know I'd use my parents computers and stuff you know and that was all again +at school like you know just hated to be honest I hated computers they were annoying +and I have to say I lay that blame squarely at the feet of of of I'm just gonna go for it +counting Microsoft I'm sorry if you're American I know how Americans feel about that but +our scripts and Australians do love the word and sometimes call each other that word is a +tower of endurance so I'm hopefully no one's fallen off their shaft counting Microsoft I can't you +know like honestly they just they run everything I do I still have to deal with you know Microsoft +software what I'm looking at teams right now um oh god it's just spec wasn't it um I mean +and all this business of them becoming all over the world anyway let's not progress um really turned +me off computers when those did really did just hated it all everything always seemed to break +they just seemed like a nightmare to deal with nothing worked like I wanted to see I just didn't +did I just hated computers as a result but as I say getting it back in front of trying against +just photography back in photography in my late 20s or mids late 20s when I knew that my days of +jumping down stairs on bikes and skateboards were kind of numbered um I got a computer got a +sample it was a sample RF 11 like 15 inch I had like an Nvidia you know I did I'm a nerd so I brought +all the magazines you know you know the internet was around but now I was such a lullite like I brought +magazine I was a magazine but I used to fucking be obsessed I used to have like pulse magazines for +all the things I was interested anyway so I brought computer magazines you know did all this research +got the laptop I thought you know my budget blah blah blah blah blah got this laptop and got it and thought +fucking hell you know like I want to understand how to take care of this thing I was you know I was +how much money is working as a um what a fan man delivering fruit and veg around South +Hampton and um you know so I was you know you know how much money it has 600 pounds of +all this went a lot of money for a yeah anyway so I've bought this laptop so often and I was like +I need to learn to take care of this because the computer every time we use you know I just +could use always ended up coming shit essentially we'd get in you computer the family was +and then it would just gradually over you know just deteriorate and weird things would happen and +you'd look at it and you'd be like what what's going what is this like back in the bad old days you know +we're talking like when does I start using like when I you know from like when do the first we've +probably got our first computer like was the end of the late nineties I remember my dad sort of +clunky all laptops and so I don't know what Windows but after I'm this T-that 95,000 then three to like +this X-peen it was just horrible I hated it um so it goes to the computer it was seven +Windows 7 era this was and uh coming up towards Windows 8 um but I remember yeah just deep diving +computer magazines and then of course you know um what's the word I'm looking for a god when +something is fate or um inevitably inevitably you know I discovered Linux I just like what is this +you know I can put it put it you see see if you would ask me what an operating system was at +that time my life or price that I would have just looked at you blackly I like I wouldn't have +had a conception of what an operating system was which I think is kind of interesting like as +you know being now what 15 years deep into being a computer like I think it's really important especially +like this whole year the Linux desktop and trying to advocate for people to eat for your name +and so stuff like it's important to like sometimes step back and realize that like normal people +don't like they don't they don't walk at you know I mean like I was one of these people that's +I'm care and I don't you know like it's not you know you know like it's not +didn't you you asked the man on the street like what's not for a system most people just +looking at you blackly I don't know you know and I didn't and then suddenly I was in this I +want it you know as I say I sort of stumbled into it I just became fascinated I thought wow +I don't understand how the fucking things work and they are like so much you know God there's +we live in the computing you know we live in the age of technology computers so I at that time my life +having the energetic space and time to focus on something other than destroying my leg +through on high impacts absurdity I +yeah I was like wow I just want to fall down this rabbit hole and fall down the rabbit hole +I did the the photography never came to much I did take some rather nice photos actually +camera but then I ended up sold it all I just just fell down there I had this operation and +I was basically bedroom for our six months after it we wasn't successful but it let me fall down +the rabbit hole quite deeply and I know immediately from as soon as I kind of got into computers +I was straight away like that Linux thing I don't know as I say probably just kind of +because it's kind of a countercultural sort of slightly hippy-ish type deal do you know what I mean like +GPS I was like wow I remember watching that that amazing documentary revolutionary +sort of like yes man these are my people this is definitely the direction I want to you know +I want to explore with with computers and offering systems in general just +immediately found but as soon as I sort of realized that oh there was this thing called +an operative system like how like I just wanted to understand first principles +around computers and so I am I remember I was watching like I think it's CS50 a highly recommended +to anyone that's like looking to get you know that that foundational level +understanding of you know just like binary that blew my mind just understanding that everything was +zero and one I was like what excuse me how on earth is that I think it was my bling it was such an +exciting time it was such an exciting time and it was I mean I needed it because it was pretty devastating +to lose to be so physically incapacitating how having you know spent so many years being +such a physically capable person so it was really like you know computers learning about computers +and and by extension of that really open source because I think if open source wasn't there I +think if the if they're kind of slightly weird counter cultural oddness of you know the Linux ecosystem +which is coming let us sort of you know sad it's a bit like skateboarding me and then picks +now like you know Microsoft being the biggest donation to these days the latest foundation and +kind of trying to subsume the whole thing it's like really like which is kind of wire ended up being +more of a BST person but again we'll get to that primarily what I'm trying to say is that I'm kind of +a despicable hipster at heart and if it's popular I don't want anything to zero that +and if it's slightly weird and niche and off the wall then I'm there you know drew a +length so I'm very much a BST guy I really want to do I want to experiment some more with +the template because that's I think computer software as artists I think extremely interesting +anyway I'm jumping ahead probably needs to well I might commit this because I would feel like I've +been talking for 40 long maybe I'll send this one off and hopefully pick up at some point or maybe I'll +just keep going which really um you get a bit further I'll go a bit further let's go a bit further so +yeah at 2011 2012 just fell down the rabbit oh and I went in hard you know I went from zero to +hundred pretty like within that first year I'd like done full gen two installs and you know actually +then X was like I've got really into gen two I was just listening some talk about it I just fell +down but I had all this time you know I wasn't wasn't able to work for the op and so I just fell +down the rabbit hole of 120 to 120 computers and really operating systems and yeah and yeah let's +let's hit the BST is actually because it was I went to an age to go to a lug in portsmith put +the plug the portsmith Linux user group and um I always remember I was one of my you know I +still need to all this stuff but I remember this and and you get very different like very +eclectic selection of people would turn up to those kind of things and but I remember there was the +guy that most of the person is just guy who turned up and he just he what he said I had no idea what +he's talking about like compilers and like the security of compilers and and he and he was I just +remember finding this chap that I didn't hear he was never seen him again but he was very impressive +you know he seemed like the smartest guy in the room and um I said I did not understand the word +what he was talking about but I wanted to know I mean I think in a way software you know this +the structure and interpretation of computer programming book which is like the Bible and it's known +as the wizard book and there there is something about something analogous or something um there +again it's like magic right it's like if you've ever if anyone has ever delved into esoterica +and uh looked into the occult and uh the practice of magic uh with a K it's like again a lot of +weird sort of um metaphorical overlap and it's sort of uh I don't know it's strange um anyway this guy +seemed like a sort of you know very advanced wizard and uh and he and he I remember sort of my +main game going oh look you know if you're interested in the stuff that he was talking about which +I don't know what he's talking about but please you know help me I'll be understanding you like +you need to look into open bsd and I was like okay and so it's sort of stuck in my head and I did +and that's kind of yeah I've sort of ended up being being very much more um interested in bsd family +both brain systems but that's kind of a whole rabbit hole um I think let's let's try and you know +I guess I guess you know half an hour is not too bad for podcos episode is it it feels very indulgent +talking about myself like this to be honestly I feel quite self conscious about the whole thing but um +no mind um whisper again next yeah so just got really into it got really into it +eventually my leg started to uh you know I just used to spend hours um +really compiling the system and gently and it was funny like it's easy to think and there was that +kind of trope of like you know just wasting time um yeah shaving and but I think it's it's three +for me I learned through tinkering I'm not I'm not a very good academic learner I sort of learned +by trial and error and I learned by playing and tinkering that's I think the best way for me to learn +you think uh and so I just did a shit ton of that already uh over the course about 10 or +half years and then my leg kind of got better you know I was on benefits during this period um like +welfare in America but um you know that was coming to an end because you know there's no reason +I mean not to go to a draw I definitely didn't want to go back to white van manning at this point +and so I decided to uh to enroll on a on a comp side degree to a comp side degree and um +and being a contrary motherfucker and of course as soon as I started trying to learn academically +around the stuff the whole thing just kind of I don't know but there was a lot of +things going on my life to be honest with you which is not really um which is a pretty +of topic for for this uh maybe one day or again into that stuff because I have listened to a few +HPR episodes where people talk about you know mental health and I think it's really important +and that sort of stuff uh so hopefully I'll maybe I'll do more of these this is really fun man this +is really fun but yeah I've had I've had struggles in that domain and between that and then +getting married, having a char, getting divorced, having to start a career and all this like +sort of getting a career and in the world you know I know I'm that's my job I'm a professional +software engineer which I hate out time I'd like to I like computer programmers my favorite way +of describing what I do I think you know just think to an episode of BSD now actually the other +day and the the chat was talking was saying like how he loves programming but he hates software engineering +and I totally understood what he meant um so yeah it's sort of my my passion went dormant +between as I say the degree the it actually re the degree kind of killed things for me a little bit +and there was a lot of other things going on my life which I won't get into but then it briefly +real woke woke up um when my ex wife got pregnant with her daughter and suddenly it was like +oh you need to get a job because I was just a sort of penina student at the time um living on +the student loans and all that jazz living in a in a warehouse um the room was a little bit +lonely windows uh so I said oh shit I need to get a job so I start is at a I got I got a like +temping job well I was essentially working as the under study to the under study the under study +to the to the intern who was this sort of eight I was like in my early 30s and I was working with +this 18 year old lovely beautiful boy called Bradley who he was he was so a lot such a lot of +such a lovely department actually it was very very like being in the IT crowd you know it was very +IT crowd ask if it's basement department and I just rocked up there expecting only to stay for +a couple of weeks and just to do you know help this this intern you know they just need it anyway +long in the short if it was it's like because I had accumulated all this knowledge programming and +systems and whatnot over the years even though it had been slightly um mangled by the by the +how in you know fucking fit my weird mind into the academic world sort of but not really +I you know but then I got there it's just a part of it was so funny because +like they're just were doing everything completely manually so I got there and like the first day +they were like okay he was like you're like what we need to do so dealing with like basically +I won't say the name of the big advertising conglomerate essentially like with million +different subsidiaries and all these users and we were down at the basement of this +place and give you a clue golden square and and you know when a user would leave +or change that they were basically what I'm trying to get to is they in order to back up machines +what they what this got chat Bradley would do was literally just like drag and drop in windows +he was teaching me he's like this is what he was what I took about teaching grammar to suck eggs +right at this point this is this is around what year we hear like about this is actually +yeah the year my daughter was born say 2018 should know that right um yeah so you know I've been +deep in the matrix by this point for for if you know you know I accumulate some skills right +I could write scripts and I was like what the fuck you don't you didn't know any power shelves +windows have gone in the bin in my first year I was like fuck that shit never going +about there again you know I I dabbled bit with I had a MacBook at one point and I quite like you +know it's like oh this is not this is a Unix great but also no fuck off Apple with all your proprietary +garbage um anyway and up in this department and I just start writing PowerShell scripts and +shell scripts and Python scripts for the because they were also it's advertising agency lots of creative +so lots of MacBooks you know so we had like a Mac department and a windows department and +but basically everything was being done manually there was one guy who'd written like an +onboarding PowerShell script that was like so insanely like it was you know and I become very +idealistic with was you know do one thing do it well you know you know I'd really take +and the Unix philosophy on board and this new starter script is guy who'd written and PowerShell +he was like a very much a windows guy you know and it was just like it was just a shoot I may +he laughed and I basically just started automating left writing center and they kept me on +age and it was such a great dream because I was supposed to be doing support right I was supposed +to I was I was on the support team like that so I was supposed to just be like a help desk guy +but I didn't I didn't do a single bit of help desk work all I did was sit in the corner just doing +whatever I wanted really which basically was like writing scripts but then I also started like making +my like making little get-up projects of this you know little help of functions and you know just +I think it was lovely I just got to like sit in the corner and they just left me alone because I +just every now and again I throw something useful over the wall and maybe like oh this is great you +you know saved a lot of loads of time and that was like back up back up scripts and automating the +how is it sort of the intuning of the Mac I can't remember loads of stuff I did there I really became +extremely productive and extremely interested again in programming and systems and because actually +what I was doing had a tangible effect in the world and was helping people and it felt fucking awesome +to do that actually but really really great and and then one thing left to another and I've +created all these you know silly little get-up projects with all my you know probably not great code +but it was you know it was working and then I managed basically just long as sort of it was I ended up +very quickly progressing from you know sort of you know in turn to the intern on the help desk +to you know doing DevOps you staff and then chain moving companies which yeah because they didn't +pay very well at this particular company so you know obviously my skills were worth much more so +sort of you know anyway nothing sort of was I ended up being um you know I'm now seeing +itself run generative very big very big company which is not really yeah anyway that whole process +of I ended up as start up got a quiet way of a company and it's been that's been a real challenge +and that and that whole process which took place over many years um fears at least um sort of +cause caused me to withdraw again and be like oh god you know and I sort of but then the reason I'm +kind of doing this absolutely actually we're nearly getting up to half an hour is I've kind of +come full circle and I had another big off on my leg because I have essentially severe arthritis in my +leg as a result and and often it's been what nearly yeah 15 years this year actually since that +I described at the beginning of episode and I've just recently had another even more insane up where +they broke my femur um because my leg was going wonky from all the arthritis they broke my femur +and realign my leg and have kind of bolstered it all back together again with like a set of sort +of 70s huge fucking nail-esque screws going all the way through with femur so and that's the other +thing I had kind of also got back into physical things as my knee got better over the last 10 years +got back in skateboarding back into BMX mountain biking, fixed gear riding bikes you know I love bikes +absolutely and Steve Jobs actually said the bicycle the computer is the bicycle of the mind so I +think it's no no constant that I'm you know and you know anyway I need to wrap this up because +we're approaching I don't know if I've set this half an hour limit pretty arbitrary but any who yeah +um oh god well was right um yes recently had this this major up and uh so obviously put the +cybersh on all my physical activities again and so what do I do of course fell back down the +rabbit hole of um programming and uh and this time fell back in love with BSD's I got really into BSD +as I mentioned earlier to the point that I actually ended up going to your BSD con I think back in +2000 and before I started my degree back in 2000 maybe it was the year I started my degree of 2014 potentially +might have been 2013 I'm not sure it was in uh oh god where was it it was it mulled sir it was the +one that was mulled sir I'm not sure what you know that was but it was it was very cool but yeah coming +into the industry and working industry obviously like it's you know unless you happen to be able +to work with BSD systems you know sort of mainly being on back on Linux and Mac OS and stuff for +the last few years for my sins but no you're having this time off and having the opportunity to +start playing again because I couldn't be out running my bike playing on that I just um yeah falling +back in love with it all actually ended up acquiring a bunch of old MacBooks through very strange circumstances +that I won't get into now um and then I must like you know what I don't want to put Linux on these +old MacBooks because um it just seems inappropriate given the lineage of Mac OS which I do actually +even though it's probably I do find Mac OS phenomenally interesting because it's such a hotge +potch of different systems and ideas and I'm really I just find I think I think the story of Apple +is also fascinating I wouldn't consider myself an Apple fanboy by any stretch of the imagination +I do you know but there is there is a sort of spirit in the history of Apple that is that is +I don't know it's sad it's sad actually because I was very when I first got interested told +I was taking a walk the walk the little bit of the technology I was very um I really you know the +hardware is beautiful and again it's this intersection of art and technology I think the Apple really +does epitomize and it's tremendously sad that that basically the defining influence on Mac on the +company was was a sort of you know very I hate to use the term but I think he probably was +exceptionally narcissistic kind of person Steve Jobs seems like sort of like the the bad Apple +dare I say and then he look at what's who's just like oh god what a beautiful human what amazing +stonishing lovely kind gentle soul if he if it is you know I mean like if if he could have driven +if it you know I mean like oh god how how things could be imagine imagine a universe in which we +have an Apple that was open what that would look like it would be so good you know it would be so good +and it's lovely to see companies like framework and that one out of one out of Germany's wonderful +mountain M&T reform oh god I've loved he's living the universe where they they you know I mean +but I think sadly anyway I don't know um where was I fuck me mean well back at the point +um that was from Linux Outlaws back in the day I used to listen to all the podcast back in the day +that's why it's uh it's it's very um it's really good to be doing this I really hope that I actually do +are you know um kick this over the line um I think I will but yeah anyway it should be wrapped up +awful awful awful awful uh no I don't know quite that yet what else do I want to say um yeah +I mean well back at the point no I don't know I don't know um +um boundary dwelling um boundary dwelling hmm no I think I'm running dry I think I'm running dry +I need to do some work I'm mainly doing this to procrastinate about some work if I don't really +want to do but I must because it does pay the bills um yeah speaking of which I have +recently for the first time actually started to contribute back and I guess that's the plan of what +this is about to because I want to start contributing back I've been given so much by the +source communities whether it's podcasts or and the software itself you know and I'm at a point +now where like you know I've been doing this for a while I'm not a move anymore um I'm certainly not +a very sophisticated programmer I'm you know I'm not I'm really not a very computer +computery person you know but I love it and I've learned a lot over the years and I really do want +to contribute back and so over this last few months when I've been I've had next time on my hands +I have started to um I've got back into learning about the lower level staff and and back into +trying to understand our project systems better which I did have the understanding at one point +and it's sort of actually quite a lot. Not as sure of that is like you know finally after many +many years sort of submitted some patches I got these that's that's where we were yes match the +MacBooks got these old MacBooks oh look at the BSD on these you know I never when I was into BSD +before I was always quite into the into Open BSD more than I was just because I really like +that they're the correctness side of things I loved how are idealistic they are I love how +how they just they don't pander to anyone they just do exactly what they want to do and if you +like it great if you don't yeah whatever I really like that mentality I think that's that's how we +don't that chap um the HHH with his new a Marchy thing I think I think he's really right about that +I think like you know you should just make stuff that you want don't you know this this +fucking Rick Ruben says this about art right don't make art for other people you make it for yourself +other people like it great do you know what I mean you gotta do it for yourself um so I love that +about your own BSD but this time around I've actually been more focused on free BSD just because +I'm not sure why I'm they're the BSD community scares me I'm completely honest with you +that's there's just seem so much smarter than I could ever possibly be and I just feel like +I don't know where I can really like contribute there because just just so far beyond my level of +understanding of operating systems and low-level programming where's free BSD seems like a lot more friendly +that seems a lot more friendly maybe I'm wrong I didn't know I didn't know I've been just +to hear people's thoughts but it just it just seems a bit more friendly welcoming that obviously +trying to pan the more you know to you know be more of a generalized OS compared to open BSD is +like you know for the developers for us by us right you know free B but I think I remember free B +but no free BSD's been great I've really enjoyed it and I've I've submitted a couple of very +minor patches to the to the kernel to to fix the function keys on on the old MacBooks +and also to add SMC support for my for the one out I've got so I've got a 17 inch +last 17 inch oh that's beautiful bit of hardware just adore a wish a wish I could somehow +shoot on a modern motherboard into it such a great form factor not enough anyway I'm whaffling I'm +whaffling I'll sign off there I can't see I can't stop I can't wait I don't know what +more I'll talk about hopefully I do more updates and talk about strange things I'd like to do +anyway hopefully someone enjoy this and got something from it and if not this and do another +updates or I don't go outside and get some vitamin D I don't know or just tinker because that's what +we like to do here hack it probably really a fun it really hard to end things but there we go +I keep calm carry on bye +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4582.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4582.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38e4020 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4582.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1861 @@ +Episode: 4582 +Title: Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 1 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4582/hpr4582.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:27 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4582, for 2026-02-24 +Today's show is entitled, "Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 1" +The host is Honkeymagoo and the duration is 01:44:29 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "the hpr community comes together to converse" +All right, so hopefully we get the first, my recording set, and pretty much off we go. +I really want the social media posts. +So which social media do you post too? +Facebook, LinkedIn, then we will do metrics, Twitter, the usual metrics, Twitter, Telegram, +Master Long obviously, resume your LinkedIn. +So it's not logging, it's resume your journey. +I'm seriously people. +That's what Facebook are two things to have to use. +Yes, signed into LinkedIn to apply for a job at one point. +That was about the extent of what I've done for LinkedIn. +And I can then I get a bunch of email notifications about stuff +for like, do you know these people? +And I kind of deleted them and tried to unsubscribed everything. +And believe I still have a profile on there somewhere, but I haven't got it. +Kind of has to be done, but yeah, fine. +Okay, where is my other. +Oh, that was your Christmas time. +Big matter, muted. +Morning, that minor. +Minor, minor. +Four minutes. +Do you want to introduce, it please, Hunky, and then I'll do the ground rules after you're done. +Sure. +I like what you wrote. +Well, fine. +Yeah. +It was very, very nice. +Very well. +Played out. +I myself have been. +Everyone of those, I have been. +I've done myself. +So looking personal. +What time is it where you are? +These coming up to 11. +What time do you have to go to work? +Well, I've been at work all morning. +Oh. +Are you working from home? +Yeah, yeah, yeah. +Okay. +Deal. +We get to work two days. +We have to go into work three days a week, which actually two days a week suits me. +I got not serious. +But when then last week and there was no one. +There's lots of people working with nobody. +And most of my team are off site. +I mean, all my team are always off site. +I just happened to team. +My team that I'm with. +I don't actually work with. +We do the same job, but with different teams. +If you know anything. +I like so. +So the team I'm actually working with on the daily basis. +Are in India these to be in Poland. +No, they're in India. +Two minutes. +I'll pass it over to you. +Then although why were that concerned about the exact moment we start? +If you only, even if it's a podcast. +Okay. +Right. +And we're still recording right now. +So whatever. +Before that. +Well, whatever. +I have started recording. +We'll just be on the being. +Have it anyways. +Exactly. +Still. +It's traditional. +How can we do? +Slaves to the tradition. +20 seconds. +10. +9. +8. +7. +6. +5. +4. +3. +2. +1. +Welcome to the 14th annual. +26 hour New Year's Eve show. +Those who don't know. +On New Year's Eve. +We like that. +5 AM Eastern Standard Time. +What is it? +10 UTC. +Let's see. +I'm already flubbing it up. +I'm trying to read it out. +It doesn't read out. +Well. +It doesn't read out. +It doesn't. +It doesn't. +You got to. +What the hell was I? +10 UTC. +5 AM Eastern Standard. +We started recording. +And people come on during the next 26 hours. +And they say hi. +We chat and have a nice conversation. +The started it back in 2011 by Punky. +Who been it for 12 hours. +It was started as a. +Just as a way to for people in the HPR community to get together because people are in different time zones. +All around the world in the HPR community, that would be a good chance for people to come in and say hi and talk and stuff and we would record it. +Now we have a small group that like to keep this together. +Mainly, we use Dulling Server. I kind of keep a stream going. I do the audio editing and then I have Scotty. +In the past, Lovecraft and Scotty have been huge helps with doing the show notes. +And they do very, very, very thorough show notes. +Very good idea how much I appreciate the show notes that they do. +Because I think at some point, if it was just me doing the show notes, I would have just said people talked for a while. +Yes, they talk the show notes. +Yes, they talk the show notes. +They go in thorough detail and basically anything that was talked about, they find a link to it somehow. +Yeah, so I really, really appreciate all of their help. +I appreciate, Ellen Furley, it's used a mobile server. Dulling the mobile server has been a staple in the Linux podcasting community for a long time. +Oh, so they keep on testing. +We were told that the community uses over there as well. +Yeah, I do the Linux podcast and we have, we've had a room on there for a long time, but recently, in the last year or two, we've switched over where +Linux, these Linux server. +I think there was some issue with Delwin's at one point. +So, but Danny, Danny loves hosting stuff, so he's got a bunch of he's got a matrix server going. +He's got the agency server. +And so we use that now, but it's got the old kernel panic used to be on here. +It's still recorded on here. +So that's basically what this is. +So it's a hassle of having the manager and other servers. +All right. +There's a distinct, the servers are rocked. +It's been, I loved it. +I talked to Delwin with the uptime is in the server. +So before we start, and you can play along if you're listening on the podcast later. +By the way, this is all recorded and will be released later as a podcast. +But I'll get to that. +We have some ground rules, which should apply to everybody joining the stream here or joining a mobile to talk. +We use push to talk, and you have to use a headset. +These are non-negotiable. +So with so many people on the chat, you have to use push to talk. +You also need to use a headset. +So the audio of the room is not that bad back. +If there's a problem, which you set up, please drop and listen to the stream. +Trying to connect poor audio and poor correct. +Sorry, trying to correct poor audio and post is a lot of work. +That somebody else will have to do. +You are me. +And it's not worth it. +So people, there's a room here on the audio server. +When you go in to the mobile server, you can nip up to the audio test room. +Check out your audio out there and make sure it works. +Do not be going around going all its only for five minutes. +And I'll have a conversation and you blow everybody out. +And you blow everybody's headsets off. +We're listening to a little podcast. +Please remember, this is a shared public area. +That's number one. +Number two. +Be polite. +When you enter the room, please do not interrupt ongoing conversations. +We're for a pause in the conversation to say hi. +Because it's quite common for people that you might not know to join as they wish to speak with others in the room. +They may have been waiting all year for this chance to meet. +So please give people a space to have these conversation. +And a great way to do that is when you come in just type a chat in the text. +Say hi and people will notice you coming in. +Another more important thing. +Two more important things are very much related. +Don't announce the time zones. +There are so many times zones. +What was that 30 something times zones? +There's no need to interrupt the conversation to announce everyone. +If you're joining from a time zone that's currently switching to the new year, +then please wait for a pause and wish people happy new year. +So absolutely fine to join. +But we don't need to because we don't need to fill dead air, which is the next point. +Yes, this is a relaxed meetup. +I'm not a traditional radio broadcast. +If there is no conversations going on at a given time, +don't feel like you need to fill in dead air. +I've been guilty of this in the past, but there's no need. +Before the recording is posted as a podcast, +all the silence will be truncated. +So even if there's a four hour break in the conversation, +it doesn't matter. +It'll all get truncated down and then we'll hear the next time zone coming in. +And the other one, next one, have also been guilty of. +Do not monopolize the conversation. +Be mindful that you or the beverage of your choice may be speaking too much. +And finally, last two, you are a guest. +Be respectful and remember that your attendance on the new year, +show it does not constitute a show. +The only person getting the show out of this is honky. +And what you say will be released under the CC by a say. +The license on the HBR podcast. +And the recordings will be released midyear when there is a low load submission. +Or whenever honky decides to post them. +That's a few. +And by the way, that's the end of the ground rules, +but I do want to thank you and everybody else over on the low cast +who has more and less taken over the running of this new year show. +I would also like to thank Ron and the developer team over on HBR. +Also for their changes that they put in to make the announcements and everything come on automatically. +And it's going to make it a lot easier and future. +Future years to get everything sorted. +So that's it for me. +I need to go back to work, not before I have a cup of coffee. +Okay, so all the social media's are done. +I've just moved my Facebook. +I've logged into LinkedIn. +I've sent it on Telegram on Matrix, on the bus bus bus. +And on Twitter. +You know, the Twitter thing. +There are now showing how many people have seen the posts. +And I just wonder, like, it's never, never. +Highest has been 54 people, 41, 28, 23, 31, 30. +Whereas Master Non, you can get like hundreds of a day. +Master Non is kind of where our community is, isn't it? +I mean, a lot of people moved away from Twitter. +Especially after Elon Musk bought it out and switched over to X. +Absolutely. +Not, and it's also a lot, a lot nicer the way these are the posts. +Somebody posted, don't I see the posts? +I don't have to. +They, uh, an algorithm. +I don't want to see anything about that hashtag anymore. +Boom, it's gone. +I don't think I'm, um, but if I, if I, if I, if I'm on, I'm on Facebook, I'm on, +I'm on Master Non. +So I think those are the only two I ever actually check. +But I, either one of those I really don't check that often to begin with. +Well, I do, they, I do the post of the announcement of the show every day. +This is like, you have to actively engage, which you can use the shield that you get from time to time. +And, uh, that's what I do. +So in the morning, post the show, make sure there's no comments or add your questions around me. +Mostly if it's important that will come in via email or as an announcement out here. +But, yep. +And the only reason I'm still doing the Twitter thing actually is because it's +minuscule amount of work to copy and paste it in when I announce it to Master Non. +Master Jun, you kind of cool because sorry you were saying to go over. +No, no. +The only thing I was going to say is, do you actively, you personally, +actively follow me like Master Non? +Yeah. +Yeah. +It's, it's kind of cool. +Mostly, uh, yeah, mostly text off. +And, you know, I have to admit, US poll is blocked on my account. +So, no interest. +Well, I'm, there's nothing I, I'm maybe interested, but there's nothing I can do about it. +So, I don't even have a votes or do you think. +But, turn that means you can turn your feed into mostly a tech feed. +And then you can also follow like people that, you know, +I just see a poem by Tom Rosendahl, the guy who did Blender. +You know, occasionally I got a picture of him and I was dull going through. +Yeah. +Just go, are a post from the line of the store balls coming through. +You just go, okay. +That's kind of cool. +But mostly, it's, uh, it's through ghost answer, +poll, mark, morph, uh, and, and Kevin and Peter, of course, +in, uh, good morning to each other. +Then I follow Haake Day on there. +Just, let's see him. +Hubs and, of course, Terry practice stuff. +And for some reason, I, +uh, subscribed to a lot of people who post pictures of cats. +Not necessarily something for me. +But seems to be gone past a lot in life. +Harry and Harry, of course. +Any of the, um, any of the hate bear hosts that have got, um, +got a master done account and post on there. +And we were looking, we have a currently a book open or a feature request open to, uh, +automatically take, you know, to build a master done link thing. +Uh, integration with master done on the, on the Hitch bear service. +And the biggest obstacle to that is not a technical one. +It's, they, if I post something I master done, +the general rule is kind of a disappears. +And it's not really considered cool that just great stuff and keep +all surround forever, which is what we would be doing if we were, +allowing commenting on an episode via master done. +So that's, that's it. +But we could make it that you, like, approve that as part of your, um, +in your profile as a host, you could approve like your tick box that allow, +allow me to comment on episodes using my master done account or something like that. +That would be interesting. +Yeah, sure. +Yeah. +It's kind of cool. +What they technicalities of the managing the permissions or from master +will be the, the bigger challenge and post, then the posting itself. +Chapman Islands have just gone in news even. +Why? +My 15 minutes later. +What value does that add? +Uh, which everybody do T.C. +And I don't think that'll work out there. +And it probably not. +To be fair, I still have our time mapping. +My head around the 24 hour clock. +I prefer it. +Fugging in here in the Netherlands, +you say the time, like the, the way that, +the time is said is, like, not complicated, +but the always writers in military time. +Oh, yeah. +So, uh, if you're saying, like, uh, five over half seven, +which is five. +So, 25 to the hour. +So, it's not half past. +It's half two. +So, if you say half 10, that's half nine on the morning. +And that's my excuse, why I've missed all these meetings. +Well, it goes to 10. +You've been here 25 years. +Come on. +That sounds absolutely miserable. +They're going to make me do math. +Yeah. +I think about them. +I asked people to write it down. +Or if you can, yeah. +There you go. +15 year or that bill. +15 year or much. +Five and 30. +They also mix the five. +The numbers up was also three and five. +Three five and 30. +As opposed to, like, 35. +Which makes sense if you're given up change. +Somebody's giving you money. +And you're given, you give them five. +That brings you up to 10 and then 20, 30. +So, counting that, like, all makes sense. +It's usually a reason for stuff. +That sounds like way too much. +No, that's cool. +That's my experience. +New stuff. +Okay, okay. +I need to go and work. +I'm afraid. +All righty. +But I'll be listening in. +Okay. +Come back to bed. +Yes. +That's lovely. +Just like everybody. +No wonder it's that copyrighted. +This is way to go. +You're going to get us taken down. +Yeah, that's it. +We're going now. +Yeah. +It's all the people who are going to listen. +We're going to report us. +Yeah, but this year was noticeable because we had our first DMCA take them. +Because nothing is safe anymore. +And we're on all the major platforms. +And we have lots of listeners. +So we're on all the major platforms. +Could you got all this free content? +That's you can add. +And now all the, all the search AI tools go searching. +And then do automatic take down notices. +Do you know which service they heard it on? +So they for the. +Yeah. +Spotify. +Okay. +We've had. +We had on the podcast had. +Take down from YouTube before that's about it. +It was something that was said that that they that. +YouTube freaked out about. +Okay. +Well, we made it off hand to come in about the. +Uh, I forget the name of the drug is so we get COVID. +They told you, hey, take this drug and it's supposed to help with the COVID symptoms. +Uh, we had a small conversation about it. +And because of that, they thought we were talking about it in a negative light or something. +I don't know. +But if we got flagged and taken down. +But we also post on. +Uh, YouTube. +So I think we just put a link to the peer tube in there. +Uh, I think Danny made a video of just like static. +Oh, he did. +Oh, I have to look at it. +It wasn't static. +It was like one of those test screens or something like that. +With like weird music in the background. +And then I think link to the to the peer tube. +Yeah. +Cool. +Um, no, that is good. +And I wanted to see how you're doing the peer tube stuff because, um, +I would, I'd like to switch over to getting my stuff from peer tube. +And I also like to post the peer tube. +The HP or stuff. +Not sure. +Not sure how to do that. +Don't need to do that. +If somebody else would do it for us. +That would be awesome. +Well, I believe peer tube is your kind of, +self-hosting yourself. +Granted, it's a little bit early in the morning. +And to be fair, I haven't, uh, really done anything with it. +Uh, Danny does that. +It's one of the, like I said at the beginning, Danny hosts a lot of servers for, uh, +leg cast. +And that would be one of them. +But I think you, you kind of host your own, uh, +uh, server and then connect it to peer tube. +That way you're kind of self-hosting your own content on this, uh, +video network. +Mm-hmm. +No doubt, uh, we'll get them to do a show about it. +Actually, I think I have a, uh, a key show. +There are some people. +Yeah. +Anyone who wants to send in the show about peer tube though, that would be awesome. +Okay. +Really need to go happy new year. +If I don't do it. +I can do it. +No doubt I will, but still just go, uh, Aaron, my daily bread. +That might not. +I saw you on muted a while ago. +Are you there? +Technical difficulties, sir. +Mm-hmm. +How do you who built them? +Good morning. +Good morning. +Good morning. +Hi. +I'm on my morning walks. +Yeah. +I want to stay muted. +Morning. +But a lot of things everybody has to work. +What's work? +I don't remember what work is. +If you, you're looking for you. +I realize I retired four years ago now. +So, uh, because I don't do really much other than volunteer in places. +I mean, technically, I day trade and we have full hours today. +So, I'll probably interactually, uh, and sparsely, uh, come in here in, uh, chat while that's happening, +because it's bound to be not a great day. +Even though I think that that was up last time I checked. +But yeah, fun, fun. +Well, so those have a chance to say hi again. +Are you going to, uh, come? +Uh, I've been thinking about it. +It would just be me and not my sister dragging along if I did. +But I'd tell me, uh, the unfortunate thing is to be sure that I could, +I could only go for the time allotted, so to speak. +And kind of rush back here, uh, for other responsibilities. +So, it may not happen. +I've been looking into it. +I've been talking to jazz about it somewhat and, uh, +I really want to go. +But that time slot in the time where it's happening is not a good time for me. +Yeah, I, uh, it's also not a great time for me either. +So, which, which best do they still do in, uh, Europe? +Uh, your foster, gangry, in Brussels. +That's the biggie. +And then they brought back, uh, our camp. +But, uh, and there was, um, two years ago. +Uh, and I was really good because it was during the summer and lots of people could attend. +But it's now going to be in march or something. +So, people who work and stuff. +So, about it's handy. +Our attendance to the expense. +Um, first time it was like massive, it's thousands still. +Yeah, yeah. +Yeah, it's thousands. +It's, it's Chaka. +Um, on campus, around 200 last year, which is, you know, correct for the building. +Yeah, I have to say, odd camp has always been, +no more than 200, 300. +And that's from working behind the scenes, uh, other than last year. +Yeah, but it's always been about two to 300 max, maybe. +Yeah, I think attendance at the, uh, the, uh, the Olympics festival and the U.S. +As soon as, uh, drop out of the years. +No more than see likes to go to a lot of them. +And he's noticed a huge decline in the attendance. +Especially on the Ohio, the next practice, which used to be a big one. +A lot of it is down to COVID. +And also the need for, you know, hands on the next. +Yeah, it's so ubiquitous now. +It's like runs and anything. +That was kind of my thought too, is it's not like, like back in the old day with the +lugs where there was install fists. +And where, you know, everyone got together and tried to work out the bugs together. +Yeah, exactly. +But there are like, uh, there are all the events like Kubernetes conferences and stuff like that. +I'm going to have to drop off. +I've been meeting coming up shortly. +I need to do some. +I don't know. +Have a good one. +Nice to have a bump into you. +Yeah, I'll probably drop in about 20 minutes when my walk comes to a partial end. +And then when I resume it, I will jump back in. +But. +But I suddenly disappeared. +There was some strange people walking in front of me right now. +I had something in the morning. +You can say, you know, I might just disappear. +Well, I survived the strange people in front of me. +Um, but working very slow for a nice bombing. +I think it's 32 out when I check my thermometer here. +It's Fahrenheit. +Uh, Jacksonville Florida. +Uh, anyways. +I don't know if anyone's still listening. +I'm here. +It's nice to hear the truth that you've made it past the scary people. +Yeah. +Yes. +The scary people were walking really, really slow. +And of course, I'm going to walk in path and got a lot of it when these little motorized scooters +try to go as fast. +Going to their jobs in the beach or wherever they're going. +The electric scooter has really picked up a popularity. +I mean, I see those everywhere. +The bikes and the scooters are crazy. +And we have a nice bike path adjacent to the road. +But it's in the road. +And to me if it's motorized or a bike that should be in that, but five in the morning, +they both start whizzing past me on my morning walk. +So don't know what that's all about. +I've got to stop and occasionally look back to make sure I'm not going to get run down either. +I thought the general rule was that if you're on the bike path itself, I mean, +you could be on the path itself like a sidewalk. +But if there's a pedestrian there, you have to move over into the road or just move out of the way for the pedestrian. +So on a, like a sidewalk, the pedestrian takes precedent and then, yeah, and then you. +Yeah, I guess that's pretty much the general rule. +Other than people on motorized bikes don't really care. +When they go like 20 miles an hour, easy. +And I'm just the meat stick to them. +I got to get my morning walked in there. +I got to get my steps. +Otherwise, I feel like I failed the day. +I must rule the day. +At some point, I should probably come up with some sort of exercise routine. +I'm using that right now. +That's my crush. +Well, I got that exercise. +Well, I bought an elliptical because of cold weather like this. +And my condo, the HOA has a gym on site, but it's usually populated by much younger people at this hour. +And I do like my morning walks. +But doing them, God, since I was in my 20s. +So, but I got to, you know, do that walk fast thing. +And right now, I'm heading to, you're in the States. +I'm guessing, so I'm heading to a panera, which is my morning stop for a coffee. +And then I head back. +I'm not used to talking while walking, so you don't have to be breathing. +Yeah, I occasionally will post something in the telegram of here at HPR. +I've posted my own group, which is Tekken Coffee. +I posted them quite a bit on my morning walks. +But yesterday, I kind of posted where I was and what I was drinking. +So, I'm going to message both Tekken Coffee and the same pictures. +Anyway. +Yeah, I remember, okay, start talking with something from the year group last year. +So, I've joined the Matrix Room for Tekken Coffee. +But I didn't really don't post any there. +I just kind of check out everyone still out. +It was probably either me or Kirin, where the only one seemingly using Matrix. +Yeah, after Google pluses collapse, we managed to get some of our people to telegram. +And then I felt this heartening if we moved them over the nature. +We only created a bridge. +I think it's just never been here. +So, I won't mute. +I never followed with them to make telegram. +I've basically just used Matrix. +Telegram's not bad. +It's semi-open source. +I use a client called Fork. +For Forkagram. +For my Android device. +I'm currently talking on right now. +And that's about it. +If you hear a scream in a bash, it's me getting hit by a car. +Turn right in here. +On Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville. +I don't know where you are, so I can send the cops there. +Oh, yeah, I actually pointed. +Yeah, I could probably do it in here, but I use open street maps pointer to me. +And it's telegram room yesterday where I was. +And sometimes I have my Tekken Coffee group follow me. +Now, if you join the Matrix Tekken Coffee group, +it's actually linked back via a bridge to the telegram room. +All roads lead to telegram for us, apparently. +It's like good morning. +Oh, it's five something. +And I'm doing my morning walk. +What is it? +Geez, I don't even know. +My watch is hidden by glove. +Six. +Six. +Oh, one. +So I'm a little late for my morning appointment, which is meeting some friends at six in the +morning at Panera. +That's nice. +And just kind of hit my room. +Ah, well, get out and walk. +Sometimes I get a bit freer for my morning. +I start walking. +But I'm also checking the back to the mek index. +To have mobile on my phone. +Oh, yeah, I have actually I put this one on last year. +So I have it put down as mobile. +So people now I'm not on my main device. +But I changed to an HPZ book recently. +So I need to install a mobile on that when I go. +I'm so fucking happy. +Ah, well. +I mean, it's better than when something or other. +When does. +Oh, nobody makes them. +LG. +I think was. +Was it LG? +Where are we? +The last was. +But now. +I was thinking of actual, you know, machine. +This is. +This is. +I'm not fancy on my phones because I don't use it that often. +I use it more or less as a phone. +And as a device to get into my trading terminal. +Because I have to use 2FA or I use it. +Choose to. +But they have a specific one they use, which is a semantic VIP. +It works on my Android. +So I know there's an open source variant. +I always told it. +I can't last year that there was. +But I don't like it. +Try it. +Not a fan. +I use a semantic one. +All right. +I mean, I'm supposed to keep my phone. +You two in discord. +I got it. +I got it. +I got it. +I got it. +I got it. +I got it. +I got it. +Does it does. +Does it does. +I found have something like new pipe. +You could throw on your device. +Like. +I don't think so. +Usually. +I can't. +So. +Even if I did it. +Can't. +So. +Oh. +Okay. +Got you. +I mean, you could. +No. +I got it. +I got it. +I literally can't. +I want some of those as a count. +And they don't remember the right pathward. +Oh, goodness. +Yeah. +Yeah. +I just heard that. +I got the. +There's nothing. +I got the audio player. +You're like, and they can play on YouTube videos. +I have a script in the thoughts like that. +A little different right now. +That's sweet. +So I am George. +I am in Jacksonville, Florida. +I'm an occasional uploader to. +HDR. +Very occasional unfortunately. +Yeah. +Yeah. +My travels. +I need to. +I made two episodes. +One of which hasn't been released yet. +Oh, yeah. +I've got one. +I've got one. +I've been editing. +It's close to 50 minutes and trying to cut it down to 10. +It's just me battling on about me using open source to day trades. +But yeah. +There's not much open source in day trading. +So other than the Bloomberg terminal, which is a UNIX terminal. +But. +Yeah. +But it's kind of cool. +Yeah. +I mean, I probably have a lot of material. +Let me get a book on because I have a lot of good things. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +I'm also a Linux Mint user for since 2011. +Oh. +Yeah. +I also use. +I use Zeus A2 on some of my servers. +Because I've been using Zeus A since my IBM days, +which is now over 20 years ago. +Yeah. +But. +I have to get to the next one. +The primary reason. +I need the only like 10 years. +This kind of been jumping. +That's good. +A lot. +Yeah. +That's good. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Like the like hard work broke. +Cop what that broke. +And never that broke. +That didn't have a group. +Yeah. +Thankfully. +I used whatever IBM allowed me to do when I worked for them, +which was mostly Zeus A. +And some red hat, but I wasn't a fan of red hat. +You know, that was my first destroyer. +Well, it was the first one I used. +I used it in the 90s. +I bought a three-disk set from E.B. +And I just didn't like it. +I don't know why. +But that was like 5.0 or 5.1 days. +Well, guys, I'm going to have to disappear for probably about an hour. +I got to meet up with some people here. +But I will come back in on my walk home in this frigid cold. +33 degree weather in Jacksonville, Florida. +I'll be back. +Yeah. +I had their vehicle on New Year's. +What type of audio player did you get? +I probably walk. +Is rockbox still getting maintained? +It's cool. +I put it on mold and B3 player I had. +I went up throwing that thing out at some point. +Let's see. +Yeah. +It is really customizable. +It's really cool. +So the pictures I can find online for the high-five walker have a nice digital display to them. +Is that what you got? +Yeah. +Very pretty digital display, too. +Okay. +I'll talk again. +Yeah. +That's a really nice display. +It's only 24 to 5 for it. +By the way, 20 pixels, I think. +I'm glad somebody still makes a picture. +It's been annoying though, because the rockbox, you know, +audio tape, video tape, or the board that I'm paying, +which is really bad. +Compression-wise, so it takes a lot of space. +But they offer how to take the four gigabyte at McResty. +What is a slot for the SD card? +McResty. +Yeah. +Yeah. +You can come with one. +Good. +Does it say that they have a Mac's out size-wise? +Think at the 4K gig, or at 64? +It is at 428. +That's cheese. +Imagine how much audio you can fit on a man in 28? +Probably a lot. +It's important. +Everything will type a file of all your file. +Do you listen to a lot of podcasts, sir? +What's your music? +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Like the 17 so far and the RFF feed. +So that to be fair, a few of them are just YouTube channels. +They're like, aren't enough like talking for visuals. +Like in the class fed by the podcast. +And they're like a download that has an MP3 in the script. +Would you like a YouTube deal? +Yeah. +Yeah. +Why do you deal with it? +You could deal with it. +Very good anymore. +Right. +So you're going from top to bottom. +And I'm kind of a sound show, +which is discontinued unfortunately, +based on the back up. +It's straightforward. +I could have a video. +Do you better excuse that my family. +Like when I like like have nice and plugged. +But with Rossman, my wife, my wife, +I just needed to remain self-authored. +First few dudes, watch and touch him. +Nice. +Yeah. +Mind if I self-nope? +Okay. +Sure. +Let me select cast and then tune that +up. +One of my ideas on is tilt, which is very kind of Linux adjacent depending on the day. +And mind cast, which is very Linux heavy. +They like to mind cast. +They like to do deep dives and this stuff. +Linux like cast is very Linux depending on the day. +A lot of us, Linux like cast is more like this that we're in right now. +It's just a bunch of people who like to sit around to talk about tech and what they've been working on recently. +And we used to do a lot of talking about projects. +Going into detail talking about projects that we're working on. +But after a while, it felt like very forced of trying to do projects just so we can have something to talk about on the show. +And that got very monotonous and started to feel like work. +So then we started talking a lot about Linux news. +But if you've tried to follow some Linux news, there's not a whole lot recently. +So it's mostly just turned into a bunch of us that come on and talk about product Linux based projects that we're talking about that. +We work on or, you know, tech based projects that we're working on. +Recently, it's been a lot of 3D printing and was it. +There's a couple of other things. +I know that minor who's listening in the room right now is been working a lot with the bill. +He works with Raspberry Pi is a lot still. +And he's working on his home network. +There's a lot of stuff like that. +A lot of self hosting stuff. +A lot of us like to run our own servers at home. +I know there's a lot of people who when they only have like if it's just them, +then a lot of people don't run their own servers. +But once you have more people who you start supporting more people, +like here at the house, so when I run next cloud for myself, +I'll run like jellyfen for shows and stuff for. +Like I basically ripped all of my old DVDs and then put them onto a server. +I ripped some YouTube stuff for the kids and put them on jellyfen that way. +And they can still see some YouTube tech content. +And they don't have, I don't give them access to YouTube because. +YouTube is kind of the wild west of prep. +So. +I'm trying to find out it before the AI stuff. +And I believe. +But yeah, it's good to say. +I must just don't have like the the patient to stuff. +That's a lot of the time. +And the problem I have is the next cloud that I can't really. +I can't sit outside of my house because it's like how. +What we're recording is and like I don't want to. +But my public how Wi-Fi or my house Wi-Fi to the outside. +And stuff. +I still avoid. +I do what I can stuff. +I must just like put stuff locally. +So exposing things to the outside can still. +I mean, you wouldn't. +You wouldn't expose your Wi-Fi. +You would expose your. +Your network to the public. +What you would expose like one port usually to be. +So the be like four, four, four, three. +And then you just do a redirect from that port. +It's it's not that crazy. +I mean, if it's just four, four, three and you keep everything else locked down. +And you're the only one who knows that that port is open unless somebody is doing like. +You know, searching directly yet you. +For some reason and then tries to do a port scan. +And then finds out some crack in. +Next cloud to be able to get in. +I don't know, it's it. +I have. +Well, I basically just have two ports open, which is 80 and four, four, three. +And then I use something called. +Engine X proxy manager to proxy everything else to. +Different ports on the inside. +So, and then I've actually used. +I'm able to get a nice looking URL with. +Today I'm early in my coffee has not fully kicked in. +Yeah. +Um, second. +I don't like coffee. +I don't have a terrible treat schedule. +So. +Oh, tell what I do. +I mean, I do have one thing. +One server and that's the, um, audio server. +Like I have a breath for a pie. +Like nice dancing thing. +That's always running. +And like. +Um, I have a. +Like with stuff they're running. +I like that's ever pie. +They're like always like audio and stuff. +And they say you have a stream. +Like that up to be able to be able to stream. +I've cast stuff to it. +Like play it on the nice and sing, too. +But I. +Now I must get easy. +Um, audio player because a lot more alive when don't keep crashing. +For no reason. +Right. +And I guess also. +If they should ever. +Cause they're like that stuff up with it. +So I used to. +Uh, you. +And you didn't ask for the. +For to get a pretty URL. +It's a free service that you can set up. +Uh, it's not. +They're not the best looking. +Uh, like my, um, +For the lug cast. +We do, uh, +Uh, show notes using ether pad. +And, um, +I mean, it's basically just the, +The link would be like show notes at, uh, +What show notes at lookcast.mywire.org or something like that. +Or the, uh, the ether pad. +So it's, it's pretty. +But it's, it doesn't. +I'm not sure. +So, uh, not giving up my, um, +I, uh, IP directly, which really isn't like anything special. +Because it's pretty easy to find to do a look up to find out what the IP is. +But I don't know. +I, I, is it 100% secure? +No. +Is it perfect? +No. +But it's, uh, +I like being able to like I also do, uh, +Audio bookshelf. +So I can, uh, +Listen to my audio, uh, +Stream my audio books on any device I can connect to the internet with. +Um, +Next cloud. +I kind of, uh, +It's, it's probably exposed. +But I don't always use that, like, +off, uh, when I'm outside my network anyways. +But it also offers some things like, uh, +Uh, it uses, +I can make lists. +I'm, I am notorious for just, +I need a list of things that I need to do sometimes. +Uh, +I, uh, +Yeah. +I, I, I mean, +I need to. +So I, uh, +There's, uh, +Notes, uh, +Next cloud has a notes thing. +Notes application that I connect back to. +Um, yeah, +Let's see what else. +Uh, +Audio bookshelf etherpad for the show notes. +Um, +Gillian notes. +Jelly Finn is the video. +What are they use for audio audio is func whale. +Cool. +So what is it that you use your computer for? +Uh, +What's the fun? +Um, +I mean, +I mean, +I mean, +I mean, +I mean, +I mean, +You video editing sometimes. +What type of drawing you're doing? +Um, +I mean, both kickflart and like some digital. +Do you have like, +Uh, +I'm going to flip up what these are, +but because it's the morning and my ignorance. +Uh, +Something where you, +you use like a pen, +then, uh, +drawing on a paper that isn't paper, +and then they can do a screen. +That's it. +It. +Yeah. +The, +My, um, +It's, +It's, +It's, +it's great. +Like, +Do you use, +Go ahead and eat. +I mean, +You don't need a drawing. +Have a straightforward take for that, too, from time, +but I'm sure it is a lot more. +There's a lot easier to deal with. +The images, +even in pixel art with a drawing tablet. +than it is just with a keyboard of mouse. +Yeah, +So are we going to say? +Well, +I'm just, +What what application. +Do you use a supplier drawing stuff? +Ah, +I can't get it for, +right, +or CRENA for our FAFSA framework for pick floor. +Which one for pick floor? +FAFSA, right? +OK. +Is that it? +If we had always beaten some pilot for free, +we'd try to tip away, I think, I think, how properly. +I've been looking for a decent, +a pixel art application, because I've been playing around +with RPG Maker. +And so I've been, I haven't, I haven't been able to. +Well, I, I can make some of my own images. +I've actually been using stable diffusion to make some images +and stuff because I can, I do OK when it comes to editing +photo editing images. +I can use GEMP and edit it in image pretty well. +But to create something from scratch, or even partially +from scratch, I am just garbage at. +So I mean, I'm already at it, I think. +I get it, I've been doing it for five new kind of thing +if I have you, though. +There did, like, September 2020, but yeah, I don't know. +One is basically trying to create a game for fun, for me. +So it's not like doing anything, you know, +trying to make anything spectacular. +I just wanted to look OK. +Yeah, fair enough. +I've been mostly working on, like, a blockchain mod. +So, I mean, because I still have the confidence +to kind of work on a fully new game. +Which game are you modding? +App, bilateral, bilateral. +It's the current road like that one get indie game of the year, +like two years ago. +Do you spell it in the, OK? +Sorry. +Oh, that's the, um, better road like. +Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. +OK, I've seen that done, uh, steam before. +It got a pretty decently sized modding community. +That's cool. +Yeah, of course it also sucks that the main, the most popular mod +is like an unbound smash, but you guys, that one hates big +out of it, we kind of do it. +We love crypto to hit myself, uh, but yeah, +and working on that. +And the web, most of anything else we're currently. +So this, it's like a card game. +Yeah, that's what we're game, sort of road like. +My brother's been addicted to this game. +Yes, and my, uh, it's my second most likely. +I'm a team currently. +Served a TF2 and 5, much or two are ahead of it. +What type of mods are they doing for this game? +I mean, mostly content mods that can send you the wookie +for my mod, I guess. +Yeah. +But you know, it's mostly just adding new jikers and stuff. +So there are a bunch of new mechanics, like, um, +someone's making a whole, like, magic together in type mod +that like has like, uh, a whole new mechanics. +And like 900 new jikers, this wild, uh, +but yeah, there's a lot of mods. +That's crazy. +Yeah. +I mean, do you want us to see mine or? +Yeah, you want to, you want to put a lecture wookie page +that'd be awesome. +Yeah. +Most of the art is mine, it's like a couple that made by someone +else and then everything, but yes, thankfully, +not a fandom page because like, he fandom. +Yeah. +Yeah, I've been working on this for like a couple months now, +I wish. +Yeah. +Yeah. +It's also really easy to mod because it's all in the way that. +And like, a lot of the code is that the Vable F mods +is very easy to work with. +And I'm not too, like, dealing with like, +hooking the original games, because it's not. +It's really straightforward. +It must have a time. +Yeah, that's pretty fun and like, you need to do some method of time. +So yeah. +I like the little Yoshi. +That's cute. +Thanks, I, again, I drew almost all the art, uh, +set for a lot of lamp and probability drive, uh, +j, which everything related to this one, j, +with made by the person who kept asking me the ad. +Which is probably karma, but yeah. +And yeah, it's very addicted to photography. +Reassurance bucket, that's cool. +Yeah, the one that was broken, +cut in things in the mod is, and off, I really like, +I don't care. +Because the intel could be three, +there's three records to it, two of them being the bucket. +I think that's, it might be addicted to real life, +because I mean, I was also playing all that, um, +gungin and clower pit in, uh, +for me then. +So, uh, yeah, have you thought gungin? +Uh, no. +I think it's like, into the closet. +I know, like, one of the classic +where it, like, Indie where it goes, I'm not very good at it. +I haven't gone past rep, uh, +I haven't gone past 4 to 2, but fun. +I love and hasn't to play it. +Now, because I also got a track ball for, +for Hanukkah, so, um, +I'm not used to it at all, and that's probably going to mess me up. +Track balls are the best. +Yeah, but like, I'm not used to it. +Right. +I saw a humble bundle, humble bundle, +that was a lot of dungeon. +Maybe, um, yeah, her little humble bundle, +that's kind of happened. +Really down there, I'm just like, I, uh, +I'm very hesitant to buy a game first at a time. +Oh, yeah. +Yeah, it's like, +he's the boy from the neighborhood, but like, you know, I, oh, hi, Arthur. +I think the last game I bought was actually Delta Rune, which one? +Delta Rune. +They have a, they have a bundle right now, uh, strategy and tactics pack that has, uh, +with a dungeon, dungeons, 2, dungeons, 3, and, like, a buttload of DLC for, +plus a lot of other games. +Yeah, it's dungeons different than dungeon. +I, I don't know it. +Either of them are, like, dungeons, just one more dungeon. +Oh, okay. +Let me do something completely different. +Yeah, I don't know. +Yes. +There's a lot of game for the word dungeon in them. +Right. +At a, it's all something completely different. +That's right. +Yeah, I mean, I thought, actually, I think you can check the, um, +in their way to check, like, the most recent purchases on your account, +in Steam, I'm sure, I think there is somewhere, uh, let's see, +maybe my profile. +Probably check your, um, yeah. +Yeah. +What's it called? +I just take several scenes. +And I can hear we go. +I think that's one of that. +Yeah, I purchased this three. +Now, okay. +And I'm about to read some versions with a playover bit, that's cool. +We, and I would therefore add out to the great crash of Dota Rooney. +If, yeah, if you didn't hear, uh, Dota Rooney, like, so popular that, um, +did they release, uh, Steam went down? +Really? +Yeah. +I would, I'm as, I'm sorry. +I'm as you get it, like, within an hour of it release, I know because they got lucky. +Which game was it? +Dota Rooney. +So you know what I'm gonna chat? +Yeah. +My hearing is correct this morning, I think. +Thank you. +Yeah, the, um, the sequel question mark to Undertale, which, you know, +so there's things, you know, about my, uh, +to popular. +Yeah. +Well, that looks interesting. +Hmm. +What the, uh, Dota Rooney. +I end up with a really fun game. +It's not the, really, um, +this serious and stuff. +And it's somebody's, do the time of, like, a lore, um, +period and stuff. +Especially because it's not, it's technically, um, +half released, because it's only chapter four of, uh, seven, nothing or out. +Yeah. +Cool. +I didn't know the livestream. +Oh, yeah. +Nate, hi, it's my friend in the livestream. +I guess, uh, gotta kind of, +it's gonna be thaw annoying. +It's so annoying. +Hmm. +I have a form between people listening. +That's cool. +I love one. +So art for 72 seems like he's having a problem. +Did you try the, uh, the link that with, that's the +hack and public radio.org slash live link. +I have a book for me. +Okay. +So on the A to sprite site, it says the trial version. +You cannot save files. +I mean, you can't save files, period. +I'm going to go to you. +Yeah. +All right. +Born and Joe. +Born and how's it going? +Oh, yeah. +How's it going with you? +Can't complain. +Well, I can. +I mean, I got to work today. +So you work a remote today, or yeah. +Um, that's good. +Work a remote this whole week. +Oh, nice. +Yeah. +I have been on vacation since Christmas Eve. +I don't go back to the fourth. +Though I did have to work on Monday, +but all I did was take an inventory, +and then I was back on vacation. +Yeah, I didn't know if you guys were going to do it on, uh, +this mumble server, or the other one. +So Danny's. +Yeah. +Now, uh, HPR has a room in here that +they use it for the, uh, their, um, +monthly recap show. +Yeah, completely forgotten what the name of it is. +Oh, I've jumped on it once or twice. +Way back in the day. +Can you do me a favor? +Can you go to, um, let me see if I can find +URL, uh, HackerPublicRadio.org slash live, +and see if you can connect to this stream. +Cause I know I got somebody here who's, uh, +having problems with, uh, connecting to it. +They're saying that there's, I got a, uh, uh, +there's a picture where it's, uh, +let's cure the secure connection failed. +I haven't had problems, but I'm wondering if people in other areas +are having problems, whether it's a DNS issue or something. +Seems to work just fine. +Okay. +So do you work from out in the garage? +Yeah. I mean, I have a set out where I can work from inside. +So, but the, the tree is a little bit in the way right now. +Uh, they got the, the ornaments taken down. +I just need them to bring in the box so I can take the tree down. +Did you do? +Nobody does anybody in Texas do a live tree? +I'm sure there's some rich folk to do, but I ain't going to, +even if we were in a place where, you know, +the trees were more accessible. +I remember having a live tree as a kid, +and all it is is a mess of frickin' needles. +Ha ha ha ha ha ha. +So this is the first year that, uh, we did not do a live tree. +Um, my wife, who is, uh, allergic to pine, uh, +has been fighting me tooth and nail for ages because she likes the idea of a real tree. +But I convinced her at the end of last year to buy a fake tree. +And it worked out for us because we went to, uh, +Florida Universal Studios, uh, like the second week and the December. +And the way we had it set up, we didn't have to worry about it at all. +And I think it looks nice. +Once you get all the ornaments and stuff on it, it looks real nice. +So, yeah, it's just so much easier with a fake tree. +Plus, I don't end up with needles in my feet. +Oh, the needles are just everywhere. +Uh, absolutely everywhere. +And they're, they usually hide, find places to hide and it will be like, +you're lining them six, eight months later. +Exactly. +Yeah, why did I ever agree to this? +Not so do you guys take everything down on, uh, basically New Year's Eve or New Year's Day? +Um, we kind of take it down whenever we feel like it. +I want it down preferably before New Year so that if I decide to work, +in that area, I can, because like right now, it's like maybe 40 degrees out here. +Ooh, that's cool, if you guys. +Yeah, yeah, so I have an electric blanket. +And yesterday it was, it was even colder. +It was 30 something out here. +Wow. +How does it get that super cold in the garage? +Yeah, it also gets super hot out here, which is, you know, another reason to have a set up +inside for when it's 100 and something to grease. +Now do you have something like a little space heater or something like that for when it actually +gets cold? +Um, you know, I have not used a space heater this year because, um, I brought one of the electric +blankets out here. +And that's, that's more than enough. +Oh, good. +My wife got me, I think it was last. +I was going to scott me like a little space heater for down here in the basement, +because it gets, oh, I can cold down here. +Yeah, I imagine it does. +But, um, I mean, I got, I got an electric vest if I want to put that on. +Um, I've got this, uh, blanket style hoodie that goes most of the way to my ankles. +That's like super warm. +I got that for Christmas this year. +So nice. +Uh, I can be warm out here if I want to be the, um, the worst part gets to be my hands while I'm +working. +Yeah. +Maybe the most part of it's my head and the hard part is it's hard to have head +felt the head folds on when you have a little near head. +Yeah. +Well, I have a hair. +Tell me. +Well, I don't, I don't have hair, but I don't, I'll make it matter. +Exactly. +Finestically, uh, knit hat over a, uh, +no, I'm saying my head stays warm because I'm a hair. +And then I go and off. +Right. +And then like, um, I wear, you know, if I need to, I'll put my headphones on and that +those act as earwormers, because, you know, usually I wear giant cans, right. +So I like the, uh, over the year. +I think if, uh, I had to put on a, uh, +I'd have to get something where it was just, uh, ear buds, +but I think I would fucking put the, uh, mic. +Yeah. +Well, you don't have to wear the head on the how do you if you don't want to. +Oh, man. +But yeah, it, it does, it can be a problem with wired mics, +but with like my, um, my LGs, my neck band headphones. +But it's not a problem with, uh, anything with a stick mic on it. +Oh, yeah. +That he, have you used the heat investment before? +Oh, yeah. +How does that work out well? +Oh, yeah. +That thing's great. +I see a lot of people walking around with those on. +They're working in this, but we're working in a grocery store. +They're a lot of, a lot of people go, +been between, you know, cold areas and hot areas. +So I got people, I see people with that every once in a while. +I'll try to, because, I mean, no one might look. +I wouldn't spill something wet all over it in the wrong spot. +Yeah. +Unless you get it, water inside the, the right pocket. +You'll be fine. +Well, you see, when you're pit holding a box that is, uh, a box of like +broccoli, but it is covered both on the top end of the bottom with ice. +And then I start to start to, it starts to melt. +Well, box, you get it. +Look, I can't, I can't, I just look down on what. +Hey, look, now I look like I peed myself. +Yeah, but here's another thing is you can't really just wear the, the vest by itself. +You have to wear something over top of it to reflect that heat inward. +And if you were going to wear a regular jacket anyway, then you're still good. +I think really weird jacket and work. +I wear, I got, usually, if it's the cold weather, it's a t-shirt. +It's like a sweatshirt, like a hooded sweatshirt, and then my work shirt on top of that. +And then I, when I'm, if I'm moose, I'm, in this case, right underneath the hooded sweatshirt, +you would have the electric vest. +I think they can puffy usually. +Right, really, I mean, I've had thicker, actual vests. +So, I mean, it's just a thin piece of wire running through the thing. +Yeah, yeah, it's the same as your electric blankets. +It's just a different voltage. +Now they charge up with, like, uh, you just, you just, you just, you just hook up? +No, um, you just hook up a battery to them. +Well, I usually carry a couple of different, um, you know, portable batteries. +Uh, this one's not USB-C, it's USB-A, so, uh, and if it drains, grab any of the battery. +Put that one on the charger. +There you go. +Yeah. +Yeah, but I am going to have to be off and on because of the whole work thing today. +And has anybody else been on? +Yeah, okay, I don't, I don't think we, uh, you know, um, put it out there as much as we have +and other years trying to get people here. +I, but I don't know where else we would have advertised. +We, we didn't talk about it on the show as much, and I'll let. +Yes. +Yes. +Yeah, it's a good one. +And uh, I did. +I did. +I did. +I did. +I did. +Okay. +But you know, just want, um, I didn't bring it, bring it up on tilt. +And I don't remember anybody else mentioning it, but, um, because. +Up in the ball. +Because Dan was, um, moving house, like you bought a new house. +Oh, yeah? +Um, yeah. +Yeah. He, we missed a lot of shows. Okay. Oh, like today, we're probably not going +to have a show because hopefully they, they jump on here, right? And just, if they're +going to do a show, do it here. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully more people jump on throughout +the day. They're here to do. I try to hang out as much as I can in the morning, especially +now that my kids are a little more self-contained. Yeah. Well, the best parts of them +getting older. They take care of themselves. They wipe their own ass. Yep. Sadly, I still, +I'm still waiting for them to, you know, move out. Did they, they both work, right? +The older, too. Yeah. Why didn't think, what's his name? That old enough to work yet? Well, +I had a job at his age. Old rules, a different place. These 15. Oh, yeah. I mean, I started working +at 16, started working at 11. 14, I think, 14, 14, 15. You can get a job. But I mean, +it's sparse as what you didn't get. I had friends who worked at Dunkin Donuts, and +they were working like crazy hours, which is illegal now. The child labor laws country +wide or statewide state. Okay. There is federal, you know, mandates and laws on certain +portions of it, but it really comes down to the state. Most things come down to state. +It's a little country. More or less. Yeah. I got my first paper route when I was 11 or 12, +no, 12. And do you have your bike? No, I didn't do it from a bike. I didn't do walk. Parts of it, +and I wrote with my foster mom for parts of it. So she would bring you to the place to pick +up all the papers and stuff, and then like the giant bundles of papers would stay in the van, +and me and my foster sister, Dawn would grab a bunch of them, go deliver, grab a bunch, go deliver, +grab a bunch, go deliver. Do you have your mother, your stepmom's paper route, but you guys +were just kind of helping us. Foster, foster mom's. So it was mine and Dawn's paper route. It's +just need to help us out. Okay. And then not long after that, because that job sucked. Not long +after that. I, seasonally, I would do detastling of corn and helping out on various farms. Yeah, +that was, that was fun. And then like my first retail job, I would have been 16, and then it was +dairy queen. Oh, fun. Yeah. And then I switched from that to Alco. What's that? It's kind of like +target, but smaller. Okay. And then I worked there for Bright Up until I went to college at 17. And then +I left for the army two weeks after I turned 18. Went to college at 17? Yeah. I graduated +from my school 17, too. Technically, I started college. I started taking college classes at like 16. +Oh, wow. So I was a nerd. I still didn't graduate until I turned 30. +I did some very small work. Well, it was really, it wasn't work. I just kind of helped out +picking strawberries, which was very tedious. And I think I spent most of the time eating this +more time eating this strawberry, so then I did actually picking them. You know, putting them +are supposed to go. I did, I did data entry work for my mother for quite some time. My mother had +ran a business, which she was a sales rep. She ripped the bunch of like crafty type things, +like companies that make candles, a rod, iron, and stuff. So it, so I would do data entry and +her old old laptop on that. Basically, I had a game with that, where +it was, the game was, I would sit there and try to, as soon as I entered one one thing into the +form, I would then try to see how much I can get entered into the form before the full, the page +fully loads, because it would still all populate what I did to it. And yeah, the keystrokes all +memorized everything. Okay, that sounds cool. Enter in the name, put the name in, +hit tab, it goes to the next thing, you know, and then try to get in the last things, +I can get entered in the form of page fully loads up. It was like a database program +back in the old, like lotus notes days. I think my father set up the initial page for the +entry page for the database. And I was just given this stack of paper from my mom took the orders +on, and then I entered all into the computer. I guess I did do a bit of work for John Deer, +the local John Deer, making their home page. Go, yeah. But, you know, I had one of those high schools, +one of the few high schools, you know, in the late 90s that had programming courses, +and we actually did a bunch of C++ and HTML. Cool. But yeah, web pages have changed a little +bit since then. Oh, sure. Lots of CSS and JavaScript anything. We didn't have any programming +classes. Yeah, there was a typing class, and I actually, I think that's the class I got the +most out of the blurry head, you know, like a me a pro, like that work processing programs. +I don't know. I took basically every single computer course that they offered. And again, +the only one I got the most out of was the typing course. What I should do for fun one time, +which is get one of those games, like the typing games. Yeah, my son did a lot of that. Did he, +did he good? Yeah. Some of them might think is I can, I can type fast, but there's going to be a +lot of errors. So, as I can think of those fucking keys. Well, Jojo has, um, +dysgraphia. So, he has trouble, like, you know, putting his thoughts onto paper. Um, and I guess that +somehow translated over to him, taking a little bit longer, learning to type. So, he put in the +extra work work with typing. He did a lot of those games so that he could more easily be able to +type while younger so that he could get around the whole writing thing. Well, for my understanding, +there's no more writing at all anyways. Well, when they're younger, they still write. I mean, +you can hand a five-year-old tablet, but he doesn't mean they're going to do their work with it. +I think all the classes and stuff around here have gone almost almost completely away from paper. +You can write without paper, too. Yeah. So, I'm going to ask you opinion on this. What is, +what is your opinion on cursive? Um, cursive is a dying art. Obviously, it's not really needed. +I don't think, but I think writing itself is still important, even if it's not cursive. +Oh, absolutely. I agree 100% with that. And I constantly try to push that when it comes to +my daughter and her IEP and stuff is writing is still, but having even decent penmanship enough +that somebody else is legible to somebody else is very important. But I think cursive, because I know +there's a lot of people who want to who get upset at the fact that cursive isn't used or taught +as much as it used to be. But then you go out into the real world and about the only time you +ever see cursive out in the wild is when somebody has to sign for something, sign their name or +something. That's it. Right. Sign your name, your full name, in cursive, then that's basically it. +And then you look at some of the things that people who have been taught cursive and know how to +read cursive and you watch them sign their name and it doesn't fucking look like anything anyways. +So what the fuck's the point? Yeah. And then a lot of those people will tell you it's because +our founding fathers wrote the documents in cursive. But yeah. Okay. Sure. Right. They could have +it too. It doesn't look matter. They could have written it in a different foreign language and +you know, there'd still be translations. Yeah. It always drives me nuts when people try to +make a big deal about cursive. Yeah. It's the world has moved on from that. So, +but yes, I can write cursive. Thank you very much. I'm not bad. There's some things where I +takes me a minute to remember what they held the how to do the letter. Yeah. Well, I'll be honest. +I never had good handwriting to begin with and then you know, lack of practice and my hand being +broken a couple of times. My writing is pretty ugly. But I still know how to do it. I think I've +written anything in cursive in so long that besides my name, obviously, in the right way. Yeah. I haven't +put pen to paper in a real long time now that I think about it. Yeah. I mean, if I did, I don't think +my go to would be cursive. No. No. So, did you get any good tech for Christmas? Good tech. Let's see. +Not really. Kind of think about what I got that would be tech related. The close. I think the closest +thing I got was a, it's called a turbo fan. One of those electric fans that can use to like +lower off of keyboards, but things powerful enough to like almost push something across the room. +But a little handheld. That's cool. Yeah. I know when you're talking about +looks like a little gun. Yes, pretty much. Yeah. That's super helpful for down here in the +basement where everything gets dusty. It's going to be super helpful for like the car because +that little center console cup area, like a couple of areas and stuff. Just try to blow all the +dust and crap out of that. Let's see, tech wise. I got some more filament. Black in another wood +PLA. Yeah. My daughter got me a wood PLA and then a box of like force pools of a regular +different colored PLA. I mentioned to see, so this, I got the, at least this sun blue brand +would PLA. I have not tried that one before. I got the hobby lobby has a, I'm not sure if it's +their brand or what brand of PLA. That one worked beautifully. I mean, I printed a bunch of stuff +with that and it all came out, it didn't clog my hot end at all. It came out really well. +It looks really nice, too. And then I had that other brand, I don't know what the hell. The +name of that brand was that just clogged my hot end to all of the time. It would get like 25% +done in a print and then just clogged. So I'm not sure, I'm, I'm, I look forward to seeing how +the sun blue PLA work, what PLA works. This is kind of a heat or anything when it was clogging. +I tried that a couple of times and it would still at some point clogged. I think the, the +hotter I got it, the longer I would get, but at some point it would still clog. Did you try a +larger nozzle? Yep. Because I was pretty out those, remember I, I was showing you guys +while back those hex gun storage bins. Yeah. Honeycomb months. Yeah. I printed one of those out +with the, the wood. I mean, I got one where it made it almost to the very end before I finally clogged +and figured you screwed up. And I had that one, I want to say 0.8. I think that was a +point. And it's still eventually clogged at a point eight. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it could be clogged +inside it and clogged them, but I mean, hot end itself, but it's still not good. That's definitely not +good. But that was a long print. That was like a 20, it was day, a little over day, like 26 hour print. +Yeah. I got the four spools and then one of wood. And then, um, hey, my other daughter got me a 2.5 +G network switch. Cool. I think you were talking about that. Yeah. So, um, I had to design my own +because it's an off-brand. It's really HD. I couldn't find where anybody had made a, um, +mini rack mount for it. So, I designed my own and that did take a couple iterations to get it right. +But, um, yeah, it's ready to go. It's just, you know, I also had to order the, um, +I had ordered two AE adapters so that I could use the, take out the Wi-Fi modules on my mini +PCs and swap them over for two and a half gig networking. And I'm waiting for those to show up +and they should be here either the second of the third. And then, um, I did. I, I, that ACER, um, computer +that, uh, Danny gave me, um, uh, doesn't have a whole lot of, you know, PCIe slots. So, I, I'm going to try +out, um, a USB-C to 1.5 gig. See how that works. But it does mean I have to take apart my rack again, +which is just fine because hard drives keep fricking dying. Still are you just referring to the +other do it died before? No, um, I was going to talk about this on a couple of shows, but considering +it keeps getting pushed back and might as well talk about it now. No, I think it's just going to get +released until, like, July anyway. So, yeah, it takes, it takes a long time to get it all cleaned up. +It's 26 hours of recording. Doesn't happen overnight. But, um, no, um, right, um, but I had, um, it was, it was +starting to drop again constantly after I had swapped out the internal M.2 adapter for an external one. +And, um, because I thought it was the adapter that was causing the problem that make everything drop +on there and then, um, it started doing something similar even with the, um, external adapter. +And so, I ended up hooking it up to my main PC and running, um, FSCK on all the, the drives, but it kept, +you know, falling out. And, um, I ended up disconnecting the drives one at a time until it stopped +doing it. And that's how I found, you know, bad drive number one. And then the other drives all, +past FSCK just find no issues. And I hooked them all back up and then I tried a different method +to connect it to my computer, figuring I could, you know, format it and see if that got rid of whatever +journal issue that it had. But eventually, the, while trying to work with it and figure things out +with it, it just would not read anymore on any machine. So, completely dead. And then, yeah, +that sucks. And then I did, because I, I had had four drives going into my, um, I had five drives, +hooked up to the proxmox, but only four of those drives going into the, um, OMD, +dope and media vault. And then I hooked all four of the drives that were left into open media vault. +So, since I wasn't using a lot of space on the proxmox, so I had on that eight terabyte. And then I +started hearing that sound that, that, that, that little chirp that hard drives like to give +when they're busy dying right after, you know, another hard drive died. And, um, yeah, I thought +it was one of my drives with like all the data on it. But, um, thankfully it was the one with +almost nothing on it that was giving the chirp. And, um, so it still hooked up currently, +it's just not being used for anything. And then, somehow, I don't know if it's an issue with +radar or if it's an issue that was previously happening because of the, the, the, the, the, the +dying drive interacting with the M.2 adapter that that I'm using. But I'm missing data +out of my, um, audio bookshelf library. And I know, because I keep a backup, an entire, like, +backup of my audio bookshelf. And there's like, 4500 books on my backup. And there's only like, +3900 books on my primary. And, excuse me, the primary should have more than the backup, +because I don't regularly back up to your missing 400 books. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'll ever take +at them again. Oh, uh, easy enough. That's what the, that's what the backups for. +What's the backup? Oh, I, I manually copy it to, um, my other system. Okay. Yeah, I'm, I'm not using +our sink or anything like that. Um, then I'm kind of glad I'm not if, uh, because some of the files +that I found were actually like corrupted. Some are missing, some were corrupted and just wouldn't +be able to work readable. And even after, um, doing a copy back, like, just doing a copy and +paste from, um, my backup to the primary and then just telling it to merge and, um, telling it to +ignore files that already had, I'm still not getting all the books back. And then also, um, +audio bookshelf itself is telling me that specific books are missing. And then I go and look +in the file location and they're there. And then I, um, I go and I'm play the files directly and the +files are just fine. So I have no idea why it's telling me that they're not there. Try to +cache maybe. Is that audio bookshelf that's saying that it's not there? It's audio bookshelf +saying that they're not there, even though when I go and look at the file location that it's telling +me that they're not at, they're right there. And the files are not corrupted. Yeah, well, audio bookshelf +for my experience has been kind of, uh, been a key when it comes to crap like that. Like if you had +something on there before, and then you delete it, and it's still kind of shows that it's around, +yeah. I think I've had problems before, where it either wants to think that something is there +that isn't, or something isn't there, that that is. Yeah. I think I had to delete the audio bookshelf +and then re- install it just to get it, it just starts seeing some of the books again. Yeah, I think +my reading tells me that it could be a couple of different issues. It could be that, um, the, +it's just not able to access the database quickly enough, which could be an issue with how +the hard drive is currently hooked up, or it could be that there is something corrupt on the database +itself, and I need to wipe out the database and rescan my entire library. And I can do that +easy enough, too. I mean, that's not a big deal. I'll lose my position on everything, but +so yeah, that's fine. So besides those, are you getting any interesting tech besides that? +No, not really. That's what I can think of. Got a Ghostbusters T-shirt. That's cool. +But since we went to Universal, they, the kids bought me shirts and stuff from Universal. +So I have, like, two Mario card shirts and uh, two new stuff. What's that? +If the new, if it's a new Mario Kart game, or is like just a generic one. So in Universal Studios +and Florida, they opened up a super Nintendo world, and they have a whole section just loop +geared towards Mario and they have a Mario Kart ride. Yeah, so I haven't been to Orlando through +2020. It's great. The whole area in the holes, it's called Super Nintendo worlds like that. +That whole area just looks so freaking cool, because they have one section that is all just Mario, +and it's, yeah, you feel like you're walking into like a super Mario game, and then they have +another section that's geared towards Donkey Kong, and it looks like you're walking into Donkey Kong +Country. Yeah, cool. I think it's based on the one-time movie. Um, not exactly. +Donkey Kong Country is geared more towards the, uh, the Donkey Kong Country games. +When I'm in the Mario area. Yeah. The Mario area is just geared more towards just, like, +straight up Mario, really. It's not eight, but it's more of, um, it's, uh, yeah, more like the +Mario worlds type of thing, because they have, let's see, they have one ride on the Yoshi, +and you kind of go around and, um, it, I want to say it looks more like the Yoshi crafting +worlds, but not, but not really. I don't know. You, I don't think of another Yoshi game, +but it's actually crafting worlds. Then it's, it's the difference at no one. Yeah. +And Mario World 2. Right. Yeah. So the point of that is you're riding around on this thing. +It's a really slow ride for a young kid, but you're riding on this Yoshi, and, uh, you're supposed +to spot the different colored Yoshi eggs. Like, it has, it has like three different color eggs. +Everyone, when you get near to it, you're supposed to pound the thing on the, on the, on the ride. +Yeah. It's like, um, this is like that one type of. Yeah. And then they have, they have a +Mario cart ride where, I mean, it's, so it's like going into a castle for Mario cart, +and then you get on the little ride thing and they put these, uh, like, uh, +really goggle type things on. And, uh, it's like a game where you're supposed to shoot the, uh, +the green shells at, uh, other racers and stuff. But it goes through like the different types of levels. +Like, it goes through Bowser's castle. You do rainbow road. And, uh, yeah, like regular ones. Like, +they're like a screen ride. Um, and it's a ride where it's, it's two person. You sit in it. +It's two people. But then you put these, uh, uh, like AR goggles on. +Uh, that's cool. I don't think so. Like, what you see isn't necessarily what the person next +you would see. Well, I think the, generally it is, but when you're shooting off, +while I'm shooting off my, uh, shells, uh, like my wife couldn't see what I was shooting. So +yeah. I feel so cool. I'm not. Yeah. I'm personally very scared of roller coaster. I don't +usually get one one. I think the only one I actually did when it last me went to, like, um, +uh, about two different, like Orlando, like, the, um, the really basic Harry Potter one at, um, +Elamish, or universal, universal studios. Like, the really slow one. I'm not good +or fully cut through that at all. But that sounds really cool. Most of the Harry Potter ones, +well, I think each part, because we did, uh, all three of the parks, um, most of the Harry +Potter ones were ones where they'd stick you in, uh, something like a big box type of a deal +with a bunch of other people, and then they just kind of move the box all around and have it be +stuff like um, it was like one of that side and it was like an actual um, it was an actual ride +like it would go outside and it was like really slow. I don't remember. It was like four years ago. +Yeah. I know there was, most of them had the, the big box type rides where like, uh, it was +inside and you had to go through like long lines to get you on the tail. So I know they had, uh, +haggard, haggard's, uh, motorcycle one that was kind of cool. It wasn't very, it wasn't very fast, +but it was up, it was outside and all around. I don't see there was another one. I can't remember. +But I'm not good with like, I can do, I'm better with inside roller coasters than I am with +outside and I think it's just a mental thing. Yeah. I'm like, you can't see exactly um, +like the environment going by exactly. It's, it's more of like, uh, you know, you're going to +flip upside down versus hey, this thing is going to flip it. I, you don't know that it's going to flip +the upside down. Yeah. And I just don't like being high up for one and like you got to find +what does it mean? I don't know. What's you? It's you. Yeah, that check your audio. For something +even, and mine, mumble like, for something like every time, mumble starts up, it starts the audio +to um, every time, mumble starts up, it's at the audio, it's like, for something. It's so friendly. +I'm just walking through a wally world driving some last minute things for my non-dricking +party. Well, I should drink water at least. I love making that joke. +And that is a good time. Right now, I'm trying to, so my daughter did the, my daughter likes Harry Potter, +so she got like the wand to do that at all. The little Harry Potter stops and stuff, +where you move it all around and it does something. Yeah, I think you have one of those for me +for my favorite. So I'm trying to pre that, so I'm trying to the 3D print a stand for her wand. +And part of it is like this little blackered. So it says, I'm not into Harry Potter, so +I don't remember, but like, uh, what does it say? All of Anders make her as a fine wand since +382AC. I'm trying to print it in a, I have a bronze PLA. Just a, so it looks cool, but I printed +twice before. And it just didn't look right. So I think I thought I wanted somewhere. +I'm, print out the placard in a bronze PLA. And then I wanted to print up the stand itself +in a wood PLA. And I may, depending on the way it is, try actually sanding and staining the wood PLA. +Cool. The thing I wanted to do is like, it's going to connect to a mobile app somewhere in my closet. +I had a friend who had that, doesn't it have like, I are in it or something too, so you can, uh, +like, I never opened it. Oh, all right, right, right. Yeah, I'm not, I used to be in the +Harry Potter somewhat. I am not that much anymore after, you know. All right. I think that's +a tricky subject to talk about too. I mean, it's the, can you still appreciate somebody's work, +even though you don't respect their point of views. Yeah. Um, because I know, I know people who +won't use Linux Mint because of some comments that, um, and I forget the guys who just, who start +playing. Clem made some comment, uh, uh, uh, God knows how many years ago now is real. Yes. +And there are people who will not use Mint because of that of the comment that he made. +But to me, that goes to like, that can be go to anything. I mean, do you watch something with an +actor in it who does questionable things or makes, makes questionable comments? Do you not, +um, follow a sports team because of questionable sports team or, uh, a player because of, uh, +questionable things that, that sports, that sports player has done. +Take a favor. I didn't really like Harry Potter so much anyway, but +definitely there's a new TV show that come out yet. The new Harry Potter TV show. +There's a new Harry Potter TV show. That's weird. Yeah. +I didn't hear about it. That's an again. I didn't really follow like, and that's like there +are any criminals that are with it. Yeah. Hold on. Let me see if I can find it. +Did I never really got into the, uh, Harry Potter, but I liked the, um, I was at amazing beasts, +something beasts. Fantastic beasts and where to find them. That's it. I thought that was fun. +Yeah, Harry Potter adjacent. Yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot of like, um, +pop cultured I haven't actually seen. Like, um, it's, oh, it's going to be on Macs. +Is it Harry Potter himself or is it like something in that world? No, they're redoing it. +No, really? Why? Is it, is it alive actually remetly at all? The live action? Yeah. +Yeah, I'm going to say I live back to remake, but like, I forgot to get rid of them live +back until. Yeah. No. I don't even know when it's going to air scripted television series will +be a faithful adaptation of the original Harry Potter books written by JK Rowan. +Were the original movies not accurate enough? Well, they, they were not all that close. +Really? Yeah. I mean, they follow along pretty well, but yeah, there, there, there were some +differences. Obviously, because, you know, you're trying to fit, you know, +what hundreds of pages into a couple of hours. And also like, there's a lot of internal thoughts +that are written about. Right. But then again, if you're trying to then make that a show, +it's going to be just as hard to put internal thoughts into a show as a movie. I don't have high +host. Okay, but it's, it's scheduled premiere on HBO in the United States in early +2027. That's got to be difficult to do. I mean, with the age that your actors have to be, +if you're going to do multiple seasons, I mean, if you're starting out with an 11 year old, +it takes two years to get the screen. What do you do with season two? Well, for when I don't, +I'm pretty sure they're not going to get the child because like, like, labor log and stuff, but +literally it's why they're like 11 when they're actually 20 something. Yeah, not in this case. +I've seen the pictures. That dude's not 20. Yeah. Well, I think, I think that probably accurate. +At first, but I guess they had the same issue with the movies. I mean, the actors were pretty +old comparatively by the time the last movie came out. Well, he has to age in the books too, right? +I mean, he can't just stay the same age throughout all. However, many books there were. That's +true. He does start out as 11 and I think it like 18 or 19. But I did. I would have to look up +how long it took. We see the home series. Okay. So the first one came out in 2001 and the last one +came out. That's not too bad. 10 years later. So, you know, only like four years off. And I guess they +were pretty good about releasing them yearly. Oh, there was a two-year gap. And then another two-year gap, +two-year gap, seven-eight. Right, because they did two deathly holidays. Well, these are some +reasons. I mean, money. A lot of content. I did read all the books, but I both definitely did not, +like, watch. I don't think I watched half-blood prints or either of the deathly holidays movies. But +that was because the book, the half-blood prints kind of sucked ass. And I mean, I watched them a +lot later than I read the books. Yeah. But I started reading the books in 2003. So the series, +she wasn't done writing them yet, but I was in Iraq at the time. And I bought, I think, the five +books shut. That was out. Wait, why aren't you in Iraq? Because I was in the military. Oh. Yeah. +I was in the middle of the desert trying not to get shot at. Yeah, that was don't be curious. +I needed something to occupy my brain during the downtime. So, it was a five-book set. I grabbed it. +I think I can only want to actually own a half-blood prints. I'm sorry, what? I could only +want to actually own a half-blood prints. Yeah, I don't really read that much anymore. Unfortunately. +Well, I don't sit down with books that much anymore. I mostly just do the audio books. +Yeah, audio books are like, something to easier. I do a lot of those. +Really good series that I just re-read and read the most recent book of what have to be +Arcane Case Book by Dan Willis. Yeah, really good series. And then after that, I was kind of in a rush +and didn't want to go through and actually find a new book. So, I started re-listening to +and I just finished the first book in the Takashi Covax novels, Altered Carbon. Those are good. +Yeah, but the first one is so different than the other two. Very much so, especially the last one. +Yeah, well, no, the second one, they find alien corpses and sea ghosts or whatever +that were attached to the alien spaceship. And then you kind of get the impression that, you know, +technology is going to completely change because of it. And then in the third one, yeah, it's +basically, you know, the same stuff. I'm listening to the Arcane Unbound series, Brendan Sanderson. +Yeah, yeah, okay, the shorts. Well, there's the shorts and then my audio boat shelf, +hold on a second. So, it's based at the time I said, I love our time. Whoops, +it's going. Goodbye. Bye. Love you. Bye. Did mute today. Oh, well, any who. So, there's, so all +of the Brendan Sand, I downloaded all of the Brendan Sanderson's books and when I put it into audio +bookshelf, it like combined all of them. It actually happens on audio bookshelf when one, it can take +as few as one of the files is not in a folder. I'm not sure what it may have been next. So, +I downloaded it. If you go through and find the the file location and make sure that each book +is in its own separate folder, it will, it will rescan and it will work right. That's an +thing. It's going to parse things somehow, right? I thought it was, I did have it that way, +but I don't know. I've listened to a couple of the short stories and then I found one that was +one large story. So, I've been trying to just do the large story. Because I, initially, I was going +to listen to them on my drive down to Florida, but I wound up, there's a lot. +Yeah, I wound up listening to other things. So, occasionally with audio books and stuff, +I'll not listen to them for a while and then be like, I get very, it takes a lot for me to get back +into it. And then once I start listening to it, I get hooked back into it. So, I procrastinated +a while about this book and then just want to listen to, what do I do? I think it went to Amazon +Music and then just found up a bunch, found up a bunch of stand-up comedy and I made it giant playlist +of different stand-up comedy. Do you want to get some of the classic stuff, though, if you're +going to do stand-up, you're going to listen to like Richard prior. Yeah, prior is good. I did +Lori, who did I do? I like jumping that, jumping that's good. I did, I can't remember what I did. +Well, you know, I'm going to say that the Brandon Sanderson stuff is all freaking epic. +Is it? And it's all like, like, interconnected between the different series that he does? +There's usually one character that is on all the different worlds and then all of these different +worlds have their own magic styles, but they're still all interconnected. It's difficult to explain +but you'll get it once you read through everything. But yeah, I mean, let's see if I can bring it up. +He just finished the Stormlight Archive because he's going to do another thing, a Stormlight Archive +because he's doing something similar with that that he did with his, is doing with his Miss +Sporensaga, which is a jump forward in time and then more stuff happens and then a jump forward +in time and then more stuff happens, kind of like the last airbender stuff and how that, that has +worked so far. And the Miss Sporens stuff is, I think the Miss Sporens stuff is the Miss Sporens stuff. +The Miss Sporens stuff is actually really good too. The first trilogy for the Miss Sporens stuff, +the Miss Sporens original trilogy saga, whatever. I find that less rereadable than the Wax and +Wayne series, which came afterwards, which I believe is four books. But yeah, the Wax and Wayne stuff +is really good and then it's more a little bit more Western style with the Wax and Wayne, +but yeah, my favorite definitely has to be the Stormlight Archive. And then his standalone stuff +also ties in with it, like really well. Trust in the Emerald Sea, I have, I don't remember +Isles of the Emperor Dark, I know I read it, but you me and the Nightmare Painter is a really good +book and then definitely should read it. And then the Sunlit Man is about one of the characters +from the Stormlight Archive. So definitely worth the read if you're going to do everything. +And then he does have a couple of series that are completely disconnected from the the Cosmere. +The Legion books are good. The Frugal Wizards Handbook for surviving medieval England is really good. +I didn't like the Reckoners series, but I do really enjoy that he finished the The Wheel of Time series. +And the sight of her stuff is actually pretty good too, but that's sci-fi instead of you know, +fantasy. I actually got a good back and finished watching The Wheel of Time stuff. +I never did watch it, I couldn't, I just couldn't get into it. Yeah, I most people read the books +couldn't get into the show. Yeah, the TV show. Was it Amazon? Yep. Yeah, and I actually pay for that one. +The if you're not looking for another book series to read other than you know Brandon Sanderson +and the Dan Willis that I've already mentioned. Another really good author is Benedict Jacka. +What I need to. Oh, he's got two books series. One of them has finished up and it was Alex Verus novels. +And the other one is an inheritance of magic. Both are really good. +But he listened to the Hail Mary Project. What? That book and they're going to be making a movie on it. +Oh, great. Yeah, I have all listened to it a little bit of it. So I've got sci-fi for the other stuff. +Absolutely incredible book. That author, um, hold on, has written some other stuff. +Make something about a mark to Martian, I think. Yeah, Project. Okay, project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. +Andy Weir has written at least three other books that I enjoyed. Yeah, he wrote the Martian, +which is a great book and a good movie. Artemis is a really good book. So if you haven't read the +Martian or Artemis go for it. So I guess he only has the three books. And then project Hail Mary +was really good with an American movie. Artemis didn't have a movie. The Martian was a good movie. +It's just the book was a thousand times better. I really didn't enjoy the Martian. Did you read it? +Or did you watch it? I watched it. Yeah, definitely give it a read. I had on Blu-ray. +I think it's only available on audible, right? Uh, believe so. A lot of things are only available on +audible. My favorite. Not my favorite. Yeah. Try this one called church books. You heard a +church books? No. No. You've heard of all the same titles with it. Have you ever heard of audio book +bay? A lot of parapane. Yeah. Yeah, the Martian is only available on audible. Is audio book bay not +have a copy? Oh, sure it does. For the pirates. Yeah. Like I said, it's available on the Kindle +Store and Barnes and Noble. Well, that's those of the ebooks. It's the audio book. Yeah, you can get a lot +of really good audio books through library systems. Yeah, I should need it more. What do you have +nearby you? I think we have Libby. Yeah. Everybody should have Libby. I have to get on my computer +and check, but there's something to liberate the audio books from audible. It takes off the DRM. +Yeah, I mean, it's nothing else. You could just record it. Type it out of one place system into +another. You could do that if you use Libby too. Just play the book and just play it into another server. +Exactly. As always, that's an audio whole, right? Oh, what? What are they calling that again? +You mean, you mean a audio think? Now, it's called the analog whole to where you can just +out something and there's to play it into something else. Yeah. That's what it's all the DRM. Yeah, +just have it output as a mic. I think that's not your thing. All right, bye. Yeah, I'm going to have to +run off to work here soon. I'll have fun. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4583.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4583.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2155304 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4583.txt @@ -0,0 +1,217 @@ +Episode: 4583 +Title: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 7 Small Modular Reactors +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4583/hpr4583.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:29 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4583, for 2026-02-25 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 7 Small Modular Reactors" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:13:42 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This episode covers Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs." +This episode is the 7th and 8th part series on nuclear reactor technology. +In this episode, we will describe a topic which has been in the news in recent years, +which is small modular reactors or SMRs for short. +What is an SMR? +Basic definition. +A small modular reactor is a nuclear reactor that is designed to be largely built +in a factory and subject to as little on-site assembly as possible. +The main goal is to lower costs by reducing construction times and allowing a more +rapid start of return on investment. +Size-based definition. +Some people put a numerical size limit on SMRs, saying there must be no larger than 300 +megawatts to qualify as an SMR. +However, this limit is not universally accepted and not all SMR designs fall within this +arbitrary limit. +I will ignore this numerical limit and just consider anything to be an SMR if it meets +the criteria of being largely built in a factory with minimal on-site assembly. +The actual goal of the SMR idea. +The actual goal of the SMR idea is to build reactors rapidly and efficiently on more +less than a assembly line basis, rather than can crafting each one. +One engineer in the nuclear industry has compared building reactors to building ships. +Traditional shipbuilding techniques involve assembling each ship from the keel up on the slipways +from individual components. +Newer shipbuilding techniques assemble ships as separate blocks inside factory-like +buildings and then join completed blocks together in a final assembly stage. +This requires careful planning and tight-quality control, but results in building ships +much more rapidly and economically. +This engineer said that SMRs are attempting to build this doorway of doing things to the +nuclear reactor industry as well. +SMR categories, small versus micro. +One very important distinction that needs to be made but seldom is happens to be the +difference between size ranges. +These different size ranges are often meant to meet different use cases which in turn +has further influence on their designs. +Small SMRs SMRs in the several hundred megawatt range are meant for normal grid-scale +utility usage. +These designs are often based on well-proven design, scale down and simplified and use +normal commercial fuel. +These small SMRs typically come from companies with long experience in the nuclear +industry. +Small SMRs and small grids. +In addition to normal utility use, these small SMRs are particularly attractive to small grids +where absorbing a large power plant into the grid is difficult. +Adding a large amount of capacity all at once that may be a significant fraction of their +entire total is difficult from an operational and economic standpoint. +Some of these utilities may have built nuclear power plants decades ago when reactors +were much smaller and are finding that newer ones are much larger. +The attraction of SMRs to them is the smaller size. +Checker wet SMRs from micro loads. +Designs in the tens of megawatts are often meant for special use cases, although some vendors +do promote them as alternatives to normal full-scale utility plants. +These use cases can include such things as powering communities in remote areas which are +far from normal utility grids. +These places are usually powered by diesel generators which are very expensive to operate due +to the cost of shipping and fuel. +As well as the higher cost of diesel compared to normal utility power, these communities +often have no normal roads connecting them to the outside world and after bringing the +diesel once per year by ship, winter ice roads or in the worst case by air. +This is exorbitantly expensive but numerous attempts to replace diesel by other means haven't +held now rarely been successful. +Yet another use case is a related one of providing electric power to mines in remote areas. +These face the same problems as remote communities. +Micro SMRs for large industry. +In some cases however, the intent is to provide a process heat for large industrial applications +such as a production of chemicals. +In these cases, the micro SMRs would be replacing natural gas or coal. +The SMRs in these cases are often designed to produce heat at higher temperatures than +typical utility reactors. +As can result in very different designs such as high temperature gas-cooled reactors. +SMRs to power data centers. +Some parts of the AI industry are talking about using SMRs to power their data centers. +However, I suspect that this will be forgotten once the AI bubble pops which could happen +in the near future, possibly even before this podcast airs. +As such, I will ignore this use case. +Let's just nonsense about micro small modular reactors, you say. +Unfortunately, the terminology used today originates from period when ideas were not well-defined. +Furthermore, ideas that were around before the SMI term earthquake have been rebranded +as SMRs for marketing reasons. +The result today is that some very different things are being called SMRs and different +people are using different terms to just try to distinguish between them. +Some people are using the term micro SMRs, while others are calling them MMRs or micro +modular reactors. +I will simply call the very small ones micro SMRs for simplicity. +Small reactors as modular reactors that are not SMRs. +Not every small commercial power reactor is an SMR. +The larger SMRs are more or less in the same size range as reactors built in the 1960s. +However, these were not designed with the sort of modular construction techniques that +are one of the defining features of an SMR. +India was still completing 200 megawatt reactors in the early 2010s before switching to larger +sizes. +These were well within the SMR size range but not considered to be SMRs. +Conversely, one builder of large tube type heavy water reactors which inherently have modular +features has taken experience from building reactors in Asia and applied it to their +newest 1000 megawatt design. +This incorporates modular design and rapid assembly techniques in order to build a reactor +more quickly, but as these are large reactors, they are also not SMRs even if they are +modular. +Standard versus proprietary fuel. +SMRs which are based on scaled down conventional designs normally used standard commercial +fuel. +This is typically uranium oxide fuel enriched between 3 and 5%. +Some SMRs, particularly the micro SMR ones, use a proprietary fuel, often with higher +enrichment levels. +These proprietary fuels are often enriched to just below 20% uranium to 35. +If you recall from a previous episode in this series, uranium which is enriched to 20% +or higher is considered to be military material and cannot be used in civilian applications +aside from a few research reactors. +As a result of this, there are currently no commercial suppliers for this great a fuel +outside of small amounts that are made in Russia and very limited experimental amounts +that are made in the US from diluted surplus weapons stockpiles. +While some of the SMR vendors claim to have fuel suppliers lined up, this fuel is not +in production from reliable sources and so buyers face additional risks in using these reactors. +There is no such risk when it comes to SMRs which you standard commercial fuel. +Wear SMRs are currently being built. +There are many different proposals for SMR designs, but I will just focus on ones that +are actually built under construction or have signed utility customers and will almost +certainly be built. +HDR-PM in China. +This is an SMR that often gets mentioned as it is seen as the first to actually go into +operation. +This reactor was mentioned in a previous episode in this series. +It is a high temperature gas cooled, pebble bed reactor. +The basic design is descended from reactors built in Germany starting in the 1960s. +A Chinese research group bought the design information from Germany and continued to work +on it further. +The fuel is contained together with graphite moderator in billiard ball size spheres which +are in bins. +The fuel is uranium enriched to 8.5% to coolant is helium gas. +Two reactors jointly feed a single 210 megawatts steam turbine generator. +The reactor went into operation delivering power to the grid at the end of 2021. +Repurposed ship reactors in Russia. +Several different models of reactors originally designed for powering ships have been used +to provide power for remote Arctic communities in Russia. +These are pressurized water reactors using uranium enriched to under 20%. +They have been mounted on barges and on land. +They are used to replace diesel or small coal plants. +Some people like to cite these as the first SMRs. +However, as repurposed marine reactors, it is questionable whether these are true SMRs, +but that is a matter of semantics. +They are, however, a good example of how micro SMRs can be used to provide power to remote +towns and mines. +300 megawatt BWR in Canada. +Canada is building a power plant just use of Toronto that has 4 300 megawatt boiling water +SMRs for a total of 1,200 megawatts. +These are scaled down and simplified conventional reactor designs using standard commercial +fuel. +The production started at late 2024 and the first reactor is expected to go into commercial +operation in 2029. +Recent news suggests that the province of Ontario may go back to building larger reactors +after this plant is built. +But several smaller provinces are interested in this SMR, due to its small size, soothing +their small electricity grids. +470 megawatt PWR in the UK. +The UK has announced plans to build a series of 470 megawatt, pressurized water reactors +from a UK company. +These are scaled down and simplified conventional reactor designs using standard commercial +fuel. +The reactors are designed to be transported to this site in modules and assembled there, +but with most of the work being done in the factory. +At 470 megawatt, these are notably larger than the 300 megawatt cutoff used by some people, +but as the ultimate goal is modularity, if they can meet that intent, I think they can +recently be called SMRs. +Construction has not yet started, but as plans are well advanced, they are probably worth +mentioning. +25 megawatt PWR in Argentina. +This is often cited in sub-articles as one of the first commercial SMRs, but is actually +a scaled down prototype for an SMR that is intended to be four times the size. +This is a scaled down pressurized water reactor. +Construction has been on again off again due to financial and economic problems in Argentina, +so it's hard to say when or if this will ever be completed. +I thought it was worth describing here though, because it is mentioned in a number of news +articles on SMRs. +Various experimental SMRs. +There are numerous experimental SMRs on the drawing board or under test. +Some may be built as prototypes. +This, however, will probably never be built or, if built, go beyond the prototype stage. +Modular large reactors, newer large reactors are starting to incorporate modularity into +their designs as well. +These are composed of large modules weighing from 100 to 1000 tons. +The amount of concrete and steel required in construction has also been drastically reduced. +There can be large economies of scale in electric power generation. +As larger reactors incorporate modular construction, and as SMRs get larger, the advantages +of SMRs in grid scale utility applications may fade away except for smaller grids. +Conclusion, SMRs are a new trend in nuclear reactor design. +However, there are really two different things which fill two different needs. +One style is intended to adopt designs which allow for more rapid construction with +more of the work being done in the factory and less on the construction site with the overall +goal of reducing costs. +The other style is to provide very small reactors to power remote communities and minds +or to provide process heat to large industries. +The first SMRs are in operation or under construction. +The most promising grid scale designs that present are simply scaled down and simplified +conventional designs that use standard commercial fuel. +larger reactors will incorporate modular construction techniques, blurring the lines +between them and SMRs. +In the next episode, we will talk about future reactor technologies, particularly what +are referred to as generation 4 reactors. +This concludes the seventh episode of an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4584.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4584.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0175ea9 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4584.txt @@ -0,0 +1,76 @@ +Episode: 4584 +Title: Recording a show, and crappy audio +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4584/hpr4584.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:30 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4584, for 2026-02-26 +Today's show is entitled, "Recording a show, and crappy audio" +The host is Archer72 and the duration is 00:07:24 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Archer72 demonstrates 3 forms of microphones, some better than others." +hello this is archer 72 for hacker public radio in this episode it is kind of a +tongue-in-cheek episode it was made mentioned by someone that I might have +crappy audio on the earpiece that I was using for the new years of +you show so I wanted to test that theory against my standard microphone and a +couple of earpieces to see how they sound when I refer to my standard +microphone it is the zoom H1 essential and is attached to a arm that is +bolted to the table of my next to my bed and is connected by a USB to the +computer the zoom H1 essential is listed as a compact 32-bit audio +recorder no leveling is required thanks to a 32-bit float converter +technology stereo recording and playback and it is in wave BMF or IXML +format maximum recording quality is 32-bit or 90 and 96 kilohertz as a +built-in XY stereo microphone maximum sound pressure level is 120 +decibels max is barrier free for people with visual impairments thanks to +acoustic instructions via the built-in speaker or headphone output has an +OLED display built-in speaker recording medium is micro SDHC cards up to 32 +gigabytes or micro SDXC cards up to its one-terabyte operates as a USB +microphone on Mac PC iOS or an Android power supply is two AAA batteries +or a zoom AD 17 power adapter or USB-C port a stereo mic line input with a +3.5 millimeter jack stereo line headphone output is also a 3.5 millimeter +jack and the way is 92 grams the two earbuds that I am going to test use +open air technology which directs the speaker pointed at your ear canal +instead of your traditional earbud which goes into your ear canal +and now recording on the Tozo O2 earbud and for purposes of testing +we'll be good to use the microphone article on Wikipedia +a microphone colloquial I'm gonna mess this up colloquially called a mic is a +transducer that converts sound into electrical signal microphones are used in +telecommunications sound recording broadcasting and consumer electronics including +telephones hearing aids and mobile devices several types of microphones are used +today which employ different methods to convert the air pressure variations of +a sound wave to an electrical signal the most common are the dynamic microphone +which uses a coil of wire suspended in a magnetic field the condenser microphone +which uses the vibrating diagram as a capacitor plate and the contacts microphone +which uses a crystal of PZO PZO electric material microphones typically need to be +connected to a preample fire before the signal can be recorded or reproduced +the second of the two ear buds that I am testing are the sound core 29 and I want to +do my test sample as continuing in Wikipedia as a under-history to speak to larger +groups of people need a rose to increase the volume of the human voice there +earliest devices used to achieve this were acoustic megapombs some of the first +examples from fifth century BC Greece or theater masks with farm shaped mouth openings +that acoustically amplified the voice of actors and amplipators between 1964 and +sorry I got that wrong on between 1664 and 1685 the English forever +this is English physicist Robert Hook was a first experiment with a medium other than +air with the invention of an early telephone made of stretch wire with a cup attached to the +gen today this is known as the tin cantilephone in 1856 the Italian inventor and Tonyo +Mucci developed a dynamic microphone based on a generation of electric current by moving +a coil of wire to various depths of an omega field this method of modulation was also a lasting +method for the analogy of the telephone speaking of this device mucci row in 1857 it consists of a +vibrating diaphragm and electrified magnet with a spiral wire that wraps around it the vibrating +diaphragm alter is the current of the magnet these alterations of current transmitted to the other +end of the wire create an agos vibrations of of the receiving diaphragm and reproduce the word +now i'm back on the zoom mic and the last source of audio recording that i'm not going to +demonstrate here is the exit audio recorder which i've mentioned before in previous episodes +which is not on after all anymore i don't not sure how i've got taken out of the after our store +what there are two ways to get it and one is straight from good help which would be an a key +APK side load pile or the other is obtaining and i'll leave the instructions in the show notes +not all these sources were the best of quality but at least they lowered the barriers to entry +and leave you to be able to record to do a show of your own +this has been archer 72 feel free to leave comments on this show or any other +bye +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4585.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4585.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ee2454 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4585.txt @@ -0,0 +1,139 @@ +Episode: 4585 +Title: mpv util scripts +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4585/hpr4585.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:30 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4585, for 2026-02-27 +Today's show is entitled, "mpv util scripts" +The host is candycanearter and the duration is 00:11:55 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "a collection of hand-written scripts for mpv and explaining how the mpv api works" +There are some programs that act as a cornerstone, a little next to meody, like Vim or Emacs, +deserve some publicity and high levels of extendability. One of these options is really better, +but today we're talking about a different program that I think deserves more attention for its +flexibility. That program isn't baby-y, simply described as a media player in its documentation. +Despite the name, it has tons of support for everything from DVDs to HLS streams to even YouTube +support and has been fantastic for my daily use cases. I wanted it to show off some scripts +I had written in order to display how I took advantage of the flexibility and to potentially +provide a starting point for others who MPV the poor scripts in three different languages, +being Lua, JavaScript, and C. Regardless of which language you're using, +the underlying framework is similar. The cornerstone of scripting an MPV is properties. +Nearly every feature of MPV is exposed through some property or another, +and it can be things that first termed a video, setting, or even state flags. +There's also a dedicated property and for you to find a global, that can be written to +by any script, and it's liberally not touched by the player. The generalization of many different +pieces of info to his property to them makes scripting much easier as all data can be forced through +to think where and point. Property is probably able to be affirmed. This is done through the +of variable property function, which calls the given function whenever the property is updated through +any source. This can be used for anything from when the player goes into a certain state +from when the mouse is moved thanks to the flexible property system. Register event runs the given +function on a global event. This is for state changes that like a fouling started or stopped +or thinking operations, and it's generally a more live away to detect such global state +tuned over using a property. Added hook is an experimental feature, but it is required for +certain cases. Unlike other hooks, it is blocking, which can be important for preventing +waste conditions. Register script message, expose that a user-thread function under +the given name and can be activated from the command line or through a key bind. Added time +out an ad periodic timer are the most basic hooks, calling the function once or repeatedly +for a given number of time. The other command that are important are get and set property +native, which read and write two properties. Command, which runs the command within the MPV +console syntax, LST method, which displays a message to the user on the top left. +These nine functions make up the majority of the interaction with the MPV core. +So we have the button blocks. Let's see what we can do with them. +A and a square profit that Lua doesn't do much on the phone, but it sets up properties for +other scripts to use. In particular, it watches for when the path and play time remaining, +property of or being written to, parses the data out of it, and then writes the data to +user data properties that can be used by other scripts. Getting into this script selects +to do stuff A and a square aspect ratio at Lua. MPV by default has the geometry property, +which may written to you to change the window size. However, did geometry either set to the +value, whenever any fellow said it, which can be annoying if you would previously resize the window. +Wet the script is doing its useful. First, it watches a geometry variable and make sure it +is of a specified aspect ratio. This allows you to do things that like specify the geometry as +the percent of the screen without having to be calculated by use manually. It also resets a geometry +value to the current window size, whenever new fellow voted, in order to prevent random recitals. +First, the target aspect ratio is stored in local variables. This technically should be described +off system, but for a personal script, I didn't want to go through the treble of implementing it. +The reset gem function is simply gets the current dimensions of the window, and writes it to +the geometry. The dimension hop function does a heavy lifting of calculating the aspect ratio +in writing a new geometry 5 if needed. Then the function are just registered to the corresponding +properties and events to make it work. Next, the audiovisual. By default, MPV only displays a black screen +when playing audio files of no associated video track, which is lame. Fortunately, MPV also supports +assigning an arbitrary FFM pedic photographs, so we can rectify that. Due to FFM pedic limitations +of every input having to be filled, this program actually requires a default cover file with +the name covered up PNG to be put either in your home directory or in the MPV config directory. +The one that I drill and made will be in the show notes. The script is split in the two different +functions. That being one that handled adding the missing cover is needed, and one that actually +assigns the filter graph. First, a look-up table of images to the main is put in the top of the +function. This is the useful for network streams that do not provide a cover image, such as this +podcast for some reason. Because the command to add the image stream returns a false value if the image +can't be found, we can use a suit check whether the given image exists and provide a fault +that option is not. You also try to add the FFM from the domain, but this will most likely fail. +Since there is no way to parse HTML, we simply try to access FFM.itio into domain root. +Finally, it just adds the cover image if all other methods have failed. Inject needed, +it's a function that actually does most of the work. First, it scans your all the tracks in the +track list, and if there is a video track, then it simply returns without doing anything. +If there is no image track present, then it calls resolve within cover with the domain paths +that we have assigned in a props.lua. Finally, it writes the filter graph. +Now, this isn't a filter tutorial, but in essence, what is this doing is scaling the image up +to 250 thick by 250 thick if it's smaller, using nearest neighbor, and then scaling it to a width of +720. This width is big enough that the element on the screen do not look too blurry. +We'll also be following us that doesn't overload the RAM. Then it calls it's a built-in audio +visual either, and overlay it with the image. This uses ad hook since the function needs to be run +after the tracks have been parsed, but before the videos are playing, then the F event will crash +if it's missing a source. A and F are playing with that lua, it's just um, +either function I defined it in order to help with playlists ordering. The full clear is simply +clear is a playlists and resets MPV to an idle site is, and playlists next to last simply moves +at the next element in the playlists to the end of it. A, R, C, Fill, dot lua, +or relative cash fill. This makes the winning for cash state a little bit more dynamic. +By default, when the network screen runs out of cash, MPV will simply wait for one second +of the cash to be filled before playing again. In most cases, this is fine, when playing a +flow stream, it's a constant starting and stopping and can be distracting. This script changes +how much cash the cash waits for before playing again, based on the current cash speed, +the bit rate, and the speed. The audio and video bit rate are thumbed and multiplied by the current +playback speed, and then multiplied by 3 in order to give some extra room for the cash. That's +then divided by the current download speed, and they clamped to 20 seconds maximum, and are +supervented from rating forever. Then, erase the cash cause of the weight property and deflate +an OSB message. Also note that it writes to a file local options instead of the default cash +cause weight. This means that it's reset after the file is loaded. Jump to E-Cash is another +either hub or function that sets a playback to 5 seconds before the cash is done. This is very useful +for things like live streams. Last and thirdly not least, is a ton of art at the wall, +which writes to the title bar. By default, MPV uses the title property in order to set what +the title bar displays, which uses property expansion. For update expansion, define special characters +that expand to whatever the property of fallen. By default, property expansion contains some +logical operations that like checking if a property is set to a third value, but with scripting, +we can go further and make it even more dynamic. When the function is first started on startup, +it writes the current value of the title property to a special user data variable. This is +thought that the user can still set a title bar for things like the idle state. Everything related +to updating the title dynamically is handled by a function title update. First, the media title property +is checked, and if it's not that, that no file is currently loaded. So, we set the title to the +previously saved default title and return. Next, the current playlist position is retrieved, +and if it's not negative one, the subtracted it from the current playlist count to get the number +of files remaining in the playlist. Negative one is a special case, meaning no playlist is loaded. +Next, the play time remaining at property if retrieved, and if it's not set, +we assume that we're currently loading the file. So, we just display the currently loading title, +and one left a number of files remaining in the playlist if it was set. And earlier return. +Everything produced by on is for contracting the title bar, for a file that's currently being played. +The progress number is the most dynamic part of the script. By default, it displays the current +position in the file from 0 to 100%. However, after it's less than 100 seconds left of playback, +then it instead displays the number of seconds until the file is over. It also uses the +prepping doubts that up in a underscore props. Apparently, it's also displayed the number of seconds +behind real time a livestream at being played, since those were by constantly updating the end +time of the file. Finally, if the player is popular cash, then it displays the percentage of cash +until it'll start playing again. If the the MOOC's are the network property is set, then it also +displays the cash speed or download speed of the file. Finally, if the domain path, which we set +in a underscore props, is set, we also display the host name of the file being played. Finally, +we set title to the concatenation of all of the different variables, and we're done. +Thankfully, Louis isn't as strict as, say, JavaScript, or a fee yet about 5-inch signatures. So, +we can assign a title update function to a myriad of different properties and events, +as well as a periodic timer, just in case. Title update only shows the template of the title, +not how fast the values in the title are being updated. Keep that in mind if you want to extend +this one. Hopefully, this episode aspires you to try out MPB and try your hand out the +wascripting. Even if you're not an expert in coding, Louis is one of the easiest languages to get into. +And crafting your own customized media player is a surprisingly easy goal to achieve for even +for a first timer. You just have to be patient. Happy MPB-Aing and have some good. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4586.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4586.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..928d913 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4586.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1112 @@ +Episode: 4586 +Title: HPR Community News for February 2026 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4586/hpr4586.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:33 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4586, for 2026-03-02 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Community News for February 2026" +The host is HPR Volunteers and the duration is 01:12:12 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "HPR Volunteers Kevie and Ken talk about shows released and comments posted in February 2026" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon. You're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +This is the HPR Community News for January 2026. +Murphy is very strong tonight, folks. Joining me from Scotland is... +Gary! And actually, I'm making it despite last month's missing in action, +which I can't put the blame on anybody but myself. +No, I bet it was to do with me. You're just annoyed with me, I could tell. +It's the only explanation. Anyway, HPR is a community podcast where the show is submitted very much from listeners like you. +If you haven't submitted a show, please consider doing so. +If you're new to this whole concept, we're a podcast that's basically a virtual hacker space. +And not only do we give presentations, but we also chat in the coffee corner. +That is us. And we are the janitors who go around and make sure everything's humming along. +Kevi and I are just two of the many janitors and people that help out. +If you want to help out, feel free to do so. +Get in touch with admin at hackerpublicradio.org and we can find something for you to do. +Oh, yes, we can. +This show is the Community New Show where we go through all the stuff that's been happening in the HPR community for the last month. +Mostly comments that have been posted to HPR episodes. +If you can, please comment on an episode. +If you liked it or found something interesting in an episode, please comment. +Comments are the currency by which we pay our hosts. +And it also makes our job a lot easier because then we just need to comment on the show, read out your comments for this episode. +So, without further ado, Kevi, could you introduce the new hosts for this month? +Yes, of course. +And our new ones joining us this month were Vance and not Toby. +So, please allow me to welcome you to the hosts and it's great to have you here. +It's fantastic to get new hosts and to get two in one month is absolutely fantastic. +So, let's keep that up for the rest of the month and see if we can beat our new host record from last year. +So, the first show of last month was the HPR Community News for January 2026. +And it was a show with seven comments already. +The first of which was from Whiskeyjack. +Yes, and he says, +Community News for January. +Scheduling of episodes. +I am a relatively new contributor, having sent in my first episode in November. +Before that, I was a long-time listener. +I have submitted 10 episodes so far, some of which are yet to be aired. +I think the current system is pretty good and should be kept with only a few minor changes. +I like being able to pick slots. +I feel additional motivation to contribute by being able to pick a slot and know that my episode would air on a predictable schedule rather than go into a long queue and turn up at some distant date in the future. +I contribute episodes to have them aired, not to fill a queue. +I will make three short points. +One, your own scheduling guidelines encourage existing contributors to leave some near-term slots open for new contributors. +Inevitably, this will result in shows from the reserve queue being required to be used if a new contributor does not show up. +If that is not what you intend, then you need to clarify these guidelines. +Two, the messages calling for new shows may sometimes sound a bit alarming. +If people interpret these as a sign that HPR is dying, they may actually discourage them from contributing. +I think the contribution requests need to be careful to spur people to action without sounding overly alarming. +Three, make it easier to post show notes. +Currently, the text box to paste the show notes into seems to be limited to about 4,000 characters. +It would be easier for contributors if they could simply copy-paste their entire script into this box instead of jumping through additional hoops. +I'm currently working on new episodes and hope to post them in a few weeks. +Thanks to all the volunteers for all their efforts. +To which I respond regarding, one, scheduling guidelines. +I think the guidelines are clear on the point. +If you can suggest any improvements, please do so. +So point three says, always try and fill any free slots that are available in the upcoming two weeks. +And point four says, when the queue is filling up, leave some slots free for new contributors. +Regarding your second point, messages calling about alarming messages. +Yeah, we're going to tone it down depending on how urgent it is. +And easier to post show notes. +The limit has been removed, but we need to redo the how-to page, which has been done. +And just side note there, it's a WYSIWY, guys. +Editor now, so just post them as you would expect them to be. +And include full-size images. +We automatically make thumbnails, so don't worry too much about formatting. +If there's a big image in there, we will make a thumbnail of it. +And instead of alt test, can you put a description underneath the image for everybody to see about what the image is? +And you can go on to the next comment. +Right, so Whiskey Jack says, response to Ken Fallon, episode scheduling guidelines. +Rule three says, to always try and fill slots in the upcoming two weeks. +Rule four says, when the queue is filling up, to leave slots free for new contributors. +Rule five says, to post non-urgent shows into the first empty week. +Three and five seem to contradict one another, as most shows will be non-urgent. +Four is unclear as to what filling up means in practical terms. +Long-time contributors will have a good feel for what they should be doing. +And first-time contributors should use the first free slot. +But someone on a second or third episode can find navigating the rules a bit confusing. +Things like this should always be looked at from the perspective of someone who is relatively new to contributing podcasts when judging how clear the guidelines are. +Very valid point, actually. +Anyway, I reply, you're right. +I've always considered them to be in order, meaning that you do rule one first, and if not rule one, then rule two, etc. +Perhaps that's why people have been struggling with these rules for so long. +I'm genuinely open to suggestions on how to improve it, but would appreciate moving the conversation to a GIT-T ticket, +which is at repo.anonasthost.net forward slash hpr forward slash hpr underscore documentation forward slash issue forward slash 17. +Those are numbers. +Right, and there's two more ones here I'm going to read out. +One by Candy Cane Artar, 07. +My two cents, I think a good middle ground could be to have a short-term queue that a show could go into if the creator doesn't care when exactly it appears. +That way, the explicit date reservations can have more priority. +Whiskey Jack replies, responds to Candy Cane Artar 07 in episode scheduling. +I think the existing episode scheduling system is really good. +It could possibly be improved with a few minor tweaks, but I think the existing system is the product of long experience and shouldn't be overthrown without good reason. +Once such tweak may be to let the maintainers reschedule shows, which don't need to be on a specific date, forwards or backwards to some degree, +to open up slots for newcomers or to fill empty slots. +They may do this already, for all I know. +This perhaps could be automated with a script. +The root of the problem is not enough new contributors. +It would only take a handful of new regular contributors to keep hpr going with plenty of new episodes. +So, I respond to those rescheduling shows, which don't need to be on a specific date, forwards and backwards. +For us to Candy Cane Artar, I don't know if I directly responded to that, but a short-term queue, that is what the reserve queue is supposed to be, a short-term queue. +So, you either pick the day or you don't. +These are your options. +You pick the day, you don't pick the day. +If you pick the day, that's it. +Anyway, my response. +Before a show is posted, its ID is more or less the key which you get when you upload. +Once it's posted, the unique ID is the hpr episode number. +Moving the primary key leads to a mess in the synchronization of files between the hpr sites, the Internet Archive, and the hpr community content delivery network. +We've had to do it in the past, so I'm again speaking from experience here. +We move shows from a host, which happened to be part two, and then it got aired before part one, which meant we had four shows then that we needed to move. +So, we never move a show without getting permission from the hosts. +Or, if they don't get back to us, and we feel it's important enough, we need permission from the mail list. +Now, practically speaking, moving shows breaks some RSS readers that only look at the enclosure URL element. +If that remains the same, then there's no reason to download it again. +So, anyone who has already downloaded any of the move shows will not download them again. +So, it basically breaks the entire future feed. +Moving a show can easily spiral into a lot of work. +We will, and have done it on occasion. +But if it's urgent enough, you should request a slot. +Now, I can't stress this enough. +The janitors really, and I mean really, do not like to move shows once they're posted. +So, that's the comment. +But I don't think it, I don't think my text describes how much I really do not want you to move a show. +If you don't care about when it goes in, put it into the reserve queue. +It'll come out at some point. +If you do care about when it's going in, put it into the main queue. +If, for some reason, you can't record a show on a particular day, and you know that you want it on that day, +put it requested on the mail list to reserve a slot so that the audio will be available on that day. +If we do go to moving a show, then it should be up to you to contact the host. +And even if you've got the host's permission, there's no guarantee that I or anybody else will be available to do all the messing and hacking that's necessary in order to move shows from one place to the other. +So, do not move shows. +Your options are pick a slot or put it in the reserve queue. +Oh, ding. +Yay. +So, with that, we move on to movie recommendations for hackers. +An overview of movies related to cyber security and hacker crime. +So, that was the following day by Delta Re. +Now, I know this is going against the tradition of the community news. +However, I looked at the list. +There was still quite a few of these I wanted. +And he starts the show with, don't listen to this if you want to watch any of these movies. +I will have spoilers. +So, this is actually one I didn't listen to after this first initial line. +So, I can happily comment on this episode. +It was a fantastic rundown of, well, basically, I will tell you what Delta Ray was doing. +Quite often, you, in work, you'll go like, you know, this is Unix. +I know this. +Or, you know, things from hacker movies. +Quotes from hacker movies. +Open the pod bay doors, Hal. +You know, particularly when we're talking about AI. +I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave. +So, all these comments, a lot of the, he would say, a lot of us younger co-workers don't know how to do, don't know about those because they haven't watched these hacker movies. +And then he left DVDs in the office for people to watch them. +And then he realized that people didn't have DVDs. +So, but basically, here's the list. +If you're looking for, to get into hacking, etc. +If you're going to be working in IT, these are the ones that you should be looking at. +And I would say you also need to look at the IT crowd for the old classic, have you turned it off and on again meme. +Oh, I mean, surely that's not even optional watching. +The IT crowd is a must if you get any relation to computers at all. +Exactly. +And that's why I think this one proved particularly popular in the comments. +Did you want to start? +Yes, no problem. +King Hesie, first comment, Office Space Lundberg. +I thought the ending had accidentally slowed down to half speed until I realized it was a Lundberg impression. +Well done. +Antoine says, an attractive invitation to watch. +I felt urged to watch some movies on this list. +I may have only watched two or three. +The show was very good. +An attractive invitation to see some of the ones you commented on. +Thanks. +And Henry Kerman says, inspiring recommendations. +Several in your list that I get inspired to watch and some to watch again. +I first watched the movie The Lives of Others first time when I took the course Integrity, Technology and Surveillance as part of the Human Rights Program. +It is really good and very relevant today, although the methods are different. +By coincidence, this HPR episode has a nice connection to the episode next day. +Claudio M says, awesome episode. +Thanks for the awesome rundown of these hacker-influenced movies. +It sure was fun to listen to the ones you discussed. +I was especially curious about The Lives of Others. +And yes, the following HPR episode did have a good connection with this. +Looking forward to watching The Lives of Others in German as I'm trying to improve my language, my learning of the language. +Another movie that is hacker-based is called Who Am I? +Also German. +It's a very action-y from what I saw in the trailer, but sure caught my interest due to the topic and the language. +Might want to check that one out as well. +And Jim DeVore comments, great show. +I collect movie recommendations and try to watch them when they appear on my streaming devices. +What a great list. +I have only seen about half of the list. +Hobbs says, loved the show. +Added these all to my re-watch list. +Thought you might also add HCF, Halt and Catch Fire to your list. +The first couple of seasons of HBO Classic, our classic Silicon Valley meets Mr. Robot. +One of my favourite hacker-maker shows of all time. +Yes, and the next day we had book reading by Cuckoo's Egg, The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. +About the book The Cuckoo's Egg, starting by looking back at my experience from that time period. +And this show was about, from Henrik, of course, and it was interesting, his background in computing and working as a Swedish telecom provider, etc., etc. +And how a book can inspire you. +And even though it may be a little bit out of date, it was still relevant. +Yeah, absolutely. +I thoroughly enjoyed this one. +And, of course, I think this is for one of a, people of a certain age will very much appreciate this. +Absolutely. +Yes. +So, the next day we had another episode with a lot of comments. +It was kiosk with guest mode on Linux. +And this was from Klaatu, about setting up a kiosk at your library, basically to wipe out your, to come up with a computer. +And when somebody logs out, that their personal information or logins aren't accidentally kept in a public place. +And this would try and do it for as much as possible. +Operator says, we can't think of any other files, but other than the home folder that you want to consignatize, +cognitant of dash temp. +Okay. +Can't think of any other folder, but other than the home folder, you might want to be cognizant of is slash temp. +Sorry about that. +That was me, not operator, obviously. +I just remembered the old days of PHP having binaries running out of the temp folders. +Ooh, ouch. +I had a script that would go through every single virtual machine, search for binaries running out of weird places, +and would find rootkits all over the place. +And Candy Cane Arter07, very informative. +I most likely won't need to use this anytime soon, but it's always good to have things like this in your tool belt. +It's also great practice. +Jim DeVores says, I learned some things that I will try out. +Agreed. +A guest account is great for visitors to my home for all the reasons cited. +I have wondered how you added hooks for login and logout, in my case, for mapping SMB shares. +That's a window share. +Would the GDM hooks work for that? +Question. +Candy Cane Arter, who responds to that exact one. +For mounting network drives, I would recommend using RC clone. +Also, many display managers scan for a .x profile file on login. +So, the next day, we had one for you, I guess, playing Civilization Part 5, Part 8, Computer Games, Strategies, etc. +And this one was about diplomacy. +City, states, spies and FBI, diplomats. +I have no interest in playing this, I have to tell you. +But I am fascinated by how much effort people have gone in to write these games. +Absolutely. +Yeah, it's really, it was a really good one I was just talking about. +And something that very often can get, people can tend to get in these types of games, we can ignore the kind of in-between. +You know, because he talks about how we tend to think of people, you know, in other players, or maybe you should compute our opponents, should I say. +You can be neutral, you can be friendly, or you can be kind of hostile. +But actually, there's quite a lot down on this where you can be. +So, there's neutral, there's friendly, there's afraid, there's guarded, there's deceptive, there's hostile, and there's also at war. +So, they're going to depend on, you know, a lot of the things. +So, are you an economic powerhouse? +Although you may think you're friendly with them, they might be more afraid of you. +You know, are you a strong military presence again? +Maybe that might lead more people to be a bit more hostile towards you. +So, you know, it's just, I love the fact of, he's talking about a game here, and it's not a playthrough, it's not a how-to. +He's just talking about the different strategies that are there, and it's going to be different for each one. +Yeah, keep him coming, keep him coming. +Yeah, absolutely. +And, sorry guys, this has to be my most favourite episode of the month. +And, I know all the rest of you, probably the year, and possibly of all time, data processing, respective. +Lee talks to his mum about her history with computers. +This was just a lovely, lovely episode. +Yeah, absolutely it was. +And it was just, it was one of those episodes, I don't know, you just, you felt like you didn't want it to go. +You know, it was like, oh, come on, keep talking, keep talking. +The only thing I was missing, Lee, was a cup of tea and a nice bun, possibly a muffin with a bit of jam, just sitting there in the corner, on the couch, listening to the episode. +That's how I felt about this one. +Henrik says, conversation, I liked your conversation. +That says it all there. +Absolutely. +And then Biza adds a special episode. +I really enjoyed this conversation with your mum. +It is inevitable that one day you will treasure this recording more than you can ever imagine now. +I've just, I just, I'd had, maybe that's what I wish was supposed to be there. +I just wish I'd had the foresight to do something similar. +And to be honest, this is something, it doesn't have to be released as an HPR episode. +But, you know, recording, we have such great technology in our pockets, the vast majority of us. +You know, these people who are really experienced, these people who we love to sit down and talk to and have a cup of tea with or whatever, get out the phone and say, do you mind if I record this? +Because I've done it once with somebody. +And it was funny. +He was such a special guy. +And he recorded, he recorded it when he was 88, 89. +You know, he's passed on now. +It was a few years ago. +But, you know, going back to have that, it's invaluable. +It's great. +Yeah, absolutely. +Which reminds me of something on my to-do list. +I have an episode of somebody who's passed away that needs to go out. +The following day, we had Uncommon Commands, Episode 3, S-Trace. +And my, my oh my, this one went into my, I will use this immediately at work episode. +Yes, this is fantastic. +Ken Fallon says, my future self thanks you. +I'm wondering how long it will be before I use this in prod. +And the answer to that question was about 12 minutes. +Well, I have to confess, before I go on to reading Candy Cane Art, or Seven's comment, +yeah, I really enjoyed this. +I had one issue with it, though. +I actually listened to this episode while I was out for a walk in the nice weather. +And I was like, I've got to get back and listen to this in front of a computer. +It's on my, I've got it saved. +The bug file's there. +I've got it saved. +I'm going to do it, but I haven't got around it yet, because it was quite a busy month. +No, that's, that's absolutely fine. +And that's the thing about HPR episodes. +And that's why we introduce the host at the beginning of the episode. +So you kind of have a, have an idea of what it's going to be. +And you go, okay, I'm going to skip over this one, not go into the lead. +I'm just going to skip over this one and do this one while I'm in front of my computer. +Well, actually, I didn't skip over it. +I did listen to it, but I thought I'm going to re-download it again. +Re-re-listen to it. +I did the same. +I listened on my way into work and then scooted up, had a coffee, sat down and went, all right, can I do this in prod? +So, CandyKidR.07, fantastic learning and debugging tool. +This is such a cool tool I wish I knew about earlier. +The ability to see what syscalls and opened files are used by a program without even needing the source code is amazing. +Some guy in the entry that says, it's magic. +Thank you for this knowledge. +I now have unlimited power. +Time to s-trace everything. +Spoiler alert. +Do not s-trace top. +Happy hacking, colon, WQ. +And Paul J. +He forgot the escape there, just by the way. +And the next comment by Paul J. +Great information. +I have used s-trace on a few occasions, but never developed a real understanding of its capability. +Many thanks for explaining clearly what it can do. +I shall have a closer look. +Yes. +The following day, sorry. +No, no. +I was just going to say, yes, he echoes my sentiment entirely there. +Absolutely. +Absolutely. +The following day was Whiskeyjack with thorium reactors this time. +There were no comments on this, but there were comments on Mastodon, et cetera, on the social medias. +And this one was very popular and led to some discussions over there. +So this is a fantastic little series and is exactly what we like here on HPR. +Absolutely. +I mean, and I made the comment to yourself on camera. +Was it Telegram? +Was it on Mastodon? +But I remember saying that I'm enjoying this so much. +I've got a general rule to myself is I'm listening to them as they come out. +I'm not using the future feed. +This one has me so tempted to go pulling them off, but I'm not. +I'm avoiding the temptation. +I do listen to them on the future feed, but this one I actually re-listen to when they come out on the regular feed +because there were so many of them that I wanted to have a quick listen again. +So the following day, we had Unix Curios 01, an introduction. +And this is by new host Vance. +Welcome. +Fantastic series. +And true to his word, series two is in there already. +It's in the queue. +And a little bit about his background and this whole Unix Curio thing. +Yeah, really good to see. +Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. +And it has left you, you know, it's a good introduction. +I mean, this is probably something I must have been bad at. +I mean, I'll introduce something at the start of maybe a series if I'm going to do a series. +But it just means it's a longer show. +Yeah. +Interesting one, the man file hierarchy, which is an interesting one, actually. +You know, you just threw that little, threw that, sorry, I'm doing my Irish accent, threw the trailer there. +Man file hierarchy. +Man file hierarchy in at the end, which I actually was in the train station and booted up my computer to type that in on the console. +So, one thing that, just from a technical point of view, he wanted to have a new series. +And the thing about the series on HPR is we're trying to minimize that as much as possible. +But there is obviously a need for people to have some way of, you know, I'm doing a topic. +I'm doing an all-go shows on a particular topic. +And they might be. +Explicitly, here is a HPR episode on, or a ham radio episode. +So, it's a ham radio episode. +So, that's that. +And that's the thing about a series. +We can only have, you can only be in one series. +But you can have multiple tags. +So, if you go to any episode and click on the hosted by blah, blah, blah, blah, and then there's the tags. +If you click on that particular tag, you'll get brought to the tag page, which will go to that episode, Unix Curios. +And we'll show you all the episodes in that air quotes series or that group. +Probably call them group. +And we can maybe increase that or improve that a little bit somehow that each of the tags get their own sub page, perhaps. +And that way, we're a lot more flexible on having multiple tags. +So, what he's doing for his episodes is he's going to put in the tag Unix Curio, and then we should be able to get directly to all the episodes related to that, just as a by the by. +Yeah, absolutely. +The tags are good. +And especially for searching up anything. +Yeah, really good. +So, we had a few comments on this one. +So, Brian in Ohio says, this will be a good series. +I enjoyed episode zero. +Thanks for producing the show. +I'm looking forward to future episodes. +Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. +Ah, Vance says, thanks, Brian in Ohio. +The next episode is all written and will be coming soon. +I have to admit, I have no experience with fourth at all. +Also, I won't be a subject I cover. +Hopefully, you find topics I choose to be interesting anyway. +Smiley face. +And Paul Jay comments, thanks for your first show on upcoming series. +Welcome to HPR, Vance, and thanks for your first show. +I don't have a beard. +What kind of geek are you? +Seriously, Paul. +Come on. +Clean shaven geek. +We're not having this. +I don't have a beard, but I first had an account on a Unix system running on a pyramid mainframe in 1986, and I'm still learning. +I look forward to your future shows. +And the next day, we had an episode by myself with my, what do we call them, Elmer case, and we made finally, finally my first contact on HPR, or ever on amateur radio. +So, I have one contact down, done undusted. +Yeah, I enjoyed this one, and I also like the fact that you were doing the live testing, you know, on the show. +So, yeah, like you said, it was just entertainment. +I'm not into ham radio, so a lot of it was a bit over my head, but it didn't spoil my listening to it. +It's, yeah, it was nice. +And another show, which I'm going to ask Case to do about how to fill in the various different cards, etc. +So, he already sent me his card, which I have now on my desk, and I need to send him one. +So, did I pick that up right in the show, in that you have to produce like a diary of every conversation, more or less? +I'm assuming it's not. +Not in the UK or in the Netherlands, you can just talk. +However, in Ireland, you do need to keep a log of all your entries. +And what they, in the UK, they recommend that, say, you're having problems with your neighbors, +and they're saying, you know, your big aerial is interfering with my enjoyment of my TV or something. +If you maintain a log, then you can show that you are active at these particular times. +And it kind of helps in your defense, you know, if you can go and say, well, what times were you complaining about the thing? +And then on that day, you weren't even transmitting. +So, you know, the source, then it's up to them to prove that it was from you, and you have evidence to show that it wasn't. +Ah, right. +Okay. +Yeah, thanks for clearing that. +Back in the day, you were supposed to log all your contacts, yeah. +Right. +Okay, then. +Okay, so this is where, like I said, not having the experience or not knowing that much about it, you tend to get down a wee bit lost with that. +But thank you for clearing that up. +No bother. +Nobody cared. +Nobody cared about it. +Nobody commented. +You covered it that thoroughly. +We didn't actually need to ask any questions. +Look at it that way. +I don't need any pep talks. +I don't need to be paid. +Fine, fine. +I know where I stand. +The next one was in response to Lee and Elspeth episode, yet another white male's opinion. +And what we could do here is in the tags, just put in the episode number that you're referring to, and it'll automatically, well, we might get it to automatically link and stuff. +So let's do that. +There was one comment, and that comment was from Elspeth herself. +Thank you. +Thank you for sharing your perspective here. +That was promoted by Lee and I's discussion on women's in. +I was prompted by Lee and my own discussion on women in IT. +I wanted to formulate my thoughts better and see about recording a response to your response here. +Oh, we love that. +I believe that this would be more thought out than Miriam replying here now. +Just wanted you to know that while I have thoughts on your show, both positive and confused, not negative, and had to listen to the whole show and appreciate the time and effort that you put into it. +So basically, yes, I'll be doing a response episode, and thank you for the show, which is great. +Yes, absolutely. +And the next day, not these two again. +Seriously, are they never off HPR? +We're sick of them. +Not at all. +I liked this one, so I did. +A wee heavy. +I've heard that on so many TV shows. +Oh, I'm going in for a wee heavy. +I had no idea that it was an actual drink that you actually go to the bar and actually ask for. +Yes, but as I did say on the show, it's disappointing that it's a drink that's kind of almost vanishing from there. +Even in its own native Scotland, it's a wee heavy. +Yeah, so I'm really enjoying doing these. +Maybe no surprise there. +No. +And Khan Annam, anonymous, I'm assuming, without a name. +Scotch Ale from the Baltic Sea. +German brewery Stolke Becker from Stolzsund has a Scotch Ale at 9% ABV. +However, aside from the ABV, it's one of those styles brewed with peat-kilned barley. +As they describe a peaty and malty, extraordinary taste. +Sláinte mai. +Do you know what's weird? +Is that I can follow Scots Gaelic easier than I can Connemara Gaelic. +Really? +Yeah. +That's weird. +The truth is I can follow neither of them. +That is okay. +That is okay. +We allow Rangers fans to exist. +I could care less about football. +We do tend to have one or two beverages, whether the game's being played or not, whether we're +winning or losing, so in. +Fantastic. +Can you put in a comment for this show telling us what the beers for an upcoming month are +going to be? +Oh, yes. +No problem. +Yeah, I'll do that. +In fact, I actually put it on and I forgot to. +I said it on the show, but I forgot to actually. +So for this one, the next one is Belgian Scotch Ale. +So we're just going to be continued and the one after that is Baltic Portal. +Yeah. +I saw the, because I post the shows, so I get to see them. +And if you want to see the shows coming up before they're posted, you can join the future +feed, which is our quality control mechanism here on HPR. +So as the shows are posted, so literally when Kevi sends in the show, I find the time to +run the scripts, do all the checks and send it out. +It will be scheduled to come out on whatever day Kevi picks. +Or is it you post somewhere? +Yeah, it's usually me because if it wasn't me, then this person has been very naughty +because the love bug, Dave Lee, posted the next day's show. +It's terrible. +It's terrible. +We need to have words. +And he's also a janitor, so this really is a bad infringement of the rules. +What was I saying? +I can't remember. +Anyway, it doesn't matter. +I'll hear it coming back in the thing. +Oh yeah, yeah. +So if you want to, about the future feed, basically. +If you post the show, it comes out on the day that it's allocated. +But if you just want to hear the full show as they're released with the caveat that if +we need to repost them or if the episode needs to be recorded or there's something in +there that needs to be taken out or if somebody cancels their episode and the slot becomes free +again and you need to post a show in there that it might go a little bit haywire, you can subscribe to the future feed if you press on or on the main page you'll get to us. +But I guess everybody knew that. +Okay, fine. +Moving on. +Next day. +Next day we had Dave Lee and this was actually, although it's uploaded by him, it was more so about his son Alex and Alex's journey into amateur radio. +And even if this presented a problem, I was willing to go to the mail list to make sure it came out ASAP because it's cool. +No, no problem. +No issue at all, in fact. +How old is Alex again? +Sorry. +How old is Alex again? +Is he 13? +Yeah. +And he featured in the RSGB magazine on page 80. +You can see a picture of Alex and well done. +Seven threes to him from all of us here, which Archer says, congrats. +Hi, Alex. +Congratulations on your foundation license. +It was a really nice father-son episode. +Cheers. +There's Archer72 and he gives his call sign as KD9, VMW, Kilo Delta 9, Victor, Mike Whiskey. +And Trey, also has a comment. +And Trey, also has a comment. +Congratulations. +Congratulations, Alex. +What a wonderful episode sharing your experience on this journey. +I wish you the best as you continue to learn more, whether it is as an amateur radio or any of your other interests. +Stay curious. +73, Kilo Bravo 0, Juliet Hotel. +Perfect. +Perfect. +Perfect. +Perfect. +And 73 is a greeting, which you might hear at a football match, if you hear this. +Ah, okay. +Anyhoo. +Morse code. +There you go. +Happy by shower on what makes me joyful when I'm destroyed. +Spoiler and anchor, I hope, from Antoine. +And Candy Canater says, timing. +This episode happened to come at a perfect time for me. +Well, probably shouldn't say this in such a happy voice. +This episode happened to come at a perfect time for me, since I'm going through a massive drama with another creative group that is destroying me right now. +Thanks for this. +And he responds with, hey, Candy Canater, 07, thanks for the support and comment. +What a deep situation here. +May it come fine with, in the end, love and hug. +Super. +And Candy Canater, hope things are going okay. +Absolutely, yes. +Don't panic. +We're with you. +Get a rubber chicken. +That is the key. +That's it. +And, uh, the following day, are we up to the end of the month? +No, we're not. +We're up to the 20th. +A lot of comments this month, but none for this show. +This is the first Doctor Part 4. +Continuing look at Doctor Who. +I'm enjoying these because it's, uh, it's basically about, you know, a classic series that, uh, I can't say I watched back in the day. +Because even when the ones that were out, I was behind the couch. +Uh, so, yes. +The Daleks master plan. +It's good to get the background and the lowdown and the sky. +It's like, uh, like a gossip column for what was going on. +Yeah, absolutely. +I've thoroughly enjoyed these. +And I have to admit, it's inspired me to go back and actually watch Doctor Who from the start. +The dashed problem is there are so many missing episodes. +I've watched an awful lot of animations and remakes and things. +Yeah, yeah, yeah. +But, uh, so I, um, yeah, he's still on William Hartnell, who I really liked as a Doctor. +Uh, and I can actually watch this because I want to keep a wee bit ahead. +And I have just finished the first Doctor and we're going on to the second Doctor now. +So I'm just starting that second Doctor. +Perfect timing. +The next day there were three comments because it was a new host. +And that new host's name was Not Toby. +Not Toby or Toby or Not Toby. +That is the question. +Sharp intake of breath, aka also known as how I learned to stop worrying about the colon, +open bracket, close bracket, open curly bracket, space, colon, pipe, colon, +uppersand, space, curly bracket, semicolon, colon. +Which had me putting the show into quarantine, blocking it immediately, +double checking the audio, making sure everything was gone. +Because that, my friends, is a fork bomb, uh, which is a way to try it in a virtual machine. +Do not try it on your, on your local computer unless you've got a lot of work. +Um, unless you have saved all your work. +No, definitely not. +And Archer72 says, first episode, hi, not to be. +This was an interesting first episode with a lot to unpack. +Yes, Microsoft did ruin everything. +BMX and skateboarding might be an interesting topic. +Would like to hear more about automation scripts. +Definitely of interest to hackers. +Computers is the bicycle of the mind. +100% agree. +BSDs and MacBooks is interesting. +Linux outlaws. +Thank you for reminding me of these guys. +And finally, good comparison and contrast of the open BSD and free BSDs. +If none of that makes any sense to you, listen to the episode. +And Trey comments with, welcome, fantastic first episode. +It was a pleasure getting to know you in this episode. +I look forward to your next episodes. +And Steve Barron says, potted plant emoji. +He doesn't. +But as we haven't updated the database, I had to replace it with a potted plant emoji. +Anyway, even though I had a bug open about this, I could not figure out why the comment was not going through. +And then, anyway, I will fix that too. +By the way, in the process of debugging that, I found like two or three other issues as well that I need to fix. +Congratulations on finally contributing an episode. +I enjoyed the unacquainting ramble while giving my cat a little time outdoors. +Yeah, this was a really good episode. +Thoroughly enjoyed it, actually. +Just talking about, just essentially going through everything, a bit of a right up to this point. +And what's actually quite distinct was, it wasn't just a case of how I got into Linux. +It was also a case of how I actually got into Linux and decided it's really not for me. +So then went more hardcore with BSD. +Yep. +I loved it. +And, as a surprise, we have the New Year's show coming out in February. +Who'd have thought? +Crikey. +Honky Magoo and, who is it? +Hemingway, not Hemingway. +Lovecraft. +Yes, Lovecraft. +Sorry, can never remember your name. +Huge apologies. +But, H.P. Lovecraft and some guy on the internet do a fantastic job on the show note links. +Literally, if somebody has a conversation and they're pointing to, I've got this earbud and I went to that site and I got that, there will be links in the show notes. +It is a monumental effort. +And these episodes are not short. +No, no. +And actually, I was able, thankfully, usually I get about an hour in, I was able to listen to the whole thing this time. +So, yep, thoroughly enjoyed it. +And also, I'm actually going to give a private shout out to Candy Cane Arter for giving Tux Jam a link as well. +So, yeah, very much appreciated. +Good stuff. +And that was, I think, I think that comment actually reminded me that I hadn't listened to Tux Jam. +And then I went back and listened to Tux Jam as a result of that comment. +Or possibly. +Or no, that was from last year's show. +Okay, ignore me. +I don't know what I'm talking about. +Small modular reactors is something else I don't know about. +But now I know enough to waffle in a pub. +This was SMRs. +And I have heard, I've seen them proposed as a solution for, you know, small scale cities or towns or whatever. +And, yeah, it was good to see who's actually using them, where they're using them and stuff like that. +Yeah, it was really interesting, actually. +And actually, I liked how he made the comparison as well with the shipbuilding industry, which obviously is kind of, I'm more familiar with being from Scotland rather than making reactors. +But, you know, I liked how he made the comparison. +You know, he was saying the general idea was that previously they were generally built up more or less on site. +But in much the same way as a ship, an old-time ship would be built just from bottom up and the whole thing would go in one. +Whereas, you know, now they make ships by sections and then put the sections together. +And this is generally the idea is they are put together. +They're made so that they can be modularized. +But it also reduces the time spent, actually, in their final place for human interaction. +So, yeah, I actually really enjoyed this as well. +Great episode. +The following day, we had a show by Archer72 demonstrating three different forms of mics, and some are better than the others. +Links, obviously, in the show notes to all of these. +I did like the H1, Zoom H1 Essential. +I have a H2 at home. +H1 would be nice. +And I do like these episodes where people send in a show with samples of different audios because it gives you a good idea of what to spend your money on. +Absolutely, yes. +And it really is good, especially if they're not cleaned up or anything, because you're getting the true kind of sound of it. +Yeah, well, we do kind of process a bit of processing on the episodes. +Martin Winpress from the Late Night Linux podcast has produced a tool for their podcast, and it is looking very interesting from the point of view that it normalizes +and does attempts to replicate what old-school analog mixing boards did back in the day using pre-compiled version of FFmpeg. +And that is currently in the testing phase here on HPR to see if we will be using that as part of our regular workflow. +So that might be something that's coming up. +We have our audio experts, audio files here on HPR. +Please contribute to that discussion. +Get in touch with me or Martin or basically check out the code and run it. +We have a lot of source audio files here on HPR where we could see if the improvement is something that we want to do or not. +Oh, could you get in contact with Wimpy himself and ask if this could be a potential show? +This sounds very interesting. +Yeah, well, they've done it on their show, so links to that show are available. +Probably I need to add it to this episode. +It's funny. +Yeah, you said Martin Winpress and immediately I went to Ubuntu UK podcast. +I'm like, no, no, he doesn't do that anymore. +But yeah, so yes, no, it was, it's interesting one tool. +There's, I don't know how open he is to implementing changes for other podcasts. +I think they did it for themselves. +So I've sent him a message on Mastodon, but none of them have gotten back to me as yet. +But it's early days. +Let's call that. +It's early days. +Speaking of MPV util scripts and MPV uses FFmpeg, as we all know, this was a collection of handwritten scripts for MPV explaining how MPV API works. +And I listened to this while cleaning the roof of my sunroom. +And it is fantastic. +When I saw the show notes, it's kind of all over the place because it's just dumping scripts. +But it is really, really nice what you can do with MPV and just a lot of scripts in general. +So yeah, absolutely. +I mean, I, I listened to this and unfortunately I had an appointment with a bank and actually listened to it between walking down to the bank and walking back up to my work. +I know this was another one. +I've got to get this in front of a computer. +Absolutely. +Alua, Alua, Alua. +That sounds like a Elvis Presley Hawaii movie. +Alua, Alua. +Anyway, a series on Lua scripts would be no harm for anybody who wants to throw those into the queue. +Give us a shout and we can change the name of back scripting to regular scripting if you want. +So that was that for shows as that comes out tomorrow, which is Friday at time of recording. +So we had two additional comments for shows for previous shows. +So the first one was on software development doesn't end until it's packaged by Tlatoo, which was from January. +And Steve Barnes says, yay, great general position that software isn't finished until it's easy to install. +And do you want to do the next one? +That's right, yep. +And CandyCaneArter07 did one on HPR4564, make MKV error by Archer72. +And he has just responded, regression testing? +I'm surprised there wasn't any regression testing to prevent a forced downgrade. +Did you try submitting a bug report to the devs? +Yep. +So that was it. +Then we move on to the HPR community news mail list. +And the mail list is kind of where we make decisions and discuss stuff. +And obviously, if you're some random person who joins the mail list versus somebody like a hookah or Tlatoo or yourself, you know, different weights apply to how much we're going to listen to any given person. +So as a HPR janitor, I posted the following message. +Hi, all. +We started posting to, and it's about, the heading is, stop posting to Twitter X while continuing to monitor it. +Hi, all. +We started posting to Twitter nowx.com in August 2008, and we have 976 followers. +I would like to suggest we stop actively posting there as the impact of the site has diminished. +While there probably was a time it was the place to be, my feeling has been for some time that we get no engagement there. +Recently, they did an update which provides statistics and shows showing the two metrics that's important to us. +Impressions, the number of times a post has been seen, and engagements. +And this one is important. +That is the total number of times a user has interacted with the post. +This includes all the clicks anywhere in the post, including hashtags, links, avatars, usernames, post, expansions, repost, replies, follows, and likes. +Checking the last few months, the impression matrix, which is basically it's been seen on X, has been hovering around the 30 mark. +And it's only peaked when there's been a click page, smiley face, tag word in there. +The engagements on all episodes is two, both of which resulting from me boosting and responding to the show, which I need to do to get around the limit on posting the amount of text that they allow to post. +There are about four shows where the engagement jumps to four. +Usually, that is where the host has also boosted it. +Given the lack of engagement, I would like to relegate Twitter, slash x.com, to the same status as Facebook and LinkedIn. +Only these platforms where we actively monitor and engage with people if they contact us, but we do not post daily updates. +We will occasionally post about things like the site being down or the New Year's show, etc. +Therefore, I suggest that we post daily posts to Mastodon, Matrix, and Telegram. +And we monitor Uggast Planet on Libra Chat, IRC, Facebook, LinkedIn, iTunes, and now Twitter, x.com. +Thoughts? +And the first person to respond to that was Andrew Conway. +My name is Moes McNallu. +Hi, Ken et al. +That proposal to stop in posting on Twitter, slash x, is fine by me. +As you say, it has lost much of the significance it once had. +Andrew. +I reply, looks like Uggast Planet IRC room is also gone on Freenode and Libra Chat. +And then we've got one from Claudio M, or Claudio Miranda. +Hi, everyone. +Regarding posting to x, I don't use it, so it doesn't affect me. +If HPR were to stop posting, slash, monitoring on x, I wouldn't lose sleep over it. +As others have mentioned, it's not what it used to be under the Twitter name. +As for the Uggast Planet channel, it is indeed on Libra Chat. +DoeDummy created the channel in the hopes that one of the janitor's admins would take it over, +but it never happened. +The channel is still there on Libra. +Just very quiet. +See attachment. +Regards, Claudio. +I stand corrected, and I was able to log in after that. +And Harley, anybody, says, +there are a few of us that are almost always logged into Uggast Planet on Libra Chat, +although I'm usually only active in the evenings, US, Eastern, and weekends, +but it would be great to see more activity there, Harley. +And then we had Zed Wilknick. +Zed Wilknick, personally, I regard x as an unredeemable cesspit, so dropping it is fine with me. +Just to stay neutral there. +Very much. +I also agree with this decision, says Lyle. +Henryk Herman says, +Hi, I agree with the suggestions below. +Further thoughts? +I am also positive to end the ex-account, but the drawback may be if anyone else could pick up the same handler later. +Another method could be to not monitor after an update of the account with informing it is passive. +Secondly, I think of HPR status for Telegram. +I have understood Telegram can be discussed due to its ownership and state relationship, +but I do not have the deep knowledge. +I understand many use Telegram, but that's only further thoughts. +I say yes to the suggestion below, as it is. +Regards, Henryk Herman. +Yep. +So on that, just, I haven't commented, but I want to say, +ba-ba-ba-ba. +Yeah, we would still, I would still monitor x during the day and stuff. +So it's not as if it's going away. +Um, and I, what I don't want to do is leave it there and then suddenly our reputation, +it's linked on our Wikipedia page and it's referenced in other places as well. +So, uh, we, we do want to keep air quotes ownership of it for as long as we can. +Yeah. +As far as Telegram's concerned, I personally have issues with Telegram, +but people are on it. +So it is what it is. +Right. +And we have got, uh, Ron Hornin, uh, saying, +I am fine with not posting, especially if this takes someone's time to do it. +If a post of the daily show should be automated and we don't want to stop interactions. +Oh, come on. +This is my browser. +Not, not this fault. +Uh, I've just lost it completely. +Right. +If I don't want to stop interactions with Zitter completely, I would be in favor of that. +Rowan. +Um, I haven't commented on that. +Um, but thinking about it on the way into work this morning, I was thinking, uh, that, +so the whole automation thing of the posting the show, I deliberately don't do it. +Uh, there are, the reason I convinced myself that, that I don't do it is because +um, it is the one time of the day where I make sure that the HPR site is up. +I physically interact with it. +I make sure that I communicate to those channels. +I'm actively engaged. +It's not like a script that's just there pumping out stuff and can go months, weeks or months +without, without an error message and where it's broken and hasn't posted, which has happened +in the past. +Twitter, especially, we have been automating the posting, uh, from day one to Twitter. +And then for several months, it was down. +Nobody noticed, nobody commented, uh, because they changed their API in several occasions. +Then they're charging for their API in several occasions. +Posting to Twitter itself is a pain because even I have to take half the post that the post +that I normally put into say Telegram or Matrix and Mastodon, um, click, click, click, copy +and paste, put it in, make sure there's no replies, respond to any likes, respond to any, +anybody who's, um, asked to join the group, uh, give thumbs up and stuff. +If people are, are, you know, have at signed HPR on us. +And sometimes I even have conversations with myself, uh, the HPR account with the Ken Fallon +account. +Uh, so, um, there's that. +So that's kind of why I do it, uh, why you're doing manually, um, Twitter. +Explicitly, there were other sites where you could post via another site into Twitter and +those are all been blocked over time. +So you come up with a solution, it works for a year or two, and then it doesn't work anymore. +So, yeah. +And, and also for the engagement, literally of 25 people seeing a post and then, you know, +nobody clicking on it, nobody forwarding it, nobody interested in it. +What's the point? +Twitter from, from the point of view of HPR, our audience, it's, I, I, I would have more +feedback if I, if I faxed, uh, you know, the show notes to random numbers. +Yeah. +You might get some annoyed feedback as well at that. +Yeah. +True. +Or not. +You never know. +That is true. +Okay. +So we've got another couple to do here. +So Todd says, I have no problem with HPR, no longer posting on X. +Keep it short and simple. +And, uh, Jim Leonard says, I concur. +However, the Twitter X reputation these days, I don't think it fits with HPR's core values. +And I think that's, that's it. +I'm confused. +Did I not hit the send button? +Cause I definitely replied to this. +Obviously it's still in my draft somewhere. +Well, you can, you can say it now if you want. +Yeah. +I'm, I'm just actually saying so I don't put words in my own mouth. +I basically said I agreed with stopping posting, especially if there, um, especially if it's +a case of, um, not much interaction, but I disagreed with, um, I'm just, you know, can +find this thing. +Sorry. +Sure. +Oh yeah. +Yeah. +I did send. +I don't know why I didn't come in. +Yeah. +I just said, just to be clear, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. +That's not it. +That was the last one. +Uh, yeah, here we go. +Stop. +Whilst personally I dislike Twitter or more accurately what has become, I think looking +at this from a personal logical point of view suggests that it has now run its course. +When I started reading the post, I was wondering how many listeners it was bringing into HPR, +but two to four interactions of the post is simply no longer an effective way to promote +the show. +Uh, I also agree that the account should be kept so that anyone wishing to contact HPR +via Twitter remains an option. +Who knows? +It may all change course again in the future and become a place that we would be happy to +post or have an active community in. +Yep. +Can always, uh, we can always change your mind. +That's not a problem. +Exactly. +Yes. +I know. +My biggest worry is if the account gets deleted and somebody else brings up the same +in the future, it could be a real black eye for HPR if they start posting horrible stuff +claiming to be us. +And also like we're referenced as being the owner of that, uh, and it's one of the, you +know, validations that we're a project that's been around for a while. +So definitely not something that we're, we will get rid of at this point. +Um, that's why I focused the discussion on, um, mostly the impact of the, the audience. +We're not reaching the audience. +Yeah. +That's when I, when I post on Facebook, I'll get more, um, I'll get more interaction than +I do here. +You know, I get all my aunts and uncles giving me a thumbs up on, oh, well done, on the new +year show. +So that's basically it. +Yeah. +Okay. +So there's, uh, yeah, I have to confess, I don't have any social media accounts outside +of Mastodon, uh, if we're looking at telegram or social media or not and, uh, matrix, but, +uh, I don't have anything. +So I don't, I must admit, I don't even post tux jam to other things. +I'm probably cutting my nose off to spite my face, but I just don't interact with these +things. +I don't have any time for them. +I must say though, from a HPR point of view, Mastodon has been fantastic. +It is. +Yeah. +It's really, uh, a good place to go. +We have a nice channel from, um, so the telegram, the telegraph telegram channel is nice. +I've recently joined us. +Yeah. +And my issue, by the way, why I don't like telegram is the fact that you can't block +people. +You don't have privacy by default. +You're, you're, you need a paid thing in order to block people. +And that just encourages spammers. +So I, that, that is my issue with the, with the platform mostly. +All right. +Fair enough. +We're all different. +Um, but that said, you know, they, that, and the IRC channel and matrix now that we have +an IRC channel and I'll, I'll pop that up on my, um, on my Raspberry Pi as well in a, in +a chat thing. +So that's good. +But the Mastodon one, really, we are getting engagement on it. +Occasionally you'll find new hosts coming in and, uh, a show being, a show being pushed +off somewhere or, you know, where, uh, you, somebody puts in a comment about, does the +show on a particular piece of software? +And then that software team will, um, you know, will reply going, oh, thanks for the +show or something. +So that's, that's really nice. +Actually, that's one thing I will say. +Speaking of, uh, Mastodon is that you do tend to get an awful lot more, uh, direct feedback +from actual people you've kind of reviewed or done something with on a show. +It is really good like that. +I'll give it that. +If they're obviously, if they're active, if they're not active, they're not going to +come on to Mastodon just purely for that. +Yeah. +Well, one thing I would like to do is automate the posting to Mastodon. +Um, and I would like that, uh, hosts, uh, like a separate feed for your Mastodon account +or your Feddy account, but that would have to be one account, just one account. +And I would also like that to be, um, I approve that my responses to HPR, the HPR thingy are +released under creative commons and would be included in the community news, which would +also be good. +So somebody wants to work on that, please do so. +I have a vision. +I think there's a ticket open about that. +So if somebody wants to pick that up, that's great. +Bum, bum, bum, bum, anything else? +I don't think so. +And actually, given the amount of issues we had at the start, that wasn't too bad. +The show. +That wasn't too bad. +It's dark now. +It is dark. +But by the time we actually started on the recording, it was getting dark then. +It was, uh, we had a disaster at the start. +And let's see if we, uh, if we've got a recording of this, cause if, if you're not hearing this, +then, uh, the recording didn't work. +So we had, we were recording a mumble and it was kind of weird. +Uh, this has been fine. +And we're recording now in matrix or element recording element element. +Yes. +Matrix. +And I'm recording it at my side with OBS and you're recording your side as well with +something. +I'm recording with Rico, which I love just for its simplicity. +In fact, I think I actually mentioned it on HPR Rico. +I'm pretty sure I have. +Okay. +I will have to hold you to that. +I'm not. +Don't. +I'm 80%. +Link in the show notes. +There's that 20%. +There's that 20% that's kind of making me doubt. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Um, okay. +Good show. +Nice. +It's not always nice. +Uh, Kevin talking. +It's a lot easier when somebody else is on and folks, thanks to, uh, thanks to all the +people who, um, commented on this, uh, show. +Candy Canator, Whiskey Jack, um, Jim, um, some guy on the internet, Paul Jay. +Elizabeth, Archer 72, um, Trey, Steve Barnes, everybody. +Basically, sorry if I missed your names, but, uh, when you comment on episodes, it really +helps us out here on the community news. +All we need to do is read. +So it takes the talking away and, uh, gives more perspectives as well. +And as you say, it just, it, it's also an encouragement for people who are, you know, +doing the shows because it actually shows people are listening. +So yeah, it's good. +Yeah, exactly. +And someone just personally, as not Ken Fallon, the, the janitor, Ken Fallon, the podcaster +on HPR, um, some of the shows that I do are like just throw away shows and, and I don't +care about them. +Some of them I've really done a lot of work on and, you know, and then to get no responses +is really just depressing. +It's, uh, you know, particularly if somebody's put in the time to do a, a big show, even if +you're not into the topic, just say, you know, thumbs up or something, or I'll, I'll add this +to my list or whatever. +It's always nice. +Absolutely. +Yes. +Even they, um, cause what's very good. +What I like seeing is that our team descends upon the new hosts, giving them encouragement. +And also we need to encourage the older hosts and the people coming back, you know, the +second or third show where your energy is kind of the buzz has, has gone down. +So, yep. +And it's really easy to do in any podcatcher at the very bottom of the episode, there's +a button, a link comment on this episode. +And the only question you need to answer is public, public as in hacker. +Public. +Radio. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +Uh. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4587.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4587.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c4e471 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4587.txt @@ -0,0 +1,137 @@ +Episode: 4587 +Title: UNIX Curio #1 - Shell Archives +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4587/hpr4587.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:33 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4587, for 2026-03-03 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #1 - Shell Archives" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:12:08 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Putting an archive into a self-extracting shell script" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio No. 1. +This is the first entry in a series dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally +useful, trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of Unix Lake operating systems. +In case you want some background on this series, entry No. 0 gives a little information +on what you're supposed to be about. +You can check it out at Hacker Public Radio Episode 4-5-7-4. +To make the easier to find, all of these episodes will have the tag Unix Curio. +You could also pull up my host page for a listing. +Today's episode was inspired by an article I read on the Linux Journal website back +in 2009. +It described a custom-built bash shell script that would contain a tar archive. +When run, the script would extract the contents of the archive onto the user's system. +This to that article and other relevant references appear in the show notes for this episode. +When I encountered this article, I felt a wave of nostalgia and my thoughts immediately went +back to how I used it and email used to work in the olden days of the 1980s and early +1990s. +Back before 1993, there was not yet a mind-standard to govern how to attach files to messages, +so you had to put everything into the body of your message. +It was pretty easy to send a single text file as the message body, though it would be a +good idea to inform the recipient and advance that it was coming so that they knew what +to do with it. +But what if you wanted to send a bunch of files to someone and keep them all together? +Maybe they're all part of a single project. +Of course, tar existed, but the file format could differ between systems, so the recipient +might not be able to unpack the archive. +You could send each file in a separate email message, but then you had the risk of one or +more messages not being delivered, and even if they all made it, they wouldn't be bundled +together in one place. +Another common approach I remember seeing at the time was to put all the files into one +message with delimiting lines, often saying cut here, to designate where one file ends +and another one begins. +But this required the recipient to untangle things manually. +A task which could be tedious if you have several files. +The solution developed back then was a shell archive created by the char program. +That spelled SHAR or in the phonetic alphabet, Sierra Hotel Alfa Romeo. +This program wraps all your files in a neat shell script that the recipient can just run +and have the files magically pop out. +All they would need to have is the born shell and the said utility, both of which are +standard on any unix-like system. +The way it works is to run the SHAR command followed by the names of the files you want +to send. +If some were all of the files are to be contained in a sub-directory, you need to name the +directory first, then the files. +So the generated script will create the necessary directory before extracting the files to +be put inside it. +Typically the output of the SHAR command would be piped into a program for sending email +or posting use net articles, though it could be redirected into a file. +See the show notes for some usage examples. +For a recipient of your message, can then pipe the message body into the born shell with +the hyphen S as in Sierra option to save the files on their system with the original names +intact and the directory structure if any. +Different implementations of SHAR have varying capabilities. +For example, the BSD and Mac OS editions can only really manage plain text ASCII files. +Email back then and even today treats handling 8-bit data as an extension to the core +mail transfer protocol. +So trying to send binary files takes some additional work. +The BSD and Mac OS versions also require, as described earlier, that you name a directory +before naming any files inside it. +One typical way is to let the find command do the work for you. +It produces a list in the right order. +The GNU implementation is more flexible and can take just a directory name automatically +including everything underneath. +It can also handle binary files by using UU and code. +UU and code is a method that was developed around 1980 for encoding 8-bit data as ASCII text. +It takes arbitrary 8-bit binary data in chunks of three bytes and turns it into a form +consisting only of printable ASCII characters representing each chunk with four characters. +When the current base 64, mind-standard was developed and became widely supported, it effectively +made UU and code obsolete. +The GNU-shar rather nicely auto-detects whether the input file is text or binary and +acts accordingly and it can even compress files if asked. +In addition, instead of using UU and code for binary data, it can base 64 and code the data +as an alternative. +However, unpacking UU encoded or compressed files from such an archive requires the recipient +to have the corresponding utility to decode and or uncompressed the files. +While these are easily available on systems from the last 20 years or so, on older ones +that wasn't guaranteed, so the documentation has lots of warnings about using UU and code +or compression. +I should point out that my previous mention of BSD refers to the historical BSD 4.4 version +from the University of California. +Both free BSD and net BSD now have a library called Lib Archive that is used for reading +from and writing to various archive formats. +One of these formats is Sharr and the TAR command can be told to create a Sharr archive +on these systems. +This newer method is able to UU encode binary files and it can also have the resulting +shell script attempt to send the owner permissions and flags on the extracted files. +Lib Archive and TAR on these systems are not able to read Sharr files, but that's not +really necessary because they are designed to be interpreted by a shell anyway. +Open BSD does not seem to use this same library and instead it relies on the historical +BSD implementation of Sharr. +Looking at commercially unique systems, the version on Hewlett Packard's HP UX can also +UU encode binary files. +In addition, as a special bonus, it adds code to the script that will compile and use +a simple UU decode tool written in C so the recipient doesn't need to already have one, +but they would need to have a C compiler. +It will even handle device files and put the corresponding mate node commands into the script, +probably making it the most full-featured implementation of all. +IBM's AIX doesn't appear to come with Sharr. +Neither do Son OS and Solaris, both from Sun Microsystems, which seems quite odd since +original development of the program is credited to James Gosling. +If that name doesn't sound familiar to you, he had a long career at Sun during which he +did a few different things such as creating the Java programming language, no big deal +there. +Now that we are well into the 21st century, the standardization of archive file formats and +methods for handling email file attachments means that Sharr doesn't really have that much +of a practical use any longer. +However, the author of the Linux Journal article apparently had such a need and created his +own solution, probably unaware that Sharr already existed. +Next time you're considering rolling your own script for a particular purpose, consider +searching or asking around to see if someone else has tackled the same problem. +Even if it's not a perfect match to your needs, they might have learned lessons that +you can apply to your own approach. +I mentioned archive file formats being standardized. +A future Unix Curio will cover that subject, but it won't be coming until a few more +entries down the line. +There are a couple of other topics to deal with first. +So for now, let's say goodbye to Sharr. +Thanks for listening and keep an eye out for the next year in Xcurio, which will be about +F-Grip here on Hacker Public Radio. +If you have a question or a suggestion for a future topic, please comment on this episode +on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4588.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4588.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35af475 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4588.txt @@ -0,0 +1,326 @@ +Episode: 4588 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 11 - Belgian Scotch Ale +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4588/hpr4588.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:34 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4588, for 2026-03-04 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 11 - Belgian Scotch Ale" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:32:35 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave and Kevie talk about Belgian Scotch Ales." +Hello and welcome to yet another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio and this is the +big garden, the our regular beer style review that we have been doing for quite a few weeks +now, this is episode number 11. My name is Dave, I am joined as almost always by Kevy. Hello +how are you? Hello, I am very well, I am very well indeed because this is another one of my favorite +styles of beer, so looking forward to this. When do I go? This is when you put me through session +apes, you're still down to feed me back. Okay, accepted. On this episode we're going to be as Kevy +has already suggested, reviewing one of his favorite beer styles. Now, last episode we reviewed +Scotchales, or we heavy, we're doing a slight variant on that, and this is Belgian Scotch +Ails. Now, I haven't got a clue what the differences between the two are from the fact that one +is brooding Scotland, one is brooding Belgium, but Kevy, I think you're going to try and tell us +a bit more about him. Yes, so I finished the last bit of waffle we did a bit +we heavies with to be continued, and this is the to be continued, because once I got into discovering +new Belgian Ails, I was noticing that I'm going, well, where's this from in Scotland? Oh, +it's from Belgium, but this thing looked like it literally was produced by a shortbreadton maker. +You know, I mean, everything was tarten, the sills, things were killed, things were bagbipes, +to the point where I'm going, the way I'm going, as far as I'm aware, Belgian aren't that +Scottish, as far as I'm aware, I can't say I've actually ever been myself, I do hope to go soon, +but I was thinking there's something odd here, so I started actually looking up, and it was +amazing how it fits in so nicely with a combination of the Christmas Ails episode, the Belgian +Christmas Ails episode that we did, and also the wee heavy episode that we did previously. +So towards the end of the 19th century, the Belgian beer distributor started selling this thing called +Belgian Christmas Ails, which, as we found out, was actually done by both Youngers and Maccurians. +It was the same beer just sold as a different label, and what was happening was the Belgians +actually started to get a taste for it, and they started to mimic this Christmas Ails style, +and a few did it early on, kind of 1903 time without a great deal of success, but then the demand +actually started to come quite high, so they decided to start producing, so by the start of the +20th century, they were producing incredibly small quantities, the Belgian Scotch Ails, which is what +that we are grew out of. The big real boost for the Belgian Scotch Ails actually believe it or +not came from the first world war. British soldiers were invited with bitter from England, +which was fine for those south of the border, who were used to drinking bitter. However, +the problem was the morale of the Scottish soldiers was actually getting quite low, and they +discovered, they soon discovered, that the Belgians were producing this Scotch Ails that tasted +very similar to what they had at home, and of course the British army started ordering it for +the Scottish soldiers so that morale would actually keep boosted, and of course it had all the +characteristics, it was multi, it was fruity, it was strong and warming, it was quite boozy, even more +so actually than the Scottish own version, which tended to be between, as I said last time between +7 and 9, very often this was from 7 upwards of 13, 14 percent, although the 30, 14 was more +extreme, so it was very similar, I know something they were familiar with. However, the problem was, +it was still not the main type of beer produced, so it was still produced in relatively low quantities, +so what happened was during the First World War, they started im-porting more and more from Scotland. +Again, it's funny, you wouldn't get away with these days changing the label or calling it something +totally different, but it also focused on ramping up production, and because of just the way things +went with the war etc, it wasn't actually until the 1930s that they were properly producing +vast amounts of the Scottish scale, but it's amazing to think that it was actually homesick, +Scottish soldiers that were one of the big early drives to get the Scottish ale more readily available +onto the Belgian market, and of course the Belgians had already discovered, they enjoyed the Christmas +seal, they actually weren't selling it as Christmas seal, it was very much Scottish ale, and it's +funny to see a lot of these labels, as I said, you would think they were from the very heart of the +Highlands produced and we bought the somewhere, and literally been paraded out with bagpipes and +tilted men, you know, it was so over the top Scottish, and these are still been produced to this day, +and it was that bigger industry, some of them were brewed in Scotland and never to be sold in Scotland, +they were exclusively for the Belgian market, so they were brewed, they were then im-ported, +and these were not rebranded ones, these were exclusive for this, however I have found out, +now there's a lot of them kept this very secret, but they're no longer brewed in Scotland, +I don't think any of them are as far as I'm aware, I was trying to read the correct, +but they're now all brewed in Belgium, so although sadly, the wee heavy has largely +kind of disappeared outside of very much specialist beer shops, yet because of the Belgian love for it, +you can enjoy a good old-fashioned wee heavy today, as long as you decide to buy it from Belgium. +You've not left me many questions because you've been that was very comprehensive, +I am intrigued by the fact that I may have misinterpreted this, but the fact that the +Belgian Scotch Ayles don't typically appear in Scotland, they don't you literally have to get them +from an im-port complete. Is there a particular reason for that? Is it a legal reason, +no, I just don't know, it's considered non-canon, probably the non-canon, yeah, I would probably go +with that, as far as I'm aware, it's you can get them in specialist beer shops, I wonder does it +just that maybe they don't want to be seen to be taken away from the local brewing industry, +I wonder is at the reason why? I suppose that would depend on how prolific +Scotch Ayles are in Scotland, as in Scotch Scotch Ayles. Yes, sadly not, not that. +Now, could that be cause and effect or is the Scotch Ayles phasing out organically, +which could actually leave an opening for the Belgian Scotch Ayles to come and fill that gap? +I think it's just mostly down to people's thinking habits, generally in Scotland, you look at +more popular these days, it's far more a country that was a lot more, not exclusively, +but a lot more lag or drinkers, a lot more lower ABVs, but I think that's actually +down to drinking culture in Scotland, drinking culture in Scotland for people who enjoy beer, +people don't seem to know how to actually sit and sip and enjoy a beer, they kind of want to +neck it off the time. So of course, if you did that with a 10% beer, you're not going to be +around for too long in the night, you'll be going home quickly. Right, okay, now there's a time and +a place for doing that with a beer, I wouldn't have expected that Scotland was the place. +Sadly, yes, if you go into a lot of eateries, not all of them, but a lot of eateries, and you'll +get a whine list as long as the sheet of paper and probably print on both sides, and you ask +what beer do you have, and they'll say 10 and slagger, you don't have any other beers, and they might +say something like Stella or Peronir something like that. Yeah, okay, so I think it is more down to, +obviously it is down to a bit of supply and demand, sadly. Okay, we're going to segue just slightly +here. If you were to ask the Scottsperson on the street, what their favorite beer style was, +what would be the overwhelming response? Probably slagger IP, that is the overwhelming, +you mean you will, I'm not saying excuse me, I'm not saying excuse me, but you'll get, if it's an +older person, guaranteed, does the Appain to Heavy, that would be just a bit nearly all, you might +give some people like Appain to light, which is mild, don't neglect, it's practically the same +beer. You'll get the, you know, people like me, who will say you'll still get maybe a few people +for we Heavy, but those should be few and far between. Right, so what does that mean then for the +Scottsperson beer industry, if you take away the Largo's and the Light Tales? The problem is, +the Scottsperson beer industry is very much split, the all-time ones, like the big names that +you're so well known, tenons, macurons, young girls, I mean, young girls is practically vanished. +That's a huge brewery, but it's been bought over that many times now, it's vanished. +You look at the macurons, you know, they were owned by Scottsperson, you Castle, who became bought +by Heinrich and they've just practically killed off all of the beers, which is really sad, +but at the same time, I'm saying it sad, but once, respect, they were never fantastic beers. +The local macurons wasn't, they were decent, they were all right, you wouldn't generally say, +wow, that's amazing. It has left a real void in the market and when I think that there was +next to no craft breweries in about 2000 at all, very, very few, there was the odd one or two. +Now, there are hundreds, my idea, I maybe even say thousands, because it's not them dotted +in tiny, we've religious and things around Scotland and because Scotland is so remote, +I mean, you've experienced this, a lot of them will only deliver, they're small, they're not +brewing millions, they'll deliver to their own local areas and getting them, you can't get them +but they're very expensive, you know, so your problem is you might go to a place and find a lovely, +I mean, I can think of, I went to the Olipple Beer Festival and I had the AL of Athel and I thought, +this is lovely, I'm going to start drinking this more regularly, I've never been able to find it, +I ever again, so, I mean, I can find it, it's on the website and it shows me it's still a +produce now that I can't actually order it online, so you've got that issue, so yeah, +you've just got delivery and logistics are actually a bit of a problem, right? So this is why I'm +always keen to try and support local breweries when they're starting producing beers to +keep them up because at the end of the day, it's way better than what the big breweries were producing. +Anything would be, yes, arguably, I've got to ask one more question and then I think it's probably +about time to start cracking these bottles out. Do you think that Scotland is becoming a microborionation? +Yes, it is now. Well, there's a definite split, there's your lagger drinkers and they just want +tenants, you know, they're very loyal to ten slagger, which I don't get. I really, I really can't +understand it. It's the nothing else though. No, no, there are other things, but just they're very +loyal to, I mean, I remember that when the local brewery here started producing, which is now +sadly closed. There's other ones, but the one I'm thinking of, he started producing and he was +producing Klansman, which was a golden ale, and then what he did is he pumped it through +knife rotaps to make it more like a lagger, and a lot of the lagger drinkers who tasted it said, +oh, that's really nice. Would you drink it? Oh, no, no, I want my tenants. But you're like, +so it's really terribly frustrating, but you've got, there's no surplus on people. No, +where you got very much two splits at Asplit, sorry, it's very much two halves, and you will get +ones who are, they want that pint a lager, and you'll get the other half who will, I want to try +something new, I want to try different things. So I'd say that's the split on this street. I think you're +probably here to ask for people's favorite beer. If you get rather than say you're favorite style, +if you go favorite beer, I think you would probably depending on where you're out of course. +You're either going to get a range of locally spears that you've generally never heard of, or +ten as lagger, you know, that's going to be a little answer, which in one sense is actually good +for the craft beer market in school, because there's so many of them, no, it's, it's lovely. +I mean, I've had tenants, I've had, was it four variants of tenants? I think you used to be able to +get back in the 1980s when I shouldn't have been drinking to sing, but nothing really blew me away. +A lager is a lager is a lager, there are different taste profiles, but ultimately the +end of the day is a lager. It's nothing special, in my opinion, and I apologize. No, I don't, +I don't apologize. To all the people I may have offended by saying that. But when you've got so +much choice, so much variety, so many styles, so many flavour profiles of all the beers. I mean, +we're in your own episode 11, and I have learned so much. Why would I go into a pub, and order +what is probably on the most prominent pump in the entire bar, and that's calling, or that +to be fair, I used to drink calling, and I used to like it. I know, I'm sorry, I have my card in. +But see, that's a problem. There's so many people who want to vary. I mean, you enjoyed it at +the time, but would you go back to it now? No, because I know better. Yeah, exactly. And that's +where the problem is, we need to get people trying these beers and trying different things, +because they'll then suddenly realize, whoa, that's actually a heck of a lot nicer. I mean, +even when it comes to Lager, you can get good Lager. But, you know, I mean, Lager by itself, +the whole Lager, Lager is actually not, the name isn't actually Lager originally. This is +the Lager episode, but the term Lager is actually referred to storing it underground at a +cool temperature for a long period, and it let it mature. What gets produced as Lager today, +generally, is something that is made in the morning, and is finished practically by the evening. +There's new age in it at all, and you're like, this is why it's bland, this is why it's tasteless. +Lager should actually have some flavour. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Anywho, I think we should probably +move on. Yes, because I'm definitely thirsty, you know. So, I have in front of me a bottle, which is +actually, it is silly. I mean, managed to get this, yeah, literally. I got this from a +biz of Europe order that I placed well before Christmas. In fact, I ran about the time that was on +the search for Christmas sales, and we were doing the different Christmas sales styles across two +episodes. And I thought, big brain, I'll order ahead and try and get the styles that we're going +to be doing in the early part of 2026. So, yeah, I failed on the last one, because the one previously +we decided wasn't a valid Scotch ale, but I managed to get myself two Belgian Scotch ale's. +I can't tell you what the first one is, and the reason for that will become apparent very soon. +But the second one is literally silly. So, it's from the Brasserie de Silly, which is a Belgian +brewery, and the ale is called Scotch Silly, or Silly Scotch, whichever way you want to put. We'll +call it. The bottle is, it's a lovely brown bottle, green labeling. Scotch Silly is born from a +unique tradition and throughout the years as grown into a reference beer for its particular style. +Lovely red colour with more than a hint of copper is hidden below a beige head. +Complexer roamers, bubbles, a lot of sense of brieosha companies by raisins, fruit, jam, and +fresh raspberry. Well, I'll be looking at it for that, definitely. But initial impressions of those +of honey and caramel flavors of prunes and a rose malt come through the finish. And there's a +lot going on in there. It is eight percent, which is moderately strong. And I'm going to show +up talk him. I know him there. Here we go. Oh, hello. Oh, do they say prunes? Yes. +Oh, that's interesting. It says the prunes come through in the finish, but I'm definitely getting +getting them in the in the aroma. That is a gorgeous colour. It's a beautiful ruby colour. +Yeah, quite a bit of colour agent. You think with a ruby or an amber ale, it's a lot more transparent. +So the colour is quite it's quite a clean colour. But this one actually seems to have quite a +big head on it. I really need to go back to school and learn how to pour a beer. But no, the +colouring is gorgeous. It's almost an orange hint of orange in the colouring, which you wouldn't +typically expect to see in a beer. And I've done myself a disservice here because I'm +actually waiting for the inch and a half of head to go down. In fact, somebody can go and get +me a spoon. That'll help. Right. So now weirdly, I'm not getting a lot, a lot through the nose +right now. But when I first opened the bottle, it was, it was very, very strong. Let's give it a try. +Oh, wow. That's very multi, as you would hope and expect. It is quite sweet as well. +I definitely getting some of the fruits that it mentions, the fruity jam, the raspberry. That +prune is still coming through surprisingly. I didn't expect that to. I don't recall +tasting that on the first run when I had this. And I don't remember this, which is really weird. +But yeah, very, very multi, very sweet, very fruity. I'm sticking my nose back in there. +I'm definitely getting some sort of like caramel, but kind of a muted or a dull caramel, not the, +the really sweet burnt sugary type of caramel that you would expect to see in a beer like this. +This is very good indeed. I've almost, almost glad I forgot and I had this before. +Mm, absolutely. Well, there you go. It was a nice surprise for yourself. Well, tell us what you've got. +I have got Macshoof, which, and, well, you don't need to see if you've got a bottle there. I've +got the older style label. Despite the fact I just ordered this, it's got the noom dwarf, whatever it is. +In front of a week cake with the, oh, no, the new one doesn't have the cake, of course. +No, it doesn't, but it's that bagpipes. Oh, you also got bagpipes as well. The bagpipes, +he's got the tartan-thru's, my one as well. So, yes, very stereotypically Scottish. +On the cake, mine says Brudon. So, I've got a sign. You could assign with that, yeah. That says Brudon. +Right, so let's get this open. +Uh, nice bit of smokyness coming off there. Not smoky flavor, I just meant it's more +coming out of it. Mm, it's multi. There's a peppery spicy note. Yeah, I'm getting that's +where I'm getting multi peppery spicy. That's from the bottle. So, let's put it. +Fairly lively head, not quite as lively as yours, but still quite a lively head there. +So, and as you can see yourself, you thought that you, it was exactly the same as your +own. It looks black on the camera. Mm, but it's kind of certainly more. This is more, yeah, +this is mahogany. This is already brown. It's, I think it's slightly browner than your room was. +I split the, the red ruby red. In the glass, this has gotten quite a bit more boozy on the nose. +There's notes of toasted brown sugar. Yeah, it's not a spicy at all. +Yeah, see, from the bottle, I'm going to compare the two of them now. From the bottle, much +peppery spicy. I don't see how much peppery, but it's just spicy note. No, it doesn't, that +removes, but it does smell boozyer from the glass. I have to confess, so, right, it's going to +finish that off. Right, there we go. That's actually settled down quite nicely, and it's not totally +gone, so it's a nice head on that. Mm, cheers. Cheers. Yeah, multi toasted caramel. There's, whoa, +there's an extra layer. I did not notice on this beer. I've always seen that fruity, +or taste it to see. That fruity, dark fruits, dark dried fruit. Again, raisins, kind of figs, +but there's a lighter fruit coming through on the back end. Like a green apple, or a pear, or something. +Which I've not actually noticed before. Mm, which actually takes the sweetness, +lingering sweetness, it's very often with the Belgian score of the shields. It's taken that away +almost. You don't have the lingering sweetness. It's not necessarily bad or good. It's just +slightly different. I've not noticed that with this much shift before. It's definitely got the +Scottish flavoring. Yeah, you've got that malt-heavy front end. You've got the toasted caramel +coming through you. No, no, we're near as boozey in the taste as it actually smelled. But that's +actually dangerous, because that on a hot day would be dangerous. That's eight percent similar to yours. +I think I could knock that back very easily. Mm, okay. Oh, actually quite gassy. +That's one thing, this one isn't, even though it did flare up a bit in the glass. It's not, +it's not fizzy. Mm, no, no, I don't mean fizzy. I mean, the kind of after you've +drank it, it's giving you milk burping. It's what I kind of gassy, but when on to go stir, +it's not fizzy at all. I'm tasting it. You know, I don't know, have I just never waited long enough +for that? But that's something really different. I quite like that, actually. It's good, +what would otherwise be quite a sweet, a very sweet, lingering finish. Normally with these, +you get the kind of sweetness along with bitter fruits. But it actually cleans up the palate quite +nicely. That's, yeah, I really like that. This is something that is very, very nice indeed. +Yes, oh, I certainly would have this. So looking at the label, Maksuf is a resident halted, +starting off with its alluding ruby red hues with a lively frothy head, but not as nowhere near +a frothy as a silly. It leads you to an exciting taste of Anna's seed licorice and caramel, +blending a place in my field with a balanced depth and color. Keep on track and you'll reach the +final hint of pear with a delicious little light bitterness. At 8% ABV, this is one for the +daredevil's. That's what the box is. Okay. I'm not getting licorice. I must admit, I'm not, +and I'm not getting Anna's seed. There's a spiciness to it that is there in the background, +but it's definitely nowhere near. Anna's seed to me would be clawing and dominant. This is not +but that is very nice indeed. To be honest, I'm glad it's not exactly how the description sees. +So I'm on the fan of Anna's seed, but you're absolutely right. It can and very often +does dominate. I mean, there's nothing I like out of sight as well, but I just tend to find that it's +it's a wee bit like, to me, it's a wee bit like cooking with stoutton. It's an art. And +right, they're the often, it just dominates the food. And that's what I find with the drinks, +it can dominate. We have a thumbs up from my eldest. We have just had a live tasting +with no commentary, which is part of the course, but he tends to react quite harshly to +certain nails and certainly those that have a strong nose and he did react to it, but then he tried +it and he was like, double thumbs up, double thumbs up. Yes, that's good. So double thumbs up +from your eldest, from your kids. What about father? What does father give it to? +It is getting better, which is not really what I expected. If I, I've just looked at what I rated +this on an on tap to when I had it just before the new year, I would have given it it a seven +or half, which I'd still have pretty decent score, seven and a half out of ten is pretty decent. +Yeah, it is. But I think I'm going to change that based on on this tasting. I think maybe I +didn't go into it in as much detail then as I have done now. And I think there's a lot more +going in there than I probably gave it credit for what I first tried it. So I think I'm actually +going to put this down as an eight and a half. Oh, very good. Because this is really, really nice. +I do still have one left from the order I made, although I have a very distinct feeling that +might get stolen by my eldest. So there may be a fight over it, we shall see. But yeah, definitely +I'll get eight and a half out of ten for the Scotch silly. And do you know what I'm actually thinking +along the same lines as that for the Macshoof? I probably go along lines of eight and a half. +I'm really enjoying it. It's very good. Had I not had the Gordon's Scotch ale, I may have done +it higher. But to me, that Gordon's one is the the permical of the Belgian Scotch ale's. So I can see +where I can see what I like it. I can see where I prefer the Gordon's version. I mean, this is +obviously the danger. And this is why we recommend people do alter the scores if they feel it. +You may try something and it blows you away. But then the more you drink it, the more you reduce +okay, prefer that one over that one. They're not all five or five or ten out of ten, +just as he. Yeah, I think probably had I tried this first. As the first ever Scotch ale from +Belgium, it probably would have been full marks. But I think after that, after a good few, +the discerning palette, I think I'm going to go up at eight and a half. I think that's about +where it is. Pardon me. Okay, well a question for you then. Why didn't you go for the Gordon's +for this? Because I specifically bought this for this and we did I did the Gordon's for the +as yet to be unreleased reserve cushoof. Oh, of course you did. Yes, my apologies. Make sense. +So yeah, all in all, that was a fairly successful review, I think, eight and a half each. +So yeah, awesome. Yes, absolutely, yes. Okay, so did we decide we didn't have any feedback from +previous shows to mention? Yes, we're very disappointed folks. No feedback as far as we can see. +We went back with the overall shows. Very disappointing. So no new feedback at all. So if you do +want to give us feedback, then please do leave us a message on a comment on the show. That's +about actually know the best way is to actually record your own version of this show, +that cus this is a community podcast. However, you can leave a comment on the shows and we will +read it out. You can also message us on MasterDone. You can message us on untapped if you wish. +The only problem is I'm liable to forget to read it out. I'm being perfectly honest. +So if you want your comment for a day out, please leave it as a comment on one of the previous +shows. And also, yes, that's the better way of doing it. Yes, and also, if you want to recommend +any styles, then please do. Don't wait for the future style to come up like put a poster on the +if I comment on like this show of Belgian scotchales and just say, hey guys, I want you to review +so it will be or I want you to review whatever. If there's something you're actions and +and I'm going to put the caveat of if we can get it because yes, there are some limitations. Actually +there are a lot of limitations. I don't want to do beer and discredit because somebody wants us to review +just to say, well, I'll just produce you for example. There's a beer in Britain called Ashai. Is it +Ashai or Ashai? Do you know what I mean? I've heard of one of the code Ashai. Is that like a +like a a log, a bottle typically sold in restaurants? It's it's a bottle. Yeah, and it's +got a silver label. And it's full of either Chinese or Japanese, right? I'm not really sure +because I'm not very fluent now. Yeah, that's the choice the same one. Yeah, probably is. And +then when you actually read the very bottom, despite all this foreign writing on it, it says +Bruden Britten. You know, so it's not really fair to say. And in the same way, I've had +genuine Italian beer and Moretti and it's nothing like what we have here. So you do the +disservice to say just because it's Bruden the country. Oh, this is what it must be like. Is +this like drinking Guinness out side of Ireland? But yes, yes. Yeah, no, I get it. +That is it. Awesome. Well, why don't you tell us what it is we're going to be reviewing +next time. Oh, I'm continuing with some of the favorites of mine. Although to be honest, +or the sex style, I've only relatively recently discovered, but I have taken a liking to it. +And we are going to be continuing. I think as far as my word, this is the last of our winter +warmers. So after this one, we should be coming out and maybe going to more spring beers, +but this is going to be a Baltic porter. Can also be called an imperial porter. So keep an eye +it. If you want to actually get a hold of one and join in with us, then yeah, you're more than +welcome. So we're looking for a Baltic or imperial porter. And I only hope I can find one because +trying to find the beers that you've suggested so far has been quite a challenge for me. +And before we start to be recording, I know Carol, I mean, I have too many beers anyway, +but I don't have a Baltic porter. So yes, I'll be continuing with my search for a Baltic porter +over the next week or two. But yeah, coming out of the winter beers and into a more springy +style, I think the supermarkets will be a lot more forgiving to those styles, the lighter styles, +than the darker ones. So let's hope. Absolutely. Right in. So join us again tomorrow for another +exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4589.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4589.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34df640 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4589.txt @@ -0,0 +1,117 @@ +Episode: 4589 +Title: YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #15 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4589/hpr4589.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:35 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4589, for 2026-03-05 +Today's show is entitled, "YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #15" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:14:31 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Part fifteen of my list of subscribed channels" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. This show was submitted in January 2025 to cover +occasions just like this, where there are gaps in the regular schedule. +Hello, this is Ahuka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode. +So with that, I'm going to continue on what I have been doing for the Reserve Q in this go-around, +um, which is, I'm recording in January of 2025, and I'm looking at my YouTube channels that I am +subscribed to and discussing them. So I'm going to start this time with TimeGhost History. +TimeGhost is something we've mentioned before, one of the real-time history groups that came out of +the Great War, uh, channel. Um, now, TimeGhost is one of those groups, and for their major projects, +they have dedicated channels like World War II, um, Korean War, things like that. Um, but they +did smaller things as well, so they have a TimeGhost History channel, um, where they did something +like, uh, between, like, uh, between two wars. So, like, you know, what went on between World War I and +World War II. Um, they did one on, um, Ukrainian identity, um, talking about the war in Ukraine. Um, +they did something on Israel and Palestine and asking questions about, are the British the ones who +really started all of that? Um, so, they also have a channel called TimeGhost Podcast. Um, I'm not sure +they're doing it anymore. It looks like they released about, uh, six videos a couple of years +ago and then stopped. Um, but I, as I often do with these, I'll just leave the channel in because +there's no reason not to, something might pop up. Uh, next one is, uh, Toby Hadoke's channel. Uh, +Toby Hadoke is, uh, someone who's very active in the Doctor Who community. Um, he is active with Big +Finish. Um, he goes around to conventions. He's got a comedy monologue called, uh, +Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf that he does at conventions. So, he's an interesting fellow and I +like to follow what goes on. Next channel is Tom Sedell. Uh, Tom Sedell is a, uh, artist, cartoonist +particularly, um, who has a online web comic called Gunner Krieg Court, which I quite enjoy. +And this is his channel. The next one is called Touropia. Uh, and this is a travel-related channel. +Uh, and they're sort of the, their bailiwick is to go to a place and say, you know, what are the top +things to do here? What are the top areas you should visit? What have you? So, uh, the length of the video +can vary a lot between a, you know, 15 or 20 minute, um, all the way up to an hour, depending +on what sort of topic they're taking. So, they did, uh, 12 best places to visit in Vietnam. That +was about a 20 minute. The 50 best places to visit in Asia, that was an hour. Um, the 23 most beautiful +islands in the Mediterranean. That's about 41 minutes. Uh, so, you know, 12 best places to visit +in Peru, 18 minutes. +Now, the next channel is, uh, TPM TV. TPM stands for Talking Points Memo. And that is a press +organization in the United States that, uh, I follow pretty closely. And in fact, I'm a, uh, +subscriber, paid subscriber. Um, so it's, covers politics, basically, what's going on in Washington +from a liberal point of view. Next channel is Trek Culture. Now, there's a, a organization called +What Culture that is just sort of geek things in general, but then they set up specific channels. +Uh, and so there's a Who Culture, uh, and there's a Trek Culture. There's others, but those are the +two that I subscribe to. Um, and this is videos, uh, you know, talking about, um, Star Trek. Um, +the lengths can vary a little bit, but on the average, they're probably 15 to 20 minutes. Um, +then there's a channel called Tall Tapes. Um, this is about Jethro Tull. I mentioned before, uh, +progressive rock is, uh, something I very much enjoy. I'm a big Jethro Tull fan. So, uh, a lot of +this is concert footage, uh, and, you know, people may have, um, shot this. Uh, in other words, +an audience, uh, recording for a lot of these. So, it's, it's not necessarily very high quality, +but, uh, there's also some documentary stuff that gets in here. +Then there's Ursa Ryan. Uh, Ursa Ryan is another one of those game people who does a number of +things, but does a lot of civilization, and that's what I'm interested in. Uh, and same for the next +channel, which is Van Bradley, um, who will discuss other things, but mostly does civilization, +and that's why I am subscribed to it. Then there's Veritasium. Uh, and Veritasium, he says, +is an element of truth. Videos about science, education, and anything else I find interesting. +Um, so, the, the host is, uh, fellow named Derek, and so, um, he did things like, uh, people said +this experiment was impossible, so I tried it. So, and it, something involving thermite. That was about +a half hour long. Um, do people understand the scale of the universe? You know, 15 minute, um, +uh, why don't railroads need expansion joints? +So, it's, it's, uh, science in general. Uh, next one is Viking. Uh, I'm, this Viking, +Viking is in reference to the cruise line. Um, my wife and I have done two Viking river cruises, +one on the Rhine and one on the Danube. Uh, enjoyed them both tremendously. Uh, so, I'm subscribing to +the channel, and then, in addition to the Viking channel, the Viking channel is mostly relatively short, +um, um, uh, promotional kinds of things. And you're talking like two, three minutes. Then there's, +they have another one called Viking TV with longer ones. And those typically would, uh, involve, uh, +involve interviews, uh, with people, uh, regarding some of the things that you might do on a Viking +cruise. Um, so, you know, Christmas on the Rhine, um, is one of the things they do. Um, +you know, beyond the brochure, taking a look at, like, the Lyon and Provence is one of the ones they do. +The Antarctic Explorer is another one they do. Then there's Vlog Brothers. Um, and this was the channel +that was started long time ago by two brothers. And they would just make it a point a couple of times +a week. They would record a video to talk to the other one. And, uh, that led to them doing Crash Course +and creating the company called Complexly, and which is now involved with, um, PBS Digital Studios. But, +you know, this is the channel where they are still doing, um, those, uh, videos. One on Tuesday and one on +Friday. So, Tuesday, John Green, who you might know as an author, um, does his video. And then his +brother Hank does, uh, his video in response on Friday. And they're typically, you know, about five +minutes in length, but they don't stick to that necessarily. And there's, um, Washington Monthly. +Uh, Washington Monthly is a magazine, again, from a fairly left liberal perspective on politics in the +United States. It's one of the ones I support. Then there's Who Culture. Um, uh, we talked about +Trek Culture a few minutes ago. So, this is the one about Doctor Who. Uh, it's the same group of people, +uh, talking about, uh, Doctor Who, uh, and specifically the different episodes. +Then there is Walter's World. And this is a fellow, um, who is named Walters. That's his last name. Um, +and so he and his wife and children do, um, travel around the world. And so he'll do videos about, +uh, things that he's learned in doing that. Um, so for instance, he just did one on, um, +five big travel rule changes for 2025, how you need to get a visa now to get to Europe. +I don't remember exactly when that kicks in. I think it's in a few months. Um, that was about +five minutes. Then Mistakes Tourists Make in Austria. That was about 15 minutes. Um, +so he does these, a couple of these a week. Um, then there's World War II. Um, this is another +time ghost production. They, they did a fantastic job, um, of covering World War II. Again, real time. +So each week we're covering the corresponding week, um, in the war, but also they did two, +uh, extra special productions. One was about Pearl Harbor and the other was about D-Day. +And in each one, uh, what they did is they just expanded, uh, or, you know, zoomed in kind of +to, uh, do, uh, do hour by hour what was going on. Um, and so the D-Day, it's, they cover 24 hours +of D-Day with about 24 hours worth of video. Um, so, you know, it's a really good one. If you have +any interest in World War II history, check it out. Then, um, XKCD, uh, which is a web comic that +I think geeks are fairly familiar with in many cases. And, um, Randall Munro, the writer also, +um, uh, wrote some books called What If, and then created this What If channel where he does videos +about, you know, what, what if we put a pool on the moon? What would a magnitude 15 earthquake be +like? What if you swam in a nuclear storage pool? The next one is You Can't Unhear This. +Um, and this is a channel about the Beatles, and what it does is it digs into some aspect, +um, typically, you know, 10 to 15 minute videos. Like, there was one on paperback writer, how +that changed the Beatles sound forever, the amazing recording history of Here Comes the Sun, +uh, the drum mystery in the Beatles song, Dear Prudence. +All right. +So, with that, I have concluded all of the subscriptions in my YouTube subscription list. +Took a long time to do that, but then I subscribed to a lot of channels. +Well, I hope this hasn't bored you too much. This is Ahooka for Hacker Public Radio signing +off and, as always, encouraging you to support free software. Bye-bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4590.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4590.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da3ba6c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4590.txt @@ -0,0 +1,174 @@ +Episode: 4590 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 9 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4590/hpr4590.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:37 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4590, for 2026-03-06 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 9" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:14:17 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V." +Hello, this is a hookah welcome you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in our ongoing series on computer strategy gaming +And we're continuing our look at civilization five and +Why don't we want to talk about today primarily is city states now city states +Was a newly introduced feature in civilization five and they play an important role in the game +They represent the small countries that are not running the world +They do not produce settlers +So they do not expand beyond the one city +Though that city can and will expand its borders in a similar way to how your cities can grow +They do not start with a military unit, but they can produce military units and defend themselves +They can also build buildings in the city, but not wonders +They do have a single vote each in the world Congress or later +United nations making them a key to a diplomatic victory +Now city states start out neutral with regards to the actual players +But your interactions with them can affect how they feel about you +For example, if you send units through their territory, they will get hostile +But if you give them gifts that makes them friendly +So +If you wish to go to war with them +You can and you can take them over +This will affect your diplomatic relations with other players and other city states +But if you have decided on a war of conquest as your victory type that won't matter to you, right? +As mentioned if you want to go for a diplomatic victory +You want to be allied with as many of them as possible to get their votes in the world Congress or the United Nations +But even if you don't need their votes, there are other benefits from friendly relations +There are two levels to friendly relations, friendly and allied and the benefits get better as relations improve +Now there are five types of city states +There's the militaristic +The maritime, the cultured, the mercantile and the religious +Now there's benefits to having relationships with each of these kinds of cities +If it's a militaristic city state and your friends with them, they will periodically give you a unit +Which will appear in your city which is closest to the city state +If you're allies, they'll give you units more often +Maritime +A maritime city state if your friends, they will add two food to your capital city +If your allies, they will add one more food to every city you have +This can be a great way of growing large cities +Cultured city states share their culture with you +At one rate if you are friends and at double the rate if you are allies +So if you are going for a +Culture victory which is one of the victory types +Obviously you want to make sure you are allied with this many of the cultured city states is possible +Now mercantile city states give you and added three happiness if your friends +If your allies you get the three happiness but in addition get access to a luxury resource +That cannot be obtained any other way and that also adds happiness +And you know managing your happiness as we've seen is one of the key things in in safe +So five religious city states give you a one-time bonus of faith when you first meet them and provide added faith +perturne +Now note that cultured and religious city states increase the amount of culture or faith they provide with each new era +So the earlier you develop your relations with them the better the benefit +Yeah, how do you manage your relations +There is a mechanism in the game which keeps track of points to define your relations with the city states +On this numerical scale neutral has a value of zero +Friendly is a value of 30 year above and allied is 60 year above +In the other direction once you go into negative numbers they become angry +If you go negative enough it becomes war +Now a city state can only ever have one ally if only one player has more than 60 influence points +That player will become the patron of the city state and they will ally to that player +Now if two or more players have more than 60 influence points +Then the ally will be whichever one has the most +Now as the game goes on you may get a message that a city state you had as an ally has suddenly decided to ally to someone else +This is frequently the result of the other player gaining influence points in some way often by gifts +You can also gain influence points by promising to protect a city state +But do this with your eyes open if you do not follow through and your promise it will enraged the city state +And you will lose a lot of influence with them +Now your influence with the city state has a natural resting point at zero or neutral +That means that barring other factors a positive number will fall over time and a negative number will rise over time +So for example, let's say you sent one of your units through their territory +Now that'll put you into negative numbers. They'll be angry for a period +But if nothing else happens they will return to neutral +On the other side +Even if you ally with the city state you don't stay allied forever unless you find ways to keep adding influence points +As a variety of ways of doing that one way is to eliminate barbarian camps near the city state +In fact, this is one exception to the rule about sending units through their territory +If you are doing it to attack the barbarians you were seen as a protector not an invader and there is no penalty +Another way to gain influence is by completing a quest from a city state +Each city state you are in contact with will periodically give you a quest and if you fulfill it you will gain influence points +That can include killing a barbarian camp or killing nearby barbarian units, but you can do that at any time. You don't need a quest +Others might include acquiring a great person of a certain kind +Building a world wonder +Bullying another city state +Finding a natural wonder and so on +Now just because they've given you a quest you don't need to do it. You don't need to fulfill the quest +For example if you're strategy calls for ally with other city states +Like you're going for a diplomatic victory ultimately you might want to pass on bullying another city state +There's no penalty for not fulfilling a quest just a bonus when you do fulfill one +Now personally in my games I never bully city states +But just not my style of play and I win a lot of games +Okay another way to gain influences with gifts the most effective is gold and +One large sum is more effective than several small ones +Now for a diplomatic victory strategy you should plan on having a large treasury as you approach the endgame +So that you can buy allies in time for the crucial vote +You can also gain a small amount of influence points by gifting units +I make it a practice to do this whenever I have units that I don't want any longer +These could be obsolete units that have no upgrade path for instance +I don't want to pay maintenance on them as that's a drain on my treasury +And I could just delete them but gifting them to a city state gives me a small amount of influence +Another way to get a big jump +In your influence with a city state is to capture and then return one of their workers +Okay, now I don't mean capture their worker when it's still their worker, but for instance +Very often a barbarian will capture a city state worker +And then that city state worker will have the red color of the barbarian and then you capture it +And when you do that you have the option of keeping the worker for yourself and in the early game +I would probably do that because the worker is so valuable +But at a certain point I have enough workers and getting the 45 influence points for returning the worker is a more effective use +Remember that you have to keep earning influence points to keep up your relations +So even if you get an ally of a city state for a few turns +It will naturally decay back to neutral +By around the middle of the game if you're playing well you can start to invest the resources needed to maintain your relationships +And in particular if you are going for a diplomatic victory +Which relies on having a lot of allied city states +The best way to go for that is to have a strategy focused on getting as much gold as possible +And so that's something to keep in mind when you're deciding which empire you want to play as and things like that +City states get involved in wars if you're allied with a city state and you get into a war with another player +The city state that is allied with you will join in the war +Now of course the same is true for the other player so the war between the two players could also involve three to four city states trading as allies +Now you cannot make peace with a city state while it is allied to a player your war with +You first have to make peace with that player or wipe them out if that suits you +However, if you can get more influence with that city state and supplant the other player +You can get that city state to ally with you and then you can turn around and attack your enemy +Generally a large cash gift can do this once again showing the utility of a fat treasury +Now final note about exploration +And which is a very important thing you you always need to be +Focusing on you cannot have diplomatic relations with the city state you haven't met +So this reinforces the idea that you have to explore the map as soon as possible +Of course you have to balance this with other priorities such as expanding your cities and defending them, but +You know finding the right balance is what all the civilization games are about +Now in most maps this means you should be giving some attention to developing your naval power and technologies +There seems to be a bias to city states being coastal and in many cases they are in small islands +Of course there are a number of motivations for exploring the map +First of all you need intelligence of what you're up against with other players +And unless you're on a very large land mass you'll what to find added lands for settlement +Finding natural wonders adds to happiness in your empire, so finding them all is important +And last the unexplored sections of the map have a strong tendency to spawn barbarian units against you +Early on you cannot traverse ocean tiles and need to stick to coastal tiles +The unit at this part of the game early on is the tri-ream which you can build once you discover sailing +Now I usually build one or two tri-reams in a coastal city to go around the coast of the land mass +I'm on and scout out the situation +If another land mass or island is sufficiently close and you can usually see clues to that +on the map +I can cross to it without entering with ocean tile and extend my exploration +But to really explore the whole map you need to get to caravels +This renaissance area unit becomes available when you discover astronomy and is essentially a naval scouting unit +It can enter ocean tiles +So +You know one of the things I will focus on +You know I'm looking at my research +Is +Yeah, I will say okay, I need to get to astronomy and one of the tricks you can open up the technology tree +And if I click on astronomy it will automatically fill in any of the predecessors that have to be +Researched first to get there so if I say astronomy is my ultimate +Objective here my number one priority and so okay you got to research these other three things first +It will automatically take me through that so that's just a little tip +So this is a hookah for hacker public radio signing off and as always encouraging you to support free software +Bye bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4591.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4591.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..efd8818 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4591.txt @@ -0,0 +1,210 @@ +Episode: 4591 +Title: A Bit of Git +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4591/hpr4591.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:39 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4591, for 2026-03-09 +Today's show is entitled, "A Bit of Git" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:14:13 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee relates the git adventure that occurred while working on a work logging project" +Hello, I'm Leigh. +Style be relating the experience with the distributed version to troll system, called Get, +that happened this afternoon, 26th of December, we call that day here, Boxing Day. +Phone when it doesn't know, Get was crash by Linda Spenderdick to Vowd's, who is a finish +in the American software developer. +It's also known for being the craternly developer of the Lynette's kernel, which is running +on about 70% of the world's computing devices. +So, this afternoon I sat down and browsed onto the online repository of a project I've been +working on. +The project was a simple work session logger with both desktop and web versions. +The web version uses.net core, which is an open source framework, a little similar to Java, +and the desktop version uses Kirigami, a GUI development framework based on the KDA +management environment, but with libraries that allow the app to run in other environments. +The code hosting service, Get Hub, reminded me I had two outstanding issues to work on. +I sat about addressing those, a did by Claude Code, a professional coding tool that can +be conversed with in-chat, and is able to help with common software development tasks such +as writing debugging and testing code. +And it's just one of a number of such tools available that became possible with advances +in low-cost parallel computing, the accumulation of large amounts of human-produced digital +data and developments in computer science. +In particular, what is known as the Transformer architecture that weighs how different +words in text are related to each other statistically, and by doing this can build a massive +new data set known as a large language model, which can then be used to understand a process +both natural language and computer languages. +Today I made seven changes to the code of my work logging project, each one deserving +a commit, that's when you save the state of the code to the version control system. +First change, add some padding beneath the list of days to left pane, so when a scroll +down to the most recent, it's in the middle rather than hard to reach the bomb. +This was for both the web app and desktop app, then commit. +Second change, in the web app, stop code blocks in the word description going off the right +hand-edge, this requires some CSS tweaks, CSS being short for cascading style sheets, +it's the language that lets you change all the visual style of a web page without having +to adjust all the contents, then commit. +Third change, increase that padding for the web app, because it wasn't as much as I +typed, then commit. +Fourth change, get the web app to render work session notes as marked down rather than plain +text. +It was not even difficult, as a text component has that as an option, then commit. +Fifth change, fixing the Cloud Sync screen, which should regress, to splatting its contents +all over the window, instead of containing them in a mobile dialogue box. +A long bell should have been ringing for me at this point, so I distinctly remembered +fixing this once already. +I kind of assume maybe somehow I'd unfixed it with what I'd just been doing. +Anyway, despite my spy-desense tingling, commit this as well. +Sixth change, I just CSS layout a bit more, as the code blocks were still not responsive +when the browser window was narrowed. +Then commit. +Fifth change, adjust the CSS layout even more, for when the window is very narrow, like +on a mobile phone, then commit. +That was all I wanted to do for the day, it had not taken very long. +These changes were tested, both the web-based and desktop-based versions of the app, both +looked okay, and were behaving well. +So, the next step was to push my changes to the public repository. +This is a place where others can access the source code, download it, and make use of +it themselves, if they want to. +It's not like code hosting platform called GitHub. +There are other such platforms such as GitLab and BitBuckit, so name just a couple. +It is managed by the provider, and for small projects like my one, a free or low-cost +use. +There are also alternative ones like Gitty that can be hosted on your own infrastructure +if you want to have more control over things. +When I tried to push my changes, I got an error though. +I found out my branch had diverged from where I was pushing it to. +This was a classic mistake, I not pulled the code from the public repository prior to +starting work on it. +I just assumed I was working on the latest version of the code. +Then I remembered what had happened a few days ago, Monday to be precise, this been Friday. +I've been using my Dell laptop. +I had a synchronization software called Resilio Sync running on it and seeking all my files +between the mesh of different PC, servers, and laptops I use, and I thought this would +have updated things for me, but apparently I had not done so on this occasion. +So doing a fetch and looking at the log of commits in Graph Form, showed there was already +a fixed and a mode of dialogue issue in the public repository. +Even the fixed and previously was slightly better, because it explicitly made the Sync +dialogue not visible into it needed to be displayed rather than relying on any assumptions. +So two branches of the project had diverged. +At this point, if I had reason to believe other people were working on this code, it would +be necessary to start from the remote version and merge in my changes as new commits. +That would end up with quite a messy history, but there was another way that would keep +the history clean and easy to understand when looking back at these changes. +The operation to be performed was called a rebase. +This let's local commits be replayed one by one on top of the remote branch. +Plato talks about it in an episode of HPR, 2573 for June 13th, 2019, called Foundations +of Git Rebase. +So stepping through my commits, and I got to the one with the modal Sync dialogue box, +this had to be staged but the commits skipped since the fix I mentioned was already in place. +Having done this, the log of commits was very examined and looked now correct, so I pushed +this to GitHub. +At first I thought this was all fine now. +On closer inspection I could see attribution messages had been added, mentioning co-authorship +by the Claude Code to I'd been using. +Normally that would be fine by a reason for pause. +This was because the desktop version of this app, in the cart down form, had been deployed +on flat hub, which is the most common source for obtaining flat packed packages. +These are a new generation of software packages used to install software and Linux distributions. +This type of packaging system has two main advantages, first it's agnostic as to which particular +Linux distribution you're installing the software on, because it includes important dependency +libraries bundled with it. +Secondly, it incorporates sandboxing that limits the privileges the application has on the +system it's installed on. +This reduces potential side effects with the caveat that when privileged access of some +kind is required, this must be allowed for explicitly. +An example might be writing a file onto your home directory, which by default a sandbox +program would not be allowed to do. +Why was I bothered? +Well I remember that flat hub has deliberate policies around distributing code produced +by generative artificial intelligence systems. +And this is for good reason, on my still commercial large language models have been trained +from massive amounts of data that came from the public internet, especially source code +repository such as GitHub. +Arguably systems like Claude have used this information to learn how to program, which +is skill, but it's still plausible it remembers for baitum some of its training material. +In the same way that I remember punished by heart I was taught at the school, even though +I've primarily exposed to those texts to learn the pan's fan different forms of literature +and skills of comprehension and discourse. +If I produced a piece of writing and included word for word, some verse I'd remember +without attributing it to the offer this would be considered intellectual theft. +In the same way, large language models generally use a knowledge of programming to generate +completely new code put together a new ways. +If we exclude trivial common repetitions or idioms, it's likely to be distinct from anything +that existed before. +There's still the danger and LLM-Y output large amounts of someone's work exactly as it was +remembered. +Even open source licenses often demand proper attribution for the original program's work, +so it's basically not okay to redistribute something very close to what they wrote without proper +attribution. +This leads to a legal grey area between what is copying code someone else wrote and what is +termed fair use. +Saying all this, I don't think I've stolen someone else's code, but ering on the side of +both caution and pragmatism, I don't want to advertise too much in the public repository +what tools I've used if there are policy implications. +To fix this required rewriting the git history again, +it includes a way of doing this called filter branch, which could be combined with a text +replacement program called said. +That's SCD. +And speaking of said, I have a repurposed anti-region enclosure. +I got it out of the valves and put an old Android tablet in the face. +It shows a world clock, the weather, and foca flashcards in Dutch and Spanish, +so as well as a Latin conjunction, I know said means thirst in Spanish. +The English command line term said is a program that takes in some input text, +then a pattern, which is basically a string of text that encodes some rules it must apply, +and it produces output having applied those rules. +Unfortunately, the filter branch command that was tried didn't do anything. +The second attempt used the git command called rebase again, along with an exact parameter, +telling it to commit with amendment, a version of the original message, +using said to remove the unwanted mention of Claude. +Looking at the git log provided assurance this had worked. +I thought now this would be all resolved, but no, the history was still divergent +from the remote repository. +Changing the commit messages had again made it look like the changes were on the different branch, +even though the changes themselves were identical. +A normal git push would not work. +Luckily there's a way of overriding this problem by doing what's called a force push. +This is not something that anyone typically should do when the remote repository is shared +or public, since it will invalidate version control for anyone else working on this code. +Because this was quite a new project, and I was pretty sure I was the only person working on it, +and the divergence has happened only recently, I decided to go ahead and update the remote +repository this way anyway. +Finally, there was both for clean history and the commit messages stated just for each change +was not what tools I used. +Here's what I learned about git. +First, rebasing lets you replay commits. +If two branches diverge, you can replay your commits on top of the remote branch, +and keep the history simple. +Second, if conflicts occur with the rebase, they can be solved, +as you have the option to continue skip or abort entirely. +Third, with interactive rebasing, you can do powerful things like run arbitrary commands and each commit. +Useful for amending commit messages, for example. +Fourth, rewriting history changes commit hashes. +So even if the file changed is identical, the history has changed, so this needs to be born in mind. +A force push will rewrite the remote history, but it should be done with caution. +Only few are the only person working on the branch. +You're okay with the published history changing, and you've checked your changes are correct. +Six, using filter branch and said can be a bit tricky. +This is why I did the interactive rebase instead. +Here are the various commands that we used, git status, this checks the current status. +It especially tells you if there are any new on modified files and which of those files have been staged. +git fetch origin, this fetch is the latest history from the remote repository. +git log dash dash one line dash dash graph dash dash all dash dash the correct dash 15. +This draws a graph of the commit history. +git show origin slash main dash dash that or git show some hash and some file name. +Ever of these will show details of the commit, git rebase origin slash main. +This rebase is local commits onto the remote branch. +git add some file, stages of particular file, git rebase dash dash skip, this +skips the next commit when rebasing, git show dash dash, step capital HAAD, or git log dash dash format +equals in double quotes per cent capital B dash one capital HAAD, either of these will check commit message. +git rebase dash i sum hash dash dash exec in single quotes sum command, this runs a command like +git commit dash dash amend when rebasing, git push dash dash force, this does a force push. +I'm to put a reference to these in the show notes. +That's all for now, thanks for listening, bye bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4592.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4592.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..11b3c51 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4592.txt @@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ +Episode: 4592 +Title: Happy by shower # 2 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4592/hpr4592.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:40 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4592, for 2026-03-10 +Today's show is entitled, "Happy by shower # 2" +The host is Antoine and the duration is 00:05:21 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Other things that make me happy" +Hello, hello, welcome to HPR, hello, hello, this is the episode happy by shower, number +two, other things that make me happy. +I also happen to be happy when I see my dogs well, they're both a little wood and have +had grave sicknesses. +One, the girl, is taken medication because of a problem, maybe on this pine, that interferes +with walking, but in general, both her and him, a little white male, who almost died +because of stone in the ureter at around the pandemic, are today good and then grateful +seeing them in the state and they suffer when they suffer. +The hot weather is also more comfortable for them and for me in general, so even though +we are having too much hot weeks here in Kuri Chiba, it's a soft, nice weather. +Generally, I take a cup of coffee on the early morning, sometimes, I give a little +run, or go cycling to my duties, without coffee and even without bread. +Only then, hours later, I take the coffee and maybe eat something hours after a week. +The exercise, the bath with nothing nor the stomach, and oh, the coffee after, especially +espresso, or American, my current favorite, espresso with hot water, that's good, it's a +good feeling outside of the routine. +I learned to like to share things, I like to share what a judging partant, as much as I +appreciate doing that, they feel as a burden, an account or a published content, are like +something and constantly caring that may condemn what it comes to be, or may create expectations +on others that see them, that they can fulfill, or are being the road in a manner that they feel +so insecure, so if you're good and safe and erasing everything under my control, sometime after +having created an account or published something. I feel well, and it makes me happy to have +an out of sleep in which I don't wake up more than once, if I wake up early spontaneously +and rested, better yet. Good sensation makes me happy. To be true, when I spend the first time +on the morning reading the Bible with prayer, even on a not keen on doing that, man, my head and my +body end up being marvellous. Martin Luther, the one of the reform, is said to having said, +I have so much to do that I will spend the first three hours praying. +A piece of opinion, an asked, if you are constantly doing something, you think it's too easy, +you may not be doing it right, or you're not doing the right thing. Let's see what's wrong +and do the right thing. One last thing that makes me happy is when my swimming pool is clean, +it's been four years now, as with the other facts, it's good by itself, yeah, but has more +meaning, as I had many dirty problems with its water to the points that the neighbors called +sanitary authorities. I don't want to have anymore problems in this area, or in any other area +of living, but I know now and have to guide my heart to feel accordingly to what I know, +that any problems that arise are to result in my good and good to other people and other +living creatures too. So the difficulties even the hardest ones can be faced with peace, +because in all the future and being in a bad state, we will not help, we will not help in hiking +and overcoming whatever there is here now or right ahead. Our posture, our internal condition +in doing something, counts much together with the external things, visible or invisible, +dead we do. I thank you for listening, bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4593.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4593.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b88953 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4593.txt @@ -0,0 +1,138 @@ +Episode: 4593 +Title: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 8 Generation Four Reactors +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4593/hpr4593.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:41 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4593, for 2026-03-11 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 8 Generation Four Reactors" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:11:29 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Future reactor technologies, particularly what are referred to as Generation Four reactors." +This episode is the eighth and final one in an eight-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +In this episode, I will talk about future reactor technologies, particularly what are referred to as generation four reactors. +Some of these will simply be additional developments of reactors that have already been discussed in this series, +but this will show what technologies are seen as being most promising today. +What is generation four? +Generation four international forum is an international organization whose membership is composed of many of the countries that are researching advanced vision reactors. +Their goal is to conduct a number of joint research projects to advance the state of the art. +The members agreed to participate in and share a research on advanced technologies. +Research subjects. +Here are the subjects undergoing research at this time. +Half of them are some form of fast neutron reactor. +The names they use here are for the specific projects and not intended to encompass all possible reactor types. +Lead fast reactors. +Lead cooled fast reactors use a liquid lead or lead bismuth cooling. +As the name implies, they use the fast neutron reaction. +Lead has a high boiling point up to 1,743C, favorable neutronic properties, and does not react strongly with air or water. +The reactor would operate at atmospheric pressure. +Fuel is your radium, Epletonium mixed oxide, or nitrite. +The main advantages of this reactor are lower capital and construction costs because of operating at atmospheric pressure, +and design simplifications which lead permits. +The problems we worked on are related to materials and chemistry. +Sodium fast reactor. +Sodium cooled fast reactors use a liquid sodium coolant. +As the name implies, they use the fast neutron reaction. +The reactor would operate at atmospheric pressure. +Fuel is your radium and plutonium mixed oxide or metal. +They have a great deal of flexibility in terms of how much plutonium they use or create. +However, the coolant is highly reactive with air and water, and requires an oxygen-free environment. +There is a long history of experience with sodium fast reactors to build on. +They are very well suited to producing plutonium with which to fuel other reactors, +including providing the plutonium driver for thorium fuel, +eliminating the need for uranium enrichment. +Gas cooled fast reactor. +Gas cooled fast reactors use helium gas coolant. +As the name implies, they use the fast neutron reaction. +The reactor would operate at high pressure. +Fuel is uranium and plutonium carbide. +Helium is non-corrosive, and unlike lead or sodium, it is transparent, +easing inspection of the reactor. +The high temperature helium can be used directly to provide process heat to industry, +as well as for producing steam for electricity generation. +However, without a moderator, the system has very low thermal mass, +meaning that temperatures can rise more quickly in the event of a loss of coolant. +It requires very pure helium coolant as hydrogen and cause +embrittlement of metals. +Very high temperature reactor. +Very high temperature reactors use helium gas coolant. +Unlike gas cooled fast reactors, they use a slow neutron reaction. +The reactor would operate at high pressure. +Fuel is uranium and plutonium oxide, or uranium and thorium oxide, +mixed with graphite in billiard balls, size spheres, or in blocks. +The spherical fuel variants are essentially pebble bed reactors. +Operating temperatures are 700 to 850C, and possibly more than a thousandC later. +As well as producing electricity, the heat could be used directly for process heat for industry, +including producing hydrogen. +There is a great deal of experience with gas cooled reactors of various types of drop-on. +Molten salt reactors. +Molten salt reactors use various molten salts as coolant. +Different variants use slow or fast neutron reactions. +Some will use conventional solid fuel, while others use fuel that is dissolved in the salt coolant. +Where the salt is dissolved in the coolant, there will be online chemical processing +to remove waste products and keep the chemistry and balance. +Advantage of molten salt over water coolant are operating at ambient pressure and higher temperatures. +Heat can be used directly in some industrial processes. +Problems to be solved include corrosion caused by molten salt and maintaining the correct chemistry +to salt when using dissolved fuel. +Supercritical water reactors. +Supercritical water reactors are water-cooled reactors that operate at temperatures and pressures +above the critical point of water, which is 374C and 22.1 megapascals. +Supercritical water has a behavior somewhere between that of liquid water and gaseous steam. +At the critical point, the supercritical fluid has a density of about one-third that of liquid water. +These can use slow or fast neutron reactions. +Fuel is uranium oxide, plutonium uranium mixed oxide, or plutonium thorium mixed oxide. +The moderator is light water, heavy water, or no moderator in the case of fast reactors. +They can be pressure vessel reactors, similar to boiling or pressurized water reactors, +or Kalandria and pressure tube reactors, similar to can-do reactors. +Supercritical water has been well-established in industry, but the first supercritical boiler being built in 1960. +Modern fossil fuel-fired steam generating plants use supercritical water boilers and turbines. +Supercritical water reactors can expect to have thermally efficiencies of 44 to 48%. +Current water-cooled reactors have thermally efficiencies of 34 to 36%. +The benefits of higher efficiencies are to get more power from a similar size of plant reducing capital costs. +Additionally, the characteristics of supercritical water allow reactors to be simplified further reducing costs. +Using supercritical water would allow nuclear power plants to use the same sorts of steam turbines as are used in fossil fuel plants, +reducing costs and increasing the supply chain availability. +With supercritical water, there is only a single phase rather than separate liquid and gas phases. +This simplifies the design and reduces the number of components, as no steam generators are needed. +Supercritical water reactors combine decades of experience with water-cooled reactors, with decades of experience of the supercritical water in multiple industries. +This is seen as the natural evolution of water-cooled reactors. +Cost estimates from studies done in Europe in Japan suggest cost reductions of 20 to 30%. +The main challenges revolve around developing materials that are compatible with both the very high temperature water and with radiation, particularly for the fuel cladding. +Concept designs have been made for both large and SMR size supercritical water reactors. +Episode conclusion. In this episode, we looked at the reactor types being studied under an international organization called the Generation 4 International Forum. +All of these reactor types, except for supercritical water reactors, are not new, and we have looked at them previously. +Supercritical water reactors themselves represent the natural evolution of water-cooled reactors. +I suspect that many of these research projects will not result in commercially successful results, such as the nature of R&D. +The supercritical water reactors would, on the surface, seem to have the most promise in terms of commercial use. +As they focus on bringing two very well-established technologies together, water-cooled reactors and supercritical water. +However, I'm not an expert in this field, so I'm just making an educated guess on that. +Series conclusion. This is the end of the series on nuclear reactor technology. +Episode 1 covered nuclear basics, including basic terminology and several verses military nuclear material. +Episode 2 covered nuclear fuel, including the different types, recycling of spent fuel, uranium, and thorium resources, and medical isotopes. +Episode 3 covered reactor basics, including slow versus fast reactors, moderators, coolants, steam generation, refueling methods, and the three main commercial reactor types. +Episode 4 covered the less common reactor types, including types which are no longer used, some historical developmental dead ends, and some types which may possibly be making a comeback. +Episode 5 covered fast reactors, including the different types, some of their history, why they were developed, and why they have so far only seen limited use. +Episode 6 covered thorium reactors, including what is thorium and how it differs from uranium, why there is interest in thorium, what sorts of reactors can use thorium, and why thorium has not yet seen widespread use. +Episode 7 covered small modular reactors, or SMRs, what is the reason for developing them, what are the different ways they may be used, and where they are currently being built. +Episode 8 covered generation 4 reactors, which is a collection of future technologies. +I hope that this series has been useful and informative on how nuclear reactors work, and what the different types of reactors and different types of fuel are. +I have focused on the past and present, without looking very much beyond what is already developed except in this final episode. +I have focused on the reactors, fuel and medical isotopes, without much discussion of mining, refining, converting, enrichment, fuel fabrication, or disposal. +I also haven't talked much about the rest of a functioning power plant, which includes cooling, steam turbines, generators, transformers, control systems, refueling systems, switch gear, transmission grid connections, grid coordination, and many many other things. +And of course, those entire grid itself, a very complex thing when operated at scale. +Nonetheless, we count on the lights going on when we turn on the light switch, while seldom thinking about all the things that go on behind the scenes to make that happen. +As the recent blackout in Spain shows, that is something that we can't take for granted. +With plans for net zero amounting to essentially the further electrification of everything, we need reliable sources of electrical energy to make that happen. +Without reliable electrical energy, available at the touch of a switch, we don't even have a Stone Age civilization, let alone a modern one. +So think about that the next time you turn on a light or listen to a podcast or do nearly everything else in your daily life. +This concludes the 8th and final episode of an 8-part series on nuclear reactor technology. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4594.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4594.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d65f083 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4594.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2275 @@ +Episode: 4594 +Title: Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 2 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4594/hpr4594.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:42 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4594, for 2026-03-12 +Today's show is entitled, "Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 2" +The host is Honkeymagoo and the duration is 01:41:29 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "the hpr community comes together to converse" +I don't have to run off till about two o'clock to go to work. +I'm over in Kentucky. Where you can again? +Uh, I can't say. +I don't really have anything else to do with it. +I took my hand off the push to talk. +I mean, Kentucky, where are you, Kentucky? +Yep. +Uh, the U.S. +Uh, control U.S. +So it was a cold right now? +Yeah, it's a chemical death. +Yeah, I'm in Texas and it's freaking cold right now. +All right. +It's a little bit below freezing this morning. +Uh, don't think it's below freezing here. +Computer? What's the temperature? +Not using alex, are you? +I am. +Right, homocysteine. +No, I'm using a lexistine. +I also know. +Yes. +I have nothing to worry about. +From Alexa, but I do have homocysteine. +To go along with all my other monitoring equipment. +I'm just invited big brother into my house. +Enjoy what he is and for audio these days. +What do you mean? +Uh, I've discovered a, uh, your, um, sound core, your piece. +And I actually has a mic too and I, it does decent on phone calls. +Oh, um, what I'm using right now is the, um, +Arctic steel series, um, the 9x. +I really, I, I like the headset. +It sounds good. +You can get them relatively cheap. +Um, but, um, like the entire steel series line has a problem with, uh, +plastic breaking right where the connection is on the headset to the, the, the band. +But, um, the nice thing about it is with a 3D printer. +I can, you know, completely redo the shells. +And what I found is that it works really well with the new shell. +So, I have, I have, uh, three of them that I'm using right now. +And then I'm also, I also rotate with, um, +I got my Razor Nari Ultimate's working, well, two of the three of those. +I got working again, so I've been using those as well on a regular basis. +Um, and, um, I still have the, um, my son and I like to use, um, +the Skull Candy crushers, um, when we go to the gym. +So I keep a couple of those in rotation and working. +But the nice thing with the, the arc disk, um, +steel series that the 9x is, is that I can, +with the xbox adapter. +I can hook to my phone and to my computer at the same time. +But because it requires the xbox adapter, +I cannot use the, the 9x on my work computer. +So I will have to switch over to the, um, the Nari for work calls, +because they only do through the computer now. +I'm going to call out to your phone. +Yeah, I'm a little surrounded by headphones. +That good. +I like working on headphones. +So it's, I consider it a good thing. +I mean, if I look right now, I have, um, +other than the ones I mentioned, um, +I've got a wired audio, +like a M50x that's slightly modified to have, um, +a different angle of cup. +So it squeezes the head a little bit better. +And also I have 3D printed the hinge fixes for those +because the hinges break so easy. +And then I have, um, +a knockoff of the HyperX cloud that, um, +the mic isn't as good as some of the other ones, +so I don't use it as often. +And then I tried getting, you know, a, a standard like work headset +that would connect to both my phone and my work laptop, um, +and what's weird about this plan, +electronics headset that I have is that it will do that on a Linux machine. +But then if I hook it up to a Windows machine, +it won't read the microphone. +It doesn't see the microphone, +which makes it kinda useless. +But it's a decent enough headset. +So I keep it as a backup. +Actually right now, I got to find the USB dongle for it. +But it should be here somewhere. +And that's really it. +Oh well, um, I have a bunch of broken, um, +the Skull Candy Hesh 3s +that I need to do various fixes for that my daughters +really like using the Hesh 3s. +So, and those that the yokes tend to break on them really easy, +but those are also easy to 3d print. +And I guess with the crushers, the hinges break on those +really easy as well. +And I've had to print out a crap ton of hinges for those. +But it keeps me printing on the 3d printer. +I don't have any room for a 3d printer here. +I just live in a trailer. +I've lived in a trailer before too. +It's... +Fun. +It's cozy. +This is there. +Yeah, my little, I have my little space set out, +and I just stay with my computer on a bed. +But she's got room for a microwave. +You got room for a 3d printer. +It depends on the size of the microwave. +A big of a space do you need? +But two foot by two foot. +And then maybe maybe two and a half feet tall. +Just looking at my, um, centauric carbon right now. +I mean, they make smaller 3d printers. +Or other budget ones like for the 3d printing. +Well, that depends on what you're calling budget, +honestly, because a lot of people would consider the +elegous, centauric carbon to be a budget +corrects why printer. +But it runs between $250 and $300. +Um, an awful, is it? +No, that's actually a really good price. +But like I said, it depends on what you call budget. +Um, you can still get the the Ender 3 series for around that same price range. +But you're getting more with the elegous centauric carbon +because it has an enclosure and we'll print higher +temp things and we'll print a much faster than the Ender. +But, um, I mean, you can get on to Ali Express. +And I've seen people buy like $70 printers +that, you know, they make a product. +And with tuning and, you know, if you can keep ahead of everything on it, +then it doesn't do terribly. +It's just, you know, they make better ones. +Uh, so I remember right, um, +there's an STL or not an STL, but G code that comes with the centauric carbon. +Uh, that will do a really nice benchy in about 15 minutes. +What's that? +It's a benchy. +It's basically the term. +It's, you've never heard of a benchy. +Uh, it's a little bit. +It's a little bit. +It's a little, um, boat that tests your printer. +And, um, there's various parts of it that, like, +overhangs and, um, it's a bridging and, um, +lettering on the bottom and just different things that will tell you, +uh, if there's anything that needs calibrated on your printer. +Oh. +Okay, now you say that I, I think I've seen that. +Yeah. +It's still what I was called. +It's a cool little print. +It's usually people's first print. +Although my first print was, um, +Yoda. +It was a Yoda head. +On the model price, uh, +makers select V2, which was my first printer. +And then my second printer was the Ender 3v2. +And then now I have the Elagusentari Carbon. +And I think I'm going to end up, +it, he would already have it. +My son would already have my Ender 3v2. +If he could actually, like, clean his room. +And I guess that's too much to ask. +You had a kid to clean the room? +Huh? +Yeah. +I remember trying to get my kid to clean his room. +Yeah. +If mine could get his clean and, like, keep it clean, +he would have a 3D printer in there. +Maybe because he, he tends to go stay at my dad's for the summer. +Maybe I'll let him take it with him then. +Yeah, my daughters bought me the Elagusentari Carbon +for, for my birthday. +They, they went together on it. +I've had it for about six months now. +All right. +I'm going to have to jump off for a bit, guys. +I'll talk to you later. +Bye. +Bye. +Hi. +Get it. +All right. +And I guess I'm back later. +Hi, George. +Got your in the stream. +Hello, Ken. +The stream was working. +Good morning. +Or almost afternoon in your part of the world. +Yep. +Still the work to do. +Well, it's so quiet today, I guess. +Well, there's a bit of talking earlier about, +you see headphones, +and their printers. +Don't read me for me. +Audio book. +That was audio books. +There's a little conversation, Brian. +I just saw your pollstone, +the HBO channel, so I come into check. +That's working for me. +Yeah, it was me. +It was my problem. +Spectrum. +We start the recordings in here. +We want sick. +No. +I want give you one say. +Well, George. +Hello. +For me though, that may be. +It will cause a problem for the person who stands at the +issues together. +Please go do that. +How's your day so far, Archie? +I'm too bad. +It's still early. +You could do okay. +Well, I'm delighted that. +I'm affected. +It's not a quick and time. +Yes, here. +Oh, drop off. +Thing me if there's nothing. +I'll do. +George, you already went for your morning walk at Walmart. +Yes. +I took my quick roundabout walk to Panara first. +I got with a few people that I usually disagree with. +And politically wise. +And then had a couple of coffees came home. +Well, roundabout through Wallyworld. +Pick up some. +I don't know. +I'm not an alcoholic type. +Things for tonight. +So I'm going to have some beer. +You never know. +Somebody else might. +Or they might all be. +I don't have anything but coffee in the house. +It's mine. +It's a good choice. +Yeah, I have tons of coffee. +I'm an entire freezer door full of coffee. +But this is more for. +I don't know. +Like fake champagne. +So we got the. +So here's a story for you guys. +So I'm checking them. +I might buy hot terminal. +So it's actually. +So that is. +And three hours ago. +I was posted that I ran into his under a massive cyber attack. +So I wonder if that state authorized from say is real slash US. +But my guess is it is coming from anywhere. +It's coming from Israel. +They have some of the best. +Cyber thing is going out there. +Other than China and Russia. +So I don't think we have all the abilities. +One thing we should have. +Yeah, it looks like the cyber attack is getting one of the. +It looks like it's coming from 120,000 different sources. +And it's attacking. +What's the name of the company? +One of the country's communications providers. +I'm not giving them. +I assume. +Yeah, it's not saying which completely. +Repel and neutralize. +So apparently, you take long has no internet. +I guess. +It's not getting away from this article. +And we'll drop it on. +I think we have a place for show notes here too. +I have to check it out. +I'm going to see why it's my phone trying to re-lock the bootloader. +And then I forgot to put Baja. +The news back on. +That's it. +I don't know. +I don't know if anyone can see that without without a count. +I get to find the other URL. +Thank you. +I'm doing this for my PC in my phone. +Now there's reports coming in of an attack on a cover building in Tehran. +I'm trying to find the Baja. +I happened to play store and I'm missing it. +Yeah, I think it's still there. +It should be BHA financial or something. +I don't know. +He used to be called the. +Might be under on. +I don't know what it was called. +Teletrater was the initial name for Baja. +We before us by. +Hello, pirate. +Oh, hi. +Oh, hi. +Oh, hi. +Oh, hi. +I can't fall in a netmine right here. +I've seen a new y'all in a good while. +Probably since last year. +I haven't heard netmine or talk. +But then again, I was up an hour later than when the stream started. +Oh, yeah. +I'm just getting up. +It's probably up on six a.m. local. +You must be West Coast then. +Sorry. +You're on the West Coast then. +I'm in eastern time. +I, yeah. +Yeah. +Seattle. +So that's close to where my sister lies. +She's in Oregon. +We only drop in a few minutes. +I got a minute. +I put this meditation thing at 10 a.m. after. +So. +And now I'll be back. +So after that. +Anyone. +Gonna be. +And I don't see the time zones here in four minutes. +I think according to the HPR page, +we were not doing that anymore. +Oh, that's slightly unfortunate. +Oh, I guess any one of you could really do it if you wanted to. +I mean, you know, it's not like a step. +I'm very proud of the fact that I was on the first one of these. +So I sure you are working on a. +Interesting projects these days. +I have an HP 600 something that many people see that I put. +One terabyte NVMe drive in and also put the same type of drive in my laptop to upgrade it. +I also have an HP project. +I've been working on there. +Mine is not a mini piece. +It is in fact a mini computer. +If you understand the difference. +Together. +A mini computer is. +It's smaller than the mainframe, but it's got mainframe like properties. +In this case, it's got three CPUs. +And it has eight megabytes of RAM. +And it's a giant beast from the mid 80s. +I think the text is speech interrupted you from the chat. +But I think I understand what's going on. +It was like an interesting project. +That's an HP 9000 series 550. +If I get it working, it might be the only working example in the world. +Maybe I've got it. +So it gets to the point where it wants to load an OS. +And I'm trying to emulate the disk and have it quite got that part worked out yet. +But once I get that part working, then I'll be pretty greedy. +And then I got to figure out what to do with it. +Because it didn't make a waste of RAM. +Very much. +That was a lot back. +By the way, do you see a place for show notes? +I'm trying to look on the HP or something. +I actually don't. +It's right. +I look the fur down and says add the show notes. +Please. +I don't want to drop it in the chat. +But it is on the HP or main page. +Show. +It's show not stop. +Logcast.mywire.org. +There it is. +I don't see any show notes in here yet. +We're talking about the L.A.G.V. +3D printer. +A little while ago about 20 or 30 minutes ago. +I'll add a little bit about the HP 9000. +Oh, look up my HP 600 shortly. +If Amazon drop it in the notes. +Unfortunately, Amazon has all my history of everything I bought. +Just the other of the show notes. +Maybe you could drop in a little bit about the Baha terminal. +Baha terminal. +It's for business. +Sometimes it gives news to. +We're talking about Israel's cyber attacking something. +I can't remember. +George Joe Smart would have to fill on up. +Oh, yeah. +I did a link to the HP computer museum paid on the computer working on. +I think I'm going to hop off for a while on the D.M. +Morning routine. +Kind of wanted to see if anyone is on just yet. +Clearly, y'all are probably back in a few hours. +Good morning, Moss. +I'm just trying to gather information about the last couple of subjects. +One of them being the L.A. Gu carbon printer for 3D printing. +Moss, you should be able to go to the initial set up set that pushed to talk from. +I just signed to the left control. +But I'm no more right now. +Well, it might be working now. +I hear you, Moss. +It is working just fine. +You're coming through loud and clear. +Great. +It's also putting spaces in the text box. +I'm going to have to go back and use something other than a spacebar. +Do you use left control? +I accidentally pressed that sometimes when I'm on the PC, but usually works. +All right. Got it on left control. +Sounds good to me. +Good morning, Archir. +Good morning. +I'm usually not up this early. +Time is on, are you? +Eastern? +Same. +Yeah, that I'm old. I usually don't get up this early. +I was up at 1.30 and then went back to bed a couple hours later and then back up at 6. +I tend to get up to pee and then go right back to sleep. +I get things on my mind and I just get on the laptop and just keep going. +Yeah, that's why I'm awake now. +I try and keep things off my mind in the middle of the night. +But you can't always. +I have an even started the pot yet. +So you need coffee to make coffee, right? +That's a poor cat a while ago. +I trapped my cat in this room with me. +So he wouldn't be out and wake up my wife. +He still does the same art. +I still have that cat that I think we talked about last year. +And he's telling me I was at the door. +Well, we had three cats last year and we're down to one now. +I'm sorry. +That we are just getting up there. +He's closer to 14 in February. +Yeah. +Our remaining cat is 13 in April. +We actually don't know when his birthday was. +So we just say that since we got him around our anniversary. +So we say his birthday is February. +And then we got a buggy in. +Uh, initially July. +We rescued him. +He's part beagle part Boston Terrier. +Okay. +Yeah. +I was with Cecil when he was born. +But I don't remember what day it was. +I basically just looked at his. +Uh, bay records and extra related backwards from there. +Um, new to records. +Sorry. +More than else, Beth. +What time's on are you in? +I am in central. +I'm not certain if you can hear me though. +We can hear you. +Can hear you. +We're both Eastern. +Moss. +How far are you? +I am in eastern Tennessee. +So I'm not that far away. +I'm in central Turkey. +A little bit more about an hour north of Lexington. +Yeah. +We just moved this year after over nine years in plain Tennessee to Morris town. +I used to live over in Oak Grove. +That's a bit of ways from where you all are. +But he's living Kentucky on the border. +Yeah, I'm not going to move again if I can help it. +I'm 73 now and it was way too rough. +We haven't even come close to unpacking yet. +I am actually currently packing for a move across the pond. +Oh, my. +If I ever move again, they're just going to have to send someone to come and pack all my stuff. +I've been doing more of me because I can't. +I don't blame you. +Not one bit. +I'm amazingly mobile for all the health problems I have. +I mean, none of the health problems are keeping me from standing up and walking around. +Thank goodness. +Good to hear you at least have some mobility. +Yeah, I've been doing substitute teaching. +Uh, I basically babysit. +I make sure they don't burn the room down and that's about it. +That is a huge endeavor. +Yeah, they say when you get so old that, um, you know, you can't work. +So what your bills go away? +No, that doesn't happen. +Yeah, that that's not a thing in this world. +Social security is not covered two people in my wife's. +Import from Canada and is not eligible for anything anywhere. +Oh, my. +I forget how much I get. +I let her handle the finances, but it's 14 something a month. +So we need a lot more money than that. +I get that. +Well, my mother passed away almost five years ago and we have a five year grant from her. +Uh, that every month we get a certain amount of money, which is more than I've ever made in my life. +But still not really that great. +We can get all the things we always wanted, but um, we can't really keep anything in savings +because the things we want break down and we have to pay for that. +And it expires in June, June is our last payment. +Well, hopefully something will come through for you between now and then. +The idea of my wife moving down here was that she was going to work. +And I was going to more or less pick up things on the side and it hasn't happened. +She has not been healthy enough to work. +Oh, that's unfortunate. +I'm sorry to hear that. +Hopefully it's new year will bring better health and wellness for both of you. +She's just hoping it doesn't bring an ice agent to the door. +I'm not even going to respond to that. +That would be awful. +She is scared. +I'll tell you that. +Even though she's white and Canadian. +Yeah. +Hey, Lee. +Well, I already have this week's full circle weekly news in the can. +I just have to edit it and send it to our fearless leader, Ronnie. +Can you say Lee was here? +I see him. He's muted. +And he's probably figuring out how to get it going. +I wanted to tell him that you make a good team when you get together on the podcast. +He's the reason I even do podcasts. +I love doing them when he, like, asked me questions. +And I can respond because it's easier for me to communicate that way. +Please forgive me. +What podcast? +HPR. +Okay. +You've done a few. +Elizabeth has done a few episodes now with Lee. +Yeah. +What time do you start coming on? +I think he recorded our first one in May or June. +I don't remember. +I think he was earlier. +Yeah. +That's right. +That's right. +It was early on the year. +I've done a couple of this here, but I've been taking a long sabbatical permit cast. +But I've still been keeping both circle weekly news going every week. +That's awesome. +I want once I move across the pond, I'll probably have more podcasts coming on. +Full circle weekly news is fun because I get my news articles from Eric the Unready +News in South Africa. +And then I do the episode and I send it up to Ronnie Tucker who's in Scotland. +And he publishes it. +Lee does all my audio and editing and everything like that. +And then just sends me the links so I can post it. +Yeah. +This is the only podcast I've ever done the audio editing on. +It's easier because it's just me. +But I meant cast was always fun because we never knew who was going to be on. +And I don't know. +I just, I was not going to be doing audio editing for five or six streams. +And that would be a lot. +I think in April, I'll hit my five year anniversary on Pulse Circle Weekly News. +I'm amazed. +Congrats. +I haven't missed a week yet, although sometimes they get submitted weird. +Just a couple weeks ago, Ronnie was holding them back because he couldn't find the link +file for 442. +And so 441 wasn't released and 443 wasn't released until I got the major third time, +fourth time I got into the link file. +Yeah. +I'm still learning all the nuances of everything. +Lee's the one that is the expert in this. +I just offer random info dumping. +Yeah. +Fun thing where the news are news podcasts. +I don't know half of what I'm talking about. +I just have to make sure I'm trying to pronounce it right. +Still be fun though. +I love news stuff. +That's curated in a way that I can just, you know, listen and. +Well, tune in, you know, we're on all the pod catchers. +Yeah, I'll check it out. +If you can't find it on the pod catcher, just go to full circle magazine.org. +And there'll be a link there. +Moss, what do you use as a pod catcher? +What do I use? +I think I've got pod cast addict right now. +I was on pod cast addict for a long while. +And it, it goes well with when you're on a rental car and you're using the Google system. +But I want to use antenna pad too. +I just got switched before between the two. +I used antenna pod in the beginning. +But once I started using pod cast addict, I stopped using it. +I can't handle multiple streams, you know. +It's understandable. +Just use what works for you. +I figure sometime. +Mark your April. +I'll get back on mint cast. +That's been going says 2008 now. +And somehow it keeps going no matter who cycles in and out of the cohost chairs. +They actually have a tally of who did which episode and how many episodes they've done. +And I number four on the frequency list. +And oh, I wish I had this voice all the time. +This is my favorite voice. +I usually sound like I'm scattered and have an octave up from here. +Okay, I've got full circle podcast. +So I can check it out later. +Thank you. +I am about to edit for 46 some time today. +I wish I had limit trades just set up. +Oh, well. +What are limit trades? +I'm assuming it's stock market where you set it up. +That if it goes over this, then you sell it and it goes under that you buy. +Oh, my brain totally spaced on that context. +So pretty much he's right. +It's basically right now. +I'm just looking at what I'm looking at fires. +I was right now because the dow is down. +But yeah, I'm just looking what I'm willing to pay for certain stocks. +And then I set a limit to end of day, which is we have a full stock market. +A nice, nice deck today. +So it's open to four. +Yes. +So I set up limit trades. +Right now this is a day like this. +I would normally buy instead of sell also. +Yeah, this has been a rough year for me. +I've cut way back on what stocks I still have. +I'm going for one that is not going to pay off for at least several years. +And another one that's going to pay off really big in several years. +If you know, you know, +and I'm I'm only down to four stocks. +Stupid Robin Hood went and gave me a crypto. +I didn't want and I'm waiting for it to go up. +So I can sell it and put it into one I do. +Yeah, it despises Robin Hood. +But this is me. +I do have a Robin Hood account. +But they have a classic terminal look now. +But I've been using E-Trade for years before that. +It was share builders. +And then it was ING financial. +I think. +And then that got sold to E-Trade. +So I guess I've only trade since 2000. +The 4ish 5ish. +Robin Hood is trying to get everyone interested in them. +They're doing these big giveaways over the holidays. +And they're big giveaway got me $2.19 worth of dough, +which I do not want. +Everyone wants dough. +Actually, that's one of the few. +Because it's based I think it's based off Ethereum. +I'm not that much in a crypto. +And crypto is garbage right now. +Because it's losing every one money. +But I follow it just to just to know. +But those I think it's based off Ethereum. +If I was going to trade anything would be Ethereum stuff. +I have a lot of crypto, but not like crazy amount. +Yeah, the only crypto I have in want is Pengu. +Because it's, you know, Pengu. +Pudgy penguin. +And I don't care whether it goes up and down. +I don't have more than 30 bucks in it anyhow. +If it goes way up, great. +If it goes down, I can just sit on it. +Someone out there made it big off of a hard drive +that I disposed of an unintentionally long time ago. +Right now all I have is a little bit of stellar. +And even that's probably not worth anything. +Yeah, I think Pengu is based on Monaro. +But I just got it for the penguin. +I would have got it for the penguin too. +If I'd seen it. +They actually were selling stuff to animal penguins. +It at Wal-Martin. +Very other stores. +We bought a few of them. +Ooh. +I mean penguins that were actually produced by the company +that does Pengu. +Oh, cool. +If you see any Pudgy penguin toys, +they're backing Pengu or backed by Pengu. +I don't know how it goes. +I suppose they found a way to make some actual money +while they were building up the stock. +He's trying to get things. +Yeah. +I just try not to find that. +The push to talk is working. +It is. +It sounds good. +I was going to say it isn't just to confuse you. +You should do that. +That's what has had a little bit. +Yeah. +We all need to be more confused. +Oh. +That is what it is. +Today's market is all red. +It's probably going to close my terminal or minimize it for about three hours. +You know. +I'm going to talk to you guys. +Yeah. +Well, we have to go to another town. +We bought a car. +And my answer through a credit union that does not have a branch in this town. +And we've been fighting like hell to get our account set up at that credit union. +And no, we're just going to have to go to the nearest one, +which is like 25 miles away. +No, we're not rich. +We bought a 2014. +I have to drive like 17 minutes just to get to a Walmart or grocery store. +It's a small town life. +Yeah. +Morris town has two Walmart's amazingly hand. +A Walmart neighborhood market, which is only four tens of a mile from us. +Oh, that's nice. +Our town only has a bank. +A beauty salon that's never open. +A bar that's always open and a wood fire pizza place. +Interesting fact about Walmart that they switched from nice to nice. +That recently. +Well, the last month and a half. +Sam Walton would be rolling in his grave right now with what his kids have done with that place. +Well, at least haven't been revocos. +He has a finger. +Hey, one of the female Walton airs has turned liberal. +Well, after she got away with killing someone. +I guess that would be the way she'd go home. +I'm not an issue with liberals or anything. +I just she got away with some stuff. +I wasn't aware of that. +I spent 28 years of my adult life in Oklahoma. +So the talk about Walmart was big then. +Yeah, I generally am anti Walmart, but after so long of being broke. +You don't have too many other choices. +There you go. +That's why that's the only reason I still shop at Walmart. +And even then I try and go to Aldi when I can. +I refer to it as Voldemort. +I like that. +I got that from 11 year old girl about 15 years ago. +I needed. +I needed to work. +So I'm going there. +I'm working there. +Probably. +I either call it while we were older. +Get a mart. +It just depends on the location. +Voldemort. +The story which must not be named. +Does anybody have the mobile app? +I'm trying to turn off the text to speech. +The instructions were that we had to have on text to speak. +The instructions were pushed to talk. +Text to speech keeps interrupting you. +Oh, okay. +I'm sorry. +My brain is not working. +Like I said, I'm not usually up this early. +It's quite right. +It's just I want to hear people talk. +And then when somebody dropped something in the chat, he talks to me. +And the answer on my end is no. +I do not have the mobile app. +So I'm sorry. +The mobile app doesn't work for me because I got an iPhone. +And it just doesn't work. +I'm barely confident to use the desktop app. +I found the checkbox to uncheck. +So it's final. +Yay. +Lee, why aren't you talking? +I'm 18. +I eat bite potato. +We have ham and lettuce and all that kind of stuff. +It says to spare you all from that. +Oh, okay. +And I've got a shop here called. +Is it subway all great? +So let me just check actually. +I'm proud of you, Eric. +So okay. +This is not local knowledge. +I've just checked. +This was subway. +So I've been to subway and Madrid. +I guess there are subway. +I mean. +And I also prefer to work. +It still amazes me that there's so many American fast food. +Places over there on the high street. +Yeah. +Moving to Morris town. +There are some of our favorite fast food places. +We don't have here. +We have to drive all the way back in Knoxville. +Don't get me wrong. +We have most of the things. +But like we don't have a panera bread. +We don't have a pen station. +Those are two of ours. +Trying to think. +I think the closest thing to a local ish fast food chain that we have. +It's culvers, but it's kind of gotten real big. +And it's originally from Wisconsin, which is not where I'm at. +Yeah. +There's the culvers in Knoxville. +It used to be located close to Wisconsin. +We've eaten at culvers a couple of times. +It's pretty good. +I like it. +But if you have any issues with your digestion. +It's probably not the best place to go with all that butter that they cook the burgers with. +Ah. +Well, the Taco Bells. +We have three Taco Bells in Morris town. +And none of them are any good. +I mean, it's one Taco Bells. +It's just. +Yeah. +I've always had toxic health. +So you. +I'm one up on you. +I have heard that most. +Taco Bueno is better than Taco Bell. +We don't have that. +We do have one Taco Johns. +And it was good. +And it's gone downhill. +I tried Del Taco once when it first came to Tulsa. +I don't know. +I don't live there anymore. +But. +Yeah. +Del Taco's an interesting. +Amalgamation of different things. +Yeah. +When I was in Denver, we had Papantaco. +And that was kind of cool. +But that was back when you could get a Taco or a hot dog for 29 cents. +I think you just aged yourself a little bit there. +Yeah. +I already announced my age earlier if you were listening. +Yeah. +I was just. +Just laugh. +And because I was looking at gas prices the other day. +And they around here. +They had one place that had it for 212 a gallon. +And I was like. +Goodness. +Creep. +But I also remember when it was 75 cents a gallon to. +Well, yeah. +But apply a inflation in the 212 a gallon is a lot cheaper than the 75 cents. +Yeah. +And every 75 $4 in the last five years around around 10 to see it didn't get above +$3 less or five years. +They did get up there quite a ways under Obama and the first Trump administration. +But it's been under $2. +It's been lately. +It's been like between 259 to 79. +But I saw some to 29 just yesterday. +So I guess it's cheaper right now. +Yeah. +It was at 25 cents. +It was 92 cents when I was a kid. +75 cents. +But I at the time that it was 75 cents. +It was also in a location that was very, very close to some massively huge refineries. +When I was a kid in Los Angeles. +I left LA in 1970. +That'll age me here. +I was 99 at the name brand stations. +And you could get powering for 12. +Wow. +And it took clear if I put it in the chat, but it was 94 when it was 75 cents. +I'll be back. +I'm going to go get some more copy. +Well, I never my wife is fully awake. +We'll be leaving for a while. +George at one point, most of my stocks were pot stocks because I was figuring sooner +later they'd get legal. +I make money on them. +But they went up above what I paid for them. +The so I sold them out for something that would make money. +Now, except for one that would never get up. +And recently, it started getting up close to what I paid for it. +And so I bought some more. +Did you buy till Ray was that this time? +I sold till Ray till Ray got up above what I paid for it. +Till Ray went crazy. +Now, it's normalized since the 10 to 1 split. +But now they're now they're kind of making money again. +So, but I sold them after the 10 to 1 split. +Because they did get up above my price. +Right now all I've got is CGC canopy. +I've got, I mean, I should probably put them in a side port from Leo. +But I've got a bunch of cannabis. +And can't have been slashed. +This still Ray slashed CBD stocks. +Oh, I think you're sooner or later. +They're going to be legal. +And then they'll shoot up. +Maybe a little start stop charging and arm in the wing and taxes on it. +I'll just buy the gummies. +And this stuff gives me weird dreams. +So I don't even do that that much. +I've got a friend that makes me chocolates. +And definitely below market prices. +And it's more or less a sleep aid for me. +Does not give me bad dreams for some reason. +It used to back in the day. +I thought was not a good, not a good anything for me back then. +But these days I don't need my brains at night. +So whatever. +Back then, you could probably only get creeper, +which would give you nightmares or bad dreams. +I'm really big on the science behind it. +And the cannibal and a cannibal oiling system and stuff from what all the terpenens do. +Well, I haven't even had my chocolate for a couple weeks now because I applied for another school district. +It's in the county. +I would just move to the pays better than my old county. +And I figured sooner or later they're going to call me in for a drug test. +Doesn't matter how legal it is when you're applying for a school district job. +Right. +Yeah, I would be careful there. +It's not really legal in any sense here. +And you can't, but you just walk down any street, any side alley. +Probably smell it. +Yeah. +I smell it a lot of the Walmart. +Can't film mine. +It's in case in chocolate. +I was so scared. +I was scared. +In the UK when I was over there, a couple of years back. +You travel over to Oregon and you get it anywhere you want. +I was surprised going to the Netherlands that there was. +It's not as legal as everybody thinks it is over here in the US. +Yeah, it's something like they have a kind of legal attitude to it. +That it's a permitted thing. +But it's strictly illegal. +But they'll permit it unless like your causing trouble in which case they'll stop here. +And I think. +When I was looking at the legalities of it, they left it up to the counties or towns to decide. +But they will allow them what they don't. +But it's kind of like they turn a blind eye to it. +Unless something bad happens from it. +Speaking of which, I've got a new friend in Netherlands. +I've been chatting to on signal that I met on Master on. +We lead had to go and be charming and take me on a holiday over there. +It was absolutely amazing. +Fantastic. +Got to meet up with Ken too. +It was really cool. +Yeah, I need to do some more podcast for Ken. +Right now, it's all I can do to keep up on my weekly podcast. +So actually, you're not allowed to reuse a podcast. +You've done elsewhere. +But someone else can do a clip of your podcast. +In fact, they can do a clip of your whole podcast. +Now, as you meet Sandra at LGPL license. +And this is how you hear this podcast I heard. +And I'm including it in its entirety. +It's under NLJPL license. +Well, when I first started digital hoppers digest back in April of 2020, +we got permission to actually do our first episode as a whole on HPR. +Now, I think we had over 3,200 listeners on HPR. +And we got maybe 75 on our own stream. +Yeah, actually, but I've never even looked into how HPR is distributed. +I've gotten no idea if anyone's listening to it and I changed anything like that. +So I need if I look at the HPR website itself. +About the only reliable statistics unless you're publishing platform actually keeps stats. +Are going to internet archive and anything that isn't distributed through internet archive. +They can't capture. +Right. +If you do a general search on HPR radio, there does come out a lot of different streams. +I think it is on Apple podcasts. +Oh, I'm even saying that probably. +Yes. +If I do, and I think they put in probably ads. +I've split if I put in ads in the months. +They think that's interesting. +I haven't been on Spotify, so I can't test to that. +But I would imagine they would, since they're a public company. +Yes. +Spotify has all sorts of ads. +Yeah. +I use Spotify mostly for my listening and podcasts, just because it's all in one. +And it's what I've been using for a hot minute. +I will point out that poll circle weekly news does not have ads in his 15 minutes or less. +So they're going to have trouble finding spot the stick ads in. +They put it at the very beginning. +Like before you can listen to the podcast, they'll throw an ad. +And then if it doesn't have any ads added to it, it'll be at the beginning. +I do not know if we're on Spotify. +I know he started using YouTube for it, which is weird since we're audio only. +They do the same thing unless you turn it off. +Can I interrupt? +I wanted a little, Mr. X came on about 20 minutes ago, and I forgot to say hi to him. +Oh, hi, everybody. +I don't know how this will sound. +I'm using new buds and I'm out walking. +Yeah, just being to anonymous and walk with the tech companies, D-Coff. +How you all doing? +Doing great. +Thanks. +Welcome. +Doing well. +Doing well. +Yeah, we wrote it, obviously. +Wasn't you heard that would sound? +Yeah. +You know, through, um, you know, got a phone here basically. +Uh, uh, probably can't stick it on. +I wasn't, I've been listening to you for the last few minutes. +It's a little bit interesting. +Uh, so I'll be, I'll be, I'll soon be home. +And I think we're going to be having a lunch after that. +Some homemade pizza I believe. +So, uh, I'll let pop in a bit later on at some point. +Uh, a bit, uh, probably can hold it much longer after they get home. +So, uh, you and Dave Morris are pretty close to each other, +and I get to hear your interactions a lot on a heck of a public radio. +Yes, I've got to look at it well. +Uh, he's not that close. +Uh, he's, uh, more in tone than me. +I'm more in there. +I hope back basically. +But, uh, yes, I, uh, uh, uh, uh, we, uh, +they've talked about, uh, doing another show together, uh, +uh, and uh, but I was kind of non-committal, uh, in good league. +But the one that's seen all, because he was just happy to, you know, +if we don't, uh, if we do one or not, it's, you know, you know, +it's, you know, it's fine. +Um, but it's just, just to me, it's quite totally, +everyone will do another one, uh, maybe this year, you know, but not. +Um, uh, uh, uh, when picked up here's what we can all hear, okay. +I've been, I've been building a, +one for the, for this year, uh, so, I got that time during the Christmas break to, +to get better, because he's done to only pure all the same stuff, I think. +But, uh, yes, I, I gives a great chat. +So, uh, yeah, very good. +Regarding popped in, good to hear you. +I'll see you. +Yeah, I mean, I've been playing around with the bow thing. +I think that, um, it showed me, uh, back in there. +It was all the way back in November in 2024. +And, uh, haven't really, haven't really used the amateur radio stuff properly. +I've just been doing software to find radio and just listening to stuff on that. +And I've, I've recorded one or two podcasts about that, and it's, +they're still on the reserve queue, but even I recorded them, like, over six months ago. +So, yeah, I, I don't know if you were talking to me or, uh, +I just came in, but, uh, maybe me, uh, I would have had a show on the bow thing +we've been back in the day. +Uh, yeah, I'm not, uh, I need to be often used to sort of have been on again, +but, uh, not very often. +Right, that's people at home, uh, look for it to hear in your other shows, +or how it was like these sort of things. +Um, so, yep, I'll catch you all a bit later. +I'll probably just carry on my stuff from there one. +Just for over there. +We're getting ready to go to our, uh, on our annual trip to Atlanta, +her gut-viltk, the Georgia-viltk convention, which is, uh, +Viltk is you may or may not know, is the music of the fantasy and science fiction community. +I see how interested everyone is. +Okay. +I deserve that. +Had you spelled Viltk. +F-I-L-K. +I know, Viltk. +Well, I'll be going to give Viltk in, uh, this second weekend of January, +as I almost always do. +I am so jelly right now. +This might be my last one, both from Asian money. +I used to be, like, I used to go and volunteer and do stuff with, um, +one of the big cons and Tulsa, and then I'd go up to, uh, +Conquest up in Kansas City, and then I was doing cons up here in the frozen tender up north. +Well, I've got some music out, and I just posted my link on the chat. +We're going to check it out. +I am in the range of pretty good. +I mean, no one would kick me out of that living room, +but no one in the signing me to a recording contract. +So, um, interesting piece of musical entertainment, uh, was, uh, +or camp, um, I think a guy, Alan, I've done a, um, +did a version of, um, the Finnish people, YMCA, +but he did, um, html, but with all the actions. +That sounds like fun. +You are under crediting your abilities there quite a bit. +Why thank you. +I have my inputting your music and the show notes. +Not at all. +Uh-huh. +Well, you do that for me. +How do I do it? +You should put it in the chat room. +I put it in the chat room, yes. +Okay. +I'll grab it out of the, uh, out of there and put it in the user pad. +She had a brief lesson. +Nice, really, really good. +Well, I have one perfectly produced CD and I have sold fewer than 200 copies. +It's, it's really good, but if people didn't know what folk was, +they might not look into it. +This is actually really good stuff. +I'm actually only about half-filk. +I do regular folk. +I do, uh, folk influence regular music. +I also do old union songs, although I don't get much call for that. +Kind of, but the folks, I love folk music quite a bit. +I actually just recently got, um, a few months ago got encountered a, uh, he calls it afro-filk. +His name, his, his band name is Monrovia. +And that was some, like, a new taste on folk that I, are not folk folk music that I hadn't experienced before. +And I love a quite a bit. +But I love anything that has a folk feel that style. +Well, I've got a lot of stuff there on band camp. +Most of it. +You can actually download free if you care too. +Yeah. +I'm not saying you. +I've worked as a volunteer just recording a speech. +So I've never actually gone to the, to even even attempt recording audio. +Um, that's something completely alien to me. +So I wonder what the differences are between recording music and recording. +Um, yes, what many recording music and recording voice. +What was the question, Arthur? +I could just go to bandcap and get link. +Uh, I'm going to, I didn't see or post in the chat or in the show in either pad. +It's more duest.bandcamp.com. +M-o-r-d-e-w-i-s. +More duest is the Welsh version of the name of which moss is that administrative. +For me, I just band camp, uh, I got a couple of albums there. +I know I'm back a little bit when we're talking about our stuff, but, um, +I just posted in YouTube the first Philip song that I ever heard. +Ah, Tom Smith and old. +He used to be an enemy. He's a friend. He should have been a friend all along, but he, +I built some of this stuff and he took, uh, an agent like it. +And so he got kind of nasty there for a while. +That happens in that sort of scene, unfortunately. +I'm sorry to hear that though. +With everyone I have heard of, I am the only one that he took offense to from +Filking his stuff. +Probably because you're good. +At the time I was new at writing and I was literally attacking him, but it was for fun +And he should have seen it was for fun. +Uh, you know, our church style of music. +I think that, uh, moss could probably explain it a little better than I can. +Wikipedia can explain it better than anybody. They got a huge page on Filk. +There is an excellent discord channel called Bill Cave. +And if you're interested else with a lot of people were in there and, uh, +a lot of the big names that you know. +If you know any of the big names. +That's cool. +I'm kind of low to add another discord channel to my stuff. +I'm trying to keep up with wasn't hot. +I do understand that. +I have almost pulled out a telegram. +There's I think one or two channels I have to keep because they refuse to move. +I recently just made a folder and through all the servers that I needed to stay in. +But didn't want to actively participate into a folder because I learned how to do that. +And I was like, now I can just open the folder if I want to. +Or I can ignore it completely. +I would forget where the folder is. +Mine. Well, I usually use discord on my phone. +Mostly because I'm active in a gaming community. +Um, and we talk all the time. +Um, so on my phone, I don't know how to get to it. +But I'm like computer. +I can easily just click it and it opens and then click it in that shop. +Anyhow, Bill Cabin started out on use net and then got an IRC channel. +And both of those. +Well, use net is not closed down, but no one uses it. +IRC channel is closed down. +And it's basically just a discord now. +I might have actually been a part of it like a long time ago. +But I would have never connected the dots until you said that. +I'm pretty certain I was in a a film channel on a IRC back in the day. +Well, I believe Rob Win has been running that channel for the longest time. +So if you know Rob, you were there. +I'm pretty sure I have had some feel before back in, uh, probably noting him in about 1997. +I think it was the headshots go to the Galaxy fan club. +Or is it so shared with that? +Had there's sort of summer event and, uh, +those, they had all kind of things going on. +And I think I think it was some of that. +But I just not heard that term before. +There are a couple of active UK built cons as well as some more on the continent. +You hear that, Lee? +Yeah, that's interesting, actually. +We'll have to put that on the list. +Oh, look for it. +Actually, they've got one in January. +Or just in a million miles away. +I won't be there in January though. +You could go. +Yeah, I was just working at my house with Edmund and, like, +um, he might want to go with me. +Does that make it that? +Yeah. +He might be amused by that. +Yeah. +So they've got, they've got an article Tim Griffin appearing there. +Like, actually, I'm thinking this might be a different Tim Griffin. +Um, then the actor might be. +Tim Griffin is an educator in California. +Okay. +So he'd be the guy like Lee to be coming to the film, um, uh, +conference in, uh, Norwegian in, uh, in the UK in January. +Really likely he's gotten very popular a lot of cons wanting him. +I'm about to go offline here for a while. +I'm going to stay in the room. +I'll just mark myself mute. +Um, we're getting ready to, we, we, we have to go finish by +ancing of this car that we got that is already a problem. +Well, hopefully it all goes really smoothly and turns around for you while you're +out there. +Be safe out there. +Thank you. +Well, it's still trying to find Moss's band camp channel. +Moss and your link hold on. +Yeah. +I think I probably just missed it or something because I don't spell the, +I don't know if you got my note and tech and coffee, but I updated it for you. +You just need to put notes in because I've been kind of cypalist thing as I've +been trading. +Sorry. +But, um, my pace that it's singing in there. +Did you get that? +Oh, I see it now. +He posted it earlier, but I, I went ahead and just copy and paste it again. +Yeah. +When I searched it out, I found some really music that I'm not sure I listened to. +I came up a band called Mortice, M.O.R.T.I.I.S. +Mortice, I'm seeing this, uh, and the weech in band. +Doesn't, that doesn't sound very funky. +It's interesting. +Definitely not both. +I'm more than C. +I see Mortice, just enter the channel. +Hello, Mortice. +Good morning. +Good afternoon. +Is that archer? +This is. +And it's 10 21 in the morning and my time zone. +9 21 21 21 21. +And I'm being very lazy as well. +I see Claudio keeps me in and out. +I wonder if he's going to be available. +He's wondering if Claudio would join in the beer garden talks. +It might be interesting. +He's in Florida, I think. +Are you anywhere close to Miami? +I am closer to Georgia. +I'm pretty much on the Georgia border. +I'm right near Jack's beach. +So completely the other direction of Florida. +Okay, folks. +I'm going to head out for a little while. +I got some real-life stuff to do. +I'll be back later. +Okay. +Have a good to be alive. +Time for a different. +I don't know why that has to exist real life. +And in my virtual world should exist at the same time. +Precisely. +Don't worry. +I don't care. +I don't care. +I don't care. +I don't care anymore. +So I think people are talking a bit before about use net. +I've realized that anything I've put on use net. +I've at some point made a data protection request +which Google seems to honor in Europe. +So it doesn't appear in search results anymore. +Yeah. +I had not heard that. +But I leave it to Google to do that. +I'm sure that you are. +Empop. +Sorry. +Happy New Year's Eve, everyone. +Happy New Year's Eve, Claudio. +Happy New Year's Eve, Claudio. +Happy New Year's Eve, Claudio. +Is it already New Year by Morton C? +In Thailand? +Is it already New Year's Eve? +Is it already New Year's Eve? +Thailand? +It's 12 hours off. +So I think they have an hour and a half left. +Yeah. +I'm not there this year. +No. +No money. +And we're still waiting on immigration for her. +For her to go back before we can go back. +I'm Claudio. +How are you liking the beer garden episodes? +Oh, I'm enjoying them quite quite a bit. +Definitely enjoying them. +I still got a few of the... +Was it the Paulina Salvatore? +Those are really good. +I'm not a connoisseur myself, but I'd like to listen to one of those. +Yeah, I don't want to consider for myself a kind of sore. +You know, or an expert. +So I just enjoyed them. +I find what I see that looks interesting and I try it. +The last one I had was a china box. +I'm Texas. +Is that china? +It's what? +Is that a china box? +Yes, china box. +It's a Texas. +Yeah, I've had that one before. +It's pretty good. +It's all right. +The Paulina Salvatore that I was talking about is actually a double box. +If you ever get a chance to... if you're a find it, give it a try. +We have you looked at the Baofang nanny. +Do you have to be powered? +I think the two that I've got are just little handsets. +And they're the same one. +I didn't really look around. +I just went for the lowest common denominators on Amazon. +It seems to suit all the basic stuff, the different bands and things like Squelch and all that sort of thing. +I probably shouldn't have gotten it, but it's $23 on Amazon. +When you take off the battery, then you can connect a USB to a charger. +Yeah, I think that may well be the one that I've got or once it very similar. +Because yeah, I think it does charge with USB. +In fact, it doesn't have a battery as such. +Like a removable battery. +It's just chargeable through a charger. +Actually, if I'm thinking about it, it may not be your speech. +All right, I'm thinking now, it actually sits in a battery. +So it doesn't charge directly a USB. +It sits in a dock. +And that's how it charges, actually. +However, you five are in a eight something HP, I think. +And those both have a charger that you sit in. +Like a dark. +Yeah, actually, I'm going to refer back to the notes of my own episode. +Because I've actually known, I don't have the hand set in the drawer or something. +I can't find it. +But I should refer back to my note. +I've actually never transmitted, but I listen to the Noah channel. +Oh, what is the channel again? +462. +Yes, so I was in the episode recorded. +I was channeled like 433 roughly and make it. +Yes, so the one that I was looking at that I've got is a UV-5R. +That's pretty much what everybody starts off with. +And then my cousin and I gave me a HP, I think, something. +Okay, nice look a bit. +I don't slightly more have to. +A little bit bigger battery. +The features aren't any different. +I'm actually trying to dig in my bin and find out where I dropped that into. +I've been by my bed that's a black hole. +Yeah, I've got all sorts of draw. +Well, my main storage solution for like the last ten years has been these, +these boxes called really useful boxes. +And so I've got stuff separated into like electronics, like cables, internal PC parts, +and so on. +But the nice thing about the really useful boxes is they're just stackable. +So you should put one and took the other. +A good cheap storage solution is to have peanut butter jars. +They get the huge ones. +And then when they're empty, wash them out and put the electronic part on it. +All right, yeah, I think I got a few glass jokes. +So I do have like under my kitchen counter where the gas meter is just open that. +And I just whenever I've got an empty container, I just shove it in there. +And then if I need a container of some kind for something, that's my go to. +And coffee containers are good for that too. +Yeah, plus one for that. +I'm looking at a load of virus in a coffee container right now. +Instant coffee container. +Is there a good instant coffee? +I've gone far the other way from instant coffee to the extent I probably won't go near anymore. +I've been of been consuming ground coffee for about the last couple years. +And now I've gone to finally grinding the beans in a cheap device. +Do you roster wrong? +No, that's probably my next stage. +It's like I'm going along the continuum of from instant to express out. +And now I'm on roasted beans, but my next step will be when I get used to roasted beans. +We actually maybe try roasting them myself. +Instant coffee. +Instant coffee. +Incidentally, my wife had bought me a bird grinder because I had one of the other cheap spinning grinders. +So she bought me. +She bought it off Amazon's. +Oligran is the name of the brand. +So far so good. +Much better than what it was before with the other grinder. +You got married recently, Claudio. +Yes, I did. +Yes, September 20th got married. +And then we went on our honeymoon to Argentina, +Mendoza, Argentina specifically, the week after. +Congratulations. +Congratulations. +Congratulations. +Thank you very much. +Thanks, guys. +Yeah. +Wait, there are times of time. +I'm currently waiting on an immigration position. +See how that goes before I start announcing things to anyone. +But there's a small chance of things might happen on the high day, which is the 14th of March. +Well, that way you can't forget what data is. +Yeah, I think that started as a joke. +And in the cave Maria, it became a reality somehow, a booking reality. +I wish you all the best. +Hopefully everything works out. +So actually, I'm seeing these grinders get quite complex. +I mean, the one I've got is just a small cylinder with, uh, +just a motor and a blade at the bottom. +I think that's probably the one you're referring to early at the right tree. +Yeah, that was the one that I still have it. +I take it with me from when I travel. +But the one I exclusively use now is the verb one, the verb grinder. +It makes a big difference. +Yeah, I went to a coffee shop in there's a town in London called Kingston. +And on Monday, I went to a coffee shop and got some of the roasted beans I have there. +And the one I'm trying at the moment is this Ethiopian brand of beans. +And really has a strong flavour that I haven't really tasted in for like it before. +So not so much strong, more sort of pungent and flavorful, I guess. +But it's fun. +So I was used to, I used to like this need to get a new world order, +because plateau would become one of me. +Tell us all about what this different coffee is that you can try. +You know where old order also had a coffee break. +I used to like, yeah, I miss that show. +I think my favourite episode was the one where, um, +plateau mentioned that he discovered that coffee is not food. +That's kind of, that's the reason I didn't think of it. +So you're not supposed to eat the beans? +Well, don't, I hope he doesn't find out. +I think it's kind of, um, that you might, +I've been tempted just to try and live on coffee. +It's like, no, not eat any more. +Yeah, I don't know about that one though. +I don't know if anybody actually listened to the entirety of his last show. +That was amazing. +I actually sat through the whole thing. +I was like, why is this so long, +than more longer than usual? +And I went ahead and I sat through it. +It was, it was interesting. +Okay, I didn't actually listen to that. +So, um, no, now I'm going to put more of that. +Yes, I tend to do that. +Uh, when I see something that's unusually unusual, um, +yeah, I'll sit there and I'm like, why is this the way it is? +And yeah, it actually had some, +a bunch of Easter eggs there. +I think that's a good thing. +So links to the burger grinder. +Say again. +Do you have a link for the burger grinder? +I'm putting a show and something in the show notes. +Is that for the burger grinder? +That's for the etherpad. +No, no, I mean, what you were asking me about for the link? +The burger grinder. +Okay, yeah, I'll find it now. +I'll send it to you. +I'm not good at keeping up with the notes, +but trying to sit with my laptop, +and then I'm on mobile with the, um, +for the audio. +I've been in light soon meetings where they've had +an AI assistant listening and make notes. +And only quite good. +But then sometimes it's wildly natural. +I'm so on one of my meetings for work. +I have each week. +I'm not at their point at night. +I'm just typing the way as we're talking. +Arthur, I went ahead and I posted the link +from Amazon for the burger grinder. +Thanks. +I see that. +I don't think massive on those that were on stream here. +I was listening earlier through the stream. +It seems to be working. +Right. +But I don't think I posted on mass a couple of hours before. +And I don't know if anybody is noticed that over there. +Oh, I see. +Okay. +I was just trying to generate some interest. +A few minutes, I'll log in and repost it. +It's technical fees. +Oh, I tried dropped your links in there from the side chat. +You can just pretty them off if you don't want it. +Whatever. +I don't know. +Oh, it looks fine to me. +It doesn't have to be pretty. +Right. +We're tight over geeks. +I just put the announcement and massive on. +Yeah. +I'm about to do the same thing. +So I finally make good on my, uh, +my question on, on reading, whether mumble works on high coup. +Uh, still not sure. +So why I can't get it to work on open BSD. +I have a feeling it has something to do with the, with the server being open only. +Maybe that can be my next episode. +I don't think I've ever run BSD on mine hardware. +But I did end up with a virtual machine running it in the cloud. +Um, it was actually with the SDF, the, uh, the free shell people. +Super dimensional fortress. +Yeah. +Um, what happened was I had, uh, just a meta subscription with them. +Which is just one of their pay tears. +And I accidentally sent them 10 times the amount of Bitcoin I meant to. +And then rather than ask them, it back. +I just said, well, can you give me a virtual private server for a year with, uh, like, +the version of BSD on it? +I think I remember seeing that post on B board. +Okay. +Cool. +Yeah. +I mess around with net BSD on, uh, on a raspberry pie. +One model B, uh, for a good while. +That was when I was still my apartment. +Um, I had that one set up just to be able to remote in and into whatever. +So it did the job. +I think they are catching out with the drivers. +And it's like rock solid. +It's just a few. +It's behind. +Same mainstream Linux. +Well, I understand. +The only one that really comes close to, uh, to Linux in terms of hardware support. +I'd say it's free BSD. +Uh, open BSD and net BSD and all the other, uh, derivatives. +Uh, they, uh, I mean, unless they're based off of free BSD. +Uh, yeah, they, they don't support as much. +Although the support is pretty good. +I know an open BSD it is, uh, +especially Wi-Fi drivers, uh, they really work a lot on that. +And the thing I kind of liked was that you, in effect, you could build the whole operating system +from source, you know, like every single package you could build it. +And quite easily that was like a first, you know, primary feature and whereas I know, +like you've been to, you have source RPMs. +But I mean, sort of red hat source RPMs. +But that's not quite the same. +Are you referring to the port system? +Yeah, I think so. Yeah, isn't it ports that you, you're building from, you just, +it builds the stuff from source very easily. +And, and that's, uh, main, and that's like the proper way of doing things. +It's not just an ad on like the, like the AUR for arch. +It's just an ad on that you build from source. +And usually they, they, they recommend you use the binary packages, +especially on a free BSD. +Um, but you can build from ports if there's the special case that you need. +Um, I remember it's not an issue anymore because they managed to resolve it, +but on a FBSD whenever you went from one major version to another. +Um, and the, the DRM graphic strivers would cause an issue because you would end up with a blank screen. +If you, the, the problem being that, um, +the binary package was compiled for the, for the previous version. +And so that was a problem for a while until they finally, +uh, they finally managed to resolve that issue. +And the only way to resolve it was to build the, uh, the DRM drivers from ports. +Okay, that's interesting. +It was a bit of a pain, but it worked. +Um, you just had to know which steps to do. +And, uh, but now they've resolved that. +I've been playing around with Serenity Alice, +and that one you really do build the entire pricing system. +And if there's one single syntax that right in the entire pricing system, +or any of the applications, the entire thing doesn't build. +Yeah, remember Serenity, uh, but my, uh, +uh, I would say a couple of years ago, uh, looked very interesting. +Yeah, uh, I, I really like the YouTube figure. +So Andrew has cleaned it, especially in the early days. +Um, I'm sort of maybe a little less interested in the, uh, +I think it mainly is mainly now about the browser, the lady, but browser, +if they call it, uh, that they've created and the, +and the JavaScript engine for that, where, well, before it was, +it was a lot about, um, just the, your prime system and the applications. +Yeah, uh, if I'm not mistaken that the original developers now focusing on, uh, +Serenity itself, and the browser has splintered off into, +it's own thing with a different, with, uh, community. +Uh, but it might be the other way around. +I don't know exactly. +I'd have to look it up and right now I can't. +Okay, that makes sense. +All right. Yeah. +So that I was sort of seeing something about that before that lady bird is now +it's own separate thing that's actually an alternative web browser built from scratch, +kind of, which is quite quite an interesting thing to, for it to be. +And I think I think what I'm seeing is the original developer of Serenity is now. +He's now focusing entirely on the browser. +One, whereas the operating system is just maintain by people in the community. +Okay, got it. Yeah, I knew I had, I knew that happened, +but I just didn't remember on which project he was focusing on. +I think I had a book back in the other days about just the basics of the unix of pranks system. +Just the, the library and the system calls and it all seems smaller enough and simple enough. +You can almost understand the whole thing, which I don't think is kind of possible in our days. +Speaking of unix, I saw something recently that they were able to, +to restore and run a version of unix, a unix system for. +All right, so when I was, when I was studying, +we had like spark work stations. +I think they were running system five. +So I guess I never even thought like what came before system five, +but it must have been a system. +Was that the article about them finding it on tape? +Yes, it was. +I think it was at the register, although I think a bunch of, +well, I knew sites had positive about it. +All right, this was back in 1973 unix version four. +So they were discovered the only, um, +sent in July this year, +like at the University of Utah, +they discovered the only copy of this entire operating system, +the source code for it in C. +Yeah, unix V4, so not system four, +because I know that refers to something else. +That's why I had the double check. +Yeah, I have the article from the register. +I can post it in the chat. +Yeah, I remember when I was at high school, +going to local library and getting the kernel and richy book +about C, just trying to teach myself to program in C. +And it was all a bit unixy, +although probably didn't associate it entirely with things like Linux, +they went around. +Then, first of all, +if you're going to write an operating system now, +you'd probably do it in Rust, +like if you're just going to start from scratch. +Yeah, that seems to be the rage now, +everything in Rust. +But I was actually surprised, +there was an open source application, +I then I did, +and it was a complete mixture of C and Rust. +Like I, I wouldn't have, +I guess it's now Rust in the Linux kernel as well. +But I didn't know it was just common practice +that you could just intimate C and Rust together +or C++, I mean. +Yeah, I wasn't aware that was possible either. +I'm not going to have a programmer, +but you know, I'll follow along with certain things. +But that I did not know. +So all those programmers, all those coders out there, +no more than I do. +I'm doing the magic. +I mean, +I'm sort of discover magic apps +and my knowledge or my standard daily basis. +Yeah, I think, +you know, +I never becomes a mix, +really an expert, everything. +Okay, +I've just realized what I was referring to. +I think it was news about +which is an RSS browse or reader. +And I think that's both C and Rust. +I know that, Lee. +I use news, but I kind of, +I really like it because it's text based. +So I was actually tweaking it, +because I realized that unless I'm doing it wrong, +that when you go to an RSS feed, +it doesn't automatically, +has not madly downloaded it +until you press the R button that refreshes it. +And I just hacked it, +so that as soon as you hit the end, +go to the news feed. +If it hasn't refreshed it in the last day, +it would refresh it. +I put in a line that it refreshes it as soon as you open it in part boat. +Oh, that would be useful. +Yeah, I've got the code really quick to see what it does. +I went ahead and put in my post. +They're sharing the, +East PR New Year's Eve show. +Also, +talking of text based programs. +This one called EPR, +which is for reading ebooks, +folks, +I'm going to drop off for a little bit. +We're going to go ahead and have breakfast right now. +So if I don't connect, +I hope you all have a happy New Year. +I make connect later, but we'll see. +Happy New Year. +Good breakfast. +Thanks. +Bye-bye. +Happy New Year, +if I don't hear from your letter. +Likewise, aren't you? +And happy New Year to L. +I think it might be around that time, +or almost, +the more it ends the same for you. +Happy New Year to you. +Talk to you later. +Has anybody seen or played with +Om Archie OS? +So that's Om, +Om Archie, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +Om, +I've liked changed KDA plasma to make it sort of tile-biced in a way. +I haven't had any tile-based UI either, but I installed it on a mini PC and on a laptop. +And I've been playing around with it. It's hard to get used to the keyboard shortcuts +and some dedicated time, but I enjoy it so far. +I think DHH was maybe also talking about VIM and learning the keyboard shortcuts for that. +And it's like, even he, I think he was kind of saying, even he finds it, +or found it like hard going to get all those keyboard shortcuts. +But once you've got them into your brain, into your fingers, +then it's a very efficient way of working. +I agree. I had a long time ago around 95. +My first computer, I'd problems with the wind modem conflicting with the comports. +So the mouse and something else, and I would lose my mouse. +And I had to figure out all the keyboard shortcuts to use a window back in the day. +I mean, probably a classic person's first exposed to VIM is to run it, to edit something, +and then think, oh, how do I exit? +And I'd just be hitting control C and control and escape and stuff. +And I think it's escape home on Q, exclamation mark. +But yeah, I've had that. Back when is it university? +And it kind of puts you off it for life, some for some people. +I, back in the day, that's all you could use with Linux, +and I used to mess up my installs. +I'd be configurating the XORQ file, and I would just trash my system, +because I didn't know how to save or undo or edit properly. +And I still push everybody to learn VI. I think it's wonderful. +There was a lecture tutorial program I was playing with a while back in Dick. +Like, teaches you, feel like, findings is a game. +I think it might have even been ground, browser-based. +Yeah, I've seen that. I thought you had a paperwork to learn anything but the basics. +Doesn't VIM have a tutorial to where you can learn it like that as a game. +Not really as a game, it's just one big file. +And as you read through it, it starts teaching you the up-down left-right keys. +And I've never gone through it very much. +I had a person I worked with who was struggling with, with UNIX, +an Oracle admin who had taken a VI class, and he could just fly around in VI, +and a week's change knowledge during lunch. +I was showing him all sorts of stuff in the terminal, +and he told me to write down a list of things I needed to do day-to-day. +Sorry about the noise. +Day-to-day, and I made a small list of what I needed to do to stop using everything else. +I was, and I switched immediately, and I haven't gone back. +I used it every day now. +What kind of MV would be able to do? +I think VI or VIM where I can do this is just easily do regular expression stuff. +Just without having to think about it. +Can you elaborate on that? +So almost you could do to search and replace with, +I get the feeling that you can do a search and replace with regular expressions. +Where, because I do that in sublime text, +but you have to go through the whole GUI of clicking on this mouse, click on that mouse. +Someone that I am guessing that my VIM has some sort of regular expression replies that +is easily accessible in the key findings. +So in command mode, to hit escape and do colon, +percent S slash, your search slash, your replace slash. +You can do those different values you can put afterwards. +I usually use GC for globally and confirm. +And I'll go through and confirm each replace is my normal workflow for what I'm working on. +Because I want to validate each replacement. +Yeah, and I've seen my supervisor work, I think, do that sort of thing. +And it's like, I just kind of end this. +But now you've explained it. +I probably can do it as well. +Because it sounds a lot like said, and I understand regular expressions. +Yeah, yeah, yeah. +It's very close to to set. +Sometimes it gets complicated. +If you're trying to replace special characters like windows, +character, turn, or tabs, or adding tabs, +replacing something with tabs. +If anybody is interested, I would love to do something like live with people. +If to play around and learn more together. +Just throw in that out there. +That sounds like that would be quite good. +I mean, I wonder if someone like SDF, +the public units people will might have things like that or eventually. +Just thinking. +The floodcast has a GT server. +I had one. +I'd have to set mine back up. +My domain was taken. +But I could host something in GT. +You can screen share and call that. +Or just in the HBR room and record it and make sure out of it. +I've had varying experiences with trying to speak the code +that I've been doing in a podcast form, like without a visual form. +And I think sometimes it works with maybe if you've got a company notes. +And sometimes I think plateau, for example, does it very well when he's doing +a good new world order to be able to say quite well. +Like the other day, I realised that I kept saying, +high-fin high-fin as command line flags. +And it just made it a lot easier if I call them dash. +Dash or attack. +Attack, attack I hadn't even heard of. +But that's even shorter. +Yeah, there's a great Wikipedia article on punctuation. +And it shows you the proper names and alternative names for punctuation. +Like bang for exclamation. +Up to four for the hash sign or pound sign. +Things like that. +Okay, I'm now drooling over this Wikipedia article. +Just end up with a pages.au. +For slash Wikipedia, for slash punctuation. +Of all the different brackets that it's got. +I was just pasting that in the chat. +Did I ever read it out for you? +I did a keyboard for an iOS keyboard once, which is stuck up on the app store. +And it just let you replace have a keyboard and just choose any keys you like. +So you could just make different symbols and stuff. +Or you could use just fancy lettering that isn't really meant to be that lettering. +So you could just type stuff out that looks weird, but kind of is reasonable. +My wife is using Linux exclusively. +And she's listening to a Thai teacher teach Linux command line. +And she, the instructor, kept calling the tilde. +The worm. +He kept asking the class of anybody knew the real name for the tilde. +That's pretty funny. +I've just seen there's a Mongolian ellipsis that's four dots rather than three. +You said you assume? +Sorry. +Did you say you assume there's a Mongolian ellipsis? +I saw, I saw, I saw, I just saw in the article. +There's a four doted ellipsis that's the Mongolian ellipsis. +So it's like the normal ellipsis is three dots. +And this one has got four dots. +I was unsure if there was an inside joke. +But if you read it on the page, that makes sense. +It's now getting dark here in there. +It's four or four in the afternoon here in London. +So I realized I've still got a bit of work to do today. +So I've set today as this week as a work week as it were. +So I should probably get on with that, but I'll probably keep listening. +If you want to do a VI stuff, let me know. +I'm still a bottom-level beginner, but I am a day-to-day user. +If you want to reach out here or on the podcast. +Okay, that'll be great. +So if you've got a handle on hack, probably right there as a host. +I am more than seen everywhere. +Everywhere, okay. +I don't know. +Okay, thanks. +All right, have a good one. +Just list a couple things that you're trying to do that would switch you day-to-day. +And I'll help out if I don't know. +I'll figure it out. +Thank you. +Hopefully I'll talk to you later. +Bye. +More than two, you'll be happy to know I'm a seasoned beginner. +These are beginner. +They're all around. +Yeah, I know the way I'm around. +And that's what I can't do anything extreme. +The edit, the replace, function search and replace, +was the biggest bump in my skill after just simple opening clothes. +I can't get a handle on the switch and replace when you're using a slash, +a backslash. +Or a slash. +Oh, you posted it up. +Do you mean the escape characters? +Yeah. +Yeah, I always want to go to edit replace. +I'm like a directory. +Like a several deep directory. +You just doesn't work out. +I don't know if you heard, but several directories in a row. +If I try to escape them, I doesn't work. +Give me like several like a full path. +Yes, my given name is Mark. +So if I do home slash marks, slash something at type of directory. +And I try to escape it. +I just kind of muddle it up a little bit. +So it's easier just to press W until I get to the right way. +I get to the right word in the line. +All right, sure. +I think I'm, I would consider myself the same thing as season beginner. +I used, I used VI or Vim, depending on whatever the OS has installed. +I use it for taking notes on Sundays when I do the chat hosting for church. +And just for taking notes also, everyone's in a while at work. +When we have our meetings. +If I'm not using that, I'm using pluma on matte. +But most of the time, it's just VI. +Pluma is a gooey text editor. +Say again. +Pluma is a text editor. +It's gooey or something. +Yeah, pluma is the text editor's turf for the matte desktop. +It's what, what used to be called G at it in Gnome 2. +I think it E1 that I, I don't know why I started using it once a while, is K, K, ATE. +Yeah, I've used that one too, because I've been playing around more with Plasma 6, +which is very nice. I have Plasma 6 running on my fedora laptop now. +Matte got moved out of a way, because Plasma has gotten good enough for me. +Though I still use Matte, it hasn't completely gone away. +But on Fedora, I'm sticking with the KD version. +I tasted in the chat what I think will work for replacing like home slash mark with a bar +I don't know the exact sample. +But each forward slash, you would escape with a back slash inside of the forward slash for the searcher. +Oh, I see. +And just maybe missed one slash over the escapes. +Fun fact, if you're ever on SDF and you, and you run the, the commode, the chat program on SDF, +also known as comm, you can back slash the, the back slashes. +You, you actually have to, in order for it to display. +I do, I do have a paid SDF account. I should get into that again. +Yeah, would be good to see you in there in, in comm. +I think everybody should have at least the 36 dollar account for life. +If they're still doing that. +I think they are someone validated me, but I do want to go for the lifetime membership. +Does anybody use Firefox plugins for them? +Because I can't seem to get away from not using that. +It just makes it so comfortable. +I haven't. +I think, uh, who is it, uh, on August, August planet, IRC channel. +Hint it. +Hint body. +Uh, who's uh, that's, he's one of the users that's on there. +I think he uses that for Firefox. +I think it's called Vimium, and I think it can be on Chrome too. +I just modify, um, couple of keys to where they go through the tabs differently. +Yeah, it's Vimium for Firefox as well. +Okay. +And I'm, I'm also a tab hog, so I use tab stash for Firefox. +Or recently I've been using call, it's called a Zen browser. +You have to probably put it in opt or one of those to, it's not your normal place to put programs. +I think it's an app image. +If Geospart is listening, he was on that show me this. +I'm sorry. +What did I show somebody? +You pointed me to the Zen browser. +Zen is awesome. +It's my main trading browser. +I was using Vivaldi, and I still use Vivaldi for some things, but I'm not a fan of Chrome the +and Chrome based things anymore. +No, I do not like Chrome at all. +If I can get away from it. +There's one major issue I have for Zen, and that's if I'm using Thunderbird, +and I click the link, and it opens up Zen. +Sometimes if I have a lot of tabs open, it'll crash the live and crap out of it. +Then I have to close it, reopen it, and then maybe it won't work. +And then if Zen crashes, tabs you've ever had open for three months of or show up. +Oh, yeah, anything, anything. +It saves things pretty well. +Then I saved a little folder of things where I drop, like, I have a financial one where it has all my trading stuff. +So, like, Bah-ha, and E-trade, and, you know, Wall Street Journal financial time stuff like that. +You might want to put this in a show, and it's worth talking about Zen browser. +I'm headed there now. +So, I camped us out using Tekken Coffee, and my own account on Amazon. +So, I camped us out on Amazon using my own account, and the Tekken Coffee account. +As well as, unfortunately, I had to go along back in the Facebook about a month ago because my community only does things on Facebook now. +So, I reposted back on Facebook. Totally despise and hate and want to murder Facebook. +There we go. +I haven't used Facebook over 10 years except for messaging. +I use it mainly. +My only, sorry. +My only exposure to Facebook is when I look at my wife's feed, and I realize how glad I am not to have a Facebook account. +I have a Facebook only for, like I said, the messaging, and then once in a while, I'll try out Marketplace, but I haven't been able to sell anything on there. +I personally would avoid Facebook Marketplace like the plague. +I've heard of a lot of scams happening through there. +Is there a better place to sell things locally? +I used to Etsy a lot. I bought Bible, Tekken, and stuff, and repair it. +Clean markets, I go to a lot of flea markets. +That's what it is. +We wanted to do this good flea markets. +I haven't looked to see if there is a market in Kentucky. +They will rip you off, by the way. +So, you just haggle the price, like you were in a market in some other country. +And just basically haggle the living crap out of the price. +God, with the price in your hand, say that's what I'm willing to pay for this. +And if you're good in the experience at fixing electronics, sometimes you can find some good deals. +Oh, shop good one. If you're going to stay, shop good well.com. +I buy a lot of stuff on there, and then repair it. +I must say though, I got ripped off once in Etsy, but Etsy made good, +and they added 35 extra dollars to the credit they gave me for what I didn't get. +I think the trick is, you can't ask for a credit card refund. +All I do is ask for a credit refund, and then they add more money to it. +So, the show notes page is slightly hellish because, +okay, that show notes page is slightly heckish when two people are typing it. +You're as smart as you get to see where to get UTC live. +I'm so stuck to go in it, placed it up dates. +Wait a second, my second. +I'm sorry to get what live. +UTC time. +Oh, it makes everyone else better. +My bowfang menu is arriving anywhere between now and 245 today. +It's the one that Lee and I talked about there. +You pull the battery off, and it's powered by USB-C to charge it. +Awesome. +Yeah, I just have the basic bowfang or V5, what it really is. +It's okay for what I use it for, which is pretty much FRS, +and basically using it as a cheap-o-scan, +or even though I have a couple of units and radio-shanks in here today. +I picked up a unit in, and it was a really basic and really chunky, +but it was just so I could get a CB just in case of an emergency. +I only picked it up for $18. +I keep forgetting you could use these as CB's too. +I should probably program them. +I did program it when I got it. +I bought the cable as well, and I did program it, +but I don't remember what I did. +That's it's been like two years. +How do you use it as a CB? +I never tried that. +Yeah, there's cool ways of programming. +The cable is cheap-o. +I think I got the cable on Ali Express for, +I don't know, five bucks or something, +something the cable is pretty cheap. +I had a couple of mics that fit it. +Radio-shak branded mics that will work with it. +I'll put the two plugs. +I ended up buying one of the bowfang mics just the test and it's seen. +I mean, I don't know which did both work about the same. +They look like they were made by the same company, +just once as radio-shak. +I've had these for a couple of years. +Five R, and the cousin gave me the 8-HP, +and I still don't know how to program it. +Yeah, I forgot the software I used, +but there was a software that, +but why did somebody else on YouTube or something program it? +So I took the notes and I kind of did it myself, +saved it off on the side. +I saved it as like a CSV or something. +It's on my server, right? +I backed up everything. +So it's on my backup server side. +That's probably got these extensive notes on how I did it, +but I'm ancient. +So if I didn't do it yesterday, +I have no clue how I did it, like two years ago. +No, I'm the same. I have a lot of notes. +You're not that, I think we're close to the same age. +I was born in 1972. +I was born in 1963. +That's not that old yet. +Now, I'm the youngest of the old people I hang out with +in Panera in the morning. +So there's a bunch of them that are, +one's turning 70 today, and then, +one's 79. +I'm like the youngest out of the mall, +and I just keep calling them old men just because +I guess that page is good until somebody defunds this. +Speaking of out for delivery, +a bunch of my hardwino boards are now out for delivery, +so I can do more things. +I'm using our Arduino on quite a while, +but I do have a handful. +Yeah, I'm just playing with them. +I've been using the Raspberry Pi development boards for a bit, +and I like those too. +The little $56 thing you should buy online, +but I don't know. +I decided I needed to figure out how to start doing that. +Some time ago, I automated Christmas tree lights on +on each gear episode. +Oh, that's awesome. +Yeah, no. +I'm not that sophisticated yet. +I'm probably, I'm looking at, +I haven't bunch of these Arduino STRs +that I bought a different style. +So I'm thinking about kind of making my own. +I bought some screens and stuff, +so, you know, too much shopping on alley express, I think. +I don't know, which is worse. +That is Amazon. +Yeah, Amazon's pretty bad too. +I'm about to, I think I'm about to can. +I've had prime since they were like $79 a month, +so I'm about ready to kill prime, I think. +Because I don't use it that often. +I don't even watch the videos that I'm also going to make +up my own flexor because I wish you that. +But, I mean, I just, I don't know. +Well, I send my orders, +and it's probably about two months ago from them too. +Well, you know, I just ordered something from them, +and I don't know order that often, +but still have them. +Yeah. +When I get set up, that's flexor over and out. +Okay. +Yeah, tell me about the flexor for me. +Oh, I don't know. +It was very funny. +I'm using that HP600 that I put in the notes. +That's cool. +I've just got some cheapo, +I don't know, $80 knock. +I found somewhere. +It's not a knock. +It's like, I call them at FEC, +but, you know, I don't know anything else. +But I, I call them the cheapo of knocks, really. +And I've been using those for different things around the house, +but my last, my last server, right? +It's just... +You keep cutting out. +Just, but I don't know if it's my phone, +or you, I keep cutting out. +And GSART. +How do you... +I wasn't, we know in the news. +I thought I'd do it in the news a few weeks ago. +Maybe. +I mean, it's always in techniques, +but I don't know what it would've been normal ones. +I don't know. +I think it was something about how they did something with the code. +I don't know when they'd prank these authentic Arduino's, +and then knock off. +Of course, my SDRs are using some sort of knock-off Arduino, +and they work just fine. +So... +I was starting this set up on SDR with my Raspberry Pi. +I didn't get very far. +Yeah, these are the little ATS 20s, +and I got the upstairs. +I got the bigger one. +ATS. +Whatever it is, the bigger one. +And I mean, they weren't fine. +I've taken them apart. +They got little Arduino looking things on them. +I'm afraid to change them out for an authentic one, +but, you know, they work. +I'm not going to change them. +Yeah, you can get ATS 20s relatively inexpensive. +The 20 pluses and stuff, they're pretty dang cheap now. +So they were, and the new isn't it, +says a Qualcomm bot Arduino. +Almost was hired by Qualcomm. +Somewhere in New Jersey. +Many years ago. +Almost 30 years ago. +And they had brought me to their offices in New Jersey +to talk to them. +I think I'm trying. +I'm not sure where. +And then, they hired me. +Man, hand shakes and everything. +I kind of walked out of the building. +I was about ready to give notice. +I was working at Computer Associates at the time. +It's about ready to give notice. +And then I get a call. +It's like, oh, hiring's on hold. +You didn't give notice or anything. +And, you know, I was about to. +I was within a day of giving notice to, uh, to C.A. +So I'm glad I didn't. +I wonder, Scody is going to stop by with his tiny human. +Probably all of Scammers anyways, +but I'm going to force them to talk to the tech and coffee +if they want to continue to. +Hey, how's everybody doing? +I posted a DIY or do we know in the chat. +Years ago, when our do we know is really expensive. +I built my own. +Oh, cool. +I say it over there. +Even. +Even. +I don't think that's the, uh, +the one, the instructions I followed. +But, uh, I did several, including a, uh, +USB hack do we know? +Um, I think, uh, +think geek, soul, soul them as a project I could be wrong. +Um, it could have been, I think there's an evil scientist site also, +but, uh, I used to go to Nata Khan, +which was a hacker convention in Cleveland, +that Jason Smith used to go to before, +the internet, before we move in or network up. +And, uh, every year they had badges that you saw to yourself. +And that was your entry was buying the the circuit board in parts. And one year they had a USB +hack do we know but it was shaped like a T for not not a con. And a the like a capital T and the top of it was your breadboard to do a project with the USB +Arduino. So just plugged right in. I assume this is the precursor to the bash bunny hacking. Hi, Lovecraft! +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4595.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4595.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d6bd1a --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4595.txt @@ -0,0 +1,570 @@ +Episode: 4595 +Title: WATER WATER EVERYWHERE! +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4595/hpr4595.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:43 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4595, for 2026-03-13 +Today's show is entitled, "WATER WATER EVERYWHERE!" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:21:14 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "operat0r talks about various home related water things" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in February 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Hack and Pulse Video with your whole stop +radio. +Today I'm talking about water meters and I'm probably three years ago, I had to do this +three years ago and what I want to heal and the thing with a lot of meters is you need +to be prepared to set off the main water meter at the street. +Where are your yard? +And I can explain the background. +So if you haven't messed with your water meter in three to five years, it's probably +buried. +So what's going to happen, it's not if when at some point your water is going to mess up +and you're not going to be able to cut off the main at the house, you're going to have +to come down here to the water meter, it's just your water meter, a lot of people don't +even know where they are. +So you have to spend 10-20 minutes trying to figure it out before something or you finally +stop that music. +Sometimes it'll start in the back and you've got a leak and you can't find your main +or you can't shut off your main or you can't get your main and you want to come down +to the meter and cut it off while you can't do that either. +I've been buried for 16 years. +A lot of these folks have no idea about any of that stuff and I'm sure you guys know +exactly what I'm talking about. +But if you don't, just start digging and you'll find this little plastic covered, plastic covered, +gate valve or ball valve, I don't know what it is. +And it's covered in plastic to kind of protect. +That might even be metal. +It feels metal. +You can't get it. +You can't get it. +You can't get it. +So what you buy is you buy a cut-off thing, like Home Depot or something. +It's a big cut-off key. +It's a big piece of rebar with a little scoop thing at the end. +And then you tell your spouse, hey, this is how you use it, turn it off this way. +So what I'm trying to do is make it so that's easily accessible. +And I'm not going to digging around to it to the point where there's, you know, about a three inches +three inches around it so that I don't have to do this every two years. +So I'm kind of digging around it and allowing it to get filled back up in about four to five years. +On the last time I did this, it was because of neighbor. +There yard had been flooded for I don't know how long and of course they weren't even up or something. +So I'm going to get around and find the shut off. +I think one of them finally came home or something like 10 minutes later. +And maybe they finally answered the door or something. +And this was like early and more than we were walking. +So we're walking and I see you know, flooding. +And then I ran the doorbell and something happened. +Sorry, excuse me, children. +Oh, no, no. +And they're all wireless now too. +I'm assuming if you had, if you were dumb and stupid, you could probably version of the protocol, +which I'm trying to spend a hundred times over. +And make it so you never have to use any water. +Eventually they catch you. +Just like a cable. +And give you a hard time, but. +So yeah, you want to have a sea bar. +You want to tell your spouse how to use it. +You want to check and make sure that the lid can go on. +And what caused me to do this originally was one of the kids's in your yard, +and step on the. +My phone's going. +Step down the thing. +And it just fell into the hole. +And took me to a 20 minutes there. +Not 20 minutes. +About five minutes to get it out. +But we had done it just to where. +It kind of opened up because this. +Limit classes. +No, it's a little. +So I have no idea how you did it. +But anyway. +And dig it out. +Get your T bar. +And then practice. +You know, +Bring it on to need off. +And just have your spouse be prepared. +If and when something goes wrong. +Here's the shut off for the house. +And then here's the shut off at the street. +And we'll. +You know. +It's a little help in general. +Wait for that. +Um. +But also. +You can buy. +The whole house. +Water detection systems. +Um, so when we're going on to leaking. +And try leaking. +They have a. +They're. +They're tech. +They're calling. +Make. +Figure that regular wireless one. +They've been kind of the leader in that space up until. +Everything got an idea dress. +So. +They're gone has wired. +Wireless one. +It'll hook up to the internet. +But now you can buy off. +Brand one. +For any number. +Off. +You can get like three for. +You know. +Sixty bucks. +Twenty bucks or something. +So I would. +I don't know if I'd. +I don't know if I'd pick the Zercon. +They've been around. +Um, but I have water. +Or. +On the. +For. +Everywhere in the house. +I've got two of the Zercon. +I. +I got two of the Zercon. +And then. +A kid of like three. +Three. +Three. +It was like the price of one. +Zercon. +Um, and then the kid I got comes with like. +I'm blind. +Um, so I don't know what you could put in here. +Make this less painful. +Um, maybe rocks. +But then the rocks will just get filled up there. +And notice that rocks dared to be up and said it's. +Start. +So I don't know what you're supposed to put down. +Maybe a screen on top of this. +I guess that's the whole point of the lead on the sausage. +Keep all this mud out of here. +So. +I've dug off enough around it. +Where it's going to break even at some point. +I didn't mean kind of a flat surface. +Um, but yeah, I've dug a bunch. +Fair amount around the actual. +Cut off. +Um, they also have like. +Uh, you're on copper. +And you can actually get them to come out and tap your. +Tap your. +You're, you know, galvanized. +And see you'll or whatever with a copper. +I'm about to go somewhere where it's quieter. +Uh, tap your galvanized with copper. +And then that way. +It still goes. +That way. +Somebody messes with kids playing with the water. +You can tap your galvanized with copper. +And then you can put one of these fancy. +Uh, fancy things. +Oh. +That will, um, +detect leak and theory. +And it can also like detect when you're. +Washing dishes. +They're. +Washing clothes apparently. +That's. +Theory. +The idea is you run your washer. +And then. +It says, oh, something is using water. +What is it? +And based on this pattern. +It'll, you know, detect that your washer being. +Something with. +Everything else. +Yeah. +Ideally. +And you do that. +Oh, my goodness. +You do that. +And then you can have like automatic thing. +And it'll tell you when. +You're using what you're supposed to. +But. +He bought you the real part. +You want is the. +I'm going to cut off. +So when you're out of town. +You can remotely shut your water off. +When there's a detective leak or just. +You know, hey, after three days of. +I do water usage or minimal. +You can have your water set off. +If you have a far away house or. +So we call. +I'll be there. +So. +You have far away house. +You're not there. +That. +You can set up some kind of. +More systems. +Where say is it. +The water's not being used. +You know, 5% of the water or whatever's not being used. +Within certain amount of time. +And. +Come up the water. +Or even better. +You have a detective leak. +Which. +And what I was reading. +If you're. +If you do the detective leak, it's going to detect. +Like a major bite. +Pipe bursting or something like that. +But that's not what usually gets us. +It's the. +You know, a little pipe that's going. +Shh. +In the in the attic or something. +And it destroys your whole house. +So. +I would just. +Be. +Aaron said a costume and just. +Uh, shut things off and can. +But you can have that is an option for you to. +Do some of that stuff. +Um. +What else do I have for like. +General maintenance on stuff. +Uh. +Your water heaters have a bleed out on the bottom. +And you can take a piece of. +Uh. +Uh. +Small form pipe. +Uh, this is a new one. +I can't shut the pipe down in there. +That's more. +But the one I had had a bigger office. +And you could shove something down in there. +And believe the bottom of the tank out and get roughed out down at the bottom. +Um, oh, that's nice. +There's a piece of styrofoam sitting right in there. +Pointable bit of the one of you. +Um, must have got blown up there from. +So there's like a bunch of plain wool stuff up here on the top. +From blowing the garage. +You know, I should need to get rid of. +But, uh, yeah, there's after a while the bottom gets starts to rough. +And then what happens is the heating elements on the bottom. +And it's on the bottom. +And the, you know, the sensor is on the bottom. +And they get roughed it. +And then you do replace your item here. +So that's why. +It's not the water heater itself, necessarily. +It's usually the sensory bits and the water heater go bad. +And then there's no easy to wait or a place. +Uh, some of those coils. +Um. +It's what I understand. +But anyways. +Um, leaks and leak sections. +Water in general. +Um, I built rebuilt this pump. +The pressure washer. +I don't think 1600 or something. +It's not crazy. +Um, I don't have the stock and taste for it anymore. +Uh, but I rebuilt the pump. +And it's not fun. +It's you're not into fixing motors. +And you won't be into fixing pumps. +Because it's basically a motor with water and anything. +Uh, whatever. +But you can buy. +Um, +uh, radiator fluid. +For, you know, snowy, whatever. +And I, uh, radiator fluid. +If you have just regular radiator, +I wouldn't be surprised. +That would work. +But works with water pumps. +Um, so it's a yellow little box bottle. +It's 11 ounces. +Preston radiator anti rust with pump glue. +Um, so, you know, I think this is for like more for like air commissioners or something. +I don't know. +Uh, water of water funds cooling system components. +Like a water, water pumps and cooling system. +So basically this is radiator fluid. +It's why you. +And you can look online as you get a little tea valve. +And I have a, uh, +Uh, pipes in a cut off valve. +And I screw that onto the bottom of the pressure washer. +When I've done with it. +And I'll, we get dry for a second turn off the turn off the motor. +Because you don't run a pump dry. +So it'll, I'll let it run dry for a second. +And then I will put the attached screw on attached to the thing. +And I'll pour the white liquid in there. +A little bit of it. +And I will turn over the engine manually with my tan with the crank. +And until quite good comes out. +And that way I know this has been flushed through the system. +And then I will cut off the tea valve. +Dumps the excess, twice the back end to the vessel. +Mostly sometimes I make a mess. +And then that gives it kind of winnerizes it. +I'm not in a winner right place. +But what happens is with the pumps is that there's metal and different kinds of metal. +And you got water and metal, different kinds of metal, +plus the other kinds of metal. +And it's just a match. +There's a recipe for, +an eventual failure in any direction. +So there is no one. +It would run. +But it would cut itself off. +I think just because of the valves would get all ducts. +Because they were all rested. +So I bought a pump for it. +And of course, it was the dry shaft was too long. +And I didn't really want to cut off the dry shaft. +So I raised the inch in block. +Like, you know, two, probably two inches. +It was the wrong size pump basically. +And I guess I could have just cut off the, +the end of the shaft there. +But I wasn't really super comfortable with that. +And I also think it would have less than the amount of torque that the shaft had on to the engine +properly. +Because I don't think the thing ran all the way down. +So either way, I would have cut it off. +I think Canada is that would have been an option. +But I think there wasn't enough of the amount for the, +so the rod has a cut in it. +And it's like a D shape. +This is what's explaining it. +And that D shape goes into the engine. +And if that D shape, if I were to cut it or it doesn't go up all the way, +then I'd have to like manually sand down the rest to go up up in the dry shaft. +I think that was the problem is that it was just too long. +And the shape of the rod changed as it went down a shaft. +So I just couldn't just cut it off and then show it up in there. +So I had to get, I got like, that's a stack of washers. +And set that on top and put it in between the engine. +And I just make sure that the engine doesn't rattle around too much. +Because they, you know, it's going to rattle and eventually rattle itself apart. +So I try to watch it when it twists, they're twisting around a lot. +Which that means the dry shaft is like twisting around and dropping. +I'll go in there and tighten it a little bit. +And then I'll give it a few more. +A few more goes. +But yeah, pumps are gross. +You've got to make sure they're winter ice. +You make sure there's not any water in them. +Put that radiator fluid in the runaway room once in a while. +This one has been doing nothing for a year. +And it started on the second frame. +I primed it. +And the second frame started right up. +So, and this is used. +My dad had it. +And then of course, let's somebody borrow it and got really. +You think I'll see that people borrow you to. +What else? +Water. +Oh, these little anything. +Please don't, they tell you. +Please don't use your yard with the regular. +With the regular. +With the regular fresh washers. +Head. +Get one of these rotating ones. +And they are pain in the butt. +This one is a big metal one. +And it's cheap. +And by cheap, I mean, it might have been 60, 70, 80, +100 dollars. +And basically, it's the bar. +With some higher mass involved. +And when the pressure comes through, it's kind of certain pressure. +The thing comes out and it spins itself around. +And it does wonders here. +I mean, you can do your driveway in no time. +And if you want to opt at the cost, you can have, you know, +when your kids or somebody. +Or do some do some driveway. +Do a few driveways. +Then it will pay for itself. +Because I think it's awesome. +What I had, the problem I had, +is that it wouldn't spin. +And then because it wouldn't spin, +it wouldn't activate the mass that allows it to spin +and allows the pressure to, like, +differentials of differentials of kick-ins. +So it wasn't spinning. +So if it wasn't spinning, then it would kind of, +that's kind of pressure system would kick in with the internal. +And I don't know what you call it. +Like a suction base or whatever base pressure system. +So the pressure got too great on the end of the sprayer. +It was kind of overflow into this other direction. +And then it would kind of few at the top of the thing, +and not to sit around. +So it took, I took it apart. +And I'm like, well, this looks like it's missing a screw. +And then I realized it's some kind of weird pressure system +to where if the thing doesn't start spinning +and it doesn't get enough of the pressure to release +through the proper channels. +It kind of, the pressure is of going up to another direction +and viewing out of the top of the thing, +and kind of bubbling up. +So this one is a little piece of crap. +The commercial grade ones, I guess, are, you know, +probably $200. +And this one is either non-lahine. +It's maybe two-to-low pressure. +My pressure washer is two-low pressure for it, +or it's just their old garbage, +and you've got to buy it. +It's super commercial grade ones. +Now, you want to use your plumbers, +plumbers tape when you can. +These things, all these things have vowels, +so you want to replace little grommets. +And you can go to, +in the harbor spray, +but, you know, +eight-hour wear, wherever your eight-hour wear types are, +and buy different kinds of o-rings, +and you can just buy a bunch of o-rings through these things. +I don't know what the exact size is, +but you buy o-rings to replace them. +When I originally got it, the o-rings were kind of shot, +and I have a longer extension that I use. +So I haven't had the Daisy channel together yet, +but when I do, I'm going to have to find some o-rings for them, +because they kind of make sort of a mess, +but I don't like any leaks when I do my stuff. +So usually it takes me a good hour to get set up, +because, you know, I've got to plug everything in, +and I've got to clean it, +and set it all up, +and it takes me a good 15, +20 minutes to set everything up, +because I'll find a leak, +and I take it hard, +and then I end up doing this, +some other kind of project that comes up, +so the whole thing's been done taking a very minute. +That's that for pressure washers, +wanting to use, +yeah, so if you're faucet outside, +it's giving you problems, +and you don't want to play a plumber to fix it, +you just have to add another faucet to it, +and you can do this up to one time. +So if I originally, +I think the front faucet I read is, +I was able to get enough, +get enough copper or steel, +and whatever it is it's on there, +I just put spray foam on it, +and I don't think you're supposed to use spray foam outside, +I have to carry it out, +because I used to tangle around +through the wood and screw it into the house. +But I was able to re-attach a new, +or no, I haven't done that. +I can't remember what I did, +but if you're lucky, +you can take your faucet apart, +and go to Home Depot or something, +and get some bits, +you need to replace the inside, +just the inside part of your faucet, +which is kind of interesting. +So, let me go all this stuff. +Anyway, that's pretty much it. +Fossets attaching faucets, +white flitters, +they're all garbage timers for your irrigation system. +The one I have is, +I don't know what brand it is. +It's not the waterbird thing, +it's a decent, a decent brand, +not the Orion either, +those are garbage. +But I dug out irrigation system, +and I did it wrong, +so I dug another irrigation system. +So if you're going to do it, +do the math, right? +You can do three to four if you're lucky. +You can comfortably do three, +but our yard is tiny, +so I just have two waterheads, +one at the end, +one at the bottom, +but I had dug for, +I don't know, +it's four or five different spray heads, +and then realize there's not enough +to run them off at the same time, +and if you do that, +then you have to do the switching thing, +and the pain of that. +So, don't even bother. +If your yard is small, +just get two to three heads, +and you should be fine. +We're facing area, +you can set it a little servo. +They have wireless ones. +I wouldn't do that, +because as soon as you have some kind of wireless things, +you're going to have to go in there and place batteries, +and how are you going to have to pay the blood +to replace batteries, +and you're just going to kind of wireless things, +or maybe they are wired, +but their wireless connectivity, +and I'm not going to put some wireless things, +and that's just to get up every 10 years or six years, +and get it to do what it's supposed to do. +So, I just had the waterbird one +from, +and that I reclaimed from somewhere else. +Anyways, that's it for water, +and stay safe, +and if you're real fin of this, +and you made it as far, +please record an episode, +probably needed if you're hearing this, +because it's probably going to go into the back up here. +Cool, take it easy. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4596.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4596.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b7e4ca --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4596.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1552 @@ +Episode: 4596 +Title: Adding voice-over audio track created using text to speech on the movie subtitles +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4596/hpr4596.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:44 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4596, for 2026-03-16 +Today's show is entitled, "Adding voice-over audio track created using text to speech on the movie subtitles" +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:28:09 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken uses piper to convert srt subtitle files into a new audio track to add to foreign language movie" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +Today I'm going to use the Piper text-to-speech engine to convert subtitle files into a new audio track +that you can listen to alongside a movie. +So a lot of my colleagues have been recommending movies to me and I've been asking them for their recommendations +and they're quite often foreign language films by definition, languages that I don't speak +which makes every movie I guess a foreign language movie to somebody. +The subtitles can often be distracting and particularly in a fast-paced scene +you're reading the subtitles and you're missing the action that's happening on the screen +or the acting that's happening on the screen. +So I've thought of doing this, it's called voiceover or lecturing and if you look it up in Wikipedia +it was first used in Soviet countries to read newspaper propaganda from lectors +and in Polish it says +in Polish lector is often used to mean off-screen reader or voiceover artist. +A lector is usually a male reader who provides the Polish voiceover on foreign language programs and films +where voiceover translation technique is used. +This is the standard localization technique on Polish television and as an option on many DVDs +full dubbing is generally reserved for children's material, links in the show notes. +So to give you an idea of what I mean by that +what I'll do is I'll first play you +a sample from a non-copyright movie +Night of the Living Dead +which was released mistakenly into the public domain. +So first I'll play you a sample of the movie +with the original soundtrack. +They ought to make the day the time changes +the first day of summer. +What? +Well it's eight o'clock and it's still light. +A lot of good the extra daylight does us. +Now we've still got a three hour drive back. +We're not going to be home until after midnight. +Well if it really bugged you Johnny you wouldn't do it. +You think I want to blow Sunday on a scene like this? +You know, I figure we're either going to have to move mother out here or move the grave in the Pittsburgh. +She can't make a trip like this. +Oh, don't that she can. +And now the same segment with the Polish voiceover. +So I don't know about you. +But as a native English speaker I find that difficult to follow +because the voiceover track I'm trying to focus on the underlying audio +but talking to my Polish friends +they said they didn't have a problem with that. +So if you're Polish as your native language you're listening to the Polish. +So to put this to the test I wanted to try out a movie to see if that indeed was the case. +I asked a Mastodon for a non-English movie that would have English subtitles available +and Windigo was able to point me to Nasty Old People +which is a 2009 Swedish movie released under the CC BY non-commercial share alike license. +So my idea was to take each bit of the subtitled text, convert it to audio +then have the generated audio play at the same time that the subtitles appear on the screen. +So we can use, we use Piper text-to-speech here in HPR +all the intros are done with that +and we also generate SRT sub-title files for each show +so I'm also familiar with those. +Links to all of this stuff is in the show notes. +If you don't know the format of a sub-RIP file or an SRT file +it's described as part of the Matroska multimedia container format +as perhaps the most basic of all subtitle formats +but that doesn't make it bad +makes it actually quite good. +So what you've got, there are four lines to each +well four different parts to each segment +the first is, and each segment is split up by a blank line. +So you've got numbers generally starting at +one, two, three, four, five, six +so subtitle 56 is subtitle 56 +and then there's a new line +and then there's going to be a time code +so if you haven't seen those before +they're hour, minutes, seconds, comma, milliseconds +and then after that is the subtitle text itself +which can be one or more lines +and then there's a blank line +indicating that's the end of that subtitle segment. +So I downloaded the movie from the Internet Archive +used Piper Voice to convert it +each of the subtitle lines to text +Piper Voice is a fast local +neural text-to-speech engine +that embeds eSpeakNG for feminisations +and are released under the GPL V3. +So once I had the audio +I prepared a sample for the subtitles +and I brought it over to Audacity +to create a new subtitle audio track +and Audacity, if you don't know +is the world's most popular audio editing +and recording app. +It's a GPL V2 or laser. +So the timing of the segments would be a problem +were it not for the fact +that Audacity supports SRT files as labels. +I've already done a show on labels in Audacity +which I need to update +but if you go to File, Import and Labels +then select the SRT file +the subtitle track with the text +of the audio will be displayed +along the lines +so little lines telling you exactly where +all the subtitle segments needed to be lined up. +So I was able to do that, create an audio track +and then go into KDN Live +which is KD's non-linear video editor +which works on Windows +Mac OS, BSD and Linux of course +GPL V3 or later +and Jean-Marc had an excellent article +on how to add subtitles easily +to KDN Live +Arcadian Live +and you go to Project, Subtitles +Add Subtitle Track +it'll import the subtitle file +and then you can select the subtitle file +and you can align the subtitle track +with the audio file +and there's screenshots of all of this +in the show notes +and here also you can see the text +that is in the subtitle +and make sure that it's aligned +and then I was able to render it +and I had myself a sample movie +and I was able to convince myself +that this in fact was something worth doing. +So the script itself will be linked +in the show notes of this episode +but rather than going through it line by line +I'll give you the basic ideas +and the script is only intended +as a proof of concept. +I firmly hope +and probably believe +that FFmpeg will shortly have an option +to be able to do this +and I really hope it does +because there are intricacies +which I will get to at the end. +So what my script does +it first of all +creates a new audio track +for the subtitles +and it merges this +with the original soundtrack +to create a new selectable audio track. +So basically as you're watching the movie +you've got English +you've got the native language +say it's Swedish in this case +and then you'll have another subtitle track +which might be English +and that's what +you can switch between the two. +So you can turn this off +in the same way +you can turn on and off subtitles +you can turn this track on and off. +So the script begins +by creating a length of audio silence +up to where the first subtitle timestamp begins. +And the subtitles from the SRT file +have a timestamp that it has +the beginning when the subtitle should be shown +and the end when the subtitle should be shown. +It converts the first segment +using text-to-speech +into a WAV file I think +and then the segment is added +to the initial silence track. +So fair enough. +So somebody comes on +and says hello world +and somebody else says +hello back. +Yep. +So the first subtitle is +hello world +and then silence +hello world. +So then what I do is +I check the total length so far +to see if the audio +that we've recorded +is longer +or shorter +than the next subtitle. +So somebody's response +to the question. +If it's shorter +then I add a filler piece of silence +to bring it up to the start +of the second subtitle. +If it's not +I just play the second subtitle +immediately after +which means there can be a pileup. +And the pileup +I was very worried about +but actually it turns out +to be not a problem +in practice +because you know +it's +there's action +or there's movement +or somebody picks up +a cup of tea or something +and there's always +a slight delay +in the narrative. +So that's basically +how it works +and we do that +over and over again +right up to the very end +of the movie +and then at the end +the new subtitle +speech audio track +is merged back +into the media +as a new audio track. +Now I included some links +in the show notes +so you can see +what the subtitle looks like +on the screen +and +with screenshots +from the movie +as well +and the time code +paused +so that you can see +that it lines up +at a particular time. +So let's listen +to a segment +of this Swedish movie. +First +the original. +and now +the same segment +but with the +voiceover track +as produced +by my script. +It will be two years +before it's this big. +But don't you bother +by then I'll be long gone. +It was just a question. +Good morning. +So that's the script +and it works +pretty well. +I've done quite a lot +of movies now +and +I've learned +a lot of lessons +over time. +The script itself +sometimes bails +at the creation +of the audio track +and merging it back +into the main file +but I'll go through +workarounds +for that +as well. +The first thing though +that you should do +is the preparation +of the subtitle file +because that's going +to be the basis +of the voice +that you're listening to +and it should be +good quality +so that it matches +when the audio +actors speak. +And some subtitle files +are a lot better +than others. +Some go to +for example +if somebody's +rhyming +in the native language +they will try +and rhyme in English +as well. +So sometimes +there will be a song +and the subtitles +will include +the subtitles +of the song. +So stuff like that +it's good to know. +Sometimes they will +have +if there is a banner +up and that's +important to the plot +and they're referring +to the banner +throughout the movie +but they don't tell you +what's on the banner +then that can be an issue. +So +you know +basically +the standard stuff +when getting a subtitle file +but +you also need to make sure +it's aligned correctly. +you should also +make sure that +the spelling +is correct +because the source +of the subtitle +files +the best +place that you can +get them +is from the DVDs +themselves. +There are several +methods of +putting subtitles on. +The first is +like with a text +based +stream +in the MPEG +and that's perfect +because this is +exactly what they +wanted you +to experience +and sometimes +they'll even have +the +you know +floor creaks +that sort of stuff +track +so you can choose +which one +you would prefer +to hear +and that's +easy peasy +lemon squeezy +to get out. +The other +time +the other type +is +they +where +the video +the subtitles +themselves +are bitmap images +so instead of +hello world +it's a picture +of the words +hello world +and then that's run +through optical character +recognition +and sometimes +that can be very bad. +So for example +one of the movies +had +for every +letters +O +capital letter O +it had the letter +the number zero +so +you would hear +I +L0 +you +very +and I also +L0 +you +you know +that sort of stuff +then +there can also be +HTML characters +in there +so +you will be listening +to +you can put +emphasis +onto subtitles +or perhaps +they +want to show +that the person's +in another room +talking +and they'll put it +in italics +so you're listening +to a few hours +of less than +forward slash +I +greater than +forward slash +I +another one was +mixing up the +capital letter +I +with the +letter L +so +L +I'm from +Lindia +so a lot of that +can get very tedious +so spell checking +so spell checking +your files +is also a good +thing to do +but if they +if you can get +the subtitle files +from the DVD +directly +you can use +ffmpeg +dash y +to answer +yes or overwrite +dash height banner +space +dash log level +space er +so it's a lot less +for both +and then +dash text +underscore format +space text +dash I +and that's the +input movie +and then +the output +can be the +output file +with the +SRT extension +one top tip +is if you can +keep the +subtitle names +the same as +the movie name +so if it's +movie dot +mp4 +then keep +your subtitles +movie dot +SRT +and that +by default +a lot of +players will +try and play +that same +subtitle +they will look +and see if +there's a +subtitle +and automatically +use that +just in general +and by the way +this isn't a +replacement for +the subtitles +I sometimes +turn on the +subtitles anyway +or not +but at least +I have the +choice of +doing it +where to get +them if you +don't have +them +there is a +large repository +of subtitles +at opensubtitles.org +and you'll need +an account +probably +so you select +the language +and the top tip +is to pick the +one with the +highest rating +and then you're +kind of +trying to pick +it if you have +a DVD version +you look for +ones from the +DVD if you've +got a Blu-ray +version you look +for ones from +the Blu-ray +version +one way to +once you have +your subtitle +files one way +to check them +is using the +mpv +media player +which is based +on mplayer +and mplayer2 +and it supports +a wide variety +of formats +audios +video codecs +etc +it's released +under the +gplv2 +plus +parts are +under the +lgplv2.1 +plus +and optional +parts are +under the +gplv3 +and links +to that in +the show notes +as I said +if you have +the srt +file with +the same +movie name +then it'll +play it +automatically +otherwise you +can add +the +dash dash +subs +dash files +equal option +as well +all of this +is in the +show notes +extensive +extensive +show notes +for this +episode +so you can +scrub through +left and +right page +up page +down +and +you can +toggle the +subtitles +using the +j key +so if you +you can +download a +series of +subtitles and +then use +the j to +jump in +between them +top tip +is +search for +people saying +the word +okay which +tends to be +a common +word in +many languages +and then you +will know if +your subtitles +are in sync +or out of +sync +you don't +usually have a +problem with +subtitles being +in sync if +you can get +them from +text from +the dvd +itself +but if you're +downloading them +from the +internet they +can be out +of sync +very easily +where they +don't match +up and +it's usually +usually the +movie itself +is correct but +the start +offset is +wrong because +maybe they're +you're getting +it from a +different region +so the +person who +the dvd +in the +netherlands +is different +to the dvd +in ireland +because the +local warnings +are different +at the +beginning but +what you can +do is +adjust them +usually then +when the +movie starts +the subtitles +are correct +from then +on so +it's just +the original +offset that's +wrong +there's this +really cool +program called +ff +subsync +which is a +language +agnostic +automatic +synchronization +of subtitles +with video +files +so the +subtitles +are aligned +to the +correct +starting +point +within the +video +it's +released +under +an +MIT +license +you +pip +install +it +ffsubsync +and then +you use +command +ffs +video.mb3 +space +dash +i +unsynchronized +dot srt +space +dash +o +synchronized +dot srt +and what +that does +is it +looks to +the first +speaking +piece of +tech +of audio +in the +file and +tries to +match that +up +what I've +noticed +helps +that +works very +well +so long +as the +first +piece +of speech +is actually +coming from +the movie +and not +from a +government +warning about +ripping +DVDs +or not +or a +warning about +smoking or +tobacco or +something +so you +can use +a really +cool tool +called +Lossless +Cut +Lossless +Cut +aims to +be the +ultimate +cross-platform +ffmpeg +GUI +for extremely +fast and +lossless +operation on +video, +audio, +subtitles +and other +related +files +gpl +dash +2.0 +license +brilliant +little +tool +use this +all the +time +couldn't +be +simpler +you just +drag in +the +drop in +the movie +and you +go start +point +end point +press delete +and away +she goes +outputs it +without +transcoding +or anything +just dumps +it so it'll +allow you to +quickly remove +additional trailer +ads at the +beginning so +that ff +subsync will +have a better +chance +working if +they're all +trimmed away +okay so +if that +fails to +match up +the +subtitles +you can +use the +mpv +keyboard +shortcuts +to move +to the +first speech +segment +and then +press +ctrl shift +left +or ctrl +shift right +to adjust +the subtitle +delay +so that the +next and the +previous +subtitles are +displayed +so what this +will do is +if you're +watching +subtitles with +mpv +and somebody +says hello +you hear them +speak and +then a +duration later +the text hello +comes up on +the screen +you can just +rewind to when +the person starts +saying hello +and then +press +ctrl shift +right +so that they +match up +now the +thing to do +then is scrub +through the +scrub means +fast forwarding +or moving +forward in the +movie towards +the end and +make sure that +the sync is +still there +within your +subtitle files +so that when +they say goodbye +at the end +that whatever +the word is +the subtitle +matches the +timing of the +dialogue that's +going on +because +sometimes there +are different +versions of the +movies or there +are cut scenes +or they're just +subtitles that +are very poor +and are where +somebody has +the first part +of the movie +done and the +second part is +just quotations +from +I don't know +what message +they're trying +to send +so check +your subtitles +the whole way +through +make sure +they match +but if +they are in +sync and +they're just +off by an +offset of +say in my +example I'm +using +148.416 +is the +millisecond +offset +which turns out +to be minus +148.146 +seconds +you can use +a command line +tool called +srt offset +which says +it is a +simple command +line tool +to offset +srt subtitle +files this +allows you to +adjust the +timing of +subtitle srt +files which +can be useful +when the +subtitles are +out of sync +with videos +and that's +an MIT +licensed +and the +command is +srt +dash +offset +space +dash +i +input +dot srt +space +dash +offset +the word +space +dash +and the +amount +in my +case +minus +148.416 +space +dash +o +output +dot srt +so that's +a lot +about +subtitle +files +my advice +is +spend +a lot +of time +on this +one +if you're +going to +be watching +a three +or four +hour +movie +there's +nothing +more +annoying +than +this +part +wrong +so +I've +been +known +to +watch +minutes +of +a +movie +found +something +annoying +about it +go back +fix +the +srt +files +and +reimport +them +again +it's +it's +like +that +and +sometimes +it's +it's +actually +just +better +to +get +a +copy +you +know +if +you're +having +no +luck +with +this +DVD +copy +try +and +get +another +copy +from +somewhere +else +and +fortunately +I've +been +fortunate +enough +to have +friends +who +have +had +good +copies +most +of +the +time +sometimes +my +script +will +create +a +mix +down +track +but +has a +problem +adding +it +back +into +the +movie +as a +separate +audio +track +so to +get +around +that +I +use +avi +demux +which +is +a +free +video +editor +designed +for +simple +cutting +filtering +and +encoding +tasks +it's +released +under +the +gpl +v2 +and +if +you +go +file +open +and +select +the +movie +then +you +go +to +audio +track +select +audio +track +several +will +appear +at least +one +and +then +you +tick +on +the +next +available +track +in +my +case +track +then +you +click +from +the +drop +down +menu +add +audio +track +and +then +you +pick +the +mixed +audio +in +my +case +it's +dot +tilde +nasty old +people +underscore +mixed +mb3 +and +you +add +that +back +in +then +save +the +file +and +you'll +have +a +saved +track +that +will +have +the +audio +so +that's +it +and +in +conclusion +I'm +finding +it +much +easier +to +watch +a +movie +with +a +voice +over +track +than +I +thought +the +idea +of +somebody +talking +in +my +ear +I +would +have +thought +would +have +been +annoying +particularly +when I +heard it +in +Polish +initially +but at +some +point +you +don't even +notice it +after a while +if you're +conscious about it +yes it can be +irritating +but sometimes +if you focus on the +dialogue that's going on +on the screen +you just +see the actors +talking in their +language +and you know +what they're saying +so I +find it a really +good option +for some +movies +particularly +in if there's a +dance or dialogue +scene +and the talking +is fast +say a rap +scene where +they're rapping +over and back +at each other +I might +turn it off +and focus on +the +subtitles +in that case +but +you have the +options +it's with +MPV +it's +shift +octatorp +shift +hashed +sign +shift +three +and you'll +get it +and you can +switch +and toggle +subtitles +using the +J key +so that's it +hope you found +this interesting +there was quite a lot +of tools here +for messing around +with video +audio +and +subtitles +which +I think +over a year +I've gathered up +and found +all of them +super useful +particularly +audacity +caden live +it's amazing +that it can do +that +FFmpeg +fantastic +tool +no doubt +this will be +added +I know +there are +some +pull requests +for doing +automatic +translations +they're better +than not +so like +doing whisper +on it +and then +if you +point +whisper +which we +used to do +the +translations +in +HPR +you will get +80% +of the way +but with a +movie you're +going to be +losing a lot +of the nuance +and I find +that if you +can get +the original +subtitles +or subtitles +from somebody +who's very +good at doing +subtitles +you'll get a lot +more nuance +of the language +and the movie +in fact +will be a lot +more enjoyable +okay +that's it +hope you +use this +or you know +if somebody +comes on with a +better tool +please record a +show +on that +because I +would +much prefer +to be using +somebody's tool +than having to +maintain my own +but it +has opened +up a +wide variety +of movies +for me +now that +I would +normally +not even +bother +watching +or just +too intense +to watch +and I +can focus +on the +actors and +actresses +doing very +good jobs +okay +and with +that I'll +probably +give you some +of the +recommendations +for movies +that I've +been watching +lately +and at +some point +if you +actually have +recommendations +for your +region +movies from +your region +that say +top three +movies that +everybody knows +in your region +that you would +say would be +representative +of must +watch movies +feel free to +record a show +about that +here on +Hacker Public +Radio +perhaps it +might be +tomorrow's +episode +so tune in +tomorrow for +another exciting +episode of +Hacker Public +Radio +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4597.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4597.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a2bc8a --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4597.txt @@ -0,0 +1,140 @@ +Episode: 4597 +Title: UNIX Curio #2 - fgrep +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4597/hpr4597.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:46 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4597, for 2026-03-17 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #2 - fgrep" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:11:50 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Searching without regular expressions" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number 2. +This series is dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking +in the dusty corners of Unix Lake operating systems. +Imagine, if you will, a Jane Austen novel about three sisters. +The first is well known and celebrated by everyone. +The second, while slightly smarter and more capable, is significantly less popular. +And the third languages in near-total isolation and obscurity. +These three sisters live on any Unix Lake system, and their names are Grepp, E-Grepp, and +F-Grepp. +I will assume that you are already familiar with Grepp. +Grepp works pretty much the same, except that she handles extended regular expression syntax. +The E is for extended. +When you're writing shell scripts intended to be portable, be careful to call E-Grepp if +your expression uses the plus symbol, question mark, vertical pipe symbol, or curly +braces as metacaractors. +Some versions of G-Neu-Grepp make no distinction between basic and extended regular expressions, +so you might be surprised when your script works on one system, but not another. +If you go to the POSIX-Grepp specification, linked from the show notes, you will find +a link to the specification page describing basic and extended regular expressions. +This might help you understand the difference between them and where you would need to use +Grepp or E-Grepp. +But our Unix Curio for today is poor unnoticed F-Grepp. +While the plainest sister of the three, she really doesn't deserve to be ignored, sometimes +she's exactly what you need. +The F in her name stands for either fixed string or fast, depending on who you ask. +She does not handle regular expressions at all. +The pattern she has given is taken literally. +This can be a great advantage when what you are searching for contains characters having +special meaning in a regular expression. +As an example, suppose that you have a directory full of code files and want to find +which files reference a particular array element. +If the language that these files are written in uses square brackets for array elements, +this won't be straightforward. +Regular expressions in Grepp treat a set of characters inside square brackets as representing +any one of the characters listed in that set. +Actually, it's a little bit more complicated than that. +You can look up bracket expressions in a reference about regular expressions if you want +the gory details. +To find text containing a literal set of square brackets with Grepp, you would need to escape +each square bracket with a backslash character. +You can see the show notes for an example of what I mean. +If what you're searching for contains other characters that are special to Grepp, you +would similarly need to put backslashes before these to force Grepp to search for the literal +characters instead. +This can get tedious if your search string has many non-alphanumeric characters and +you don't remember off the top of your head, which ones have special significance in +regular expressions. +Before anyone jumps into correct me, I should point out that there are other possible +ways to escape medicaractors in a regular expression. +A backslash is just the simplest approach, so that's what I'm describing. +Thankfully, there is an easier way to deal with these special characters. +Just use F-Grepp instead. +F-Grepp treats each character as simply representing itself. +You can therefore search for patterns including dot characters, square brackets, and +asterisks with abandon. +They will only match themselves. +Of course, you lose the flexibility of regular expressions, so F-Grepp isn't the right +tool for all occasions, but when you need it, it's there. +Where I most often find F-Grepp to be particularly handy is when searching through log files +for IP version for addresses. +With ordinary Grepp, a pattern containing an IPv4 address with dots would probably match +a bunch of addresses you're not interested in, because the dot medicaractor will match +any single character. +To make sure you only matched a literal dot, you would have to escape each one, or better +yet use F-Grepp. +While I was researching this episode, I discovered a capability all three of these +sisters have that previously I didn't fully appreciate. +You might be familiar with using the vertical pipe symbol with E-Grepp to match either +what is to the left of the symbol or to the right. +The similar thing can be accomplished by using a pattern list instead of a single pattern. +Anywhere that you would give a pattern to Grepp, E-Grepp, or F-Grepp, such as on the command +line or from a file, you can instead supply a list separated by new lines. +The utility will then match lines that match any of the patterns in the list. +So in my IP address example, I could feed a list of addresses to F-Grepp instead of just +one and get back all of the lines from the log file that matched any of the addresses +in the list. +You should note that to provide a pattern list on the command line, you will need to +enclose it in single or double quotation marks to prevent the shell from trying to execute +the command when you type a new line. +But what about the claim that F-Grepp is fast? +On many systems, including those with canoe utilities, there is just one single binary +that changes its behavior depending on whether it is called as Grepp, E-Grepp, or F-Grepp. +This is actually in line with the POSIX standard, which seeks to move away from E-Grepp +and F-Grepp in favor of a single Grepp command. +This Grepp command takes the Hiphon uppercase E option for using extended regular expressions +and the Hiphon uppercase F option for doing fixed string searches. +Back in 2010, when I first wrote this article, I tested Grepp against F-Grepp for speed. +I found that when specifying a single pattern on the command line with the GNU version, +F-Grepp wasn't really any faster than Grepp. +The main overhead that is saved with F-Grepp is the effort necessary to compile the regular +expression before the searching starts. +However, when I tried using the Hiphon lowercase F option to specify a file containing +a list of a couple dozen patterns, F-Grepp could consistently produce a 20% time savings. +One systems where Grepp and F-Grepp are different binaries, there can potentially be a +more dramatic difference in speed and even memory usage. +I hope you'll excuse me for going a little bit off topic, but I wanted to briefly touch +on pro-compatible regular expressions. +I already talked about the basic and extended regular expressions, and the differences that +are between them, pro-compatible regular expressions add some extra capabilities beyond +what extended regular expressions are able to do. +These are supported by several programming languages, not just Pearl, and the GNU version +of Grepp can also be told to use them. +However, they are not part of the POSIC standard, and other Grepp implementations typically +do not understand them. +So it is good idea to avoid them when writing a shell script intended to be portable. +When you're writing a script in Pearl, Python, or another language that supports them, before +using these pro-compatible regular expressions, it's advisable to investigate which versions +of the language support them, and whether support is built in or provided by an additional +library. +Then you can advise potential users what they need to have to run your script, or you +might instead decide to use a type of regular expression that has wider support. +Getting back to our hypothetical Austin novel, the neglected sister would probably be driven +to a bad end, to be only spoken of afterward in hushed whispers. +Don't let that happen. +Whenever you need to search for a string, but don't require the power of regular expressions, +get into the habit of calling on F-Grepp. +She can be very helpful and deserves more intention than she gets. +You'll save yourself the trouble of worrying about medic characters, and maybe some running +time as well. +Thanks for listening, and keep an eye out for our next Unix Curio, which will be about +the base name utility here on Hacker Public Radio. +If you have a question, or a suggestion for a future topic, please comment on this episode +on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4598.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4598.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8a6152 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4598.txt @@ -0,0 +1,347 @@ +Episode: 4598 +Title: Recording good audio using open source tools +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4598/hpr4598.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:48 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4598, for 2026-03-18 +Today's show is entitled, "Recording good audio using open source tools" +The host is Shane - StrandedOutput and the duration is 00:40:24 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This is my advice from several years of podcasting and tinkering with audio software." +Hello and welcome to another episode of HPR. My name is Shane. I have recorded an episode +before. I'll include a link to that in the show notes accompanying this episode. That was my +introductory episode. If you'd like to get to know a bit more about me. This episode is intended +to be a part of a series about being creative on Linux and open source software. But not +necessarily limited to those things. So this episode in particular is going to be about recording +good audio in the context of recording a podcast basically. So I'll cover several things. So I +will cover kind of the sort of philosophical angle of it, which I'm very fond of. I'll cover +the hardware that you need. I'll cover the technique of actually speaking into the microphone. +And I will then go briefly because it's a very dense topic. I will cover +editing the podcast. The software you used to record, et cetera, et cetera. Today I'm focusing purely +on creating good audio and creating good podcasts audio specifically. Now this doesn't +necessarily have to be just podcasts. This could be voiceover work. This could be narration for a +story that's then incorporated into a video. This could be an audio book, whatever. You know, +anything where the speaker speaks into a microphone needs to sound very present and very +authoritative and the tone of the voice catches your attention. That's kind of the that's the +point when it comes to this kind of thing. When you're talking about like I don't know if there's +a specific term for this, but I would say single speaker audio. That's how I would phrase it. +Before I get into specifics, what gives me the right to talk about all this? I have been on +a Linux podcast called Linux Lads for the last seven and a bit years. We have gone through the +trials and tribulations over the years of improving our audio piecemeal. And I think we've gotten +to a point where we sound quite professional. I myself have actually recorded a voiceover real +professionally in a studio and gotten some coaching on that. I have had some experience with +audio editing and sound engineering, not professional, but you know, self-taught. I do have +enough information to be dangerous, as they say. So I'll start with some tips for just speaking +into the microphone, which I am not following at all. The reason I'm not following those tips is because +I'm just on my own speaking into what microphone and I'm very used to having at least two or three +co-hosts. I'm also aware there's a dog barking in the background. There's probably +sirens in the background, but as many of you may know, we're having a bit of a heat wave in Western +Europe over the last few weeks. And it's just too warm to keep the window closed and air conditioning +is not a thing in this part of the world. So this advice that I'm not following myself right now +is breathing. So you need to sit upright, you need to have your chest cavity, be as big as possible, +so that you're not struggling to breathe as you talk. So I would recommend that before you start to speak +you're in a comfortable position, you're upright, you're not hunched over, you're not leaning +too far back, you're just in the middle in a very natural position. As I'm saying this, I'm starting to do +it. So you're in this position, your lungs can fill with air, they can empty air without much effort. +That makes your voice sound a bit more natural and that bit more professional because that's how +the professionals do it. Someone's on TV, they're standing up with a microphone, they're up, +bolt upright, they're breathing naturally, they're they're sounding pretty good. In a radio show, +you've probably seen video feeds of radio shows where they're sitting upright in their chair +or they're leaning slightly forward, talking into the mic and it just makes them sound obviously, +they have professional audio equipment and stuff as well to make them sound great and they have +years of experience. But that's where the breathing comes in, isn't it? Like they know how to +measure their words and they know how to breathe so that they can sound as good as possible. +So they don't sound like they're choking on their words like I'm a little bit myself right now. +There can be nerves that come into it. So you know your breathing can be a little bit shallow and +you're really, you know, you're a bit unsure of what you're saying. So you're kind of, you know, +you're not really taking in the breaths and letting them out in a nice calm manner. +Because I myself am not following that advice right now, I'm not going to spend too much time +speaking about that and I'm going to get to what I really know. As I said, I'm used to speaking +with other people on a podcast. So when I'm doing it solo, it's that bit more nerve-wracking. +I wanted to leave that in just to demonstrate the importance of that breathing. So let's talk +about the fun stuff hardware. A lot of HPR episodes would tend to be recorded by people who +don't have the same experience with audio recording and audio editing as other people who +maybe do that on a more regular basis, which is completely fine. I mean, once the content is good, +it doesn't really matter. If you do want that spit and polish on your recording and you do want +that extra little bit of professionalism, then there are some very easy steps and some very +cheap purchases you can make to make that happen. So first of all, don't record on a webcam +mic because it's just going to sound absolutely terrible. Don't record on a phone mic, unless you +have a particularly good phone. If you can get a USB microphone, make sure it's not the cheapest +one you can find off Amazon. I would not recommend anything by Blue Yeti. Personally, I just don't +think they sound very good for the money that they cost. I don't know how much they cost these days. +When I last checked, it was in and around a hundred euro, which I just don't think it's a +product that's worth a hundred euro. It doesn't have the audio quality. If you already have one, +okay, fine. What I will say though is the environment that you record in is incredibly important. +Probably more important than your microphone and I'll come back to microphones and recording +equipment in just a moment because I think it is also important. But the environment that you +record in is incredibly important. So if you're recording in your kitchen with tiles and hard wood +and bare walls, it's going sound echoey and tinny and rubbish. If you're recording in a bedroom with +lovely soft pillows and a big duvet and shelves and clothes and wardrobes, that's going to sound +better, obviously because it absorbs the sound and there's not as much echo. It's not going +to sound as hollow and echoey. Currently, I am in my office slash future child's room with +there's three bedrooms or three bedrooms. My god, there's three doors on a wardrobe here and I +have basically opened the doors and wedged blankets into the top. So I've just three blankets +draped over the top of these bed wardrobe doors and then I have the the baby's future caught, +which I haven't gotten around to assembling properly and I have my dressing gown and some pillows +draped over that. So that's created quite a nice sound environment and there's probably still a +bit of echo and there's probably some incidental sounds from outside because I had the window +a jar because it's a bit warm. But the point is is that you have to do the best with what you have, +you know and I'm sure if you have an apartment or a house you're going to have one very small room. +I'll share with you an anecdote from the early days of recording Linux Lads. So I was living +in a rental house with a housemate and my housemate was an artist and she had a spare room or a +boxroom as we'd say. Just full of just other shit, just wardrobe full of old clothes that she +used in art projects and boxes and boxes of them just random random rubbish. That was the best room +to record it. I had a blue snowball microphone which is a very bad microphone, don't buy it and +it was what I had at the time though so I used it. What I would do with that microphone as they place +it on a cardboard box, get another cardboard box with one of the sides cut out, place it on top, +place a towel on top of that to stop it from rustling too much and then honkered down +nearly on the floor and speak into the little hole in the box and that's the only way I could get +this to sound in any way good was by entoming it in cardboard and towels. So that's the lengths +you would go to and that was in a small room with a lot of clothes and boxes and soft material in it +and it still didn't sound very good. Your hardware does sort of matter even if your environment is +you know it's kind of a 50-50 as far as I'm concerned. Your environment matters about 50% +and then what you're recording through matters the other 50% and then of course there's editing +and etc etc but I don't think that has quite as much of an impact you know it's as they say like +you can only take things out in editing you can't put them in you can't make bad audio sound good +you can make good audio sound bad but you can't do it the other way around so to get to the good +stuff hardware what would I recommend my first I would say decent sounding audio setup was +the microphone I currently using actually know that's not true sorry my first good microphone was +an audio technique at 80 2020 the thing with that was was that it was a condenser microphone so +a condenser microphone is very very good for recording vocals from music in a very well-treated +audio environment in a studio so it's actually not the best mic to use for podcasting unless +you are literally in a phone booth with styrofoam all around you yes your voice will sound great +but also the dog barking 6 doors down will also sound great so a dynamic mic is the way to go +for most people because you're going to be in a domestic situation you're going to be +unless you live out in the woods then you're going to be in an apartment close to or in a city +or even in a house I'm in a house but I am quite close to a city there's a busy road nearby there's +there's a hospital or two nearby there's dogs and everything there's cats fighting so +you know I'm going to pick up ambulances and police cars and cats and dogs and people shouting +on the street coming home from the pub so you know you pick up all that stuff and so I'd recommend +a dynamic mic and a dynamic mic is what people use when they're on stage so that literally picks up +the zone just around it it's not quite as sensitive as a as a condenser mic so just to get +down to brass tax and give you actual recommendations here mine is a sure SM58 so that's a pretty +common microphone that's that's a bit of a standard you know so many people use that same microphone +I got a mic stand for about 20 quid in my local music shop it's it's if anyone's curious it's a +stag desktop mic stand so it's got a very heavy metal bass and then a little poll that juts up +and you can just slot the microphone into it and it's because the bass is like made of solid metal +and it's very heavy it doesn't move it doesn't rattle it's and create any additional noise and +then I have some acoustic tiles on the desk that I picked up years and years ago from a whole +sailor for almost nothing and they just sit on the desk and just absorb any additional reflections +that come off the bare walls in here the thing is though if you have like a stage microphone like +a dynamic mic phone or a condenser you need an audio interface because the connector for that is an +XLR which is a big beefy circular connector that doesn't fit into a computer so you'll need an +audio interface thankfully those are cheapest chips the one I'm using did cost me about a hundred +quid but I got it second hand and it's a bit more than I really need it's got four inputs and four +outputs so that means you can plug four instruments or microphones into it I do also +play guitar sometimes and I mess around with synthesizers and stuff so that's why I have this +but it's it's still more than I need really so the audio interface that I started out with was the +barringer u4ia um2 so that's u-4ia um2 so that is a single input audio interface the thing is +very very cheap I actually had it I got it for nothing actually because my partner is a singer +and she was given it as a gift by by a friend in the past but if you were to buy it +second hand or even new in some places it would cost you only about 20 or 30 quid it's a very +plasticy light piece of equipment it's got three knobs on it and a couple of buttons you can plug +your microphone your XLR microphone into it you can plug your headphones into it it does direct +monitoring so that you can push about and then you can hear what's going into your input so you +can just make sure that it sounds alright it's got a couple of knobs there so you can you can +adjust the gain so that's like how much amplification is on your input you can adjust the volume +on the headphones etc so lovely little piece of equipment and great for traveling you can plug it into +a laptop it's completely USB powered as well you don't have to plug it in separately so if I was +to recommend anyone just like right at the beginning starting out who just wants some decent audio +I would say I sure SM58 a barangir u4ia um2 and then the only extra fancy stuff that you need is +an XLR cable which can be picked up for a five or ten quid and obviously the USB cable for the +audio interface which is similar to what you would have for a printer it's that big square +square USB one I don't know what the name of that standard is but I'm sure you can find out +online I'll put it in the show notes if I if I if I find out now I will say the sure SM58 +has gone up in price over the last few years when I bought it it was only about 60 euro +these days I don't know if it's just become quite popular because it's quite a capable microphone +for the price and maybe inflation and cost living has pushed up the price at a bit I don't really +know but it's now retailing for about a hundred quid I don't know why the price has gone up maybe +sure I actually thought oh wait this square to popular microphone let's jack up the price a bit +who knows but um yeah but honestly dynamic microphone don't spend less than 50 or 60 +units of your own currency be that dollars pounds euro guineas you know boolean whatever I don't know +just get something that's not very cheap but not very expensive and I think you'll be all right +it's going to sound better than any USB microphone that you will buy now that said there are +good USB microphones out there but I don't think you're going to get one for cheap you know I think +if you buy that barrenger audio interface you buy the kind of mid range dynamic microphone +then I think you're just going to get better audio done with those USB microphones like a blue +yetty just for comparison here just just to illustrate what I'm talking about here so I'm looking +at a website here a blue yetty USB microphone is 145 euro now that's on the higher end I suppose but +you're looking at a hundred to a hundred and fifty quit for that one microphone which honestly +is not a good microphone it does not sound good it does have some features that might appeal to +people who don't really care about audio they just want to start streaming a game or they just +want to record some audio very quickly and they just want to know for solution with no extra +equipment or cables they can plug it with USB into their computer and they're they're away +yeah fine I get it but the audio is just very bad it's not good it doesn't sound good for the +price you can spend 20 or 30 quit less and get in my opinion better sound so I don't know +maybe it comes down to space convenience who knows but that's my two cents on the +issue I think if you get a cheap audio interface a cheap condenser no sorry no condenser a cheap +dynamic microphone then you are going to get superior audio quality done one of those USB stream +or microphones unless there is some product these days that is completely blowing everyone's minds +and I'm just not aware of it so as I talked about earlier you could record on your phone +you could record on your iPad you could record on your on like a little dictifone if you want to be +really old school if you do want to follow what I'm saying here and you want to record on a very basic +XLR mic setup you know with your sure SM58 and your barringer audio interface I just want to +stress though those are not the only options I'm just saying that those are those are very solid +options if you're looking for a low price point that will give you the best bang for your book +obviously if you spend more you'll get more unless it comes to USB microphones of course +but what I'm saying is that spend more on the microphone yeah there's better microphones +there's there's there's there's other sure models and there's 18 models like audio technique +and stuff that do offer you like really really buttery sound that really sound really nice +I would say though if you're in a very poor noise environment always go for dynamic mics +just avoid condenser mics some condenser mics can actually handle a poor noise environment +better than others but I would say if you're a podcaster you know if it's a single speaker +kind of in deal that you're trying to accomplish you know a podcast or narration or a voice over +I would say stick to a dynamic microphone especially if you're in a house with other people +or you have kids or you have pets or you have you know you live in a built up neighborhood +I would say just stick to dynamic microphone so when it goes to the software that you used to record +I'm I'm gonna focus on Linux honestly because I have not been a Windows user for +I want to say six or seven years I've been a Linux daily driver for for quite some time +so the only recommendations I can authoritatively give here are in an express +I would just say use audacity audacity might seem a bit intimidating for the average person +but it really isn't you look at the top you see pause play stop skip back skip forward record loop +those are the big square buttons on the top I think a monkey could figure that out you know +you hit record you record you hit play you play hit stop you stop you hit pause you pause +these are buttons that have been on every remote control for the past 40 years so +and longer probably so I think audacity is the way to go +one thing I would make sure to do is to click the audio setup button +if you're recording for a podcast it's a very good idea to record in mono +by default it will assume you're recording music and record in stereo +so that's two channels left and right +mono records on just the left channel so if you don't record in mono or sorry if you record +mono into a stereo track and then you listen back to it you will only hear it in your left ear +because it's only on the left channel that's just one little thing to be aware of it's +a simple enough matter to just go to tracks mix and then mix stereo down to mono +but not everyone will be aware of that and those are menu options you know audacity just +to be clear so you go tracks mix stereo down to mono and that will take your two stereo tracks +and mush them into one so all that does is basically take the left ear of the stereo track +and put it on both the left on the right it makes no difference whether you record in mono +or you record in stereo on the left channel and then mix it down to mono it really doesn't matter +some very seasoned audio engineers might have a different opinion I don't know but yeah it doesn't +but I would say just for your own kind of convenience just record in mono so you know you'll +see it in audacity when you're recording you'll have two lines moving across the screen +and you'll only see one of them produce a waveform produced of the bumpy bumps and the one +below it will produce nothing and that's an easy way to tell if you're recording in mono you'll only see +one line and that will have the bumpy bumps on it so I'm trying to make this as +simplest possible for people so that there isn't any confusion here editing your audio is another +thing entirely to share a bit of my journey on Linux lives on the podcast I started out editing +podcasts in audacity audacity has changed quite a bit over the years when I originally started +using it it didn't have non-destructive editing so non-destructive means that when you delete or +change a part of the audio in the track that you've recorded it it doesn't completely delete it let's +say for instance there was a cough or a fumble in the audio or someone said something and then +ten seconds later said oh no I want to do that again something like that with destructive +audio editing which which was audacity at the time you would have to go back you would have to control +Z you would have to undo every single action and you would have to go back and say you made a mistake +in the editing you have to keep control Z control Z control Z keep on doing everything you did +for the past five minutes until you got to a point where that little piece of audio reappeared +and wasn't deleted anymore with non-destructive audio editing you can trim clips you can +like basically drag them from the edge and you know shorten them or lengthen them or you know split +them into new tracks but then when you split them into new tracks you can shorten them or lengthen +them again and all the audio on either side of that little clip that you have produced will still +be there it's all still there so you have a lot more flexibility in terms of editing so my work flow +when I first started Benix Lads when I was the editor I'm not the editor anymore we have another editor +who is not a host thank god what I would do was in my little workflow in audacity was to import +everyone's audio track into audacity run the noise removal tool so it would take 10 seconds +at the start of the episode to just basically say nothing I would take that 10 seconds of silence +run it through their little noise removal algorithm which is actually incredibly good I'll get to +this later but other audio programs don't seem to have as good a noise removal algorithm and I don't +understand why and just remove the background kind of falls in the room you know the room tone +as they call it and that would just give your audio just a little bit of a level up so if you just +capture 10 seconds of just the background noise of the room obviously if a dog barks or an ambulance +goes by it completely ruins it because it's going to identify that frequency and it's going to +cut that frequency out from everything else in the recording so you have to be selective about +period of audio that you select for your noise removal because it's going to sample that audio and +think right this is the background noise this is what we don't want and then if I apply this to +the rest of the track it's just going to remove all of those frequencies it's happened on several +occasions where there was something left in that little sample for the noise removal algorithm +and then it removed that frequency from a person's audio for the rest of the recording and it sounded +really weird I used to do the entire podcast in audacity but then what I started doing later on was +because the editing experience in audacity was not great since then it has introduced +just non-destructive editing so that means you can resize and you know adjust the length of clips +split them up transfer them to different tracks increase or decrease the length without +deleting anything so as I got used to audacity I started to notice pain points and friction +so I moved on to ardor so I will say that even though I moved on to ardor audacity's noise +removal tool was still fantastic and I would even to this day I would still use it because I +have not found an equivalent in other applications and I know other podcasters who still +swear by it they say the noise removal tool and audacity is fantastic and they just cannot +father musing anything else it's one of a kind the ease of use with ardor though is in the editing +it has it has always had non-destructive editing right from the beginning and even having used +more recent versions of audacity that do have non-destructive editing now I would say that ardor +ardor's workflow is still far superior they've made not to throw shade audacity they've made +great strides there but ardor's editing workflow is just miles ahead still it's just a different +animal in terms of audio editing software audacity's definitely aimed at a more +beginner kind of market and ardor is definitely aimed more of a professional market you know +them audacity's like a sound recorder with some additional features and it's thoroughly meant to be +more of an entry level to mid level kind of tool whereas ardor is targeting more of a professional +audience so they're both very good for what they are so it's good to use them in tandem you know +let like I used to we we we now have an editor for the next lads and I don't do the editing +myself anymore which is good because I personally don't enjoy audio editing but yeah audacity +is great for the initial treatment and you know trimming kind of the silence at the start the +silence at the end just getting all your tracks ready for editing and removing the noise +doing the initial treatment and then exporting them as kind of a lossless format like flag or +something and then plugging them into ardor for like chopping them up and you know putting fades +on the end of things and the beginning of things and making everything sound good so +while you're editing in ardor the whole point is to cut out all the fath and the fumbles and +the things that people didn't mean to say and like let me repeat that and that and that +cutting all that like awkward stuff out entirely depends on your style but if you +want to leave some of that in just for humanity and character that's also fine but +if you leave too much of that stuff in it's going to sound a bit +on professional and rubbish if it sounds like something you know your +cousin or your brother might have recorded on their laptop then it's not something that people are +going to want to listen to again and again so if you're trying to produce like in our case +we're trying to produce a podcast that people want to listen to every two weeks you do want +a certain level of quality now there are other podcasts out there that do have that level of +quality and I think they they slightly exceed our level of quality they do take take that care and +attention to making audio that sounds quite good but on the next slides we kind of embrace more +of a ad hoc nature if you will so personally we're happy to leave in some of the imperfections +that said the audio needs to be listenable it cannot sound harsh or irritating to your ears +it cannot sound grainy or staticky or harsh or annoying or any of those things like it needs +you need to be able to listen to it for half an hour when I was publishing YouTube videos the advice +I always heard was people will put up with bad video but they will not put up with bad audio +and that's very true how many YouTube videos have you clicked on the video quality was terrible +put the audio quality was very good and you keep watching it I think that's what happens with +audio and video so with video you see an image and the image makes sense with less information +that's my theory anyway I think you need a lot more you need a lot more audio information to kind of +understand a scene then you do visual information all the things I've said don't necessarily mean +you have to live up to a certain standard nobody's expecting you to do that if you just want to +record something that you are passionate about and that you want to speak about don't worry about +audio quality just do it don't be too concerned with what people think of you or how professional +your audio sounds or any of the things I've just said I would thoroughly encourage anyone to just +record a HPore episode and just upload it and learn by experience and if you listen to it +and you want to improve your audio quality and you want to improve your sounds then by all means +use the advice I've given in this episode but what I would say is that don't aspire to a standard +that someone else has said the advice I'm giving here simply just if you do want to reach a certain +level and you want to sound a certain way then by all means follow my advice but if you're happy to +talk about a novel you love if you're happy to talk about your hobby or something on the internet +that interests you and you don't honestly care about how it sounds you just want to convey +what you enjoy then by all means go ahead so I'll finish on some very easy easy tips that you +can use so say you're using a webcam mic using a built-in mic on your laptop you're just using +something that you have and you're really not bothered buying new equipment or you're really not bothered +delving deep into audio editing or anything like that so what I would say is be in a small room +with some soft things around so be in a small room some cushions a bed things like that +and then record on your laptop you can maybe boost the effect a little bit by wearing a hoodie +you know I've often recorded with a hoodie on and the hoodie upper on my head that acts as a sort of +audio booth effect almost it it's surprisingly effective if you really want to go the whole +hog I would say get a blanket and put it over your head on the microphone that's actually quite an +effective way to get your audio sound quite good the only danger there it though is that as the +microphone or as the blanket moves around it will rustle like that against the microphone +and against the microphone stand and against the laptop or against your clothes and it will sound +really bad so I don't know come up with your own solution there and just those are just some +easy suggestions you know just put some soft material around you to absorb the sound as much as possible +you would be quite surprised how good you can get a bad microphone sound in the right environment +contrary to what I said earlier in this episode yeah if it depends on the level of quality +that you're going for you can get it to it it's kind of a difference between getting its +sounding quote unquote professional and sounding not irritating to your listeners is the point I'm +so you can have poor quality audio but the sound that you're producing won't be abrasive in +anyway so I will come back with another episode on on this if you do have any suggestions or questions +please reach out to me on info at strandedoutput.com that's STR, A&D, E-D, O-U-T, P-U-T.com +you can also get my website on strandedoutput.com you can reach out to me on mastered on my handle there +is also stranded output I'm I'm happy to receive feedback I'm happy to receive messages feedback +criticisms insults whatever you have if you insult me I will hone you down and kill you though +just so you know other than that I will see you in the next one and thank you very much for listening +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4599.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4599.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8adbdf --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4599.txt @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +Episode: 4599 +Title: Women in digital and games event +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4599/hpr4599.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:50 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4599, for 2026-03-19 +Today's show is entitled, "Women in digital and games event" +The host is Dave Hingley and the duration is 00:03:48 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Raising awareness of a forthcoming event to encourage more women into digital and games" +Hello and welcome to a new episode of Hacker Public Radio. +I'm still in the middle of a field with a dog recording this on my phone. +So if it's here lots of wind noises and pops and apologies but there we go. +It's the first of March and yesterday. +It's the first of March and yesterday my original plan was to go to a Cambridge Raspberry Jam. +But they saw that at tickets. +So we did our next best thing which was we decided we went to the Centre for Public Computing. +Also in Cambridge. +Great day. +Super fun time. +It was great seeing all computers I had as a kid. +Playing the games that I used to play. +And trying to work out why I could not get to the past level one of the neighborhoods. +I used to do that every time. +That was a kid. +I tried to code on a BBC micro. +And realizing that the keyboard layer is changed. +It's shift keys in the wrong place. +It's one figure that's what was there. +It was a lot of problems in the space about prominent women in computing. +And I think that was great. +It's great to read and learn about these pioneers. +Historically computing has some figure of an image problem. +It is seen by many as a boy's club. +And I really want people to challenge that notion. +There is nothing in parenting computing that sort of says this is just for girls or this is just for boys. +It's just a thing and you can get into it or not. +It's with that in mind that I'm going to plug and the event that's happening. +He will run here in various events. +27th of March 6 p.m. +That's the west of a college. +They've got an event called Women in Digital and Games. +So get ready to connect, learn and be inspired at this awesome in person event. +Celebrating amazing women in the digital and games industries. +Wherever you're a student, professional, just curious. +Come hang out, hear stories and boost your network. +Don't miss that on an empowering evening field of energy and inspiration. +And I'm going to say this sounds like it could be a very interesting event. +If you're young woman interested in getting into computing is unsure. +Then does literally no barrier to this. +The ticket is free, just turn up hear the stories. +Hear what people's experiences are like working in computing and in games and in technology. +I'm sure you're going to find it inspiring. +And this could be the stepping stone. +The thing that sets you up on your incredible careers. +As I mentioned, tick to free. +It's something to be able to come last for about two hours. +It takes a free links on the event, right links on the show notes. +And I hope if you do to attend that you have an inspiring evening. +And if you do so, maybe record an episode of faculty probably read you all about it. +In the meantime, take care. +Join some of our brand new episodes of faculty probably read you. +It's going to be about something completely different. +But what I do not know is not the thrill. +Anyway, take care. Bye now. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4600.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4600.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3bb79c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4600.txt @@ -0,0 +1,445 @@ +Episode: 4600 +Title: The First Doctor, Part 5 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4600/hpr4600.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:52 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4600, for 2026-03-20 +Today's show is entitled, "The First Doctor, Part 5" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:15:26 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A continuing look at the first Doctor Who." +Hello, this is Ahuka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio, and another exciting episode in our series on science fiction and fantasy. +And we're going to wrap up the first Doctor Who, William Hartnell, in today's episode. +We've been following him from the very first episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child. +And he was in the role for just over three years. +So, we've got a lot of stories to talk about, and the first one we're going to talk about today is called The Celestial Toymaker. +It's a wonderful story, and the Toymaker is another foe many Doctor Who fans wanted to see return. +And in 2023, it happened. +And in the story, The Giggle, he returned, played this time by Neil Patrick Harris, and it is a very good story. +But in this introduction of the character, he is played by Michael Goff in a Fu Manchu-like costume. +And he has great powers, but is bound by certain rules, which makes this interesting. +When the TARDIS lands in his world, he sets them games they have to survive to escape. +They're games based on children's games you might be familiar with, but they have a twist. +The Doctor is told he must solve the Trilogic puzzle in exactly 1,023 moves. +And Stephen and Dodo must win their games before the Doctor wins his. +This story is pure entertainment, but very well done. +However, Hartnell's decline continued. +In this story, there are scenes of the Trilogic puzzle where a hand moves a piece, +but it's not Hartnell's hand, it's another actor. +And Hartnell does not appear at all in Episodes 2 and 3. +Producer John Wiles had a plan to replace Hartnell, +whose contract was up at the end of the season, +but he was overruled by BBC head of cereals, Gerald Savory, +who extended Hartnell's contract, leading to John Wiles quitting the production. +Hartnell would continue for now, but something would have to happen eventually. +Next is the gunfighters. +Now, depending on your point of view with this one, +it's a historical story. +It is either embarrassingly bad or delightfully camp. +All a matter of perspective. +It takes the TARDIS to Tombstone, Arizona, +at the time of the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. +Now, I've been to Tombstone, Arizona, +and it is extremely camp or embarrassingly bad. +I've seen that they do a reenactment of the gunfight of the O.K. Corral there every day. +Now, +Stephen Taylor is mostly silly, +trying to act out childish fantasies of cowboys. +The setup comes from the end of the previous story, +when the doctor bites into a candy and yells in pain. +He needs to see a dentist. +And Doc Holliday, aside from being a gunfighter, +is a dentist. +Mistaken identities happen all over. +Now, this is light fluff. +It's enjoyable if you give in to the silliness. +So, I wouldn't say don't watch it. +I'd just say go in knowing that you're going to see something very silly and very camp. +Then the next story is called The Savages. +This is another story about who are the bad guys, really. +In that respect, it's similar to Galaxy 4. +Now, in this case, +Dodo and Stephen are captured by what appear to be Stone Age savages. +The doctor, meanwhile, +is taken to the City of the Elders +and is greeted warmly. +It seems they have been following his travels for some time +and are great admirers of him. +Now, Stephen and Dodo are rescued by soldiers from the city +and reunited with the doctor. +Then Dodo slips away and stumbles on experiments being conducted on human beings. +So, the Elders turn out to be the real savages here. +They're experimenting on what we thought were savages, +who are just unfortunate people that they are exploiting. +And they're basically trying to take their life energy for themselves. +The lab is destroyed in this, +and the two groups decide to live together in peace. +But they realize they need a leader who is from neither group +and choose Stephen to be their leader. +So, another companion goes. +Only Dodo is left. +Then, the war machines. +This is kind of an AI gone bad story. +At this time in history, +we're certainly primed to see AI gone bad. +In this case, a professor has built a computer +to help manage the communications in the new post office tower, +which, in fact, was a new building in London. +But the computer turns out to be more than anyone realized. +The doctor gets it right away +when the computer correctly gives the meaning of TARDIS. +Then it turns out the computer can hypnotize people +and make them its slaves. +It does this to several of the professors involved +and has them build the war machines +that will enable it to take over the world. +Dodo is hypnotized and tries to trap the doctor. +But he figures it out and restores her. +Then she is sent away to recuperate. +We won't ever see her again. +Meanwhile, the secretary to one of the professors +by the name of Polly +and a young sailor named Ben +join up with the doctor +and they defeat the computer. +At the end, they realize they have Dodo's TARDIS key +and enter just before it takes off. +So now we have two new companions. +Now, this is a fun episode. +The props are the usual for this time at Doctor Who. +They're pretty cheap and they look it. +The writing is good. +The story has enough twists and turns +to carry you right along. +Hartnell was really good in this story +despite the problems he was having. +The next is the smugglers. +Now, this is another historical story. +But instead of being based on any particular incident, +it tells of a general occurrence in English history. +The English government chose to support itself +primarily through customs duties on imports, +which of course created an incentive +to avoid those duties by smuggling. +And that definitely happened a lot +in the Cornwall area of England. +It was also one of the issues +that started the American Revolution, +but that's not the story +we're going to be telling here. +Now, the TARDIS crew +encounters a former pirate +now turned church warden +who tells them a secret +before being killed by another pirate. +Ben and Polly capture a man +who they think is the murderer, +but he is in fact +an undercover revenue agent +and in the end helps defeat the pirates. +It is a good story +and the most memorable character +has to be Cherub, +the pirate who murdered the church warden +and kills other people +and is very sinister. +So this is a story +where all the episodes have been lost. +So I got it through reconstructions. +So you may or may not +want to subject yourself to that, +but I'm a completist. +What can I say? +And finally, we come to +the 10th planet +and that is Hartnell's final story +and it takes the TARDIS to Antarctica +where the travelers are taken +to the snow-capped base +of the International Space Command. +They are managing the return +of the manned space mission +Zeus 4 +and everything goes wrong +when a new planet appears +dooming the mission. +Then we meet +the second most memorable enemies +of the Doctor, +the Cybermen. +They explain that they are +from the planet Mondas, +which is Earth's twin, +hence the 10th planet, +and they need the energy +from the Earth +to keep their planet going. +The general running the base +is of course pig-headed +and does everything possible +to make things worse +than they have to be. +This adventure turns out +to be too much for the Doctor, +who explains that his old body +is just wearing out +and when they get back +to the TARDIS, +he collapses +and starts to change. +In the end, +he is replaced by Patrick Troughton. +Now, Hartnell was becoming +increasingly difficult +to work with +as far back as the Time Meddler, +where you could really see him +losing his lines. +And there are lots of stories +about him hiding notes +to remind himself +about what he was supposed to say. +But the BBC +didn't want the show to end, +so they did something unprecedented +and replaced the lead actor +in a popular series. +To explain it away, +they invented regeneration, +something the Doctor's race could do. +We now call them +the Time Lords of Gallifrey, +but that part did not appear +until the end of Troughton's run +as the Doctor. +For now, +the Doctor was just a member +of an unspecified alien race, +and the only other member +we had met +was the meddling monk. +At least, +we assume he is of the same race +since he has a TARDIS. +So, +that completes +the first Doctor. +So, +you know, +brief overview of the era. +Whatever else you might say +about Hartnell, +he created a franchise +that has lasted +for over 60 years +as I record this show. +After a slow start, +he really developed the character +and became identified with it. +In the beginning, +he was a very stubborn +and unlikable old man, +but as the series progressed, +he mellowed +and his humor +started to come through +even more. +Now, +Hartnell himself +returned to the role +one more time +in the third Doctor story, +The Three Doctors, +1973, +which was the first time +Doctor Who +had a story featuring +multiple incarnations +of the character. +In this case, +the first Doctor, +William Hartnell, +the second Doctor, +Patrick Troughton, +and the third Doctor, +John Pertwee. +But due to his declining health, +he had a limited role +in this particular story, +appearing only on a TV screen, +and he passed away in 1975. +Now, +he was portrayed +by Richard Herndall +in another multiple Doctor story +called The Five Doctors +in 1983, +which was broadcast +for the 20th anniversary +of the program +during Peter Davison's run +as the fifth Doctor. +In recent times, +David Bradley +has portrayed +the first Doctor, +first in a docudrama +called +An Adventure in Space and Time, +2013, +which was produced +in honor of +the 50th anniversary +of the program. +This show tells +the story of +the first Doctor +and how the program +came together +in a dramatic form, +and I recommend it highly. +Bradley would reprise +the role +in 2017 +in The Doctor Falls +and Twice Upon a Time, +where he played +opposite Peter Capaldi's +12th Doctor. +And then again +in The Power of the Doctor +in 2022, +where he appears +alongside +other previous Doctors. +It is perhaps notable +that the first three Doctors, +William Hartnell, +Patrick Troughton, +and John Pertwee, +have all passed away, +but only Hartnell's +first Doctor +has been revived +so often. +I think that tells you +something about +his importance +in the history +of Doctor Who. +So we've finished, +now, +took five episodes +to go through +everything that +William Hartnell did. +Now, +in those days, +they, +it was almost +a year-round +television program. +You know, +I think there was, +you know, +like 48, +they had a 48-week season. +And so they had to record +a whole lot of episodes +and do a whole lot of stories +in order to fill +all of that. +you know, +by the time we get +to Tom Baker, +they're now down +to 26 episodes. +It's one half +of a year. +You know, +now in +the 21st century, +they started off +doing 13 episodes +as a season. +and then +the last couple +of ones +it was like +eight. +So, +you know, +they're not +putting out +as much content +as they used to. +And as far as +what I'm going to do +with this +is +I will +come back +with +Patrick Troughton. +We'll start talking +about some of +his shows +and maybe +work my way +through +all of the +classic. +I don't see +the point +in +doing +the +stories +that started +in 2005 +with Christopher +Eccleston +because I think +pretty much +everyone who has +any interest +in Doctor Who +already knows +about that stuff. +So, +you don't need +me to talk +about it. +But that still +gives me a whole +lot of stuff +to talk about. +So, +there will be +more +Doctor Who +related episodes +of my +Science Fiction +and Fantasy +series. +So, +this is Ahuka +for Hacker +Public Radio +signing off +and as always +encouraging you +to support +free software. +Bye-bye! +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4601.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4601.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bf9323 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4601.txt @@ -0,0 +1,105 @@ +Episode: 4601 +Title: How to be a better writer +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4601/hpr4601.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:54 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4601, for 2026-03-23 +Today's show is entitled, "How to be a better writer" +The host is enistello and the duration is 00:09:59 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "By taking apart large language models' writing style, we can learn to be better writers." +Hello there, welcome to Hacker Public Radio. I'm Ann Estelo. If you've ever thought +now you dreamt about creating your own podcast and getting it published, head over to +the Hacker Public Radio website. There are instructions there. It's really easy to get +you started. I'd urge you to do it. So this episode is about improving your writing. +And the way that we're going to be doing this today is by examining the writing style +of large language models, LLMs, which we laughingly call AI. Now, most people can spot +text that's written by a large language model. It's that kind of feeling of soullessness +and impersonal tone, use of the M-capitalized headings. Things like that. But I thought it +might be interesting to examine some text produced by an AI and then maybe try and do something +different. So the first thing to keep an eye out in for is that LLMs are good at spelling +and grammar. And so to be a good writer makes a mistakes. Don't be afraid of making +mistakes. Don't be afraid of misspelling words. Your spell check will probably pick those +up anyway. But don't be afraid of making grammatical errors. Sure, there's probably a grammar +Nazi out there, who might me, who may well pick you up on those and laugh at you behind +your back. But in all seriousness, I spend eight, twelve hours a day reading the internet. +And I would much rather read a few human mistakes than the type of craft that a large +language model will produce. Second thing, verbosity. Large language models are verbose. +They overdo it and they subscribe to the edict that the more words they use, the better. +So as a writer, try and use one word instead of two or three or more. Here's an example +of a kind of thing that I mean. It's an exit from a blog post on the Open AI website, +Open AI, of course, being the company that produce chat GPT. I think it's important to give +Open AI some credibility. And if you like oxygen of publicity, because give it 12 months +or so, and the poor souls will all be out of business. Okay, here's something that chat GPT wrote. +Rapid Consumer Adoption of AI has created a powerful flywheel. Come on, accelerating the +pace at which the technology is being brought into work and professional settings. Close +quote. Okay, let's pair this down and turn it into consumer use of AI has brought it into +the workplace. It's shorter, it's tighter, it means the same thing. Here's another sentence +from chat GPT. Open quote, the history of general purpose technologies, M- dash, from +steam engines to semiconductors, M- dash, shows that significant economic value is created +after firms translate underlying capabilities into scaled use cases. Close quote. Okay, so +let's cut this one down. Technology, comma from steam engines to semiconductors, comma amplifies +firms abilities to create value. Again, shorter means the same thing, not written by an AI. +So, the lesson if you like is, after you've written something, be your own judge. Go through +every word with a red pen or traditionally it'll be a green pen, an experiment with word +removal. Take out a word. Does the meaning remain? You may feel you've lost nuance, but does that +really matter? Perhaps it does. If you're writing creatively or writing poetry, for instance, +it certainly would matter. But is the nuance important in every sentence? Pairing down what +you write incredibly effective. Initially, it's a bit of a pain and it can be more than a bit +soul destroying. Essentially, you'll be coming your own editor and writers on the whole, +hey, editors, but 99% of the time the editor has a point. Eventually, dear listener, the process of +self editing, this process of cutting out your own velocity becomes second nature. And one day, +I guess, I hope you'll realize that what you're writing is sharper and it's more to the point. +When you do wax lyrical, when you do throw in adjectives and adverbs and descriptions and so on +and so forth, you'll feel it's necessary and it's notable and it's notable to your readers and your +readers will thank you. Now, AIC is terrible at this aspect of writing, it adds useless words all +the time, sentences that get there, point over and just a few words typically, chat GPT spins out to +be dozens of words long and the grown-up phrase for this is taughtology, but you can think of it +if you like as laboring the point. Say it once, say it simply. This brings me to a little adjunct +which I guess I could call rule 2A, which is all about syllables. Stop using as many syllables, +sounds really stupid. The tendency comes from new words springing up all the time and they're often +pointless extensions of existing shorter words. Usage is a really common one. Usage is now used +instead of the word use. Here's an example. I made this one up by the way. My usage of the train was +my choice. Sounds okay, but better surely would be my use of the train was my choice or even +I chose to use the train but yeah. Orientate is another one used instead of Orient capability +is now used commonly instead of ability. Why the extra syllable? Don't get me started on +methodology. A methodology by the way listeners is a set of methods not a method. So when was the +last time anyone explained their method or methods? They don't anymore, they explain their methodology, +everyone describes their methodology. Okay, so we may be going a little bit far in stripping out +extraneous syllables but the point remains. There are a few ticks or giveaways that a piece of +text is created by an LLM and so therefore you might want to adapt your own writing so that you don't +exhibit the same ticks or you might like them. I don't know. First one, the rule of three. You see +this all the time and it's become a habit I think now exhibited by human writers. The rule of +three goes like this. Such and such a thing is or it's like x, y, and z. I'm going to quote from the +wikipedia article, link in the show notes, quote reads, the rule of three can take different forms +from adjective, adjective, adjective to short phrase, short phrase and short phrase. LLMs often +use this structure to make superficial analyses appear more comprehensive. It's a superficial analysis +made less superficial by chucking words at it. So this refers back to rule two, pairing it down. +Next tick that you might want to avoid, be aware of comparisons, not only but also, or not just +something, but something. It's not just about something something, something, something, +semi-colon or M-dash. It's something different. A variation on that is it's not only about something, +something, but something else, something else. Wikipedia calls these parallelisms +that explicitly state that a particular item doesn't possess the first characteristic at all. +It's not only about this, but it's about something else. So in summary, how to be a better writer. +First of all, be human, make some spelling mistakes, make some grammatical mistakes. For a reader, +it's good to know that there's a human behind the keyboard, not a piece of silicon in the form of +a large language model. Rule number two, be your own editor, go back through what you've written, +and if you're using tallologies, repetitions, and you're being too verbose, take words out. +Does the sentence have the same meaning? If it does, great. You don't need three words. You +need one. Rule number three, if you sound like an AI, people will think that you are an AI, +and will be less inclined to read you. So you can try and avoid some of those ticks. Like, +the rule of three, for instance, the not only but also not just something, but something. +In conclusion, then there are two calls to action. First of all, go and read the Wikipedia article. +If you're that way inclined, there's obviously a great deal more detail in that than I've +latched on to and spoken about today. It's a good read. For instance, there are lots of +mentions of words and phrases that large language models use now and have used since +2022 and how those words have changed and the second call to action, of course, is +going to record your own episode of Hack a Public Radio. That's all. Thanks for listening. +I'm Emma Stello and this has been Hack a Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4602.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4602.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e3f566 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4602.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1440 @@ +Episode: 4602 +Title: Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 3 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4602/hpr4602.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:57 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4602, for 2026-03-24 +Today's show is entitled, "Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 3" +The host is Honkeymagoo and the duration is 01:51:16 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "the hpr community comes together to converse" +Can anybody hear me? +No, I can't hear it. +Any other? +I'm just following this part. +I guess I can hear you, that minor. +Don't follow me, I'm at jokes there. +Is anybody hanging out here? +George. +I'm here. +I'm also on the jutsi that mimics them. +Oh, I died the jutsi, and I didn't see only it. +I was the only one there before. +I didn't want to see myself. +I'm here. +Had to have some technical difficulties, +I have to change my... +The headset that I use for mumble, I guess. +Not minor, what's difficulty? +I've been using a USB external sound card +and sometimes something doesn't let the microphone go through or something. +So if I go to a straight USB headset, I don't have that problem. +That's when he's Bluetooth sound core, your piece is, +and they sound better than the wired headphones that I had before. +At least I think they do it. +I don't know how it's going to through. +I've thought about going Bluetooth, +but I don't know any that can reliably work with Linux. +Also far, I have a set of tiles on they have good sound quality +and I have a sound core, and they were both of them were on sale +for a $30 piece set, and they're charged by USB-C. +I'm unboxing about paying many at the moment. +It's a budget unit that I got off Amazon. +So about paying many is it a tri-band or a dual-band? +I'm about to find out. +I thought it was just a dual-band, +but I also had to know a weather channel built in. +So I could always scan for the knowledge channel, +but this was nice to be able to switch over. +Yeah, I know I have the tri-band, +the 2-meter, 1.25, and the 70 centimeters. +It works pretty good for what I need to for. +I was going to pass it up when I saw that it didn't need a credo, +and I could just plug it in the battery to USB-C. +I just jumped on it. +It was $23. +So I think it was worth it. +Nice. +I wish the ones I got was kind of just right before USB-C, +and that was why I need a credo for my... +Yeah, I have it when I decided +for road trips, I'd rather have something that can be charged up +and on the road easily. +Sure. +I still can't get the whole of what the, +how did I use trip. +I just maybe just didn't look far enough into it, +or found the right type YouTube videos. +Church really nice application. +It saves you from setting all your channels manually. +Also, it's nice to, especially with most of all things. +You can... +They may tell you two meters by specification, +but in church, you can give yourself a little bit more bandwidth +that you probably shouldn't be allowed to use, +but anyway. +The mini comes with, +you can get an app for the program, +the channels, +but I'm not positive about using a Chinese app. +I guess I'll be fine. +I don't blame you. +Maybe if I find a looking to church, +but I think it's open source, +I'm not positive. +Do you know anybody? +I think about that. +Yeah, it's open source software. +I'm dang. +I could be wrong. +I may have just, but, +while according to the AI, +it says it's free and open source. +I'm assuming you're, +you're happy? +I am. +I haven't. +I've never tried a method. +Then again, so I can. +Really? +In a pinch, +I like just having the echo link app on my phone, +and then you can hit up to any repeater, +where echo link in it, +all around the world, +talk with people, +right from your phone. +Nothing external to it. +But I started like, +any additional connections? +No. +You just have to send +echo link people, +an email with a copy of your certificate, +and then they give you a user and password. +Oh, I say, +so is it on F-Droid or just the third floor? +It's on Android, +and I phone both. +As far as I know, +anyways, +I'm using an iPhone right now. +Toaster your ham? +Yeah, +I got my, +I got my license during +the big lockdown. +I got really bored. +Yeah. +Any 10 year old? +I guess I've seen ham's at 10 years old, +but I figured I'm 50, +I was turning 50 at the time, +and I just decided I'd have a lot of get this done. +So I got my general license. +Kilo Delta 9er, +Victor Mike Whiskey is my call sign. +Nice. +I got my, yeah, +during COVID, +I got in Canada. +We only have two licenses, +so we have our basic, +we get basic with honors, +and then you have your advanced, +and yeah, +I got my basic with honors. +So I'm a lot full spectrum, +and I think, +five hundred and five peak envelope +for 250 watts or whatever it is. +I initially just went for my, +the first level and basic, +and then I had time for the test lot, +and I had studied up on the general +so I figured I'd just try it, +and I did it and got it. +And then I tried for the, +how was the next one up? +I, +in the States, +I tried for that, +and it just was way so much, +too much information for me to process. +Yeah, +I don't know what the next level up is in the States, +but I know, +when you go from your basic to your advanced here, +it's a lot of component level stuff. +It's really technical. +My background isn't electronics, +but the, +you know, +I could mutter my way through it, +but at this point in time, +I don't need my bats. +I'm not setting up big repeaters or anything. +So testing for us, +our basic is a hundred questions, +out of a pool of, +oh, +no most a thousand questions, +and our advanced is a 50 question, +think out of a pool of 500 in some questions. +Go, +and my call sign, +Victor Alpha 2, +whiskey echo Charlie V A 2, +W E T. +Can I get yours again? +I'm going to write it down, +if you don't mind. +Kill Delta 9 or Victor Mike whiskey. +I don't know. +Can I transmit to Canada? +I think I'd have to have a big enough antenna. +And also, +I'll be also a base unit that has enough power to reach. +Yeah, exactly. +That's why I mean, +like pretty high powered HF single side back, +yeah. +I have never looked far, +but I wanted to put up on antenna. +We have a, +I shared that I could put a 10 up on, +so get eye enough. +My only big antenna, +because generally, +well, +most of what I have is all HDs. +So I got some bellphones. +I got some, +I got a G-AZO F-T-3-D-R or something like that. +For my main antenna, +it's a, +it's a Yagi, +it's a satellite antenna. +It's a satellite too. +If I get what it's called, +but it works really well. +I was able to contact the ISS with a handheld radio. +So I'm thinking about doing dry January, +but none of my friends are down at all. +I'm just getting a bunch of messages telling me +would enjoy myself. +Was that Carlson again, +on again toast. I had got a pen and paper. Victor Alpha 2 whiskey echo Charlie. How do they +give call signs in Canada right? How do they give them out? So they always start with Alpha. +No, which generally starts Victor and then it goes across provinces. So then it goes Victor +AE Alpha echo, either one Victor Alpha 2. Yeah, so it'd be like VA 2 or VA 2 for my province. +And then as we go across to the central and out west, it goes up by one number each time. +That dude contacted the International Space Station. When I was going through channel mode, +I didn't notice there was an ISS channel. Is that how you got to it? I didn't get through it +to it like that. I just looked at what I looked up there, transceiver frequencies, the upload +download. And then I set one of my well, my ASU FT3DR to the upload and download, +the upload link, download, whatever. And I was able to use the one set of frequencies to speak directly. +And then they have another set of frequencies for APRS. If you've ever played with that. +I have not. I've heard of it. It's a packaging system, right? +Correct. And my first time using it, I didn't even know really how to use my radio after I got my +license. I just kind of, you know, YouTube, don't want your things. I want to learn APRS. And it was +neat because it's a packet relay system. So I fired up my packets to the ISS and it repeats them +back down, but on like the whole bigger spectrum, right? And so I'm up in Quebec here. And a guy +replied to me from Chicago. My mind was blowing because my radio starts to light up and it's like +you have a message and you type me out of message. I didn't even know how to reply. I felt so ashamed. +Oh wow, I was in the Chicago area and I'm in can be. So you're saying I can bounce it up to the +space station of APRS and then reach you. Yeah, I mean, should be able to. I mean, I got as far +from Quebec to Chicago, but I'm sure if anyone was, anyone else was listening at the time, +the radio would have received it. The next major city in Kentucky is an hour south of me. It's +Sington. Lexington, I'm going to write that down in my notes because I'll jump on echo link eventually. +And sorry about that. That was my better half. And I'll try and jump on a repeater out there and see +if you can hear me. Lexington, you said. Right. Well, that's town is Cynthia Anna, but the other +the next closest is Lexington. I don't know how those were, I just was trying to think of +a point or reference for you. Yeah, yeah, no fair enough. I'll eventually get on that. I have to take +out soon. I got to go get some bread at the bakery. I don't buy normal bread because to much sugar. +Yeah, okay. Cool. So I'm going to check out it for a little bit. But I'll be back home in an hour +and I'll jump back on mumble. All right. So a piece, I'd like to see everyone's here again this year +and the more the marier and let's all have a great new use. I'll talk to yous all later. +Later. That was a really good one. Good love craft. How are you? Pretty good. Pretty good. How +about yourself hanging in there? Yeah. I meet lunch with Elle. She cooked a bunch of stuff. That's cool. +I'm first day of my vacation. So I'm living it up. Tomorrow is the last day of my vacation. +Oh, is it? Oh, sorry to hear that. Yeah, my work phone. I let the battery die and I plugged +it back in. I was looking. People have been assigned tickets directly to me instead of my group's +queue. Nice. Guess they don't buy the checked calendar to see if you're working or not, huh? +I put it in in four places. Have an out-of message. It shows if they look. Anyway, and they're not +supposed to assign cases. Design stuff to us directly as they've already. Oh, okay. Got you. +Yeah, that seems typical. It's no big enough to follow simple instructions. Same same +similar I work. How was your, your Christmas? Didn't do anything. A couple of days before that my +niece visited and we watched a scary movie after scary movie. She loves horror movies. I think a lot. +Oh, okay. Cool. Do you guys watch anything? Anything stand out? Crazy. Yeah. I think we watched +the it movies. Okay. I've got two more episodes in the the many areas that the new series +to finish. You haven't watched the series yet. I keep seeing clips of it. We watched some movie +with the Bill Scasguard where he had a home in Bader. It's got the guy that played in Burn Notice. +The main character. I freaking what it's called. Oh, the main character. Yeah, Michael, +whatever's in. Yeah. Cool. I don't know if you guys recognize that one. She got +asking for different different horror movies to watch. And I think we've seen both the Becky +movies with her. Maybe not right before Chris. It's pretty good. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think is there +is there a second one out? There is a second one. They're working on the third one. The first one, +I think was the second time I watched it when I finally figured out that the big baddie was Kevin +James. Cool. Yeah. I'll have to look forward to that. There's a couple of good things +that I've been looking forward to. A little behind I'm watching my horror flex. I haven't seen anything +too crazy disturbing recently. Ellen, we've been watching horror movies after Christmas. +Her and I watched a bunch of crampus and related horror movies on Halloween. Oh, okay. Christmas Eve. +Cool. Crapers never disappoints. Villains is the movie. Never heard of that. Jeffrey Donovan +is the Michael Weston from Burnett. Okay. That was great show. What burnett is? Yeah, honestly, +I only started watching it because Bruce Campbell was in it. Oh, okay. But yes, yes, it was it was amazing. +Yeah, so many, so many great actors in that in that series. But villains, after a pair of amateur +criminals break into a suburban home, they stumble upon a dark secret whose sadistic homeowner +will do anything from getting out. Oh, okay. Sounds good. So home invasion with the twist. +Yeah, there was another definitely a different movie. I saw it was a little bit similar to that +a couple of years ago. A perfect host. That doesn't sound familiar. I think it was like a +I think it was set in my missetton, England. There was like, I think they found like this old +like matter house and they broke in and crazy stuff started to happen. I'll see if I can find it. +The perfect host. Stars of Niles for exposure. David Hightnears. Oh, okay. That sounds interesting. +It's a home home invasion gone wrong. Let's see the description of my MBB is +and on the run convict, looking for temporary cover, finds it at the house of a very colorful +character. Okay, I'll have to add that to the list. The perfect host and John dies at the end. +We're two movies. I saw the same day and I immediately was like if it's less than $10 on Amazon, +I'm ordered and I got both of them for like really John dies at the end. It was awesome. +I really enjoyed that. I actually want to read the books. I have the audio book. I also have the other +I also have this book is full of stuff. Oh, okay. But I haven't listened to the books, +but I have the audio book. Library. Cool. Oh, I take a peek. All right. So I found the movie I was talking +about. It's called The Owners. A group of friends think they found an easy score at an empty house with +a safe full of cash. But when the elderly owners arrive home, things begin to go awry. It's got the +the girl from a game of thrones in it. Girl played Aia. Me, Mezi Williams. Love her and everything. She's +that I've seen. She's always great. I wonder if I've seen her. It looks like it came out in 2020. +I saw Vester McCoy is also in it. I have the others on my plaques, but I have not one. +The owners, not the others. All right. If I said the wrong name, it's the owners from 2020. +Did I say others? I thought you did. But it's definitely the owners. The owners. Yes. That's +what I'm like. I have a very, very similar broad strokes to what you were describing. +Break into a house. Stuff happens. Don't breathe. Have it seen that. No. Oh, I've got to watch that. +Absolutely same premise. Home and beige and gone wrong. Oh, you know what? Actually, I just +just read the description. I remember when this came out, but I never actually watched it. +I watched him at the theater. It, it was amazing. The second one is. Yeah. They made a sequel. +Different different different house or follows the guy and I think his daughter, the daughter, +or I forget it follows him and in a girl. Okay. It was less memorable than the +roof. Yes. It was a lot of scenes out of it, especially the turkey baster. We had a +fearful lump. We had a Columbus horror group that got movies sponsored at a local or house. +Theater and so they would give out prizes and stuff. They had stuff donated from some horror +podcasts, different stuff. So it was some movie. We got to glow in the dark plastic cups. +Okay. Cool. I'm looking for him. I've never used him a stack of four or five. +But the same spot where I had all the Linux lug cask coffee mugs from the Ohio Linux +space here. I sent him off to people and the gas. Wrong glow in the dark cups. +Is the jissie up? Is that? Yeah. Slash HPR. I put the link in the show notes a little bit +ago. Danny put it in the matrix. Okay. I just popped in. I found the cups. I have a +amusing mugs pinhole pin and pins lights out. Okay. Theater is July 22nd. +Hello moss. Welcome back. Thank you very much. I'm off to pick up my wife, but I have time +between them to try to check out this bopping mini. Hopefully I get room better reception out +by the Walmart. I'm not going to do it in my mobile home. Yeah. I'm looking at the shower for this +lights out. We're gonna see, yeah, this is another one I missed. I've never seen the previous +when I came out. I'm not that distalist too. You know, I don't even remember the movie, +but we got the cup so I saw it. They gave out prizes and stuff for people answering questions, +things like that before and after the show. They gave out for, don't breathe, they gave out +a three turkey bastors. Okay. I'm going to have to watch out and get that reference. +So, so, so the people that got the turkey bastors did know because they hadn't seen it, +put the people putting on the group that put on the fear Columbus or whatever. +Kill Columbus. It was called Kill Columbus. Kill Columbus movie night. They had already screened it. +So, so they knew stuff about the movie and yeah, it's part of the big twist in it. +Oh, I can imagine, but yeah, I'll have to watch. So who's still here? +Morten Singh. I'm here. Cool. Anything exciting happen? No, lovecraft and I'm just talking +about movies we've watched. Yeah, not a big movie book, but oh well. Yeah, you've definitely got +some interesting picks, Morten Singh. I have to admit, I'm glad you turned me on to the terrifier series, +though. Did you see the All Hollows Eve where that starts the short? I did, actually. I haven't +watched it. I haven't watched Terrifier 3 yet, but yeah, I did catch the All Hollows Eve one. +Pretty interesting stuff. It's a five movie has planned. Okay. And the first one was set +the first two. Yeah, I'm always impressed at what they can, they bring a decent enough story +to some of these lower budget ones. Another series I always liked was it was a +jersey that any of those VHS films, you know, were just like these little, you know, +yet I think of what three of them, but I cute to watch. Yeah, there was another one just +came out, I don't know, in the last couple of months, it might have been called VHS Halloween or +something like that, but pretty good stuff. There's I think 99 and 85. Oh, yeah, they're like, +references to the years. Yeah, I kind of dig them to you know, you get the little story +then it moves on and I don't kind of interesting stuff, too. Can you hear the brown noise? +Sounds like you're playing music or somebody singing? Yes. It was watching a Christmas Eve. We +watched the last Christmas, Sappy Christmas, and then we watched the Violet Night Santa Slaze, +8-bit Christmas, 8-bit Christmas, Neil Patrick Harris, the funny, where he's relating to his daughter, +you know, to real mean of Christmas. Okay. Rare exports a Christmas tale? Oh, that's so good. +Yeah, yeah, it, I don't know if you had it dubbed. I think ours was subtitled. Yeah, my, my +was subtitled. Yeah, but it was still great. That was a very silent night, a carnage for Christmas, +and all the creatures we're storing. We watched very, okay. Sounds like a couple of winners in there, +for sure. I watched one last year about a Christmas tree that came to life at a house party and +started murdering people. It was, it was, every bit as horrible as it sounds. It's like 15 minutes +long. It's a short movie. Um, I don't know if it was quite that short, but it was, it wasn't too +too long. Um, I forgot what it was called, but yeah, it was not great. Well, hopefully tonight, +I will take the time to edit full circle weekly news episode for 46. I think it is and get that to +Ronnie, and we'll have some news again for this week. Movies, I don't know, especially horror movies. +Anyone have any ideas? What I could do for HDR? I think I did three short shorts this year. +What do you guys have been done? Well, I did one on a couple of wireless keyboards that I've had. +I remember that one. Um, what else did I do? I don't know what I did. He needed shows. I did +shows, you know. Lovecraft was the Christmas tree movie tree bench? Uh, I'm actually, I just found +the one I saw. It is called the killing tree. I did see tree bench, and that looks like it's 16 +minutes long. Uh, yeah, the killing tree. Uh, it says the original title was demonic Christmas tree. +But just found it right now. Yeah, on Christmas Eve, a widow cast spelled a resurrector, +executed husband, but the spell goes wrong, and the husband is brought back as an evil Christmas tree, +help in on getting revenge on the one who caused this execution. Do not recommend. +I mean, it's got a 17% on tomatoes and uh, yeah, I have it. I just have one. Well, that's +how they seasoned. If you're uh, if you're looking for something, maybe you could add it at the +bottom of the queue. We also watched a Bambi. I forget what's called the Bambi parody. We're +Bambi. Uh, how, how was that? Um, I loved it. Which is your original story? The, uh, +oh, yeah, she, she knows the original. Uh, yeah, it was exactly what I, yeah, they definitely +seem to be uh, churned out a lot of that kind of stuff. I guess as these uh, as these things are +going public demand, what was it like, three pop eye movies and there's already a two, +two, three or three or four Mickey Mouse thing, but will there's a Peter Pan one that +something like that? Oh, okay. Yeah, the second poo blood and honey, they were able to put in the +public pick. Oh, okay. And why, why not? I also saw that there was low budget five nights of +breadings. Oh, the uh, the second one just came out. Uh, yeah, but they're like a parody one. +But yeah, oh, a parody one. Okay. Or low budget or whatever. Like, alien versus predator, there was a +thunder. Yeah, yeah, like the uh, the snakes on a train guys. Exactly. Yeah, I did, I did watch the +sequel to uh, five nights at Freddy's. I'm sorry. It's both like they're doing it. Oh, yeah, +I could foresee this being a long term. Keep churned them out. Are you a, you were stranger +uh, things fan? Oh, yeah, we're uh, I have an alarm set 20 minutes before it starts and rewatch +the last 30 minutes. Oh, okay. It's been asked all week how long to one very happy on Christmas +to stop. Oh, like that's, that's the end. And I was like, yeah, I haven't started watching any of it. +Yeah, I figured I'll just do it all at once and it is there just one more episode uh, tonight +or tomorrow. I guess. Yeah, it's one hour long. Okay. The introduced a lot more content in the +last three episodes. And uh, I don't know how they're going to plot. I've seen some negative +comment tellies too much stuff. Great. Yeah, I, that's kind of what I was afraid of too. And I did +see briefly one thing that I stopped reading because I didn't want to read anymore, but um, +trying not to spoil it. But I always, you know, has a lot of hope that they're going to +tidy these things up and, you know, button the story up. But, you know, that's not always the case. +Like, lost. I'm still happy. I was working. Restart what? Uh, yeah. I mean, like, I had like no +books where I was taking notes and writing stuff down and watching like different, different interviews +with like the people and like all the stuff that they said it definitely wasn't this and I was like, +yeah, now it, it's, it's that, like, you guys are just terrible. Yeah, it was, it was such a +time. I'm hoping they do do a better ending. But from, yes, I, I mean, from I, I really am liking and +I, I don't know, I, I, I hope that that doesn't get ruined as well. I mean, I think they're starting +to kind of wrap things up a little bit. So I'm guessing we should be getting another season, not too long +from now. I haven't, I haven't really been looking, but I think it usually just started up in like January +February. So we'll see what happens. Uh, yeah, uh, filming wrapped up. We'll come for it. +Yeah, I'm adding that to my, uh, tonight to watch list. Oh, guys. Yeah, it's gone. It's going. +That's good. Oh, I think are we still meeting this Friday? What do you mean we pale face? +Well, not you. Unless you want to join. You're, you're welcome to join. What are you +signing the up for, Joe? Um, the Linux lug cast Friday at, well, what, 7pm your time? I know, +9pm your time. Why? Well, think about it. How you doing, Joe? Can't complain. Sure. You can. +I'm sure I could. I am working today. Wow. Yeah. Ha ha. Yeah. But I, I do get to go to a hockey +game later. Oh, that's good. Well, we have been having a very fun holiday season. We, we bought a new +car. It was financed through a credit union. We were not a member of. We couldn't get logged in to +set up our account on the credit union. We just finished doing that today. But yesterday, the car +died with some kind of transmission problem. And they don't have anyone in the dealership shop to +even look at over. So we have to wait a few days. And there's a possibility. They'll just let us +swap it out for another car on their lot. That could be okay. I really like this car. I hope +it's just something they can fix easily. You. Go ahead. Um, basically, two eight terabyte drives that +died. And, um, one SSD that died. Like, that I don't know how old it was. I was going to ask you +awesome. And this is like the first time we've talked in a while. So that hard drive you sent +with that computer that you sent me. How old was that? Which company? Oh, the M7. M620. Yeah. +That was out of hard drive or SSD. It was an SSD. Okay. What brand was it? Oh, gosh, it was an +off-brand. Uh, King fast. Okay. That King fast wasn't that old compared to the, uh, I only had +it in there for maybe nine months to a year. Oh, damn. That's what died. Because I had a whole bunch of +really, really cheap ones. A friend of mine, when I didn't have any SSDs, a friend of mine tried to send +me a couple and he wound up sending me 10 because I was on this episode. And they were a real off-brand. +I mean, there was no nothing on it just SSD. But I still have some of those left. I grabbed a +grabbed a spinning disc and tossed it in there for now. I don't remember who I sent all my spinning +disc to. I think it might have been you. Um, I don't know. A couple of people said, I know bill +sent me some a while back and I ended up using them for various things. Yeah, I was going to get +on the show Saturday and nobody showed up. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I had been planning to and then +I got busy and couldn't. And bill has all this computer broken down. Yeah. It seems like everybody's +computers just decided to take a vacation to. Yeah, I had a couple of days there where those +eight terabytes drive just kept dropping. So that was not fun. Yeah, I think your bill would hook up +the Z800 that I bet that it would be a hit on his power bill. Yeah. I think that that baby has a +1250 watt power supply. Yeah. It was a good machine, though. I could run anything I wanted to run on it. +And he had your house with it. The ducking on it was impressive and the cable management was impressive. +It was a thing of beauty, really. Yeah. Those giant ginormous machines are. He says he hasn't +really worked with it much yet. And he's wondering what to do with it. If I remember right. +Well, he's got 24 gigs of RAM and he should be able to do something. Yeah, a little bit. +And it's got two quad core single threaded Z guns in it. I've talked about that machine enough +over the years. You probably memorized this text by now. I finally did get my TV machine hooked +up. You may have, I don't know if we hit your server yet. I don't know if you have either. +Like I said, it's been up and down lately. It's been a problem having to, you know, +refix this machine or my whole mini racks set up every couple of weeks. I don't know. I know +one of the drives had was like the drive that I was using as a where I was going to put my +movies going forward. And I don't know how many movies made it on to there. So I don't know how +many movies that I lost. But it couldn't have been a lot. So it seems like everything is still +available on my server. And hopefully it's a little bit more stable now at least for a while. +Yeah, Bill got his set up. So well that we don't even have to use flute for it anymore. +And then I do have the jelly fins still running as a secondary. But it has, it has all the +movies and TV shows on it. So I think we're only hooked up to the jelly thin. +For me, you might, I know you were previously hooked up to my plaques. I don't know if I gave you +the jelly fit. Actually, did I even forward the port from my jelly fin or am I just using it? +I hope you did. Because I think all we're hooked up for is the jelly thin. +Very. Plaques was getting really weird on us that we were using it. So they wanted us to pay +for it, even though we were using a pre-engineered on a free system. Yeah, that's annoying. +Well, maybe they're going under and they need to money. Could be, or they were getting backlash from, +you know, pirate about piracy, you know, people pirating stuff and then sharing it with their friends. +Yeah, nobody. Nobody, nobody. Marvel people. Yeah, Bill managed to even find a copy of +prime evil for us to watch. Oh, the TV show. That was a good TV show. Yeah, five seasons. Yeah, +I know I had it, but I think it was one of the things that got lost, and then I just never picked it back +up. Well, you can grab a lot of the bill with nothing else, but yeah, that the same guy is the star +of that show as is the star of Shetland, which we were, which we'd already gotten build to get us. +Yeah, uh, tried watching the fallout TV show the first episode of the first +season and we watched about poor episodes of that and just did not get better. So yeah, +I mean, I'm like, I think I'll. And I still got both seasons, but I don't think I'm going to +continue watching it fallout fallout fallout fallout fallout fallout. But I did try and play a fallout +for but it was, you know, a, uh, a little bit too much about building your base and farming. +I wanted a little bit more, you know, first person shooter. He's the one that's Swiss +the matter. He's one and season two of Swiss, the Metalware Farm. I haven't heard well +before. Yeah. Very, very good. Was it on sci-fi? That's a good question. I don't think it was sci-fi. +So, Swiss the metal is, uh, I think this PlayStation game posed a popular lip +in the cars have weapons, different quirks, and skills vehicle has a special weapon. +They made a TV series. It was on peacock. It has a 99% rotting score for people. +For people who didn't get peacock, it doesn't run in Linux. +None of them have the weapon out there. Nope. +At least not any web browser I am willing to use. +It plays on plex and jellyfish. +Yeah, I started rewatching a forest gate. +Oh, that's a trip. +Oh, and the best I find shows. +Yeah, I agree. I wasn't big on the last two episodes. +The peacocky per wars, the specials. +We haven't seen those yet. We've watched all of the series and could not get the peacocky per +wars, but we've got them now on neither yours or bills. +Right, right. +And then I watch that new movie alter. +I physically have all of them. +I physically have all of firefly and serenity to that count. +Yes, twice. +Did you ever watch the second season of Firefly? +There was no second season of Firefly. +Exactly. +One of the best shows to be canceled. +Oh, there's the movie, the movie helps. +Yeah, yeah. +It also hurts. It also hurts to watch. +On my shoulders. +Oh, a lot of my favorite characters die. +Well, yeah, watch has gone on and book has gone. +They keep talking about making more shows. +And they could do it before watching book died. +But now the actors are gone. +Yeah. +Well, book has gone anyhow. +Yeah. +And also everybody else was like, you know, 25 years older, 26 years, 27 years older. +Yeah, it makes it hard to do a prequel. +Yeah. +Yeah. +More than see did you say you watch altered? +I did not. +I'm just looking at it. +Altered was the one you were saying you liked. +I watched it. +It started out good. +It kind of ended a little cheesy. +The Parscape. +I remember correctly. +There was a CEO change at sci-fi. +Oh, the incoming CEO wanted to expand Stargate, +because he loved Stargate at Parscape. +So even though it had great reviews, he killed off Parscape. +And you're reading this. +And wouldn't let the Henson company move it to another channel service company, +whatever, and the people fought to get the storyline wrapped up. +Apparently there were several more season. +The story arc. +Yeah. +Plant planned out. +So yeah, I'm happy that they made the peacekeeper wars to wrap up the storyline, +to point out whatever was supposed, whatever was planned. +Planed to be told, it wasn't. +Oh, and then I also watched the new running man. +Joe, we've only watched the original reboot. +Are you making what you call it? +Yeah. +Yeah, and we watched him back the back. +Joe, I think we only have three more shows on your server. +And we're getting near the end of suits. +Cool. +We got, uh, we're ready for peacemakers season two episode three. +Farcecape season three episode 12 and suits season eight episode 15. +Yeah, peacemakers pretty damn good. +And then if they bring back a season three of Tulsa King, that'll be on your server. +Yeah. +Oh, and I finally watched Deadpool and Wolverine. +I really enjoyed that. +It was enjoyable, but it was really minor. +Well, I think it's going to have some pretty far-reaching effects in the new movies. +We will see. +We haven't watched any Marvel movies since that one. +Yeah. +I mean, we really like the Marvels ourselves, +we're weird, you know. +Well, I do enjoy a lot of the Marvels. +I still need to watch, um, what, um, +turning into the galaxy three. +I mean, I watched one, two, and then the Christmas special. +But I haven't watched three yet. +Yeah, we saw three. +I'm not sure we saw the Christmas special. +I think we may have. +Yeah, yeah, yeah, it had a Kevin Bacon in it as Kevin Bacon. +So one degree of Kevin Bacon? +Yeah, it had Kevin Bacon as Kevin Bacon. +Oh, no way. +Yeah. +Who do they have in his eggs? +I clearly put off a, um, +I said who played eggs? +Oh, they didn't have eggs with the bacon. +Well, what good is that for a breakfast anyhow? +Exactly. +They just had Kevin with the bacon. +You know, there's a dog training shop here in Knoxville called All Dogs Go to Kevin. +Thank you. +Yeah, we've cut back. +Last time Joe and I talked, we had three cats who were down to one now. +But he did move. +Yeah, we had to give one away before the move. +And then one of the other ones just went batch hit here at the new house. +And it was going to do damage. +And we couldn't do that even though it was a sweet cat to us. +He was beating up our older cat. +And he was dumping over the water bowl and whatever he could do. +Oh, my God. +Yeah, just didn't put up with change. +Well, we really didn't expect them to. +And Cecil's just hanging on by himself. +We probably should have gotten rid of Gremlin and kept coyote. +Yeah, coyote and Cecil were from the same litter. +Well, I still got my two cats on my one dog. +Yeah, we got told the pet deposits are not refundable. +So it's okay if we get another cat that we're not getting the money back. +Yeah, yeah. +But when you move out, they have to use the non-refundable pet deposits first. +Towards fix any damages before they use your regular deposit or at least in Texas, they do. +Okay, I don't think it's that way in our lease. +Anyhow, we're not moving out. +We barely get the manage to move here. +I'm too old to move again. +Well, it's actually, you know, in your lease or not, yes, it's non-refundable. +So if there were zero damage and you moved out tomorrow, +then you should get your full regular deposit back +but not your pet deposit. +When you do move out, if the laws are same in your state as they are in Texas, of course. +And this is based on, you know, the law, not your signature on anything. +The non-refundable portions have to get used first. +They count directly towards anything that needs to be fixed first. +And then the rest of it counts. +So that's good. +It's good to know. +I'm sure that'll makes his hand relax a little bit. +Yeah, a lot of landlords like to ignore that, though. +And you might have to point it out to them when you're moving out. +Anyhow, I'm figuring probably sometime March or April, +if things come down, I should be back at them cast. +Okay. +Well, we miss you. +We wish you were there. +I miss it too, but I don't have enough rains to keep up with what I'm doing now. +Yeah, well, I just barely keep things closer. +Holyly news going. +Yeah. +Well, we're not really doing a lot of inwards. +I know this next show is going to be predictions. +And I know you're on for last year's prediction show. +So all you would have to do is come in and talk about, you know, your predictions from last year. +And then potentially make new predictions for this next year. +I don't have a clue. +I'm not keeping up on my own life. +Let alone what's going on in Linux. +It's not good. +Remember, the newscasts, I'm just reading the words, you know? +Yeah. +Well, I'm just trying to convince you, you know, because we like having your round. +If you still don't want to do it, I'm not going to be pushy about it. +Well, I know you and Bill and uh, uh, to a lesser extent, um, +um, Dale have been being helps for us over the years. +And I definitely want to get back to that. +I don't really know the new guys too much. +Right. +Right. +Charles and Jim. +Yeah, I was there when they came in, but I might have done a show or two with them, +but it's not the same thing as really knowing them like I know you guys. +Right. +But the um, the lug cast, when the lug cast, is really no work at all. +You just get in, uh, get on there and and talk smack. +And fun. +Yeah. +We enjoyed it. +Well, I'm getting ready to go to Atlanta and play some more music. +You can even get on there and talk about that. +Yeah, that's one thing about HPR. +I can do music show, but I have to make sure everything is uh, +either GPL-0 or um, um, uh, I'll come on my brain's gone. +Um, yeah, uh, past the board will be. +Yeah. +Well, yeah, no copy right. +Exactly. +And a lot of stuff I write my lyrics aren't copyright, but the music probably is. +Right. +I'm sure it wouldn't be the same to get on the show and read the lyrics to something +because I can't use the music. +I just talk about your experience going to the show. +What you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy, what you would improve. +Things like that. +Maybe I could just do a show on being a substitute teacher. +Yeah. +Give me something to do. +Yeah, it's basically a babysitting job, but it doesn't pay as well. +I have applied to the school district that is closer to where I live now, +and they do pay better, but they haven't even responded to my application yet. +That depends on when you put in for it. +I mean, towards the end of the year, then it's probably not something they're really looking at +adding anybody else, but um, maybe with the uh, school you're starting back up on what the sixth. +Well, Alina is Granger Schools took me in when I applied right away because they needed him. +I do not know about uh, uh, Morris Town Schools. +Well, just follow up with him. +Yeah, I get uh, I think it's age 274 for Mondays and Fridays and 7274 for the rest of the week +if I work uh, Morris Town Schools pays 100 a day regardless of the day. +But I've been at Granger High for five years now. +The kids pretty much know me. +I have a little sight business selling my hats for that matter. +I'm up to 102 subscribers on my uh, YouTube page. +And when I started being a substitute teacher, I only had like 26. +You'd also send them over to watch Midcast. +These kids don't even know what they're running in a Chromebook. +Yeah. +And I mean, in in the operating system class, they don't know what operating system +they're running in the Chromebook. +What are you going to do? +So far, I've met one student who knew what Linux was. +Yeah, that's crazy when you have to explain what Linux is. +Yeah. +Leave the device in your hand right now. +It's either running the Linux kernel or a really old version of the BSD kernel. +Yeah, the guy that teaches the operating systems class keeps asking for me when he needs to take +a day off. +That's at least a good thing. +But I don't think it really helps his kids to have me there. +I can tell them all about, oh, I tell them in regards to the operating systems class +that you'd be willing to give a class on a specific version of Linux. +Take your pick. +You mean, I usually go in with my, I always go in with my laptop. +And my laptop has 37 mint 22. something. +And Farron OS, the latest version, which is still based on 22 over. +I'm really not a digital hopper anymore. +I'm a desktop hopper. +I've got Mocha on one. +I've got my tear cinnamon on the other. +And I've got all the other on the third. +All running on a boaty back end. +No, all running on the vundu back end. +And even boaty runs the vundu back end. +The difference is boaty and Farron are still running in 20204. +My wife is communicating with me. +That is unusual. +No, no. +The timing is unusual. +How so? +She wants me to log in to little Caesars and talk to her while I'm talking to you guys and order the +pizza and everything all at once. +It's messing with my brain. +One thing we have in Morris town. +We didn't have a Knoxville is a Jets pizza. +And that really is better than most of the main brand pizzas. +But our favorite is still a South Coast in Knoxville. +That's the best pizza in the world. +And you have to go to Knoxville to get it. +Last time we went to South Coast was from my birthday. +All right, all this talk up pizza is shut the room down. +I'm sorry, I'm hungry. +I'm also coordinating with the wife and trying to work. +One thing nice about our new location. +It's closer to the truck stops that Bill and Dale are likely to go through. +If they ever get on I-81, they're going to cruise right past us. +That must be painful. +I see a message that Dan's aim is disconnected. +Oh no. +Dan's ASUS. +Does not say ASUS. +He changed it. That's hilarious. +Well, it connected again. +So I'm sure he's feeling better now. +He reconnected his prolapse to Anus. +Better connected than disconnected. +Yeah. +Well, he's in the tilt room. +He's probably not actually there then. +Well, this is the first time I had mumble on my computer since last year. +Yeah, back in the day when we used to use mumble. +Well, the last time I used it was last New Year's Eve party. +It was like this. +And I didn't even have it installed on anything I had. +I managed to even install it. +I don't feel why not. +Why is little Caesar's trying to open an app on my computer? +That's dumb. +Yeah, there no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. +Sorry, this isn't the operating system for that, buddy. +Here about the location. +I want to make an order. +Oh, love craft, what's been going on? +HV. +And that's a much better just hanging out on vacation for a week now. +So, uh, get some stuff done around the house and all that. +And get ready for the New Year's. +No, I think he got off the HV and is on a Dell now. +That, that HV love craft. +Watch anything interesting? +Now, I was talking with Warden Seerler. +I was watching every talking a little bit about horror and stuff, uh, +by got a couple more episodes of the New It Series. +The finish, uh, I think I'm up to Episode 6. +Um, I watched that, uh, pleurbus. +I finished that. +I thought that was pretty good. +Um, not a whole lot other than that, though. +Kind of been busy with work and stuff. +Which pleurbus about that's, uh, aliens come to Earth and pretty much +take over everybody. +Um, there's only a handful of people who haven't been basically assimilated by them. +Uh, but they're all, they're all super friendly and they try and, uh, try and make everybody +who's still around happy, um, and do everything for them and stuff like that. +Uh, one of the guys from the X files, uh, is involved with it. +It's kind of, it's kind of interesting, um, they developed a lot of the, the main character pretty well +and, um, wraps up definitely in the second season. +So hopefully that'll happen. +Start off that they get a radio signal and they do cipher, uh, to DNA coding and they create it. +It's the, yeah, and they work, they get it from space and the lab and then it starts spreading +rapidly and yeah, it's pretty pretty. +I don't want to, I don't want to spoil it too much, but it's, it's worth a watch. +I think you would like it if you're into sci-fi stuff, it's especially with a different twist. +It's, uh, you know, just not a rehash or something else. It's pretty original. +It's less, it's less funny than unity. +What's unity? +I'll be back in the morning. +The hype mine. +Oh, oh, oh, yeah. +Can you hear me? +Uh, thanks. +Yes, I can hear you. +Can you hear me? +Yeah. +Yep. +Can you hear me? +Yes. +I couldn't hear anything. +A unity from Rick and Mortar. +Have you checked if you're audio with that 20% for no reason? +Check if what? +You're audio with that 20% for no reason. +Because that keeps happening to me. +If you're audio with that to 20%. +The volume or is there a setting in the end of volume? +Do that keeps happening to me? +No, my volume. +Yeah. +Wearing. +I think that's something that's in Elanado, +on the only one of us has the problem. +But it's one or the problem. +Oh, my random stops. +Good thing. +Cough. +Look at that. +Oh, anybody got any interesting projects? +Like unboxing stuff. +It's always an interesting project. +Part would be it was normal unboxing as opposed to packing unboxing. +My problem right now is getting an iPhone to put up the shelving to unbox stuff onto. +Anybody else? +Well, the thing I got going on right now is +the parts get here. +I'm going to upgrade my network. +bunch of my devices to put a half gig and see how things work. +And that, it's just been resetting up my mini rack over and over again. +It's things fail and I fix it. +That's awesome. +Our drives. +Oh, did you guys see that today is the last day that you can update your +stadium controller to make it be Bluetooth using Google's tools online? +It only takes a couple of minutes. +Yeah, today is the final day. +We're going to have the tool available online. +That would be interesting if I knew what year it was. +It's a controller. +I think games. +Yeah, I think I got that wrong. +I kind of got that idea. +But if you don't have one, you don't have to update it. +Right. +The stadium controller, you know, it came out with Google +Stadium and then that got discontinued. +And the controllers are still out there. +But instead of just letting them be e-waste, +they had an online tool where you could go to their website +with your stadium controller hooked to your machine +and click a couple of buttons and make it so that it works +over Bluetooth to connect to anything. +But that tool is closing down today. +To be glad that Bill sent me that controller when he did, +it's all set up. +Yeah, another last Google item. +So do we have anyone coming up on the new year yet? +I don't think we have anyone in Siberia. +Yeah. +Just saw a cartoon in the full circle magazine, telegram group. +Grandpa, what was your Linux server like when you were my age? +It's still running, son. +I don't think you heard that because I was in a different window. +Oh, no, we heard it. +Oh, okay. +The captions says, some legends never reboot. +I'm surprised I can't find a map online that shows +the year moving. +Ah, they're right-bounded. +Okay. +It's currently 2026 in some parts of Eastern Europe and Iran and Pakistan. +So the plus four times on this already in 2026, the plus three is not. +So in six minutes, we will be getting East Africa, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, +and most of Russia. +And we have a happy new year for those countries coming up in a few seconds. +Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanganyaka, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Russia. +And it looks like probably Belarus. +I missed a few like Somalia Jordan, happy new year those people. +Yeah, I'm going to get screwed up. +Next up is Finland, the Baltic States, Eastern Europe, Egypt and Libya, Sudan, +South Sudan, and down to South Africa. +Joe, are you putting anything good? +I haven't kept up on what Joe's done, but he did print me a nice stand for my M600 tiny. +All nice. +Well, one of my two anyhow, the other one actually came with the standard stand. +But the stand Joe printed with pretty good. +What would have you put up to Moss? +Not much. +We moved in November, about 37 miles away, and we haven't fully unpacked yet, +and it's been a big mess, and we bought a new car, and the new cars already broken down +before we even finished getting the financing done. +And nothing is spectacular. +Well, that sounds like a lot. +I turned 73 in December. +So you've had a big year? +Yeah, it's been way too big. +I still need to post, I've got this system 76 machine that Dale sent me, +that I need to post and sell to somebody that's willing to pay five or six hundred bucks +for a perfectly good machine that doesn't run it. +Very much of anything. +I have been successful loading, of course, PopOS, also elementary OS, +and also BODY, and everything else I tried doesn't work. +Dale said he got fedora in a run on it. +Now you're still helping out with the BODY community? +Yeah, as much as I can, which isn't much, but it's more than most people. +I had an article in the latest full circle magazine, BODY Corner. +I haven't kept up with that very well. +I've been several months since my last BODY corner in full circle magazine. +So what has been new, what has mostly been new with BODY has been that Robert Wiley +has been sick a lot, and has been having to work to pay for his medications, +and hasn't been getting much done on the ISO. +He did write scripts for putting Mocha on either Ubuntu or Debian +that anyone can just grab Debian or Ubuntu and run the script, +and they've got Mocha running on it. +That's cool. +We still haven't decided as a group, whether we're just going to move all the way to Debian, +since it's so much more usable than it was six years ago, +and stop worrying about what Ubuntu is doing. +The latest version of what we call DeBODY, which is BODY on Debian, +is version 7 beta, and it's in the third beta, but it works as good as anything. +There's just apparently he butted his head up against something he can't get fixed, +or hasn't been able to get the time to fix, but we're still running on 2204. +Stefan has been doing a good job updating Mocha and making new themes or updating the old ones. +One of the problems with moving on to 2204 is that my brain just went out. +There's a particular, oh, something in E does not run in 2204. +I'm not remembering exactly what offered off my head, but for that means that if you do load BODY, +you don't, if you try and run BODY off a 2204, or you don't get the terminal package for me. +So you don't get terminology if you try and run Mocha on 2204. +Really, that's weird. I don't want to think I didn't like from the Lightman package, +that the Lightman stuff was their file manager. I never really liked their file manager. +Well, BODY has in the past used fileman FM, and is currently using tunar. +Yeah, that's usually what I did. I usually want to put in tunar or PCM NFM on stuff, +because the Lightman was just horrible. +Well, welcome to BODY, because that's what we're using, you know, and there are a lot of +improvements in Mocha that are not in Enlightenment, because they keep trying to move forward. +Oh, my wife got home. I got to go pull some packages out of the car. Okay. +Right here, Joe. +Fair enough. +PN-20. I'm sure I see high enough, and I just go back. +There's Ben in County. No. Besides, I might cheat yellow displays. +So what? PPLO displays. It's a combination ESP attached. +I haven't seen them. Get my program to do what I want to. Finally, finally, +get sure. I know Ken has some thinking about playing. What are you thinking about using them for? +Goal to make a little amateur radio macro that I can on a hand radio and have +macros that I would send regular my call sign or combination. I'll sign with a test +between reverse beacon network. That's not really cool. I'm hoping to take a look. +Do we have show notes? The APR shared URL for files.booguy.com slash. +I don't think I have any show notes set up. For the most part, we usually wind up doing all the +show notes afterwards, because last several years, I had a ether pad set up for show notes +and nobody really used it, but we usually set up a page made Lovecraft and Scotty who went up +doing the show notes afterwards, mostly Scotty on Lovecraft, and then we'll set up a whole other +ether pad and go dig up show notes for everything. I can't give those two enough credit for the amount +of show notes that they do. Sounds like a good plan. I think people were entering +show notes somewhere. Really? I didn't set up a pad. Someone made the comment about it working +weird when two people are more worth typing. It's not, it doesn't sound like that. She, oh, +oh, you guys, or whatever, is not the regular show notes link. I think I forget the +globalization that was on. I think there was a problem in a browser with the certificate, +or with it going through a certain ISC, maybe it's in a mumble. Well I know +Archer was having problems with the stream while back. But again, I didn't +spectrum or something block and something. I didn't set up a show notes ether pad. +Links. Files that show notes that who guy is, is it just, those are just two links to the +stream, flashed stream. There wasn't any slash stream to that. No, that works. Yeah, both of those +links aren't ether pads. Those are, uh, good at it. Those are the, to the stream. I'm gonna +sure. Is that a 3D printer in your background? Oh, yeah, not crap. Oh, I wanted to print a little. +I've got come up better. Well, I'm back from carrying in the bags. And why? It's just +HDR. Oh, there's a link. Somebody set up show notes. Okay. Yes, so you found it. I just, I just found the link. +Okay. Was it missing? I didn't set one up. But we got one. Uh, the, uh, where to go? +The, um, it's towards the bottom of the middle. No, at the end of the Hackerpupagradio.org slash. +Dot. The jitzie link is Ronald. It's wrong. Where? Uh, on the Hackerpupagradio site. +It has, uh, HDR and why he, it's just, HDR. Right now, well, you're in it right now, aren't you? +I see more than see lovecraft and. Minnix and B. Oh, and then one of the stream started again. +It's just, it's just HDR and that, uh, and what is that? Is a rainwarm t-shirt? My friend +usually the base player in the, I did shirts for them, white on black, which plastic all +make shirts and proper. But this one was, I use, oh, wow, really? Yeah. So, there's several DIY artists +that, uh, make shirts. That looks amazing for bleach. Oh, bleach is amazing. Yeah. Uh, and +don't know if you've, the Ganesh t shirts that I wear. Half of the Ganesh shirts I've made, uh, +were bleached out. I haven't seen the Ganesh ones. I've seen the, um, um, uh, +those who want to see the, uh, what we're talking about, you can, uh, check out, uh, +Jitsy.minix.dev slash HPR and, uh, there is a Jitsy stream running, um, +Morton C was just showing off his shirt, uh, of a, uh, his friend's band. He made this shirt using, +like, a black shirt and bleach. Oh, that's pretty cool. That's amazing. It used bleach for that. +That's silver clips. That was soft scrub actual. It can get, uh, discharge pay, +bleach out shirt, but it's more toxic. And you know, if you're all these steps to do it, +if you're own gelatin cornstarch or potato starch, tapioca starch, some gum, whatever that will +thicken. And the, the, the trick is to take water and thicken and heat it, thickening. And then +when it's thick, pour in the bleach. Okay. Now, uh, a gel to paint with, here's the Ganesh ones. +That was the silver clips logo, uh, the second. Oh, that's cool. I like the logo on the front. +See, uh, the logo on the back or the back. I like the logo on the back. I guess that is a back. Yeah. +It's the nice batch cool. We were, we were trying to make a, uh, like a candy dispenser, uh, +that was, uh, that pattern and let people twist a knob or something and they would flash and make +lights and things would spin and then it's spit out candy pour people. We were going to do it at the +Linux Fest when I was trying to make open shirts for open source projects. I did a couple of shirts +for glad to for a new world order. I did the shirts at one of the selfies. Oh, they're cool. I like +like the shirts you got. That's, that's a very intricate shirt. That's, uh, I think the drummer in the +band did the design. He was the graphics, graphics artist major. It shows. He did a screen. I did the +screen. He did the, he did the drawing computer design. So, how did you make the screen? Well, +there's two ways to do screens. One is with drawing fluid and screen filler, where you draw the +design. Yep. And that will wash out when you spray it at water. Disable. And then you coat the +screen while that's on, uh, with screen filler and screen filler solidifies in the screen. So, +once it's solid, you spray out. So, that's how you hand-make a screen. I did a character +public radio shirts with, uh, uh, I want to say cober to one of the, uh, anarchy. So, I did the +a anarchy with like pink brush painted it on. And then inside the a, I put HPR real tiny, +I have some, those were all bleached out. I didn't do any of the, uh, I made a dozen shirts, +2,000 shirts, uh, handed them out at the Ohio Linux vest. Then the second method is photo +emulsion, um, and you coat the screen with photo emulsion and you let it dry. Can't touch light. So, +either have to use yellow or red lights like an adarcory. Right. Um, any light from it will start +to solidify the photo emulsion. You have to coat it evenly and then store it in a dark place until +it dries half an hour. It depends on the photo emulsion. Um, and then you have to print on transparency, +the stencil. Oh, so for this, uh, what's bleached out is the design. That's what you draw. +And it's on a transparency and you put it on the screen backwards, expose it to light. They have +light boxes that are pressurized and stuff. So, you get it really tight to the, to the screen. +And, uh, uh, uh, then after whatever time period is optimal, the photo emulsion spray out the stencil, +and then print. That's cool. With the squeegee. I am going to go downstairs. My garage is full of stencils. +Here. All right. I had such acting up again. What's up? My headset was acting up again. +All right. I could see that people were talking, but I couldn't hear anything. Uh, +good to say. I said, I do several times. And the response I felt very, very sad. +Uh, my apologies. I wasn't actively ignoring you, but if I thought about it, I probably would have been. +To the Danny has the Jitsi running. Yeah, but I'm working. So, all of you still working? +Yeah. I mean, it's not like there's a lot going on or anything. +You have anything working? Huh? You've been doing it before? Um, I've had some trouble +leveling my bed. I've tried some of the standard fixes. And I think I just need to +grease the rods. So, I 3D, I was able to get it leveled enough to 3D print one of the +rod greasing tools. And then I have the grease that came with the machine. And evidently, +it's something that you're supposed to do like every 3-6 months or something that I think it's been +about like four or five months since the last time I did it. So, I've had to grease my Z-rud. +But that's about it. Yeah, it's the same thing, except there's multiple of them on this. +Yeah, my Z-rud was really bad at one point where, I mean, you can, it would, it would +how. It would start up and go all the way up to the top hit the thing and then come back +back all the way down. And it just, it would have the entire time. I found some grease, +put that on there and it's been great. And then I told you about that two and a half gig +networks, which that my kids got me. Yep. I couldn't find an STL for that particular model. So, +I made my own and I 3D printed that. And it works really good. Absolutely. In the mini racket, +but I have it on the mount for the mini rack. And I'm just waiting to get the other parts because +I only want to take the whole thing apart one time and say that, you know, two times. The look with that. +Yeah, I already had it apart once a couple of weeks ago to rerun some tables and things properly +situated on it. So, see how many times I end up taking it apart. More than see, I can see you, but I can't +hear you. Oh, that's a lot of screens here. Here are big screens from Springfield on the +government option site that my one of my younger brothers put a bid in for me without asking me +and I got an expensive one. Yeah, 70 screens I can't use. Oh, well. And then I have others, +then I have other screens here in these boxes and the garage. They're all old screens that have +designs in them. That's cool. That says that's a broken Mickey Mouse or zombie patch on it. I don't +know if you guys don't pop up. Best thing, Beth, the guitar. I'll take it up. The several I of you +like limited, but I made is icon will show it to my mouse and post a tag to the avatar. Is that the +head in the, that one? Yeah, that's pretty cool. To represent the, yep, in a world order. Is that the same +as the new pizza order? No, it's a clock to, clock to made at night. Has anybody heard from +clock to in the long time? I know he was. Is he supposed to post article? Is he still posting +making articles? That's all I've seen from him is article. It was, it was, was the name of the site. +It was open source, something wasn't it? Did he last time I checked with the source. Yeah, +but last time I saw that wasn't many, uh, articles possible like this year. Well, Joe got us all +started on pizza, and so I had to order one for my wife and I, so. Right. Yep. I am Joe. +You and Joe. All Joe's fault. That's cool. Well, Suzanne really did volunteer with a +local jet's pizza, so he ordered from them. I can pressure it with those. Cool, which makes +love. It's not the best pizza in the world, but it's the best pizza in Morris town. I've yet to find +decent pizza around here. If you had to find a pizza that I wasn't actually willing to eat, so +yeah, that's about me and studs. I've never met a spud I didn't like. Yeah, I blame that Irish +ancestry of mine. It's a potato. I'm probably gonna eat it. I would blame that too if I had any. +All these years, I thought it was Welsh, and it turns out no by them all Franco and Norman. +There's a funny story behind that. Oh, they're probably it. +I also made a Necro sexual. Yeah, I remember your story about that one. He's a screen that had a +heart on it. They said undercover in a Necro. What was it? Necro for the egg? Necro pilia. +Yeah. It's a ringworm screen. We did a bigger one. Oh, yeah. +Did you have the shirt for that day? It's Linux heart and piece. Is that what it takes? +Pixley's all with Linux. Isn't that what you wore to a high Linux face? I know. I wore a store +bot. I love Linux shirt that has commands that sound dirty all the time. Oh, right, right, right, right. +This can nish. That's what I've got on this cannesia. Yeah, I made more of them. I do not know that I'm +wearing your shirt, but I'm wearing rather nice cannesia. Like that one. I do not have +Getsy on the jutsy. Oh, I think it's just a stencil. I have, I have an amazing texture from +two or three shirts from Thailand. Yeah, I had one that was really nice, but it was like rubberized +over it and it was bits and pieces and the longer I wore it and washed it, the more of the pieces +fell off and you can't even tell what it is now. But I have a couple of really nice cannesia shirts. +There you go, build shirt. A second tilt logo. Columnus has had or hackers, arduous and stuff +with it, and they had no yellow one. Columnus, I found her tied with hamburger. Wow. +Welcome to candy cane. All right. Here's that 3D printer. Oh, is that going over front? Yes. +Good idea. I just looped up mine. That's a scoop for the pulled photo emulsion. So as you +put the photo emulsion in here and then put an even layer on the screen, the stencil. When you +ink on, you use a squeegee, put the ink or the blush onto the shirt and cut it shortwards. +And it makes the satisfying noise. There's the, uh, that goes on the four color print station. +They're told the or bag or your printing on. That's right and cool. Yeah. Do you have a website +for your shirts? Uh, I used to have a website for the shirts, uh, but I had a web host that wouldn't let +me upgrade to a new version of PHP. I had to do all this custom codey make my shopping site work +and then they forcibly updated to a higher version and broke my entire website. And I never had +the time to fix it. Oh, wow. I dumped about 10 grand and then haven't shirts. I really don't know. +Oh, boy. Yeah. My, my personal blog. Uh, I can't use because it needs update to a PHP version +that my web host doesn't have or something. I, I don't understand these things. I just know it's +not a current enough version of PHP. And so I can't use my blog. Fun. I absolutely understand that. +What are your feelings on Google? No. Thank you. Okay. No upset. I have not totally de-googleed +myself that I've gotten pretty damn close. I used to have a blogger account or blog spot blogger. +I think it's blogger before now. It's blogs. Actually, they both, they both were bought by Google +and I don't know what I think they're letting both sites be used by those names. Okay. Okay. +That makes sense. So I had a site on there back on the early 2000s, 2000s, 2000s and it posted +updates was on vacation. Didn't have a cell phone and had no way for people to contact me. And +when I went to Thailand for the first time, everybody wanted updates constantly. And I'm like, +I'm not messaging 100 people. I'm not messaging 20, not a normal. I'm not messaging 20 people every +day to tell them what I'm doing. So I went to do a blog and signed up and it told me that the +name was already taken. And I was like, that's my handle. Nobody else should be using it and pulled +up the page and realized that it was mine from the early 2000s. Now, all you have to do is remember +your password from the early 2000s. I know I actually had a link to, I think they had to sign in +with Google back then. Maybe not. No, I would have been. I got in or had the password or whatever. +And with Google, you, it'll automatically link to your photo and video library. So it's easy to +add photos and stuff from your Google account. It made it very easy for me to +blog about my trip trips to Thailand. Yeah, I keep bumping my head on the fact that I have Google +photos turned off on my phone and every time I try and change my wallpaper, I have to go through +several hoops to get it to use the photos I have on the phone or those I have in my +proton drive. Yeah, I've tried to Google and next slide over and over again throughout the years +and fully work. I'm not saying that's not for the fault of my own lack of +Joe knows I don't have very much in the way of skills. Yeah, more than the average Joe's. +Yeah, but you're above average. I don't count. I'm not average. See me? +I used to be really, really good at distro hopping, but so many distros have moved away from +grab that you really can't multi-boot anymore. Unless it's a bunch of your deviant based, I can't +boot it alongside my other distros. Are you using a GPT partition on the day? Now see, you're asking +me a question again. Yeah, I bet if you change it to a GPT partition on the disk, you're installing +the distro. I was able to install I think 30 o s on my think penguin laptop when I got it way back +at one point, I held bunch of distros, but they keep using different boot systems and different +everything. If I load a version of arch on my system, arch has to control grub, or it won't see any +of you others. If you want something else to control grub, arch will not load unless you go into +a special boot process. You have to change grub scan on the other part on the other o s. I ran +into that problem. There is a solution. Run prox mox and have all of them run at the same time. +Well run blend o s and be able to use whatever package manager you want, but what I'm saying is +it used to be something I could just do, and now it's something I have to fight. Even elementary +OS, which is Ubuntu based, has gone to a different boot system, and I think Papa West did too. +Jump on to another call here in a minute. It's on your work-in-self. +Um, I'm hoping to get done about 4x and 4x team, but then I have to go get ready to go to a hockey game. +I'll be back on after the hockey game, but what team? The Allen Americans. +Yeah, I didn't think there was a big team down your way. I guess the stars. +Yeah, the stars. And there's a big team. They're supposed to be moving stadium to think +they're still in negotiations, but it might be Arlington. That's not too bad to drive. +Yes, I live in the DFW. All right, eight minutes, and we get Eastern Europe. +Finland, the Baltic States, Savakia, Bulgaria, Greece, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, +and all of them things down to South Africa. So, how far away are you from the +Dallas stars stadiums? I'm sorry, what? How far are you from the American Airlines Center? +Oh gosh, let me check. It's probably not that far, and some of the games aren't that expensive, +but like the games that I would want to see are always expensive. Like if they play the +penguins, yeah, it's going to be like a $200 ticket game. Oh, and that's a little bit more than +I want to pay. And if I don't take any tolls or heck, if I do, it's only a seven minute difference. +It's about an hour drive right now with traffic the way that it is. That's not bad. Honestly, +it's probably about the same time to Arlington, but I can go around most of the BS in Dallas. +What kind of BS? What kind of BS? I can tell that you've never driven in Dallas. +Dallas is what all highway and everybody's doing about 90. It's all spaghetti and +everybody's doing about 90 and not paying attention to anybody else, not using turn signals and trying +to kill each other. I've literally driven in, you know, third world countries and I've driven +in war zones that I would prefer to drive in over this ship. I just remember visiting there. It was +the last year, year before, and then you'd be where the hotel is, and then try to get on, +get leave the hotel, basically just go straight on to a highway, and you have to gun it from +zero to about 70, just to be able to, so you don't get run over. And then if you're there, +you still have to go up to another spot where you're back in another highway and you have to +gun it from 70 to 90, just so you don't get run the fuck over. Nobody wants to let you merge. +And then you've got to cross four lanes of traffic to exit on the far side. Right. Yeah, +it's it's psychotic. Yeah, we've got a lot of things going on at Knoxville, including the +Ice Bears, which are pretty good minor league on heat team, but I would my aunt isn't, +I just can't go hang out in a crowd. I get that, I get that. A lot of people do show up to the +Alan American games, but you know, I usually either, you can get the tickets for like 13 bucks +a piece or because I'm a veteran and they have a veteran days, I can usually go for free and freeze my +favorite price. Oh yeah, so yeah, the only thing is the concession is very expensive and I have +a passion for nachos. Who doesn't? Right. But I think this time I'm going to eat pizza before I go +skip the nachos and just get a giant chocolate chip cookie in a soda. Hang on. And the sodas are like +13 bucks. Wow, they serve me here. They do, but I don't drink that much. Well, that's the +honestly, honestly, I want you to think back over the last however long you've known me, +and 98% of the drinking I have done, I have done on camera with you there. +Are you saying that I'm a bad influence? Is that what you're trying to say? I don't drink very much. +I'm not kidding. Now, let, let be fair, when back when you were trying to get elected and stuff, +you were hanging out with other people and doing some drinking a lot more than you've done with me. +Yeah, a little, a little social there, but I was a little, I was not drinking very much at all because +I was eating a crap time because everybody wanted to feed me, but because I was running for school +board, it would have been inappropriate for me to get drunk anywhere. You might have won. +I got pretty dang close considering that the incumbent I was running against had been there for like +10 years. And you say 30% of the vote, I'm not complaining, but I probably would have hated it if I had one. +I just remember there was one podcast where you showed up where you were hanging out with somebody who +you were supporting or something. And they were just came on after having several +two balls. Yeah, no. I remember that I remember that I did that I had the screw balls at home, +though, and, and someone had come over that was supporting me and they had brought their husband +with them and their husband was an X-Marine and I had to represent. I had to represent, +so we busted out the whiskey and it just happened to be screw ball and yeah, I got, I probably +bit off more than I could chew. I should know better than to go up against the devil dogs. +That screw ball is so delicious. Oh, it is. It is. It will get me in trouble every time. +I learned recently that fireball isn't even whiskey. Oh, no. It's actually schnapps. +Really? That makes such. And they had to change the name because the stuff wasn't selling. +They did. It was Dr. McGillick had he something something schnapps and they couldn't sell it, so they +changed the name and started getting people to go to bars ordering large amounts of fireball +for the room and that's how it caught on. Okay, one minute before Eastern Europe, they do actually +add some whiskey in for flavoring. It's labeled as a whiskey. It would be cinnamon whiskey. +Cinnamon whiskey is not whiskey. That's how they got away with it. +And in fact, they have fireball cinnamon for sale and a lot of convenience stores that isn't even +schnapps. Okay, happy New Year, Eastern Europe and South Africa and Egypt at all them. +Yeah, they have actually it's a grain beverage, the fireball cinnamon that they sell in the +convenience stores. Out of the phone call. Up next is Scandinavia, Western Europe except UK and +most of Western Africa. I am going to go downstairs and wait for the pizza because they were supposed to +be sending me texts saying where they were and they're not. +Okay, he still wants, looks like he still wants to have the call. Give me a second and see. +Yeah, I'm going to join this meeting. All right, guys. I'll try and jump back on before I have to leave. +So this, so my wife has gotten into the cricket. I got talked about it before. So this is +actually a sweatshirt that she did. I was talking on the previous show about trying to use +ink scape to take it PNG and then separated it into the different parts. This is actually the one +that I did. It is from Super Mario. It's a boo hiding. It would hide their face when you look at +them and then when they turn around, they come at you. So I actually did this one and then my wife +won a buying a pack of ones and then she did this. Now it's a lot and it's a lot to see because +it's like a three X sweatshirt and she won up using the entire space for the three X sweatshirt +and to put like what there's about five boo's on the back there but it came out really nice. +I like that. I wore it all the time we were down in Universal because it was Universal. +During the time I were down in Florida, it was a mixture of cold in the shade and warm in the sun. +So like there was no like real good happy medium. The entire time we were down there. +But she had been because these were all HTV with the crickets in the crickets. +I'm probably waiting almost another half hour for that pizza. It said 55 minutes and it may +been 30. You know at least you got a Jackie delivery person. +Oh, what? A Jackie delivery person. His wife. Oh, that's a cool. I had. So +Princey's holding a picture of it's me old HPR stickers. I had that. I had that bottom one. +The circle that just said HPR. Like I had it on one of my old laptops that I got +rev. I got that one at the Northeast the next fest. I had that one and I had the microphone one. +And there was one. It was a weird one with like somebody kind of bent over a computer +which I saw that old laptop just for the stickers. I finally got the Southeast Linux Fest this last +June but I don't know if I wasn't feeling very well. So I didn't really get bat much out of it +but it was fun seeing some people. Maybe I'll be better this year and maybe I won't go. I don't know. +Southeast Linux Fest Charlotte North Carolina. I have only been able to make it to +two of the Northeast Linux Fest when they were doing them. Now, so you still performing music? +Maybe it's Peter arrived. No, just restart the recording. Okay. You have to assign the push to talk +button. The easiest way to do go through it is to go to configure and go through the setup wizard +and you can choose the push to talk button that goes through the the setup wizard. All you +wizard. +Coming HPR. This is one of spoons. Over. How are we doing? +Coming HPR. This is one of spoons. Hello Spoon. Hello Spoon. I don't think Spoon can hear us. +Does anybody in here? Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. +I was looking at my bank mini and it's a lot easier program than the original 5R. I might have +to do a little piece on it once I dig into a little more. What did you see? It was a mech mini. +About five R mini. Okay. I was talking earlier and Bell might be interested that there was +a camp from Canada and I got his pulse sign. I hope I got it right so I contact the monitor. +There's somebody in here on the chat. Is that one of spoons? He's going in Spice Spoon. +He's announced a sub-table time. Don't think you can hear us. +I think he was on last year and he might have done one this one through the year. +Coming HPR. This is one of Spoon's AFA. +One of Spoons. You're received. I'm receiving it. Yeah. I don't think you can hear us. +I heard you're talking about Serenity earlier and Firefly actually on both. I'd rather not have +just digital copy. Awesome. Yeah. I don't want a lot of DVDs still. Then I want to +prep me and I'm going to enjoy it. But what I need is that remember the guy that came on a couple +times in the long past talking about how he had a script to Rick DVDs. He was able to rip a bunch of +episodes from shows and stuff like that. I have a bunch of DVDs of shows. +I need to figure out a way to start ripping those like crazy. I did a show about, but I don't +know if it'll be helpful because it's not a mass ripping away way to do it. I don't like. +I get the giant box set of signed films, which is all the episodes have all the episodes of +like murder notice, probes, one just since episode was like the first 15 series in the +Inc. 24, the first four seasons. They've been Gillian, road tech, fire scape. I wanted to get +into fire scape and I just never tried to sit down and watch more of them. It's a lot of fun. +It's one of my favorites. I like it. It looked fun to me. Yep. And they did the after +they got canceled. They did a movie. They just kind of decided to stop it. They did a movie to +kind of sum up what they were going to do in like last few seasons. A new CEO came in. The +sci-fi can you head for a scape and love stargate or for so much fan in sci-fi. I've been +corporate from shopping at Tethernet where I finally gave in to fan pressure and let them make a +two episode, a two-part wrap up, but it was supposed to be several more. Okay, if you use +make mkv as it makes things pretty easy and it does blue rays really well. I have but not +not with a lot of success. For most of us, I usually use, oh, what is the gooey version? +What do you mean? Handbreak. I use handbreak a lot. I have and make mkv, but I really haven't used it so much. +Got it fried again. I use a little both handbreak the raw copy and then I mean make mkv to make the +get the raw copy and then handbreak to put a whole bunch in a queue just in the gooey and there's +a slight rip, let it encode it into 1080p is probably good enough. I'm going to sit and listen +for a little bit after so I can get some dinner. Yeah, that's what I got to go. +Oh, make nice and the microwave looms up there. I'm not sure what she's going to do. She's probably +starting up the walker. I should probably start the tacos. Can you still see me honky? +Uh, you just froze for a second, no? So, oh no. Well, we finally got our pizza. What type? +We got a 50-50 from Jets. Mine is black olives sausage and mushroom and my wife's black +olive chicken it should have been barbecue but wasn't and red onion and it she's bred three +cheese but still it took an hour and a quarter. It was that there on delivery or was that through +uh somebody else's shrimp above? That was their own delivery. It is New York City. +Yeah, that is true too. It is but they did promise us 50 minutes. That's also true. Don't +make the promise if you're not going to at least give people a heads up. Hey, you know, it is New +York City. You do this and they take a while and they gave us no updates and would not answer +their phone when they tried to call for updates. Yeah, that's kind of great. But it's good pizza. +No, it's good. And that's all Joe's fault. All right. So the same time I'm going to over here playing +with YouTube DL2. I do DL2. I don't know my kids go on YouTube. So there is something you +use YouTube DL that throw up on Jonathan. I downloaded it. There's a person who has walked +through the games called the gameer and my suddenly I like to and I'll do downloads of +the game. It came walk through and it was one where I got like most of it and I'm really +10 episodes off it. But I don't load it again and when I read download it on again, it went from +being a 250 meg file to a 1.5 gigabyte file. So I do remember the music to deal with through +the pitch which version I want to build. You're pretty choppy. Honking the go on my end. +We're hearing all of that. We're being figured out, but it's pretty choppy. Is it weird? +It's weird. Yeah, I thought it was a problem on my end. You're very choppy. +All right. You know what? I have to add a fix the... +Come in, H. P. R. This is one of spines. I can't hate now. You sure? +Yeah. Hello. Hello. Hello. Do you read me spoon? I read you. I hate you. I didn't read. +He said that. Archer. I see you now, Archer. I came back for a minute, but I was getting dinner. +All right. Let's see if I can make this a little better. Don't even know. Not yet. +All right. I was in the room. Yeah. Let's put that back in there. Yeah. Let's move you down. +I'm put that as a cutter. No. Oh, you know what helps? If I hit the block, the I plan button. Hold on. +Get a fly. Is that any better? Keep talking. Okay. Let's see. Is this a little less choppy? +Or is it still all over the place? It's still pretty choppy, but it might be better. +Slawling frame. That's easy. Is that easy? No. No. No. Let's see. You down. +You down. Bye. And let's see if that's any better. Just hit everything now. So let's choppy. +It may be ready to shut down from the start. It might be. Right. It has a still choppy. All right. Let's do that. +And it's happy new year to Western Europe and Western Africa with the exception of UK. Happy 2026. +And happy new year, everybody. Happy new year. 2026. It's awesome. Glad to hear it, Ken. +Hello. Nice to hear you. Hello. Is that G.I. Spock? +G.S. Spock is lurking. All right. Is this any better? Talk a little more. +Talk a little more. Okay. Uh, picture, picture. It's just crackling. So we're crackling. +You're crackling. It's better, but it's not good yet. +Dang it. Next hour. We welcome UK Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, and the rest of Western Africa. +And a little bit of greenland. All right. But how is this any better? I thought the last one was better than this one. +All right. It is my audience. It's still so garbage. That is worse. +Oh, boy. Awesome. Did you turn it turning it off and back on again? +You know, I'd rewatch that show. IT ground. The real, the real, that they had in the phone. +Yes. I've gotten into wiping a lot of the, well, basically any of the, uh, +Sheminkar hosted shows from BBC. So the 8 out of 10 cats and 10 cats does count down. +Um, uh, in fact, we show over here that might be hit. But he did a show on Netflix too, and that just really +isn't good. And I think that was partially because of, uh, I think he usually was very good on it. +Did you ever see the poor excuse for an American remake of IT crowd? He, yes. It had the most character, +but they replaced everyone else. And the, uh, other IT guy was played by some guy that could have +easily played a joke. And that just was wrong. +We're sure I want to be, I, I've completely fucked up his name, but it's, it's such a great character +all to himself. The great thing is show, um, he had one where he tried a bunch of gear and he had another +one where he, uh, a gear diorama, I think it was called, and then dumb on where he did +into trouble. Yeah, I haven't seen anything else with him in it, other than the American remake. +Well, I'm going to go digest some food. I don't can't do that very well with headphones on. +No, I serring your mocks. Nice hearing you spoon. Nice sometimes hearing you, honky. +Oh, thank you. It was good talking to you. Oh, that sounded good. What happened? +I don't know. Is, is breaking up a little bit, but I don't know how it's cobbled in. What the heck? +All right, you need to grant. Do you need to ground something? I wanted to interject before +you go. There's a German version of the IT crowd, also. Is there really? Oh, out. Well, the, the +American one is so awful. I don't think it got past pilot stage. +Yeah, honky, you do sound like when sometimes you're making a mobile telephone call, +and it just sounds like the aliens interjected. Awesome. That's, that's just fantastic. +So maybe it's a signal in between somewhere, you know, in the middle of things. +All right, so is there still some of them? I can hear you. It was a short sample. +I had website out to deny her both myself on the stream and +talking back. If you want, it's still something urgent. You are all too bold, +but there's some slight breakup completely different amount of time. So it's coming ahead, +set for some reason. This is the same one I've been using for quite some time. So that's disappointing. +Is it, is it, is it charged? Yeah, I mean, before I was even, I wouldn't have +plugged in more talking. Did you try to turn it on and off again? +Oh, for a friend. Yeah. +Oh, I mean, I've definitely been on for a while. You know, maybe I'll stick away for a little bit +and see where that went in and try to really then prep. We can hear words. Maybe if I don't know +if you experiment with holding a steady volume. Well, my voice will be as steady volume. +Let's just talk at one monitor voice for as loud as all as it possibly can. I'm even sure if I did +properly. That might help because I'm breaking up. I think if you lengthened the words, +then yes, we were to hear each word. So when did talk very similarly, had linked +everything. Okay, I just had a tie. I'm not excited. We would go. I said, signal, signal. +How is your router? Black with these big things half the problem? +Yes, but I've been having problems with my router and the power cycle is fine. +I haven't, I don't know, this is the first time I've had these sort of an issue. So I don't know. +I don't normally sound like this today. Okay. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, good. +I actually feel perished by there were people who not just Morton, so you said that. +Oh, that sounded terrible. Okay. +There was noise coming through when you stopped talking. Oh, awesome. +Maybe I should just shut it down for a while and see if I can come back later. +You're magnets are getting hot, something. +All right, I'm supposed to be in interference. You know, let's come to you. +Good evening. Good evening. +Morton, see, how are you? Did we meet in person, Dale? We met on the guest twice as, oh, not itself. +No, no, it's been a few years. How are you doing? All right, this finishing dinner. +There, how are you doing? +First part was showing his array of non-malca hallock beverages in Tekken Coffee. What are we drinking? +I am drinking Red Bull, a severed line. +Heart of liquid does. Does it have a taste to it? Yes, there is a flat mineral water that's +unflavored in a sparkly mineral water that's unflavored than there's a whole line of flat mineral +water teas that are flavored dead billionaire, which used to be called armless polymer, +one of my favorites of the, but they're all death-inspired names. The whole story behind the +company pretty many. It took four people that I appreciate their opinions to tell me to try it before +I actually tried it. I think the two most recent ones they came out with was mineral water versions +of cola, Dr. Pepper. They remind me of the New York Seltzer water. They had a sparkling +was called a clear caramel added. They're okay. It might be lightly caffeine in the last month, +but they probably have for 20 flavor mineral water. Have you tried the other death-related +beverage called death-wish coffee? I don't know if it was a spoof or if they actually did this, +but when the Spinal Tap movie came out, it had a limited edition sign box of liquid death +that only went to 11 instead of 12 kibit in the box, or 12 kibit were supposed to be signed by the +baby. Looks like geospark has a couple of variations of sparkling cider and in some panta. +He's posting inside the car myself, you know, because that's the best. An orange flavor just +is the best, too. You know, actually, have you had meso mix? I have not. So meso mix is +phanta mixed in with coke. It's sold in Germany as meso mix, but it's really good. I mean, +I guess you could suicide them and just mix them together yourself. I had heard of liquid death +I've seen it in the grocery store, but I've never known anyone that has tried it. +There are some of the flavors I've not like. There's a fruity pebbles. It's some play on serial +killer names. That's the frame that I didn't like, although I didn't like it. Pretty pebbles. +But most of the flavors I like love is separate. It does seem like they change the recipe +slightly earlier, which I don't like. Is it caffeinated? I know, but they just came out with +like three flavors that are our cap, or any. I'm putting links in the show note, the flavored +piece, energy, the caffeinated ones. I think they're caffeinated, like soda. They have four flavors, +murder mystery, orange or tropical terror, and scary strawberry. But I haven't been able to +find that stores that try that single-angle beverage 12. Are any of them carbonated? +Yes. All the flavored ones are carbonated. The iced teas are flat. +I'll have to try one of those next time I'm home because I asked one of the cashiers. +If she had heard of it, this was a few months ago. I can't remember how long I'm going to go. I had +seen it, but I asked her if she had tried it, and she said, well, we just started stalking it, +and she hadn't heard of anybody trying it. So that's interesting. I have to keep that in mind, +because I used to buy these carbonated waters from all the, they had different flavors, +but I haven't buttoned any of them in several years of mineral waters. They were carbonated. +I'm not sure if they were mineral waters, but they were probably the best flavored water +that I had had to vet to that date. It was actually, as if you're drinking something that +wasn't water. It was so good. Yeah, and some of the stuff I've read has said that just +treated water, and like purified or stilled water, it doesn't hydrate your body. The minerals +that salts in the forest could be inage of all of it. But you know, what they say all the time, +I just feel better drinking liquid than bottled water. That's interesting. And better drinking +bottled water than soda. I have a water filter on my tap at home, my kitchen, because I don't +like the municipal water, because it reminds me of the ingesting a lot of water loss moving at the +natatorium growing up. So I don't like to be chlorinated water that they have. Where I'm at, +you can smell the chlorine in the water, come around the faucet. It's not more often than not. +It's not as bad as it was growing up, because I grew up, or I'm living now, is probably 10 miles +away from where I physically grew up. But I'm thinking this is municipal water, +I'm pretty sure that the apartment complex does not have a well. But it's not as bad as I remember, +because I remember going to my grandmothers. This was throughout the late 70s, 80s, into the 90s. +And I can remember never wanting to drink water. I always had to have 10 or collied. I could never, +my mother tried to get me to drink water from lemon, which was all right. But it was more of the effort +of having to squeeze the lemon and making sure that the pits don't fall into the glass, +everything. But yeah, it was much worse as I remember. And now, when I open my tap before I +turn on the divider for my water filter, because I have a water filter that screws onto the air +reader. There's a little knob you pull out, and it diverts the water through the filter, +and the filter has its own little spit. But I can't really smell the water, but you can definitely +taste it. Two things. They make tang a variety of different flavors. No that. +Well, I haven't had tang. I'm going to be 52 this spring, and it's probably been 40 years since +I've had time. I think I had, I think my friend, my mother, offered me collied. I think maybe +like 10 years ago, and it was like the first time I had had collied, and probably 20 years, +you from that date. I'm trying to find a list of flavors. We have an international grocery store +there. It's in the South American section. It's half. Two dozen flavors of tang, including Guarana. +A side note of a few people on here, probably no. I make homemade, vitamin-enriched, +caffeinated gummies, and a lot of times they'll add a packet to the gelo, but enhance the +verb makes it tart and tangy. And then the other thing is there is a product called true citrus, +and it's a little flavor packet. It's shaped more like a wet wipe, a crystal-light packet, +and you can find them in the grocery stores in the same section. Some of them have +their fake sugar in them. There's three that I get. It's the lemon, the lime, and the grapefruit. +And like a crystal-light, it's equivalent to a crystallized wedge of lemon lime. Grapefruit +in your drink. So it's a powder. So a freeze-dried crystallized form of lemon. It's just like +its fresh lemon in your water. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4603.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4603.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53e8d4f --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4603.txt @@ -0,0 +1,131 @@ +Episode: 4603 +Title: On the Erosion of Freedom in Open Source Software +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4603/hpr4603.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:57 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4603, for 2026-03-25 +Today's show is entitled, "On the Erosion of Freedom in Open Source Software" +The host is HopperMCS and the duration is 00:17:31 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "I discuss recent events and an unfortunate discovery while attempting to compile software." +Good morning HPR. It's sure been a minute since I recorded anything for you guys. +But I have some things I kind of want to talk about today. I'm a little bit calmer. +It's a really good day today. Data recording is March 11th. +I just got done signing an operating agreement with a new business partner. +My consultancy firm was just recognized as an LLC by the state. +It's a good day, man. It's a really, really good day. +But today I really kind of want to talk about the erosion of sorry about the filler words. +That's the other thing. I'm not editing this. I probably should edit it, but you know, +I only have so much time in the day. +And I'm also sorry about the might quality. I don't have the greatest mic. +My setup is kind of on the threats right now. +But the main thing I want to talk about today is the erosion of freedom and the open source software community. +Because I, it's kind of upsetting. You know, this may be a sort of shorter episode. +But I just find it very, very disturbing that we have multiple governments in the Western block. +And it doesn't really matter which side of the aisle you're on because they're all doing it. +They want to implement tracking at the operating system level that is just not okay, you know? +And so one of the things I look at here is the fourth amendment. +And I just cannot get past these people violating the fourth amendment the way they are. +And I'm sure you could probably make arguments that, you know, they're violating the first amendment by forcing you to write code that you didn't really want to write. +You can argue that there, I think I saw somebody say that it violates nine and ten, but I don't know how that works. +But it's just, it's not a good situation. And so I'm looking at debuffs, right, because that's how they want to do it. +And I'm looking at specifically California and Colorado because California and Colorado only require attestation, which is fine at face value. +But you look deeper into it and it's the ulterior motives, right? +I don't trust anybody saying, hey, we need everybody's ID and one giant database effectively. +And we want to separate everyone into two pools, kids and adults. +That's kind of my, my big brain, you know, I have a problem with this because right now, as it stands, I'm just going to be honest. +And I know this is, I'm going to mark this episode as an NSFW because it's, it is a touchy topic, but I really do think that there is a bunch of pedophiles with some money involved that are in government. +And it's the US, but it's probably not just the US, let's be real. +That want to, as far as I'm concerned, right, putting these two pools of IDs, you know, state IDs or whatever they start requiring, you know, New York requires apparently a driver's license or something like that, absolutely insane. +I really hope this shit gets shot down. +How much more easy do they need to make it to target kids, you know, it's like these, these laws, you can all, you can tell where they're going. +But it's, what's, what's that phrase, a wolf and sheep's clothing, right? +They're going to tell you, oh, it's for the safety of the kids, for the safety of the kids, we saw the abstine island stuff, right? +And again, that's why I'm marking this as NSFW, the amount of hatred that I feel for these people is absolutely unreal. +And I say this, knowing, I have a very calm tone, right? +But I am seeding right now. +It's bad, man. +It's bad. +And what agitate to me is the fact that this is tough, it is now affecting me because, you know, I grew up with Windows XP, right? +If, if that gives you a sort of, uh, I guess time frame, you know, of when I came up, right? +Windows XP was new. +It was probably only a couple years old when we got our family computer, very unfortunately, my, at the very computer that led to me getting into technology, +was initially specked out and mostly built by my uncle, who was being paid by my dad to build it, and then something happened with the original mobile. +It was a really, really old early 2000s MSI board from what I remember. +They, uh, sorry guys, I, I have untreated sleep apnea and my brain is just not working. +He got this case that had like dog ears on it. It was really cool. +And fully specked it up at the mobile fried. +And so he needed an extra 200, I think, from my father, who then joined his dad and they both really, really laid into my uncle. +And unfortunately, my uncle took his life. +So it's kind of, kind of like the closing time by semi sonic, you know, it's that, that one line that goes every new beginning comes from some other beginnings and, you know, that kind of kind of describes how I ended up in the software field to begin with. +And so I started young man, I was like six, you know, I was in kindergarten and that was the first time that I was able to really, really start learning how computers work. +And I'm not going to lie to you, it really pissed my parents off, you know, they really hated the fact that I would go in there. +They still, to this day, both of them are technologically illiterate. +And so they act like, you know, the word configuring is like a bad word, you know, like, oh, I don't want to configure this. I'm like, well, you're either going to configure it or it's going to remain broken and just not work, you know, take your pick. +But I digress. So I got in really, really young, really young. And that's why I want to talk today about this law and I want to talk today about another project that I was kind of kind of working around with. +Really, I'm disturbed by the way that things are going right now and I don't think it looks good and I don't think I really think that, you know, I'm looking at system 76 and I just can't respect them the way that I used to. +I get that you have to make money and I get that you have people working for you, but at some point there, there comes a hill that you need to be willing to kill on and that's this one. +There's there is no, oh, yeah, let's just let the court's handle it. No, this is a blatant violation of your rights. Everyone's rights. +Privacy is a human right. That is a hill that everybody who values freedom should be willing to kill on. +And I look at system 76 and they're just schmoozing it up with some of these guys in Colorado. +And these guys are giving them the, yeah, yeah, it's a fight. Just go away. Go away. We don't want you touching our privacy invasion laws. Go away. +Yeah, yeah, we'll do what you say, but go away and, you know, not really. So, you know, and that's just my opinion, the opinions are like assholes, you know, everybody has them, but I just, I'm, I'm irritated. +I'm irritated and I'm sure the lot of people listening to this have probably come to similar conclusions. +I don't know that anything I'm saying here is new, but I got to get it out there, man. +The second thing is that I ran into an interesting case of embrace extent extinguish and happened a few years ago under my nose and I didn't realize it was happening. +Now, something I've noticed about the false community is that half of them are okay with properly licensed code in C sharp and the other half are like, oh, that's cancer, you know. +I'm just going to say if I have to choose an object oriented managed language, right, I don't care for Ruby or Python and I don't care for Java. I've worked with C sharp. +I've worked with the above mentioned and just personally, I prefer C sharp, you know, that's just that's just how I am. +I get the Microsoft, sorry, Microsoft is F and terrible, man. It's, it's bad. +You know, I question how long.net core is going to go before they start just putting un, what's the word I'm looking for here. +Unvetted AI swap code into it. That's, that's my main concern, you know, and at that point I would just stick to older versions and not worry about newer language revisions, but I used to use mono develop in high school and it was a big part of we had there was a guy named Mark Suter and I don't know if he's still there. I hope he's doing well, you know, great guy. +He, he was probably one of the most interesting teachers I've ever met and one of the few teachers I had in public school that I actually respected. +But I will say that he ran a programming and video game development class, you know, he would teach you the basics of programming and then he would then +chuck you into something like unity or unreal, which is, you know, it's great, you know, it's teaching you skills and I think that more people like him need to exist in the education system and unfortunately people are too busy focusing on a mitochondria instead of, you know, useful skills and I know that's a meme, but it's also, you know, having been through 10 years ago. +It's the truth and so I used mono develop both as part of unity and standalone to, you know, really teach myself the language and I wanted to see what happened to it and so. +I'm standing, right. There's a long line of stuff happening from. +So Miguel de Acazza, the guy that started genome. +Then went on to work at Novel where he developed an open source implementation of C sharp and dot net and all that called mono. +Novel folded, got to got bought out twice and somewhere around that time. +Excuse me. +They switched, you know, copyright of mono over to Miguel's company and there, it was called Zemian, I believe. +And then something happened and then Zemian became Xamarin. +Microsoft bought Xamarin. +And with it, they bought Miguel and all of the stuff. +And so I tried to compile mono develop seven, thinking that the tarball would have everything included that needed to be, you know, developed or not developed by compile. +And interestingly, I found two things, one innocuous, right, my get is no longer a thing. +It's, it's not hosted anymore, it's understandable, you know, stuff like that happens all the time, right. +Those dependencies needed to compile. +They could be found elsewhere, you know, and I was able, I was actually able to achieve that. +The other half of the dependencies, and this is where embrace extent extinguish, you know, or at least the comparison to comes from, we're hidden behind an azure wall. +I immediately was hit in the face by a username and password prompt. +For a back end azure service that I don't even know if exists anymore, but they hid when Microsoft bought out Xamarin. +They hid a lot of the stuff needed to actually compile mono develop behind a wall, it's an off wall. +And so I'm looking at this like, this is what happened, right, it was an open source project got taken over by Microsoft, they added to it, they added features to it. +And then they put half the project behind an authorization wall that the user, you know, outside users can't compile from. +And that about kills it, you know, that's it. +All she wrote. +And so I'm kind of irritated about it, you know, and I get, I get the most people like, yeah, who cares, gauges is Microsoft, you know, of dot net sucks, yeah, I get that. +And I guess if that's your opinion, I don't really know what to tell you, I guess this episode just isn't for you, you know, but for me it's it's deeper than the dot net stuff, it's it's not about what the software was about. +Excuse me, the original goal of the software. +Then getting bought out and just half that being put behind a wall intentionally, just so that people can't use it. +And so I'm looking into what's needed because. +I kind of want to use this as an opportunity to learn the avalanche framework and I have issues with how they're. +Requiring jet brains in order to do it. I'm sorry, but I just can't be bothered to pay. +I can't remember it was like 79 or something like that for writer. I'm sure writer is a great tool, but. +You know, I'm I'm not really on board with this is an open source product and then we recommend that you use a proprietary IDE, I'm just I'm not on board with that. +And so avalanche is a C sharp project mono develop is also technically supposed to be a C sharp project. +I figured why not try to. +Keep it in the family quote unquote and use the two related and so come to find out mono itself is owned by wine now, which is interesting. +But I don't know man, I just I needed to get that off my chest because I'm I'm irritated about both things. +The the laws and stuff and just the general state of freedom being actively eroded, I look at a bone to replace and core details with what was it called you, you tell us just terrible man, it's terrible. +But I, I don't know man, but thanks for tuning in, this is a relatively short episode, I just needed a rant man, I've been meaning to get this off my chest. +Once things that my consultancy firm pairs of get started hopefully I will have more to share about the actual substant of engineering stuff that I'm working on because we've we've got a couple of things and in the works here me and my business partner Adam Ron, we are going to develop a couple of tools and I I can't wait to share them because it's you know some of some of the hobby is people are really going to like this stuff. +I can't say much about it, but it's going to be fun man, but thanks for tuning in and I'm out. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4604.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4604.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ac9cad --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4604.txt @@ -0,0 +1,296 @@ +Episode: 4604 +Title: Quick Tips for January 20 26 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4604/hpr4604.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:58 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4604, for 2026-03-26 +Today's show is entitled, "Quick Tips for January 20 26" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:14:05 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Quick Tips for January 20 26" +Hello everyone and welcome to the episode of HackerBook Radio with your host, Operator. +It's going to be pretty short, I'm going to go through my quick tips. +Looks like I've got enough to kind of do a little short episode for you guys. +Quick tips are basically just, you know, kind of things that I think about, +that add value, kind of like those stupid viral videos on social media where they show, +like how to make a pancake with a square, like it, you know. +So, um, so these are, um, for me, uh, one of the first ones I've got here is Macha, the sugar blend. +So when I make my Macha, it's a kind of powdery green tea. +It's almost like I make up at this point. +Um, it's extremely messy. +So to kind of prevent some of that messiness and ease, what I do is I blend it up. +I'm sure the Macha people would just die roll over and there, whatever. +Um, but, uh, I take the Macha and I mix it with sugar and I put it in like one of those coffee grinds. +So that way, um, I just put the puts it put it in there and I'll have to worry about adding sugar or too much sugar and not enough sugar. +Um, but yeah, that's kind of how I've been doing it. +Um, then we've got super glue. +So you've probably seen online, so super glue making sort of a combination. +It does work. +I've used it to fix like two or three things now. +You have to kind of let it sit overnight and harden. +It almost makes, like, a lot of things. +Um, you have to kind of let it sit overnight and harden. +It almost makes, like, a very strong epoxy type of seal almost. +So you get this very strong seal with the, with the, the baking soda and glue mix. +Uh, you want to have enough baking soda to soak it. +But not too much that it's like a goo, uh, when it kind of dries. +So you want it soaked, but you don't want it like too much glue. +Um, likewise, you don't want too much, uh, baking soda. +So I had, I didn't have the baking soda all wet, essentially. +Um, you could, yeah, I even used the gel for it for that. +So, you know, that's, your mouth may vary, but, uh, just, you know, that actually does work. +If you haven't seen it before, um, tile batter pad on top left speaker in middle. +I have no idea what this is about, um, on top speaker in middle. +Let me give it to me a second. +Yeah, I thought about it for a while of no idea. +It says tile batter pad on top of speaker in middle. +I don't know. +Anyways, moving on, uh, blowing out a candle. +If you've ever blown out a candle and it explodes in the face, you simply just put your hands in front of it. +Or maybe a couple fingers and then you blow around, uh, through your hand. +And it will kind of diffuse that and wrap around. +So it won't make a big mess. +Um, that's, that's kind of a fun one. +See, if you are transferring, transferring large data sets by Harry Lary. +Um, yeah, so when I do large data sets, +Julie's speaking, I use our sink with VARC. +You know, there's been a ton of, at least one or two episodes about our sink. +But, um, yeah, I'd be interested to know the story around our sink and how it's. +What it has to do with the HPR and maybe the people around it. +Um, because I use it for a lot of stuff. +I'll use it for my backups after having failed backup. +Cloud providers and all that mess multiple times. +So, um, yeah, transferring large data sets I use our sink. +And then they have like a desk scene. +We'll still do like a CRC check. +What you have to do on large files, the like images. +Uh, encrypted images that do whatever. +So that's, uh, kind of that one. +Let's see, uh, phone machine. +Yeah, so you can look at this online. +There's really only a couple posts online about how this works. +Only because it's probably pretty straightforward. +So I have a giant backpack lower. +You can do this with any size lower really. +You take that blower and either make a funnel or, uh, +some kind of larger apparatus to wrap a wet. +A wet towel on around. +And then you either have a liquid filled with bubbles or have the bubble liquid. +I have a backpack lower of the takes of water for like, +spraying for bugs or whatever pesticides. +And I mixed this solution in there after like, you know, +trying to clean thoroughly cleaning it out at the best I can. +Um, but the idea there is you just take the blower, +aim it inside of a big trash can. +And then put a towel or something that's porous. +But we'll let stuff through and make these little foam bubbles. +And then you aim it upside down inside the inside of the trash can. +And then you kind of seal it all. +And you turn on a blower and it makes like a big foam. +An instant foam party thing. +So that's kind of cool. +I'll probably just do not the backpack. +Blower because that there's not enough water in the backpack. +And also nobody wants to put like, you know, +something that's had bug residue in it for bugs tray. +Um, through it's to their eyes or something like that. +So anyway, you can use a kitchen poo to do it. +It actually doesn't work quite as well as like, +the blue stuff like a dawn or whatever. +Uh, but, um, yeah, that's kind of interesting. +It's interesting a little set of to do for like kids for days and stuff. +So I'll probably take the blower and just do the blower trash can method. +And uh, get like a big towel or, uh, +think it's a blanket or something like that. +Let's see, final straps. +Or I do with vinyl straps. +Yeah. +So I just had to look this one up. +Vinyl straps. +Yeah. +You don't really see these anymore. +They're more still in commercial. +A lot of them are just doing the messes right now because it's kind of harder to replace the message. +And they're mess meshes. +And everybody throws everything. +So I'm talking about these lounge chairs. +And if you're, oh, like me, +all the lounge chairs had nylon or vinyl straps. +And those vinyl straps, you, uh, to fix them, you would have a big giant strap of a roll of vinyl. +And then you would poke a hole in it and then, you know, either use a screw or whatever. +But the key is, if it's hot outside, you can just do this with heat and just stretch it out naturally. +But if it's cold, you're going to have to like submerge it in some kind of liquid to stretch it. +And there's like a calculator's out there or whatever. +The problem is we have a set of four that are relatively old. +They're starting to sort of kind of rust. +And then you had to ask yourself, okay, if I spend $99 to fix these chairs, +are they going to outlast any of the other crappy by today? +And the answer is probably yes. +So when, if and when we're ready, we're going to strip the chair chairs, +uh, repaint them with some kind of rust only and think. +And then I will buy, I will spend $100 and I will repair these vinyl chairs. +Because they will last longer than any of these other, you know, nylon strappy, +mixed strap, crap pieces that crap you buy today. +Um, so you do have to be weary about the cost effectiveness of it. +Right. +Um, and get an idea, you know, this is kind of this sling fabric they say. +Um, I had a neighbor already through and give away one of those that because it was broken. +So, um, we have a lounge chair in our backyard that's like kind of rigged up. +But you can buy a kit that comes with a little, the little, the little, the little screws, +or the little one way pins. +They're kind of like the things that you're in your car, +that when you get a car and you take a part that whatever the falls out. +So little vinyl screw pins, holding pins, whatever. +Um, it's quite a mess and it's kind of an art form, +but uh, definitely do it if you got some furniture that's going to stay together +because you do not want to buy any new stuff because it's all garbage. +Let's see, fabric belt foot trick. +Um, so yeah. +Um, so if you, I have a bunch of these, I don't know what they were popular before, +but I have these fabric based belt straps. +And they're like for shorts or pants or whatever I bought. +And I've got like three or four of them. +Um, and the problem is, is they, they, um, they tend to loosen up on me. +And they also kind of are just kind of flappy. +So that, you know, you'll have this long flaps sticking out. +And you're going to see could cut it and then re sew it +back together to have an normal size belt, +but they're usually oversized over length to too long. +Uh, what you can do is you basically put the belt on like you normally would +and then you flip it inside out, right? +And then you do the shenanigans to get the, it's like a two loops +and you put the fabric kind of through the loops +and then you tighten it. +And then once you've since you've flipped it, you can flip it back +and it will kind of be inside out. +So we'll hide that flap. +And it will also kind of keep it more secure from like coming disconnected. +So, uh, that's kind of what I do with when I do where the, the fabric things. +Cause it's, it's better comfortable with wise if I'm going to be going +around the house or if I'm going to be working a lot. +I actually like the fabric belts because they give away a lot more than like a +traditional leather belt. +So if I'm hunched over and I'm trying to keep my pants from falling down, +I'm hunched over for a long time. +I don't want this thick. +And this is like three inch belt to inch belt. +Something crazy like that. +Um, yeah, this is like a two inch belt. +Um, I don't want to be leaning over. +Um, my fat gut. +Uh, trying to deal with that. +I don't want to just, uh, you two, +deal in I.S. +Um, I won't put the shenanigans in for any of this stuff. +It's kind of self-expand forward. +YouTube downloader is YouTube. +YouTube downloader is legacy thing. +Microsoft got rid of the repo. +And then it just spun back up as YouTube. +Um, so it's Y T D L. +And then YouTube D L I N S. +One word is Y T D L I N S. +Y T D L I N S correct as for Android. +And the cool thing about that one is not only is it a downloader. +It also supports, um, sponsor block. +So when you download the video, +it's at those sponsor. +So the ads are moved from that video. +So that's cool. +I've been using that to download different things. +Or tutorials or whatnot. +I'll see. +What? +What? +Web paper towel over. +Microwave feed. +So microwave dry stuff out. +It's the refrigerator that that's cycle of their refrigerator. +Dry stuff out. +And so what I've been doing to kind of keep the paper towel from flying off. +And then your soup explodes. +Because you got mashed potatoes in there. +Or got forbidden. +Like, uh, what's a clam chowder. +We'll explode like big time. +And, and it, you know, the, the, the wind, the blowing from the microwave. +We'll blow off here. +Whatever. +And then whatever in microwave explodes. +And you have, you know, a towel. +A paper towel is like having an off the microwave. +And explosions obviously. +You wet it. +And that kind of does two things. +It keeps the thing from sliding off. +And it also provides a little bit of moisture to your food while you're, uh, +heating it up and stuff. +So good, good, good times. +Um, see, we've got a couple more more. +Um, use blender clips instead of chip clips. +So, um, we have the big bigger binder clips. +Um, a lot of chip clips are just awful. +Uh, we have a bunch still because of the chip. +Uh, so we have a bunch of chip clips. +Um, but they kind of just dry rot overtime or low crack or something like that. +They're, they're pretty bad. +But you use big binder clips. +And you'll never have to buy any more chip clips again. +Um, so that's kind of weird. +If you're asking for chip clips for Christmas or something, +don't, don't do that. +Just ask for big binder clips. +And use those for your chips or whatever. +This small ones are great for like if you have stuff in the microwave. +And you want to, you know, like microwave vegetables. +And you want to seal them back up. +But you don't want them to have the chip clips or too big. +It's kind of put in our tiny microwave or the tiny, uh, freezer. +Sorry. +And so, you know, there's limited room in the freezer. +And you can't have the giant chip clip in the freezer. +And it's cold off or plastic. +And that's going to help the dry rot. +So if you use the binder clips, um, smaller binder clips like medium size, +that will work with like vegetables. +With like vegetables or vegetables, just like that. +So anyways, we're kind of 12 minutes or so. +So this last one is basically when Amazon got rid of the things to get me. +Or I'm sorry, when Amazon got rid of their arbitrary ad arbitrary item to wish list, +uh, you could actually do it back hack it with using some special code. +Um, there were plugins with Chrome. +There were like you add arbitrary stuff titles, pictures, and links to your Amazon. +They since flocked to that down. Also. +I have been busy. +Uh, when my wife uses is things to get me. +Now, things to get me does have a, uh, Chrome extension. +The thing about it is you have to configure it. +And you have to allow it to kind of run on every webpage. +So, um, it's kind of like, a little thing yet to make sure you do. +And then it'll pull what the plugin will do for you is it will pull the images from the website that you're on. +Um, so if you say at this page, sometimes that doesn't work. +What usually you like to do is be on the page and add it from URL. +So you get like a cookie and a session token and everything to actually pull it down. +Um, so that kind of seems to help. +But in general, I use, um, things to get me. +And I use the plugin to manage. +To manage the, uh, +Dating of new items and stuff like that makes a lot lot easier. +Anyways, that's pretty much it for the quick tickets. +Take it easy. +Happy new year. +Yeah, happy new year. +It's already second. +So whatever. +Happy holidays and take it easy. +Thank you. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4605.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4605.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eef29f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4605.txt @@ -0,0 +1,152 @@ +Episode: 4605 +Title: Lee locks down his wifey poo +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4605/hpr4605.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:59 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4605, for 2026-03-27 +Today's show is entitled, "Lee locks down his wifey poo" +The host is Elsbeth and the duration is 00:08:25 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee and Elsbeth get hitched" +Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. +I would like to welcome all of you today +in the Oaks Room in the London Bar of Satsuan, +which has been duty sanctions +according to the law for civil marriage. +My name is Melina, +and I will be leading the couple through their ceremony +at Lynn here is the registrar today +and will be registering for marriage today +and has to leave our responsibility +to make sure that the declaratory words are said +and emerge to get your sight. +We are here today to witness the joining and match on me +who would like to thank you all for coming +to celebrate the beginning of their new law +together as husband and wife. +To share in their happiness +and to witness their marriage found. +Marriage is intended to provide love +and friendship, help and comfort +and to support each other to both the joys and sorrows of life. +Marriage is making a commitment +it calls for trust, understanding and encouragement. +Have found in each other happiness for fulfillment and love. +They now wish to affirm their relationship +and to offer each other the security that comes from +belief and binding vows +sincerely made and faithfully heft. +However, if any person present +knows of any lawful impediment to this marriage +then he or she should decode it now. +Before you are joined in match on me, +I have to remind you of the solemn and binding character +of the vows you are about to make. +Marriage according to the law of this country +is the union of two persons +voluntarily entered into the life +to the exclusion of all others. +So we're asking you now +three will you take to be your wife? +Will you be loving, faithful and loyal to her? +In living your lives together? +I will. +Will you take the lead to be your husband? +Will you be loving, faithful and loyal to him? +In living your lives together? +I will. +It is now time for your solemn declarations +and I shall ask each of you to declare in turn +that to the best of your knowledge and belief there is no lawful reason +why you should not be married to each other. +So do you want to go to the stand? +Thank you. +It's time to go to the stand. +We will be very happy to meet you, okay? +Are you late, free, lovely, to marry? +I'm free, lovely, to marry. +You are not okay, you are not okay. +Are you free to met lawfully married? +I'm happy to marry you, my child. +The moment has arrived +for you to make the contract with each other. +As you have asked those you love and most +to be with you on this special day. +So as to make your marriage contract before your friends and your family, +I invite your witnesses to come and stand +by the side of the bride and groom, please. +Show them then, lovely. +Please, I'm glad you let's just, please, I have to be. +I, V. +I leave my hand here. +Take V. +Take V. +So be my lawful wedding bride. +To be my lawful wedding bride. +Thank you. +I take the leave my hand here. +To be my lawful wedding husband. +It is now time for the exchange of women, +which is a tradition way of seeing the contract you have made. +The wedding ring is a non-broken circle. +It has no beginning and no end. +It symbolises unending and everlasting love +and it is an outward sign that the lifelong promise you have made to all of them. +So if you leave, just take them, please. +We've got to put that on. +If it just returns up to me, thank you. +I give you this ring. +I give you this ring. +As a symbol of our marriage. +As a symbol of our marriage. +I promise to care for you with love and friendship. +I promise to care for you with love and friendship. +To respect and cherish you. +To respect and cherish you. +To be faithful. +Always. +And to be faithful. +Always. +These promises I make to you. +These promises I make to you. +But the rest of my life. +But the rest of my life. +Thank you. +I accept this ring, I accept this ring as a symbol. +As a symbol of our marriage. +I promise to pair for you with love and friendship and promise to give for you with love and friendship +to respect and cherish you, to respect and cherish you, and to do a football race in the beginning for all of us. +These promises I make to you, these promises I need to have a rest of more, +a little rest of it. +My life, my life, my life, my life, my life. +So, before we conclude, I understand that we would like to make a wreathy. +Do not confuse duty, but what other people expect of you, they're under the different +duties of that, you'll choose to have the obligations you have assumed voluntarily. +Paying that that can entail anything from years of patient work to instigownness to that. +Difficult and easy, but there are more to suffer, but there is never a word at all for doing +my other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. +It is easier to deal with a football path than it is with belief, +who wants just a few minutes of your time, please, just want to take one. +Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully viewed. +If you allow yourself to fall into the bite of a green to such a bit less, +they quickly snow all to a point where these parasites will use up a hundred percent of your time +and squat for more. So I'm just saying now, and to be rude about it when necessary, +otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your homework, +and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will never go away here like +and leave none of it for you. This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend +or even a stranger, so like the choice be yours, do not do it because it's expected of you. +Robert A. Highly will be both time and natural wealth. +You have both said the words prescribed by law in the presence of witnesses, +which forms a long tradition of marriage in this country, and you have +symbolized your love for each other by their giving and accepting of rings. +This day will form a milestone in your lives, +to start a new phase in your life together. We hope that the feelings of love you have for one +and other deep and a growth stronger throughout the years to come. And I'll just give you the great +specials to care that you are now the new way to be. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4606.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4606.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ccfb5b --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4606.txt @@ -0,0 +1,230 @@ +Episode: 4606 +Title: My Nerdy Childhood: From Floppy Disks to Dial-Up Dreams +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4606/hpr4606.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:01 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4606, for 2026-03-30 +Today's show is entitled, "My Nerdy Childhood: From Floppy Disks to Dial-Up Dreams" +The host is Trollercoaster and the duration is 00:15:30 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Trollercoaster talks about his childhood and first years of nerdlyhood" +Yeah, it's gonna be one of those episodes. +An old fart telling you all to get off of my lawn +and be quiet about how terrible things are today +because everything was better in my olden time. +Everything was worse in my olden time. +So I'm gonna talk to you about my childhood. +Yeah, it was 1987 when my dad took me to Flonder Technology International +Flonder's aimed to be a technology hub for the world. +There were demonstrations of fuzzy logic. +As an 11-year-old, I could not wrap my head around that concept. +Actually, I still can't wrap my head around what it means. +Anyway, it's also here. +I first saw a guy moving a wooden block around +and a small arrow moved along the on the screen. +And that's when I decided. +If I ever wonder computer, it should have a mouse. +So the very next Wednesday, I walked over to the local computer shop +and there they actually had an Amstrad BC 1512. +And imagine, it had a mouse. +I asked if I could play a bit on their computer in the showroom. +The shop owners were so sweet, they allowed me. +And I also kept coming over the next Wednesday +and the next Wednesday afternoon. +And the next one. +And for roughly a year, the shop would be +my after school spot every Wednesday. +Then I spent hours there, playing with the computer, +drawing stuff in the gem windowing system, +one of the first commercially available cookies. +More than once, my mom asked me to tune down on going there +because I would certainly overstay my welcome. +And, and Patrick, the bosses at that place, +for some reason, grew soft spot for me. +Maybe because they saw my on the stfasination. +For sure, it was because all of the great things I created on those machines. +And obviously, my charming presence in the showroom +was invitation for the hundreds of other customers +that came hoarding in buying computers at the time. +Anyway, afterwards, they told me that they were a bit overwhelmed +by my shameless assumption that they didn't mind. +They were reluctant to send me home and expected me to buy a computer there. +Much sooner than I actually did. +And along that line, well, yeah. +That little 10-year-old had a certain charm, I guess. +By the time I had saved enough money, +the new machine in their showroom was the Schneider Euro PC. +This one had a whole computer built into the keyboard. +It was a coolest thing on the world. +I booted with the MS-DOS 3.3 floppy disk, +and then I had to start juggling. +Popped in the floppy with my old-time favorite game, +digger. +When I wanted to play with Spaceman, +I had to pop out digger and pop in Mrs. Spaceman. +No more needing to put money in the arcade, but there was the Durbo button on my PC. +And how I broke Miss Spaceman on my computer. +The game was written for a 4.77 megahertz machine +and my machine could go a whopping 9.54 megahertz +that actually wasn't the Durbo button. +It was a slow down button, +but I guess marketing didn't like that concept. +If I forgot to turn off the Durbo mode, +the average game lasted half a second. +But my first computer came with a bunch of floppys. +I already talked about the MS-DOS floppy +that I needed to boot my computer and some of the games I had. +Next was MS works 1.0, +the baby brother of MS office allowed me to write text, +have a tiny spreadsheet, and do some database things. +It secured my first summer job at the age of 13, +printing invoices for a nearby company. +Initially, I made the invoices with the typewriter. +I got paid like a viewbracks per invoice I typed, +making a bit of money every week. +I could get hit myself, I don't make a spritzard. +When I offered to take the invoices home +and bring them back when done, +the boss wasn't amused when I returned, +with the invoices roughly 15 minutes after leaving, +doing the work of a whole afternoon in a quarter of an hour. +Little did she know. +I worked multiple nights to write my little automation, +and soon enough they weren't willing to pay me the safe price anymore. +I guess that's where I learned my first marketing skills. +At the age of 14, I was very happy though, getting a bit less, +and didn't realize how important my skills were. +The other floppy I had was the one with GW basic. +So, I wrote my very first program soon after. +10, print, hello world. +20, go to 10. +And going forward from there, I took evening classes to their programming +and despite my young age, or maybe thanks to it, +I easily outpaced all the grownups in my class. +I felt like the computer expert. +I could do everything. +I was heamer. +And the master's of the universe. +Or one of the masters of the universe. +Games were such a great incubator for my computer skills. +But only did I learn about copy protection and how floppy's worked. +You really don't think I could afford buying all those games to you. +I mean, a game caused me a whole month of my allowance. +I also learned about memory management, +because the spite billgates back then thinking +that nobody would ever need more than 640 kilobytes of RAM. +I quickly coughed off the extra money to expand my RAM from 512 kilobytes to 768. +But that meant manually tweaking the boot procedure by editing the config.sis and auto-execute files, +because a high-members think, and unless you're my age, +you've probably already do stuff. +Maybe wondering, by now, what browser I was using? +Well, the internet doesn't exist yet. +The playing game required me to invite my friends and switch chairs +if you wanted to be in front of the keyboard. +Can you imagine that? +I could have also flipped out my Atari to 2600 and then pay in the videos. +But the computer wasn't playing on the side. +For starters, it was in my bedroom, and not in the living room, +and the Atari was way old. +We already had that for 10 years or so. +Another computer that's made strong impression on me was the Commodore 64. +Wow, the dead machine had cool sounds. +Those rough pixels didn't really matter for the gameplay, +and how that machine could pull all those games off with only 64 kilobytes of RAM. +That wasn't incredible. +Anyways, one special earlier that the C64 had on me when I was 12. +The big guys had their Commodore with a whole bunch of floppies with games on them. +And one set of games was for betting for us kids. +When I was outside, and then sneakily peeked through the windows, +Samantha Fox haunted my dreams for weeks, since that peek between the curtains. +Back then, there was no such thing as the internet. +All you had were floppies, computer clubs, back then, were popular places to treat floppies. +At the age of 14, we didn't wonder about the origin of software, +who just copied a troublemaker. +That's how I discovered all the great software, from RoboCath to Portland, Pascal, +all the serious things that you could use to impress your friends. +Never used them actually, but I had them. +We also exchanged cool games like Double Dragon 2, which was one of my favorite games. +And then there were those adventure games. +We all take pride in playing the Legend of Zelda, or Monkey Island. +Secretly, the most exciting adventure game was leisure suit of lazy Larry, looking for love in all the +games. +Friends told me how they could get cool games online, and also some of the stuff are +moms, and that's where it allowed to see. +So the next thing I stayed for was a modem. +And online doesn't mean the internet here. +It means dialing into a BBS. +It did a whopping 2,400 bought, or bits per second, +and often the first thing you need to have that need to happen, +was figure out if I had 7 database, or an apperity bit. +It took half an hour for me to get my animated panel and understand +they watch running over the beach. +It often paid off if I could sell them to my schoolmates. +One, or two pics on a floppy disk. +Yeah, a 720 kilobit floppy disk could hold 2 images if I was lucky. +The art was to dial up during off-big hours. +So in the weekends, and also after 8pm, all through the night. +I could convince my parents how during those hours connection was cheap. +Yeah, it really was compared to the other big hours. +We had for some reason my first month in dial-up cost my parents a quarter of a monthly income. +Somewhere over 10,000 Belgian francs. +But hey, at least I got 2,000 francs from all the floppy size sold at school. +Needless to tell, that moment that were furious. +Actually, no, they weren't. +They were too shocked to be furious. +When they asked me how I got such a big bill. +No way, at Earth, I was going to do it mid. +It was an Anderson who started up all my time. +Well, there's this simulator too that I had to download for school. +And I also let guilty to downloading some work to cartoons. +They had been saving up for a nice wristwatch for my upcoming birthday. +And well, let's say that my old casheo had to serve for a couple of years longer. +I promised to have a piggy bank next to my modem and throw money in the piggy bank every time I connected. +Suffice to say that my estimates never covered to the cost of the dial-up connections. +But that again, it was also their own fault. +If they would only just remember to not pick up the phone every time I was downloading my next picture. +It's their own fault. +I mean, they broke the connection. +It's their fault. +I can't help it. I was only 14 or something like that. +Anyways, those BBSs had forums. +And it was for the first time in my life that I was able +to communicate with the groups of people all around the country without having to stick a stamp on it. +Or my parents listening along. It was the first time that I developed friendships with people +whose real names I didn't know let alone their age, gender, or even where they lived. +And you know what? I didn't care. +So that was my first computer. +By the year 1990, I got fed up from juggling discs +and I started dreaming of a new computer. +Luckily, I had a nice summer job early on and could keep saving. +So I went looking for enough brand computer manufacturer +who could build me a mini tower with a real C-gate 40 megabyte hard disk in it, +running a 380 sticks SX and with a VGA card. +All of a sudden, I had 250 sticks colors and 640 by 480 pixels on my screen. +Instead of a of dos, the machine could boot in Windows 3.0. +I won't waste my time explaining what that Windows looked like, +but suffice to say, I no longer needed to type commands like X-copy, CD, or file name.exe to make something +I could just double click in the file manager. +But while they started the whole new era, it's also the end of an era. +By now, computers were starting to become mainstream. +It was in the following years, though, that I started reading about AOL in America +and how that was so much cooler than those BBSs. +Universities in Belgium had e-unit to communicate with other academics about news groups, +about IRC and how this was the wild wild west of the upcoming internet. +How I found a slackward disk that I couldn't figure out how to use. +There was no exe file on there and later learned that was a Linux distro. +There actually existed other operating systems, then dos and Windows. +But that's a story for one of you to tell. +I'm convinced, some of you will also have cool stories to tell. +Maybe your 10 years younger than me and the story of the internet is your childhood story. +Or maybe your 10 years older than me. +You could talk about your first personal computers, about the PDP, at your university, +or even about shared computer spaces. +Anyway, I'm curious to hear the story of your nerdy childhood, keep trolling, keep having fun. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4607.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4607.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad015c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4607.txt @@ -0,0 +1,131 @@ +Episode: 4607 +Title: UNIX Curio #3 - basename and dirname +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4607/hpr4607.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:02 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4607, for 2026-03-31 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #3 - basename and dirname" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:13:08 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Pulling apart filenames" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio Number 3. +This series is dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking +in the dusty corners of Unix-like operating systems. +Hopefully it doesn't seem like I'm picking on Linux Journal, but as with Unix Curio Number +Number 1 about Shaw, that's Hector Public Radio Episode 4587. +This entry has been inspired by an article of theirs. +See the show notes for links to the article and other references. +The author was demonstrating a clever bash shell script function that would take a file name +and send the file to standard output, or if the file name ended in .gz, it would decompress +the file and send the result to standard output. +This way you could run the function against a set of text files, some of which are compressed +and some not, and have only text appear on your screen instead of unreadable binary gibberish. +The way that he accomplished this was to take the value of the first positional parameter +given to the function, represented by $1.1, remove the extension .gz off the end if present, +and test whether a file with the resulting name exists. +If it does, the function would just run cat with the file. +Otherwise, if the name with .gz at the end exists, it would run g on zip with the height +and c option to decompress the file and send it to standard output. +The method chosen to remove the .gz extension was to pipe the name through an appropriate +pro command. +This earned the author some criticism on the website and in letters to the magazine for +cranking up a whole pro interpreter just to chop three characters off the end of a file name. +Our curio for today is a standard unix utility made for just this purpose called base name. +Along with its sibling, during name, it is used to pull apart path names to get the +part that you want. +What base name does is remove any leading path on the name given to it, and if a suffix +is specified as well, removes that also. +If a directory path is given, with or without a trailing slash, it returns the last +part with no slashes. +I'll explain with some examples, but they might be a little easier to understand if you +read the show notes. +It isn't always clear to listen to commands and code that are read out loud. +Running base name space slash bin slash gzip would return gzip. +That's the last part. +Running base name space slash bin slash gzip space dot SO would also return gzip. +In this case, since the path name argument that you gave it doesn't end with dot SO, +the only part that gets removed is the leading path. +But what if it does? +Running base name space slash user slash lib slash libz.so, space dot SO would return libz. +The final part of the path name without the provided extension. +The suffix can be any text, it doesn't have to be an extension or start with a dot. +Although that is the way that base name is most often used. +When you provide a directory name to the command, such as base name space slash user slash lib, +you would get the last part. +In this case, just lib with no slashes. +The counter part, dername does essentially the opposite. +It removes the last part of the path name and returns a directory name with no trailing +slash. +Running dername space slash user slash lib slash lib z dot SO would return slash user slash lib. +Running dername space slash user slash lib would return slash user. +Running dername against a name that contains no slashes simply returns a dot representing +the current working directory. +I should point out that neither of these utilities cares whether a file or directory with +the given name actually exists. +All they do is act on the text string that's been fed to them. +If you want to use the resulting output in a script, you should take care to use the +test command with the appropriate option to check that the file or directory exists before +trying to do something with it. +To give a historical perspective, base name came first. +It was present in Bell Laboratory's 7th edition Unix and made its way into the University +of California's BSD 2.9. +According to the free BSD manual page, dername did not appear until later in AT&T's system +3. +It did not go into the University of California's BSD until version 4.4. +Standardization of these commands followed a similar pattern. +Base name first appeared in 1987 in the X-open portability guide which preceded and +then existed alongside POSIX. +All it appears that a dername specification didn't emerge until the early 1990s. +Not all of these standards are freely available online, so it is difficult for me to track +down exactly when certain things were added. +However, it is clear that these utilities have been standardized for over 30 years, so it's +a pretty safe bet that you'll find them both unless you're using a very old Unix-like +system. +Getting back to the shell script, we can replace the name editing part by taking the output +of dername, space, dollar sign 1, follow it with a slash character, then follow that +with the output of base name, space, dollar sign 1, space.gz. +It will give us the same result and we can be sure it will work on any Unix-like system, +no pearl necessary. +Many of you might be thinking, I could do that with said too, and you're right. +Basically the command the original script fed to pearl would work exactly the same with +said, because said is a standard utility, it should already be present on every Unix-like +system, while pearl might not be. +One might suspect that as a general purpose text processor said would be slower than base +name and dername. +To see how they compared, back when I originally wrote this article in 2010, I ran each +method 5,000 times with a different randomly generated file name each time. +It turns out that the critics were right, as the pearl method took the longest time +to run at 59 seconds. +Using base name and dername took 44 seconds, a nice improvement, but said blew past that +at 34 seconds. +Probably the fact that the script needed to make only one call to said versus two for base +name and dername made the difference. +Helpful suggestions in response to the article revealed a shell curio. +You might have seen the curly brace syntax for parameters. +For example, say you have a file name in a variable named f. +To show the file name with a letter x appended, you can't use echo space dollar sign +fx because that means a variable with the name fx. +Instead you would put curly braces around the f and follow that with x. +The shell only interprets what's inside the curly braces as being a variable name. +Modifiers can also go inside the curly braces and one of these, the percent sign, is just +what we need to chop off that extension. +This works in bash, the z shell that's z as in zebra, the corn shell, and any shell +conforming to the posics standard. +However, it does not work in the c shell that's c as in Charlie or older implementations +of the born shell that predate posics. +We can rewrite the part of the original function that removes the dot gz using dollar sign, +left curly brace, one percent sign, dot gz, right curly brace, and forego any outside +utilities. +Performance. +After half a second to process those 5,000 file names, not bad at all. +Thanks for listening and keep an eye out for our next Unix Curio, which will be about +archiving utilities and formats, here on hiker public radio. +If you have a question or a suggestion for a future topic, please comment on this episode +on the hpr website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4608.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4608.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b4501a --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4608.txt @@ -0,0 +1,280 @@ +Episode: 4608 +Title: Simple Podcasting - Episode 1 - Preparation and Recording +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4608/hpr4608.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:04 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4608, for 2026-04-01 +Today's show is entitled, "Simple Podcasting - Episode 1 - Preparation and Recording" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:23:08 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This episode is the first in an 4 part series on simple podcasting covering Preparation and Recordin" +This is the first episode in a four-part series on a simple way to create your own HPR +podcast episode. +If it sounds contradictory to have four episodes on a simple subject, you only actually +need the first episode to see how to create podcasts. +Through remaining episodes are on steadily more complex subjects, with the later ones being +more in the realm of gratuitous hackery for the fun of it. +I am fairly new to podcasting. +I have done an HPR episode on old tool, another on the UCSDP system, and an eight-part series +on nuclear power. +Prior to this, I have never done a podcast before. +Despite that, a number of people wrote into HPR to say that they really liked what I did. +This means that you two can make a first podcast and have other people find it very interesting. +Since I am fairly new to this, I thought I would document how I went about it for the +benefit of people who want to do the same. +This describes things from the perspective of someone who is very new to this sort of thing. +Later on, I will get into sport advanced topics, and the finish off with some blatant +gratuitous hackery, like how to use LibreOffice Calc or GNU Octave in place of an audio editor +for some things. +Initial hurdles. +There were several hurdles to get over before I could record an episode, though. +One was obvious one to me was that I'm not a sort of person who could simply babble into +a microphone. +That meant that I needed to have a way of recording things that would let me exclude +pauses and repeat sentences that I had best up. +However, since I was due to podcasting, I didn't know how to use an audio editor such +as audacity. +After a bit of thinking, though, I came up with a very simple solution to that, which +I will get into a bit later in this episode. +Taking a topic, with the recording process solved, the next thing to do was to find something +to talk about. +The key to this is to have some place to keep notes. +I use a note taking program for this called ZIM. +There are other programs which do something similar, but ZIM is the one that I use. +Whenever I come up with an idea of a topic, I would add a note for it. +When I come across any information relevant to one of the topics, I add it to the note. +You might think that you don't know of anything interesting, but the fact is that a lot +of us are fairly sad individuals who are just as boring as you are, and so find things +like verbal tours through obsolete and obscure operating systems to be quite fascinating. +I am sure that you too know something obscure but equally interesting. +Writing a script. +Once you have a topic, the next thing to do is to write a script. +If you are good at talking off the cuff, then all you may need is a note line. +If you are like me, however, then you need to write down exactly what it is you're going +to say in a way which you can read back later. +In this case, start with a note line and fill in the detail after the outline is written. +Again, I use ZIM for writing my scripts. +It provides a simple way of organizing my scripts as I am putting them together. +It also provides character and word counts so I can estimate how many minutes of material +that I have. +When I started, I decided that I should target about 10 to 20 minutes for the length of an +episode. +That's a personal decision and not something you need to follow for yourself, but it gives +me a guideline to work to. +As a rule of thumb, I find that if I multiply the character count by 0.0011, that gives +me the approximate number of minutes of audio when recorded. +Your own number may differ from this, but it's a good starting point to work from. +If you think the episode is getting too long, don't worry. +You can split it up into multiple episodes. +Once you have this script written and have if necessary, split it into separate episodes, +start numbering the paragraphs. +This is related to the recording method, which I will go into more detail later. +Each paragraph or section should be equivalent to 30 seconds to a minute of audio. +If you are just starting out in podcasting, this may be roughly how much you are comfortable +with recording without pausing to collect your thoughts or stumbling over what you are +saying. +We will knit these sections together with a very simple piece of software later. +Recording Equipment You will need some sort of recording equipment, while some people may +talk about using a phone or an MP3 player with a record function or something like that, +I'll stick with recording onto a PC. +My recording equipment consists of a Maxwell headset with headphones, boom mic, and USB connection. +There is no part number on it, and I can't identify it further than that. +The cost was probably around $20. +Similar one's cell for $5 to $35 depending on where you buy it. +I already had this, so I didn't have to go out and buy it when I decided to make a podcast. +A boom mic that is a microphone that is on an arm attached to the headset is good because +it keeps the microphone at a consistent distance from your mouth without any effort. +The disadvantage of the particular model that I have is that there is noise in the signal, +which you can hear in my first two podcast episodes. +Despite the noise, people still like the episodes, so don't get too hung up on audio quality. +I will talk later about how to fix noise issues like this by filtering. +However, at this point, I'm just going to stick to the basics. +Recording software. +For recording software, I used no more record on Ubuntu. +This is licensed under GPLV2 or later. +It is very basic. +The only options are to select the file format and select stereo or mono. +The sample rate for flag is fixed at 44.10 kHz, which is what HPR wants. +If you are using different software, possibly on another operating system, the principles are the same. +There are probably equivalents which you can find if you look for them. +Perhaps you or other listeners could make an HPR episode recommending one. +When using no more record, use the menu located in the upper right of the window bar, +which has three small horizontal lines as an icon. +Set the preferred format to flag that's FLAC, set the audio channel to mono. +Recording. +Get comfortable at your desk. +Get it a cup of tea ready as your throat may get dry. +Set up the hardware. +If using a boom mic on a headset, adjust the mic so that it is roughly at chin level. +Avoid putting a boom mic directly in front of your mouth. +You just speak over the top of the boom microphone, not directly at it. +This will prevent you from breathing on the microphone causing noise problems. +If you have a different type of microphone, you may have to experiment a bit using short +test recordings to find the optimal position. +Using your recording software, make a short test recording and listen to it. +If it is too quiet and the input volume is already all the way up, +we can adjust this later with software. +If the test recording sounds okay though, then you are ready to start. +Recording using no sound recorder. +I will now describe how to use no sound recorder. +If you are using different software, the details may be different, but the basic principles should be similar. +Using the mouse, click on the record button. +It will start recording, showing the waveform of the recording as it goes. +To stop recording, click on the square stop icon that appeared at the bottom. +Give the recording a name using the numbering system starting at 01. +To accept the recording, click on the check bar button on the right. +To save the recording, click on the down pointing arrow on the right. +The file name will default to the name of the recording which we just gave it. +The number should match the paragraph numbers in your script. +The recording will be saved as a flag file in your home directory. +There is no option to save it anywhere else and you will need to move it to refer destination manually. +You can now delete the copy of the recording which sound recorder keeps +by clicking on the garbage can on the left. +This does not affect the copy on your disk. +You will want to delete these extra copies as you go along, +as there is no easy way to do this later, and an extra copy of the recordings will accumulate +in a dot directory somewhere and take up space. +If you make a mistake or otherwise decide with that paragraph, +just delete the file and record it again. +Keep the pauses at the start and end of each audio segment equivalent to normal pauses between words. +This is actually fairly easy to do. +When you are done, you may have anywhere between two and four does a separate flag files. +Here are the two most useful keyboard shortcuts for normal sound recorder. +Press Ctrl R to start recording. +Press S to stop recording. +You will still need to use the mouse to click on the checkmark button to accept the recording. +There are supposedly keyboard shortcuts to save the recording to disk and to delete the recording, +but these don't seem to work, at least not on the version 43.beda on Ubuntu 24.04 +Starting and stopping via shortcuts is still useful, however. +You can use other software, and I will talk later in another episode about using command line software, +such as FFMPEG to record. +Tips on recording. +If you are new to podcast, or just are not good at making long speeches, +keep each recording segment short, admitted or less being a good target. +If you stumble over what you're trying to say, don't worry, just repeat the recording for that section. +Talk eat clearly and even measure tones at a reasonably constant volume. +Remember who your audience are. There are people who are listening to your podcast +whether you're doing housework, or gardening, or driving a car, or walking down a street, +or taking some exercise. +Very few will be sitting at a desk in a quiet room like you are when you are recording. +Try to make sure that what you are saying comes across clearly. +If the loudness of your voice varies too much, they won't be able to hear you in the quiet parts. +The worst thing to do is to trail off into an imperceptible mumble at the end of each sentence. +This series will not be able to follow you if you do that, and may give up on trying to listen to your episode. +HDR audio file requirements, HDR episodes are mono, not stereo. +If you send in a stereo file, they will convert to mono. +However, you may wish to convert to mono yourself for the purposes of better duplicating the final result +when you review your own work. +The easiest way to create a mono recording is to record it as mono in the first place if your recording +software has this option. If you are using Nome Sound Recorder, there is a setting for this. +I described how to set the Nome Sound Recorder to mono just a few moments ago. +If your software doesn't have a mono option, or if you have already recorded it and now +wish to convert it to mono, you can use FFMPEG to do the conversion. +Here is the command line description. +FFMPEG space dash i space, then the name of the input file, then space +dash AC space, one space, then the name of the output file. +Alternatives to Nome Sound Recorder, an alternative to Nome Sound Recorder is KDE Recorder. +This is also available as a snap in a bunch too. The license is GPL 2.0 or later. +However, I found it to be a bit more difficult to use than Nome Sound Recorder. +Selecting the microphone source was difficult. It shows several different sources, +rather than just taking what the OS says is standard. This may be because it is a KDE app running +in Nome. Perhaps this is easier if you use KDE. Every time I unplugged my headset and plugged it back +in, it added more audio sources to its list. None of them worked, however, until I selected the +correct one, exited the program, and then started it back up. All files are saved in the music +directory, there is no choice offered. Audio format selection is more difficult, it being a two-step +process. There is no option for mono recordings only stereo. Flack file recordings were 48 +killer Hertz rather than the HPR's preferred 44.1 killer Hertz. Converting this would require more +post-processing using audio software to change it. It seems to offer no advantages over Nome Sound +Recorder on Ubuntu while making selecting sound sources more difficult. If you're using a +Nome Desktop, you are better off with Nome Sound Recorder. However, it is all a matter of personal +preference, and if you find that you like KDE Recorder better, then go ahead and use it. +Other alternatives. There are of course still other alternatives. Many people recommend using +Adacity to record. However, I don't know how to do that, and the premise of this podcast +episode is that you have something you would like to make an HPR episode of, but are put off +by the difficulty of learning how to do so. However, Adacity is a very capable audio program, +and I have nothing against it. I will describe how to use a feature in Adacity to help +overcome an audio problem that I encountered, but I will save that for another episode. +As well as GUI programs, there are also programs which allow you to record audio from the command +line. I will describe a couple of these in another episode. If you're wondering why you may +wish to use a command line program for this purpose, one of the advantages of this is that let's +us write scripts which automate the recording process and eliminate some of the manual steps +that I outlined above. Combining the segments into a single audio file. At this point, +you will have recorded your podcast episode as a series of several dozen flag files. +We will now stitch these separate black files into a single file. We do this using either +FFMPEG or SOx. FFMPEG is a series of command line programs for converting and manipulating +audio and video files. Various parts are licensed under the LGPLV 2.1 or later, and +GPLV 2.0 or later. Sox is also a set of command line programs, but for audio only, +SOx stands for sound exchange. Sox, that's SOx, is licensed under similar terms as FFMPEG. In fact, +SOx actually uses FFMPEG for certain operations. For our purposes here, with one exception, +you can do everything audio related with either FFMPEG or SOx, except for one thing which I will +get into in another episode. That one thing is related to doing some gratuitous hackery when +analyzing audio files, so it may be irrelevant to anything you need to do. Since the two are +more or less equivalent for our purposes, I will be providing examples using both. +Combining audio segments. The best way to combine multiple audio segments is with a simple shell +script. A copy of this will be in the show notes. Doing this with FFMPEG requires just two lines. +First, create the list file. Print F, space, double quote, file, space, single quote, +percent S, single quote, backslash n, double quote, space, left square bracket, 0-9, +right square bracket, left square bracket, 0-9, right square bracket, dot FLAC, space, +then right angle bracket, or right arrow, however you want to describe it, space, +podseglist dot TXT. This first line creates a file called podseglist dot TXT, +which contains a list of all the two digit numbered flag files in the current directory, +together with some other necessary text. I have assumed you wish to give these files two digits. +Add more digits if you feel this is necessary. The file name podseglist dot TXT is +purely arbitrary and you can use whatever name you wish. Now we need to concatenate the files. +FFMPEG, space, dash F, space, concat, that's C-O-N-C-A-T, space, dash safe, that's S-A-F-E, space, 0, space, dash I, space, +podseglist dot TXT, space, full pod, dot FLAC. The second line calls FFMPEG, +does it to perform a concatenation operation, turning the multiple files listed in podseglist dot +TXT into one and saving it in a file called full pod, dot FLAC. Using socks, the socks +version is simpler. You do socks, the S-O-X, space, left square bracket, 0, dash 9, right square +bracket, left square bracket, 0, dash 9, right square bracket, dot FLAC, space, full pod, dot FLAC. +This will concatenate all the two digit numbered flag files in the current directory into one file +called full pod, dot FLAC. Revealing. Next you need to review your combined audio file. +Listen to the resulting file. If you are satisfied with it, you are done recording and are ready to upload. +If you're unhappy about some part of it, you can rerecord just that section and run the combining +script again. The numbers in your script will help you find the appropriate file. +The people running HPR will worry about adding your introductory and concluding music, converting +it to mono if it is currently stereo and adjusting the output level to make the volume consistent with +other HPR episodes. If there are noise problems that you want to try to correct, I will cover that +in another episode in this series. Prepare the show notes. You will need to have a few things +ready when you go to upload your episode. These are the title, summary, tags and show notes. +The title should be something short but descriptive. If this episode is part of a series, +you probably want to use a consistent title and include an episode number. Next you need a summary. +This is a brief description of what the episode is about. Try to be clear about what it is you +will be talking about. However, there are limits on the length of the summary. The limit was 100 +characters at the time that I was writing this. The title in summary will be automatically added +by HPR to the beginning of your episode, so put some thought into what you're right here. +The title in summary are read out by a text to speech program, so avoid difficult abbreviations +or words at the software may not know how to pronounce. Next you will need to pick some tags. +These are used for search purposes. I will let someone else recommend how you should pick tags. +Next, you need to have show notes. If you have written a script, you can simply copy +based a whole thing into the show notes. At one time, there was a limit on the size of the show notes, +but that limit was removed recently. Uploading the episode, I will let someone else describe the +process of uploading the audio file and associated title summary and show notes. However, +you will need to have an email address ready to use as part of the process. So if you have +multiple email accounts, you need to set along which one will be used as your HPR contact address. +Conclusion. The preceding is how I created my first two podcast episodes, +which were on OAuth tool and the UCSDP system operating system. Plenty of people wrote in to say +that they liked them. Nobody complained about the quality of my narration or the technical quality +of the audio. You should be able to do the same. Further episodes in this series, I have covered +the basics, but there is more that we can do to improve the audio quality if you are so inclined, +or if you encounter an audio problem. In future episodes of this series, I will cover the following. +Basic filtering with FFMPEG and SOx to cover general cases. It's a good idea to use this sort of +basic filtering on your audio, whether you notice any problems or not. DSing to improve perceived +voice quality slightly in order to overcome sound artifacts inherent to using at least some microphones. +Normalizing audio to adjust the sound levels for easier reviewing. +Analyzing the audio signal with audacity to discover the characteristics of an E Noise Problems that +you may hear. Advanced filtering with FFMPEG and SOx to solve specific problems such as I had with +my headset, or which you may have with environmental noise such as fans. Command-line recording +and playing a audio using FFMPEG and SOx. This can help automate the process by automatically +numbering this small audio files, which are part of the recording process which I have described. +I promise some gratuitous hackery and I will provide it in the form of describing how to do +audio spectrum analysis using LibreOffice CalExpreadsheets and GNU Octave Mathematical Software +in place of audacity when troubleshooting audio problems. This concludes the first episode in a +4 part series on simple podcasting. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4609.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4609.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50b7864 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4609.txt @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +Episode: 4609 +Title: Proper Date Format +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4609/hpr4609.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:05 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4609, for 2026-04-02 +Today's show is entitled, "Proper Date Format" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:07:19 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "There is only one logical date format" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. This show was submitted in February 2025 to cover +occasions like this, where there are gaps in the schedule. Hello, this is Ahuka welcoming you to +Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode. And this is from the Reserve Q. So this particular +show is what I'm calling proper date format. Now, one of the things you quickly run into if you +correspond with people who are both in the United States and Europe, which I have done both in my +career as well as in my personal life, is that we don't write dates the same way. I know when I was +working as a project manager for Ford, you know, we had operations in Europe. And so many of my +projects, I had to work with people there. And, you know, thing about project management is, you know, +dates and times are extremely important when you're managing a project. And the thing that we ran into, +and, and now, of course, you know, my personal life, I run into it as well, because like, you know, +I'm involved with doing shows for Hacker Public Radio, and that's got people all over the world +listening. So I think we all know how this works. Now, we'll start with March 14th. Now, in the United +States, we like to say March 14th is Pi Day. And why is it Pi Day? Because in the United States, it is written +as 3 slash 14, 314. And we know Pi starts 3.14. So in the United States, that seems like a clever +little thing. Now, people in Europe would look at that and say, why do you think there is a 14th +month to the year? Now, suppose you want to make a joke about May the 4th. Okay, and that's Star Wars +Day, as in May the 4th be with you. In the US, we would write that as 5 slash 4. But in most of +Europe, it would be 4 slash 5. And it can be even more complicated once you drag in the rest of the +world. There is simply no uniformity. You can see it with, there's a page on Wikipedia, I've put a link to +that in the show notes, that basically shows you the date formats for every country in the world. +And it's just, there's no consistency, no uniformity at all. And we're not even consistent in how we talk +about dates. Now, in the United States, we might well say May 4th, as that does indeed match how we +write dates. But then we will insist that our Independence Day is the 4th of July. Almost like +we're not a British colony any longer, but let's use their date format for one of our most important +dates. Now, in my experience, each side thinks the other is a bit odd, but regards it as a harmless +eccentricity. But which side is correct in this? The answer, of course, is neither. The one absolutely +correct date format has been defined, and you can find it in the ISO 8601 standard, and I've put a +link in the show notes if you want to look that one up. The correct date format is four-digit year, +followed by two-digit month, followed by two-digit day, because that puts the elements of the date in +a logical order. Now, why is this the logical order? Well, suppose you were filing documents by date. +Would you start by putting all the documents from the fourth day, without regard to month or year, +into a group? Or would you first collect all documents for a given year? +Now, you might argue that filing documents is something people don't do as much of these days. +We have computers and digital documents. We don't need any stinking filing cabinets. +But that only strengthens my argument, as you can easily verify. For example, I'm writing this on +February 13th, 2025. If I use a date code for my digital file, and I make it 02132025, +what happens if I later create a file on, say, January 6th, 2026? That would then be 01062026. +Try this, and you will see that in your file manager, 01062026 will appear before 02132025, +because all computers treat the significance of digits from left to right. The most significant +always on the left, the least significant always on the right. Also, when you take a look at this, +you see why it is necessary to have two digits for month and day. You say, well, you know, +if I can write May the 4th is 5-4, why do I need 0-5-0-4? Well, try it, and you will discover +that you need that 0 for things to come in the right order. If you don't do that, then you're +going to get things that are going to go 1, 10, 11, 12, 2, 3. It's just, that's what happens. +So, you know, there's a reason for all of these. Now, with the ISO 8601 standard, the most significant +part of the date is on the left, and all of your files will be in order. And once you get used to it, +your life is easier. An example of this is photos. Now, my wife and I like to travel. We're retired, +and we can do that. And we take a lot of photos using our smartphones. And every photo we take +uses date, time stamps as part of the file name. And the dates all follow the ISO 8601 standard. +So, I can easily sort my photos in the order in which they were taken. And since I have over 13,000 +photos in my Flickr Pro account, a little help with sorting them is really nice. I now use this +format not just for digital file names, but for most of my dating purposes. It really just makes sense. +And I hope you will also see the sense in this and adopt the ISO 8601 standard. So, this is a hookah +for Hacker Public Radio, signing off, and as always, encouraging you to support free software. +And since this is coming from the reserve queue, I'm also going to encourage you to record a show. +This is a community project, and it will only exist as long as people record shows for it. +So, bye-bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4610.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4610.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1d5486f --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4610.txt @@ -0,0 +1,223 @@ +Episode: 4610 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 10 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4610/hpr4610.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:05 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4610, for 2026-04-03 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 10" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:18:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V." +Hello, this is a hookah welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in our ongoing series on computer strategy games +And we are still taking a look at civilization five and we've just got a few more topics to cover before we go into playing a game and +Illustrating all of these things +So the first thing I want to talk about is great people +And there are various kinds of great people that you get in this game and you get them by accumulating great person points +Each type of great person has its own type of great person point and they are earned independently +So you can easily accumulate points for several different types of great people at the same time +Now you can earn these points through specialists through wonders +And through social policies +While you can accumulate points towards any and all great people you should focus on once that fit your game strategy +If you're going for a domination victory you should focus on great generals and great adbrills and +Preference to great artists and great musicians +But if you're going for a cultural victory you might want to reverse that +Now that is not to say you won't gain a few random other great people along the way just that you should know what you're trying to achieve +And great generals and great adbrills are a little different in that you earn them by winning battles +Now as an example in the game we're going to look at after this episode +Where I was going for a diplomatic victory. I had a couple of great generals. I earned along the way. I had no use for them +I never fought a single battle against any other player in the game throughout the entire game +So I happen to you know +Get a couple of great generals, but you know, I just parked them somewhere and had them sleep throughout the game +Because I didn't need them +So what are the types of great people? +Great artist +A great artist can start a golden age or it can create great works +We've talked about golden ages +If you feel the need to start one, you know, that's a good use for a great artist +If you're going for a culture victory, I'm not sure that's the best way to go +I think that creating a great works would +Advance you a little more towards that goal particularly with ones you earn early in the game +Because you know, it can add up over time +Great musician +Can do a concert tour which adds to your tourism or can create a great work +In this case a great work of music a +Great writer can write a political treat us which gives you +a +lump sum of culture or it can create a great work of writing +That will add to your culture per turn +A great engineer can hurry production +Including wonders this is the only way you can rush build a wonder in this game is by using a great engineer +If you don't need to use the great engineer for that the other thing they can do is create something called a mania factory +That adds to your productive capacity capabilities +A great general you know if you're going to be fighting battles their handy because they give you a combat combat bonus to any unit within two tiles +Or you can use it to create a citadel and one of the interesting things a great general can do when creating a citadel +The steel land from one of your neighbors +Now they don't like it, but +There's nothing they can do about it other than go to war with you +Now +Angolia has a unique unit called the con that creates +It replaces the great general it moves faster and heels adjacent units and can also create a citadel +Now there's a great merchant +Great merchant can do a trade mission and what that means is you go to a +city state any city state that you want to +You go to and it would the trade mission will give you gold and it will add to your influence with that city state +So what you do is you move the great merchant to the city state territory and then trigger the trade mission +Now Venice has a unique unit called the merchant of Venice which creates which replaces the the great merchant +Now +An additional 100% gold +An additional 100% influence +Or it can even puppet a city state +And what puppeting means is that +You have control of the city state to the extent that you control all of its units and it's considered to be part of your territory +But you don't control the build queue of the city +Now you could also use the merchant of Venice to create a customs house just as you can with any great merchant +Great scientist +Can hurry research +If you want to get just a lump sum of +Research points where you've created an academy that gives you an additional per turn now +I probably early in the game would almost always go for creating an academy because it gives you a little extra every turn +That can add up over time +But if you're at the very end of the you know if you're in the modern era +Chance is are you never enough time to really benefit all that much from an academy and so getting a +Big lump of research is probably a better approach +Great admiral gives a combat bonus to naval units within two tiles and can repair adjacent naval and embarked units +And finally great profit +Can found or enhance a religion +Can spread religion or can create a holy site +Now every type except a great admiral can create something but that uses up the great person +And the main action for each also uses up the great person for instance if you do a concert tour +Hurry production +etc +So you need to consider which one works best for you +So +As I said before like with the great scientist early on academy +Great use in great scientist +You know by the time you're hitting the modern era +Probably just makes more sense to get a big bang +From the hurting the research +Now if there's a key wonder you need to make your strategy work having a great engineer on hand or hurry it up can pay off very nicely +You know it really sucks if you're +Really counting on getting a particular great wonder you've started building it and you're getting almost there and suddenly +Someone else finished it and +You know yeah, so I +Having great engineer on hand +It's just it's a useful thing to have for that +Now the next topic one to talk about is trade +So in civilization five the amount of gold you are in from terrain is much lower than in previous versions of silk +So the path to a full treasury requires that you set up trade routes +You have a limited number of trade slots available but that limit does grow over time +You can earn slots in two ways the first is through discovering text +For instance in the ancient era +Animal husbandry and sailing +Can do that in the classical era discovering engineering +In medieval era discovering the compass +In the Renaissance era discovering banking +In the industrial era discovery biology +In the modern era discovering the railroad and in the atomic era discovering penicillin +So just from keeping up your research you can get up to eight trade routes +In addition the wonders classes and Petra each provide an additional trade route +What does that tell you? Well +That tells you that if your strategy is based on getting a lot of gold +Those should be wonders that you would target because those additional trade routes +And you know you're talking about fairly early wonders here +So getting those means you're gonna get trade routes that are gonna be generating gold for you throughout the entire game +So for instance if your strategy is to go after +Well, let's say a diplomatic victory is is one that gold is really key for +You know you might want to take a look at doing that not doesn't mean that if you don't get those wonders +You can't win a diplomatic victory. There's you can do any number of things in this game if you're skillful with it +Now you can also establish a trade route with your own cities with city states and with other empires +Trade routes are always city to city and are limited by distance +So it can make sense sometimes to move your trade unit to a different city +The city that produce the unit will always be where it shows up first +But you can transfer it to another city on its first turn +Now if it's a cargo ship it can only be placed on a coastal city +But it can bring a desired destination city within range +Note that for land units +Caravans in the early game +You can increase the range by building roads which kind of makes sense +Now what about the effects of trade +You know your major reason for doing it is to get gold no question about that +But there can also be science, culture and religious effects so it's worth paying attention here +So even if gold is the main object you may have several options that provide equivalent amounts of gold +And a potential gain of science or culture might be the tiebreaker depending on what your strategy for victory is +If you establish a trade route with the city state you can receive gold +Provide religious pressure to convert them to your religion and gain influence with them +This can be very helpful if you're going for a diplomatic victory +But I would not accept a large difference in gold just for that minor influence game +You gain far more influence with gold in the long run +So I tend to start with get the maximum amount of gold and then if I've of two cities providing equivalent amounts of gold for the trade route +Then I look to well all right can I get a little science or a little culture in addition +Now setting up trade between your cities +Which is an option can be helpful in giving a boost to a city because you you're consent them food in production +Now in the earlier phases of the game that might be a good idea to get a city up to fold an element +The city where the route originates does not lose anything +But some added amount shows up in the destination city +However for food trade to happen you need to have a granary in each city and +For a production to be transferred you need to have a workshop in each city +Finally +Plundering trade routes can be plundered by empires you are at war with +more often by barbarians when that happens +The route disappears and you need to build another trade unit and set up another route +Now +Plundering a route +Simply means you lose the route it doesn't mean you lose the capacity the number of trade routes you have +That you're allowed to have doesn't change +Now the last thing we want to talk about is who are you gonna play as? +There are 43 possible civilizations in Civ 5 so I am not gonna discuss them all in depth here +I've got a link in the show notes to the Civ wiki for a chart that shows them all +What I want to do instead is discuss why they are different and how you should make choices +Depending on the victory type you're choosing +Of course if you let the game make the choice few randomly +Well knowing what each Civ is good for can help you determine what type of strategy to pursue for your best chance of victory +Now the first thing to know about each Civ is that they have a starting bias for where they will spawn at the beginning of the game +And this can be either positive or negative +Either you are more likely to spawn in certain terrain or less likely to spawn in certain terrain +England which is a naval power will be biased to spawn on the coast +Where as Egypt a famously desert country will have a negative bias to avoid jungler forest locations +Second all Civs have one or more unique abilities +For example the Carthaginians have two abilities that come from history +The first is Phoenician heritage which means that all coastal cities get a free harbor +And once they have earned a great general their military units can cross mountain tiles and they're the only ones that can do this +All right, obviously that's an echo of Hannibal crossing the Alps +The French have the city of light ability which grants double-theming bonuses for museums and wonders that are in the capital +Third each Civ has a unique unit +These units replace one of the regular units in the game but are enhanced in some way +Spain has two of these the first the Turcio replaces the musket man +But it has a plus 50% bonus against mounted units and an increased melee strength making it a combination of musket man and Pikeman +The other unit the conquistador replaces the night, but it has some interesting abilities +It can move after attacking if it still has movement points +Embarked units have double defense it can see two tiles further and has no penalty when attacking cities +Finally the conquistador unit can be used to establish a city although it uses up that unit +So it can function as a settler +Finally most but not all civs have unique building or improvement +As with units these tend to replace ordinary buildings and improvements but offer something better +A rabia for instance has the bizarre which replaces the marketplace +But it provides an additional two-gold to return more than the marketplace +It adds one additional copy of each improved luxury resource near the city +and provides plus two gold for each oasis and each source of well +Now what you need to consider is how all these unique +Attributes of a sieve will fit into your strategy +And timing matters the American sieve has a unique unit of the b7 team bomber +That's a nice unit, but it comes very late in the game +If you're going to go for a domination victory +That's not going to really help you probably have mostly conquered the world by the time that becomes available +But the Roman units of the balista and the legion are excellent for an early campaign of conquest +Now for a trade-oriented strategy +Portugal is excellent as all of its unique attributes help with generating trade and gold and gold is the key to +Many possible paths to victory +So keep these points in mind as you plan your strategy +And to illustrate all of things we have been discussing in the civilization five series +I will play a game where I aim for a diplomatic victory and I'll make a few mistakes along the way +But you know, it will still illustrate +How the game can be played and and I do end up winning +So that'll be coming up next so this is Huka for hacker public radio signing off and as always encouraging you to support free software. Bye. Bye. Bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4611.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4611.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..281c752 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4611.txt @@ -0,0 +1,848 @@ +Episode: 4611 +Title: HPR Community News for March 2026 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4611/hpr4611.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:09 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4611, for 2026-04-06 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Community News for March 2026" +The host is HPR Volunteers and the duration is 01:00:43 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "HPR Volunteer Ken talks about shows released and comments posted in March 2026" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +This is the HPR Community News for March 2026. +I'm on my ownio today due to scheduling issues that we couldn't work around, but bear with me and we will make it through. +If you would prefer not to hear just my dulcet tones on this podcast, you can always volunteer to be part of the HPR Community News. +If you are part of the HPR Community, so HPR is a community podcast where the shows are released every weekday, Monday through Friday. +They can be any topic that is of interest to hackers within reason and no restriction on the length or the content outside of that. +We'll be talking about that later. +So this show is put on by the HPR Community volunteers who help manage the project commonly known as the janitors. +And the reason for that is because we just implement decisions that are implemented by the mailing list, which is the overall governing body. +If you want more information on that, go to the above page and you'll get loads of information on how you're governed. +We do this show so that we can bring to you the news and some positive feedback in the show that has been released and we can bring to you any other information that we need to share with you as part of the community. +So it is left the honour of welcoming new hosts is left to me, but it's not much of an honour this month because we didn't have any new hosts this month. +It is a bit sad and depressing, really. +HPR is a community project where we can only continue if we continue to get new hosts in. +And the reason for that is that there is a cycle and life catches up with people in more ways than one. +And we need a continual inflow to manage the outflow of people who are no longer active on the project for whatever reason. +And that's fine. +So if you haven't recorded a show for HPR and you do listen to it, please go pick the first free slot, record your show first, and then tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into tech. +Don't forget to introduce yourself and how you got into tech and how you got to be listening to the HPR podcast. +Awesome to hear. +We will then be able to give you an entire list of other shows that you could do for HPR. +Let's go through each of the shows. +And the first one was, oddly enough, HPR Community News for February 2026. +And we try and do the Community News on the first Monday of the month. +It's not always the first. +It's somewhere between one and six by definition. +Two comments. +The first was from CandyK and Egy. +4140, thanks for the best wishes. +Things got much worse. +Ooh. +WhiskeyJack says, +HPR Community News discussion on audio. +In HPR 4586, Community News for February at around the 50-minute mark, you talked about automating the audio process for HPR. +I have a four-part series ready to go, which may be relevant to some of this. +Episode two, covering the basics of filtering, de-essing, normalizing, using FFMPEG in a shell script. +I was planning to release this as soon as my present series on nuclear reactor technology was done. +There's one more episode in that schedule. +I'm definitely not an audio expert, but I am only started learning about this in order to fix audio problems that were in the first few HPR episodes that I did. +I listened to the Linux Matters podcast that you referred to with respect to the automation processing software, so I have some of an idea of what they're talking about. +I do have some concerns about the practical problems that may arise when dealing with episodes sent in by just anybody using all sorts of hardware, however. +I had assumed that you were already doing some sort of normalizing for HPR, as the volume levels are fairly consistent. +In fact, I emphasize to listeners in the series to send a non-normalized copy to HPR, so as not to conflict with whatever processing you're doing. +Perhaps someone at HPR could do an episode to talk about it in the community news, explaining what HPR actually does in terms of audio processing, as that may help in generating some discussion as well as interest on its own right. +So, end of comment, end of comment, end of comments for that episode. +First of all, I think in one of the New Year episodes, I went through what we do with audio processing, so that is coming up. +So, it's one of the later ones, because it was the morning after, the night before. +So, you might have a listen to that. +I do intend to do that sort of thing, but I'm still checking to see if what Martin has produced is going to be useful for us. +It's a tricky balance here on what we do with audio processing. +Some people, the audiophiles among us, will have done an awful lot of work, and we don't want to do too much. +On the other hand, if it's all over the shop, we will tend to do something to try and fix the audio a little. +And I basically make that decision looking at the waveform and looking at the frequency diagram. +So, that was the first episode. +Moving on. +Unix Curio number one, Shell Archives. +This was from Vance. +Brilliant little series. +I am loving it. +I have to say I'm going ahead. +But I follow the future feed. +As soon as shows are posted, by the way, they get released into the future feed. +There are some dangers with that if you're listening. +As your only feed, I subscribe to both. +But it is nice if you could do that for us, because you might be able to pick up issues with the audio. +Like, yeah, I don't know, 10 minutes of silence or something in there. +Or at the left, it's only in your left ear of blood or something like that. +Always very useful. +And then you can give feedback to us here as the janitors before it goes out en masse. +So, I have been listening to all these shows already. +This was a great one. +And there was several comments. +Archer72 says, continuing series. +Hi, Vance. +I have kept this series. +I've kept this series, the future feed, so I can hear it sooner. +Same here. +Oh, I have just now looked at your great show notes. +Cheers. +Archer72. +And the show notes are absolutely excellent. +It is a joy to see them. +Everything works exactly as you expect. +There's even uppercase. +Everything is, they're just gorgeous. +X-Man Monk says, UU encode and UU decode on Solaris. +I worked with the infamous Inference Corporation years ago when they still existed. +And the corporate servers ran Solaris. +I can't recall which version they were running when I was there. +That server had UU encode and UU decode on it. +It's, I may not have been installed by the OS, but it was there. +Someone put it there. +So I know it at least ran on Solaris, which wouldn't require much more than compilation +of the sources. +Anyway, great show. +Thank you very much. +Vance replies, thanks, and Solaris. +I appreciate the positive comments. +Regarding Solaris and SunOx and OS and AIX, I don't recall exactly how it determined +that UU encode wasn't included with base OS. +Probably a set of man pages online somewhere. +Of course, you could be easy to compile and install UU encode from source, and I'm sure +it happened frequently. +Similarly, it was common for GNU versions of some utilities to be installed by people +using commercial Unix systems because they often had additional capability. +More episodes are coming. +Hope you enjoy them. +And the last comment was from Jim DeVore, who says, thanks for the trip down memory lane. +Great episode. +I especially enjoyed Char and remember all the issues I once had with attachment. +I still have them at times, but that is generally due to security forbidding executable file types. +Uh-huh, Jim. +Uh-huh, I know what you're doing there. +Okay. +Good shows. +Good shows. +Moving on. +Uh-huh, Belgian Scottish Ale. +There were no comments on this one, but this was about, um, the continuing series of the +HBR Beer Garden, where Kevi and Dave discuss, in this case, Belgian Scotch Ales. +And I have to admit that I got one of these for purposes, uh, for scientific research. +And I must say, I wasn't, that, it was the experience, the, the, the joy of drinking along. +Uh, that was nice. +Great history lessons. +Loved the references to the World War II and, uh, uh, sorry, World War I, obviously. +And, uh, Scottish troops in Flanders. +However, um, how would that become a thing? +So, great episode there. +Loving the series. +Um, so, moving on. +And the following day, we had a gap in the, in the schedule. +So, we popped in one of these episodes. +And with the hookah's permission, I removed the, his reserve cue warning, uh, that he had embedded in the audio. +We'll be talking more about that later. +And I think this was the last in this series, actually, um, quite a nice mix of historical episodes, cruises, and scientific and history. +So, um, as ever, a very good idea. +And I really enjoy that. +And there are a few channels that I've managed to subscribe to more or less at each of these. +Thank you very much. +The following day, we had, uh, a hookah again. +And the rule, this was a scheduled show, whereas the reserve cue one was inserted. +So, obviously, the rule about not having 14 days in between, uh, or, sorry, 10 shows in between. +Doesn't apply in this case. +This is about, uh, playing Civilization V and Part IX and looking at the game mechanics. +In this case, various different types of city-states, um, managing the relations between city-states, uh, and that you can be neutral or not. +So, this is a, uh, this is a nice one. +Uh, I'm getting to understand the game. +Don't really have the free time in order to be doing it, but, uh, there you go. +The following day, we had Lee with a bit of Git, where he relates a Git adventure that occurred while working on, uh, a work logging project and doing rebases and dangers of. +So, this is, um, an extension to the Git, um, series that Tlatoo started. +And walks through the various different commands. +And basically, this shows, uh, describes the caveats that you might run into. +Candy Kane-Eater says, +Anecdotal teaching is the best kind. +I think that the way you explained all these features using a real story and going through your thought process, +while weaving explanations for each command is an interesting way to teach the program. +I found the story interesting and learned a lot about Git that I didn't know about. +There you go. +Thank you very much, Candy Kane-Eater, for doing that, uh, for posting the comments. +Comments are indeed currency by which we pay our hosts. +Um, the next day we had Antoine with, uh, Happy by Shower 2, which was the second part of the mini-series. +And Candy Kane-Eater here said, +Interesting. +I think that hearing about what other people do in their day-to-day life is extremely interesting. +And wouldn't mind a third episode. +In particular, the idea of learning how to share things I sometimes struggle with. +Since outside of sharing drawings and stuff I've made, it's difficult. +Best of luck to you. +Antoine replies, +Happy that this was in some measure good for you. +Sharing is difficult, especially what is relevant to us. +Which is irrelevant to others who make us shameful for having difficult priorities, needs, and tastes. +Or simply because we're afraid not only of being mocked, but worse, not being understood, ignored. +My vision only, my fears, barriers, block me to others and others to me. +But it's good to remember or to learn the lessons that we are different. +Sharing, drawing feels interesting. +Might see in some of your work, actually. +Moving back on to hardcore science here. +Nuclear reactor technology, part 8. +Generating generation 4 reactors. +Future reactor technologies, particularly that are referred to as generation 4 by, of course, Whiskey Jack. +There were two comments to this episode. +Jim DeVore says, +As an engineer and an insatiable curiosity about too many topics, I love the series overview that I doubt I can find anywhere else. +And Whiskey Jack replies, +Thank you for the encouragement. +Always helps to know that people are actually listening to this episode. +A number of listeners have posted questions about topics covered in the series, +and I've promised to answer them with a follow-up episode. +I have the script written for the follow-up and will record it early April and currently has about 20 minutes of content. +Currently have a couple of episodes uploaded for slots in April, +and non-related series will post follow-up episodes after the second one in the new series. +That means it should be out in late April. +If anyone has any questions that they would like me to address, +please post them in the comments to any of the episodes in the series. +And then we had the New Year's episode part two. +And as always, the show notes are fantastic. +I even had to download, there's no comments to this episode, but, you know, go to it yourself. +I downloaded a cool browser tag called Open All Links for this one, +which got me banned from Wikipedia because there's so many links from Wikipedia. +You know, a four or nine, it'll clear us up after. +But great episode and great work to the team there for putting those show notes together. +Operator talks about water, water everywhere, talks about various water-related things, +generally water measures and where they're located and how they're protected. +It's kind of interesting, actually. +I wouldn't have minded show notes, but I would have liked to see a few photographs of those, actually, Operator, +because, again, as we say, not all the listening audience are familiar with the things that you're talking about. +It became clear as you were going through it in the ground and stuff. +But here we have the water meters that are either inside the house or they're, in our case, +the old style was that they would be in a concrete sort of basin that is outside in your garden. +So maybe I need to do a show about that. +There were no comments on that one. +And the next show was me adding voiceover audio tracks, creating, using, created, using text-to-speech movie subtitles. +Three comments. +First one was from Fokie. +Interesting solution, but annoying. +Thank you for the interesting show. +I can say, Fokie, how encouraging it was to find that as the first comment. +But I know, Fokie, you've been on here on the show, so I know it's coming from a good place. +Anyway, interesting solution, but annoying. +Thank you for your interesting show. +Great how you solved all the issues, but I won't use it. +I remember seeing these films, TV sets in Poland, while buying things. +I always thought, how can they stand with this annoying voice distracting them? +Luckily, it often were done so proper, so I didn't even understand the original voices. +And you're right, it's worse when the original language is the language you understand. +Which case is the example you used? +I used a Swedish example, and Fokie's from Sweden, or speak Swedish at least. +Which, in this case, was the example used? +Especially because the male voice in Swedish is mumbling a bit. +Karsten says, an amazing project. +I love projects like this. +I might be doing it for K-dramas, but just a whole one can recycle elements of your scripts for other projects. +Great stuff, thanks. +Yep, absolutely feel free to cut and paste. +It's a proof of concept. +I much prefer if this was a built-in switch into FFMPEG, and it's only a matter of time. +It will be. +But, yeah, it was just basically a proof of concept. +10DK and Eater said, interesting. +I wouldn't personally use this, but I find it extremely crafty and cool the way you modify movies to your own enjoyment. +I also often forget that MPV supports multi-audio tracks, smiley face. +As an additional tip to improve the watching experience on MPV, you can define a global subtitle folder with subfile path and name the SRT file with the same audio file, or use audio sub dash sub dash audio equals fuzzy to make the subtitles matching more lenient. +It should be loaded by default along with your original file. +Yeah, I think I even mentioned that in the show, but good tip. +MPV is awesome. +And, yeah, I really enjoyed that show. +Took me a long while to do it. +Following day, we had Unix Curial Part 2, FGREP. +And this one was one that I was not aware of. +And it basically FGREP, EGREP, and FGREP, and explains the use cases. +And I posted the first comment. +And the comment title is Time to Active Use. +And the answer is Length of My Commute. +I immediately put it into a script and did exactly what I wanted to do. +Dan Drew says, nice job explaining asterisk CREP terms. +Done a great job of explaining when to use each type of CREP. +I thought in-house class and regular expressions and your explanations would have helped the crew know why there are different versions. +Anyway, thanks for keeping Unix alive. +Candy K. Neesha says, informative. +I've always brushed off EGREP and FGREP as niche tools, but this episode inspired me to use it more often. +Thanks for providing another tool in my tool. +As a general CREP tip, you can use the dot to avoid escaping certain patterns in the shell, i.e. if your pattern has a space. +The dot might be a period in some countries. +Vance says, expressions. +Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. +It is indeed weird that there are two types of regular expressions. +I guess three, if you count Perl-compatible rejects. +On top of that, the shell pattern matching glob notation does the same type of job in a different way. +I guess that is the result of tools being developed by different people at different times. +The following day, we had Shane with recording good audio using open source tools and has basically a lot of tips and tricks. +Very well worth listening to if you're starting out. +And also makes it clear that while HPR will accept any audio, we do prefer good audio. +But on the other hand, as I've always said, and I have not always said, I like bad audio. +I do not like bad audio. +Of all the people here, I don't like bad audio. +If we can hear it, that's good enough. +That's the barrier for people starting out. +We will encourage people to do better. +I love good audio. +But what I don't like is somebody procrastinating for 19 months over an episode rather than just sending it in. +That's perfect. +Get in the way of practical. +Yeah. +So Archer72 says, great tips. +Hi, Shane. +Great tips on recording and how environment plays into recording quality. +I never knew the Blue Yeti was not worth it because it's been touted as professional podcaster. +Ken, I think this episode should be listed on the recording page. +Yes, Archer. +And you can edit the About page to include it. +The next comment was from Ol Almot, which says, GarageJam601. +I wrote a GNOME music studio recording software, GarageJam. +It records the USB audio class devices and built-in microphones instantly and can annotate metadata about them. +See, there's a link to the norm discourse as well as the project homepage for source code and the homepage is garagejam.org. +That is vagrant, blatant spamming of the network and the only way all that you can redeem yourself is coming on and recording a show about GarageJam. +And I'm saying winking. +So thank you for the feedback. +And good to know that there are other tools out there. +And yes, you should be promoting your stuff. +Although technically it was spam. +But I'm letting you away with it on the grounds that it's free Libre opens for a software. +Is it free Libre opens for a software? +Yes, it is. +I had already checked. +It's GNU GPL V3. +Excellent. +Well done. +So we'll leave it in there. +Next, we had a nice little episode by Dave about women in digital and game events, raising awareness of forthcoming events to encourage more women into digital and games. +Links in the show notes. +We're happy to share that sort of stuff here. +Other stuff we're happy to share is the first Doctor Part 5, continuing lock into Doctor Who. +And also this month, apparently, another episode has been found and the BBC are currently updating it. +So this one covers the Celestial Toymaker, the Gunfighters, Savages, the War Machines, the Smugglers, the Ten Planet. +And Kelly says, great series. +Hi, Ahuka. +That was a fascinating look at the first Doctor. +Looking forward to hearing the rest of the series. +I also went back and watched every episode. +There are some good constructions out there so that the story can be followed for the missing episode. +I hope that you change your mind and continue the series right up to the present Doctor. +Kevin says, I think I will. +Kevin O'Brien is a hooker. +Oh, no, I don't. +I think I will. +I'm now thinking I might just cover all the classic Doctor Who's and then stop. +I don't think there's any need to cover the revised series that began in 2005. +But then, but when did that become 20 years ago? +Can anyone stop this train? +Oh, I feel your pain. +Archer 72. +Great series and second continuation. +Hi, Ahuka and Kevi. +I seconded the request to keep the series going to the end. +Although I have not seen many episodes, this is an interesting series. +The next day, we had How to Be a Better Writer by Enestello. +And by taking apart a large language model style, we can learn how to be a better writer. +And some of the tips in there was make mistakes, edit yourself, and avoid ticks that are dangerously +close to becoming the norm. +And there were no responses as yet on that one. +We're approaching the end of the month. +So, obviously, it takes time for the comments to come in. +And then we had New Year's episode part three. +And there were no comments on that. +Although they were talking about a lot of stuff that I'm massively into. +Ham Radio, Echolink, ISS, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. +So, the next episode, or possibly rant, was by Hopper MCS. +And it was entitled, On the Erosion of Freedom in Open Source Software. +Page Restrictions and what System76 did. +And Microsoft putting some code behind the firewall. +And yeah, there are quite some valid points in this episode. +So much so that I think it inspired another collaboration, which we shall hear soon. +No comments on that. +We then had quick tips for January 2026 by Operator. +And I did the show notes Operator so you didn't have to. +Using baking soda and superglue to get emery epoxy type seals. +I mean, there are lots of classic stuff. +How to blow out a candle. +Request for most shows in nursing. +Foam machine. +I just love these episodes. +They're just stuff. +The only downside is, without the show notes, I don't know what's in there. +So, I forget which episode they were in. +And then, the next day, we had one of the nicest episodes I've ever heard. +And that is Lee Lockstone's wifey poo. +Lee and Elisabeth get hitched. +This was something I knew they were engaged when we were over here in the Netherlands. +And I'm absolutely thrilled that they managed to tie the knot. +I hope everything goes well. +I give them my congratulations. +Elizabeth says, we appreciate your felicitations. +Trollocoster said, congrats. +And now, we want all the fun puns. +First off, congratulations. +Now, we're expecting follow-up episodes with all the nerdy jokes and puns that your friends +made about your nerdy wedding. +Antoine, smiley face. +Wow, what a show. +So, just coming by to give congratulations. +Dear couple, Lee and Al. +Claudia says, congratulations to you both. +Wow, congratulations to you both. +Wishing you all the best in your new journey together. +Paul Jay also says, congratulations. +Lee and Elisabeth, congratulations. +And thank you for sharing your joyous occasion with us. +Could you please share the reference to the poem Elisabeth read out? +I looked in the transcript, but it doesn't come through too clearly. +Best wishes for your life together in the future. +Paul. +So, from now on, when I'm promoting HPR, I'm going to be saying, yeah, you know, I'm not +saying, I'm not claiming all the credit for this. +But, you know, let's face it. +Two HPR hosts. +Get married on HPR. +What can we say? +What can we say? +Yeah. +If that's not unique enough for you, Wikipedia. +Anyway, congratulations to them both. +Couldn't happen to two nicer people there. +Absolutely a joy. +Couldn't have much. +Moving forward. +Next episode. +My nerdy childhood from floppy disk to dial-up dreams. +Throttle-coaster. +And this is about how he grew up. +I just loved the piece of this where he's talking about going into a computer shop. +They said, can you spend some time here? +And they thought, like, it was just going to be picking a computer for one day, but then +ended up spending it every Wednesday afternoon or something. +Fantastic. +Fantastic episode. +Trey says, trip down memory lane. +Thank you for this trip down memory lane. +Very much reminds me of my own experience during the time. +I believe that we had a certain set of skills for troubleshooting, for experimenting, and for +learning because we did not have the internet to look everything up. +This is what makes us happier. +We're hackers, not in the criminal sense, but like MIT and Hack 1 have defined it. +Hacker. +One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming limitations. +Hacker 1. +That's what's in the name. +Revealed from Hacker 1, and the link is there. +X-Man Monk says, great episode. +Ah, memories. +I'm a bit older, but I wanted to say that the sound effects in this episode brought back +all kind of memories. +Thanks for a great show. +Troller Coaster replies. +Back to you. +Hey, Trey. +Why don't you flip out the PDP 11 and show off your skills? +If you're into old school definition of hackers and you're frustrated that youngsters are spoiled, +make sure you pick up next week's episode on age verification. +If it will be the best thing ever. +X-Man Monk. +Glad you like the sound effects. +I had to edit out the occasional fart. +At a certain age, bowel movements are a thing. +But then again, luckily, podcasts don't also send this. +Troller Coaster says, note to janitors. +Hey, janitors. +I realize that you have to read my previous comment out loud. +May I suggest not to add sound effects to the comment? +Couldn't possibly. +I wasn't able to find a free Libra open source fart sound that I would approve of. +M says, nerdy nostalgia. +Great episode, Troller Coaster. +Really enjoyed this one. +Had me all nostalgic for the early days of computing. +I recorded HPR 1541 back in 2014. +Ding! +For a shameless plug, lol. +Where I covered my early days from computing and how it all led up to me coming to Linux. +I think that I made mention of BST as well. +And this reminds me of that. +Thanks for sharing. +The next day was Linux Curios Part 3. +Base names and der names. +Oh, these are vital, vital, my friend. +Yes, another Linux kernel article that he's picking on, but he's not ready. +Show notes are, as always, excellent. +And X-Man Monk says, great episode. +Love the Unix Curio series. +Thanks so much for always good to bash things as well as commands that are useful. +And that, I believe, was that for this month's shows. +So we did have a lot of comments on other episodes. +The first one was all the way back in 2022 by Zen Floater 2 Cars. +And Modessin says, additional details on cars. +I enjoyed your episode and appreciate you discussing cars on a HBR episode. +I want to point out that your facts on electric cars are inaccurate, as well as some of the details about charging infrastructure. +I have never encountered evidence of laws forcing you to replace an electric battery before selling cars. +The battery chemistry you cited was nickel-cadmium, but that is not what they're using. +They're using various lithium chemistries. +Also, most people are not depleting their battery capacity on a daily basis. +And 244 charging plug is more than adequate for most uses. +Thanks again for making the show. +Would be good to have some episodes on charging electric cars, cars in general and stuff. +We have a surprising lack of that, considering who we are. +This one was for a show released in March of last year. +A radically transparent computer without complex BLSI by Mark Abel. +And Mark himself says, a new online home for Doug 36 and Doug 18. +Many links in this episode that he did back then broke due to the location of the Doug House, new US-based non-profit. +Doug 36 is alive and well and lives at htbsdoug.org. +And Doug House has also broken ground on Doug 18, an 18-bit transparency functioning host card-sized processor for applications where a full CPU will be overkill. +As with the Doug 36, Doug 18 does not employ any complex VLSI, no microtrocessor, FPGA, PLD, AISC, or DRAM architecture. +And I've asked Mark to send me an updated show notes where he did. +So that's been updated in the meantime. +And the following comment is on how I use Newsboat for podcasts and Reddit by Archer72. +And there was an ongoing discussion there about the podcast download format that was. +And Ahmed says that it is not fixed, alas, the cast. +Hello, Ken. +I'm sorry for the late reply. +I just listened to Jan and December's news a few days ago. +No, the problem did not get fixed. +I don't think that it would be fixed on the HPR website since I use WGET to download the episodes. +It does get properly named to HPR MP. +Yeah, I've been looking into that one. +It's a bit of a complex one, all right. +And we'd love to hear your introduction to tech episode. +And the next comment was on a show from November 2025, HPR Beer Garden 5, Hefenweizen. +And Khan Amann said that the word Hefeweizen does not exist in German. +The correct compound noun is Hefeweizen from Hefe, yeast and Weizen, wheat. +However, there are words Hefeweizen, oats and Weizen, some synonyms like wise men, manners to indicate, that do not have any relationship with beer. +The word Hefeweizen does not exist in German. +It does exist in English. +It's a female cow. +A female calf. +Kevin says, thanks, Dan. +Thank you for pointing this out. +I have noticed the Speerlinger and I shall attempt to get it sorted out. +He did indeed. +And we got it sorted. +So, the next one we had was on the episode from January, Nutri-Reactors episode 4, Less Common Reactor Types. +First comment was from Antoine. +I said, we are, where are the designs patented? +Hi, Whiskeyjack. +Nice episode. +You said AGR based on Magonyx was a Nutri-Reactor type that does sell well outside of the UK. +I started thinking, if it were, is possible for another country to develop it by themselves based on that project, +or if it had, has a commercial restriction for exploration of the technology. +I've yet to listen to the following episodes of Doing So Little by Little. +I may learn better on the choices, but I felt free to present the question to you now. +Thanks. +Whiskeyjack says in reply to Antoine. +One, yes, there are a number of patents on commercial nuclear technology. +However, most of the basic principles were discovered early on, and any early patents had expired by the term nuclear power had been exploded commercially and on a widespread scale. +I'm currently in the process of recording a follow-up episode to this series. +I will add your questions to the script, as I think it offers an opportunity to address specific topics. +So listen to that episode for more details. +Antoine says, thanks, Whiskeyjack, for the information. +I will do my best to catch up on the question and answers. +So the next one was on HBR Beer Garden 9, Barley Wine, and Al Ailman says, +I've had HBR in my feed for a long time. +Always hopeful something will spark. +Then you two come up with Big Garden, and you like what I like. +I'm writing from Oklahoma, where the state legislator funded her Senate campaign with money from the liquor distributors in exchange for monopoly control over what we drink. +But I think before the law changed, I actually had some scotch silly. +Anyway, really enjoy your shows. +On data processing retrospective with Lee, Archer72 has a comment, previous generation. +Hi, Lee. +I wish more people would record thoughts on the previous generations, not only about tech, but about life outside the subject. +Then on thorium reactors, we had four comments. +First, Archer72, interesting series. +Hi, Whiskeyjack. +Thanks for the series. +I've been listening with interest to each one. +And Whiskeyjack replies, thank you for the feedback. +The last episode is coming up on the 11th of March, episode 4593. +If anyone has any questions related to the topics, contact me, and I'll do a follow-up episode. +I have another series on a completely unrelated topic that I'll start posting after this one is done. +But I will delay if anyone wants to follow up on this series. +Clinton says, modern situation. +I would like some commentary on the current situation. +Why has Hingley gone off the rails, the new American approach, the odd things done after Fusima, the new reaction rules in the States? +Whiskeyjack replies, I will do a follow-up episode on nuclear power technology and try to cover your questions and others. +I have four-part series audio recording ready to go, but I will slot nuclear power follow-up after that and start working on it. +Anyone else would like me to address those or any other points is welcome to ask their questions. +So, Unix Curio 0 introduction. +Murph says, great show. +Looking forward to some more. +Glad to see that you picked up the call and submitted. +Well done. +Looking forward to hearing us. +On making first contact, my episode where I met contact, Archer72, great to hear your 7.3s. +Hello, Ken. +I have gotten behind on my comments, but did listen. +Did you get the idea of using the Bofang UVF5 or Mini from the New Year show? +Just curious. +Not directly, but yes, because you were discussing us in the HPR Matrix channel, +and it is just literally two radios for 25, I think, 35 euros or something. +It's just, you know, a good deal. +And also, now that our governments are mandating that you have a, advising strongly, that you have a disaster relief kit in your home, which is something that they're doing. +Maybe I should do a show on that. +And the next day, we had Candy Caneater commenting on Operator Show's response to Lee and Elsbeth episode. +A relatable episode. +I haven't been lucky enough to get a job in the IT space, but what you talked about with struggling with people resonated with me. +I am extremely bad with, like, talking to people if it is not a topic I'm super familiar with and kind of fall into generic responses or making dad jokes during conversations. +Yeah, it's a tough one. +And we do have some episodes on that. +For example, Tattoo's Making Friends one is a good episode, and we could do with people expanding and expounding on that here. +It's something quite a lot of us have trouble with. +So, here's to be our Beer Garden 10, Scotch, Ales, and a wee heavy. +Upcoming beers, Kevi tells us, that episode 11 will be Belgian Scotch Ale. +You want to get your purchases in now. +And episode 12 will be Baltic Porter, Baltic Porter, and Belgian Scotch Ale. +You have no excuse now. +Small modulary actors come up, and Brian in Ohio says, good show. +Loving the series. +Maybe Whiskey Jack could give some close comparisons between large and small actors. +He could also give us a realistic look at nuclear plants' safety and accidents compared to conventional power production. +Looking forward to an episode on fourth generation reactors. +Yes, Brian. +Thank you. +In response, Whiskey Jack says, I can do a follow-up episode on small modular actors, comparing the pros and cons of SMRs versus large reactors, and what factors may favor either. +I will also cover any other questions that may come up. +For safety, you could possibly be a controversial subject. +So, probably not a good fit for HPR. +There will be people who have strong political-based opinions either way. +I would like to stick with just explaining how the technology works, and other people on the forums address non-tech issues. +I think it would, personally speaking, I think it would make a good topic for HPR, particularly if it's balanced and you've got citations. +Respectful debate. +That's what we're all about here. +The next comment is on recording a show and crappy audio by Archer72. +There were four comments in here. +The love bug, Dave Lee, starts with, +Anyone who knows me knows my opinion on audio quality, in particular as it relates to HPR. +Listening to the results of your three microphones, the Zoom H1 sounded utterly beautiful. +Did I agree? +But those earbuds were moderately awful. +And the Soundcore earbuds were quite decent, but your voice sounded a bit robotic. +You'll never experience decent audio quality from devices that were going to be attended for that purpose. +Earbuds are notoriously bad for quality due to audio processing needed to handle the distance between the bud and your mouth. +I always recommend an audio recorder with decent quality microphone first, a mobile phone recording app, and a laptop built-in third. +Anything else is last resort. +Sounds a bit snobby, and I grant you that I know conflicts with Ken's stance on quality doesn't matter. +I'll come back to that. +But you really do need to consider the audience. +Is it also worth mentioning that any difficulties experienced through bad audio get compounded by listening to higher, at higher playback speed? +Okay, I agree with all of that, but I want to please, again, stress, I do not like bad audio. +I do not think that audio quality does not matter. +It does. +Okay, let's be clear on this. +Audio quality does matter. +However, if there's no recording of a thing, then we've lost that. +Even if it's poor audio, start with the best you can get, yeah. +If you can afford a H1 mic, that is, yes, brilliant. +I happen to have a Zoom H2, but they're expensive. +Not everybody has them. +Not everybody is able to go out and shoo out the equivalent to 300 euros for even crappy earbud things. +A lot of the people that I've been working with recently do not have headsets. +They have what comes in their laptop. +They don't get headsets. +So we cannot impose these first world assumptions on people who are listening to the podcast. +This podcast is for everybody. +If you're somewhere and the best microphone that you have is a headphone, an old headphone that you're using, +and it comes in left here, we will do our best here on HPR to get it to an audio quality that will work. +And in fact, we will do and we will sponsor microphones for you if we can get them to you. +Yeah. +So I never said that audio quality doesn't matter. +What I've said is any audio is better than no audio. +But I've also said black is the best. +We accept the rest. +72 comments. +Bad mic. +Hi, Dave. +I wouldn't record it with either the earbud on a regular basis, but it works in a pinch. +My preference is always for a proper mic, is to use the XS audio recorder, which mysteriously disappeared from F-Droid app. +Actually, this is not so mysterious considering the state of Google's current relationship against floss apps. +I have also heard the results from the audio Android recorder with a lapel mic in previous episodes, which shows semi-decent quality. +Deser said, false advertising. +So far this morning, I have listened to the episode three times in an attempt to hear some crappy audio. +What I'm hearing is various levels of not perfect audio, but nothing crappy. +This is probably the first time I have heard audio recorded from an earpiece. +And this is one of my favorite genres of HBR shows, the hardware used to record a show. +Thank you. +Thank you, Jezre. +So moving on, and the last comment was on MPV util scripts, which was a show from February by Kandikean Eater. +And Windigo says, MPV Flank Hub. +I've been using MPV as my primary media player for years, but I've only used bash scripting to extend its functionality. +Approach that seems rough and uncivilized compared to your Lua examples. +Thanks for the informative and inspiring episode. +I'm excited to give this a try. +Windigo also says, if you do want to hook up into MPV with external bash scripts, +you can set up a socket with the dash dash input dash IPC dash server and pipe command line input output through that. +Unfortunately, it doesn't really work well on multiple MPV windows, +but it's great if you only plan to have one window open at once. +That would make a good show, Windigo. +Thank you. +I'd like to hear it. +Archer72 says, hi, Windigo. +My skills are lacking in this area, but with only one improvement made for MPV. +MPV, I pretty much forgot about it because I get copied to a new system in the form of dash dash aliases. +And the alias is MPlayer equals MPlayer space dash AF space scale tempo, +which I borrowed from Ken and linked to my episode or blog post on that. +Candy Canator puts in a updated script into the comments. +Yes, probably need to update the script. +Somebody can remind me to do that. +That would be great. +Oh, where's Dave when you need him? +And then we have the comments on this month's show. +Let's mosey on to the thread. +And for those of you who don't know, the mailing list is the discussion forum where we discuss changes that's going to be happening to HPR. +We have some comments there from Jason Dodd, who says this is in relation to last month's stock posting on X on Twitter, or continue to use it. +Indeed, when that conferral happened with FreeNode, I switched to Libra and noticed Podcast Planet wasn't there. +So I started it and figured that the admins from FreeNode would come over and take it over. +That has not happened, but it's not too late. +Need a proper admin. +I was never admin of Podcast Planet, but I have joined us on an IRSSI session. +So I am in there. +It's quite enough, but a nice, chill place to be. +Then we have proposed bridge from IRC to Matrix. +And Ken was asking about an IRC to Matrix bridge from IRC.libra.chat to the HPR Matrix. +It seems to be involved, but might be worth looking at. +There are two ways to go about it, bi-directional or one way, most likely from Libra, chat, and Matrix. +Taj replied saying, +My understanding, my understanding, given that it's been a while since this happened, and I'm not in a position to look up the details at the moment, is that there was a Matrix to Libra bridge that was developed by the Matrix team. +IRC, Libra, kindly asked them to knock it off because the bridge was causing serious issues on their side. +And I think Libra went as far as to ban it. +It's honestly a shame, since when that bridge stopped working, I essentially abandoned IRC. +And I think that's the general status with that. +There was an invite to today's Community News, which I am going to read out. +Community News will be recorded each week during the last week of the month. +Volunteers are encouraged to participate during the HPR Community News. +Hosts will discuss shows, community feedback, address concerns related to the project. +Particular participants are encouraged to listen to all the shows aired during their respective months. +If you're interested in participating or have concerns related to the project, I don't know why we have so many concerns related to the project, please contact admin at hackerpublicradio.org. +Thank you for choosing Hacker Public Radio. +So what we've noticed is that the schedule is very difficult to stick to, that it is at this time or particular time of recording, +and that it makes it inflexible for the people who have volunteered their time to change it. +So in this case, I needed to go and help. +I was over this week in England with helping my nephew with something or other. +And by the time I got back, Kevi was already going on vacation. +So our timetables didn't work out. +This is why I'm recording it myself. +And having it at a particular slot means that we can't really adjust it normally. +What we would do is, Kevi would say, look, I'm heading off. +We recorded a day earlier. +Couldn't in this case, but then we would have just listened to the Friday shows beforehand and do the recording from there on. +That's actually fine. +So if you do want to contribute to this beyond the community news, you're absolutely welcome. +But it sends us an email, and then if you're living somewhere else, you might be able to pick a time in the morning or the afternoon that suits you, +and you don't have to stay up in the middle of the night for the recording. +So that's more or less the attention to make it more flexible. +It's still over to everybody. +It's just there's no need to be specific that it must be at this time. +It should be at a time that is convenient for the people who are giving up their personal time to it, is all I'm saying. +We also took out the bits about the Mumble in there because we have had people join, and Mumble hasn't been working that fantastically lately for some reason. +I'm not sure why. +Sometimes it does. +Sometimes it doesn't. +So we might just switch to using Jitsi or something else. +That works fine. +So just like with the scheduling, we'll pick whatever suits the people who have volunteered. +Okay. +Do need some Moolik over. +Okay, and that was that. +Then I did want to read out a comment that I sent out, and it's in the April 26 archive, but because of the way the month is a bit late this time. +And it is in response to the community news. +So I'll just read it out. +Hi, all. +I'd like to bring up the following items here so that they're also included in the community news show. +Changes to the approach recording the community news show. +Anyone that's interested in recording the community news show, please get in touch one-to-one prior to the recording. +Having people drop in at the last moment is not ideal technically or helped with the scheduling deadline some of the hosts may have. +By arranging it beforehand, we can pick a suitable time for everybody and agree on a common platform for recording. +It would be great if you could listen to all the shows and are prepared to read out the comments provided. +Any other business topic number two, how we are expected to behave. +Following some questions on Matrix about the use of the explicit flag, I give the following clarification. +As it reflects the current state of things as I understand it. +Correct me if I'm wrong. +We begin. +We place trust in the people of the community to do the right thing. +It is always, first and foremost, the responsibility of the hosts themselves to think how their words would impact on others in the community. +If you are ever asking if you should put an explicit flag on an episode, it means, by definition, you should put it in. +While swearing is allowed, remember that JWP's granny is listening. +Don't go out of your way to be belligerent. +We follow the principle that inside shows, free speech applies. +As with shouting fire in a crowded theatre, there are exceptions. +We do not post hate speech, copyrighted material, spam, etc. +If you think it's going to be excessive, then please put a warning at the beginning of your show. +Something like, sorry, I went off on a bit of rant in this one. +If you're listening to this in the public place, it might be best to put on headphones or listen later. +Episode 1309 is how I personally did it. +If there are any complaints about technical or otherwise, we have policies to deal with it. +I'll link in the show notes. +Outside of the podcast audio, for example, show notes, tags, feeds, etc., we still expect the host to do the right thing. +In the case they don't, the janitors can and do intervene. +We follow the parental advisory approach akin to the covers on CDs in shops. +Listen to HBR 22010 on freedom of speech and censorship for more information. +There is no point having a warning in the intro of the show if the show notes and title and text-to-speech intro already contain the offending phrase. +And this, of course, extends to anywhere we have an official HBR presence. +That means Matrix, Telegram, Mastodon, IRC, etc. +But it also extends to boots and anywhere you are representing the HBR project, for example, presentations. +Okay, that was item number two. +Item number three. +HBR Wikipedia has gone again. +Frankly, this is annoying. +We did have a page, but now it's gone without trace. +And we have very much exceeded the bar to have a page. +And I would help, as it would help in communicating with third-party organization and policy makers. +If there are any Wikipedians out there who have not already contributed to the show, please help us here. +It's just like to know why our page was removed. +Any other business part? +Four, recent policies. +Four dot one. +We will no longer be actively posting on Twitter slash X on a daily basis. +We'll continue to monitor. +That is a nice one for me because I no longer have to jump through hoops to fit into their 100 character limit. +Four dot two. +Changes to the reserve queue has been made as per our discussion in January. +You will by now have noticed the change to the tone of the announcement. +It's okay to mention the show that it's a reserve show, even to ask for contributions. +But hosts should please not place any warnings in their reserve episodes. +These will be added automatically using the following script. +Link to the GitT instance, HPR prepare reserve.back, which is a skeleton script. +Three, sorry, four dot three. +Clarification on discussions on policy changes, changes to scheduling guidelines. +You should read the rules as a if-then statement, as in, one, you must have your audio ready for recording before you pick a slot. +Two, new hosts and interviews and other time critical shows should use the first free slot. +Rule three, if not two, then always fill any free slots that are available in the upcoming queue. +Rule four, if not two and three, then when the queue is filling up, leave some slots free for new contributors. +Post non-urgent shows into the first empty week. +And six, as I jumped over. +Five, if you're uploading multiple shows, please leave at least two weeks between your chosen slots. +And seven, if you have non-urgent shows that are timeless, add them to the reserve queue, but don't include a dire warning. +Because if a dire warning is required, it'll be added. +And any other business. +If there is any other business, people would like to mention, reply here or send it directly. +Because that goes for all the shows now. +If you have stuff that you want to announce or something, here is a fine place to do it. +We'll do it at the end of the community news show. +And D&T responded about the Wikipedia thing. +It doesn't, blog doesn't dispute the notability, but it says the sources are not good enough. +To which I reply, well, that's right, given we're the reliable source for many articles. +We also keep public articles on there. +But if anybody else has cases where HBR is mentioned in print, magazines, talk schedules, etc. +In the real world, please pass them on. +Okay, that's it. +Thanks for listening. +If you want to be part of this show, please listen to all the shows. +Have a read of the comments. +And ping us on when will be a suitable time to be recorded sometime in the last week of the month. +And you're more than welcome to join. +And with that, I'll say thank you for listening. +And tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4612.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4612.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebbaf84 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4612.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1674 @@ +Episode: 4612 +Title: Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 4 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4612/hpr4612.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:09 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4612, for 2026-04-07 +Today's show is entitled, "Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 4" +The host is Honkeymagoo and the duration is 01:52:37 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "the hpr community comes together to converse" +On the subject of sweetness, including in the Aldo drinks, they did taste very like strawberry or lemon or whatever, +but they also included as bar tame in all of those drinks, which just gives some people my grains. +I didn't know about the nosebleed. +But, Mayor Maynard, they used to drink less. +I try to stay away from the fake sugar. +I'd rather have a drink. +I don't do it at zero, zero sugar or battery. +But when I stopped drinking, I used to drink a mess of a cola. +When I stopped, I started making flavored tea by the gallon, and I would have sweetened it with agave. +If you're not diabetic, then a bit of sugar is fine, I think. +I think it was having lots. +How come his has pertains? +Did I have not heard that name in decades? +Definitely in those Aldo drinks. +Really? +Because I've been reading labels on stuff quite a bit the past in 15 years, +and I made pretty much a policy and I tried to stick to it, but it's kind of hard. +But if I can't pronounce it, and it's got more syllables, then, you know, the entire... +You know, Oxford dictionary. +I don't eat it. +I think a spot time is on the mean I watched it. +Is it? +I'm not sure. +I remember when it came out. +I'm thinking, well, these are the states from the United States. +I'm thinking, this could just be a false memory of mine. +But I'm thinking it came out sometime in the 80s, +because I remember my parents. +I think my mother bought some of the grocery store to try it, +and they didn't like it. +They said it was, I can't remember if it was too sweet, +or if it had like an aftertaste to it. +And I think this was also before. +I think like Splenda. +I think that was something that came out into the early 90s. +But I know, I remember when they switched over, +this is my last thought here. +I remember when they switched over from cane sugar +to the corn syrup for the coals. +His whenever I go down to the Mexican border +around the states like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, +Southern California. +I always try to get the Mexican cooks and the Mexican sprites and stuff, +because they still are made with cane sugar. +Yeah, a spartame is a dye peptide of a spartic acid, +so not what I was thinking. +And yeah, I prefer molasses. +And a thing I recall about cane sugar was, +does it, it does not sate your sugar cravings? +So you can drink more of it, +and you won't feel like you've taken any sugar. +Is that true? +I don't think that's true. +I would think that's more hybridous words. +I thought corn syrup is what I was referring to. +Then yes, cane sugar is sugar from. +For sure. +I think that I'll said that it was replaced with... +Yes, yes. +Yeah, they current. +Yeah, I love my connection. +I don't remember when they did this. +Like I said, this is like... +It was during the rainy day. +It was during the rainy day. +Okay. +Yeah, the administration. +It was one of the tax... +One of the tariffs he passed, +because sugar farmers, for an increased tariff on income, +imported sugar. +And once they raised the tax on imported, +high fructose corn syrup, +expensive sugar in the product, +high fructiver than imported privy. +I think the net people and then were put for high fructose corn, +so to be put in product. +Hopefully with good intention to make things +better. +I think it was in Amazon's called Hunters. +People hunting Nazis hiding the part of that whole story line +that was then the Nazi putting high fructive master plan in Asia. +I guess it was more likely to be accidental, +but I did hear... +It might have been sugar the bitter truth. +Another documentary about the damage that corn syrup does. +Firstly, I have a personal answer. +I heard enzymes were 400 months +that I was to the doctor towards the end. +The three times I have my blood drawn, +trying looking for different stuff, +to mark things off, +and more blood. +And I randomly ran across to the high fructose corn syrup. +And then all my distorifying, +I cut out high fructose corn syrup, +stopped drinking soda, +flavored pothagab, +and my liver out from strapped. +Four, five. +I'll take that as corroborating, +anecdote, sounds good. +The stuff I've read, +said it damages your liver more than that, +because cells in your body, +process, energy from sugar, +a high fructose corn syrup, +to be processed, +in end of damage. +But I actively started looking at everything I bought +and everything that's, +I don't believe that there's a problem with it. +I don't know if any of you remember all the commercials, +pushing high fructose corn syrup was a safest from the corn. +I did go on like I did gather from what I heard, +that yeah, corn syrup bad. +I know I went back in good, +molasses delicious. +I know I lost like 10 or 12 pounds +from giving up one or two cans of coke +or sprite, +not in due. +I couldn't believe that I went from, +but not quite a 33 inch waste +down to about, +I'm in between 30 and 31 now. +More towards the 31, +but I can still fit in. +No, I take that back. +It was, I now, +in between 31 and 32, +because what I had when I graduated, +high school was 30. +Now it's up to 31 when I started drinking all the, +sodas. +I was up to almost the 33 inch waste. +So after I cut them out, +like I said, +I lost like 10, +12 pounds. +And now I'm in between 31 +and a 32 inch waste, +which is impressive to me, +because it's the easiest way to get rid of all that waste. +This is not doing that. +It doesn't have to do any like picture sizes or anything like that. +It's crazy. +Yeah, that gets to you. +You know, +as you get older and older, +I hear there's an average in the UK +of something like half a stone a year +when you get to a certain age, +which seems unbelievable. +Just pretty much, +I train mostly water. +When I go to work, +I have to, +I think they're 13 liter, +like they're going to half gallon, +camping, +canteen is, +and I've used my water filter. +And then I got a travel, +thermos thing at holds, +like 16 ounce of bucket pint. +And then I'll have two pint of water a day +in addition to anything else I ingest +from fruit or, +you know, +any other foods. +But yeah, +I don't miss the sodas. +I pretty much, +if I go to a restaurant, +I might have ones, +like, +I think in one month, +I have maybe one or two sodas +and a month, +sometimes I can go a couple months +without them. +I looked it up, +I corrected it to, +like, +getting up to a key loop a year +or something in older age. +I imagine that would be quite higher +for Americans, +because we seem to have a weight problem here. +Yeah, no comment. +It's often, +I've seen that. +Are you calling me fat? +What's that saying? +You're not fat at all. +You're not fat at all. +You're a fluffy, +you know, +they're all averages aren't I, +and who can say? +Yeah, +I, +I've lost about 1kg for 3 years on a row +when I went to Thailand for 2 years on a row. +And the third year I went, +I didn't do any walking, +and I was eating massive amounts of food was, +and so good, +can't get it. +I lose that because I don't want to eat much, +when it's hot, +it really lose appetite. +I did. +I was hungry all the time, +I was not old, +but I was like, +I ate a lot. +I ate more than one of one of them. +I noticed like, +when I eat, +when I eat like, +traditional foods, +you know, +prepared like Mexican food +or any of the type of like Asian food, +and that I will eat across the, +the country. +I, +in war, +sustained in a smaller amount of food, +than I would if I was eating +any other type of American derived food. +It's, +it's quite amazing, +but I've also noticed in my older years +that my appetite is less, +for example, +there's a restaurant that I grew up eating at. +We've been open since, I think, +1954. +Yeah, +it's a fried chicken, +and they had like a secret recipe type of thing. +It's a well known in the, +in the area. +And I used to be able to put away five pieces of chicken, +as in chips, +and some coleslaw, +and be fine. +Now, +with a night's say, +the past five years or so, +I can eat just two pieces, +and the other, +you have four mentioned side dishes, +and be completely content. +But I'm thinking that hasn't lot to do with it too, +but I've noticed that I prefer eating a lot of the other food, +more than the traditional American type food. +If you dice some raw carrots into a bowl, +and just put a tiny bit of, +whatever flavor you like on it, +you can just chew on that stuff, +until your face is aching. +You know, give your face a real workout, +define the muscles in your face, +and yeah, eat as much as you like. +After a while, +you can't eat, +because you know, +your face hurts so much, +because of the crunching on the raw carrots. +Yeah, +and beets, +and what's these, +let me get them up here. +I had, +for lunch, +it's a, +I get these from a wholesale, +place called Sam's Club. +It's be seen, +Sam, +Wal-Bark Corporation. +But I get these, +nature's garden, +trail mix and act packs. +They're 24 individual packs. +And like the one pack has cranberry walnuts, +almonds, +pumpkin seeds, +pecans, pistachios, +and then the other one has cranberry walnuts, +black raisins, +gold raisins, +peanuts, +pumpkin seeds, +and sunflower seeds. +And I can tell you, +right, +I mean, +after chewing on those, +I'm pretty much done for the rest of the afternoon. +It's quite a quite a workout, +especially the almonds. +Right, +and you can chop things like that, +into this big bowl, +until you can like, +you know, +500 grams of diced carrots, +raw, +and then you only need like a spoon full of oats in there, +and a drop of chilli, +chilli powder, +sorry, +chilli, +what you call it, +Tabasco sauce or something, +and the whole thing tastes like +what you've added to it, +so the chopped nuts or the oats or something. +You just get this satisfaction of the chewing and the crunching, +from the diced carrot, +but it doesn't interfere with the flavour from the other things, +you know? +It's interesting. +It looks like you just passed New Year's. +It's, +yeah, +I just noticed I missed it. +There's fireworks going off, +but they have been, +for about four hours, you know? +Yeah, we still have another, +but see, +45, +make that eight, +two hours, +45 minutes, +I think. +Are you, +well, +Canada? +Yeah, +States. +Right now, +I don't even know where, +I mean, +in Canada, +it's about 45, +well, +it would matter. +Anyone that's in the States, +I'm like 45 minutes, +northeast of Indianapolis. +I just got in the map out. +Yeah, +if you look, +we're Fort Wayne, +Indianapolis. +That's where I'm parked at. +I'm a, +I'm what you would call, +a lawyer, +a lawyer driver, +so I'm parked at a truck stop here, +and I think that's Gaston. +Let me look. +See what Google can tell me here. +Petro Travel Centers. +Yeah, +GA is T-O and Indiana. +I can say it there in Indianapolis. +Yeah, +I just got, +and if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if my son is, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you always look, +if you just look, +if you just look, +if you justLook, +if you just look, +if you just looking, +if you just look, +if you don't look, +if公s could do that like this. +Right. +If you just look, +if you just look, +if you just look, +if you look, +if you just look, +if you look, +if you just look, +if you just look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look like a, +if you look, +if you look, +if you look, +they were quite funny for a person of my age at that time. +Yes, funny television shows that I grew up watching. +And then there are ones that I never watched, but I'd like them now. +And then there's one that's I grew up watching. +And I've tried to watch now. +And I don't know if I just don't have the same interest, +which is the same of music too. +Yeah, that's another part of getting older. +And I was just checking the weather here, +because I did this left the north side of Toledo, +Ohio. +And they were not ready to get smashed by some snow. +Do you find new interest though, +as you get all to do you? +Yes, I found a big appreciation for history. +One of the things that I've really been interested in past few years +was a little bit more in the past few years. +I'd say maybe a decade maybe was the history of the US highway system, +which is quite fascinating. +I think it's a number of the numbers. +Oh, yeah, the other way, yeah. +And we're in T.A. +The other way around for a minute. +Yeah, how they deal with the exit numbers. +Good heavens, my senses. +Yeah, it's fascinating how they develop the first ones, +because the original routes were native American paths +that they had taken. +Some of it was just geological surveys where they're like, +okay, well, we can't go around this. +We can't go over this mountains. +Or we're going to curve it around this direction. +And we're going to can't go across this rivers. +We have to curve around this this way. +And then yeah, what he was saying about the +at the inner state system about the even numbers, +North and South. +I mean, the even numbers to us. +I mean, and the odd numbers. +I forget everything about it. +But I know it all the time. +Exit one might cut down on it. +Oh, yeah. +Yeah, they're always the elder of experts. +Exit. +It was a line man. +We're lying men, you know, in the famous song. +So what did line men do? +Did they do power lines or what they make in the road? +There's an interesting podcast that used to this. +He's called 99% visible. +And they would explain how 99% of his stuff is may develop +the design is not even seen or noticed by the. +Yeah, the line man. +I think are the ones that do the. +Can you tell it? +Can you hear us, emergency? +Yeah, there was a song wasn't there. +I'll try and find it. +There probably many. +Hello. +Hello. +Hello. +Coming to you live from Seattle. +How are you? +Probably right. +We're basically coming to you from Devac, the queer hacker space here in Seattle. +Nice. +You know, there's a YouTube channel that if you want to learn a lot about the American. +I always system and they open up YouTube here. +It's a really well produced channel. +And we find the name here. +I think it's between beyond. +Let me look here. +Beyond the exit. +And he's been. +Going through a lot of the. +B.J. US highways and how they got there beginning. +Why they chose the route. +You know, that they did. +So it's. +I just figured after driving across the country for the past two decades that I. +To take some interest in why the roads where they are. +But I remember in geography at school that they called it our advanced level like 16 to 18 years. +They were talking about. +I'm tracking the rail tracks in America and I had no interest whatsoever because I just didn't. +I didn't know about development of infrastructure. +Yeah, because my. +To all there was. +An appraisal supervisor for the Ohio Department of Transportation. +And his efforts among others was the advancement of the interstate system through Ohio. +I can make. +I have vivid memories of being on some of the sections of the interstate. +Before they were even lined. +They had just finished paving them. +And I remember going northbound on the southbound side. +And my dad's car. +Surveying stuff. +And it was before they put the highway signs over the over the roads. +And none of the guardrails were up. +And it was funny all those decades. +I didn't have daycare. +So either I was with my dad. +And driving around the state or I was with my mom. +It's usually a secretary. +Occasionally I wouldn't have to go to neighbors. +But I never really had that that interest even though I helped him. +I I learned how to read a map when I was like 10 years old. +I knew how to read a nautical map because we had a boat up on the carry. +But they had him up there's before I was even born. +So they got rid of them. +I think sometime in the early 90s. +But I learned how to read a nautical map. +And I had interest, but I didn't really have that that keen interest that you're saying. +But now I'm really, you know, fascinated about about this stuff. +So yeah. +It's like I was talking to a friend. +Another nerd friend. +And about interest. +And I was reading through my YouTube feed because some of the YouTube channel, some of the tech related stuff that. +Building and gaming and stuff like that. +The PCs. +I really don't have that much of an interest. +And so I've been more getting into history. +They did podcasts and more cultural related ones. +Where I watched one from Lady from Ireland. +And there's one I think. +I can't earn a role that I want to grab on. +But there's other countries. +I think there's like Ukrainian. +There's Spain. +I mean, there's a couple of the ones that talk about life in their coal. +That puts Siberia. +You could. +Yeah, you could. +Yeah. +That's another one I watch. +And it's really fascinating watching these people, you know, talking about their lives and their own countries. +And it's, I just, fact, have a fun new, a fun rather fun appreciation for some of this stuff now. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Like you said, taste change as you get old. +I was listening to some. +It was a podcast. +They were talking about the Parma raids. +And they, you know, McCarthy, witch trials and witch trials. +The anti-communist. +Raids that they did. +And it, um, the point that we're making was how young America was as a country. +And people don't realize that at that time they had a very parochial police force. +They only had a few hundred FBI agents. +And of course, your road system and your infrastructure. +It wasn't all that well developed. +And people, you know, live in Europe or wherever. +They don't appreciate just how quickly it's happened in America. +Yeah, that's general Eisenhower before he became president. +Started in, in Washington, D.C., which is almost in the far east coast. +It's still haven't, you know, a little bit to go to go across anapolis into the actual Atlantic coast. +But anyways, they live from D.C., which also is the Harnations capital, obviously. +So that's where they started. +And they want to go west and you want to see how long it took. +And maybe somebody else can chime in with the actual D.C., I can't remember. +But I'm thinking it took them close to like 90 to 100 days to get to the west coast. +And he pretty much after that ordeal. +Jesus, we need a better way of doing this because this is not not good. +And that's when they, that's why they call it the Eisenhower freeway system is in honor of him. +I think it's good to tune in because we can now. +We don't know if the how long we'll be able to to catch a slice of these are the lives in different countries. +And I mean, especially if they're speaking your language so you can understand them as well. +But even just to watch what they do and it adds a different either technological level or with a different cultural focus, the difference that it can make. +Yeah, the world getting smaller, but yeah, it's so large. +Any time you try walking, you know, or any time where there's a real cultural clash, then yeah, that world is very big. +That's one of the things I like about the podcasting in YouTube is learning you hearing about stuff and talking like talking with you. +And talking other people from other countries and it's kind of kind of interesting. +I was surprised when I park here, I wanted to get mumble, but I just got this, I found Saturday and I'm looking for the mumble client. +And I found one that was actually caught me on this when I'm thinking it actually is from the mumble devs or somebody associated with them. +It has the mumble name, but it hasn't been updated in like several years. +So I was concerned that it was even going to work tonight, but apparently it's working fine. +I guess some protocols, if they work and people leave them alone, then they'll still work later. +Yeah, I think in the one of the things when I was setting this up before I connected, I'm thinking is all this. +Yes, I also tried to check because I had trouble both hearing and speaking. +I guess it said that if you connect to a server and you can't hear anybody or they can't hear you, they're probably not using opus. +I think I found that's one of the reasons, but there are quite a few of this. +I'm sure, could I, this is the first time I've used mumble in, oh heavens. +Well, it's been a few years since I was on Bugcast and I'm thinking, I can't remember when Midcast switched over from mumble. +I'm thinking, I can't remember if that was before then or after, but I know I haven't used mumble in quite a few years. +It's been exactly one year for me since the New Year's Eve show last year. +Same thing. +Oh, that's right. I take that back then. I think I think it was on my computer still or could have been on my phone. +I'm usually a way it worked when I'm thinking it had to been when I had an android. +So I take that back. It probably was mumble or mumble. +Well, mumble is the client and murmur is the server. +Yeah, and I think android theirs was called something else. +No, some other name I can't remember, but it wasn't called mum. +If you searched for mumble, their metadata would take you to the correct app name, but it wasn't called that. +What I'm using is called mumble. +Okay. +I've been listening in all day. +You know, it was poking around the night and came around the dev random pages to love. +And when I looked at the last episode and there I am. +But the sound like I'm talking to a potato. +It's been a minute since I thought about 51.50. +Any y'all remember 51.50? +Absolutely. +Too early for me. +Yeah, past the way a few years ago. +2019. +I don't remember that, but I don't think we ever met in all day. +We live in Kansas. +I met him in person at several, yeah, Kansas. +I met him in person several times at several in 2019, where the Texas Linux Fest. +Yeah, he came up here. +I think 2018 for Linux Fest Northwest. +Yeah, we thought he'd actually died in the hotel because it was supposed to be with us. +We hadn't answered. +We'd stopped at his hotel room a couple of times during the day and he had the answer to the door. +We received the hotel would do a wellness check. +But I think we, we ate as a group. +Several of us, but 51.50 and I had two or three meals just went on our own. +It was a big barbecue place that we went and we did a Brazilian steakhouse right down the +street center that it should have killed both of it so much. +We turned the little cards over. +It'd be a memory that it caused something on the table. +They turned for bringing more food and stop bringing me food. +And they, they filled a whole nether plate after I stopped. +But, but great person. +You know, we should have an August planet life. +Happy New Year, people. +Over and out. +Have a good evening. +So I'm in three. +Nice talking with you, Dale. +Nice talking. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Good night. +Working on networking issues. +And third. +Not at the type you would normally expect. +It's very, very old hardware flowing. +And then, I am working on a model train. +Tell me more about what kind of model train. +Oh, yes. +Cause I had those. +I was younger. +I still like something, even today. +I am a building and in scale, +scale, peedmont northern box car. +That is quite small. +Yes, and scale, let's take some steady hands and some good eyes. +Very near sighted, so I take my glasses off through a lot of the course of work. +That's good. +When I was growing up, we played with 027 and 0 gauge. +And my dad had some HO, and then I ended up with my own little engaged train set that +up in my basement. +I'm trying to remember the gauge. +I'm thinking we had the last one I remember was HO. +Because I'm thinking those were the ones where the engines were, +what about maybe four or five inches long or so. +I'm trying to... +They were... +I know that a match box car was almost... +I think if I remember correctly, I think you could have like two or three match box cars. +And they were the same size as the train. +I mean, we were just raising what have been about the same as we had with an HO gauge. +You can see two rails. +Oh gauge and 027 were AC and they were three rails. +And gauge is more about the width of a pinky two rails. +Okay. +Yeah, I remember being... +I remember how big the end and snowlands, but I was just blanking on the O and the HO. +Yeah, but we had a big set up in our basement when I was going up for a time. +I'm thinking... +I could have until big was that part of our basement. +But I don't remember on too much it. +I'm going to say you could easily fit a car in the basement in that part of the basement. +And that was the length of it. +And then I think the width of it was probably three or four feet. +Some thinking it was probably 12 to 14 feet. +Maybe a little bit longer and like three or four feet wide. +I had a set up to make it long. +Sorry, I tried to step in. +You go ahead. +I had a set about second feet long and five feet wide. +And it was foldable so I could still use the basement. +Ah. +That's a good idea. +So Pirate, the end gauge that you're building. +You're making this out of... +And so I could you repeat that? +Is that a kit that you're putting together or a model? +Or are you actually making it in scratch? +Um, so it's a commercially available model from Atlas. +But I'm heavily modifying it. +I carved a lot of it off and I'm still carving bits of it off. +And the plan is to... +Well, that's I'm done carving things off. +Start adding new things all to it. +Sounds... +That's thought about getting back into model building. +But I thought this through a couple years ago. +And I'm like, yeah, I want to start doing that. +But when I'm done building and where am I going to put them? +So it's more of a factor. +What can I build that small enough that I had run for? +Because I would... +I found some like... +Abrams... +Tanks. +And I found a chassis system. +One of the diesel electrics. +I saw a... +I can't remember the scale of that one. +I'm thinking it was probably... +Like a foot or so, maybe two feet long. +And I think the Abrams was... +But the size of a tree table. +You'd have a rush drawn. +You know, fast food rush drawn. +So I think I would have to find something small. +Because I already have too many other nicknics and stuff in my apartment. +And stuff in my apartment as it is. +I don't have room for much more. +It's definitely easy for many hobbies to take over all available space. +Yeah. +I can find my home lab to a... +An ever measured it. +But it's about... +Well, the 19-inch rack fits in that space. +So I know it has to be probably no more than two feet wide by about four feet high. +Not including where my color laser printer is. +I don't know that. +But yeah, I've had to pair that down to a manageable size. +And then I have my coffee cup collection and the baseball hats. +And figurines. +Yeah. +My office mechanical clock. +Yeah, mine's mostly in my office. +My home office. +So it can serve my bedroom or the living room. +But there's not a whole lot of space in this. +I would put up some shelves or something. +Because oh, I have in my living room is probably how long it is. +I'm thinking maybe five foot long coffee table and some in tables. +And then the stand that the TV's on. +And my bedroom all it has is a small in-table. +My dresser and a computer table. +Yeah, if you ever got up towards Chicago. +I was up there a couple. +Well, I can say a couple of weeks ago because I was just home for ten days. +I was up there recently. +I'm saying I was up there probably two or three weeks ago. +I was actually two exits. +I was on the second exit. +I think it's the western avenue. +Because where I went to. +Off of a two ninety. +Did you ever get up by the museum of science and industry years ago when they had +been there for personal visit. +This was when I was for work, you know, +truck driving. +But I've heard of it. +But I've never had a chance to visit that. +I've seen the last time I had a personal trip there. +It was I went to Navy Pier. +And then there was a. +Oh, I can't remember the name. +It was some type of art museum. +And sort of this thing, right? +Never been to an art museum before. +And I thought, I'm going to go to an art museum. +It was kind of an interesting experience. +And I walked around early downtown and. +Can't remember all the other places. +But I wish I would have known about that. +Because I would have liked to have seen that. +You know, all the time in Chicago. +I've never been to the art museum. +I've never been to the art museum. +About an hour south of Cincinnati. +Oh, yeah, get. +You know, you're bound. +Is that both not London? +Um, that's too much close to Tennessee. +Lexington. +That's what I was thinking of. +That better. +I go through there and I can't even Tom, +Did you ever see in the Walking Dead. +The TV show. +Yes. +Our little town has a mural. +back when that was in production. I was driving through Alabama and I can't +run to the route number off the top of my head, but there I can't even +a venture, I guess. I'm thinking it was maybe Highway 280 or 431 or 400 something +and I was driving up through there and I'm like, why do I have this feeling that +I've been on this road before? Because these signs look familiar to me and +and I realized I was talking to another driver at our terminal at the company +I was working for at that time. I had mentioned it to them and they said, oh yeah, +they filmed some walking dead there. I'm like, oh, but what about the +at the Euro there? Oh, I know as it's there and there was some controversy +they said that it was taking some copyright. That's interesting. But the people did +it anyways. Yeah, the only times early, early next year, the only time I really +watched that was when I was at our terminal and which one of the ones was +they were always watching the walking dead. It was almost like every single time +I was there. I'm thinking it could have been, oh, I just flew on my brain. I just +love getting older. It was a this south of New Hutchins. I think I was used in +school road area. Yeah, they were always playing the walking dead. That's about +the only time I really watched that that and my ex's brother was addicted to that +show. He always had it on the TV. I was not a fan either, but friends of +ours, back in Illinois, we're always playing it. Yeah, the other one that he would play. +Oh, there was like three shows that he was the sopranos. If he wasn't watching the +walking dead, it was the sopranos. And then the other one that he actually turned me +on to was, oh, I'm blanking on the name. The characters was was Moss and the +blonde hair, blonde hair, girls. A few is a UK British old. The IT crowd. +I need to turn it on and off again. Yeah, it's trying to remember the catchphrase. +Did you turn it on and off again? Yeah, yeah, the IT crowd. He watched that. That was about the +only one that stuck with me. It was the IT crowd. Yeah, you watched the sopranos. He was kind +of funny. I would poke fun at him sometimes because you would say, well, there's so much violence +in this. Sometimes I just have to fast forward over the violence. I'm like, it's a drama +about the mafia. They weren't friendly people. So, well, I guess this is an American tradition. +Did all the Americans watch National Ampune's Christmas vacation at least once? +I don't. I've seen parts of it. That's it. +That's a tradition. I have to watch that at least once every Christmas that this cracks me up +the old one of the leg lamb. Oh, that's Christmas story. Yeah, you'll shoot your eye out, kid. +There's a house that I visit a front of mine. He had told me about it. And it's up. +I think on the west side of Cleveland, you could area think that's more of East. But in +turn, remember the name of the town? It's not you could, um, convict Drew Curries from over there. +I'm just of independence. In a case, the house that they shop at Louisiana is there. And they +have the at the leg lamb and everything. But it's just in the suburban neighborhood on the +Lima. That's your young town. Well, my brain's not cooperating with me tonight. But, uh, +I just wish I could remember. But that's probably at the house. And you can tour it. It's kind of +neat. You know, it's like being in the in Ralphie's parents house and that. And we are bumpers' +dogs. And, uh, yeah, that's a little bit of a thing you can see if you ever get in the +Cleveland area of Ohio. You can go to the Rockville Hall of Fame and you can see the Christmas +story house. Yeah, I think my favorite from the Christmas vacation, it's got to be cousin Eddie. +There's some quotes that, uh, I will not repeat since we're being family friendly. +I'm just filling in some notes. How many think that die hard is a Christmas move? You said die hard? +And there's a big debate I've heard on some of the podcasts and some other friends in that +are talking about. Well, they're not die hard. Is a Christmas movie because the debate is +it is in the timeline of Christmas. But people are saying that this because it's in the time +when a Christmas doesn't make it a Christmas movie. It just means it's a movie that was based on +the time of Christmas. And then there are the others that are saying, well, the whole fact that +the claim was doing everything he was doing in the building during Christmas makes it a Christmas movie. +Well, I've only seen that once and I think it might be a Christmas movie. It does have a Christmas +party that gets ruined. And to be honest, it's probably been, sorry, I was, but that was +sure they split in the late 90s. I think. 1988, maybe? Wow, it's that old. Wow. Yeah, I'd say it's +probably been at least a decades since I've seen it. I couldn't even tell it. Because I think the last +two movies of his that I've seen was, what was it, the sixth sense? And what was the one he +is the cab driver? Well, me and the children of each Chris Tucker fifth element. Oh, that's one of +my parents. Yeah, that's hilarious. I actually saw that recently. I forgot a lot of +favorites too. Yeah, I forgot how funny that thing is. I couldn't stand on Christmas or screaming +all that time though. You didn't bother me that much because if you, I don't want to typecast +the actors because I like, I like Chris Tucker and I like Keanu Reeves and I, but there are +those actors or Tom Cruise. They're like the same character in every movie. Because you +look at what's the one with Chris Tucker and Jackie, Chris are. He's kind of a noxious and not as +a noxious as in fifth element, but he's somewhat a noxious in Russia. And then you have Keanu Reeves. +He's pretty much Keanu playing Satan, Keanu playing Bill and Ted, Keanu, you know, playing +noxeter, et cetera. Tom Cruise has always been more of the adventure except for like +footleafs. Was there a new footloafs? You said in footloafs, I don't remember that footloafs. That was, +I think that was his first movie in the 80s or maybe I have the name wrong. No, that was Patrick's +Like I said, it could be a false memory from me because I seem to have missed remember things. +I didn't know that it was his one of his first movies because it was a scene where he was in his +boxers in a t-shirt doing some type of silly dance or something. It could have been the other guy. +I don't remember. I remember him doing a back football from the couch and who he's talk show was the +Bopiko burger. No, that would be um, that would be Goldberg. +Paul is she's the one that gave away new cars to people. Oprah. And he was famous for doing +a back football from her couch. And he was in his Scientology career. Oh, that was Tom Cruise +it in that. Yeah. And wasn't he an airplane movie thing? He played Mavor in the original. +Right. Right. And then in Top Gun, he played the pilot Top Gun. And he also did the mission +impossible. You're not asking any shade against something. The guy's talented actor. I mean, +he insists on doing his own sort of like Harrison Ford. So he recently admitted that +he happily, that's the stuntman, do his stuff now. But he was another one in addition to Tom +Cruise that always insisted that he did his own stunts. He's like, you're paying me to play a role +and patrons of the movie or wanting to see me. The other is I saw an interview. I can't remember if +it was one of the top talking on mission impossible. There's one of them. It was like a behind-the-scenes +thing of how they probably did the stunts and stuff on that movie. And they were interviewing +some of the stunt people. They were on that movie. We've been doing stunts for the other actors +and actresses. And I remember one of the stuntman they were asking about, uh, excuse me, +about Tom Cruise doing his stunts. And he's like, I give him a lot of props. He said, +there are some stunts where I'm like, nope. Not doing that one. Because I think there is one +I'll be dope here by generous starting up here. I'll stop talking here in a second. +I think he was in a cargo plane or something and he was hanging on to the side of the plane. +And it was doing like 130 some awesome hours. Something like that. He's like, nope, +not doing it. Well, I came back for a few minutes and it seems to be quiet. Oh, +not my hair. I haven't seen a new celebrity for a year. What kind of noise were you looking for? +Well, okay. And noise for someone is actually talking. It's not fun talking to myself. I can do +that without being on mumble. Probably get a more interesting conversation that way. I can be +pretty interesting at times. I don't believe we spoken before Raymond's out of the beltway. +I'm not looking at the right screen out of the who you are. What's your name? +This is Moss. No, we had not talked before. I don't think I've seen you on here, Mr. +Yeah, I've given some. I've done maybe three episodes this year. +Yeah, I haven't been alive since. I don't mind if you're on a show. I was on last few years. +I don't know. So I've been on a few times just for new years. Hey Dale, how's it going, buddy? +Hey, Moss, how are you doing? We're hanging in there. Yeah, I'm uh, oh, I haven't done anything +to know where I'm at again. Gaston, Indiana, Petro. Wow. Okay. Exciting. It's very 45. Because I +45 minutes north east of Indianapolis. Well, you know where I am. Yep. You don't Raymond. I am actually +in eastern Tennessee and about an hour or so outside of Knoxville. +I kind of drew them through part of Tennessee coming back from uh, to Texas from North Carolina +years ago. I had thought that that'd be a good place to be if it seemed like it was +mass country and free trees and stuff. Yep. The scenery is good. The weather is good. +As far as as far as the people go, that depends on what you're looking for. Well, I'm +down here on the south coast of Texas. So how bad could it be? Well, that is a good bit south of +the Beltway. I usually think of Beltway being the one ring around DC. Yeah, I got past that. I was +making that coming from DC, but uh, there's no ways around all of this city. +It's south of uh, Pasadena in the port. Don't be silly. Everyone knows Pasadena's outside of LA. +Pasadena Texas. Texas City, the port, Pasadena, Petown, or Petown. +Pasadena, I'm actually still in Houston, but just barely hanging on the southern edge. +Yeah, I can't carry corner there from uh, Switzerland and a Katie. Yeah, I'm more +over towards the website. Yeah, it's fun. I can remember these names, but I can't remember +the other names that I was trying to think of earlier. Brain is funny sometimes. But yeah, I know +Houston quite a bit. I go through there for work. That and Dallas, and then I have my eyes closed +when I'm going through Austin. And you're driving, right? Yeah. It's a, you see, the Lord's +parents, he don't hit me. Actually, it's really not that bad being with your eyes closed, +going through Austin because you're only going like 10, 20 miles an hour or so. Actually, +that might work. My wife got a new car last year. And no, this year. And it's got, um, when you put +on cruise control and keep you between the lines, if they have tiny lines that you can actually see, +which sometimes they don't. And you could, they're ready to let go. Well, for you, keep you +from hitting the lines and it's not at all some driving. And after a minute or two, it makes +noises and says, okay, fine, I'm quitting. You, you have to do this now. Yeah, it sounds like my truck +it told me today that it couldn't drive. And no, it told me I couldn't, uh, could use my cruise +control. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to use my cruise control then. And then it told me +either day that my blind spot, great hours were not functioning, except they were, because it kept +on lighting up whenever I get too close to the right line and too close to the left line. So I'm like, +yeah, I'm so glad we have computers and all these cars now. I cars of 2007, I think the next +car I'm going to just put even older so that I can't be sure it does have any size. Yeah, +my company truck I just got a couple months ago to 2025. But my car is 2017 and it doesn't have +any of that, any of that. It's on it. Well, as you know, I'm driving a 2014 Mazda 2 and it +barely has any belt or whistle at all. Stick shift, even. Really a stick shift. Ooh, ooh, +what a stick shift. Yeah, it's a five-feet stick and boy doesn't have nice zoom. A little bit +he gasoline engine gets 37 miles per gallon. I could have good clean the largest but nice. It's way +better. I didn't know that one had a stick as well because the one that you just are not the +well, you've sold a couple cars lately. The one, the one I wrote in when we went to dinner +the one night, that one was a stick too. That was the same car. I still have the Mazda 2. +Oh, you haven't sold it. I thought you sold that car. We thought about selling it because it's just +too damn much fun to drive. I thought I was going to get a ticket any day and nobody wanted it. Well, +one guy wanted it, but his wife wouldn't let him get it. Susanna is driving a 2014 Hyundai +Alantra with more bells and whistles and you can take a stick at and we're trying to get a Mazda 3 +that's somewhere in the middle but both of those are automatic. Okay, you want to have a +motion automatic so it must have been her card then. Yeah, I still have the Mazda 2 but I might not be +having it much longer because the Mazda 3 that we're getting has a problem with it and +after we bought it, she decided we didn't cheat and like it and the dealership is trying to +figure out what they're doing about the problem and of course there aren't any mechanics in this +time of year and it's likely all wind up with that one but it's got a few bells and whistles, +automatic transmission but it actually gets better. Yes, I was in my little bitty Mazda 2. +What kind of problem is your card hanging away? What long was that? It's a Mazda 3 hatchback and +I haven't driven it while it was having a problem. Susanna said that something to do with the +transmission and the dealer we bought it from has it in the shop and they're trying to figure out +what whether they want to fix it or just pull bait and switch and give us a different vehicle. +Fresh it. Hmm. I say, I say, crush it. Now, my wife's a vehicle is lost. We just got a loan for it. +We're not going to crush it right now. No, they should crush it and give you a new one. +There are a lot of things they should do but I don't think that's what they're going to be doing +but we will find out in a few days. My experience owning the car I've gotten down the last +60 years taking it when I'll take it to dealers. They don't fix what you take it in for and they always break +one extra thing. Well, in this case we bought it from the dealer who can they owe us and there's +only one place to take it. That's the dealership. I tell a bummer. Also, that's why I want to call it +older than 2007. I talked to the mechanic that replaced my brakes and asked him if he could work +on some of the other stuff in my car and he said, no, because it's all computer. So he had to take it back to the dealer. +And so if you had bought it 2006, I could work on that. Well, like I said, there's almost nothing +bells and whistles on my little monster too. There was some security thing built into the key +but that said, there's no key fob or anything. I've got two trips of oddometers and that's all. +But the road that you don't have a road or a carburetor and I don't have the kind of money it takes +to keep a car that has a rudder and a carburetor on the road. Now, it doesn't cost me a thing. +It's just like once a month you have to open the hood and do a little something yourself. +That's how you keep those from you. You don't know me very well, do you? +Oh, excuse me. I didn't know this. +It was more complicated than the guitar I can't play with it. +And guitar looks pretty complicated to me. +Well, I will see about being back later. I don't know why I might just want to spend time with my wife +for a change. You'd be good, Dale, drive safe. Well, thanks. Good here and from you. +Good here and from you. Maybe you can drop by sometime. Yeah, they've been keeping me +in the and the south. I was by failure area last month. But the timing wasn't +wasn't good. So I didn't contact you. But he I was over by paper mill drive. +Over in that area and then I had to go north of their off of 140 up to 321. I can't remember +the name of the town. But that would have been too far for you to come anyways. And I was only +going to be there for like an hour or two. So well, like I said, anytime you're up I 81 you'll +as a call. I know. Or US 25. Yeah. Yeah. I usually either one sometimes. All right, you take care, Dale. +All right. Nice talking to you, Raymond. Yeah. What did you think of the the cult snap you had +a while ago there down in the coast? I had to wear a long pants. I thought I'd go a long +pants again today. It's terrible. I remember I was coming from I can't remember where I had to +live. I think I delivered somewhere. It's not important. But I was on the west side. I think I was +over towards Seely. Summer over there. Oh, that's what it was. I was delivered to the Walmart +distribution center there at Seely. And then they had me go over to I came +up or if it was the port or if it was Pasadena. But nobody was on the roads. I can't believe +that I went through Katie, went through Sugarland down around. Came up to 25 and never slowed +that except for maybe a couple of times for some of the inner changes. But yeah. And I got there +and the load to be up. And they said, you're lucky. Instead, be almost didn't come in +to work today. And I'm like, oh, really. He's like, where you're from, this isn't like these +to Ohio. Because, oh, you know how to drive from this. And like, yeah. But yeah, that was quite an event +down there. This this this pretty food is around here. If it takes the very slightest weather +people freak out and they don't know what to do. And then they say, let's go somewhere and get +the car and go crash. But yeah. Sorry. Yes, it's like when it gets foggy out, you know, my +batown out towards, you know, going towards Basin Lewis. And it gets foggy and people just don't +slow down in the end up with 10 and 15 car accidents. You can a case like, when you were saying +time I driving straight on for a use. And I was thinking, you'll never do that in all of +two of the elements. Except for the first year of the pandemic, I remember I was parked at the +petro and Wutherford, Texas, which is about 40 miles west of Fort Worth on 20. Yeah, I know where +weather for this. And I was, it was, I left at 6 a.m. one day morning. And I couldn't leave any +later. But I thought, well, let me see how the roads are because coming up through the +Arizona and the Mexico and stuff was abandoned, you know, no traffic at all. So I leave +Wutherford at 6 a.m. And my crew said for 70, I never tapped the break until +the 35, I think it was the 35 year of a 35 W interchange. But that was only the slow down to about +60 to let the vehicle merge in. And then I was right back up to the speed. And I was all the way +through, through Dallas, Brockwall, Thay, Pumbi, I was hammered down. And I'm like, you know, that's +never going to happen again as long as I live. Yeah, I didn't go Dallas here. I didn't leave a house +during the pandemic. What do you drive on? You need a big truck driver? Yeah, yeah, my company +was last month of the January December. I got into November. It's a 20, 25, 10 worth T680. I've +nicknamed it night writer. The only thing it, well, it technically does talk to me, but that's the +call. Come, that's when I company sends me messages and stuff. It'll read about to me. But I pretty +much, the full name of my truck. I call it kit, Christine, because it tries to drive itself. +Yeah, Christine tries to kill me. Yeah, as getting that point, yeah, I say, this is what +trying to train, so I could talk and swallow at the same time. Yeah, it's like pretty much the +night writer side keeps the smart cruise and tells me if I'm getting too close to a car or too close +to either lane. And then the Christine side tries to kill me, like, somebody cuts me off, and +they're already three quarters three down the ramp, and then it hits the brakes. And like, too slow, +there's, give me. Yeah, I told one of the people at the company, and I said, if this truck +kills me, I'm coming back to harm you. Yeah, I'm a Stephen King fan, so I need a new talking about. +I've got a cousin that was used to do long truck drives, and his wife didn't like it too much, +and he got stuck in it. He started to see if the company would give him something that +where he could stay, you know, from home at that. So they gave him a job where if they have a factory +and the factory makes something of a material that's used by another factory. So one factory +makes this stuff, and the other factory is loaded into a truck, and then he drives about a quarter +of a mile to the other place, and then he unloaded it, and I use that to make something else. +That's all he does, but back in the port between the two, and the union, his union, +had been preventing the company from making a conveyor belt between the two buildings. +I haven't talked to him lately, I suspect he's retired now. Yeah, we've had some issues with some +of the manufacturing sites in Mexico, because some of our customers have some other stuff +partially assembled, or they send stuff down to be assembled. They, like example, +will send wire down and develop the Mexicans. We'll make the wire harnesses, and then we'll take +the wire harnesses back to the manufacturing plant for them to be installed. So I know what you mean +at the last time, I was down in El Paso, where I'm going now. I think this was one +two ago. Yeah, truck drivers were striking, because they were getting tired of being harassed +by Visitas, which is the mafia, paramilitary group down there in Mexico. +They wanted to use their truck doctors? No, they have their own none of us, the +Americans go into Mexico. They do a trailer exchange, or we will leave a trailer at a secured +lot, and then Mexican driver will come in, take that trailer across the border, and bring it back, +either empty or bring it back loaded or something, and we take it to the customer in the United +States. But they were complaining about the border violence, and it's not even the fact that +they're being personally harassed. It's the fact of collateral damage. You know, and these +truck drivers, I didn't have to call them traffickers, drug lords, or whatever they are. +Those shooting, and they have no discretion. You get in your way, you get in their way, +and you'll be lucky to make it out. So they, because that's just an impossible environment to live +in and work in. You try to make a do your thing. During the Vietnam War, I was, as a soldier, +you're going into people who live there, or like, trying to grow rice, and they're out there, +plowing and picking rice, and growing things, and walking through their territory, +and pretending they're not there, and they're trying to pretend you're not there, it's crazy. +And I can't imagine what it would be like to be on the other end of that. +Helping with bad enough being on the end, I was on the end. +I've heard stories from some other veterans that have excuse me, +have experienced that, and I've talked to some of the, not too many of the drivers, because +they're English, it's not very good, but yeah, I mean, it's, excuse me again, +it's like I was involved in a shoot-out once when I was leaving a customer in a Chicago on +West suburbs. Well, still in town, but it's not like downtown. It was still like 130, +there's something like that. And the long story short, I'm driving, you know, the semi, +on the road, when I come to it, I'm coming up to a T intersection to get onto the main highway, +or the main highway, but the main, you know, main road. Now, looking at my mirrors, +and this SUV is just floating, and it's closed by me and I'm like, dude, you're not going to make +that turn. Sure enough, see the brake lights come on, and he rolls it into this person's front. +And then I see Chicago PD, their sirens coming, and they, and I stop, excuse me again, +I stop probably going to be 100 feet, 75 feet before the actual intersection. And the cars +roll up, and they're parked beside me, and they're parked, and they're coming in from the main street, +and all of a sudden, I'm sitting there in the driver's seat, and I hear this, not like, +second, and I know what's in there, I'm knocking my door, let's Chicago PD, and he's like, +get out of your truck, I open up the door and get out truck, and he says, get down, and I said, +that was fire, and he said, yes, it's a keep behind your trailer, none of that. They're not aiming at you. +So you're probably better off ducking down, staying in your seat, just kind of ducking down. +That's why I told him, but what I did was I just, uh, shimmyed down to the, uh, and scrunched down +behind my, uh, trailer axles, uh, back, and uh, waited for them to give me the old clear, but yeah, +guy kicked the door open on the SUV, and uh, I was peeking out from, uh, from the tire, and yeah, +he's just, you like, promised like, uh, like an animal popping out of the hole, you just pop up. +Stocked up back down, and they had the, they heard the, uh, big, uh, engines like, you know, +like, like, my truck. There was this water team, they come into a fire, they're, their AKs, +and uh, a little about him, and they surrendered. Because uh, I've never heard a live, uh, +automatic weapon in person. +And that was like, this is the kind of like holy crap. +But that was a fun experience. +Yeah, that spawn is like you said. +You said you had a peak. +No, that's when you roll completely behind something. +And you get out your phone and all your book. +You read a little bit or you think about something else. +And you're a single little song. +You take a little gift for your bottle. +And until they say, okay, you're back in your truck. +Okay, I'm done. +You don't go. +Oh, yeah, let me peek out here. +No, no, no, no, no, no. +Well, there was a, there was a column. +And I'm like, did they get them? +And that's when I sort of, this peaked around. +And then I saw, uh, some, uh, dust, +and get disturbed around the of the troll car, +which was in the truck 65 feet long. +And the car was ahead of me or ahead of my trucks. +So if you're about over 70 or so feet, +I mean, total 70. +And I saw, you know, the bullets hit my ground. +I'm like, nope, I scrunched up. +Deal, you know, on my, on my, on my butt. +My knees up to my chest. +And I'm this, there's my chin on my, on my knees going. +What am I doing here? +But the, uh, I heard the officer yell back to me. +And it was all clear. +Well, that was that, so. +Okay, you can go there. +Well, it's funny, because I heard doors closing in their hood +engines drive in the way. +And then I hear a trunk closed because they were put in their assault weapons away in their trunk. +And the guy, you know, back to me. +You know, like I said, it's clear. +And I get up. +I start walking up back towards my truck. +And that's it. +Is this a common occurrence? +This is, um, I have to remember this was like 2008, 2007. +And is it well? +The rolling of the SUV into the yard. +And that, you know, that, that's not very often. +But, you know, gun, gun fights. +Yeah, that's unfortunately when you're in the Haywood. +I can't remember the name of the town I was in. +But he said, yeah, when you're in the, uh, is it this? +I can't remember the name of the town anymore. +But he said, yeah, when you're in this, this, uh, car of the city. +It's not uncommon to hear, uh, hear small arms, even during the day. +I don't know if it's changed since then. +He had a special small arms. +So there's just occasional cannons. +Yeah. +Yeah, I'm thinking there's probably more like locks sometimes. +Maybe. +Oh, no, not rockets. +Oh, no. +No, but, uh, I have heard of, uh, +4th of July is all year round. +It's far as border rockets and M80s. +Well, that would be pretty annoying. +My dog right now is having a sit because, uh, +he's cowering into the bits somewhere because of the firecrackers. +I talked to, uh, and, uh, +I was, I had, oh, I'd have to look at map. +It's not important. +I was well blessed with, uh, Chicago. +I was, uh, Aurora. +I can't remember. +It was, but it was South of Rockford. +Any case. +The, uh, the short version of the story. +This guy was, uh, part behind my truck. +And I'm waiting a line to go into this place to get loaded. +And they had to park the street because he didn't have from the park on their, uh, +because the way, the way he came in, he came in on the street. +He turned right. +He went down. +Carol's parallel to the building. +He turned right. +And then backed into one of the three dogs. +And then he would pull out, you know, +and then the next truck of coming and, you know, do that whole thing over here. +So I'm parked on the street waiting to come in. +And this guy knocks on my door and said, +you hit my car. +And I'm like, no, it didn't go away. +Instead, I'm calling the police. +And I go, go ahead. +I don't care. +Like I said, long story short. +I think there's Aurora. +I don't know. +I can't, I need anyways. +He shows up. +And I see him in my mirror. +And this was probably what 15 years ago or so. +And he's like looking. +And then he's walking up along my trailer up to where my truck is. +And he's just like shaking his head. +No. +He comes over and I open up my door, +driver said door. +And he looks at me. +And he said, I know you didn't hit him. +I said, oh, was it that obvious? +I said, that's hail of damage. +What type of idiot does he think I am? +He said, what? +How many of these are truck? +I said empty. +I'm up 32, 33,000 pounds. +Trather itself up 14,000. +And he said, if you hit him, +you would have, you know, met a crease. +And then so he tells the guy, you know, +the pound sand and not to bother him, +making a false police report. +And he explained to me, he said, +that bumper running up on your car. +If he did back up and hit you, +there would be like a six foot wide scrape going up your hood. +But anyways, he would tell me he was just talking with me +for a few minutes after he finished with the guy. +He was telling me that I was nothing was written up. +Nothing is recorded. +It is as if nothing happened. +But he was talking to me. +He told me that his father was a truck driver. +Oh, this stuff. +And he told me that I think his brother, +his uncle, was one of the security +for the production company for the Blues Brothers +is what I was getting out for this whole rambles. +And he was able to be on the set while they were filming +many parts of that movie. +Because a lot of that movie was filmed in Chicago. +And he's a little great movie. +But the change was great. +Yeah, the mall, the mall that used to be there. +That mall was already condemned and was waiting to be demolished +in the production company was like, hey, +could we film a scene where a car drives through the mall? +And then, well, you know, pay for any damages. +And they're like damages. +It's condemned. +And we're just waiting for the city to approve its destruction. +I'm like, I think that is Lou. +Yeah, I think that Lou is before. +I'm wondering if they searched around for a place +that was already going to be torn down +because, oh, man, it's a lot of damage they're doing. +So that makes a lot of sense. +But it is funny. +Because I said, where does that mall have? +And he said, you know, when you're going on house +to, on one, I don't quote me on this. +I'm thinking of this as the name of the road +and the route number. +So I'm doing this for like five years ago. +Yeah. +So, hey, you know, when you take out one from 80, +you go north, and you see that big concrete, +like football field, before the grass, +if the size, before the grass and stuff, +you'll see some like cars and trucks park their occasionally. +And we're here at driven by that many times. +That's where the mall was. +I'm like, oh, really? +But he was told me about all the memories +that he had with his dad's brother +up there doing the security and stuff. +And the high speed chases under the under the L. +And they had to block off the road. +So nobody would cut off the, the dodge going through the, +underneath the elevated, you know, the L. +And the A's kind of funny. +And he's, uh, is telling me that the nickname +for a cook county, which is the county seat of Chicago. +They called it Cruck County. +Well, that makes us cook county. +It took me a second to remember what was the name of the county was. +A down in Texas, we don't pay a lot of attention +to county names. +Hope it in places like Illinois. +Way in Texas. +What you got? +327 counties. +I can imagine not knowing. +Knowing the name. +Is that all we got? +Like, the last time I looked at the bio is curious. +Because I remember this is one of the funny things +about being a truck driver. +I mean, it's a little bit better now +to technology to look information up and everything. +But I remember, could I've been driving since December of 2000. +Very, this is well before we had smartphones and mobile internet. +I remember I was in each North Dakota at a restaurant. +And I'm in the truck and start to rock. +And it's like rockin' pretty good. +So I, yeah, trucks radio has a, when to call that, +but the radio, no other radio. +So I found the channel that they were broadcasting on. +And they're like, a funnel cloud was located 30 miles south +by southeast of the whatever airport name that they gave. +And I'm like, oh dear. +And I'm like trying to look on this motor carriers out of this. +Of where I'm at. +And I'm trying to find this airport. +And it's, you know, the town. +And I'm like, I don't know what county I'm in. +I don't. +It's like, said, and there's like a couple of occasions like that +where I've been part, like I was at a rooster in many, +one Manhattan Kansas. +You know, the same thing where, you know, there's a +radio warning you're spotted. +They're saying, yeah, these counties are affected. +And I'm like, I don't know what county I'm in. +I think every, I think you, obviously, you have that that happened more often +the radio people. +But who knows if you drive across country, what county you're in? +Now, I'm in southeast Texas. +And east Texas, the counties go past every 15 or 20 minutes. +You're in another county. +Up in the, in New England, you every 15 or 20 minutes. +You're in another state. +So, I can see where county. +What county? +I was thinking, when you're talking about the guy saying he hit your car, +hit your truck for your truck or his car. +Don't you have cameras all over this thing. +Now, cameras are so easily gotten. +Aren't you all well provisioned with cameras to keep +four hours from being a problem? +Well, we do now. +This was like 15 years ago. +I think I think the first +camera system I had on the truck was, well, for the company that +companies that I was, I can't say for the entire industry. +But the first one that I had was, I think in 2012, +summer, summer around there. +I mean, my company here, when I work for now, +we've had these camera systems. +My anniversary is going to be seven years in April. +So, I'm thinking we've had these cameras for at least five years. +But yeah, anymore, we don't want to mess with these trucks, +because you're being recorded. +And our company, they don't do this much anymore, +because they made the point across to us. +But when we first got them, they would point out how much money +that these cameras have saved us. +In the litigation, like they had one, +this one suit was filed against us for like $0.2 million. +And they turned over the footage to the lawyers, +and the lawyers dismissed the case. +I mean, I've had my own experiences where somebody accused me +as sideswipe in their car, and there was no evidence on the camera +that I was even remotely close to them. +And we've had drivers that say that, +you know, they claim that we run people off the road. +We had this one video of this young lady coming down the ramp. +And she's got her wrists on the bottom part of the steering ball +just text in a way. +And she comes up on the side of our truck. +And the ramp ends. +And now she's on the shoulder of the road. +And it got her attention. +And she panicked and hit the brakes. +And then, you know, merged into the, onto the industry. +And, quote, please, and say that one of our trucks, +you know, ran off the road. +And the, we had the ability, or our safety, +because the ability to email a link to the footage, +because it's a stored online. +There's like a website portal that you can go to, +and watch the videos, profile enforcement, etc. +So it's, you don't have to address it in court. +You don't even have to get the company lawyers involved. +You say, here's what happened. +And the police can look at it and say a lot of money. +Yeah, the one that had them to two after a million dollar thing, +was a proactive thing. +And the lawyer has got a poll of the police report that showed +the link to the camera footage. +And they pretty much called up and said, +yeah, this ignore that, we're dismissing that suit against you. +Yeah, a lot of that time, it doesn't even go that far. +It's like it's the officer in the cruiser watching the video on their laptop. +And it's, they had a video they showed. +And she says, I'm the way for films. +And I was saying, you see the car bump, go off onto the shoulder, +and then she looks up and she looks to the left, looks to the right, +and then slow us down, all on camera. +And the officer was, you know, not too, not too pleased. +Because, you know, they don't really enforce it. +But filing a false police report is a fine. +Yeah, there are a lot of things they don't enforce that they show it +and some things they enforce, probably which they should look the other way. +Yeah, like speed limits. +I'm okay with speed limits being, at least, I'm not talking one over two over. +But I'm, yeah, speed limits, I'm okay with in keeping people going, +you know, if it's, the speed limit is 35 because the side roads are every, +you know, 200 feet you got another side road coming in. +Yeah, that's a reasonable thing or 40 miles an hour or whatever it is. +And people typically go 50, that's, that's not good. +I talk, I talk to a Texas state trooper at our rest area in between, +all of this in Hill Country. +So I'm thinking they was somewhere between Van Horn, +not Van Horn. +Come on, bring in, think, any case, it was, it was West of San Antonio. +It was, it's after you go through Van Horn, +Ifdy goes, Ifdy do the crossover across for I20 begins. +Anyways, you'll see a sign for it when you are going east on 10. +It will come to me later, but because there's a restoration on that area. +You talk to the state trooper. +And this was just after they went to a, was it 75, 80 miles an hour? +And I asked him, what's the fastest you clock somebody going through here? +And you actually pulled them over and he said, 120, and I said, what, what did they tell +you? +And he said, well, some were like, oh, he's only going 120 for like a minute or like 30 seconds +and then some of them are like, well, let's know the cars on the road. +If I were to solve one, I would have slowed down and he said, do you realize how many feet per +second you're traveling, someone comes in on and on or after going even 70 miles an hour +and you're going 50 miles an hour faster than they are. +You're not going to be able to slow down. +And if you try to swear, you're just going to turn yourself into a festival. +Then there's the, I don't have a problem. +So if everybody's driving 85, if the roads are up to it on the highway where the only +side road every five miles, I don't have a bit of problem is going 80 and 65. +That's fine, I don't do it typically, although there was a time where I did, but if everybody +is going 65, 70 and you're driving 90, which means you're changing lanes, you know, +three or four times a minute, that's record driving and they'd be stopped and somebody +needs to drag you out of your car and beat you up. +Well, that might be strange. +Yeah, I mean, it's as pausing to see if anyone else wanted to jump in and be a conversation. +Oddly, I've noticed Southeast Texas has the slowest speeds because if you're up Dallas, +Amarillo, anywhere in the Northern Hill Country, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, you've got 75, +80 mile in our speed limits. +As soon as you leave Seely and you're coming into a Haiti, it goes down to 65, there's +sections going through Vidor and Beaumont, 60 miles an hour, 55 miles an hour. +And I think it's kind of odd that the speed of the steering there, I mean, a good section +all the way from the Louisiana State border all the way to Houston is only 70 for like a very +short, in very short sections, most of it's like 65. +Yeah, you've got an out, I live in Houston, most of my mountains in Houston, I hardly ever +need to sit in this, but you've got to get a long way away from downtown Houston before you ever +see even 70. And I didn't even, I was surprised one time, I was heading out somewhere, +San Antonio or somewhere, I saw this feeling, they changed to 70, if I don't know, when did they do that? +Yeah, it's been a while. I'm thinking how I'm going to have an +I know it's in the 75 for at least at least seven years. Well, I know it's been as a good +while now, but I mean, I just remember the first time I saw it, I had not seen an announcement +or anything in paper about it and I was just surprised because I was probably doing 65 and people +really zip and pass. People don't, that's definitely sold a 75 mile or a sign, which means people +were really jobbing 85. Yeah, I hadn't heard an announcement either, it's this one day, they just +showed up and I'm like, oh, what does matter to me? I can't go any faster than what I'm going +now, so I'm not going to worry about it. And if I'm going to the hill country and I'm heavy, +I'm going to go slower anyways. And I know a friend's former co-worker, he retired, that he was a +heavy hole and he had this monstrous, the powerful truck. He would all like excavating equipment +stuff that weighed, you know, 100,000 pounds. He would talk about going across item and his truck +can do it every bit of, you know, 90, 100 miles an hour. He's talked about going through the +I remember he had made a mention to a mutual friend. So, yeah, they made sections of I-10, +east of a man or an 80 miles an hour, so that doesn't going to have to slow down now. +I often thought, as I see signs, how difficult it must be for truck drivers, where you go, +I'm not sure Texas does it anymore, but they used to be one speed limit for cars, a lower speed +limit for trucks. trucks not allowed in the inside lane, trucks not allowed in the outside lane, +trucks not allowed in this lane for the next 50 miles or something. And it's like, okay, +now you've got to remember all that as long as as well as I'm having trouble remembering 90, +60 miles an hour or 65. Yeah, not to ramble on too much about that, but yeah, +get this to give some brief examples. California is 70 for cars 55 for trucks. Now, that has an +interesting dynamic because there are the trucks that will go 70, there are the trucks that are +go 65, there are the trucks that will go 60 and then there are the trucks that go 55. Now, +me since I've been doing this for two decades, I will roll with the flow. I won't go that +fact, you know, 70, but there have been occasions where I've gone across, I've four-year +crossed Joshua Tree and a few female mountains and definitely at 65 because there's nothing out there. +Literally, nothing out there. I mean, Edwards has thousands of miles of land out there, +Edwards Air Force Base. I think NASA had a facility out there. And that creates an interesting +dynamic because they're on an EG at the cars that are doing 75 and 80, but now you have a whole +group of trucks that are either going 75, 60 or 55, which adds to the congestion and problems. +Yeah, that's what I'm always thought was the problem is that it doesn't matter how fast +everybody's going. It's long that everybody's going about the same speed. It's not difficult, +changing lanes. It's somebody's going a little faster or a little slower. You just move over and +get ahead of them and move back over wherever you need to do, but if somebody's going way slower, +you want to go around them. If they're going a little bit slower, it's not that hard to just drop +back and not worry about it. Or it's easier to get around them if you want to go a little faster, +but when the speeds are so different, it seems I can get a problem. Yeah, and like I said, +not to ramble too much about it, to give it to some other examples. Now, I haven't been in Oregon +and probably haven't been in Oregon in at least 10 or 12 years. But they had sections where it +was 60 for trucks in 75 or 70 for cars. Nevada is 75 cars. I think 70 for trucks. I think +Nomexico is 75 in 70. Arizona is 75 in 70. I think there are sections that are 75 for both. +I can't remember specifically. Texas is unified except what you mentioned before about lane +restrictions. Like when you're going on 35, once you... I can't remember if there is a section +between San Antonio and Bronfals, I don't think so. I think once you get on the north side and +your Bronfals, there is a section of like 95 miles where no trucks in the left lane. And then there +are sections. I think there could be sections on 45. I can't remember. In any case, +Tennessee, we'll have areas that are 60 for trucks at 70 for cars, specifically like through Memphis, +Bristol. Knoxville got rid of theirs. Knoxville as you can go the same speed as cars. And +Nashville, everyone slows down to 55 through there. And then I think most of the south trucks go as +fast as the cars do. Like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, as memory serves me. But California also +has lane restrictions for trucks. And it's pretty much you have to stay in a certain lane just +to be safe. Because you go from like two lanes to five lanes to three lanes to four lanes. +Well, if you don't want to talk about trucks anymore. Oh no, no. Why no, that's okay. Why is it +called a geeky, a geeky of broadcasts? Oh no, what I'm saying is the others that are listening +and not trying to, you know, the conversations. I understand that, that's okay. And I don't +think there are worse things that we'll be talking about in this 24 hours. But I'll be talking +about trucking. I was kind of, I was, is it interesting? But I'm thinking there's probably not +that make truck drivers out of here because you don't have much time to ride a coal ball or a path on +or play with your litigee computer. Well, yeah, because I don't mind talking about trucking and +I could like being somewhat of an advocate for trucking to try to make people aware of certain +dangers and the fact that we're not vindictive. I mean, some drivers, you can have a bad driver, +regardless if they're driving a car, driving a truck, driving a semi. But I think people just have +to just take a deep breath and realize that this person is doing a job. They have +possibly been driving for the past seven, eight hours through many states of traffic, not states, +but I mean, physical, you know, the actual states, not the state of the traffic, which can be, +you know, congestion or, you know, bad weather or anything, but the multiple, you know, states. +So this give that person a little bit of some leniency because he's not only just dealing with your +traffic, he's dealing with the traffic in the city that he was in an hour ago, two hours ago, +three hours ago, and overall, I think people usually are pretty good around trucks. There are +going to be the people that want to cut you off. But the way I look at it after two decades is +they're not, not very many are actually signaling out the trucks. They're doing it to everyone. +If you're in a lane set, you're not in a lane. Yeah, that's the thing. I've always figured +a truck is more likely to be staying in a sling, more likely to signal a lane change, +less likely to slam on a break, less likely to do something to cause the accident. If I don't +drive right, stay next to a truck because that's just scary. Because there's so big, but +you guys get on past them, but you don't worry about them drifting into your lane to +cover their texting or about paying attention. And if it's after 10 o'clock at night, +in you figure one in three people is at least a little bit tipsy. Sometimes it's probably +hard. And that's the way I feel that truck driver. So you give them some space, you give them a fly +as if they're one, they want to move into your lane. You always ease off the accelerator +and fly off my headlights to say you can move over. And I try not to get, I don't jump in front of +them to because they're being prudent, letting a little space between them in the next car, +which car driving stuff do. So yeah, I understand what you're doing. And I applaud the consistency +of front drivers. And it's you probably do a good job for being consistent at the end of the +day or day that I do. It's the biggest thing is getting stamina. I had pretty good because +when I got my driver's license, I was the grocery getter or I was take grandma at the +disappointment. I am glad to hear that you have a driver's license. And oh yeah, that's a +revelation that some of these states are finding out that some of these people do not, +which is kind of kind of scary when they're driving 80,000 pound vehicle and you haven't even been +licensed. Yeah, but I would take turns driving the vacation because my dad, we never flew +very many times for vacation because my dad always said, well, you can't see anything six miles in +the air. And so he wanted the drive to wherever we're going for a vacation. So I got to build +at my endurance for driving the Montreal or driving the to a little beach or you know, +setter, et cetera, et cetera. So when I got my CDL, I already had the endurance of driving like +eight hours nine hours. So it was a big difference, a big difference because I've got exceeding six +mirrors. I have my fender mirrors. I've got my convicts and convicts and convicts and cave mirrors. +I need on each side and I've got you know 53 foot trailer behind me. So the wind and you know, +other things that you can keep your mind occupied. And you can get tired, especially if it's high +wind or getting that upper arm workout trying to keep the truck in the lane. And so I pretty much +like a sailboat trying to lean into the wind. And you said, but not staying beside the trucks. +If anyone is listening to this or everyone, you know, that's listening to this. Now if you're +in so traffic, that's one thing. But if you're going in your state speeds and if you can help it, +don't hang out next to me. Now if you want to be in the mid section, that's not as bad. +Though you still can be in the line of fire in case one of my drive tires blows out. But if +the thing, that's 150 pound tire of 125 pounds of air, 120 pounds of air, you don't want that +exploding in your face. So if you're going to pass me do it quickly, because I've had in the past +a drive tire blow out. And it snapped the rod iron, rod iron, holding up my mud flap. And it +ricocheted across the side of my trailer. And there were like one inch or so gashes in the in the +rail, where you see you with a marker later at, or the turn signal is at. So that's my PSA. +It's uh, don't hang out next to me, because you might get yourself a very good surprise. +I saw a trailer wheel come off in the 18th winter one time on 35 at highway speeds. And I was +I was in a parking lot just on the uh, theater road. And one wheel came off. And the truck +just kept going didn't have a clue. One of those, the outside wheels of the, the back of the trailer +came off. And just bounced over the, uh, the side of the little gate, the fence there. And +just bounced across the middle. We needed an onto the theater road and just kept bouncing +and kept going. And it would have a mile. This was really sailing. And that thing, the theater yard +place. And number, I'm not even, I can just guess, it, I don't know 15 more years ago. +I had traveled through uh, Gary, Indiana on 80, 80, 84. And I see emergency vehicles on the side of the road. +So we get over lane. And up ahead, I see a flood then missing a coil. And I looked and like, oh, +that's what that is. Uh, a coil of a wire or steel rather, came off his, uh, trailer and unraveled +and then rolled itself. And it was like a couple miles long. It is unraveled. That's the road. +That's the right. Oh, man. I mean, it was like he, nobody got hurt. But they had multiple, +mobile loading rigs, you know, come, you know, pick up truck. You have a F-650s, a F-750, you know, +pick up trucks with the utility boxes on there. And they had the loading stuff and they were +cutting up this wire and loading it on to other trucks to a hallway. Wow, I, now the road +itself weighed tons. And um, I can imagine who's actually on one day as a road. I can't imagine +seeing that either could kind of, I prefer that, uh, I'm speaking, had a friend that did flood +bidding for a few years. And he told me that those roles can be 50, 50, 3,000 pounds. +Just that, that's, that's easy. Sure. Right. That's not hard to believe at all. +Just that that's again. Let me get my calculator. 53,000. And the average car is about 3500 pounds. +I'm just guessing. That's the weight of 15 automobiles. +So they had that kind kind of scary. +That's why you see them. Well, if I can one of them in the center of the trailer to distribute the weight, +usually with the big trucks load stuff right. And that is, it's the people with pick-up trucks, +with the refrigerators. We saw, we were about truck the other day that there's a pick-up truck +with a refrigerator and it didn't appear that many tie-downs at all. That going, uh, +that guy goes very far. That thing's going out the back. Yeah, just so a picture on +telegram earlier today. That's somebody shared in the groups I'm in. +I'll be a SUV going down the road with a touchscreen TV strapped to the luggage rack. +And the wind is lifting it up and it ends up like at a 45 or so degree angle, +somebody took a picture of it. That was probably still there when it got home, but it had been +beaten to pieces. Yeah, he probably had the, I hope he bought the protection plan. +Yeah, he had a friend. This was several years ago. He had bought the TV, I think, +it was from Sam's Club. And he didn't know that his wife got the protection plan, +because this was back when TV's were expensive. I mean, like now he can get what 75 +and TV for like $400, you know, type of thing. This was back when, you know, 43 inch, +you know, TV was, you know, 2 grand. So they got this. I came in for help. They were +48 inch, something like that. 43, 48, something like that 50 inch TV. And they +headed for years. And one day they went to turn along, make her the crack noise, and their +son was like, I suppose something burning. And a sure enough TV short of out or something. +So like, well, we got, you know, 57 and whatever years out of it. And it's small. We're +thinking about getting the bigger TV anyways. Long story short. They go to the same, you know, +Sam's Club. And they're looking and they're like, wow, it's going to just so much bigger and +less expensive than what we paid for whatever inch. And this is, is it a hell? It wasn't, +you know, like, told him how old is it? Did you get the protection plan? You know, like, +and my friend, Mike's like, no, and his wife Sarah's like, well, I know you didn't, but I might +have in the salesman's like earlier, the person there at the sense of, let's come open the +computer. Let me get your information. Would you believe it was that week that the television +worrying that the extended replacement plan expired? And they were able to get, I can't remember +what they had to pay. I think it was something like $200 or something like that. I can't remember +what the stipulation wasn't a plan. But they were able to get this, the 65 and 70 inch TV for like $200 +that was like $200. That's pretty remarkable. You know, these days you can't get a plan +more than a couple of years. We have a, you know, we have a 32 inch flash screen that calls $1500. +And here, two or three years ago, I got a 43 inch for less than 500. And this Christmas +song told my wife, you know, Mike TV's not really big. And she said, no, you can refer for that +same $500 up for the 43 inch. You can now get a 60 or something. And crazy, when I, when I was on +dedicated to the council, Walmart era, some parts, this was back 2008. And some areas didn't +have Walmart trucks to deliver. You'll see some areas where Walmart trucks are not pulling +the Walmart trailers. And it's also a capacity issue too. Anyways, I remember when those TV +started to get popular. And I had to be on the dock while they were unloading the truck for safety +reasons. And a member of management had to be there to observe the unloading too. So we were just +talking amongst ourselves. And I remember them telling me about the their sales, what they were doing +of the TVs and everything. And the price of them was this crazy, I remember one time at the +black Friday, they had people like lined out waiting to come into the store. But now you look at +the prices. Now it's even more crazy. I think the amount of income is in Sam's club doing +some shopping before I left for work. I think it was like a 75 inch or 85 inch. I can't remember what +it was. And it was a lesser brand. Trying to remember what it was called. But it wasn't like the +Sam's sons and the L. Cheese and bigger names. It was some other brand. And that was like $400. +I remember my parents spent $400 on the 19 inch television for my bedroom because I got the +grades that they were one. I mean, I have that school and now in that $400. Of course, the inflation +is like $400. Now it can get you a 75 inch total. Yeah, there was a time that TV's called the +clothing closest, much as a car. Again, they like a good use car. +I just didn't chat about prices of things. One of the telegram groups. I mean, any had this +picture from my 1970, whatever it was. I can't remember. 72, 72, 72 were some around there saying +the average cost of a house was $50,000. And this is the average price of a car was like $4,000. +And they were saying, boy, if we could just go back back to then, you know, that time from +this idea is what we could buy. And it's no, yeah, but you also have to remember that the person's +average income was about $20,000. And that was middle America. It said, you look at it now, +things really haven't changed that much in proportion to the income. It's now we have $50,000 +cars, $500,000 houses. Well, you know, some things have been, stay roughly the same portion. +And other things have technology stuff is typically done significantly down. I've got, you know, +like camera equipment and electronics and things have gone down in class, adjusted for inflation. +The first part about you was about $3,200 for. And that was making $2,000, $30,000 an hour. +Yeah, I'm thinking it was $2,000, 1999, $2,000 is my, let's see, +wasn't my 20 member now. First car at least, second car I purchased. It was my third new car +that I had a loan on. You know, it's $28,000. It was a premium sports sedan. You know, +it upgraded my, the Saturn, Saturn sedan that I had. And I remember my dad, I drove home in it. +And after he got home from work, we all went out to dinner and I drove them in my car to +to the restaurant. My dad's like, you don't have to tell me, but I'm a gingerbread for this car. +And we never were going to be shy about amounts in my family. As a $28,000. He said, +you know, the house you grew up in, said, yeah, the one thing you disobeyed when you retired. +So yeah, we built that house in 1968 for $28,000. +My first house called 17,000, but of course it was used. +Yeah, they built this from the ground up. It's the difference. +And you see, it's rigged so that you can't save money. You have to, if you're not using it, +if it's not earning money, if money is not earning money, you can't even save it. It's not fair. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4613.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4613.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cc1726 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4613.txt @@ -0,0 +1,151 @@ +Episode: 4613 +Title: Adding functionality to an Odoo installation +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4613/hpr4613.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:10 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4613, for 2026-04-08 +Today's show is entitled, "Adding functionality to an Odoo installation" +The host is Jeroen Baten and the duration is 00:19:50 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Learn how to download and install extra Odoo apps not yet available on your system" +Hello, this is Jerome Betten again with a podcast and this time it is a podcast number +four in my series on Odo. So in the prior episodes we talked about the functionality +that's available, we talked about how to install it and we talked a little about configuring +Odo from the web from that and if we look at for instance Odo community edition CEE, +there's a lot of functionality there but it's got its shortcomings sure and wouldn't it be nice +if you could expand on that functionality and you guessed it you can. So that's what we're going to +discuss today in detail. So hang on to you see what I tried to explain how this works. +So for one if you if you install Odo you usually get a bunch of software in the directory +slash usual slash ellipse slash python three slash disk dash packages slash Odo and you find +both a number of python files in there but also an add on some directory. Now the python files +make a total of about 18,000 lines of code and that's sort of the core of the application you know +the web's in the build in web server the over mlayer object relational developer layer +et cetera and if you look at the add-ons directory you find a huge number of subdirectories +things like website or sales or I don't know that I'll handle something and they all coincide +with an application in the Odo app store. So it's a one-on-one relation if you have the right subdirector +in add-ons that translates a one-on-one to an application in the Odo build in app store +within the application right okay and can you expand on those add-ons. +Sure you can I'll tell you a bit about sources later but yeah you can add add-ons directory. +Another thing is you could add new add-ons into the add-ons directory where the package is installed +but that makes a huge bunch of mess to to maintain so you don't want to do that what you want to +do is create a separate directory for your own add-ons that you have added to a standard system. +Well if you look at the Linux file hierarchy standard it talks about use a local directory. +So for instance use a local lib by the three Odo add-ons could be a directory for your own add-ons +and some people use opt slash ops slash Odo because it's shorter and maybe they are more lazy. +I don't know but it may come up your mind select one I don't care but you have to take note +of that subdirector in ink so for this spotcast I will use user slash local slash lib slash +python three slash Odo slash add-ons and I need to tell Odo that there is another Odo's add-ons +the answer I need to tell Odo there's another add-ons directory involved so I need to do that by changing +editing the slash eat etc slash Odo slash Odo dot conf file and there is a setting that's called +add-ons underscore path and on underscore path as I have been taught so far first start with the current +add-ons directory so if it's not there he will use the add-ons directory after package +if it is there you have I guess you have to add it I'm not half a century if that's mandatory but +let's not take any risk it doesn't hurt if we do it so the add-ons underscore path setting starts with +slash user slash lib slash python three slash disk dash packages slash your do slash add-ons +then I come up and then our own path so that would be slash user slash local slash lip +slash python three slash Odo slash add-ons I notice this is boring stuff but it's okay hang on +um so you add that setting do the Odo dot conf file you'll restart Odo and you're good to go +um now first let's install an additional app so for this example there are several Odo shops online +hey Odo dot com has his own shop but the OCA the Odo community association and I can't tell you +enough that you should become a member if you use Odo for your business simply because you get +huge value for money anyway um go to their website at apps dot Odo dash community.org slash +shop and you'll find a list of add-ons there and the first one you are going to install for this +example is the one that's called web responsive what does web responsive do it changes the main menu +of the system now it's this little square thing at the top on top left and we're going to change +that into a very nice looking menu um add a simply done by enabling this add-ons so +if you go to the shop you can select the app you can press the download watch that you download +the correct version of the app so it has to be the same version as the Odo version +or you go to get up because it's on getup dot com slash OCA slash web +and with the subdirective web on the score responsive okay download the directory download the +the getery positive i don't care but download you have to do anyway um now we're after downloading +you will place the web on the score responsive directory with all its subdirectries and names +into your own uh Odo uh custom add-ons or Odo slash add-ons directory right so in our case +that will be slash uses slash local slash lip slash python three slash Odo slash add-ons +slash web on the score responsive right that's the subdirectory with a bunch of files +now if you now go to Odo you won't see any difference because yeah the files are there but you +have not notified the application of the existence of these new files to do that you do the following +you go to your menu then to the settings in the settings you go all the way down there's the +enable developer mode enable that no assets needed just enable the developer mode that's it +if you now switch to the apps application so in the menu go to the apps store um you will see +the top menu has changed and there are a few more options and one of them is called update list of apps +always to that effect click on that he will say do you want to scan yes you want to scan +and he will scan the subdirectries and after that the web responsive app it has become part of the +app store in your own Odo instance so you can activate install it so you install it it will take a few +seconds for it to install and voila your main menu has changed dramatically but I think for the better +and well that's basically it you download an app you put it in your add-ons directory you +scan from Odo the list of apps and then you activate install the app and start using it +I once made a calculation of how many apps there are out there in total for Odo and I think it was +past 50,000 so there is a lot to choose from and that's also the challenge um and Odo consultant +is similar to a Linux consultant and a Linux consultant you know he knows his ray around the +command line he knows the commands LSD maker he can compile from source a kernel if if you want to +you know that's Linux stuff and Odo consultant is similar to that but he knows what add-ons exist how to +customize them how to configure them for the the functionality wishes that an organization has +okay I promised you also a couple of other examples so for instance there is the web no bubble +add-on also an OCA app so you can go to get up slash OCA slash web because it's in the +report the web repository and there is a subject directory name web underscore no underscore bubble +and what it does is it disables from you user this router annoying bubble that follows you on the +screen and it's sort of a clippy but you know if you want to disable it this is the way to do it +the other thing is and this is where it becomes pretty interesting I think so at least that's what I think +that is that the community edition has a lot of options where you click on it and it will redirect +your browser to the Odo dot com site and telling you hey buy our stuff and that's funny one time +but it becomes annoying after a couple of times um so there is an add-on from the OCA called +remove Odo dot com bindings nah that's nice um it's part of the oh get up a repository at OCA +called server dash brand with a sub directory name disable underscore Odo underscore online +again download it put it in your add-ons directory we scan the add-ons activated and suddenly +those links don't appear anymore in you know do the other thing is and this is this is pretty major +um it is it's both very important but it also is a huge bunch of functionality so um well the next +example that is um you see Odo community edition has disabled a lot of important account and see +features now you might think they are not there but they are they're just hidden and the +reason for that is that Odo enterprise edition is built on top of the community edition which means that +the community edition is sort of an uh assistant with an account that's he kernel as you might say uh +embed it in it and they've just hidden those features because well why would you otherwise buy +not by uh enterprise edition because you you've got pretty much what you need at a basic level +and the funny thing is there is an app again from the OCA remember what I said about adding value +for the money um and it's uh it's uh it's a kid of dot com slash OCA slash account dash financial dash +tools and there is a separate called account underscore usability download that add-on install it +rescan and enable and suddenly you can do account to see again yeah you can see the invoices you +send and uh well isn't that nice um well there is a lot more that you need to install to become a full +fleshed company and it's not that I don't want to tell you but the thing is that from here on +every company has different these functionality desires functionality wishes uh for one because they're +in different countries so tax laws are different um maybe um yeah they use different banks and +you could use um uh a software as a service that connects Odo to your bank account to download +transactions automatically periodically um or maybe you want to download a transaction file and +import it but then again you have several formats um if you like to play around with those they're +all in the OCA repository because they've got a lot of add-ons there um and if you become a member +they will even explain a lot of this stuff uh in in the webinars that they have recorded um still +they don't become country specific um I have configured an installed Odo for the netizens +and for France so those are the countries that I know uh how to configure and install add-ons for +and well since I'm uh I've got my own uh small company I'm happy and glad to help just give me a um +beat me up ping me whatever um email in the show notes um um and to finish this I would like +to well there are so many apps that I could talk about that are available but that's one that +I think everybody in IT uh can relate to and that's a health desk system and the thing is +there is no health desk app in the community edition there is however a health desk app in the +enterprise edition the paid version but there's not in the community edition and well you guessed it +the OCA has also made a health desk app well several apps um uh to um to add health desk functionality +and uh that's called health desk desk management so if you go to the OCA you go to the shop there +so that's uh apps dot Odo desk community door lock slash shop and you search for health desk you +get a useless list of add-ons one of them is called health desk management and that's the base +module that you need to start adding health desk functionality to your own instances that you can +play around with um speaking of playing around you remember back in one of the earlier episodes +that we talked about the database manager use that thing um separate your production database from one +that you use for trying things out um because in the production database that's high value data +the testing database is a low value data and you don't want to mix those two um so create a new +database if you like install all the apps that you have in your production database to to what +you don't have to install you can even double-cate the database that's easy um and then uh play around +with that database and add apps into that database to um to learn if that's functionality that you +need or want um if you need extra guidance and tips just uh ping me like I said email in the show notes +and well I'm I'm proud to find online um have been for years so um well now that's basically +the end of the series on Odo at this time I don't know of any more subjects that I could discuss +if you do however just put a comment in this the show notes for this show you know um and I +released it and if it makes sense I'll record another episode and I'll try to explain uh how I +how your question can be answered if I know the answer if I don't I'm not a bullshit artist I won't tell you +um so I hope you found this helpful I hope you learned a little bit and I hope you have +an awesome rest of your day and till we meet again I'm signing off this episode's +too wrong baton talking about Odo adding addons bye bye +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4614.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4614.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..15bb799 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4614.txt @@ -0,0 +1,452 @@ +Episode: 4614 +Title: Dauug|18: Faster Than a '286, but Inspectable Like a Soroban +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4614/hpr4614.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:11 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4614, for 2026-04-09 +Today's show is entitled, "Dauug|18: Faster Than a ’286, but Inspectable Like a Soroban" +The host is Marc W. Abel and the duration is 00:37:06 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY +The summary is "What would MacGyver build when he can't trust complex VLSI? I don't know, so here's what I'd build." +Welcome back, Hacker Public Radio listeners! +My name is Marc Abel, and I'm online at dauug.org, spelled D A U U G dot O R G. +Today we'll take a first look at an 18-bit controller being designed by The Dauug House +that doesn't use any complex VLSI. +It doesn't have a microprocessor or anything like one—no FPGA, PLD, ASIC, or even DRAM. +Now why would someone want a controller that doesn't use complex VLSI today? +Because complex VLSI has a long history of containing defects that hacking and malware +can exploit. +Even dynamic RAM has been shown to not work as designed when adversaries are present. +And even if we open-source our microprocessors and whatnot, we have no tools as makers that +can audit delivered chips against their open-source specs. +So from the standpoint of maybe someone who needs to automate some aspect of critical +infrastructure, or maybe someone who lives under an authoritarian regime, it can be valuable +to have modern electronics that operate transparently, +don't use any black-box components, and can be inspected by their owners clear down to +the logic-gate level. +I've thought about this need for about 20 years in hope of finding a way forward. +I was encouraged by modern surface mount techniques. +Individual transistors can be packaged so small that 25,000 can fit in a teaspoon. +Robots that can place and solder them require skill to set up and use, but they +aren't expensive. +And because a 32-bit microprocessor already existed that only had 25,000 transistors +(it was the original ARM CPU), I was sure right off that maker-constructable computers that +remain inspectable at the logic-gate level even after delivery could be made practical. +So I kept thinking. +My discrete transistor idea had several weaknesses, but I think it was looking at recently-built +relay computers— +there are hobbyists that like to build these—that exposed the most serious drawback, and +that's primary storage. +If a computer has even a million bits of random-access memory, it would take on the order +of a million components to build that memory. +Now a million transistors is way more than 25 thousand, and we'd need about six transistors +per bit to build a reliable memory. +So I could probably build a processor from discrete components, but the memory supporting +it would have to be VLSI, probably in the form of static random access memory, or SRAM. +But what about the security consequences of using VLSI SRAM? +Could SRAM introduce concealed security defects that hacking and malware could exploit? +Whether or not to trust SRAM is a judgment call. +We need to consider whether SRAM supply chain attacks are viable enough for someone to mount +one, what transparently functioning alternatives to SRAM could be, and how far we're willing +to go to have transparently functioning computers in the first place. +Exploring these questions is outside the scope of this episode, but I'll say a few +words in SRAM's favor. +As circuits, static random-access memory components are not proprietary. +In fact they're the exact opposite of proprietary in that their behavior and pinouts are standardized. +And although the chips are very large scale integration, this largeness is in cell count +rather than complexity. +An SRAM is the same 6 transistor flip-flop over and over again, millions of them, and +they're all isolated from each other. +In fact, if you read the datasheet for an SRAM IC alongside a datasheet for an AND gate, +you'll find they're not much different in length. +Even if a sophisticated adversary is warned that I plan to build a computer out of static +RAM, it will be hard to attack the machine by manipulating the SRAM supply chain. +The attacker would need to know what I was building, where in the circuit each RAM they +supply would go, when and where I would obtain the components, and how to know whether their +chip went into my computer or someone else's. +An attacker would also typically need access to the tainted components at their point of +use. +I can't tell you that an attacker this sophisticated won't come around, but I suggest that until +transparently functioning SRAM computers are in such widespread use that the number of +targets is large, attacks through the SRAM supply chain will be too expensive compared +to simpler offensives that cost less. +In light of SRAM's characteristics, I decided I would still be interested in building a +transparently functioning computer even if it uses VLSI for primary storage—as long +as it isn't complex VLSI that could easily conceal exploitable defects. +But with SRAM chips now permitted in the bill of materials, a question arises as to whether +SRAM is permissible for storage only, or if it could be used for computing as well. +I estimate that more likely than not, SRAM is actually safer for use in computing logic +than it is for storage. +If SRAM could be used as a logic gate, data passing through that part isn't at rest, it's +just a few bits at a time, not enough bits to identify structure and meaning in. +When I use SRAM to implement CPU logic thus far, no SRAM ever sees more than 6 bits +of data at a time. +That's not even a byte. +Also, consider where an attacker might buffer data for exfiltration. +When an SRAM is used for primary storage, there's lots of room to store and aggregate +information. +But SRAM used as a logic gate doesn't store data— +it only holds firmware. +So let's consider how SRAM can be used to design transparently functioning computers. +In Hacker Public Radio episode 4333, I described a minicomputer with preemptive multitasking, +paged virtual memory, no complex VLSI, and a refreshingly capable instruction set, +and I named this architecture Dauug|36 after its 36-bit word size. +Here again, the spelling is D A U U G. +The CPU, memory subsystem, firmware, and real-time operating system kernel work in +simulation today, but the architecture still needs I/O and initialization that call for +significant logic outside the CPU. +So after a couple false starts designing the missing logic from basic gates and flip-flops, +I decided the way forward is to build in a very small controller that has no complex +VLSI. +I named this smaller architecture Dauug|18 because it can't do as much as Dauug|36, and happens +to use 18-bit words. +Like Dauug|36, Dauug|18 is built principally from two kinds of components. +The simpler kind is basic glue logic from the Advanced Ultra-Low Voltage CMOS family +from Texas Instruments. +These are a modern take on the 7400 series of basic gates—AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR, +buffer, inverter, and D flip-flop, and they're insanely fast. +These ICs come in a variety of packages, but to simplify soldering I only use the packages +that have leads. +Most of these chips only operate on a single bit at a time, but the buffers and flip-flops +are available in widths up to 16 bits, which let us direct the flow of data within the +CPU. +There are places in Dauug|18 where buffers need to be installed facing both directions because +data sometimes flows either way. +Conveniently TI sells buffers with an extra pin to specify their direction. +You'd think these are called something natural like "bidirectional buffers," but they're actually +called "bus transceivers." +The name sounds like they do something complex, but instead they're just buffers that pass +bits in either direction. +The other kind of component in Dauug|18 is synchronous static RAM. +The word "synchronous" here means that the SRAMs' input is clocked through D flip-flops. +For read operations, the outputs will be ready five and a half nanoseconds after the clock rises. +I'm going to share specifics about the CPU's bill of materials and topology here because +they directly impact Dauug|18's capabilities and how it's programmed. +This being a radio program, I'll do my best to not lose you in these details. +But if you'd like a visual aid, I've uploaded a PDF with this show, and if you can't find it there, +you can visit 18.dauug.org (that's 1 8 dot D A U U G dot O R G), and you'll find a +PDF link near the bottom of the page. +The Dauug|18 processor contains just six SRAMs. +Each SRAM is 18 bits wide and has 262,144 words of storage, +so their address space is also 18 bits. +It's noteworthy that this capacity is more or less the smallest synchronous RAM on the +market, and we want to use the smallest chips we can because of their lower cost +and smaller firmware size. +Of these six SRAMs, one is data memory. +You more or less know what that does, and one of the architecture's limitations is that +it doesn't support any more data memory than the 256 kibiwords that it comes with. +Fortunately, code goes in a separate SRAM, which means code and data live in separate +18-bit address spaces. +Code is inefficiently stored because Dauug|18 doesn't have a control decoder and doesn't +have any concept of opcodes. +Dauug|36 has both, but Dauug|18 has neither because it's a simpler processor. +Instead, Dauug|18's control signals for each instruction are written directly into words +of the code memory. +Of the code SRAM's 18-bit width, six bits are used to tell the arithmetic logic unit +what it's doing, and the remaining 12 bits are all that are left to control the rest +of the CPU. +So that's two SRAMs out of six: the data memory and the code memory. +The third RAM is called "literal memory" and is wired in parallel lockstep with the +code memory. +This third RAM stores 18 bits of information for every instruction that needs literal data +attached. +So if you need to read from data memory location 1000, the code memory has the control signals +to produce the read, and the literal memory has the address to read from, which in this +case is 1000. +So in effect, Dauug|18 instructions are 36 bits wide, with 18 of those bits being optional +literal data, 12 bits being control signals, and 6 bits telling the arithmetic logic unit +what its function is. +The code and literal data are stored on different chips because the literal output sometimes +has to be turned off to accommodate other signals, while the control output must never +be turned off. +We've knocked out three SRAMs: data memory, code memory control signals, and literal data +attached to these control signals. +There are only three SRAMs left, and they implement the arithmetic logic unit's lowest +six bits, middle six bits, and highest six bits. +So how exactly do we use SRAM to compute? +The answer is we don't actually use SRAM to compute. +Instead, we use SRAM to look up answers we computed previously. +Here's how this works. +Recall that the smallest synchronous SRAMs on the market have 18 address bits, and consider +a sample problem like C = A + B. Since A is on the left side of the expression A ++ B, we call A the left operand, and B the right operand. +If we limit the left operand to 6 bits, it can be an integer between 0 and 63 inclusive, +and we can do the same with the right operand so that it's also an integer between 0 and +63. +And for the moment, let's say that our result of adding A + B wraps around so that C +will fall between 0 and 63. +So to make SRAM into a gate that can compute any 6-bit sum, we'll need a truth table with +a 12-bit address space (that's 4096 rows) where each row is 6 bits wide. +So it's easy for an SRAM to behave like it's adding 6-bit numbers for us; we just have +to store all the sums in advance. +So how do we get the other operations we need, like subtraction, bitwise AND, exclusive OR, +short multiplication, and so on? +Well, our SRAM has 18 address bits, and two 6-bit operands only come to 12 bits, so we +have 6 bits left. +These 6 are our room to say what we want done, +so we can put 64 operations on our menu so to speak. +Maybe operation 0 is addition, operation 1 is subtraction, operation 2 is bitwise AND, +and so on. +We're constrained to limit the number of operations we support to 64 at most, but that's +plenty for our purpose. +You've probably figured out that what I'm describing is something called a bit-sliced +ALU. +Rather than try to compute on 18-bit operands directly, which would take almost 70 billion +words of memory per operation, we split the processor's 18-bit words into 6-bit chunks, +where we only need about 4 thousand words of memory per operation. +If you're having trouble confirming the numbers here, remember that both the left and right +operands need address space, so the difference is between needing 2**36 rows +and 2**12 rows for each operation. +A constraint with bit-sliced arithmetic logic units is that each slice is isolated during +processing. +During addition, carries from bit 5 into bit 6 and bit 11 into bit 12 are lost. +We don't have this problem for bitwise logic such as NOT, NAND, and exclusive NOR, but +tasks such as addition, subtraction, shifts, and rotates need to look across entire words +to obtain their final answer. +How can this constraint be overcome with Dauug|18? +The answer involves three architectural features. +All three are simple, but this is a radio show, so let's try together to build a picture +in our minds. +The first architectural feature for overcoming isolation between bit slices is that each +Dauug|18 ALU operation produces two results instead of one result. +I'll explain in more detail in a moment, but for right now take it on faith that when +an SRAM looks up the 6-bit sum of A and B, it produces two different answers. +The second architectural feature is that wiring exists to scramble the order of the bits in +an 18-bit word. +I use this term wiring very literally. +It's not logic, +it's really just copper. +The third architectural feature is that, unsurprisingly, you can pass any given problem through the +arithmetic logic unit more than once, meaning you can compute the answer for a hard problem +using more than one step. +So let's consider how these three features work together to solve multi-step problems. +Dauug|18 takes a question like C = A + B, looks up small hints about the answer for +each slice separately, shuffles those hints between the slices in some magic way to produce +a new problem that is closer to the final answer, and then feeds the new problem through +the same arithmetic logic unit. +That's the big picture. +Let's go through these features a second time and explain what they mean more fully. +The first feature was that ALU computations produce two results instead of one. +We actually get that for free. +Each SRAM, remember it's the smallest size we can buy, has 18 address bits we use for +input, and 18 data bits we use for results. +But the result computed by each SRAM is only 6 bits, meaning we have 12 bits left over +in every row to use however we need for supplementary results. +So when we compute the 6-bit sum of 10 + 10, the answer is 20 and won't carry into +a 7th bit. +So that SRAM's main output, I actually call it the left output, is 20. +But that SRAM also has a 6-bit right output, and one of those bits is whether or not a +carry occurred, and that bit is zero. +Now suppose we compute the 6-bit sum of 60 + 3. +The answer is 63, which is six ones that go to that SRAM's left output. +Does a carry occur? +Not immediately, +so the carry in the right output is zero. +But there might need to be a carry if the SRAM with the next-lower place value outputs +a carry. +If there's no carry from the right, 63 just stays 63, +but if there's a carry coming in, that 63 wraps around to 0. +That's called carry propagation. +To handle propagation, the SRAM's right output has a bit named propagate alongside its companion +bit named carry. +The propagate bit will be 1 if and only if the local sum is exactly 63, while the carry +bit will be 1 if and only if the local sum is more than 63. +So each 6-bit addition on an SRAM produces two results. +The left result is the 6-bit sum, and the right result has a carry bit and a propagate bit. +We just need to get the carry and propagate bits over to any SRAMs that have greater place +value, and then account for them during a future instruction. +This is where our second architectural feature comes in, specifically, wires that move bits +of an 18-bit word outside of their immediate 6-bit slices. +Recall that each of the three SRAMs in the arithmetic logic unit have a left and right operand. +When given the appropriate control signal within a CPU instruction, a bus transceiver +will feed the ALU's left output (that's the sum) to become the left operand of the next +instruction. +Simultaneously, the ALU's right output (that's the carry and propagate information) are fed +through buffers to become the right operand of the next instruction. +The right operand is actually fed by two buffers, with only one of the buffers active at a time. +One buffer copies the right result straight back to become the next right operand with +no changes. +The other buffer transposes the order of the bits so the 6-bit result from each slice is +distributed two bits at a time into the three SRAMs for the next operation. +The upshot is that after the clock cycle where each 6-bit subword is added separately, on +the next clock every SRAM in the ALU sees the 6-bit sum it just generated as its left +operand, and carry and propagation information for all three subwords as the right operand. +The ALU SRAMs use this information to add any carries that are needed within each subword. +This second pass through the ALU is the third and final architecture feature Dauug|18 uses +to overcome subword isolation. +You may pick up that when an SRAM generates a carry bit in its right output, it has to +supply three copies of the carry bit, +so it can be distributed to all three SRAMs on the +next clock cycle. +For the same reason, it outputs three copies of its propagate bit, so all six bits in the +right result of addition operations have a purposeful use. +As I mentioned, addition is not the only operation to benefit from allowing the ALU to shuffle +a few bits between subwords. +You've probably guessed that subtraction uses the same mechanism, and it also turns out +that shifts and rotates of any number of bits can likewise be done in constant time. +Another operation this bit shuffling enables is population count, sometimes called just +popcount, or sometimes more formally Hamming weight. +Popcount computes the number of 1 bits in a given 18-bit word, and the result can be +as small as 0, when the input word is all zeros, and as large as 18, when the input word is +all ones. +It only takes three clock cycles for Dauug|18's ALU to compute a popcount, although the surrounding +CPU will use a few more clocks to fetch the operand from memory and store the result back. +Another operation that uses few clock cycles in this ALU design is computing hash values +for associative arrays. +This operation is closely related to another task this ALU does in a few clocks, which +is generate pseudorandom numbers that have good statistical properties. +Yet another is arbitrary permutations of the bits in an 18-bit word. +These three operations are efficient because the ALU effectively forms a substitution-permutation +network. +In the substitution step, the three SRAMs replace 6-bit subwords of the left operand +controlled by 6-bit keys in the right operand. +This substitution takes one clock cycle. +In the permutation step, which takes no clock cycle, each subword's output is split three +ways among the subwords of a future right operand. +If you're interested in the general theory of SRAM arithmetic logic units, including +how multiplication and division work without additional hardware, the Dauug|36 documentation +at 36.dauug.org goes into much detail. +Be sure to check out the download section. +That's 3 6 dot D A U U G dot O R G. +And if there's something you can't find or need explained better, I hope you'll drop +me a line. +Since the Dauug|18 virtual machine is pre-alpha and hasn't released any files as of March +2026, I'm probably the only person who's tried to write code for the architecture. +I'm happy to share it's not an easy CPU to write assembly code for. +You might think well, assembly code isn't easy in general, or maybe I'm not good at +writing assembly code. +You're probably right both times, but this is different. +I've written thousands of lines of Dauug|36 assembly code, and I've found Dauug|36 a joy to write +code for. +But Dauug|18 is more contorted to code due to its economy of components and bottlenecks +in data handling. +Here are some of the issues one faces coding for Dauug|18. +First off, the instruction pointer doesn't count linearly. +There's no end-user benefit to ordering the code addresses 0, 1, 2, and so on, and implementing +a linear order would require a counter that doesn't exist as an off-the-shelf component +with the speed and transparency of operation we need. +Dauug|36 manages to count linearly, but it uses a 27-bit incrementer comprising 70 gates that +only work because Dauug|36 can absorb two clock cycles of latency while counting. +In contrast, Dauug|18 has no extra clock cycles for incrementing a counter between instructions. +Both CPUs have a 40 MHz clock, but Dauug|18 pulls 40 MIPS while Dauug|36 only gets 10 MIPS. +Fortunately, there's no technical problem if an instruction pointer counts in a nonlinear +order, as long as it's deterministic and has a long enough period. +The only hardware needed, other than 18 flip-flops that hold the current address, is one XOR gate. +The circuit is called a Galois linear feedback shift register, abbreviated LFSR, and LFSRs +have been used for more than 50 years as a lightweight alternative to linear instruction +counters. +Another issue coding for Dauug|18 is it has no return address stack. +What you ideally want to do is write your program so no subroutines are reentrant. +Then each subroutine can allocate one word of data memory for its return address, and +a caller can save the return address before branching to the subroutine. +When it's time to return, the subroutine can fetch the return address and branch directly +to it. +For subroutines that must be reentrant, you'll need to brute force some kind of return address +stack in software. +Likewise there is no hardware-based stack pointer, so reentrant code (if there is any) +has to do extra work spilling local variables. +This brings up the further limitation that Dauug|18 really has only one address mode for +data memory; +specifically, the memory location being read or written is whatever address happens to +be at node 1 of the circuit board. +Node 1 can be driven by literal data in an instruction, or the most recent data memory +read, or the most recent ALU output, but no further adjustments are made to the address. +If you need an offset from a base pointer, for example, you're going to need to use the +ALU to compute that offset, and I'll point out that this can spill whatever ALU result +you were looking to store in the first place. +If you're familiar with the riddle where a farmer needs to move a wolf, goat, and cabbage +across a river one at a time, that's what Dauug|18 memory handling is like in practice. +It would be different if Dauug|18 had any registers other than the clocked outputs that are inherently +part of the SRAMs that comprise the CPU. +Unfortunately, no. Dauug|18 doesn't have any registers, +that's another limitation that the programmer is called on to overcome. +Another issue is that although most ALU operations are binary in the sense that they combine +two operands, as opposed to unary where only one operand is used, there is no direct access +to supply the ALU with its right operand. +The only place where the right operand electrically reaches the ALU comes from the ALU's own right +output. +This isn't the end of the world, but it adds clock cycles and consumes code memory. +For instance, if you want to add two numbers, you have to first pass the right operand through +the ALU from the left side to the right side, which adds a clock cycle to an already-tricky +addition sequence. +Another issue with Dauug|18 is that it has no freestanding controller for input or output, +nor is it designed to have I/O ports that are wider than perhaps a couple of bits. +On top of all that, all I/O would have to be polled because Dauug|18 has no interrupts +to facilitate transfers. +Another limitation in programming and using Dauug|18 is lack of any mechanism that can programmatically +change code memory. +You can't just launch a program from a command prompt, not unless the program you want already +resides in memory. +The reason this can't work is Dauug|18 doesn't have any microcoding or control decoder, so +the code memory is needed during every clock to control the CPU. +No cycles are left when the code memory is free and can be updated. +One challenge Dauug|18 assembly language programmers will face, and right now there are no other +languages implemented, is the architecture doesn't have any opcodes. +Instead, the language describes a collection of control signals that operate the processor. +The present assembler has rudimental macro support that can somewhat approximate opcodes, +but the strange flows that result from not having any registers make for complex instructions +and an appreciable learning curve. +Dauug|18 is certainly Turing complete and can overcome the aforementioned limitations +if given enough attention and clock cycles, but only within the umbrella of the architecture's +18-bit address space. +Once you're out of code or data memory, neither will expand, and although you could dive into +the tarpit of swapped external pages, the architecture's near-total lack of I/O support +make swapping even less realistic than it was on historic architectures. +The problem is even more acute for code memory, which stores programs inefficiently and can't +be changed at all by the CPU. +So with all these constraints imposed on programming and use, is Dauug|18 a lost cause? +I certainly don't think so. +In fact, Dauug|18 is on track to be the world's most advanced transparently functioning computer +when its first prototype is built. +Here is a machine that's entire operation is determined by open-source firmware and +a builder's soldering. +No "black box" parts at all, yet a footprint the size of a postcard. +Its 18-bit address space might sound small if you're very young, but I was once an MS-DOS +power user, and 256K is more than most people realize, especially when an architecture has +18-bit bytes instead of 8-bit bytes. +And remember that code for your programs doesn't count against the 256K limit for data. +And in terms of my need—a coprocessor to load firmware and handle I/O for Dauug|36, Dauug|18 +checks my boxes about perfectly. +It's also hard for me to ignore Dauug|18's potential as an educational tool that implements an +entire architecture succinctly, transparently, and uniquely. +I've stressed on this show that Dauug|18 is missing a lot in terms of functionality, but it's +also missing a lot of headaches. +There's no dynamic RAM at all, so there are no RowHammer-like vulnerabilities. +There's no VLSI complex logic except in peripherals you choose to attach +that could hide exploitable defects. +There's no writable CPU persistent state; +the only state that survives a power cycle is its open-source firmware. +There's no electrical path for the CPU to modify its code memory, strongly reducing +an attacker's options for injecting code. +There's no CPU microcode to poison, and the CPU's only firmware is a completely disconnected +set of one-clock-cycle ALU operations that occur only in the order specified by a running +program. +Even this firmware can't be modified without physical access to the machine. +Dauug|18's clock is generated by a crystal oscillator directly, not a micro-electromechanical system +with a programmable frequency synthesizer. +MEMS oscillators are very popular now, but they create opportunities for age-selected +and frequency-selected attacks that simple crystal oscillators aren't vulnerable to. +Because the Dauug|18 firmware uses a substitution-permutation network to produce pseudorandom +numbers and associative array hashes, there are S-boxes in the firmware, but unlike some +of history's notorious ciphers where S-boxes were manipulated, Dauug|18's S-boxes have no +unexplained constants. +Instead, they're extracted from the square root of two using 29 lines of Python, and no +imported modules whatsoever. Even from the Python standard library. +No one has any unfair or unlevel knowledge of how Dauug|18's S-boxes work. +All Dauug|18 components are hand-solderable and can be probed after assembly to confirm that +all connections match the open-source netlist. +There is no secret functionality, no vendor lock-in, no encrypted or closed-source firmware, +no license fees to build, use or modify the machine, no purpose-of-use limitations, +no proprietary components to be discontinued without substitutes, no planned obsolescence, +and no right-to-repair infringements. +You can learn more about Dauug|18 and Dauug|36, including how to support both projects, at +dauug.org, spelled D A U U G dot O R G. +My name is Marc Abel, spelled MARC : ABEL. +Thank you for listening. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4615.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4615.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..952721d --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4615.txt @@ -0,0 +1,451 @@ +Episode: 4615 +Title: Clicking through an audit +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4615/hpr4615.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:11 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4615, for 2026-04-10 +Today's show is entitled, "Clicking through an audit" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:57:58 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee complies with a company audit by clicking 'next' a lot" +hello this is Lee today going to kind of walk through the stages of the administration around +complying with a security order as an individual employee whose company has been audited and +the standard that they're using is ISO 27,000 and one. So you know they've been given what is +turned an information security management system and that's a specific term that has been +established and now what every employee has been given a checklist effectively or a set of +training to go through and you know just see what their compliance is because right firstly I +don't think it's sort of expected to be perfect from day one you know goodly it's a process +it's not like you tick you tick the box once and then it's done and also it's like it's +a responsibility of everyone in the company it's like from the directors to every employee +turn them up a computer and I've looked onto the internet and I go to my training dashboard +and there's 12 outstanding items that I have to go through and these are ISMS portal access +information security management system and actually they're they're actually a company +who have taken that on it's their name quite cleverly and policy pack and knowledgeman +change management and secure configuration secure software dev security basics access control +and lease privilege data classification and handling passwords multifactor authentication +security security incident reporting and response phishing and social engineering awareness +secure remote working in mobile device security they protection and privacy GDPR awareness and +sure no it doesn't know GDPR is the general data protection regulation which this came into +force prior to the UK leaving the year and it was you know when Brexit happened then it became +in this country the data protection act 2018 but GDPR was the big push that came around +the towards the end of the last decade to really take seriously how people's data was being used +and it while it was kind of European ladies had global impact anyway so the other training +item acceptable use of system and information security awareness and apparently that's an annual +thing because it's got in quotes annual so going to the first item in the outstanding list the +portal access and policy pack and knowledgeman so it's as login to that I did before but +let's just do it again to make sure so it goes to the website of and this and I'll go to login +except some cookies the click login except as some cookies then what right after login again +go to last pass try and find what my password was and of course it says unsuccessful because +always is facing the email address it's in my password again from last pass remember they see +my address I guess login no so what can I do all right it gets us if your organization is using +our EU dense date center please sign in here they could have led with that and I still sign +in unsuccessful need help looking in and to your email address okay it's the company in my address +so email mail link to reset my password it says if this is good if the email was registered +then we've emailed your link yeah if it wasn't registered you're just elistinating or you +some bad hacker person trying to login such is a good team out choose the thing and it says +we've locked your that's lovely I mean this is beautiful isn't it we've locked your account +and it's in reset your password I mean it's not like I like swearing and it's not like I like +using for little words but I have just internally uttered one describing the people who's out +the system he is the same email that's registered you know it's spelling of your email address +no email link in a second time of asking that so even Gmail thinks this is spam so +had I tell you it's not other show images okay for some reason that show me an image of their +logo like that was important enough to cause me to have to go through the show images thing +that they had to include an image right I've got a link in trainee password well +I don't know intranue password paste in the same password that change password yeah +great it worked okay this miss um so I'm looking at my my first one is 9 shape sent in the +way for a it's called development and of course the truth is I just when you're doing +that something like this the truth is if someone if someone gives you a list of 10 things to do +you will do those 10 things someone gives you a list of 100 things to do you will just click +through them you know I'm sorry this is human nature and you know they should know this +very very well you're just click click click click click click click click click you know I can't +actually see what's going on because my dark mode is interfering but actually these are ticks I've +got ticks against everything but why is it saying there's number 92 isn't done so it was social +social media guidelines so I mustn't bring the company into disrepair by criticising +our argument of customers, colleagues or rivals making the famigy comments about individuals +organisations or groups or posting inappropriate images or links to inappropriate content okay +well they got fully breached that already just by recording this policy pack overview +it's not letting me get out the last policy and I think I had this it was like an empty +it was a boiler plate one your policy packs and our value was an app that you can install in your +device it's not going to like increase the risk of my device to install their thing on my device +did I close that right let's actually go through what these policies are so introduction +policies and controls policies for information security information security roles and responsibilities +segregation of duties management responsibilities content with authorities content with special +interest groups threat intelligence information security and project management in the trip I mean +you know this but living in another universe yeah fine if I mean if I can think of how to do better +I would do how would I do this better or not give someone 100 things to click for a +literally a hundred well 91 92 if you count the one that's broken looking for those is there any +that is actually hyper relevant that's something I don't already know I mean yeah this is fine +but it's boiler plate you know I should not be I'm not talking about means particular but +and employee should not be given stuff that's actually outside their control like access rights +and it's like a broad policy about access rights it's like you know denied by default need to +know need to use least privilege privacy by design privacy by default access provision +access modification access removal privilege access management roles and responsibilities +and actually they've got some specific information about who's has different roles which is useful +but apart from that it's a boiler plate and it's a completely outside of the person clicking +for it this and I'm assuming everyone in the company has to click for it this is outside of their +control it's like saying I don't know account provisioning is automated for integration with +the HR onboarding presence and it's like okay that's fine I'm happy with that but why am I +having to click for it because it's completely outside of my control what the HR onboarding +process it's I mean fine this is this is in one place but I should not be the person clicking +through something that I have no control over and then you know and somehow that it means that the +company is compliant because someone who has no control over something clicked through something +telling them stuff they have no control over and I'm not criticizing the terrific company +I'm not even maybe criticizing the this particular provider of the security policy I'm just saying +that it's a bit ludicrous for an information security management system to be presented in this way +to people it needs to be a lot more relevant it needs to be like 10 bullet points of what is actually +relevant specifically to you not this is the entire policy read it through and yes it's here as a +reference and that's good that it's as a reference but anyway I can't complete this because it's +and I actually told my supervisor he got stuck at this point so is there anything else +I'm like again this website it's got no navigation so I don't know how to get back to where +was it here we go is the dashboard so it's a two list I mean that's useful let's give me a two to do +list information asset inventory is interesting this is quite good actually it's got like +some third party systems listed like accounting systems it has things like you know the card +that would get you in the office it talks about the code repository and for each of these it says +whether confidential or sensitive and like customer data and database is what do they mean by digital +certificates it's a I'm unclear that specifically what digital certificates it's referring to +if it doesn't mean writing encryption keys and see what I'm actually looking for is my +private keys that access the server because that's actually something I have a reasonable level of +concern over office keys physical yeah so all right so I'm sorry I'm rambling but for each of +these information assets we have like the name like backup data we have it a status or it's +to do or live a financial value and that seems to be left blank and then the type of thing +that it is is it staff as a physical security as an infrastructure as a person of data +is it software application and services and then as a classification as it is sensitive or confidential +or public and then we have its primary location like third party data sent to or in person +and then you have the owner of the lead so is it the CEO or the chief technology officer +and then it has an RTO it's going to tell me what RTO means it has an RPO have to look nice up +have recovery point objective all right how long right so if this asset get got lost how much +data which you lose which you lose a day a week a month or everything yeah I don't know +and what's it was RPO so it's RTO there's the downtime so how long until it's back online +so like if you lost it how long will it take you not not just how much it +RPO is how much you lost and RTO is the recovery time objective which is how long will it take +to actually get it back working and then it has the lead wire no like who I'm this thing is +of the companies that supplier or I guess is it the customer or someone else and then it has +an assignment so it's a scientific and a member of staff some particular person is on the list of +what they're responsible for so okay and back here seems like it's in that's at 99% and I'm sorry +the the asset inventory doesn't have percentage on it so the policies and controls that's at +90% have I don't remember actually looking at that okay it's popped up around and pop up +that you just get rid of because I can't even figure out what the pop up is trying to tell you +it's just in not that it's not in English it's just the English the English does not +process as to anything that I know what it's talking about so it has requirements and it has the +number 4.1 to 10.2 organizational controls people controls physical controls technological controls +addition so control is basically what we're doing to make sure that things are secure and that +and this is what I learned when I was doing the post-graduate course in information security what is +a control and most of these are showing us being complete I wonder if that's truly the case that's +what it's showing or like most of them I like that could be that 99% of 99% of them are actually +trivial and just require a tick by someone and then like the other 1% require masses of time and +effort to do so whether this percentage truly represents the security of the organization I don't +know all right I mean I've done everything on this I can so I'm going back the inter +closed all these tabs you know people get annoyed when I close their tabs and I can't work +with with more than one tab you know once I've once I've done with the tab it gets closed +so I've done the policy pad read the policies mark the policy pads read I'm not sure I did this +try to and then it says start the course it confirms that you can access it oh no they're not +going to ask me to give them a screenshot to prove that I accessed it please no it's not all right +so I can successfully access it yeah acknowledgement I've read an understood yeah kind of yes +evidence optional yeah they they want a screenshot and it says optional but I you know I'm going +out by the screenshot so I've got I've got my nice little dashboard here from the compliance website +what screenshot you've got I've got spectacle so let me just grab the active window so click on the +active window and it's just grabbed it I had a one second did I have a one second delay I +give me a chance to like move my mouse out the way or whatever although when you grab I think +when you grab the active window it doesn't capture your mouse it's a save as shove on the desktop +because it's screenshot do you what does it call it so it has the day in as in the four +digit year the two digit month and the two digit date and then it has a number it's maybe the number +of seconds zero nine three three one zero because 86 something thousand seconds in the day so +now looking through looking up while a little clock here using the time system or friend Ben I +invented and it's three sevens of the way through the day so how many seconds it's going to be like +out by six thousand we thirty thousand seconds so I don't think this is the number of seconds +Ben I's given it a number zero nine three three one zero in the screenshot you'll be +interesting to know how those screenshots are derived a screenshot font names right so save that +saved go back to there I should drag the image on here and then was the okay +bum that it's safe comments okay so let's just say it seemed the last policy could not be +access I can down like this course material so it's open it in a new browser window and then +I click on the download link I think I've got a security folder so I'm just dropping it into +there I've got my own copy of it and click and complete and that's completed I said it would take +five to ten minutes so you look at it longer so once done now I've only got 11 outstanding out of +12 so now the next one is change management and secure configuration right so you know learning +objectives modules why change control matters yeah avoid unsafe shortcuts document changes +appropriately prioritize secure configuration so it's good so when subversion I don't know +that way so when subversion can be fucks up everything I mean right this is my my human +experience of version control systems like get and subversion they work fine until you just +accidentally click or type the wrong thing then you're in the world of pain and you're then +spending hours or whatever trying to undo the thing that you've done like I accidentally on subversion +I was gonna use a change list so I was only gonna commit the few changes that I wanted to +and leave out the files that didn't want it to because I was working on two three different +projects at once then one of lumped them all into one commit and I accidentally committed everything +and then you go to like google you go to um large language model and you say like right how +do I undo this and it says oh to undo this just type this and it's a type here and oh look it's +screwed up even more and then I'm not like saying tell it well now this is what the situation is +I'll now just do this and so I can't do that and now it's completely fucked up beyond the +recognition and in the end you end up you just I think I'm just gonna +nuke from all the I just completely abandoned the repository that was on and create a new repository +a new development branch and just reclaim the development branch from the +source and then just copy my files that I've got you know on my own like machine +copy the files that you've been working to back on and of course you know because I've just +just because of because I've now got the latest code running you know there's configuration issues +because I've failed to coordinate with other people in the team who have updated the data by schema +and so the you know the entire my entire development platform is now not working it's now down +because it's falling over something and the schema is different and not in line with the code +so I mean that's that's the reality of third of I guess they call it change control version +chart I mean the lucky thing is I just have not been given access to anything where I could +damage a production system I could damage my own system and to some extent I could +insert unhelpful data you know by mistake into the shared the shared where we keep the +database not the database schema not the level I level one but the customer level database schema +and the you know the different templates and forms and how they're managed how their +data is synchronized between different instances of the server there's a central location for that +and yeah I could in some way insert things into there then there would then you know need to +kind of undo that and restore that because then it makes it unusable for other people if they +wanted to sink from it but you know I'd have to be willfully and willfully stupid if I was +doing that so all right so I'm just looking at the learning objectives for this yeah I mean yeah +back in the 90s I worked a company that had proper change control and it was as in you know +in in in in some ways it kept you safe in other ways it's and as annoying as hell if you make a +tiny little error and it means you're having to walk through the entire change control +processes taking two or three days you have to get customer approval again just because you +made a typo that you didn't spot and it didn't get spied until later in the change control process +and you know probably reasons like that that you have this is why they invented DevOps +is to reduce the amount of friction for developers while keeping things reasonably safe for the +ops team that things are going to kind of flow and not be complete headache and then I like +this is like if there's an emergency change you still you have to like because you know there are +times when a production system actually needs an intervention there and then and you can't go +through the whole change control but when that happens that the same that needs to be documented +and followed up you know that's a nice happy wish I would say change management school not +to check all right here's a quiz right why do we change the control I love this to slow down work +I mean honestly yes yeah we're still to reduce attitudes yeah and security risks and improve +accountability right misconfiguration is a common course of incidents yes all right some bit you +know can do this quiz all right I'm spacing right secure configuration practising include +default deny and release privilege I guess yeah disabled unused services yes public by default +for convenience now avoid public access unless and quiet and approved yes after deploying a change +what should you do I think we want to invalidate emergency changes should be documented +good rollback plan is and now not wait to refer on where to go quickly okay so I've got to take from +that month that is complete cause it's completed to significantly less than 23 minutes I don't know +what my past month was didn't tell me what my month was they said the past month was 80% cool that +once that's off the list so secure software dev security basics protects secrets and credentials +never encode tickets or chat by secure coding hygiene validation or frozen what is off said me +no okay don't know offset what is off said in information security which means authorization okay +I've got feeling in English in the English language authorization has got an S I think often +not try and use the American version cause when you're coding you try and use the American English +like color no color right when it's dependent since supply chain that's yeah okay +understand what that means I use code review and continuous integration controls to reduce +vulnerabilities code review yes C I controls I don't know if that's kind of a happy wish at this point +avoid risky logging and sorry I'm using the word happy wish I just wish the original +then even know where I got that from what is the origin of the term happy wish and how does this +seem to be keep coming to mind as I fail in the information security or the compliance +question it tell me it's a psychological reaction to inherent tension of compliance work +is a gap between policy and reality aspirational compliance you may be looking at question +like are all administrative actions logged and reviewed weekly and thinking I wish they were +or in a perfect world they would be the checkbox track the term captures the feeling of providing +a happy answer yes we're doing this well internally now it's more of a wish than the consistent +enforced control it's a mental shorthand for wishful thinking masquerading as a security control +I mean I've been doing this for like a half and 25 minutes I've already got ordered with +he so I can well let's start the course I mean ideally it should be prompting you to +actually do something not just think I'll idea so here we go knowledge check I mean it was telling +me stuff I just give that go straight to the knowledge check right authentication is +who you are authorization is what you're allowed to do if you're an authenticated they can access +any object of the name where should secrets not be stored when a QR code on your front door +that source code repository is tickets chat see I've got all of the above +and except for the approved secrets manager you accidentally committed the API key +I revoke and rotate as I find side validation is sufficient yeah no it's not it's not +best protection against SQL injection yeah prepared statements I don't see that a lot in the code +place supply chain risks include what is type I squatting all right okay you give you the +main like google dot com you go to google dot com you type in some secure information +come for myest maintainer accounts code reviews in the risk it's negative +pinning and reviewing dependency changes can reduce risk yeah pinning is where you fix it +certain version you don't just automatically update to the next version until you've decided that it's +safe to do so yeah they're talking about pull requests here that that may exist on +may exist in other parts of the universe it I've never seen it in this context so why +while do we disable CI checks ask for justification yeah least privilege for service account +remains I give any permissions needed right production access should be limited in the trial +to guess yes good logging practice include for that thing yeah deadlock for personal data +payloads control access to logs yeah using production data and development is yeah with approval +controls temporary secrets in code all right I mean I might disagree with this it depends what +codes but okay yeah not acceptable anyway I can download that PDF save it I think that one's done +that click on complete or I'll neatly the deadline is the first of April but I'm down to nine +outstanding things so access controls in this privilege right it's a completely skip everything +I just click start course completely skip everything down to acceptable use of systems +that owned by the organization personally use maybe committed a bit of different ways in the +level well I use chat GPT to write a book then I have that's reasonable okay which statements +about monitoring privacy is most accurate personal information accompanied devices is private +I'll be going to ease confidentiality of personal information accompanied may want to +use the school Jamaicans to not assume privacy I think getting stressed about protecting +your privacy just come to accept no just never ever assume privacy ever never assume it +selectable good password practices keep passwords and authentication in face secure +and then I guess I share your account now is MFI yes yeah doubt approval once you didn't +initiate doubt share the codes good right when should you lock your screen I heavily disagree with this +if there are other controls in place because there are situations you do not want to be +unlocking your screen every fucking five minutes you know because for the sake of the little +sanity that one has left right only at the end of the day whenever you step away from your +office your device yeah all right I mean yeah if I'm sharing this if I'm physically sharing the +space with other human beings yes I will want to look my screen I guess if I'm not sharing +you know well one my mom may be a secret hacker for the Russian government you know +I'm pap she isn't right do you want to instill a new tool on your laptop +what should you do yeah get permission I don't I don't have a laptop or I do but I don't use it +okay right select elections that reduce risk yeah why about touchments and verify unusual +requests yeah I mean this was I was not I don't know if I was not thinking I actually just +like I was working an unusual location I did not have my public key for my device I was working +instilled on my dev server so I just emailed my colleague and said I can you shove this +public key on the dev server and you know he did it but he was like they he came it's actually my +self fuzzy he came to me it later and he said actually that seemed a bit like a fishing attempt +and I just only realized oh yeah my ver well it was convenient because it allowed me to get some +work done that that it didn't actually much big I didn't actually do much that day so it wasn't +necessarily all that useful and I think next time I think I might just say well if it's not on this +device I just not not work at the moment I just leave the work for a time that I'm actually at +my my own device so I think part of fishing is not just don't be fished yourself but don't ask +other people to do things that they that they themselves will find a comfortable I don't know +and I've got an email just seeing if this okay just confirmation that something will be passed +on to the relevant person but we're talking about why I shouldn't have reduced my risk +don't forward customer files to personal email well I mean I use I'm sorry but +if it's not on my personal email don't see it and well these are not customer files these are +these things like API specs or and I just general discussion it's not sensitive information right +checks and address carefully yeah okay is acceptable to let a family member use you work can't +probably not which is prohibited reports using malicious introducing malicious problems it's +systems I mean I can't imagine what would be wrong with that I mean I think wished in in still +the virus and that every system you have access to it's just a matter of course +port scanning or security scanning a lad with prior authorization +but I'm gonna click this one but I'm sorry I'm never ever gonna use any computer system +that I have not scanned the ports of I mean I'm sorry that's just it's in my blood you know +I will always scan the port right you receive an unexpected invoice attachment from an unknown +send a reporting of I don't mean you should I need you should only access systems and that +you're offers to use yeah making fraudulent offers I guess prohibited select or +prepped installing part of software things in your definition but yeah sharing passwords +the nav service attacks keeping your device updated and accepting network traffic not intended for you +I I question whether intersection network traffic not intended for you is really prohibited +I mean if it's not intended for you it should be encrypted not that I've ever done this but +don't put it on me to to be accountable if someone is not if I'm having to use some system +and this is not a specific example of something that's actually happened but if I'm using some +system and someone is not encrypting their network traffic it's almost my duty you know it's +oh yeah I should downwell intercept it and downwell tell them by the way your traffic is not encrypted +yeah I don't know you know I tell you this I take it seriously but if someone's telling me +something that has right I'll have to chat get my thoughts clarified on this right right I am +told in an info set or it never to intercept network traffic not intended for me I have +crimes this will be negligent on my part not to be aware of potential hunting +cryptid traffic on the network I am connected connecting to as if a security risk affects +someone just on the network it then well affects me also so I say there's a +monitoring for safety versus another threat's intersection I mean they're saying right I'm +getting private data passwords emails are personal browsing of colleagues but I'm not because it +is it should be a secured HTTP you know secured DNS oh yeah trigger an ideas an +intrusion detection system I forbid sniffing traffic so it's not it's not necessarily because +there should be encryption at the app level and endpoint prediction well this is how it puts it says +the order isn't asking you to be negligent it's asking you to respect the boundaries of +authorization think of it like a hotel you should lock your own door and report fire in the hallway +that you aren't allowed to put a glass to the wall to listen to what's happening in the next +room just in case there's a thief in there yeah okay like I don't want to sneak on anything +and I inherently would not would not but if network traffic is passing through +my system such that it can be sniffed it is inherently no longer private it is part of the network +traffic I would not on principle try to sneak but I need to be aware of what is going on +the network because it also affects me so this depends on putting your network card into +promiscuous mode yeah all right so I'm not putting my network card in promiscuous mode +what prevent someone else doing so I mean all right it's their risk and it's not my responsibility +so yeah you can use ARP watch your neighbor discovery egress monitoring to see what I'm sending +out through to call auditing so yeah I can it's a user scanner don't sniff but +so say the professional approach is too yeah and what do they mean by intercepting network traffic +that's not intended for you as as difference between intercepting and I mean I'm stuck at this point +because I think there's there's something important there's not being expressed or discussed +but the idea that capturing traffic going through my network the interface on my hardware the traffic +is reaching the interface on my hardware that I should not be allowed to +register that data if it comes to my hardware I find hard because you know if I'm working for someone +it doesn't matter what it is I am not going to even look even if I have to process something +there's I'm going to look at anything that's private to that person or to that company or whatever +I'm just not going to do that okay the next section is data classification handling and this +has questions why do we classify information and that's like is it public as a confidential whatever +incentive what sort of information should be restricted like passwords API keys +should be confidential files in personal cloud storage now +had to share a customer report internally but on some approved storage somewhere +so good practices for confidential data at least access need to now +remove access for no longer needed large exports of personal data or confidential +screenshots can expose data what's the best rule for export so I export the minimum +so what common lead points so screenshots log status ports so if you accidentally shared something +a link should provide kit and restrict access and report to what happens +personal data should be confidential yes restricting information should be shared +should be shared and you've all fried people and type with type controls +it's fairly straightforward so passwords and multifactual authentication +if things like the biggest risk of reusing password is the one breach can compromise +more than one account so they use this even a strong password they use it everywhere +best way to create passwords password manager generator +for your password manager use a strong password and they say lock screen and multi-factor +I think biometrics nowadays is probably what you should be using so multi-factor +have protect accounts even if password is less stolen yeah so if you receive a multi-factor prompt +it's reported you know that you didn't initiate your report here and check the account security +you know what is the past phrase you know is is a predictable pattern a good password +well in principle no but sometimes sometimes there might be the best solution sometimes +there might be a more human solution but it actually works better so who had enough accounts +been compromised you get password reset and they didn't request looking alert or +you're forwarding rules created and that you didn't do if you accidentally put the credentials +in a suspicious page you should report it and change your passwords they have a share passwords yeah +I mean the kind of repeating themselves a bit but the next section is security +instant reporting in response so apparently as well security instant is any event that could +affect confidentiality integrity or availability if you're not sure they'll just wait until you are +sure right which of the following is an instant a last laptop and expected them a fake prompt +I extend the mainly customer report suspected malware warning okay that some of this is just +repeating themselves so don't don't destroy evidence unless instructed so evidence could be screen +shops email headers or message IDs time and date of the event so the device is done what's your +first action report it using an instant process the instant process is that one +extended data sent to the wrong person can be a personal data pressure +been how many how many times as everyone received a CC of people's email addresses which was meant to be a +CC I mean literally how many times that happened and then one person replies to it and right +sends out a 2350 emails to everyone else in that CC list I mean you would almost think they should +build it into the email client no one in their right mind wants to see see more than like two people +you know it's never efficient social engineering awareness so +efficient what is efficient trying to do is trying to trick you into a really information +take unsafe actions commission reflects could urgency and pressure are requesting passwords or +MFA codes look like the mains to good to be true offers so see how usually I see to buy gift cards +which should do verify if I'll independent channel yeah now my sport worker he got +fine cool telling him he owed some tax you know they said try your credit card and then he gave them +their credit card number and then they said oh that didn't work we'll have to find another way +you feed send us the tax that you are us I tell you what why don't you just buy Amazon vouchers +and they got him to buy 4,000 pounds worth of Amazon vouchers and send them and it's only like +when he went to the supermarket the third or fourth time and was buying a stack of Amazon vouchers +they were like someone said a why do you want these Amazon vouchers and he said oh I have to +repay some tax and the person said no perhaps you're being scammed and he's like oh oh yeah +I guess I could be cure codes can be used in fishing attempts yeah it's quite a good one actually +supply says the bank details changed say what she's doing verify by non-channel +the best general mindset for fishing prevention is slow down verify unusual requests +secure in my working she perhaps relevant to me I don't generally go around with my laptop all +over the place it's working from a home PC mean some of these I just click for it because it's +not really relevant that all of them I click for it so data protection this is back on the GDPR again +personal data is information relating to my identified or identified person +data minimization means click only what you need for the purpose so what counts as a person +date breach sending personal date the wrong person losing a laptop that might contain personal +data posting use it in final public forum and all price access to the account I don't think +I know price access to the account is a personal date breach or is that I guess it is +storage limitation delete or I'll call for another required what's a DSAR it's when someone says +what tell me what date you have about me it's a data it's a data subject access request +so which of these roles align with the principles of data protection is data for intended perhaps +I need to keep the data secure don't keep data longer than needed yes and an acceptable use of +system occasional personal use of company systems may be permitted if it's reasonable +so let's go to good password practices keep passwords and authentication if I secure use +multiple authentication do not share multi-factor authentication code select actions there +are just email risk be careful with unexpected detachment verify unusual requests with a trusted +channel check the send address carefully port scanning is allowed with prior authorization only +you should only add to systems and date your offer as to use yes if you lose your work laptop +what should you do I think you report it okay information secure some of that seems to be +paying itself information security awareness this annual out of C I I what best describes +confidentiality they choose any accessible to CIA so CIA stands for confidentiality integrity +and authorization not a failability so I there are the three pinnacles of information security +are confidentiality integrity and the failability just in my experience of +availability is the big one because you're much much much more likely so again to travel just +not backing up then you are from someone deliberately trying to harm you or still your data +or just deleting stuff yourself by anything or thinking that you have backups that you don't +and this is kind of high level stuff like data minimization means and and you collect +new data necessary purpose the safest way to share sensitive customer information is approved +secure company systems with all price access fair enough I mean this I don't really see much +actual customer data message been filled for whatever anonymization or anyway I got the +stiff cuts go all the stiff cuts those who have a stiff cut like the or valid until +it's got the date on it yeah I mean a lot of this comes down to I know the principle +the reason for the audit is it's about protecting company and protecting customers information +even protecting your own information and being secure about how you're doing things which is +over reasonable but it touches on a few areas of it's something that is kind of incidental to it +but it's something that highlights for me is something about if you're a developer or a hacker +or whatever you know how do you act ethically and there's an episode HPR 3779 that +try recorded which is just because you can do a thing and that kind of says things quite well +and then there's HPR ego all the way back to 2009 HPR number 61 and 32 records a +conversation about computing which is kind of about Ted Queen dependence and moral autonomy +and it's sort of freedom demands responsibility and then even even the fair you go all the way +about HPR number 2 you have deep geek talking about customization the loss reason and it's like +questioning you know why why do you want to think of everything customized everything and you know +access all the units and internals of things and it's not really because just because you can do +it is because doing so teaches you why systems work as they do +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4616.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4616.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90db759 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4616.txt @@ -0,0 +1,175 @@ +Episode: 4616 +Title: Thoughts about age control and further suggestions +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4616/hpr4616.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:12 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4616, for 2026-04-13 +Today's show is entitled, "Thoughts about age control and further suggestions" +The host is Trollercoaster and the duration is 00:10:45 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Big Deborah interviews Trollercoaster, who is an avid fan of implementing Age Control." +Hi, my name is Hopper with Maddie Magazine. +Today I'll be interviewing the legendary Triller coaster. +Following the recent System 76 debacle +where they unfortunately came to their local lawmakers, +I've decided to interview today. +Let's begin. +So first off, if it were 1985, +would you want VCRs to have age verification? +And how would you go about implementing it? +Well, first of all, I mean, +I think it's a good thing what's happening. +The System 76 didn't give, they were just visionary. +They know the way the future is. +They need new hackers. +I mean, kids, kids are spoiled nowadays. +They need more challenges. +They need more incentive to be creative. +It's for thinking, right? +Yeah, it's for thinking. +I mean, that's it. +It's as simple as that. +So they are creating new hackers and new smart ideas +for the future of the System 76 can be the biggest brand in the world. +Because why, okay, so they have to. +What will happen? +Well, those age verification will +the scare away the kids being age 16 or 14 or whatever. +I mean, those were my greatest memories from my childhood. +You were talking about the VCR. +Well, I was only 14 when I parents bought a new VCR. +A VCR is a device where you pop in the tape into a machine. +And then you can watch a movie or even record one. +It didn't come with ads and there were age restrictions on videos. +But the age restriction was printed on the box and you could just ignore it if you wanted +to. +And the trick was your dad had to hide the video somewhere where I, as a kid, couldn't +see it. +I'm probably one of my mom neither, but let's not go there. +It was the responsibility of the person popping in the video to decide if it was a fit for +the audience or not. +Nobody was going to sue Phillips for not allowing to watch those movies. +That my dad has stashed away. +So that VCR of ours had a parental lock. +You could enter a code and then the kids couldn't watch certain channels like Playboy +Channel or whatever. +But here I was the smart kid, I was the techie from the house, so mom asked me to install +the VCR. +And well, what did I do? +I installed a parental lock on Playboy Channel, just didn't tell the, I mean, who wanted +to spoil my sister, right? +Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously much simply times. +I'd be curious to know how they'd go about it if VCR is existed now, but the second question +that I have pertains to firearms. +The first question before I start with these would be, what is your stance on firearms +and or verification of them? +Firearms, I mean, yeah, I don't care about firearms, I don't have any. +But I think it is important, I mean, the logic of the age verification, it's so simple, +it's so universal, it's, and I mean, the tech is there just, you have the biometrics, +you have facial recognition. +So I think guns suggest implemented in two ways. +First of all, if I want to use a gun, the device will do a fingerprint check, whatever, +it will verify my age that I'm an adult and I can shoot a gun because I'm holding +off. +But if you also put an age verification on the target, I mean, all the, the, the campus shootings +are over because no kids will, we'll, we'll get shot anyway, and if, in some case, a +kid gets shot or a kid shoots a gun, well, it's simple, let's sue Smiths and Western, +because it's their fault that the gun shot a kid for them. +So now that you stated your for it, I, I would like to know your thoughts on a couple of +things, and I guess the first one being say that we implemented two, two factor, two +step authentication on firearms. +So obviously we've got the fingerprint scanner on the trigger, however, I don't, I don't +think our fellow lawmakers here in the States would approve just one. +So how, how would you go about implementing a second one, say about through the sites +or what a camera being mounted, what about firearms without proper sites? +Oh, yeah, I don't know another about firearms, but I, I, I would, I would not, I don't +think, as a mess would be a good idea because having an SMS, while you're holding a +gun, I mean, that's quite annoying, and I also don't think a gun has a numeric bat, +so, but I mean, those are implementation details. +I mean, I really don't care how they implemented for me. +The thing is the liability should lie with the person who created the gun, just like +the liability lies to the person who creates the operating system. +That's simple, and I mean, it's so easy. +So let's not, let's not over complicate things, let's not, not go, go into those details, +because those will cause a headache to the policy makers that they can just leave, leave +that stuff over to the, to the people who create stuff. +So what is your stance on anything containing dangerous objects, so catch and drawers, +knife blocks, gun safe, any of that? +Ah, but that's, that's a good idea, I mean, let's sue IKEA for allowing access to knives, +because let's, let's be honest, I mean, how many kids haven't got their fingers? +So indeed, I mean, a kitchen drawer, it's a minus. +They can contain all kinds of dangerous stuff knives and spicy stuff and batteries. +I mean, kitchen drawers should keep a log of its contents, and should only open to +adults if containing sharp objects or dangerous objects, of course. +If a minor manages to open a drawer and cut itself, the kitchen manufacturer should +be held liable, because obviously they didn't care enough about the safety of our kids. +Those landlords who have to replace the whole kitchen, don't worry, Microsoft will be offering +like kitchen as a service. +A cast, we'll start, we'll start, oh, yeah, you'll have to, when you buy a new house, +you'll have to have a government-medated cast provider. +Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, man. +Okay, so for my next question, I would like to ask your opinion on a way to make this a +bit easier for those who are authorized. +So would you advocate for a government slash jurisdiction mandated NFC chips in our hands +in order to open kitchen drawers or knife blocks? +And furthermore, could we extend this to motor vehicles? +That's a good idea, actually. +I mean, if everybody would just like, shoot a chip in there, in their finger or in their +hands, they wouldn't even have to think about where they put their phone or where they left +their idea. +I mean, it's just there. +We have nothing to hide, right? +So why should we worry? +Everything's fine. +Well, as it may be, we can implement its GPS straffer in there too. +Yeah. +Well, there are kids, I mean, how many parents worry about where are my kids? +I just imagine, instead of search from station, kids now get GPS injection, it's, I mean, +it's, it's a thing, but by the time that they're one year old, they don't remember +any more. +They don't care, and you can just always know where your kids are, isn't that a piece +of mind? +Oh, that's great. +Oh, that's perfect. +So one more thing here, who would be authorized to determine whether or not you are psychologically +fit to open a kitchen drawer? +Well, that's an AI, of course. +That's simple. +I mean, and, but let's, let's, let's not be too short-science. +I mean, we've been talking about kids here and kids there and kids and kids and kids, but +there comes a certain age where your brain capacity starts declining. +I'm not talking about myself here, okay? +But at a certain point, we will be expecting having reaching a certain level of maturity, +and then your brain starts to deteriorate. +Some smart and serious people start trolling their communities with sarcastic podcasts, and +they could be Muslim, Muslim, and a student as a being advice. +That's not the mistake that those kind of people get access to sarcastic things. +So I'm confident that certain companies would be glad to offer a maturity training. +If you commit to share your training data with a platform that they also happen to offer. +So if you want to remain access to the knives and to the spices, you need to have +like maturity exam every two years to renew your maturity level. +I mean, it's, it's just part of that kitchen as a service. +I probably forgot to add other scenarios. +I think you can think of other ones too. +But I mean, there's a comment section under this episode. +So please add your ideas, add your suggestions, because I think the lawmakers really need +our insights because they are so narrow minded. +Yeah, it's pretty bad. +I mean about it, but I just, yeah. +If you agree with me, now is the time to reach out to your lawmakers. +Tell them how happy you are with this new legislation and ask them to expand it into other fields. +Oh, yeah, how have you disagree? +Yeah, man, to late for you. +If you live in other areas, inside or outside the USA, don't hurry, just let your local legislators +do their work. +Be sure not to contact them with your futile remarks because you would only annoy those +dedicated lobbyists, having lunch with metal people already trying to convince policy makers +in your area too. +Ask, I think we covered it. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4617.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4617.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c621d2c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4617.txt @@ -0,0 +1,159 @@ +Episode: 4617 +Title: UNIX Curio #4 - Archiving Files +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4617/hpr4617.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:13 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4617, for 2026-04-14 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #4 - Archiving Files" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:15:57 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Utilities and file formats, especially "pax"" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number four. +This series is dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally useful, trinkets +lurking in the dusty corners of unix-like operating systems. +When you think about creating and managing archives on a unix system, tar is probably +the utility that comes to mind. +But this was not the first archiving program, R spelled AR, or in the phonetic alphabet, +Alfa Romeo, was in first edition Unix and CPIO also predates it sort of. +Coming to the NetBSD manual page, CPIO was developed within AT&T before tar, but did +not get widely released until system 3 Unix after tar was already well known from the +earlier release of 7th edition Unix, also known as version 7. +You might think that AR and CPIO are old and irrelevant these days, but these formats +do live on. +Each deviant package file is an AR archive which in turn contains two tar files. +On Red Hat, Fedora, Suza, and some other distributions, each RPM package file contains +a CPIO payload. +So these may very well be an use on your modern Linux system. +But let's get back to the subject of what you might want to use to create archives today. +The tar utility has persisted in its popularity over the decades and you most probably +have a version installed on your Unix-like systems. +One of the problems with tar, however, is that it has not kept a consistent file format. +Also differing implementations have used differing syntax at times. +There are excellent reasons for the file format changing. +The names people give files have gotten longer over time and the original 7th edition +tar format could only handle a total path name length of 100 bytes for each archive member. +In addition, file names were in ASCII format and Miron file systems now accommodate richer +encodings with characters that aren't in ASCII. +The size of each archive member was limited to 8 gigabytes. +Unthinkably large back then, but not so big these days. +User and group ownership could only be specified by numeric ID, which can vary from one +system to another. +Many other types of information simply couldn't be stored at all. +Lock and character device nodes, phyphos, sockets, extended attributes, access control lists, +and SELINIX context. +As a result, the tar format had to evolve over the years. +One important version was the U-Star format, spelled U-S-T-A-R, created for the 1988 +physics standard. +The POSIX committee decided to try standardizing both the file format and syntax for +the tar command. +While the U-Star format addressed some shortcomings, progress marched on. +File systems started allowing file names in different character sets and let more types +of information be attached to files. +So for the 2001 revision of POSIX, they gave up on standardizing the tar utility and +came up with a new format and utility, which is our actual Unix Curio for this episode. +That utility is called PACS, spelled P-A-X, or in the phonetic alphabet, Papa Alpha X-ray. +Since the PACS program didn't have historical baggage, they could specify its options, +behavior, and file format, and be sure everyone's implementation would match. +Developers of different tar implementations had been reluctant to change away from their +historical options syntax to the standard. +The PACS utility was also an attempt to avoid taking sides between those who advocated for +tar and fans of CPIO. +The PACS file format was an extension of U-Star with the ability to add arbitrary new attributes +tied to each archive member as UTF8 Unicode. +Some of these attribute names were standardized, but implementors could also define their +own, making the format more future proof. +Older versions of tar that could handle the U-Star format should still be able to process +PACS archives, but might not know what to do with the extra attributes. +Genu tar developed its current archive format alongside the standardization of the U-Star +format. +The Genu format was based on an early draft, which later went incompatible changes, so +the two, unfortunately, are not interchangeable. +Unlike U-Star, the Genu format has no limits on the size of files or the length of their +names. +In addition to its own format, Genu tar is able to detect and correctly process both +U-Star and PACS archives. +In situations where its native format can't store necessary information about a file, such +as PACS' access control lists or extended attributes, Genu tar will automatically output +the PACS format instead. +In the documentation, this is called PACS written in lowercase. +However, it still uses the Genu format by default, though the documentation has been +threatening to move to the PACS format for at least 20 years. +The good news is that the U-Star PACS, Genu tar, and 7th edition tar formats are well documented, +and utilities across many Unix-like systems are able to handle these, depending on which +formats existed when the utility was developed. +While your system may not have PACS itself installed, there are other archiving utilities +that can read the file format, including Genu tar. +What amusingly, Debian and some other free software operating systems package a PACS utility +developed by MirBateBSD, which largely follows the POS-Expecified Interface, but it doesn't +support reading or writing archives in PACS format. +We should look at the manual page for the tar or CPIO utilities on your system to see if +they can handle PACS archives. +Perhaps one aspect that is worked in favor of tar and other Unix archive formats is that +they only concern themselves with storing files and make no attempts at compression. +Instead, it is common for a complete archive file to be compressed after a creation. +Many utilities can be told to do this step for you, but it is not typically the default +behavior. +Therefore, if a better compression method comes along, the archive format doesn't need +to change. +If you do use compression, be careful to choose a method that is available on the destination +system. +Compressing files is a big enough subject to deserve its own episode, so we won't talk +any more about it here. +So which format should you use when creating an archive? +Unfortunately, there is no single answer that applies in all circumstances. +The PACS format is supported among modern Unix-like systems and can represent all types +of files and metadata. +While other systems, their file systems and archive utilities might not be able to properly +make use of all of the metadata, they should at least be able to extract the data contained +in files. +And if Unicode is supported, give them appropriate file names. +If you intend to unpack the archive on an older system, more research might be needed to +figure out what formats it is able to handle. +The seventh edition tar format, often called V7, is widely supported, including by older +systems, but has limitations in what it can contain as described earlier. +Moving beyond the Unix world, things get a bit more complicated. +Apple's Mac OS with its free-BSD underpinnings easily handles tar files, however, when it +comes to MSDOS and Windows, things are a bit different. +There a multitude of archiving programs and formats arose, usually combining archiving with +compression. +PKZIP was probably the most popular of these, and its zip format became common in many +places, helped by the fact that PKWAR openly published the specification. +While there is only a single zip format, it has many options, some proprietary, and different +implementations have diverged in the way some aspects are handled, or not handled. +An ISO IEC standard for zip was published in 2015, giving a baseline profile, and sticking +to it produces files that can be widely extracted successfully. +Other format, file formats, like Open Document, use the zip format, and typically +hue to the standardized profile. +Windows File Explorer, starting with Windows XP, can natively extract zip files. +The Infosip program is a free software implementation for a wide variety of systems, even +rather obscure ones. +While it might not be installed on yours, if you are copying the archive file over, +you can probably copy over its unzip utility at the same time to unpack it. +So zip probably has the broadest support, although it might not already be present on +every system. +However, as Clientube points out, in Hacker Public Radio episode 4557, zip files and +applications handling them aren't always great at maintaining metadata about files. +The zip format doesn't seem to have any way to represent unique file permissions, and +user and group ownership can only be included as numeric IDs. +Other types of metadata on UnixLike systems are not saved at all. +This is probably not a problem in some cases, such as with a collection of photos, but for +others it might be a concern. +While Pax as a utility does not seem to have gained much popularity or support, expect +on commercial e-nix systems, where including it was required to conform to the POSIC standard, +its file format has persisted. +Free software systems have generally avoided the Pax interface, preferring to stick with the +tar utility on the command line, but usually have good support for archive files in the +Pax format. +Outside of UnixLike systems, zip seems to have become the most common file format, and +support for it is also good in the Unix world, though it might not be built in. +Thanks for listening, and keep an eye out for the next Unix Curio, which will be about +some things the Kill Command can do here on Hacker Public Radio. +If you have a question or a suggestion for a future topic, please comment on this episode +on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4618.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4618.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7c69cb --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4618.txt @@ -0,0 +1,340 @@ +Episode: 4618 +Title: Simple Podcasting - Episode 2 - Basic Filtering +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4618/hpr4618.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:15 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4618, for 2026-04-15 +Today's show is entitled, "Simple Podcasting - Episode 2 - Basic Filtering" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:37:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This episode is the second in an 4 part series on simple podcasting covering Basic Filtering" +This is a second episode in a four-part series on a simple way to create your own HPR podcast episode. +This episode will cover the following topics, basic filtering, DSing to improve voice quality, +and normalizing to adjust audio levels for easier reviewing. +Filtering is removing unwanted noise from an audio signal. +There are several ways of doing this. +It is possible to do this with audacity, but I don't know how, +so I won't try to describe that method. +It is possible, however, to filter using command line tools, +such as FFM peg and socks. +When assembled into shell scripts, these tools can become part of an automated process +that you can use over and over again for each HPR episode that you record. +In a later episode, I will discuss how to analyze audio signals to find the sources of noise +that can be reduced or eliminated with filters. +In this episode, however, I will discuss basic filtering that you can apply routinely +without doing any analysis beforehand. +Sources of noise. +A question that you may have is, why is there noise in the recording? +There are many sources of undesirable noise. +A very common one that you may not be aware of is electrical noise that works its way into the electronic recording circuits +and is imperceptible to you until you play back to recorded audio. +The most common noise signal is what is commonly called line noise, +and it is a low frequency hum at 50 or 60 Hz from the electric power lines +and reflects the 50 or 60 Hz frequency of the AC power lines feeding your recording hardware. +You may be familiar with this low frequency hum from when it emanates from the large electrical hardware such as transformers +as it makes the lamination vibrate. +However, it can also work its way indirectly into electronic equipment as well. +Good quality audio hardware may filter out all or most of this noise, +but it is present in a lot of consumer-grade hardware. +Other sources of electrical noise may reflect specific problems in your recording hardware. +I will discuss one such problem with my microphone that I had to address. +Still other sources of noise may reflect actual physical audio noise around you, such as fans. +Placing the microphone close to your face will help in dealing with a lot of these problems, +but you may find filtering to be of some help here as well. +Audio frequency range. +Let's start with some basics. +A good quality stereo of the type you may have at home is typically rated to perform between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. +This is the widest possible range that we need to consider. +In reality, this is a far wider range that is needed for a voice-oriented podcast. +It is also well beyond the range of the hardware that many of your listeners will be using to listen to the podcast. +For example, the speakers that I have connected to my PC and a number of headphones and earphones that I have tested, +drop off drastically below 80 Hz or above 8 kHz or even above 6 kHz in many cases. +This is not audio-file quality hardware, but it is representative of the sort of hardware that a lot of your listeners will be using when listening to podcasts. +And to be honest here, a lot of people have difficulty hearing anything above 8 kHz even with the best quality audio hardware, +duty hearing loss for environmental noise exposure or age. +You can get a good idea of what different frequencies sound like by generating sine waves, either with FFMPEG or SOx. +Here's the example of generating a 1 kHz sine wave using FFMPEG. +A copy of this will be in the show notes. +Go to FFMPEG, space, dash F, space, L-A-V-F-I, space, dash I, space, double quote, sine equals frequency equals 1000. +Colen, sample underscore rate equals 44,100. +Colen, duration equals 3, double quote, space 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, H-Z dot flag. +This creates a sine wave at 1 kHz and a sample rate of 44.1 kHz for a duration of 3 seconds, +and saves it to a flag file named 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, H-Z dot flag. +Here's the same thing using SOx. +Sox, space, dash, N, space, dash, R, space, 44, 100, space, dash, B, space, 16, space, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, H-Z dot flag. +Sox, space, S-Y-N, T-H, space, 3, space, sine, space, 1,000. +The dash B, 16 specifies using 16 bits, audio to encoded, and the sine 1000 element specifies the frequency in Hertz. +You can test this out at different frequencies to get a feel for how your hardware responds. +What the effective limits on typical hardware audio range means is that we can quite safely filter out a large part of what is considered to be the audio range, +without any noticeable loss of quality. +For the purposes of our discussion here, then, I will limit the frequency range to between 80 Hertz and 12 kHz, and that is being generous. +You can probably narrow that, particularly at the top end, without any problems. +At the low end, the typical rule of thumb recommended by most people seems to be that for the average male voice, you can set the lower threshold at 80 Hertz, and for the average female, you can set it at 160 Hertz. +Note that you don't have to set the threshold higher for a female. +Rather, it is just that you typically can set it higher if you wish. +Note also that these are averages and may not reflect an actual individual. +Simple filters. +We will now create some simple filters using the same command line software mentioned in a previous episode in the series. +These are FFMPEG and SOx. +First, let's define some terminology. +A high pass filter passes through frequencies, which fall above a certain threshold, and blocks frequencies, which are below that frequency. +In reality, there isn't any abrupt cut-off in the filters. +Instead, there is a gradual roll-off or sloping-off of amplitude, below above the specified filter frequency. +This is for two reasons. +One is that, if there was an abrupt cut-off, then it would risk introducing audible distortion in this signal for free. +The other reason is that this is how hardware filters traditionally inherently worked when they are made out of electronic components, such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors. +The sharpness of this cut-off can be adjusted, but we won't be filling with it in that sort of detail. +You will sometimes see filters specified in terms of number of poles. +This has to do with describing how filters were constructed using electronic components. +Don't worry about it, it doesn't really matter. +Here is a typical high pass filter using FFMPEG, which filters out frequencies below 80 Hz. +FFMPEG, space-i, space input-file.flac, space-af, space, double-quote, high pass, that's h-i-g-h-p-a-s equals f equals 8-0, double-quote, output-file.flac. +Here is a typical low pass filter using FFMPEG, which filters out frequencies above 12 Hz. +FFMPEG, space-i, space input-file.flac, space-a-f, space, double-quote, low pass, that's l-o-w-p-a-s equals f equals 12,000, double-quote, space, output-file. +Here is a filter which combines the two. +FFMPEG, space-i, space input-file.flac, space-a-f, space, double-quote, high pass equals f equals 80, comma, low pass equals f equals 12,000, double-quote, space, output-file.flac. +And here is the same thing using socks. +Sox, space, input-file.flac, space, output-file.flac, space, high pass, space, 80, space, low pass, space, 12,000, filtering out specific frequencies. +Recall that I mentioned that a common source of noise is the 50 or 60 Hz AC power line frequency, working its way through the electronics of your recording device. +Because filters operate gradually and the 80 Hz lower filter threshold is close to 60 Hz, the high pass filter may not deal with this adequately. +Now, it happens that your listeners may not be able to hear this 50 or 60 Hz noise anyway, because their audio hardware won't reproduce it. +That, by the way, includes you not being able to hear it either, when you review your recording before uploading it. +However, to maybe some HDR listeners who are sitting back, sipping a glass of wine, and listening to your episode on their stereo, who can hear it. +That suggests we ought to do something about it, just in case. +I will get into how to analyze audio signals in a later episode, but for now, just accept that it looked at the frequency spectrum of a sample recording using my hardware, and found a large 60 Hz noise spike, which I want to address. +Experimenting with additional high pass frequencies up to 120 Hz did not improve things much, which we expect to these 60 Hz problems. +There are other parameters which could be tweaked, but at this point it would seem most promising to attack the 60 Hz spike problem directly using a different filter method. +To deal with this 60 Hz spike, we can use a band reject filter, which removes a specific band of frequencies. +We can use this in combination with the filtering we have already done above. +After a small amount of experimenting, I came up with the following. +I also added in a 50 Hz filter while I was at it, for the benefit of those living in areas with 50 Hz electrical supply. +These filters will be included in the show notes, so don't worry if you can't quite understand all the details from a verbal description. +Here is the FFMPEG version. FFMPEG space-i space input dot flag space-af space double quote high pass equals f equals 80 comma low pass equals f equals 12,000 comma band reject that's b-a-n-d-r-e-j-e-c-t equals f equals six. +F equals 60, colon with underscore type that's w-i-d-t-h underscore ty-pe equals h colon w equals 20 comma band reject that's b-a-n-d-r-e-j-e-c-t equals f equals 50 colon with type equals eight. +With type equals h colon w equals 20 double quote output file dot flag. +This has the following elements, a high pass filter at 80 Hz, a low pass filter at 12 kHz, a band reject filter centered at 60 Hz and with the width of 20 Hz, a similar band reject filter centered at 50 Hz. +Here is the socks version socks space input dot flag space output dot flag space high pass space 80 space low pass space 12,000 space band reject space 60 space 20 space band reject space 50 space 20 note that with socks don't quote the filter +definition strings or else it will result in error as socks doesn't see enough parameters. This is not a problem with ffm-peg. +The band reject filter knocks the stuffing out of the 60 Hz line noise and the 50 Hz parameters should do the same with that frequency as well. This basic frequency should be able to be applied to any podcast audio recording without causing any problems. +You can probably reduce the low pass frequency from 12 kHz down to 8 kHz without any problems, but I would suggest you test it with your voice before making that decision. +I will come back to filtering out specific frequencies again later when I discuss how I solved a specific problem with the hardware that I am using. +However, we have to discuss how to analyze audio signals before we can do that sort of technical troubleshooting and I will come back to that in a later episode. +Dsing and additional type of filtering is Dsing. +When recording audio the microphone or environment a result in S, S, H, C, H and possibly other sounds to be exaggerated. +These are all higher frequency elements of voice recordings. Dsing attempts to soften these sounds by selectively reducing the volume on the frequency band which contains these sounds. +Software filters. Dsing is accomplished via software filters. FFMPEG and SOx both have Dsing filters. +For FFMPEG, the Dsing filter is built in. For SOx, however, we must install an additional plugin. I will cover this in more detail when I discuss using SOx for Dsing. +Do you need Dsing? The first thing to make clear however is that you may not need to worry about this. If you think the audio sounds just fine the way it is, you don't need to do any Dsing to it. +Dsing is a very subtle change and you would probably need to do some careful before and after comparisons of audio samples to tell the difference. +I didn't know that such a thing called Dsing even existed before I started doing the research to make this podcast episode. However, at this point we are doing things more for the fun of it than out of a necessity, so I'll describe it anyway. +Dsing with FFMPEG. Dsing with FFMPEG is relatively simple. The filters built in and there are just three values to adjust. On the other hand, it is not really obvious what these values mean in practical terms. +I will however warn you to not rely on the AI search results from Google to understand this feature. The AI in my experience just makes stuff up about it and tells you to use options that don't exist and values that are not valid. +I found that the only useful information came from FFMPEG's own website and from examples written by actual humans. +I then experimented with different values to see what effects they had. Since the results were rather subtle, fine tuning isn't really that necessary and I found that I could arrive at some reasonable values fairly quickly. +I will provide the parameters that I found useful for me and suspect they will probably work for you as well. +Here is a typical DS in command. FFMPEG space-i space input file.flac space, +Does filter complex, does f-i-l-t-e-r underscore, +c-o-m-p-l-e-x space? +Quote, d-s-r that's d-e-e-e-r equals i equals 0.5, +colon m equals 0.5, colon f equals 0.5, colon s equals o, +Quote, space, dash b, colon a, space, +336k, space, dash sample format, +does s-a-m-p-l-e underscore, f-m-t, space, +s-16, space, output, dot-flac. +The important arguments are i, m, and f. +i is intensity for triggering d-s-ing. +The allowed range is 0.1. +The default is 0. +By experimentation, I found that 0 means no d-s-ing, +and 1 is maximum d-s-ing. +I found that setting it to 0.5 gives that as factory results. +m is the amount of what is referred to as +ducking on the trouble part of sound. +The allowed range is 0.1. +The default is 0.5. +By experimentation, I found that 1 means no d-s-ing, +and 0 is maximum d-s-ing. +I found that setting it to 0.5 gives that as factory results. +f is how much of the original frequency content +to keep when d-s-ing. +The allowed range is 0.1. +The default is 0.5. +By experimentation, I found that 1 means no d-s-ing, +and 0 is maximum d-s-ing. +I found that setting it to 0.5 gives that as factory results. +Setting m or f too high can result in distorted output +as too much of the original sound is cut out. +The defaults of 0.5 in both cases +gave audible improvements without noticeable distortion. +There is a additional parameter called s +this controls whether the s-ing filter does anything. +Setting it to s is a normal and default mode. +Setting it to e causes it to output just +the components that it normally would have filtered out. +This is useful for testing purposes, +so you can see what and how much is being filtered. +You only use this when experimenting with different values. +Setting it to i causes the input to be passed +through without d-s-ing. +This will be useful in scripts where you want to use a variable +to control whether or not you use a d-s-er +while still creating the expected output file. +There are two other elements of the command, +which were included, but are not strictly speaking, +part of the d-s-ing filter itself. +These are the dash b colon a space 336k +and dash sample underscore fmt space s16. +dash b colon a space 336k +says the audio bit rate to 336k. +dash sample underscore fmt space s16 +says the audio sample format to 16 bit. +I found it necessary to specify these in order +to prevent the d-s-ing filter from changing formats. +These are not part of d-s-ing however. +d-s-ing with socks. +You can also d-s with socks. +However, this is much more complex for several reasons. +One reason is that socks does not have its own d-s-ing filters. +Instead, it uses optional plugins and you must find and install these. +The actual plugin may vary depending on what operating system you're using. +The other reason is that it deals with the issue in fairly low-level parameters +and so it is a bit more complex to describe. +Because of this, I will skip over describing this in detail +and just give a very brief overview. +If anyone would like me to describe in more detail how to d-s with socks, +then send in a comment and I will do a short episode on it later. +Socks d-s-ing over view. +To d-s with socks, you first need to install the plugins. +On Linux, these will be the tap Ledspa plugins that's TAP +and Ledspa is LADSPA. +Tap stands for Tom's Audio Processing plugins. +Ledspas stands for Linux Audio Developers Simple Plugin API. +To install the tap plugins on Ubuntu, use the following command. +Su-du, space, app, space, install, space, TAP-PLU-G-I-N-S. +The plugin we need is called TAP underscore d-e-e-s-s-e-r.so. +In order to use the plugins, you need to set the path as variable. +On Ubuntu, this is export, space, capital LADSPA underscore P-A-T-H. +So that's Ledspa path all in capitals. +Equals double-quote slash user as U-S-R. +Slash, lib slash, Ledspa, LADSPA, colon double-quote. +I put the above of the shell script which calls the socks d-s-r. +To use the socks d-s-r, you do the following. +Socks, space, inputfile.flac, space, outputfile.flac, space, LADSPA, space, TAP underscore d-e-e-s-e-s-e-r. +underscore d-e-e-s-e-r, space minus 30 space, 4,500. +TAP DSR, TAP DSR tells it which plugin to use. +We need to state TAP DSR twice because the first is the name of the dot s-o-file, +and the second is the name of the plugin. +A single-s-o-file can contain multiple filters, although in this case there's only one. +Minus 30 is the threshold in d-b at which to start to apply the filter. +4,500 is a frequency at hertz that the filter centers around in this case. +The TAP web page has a table of recommended frequencies. +These are for the male s-4,500 hertz, for the male s-h or sh- sound, +3,400 hertz, female s-sound, 6,800 hertz, female s-h sound, 5,100 hertz. +You will need to do some trial and error to find out what works best for you. +2, DSing Summary DSing can be used to make minor improvements to voice quality +by reducing certain harsh sounds which may be exaggerated by a microphone. +If it sounds like a lot of work, you can probably simply not bother with it and not really miss it. +Normalizing. Normalizing a signal means adjusting it to meet a specified level. +For audio, it means adjusting the volume or sound level. +You may wish to normalize the audio if you're recording to make it easier to listen to when reviewing it. +The copy that you sent to HPR, however, should be the original, unnormalized version. +Sound level is measured in two ways, d-b and l-u-f-s. I'll call the latter, +l-f-s, although I don't know if that is the correct pronunciation for it. +The latter is a more sophisticated way of measuring things, +which takes into account how the human ear perceives loudness. +I won't go into a lot of detail in that regard, other than to say that just except l-f-s as a unit of +perceived loudness that is the international standard. L-f-s stands for loudness units reference to full scale, +and that is part of the e-b-u-r-128 standard, where e-b-u stands for +European broadcast union. In both cases, the measured value is a negative number, +with number smaller and magnitude being louder, smaller magnitude being closer to zero. +HPR will adjust the sound level for publication, but if you wish to check the audio before uploading it, +it can help to adjust it to something close to what HPR will do, so you can listen to it +at a volume, which most listeners will hear. In my case, full volume on the audio system input +produced a sound level, which was much lower than a typical HPR episode. However, the volume +level in the flag file itself can be adjusted using ff-m-peg, measuring volume level. +First, we need to see what the volume level is for a typical HPR podcast. To do this, +we use ff-m-peg. In this example, we are using an episode which we will simply call +HPRpodcast.mp3. Pick an episode which you think is suitable and copy the file to the working +directory. In the following script, we use a volume-detect filter. The text we want, +normally outputs to standard error, so we have to do a bit of bashary to redirect this to standard +output so that it will go through a pipe. We then grip for the string, i, colon. +This will have the average volume level in loudness units or luffs. We then extract the number, +giving us a target, luffs level. Ff-m-peg, space-i, space, HPRpodcast.mp3, space-filter, colon, a, space, +e-b-u-r, 128, equals F-r-a-m-e-l-o-g, equal q-u-i-e-t, space, dash-f, space, null. That's n-u-l-l, space, +slash-dev, slash-null, space-2, and then write angle bracket or write error, however you +want to describe it. ampersand 1, space, pipe, symbol, space, grip, space, double quote, capital i, +colon, double quote, space, pipe symbol, space, cut, that c-u-t, space, dash-d, colon, space, +dash-f-2. Unfortunately, I can't find a socks feature, which handles e-b-u loudness, +so we need to work in db instead. Here is the socks version. However, note this may not work on amp3s, +if socks MP3 handling is not installed. socks, space, HPR podcast.mp3, space, dash-n, space, +S-t-a-t-s, space, 2, write angle bracket or write error, however you want to describe it. +ampersand 1, space, pipe, symbol, space, grip, space, double quote, capital r, capital m, +capital s, space, lowercase, l-e-v, space, lowercase d, uppercase v, double quote, space, +pipe symbol, space, r-e-v, space, pipe symbol, space, cut, that c-u-t, space, dash-d, +double quote, space, double quote, space, dash-f-1, space, pipe symbol, space, r-e-v. +You can use either of these for measuring the volume or sound level of an audio file. However, +note that individual episodes from HPR may vary a bit in terms of loudness. In the samples +that I looked at this, however, was less than 1 L-u-f-s or 1 db, while my own recording was roughly +5 L-u-f-s lower in volume than a typical HPR episode. If you Google for the EBUR 128 standard, +the AI result will confidently tell you to use a target of minus 23 L-u-f-s. However, +this is wrong, and which shouldn't be of any surprise if you're familiar with using AI. +The minus 23 L-u-f-s figure is for broadcast television. There is in fact no standard level +for podcasts. However, there is apparently a general industry convention of using +somewhere around minus 17 L-u-f-s. If I look at the first two HPR episodes that I did, +HPR normalized them to minus 16.8 L-u-f-s and minus 17.8 L-u-f-s, +while the original flag files that I submitted were minus 21.6 L-u-f-s and 22.3 L-u-f-s respectively. +So HPR appeared to be targeting somewhere around minus 17 L-u-f-s as well. We will therefore use +minus 17 L-u-f-s as our target for our own copy for review purposes. The nice thing about using +the EBU filtering FMPEG is that this is very simple. Here is the FMPEG version. +FMPEG space-i space input file dot flag space-a-f space L-u-u-d-n-o-r-m equal capital i equal minus 17 +colon T capital T T capital P equals minus 2.0 colon capital L capital R capital A equals 7.0 +space-a-r space 4.1k space output file dot flag capital i is the L-u-f-s target. L-r-a is the +loudness range target. The default is 7.0, so I use that. T-p sets the maximum true peak. +The default value is minus 2.0, so I use that. With socks, things are a bit more difficult. +There is no direct method of setting the loudness that I am aware of, so we need to measure the +current sound level in DBE, do some calculations, and then apply that as a gain factor to the output. +First, we need to subtract the measured DBE level from our flag file from the target DBE level +from the HPR episode we decided to use as a sample. Bash by itself, normally, just does integer math. +However, we would like to have at least one decimal point of resolution to work with. +The simplest solution is to do this calculation using BC to shell arbitrary precision calculator. +Then take this new value and use it in a volume filter. The number which we give socks is the +amount to increase or decrease the volume by socks will then output a new file with the new volume level. +You can now listen to this file under conditions, or close the approximating, +what it will be like after HPR have done their own audio adjustments and normalization on it. +This helps when listening to the file for any problems before you upload it. +Rather than reading five lines of complex shell script to you, +I will put a copy of it in the show notes. +Normalization should be the last thing you do to the file. +It should be done after any noise filtering, such as low pass, high pass, band rejected, etc. +If you normalize first, you will be amplifying the noise as well as the desired signal. +The exact normalization level used for review purposes doesn't matter. +As HPR will apply their own later. +All we are doing at this point is adjusting the volume to something which approximates +a normal episode so you can listen to it for final review. +When you send your file to HPR send the original unnormalized version, not the normalized version. +When you normalize an audio signal, if you are not careful, you may introduce things which +cause problems with later additional processing. +HPR probably do more things to the audio signal than just normalizing and so they need the +unnormalized file so that they can do their own normalizing last. +If at this point you are happy with recording as is, you are ready to send the unnormalized +version to HPR. The script to implement the features discussed in this episode will be in the show notes. +Conclusion. In this episode we covered basic filtering using FFM peg and socks. +We discussed what noise was and some of the origins of noise. +We talked about the audio frequency range and the limitations of common hardware used to +record and list the podcast. We covered basic high and low pass filters used to limit the audio +frequency range in order to remove possible low and high frequency noise. +We discussed specific filters to eliminate 50 and 60 hertz electrical power noise. +We talked about DSing, what it was, why you may wish to use it and some basic DSing filter +implementation details. We discussed normalizing what it is, why you may wish to use it +and how it relates to podcasting conventions. In the next episode we will discuss analyzing +audio signals to help find the sources of noise problems. We will also discuss creating filters +to eliminate any problems that we found. In my case I had a problem with the microphones that I use +and I described how I used filters to deal with that problem. This has been the second episode +in a four-part series on simple podcasting. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4619.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4619.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b73f0c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4619.txt @@ -0,0 +1,334 @@ +Episode: 4619 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 12 - Baltic Porter +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4619/hpr4619.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:16 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4619, for 2026-04-16 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 12 - Baltic Porter" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:31:47 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave and Kevie talk about Baltic Porters." +Hello, hello, and welcome to the Beer Garden Episode 12. +Now, with a bit of a heavy heart, I have to admit that it's the end of an era, it's a sad +time. +It is the last of the winter warmers. +Very sad, it's a tear to the eye. +However, this just means it's a new range of beers coming up soon. +I'm Kibi, and joined as nearly always by Dave, very huge night, Dave. +Hello, yes, I am absolutely fine. +Thank you very much, indeed. +You know, this one has been a long time coming for me, because this was the last of the +last planning batch we did, which was like well before Christmas. +In fact, it might be an in November, we first spoke about this if she's what, four months ago, +and it's taken me up until about two weeks ago to actually find this style that we're going +to be doing this evening. +So, I am anticipatory, if that is indeed a word. +I'm glad to hear that. +Yes, so the style and question is going to be the Baltic Porter, which actually can also +be called Imperial Porter, that pretty much universal, but I'm not actually going to say very +much, because I am going to hand over to my good friend, here, who has been doing the +homework for this episode. +So, Dave, what did you find out about Baltic Porter? +The story of Baltic Porter starts in the 18th century, and it stems from the traditional English +Porter. +Now, English Porter's had a lot of popularity and Britain during that time during the 18th century, +late 1700s. +Porter's are dark robust beers, named for their popularity amongst the working class +Porter's of London. +Now, that's something I didn't know, I didn't realise that's where the name came from. +Brewers in England exported this style quite extensively, and as you'll probably gather, +it did find favour across the Baltic region. +And we were saying the Baltic region, and not talking about the Baltic states specifically, +but any of the countries around the Baltic sea. +So, we're talking about Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Denmark, Germany, Finland, or the area around there. +We're definitely enjoying the Porter style. +But that's the beer when it's way through the shipping routes of the Baltic sea. +Local brewers in countries like Sweden, Poland, Denmark began to brew their own versions of this beer. +Each country adapted its interpretation, if you like, of Porter, to their own local tastes, +and also to the ingredients that are available in those countries at the time. +One of the significant adaptations was the shift from using ale yeast to a larger yeast, +which was much more common in northern and eastern Europe due to the cool affirmation +temperatures that were favored in those regions. +And that led to a much smoother and a much cleaner beer. +Now, the exported versions of Porter were often stronger than those that were consumed domestically in England. +And this was both to endure the long sea voyages, and also because the Baltic mark is favored, +higher alcohol content, makes sense. +But then over time, Baltic port had came to be known for its high strength +and rich, complex, multi-character. +But the development of the Baltic port was also influenced quite strongly by the Stout's +brewed in England for export to the Russian Imperial Court. +Of course, we've had this conversation before around the Imperial Stout. +Imperial Stout's were high now alcohol, very bold in flavoring, +which resonated with the brewers in the Baltic region, and also their consumers. +So the overlap, as you would expect, between the stronger porters and the stronger Stout's +help to shape the character of what would become the Baltic Porter. +Baltic porters are a deep brown to jet-black in color, but often with ruby or garnet highlights, +it says here, when held up to the light, they typically feature a creamy tan head that can +persist due to the beer's richness. +The flavor is intensely multi, now compare that to a regular porter, which is usually a lot +hopier in its style. The notes of dark fruits, like plums, raisins, prunes, and the like, +along with caramel, molasses, and chocolate. So you would definitely expect to see something +a lot sweeter and a lot smoother than you would normally get from a traditional porter. +Some versions of the Baltic porters will also exhibit coffee-like roastiness to it. +The multi-ness, the complexity of the multi, is often complemented by a very subtle +bitterness of the hops, which, again, is one of things that distinguishes it from normal porters. +The warmth of the beer through the higher alcohol content is also very notable, which also is +one of the reasons why it suits so well to the Baltic area, because of the climate, it's much colder, +therefore, having a more warming and a stronger alcohol based ale is much more pleasant. +So on the alcohol side, Baltic porters typically range between 7 to 10 ABV, sometimes even higher +but that just adds to the appreciation and the sensation of the warminess that is +recognised as this style. I think the thing that really stands out for me and I will probably +say that as of this moment, I do not believe I have had a Baltic porter before. Certainly, +while I was going through this and looking at the characteristics and reading, effectively +what a Baltic port is supposed to be and what it represents, I don't recognise it. So this can +I've got here that I will be opening a little later, is going to be quite an experience for me. +But I think the big takeaway from my side is the fact that a Baltic porter is essentially +a lager, as opposed to a port, a hold on, hold on. Effectively, I say, effectively. In terms of +the way it's brewed, the fact that it's complemented and the fact that it using a lager-based yeast +rather than an a-aliest as part of its fermentation process. The male figure of the Baltic +porter is quite full-bodied. It's nice and smooth. A sore-in-one of the articles that I was reading +that says medium to thick in terms of texture and viscosity, which is a huge huge thumbs up for me. +Like to moderate carbonation, the word it uses here, which if it's right, I am so looking +full to this. Serapy. I do enjoy Serapy. As we said before, we went through the Imperial Stouts, +quite some episodes ago now, wasn't it? So yeah, that is all genuine. You all have now. +Anything you want to do out to that? Just to give it a wee bit of fairness. And this is actually +it's amazing how things, you know, leading to each other even when we're not attending them to, +I spoke about the lagering process last time. Remember about how it was called fermented and +stored under clay and it's quite an aged thing. To be fair to Baltic porters, right, they're +not made from hops. Not entirely lagering. But they are, you've done using the lagering process. +And again, the reason for that is just because hops don't grow in the cold and wait. That's +why they use Baltid barley. And that's the reason Scottish beers traditionally are used to that. +But yes, no, no, you got that spot on. Yeah, the distinction there is that they're brewed as +lagers rather than they're not lagers. Yes, they all brewed as lagers. Yes, absolutely. Actually, +I'm shocked that you struggle to get it purely because I had quite a few. Do you know how +difficult it was to kind of hold on to this one? Because I really enjoyed the first few I had. +So this one is a genuine Baltic porter because it is by the Paul Hala brewery in Estonia. +I have got and it's funny. I'm there looking at, I had to look this up. It's like an all two dots above +it. That's the name of this beer. It's all both of them with a two dots above it. +And I was like, how do you characterize it? Oh, I know. I actually went down and I got it. +It's uh, and I'm going, that's not a good start. So I'm hoping it's a, +more than an err. What's this beer? Yeah. So I've had another Baltic porter before from there. +It's not the same one. I did a really left this one for this episode. And I have also had several +that barley wines. They quite don't do fruit and fused barley wines. They're fantastic. And one thing +you will notice that there's no dash wax seal on this one. I ate that, flies me up the wall. +You spend half an hour trying to get into the beer. This one did not come with a wax seal. I'm really +looking forward to this. From the glass, straight away, it's really dark. We can see. +Oh, nose on the bottle. Roasty chocolatey. Like, uh, figs or dates or something like that. Yeah, +and more chocolate. Oh, I'm looking forward to this. So let's get this port. They go aggressive +port. And you can see they are just very little. Yeah, that doesn't agree with the description. +Well, I mean, does in the actual colouring, you know, kind of quite dark head. Oh, okay. +It's not coming across on the, uh, all right. Okay. See, that is a wee. It's good. It's quite a dark +cream head. Uh, that's quite a very, very black. I can't see through that. It's, it's, it's black. +No. Oh, much fruitier in the glass. In the dates are still there, but there's also quite a few +bad easing things. It's a bit more bitter. Yeah, this is smelling divine. Again, this is probably +a kind of style you are either going to love or hate. I don't think I say anybody's going to go +nerd. Sorry. So I'll clean one of that. So they're not going to go, uh, then they're hopefully +not. So this is just slightly above what you mentioned, but not much. 10.5 percent. And I like this. +It's a serve, not chilled. It's a serve at 10.14 degrees. Oh. So proper notes on it. I can. Oh, +no, that is a bit of English. So much. There's a lot of, uh, thing, an imperial Baltic +portal as dark as the Estonian winter nights. So they go. So let's give this a wee try. Oh, +man, that's thick. And that is chewy. Oh, I'm jealous. The chocolate is not coming through. +There's a roastedness in there. Kind of struggling to actually say what the roastedness is. +It has almost a tree cleanness. You know, where it's like that toasted, roasted burnt almost +then slightly bitterness. And then you get fruit on the back end. The fruit is, it's not dates. +It's actually got slightly tartiness in the back end, not majorly, but, you know, something like +a black cut and tea. Yeah, that's really nice. Oh, my word yes. So tell you what, I'm going to +shut up now. I'm going to sip at this and you can enjoy yours. Excellent. Uh, that's that does sound +rather amazing. Now, I'm just trying to find this on the brewery's website. And I can't see it. +So this is a special or they don't do it anymore. But this one is also from an Estonian brewery. +So you couldn't have made that up. The brewery is called the buhaster brewery in Estonia, in +Twitter. The beer itself is called wave tactics. It's only seven and a half percent ABV. It's got +a beautiful artwork on the can. Very nice. I first thought it was Viking long boots. No, +that I'm seeing it. No, I can see horses. Yeah, this one actually came in, I did +back, I can't information this last time, actually. I've managed to cancel my beer 52 subscription. +And the box that reminded me I needed to cancel contained this impulsive porter. So literally +as I cancelled it, it delivered that is best shot yet. It says, it does say, say, on this one, +store cold, but I don't know whether that's a beer 52 thing or whether it's a genuine recommendation +from the brewery, but this is room temperature anyway. So let's open the can and unusually it's +in a can because these darker beers tend to come in bottles. So let's see what happens with this. +Wow, okay. So that's quite a fresh aroma coming from it. Very sweet, very multi, but I'm not +really getting much more than that at the moment. So let me get this poured. I'll see what it looks +like. At some point, I'll have to turn the gate off on my microphone because, but I'm not +speaking, the microphone tends to cut the noise out. So you miss out on some of the better elements +of the poor. So that's the, the look of it. From what I can see, not too dissimilar to mine and color. +I'd roughly the same color ahead and very dark. It is just off white. Oh, and so it was brown. +It's more of a light honeycomb in color. It's marginally ruby. So there is a redness coming through +a ruby element coming through it. But without showing you showing you front of a light, that is +jet black. That is, it really does look nice. Disappointingly, I'm not actually getting much +from the glass. I'm still getting the multi-ness, but the overlying, say probably even a +lighter cidity that came from the can is not coming up, or where there's much, +much gustow from me from the glass itself. At some point, I think we can have to have a +conversation about the glass glass wear. Oh yeah, and what glass wear actually works or not. +So I'm actually using, it's not the out of Harris glass. It's actually the Star Trek glass from +the one that I presented at the last pod crawl. But it's exactly the same shape. If +I would probably say it's the same glass just branded differently. But it has a narrow tapered +inwards top rather than slightly outwardly tapered that you'd normally have from a +traditional beer glass in a pub, for example, like that one. So then all the month one, for example, +take this outwards. I've been imagine, on short, Kevin will nod or shake his head, that does have +an impact on how you receive the eromas. So yeah, nothing more. Let me try it. Hello. That is +beautiful. So the multi-nesses there in spades. There is the the sweetness that a company is at. +I'm getting very, very light influences from your dark fruits. Not getting much of a +coffiness from it, but I don't necessarily think that was one of the mandatory elements of +porters. That is really nice. I'm just going to see if I can get a second opinion of this one from +my eldest. It's a Baltic port at seven and a half percent. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, he likes it. +Did you get it back? Yes. Yes. Not enough as much of it, but I did get it back. +Right. Okay. So now that I've taken some down and there's more room inside the glass and it is wider +open. I am actually getting stone fruits. So I would say prunes is probably the largest of the +non-malt fragrances I'm getting through from it. That is incredibly pleasant. Now, it doesn't +have the syrupy chewiness that I would usually want to go for. I think in the grand scheme of things, +having heard Kebby's description of his, I would say I probably would have preferred that, but given +this one, I am mightily impressed by what it delivers, given that it's only a seven-half percent, +which is quite low on the Baltic port of scale. It is full-bodied. It's not light at all. +The flavours are there. This is something I could probably do again in a single sitting, +whereas I don't know whether that will be the case with yours. Give me another one, I'll tell you. +I can only have one. Okay. That answers my question. I think it's one thing that's +dangerous about the Baltic port compared to the Imperial Stout. One Imperial Stout is fine for me. +You know, I don't really have much desire. I'm not getting, I mean, yes, you can tell it's strong. +You know, you can tell it's flavorful, but I'm not getting the boozy, very heavy strength that +you get from an Imperial Stout, and I think that's dangerous, because that's very drinkable. +At some point, it might be worth doing a side-by-side comparison of a 10.5 +Baltic port or a 10.5 Imperial Stout. I have to be sure with that, but we have to record that the weekend. +Don't think I'm going to get up for what, next week. That will be the kind of thing that +that would actually make sense to do around a table. Yes, in the same place. Yes, I think because +also, as we have both experienced at some point in the past, maybe trying to get through +two beers of 10.5% might be quite dangerous in an oil itself. Yes, especially when you go work +the next week. Yes, yes. It is a school night. I am working tomorrow, but I don't know. I +have got to get up early as well. We've really picked out moments to record. All right, I think I can +guess, but how would you score your Baltic port? I mean, to be honest, I probably, I know, had this +been the first time I'd try Baltic port, and I would have been, wow, 10, and I'd have been, you know, +10, and I'd have been having had a few. This one is very, very good, but it's not the best Baltic +port I've had. Oh, okay. It's very, very, very good. You know, it's still very, very good. +But it's not our 10 or 10. However, insane that, I'm going to give this. I'm going to be stupid +9.75 or a 10. You know, it's just, it's, I'll, I'll tell you why it's because the best Baltic +port I've ever had has been one called waiting for the tide to come in. And it was by a, +one of the Scandinavian breweries. And I've actually got to give a shout out, actually. +This company just exists anymore, so I'm not doing much in the way of promotion, but +there was a place here called the funk, and it was an Italy, but they had a full contingent, +they actually gave you a menu. You asked for a beer, they gave you a menu. Not a page on the menu, +a full menu, a six page menu of beers. It was amazing. And I saw this one called waiting for the +tide to come in and I went, that sounds divine. I actually thought from reading it was an +imperial state. No, it was a Baltic portar. And it was that good. I bought the rest of what he had. +I'd great expense to me, because of course it was a restaurant, not uplooking takeaway shop. +So yeah, I bought what he had off him. And I also then searched, and I could only get it in one +place that would sell it here, and send it here, sorry. And I think I bought it like a pack of +ten, and that was all they had. So it was yeah, so waiting for the waiting for the tide to come in, +if anybody is lucky enough to get it, I would say, try it. Can't remember the name of the +brewery right now. I remember it was Scandinavian. So Norway, Sweden, Denmark, one of those +couldn't give you more than that. But that was a 10 out of 10, but this one I'd say 9.75, +just a stop, a wee bit short of perfection, just but tinley short of perfection, which is still pretty good. +Now, I'm really interested to know how you're going to translate your 9.75 to an untapped rating, +given that you, we normally like double or half, we're in turning a wish direction, we're going. +I don't think at this moment in time, 4.875 is actually, you know, it's no, it's no, it's no, +so I don't let you pay like 20 good a month or something stupid. Yeah, I'm not going to spend that, +look. I have enough subscriptions. Actually, that's one thing I would see is if anybody has +something they actually do use and feel passionate about, consider denating to them, +and especially with a fully service and they offer their take donations. I would say do that. +Let me see now. I think to be honest, I've just got to give the one short of +perfection, so we do it in 0.25 on untapped, so it'll be 4.75. No, absolutely. Yes, +yeah, awesome. And what about yours? Well, like I say, this is probably my first +evapolatic quarter. I said, like I say, I don't certainly don't remember having done one before. +It's worth, I think you can search by be a style on the app, so maybe worth me at some point +going through and check and see if I have, but taking this as standalone and basically on my +new knee joint reaction to it, I'm going to put this at about 8.5. It's certainly not the +nicest dog Caleb I've ever had, no question at all. I think had I been able to go and choose +from a selection? I probably would have gone with one that had a higher ABV. That probably says more +about me than I would want to. I can't see anything. I'm the same. No, exactly. But 7.5% which is a +nice, is strong in the grand scheme of things. It is very nice, it is incredibly sweet, it takes a +lot of boxes for me in terms of the styles that I like. I do prefer a sweeter beer than a +drier more bitter one. I think 8.5 out of 10 is a very good reflection of what I think of this. +I am inclined to try and find other Baltic porters to try and find other Baltic porters. At least +now I have an indication of places I can go to find them off the back of this. I may have said +in a previous episode that Porter has never been one of my preferred styles because I'm not a huge +fan of the bitter smokiness of some of the porters that I've had. Now that could be, I've only been +drinking inferior porters. We have done a port of style before, haven't we? Was it? Portart? We did +portart. I was a straight portart, which did change my mind on bats that porters can be fun. But this +is a style, this is fundamentally different from what a normal portar is. It's always been an +education for me to learn about these styles, things that I've never had before. If you make +me go out and buy it more beer, then that's great, no Caroline is not listening. So yeah, no, +really, really pleased with this one. That's good. Actually, that's good because I do remember that +you actually say in that several times in the past, Porter is not my favorite, but one drinker +at a time, one porter at a time. I'm always really of saying, I don't like a style, +local exceptions, including not included here in this statement. Because I believe there's good +and there's good and bad and most things, but the music to be honest, there's good and bad and +most things. I'm not going to like every Baltic portart, but I've every one I've had so far, +I've enjoyed trying out the different things and appreciating what they are. Of course, +I don't think. I've got anything else to you. I seem to recall we have had some feedback. +Yes, we did have some feedback on the HDR website. We had a comment today. This is basically +it's a correction for us. We've put half a Verizon with an S. Where is the correct word? +Sorry, we put half a Verizon, HUFE R, W-E-I-S-N. Where is the correct word is F-E-G-F-E? +Verizon with a Z. All right, so who's spooked that comment? +G-N-G-N-M? Oh, now this is probably the same one who actually commented G-N-M on +beer garden number 10, the Scotchale we have, because he has put down Scotchale, +where he appropriate from the Baltic Sea. German brewery started a becker from +Struzzland has a Scotchale at 9% ABB. However, aside from the AB, it's one of those style +brew, a brewed with Pete Kiln. Pete Kiln barley, that describes as a P.T. and multi-extraordinary +experience. Slancheva, and I'm very impressed, he's actually spelled Slancheva perfectly. +But, uh, excellent. I don't will be able to get that here, but I will certainly keep +a look at following the imported beers places. To be honest, this to me is something that I don't +like, P.T. Additions, it's something for the brewers 10 to put on to Scotchale, which is not +their at all. I mean, in fact, I think actually commented on that during the episode, a Scotchale +doesn't actually have a P.T. essence to it at all. Scotch, whiskey does a lot of the time, but +not the Scotchale. Yes, I quite like P.T. In fact, if I remember rightly, it was the, uh, +no more 15 is, is very, very P.T. And it's, uh, in its composition. And I like that. So, no, +I think I might enjoy that, but I get what you're saying, if, if Pete is not a native addition to +the, the flavor profile of a, of a Scotchale, then why put it in the, I mean, it's like +like being right through in a heaven of ice and as of always yes, actually. No, but, uh, yes, +please do keep the, keep them coming. No, I was asked to come back in to make sure we are +known what's coming. No, we did actually put that down. So, given this is your section coming up, +I'll let you know what is the next few episodes. Oh, joyous. Okay. So, yeah, we, we've, we've, we +had a, um, uh, a little production meeting before this recording. And we've decided, +we're for the next few next episode, episode 13 will be the triple IPA style. And what you'll +notice here is that we started, we're starting to ramp down a bit in the, the, the, the, the, the, +the strength and robustness of the, at the ails that we're going to be reviewing, uh, as we head +towards the middle of spring. So, triple IPA will be the next one. The one after that will be +a fantastically ambiguous term of strong lager, air quotes, strong lager. That I think that's +a nice one because that'll be reasonably open to, uh, to interpretation. So, it'll be quite +interesting to see how you and I care, we come up with vastly different things, or exactly the same +exactly the same. Yeah. Yeah. And then the one after that, which will be episode 15, will be doing +a double IPA. We did determine that the, the triple IPA and the double IPA styles were different, +but also it helps us with that ramping down of the strengths as we enter into further into spring. +So, those are our next three triple IPA, strong lager and double IPA. Yes, absolutely. And to be honest, +I actually wanted it was strong lager was maybe my influence because in the UK, it has our bad reputation +and is affectionately known or maybe un-infamously known as Trump juice. And I actually want to see +wait a minute. Is this a bit unfair on it? Is it purely just there to, you know, +high alcohol, get you drunk very quickly, aren't cheaply? +On is that actually a decent drink behind it? So, yeah, wait a couple episodes and you'll find it +out of opinion. Yeah, we'll make sure we do the strong lager episode purely based on merit rather than +any predispositions or preconceptions of what the beer or the brewery may have previously stood for. +Yes, I think it will, will come up with something decent, but doing that, I think. Yes, absolutely. +Right then, so all is there anymore? Yes, what I would like to add, that at the time of recording, +I am three days away from the Sheffield indie beer feast, which both Caroline, my wife, +and I, a Caroline, my wife, that's one person. I'm going to be going to. Yes, we'll be sampling some +quality beers from local and slightly further afield breweries during the course of saturday. +I'll report back here on the results of that one at the next episode, I think. Very good. Yes, indeed. +This is another thing we haven't actually talked about yet, but we know what's sorry with +the listeners will talk about it ourselves. We talked about we need to do some book reviews, +some beer book reviews, and we have actually read a nice and relatively short book, which you can +actually read ahead and see if you agree with us or not. Dave, what does the book? +George Wentz book, drinking with George. Yes, and it's a lovely, it's a very, very pleasant +pleasant read. If you don't know who George Wentz is, he's been in a lot of the Disney Pixar +movies as a voice actor, but I think most people certainly have a certain age will remember him as +as norm from Cheers, which he was in. I think right from the very start, then start. Yeah, +to the point where she ended is such a loveable character, and just by a way of enticement to the +idea of actually going and reading the books yourself, the character of norm, and George Wentz, +the same person. He had the joy of playing himself in that show for so many years, +but if he go and read the book, and just for clarity, as well, it's 225 pages, so that's +him he's not a big figure. Maybe we'll all depend on every day's status as opposed. +I'm reading a 515 page book at the moment, so yes, in the ganz game, it is, it is a small book, +but it's worth it. Oh yeah, totally, totally. So right in, so if you want to get in touch with +us, links will be in the show notes for untapped, if you want to connect to us, +best way to actually do anything is to leave a comment. We will read it out on any of the +beer gardens, but if you actually have something to say, then the best thing you could actually do +is record an episode. Now, if you want to do a style, if you really want to do a beer garden, +we're not objectionable, this is a community podcast. So if you please email myself or leave a +message or something, then check my profile, KV, or I'm just the my emails on there, I'm not really +wanting to read it out to be fairly honest. And I'll send the intro for the show if you want to keep +it consistent. So just the beer pour out on the, just stick it on the front. So yeah, so with that, +join us tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4620.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4620.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67f0bba --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4620.txt @@ -0,0 +1,162 @@ +Episode: 4620 +Title: The Second Doctor, Part 1 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4620/hpr4620.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:18 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4620, for 2026-04-17 +Today's show is entitled, "The Second Doctor, Part 1" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:13:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We start a look at the Second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton." +Hello, this is a hookah welcome you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in our ongoing series on science fiction and fantasy +And we're talking again about Dr. Who +Previously we looked at the first doctor and +You know at a certain point he just became unable to continue and +In most shows that would have been the end of the show now +There have been occasional situations of +A new actor coming in and taking over a previous actor's role, but they're unusual +Particularly when you're the lead actor and the focus of the show +But that did happen here and the reason is Patrick Trouton +Because he is he's the reason we're still talking about Dr. Who +He took over the lead role in a popular and successful show and continued the success +It might have been a disaster, but it wasn't and +Trouton did not attempt to be another heart and all he had his own distinct way of playing the part +He established the principle that the personality of the doctor changes when he or she regenerates +This made it much easier on all the actors and followed him in the role and +Each one has been very distinctive and how they embodied the doctor +Sadly many of his episodes and some complete stories are missing now due to the short-sighted policy of the BBC +That they would discard older shows in many cases wiping video tapes for reuse +Of course you can't blame them too much since I doubt anyone in the 1960s would have believed that the show would still be going over +60 years later +But there is always hope that some more episodes will be recovered +There are people who collect old TV shows in various formats such as film and video tape and it is virtually +Certain that some missing doctor who episodes still exist in private collectors hands though how many is not known +Now to take the place of the missing episodes we have in +Reconstructions in a number of cases some of them using tell us snaps +Telly snaps are photos taken of the monitor screen and +You can +Put those together is almost like a storyboard of what the story is and they always had the soundtracks +Because a lot of a lot of kids and maybe older people as well would tape the +Audio tape the show when it was broadcast +Then there's animations and there've been a number of those +And there's even for a few trout and stories where fans have restage the stories a stage place +And I've watched some of those on YouTube so there are ways to experience at least a little of these missing episodes +And even as I write this, there are indications that more episodes may be found and returned to the BBC +Now trout and took over in the third story of season four which aired in late +And his first story was power of the Daleks +This is the first story for Patrick Trouton is the doctor and starting with the Daleks was a smart move +There were so popular that they guaranteed a good audience and would get trout enough to a good start +The Tardis lands on a planet called Vulcan +Where a scientist has found a derelict ship containing a few Daleks +He thinks he can bring them back to life and won't listen to the doctor who tries to warn him +Meanwhile rebels on Vulcan are trying to overthrow the government there +In the end the scientists sacrifices himself to stop the Daleks +The rebels do succeed in overthrowing the fascist dictator and all as well for now +Ben and Polly are +Along as the companions +Continuing their stay in the Tardis after starting with the first doctor in the war machines +Now this is one of the completely missing stories +But there is an animated version which is available on DVD where you can watch it on YouTube and I've put a link in the show notes +Next was the Highlanders +It's another historical story +Now historical stories would largely be dropped +Around this point +But this one takes us to the Battle of Kalodin in 1746 +Where the last gasp of the Jacobite rebellion was snuffed out by the English army +The Tardis crew are first captured by the Scots +Who are not kindly disposed to people who are obviously English +Then they are captured by the English who have decided their traders and want to hang them +After various adventures they get away and bring with them a young Scottish lad named Jamey +Jamey McCrimon who becomes the third member of the Tardis team when he promises to teach the doctor to play the bagpipes +Now +This is just an average historical story +The most memorable part of it is the introduction of Jamey as +They truly beloved companion and he would stay with the doctor all the way through the end of Trouton's run +So there was only one Trouton story that Jamey was not a companion +And the fellow who +The whole who plays him is still in high demand as a guest +Dr. Who conventions around the world his name is Frazier Hines +He was not actually intended to be a companion at first +Now they had shot two endings one where he joins the doctor and another where he is left in Scotland +Well, they did decide to keep him +But in the next few stories for which scripts had already been written +He is less central to the plot and sometimes gets lines originally written for another character +Now, this is another story where all the episodes are missing though there are reconstructions available +Then there is the underwater menace +um, and this is an example of +High Kitch +So bad that it's good the Tardis team arrives on an island formed by an extinct volcano +Where they are brought underground to a sunken city +They are told that their arrival was foretold by the goddess of the city and that they would be sacrificed +Now they're rescued by a scientist who is known to the doctor +But it turns out he has gone quite mad +The city is Atlantis and he says he will raise it but his plan involves blowing up everything with nuclear bombs +Underwater scene of swimming ladies that is absolutely hilarious +But it is an inventive little story +The scene of the mad scientist raging as he disappears under the water is pretty good too, and it can't be like +Now as we mentioned +Early in Patrick Fountain's run as the doctor +This show decided to drop +Most of the history and focus more on monsters and science fiction to compete with shows like lost in space and land of the giants +Now this particular +Story is missing two of the four episodes but reconstructions exist for the two missing episodes +Then here's the moon base +The cybermen are back and this time they're attacking a base on the moon +They have been infiltrating the base through a hole in the basement wall +Which is where you scratch your head and wonder why the air doesn't all leak out through this hole +But ignoring that +How about since the cybermen are still significantly organic how are they breathing in a vacuum +Still the doctor puts the emphasis on science as a way to defeat them +The return of the cybermen was sufficiently popular for them to become the acknowledged second best +Enemy of the doctor after the Daleks of course +And as such they would come back again in several of Troutton stories and continued up to the present to be featured in Dr. +Now this story is also missing two of its episodes +But they have been animated so you can get a decent experience of the story now and there is at least one decent jump scare here +Next story the macrotera +The macra made an appearance in the David Tenant story gridlock +But this is where they began +The tardis materializes on a planet where a colony seems very happy +Except for one malcontent who claims he has seen huge crab like beings at night +Then the doctor sees them as well, but no one else seems to notice them +It turns out these creatures are very good at +Conditioning people to not see them and to believe what they are told to believe +Ben ends up brainwashed by them though the others escape this +And the colony is busily engaged in producing some kind of gas and this turns out to be essential to the macra +Oxygen is poisonous to them they need this gas +Finally Ben breaks his conditioning and rescues the other and the macra are defeated +When they reappeared in gridlock +I was never clear to me what the purpose was +It just looked like an Easter egg for long time fans and was never explained or justified +This is another story that is missing all of its episodes in the original form +But an animated version has been released and is available on DVD and on YouTube and again link in the show notes +And finally the faceless ones +This is a very good inventive story that purports to take place at Catwick Airport +Though it is of course not really shot there, but it is a smaller place nearby +The tardis materializes there and the first problem is that none of them have passports +This is the only thing that matters to the immigration people of the airport +Meanwhile something puzzling is going on with a company called Kameleon tours +One young lady, played by Pauline Collins, is trying to find out what happened to her brother, +who went on a tour with them, sent a postcard, and then vanished +It turns out that the folks running Kameleon tours are an alien race of shapeshifters +Hence the faceless ones who are kidnapping people to help repopulate their planet +The obvious plattle is that this would involve repopulating with people, not Kameleons +But never let that get in the way of what is otherwise a nice romp full of action in suspense +Now a production team was hoping to get Collins as a companion, but she turned them down +At the end Ben and Pauli take advantage of the fact that they are on earth at the proper time +And decide to leave the tardis and get on with their lives +So now only Jamie is left +But I bet that won't be true for long +Now for this story four of the six episodes are missing +But again, this is a story that got to complete animation treatment as before +You can purchase the DVD or watch it on YouTube link in the show notes +So this is a hookah for our hacker public radio signing off and encouraging you to support free software. Bye bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4621.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4621.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09eae12 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4621.txt @@ -0,0 +1,137 @@ +Episode: 4621 +Title: Android volume control help +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4621/hpr4621.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:18 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4621, for 2026-04-20 +Today's show is entitled, "Android volume control help" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:11:14 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "I rant about the certification of Android in the internet" +Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Hack Rupple Radio, the host operator. +This is going to be a pretty quick tip. +I know, my wife's car here, every phone is done it, but all the Android phones I've +had have this whole bullshit volume control thing and, you know, your ears are bleeding. +So, you know, I guess it's to protect the children from blown their ears out, but it's +extremely annoying to be doing something and then the voice volume get automatically dropped. +So, we're going to look at one setting which says, I went around on circles with the AI. +Google's own AI for, I don't know how long it's wearing at it. +And I'm like, this is your own phone, how do you, how do you not know your own thing? +And then eventually it's like, oh, well, you know, it's because of some laws or whatever, +which I guess I remember seeing that before. +But apparently you have to connect the device or even go somewhere in the connection settings. +And then maybe there's a setting in here that says something like device type. +And of course, that's all hallucinations. +All the answers that the AI gave me were all just hallucinations, it's not a thing. +So there is no way to do to bypass the setting as far as I know. +If you all know of anything, I know this has always been an issue with me and sometimes +it just goes away. +I don't understand how or why. +But I'm looking at this here, it says use Bluetooth and it's connected. +But it doesn't have any settings at all. +There's nothing, I can enable spectral audio or nothing, allow access to contacts and +that's it. +There's no other options here. +I can change the name. +So there's no way to disable it on my bison. +Now what I have done is I have installed a management module, got root. +So I have, who's my provider? +Mint mobile had a deal for a phone, it's my first phone I've bought in 15 years, I can't +complete. +So Mint mobile had a deal where I got a phone for basically a year's worth the service +or whatever, if I did the math. +I had to wait a day and request root access to my phone. +I set it all up and then I had to request root access and the way that Google works +makes sense is if you do unlock your phone, you have to do a complete reset because then +all the encryption is broken. +So whatever, that's fine. +Make me white my phone because that's not how encryption works, but whatever. +So maybe white my phone, I had to set everything back up again and then I got an eventually +got root or got my phone unlocked. +And then the root process, you know, 2000 style whenever we started root and phones, +I went through that mess of doing the flash, it wasn't too bad, but then they pushed +an update and I lost root, so I had to go back and find the right version and build and +do the whole thing again. +Now I know with magisks you, if you miss the reboot, if you don't catch it before +reboot on OOTA push, you will have to reboot the phone again. +So just probably magisks modules to disable OTA updates or disable reboots or something, +but you basically have to catch it before you reboot, like I don't know any other way to +do it. +It's stupid. +So you go into magisks and say install magisks and they'll be an extra option there. +This has like OTA blah blah blah and only do this after the updates are installed. +So it installs the OTA exactly, you don't get any, you don't get a chance to do that. +So it's just like reboot, like there's no option at all. +So I've caught it the past two times, it's wanted to update. +I almost do want to put in some kind of update thing, so I can manually update because +I don't need to update every month, but then again, you know, security. +And this is a work phone, use it for work, so I don't need to do that and also try to not +update my apps because, you know, I want security updates, not stupid feature updates or +ad updates, so I don't traditionally update my apps unless I'm absolutely forced to. +With that said, I disable Google Play because all the apps now are, there's three different +ways to push update notifications. +One is like back in, another is a back in and another one is like a force push through +the client. +So you can peg, you can pin every time somebody clicks a button, you can say update update +update update. +A lot of these other apps are forcing updates, a lot of them are nagging you to death through +Google Play to update. +So I actually disable Google Play so that I don't get those annoying notifications +then I turn it back on when I need to do something with Google Play. +I'm at that point now, I'm about to un-Google my phone because I'm tired, even with +root, I'm tired of all the stuff that's going on. +I'm tired of cady hijacked, I'm tired of being nagged in Google Photos 15 times if I want +to upload to the cloud and maybe accidentally click it and then I don't want that, +I don't like it, I don't want my stuff in the cloud, I put my stuff, I know how to manage +my own files, don't make me force me old man ranting type of deal. +So anyways, let's get back to the magis module, the module I use is LSPosed, LSPOSED. +The other ones I have is YouTube Music Revanced Extended and then I have seamless host, which +is basically a host file, so seamless host, YouTube Revanced and YouTube Music Revanced +Extended and that gives you kind of the features of YouTube paid without having to +think and it also has built in automatic skipping of automatic skipping of it's called +monster block, has automatic monster block. +So I'm going to look at the, the, how to actually use this module, which I don't even know +how to use it, it says modules, LSPOSED, I don't know how to even access it. +So I want to go here, you can probably even hear me tapping on my phone, which is probably +not exactly fun for you guys, I don't even know how to access it, so let's see what +he got on this little menu here, let's scroll to the bottom, and still navigate to system +audio settings, disabled save volume warning. +So it looks like they, it's like just a push, so I'm going to go to volume, if I can find +it sound in vibration, ring tone, spectral media player, dial pad, tap click sounds, oh vibration +in fact it's feeding, so that's not an option. +So it's telling me to install AIOSP Mods module, LSPOSED, if you use LSPOSED, there's a +high that you recommended module called AS, ASO, AOSP Mods that give you disabled save volume, +whatever, there's a command line that says settings put global, global audio save volume state, +that's one thing you can do, but apparently it's just just apparently it's a thing, so +my wife's card, this is not going to work for whatever reason, so we're going to try to see if we can +find this ASOSP Mods, all these Chinese Yom Mods, you're putting on your phone, +that gives you lots of confidence, right? +Oh, this was LSPOSED, plus magisks, let's see support, compatibility, pre-weck visits, +re-ordered with magisks, out of its stall, 4.2 plus, out of its stall, download stable magis module, +firmware is mentioned, installed in magis reboot, no reboot loops, whatever, download stable channel, +what does that even mean? Where's releases, they don't have releases? +I'm branches, you have branches, so I have magisks installed, I have the LSPOSED, whatever, +mod thing, and you may not break the compatibility, I don't understand, according to your firmware +as mentioned above, okay, so Android 12, 13, 13, 14, so I'm Android 10 or something, +I'm not even in that old, or I'm not even in that new, so system about pixel, pixel 10, +model, build, Android 16, okay, so we're gonna go back here, probably not an Android 16 version, +there's not, so I guess this is not a thing, so apparently I have to do pseudo-roop thing, +it enables the thing, and it's only for root, it's a build prop kind of thing, +so yeah, I guess we're just screwed, apparently there's an app that might be, that might work, +let's see, safe search, I'll be blah, blah, I went back and forth, swearing at it, +oh, like a macro-dory, so basically having a macro to constantly spam, set-up action, set-up, +I am media 100% or your preferred level, so you can just force it to 100%, but that's the same +stupid, I guess you can make a profile that says, if media is playing, or if sound is coming out +of this speaker, play it at full, or if media is playing through this device, I've done some work with +the macro app, the popular macro app with Android, it's pretty clunky, that wouldn't really +get into it, it's not worth it, you're better off just downloading a mod that does whatever you +needed to do, anyways, I hope I wasted everybody's time because I just wasted my time, and we haven't +solved any of the problems, we still have devices that we can't control, we still have any control over, +and there's nothing we can do about it, the business is usual, carry on, the certification of internet. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4622.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4622.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9df57c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4622.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1345 @@ +Episode: 4622 +Title: Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 5 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4622/hpr4622.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:19 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4622, for 2026-04-21 +Today's show is entitled, "Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 5" +The host is Honkeymagoo and the duration is 01:48:02 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "the hpr community comes together to converse" +I'm going to have to go in about six minutes, enjoying the Zoom call with some friends back home. +So I'll break the new year. +Before I would have stayed on here. +Are they there and nobody goes to somewhere? +They're in, well, I think I know where my friend is. +And this trying to think where his two daughters and a friend I met through him. +The, I'm thinking, I know he lives in Talbridge, which is a sub northern suburb, +Murphy suburb of the background. +And I think his daughters. +I think her daughters live. +I think one of them lives in Cogopholes. +I think one lives in Stowe. +And I think his friend that I met through him. +I think he lives in Kent. +So first, Kent was a lot to Kent. +You heard of the Kent state riots. +Oh, how? Okay. +Yeah. +Kent is north of Ackering. +And it's east of Ackering. +Sort of like on the adjacent borders of Cogopholes and Ackering. +You said, yeah, you said you in six minutes. +You're going to talk something about, you know, +celebrate the new love thing. +If somebody, okay, where is it? +Midnight. +And that's why it's a love of Scotia. +Oh, I choice. +Oh, I get different style. +No, they, they, we discussed. +We have a call every Sunday. +My schedule permitting because of my work. +But we have a Zoom call for like a cup of hours every Sunday. +It's the hangout chat. +And we discussed last Sunday that +His daughters wanted to excuse me. +Wanted to have a new year's eve hangout. +Since they all have to go to work tomorrow. +So they're not going to stay up for. +I don't know if they're staying up for the ball drop or not. +I don't know why don't know what we're doing. +Oh, I know is they asked me if I was going to be available at 10 o'clock on. +And I'm like, oh, no, all depends. +And what time is so in it around that. +Yeah, it probably I say it's a work tomorrow, which is of course. +I mean, they say it's just wrong. +I don't know what it is. +But yeah, if they have to work tomorrow. +Then yeah, they don't want to be up at midnight. +Probably. +Now, I, I used to work at hospital. +So I've worked a lot in lots and lots of nutrition. +This new year is fourth of July. +Yeah. +This was the first Christmas I've been home for in a few years. +I'm usually home for Thanksgiving, but I'm usually not home for Christmas. +Usually I'm home for for new years and for Thanksgiving. +But this year, I decided to do it differently. +And I skipped the years and I came home for Christmas. +The last company I worked for just gave up on trying to get people to do any work between Christmas and New Year's. +And the last few years, they just let everybody off from Christmas Eve. +So they have to do years. +Yeah, my, my friends to daughters are nurses. +So it's funny that you mentioned about working in the hospitals. +They're not in hospitals. +One is in assisted living. +And the other one is a, +I remember what her title is. +But she's in a doctor's office. +The doctor's office is okay. +The assisted living like a hospital. +I worked in the hospital for 14 years. +It's 24 or seven. +First went there because I was going to college and it was like, +Oh, they're open when I'm at a class. +I could make a living instead of working at a hammer in between. +It's like they've never been a hammer in doing it. +So that's, that's why I've got 14 years working at hospitals. +I'm familiar with my, +I delivered to two different hospitals for three years. +When I had a local job where I was picking up the pharmaceuticals and delivering them occasionally. +I would go to a couple different hospitals if the, +because of the careers. +They would have either the conaline bands or the, +what looked like the Amazon trucks. +They, if they couldn't fit the whole order for the hospital that they were going to. +I would deliver it for them. +This was in a 26 foot box truck. +So I got very familiar with hospitals. +I learned the difference of the inpatient pharmacy, +and the whole bunch of various drugs that I never knew I was going to know anything about. +So like you opened to me the boxes that you're supposed to be done there. +I had to know for, +oh, I can't remember what they called it. +I had to know for, +there's an abbreviation for it. +Temtruck. +It's the chemical. +It's the hazmat thing for the government. +If you have a spill contact, +you're going to have an electric. +Oh, you, you've had it actually no one will run your trip that you were, +you were hauling that kind of makes sense, +but I'm surprised it's a rule. +Oh, yeah, honey. +I was privy to a lot of detail. +More than I thought I would. +Though I was heavily background checked. +But I had been background checked so many times over the past couple decades. +That, I mean, +I was going into military bases. +Yeah, treasury, federal pens, +supermax prisons. +No, no thanks. +Like, live and work. +I've been to the supermax there in the east side of South Carolina. +No, thank you. +Yeah, I didn't like going into those. +I delivered a day or four spaces. +Naval bases. +Yeah. +But in any case, the hospital. +I was given the manifest. +They had printed out a manifest. +I thought, you know, shouldn't this be electronically submitted? +Like, it is. +And like, then why do I literally have like five six inches of printed paper? +Government regulations. +Everything in that drug has to have a manifest. +Yeah, I know that. +My wife used to work for a company that, yeah, +for one of the larger pharmaceutical companies. +That, uh, +here in Houston. +And I didn't know that, but they, +they had warehouses full of stuff. +And I wish he worked on one of the offices, +and she didn't drop a truck and didn't mention that. +Yeah, I, I got to see the, uh, +itemized cost of the, +the drug. +I didn't really look through it. +But it's good. +I didn't really have the time to do that. +Yeah, driving and delivering and stuff. +But there was some, you know, +times where I was waiting. +And I would like this thumb through it briefly. +And, uh, yeah, +there were times where I've had like millions of dollars of stuff. +It was, uh, it was an experience. +I'm not surprised about the value. +I'm surprised that the process of the manifest. +So that's bizarre. +I thought it was, thought it was, too. +But be, yeah, +to remember the FDA and, uh, +other regulations. +I mean, not to be political in any way. +I'm this using this as an example, +because it's the first thing I've thought of. +It's pretty much like we had the ACA. +And you had that 1090. +It was a 1095C. +I think it was, +or you had to declare that you had health care for your employer, +or you were using Cobra, +or similar. +Oh, yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +And then, +one of our presidents did away with that. +But because of the amount of red tape is required +to get something out of law. +Pretty much, +you have to pass another law to get rid of the other law. +We still have to disclose, +and we have insurance. +Even though there is no law behind it, +enforcing it. +So it's the same thing with this stuff for the, +transportation of our colleagues and firearms, +and stuff like that, +where what they thought of was a great idea of +1560 years ago, +and being a good idea now. +But no one's passed a law to change it. +Oh, well, +I guess you better get on your call. +That was interesting. +It's been really nice talking. +We had a one-ticket, +but I'll talk on that, +if I stay awake. +Oh, yeah. +It's been a pleasure talking with. +Everyone else that I've talked with tonight, +and if you're on telegram or discord, +you see my handle on mumble, +that they'll underscore CDL. +Anyone can go ahead and contact me, +if you want to chat more about stuff. +Okay, I'll look at that. +Well, +we have a good night, +anyone else that's listening and happy new year? +Depending on how long my call lasts, +I might be back on, +or I'll just go to sleep. +We'll happy new year you, +and happy new year to your family. +New year as well. +As my ham friend say, +70th. +Hello, hello. +Hello. +Raymond, how are you doing? +I had that matter. +How are you doing? +Still not that matter. +My nerve is here. +Push to talk, +but I'm not hearing any audio. +Hearing anything now? +Yes, sir. +Yeah, damn mute button. +Not only that, it's backwards. +Yeah, +yeah, +my brother's a long haul trucker, +who lives in his truck with his wife and their dog. +And Aaron Dave was somewhat familiar. +I remember my brother when he was younger. +He delivered an envelope to a military base. +He was driving a full 53 foot trailer, +but the only thing in it was this envelope. +It was taped like the inside the doors on the cargo bay. +And he had to get into this military base. +And he had to open up the trailer and whatnot. +But it was all very high security, +high shush. +I thought that was interesting. +Then there was the time and trucker parking. +And he was pulled over into a rest area, +you know, service closet. +And his, +he was sleeping. +And his trailer got hit by a drunken driver. +Now he was in trucker parking off the road. +So this drunk had to really work at it to, +to run into him. +He wasn't on a highway or anything. +The big ICC bumper didn't do much for his view. +But did wake my brother up, +which took some doing sometimes. +The net wonder, you're up in the northeast, right? +It's a bit correctly. +Yeah, I'm in the Boston area. +Well, a little bit south of Boston. +Boston is easy. +Is the, +is the easiest target, +you know, +to mention around here. +It's a big metro area. +Besides, +it's also the place with the ugliest city hall in the United States. +And some of the most challenging streets to navigate. +It seemed, +last time I was there, +it was all one way streets going the wrong way. +There's a reason why +there's a famous trucking song called +Give me a 40 acres and I'll turn this rig around +that mentions Boston. +By the way, +I don't drive. +My eyes aren't good. +And I just never learned +and also I have some perception stuff +that would make learning to drive challenging. +I would say your bad eyes are why you think +that the Boston city hall is not a beautiful building. +Well, +it's a, +it's one some people like and some people hate. +I have heard that it was original. +It was one of the, +ground IP points that the Soviets +used back in the Cold War +for if they were going to bomb the city, +they would aim in our city hall. +And some people of the old school +thought that maybe not +knocking it, +but certainly bombing it might be an improvement. +All right, +I had to go with it. +And I can kind of agree with +Well, +it's also in front of city hall +is a bench with our most useful +mayor in a century. +Mayor Kerley is still holding down a bench +in front of city hall year round. +He's in bronze, +but a lot of people who know Boston politicians +think that that's the most useful +mayor we've had in decades. +Now, +is that what they call brutalist list architecture? +I don't think you should +concrete. +Yeah, +it looks like a good example of brutalist architecture. +I don't know. +I mean, +there are some buildings there that are pretty +and then there's that thing. +And +But then again, +we also, +we also have our legislator there +just a few blocks away. +And on the fourth of your line, +we have the Boston Popses augmented by a couple of 105 +hoursers. +Some people think it's a shame that they fire +blanks. +That's the only way to do the 1812 +overture to do it right. +Well, +yeah, +I think I think of the 2105 that they use as the +concussion section. +The last time I was in Boston +probably late 80s, +early 90. +The big dig was in its heyday. +Well, +I don't think the big dig was +underestimated as much as they think. +I think they were using +camels nose and accounting. +Okay, +that's when you'll have to explain. +Well, +it's a famous thing, +you know, +the camel gets his nose in the tent +and then he gets a little more +and a little more and a little more. +Well, +the big dig was such a lifting butt boss, +you know, +tunneling under Boston and +putting a new road net under it +was going to be so expensive that if they +gave them the real price up front +of nobody would fund it. +It was sort of like the Manhattan project. +Also, +you've got to remember you're dealing with Boston, +which means you're dealing with certain +organizations, +which have to be pacified to get +anything done. +I know some of the dirt hauling was +bid for at a very low price, +and then was renegotiated +after the contract was +in somebody's paw. +We've got Boston represented. +I've got East Tennessee +represent who else. +Well, +I'm sitting on the Saturday detective. +I'm, +I'm, +I'm a refugee from the country down +here just south of Boston. +I'm a Jersey +about 20 minutes from Philadelphia. +Raymond, +where were you saying? +I'm, +I'm, I'm a, +the Saturday detective. +Houston's actually. +Houston's nice. +I'm not, my kind of people, +my dad was from, +near Morgan Town, West Virginia, +and my mother was from a small town +up, +up in the middle of Maine, +up near Mount Blue State Park. +In fact, they took her home farm +to make the Mount Blue State Park. +So she, +she moved into the Belgrade Lakes area. +Those two farms, +my grandfather's and my, +mothers, +families saved my sanity when, +when I was growing up from, +my dad was an alcoholic from, +for many years and died of it, +about 94. +And I got my PTSD at home. +That's right. +Well, I survived my family, +and I'm still ticking, +also, +considering everything. +I, +uh, +I'm sort of hanging on, +um, +one reason I didn't learn to drive +is that my father had the only license in the house, +and that was a major power center. +Well, +my mother didn't know how to drive. +She was the one doing cooking, +and she couldn't teach me any of that +because that would reduce her power. +It was, +it was a, +it was a family where, +both parents were, +had their spheres of influence, +and their kids were, +or to keep their mouth shut, +and take care of the parents. +Typical, +I've heard it's typical of an alcoholic family, +and after my mother got rid of my dad, +I took over his responsibilities, +to keep things running. +I wasn't given any authority +because I was her son, +but I was the one who, +helped, +get the taxes paid, +get stuff fixed, +you know, +split wood and shit +when we were heating with wood. +Made certain that she was nice and toasty, +which was a real job +because I would get to place up to, +you know, +80 degrees or whatever, +and she would feel a draft +and she'd still feel cold. +Well, +if you have a wood stove and one corner +in a cold winter +and the other end of the house, +you're going to have a draft, +you know, +thermodynamics and all of that, +but she didn't understand any of that. +So as long as she could feel a draft, +I had to fire that stove harder. +But she had some notions, +like all the relatives up in Maine, +were her family, +they weren't mine. +It was a, +which had some interesting things, +like when my grandmother died, +my grandfather died, +or what not, +uncle's died, +whatever. +She could go up there, +go to their funerals, +and mourn them, +and whatnot. +But since they weren't part of my family, +I was just all around his baggage. +Now, +my mother was born in Maine. +So, +according to her wishes, +I followed her, +her rules. +She died in +2017, +and I put her in the ground, +and I haven't seen that stone since. +Raymond, +so Houston, +the last time I was, +I was flying a T-34, +air to air combat trail, +laser, +it was a company. +Remind me of what it is. +Remind me of T-34, +let's fly. +F-5, +Navy propeller driven trainer, +a forward backward. +Oh, it's got a long, +the, +flexi glass thing, +has got lots of window frames, +and slides back, +right? +I think you're thinking T-6. +Well, +hell, +I think it would probably have +a different number in the Navy. +They had, +they had different numbers, +even for the DC-3, +which is a C-47 in the Army, +but had a, +had a different designation for, +back in, +in the old day. +Yeah, +the, +what I flew was the T-34 mentors, +made by, +crafted, +three or four different curved segments of, +of canopy. +But, um, +very straight wing, +um, +very good trainer. +It, +it would go the direction you personally. +No, +I was right. +This is, I've got a picture of it over here. +That's what I was talking about. +The canopy is long, +and has, +is broken up into several window frames. +So, +I, +I didn't describe it very well, +but it is what I was thinking of. +Yeah. +Cool airplane. +Yeah, +they were loads of fun. +The company that was doing it was a company called, +the Texas area, +and they had them set up with pulsed laser systems, +so you could, +you could tell when you hit your target and what have you. +It was loads of fun. +Sadly, +uh, +just a couple years after I flew with them, +the, +the guy that was my flight instructor for that flight, +um, +was the one who lost his life when the wings came off the same airplane. +Oops. +When was that? +Uh, +90s, +mid 90s. +Um, +I was flying early 90s. +Were you a military fire? +No, +I was a general aviation. +I just took advantage of the, +of what Texas area is. +This was offering there to give experience. +My dad was, +um, +uh, +infantry soldier in World War II, +and he joined the, +uh, civil air patrol after, +the war. +And he got to fly a, +a, +52, +and thought that was the meest plane in, +in the world. +Oh, nice. +One of my uncles was, +uh, a, +a course air flyer in the war. +That's my favorite airplane. +I think, +just, +I watched too many episodes of black sheep squadron way back in the, +Yeah, my uncle said he was a couple of islands over from, +uh, +packing pointed. +He, +he knew all of him at the time, +but never met him. +Well, +my, +my brother had a unique way of getting, +to Hawaii. +He was in the back seat of an F4, +phantom that they were going to turn into a drone. +Uh, +this, +Air Force Colonel was retiring to, +um, +uh, +Hawaii. +And for his last flight, +he did a ferry flight from, +from, +uh, +California to Hawaii. +And my brother was in the back seat. +And evidently, +the Colonel, +uh, +lit up, +uh, +a Russian intelligence trailer on the way. +It was, +you know, +keeping an eye on our, +Pacific Fleet, +didn't fire at it, +but just, +uh, +I guess put the target radar on it, +to show that we cared. +Well, +here's my, +the F4 has it range. +I believe that they've probably had it tanked up, +you know, +instead of bombs, +just all drop tanks. +Uh, +at least this is what I was told. +No, I've only seen, +yeah, I've only seen, +uh, +I was, +uh, +in Vietnam and Thailand. +I've seen lots and lots and lots of, +uh, +they'll force take off. +And they don't strike me as a kind of thing, +that, +those long distance, +they, +uh, +look like things that we go really, +really fast somewhere, +and do what they had to do and come back, +and that we're, +you know, +not that far away. +So, +I'm, +yeah, +I've never looked it up for anything, +but they don't look like that. +So, think about that, +things and stuff. +Also, you got to remember, +while the F4 was a Mark II fighter, +and most fighters today are a lot slower, +because they found out +people were not fighting at Mark II +or 2.5 like we thought. +The F4 was a bomb truck. +They could load it up with Orad, +and you know, +with, +with 1000 pound or 2000 pound bombs on a wings, +like crazy. +And if, +If they can do that, they can load it up with a lot of fuel, and if you're not going, you know, +mock in the mock, it might be a lot more fuel efficient on a ferry flight than it would be. +When things were getting real. +Well, gentlemen, I'm chatting with a care. Happy New Year. +I see here where they say that the F4 has a ferry range of 167 miles. How far is it to get to Hawaii? +Damn, they say 2,400 miles. I don't know. Maybe he was both shouldn't be. +I wouldn't go that far, but yeah, I just just looked it up, and it says it's a long distance +fighter, but yeah, that sounded kind of far, but you're right. They're during a ferry for that distance. +They might be able to do that. And that plane can be fueled in the air. So maybe that's how it happened. +When it surprised me, none. I mean, they were using it. They were going to turn it into a target drone. +And also, also, if they're going to turn it into a drone, they might have took a lot of +heavy shit out of it, you know, some of the armaments and classified whatever, you know. +Yeah, I had forgotten about the possibility of a resueling air, which they might have not +had done. That's a shame. They delivered you and got a shoot down. That's terrible. +Well, you got to remember that was, he was probably late 80s there about something like that. +But our mid 80s, so you were getting your F-14s and whatnot, were coming in F-15, whatever. +So the Vietnamian stuff was going to the wall. He also had some interesting, he was in the army. +His first posting, one of his first postings was down to El Paso, Fort Blitz, +which, according to, at that time, was a pretty blitz place. A lot of, a lot of alternate medications going on. +And then they posted him with a perishing unit out in Germany, +which caused a little excitement during the Cold War when some uninvited visitors +came over the wire while he was doing guard duty, just before shipping them back out to the states. +Yeah, these gentlemen were, according to my brother, while the Cold War was not as cold as you might think. +And these gentlemen came over the wall while he was doing guard duty. He was normally in mechanic, +but they were out on a training. They had sent the his unit out on a training mission. +And since he was shipping home, they didn't, they just gave him guard duty instead, +because he wasn't going to be in the active unit, not much longer. +And evidently, some people decided that they were going to try to do something nasty to +do their perishing base. And he was supposedly one of the ones who woke up the reaction team and whatnot +by catching these guys going over the wire. Well, after they had the excitement, they turned +these gentlemen over to the Germans. And my brother was hustle out of Germany because they wanted to, +you know, smooth everything over. When he was checking out of his base, he went to a certain +officer to sign off on shit and he said that, you know, allegedly, the major he talked to, +as he was, you know, dotting the eyes and crossing the T's said that the gentleman that they +turned over to federal authorities seemed to have gotten lost on the way to jail. +So I have a feeling that they're somewhere in the black forest. There's an area that's a little +more fertile than it was originally. Because the Germans did not have a sense of humor when +the communists were going over to wire. They just did not, and these guys, they didn't want to waste. +Well, they were taking care of, shall we say. Again, that might be bullshit, but it also sounds like +something that, that would be, uh, everybody's more stories get better over time. +Oh, speaking of war stories, the Russians did not supply their troops with toilet paper. +So the Russian troops, because they needed something to use as toilet paper, +tended to use crypto coding forms that had been used, that used and worked being disposed of. +The reason I know this is that there were British troops that were sent over with no cover +to literally dig up these shitty coding forms to get the intelligence on them. +So not providing toilet paper meant that the paper that they did use ended up giving the British +intelligence when, but it took somebody digging up the use toilet paper went from, from where the +Soviet troops had camped. What was that of then? Probably 80s. There was a thing on YouTube about it +when a few years after a while these people went back to what is the reunified part of Germany +and introduced themselves to some of the people who had given them quiet support during the +bed before the, before the wall came down. That's where I got that story. +I'm going to worry about that one. It was a very quiet operation, but +and these guys were, were going over there with, with no cover, no official, whatever. +If, if either these Germans or the Russians that got them, these guys would have had a hard time. +You said you served in Vietnam? Yeah, I forgot to push to tell. +Well, I got an interesting story. If you don't mind, from a guy who was a chopper pilot in Vietnam, +I met this guy at one of the Linux users groups that I went to. This would probably be in the 90s +or so. I haven't been to one in this century, but back along, I went to the Boston Linux users group +at MIT. This guy said that he ran into a guy who was a long range intelligence type. He went +off for the Kit Carson Scout, which was a turned VC, up into North Vietnam, and he found found +found the NVA was having a big powwow on his hilltop with a battalion or a large, large amount +of troops that were having, you know, whatever they were doing, they were having a confab. +Well, he and his partner tried to get air strikes, tried to get our artillery, tried to get +everybody, but because he was on the North, most of the people didn't believe that this unit, +this reconnaissance unit was real, and they were thought they ain't going to sense any, +they thought this was going to be a spoofing situation. So they go down to the list of +radio frequencies, and at the bottom of the list, there's this frequency today used. +They call, and they get somebody finally picks up, and they said, how close are you to that +concentration? They said 500 meters. He said, all right, get two kilometers away and call me back. +So they go out to 1,000 meters, they don't know anything that's got a safety range of 2,000 +meters, so that they don't. They say these guys must be bullshitting me, so they call it in early. +They say, you know, all right, fire one shot, and we'll give you the adjustment. +The, the voice on the radio says, we do not adjust, your mission is fired. +While a few a bit later, the hilltop disappears. Their Kit Carson scout is leading from the +years from the concussion, everything's gone to shit. So they get to the radio, and they say, +by the way, who am I talking with? The answer comes back to battleship, New Jersey. +Yeah, they didn't adjust because they were going to be sending 9, 2, 700 pound +shells, you know, with 20 some miles, and they were going to remove the hilltop. They didn't +really have to deal with, you know, 25 meter or 50 meter increments. They just fart 9, 9 rounds, +and they're all that far apart. So they all just wipe out the whole area. That's reasonable way to do +it, I guess. Yeah, you don't have to knock out the building. You're going to take out the city block. +You know, one of my buddies served on one of the last battle gun cruisers of the +in the navy. He was on Newport News. The cruiser now in Quincy is the Salem, which was one of the +cruisers that used guns as a main armament. It had, I think, 9 auto loading 8 inch guns. +They were trying to replace the battleships with an auto loading 8 incher instead of the 16 inch +manually loaded guns on the, you know, I was in whatnot. He, +a buddy of mine said that this ship was so nasty to the North Vietnamese that they +wanted it moved out of the conflict area or whatever. They were all right with our, you know, bombing +missions or whatnot, but evidently this ship was just being too effective so that they made it +bargaining chip in Paris. Also, I was told, you said there was a last one that it would use +guns. What do they use now rockets and missiles? Yeah, they were going from, from guns to +surface surface to surface missiles, surface to air missiles. Right now, they use everything from +our Poon, Tomahawk, which is cruise missiles. In fact, there's Tomahawk blown air in there. +No, Tomahawk is, well, it's, it can, it can, and I ship missile is a missile. Yeah, it can be, ship, +launched or it can be air launched. Drones are, where is that? Well, they have some interesting drones +these days, including one that's supposedly equipped to do it air to air refueling that is to say +it's a tanker. I was surprised about a year or so though I was walking my dog in my neighborhood and saw +a strange little airplane that looked like one of those, those drones, I took a picture of it +and, and it was, one of the, one of the names of a couple of those, the, that they use, +I forget, but it was, it was some drone that they were flying around my neighborhood. +Predator, are you talking about? It was a predator mode. Yes, he was a predator. I took a picture +of it and it looked up online and found that it was a predator drone and did though. So I did +another search and because I lived close to an aircraft worth hear us and said predator drones, +Elington Airfield, and found out that they have a training, they had trained people to, +to operate those things. Right here in my backyard, no, my front yard action, and they fly +around the neighborhood. Well, one of the interesting things is, predators are not only intelligence +drones, but they can be have Elfire missiles attached. And one of the Elfires doesn't have a warhead. +It has, I think, six blades. So, so it comes out for anti-personnel work, if they're taking down some +blade. Yeah, well, more like sabers, think of six blades sticking out and then the thing +crashes into through your into somebody who's on a balcony or sitting in a window or whatever, +and chopped up, I guess it's an alternative to blowing the entire building up. +I don't think of those as anti-personnel devices, but I guess they could be. +Yeah, they said the same thing about the M15. But the answer to that was, you know, I wasn't aiming +at the people, I was aiming at their canteens. If I got really thirsty, they would go home. +Yeah, well, I remember reading that there was investigation about the Marines in the war on terror. +Evidently, they got somebody got their knickers in a twist because the Marines were taking too many +headshots and somebody got the idea that the Marines were getting close enough to take these +people out execution style, it's short range. Turns out they weren't doing that. +It was just a bad guy who was stick his head up and a Marine would give him a third eye and +away you go. The guys were not showing their bodies, but which may have been wearing body armor anyway, +so the Marines were just taking care of business. Now the army is going to get even +nastier with this new 6.8 by 51 round, which is set off by a 80,000 PSI powder charge. +It's flooding the difference between the 556 and the 762 and it's about 20,000 PSI higher +chamber pressure. It's so high chamber pressure, it has a brass body and a steel +steel base for extraction. 3000 feet per second with a 133 grain bullet at the 16 inch barrel. +Yawie. Yeah, well imagine that thing tucked into a 24 inch barrel. Also California +band selling 50 BMG rifles. Now these are rifles that are probably like $4,000 at peace. +Which means they're not liable to be used in your average bodega stick up. +Well, the Barrett company, first they stop selling them to California law enforcement. +And second they made a new barrel. We're instead of 50 caliber. The barrel is 41 point is 40, +is 0.416, which happens to be an old elephant rifle caliber. +The improved Barrett round increases the range of the 50 BMG over the 50 BMG by about 300 yards. +So the new rifle is good for like $2,300 yards instead of 2000. +And you still can't stick up a 711. Yeah, when I was, no, but you can knock it down. +Well, you can make a hole in it. I don't know if you've ever shot an M50 before, but I know you can +take a hole building down with it, like a saw. I guess the most biggest thing I've ever shot was a +M60 machine gun. I fired the M60, fired the 249, fired the 240, fired the Mark 19. +Yeah, we're firing M79. No. I never fired one. I wouldn't let a shooter. When I was in the army, +they gave us the things they told us how to use it, but they wouldn't let a shooter. I don't +know, bullets cost too much, but there was a cute little shot again. I'm always one of the +shoot one. Well, the fletchart round is certainly effective. I mean, shotgun on Sturrit 40mm, +going to give a lot of people a bad day. Yeah, when I was in Vietnam on guard duty, +that was the weapon we were supposed to. Somebody was coming through our wire. That was +what we were supposed to shoot him with first before we used the, I don't know. I think that was first +and then the N60 and then our personal weapons. Well, I was lucky when I went in. They were +phasing out the 60 and bringing in the the 249s. So I did get to fire both. I love the N60. +That was such a fun thing. I had the shooting it, taking it apart, cleaning it, putting back together. +I thought that was a really cool rifle. Right. The the 60, the M60 is 762 and then the 249 +is very similar. It's just 556. So that way you can, you know, and it would take mags as well as +being belt fed. So, you know, if your buddy died next year, you could grab his ammo and continue shooting. +Yeah, I understand. I had an M4. Well, with the Vietnam, I got an M4, +gaining later in the 60. Okay. Now, because the M16s came out first and then the M4s came out later +with the the smaller stocks and the shorter barrels. No, I said, I had an M14. M14. Okay. Yeah. And then +an M16 thing. I said, I had the M14s is what they started getting on with. And the M16s came in, +came in later. Right. And then the M4s, I was one of my units on the last ones to get M16s. +Or M14s? No, no, M16s. I mean, we had the M14s and then we were on the last ones to get the M16s. +Oh, okay. Okay. Oh, yeah. So you had the M16 Alpha 1, which was slightly heavier than the Alpha 2, +and definitely not as reliable. Oh, no idea. It's been a while. Yeah, for me too. Well, that would be +the one without the chrome barrel. When they said you didn't have to clean it. And the usual +bullshit, the Pentagon had tried to do so much to sabotage the M60 that by the time they came +out with real problems, people weren't going to believe them anyway. They just thought the Pentagon +would, from my understanding with the M60 and correct me if I'm wrong, you could practically +throw dirt in that thing and it would work better eventually. But the early ones didn't have +the nice barrels and stuff. And again, uh, some people who who took them on didn't realize +the sooner believe that they sure they would have to be upgraded when they got into the field. +And, and the early ones were, would tend to rust and whatnot in Vietnam. I have a guard duty story +that I got from a guy at MI2, T, who was a software guy at deck. But during his service, he was +intelligence in Vietnam. Being an intelligence officer full of secrets, they naturally put him on +guard duty in a bunker where he could be, uh, if things went bad, he could be taken and whatever. +But they had this one one major who was driving around in a, some kind of vehicle with a bad +muffler. And these guys were wiped out because their schedules were officer of the day, guard duty +and besides their day job and everything, they were just burnt out and everybody was pretty wiped +out with the heat and everything. Well, this major would go along and he would challenge +everybody with password and countersign in a very recognizable vehicle. And he would show them up +if they didn't remember the current password or current countersign or whatever it was. +Well, my buddy says they went down to the next bunker. The guy sends a challenge and the bunker +yells out the countersign correctly. But the major had been going around and he forgot what the, +what the proper was once was. The major didn't give the bunker that he just interrogated +the proper countersign. So somebody did a maged up in his general direction. They said that major +wasn't seen the rest of the night because he shouldn't self. Oh, I do believe I heard the +things like that. Well, you got to remember, no, it was actually the 50 BMG that I was +thinking would take down a building. Right, although also in the Philippines, +people were putting big ass sights on them and I was told that they were even using them for +indirect fire. By the way, a modern 50 BMG also, there's a German round, which I think I'm +probably mispronouncing at what RAM flows, which is basically, it's an explosive round, +anti-material naturally. So, technically, with this MMO, the 50 BMG turns into a light cannon. +Yeah, I know what you use it for. Well, it was probably designed for +tearing up light vehicles, radio or radio or radio or radio or radio. Shooting can't change. +Whether it's a water jug or a little building, the 50 BMG will take both of them out. +You're not allowed to shoot at people. You're allowed to shoot at equipment with the 50 BMG, +which is why you're shooting at their canteens because they're normally carrying their canteens. +And there won't be anything less, they will be liquidified. You don't even have to hit them. +You get close, you'll cut them in half. Actually, one of the things that when I was +still getting brochures from coalmans and whatnot, when coalmans actually existed in full guns and +in Quincy, they had this young lady. She was in her teens out in Arizona and +she was competing with a bearer. And I swear that rifle was as tall as she was and weighed +probably near as much. Yeah, I remember I did something stupid. I don't remember what I did. +I got in trouble and they decided that my punishment was to carry around the 50 BMG. +And that thing is having. And I decided to try and do port arms with it because it was funny. +It made me laugh when I did it. How would you normally carry that? Like one arm all +when you're just hanging? You got a balance on your shoulder and then steady it with one hand. +That's really the only way to carry it. Oh, there's like right shoulder arms. +Yeah, I mean, if you're going to look it around, that's really the only way to do it. +And then occasionally you have to switch arms. Either that, or you got to try and do that +whole, you know, put it over both shoulders and wrap your arms around it to hold it into position. +It's not fun to carry. Yeah, that's last year that then in 60, which they considered, +which was known as the pig. Yeah, they weren't that heavy, but I wouldn't want to carry. +Well, I was a saw gunner, but that's the 249, not the 16. +I have over the difference in the weight of them. Was a saw lighter? +Yeah, yeah, like I said, it was 556 and 776 too. So it was considerably lighter, but still +heavier than, you know, your average M16. And I don't know why they kept giving all the little +guys the saws. Also, you know, 500 rounds of ammo would be a little lighter as well. +Yeah. And well, we had to carry, I think it was a hundred round belt and then a spare, +but we weren't carrying 500 rounds either. Under round drum and then a spare, 100 round drum. +But considering how fast that thing ripped through ammo, if you had it turned all the way up, +that wasn't well. Did I use a drum feed? Well, you had a drum with the belt and it +you pulled the belt out, you wrapped it over the top, you you closed the top down, +you pulled the bolt back. Okay, so just a drug belt, just like an M16. Yeah, or you could take a magazine +and stick that in the side, if you were out of belt ammo, granted a magazine didn't last. +Yeah, yeah, I didn't last a last half a second. But that was supposedly the benefit of having +it be 556 instead of 762. You could grab the ammo from somebody's M16 and just continue one. +Well, I'm glad that wasn't my job. Well, I was in the yard. I had fun with it. +Sometimes it seems like one of the things that you probably glad you did, but how glad you're +done with it? Well, you know, it paid for my college and it still sends me a paycheck for my +disability every day and month. Because it gave you a disability. Yeah, that's an +damn expensive check gentleman. Yeah, I'm aware. By the way, both of you, I never served +my disability was purely civilian PTSD and clinical depression and mild autism. But I do +respect anyone who served and especially anyone who served during not times. +I rack was indeed very warm, but thank you. Well, they don't have any +orders in those places. This seems like, wait a minute, my dad was in Europe. Europe was +nice until they got there. Right? They might be nice when you started, but they weren't nice when +you finished. I watched the movies of the, the desert wars and the, and when they're doing the +towns, the black hot bound and the, you know, they're in a rea somewhere and I just can't imagine +and the slight. And I can imagine actually being in the jungle here because I wasn't getting +out, but I was not one of the guys out to hump in the jungle because that was also just scary as hell. +Yeah, I'll stick to the desert. Yeah, I think the only thing I would hate more than snow is swamped. +Well, yeah, and also the desert, at least you can see him coming. The jungle, they've brought you. +Well, they did. It depends on what part of the desert you're in and if somebody sneezes +real hard. We camped on some, um, dried up river beds and the wind blows a little bit and you +can't see. Just for your general knowledge or just for shits and grins, the ground was originally +not designed for for 30 out six. It was designed for a 2.7 for a 0.276 round and nowadays the latest +army gun is going to be firing 2.76 again. Really, when they make that switch, uh, ongoing. +They wanted something with more punch, more, more punch than 556, but uh, better ballistics than, +than 762 in a similar cartridge form factor. That's why it's using a 51 millimeter case. I think +but it is a hot-rotted beast. It's 80,000 round, 80,000 PSI in the military version. +Fuck, 762 is like, um, 60,000. I think it seems like you're like, whatever you got used to, +when you were young, you know, you, you like the music you got used to in high school and you +like the first, roughly you had, whether you were shooting deer in east Texas or if you were, uh, +in the in the army or or forever. And that's what you kind of like and everything is. You kind of +go look at it, go. Hmm, wonder why they changed it. Well, I'm down here in Boston where +I'm purely disarmed, uh, in our legislature, which couldn't, uh, tell an M16 from a V2, +it's been making rules about all the scary guns out there and, uh, making the people who +bought legal guns, uh, criminals because they just don't like to look at it. Of those, uh, guns +which are passed by the ATF or whatever. I'm one of the radical lefties, but I was born and raised +in Texas, so I got guns too. Yeah, I, I, I am definitely considered a lefty, but I am, you know, +pro-second amendment, but there's a lower case lefty and then there's the upper case lefty. +Unfortunately, the upper case lefty seemed to be running to show. Not sure, I know what you're talking about. +The ones that are woke, literally, uh, you clearly not paying attention to who's running the show +and they are lefty. Right. Well, no, I'm, I'm saying, it, when you're talking lefties, +there are lefties, lower case, which is, uh, people with brain, brain talking about the whole, you know, +who makes the most noise. And it's the same thing with the right. It's, you know, the psychos making +the most noise. And then there's the rest of us sort of in the middle that they're just trying +to get on and try, trying to agree to disagree and shit like that. Well, I won't go talk politics +and I don't know, it would guess I am, but, uh, yeah, I'm left, I, let's just say I'm, I'm left +to center, but, um, I do have far enough. Accents to me. Well, I'm just saying that that's a lower +case lefty. I mean, the, the ones that are saying, oh, God, arresting illegal aliens should +be illegal. Well, okay, I now, I guess I know what you meant, my little face is that was, I guess +that was a question. See, I'm of the opinion that if you, if you break the law, then, you know, +should pay for it. But also, um, that it's none of my business. What a woman does with her body. +And it's not any of my business. What two consenting adults do in a bedroom that I can't see +and don't want to. That's just called minding my damn business. And what goes on between, what goes +on between a person and their doctor is none of my business. Yes, I'm pretty woke to me. +But I also believe it's your right to own a gun. Yeah, but you're not going to, going to see him +signing up is kids for trans sexual Tuesdays, which the true wokes think is just purely normal. +I think that that is overblown that people saying that that's happening. You know, +there's always going to be someone out there that pushes their kids towards that because they're +jackass and one attention. Yeah, that happens. And yeah, that's child abuse. But there are also, +you know, actual medical conditions out there. And it's less than 1% of the population. So I don't +see why it's such a blown out of proportioned thing. Well, again, I have some some +trans friends online. In fact, is a YouTuber, a YouTuber that I was supporting back in the +day when her channel was very small. Now, she has a very good parody line of my little pony +merchandise and my little pony parody books and whatnot. And she's already going to +court with Mattel and they ruled that the parody is protected speech. Yeah. So so Mattel can't +shut her down. And again, she was trans long before it became the flavor of the month. +So and and unfortunately, she's one of the people who when she was visiting like the +Carolina's and whatnot got pinched by the reaction to the crazies. There we go deep down the +politics hole. Apologies. Oh, no worries. I was leading the way. Well, considering +my dad was a nasty alcoholic. So my wits got sharpened on the edge of his chopped logic. +Yeah. I think we're going to talk about computers and stuff. +Can talk about computers too, but anything goes. Well, I've spent many more years with computers +I didn't have guns. So I can't say the same thing. Well, what's funny is that I'm +doing this with two screens. On one of the lowest powered X86 machines that I have here +warranty is given me a couple of machines that are lower powered, but this is a +like two gigahertz AMD APU machine and for for basic stuff like +mumble or YouTube and it works pretty good. It works okay. It is a thin client. +I think it was a T60 with 16 gigs of memory and it's running a USB 3 SSD externally. +It's built to be an client with like a corporate machine before they go to a server or some sort +of the most the application, but you're using it with his local OS only. Yeah, eventually. +Yeah, that's the way I'm using it with local OS now. What I really want to try +is to get something I have someone leader boxes around here, which are +low power I-5s and I-7s and run prox box on it and then run the +run a prox box client on this machine and a desktop under a device under like +under prox box. That way under a device you get the same client can behave as a same client +with all of the heavy lifting done by the I-5 or I-7 or I-3. I think that might be an interesting +combination because when the I-3s machines don't have to run a display and the thin client +only has to run the display we might have a more powerful combination than the machines +than having the machine do everything. Okay, I don't know that's like a really complicated +way to do something that's a bit used. Kind of simple for you to use with your application that +requires a box box and multiple CPUs. Well, again, well, to be clear I'm just re-inventing +the X-term which states me, but then again I was my first unique experience was at MIT +with a I think 1134, 1144 and maybe a small VACS. So, you know, my unique experience goes back to +AI TV's at MIT in building 20. A temporary building, it was finally taken down about the turn of +the century after being used for the radar project in World War II. So, so you really used to +having your client on your desk and the other part in a room that you don't even know where it is. +Yeah, although the night TV's were weird, you remember Hercules display? +It's not about a clue if that was your document. +Monochrome, monochrome display, graphical display back in the days of DOS. +I remember spark stations that had a rounded, monochrome display. +Right. Well, these, the machines that I was using had an MIT cobbled multi-head video and keyboard +system, where what you had on your desk was a pretty dumb box and it went back to a +to a bunch of boards in a PDP 11 core equivalent machine and each, it was sort of like VGA, +but every, every tube and keyboard was a separate, but a separate screen and keyboard and everything +had to be drawn just sort of like an external. This was before X-terms or maybe, yeah, before they +went to X-terms, but it was an interesting beast. All they did have to change the screen +savers after a while because the favorite screen savers when this outfit, young teenagers and +in the 80s were scanned pictures from playboy and I guess the administration found that that was not +that was not exactly kosher, tab on a potentially public facing desktop. +But what was versus that people would actually have that as a screen saver? +MIT building 20, it was one of the last surviving remnants of the radar project to demighting +and the screens were from the original PDP 1. Well, they were, they were from a PDP 11 +that at one time was connected up to the AI PDP 1 and I have seen the AI PDP 1. I never saw it +run, but it was a monster and the only thing more monstrous was the three or four IBM tape +drives that were supposed to be attached to it. The IBM tape road. I worked on the +the average old and PDP 8s and PDP 11s and Vax machines later. +I worked on PDP 11s, I actually made a couple hand wire reps, some interfaces for +receiving touchstone and turning it into data on an LSI PDP 11. Now, my machine was a dual drive +TU58. This is a data cartridge drive machine running over a 38.4 K-bud link +and it had two channel tape and under RT11 it was block replaceable tape. They were using a +serial bus and a microscopic 885 microcontroller to do the job of a floppy disk. +This is the same thing you might have had on your Vax to load your microcode, the little tiny +kithet tape type data cartridges. Yeah, we used a cartridge sensor. +Well, I'm just saying these were small, slow and slow and some all and one of the +wizardry that the friend in mind did was put a bad block at the end of the tape so it never, +ever spanned a file between channel A and channel B. I don't know what that means. +Well, without the bad block being put in the magic location, you could have the front of your +file on one on the end of one channel and the tail of your file on the second channel +but it would require a rewind. Working straight forwardly, these drives were slow. +Access was slow. If you allowed a file, I'll never use tape for either installing a system or for +backups. Are you talking about using tape as data? I'm telling, I'm saying that this would have been +the drive in a Vax that was used to load its microcode. It wouldn't be used as a data device. +It was designed strictly for microcode updates and such. This is not a tape drive as you know them. +No, okay, okay, I'll use that. I'll say that but I didn't understand the part about spanning +in bad blocks and stuff. We did use the tape cartridges to install the operating system and +do patches and stuff. Yes, but you probably used one that had had a good, had a lot smarter +controller like a floppy drive controller. What this was over a synchronous serial nine +at 38.4k, but the same speed that you would have heard dial up modems using. +And the tape drives were cassette sized, I'm cassette sized and they would put data on one channel +on the cassette and then rewind to tape and put data on the other channel on the cassette. +So this wasn't like two channels of an 7 or 8 track tape. They were treated like +basically like they were cassette and in order to get to the other side you'd have to do a +rewind which would effectively flip the monger. The bad block was to make certain that if you're +writing a file, all of the file was on one tape track and not split so that it would be +spread between the end of one track and the beginning of the other one, meaning that when you +were doing your access, you'd have to wait for a few minutes while the drive rewound all the way +to the start of the second track. I guess I'll have to believe it because I didn't understand it +that well. No, you probably don't. You dealt with probably T-76s and T-Whatever, T-553s, which were +real honest to goodness. It looks like VHS tape tapes. They weren't vigilant. They didn't look +like VHS. They were almost square. They were maybe less than an inch thick, maybe three +quarters of an inch thick and kind of square about three and a half inches or so square and I think +but it's been 40 years. Never mind. I know I'm just, that's not something I did for a very long +time and so it's been a long, very long time, so I guess. Yeah, well it's such a thing. I'm talking +I'm talking about a system whose editor was T-Co. Not a video T-Co ordinary text mode +uh something it looked like edging or uh something more like Unix's Ed. No video just command +input you know something that made VHS look like Microsoft Word. Well this would have been around +1989, 1986, some more long and there in 1987 maybe. Yeah, what's about that period? +Well yeah, we had the micro we had the micro vaches that are you know about it's always a +desktop and they're you know bigger than a little tower for a PC now and we had the the big +facts that we used for the whole company kind of the kind of facts as well, facts the MS. Yeah, +well the machine that I was using at MIT was on the internet but it was using an MIT +rolled version of ether well a protocol similar to ethernet called chaos net which was home home +grown at MIT and interoperated with the arpenet but was not ethernet as most people know it. This +this includes vampire connections and all of the nastiness that of the early days of ethernet. +Vampire connections that is to say you connected your computer by clamping this thing around +a big coaxial cable and literally poking into the cable to make the connection. +Well I probably talk all I remember about VHS, I worked on VHS for about a year and I did +well thank stuff and then I went to do a doll stuff running a no veil and eventually +well thank you very much that was when I was much younger and I was talking to a lot of the people +if you read the book hackers I was talking to some of the people that were in that book +and I was briefly a member of the tech model railroad club where they had a small PDP 11 that +was a slave to a system that was controlled by a telephone crossbar relays which doing their +switching for their model railroad. This is a whole wall of relays. You can keep talking I'm +a wall down state I can hear you but I'm not able to say respond because I'm going downstairs +for a year and maybe a bite. Apologies of part of my disability is that I don't pick up on +social kills as I should. I'm not wired that way. No it was no cue. I just think I need another bear +and I thought I look for a snack. I'll be gone about two minutes is all and if you actually +say something that you would expect of his fonts I will have heard you but I will not respond +because I'll not be downstairs. I'll be back in a minute. Yeah I had to pick up my kid. She taught me +listening to country music. Did you ever work with Dawson? Oh yes and no I mean work with no +play around with in the mid 90s yes because I had a really really old computer that my dad got +when the military gave up on it. Well one of the people that I worked with +was part of the founding of an outfit called FTP software and these were the people that would +put your MSDOS machine on the internet before Windows 95 and my time at MIT was back when +MIT main computer was a massive Honeywell 645 before they jumped over to distributed computing +and project Athena and this stuff that gave us the X Windows system and stuff like that. So I +predate X Windows. Was it Dawson 3.2? 6.2? 6.2? I think they had it for all the Dawson's and probably +as a driver package for Windows 3.1 and 3.1 month. Probably Dawson 2.1 back then. Well I didn't +know them when they were running FTP software. I just knew that they went from the outfit that I +was working for which was doing touchstone to voice response systems. We would build a box with a +PDP 11 with like four gigs of four megs of memory and an audio output board and a touchstone +interface and to your system it would look like some kind of terminal or printer or whatever +you had to do to do IO on it and it would when somebody entered a touchstone it would output a +pre-recorded voice message. It was back in the days when the IRS was first starting out with +if you want such and such press one type stuff. Thank you folks for letting me exercise my +dinosaur mode. You're always good for a story. Well my first mass storage device was teletype +punch paper tape 10 characters for a second and a good storage system was a pipe plate. +Pirate. May we know where you're calling from? I'm over in Seattle. Specifically DevHack, +the career hacker space up here in the university districts. Well I'm within a couple of blocks of +tidewater on East Coast so we're going across country tonight. Since I started out punching +basic code into a teletype ASR 33 I really understood where Juno's got those very +cryptic commands. You didn't want to punch anymore characters into that dick. Teletype and you had to. +Well happy to New Year's y'all on the East Coast there. Well thank you very much. +And I hope the weather's not too bad out there. It's nice and well I won't say sign but it's +clear out and it's cool and chilly side but you know. Well my little weather widget here says +that we got like 26 degrees with a wind trail of 14 and the icon says something's +I don't know whether it's snow or rain. I'm sorry I heard a lot of nope there. Maybe I'm not +hitting it but push the top all right. Oh no I heard it just fine. It just all sounded like nope +started saying things like snow and cold. Uh oh you're a boy boy. Damn right. You got to remember +my grandfather in West Virginia had a farm in the place that got the most snow in the +Blizzard of 78 of the entire mess and my uncle lives up and lived up in Bangor or Maine which +made Boston seem like the club med. I still don't know how they ever got that shot of +a guy's full moon in the back seat of an F-101 Voodoo. Yeah my uncle was aviation mechanic on +Voodoo's and a bunch of other stuff. He also did fire flights on firewatch flights on his off +off days and I had the pleasure of enjoying one of those when I was a teenager. Fun times. +I wanted to go. Also I was in the middle seat on a Bangor Brewster international airport +when they were switching planes on on the ready flight. This is cold war stuff and +I have been in a truck tailgating a jet fighter. The guy driving said that +couldn't hear the orders over the jet engines. And the Taurus said just follow that noisy thing. +Steering up the tailpipes of a jet at bumper to bumper range is an impressive thing. +Imagine it would be. That's just here for the queer computer club in Toronto, Canada. +Oh by the way if you like odd computers there's a rather nice emulation +of the PDPA and PDPA 11 including blinking light front panels available for the Raspberry Pi. +They don't have one for the Boston Green Pi. No we don't have a Boston Green Pi. +And I don't think we can really emulate it very well. +I agree. Only the real thing. Yeah well. +Yeah Boston is. +Yeah I'm just just been thinking about +Green Pi. No I was actually thinking about molasses. +Boston had an unfortunate incident where they had had somebody build a large storage tank for molasses +who didn't know what he was doing. +And the one that blew out of the town. Yep in the middle of winter. +Also around here the streets generally wander around like they were made by a drumken cow +but there are a few streets here that are straight as a string. They're originally private +funded toll roads. Yes turn like toll house cookie types. +Back in the colonial times or early America if you wanted to put in a toll road you went to +the legislature. They got a committee together of farmers and generally very +physically conservative Yankees and they would tell you where you could put your toll road +from town to town. These were one of the very few roads that were generally extremely straight. +So if you run into an extremely straight road around here it originated because +some very savvy farmers and merchants didn't want to pay an extra penny or fraction there out +for a road that wandered too much. This led to some roads that must have been really +hell to keep functioning in the days of dirt of unpaid roads because they went straight up and +down slopes where a modern road would arc around but these these skin flints would not have +you put a curve in where a straight could do. Things aren't awful quiet out there anybody out there? +Is that flying rich? It is not. That sounded like flying rich. +Merr, no exactly how to take that. Can you hear me? I can hear you, can you hear me? +Five by five. Oh, that was Merr. And now I can't hear anybody. What's wrong with my headset? +I can't give you a second. What? This is Raymond. I'll call for you if it's just about half a minute +here. Hey, Merr, if I was chewing on something when you said you're anybody there so I couldn't +respond. Oh, things just sounded awful quiet. Well, I was rattling on but I decided to give people +here as a break. Oh, we just hit the new year here on the East Coast. So I have some very good news +for Joe though. Okay, can I hear you now? I can hear you, Joe. Oh, damn it. So does 20, 20, +16 better than 20, 25, yeah? It's a little early to say but bars pretty low. +Are you not in California? Who me when I said just hit New Year's here on the East Coast, +I'm on the East Coast. Me too. But if you want to get a real quick idea of whether 20, 25, +and 20, 26 are going to be good for you. I must know if you're in the state of California. +Yep, still on the East Coast. So no, not in California. Then you're going to have a marvel +of the good year. California is going to lose it 20% of 20% of its fuel output in the next couple of +months. All right, now I can hear your papers. And over 450 gas stations. They, okay. +Also on the East Coast, they're probably going to be fine for fuel and we may have bad +government but we don't have California bad government yet. That's okay in California, +they'll need fuel but use electricity. Ah yes, the people who can do their renewable energy +but because it ain't sexy, they can't keep the trees trimmed around their grid. But I've got +really good news for Joe's New Year's Day. In my area, it's predicted to be 12 degrees tomorrow. +Well, later this afternoon, with a 25-month-hour wind wind. That's why when I tell you that, +I'm glad you're not there. Yep. Yeah, I'm going to be burrowed in under the covers and +what probably will be too since I got the day. Oh, it definitely does. You know, I'll be +caught on the cover. Yeah, I like your priorities, sir. I really support your priorities, Indie. +And please give my best to your priority. All of them. And tell them all that they were missed. +Okay, well, I might be able to convince Tala to come in and say hi. Go. Hopefully my 3D printer +quit's making it. I mean, is Tala the lady that I know is Ms. Short? Yes. She is the short one. +She isn't planning on going to college in Boston, is she? No, I think she was thinking about +going to Colorado. Well, Colorado is where my brother got his last deer with his grilled guard. +Yep, I think I think if you get a deer with the semi-track that's considered a large caliber. +And you are supposed to clean up roadkill when you make it. +I don't know if it's a licensed violation as you are. How can I put you? +I wonder, well, they would probably frown on him putting a freshly killed deer on top of the +load of deer that he was carrying. It's got a hood. Got the brush garden front. That's what it's for. +Shut that thing on there. Mad Max style. Yeah, I hear from my brother when he's +all in stuff through like veil and some of the other places when he's gone through the passes. +And generally things get interesting, although since he doesn't put chains on, he avoids +the worst of the Western winter weather. When they order chains, he just +goes to a truck stop or something and hunkers down and to the roads are cleared. +Yeah, I would hate being a trucker. Well, his wife is riding with him, so he's +situation improved. She also, she's a second driver. No, but, um, well, +there's a lot of chains. No, but, um, she's there to back up the +APU keeping him warm in the winter. She's there to ground God. Maybe, although since he's been +married a few times, this arrangement seems to be the one where it keeps his wife happy +better than leaving her home alone for several weeks at a time. Each one could change +in the snow. It's not even fun. Well, not only does he have to put on chains on +on all axles if he was going to chain up, but if the chains break loose, he has to bite, +he has to pay for them and chains for a truck aren't cheap stuff. Oh, and there's another company +which follows all of the regulations for carrying chains on their tractors. +The chains, however, on their chain rack, do not fit the tires on the tractor, +but they do carry chains with them so that they meet, they do obey the regulations. +Yeah, that's what I would do. Now, another guy that I saw on YouTube has what they call auto +chains. These are, or this is a gadget. It has a bunch of chains +on a spitting arrangement, so the chains are thrown in front of the tires +and the tire rolls over the chains and that produces traction and then the things +spins around again and the next chain comes up under the tire as the truck is moving forward. +So he doesn't have to put on chains, he just drops this widget down and leaves it spinning as he's driving +along. It kind of looks like a metal. So Murphy, our things going in your neck of the woods. +Well, you overall environment is fine. I've been going through some medical stuff that I want to +get into details with, but so it's been a fairly rough month. Yeah, well, +a few years ago. Well, decades now, but when I was younger, I had my throat cut professionally twice, +so, you know, I've been there done that, a t-shirt. My thyroid just didn't get the memo about +behaving, so they removed it. That's rough. I've got some some hard stuff going on, so a little bit scary. +Well, you know, we're all praying for you, even though it's who don't say it. +Thanks for that. Oh, I was just laughing a minute. As a kid, I had a lot of super +numerary teeth. T-shirts up in my gums before my adult teeth would come down. +I had to go into the hospital to have my regular teeth removed and those teeth removed. +Both times I went in, I would come home and my brother hit me into mouth. +At least he was consistent. Yeah, I'm open to a fight through the insurance companies +and get the second part of this deal completed, so I can start thinking about getting back on track +with my life here, but so far they are fighting me to the nail with it. How can they argue that? +Okay, there's one word, lawyers, and that's why back in the day, when Massachusetts was +under much more conservative government, at one time, I think it was illegal to be a lawyer +and Massachusetts. Unfortunately, that law has been repealed. Of course, if you're wrongly +brought up on murder charges, hiring a stand-up comedian to defend you and court probably won't +work out so well either. Yeah, well, yeah, my brother got into totally fake beef. +Um, and his lawyer, let it go up to appeal because that got him an extra $3,500. +And his buddy didn't go through the appeal, got his suspended sentence in a record, +where my brother got off completely in clean. But then again, my brother's buddy +had a lawyer, which was a brother-in-law, and some of the times he couldn't defend the +buddy because he was under court orders to defend somebody else, a lawyer which they have to +escort to court with a marshal is not really the kind. I mean, this makes like my cousin Vinnie +look like F. Lee Bailey. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, indeed. +Better one ahead, I hope. Happy New Year. How's everybody's New Year going? +I'll tell you in about 30 minutes or so. How's hockey game? It was good. It came out, well, +eight fours. Good quality game. But he fights. Yeah, that as up here in the +land of the Bruins, fights are still considered a feature, not a bug. +Yeah, well, as long as you're not watching an NHL game, you're probably going to see some fights. +And even in an NHL game, you will see some, it'll just be less of them, and they'll be much more +controlled. Yeah, whenever I think of hockey fights, I think of the Z1 song, hit somebody. +I think of the song, Fight Dirty. I think of the movie Slap Shop. That makes sense. +By the way, I haven't talked much, but I, it does my audio sound better than did before. +So, but I think it's because you're talking. Well, that's a given. I can't fix that. +No, you sound fine. One good game was a little high. We're getting a lot of the +the semblance, but it's, you know, nothing worrisome. That's just, you know, me being nitpicky, though. +I might be from me playing around with it before. It was very bad for me. It sounds much better now. +Oh, it's good. It probably was because my headset needed to get to recharge properly to shut everything +down for a while. Let's see. Oh, to have a glass of whiskey or not. +This late at night, you might as well. I'm wrong. I'm glad you said that. I was just about to finish my last +beer. I remember I am whiskey. I don't like I need to go get a glass. I'll be back. +I have rum and I have beer. It's 12.38 at night. I've been up since about 4.30. +It's not time and we're wearing a change. +Finish an off the last of my screwball. I'm not going to go with that knocking rum. +Ah, I had to hit in somewhere. Am I the only tea totaler here that has to deal with +reality? Is it already exists? You know, this is probably the fruit drink I have had in. +But when was last time I drank hockey? Do you remember? Oh, you're muted now. Nope. +Oh, no, you're not. When was the last time I drank? How long has it been? I'll play again. +Well, hockey was there last time I drank. So it's probably been two or three years. +Don't hurt yourself. Yeah, well, I was, I used to have like one or two beers a year, +but then they put me on some medication, which makes alcohol contraindicated. +Bad medication, get more, get some different medication. So last New Year's, you didn't drink +because you were dealing with a lot of stuff. Well, let me say the New Year's before +you were drinking. No, no, the New Year's before my dog died. Oh, the New Year's before? +That you don't know if that was last year. No, that was the last year. It was the year before. And then +I don't remember why I didn't drink last year. I just think I didn't think about it. But the, so I had to be the +year before that year before my dog died. And I know I got pretty, I did the last time I got drunk +was 2022. And that was because I got stupid. And a Marine decided to drink with me. +And I said, okay. Well, I've recently heard Eleanor's Roosevelt's description of the +Marines and no wonder you got in trouble and go, this is, I think maybe got the, I do have some +salted caramel whiskey. That sounds good. Yeah, I found it really good. It is tasty. +But I think I will save that for next year. +I know what you did. What did I do? I'm not talking to you. +Well, if you know what I did, you got to tell me. Listen, you're too good to go and get +see. I'm not. I'm not working now. Our people actually on JetCat asked earlier, but I don't remember +getting an answer. Yeah, I did get a second working from around. It's a slash HPR. +If other people want to know, it's jitzie.minics.dev slash HPR. There's a link on the HPR website, +but it's it's just H slash HPR, not slash HPR and my, I've been asked, kind of fixed that earlier. +Is that a, is that a Spider-Man Christmas sweater or is that just a sweatshirt? +Pretty. Pretty. Okay. +Murphy pardon me, but can I know a little more about what +count of these coasts you may be on? A little bit new jersey. Well, +pretty, I've heard some parts of it are pretty nice. You heard wrong. +Southern Jersey's kind of nice or middle, whether there's a storm land. +Yeah. Hey, you know what I'm fine with that attitude. There's too many people here are ready. +So if you're dissatisfied, please, by all means go somewhere else anywhere else is fine. +The problem, the problem with New Jersey is basically the same problem with everything north of me. +Snow. Yeah. That's the one. Well, that's a problem I cannot deny. +I still they tax you if you try to leave or jersey. Yeah. +Uh, you know, take it as you will. Again, you know, if you had this particular outman, go for it. +You don't get, you guys won't have to pump your own gas. That's correct. +Yeah, because, you know, people say, you know, I want to pop you, you realize those jobs that +people are pumping the gas. Well, always be there. There'll just be a difference if, you know, +if they get rid of that law, no one will pump gas. They, you know, that will not exist as it does. +Most other places. It's hard to find self-serve. Um, that job will still exist, though. +We'll be doing it for free. So I'm just as happy having somebody else do that and still have +some of the lower gas prices in the area. Sure. Also, you can stay in a warm car. Well, +some other push-up is out there dealing with, you know, metal pump handles and everything. +Yeah, exactly. So you, you like self-service, man. Go for it. I'm all for it for you. +Uh, I'll take people pumping the gas. And I'm perfectly capable of pumping my own when I'm +in other states. And that's fine. But the status quo was just fine in that regard. +By the way, I used to be a security guard on a condo complex. So I spent my time as that +club out there in the cold, going around controlling areas where, well, everybody else would +safe and warm. When here's on a coastal peninsula, can, uh, can be entirely too damn interesting, +even without snow. Yeah, I'm not going to Chicago either. Well, I got to tell you, +I want to Chicago in the summer. I always work working on this place, but I didn't +handle this particular issue. Now, we had an entertainment facility, whatever you call it. +It had a pool, it had bathroom showers, etc. And it had a place where you could +have parties. This place had thunder block walls, precast concrete ceilings, +concrete floors. Well, one new year's Eve, a couple of bosos got into trouble. +They got into a beef with each other. And I will tell you, the smartest use of a pistol +I've ever heard of in this environment. The description I gave you tells you that this is +Ricochet City. Well, what the boso did was open his coat, let his enemy see the shoulder +host or he was packing in the pistol. And well, well, the guy was focused on the pistol, +the target was sucker punched. Under those conditions, I will have to give the pistol carrier +props for the best use of a pistol and to those circumstances that I can imagine. +That is to say, using a pistol as a bait for a sucker punch. Now, wearing a pistol around a +bunch of potentially drunk people is stupid, but at least when it came down to the beef, +the guy was smart enough not to use the pistol as a fain and use nature's weapons instead. +Rocks and sticks. I think he used his fists, but +then there was a guy who fell out the window adjusting in window air conditioner in a central air +condition unit. Unfortunately, there was cement deck below him, so I think he didn't feel +very good. There are reasons to use a window unit over central air, especially if you're planning +on staying in like one room with a house, it's a small area of the house that you need to keep +a little bit cooler for whatever reason. It saves on electricity. Yeah, well, these units were all +heated and cooled by heat pumps run off a central boiler. Oh, folks, I think I'm going to get out of here. +Happy New Year to everyone and catch you some other time. Happy New Year. Good luck, man. Happy New Year. +Thanks. Happy New Year, Murphy. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4623.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4623.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e218cf2 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4623.txt @@ -0,0 +1,130 @@ +Episode: 4623 +Title: A brief infodump on the Broadcast Address and Routing +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4623/hpr4623.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:21 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4623, for 2026-04-22 +Today's show is entitled, "A brief infodump on the Broadcast Address and Routing" +The host is Jon The Nice Guy and the duration is 00:05:46 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Jon gives a little information on what the Broadcast address is and IPv4 Routing in general" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in March 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +kind of her public radio, this is John the Nice guy. +On the HP after-minute use for January 20, 2025, +Ken, Kevin, and some girl in the internet +were talking about network dresses. +As this was part of my job for several years, +I thought so. +I'd talk about it for a couple of minutes. +All my pain networks, now years, +all we refer to as CIDR or CIDA based dressing. +Ciloft and see these expressed as slash 24, +slash 16 and so on. +This is how many ones are in the binary representation +of the local portion of this network. +Windows is one of the last remaining platforms +refer to these as net masks. +And it's expressed them as four octets +in decimal representation of those ones. +So slash 24 is 24 ones in a row or 255252550. +slash 16 is 25252550 and so on. +What does this have to do with networks and networking? +It's actually technically two pieces to this. +The first is for broadcasts or how a node +with an IPv4 address asks all the local nodes +in an IPv4 network address range +how to find other things. +The other is for routing. +But let's talk about broadcasts, right? +So back when IPv4 or just TCPIP as we knew it then +was being developed to integrate into operating systems, +most developers read the request for the comments document +about this new IPp protocol and put the address +that the device should contact to talk to all the hosts +on the local network segment or the broadcast addresses +it better known as the last available IP address in their subnet. +In a slash 24, that would be the dot 255 address in the subnet. +The engineer's at, from memory, I think it was either +some microsystems or DEC, read the same document +and call that address the network address +and made it the first available IP address on the subnet, +the dot zero. +In the end, broadcast address one out, +in the IPv4 networks and the network address was left history. +But there were at least for quite a long time, +still just enough of those legacy systems knocking around. +That it was always seen as a bit of a risk +to allow the network address back into the pool of addresses. +The broadcast address is most often seen in printer setups +or for app address requests, +but as largely been thought as largely for an out of favor, +in preference to multi-casts. +In fact, so much so, the IPv6 seems to have dropped broadcast +address entirely. +Broadcast address, rather entirely, +and uses multi-cast for almost everything now. +But why does the number of bits matter? +Now, this comes back to routing. +Routing is where a host works out +what the most specific route is to get to give an IP address. +One of the typical home network, this is fairly binary. +You have a default gateway, usually on either dot one +or dot two, five, four in your slash to any font network. +And most of the traffic goes to that. +In networks which need a higher level or HA routes are set up, +you may see up to three IP addresses being used by your router +with some method of mapping the virtual address +of the next top gateway to a physical device. +That said, even on a simple home network, +there are at least two other networks which are used. +And that's your local or loopback interface, +which is able to use all the addresses in the range, +one, two, seven, and zero, zero, zero slash eight. +But typically only binds to one, two, seven, zero, zero, one. +And the network you're connected to, which doesn't require routing. +Most hand routers use one, nine, two, one, six, eight, +zero, zero, slash, twenty, four, or one, two, one, six, eight, +one, dot zero, slash, twenty, four. +In order to work out how to get to the next top, +next top, I appear address, you're trying to reach. +The computer turns both the IP address you're trying to reach. +And all the CIDR masks in the routing table +into binary numbers, and then match is the one, +which most specifically, which is most specifically accurate, +to work out what to do with it. +So for example, if you have an IP address of 10 dot zero dot zero dot one, +then you're in that work, +slash eight, rather than your network mask is zero, zero, zero, +one, zero, one, zero. +If you're trying to find another address in that network, +you only need to match the first eight bits. +And the dress of 11 dot zero dot zero dot one doesn't match, +because the first eight bits, zero, zero, zero, zero, +one, zero, one, one doesn't match the one +of your routed network. +More specific groups will take longer to match, +which is why some other routing tables on the corner works +dedicate whole CPU cores to matching parts of the routing table. +It's also in the pre-IPV for exhaustion days. +IP addresses were typically sold in large blocks, +usually to single geographic regions. +So the only had to match a large supernet or a large block +of subnet, rather, in one go, not lots of smaller subnet. +Now once you understand this about IPV4, IPV6 works, +pretty much the same way for routing, +except the address space is four times larger, +with the number of net bits in the network area, +being 128 as opposed to IPV4's 32 bits. +I just wanna thank the janitors for triggering +this little bit of an info dump, +and I hope it's been of interest to you. +This is John the Nice guy, sign it off from HPR. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4624.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4624.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4572912 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4624.txt @@ -0,0 +1,199 @@ +Episode: 4624 +Title: Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 7: GUI Trying a Simple Hello World +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4624/hpr4624.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:22 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4624, for 2026-04-23 +Today's show is entitled, "Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 7: GUI Trying a Simple Hello World " +The host is Trey and the duration is 00:21:47 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "The continuing saga of the Cheap Yellow Display graphical user interface" +Hello again, this is Tre. Please note, I did the work described in this episode and wrote the script, +more than six months prior to this recording. But then life got in the way, and I didn't get +it recorded, and I didn't even look at the project until recently. But that dear friends is a story +for another episode. In literature we call that foretelling. Right now, however, it is time to +record and publish this episode. Welcome to Part 7 in my cheap yellow display project series. +If you're still listening to me ramble about this project, thank you. If you lost track of it over +the months of silence from me, you're not alone. Frankly, I've lost track of it too. +If you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my HPR profile page, +and there's a link in the show notes. Today, I'm not going to blather on about all the things +that we've done so far in the current state of the project. Now, today we are getting back to basics. +Beginning with the random nerds tutorial, introducing the ESP32 cheap yellow display, +and I'm posting a link to that in the show notes. Why am I going back to basics? +I really, I just, I don't want to talk about it. If you've not listened to episode 5 of this series, +you may go back and suffer through it. It's an HPR episode 4, 5, 3, 2. +There's a link in the show notes, but suffice it to say, when you choose to jump in the deep end of +something, you think you understand a little about, but about which you really know much less, +you can find yourself flailing about gasping for air and trying not to sink. +That's a pretty good illustration of what happened in episode 5. +However, a recurring theme has been evident to me in several weeks of podcasts and +YouTube videos that I've experienced over the last, again, over the last several weeks. +That theme is embracing failure. The most recent of those was Mark Rober's YouTube video +uncovering America's underwater city. There's a link to it in the show notes too. +In the video, his successes and his misses gave me a glimmer of hope and reminded me that our +failures are not failures in and of themselves, their opportunities to learn and pivot and change and +move forward. I've been programming computers in various forms since the early 1980s. Yes, +back in the 1900s for all you young folk there. Over the years, I worked with basic and Pascal +various flavors of sea of assembly language, Pearl, Java, JavaScript, Python, and more. +And every time I started a course to learn a new language, the first program to write was, +yep, you guessed it, hello world. Random nerds tutorial posted and article entitled, +introduced in the ESP32 cheap yellow display. And it includes a starter program that creates two +different buttons on the screen, which do two different things. A slider, and of course, it displays +hello world. In the show notes, you can find an image of that screen and a link to the random nerds +tutorial. That's where I'm going. All right, it was time for me to get started. Copy paste run, +nope, not this time. The article also explains section by section what the code does. +And my goal here is not to simply make the cheap yellow display do my bidding, +but rather to learn the why and the how, which I need in order to become proficient with it. +First, we start with loading the necessary libraries. These include pun intended there, +include, oh, never mind. These include LVGL, TFT, underscore espy, XPT, 2046 underscore touch screen. +That's a resistive touch controller library used for all sorts of touch screens. +There are instructions earlier in the tutorial that describe how to make certain that these are +properly installed in the Arduino IDE. One thing that I noticed almost immediately +is that the previous GUI building tool I used in episode five called Squareline Studio, +only supported up to LVGL version 8. Well, the tutorial recommended LVGL version 9.01. +I wonder if this could have contributed to some of my issues. All right, +back up, I'm using acronyms and I haven't talked about them. So what is this LVGL thing anyways? +LVGL stands for light and versatile graphics library. According to LVGL.io, quote, +LVGL is the most popular free and open source embedded graphics library to create +beautiful user interfaces for any microcontroller unit, micro processor unit, and display type, unquote. +It is built to make UI development easier with animations and more than 30 different widgets. +It basically allows a lot of things to happen without you having to get down into the weeds of your code. +All right, so we've got that. We've included the necessary library types and there's some initialization +to do for the touch screen. The touch screen is a serial peripheral interface. We'll call it SPI. +And you can see in the tutorial that the XPT 2046 requires you to define several different things +for that particular serial peripheral interface. These include the interrupt that it uses. +The Mossi, that's MOSI, master out slave in port that's used. This is the pin that the +microcontroller uses to send data to the touch screen or the touch screen's input port. +There's also a Nissan port, MISO, master in slave out pin. That pin is the pin that the +microcontroller uses to receive data from the touch screen or the touch screen's out port. +The ins and outs seem to be a little confusing, but it's defining the ports on the microcontroller +itself that these will use. There's also the clock pin, which the microcode microcontroller +uses to send clock signals to SPI devices. SPI is a bus and you can have several different devices +and having that clock signal is important to make sure that the things are in sync. +The chip select pin on the microcontroller is used to enable and disable communications +with the touch screen. We've got all those defined. We can then create specific instances for +touch screen SPI and touch screen within our code. Next, we define the screen height, +the width, and the font size. Along with integer variables for X and Y coordinates, input coordinates, +when the screen is touched, and Z, which is the pressure that's used when the screen is touched. +These values are important when you're configuring the draw buffer. There's also a setup +function which is used to basically launch the touch screen SPI and the TFTP display and LVGL. +That's a lot. But wait, there's more. There's a decent size function which creates the main +GUI screen and it begins with the hello world text label. Great, our hello world program. +Here we can see specifically how the text label is created, named and assigned the text that +it will display, then sized and positioned. The same goes for buttons 1 and 2 and there are associated +labels and the slider and it's label. Finally, there are event handler functions for when +button 1 or button 2 are pressed and for when the slider is moved. When button 1 is pressed, +it shows that it is clicked until it is released. So, when you press it, it shows clicked, +when you release it, it's not clicked anymore. When button 2 is pressed, however, it actually changes +the state of the button between off and on to the opposite of what the state was before it was +pressed, then it alters the color of the button accordingly. So, button 2 effectively toggles from +off to on or from on back to off again, each time it is pressed. So, if it's off and I push it, +it goes on and it stays on until I push it again. I hope that explanation of this simple function +did not make it even more confusing. Back to the code. When the slide is moved, it changes the +value of the text for the slider label. All of these are fairly simple. Now for the test. In episode +five, you can witness me building my Morse code app or Morse code key app and downloading it +to the cheap yellow display, only to have the touch screen input fail spectacularly. +I know there wasn't a hardware failure because the application that was pre-installed when I purchased +the cheap yellow display worked perfectly. Additionally, when I loaded a pre-compiled application +built for the cheap yellow display, from Brian Lowe's witness me now Github site, it also worked +perfectly and I'll include a link to that in the show notes as well. So, now it was time to once again +verify the proper libraries are loaded in the library manager and then copy the hello world +TFTP display and touch screen test code from random tutorials and paste it into the Arduino IDE. +Section by section, making sure again that I understand with each section does and fine tuning it +for my display. Please note, I spent years of my youth manually typing programs from magazines +into computers. Back then my eyes worked better and my brain worked better and I often spent more +time troubleshooting and trying to find all the typos that I actually spent typing the program. +So yes, I will copy and paste other people's programs every time I can and I'll include proper +attribution for where I got it from. After all, this is a test and if it works, it could be the +foundation upon which I build the application I really want. I connected my cheap yellow displays +USB C port to my computer and verified the comp port the windows had chosen to assign it. +Next, per the instructions in the tutorial, within Arduino IDE, I select the board type that I'm using +as ESP32 Dev module and I specified the comp port to that which it was connected. +With a deep breath in a short prayer, I clicked the upload button. +After what seemed like an eternity of compiling but was actually closer to 36 seconds, I saw the screen +on my cheap yellow display showing exactly what it should and proudly displaying hello world. +Alright, now we'll the touch screen work. I clicked button one. The button changed color when I +pressed it and returned to normal when I released it. Now for button two, a tap toggled it from +orange to blue and another toggled it back to orange again. Finally, the slider test. +Moving the slider did work and changed the percentage value being displayed below the +control. Everything worked. Now we're getting somewhere. There are photos of all of these in the +show notes. What next? I had a few options. I could use what I learned from hello world to begin +building my GUI again part by part. But this time manually as the code directly within Arduino IDE +just manually writing that code not using some other tool for it. To start with I would need to +learn how to build different screens and to navigate between those. So that's option one. Option two. +Alright, to be honest, I wasn't thrilled with my experience using SquareLine Studio. +It is a commercial tool and the licensing is a pain. I recently discovered an open source +option called EEZ Studio. I could load it and try to rebuild the GUI a little at a time examining +the code produced as I go along. Other options. I'm sure there are dozens, but I really need +more information before I can choose what to do. In the end, I choose none of the above. I decided +to take a closer look at the code which SquareLine built for my GUI and try to learn what is in there. +It turns out there's quite a bit. Granted, I had built three different screens with +quite a number of buttons and some other controls. But where hello world included all of the +source code in a single.iono file. SquareLine had created a number of files. Let's talk about those. +There was CMakelist.text and filelist.text and those seem to be artifacts from when the GUI code +was exported from SquareLine. There's a UI.iono file and this is the Arduino C file with several of +the same foundational structures that can also be found in hello world for configuring individual +libraries to work with the CYD and things like that. Some of these differ from hello world and +will require comparison. There's also the UI.c file which starts with a variable section for +defining screen control, label names and things like that. It also has a function section with code +for event handling and finally it has a screen section which defines functions for each of the different +application screens built within SquareLine. Send config and keyboard. There's a UI.h file +which really does not have much in it. I need to figure out what the that file does. +There's a UI underscore screen UI underscore send underscore screen.c a UI underscore config +underscore screen.c and UI underscore keyboard underscore screen.c and these create all the controls +and labels on each of those screens. The send screen, the config screen and the keyboard screen. +They specify location, size and some of the functions of those controls. +There's a UI underscore events.h file which also seems to have very little in it like +UI underscore h. So there's more research needed and figuring out what the that h files do. +There's a UI underscore comp underscore hook.c file and it simply includes a list of libraries +and their versions along with the project name header and it's common that the header is +common to most of the files that are in this list. There's a UI underscore helper.c and it has +code related to the properties of several of the controls in the project and a UI underscore helpers +underscore or dot h UI underscore helpers dot h file and it's the only dot h file that has really +any amount of code in it but I still don't know what that code is doing. You can find all of these +on my GitHub repository and I'm posting a link to it in the show notes. +So this is interesting but I didn't really get anywhere. Remember I mentioned a YouTube video +by LVGL beginner where I first saw reference to a product called EEZ Studio. +That video I'll post a link to it in the show notes along with the title but it's a good place to +start. So I went back to the video and in the video the author shows how to use EEZ Studio to build a +button. Then he exports the code which is a bunch of files like square line did copies all of the +created files into the same folder where his dot iano file resides and then he integrates it into +the dot iano file. In fact he's using a template iano file that was designed by random nerds and +can be found on the random nerds site and he integrates it by using an include statement and a +function call. So I went back to my old UI dot iano file from square line. It seems to only +interact with the remainder of the UI files also through an include include less than ui dot h greater +than statement. Okay that's where ui dot h comes in that's that's interesting. So there's a line +for that and there's also a function ui underscore init which which calls some things. +What if what if my issues were within the ui dot iano file itself in the way it configured +the board or instantiated the libraries or something. All right I have a working foundation to build +on let's let's look at something. So I make a copy of the template and I moved it into a new +test folder and I copied all the square line created user user files into that same test folder +except for my ui dot iano. Next I edited the version of hello world and removed all of the event +handlers and the entire lv underscore create underscore main GUI function. Finally I replaced the +lv underscore create underscore main underscore GUI function call with a ui underscore init function call. +This couldn't work could it? It's worth a shot. I could always revert back to my saved copy +of hello world and try something different. I reconnected the capabilities play to the USB +C cable and I clicked the upload button in the Arduino IDE and then waited for what seemed +like another eternity while the code compiled. This time taking much longer than 36 seconds. +I pondered searching youtube for the jeopardy game theme song music to play in the background while +it waited. Finally the screen on the cheap yellow display went black and amazingly it displayed +the send button screen that I had originally built in square line. Okay try I thought to myself +don't get your hopes up you've seen this before. The real test is if any of the buttons work. +I tapped the config button. The send screen began to slide from left slide to the left to be replaced +with the config screen. It worked. I tapped the keyboard screen. The config screen +slid to the left and the keyboard screen slid into its place. I absolutely shouted. +A lot of enough to scare both of my cats and they jumped from their place where they'd been sleeping +on the bed in my office and ran out the door. It worked. I still have a ton of work to do. I still +don't really understand a lot of the parts of this and I need to get a better understanding +of it but I've got work to do in the GUI and I've got work to do in the actual program part to +send the Morris code. But this is a good place to stop and savor a little bit of success. +I look forward to any feedback you might have. Please post it as a comment or send me an email +using the addresses that are listed in my HPR profile. I hope you have an amazing day and I will +talk to you again in my next episode. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4625.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4625.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..62d5c5f --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4625.txt @@ -0,0 +1,194 @@ +Episode: 4625 +Title: Site Specific Browsers +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4625/hpr4625.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:22 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4625, for 2026-04-24 +Today's show is entitled, "Site Specific Browsers" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:07:37 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee talks about using Progressive Web Apps on the desktop" +Hi, I'm Lee. +I'm going to talk to there about my experiences using various tools +that make web-based apps seem like desktop apps. +Firstly, you might wonder why anyone would want to do this, +because surely if you're using a desktop computer, +then you want your apps to be real apps running on your computer, +not a femoral things, running on some machine +that doesn't miles away. +There are a few reasons, and the main one +I can think of relates to what in software engineering +you would call a non-functional requirement. +That is, it has nothing to do with what the software does, +but instead with how it does it. +And that requirement is partly due to laziness of developers +like me, but partly due to practicality +when time and cost are issues. +This is that you can write the app once, +and it will run everywhere. +Despite various technologies that promise +to make it possible to build an app, +where the source code just compiles down to a program +that works wherever you might want to deploy it, +that really isn't fully realized. +I discovered this when I built a Swiss army knife app +containing dozens of handy, +cisadmin and dev tools, mainly for converting +or generating snippets of data that you would paste into it. +I thought I was being clever when I chose the KD +plasma base framework called Kirigami, +and was careful only to use standard cross platform +compatible libraries in my code. +However, when I actually clone my code, +developed on my Ubuntu machine, +and tried to build it on MacOS on my Mac mini, +all help wrote loose. +I was juggling with the Mac cross platform +in Stahlahombrou, and the KD cross platform +library environmental craft, and the command line tools +in sort via X-code, and then trying to match together +one version of one thing with another version of another. +This is the thing about building software. +One theory, lots of stuff is compatible. +In practice, you can end up balancing spinning plates +on your nose, or riding you in a cycle to get it all to work. +And I'm not pinpointing Kirigami in particular. +I've obtained my own genes like Flutter or Electron, +I've found to have these issues. +And it's not that the technology itself +is poorly conceived or implemented, +but that the program is complex and without investing time, +effort and resources, making code that you write once +and compiles everywhere is problematic. +If it does work, it's often a matter of skilled +local perseverance. +This is why so many companies +will opt to make different app for each platform. +One for Windows, one for MacOS, hopefully one for Linux, +one for Android, one for iOS. +So I'll come back to the reason for using web-based technologies +for running low-coaps on a desktop computer. +It's because web-technology, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, +and so on have become a universal standard. +It's often said nowadays that the browser +has become the operating system. +Well, that's not quite true, but it's getting close. +Operating systems like Chrome OS, for example, +based on that tenant, where to a large extent, +everything you see on the screen is a web page. +And then there are some disadvantages +to using web technologies, perhaps. +One of these is that they're often cloud-first. +You have to log in so credentials, give away +a load of personal data that you should be able to do +perfectly well on a computer without all that nonsense. +Also, if the internet connection goes, +you could have lost access to your data. +Often, things that might easily be perfectly well stored +on your computer without relying on an always-on connection. +These disadvantages have been +ameliorated somewhat nowadays as some web-absorbed +what is often termed respectful in that they do not +demand linking yourself to some online-rich-driven users, +and they can also take advantage of web-technologies +that store data locally on your computer without loading it. +The exception would be if you explicitly +wanted to synchronize your data, it may give an option +to sink to some way out of your own choosing, +even to some service that you host yourself. +These reservations aside, there are some types of web-abs, +we might accept it's okay to trust the provider in question, +especially if you're paying them, +and there is less incentive for them +to treat you as a broad fodder for data collection and marketing. +Another thing, if like me, you run a Linux +distrayer as your daily driver, +and that means you do pretty much all your proper computer +really stuff within the Linux. +Then you'll notice you can get treated as a second-class citizen +by often in quotes, big companies, +the like to assume everyone is running windows +or maybe macros, or at least an eye-fine or an Android phone. +This often forces you to run these tools in the web browser, +and you lose that app-like experience +that other platforms enjoy. +That, as I said, web-tool-onjies and browsers, +well, have moved on. +I've encountered a few tools +that let you run a web application more or less +as if it was a proper desktop app. +I think the first time I became aware of this +was with Peppa Mint Noes, +which had a single-side browser tool called Ice, +though that's been replaced by one called Kuma apparently. +More recently, I installed a program +on my Ubuntu machine called France. +The key advantage of this was it detected things like notifications, +so you would actually know when a webmail email arrived +versus having to check it. +After a while, I realized this did not seem +to be getting that much support, +especially when the web app changed something +that broke the recipe that was allowing it +to work within the France container. +I swapped France for what looked like +a more community-driven branch of the same tool, +called Ferdium, and this I've been using for a while now. +During an update to my PC, though, +I somehow lost all the services I'd set up, +and rather than setting them up again, +decided for a while to just run everything +in my web browser, despite my common problem +of out-of-habbit closing tabs or closing the browser, +then realizing the service I was working with had gone. +Another issue being that some web services +don't do too well if you're using more than one tenant +or once, tenants being effectively a different user. +At this point, I found there was another option +that I've only been using for a short time, +but suits my needs remarkably well. +This is to install these services +as what are called progressive web apps. +While I generally browse the web with Firefox, +I found the Chromium handles these quite well, +and it seemed to me to keep these PWA separate +from my general web browsing, +especially as they're often work-related, +so I don't want them available, +unless I'm actually doing something specific with them. +So at the moment, I have two different email providers +fast-mowing outlook, a software development project +management tool called Jira, +and a general collaboration tool called Teams +or sitting at separate apps in my KD plasma task bar. +The specifics of how to install a website +as it's own desktop app will vary from browser to browser, +and from one Linux distro and desktop environment to another. +And while this way of doing things +is born out of compromises or ground, +it does seem to be a case of the lowest common denominator +winning out. +Your own mileage may vary, but practically speaking, +if you happen to have Chromium running +and have navigated to a particular web app, +you can go to the three dots menu, +scroll down to cast, save and share, +and click and still pages app. +For me, it was that simple, +and even in one case, the web app was smart enough +to prompt me to do this without me needing +to even search for that menu option. +For me, it's a bit like having a Chromebook, +or having mobile apps on my desktop, +not to everyone's taste, +and not suitable for all use cases, +but this is working for me quite well at the moment. +Anyway, that's all for now. +Thanks for listening. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4626.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4626.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8a4ecc --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4626.txt @@ -0,0 +1,209 @@ +Episode: 4626 +Title: Cable Management / PC Speakers +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4626/hpr4626.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:23 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4626, for 2026-04-27 +Today's show is entitled, "Cable Management / PC Speakers " +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:18:21 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "operat0r talks about his Cable Management ,speakers and green screens" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in March 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hello everyone and welcome to episode of Hacker Public Radio with your host, Operator. +So I'm changing my format, which is good for you, not so great for me, because Kenneth +is doing show notes for me and I don't know why. +So I'm going to do better about show notes, good for you, it's going to be more clear +and concise, hopefully. +And so this one's going to be about cable management, PC speakers, and just general kind of +cleanliness around the workspace of your desktop or your gaming system or your environment, +work environment. +So what I have now is I ordered actually a new ridiculous 49 inch monitor curve, so +I'm going to have maybe potentially two monitors on this staining desk. +The problem I have now is there's a steering wheel that's in the way. +So I have to tilt the monitor to play a video game, and then I tilt it back for work. +And there's a whole process, I have it for my child, it's a four-step process that says, +you know, turn wheel, switch to zero, so it turns the steering wheel off, puts bigger +desktop position, put H shifter into neutral, put pedals back to wood against the wall, +close out steam, and any other game, close out, related windows, if the monitor back to +it was returning standing desk, back to position number two setting, put chair back to +desktop position. +So like it's like, you know, whatever since that process, when he wants to do the simulator +stuff. +So I'm hoping to solve that with another monitor, nicer monitor, this is all piece +crap, HDMI $100 old, my first IPS monitor, but I'm talking about cable management. +I bought this loom, wire loom, there's BOA brand, and then there's this other brand, +which doesn't really have a name, and the store is T-E-Z, I-I-C-U-S, that's actually +the cheap brand, the one I, the good brand is BOA3, so I've already recorded this once. +And now, nope, oh, it is, it is this T-E-E-T brand, yeah, so the picture doesn't do +a justice, the picture looks just like the other stuff, but it is better. +It's $29.89, I think it's substantially more expensive than the other stuff I bought, +which is, let's see, for more, it's $20 for the cheap stuff. +For the nicer stuff, it's $20 for like, half the amount, or like, two-thirds the amount. +So, you're paying quite a difference, there's an extra $10, and you lose, so I don't +$66 per count, and then this says nothing per count, so anyways, what's all said +done? +I got two different kinds. +This BOA is the cheaper stuff, you'll see everywhere, it's pretty see-through, +hold up to the window, it's see-through, this splits the other wire loom, T-E-Z-I-I-C-U-S +store, you'll see a little picture, and I'll put it in the show notes, why choose +us, then versus us, and it shows like, you know, the see-through of the fabric, and then +it shows theirs, it's not hardly see-through at all, so it's a P-E-T polyethylene material +inferior, or polyester, multi-fluent, but it's all, like, it's the same thing, it's all, +what do you call it, whatever, so anyways, the way it works is it splits leave, now they +have regular that's not, you know, Chinese handcuffs, you have to push the cable through +the problem with that, is that if you have this giant dongle with whatever at the end, it +will fit around, then you're not going to be able to, you know, get the non-splitted cable loom +wire loom around, so I bought all-splitted loom, now to the link it look really nice, and +to keep it snug, you can put a shrink tubing, and that has the same problem as the non-slit +now to get around that, you can get bigger shrink tube, heat shrink tube, now heat +shrink tube, you don't know what's electronic thing, you put a shrink tube around wires, +and then you take a heat gun to it, try not to use the lighter, if you're going to be +doing it, if you've ever used heat shrink tubing, and you don't, and you have heat shrink +tubing, and using electronic, don't use the lighter, please go buy a heat gun, they have +a thousand and one uses, I use the heat gun all the time for all kinds of crazy stuff, +so just buy a heat gun, a nice one, and use a heat gun to heat shrink your tubing, now +it's basically a piece of rubber that goes around whatever wire it is, or anything, honestly, +and you can shrink it, apply heat to it, and it'll shrink it, now to get around the issues +with not being able to fit, you can have a bigger heat shrink tube that will fit around the +object, maybe a USB cable or a big giant dongle thing, and that will fit barely, right, +and then you get a smaller heat shrink tubing, and you split that, you cut it +in half, and then you wrap it around, you heat shrink the small thing first, and you put the bigger +heat shrink tube around that, so you kind of have a better seal around the whole thing, +because the big heat shrink is not going to heat shrink enough around the wire to get it to go +there, but with a combination of split, cut in half heat shrink, smaller heat shrink tubing, +and maybe some electric tape around towards the head of whatever the dogell is, +you can get that solid strength, I've actually used Gorilla glue before, because it expands, +so if I have a place where there's a small wire and a big old dongle thing, and then he's +going to be plugged in at the end, I will actually make it really long, and use like a long, +long thing of electric tape, and then I will heat shrink everywhere around that electric tape +that I can, and then you can put the wire loom around that, but so I've got different sizes, +the three forces is about the biggest, you would probably want to use on a computer, +if you go the one inch, I think it's just too big, so the three forces are going to be +probably the biggest you want to order, now the one fourth inch, I think is what I got, +it's pretty small, but it holds for snuggling, very snuggling, it holds for like +you know gauge 20 wires, or whatever that's beaker wire, that you crappy speaker wire you buy, +it's like you know 20 gauge or even 18 gauge, but it's tiny wire that goes through these +base shakers, and so it's for pair copper, or two pairs of like 18 gauge wire, and it snugly fits, +so it looks nice, and it's all kind of taped on there, so there's not enough not as much +chance to get a snag on something, I had some issues with audio on a kept reconnecting, +you can actually eventually just start working, but another other places, if you have a +dongle, it's a specified links proprietary, so my steel series, dongle is like three feet long, +and I don't need but like a foot and a half, you can take that cable and run it all the way up and +down itself, so kind of fold it in on itself, and what I'll do is kind of fold it into thirds, +and I'll fold it into thirds, and I'll grab each fold, and I'll fold it into itself, and then I'll +just keep adjusting the size of that, you know, that fold, the folds to reach wherever I want to +reach, and then I'll velcro the end of the folds, and then I'll put the lume around that, so my steel +series is nice and small, and then also the switch for my steering wheel is looped around itself. +So it's really only one wire that goes to there, but it's like three wires being +three or four wires, thickness, because it has to loop back on itself, and it's a switch, and it doesn't +really, it doesn't really really whatever, so I've got, I'm using it in two places, really right now, +but once I get the monitor on my move things around and change it up a little bit, but it definitely +looks nicer, and it's less confusing too, I don't even need to label some of these cables now, +but I know, okay, this cable is just, this cable is the headset, and this cable is the, +so everything I see that's got a lume around it based on the size and where it is relatively +looking, but you know, I look at this wire, I can't tell what this wire is, what is this, +and then I follow it to the label printer, so get yourself a label anchor, and do the little +stupid flags, they have specific tape for specific measuring, or for specific things like patch cables, +so if you're a label in patch cables, don't do it like a child and make a flag like I do with +everything else, they have specific labels for patch cables, they have like two millimeter, +I think it's two millimeter tape, the same width as the other tape, and it's extremely +wasteful, but it prints out in the middle, and then you pull peel this tiny little two millimeter +tape out, and then you put it on whatever, the patch patch panel or something very thin, +but it's like, I don't want to say it's like three millimeter thin, so I've used all types of +various types of tape, I always end up just using regular, regular white tape, and then I'm +wrapping around the flag, and I don't put it right up against, of course in these two, I did, +but I usually put it like three, like three or four inches away from the plug, so that way, +if I'm behind the computer, I'm looking behind it, I'm not having to look all the way where the plug +is in, so I label it close, three or four or five inches away from where it plugs in at, +so I can easily see what is what labels what for like stress cable stress, like this +HDMI cable coming out of my PC, is got a zip tie, not a zip tie, don't use zip ties ever, a twist +tie, so whenever you order something and you get twist ties, keep this twist ties, you can cut +them in half, whatever, and use them for cable relief or temporary cable management, I use +like to use Velcro for temporary cable management, double-sided Velcro or sorry, hook and loop, +and hook and loop on both sides, you can get it really thin, and it's already pre, +makes you try to get the pre cut stuff, it's not perfect, but it's nice to have like a consistent +length, and so you can cut the pre cut in half, and you know, okay, I know that if I had the +pre cut, I know if I cut it in half, that's going to be the length that I want, you know, +I like I like to have to have the pre cut, because I don't have to worry about finances or cutting +it too short or whatever, but it's up to you to cut the pre cut stuff or not, but it's a big +roll of Velcro, or sorry, hook and loop, and you just pull and it comes apart, and then you can +you know, wrap it every knee to wrap, as I'd like it temporary set up, but I've used, looks like +I've got two twist ties on here, three, no, two, because the twist ties allow me to be dynamic, +and so, you know, this twist tie is just taken off mount, because I'll move it around or something, +and I haven't 100% decided on where it's going to go, so between the twist ties is kind of more +temporary, if I know it's a cable, I'm going to swap out fairly often, so I've got like, it looks like +I've got three twist ties on my PC right now, it doesn't look great, but that's more of a function +over form, thick guy, so wherever you can put that, I use zip ties to establish mount points, +so maybe I'll drill a hole in the case, and put a zip tie through that, and that zip tie is used +for Velcro or twist twist ties for cable management, so also temporarily I have from the ceiling +for green screen and stuff, I use these little, what are they called the binder clips, these things, +I use them for temporary setups to hold stuff up, to lighting, hold lighting, and I use a little hook +ceiling, and then some, you can buy bulk, random bulk pair of cord, and I use it for all kinds of +stuff, I have some of these power guide holds for practicing rock climbing, and they have like +all the way up to like what 10 millimeter holds and then through the through the wood holes, so it's +like a little octagon, not many sides, you can go back to three school, but a shape with one, two, +three, four, five sided shape, and different holds, so if I want to call, I'll stretch out my +shoulders, so I'll put it behind me, and lean down and do, uh, get my handstrings, and do my +shoulders and stretch all that out from getting kind of forward next syndrome and all that stuff, +that's pretty much it for cable management, it doesn't look great under the desk, but there's +not wires just hanging out, I only have like one service loop under the desk, but other than that, +things are going to move a little bit when I affair them out when I get the new monitor, +I might do dual monitors so that I don't have to turn the monitor or put the monitor on, like +I was thought about putting the new monitor on a lazy Susan, and mounting it on a nice, +sturdy lazy Susan, but I don't want to be rotating a giant monitor back and forth, so I might +have like a little small office table in this room to fit somewhere else to do office stuff, +and then have the gaming machine be just for gaming, because I can't quite get this whole +double dual system to work with the standing desk, so I might take the standing desk and just, +I don't know, I don't know, I want to use it, but I can't find a way to make a dual use for +this stupid steering wheel and have it to remount the steering wheel every time, and I'm not buying +a whole steering wheel set because I don't have enough room to have monitors and PCs to +make it all worth it, so I also want to be able to play games at my PC, but I can't really do that +when if I give the whole station to the steering wheel then I have to take up the steering wheel +every time I want to play a game, so it's kind of a mishmosh, these studio speakers I bought, +apparently PC speakers aren't a thing anymore, and what you have now is the studio speaker angle, +apparently kids are just, I guess, wearing headsets, I don't know what they're doing, +I don't know what they're doing now, I guess they're all just wearing headsets, but you, +they're like $99 entry level of studios speakers, I was looking to some $100 or $200 pair, +they're about $0, $3,4, and it's because you get a tweeter, and they do sound pretty good, +but I don't have a sub, so I would like to get a sub to make your Copa boom, that's a piece I'm missing, +I had a sub prior to the last sound setup I had, and I'm looking for that again to +you know, when I'm playing games, boom, boom games, I can have nice, nice bass, now these bass +shakers actually can be used as a sub sort of, but they're more for feedback, +kept feedback on my racing games for their racing pedals, and those like 70 bucks, +but that's a whole different topic for another day, so that's the cable loom, +the nicer stuff is obviously more expensive, the cheap stuff is like 10 bucks for a lot of it, +the nicer stuff, if you're gonna do like professional audio, or people are gonna be looking +at the back of your rig, you want to use the nicer stuff, I think, because this stuff is at the +ends, it's kind of freely and freely looking even when you melt it to death, it still doesn't really +want to melt in a nice flat pattern, you might have better luck melting it by putting heating up an +object, like a plate, metal plate heating, and this heat up, heat up that metal plate, and then +smash it down in the metal plate, but then you have to separate it before it melts to itself, +and we'll welding itself closed in a closed position, so yeah it doesn't look super great, +but I think that's the reason why the the more expensive stuff looks better at the ends, +because it's a nice and denser, and so when you melt it, it melts in a nice flat, +even way, but the stuff that's more see-through and less dense, it kind of doesn't really +look super great on the ends, and that's why people would want to probably put some, +excuse me, we want to put stuff around it, let's see, um indoor outdoor double-sided non-slip, +what is this, oh the power guidance, hand board, hang boards, rock climbing holds, +yeah non-slip, nice, nice wood, one of these are on a great for a home office, you know, +on a call, stretch out, these aren't even available anymore, I don't remember how much it +calls, they're not cheap, 28 bucks, 35 bucks, prepare, and then green screen, +the green screen I use is a circular, what do you call these things, you'll, you'll know when +you hear it's a little pop out, pop up, tint, style, just twist it like a thing and you let it pop out, +so it's supposed to a chat, touch the chair, that is not what I do, I hang it from the ceiling, +so I can get the exact thing, and we put it to a chair, it's going to warp, and that warp is going +to change the color, and we change the color, then it makes the green screen stuff not super, +it kind of sketchy, so you want to just hang it from the ceiling, so you have that flat surface +to be, if I had to do it again, I'd probably just buy a square green screen that maybe was folding, +but I don't even fold it, I just throw it under the bed, I could throw it under the bed, but right +now it's just kind of slid in between the bed and the dresser that nobody cares about, but that's +pretty much it for this, you all have a good one, take it easy, and record an episode. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4627.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4627.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..568cf6b --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4627.txt @@ -0,0 +1,139 @@ +Episode: 4627 +Title: UNIX Curio #5 - Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4627/hpr4627.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:24 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4627, for 2026-04-28 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #5 - Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:14:35 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Sending signals to processes, or just checking if they exist" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number 5. +This series is dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally useful, +trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of Unix-like operating systems. +Let me start by admitting that I've never actually seen the film referenced in the episode title, +but I couldn't resist using it anyway. +If you've used the Unix command line to any extent, chances are good that you are familiar with the +kill command. A common use is to terminate a misbehaving program. +But there is more behind how kill works, including a curio you might not know about. +The kill utility works by sending a signal to the targeted process. +This signal is selected from a predefined list and triggers the process to interrupt its normal +flow and handle the signal before potentially returning back to its work. +This signal handler can do whatever activities are written in its code, but typically it will take +actions connected to the purpose of the specific signal received. +One option is for the process to not have a signal handler at all. +In that case, there is a default action that the operating system will take +on behalf of the process, depending on what the signal is. +The possible default actions are to terminate the process, +take some implementation defined action, usually rating a core file to disk, +and then terminate the process, stop that is to say pause execution of the process, +continue execution of a stopped process, or just ignore the signal. +By default, kill sends the term signal to the process and indicate that it should terminate. +Each signal has a name and a number assigned to it. +Sig term is the name of the terminate signal. +You can use the hyphen S option with the name to choose which signal to send. +The kill command is specified to take these names without the Sig prefix, +though some implementations will accept them either way. +Also, kill is supposed to be case insensitive when it comes to these names, +but the convention is to write them in all upper case. +The assigned numbers for signals can vary depending on the operating system, +and on Linux, depending on what process our architecture you're on. +However, there is a short list of signals that have a stable number assigned to them. +A link to this is provided in the shown notes. +Despite this, I recommend using the signal name, not the number in your scripts, +both to make them clear and to ensure maximum portability to different systems. +Well-behaved programs will have a signal handler that responds to the term signal +by stopping what they are doing, cleaning up any open resources like temporary files and promptly exiting. +However, not every program behaves well, so sometimes it becomes necessary to send them the kill signal. +This one is special and cannot be handled or ignored by the program. +The operating system will immediately terminate the program, +possibly leaving a mess behind. +Two other signals that can come in handy sometimes are stop and count, +spelled CONT. +As you might expect, stop forces a process to pause in the middle of whatever it was doing. +Its counterpart, CONT, that's short for, continue, causes it to resume execution. +This can be useful if a program consumes CPU time when not actually doing anything worthwhile. +Sending it the stop signal will end that, and when you're ready to use it again, CONT will +cause it to pick up right where it left off. +Like the kill signal, stop cannot be handled or ignored by the program. +I have used this to pause the game free-sive when I wanted to break away to do something else, +but didn't one have to deal with exiting my current game and having to reload it later. +Take note, though, that the program might get confused if it expects the system clock not to suddenly +jump forward as that is exactly how the situation will appear to it. +Network connections or other resources the process is using, that change while it is stopped, +our other potential trouble spots. +Also be aware that a stopped graphical program will not update its window. +So I find it best to minimize the window before stopping it and then continuing the process +before trying to raise the window again. +Programs are not necessarily required to interpret signals in the way they are described. +For example, the HUP signal was originally intended to be sent when a modem or serial connection +hang up occurred. Today, some demons use it for other purposes and take a specific action in response. +For example, the Apache web server will restart and network manager will reload its configuration. +These uses of signals are usually described in the demons manual page, +often in a separate section dedicated to signals. +While all this background might be interesting or maybe not, +it's pretty commonly known. So it isn't really a curio. +Our Unix curio for today is the zero signal. +This is not actually a signal at all. Instead, it tells the kill utility +to just check for the existence of a process. +If the process exists, kill will exit with a status of zero. +If it doesn't exist, the exit status will be greater than zero. +This provides a handy way to check whether a particular process is still around. +A shell command can use this exit status with its control structures like if +to take a particular action depending on whether a process exists. +Somewhat oddly, the numerals zero is both the number and the name of this pseudo signal. +Why would you want to do this? I've used it for a script to analyze log files that runs +daily on a web server. Depending on how much traffic the site is getting, +the log files can grow to the point where it takes longer than a day for the script to get through them. +If a second instance of the script is started, while one is still running, it will slow down both. +And if more keep being added, eventually the machine will run out of memory. +My solution was to create a PID file containing the process ID number of the running script. +You might see examples of these if you look in the slash run or slash var slash run +directories on your system. The script creates a file named something like +my script dot PID in this directory containing its own process ID, which can be accessed in the +shell with the variable dollar sign dollar sign. +When my script starts, it checks to see whether this file exists. +If so, it loads the process ID from the file and runs kill, hyphen s, space 0 with it, +to see if the previous process still exists. If the process is no longer around, +that's a sign that it exited abnormally before it had the chance to delete the PID file. +So the script removes the abandoned PID file, replaces it with a new one containing the current +process ID, and continues with its work. If the previous process is still around, my script just +exists with a message to that effect. This way, I can be sure that only one instance of the script will +ever be running at one time. Be aware that the kill utility might also return a non-zero exit +status, if the user running it does not have privileges to send a signal to the process with the +specified ID. This is not a concern if you are running a script as the root user, but could be if you +are not. This can occur even if you aren't actually sending a signal just using the 0 pseudo-signal +to check if a process exists. There is a weakness in this method. Unix lake systems generally +have a limit to the quantity of process ID numbers that can be issued, so they get reused over time. +However, there will never be two processes with the same ID number running at the same time. +Typically, the first process that is run on startup will be given the ID number one, +and each subsequent process will get the next higher number. +Once the maximum is reached, the system starts again at the beginning with the lowest number not in use. +It is possible for the script to crash and leave behind the PID file, +and then the same process ID could be recycled and actively used for another program, +causing a new instance of the script to give up. The chances of this are small enough that for my +purposes it's not worth worrying about, but you should be aware that it could happen. +I should also note that it's not strictly necessary to use kill for the purpose I described. +The PS utility can also be given a process ID with the hyphen P option. +If the process exists, the exit status will be 0, otherwise it will be greater than 0. +In this case, you could also use the output of the PS command to check that the name of the script matches what you expect, +helping avoid the problem of a recycled process ID. +In addition, PS doesn't concern itself with permissions for sending signals, +so it will report on the existence of a process no matter what user you are running it as. +From an efficiency standpoint, kill generally requires fewer resources to run. +In fact, it is built into some shells, but functionally, PS can also do the job. +You can find example scripts in the show notes for this episode, +showing how to use both the kill and PS commands to tell if a process exists and take action depending on the result. +So keep in mind that kill is capable of doing more than just killing off programs. +Maybe you can put it to one of these uses for your needs. +Thanks for listening and keep an eye out for our next Unix Curio, +which will be about the at and bad utilities here on Hacker Public Radio. +If you have a question or a suggestion for a future topic, +please comment on this episode on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4628.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4628.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a46b058 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4628.txt @@ -0,0 +1,462 @@ +Episode: 4628 +Title: Nuclear Power Technology Follow Up +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4628/hpr4628.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:26 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4628, for 2026-04-29 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Power Technology Follow Up" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:40:00 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Answers to questions posed by listeners in the comments to the series on nuclear power technology" +This is a follow-up to my eight-part series on nuclear power. +In this episode, I will answer questions posed by listeners in the comments to the series. +I would like to start by thanking these people for taking the time to submit interesting +questions. +Brian and Ohio asked two questions. +The first was for a cost comparison between large and small reactors. +The second was for nuclear plant safety compared to conventional power plants. +I think that any answer to the second question is going to be perceived by some people +as politically controversial, so it's probably not a good topic for each PR to address. +The first question, though, about cost of small versus large reactors is an interesting +one, although not one that is easy to give an answer to. +I will restrict the answer to just grid-scale electric power production at ignore and use +cases such as industrial process heat or power for remote mines and communities. +This question comes down to economies of scale versus economies of replication. +Economies of scale center around increased efficiencies of use of materials in labor when +making something bigger. +For example, the amount of steel used by pipe increases linearly with its diameter, but +the amount of fluid that it transport increases with the square. +Economies of replication come from increasing efficiencies which result from serial production. +As you repeat the same design over and over again, you learn how to do things better and +make fewer mistakes. +The exact same principles apply to shipbuilding. +Indeed, a lot of the inspiration for small modular reactors comes from the shipbuilding +industry. +If you build a series of identical ships, then each subsequent ship will cost less and be built +faster. +There are, of course, diminishing returns to this process, so the improvements are less +with each additional unit, and after a sufficient number of units, the cost and time reductions +level off. +However, this doesn't discount the benefits of economies of scale. +What it does mean is that there are two ways of approaching the problem and which way works +in any given scenario depends on such conditions as how big the local electricity market +is, how fast the demand for electricity is growing, the ownership and financing structure +of the electricity market, and the geography of the area which may pose limits on the number +of sites. +According to the finance people who have crunched the numbers, there are two sizes of +a reactor which make the most sense in the above context. +These are 300 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts. +However, take these as very rough numbers rather than immutable laws in nature and other +sizes may work as well. +The key point is that there are the cases to be made for both small and large reactors, +with the large reactor being several times the size of the small one. +On additional factor, it's a building only one reactor does not reap the benefits of +efficiency of our application. +You need to build a series of them on the same site. +So if you're building a power plant, you don't build a power plant that has just one reactor +unless you're right a small market which can only use that much power. +Instead, you should build between 4 and 6 reactors in sequence next to one another. +If you are supplying a large population with a growing demand for electricity, then 4 or 6 +large 1,000 megawatt reactors gains both economies of scale and economies of replication. +If you're supplying a smaller population with slow growth in demand for electricity, then +4 or 6 300 megawatt reactors, at least gets you economies of replication. +There is what could be viewed as an interesting example in terms of the above, taking place +just east of Toronto. +There they're building 4 300 megawatt SMRs on a site next to an existing nuclear power plant. +Here are the cost estimates from the government of Ontario. +All costs are in Canadian dollars. +Unit 1 is 6.1 billion dollars, plus 1.6 billion dollars in cost which are shared by all +4 units. +Unit 2 is 4.9 billion dollars. +Unit 3 is 4.2 billion dollars. +Unit 4 is 4.1 billion dollars. +As you can see, building a series of reactors sequentially on the same site results in declining +overall costs. +There are very confident in these costs as a use data from a series of major nuclear power +plant refurbishment projects in Ontario which have been coming in on time and on budget. +Construction began last year and the plant is expected to have a 65 year operating life. +However, the province of Ontario also has plans for expansion of electrical generation +by about 15,000 megawatts by 2050 in order to meet net zero targets. +Given the heavy concentration of population in the Toronto region and the +very high cost and difficulty of building long distance transmission lines and the limited +number of sites which could host new power generation facilities of any sort, I suspect +it is quite likely that subsequent reactors will be large 1,000 megawatt ones rather than +SMRs. +The Wesleyville site, which is further east of Toronto, is tentatively scheduled for +a 10,000 megawatt nuclear power plant. +I would seem to make 10,000 megawatt reactors more likely than 34,300 megawatt reactors. +I don't have a comparable set of numbers for building large reactors to give an exact +apples to apples comparison of costs. +Different countries use different accounting and financing systems and finance makes a huge +difference to overall costs for a nuclear power plant as operating costs are a relatively +small share of the total. +Now to look at another site of this equation, the provinces of Saskatchewan and New +Brunswick which should replace their coal-fired power plants with nuclear power plants. +The populations of these provinces are too small to absorb a large do-of-power plant +into their grids and studies assuming large reactors have foundered on this issue. +New Brunswick already have a nuclear power plant but it was built in the days when reactors +are much smaller. +Both provinces, however, are very interested in small reactors even individual ones in order +to replace the coal-fired power plants that are of similar size. +I think this covers the cost versus size issue. +The more I look into it, the more it becomes apparent that there is no simple one size +fits all answer, but rather there are a series of trade-offs which must be taken in +light of local circumstances. +The next question comes from MNW who asked about the use of Mox fuel in the USA. +MNW asked, I am enjoying and look forward to the rest of this series. +Do you think the US will ever wake up and start recycling its spent fuel? +It seems like such a huge waste just to try to keep a small amount of fuel away from +the bad guys or whatever they are imagining. +My answer to this is as follows. +I think I've addressed this in the original series although not directly with respect to the US. +So I think I can provide some more detail on that aspect of it. +First though, I will review what plutonium uranium mixed oxide fuel is. +As mentioned in previous episodes, military-grade plutonium is not the same as a plutonium +which comes out of commercial power reactors. +This as military-grade uranium requires nearly pure U235 isotope. +Military-grade plutonium requires nearly pure plutonium 239 isotope. +What comes out of a commercial power reactor is spent fuel is not usable for weapons +purposes as the proportion of plutonium 239 is much too low. +However, plutonium recovered from spent fuel can be used as fuel for nuclear reactors in +the same place of uranium 235 when mixed with uranium 238 either left over from enrichment +or extracted from spent fuel. +This is what is known as Mox fuel. +To look at the US history of this however, here's a sequence of events. +The US banned fuel reprocessing in 1976. +However, this ban was repealed in 1981. +In 2005, the US began building a mixed oxide fuel plant at Savannah River in the state of +South Carolina. +However, this plant was not intended as a normal commercial operation and it was not intended +to recycle commercial nuclear power plant fuel. +It was instead intended to convert surplus military-grade plutonium into commercial fuel in +order to get rid of it as part of a armed control program. +The program was suspended in 2018. +There were apparently many complex political issues involved in these on-again off-again +decisions and I won't pretend to have the time or the interest to explore all the details. +Nor do I think most listeners would be interested in hearing about them. +As of March 2026, the US are looking at reviving part of the Savannah River plant to produce +limited amount of fuel for testing of advanced reactors. +The issue driving this is a shortage of uranium and rich to just below 20%. +This fuel is used in certain types of small SMR. +The main commercial supplier of this material was a planted Russia, but certain events in +Europe in recent years shall we say have resulted in that supply no longer being available +to commercial operations in the US. +Fox fuel based on surplus weapons-grade plutonium is intended as a short term quick fix +for that problem. +Another driving force is legal requirements following from domestic commitments for the +US government to dispose of certain stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium from certain +sites in the US where it is temporarily stored and the solution to that is seen as burning +it up in power reactors. +So the short history is the US banned fuel reprocessing. +Then a few years later they unbanned it. +Then the US government started building a mox plant which was intended to get rid of surplus +weapons-grade material by burning it up in power reactors. +Then they decided they didn't want to do that. +Then they decided they wanted to make mox fuel after all to replace supplies of special +grades of fuel for experimental or prototype reactors. +What is missing from the above history is any actual interest from the US commercial nuclear +industry in mox fuel. +The reason for this is as mentioned in the previous episode, Uranium is so cheap and abundant +that fuel made from pressure-gradium is cheaper than mox fuel. +Some countries such as France wish to recycle spent fuel to reduce their dependence upon +imports. +We call that France's drive to build nuclear power plants was in response to the 1970s era +energy crisis when oil imports from the Middle East were suddenly cut off. +However, the US are not concerned about this issue and should not make it a national security +policy as France did. +As a result, US commercial demand is for cheaper fuel made from fresh uranium rather than +for mox fuel. +Until such time as fresh uranium greatly increases in price, there is little economic +incentive for the use of mox fuel in the US. +However, there is another aspect to this. +If you recall in previous episode, I described a molten salt reactors which used dissolved +uranium fuel. +These reactors inherently reprocess fuel as part of their normal operation. +They just do it as part of maintaining the molten salt chemistry at the correct values, +rather than doing it as a separate process. +If these types of reactors become widely used, then it would be achieving the same thing +as creating mox fuel, but without an explicit separate step. +As a final footnote to the above, the US has almost exclusively used in your exterior +and light water reactors. +As mentioned in previous episodes, there are ways of recycling spent fuel from light +water reactors which do not involve chemically reprocessing it to make mox fuel. +Experiments have been done involving South Korea, China and Canada which take spent fuel from +light water reactors and repackage it to fit into natural uranium heavy water reactors. +What is used up or spent fuel for a light water reactor is high-grade fuel for a natural +uranium reactor. +However, the US has for whatever reason, never built commercial natural uranium reactors such +as our youth and a number of other countries around the world. +If they were to do so, then nuclear fuel could be used twice, once in a light water reactor, +and again in a natural uranium reactor, all without having to turn it into mox fuel in +a separate reprocessing step. +However, this particular alternative would likely face the same issue and the sense that +fresh fuel would still be cheaper than reusing spent fuel. +Next, we have a variety of questions from Clinton. +Clinton asked, I would like some commentary in the current situation. +Why has Henkly gone off the rails? The new American approach? The odd things done after Fukushima? +The new radiation rules in the states. +Question 1. Why has Henkly gone off the rails? Answer. +The question refers to cost overruns at the Henkly point nuclear power project in the UK. +The UK government looked into this issue in a more general sense in 2025. +They published a report on it titled, Nuclear Regulatory Review 2025, +enabling nuclear delivery through regulatory reform by John Fingleton. +There is a link to the report in the show notes. As the report is 162 pages long, +I won't try to cover it all in this answer. I will however give a few simple examples. +The report focuses on civilian nuclear power and the defense nuclear industry as well. +However, it also draws examples from outside the nuclear industry to show that the +problem is not limited to nuclear. It shows that the same problem exists in the offshore wind industry +and in the HS2 high-speed rail project. In the view of the authors of the report, +the essence of the problem seems to be a lack of any degree of proportionality +in terms of mitigating negative effects from any project. +Big nuclear projects make the headlines because they are inherently big projects, +but as I have just mentioned, the effect things like wind power development and rail transport as +well. I will pick one example from Henkley Point specifically. This is K-Study Hinkley Point +Sea Fish Protection. A summary of this is that they spent £700 million of additional money +on the cooling water intakes to protect and estimate at 0.083 salmon per year, +along with 0.028C trout, 6 River Lampray, 18 Alice Shad, and suburb between 100 and 528 +Tweight Shad. The report points out that there are ways to protect far more fish +for far less money by spending it in other areas and give some examples. +Again, this problem is not limited to nuclear power and they give similar examples connected with +offshore wind development and HS2 high-speed rail. I would like to emphasize that I am not +expressing an opinion on whether or not any of these decisions were good or bad ones, +or whether the money was well spent. I am just summarizing the report's explanation +of why large projects of all sorts initiated and approved by the UK Parliament +were not turning out as initially expected. I will leave it up to people in the UK +to decide whether or not they are satisfied with the current situation. +Question 2. The New American Approach. Answer. The US have apparently announced changes to the +regulatory system. I don't know enough about the subject to really judge the practical effects +of regulation within the US. However, I have read and listened to many interviews of people +from both the industry and regulatory side of things who are from outside the US, +but who are familiar with it. They generally contrast two different approaches to regulation. +On the one hand, there is the US approach which they see as being more of a box-ticking exercise +than an in-depth safety review. This makes it very hard to get a design other than a traditional +PWR or BWR approved in the US. It has the advantage from the regulator side of things so +that it reduces the amount of work required as primarily requires just following a set of defined +procedures. These people then contrast that approach with the one used in the UK and in Canada, +both of which they see is being very similar to one another. In those two countries, +regulators work with industry to review design from basic principles rather than just seeing if +it meets a predefined list of criteria. This is a results-oriented system rather than a process-oriented +system as used in the US. As a result of this, designers of do-nuclear reactors are going to the UK +and Canada first to go through preliminary review there and only going to the US later. +What designers are looking for is feedback on their design as they go along in order to align the +design with what safety regulators see is being required from their standpoint. They want to go into +review process before the design is finalized so they can get guidance on how they should approach +things rather than trying to add safety as additional features on top of a finished design. +It would take someone with deep familiarity with the nuclear regulation systems to understand +the practical effects of recent changes in US regulatory systems. But it is quite possible that the +people within the regulatory structure in the US have been taking the above on board and trying +to adapt to current circumstances. However, I can only speculate on that. This is about the best +answer that I can give. Question 3. The odd thing's done after Fukushima. Answer. +This covers a lot of topics, some of which are probably political and so are not suited to HPR. +I will try to list a few events however. As a brief summary of the Fukushima events go +however, a historic scale earthquake in tsunami in Japan in 2011 caused huge loss of life +and widespread damage. About 20,000 people were killed by the earthquake in tsunami. +Three nuclear reactors based on 1960s era GEBWR designs were seriously damaged by hydrogen +explosions caused by a loss of power to backup generators when they were flooded by the tsunami. +However, there were no radiation-related deaths or cases of radiation sickness. +Following events in Japan was a general review of designs around the world with various improvements +made in some areas, particularly backup generators and hydrogen management. +It seemed to be conventional wisdom that the Fukushima event caused a number of countries +to decide to phase out nuclear power. However, when I tried to make a list of such +countries for this episode, I found things were not as as often heard. +The countries which decided to get rid of nuclear power had largely started down that road +at least a decade before then and generally for reasons unrelated to any specific events +outside of their own country. In other cases, they reverse that decision or are in the process +of doing so. Japan itself has restarted many of their nuclear power plants and planned to replace +decommissioned nuclear power plants with new ones, although many of the older and smaller ones +were considered not economically worth upgrading at this point in their life to restart them. +The one possible exception to this may be Taiwan, which decided to phase out nuclear power in 2016. +However, I don't know enough about Taiwanese politics to stay with any confidence +that their decision in 2016 was based on anything related to events in Japan. +Or whether in fact they were a byproduct of other political changes within Taiwan +and the shutdown in nuclear power plants happened to be carried along with those. +Currently, Taiwan get most of their electricity from natural gas and coal. Meanwhile, +across mainland Asia, from Turkey to China, large numbers of nuclear power plants were built +or under construction. Taken together on a global scale did anything really change after Fukushima, +or did the countries which had already decided to close down their nuclear power plants +could simply continue to do so, and those countries who decided they wanted more of them +continue to build them. That's a good question for which I don't think anyone has a perspective +to answer at this point. Another side of this, which is hard to just an entangle from it, though, +is the increased use of natural gas for electric power generation, which was happening +at around the same time. Increased use of fracking in a number of countries, +plus increase supplies from Russia and LNG from the Middle East and other places resulted +in falls in natural gas prices in many places. Since combined cycle natural gas turbines +foreign the main competitor to nuclear power, anything which improves the economics of +natural gas will act to reduce demand for nuclear power. This makes it hard to decide to +what degrees the reduction in a number of reactors being built was due to the politically +effects of the earthquake in Sadami, and to what degree it was due to cheaper natural gas +through the fracking and other means. I'll leave that question at that. +Question 4. The new radiation rules in the states. Answer. I'm not deeply familiar with +US radiation rules, but I will attempt to answer the question. Apparently there are a wide variety +of different things being addressed, only some of which have any relevance to the nuclear power +industry. One of these is an epidemiological study on the current exposure limits for workers +in the nuclear industry. This study will take place over about five years. In the end, it may +not result at any changes. This is for a number of reasons. One is that US exposure thresholds for +workers are currently aligned with international standards. It will be difficult for the US +industry to operate on a different basis than the rest of the world when supply chains are global +and kit is designed to be currently rocking nice standards. Another is that apparently the nuclear +industry are not, so far as I can discern, asking for 80 changes to limits. They instead are +looking for changes to how some of the details are being applied, such as for example the criteria +for deciding when respirators are required in low risk environments. Some point to recent changes +in UK regulations as an example of what they're looking for. I will post a link to the new that +is November of 2025 UK regulations and the show notes. This is about as much detail as I think I +can comment on when it comes to this question, as I think it is a subject that requires a +fair bit more practical knowledge of than I have in order to give a thorough and balanced answer. +Question from Antoine. Where or are the designs patented? Hi whiskey jack. Nice episode. +You said AGR based on magnox was a nuclear reactor type that did not sell well outside of the UK. +I then started thinking if it were possible for another country to develop by themselves based on +that project or if it had a commercial restriction for exploration of the technology. +I have yet to listen to the following episodes doing little by little and may learn better on the +choices but I felt free to present to question by now. Thanks. Answer. This is a very good question +because it offers the opportunity to talk about a number of interesting things that have been +touched on yet. Let's cover a bit of the background first. A patent is a time limited right +to exploit a defined bit of valuable technical knowledge. Patents were involved from the very +earliest days of commercial nuclear power and I will give an example of this later. A key point +to keep in mind though is that the nuclear power field moves very slowly and it takes a long time +for new knowledge to make it from the lab to commercial application. Patents will often expire +before they reach the point where they can be used. Contracts on the other hand are legally +enforceable agreements between two parties. A contract may have a time limited life but that is an +arrangement between the parties. A commercial nuclear power plant is a very large and complex +bit of kit and not easily copied in detail. It can be far more effective to cover design +under contracts and licenses than to rely on patents. If a country wish to build their own nuclear +power plants rather than buying them from someone else, there are a large number of companies who +have commercial designs that are willing to license to third parties for them to build themselves. +Indeed, a number of these companies base their business around licensing of designs +or have other reasons for wishing to do so. From a licensing perspective, they could take +decades of work in hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars to take a design from first +principles to the ready to build state, whereas licensing a design can give you a proven design right away. +As mentioned in previous episodes, there are many types of reactor in the world. +The selection of what sort of reactor a country decides to buy often depends +boron commercial considerations revolving around licensing terms and conditions +than it does with respect to any technical considerations. Here's an example which shows how +South Korea decided to license a design, build it for themselves, and then export it to other countries. +Kunmo Chung, professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science at Technology, stated in +interview in 2019 that South Korea wanted to standardize on a single reactor technology in the early +1980s. They had reactors from multiple different vendors, but wanted to license and existing +successful design to produce for themselves and for the export market. +One of the major factors in designing to standardize was to allow them to improve operator training +by focusing on one design. Professor Chung stated that one of the key factors in selecting +a design from ABB combustion engineering was that he personally knew and had a good relationship with +the chief technical officer of ABB combustion engineering going back to a time when Professor +Chung had been studying and working in the USA. On their side, ABB combustion engineering +were having financial problems, and they needed a partner to help further develop their new +PWR design. Also, these stood to gain revenue from this partnership as well. +Based on this relationship, the two sides came to a business agreement, and South Korea +began producing reactors based on this design, while also continuing to develop an +improvement further. Here's an example of a case where the developers of a promising +technology decided that they had more to gain by not patenting their technology. +Instead, they decided to freely share their information in order to get other researchers +elsewhere to help advance the technology so that all could benefit from it. In an interview, +Wacclav Gadowski, Professor Emeritus at the Royal Institute of Technology KTH Stockholm +stated that the Soviets and later the Russians were the leaders in lead-bismath-cooled reactors. +These reactors used lead-bismath-liquid metal alloy as a coolant. In the 1990s, +the Russian Institute working on commercializing test technology were working with Western +partners on nuclear technology in general. They considered patenting their technology, +but at the end decided to simply publish it openly. Professor Gadowski had even smuggled +$60,000 in cash into Russia to finance the patent application in order to get the Russian +Institute to publish their technology, but the money was not needed. They based this decision on the +judgment that it would take 20 years of R&D before the technology was ready for the +commercial market, so they wouldn't see a penny on any patent anyway. They were right on this, +as when it was another 20 years of R&D in Europe, Russia, China, and Korea before lead-bismath +technology was ready for commercial use. It had already seen use in submarine reactors, +but the commercial market demanded a more thoroughly developed technology to satisfy +commercial needs. By deciding to not patent the technology, the original developers gained from +shared R&D rather than chasing the illusory gains from patent licenses on technology +that was not ready for the commercial market anyway. I said that patents were involved in nuclear +technology from the very earliest days, and I will now turn to that story. When I say the earliest +days, I mean probably earlier than you are imagining. I'm talking about before World War II. +First though, I need to give some background information. France and Britain were working on +nuclear weapons from the very earliest days of World War II. In Britain's case, this was called +two BALOIS. Canada also was conducting nuclear experiments, including building an atomic pile, +but it's not clear if this had any clearer practical goals or was done to understand the physics +better. If you read the Wikipedia version of history, it states that two BALOIS was merged into +the Manhattan Project. However, participants have stated in interviews that this was not the case, +and the Quebec agreement which supposedly merged them makes no such mention of any merger of +the projects, just a setting up of a board to coordinate efforts between the three countries. +That is the US, UK, and Canada. In fact, the two projects didn't get along that well, +and as we shall see below, a big part of that was disputes over patents. +The following is based on a paper written by Bertrand Goldschmitt, a French nuclear scientist. +Two of his colleagues, Hans Halben, and Lou Coarsky, played a critical role in early +nuclear research. Halben, in particular, was one of the great greatest scientific names +in nuclear fission. In March of 1939, Halben conducted an experiment showing that neutrons +remitted by the Fissioning of Uranium. In April, Shelyat, Halben, Coarsky, and Perron +had a pretty good idea of how to use nuclear fission to produce energy and to make an explosive +device and decided to file patents on their invention. Each of the four would receive a 5% +share of 80 benefits, and the other 80% would go to the research institute that they worked at in +Paris. Halenel quote from Goldschmitt's paper. The first two patents conserved energy +production, and were entitled, device for energy production, and methamphet stabilizing a device +for energy production. They were roughly defined their principles of the main components +of our present power reactors, moderator, and heterogeneous or homogenous arrangements, +cooling fluid, control rods, protection shield. The third patent called +Method for Perfecting Explosive Charges was less brilliant from a foresight point of view, +though it proposed valid solutions for the trigger, the tamper, and the rapid +obtainment of the critical assembly of a possible explosive device. Finally, you'll be a year +later, after Alfred Dier's experimental confirmation in March 1940 of New York Niels Bohr's +theoretical prediction that Uranium 235, the rare isotope of the mixture in natural uranium, +was responsible for fission by slow neutrons. The French took out an additional patent +on the advantage of using enriched uranium for the chain reaction, and of quote. +In May of 1940, the CNRS, the French Research Institute in Paris, negotiated an agreement with +Belgian mining company, Union Minier, who were the world's biggest producer of uranium at the time +a byproduct of radium mining, a body partnership for the worldwide exploitation of these patents. +However, the agreement was not finalized due to the ongoing events in the war. +At the beginning of the war, the French government had approved the development of an energy generator, +or a nuclear reactor, as we would say today, with the intention of creating an engine for submarines. +With the fall of France, Halben and Koarski traveled to the UK with their supply of heavy water, +where they were received by their UK counterparts, James Chadwick and John Cockroft. +The British were already working on an atomic bomb. In the UK, the two conducted an experiment, +showing that it was possible to create nuclear energy using natural uranium and heavy water. +In 1941, the British nuclear project was reorganized and given the name of two values. +In 1942, it was decided to move the work on a plutonium bomb to Canada, +and Canada would pay for the project. A lab was set up in Montreal and Halben was put in charge +of the project. Halben had negotiated this arrangement by offering to arrange to have the French +patents for worldwide rights outside of France and the French Empire transferred to the UK. +In return, the French team were to be given a key role in the British nuclear project. +The author of the paper I am referencing, Bertrand Goldschmitt, +was a section leader in Montreal and a colleague of Halben from France. +The Montreal group cooperated with the American Manhattan project +and the two shared information and exchanged visits. However, relation between the two began to +break down with the major cause of this being the Americans being unhappy about the French patents +and Halben's arrangement to give the British worldwide rights to them. +The post-war commercial potential for nuclear power was seen to be huge and this was a major +bone of contention. The extensive participation of ICI that is imperial chemical industries +engineers in the two values project was also objectionable to the Americans. +Presumably, this had something to do with potential for ICI being involved in future +commercialization of the technology. The American DuPont company, a commercial rival of ICI, +was also heavily involved in the American bomb project. The eventual result of this was that the +US cut off cooperation with the UK Canada nuclear project. +Finally, Halben was forced out of the project at the insistence of the Americans and he was replaced +by John Cockroft, who moved to Montreal to take charge of the project. +The Americans now restored limited cooperation. +Coarsky was put in charge of building a heavy water moderated natural uranium reactor at a new +site north of Ottawa at Chuck River. This reactor was turned on on the 5th of September +1945, three days after Japan's surrender. So what was supposedly a Titanic war for survival +key allies were falling out with respect to their ultimate weapon over issues of patents covering +post-war commercialization. With the end of the war, the nuclear weapons project in Montreal +in Chuck River was wound up. Halben, Coarsky and Goldsmith returned to France and Cockroft to the +UK where they all played senior roles in the nuclear programs of their respective countries. +John Cockroft played an important role in the development of the Magnox reactors, +which Antoine asked about. The Chuck River site remains as Canada's main nuclear research center +to this day, and Canada was to continue development of heavy water moderated natural uranium reactors. +The first commercial nuclear power plant was commissioned in the UK in 1956, +roughly 17 years after the original French nuclear patents. At that time, +UK patents had a term of 16 years. While I am not a patent lawyer, it would appear that these +patents would likely have expired before nuclear power was ever commercialized. +So to answer the question about patents, the first patents on nuclear energy date to +before World War II started, and the very first two were about nuclear power plants, +and it was only the third which covered nuclear weapons. +Thanks to other listeners, a number of other listeners made comments saying they were +really enjoying the series. I would like to thank the following for their kind words of +encouragement. They helped to make the work required to do this worthwhile. They are, +Brian in Ohio, MNW, Clinton, Antoine, BJB, Kevin O'Brien, Tray, Landru, Archer 72, Jim DeVore. +If you have commented, but I have forgotten your name, or if you show it was recorded before +I got a chance to read your comment, I would still like to thank you. +Conclusion, I would like to thank all the listeners for their kind comments and insightful questions. +I hope that I have answered these questions to the satisfaction of everyone. +I look forward to hearing from all of you in future podcast episodes, including those on other topics. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4629.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4629.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..480622c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4629.txt @@ -0,0 +1,384 @@ +Episode: 4629 +Title: What did I do at work today? Part 2 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4629/hpr4629.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:28 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4629, for 2026-04-30 +Today's show is entitled, "What did I do at work today? Part 2" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:42:53 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee does some coding implementing the user interface toggling availability of a list of resources." +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in April 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +there I'm Lee, this is going to be a bit of a continuation of my last unscripted episode +where I was talking about what work I did and that episode ran on for about an hour so I tried +to make this one a bit shorter and this is just one little piece of work done and do today +so I'll set the context again and the software is online platform for motor mechanics, +it provides some technical info and it helps them manage their business and I'm an employee of +the company that provides a software at the time of recording so I'm working remotely rather than +the office today so one day a week I work in a rented office and then there is the time +my motor remote I'm doing this on a desktop PC this is a custom built PC and I'm running +Ubuntu at the moment as my daily driver this version of the software they may be planned to +change this in the new version which me and my supervisor have talked about but in the current +version this is running on ASP in that with forms and the language is visual basic it's using the net +framework which is native to windows and unlike net core the net framework will just run on a window +server so I run run on Linux so because of this I'll be using a virtual machine to run windows +and I'll be developing on windows with the software that Microsoft provides called Visual Studio +and there's community edition as free or the professional in the enterprise edition +I've got license provided to me for the professional edition of Visual Studio 2022 +and the database is an SQL server database and I'm running the developer license of SQL Server +on my developer machine but obviously there's commercial license for the actual live production server +okay so have a toll on my desktop die click and it will launch windows and launch the +libvert viewer so it's a patched version of the display drivers that I create especially +to install on windows 11 because of the monitor that I've got it's ultra wide screen and the display +resolution on this monitor wasn't supported in the drivers that I think red hat provides +called vertio so I'd click a tile on my desktop and it launches I was doing a bit earlier so +virtual machine was already running so I just tap on the icon and the bottom of the taskbar +and it launches me into windows so I'm opening Visual Studio and I've got three solutions +at the moment on the go there's the what I call the class library which interfaces between the +application and the database then there's the tests for the class library that actually +just goes through and make sure that the class library works as it should when I'm +wonderful the class library and then there's the application itself so earlier today I made some +changes to the class library and the tests and also in SQL Server Management Studio I made some +changes to the database tables and the stored procedures the change I was working on today was +for resources which are things in the garage like an MIT by so if you're not in the UK +MIT is the test that cars have to pass each year to make sure that they're roadworthy +so some resources could include an MIT by it could include certain tools or other things +and I just want to have a boolean flag so it's a yes or no true or false flag +there would say whether the resources can't be available so for example one of the MIT +bays might need to be repaired might be being serviced itself that resource should not be available +if it was then needed to be booked the person booking the use of that bays should +know that it's not available or it should just not be listed as being able to be used +and that part of what I'm working on haven't got that fire yet so still at stage of +quote defining the various data entities and providing user interface to work with these +data entities so later on it will be possible hopefully to put the calendar that you want to do +a certain job and a certain day using certain resources with certain stuff about this stage +it's kind of defying the staff and defying the resources and defining their availability +at sort of after this monx bit will be defining the jobs and what resources in staff are needed +for a certain type of job you know such as an MIT would need an MIT by for example +so I've got visual studio here I'm launching the application solution +and it's just loading it up so my visual studio I've got dark theme going there I've got different +colours for syntax highlighting and I've like exported those settings they import them again +and I kind of just do that so kind of matches the same colour scheme that I've got in sublime +text which is my other text that I try use when I'm coding even for myself for from my other employer +but it just helps that when I'm in visual studio for this employer that the colour scheme looks +kind of similar actually I'm just going to run this application and it takes a while to load and +it's connecting to a local copy of the SQL server database and it's actually running on my Linux +machine base that windows machine is connecting over the like local network to access the server running +on the Linux machine so it's launched Firefox and it's launched the application at local +host a certain port I can log into this application and choose a username password and Firefox +fills in for me of the test use of that I use and although it's a real user but the data I've +got scripted on on the mice is the data so while the data is real any personally identifiable +information has been changed with like random values that do kind of make sense but they're not +real data so in much less than the risk of accidentally doing something with someone's real data +like especially you don't need to be emailed out or something like that by accident or unless +MS message to it by accidentally fire off or if someone going to my machine they won't be +getting you know real people's real data well it's they would be getting it but anything that +identifiable about it like names and email addresses and telephone numbers would have been an +on the mice so going to the settings screen of this application and it's a bit slower on my +death machine than it would be in production so it takes like a few seconds to navigate between +the pages and I'm then going to the diary section of the settings which is the bit I'm working on +and I've got different tabs that I've created in this section workshop resources staff holidays +and advanced I'm not sure whether it now did spend quite some time on the advanced is perhaps +too advanced so I don't know if this will be there when it comes to the end user seeing this +but it's there at the moment so I'm looking at under resources and I've got coming up +the title resources and then it's a subtitle like base in equipment and it's got a bunch of +adder resource and it's got resource and resource type and then next to each one it's got an +icon to edit on icons delete and these icons come from font awesome so I can add a resource +and it's like it gives me a name for the resource and it gives me a type so it could be a workshop +or a vehicle left or an air compressor thinks like that it's got save and cancel I'll just cancel +that so what I'm kind of thinking is do I want to specify the availability of three sources +and the same place that I'm defining the resources I kind of I'm not sure so I could have another tab +so just to mention just why I've already defined the data side of things and that class library +when you're doing the user interfaces sort of another kettle of fish you try and keep those +fairly separate so it's almost like in terms of the data and the class library I've given +myself the tools to work with but then now I'm doing the user interface I can layer the user +interface and lots of different ways potentially and the same data could be present to the user in +different ways in different parts the user interface so you're kind of hearing my unscription +thoughts about this so could have a resource availability tab and now I think we already have quite +lot of tabs already and would have call it resource availability and how will I do this so +if I have resources I just want a long list of the resources and then just to tick off +whether they're available and not with a burning flag I mean I'm almost thinking in this section +for the resource so I could have a resource availability tab but I am kind of thinking a nice user +interface would be to have with this resources just like a tick box so not editing it but just +I think like an extra column that says where it's available not in a check box so when I define +these resources I made the number of columns like configurable so it could be free columns +two columns or one column and just from how I've kind of got familiar with how it looks as I've +been developing it I kind of decided to set one two columns so I think there's there's still quite +bit of space so could have a check box and that right so this is another user interface question +do I want it to have to save after you've clicked the check box or do I want the check box +to automatically apply that and you like you don't want the user accidentally tick in the check +box without kind of realizing that they're changing the data so throughout the rest the user interface +you've got save buttons almost on every form so that the user knows that it's not changing +stuff until they click save and then it will pop up it should pop up a message some area that's +up where it will save that the items have been saved or if there's a validation area it might +save that you know what's invalid and that it hasn't been saved yet and that they need to change +something before they can save it so also when I put this check box to the left or to the right +and it's kind of a mix like a mixing metaphor's got on the right hand side you've got these two icons +to which I like actions that you can do like edit or delete and then you would have a check box +which is a directly editable field so I stopped the recording there to have a think about it +and of consulted with the AI chatbot from a certain well-known cloud company and had a little +discussion with it and I decided the way to go would be to have toggles the instantaneously +save whether the thing is available or not thinking about how that will look it's a bit difficult +for me to plan out user interface stuff exactly how it looks I've got always run the browser and +dark mode and obviously all the users are running it in light mode so I'm seeing these controls +and icons as pink on black but if I can somehow turn off my dark mode it's called dark +region this thing some reason I haven't got midnight at visit on this never get why so without the +dark mode it's a dark purple and white is a color of that stick dark reader back on +so the large language model has come up with a way that I can create a toggle control +in web forms because there is no native toggle control it suggests I could use another +to give me a toggle control by really always prefer not to add dependencies especially if it's +going to be some sort of substantial dependency because then that needs to be kept up to date +even it being cursor costs sometimes so I'd just be happy if I can implement the toggle control +myself right so the first thing I've got to do is I leave the browser running actually +visual studio doesn't look that good with everything running because it lays out everything different +when the browser running so hit the stop button and my browser disappears so my user interface +for this bit of the application I've been creating what's called user controls so I've to find +the user control thing I've got everything related to this stuck in the folder I'd create called +diary because I mean this code base a lot of it is in almost all the the SPX is which are the +actual different web pages of the application they're all in the root directory +my stuff that I'm developing I put it in a folder called diary and like when I was doing +the counting stuff before I put that in different folders called zero and sage and quickbooks +just to keep it a bit organized and not to have so much clutter in the root directory +and these are all ASCX files which is not the same as ASPX because these are like +used to find controls which this is a way of compartmentalizing the coding and making a bit more +structured and not having the code all in a big mess together just keep stuff separate that should +be separate or partition it as it were so I'm looking at the resource table control I think that's +the word of it one or the resource well it will be the resource table control because that will +have headers or add an extra header which is a TH in the T-head of the table and I'm +putting it in an EM which stands for emphasis which basically means italics ideally I'd be +styling italics with CSS but for whatever reason I'm styling it with just in the EM tag so I'll just +put available and save that and then so it's a resource table second column +resource table first column okay I've just realized there are two columns here and actually it's +not entirely configurable by parameters it actually does depend on the bit of actually putting +the headers into both the left column and the right column so I need to do the same thing +and put the available as a header in the right column I'm figuring out how these rows are +getting populated all right so it's got a yeah resource type edit and delete so I just add an extra +column to the row control because obviously the table control has lots of row controls inside it +and let's see what is actually is the chatbot recommending I do so I'll just use as checkbox +and as be checkbox for this but I'm just going to style it as a toggle and have it instantly update +rather than need to press the save button as be colon checkbox and give it an idea I'll call the +ID available so this is the last two columns what should call the CSS class I'll call it a toggle checkbox +don't want giving it text but that's what's been recommended to fire up also that hopefully the +text will be hidden once the CSS class is applied it's actually I can implement this before I +implement the toggle the CSS of the toggle I can actually fully implement this working +actually saving to the database I'm just going to run this to make sure the my checkbox is now +appearing and clicking on the resources tab yes so what I'm seeing is the resource the type of the +resource the two icons the idea delete and then I'm seeing an available column and there's a checkbox +under each one and I can toggle it on and off why not toggle I can tick it on and off it's got the word +available next to it so yeah before I go CSS styling it to make it look nice that's actually +implement making it do what it's meant to do so guess I want a function in the row control to run +when the checkbox is being clicked and this will do what's called a postback so I should make it an +auto postback basically or I just do explain about postbacks this is the thing the way that +I have been web forms works and I've told you before this bit of an old technology but basically +every time you change something on the screen and it saves it on the on the form as it were +then the client sends an HTTP post to the server and it contains the state of all the controls +and this kind of happens behind the scenes most of the time sometimes you need to like get into it +and interact with it as it's happening but a lot of the time it's behind the scenes and it kind of means +that it kind of came from people wanting to develop especially like visual basic how they're used +doing the past but then do that on the web so it's pretty much the programming experiences +very similar in terms of yourself events that fire it's just these events are always kind of sending +something back to the server and then the server is sending stuff back to the client when that +happens so I know the modern thing is that the client is his own thing and it communicates with +the server via an API I mean that's a common pattern now so you'd have a single certainly something +else I've been working recently I just had us like the whole web page I just had like one web page +basically and even though there are lots of screens on it lots of different options it was just the +one HTML file the whole time with just different bits of it being shown and hidden and so on +so it would never actually reload the HTML file and in fact if you did reload the page +using the reload button you would basically reset the entire state of the application and have +to login again so any interaction with behind the scenes would be even an Ajax request and that's just +a communication behind the scenes from the web browser to the server and they would go to what's +called an API endpoint an API is an application programming interface that is something that's +interacted with through programming rather than interacted with by the user +it's basically the distinction between an API and something else that interacts so the API was +needed to save the state or to get new state you know to get to fetch items for example but +that the way this works is slightly differently so this is actually receiving stuff back from the +server and using it to render what's on the front end in a way it's it's a bit of the same idea +I'll try not to muddy every muddy things too much there's this whole thing with web applications +of managing the client's state and the server state and it gets complex however you do it isn't +I don't think that there really is a perfect pattern for doing it and it's just the patterns +of people tend to use have changed over time and the API one has become what popular in a way +this is an API but it's an API that's not exposed or designed by the user it's an API +as part of the underlying platform that sorts of Microsoft's thing that facilitates the communication +between the web browser and the server and to keep the states in sync and doing what they need to +so anyway that was a bit of a die tribe or a bit of a distraction okay so I think the best +way to do is to have a property that tells you whether the thing is available or not okay +well this is silly isn't it because I can just read and write from the state directly +so when the resource object is set which will be done higher up in the hierarchy I want to +change the state of the checkbox so within the public right-only property called resource object +I'm going to say available dot checks equals object dot resource available and as I was typing +that visual studio is popping me up little lists that would help me pick from what I could +possibly type related to what I'm typing and that's quite handy because it stops simple like +typos at least you spell everything right if you're picking it from a list as you're typing it +first as if you're trying to type it out of memory and just making spelling errors and then actually +I don't need to propagate the state of the checkbox up the hierarchy because I'm going to make it +apply immediately I won't have a save button it will just be as soon as it's changed it will +change in the database so I do need a event handler so I'll kind of private sub-routine called +available changed and I'll say handles available dot checked changed so sorry I should call it +I recall the function or the method checked changed because this is one of those things you +could call the method whatever you like but it's a convention just to call it the same as the event +and basically I all I want to do is save it to the database so make sure I'm including +access to the database and I am I've got well it's not the database it's the class library +in the class library in turn talks to the store procedures in the database and they in turn +actually read and write the data from the table so that you've got at least two levels of +instruction between the user interface code I'm writing and actually getting in the database +so I'll create a new resource object object resource as new resource so I'll say +object resource dot resource ID I'll say actually I want to assign several fields of one so I +use the wave command with object resource dot resource ID equals and I think I'll go +property in this classical resource ID and then I'll assign this resource name +the resource name equals resource name both coming out red +oh no sorry resource dot text and then dot resource resource type equals yeah resource type nice +it's that right it's property called resource type ID resource type ID so resource type +equals resource type ID so resource ID resource name resource type and we're very +available which is what we're doing now so dot resource available equals which is defined +a property if we got property no resource available equals available dot share it then we'll just save +that to the database object resource dot add so add is and I it might be updating but just add +tool handle the situation of it updating and that's it and this just run this and see if it works +and it'll be quite miracle if it does actually work first time I'll sorry I've just realized +I need to have an auto post back because the check changed I don't think runs +automatically I've got feeling I've got to specify that whenever this control changes so when +it's tick to run tick then we want the client sent the post back event to the server so we just say +auto post back equals now we go through now run it again click on the resources tab +I have kind of expecting an error to happen when I do but we'll see +I notice this is quite nice I don't know what I'm seeing is the the hoist so I've got three +resources to find a hoist to jack in a radio for some reason I think that was just test data that +called it radio 25 but the hoist is available with the transmission jack is available and +the radio isn't so now it's a moment of truth I'm going to tick off the hoist from being available +and it reloaded the page and the hoist is not there so I just go to another tab +and then come back to this tab just check that the hoist is still in the there +I'll make the radio available and I'll even go to a whole different page +and then I'll come back to the settings screen +go back to the diary section, go back to the resources tab and yeah so the radio is still available +so this is work so all that's now required is for me to make it look nicer +with some CSS CSS is cascading style sheets which is basically +even though you've got information on the web page the cascading style suits decide +how it's going to be presented to the user you know what it actually looks like so +it can look completely different depending on the cascading style sheet and thankfully this +chatbot has given me a bit of CSS that I can possibly use I've got a choice I could embed the CSS +in the actual control that I made a thing or I could make it global and I think it may be +making it global be good because then I can reuse it so I'll go into the thing that's a style folder +somewhere styles and then we've got style dot CSS and it's quite a long file just double check +if this toggle defined here and already know no one's defined a toggle so far so I'll be the first +to define the toggle and actually it's got some quite extensive CSS provided by the +large language model so briefly reviewed it I'm going to kind of paste it in and just +kind of see how it goes I don't appreciate it adding comments for me well it adds comments +then that's good for me to know that they're there but I don't really want them in the code base +they're more there to help me understand what this code is doing and how I might tailor it +so it's like a whole host of CSS classes I've just put in now and I'm just adjusting the +indentation because it's unhappy you've got completely into indentations completely inconsistent +with the rest of the code here and I'm seeing these put some colors in so it's probably I +will want to adjust to make them consistent with the rest of the application assuming this works in +some way save that and then run it we'll see well it has done absolutely nothing that style she +is actually been included going to the web developer tools and I just reload the page recent +style.css yes even a pen something to the URL just to make sure it just depends on number +to make sure it always reloads the style she I did save that I'm going to actually look at the +response of that and scroll down to make sure when you don't assume anything yeah everything +everything I'd paste is in there is there right I'll go to the I'm going to run it again +I'll go to the web inspect and see what classes it's got yeah I have done I'm not super familiar +with any of these tools in particular it's not like I've been working with them for years so I +don't kind of never assume anything about how anything is working I just figure out what it's +doing I've now I'm seeing something different then the checkboxes and they look at there +when I've run it this time let's turn off the dark reader such case makes it different +do what I said I was going to do which is check the CSS class of the toggle of the checkbox +yep so span class equals toggle checkbox it's got stuff within that so what I'm seeing is an +input so when it's created this checkbox it's put an input in a label so I'm kind of thinking +the CSS class wanted it to be applied to the input rather than the thing so I'll go back to my +style she and I'm wrong I mean it's all here and I'll be bugging not loving you bugging mode I'll +say so toggle checkbox position relative display in light block width and high it's got +thing that makes it invisible and it's got a slider and a slider before and a slider +after I'm going to read through this to figure out what it's meant to be doing so this is talking +about a pseudo element so then what is the pseudo element this sort of crates of virtual element +that isn't really there in the HTML but the CSS creates it so then I've seen something I've +never seen before which is a plus sign in this CSS class definition it's the adjacent sibling +combinator so it's just the next one along basically if two are side by side you know what I'm seeing +that we should be yeah we should be defining this checkbox a bit differently with summation of +so put inside a label just not a nice p-label just a plain HTML label and we should be putting +a span after it's called slider so this is probably why the coding sample isn't working +wasn't showing anything so let's go into my a cx so resource row control dot a cx +to be honest the label isn't made it so it may be just adding a span class equal slider +let's try that now which I can see I actually need to read the closing tag of the table data element +what is sell element and if I can do a hot reload that's neat yes so you can actually +without recompose the program well without having to stop and then rebuild everything you +still hot reloading it's compatible it needs to or that's together what it needs to now +got these toggle boxes about the right size so don't want the word available being there because +that's redundant by the way I don't need this to be a slave or a combinator span +this is looking quite good now so it's actually a different color the ones that checked +the ones that are not checked although I don't like it and switch off the dark mode to a click this +one there isn't checked it doesn't do anything you should be reloading the page some maybe it +did need a label oh it's actually working it's now it's just it's not moving the slider anywhere +as far as it needs to so I'll see I've got translate x only two pixels I must have done that +accidentally look back at the code but was suggested 26 yeah I should have made that 13 and half +the size of everything and I know everything's meant to be responsive nowadays and should be using +example pixel values but this application is very much it's been designed not for my +ball if there's going to be a mobile version that's going to be have a different UI it's designed +to be on a table or a desktop PC so hot reload and to refresh the page there's to resent +the post back data maybe my hot reload is not functioning as it should close the browser +and run it from scratch again and then she my eyes are dying so I'm putting the dark mode back +on so I didn't seem to be interfering with things too much oh very nice well almost clicked on it +and it just refreshed the page so it's doing the animation but then it refreshes the page and I click +and again it does the animation and then refreshes the page now I'm just thinking is it about +word available is such a long word to be up there in the header again I'm going to go to +some my little chatbot and to the large language model thing and the for synonyms +something operational working active functioning ready online life present accessible in service +up and running deployable so as you could reverse the meaning and actually he's down +for lot of operational or out of service placed in the web browser seem to have a lot of browser +windows open so close not nice go back to my diary folder look at the resource table control +and it's still of the word available I'll just have your life question mark your life of a +question mark again I'm telling the dark reader of actually I do want to see the actual colors +that it's rendering these as I think green would be better than blue okay this green is a bit too +light this one is a bit too olivey and this one is just right and actually the flash on the screen +when I click the toggle thing and it reloads that's not noticeable when I'm in light mode it was only +noticeable when I was in dark mode just because I think that the dark reader was having to +reapply the CSS after refresh in the screen so this is quite nice it's still kind of think the +word life looks a bit clunky with a question mark so I'm going to just take off the question mark +right so I'm going to save this code to the repo can't leave sin dropbox and that keeps an +instantaneous backup for any version of any file but I want to then copy what's changed into the +repository so I've got a problem called beyond compare it's a Windows program +actually got myself because I just found it useful and it's a similar one called meld on Linux though +though this seems to be the best one that I found them works well for me on Windows looking to see +if I've previously compared these folders and yeah there's the previous compare there such +open that one and then I go into the in application folder it's still refreshing because it's +not just comparing the file dates it's actually doing a proper compare of the files see in +something that's changed and don't know why so I'm going to do a diff or quick compare it calls it +right this is something I'm seeing stuff that someone else has done so I've got a feeling I'm not +got I've got a different branch in the repository because I was working on some of the counting +side of things and so it's actually using the main repository rather than the branch that I'm using +for the diary project so I'm just going to delete this folder and refetch it from +the repository and get up so I mean I'd say no had to delete a folder on the command line +in Windows I know Delta Reusters did a job but I don't have Delta Reusters exists but rather just +sent it to the recycling and then I've got GitHub just to get the URL that I need some typing +Git plan minus b diaries name the branch and pasting in the URL and it's got me the latest version +and I run my file comparison program again I've been at going to the application directory +I mean I know if this is the right thing because yes I just my diary files I can see four of them have +been up there and while I've been updating the ACX files also been updating the dot fee +ACX dot vb files which hold the code and the dot ACX dot designer dot vb files which hold the +light that design layout although I never edit that directly myself some copy in those to the +right it's prompting me that I'm sure want to do that and yes seeing if anything else got changed +nothing got changed relating to what I've done today I can look at I can now is useful to look at +the dates I can see nothing else with today's date so then I'll just upload those changed files +to the actual branch and see the the program directory in the git status you can see those files +there so last time I was recording a website about this I was going for a rather long-winded way +using Git because I had a few issues and I just wanted to be a hundred percent sure so I was +being overexplicit so I can much more concisely commit these files to the repo so so git commit +a hyphen hyphen all hyphen m in quotes include toggle control for saving availability of resources +and then git push for a chin diary and if it's gone so I'm going to look my time I spent on that +I've got a little guilty that monitors what files I'm accessing uses I load fire weight +I'm just seeing how long I think I spent on that given that I did even I wasn't coding that +long it did take me quite a lot of thinking about it and researching it so I'm going to look +two hours for that so I'm going into job plan going into my log folder going into 2025 we can't +ding 25-0426 already got an entry for 25-0420 so I just say a availability toggle to resources +and two hours synchronize that saved okay so hopefully I've able to see this down so it's not +anything like as long as it actually took me for you to have to listen to and there was like a +good period of thinking time in between when I started and I paused it and then the second half +that's just the way it goes I have been kind of doing other things what in between the first second +half as well I didn't look at those hours I think someone's messaging me now so I'll probably end +the podcast here so this been completely unscripted so apologize if any of it seemed a bit off the +cuff and thanks for listening thank you bye +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4630.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4630.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8380fc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4630.txt @@ -0,0 +1,167 @@ +Episode: 4630 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 11 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4630/hpr4630.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:29 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4630, for 2026-05-01 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 11" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:13:07 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We finish our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V." +Hello, this is a hookah welcome you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode +We enter ongoing series on computer strategy games and we're continuing with civilization five +And what I want to do today is I want to talk about +basically all of the +players in the game there are 43 empires here and +This is I'm talking about +You know all of the expansions and downloadable content and everything else +So five is certainly quite complete at this point and there's no more updates coming that haven't been for a long time +So you've got 43 possible empires the thing is they're not all alike and +It matters which one you are and it should affect your strategy +Each empire has a particular leader a +Unicability and the unique unit +In addition, most of them have some kind of starting bias and many have a unique building or unique improvement +Understanding how to make use of these is important to your strategy +If you let random chance assign you to an empire +You need to know what kind of strategy will work with that empire +And if you want to pursue a particular strategy +You might want to know how to pick an appropriate empire to fit the strategy +Now there is a chart that lists all 43 empires with all of their parameters at the +The civilization and fandom wiki and +There's a link in the show notes for that +You might want to book mark that page for future reference +Also, you want to know what to expect concerning your opponents in a game +leader +You don't have a choice of leaders when you choose the empire you get the leader that comes with it +But these leaders are distinct in various ways +To see what I mean go to the leader page for one by clicking on the link under the leader picture and you'll see a long list of AI traits +These describe and numerical terms how competitive the leader is in various ways +How prone to war which kind of units it will build and so on? +It's a long list so your eyes may glaze over but the significance is that it gives you some insight +If this leader is one of your opponents in a game +This list is how the AI is programmed +There is also a more approachable summary under personality and behavior +And for example, here's what it says about Pedro the second of Brazil +Pedro will most commonly try for a cultural victory if he pursues a different victory condition +He's likely to choose the diplomatic one over a scientific or domination victory +And in fact the last game he was my competitor for +A diplomatic victory and we'll be talking about that shortly +Pedro is exceptionally friendly and loyal and will readily befriend anyone +But the most warlike leaders +He is more willing to denounce than to wage war himself +But will maintain a defensive militia comprised of a variety of units +He also has the habit of building a fairly large navy +Fittingly Pedro's highest priority is the happiness of his people +Followed by the development of his lands and culture +He will not claim a large territory but his cities will be highly populated and the land and water around them will be full of improvements +He will sometimes try to build wonders that enhances culture and tourism output +Now Pedro is friendly toward city states and his sphere of influence and will often pledge to protect them +He will hardly ever attack or bully them +Now the point is this describes your AI opponent +If you choose to play as Pedro of Brazil you can make entirely different decisions from what the AI would do +Now starting bias each empire will spawn on the map in ways that reflect their starting bias if any +Some empires for instance china friends +Have no starting bias at all which means they can spawn anywhere on the map +Though there is programming to ensure that the location is not a disaster like all tundra and ice or the middle of the ocean +So it will certainly be playable +Still some players like to try two three or four times to spawn to see if they can get a good place to start +For the empires with the starting bias it can be either positive or negative +For example the Mongolian empire has a bias towards starting on planes +Which makes sense historically since they come from the planes of central Asia +The Russian empire has a bias to start in tundra which again seems to fit +The song high empire has a negative starting bias which is to avoid tundra +Now the song high emperor empire +Historically was an empire in sub-saharan Africa so this kind of makes sense +The signemies empire avoids forests +Rome and shashone +Empires have no starting bias at all they could spawn anywhere +So the starting bias will apply to whichever empire you choose to play +So if you prefer not to play with a lot of tundra you would do well not to choose Russia +But then again Russia can do more with tundra than some other empires might so it does all balance out +Then there's unique ability +Generally speaking each empire will have a unique ability +For example the Austrian empire has the unique ability called diplomatic marriage +Which allows them to spend gold to annex or puppet any city state if an ally do for at least five turns +If the city state is annexed it becomes part of the Austrian empire +But if it is puppeted the city state technically remains separate +But it's under the control in some ways of the Austrian empire and what that really means +is that +You control all of the units they have but you don't control the build cues +So you can't tell the city state if it's puppet and what to do +India has a unique ability called population growth +This doubles the unhappiness caused by more cities +But reduces by 50% the unhappiness caused by increased population +So if you were playing India it is even more important to build tall rather than wide +Remember when we talk about tall versus wide wide is many cities +Each of somewhat smaller size tall is a few cities with a very high population +Now unique units +Every empire has at least one and sometimes two unique units +These units replace a normal unit but are a little better in some respects +There worth having some are more useful than others and the key factors when are they available to you +For example the Celtic empire gets the Pictish warrior which replaces the spearmen +Since the spearman is generally the first unit you learn to build it comes very early in the game +So if you're interested in the strategy of early warfare this might matter to you +The Pictish warrior is actually weaker than the spearman in one respect though in that it gets no bonus against mounted units +So if you are the calts and you're facing the Mongols you're gonna have a problem +But the Pictish warrior can pillage without any movement cost normally when you use a unit to pillage it ends your turn +But a Pictish warrior could pillage and then move if it still had movement left +And the Pictish warrior also has the foreign lands bonus which gives it a 20% bonus when fighting outside of Celtic territory +And finally the Pictish warrior gets a faith bonus when it fills an enemy unit equal to 50% of the killed units strength +Now the American empire has two unique units +One is the B17 bomber which replaces the regular bomber it comes with two promotions +siege one and a vision and it's slightly stronger 70 versus 65 +The problem with this is that it comes so late in the game it's hard to see what good it will do you +If you're pursuing a domination strategy you should have already gone most of the way to conquering the world before you actually get the B17 +Now the other unique unit the Americans get is the minute man which replaces the musket man +It comes with a drill one promotion +Ignores terrain restrictions and it's points towards a golden age. This is more useful than the B17 +But not useful enough to push you towards a domination victory in my opinion +But since you need good units for any strategy if only for defense it's worth halfing +Personally if I was playing as the Americans I would probably choose to go for a science victory +I think they're very well suited to that +Now unique buildings and improvements +Some empires such as the Byzantines or the Japanese do not have one but they can be useful +For example the Portuguese empire has a unique building called the phytoria +Which has the interesting property of being built outside portugal's territory +The phytoria which becomes available once you're discovering navigation can be built in the territory of a coastal city state +on a coastal land tile that has no resources on it and +Has three properties +First one Portugal gets one copy of each luxury resource the city state has +This is great for either increasing happiness or is something that can be traded with other empires +Then there is a plus 50% defensive strength bonus for any combat units on the tile +And if the +Fritoria is pillaged that constitutes an active war against Portugal +Which means Portugal gets no penalties for going to war +Now another example of a unique +Building or improvement is the Dutch Polter which can be built on any marsh or flood plain tile +It gives plus three food and once you discover economics it will also yield plus one production and plus one gold +So in summary if you study the chart of empires that can help you to picking strategies for the empire +You're playing or help you to pick an empire that is well suited to the strategy you want to try +And knowing how the AI is programmed for other empires helps you to know what to expect in your game +But here are some suggestions and note that you can win with any save +But these are ones that lend themselves to a particular strategy +That said, I usually let the game give me a random choice and then formulate my strategy when I see what I get +So for domination +Germany japan +Rome +Sun high and the Mongols +All very well suited to +Domination victories +science victory +Babylon, Korea, Poland and America are all very good for that +Culture victories +Brazil, Polynesia, Poland and France are all good for that +Diplomatic victories +Greece, Arabia and Portugal are very well suited to diplomatic victories +So with this this is a hookah for Hacker public radio signing off and as always encouraging you to support free software +Bye bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4631.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4631.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..760fc2e --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4631.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1689 @@ +Episode: 4631 +Title: HPR Community News for April 2026 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4631/hpr4631.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:32 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4631, for 2026-05-04 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Community News for April 2026" +The host is HPR Volunteers and the duration is 01:31:47 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "HPR Volunteers Clinton, Ken and Kevie talk about shows released and comments posted in April 2026" +Hi, everybody. My name is Tim Fallon. You're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio today. It's HPR Community News for April 2026. Joining me from the islands of Scotland, it is? +Kevin, I have returned. Yes, glad to be back because last month I was available Monday through Thursday. You were available Friday through the weekend, so it just didn't work out. So yes, glad to be back. +Well, we have a backup out there in the outback. It is all the way from? +Hello, it's Clinton from Melbourne, Australia. +Hardly the outback, but okay. +I have never ever lived in the outback. I've only ever visited. +Excellent. And thanks for joining, guys. We're doing the scheduling of the Hacker Community News a little differently. +First of all, I'll tell you what the Hacker Community News is. But before I do that, if you're a first time listener, this is Hacker Public Radio, one of the longest running podcasts in the world. +And definitely one of the longest running podcasts in the world that doesn't have a Wikipedia article because it keeps stealing it from us. +Not that I'm bitter. Not that I'm bitter. It is annoying, actually, because when you try to talk to the press or somebody and then all of a sudden your Wikipedia article disappears, it's not nice. +Anyway, HPR is a community podcast. So it is a podcast where every day other techies send in a show about a topic that is of interest to hackers, hobbyists, makers, people in general. +Think of it as your virtual hackerspace. And this is the Community News, which releases a show once every month on the first Monday of the month. +And we talk about anything that has happened in the Hacker Space for the last month. +Some people, you can subscribe to the feed for this podcast. If you go to the RSS feed subscription on the main page or press the R of Hacker Public Radio. +And some people use that as a way to filter the shows because there's quite a lot of shows that come through. +Currently, we're pushing. In fact, last month we pushed 5000 shows and no celebration. +No, we didn't. We still have 100 shows to go, 70 shows to go before we hit our 5000 shows. +So that's quite a lot of shows. Anyway, I completely lost the plot. +Yes. And we're doing this slightly differently because it's better to have several volunteers from the community coming in and talking about these episodes for you. +And to make scheduling just a little bit easier, what we're doing is going away from a fixed time and date. +It will usually be on the Friday before the Monday in order to give people time to process the episode and post it everywhere that it needs to be. +So you will see the mail list going out. If you've listened to the shows for a particular month, you can feel free to join us and we will adjust our schedule according to the people who joined. +Which is why we're recording this on a Saturday morning. Does that all make sense, guys? +Yep. Loud and clear. +Except for time zones, but that's not your fault. +Yes. +That's not my fault. So the time is currently 177-77-10341. +We're going to switch over to 177-77-7777 today at some point. +I think you need to elaborate there. That totally lost me. +That's the Unix Epoch timestamp. +So, you're listening to this on the 4th of May. May the 4th be with you. +Oh, of course, yes. Happy Star Wars Day. +Kevin, I'm not your father. +And so, you can be a Trekkie or a Star Wars person and or both. +That's your call. +But we'll see if there are any references we can get in here. +Anyway, without further ado, what we tend to do is give the honour of reading out the new hosts to the newest janitor. +So, Clinton, if you could be so good as to go to the page and read out the new hosts for this month. +Unfortunately, there were no new hosts this month. +How could that be? How could that be, lads? +Lassies and everybody in between. +Listen, reminder, this is a community podcast, meaning the listeners, as in the person who's listening to these airwaves coming into your head. +This is not about having a few rock stars who produce all the shows. +It may seem like that, but that's not the whole point of it. +The whole point of this, ideally, HBR will be in a healthy situation, is if every single day we had a different host for the whole year through. +Yeah? +So, get off your whatevers and start sending in shows. +Even if it's, hi, this is my first time. +I have no idea what to say. +This is how I got into tech. +This is how I ended up listening to this HBR episode. +So, send in shows. +If we don't get new hosts, we don't take into account the fact that people move away from the project, either voluntarily or involuntarily. +So, yep, do your bit. +Thank you. +Free, this is hardcore internet here. +This is, we're doing, we're walking the walk, we're talking the talk. +Send in the show. +And if that doesn't get people moving, then really, I don't know what will. +So, yeah, guys, get onto the recording devices. +And next week, I've had to post three shows from the reserve queue. +And in addition to that, there were five shows that I've had to remove from the reserve queue due to the fact that there was copyrighted music or there were duplicate episodes or something else. +So, it may all look very healthy and may all look super fine and everything's fine there over in HBR. +But the fact of the matter is, this project, within a month, can end. +Yeah? +So, we need to constantly keep feeding the queue, keep feeding the main queue, keep feeding the reserve queue. +Okay. +Anyway, that is the bollocking section over. +And we will move on to talking about the shows that were released last month. +The first one, which was an episode, Simple Podcasting, Preparational Recording by Whiskey Jack. +And Whiskey Jack, as you will know, did our series on nuclear reactors. +Of course, What Hacker Space doesn't have their own nuclear reactor program. +And there was quite a lot of comments about this. +So, what he did was give us some tips on how he went about recording his episode and the tools that he used to create it. +Basically, FFmpeg and stocks. +And this had a lot of comments. +Archer72 says, +Listening ahead. +Hi, Whiskey Jack. +This has been a great series and I've been listening ahead with anticipation. +Might I suggest having tags added to each show to reflect using socks and FFmpeg? +Yeah, when you're talking about... +Sorry, this is Ken. +Cheers, Archer72. +Ken here, as janitor, I would say, +don't put in tags onto shows where you're using socks and FFmpeg. +Only put tags on shows where you're talking about socks and FFmpeg. +Right. +And Whiskey Jack responded to that straight away saying, +Thank you for your kind comments on this series. +I am pleased to hear that at least one person liked it. +As for adding tags for socks and FFmpeg to the show notes after the episode has been uploaded, +I'm not sure what the proper method to go about this is. +Perhaps someone could make a suggestion. +And the third comment by Rito. +It reminds me about SolarCast. +Hi, Whiskey Jack. +I really liked your podcast and the topic. +I cannot remember about your last, but the sound quality of this one was good on my mobile speakers. +The concept reminded me about the program from Norris, another host on HBR. +While similar, it does have some differences. +HBR 3496. +As I'm not on the future feed, I look forward to your next episode. +Cheers, Rita. +And to answer Whiskey Jack's question, you send an email to the janitor so we can add it without problem. +And I've just done that now. +So in the next three or four hours, it will regenerate. +Actually, it'll be sooner than that, but that's fine. +And Whiskey Jack says, response to Rito's comment in, I wasn't aware of SolarCast. +I just downloaded the episode and will listen to it to see if the concept of how to use it is the same. +If it is the same method, the author of that may have a better overall solution in terms of using it +as he has put everything together into a single Python program. +Given that my series is four episodes rather than one, though, it is possible that I have more explanation of what is happening to the audio. +I have had some fun with gratuitous hackery when analyzing audio in GNU Octave and LibreOffice Calc. +And it is more important to have fun than to be useful. +I have looked at the source code and see that it is using a technique with socks, which sounds similar to what I drew the interest of one of the show hosts in the February Community News, +4586 for those interested, published at the beginning in March. +And when talking about another piece of podcasting software, I will have a play with the audio techniques. +I may get enough material from that audio processing technique to make another podcast episode. +Anyway, thanks again for the tip on SolarCast. +I will try it to see if it suits how I want to make a podcast. +And he went away, listened to that episode and returned with another comment saying, +I have just listened to the HPR episode on SolarCast and it appears to me that the method he uses is indeed the same concept. +That of recording a series of very short segments and stitching them together later, +as opposed to trying to edit a single big audio file with an audio editor. +SolarCast approaches it from a different way and offers a more automated process. +My series requires a number of manual steps, but I focus more on what is going on under the lid. +I also use a different filtering method. +This sounds like it's worth another podcast episode for me in which I will mention SolarCast plus also talk more about filtering. +Thanks again for telling me about SolarCast. +End of final comment. +Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. +More episodes coming. That's what we like to hear. +Absolutely. Actually, I really enjoyed this one. +Yeah, it's always good to hear how different people do that may create the podcast, +because obviously there's a thousand and one different ways you can do it. +And one of the things that I certainly learned from Whiskey Jack and his nuclear series is that when he seems to record a series, +he's thorough. So this is going to be a very interesting full series. +I don't know how many episodes he's planning, but yeah, I'm looking forward to these. +Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. +The following day was one from the Reserve Queue. +I'm looking at you all. I'm looking at those of you that don't have 2026 in your last uploaded episode. +You know who you are. +Yeah, that might be me. +Well, at least you're here. +This doesn't count, by the way. You've got to do your own one. +That was my whole plan ruined. +Yeah, there you go. And the New Year's show doesn't count either. +So the next episode was, but this was a good episode, one which I bring to the point of religion, +sorry to say it is the proper date format, and it is about using ISO 8601 or its derivatives, +which is year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds. +My only exception is those of you who wish to use Epoch, which is the number of seconds since 1st of January 1970. +Yeah, I mean, I totally get this one because I would, well, personally, from writing it on a date and looking at it, +I prefer the kind of the standard European method, the kind of day, month, year, +just because that's what I'm comfortable with reading. +But since I've actually more gotten into sorting out and fixing up files, I mean, as Huka mentioned in this episode, +it makes life so much flippin' easier. It's so much nicer. +It also, if you're doing anything that's comparing log files as well, it's just so much easier. +For some reason, about 5 to 10 years ago, a memo went around to every developer in the world that says, +completely ignore allowing people to set date formats manually or customizing date formats, +that everybody who happens to be in a country, the only format that they're allowed to use is the format in this country. +So, as an example, in the Netherlands, I can only set, just as an example, right now, on your Linux machine, +it is not possible for you to set an ISO date format on your Linux machine. +Let that sink in. The silence will be truncated on that, but I really want to let that sink in. +We think about here, sorry, this is me going off on a rant, but we think about Linux being open, +but there's a bug open for years on KDE about where the ability to put in custom date formats has been removed. +Gradually, a lot of the applications are putting them back in, +and Mac and Windows have added back the option, +but Linux continues, continues to this day, to force locale as the basis for date formats. +Okay. Was that too religious, guys? +Not at all. For you, I thought that was actually fairly mail-owned, as far as a Ken rant goes, so well done. +Oh, I could go on all day about this. I really, really could. +Anything to lower one's blood pressure is good. +Anyway, Jim Gavore said, +This is the only proper date format. Welcome, Jim. Thanks for spreading the word. +I've been using this for over 20 years. Sorts well on any file systems. Sorts well in note-taking app titles. +I have a keyboard macro on my Home Linux machine and on my Windows work machine that bangs out today's days in that format. +It is the only proper date format. Correct. +And Candy Cane Art, R07, added sensical date format. +It's definitely handy to use with alphabetical sorting, especially if dealing with cross-file system archive, +since access and modify times are rarely consistent long-term. +And the following day, we had another episode from Kevin Ahooka. +And it was Playing Civilizations 5, Part 10. +And the reason we have two shows back-to-back is that the rule about 10-day separation between hosts +doesn't apply when we're taking shows from the reserve queue. +If you're so worried about it, you know the answer? +Yes, so I'm assuming you hand this one over to me. +Because I know you're a big gamer, but can I just say, do you mind if I actually take the lead on this one? +Absolutely, go for it. I'll grab a coffee in the meantime. +Right then, so yeah, another great show by Ahooka on Civilization 5. +So this time, this is Part 10 in this particular game series. +Not in the whole series overall, because he did ones before that, but for the ones on Civilization 5. +And this is Gaining Great People. +And he goes talking about the different things that, obviously with culture victories and, you know, +yearn points, et cetera, for everything on Civilization 5. +And indeed, every Civilization game. +And he talks about the types of great people. +So he goes on to say about the great artists, which can start a golden age or create great works, +great musicians and what they do. +Great writer, great engineer, great general. +The Khan, which is unique to Mongolia. +The great merchant. +Merchant of Venice, which, no surprise, is unique to Venice. +Great scientists, great admiral, great project. +These aren't obviously things you can get just as a couple of turns. +These are big parts and they will actually help you. +So, and then he also talks about trade, the different types and also the effects of trade. +So it's, yeah, it was really good. +Like I said, I'm really enjoying this series. +They're very in-depth. +I have to confess, I've only ever played Free Civ. +I've never actually gone down the route of the Civilization game. +So I almost get the feeling that with listening to these, I'm kind of learning how to play them. +So, yeah, thoroughly enjoyed this. +Yeah, I'm not a gamer at all. +Like I've never played this game and I almost certainly never will. +But I do really enjoy this series. +It's really nicely laid out. +And it gives me some insight into how some of these games are designed. +Absolutely. +It's kind of weird. +I have the feeling that, you know, I followed a tutorial on how to use Inkscape. +And since then, it's kind of weird. +I know a lot of stuff about Inkscape, yet at the same time, can't use it. +I have the feeling with Civilization that you know all the strategies for winning, yet we'll be completely confused by the UI for the first time we play it. +Yeah, it's definitely one of these games where, like most of the style of game, the first time is literally your tutorial. +You're going, what are you going to do? +And guaranteed your first time, you're going to lose terribly. +It's the same with all of these games. +Don't invest too much into your first Let's Play. +I can still remember the first time I played this style of game. +Yeah. +And I didn't realize I didn't just have to deal with external forces. +I had to deal with rebels. +And I had this brilliantly defended city. +I had great trade. +But inside, I'd worked my Civilization that hard that inside, I didn't realize civil unrest was a thing. +And I was overrun by rebels. +And I'm going, oh, for the sake of sake. +So the game ended that way. +The following day, we had the community news for March, 2026. +And that also had no new hosts. +So we've had two straight months without new hosts. +Hmm. +Hmm. +Anyway, there were two comments on the episode. +The first one was from Candy Caneator. +Misattributed comment. +And Holy, I just realized I accidentally put Windigo's name in when typing. +Oh, yeah. +This is one where somebody else should read the first one because I'm commenting. +Clinton, can you read the first comment, please? +Sure. +By Candy Caneator or Arthur, I'm not quite sure. +Misattributed comment. +Holy, I just realized I accidentally put Windigo's name in when typing revive the MPV util scripts and didn't notice until just now. +I'm so sorry. +And I replied, fixed. +No problem. +I renamed it. +Contact the janitor for these type of issues. +And you can get the janitor at admin at hapricarpublicradio.org. +Moving forward to the following day, which we move back to the New Year's episode 2006, episode 4. +For those of you who don't know, every year, the HPR and the Linux Ludcastle community put on a 24-hour, sorry, 26-hour session +where they talk about everything and anything, and then a team of crack commenters come along and go through the show notes. +I put in absolutely brilliant links to everything that is even remotely, remotely discussed links to the IT crowd, Christmas story, diehard movies, obviously talking about Christmas stuff there. +Yes, I liked how in this episode they kept it without controversy at all. +By, of course, having that great controversial debate, is diehard a Christmas movie? +Exactly. +I have never actually joined one of the New Year's shows. +I'm not sure if that's something I'm proud of or something that I should be chastised for. +No, it's weird. +I personally don't consider it a HPR thing. +It's something done definitely by the community and that HPR contribute to. +But I don't see it as a HPR show, and for years I felt that people on it use it as an excuse, oh, I've done my show then for the year if I'm on that. +But then I hear from Kevin O'Brien that that was how he got into HPR, and without Kevin, we would have a lot less shows, that's for sure. +I should admit that I have not attended one of those New Year's shows, and it's not because I've had awesome New Year's plans. +I must admit, yeah, I think it actually does slightly disadvantage us here north of the border in Britain in that I think I've been on two or three over the years, but it's only been short times. +And it's just New Year's up in Scotland is such a big thing, and it's such a big family event, just with a social, that I just can't get to them most of the time. +What I recommend you do is just call in. +Even if there's nobody on the channel, you just call in and say, Happy New Year from Melbourne, and then that's that. +And just drop out again. +Just say hi. +You don't need to be on for 14 hours, and you definitely, definitely do not need to be keeping the talking going when there's no talking. +And that means that I'll have done my yearly show then, right? +Yeah, yeah, for sure not, for last year. +Yes, and speaking of somebody who I hopefully will be running into next week in person is Jeroen Batten, who did a show on adding functionality to Audito installation. +And this is another one of those civilization things where it's a tool that I have never used, but now I feel like I'm almost an expert at it. +So this is about business applications and adding additional add-ons that are available. +Yes, and it's good to see that we're continuing with the likes of, you know, we've already mentioned Whiskey Jack and the hookah. +Jeroen's another one that, yeah, he's very thorough in what he does. +You know, if you're just looking for just a kind of light, a bit of light-filling space for the background, then these guys probably aren't your best ones because it's thorough. +It's absolutely thorough, and they're excellent shows. +Brilliant. +Thoroughly enjoying the series. +The way they do it, cutting them up into pieces, it's, you know, everything's digestible. +So, you know, this was completely a digestible show. +You didn't need to be an expert on anything. +You were just going, yeah, this is available. +And, you know, maybe at some Christmas party or New Year's party up there in the Highlands, Lowlands, Highlands, whatever. +You'll get there one day. +I will. +Hopefully I'll go up there one day. +Actually, it'd be nice to do a HBR live episode out in the Hebrides. +I think that would be a good idea now, yes. +I'll have to bring some Dutch beer or, better yet, Belgian beer with me as I go. +And from a software engineering point of view, I really like the way that Odoo is sort of laid out and designed. +It seems really sensible and no more complicated than it needs to be. +Yeah, and I have the feeling with this sort of thing that, you know, I come across somebody who's got their small business and are about to get screwed by, you know, all you have to have like this big application when you can kind of point them in to the right direction. +Okay, something went wrong. +Oh, yeah. +Oh, did I break? +I broke an episode the following day. +We had Doug 18. +Just give me one second while I make a note of something I have to fix. +Were there any comments? +Can you guys handle the comments while I'm doing this? +So, yeah, the first comment on this one is by Jim DeVore, and this is, is this the best approach for privacy? +I suspect this was about computer design and a fascinating presentation of that subject. +For privacy, wouldn't it make more sense to use old hardware? +Things were so much more transparent in the DOS days. +And the second comment was by Candy Caneater, interesting. +I find obscure hardware design cool, and this is no exception. +Deviating from the common 8-bit design is something I've rarely seen, and though I didn't understand a lot of the deeper mechanics, the way you explained it was captivating. +Yeah, absolutely. +I agree there with Candy Caneater. +In fact, both of them, it was definitely an interesting show, and it was one where it could have gone so much deeper. +But if he'd have continued on, but it's like he didn't lose, well, I found it, he went a good amount of depth, personally. +And what I'm fixing is I accidentally overwrote the show notes of that episode with the show notes for this episode, which is why I'm totally confused. +Ah! +Yeah, well, it did confuse me as well when I clicked onto it there. +I was like, what? +And the reason I was on this episode is because there's a pipe delimiter in the text. +And when we export, when we're generating the show notes, it uses... +Oh, go on. +Yeah, exactly. +It uses pipe delimiters, and I first thought it might be the single code, so now I was able +to find a different pipe delimiter that would not... +A different delimiter that the script can use and that SQ-Lite 3 can use. +So there we are. +We have a very own zero-day announcement. +Yeah, do you want to do that at the end, or do you want to do it now? +Okay. +The next one, I think, was also from the reserve queue that we just checked. +No, it wasn't. +It was Lee complying with the company's odds by clicking next a lot. +What did you think of this, guys? +Yeah, sounded actually vaguely familiar, horribly familiar at times, necessarily. +I don't tell you I do audits of the company, but yeah, this did sound rather too familiar. +Yeah, yeah. +Yeah, so I have worked for my fair share of government organizations, and I do work for +one at the moment. +And this is probably like a six-monthly cycle where we have to go through this process, yes. +And don't get me wrong, I think it's good to have it nice and simple, but you also need +to, when I'm doing them, I'm always in my mind, you know, that press release where a rogue +employee violated company policies and did something that they shouldn't have done. +So this is very much a, security is very much a insurance thing. +What are the risks and what can the business afford to lose? +And this is one of those tick boxes that needs to be done. +But for those of you interested in the career in IT, this is your future, ticking that sort +of boxes. +Well, yes, but it's like in the areas I've worked in, we've had a lot of safety stuff. +So I've worked in a lot of physics groups. +So we've had physics experiments. +So we've had a lot of different safety things to go through. +So I've worked for companies that have a lot to do with gas. +So we had a lot of gas safety things through. +So I suspect that it's really not IT specific. +I would say that it's any organization that is large enough that needs control of dangerous +things that are controlled by a couple of months. +And actually, I'll come back. +I'll disagree with myself there because I recently did the safety marshal training and work again. +And the guy was going, look, it's like this. +You take three steps forward and then you'll have forgotten two of the steps next year. +And then we redo the training and you'll take three steps forwards and then you'll have forgotten +two, but you're still two steps ahead. +So and when doing the training, it was a blank and then it all started coming back to me again. +And so that is the thing. +Keep hammering it into the squishy human brains and maybe it'll stick. +Yep. +It's another implementation of flashcards. +Just done really cool. +Yep. +It was good, though. +It's good that Lee is giving this, I mean, a lot of the stuff and that and, you know, +the fireside or where we sit down next to him as he does a programming task. +There's been a few of those this month as well or coming up next month. +I can't remember which. +But it does really give you a sense of what it is like to work in IT most of the time. +So we have a HBR exclusive, an interview that will save civilization or at least your kitchen drawer. +This one was hilarious. +Yeah. +Big Deborah interviews Troner Coaster, who is an avid fan, avid fan of implementing age control. +Yes, absolutely. +Antoine says, just do the age verification. +Just do the age verification. +We can write the law for the protection of people of what ages shall and shall not have access to. +Yes, online. +Offline. +We have no thoughts about that. +We have a proposal about it in the near future. +Thank you, Troner Coaster. +That's true. +And Candy Cane Art, our 07, says, good strategy. +I like how you use exaggeration and parody to make your points. +It makes your points both memorable and hit hard. +And Troner Coaster responds, hello, Antoine. +Please don't define me in what state you were going to submit that proposal. +I'll move to that state and run around with the banner, Antoine for president. +Hey, Kenny Caneater. +I don't get it. +Do you hate hackers? +Antoine says, our state, the invitation. +Hey, Troner Coaster. +I'm a member of the legislature in Atlantis, the underwater one. +Nevertheless, we will emerge soon. +The making of e-banners can begin. +Our language is alterian, and we don't understand, if not, the translation. +If you can read it, it is in real time by scanning of the legitimate eyes that should see the email messages. +Parliament members can't roll for the executive, though. +You, if you can read, may come to the palace. +If so, please just let us know so that I can wake both eyes of the editorial whales for making of the presidential propaganda. +And, Avanti, end of italic, Atlantian, Intimus, Translation, XXX, star, star, star, star. +Well, the lads are having some fun there. +However, it is a thing that's coming, whether we like it or not, unfortunately. +Well, it's been pushed a lot, whether we like it or not. +I'm not sure about licensing for age, but I'm beginning to think after that episode that a license for sarcasm would be a good idea. +Absolutely. +You introduced age verification down there in Oz, didn't you? +Yes. +So it sort of started with, I'm probably going to get a lot of the details wrong. +It sort of started with social media stuff, and now it's sort of moved to any adult content, I think. +And, like, I don't have kids, and because I'm well past the age where I'd have to verify most of these things, it hasn't really impacted me at all. +So, yeah, it's one of those things where, like, in one of my previous roles, I was at a company that was responsible for filtering social media for students and stuff. +And I can see that there are advantages to limiting the amount of abuse that students can get to this stuff. +But I also think that there are a lot of people that will find their communities in social media as a young kid. +And that is, they're stopped from doing that now, I believe, or severely limited. +So, you know, I can definitely see, I can definitely understand the push from both sides. +Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's some of the analysis that I've seen on the, that it is basically failing to do what it was supposed to do. +And people are still getting to, it's stopping people with legitimate reasons for being online, being online, and people, the kids are still getting to the adult sites, despite all their efforts. +Yeah, it's, especially for a tech savvy kid, it's not exactly difficult. +But the one thing that I would actually like, from a geek's point of view, is that if this would, if you could get something that would actually stop them just kind of with a whole doom scrolling on social media, +even the kind of ones you would consider the techie, geeky kids, who in before times would have, you know, kind of been really whizzes on the computer. +Oh my word, they're, they're watching techie videos, geeky videos, but flippin' Ada, it's like, look, just open up your file, your file browser. +What's a file browser? And this is just across the board. +They know how to open up a flicking social media app and scroll through it. +But it's like, look, open up your file manager there. +What's that? Open up your browser. +What's that? We'll see that flicking logo that you go on the internet with. +One of the best suggestions that I've seen is the abolishment of the doom scrolling, that you need to actively click, you know, next page. +That it doesn't, that you go down the page and you have to actively press next. +But they, social media companies don't want to implement that. +But there's a, I think there's a EU regulation where they're going to force that on people. +That you have to have the option to, you know, click next. +That is not continuous. +And I think this is one of the really interesting things in the US law cases at the moment, +where for a long time, all of the social media providers have been able to just say, +we are just a publisher of somebody else's content. +It's not our content. It's not our fault. +But the law courts and what's happening now is some of the law cases, they're actually going after the algorithms. +So they're actually going directly after the publishers. +And it appears that some of those are going to be successful. +So I think we'll actually see some changes to the algorithms and put in some frictions where the frictions would be useful. +Yeah, it might have some impact on HPR in the full loss of time. +But we'll have to see. +Anyway, this part of political broadcast was brought to you on behalf of Trader Coaster Inc. +For all your Atlantis needs. +The following day, we had Unix Curio Part 4, archiving utilities and file formats, especially PAX. +And I would like to thank Vance for these episodes. +They are awesome. +So much detail. +They are really lovely to listen to. +And myself, I'm very much an old style Unix person. +So I still remember days of getting Solaris and having to compile GNU tar on it to be able to unpack some of the GNU tools +because the Solaris tools were problematic and stuff like that. +So I vaguely remember bits and pieces about this, but it's really nice to hear and understand these things. +Yeah, and it's good to actually get a refresher as well because a lot of these things that they're in there, +they're in the brain from the distant past, but you kind of have completely forgotten about them. +It was when you mentioned about PAX, actually. +I was like, whoa, that is going back. +I'd completely forgotten about that. +I nearly missed a flight because of this, just by the way. +HPR takes no responsibility if you miss your flight. +There's a joke about unpacking faster somewhere in there. +Oh, yeah, I see that. +The following day, we had Whiskeyjack Simple Podcasting Episode 2 Basic Filtering, which had six comments. +Antoine says Applying Filters, EXP with Declicking Compression. +Worthy content for the use of, for the fun of it. +Actually, as an audacity user, may not use the command line editing, but the underlying concepts are the same. +About de-essing, maybe it's better to apply it to the excerpts one needs or wants to improve. +With the first uses of click removal, I like it so much that I applied it to the entire recording. +The result was almost not audible clicking, but a lot of missing T's in some of the phonoms. +Best is that you don't click the tongue, but if not, then it's de-clickable. +For specific regions. +I don't remember using de-essing you're presenting, but the idea may be the same. +To check the results when applied. +And I shall await the entire series. +But one tool that I would like to listen to is compression. +Let's see whether it's going to be addressed in the shows or not. +Anyway, thanks for sharing. +And Whiskeyjack responded with, +I know absolutely nothing about audio before making my first two HPR episodes. +I learned a little about filtering in order to try to fix audio noise problems. +I noticed in these ones before making the eight-part series which followed. +Most of what I know now has come about from having to address the subject more systematically +while making this four-part series. +There is still a lot I don't know, including how to use audio compression properly. +I have never heard about de-essing until I started making this series. +I found out about it while researching filters. +I am currently making a follow-up episode which concentrates on filtering methods +and what sorts of noise situations each method may be useful in when making a podcast. +So far, it looks like there are pros and cons to different methods depending on situation +rather than there being a panacea which fixes all audio problems. +So far as clicks go, the recording method that I use of making small segments +and then stitching them together rather than speaking fluidly and continuously +seems to inherently need de-essing more because the clicks seem to be most common +when you start speaking from a resting state. +Given the situation, I have some ideas that I may try which address this specifically +rather than using de-essing. +I will add compression to the lists of experiments that I will do. +We'll have to see if I'll come up with any useful results. +I am currently about to go buy a new microphone to create a new category of recording set up +to collect test samples. +Thank you for your feedback. +I got the idea from this project from a comment by an HPR listener on a previous episode. +The third comment is by Vance. +Click removal. +Antoine, thanks for mentioning the click removal capability in Audacity. +While I already knew about its noise removal filter, I wasn't aware it also had click removal. +It might have helped me for HPR 4637, where some of the electromagnetic signal was picked +up by my microphone or recorder, Zoom H2. +The tapping sound was not present in the room where I record it. +While clip removal does seem to distort speech when applied to it, +though to my ears, it doesn't sound as weird as when noise removal is done with speech, +I could have applied the filter only to the pauses, where the tapping is most noticeable. +I will consider doing this in the event that I'm not able to eliminate the source of interference +in the future, which should be the best way to go. +And Whiskeyjack replied to that saying, +I had a look at HPR 4637 episode to see what the clicks were like. +I did experiments to find a technique that would remove these clicks. +The click removal effect in Audacity does nothing useful to deal with this. +The same is true of most number of other common filters that I tried. +The ones which did have an effect on the clicks introduced noticeable distortion in the voices, +which was more of a problem than the clicks. +What does work is the noise gate effect, which is a gate in FFmpeg. +You set a threshold in decibels, and any part of the signal which falls below that level is suppressed to zero. +In other words, quiet parts of the audio are made quieter. +I set the threshold to minus 20 dB, and all the clicks were completely removed without introducing distortion into the voice signal. +In a few spots, short interval initial syllables on a few sentences were also cut out, +but I didn't spend much time adjusting the parameters to get perfect. +I suspect that another solution would be to not apply the effect on those few parts of the audio where it happens. +Would it be all right with you if I used a short five-second clip of your podcast as a noise sample in my own upcoming audio filtering podcast? +This is not a noise problem that I can easily recreate, +and it would make an interesting problem to find a solution to address. +The more I look at things, the more I'm convinced that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for audio problems, +only collections of tools that we can keep in our toolboxes. +And Vance responds, +Thanks for your ideas. +Looking at the old Opus MP3 files on HVR, I see that they have some additional noise during pauses that makes the click removal filter in Audacity less effective. +On the original WAV file, I was able to remove most of the tapping noise by applying that filter to pauses with a threshold value of 50 and a max spike width of 30. +Trying the same values on pauses in the MP3 file was less effective, but did improve things a little bit. +I agree that applying the click filter to the sections where I'm speaking produces undesirable distortion. +It would be possible to manually highlight just the pauses and remove clicks from each one, but that would be tedious. +I considered blanking out those areas, but it would be just as tedious, and I thought it might sound weird for there to be total silence. +However, your suggestion of using FFmpeg's agate filter would eliminate the problem of having to manually highlight the pauses. +I see that it doesn't totally zero out the waveform, just reduces it, so it shouldn't sound weird. +I would be happy to send you WAV or FLAC files to play around with, and you are welcome to use as much of this episode as you like in your own work. +Email me at the address on my host page. +Initial testing seems to indicate that it was likely my mobile phone that caused the problem to begin with. +If that is the case, it's easy enough to get rid of the problem at its source by moving it away from the microphone. +It was in my shirt pocket, or just turning it off. +And Whiskeyjack responds with, +I already have the five-second audio sample that I need from your HPR4637 episode from the MP3 release, +but I thought it would be polite to ask you first before using it as we were already corresponding in these comments. +I have most of the script written for a new HPR episode and will begin recording the dialogue and making the audio samples used to illustrate each point. +I will describe in detail what I did to the sample from your podcast in that episode and show up before and after example. +This new episode is entirely inspired by comments from listeners and your comment describing a click problem provides a very interesting subject for discussion in it. +Thank you for your feedback on this. +Yeah, just adding a wee bit here, the Audacity, that's what I generally use, it doesn't have it by default, +but there are quite a few plugins you can get for DS and D-clickers. +And actually, I discovered that, I can't remember who was it who said it, +was it Whiskeyjack or was it Antorine, saying about a lot of these take out too much. +It's like some of the words, you know, like even words, it'll take this to DS it, +or, you know, something that has a click, especially like a P, a B or a T, will tend to be distorted out. +And it's like, oh, that doesn't sound good at all. +So, unfortunately, although it does tend to be a bit slower, I do just tend to go through podcasts +that I tend to edit and just take out the clicks myself manually. +It is laborious, but I've not actually found a solution that I've been happy with yet to automate it. +But I may try this one that they're talking about. +And if you, dear listener, would like to have friendly, helpful chats with other people in the community, +simply submit a show with some weird audio problem. +Exactly. I was going to say these comments, though, are getting to be a, like we're doing an episode here. +It would be great if Whiskeyjack and Vance could get together on this and talk about it. +And on janitor's note, if you're looking for the source of any of these files, +so it's always nice to ask permission, but Vance has already given permission +that the shows be released under Creative Commons CC by SA license. +So, therefore, you can use any audio on HPR under those terms of that license. +That's number one. +And if you want to get the source files of any of the episodes, +since we started posting source files for episodes, which is the last thousand or so episodes, +you will find them on the Internet Archive. +And right here on my desk, I have six hard drives currently processing +to try and get a lot of this stuff up onto the HPR content distribution network, +community content distribution network as well. +Okay, so the next day we had, oh, HPR Beardgarden 12, Baltic Porter. +Not these guys again. Come on now. We're not having a break from them. +Hananam says, uh, Stodebaker. Again, Stodebaker. Same owl as a sound in Kevi's O. +I remember that episode. It was actually O. +Okay, you read the comment then. +No, I'm standing back from this comment. +No, it's, uh, it was just because it was funny because I remember that +when I was actually prepping the episode. +It's, how do you say this beer? +I said, and then I found out. I was like, really? +Well, I've got a beer called O. +So, Stodebaker. +The same O as Kevi's O. +Right. Once had a Nordic Porter at 9.5% ABV, +which was an Eisbock, Eisbock, +made from the Stark beer, which is strong beer, +at 7.5% ABV, which is at Doppelbock, +or Double Bock, +a strong, often dark German lager, +which might be mentioned in the upcoming episodes about strong lager. +Spoilers here. It wasn't. +Okay. +The multi-Nordic Porter came in 0.5 litre bottles +and had a heavy coffee and espresso notes +and was really the perfect drink for a long, cold winter evening. +However, it's not available anymore, +but they now offer Grand Mariner and whisky cask-matured versions +in 0.33 litre bottles, +which I did not taste yet. +Well, Kananamdar is definitely somebody +who should be joining you guys on the beer garden. +Hey, more the merrier. We're more than happy. +The following day, we had the second Doctor part one. +We start looking at the second Doctor who, +which is Patrick Troughton, is that correct? +Troughton. +Troughton. +Fair enough. +Oh, yes. +This is on my list to watch all these episodes. +I may have to contact you, Kevi, +to see where you got some of the original episodes. +Yeah, no problem. +I'll help you with that. +Yeah, so I actually really enjoyed it. +I have to confess, going back, starting watching it, +all the way from the very start, +I really got to like William Hartnell. +And Ahuka kind of points out the best thing they did +was they didn't try and replace William Hartnell. +Yeah, yeah. +He didn't copy him. +Patrick Troughton made his own Doctor. +And I totally agree. +And that's probably the reason why we're still watching this today. +I did actually like the kind of things he points out. +when it started, who was a combination of historical and futuristic stories. +And sadly, the Highlanders, which appears in this first segment of the Patrick Troughton's era, +was kind of the last, pretty much, of the historical ones. +And this is where we're introduced to Jamie. +Yeah, so, and actually I quite liked what he said about the Underwater Menace. +It's one of those, it's actually that bad, it's good, the story. +I totally agree. +I have, I, I'm watching Deep Space Nine, which is the Star Trek thing at the minute. +And I must say, I liked it a lot more when it was live than I do now. +But the, the idea of, there's one character in there with the trill who keeps coming, +you know, dies and the symbiont gets moved from host to host. +It's a bit like, you know, this Doctor Who thing. +I wonder, did they steal that gratuitously? +I'm not sure about that, but I will say that I'm someone who's grown up on Doctor Who +from a very young age. +So I'm very thankful for these, for this series in particular. +And the following day, we had Android Volume Help, +where operator rants about certification on Android on the internet. +Anyone remember what this one was about? +I think this is the show that talks about Android, +the Android phone deciding that your volume is too loud for the safety of your ears +and automatically turning the volume down. +This was a good episode. +I have some show notes for this, but I haven't added them yet. +I'll add that to my to-do. +Kevin, can you read the comment? +Yes, so this was a comment from Candy Cane Arter 07. +Intended double entendre. +I like the double meaning in the title volume control +in both the literal use and control of the volume of your device. +Like how drives are called device volumes. +I also agree that the progressive looking down is annoying +and it intentionally creates a feedback loop of, +well, people don't understand the systems because it's locked down, +so we need to lock it down more so people don't break anything. +Valid point. +Actually, as a listener of audiobooks, this drives me up the wall. +I, because quite often I'll nip out and do a loop. +I've got my own kind of wee circuit I follow. +So, and I always listen to audiobooks during it, and very often, +I'm about a quarter of the way through, +and my volume just drops way down. +And it's like, why? +I can hardly hear anything. +Turn this back up. +And it says, of course, then you get the, +we feel that you've listened to this long enough, +and it may damage you to hear, so we're reducing the volume. +Ah! +Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. +I vaguely remember this being a thing a few years ago, +but I think I must have found the magic setting, +and even when I get the new Android phone, +I must copy that setting across, +because I do not recall having suffered from this for many years now. +If you ever dig that up, please. +In fact, no, no, record an episode about it, +because that would help so many people. +The following day, +we had another in the HBR New Year show, +and we have, +they must be going somewhere in Ohio, +because there's lots of talking about that. +Manhattan Project, +Black Sheep Squadron TV shows, +and then lots of stuff about +Windows, et cetera, et cetera, +PDP 11. +So, a brief info dump +on broadcast address routing +and IPv4 in general. +This is by John the Nice. +Yeah. +It was from the Reserve Q as well, +unfortunately, +but I would have popped this into the main show, +and it was a very, very good breakdown +of basically basic internet routing. +This one you should have in your back pocket +if you are doing any networking whatsoever. +Meanwhile, +what's that I hear up on the mountains in Switzerland? +Somebody complaining about IPv6? +Sorry, +haven't heard any shows lately about IPv6, +so we're going to stick with IPv4 forever. +I liked how we actually linked a bit +with the source of this show. +So, it was from Community News from January 25, +and that was the inspiration. +So, yes, good. +So, we've talked about plenty on this episode, +so please, you know, +you're getting plenty of source material here. +I mean, all this is gold, is it not? +Nerd sniping is what we do best here. +So, there was no comments on that, +largely probably because it's, +as you get to the end of the month, +there are less comments, +but you feel free to leave comments on episodes, +and I do appreciate the people +who do take the time to do that. +It's great. +It is the currency by which we pay our hosts, +and feel free to do that, +and listen. +At the end of every single RSS feed, +there's a button. +All you need to do is press it. +You're brought straight to the comments section. +The only word you need to type in is +P-U-V-L-I-C at the end of your comment, +and press submit. +It's much appreciated. +It makes our job a lot easier here +when talking about shows as well. +And if anyone understands +what the IPv8 draft that got put out +a few days after April the 1st, +that'd be a good show, +because I still can't tell +if it's a April Fool's Day joke +that was late by a few days, +or if it's a real thing. +And more episodes on IPv6 +will be much appreciated as well, +just like the way Whiskeyjack does it. +Or Yeru. +Take individual things, +explain. +There have been a few episodes +explaining in general, +but now it's kind of go detail about, +I don't know, +something like address naming +as one episode. +Something like subnetting. +Is that a thing anymore? +Why not? +Watts replaces it. +THCP, is that a thing anymore? +Why not? +Watts replacing it. +Lots of little episodes. +Keep it small. +People target it on a particular thing. +Thank you. +Go do that, minions. +Meanwhile. +Absolutely. +Meanwhile, +the cheap yellow display part seven. +GUI trying a simple hello world. +This was Trey, +and the cheap yellow display is, +I've got loads of them. +And I liked, +did you hear, +there were no comments, +or there's one comment on this, +which somebody can read. +Who's going to read that? +Me. +Yes, +it was myself. +Great to hear your success. +I need my own, +I need to work on my own cheap yellow display. +So these cheap yellow displays are basically a small little screen with a, +with an ESP32 or, +you know, +a, +ESP32 behind, +which is like an Arduino, +but with Wi-Fi. +So you can code these things up and you went kind of back. +He has done a whole series on these and the UI one, +I felt was a bit hard to follow, +but now it makes sense what he did because he went back to basics and +started understanding each of the blocks of code and what they do. +And even if you're not interested in the cheap yellow display as such, +I think his way of debugging and reverse engineering stuff was a valuable +lesson to anybody, +to everybody basically. +Oh, +totally. +I thoroughly enjoyed it. +And the fact of the way he went right back. +And it was a good, +actually it's good for the young ones, +especially that, +especially when we've got an age of kind of copy paste, +you know, +it's like he admitted himself that he did, +he had done stuff in the first segment where it was practically him just +following it, +not actually understanding. +So he thought, +right, +let's go right the way back. +Let's see why things didn't work. +Let's more understand rather than just do. +And this is one of the big things I want to encourage anybody, +especially, +I don't mean to pick on the young here, +but just, +I think we're just in an age now where copy paste is just so common that +people do things and, +oh, +that worked for me. +Oh, +well, +I understand it. +Well, +actually, +no, +learn how, +why it worked and how, +what's the things are doing rather than just saying, +do this. +And it's getting more difficult now with chat GPT and the like, +where you just go, +it's so much easier. +Well, +actually what's happened is I think the whole search has gotten so bad. +And I think deliberately. +And the evidence from the Google trials shows that it's intentionally. +So the same thing that brought down Yahoo has brought down Google as like forcing people to be on the site longer because make the search results worse and people are staying on your site longer. +And now it's gotten so bad because they want to encourage people to go to chat GPT and whatever. +And I found myself that using these tools, +you get code that you don't understand. +And then you have instantaneously, +the moment you've written your code, +you have a code debt. +What's that word, +Clinton? +Technical debt. +It's not what they call it. +That's the one. +So all your code is technical debt. +Even, +you know, +when I look at the bash scripts that I've written for HPR in the years, +I can tell what phase I was in my, +in my coding journey because I didn't use functions. +And I, +I used uppercase things and my style changed and you have that technical debt, +like straight off the mark. +It's just, +and I've had to encourage myself to know, +use the man page first. +But on the other hand, +I do use touch GPT a little bit to, +why are you suggesting this? +Why is this? +What are the, +you know, +instead, +for example, +using a printf instead of echo, +why are you using that? +So it is good in a way, +but at the same time, +you shouldn't rely on it, +but it's very tempting. +It's hard to do that, +you know, +when it's late and you're focused on something else and you can just get +chat GPT to, +or somebody else called or whatever, +just to give you the code, +but you're paying for it later, +I guess. +This is a great episode. +I just want to highlight the notes are really good. +And I include the images of the graphical thing that he's working on. +It's a, +it's a really nice, +uh, +fully rounded product. +Yep. +Again, +thoroughly good, +uh, +thoroughly good episode. +And, +uh, +yeah. +Can't overstate how important it is to do good show notes. +Oh, +totally. +Now, +we also had another good episode the next day from another fine episode from Lee for site-specific browsers. +And actually I was quite, +uh, +interested to hear that he had actually learned from the same source I did, +which was the peppermint OS. +Um, +Oh my word. +My mind's just gone blank. +It's the, +the, +the application peppermint OS, +which was the first one, +but I've seen it really well implemented. +And first one I used extensively. +Uh, +yeah. +So we've got, +uh, +one comment there from candy cane. +Ardor. +Electron charged. +On one hand, +I don't really like web apps in general. +They always feel incredibly sluggish and give me a headache. +On the other hand, +it does increase Linux support. +I got used to them first. +I have to confess, +wasn't on the computer. +It was more, +well, +actively using them was when I, +I ran, +uh, +this just shows you how much of, +uh, +uh, +how much I dearly liked a challenge. +Clearly I was desperate to get away from Android. +I ran Firefox OS on the mobile, +uh, +for a year. +And of course it didn't have any apps. +The whole point was no, +no, +everything's just through a browser. +So you got to make your own kind of, +uh, +you stored them, +you gave them your own icon. +And they, +they looked, +they looked unran to be honest, +like, +uh, +right. +Like, +uh, +uh, +individual phone apps, +but they were just site specific browsers. +And I still use them to this day after good face. +Not Firefox or ways. +I just use, +use SS pieces. +Uh, +I think a lot of people are using them on, +um, +Android for, +or on, +uh, +you know, +other ROM version of Android for banking apps. +And that sort of thing. +Yeah. +Yeah. +I was going to say a lot of the banking apps refuse to load up when unknown Googled versions of Android. +The following day we had cable management and PC speakers operator talking about cable management speakers and green screens. +And I have to say the show notes in this are absolutely excellent links images, +the full Monty. +And, +uh, +I really do appreciate the efforts that, +um, +operator took putting the show notes together for this episode. +Really, +really impressive. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Just looking at my table. +Sorry. +Just looking at my table. +I think I could, +probably make use of this episode a lot. +I don't think there's a geek in the world who couldn't just say exactly the same. +I mean, +is there anything nicer than looking at somebody's desk and going, +you know, +all the cables rooted properly, +or even the patch panel, +you know, +everything just cut to length. +And it is a thing of beauty. +I have to, +I have to say good tips here, +by the way, +for, +um, +for, +for keeping the mess together or minimize. +The mess at least. +Yep. +Absolutely. +Absolutely. +So the next day we had, +uh, +Unix Curio number five, +faster pussy cat, +kill, +kill. +So I had no idea what he was talking about there. +So I had to look up the movie. +It looks like, +I wouldn't say it's a B movie. +It's probably closer to like D E F movie. +Well, +I'm glad somebody did. +Cause I kind of just thought, +I don't get the reference, +but I'm not a movie buff. +So I just thought it was just due to my lack of my knowledge, +but it's not even like a mainstream movie. +No, +it could be a cult movie at this stage. +Yeah. +Fair enough. +Fair enough. +So going on about the kill command, +uh, +and we had quite a few, +uh, +comments on this one. +So the first one was by, +uh, +Antoine and kill and kill all nothing to aggregate only to say loving learning about kill. +In my first times of Linux, +maybe a problem of mine. +I had to use it almost daily in the main purpose, +not knowing until now that the command can pause or only return the running status. +I found it magical because the control alterate of, +Windows was not always responsive in times of trouble, +but in Linux, +accessing a terminal to USS kill X or whatever program was always possible. +Thank you Vance for the show. +Comment number two by Candy Carnita. +Killer episode. +I didn't know about kill minus zero. +That's a cool posits way to check if a process is existing or not. +In most of my scripts, +I use the P commands instead of P grip, +P kill, +P wait. +Since usually getting a specific process by PID didn't matter. +And they all supported passing a PID file directly with minus F. +And Vance replies, +uh, +glad you enjoy it. +Hi Antoine. +I'm not sure if this still supported, +but under some window managers, +you can use and press control alt escape and the cursor, +and it'll turn into a large X with skull and crossbones. +You could then click on the window to kill the program that owned it. +Similarly control alt backspace would end the entire X session. +This is no longer common though. +And it might not even be possible under Wayland. +Uh, +I remember there was a time during installation whether, +when you were asked whether you wanted to enable that or not, +but I haven't seen it in a while. +Very useful though. +Uh, +candy can eater says very cool. +Thanks. +Sorry. +No, +Vance says back to candy can eater. +Uh, +very cool. +Thanks. +I used a bunch of kill all. +Uh, +I used kill all a bunch. +I was not aware of P grep, +P kill and P ID weight. +They look to have some neat capabilities. +Maybe you should consider doing an episode on there. +Oh, +you see what you're doing there, +Vance? +Oh, +very good. +Of course, +none of these are POSIX. +So you wouldn't want to use them in the scripts unless you knew the system. +It would be used on how those utilities point. +And candy cane R2R07 responds, +Vance, +the control alt escape key bind is actually calling a binary X kill. +And it's pretty easy to just set a key bind in your desktop environment to call it. +On my system, +it's bound to shift alt X since it is really easy to hit with only the left hand. +Also, +I figured those weren't POSIX, +but they were still useful for day to day. +Terminalizing and little personal scripts. +So on the 29th, +we had nuclear power technology follow-up. +And this was where Whiskeyjack basically answers quite a lot of the episodes that were, +or a lot of the questions that were asked. +One thing I was wanting to point out here, +some people, +you didn't want to go into the second question, +which was nuclear power plant safety compared to conventional plants, +because it's politically controversial and not a good topic for HBR. +Yes, +it is. +It's a good topic for HBR. +But he has said throughout the series, +to be fair to him, +he's going to keep politics completely out of the series. +Yeah. +So that's probably why. +Maybe not so much the fact that it's not good for HBR. +I think he just said from the start, +he was wanting to stay politically neutral. +Yeah. +But, +okay. +Even if it's something that I don't agree with, +I don't see why it can't be discussed. +Do you know what I mean? +Oh, +no, +I would agree. +We should be discussing things. +But I think he just said from the start, +because of the very polarizing nature of nuclear power, +he was going to keep out of politics. +So that's, +it's up to him at the end of the day. +I'm not going to say it in full. +It's up to him. +I get it. +But I don't want people having the feeling that you cannot discuss political +topics here on HBR. +Be aware. +Do it in a respectful manner, +supported by evidence, +independent, +blah, +blah, +scientific method, +et cetera, +et cetera. +But, +and be aware, +yes, +that, +you know, +there are pros and cons of everything and that you, +you can, +you can address politically sensitive topics here on HBR. +So long as you're sensitive to the other people's point of view and +ideally have the, +somebody with another point of view come on and help you out. +Like, +I don't want people thinking that you can't do that in HBR. +In fact, +the whole, +the whole point when HBR as a project was announced, +was first put out on Radio Freak America to have it, +it was entirely based on political. +It was supposed to be nothing but political discussions. +So there you go. +And I would just like to thank Whiskey Jack for this series and also for +answering my questions in this final, +final Q and A show. +Yeah, +it was a thoroughly good series. +Now, +guys, +we're, +sorry, +I have to say, +absolutely brilliant. +Thank you very much. +I was just wanting to say guys, +it's disappointing guys and gals out there. +We end the month with another one from the reserve queue. +Not that the show was disappointing, +just the fact that you're hearing that message when it starts. +But so Lee went on to do a very thorough, +what I did at work today. +I love these. +Part two. +I love these. +I love these. +I love these. +Cause you just sitting there and he's working his way through it. +And it's basically, +I love these, +except that in work, +if somebody was doing this, +I would be hitting them with a rubber chicken. +Just shut up. +Lee, +shut up. +But then I'm trying to concentrate on my own stuff. +I'm not in this, +but it is, +it's like that buddy programming concept, +except you're doing it with a hundred and 50,000 people who, +who subscribe to HBR. +Yeah, +no, +it was really good. +Like I said, +very thorough. +And yeah. +So if you want to go and hear what, +if you haven't listened to it, +I highly recommend going to hear and listen to this. +Leave yourself 45 odd minutes. +Cause it was quite a long show. +But yeah, +brilliant. +And he has such a nice, +calm internal monologue. +And it's like when I'm programming, +my internal monologue is no, +nothing like this at all. +You need to maybe do a show. +How you, +how you. +It'll just be beep, +beep, +beep, +beep. +And that was the last of the episodes for this month. +So what we do now at this point is we go back to the show notes for today's episode. +We haven't had a lot of star Wars references in the hero, +but there you go. +We did our best. +It's hard enough to do the show without adding comments to it. +So, +um, +HPR 4424, +how I use new, +um, +newsboard podcast and Reddit by Archer 72. +Um, +I posted the summary of findings and now I'll be very careful here because this is the first month that I'm using the, +uh, +comment checker. +And yes, +the summary of the findings is on HPR generator issues. +This is on the Git T repo, +uh, +three, +two, +one. +And, +um, +um, +um, +there is an issue with relation to, +uh, +how HPR shows in general are saved. +And this, +this program was about newsboard and it was saving HPR episodes with the PHP, +uh, +script name rather than the file name of the thing. +And it's a kind of difficult one to fix. +So, +but it was an interesting one. +And, +uh, +I even had some of the more technical guys and work, +uh, +talking to me about that. +And the link to my findings is in the show notes, +uh, +which is, +uh, +I think you just had a small drop out there. +Yeah. +So, +uh, +the solution is the content disposition header, +uh, +in use on the CCDN. +PHP did that work because time still supported. +It's just been added to curl. +I think we discussed this last month and I put in this comment, +uh, +just as a reminder. +Um, +and that essentially the reasons why we do it the way we do. +The only, +the only way we can do it, +um, +we can fix this properly is by having more, +uh, +taking the archive.org out of the community content distribution +that are continue to use this, +continue to support it, +but that we ourselves would host our own stuff. +Um, +unfortunately I have lost one of the, +um, +I, +I thought I had another hosting platform, +but, +uh, +turns out I don't, +um, +another one I need to bring up. +Uh, +so, +uh, +I will only have two currently that can support the volume of files that we have, +which is about four terabytes of files. +Um, +so if you've got a fiber network or if you've got a high speed network, +just coming into your house or data center or somewhere that you can have a four terabyte +or more disk drive attached to it and can serve out files, +that would be absolutely excellent. +The actual amount of file traffic isn't that high and it's nicely spread out over the day. +There's no major peaks. +So, +um, +it works out kind of cool. +So a bit of a rant there. +Don't know if that's helped. +Was it a rant or it was just a waffle? +No, +I wouldn't say it was a rant. +No, +not by your standards, +certainly. +Thanks. +So there was a one other comment on that episode, +which I'll read up by Ahmed L. +Mahmoudou. +And if I'm not pronouncing that right, +the only possible way that you can get me to pronounce it any better is if you come on and do an episode. +Now you commented so much on this that I think it's about time. +I think we're taking an executive decision. +Hands up everybody who thinks Ahmed should do a show. +Me, +me, +me. +Yeah. +So do a show please. +Thank you. +Anyway, +they're right. +The issue with news boat is not forgotten. +I'm working on a macro to inqueue download and rename them to the corrected file name. +For example, +hbr4580 colon thefirstdoctorpart4.org. +P.S. +How did you find hbr or get into tech as a subject that would definitely like to hear about it? +So this is a comment from Archer72 to Ahmed. +And we also had a comment on episode 4569 kiosk with guest mode on Linux by Klatu. +And the comment is by 0xf10e. +And the comment is by 0xf10e. +Great episode. +Great episode. +A nice example of using and adjusting free software in a public setting like, well, a library. +By the way, an example for public money, public code I tend to use is creating a platform for libraries to catalog and manage their books. +So what about copying a pre-configured browser profile into a library guest for some adjustments? +And clearly not overthinking. +What about having swap encrypted with a new throwaway key every time? +I'm sure there is an option for this. +At comment number one, temp is the only other place I could think of, too, where a user's files could end up and maybe run find slash temp slash user library guest exec rmrf. +Oh, I'm not going into this symbol. +So have a look at the comment before logging and at logout. +And cleanup of library guest even on a RAM disk setup just in case. +Reply to comment number three, SMB most probably can be mounted at login via PAM like an encrypted home directory in a bigger setup with a bunch of underpowered thin clients. +You could even mount RAM disks from the one box without soldered on RAM. +And replying to comment number four, ORC clone view looks great. +Any special permissions group memberships a user would need. +All right. +Oops, sorry. +Go ahead. +Go ahead. +We've got one new comment on episode 4585 responding to MPV fan club by Candy Cane Eater. +If you do want to hook into MPV with external bash scripts, you can set up a socket with dash dash input IPC server and pipe command line input or output through that. +Unfortunately, it doesn't really work as well with multiple MPV windows, but it is great if you only plan to have one window open at once. +Okay. +Something went wrong there with a link to that because the comments that he posted was, I've just sent myself a note, which is what I was doing there. +He said, perpetually update the script. +I set up a small GitHub repository so I don't have to keep writing comments here when it's changed. +And he has a link to git.sr.ht under his home directory link in the comment for this. +And I'll put that into the actual show notes for that episode. +And just a reminder, if you want your show notes edited like that, just email the admins and we'll add a link. +It's not that big a deal to do. +And we're structurally thinking about a way to allow people to do pull requests and that sort of thing. +If that is something people are interested in, get in touch. +Now, going back to the comment, we had a comment by adding voice over audio track text to speech on subtitle movies, which was by Windigo. +Great usability win. +He says, after my wife and I started enabling subtitles a couple of years back, I found it hard to watch media without them. +I love the concept you outlined here. +I know some people have difficulty reading subtitles, so being able to add audio option is a great tool in the toolbox. +Smiley face. +Thank you, Windigo. +You have no idea how much that cheered you up to here. +And we also had a comment on HPR 4600 with the First Doctor Part 5, Vahooka, where, oh, he actually comments himself. +And this is, maybe I will. +My intention was only to cover the classic series, stories of Doctor Who, but I suppose there's no reason I couldn't cover the renewed series as well. +I've certainly seen them all. +And this was in relation to a comment by Archer72 requesting that he do the later ones as well. +And you, I think. +Yes. +I just said, keep them coming, keep them coming. +Absolutely. +Now I realize I have a bug in the script, so I'm kind of a bit distracted. +On eroding freedom in open source software, which was an episode from March by Hopper MCS, Troller Coaster says Hopper did some time travel. +And, oh, my, OMFG. +Oh, yeah, the F, normally it's OMG. +Anyway, Hopper went time traveling to steal my idea and actually says the opposite to what he suggested when interviewing me on this topic. +I'm confident that he vibe coded a time traveling machine after interviewing just to steal my thunder. +Go have a look at episode 4616, where we sing the love song of the merits of age verification and how to further extend it and make the world a better place. +And here he's all against it. +Oh, my God, again, Troller Coaster, to avoid misunderstanding, OMFG means offer my finest greetings. +Oh, well, that's good to know. +That sounds a bit like a kind of kid's response to a teacher. +No, no, I mean something totally different. +Let's see. +Okay, then we have, sorry, I'm doing these because I just want to 100% confirm that what's going on. +We have Lee says quotation. +This is in relation to Lee Lux down as Waikuku. +Quotation here, Paul. +So Paul had asked to share the poem that Elizabeth read out. +And the link to the Internet Archive, do not confuse duty with what other people expect of. +And Paul J said, thanks, many thanks for the link to the passage. +So that's nice. +And the final one is Troller Coaster, my nerdy childhood from floppy disk to dial up dreams by Troller Coaster. +Troller Coaster said, damn you, my nerdy nostalgia. +Now you made me listen to a decade-old episode of HBR, what nostalgia over nostalgia. +So nostalgia squared. +For sure you can't be negative unless it's complex nostalgia. +And this was because Claudio M. had done his episode in 1541. +There you go. +So that's that for the comments. +So let's mosey on to the mail list, shall we? +Yep. +And you're not getting a break because you're kicking off the mailing list. +That's for sure. +And hi, all. +Oh, no, we covered this last month, which was basically changes to the way it's been recorded. +And we also covered it at the beginning of this episode. +Changing your approach to, let's see, did we cover everything? +So we're doing this as a one-to-one. +How you expect it to behave is on here. +That's more or less our not code of conduct thing. +HBR has gone from Wikipedia and recent policy changes. +Yeah, yeah, we covered all of those. +Right. +So do we want to start from the one Monday, April 27th show? +Yep, please. +Okay. +So this is by Vance Cochin-Derfer. +Oh, I've butchered that. +Vance. +Yeah, just Vance. +We'll hear it, Vance. +According to the calendar, there is not yet an episode scheduled for tomorrow, +and there are fewer than 12 hours until tomorrow arrives. +That was back when it was written, obviously. +I emailed the janitors 24 hours ago to check in, but I've not heard anything back. +Does anyone know if there is a problem? +I'm relatively new, but in the past three months or so, +it seems like open slots will be filled from the reserve queue at least a few days in advance. +So this situation appears unusual. +To which I replied, all is good. +And yes, I'm looking for somebody to put in the reference to the movie for that. +And I would be very impressed if you get it. +All is good. +All is good. +And he responded with, great to hear. +Sorry if I was overreacting. +To which I replied, no, definitely no need to worry. +Any rumours that I was out in the garden and completely forgotten was just fake news. +And I want to thank Vance for doing that reminder because I had a week's vacation +and I completely forgot to post the shows. +So I ran in and did them. +And of course, there was a whole mix-up and cutting post shows. +The thing about posting now from the archive, because we're doing it quite a bit, +is that you need to be very careful if you're putting in a reserve show, +for people putting in reserve shows. +Because a year can have passed between you putting them in and them coming out. +So I need to contact you, for example, if there's had a situation where there's an episode +with some copyrighted music in there. +And in this instance, the copyrighted music was, yeah, it was an honest, well, +it was an honest mistake in that it was classical music. +But you can't, even though the classical music that the orchestra is playing +is out of copyright, there is still copyright on the performance of them playing. +So it's still a copyrighted infringement. +So in that case, the host has to re-edit the show. +And I can't be waiting around for that because, obviously, we have to post the show. +So that chill comes out of the queue and has to be reposted back into the reserve queue. +So you're waiting another year. +So be very careful about your show notes. +Also, I see Lee has put in some part one, part two, has a series in the reserve queue. +So that's kind of dangerous because if anything happens to those episodes that they're wrong, +they're going to get put out of order. +So don't put in series into the shows that depend on each other into the reserve queue. +Do you know what I mean? +You can put in a series, but don't have them dependent on each other, +on the order of which they come in. +Clear or not? +Yep, totally clear. +Okay. +Did we have anything else? +No. +Community news? +Oh, yeah. +There was any topics that you want to talk about. +So then I have the time and days. +How did you like the new requesting for volunteers, Clinton? +Did that – what about that spurred you into action? +I think it was actually the request on the chat channel more than the email, I think. +Okay. +God, hey, I'll just join. +Why not? +And I think I had put my hand up before, but the time zone thing just didn't work out for the previous time zones as well, I think. +Okay. +So that works good. +How does Saturday morning suit you, Kevin, just in general? +Well, to be honest, although I complained about how early it was, I think in an ideal world, I would like maybe to shift it back an hour if possible. +Earlier, yeah. +Just because Saturday late morning does tend to be a bit of a busier day for me. +It wasn't today because I had Friday off, so I did everything due for Saturday morning on Friday morning. +Yeah, we'll see how it goes. +It's nice to have different people in there, and, you know, there might come a happy day where I don't need to be honest. +So that would be – as in next month. +Yes, but like you say, I'm more than happy to have extra people on here, especially for times like last month where neither of us could arrange a time where we're both free. +Exactly. +And next month I have on the normal recording day, so that entire weekend I'm away and won't be able to participate. +So either we do it earlier or somebody else does it instead. +So when you say next month, you mean the next episode? +Yep. +All right. +Well, that's actually maybe working quite well because I'm available definitely for the May one, but I am definitely not going to be available for the end of June, beginning of July one. +I am abroad at that time. +Super duper. +Oh, yeah. +And there were suggestions. +So there was a suggestion. +So as part of this community news thing, if you do have announcements or anything that you want to bring to the community's attention, this is, you know, not a bad place to do it, I reckon. +And we had a request from Trey that B-Sides Knoxville, USA, Tennessee is going to be on on the 22nd of May, 2026. +So on the 22nd of May, 2026, B-Sides Knoxville, Tennessee. +So great opportunity if there are HBR folks in the area. +Also, no harm to go there. +If you're going there in general, go there. +But also if you wanted to record some hallway tracks, that is what we do. +So that came in from Trey. +There was a request from Archer72 about something, which I cannot find now. +Oh, yeah. +Favorite Rust application would be a good topic since it has been accepted into the kernel as far as I know. +So there you go. +Those are your any other businesses. +Can I add one that I forgot to email? +Sure. +We've got a virtual podcrawl coming up on the 13th of June. +13th of June, folks. +13th of June, yep. +So that will be from 6 p.m. UK time, British summer time, until whenever. +And it'll be on the Telegram channel. +But, however, we can actually move to Jitsi if there's a lot of people kind of saying that they'd like to come but don't want to install Telegram. +That's totally fine. +We can use a Jitsi server as well. +Super duper. +Clinton, did you have anything for us? +No. +I feel that if I had anything interesting to do, I would not be at home on a Saturday evening. +Very good. +Very good. +Well, folks, that's it. +Tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio. +Yo. +Thank you. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye-bye. +Bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4632.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4632.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bca8b27 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4632.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1332 @@ +Episode: 4632 +Title: Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 6 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4632/hpr4632.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:34 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4632, for 2026-05-05 +Today's show is entitled, "Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 6" +The host is Honkeymagoo and the duration is 01:45:34 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "the hpr community comes together to converse" +Hopefully, I'll feel it in my toes here in a minute. +What's the temp? +Like 40 something. +Nah, not repeater. +I will tap it here. +45. +45? +Is that bad? +I keep my place at a toasty, 60 degrees. +TOOL! +I don't like shit. +Joe's been at the truce here, I'm again. +That's what this is working here now. +It's not. +And that might not wrong. +I may or may not be slightly sawst, slightly sawst. +I remember, not much lately. +I may still have my bottle of collour that, well, my dad replaced, but after drinking the one that I +had for this, I got through many nasty days by looking at that bottle and saying, +bad enough to open the bottle yet. +And I would say no, and then I would, you know, keep on trucking. +Yeah. +So sometimes a bottle you don't open can be. +It's helpful is one more helpful than one you do. +Not that I have anything against somebody who drinks reasonably or +or never to get that ordinarily reasonably. +I was happy to get that bottle screwball off the shelf. +I only had, like I said, about four shots in it. +Three, maybe four shots in it. +And I'm just kind of Chevy Vega for sale. +And you don't need a room to pick it up. +I didn't tear your ears. +Pfft. +Who fuel line? +Probably a new pump, maybe a new gas tank, and definitely the interior, +we've done. +Then it needs probably that I, six yanked out in a 350 +tossed in there. +What is on it for 15 grand? +No, 2000. +Oh, there you go. +That's a classic of sword. +So maybe that's not. +Well, it doesn't run right now. +They can put you were able to pour gas into the carburetor and have it start, +which means it probably needs a new fuel line and fuel pump, +maybe a new fuel tank. +And the paint job is not terrible. +But the interior does need to be done. +And I would want to pull out the looks to be an inline six out of it and put +it in there because it's got that giant front end and you might as well. +There. +That's there. +What? +Why wouldn't you just swap it for a 300? +I just want to put it for a car that works. +Because a 350 is a really cheap engine to find and really easy to rebuild. +Okay, I just have heard a lot about the magic capabilities with the straight six, +300 or 302. +The 302 is nice, but I'd still rather have a 350. +Well, maybe it's still working engine. +We may be talking about it two different 302s. +There's a 302 straight six, which is supposed to be +a hidden gem and there's a 300, which is also supposed to be a hidden gem that was sabotaged +because it was producing better power than some V8s. +Yeah, but I can turn a 360 into a 383. +Well, happy new year. +For me. +For me. +Happy new year. +Oh, I got to tell you. +Tell you, my day, I have to go. +New year's yesterday is the wife. +Yes, he does. +Good evening, guys. +Come on. +But you're not not a whole lot. +I'm a lot less than I was last year. +Well, I'm good. +Yeah, I've lost about 180 pounds and just a few minutes ago, +signed up for my first half marathon. +Very nice. +Well, I haven't been weighed in a long time. +I should probably invest in a scale, but +congratulations. +Yes, and I actually do have an episode. +Well, I'm going to rerecord it. +For a hack or public radio on how I did it, +how I lost the weight, things of that nature, +the things that I've done in the last year. +There's these events that happen around the United States, +called the Mammoth March, which are 20 mile hikes to be completed +in eight hours or less, and I completed three of them last year. +ran two, five k's and a 10 k. +And started rucking in the last here and a half or so. +Now, caring 45 pound weight when I do my rucks. +Nice. +Happy New Year from the central time zone. +Happy New Year. +Happy New Year. +I didn't even notice. +And my neighbor for blowing that back yard up. +So go ahead. +Have you noticed any difference when I came to your +apnea, since you've lost all the weight? +Actually, yes. +Just, well, see, I did the first in 2024. +I did my first attempt at the Mammoth March. +And I had to drop out of my 11 because I got crap for rest, +mostly because my pressure was set way, way too high. +And I was getting a lot of air of phasia and stuff. +Basically, the air was blowing right into my stomach and would +I'd wake up in a lot of pain and then let out a belching go back to sleep. +It went from severe OSA to mild OSA. +I had teeth in the back of my mouth. +I could probably wear a oral appliance and not have to have +seat pepper at all. +But because I don't have any teeth back there because +my teeth are crap, I still have to sleep with the machine. +But now I can drop down from a bipap to a regular seat +pat machine and I'm blessed to hear about a travel seat +pat and that can be run off of the battery. +So when I go camping and stuff, I can use that instead. +And the battery will run that for me, probably a couple of days. +That's pretty good. +Yeah, totally is. +And I feel so much better. +And my heaviest was 381 and a New Year's Eve when I weighed in +was 204. +Nice. +My goal weight is 170 and I intend to hit that this year. +Nice. +33 pounds away and I'm registered for +Well, the Columbus Half-Marathon in October. +And 120 mile a mammoth march hike in August. +And my first 30 mile mammoth march hike in South Carolina May 9. +So I love it. +Hiking is my favorite thing to do. +Nice. +And now I need to work on getting that ECHPR episode. +I had it recorded. +Never uploaded it. +I just need to re-record it because it's been a minute. +Since I recorded that recording, it's just a kind of chronicle. +My journey and the things I used. +I was actually going to try and present at OLF. +But they had such a limited space for presentations this year. +They just didn't accept mine because it wasn't hardcore. +You're Linux. +Oh, but source material, you know. +Orangey, how's L doing? +Did you ask how L was doing? +Yes, I did. +I think she's asleep now. +Good. +Uh, midnight. +We said happy New Year's, but I don't think anything. +I think I did. +Right. +Yeah, I've got my ears too. +I've got my ears too and for a beautiful women, you know. +They're so few of them around on. +Especially on these channels. +Of course. +We did watch Space Balls the other night. +Are you a recommendation? +Yeah. +You never seen it before. +Oh, she has them. +Uh, okay. +I keep trying to get her to watch Labyrinth with me, but she keeps falling asleep five minutes. +See, that was me. +I didn't even flip the TV over and watch the ball drop in New York. +I just looked at my computer's clock and I said, oh, it's after midnight. +Yeah, happy New Year. +Oh, wait. +Columbus half marathon was a tickets were on sale. +Cutting got cut done. +I just hope the weather wasn't at all like it was this past October during the +marathon. +Like, because they run it, I think at the same time as the full marathon. +And it was a miserable day for that. +It was it was rainy the whole freaking time. +And I'm like, I don't need that. +But I committed to it. +Now I'm training to it. +It's Joel's. +What do you see more density? +I said it's your favorite. +But running to my favorite, I don't know about that yet, but it's getting to be. +No, no, what photos your favorite? +Oh, I'm going it off in the in the in the jutsi. +Myel, I'm drinking a cherry, +ale eight zero sugar. +Which one do you have there? +I don't like my head. +Okay, one. +A late one. +Yes, sir. +This Joel hasn't had a drink in over 10 years. +A real alcohol like drink. +Damn, man, that's impressive. +My dad was an alcoholic, so I know. +But I know that that's not a small tiger you were bucking. +Yeah, well, I actually have a history of alcoholism in my family. +My grandfather was a closet alcoholic until he put himself in a coma when he fell down stairs +and hit his head against this steel support structure for the house he was living in at the time. +So he was in a coma for a month or two after that. +And, you know, of course, at the ER, they ran blood alcohol and discovered he was three sheets to the wind. +Unfortunately, my, my dad went from a beer drinker to a terminal chronic alcoholic over, you know, +30, 40 years from the 50s to 90s. +And the man that I saw a little over a year before he died was, was really a fraction. +It was Labor Day and he was wearing winter wool hunting clothes that hadn't been changed and +God only knows and he couldn't get through three days without drinking a beer or inhaling a beer. +Not only that, the cabin that he had was a mess and when we were kids, he would sweep that +better than only and so you could, you could eat your blood trough of it. +Yeah, I'm glad I kicked that to the curb. +I think the last time I was drunk it was when Dan got me drunk it at OLS. +On a really good beer, but yeah, I don't miss it at all. +Well, I used to have a beer or two a year. +One of the things that happened when I was going to +to a Boston Linux lug cast lug over there at MIT, +couple of blocks away there was a brew pub and that was back before I was taken the +medications that I'm taking now. And I noticed having not drunk anything, +drinking some real good. I mean, this was regular beer, not light beer, but it was a regular +beer and it was a good quality light beer. I mean, light-colored beer, you know, it wasn't dark stuff. +My first drink of that after not drinking for a good long time, it had quite a kick when my +system wasn't used to it. I tried to log in the jitzie, but, oh well, it's not working for me. +It's not the link on the HBRI website. That one doesn't work. +So you just take the NYE off of that. So it's jitzie.minix.dev slash HPR. It's not HBRI. +Before I do that, let me go grab a t-shirt. +No one wants to see that. +Martin, there were some things should be reserved for people with a better figure. +We're going to get it all the way. I'm just saying if you want to take that t-shirt off, +there's another room for that. No, it just means we need to just start to sag something up so +let's get some of some. +I got to tell you it was interesting when I ran across a tidal lady's singing +one night in Bangkok. That's what that was kind of interest. +All right, now I'd be sitting two nights in Bangkok and I can confirm every line that guy said. +Well back along, we had a veteran. We'll do it now more and I'm sure he would vote with you. +Oh, so we have a g-man here. +Well, if I can get the camera to work, I'm actually using I got a bunch of running on my surface +probably six and I'm not sure if the camera works on this or not. +Well, I don't stress my machine with with video at least video up upstream. +Martin, see you. Once I wake up, just sometime this weekend, I hope to get to get a desktop on one of +the little bricks you sent me. +I had an XFCD run in that not one of the ones I still have for a little bit before taking it off. +Yeah, well, I have that and I have a +1680 by 1050 screen that is looking for a good home. Although I may +since it's going to be a single screen, I may try the Trinity desktop on it. +All right, I think I'm going to call it a night. +Oh, feeding. +Good night, honky. +Good night, honky. God bless you and your family. +You too, thank you. +Um, and if I don't talk to you guys tomorrow, I will talk to you guys, Friday. +Remember to watch late and say, oh, yeah, I forgot about the going to be. +I thought I've already seen it. I just watched the trailer earlier and I haven't. +Is that going to be a long to be? +Check this show notes. +I think Joe is a damn thorough kisser. +I say. +Good for him. +He's got his priority straight straight drunkers over. +I would have been back like 20 minutes ago. +Let's move it like, let's see, try to look before, nope. +All right. +All right. +Bad sleep. +All right, talk to you guys later. +Gorgon, good talking to you. +Same. +Try trying to get the camera work him, but it just not working. +No. +Yeah, it like a fire, like the browser. +It's been, uh, what see, relaunched update, are you kidding me? +I see, let me run some updates in here and see if that's it. +Yeah, because I fire up cheese and the camera comes right up. +And it's just, it's not even prompting me for for permissions on the +Bronnea browser. +See, my skinny hacker looking face to the haven't shaved yet today. +Or shower since this morning. +Oh, it's a good night, Joe. +Happy new year. See you all later. +Good night, too. +Good night. +Good night to anyone who's leaving. +Lovecraft, are you up? +Yeah, folks. +It's been fun. +I need to get off. +And hopefully, uh, go get some rest, uh, I got a wreck in the morning. +And not a clock. +So talk to you guys later. +Yeah, it's been, thanks for stopping by. +It's really been a good night. +Yes, I agree. +Hey, guys, are you still awake? +I'm still awake. +Good. +Well, happy new year. +Happy new year. +I'm almost done watching Altered. +Oh, yes. +It looks like I may be one of the last men standing or +we're sitting or watching from bed anyway. +There you go. +What do you think of Altered? +One, see. +Cheesey, uh, not as terrible as some of the movies we've watched. +Okay. +I'd say tech related. +Oh, okay. +I think I think it could be on our list. +If I had Marty watched it, uh, I'm not to the end yet. +But, uh, well, if you haven't completed watching it, +yeah, I think you can still add it, right? +You should be able to add it for all those people who haven't seen it, +or haven't seen it recently. +You is. +Joe, Joe was talking about it earlier, I think. +Oh, wasn't you? +Oh, no, no, it wasn't, it wasn't me. +I remember looking, you know, I thought always, +I thought always Joe was talking about it, +but it definitely wasn't me. +I haven't seen it. +I would give it so far. +I would give it higher than the three points that has on. +Yeah, I just pulled it up again. +And I'm like, yeah, three point six on IMDB. +That sounds not great. +18% all right, and tomatoes. +Oh, fine, great. +Distopion, the corrupt government underdog story. +Okay, I see a guy with a big fur jacket and a gold chain. +That looks interesting. +In the trailer, it's in the still photos on IMDB. +Oh, I see that. +Get it? +That's the main character. +Oh, it's got some unflattering reviews too. +If IMDB allowed zero stars, this movie would have earned it proudly. +Calling it a quote-unquote film feels generous. +But movie altered. +Altered. +Somebody clearly did not watch a crack. +Clearly. +That's a single masterpiece. +I watched Altered. +Like I said, it started out strong and just kind of flopped. +Okay, so, so I haven't done it with that part yet. +Brace yourself. +Embrace the flower power or anything. +And the twist and embrace the flower power and the twist. +Daddy! +That sounds like I got the camera on. +Show you my 3D print. +Switch, I was talking about the 2.5G switch. +He'll HD port right out of black filament or the halfway through. +So, I had to switch to purple. +But it works and it's held in pretty solid. +So are you watching it like right now? +Yeah. +How do you feel about Draco? +Which one is Draco? +Draco Malfoy. +What's that who that is? +Yeah. +That's funny. +And no, he was in rise of the... +Hey guys, I think I'm gonna turn in for the night. +I hope everyone is happy new year. +Hi, lovecraft. +Happy new year. +Talk to you on Friday. +Oh yeah. +Yeah, I just gotta watch the movie. +But yeah, I should definitely be having me there Friday. +I haven't watched most of you have either either. +Lovecraft. +I have to take my head off to you for hanging around with us instead of +snuggling down elsewhere. +Yeah, I think she's asleep. +But thank you, Annette. +I'll catch up with you on Friday. +Yeah, so it's gone on. +Everyone have a great 2026. +One, two, one, two, one, two. +Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. +I'm here in the frosty old Jacksonville floor. +Oh, where it's 33 degrees and I'm about to go for a walk. +And good morning to you. +What time of the day is it there? +It is 510 AM and 1718-1920. +Lovely. +It is a 10 past 11. +So a more sane time to be brutally honest with you. +Yeah, I know. +I get a way too early to walk. +But I've been doing it for like 30 years. +So go do that thing. +Be all you can be. +Exactly. +Exactly. +I'm not going to leave for another 40 minutes or something. +Well, let's see, 10 minutes. +No, yeah, about 40 minutes. +How was, say, were you on the show a lot? +Early on, early on. +I actually passed out before and earlier. +I mean, not like I was drinking anything because I wasn't +but it's a lot like I'm not doing it. +This is where my neighbors are up screaming to. +We were planning on celebrating when it comes into India, which is +I'll happy four and a half hours earlier and go to bed early. +But ended up having to, you know, the kids was the first time +the kids were all the way and had to talk to them and phone calls and stuff. +So we ended up in a longer than we were normally. +But we were just light a bed with the windows open looking at the fireworks outside. +And I was just kind of like listening to them after a while. +I mean, I have these big windows in my bedroom. +So I got to see the flashes, but I was like, +ah, just turn away to the wall. +Mm-hmm. +I was just thinking I was getting drunk here in my old age. +Yep, 10 years. +It was the last year of fireworks in the Netherlands. +So everybody had gone out and bought extra fireworks. +And the fireworks shops were trying to get rid of all their stock as well. +So it was super massive everybody. +I mean, normally everybody has fireworks, but it was just not this year. +And fireworks, especially here in the south and the U.S. +They're everywhere. +They set up tents, everything has fireworks here. +Grown up in Ireland, it was considered to be bomb making material. +So it was never any fireworks. +The only only fireworks you'd see is, you know, organized by the city or something. +And yeah, they had really nice ones, actually, where you know, +over a lifting goal away for a while. +And they had it on the bay, and you could tune into the radio. +And they broadcast the music to go with the fireworks all around the bay. +They had it in the center. +So it's like hundreds of, I don't know, +so maybe a hundred kilometers around. +You could see the fireworks and listen to those also. +Yeah, I much prefer the organized ones. +Especially, you know, I mean, I'm going to read stories today about people's houses +catching and fires and things now. +Yeah, the fondle curtain Amsterdam has just been burned down. +Fireworks, apparently fireworks in the roof. +They don't know yet, but it's completely 150 year old church just disappeared. +That's messed up. +But yeah, I mean, I don't know. +They just think, I think, moving from the York, well, +needing your California to hear, I won't show up before you're too. +But most places I've lived, previous to the south, +do not dispense fireworks. +I mean, you can get sparklers and stuff and you get little poppreeging +throughout against the ground. +Only here in the south, below the Mason Dixon line, +can you just easily get fireworks? +Yeah, it's a thing. +It's a thing. +When I kept here at first, I was absolutely, I just could make it over +the first new years on an apartment in the middle of your trip +on the 13th floor, and it was just awesome to see. +But also the side-effected out was where they exploded. +It was right next to your window. +So you'd be standing there and you hear, like, +bits of whatever it is just happening against the windows of the house of the flat. +That's kind of messed up. +Yeah, and they're close here, and they actually have restrictions. +I'm going to deed it property. +I mean, I own my own little tiny plot of it, +but you're not supposed to set off fireworks. +But then again, security leaves at 10, so they don't really care after that. +What's a deed? +It's basically condos. +So, like, I have my own condo wall to townhouse. +It's attached to five other townhouses. +So, very similar to buildings in the Netherlands, +if I recall from my time at the ones, +but close together buildings that look like +they're stuck together, and they are here. +But, you know, so, so you get to know your neighbor's really well. +Yep. +If you're, if you're open-right, that's sort of a four-in-a-rel. +Cool. +I have today off, which is awesome. +So, I think, oh, just stay on chatting, +to whoever happens to be here. +Now, I have a, let's say, of the surprise birthday party we've got to do, +and then I've got to meet friends around six, so it's five and 16 now. +I'll leave here about quarter of, so about half hour from now. +And, um, quarter of, does that mean colder post or colder two? +Uh, quarter of this quarter, too. +Yeah, I'm sorry. +I mean, that's a quarter of, is, is quarter two. +And colder post is, uh, that's, uh, +quarter past is, uh, 15 minutes after the hour. +It is the expression colder post, and so, +colder of and colder post. +Yeah, and it's, so it's, for me, I've always known, +is, uh, in a quarter hour, a quarter past, or, you know, +right, interesting. +The colder two, colder post. +Yep. +Cool. +I'm sure it was beaten to me as a kid somewhere along the way. +And again, kids can't even read face clocks anymore, +so I don't even know, like, oh, I'll meet you at so-and-so. +And I'm pointing the clock, and I'm like, what do you plan, +like, do you not know how to read the clock? +Yeah, yeah, I've seen that post, uh, yeah. +I mean, granted it was beaten into us the early age, +so we kind of knew how to do it. +But, you know, okay, nice to hear your voice again. +Oh, I don't think a lot of people, uh, +a lot of people would, uh, agree with that. +Happy new year. +Thank you, sir. +Always a pleasure, and I thank you for +providing a place for us together. +Love you so mostly, this is, uh, mostly this is, uh, um, +that Linux lowcast folks who do this. +I just take all the glory. +Well, for me, the holidays have not had a good track record, +so this, a special new year, uh, helps +do with a lot of old ones. +Very good, very good. +Trying to figure out, uh, I'm just trying to, uh, +if it was even a bit distracted, +I'm trying to fix something on the head to your side at the moment. +I'm sorry, I probably broke it. +No, I don't, uh, yeah, I don't do a quick hack on this file. +We're all going to go to like, we've been doing it, but +needs most. +Exactly. +Um, I did do some inputs on the, um, show notes, so +they, any message, probably remind me. +I don't know, I can't tell you that one. +Well, remember Murphy, +law of combat. +If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid. +So whatever hack you got to do is, if it works, it's, um, +good improvisation. +If it don't work, it's bad improvisation. +Pardon me. +I am sober. I'm just tired. +I'm not suffering. +I'm not suffering. +I'm much fan of the last name. +Banda, do you sell that in the evening? +Thought you'd be a doctor pepper or something earlier? +I, well, I am a doctor pepper person or more of a Mr. Pid, depending on what state you're, +but yeah, I know, um, I do, I actually prefer RC Cola, +and I'm probably only when it does. +But I, I don't know why I bought fan of that. +I had some people coming over, so I bought, like, soda, and I was like, +oh, you know what, I'll just have a fan to. +Yeah, the tech and coffee telegram, I posted the, the, the drinks that I had +set up for, and none of it was alcohol, but they look like they were alcohol. +Is that tech and coffee on telegram? +We're just square. +Ah, yeah, it's got the right now. +I just changed the icon. +It's white. +White with a square TLC, you see. +Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. +I can. +Um, you're, you're going to be, if you join, you're going to be greeted by +rows and you'll have to, I think, solve a math problem. +I don't, I can hover over it. +I can see it, and then, let's see, open a new tablet, open telegram, link to buys it. +Yeah, it doesn't let me join. +Let me have to do it on the phone. +This track ends. +Drop a link. +If they, there's a link. +Yeah, dude, drop it into the HBR channel, because, uh, I, been looking for other. +Oh, oh, no, I'm there. +Uh, and then I can go join group. +Admin's of this group have a X restricted messages from you. +You have to click the world through your team and solve a math problem. +Hey, coffee, please read the rules before you post. +Please follow the instructions. +Click here to prove that you're human. +Yeah, I want you to do that. +You know, your restrictions will be gone away. +I just gave a bunch of people restrictions, though, because, uh, we've had a lot of scambots, +giant us recently, and I think three of them just joined. +No politics, no profanity, no religious debate. +Well, after January 6th, they turned into, like half of our members left. +So, because I was like, dude, seriously, yeah. +We have, um, what I call thunder dome, which is where you can discuss anything you want. +Yeah, thunder dome is, is it, it's the one, if you see tech and coffee thunder down with +the red icon, that one is pretty much all politics. +So, January 6th is the United States capital attack for those of you not into the, I would +Wikipedia. +Oh, all right, if you're on the other side, I'm like, a liberal like me, it's where you tried to +liberate. +Funny thing is, the people I'm having, um, coffee with this morning are mostly on the right +side, which is hilarious, because I'm the one hippie slash Buddhist friends. +Yeah, yeah, as I take the box, um, yeah, regeneration is done. +That's how I look and see if we have saved New Year. +Nope, apparently I can't called, oh, that's why. +You'll see a lot of cat posts. +Yeah, apparently, uh, I, uh, say I'm a mustardon, despite having like filtered, +or at least tried to filter couples. +So you can't, you get everywhere, safe to do, I don't know. +Macy, to about going to Oddcamp, I do have about 2,000 tech and coffee stickers that I could +just drop on the HPR sticker thing. +So, yeah, very good. +Well, we're a lot of stickers, or, or butters, or other days. +So, I had the high reds, I was thinking about making stickers, more like rounded ones, +but I was trying to figure out how to, um, +okay, another fix, let's see if that works. +Nip minor, to me, I've probably called correctly, +you're the one from Boston. +You might be asleep again. +Anyways, yeah, I think it's from Boston. +I actually like this time of the year, it gives you an opportunity to sit +behind the computer, to do new and stuff, and get free. +I don't know, well, I, I'm standing behind the computer. +It's hard, I still feel like this. +Yeah, well, the fun is your life. +I have retired, unfortunately, I don't know. +I mean, I'm, I was thinking about going back to work, +but I kind of work in front of the terminal every day, trading. +So, so I must thank you. +If I do come this year, I'll see if I can print off maybe a thousand +HPR stickers and bring at least 800 of them with me. +Oh, good stuff. +Oh, we can always, um, yeah, it's not a question of, oh, getting a printer. +It's just, uh, yeah, I just need to do it. +I need to bring up a new banner, and that's what I, but to be honest, +this stage, I don't think I'll be going. +So, I have to read for a bit if there, because I was raising my standing desk +in any time, I have my mic open people, like, what's that nice? +I guess that's, did you not hear it? +In my case, lowering of. +Do you know a lot of good benchmarking tools for +runs on Linux and Raspberry Pi's arm and I, um, AMD? +Oh, no, I don't think I've benchmarked in a while. +I mean, stuff I've used in terminal in the past. +Let me check my notes. +Okay, I have to check that out. +Is it fixed, whatever it was? +It's hacked in, I just put in a link to add the new year's show thing in, +do do do, uh, but a better apologize to a wrong person, +whatever I do stuff like this without doing proper tickets and stuff. +Yes, I should do tickets. +Yes, exactly. +I even have a show record of them how to do it, but do as I do as I do not, +as I say, do as I say, not as I do. +Okay, the link's back, more information's back, +stream still working, and yeah, the info is back. +So I can copy and paste that and send it to the person who's asking. +Speaking about retirement, I've just realized it's been four years since I retired. +I don't think there just changed the pension of one thing though this year, +and essentially of means pension exists, or at least for me, +well, and my pension started when I moved to the Netherlands as well. +So I'm 40 years old as far as the tax office is concerned. +I kept hearing a noise upstairs and I realized my robot vacuum went off. +I'm like, what's that noise? +Yeah, I'll be right back. +I'm going to go check on it and see if my government's writing it. +Super duper. +Whoa, we have a free show tomorrow. +That's not good. +I have like 50 minutes worth of show here, but I need to kept them down, +and I keep telling myself. +I completely did not see that right, a better post does immediately. +It's not sooner. +It's been a while since I missed a day like that. +Okay, I need a new year, messes everything up. +What I find out about Lucas listening to next, out of gas, +I'm thinking, camper stuff, no crew stuff now, +and we'll have some doctor who, more than likely, +made a bit of science in there, some NASA stuff probably, +and some Beatles music. +I'm possibly some folk music, let's see how we get it. +Definitely folk music. +I grew up towards the Adorondex. +I like folk music. +There was this really cool Karlsburg out back in the 80s. +All the Canadian song, really fantastic song, +a way kind of viral in the day like everybody was listening to it. +Couldn't ever find out what it was and blah, blah, blah, blah. +Now, fast forward to modern modernism when we are the internet, +and I found it, and it's a song about potatoes, +or like french fries. +There's such a cool song and the graphics that the ad for the ad was like, +you know, evoking images of guys out, you know, +cutting trees and hauling lugs and doing manly stuff out and out in the back of beyond +and the frozen waste of Canada, and it turns out to be a song about french fries. +So, there you go. +I mean, I hate to state the average, and I married an Irish Catholic woman, +so, um, but you're Irish, so potatoes. +Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was supposed to be as beer, which is also fine. +We're supposed to have a story on top, but yes. +So, there's a folk duo I like to listen to, which is called Watchhouse. +They used to be known as Mandolin Orange. +They're from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. +I got into them when I was in Charlotte. +They did a couple of live shows and libraries and stuff. +And, uh, they're a good listen. If you want to listen to such a cool, try Watchhouse. +Chuck in the link into the old shunnels there. +And I'll try and find those, uh, that's, I will drop some of you. +There we are. +What were they talking about all night? +I only did the yesterday morning stuff, so, you know, +Archie did more than me, but I hated crap tons. +Yep. +That's kind of like out and about here and there, so I didn't really do much. +Well, overnight I did a lot of old old, uh, computer stuff and some old war stories. +I got from various friends. +Oh, cool, yeah. +Yeah, overnight I went to bed around 10, 30 EST was the last time I remember. +I did put you guys on my blue speaker and carry you upstairs and fell asleep to you. +That's about it. +Can I have a chorus of, I'm dreaming with a white new year? +Is it copyrighted? +No, I don't think so. +I just looked out my front door and it's, it's, look, everything's slowly turning white. +Um, we have a new bus device right here. +If it's supposed this, then I don't know. +It's only snowed once since I've lived in Jackson. +It's, uh, I'm up in the Boston area, so it's more normal. +I knew you didn't have a bus station. +But I'm just saying that it's about the only normal thing about the Boston area. +Uh, uh, I'm a country boy and boy, do I miss the country? +I knew Boston pretty well. +I, my late wife was from low and we went to Boston and low quite often. +My dad used to, I'm on the South Shore and he used to work up in a little for +Raytheon missile division. +My father-in-law was sheriff, the apartment or something. +Anyways, we, they moved to Torrance, California and then we went there, so. +I must, uh, say my condolences are for, for your loss. +Oh, it's actually now been 10 years, geez, that's crazy. +Um, so guys, I must run because technically I walk, but I need to be different about it. +Two, five minutes, so I'm going to run in about four minutes or three minutes, so I will, I will say my +goodbye is right now, so, um, but I must feed the overlord her third breakfast because she's the +princess. +That's my cat. +And, um, and then go out and meet some friends for coffee and then later I will come back in between +and around 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. I'm supposed to go to a surprise party. +Hopefully the guy isn't listening, right? +I'm just gonna watch it. +Like, wait, is it my birthday, he's talking about? +Anyways, so I will bid a do. +I'm going to leave this active and just muted, so have a good one. +My cat might jump on the people. +Very good. +Very good. +Have a good one. +Happy New Year. +Happy New Year, folks. +At least he's under proper feline supervision. +Ask any cat, you can't do anything without proper feline supervision. +Just posting some shows will be, uh, not conversing for a while, but it will be listening. +Well, I'm, I find myself with the shortage of no wife and no cat, so, um, that's why I'm out here. +So, now I post a show, uh, so hook it. +It's just easier to, uh, to post the shows as a, as a person doing it. +Well, not even post a show to hit your, they had men's get a, uh, copied on the CC, +so we also get the email link. +So I'm sure a hook will wake up going, yeah, can those processing some shows today? +And then I just send it in as the show from a hooker, you think, +copying and pasting in his journals, if anyone's interested. +Anyone's interested. This is YouTube subscriptions for 2025, part 12. +So, uh, this is an explicit checking chain, I think it would be. +And now normally I edit the show notes. +When I do the processing, I'll get this back and I'll be editing the HTML to check all the links +and fix stuff, but now I paste it in as rendered HTML. +And recently I upgraded the, what you see is what you get editor. +It's a scribe.js, and because the, um, two bar at the top were, +was not rendering correctly in, uh, texture speech engines. +And as you know, after, I mean, a success ability issues here in HCR are P1 bugs, +which we deal with after the daily making sure the shows get out. +So that's that. But what has resulted in is a lot of on clean HTML. +So rather than just a cold block and allowing us to apply the CSS directly, +it embeds the style sheets in rendered HTML and gives you very ugly looking HTML. +So I've an issue open with them, hopefully they can help me on that. +Select the series at the tags and now browse for the audio. +And I need to remember to edit the audio to include the warning of the beginning, +whichever you've already done that. That's now added. And then this I got everything, +title, summary, expressive, license, show notes, series, tags, and browse, +press submit. And that's now send it up to the HCR server as if oh god, don't let yourself. +And now there's just ways to look at the email confirmation that that's gone. +And then I can do the cleanup. And there we are. Thank you for uploading. Okay. So then I moved it to the +backup location. I removed it from the HCR server. Updated the HCR site. So that the number of +items in the reserve queue has gone down by one. And then I can delete the reservation from +the address. And one road. And then I can be sure here. I normally, there's a three hour wait. +Well, it does this. But now it's pulling down the shows and doing the text to speech on it. +You're listening to a show from the reserve queue. We're in this now. But that's our free +sets that are not still. This is a community project. And we need to this. And there's +to contribute to yours in order to please consider recording show for a radio. Hello, this is +who got very good. So that is chucking away. And I can now post the next free slot. So we do +and I'm aware of them talking to myself. But that's fine. So we do two shows, do two weeks ahead. +So I will make sure that this week is the week that we're in, up until Friday has done. +Which it was since this week, my bad. And normally on that Friday, I do, +we're just lost enough to the Friday. So are we Thursday with Thursday today? So I, +on the Thursday, I will go and fill up any free slots that are not in next week's episode. +So at the moment we have, oh, uh, community news tomorrow, which I forgot about. +Let me just turn on my alarm. So the community news is recorded on the, it is released on the first +Monday of the month, which means we recorded on three days earlier than that. +Which this month means the second of January. And then we have more timeings. We have +promo or do task to, for instance, by the hookah. So Oka will be getting three shows, +I reckon, because we have the Wednesday slot is free. So I'll go do the next reserve. +Okay. And that's the second show posted. And I'm going to redo the transcription now. +The first one has already been transferred. Yeah, both are listed as show submitted on the +work form. It's probably an advantage in putting in show, +conscribed there. Do you listen to show from the reserve queue? We're in there. Now, +blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, +smaller, exciting episode of the reserve queue. To see if you have a number, sit by our +civilization. Yeah. Because what can happen sometimes is, particularly when people are sending +lot of shows, is that they mix up the audio, it happens quite regularly. And the transcription +is excellent too for confirming that. So when I'm bolting a show, I also check to make sure +that the transcription matches the audio. So that we've had a case where it got out once +archer spotted before hit the main feed. Thanks, archer. And once one of the civilization +episodes was from a hook one of the civilization episodes was a science fiction fantasy series. +I'm not sure if it was me or a hookah that sent in the wrong one, but then you've got to fix. +So that's the important. So if you want to help out HPR and lower barrier countries, you listen +to the shows anyway, subscribe to the future feed. And you can act as our quality control and +analysis team. And of course, if there are any issues with the show, then flag them as well. +And what I mean, but that is if there's any audio issues, like sometimes we can fix it, +sometimes we can't. But if it's particularly bad, we'll try and contact the host and get it fixed. +Usually that's already done before. And we'll talk to you about that as I'm posting the shows +themselves. So as the second one is being transcribed, I can go and pulse the first one. But first, +coffee. Normally the transcription happens by itself when somebody pulse a show and then I just type +hit your process episode. And then notice something went wrong here. That my links have now turned +into numbered list is amazingly unhelpful. It affects that. So the process episode thing +does a lot of stuff that I used to do manually. And it does it's semi-automatic. And there's a lot +of checks and balances in there. It does make my life a bit easier. So I fixed that. I removed the +crap. No open nor refer is in the link, which I do approve of actually. And it opens in a new page +with the target bank. That's fine. Show notes. Show notes incredibly important. If you're not +submissive, show notes, they will be created for you by me. So it will be my opinion of what you're +trying to say far better that you give us your opinion. Okay. So the first cure check that we have +our quality control check that we have. I mean there are a lot. Let's see. So process episode. We'll +go check that the program. All the programs I need are installed. Got some times that can go +into a new episode. Process the next page for your show in the queue. Then it's our things that +down to my desktop. It's extrapts the episode metadata. So it takes out the show notes. And the show +not field into and it converts into HTML. And then it does lots of stuff like checking the whole +study is actually a number of blah blah blah. And that an email is actually looking like an email. +Because we're getting random stuff from the internet so you can't trust us. Even though I do +these checks on the server itself the server may have been compromised. So this is double double double +double checking which is a lot of double checking but okay. And the reason I'm awfully going +now is because I can. This might be interesting and you know her people know what goes on in the background. +There is one thing about the host profile further doing it this way posting as somebody else is that +say a hookah has updated his host profile since he sent in the show. And now it might get +reverted back to what it was when he sent in the reserve queue. So that is something that I need to +take into account when I automate the posting of reserve queue shows that they don't update the +host profile. So the show notes json file looks fine. It's sanitized. Also seems to be fine. One +better than images. So with this thing with this what you see is what you get editor. The images +are not attached as well as their attached as base 64 encoded raw data into the HTML which is +ugly and there's no real tool available for pulling it out. So I do a brute force +grab and rejects the pull about. And then it also downloads any external images if there are any +found. And then it does checks media stuff. I might go through this script once it's a little bit more stable. +And then I get a show notes edited HTML file which I then apply I mean fixes or changes to which +just on there now for fixing the list link types and removing crud. But here is the point. So I get a +report and I have stuff like field mapping so to be all look same. What the json file was that +uploaded just in case anyone's doing anything weird and I have a media info report of the audio +that was submitted. And I can see stuff like like it's flag. It was one channel 41.1 kilohertz. +So then I'll have the same report but using EX I have two. And then I have two graphics of the audio +spectrum showing the frequencies in there. And then I have the audio waveform showing it in showing +the amplitude. So I can see the amplitude frequency domains. Both are kind of useful because +you can see if somebody's heavily added just show that they especially in the frequency domain +you can see the different individual chunks particularly if there's a spike or something. Also in the +audio waveform you know this is like a typical waveform that you see when you're listening to music +with the audio display. I can actually see here at the beginning that there's one block that is +different than the frequency domain and in the amplitude to the rest of the show which is obvious +cause as I now listen to it. So when I listen to it the first bit is the text teaching notes +and you are listening to a show from the reserve fee alert. And then the other part is the +normal show normally you don't have the first bit but because the reserves show that explains +what's happening there. But I'll usually have a look around and quickly scan to the problem area +that I see if there's a problem area. I usually listen to start middle and end ish on the audio show +but I sometimes mix that up a little bit. Sometimes I do three you spot, sometimes I do four. +So that if somebody hears this and then decides to hack us by putting in limixie with sounding +words in at the start middle and end and then leave you it over. So yes I've got a paranoid mind +just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean the whole world isn't out to get us. So there's that +which shows like from a moosely I'm checking for mistakes or misabs or errors like that. I don't +another concern about the content such we don't edit the shows but what I'll do now is +underneath that I have been the transcript what I'll do is I'll look at the first few bits. +I've already done this when it was been transcribed but I'll look at the first few bits and I'll +see how long is this episode the same is the text spoken in this episode the same as what is in +the metadata at the top. I'll have a quick look down there. If you're new host or if for some +reason I'm suspicious of your mortals which usually new host coming in randomly without +whatever that can also happen. I hope it was a new host that came in random so you never know +but I'm a bit paranoid as to say I will listen to several spots along your episode for the +audio quality and then I'll skim down literally just as I'm doing it now I'm going public service announcement +Europe Roadcasting Steve's Europe Group okay social security, hall of fame, Royal Caribbean +we're talking about cruises, science news, publication blah blah blah this is all related to the show +nothing to worry about. Now the thin balance here is because I don't want to be saying to be editing +or auditing or at any way preventing a show going up so this quick scan is mostly focusing on stuff +that is a huge speech or stuff like that stuff that I will get arrested for and I don't want that. +If the pass is that boom it's out okay so I'm okay with this back here back to the script +this is a message look okay so we have two two checks that happens this is the main check +the idea here would be if this wasn't okay if the audio wasn't okay what I'd probably do is +pump it out to pump it out to audio funnick and that's a +use freely broken source tools the proprietary company but I have an account over there and they +can do marvelous stuff with cleaning up audio twice a few of the shows have been cleaned up +if there was a buzzing in the background if there's a lot of distortion a lot of background noise +it can be cleaned up but I'm reluctant to do that and we'll only do it depending on the +episode if it's totally not audible it's also a paid service so more often I do it the more +I have to pay but I prefer to get it from the holes to the holes just as a better copy of +like version and then if it was recorded and black then that's fine and sometimes I won't do it +because the whole essence of the show is is the recording itself for example the for example the +episode said flipped it on their home phone set up I mean the audio was terrible but that was +our point to the show well you know to clean up that episode would have been +sacrilege it by opinion so there we go so this is the message apart normally at this +point of thumb stopping I'm getting a new episode from the host or I'm asking them +90 down point no no no 9% of the times is I'm getting a new episode from the host +or they asked them to send in a new thingy or there was something has gone wrong +where I need to fix it and I can pick up from here again using the two it'll skip over the +main parts and just bring me back to this point and otherwise if I have spotted anything I'd be +looking for music especially in the in the report and if I spot music then I need to make sure that +that is referenced in the show notes and that it's creative commons or public domain or that we have +a license for well creative commons or public domain if it's not then I have to go back to the host +and usually explain the situation usually at that point or including the auditors as well just +so that they're in the loop okay and then I'll press yes on this and the message is it should be okay +and now we're going to generate the derivative so sometimes it now posts the show and it's now +from now on it's an official episode and I'm from that point on the databases and the lead +so we generate a wire file and we use Dave's tool to add the metadata it's absolutely excellent +to it it handles WAV MP3 any any media file that you can throw out of so it's generate a +master I'm sorry not master generated them leading generated a wire file MP3 file +and now it does the same thing generates a final report where it takes the frequency and audio +spectrum of each of the derivatives and put such into report from excel I can see it and it also +takes days so we have the intro subtitles and the outro subtitles and then we take the +transcription which has got subtitles while timings when they come obviously if we're put in an +intro then the subtitles need to be adjusted so I have a tool that takes the SRT file as +generated by whisper when it was doing the transcription and then not just that down allowing +for space for the intro and then it adds the outro at the back and fix the sequence numbers +in the SRT file now I'm back to the same report which has got stuff added and we can skip to the +derived media and it got the text to speech which I'll check now I alter I'm breaking my whole rule of +filling dead space but I posting some shows and I think it might be interesting for people +to hear what goes on in the background feel free to put it on in the asked me did you mean to make +it sound like we're being scolded for not having stuff in the queue yeah you're a +permanently being scolded for not having stuff in the queue you know that +although in fairness I think you you carried your ways this year I thank you didn't know if I did +oh absolutely one one show a year but you've also helped out loads on the on in the background +creating promoting stuff on the channels doing the multimedia social media stuff tracking people +down bugging them to do the show create all the bugs for me it's been very good and all the +debugging of the newsfeed readers and stuff like that you make work for us but it is appreciated +is this interesting meet going through what's happening or shall I just put it up there no I'm +I was listening as soon as I'm getting my coffee and my morning routine going on +cool so I have the report they text the speech is fine they if lack looks fine so usually I look at +the images and this one has got like now on the frequency domain it's got one two three four +different components so one is the intro the outro you can see the show itself sorry +one is the intro the other one is they you know we're remotely shows alert then the show itself +then the outro and that's not as obvious on the way for but I will go do a spot check of that +for all the files so we'll be back in a bit so quick listen to all the waveforms +they're in the report file basically a HTML file with click media play thing and then I +scrub through them each of them and have a look at the waveforms make sure everything looks okay +it all does then I walk around and previously I check the links manually now I have +script that does that for me but in this instance I think I'll just check myself and then scroll down +check that the numbers and the and the subtitle timing's up in the just to it and just a quick +look at the transcript and I was so far wrong with what he had in HTML notes so that's all the +checks done now the last part is to send the media off to the various different servers so it's +posted yes it's up to the HTML database and from this point on I can go on process the next show +in another tab which I won't bore you with archer yeah it's definitely messing up order links with +on order links so another bug there I missed the last thing you just were asking can so they +the tool that we used to do with what you see is what you get stuff wasn't accessible so I upgraded +it to the newer version and the newer version is now not as functional as the older version and it's +adding a lot of crap in and it's mixing up order order links that are just on order links that +are just bullets with on order links so I'm having numbers like one two three four five six seven +eight nine ten eleven twelve instead of dots bullets and it's also adding metadata tags to the +HTML Dave already opened a bug about this but it's not easy to fix so did I complicate things +by asking about the accessing no no no no the accessibility issue had to be fixed because we +can't put a barrier into people being able to send the tools the only issue is the background thing +when I get the HTML I need to team up the HTML that's all and there's a bug in in it that +it is treating bullets as numbered lists so that's a bug I'm going to have to open on their side +or I might just try and find something else a wizzy week editor that is simpler and I think Dave and I +are both the holdouts on the wizzy way so what was that I think Dave and I Dave Morris and I are both +like the holdouts on the doing the wizzy way because I kind of like to do the figuring things out +myself on the background to get it exactly the way I want yeah but you know I get that but +everybody has their own version of that and this is going to all sorts of different places and +what it looks great in your computer it's not going to look great on and on a Spotify or on +these other places so we need to just have standard HTML what I want is just standard HTML +bug you get it in the either you you put into a browser and copy and paste it in so you do your +markdown you use Ponduct to convert the HTML or but yet this free markdown converter which I'll +give you put into the show notes where is the show notes going and I get proofread it with +and after paying our pan doc into a firebox so it looks like I think I should look yeah but +you don't have control over that once it gets to us because the HBR site's going to apply it's on +style sheet and the internet archives is going to apply it's on style sheet as we'll all the other +places the the only thing you get is the links you know the H1H2H3 your code blocks bullet points +numbered lists stuff like that that's why those bullets are up there and the fancier you go +the whole whole lot of got to do that the fancier you go the more complicated it is and the more +likely is it's just going to call the problems totally lost now where I'm I'm sorry but does +that how does that work with somebody who's a blind user to try to put up the show? +yes that's what we were doing so we have a busy way of getting here if they're not running +JavaScript then it comes up with the previous form so that you can don't be in anything if you are +then as you navigate that you can you can do the same tricks copy and paste and hit +shape format at HTML then they're on with a blind user and that's what I was fixing when you go +to the tabs you if you hover with your mouse it'll say indent selected on selected whether it's +selected or not so on just go or select it on just go or not select this text highlight it's +blah blah blah so this is common you it will work with the screen reader of choice so that's why +we did the change the fact that I have to fix the resulting HTML is not therefore so it's I'm +going to keep the change until I can fix the HTML one where the other is easier to do that +am I making any sense? yes so how does a blind user copy and paste? +however a blind user normally copies the paste. oh so somebody who is a blind user probably +which should do a show on how you do basic things around the computer. absolutely it would be a lot +it would be super useful and as of this year as of now in the EU there is a low forcing +accessibility on everybody large corporations and on the like so you are by default like the +GDPR cookies notice you are supposed to have accessibility functions everything on your screen +on your bank on your phone has to be accessible and if not you're breaking the low and your +can be find possibly imprisoned not sure but definitely find large large sums of money but that's +not why we do it we do it because we want to get chosen for people so and obviously if there's any +issue ever people listen to this and there's a bug on the website or it gets too frustrating or whatever +just a meal link to where your show is and we'll take it from there don't like accessibility +standard in the way of posting a show but it's also why it's only like relying on third-party +libraries for anything yet it changes over time and you have difficulty getting in touch with the developer +and you can't really change stuff so I'm not a story last couple days that one of our tools to +record went away the exit audio recorder for my foot yeah what up in there yeah yeah I went to go I +duck duck go the link and they said it didn't exist anymore and I went directly to the +after I decided to insert it and I said this type of this thing doesn't exist it does exist +in GitHub so that can if you want to compile it it could be used it does seem to disappear +time to time so maybe there is a problem that they have to work out and we compile it and put +something up on it after it that works is it be maintained I would have to check on that I'm not +mobile and I've been on mobile all this whole time which it was allowing me to talk a little more +and so I've got to check in my afterwards or hi one other thing the notes I didn't see them updated +a whole hot I wonder if there was anybody that could kind of keep up on that while we were talking +I was trying to more so there yeah we can protect the speech should at least help a little bit +there and I found a couple of sites to be able to copy and paste the UTC so we would get a standard +time for the notes that's actually if you type in duck but go and say UTC now it will give the current +UTC time I have by default on my desktop so on the right hand side I've got the current time +in ISO it's a one format which of course is year one day space hours a minute the only same format +and on my left hand side right next to the start button I have the time just the time of the +date in UTC so I can always just check boom over there and that really helps and I also have a +script that I can just type UTC a little time with the times sorry if I'm seem distracted I am +checking the last show and looks good it will surprise us there from a hookah from his number 13 +this nice idea for the reserve queue action and the shows are now appearing as distributing +media to the CCDN if you go to the queue and for those of you who don't know we operate our own +content edition network where we ask people who have got fiber optic connections on limited fiber optic +connections to the home or at least high bandwidth connections to the home and have got four +terabytes of free space on something like a Raspberry Pi for five or better and to allow us to host +the hit-pure episodes from your location and then when somebody goes to get the episode you get redirected +either to the internet archive or one of the content distribution nodes which we have one in the +internet archive one in New York one here in the Netherlands and we have I'm currently building +another one in the Netherlands in a different location and I will do an episode on that later so +that has distributions they derived media and anifortals around canals related to the show +it's checked in anything that is related to images and stuff into our GitHub repository which is the +repository it has copied the files over to the origin server and then from the origin server +the content distribution networks are synch on a pre-defined schedule which we might change +to a neural ss feed in the full most of the time but right now I can force it just because I have +I can have new to everyone hello what's up sorry it's mr x how are you doing how is the lighting +yeah didn't find doing fine just in the middle of trying to put together a show for the next year +for this year I should say excellent get the old new year's resolution out of the way +yeah how is my audio bio reader ok yeah ground yeah we saw from just using your buds say +a fact there was it was kind of less than a year I was thinking like poppin and then I thought +I remembered what you said you must use headphones it was not like that so that's good +like you can use earbuds and the mic from your laptop was yeah just so as your mic can't hear +the audio on you don't get a loop back the presents problems yeah no I'm using my phone actually +and I think I was thinking about there's one of these things I've got a show show in +and I can't remember at what point I got feedback about how far along the process it was +now I can't remember it was absolutely necessary for a show a show and it was telling me what +what it was at this stage at that stage and I thought to myself I'm not actually +what eight I'm not sure what's one of these stages mean but that doesn't matter so much +what we're doing more useful was to say you know one or four two or four three or four +so at least you've got some idea how far along the stage it doesn't really matter what stage +just how far along the stage you mean they in looking at the process on the queue +yes that'll be well I saw it yes yeah well you know what you should do you should open a bug +for that and I'll paste in where you can do that mmm this idea or a future request of least +and it would be on yep also into the link in the model chat see if I can like how you do that +added to the oh yep got it you may any lot allowed it to the um that such as well +the time is eleven fifty seven thanks no they want to have a fashion here I'll do that +in some point they hopefully the other because I was yeah we have yeah sometimes it goes fast +sometimes it doesn't where I had quite a lot of issues with the internet archive this year +but they've been very responsive very good in getting back but they've had a lot of issues this year +themselves so I completely get why they're either doing you know lock and stuff up and +nice and stuff up yeah that mentioned something to me about all of that so yeah send it +some more on hacker and decided to take down the internet archive yeah that's not cool dude +no one and who knows you know come back could be any can it can it can +can spell it so it could be plenty people wouldn't be it might may not be very hard with them +and if I don't I'm doing my show but it can spell it so you just know we do look back oh +this no no you don't say so I don't think I'm much yeah that's for now don't think it's +you don't mind oh my god there's nothing better for podcasting numbers than doing controversial +skills yeah but there's nothing worse for HBR than controversial skills I mean the +do isn't that it couldn't much of a conspiracy really it says it's not my stupid mundane really +I don't think it might be actually it's super shut the archive was taken down my last year +I remember was this year or two yeah they had well they they've been doing a lot of +updates and security fixes and replications and stuff as well so one of the things that did this +year was because people are gaming the system doing podcasts now every man is mother has a podcast +they've one of the tricks that they do to make more popular is they'll release a show and they'll +put the days way into the future publishing date so your your podcast you're looking at it and go +hey that should always be at the top of the list of podcasts because it's you know from +twenty twenty nine so the internet archive decided to lock down on that and didn't allow +future publishing dates which of course breaks everything for us because all our shows are +posted in the future so I opened the book and got Jason Scott involved who helped us out lots +and so that all got fixed I had to go back and manually change 30 shows but that was fine +David wrote in the script yes I know Dave okay I want to do that I had a feed go ahead over +if I had a feature request or a bug request could I tag it myself or does somebody else has to +well if you can't do a feature request to be able to feature to take it yourself I have no to +know that works but yes you should be able to why wouldn't you I don't know I just been feature +requested the top and I don't remember I don't see how I can tag it myself I could do it on the side +you just to change well the tags are there on all of them so maybe that's an issue see okay they +issue it I have with them we have different repositories for different parts so the whole is a different +from the static site generator and I completely and it makes sense to keep them separate and the +documentation is separate from that but if you open an issue you need to open an issue on the particular +one and then that has its own repo and own set rules so if there's a feature request on the HBR +generator it might not be on the HBR tools like you know what I mean I just think maybe it might +make more sense to put our great all new issues over somewhere like in our issue reporter +part that refers to all the projects rather than just the individual if you don't want to +see and then now there was a central one just for generator no there isn't that's the point +I was thinking maybe we should have one so like in the HBR site now when I look in I've got the +HBR generator HBR hub if you're a documentation HBR website and HBR tools all of these are +you know the generators for the static site the hub is for all the code for the you know the +static site is the pearl stuff HBR hub is the static R is the PHP dynamic site and the database +and then we have the documentation page which mostly marked out and then the website are like the +assets for the shows and how to documents and stuff like that and then the tools is the stuff that +I use in the background to automate all of this so but if you want to do a feature request in HBR generator +and hope I'm documentation and websites and tools there needs to be a tag I'm just going to +issue pick in the first issues there's no label there so I'm checking I'm checking too and the top +of the pages two places that says issues I don't know so what is one the general where do you see issues +yeah one is a general so if I click on up there so if I click on the get TV side that those +issues and then there's me and in your repositories there's 104 issues so that gives me the overall +view of all the recalls all right would I have a exam on HPR generator there's under the right +under HPR generator there's issues and also at the very top of the get TV page there's issue yeah so +the HPR program's post yeah that's the thing the HPR issues one HPR generator issues +besides cold pull requests those are issues related to this repo where's at the top that's +related to you but I do see labels on the HPR generator oh and they hope there are no labels +hold on one second so I have I can see that there's a feature request help request general discussions +under labels for HPR generator probably created by wrong because you know what you're doing +I think we need to do that in settings so can you make a bug somewhere I don't care where to add it +to all repuls probably yeah now this is a question right you have something you have a feature +request that you want added to the HPR website or to the get TV repository right now it affects +all of them so where do you create the bug that is the question where do you create generic bugs +so I would do that at the very top of the issue they're not in in our repository but at the +very top but do you hear that I'm taking at the top and I say you're possibly a hundred more bugs +underneath you closed so where do I create it issue right next to my profile on settings there's a +plus sign that says creation I'm gonna take that and it gives me options for new repository new +migration new organization but I don't have anything for creating a bug do you now I see okay +so I see that so as soon as the the very top edge where I go to issues it gives me all the +issues but it doesn't give me any space to because I think wrong and you probably should be the +ones to filter out and say what's a bug in what's a feature yeah real yes it works probably +or the person doing us we could no I think the person creating it should decide if you have a +bug if you have a feature request I might change it but then if I'm changing I should say why I'm +changing it this is not a bug this is a feature request because blah blah blah blah and I should support +that with arguments don't you think yes and that's where we have get it because it's trackable +is what we'll do exactly so the question is if you were doing this issue where would you do +where would you open this under hb your documentation please add to the rebels or under hb your +generator probably under hb your generator because that's where Romans read mostly and as lead developer +it will be best to have his impulse on the add label I found the setting add labels which +can be used for issues for all repositories under this organization and I see feature requests there +here I can out them here and if I do that then yeah I found out where I can do this so you +open the bug anywhere you like and then I can close this hey I'm creating the bug super duper meanwhile +this is the first year that all my kids are out on our house but it's become a tradition that my +kids say hi the first one will be joining shortly but they can't get in time they're working +hi your live on the stream do you want to say hi yes I would like to wish everybody to +happen in your year of the solutions yeah I happen here from my mistakes yes and and rather cold +Scotland was it two degrees or one degrees under the where the city was going to be a feel it +but minus five I've just make a cup of tea so that's why I didn't respond to you to me well it's a pleasure +to hear somebody from Scotland it's a fascinating place never been there but I but I've heard and +seen some very good things from there well that minor I must have missed you the whole time we used +having issues at one point I was having issues like I was using an outboard USB +a sound card and and it's largely undocumented and I wasn't getting audio out it's a nice +unit it produces little extra audio power but with the unmarked keys it's a pain and +yes when it comes down to user friendliness so can I did find that audio recorder on and get +lab to have an APK to download on releases good morning to where we're going to study out here good +morning talking about how are you sir I was here New Year's a good I slept with I was bed at 930 +hello I was up I was watching the movie with my wife made to about 1230 +they did keep down here till about 13ish and 130 they're just really wasn't much going on +and that was really tired so I would have been I'll be enough slept until about now normally I'm +up about five sixish well nice to hear from you honky I think good morning and happy +you're doing better but how did you make it to last night I haven't been down excellent well +when this ends I'm going to crash and probably have some very odd dreams and why is that +it's a side effect of dehydration I'm chronically dehydrated and +and things you get very trippy when once I finally relax enough to +let myself crash a lot of old tensions and memories come back and get processed +but I don't process during when I'm awake that's got to make things interesting but the +sound foolish but if you're chronicly dehydrated why don't you try to keep a lot of like +gatorade on hand or water what is that I do keep it on hand I just don't +haven't found a balance that works and when I drink soda that tends to push it or when I have +like a pizza that pushes it the wrong way stuff like that you just figure out a healthier diet +I guess and it might be part of my addictive personality I mean I'm from a long line of alcoholics +so I remember right even on both sides of the family if not alcoholics it certainly +people who had issues with drink hey you haven't talked about it in a long time whatever happened +with that whole situation with your house and they've that town finally just give up +rev town has been very quiet they haven't made any noises about replacing the bridge around here or +anything um they tried twice and both times they had like um half a million dollars +but the money just sort of evaporated when the lowest bid was was twice what what they were +willing to pay also there's a lot of sort of urban urban renewal going on in this neighborhood so +that they may have bigger fish to fry well that's good now how so the big thing was you were +trying to get your house to a point where it was I don't know better because one of the things +the town was trying to do was try to condemn it so they didn't do that they could push that thing +forward was that what it was yeah well they were trying to get a hold of the property but +right now they got bigger projects going on all around and uh I'm just keeping my head down +just grinding through day to day and now as long as everything stays quiet I'm safe and +they want to throw their weight around not much I can do well I mean it's your property you should +be able to do something be able to fight back but they try and offering you but loads of money for it +are just uh trying to take it first flavor oh there's a couple of issues that they wanted to go +go after but one of them requires approval from the army corps of engineers so +we found that one to be a non-starter as long as my septic system keeps humming my +sewage plumbing would have to go across a pipe which is protected by migratory fish it's a drainage +pipe that's protected by migratory fish regulations and that makes it they can ask me to upgrade +my system but it really ain't going to happen until until I can until they redo the bridge or whatever +and and I can piggyback my sewer installation on top of a larger variance when they have to replace +that plumbing anyway but their magazine has a plan to replace this bridge which has been here for +well there's a bridge in this location on a postcard that was stated in like the 1890s +so uh and much of the stonework and whatnot dates back from that time or earlier +and it's uh seems to be WPA cement work just to say it's more fancy than than strictly +utilitarian and back then they were throwing a lot of uh they weren't going for lightweight +bridges they would they would go they would just do the work to keep people busy during the +depression so did they think that the bridge would fail or let's put this way is there a giant +weight limit sign on the bridge itself oh yes they did a one improvement to the bridge they put +a metal plate on or the decking was getting holes in it they may have to put another metal plate +down but the the improvement they did is that they replaced the no trucks that were two and a half +tons with no trucks over five tons over the bridge and between you me and the lampto's +trash trucks and whatnot go over it regular so so nobody really knows what its weight +carrying capability is but I think it's considerable well over the five ton lemon if I were +if I were a betman how have he's a trash truck I have no real concept of weight when it +comes to large vehicles well I know I've seen tractor trailers go over it so you know +uh they talked about it you know they're probably 10 tons or so okay so it is pretty steady +sturdy but it's it doesn't that town doesn't feel like it is so is it snowing out and +wait with this morning yes I before dawn I'm going out and check and I teased the guys about +anybody know know how to sing I'm dreaming of a white no years nice the good news +such as it is is it's like powdered it's it's very fine snow and it's going down like a +like a very light powder like powder on a powder donut which means when I +decided to get up on my hind legs and I can probably just sweep the walk instead of shovel it +just to keep it from compressing and turning slippery yeah I think we got a little bit +wetter snow here it's falling down kind of heavy I mean it doesn't look bad but I mean it's +I know I'm hoping for the best that last snow we had was a nice fine snow and I was able to +shovel it pretty quickly I'm hoping this is about the same well I I shoveled shoveled out +now even did did all the walk around the house and then a few days later we the rains came in +and washed everything away yeah that one didn't last now the only place that we really have snow +is where they left snow piled up on one of the curb cuts to make the crosswalks handicapped +accessible I don't need handicapped accessible for myself but I do shopping with a with a +grocery cart folding grocery cart and it would be kind of nice if if those curves were available +I can get around them but you know it was designed for that sort of stuff +you didn't want to just steal a cart from stopping shop maybe give it a nice personalized paint +job call it and put a little plaque on this side and that mine is cart actually I've got +I've seen carts from other places here were a couple of miles away from the grocery center however +most of my shopping is 7-11 or a CVS or or some all market whatever small markets that +have in the area well just a little basically an independent sort of 7-11 type place +convenience stores I got you they have any decent ones but like more variety of stuff +or is it still just like regular convenience stores well the 7-11 has some stuff that's all right +I found one of their peaches which is reasonably edible and less spicy than most of their +the other pizza offerings and it's not just the cheese pizza that's good +yeah and I also have got a loaf of bread thought out so that whenever I decide to +chow down I can start making my sandwiches and have a gable time and I don't have to go out +in the nasty for a few more days so you were staying before that you had hit +from hit that age where you had to go through retirement so did you get all of that work though +yeah they switch me from disability to retirement I think less November not this November +the thing is that according to what I've been hearing on the news I have to re-apply for +sources of security and my food stamps as part of Trump's trying to clean up those programs +makes it only only people that it should benefit are getting them it's going to be a pain in +ass yep but that's the program that you just need to clean up a bit I'm not against it +a program at all but it is one that's it is definitely a program with the right idea but it's +incredibly broken yeah I remember I had a girlfriend when I was in college and for many years +she was sort of my girlfriend or turned out to be just a friend after a bit she was blind mobility +challenged and in the days of real food stamps she had to go over walk generally travel +halfway across Cambridge to pick up twenty dollars in in paper food stamps +in fact is I helped her fill out her application for food stamps and when I went into the office +there were a couple of ladies there um suitably minority who said you're going to help her fill it out +and I just thought to myself I wonder how many twenty bucks these people were getting +not to do their job. Greetings I am back from my walkies. Good morning Fiosport. +This is Logan I'm sitting here drinking up an era water and I brought him home for my +walk. Walk all the way down there just to get water. No I walked down to get about 4600 steps +and coffee now I must get ready for a surprise birthday for somebody hopefully they're not listening +well that's pretty cool. One of my walker friends they just turned 70 actually and would they actually +be listening? Probably not they're I'm their tech advisor for this entire coffee group +because if anybody has a problem with anything tech related it usually falls in my lap so they +would probably have no clue how to come here and listen. Would you tell them that we were doing it? +I'm sorry what was that? Would you tell them about this? Oh yeah no they the in fact +I've been meeting up with them for seven years so the last maybe three or four years I've been +coming in here and I always say this is what I'm doing so so they they know I'm doing it they +just have no clue what it is. It's weird just because most of the people around me don't +seem to be very interested in tech related things and only some of them kind of know that I am +very interested in tech related things because you know you ever have those people that you +talk to about tech things or you have something that you find interesting or exciting in your +head and you start talking to them and you watch their eyes just slowly glaze over that's most of +people around me so I just don't most people I don't that I work with or you know that I know I +barely don't even talk to them about tech so none of them know I mean besides the people in this +house none of them really know that about the fact that I podcast or do this. +Yeah it's same here I mean most of most of my tech friends either I mean most years I go +over to Okamper something and I'll go to local lugs and stuff here but I don't know I'm +I lived in Charlotte's southeast Linux and then but yeah I don't I mean most of the people I +do photography too so I do have friends in that circle so I can talk that kind of nerd but +most of the people and they talk sports ball and I don't follow sports so I just +wear shirt that says sports some mornings and you know sports that's great yeah I've got a +shit down and get a try tripod with a horizontal arm and a good USB camera are we going to see +what my look like. I have I have a couple of webcams but this one I have to create a +an arrangement where I can use the camera to take pictures of a book and then because of my +eyesight I will be seeing the video on a computer screen my eyes are okay except they're talking +seed cataracts and they're talking evidently I can see pretty well if the screen is illuminated +but but Texas not self illuminating is more problematic so I'm going to bite the bullet get a +desktop tripod with it not with with an arm and then get get a camera it's probably cheaper than +getting the glasses which is going to be like $600 according to one source that I checked on. +So net minor here's kind of what I do I mean I don't I have bad eyesight anyways but I've had bad eyesight +since I was like 10 but instead of getting a full tripod with with an L angle they have the ones +that clip on the shelf and I have one that clips onto a shelf that goes down to my desk not for eyesight +it's just for recording me fixing electronics but something like that could work and it will hold +a pretty good size camera. Well I would be useful if I had some useful shelves around here but I don't think I do +help and then you know I mean the ones that I use I actually put up over my desk but yeah +also here's a tip for everybody. Plugable has a 200x USB microscope which works well with Linux +I mean that's that's basically what I'm going to be recreating except it's not going to be +200x magnification. Although I got to tell you the 200x magnification is pretty good reading +things like the fine print on memory sticks and stuff like that and do you have like a Medicare +Medicaid? I have Medicare but I don't believe I can get the reading aid covered under +I have no uh visual writer except for the basic testing. No glasses Medicaid pays my Medicare +premiums or you know part D and whatever but then again the only reason they're paying that is +they expect to get it out of my estate if I should sell my home or otherwise not need a home. +However also I have some good news that tomorrow I should be able to call my bank and +I will have my first check of 2026 because my usual payment date is on the third which will be on the +weekend and they don't they usually cough up the check a little early under those conditions. +So geospark do you do anything interesting last night? I was going for a walk so I don't think he's listening. +I thought he just got back from his walk. Oh I didn't hear that because I'm just back from my lunch. +Good morning Ken how are you sir? I'm Grant Grant just been on here watering this morning. +And they don't make you work New Year's day today? No I have today all fun I have tomorrow off. Nice +but today I'm going to pop her about doing the HGR stuff and then tomorrow I'm going to go and put +in a network structure cabling into my daughter's house. Oh nice I just found out. +So your daughter you got to move down? Yep so they'll just hand her boyfriend to find +say and move together. Nice. This is bought a house. Very nice. Yeah very much so. +Congratulations sir. Thank you. So people getting together like that is pretty brave these days. +I know it's good. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4633.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4633.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cdcad49 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4633.txt @@ -0,0 +1,177 @@ +Episode: 4633 +Title: Ham Radio Licence +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4633/hpr4633.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:35 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4633, for 2026-05-06 +Today's show is entitled, "Ham Radio Licence" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:14:23 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee talks about the curriculum of the Radio Society of Great Britain Foundation Licence" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in June 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hi I'm Lee, today I'm going to go on a brief tour of the Amterrajo Society of Great Britain +Foundation License curriculum, with particular attention to the technical aspects. +Why would you want to get this license? Well basically it's the bare minimum of what's required +to legally operate what's referred to as Amterrajo or Hammequipment, particularly if you want to +transmit using this equipment in the United Kingdom. If you're not in the UK they like to +be other foundation level licenses that you can take. The equipment itself may not be +costly, it could just consist of handheld battery-powered walkie-talkie-style radio such as +bow-fane that can be quite fun the 50 pounds aware of the equivalent is in your currency of choice. +One of the first things that is taught is the basics of radio. This includes various symbols +in units of a relate to electrical circuits such as amps for current and volts for potential +difference. It talks about how both large and small quantities can be written down using +different sizes of these units such as millimeters for distance rather than meters. +We learn about batteries and how you can draw diagrams that represent an electrical circuit +schematically and the fact that some substances conduct electricity while others don't so much. +We also learn that there are more electrical quantities such as power which is the right +which engines been transferred or resistance which is how much a particular conduct +tends to limit the current flowing for it. One of the basics is a general formula which connects +the three quantities of voltage current and resistance, either for a whole circuit on one part of it. +It is noted that parts of the circuit may be aggregated either in series or in parallel with each +other, depending on the topological layout of the circuit. The manual introduces electrical +components such as light and knitting diodes or LEDs for example. We learn that electricity +might flow for a circuit as you might expect in one steady direction called direct current, +also that there is an alternative where electricity might be flipping direction very quickly +and as alternating current. So the charge carrying particles called electrons don't get very far +from where they started in that case and yet power is still effectively transferred in such a circuit. +We learn that electrical signals can oscillate at a certain rate, that's their frequency +and that different frequencies often combine which other in complex signals. +The fundamentals of the electromagnetic waves we call radio waves are introduced +and a description of the different frequency ranges of those waves is given since we distinguish +between different types of radio waves according to their frequency. If you've ever used an old +fashioned radio over dial, you'll know the radio always has to be tuned to a particular frequency +to pick up a certain broadcast. The technical basics chapter covers the physical and mathematical +properties that come into all waves, whether they be sound waves, water waves or electromagnetic +waves. These properties are wavelength, speed and frequency and we learn a simple formula that +relates these three quantities and at the same time a presented with some real-world examples +so for example, the radio wave traveling at the speed of 300 million meters per second +oscillates 300 million times a second and feeds oscillation travels one meter. +The curriculum then goes on to describe a type of signal known as digital signal, +when the information content of the signal has been decomposed into a large aggregation of bits, +ishif which is only two possible states that may be described in several ways including +as voltage levels so high or low or in logical terms, true or false or even mathematically +one or zero. There are many situations especially nowadays we're sending information in the form +of a digital signal is preferred in order to be more efficient or to help reduce interference +and distortion. We're then told how real signals for which the proper term is analog can be +converted to the more artificial digital signals which is necessary if they are to be transmitted +digitally. There's a chat to in the amt to rage M and you're about receivers. We find out a +rage or a receiver can often be compartmentalized in terms of its parts into an antenna, a tuner, +strike amplifier, a demodulator, an audio amplifier and an output loud speaker. The curriculum +covers knowing what each of these components does but also states that nowadays several steps in +the process may be carried out digitally so that these components still exist but they're implemented +logically with a microprocessor rather than being separate physical components you could see in touch. +There's another chat to in the amt to rage or foundation manual about transmitters. +Your basic transmitter will have it in this order a mic, an amplifier, a modulator, a rage or +frequency pan, a fire and an aerial. We learn about carrier oscillators, these create a sinusoidal +signal of a particular frequency and the measured signal is in some way piggybacked onto the main signal. +So even if the rage or transmission in practice occupies a wide frequency range is this +central carrier frequency that you normally talk about when saying what transmission frequency is. +The modulation and demodulation is all about respectively combining or extracting a message signal +with a carrier frequency to convert between the message signal you want to send or receive +and the actual rage or signal going over the airwaves. I talked about this in particular in +HPR4291. Various types of modulation discussed with names like FM, AM and CW. +The first two are well known, with respectively the frequency or amplitude being the +property of the carrier that's changed in step with the message. The latter is a little less +known but stands for carrier wave modulation and just means turning the carrier tone on and off +in some comprehensible sequence. The main example of this being Morse code. +Side-banted discussed which are phenomena where the frequency spectrum of the rage signal +shows a symmetrical pattern of frequencies in use above and below the carrier frequency, +which is a direct result modulation. A final quantum modulation, again less familiar than +FM and AM, at least if you grew up when those were how you listened to music, is data modulation. +And this is where the signal is converted to digital ones and zeros and these decide what +tones are played in console of each other while the data is being transmitted. If you are using +the internet in the late 90s or early 2000s and had a modem you're probably not what that sounds like. +We finally learn about the power amplifier which is the component that boosts the low-level +electrical signal in your rage or handset up to something assessing lots of energy that can +rage out from the antenna and travel long distances at the speed of light in the form of rage +air waves. The syllabus covers learning about feed as an antennas. The feed is the +wire that carries the signal from the sending equipment to the antenna and is often the coaxial +cable meaning it has a central conductive core to carry the signal surrounded by an insulator +and this itself is then shielded all around by conductive ramp. The idea is to stop the signal +dissipating on rage editing away before it reaches the aerial. The other type of feeder which +I'm not that familiar with is a twin feeder where two wires are used with a space between them +and a signal of exact opposite polarity travels down each wire. We learn that feed has +a property a bit like a resistance I mentioned earlier but this is called impedance. The thing +that's important about impedances that signals will go through a system best when the impedance +each stage is matched to have the same value as at all other stages. But most of what I've +talked about so far is pretty theoretical but finally in the manual breaks is something very +practical which is the types of plug for feeder cables. These have names like n-type, b-n-c, +p-l-2-5-9 and s-m-a and you need to be able to recognize and distinguish between them. We also +learn that for very high frequency rage o-waves, your typical feed decay was not so good but something +called a wave guide which is like a square metal tube will do the same jobby. +The manual then discusses the main categories of rage o-n-teller. That's the sticky +up bit that emits or captures rage o-waves. I won't describe in detail but the main types of +dypo-n-tenas, one quarter wave-gram planes, the yag-y-n-tena, the 5-8-wave-gram plane and the end-fed +long wire antenna. We learn about the differing radiation pattern that emits from the different shapes +of antenna which for example decides how much of the signal goes in each direction. +For some purposes you want the signal to rage out in every direction, for other purposes you +might want it to primarily leave or be picked up from a particular direction. +The manual discusses the metrics used to describe the pair-up of particular antenna when being used. +This is something known as the effective rage power and is related to what is known as the +antenna's gain which is basically how good it is at putting out its signal and that depends +on factors such as its size and shape. We also learn about polarisation which is to do with +whether the rage o-n-teller goes out horizontally or vertically. So we're taught when debugging +rage o-s at up a good thing to have is a special type of meter that detects how much of the signal +is going into the air and how much of it is reflecting back into the equipment. For example if +there is an impedance mismatch or the error is the wrong length. The meter is called does standing +wave ratio meter or SWR meter. There's even a device that can sometimes sort out problems called +an antenna matching unit or antenna tuning unit that's AMU or ATU. Another useful bit of kit is a +bail-in. This can convert where you might have a coaxial type of feeder and really wanted to twin feeder +which some type of variables such as a dipoware will require because the feed is then balanced. +The manual talks about a dummy load. This is something that can be plugged in +that will take in the signal perfectly as far as the transmitter is concerned with actually +rage oating it as an aerial wood. This is useful for testing equipment. Another part of the +syllabus is about rage o-wave propagation. That is how it travels through the air, how far it can +go, what my alter its course dissipate it or affect it in other ways. We learn that there are +three main effects. These are reflection, refraction and diffraction. Reflection is where the +signal bounces back off something. Refraction is where it is bent towards a new direction and +diffraction is where it scatters for example at the edge of something. The most interesting +effect is the refraction of some wavelengths of waves as they enter the ionosphere layer of the atmosphere. +This can bend the waves back towards the ground and it's this effect that means that some waves +can travel between points on the earth, even when the earth's curvature would otherwise prevent +this due to their being no direct line of sight through the air. The fact that the downward coming +waves from the ionosphere can then even bounce back up from the ground or ocean and so do a +back and forth between the ground and ionosphere for thousands of miles means that rage o-signals +from a suitable transmitter can even be received on entirely different continents. +And this is without the help of artificial satellites or undersea cables. +So that's it, that's the main technical content of the foundation license. +However, a lot of the syllabus which I won't go into in detail here is not just about +technical aspects but also about being safe, responsible, alerting what the regulations across +the world are that generally allow rage of transmitters and receivers to coexist with each other +without people interfering with disrupting each other's important communications +as they go over the airwaves. There's a chapter about practices and procedures for using +ampturator equipment, things like announcing your allocated cool signs are that people know +who it is they're hearing or communicating with. There's a chapter about safety from +electrical safety working with high voltages to physical safety climbing ladders to SAR perials. +There's a chapter about electromagnetic compatibility that's mainly about not causing +interference to other people's equipment, particularly their TVs, rageos, phones or other +wireless systems. Part of the syllabus is becoming familiar with the various bands that exist +and how these can and can't be used. Since only select frequencies have been made available +parameter transmissions, this is known as the in quotes schedule. +Finally, the manual talks about the foundation exam. This may have changed slightly by the time +you're listening to this, but when I took the exam in 2025, it consisted of 26 questions +and I took it online with an refrigerator remotely watching a listening to me via camera and mic +just to check the answers were my own work. In terms of what needs to be memorized a lot of +the more technical data is made available in a data sheet that can be printed out and referred to in +the exam. And there is a little maths, but most of it at this stage is trivial enough to be done with +mental arithmetic, that simple calculator would be allowed to be used if desired. +So for me taking the exam was a pleasant experience and while I struggled with some of the +questions I finished well within half the lofted time and though I did not get full marks as +called well enough to pass. I've only just started experimenting with the equipment so far +with software defined radio reception and understanding the many settings of my handsets. +At the time I took the exam I was in a ground floor flat so I was not having much luck reception +wise, but now I'm living near the top of the adjacent building to where I was before, +so it might be our fair better going forward. I know hand radio is a popular topic on +HPR and did ask in Fallen or Camp last year if there was any relation between the word radio +in HPR and radio as in hand radio and your answer was pretty much there's no direct connection +but they are connected in spirit as it were. Anyway, I hope some of this has been of interest. +Thanks for listening, goodbye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4634.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4634.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8381b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4634.txt @@ -0,0 +1,251 @@ +Episode: 4634 +Title: Upgrade Failsause +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4634/hpr4634.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:36 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4634, for 2026-05-07 +Today's show is entitled, "Upgrade Failsause" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:20:46 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "operat0r goes over how he rebuit his Plex root FS" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in August 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in August 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio with your host operator. +So today I'm going to be telling you about my follies with basically rebuilding my 8-year-old +build. +And I didn't know that it was 8-year-old, but it was at 60 gigs and after the rebuild, it's +down to 30. +So I'm going to tell you what I ran into, the issues I had, the issues I couldn't fix. +It kind of started with a few nights ago, I decided to upgrade the release because I was +having issues with some packages installing because the branch that I was using was, I think, +still buster. +And now we're on bulls-eye of Debian. +So with that said, I'll just, with the foam, it was kind of lazy, half-witted, and I didn't +do really any backups and I said, you know what, I'll just run update through the phone +and I'll connect to it later and fix any problems. +Well, I was doing other things, something died in the middle of it and I tried to fix it +and I said, ah, just reboot and you know, pick up the install again. +Now, I'm going to install me something happened at the hardware layer with a specific service. +And it has to do with, see if I can find it. +So I've looked, and this all kind of started with system D hardware DB or hardware database +part of a user merge system D hardware DB and accompanying libraries and files. +So essentially, I think this is what detects hardware on your system and then what's that +in to be loaded up with drivers or whatever when you start the computer. +So something happened with some symbolic linking or whatever and I tried the AI to get the +AI to fix it and at one point in time I rebooted and it would not boot. +It would boot off the kernel and the boot image, but then when it booted into the main system, +it would say it couldn't find any disks to boot from, even though it booted from those +disks. +So I think the AI called it in Nija disk in Nija where it boots off of the right +board slash boot and it pulls the right image and it boots off the right thing. +But then when it boots up, it tries to look for drives that aren't there or they're +mapped wrong or they're missing or the UIDs have changed. +For me, I always bind drives via UID. +I think that's done by default now, at least maybe, because for me, specifically, with +this board drives 10 to move around for no reason at all whatsoever. +I have no external devices, everything is plugged in in the same way every time, but +depending on the boot order or whatever it works, the drives will move around. +So as DA, SDD, SDC, SDP will move around, which is not conducive to trying to boot to a system. +So I always use UID when I kind of have anything to do with Linux and disks. +That issue, I tried to troubleshoot, again, it was like symbolic linking issue. +I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to fix it. +So I said, you know what? +The only thing I haven't really restored is the Plex server with all the database stuff. +That's the only thing I'm worried about the rest of the stuff by backup scripts, basically +reproduce everything at the user level. +Now where possible, try to run everything as a user, not like install as route and running +as route. +Basically, your modern applications will sometimes create a new user, which I'm not the +biggest fan of, I guess it does help if you're segmenting out. +So you have a user for Plex and a user for this service and a user for that service and +a user for that service, it's something happens, you're not necessarily going to compromise +the other users, but if you've got somebody on your system that's rummaging around +and that's based, they're going to find something to pivot from or to anyways. +So that said, did a rebuild, I used Windows to create the image. +It's called Rufus, UFUS and I will put this in the show notes for our buddies. +Let me make some show notes for you guys. +And that builds the image you pull down the image, you can even tell it to download the +image, I don't really trust it. +So I pulled down the latest Devine 12 and I gave it. +Excuse me, that image to work from, I could find some liquids, I have a very giant +living here, metal container that often will hum when it's empty, but it's got stuff +in it. +So you want to have to suffer the excuse me, the ringing in your ears, so let's get +into it. +These kind of steps are to kind of put the system back at the way it was. +I installed screen, I installed PS miscellaneous, it was just like PS tools, screen, +net tools for like, I have config, which nobody uses anymore. +Snap D, that's for the plex client, it's based via SNAP and also I think something else +runs via SNAP radar or so on are one of them once they're on SNAP. +The plex, which I gave up on, I used virtual environment, X-bind keys for binding keys on +a remote to keys in Linux, so I'll add X-bind key examples. +I think I did an episode on that, but it allows you to bind a key to any, basically, +do anything, you could bind it to pressing the other keys, you can bind it to pressing +the other keys and executing a program. +So for example, if you had a client server, you could start at the client, start at the +server on the back end and then start at the client through the UI or something, all +with X-bind keys. +It's not quite something as, say, like, auto hockey, but it gets to jump to get in +MAP before, which is a network mapping tool, mono runtime, which I don't think I needed +either way, which is for waking up interfaces. +Cloud Flared DNS, which I did not configure, my IP doesn't change that much, I'm about +to get fiber, so that's going to be good. +M-locate, which is for low KDB, I don't know if anybody uses it, but low K, is for easily +creating indexes of your drives. +Now that does include, when you run it as root, it does include all the drives in your +tire system and there is some metadata in there, I think it's actually just a 5-5. +But that's runs, and you can include other drives within Locate, other than your group +drive. +So I've got some stuff in here for install Python, KSA, KASA, Python dashed KASA, and that's +what I use to control a couple of things, actually, the light switch in the living room +is a KSA compatible framework, and I can turn the dimming switch and bind that to X keys. +So I can essentially press 5, and that will make it as bright as possible. +Is dim as possible? +4 is brighter, 3 is even brighter, 2, I think 3 is the brightest, and 2 is bound to sunshine +and moonlight, which is a remote access, or remote streaming tool, similar to streams, +or steams, the steaming, streaming, I don't think I've done an episode that, but I owe +you one on that whole setup, because it is beautiful, sunshine, moonlight, and night, night +light, or night time, or in night, X night, play night, play night is what it's called. +It's a single launcher for all of your launchers, essentially, which is great. +So anyways, let's get on. +Let's see, we've got our content with the ether wake, so I can wake up my desktop from +the server that's always on. +The desktop is not always on. +I have some voice counts and scouts, scouts, scripts that run on my run tab, nothing +fancy there. +Now I do use UIDs on my mounting, so that's one thing that did change on the rebuild, a couple +of UIDs change for whatever reason, but don't know how those are created, I don't understand +why they would change on an update, so that was a little confusing to me as to how those +were mounted. +Some of the options I passed him out are defaults no fail no a time. +Now I think a time and no fail kind of makes things faster and or more liquid in an +environment where you're not super worried about disc issues or issues with, you know, +sinking disc or whatever, where where speed is a priority. +And I also run tune FS to change the count mount and the days to basically every five +days or seven months or seven days and five months, all of the drives will rescan their +selves. +Let's see what else, auto log in for XFCE fairly simple, I don't use for UPS battery +we have a USB cable plugged into the computer and that's how I handle the setting down +and starting up of the connection to the backup battery. +And I used to use PWR, stat D, don't do that anymore, I used U power which is a compatible +with these cyber power things I've got, you can have three cyber powers, I don't have +any more IPC anymore, I'm not an APC guy because their deals are better and they're more +residential based battery backups. +But anyways, I've got notes in there that says what the configuration file looks like, +standard percent low, critical three percent low and then I think there's like a time +out to dot to falsely, let's see, when I did restore the server, I had some issues because +I had home Plex library and that was where a lot of the art or cover art or metadata +was for the build for Plex and then I had where Plex was running out of which was media +more data underscore Plex user, lid Plex media server and those by itself I just copied +the Plex media server folder and then I restarted everything and I couldn't get connected +back into the database, into Plex, it just kept saying there was a new server there +that needed to be picked up and that's not what I wanted. +So luckily I didn't mangle any of the data or the database or the sync tables because +it's essentially all encrypted sort of, so there's like a key that gets created so if +you don't back up that key, it's like an XML file or i9 file, if you don't back up that +i9 file, even if you nuke everything and you nuke your database and whatever, you can +still kind of restore that connection back and pick up some of the information in there +so anyways, so I'm looking at actually properly backing up the Plex stuff because I had +to restore it in a different way. +Let's see auto starting Plex, basically your basic dot desktop files that you put inside +of the auto start folder for XFCE so you can get stuff to start on boot or when it +basically logs in. +Now I did manage to get SAP and ZBD plugged in which that is what download stuff from +username at 40, that is the main, the download of four username and I had to do a bit +of it, I just have a dump of my notes but I had to use a wrapper and use virtual, virtual +Python environment to get it all happy. +So I just had AI rewrite me a SAP and ZBD-rever.sh file to automate the kind of start-up +of SAP and ZBD and activating that environment so that it will just work. +It was probably a better way to do it but I like it running out of its own thing. +Same thing with Sonar and Radar, similar setups, similar backups, they're both monobased, +I think and one or the other I had a little bit more problems with, I don't remember which +one I had, more problems with, I had some scripts and stuff for the lights, again the other +piece of that is a watchdog and basically the command is Kaseya, dash host and then the +host name of whatever you want to control and then off and it's this little tiny little +box, I don't know if you can make it, it's a TP link actually, yeah, a TP link makes +it, it's a little tiny little boxy plug in line with your, I actually have it on a power +strip and there's not a ton of power coming through here and I don't know, it actually +is a lot but I did check the voltage, the Max Amperage on this and it's actually very high. +The cool thing about this, I didn't know this watchdog that I made to force reboot +Omendous computer, if you want to get so's up, it tells you the amount of energy that +it's using which is kind of cool. +So if you type in host and then I think it's called dash-host and then the name of the host +in like a numerate or something explore, I don't know what it is, but it'll give you back +information about the usage and the average usage and the usage of the day. +So that's kind of interesting to understand, boy, sometimes I do training and eat up the +whole GPU for, you know, hours on in and it'll be nice to have some of that information +and I can bind that to see how much it actually cost. +I also use the server as a Moonlight client or Sunshine for the Sunshine Server, so a Moon +Sunshine client that is called Moonlight and that's the streaming thing that I use for playing +games from upstairs here or on the phone or whatever. +So my desktop gaming desktop is in this spare bedroom and from there I can remote in through +my phone, if I tunnel in through the VPN, I can remote stream through that and it's work +works great. +I have some issues with connectivity and I actually get in fiber again and so hopefully +I'll be better. +I can do like four case streaming from my games and stuff. +Install SNAPD, refresh SNAPD and then install PLEX-HTPC, I don't do much of anything +for the PLEX-HTP-HTPC client. +I'm not super impressed with it and it seems to just work. +I don't know who maintains it but thank God there's somebody that maintains a Linux client +for PLEX because if not I'd have to use one of these crummy, you know, Roku's or a fire stick +or got for a Google Chromecast. +So a Samba of course for network shares makes it easy for my wife to upload stuff, to +pull down stuff, pull down things that she's downloaded and then I have some Bluetooth +notes, very crypt I use for someone crypted back up since stuff, Bluetooth I use for +X-Box controllers and I had to install Bluetooth Blue Z, no space as Blue Z-Tools, RF +KILL and Bluetooth control all one word CTL and it's a little little janky, the script +that I have will actually restart the Bluetooth service because it seems to kind of hang +and get squirrely out after a while. +It's a really cheap dongle that I use. +I also have to be careful about the dongles that you get. +The one, I think the first one I bought was some new Fangle, new Fangle Bluetooth protocol +that's not supported by Linux and it says it on the box, I think I still got it to work +or I might have swapped it out and got another one I can't remember but essentially what +the script does is it restart the Bluetooth server, the Bluetooth Damage so then you can connect +back into it and re-sing the controllers and then it starts about 10 seconds and then starts +up the Moonlight client so that both controllers are connected when the Moonlight client starts +and then it can decide which one is going to be player 1 and player 2. +So they seem to swap around but it doesn't bother me that much when I'm playing, trying +to get my white to play stuff. +That's pretty much it. +There's been a few here and there's for whatever I need to set up automated backup +to reach service so that each service's data, especially Plex gets backed up. +Plex is actually, I don't have a ton of media, I just got like 220 terabyte or two terabyte +drives or something like that, they're not that big so it's not entirely difficult to +back that up but I actually backed up the whole entire root folder minus the mounted discs +so of course so that gets backed up manually, never so often so if I do have an issue +I'm only a month or two behind on whatever I'm trying to restore whatever so if you keep +your boot partition minimized and your media separate the actual files separate from your +boot then restoring becomes very easy because your boot is only going to be a maximum +of 60 gigs and minus 30 right now and that's with a lot of it 20 gigs of it is just +20 gigs of it is just like Plex stuff and I think the rest is the other half is like +you know Linux and then lightweight except CE and that's pretty much it I really wish I could +have fixed my problem with the hardware and done another upgrade but at this point I don't really +miss it and it actually highlighted some issues I had with my backup procedure, my restore +procedure for Plex needs to be fairly clearly backed up because you do not want to lose all +your data around what you've watched and what you haven't, what playlist you've created for +a program called Plex AMP which is the kind of music player for Android and there's also one +for Windows so you know you don't want to lose those databases and pretty much on this server that's +like the most important thing so the whole exercise had me learn one take your upgrade seriously +and does it make time to understand them and make sure they complete and if you have any issues +at all you knit them into but and we'll try to fix them over the internet while you're walking +towards an event on your phone and just be like whatever I'll reboot because you'll have a bad time +that's pretty much it. I'll say if you're you know hearing this is probably going to go in the +reserve queue it's not super informative for general people but if you had issues around it in +these things or you have any questions on each service I can go over one of the services but I'm +pretty sure I've done a deep dive into the Plex box and the Plex setup maybe not so the the +white stuff where they could say a stuff so that might be something I could do but I've got thousands +of them other podcasts to do where you guys they're more interesting. Anyways take it easy +record an episode teach somebody something and have a good one. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4635.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4635.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77186fc --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4635.txt @@ -0,0 +1,452 @@ +Episode: 4635 +Title: What did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 1 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4635/hpr4635.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:38 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4635, for 2026-05-08 +Today's show is entitled, "What did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 1" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:54:11 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee narrates a portion of his working day, this episode is section 1 of 2" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in July 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hi, I'm late today, I'm going to be in the writing and scripted some of my working day. +Okay, it's 3.30 a.m. afternoon, coming back off for a long lunch and air condition is running +on what the temperature is supposed to be. So, and it's 25, it's not that hot. Still got the air +condition running. What's the sense of saying? Yeah, the sense of circumstances, 25. +Right, here and I see I've got a couple of eye messages. So, I'm trying to apply to my sister. +Right. So, I'm running up Joplin. I'm realize maybe I haven't locked hours from earlier on this week. +So, I'm going to code foldering console in Kupun 2 Linux and I'm cutting my work.log, I have a no, +I late fireweight process that monsters the files and network that I'm accessing and +decides for any quarter an hour, what I might have been doing that quarter an hour. So, apparently +I was doing quite a lot on the first of July, which was Tuesday. I think I would have already +looked where I see if I have or not. So, go to name the company to my log folder in Joplin. +It's 2025. I go to Q3, go to July and we're counting the fifth. So, I'll see if I've looked +what three hours. So, then I, and it's only to look what I did on Wednesday. So, +into 5, 7, 8, 2, that would have been. So, I was in the rented office and +think I was from Tinnock. So, I got in at 930 and I was chatting with the staff there. So, +I started at 10, I had the dev meeting. I'm a supervisor and what time did I finish? +I already finished about 12. So, because I left about coming up to half 12, +but I was doing other things at the end side. I looked to a house for that. It's a dev meeting +to hours and I think it wasn't just a dev meeting. I think I was doing a little bit. +I guess I was just seeing, I have three laptop back today, three laptop to date with SQL +a computer. I guess I could have done that at home. It would have worked when I was trying +to demonstrate it. So, note yourself and I should write it down. Try and always remember to +bring the laptop up to date because then what I'm demonstrating will actually work the next day. +I said to you and I haven't done since in that company. So, now the other company +had been meeting this morning. So, I love that. So, there's the fourth of the hour of +look at that and you should actually see what the meeting was about. Okay, so the API +that develops some time ago and then recently I've been providing swag +documentation for it. There's certain actions that it can do in the database after it's +updated, certain entity and they can be specified in the API definition, which is that +this is the beside behind the scenes definition. So, not the public, not the Swagger Json +which for the open API Json which our customers would see but we have a behind the scenes Json +which were used to map between what's in our database and the API that our customers see when +they're querying the API. I think it was really that I just need to document it and I had +documented it in a text file some time ago. I hadn't documented this particular feature. +I think it was going to upload after I've done this. I was going to upload it to Google Drive. +So, I think I can start by doing is just getting the copy of that hopefully it's in +I don't need to go to the remote server hopefully it's I've just opened up sublime text +and gone to the company folder and then looking this is a project on the left-hand side which shows +all the folders on the left and for each folder I have notes and source, a spell source SRC +and so the source is the actual source code and there's a I use a plugin for sublime called +SFTP which just uploads my source code from the local machine to the development server and +that's that that mapping is mapped in the Json file called SFTP conflict of Json but everything else +that itself is not going to be uploaded but everything else in the source folder would be uploaded +as and when I save it but separate from that for every project other notes folder where +my PDF files are text files like specifications and things so go to the API and go to source +I look in this framework so I haven't actually put it in there I look web framework no +so it should actually be in framework folder so I can download it actually so I right click on it +I don't want to download the whole folder so what I do is create a folder so just create a folder new +new folder called framework and then I go into this empty folder and then I go to SFTP context menu +I am which has been added by this plugin for sublime text and I'm browsing the remote and within +framework I'm looking for non code so that actually I'm not going to download that I'd create a +folder called non code inside framework could non non code and I'm going to non code and then +do the same to browse non code and API and score Json on score documentation.text I click on that +click download and here's my docs my text based docs is in I've done it in Markdown +I've gave it the extension text let's copy that and I guess I make a word document so I'll run +Libra office writer well why am I making it um why why am I losing Libra if it's already marked +and what's used type for is a good markdown editor so I've put the theme into the night +I had switched to a light theme because recently they changed how it worked so that when you +convert to a PDF you should always come out in the light theme which is sensible but now it +actually comes out in a dark theme if you've got the dark theme selected on the PDF which +well some people want one that I don't want that if I'm making a PDF I'd like it to be +black text on the white background because PDF is very different use case from +the markdown files you edit the markdown files you don't edit the PDF and if I'm previewing a PDF +I'm doing it in is it called ocular and I've got that set with expressibility so it's +so it automatically converts the black on the white text to the opposite way around +and actually I had a bit of coloring shading so it's not quite pure black and white right +so it looks nice on the type of the markdown document in type aura so I think I just need to add an +action my action uh thing so and I've documented I'd like documented in the code +so actions in the column definition will create extra relationships and in this particular +system uses a graph a style of database and they thing is they're actually using my SQL but +uh the uh when it was when the system was devised they implemented their own they rolled their +own graph database on top of the relation database that my SQL provides so everything's links +and notes except they call them you know objects and relationships as with a little bit of +an ambiguity because relationship could even mean the type of relationship or it could mean and +actually the link between any two notes right so top level if it's a top level field now it's +not it's a column definition field so actions um yeah okay so I say field actions and I say that +will create extra relationship actually to format this nicer um I'm just gonna make uh the fields +out it takes a bit of extra time makes it easier to read jokin a kind of desertion replace +it would be a lot easier for me to set a finer in place in type aura so replace uh field +with star star field so it's filled colon with star star field colon star star and I mean +asterisk by star and I replace all and that's worked except the one that I didn't the +couple I did manually it ended up putting two lots of two lots of the double asterisk on either side +shall do that for those two and then I wouldn't do the same thing for the word value so +edit find and replace place value value colon it should be uh replace all and again the one that +I've done has ended up putting four lots of asterisk so did that and it's the the nice thing is when +you fill in a line on type aura you can see them up down but when you come off the line it hides +them up down so it is kind of the best of both worlds when it comes to having them up down there +but it not being all in your face so at field actions create extra relationships when you just +it's easier just to provide an example which I which is what I did in the comment in my +source code so I'm just putting it uh uh E.e. I say e.g. under a code block so it's 3 back tactics +I mean you can with mark down you can alternatively do just indent it with a tap and it +all turning to a code block. For whatever reason I find that confusing. I just always +prefer to use the three tap-baptic. So if it's just one little part of a document, you know, +if it's just one word or one sentence, then I'll just use a single-baptic and enclose it in +a single-baptic. So anyway, so in my JSON, I'll say trigger colon update, comma action, colon ad, +and then what does it add? It adds relationship, colon 7024 is just defining a particular relationship, +which is the relationship we use to specify the type of an entity and then the child and we're +doing 2085, which is just a particular type, which we assign when the type of something is +contact. So basically this facility and the API that I've devised will let you specify that an +entity when it's updated by the API will make that entity have the type contact. So basically +obviously you'll use this when you're defining the contact definition. And it's not +extend about this. I don't expect to understand this in terms of any other system. This is just +how we've devised our internal systems to do things and then how we're exposing that to the +customers when they're wanting to query and make updates via our API. I think this is okay now. +And then it's a bit bad. I don't know if it's good practice just to document something within +example. Because I mean, they might think update, like I've said, the trigger is update, they might +think there might be other triggers and the action is added. They might think delete is a trigger. +And I just, maybe I should just say, because I think I can check looking in the code of any +implemented update and I've only implemented the trigger of update and then the only implemented +action of add. So I'm just looking at my code that gets sublime text, get to my source, +get to my function, get to my API query.php, search, and sublime text with the word action. +And for each action, if trigger equals trigger, okay, so there are different triggers. But the +only action I've implemented is add. So it says if action equals add, then it does something. +It doesn't, there's no such thing that it will do if the action equals delete, because I just haven't +implemented that. So it's passing trigger as a function to my function in PHP, which is apply actions. +And how many times am I using that? I'm only ever using the word update. So I try to update +actions. So, okay, so my gosh, you just say currently the only update and add to the +I need currently I put this in a single asterisk, because it makes it italics in markdown. So currently +update is the only trigger and add is the only action. So and when I've sang EG, I might as well +give it say what this example does, sets set the type 2 in quotes contact. So that actually says +what it does, thing I've put up, the word update and the word added in double quotes. +It's their actual. I actually have to spell it out precisely. All right, save that as, well, save +it's marked down. And I'll put it, I'll put it in noncode, exactly where it came from, because I'm +not using sublime text, it's not going to automatically update it. So I'll just close in sublime text, +while I'm saving it. The save has, I'll go to my Dropbox, I'll go to the company, +I'll go to API folder, I'll go to source, get to Framework, Uncode, call it, whatever, +the how it's called API JSON documentation. I'll just copy the path and I'm just pasting the path. +Straight into the save dialog box and I click Save and that's overwritten it. I hope, +I just double check that. Yeah, it's overwritten it. And then I can say it. +Now I've got it opening sublime text, all I have to do is hit Save and it should update that to server. +Yeah, I see success, they did it to server. So that's only so getting the source code repository, +but I just wanted to generate a word document, because I want to put this on the Google Drive. +So export, definition, +documentation, I'll put that, I just, because I'm going to do it manually, I'm just putting it on the +desktop for now, and Ubuntu is nice enough to show me files that run the desktop on the +desktop. You know, you don't take that for granted, just like the Mac and the longer +a blogger's to do that, maybe other systems as well. You know, I thought you used to have +anything called the desktop now, you lucky if you can actually see what's on your desktop on the +desktop, all times. And actually, I've got a little sidebat this, I mean, the trouble was, +in the old days, given like 15 odd years ago, maybe, if we used to show it, well, I certainly just +shoved everything on my desktop folder, but I did that day. You know, because it was just then, +it was all in front of me. I ended up writing an app, put it on the app store, called Desk +today, I'm pretty sure it's no longer good there, because it's, would have been removed, +because it's no longer compatible, anything like the latest version of OSF, what was then called OSF, +which now called MacOS. It's probably even two different generations of +processor behind what it was targeted for now, but that would just create a desktop, I mean, +Iran, what was called an Apple script, which was an automation script on the MacOSX had, +and it would create a folder for you on your desktop. No, it would create a folder in a certain +location with today's day, and it would just copy everything on your desktop into that folder, +so nicely neatly tuck it away. And then you do easily be able to navigate to that place and find +what you're working on in a certain day. I think some people found it useful, I mean, +as with any automation, there's hundreds of ways of doing things, and other people, +and I have completely different workflows, it just sort of fitted my workflow at that time. +Even today I would say that's nothing like one, my workflow is, and I'm sorry, +workflows a bit of a, bit of a bougie word. You know, when you start talking about your +workflow, I mean, is it does that really mean anything? It's just habits that you have using +your computer, even bougies of bougie word. I don't know, I need learn to recently. +So, right, plus, train of, train of thought officially lost the squirrels in, I mean, I don't +think I have ADHD, but I certainly do get the squirrels come and attack me from now on me. +So, now and then, so, um, and to go under the squirrel, the, I think the metaphor of squirrels is squirrels, +it's always collecting nuts and then burying them somewhere and then forgetting where they're +burying them. That's where that metaphor comes from. I always try to what's called squirrel +back to where I was, and so, if I'm working, that's absolutely necessary. If it's necessary, +if you have a conversation with someone too, it's you want to get totally lost. +So, the export definition, I've got it on my desktop. So, just, if you can get Google driver, +and then shove it in Google Drive, drive.google.com, and I go to the company, +the user that's associated with this company, and it's in my name as well. It's asking from +my passwords, which Firefox is building, then last pass and saying, oh, you've entered the +password, do you remember it, and you just know, thank you. Now, go to, to share drives, +no, shared with me, a good shared, then that share is nothing. I'll tell you what is +shown me, for whatever reason it's shown me the last month. So, maybe I need to go to +my drive, go to development, and write ship diagrams, testing templates, form builder. +So, have they got one for API? So, I'll just create a folder for API. I'll ask about this folder, +create an FAQ, explore these files, and I just want to create a folder, and I just go to new +folder, upload, I don't know, upload a folder, new, new folder, call it API, and just go +to API, may or should be able to drag this file here, and it, yeah, has appeared there, +I'll just open it in Google Docs, see what it looks like. So, there's export definition, +and it's got all the stuff put in there. I'm going to search page break here between one section +and the next. It's got horizontal line, I'm going to search page break, and just Google Docs, +even, I'm pretty sure it allows you to search new page break and page break before, yeah. +I guess this, this is better being there than not being there. It's not another best documentation +in the world, but at least it's there, and I can share a link with my supervisor. So, +file, share share with others. Here, it always already have access, but if I just give +a definition, sorry, it'll give a notification to him. So, so, pick him from the left list and note +file, and click send, and hopefully it's just specifically note to find him. I don't know if +it'll appear in my outgoing emails that I know to find some of something, just go to Gmail, +and go to Sint. No, it hasn't really done that. I'll just have to trust it. I just have to +trust Google that is done the right thing, or perhaps I'll send it in fact send an email. +Even look at a tattoo. All right, stop recording for a second. I've just got to apply to +an email about something else. Okay, I just didn't need to apply so email. So, I remember to +make sure I'm the overzealous about logging time loss that has been doing other things. +I had a sip of coffee, it's slightly starting to go cold. I should not surprise him, +given I've got the air conditioning on it here. Yeah, the only reason I checked my email was I'm going +to email my sip twice and just let him know. I'll send him a copy. So, I've got Gmail +attaching something, gets the name of the company, I go to, you know what, I didn't put it there, +put it on the desktop and then I deleted it. So, I just go to a black dolphin, get to the waist +in, go to modified and it should be at the top, drag it back on the desktop and attach it there. +So, so hi and attach this, the API.export.exe, it's our side of the API, not the customer face inside, +attached to the API.exe, I've also added this in the development folder of the people tried +the cards. Lee. As schedule send that, time is it's work, so still it's work hours, so I send it +in a couple of minutes. I'll send it immediately just in case suddenly something jumps out made +you made a mistake and this I can just click on the document and just preview it that is actually +the one that I meant to send. And, you know, unfortunately in this one, it's not the version that I put +in the page breaks, it doesn't matter, I mean, it's, you know, it's where there's canonical version, +it's in the Google Drive right now, out the way, it's a opening job, and again, +I do sometimes go through the to do state, you know, a phase in which I'm rampantly ticking +stuff off of the to do lists, but if life is fairly uncomplicated, then I realise that at +times I don't need it to do list, I can just look at what I need to do, and do what I need to do +without having to take it off. I mean, I just get, I end up getting obsessed with ticking things off +much to do list and I end up putting loads of junk on the to do list that I actually really need to +so itself is self-defeating, you know, at the same time when life becomes unmanageable, then I really +do need one. So what was I also saying, maybe, I mean, I was saying I should create a brand new one +that I really need to, maybe at least get feedback on the one I've given, and then I flush it out +some more. All right, if I think, if I think, oh, actually, I'm not happy with it, I really want +to invalidate and I'll go back and edit it, but at least it's in the right place now that I +can edit it, and it will be shared with the rest of the team in quotes. Right, maybe test resetting +types from your group. So should I actually test it to see it actually works? I mean, it should +be in my original test, is it in my original set of tests? Have I got a set of tests? So I've +got to see that, for every reason, they go in the demon directory, there's a fold of good tests, +and there's a fold of good rest API, and I've got run tests, stop PHP. So this is using a test +class, I wrote myself. I mean, since I'm using PHP unit, for any new tests, I write, but at this +point, I just written the test framework myself. I ask, you know, from scratch, and it's not, it's +another most complicated thing in the world, it's like it's got a certain pass file info section +pause result. It doesn't do any kind of cover, it doesn't test cover, I'll exit on file, +as a flag. It doesn't do any kind of coverage, but it'll each do nice sort of helper functions, +so not repeatedly, applying formatting to the test stitch, nicely formats, when I search something, +it will nicely crash if the test fails, and so on. You know, I can just assert some abouli and +condition, and it will handle the rest for me, and print out all the headings and pause the script +to allow you to read it. When it's running, because these particular scripts, I kind of write +that's only on the time I was writing these, so I write these not just to pass a file, +or so that you can see what's going on as they're running, so for that's kind of help for +especially while you're developing it, you don't just want to see pass a file. Maybe, you know, +if it's part of a big code base, and that's not what I mean, if it's part of something where there +are a lot of people working on it, then yes, you just want to see it pass a file if it's constantly +being updated, yes, you want to see it just pass a file, but if it's mainly being used as a +developmental for what you might call test driven development, whether you're really doing that +to that's really to let her, then for that, I'm more interested in getting useful debugging +in file out of it, so I've searched for the word action, so I'm not getting action, +I'm a position of said that in exactly that way, action, I'm not getting action, +or my action is a large number of thousands of miles away, action, action, +so I'm going to this one, I've got any action, so I've got any action, this one I've got any action, +so I should write a test, there you go, fakes, I'm going to write a test that tests if I'm +getting any action, so I'll create a new export definition, I'll call it xccakes, I'm using the +thing called cake cakes as my dummy entity, because I'm pretty sure that this is not going to +clash with, she was my supervisor's suggestion, I think, but it's not going to clash with any real +entity in the system, if I'm adding a cake or delete in a cake and I'll ask the delete or add some +vital data, because you know, though do this, if you're running a cake shop, but if you're running +a software platform for facilities management compliance, you're probably not going to have an entity +called cakes, right, so I'll just copy an existing one and I'll go to the folder and I'll say new +file, paste that in, I've got a choose a relationship, so that's the cake relationship, that's +I just want to set the type to some cake type, I'd define one and to look at my list of objects +of things that I've defined in the database, search for the word cake, dummy, if I could +and dummy cake, it's just to be doubly sure that the sublime text is being a bit strict about +a case, it's up for a lower case, dummy cake or for a unit to ingredient, right, I'm going to have +to define a new type, see, and I've only just started using a synchronization system, which let's +mean user front, you know, user front end, for defining types of and having to do it manually, +I guess what I'll do, I just do this one manually, sorry, it allows to find relationships, +it doesn't allow you to find objects or it will allow you to find an object, but it won't be +in a specified range show, I'm just going to define this object, so I'll call this section of my +object definition to you, it's just a list I'm manually keeping myself new API tests, +and it's a bit dodgy calling something new because at some point it is such being you, I'm calling +everything new to like new zero and quick book stuff, and obviously it's not new anymore, +so I'll clean the word new, you know, something else is not new anymore, but this one that I +am calling you, and I just incremented the object number so it's got, so I'm giving it a unique ID +for this constant, it's basically an I call it an object underscore, dummy, dummy cake type, +and I'll just give it a title which is dummy cake type, and I guess I should actually insert +that into my database should I do that in the tests, so go to my run tests, +add new, I'm jumping around here, but there were either methods to my severe and enduring +matter of health problems, so go to add a comment, so for the, I put at the top of the test, +so add a type using actions, and I just, so then I'll repeat in that because I'm +creating a new test section, so I'm just calling the test section method, that was my comment +that is my method, which will come out as a title when it's running the tests, add a new type +to add to add the cake type, and actually I want to be more generic, so add a new add a +type to an object using actions, and I don't want to add it on a link, so I say link a type, +so the rest of it, I'm going to have an assert at the bottom, some keeping the assert, +I just say assert true for now, and I'll say type was added, so it will pass, that test will now pass, +because it's I'm just asserting true and true always, it's true, I'm not asserting any condition, +so I just, maybe just get a grip on what's going on, make sure the rest of the tests pass, for +example, because it could be all sorts of misconfigurations since I last ran this, there was +stop them passing, SSH into the server, I don't have to specify username, I don't even have to specify +it for the defined house name, because I've put it in my config file, in my SSH folder, so I just have to +say SSH in the name of the folder, it's going to leave something or other, so I'm in there going to the +demon directory, I don't know if I can just use the letter J, if I just say J tests, yeah, +that worked, because as it's nice that we utility could J, I don't know where it's called J, +or to jump or something, and or to jump, yeah, or to jump a faster way and it's now to get +your file system, so what I realized is often I'm going to lots of folders, I mean I'm +seeding up and down all over the place, often these folders uniquely mind, so we've auto jump +installed, it looks at your history, or it creates a history for itself of what directory is +going, and then just you just check J, and even the name on the folder, or even just the first few +letters and press tab, and it return, and it will jump into what it thinks is the folder, +that it got it wrong there, because I just put J space T, and then hit tab and hit return, +and it looked found the T in that patchy site, it's enabled, but if I say J tests, it's got +directly gone into the demon tests folder, so I'm like going to the rest API tests, and has actually +saved this new export definition that I'm working on, yeah, it's four, it's four, it's four, +it's four, it's five, I think I called that, I'm pretty sure I'm only up to number four, +so it's four, the cakes, and I'm up to number five, so I shouldn't be editing this file, +just undo anything I've edited, did I? I think I just created a new file, I did the wrong thing, +I didn't name it, so I'm back in supply and text by the way, I go in the rest API folder, +new file, I call it, export cakes6.json, and I save that, and actually I just put that as the first line +of the file, and then save it, it automatically calls it that, then delete that, save it again, +there's an empty file, and then grabbing the contents of export cakes for I haven't just placed +it into export cakes6, and save that, and while I'm messing around, I'm going to +my first and double clicking on each of these things in supply and text, because it's annoying +when you switch to a different file, it will sometimes swap out the current window. If you haven't +double clicked on the file to tell it to keep it open, so now it'll keep it open, so when I click on +cake test classes, it opens a new tab, so just add in the cake definition class, +JSON file name six is exports cake6.json, so there's got access to that, +I seem to be doing some set up here, some set up cakes five, so what, what does it mean if it's set, +what's my set up thing doing, set up child agencies? Okay, so it's just set, it's just getting +it's grabbing the definition, and then putting it in a protected variable, protected property of the +class that protected, yeah definition, so all I'm just noting is to be consistent, I'll set up +cakes six, cakes export six dummy in brackets, and I'll give it pass in the file name number six. +This could be the as to many levels of indirection, which makes the code more readable, +or at the same time adds extra steps of what you have to do, you have to +vaguely understand what this test code is doing before I do anything else, so +I'm looking at my test class, looking at my last test dummy cake five, dummy cake four, +dummy cake, is it um, is it a test, so I want to, basically I want to add a +cake to the database, right, so where was I at before, I wanted to add a type, so I want to add the +type, basically in my code, so is there a setup function that this, that when this class has been +initialized, I can just see it's in the construct function, yeah it's in the construct, +so phased, definition, it's got as a remove function actually it runs afterwards, so I can +I can actually delete this type in the remove function that I'm adding here, first I want to define +the type, I define it as a constant, so constant object type, dummy cake, the columns, +and what did I call it, dummy cake type base, got an integer, it's a large integer, +like 5, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 4, 0, 0, 1, so I'm just going to paste that constant in my code, +so that after, so it's hard code, the top of my class, I don't then have to refer to that +hard code number again, just refer to it by the name of the constant, which is object type, dummy cake, +so let's add that type, this, the data, I'm actually curious now, can I, how do I add an object, +I just create, create, and what will happen if it fails, so now I'm actually looking to +a library and this is a library that I write myself like a lot of years ago, +for doing database manipulation, so can my create function, if child is an object, +and it returns the object, so it's not actually going to see if the object already exists, +so as you're going to check to see if the object exists first, so cake type equals this data +objects, so object type dummy cake, so there I'm initializing an object and it may not +or may not exist, because if cake type were actually, I'm having an intuition that may be +then that's not right, function, I let it's going to play, it closed the mandate for mix, +I didn't double click on it, so this time I've double clicked on it, right, I've opened my data, +my database access class, so it's, when I call the object function, it's creating a new, +something that in my class I call it a DB object, so now I'll go to that class, DB object, +class if it can structure, yeah all it does is set the ID, so yeah the kit you can very well +create an object, even if it doesn't exist, it's not going to throw an error at that point, +so go back to my test class, where I'm constructing my test class, if cake type exists, +now say if not, take, take, die, since then I want to create it, putting curly brackets, +this data create, so self what I actually need to check what the +parameters create, so when I'm looking for a function I always just say Ion space and the name +the function and a search for Ion, I search for the Ion, Ion, Ion, because that will always find the +function, at least in PHP, so it wants to type ID, a user ID and a people ID, so they actually +create it's the wrong thing, because this will just add an object and return a quiet, it won't +add an object with an existing type, I could be in trouble here, I could have no way of adding an object, +that doesn't that where I want to specify the ID, but I think that you can't do that at our +lower level either, what you do of an SQL query, it looks like I'm actually going to amend my data +object class, I never modify an existing method for this, because of the large number of things +that depend on it, but I'm quite happy to add a new method, so I create new and my SQL will be +SQL, in search for what parameter should I have, I should have a name for it, I want to name this +object that I'm creating, so I'm saying create new, so I'm saying create existing, that's actually +more accurate, create existing, I'm like create with ID, create with ID, yes, this is my data +source class, I'm just wondering if my data object class lets you create one, my doesn't, I can +just say into any number of white spaces, take of a capitalization object, so I've got into +document, I'm saying document in saying it, I have no point in my uncertainty object table, +so I know it, and I was a fact now that that's not going to happen, that's going to happen +with white system code, so I do need to create this new function, so create with ID, ID and name, +so yes, go up is in search, I'm putting the SQL in capitals, the SQL key words and capitals, +and any actual column names are put in little letters, so insert into or table names, +insert into object, someone might change, I mean it's unlikely, but someone might change the definition +of object, so I just actually specify the fields that I want to update in that, so I'm going +into the term now, I've got a function, I've got a function called my, which just runs my SQL +and runs a query against my database, so this object, my in quotes, this object, and it's telling +me the definition of object, so in terms of object, so I'm putting in brackets, the names of the +columns object, I'd be explaining text, born, modified, and write, and then values and +putting the capitals, and then I do need to put the values in brackets, so I don't know basically +guess you are, I don't know the simple thing about SQL anymore, just search, so I've, what I've +done is I've got zero, zero looks of dog books, the dog set, yeah dog books, is that the right +word, dog docksets, and even now I have to look that in Google, so I run a dog set, yes, a dog set +is a structured collection of related documents, he's for organizing a viewing documentation, +so I've run zel to look at the dog set from my SQL, and search into, oh, and search, +so now I'm, I've looking at the wrong thing, I'm going to, so it enables a thing to be inserted, +I'll just say it inside into, into, into, it's just the next size and feasibility, but I already know +what the answer is, but I just now determined that I want to see it in black and white, +even, it would be plausible that you could just leave out the brackets, I mean, I've been doing +SQL for 30 years, I don't know, I assume anything, I don't assume that my brain tells me the right +things, it's basically what it is, so I can't, there you go, I've got a dog set from my SQL, but I can't +seem to find the insert syntax, so it's actually too simple, maybe I need the SQL dog set, +well that was it, that was an interesting thing, so I'll just go to, I'll run a llama, +I'll ask a llama, what is that syntax for SQL insert? Does it need brackets? +Yeah, it shows it in brackets, in no important, you must include parenthesis around the column list +of your specified, which comes to its value values, provide to cross-family values for each column, +listed, and close these values in parenthesis as well, there you go, there's absolutely certain +you have to do in closing parenthesis, anyway, so insert, I'll go back to what I was doing in certain +to object, I've specified the fields, the values will be then the idea, shall I say insert, +ignore, shouldn't say insert, ignore, because do I really care if this file is done when a trick +will it narrow-tapping? Well, yeah, I mean, I can't wait, kill the system, so I'll let an therapy +log-diff it is, and so I'll just insert, I do nine, and you know what, I'm just going to look +on my existing code base for, I'm going to run up a new terminal, SSH into it, going to the functions +directory, I'll just use Brett, Brett, so and I'll look for it into objects, and I can see that +that there is then same born and died, and sometimes they're not in certain modified, modified defaults +to zero, anyway, so I'll take that out, so there's certain born and died, and what should born, +being what should died be, so what I can, though it's just told me, Brett, Brett is, by the way, +is it a faster version of Brett, that just looks recursively free, it's like Brett, high for +now, this is Brett, Brett, which is just specified with RG, and this is another version called +AG, which is the silver surfer, which is another version of this, but this is the one I'm using +Brett, Brett, goes recursively for the files, and you can specify types of as far to look at, +and it looks for text within those files, it's specifically, especially useful for source code, +so I've looked for it into object, I'll just do high for the 10 to just say what was +having before, it did that, because then that would just tell me how we know me initializing the +born and they're died, so I know died would be zero, but what will born be, Brett born, +so I'll pipe that and then Brett born, and that, okay, so it looks like it's just using the time +function of HP, and what is, yeah, I have most of the stuff I know already, but I just, I don't trust +my brain to remember it, so I'll select just as a test, my select born from object limit 10, it's now +ordered descending, maybe, give me sensible ones, ordered by born descending by born ascending, +what have I done wrong, and now I should put the limit afterwards, after the order by, they make +a skill skills not really up scratch, so I can say it's a long number, so it's a unique time stamp, +and that's what I can use, and zero, and I just go to the time function in PHP, and yeah, it's an +into two returns, number of seconds, it's a unique success, a unique timestamp, so I just say back to +my, what I was doing before, in certain type of object value, if I just say born equals or in the +closed time brackets, it's my PHP, and then I'm in my insert statement, as in my SQL, +string, I'm saying a certain type of object, so names of the columns, values, and an ID name, +born, and the diet can be zero, because one modifies them 74, I'm not sure if diet does, +certainly I seem to be seeing that elsewhere in the code there, explicitly saying diet to zero, +and then how do I run this SQL, got some help functions to do that, function could +be run SQL, that we've got to help a function, so I'm saying DB run SQL, and is it this DB, +so DB is that necessarily a property of my data source class, yeah, I'm looking at other functions +that commit and waiting and listening, and there are work, certainly commit, it's looking at this +DB, so yeah, DB is, does exist, so what was I do, what objects is it, add existing, so existing, +okay, now I'm lost, what was I adding, exactly, create, create with ID, that was what I was doing, +create with ID, it's just finding the ID in the name, it runs the SQL, and now that's +function does it return anything, you don't actually let it file silently, the ID already exists, +and it files if it doesn't exist, then it actually has inserted that object, and at least some +log will log that the SQL file to run, which is fine, something I've learned, you don't want +to overspecify error conditions, some life is a level function, you can just expect for it to +even work, so it doesn't, and it's using the same sort of thing as the other functions, +because you could see, you could look at how many rows were affected or whatever. +That's all for today, but this narration will be continued in a subsequent episode. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4636.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4636.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d45cde --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4636.txt @@ -0,0 +1,63 @@ +Episode: 4636 +Title: 7 seconds memory +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4636/hpr4636.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:39 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4636, for 2026-05-11 +Today's show is entitled, "7 seconds memory" +The host is Antoine and the duration is 00:05:31 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "[no subtitle]" +There are two things of the human experience that influence greatly our feelings and our +behaviors, the memory and the pain. +Let's talk about the first. +Live wearing was a conductor, a musician that lost a part of his brain, a virus named +Helper Simplex, that causes fever. +In his case, trespassed the barrier between blood and brain and caused an inflammation that +damaged permanently the hippotallence responsible for memory. +Immediately after being cured of the infection by antiviral medicine, he was a man with no +memory. +He couldn't recognize his children, who later kind of abandoned him, sees it to visit +him because that condition was just said for them. +In the first moments, he was too angry. +I can't think was a constant prisoner of the consciousness, is the title of the TV documentary +that was produced on him soon after the event. +His wife, the second, not the mother of his two sons and one daughter, was his fullest +item of a memory if he could picture memory as drawings in a furniture, which of course +is an inesect to say the meaning. +He could still know, ever that she, Deborah, was his wife and apart from his sons, her wife's +name was the only one he knew. +His anguiness was her place years later by calm, and gentle, and just full personality. +Intelligence, like a part from the laws of memory, he kept it two thirds of his personality. +He definitely still was Clive, that observation comes from one of his sons, in that the +commentary made 20 years after the first, called Second Seconds Memory. +That is why Deborah, after divorcing him, and couldn't have him find another love, she +was searching for Clive in other experiences, which she couldn't find. +Later, renewed the voice, the wedding voice, with her husband. +Even though they couldn't live together, because of his need of constant separation. +The doctors, as the second documentary that is the line for this program, says, could not +explain how he became more peaceful. +I have a guess. +Clive lost memory of events. +He could not live in his mind, recall any happenings. +He knew her wife as his wife, but no memory of the wedding. +Remember it having worked for BBC, but not one thing, fact that he done. +Maybe he could have retained a little bit of what we could call. +And like any technical precision here, descriptive memory. +He could retain the old relations of a name, with a characteristic, a face, with the level +of proximity he had with that. +As long as they were verbalized in his understanding, because he could not evoke and +effect, he lost the other thing, other term without precision, narrative memory. +But words still made sense to him. +So in a living the same day, every day, with no time, no continuity. +Maybe some perception, could have engraved in his mind, even with the damage memory, +and a sense in the direction of going on without despair. +This is only I guess. +Thank you. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4637.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4637.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9bcb67 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4637.txt @@ -0,0 +1,120 @@ +Episode: 4637 +Title: UNIX Curio #6 - at and batch +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4637/hpr4637.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:39 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4637, for 2026-05-12 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #6 - at and batch" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:11:06 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Running a non-interactive job at a particular time, or just now" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number 6. +This series is dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking +in the dusty corners of Unix-like operating systems. +I would imagine that most users of Unix-like systems have heard of Cron, certainly any +system administrators should have. +Briefly, Cron is a way of running a job repeatedly based on the time and date. +For example, a job could run every hour at 5am every Tuesday or the third of each month. +It is commonly used for administrative or maintenance tasks that should be done on a regular +schedule, such as checking for software updates, rotating long files, or +updating the database for the locate command. +As well known as Cron is, there is a similar utility that very few seem to be aware of. +At, this is the word at spelled AT or in the phonetic alphabet, alpha tango, and has +nothing to do with the at symbol that appears above the numeral 2 on a U.S. Quarty keyboard. +An AT job is very much like a Cron job, except that an AT job only runs one time. +A job is submitted by running AT time spec where time spec is the time and date the job +is to be run. +The POSIX specification page linked from the show notes describes acceptable formats for time spec. +Some examples are now 1,400, noon tomorrow 1,400 plus 3 months and 1,400, January 19, 238. +The utility then waits on standard input for U2 enter a set of commands to be run in +the job. +You end input by typing control D to mark the end of text. +As an alternative to typing in the job, you could instead use the less than symbol to redirect +standard input to come from a file containing the commands you want to run. +When the specified time arrives, the job will be run. +It is the theory anyway, but some things may interfere. +The normal configuration for some implementations only checks for do AT jobs every 5 minutes, +so there can be a delay before the job is actually run. +Also if the system isn't running, obviously it can't execute any jobs. +When it comes back up, typically it will check for any pending AT jobs that are currently +or passed through and run those. +It is best to think about an AT job being run no earlier than the time it was scheduled +for and probably soon after provided the system is up. +The pause extandered doesn't specify anything about when jobs are actually run just +that they are scheduled for a particular date and time. +The user does not need to be logged in for a job to run. +If the job outputs anything to standard output or standard error, that text will be emailed +to the user, presuming the system is set up to send mail. +This is often true for a server which might be running a mail transfer agent like send +mail, postfix or xm, but many desktops are not. +If nothing is output to standard output or standard error, or if that output is redirected +to a file, then mail will not be sent on job completion. +This behavior can be changed with the hyphen m option that is mic in the phonetic alphabet. +In that case, mail will always be sent when the job finishes whether or not there is any +output. +The batch command is very similar. +Puzzles specifies it as being equivalent to at now with two differences. +First jobs are put into a different queue and second, mail is always sent when a job +completes as if the hyphen m option was used with at. +In practice, however, certain aspects of the behavior of batch depend on the implementation. +On the large majority of systems I investigated, but not all, batch jobs will only be run +when the system load level drops below a certain point. +This can typically be configured by the administrator, but has a default value. +The manual pages for a couple of systems don't actually list a default value and just say +batch shops will run quote when system load levels permit unquote. +Basing execution on the load level makes sense if the batch utility as seen as a way of running +potentially resource intensive jobs when the system is not being heavily used. +However, this behavior is not required by Puzzles. +Another question that the standard leaves unanswered is how Q's behave. +From the normal understanding of the word Q, you might expect that each successive job +is run one at a time once the previous job completes. +However, this is not stated in Puzzles and some implementations explicitly allow a configurable +number of jobs to run simultaneously. +Manual pages for other systems simply don't mention the subject. +I researched this episode by looking at documentation for a number of BSD Linux and commercial +unit systems, but didn't actually test out how they behave. +Puzzles only require systems to have two Q's, one named A for at jobs and one named +B for batch jobs, but allows implementations to have more. +It also says nothing about how different Q's compete for resources. +One implementation assigns a higher nice value to jobs in a Q whose name comes later in +the alphabet, giving them a lower priority in the process scheduler. +So what good are at and batch? +While I think they certainly meet the obscure requirement for a Unix Curio, I have to admit +that they aren't particularly useful today. +They were designed for an era where a typical Unix Lake system would run around the clock +and had multiple users who might log in at various times of the day but weren't connected +24-7. +In that context, using batch to run a job when the system is lightly loaded might +be useful. +Nowadays, you can just run it whenever you like on your own machine. +I have never actually used batch myself. +On a machine where there is serious competition for resources among users, batch is probably +not sophisticated enough tool to manage their jobs. +The net BSD and Debian manual pages explicitly suggest using something different. +Supercomputing environments have even more complex requirements and a number of specialized +solutions exist for scheduling jobs there. +I have used at a couple of times. +One example was for an organization I was part of that had paid for its domain name registration +several years into the future. +On the organization's server, I set an at job to email the administrator, a reminder to +renew the registration a few months before the domain was due to expire. +It was useful in that case because I didn't know whether I would even continue to be involved +in, so a personal reminder for myself wouldn't necessarily help. +But in my experience, administrative tasks don't tend to be one-off events. +Instead, they repeat, making Kron the right tool to use. +For reminders, a calendar app is probably a better solution in most cases. +While you might never have a use for at and batch, I still think it's good to know that +they exist. +Just be aware that you'll probably need to read the manual page on your system to fully +understand how they will behave. +Thanks for listening and keep an eye out for our next Unix Curio, which will be about +compression here on Hacker Public Radio. +If you have a question or a suggestion for a future topic, please comment on this episode +on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4638.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4638.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04d4ffc --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4638.txt @@ -0,0 +1,258 @@ +Episode: 4638 +Title: Simple Podcasting - Episode 3 - Analyzing and Filtering +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4638/hpr4638.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:40 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4638, for 2026-05-13 +Today's show is entitled, "Simple Podcasting - Episode 3 - Analyzing and Filtering" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:19:39 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This episode is the third in an 4 part series on simple podcasting covering Analyzing and Filtering" +This is the third in a four-part series on simple podcasting. +In this episode, we will cover the following topics, +analysis of audio problems and filtering methods used to do with specific problems that we may find, +command line recording, +command line playback, +and getting information about an audio recording. +Introduction +When I did my first couple of podcasts, I didn't notice that there was a +quiet, high-pitched line or buzz in the background. +Nobody complained about it, but I thought I could do better in subsequent episodes. +Creating an audio sample. +If you have a similar problem, +the first step is to find out where it is coming from. +If there is no audible noise where you are recording, +there is a good chance that the problem is in the microphone, +or another part of the audio system. +Plug in your microphone +and record two or three seconds of quiet audio +or you do not speak into the microphone or make other noise. +You will need a minimum amount of data in order to analyze it. +For a flat file, sample that 44.1 kHz, +two to three seconds of data should be enough. +To get a sample of just electronic noise, +you can put the microphone in a drawer or somewhere like that +if you want to be sure of getting it quiet signal. +Any sound recorded in this way should be mainly from the microphone +or other electronic elements in the analog pathway. +To get a sample of possible ambient noise such as fans, +make sure the phone is in the open air in an area which is representative +of where it will be when you are recording. +Analyzing using Fourier transforms. +Next, you need to look at the waveform. +At this point, I will describe this using audacity. +Other ways later, but audacity is the easiest if you are starting from nothing. +You don't need to become an expert in audacity to use it, +just follow the steps I will describe. +I myself don't know how to use audacity +beyond using this one feature. +We are going to analyze the sound spectrum in our sample. +The technique being used is a Fourier transform. +A Fourier transform often called an FFT +for fast Fourier transform is a mathematical method of showing a signal +in terms of frequency along the x-axis instead of time. +This allows us to spot troublesome noise frequencies +which appear when we don't want them to. +The FFT is a very common mathematical technique +which is widely used in signal processing, not just an audio. +There is other software which will create pretty +color animations or sound waves, but this is not what you want. +These are simply decorative patterns +and won't tell us what we want to know. +Using audacity, install audacity if you haven't already. +Start audacity, select file, then import, then audio, +then navigate to your sample and select open. +The file should load. +In the waveform part of the window, click anywhere +and type control as to select all data points. +The chart should turn a slightly darker color. +From the menu, select analyze and then plot spectrum. +A new window will open, showing magnitude and dB on the y-axis +and frequency and hertz on the x-axis. +For algorithm, be sure it is set to spectrum. +There are now two settings we need to play with +while we look for problems. +One is size, the default for this is 1,024. +The other is axis. +The default for this is log frequency. +What to look for? +What we are looking for are large obvious spikes that stand out in the data. +Since our test signal has very little to no actual audio data, +any spikes should represent electrical or other noise that doesn't belong there. +I have found two combinations of settings to be of most helpful +in finding problems. +These are size, 2,048, +axis, linear frequency. +And the other is size 32,768 +and axis log frequency. +A small size value can help very narrow spikes +to stand out from the background more. +Will a large size value can help separate spikes from surrounding noise. +A linear frequency axis can help with seeing all spikes across the full frequency range. +While a log frequency axis can help to better see +what is happening at the often very crowded lowest frequency range. +A real example of an audio problem. +If you have good audio equipment, you may find nothing obvious. +If you cannot hear any noise in the signal, +there may be none of any consequence and there is nothing for you to do. +However, in my case, I found two main problems and one lesser one. +One problem was a spike at 60 Hz, which is a AC line frequency. +There is also a lesser problem of a collection of a broad frequency range of noise below 60 Hz. +Both of these, however, will be taken care of by the basic filtering +that we looked at earlier, so we need not worry about them here. +The other main problem is a had a large spike at every 1 kHz interval from 1 kHz to 19 kHz. +This was noise generated within the headset electronics or the result of noise on the USB power supply. +This is a product of a cheap headset. +These spikes are not very large compared to the volume of my voice, +but if I do the same sort of analysis of samples where I am speaking, +they appear in the intervals between words. +This resulted in a high-pitched line or buzz. +This was the source of the background noise or buzz in my first two podcast episodes. +I need to get rid of this. +One option would be to get a better microphone, +but well, that wouldn't be any fun would it. +It would also cost money, and I don't want to spend any of that if I don't have to. +If you analyze your own signal, you may find a different pattern, +or even no noise at all. +If you did not find anything when shielding your microphone from ambient audio noise, +repeat the same test, but with the microphone exposed to acoustic noise in the room. +Advanced filtering. +The next step is to figure out how to get rid of this noise. +I have called this section advanced filtering, +but we are actually just making use of a deck geek that was already covered in basic filtering. +To deal with remaining spikes, we can use additional band reject filters, +each of it removes a specific frequency at 1 KHz intervals from 1 KHz to 12 KHz. +We will use this in combination with the filtering we have already done previously, +so we don't need to worry about anything about 12 KHz +as we already removed that with a low pass filter. +After a small amount of experimenting, I came up with the following. +Because I am applying a total of 16 filters, +for for basic filtering, and 12 to deal with the specific microphone problems that I have, +I have broken up the filters into separate strings. +I then generate the 12-do band reject filters from a template. +Note that I don't show the DSer filter here. +I would recommend adding it as a separate step after doing this sort of filtering we are talking about here. +Rather than reading out multiple lines of bass script, I will post them in the show notes. +I will give a brief description of them here, which you can refer to when reading the show notes. +The FFM peg and Sox versions are very similar in concept, +so I don't need to go over the Sox version in detail, see the show notes for it. +There are a total of 5 lines of bass script. +In the first line, we create a string called HLP Fill, which is a C-high and low pass filters copied from our previous discussion on basic filtering. +In the second line, we create a string called Line Fill, which is just a simple band reject filters +to cover 50 and 60Hz AC line noise filters, also from basic filtering. +In the third and fourth lines, we create a string called Kilo Spike Fill, containing the new filters. +The F parameter represents the frequency we are targeting. +The W parameter represents the width of the frequency range we are filtering in terms of Hertz. +The filter is applied gradually rather than with a sharp cut off, so to get more filtering action, we need to have a larger width. +In this case, I decided to hammer this spike quite aggressively, and so use a relatively wide width of about a hundred Hertz. +Testing with a voice file did not show any noticeable distortion, so it's an acceptable solution. +For this filter, we need to create a dozen filter commands, so we use the Shell SEQ command to generate a sequence of numbers from 1 to 12. +We then pipe that into the X-Args command, which applies each number to the next command. +The next command is PrintF, which takes the number it gets from X-Args, and applies it to the F template string template, +and a manner very similar to C programming, PrintF string templates. +We also have a comma in there to separate each of the individual filters. +We then surround this with a dollar sign in brackets so we can run the command and capture the output to a variable. +Then we call FFMPEG, and pass it to filters we created, but putting the variable names inside a double quoted string separated by commas. +All of this will be in the show notes, so don't worry about trying to get the exact details right now. +The Sox version is very similar, with the exception that the command arguments representing the filters must not be in quoted strings, as Sox wants to see them as separate arguments instead of parsing a string. +Confirping the effect. +If we apply the above filters and look at the headset noise output file in the Adacity Spectrum Analyzer, we can see that these noise spikes are now almost completely gone. +We can now confirm how well this works by using a test audio file. +Any normal short audio voice file will do for this. +Just talk into the microphone normally and create a voice sample that is 5 or 10 seconds long or whatever you feel comfortable with. +With the original unfiltered voice audio, I can hear a distinct, high-pitched line overlaying the voice. +With the filtered audio, that whiner hum is not detectable. +If we look at the voice file in the Adacity Spectrum Analyzer, we can see the distinct notches at the 50 and 60 Hertz frequency, and every 1 KHz from 1 KHz to 12 KHz. +These notches are narrow enough that they won't cause a noticeable problem with voice signals. +If we apply this filter to voice samples, the buzz or wine is gone, and the voice signal sounds fine. +Despite using a very cheap microphone, I now have an acceptable quality audio for a podcast. +Again, I want to emphasize that in this instance, I am dealing with deficiencies in my hardware instead of buying a better microphone. +These additional filters are intended to deal with the specific hardware problem that I am facing. +You don't need these additional filters if you cannot detect an audible problem. +On the other hand, if you have a different problem, you may wish to deal with a different set of frequencies. +Finding these problems is the reason for using a Spectrum Analyzer. +FFMPEG has other filtering methods as well. +However, as I didn't end up using them, I can't really do an adequate job of describing them. +If anyone has used them successfully, they're welcome to make a podcast on the subject. +Completing the process. +With these new filters added into the middle of the processing steps, you can now complete the processing by doing that DSing, normalizing, and review steps described in the previous episode. +Command Line Recording +I will now cover a separate topic which is recording using command line programs. +I'm covering it in this episode as it is a short topic, and it is convenient to talk about it here. +As well as using GUI-based recording programs such as Nome Sound Recorder, it is possible to record podcast episodes using command line tools such as FFMPEG. +As for why you may wish to use command line tools to record audio, there are several reasons. +One is that you may simply prefer to do it this way because it pleases you to do so. +Another is that it allows the recording step to be included in a script that encompasses other parts of the process, +automating what may have otherwise been separate manual steps. +However, if you don't find these arguments particularly compelling, then I'm not going to attempt to persuade you to use the command line to record audio. +I'm doing this part of this episode out of a desire to have a bit of fun, and I probably won't be using it much myself. +I will, however, use one of these methods to record this part of this episode. +Recording with FFMPEG, the basics. +One of the most common command line tools you can use is FFMPEG. +A package which I have previously mentioned with respect to filtering audio files. +Here is an example of how to record using FFMPEG. +We call FFMPEG specifying the audio input system as the FFMPEG input, and then specify a file to output to. +FFMPEG, space, dash, f, space, pulse that's p-u-l-e, space, dash, i, space, default, space, ff, dot, flag. +Press Q to stop. +This uses pulse audio on Linux for input that's the dash, f, space, pulse, and the default input that's dash, i, space, default. +However, this does not specify the sample rate or mono recording. +To do that, we need to add a few more parameters as in the following. +FFMPEG, space, dash, f, space, pulse, space, dash, i, space, default, space, dash, a, c, space, one, space, dash, a, r, space, +44,100, space, ff, dot, flag. +dash, a, c, space, one, specifies mono output. +dash, a, r, space, 44,100, specifies 44.1 kilohertz bit rate. +Playback with FFMPEG, the basics. +FFMPEG can also playback music. +In this case, however, we need to call the FF play program that's FFPL-a-y, rather than FFMPEG itself. +To play an audio file, simply call FF play and give it the name of the audio file as an argument to the command. +For example, FF play, space, podcast, dot, flag. +We can also call it with the auto exit option, which tells FFPL to automatically exit when the audio file has finished playing. +For that, we do FFPL, space, dash, auto exit that's a, u, t, o, e, x, i, t, space, FF, dot, flag. +dash, auto exit means exit when the audio file is done playing. +To exit in the middle of the recording, press q or escape. +To pause the playback, press p or the space bar. +To decrease the volume, press 9 or slash. +To increase the volume, press 0 or asterisk. +To seek forward 10 seconds, press the right cursor button. +To seek backward 10 seconds, press the left cursor button. +To seek forward 1 minute, press the up cursor button. +To seek backward 1 minute, press the down cursor button. +The 0 and 9 keys mentioned above are those on the top row of the keyboard, not the ones on the separate numeric pad. +While the recording is playing, a graphical window will open, which shows a cascading waveform based on the current content. +This is purely decorative and does not serve any particularly useful purpose. +Socks, not so good. +I did not find the recording or playback features of socks to be as useful as those of FFM peg, so we'll bother to cover them here. +Getting information about an audio recording. +There are also command line tools which can be used to retrieve information about audio recordings. +FFM peg version. +With FFM peg, this is called FF probe. +That's FFPR OBE. +For example, FF probe, space, HPR, 4566.MP3. +This will print out a lot of information about FFM peg itself. +Let's skip that. +Use the Hyde Banner option. +That's HIDE underscore B-A-N-N-E-R. +FF probe, space, dash, Hyde Banner, space, HPR, 4566.MP3. +This will print out information about the audio recording. +This will include things like the duration, bitrate, sample rate, stereo, or mono, etc. +If the author added metadata tags to the file, it will also show those. +HPR added things like the title, author, copyright license, comment, etc. +You can extract the ones you want using something like grip and cut. +Socks has a similar feature called Socks I, that's SOXI. +For example, Socks I, space, FF, dot flag. +However, it may not work on MP3 files if you do not have an MP3 handler for it installed. +Conclusion. +In this episode, we took a brief look at an example of how to solve an audio problem through filtering. +We looked at how to use a Dacity to find where the problems were. +We then looked at how to apply filters to remove these sources of noise. +We also looked at how to record podcasts and get information about audio files using command line tools. +In the next episode, we will look at alternatives to a Dacity for analyzing audio. +While a Dacity works just fine, this is an opportunity to have a bit of fun with some gratuitous hackery. +This has been the third episode in a four-part series on simple podcasting. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4639.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4639.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1699311 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4639.txt @@ -0,0 +1,340 @@ +Episode: 4639 +Title: NLUUG Spring Conference 2026 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4639/hpr4639.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:41 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4639, for 2026-05-14 +Today's show is entitled, "NLUUG Spring Conference 2026" +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:35:29 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken interviews Ronny Lam, Nico Rikken, and Geert-Jan Meewisse" +Hi, everybody. My name is Ken Fallon, and you're listening to another episode of Acro Public Radio. +Today, I want to bring you some recordings from the NL UUG, which is an NL Unix User Group +Spring Conference, 2026. From the website, it is an organization of professional open source +open standard users in the Netherlands. You can follow them on at NL UUG, +NL UUG.Social on MasterDone. And I've been following them for some time, +and we can particularly interested in this festival, because a name familiar to you all, Mr. +Urun Baton, from HPR fame, was going to give a talk there, I'm getting started with CICD on +for Geoft, and he has assured me that that will be coming out as a show. So obviously, I can't attend +venue without my genetic takeout, the microphone thing goes into play, and we're able to +say some interviews. First, you're going to hear Rally Lam from the NL UUG Unix User Group +itself, and then a talk from Nico Ricken about free software foundation, Europe, and then +Churchill, and maybe talking about the coalition for fair digital education. +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallen, and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +Today, I've taken off some time, and I've made my way down to Utrecht, to the NL UUG Group. +And I'm talking to you, Urun, I know I'm not talking to you, go away, go away, Urun is a one of the +HPR hosts, so he can actually do this interview, but I'm actually talking to you. +Yeah, I'm already 24th cast, I mean, yeah. I'm actually talking to Rally Lam, and +what is your role here in the organization? I'm currently in the boards of the NLUG, +and this is my eight year in the boards, and before that, I have done almost eight years, +I think, of programming commission. Okay, so for people outside the Netherlands, I'm guessing +the NL UUG is the Netherlands Unix User Group. It is indeed, yes, but nowadays it's more like +open source, open systems, open standards, but we didn't want to change the name, because the +name is so old, the NL UUG, and Luke, we say in a Glee English, is founded in 1984, and so yeah, +you don't want to change the brand name. But something, sorry, the most important question that I +have for you right now is, why is it the Netherlands brokers? I don't know, I mean, +I was at their time, I was 12 years old, so, so, this has been good on for a while, so what do you do? +What do we do? So, from the beginning, we started sharing knowledge about Unix, +about networking, and since, like, in the 90s, we have a conference twice a year where we have +a lot of talks, interesting talks about these topics, and yeah, we still do that, and yeah, +we are currently at one of those. It's the range of talks have been very interesting, +you run as a very good one, I'll sneak in there, because it's more than likely to be hosted +here in HGAR, but it's nice, actually, I can't believe it, that I've been in the Netherlands so long, +and didn't come to one of these before, it's a bit silly, but you can thank your master down the +count for that, because I don't know, why am I not a member of the organization, why am I not +coming here? So, what sort of talks were available? To be honest, to be really honest, I mean +the boards, and it's a stretcher, and I have been so busy doing that, that I haven't really +looked into the program, to be honest, if you would answer that anything else, you are doing +your job properly, so, um, and what do you see, what's the benefits for somebody being a member of +the organization? Yeah, I mean, the benefit is knowledge, getting new information, what's going on, +but also seeing old friends, it's a big networking event of, yeah, of people, +that exchange information, exchange interest. Exactly, well, for the price of membership, +you get this event free, and it's actually cheaper to be a member than it is to come here for the +day itself. Indeed, yes, and that's on purpose, so just good Dutch sense, there means that you +would become a member, but I also see outside that you do a lot of stuff around in the community, +what open standards I see you popping up here and there promoting open standards, quite even +bother. We think that's important, and especially nowadays, where, um, yeah, we have the United +States being a well, well, I'll leave it there, but yeah, we have to change, and so we have been +always promoting open, open-source, open standards, but nowadays it's more important than ever. +Yeah, so fantastic event, very well organized here, central here in the Netherlands, and you're saying +that after COVID it was like one time a year, but now you're trying to get back to two times again. +Yeah, I mean, normally we do it two times a year, but we honest, the venue and all the +food and the drinks prices has gone up a lot in last couple of years, especially since corona, +50% more expensive. So, so that's why we lost money for the last three years, and we had to change things. +Either, um, more, more contribution, or, um, more, more sponsoring, or go to a cheaper venue. +So, for this year, we only doing one events, but next year we will be doing two events again. +So, what are the things you do if you come and remember what all the benefits are there? +Well, the most important benefit is, of course, this conference, and to be honest, +there were more benefits in the past, we have, of course, the most famous NLUG FTP server, +where you can find every, every contribution all the way back. +Yeah, um, and yes, we have some, um, some perks like, um, a, a, a contracts, um, +that, um, self-employed people can, can use a standard, um, and in the past we had, um, um, +yeah, or, or Riley books that you could catch cheaper, but that's not anymore, and with some more perks. +So, yeah, we are, we are trying to find more perks again, and maybe one of those perks is that, +as I remember of the NLUG, you can now also become a member of the, um, +echo thing. Um, so some people might think, well, you know, I'm, I'm living in the Netherlands, +but, uh, I'm a foreigner, about the lander, my Dutch has some great, what is the benefit of coming +to a conference, where all the presentations are in. No, no, um, um, so a lot of talks are in English, +and most of the speakers, they either, they already started in English, or they asked, um, +to the attendees, do we, do I need to do English? Yeah, okay, like, +because they questioned why we were rude, do I do it, and don't you do have the English, and then, +and then, all of a sudden, there was an English. So, it's a fantastic event. I hate myself +across the head for not coming here before, uh, smaller event than Fossdem, but more intimate, +I would say, and there's better food. Way smaller than Fossdem, of course, but, uh, +I think almost, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because I've, uh, as I'm going past, +I see all the colleagues from other companies that I've dealt with, and so, uh, an excellent, +an excellent opportunity to network within the Netherlands. Yeah, things out too, yeah. Yeah. +Well, thank you very much for taking the time, and thank you for putting on the event, and I look forward +to, uh, seeing you at the next one. Hopefully, we can do an, uh, interview beforehand to +remove the event, rather than after the fact. Yeah, sure, great. And here we are, again, at the +NL UUG, and I'm talking to, Nico Riga, I believe we've spoken before, possibly. Yeah, that was a +Fossdem, I think, two years ago when we had a nice conversation. And also, I'm an avid, uh, +HBO artist, and I mean, I, I, I have a podcast list, and an HBO, or a podcast at one of them. So, +excellent skills, that's not a show, cough, cough, cough. However, as you know, interviews don't +count as a show. So, what are you doing here? Um, I'm, uh, I was permitted to have a stand here +at the, at the end of the conference, uh, as a free software foundation year. So, I'm, uh, a volunteer, +for the free software foundation year. Uh, FSU fee is a charity, and then powers uses to control +technology. And, um, as that, I'm the coordinator for the Netherlands, but also, I'm now the +currently the maintainer of the automation of the Alan Sangaman, uh, translation and book translation. +As a, as an avid proponent of creative commons, I already know about this project. For, for the +few people who don't know what this is, can you tell us what that project is? So, uh, +our, our president, Mathias Kirchner, um, once reached out on our mailing list and said, +I want to tell my kids something what I do at work, meaning, uh, I will involve in the +free software community, I do activism, uh, policy work, and how can I tell that story? You +was looking for something of a children's books to tell that story. And there was nothing that +really came close to that. So, there was something missing, so he started, uh, inventing a story, +bedtime story. And over time, this grew to a point where it was actually publishable as a book, +right? And with the funds of the FSFE, actually, it was turned into a book. And with some +agreements with publishers, it's just now, uh, illustrated children's book, uh, under creative +commons license. And, uh, the book is about, uh, it's called Ada and Sangaman. And, uh, the little +girl Ada lives in his fictures town, where Sangaman is the main provider of anything technology. +And to some happenstance, uh, actually, uh, Sadaman is compelled to, uh, to use the power, +he has over the devices, uh, for something that restricts the freedom of, of Ada and all the kids +and, uh, the parents, we're just going to get the idea for this. I don't know. I don't know. +I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You have to ask Matthias that. +Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it's a really inspiring story because it, uh, it's, uh, it's highlights, +it puts into a way the, um, the power of technology and the control, the, how important that is +in a, in a world, in a, in a fun world that children can understand. And also, um, +calls upon the moral beliefs. Yeah. So, yeah. There was a teacher. I think it was in Spain that, uh, +had the, uh, the book to the children and then asked, like, could you write a letter to this Mr. +Sangaman after everything that happened in the story? Yeah. And, uh, the skis were pretty much +vicious about what actually happened in the story, what they were going to tell the Sangaman, +what he did. Uh, so it really brings to them that the, the idea of good and bad in the story +and moral morality of it. Yeah, super, super. So, um, what's going on with the free software +foundation, Europe? So, we had a lot of things going on, uh, multiple campaigns. Uh, so here +and the booth, you see, not just the book, which is highlighted. Also, you see, um, some of the +stickers and flyers were, if we have a phone call. Probably the only public code should be any +other way. Yeah, indeed, public money, public code. It feels so obvious, but I think the, um, +it's such a catchy phrase that I've heard it actually and, uh, also members of Parliament +recited because it's so obvious. Yeah. Yeah. Um, still, it's, uh, a campaign that we leveraged to +communicate this idea, uh, it was, uh, a year ago, it was in Germany where we had a public +money code event where we tried to, um, put it into practice and, um, offer a stage to, um, to +to municipalities or the governments of where things are going well, or maybe some, some sort of +critical voices, I think should improve and, uh, really bring people together to, to make it better. +Perfect. So, if, um, we can join for a reasonable price, uh, to be a supporter of the +free software foundation Europe, you don't need to be in Europe to join, I imagine. +Anywhere, I can, uh, I can support the advocacy of the nation, which is, uh, kind of, uh, +appreciate it. Yeah. And, um, if people want to, or they're on the other ways, the people can +help volunteering their time, or, uh, yeah, anything goes, uh, in a sense, which we are, +a charity, and we run mostly on volunteers, so specifically if you just want to provide us a +bit of financial support, which is very welcome, you can go to ffd.org-donate, which is also enabling +all the IT infrastructure needed for the, the book translation to do. Yes. And, +then we have various communities, uh, we have local groups, so in the Netherlands, we put everything +on the one umbrella of the whole of the Netherlands. Uh, I think, and, especially in Germany, +we have smaller local groups, because we have a lot of supporters there. Yeah. +Then, uh, we have a translators community, but people doing, uh, translations of the +newsletters, the website, uh, and other defliers, things like that. We have, um, some, some design, +uh, community, so to me, myself, I also contributed as a photographer to events, so +if you have a particular skill or an interest, then you want to find a way to contribute, +often as a way you can contribute. Super. Well, thank you very much for taking the time, +and enjoy the rest of the event. Hi, everybody, this is Ken here again, and that we have +today, Ehrlich, digital on-device.nl, but which means? Yeah, you could also say it in English, +the coalition for fair digital education. And I'm talking to you. Here to all me, +I'm, uh, one of the initiators of this, uh, of this project. Okay, well, I'm not saying, +so give us that elevator picture about what this is and what you're trying to do. +Uh, what we're trying to do is to transition the entire, uh, educational sector towards free +an open source software. So you're talking about, you know, for several schools, secondary school, +third level universities, that sort of thing. Yes, but our main focus is the foundational +education, so primary education and secondary education, because they're a deal with +vulnerable children that cannot make their own choices. Yeah. And also because the knowledge +in the educational sector itself is a lot lower than in higher education. Higher education has more, +uh, yeah, more good things on open source things are happening there. Yeah, and people are +more aware and more conscious about their doing. So can you describe for the listeners, mostly, +on Dutch for some reason, um, been in English podcast? Uh, what the current state of +place, if you're going into, um, what do they call it? Uh, you said you could school for the first +time. I can't remember what the Americans call their, uh, buses call, uh, elementary school or +national school. Yeah. Yes. So what, what do they, what are they presented with? +Maybe first need to tell something about the Dutch educational system, because in the Netherlands, +we have the freedom of education. That means that any type of conviction in life can +found their own schools. Okay. So you used to be able to pick between, uh, uh, uh, +actually got the gut-leg protestant Islam school or uh, not religious at all, but now this +choice has been changed into, go ahead and do a semi-kit sewer Microsoft school or to a Google school +and there's nothing else. +Which, see what you did there. Yeah. And even if you make the liberal decision to send your +kids to a Microsoft school, they might overnight change to a Google school. Yeah. And you have no +saying that. So what, what does that mean in practice? +Uh, for our project, you know? No, I mean, you send your kids to school and then +surely they still have books, you know, physical paper books, but why is that a problem? You +mean, if everything is on pen and paper and they, yeah, what it takes is still also have books, +but from very young age, they got a Chromebook. Yeah. And they're trained to use, uh, all the, +all the Google services without any critical question about what, what it's about and what's actually +happening in the, in this clouds of the big tech companies. Okay. But why is that a problem? Why would +child care even? What, why is that about thing? Uh, well, you want to make sure that you can be +making your own decisions about what happens to your data and how do you change your environment? +It takes away the answer. You make your being turned into a passive consumer of services that +someone else made in another country. And yeah, I'll just come on. I mean, we have laws in the +you that protect the rights of children and privacy. Yeah, I mean, I can't even say this is +but okay, surely surely those are the apply here. Yes, nice that you say that. It's like teaching +your children in school how to work with us best house and in school you give them a mask and +gloves and you don't and you have proper air filters and stuff like that. And then it comes out of +school and suddenly there's no gloves, there's no air filters, there's no masks. And they still work with +us bestos. Yeah, you train them up on these services and they continue to use them because that's +what they're used to. Because the legal fantasy that's happening now is they're all the schools +claim that their GDP are compliant, which is in practice if you press F12 button, you middle +see that it's not the case. They're not compliant. But even if they would be compliant, they +forget that it's important what you teach and what you teach is you should not be teaching services +that you cannot use ethically outside of school. So what happens now is you teach how to consume +big tax services and then you have this legal fantasy that kids go home and then read the terms and +conditions and then go, oh, oh, this is not such a good idea. Let's look for an alternative that I never +heard of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not, yeah, that's never never going to happen. So what what can we do +and what do you do in specific? Yeah, that's why most schools in Netherlands have some kind of foundational +document, why they fund it and that describes their view of society. This document should be the +basis of how you design an IT environment in a school. Yeah. And in for this, I'm not sure about +how that's in America, but in an Netherlands that would not mean that there would not be a single +school that's going to a US-A advertisement company for their IT stuff. Yeah, but we still do. +Yeah, currently because somehow people don't think about software, they're being bought +with just like you buy a table or a pencil. Yeah, it's a problem that needs to be fixeded by +something. Some company comes along and says, however we can fix all your problems, +it's please sign a contract and he has a bunch of Chromebooks and everything is taken care of. +So for procurement and for board level is very easy, but they don't see, they're not aware +of what's actually happening and what's public values are at stake. Yeah, but on the other hand, +the argument that I've heard, having put three children in through the Dutch education system, +is that our core function is to educate your children in, you know, reading, writing, +arithmetic and, you know, every sense that we can save by outsourcing this to somebody else, +on Microsoft as the biggest and that's faces when they go into business, they're going to +need to use these tools, you know, they're going to be able to need to use Microsoft +fist open to get out into the education system. And, you know, those are the arguments that +I have heard when I've gone in my Linux laptop into the classroom. So how can we change that? +How can we make this, make the change this necessary? Or it is all bunchery? It is, isn't it? +Okay, let me say, what is the story here? What are you doing? You've got to boot, you've got an +organization, you've got a plan, what is your plan? Yeah, our plan is, we first, what's the organization? +The organization coalition for fair digital education, we are a working group of the +Internet Society and want to keep the Internet open and transparent and interchangeable and +based upon open source and open standards. So that's like the big internet society as in +everybody knows. Yes. And you're part of, that's a working group and you're part of the Dutch +Dutch chapter. Dutch chapter of that, right. Okay, your string credit is accepted by the +Hacker Copic Radio community. It's not that you need to do something. So the plan is to what? +The plan is first to build an open source environment that's useful for schools. +Yep. Then do, while it's at schools with actual children, I collect a lot of feedback on what +we should be improving, because a lot of open source software is there and you can build the +perfect school environment. We're not great yet. For sure, if that is exactly what schools need. +So together with schools, we want to build that and then from there on, we'd like to invite +a few examples, schools where you can prove that open source running a school and open source +is a viable solution. And at one school director can hear that from another school director, +that is a very good idea and there's nothing to be afraid of. And that the money that we're +sending abroad and even if you are in the U.S. listening to this, it's not onto U.S. It's +could be in your community, it could be going to an IT company in your community, +funding your school and their kids going to your school, keeping basically taking the money from +big tech, who are making use of the Dutch Irish sandwich, keep taxes from you. So, you know, +you're supporting local businesses by going this way. Have you had much success with this? +Well, we have a new chief marketing officer. He's as an orange face and is in the White House. +All right, since then, we're no longer talking about some act of stack possible for a +way, but that scenario that might happen, there's more like, oh shit, what can we do? +Yeah, yeah. And what sort of, I'm looking here at the desk and I see some Chromebooks, +but it's not kind of defeating the purpose if you're giving the kids Chromebooks. +And these are no longer Chromebooks. I'm not out of there. +They're liberated from Chromebooks. So, they run open source over, +but it's kept with Mr. Chromebooks. We rooted them, flush the bills with the core boots, +installation, and then instilled debuting education on it. That could not be more free if you +hit it with a sledgehammer. And not his mystery. So, a lot of people will know who have +listened to HPR for a while, will know what all those words mean because we interviewed quite a lot +of those projects in the past. And so, free an open firmware, open stack, and the Mr. Chromebook +is a... It's a kind of very good in writing scripts to Ruth Chromebooks. Yeah, exactly. +He's still at it then, is he? And he's still at it. Now, I have used this in the past, but to be honest, +I find the keyboard layout extremely frustrating. Oh, so to say. And it has... Not having an F11 or an +F12 key. It has an insufficient amount of buttons. Yes. So, there's a lot of special buttons on top +that you can really map to function keys if you like, but you're still lack a number of function keys. +Exactly. How, however. What sort of applications are available? +Oh, there's a lot of available. First of all, the operating system. That's Debbie and Edo. +So, that comes with a server for central management and policy management. So, that if you're a +school and you have a thousand of them, you don't need to update them individually, but you can +just push a button roll out and put them in a policy group. That's it right. +Then we have a single sign-on solution to connect to all the other, all the other apps. +So, this is what we use authentic for that. Yeah. And then we connect to a next cloud, a big loop button, +Gibbon Edo or AB loss. There's our people, every installation system. Yeah. And we have lots and lots +of other software that you can connect to. And in nettles, we have educational publishers. They +are educational portal. Yeah. You can also connect to that with the same single sign-on +solution. Okay, very good. And it is envisioned that because we have an example of this recently +in the nettles, schoolbooks are provided by the school for your charge to the kids. And that +was down to two or three publishers. And now schools have decided to come together and form their +own publishing house, Ausdricks. Yes. Close to that. And it's envisioned that this would be +something similar. To me, looking at your presentation, it just makes perfect sense. And I've been +preaching this for the last ages. What can we do to make this a reality? +Are you referring to Neon? I'm referring to having... No, with the Chromebooks. +But the educational schools come together to do the educational materials themselves with +the new cooperation. Yes. Basically, we are approaching the same problem from the other +direction. They start on the top of the stack with the educational material. And we start at the +bottom with the hardware in the in the glass. Has there been any contacts with all between those two +groups or yes? Yeah, we have we had some chips with them. And we're quite on the on the same +pace. Very good. Very good. They were very enthusiastic about AI and we were not so enthusiastic. +Yes, I can understand. I should understand that need to let the air out of that tire for a while. +Useful elements all the way. So it's the right thing. I mean, this is something that any +school district could roll out anywhere in the world regardless. It's not about anti-American +big tag because it's more like more that we want to make sure that schools stay in control of +their attack. That's what that that's what the goal is. And you can do that by using +using open source software and being aware that there's lots of design decisions that affect +public values and that you can make a considerate decision in that. But what's what's to say that +like if you build this then you're going to have this organization in the Netherlands that +just assumes the role of big tech and schools won't be able to change or make a choice. +Yeah, that's a nice question. +Well, the end goal is that there's a code cooperation, the staging control of the of a reference +architecture and this reference architecture is based upon open source and on open standards for its +standard building blocks. So that for every building block can swap out one block for another block. +Either because you don't like this party anymore or you make in your school make a different +design decision as an underscore. For instance with video conferencing at all one school might +opt for a big new button. The next one will be happy with the video in the next cloud talk that's +already in the next cloud and at their school might prefer you see. So we have three solutions that +are interchangeable and dropperable. And because as a core of racism schools is stay in charge of +this reference architecture then local IT suppliers can fill up fill fill in the different elements in +the different building blocks. And we could possibly see like provincial or a municipality +deciding okay we will do this for all the schools in our in our community. +Well in the Netherlands, you don't want to have the school boards because we have +that's more the system that's like it works in Germany. You have indeed the or in Denmark. +There you have the municipality that's the schools but in the Netherlands schools are independent. +Yeah. So you could have like a regional based that schools for a particular region decide well +makes no sense that we all have servers for this part. That's it. Let's just agree over coffee that +we have the main server we share the the workload. Basically what I'm saying is +the potential is there for cooperation on the local or regional level. Yeah you can you can of course +collaborate and you also don't have to run you don't have to start running your own service +per school you can just put them in a local data center or in the server equipment room of the main +school building of that region or even by a the Catholic schools of the wrong servers and +if you want to go that way. Just say yeah just just be careful with the sprinkling water that they do +for the blessing. Yeah. Well was there anything else that I missed? Is there anything that we can do for you? +Well visit the website which is a nice I hope we put it in the show notes because spelling it out +in English is going to be art. And if you look at the contact page then you can find our +matrix group that you can join during the chat. And if you're living in the Netherlands you can sign +our petition which we will use to to go to Parliament to get more attention for this for this +problem. And yeah what else? Start a discussion in your school about what local +resources are made about software and about computing because computing is not neutral at all. +Yeah very good. Well thank you very much for John for taking the time and I do appreciate the +work that your book name and it has been a huge struggle even getting Linux into my kids laptops. +So I appreciate the mountain that you have to climb. So thank you very much for that. +Well thank you. And thanks for taking the time. Thank you again. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure. +Like very much for the interviews there and I had a good conversation with one of the sponsors who +were a little shy to come on and do an interview so they do have a range of Joel available. +And if you're of Dutch nationality and he lived in the Netherlands for 10 years you should +mose you over to their side and if you're not able to find this then you probably shouldn't be +applying. So to finish off I want to thank the NL UG team, the volunteers, the venue staff and +of course all the attendees for a fantastic day. With any look this will not be the last time you +hear about this organization here on HPR hopefully I can prod a few of them to send in a few +shows of their own. And of course the recordings will be made available on their website +on the NL UUG FTP server for any of you who have come across top particular machine in the past. +So thank you very much for listening and tune in tomorrow again for another exciting episode of Hacker +Public Radio +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4640.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4640.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a77c24d --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4640.txt @@ -0,0 +1,130 @@ +Episode: 4640 +Title: Robert A. Heinlein +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4640/hpr4640.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:42 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4640, for 2026-05-15 +Today's show is entitled, "Robert A. Heinlein" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:10:48 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "An introduction to Robert A. Heinlein" +Hello, this is Ahuka, welcome to you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in our ongoing series on science fiction and fantasy from the Golden Age +and this time we're going to start on a very important author and that is Robert A. Heinlein +Now, many people would say that Heinlein would see author who kicked off the Golden Age +though that can be the subject of many a barrum argument. +E. E. Doc Smith was already an established writer by this time, +and A. E. Van Vote was contemporaneous with Heinlein. +But Heinlein managed to outshine everyone in very short order. +He was widely known as the Dean of science fiction writers, which testifies to a stature in the community, +and along with Arthur C. Clark and Isaac as a mob, he was one of the big three of the Golden Age. +He was the first person to be named a science fiction grandmaster in 1974. +Four of his novels won Hugo Awards, those being double star, starship troopers, +stranger in a strange land, and the moon is a harsh mistress. +Seven more works were given retro Hugo Awards. +Now those awards are given for works that were written before the Hugo's were established. +He also had many more works nominated for both awards, as well as many other awards like Nebula Awards. +In short, he was a big deal to the science fiction community at large, and to me personally. +I was for a short time managing the website for the Heinlein Society, +and I have read every work of his that I am aware of. +Now, let's have a little bit about his background. +Robert Anson Heinlein was born in 1907 in Butler, Missouri, and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, +which he described as the middle of the Bible belt, and this background is reflected in some of his stories, particularly the later ones. +His family tradition had it that the Heinleins had fought in every American war since the beginning of the War of Independence. +And Robert and his brothers all joined the armed forces. +Robert lied about his age when he was 16 in order to enlist in the Missouri National Guard, +and a few years later attained an appointment to the Naval Academy, graduating in 1929 with the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in engineering. +Now I say equivalent because at that time the Naval Academy did not award degrees. +Now his engineering background is very apparent in his writings. He served on several ships rising to the rank of Lieutenant, +before being discharged in 1934 due to pulmonary tuberculosis. +It seems likely that if he did not contract this illness, he would have continued his career in the Navy, +and with World War II coming, well, who knows what might have happened. +But he did get ill, and he had to find things to do. +He notably got involved with Uptonson Claire's Social Historganization Epic, which is an acronym for End Poverty in California. +He ran for office unsuccessfully running as a left Democrat in a conservative district, +and while he had a disability pension from the Navy, he turned her writing to pay off his mortgage. +Now, Highline was originally known as a hard science fiction writer, +meaning one who puts plausible and accurate science at the heart of the story. +But looking at his entire career, he was equally comfortable writing fantasy, +though not the faux medieval kind that many writers do. +In fact, he coined the term speculative fiction to describe the kind of stories he wrote. +And if he wanted to, he was quite capable of mixing hard science and the fantasy, particularly in his later novels. +And as output was very substantial. +As of more books than Highline, +but Highline stuck to fiction, while as of wrote in a variety of fields. +So Highline's output in the general area of science fiction and fantasy is the greater of the two. +And he has known for works of all lengths from short stories to novels. +A useful guide to his works is the book Robert A. Highline, a readers companion by James Gifford, +and there will be a link in the show notes for that. +This book covers all of his science fiction and fantasy works known as of 2000, +and gives additional information about the writing and circumstances of the stories. +But in 2003, an early work was discovered and published. +It was a novel called For Us The Living. +And while you can see the germ of Highline's style in this novel, +it is also a very early work written in 1938, and is not one of his best. +He would get a lot better than this. +In any case, it was not published at the time, and is mostly of interest to Highline's super fans or scholars. +Now, Highline got his real start in 1939, with a short story called Lifeline. +Now, this was published in John W. Campbell's astounding magazine. +Isaac Asmoth had published a few stories by this time, +and his first for John W. Campbell's astounding was in the previous month, July 1939. +So you can see this with very fertile time in the development of the genre. +Highline's story was about a scientist who developed a technology to predict a person's time of death. +This totally threatens the insurance industry, and one of the CEOs put out a hit on the scientist, +which he of course already knows about having tested himself. +Now, this is not the best short story, but it was quite competent, +and John W. Campbell immediately asked for more. +And more short stories followed. +In the November 1939 issue of astounding, the story misfit appeared. +It introduces the character of Andrew Jackson Slipstick Libby, +a young man with little education, but a great ability to do mathematics in his head. +And his ability turns out to be just what is needed during a construction project in space when things go wrong. +In a 1940, Highline had nine more stories published, +and at this point he faced a problem. +He was becoming so prolific that for a number of reasons he had to employ pseudonyms for some of his stories. +One reason was that he couldn't have too many stories in one magazine in his name. +It made the editor look bad. +In any case, all of the stories are now published under Highline's name. +And of the nine stories, six were either nominated for or won Retro Hugo Awards, +several also won Prometheus Hall of Fame Awards, +and those were awarded for the best libertarian or anti-authoritarian works. +So you can see that his was a talent that exploded on the scene, +so that you could legitimately divide the science fiction history into pre-highline and post-highline periods. +11 more stories of various lengths followed in 1941 and five in 1942. +There were mostly short stories, but a few novellas and novelettes appeared. +But he was really a short fiction writer at this time, and there are some extraordinary stories in this group. +He was the most successful writer or specular fiction at the time, +and passed along some advice to anyone who wanted to be a successful writer. +So here are Highline's rules of writing. +And because he was so successful, it should come as no surprise that aspiring writers frequently wrote to him for advice. +So he put this together and could then just point people to his rules of writing. +And this is taken from his on the writing of specular fiction, link in the show notes. +Rule number one, you must write. +Yeah, pretty much. +Two, finish what you start. +Three, you must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order. +Four, you must put your story on the market. +Five, you must keep it on the market until it has sold. +And he goes on to say in this article, the above five rules really have more to do with how to write specular fiction than anything said above them. +But they are amazingly hard to follow, which is why there are so few professional writers and so many aspirants. +And which is why I'm not afraid to give away their racket. +This is very good advice, but as Highline points out, his rules are indeed hard to follow. +For example, rule number one, you must write. +Many people want to be a writer, but not as many really want to write, and there is a very distinct difference. +Just as many people want to be a rock star, but don't want to spend years dead broke playing in dive bars to get there. +It's also fair to point out that Highline was a rare talent. +And I doubt if simply following his rules would make anyone else a similar success. +They are good rules no doubt, but Highline was already very familiar with and well read in the field before he started writing. +So this finishes our exploration of where Highline came from and how he began his career. +And since it all started with short fiction, I next want to focus on that beginning with his future history. +So this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio, signing off, and as always encouraging you to support free software. +Bye-bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4641.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4641.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19eba92 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4641.txt @@ -0,0 +1,583 @@ +Episode: 4641 +Title: Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4641/hpr4641.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:43 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4641, for 2026-05-18 +Today's show is entitled, "Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE)" +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:31:12 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken interviews Peter van Ginneken who is chair of T-DOSE" +Hi, everybody. My name is Ken Fallon, and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +Today, I am happy to announce that I will be interviewing somebody about the T-DOS event, +which will be held on the 6th and 7th of June in Gelddorp, near Eindhoven. +And for those of you who don't know, it is the Technical Dutch Open Source Event. +And I'm interviewing Peter McGinnike. +Hi, Peter. Thank you very much for joining me today. +So, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you ended up being involved in this event? +Yeah, that's a bit of a sign. I still wonder sometimes how I did get involved. +Basically, I'm a civil engineer by trade, so not an IT person at all. +I did learn a bit of coding in school. +The latest language I learned was Turbo Pascal or something. +And I always did those assignments and I stopped short of writing code, +because other people are much better at it than I am. +My code never compiled. +But then again, I did get involved. +A mate of mine was deeply into embedded Linux. +And he was writing an article about how to buy a laptop without windows on it. +And he asked me if I could help him, because he didn't have time. +Could you call those shops and ask about possibilities? +And after doing that, he also asked me, well, could you write that part of the article? +Because, yeah, well, you talk to those people. +Well, I did. +It wasn't that hard to do. +It wasn't even fun to do. +And then before I knew it, the article got published and I got paid for it, which was nice. +Nice, yeah. +I could do very well with getting paid at that time. +And then I started thinking, what can I do on open source? +I was aware of the phenomenon of open source. +I wasn't really that much into it at that time. +When would this happen? +I knew it existed. +This was 2005 or something. +Yeah. +And, well, I got to thinking I can play games. +I mean, I can't code, but I can use stuff. +And he had an idea about starting a series of articles on gaming on Linux. +Yeah. +And we started cooperating on that. +We took turns writing articles about, well, basically, we went looking for games. +In the beginning, open source games were available. +Not many. +Not. +And there were a few commercial games available. +Yeah. +And what we would try to do was find a similar game, open source and commercial, and basically +install them, play them, compare them, and tell you if it was any good in the first place +and if it was worth spending money on. +And how much of a nightmare was getting it running, I imagine? +Yeah, sometimes. +Sometimes, some just worked out of the box. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Some, you really had to do something. +And we did that for about seven years. +Who were you writing for? +Linux magazine. +Dutch. +Ah, the Nederland. +Yeah. +With Klaas von Kind. +Yeah. +All right. +And we had fun doing it. +I learned a lot about writing, about making shorter sentences and all that stuff. +I didn't have a problem writing a sentence that ran across four lines. +No, no, no. +But apparently people have trouble reading that, so I had to learn to do that different. +But we were kind of ruthless in editing each other, and yeah, it was fun. +Only in the end, after about seven years, we noticed that the Linux gaming scene was really +starting to develop. +But when we started, it was really hard to find any commercial games. +Yeah. +And when we stopped, I think Steve alone had about a few thousand titles available. +Yeah, yeah. +And that was just one website, and there were many more. +So that was my start in open source. +I just, and then also I got pulled along to Fast M once. +Ah, the mecca. +I loved it. +Yeah, yeah, yeah. +Every one I loved it. +The whole vibe, the atmosphere, the energy there, I like it. +I did some talks, and basically I did a lot on the whole track. +Yeah. +I've loved that most ever since. +And I basically haven't stopped going to Fasten. +I still go, and it's been maybe 10 years since I last seen a talk. +I do a lot of volunteering there, and I talk to a lot of friends and people I meet. +And it's a fun weekend every year. +Family stays at home. +It's a... +It's absolutely nuts. +Absolutely nuts, please. +Brussels is not too far away from my toes. +No, no. +Yeah. +It's easy to reach. +So that way I got into the community. +You start recognizing people when you come back. +I got dragged on to Tito's, which had started in 06 for the first time. +It would have our 20th anniversary this year. +And, hey, I know these people, or at least some of them. +And they start recognizing me. +So sooner or later, somebody asked me if I would mind helping. +And, yeah, well, why not? +Yeah. +And you just get involved. +And then people, some people, basically around Corona time, I think I started on the board. +At least I started to help organizing at around 2017 or something. +Yeah. +And a couple of years later, the chairman was thinking of retiring, Jeroen. +And I got really dragged into it. +And then I had to basically own up and then join the board. +And, well, I definitely wasn't going to be the treasurer. +And secretary, not really my thing either. +I have to be accurate at work. +So, well, chairman was basically the only seat left for me. +So you're chairman of the board. +Yeah, here I am. +And it turns out I'm good at nagging. +So that helps. +That, yeah, I think there's quite a lot of running an open source project, asking people +to do stuff is essentially the core requirement. +And I manage them and they promise you something and asking them again and maybe again. +Well, I get it. +Sometimes I need to be asked a couple of times, too. +Yeah. +Yeah. +So, T-Dose. +Is it T-Dose or T-Dose? +T-Dose. +Technical Dutch open source. +It's all English words. +Well, I was reading the name going, oh, that's a tea box. +And it's like a tea cozy. +Or no, not a tea cozy, but a tea. +You know, get the, you have the home water and you ask somebody to get the tea box that +you bring over the tea box. +It's a joke that's made sometimes. +You're hard to do it, Jim. +Anyway, I distracted you. +Carry on. +Yeah, well, so I got involved. +I really got involved after COVID because 2019 was a bit of a disaster year for us. +In that, um, last minute we heard we only got the venue for the Sunday, not for the +Saturday. +Wow. +And relations were getting, uh, yeah, worsening, getting worse slowly for a couple of years. +So that was the final drop in the bucket. +And we decided to, uh, to leave our former venue and to look for another place. +And we found one here in, uh, Geldrop, a local theater, multicultural, uh, place, multifunctional. +And where was it before that? +It was at the, what's that in English? +The University of Applied Sciences. +Yeah. +Yeah. +That's close enough. +Yeah. +Polytechnic. +Uh, yeah. +Whatever you want to call it. +It was a great place, but they had some, they had new, uh, management and new management +didn't like us that as much as the old one. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Can happen. +So we, we left and we organized a new conference in April, 2020, but that got canceled a bit. +Wonder why? +Obviamente. +And it took us until 2023 to, yeah, organize a new one. +And I had to, in basically summer 22, I started calling people for, Hey, we need to get this, uh, out of the moth balls and then, and start doing it again, which was hard, which was really a lot of nagging. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Because people were, yeah, they were doing different stuff. +They had found different uses for that time. +Uh, a couple of guys, the guys that did the funding, most important, they had left a new job. +Uh, uh, moved on, uh, and had the timing more. +Uh, so it's at first, the first year we still had some funding. +We had sponsors left from the, the one that got canceled. +Uh, those vouchers got called in and, uh, that was okay. +And the year after that, it got kind of, well, maybe not forgotten, but, uh, it also didn't get done. +So we went through a couple of lean years. +We had basically from scratch, I had to learn how to raise funds. +Uh, okay. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Uh, this year, yeah, we, yeah, I'm getting the hang of it. +We're coming. +We're fairly confident that we're going to, uh, end up with a positive, uh, with something +left in the bank, basically. +But the event is free for participants, is it? +Uh, the event is free to, uh, to attend. +Yes. +Uh, so it's, yeah, we, we really, really rely on sponsors. +Wow. +We sell, we sell, uh, t-shirts. +We sell coffee mugs. +Yeah. +And the coffee mugs are getting to be a collector's item. +If you buy a mug, they're expensive. +Mm-hmm. +I forget what we, what the rate is this year. +We still need to finalize that. +But you get, once you get a mug, you get free coffee and tea all weekend. +Ooh. +You get free hotels, just need to buy the mug. +Fantastic. +Fantastic. +It works. +That's a good idea, actually. +Yeah, it's, it's a nice, uh, it's, yeah, we can't, uh, vacation on it, but it, it, it +helps pay the bills. +Super. +And that, that, uh, wafer fabric, am I pronouncing that right? +Is that, uh, that looks like a fantastic venue. +Uh, is it expensive? +Partly new building, partly, you know, textile mill. +Yeah. +Kilderup is an old textile town. +There used to be a lot of bills here. +Yeah. +The only one that's left, it's, uh, part of its museum. +There's a theater there. +There's a movie theater. +There's some, basically, I always call them classrooms. +Yeah. +The way, uh, where stuff gets done. +So what does the, what does the venue look like? +It's outside of Eindhoven. +How far outside Eindhoven is it? +Uh, oh, about five kilometers. +Yeah. +And there's, uh, there's a train connection from Eindhoven Central. +I saw, uh, not walk from the station. +So grand, grand. +That's even probably faster to walk. +Uh, plenty of parking. +Cool. +Pre-parking. +Uh, and so you arrive at the venue as a, as a noob first time. +And, uh, what can I expect? +The signs and you walk into a big, uh, theater room. +Do you need a badge or anything or register or anything? +You don't need to register. +You don't need a badge. +Just walk in. +Fostem type. +Yeah. +Basically it, uh, when your room and John Paul started it, Fostem was what they had in +mind. +Yeah. +And they were very, very enthusiastic. +They bought, I think they bought a thousand t-shirts to sell. +We still have some of those. +How many people tend to come? +Uh, heyday, it was, I think 400. +Yeah. +Maybe five. +Yeah. +Uh, we went back to 150 to 200 and we're climbing back out of the hole. +Yeah. +Yeah. +But that's, that's the whole thing after the whole COVID thing. +People are, are nervous. +Yeah. +Yeah. +We changed venue. +We changed season from October to, uh, to May and we've changed town. +Yeah. +And we stopped for three years. +Yeah, exactly. +Those three together. +Yeah. +Yeah. +That's, you can start over. +Yeah. +Yeah. +There's a hardcore of, uh, of friends that will still be there, but everybody else, you +get the pullback in. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Fantastic. +Yeah. +Word of mouth is still the best. +Uh, so what is Tito's? +What, what, what, what do you do? +Well, basically, like I said, it started off as, uh, not, not a spinoff, but, uh, it's +something inspired by, yeah. +They wanted, uh, they wanted, uh, Eindhoven is of course, uh, a hub of IT, uh, it's awesome. +For Eindhoven, we wouldn't have our, all the mobile stuff that we have now. +Uh, quite a lot of it. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Uh, so there's quite a few people in this area that, uh, that do stuff with Linux, with +embedded, with open source in general. +Uh, so that's a logical base. +Uh, and basically we provide a space where people can talk about things that interest +them, where people can listen to people talking about things that interest them, and what people +can meet. +Yeah. +And we tend to see a lot of developers, and we tend also to see a lot of people getting +into a corner, buying a coffee, and, uh, just having, uh, serious talks, the whole way +tracking projects get started there. +Yeah. +Fantastic. +And I found my names, cause I, uh, A, I don't know him, and B, I'm so lousy at names. +Excellent. +Uh, people are of projects, I, they go in one year, out the other. +I saw on your website, I was going to ask you the question, like, +what type of talks that you get, but on your website, you have all the videos from previous +events, so you can actually have a look there at the talks. +So you're going for more, uh, uh, um, do you schedule the tracks then? +How many tracks do you have? +And, uh, we have two rooms this year for, no, it looks like we're going to fill them +for two days solid. +Uh, we have, I'm looking at it, I have 27 proposals, only some of them are also for stands. +So there's, there's booths by various projects from the, the fire software from Germany to +Apache to Limo Office to stuff like that. +Yeah. +Yeah. +So there's quite a few of those. +And then we have, uh, talks by, yeah, that's, there's a few nice names in there. +Cool. +I saw some on the, on the website already announced. +Yeah. +Uh, uh, let's see those 2025 news. +So we have, um, Emil Bock, open source by choice, sovereign by design, bookworm, how +you can start anything, Maya changing the cyber, Breno De Winter, sovereign, sovereign +entity, who done as in, uh, sovereignty, how, and, uh, Leonard Benshop, uh, fourth programming +language, Archer, Archer 72, one of our list is a big, uh, fourth guy. +Okay. +Yeah. +And, uh, Jeroen Bate is also coming. +He's probably doing the same talk he did at Enlug, uh, the other day. +Oh, cool. +Nice. +Uh, he was, we had him scheduled to do, he, there was, he had family coming out. +He even lived in France, uh, half the time and he couldn't make it because he had family +coming over. +And yesterday I learned that he, the family wasn't coming and he, uh, +sat with his wife and they discussed it and they're coming over this year. +So he'll be there on Sunday to hold his talk in person, which is even better than online. +Oh, cool. +And on Sunday, we, for the last three years, we've had, uh, the angry nerds podcast and +they will be there again, which is a whole bunch of people. +Or Breno is in them, uh, Jeroen is in them, uh, they're loose. +If you don't know, I'm a loser of nerds and they, they, they, they get together. +They, they, they talk about news and went a little and, uh, sweets. +Yes. +Yes. +I'm glad we, we, that we got that relationship established and, uh, and it's starting to +become a tradition. +Very good. +So how big is the, uh, is the venue itself? +So we've got two rooms, uh, tracks going on, hallway track. +What is there? +Food and facilities. +There is, uh, yeah, there's, uh, um, +the venue itself has its own bar selling. +Um, so if we only sell coffee and tea ourselves, but there's a bar in the back that sells Belgian +beers and, uh, whatever you would call it. +Check. +They do. +We do sandwiches as well. +They do a more elaborate kitchen. +Yeah. +So that's during the day and Saturday evening, we have a speaker's dinner where all speakers +are invited and anybody that's interested can come along. +If you, yeah, inform us in time that you want to come, uh, it's because we never know how +many people will be there, the sooner we know how much, uh, interest there is, the better +we know how much, uh, seats to, uh, to get how much food to buy. +Super, super. +And then it's basically, uh, uh, yeah, an Indian, uh, an Indonesian dinner. +Super fantastic. +Like, let me just, yeah, I know, but every, uh, every country takes their food and, and +it turns into something, uh, something different. +Uh, there's accessibility access, I presume that wheelchair access, new building shouldn't +be a problem. +Yeah. +Get there. +Any code of conduct with English and stuff. +Uh, yeah. +And, uh, a lot of people, so this is an English language podcast and a lot of people be nervous +about going to an event that's, uh, held by Dutch for Dutch people. +People all talks. +Um, if there's even one person in the room that doesn't speak Dutch, all talks are English. +Yeah. +I, I just need to remind everybody that I speak Dutch and, and the speaker is Dutch. +Well, we won't bother, but if, if anyone there says I have a trouble, problem understanding +in Dutch, I talk is in English. +And, uh, don't be embarrassed about all Dutch people can speak English better than you can. +So. +Various degrees of, uh, yeah. +Perfect. +You see, but we get ourselves understood. +Um, so we've got the stands, uh, general event, uh, on, is there any, um, issues with recordings, +going, doing interviews, taking pictures, code of conduct? +Um, well, if you have a problem, last year we had a photo, uh, photographer running around +and we also have badges available for people who, uh, didn't want to appear in photographs. +Love it. +Everyone. +And we'll try to turn the lens away a bit. +Super. +Yeah. +We'll ask everybody to abide by these, uh, courtesies. +Absolutely. +Talks will be recorded unless the speakers, uh, says the talk isn't, uh, suitable for recording. +It happens sometimes. +We have, uh, a couple of years ago, we had a talk about, uh, his university days and the, +the, the origins of, of, of hacking in, in the Netherlands. +Uh, there were some incriminating things in that talk. +It did not get recorded. +Uh, interesting. +That was it. +But it was a very nice talk. +Yes. +Yeah. +Any, uh, code of conduct thing, uh, where you can report issues or. +I have a code of conduct. +Yes, the organizers are very recognizable. +We are wearing bright yellow t-shirts. +Cool. +And, oh, and if not, go to the, the central, uh, what do you call it? +Stand information booth. +Yeah. +Information booths and, uh, announce, yeah. +Tell us what the problem is and we'll, we'll get somebody to you. +We, we have appointed people for that. +Yeah. +Fantastic. +I think we've, we've covered pretty much everything. +I'm very interested to go down and, uh, and see it. +Uh, I will be walking around with my microphone anyway. +If, if nothing else, I've, I've applied for a booth and a talk, but if there's, uh, too +many, if things are full, that's fine. +I'll just walk around with my mic and, uh, and interview the hallway track. +If that's okay with you guys. +Yeah. +Fine. +No problem. +Perfect. +Is there anything else? +You're talking to a fine with it. +Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. +Well, ask permission. +Obviously we have to do the, are you okay with creative commons CC by SA license? +And the joys of events like this is you don't have to explain that. +They just go, yeah, yeah. +I know what you're talking about. +I must say I'm shocked that it's, it's, uh, that I, this is actually the first year that +I've even heard about the event working in the Netherlands in it for the last 20 years. +So that, that's, that comes from working in a multinational company and not a Dutch company. +We have tried to, to, to, to get a message out there, but yes, stuff like this helps, uh, +Mastodon. +It's Mastodon is key. +It's, uh, it's fantastic. +Like I'm learning more about, uh, more about the community in the Netherlands all the time. +More events to go to. +Yeah. +So we're also learning. +I mean, we are very close, a small bunch. +We were basically the core team is five or six people. +Yeah. +And that's it. +We have a few extra volunteers on the day, but that's also maybe three people. +So it's a really tight core. +And you're all based around Eintorpe? +Yeah. +Uh, well now one lives in Arnhem. +Yeah. +But the, uh, it's not a million miles away, but then again, it's the Netherlands, nothing's +a million miles away. +Yeah. +Dutch. +So far. +For Dutch, it's far away on the other end of this. +No, it's, it's okay. +But yeah, well, I, we have great idea. +So, uh, online meetings are not a problem. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Somebody here joining on. +Well, I was going to ask why Eindhoven, um, but you know, I, Eindhoven is the IT capital +of, you know, originally I think was where. +So yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Originally it was where Phillips, uh, was from. +So, so PSV Eindhoven being, uh, Phillips for anything, the S sporty for any Phillips +sport, uh, was this organization social club? +Yeah. +Social club. +Yeah. +So, um, so that was the answer. +Sometimes I have to think, think what the, everybody else who doesn't live in the Netherlands +would ask about Dutch questions. +So, uh, no, I'm, I'm actually. +To think that there's a Fostem event being held, Fostem inspired event being held, uh, in the +Netherlands that I haven't been aware of, that's, that is a real shame, but we will, we will +correct this and make sure that, uh, that for a while, so yeah, it's, uh, contacts with +and Luke with analogy, uh, the, all the usual suspects, but super. +Yeah. +Well, we'll, uh, we'll, uh, do something about that. +Now, was there anything else in the interview that we can cover or that we should cover? +Well, if anybody still has something they want to talk about, I think officially the +call for purpose has been closed. +Uh, but just ignore that and try, uh, try it anyway. +Yeah. +We'll probably get through. +And if not, send us an email and, uh, we'll, if, if it's in any way interesting, we'll figure +out a way to fit you in. +Super. +And if we're, if somebody was to help us, uh, sponsors, give us money. +Absolutely. +Uh, if you want to come or join the organization or just have ideas, you should get yourself +to this event, uh, advertise here, whatever, please tell us we're a bunch of nerds. +We forget about this shit. +Do you, do you, uh, coordinate with any of the other organizations? +Do you have organization committees from other events like, uh, um, around context, a couple +of our organizers are, have also been organizers at Fostem? +Yeah. +Uh, and, uh, uh, we have some of us are members at NLKG, uh, it's a network. +Yeah. +Yeah. +But even so it's, uh, more help. +And if somebody was coming from the road, uh, where would they, where would they stay? +Is there hotels in the area? +Uh, our hotels, uh, I think everything in town here is booked for the weekend because +I had to, uh, get a bed for a video and my, and I had to send it to Eindhoven. +Okay. +So, but Eindhoven's should be, should be fine. +There are places available in the area. +Yeah. +And it's a business town. +So all the hotels have cheap deals at the weekend. +Yeah. +Pull in. +Well, Peter, thank you very much for the interview. +I look forward to shaking your hand in person or at least somebody walking around with a +yellow vest and hopefully not a bike. +Yeah, we'll, we'll be fishable. +No, definitely not a problem. +Super. +All right. +Thank you very much for that. +Obviously information about this event will be in the show notes for today's episode. +Um, and if you are thinking of coming, can you, um, ping me and, uh, yeah, +we can meet up and yeah, I have, uh, worst case scenario. +I have spaces here in the house and it's only a train drive downtown. +So thank you very much, Peter. +I said, where are you based? +I'm in Busson, north of, uh, round Hilberson. +Yeah. +TV center. +Yeah. +It's a bit further away, but yeah, it's only this far in the map. +All the Americans are going, what? +Zoom out. +Yeah, exactly. +Well, all right. +Thank you very much. +And, uh, tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker public radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4642.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4642.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4af18bd --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4642.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1153 @@ +Episode: 4642 +Title: Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 7 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4642/hpr4642.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:47 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4642, for 2026-05-19 +Today's show is entitled, "Hackerpublic Radio New Years Eve Show 2026 Episode 7" +The host is Honkeymagoo and the duration is 02:12:04 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "the hpr community comes together to converse" +Now, the question is, why is that not found on the server? +This is following you on from posting a show and it's on the CD content distribution network. +But, so I have 200 from all the nodes on the network, +but it's not on the HBR website because I didn't regenerate HBR website. +That only gets a little bit of every three hours, but it's on my list to fix that and have it +done based on the RSS feed, which regenerates it, based on a change to the gateholder +repository, which is another thing that you trigger it and the final one should be, +it should run once a day at midnight anyway. +So, you've got multiple honey do lists, one is HBR and one is from the +Unlady or the ladies in your, in your family. +Yeah, I do a deed. You can add to my HBR list like opening your tickets. +Well, I have to sit down and configure a new PF sensor router to replace the useless +rick did Verizon sent me. I mean, sounds like a good tool right there. +Well, I'm planning on giving myself more than a standard slash 24, maybe a slash 22 or something, +and dividing it up into individual slash logical slash 24, so I don't, +but I'm not going to physically split the network because I like the idea of, well, I'm one person +and a flat network plan. I'm not really, the firewall is basically to secure the entire house network +and do rather minimal routing within the house. +Okay, I'll be interested in hearing a show about that to be honest, +particularly PF sensor, I'm having a lot of experience with it. +Now, when you get this all set up, are you going to put in Wi-Fi at all? +I will have to see. I'm also going to have to see whether +it would be better for me to use Wi-Fi off of the desktop or something +that can be quickly disabled rather than, although it probably would be a good idea to have Wi-Fi +have a guest Wi-Fi and anyway for some applications. +Yeah, I mean, you could set it up and give it very, very limited access, basically just access to +the internet and then you can, you still have that tablet that your brother gave you, right? +It is here. I also have a Chromebook that could benefit from that. +Although I do have a Chromebook compatible under MIPS USB Nick, what I'm thinking is that I will +probably get a modern USB Wi-Fi base station or what have you and hang it off of one of the two, +or the second USB 3 port on my router or on my router machine. +The router machine that I'm going to be running is a AMD 140. I think it's a quad core +that runs around the gigahertz to 1.2 gigahertz and it's a +it's an APU machine, I think, that is to say it's part of their very basic graphics and +CPU on the same chip. More than see gave me a couple of these little bricks +one of which I'm going to make into a desktop just to see how it performs +with a very lightweight system like XFCE on it or perhaps Trinity and then +the other one I'm going to be using for my router since the if unit has something +the CPU's like it. Eight what? TPU so it should be just enough to fire all my system +and the energy you should be a little bit better than my 35 watt one liter router which I +which I'm replacing. Yep so you can put do you have like a USB Nick that you can use for the +Chromebook? As you talk about setting up some of these other machines as servers that would work +really well as a client machine plus then you also have to make the decision whether you want to +keep Chrome OS on it or put one of the other Linux variants on it. Thank you have to still do one +that ones that are geared towards the Chromebook because the Chromebook has such a specific hardware. +I picked up a Chromebook for like 40 bucks on eBay and as like just just straight going on to the +internet and using it for SSH it is worked really well. I have yet to put something else on it +besides just the regular Chrome OS. I figure at some point I'm probably going to have to because +it's an older Chromebook and I'm not sure how long it's still going to get updates. But for +right now I've been happy with just using it as that. It's got a touch screen too so that's +worked out because I've been using I want to learn on shape but I'm still using Tinker CAD but +being able to move the screen around and stuff by touching the screen is kind of nice. +I have a really really old Chromebook that I have replaced even the firmware on the bus to keyboard, +keyboard is so terrible just not having the full F12 keys is just frustration. +Well I can give you a pointer to a replacement for Chrome OS or whatever they're calling it this week. +Yeah well um there is something called thorium OS which is based on the thorium +pork of Chrome Chromium actually and that might be a way of getting around Google's timing out older +true Chrome OS systems and both of those reserves have been posted. Sorry I've been slightly +absent but listening getting ready for this birthday swara. Are you hosting it? +So again I'm going to give you a slight suggestion about tech and coffee. You might want to mute +all notifications only because I sometimes fall asleep and there's like 300 messages when I wake up +and there's only like 70s of my people in narrative. It is a smaging busy all right but that's fine. +Well also because Rose talks everyone too. The best thing I normally do I met this mistake once +it was just a barge and it started talking and still going and chill for a while see what the +mood is like and then I have all notifications of everything turned off everywhere on everything +I don't need to somebody needs me urgently they can pick up the phone and contact me. +And with the end that of course then my coffee club in the morning sometimes like well are you +I need help coffee club in the morning. Oh well I walk when I go to walk I end up at Panera. +So be part of the pandemic I use to end up at either I hop or +awful house otherwise known as waffle house in reality and get a coffee around 5-6 in +morning. Pandemic put a stop to those restaurants opening up full time at those times so +Panera was always open so I joined what they call the Panera Coffee Club it's like $120 a year +but it's unlimited coffee. So I just walk in give my number and they handed me a coffee. +So but then there's about 4 or 5 of us that just started hanging out in there at 5.36 o'clock in +a nice social interaction. Exactly even though most of them have different political views in me but we won't get into that. +That's absolutely cool. Oh I got got an interesting better news about Panera. +The wise people in the California legislature have said that a lot of fast food places are going +to have to pay from their minimum wage of 16 and a quarter or they're about to 20 bucks. +Except one there's a there's a carefully curated list of outfits which are +exempt from this new law and Panera I believe is one of them. I believe it's +the result of something like $200,000 given to certain +August government officials in California for their campaigns +Funny how that works. It's called the gift. Yes and and I suspect in an outburger is going to be more +out than in with this new expense. I've certainly seen the lady who's the head who's moving to +Tennessee and the was California going away it is I suspected that the internet burger may +well find virtually any any area outside of California to be more hospitable to their business +and more profitable. Yeah when I looked in California you dropped out at least for me. They got them +tempted to record the community news today. The garbage. Oh what I don't hear about. +Yeah we got something I did it to start with when I was in California and then the long long +long pause and then garbage. I sure if that was tactful or if that was the whole thing. But the +okay so what what I was more or less saying is that some German company had bought +Panera and then they stopped doing the bakery in-house stuff so the the bakers that would come +in a two or three in the morning that would bake the bread and the the bagels and do all the stuff. +They all got laid off and so now they have a third-party vendor that baked everything and they just +kind of reheat them or come in frozen and they baked them in the ovens but they no longer they fired +all the the bake will make it out of the same. My understanding I think that's the way that +pretty much most places do it now. A lot of stuff will not done in-house anymore. +Yeah which is okay but that's what they were known for and the thing is +everyone's noticed the quality is going down they left. I think three of them in our area that still +have bakers but most of them do not and I don't know if they're just doing that as a test but my store +was one of the stores they switched over and I normally don't eat much there but I just stop eating +all together there. I just get my coffee and come home and have some food. Well yeah I have to remember +that it's probably easier for them to pay one or two actual skilled bakers at one giant facility +or you know to the manufacturer these things these things that wind up getting baked as opposed to +trying to every single one of their chains trying to hire and train somebody to actually +bake things. It's getting harder and harder to find people to do regular jobs because of the +giant influx and gig work. So it's to find somebody to be a baker is the first problem +of the second problem being to train somebody to do the job and to do it right and for them not +to not ask for or want what would be a reasonable amount of money to do that job and then spreading +that out between all of the panera chain. Basically you need somebody who is a train baked +for that to happen you would need somebody who is a trained baker in every single panera location +and there are lots of panera locations and it is really difficult to find regular staff people, +let alone people who are trained or are willing to be trained and willing to be trained and take +whatever crappy pay they're willing to sling out. Also when you go to an industrial source +you're baking can take advantage of a lot of mechanization which is not available in each +little panera location. You end up with a economies of scale and everything like that. +Yeah they also had like two actual bakeries for the smaller stores that would do all the baking +for them but it's all been outsourced now so they close those up. So I don't even know who makes +them but it does come in frozen so it's still kind of baked in house but everyone's noticed the +quality difference it is not good at all I mean maybe the cookies but that's about it. +So I know I work in a grocery store and that's kind of everything basically comes in +frozen and then they have we have a lot of giant ovens where they just shovel all the stuff on +a trays, shovel them into the ovens for a while, preheat them back up and then you know put them out +for for sale and I know that my wife used to work for dunked donuts and then they had +one larger dunked donuts place where they basically did that where they put all the +bagels and stuff on to trays and baked them all at one central location first thing in the +morning and then somebody from that store went and they pack all the bagels up and then they that +person who baked them in the morning then delivered all of those bagels to a lot of the their +little sister locations and around the area. Yeah one of the places around here where I used to +used to get get pizzas for real treat went from making their own pizza dough on site to +buying it from from from from an outside vendor and and for I know the business +changed hands and they you know they have to recoup their costs and everything but +I decided that I would settle for seven and eleven pizza instead of the real thing because +the real thing is is getting a look is getting to rich for my blood at least in full size versions. +Hey I've had seven eleven pizza it's not all that bad for a five dollar pizza. I think around here +it's like ten but you know. It's a nice thing is I think they've had a food stamp discount +for a while that has been really helpful and also I get get their water melon chunks which means +I actually have some honest goodness organic relatively unadulterated vegetable matter in my diet. +Alright guys I'm gonna get some coffee and check out my family. I'll check out everything in a little while. +I have a good one yeah I'm gonna be leaving myself in about 10 minutes because I got to meet some +people at a restaurant and say happy about that and have more coffee. All right everybody if I +don't you're not around a little while a happy new year and I'll talk to you either soon or next year. +Okay have a good one. Have a good one. Have a good one. +Hello Mr. X I'm pulsating your show now. +George it looks like your file I made a Walmart. +Okay I have no idea what that means. I want he walks around at Walmart and sometimes he puts +on stuff on typing coffee. I'm not skilled at work until 2.30 and I need a few things. +Milk and oat milk. The wife. Can did you see my him about after it for the +audio quarter? No this is the boat commentator such as the link. +I put it in yeah and I put an element and on the book tracker. Yeah good stuff so that there we go. +Can't find why I disappeared from the android story there. For root phones they actually have a phone +recorder too. But I have not successful root and can he phones that had recently. +Okay I've stuck to using Google pixels. Could you get that for free? Well not for free but +I'm on a trip. I'm on a trip. Happy New Year. This is a strong prayers that he'd better than. +I hope so. I hope so. Have you made any progress with your skillet display? +Yes. I've moved it to the drawer. I'm like so many like what I want to do with my +cheap yellow display right? And it's easy peasy and the only time of the year I actually get to do +stuff like that is today. It's New Year's Day. I have a day off. Nobody wants me to do anything. +All the shops are more less shut. This is the only day in the year where I get to do tech stuff +purely on adulterated without feeling guilty. I'm doing HDR stuff now so that needs to be done as well. +And for years I have this. It's very very simple. I want to have the cheap yellow display +being a digital lock. My son my bed right. I wanted to display date and time in ISO 8601 format. +I wanted to automatically have a real-time lock thing on it so that if the network drops, +it still knows what the time is. I wanted it to be sinking with an NTP server to get time. +And I wanted so that it is kind of like dependent resistor in it so that it doesn't +freakin blind you in the middle of the night. I wanted to be able to have an alarm clock that I can +set on the thing itself or like remotely. On the thing itself is fine. But mostly I want +so non-tactile way of knowing the time. Now that's what I want. That's what I want. I don't want +to be blinded. I don't want it to automatically have always the right time. Shouldn't be too hard. +You'd think over. I have finally got the and now I've just got to write the code +pause there. I've had related distraction. But you've posted the shows into next year. So +it's like nobody knows. Indeed. At least I have work related distractions now for a while there. +It was us. That's not good. Archer, you've recovered well from your issues last year. Here's +a go. You only have to go. I had now I can run short distances about a hundred feet at a time. +So not too much. That's better than I don't. I would only run a hundred feet. It was a big +dog. I'm what they call it. Well rounded. I am less rounded this year than last year. I went +from 192 to 180 something. And pounds not calder. And calder out. It's not bigger. That's +180 is my goal. I hit it once about 12 years ago and when back in closer to 300 +than hundred little hovering. Get back on the ball. But I'm glad your recovery is ahead. +I think the dog or their hand has to lose weight. He's up the almost. Sorry about the +cart noise. Yeah, here's 40 pounds. And he's a mixed big old dog. So you're talking about a fat +snoopy. Yeah, that's very much so. He was 30 when we got him from the route rescue them. +We've got two cats on the on the high side. There's about 10ish pounds. Siamese cats. They're not. +Not as long as slim as ours is an American short. We're losing a little bit of weight. And +Vazzie is also almost 14 years old. Now you're in North and Key, right? Redlong, redlong, +Ohio-ish Lexington, Sharia, right? Didn't mean to scare him off. The Walmart, the Wi-Fi +messed up. I'm getting in my eye. I was getting in my car to drop back my fort five minute drive. +What was the question again? Yeah, I mean, it's called sentiana. It's about an hour south of +Cincinnati, hour north of Lexington. It's halfway through Cincinnati, Lexington. Very cool. +She considered coming down to Knoxville, Tennessee in May for besides Knoxville. We have blast. +I think I've ever been to Knoxville. I've been to the capital. Straight down, straight down 75. +Yeah, 75. Straight down 75. This year's theme is down the rabbit. I'll be very interested one day. +It's on a Friday to five, but a really good, really good com. The only annual +imposec hacker con, uh, Tennessee. Can you post that? I just don't want to miss. Oh, +where it's at? Sure. Where would you like it post it? Sure, sure. Sure, sure. +You took the words on one of them. Yeah, that's nice. Element is the best and that's best. +Yeah, no security that my IS paint blocks it. I always have them in the same column as the +stream router and everything else yesterday trying to get my IS Bob block the stream too. +So that the only way I was able to talk is on mama on the mobile. Are you invested on? I am. +I think I may have connected me face in second to get over there and I can drop her the link over here +in the chat. There you go. Cut out. I can't type in he and you to talk. All right, we got you +to go in here. Besides Knox, May 22nd, been on the. Maybe our trucker from Ohio would head down that way. +He was on here earlier. Um, last night actually. Oh, yeah. Um, he's around Indianapolis. +It's a shame. It's what he didn't get on here. They would have had a good +conversation with both have CDLs. Oh, that's who I was thinking we're talking of. Where's +I thought he's got it now. No color. His username on here was Dale underscore CDL and when he said +he was a trucker that. Yeah, when I saw the CDL that put it in perspective. +Gentlemen, breakfast have yourselves an amazing six. You too. Thank you very much for all the +shows last year. Really, really helped out. I know we'll add it to my new year as a resolution to make +that clock thing. Although if you want to do shows about it, so that you do all the work and I don't +have to do it even better. No, I've got to I've actually have a clock like project that is already +in my mind for after project. There are tools out there that will list the beats of a clock. We'll +tell you if it's running fast, if it's running slow, if you know the beats per hour, those +most have that tell you and they'll also, if it's in beat and out of beat, and they're very expensive +and with an Arduino. That's that's going on. I've already had this. I put a placeholder for it on +my GitHub and I've already had a cup of reach out and say, hey, have you done anything with this yet? +We're, nope. We're thinking at a time. So, I'm the list to do list, yes. +No, it's cool. What was Recool was hearing the Tokstam episode. They had heard your episode. +I'm like, oh, we need to buy four of these things and then they did an episode on it. +They did some really cool stuff. Not to say that your stuff wasn't cool. +They weigh out distance, anything that I would be like, it might be a collaborative project +clock. Cool. And hosted on Git's who gets some skills. I don't know if I said it, +one of that I recorded already, but I still don't get Git. I actually edit my Git stuff +web page, doing the proper things with the pull requests and merge all that. +Yes, exactly. And the reason I'm laughing is not four hours ago, I did that's very +thing to get something fixed on the HPR website. Role is probably going to hit me with a +Robert Chicken when he finds out, but fine. Yeah, I work some folks that do a lot of AWS. And +it's amazing how many times the people that are doing the Terraforms code will make an update +and then everything breaks shouldn't have broken. We find out that the +not folks will change his directly environment. We'll get there. And work everything has to go +through the whole there is no there is no way to do it live everything goes through all the +chicken stuff and then it goes to the CCE, what's the CCCCD thing process? CICD. That's the one +great continuous development continuous integration damage and like yeah. +Mr. Actually, show is live printer conspiracy's great. All right, once again, +Adios throw out goodbye. Good bye. Good luck. So long. To the web stereo. Bye. +Let me 30's. Northwest around five. Well, in our stereo. Copyrights of the material. Copyrights of the +material. Thank you. Is that copyrighted? Is that national? Does matter. It's copyrighted. Oh, +sorry. I was hoping. Everything by default is copyrighted. By default. When will that change? +Public knowledge should not be copyrighted. Well, no argument for me. But it does show why I need to +be so careful listening to the when I'm doing the check at the beginning of processing +visuals, looking for music, everything. Everything about anything can lead to a take-to-notes. +Noted in the show notes. I know we keep out either bad. This is a national frequency for weather +on the note. Don't think there is. It's different per country. I just thought there might be +an equivalent of national weather service today. R is a 162.450. Very organized. If you heard earlier +about the yesterday, I guess I got the color. I mean, I was able to easily program my channel, +which I wasn't a V5R. Well, this is this new video that you got. Yeah, it's not a really +powerful. It's only five watts and it's indoors. It's obviously not going to get very modest, +but at least I get the national weather service on it. I expect loads of shows, no doubt. +Well, there are a lot of menus to go through, so I could do that as long as I don't want +up the volume and have a copyright strike. We'll just put it on a channel that has no +aesthetics just in case. Yeah, or you could transmit from, do you have any other way to transmit? +No, I mean, how? Do you have another video? I do. I have more around here. I have the UV5R, +and then I know it right in front of me. I have, I was a 8-8HP. It's just a little bit bigger battery +on it, same controls. And you can transmit from all the pick-up on the other, surely? +Oh, so I just keep it local, I see. You look at both set to the same frequency, so we'll see how +the source. This is Kilo Delta 9R, Victor Mike Whiskey, testing out our frequency of 145 by +0.25 zero megahertz. That was transmitting from a 5R mini 2HP. I'm going to try the other way around +to see if the sound quality is a little better. This is Kilo Delta 9R, Victor Mike Whiskey, +testing on the Vowfang F8HP to see how it transmits to 5R. Hello, is that you can? +Let's meet here. The transmission come through. +No, didn't hear a thing. Well, I heard you go, and this is me transmitting. This is me sending a test, +but I didn't hear anything that sounded like you came from a radio. Oh, I have, okay, that's +where I have the other earpiece, because I have a set of earbuds, and I put the other earpiece +near the radio. Unless I come through so crystal clear that I didn't even notice. +I do have a Bluetooth speaker that I could put, so I don't mix my signals up and see if it +comes out there and sounds like a radio. All right, I'm all ears. Well, yeah, I picked it up on +clear, and so I'm, because I wasn't willing to pay the full price, but it's not bad for $25 +and then I can play my vinyl records on my setup that I did a recording of on the sometime this year. +Oh, cool. So, our aunt got your Christmas music that I have on the record player, +and then I transcend it to the stream and put the speaker out by her. Oh, so much. +Oh, yeah, because it's not the same when it's, I do have an monitor to pull it out of the speakers +in the bedroom, but it's not the same with it's not in front of you. Yeah, absolutely. +And, of course, the kind of people we are, we like to make things interesting, anyways. +Just a 222 joining. Yeah, if I duplicate it myself, apparently I hadn't paired the hydrogen, +which is an odd thing. Does it do it? I'm testing for hacker hammer radio. I'm testing for hacker hammer radio. +Hacker hammer radio. And I see Delta Ray is in the house. How are you doing, Delta? +And Lovecraft should be in here as soon as in the root directory. Hello, can you hear me? +Can a teacher? I'm glad. Okay, I wasn't sure because I haven't used this in a long time. +And I forgot what the push to talk button would be happy new year. Happy new year as well. +And I'm sent to you. Happy new year. How was your year so far? Well, I'm on my second cup of coffee. +Excellent. I finished the pot. So, that again, it's five or so. +I'll come the afternoon to them. Are we still streaming? Oh, yeah. Why not? It's a little bit slower this year. +Due to the fact that it's in the middle of the week and not that we can drive today also. Good +episode today. Thank you for that. Oh, yeah, you're welcome. I actually have a couple more in the bag. +I'm doing a third in the uncommon command series that is on the S trace command. +Good. Yeah. And then I was it's funny. I was listening yesterday to the the stream. +And they were talking people were talking about movies. And I was like, well, that's fun. I'm actually +editing an episode that's about cybersecurity related movies. And should be +probably be able to post that for maybe the 15th or 16th. Nice. We like that sort of thing. +And while I was editing it, I thought, actually, I'm using a few techniques, which probably other +podcasters are using for HPR already, but just in case people aren't aware of being like +remove noise or background noises or do height was it high pass filters to get rid of like +bangings in the background or something. I thought I could make a short episode about how to fix +some of those things. Be careful of you. Everyone of these that you promise is now like you owe me a show. +You say it? That was us to be a show. Well, I'd love to hear that. Yes. That's why I've +reluctant to say, oh, I really should do a show about that because then I owe you a show. +Right. Yeah. Yeah. The number of ideas that I have written down that I haven't followed up on +this enormous, probably. I have a folder ever increasing folder on my personal kit, which has +like HPR shows and loads of sub directories. I've had one and they're so long that it's +the actual technology that it's about has become obsolete. What technology is that? How it's about +they do the Raspberry Pi. Some stuff for the Raspberry Pi and they then now ship it and the +Raspberry and what I was trying to do then I would do I see. Well, I'm going to get on with my +day then I bear a finish up that episode so I can get posted and I'll talk to you guys later. +Roger. How's it? Good year. Thanks for all the shows. Looking forward to some +you ones and great tips on your master build. Thanks. Take care. Bye. And ask how the sound quality +is on these earbuds versus the zoom that I use. Prepared but old. You know I'm the wrong person +to be asking about that. So they lower the berry to entry but they're not great. Yeah, but they're +not not they're fine. Like I can hear fine. Are they? Are there any heck of public radio +people still here? Take that doesn't matter. I'm here. Yeah, happy to hear that. I wasn't +sure whether the 20 foot lead the new year podcast was finished or not but I thought I'd drop in +anyone. Hello. We're charging along. Happy New Year John. How's everyone doing? All right. +Couldn't be better. Got a free day off. I can on my messing about here on my main cave. Very good. +Very good. I'm out for a walk. I hate to have me make the dreadful mistake of waiting myself this +morning and deciding that perhaps I had a little too much excess over the over the question of +weight. So I'm stuck in the fitness level back up a little bit and maybe not quite so +quite so unfit as we go into the new year. Into the rest of this new year I should say. +My life when I went for a walk again this morning was really nice. Any downside of +call being that where I would have in the past taken a radio or something out with me. I know +that the route I take I basically live in the in the bottom bit of a giant bowl. So +unless I let's put in to Harry Nate Jeff radio around with me. I wasn't going to get anywhere with it. +Are you um you're uh I'm as well are you? Because Archer is here busy messing with a radio. Well I mean +technically I've been licensed for very nearly 30 years now. But my actual radio activity is +effectively. Is it handheld? Can I work your repeater with it and my days of it? So I used to work +in a radio shop. Back in the very very dim and distant past. I used to work for one of the UK +radio shops called Wartson Stanton. So I worked for them as my Sunday job whilst I was at my sixth +format back in the 90s. But then they closed the shop down because they were focusing more on the +smaller branches and then yeah so point I went to university. I was able to go to the +Mapplin store and say because at the time Mapplin's had a radio gear supplied by uh Wartson Stanton. +So I was able to say oh I know quite a lot of your range because we used to sell it but uh yes I got +about nine months of job out of that and then uh works too much one Christmas and they said +you two dedicated we can't afford to keep paying you because you keep just turning up and working +which obviously wasn't what they'd planned for with they had somebody recruited in so +but yes so um 1990s I got my got my license off the back of uh my dad who was also licensed +he uh when my mom and dad met he had a receiver on his bedside table and my mom saw that +within the year she'd get rid of that and well let's just say when they when they both passed away +he still had radio's dusted all around the house in various places but does all the room +oh no they don't still on the bedroom table still on the bedroom table free in the office +uh so in the car plus always a hand held any pocket just in case he uh he accidentally +hadn't got carried the right radio with him um it was fun and I'm not a person +I'm not a man I'm not a man I'm not a man I'm not a man I'm not a man I'm not a man +we're hearing your calls a lot there we're just another way +ah right so the microphone is coming off my phone which means that might be a bit better +than that headset yeah that would go so wouldn't so yeah so when I moved north from from where +I grew up I said to my dad oh I'm I'm moving into a place with my girlfriend can you make +sure we got some tools and he's like yep definitely no problem at all so the first time he came +up in busy 3d brought a soldering iron and a reel of solder and some pliers and I'm like no no +no no I meant I meant like you know a drill set screwdriver maybe a ladder he's like oh that +kind of tool yeah you're caught yes that kind of tool you idiot anyway but yeah so um +to part of the reasons well and and to be fair I still have the soldering iron and the stuff that +he bought me and I did put it's good use this year so you know or say this year this last 12 +month period um yeah I uh I was I was big into planning on recording a show +ah well so here's the thing I had I built something in my head seemed like a really sensible and +great idea which was so my wife and I both worked from home and my wife is convinced that when I +talked to people I need to shout to them which is not necessarily accurate um but so yeah so uh but +because she now takes phone calls as well from from where we working in the house together um I thought +I want to do as I build a little ESP32 um circuit board with a traffic light on it and we've got +home assistant in the house so I'd make it so that um when she went onto phone call she pushed the +button to say I've started the call and after 30 minutes it would start flashing every few minutes to +say you still on the call so she would remember you know she was up at the store and call it on +basically so that I wouldn't go in and disturb anyway so I built this little circuit board +yeah I built this I built this little circuit on the ESP32 3 LED's one um one push button switch +couple of resistors jobs a good and then I set up in her office and we both used it once I used it once +once I was in with proof it worked and I was like my god those those LED's are really really really +bright yeah and she was just like can't I just stick something in the window to say that I'm on the phone +and I'm like alright okay so non technical solution is what you want and so um I mean we have this +we have this issue all all the time in our house I want everything to be on a phone on a +on something I can reach for a web page you know something like that and she's like I've got my +paper diary we're all set for the year I'm like well you might be yeah but uh not so much for me anyway but +I mean don't get me wrong I don't have a problem with with what her method of doing things +and frankly she's she's in control of the diary and I am but I'm mere supplicant in front of it saying +oh please please may I have half an hour with my friends on this date so she knows what she knows +when everything is and I just I just accept what's going on but yeah so the circuit the circuit I wrote +oh sorry the the ESP there's two program that I wrote with the home assistant ESP home +add-on is good but it was all a um AI generated so I don't feel like I can really +I don't feel like I can really explain what I did there because I don't really understand a whole +or everything that is in there um but um I'm the circuit so I'm gonna be at um I think we're +EMF campus here have you heard of EMF campus? I have a tutor yeah that's the where you go +camping in the field I can camping and you can do all speed tracks +I must say with 2,000 geeks in the field I have better Wi-Fi than I have had in any of the +professional buildings I've been in in my entire working career but yes and my plan had been to take +this little ESP first to circuit board to EMF campus and then when I started looking into well +I can't really I can't really justify pre-purchasing a load of these boards when actually no one +in my household uses them for what we'd bought what we'd bought them for because my plan had +been once I've got it working from a wife had been to then have one outside my door so the kids +knew when I was on a call that mattered and a call that didn't um because again that's why it was +a traffic light rather than just an on and off so the on-amber would be you know it's not an important +call and the on-road would be this is a customer call and you know no one no one may enter +but yeah so but with with no one really actually being that bothered by it +I decided that I wasn't gonna bother doing that and instead we just run the board going to +EMF camping state so so yeah we we have quite a lot of board games in our house +you know I think the law is just 500 games and it's tricky I mean I do know what +it's very easy to like call those event results well yeah the problem is +is that although I used to have a t-shirt that said I read the rules so you don't have to do +what we've found over the time over time is that actually what happens is I read the rules +everyone says that I've read them wrong they read them and discover that I have read them wrong +so I'm not even that good at it you know telling people how to play games either +but no I'll give it a try I'll see if I can put something together and explain to people +why but yeah I don't know it's some recording anything generally at the moment is tricky so my kids are +14 and 11 and they both have a um so they're both on the on the autistic spectrum +and they are both having educational challenges at the moment sorry I can possibly tell I'm +now walking down a slightly busy a bit of roadway which is possibly not helping with the +the audio in here but yeah with my kids both both having schooling challenges at the moment +actually fitting any time in even in the evenings is tricky so but yeah I'm not making a promise +Ken because I know that you you do love to hold people to their promises when they probably do +that's uh yes my intention is now that you've now that you've suggested it and I have +realized what a good idea it is is to actually maybe maybe start doing an open-up series on board +games why not why not it's not it's not the sort of stuff that I'm typically known for +in the in the world of podcasting on such fall but yeah it's not about out there actually +yeah no do do that that you got it you got it sorry well that that's what I said that +you've got an idea in my head put seeds and people's heads is a hair fairy you can do the podcast +of this it's worked sorry did you say I didn't listen let's do we did it oh I listen I listen +though it quite too did a series on huh all right okay cool cool yeah there's a whole series +called tabletop games let me see how many apps we have but we also you know I mean you could do +you don't have to go to the internet it's feels like a bit like the what the guys are doing +with the beer review you know tabletop games this is a good game I like there's a joe of +it's cheap it's expensive it's free it's whatever maybe I will then maybe I'll +it's fairly straightforward from the town more I think more about the SP32 is I don't know anything +about those so we have six and three episodes of that tabletop gaming series wow +I wonder how many of those games I've got in the house there you go we've got about 500 +board games in the house I think is a big board game or it's also yeah my wife and I would +typically play well so last year we we our January first commitment last year was that we were +going to play one new board out one board game that we hadn't played that year each day and we got +three till June when we had circumstances outside of control that stopped us but yeah we were playing +quite a lot of we played so every day we would play at least one new board game which was quite cool +as in so not not as in the only purchase yeah one game that we hadn't played that year yes +um that there's some commitment yes that's a lot of board games you could even do an +absolute and where you're storing them because I would be really only interested in that one +so perhaps that we we have owned for the last 10 plus years has a full length garage +which is not wide enough to house a car which makes no sense to me but you know whatever +so it's a full length garage and one of our neighbours used to be a shop fitter so they would fit +they would put all the shelving and display units and such forth up in in a shop and when she +stops doing that she had three sort of three reasonably sized shelving units which she gave to us +so we now have three sets of shelves one way and two sets of shelves across the back wall +and a set of shelves under the in the the alcove weather the stairs go up and up and around +and they are all full sop to bottom with board games they're not in order um not yet +although one of my cousins did did volunteer come down and do that out over the Christmas break +and then didn't so we'll see what happens in the year but yeah and then we I had a Google +spreadsheet that I was using last year that was tracking what games you played until apparently +tracking the statistics on how many games I'd won the pan in made playing board games not very fun +for my kids yeah nine entirely sure why that is so yeah but um I actually you mentioned about the +ESP 30 so I have to be brutal honest with you the ESP 30 is effectively just a PCB on +two riser two sets of riser pins like you have the unsighted of the Raspberry Pi +and it's got a USB C power in at the bottom and I plug that in and then go into the +home assistant um add on called ESP home um and then it's just a YAML based programming language +actively so you just put in you know when this is high when this when this pin is is showing +high then do this thing and you can you can farm some of it off to home assistant so it +because it's home assistant extension it will turn it will make you know it will make a sensor on +on home assistant uh when you know when a pin is showing high or you can trigger pins to go high +on from home assistant you can set variables in the ESP 30 so not lots of them and they don't +retain state so if you lose power they don't come back up in the same state like they were before +but you can say you know um you can have a thing which there's every every 15 seconds go back and +set set that thing I guess I hadn't haven't checked but you could do that sort of thing I have +I suspect um and yeah it's just programming language so you just poke stuff into it but again like I said +I I put I I basically asked chat GPT to write it all for me um because although I can program +what I'm better at take out someone else's written and kind of tweaking it and adjusting it +and what I found is that previously chat GPT which as I was using when I was doing the +the ESP 32 home stuff um what I found is that I'm very good at spotting when a coding assistant doesn't +know what it's doing and nudging it down the right path I'm not very good at starting something fresh +so um this is the I guess this is a potentially another HPR episode right here which is for me +yeah how I how I use coding assistants um because I'm for good or for ill I'm starting to be one of +one of the people that knows what they're doing at work about it so there's no reason why I couldn't go +on them explain something like that got damn it can I knew you were mistake coming on here +so that's why I'm a home assistant and then why not coding assistant and then why not +no I could never explain yamble yeah and also the board games I know so the board games +damn the pair of you damn the pair of you not really don't be on seriously once you're +year that's it that's all we ask yeah but there's only one show a year yeah yeah it's not so much about +the nervous breakdowns it's the justification why using my office again from my wife you know why +using the mic clones out here well I just you know I just thought I'd just thought I'd just thought +I'd record a quick show for my friend Ken and another show for this guy and I could I archer +and I just thought it else you know just just those two and again and again the board cast that I +do on the monthly well well for a good at doing it on the month of the year but we're getting back +into it that man so yeah that's where you guys were supposed to do talk about that's +here's the hard to do the thing on the your microphone's gone again but what if you talk about +there you're 232 on that and I think so I think so yeah that's um yeah it's uh I I I have a lot +of funness for admin admin but it's really hard to share your shows because it's four people +all trying to share your stuff and uh all of a bit busy yeah no life yeah well you know +outskot kids Jerry's got kids choose got kids I've got kids and uh yeah life is uh life is +challenging for some of the admin team at the moment she's kind of where we got restarted +but that challenging stuff uh sometimes makes it hard for us to all go shows we're supposed to +have recorded on the Christmas Eve which strangely enough didn't happen yeah so but no we'll figure +something out did you ever have some on um filled about no that wasn't me no I don't use +files but I uh really good to do instead just rely on people not why is that then uh cause we're +putting out servers for our content distribution network and uh you know exactly the format +it should only serve as your files in the known format like four such apps forward such +we are number boom and something within great extensions so I want to be able to set it up +first of all I want to be able to set it up that they um Apache will flag anything outside of that +as a uh for all four or three or something and we'll have that IP address directly into filled +bands all that we don't get any crap from these people anymore permanently better um interesting +so there is a risk to do it so um I don't know if I was mentioned in the past I used to be in +no excuse specialist um there is a risk when you ban IP addresses um that when there's two +risks to it the first is that things like tour and other uh proxy networks exist so it's really +hard to block based on the IP address because people can become from quite literally anywhere um and +the other problem that you have is what you almost want to do is if someone makes a request once and +they get blocked is the first thing they're going to do swap to another IP address or is he going +to be trying again and those are two different failure states because if they try again then what +I would tend to do instead of just blocking stuff is tapeting um now I don't know if tapeting is +a thing you can do with uh and ftables but you could don't look at the IP tables or is it IP chains? +oh god I can't remember now um the yeah if all you're trying to do is just stop people +oh come on down with a flu there sorry I don't know what that was you just did but I'm guessing +you're trying to do this just just face my past this sorry god damn it can god damn it +um but yeah blocking blocking based on IP addresses is not a great idea what you instead +need to do block based on behaviors so you block based on um you know a period of time having passed +so I would typically block for like 30 minutes to an hour uh failed to belong and can do that +so blocks yeah some of them could do a non-block some after a day or so which is fine um but also +if you've already got if you've already got your patchy logs showing failed attempt on specific paths +okay another thing on this one it won't be for an episode but it will definitely be for something +how can you my library? yeah I love the perfect. this isn't uh this is more for uh and I actually +don't mind doing the episode once I get it done because I want to be able to uh have a pack for +people who want to join this CDN network so that um so anybody who has like a fiber optic +connection not limits it with thunder it can be a bit or more you're running can be a bit +for a turret bite hard disk and we are think they uh hard day actually are think on the machine from +is the uh origin server so then our shows are replicated those on our own community based CDN +mm so I want to um somebody has a small PC very little traffic actually well there's +reasonable traffic but it's like one download a second or something like that so it's not +yeah you're thinking how do you guarantee that the CDN has all of the shows +I confirmed that myself I uh I'm able to sink out to each of them and then I do a check +a head check and make sure that I've got a 200 or 200 response and on the back end what I could +do is check for a 200 response and if I don't get a 200 response I don't send the query them +the first time and caching blah blah blah but I'm not so far that that's a problem yet yeah just +so in the back of my head I'm thinking what you could almost do with is having a +sim link switched on so okay what I mean is what you could do with perhaps doing is having the +our sink going into a directory like I don't know uh shows sake of argument but then only sim +linking the file into the CDN once you've got the full file our sink down so +maybe having a script that will do you know check the doesn't even need to be like a full +shot two five six or something or five 12 it just needs to be could even just be an MD five +of the the file that you've got that matches the index file somewhere so then once you know you've +got the MD five matching it then does the sim link so you only have the file serving once the +once the file's there does that make sense yeah but it's overly complicated I know it's there +because when I process the show I make sure it's there a human and I know what I mean is that all the +all the CDN all the CDN targets have got it yeah I mean I know that because I distribute it to all +the CDN targets so they all have it they're all running their own Apache server and then on the +HDR server we do a redirect to those other servers and if for any reason and through the +beauty of our SS if for any reason they don't get it it doesn't matter because your reader will +come and try it tomorrow or some other time hmm you're not convinced no I'm not convinced +I'm just thinking whether there are other options because like for example what happens if you know +my ISP goes down for you know three hours I get what you're saying about the RSS being the +exact magic glue that makes it work exactly but this is not real time stuff you can get away with +does it really matter you don't get your shield now are you getting another hour it doesn't matter +the only cool thing I could do is if if they if the CDN is I mean if we build if we guess +too such a stage where this is a problem this is a happy problem for me +sure no I go I go we then yeah but my view on it is like they we have another check to check +the bundle and stuff and we could have prometius and you know yeah calling back and then we could +automatically take in all those and we could put a note back in and that's fine but right now +a little bit overkill RSS it's an RSS feed if you get an error it's got to come back automatically +by the time awesome right I'm now home I will have a thing called things I hope for you much +yeah so don't put yourself into too much pressure yeah I'm deduting our work if you insist +can record on your phone while doing a walk yeah see what I did there yeah I see what you did there +have a great new year guys and see you end hopefully I hope it's your next year bye bye +what mic was he using it I don't know what actually was he using so he could do something +heading it was set up yeah I'm I'm sorry now because somebody comes on for a chat and I've +barred them with guilt guilt trip them into different shields but it was not an interesting +counter it was interesting it is our subject something he's an interesting guy John the nice guy I have +never done he's a minimum of all camp and really you know his handle is John the nice guy +and he genuine me is a nice guy he's out as he said he's on the admin pub plus I heard that that one +and remember when how when was it there there was another one where they he called it +admin admin but he couldn't because it was a copyright on the nice guy's actually show +I can remember the guy's voice but I don't remember his name it's something to do with any +a parrot not a parasite but something you know in cattle and that was his username +okay no I can't think well I'll have to go back and look because I knew there was an admin +admin and he had to stop using that name because of for the particular type of show series because +it was interfering with a different person strong just give me one second doing something +I sent a message out the message on that we're coming up on 31 hours so I think we have 31 hours +not of content but at least I've run continuous running time on mumble +hey I got public radio is currently 1151 almost midday on January 1st 20th this year +just wishing everybody a happy new year and a happy new year back to your new year +hey Ken hey Mark Archer how's it going guys it's going fantastically who's sitting here +book and people don't tell the do-shows and get so annoyed or just let the drop off +we had John the last time here oh nice open and tender really +congratulations by the way you had an event full year +indeed I did thank you as it is we've already got a good amount of things planned for this year so +let's hope it all comes to fruition nice stuff I hope of course good stuff it's +seem a bit distracted it is cause I am yeah we got home from our festivities I think we +our heads hit the pillow around 3.30 in a morning while I got up I would say about an hour ago +or so my wife is still sleeping are you guys to go to do anything nice well you can probably +guess all full of you going past we did we went to a friend's house that kind of a friend's new +years Eve party there and my wife had made some games and everything for us to play +during the new year so I had a good time that's nice you're going over this way anytime soon +this year we'll have to wait that will have to see it was in the plans if we find any good +a fair price is we might actually be doing it but we don't know yet we've already got our +our when you're waiting at a nursery planned out where we're going to stay some time at the keys +then what else we got another trip coming up soon for her youngest daughter's birthday so we're +going to be around around about a bit as you you're too worried about that four years social media +history still coming up you think they follow the Fedivers I guess if if our current president +has his own instance I would imagine so hard to know are you paying if they're looking for +something will find us interesting though so are you learning German or not yes still learning German +doing it through do a lingo I just need to practice speaking anymore but yeah I've been wishing +my stepdaughter's godmother a Merry Christmas happening or everything in German +that is impressive broken German mind you but German nonetheless yeah but you know by definition +everybody starts all speaking broken German or broken language so you learn as you go along +that's true well the temp kind of went down a bit here yesterday uh drop down on into +what was it about 11 degree Celsius last night here in Miami of all places oh yeah it's +I actually had taken a code of mine that I was because I wanted to wear my fedora that I had bought +just recently when we were in CS the key and I got the chance to use it so I was like oh let me +let me wear my p-cote today since the weather's asking for it is your fedora red bullet each +nah it's a brown fedora dark brown no red fedora's I posted a picture on uh on messed up +oh yeah that's right that's the one I sold this morning I sold for you yeah that's the one +I had mistakenly called it a pedicote and someone corrected me and yeah not a pedicote oh unbelievable +no I'm glad they did because that would have been a little bit awkward to explain to my wife +so I'm and may good on my uh my promise to record that episode on high cool and mumble +talk about doing it by the skin of my teeth there you go I was just gonna say that yeah +no I recorded it I think on the 17th and I was like let me put it on the 30th just to be funny +it's actually quite interesting that high cool is that's such a point that you can do that +for all those ups I think it's been that way for a while right at least within the year I was +supposed to do the episode I just sat and checked uh I tried it at work as I didn't think +it would work and actually did hello am I here not depends I'm almost well I didn't I I know +I'm not all here but you understand I do you think you haven't talked to all these last year +I didn't even think the show was still going on but I know it goes on until it doesn't +I just saw a master that I'm post about 15 minutes ago saying it was still going so I'm here +there you go 31 hours it said yeah not sure we're gonna get 31 hours because there's a lot of +trunket silence but still no her yeah yeah keep it down George sorry I'll just go back to sleep +I think your cat has and has taken over your mouth she may have +anyways I just got home from my surprise birthday party which I don't think was a surprise to him +is it your birthday no no last month was my birthday now this was my friend Allen's birthday +one of the walking people I I walk within the morning you know we're all ghosts now it's good to be +a ghost the conspiracy theory around the code vaccine was that everyone would be taking the poison +and would be dead by December 31st 2025 well I have been vaccinated so many times I'm +probably because somewhere well after the New Year's Eve parties I kind of feel dead +the morning after not the same thing yeah and theory 75% of Americans should be dead as a +by last night the problem with conspiracy theories is yet out live them to prove them wrong +well you know they're gonna chalk up at least 75% of the deaths that happened at the end of +2025 to that even though it was it may not have been or wasn't different whole group being 75% of +there well we have 385 million it was supposed to be 75% of that was dead actually I feel better +than I did in 2020 at least my accident in April 2020 really put me back a good distance +I need to drop off and see where my son is he went to a party last night that should be back +by now because it should be back if you are as go but anyway I'll be back or I'll be doing a +taxi drive somewhere in the Netherlands see you guys I'm sure you are happy New Year can +if I don't get them touch keep this going guys keep it going I'm going to drop off for a bit +myself I'm making breakfast here say hi to everybody tell you thanks very much for +for all the shows during the year and stuff not enjoy yourself I pleasure and I like the +types any ideas what I can do for a show this year I've done so damn few and for that I'll +pass you over to my colleague George or something too all right I'm here for a while longer for +button I mean power unfortunately I have to work at 230 and I'm only five minutes away so I can +you don't sound a wicked archer I am away I've had five cups of coffee but my earpiece probably +doesn't I use an SNS sound core right now and I don't know if it sounds very good can't sound +it as a sound pretty crappy but it was the only way I could walk on that set yeah I went to a +party today at at a restaurant up the road here and it's a buffet type thing unfortunately I think I +too much so now I have like a food higher or something we actually had pizza delivery last night +and it was pretty good but it took forever it was an hour and a quarter wait they promised this +15 minutes by zero but it still got here and it was good and this was um oh crap what's that +Detroit brand Jet Spizza and it was pretty good it's better than the other brands except for +if we drove all the way in in Knoxville the best pizza in the world is a place called South Coast +I think I've had Jet Spizza it sounds so familiar is it a chain yes it is uh Detroit based +okay yeah I don't think they're down here but I think I've had them in Charlotte maybe yeah I +posted a place in Tekken Coffee I put the little I don't know feeler for I was I was a cherry blossom +yeah Jet says not in the top five um Domino's Pizza Hut little Caesar's Papa John's Marcos +by number of locations hunt brothers is the largest but that's because they hang out in all these little +convenience stores they just put a little pizza machine in but Jet says in the top ten in sales +in 2023 as the last numbers we have Domino's had 9 billion Pizza Hut 5.6 billion +little Caesar's 4.5 billion Papa John's 3.8 billion that drops to Marcos at 1.04 +Papa Merge use at 759 mod pizza 699 hungry how he's at 468 jets at 412 +and roundtable at 409 million last time I saw hungry how he was in Charlotte +Charlotte did have the best pizza place in the south I've been in which was called fuel pizza +well there's a hungry how he's in the town I live in which is Morris town Tennessee now +but we were not traded very well by the staff so we're not going back there I can't find any +real numbers more current than 2023 though however Casey's convenience stores has pizza at many +of their stores and they bought out a whole bunch of smaller convenience chains in the last two years +and maybe moving into the top ten you know who I haven't seen in here all time who's at +scoty and looking but looking forward to talking all year that was quite a year it took that +longer from my accident George there are some jet pizzas in Florida they're pretty much scattered +all over oh I may have to look they're used to I think I looked here one time but I don't +any in Jacksonville or Jack's Beach well I only can see a map of the country in Florida +and they're dots on it and they don't list the cities but they're definitely sum up in the +Jacksonville area somewhere there are two on the north coast of Florida there's one just down +from there and there's two more slightly inland from that 37% of Iran in Michigan but there's a +lot around Chicago all over Ohio and around Nashville and Atlanta other than that they're scattered +there's literally three and there's one right near me according to this it's on at Lanick +Boulevard which is just parallel to me but it's closer not sure where it is I don't have to look +but it's it's hey Atlanta kind of goes the whole length of Jacksonville so it could be anywhere +anyhow they're pretty good here they're they're the best in Morris town in our opinion +we've got the usual things pizza hut papa johns john domino's little seasers all that stuff +we also have a regional chain based in western Virginia called pizza plus that we kind of like +I actually used to be a driver for them at their blame store yeah looking at the menu now +I've been after order something but not today because I've eaten way too much for even the +your pizza's out for today huh? I'm pretty much anything out for the day +right now I'm just having a soda because I have tons of it left over from life +yeah the number 10 is round table and 83% of their restaurants are in California so they don't even +get out this way I guess there's a couple in the Dallas area but otherwise they're all the less +coast in my opinion papa Murphy's has the best cheese bread but you have to take it home and +bake it yourself it's yummy though it looks like there's about five papa Murphy's in Jacksonville area +just trying to get you that pizza George I'm currently looking at a +I posted the link I was using into the chat room on mumble I just added it to the show notes +with the timestamp in your name and everything how sweet thank you I have to contribute +something to the community you know I think I've added your stuff as I hear stuff and it +goes along I just kind of copy and paste from the actual side chat so I'm gonna throw the +links I've been talking I'm out in here too. On the topic of the year of the Linux desktop I just got +a message from Londoner in the full circle magazine group that the currently the highest is India at +6.51% of desktops USA is 5.28% North America in general is 5.04% but there is only one wolfman pizza +how good can it be I take that back because my favorite pizza in the world has only one location in +South Knox yeah not there's a lot with some good ones fuel pizzas pretty good that was my favorite +New York style pizza in Charlotte and they had a bunch of locations they took over some old +gas stations and they converted them to fuel pizza of course and their famous for the movie shallow +how there's a couple scenes where I guess they meet in a few little pizza in Charlotte so I remember +that movie so the pizza I've never seen it so the pizza scenes are done I think in the uptown Charlotte +location well if you ever get to Knoxville you have to go to South Coast pizza my wife loves their +IG and pizza it has all the Greek veggies and calamata olives and better cheese on it and he thinks +it's the yummyest thing in the world she also likes their green dragon or green monsters they have +a green dragon and a green monster and one of them she really likes on the other one she doesn't +and I don't remember so whatever today for website you're due South Coast pizza.com it has a very +beach vibe they only have picnic cables in this open room and they also have an awning outside +with more picnic tables yeah I had two favorite pizza places here and both of them closed one was vegan +and the other was New York style pizza both of them closed up all their stores during the pandemic +my favorite pizza place is now dead I'm sorry to hear that national pizza day is February 9th it +says wait there's all an uptown I gotta remember the name it's probably something like sals or +like a generic name and I can pick up a name oh man I think it is sals and can't look so my +semi what's left of pizza places here that's left it is I'm gonna post it in a side here but it's +a casso dora and only because when I first moved here it's the first pizza place I kind of saw +it's an uptown so I might go there once every two years these days but but it's probably the +next in line for pizza places I'm only because it's I'm good 40 minutes from our live so it's not +like I'm gonna go there a lot I just put a trip to South Coast on our calendar for February 9th +national pizza day I'll be right back I need to run to the other room for a second I have returned +are you Dracula I would you say I think like that I'm scared blah blah blah yappa +all right Dracula meets Evan and Castella I get it I grew up on Evan Castella her team +I'm older than you aren't I George you are I am 62 so if you're a little bit heavy I have 11 +years on your George. I just turned 73 on December 4th. Oh, I know, I know you're +birthday because yours is a day before mine, but I knew it because I posted +your thing too. Oh, okay. We said you've got to stick together, you know? +Exactly. I even married this egg. I don't think I ever did. Close to +like that was a early capricorn. I don't think the marriage thing +once. So I knew her birthday, I guess. I don't know. You know, I forgot +dates though. I've been guilty of that. So yeah, I've been serially +monogamous. I keep getting left out for the trash. So I have to find +someone else. I do not present to the autistic and I actually really +am and that makes me weird for other people to figure out. I must do +have any Alexa device by the chance. I do. We had it unplugged for a +couple of years, but we plugged it back in after we moved here. Has it +forced you to do the AI thing because it did to me? I'm not sure. We've +been turning down many requests. Well, I kept turning the request down. +It's like sample the new AI version in blah, blah, blah. And then next thing +you know, it's like you've been upgraded. I'm like, but I didn't say yes. +Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how to get Gemini off my phone. I keep +seeing lists of things to do and I go to my settings to do those things +and whatever headings I'm supposed to hit, it are not even on my settings. +And like Gemini for the reason of creating cartoons and pictures that I +occasionally post and take a few other than that, it doesn't know you used to +me. And now duck duck go. Let me opt out of it, but then keep trying off +for it back to me. Try Ecosia. I've been using Ecosia for a couple +years. It's kind of my favorite search engine now because like I get no ads and all I +do is save trees apparently. I don't know if I really do. Well, I used Ecosia +for a while and then they really want you to pay for it. And as far as +the saving trees goes, they have now put AI on it that I've seen. So I'm I'm +I'm really up. I wish we could just go back to all the VISTAs like like I did +like I had when I was a boy, you know. I want to go back to Internet Explorer 1. +Netscape. Netscape. I love Netscape. I took all these courses in Netscape +including their server packages way back in my early IDM days. I have these books +here that Netscape would send to me like textbooks on the browser and the +server packages. Yeah, we went Netscape and then Netscape navigated when they +try to add in some HTML tools. You can still use CMonkey. I used to love the +CMonkey still has it because it was a whole package. And I used Thunderbird as +well and I used Zen as my main browser. But they used to have the package with +the editor, the HTML editor. So my first, my first major HTML editing outside of +text was using their HTML editor. But it was kind of cool. And I think it's +still included in the CMonkey. Yes, it is. I tell you back with HTML 4. I was +teaching kids that didn't have enough brain cells to rub together how to use +HTML. I literally had a couple that I helped get Mary. I actually was the +efficient for their marriage with 70 and 80 IQs each of them. HTML 4 is that +stupid simple. 5. I'm still basically a little bit of HTML 4 plus put some +more tags on it. Are you a ULC minister? Among many others. Okay, yeah, I became +probably about 14 years ago. I'm not the look at my thingy on the wall, but yeah. +Not only so I could marry some friends of mine that, you know, normal +religions wouldn't marry because of cool they love. Yeah, I got PULC first +because ULC at the time had a IRS tanked on it. Progressive universe of life +churches no more because apparently the minister that ran it has passed. But it's +better known as the church that had, and my brain went out. Tom Jones was their +patron saint. And Tom Jones got to know about it and didn't mind. I have a +number of other nations. My most current active one is church of spiritual +humanism. And the unique thing about being in Florida is I don't even need to be +licensed locally. I could just show my ordinance and I'm good to get. That's good. +A lot of counties I've been in North Carolina in Tennessee require you to have a +presence in the county and in some cases they require you to have a building in +the county that is registered as a church. Oh, yeah, that's fun. Yeah, I've noticed +stuff like that too. I was gonna, I don't have to check local places if somebody +asked me to marry them. I have to like, oh, it's the local ordinance for me to marry you +because I may need to follow that. What's really funny is the person that married me to my current +wife also had church of spiritual humanism and I turned her on to it. But she's been a really +high class high priestess for a lot of time, a lot of years before I even got really into +wicked paganism. Heck, she now has mentioned in Wikipedia based on who she got married to. +And I think a year or so ago she got married to a very big name pagan Oberon +Gazelle of Church of all worlds. Yeah, I just looked at my ordinance or for digging +papers, whatever, and it said 2012, June 2012. So I've been a minister for 12 plus years, I guess. +I have to look on my website. I have all the dates in there. Wow. Progressive universe of +life church 1996, universe of life church later in 1996, Temple of Wica 2003, church spiritual +humanism 2010. Holy crap, you got maybe an audience. I guess ordering a cultist isn't on there +but it was somewhere in the 2000s. What can I say, George? I'm old. You and me both. +I'm working on year number 10 with life number six. Well, if nothing else, now we know of two +people that can marry other people if needed. So I'm available. I'm cheap. That's what I say when I +walk the streets. Wait, what? Actually, I have a friend on one of my discord groups who is a sex +worker. And the only discord group I'm in besides the now probably defunct tech and coffee one is the +Wall Street Betts, which to me is just a bunch of people talking about things like panicking +and not knowing what they do when they trade. So I usually just avoid that now. So +thank you for whoever's been going in and fixing up what I've been pasting in in our show notes +because now it's a hundred fifty in times cleaner with the correct time. Yeah, I just noticed I +had to update my website. We had to get rid of one of our cats. Sorry about that. If I had lived +locally, I would have taken your older cat because my older cat would have liked the older cat I guess, +but you know. Well, we first got rid of the 12-year-old brother to the Cecil. Cecil's +all's been a terrific cat that his brother just wasn't. And when we moved here, we had to +reduce to two cats and we decided, well, Grimmlin is such a sweet kitty, but Grimmlin did not +really adapt to the move very well and got a little bit destructive to things that could have +damaged the apartment if we let it go on any longer. A apartment management says we are eligible +to get another cat at any time. Well, I hope you didn't say anything else to me because I went +took my head bones off and talked to my wife for a moment there. We were just remembering back when +you delivered the Raspberry 2 from Tony to us. Well, that was 2019 because that's when I was +over there and in soon afterwards there were none anymore because of the great pandemic. +But yeah, Tony, man, Tony wasn't not. He was not at the last one. Tony used because I usually +work the desk with him. We usually take in the newcomers for the last couple years except for +last year. I didn't volunteer at all, so I would really love to meet Tony. He's my kind of guy. +Always a very nice guy. I mean, you know, we've worked together and I think once or twice hung out, +but just with other people like hitting a pub or something and getting lunch, that type of thing. +Yeah, I still have the Pi 2. I also finally found like Pi 4 was hiding under my television set. +I have been given by different people, one of each generation except the Pi. +Yeah, I have like three different generations of Pi, but nothing new except I bought those +not the nanos. I can't think what they're called. They're like the nanos. They're a little +Pi 0 W. It's like a Pi 0, but it's not. It's more of a project board +meaning to make like an SDR or something with it. Well, I've had a one, a two, a three and a four. +I still have the two and a four. These are like Arduino. I have a bunch of Arduino's here too, +but I bought a couple of these and I'm there only a couple dollars each. Like around five bucks each, +you can get them for on LA Express. So in order to couple, just to see if I can do anything with them, +I mean, I'll probably mess up knowing me. I've got a pintime sitting here doing nothing. +They're watch. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. Right now, nothing. I found a better +digital watch for only like 30 bucks on Amazon that was supposedly originally $2.99. +Yeah, the only reason I like the semi pseudo smart watches and I have one that's maybe a $50 +one that I wear is because of steps and it sends stuff back to my phone, which sends it back to +Google Fit. The only problem is they don't work with my machines in the gym or at home here, +so I guess it looks like I'm stepping, but I can't really tell it that I'm, I don't know, +say like on a walker or a bike machine or something. Yeah, my current watch has a app called +Defit, D-A-F-I-T, which of course I changed it on my phone to B-D-A-F-U-K-F-U. But yes, it records my steps. +It records blood pressure, it records stress levels, it records oxygenation, and it does everything. +It's very, very nice watch for only 30 bucks or so. Yeah, remember you posting it. I was +kind of looking at that too, but I have two amazing fits and both of them work pretty well. In fact, +I'm using the older older one I got like maybe almost seven years ago, because the newer one, +I don't know, I don't like this, it's got a really big color screen on it. This older one has +got like a paper white screen, so the screen's always on. It reminds me of my pebble steel, I used to. +How often do you charge that? This one I charge about once every week and a half. +Okay, the watch I'm wearing now usually needs to be recharged once a week, but I had it go almost +two weeks between charges. Yeah, this used to last almost a month, years ago when I bought it, +but now it, you know, it's a paper white screen, you know. Exactly. I mean, the paper white screen thing, +I thought it was dead because I took it out of a drawer without being used for two years, +because I couldn't stand a newer one that I've been using for two years, so I was like, +you know what, I'm going to see if this one works. And I plugged it in, it worked and I +attached it. It uses an app called Zepp and then you can make Zepp go back to fit Google Fit. +So it updates your steps and stuff from that. Well, I don't want Google getting any more information +about me than I can keep it from. Yeah, I don't think I care if they know how much I walk. +But yeah, no, I get you. I get. I have not been able to do Google. I keep trying. I really don't use +Google Gmail anymore, but they're still stuck being sent to Gmail. I just have it forwarded +to my proton. You said you're using Thunderbird. I have not used a email program since I was using +Yodora. Way back when. I had a Yodora disk somewhere around here. It's probably still here +with a book and everything. I don't know. I liked Yodora. There was one I used and Windows days +called Pegasus in the 90s, maybe, or the early 2000s, Pegasus Mail. I loved Pegasus Mail. It was one of my favorites. +I'm not sure if I remember that or not. It was a really tiny client. But the reason why I used Thunderbird +because I have multiple mail accounts, especially a couple for tech and coffee and things like that. +So I can monitor them all at one spot and I can see if something comes in because I get pop ups. +Where if I'm using the web based all the time? I'm not really known if I got mail or not. Unless I +physically go to this size. Yeah, I've had to simplify everything because I get confused too easily. +So I've got everything going to proton or where I don't get it at all. If it goes to Gmail, +it gets forwarded to proton and I have a phone app and a web app for that. Yeah, the unfortunate +thing is I still you. I have a proton thing, but I mostly use Gmail and outload cannot mail. +And email. Yahu mail and live. I'm looking at all the accounts on this because I don't know +there's simple for me. I get some very simple person, but yeah, I mean there's nothing going to +them that I mean other than maybe like I don't know. I mean there's nothing going to that I really +don't care if they know. Yeah, I cancel a whole bunch of emails over the years Yahoo, I had +I got it. I had an AOL.IN address at one time. I think I had a GMX.DE and I also had +something.RU. I still have one site I log into that I log in with the Bard Moss at PM.ME and it +always pops up a little thing. Did you mean Bard Moss at GMX.DE? I'm going I never had a GMX.DE +account under that name. What do you ask me for? I remember when IGN the game makers had mail +I had a mail account for them. I mean I have been on GMX for so long. I'm amazed they're still around. +I guess the same could be said for AOL. I really did for a short period of time have the old AOL +account and I think for a short while I even had a prodigy account, but yeah my early computing +days we had no internet and even when there wasn't internet we laughed at it because what +did you need that for you? I don't know. I think spam but then AOL bought them and merged it. +They're producting with AOL or AMAL so I got stuck with that. AOL is now along with Yahoo +a product of Verizon as I understand it. I have no idea why anyone would spend money buying those properties. +Well I should probably get some breakfast and I need to spend some time today editing my podcast +that I recorded on Tuesday morning. I just got it done on Tuesday like I thought about but +oh well it doesn't have to be there till Sunday morning. Gotcha and I made drop to I've been on +this for over a day and some hours so I should probably I should probably and like you I have to edit +I have about 50 minutes of boring financial talk I have to edit down to maybe 10 or 12 minutes +because I don't put people sleep or I process on HDR. Well you know how I do I've got full circle +weekly news every week and that doesn't put people asleep I don't know what does we don't talk about it +we just reported. I mean it's helped me sleep wait did I say that I love? Thanks George. Just a joke. +Actually I know that Bill listens to it a lot. One of my co-hosts on Mintcast he's on the road a lot +and he says that really keeps him going. To be fair though I listened to most of my podcast at 2x so +you kind of sound like Mickey Mouse to me when I listen to you. Yeah I can't hear anything when I do that. +I the most I do is 1.2x but I've been trying to listen to the real time lately but +I almost part I don't listen to my cats even my own so much but I got to get it out there. +I'm in April it'll be five years on full circle weekly news. I love the full circle magazine too and +I like when you guys post them and stuff so but yeah it's it's a beautiful thing and you know I +am using like a bunch of green as they call it. Who want to green? You know Mint oh okay yeah well +both of my personal computers are triple booting I've got Mint I think one of them cinnamon +because I found out how bad Mate was messing me over the other when I haven't moved to +cinnamon yet and then also of course I have Booty and I have Farron OS because it's nice I have +a mint that runs K to E. Yeah the only two things I run are opens you say mint and then that's +pretty much it and I've been using open to say gosh 25 years mate you know how so. Open what? +Open to say or as you say I mean I started using it when I worked at IBM because they used to have +distribution server so I used to grab the items so it was from them and bring them home on zip drives. +Oh you mean open Susa? Yes yes I probably say it might be your horrible way that nobody understands what I'm +saying anyway so. Yeah some people just say Sus but I've always said Susa. I've been Susa was my before it was +open was my second distro. I mean I had a book of Red Hat 5.1 that I never could get running. +I also had Slack where I never could get running. The first one I actually got running was +Mandrake. I think it was seven it could have been eight and then after my hardware wouldn't run +the update of that I moved to Susa and it wasn't fun but it would run and then until +Ubuntu 8.04 and from that point on I've used Linux almost as much or more than Windows +and 2015 I haven't used Windows since. Yeah I only used Windows for work up to a point maybe from +I don't know I'm going to say like mid to like 2008 on maybe but I would always keep a small +Windows system here and I do keep a virtual box version of Windows here but that that could +scoot it's so little I mean I really need it only gets booted for the two or three programs that +will not run in Linux. I'm still being a lot height on this I have never run a VM. I guess I'm being +a lot because I say you know like virtual box and most people moved on to other things but I'm +I don't know I've been using that since my IBM days and gosh I haven't worked for IBM in +close to 20 years. Yeah well anyhow I better get going and you better get going and whatever happens +here I guess hardware is still here. Hello. Hey baby G. Do you remember me most. See what? Do you +remember me? You're a little bit I I am autistic so I don't remember things very well. I +remember your name I did use a bit on to record because I had can is a favorite so I +remember your name took me sometimes to remember. I don't remember talking to you last year but +I think the year before you were on. Yeah I remember I see I'm probably one day late and one of +you see this is normally then one year and one year one year probably one day late to the new year. +Yeah it's been running for more than 30 hours I it was 31 when I got on and it's probably 32 +by now but I was about to get off and I think George was too archer still here though. +Yeah I probably should have heard from you yesterday because do this you this channel +be only used once a year. Oh this channel's here all the time it depends on when you want to use it. +Yeah but I'm wondering if it any one time but the new year it's used because this is the only time +I see people in there. Well it's the only time I want it. No I see yeah because at the +one the time I remember if I remember it then you to check them but uh many people in the +one one. Yeah the time you time I come in here and off of the years but very rarely I mean +I usually and we have a telegram group that has audio on it then I mean I don't often. Yeah so +it's been used less over time because each time I don't need to use the different books +in the different ones and that's it. So I thought this was dead but today is a many people inside +it. Well I'd to talk to you again KDG but I do gotta run. Yeah I'll see you George or you +you. Thank you man. See you. Bye bye. You do me too. KDG are you on the +first or the first or the last one? No not really. Anything so so. Yes it is the previous +live but like I am not in the active one and in one. I'm more into different chat things +where I am I have come to different things but we want with much text there is a little +active. It doesn't actually post anything on this one. So with chat things are you talking about? +This got a never one but the telegram and element if it's a green name to something else. +There's a room for HPR and element and I'm also on this core sometimes. +Yeah I'm not really active on this core but it's somewhere it's possible to have a different +place to reach me. So have you talked before? Yeah I think the last year you sound familiar +what's your native language? It sounds like it's sweet. In close enough Swedish and +it's more less than something. Maybe it cannot be able to speak in your native language. +It's interesting to hear the accent. Yeah my accent is there. Love her name because you are from +USA I'm guessing. In Chicago area normally and then I move to Kentucky. Yeah because people from Europe +are difficult to place me. I understand it was fine I'm just shaking my accent because my accent +is from learning talking in a number. My English speaking in how to speak correctly is learn +through practice in a number. So I don't speak how my native speaking is a number. I remember talking +to someone from my country that guessed where I was from. I spoke over over before we realized +we both were from saying country. So you have to think it's connected to that's you maybe. +Yeah I'm a laptop to I was just trying to work something out on that. I probably should just connect +yeah you have it just understood the other one. So you end up not talking from both at the same time. +I just forgot to go on my laptop and disconnect from there. I was doing experiments with some +radios. Yeah I connect via my phone sometimes in here so when I do my walkies in the morning. +I thought you was going away but it was used most of us wanted to go away. +And we'll soon go away. Yeah I just still kind of working on a little coding things up. +I know you're doing something. Normally the brain cells get on somehow. +Yeah and I'm doing remember I don't do only remember I'm talking not my native language. +So what then is special days in a year you're on use talk about you sometimes you're doing. +So I'm in a lot of other room too. I'm kind of playing and creating, visiting my cat, you know, +things like that. So are you in this number from some special day beside the +day. I come in from a time to time. Maybe a couple of times every couple months to see if anyone's in here. +But I'm usually just in we have a couple telegram groups. Our generic both in one called +tech and coffee. If you highlight over my name you'll see the URL for it. Yeah. +That's where the TAC comes from. Do you wonder? +Yeah I see. And you get to meet his cat if you go over a tech and coffee. +She's in my way. And then you go get to meet Rose too. That's my ex girlfriend. +I don't know if you've seen but those last three people other than Ken that joined. +Yeah I reached out to him given about half an hour and I literally they're all muted +until I reach out to our tech and coffee account to get unmuted. So they can just sit there and stare at us. +Yeah of course. I was wondering if he was to put out +const podcasts or something going on because all people in the same good boss knew that I thought +those on the screen in the podcast that don't it once? I thought those don't really want to do it again. +Oh no no there's nothing in here. I'm talking about our we have a telegram group +outside of here and and oh they are joined. He could really add much at this in the middle of +Yeah people have joined us and they try to scam us with like Bitcoin things and IPTV scams. +So we usually just ban, ban them and report them. But now I've been kind of like asking them +if they're real and give them two hours to respond if they don't I kind of meet all their privileges +so they can just stare at us chatting without doing anything. I'm getting cruel in my whole day. +Yeah you got enough I stopped just using elementary because I got so many +hey by my Bitcoin I should have stopped using it for many moves and then I forgot I had it +muted the whole application. Well guys I'm really in truly gonna leave you out because +I just gotta call so I will talk to you later and I'm meeting a KDG. I think I have talked +in the past but I'm not sure. I don't talk an archer before because he's in my community. +But I'm in that. I don't know if I can and most people and also so if you insane +community man yes it's probably talked to you but yeah it's what talked to you just each +new year it's difficult to remember all the names. Yeah yeah it is for me too. I sometimes write the +things down and keep a little genome sometimes but I don't know again to all to even do that. +So anyways it was nice talking to everyone. Everybody have a great new year. I made +come back later and see if everyone's still alive but I may not. So I used to do a new +telegram and he vanished. But please know I have it probably to see news. Good day folks. +Good day. Well it's a pleasure to meet you sir I do. I've just been catching a few +naps. I can't do the entire 36 hours or what have you straight up like I might have when I was younger. +So you've been having the last sentence for seven just hanging on sleeping. Well yeah I've been +probably two or three hours at most catching catching cat naps but sometimes even voluntarily +sleep can when you're overextended sleep can sneak up on you. Yeah and at least get your hair +you're to talk before you vanished. My name well my handle is net minor may I know more about who +I'm a member in this channel from come to time. This I think this is the new year channel. +Yes this is a new year event that will be eventually edited and produced as a number of podcasts. +Um maybe I know where you're calling from or where you're coming in from. +And no way. No way. No way. No way. Well that's uh I think of first for my understanding +um we've had some English Scottish and of course Ken from the Netherlands but +it is a pleasure to meet meet you from that beautiful country. Yeah I don't travel much but +once a year coming out here the world comes out to say hello very very nice. +Does your computer make up sound when you start talking or make us sound and just +glad before you start talking? You probably might not hearing it yourself. Unfortunately if you're +hearing a beep or something like that I don't know how to stop that. Yeah because I held it before +in number. No I don't know if you check it out. It's uh unfortunately it's not as easy to +disable as the text is feature some other features of my off-standard mumble uh client. +Something that's ironic is that I use the XFCE desktop and their weather application. +I'm in the Boston area and I know the application uses no region weather data because of the +generosity we are government to provide it free of charge. Yeah yeah it's uh the two letters +probably that don't chase. Sorry I don't understand but but what's interesting is that +weather information has to come from my area the northeastern Massachusetts um in +Northeastern US go over to Norway and then we sent back across the Atlantic so that I can +read my local conditions after a two-way trip across the Atlantic. Yeah I kind of spacing out so +about that because I've got invited to run and I got banned before doing it seems like um well I'm +far to hear that but you're never done that before before I have to talk to you. +Oh I don't use fire it seems like I got banned. I'm like correct to the ban. Yeah probably should +focus more on uncing the book they had in limited time because I thought I should multitask +mobile and doing it. Well I don't use too much of the other community our social application so +I don't that's just not something that I deal with much um mumble is about is where my +social activities occur and what's going to be fun is Friday night my mumble +chat group Linux Luckcast is supposed to have our first show of the year after everybody's been out here +over extending themselves so it may be an interesting show to see who goes up and things like that +because a lot of us are in where we don't spring back as much as we used to. +Although I seem to be one of the older members of my group. I'd like to know what the weather is +in your area. It's not snowy it is yet. Yes we've got a very +very light dusting of snow and we didn't have a white Christmas this year it waited until +about a day or a little more later to give us a nice couple of well +probably four centimeters. Archer I was still around. I tried to join them the +Gregor channel thing but somehow I get kicked as it seems like so I could answer the ones back +got charging but I was supposed to answer many multiple times. Maybe I asked where I +stood. I never got a catch out and tell them before. How are you tried taking coffee or +on a nice beer? A coffee thing okay it'd be hard to do doing. I'll talk to George +what I can say. It's fine out for him. Yeah because he said Oscar Joe he can help him. +Because I think I was also born first time and the older times after I said quite a bit +man. Oh he did welcome you. He was just joking around that you're now because we have a lot of +spammers. Yeah, no you're fine. I don't worry about it. I see hello. The problem is I don't find +them thing anymore in them. So I am in the channel or what? Probably should you still +come over but when the chat vanishes I'm not sure how to return. Can you see if I'm still in it +or do I need to read your net? I don't see you in there. I'll try again. Hold it give me about one +minute. I tried to send you a message but your user doesn't come up when I do the +ASMR. Yeah so it seems like I answered the book and get kicked. That doesn't show you got kicked. +I don't know. Yeah I can't try again in this like you've seen Joe in the channel +don't go up and I got the welcome and click kick to prove your humans and I got the +guteration thing and everything is fine. So his question is do I stay? It's when the +bottom says um I'm still excited 10 minutes in. It's probably a normal before I can start talking. +That's probably how you know play a great people. I see you must part in to say ah. +Can I not say a back? So I send you a direct message in case I get dropped again. +So you can easier find out if I banish me and you have a reference um +I just added you to my contacts. So we'll see. +A photo. I do back. No, I'm not any longer than the thing he doesn't +banish on me and he won't go. So it's probably a better sign from not +banishing me. I see he welcomed you again. I guess Rose is doing a little too much banning. +Yeah she was totally talking about how much banning he was doing. That's he did. +Ask me to do it and he got me banned the repeat. But I never got banned from tagging. +And I didn't know how it looked for just banishing on my face. +Banished? Okay. One of one of the other one. Not actually. I'm going to need to and before +tagging. Probably too quiet there. You're right. You said about spam before there was a lot of +spam. So maybe that's how why he has to be careful if somebody is putting too much spam on the channel. +Yeah. I'm wondering if I'm and seeing the both too much is probably a to talk. +What I was talking with a spam and probably a bad kick. Because I was bonding it on +it and said multiple times. Because I could kick 12 times and then tried next time and +multiple times and that got me kicked instead of them. Well the only thing that gets you kicked +on tagging coffee is if you're trying to sell Bitcoin or some starters or something like that. +I see. I never tried to. I got in contact with not only tagging but on elementary. I think it's good. +They are doing some good stuff and then I got spam the whole day. +It's probably right on the COVID. So it's some years ago actually. I need to point +it to the HPR element room. Give me a minute. I'll go over there now. I was going to get ready for work +and have to be there for another 40 minutes. I work it up. Well do they have walmart's over there? +No but I know what walmart is. Everything kind of you have a TV show with the movies about +them, you know, that chop of yours. So it's way too big. I don't like working retail but it's a +job so most by five minutes or so. Yeah it's probably easier to go between. If you have +work at one you have open position and problem moving position sideways and wherever you leave it +in you in you say. If you can allow it to move around. You mean between the departments? +Yeah or between chops it's easier if you've got in the door and it's a big advantage of the +COVID. Yeah once you get right. I don't want to move out of this town though. Yeah so if you want +to have a movie you have a indoor in one work that's make it easier to public keep. Similar +kind of work moving in the same business. Not just in a retail in general not just just a walmart +Yeah it's the walmart because this in my country meet people that move between shops and +wanting if that doesn't mean oh we work at 10 years. There's not this shop although shopping +now does it. So I understand it. Oh yeah once you work five years. Yeah so you probably need +public kind of from day one but if you first are in you had then time to possibly build +a possible to move inside there. If you may be kind of the other side right you probably can +know yeah. I thought about classes in IT to let maybe move not in this store but outside +it's something that's more of my interest. I got the privilege in the telecom thing. So thanks +for getting me tech and coffee. You can voice message in there too. Yeah I got the person out. +Oh before I got the person to say anything and okay that's probably a person. Yeah what they said +both. Once in a while they have something that's like mumble and you just pin it at the top +and then a bunch of people can want to talk all at once. I think it's video too. If you too +I'm looking over to the element thing really quick to see if you can be in the HPR room. So it's +back from the same place as coffee always out different inputs. You said the same place as +Scotty? Uh tech and coffee. Oh they do have an element for tech and coffee too but it's +linked to all around. But there's also hacker public radio room. I see one thing that +that loading it to push in the application. Yes it does. Oh so. Oh it doesn't happen. Oh yeah the +sinking thing. I open it to unfricing there. I hope that was you. +I'm not sure if I actually had this one before I don't. Oops but it was not any +check spings. Oh you're all going to dice you. Yeah I got in. I'm not sure if I +been before in. I didn't check if I had it before. I ask what. Not sure if picture doesn't look familiar +but I remember hearing and I don't remember hearing somebody from your area. I remember +the logo but probably I would have it somewhere else I don't. Do you guys have this code or something +like that too? We may have. I have to check on it in about minute or so because I have to drive +some closer to work. No it seems I'm going to talk with understand to how to read +everything. What are you trying? I'm figure out I'm not being on this code in a +so long time I need to figure out the login again and forgot what I'm going to add and +need to look around to find out what the code did I have. Did you want to make a new one? +I wiped my phone a while ago and I'll have to be just quarterback on. Now we have a handful of friends +there. Yeah I'm not actively using it because I need to do. No it's been two years since +I lost your net. I only joined it because of a work friend and that's not it. No one yet. One year +one to three. Four years ago four years ago I was just in one of the years ago. It's four +five years ago. Just in the one in the last time so it's four years ago. I think it's more +matted why didn't my head. Oh and four years ago I've been active last turn of message and I've +got it. I log in and I think I'm always on but before I did it logs me out. But I got you +list on the target that I actually use more actually. I was just wondering if I always was on this +somewhere that I'd probably seen the logo somewhere else then maybe. Now I don't know how I +job something booksearched. No it seems like I've actually been on the target longer and I thought +I didn't check if I was on it before I joined it. My fault for asking for something I already +was in. It seems but I'm not active. Oh well. To go to it's good to have one point if +number somehow we should move from one year to the next. Sometimes for different reasons +number one can get a new name and if I know other way to contact the people in that number one +it can go or energy because it's kind of. When I found out I still have discord on there and +didn't realize I put it back and then I went to the hemorrhate or crash course and I can't verify +my phone number. Yeah. It took me forever to find out how to release them. When you go to do the +rest I wanted my location and list it. So it took me forever to realize what the email address I +connected. Oh well we're here tonight because I had it the same email is mine. I have to go silent +now I've got to go and work. Yeah. The thanks for having us before I joined the +list one of the one and I probably was in the order. So yeah. I remember you helped me remember +I had the order. I'm sorry good to see you in both the elements and the units PR and +the ground on tell them too. They got a lot of interesting people out. Yes I have a two +dice to reach you. So it's one range and about a second one. Yes talk to you a little. Hello good +lot there. I'm glad to do it. Happy new year for our year for you. Yeah, thank you. Happy new year +to you too. It was awesome to see you before next year. So not mine or you probably went +quiet because I kind of talked to a lot of the person. Oh you probably got this here. +Whoops. I think I'll do it again. So anyone left? Three. You know talk maybe you know +don't have so me can follow this problem. Not all need of so yeah so probably no one +talked to like leave come back and see if someone's annoying so you know what I'm going +better. So probably no one is in and this is one new one populated in the middle so yeah. +Alright so it seems like everybody has left. I don't see anybody talking anymore. I am +go to officially stop the recording. Happy new year everybody. Thank you for another fun +new year show and I look forward to doing it again next year. Recorded time was 33 hours. Hopefully +there's a decent audio from that. Can happy new year and we're going to kill the stream. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4643.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4643.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa2d94a --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4643.txt @@ -0,0 +1,299 @@ +Episode: 4643 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 13 - Triple IPA +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4643/hpr4643.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:50 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4643, for 2026-05-20 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 13 - Triple IPA" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:30:12 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave and Kevie talk about Triple IPAs." +Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio and this is the HPR +Beer Garden, our regular beer style review show that we have been doing now for, well this +is episode number 13, so I'll let you count, my name is Dave, I am joined this time around +by Kevin, who's my usual partner in crime, hello Kevin, hello I'm very well, after +the long winter months we, they're believed to be sun on the horizon, we're been told, +we've been told, so we're starting a new era tonight, are we not, are I new section, let's see, +oh we are, I mean, yes, the sun is coming out, we're, we're been told, we're not, we're promised +yet, not for ourselves, I did see something in the sky, I mean, I know that where, where you are, +you tend not to, but I did say you see something in the sky today, but the temperature did not +correspond with the appearance of said ball of nuclear fission, which ever, I don't know, +no fusion, it would definitely be fusion, you do not want fission happening in the sun, +have I just invented a word as well, as a solid just, possibly I haven't, it could be right, +I don't know, I, I don't do words either, as you will know, I hope, over the last 13 +episode, anyway, what we are going to be doing this time around, as Kevin quite rightly +points out, we are starting to head towards the summer months, very slowly, we're going to start +to adapt our styles slightly, and we're going to head a bit more towards what you +may consider to be summer hails. But again, slowly. So, I'm going to pass over to +Kevin, because the style that we are going to be looking at this time is the triple +IPA. So, Kevin, tell us about the triple IPA. +Triple IPA right now does seem to be something that's actually quite difficult to get. +It's a plenty of my usual websites are listing them, but they were nearly all at +a stock. However, I did find one eventually. So, this show almost didn't happen in this +forum. +Can I just say it is the complete opposite? Knowing how much fun it took me to get a +Baltic Porter for the last episode. When I went looking for a triple IPA, I went into +the supermarket, I waterped the shelf, picked it off the shelf, put it in the basket. +There was like three of them up there. +Nope, absolutely none here in the local supermarket, and I even did check. We've got two +petrostations, which have very good selection of beers, and neither of them had them, and +I'm like, this is getting depressing. And like I said, I even went to all my usual ones, +and quite a few of them had it listed, but it's head out of stock, and I'm like, oh. +So, we'll just have to wait and see how our listeners get on. But anyway, well, a triple IPA +can also be known. And actually, I didn't know this until I did my homework. Can also be known +as an imperial IPA. I had heard the term before, but I did not realize that they were actually +the same beer. Essentially, this is a very hopeful word IPA. And it's one where it's a relatively +recent beer in terms of the styles that they're at. Now, unfortunately, although I don't want +to cover double IPAs, you really cannot even talk about triple IPAs without +conventioning double IPAs. The double IPAs themselves emerged about the mid-1990s, and this was +just due to a growing demand of people wanting more. Brewerish had already kind of made +American IPA, which was a bolder version of the English IPA. However, they wanted more. So, +double IPAs came about. And it was in the notice, although one of the first ones was actually +made in Britain, we actually have the West Coast of America to thank for this, because it was +their brewerish over there that were actually pushing the boundaries further and further. To see how +much they can push the limits of the hopes and the alcohol strength. The first one to release was +actually Ipswich Bruins triple IPA, which came out in 2007. This was the first one to use the +name triple IPA. It may not be the first to actually produce a triple IPA, but the first one to use +the name. The other one that came out in the roughly the same time, but on the other side of the +pond, was pizza port brewing company in southern California, they produced swamis IPA. +And this wasn't actually labeled as a triple IPA, but was classed as a triple IPA +after people started using the term. Triple IPAs were based upon pushing the boundaries further +on the double IPAs. The brewer started using larger quantities of hopes and very often multiple and +more dry hoping additions. And of course, this increased both alcohol level and also very much +the bitterness level. So what makes a triple IPA? Well, sadly looking at the beer Bible, +it doesn't actually even mention it. So I had a bit more research online and according to several +different sources that still seem to agree, there's a few things that are not necessary every one, +but majority of them should be there. First one is alcohol content to be classed such a +triple IPA, it needs to be at least 9.5%. Usually the upper limit would be up both the 12, +but you can't get some slightly higher. But that was three, a ways much stronger than a standard +double IPA, and certainly more stronger than an IPA. The other thing is the bitterness, which is IBU +international bitterness units must also exceed 100. As far as flavor school, it should be top +dominant at both flavor and also on the aroma. I'm not saying it's the only thing, but that should +be straightforward, but also it should be noted that up malt back end should be there to provide +some balance to stop this becoming a sour. The body and mouth feel as well should typically +be creamy and never watery. When it comes to appearance, they often range anywhere between +pill gold to debamber, and usually as well differing from a lot of IPAs, the head is usually as +well more persistent and should last longer. So those were the guidance that I found in terms of +beer, like I said, quite a modern beer, really, only 19 years old from the first time that +term was actually used. Maybe not the first time it was actually brewed, but we have, like I said, +adventurous brewers and the craft beer market, because this was something that the big companies +weren't even interested. It was, it's expensive to make uses a lot of ingredients, and it's quite +a high price per serving. So this was something that the bigger companies would not even have +been interested to do. So we've got the craft brewers of the world to thank. And specifically, +as I said, although California was mentioned, Portland does always the one that seems to keep on +getting referred to as the ones who were pushing the boundaries. So we do actually have a lot +of thank for the Portland craft brewers who seem to drive this innovation. That is essentially all +I was able to find. Did you make any advances on that, Dave? No, no, whatsoever. I am slightly intrigued +by the definition items that you read out, because the one I have for this evening, although it +does actually say on it, it is a triple. Atty falls quite short of one of the criteria you mentioned, +which one no. Well, I could tell you about mine if you like. Yes, you go for it. Okay, +right then. So first of all, I should tell you about my glass. My the glass I'm using today is +actually from the Sheffield Indy beer feast, which happened last weekend. And as part of the +ticket price, you get to give it a glass, because of course you need to put your beer somewhere. +And it's a really nice glass. It's what would you call that a stubby? A stubby pint glass? +Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a full point glass, but it's like the shorter than +the standard big glass you would get in a pub. So I should be serving in that. The beer I've got +is actually from the really formerly known as Brudog, because Brudog are in a not a great place +at the moment, unfortunately. And it is the triple hazy Jane that I've come for. ABV on this is +9.5. So right at the very entry level of the the ABV that you mentioned in your criteria earlier. +And it doesn't say on the can it self. So I went and had a look, according to +Untapped. The ABV for this ale is 45. I don't know then. +Whether I have not got a triple. Well, I will actually caveat that the website that I actually got +this from. It does say that it would be expected that the majority, but some may not include +particular ones. So it's the majority. Okay. In the description, which I presume has come from Brudog +themselves, it does put it down as a New England Imperial IPA. So by definition, that would +make it a triple. According to the descriptions of this particular beer, it does say, +triple hazy is a wash with a melee of soft right fruit flavors spanning from peach to mango +to abricot. Beneath the onslaught of juicy hops, a low background bitterness that's +complemented by flashes of light resin and glimmering hints of pine, all cumble culminating in +a 9.5% chorus that's both full-bodied and super smooth. I have had this before. I have locked it +on untapped three times after tonight or before times, and the reviewer put in there is widened +varied. One of them has said, nothing but gorgeous. And another one said, I would have been happier +with half as much, which is something we have discussed before with regards to our ABV beers. +Hazy Jane is one of their staples, has been for for a long time, along with things like +punk IPA. They do a double, they do a triple, they do varied flavoured versions of the hazy Jane, +some of which are actually really, really nice. I was going to say, I'm hoping a lot on this, +but Kim thought that before, I can't really say that. But, unusually, for the beer garden, this is +in a can, not a bottle. So it will sound slightly different when open it. Wow, wow. I think the +overwhelming aroma there is peach and there's a lot of it, but you can also smell the hops in there +and the fact that it is really quite boozy just from the aroma alone. Weirdly, this is making +me hungry. I can't explain that, but that is really nice. Let me give it a pour and we'll see what +it looks like. Okay, not very noisy at all. So that is kind of moderately hazy. You can almost +see me through it, but not quite. So it's a light haze and I'm not getting as much aroma from +it as I did from when I first opened it, but still the overwhelming fragrance is from peach. +Maybe with a little bit of the dry smell of apricot, apricot is one of those really weird fruits +that is really incredibly juicy, but the natural feel of it is quite dry. And I find that with +the aroma a bit as well. So let's take a quick at this and see how well I remember it. Wow. +What was it you said about? It had to be creamy and not watery. Yes, how that was one of the ones. +Most feel should be creamy. Smooth and creamy, not watery. Full of body, smooth and creamy. +Yeah, it's there. It's almost almost oily. There's a definite residual feel to it, even +after you've taken it in. The flavours again, lots of lovely tropical fruit flavours in there, +mostly peach, getting a little bit of apricot, the hot. I know it's supposed to be a much more +bitter flavour to it. The bitnese is there, but it doesn't hit you, doesn't smack you in the face, +as you would probably expect that it should. Having said that, the bitnese persists. So even now, +30 45 seconds after I took that last swig, I'm still got the bitnese. I'm still holding onto +that bitter feeling and the creaminess in the mouth feel as well, which is incredibly pleasant. +It is boozy. It is quite a heavy punchy feel and flavour to it. I will probably stick with +my previous review in saying that I think it probably is a bit much to have this in a 440 +can. I might be easier in a 330. I will let you know that once I finished it, if indeed, +I have finished it by the end of this episode. This is incredibly nice and just going purely by the +definition of the criteria that you mentioned earlier. I think this definitely takes +most of the boxes into a very, very pleasant trick like hey. Good. What have you got? +It's northern monk, glory, ethereal triple IPA 10%. There's a whole swath of writing on there that I +in a tempting to read. It's white on white. Who the heck, seriously? Who decided that this will be good? +Yeah, I didn't know. So forget it. That's all the information I've got. It does see triple IP +and to try this, I've got a glass, my sister got me as a pack. This is an American IPA glass +apparently and it's very thin stemmed at the bottom and then quite a bulbous shape at the top. +Like I just almost got chulip kind of on the top. So yeah, so I'll give this a wee try. Mine's a +well fruity kind of citrusy, but not dormant at the citrusy peachy passion fruit passion fruit. +That's what I'm getting. It's got a bitter and it's got that sharp darkness to it. It's passion fruit. +That's what I'm getting. Okay, right. Not an overly big head there. Not quite an aggressive +poor. Similar to yours, it's not totally cloudy. There is clarity in there. But it's pretty +similar. Yeah, kind of similar. Oh, no, the boozeiness opens up in the glass. There's definitely +a boozy smell of that. And to the point that the fruit's almost gone, we're wee bit on the +back end, but it's only faint. That's very boozy. My word that is boozy strong. Smailing. +Right, let's see how this goes. They need to ramp that up in the fruity nest flavor. They've +not masked that booze at all. That's really strong. Strong alcohol levels quite sweet. +There's some of that passion fruit and maybe some slight kind of citrusiness in the back end, +but it's almost like it's just been, it's been home to doubt. It's been quite and down. +And retaining head, it's gone. No retention there, whatever. My the said is completely gone. +Yeah. Now, given the description, I was expecting a blast of hops. I'm not getting that. It's +not bitter. It's sweet. It's a sweet, like a boozy, a busy, sweety. You know, like a kind of sugarty, very +sweet. I would have been talking like a la cure, kind of sweet. The calamanshare, birdy, sweet, +not the middle, but you know, the hard boiled bit around the side. But imagine that being +dipped in alcohol. That's what it reminds me of. The depressing thing is that's very easy to drink. +A 10% that's dangerous. I could see, you know, somebody giving me that out of the fridge or +something on a whole day. And I would knock back the can without realizing what it was. You know, +it's that kind of way. But you do tell it's strong. It just lacks in the flavor. I was really expecting +this to be a hobby, bitter hobby, kind of, woo, you know, kind of boarding of that and then fruitiness +coming through. I don't know, is it the fact that they've just tried to tame it down and they've just +done it too well. It's not a clawing sweetness. It's like, you know, if you have a hard boiled sweet +and when you get through that maybe it might be quite a sour sweetness on the outside and then +you've got a sweetness of the hard boiled part. That's what it reminds me of. Like a good old +fashion church sweet. That kind of idea. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And with that, that's that's what it actually +might. It's very old describing a beer like that. But that's what this reminds me of. But with a boozy +noted. Yeah. I don't know how I feel. I think I'd like to try more triple IPAs. I don't know if +I've got that finest yet. Okay. I mean, I wouldn't say I've had a huge number of triple IPAs in my +beer drinking career. Well, that's how Fraser never thought I'd ever say. +Triple IPAs and Imperial IPA. If you try and equate an Imperial IPA to an Imperial Stalt, +you are going to be sorely disappointed. When you were talking about the sweetness that you were +experiencing, I immediately switched to thinking towards an Imperial Stalt 11, 12, 13% where they are, +a lot more sweet and syrupy and viscous than their lower alcohol counterparts. But I don't know +that there's something about the one that you're having at the moment and the way you're describing +it and looking at some other descriptions that I've seen on untapped, there seems to be this +there's something missing via you be going on with it. Definitely. Yes. I would agree with it. +Which which seems really disappointing and certainly not in keeping with my own limited experiences +of a triple IPA. I think if you're looking to to try and expand on your triple IPA experiences, +then it certainly is worth shopping around for something to expand on the repertoire. +Oh yeah. If you take any beer style and you're going to have five or six beers from the +same style, they all would be fundamentally different in some way or another. And that's why it's +really important to say that I'm not going to turn around. It's a triple IPA so rubbish because I +didn't enjoy the one I had. No, you can't do that because at the end of the day there's going to +be good and bad in every example of beers. I'm going to try another one and it may be worth +I may actually do point out if I review another one. But certainly based on this one, it's a bit of +a late date. But again, I'm not saying that's a style. That's just the beer itself. Yes, +absolutely. I completely understand that. I think this is why it's important to keep trying +with other ones in that style. I know with interest that this has a lower IPU than my one did. +It's I looked it up on untapped myself, which now is like this is where the shot like I said, +there's no bitterness to that. I've had, you know, kind of laggers and things been more bitter than +that. Okay, that that's really interesting. I'm disappointed for you to be fair. I think I was +expecting slightly more from mine as well. Here's a suggestion then. Is it worth at some point +in the not too distant future, whether this is like this time next year or as we're coming out of +summer to come back and try and revisit Triple IPI with a different beer? Possibly might +might be worth putting it in the reserve queue. That may have one for the reserve. That's a good +show. Yeah. So just so that with, I mean, I'd be happily tried again. All right. I'll tell you what +then I'll do my scoring first so we end on a slightly better note. I mean, okay. So as far as a +score goes, it's not terrible. I'm not pulling it. I'm going to finish this. Would I go out +and get one again? No. Would I take one of our first probably? No, to be fair for the honest. So +this is straight down a little five, five at a time. You know, it's not making me go, but it's not +making me go. That was quite tasty either. Yeah. No. I get that. A judging by your review, I think that +is actually quite generous in the ground scheme of things. So okay. I think with this one, +because it seems to be promising more than it, than it actually delivered in purely in terms of the +flavour. The aroma was there. The boozyness was there. The creaminess was there. It was just the right +amount of bitterness. But actually, if you stop on an analyse it, just a little bit. I find myself +asking the question, is that it? Like there is something missing. So I think I'm probably going to +go down the, it was good, but didn't blow me away. So I'm going to give it six and a half out of ten. +Yeah. So I must admit actually, yeah. Like I said, this was a bit disappointing. Now you may be thinking, +why in the world would you strip over, over, stay peer double? Would the reason actually being +was, we are still cold up here. We still want some high alcohol stuff. So we need a winter warmer +still. And I know officially it's spring, but it's dashed cold up here. It's three degrees today. +That's ridiculous for our two cold for this time of year. Yeah. And yet weirdly, the temperature on +Wednesday, down in the deep south, where I am Yorkshire, we're going to be seeing temperatures +of up to 17 degrees. That's how you do summer for us. What are you talking about? 17. +So I don't know what, what temperature you're expecting in the outer quantities, but hopefully +it will not be interesting. That may be not. Maybe not, but maybe you'll get like six or seven. +Sorry, how to get that in there. That's how we look, see why I can find it's just getting a +storm. No way. Western miles. Wednesday. 11. Wow. You're going to blamage the dollar figures. +Well, every degree. It was three degrees today, and I went to work at, uh, +how past eight in the morning. And it was hailstones. It's like, that's a huge difference. +Well, according to this, you've got strong winds and heavy rain gusts have up to 50 miles an hour. +That's, that's kind of how it was. That's not strong winds. That's, that's just a good +drying day in the water. It is for here. Not yet. I'm trying. Yeah, I don't think even 50 miles +now winds when it's peddling a demo rain is going to dry your clothes. Not peddling of no. No. +But, uh, yes, yeah, we were, we were experiencing this kind of wind to the point where I had to +take my antenna down. And normally I'm like, yeah, it'll be fine. But no, I was so I was worried. +So it did that to come down. But yeah, nice. Okay. Well, now we have had a couple of items of +feedback, certainly from the Hacker Public Radio feed that I have spotted. Do we have any feedback +from anywhere else that you've seen? I had a comment from Archie 72. It was on Masterdom. And he said, +this, it's not just a beer podcast. It's a history lesson on how much he enjoyed it. So yeah, +that was a, a call out. And he had just actually made spoken back and forth. Just saying that +how much it's actually been enjoying the city. So yeah, great to hear. So thanks very much. Yes, +thank you very much indeed. The history lesson thing is, is very pointy as to actually because +it doesn't matter whether I'm listening to you having done your research on particular beer styles +like you did today, whether I'm going and finding this stuff out. I find I'm learning a lot +a huge amount about the beers that I'm consuming, things that I never would have known before. But +actually, I would almost go as far as to say they hadn't had they helped to enhance the experience +of enjoying the beer, knowing where it came from, knowing how it came to be, knowing how it came +about or kind of goes into. It's not just about cracking up in the beer and drinking it. +There's a lot more to be aware of. Yeah. And I really, really like that. Yeah, I taught +negative with that. Yes, there's just something about it. It can actually make you appreciate as +well. You know, when you think about the background of the beer, where it comes from, what the +climate's like, even. It's probably a reason that you don't see many Australian African beers +over in Scotland because there's very much different climates, there are different things. +I mean, you get the appreciation of it. So yeah, I totally get it. Yeah, absolutely. +I mean, I also had some feedback on episode nine of the beer garden, which was where we went +through barley wine and ale man left us a comment on the HPR website for that episode. And he says, +I've had HPR in my feed for a long time. Always hope for that something will spark with me. +Then you too come up with beer garden. And you like what I like. I'm writing from Oklahoma, +where a state legislator funded her Senate campaign with money from the liquor distributors +and exchange for monopoly control over what we drink. But I think before the law changed, +I actually had some Scotch silly, which was the barley wine style that I had. Now, this last bit, +I don't know whether it was a typo or whether it was intended as as emphasis. I'm going to go +with the latter. He ends his comment with anyway, really enjoy your show. So thank you, ale man, +for that feedback. It's really good to hear that people are enjoying what we do. We're doing it for fun. +The moment it stops being fun, we'll stop doing it, but I can't really can't imagine +happening because beer. No, I totally agree. Yes, so we also did actually have some +on way back to HPR beer garden five, half of ice in. And okay, then this is my fault. I totally +misspelled half of ice in and the post is by Gan Anam. The word half of ice, half of ice +and does not exist in German. The correct composite known is half of ice in from +hefe, yeast and wise in wheat. However, that ar German words, half of it for oats and wise in some +homonoims like wise men, manners to indicate that do not have any relationship to be at. The word +hefe or does not exist in German. I do have a response. Thanks, Gan. Thank you for pointing this out. +I hadn't noticed the spelling error. I shall attempt to get it sorted. I did drop a friendly +head janitor, Ken Animil, and he's corrected it. I do believe. He's corrected it in the body, +not the text. They're not the title. I don't know if that would lead to problems if he actually +adjusted that. I'm not sure. But we do apologize. It wasn't deliberate. It was just me. That's just +my fault. The thing is, was obviously Gan is absolutely 100% correct. I wouldn't have spotted it. +No, because we tend to say, we do tend to say it when you get it in this company, hefe or vice, +and you do tend to put that ar in this. It's just said it's, I've just sped it for natively. +Yeah. Yeah. German as a language is quite complex in terms of its phonetics. It's a very easy +mistake to make. But please, if we do make mistakes, please do tell us. Absolutely. We're not +precious at all. We're more than happy to be corrected for things we get wrong. And I'm pretty +certain there's a lot more stuff we've got wrong than we haven't been told about yet. So certainly me. +Yes, one of both of us. Both of us. We're better to be, but I'm housekeeping as well. I was asked +by Ken to always introduce the next few ones we've got. So the next ones we've got are coming up +are strong lagger. So that is anything 7% above. Double IPA, I learned Belgian blonde. So +it's our next three. So if you fancy joining him with us, then yes, grab yourself one of those. +Like I said, I get the feeling we've done this in the world. We're probably shouldn't an IPA +first, then double-entrable, not working backwards. But it'll be fun to do, yes. +Right. So yeah, if you want to get in touch with ourselves, probably the best way is just to +comment on the show notes, page. You can also connect us on an untapped. If you would like to +join in with a beard rig and experience, links again in the show notes. So if that is us, +it is joining tomorrow for another excellent episode of Haka Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4644.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4644.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..00264bf --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4644.txt @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +Episode: 4644 +Title: Response to comments on HPR4424: Newsboat... +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4644/hpr4644.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:50 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4644, for 2026-05-21 +Today's show is entitled, "Response to comments on HPR4424: Newsboat.." +The host is Archer72 and the duration is 00:07:08 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Archer72 shares a fix to the Newsboat question about 'ccdn.php'" +Hi, this is your host Archer 72 for Hacker Public Radio. +In this episode I share some of my findings about a problem with newsboat naming of the +HPR feeds, which is brought up in comments about my show HPR 4424 regarding newsboat +and Reddit. +I already had some findings of his own about the CCDN.Phb extension in the feed. +I thought that this might be able to be fixed on an individual basis and I set up to ask +Cloud the AI a few questions. +But first, some collaboration from Dave Morris about a good renaming format. +This was definitely more on Dave's side than mine, but came up with this and I'll leave +the script in the show notes. +You can tell Dave's handy work from the short variable names, which stem from his extensive +experience on Unix type machines and university days. +All I or so I thought he said he just likes to keep his file, he said he just likes to keep +his variable short to save on typing. +At first, the question was about something simple. +The input was Aquarian, one of the lines from Kevin's HPR 4398 command line fund downloading +a podcast, particularly the section on how to get the latest episode of Touch Jam, which +is a WGET in curl command, which I rewrote to a WGET with adding the flag dash NC, which +is for no clobber, just in case the podcast is already downloaded and HP for where you want +to put the podcast in which directory. +The reason for the dollar sign and open and close parentheses instead of the backtick, +to enclose a command was the former was being deprecated in GNU bash reference manual 3.5.4 command +substitution. +On the next query, I went in a different direction than downloading Touch Jam and asked +to download the last two HPR shows, but head minus two did not work as expected, it turned +out to be an issue with placement of Xars, joining all URLs and passing them to WGET +all at once, and then I'll show the original and the rewritten one from Cloud in the show notes. +The key fixes in Cloud Code were to remove the premature Xars before head minus two, so I had to +actually limits the list to two URLs. Moving Xars, WGET to the end after the list is already trimmed, +and the other fix was to clean up the HTTPS, the Astrix to HTTP, HTTPS, +question mark, the original would also match HTTPS, SSS, et cetera. +Now I wanted the downloaded file to go to the Q file located until the slash.local slash share slash +newsboat slash Q. After several iterations in Cloud, it was determined that the audio of +URL was not being expanded by the percent you in the download macro. The solution was to add +slash temp file to hold the actual audio URL, and then the next is what I got help writing a macro, +and it's set the browser macro D, which is using your comma and then D, and set browser echo D, +percent you to slash temp slash HPR URL, TXT, double ampersand, +tilde slash bin slash download and rename HPR, dash Dave, open in browser, set browser to your normal +browser. A few Cloud questions later after asking to add a function to the macro in order to add +the resulting downloaded file to the Q, the file name HPR1234 was being added to the Q instead of +the rename file. The next thing from Cloud was two things to fix, the rename file, +the rename file isn't being found because LS-T runs before the rename has fully settled, +or the glob isn't matching the new file name format, which includes spaces and semicolons. +The other thing to fix is that the existing Q entry show the correct format +in the form, in quotes URL, and in quotes path downloaded, we need to match that with downloaded +status and full rename path including extension and the Cloud comment. I'll include in the show +notes the resulting rename script. The key point in the new rename script is using comma minus 13 +spelled COMM minus 13 on sorted before after file list, which is a more reliable than using +LS-T, it finds exactly which file is new regardless of timing. Check slash temp slash HPRD bug log +after the next run to see what downloaded and renamed show, and the information about using +comma dash 13 is in the GNU Core Utils comma invocation. If I use the leader key, which is the comma +and lowercase D, then the podcast will be downloaded and renamed automatically to the correct format. +Well that's all I have. I'm going to put the Cloud conversation on archive.org and link to it from +the show notes. That's all I have. I hope this helps on the newsbook question that was brought +up in the comments for my previous show. Bye bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4645.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4645.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..29cd4ac --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4645.txt @@ -0,0 +1,816 @@ +Episode: 4645 +Title: ZERO HOUR: FRIDAY AFTERNOON APK HACKING +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4645/hpr4645.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:51 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4645, for 2026-05-22 +Today's show is entitled, "ZERO HOUR: FRIDAY AFTERNOON APK HACKING " +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:55:06 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "APK VIBE HACKING LIKE A BOSS" +Hello, welcome others. So to have a good video, it was top rating. Oh, so yeah, I'm on the idea of another +Podcastor, I think I can't find who he was, but he's like, well, I'm working. So he just kind of was like +Started doing some work and whatever he has is I can do audio based stuff for my work, but for, you know +Security reasons I can't do video or I have to redact a heavily or whatever, and even then on if I miss something it might be +The difference between me can +Pired or whatever, so anyways, I could do this radio. So I +Got this web app assessment or +Android application assessment and I have a tool called jambree +Um, that I use for most of my Android stuff. Cool worker was having problems. Maybe it was region locked or whatever +With his account, so I'm trying to get his stuff set up +So I offer to I guess help at the last minute +And I realized it's an app I had already done and I could never get the SSL pinning to work. So +Free history and when we started with Android it was bad like you could man in the middle of everything +You know the traffic you could see all the traffic there's no route detection and there's no a daddy bugging +You could just go in and open up burpsweet and do whatever +Then they added like certificate pinning or things like that +Basically they +Started stacking on security layers now if you want to try to look at an app +There's about 15 different security layers of hell. You have to go through to get it now +When I was originally doing my testing +I could never get the actual meat and potatoes back in production API to that work +To see that traffic right um, but after +Getting access to the cure or any +Leading AI thing I had it run through +And patch this footer app now the first time I tried to patch it it didn't work. I don't know why +If I'd have been just like I got lucky because I reset things in the right order and I did the certificates right way or whatever +But I'm pretty sure the way I did it last time +It's basically the same exact way and I just maybe did got unlucky in the process of how I do this so +Generally speaking you start out with my normal video on jamboree of how to get root and all that stuff +And then there's a few other things you can kind of turn on that may or may not make much of a difference +You can do things like freeze the google apps +That might help kind of lessen the traffic +But then you're gonna get a ton of errors if you actually installed the google abk +With my setup here +So you know +Really want to do that either +But it is an option for you to freeze and that's part of the +It's a console based abk's button and my setup +So usually first thing I do both I've got root. I'll turn off google play protect for whatever reason. I just +Give me the woman fuzzies +Now last night I was able to +Have it walk through cheetah +Which is a decompiler for android abk's and put about things +It asked me to go through and do these things +It's easier on a said to you have a command language and it's like oh there's a bat file +This call like that's less analyzer and so I ran that +Oh, for ever like the team minutes +on a pi-end machine +then +um +It failed out or whatever and I gave it to air message and it said it was missing some libraries or whatever and then it just said oh +Well, I'm just gonna do this python +And so instead of I think he gives the +G-jorded dump the original image +Um, which is a decpiler by that's basically free that everybody can use +Um, which is pretty awesome +I'm not make good at it, but it the AI walked me through +Doing that and +After some my human and hon +I actually had to re +Not only did I have to run the modded abk I had to +run +The base I have a base button is called free to anti-root +So this is self-depending button and that just applies in normal +No, this is all depending types of of attacks +Our types of mitigations and +I've got a really big file here +Your you're you're getting me like a third of the way through this process now +Once I was able to see that traffic going to the client +To the production server +Through this flutter has its own HTTP thing and it was a full SSL server and it doesn't listen to anything +It doesn't listen to what the system starts +For Android it doesn't listen to client inserts it doesn't listen to um +It does not listen to +Your +The settings and the wifi so if you put the settings and the wifi to say use you know this +This proxy that is your per suite so what you do back up when you're doing +Testing with Android +You have to proxy your traffic through something +Usually that's per suite you've got things like kind of the weekend popular +C.I.D.O +But usually it's gonna be per suite and that's what builds into my tool and it's a whole process to get the certificate on there and everything and that +My thing doesn't like three minutes from nothing to you know a full-bombly Android testing suite +And like two four minutes so I've been doing this +You know kind of creating this app for six years or so +So anyways you have a rooted +Full-Mur Android and I managed to get it to walk me through and I +Modded the APK using +Either just straight up Python after the debugger with +G-Joy was run +So G-Joy was just like an offline debugger. I think you can probably connect to an Android bridge while you're like +Really doing like real time debugging it's probably possible, but I'm not really that +Into it right now mom would be nice +Well, if I could get the AI to help me with some of these like you know encrypted payloads or SSL pinning so SSL pinning +Is +You go to website you get that thing, you know, this is a secure site you get the little block rate +Well, that's a lot of flies in the Android ecosystem also +What we've added is like millions of layers of +Obstraction from that whole process. So if you +Install your own client cert you could get man in the middle then they said okay only system certs can see certain things +So then people put system certs on the on the devices by rooting them and then they had like anti root +So that's like okay your your phones rooted so you can't do anything and then +This is okay fine. We're gonna do anti root root anti anti root +So now when you run a thing you have an anti root thing that like detects like magics and +There's other things that just look up like root +Google wallet and you'll find the nightmare that is trying to get +Like Google wallet to work on your phone +Um, do you do not want to run any of these software packages um they're not open source +They are just weird binaries like where certificates that come from I don't know where +So I would not run any of this these APKs you get off of thing unless it's on my list and even that APK button on my list is +Probably not the best thing to be doing with a personal account. So all my accounts are tested counts +I don't use any personal +Accounts for any of my Android testing so it doesn't really matter what I do +But if you do this on your own personal phone +You do not want to be like put an APK's on there and then it like ask it for root +So anyways, I've installed I have the one +have a reasonable finding of +You can request the +Location of another user by their user ID now problem with that is that if I can ADB debug or +Get traffic on your local network or pull the track up traffic from your phone +I can get your ID and if I can get your ID and I can tell where you are so if you're using this app +And maybe I manage to socialize near you or get you to plug in something or go to a website +Or I think even actually if you share your +You're yourself to someone like a link +I think it might be hidden in there too, but I'm not gonna test that so anyways +So now unfortunately I have two of these I'm running. I have the main one which has got all SSL +Shannians and it's all working and everybody's happy +Which +I don't know if that's actually accurate right now. Yeah, there was an error taking a bad ability of vehicles +So I think it's it's broken again. It seems to only work for a minute and then like some cookie times out +So I have to rerun the yeah, we can't receive details at this time. It's like some kind of caching issue or something +So what I usually do with apps if I'm testing him a if they don't work I checked the ADB debug +And it'll say stuff like blah blah blah check failed or like some kind of service check failed or something +Basically that's man in the mid preventing man in the middle stuff. So right now I've actually killed the app +I don't want to reset the setting because I already have the app logged in +So I've killed the app and +To explain what this app is it's like a location sharing app and +Other than that is +Not really important to know what it is +It's a location sharing app for like +Different +For like family services it possibly +That helps +I don't even know what they're trying to do but that's one of the things that it does you you can share your location +You can say hey, you know, I'm I'm at a Costco +You know, I'll take you to track your kids you can use it +Um, whatever +There's billions of other things out there. It doesn't matter better like custodia or whatever +If you want to track your kids this app is I don't know what it's trying to be so anyways +So now I have it. I've killed the task. I'm going to relaunch the task with my original +Which now I'm confused. I don't remember which one of these is which +And two jambis the one's got more traffic and the logs is the one that I want to do so I'll do run a free to anti-rude +a facility pinning +I've got another task running in the background. It's completely unrelated to anything else +Light saber fonts the lightsaber AI font generator. It's been running for like an hour +So it's kind of interesting +Um, so it says we're starting that app +But I don't see the list it's coming for me +Um +Starting free to with the tambourine and to man the little yeah +Oh, because I do not have root. I can't +This is the wrong. No, this is the right one. It's the right one +Yeah, this is the original one. So why doesn't poison the sword? +Click to button again +Ah, there's more than one emulator installed so now +Unfortunately, I have to +Trying to get my ID while I'm still hot +So I'm running a normal no root no anything client right now has a client to and +Somewhere in here hopefully +There's a folder that has my +Client to ID and so I have two jambories from here running right now +The problem with that setup is that it doesn't know which device to connect to it +It's a failed to connect to the device because there's no mobile +There's two devices. It's trying to connect like an array so it doesn't connect to both +So I have my +I did ran a db log tech because I realized that the user ID is in the logs +of a db log cat now a db log cat is probably shooting you have different version +Like a error version so you can say all the way from warning and up or only critical enough +That helps with the size because this this file is basically a trace file. It is there's so much information in these files +Like things like location data and things like that +If you can plug in the phone you can get all tons of interesting information +So what I found is the user on this where ID is in the thing and it is also the user for it's +UNC web path through the actual API +Which is kind of interesting because you can't see anything to the prod API without +decrypting the flutter thing, but if you use this a db +Log cat which you can get on your actual phone you can run a db log cat on your phone and just export the results and then +Shipping to AI it's a hey, was this is anything weird running on my phone. I have troubleshoot and debug +All kinds of issues with a db bug a db debug or a db log cat that I was not able to troubleshoot within the other software or any other +scripts or mainly looking at stuff +Because this thing is just like a dumpster fire of nightmares so anyways +I'm using crep to crep for user underscore ID in my log cat +Log cat file now we have use right d0 no use right d0 use right d0 use right d code SQL a constraint now +A little strange +That I don't have a user ID right +Is my thing now if you go back to here it says blah blah blah on command faults +On handle exception client exception D +Isn't not adding events C blah blah user ID so I think it was just like how failure that I happened to catch +When doing the to get the user ID so I'm gonna have to try to trigger right +on at the try to trigger +Somewhere I have my output file +I'm gonna find +See that's not even the right +That's not even the right +80 b +Has here to block a real okay so money this man +To do the log cat again and I'm hoping +I can get the thing now. I know the only thing I've really done on the app is share +So I did like what I say +I was like share my thing +It's a bit strange and white members send it in by link +You know copy or maybe like +Send it in by link +Okay, so hopefully now there is a +These are ID of not +And well, I don't see anything so we're in client to entail +look at +Make sure there's actually stuff going on here +Yeah, we're getting we're good stuff +So you can say tell if it's crap +So you can't what have her had a reason +80 b log cat doesn't like you using windows pipes +Try to do stuff so I'm using tail of a walk cat in segment which is a kind of +Unix like horrible thing +You don't even know subsystems for Linux to run +So when you just need you know not by listing and you can basically get Linux on your journal +Can't do x windows? I don't think there might be some crazy s way to do it +So GPS coordinates seem to work here you can pick your GPS +coordinate still so +Especially and now when I originally was testing this app it wouldn't let me do are they anything? +I'm gonna say I'm in the middle of the Atlantic +Or where should I say it's close to the guy? +Selection +Oh, unfortunately no, segregation +Points that you save all up here here +I thought there was a way to like I'll save point. Yeah, so you can save your points. Let's say +Selection +Close out here +And then I can say like go to my location +This is saying somewhere +I can't really tell where this is +I +Don't how do you zoom out with +My touch +I see this +Entch +I'll pick you can zoom out +I mean, I can just to open source intelligence maybe +And ask a I +So from my memory now as I don't know or this +I tried to deny where is this +I'm not gonna be surprised, but it's gonna be terrifying if I can take a japan or I can take an image and then ask a I where it is +That's kind of interesting +Research interested +Fairfell if you call it for me that is not where I am or I'm actually supposed to be +So we're gonna +Oh, I think we broke that no, it's a different type +Is this the one I want to pick by GPS, but yes, I was a yeah, see though we can't reach here in that work is the other de-original app like +That's like a times out after a while or a while +All right, so I think I'm gonna kill the app and restart it +Um, let me go to permissions because when you reset everything the permissions get all reset +So I'm I allow everything again +contacts I'll allow about some media +A lot of microphone +I usually allow everything at that the beginning but then if I have the issues I have to remember to go back and say +Who I turn on microphone and then I want to call the microphone and I pooped out because you know +I didn't know where it was yeah, so now we're in Puerto Rico +Real flat the narrow so I can take a screenshot. This is a finding right it's like again +When I couldn't do any debugging +I had to say I had to be creative so what I do as an attacker right if I wanted to +If I have an app that tracks my location +Okay, so we've written well we told somebody to write that up. I'm to help somebody at the last minute +So I told them I'll do the test +See you to the reporting because I don't feel like doing it +Um, I'm actually supposed to be leaving for a thing. Well, the thing is still going in circles +No idea what it's doing +Arthur author. Um, this is our our +Profi believe style X for AI prompt +That is now doubled in size +Which is fine around the characters that is but +30,000 that's way too many +So first small model at least +So what we're doing here is like I'll three check point full convert EV before harness implementation from status +I know it's doing this whole like +Hero does the requirements design task +So it like does proper like STLC kind of strategy proper STLC stuff even though he'll use an example way +Half the way there +So we've got our first finding +With the geolocation spoofing is a thing +Um, I'm still have not seen a good for +Whatever +So I'm a little confused as to why I can't see that +iteration +Worst case scenario. I have to do the whole clone the whole thing +That means having two per principle it's instances +editing the per suite +The jambory it's a minute isn't I? I really don't want to get so I'm trying to find +Oh wait make this crash enough to like you know +Crash enough to +Show me my location +so +But that's interesting that you can add by license plate +Um, do you think that would be a finding if I can look up? +Somebody's license plate +So +The tax case would be if I can get somebody's been or do you have a vehicle or stuff +Just by their license plate number right +Then that means I get like a free registration stuff so I'm going to +I don't know my license plate number. I might lose you for a second. I'm going to go downstairs and take a picture of my license plate +See +I've got roughly +All right, so you might have lost anything +But um +So I've got my license plate here. I actually don't have a +Association with images because I got rid of all the Google apps +Most of the Google apps on its full because I got tired of nagging +So I'm gonna put in my notes +My license plate +CG +CG +Jay +Last year's year one +Idea he is is it maybe I can look up +license plates for free right +As maybe we're doing this. I'm going to just make up a head details manually +I pick a car +Billy +Um, yeah, maybe I'll be able to refine on the trip and that's good +Yes, that's a burglow +Color optional all-wheel drive +Okay, Vin is optional. Let's get for now +At a name +Hey, hey, head it +Okay, I turned to garage. I still don't see any +errors in here um +I mean what you can do is kind of do something like a +Then like kill the internet and try to cause an issue +Maybe that'll help +I do like a +Break the internet kind of scenario +Yeah, see I've clicked something and it's like lagging out now +But I think I've disconnected the internet so it's like a you have no live listing +It's great a new live listing +Would you like to list like it sell other people's cars right? +We're going to turn out kind of hilarious um serve center +Sure whatever +So this is like a they're also trying to do like a car do like help your +So anyways, it's like a money thing +So I'm going to go back +I'm still trying to call some kind of air +Um the problem with this is a view +There and it seems to still be working despite +Kind of put it in airplane mode +Maybe airplane mode. Oh, it's still in their mobile +Mobile data +Mobile connection +Which is like you know whatever +Still don't see +We're still doing a logcat +In five six that's the new one +Um, so like the internet's not working and we're not getting anything +Nothing is crashing so +I don't know what to do +I'm turning shit +I'm going back off turn Wi-Fi back on +So +I still don't really know how to get my idea without doing the whole +You know +The whole entire thing now I could sign in with it +I could they do have virtualization with something where you can basically +Run an app and then you run another app and then that app allows you to run two of the same apps at the same time +It's does like some weird +Jailing thing um, I think it's a you think I don't think you need +No, I guess you probably need route to do something crazy +The idea being that you could test same map on same phone +Two different +So I don't know I'm still I still left this thing open and running +Maybe I'll get lucky and I'll just cough and grab out +So +Okay, so we've got +Our first finding +Oh, let's tag the guy +Um +The +In a bad enough time I'd be able to do other stuff but don't um +So I've turned the internet back on on the normal app. I've kind of given up on +Getting that user ID +And I might just have to +Use another account +And like +Right +And try again, so +I kill this so I'm on the original one with all the main and the middle stuff +I'm going to +Do ADB +Even actually gonna turn off +This old one because this is +Not super helpful. I use this shut down button +On chambering because that ensures that I think ADB gets killed after +Emulator because sometimes ADB likes to keep running +It's sometimes if ADB servers already running it doesn't want to attach just else +So a lot of times I my in my scripting. I always kill ADB and then start it back up +Because it like runs almost as a service and it's really annoying +It gets hung up on itself a lot +It might have gotten better or maybe that was just my weird circumstances when I was doing all my testing +So now I said it's said it's trying to shut down, but it doesn't know which one to shut down because there's two +So that's kind of a bug with my own +deal +It's like device emulator bash one of four space emulator dash five is not enough +All right, so now we just have one +Nope, I sat down there on one +That's okay +That is okay. That what can actually walk you through +Since there's only one device. I'll hit the shut down button over here +And it both shut down buttons. Why not shut down all the things? +All right, so +I'll give you not give me an idea to tell you once you do get rid of an advice +When you do normal Wi-Fi thing, it doesn't always follow it now the only way to force all traffic through +The proxy with specific port is to do IP tables and Linux if you do that that is network layer +Shannon, there's no +Cheating out of that scene. I have emulator that's in a state of +It's on, but I can't press any buttons. I can't +Quit there's no +There's no way to stop it +So the emulator gets dies at some times so then I have to do oh because I'm piping the logcat probably +I don't know +It's really weird that that file is not in here anywhere +Use right zero use right zero so yeah, I don't know +Anyways, both art crapped out my original is this guy so I'm gonna start him back up +The star AVD button will start the virtual image +Now I think as today I'm using I'm Windows not the there's parts of acceleration +So if you have emulator you pretty much have to have acceleration world's nothing gonna work +Because you need acceleration +It's gonna be really slow like on +You can't really test it's so slow now if you would want to you know if you want to do like a quick test +Something like take you 30 minutes is gonna end up picking you an hour sure go ahead do that +But I'm going to Windows accelerator thing that's what I'm using now you can use until Haxium which is the pressure +And I've also okay to seek you for it so it might break other stuff. I don't know +I got rid of the pixel launcher +I'm using some +Pirated pixel launcher that's got like ads in the middle of the launcher that whatever it appears +So what we have is a nice clean image +We need to run our route so we're gonna go back here +We're not on client to anymore +We're on savory client one and then we're gonna do ADB shell +I didn't notice that the ad is not smart enough to know to run +escalated commands inside this is like it's like run this is run this and it'll fix everything and then you go to run it +Yeah, you don't have route to run like ADB shell has route that default yet like past the parameter of +280B shell so it's like double escaping +So I just SSHN right sorry +ADB shell and and then I type whatever commands it wants me to type +So now I've typed IP tables +for all four four three and 80 to go to the actual IP address of my server and not the routed net +So there's an internal net number +That you +attached to +Sorry, by default +Most emulators and virtual things use a net +Rest your installation because it doesn't require local admin +When you use bridge that means you can basically talk directly to the card so you're on a 192 network +You start if emulator or virtual machine then you're still on a 192 network +Traditionally they all use net because net doesn't require local admin +good +You'll have to expose your internet and this is early to the +The emulator or the virtual machine +So we have our traffic going to we have our birb speed running with +Actually ignoring everything else except for my target API URL +That's a client's production +And so we're we're looking at that we're looking at that information and what we want to do is +For all its purposes, I don't really care about this account +I do have the original ID +That is attached to this account which is attached by four numbers so unfortunately I'm going to uninstall +Or actually +Keep this running +For stop it is not running +Then I'm doing clear storage +So now the app is like I've never run before it's brand new now unfortunately at the double SSL +Depending not only it's 300 meg +Hacked up version of the app I compiled it lets me as this help in I have to still as this will put everything else because sometimes get error messages +So I'm using my basic +Here is a salty peter +And I'm starting the app again now and instead of putting the phone number I use for this account +I'm going to use the phone number for my +Other account because I have the ID to the first account +I just need the ID to some other account +So I'm going to go to Google voice and apparently that's also a finding too if you can use a +fake +phone numbers fake GPS +Just take everything right. I have seen banks start to this more while they force it force you +force +They enforce +This is a oh the number number padworks. You have the reboot wants to get the number pad to work at least the keyboard to work +um +I have found that +That bank apps it's stuff are starting to block Google voice or any voice providers +One out of maybe +Ten well if there's like 10 secure apps you want to self-care or something like that +I would say like three or four of them have +some kind of issue +Around that +So anyways, I put my code after using my armcree work +Or yeah, that's my armcree work one and on all connected in it's all happy and I'm doing all the permissions again +Allow all now +When you do allow permissions and apps you're giving it access to more data +Now if you can minimize the access the app has then you can narrow the scope or +Calls less problems or errors +What you don't want is to +Have this scope maxed out and just have much of noise +Or when you give it access to everything that allows it to like a new rate more things +It caused more things to come +So if you have access to your camera and it tries to +Figure out where they have virtual camera or not it will fail so like these face ID apps all kind of stuff +Oh wait, we have a user ID here cool. So we have a second user ID +So this is +So user +ID +One is this is my original one, I think +Yeah, here's my original user ID +User +ID +User ID +Two is +Oh no, we have to do the same user IDs +How that work oh +No, they are not the same +They are very close +No, they're not do the same they're the same +Son of a bitch. All right, so I've screwed something up here +Is a user ID bound to the phone's +Mac address or something +So I locked out and logged in as as a different person and I still got the same user ID +Which sucks I'm the same user ID if I install yeah, I'm the same user as our idea if I install it +As whatever so I +Do not I'm not gonna blow this away and I don't want to call it either +Right oh +I need a second user ID but that involves +Somehow convincing this app to give me +I completely knew user ID it's probably bound to like +some specific kind of +Internal ID of the phone, you know +When it gets to originally generate it +That's a lock and figure +Because I essentially logged in as a different person and think I have the same user ID +So that doesn't make any sense +Because yeah, I used the +This number did I type the wrong number oh? +I type the wrong number that's wrong. I'm not even I'm I'm not I'm I'm not I'm please +I didn't even notice I was typing my own +Number so just kidding +That's why we do it live +Okay, so we go back here for stuff +Clear those permissions +Run the app again through +This is healthy pinner +Yeah, while it was talking I didn't realize +That I was typing the same exact phone number +Like wow how else does it know because I haven't logged in anything I'm just running that app and it's like +You know +Sign in the phone +That's so I had to it must +I do use this this number for +Other testing so I don't want to tell you guys +And like have my phone you flutter or something +All right, we got our endpoint +No, hopefully +Burp so wheat has +Us a new user ID somewhere +I use the search button and then I say auto scroll scroll +So I should be able to just go up a few times +And see the user ID at some point +Jesus, are you serious +All right, maybe here to +Oh +User reverse ID there's user's ID and user ID +There enough, well actually, let's take that because that might be useful +Kind of any strings that help me find stuff +I can find useful so it's actually user IDs +So user ID one user like God is the same user ID it is +It's not a bitch. It still is +Because the same user ID no ID +External ID +Let's just go here and say +These are +Underster +ID S +User ID +Click rejects say we're not going to get a case sensitive +User ID ID +Yeah, that's it +I think this is right +80 is the new one +80 the old one is 8c +Strange they know +It's then entropy is pretty much there +It doesn't look sequential is what we're looking for yeah, see here's our here's our c's and then we squeeze switch over +At three +We went for 159 to 301 which is +Well 159 +The 301 +Three minutes later, so once we we did the that we got to do ID so we've confirmed that that's a thing +We'll go back to repeater and hopefully yeah user IDs +So here's AC +So I'm authenticated as a different user and I can request +The location of any other user ID +Boom +So +Confirmed +Um +So now we have at least two findings that are new and it is +On my head the answer one call here's the thing +We don't need all this we can +Copy as curl +Um +So +Yeah +So +roof you can off as +Any user and get any user ID +GPS +GPS location +All right, so that's one um that I saw in there +Thought of um because you know even +I mean there I would be that user IDs somewhere in this uh +This file so I'm gonna go grip user +There's user underscore ID and user ID S +Oh either or I could also +Just look for the string of the user so that might be in a different type of vlog +Or parameter +Which in this case yeah app user ID user ID +So 80 it's definitely in there so there's a bunch of +There's a bunch of parameters here so we have app user ID +So there's 10,000 different ways to track user ID I guess so app user ID and then we have user ID with no underscore +Then we have app user ID again +App user ID app user ID +So we actually want to do +When we're looking +Where do +prep one aside +I +E is there a jacks like e-grap is just an alias which +Kind of interesting so we're doing user ID. I don't want to ignore the +Isaac nor a case +We want to keep the case cuz +I don't want other types of cookies or things coming in so here's our three +I just happen to pick the one user ID that wasn't in anywhere else except for +My bank +Go for your um so here's our red jacks +Which is app user ID user ID and user underscore ID +In this thing so we can say tail +I'm not sure it's going on here +I'm siglin it gets locked in frozen sometimes +So kind of sucks. I have to um +See +No idea where I +Let it find out where +See each and every client to +um +Grap +See +And the file we're looking about user ID and I just screwed that up +Let's screw that up again +Trying to go go to faster +um logcat +log +have tons +So we can say tail minus f +logcat log +And the same grip +strategy and if you do tail f and you don't +Have it running you can slowly do a dash in and say like the left 10,000 lines +And so now if you start writing out to that file again you started back up or you use that whatever +It'll it'll it'll give us a file but since +We've moved on and all we all we care about it is getting two different user IDs we are moving on so +I'm going to go back to the proxy +I've got a bunch of stuff in here but I want to only match +The almost said the words the clients API and points +There's just a lot of the same thing going over like +Lookup command happens hundreds of thousands of times all the time +It's kind of interesting so we're gonna send this to um since +One problem I had before is I use burpsuit free for jambree by default. Oh, come with that is um +No problem with that is +Can I do request the end response? +Quest +Response okay +I might even just send this request over to +Active scanner that's not that's part of +The +part of the pro is you get active scanner and then +If you pay for credits +They're relatively cheap. I only use them when I find like really weird stuff that I can't figure out +Which is becoming more and more +nowadays +So yeah +Bice tokens all kind of stuff active user type adult +That's kind of interesting. I did your different flags +I mean nothing looks super interesting +I'm sorting by URL so I don't have the same +things +This looks like a calendar that +You can create calendar events user current page +user IT that bandage. Okay, so here's the thing. I'm I'm like looking at someone's +Management calendar event start time blah blah page here a page size zero +Current page total pages so let me add a calendar event +Do I +Reset it again +I have no idea what user I am I get anywhere which is really matter +I'm so I'm doing like a gathering and I'm going to create an event +Then I want to call it +F F F F F F F F +Or I like to do I'm random so Kiki Q 1 2 3 +No location. We're just going to do a date time +And then +In date and time +And I got about 40 minutes +I I don't know what else I need to add +I guess I need to add an event location +Growing a dot sandclare +All right +Creative event. I want to scroll it down here and color +When I highlight stuff +Are you I used to be real bad about like wiping out stuff +When we make this purple I now I just leave it open until the computer starts to die +Oops we couldn't create your event. Please try again +So +kind of weird I +May 10 through +I don't be in +This kind of weird let's go back to the drawing board here +Oh, I sorted these wrong anyways +So here's our calendar thing we got an okay response +And then we got whatever booked +Worked fine +What do I need to do +All right, so I guess I got to go here in a second +I'm gonna look at the calendar and see +What that looks like I'm highlight the purple and I'm gonna say see calendar +and +I don't know if that really gave me anything +Oh, here we go +I scrolled in say anything so this is an event +Now the thing about this is is I need to switch to the other user to see if I can see some other users +So +what we're looking for is our +Our target +Our target user sentry trace +It would be nice to like +Take this yeah, that's all user ID so I can look at somebody else's +Somebody else's calendar so user ID +So I'm using user ID AD now so this is the original request +Center repeater +Now I'm gonna use +Not AD but my other ID which is this F8 +Let's see if I can read somebody else's calendar +Boom goes a diamond for a one-on-authorized day +So that means that I can't be logged in as anybody and just see +Somebody's arbitrarily calendar right +That's that's good that's a good thing +So I can go back +Do you want to do this and I can say +Repeat now I get a 200 okay, so I take it the AI and say +Oh, it's the F8 +Let's see AT +Okay, yeah, so I'm picking the response and requests I need to there and I'll say +I have a different +User ID user +On easy actual ID +To test with +Find any +Arbeck +Or +Top +Or Sands top +10 test +4 each of the Sands +Top 10 +Is that say the goal? The goal is to +Find findings for this app using with +For what is that but with the +That by testing or +Testing for the top +Sands +Issues +So I'm just going to enter and go +So you know we have three findings one safety PS ones +Look up anybody's ID and then one-to-test would be get a user get the license plate +Let's see if I can read other peoples +Of in numbers and stuff based on their license plate because if they have access to the data +They're going to pull it in +But maybe not you know so if I can add my license plate and get back my own information +Or add by even then number I mean I guess I don't know +Anyways, appreciate it take it easy +Sometimes these APIs will give you back a bunch of information +But you only want the name so like oh put in your social security number and to get your name or put in your name +Your social security number and these databases have tons of information and maybe they cough back whatever +But the client only takes back you know the name and it's like we put in your social security number and it returned all this other extra information +But because the client doesn't need that or an or doesn't want to like worry about +They're like oh well, we're just going to drop the you know credit card number or sensitive field and just take the whatever field +Well, you know that happens a lot where +You put an API request back and you get like a whole bunch of extra information you didn't really need or want +Kind of least privileged issue anyways take it easy got to go later +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4646.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4646.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..617d1a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4646.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1429 @@ +Episode: 4646 +Title: Mobile Gaming +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4646/hpr4646.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:53 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4646, for 2026-05-25 +Today's show is entitled, "Mobile Gaming" +The host is Elsbeth and the duration is 00:56:26 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Elsbeth and Lee have a conversation about gaming, neurodivergence and other topics" +I eventually realize that's what you're doing. +Yeah, it's better than it, because it makes my brain squirrel into, I'm not supposed to be squirrely. +Okay, which is probably a good start to this, because the reality is, is I use games to manage my executive function. +Right, when did this start to think? +When I was in therapy, was I a while ago. +Probably about 2014. +Okay, so I've attended years ago. +Yeah, and was it something that was suggested to you or it was like uncovering something you need. +All my story already being done. +But then it like told you, actually this is quite a good thing for you to be made. +So my therapist realized early on the talk therapy was best for me. +Right. +Because if they told me, like if they asked me questions that were leading, I was aware that they were leading me. +Right, okay. +And so I would mask. +Right. +And I wasn't being authentic. +So once I started just having a therapist sit there with me and be like, yeah, you can fidget. +Yeah, you can pressure. +Yeah, or whatever. +And just let me talk. +So I have that thing to. +Yeah. +So I wasn't diagnosed as an ADHD until probably well after the therapist realized that I was. +Right. +So the therapist sort of knew you had these conditions. +It's got they didn't communicate to you. +Because I would have said there's no way possible I can have it. +Because that's how conditioned I was that I had to be. +And I was neurotypical. +Right. +I mean, did you even heard the word neurotypical for something? +And that's no, no, no, no. +So how would you framed it in your head like at that time? +The way I was supposed to be. +The way you were supposed to be was to conform with such norms of how cognitive function is for nothing people. +Okay. +And did you see a divergence from that as a negative thing? +Oh, absolutely. +Right. +It got me hurt before bullied abused, you know, +that all of that kind of led to why you're having therapy. +Yes. +Yeah. +But local games, even if it was just solid hair on the old phones, you know, +the ones you had to like press the button three times to get text one mother. +Oh, oh, yeah, those. +Yeah. +Okay. +So they didn't have a touch screen. +No, but they had solitaire on, you know, right. +My crafters. +Yeah. +Some sort of game like that. +My sweet bird. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Um. +I have snikes. +But yeah. +Well, I mean, it's the same concept though. +This is I can think better when I'm doing something else. +Yeah. +When I'm playing the skin, this eros game, or even if I'm playing tiles or I sometimes, +I have to really concentrate on that. +But yeah. +If I'm just doing the daily mundane stuff, yeah. +I can have a conversation better when I'm doing that than if I'm just trying to have a conversation. +So I think we had a previous talk in your talk about the crash chain. +And I know it's maybe something that you've not been doing so much because of certain +things, but that appreciated the meant to act of crocheting. +These are analogies too. +Yes. +Absolutely. +Yeah. +That's why I like doing so. +If I can't focus on game, or, you know, I, I'm proud, you know, trying to make certain +that I'm not overdoing it because I can be one of those, you know, into gamers. +Yeah. +There's been times in my past where I've gained way too much. +And these little mini games allow me, you know, because there's, there's section down. +Yeah. +Yeah. +If I need to break my task, work up into 15 minute increments, I can work hard for 15 minutes. +And then, you know, say my game, or hit my V, or you know, if something for a little +bit, to just decompress from executive function. +So momentarily, let's say you're served. +You said before that adulting and executive function, almost as if they're similar to +a thing. +Mm-hmm. +Um, does it do? +To use, like, what we consider to be an adult, functional society is actually using a part of their +cognitive function that we refer to as executive function. +Yes. +Absolutely. +Do those things. +It's, it's, it's the sort of part of someone's mind that tells them, this is what's important. +This is a priority. +This needs to be done in this order. +You need to take these things off. +And anything that requires you to conform to society is what I'm talking about. +Yeah. +So you live on a farm. +Mm-hmm. +It's just to give you an example. +You live on a farm. +I've got that. +You live on a farm. +You're, maybe you have a remote job. +Mm-hmm. +Yeah. +Where you can make money. +Yeah. +Take that out of it. +Let's say, let's say, living on the job on the farm is actually your stream of income. +Like, yeah. +Yeah. +Maybe you just grow stuff and look off the animals is not much work. +Can you just, you get money for doing that? +Well, you just find people will do that was something that you don't really have to deal with. +And it's just done for you and just having the fun. +The farm is kind of, that's sort of being kind of something. +Having a farm is work. +Yeah. +It's a different sort of work. +Yeah. +And the executive function that comes from that work is not as taxing. +Mm-hmm. +Well, you know, you don't do that. +Yeah. +Exactly. +Like the cows, that cows don't go again. +Complain if you'll. +Five times late. +Yeah. +Yeah. +The barley is not going to die yet. +But because you kind of dare to die later. +Right. +Yeah. +We've been racing. +Exactly. +Within a reason. +But the reality is that you get, you, +there's a reward for what you put into being a farmer or, you know, +doing things that are more nature connected. +Yeah. +Yes, I'm pace. +You know, it's like pace of life. +Yeah. +Sort of pace of life. +I mean, of course, you know, there might be, +I mean, if you don't back further even as we're getting some pretty dangerous stuff, +like running around the space. +Yeah. +Should have changed the world of business. +Yeah. +That's a different kind of function, I guess. +Yeah. +Exactly. +But in this, you know, in this world that we live in, +you can either get caught up in the digital rat race, +and commercialism, and whatnot, +and meeting deadlines, and, you know, +and losing your work life balance. +Yeah. +And you wind up getting caught into a job that you don't love. +And you're not doing what you love, +because you're just trying to make it up money to live in a city. +Mm-hmm. +Yeah. +You have to balance that somehow, +especially when you have ADHD, +otherwise you go absolutely fucking insane. +Right. +And you lose yourself to the, +wouldn't life be simpler if we just didn't run the rat race, +because you had caught up in your head, +and you were going to think everything to realize that there's no meaning +to the type of life we're living. +Well, if you're selling insurance, +I kind of, I kind of find it hard to consider, +exactly what good you're doing for the world, +rather than scaring people that they're going to die of something. +And then they needed insurance to prevent that, +even that won't prevent that, +it would just deny that they get paid off of their debts, +and, yeah, had an eye. +Well, I worked in insurance. +Yeah. +Yeah. +I have my insurance license back in the US, +and I just, I'm burning out. +Yeah. +I was talking about burning in the insurance. +I did quite well when there was a fire in my parents' house, +and they used to hate a bull, +and a bull of Amazon was obviously not up to speck, +and it just decided to burst into flames. +And, you know, you've mileageed my very unheatable +for Amazon from... +I'm surprised. +Yeah. +No problem. +Yeah, yeah. +But this one burst into flames for some reason. +And, yeah, all the books got, all my books got smoked. +So they weren't burned, they were just full of smoke, +and they were real enough. +They got thrown away. +They had not caused me much over the years, +but it got like £1,000 for them, +just based on the valuation of them. +And so I spent, you know, +some, most of that money went to getting e-books instead. +Rather than, because at least then I'm going to burn down. +I mean, unless I was in state center, +just because I've been flames. +Well, +which is, you know, even if 100-tate centers +when I've been flames, it'd be 100 more. +Yeah. +I, you know, I can appreciate Amazon. +But at the same time, +the convenience is lovely. +There's a... +Obviously less and less patchyly. +Yeah. +I'm very similar to that one. +But Amazon. +Yeah. +But yeah, back in the day, +I feel like every dial is getting something to be too powerful. +And some other day, free printing thing was something or other. +Well, at one point in time, +Amazon had ethics. +And a moral code. +Hmm. +Well, yeah. +Until they got really, really rich. +Well, I mean, obviously, +yeah, obviously, +we don't have a slander in companies really, +because we can't say, +we've certainly, +exactly what was going on. +Yeah. +There are criticisms. +There are, there are, +there are different sites that are human, obviously. +But yeah. +Right? +Yeah. +And I think we're all aware, +well, most people, +whether the downsides to the way things +have come out. +Come about. +And I don't know if there's about, +well, here have them come it. +I know technology has made a big difference +to the whole world. +I can appreciate... +I can appreciate it. +And if it wasn't, +if it wasn't one particular company, +it would be another thing. +Yeah. +Yeah, absolutely. +Yeah, and there is. +You know, +there's other companies trying to do it. +Yeah. +I don't know. +So, we were talking about living on a farm. +I think this, +this fabled idea of living on the farm. +And I always think of the blessed, +like, +in the country house, +where the guy goes to live on the country +in the country, +and he doesn't have such a good time with it. +Hmm. +After all. +Yeah, it's because of requires actual manual labor. +It's a different sort of executive function. +Yeah. +And tell you, +I've lived in the city. +Yeah. +Like big cities for the majority of my adult life. +Yeah. +But I've also lived rurally. +Yeah. +And I can remember as a child, +where I thought it was absolutely ridiculous, +and I had to get out and go pull the weeds out of the garden, +so we could actually have fruits and vegetables. +Baries and stuff. +But the older I get, +the more I think, +wow. +That really was the simple life. +Hmm. +Um. +There's it used to be a very shit conqueror with a good life. +Yeah. +It's the day. +In the set was the 70s of ITs. +There has been either a sort of a post-hipy thing +that people would go and try and try and have that natural way of being. +I think it could be. +It could be self-sufficient. +Yeah. +So we're going to be forced into it. +So we're going to be realized. +Whoa. +Yeah. +Yeah. +When that, what's going on in the world, +just leads to what's needed to be going to happen. +And, uh. +Or not. +I think that when technology gets so advanced, +that the human workforce isn't as necessary, +people are going to have to get back to the creativity of existing. +Yeah. +So that's actually probably the best outcome that we could have for ready. +Yeah. +Given the progression of things, uh. +Yeah. +The best outcome we could have for is just like humans and maybe redundant. +And we just go off and do our thing. +And we're not even important anymore. +In the grand scale of things. +What we do. +And I think we learned that our importance has more to do. +It's just being grounded. +Yeah. +I mean, yeah. +And modern day, like, as an entire industry, +you have well-being. +But it's just basically tells you to breathe. +Yeah. +Like, even beings have lost the ability to remember to breathe. +But it's about to be honest. +When you're so caught up with, +I have to meet expectations in my expectations. +Never matter. +What I need never matters because I have to meet this goal of what is expected to exist. +Yeah. +Okay. +So what we're saying is exactly function is something. +Like, one definition of it is it's the stuff that's important for being an adult in this sort of society. +Right. +Exactly. +Yeah. +I suppose surprising you in a space colony of being entirely different society. +I expect people would still need executive function of some kind just to run there. +Yeah. +But there's healthy executive function in the burnout executive function. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Remembering to brush your teeth and bath is healthy executive function. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Spending spending 12 hours a day at a computer. +Warring it with extreme anxiety about what's going on exactly. +Exactly. +Exactly. +But forgetting to be just fueling yourself and coffee is perhaps the not the best form of it. +Exactly. +Which is hard to find balance. +I know we've got a Sarah. +Yeah. +It's hard to find balance when you're. +I mean, I love the game. +Don't get wrong. +I love the game. +Yeah. +But if I'm sitting gaming all day. +And I'm not making an income off of that. +Yeah. +So that I can pay my bills. +Yeah. +Then I have to choose not the games. +Yeah. +Yeah. +I have to find executive function. +Right. +So rewarding. +What you were telling me earlier was through the therapy. +You worked out a system in a way that you could be doing these adult tasks. +But then as a reward, you would let the part of your mind that didn't work that way. +Absolutely. +Have a little freedom. +Exactly. +One of the ways that you did that was playing games on the phone. +So when I started addressing the low-resignoral divergent. +Yeah. +I realized that it wasn't even. +I shouldn't feel guilty for one meeting those moments of. +Okay. +This is my reward for executive function. +Yeah. +I was so shamed about even. +Like. +The world that I grew up in was. +I needed to be a certain expectation. +Yeah. +And a certain role. +Yeah. +And I had to behave a certain way. +And I had to be high achieving. +Yeah. +And I was all meant for my good. +But that's not the way my brain worked. +And so I had to do things a certain way. +I realized now accepting that I'm neurodivergent. +That rewarding myself for doing tasks that I would just assume, +not even mess with. +Isn't something to be ashamed of? +Yeah. +I mean, yeah. +I remember the balance that Scott told me. +One of my teachers. +I would be playing doom. +And I felt that I should be doing homework. +And like something more important. +He said. +And basically what he said was actually doing. +Why do I think that me playing the games is not important. +Doing the stuff that I wanted to do. +It was not important. +And it's like I just said just to shame that that was a character floor that I was wasting time on these things. +When I should be doing homework or something else like that. +By the way, he got fired later. +I have learned all things in moderation. +Yeah. +There was something like that. +That's a Buddhist sort of idea. +Like that's like having badminton. +So I'm not going to fall one way or two for the other way. +Not trying to be perfect. +But at the same time not be able to be chaotic or whatever. +Yeah. +Something that was something that was even just doing my yoga train. +Yeah. +I had to battle the mental. +Because there was a point in time when yoga was being preached as evil in the private +stood church. +Wow. +Okay. +This is something that I am not avert of. +I mean, I've heard of some things. +But that seems a bit beyond the pile. +I mean, I've heard of like dungeons and dragons could be considered demonic or something a bit of the power like that. +But the yoga. +Like, oh, I'm going to sit. +Like it. +Therefore, I'm how dishonoring or greater or something like that. +Really? +Yeah. +And I can't believe. +Speaking of T&D. +Yeah. +One of the dorm fathers at the boarding school that I attended was one of the pastors that helped save +the kid that killed his family and blamed it on D&D. +Oh, it was like that. +That was in the news. +Oh, this is 18. +Yeah. +It was in the 80s. +Yeah. +Yes. +From up the hallmark. +Yes. +Or back and forth between Alma. +But yeah. +He preached that dorm father preached the evils of D&D. +It was kind of hilarious because... +Because everyone knows that dice are unholy. +Exactly. +You know, they don't in the road to D6. +Because you never know what. +What? +Even like, jump out. +Yeah. +That's also when I found out that Lord of the Rings was considered evil too. +Well, yeah. +Yeah. +That was... +I've read this sort of a kind of rebellious culture when Lord... +When that was just come up with the 70s. +And like it would be in university campuses. +People would write this like good Frodo rocks. +Or something like that. +As like a counter culture thing. +Yeah. +And I can imagine in the sort of conservatism of the 50s, 60s. +How it would be kind of rebellious to be into that. +Fantasy culture is not granted in rigid Christianity. +It's such a bad idea. +I think he very much does have a moral centre to it. +It absolutely does. +But it also acknowledges that there are multiple aspects of a person's alignment. +Yeah. +And that alignment's can change. +Yeah. +So would you like to have a run for what was your earliest thing? +I mean, after when we moved to actual touch phones, +my games as we'd recognised them today with touch screens and things. +Probably when I... +After I find them come out when I find them having games on them. +What were your main games that you did on fans? +There's been so many of them. +Yeah. +I have to have multiple games because it depends on my brain. +Right. +Space? +Yeah. +Like I have to be in a certain headspace to play tiles or write. +And I have to be in a certain headspace to play arrows. +Yeah. +And I have to be in a certain headspace to play solitaire. +Yeah. +That's sort of thing. +What I need my brain space to be in determines what I play. +I play games with intentionality. +Yeah. +That makes sense. +I don't think... +I know it wasn't candy crash. +Yeah. +It might have been farmed in on Facebook. +What? +Okay. +Okay. +Yeah. +What was that angry birds are, man? +But that was like... +I was the one playing... +That was genre defining. +I mean, when angry birds came out of people thought, +oh wow, these games evolved. +There's something... +There's something... +...has new, has occurred in the world. +This game is really, really. +Well, I mean, what makes me, is like, +the games that I would play in, say, the 90s, early 90s even, +on a, on a, on a, a computer, on a 60-bit computer. +Those games translate really well to a mobile phone. +And yet, I wouldn't go near a mobile phone to play that same game. +I love playing in the 90s on the computer. +On a tiny little screen thing. +It's just... +Yeah, but that's because... +Because I'm easily prejudiced and bigoted and stuff. +It's about how my gaming, like if it's not on a screen, +if it's not a big screen, and it doesn't count as a real game, +or something. +Oh, no. +I think... +I'm not going to get a game slapped. +No. +I like my phone games. +Yeah. +I like my console games, like my PC games. +Yeah. +But I... +It... +Each game is dependent on what my... +My... +My best face is that. +Yeah. +So if you just give me the big free, +that the big is three games that you've spent on +on my mobile devices. +I'm mobile devices. +Yeah. +Well, that... +Sometimes it stays out. +Right. +Right. +I can do more cards. +Yeah, okay. +Yeah. +So my no-tulse at the top of the top is the biggest one. +Tiles survive. +Um... +Currently... +I actually have errors. +Go. +Yeah. +I find will actually tell you how much time you spend +on each of these, because at some point, +Apple realized that parents were worried about +fine addiction and they put in all these features +that would... +Look how addicted you are. +You know, we're actually... +We're actually monitoring the screen time +and like you can manage it. +And... +Yeah. +Um... +Yeah. +How will you monopoly go? +Okay. +Well, you do that with your door today. +Yeah. +Yeah. +It used to be finished. +I don't remember finished. +Finch was the self-career. +Oh, that one. +Right. +I didn't close that. +I remember it now, but I didn't close that as an actual game. +Right. +I've seen more like... +I don't know. +Sort of a... +Yeah. +Well, being... +Oh, I think to help organise +your different goals in a more sort of fun way. +Well, yes, stickers and you get... +You know, digital stickers are made +of sorts of little challenges. +And you set your own agendas +and then you tick off those things. +And like, even you get a reward +for tapping something a hundred times a day. +Right. +And it counts as your... +Well... +And then it kind of links socially to other people. +And I'm describing it, but I'm not just describing +what you showed me. +Um... +Actually, sorry, I never got into that. +Um... +To help you with that sort of thing. +But... +Did you still do that with your friend? +Finch. +No. +Sometimes... +I've backed off of it just because +it was less helpful for me than I needed it to be. +Right. +Um... +It became more about collecting the collections of... +Yes. +about the well-being. +Yeah. +And for me, I can do the well-being by... +You know, putting on some music +and going and doing the dishes. +Yeah. +Oh, well, what we've got now... +The O.C. Diases might be set upon that. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Quite a bit. +Which is... +You actually gain stuff sent through the mouth +that you have the open eyes as with... +Yeah, it's a creative planer. +Yeah. +Yeah. +That... +Um... +Also... +I think it's a little bit... +of... +Finch worked really well when I was over there. +Yeah. +Um... +Here... +Finch doesn't work as well because... +When I was over there, it was me planning my life alone by myself. +Yeah. +When you're sharing a life with someone +and all the self-care stuff is, you know, +in that wellness app is about helping reward yourself +for executive functions, skills. +When you're sharing that space, +it doesn't quite have the same impact. +Right. +And... +At the time that I was adjusting to make that +so that I could change... +What my goals were in everything +and process that I kind of just lost interest in it. +Yeah. +And then... +Oops, the daisy... +got really exciting. +Yeah. +Okay. +And it kind of... +That's where it kind of sort of planted it, +where it... +It probably could still use it, but... +Right. +Ask and ask you about not play guy. +Because... +What about it? +Just... +Is it similar to normal or play where you go around the board +your game people to high rent on properties that you are +when they land in your basket? +So... +To make it cooperative, +that kind of... +An effectively cooperative for a mobile game, +they've made it... +The cooperation is a little different. +Right. +You'll have other players' pieces on the board +and they land on... +One of the ones that you own +or that you've collected, +the nickname, +Ren. +That sort of thing. +Right. +The way it presents is a little different +than just a typical board game +and there's a little many games as well. +Right. +Actually, there's something I've noticed about mobile games +is the ones I've seen you play. +They love their little mini games. +They live in games and games. +Yeah. +There's a lot of people around you. +Yeah. +It must be it. +I mean... +Yeah. +I mean, like... +He should not be named. +It's like... +All right. +I might as well name him. +So name him before. +But then I love those. +Also some mobile games. +His favourite one is Pokemon Go. +I mean, I've... +I've asked him several times if he wants. +If he'll let me interview him about it, +but he never will. +And this is funny. +The stuff about him that goes on the internet. +They won't be... +He won't talk about Pokemon Go. +Because he feels he's not... +He's not as expert as everyone else. +That there are much begging to you for days about Pokemon Go. +So it comes with that. +Uh... +Yeah. +I look at it. +Like, I'm always learning something new. +I'm not an expert at anything. +Yeah. +I'm just like... +Yeah. +I had an experiencing. +Yeah. +So I gave the big... +The big one that I wanted to talk to you about +was task of life. +Because on the face of it, +when you start playing it, +it seems like it's just a real time strategy game. +Where you're just... +You're building up a little while me, +and you're building up units, +and then you're attacking, +or you're defending. +It's technically a tower defense game. +Right. +Okay. +Technically. +Yeah. +So... +And yet, +it hasn't... +It is a massive multiplayer online game at the same time. +As that, and has lots and lots. +It's a cooperative tower defense game. +Yeah. +Okay. +You benefit from forming online suits, +and... +Do we belong with each other? +Do we step back... +What is the canonical tower defense game? +What was the first tower defense game that you know? +Or can you describe what a tower defense game is? +Um... +So the base of a tower defense game is... +You have a home base. +You're trying to protect it. +You're trying to protect your base. +Okay. +And you build towers to help protect the troops from attacking. +Yeah. +Um... +Okay. +Yeah. +The base of all that's a tower defense game. +I mean, that sounds a bit like a real time strategy, +especially like Dawn of War, +which is probably one of my favorite ever real time strategy games. +Where they really would be strategic points that you could take, +and then the other team would come and take it. +When you take all the strategic points for long enough, +then you win the level. +Yeah. +Well, it's basically tiles to write. +Right. +Because you have your individual settlements +and your troops that you're growing +to defend against other chiefs, +the column chiefs. +Yeah. +So other chiefs could theoretically +they can attack your settlement +and try and take your resources. +But it doesn't benefit anyone +to take each other's resources, +other than if you just want power. +Yeah. +So you form alliances. +You join an alliance after a certain period. +Yeah. +Yeah. +And you gain rewards and benefits from doing things +to help build the alliance. +Uh, yeah. +And the alliance is just like in, +say regular, +like in, you know, +that old game, +that was based on command of Conca, +where you would, +if you're playing multiplayer, +then you would team up with the other teams. +And therefore you just decide +you're not going to attack the other team. +You have teams not going to attack me, +but we're going to attack the third team. +Right. +So we're going up and building the team. +Basically. +Yeah. +Yeah. +But because this is a massive multiplayer online game. +Yeah. +You have different each. +So you have settlement. +You have alliance. +Then you have state. +Yeah. +And then you have other states that compete against your state. +Yeah. +So it doesn't benefit anyone to go solely to protect and build your own, +uh, settlement. +Yeah. +Some people will alliance hop to bigger alliances to creating bigger rewards, +so that their settlement can grow faster. +But what they don't realize when they do that, +they're actually, +to some degree, +it can benefit if it's done strategically. +But if you are not for protecting your state as a whole, +and you're only per concerned about getting powered or run in alliance, +then your alliance can get knocked down heavily if you don't win the Arcadia, +which is when other states can come in and attack your state to try and take territory. +Okay. +Is the whole, well, is the whole game world homogeneous? +Or is there, like, some sort of variation that makes one state different from another, +even even if it's just aesthetic? +Or is it really just a homogeneous thing that every place looks the same as any of every other place? +I think it's pretty much all look the same from what, from what I can tell. +So the variation really comes from the people in it, +and how they play and who they align with. +Yeah. +Absolutely. +If the, like, if the top alliance is in a state, +or not, it's just able to communicate and interact with each other +and get along during Arcadia. +Yeah. +Then they can lose their power by not working together. +So hi, other more powerful alliance in other states coming in a winning territory. +So actually, this means that there's just an open text chat feature between different players +isn't that you can communicate with other players using free form. +There's a state chat, yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +And in alliance there's a subdivision management. +How is it avoided that people don't just mess about and talk about random stuff +and keep on focus to what? +It's a game tool. +We're moderators come into play. +That's where leadership comes into play. +Yeah. +If you are a alliance leader or an R4, +Yeah. +Part of your job is to make certain, like part of that role. +Yeah. +Is to make certain that people are not doing inappropriate things in the chat, +or privately to individual players. +Yeah. +Like, if some dude comes and hits on me in my eyes, +I shut him down. +And then I report him to the alliance leader because the alliance leader in the R4s +or the ones that are supposed to see that. +Yeah. +Let's talk about the R1, R2, R3, R4, R5. +Yeah. +Yeah. +What does the names mean? +You come into an alliance. +Your invitation, your R0. +You have no ranking whatsoever. +Oh, rank. +Yes. +Yeah. +Rank 1 is your base. +You're there. +You're getting used to the game. +Whatever. +Rank 2 is you're getting a little more active in the game, +but you're not really interacting in chat. +You're not really doing anything for the alliance and state activities. +Yeah. +Then rank 3 is your relatively active. +You probably don't. +I think Eric said rank 3. +Yeah. +Rank 4 is your regularly talking in chat. +You're regularly working to figure out how to build and grow the alliance +and also support the state and the process. +Right. +That's where you're acting. +I'm at R5. +I am the head of the alliance. +Okay. +And I'm the head of the alliance because I don't care whether I'm the head of the alliance. +Most can take it over as long as they actually want to take care of the alliance +and put the alliance first. +You mean, you'd be happy. +As long as there's someone in that role who's competent, +you would be happy just playing around at a lower level. +Absolutely. +And the reason you've stepped up is because there's no one else who's going to step up +No, it was because there was a little light on a merge with another alliance. +Right. +And I needed somebody that wasn't going to care if they wanted to come back. +Right. +Because they wanted to stay. +Right. +If the alliance mode didn't go well and they weren't treated well, +they wanted to be able to come back to their alliance. +And I didn't care whether they came back or not. +So you have since completely just left the alliance. +Basically, how much of this, I mean, temporarily across the day, +how much time we do you have to spend on this and how does it work? +You can just join in whenever you want. +Or sometimes you just have to be there for certain events. +Well, okay, so it depends on how much you enjoy the game and the strategy of it. +For me, I like the strategy of seeing if I can grow enough in power organically +without alliance hopping and all the drama that comes with people that are trying to be political and trying. +Yeah. +There's a lot of backstabbing that goes on in these games because people with power. +Yeah. +I don't care about the power. +I just want to see how far I can make it. +Yeah. +Anyway, I became our five because I didn't care whether it was our five. +Yeah. +And plus you put in the time in the hours. +And this was as part of your, you know, like reward yourself for doing adult team things. +Like in between those things, you were just as you're not in there. +In between those things, you just, well, play better. +They're so play better that. +But all those little plain little bits added up to actually you are substantially part of. +Yeah. +Exactly. +Because I don't. +I mean, in the mornings, I might spend like when I'm just trying to wake up. +I might spend a little more time doing the daily's and just give you the amount of the way. +Yeah. +The ones that have to be done. +What a daily's exactly. +Um, so there's, to keep the game for me and completely boring because of it. +If it was just one thing over and over, you can do it. +There's, there's different features and there's rotating events. +And those events can require like daily activities to get the best rewards. +Right. +Every kind of thing is some kind of battle isn't it? +Or some kind of, sort of attack or some kind of setting up with some kind of things. +There's, there was a whole like role play thing. +Like when you first start the game, you do this whole like, I guess it's kind of role play. +Basically, tells you the story. +Yeah. +Um, of how you came to need to build a settlement. +Yeah. +And the storyline behind. +By the way, I love, I love the game banished where you just sent out. +You sent out from the kingdom into the middle of nowhere. +You have to set one in the village. +And that's not a mobile guy. +And that's just, that's it. +For that sort of thing, I just watch post crafting videos. +Okay. +Anyway, but there's actually, there's a bunch of different aspects to it. +So the daily's are, there's, I have to, I'm trying to think. +There's a lot of little bit of things. +You have to make certain that you are doing research. +You have to make certain that some sort of research is running. +And once you get high enough level, it can take days for step to go. +And you can earn speedups, but. +And part of being in alliances is you can get help from alliance members and you get rewarded for helping other alliance members. +So there's a whole lot of different game mechanics. +Yeah, there's a bunch of little tiny mechanics to. +But it's all strategic. +How often you check it. +When you check it. +Yes. +So it makes a lot of difference to be on that certain time when you. +Something is happening. +Yeah. +All of this is in real time. +By the way, this is. +Yeah. +Why? +Why I was maybe talking about real time strike. +It's happening in the real, you know, time is. +Yeah. +And I'm struggling. +Yeah. +People on different times zones too. +Yeah. +Because people in the US, I got people not in the US, in the alliance. +Yeah. +And that's part of where the. +How much, how much phone batteries is using? +What are you doing this? +I don't know. +If you have a newer phone, it doesn't really take a whole lot about it. +Yeah. +This phone it drains a little bit. +Yeah. +Because it's a little bit older. +What? +What you prefer the phone for this sort of thing? +I mean, there might be a console game or a PC game or something that does similar. +What you prefer? +For me personally. +This is a personal thing. +Yeah. +On my days where I am lower bandwidth, lower mobility. +Yeah. +I can do it on my phone right there. +Right. +So I'm just excited. +Because of the pain levels I deal with from the other Minnesota, +I can't sit in the chair for longer periods. +Right. +No matter how comfortable it is. +Yeah. +It's a big, a big comfy chair. +Yeah. +I mean, it's it's amazing for the days that I'm not in a mess of Lara. +Yeah. +I can do it in bed if I'm in a day that I just can't get out of bed. +But I'm also not able to sleep. +Yeah. +So for people with lower bandwidth, lower spin levels, it's mobile games. +Yeah. +Help keep us from, you know. +It's like even if you have to shut down some part of what you're just daily function is. +Yeah. +It's like we can kind of compensate by keeping the brain going, +keeping what parts of you are still functioning, +keeping them going until such a time as you regain full function, +full energy levels. +Right. +It keeps my brain going. +Yeah. +It keeps my brain thriving instead of going into survival mode. +Yeah. +So, +tile survivors more entertaining, +but sometimes I just need to be able to put all my brain power into processing the strategy. +And that's where arrows go because it comes in the flow. +Right. +So arrows go is what I've seen of it is it's like a big maze. +And but you're dismantling the maze bit by bit. +And as you dismantle it, +it flies off in one of four directions. +And depending which direction it flies off, +it might hit another wall or it might fly off the edge. +And if it hits the wall, you lose a life kind of thing, you lose a drop of water. +You've got like three of them I saw. +Yeah. +If you manage to get dismantled the whole maze and it just flies off in all four directions, +bit by bit, then you don't lose those and you progress you in that section. +Right. +And actually that one was coming up with ads. +So actually this is a good point to ask you, +what do you think about ads in games? +I think ads in games keep game developers being able to pay their bills. +Yeah. +And it's like a low barrier to entry, +even if you can't afford a game, +you can play it, +you can get something out there. +And then if you really like it, +lots of them will have a land free option. +And you just pay subscription instead. +Yeah. +Yeah. +For example, with a scrabble game, +I've got, I've played with them. +That's the one game I do plan in my book devices, +cool, worthy. +And ever I play that, +I try and play every single day. +And sometimes it's every other day. +And it's against other human players, +actually people I know, +and generally it's just my mum. +And that is unsupported, +but I just pay for them, +for most of my mum and for myself, +to have the version that you'd have to have. +And it doesn't cost that much. +And I don't know how to advertise game in language. +No. +Yeah. +Sometimes you just like a game. +Yeah. +I don't even know if this has an ad's free option on it. +I haven't looked at it. +It's one of those games where I just don't care, +whether I watch an ad to get through the next one +because I realize I'm not going to pay anything for it. +Like we're watching ads on Amazon Prime, +because there's a certain series that we're watching. +And after about the third year of advert, +we thought, tell what, let's just pay the pay, +wherever his name is, +that money to get just to not have to watch them every half hour, +or whenever they come up. +Yeah. +There is, there's just a bit of a dark pattern about. +I believe that some companies who do this +will deliberately show you annoying adverts. +They're not, they're not actually trying to advertise the product. +They're just trying to annoy you into buying the subscription +to get rid of the ads. +That's why I always go unpersonalized whenever possible. +So they're random and not targeted. +Exactly. I don't like targeted ads. +Yeah. +I don't like the fact that I looked for something +I'm Google. +Yeah. +And now I'm suddenly seeing ads for that thing. +I'm going to look for it. +You know, it's an invasion of privacy, +and I don't like it. +So while it's going targeted. +Yeah. +Manashi, this is something that worries me a bit about. +I like large language models. +Is that, you know, you've got the big players who probably have quite stringent policies, +but I think they're now smaller. +Companies selling it. +Large language models. +And they're not going to be as, they're not going to be as proper about how the data is used. +You know, they may be using it to train them models or not, +you know, maybe not train, but to help improve how them models interact. +But at the same time, they may be just, +eventually, they may be harvesting the data that they're learning, +that they're learning from the interactions between the person and the large language model. +Which that person, if they're not too discerning, +will not really realise that their privacy is not being completely respected. +Well, it's because people don't read through the TOS. +The terms, sir. +They share that in the privacy and policy in the TOS and nobody ever reads it. +Yeah. +Basically, I think it's a replay of social media. +If you're not paying, then you're the product. +Exactly. +Yeah. +And I think that that's going to happen with large language models. +Because they really, because, you know, resources at a time, +like they cost, I've run them on my own machine, +and I've seen how inferior it is, even running on a really powerful machine, +just how crack that is compared to what a cloud-based one will do. +The problem is, is that a cloud-based one takes up data centers. +Yeah. +Which is destroying the environment. +Yeah. +And it's a fine night. +It's a fine night. +Yeah. +It's a fine night resource. +And it's going to, you know, that resource is going to become more increasingly finite, +and including the ability to produce that number of electronic parts. +So, you know, the ways the money going to come from is going to come from. +Yes, we'll provide these resources, but we'll provide them. +You're not going to pay for them, so we'll provide them to people. +If you're going to want something in return, and that's going to be heavier information. +Yeah, having information or even thinking of a dark part, +actually influencing those people to think and behave in ways we want them to. +Yeah. +And perhaps we shouldn't go too far down that route, talking about that. +But that's why ethical and use is important. +That's why then studying it. +Researching it and actively trying to be a part of ethical training. +Yeah. +So, I was trying to relate this back to the gaming side of things. +So, what I was thinking was, you know, if our games are going to become, +like maybe role playstyle games are going to be, have you played anywhere? +They have started to use large language models as a part of the role playing experience. +Second line. +Second line for the middle of it. +Right. +Okay. +So, how is that? +For my RP system that I'm building, there's going to be LLM chat box. +Right. +It allows anyone on any time to be able to interact and role play as a community, +even if other people are not online at the same time. +Yeah. +So, I don't think so. +So, what would be nice to be in the game where you have characters that you could step out +in the game, could you? +Like, in the early days when you're at me were on second life. +That's what I'm trying to create. +Yeah. +Yeah. +We're playing this card game called, what was the card game called? +Handed fur. +Where you have four players. +But if you step away from the game, just the robot takes over your game. +So, that means that people can come in and out of the game. +That's, I think, what you have thought of is having a role-playing system where the characters +in the game are real people, but they can step away and that character will continue behaving like that person. +Yeah. +The character. +Yeah. +The character that I played though. +Yeah. +Yeah. +The avatar that I play is still my app art will be all on when I'm on. +Yeah. +However, if I'm on and I'm interacting in the community that has the RP in it. +Yeah. +I can interact with bots. +Yeah. +Who will then be like the NPCs? +Yeah. +Don't play a catch. +So, let's say, a kosher comes on and she's doing her part of the world. +They stuff. +And she encounters something that my character interacted with. +The NPC that is there will relate the information that, like, listen to the chat. +Yeah. +And be like, oh, well, hell's Beth was on and she did XYZ and that impacted this here. +So, do you need to do this? +Well, yeah. +We sort of did that in a little way. +Because we had these two squirrels. +Was it Ricky and Pauline? +That was it. +And these squirrels would, like, talk. +They would just be chatting to each other and they would be chatting to whoever came near +them. +Yeah. +And then they would say, oh, yeah. +I was talking to this, like, I was talking to Elspath earlier. +Tell Elspath what we had said to Pauline or Pauline. +It's said to Ricky and yeah, it, like, Chinese was just a little bit. +But I think that's the whole, you know, that's what makes it real. +And that makes it possible to role play because you create an element of potential miscommunication. +Yeah. +The requires communication. +Yeah. +So Elspath goes into the botany dome and is tending to the plants of everything in there. +She trips over something and phrase the plug to the communicator. +The mechanic then needs to come on when the mechanic gets on. +The mechanic is going to find out that something needs to be repaired. +So it's an organic integration to activities that happened when somebody wasn't on. +But the NPCs communicate that information. +Like, oh, you know, +I'm sure there are people that games studios doing this. +This is quite challenging, but in the way I think not going, +it's going to be hard to get high fidelity of this, but I think you can get elements of this certainly. +Yeah. +Well, I can't really go with too much of the dynamics of it because people will steal ideas. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +But yeah, I can be integrated into. +Well, I mean, how did we do that? +Just with the squirrels. +It was just, um, we had, um, what's called an LSL script. +And, you know, that just commute has an API key in that communicator, um, +safe anthropic lord in the back end using API credits. +And you just, you give it, you give the character a certain personality prompt. +So it understands who it is. +And you give it the ability to store its memories and say, +process server in between. +Yeah. +Um, I mean, none of this is like groundbreaking or, you know, none of this is confidential or proprietary. +No, no, no. +It's fine. +They call it R.A. Jean. +I forget what that's sensible, but it means that a large language model has access to more information than what it just knows. +It has access to background. +It might, it had it, so these squirrels, um, they knew any of the characters that we created with no stuff about the role plan. +Backgrounds of it when they heard so key words they would look up. +Yeah. +Yeah. +That's why I'm developing our piece system before I integrate the NPCs because the NPCs are also known variable on how they can interact. +Right. +So it becomes proprietary is the system itself. +Yeah. +And not the interaction with the NPCs. +Yeah. +That makes sense. +Yeah. +Squirrels. +Squirrels. +How do you relate the sort of gaming that you're doing second life or final fantasy 14 to the kind that you're doing on the mobile phone? +I mean, is it a completely different nature? +For example, you've told me that you don't like playing second life on the mobile device. +That you can't really do any of the things that you actually like doing on it. +I mean, they've been pretty, they've done really well with the mobile device. +But for somebody who gets their enjoyment out of the creation and the decoration and all that, +not so much the dressing-up and socialization and all that, +I mean, I do get social interaction on the second life, quite a bit. +But my enjoyment is the creation and storytelling process. +Yeah. +I mean, I'm playing sailor Astha, which is kind of based on D&D rules. +Which is a computer game on PC. +And actually the finalist thing I like is just making what you call the dungeons, +but they might be a town or a waste, you know, wilderness or whatever. +But you're creating the actual, you're setting up the enemies and you're setting up the characters. +And then after you've done that, you can play through it. +Yeah. +I like creating the role-pleases. +Yeah. +I like creating the interactions. +I like creating an experience. +That other users can participate in interact with. +Yeah. +I mean, yeah. +Like a month was I got you and your friends were creating a spice station. +And we get stuck because we don't have the R&P system. +Anyway, I'm not going to go into the details on that part of it. +All right. +That's still part of, you know. +Yeah, I kind of. +But having the experience and having the interactivity and having the creators that make things that work. +In a way that makes it feel like you're actually replicating real life movements and actions and interactions and whatnot. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Someone just created an a.o. that allows you to do all sorts of crazy wild. +And you're back. +I was an animation I brought. +Yeah. +Yeah. +We've talked about that before. +Yeah. +Yeah. +So my niche is not the, some of the more, well, I guess what I'm doing is more complicated. +But it's definitely for more advanced. +I think what you've talked about. +What you've talked about with me is like combining that with literary stuff. +So actually grand storytelling. +Yep. +You know, actual, you know, artistic novel quality storytelling. +Yep. +Yeah. +That's a whole other direction for that. +I think we've gone on the grand tour from executive function to mobile games to AIN, +and possibilities of the democratizing creating role-playing. +And that role-playing systems. +I think it, I think we better leave it there. +So thanks very much for telling us about all of this. +Thanks for listening to my rambles. +Okay. +All right. +Good morning. Good evening. Good night. +Where are you off? +Happy times, um. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4647.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4647.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3281e3d --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4647.txt @@ -0,0 +1,149 @@ +Episode: 4647 +Title: UNIX Curio #7 - Compression +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4647/hpr4647.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:56 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4647, for 2026-05-26 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #7 - Compression" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:18:27 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Making your files smaller" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number seven. This series is dedicated to exploring +little-known, and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of Unix-like +operating systems. In Unix Curio number four, that's Hacker Public Radio episode 4617, +I teased the subject of file compression. Today, I'm circling back to that. The history of data +compression goes back at least to the 1970s, and in contexts outside Unix and computers, +probably even earlier. Somehow, I find it refreshing to learn that humans have always struggled to have +enough storage space to keep all the data they want to hang on to. One way around this limitation +is to use some form of compression. I am only going to dive into lossless compression for this episode. +That is, a compression method that can be reversed and will spit out the original data bit for bit. +The alternative is lossy compression methods, and they also have their places. You might be familiar +with their use for audio, such as Augforbis or MP3. It's also used for images, such as JPEG. +Lossy compression allows some of the original data to be thrown away, +resulting in a smaller file than is possible with lossless compression. But the intent is for the result +to still sound or look good enough to a human observer. +Also, I'm going to limit my discussion to generic methods used for many types of data. +While FLAC does lossless compression, it is specifically designed just for audio. +I should make clear that I have never studied computer science or information theory, +so this episode will not get into the science behind various types of compression algorithms and how +they differ. But in general, these methods take advantage of the fact that many types of data +have recurring patterns. English text mostly consists of words that often reappear many times. +Source code similarly has keywords and variable names that recur. +Compression is accomplished by representing a piece of data that occurs multiple times with a symbol +that is shorter in length. The first compression program in the Unix world that I could find +is called PAC from 1978. It was shortly followed in 1979 by a similar program called Compact. +Both of these used a technique called Huffman coding, but with some differences between them. +Files compressed with PAC were given an extension of dot lowercase z, +or in the phonetic alphabet Zebra, and Compact gave file names an extension of dot uppercase C, +or in the phonetic alphabet Charlie. Roughly every five or ten years after this, +a new program would come along and achieve lasting popularity. +There were, and still are, two opposing forces facing any new form of compression. +Working in favor was the advantages it provided. +First among these was achieving a better compression ratio, but performance improvements, +such as speed or reduced memory usage, could also be compelling. +The force against any new method was the fact that it was not yet widely supported. +It didn't much help to have a smaller file if the people you share it with couldn't decompress it. +The next major advance in compression arose out of three scientific papers, +two in 1977 and 1978 by Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv. +These were called LZ-77 and LZ-78, and one by Terry Welch in 1984, which built on LZ-78. +This last method is typically referred to as LZ-W. +Our Unix Curio for today is a program called Compress that implements the LZ-W method. +Files compressed this way are named with the extension dot uppercase Z. +I had always assumed that this was to honor Jacob Ziv, but now that I've researched the history, +it seems more likely to be a follow-on from how files compressed by PAC were named. +Since PAC did not use any of the Lempel-Ziv methods, I would guess that it used dot lowercase Z, +because that wasn't already taken by anything else, but that's just pure speculation. +I do recall encountering dot uppercase Z files in the wild, +but feel certain that hasn't happened in the last 25 years and maybe even longer. +If you need to expand one of these, Uncompress is the program to use. +GNU's G-Unzip can also handle them. +However, there is a serious problem that arose with the LZ-78 and LZ-W compression methods. +Both of them were patented, and the owner became aggressive in seeking payment from developers and users. +The Compress utility was developed within two months of the publication of Welch's 1984 paper, +and was included in Bell Laboratory's 8th edition Unix before the shakedown started. +The paper did not disclose that a patent had been filed, +and apparently Spencer Thomas and the other developers of Compress were unaware of it. +The utility became popular for a while and was even standardized by POSIX, +but people moved away from LZ-W once the legal threat started. +Another important advance came in 1991 and was called the deflate compression method. +It combined the unpatented LZ-77 method with Huffman coding to achieve a similar level of compression as LZ-W, +actually often better, without the legal trouble. +Deflate was developed for PK-Zip and was soon adopted by the GNU project's G-Zip compressor. +While Phil Katz, the PK in PK-Zip, patented one way of implementing the deflate method, +it was possible to write a compressor and decompressor without infringing. +Also, he apparently never tried to enforce that patent. +As I mentioned in Unix Curio number 4, Zip is both an archive and a compression format. +Each archive member can be compressed with one of several possible methods or stored without compression. +Unlike a tar file where compression can be applied to the entire archive, +in Zip, each archive member is compressed individually. +This often means that a Zip file will be slightly bigger than a tar file with the same contents compressed by +G-Zip, because the Zip format cannot take advantage of duplication that occurs among more than one member of the archive. +The vast majority of Zip files use only the deflate and uncompressed storage methods, +and these are the only options if you want to follow the profile standardized in ISO IEC 21320-1. +Actually, since they both use deflate, G-Zip is able to extract a Zip file in the special case +where it only holds one member compressed with that method. +From the 1990s onward, people paid significant attention to avoiding patent landmines, +so only methods that didn't have that problem became broadly popular. +While the patents on LZ78 and LZW have since expired, I feel like their most successful legacy +was in discouraging people from using these methods, leading to deflate taking the overall popularity crown. +The next step came in 1996 and 1997 with the development of BZip and BZip2 by Julian Seward. +The original method was quickly followed by BZip2, which was the version that achieved true popularity. +They used the Burroughs-Wheeler transform, which does not itself compress data, but rearranges it to make it more compressible. +This is then combined with other techniques. +At least, that's my understanding. I told you, I'm not up on information theory. +This provides a significant reduction in the compressed size of the data compared to the earlier methods. +However, it is slower than deflate both during compression and decompression. +Separate projects have developed parallel versions of GZip and BZip2 that can take advantage of +multi-processor machines, but the original utilities run single-threaded. +Another five years later, in 2001, Igor Pavlov added the Lempel-Ziv Markov Chain algorithm, +or LZMA, an enhancement to LZ77, to his 7-zip compression tool. +This was followed a few years later by LZMA2, a container format that allowed for LZMA compression +to be split between multiple threads. Broad LZMA2 support came to the Unix world in 2009 with the +XZ utility. That's X-Ray Zebra in the phonetic alphabet. +It offers roughly similar compression ratios to BZip2, though it can be better or worse depending on +the data to be compressed. While compression takes even longer than BZip2, decompression is significantly +faster, though still not as fast as GZip. The Linux kernel relatively quickly supported booting +from XZ compressed images because it was a good match for that use case. Compression, +the time-consuming activity, only has to be done once, while the more frequent decompression during boot +happens relatively fast. The last method I will cover is Z-Standard, often written as ZSTD. +This came about in 2015 and is another variation on LZ77 that uses finite state entropy, which means +nothing to me, but you might understand it. It performs about as well as deflate in terms of compression +ratios, but is much faster both when compressing and decompressing data. +I should say that these statements are true with the typical default settings. Depending on the +compression level selected, it can compress more slowly, but compress the data smaller. +However, decompression is always speedier than deflate. +This makes it attractive for some uses, and it is heavily promoted by Meta slash Facebook, +where Jan Collette developed it. +For example, shipping large amounts of actively used data between machines in a data center +can go more quickly when the size is reduced. However, if the compression and decompression steps +take too long, that benefit is lost. +A speedy method can be valuable even if it doesn't result in the greatest reduction in size. +This use case stands in contrast to, say, a compressed backup file, which might only be accessed in a +disaster recovery scenario, or never accessed at all, making size more important than speed. +Both the XZ and Z standard utilities have some built-in support for multi-threading, but the default is to run in a single thread. +While XZ can use multiple threads for decompression, but only if the file was compressed in multi-thread mode, +the reference Z standard utility can only use more than one thread for compression, not decompression. +There are many other methods of lossless compression that have been developed over the decades, +but I believe that these are the ones you are most likely to encounter in the world of Unix-like systems. +This is a personal opinion, and others might choose a different set. +As mentioned, it can be tough for a new method to gain popularity, and 35-year-old deflate is still +probably the most commonly used, despite not being the fastest or offering the greatest reduction in size. +Even systems like FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD that do not like to include GNU tools supported it by +developing their own version of GZIP based on the permissively licensed Zlib library. +The show notes contain some data comparing the performance of different utilities discussed +in this episode, starting with GZIP's deflate method. +Technically, the LZW method used by the compressed utility is still standardized by POSIX, so one might +expect it to have the widest support. However, aggressive patent enforcement discouraged adoption, +especially by free and open source software systems. Even though the patent has expired, +it is still out of favor compared to deflate. For this reason, I feel justified in calling Compress a Curio. +Thanks for listening. I don't currently have any more Unix Curios written. While I do have a couple +potential topics in mind, it's not yet clear that they would make good episodes. Any future podcast +entries will appear here on Hacker Public Radio. If you wish to suggest any topics or have a question, +please comment on this episode on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4648.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4648.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ba8114 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4648.txt @@ -0,0 +1,301 @@ +Episode: 4648 +Title: Simple Podcasting - Episode 4 - Audio Analysis Fun +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4648/hpr4648.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:58 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4648, for 2026-05-27 +Today's show is entitled, "Simple Podcasting - Episode 4 - Audio Analysis Fun" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:26:09 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This episode is the fourth in an 4 part series on simple podcasting covering Audio Analysis Fun with" +This is the fourth episode in a four-part series on simple podcasting. +Introduction. +In this episode, we will discuss alternatives to a +Dacity, but it comes analyzing audio spectrums +to find the sources of unwanted noise. +I previously promised some gratuitous accurate +and we will get into that in this episode. +Recall that with audacity, you first import the audio file +then select the part of the audio you wish to analyze +or control a for all and then select analyze +plus spectrum. +This is in fact the only feature of audacity that I know how to use. +I am definitely not an audio expert. +I do however have some background in processing and analyzing other signals, +so some of the basics are familiar to me. +We can accomplish the same thing that audacity does in this instance +provided we do the following. +First, we need to get the data out of the audio file +and into a form which we can import into other software. +Second, we need to perform certain mathematical operations on this data. +Finally, we need to be able to plot the results of these calculations +on a chart for a transforms. +First though, we need a bit of mathematical background. +What audacity is doing when it shows a plot of frequency versus amplitude +is that it is showing the results of a Fourier transform. +A Fourier transform is a mathematical operation +that converts the time domain into the frequency domain. +Any complex signal, audio, or otherwise, +can be broken down into a collection of sine waves of various frequencies. +For example, a simple square wave signal of say 100 hertz +can be represented as a sine wave of frequency 100 hertz +plus a collection of higher frequency sine waves +which add together to give the sharp corners. +A Fourier transform finds these sine waves +and sorts them out into separate bins +with each bin representing an individual frequency +or collection of closely related frequency +depending on how fine grain the sorting is. +This is exactly what we want when we are trying to figure out +how to filter out noise. +We call that earlier in this series +we had to solve a problem with a high pitch background noise +which was originating in my cheap microphone. +Analyzing this audio by frequency +showed that it was a series of individual tones +at one killer hertz intervals. +We were then able to use filters targeted +at those frequencies to get rid of that noise. +There are several optimized versions +of the Fourier transform algorithm. +A very common one is the fast Fourier transform +commonly abbreviated to just FFT. +This is so common that the term FFT is often used +to simply mean any Fourier transform +even though this is not technically correct. +Typical FFT algorithms require that the number of data samples +is exactly a power of two. +So the number of samples we need may be something like +4,096,8192, or 65,536 +to give a few random examples. +When we transform from the time domain to the frequency +domain, each sample becomes a single frequency bin. +So the more samples we have to find a resolution +we get in terms of frequency. +If we assume we are dealing with +a couple of his dials recorded at 44.1 kilohertz sample rate +that is 44,100 samples per second +that if we have 32,768 samples, +each bin represents slightly more than one hertz. +If we have 65,536 samples, +then each bin represents a fraction of a hertz. +For our purposes, we will pick 65,536 samples +that would mean we need 1.48 seconds of data. For simplicity's sake, we will record +at least two seconds of data and then just discard the samples that we don't need. +There is a further complication here. +Fourier transforms normally work with complex numbers. +Recall from your school days that as well as integers and real numbers, there are complex numbers. +Each complex number consists of two parts, a real component and an imaginary component. +I won't go into the details of this, just accept that each sample needs to have two components. +Fortunately, if we don't have a complex number data, we can just set the imaginary component to zero and use that. +This is enough talking about the theory, let's get into the practical details. +We will extract data from audio files. First, we will look at how to extract the data from the audio files. +Fortunately, one of the programs we've already been using can do this. +To do this, we will use Sox. I'm not aware of an equivalent feature in FFMP. +Sox calls itself Sound Exchange, the Swiss Army Knife of Audio Manipulation. +Sox is free software and is licensed under the GPL V2 or later. +In this case, we want to use a feature which allows us to convert a binary audio signal file to a text data file. +To convert the file to text, we just give the output file a .dat file extension and Sox will do this for us. +Here is a command example. Sox, that's SOx, space, inputfile.flac, space, t-data.dat. +This gives us a file in the following format, assuming that this is a mono audio recording. +The first line states the sample frequency. The second line states that the data is for channel 1. +The data starts on the third line. +The following one is the time in seconds, column 2 is the waveform data point. +To analyze the data, we want a subset of these samples. +When we convert from a time domain to the frequency domain, our resolution will be determined by the number of samples. +We would like therefore to have at least as many samples as a sampling rate. +We also want the sample size to be an even multiple of two. +The number of points we want to have is equal to the next even multiple of two above our chosen sampling rate of 44,100 Hz. +This number would be 65,536. +To extract this data from the file, we can do the following. +Tail, space, t-data.dat, space, dash n plus 3, space, pipe symbol, space, head, space, dash n, 65, 536, space, pipe symbol, space, arc, space, single quote, +left curly bracket, printf, space, double quote, percent s, slash n, double quote, comma, space, dollar two, right curly bracket, single quote, space, then right angle bracket, or right arrow, however you want to describe it, space, t-data.csv. +We use tail to skip over the first three lines. +We use head to take the next 65,536 lines and discard the rest. +We use arc to extract the second column, which we will use as the real component. +We now have this data as a CSV file in one column, analyzing the data. +To analyze the data, we need software which can calculate FFTs. +I will now show two examples of this, a very simple case using Libra Office Calc, and a more complex but more complete one using GNU Octave. +Using Libra Office, we can do Fourier analysis and plot charts using Libra Office. +Take this CSV file of data that we previously created. +For this example, I use data from a recording of silence, so I could see what internal noise was being generated by the headset. +Open the CSV file and import it into Libra Office Calc. +Now select all 65,536 rows of column A. +The Fourier function will automatically fill the imaginary component with zeros if we don't provide a column of imaginary numbers, so we don't need to provide a column of zeros. +Then select data, statistics, Fourier analysis. +A window will open allowing you to select various parameters for results to enter D1. +Select grouped by columns, select OK. +New data should now appear starting in cell D1. +The first line will say Fourier transform. +The second line will state the input range. +The third line will state real in column D and imaginary in column E. +The data will start in row four. +For our simple example, we will ignore the imaginary data and just use the real data, which will form our Y component when we plot it on a chart. +We now need to create the X-axis data. +Each cell is a bin of frequencies. +Each cell, therefore, represents sample frequency divided by number of samples, which gives us hurts. +To create the X-axis data showing frequency, enter the following data into column C to the left of each D column number. +Equal sign, left bracket, left bracket, 44,100 divided by 65,536. +Right bracket, space, asterisk, space, left bracket, row in capital letters. +Left bracket, right bracket, space, minus, space, four, right bracket. +We can now create an X-Y chart showing the frequency analysis. +You may need to exclude the first couple dozen rows, as very low frequency components, which cannot be heard, +be otherwise overwhelmed the data we are interested in. +Also, you only need the first half of the chart. +The FFT mirrors the data from the first half of the array into the second half. +Because characterizing a sine wave requires a minimum of two points, although we have a sample frequency of 44.1 kilohertz, +we really only have sound waves up to a maximum of half that, or 22.05 kilohertz. +Create the chart with lines only. +If you follow the above instructions, you should see something resembling what we saw in a dacity, +except with each bin more sharply defined. +In the data that I had from a recording of unfiltered headset noise, +I could see a distinct noise spike every 1000 hertz. +However, we have taken several shortcuts. +First, the imaginary component of the data was ignored. +Second, the magnitude that is the y-axis has both positive and negative peaks. +Third, the data is not scaled to DB sound units, so we just have a relative measure. +However, that by itself is enough to tell us where the frequencies are that we need to construct filters to deal with. +We could refine the spreadsheet a bit more to deal with the above issues, +but I think we have demonstrated the basic principle, and working with the spreadsheet can be a bit awkward. +However, if working with the spreadsheet is what you want to do, then you can add more columns and more formula to improve upon it. +Other analysis software. +I will go on to GNU Octave in a moment, but I want to get a few other alternatives out of the way first. +I won't go into any detail on them other than to point them out to people who want to have a go at trying those themselves. +Grace. +There is math and plotting software called Grace. +That's GR-A-C-E. +This is free software released under the GPLV2. +According to the documentation, it seems to have the features we need, including an FFT function. +However, I could not get it to work properly on Ubuntu 24.04. +I could not get it to load a data file and plot data. +The error messages were vague and unhelpful. +The file navigation system didn't work. +There was no obvious path to success, and if it isn't easy to use, then there is no point to it. +This is fairly old software designed for X window and motif. +I gave up on it as not suitable for this series, as I am looking for some fairly low effort things for people to try themselves. +If someone else can get it to work on their PC, perhaps they could do an HPR episode on this themselves. +Command-line FFT packages. +There are several command-line FFT packages. +They were read data from standard in or from a file and output the FFT. +However, these are not packaged for Ubuntu, and appear to be distributed as C source code which you would download and compile. +You can experiment with those if you wish, but I felt there were a bit out of scope for discussion here, as I am looking at common tools that are ready to use. +Here are two examples. +One is command-line Fast Fourier Transform Utility. +It's at github.com. +The repository belongs to Greg F. Johnson and it's called FFT. +Another is CLI-FFT. +It is also at github.com. +The repository belongs to J-O-N-O-L-A-F-U-R. +And the project is called CLI-FFT. +I have not tried these and cannot say whether they are any good or not. +Similarly, there are a number of FFT packages that are libraries for languages such as Python. +If you want to take the time to write a short program to go with them, you can create a dedicated FFT command-line program. +However, I felt this was too out of scope for what I was trying to do here. +Doing it the hard way. +Hypothetically, it may be possible to write an FFT function in bash bc, which is your arbitrary precision calculator language, which is part of the standard shell package. +I say hypothetically because I have not tried it. +I think it would be an interesting challenge, but it don't have the time at the moment to try it. +If anyone feels motivated to give it a try, they are welcome to give it a go, and then do a podcast episode on it, and let us all know. +J-O-K-Tave. +We have seen that as well as using features built into audacity to analyze the audio spectrum to see the frequencies of audio-sired noises, +we were able to do the same using a deeper office spreadsheet. +Now we will look at another bit of software, J-O-K-Tave. +J-O-K-Tave is free software, licensed under the GPLV three or later. +It is a mathematical scripting language, very similar to MATLAB. +People use it for mathematical, engineering, and scientific work. +It can be found in most Linux distros, and is available for some other operating systems as well. +Octave has two features built in that we need for our purposes. +It does FFTs, and it has a plotting system built in to produce graphs. +We will take the same audio test file that we use with audacity and labor office, and use it here as well. +The bash script to convert the flag file to text data is essential to the same. +With the exception that the file extension on the output file is .txt instead of .csv, +this latter change with an arbitrary decision on my part. +As a quick review, this bash script uses socks to convert a flag file to a text .dat file. +Then it uses tail, head, and oc to extract the first 65,536 rows of data, +skipping over the header information, and ignoring the first column of time data. +This script will be in the show notes. +We now have a 1.1 megabyte file containing 65,536 samples of data in text format. +Now the next thing we need to do is create a short Octave script file. +I will just give a brief overview of the script here. +The full script will be in the show notes. +I put the script in a file called OctaveSpectrum.m. +I have never used Octave before now, but the convention seems to be to give this script a .m ending. +The shabangline is hashmark exclamation slash user slash bin slash ENV space Octave that's octavee. +If you make the file executable, you can run it like any other script, or you can type Octave, +and then the name of the script to run. +I won't read out the script in detail as that would be too hard to follow along in a podcast. +However, I pass several arguments to the script, including the name of the data file, +and then two integers that I use to limit the display area in the x and y axes, +so I can have the chart focus on the areas of interest that I want to see. +I also pass a string containing the name of the graphic file that I want the chart exported to. +This was an arbitrary decision on my part, and you can just hard code these values in if that is what you want to do. +The arguments are accessed by calling the args function, which returns in a ray of strings. +Next, it reads in the specified file using the dllmread function. +This reads all of the data into an array. +Next, it performs a hamming windowing function on the data. +I'll explain that briefly. +It is standard practice when doing FFT signal processing to window the signal. +Since the single sample is a finite length, it will stop at each end of the array. +Unless you are lucky enough for this to happen exactly at a zero crossing, +this would produce an abrupt transition to the data, which looks like noise to the FFT. +The solution is to taper the signal off gradually towards the ends, so that when it gets cut off, +the signal is fairly small at that point anyway. +There are variety of different windowing functions, but hamming seems to be the most commonly used. +Next, it does an FFT using the FFT function. +This gives us real and imaginary outputs. +These are combined by summing the squares of each corresponding real and imaginary element, +and then taking the square root of each and storing that in a new array. +This gives a single array of the same lengths as the originals, but combining the two output components. +If anyone wants to tell me that this isn't how things are done in the audio world, +they're welcome to make an HPR episode telling us all the right way to do things. +Then it does some scaling and selection of subsets of data, so we get the x-axis and Hertz, +and just the number of samples that we wish to look at. +If you're looking at the script, the first thing to keep in mind is that Octave will work on entire arrays of data in a single operation. +You don't need to write explicit loops for this. +The looping is handled implicitly as part of the syntax. +It also does various other things that make the chart easier to read. +The comments in the script describe these in more detail. +Since this is a script, it's easier to add these sort of refinements than it's in the case for a spreadsheet, +so I've made the effort to add them. +Finally, it calls the plot function. +If an output graphics file name was provided, it also creates a PNG file containing the same image using the save as function. +We now see the chart, and it looks more or less as expected. +However, this chart is interactive. +You can zoom and pan the data, something that you can't do with either audacity or liberal office. +The chart window doesn't have a function for exporting the resulting chart to a PNG file. +It will only save this to an olfig file. +The olfig file is not a standard graphics file. +It is a serialization of the chart data that can only be looked at using the Octave chart viewer. +Alternatively, you can just take a screenshot of the chart after you have interactively zoomed in pan to a point of interest. +At the bottom left of the chart window is a pair of XY coordinates which tell you the current position of the mouse pointer in chart units. +This is very handy as it can be used to get the exact or close to exact frequency of each noise spike. +The Y axis is not scaled in any particular unit such as DB, as I'm not sure how to do that, according to audio industry conventions. +On the other hand, I'm not sure that it's really necessary as I don't know what DB means in tangible terms anyways. +It does show relative sizes so it helps to determine whether you have one noise frequency or multiple frequencies to worry about. +If anyone is familiar with how to scale the raw data from a flack file as exported by socks into DB units according to audio industry convention, +then they're welcome to create an HDR episode telling us how to do it. +Comments on GNU Octave. I had never used GNU Octave before this, although I had heard of it, and it is quite a significant piece of software for a specific segment of users. +The syntax is a bit odd, especially in how it deals with array operations, but it was able to Google various examples and answers to eventually get this working. +If you other peculiarities are that uses the percent character to denote a comment and leaving out the semicolon at the end of the line causes it to print the answer to the console after executing the statement. +The GNU Octave solution was harder to get working than they leave her office method. +However, once it was working, it is easier to use repeatedly. +If I were to want to automatically generate audio files with different filtering or other options and wanted to script the creation of a large number of images showing the results, this would be the way to do it. +When you run the Octave script, you may get a warning which says something like Q socket notifier. You can only be used with threads started with Q thread. +This apparently is a routine warning message from the QT graphics system which has no real significance in this context and can be ignored for our purposes. +We now have a bash script which will use socks to extract the data from a flag file and a GNU Octave script which can be used to display the resulting frequency spectrum. +This does more or less the same thing as plot spectrum doesn't audacity but allows for zooming and panning to get a more detailed look at the data. +However, it doesn't give you an absolute reading of the sound levels in DB, something that audacity does provide. +What I wanted it for though was to find the frequencies of the audible noise and the signal, something that it does quite well. +Episode conclusion. In this episode, we covered the following topics. What Fourier transforms are, extracting data from audio files using socks, analyzing the data using Libra Office, analyzing the data using GNU Octave and several alternative analysis methods. +Series conclusion. This is the end of a four-part series on simple podcasting. In the first episode, we covered a simple podcast recording method. This first episode is all you really need to make a podcast. +In this up-and-up episode, we covered basic filtering and a few other simple topics. The methods used in that episode provide basic improvements to your audio if you feel the need for it. +In the third episode, we covered how to analyze audio noise problems using audacity and additional filtering techniques to deal with specific problems that we may find. +We also covered command line recording, playback, and getting information about an audio recording. In the fourth episode, we engaged in a bit of gratuitous hackery for the fun of it and showed how to use alternative software methods to analyze audio signals. +I hope that this series has been both useful and entertaining and that you will use the knowledge gained here to create and submit your own HPR podcast episodes. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4649.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4649.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..231d058 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4649.txt @@ -0,0 +1,541 @@ +Episode: 4649 +Title: What did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 2 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4649/hpr4649.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:59 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4649, for 2026-05-28 +Today's show is entitled, "What did I do at work today? Part 3 Section 2" +The host is Lee and the duration is 01:03:49 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lee narrates a portion of his working day, this episode is section 2 of 2" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in July 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hi, I'm Lee, today I'll be continuing to narrate some of my working day. +In the last episode I was testing a PHP API class and finally that it was failing +and the certain conditions which might indicate regression, I'll be continuing to debug +the issues today. +So anyway, back to my cake class, my cake test class, so if it doesn't exist, I'm saying +great with ID, great with ID and then I'm tracing it. +And then in my remove function, can I delete an object, it's my DB object class, I delete +an object, delete an object has been deprecated, so I don't worry about things, so in the +systems architecture, it was decided more recently that if an object is not linked to anything +then effectively it's dead anyway, and we don't care about unlimited orphaned objects, +just floating around in the ether, if they're not linked to something, they're actually +not there. +Right, so in the cake class, right, so I've done that, I've created that type in the constructor. +I know, well, so now I have to relate it to the to make it a type object, an object +of type system object, I've written a helper, I'm just gone back to my turn, I'm looking +for a system object, it's going to be far too many results, I'm just head piping that +to head, so that's 2059, and how do I want to relate that, I think the first relationships +available, and I think 1309 is the 101, is the type of so system, I want system object +to be the type of this thing, so first I'll create a system object, type, equals a +this data object, self system object type system object, actually I'll commit, keep things +in the same sort of idiom, and I'll just define that constant object type system object +type system object to notes, sound like it's going in circles, and that's two of defining +that's two of five nine, so I've created my object type system object, and then I'm then +saying system object type, link that with what relationship is, it's best if I want +for you, which is the role type, so just define that as well, it's a relationship that +defines a type and 309, so I'll link a cell role type, that's the constant, I'll link +it to my type, so there I've created this as a type, and now I'm going to do an export +definition where I'm just adding a cake, a JSON, so right, so fix a system object, adding +it to the system organization, because obviously every system organization needs cakes, +so we're adding a cake directly to the system organization, so the heading will be finding +a map thing, and then that I've got listed columns, so actually the last export definition +I copied from was quite over-complicated, so I used a, maybe the first one I set up, which +is a lot simpler, so I'm just adding a cake, it's the same relationship as it, and +there's one, five, one, oh, so it ends in 33, so just look that up in my test class, see what +that relates to, so dummy cake, so that is the correct relationship, the other one will +have been the wrong relationship, so I've got my cake definition, I'm defining a relationship +and defining type, heading, my thing is my label, so I'm leaving this cake and then what +I'm also going to do is do an action, so now I'm looking back on my documentation, which +is where it's all started, where I've been type 4 up, I've been the most recent thing, +and see what was actually saying this documentation is supposed to do, so it's a trigger, +trigger, and I'll define that to be an update, action, add relationship, it's going to be +7024, which is the type relationship, it's just the inverse type, so rather than is the type +of it has the type relationship, and then child, and then I'm going to specify this specific +type that I created for cakes, and at this point I am rather wishing that we were using +near 4 j, because then I wouldn't be hacking away in this language that means nothing +to anyone, I'd actually be hacking away in that we've defined ourselves, I'd be hacking +away, doing exactly the same thing, but I'd be using syntax and terminology that actually +other people would understand what we were doing, but I mean I can explain it at a higher level, +but I'm not the specific way, I'm implementing stuff, it's using our in-built graph database +functions and methods and way of doing things, rather than using cipher, that's it, so +you'll be using cipher if you're using a graph database like Neo4j, and then what we +termed the child is going to be the constant that I derived to find for the type of cakes, +so I'm looking, he's just looking at my test class for that, I define that constant, did I define +that constant yet, I've put it in my object range, file work, maybe I didn't actually put it +in my take test class, well here's a good way to find out just search for it, I did, all right, +I started putting it inside the cakes definition rather than wherever else, put it inside the cakes +definition class, and you know what, I've just, I've got a feeling that I've just put all this +stuff in the wrong place, I put it in the cakes definition, I should put it in the cakes database class, +so quickly doing an about, about turn, I'm grabbing those constants out cakes definition class +and putting them in the cakes database class, making sure I haven't doubly defined any of them +I don't think so, it does help that you have to find the stuff on the top and you actually, +you know, if you've doubly defined something, of course you do, but to put it all at the top, +you can just look through and you know what you've defined and what you haven't, and you know, +basically the most important thing is you know what you're using, what constants you're actually +using, whereas if it was in some other file, like header file, you'd have no, you know, you'd +have to dig a long way to know, actually what is this particular thing doing in the database, +what, what relationship is it using, what objects is it using, but because I'm only using things +I've defined in constants, I'm fairly confident about what the scope is of what this code does, +so I'll just go to my constructor and grab that nonsense that I put in the constructor +for the, it was the cake definition class and I'll put it in the constructor with the cake +database class, we have so much put it in the API user class, put it in the, it's hard when you +define lots of classes in one place, then in one file, this is always going to be the hazard, +sometimes it's more convenient to do so, to define more define some related classes in the same +because I, of course, the file cake test class is.php, now I haven't called it this class, +and often if I'm creating a file that's just one class, I'll call it something.class.php, +because then it's clear what you're doing, but then just as an aside, sometimes I'll create +a helper class inside other than the main class, you know, I'll create a secondary class, +and not showing PHP if you can or in the version that when I started coding this stuff, +whether you could nest classes inside each other in PHP, so only I know with the other, +worker doing visual basic, seems like you can do that, and though, therefore, you can +do that in C sharp, and I imagine that in a more, in a more up-state version of PHP, they +try to accommodate all the modern stuff, the modern languages do, so, but anyway, I'm not assuming +anything about that, and it doesn't, it's irrelevant to this particular instance, so anyway, +I know that that type exists, and I saw I was setting my export definition to, this was where +I jumped here, was object-type dummy cake, and it has this number here, which ends in 471, +I'm going to this, and I'm setting the child to 471, which will just make this thing that we're +adding to be a cake of the type cake, and when it's updated, it will set its type to cake, +so now I've actually got to write some code that will do that in the test classes, +so, it's will be in the cake, I've got a cake, a test data class, I've got rest API class, +I've got a database class, so actually it's going to be in the rest, the cake's rest API, so +add delete update, so I actually update delete update, that's all just to do with doing +cried operations, create, read update delete, that's what cried stands for, it's basically the +most basic thing stuff, so that you would be doing with data and any circumstance, so in the cake's +test class, I've got cakes, test data, so I guess we can just call the end, we can just +do play another, I probably don't need to add anything else in the cake test classes, I've +probably just going to the run tests script, and I'll go to one of my earlier tests, where I'll +just add it to the cake for the rest API, or update it, but I mean adding should be the same, +same as updating, so I'm just copying a load of code, and I've said, so I've got the section I +added earlier, link a type from object using actions, so I'm saying my nice cake equals test +data dummy cake, and result equals cake API add nice cake, so dummy cake will be my rot will be +the wrong definition, and then dummy cake will be a nice cake, all right, I'm slightly confused, +at what point is it deciding which JSON definition to use, so cake API add nice cake, so I look +in my test class, it's what does add do, it's an institution, so it's just posting it to the API, +but how does it know what definition to use, so I guess you need to use a different definition +for each one, so I saw there was all that stuff about setting up the definitions, so I've got +add cake for add cake 3, add cake 2, so actually maybe I should just have add cake 6, so +don't have a complete about turn here, add cake, I know this is to the database, it's not using +the rest API, okay in those what JSON definition to use, according to the entity that we're specifying, +so I'm looking up to see what the entity, where these entities have been defined, set entity, +entity equals cakes, right, so we can do in the set entity function, oh okay, so I think we've got an entity +one and an entity set, so see where else I'm in my run tests, I must be calling set entity, +yes set entity cakes 2, cakes 3, cakes 4, so this one will be cake 6, so I can just, this is +answering my question basically, so cake API set entity, cake API set entity cakes 6, +so it should use my definition which includes the thing that makes it add the type, +I just want to check with what my nice cake looks like in the test class, so this will be in the +date, test data, got dummy cake, it has a label, bake, description, icing, contains sizes, +recipe, so it's just a dummy cake, it doesn't have anything clever in it and it's only going to +look at the label, it's not going to look at anything other than the label, it's going to ignore +the description, it's going to ignore the date, it was baked, it's going to ignore what color the icing +was, so my whole test is, I've set the section link a type to an object using actions, nice cake, +equals test data dummy cake, cake API set, cake 6, post result is cake API, add nice cake, +and code is the status code, so first I'm checking that it's said to 01, +create the right state, why don't I am I over testing, I think I might be over testing, +I've actually all we all I care about is that firstly I get a newly created cake back, so cake +ID equals post result, forward arrow ID, so I've got my ID and then I want to just find out what +the type is for that ID, so let's implement in my test date, is it test data, and my cake API, +so where should I put this, I want to put, I want to put in my tests that I want to +check what the type is of something, but I don't want a hard code, I don't want a hard code here, +in my things, so API use a cake's definition, I could correct standalone function, I mean +there won't be the end of the world, I mean it would be, I mean it's like, it should be a date, +it's a date based function, sorry I'm in stupid, it's going to be a date based function, +so get type, so I'm in my database class, so get type function, get type object ID is in +put parameter, I say cake equals this data object, object, so idea is just wrapping it in my +wrapping the object ID, which is the number wrapping it into an object, which I can then do +in the things too, find out stuff about it, so I'd say my type equals a cake, a child, and then +real type, or self-wrote type, I think type, so it will be has the type that we're checking +this, so 7024, it has the type, yeah has the type, so 7024 have I defined this constant here, +pretty sure I wouldn't have, and I haven't, so let's just define it constant real type inverse, +because in this database system we have the concept of a relationship, every relationship has +an inverse relationship, so if the sky is blue then blue is the color of the sky, that is the color +of, it has the cut, it's the opposite of it, it has the color in real type inverse, it's +in 1994, and of course the fact the ironic thing is I'm going to need to test this text, +I'm not going to write a test, class to test the test, so I'm going to have to test the test +for a hand, and as well as I'm going to debug the test as well as using the test to test the +thing that I'm actually testing, and that's the irony when the testing tests get complex, +right, so I've got the type, and I just return the idea of the type, +and I should return the type ID, yeah and I listen, let's not call it, okay, get type say, +all call it is a cake, and then I can just test, so if type ID return, so just return a billion expression, +type ID calls it calls, and then this type that I defined earlier, object type dummy k, +it's just a long number, and it's full set for one, so it is a cake, we'll just compare the type with +that constant object type dummy k, but self before it, because it's a constant of the class, +right, that should be it is a k, we're just going to assert in our tests that it will +retake on us, so rather than assert true, what assert is a k, and pass it, the idea, in fact, +we can just pass it, post result ID, rather than put an idea in a separate variable, because it's +too much code, and actually what object is actually running this is the, from the cupboard of the class, +it's the k-state-based class, and what's my instance of the k-state-based class, such +look for the word k-state-based, so D-B, I'm just calling it D-B, by the way, every variable in +page P we prefix it with a dollar sign, and I haven't been saying dollar sign, but it's just because +my brain filters that out now, but I know it's just something that tells my brain, it's a variable, +or not, I mean I remember in basic, in the original basic, you would have the dollar sign +after the variable, so if it was a string, not if it was an inch, so test, I really like PHP, +I mean if you say it's an old fashioned language, but things that you can do like, you can just +put a variable inside a double-quited string, and nine times out of ten, it will just replace +that, it will just happily put the value of that thing into that string, and even if it's a complex +object, and it gets cast to a string, then, which, and I use that a lot, actually, because even +in my database object, the class I was mentioning earlier, I have it so you can cast it to a string, +and it intelligently finds out the name of the object, because objects can, the name of an object, +can be defined by the object itself, or it can be defined by a sort of label attached to that +object, which we call a display name, so it's very neat that you can just cast stuff to a string like +that, it's basically changing the type of an inch to draw us any other of which was string, +this by putting it in double quotes, and you can even do have like put an array, or a property +of an object using the arrows syntax, or an array using the square brackets syntax, inside a string, +and you just get a nice string out of the thing convert to a string with the variables inside it +converted, and it's just like, especially when you, in the old days, when you would be hacking +with HTML and PHP, it just seemed to do all the things in the most efficient way, but I +said, you can say that about any language, say that about par, or we can say about lots of languages, +and the truth is some of it is kind of unnecessary now, because the move has been away from +in the industry and practice away from rendering stuff in HTML, rendering the HTML with PHP +in and amongst the HTML, because a lot of stuff has a back end, which is purely PHP and a +front end, which is purely HTML and JavaScript, I guess if it's reacting might be type script, +but you won't be intermingling PHP and HTML quite as much as you might have been in the past, +when PHP was invented, so some of that cleverness is kind of lost, and actually it may +become some incumbents, anyway, I've asserted that, and I've saved it, and nicely sublime text has +actually got PHP parser, that it runs what it has an add on that does PHP parsing when I save the +file, so it's nicely telling me that there's a syntax error, tells me on what line it's on, +so yeah, I've just put a neat, a spurious equal sign there, so that's, that should be okay, +let's run it, let's run these tests, I was actually going to do that before, but I just got completely +sidetracked, at least I'm in the right folder here, I got up to the stage, I was going to run it just +to make sure that I actually ran before I actually made any changes, I hope PHP run, I'm in the +terminal here in console, logged into my dev server, she's running a bunching, so run, my piece is running +a coupon to the server, it's self, doesn't have graphical windowing system running on it, it's +purely the log-in, and I actually sit for the terminal or it exposes ports, which network services +accessing, most importantly, it's got the HTTP port 80, whatever, open, fact, just don't end that +local host, so as it's still in map on any box I've got, if I can, even a container I might try to, +as you shouldn't really, yeah, it's got port 80, it's got port 443, it's got the SMTP port open +for whatever reason, it's got the SSH port open, of course, I was all in the OK, it's got the +MySQL port open, got a feeling a firewall, another level wouldn't allow public access to, +mySQL port and palace, let's just test that in that media, and a certain number, and three, three, +six, so I should say, Python P3, and it's just filters, so that's probably the MySQL is not available +to the public, but where is port 22, 18, 4, 4, 3, so that's the SSH and the HTTP ports, +or open to the public, all the other ports I can see, like RPC buying is 1, 1, 1, +and the SMTP, they're not open to the public, and the MySQL is an open to public, +all right, back to what I was doing, I was just typing PHP run test, stop PHP, well it hasn't crashed, +it hasn't out of, out of hand crashed, now it's running all the tests, what's running, +what here we go, it has crashed now, create with ID, it's past too many arguments, so why, +what have I done wrong, let's look in my DB objects, in my database, object plus, +the right DB objects, such with great, with ID, I see it not, and I did, honey, I'm asking +it an ID in the name, you need two parameters, and what have I not passed it an ID in the name, +take test classes, I go to the Cape Test classes, create with ID, I passed it, and I did, +I haven't passed it a name, okay, what should I call it, Cape Type, some pass it a name now, +so it won't name that thing, it's run the test again, I do need the toilet break at this point, +some hit, like my head flans off, say that, actually I'm, that's been abandoned because +it's tried to insert something that was empty, because I've called the thing the wrong name, +yeah, I've just called, I've not called the SQL variable that's kind of the SQL string, +I haven't called it SQL, I couldn't read SQL, because I copied it from somewhere else, +now the time lucky made me, running those running off to the toilet, okay, I'm back and it's crashed, +again, it's telling me the SQL statement that crashed, I didn't wrap it in double quotes, +that was all, I, I don't need double quotes a single quote, so I tried to insert a string, +so my, my Cape Type was a string and I put it in a rescue or statement without the quotes, +so I'll run that again, see if it runs, and all these tests are starting to run, +well at least it's saying setting up the Cape definition, it's crashed again, +so this isn't, I'm going to one must be of type, Cape Type, so if some reason I'm passing +a Cape State base, when it should be an SQL database, which is fair enough, as a valid concern, +so I'm looking at this protected date, Cape State, my coffee is stained cold, +I still good, I, it's Italian, my skill, right, my skill must be of type, my skill, I in Cape State +base given, so I look at the cool stack, this was in Cape's test class, the line 213, +and that was in, yeah, 213, so I just scroll down to line 213, so what it was doing, +this, or Cape, the lead, or Cakes, I don't see the problem, I think this might be a regression, +I don't think this necessarily relate to what I've been doing, and as I've caught in, +introduced to a regression, so basically I've got unpassiated, I should be passing it a database, +so object and unpassiated, a Cape State database object, so it's easily that I got confused +between the two, I just don't, I'm trying to locate where exactly I did, make that mistake, +so runs test, the lead is in the delete all Cakes function, and then it was in the children function, +so it's getting the children of the Cakes, which was, yeah, 213, as I said, +so this all, this all is the wrong type, so this all is system object, child, +real system organization, how could it be a Cakes database, am I setting this data equals something +I'm setting these data data source, I'm setting DB to be the wrong, all right, I tell you what, +I am using DB, the word DB more than once, and that could be confusing the hell out of that, +yeah, it could be confusing the hell out of it, so I have in the run test script, +I'm calling this thing DB, and maybe that wasn't a problem before, but the moment it is, +so it just search for all instances of DB, and doing regular expression, backward slash, +dollar DB, see how many times I see it, so actually I find greater than sign, which stands for an arrow, +it seems to be in lots of places, so let's just call it something else, I mean, +one of the hell, just search for a place, just type it, just have to be careful that search is +for a place, it's not going to replace all that, I'm not overseeing that in that replacing, +all sorts of shared in mind too, DB, our place it with, and the worst thing with a search +in a place if it's part of another word, and then you end up, so I think I'll just, I'll +do separately the arrow, the DB arrow, I'll replace with Cape Database, Cape DB, Cape and the +Scored DB, so dollar sign, Cape and the Scored DB, in our place all, I forgot to put the arrow +and replace all, and then this one other place, we're gonna replace it, where I didn't use an arrow, +whereas when I was assigning it in the first place, so now as if there is any DB, so DB is nowhere to be found, +so that might fix it, it's just, you know, case in point, never use global variables, +ever, ever, ever, ever, you know, this, for system-wide stuff, there is this, and it's, well, +basically if you're using global variable, be damn sure it's part of the architecture, +and whatever you do, don't call anything else that global variable, especially if you're using +explicitly bringing that thing in, that using its name, okay, right, the first test is found, +price response with crated status code is not true, and I've got 500, so this is not good, +because the 500 means that the thing is crashed, luckily, we actually have a function for just, +a little script for just this circumstance, and it's called WTF, it's not, I know there is another +WTF on where it in repositories, but this script is not that, my own version of WTF, +and it tells me, if I, it looks at the look files, tell me what the fact where it was, +kind of access, offset of type string on string, and it's to point me to particular line of my +API, this is not what we call a graceful failure of this, in my API query, 9364, I'm quite glad +I'm running these tests, if nothing else, it's just going to help me fix the tests, +all right, look at the cool stack, this was add set column values, add values, +cannot access offset type string, on 9671 actually, I'm looking at the exactly where it went wrong, +all right, I'm completely confused, have I not got this feeling, I'm not updated, just thought +how I did it, right, I need to download, I've updated it in the repository from someone else's +changes, I should need to download these files again, to my local machine, so download file, +if some machines just download file, if you're a coder, download file, there's three classes +I've downloaded, I try to download everything else I see lying around, because if someone else has +changed their other than me, then it will have changed, it's just, I was the only person working on +this, then I know my supervisor has gone in updated it, to get something I've been working, +and then I've gone in trying to use it, if I'm working from the wrong version, then it's going to +be telling me, and my local cook is not going to match, so 671, that's better, I'm looking at +something entirely different, so cannot access offset of type string, so basically I've got a string, +I think something like it thinks is an array, except it's a string, how did that thing become a string? +So I'm calling the add function with a string, and it should always be an array, +so this is where I should do type checking, but because this type checking is recently introduced in +PHP, when I say recently, not that recently, but within the however many years since I've been working +PHP on PHP, so in the days when I learned PHP, I was not doing type checking, and I've just +managed to cope without doing type checking, in a lot of the code I do, but if you look at any +modern PHP, you'll see that they are specifying what type each of the variables is, suddenly in the +parameters of a function, and especially what type of variable their function returns, and see if this +was checking that an array was being passed, it would crash at that point, it would not come down to +the middle of the function, and then trying to do something funny with an array that wasn't an array. +I'm not going to update this to type check, because then it's a wink with the rest of the code, +you know, I can just make a new year's resolution wherever that, and the new code I write, I'll +use type checking. I mean, if in some of the code in the past I've just had manual type checking +where I've said, is this an array or not, and I break out if it's an array, because I was worried +about that, where it was a reasonable risk, I might pass it in the wrong thing, +but she was some sort of recursive function where it could be of different types that I'm passing +in depending on what level the recursion is at. Anyway, let's see, where am I calling this add function +called it in set cold values? So now I'm going to look for that one, some searching for Ion set +cold values, and I'm calling add this add, so actually this is quite a substantial thing, +I'm calling it in all different places, but luckily this tells me what line I called it on, +then 1, 5, 5, 2, so if it was a some definition, you know what, I think I've opened the +can of worms, because it looks like this could be all kind of stuff to debug now, and my +miss a good thing I've opened it, but basically I need to start a fresh and start working for +exactly what is going on here, because what I can do now what I can just do for the moment, +I'll just exit, if value is not an edge, I'll put a comment, say hack, +because then if I search later for the word hack, I'll know I've put this hack in there, +if value, if not is a ray value, then I'll exit with the value, +accept, and say what the value is, and I'll make print, whatever it was that I'm looking at, +I'm looking at a column at the moment, or something it calls itself a column, a call, +I'll just use the print off function just to output that to this, that object is screen, +as well, and exit, and I'll run my stuff again, that was in my other terminal window, +I'll run the tests again, oh this is a problem actually, because it's gone and +it's actually not going to output this directly to the screen, because it's an API, +in it I need to log this stuff, I can't just print it to the screen, so +wonder what I'm using in this, so yes I'm using my login class, so I can just call self-log, +set of classes at a trade, and login.trate.pshp second, I can log, in fact I can log error even, +so all right, this often happens, I jump around and I lose where I'm coding, I have to search +for encoding, so I mean you know note to someone who ever creates text editors, it'll be nice to have +a way of scrolling back, just irrespective of what you've been doing, just scrolling back to what +you're without undoing anything, just scrolling back, as she is, that is the way of doing it, +I just undo and it's scrolling back, but just without being able to undo, they could find what +go to the line I was last editing, or that I was last looking at, and maybe they're probably +a bit even sublime text has a way of doing that, so I don't know, so anyway I'm going to self- +log the value, I actually log the message, because I think that's a better function that +can actually I can pass it unlimited number of objects, and it will just nicely output that is, +I just don't want to see what the name of the log file is, so I know what to look at, +so it should be defined as a constant log file, so it's temporary API.log, which is not that, +name for it, so I'll go to my temporary directory, and I'll tell iPhone F, it's just a follow +the API.log, and run the tests again, so if anything comes out before it crashes, you know what's +interesting is that it's not given a 500 this time, it hasn't crashed this time, but that's probably +because I've extended before it actually got to the point of crashing, or I just realized something +I should, if I'm looking this, I should actually output strings, I can identify this part of it, +so I've put sub definition, now what should I call this? Yes, sub F, not a right, you know, +run that again, so then I can look in the log, that it will say sub F, not a right hopefully, +before it outputs the stuff that it does, here we go subnet is not a right, and then it's +saying that there's an array, so which is my columns, and then the value is it's saying, +it's what nothing is not happening any value, so it's got, what is my sub definition here? +Yeah, it lost, so where's it getting value from? Value, there's values, and it's +iterating through the values, isn't it? You know what, let's just hack in a fix, you know, +much as much as I like to really understand what's going on, let's just tell it if it's not +an array, just don't do it, this is how lazy we are, if not, it's array then continue, +well let's say let's say let's say let's say let's say log the fact we expect is an array, +and then we just say continue and continue the self-log error, I would actually like to know +where this value has come from, type equals value, oh look up, no, oh look it, not entirely sure +where it's getting that from, I just log error, it's expected in the array, sub definition, +so at least I can trace this back, it's expected, and I just run the tests again, +so if the test fails from something other than an array then I'll know that it's a problem, +but the test is all passing, all right now we've had a crash, try to add value, I do not +indefinition, let's come out in my log, so let's say sub definition expects it in the array, +and it said try to add value not indefinition, don't know if that was immediately +what happened before the crash, I can see they looks like it was because it's out putting the +it was just trying to add exactly the same thing where it was get updated cake, +it was a cherry alarm and cake, it was trying to get it, and then it's trying to add value +by d not indefinition, so let's say try to add value, try to add value key not indefinition, +set values, set values, set values being called, it shouldn't be called at this point, +because we're not, we're getting an updated cake, we're not adding it, so actually it was +may have been the previous thing that was looking at, so then it's crashed in a totally different +point, so I should do this, give this up, and do my dot ETF again, see where it crashed, +uncalled value error, and it's given me a line number 571, and sometimes you just find out where +it died and then just stick a bit of sick Apache metal over it, just gaff a taper, +it doesn't make tile off since, saying happened on 571, cannot be empty, +mySQL I query, cannot be empty, so I'm giving it some SQL, the Generate SQL is failing, +so this is no good at all, the Generate SQL is failing is something really up, +so where else is this using this, check up, they check unique, but actually my wish you +thought, do this at the end of this, if not SQL, then we, if logon error, not SQL, +look, stuff to look, found to generate SQL, this will be calling a log error function, +cannot give the error function like a parameter, some parameter, wow, it's difficult, +it seems to be taking all sorts of stuff in, at least it'll be nice if it logs that, +I think I've missed a semicolon or something, some color name, and then just run the test again, +my recognition has stopped churning away, it's now a new on fan mode, it's obviously cool down in here, +it's efficiently, I guess you could look at the log and it's, come up with that, +think about the SQL, don't tell it, it's helped put the hold down log, +correct for the word files, see what the error was again, argument query, +mySQL I query, I'm query, cannot be empty, I was wrong about exactly what was going on there, +at least I've proved myself wrong, it's two, nine, five, seven, one, +pointing me towards, okay, this is interesting, why am I calling query on mySQL I object, +I'm not calling DB run SQL which is normally cool, well at least some reason, +argument one cannot be empty so the SQL is empty, it's log the SQL, +I mean what the hell self, log, let's go, look message yourself, +let's go, generate it, let's go for query, and then the SQL itself, +oh cost it to a string, and then what it is we get something out, not in fact I'm going to put +some sort of delimter around it so that if it's empty string then at least we get that as well, +I'll just put double quote, some escaping that with a backslash, double quote and a double quote, +and that's just capital, that's let's be polite here, my log message, +tail it, and run the things again and look at the log and see what comes out, +right here we go, wow, it's a massive chunk of SQL that's generated, but I mean it proves that SQL +is that the SQL is an actual lump of stuff, it's not nothing but that, and then it says generated +SQL for query, nothing, so what's going on, what's that about, generated SQL query, all right, +so that was the previous one that was that, and then this one it's done, it's done nothing, +but why don't get, as I've called generate, I've logged something else in generated SQL for query +in the function of it, so when it returns SQL, there are some conditions in which it doesn't +return of value, what's my set error day, and it's my set error function, also logged the error, +it's maybe the problem that I'm using two different mechanisms for a point, there are one of them, +one of them is really for development, the other one is for like actual usage, and this is where +there's disparities coming up, I guess, so let's log error, let's actually log this error, +using into the log file, as well as adding it to the list of errors, which might actually get +reports to the user, we don't want it to report, don't want this to report to the user, +certainly some of these, you'll be logging more stuff than you'll be reporting, +and when I say the user, and what I've been using might just be, just get stored somewhere in the +system and someone uses the user interface to investigate what happened, so all right here again, +no such nested definition on 1905, in API.php, right, so this is on the no such nested definition, +there's no such nested relationship, so okay this is what it's failing, all right so we +without me going to the deals of why, even with myself, why it's happening, +just look at where that's happening, so no such nested relationship, I mean this does point to +like add data or something, so let me look at this, I can see what the object idea is, +I've got a Python program around myself, let's me explore an object in the database and it's +not linked to anything, should it be linked to something, so it's got, on which JSON definition +isn't using for this test, so get updated cake via API, that's the name, that's the section, +so look at the run tests, search for that, get up, don't catch my API, K-K-P-I get, +so she can get, so we haven't set the entity at all yet, before like 195, +search for the word entity, it first turns up when I'm trying to update things that I haven't, +so we're just using the first definition, so I can look right there at that, at the export definition, +we have got what's called a multi definition, we have got what's called a sub definition, +so this could very well be the sub definition that it's having a problem with, and it's actually +could be because because I've found to define this sub definition, because this is where it was +failing before expected and now I set call values, although did that happen immediately before that +and that that's 449-58 seconds and this last error was 450 and 4 seconds and no, +it was not immediately proceeding yet that happened, so or how can I, I don't know how contest this, +that's my hypothesis, what is it, notice the recipe that is getting, I could tell you the recipe +out of definition, I might break the other tests and you can't easily comment stuff out, Jason, +you know, it looks like a definite regression, because this did use to work, some reason it's not, +so I mean, the biggest thing for me to do is find out why it's not, I think it's to do +the sub definition expecting an array, that's 1, 5, 6, D, why actually I don't need to know what +line it's out, can you search for it, you feel like so sub definite or expected an array, +you know, here we go, so the question is, why is Bush, so I just want to be lazy by just patching it +and, you know, it's not going to, let me patch that fix it by patching it, I've got actually figure out +what what's happening, you're still going to look at this, export rates, things sub diff, +shun spelling is right, so vowel call is, I think, called vowel call value of column +or something for whatever reason, it's what it's called, it's sub definition, so let's look, +look for all instances of the word sub definition, let's hear it, we're right there, +fetch sub definitions, so I've got a feeling, we're using fetch sub definitions to +deal with this situation we've got sub definition and then we're passing it, we're passing it +an array and then what we do with that array we're getting a map of things and then we're just +processing it as if it was, as if it wasn't a sub definition as if it was a normal top-level definition +because this is all about having a nested object that we're an entity that has a nested part to it, +so I don't know, for example, a customer has an address and then the address itself might be an +object which has a top line and a second line in the postcode, but you might want those to be +returning like as a nested object, you know, a nested in the JSON under an address key, +all right, and in number two I look right, so that shortly, right, I have to decide now +whether I take a break and document just where I'm at, so I think this is possibly a good idea, +so I don't think I'm going to flower into this and get in the major answer, so I'm bringing +up Joplin and you don't, you know, it's fixed everything, all in one go, you know, that's +success is never guaranteed, then you think you do sometimes you just document the problem and come +back to it, what folder are we looking in the API folder, so I knew you know, I call it Deepug API, +I've already got one called API Deepug, and what was this? This was something else entirely, +and that wasn't something else entirely, something related but not this, so I'll call this something +more meaningful, so cake test by hell with sub-death, and that's, I try to make the name +for note not too long, because then it doesn't fit in the column of notes in Joplin, unless you +really stretch that out, but then it's taken up too much room, you know, got room to write the note, +after them turn off the preview, because that takes a half the screen, don't type it in mark +down, so I just note down the name of function fetch sub-death missions, put that in that text, +I'll just look down the errors that I'm game and what log far I'm looking in, so putting those +in triple that text, and I know it's sometimes it helps if you just put tell it it's plain text, +and the mark down there's a bit of cumbersome to do that, but otherwise it's syntax highlights it +when you preview it, it doesn't matter that I don't care, I don't care, it's honest, I'm +looking at it, I should let it, if it wants to syntax guests or what it thinks it is and syntax +highlighted in whatever way it thinks it wants to, go ahead, just be honest, I don't know, +half a half, do we really want, I think, guests, at anything, do we want Joplin to be guessing? +What, or have a standard way of syntax highlighting, or do we want that when we create +block quite a block of unformatted text that we just wanted to be playing without syntax highlighting, +suppose it's convenient, if it guesses what it is and it syntax highlights it or it has some +sense of default syntax highlighting, and at the same time it's a bit annoying if it is just standard +text, you would kind of want it to default, standard text, and let's we specifically say +backtick, backtick, backtick, SQL or backtick, backtick, PHP, because otherwise I've got a +type backtick, backtick, backtick, text, and only at that point it's not syntax highlighting, +and because it's a log file, it's going to have the mixture of all these stuff, so it's best +to treat it as text, anyway I've just persuaded myself to put the word text there, so it's pasted +in what was happening in the log file, let me describe it before my brain completely melts, +so I'll document what part of the test was failing, so test failure, is double hash symbol, what +pounds symbol, just to make that heading to, so a reason, and basically the reason is because +sub-definition is getting past nothing or string string when it should get an array, so +it is going wrong, go wrong and focus, find that bit where expected, and the array, so I'll tell +it what a line, which is include that bit of code, about sub-definition, where kind of sub-definition, +so I've included that, is put loads of tabs in there, at the beginning I can thankfully select +and shift tab to bring it, get rid of all that unwanted indentation, so we're not Python-I, +right, the reason sub-definition is getting past nothing or string when it should get an array, +so it's going wrong, it's maybe not the root cause, and we do the WTF, so I can just get a copy of the +crash, there was given a sum that's the recent crash and not some other crash, because yeah that's +I think that's the reason one batch run the test again, let it crash, and then I'll do WTF again, +and it should be five past six, so it's waiting for that, so the first test is passing, +it's not completely screwed, and then that was a five past five because that's UTC, +and it's currently British summertime, where I am, so fatal error, that's my heading, +and then I'm pasting in what the fatal error was, so right at the top, I'll say I think we should +look here, because this is where I can maybe have narrowed it down to, so I might be +look here as I'm heading, maybe look here, I'll just say maybe look at the putt the name of the +function in Bactics, in and the name of the file is API query.php, and I'll just say log, and that's API.log, +it's my heading, it's just tells you what's where that is, it tells you the test failure, +it tells you the reason it tells you the fate to error, okay I mean I've documented that now, +exactly where, where I'm right, because I'm hungry and it's so kills I need to take, +and it's not past my bedtime, let's past the time, I should be working really, +it's start late today, obviously I had the meeting in this morning, so they're trying to +remember how much time I've actually spent in this, it's exit out of this dev server and back +my local machine could code, it could work at the log, press end, so we're using some of that +cat or something that nicely could nicely output stuff when you cat it, and it gives you keys +that sort of less or keys and it's time and ending line numbers, the thing that you're looking +at is highlights it nicely in different colors, quite sensibly, I'm looking at +fourth of July, so I'm not including what did this morning, so I'm going up to three, +30 are stied, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 19, so it's about two and a half hours, +and it wasn't like checking my name out, but not that long, so I think I just +looked down, turned, I did two and a half hours on that look, I try to look it in as much +there as I can, and I've already got one for today, so I had to put a meeting that already +locked, just try to add the same day again, so it's like hours +right in the try at the test, I saw first what I did was I documented the action +facility of the API, try adding tests and noticed failure in API tests started investigating +problem detected fatal error when processing sub definition, and actually I've got +feeling this and may have come across this error, but just not noticed it hadn't been +and explicitly noticed it was a problem, but certain thing the stuff I was working on with +creating a swagger definition, and I've denied the API definition programmatically, +and some of the entities were failing and it might well be not failing to produce +documentation but failing when I was actually testing them, against that definition using a +utility, called postman, and it was not retrieving anything, but I do think it was giving +a 500 error, so maybe it wasn't the same error as this, but it's not bad thing that I'm now +getting into the detail that I'm getting into the weeds with it, and really because I haven't +been doing, I'm working on this for well over a year, maybe two years, even since I was +what since I was doing, since I implemented this the first time, so it's good that I'm really +seriously getting back into and seeing what's going on and updating the tests and stuff, +seeing where it's falling down, especially as I've had some edits from other people +to my code, so they could introduce regressions that other people were not even +that the people who did it were not aware of, so there we are, so an overall +today I've done four hours for this company, for this particular company that's +having done anything for the other company, anyway so I don't even leave it there, +I know where I need to get started next time, next time I do this, so I'm closing that down, +shutting that down, can take my pill, going to have something to eat, because there's +past six o'clock, going to check messages and discord and stuff, but I can do that in my iPad, +so I shut my PC down now, so I stop recording now. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4650.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4650.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab6b1bd --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4650.txt @@ -0,0 +1,146 @@ +Episode: 4650 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 12 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4650/hpr4650.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:01 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4650, for 2026-05-29 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 12" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:14:30 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We begin a sample game of Civilization V." +Hello, this is Huka, welcoming you to another exciting episode in our ongoing look at computer +strategy games, and we're continuing with Civilization 5, and up until now we've been explaining +the various mechanics of how this works, but to help put it firmly in your mind what I'm +going to do is play a game and tell you about what happens as we go through it and what decisions +I'm making and why I'm making them, which I hope is going to make it a lot easier to absorb all +of this information. So Civilization 5 introduced a new victory type, so I thought it might be fun +to try that, and that is the diplomatic victory. Now I decided I would play as Austria +on the Prince level. The Prince level means that all players are equal and no one is favored. +Now there are plenty of people who say, oh, you know, Prince level is too easy, you know, +I go for deity level. Great, all the more power to you if you want to do it. +I play games for fun. I don't need to impress anybody, and you shouldn't feel any need to +impress anybody either. So in this case, I'm playing on Prince level, and that means that I'm not penalized +anyway. I'm not benefited in any way. The computer players I play against aren't benefited or penalized +in any way. Then for my map, I chose a fractal with a map size standard, game speed standard. +My only advanced option was quick combat, because I didn't need to see that +drawn out, particularly since I planned to avoid combat as much as necessary. +My leader is Maria Teresa, and her Austria has the unique ability called diplomatic marriage. +Now this allows us to either annex or puppet any city state that has been allied to us for five +turns with the proper expenditure of gold. My plan was to use this to puppet the city states to +control their votes for the diplomatic victory, but that was a misunderstanding of the rules. +I actually implemented one of the hardest ways to win a diplomatic victory. Nonetheless, that's what I did. +Now to get them to ally with me, the most effective way to do this is with cash and lots of it. +And of course, even more cash to actually affect the puppeting of them. +So my overriding objective in this game is to amass a large treasury. +Yeah, a large treasury is never a bad thing in a game of sieve. +Now I can't ignore my military either, because a weak military invites attacks from greedy neighbors. +And, you know, I may need to liberate the occasional city state if another player conquers them. +Austria also has a unique unit, the Hassar, which replaces the cavalry unit. It can move after attacking, +has a flanking bonus, and has one extra movement. +And the unique building is the coffee house, which increases the generation of great people in the +city by 25%. So you can expect me to build those in every city as well. +Now with that in mind, I started the game and settled in place. +I had mountains nearby, but also sheep and silver within my city, so some useful resources. +I immediately started to produce a scout as my first unit and sent my warrior out to explore. +In the very early stage, I focused on exploring the surrounding area and finding any goody huts, +which in this game are called ruins. My initial city site is not exactly ideal as it is all +hilly with a jungle nearby. After building my two scouts, my next priority was to build a worker +unit to increase the productivity of my city. And for my first social policy, I unlocked tradition. +When I got my second policy, I picked oligarchy and planned to complete all of the tradition tree. +I cleared out a barbarian encampment and then discovered my first city state, Vilnius. +Then I needed to clear out another barbarian encampment that was blocking me from finishing my exploration. +Meanwhile, I'm focusing on getting texts for sailing the ocean blue because that is how I plan to get +trade routes to discover city states I can pop it and so on. Now, because money is +to key to my strategy, I made a beeline for currency in my science research. +And while headed there, I completed the tradition tree. +When I can get there, I will work on the commerce tree to maximize my cash. +But until then, the patronage tree will let me improve my city state relations, which is important +for improving my relationships with city states. After all, you need to be allies with them +for five turns before you can pop it them. I now have three cities and can probably squeeze out +a few more, which should be sufficient to my needs. Now, at turn 141, I have six cities, +and that's all I will build in this game. I now have the technology to build workshops, +which are the first productivity boosters available, so I set all my cities to building them. +For research, my immediate object was to get to compass, so that I could build the galley ass, +which would let me do more ocean exploration. But to go into deep ocean, I will need to go further +to get astronomy, which will let me build the caravel, which can enter deep ocean. +Once I got that, I switched to banking, not just for money, but as a prerequisite for building +the forbidden palace, which grants two additional delegates in the world's Congress or later +United Nations. When I get banking, I'll go back to astronomy and then navigation to advance my +sea going capabilities. Now, by turn 216, I had gotten banking and started on the forbidden palace. +And by luck, just as I started, I got a great engineer. I'm holding him in a reserve in case I need +to hurry productions, and great engineers are the only way to do that with an in civilization five. +I also picked up astronomy, which will let me build caravels to explore the whole ocean. +My next research priority will be gunpowder since it is time to beef up my defenses. +At turn 240, my caravel started to come out, and I found several new city states. +And since my treasury is healthy, I started the turn with 6,000 gold, and I'm bringing in a +hundred each turn. I began the process of puppeting city states. So let's take a look at how that works. +There are some few details here. So the requirements are two things. +First, you have to be allied with the city state for five consecutive turns. +Second, you have to have the right amount of cash. Now, this amount is not too much early on, +but it rises over time. So, how do you become allies with the city state? +There are a number of things you can do to improve your relationship. +You can take on a quest that a city state has published, which can be things like +find another natural wonder or create a great admiral. +These quests pop up continuously through the game and you're free to ignore them. +But fulfilling one will improve your relationship. +Trade will also improve your relationship. So in this game, all of my trade routes were made with +city states. If you are in a position to have a successful war, you can find a former city +state that was conquered by one of the empires. The other players, in other words, +liberate it, and then it will be your ally for the rest of the game. +Giving them presents is how I usually do it, though. You can give them units or money. +If your purpose is to get allies, money works best. But I do gift units in two circumstances. +First, if I have obsolete units, giving them away might be better than deleting them, +because at least I'm getting a little something in terms of my relationship with the city state. +Second, if a city state is under attack by another empire, +gifting the units might help them hold out and make life difficult for one of your rivals. +Now, the place for all of this is done is the city state screen, which opens up when you click on the +bar above the city state, which is where you handle all of your relationships. +Now, at the top of the screen, you see your current status, which more often than not will be neutral, +which is how all city state relationships start out. But you can get the angry, +for instance, by moving a unit of yours into their territory. +Now, if you only do it once and give them a little time to get over it, +they will go back to neutral. You can also improve the relationship by pledging to protect the city +state, but be careful. If they get attacked and you do not try to protect them, they will get +very angry. Giving a gift opens a pop-up to say what kind of gift you want to give, +250 gold, 500 gold, 1000 gold, or a unit. Note that a unit is only worth 5 influence points. +Well, 250 gold is worth 20. So, as I said, money is more powerful if your aim is to improve your status +with them. So, at turn 242, I found the city state of Singapore and it appears that I was the first +empire to find them. So, I immediately pledged to protect them. My influence with them was 20, +which is neutral. We just met and that is where things stand on first meeting. To be friends, +you need to get to 30 and to be allies, you need to get to 60. +When I clicked next turn, I got a quest from Singapore. They were worried about a barbarian +campment nearby. And if I cleared it out, I would get the additional influence with them. +In this case, though, I let that go by. I want to move more quickly and Singapore is across the ocean +from me. My influence with them at this point was 21, so only a modest increase. +But I have 6,038 gold in my treasury and I'm bringing in 102 per turn. +So, let's see what a gift of 500 gold will do. Well, it brings me to 65 influence. So, we're now allies. +But when I mouse over Singapore, the pop-up window reminds me that my influence will decrease +by 1.12 per turn. For an empire other than Austria, this would mean a regular infusion of cash to +keep up your status. And I have one diplomatic victories with other empires by saving up a lot of +cash and dumping it on city-states just before the vote. But for Austria, you have a special ability +called diplomatic marriage that lets you turn the city-state into a pop-up and that is permanent. +But it also presents some obstacles, as we'll see. We are allies now, but my influence will drop +by one each turn, and I might lose my ally ship before I can puppet them. But I can gift a unit +and get another 5 points, and I happen to have a very obsolete warrior unit that will serve the purpose. +However, it takes 3 turns for the unit to arrive, so I lose a few points, +but I'm still fine. At turn 247, I can now use the diplomatic marriage option to make +a puppet of Singapore. Prior to doing this, I was 4th in score with 604, while the leader had 729. +My happiness level was plus 25, and I now had 5,833 gold in my treasury. +Then I made Singapore a puppet, and now I'm third in the game, with a score of 664. +My treasury has fallen to 5,258, which means it cost me 575 gold. +But most significant is that my happiness fell from plus 25 to plus 9, which is a big loss. +I have enough gold to puppet 4 or 5 more city-states at this time, but if I did, I would have +rebellions breaking out and my empire would collapse. Now this is the obstacle that Austria has to face. +We need to promote happiness before we go much further with making puppets. +Civ is always a game of balances. So with that, this is Huka, signing off, and as always, +I encourage you to support free software. Bye-bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4651.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4651.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db90b93 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4651.txt @@ -0,0 +1,859 @@ +Episode: 4651 +Title: HPR Community News for May 2026 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4651/hpr4651.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:02 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4651, for 2026-06-01 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Community News for May 2026" +The host is HPR Volunteers and the duration is 00:49:24 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "HPR Volunteers Josh, Ken, Rhon talk about shows released and comments posted in May 2026" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Follin and you're listening to Take 2 of another episode of Hacker Public Radio Community News for May 2026. +And joining me from somewhere in the U.S. is... +It's Ron from Baltimore, Maryland. +And from somewhere else in the U.S. is... +Josh Knapp, host of the website, and I'm in Southern California. +Super. I was just going to do that for you, shameless plug. +Ron is our lead developer, and Josh is our basically patron. +When you hear admins on HPR, this is Josh. +When the site goes down, I contact Josh. +So Josh is doing all the real work over there, and thank you very much for that. +How are you doing tonight, guys, this morning for you, I guess? +Holding in there, just starting my work day, and took a little bit of time out to join the show. +Ron? +Oh, I'm doing good. It's lunchtime here. +So, worked out perfectly. +Super duper. +Well, enough chit-chat. +This is the HPR Community News for the HPR Community. +And HPR is Hacker Public Radio, which is a podcast that releases shows every weekday, Monday through Friday, +on any topics that are of interest to hackers. +Around about this time, we normally ask somebody to read out the new hosts. +But unfortunately, for as many months in a row, we have had no new hosts. +And the new hosts stopped coming in as soon as we stopped putting in the warning in the reserve shows. +Did you notice that? +I hadn't noticed it, but it does seem to be a nice prompt for a new host. +Doesn't it just? +People kind of need that whole, the project is going to end before they step up and volunteer. +So, to prove me wrong, I expect next month that we get several new hosts coming into HPR. +So, let's do this thing. +And if you are a new host, please, first of all, make sure you introduce yourself by saying your name. +And secondly, tell us how you found out about HPR, because it does help. +I keep a mental note of where people are coming from. +It does help me a lot. +And it also, we have a limited amount of time and budget and stuff. +So, if you're coming because I met you at a conference, then tell us if you're coming from one of the guys who's met you at a log fest or that you are on Mumble or on Mastodon or somewhere, +then tell us that we know that the time we're investing in these platforms are working out for us. +Okay. +Without further ado, what we do here on this show is once a month, we give a summary of all the news and events around the project. +And we also use this as a way to cut down on the noise. +A lot of people just subscribe to this feed and then go back and listen to the shows that they find particularly interesting for that month. +So, what we like to do here is go through all the episodes. +And we will start with the one that was the first of the month. +And that was by E. Hookah on Friday. +It was playing Civilization V Part 2. +And this one was about players, leaders, starting biases, unique abilities, unique units, building improvements, and dominations, etc., etc. +I'm finding this interesting. +Are Josh and Rona you into gaming? +I can't say that I am. +Yeah, I absolutely am. +I actually stream on Twitch on the weekends, and I'll play a bunch of different games. +Most recently, I've been getting back into Final Fantasy XIV when I have free time. +And I think this weekend, we're either going to do a horror game or pick up the Devil May Cry series again. +Just because I played a character in a tabletop game that was based on Dante from Devil May Cry. +Okie dokie. +And I'm just, no offense, I'm sure that meant something to somebody, but it was like, I have no clue. +I have a vague recollection of the titles, but I've never played any of these games. +Okay, moving on to the next show was the Community News for April 2026. +And we had four comments on that episode. +In response to Ken Fallon, HPR 4631 Community News, Ken said, in response to something that +I had said about in episode 4628, with regards to me wanting to avoid subjects that some people +may view as being politically controversial, he made the statement in previous Community +News with regards to comment, and I had made in response to another listener. +I want to clarify that 4628 was recorded and uploaded before Ken had stated it the first +time, so when I said that it would benefit, without the benefit of earlier clarifications. +Okay, that's fair enough. +My assumptions were based on what I observed from being in community practice of posting +fairly low-stress topics that people can relax to and not get into a flame war. +I had assumed that this was an unwritten rule and arose through common practice. +I'm going to attempt to very briefly answer my comment on Brian in Ohio's question on the +relative safety of different types of electrical power generation. +However, the answer was getting long enough that I suspected one of the Community News presenters +would probably tell me to put it into an episode. +He knows me so well. +Continuing, I will therefore make a short episode on it and submit it after the episode I currently +have in the schedule. +Spoiler alert, however. +So far as I can determine, the tiresome upon which to make any sort of objective relative +ranking on electrical power generation sources simply does not exist in a form that would +allow an apples-to-apples comparison across all industries. +The net result of any discussion of this topic will come down to a belief and opinion rather +than provable fact. +I will, however, attempt to provide some context in which to think about these questions. +I'll take the next comment. +From Candy Heart, new episodes, thanks for the episode suggestions about the process +programs, but I don't really want to work on any episodes. +I'm still recovering from the stuff that happened February, March. +And I'll do the next two. +And I replied to him going, sorry you feel under pressure. +Take your time. +Hope it goes better soon. +And then we had from Ahmed. +Thanks for the encouragement. +Thanks, Dave, for encouraging me to record an episode. +I hope to be able to do so soon. +Currently, I have very limited access to electronic devices, 30 minutes every three days, except +for my MP3 player. +Very interested to hear that show. +So moving on to the next day, we had HPR New Year Show 2026, episode six. +And there were no comments on that one, but it was a doozy. +See, yeah, you could tell it was in the middle of the night. +Spaceballs was coming up. +Oh, I can see it's flagged. +Well, I guess a lot of these are flagged as explicit. +Yeah, for sure. +And they are by default. +Bug versus feature. +Chronic dehydration. +Okay, yeah. +Atlantic highly migratory species fish guides. +All right. +This is a typical New Year show by the sound of it. +So anyway, moving on the next day, we had Ham Radio License by Lee, and the Foundation +License is your gateway to the amateur radio world. +This was Lee talks about the curriculum on the Amateur Radio Society License. +Did this tempt anybody to go for their ticket? +I am finding it tempting. +I haven't pulled the trigger on like getting the materials yet, but I do like his presentations +on the topic. +Yeah, it's good. +It's very rewarding, actually. +It's nice. +And the following day, we had UpgradeFailSource. +Operator goes over how he rebuilds Plex root file system, and the scripts that he uses +are in the show notes. +And somebody want to take the first comment? +First comment is by your name, and why is audio so bad? +Oh my God, sorry. +I guess I had a mic in my ear, but it was not working. +So you got the mic in my pocket, I guess. +Sorry, folks. +So I'm guessing that they had an audio problem during their show here. +Well, what happened was, and I responded. +So my comment says, already reported and fixed. +Hi, your name. +We already received a report that there were problems with the audio, and as such, we replaced +the episode with another one from Operator from the backup queue. +So what all everybody else was listening to was not the same show that your name was listening +to, just for 100% clarification. +As you were listening to this before it was released, I assume you're coming from the future +free feed, future feed. +You will need to refresh your cache on your podcast shares you're using for to get that +episode. +Thankfully, this is only on the future feed, and the listeners to the main feed will get +updated episodes without the issue. +I did contact Operator about that. +He hasn't got back to me yet. +So the episode, I think what happened was he thought he was using an external mic, and +it switched to the mic of the phone, and he put his phone in his pocket. +So it can happen. +Oh, yeah. +That's technical difficulties can happen anytime. +So, but it's good to know that people are listening and reporting comments. +Probably, if you want to, that sort of thing, just contact us, me directly on Mastodon or +wherever, or email at admin at hackerpublicradio.org, and we'll take care of it. +Normally, I catch that sort of thing, but we don't listen to the episodes before they're +posted. +We just listen to spots, and the three random spots that I happened to pick landed on a face +where the phone was on the table or something. +So, ah, well, there you go. +So the next one was from Lee, and it was what I did at work today, part three, section one, +and I've just listened to section two coming out, and this is where Lee goes through basically +thinking out loud rubber duck programming, where he's talking to the HPR audience while +doing some work. +I am on record as finding these interesting, but what do you guys think? +It's interesting to hear other people's process going through things. +Yeah, I like listening to this process, and on some of the topics, not so much this particular +one, but on others, it feels very deja vu-y, like some of the tech and stuff that he's using, +particularly some of the older, crustier stuff that still holds on at your work office, even +though you'd like to move on. +Okay, continuing on, we have the next episode was Unix Curio Part 6, the at and bash command. +Batch command. +There were four comments on the show, and the first one was from Candy Caneater. +Still useful, in my humble opinion. +At and batch still have plenty of uses in things like scripts. +It does provide a POSIX way of scheduling a task in the future, which could be useful for +scripts that want to offset certain effects without having to run its own daemon. +Something like the batch could also be used with cron as a sort of run at some point +after this time trick. +So if you have something, you happen to be doing something intensive at that time, you +can put it off until it is more optimal. +Also, AT can read, can just be used plain to run process a few hours from now. +It's pretty useful for like starting an intensive process overnight without having to remember +to start it before going to bed. +Okay, comment two by Norris. +AT for scheduled reboots. +I use AT to schedule reboots for systems that have kernel updates installed, but I don't +want to reboot right now. +Something like at midnight space enter, reboot, enter, control D. +Yeah, that's a good one, actually. +Yeah, I would usually do a one-off cron job, but that actually probably makes it a little +bit easier. +Although I also have to babysit a lot of servers. +Comment three by Vance. +Good points. +Nice to hear that others find AT to be helpful. +Perhaps some of these curios are not as obscure as I thought. +To delay running something on a personal system, I would probably be more likely to use sleep, +time, semicolon, command as a quick and dirty method. +This would also put the output in the same terminal session, but I can see how AT could +be more elegant. +For rebooting, a lot of systems have the shutdown command, and looking around, it's far more common +than I expected. +This takes a time argument for when to execute the shutdown, so you could also use shutdown-R +0000 as a way to reboot your system at midnight. +Some implementations might differ on how the time is expressed. +As with Perl, in the Unix world, often there's more than one way to do it. +And Whiskeyjack says, at and batch. +I happen to have a number of VMs set up that I use for testing, so I was able to do a quick +check to see which distros have the at and batch installed by default. +It turns out Debian, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi, SUSE, and Alpine do not have it by default, whereas +ARM, a Red Hat clone, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD do. +While they can be installed later, it may be that it's not more commonly used now because +you cannot rely on them to be there as a standard feature. +I was struck by the thought that batch may be useful for things like testing software by +being able to kick off a long series of tests that run in the background while you get +on with doing other things without the background tests affecting whatever else you are doing +too much. +Audio and video processing may be an example here. +Perhaps some listeners would think up of creative ways of using the at and batch and tell us about +it in a future episode. +This sounds like it'll lead to some interesting ideas. +Thank you, Whiskeyjack. +Picking up the whole send in a show vibe from us. +And speaking of which, Whiskeyjack sends in the next show the following day, Simple Podcasting +Episode 3, Analyzing and Filtering. +And the summary is this episode is in the third on a podcast series that he's doing. +And obviously it's about analyzing and filtering. +So I found this interesting and I was a med note on it because I want to reuse some of +this stuff in a, if I ever get the time to do a ham radio episode. +Yeah, I really like this episode too. +As Ken knows, some of my audio editing techniques don't always work out the way I want them to. +And so it's always good to have some more tools to try if I want to do this on my own. +Cool, what you can do from the de-essing. +I thought that was pretty cool as well. +Also, you went into quite a nice detail about what the filters do and how they work and stuff. +So that is excellent. +Okay, the following day we had an interview that I did with Ronnie Lam, Nico Ricken and Gertjan +that I met up at the NLUG Spring Conference. +And yeah, this was a part of the NLUG and they had this conference and I went there and +couldn't resist pulling out a mic as you do. +Hey, you always get some good interviews, I think. +And this was really interesting. +And it's always nice finding something so close. +I feel like I should be looking around. +I mean, there should be something relatively close to me here. +But like you say, you go years and you don't even know it's in your backyard. +And I guess when I came over first, I was afraid of the language barrier. +But then at a certain point, you know, you don't look around. +And it was only when I think Jeroen was on, Jeroen, who's one of our hosts, is on Mastodon +and he was, you know, firing off. +He's very much into the local Dutch scene. +So I go, hey, we should be promoting these guys. +A really good interview with another people there. +It's actually a four-letter agency, but it would be considered a three-letter agency in +the US. +God, I would have loved to record at that, but they're awesome. +There wasn't any option to do that, alas. +Following day, we met Robert A. Heinlein. +Heinlein? +And there were two comments. +This is a, of course, a hookah's science fiction. +If you're doing anything, you should do it well, Kevin O'Brien says. +Antoine says, nice tip, great tip on writing. +He chose, well, one without subjectivity. +No further questions needed to be answered with those. +Pa-pum, direct lines. +Nice to know Heinlein from your show. +And comment two by Kevin O'Brien. +I enjoyed doing it. +As you can tell, I'm a big fan, so it was a pleasure to start writing about him. +But I am a fan of many of the older science fiction writers, and I have more to come on +Heinlein as well as some other writers. +Yeah, I'm enjoying these, because these were, a lot of these were the stories I was reading +coming up, particularly as a teenager in the 80s. +So it's been great. +I'm still trying to catch up on his Doctor Who stuff. +And his Asimov, I'm finishing off with Asimov and re-reading Arthur C. Clarke, so I'm way +behind. +Kevin, you need to put a year between these shows so I don't have time to do all the research. +The following day, breaking the rule about having two shows, I had, well, this one was +allowed on the grounds that it was an interview, and I requested it. +I think I requested it on the mail list. +We will see when we get to the mail list thing. +If I didn't, I should have. +Anyway, they, this came up, it was, I found out again about another Dutch open source conference, +and I apped the Peter, or I apped the team, and Peter got in touch, and it is a free conference +to promote open source software, and it's held in Eindhoven, and that's the region where +the old Philips was, and where are they, a lot of the manufacturing for making the machines +that make the fabs work, or come from down there, so I expect great things. +So no comments on that. +I am rapidly, I am going to attend that. +We have a new banner, and so we have a booth there, and I'm also giving a talk on the Saturday +in the main hall, so I am busy. +Rowan has been wondering why I'm desperately updating the About page and the comments thing, +which I should have done once ago, but leave everything to the last minute. +Let me know if you need any help cleaning stuff up. +No, it's fine. +It's just, you think, okay, where did I, I wrote an email at one point about this thing, +and then I need to put it there, and I don't want to be too waffly, and just the facts, man. +So, although I am starting to use the describe thing in HTML to do the open and close, so +the big how to record a show can be a lot smaller, and if you're interested in a particular, you +know, what's CC by SA, what does that mean? +You can click in it, and it expands out. +Nice. +Yeah, I've been looking at that for, like, that whole page, a lot of, like, the FAQ and +the different things. +Yeah. +I think it would be nice. +And there was a lot of the stuff repeated, so I'm trying to put it together, and we use a +lot of terminology, like response shows that weren't defined anywhere, or, you know, even +what a janitor is wasn't defined anywhere, so a lot of tidying up. +So, I'll be busy doing that all week. +The next day, we had Community News. +We did not. +We had Hacker Public Radio New Year Show Episode 7, in which we talked about PFSense. +Let's see. +What weirdness. +We went Trinity Desktop. +Waffle House. +Yep. +Dunkin' Donuts. +NTP Pool. +Geeks for Linux. +Command Line. +S-Trace Command Line examples. +The Tor Project. +Duolingo. +Pizza Hut, Domino's. +Moza Pizza. +This definitely is into hackerspace, all right. +And we end with xfce.org. +Brilliant show notes. +Again, like, it's amazing how they put those together. +That is. +And it makes it very nice when you sort of want to go grab and you don't have to sort +of slip through seven hours of audio to figure out where that link was. +That's what you're listening to as you're passing. +Yeah, the following day we had Kevi and Dave with BeerGarden13 triple IPA. +Now, personally, IPA, one IPA is enough for me, as in I don't want any. +And the triple, I can only imagine how hoppy that would be. +What do you reckon? +My in-laws and my husband actually own a brewery. +So IPAs, yeah, the IPAs are very popular with them. +I apparently have stronger bitterness taste, like, tastes bitter more than most people. +So I can't be anywhere near them. +I'm too hoppy and I just die. +I do like hops. +I can't really, I'm trying to think of any. +I've probably had a triple at some point, but I don't really remember. +But it might be a little bit much for me. +Although I guess I know what brewery I'll be visiting if I ever make it to California. +Yeah, and they've got other stuff, too. +The seltzers are actually good. +That's my preferred drink at the brewery. +But I would, I might, I have actually been thinking maybe trying to jump on with them one time, +too, like, so I'd have an excuse to go get a nice beer to put in there. +I think, did you put it into the show notes what the next one is? +You didn't. +I know I have it somewhere. +Or I guess I could reach out. +Yeah. +But we, I'll need to check for that at the time of posting what the next one is and update it. +Archer72 shares his fix for the newsboat question about the CCDN PHP thing. +And yeah, so this is where the newsboat, it's like an aggregator, isn't it? +When downloading the HPR feeds, it puts CDN PHP. +So we send all the, all the feeds go to Josh's site and there's a PHP script on there. +And then it redirects out to either the Internet Archive or several of the content distribution network things. +Good news on that, another person has come forward volunteering a node. +So that's, that's nice. +It's always handy to have more nodes on the network. +But in order to fix that properly, I would need to get enough nodes on to get rid of the Internet Archive because they've got a weird, they've got a non-standard way of saving the files. +You know, it's their servers so they can do whatever they want really. +But this was a fix that Archer72 put in place. +So let's see what Ahmed has to say about that fix, whether it works or not. +But it's apparently an itch that Archer72 needed scratched. +Well, who am I to judge? +Because I look at my get pod script and it's like 400 lines long and a thousand commits. +Yeah, it's, it's great. +I love it. +I'm just glad I, I'm just glad mine come in with the right names on them and I don't have to deal with all that. +Yeah. +Yeah. +There's a, I have one thing with one podcast, I think, and it, they add advertising to it. +So, they add a, they keep changing URL. +So every time they change the post, the entire URL changes. +So all the episodes download every single time. +Like, nuts. +Anyway, there is no, the spec is so vague, the RSS spec. +That's, yeah. +Anyway. +The following day, we had zero hour Friday afternoon APK hacking. +APK vibe happening like a boss with operator with perfect show notes. +How did he get these perfect show notes? +You may ask. +Warning. +AI generation show notes ahead. +Your mileage may, your mileage may what? +V? +W? +W, which I'm usually used to V being there. +Yeah. +So the AI, AI thing hallucinating at the end. +But they are nice show notes. +I did go to the trouble of reading them. +It is amazing what you can do with AI at the minute. +It, it really is. +And that's actually when I do the show that I have planned, I plan to go over that because +it's changed software development significantly, both for good and bad. +Yeah. +And the amount. +Yeah. +I just saw the amount of hits that we're getting on the website. +I mean, you're blocking by the time it gets to us. +It's already gone through every thing, every barrier that you could possibly put in place +for it. +And we're still getting hammered with AI stuff constantly, 24 seven. +It's absolutely nuts. +I think, um, I have out with, uh, my mother-in-law's, uh, church website. +Um, not as much now as I was, but like a couple months ago, but all of a sudden they're, they're, +the plan they're on, I guess they get like so much download per month, which was more +than, you know, it was like 20 gigs. +I mean, more than they would ever see, even, even though they host, they post like their +weekly sermons and stuff. +And then all of a sudden, like on the 20th of the month, they would like two or three months +in a row, they would get these, you've reached your data limits and like what's going on. +And of course, I don't know if they're using, it was CPanel and their logs were always cut +off before I could actually see anything, but I'm sure that it goes right at the time +when everybody started seeing the spike, it was just like download after download after +download. +So it was, you know, there's no way they had that many people watching, downloading those +things. +And I'm sure it was just AI bots just going over and over. +Um, I think finally their host provider realized what was going on and it's sort of died out. +So, but yeah, it's, you have to be aware of what's going on and a lot of hosting providers +are having issues right now. +So there's, there's no two ways about it, but again, that's a whole nother topic to +be discussed on another day. +Thank you for the ideas. +Yeah, please. +I'd love to hear your perspective on that. +I really, really would. +Uh, I have my own perspective, but unfortunately I can't talk about it due to reasons, but I'd +love to hear your perspective on it. +Following day, mobile gaming, Elspeth and Lee at this point, Lee is jumping out, cutting +out this segment and send it over to Elspeth. +So on the count of three, we all have to say, hi, Elspeth. +One, two, three. +Hi, Elspeth. +Hi, Elspeth. +Anyway, in this, Tile Survive, Nopaligo and Arrows Go. +And this was under gaming, under general, but it could have been under mental health as +well, I guess. +An interesting episode. +All, all, always good to hear these guys. +Yep. +Somebody want to pick Candy Cane Eater's comment? +I can take it. +Oh, you want to do it, Josh? +Go ahead. +Sure. +So from Candy Cane Eater 07, my opinion on mobile gaming. +I used to play a lot of mobile games back in the day, but nowadays I really can't stand +most of them due to the predatory nature of them and every single one needing the same +freaking art style that feels like a 3D version of corporate art styles. +Technically, I do actively play the desktop ports of two mobile games being Progress Bar +95, a really simple old computer-themed game about filling a progress bar, I'm going for +100%, and Bellatro because I'm actively developing a mod. +But besides those, I haven't played one. +As for the ADHD stuff, I usually have my laptop or MP3 player with me to help with that, but +also sometimes play 2048 or Solitaire on my laptop as well. +That'll do it. +We were so close to having him on today, but almost, almost. +Then, I'm keeping an eye on the dates to make sure that we don't go over. +Unix Curio number seven was compression, making your files smaller. +And I'm really, there were two comments on this, but I'm really enjoying this Unix Curio +series because there's a lot of history in here, and the research in this, you know, in this +case, a lot of these things I've been aware of and read man pages, but it's nice to get +a whole concise summary of the thing. +Yeah, this is... +And the show notes are excellent, by the way. +Yeah, the show notes have been wonderful, but yeah, reading through some of this, I can +tell you where I picked up because I'm like, oh, I know what these things are, but I never +had to deal with pack or compress. +I think my first, like, interaction was with PK-zip out of these. +And there's a nice chart at the bottom of the show notes, given English text, source code, +binary programs, wave audio, the compressions of the various different formats. +So, geek out, my friends, geek out. +Oh, this is a wonderful, wonderful, like, layout of everything, and it's something that somebody +interested in as far as, like, history on computer science, I think this would be a great one +to listen to. +You can just imagine some computer science student going, oh, compression, what the hell +am I going to do? +Hold on, lands and this and goes, yeah. +Or worse, the following, the day after they submit the report, they go, what? +Anyway, there's a comment left. +Who wants to read that? +Whose turn is it? +I can take it. +Comment one by X-Man Monk. +Great series. +This has been a great series, and I hope you find more topics to cover. +If I can think of any, I'll add another comment here. +And Kenny Canator said, thoughts, I'm always annoying when a good technology is locked behind +a pavement, but at least this time it backfired. +I'll miss this server. +It's one of my favorites. +So, cool. +Moving on. +I do kind of, like, once I started listening, I kind of remember, because I think that was +right when I first started more getting into, like, Linux and the GNU stuff, like, the patent +stuff from back then. +I kind of remembered that whole issue, like, staring in the back of my mind. +And, like, that was like that. +And then you had the MP3 stuff. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Yeah. +It's been interesting to hear. +Yeah. +Just the research, like you said, is great. +It's done a really great job. +The following day, we had Simple Podcasting Episode 4, Audio Analysis Fun, and no surprise, +this is Whiskey Jack covering audio analysis fun. +Weirdly enough, I can't say there'd be a lot of other people in my house that would find +this fun, but I definitely agree with them. +And yes, Fast Warrior Transforms, what could be more fun than that? +It's amazing how, when I was in college, how Fast Warrior Transforms would keep me awake +at night, and now, like, it's something that I am actively interested in. +And this is the one where he exports it into an Excel or into a text file for importing into +Excel. +Well, CSV. +And it's not Excel, it's LibreOffice, but you know what I mean. +Yeah. +I would never have thought to do that. +I was on the bus, and I was going, did he just export an audio file and import it into +a spreadsheet? +Yes, he did. +Yes, he did. +That reminds me of something that MC Frontalot, I'm sure some of you are familiar with him. +Yes. +Some of his ARGs and, like, hidden tracks have had spectrographs in, like, part of the +system, so this is, this is right up in there, and I love how nerdy this gets. +Yeah. +Did he do the original twat theme, or at least he has sampled on that? +And now with my cable, I'm able to get things stable. +You know, we should never have gotten rid of that theme that was. +Ultimately. +I don't remember, honestly. +Time needs to just slow down. +Either that or an external memory device. +Yeah. +Okay, that was Wednesday. +This is today, as we're recording, what I do at work today, part three, section three. +I've been continuing one where Lee is working with Joplin, PHP, MySQL, Sublime Text, Nmap, +Markdown Fence Code Blocks, and dbrunSQL functions. +I have to admit, I didn't quite get to this one yet, but I'm sure it'll be. +It's another classic episode. +It's scary how much of the stuff that I use, the PHP stuff on HPR, joplinapp.org, what was +that again? +An open source code platform notetaking app. +Yeah, that's right. +But interesting approach. +So that was that, and now the site is preventing me from looking at Friday's episode, so I'm +going to have to go to the schedule. +Who wrote this site? +Kishka. +Well, it could also be getting flagged by the WAF. +I do know that you guys trigger tons of WAF rules. +Most of them are legitimately bad, like people trying to hack the site, but there are some +WAF rules I'm like, oh, I need to adjust this so that the site works. +Can you explain what a WAF rule is? +So web application firewall rule is essentially a request matches a regex, and when it matches, +the connection is dropped or you get served an error page. +It's one way to protect websites from known attacks and attempted vulnerable. +And I reckon Josh is there going, press enter, and sets a countdown. +How long before Ken sends me an email? +Josh, this perfectly normal thing, SCPing a SQL database, for some reason doesn't seem to be +working. +Yeah, no, we've had to take a more aggressive stance on some of the security elements, unfortunately, +because the attack vectors that people are using now are all the more, like, important +to cover. +Yeah. +A show on that will be cool, by the way. +Just really be honest. +Absolutely. +From the front lines. +So tomorrow's episode, which will be last Friday's episode, by the time you hear this, +is Civilization Part 5, Part 12, which I have listened to. +A diplomatic victory strategy, which was interesting. +Puppet states and all that. +Basically, without conquest, that you win a game based on a diplomatic victory. +All pretty cool, I have to say. +And there are obviously no comments on that, because it's not in the main feed as yet. +So we'll cover them, obviously, in the next episode when we get around to that. +Now, going back to HBR4651, which is the one that you're listening to, and scrolling down +to the other comments from past shows, we had Ahmed was talking about how I use Newsboat for +Podcasts and Reddit by Archer72. +Let me mosey over to that one. +And how did I find HBR? +I found HBR from another podcast. +I think it was called Linux UK Logcast or something. +It ended anyway. +And then Candy Canator says, I found HBR through this old program called G-Potter. +It's a recommendation podcast had it in there, and it seemed like cool to tune into. +Interesting. +Well, that's those two. +And are ye now able to see where I could share my screen, actually, now that we're +doing it on Jitsi? +Let's see. +Can I share my screen? +Start sharing screen. +Hello. +Can you see that? +There it is. +You can click on the button, and it goes bigger. +Okay, so we are now reading Cheap Yellow Displays Part 2, and Archer72 had a comment called Morse +Code. +Somebody want to read that one out? +I'll do it. +Hey, Trey. +I heard this episode on Morse Code, and I thought this link would be useful. +I think it's a whiskey technical gohotel.com. +Link in the show notes is what we're going to do with that one, yeah? +To Dr. 72. +And then we had Antoine with some watched, sorry, movie recommendations for hackers, and +Antoine says, some watched. +And Josh, do you want to get this? +Yep. +This is from Antoine. +Antoine? +Okay. +Some watched from this show, and because of this show, I came to watch Gattaca, Surrogates, +Matrix, and the first, oh wow, what an epic in two. +The second, loved a lot too, a bit mellow, dramatic in the message. +It aims to inspire, but very well done. +The third, at first, I lost interest in the beginning and stopped. +Seemed that this movie aged bad, but tried again days later, and loved to know Matrix. +Very worth it. +Thanks for the recommendation. +The first only, the second, I didn't like from the beginning, so no. +And also for the lives of others, applause to it. +In a few weeks, I came to watch more movies than I had for many months, and it was very +enjoyable. +I may come here futurely when wanting to see something, to check another recommendation. +Thanks. +That's kind of cool. +That was, by the way, the Adulterary put a list of movies together that they had on +CDs originally. +You know, where hacker references, like, this is Unix. +I know Unix. +So Vance had an episode called Unix Curious Part 1 Shell Archives. +And Mr. Morris says, great reminder, I had forgotten Char. +I'm way behind with listening to HitPure episodes. +Sorry for the late comment. +In the early 1990s, the university I worked in for in Edinburgh installed DeckAthena, a commercial +version of the MIT Athena project. +As a consequence, I ended up with a Deck MIPS workstation on my desk running Ultrix. +We had used NetFeed by then, and we would download stuff like pictures and various new groups using +tools that I had assumed was Char. +Files arrived as a series of posts with encoded contents, which we would reassemble in a newsreader +and then decode. +I had forgotten about this. +Thanks for the reminder. +Printing colored images was challenging in those days for us anyway. +I recall we had a thermal wax printer to do it. +Dave, you need to do a show on thermal wax printers, please. +And then it looks like Vance responded. +Comment six by Vance. +Color printing. +Glad you enjoyed it, Dave. +I did work at one place that had a color thermal transfer printer and got to use it a couple +times. +They also had a film recorder, though I never used it myself. +This would put a computer generated color image onto photographic film. +After being developed by a photo lab, the resulting film slides could then be shown using an ordinary +slide projector. +Very fancy stuff until digital projectors became available. +Cool. +And then we had Linux Curio again by Vance. +Base name and dur name. +Vance had a correction in there, which was, +In a recent conversation, a friend pointed out that historical BSD versions were not necessarily +developed or released in numerical order. +Instead, 2.x BSD versions were created to run on the PDP-11, while 3.x BSD and 4.x BSD +ran on the Vax, until support was added for 4x for other processors. +Both evolved alongside each other. +In the audio series for this episode, I implied that the base name utility first appeared in +BSD in version 2.9 in 1983, while it actually was in 3.x BSD in 1979, shortly after Bell Laboratory's +7th edition Unix came out. +Similarly, I incorrectly said that the first BSD dur name appeared in was 4.x BSD 1993, when +it was, in fact, in the Net slash 2 release from 1991. +Sorry about that. +Probably others like me have fallen into this trap and assumed a later versioning always +came later, but I should have paid closer attention to the dates. +Discussion of history does not appear in the show notes above, just the audio. +P.S. +Glad you are liking it, ex-manamonk. +More on the way. +Crikey. +Okay, and Whiskey Jack's episode, Simple Podcasting, episode 2, Basic Filtering, Henrik +has a comment about generating sine waves. +Henrik says, generating sine wave. +Very interesting show. +One thing in particular I find useful for testing speakers is the command to generate +a sine wave at various frequencies. +I have tried the FFmpeg command version. +Josh, can you do the Whiskey Jack one? +So, response from Whiskey Jack, I'm glad you found this episode interesting, including +the part about generating sine waves using FFmpeg. +I cover this topic again in HPR 4658, Audio Revisited, which comes out Wednesday, 2026, +June 10th, and in which one of the topics I discuss is characterizing hardware, such as +speakers and microphones, in order to understand their limits. +It also helps to understand the limits of your own ears as well. +In that episode, I also cover generating a chirp signal, which is a tone which sweeps across +the audio frequency range from low to high, which is also useful in understanding hardware. +I can recall many years ago, salesmen in stereo shops using special CDs, which had these signals +on them, which they would use to demonstrate the capabilities of the high-end speakers they +were selling. +If you have ever wanted to have such a thing for yourself, you can generate it using FFmpeg +or socks. +Cool. +And Faster Pussycat Kill Kill by Vance had one comment from Steve Barnes saying, thanks +for the context. +It's great not just to learn new commands, but to hear someone explain some of the history +and the fundamentals behind Unix. +Cool. +And then Nuclear Power Technology Follow-Up had a comment from Anton, which is O slash, what +would that be? +A hand up, I guess? +Yeah. +Yeah, I think so. +Yeah. +You want to do that one? +Sure. +It says, likes too much. +There are more nuances than I could expect. +Thanks for answering my question. +Maybe that's like a raised hand. +I don't know. +I guess it's a raised hand. +Yep. +It makes sense now. +Lowercase O and a forward slash for anybody following along. +I can read the comment, the second comment by Whiskeyjack. +So Whiskeyjack says, reply to Antoine. +Thanks for your comment. +Questions like the one that you asked me are very helpful because they caused me to look +into and think about things that I might have otherwise have overlooked. +When doing the research to answer your question about Magnox reactor patents, I was struck +by some of the parallels between open source slash free software and the early history of +nuclear energy. +While this one seemed like a stretch, in both fields we see how things like patents are +more likely to hold technology back than they are to advance it, and how personal connections +between people can matter more than the technology itself. +I've just finished the script for another follow-up episode in this series, and I hope that people +find this one interesting as well. +Pretty cool. +Looking forward to that now. +And that was that for that month. +So let's go on to the mailing list discussions. +And the mailing list is where we discuss things and make policies on HPR, as he says, buying +time, waiting for the episode to load. +Let's scroll in there. +We had a comment by JTT Trey, and 22nd of May, there was a meetup in B-Sites Knoxville. +And I think we mentioned that in the last episode. +I hope we did, because otherwise... +Yes, I remember. +Yes, I remember that discussion. +Ah, permission to reserve. +There you go. +I did reserve it. +Yes. +Very good. +I'd like to reserve earliest possible snot for promotional interviews. +So there you go. +Jumping the gun. +And Todd replies, giving permission. +Okay with me. +And I replied, saying we have a general agreement that it's okay to reserve a slot for interviews, +so I don't expect anyone to have an issue with it. +So to cut down the spam and the amount I need to read out of the community news, please +only reply if you've got an objection. +Silence is taken to be approval, unless someone comes up with a pretty good argument against it. +You didn't want to read out 50i agrees? +Yeah. +It gets a little bit. +Request for accessibility support with Orca. +Not directly related to HPR, but I know that we do have a lot of low vision impaired people here on the network. +And so I saw this one coming through my feeds on Mastodon, and I'll read it out. +As I know, there are people here who have thoughts on Orca. +I wonder if you could help them out. +And there's a link in there to what's the best way to copy my Orca settings to use them at the login screen. +I'm on Debian 13, stable, with Mate and LightDM. +I copied my home.local share Orca to varlib lightdm.local share Orca. +Nothing doing. +Anyone got any help? +That one, yeah. +Then we have, are you available to record the community news show? +I think we can skip over those, can we? +Yeah, I think so. +Please, please let us skip over those, and I'll stop sharing. +And we will go back to the events calendar, and I see that none of the events that I'm actually going to are in there. +So guys, what was it like being on here live? +If you want help with editing, I'm happy to help you out. +I know this might be a little bit of a challenge. +It's a mess. +So hopefully, for the people listening to this, they won't notice anything, but there were several issues with Mumble at the beginning of the episode, +and we switched over to using the HPR room on Jitsi, which actually worked out quite well. +Hopefully, the only issue is the recording. +Sometimes I get feedback on the recording, so I hear myself in an echo. +So we'll see. +Otherwise, I'll have to push it out and just beg forgiveness from the community. +Because I can go to Ireland in about eight hours. +So, yeah. +Best effort. +Best effort. +Exactly. +Anywho, guys, it was great to see faces for the first time. +Yeah. +Yeah. +I would like to just mention that for any Docker fans out there, and I guess I probably owe you an episode on this, +but I did just merge my PR for a Docker image that you can now, like, build on your computer with instructions and stuff to try out running the site generator. +So if you're interested in, if nothing else, just interested in letting me know how bad my instructions are and how difficult it is to actually use it, +that would be great for people to try out. +And hopefully, maybe it'll spark if people just want to host a node, it'll make it a little easier to get things up and running. +Yep. +Because Perl is finicky to get installed, I've found. +Yep. +Perl is very finicky. +And that's, I've been slowly moving to, like, Python and Node for a lot of things just because some of the older languages are difficult to transport between systems. +And containers work great until something drops the dependency and we're all scrabbling. +Yeah. +But that was my own personal plug for today, but it's been fun. +And it was nice actually seeing people for once since we haven't had a chance to meet in person yet. +Cool. +Um, right. +With that, tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of... +Hacker. +Public. +Radio! +Radio! +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4652.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4652.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9173dd --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4652.txt @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ +Episode: 4652 +Title: simon says +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4652/hpr4652.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:02 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4652, for 2026-06-02 +Today's show is entitled, "simon says" +The host is Brian-in-Ohio and the duration is 00:06:45 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "a game for my grandsons" +Hello, Hacker Public Radio Brian and Ohio here. I'm out from under my rock and it's been a while. +I've much enjoyed the HPR submissions recently and I'd realize it's high time I get off my +death and put together a couple of shows myself. I recently completed, while as much as any +hobby project is complete, a device that I hope my grandson may come to join all its ways. +What I built was a Simon game clone. If you haven't seen or played Simon, I'll give you +a quick description and I'll point you to a Wikipedia article of a link in the show notes. +The device is for integrated LED push buttons that are color green, yellow, red, and blue, +and it also has a small speaker. The device lights up an LED plays tones to the speaker +and accepts user input via buttons. The game plays simple. The device flashes a light and plays a tone. +You're then to echo the sequence by pushing the appropriate buttons and seeing the light +hearing the tone and with every correct play back on your part Simon adds a light and a tone. +You play until you hit 31 and a row or fail with flashing lights in a harsh buzzer. +I'll play a quick round here and record the sounds and I'll do a purposeful fail after three tries. +The rationale behind building this device came after reviewing and thinking about some of the +ZAD retro computing episodes that I've done quite a while ago, I should on +a hacker public radio. That time, without it, it would be fun to build and play with an +8-bit retro computer with my grandsons. Those boys for them and all are five years old and +under and while listening to podcasts about retro computing, I came to realize that many people +who began their journey into the world of computers began by playing computer games. +It became clear to me after reflecting that building a ZAD retro computer with one of those kids +would be something to do after they've shown some interesting computers and electronics. Not as +a way to further start into computers. So after much thought, I came up with the idea of building a +Simon game clone with a twist. The device can merely be a game but for the curious mind, +it's also is a fully interactive computer that can be programmed by putting a PC +and using a serial terminal to interact with the device. So what's this device made of +you might ask? Well, it shouldn't come to us as a surprise. It's in Arduino Uno, +R3 development board. It's controlled by 328 E4. It has a custom shield that has the buttons +and the speaker on it and it has a non 3D printer box to hold it all together. I'll put some pictures +in the show notes. Before I talk about how I put together the project, I want to take +moment to give props to the original Arduino project. A lot of people would say that Arduino's +are dried up and old and most projects you see today on the internet involved devices like +that use piepecos and ESP32s and things such as that. Most devices are fine but I bet many people +haven't really plumbed the depth of a microcontroller like the at mega 328. These chips are cheap and +powerful and there are many design files out there for projects. You can even build up an Arduino +from scratch if you want to and there's a lot to learn but there by doing that. +So after sketching up the bare circuit I settled on using the microcontrollers port b for the +button input port c for the LEDs and one pin on port d for the speaker. +These choices map into the Arduino world as digital pins 9 through 12 for the LEDs and +like pin 0 to 3 for the button input and digital 6 for the speaker. On the side note the +and like pins on the Arduino are not analog I only. These pins can be used as digital I also. +An abstraction in the Arduino world that has many people running to port expanders when they +might not need them. Building the device wasn't that difficult. Now and down the +components which ones to use and what would fit and what wouldn't was where the majority of my time +was spent. Sourcing the parts consisted of searching on Amazon. The key to the device was the +LED push button combinations. Once I found these LED push button switch combinations that is it's +a switch and an LED in one package that a device began to take shape almost designing itself. +I used a bare bone or Arduino shield to build up the circuit. These through hole and +popular chills are easy to come by as were the small speakers. The box to contain the +product was the hardest part. I ordered ended up ordering many different boxes before I found +one that would work. Being just the right size to hold the Arduino shield and the battery. +A few carefully drilled holes with some drama work and I had a box that I think looks pretty good. +I used a bare micro chip at mega 328p on a breadboard to confirm components and work up some of +the firmware before turning on any soldering arms. In the next episode I'll describe the fourth +vocabulary I built up to play the game. Some enhancements that I made to 328 e4 and just some +things I learned about some of the tricks of getting a game to play on a small 8-bit micro controller. +So that's it for now. Check out the show notes to see what the Sonic clone looks like. +With that Brian O'Neill you're signing off. Reminding everyone, +sublance and DB's Bedan. Pick up a mic and record a show for HPR. Bye-bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4653.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4653.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2eb5bd6 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4653.txt @@ -0,0 +1,288 @@ +Episode: 4653 +Title: Starting the Habit of Reading +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4653/hpr4653.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:03 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4653, for 2026-06-03 +Today's show is entitled, "Starting the Habit of Reading" +The host is Thaj Sara and the duration is 00:24:59 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Thaj talks about how he's developed the habit of reading daily, and talks about books he's read." +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in August 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hey, what's good hacker public radio? This is Taj and you're hearing an episode from the reserve queue. +So you know what that means? We need more shows. Y'all know what to do. +All right, so today I'm going to talk about reading, which, how was that of interest to hackers? +But there's a little bit of a text into this. Last November, when my friend, my brother, my +hetero lifemate, Lyle from the random podcast, and I went to OLF, we talked about how he had +kind of rediscovered reading and how he was just kind of tearing through books and stuff like that. +I was a little jealous because I have always been somebody who reads very slowly. So I didn't +feel like I was good at it. And usually if I was reading something, it was for work. +So reading kind of stopped being anything that I enjoyed as a hobby. If I did read anything +for a long time, it was probably audio books that sort of became the way that I was able to consume. +The books that I wanted to read. I still did that quite often and enjoyed it. But as far as sitting +down physically reading, that was a thing that I did not do very often. A few things converged +that sort of created the circumstances to have me reevaluate this. One, I happened to just buy a piece +of technology that I really didn't want to buy, but has actually kind of turned into something +I enjoy having. For those who don't know and don't listen to your random, I am currently +training to be a pilot just for fun. And to do that, you have to have basically at this point in +an iPad. While some of the software runs in Android, there are really no good Android tablets +that have the horsepower and the requirements of things in the tablet to be useful. So I was +kind of forced to buy an iPad many. I still hate iOS with the burning passion. It is not fun +and I don't like it. But the size and form factor of this device is kind of amazing. It is in +sort of that e-book Kindle-ish size that makes it really portable and really easy. The pencil that +comes with it is really good for taking notes and stuff. And it really has replaced a lot of things +in my life. But with all that being said, if anybody has any leads on an Android tablet, +that is about this 8.8.5 inch size that has a decent amount of RAM and an internal GPS, which is +kind of the important part. I would love to switch back to Android. The iOS reading program for e-books +is okay. It's pretty barebones, but they're a much better reading apps on the Android side. +But I has what I has and so I started using it. That was one piece of technology or one thing +that sort of got me into reading. Another one was an April of last year, 2024. Humble Bundle had +a bundle of lots of the battle tech novels. I think it was more than a hundred of the battle +tech novels for like 20 bucks. And being a child of the late 80s, early 90s, me and my friends played +a lot of tabletop battle tech. And I have way too many of the rulebooks and stuff that I would like +to admit. But as much fun as I had playing the game, I always liked reading the books because +they're sort of history books for this strange, future, futuristic world. And I really got into it, +but I never got into the novels. Just again, because I even as a kid, I was not great at reading. +So I didn't really want to pursue that. So I bought this bundle. I read the first book in +sort of the battle tech novel universe and sat on it after a little bit because it took a little +bit. It wasn't part of my habits and my routines. So I let it set. Once I got the iPad and these +sort of three things combined, Lyle talking about reading, having some books that I wanted to read, +and having this device that was pretty simple that I was going to look at in every day anyways, +it all just sort of clicked and I started reading. Now, I used a technique that was, you know, +not new. This isn't some like life hacking epiphany that, you know, is out of the blue and +will help everyone. It's just a simple thing. But it was taught to me by a martial arts teacher +that just taking, make yourself do something every day for five minutes. Don't feel bad if you +don't go more than five minutes. Just do it. Worst case scenario, almost always, you can do something +for five minutes a day. And so I'm going to read five minutes a day. One of the things in the +iOS reading app that is interesting is that it keeps track of your streak of reading, which is +enough of a dopamine hit that it actually keeps me engaged. That is enough to make me go back every +day. And so not knowing when I started, I mean, I could do the math and figure out. I'm on day +172 of reading every day, at least for five minutes. Now, mostly those days of five minutes, +more like 20 minutes half an hour. It's become part of my morning routine. And if it's not part +of my morning routine because I'm traveling or something, it's my pre-bed routine. I just sat down +and I read some days or five minutes because that's literally all I have. And I'm rushing to get +done with my five minutes. But most of the time, I sat down and I actually started to enjoy it. And +I started to kind of go through books. Who knew that if I just broke it down into smaller chunks, +I would be faster at this than I thought I was and start to enjoy it. So that is sort of what set +up this world of me reading these books. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about the +books that I've read so far. Right now we're at the end of July. So, you know, a little more than +halfway through the year. I have a goal of 20 books for the entire year. That was just sort of a random +goal I set. I'm on 13 and I'm halfway through the year. So I feel pretty good that I'll get it. +But I'll tell you about the books that I read just because some of them are nerdy and interesting. +I'm sure people here would enjoy them. And I'll also tell you about an Android app that I also +used to track my reading because I think it does a better job. And it allows me to sync that +progress between devices, which is really nice. One of the things that I found kind of interesting +about my reading habits was I knew I was going to read nerdy books. Right. That's just sort of, +you know, I'm a nerd. I know what I am, you know. I'm pretty secure with myself at this point. +I thought there would be more technical stuff involved in my reading and it really isn't. +The internet has sort of replaced that because most technical books that I would read +a web search is a better tool than reading a book. So a lot of this is fiction, which is, you know, +sort of the more nerdy stuff. And then there's some nonfiction or things that I find +of interest to hackers, but you may not. So, you know, mileage may vary. Okay. So now to the books. +I'm going to try to go in chronological order. What I've noticed is, as I started doing this, +I started reading multiple books at one. And I would switch back and forth between them. I'd read +like one chapter and one book and another chapter and another book. And so some of this gets a little +tango, but, you know, this is as close to chronological order as I can. So the first book I've +read during this time was the book mercenary star. This is the second book in the Great Death +Legion saga, which is a trilogy of battle tech books. And it's the first trilogy. And so like I said, +I'd already read the first book. I enjoyed it, but like it took forever because it wasn't part of my +habits. The second one was the first book I started this whole process with. I read it. The +trilogy is basically about the founding of a mercenary. And if you're not anywhere familiar with +battle mix, think a feudal Europe in space with giant stompy robots. And you kind of get it. +So I really enjoyed it. Like I said, it was a good follow-up to the second book or to the first book. +So, you know, mileage may vary if that's something you're interested in. The next book I read was +the third book in the trilogy, which is the price of glory. Pretty satisfying ending to that trilogy. +I know later down the timeline, we revisit these characters and at least another trilogy, I think, +and they get sprinkled in the universe throughout. So looking forward to that. +The next book was the book Piranesi by Susanna Clark. This was a book that my wife wanted to read +with me. It's a very interesting kind of surreal, magical fantasy-ish thing. I, it was pretty +in the middle for me. I liked the concept of it. I think I actually think this is a book that +would most definitely work better as a movie. The just sort of the, the just of the book without +spoiling anything is a man wakes up very little memory of anything besides the world he lives in, +but it is not our world. It is this massive building that floods constantly and it's, it's, +like I said, very dreamlike, very surreal. And to me, the plot of the book is figuring out where +he is and what is happening because breadcrumbs get laid and he meets people in this sort of +labyrinth building that we find out, you know, how this is connected to the real world and who this +man is and how he winds up here, which I find interesting. I think that that's the best part of the +book. It's only about the last maybe quarter if not less of the book. The rest of it is +sort of like world setting and mood. So I got a little bored with it, but in general, you know, +it's a decent book. Like I said, I would love to see them make a movie of this, but as I've +right now, hey, kind of bit for me. The next book I read was nonfiction. This was the first nonfiction +book. And I think I read this at the same time I was reading piranhassey. I read the book +permaculture for the rest of us by Jenny Blackmore. And for people who don't know, I really like +to garden, you know, almost at my garden, it is almost to the point where you could call out a many +farm, just because we have lots of land and I have equipment to do that. But over the last few years, +my job has been at a point where I just didn't have time to do it. So I put my toe back in this +this year to sort of like get back into it a little bit and reading books about it has sort of made +me more energized. When we get later in this, this summer spring cycle, I'm going to do some +things to set me up to plant some fall crops. So hopefully, that will go well. You're going to see +this repeat in some of the nonfiction books that I read. I've got a lot of gardening books on here. +Okay, the next book is a battle tech book, but it was not part of the bundle that I bought. +And actually, this one is very hard to find. I had to track it down using some methods that, +you know, some people may not agree with, but apparently there's some licensing rights with this +book. And it's called the Sword in the Dagger. And it is sort of in the timeline and happens +after the Great Death Legion saga, the first trilogy, and sort of in between to the books in that. +It is interesting because whatever that licensing problem was, it's pretty much disappeared off the +face of the earth, unless you obtain it through, you know, less than legal ways. So I did, +because I wanted to read it. And so far, this is my favorite battle tech book. It is very intriguing, +very sort of spy thriller, Eish, if those are all adjectives that I didn't just make up. +And basically, it has to do with one of the princes that is the head of state of one of these, +they call them the successor states, which are these giant sort of city states in space, right? +The battle tech lore, there was basically the Star League, which, you know, think, +you know, Star Trek, the Federation, like all of humans are all holding hands, +Kumbaiya, it's wonderful. That breaks apart in their the successor states. And one of the main +characters in this book is one of those leaders. And it's about another one of the successors +states creating a duplicate of that person and trying to pass it off and trying to sort of like +you serve their power. Very interesting. I'm very sad that this isn't something that is +easily available, but because for me, it's my favorite one so far. And the events that happen +in this book reverberate in the later books. But if you can't get a hold of it, you don't really +know that that's happening, which is, which is sad. One of the characters in here reappears +in the next trilogy. And it's not a main character, but he's a side character. And he has a +really close to relation to ship to somebody, but you don't really understand why. If you read this +book, you do. So I really enjoyed it. Like I said, I'm pretty sad that it's not available more +widely. Okay, next book, again, Battle Tech. Hey, you know, I got a bunch of books to get through. So +I'm going to keep reading them. Is the beginning of a new trilogy. This trilogy is the warrior +trilogy by Michael Stackbowl, which if you've ever read like old EU Star Wars novels, that's +going to be a real familiar name. And so the first book is Warrior On Guard. These are all I believe +references. I don't know. I don't, I don't do European fencing. So I don't know. +Basically, this is setting up a couple of threads, uh, leading to, again, going back, +Star League forums gets a broken apart into the successor states. This kicks off a series of what +they call this succession wars. And then there's been multiples. This trilogy sets up the, uh, +the fourth succession war. So it's, it's kind of this thing that keeps happening over and over and over again. +So far, really good. The first book is maybe my least favorite Battle Tech book I've read so far. +So this one is a little, eh, but it sets up things to go further later, which, which kind of helps. +All right, the next book is another book that me and my wife just had it to read together. +I'm a gigantic doon fan. Don't want to know how many times I've read the original six +books, but it's a lot. But I never dove into the new books, the ones that Frank Herbert's son +and Kevin J Anderson. I heard a lot that they weren't good. So I just sort of avoided them. +Again, because I didn't like to read. So I was like, whatever. But my wife and I watched the, +HBO show, Doon prophecy, which is sort of set in the same universe as the newer Doon +movies that I forget the director's name. But the, the really good ones that just came out in the +last few years. And so it is a, the, the show is set, you know, thousands of years before that. +And it sort of shows not the beginning of the Benninges are, but sort of like at the, the birth of +that. And it was an interesting show. I wouldn't say it's great, but I enjoyed it. And I think my wife +enjoyed it. But what I saw is, hey, this is based on the book. Now it was one of the, the Brian +Herbert and Kevin J Anderson books. And I was like, okay, cool. This is the excuse for me to read these. +And so I got the first one that was that the show was based off of, which was Sisterhood of Doon, +read through it. And I found myself really enjoying it. It is not the same as the original six. +And I think that that may be why people don't like it is not the same prose. It is not the same +depth as Herbert's original. But I put these on level on the level of like a really good Star Wars +book, right? And if, you know, Star Wars books have wildly drastic amount of quality across them. +But these I found really good. And they, this book specifically talks about the very beginning of the +bandages, right? And sort of how they develop power and some some characters. My one criticism. +And it's, it's kind of a weak criticism is that like, of course, we have a treaties. We have +Harkinans. We have all the, you know, the proper nouns that we will eventually have, you know, +10,000 years later. And of course, they're the main characters of these books. But when you get past +that, they're actually other characters that are more interesting in, in weird ways, I'm more fascinated +with the things around it. And so these books are, you know, basically a hundred years after +the Butler and Jihad. And so there's a lot going on that are sort of the ramifications of that. +And how people are reacting to that. And I think it's, it takes a very interesting stance on that. +So I really liked it. And I, I'm going forward and reading more of those books, which is interesting. +Okay, the next one is nonfiction as well. This one is very specific to me. I'm a martial artist +of studied Chinese martial arts literally my entire life. In the last few years, I had the +opportunity with a friend of mine to go and study with somebody who is very, very skilled and very +well-known in the world of Chinese martial arts for his sword skill. And this person has Scott Rodel. +If you look on YouTube, there are lots of videos of him sort of like showing stuff in his, his, +he's one of the few people that is doing Chinese swordmanship in any real way with live sparring +and things like that. So getting to study with him has been a real delight. I've three or four +times I get to meet with him in person and spend a few days with him, which has been really fun. +And sort of expands my Chinese martial arts knowledge. So one of the things that I wanted to do is +sort of read up on it. And he actually has translated some old manuals. And one of them is a manual +by Huanggyuan Shui. That is the fundamentals of the Wunong sword weapon. Wunong is a place that is +very renowned for their sword skills. And basically this is a translation and commentary of +that original text, which was interesting. Kind of vague but also had some real insights on how +you know sword play from this style is done. So it was pretty interesting. Maybe not interesting +to people outside of that world, but I really enjoyed it. He has several other translations +and I'm not going to try to get a hold of some more of them and read them. They're really quick +reads for me. But I do like that he keeps the original Chinese. I know enough Chinese to kind of sort +of figure things out. So if there's anything that is not clear in the translation, I was able to +go back and look at the original Chinese. So I really like that. That was nice for me. Okay. +Next we're going back to battle tech. Is the next book in the warrior trilogy? This is warrior +repost. Just sort of keeps the story going. This one to me was much better than the first one. +And it just sort of like is pushing this narrative forward, which is nice. This basically +shows the kickoff of that fourth succession worth. The last book was setting it all up. This is +the one where it's like things go down. There's no escaping this happening. So it's kind of an +interesting book. I'm assuming the next one I have it got to that one yet is going to be more of +like here is the war. We're dealing with it. So interesting to see that. The next one is another nonfiction +book. This one I believe I was reading it sort of the same time I was reading. The last battle tech +book was the cardio code. This is by Dr. Kenneth Jay. Although I think at the time he was not +Dr. He's Dr. Now. He's somebody who his materials and things were recommended to me by +some martial arts people that I really respect. And cardio has always been my nemesis. I don't +actually mind doing cardio workouts like I like running. I like doing that sort of thing. I like +jump rope. I don't hate doing it, which a lot of people do. But for me I never got better at it. +Like it was just sort of like I can do cardio, but like I didn't it didn't mean a lot to me. +And so by reading this book it's a very interesting examination of how to improve cardio +from a very scientific base. I mean a vast portion of this book is literally just research studies +and some resations of those research studies. It kind of reads almost like a dissertation. So if +you're not used to sort of that world and that sort of language it's it's could I can see it being +very dense. But for me it was really really interesting. And I've started to take some of these things +into my own training. And hopefully I'll see some benefit. I did the first test and then I'm +kind of doing a cycle and then I'm a test again and see if I if I made any any progress. +Another nonfiction book that we're going to do is the urban homestead by Kelly Kweeney or Kween +or something. I'm not sure how you say it. I'll put it in the show notes. This is basically just +a gardening book on how to do gardening in small spaces. There wasn't a lot in here that was new +but as a reference book this is kind of interesting. There's there's a lot of things about +high density gardening that is different than what I've I've done. I've grown up in sort of a +farming community. And so you know you sort of do those traditional practices. And as I'm +exploring this on my own I'm looking more at regenerative or sort of like I read the primary +culture book. I don't I don't say I do permaculture because that can get kind of culty. But I +am taking lessons from these books. And so this was interesting probably not my favorite. But +there are some resources in the book that I will probably reference going forward. All right back to +Dune. I read the next book in the trilogy. So there's a trilogy of those three books that made +up the the one that the show was based off of. And the sisterhood of Dune is what the show said +it was based off of. The next one is Min Tats of Dune which basically just keeps that story going. +The first one did sort of have a focus more on the sisterhood. But it also talked about +you know the beginning of the navigator killed the beginning of the Min Tats, the the beginning of the +Sword Master's like all these groups that become important in the Dune universe. And so for the next +one the Min Tats become sort of the focus. I really really enjoyed this. I like the Min Tats as an idea. +And the way that some of the ideas of that and how it's interpreted later are subverted by its +genesis are interesting. I'm kind of looking forward to eventually going back and reading the original +trilogy was sort of this stuff in my head to see how it colors it. Because I think it will. +I think it definitely will have an impact. So I really like that one. It's definitely something +that I'm going to enjoy knowing moving forward. Okay. And the last one I read during this period +is the book. How to grow more vegetables by John Jevon's. This is sort of a fundamental text +for a lot of people in sort of the generative agriculture space. It is based around the idea of +this grow bio-intensive movement and sort of their principles and how they work land in a certain +way to make it more efficient. They use a lot of you know quantitative metrics to figure that out, +which I like. But it also has some weird stuff in it that I don't don't 100% +jive with or think that that's a thing that actually matters. But there is a lot of stuff in here +that I'm definitely going to pull and use. And it is sort of made to be a reference manual. I mean, +there is a narrative to it and you can read it and sort of learn things. But really it is it is +super focused on you know this book you will use the charts in it and the layouts and things like that. +So I'm glad that it is in my toolbox. Now there was some things in there that I had never heard +before, but really a lot of it was just reinforcing things in new ways that I had already heard. +And so it gives me some tools to use moving forward growing stuff. So that's the end of the +books that I have for this first half of the year. Hopefully I'll come back and do the second half. +But I do want to talk about the application that I use on Android to track my reading because +I think that it is way better than anything else that I have seen. So the Android app is called +Open Reads. And essentially it has when you open it up it has three different pages that you can +look at. The first one is finished. When you finish a book it puts you know the cover of the book +on there and so you can just sort of scroll through and see the books that you've read over this period of +time. You have another panel which is in progress. These are the books that you are currently reading. +And then you have a four later. So if I see a book that I really want to read like if I'm out of the +book store or if I'm just like at the library or something I can add it to my list and remind myself +to go back and do it. My four later is gigantic because I'm like that. But it does a really good +job of tracking reading. You can go ahead and tell it you know when you started. When you finish +how much you read and so it keeps pretty good statistics and you can go into the statistics and +learn lots of things about like how you have read. So you know I can look and see how many pages +I finished in each month. You can tell you how many books I read. The total number of finished pages +which is 3,704 which if you told me then in six months I would have read you know close to 4,000 pages. +I would have told you you were insane but I have. So that's kind of nice. It tells you your average +reading time for a book. Your average reading time per day. Your average number of pages per day. +Or average number of pages for a book. Excuse me. It tells you your longest book. Your shortest +book. Your fastest read. All these sort of things which I find interesting. You know I don't know +that it actually does anything but makes me feel better about the choices I made. So for me it's an +important tool to kind of keep me on the track I'm doing. So my suggestion to everybody is like +go read a book. Go do something fun. Find something silly. I mean literally read a page a day. If +that's what it takes don't worry about how fast you read. Don't worry about how many books you read. +It's a snowball. When you start it'll pick up. So with that good luck everybody. Hopefully I'll +see you in six months and we'll talk about the other half. Bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4654.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4654.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68279cd --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4654.txt @@ -0,0 +1,260 @@ +Episode: 4654 +Title: What's in my component Box? +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4654/hpr4654.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:04 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4654, for 2026-06-04 +Today's show is entitled, "What's in my component Box?" +The host is MrX and the duration is 00:27:51 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Describing the contents of an old storage box I have." +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in September 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hello and welcome hacker public video din's, my name is Mr. X, and welcome to this podcast. +As usual, I'd like to start by thanking people at HPR for making this service available to us all. +HPR is a community-led podcast provided by the community for the community. That means you could contribute to +if everyone gave one sure year, but have more shows we know what to do with, so why don't you pick up a microphone +and give it a go, it's very easy, I'm sure you've got something to you could send in, +and there's that there's less than a website of ideas if you can't think of an idea. +So this show is going to be from the reserve queue, that means if you're listening to now, +HPR is short-tone shows, so if you could give a show that'd be very handy. +I think we've got a bother time to get this started, because it's been a wee while since I've recorded +something for HPR as well, but I've done at least one this year, and I think I reserve one as well, +maybe. Anyway, I am so the idea for this came from, but we were doing some cleaning out in the house, +and Mrs. X came across a box, and she just wants that whole box to do what? +Do you still need it? Well, what's in it? Well, I'm a bit of a hoarder, it has to be said, +and I think the longer you have something, the more attached you get, at least it is for me like that. +So this is, well, I call it my component box, and it's, um, and of course, Mrs. X, well, when does +last time you used it, and of course, I couldn't really answer that, and to be honest, I can't even +think of the last time I've ever used anything at all within it, so it really is utterly redundant. +It's like, well, I'll tell you what it is, I've gone a rabbit, he's done about it too much already. +I call it my component box, but it's really like a fly fishing line, because it was your first +first one, first one is tackle box thing, that, you know, it's got some individual compartments in it. +It's made of plastic, I think I think pictures of the thing, it's about 12 and a half inches wide, +five inches tall, and five and a half inches deep, so it's not big, it's got quite small, really. +So this box, I've got this vague recollection of hounding my parents for this, +hounding, I want a component box, I don't know where I got the idea from, +kind of my whether it was in an electronics magazine, I looked at, I don't know, I can't remember, +but so that this box is possibly 40 years old or more, so I don't know, I'll tell you something. +It's surprising that the plastic hasn't all gone brittle, because it's all plastic. +Very soon after I got the thing, I snapped, there's a cunning looking fold out the handle in the +top, and if you were to pick up by that one end would come loose, like that, and the whole +thing would come crashing through the ground, because I just fiddled over the thing, and when I was +at a young boy, and ended up snapping it inside, I wasn't able to repair that. Another thing I did to +well I was fiddling with the thing is a young boy, there's a catch that a looking catch, and it +you flip it up and locked it on the top, it flips over and keeps it closed, and I fiddled with that, +and eventually I broke it attaches to the bottom, and I say, you'll see when I open, I think +I picture the inside of the box, you'll see that that broken bit on the bottom from edge basically, +and I tried to patch it with it, by putting the clip back on and smithing about a plastic +into it, and lastly for a wee wee wedding broke, and I thought I'll just say to manage the +out that I suppose, and then I cut to me, well the catch is identical on both sides, it's maybe +just for simplicity of molding the half, I don't know. So I thought, well, why am I trying to fix +the bottom? I thought, and it used bend the clip out, put it on the top half, and then flip it +down, and in fact, it feels more natural to flip it down and lock it into place than to flip up +and latch it, so I think it's better than that way, any rambling on here. So if I open the box, +and it consists of two top trays, and a big lower compartment, and the individual compartments, +some of them, not all of them, I've got what do you call it now? I think I wrote this down now, +dimo tape, you used to see this everywhere back in the day, and funnily enough, I was in a shop +recently, and to my utter amazement, they had like label printers and one of the modern label +printers you get, but there was actually a dimo printer, so you can still get it, which is quite +remarkable, so I've got some of the things I printed with, I've got red and blue dimo tape on it, +switches, resistors, earphones, earphones, what else did it say? Capacitors, transistors, +really diodes, same thing else, thanks so, and almost none of these things is what's behind the label, +so it's complete nonsense, and it's really just a mess of rubbish, so I can't bring myself to get +rid of it, so if we go through the things that are in this box, starting from the top row, +if you're vaguely interested, and the top row compartment one top left has some stereo jack plugs in it, +jack plug in a socket as well, and a double pull, double throw, two-way switch, +a 12 volt DC relay from Alice components, if you're interested, the part number 8217-908, a three-legged +semiconductor device, maybe I'll just regulate it or something, I'm not sure, +I'm moving on to compartment two is a whole pile of different fuses, mostly car fuses, +multiple colors, so that's that, compartment three has got a small pouch of silica gel, +God knows why I've got that there, a little bit that I do, and multiple switches, so I've got a PCB +mounted switches which are push button, but it's got quite a long actuators on them, you know, +I don't know, we'll be used for a keyboard and I'm not quite sure what that would be, they're very small, +I've got a small push button, panel mounted, this switch, I've got a slide switch that was +probably pinched from an old radio, you're like mix switch between AM and FM or something like that, +and old radio switch, I've got a switch which, again it's a double pull, +two-way double pull, so the spring-loaded, so I think this was inside a hand microphone, +you know, communications microphone, and for the PTT push to talk, I must have pinched that from +our microphone, what else, what are these things called? These are called or micro switches, yes, +these micro switches, which is just, you might get a roller that rolls over the top of them and pushes +them down, you might, might be used to sense when a door shut or open or something like that, +use all over the place, spare soldering tip, and some red relays, so these red relays are +glass, and in clashes in the glass tube, and when you bring on magnet next to them, they open +our claws, I'm not quite sure which way they go, you know, the public claws when the magnet comes +next to them, so they can be, again, used to sense if a door is open or closed or something like that, +okay, just looking at my volume wave, I was in the looking a wee bit on the twice it, I think +I'll just, no, just that upper bit, okay, that way better, that way better, something like that, +right, that's that, I'm going to put them back down again, so that was what was that, that was compartment +one, two, the compartment three, oh I'm gonna hear all day at this rate, a compartment four, +um, has potential meters or reostats or variable resistors, I don't know why they've got all these +different names, uh, you basically, when you turn the knob or the control, at 10 varies the resistance +of the, uh, there's a white part that saves along a carbon track, generally, and varies the resistance, +uh, that's how that works, use for volume controls and such like, there's some of them here +and also got an adult switch so you can hear it, yeah, so at 10, you might turn it, click it, +turn it, turn the device on and then just the volume, and it also some knobs to go with it with these +pots, um, so on next one along one, two, three, four, um, compartment five, go compartment, +four was called switches, and it doesn't have switches as I said, compartment five, which we're going +to, it saves resistors, pit doesn't have resistors in it, compartment five, large selects, +enough miniature panel mounted, total switches, uh, all various different kinds of things, +there's any point in going through them individually, so I'll see you at the time, compartment six, +two crocodile clips, half of a high-fife, speaker plug, and a washer, why, I don't know, so, um, +yeah, high-fife plug that's, you know, the, kind of, it's got a flat, um, terminal, and a pin, +and you're pushing it into the back here, this plug would be in the end of the speaker, +you plug it into your high-fife, uh, right, okay, okay, come moving, I'm going to come, +well, now by the way, that was called that, that compartment was called earphones, +talking about, I'm going to move my earphones because I just slide down my head here, +I hope professional, like, oh, do you, I've moved that, like, compartment seven, +it's quite arc in a long compartment, in the top tree, and it contains mostly chocolate block +connectors, these are the type of connectors whereby you push a wire in one side, you push a wire in +the other side and you screw down a screw in the, uh, in the middle, um, either side, and it, +it clamps the, the wire in place, obviously, to join wires together and whatnot, um, +so called chocolate block connectors looks about like a block of chocolate, I guess, different segments, +uh, it's also got, um, there's more selection of glass cartridge fuses, +I've got a single, uh, 13-amp mains plug fuse, and then he does well, a sort of an off-soldering iron +tips, another crocodile clip, did I say a crocodile clip as it's, so it's like, well, it looks like +the jaws of a crocodile, you would push a attach a wire to it, screw it down, clamp it in place, +and then you can, ideas that you can move the wire connection to different points by opening the +crocodile, um, and releasing it, it's an spring-loaded thing clamps onto things, it's a way of, +you know, you would use it to connect with to various points, um, and a circuit or whatever, +let's say quite big, quite clumsy by modern-day standards, actually, but anyway, +that, um, oh, an air bed, or, or something like that, adapter, you, it's got a screw +end on one side, and you have attached a foot bump, and you can bump up an air bed or something, +and what else have we got, um, spare nozzle for a desoldering tool, made from PTFE, poly tetra-floor +to ethylene, um, so it's kind of heat resistant, um, so a desoldering tool, you know, you, you +would basically, it's got a plunger, but like we, many foot pump, uh, in reverse, because it sucks, +push plunger down, he, the solder joint up, put it over the top of the joint, um, hit the button, +and it sucks up the, the solder, uh, hence why it's called desoldering tool, but that +is just a tip for it, um, a ferrite ring, um, made from ferrite, um, so yeah, I used that to, um, +reduce, um, interference and whatnot, you might wrap it a wire round or whatever, compartment 8, +8, which is also called earphones, um, it has some grommets and a heat sink, +heat sink, um, you know, it's used to, you might attach to a semiconductor device, +I don't know, transistor or regulators on my line, it tells, it pulls the heat away from the device, +so it doesn't overheat, um, that was compartment 8, now we're moving on to the, uh, middle row, +middle row has a large selection of glass cartridges, all different sizes, I won't bore you with that, +compartment 2, and the second row, which is labelled capacitors, +another selection of glass cartridges chooses, I don't know, but I got all these fuses from, +and there's a small selection of diodes and some, some of these are quite large and all this, +so whether you're used for power, or obviously for high powered applications, +maybe bridge rectification or whatever, anyway, um, that was compartment 2, +resistors or compartment, and in it we did the dimension, it's called, it's labelled capacitors, +yet compartment 3, which is labelled transistors, has two multi-turned precision variable resistors, +potential meters, you've stats if you call them, and a cheap variable resistor with inbuilt switch, +so yeah, it contains variable resistors basically. The multi-turn ones are precision, you know, +rather just turning round, from one end to the other, one 360 degrees, just can turn multiple +times 1, 2, 3, 4, I don't know how many times, but quite a lot of turns anyway, so, whatever the +resistance says, you can more finely adjust it, because it spreads over multiple turns, +this could be, it's probably wire around that, that port, actually, so um, +compartment 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, okay, is a bag of multi-colored LEDs, green, yellow, red, these were a cheap +set of Republican rejects, it was basically the cheapest LEDs I could find, on line, I can't +remember the time I was amazed how cheap they were, and I used those to, um, I've got an add-on board, +which I've, that I did it, which I did it, but, um, an episode about, which connects to Marasbury +Pi and it's got LEDs that light up depending, or to indicate things like how full of the +pi is, how many days it's been on, up time, and things like that, um, and it was actually cheaper +to buy this multi-pack of LEDs than to buy individual LEDs, it was so cheap, but as I think +it would rejects, but they were fine, so fine, we were, oh yeah, um, I've got, I've got, there's a +tiny 2-inch 8-ohm speaker, why don't know where to come from, no idea, and that compartment with +LEDs in the really LEDs and a speaker was labeled really for some reason, who knows why, uh, one, two, +three, four, compartment, five, contains, uh, panel-mounted, heavy-duty toggle switch, two-pole, +one-way, so yeah, that's a pretty beefy thing, it doesn't have any solder, and it's just not +just never been used before, no idea where I got it from, but at that, and it was called, that +had, I was labeled diodes for some reason, you could see I'm really organized, compartment six, +contains, uh, no, a light-dependent, there's a light-dependent resistance, you'd say, so, um, +you might see these things in your clock radio, if you've got such a thing, +hand as the room temp, as the room light changes, the display dims or brightens, so this light-dependent +resistance, it's resistance changes depending on the amount of light that it hits the top of it, +the surface of it, it's got a kind of glass, or a clear talk to it, so yeah, that's that, no use +for that whatsoever, it's never been used, I don't know why I got it, obviously I had some brand +plan when I was about to do something with that, um, oh and I've also got a large, +try-colored LED, so I think it goes, you know, green red, so one, one-platform, it was green, let's say, +other-platforms red, and if you all vary it, it goes on, but it's something like that, I can't remember +it's something like that, and this is also a retiny variable capacitor here, a PCB-mounted one, +we've got, um, a compartment 7, which is the long compartment, and it has, +it also has variable capacitors, actually I noticed that it's there in a bag, so I'm guessing +the one that's in the previous compartment, fell out of the other compartment, so I'm going to take it +back in the bags, they're all together, and this is Alice's stock number one, two, five, +dash, six, five, four, tuber, capacitor, apparently, what else, what else, what else, +spin-ozles for a desoldering tool again, made from PTFE, poly, tetra-floor, ethylene, I've got another +light pin that is listed here, maybe that fell out with the other previous compartment, I stick +wheels two together, I'm tidy up, it goes along, has an ugly idea, you know, I've got no use for +this box at all, panel mounted, heavy, GT, rotary, switch, two-pole, one-way, I can't remember where I +got that from, but there's definitely been use, came from something, an old bit of equipment, +bag of various fuses, oh I do like fuses don't know, I've got so many fuses, +a halogen 12-volt car headlight bulb, yep, I don't know if I've got that, but have, +variable resistor with long plastic spindle, panel mounted, yeah it's very long, +you obviously cut it to size, depending on how high you want it to sit, if it's set in a recess or +whatever, I've got a retiny thing color, a knife, a color, cutty sharp, which is a bit of plastic, +but you can slide the bleed out, it's a bit like a, what do you call this, a standard knife, +sort of thing, but it's a miniature thing, and what else, no, what else in here, I thought, +I want to turn just a heat sink, go to over the top for turn just to something like that, +and that's compartment 7, and the last compartment in the middle row, compartment 8, +is a variable resistor, PCB mounted, printed circuit board, PCB, +the circuit board mounted, yeah, so it's why I've got that no idea, +right, finally we get to the bottom compartment, this is just a big jump-bluff stuff, +let's see the notebook, the killer order, there's a DC red and black power lead with in-built fuse, +I'll be used for, I thought, not sure what it would have been used for, +I'll be to power a tape recorder so I have no idea, a small solderless bread board for prototyping, +so solderless bread board, that's like a white board, and you can push the components into it +to make contacts and build up a circuit, and you can just prototype with it, so it's a very, +it's a small one I've got of, it's, it's three and a half inches, by two inches, yeah, +it's quite small, bag of various plugs connectors, mostly jack plugs and sockets, +I've like, I've quartz crystals and a components receipt from 1985, +cuttle matey, I added some crystals to an old PMR, private mobile radio, which I was +stands for, a boot mount thing radio, it was possibly a pie Westminster radio, I'm not entirely sure +how they would look online or I couldn't find any information or any pictures of the +particular radio, I do remember it had a valve doubt boot, I mean you power it up, +you can hear it whine, you can hear it, you can find it then, where to bring it, or something like +that I think it was, to power the valve, big heavy thing, and other front, you know, a wire that +came from the mount, mount the boot mount box, and round to the front of the car, and you could +flick us, which would go different channels, five or six channels, of course you're getting +quite expensive, because these crystals are quite expensive, so I'm going to curse that two or three +channels, and it would work very well, I remember, and a good clear volume and all that, +but I don't need to be thrown out, I'll probably throw it out since then, several bits of +pairboard or stripboard, these stripboards are a bit like the, what would you call them, the +breadboard, a bit like a breadboard, but rather, you push it upwards into the holes in the +same place, the stripboard, a pairboard stripboard, as you solder it onto it, so you basically, +there's lines of holes and copper strips that run along the board, and one direction, +the separation is between each strip, and you solder the component from the other side, +and make links between it to build up the circuit, and I'm sure you could google it up, +I'll put a link to the pairboard and breadboards, so you can see the difference is between the two, +I've got a one-watt audio amplifier kit with instructions that I never built, +obviously grand ideas at the time, a D-type serial port mounted to PCB with screwed-on +connectors where I got that, no idea, bag of resistors, large bag of LED panel mounted holders, +so rather just jell-ing a hole and pushing the LED through it, on a panel, you could be +kind of jellous, bigger hole, fit this, then you push the, the hole that enter the hole, +and then you clip it, then you push the LED from the back through, and it goes on a nicer finish, +basically, I mean loads of these things, why the heck I bought those, no idea, they're a user, +I can't remember, I don't think so, and electronic instruction guide XH797, Marplan price 25B, +gives you general guidance about how to build circuits and do various things, +but, obviously, bought that at the time from Marplan a long long time ago, +chocolate block connector, that should be in other, that should be in a top compartment, +that I just do that now, take that position go along, I tell a scope pick, pick up for +recording, phone calls, never what, I've got in brackets here, so yeah, that was, I think I +think I got that with some sort of recorder, whether it was my miniature recorder, the basis, +you know, flash dry thing, that records audio, maybe it came with that, I can't remember, +but, years ago, we before that, I had that, certainly bigger pick-up coil, which did work, +I think this one's too small and never really what, you basically stick it on this side of the +old landline telephone, and the idea is that it picks up sounds from the phone conferences you +may have ever loved, piece of rubbish really, but I've kept it, multi-colored ribbon cable, +particularly used for computers and whatnot, plastic, chiming tools, screwdriver set, it's very useful +for television repairmen or people working with RF circuits and stuff, because if you bring a +metal screwdriver near RF circuits, it may have an inductor, it's got a core that you can adjust, +turn it back and forward to changing the inductance, and if you go near it with a metal screwdriver, +part of the fact that you could crack the core, it'll affect the circuit, I mean, you can get away with +it, it's not, you know, you can put your screwdriver it, you could be monitoring something, twist it a +little bit, take a screwdriver, see where it moves to, bring it back, because everything's been +screwed over next to the core, it would change the value, but with plastic ones, it doesn't do +that, it's that side here, these plastic tumour tools, and finally a panel mounted BNC socket, +partly stands for a baby kneel, constant, according to Wikipedia, I'll put a link to that in my show notes, +quote, that's 30 minutes, what a little waffle that was, so if you don't want to endure more +of this nonsense, I think you should send in a show, and if, I think that's about it, if you +want to contact me, I can be contacted at MrX at hpr at googlemail.com, as MRX, AT, hpr, the at +symbol googlemail.com, so until next time, thank you, and goodbye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4655.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4655.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e24d9c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4655.txt @@ -0,0 +1,102 @@ +Episode: 4655 +Title: Tips for Glasses +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4655/hpr4655.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:04 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4655, for 2026-06-05 +Today's show is entitled, "Tips for Glasses" +The host is norrist and the duration is 00:09:50 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Cleaning Glasses and Mid Range Progressive Lenses" +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in November 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +I have a quick episode about wearing glasses of worn glasses for a long time and I've +made a lot of mistakes with my glasses, but I've got two things I didn't know it took +me a while to learn, I'll talk about it real quick, so was this important, well I'll +postulate something here, one is that beauty, HDR community members are nerds, two, +you know from the movies and TV shows that if you're a nerd, you definitely wear glasses, +so I think it's safe to conclude that HDR community members wear glasses, so one of the things +I was always doing wrong is one, my glasses would get very dirty all the time and I would +try to clean them using lens wipes or cloth or something and I'll always end up leaving smudges +on my glasses from the oil that's on my fingers, all these lens wipes and all the +little claws you get when you get a new pair of glasses, these are all really small, +so when I try to clean my glasses with them I would always end up accidentally touching +my glasses and doing the opposite of cleaning them, so I'll be trying to clean them and +end up getting streaks on there from the oil on my skin, so I had heard an odd doctor say +that the best way to clean glasses was just using regular dish soap, so I thought I would +give that a shot, so I tried just using dish soap and ended up cleaning the glasses with my fingers +and it worked really good because not only did it clean the glasses but in the process it got all +the oil off my fingers, so when I went to try the glasses later even if I accidentally touched +my glasses my fingers were clean so I didn't leave any streaks, so just to kind of +spell out the method and you can use dish soap like you've used the wash dishes with in the sink, +hands-op works too, just like any soap that you would normally wash your hands with, +all that stuff works just fine, so the way the clean to clean the glasses you just get some soap +a pretty good bit of soap, put it on your fingers, kind of use your thumb to smear it +across your fingertips, then grab the lenses of your glasses or one lens at a time, +just kind of like pick up your glasses by the lens and you'll end up, once out of your glasses +will have your fingertips and the other side or the one side of the lens will have your fingertips +and the other side will have your the tip of your thumb and then just clean the glasses, +both sides at the same time, both sides of the lens at the same time, you know with your +fingers on one side of the lens and your thumb on the other and just kind of rub the glasses +with your soapy fingers and it gets them really, really clean and then you can move over to the other +side of the glasses to the other lens, do the same thing and usually too whenever I do this I will +clean a couple of pair glasses at a time, so I'll have a, you know, the pair that I'm wearing +and maybe another pair, because there's enough, when you get the soap on your fingers you're going +to enough to do a couple of different pair glasses, so clean one, clean two, and then the good part +about this, like I said, is that now your fingers are really clean and there's no oil on your +fingers, so it's, it's really easy to dry your glasses with the microfiber claws and not even +if you do, actually it only touches the lenses while you're cleaning your glasses or drying your +glasses, it doesn't matter, because your fingers are just as clean as the glasses are here, +now I'm going to leave any streaks on the glasses. Those tip number one, cleaning glasses, +tip number two is about mid-range progressives, so what you get old enough +to need by-focals, so we know you're already wearing glasses to see far away, so at some point, +usually around the time you turn 40, you're going to need some reading glasses, and so typically +you combine those into a single set of glasses called by-focals, the newer by-focals are called +progressive, because you have good distance vision out of the top of the glasses, and you have +good up close vision out of the bottom of the glasses, and they're just kind of this range in the +middle where you can kind of see these medium distances, so the problem I was having is that +probably, like most HPR listeners, I spend a lot of time on computer including my job, and that's +a real narrow band in the progressive area, you know, it's not far away, and it's not close up, +you know, it's maybe for me it's a few feet, it might be, you know, for our listeners on the +metric system, it might be one or two meters away, but that's typically, you know, a good +distance to be away from your monitor is a, you know, three or four feet or, you know, +whatever that is in the metric system, but these don't, you can't really see, +except out of a real narrow range of your glasses, where you can really focus on one, +just a few feet away, and you know, I have two monitors, they're pretty big, +so I end up, if I'm trying to look at one monitor or another monitor or the bottom or the top, +the only way I could see, when I was looking at, I'd have to constantly move my head to have this +little narrow focus, little narrow window that I could see clearly, you know, at the distance +of my monitors are, I was constantly having to move that little window around if I move in my head, +so anyway, very annoying, lots of eye strain next strain, so I don't remember where I heard about +them, but there are a type of progressive lens that are made for doing computer work, +and what they do is they expand the middle area, so instead of having a narrow band that's kind of +this in between, good for this in between distance, they widen that band, so they have just a +little bit at the top, for seeing far away and just a little bit at the bottom for seeing +up close, and the majority of the middle is for seeing this kind of mid range, perfect for +using a computer, so the kind of definition of these lenses, I'll have the link to where I found +this definition, but it refers to them as computer progressive lenses, because they're also known +as occupational designs or enhanced readers, so they're optimized for intermediate and near vision +making them ideal for tasks like pro-long computer work or activities at mid range distance, +and I ordered me a pair of these, I got them from the online retailer, Zini, Zee and in I, +and they are on the Zini's website, they're called the mid range workspace progressives, +but you can probably order them from any online retailer for glasses, I've not had good luck +getting these glasses from my regular eye doctor, so I've basically given up by, I don't buy glasses +from my eye doctor anymore, I go to my eye doctor, give my exam, and then I take that prescription +and then I order glasses online, even for my regular glasses, my regular biofocals, +their cheaper, and probably just it's good, then the ones I can get there, plus I can get the mid range +progressives, so the reason I usually clean two pair of glasses at a time is I'll have my +mid range progressives and my regular biofocals, I usually have both of those and I'll kind of switch +them out throughout the day, so they're probably both 30, so that's the reason I'm too clean +and too pair of glasses at a time, because I'm cleaning my regular glasses and my mid range +progressives, but to kind of sum it up, if you work on a computer and you need +biofocals and you're having trouble with focusing on the monitor or seeing all of your +monitor at once, look for some mid range progressives, it's been a big improvement for me for +headneck comfort while working, that's it, that's all I got. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4656.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4656.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7aa1a23 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4656.txt @@ -0,0 +1,86 @@ +Episode: 4656 +Title: My review of musicozy sleep/exercise bluetooth headband +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4656/hpr4656.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:05 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4656, for 2026-06-08 +Today's show is entitled, "My review of musicozy sleep/exercise bluetooth headband" +The host is Swift110 and the duration is 00:09:49 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "I give a review of the musicozy bluetooth sports headband" +Well hello everybody this is Swift 110 and today I would go ahead and do a review of +the new device and I got a few weeks ago it's the music cozy headband style Bluetooth +device and I had no idea I was going to like it so dark on much it's crazy +I have no idea how I even came up with the idea of getting them I kind +of just I stumble across really cool things sometimes and right now the phone +is being the phone so bear with me for a second what I really like I there +there they go so these are sleep head they can be used as sleep head phones as a +Bluetooth 5.4 headband they can use for when you are doing sports and they have +an ultra-thin HD stereo speaker so they're good for when you're working out the +model that I'm wearing right now is actually about $16 and like I said I bought +them a few weeks ago it'd be honest with you I really wasn't expecting anything +out of that I know that a while back I had been at micro center which is like +candy store when you're in the technology maybe way you are and so when I go in +there I just happened to notice in the Bluetooth you know headphone section there +was headband you know some that were for the headband you could wear it around +your head and I was like well that's all about a problem because the problem +I've been having with my soundcore A40s is that they fall out on my ear which means +it's easy for them to get damaged they can be lost such as what happened with my +latest pair it's really annoying you spend about 50 bucks on something you want to +really get value for your investment so losing one of those earbuds is incredibly annoying +I was using them sometimes to sleep and they come really good for that purpose but +then you know it's not convenient at all and so I was thinking there must be another +way and that's why I really appreciate the price of this particular item another thing +that I appreciate about this particular music cozy device is just how good audio is +it's perfectly fine you can shift the little speakers inside the headband to your ears +you can adjust the volume up and down on the front basically you have like your control +center is on your for you press the button to turn it on or off and you do this that sound +of an Asian female say power on or power off and it's hilarious what I trying to think oh I am +just really happy with the call quality because I can walk around and it even gives you a +little bit of noise cancellation without being marketed as such it helps to kind of block +some of the noise just passively some of the sounds that are everyday people revenue engines +people be allowed and not just just in general I find that I get overstimulated by the +world around me and it calls me stress and apparently there's something called +maybe I can't think of it man my brain is just not working right now +misafone you I think I deal with that and it's really annoying and so as a way to deal with that +a child of blocks I'm not surrounding out these come in really in you know they're comfortable +where I want and where it's chilly I want oh yes I meant to say so the the benefits that are unintended +is that they're really good to keep your ears warm these would be great earbugs I noticed +with my sound core what does things call the sound core space ones you know you weren't on your +head and they're like earmugs almost these go around your whole head so these are very good +earmugs and they still get that sound got so a lot more discrete and big headphones are +I told you I can sleep in them and listen to my YouTube at night and so it's really handy for that +that way now because they're flat very comfortable I mean it it just it's awesome you know +just thinking in terms of the first time that I even wore them you know it was a clear black +night a clear black moon and I listened to the music I was trying to consume it just made me +really happy to get these phones you know I just really appreciate having I I probably'm going to say +this thing over and over because I've been trying really hard to I can't even think of a negative +thing to say about them to be honest with you when it comes to sound quality great when it comes to +comfort ease of use great connectivity great reliability great battery life oh my goodness gracious +very life is phenomenal I was not expecting them to last double I mean all night long the deal +work yes I did that and in this particular case I'm actually telling the truth +for the more not only are they all my long but then beyond the break of dawn and +the whole day passes by as well I have it I can't really tell you how long they last +I just know they last a lot longer than I ever expected them and so big ups to the music +cozy company for this device it's brought me a lot of joy I'm recording this using the music +causing bluetooth headphone headphones whatever you want to call it what could you hear I don't know +and I'm also living my bathroom so I thought that would have had a nice effect to it it kind of +adds a little bounce to the ounce when it comes to me talking in I want to have some fun +with recording so I haven't done anything in quite some time and that was been so long that I've been +long but I just I just want you to know why I'm so if one ten baby +lie and in the flesh so I highly recommend you get you what you get you to take a +band bluetooth headband and then you can experience it for yourself I've seen a more expensive +version and I'm not sure what it's going to offer that this one does it that one's like 25 this one's +like $16 you know so not really a big difference but we'll see how it plays out +I'm trying to take a what else to say about them I already covered sound quality I already +called ease of wear comfortability I don't have to worry about going the wear I can run and I can jump +I can exercise I can do what I want yes I can do whatever I like well wear in these +vice yeah okay into my record I am just woo oh no I'm going in here you guys have a fantastic day +productive and all that good stuff and I'll be talking to you all soon bye for now +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4657.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4657.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c381227 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4657.txt @@ -0,0 +1,150 @@ +Episode: 4657 +Title: UNIX Curio #8 - Comparing Files +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4657/hpr4657.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:06 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4657, for 2026-06-09 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #8 - Comparing Files" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:14:20 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Finding out what's the diff, without using "diff"" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number 8. +This series is dedicated to exploring little-known and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking +in the dusty corners of Unix-like operating systems. +Before getting into today's topic, let me start with an apology and corrections to previous +episodes. +In a recent conversation, a friend pointed out to me that the historical BSD versions were +not necessarily developed in numerical order. +Instead, the 2.x BSD versions were created to run on the PDP-11 while 3 BSD and 4.x +BSD ran on the Vax, at least until support was added to 4.x for other processors. +For a while, they were developed alongside each other. +So 2.9 BSD actually appeared after 4.2 BSD. +In addition, the net 2 release came after 4.3 BSD, but before 2.11 BSD. +Probably others like me have fallen into the trap of assuming larger version numbers +came later, but I should have paid closer attention to dates while researching. +In Unix-Curio 3, I implied that the base name utility first appeared in BSD as part +of version 2.9 in 1983. +While it actually was in 3 BSD from 1979, shortly after Bell Laboratories 7th edition +was in the net 2 release from 1991, not 4.4 BSD in 1993. +In Unix-Curio 7, about compression, I got the date right for the compact utility. +It was first developed for BSD in 1979. +However, the link in the show notes points to the source code file in 2.9 BSD when the +program appeared first in 3 BSD. +I will try to be more careful in the future about identifying where and when certain commands +originated. +Sorry again if you were misled. +Getting back to today's episode, it came about when I was clearing out some open browser +tabs and stumbled upon a topic I had forgotten investigating. +Most users of Unix-Light systems are probably familiar with the diff utility. +It is widely used with source code to compare two files and see what the differences are +between them. +Non-programmers, like me, also use it to examine what has changed in different versions +of scripts or configuration files. +Quite a few pieces of newer software can compare different versions of data and express changes +in a format either identical to or similar to diff output. +However, there are two other long-standing tools for this purpose that are far less known +and deserve in my view to be termed Unix-Curios. +The first of these is CMP in the phonetic alphabet spelled Charlie Mike Papa. +While diff is primarily intended to be used on text files and compares them line by line, +CMP compares files byte by byte. +In my experience, its main use is to see whether two binary files are in fact identical. +If they are, CMP outputs nothing and returns an exit status of zero. +Back when methods of transferring files were not as reliable as they are today, this was +the tool I would reach for sometimes. +For example, you could use it to confirm that the data on a CD-ROM you burned was the same +as the original. +If there is a difference between the files, CMP will return an exit status of one. +By default, it will also print the location, the byte and line number of the first differing +byte. +When used with the hyphen L option, that's Lima in the phonetic alphabet, it will print +the location and value of every byte that differs. +There is one exception to these. +If the files are the same, except that one is shorter than the other, it will print on +message to that effect. +The exit status will still be one in that case. +Using the hyphen S option, that's Sierra in the phonetic alphabet, with CMP, will cause +it to be totally silent and output nothing. +The exit status will indicate whether the files are the same, different, or if the exit +status is greater than one, that an error occurred. +This makes it useful for scripting. +For example, in case you wanted to confirm, that a file copied to another location arrived +fully intact. +It is worth noting that diff is also capable of comparing binary files. +However, it is not required by posics to report what is actually different or where the difference +is occur. +The same exit status as in CMP is returned. +Zero if the files are the same, one if they are different, or greater than one if an error +occurred. +While many implementations offer an option to suppress the output, this is not in the standard. +The most portable method would be to instead redirect output to slash dev slash null. +On my system, the diff utility is three times the size of CMP, so if you don't need +its extra capabilities, it is a less efficient way of doing the job. +The other Unix Curio for today is calm, spelled COMM, or in the phonetic alphabet, Charlie +Oscar Mike Mike, and this utility is also intended to compare two files. +This time to see what is common between them. +Ben Fallen briefly talked about it a few years ago in hacker public radio episode 3889. +Compared to the others, it has a much more specific use case. +The two files are expected to be text files that are already sorted. +What COM will do is print a tab separated list of all the lines appearing in either or both +files. +Lines only in the first file will appear in the first column. +Lines only in the second file will be in the second column, and lines in both files will +be in the third column. +Any combination of the options, hyphen 1, hyphen 2, and hyphen 3 can be used with COM to +suppress printing of the first, second, or third column respectively. +By the way, these options are the numerals, one, two, and three. +Using all three options at the same time is supported, but it results in no output, so that isn't +very useful. +Unlike the other utilities, the exit status of COM doesn't tell you anything about the +two files. +It will be zero if the program ran successfully, and greater than zero if it didn't. +I'm not sure if I have ever actually used COM for anything practical. +I find it's default output to be a bit difficult to meaningfully interpret, plus you need +to ensure the two files are already sorted. +It seems to be best suited to comparing lists, and one use case that Kenfall and mentioned +would be comparing two lists of files to see if any are missing. +The command COM, hyphen 3, list A, list B, would print files that only appear in list +A in the first column, and those only in list B in the second column. +This would let you ignore all the file names that appear in both, and focus on those +that were absent from one or the other. +If, on the other hand, you only wanted to see the file names that are on both lists, +COM, hyphen 1, 2, list A, list B, would give you that. +Some more frivolous potential uses also come to mind. +If for some reason the cat utility is broken on your system, you could use COM, list +A, slash dev, slash null, to print the file list A instead. +If you want to insert tab characters before every line of a file, but have an a version +to using said or all, then COM, slash dev, slash null, list A would output list A with +one tab before each line, and COM, list A, list A would insert two tabs. +A bit silly, but it would work. +The GNU implementation of COM even lets you choose something other than a tab to separate +the columns, so you could go wild with that. +According to the POSIX specifications for CMP and COM, one of the two file names given as +arguments, but not both can be a hyphen. +In which case, standard input will be used for that, quote, file, unquote, in the comparison. +So the results are undefined, if both arguments are the same, phyphospecial, character +special, or block special file. +Some implementations might not have these limitations, but you shouldn't rely on that +everywhere. +All three of these were developed quite early. +The CMP utility appeared in 1971's first edition Unix, while COM and Diff seemed to have +made their debut in fourth edition Unix from 1973. +I'm not 100% sure about that. +Diff might have come a little bit later, but still in the early 1970's. +The original versions might not have behaved exactly like their modern counterparts, and +newer implementations, especially of the Diff utility, have acquired additional options +and capabilities, but the basic operation of each has stayed the same. +The next time you need to compare files against each other, consider whether CMP or COM might +be appropriate before automatically reaching for Diff. +They all have their uses in different situations. +Thanks for listening. +I haven't yet written the next Unix Curio, but there are a couple topics I'm working on. +Keep an eye out here on Hacker Public Radio for them to appear. +If you have an idea for a topic, or want to ask a question, please comment on this episode +on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4658.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4658.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0114def --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4658.txt @@ -0,0 +1,583 @@ +Episode: 4658 +Title: Audio Revisited +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4658/hpr4658.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:07 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4658, for 2026-06-10 +Today's show is entitled, "Audio Revisited" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:50:23 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "This is a follow up to the series on Simple Podcasting showing the results of filtering experiments" +This is a follow-up to my four-part series on simple podcasting. +In this episode, I will discuss a number of experiments with audio filtering. +These experiments were inspired by comments by listeners and by other discussions about +audio on HPR. +I am not an audio expert, so I am doing this partly in order to learn something, but mainly +in order to have a bit of fun. +I hope that you find this entertaining as well. +In a comment on the first episode, a listener mentioned something called solo cast +and said that the method bore resemblance to the method that I was using. +Here is this comment. +Comment by Rito. +It reminds me about solo cast, high whiskey jack, I really liked your podcast and the topic. +I cannot remember about your last, but the sound quality of this one was good in my mobile +speakers. +The concept reminded me about the program from Norris T, another host on HPR, while similar +does it have some differences in HPR 3496, and then it gives the URL to the episode. +As I am not on the future feed, I look forward to your next episode. +Here is Rito. +End of comment. +I did not recall having heard the episode on solo cast, but this sounded very interesting. +Solo cast was an HPR episode 3496 and was released by Norris T on the 20th of December 2021. +I listened to that episode and it does indeed use the same basic concept of recording +short segments of audio and combining them later instead of creating one big recording and +editing it with an audio editor. +The main difference is that the workflow that I described involves a lot of manual steps, +while solo cast is a short Python program that automates the entire process of presenting +your script, recording the segments, combining the segments, and filtering and normalizing +the result. +I won't try to describe solo cast in detail instead I would recommend just listening +to the HPR episode 3496 to get Norris T's explanation directly. +Well, I wanted to make sure that a credited Norris T with having come up with this concept +four years before I did, this won't be the focus of this episode. +Instead, I will talk about audio filtering and various experiments that are ran on different +methods. +While looking at the source code for solo cast, I noticed that it used a filtering method +that resembled one used by JiveTalk, a podcast production program that caught the attention +of one of the HPR community news presenters. +This method involves taking a sample of quiet audio where there is no speaking taking place +and then using this as input to a noise reduction filter which is applied to the voice recording. +The filters subtracts the quiet sample from the voice audio which should theoretically +remove the ambient noise. +I decided to apply this method to a number of different audio test recordings which were recorded +under different circumstances using different hardware. +In this way, I could see if the method worked equally well under all circumstances, or +if there were some sorts of noise which it was suited to and some sorts that were not. +While I was at it, I also picked several other filter methods to see how they worked as +well. +Potentially, some methods may be better under some conditions while other methods were +better suited to others. +I won't present all of my experiments as that would be a bit dull to listen to. +Instead, I will describe each method and then present audio samples which illustrate +my conclusions. +There are two pieces of audio software involved, both of which were also used in my series +on simple podcasting. +The first is Sox, spelled SOx and which is short for sound exchange. +Sox is a command line program for audio manipulation. +Sox is free software, released under the GPL V2 or later. +The other is FFMPEG, which is also a command line program. +FFMPEG is also free software, released under the LGPL V2.1 later and GPL V2 or later. +Sox actually uses FFMPEG for certain operations. +For recording hardware, I use the following. +Maxwell Headset, the first is a cheap Maxwell Headset that has an electrical noise problem. +Unfortunately, I don't have a model number for this headset. +I described this hardware, the noise problems that I had with it and how I created filters +to deal with the noise in my series on simple podcasting. +Briefly though, this is a headset that has a built-in microphone on a boom, which allows +the microphone to be positioned close to the mouth. +It connects with a USB cable. +Born, earpiece and inline microphone. +This is a set of earplugs that go in your ears and connect it by wires and a very small +microphone built into a small bulge in the cable. +It connects using a 3.5mm jack. +The model number seems to be BUD250-BL. +X-Tryk headset. +This is a gaming headset similar to the Maxwell headset described above. +The model number is GH-510. +It uses a USB connection. +Yann May condenser microphone. +This is a microphone that comes with a small tripod stand. +The model number is SF-910. +It uses a 3.5mm audio jack. +This is not a review of the hardware. +Rather, I was trying to create audio problems so that I could test ways to fix them. +Therefore do not take the above list as a recommendation of what to buy. +However, you can see that I am not using any expensive audio hardware. +If you want to make an HPR podcast, you do not need professional level hardware. +Audio samples. +The audio samples are as follows. +Quiet. +This was recorded in a quiet environment at my desk. +This is my normal podcasting environment and represents optimal conditions. +The main reason for this method is to see how the various filter methods perform when +dealing with electrical noise from the Maxwell headset. +Small fan. +This is a small USB powered table fan approximately 10 cm in diameter. +It was located roughly 40 cm or less to the left of the microphone, although this varied +depending on the microphone. +Traffic. +This was along a busy street with traffic noise in the background. +Filter methods. +Socks. +Noise RED filter with audio profile. +This method uses the Socks. +Noise RED or N-O-I-S-E-R-E-D filter. +Here is a brief quote from the Socks documentation on this filter. +Quote. +Reduce noise in the audio signal by profiling and filtering. +This effect is moderately effective at removing consistent background noise, such as his or +hum. +To use it, first run Socks with the Noise Prof that's N-O-I-S-E-P-R-O-F effect on a section +of audio that ideally would contain silence, but in fact contains noise. +Such sections are typically found at the beginning or end of a recording, end of quote. +For these tests, I recorded a separate noise profile to go with each test. +Basic manual filter. +This is a basic, high and low pass filter pair based on the work I had done in my previous +series on simple podcasting. +However, based on the tests that I have done for this episode, I decided to get a bit +more aggressive in terms of filtering. +I use a high pass filter of 120 Hz and a low pass filter of 8 kHz. +Each filter is then applied twice to increase the its effect. +I also added band reject filters to deal specifically with 50 and 60 Hz line noise. +Complex manual filter. +This uses the manually constructed filter described in my series on simple podcasting. +This uses the basic manual filter plus a series of custom band reject filters to fix specific +noise problems in the Maxwell headset. +F-F-M-P-G-A-F-F-T-D-N filter. +The documentation describes this as D-noise audio samples with F-F-T. +F-M-P-G-A-R-N-D-N filter. +The documentation describes this as reduced noise from speech using recurrent neural networks. +F-F-M-P-G-A-T-E filter. +I will pronounce this as A-G-T for convenience. +The documentation describes this as A-G-T is mainly used to reduce lower parts of a signal. +This kind of signal processing reduces disturbing noise between useful signals. +Method. +The experimental method used was to take each noise sample and apply different filter methods +to it. +For there are parameters which can be adjusted, a script was used to generate a series +of different sample files with different parameter values. +Not all possible parameters were experimented with as the goal is to see which method +produces what sorts of results under different circumstances not to get the best possible +result for the samples that I happen to have. +The method in each case was as follows. +Step 1. +Convert the audio file to FLAC if it is not already in that format. +Step 2. +Apply basic HI and low-pass filter described previously to each sample. +The reason for this basic filtering is that it eliminates at least some undesired noise +in a fairly full-proof manner, leaving less for the more advanced filter to deal with. +This should allow for a better test of the filtering under realistic conditions. +Step 3. +Apply the noise reduction filter being tested. +Step 4. +Normalize the filtered sample to 17 LUFS according to the EBU R128 standard. +The EBU standard is described in my series on simple podcasting. +Normalizing adjust the audio signal to the desired loudness cell level. +This allows for more consistent sound levels and allows us to hear the results under realistic +conditions. +I normalize the audio individually for each sample as different recording hardware requires +different amounts of loudness adjustment. +This is different from the typical podcast process where normalizing takes place at the +very last step in the process, but it was necessary in this case. +Step 5. +Concatenate selected sample audio files to one another to allow for better review and comparing. +Results. +The results are grouped according to the type of noise which is being mitigated. +This allows for easier comparison of the effectiveness of each technique under different +circumstances. +I've only picked a few examples of interest out of the numerous experiments that I conducted. +Quite recording environment with Maxwell headset. +This compares how well various filtering methods work on the noise induced by the electronics +in the Maxwell headset. +This electronic noise consisted of noise spikes every one killer hurts. +This should be representative of electronic noise caused by problems in recording hardware. +Manual filter. +The manual filter, applied in narrow, band-reject filter, every one killer hurts from one +killer hurts to 12 killer hurts. +Just completely remove the otherwise audible wine caused by the noise. +FFMPEG, AFFK, DN. +This method allows for setting a noise floor and specifying how much the noise floor should +be reduced by. +The method is very sensitive to getting the noise floor correct for that recording. +Set the floor to low and nothing happens. +Set it to high in some distortion results. +However, it seems to be moderately effective, but it would seem to require checking it +and possibly adjusting it each time it is used. +FFMPEG, AFFMPEG, A8. +That's AG, ATE. +This method allows setting a noise floor and suppressing all sound which falls below that +level. +This method is very sensitive to getting the noise floor correct for that recording. +If set to low or quiet, it is ineffective. +If set to high or loud, it distorts words which come after a pause, which would typically +be between sentences. +When set correctly, it completely removes noise in the silences between sentences. +However, the noise is still audible during speech. +This is because the noise in this case is a higher frequency than the normal speech and +so stands out more. +It may not be a significant problem for the noise which is closer to the main vocal frequency +band. +Overall, this method is not suitable for this particular problem. +FFMPEG, ARNN, DN. +This method uses a standard model. +A variety of different noise reduction models are available. +I tested it with only one, STDN, dot R, and NN. +It does not seem to induce much distortion in the voice signal, even with a high amount +of mixed parameter. +However, it is only slightly effective at removing the line from the signal, even with +a high amount of mixed parameter. +Overall, this method does not appear to be useful for this sort of noise problem. +Socks, noise, ARND filter. +This was effective in removing noise between words, but noise can be heard while words +are being spoken. +It was better than a gate, however. +Overall conclusion for the Maxwell headset noise. +When dealing with narrow noise bands that occur at known frequencies, the manual filter +is leagues ahead of any of the other tested alternatives. +Sample Audio. +Here is a sample audio recording showing the best overall results. +The sample is repeated, first with only basic low and high-pass filtering, and then +with the manually constructed filter. +In the first sample, you should hear a high-pitched background wine, and the second sample, +the high-pitched wine is completely removed. +This is a test, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. +This is a test, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. +Traffic noise. +This was recorded using the born in line microphone connected to a mobile phone while walking +along beside a busy street. +This was in dry, cool, spring weather, and the road was paved with asphalt. +This should be reasonably representative of podcasting while walking outdoors in an noisy environment. +Basic manual filter. +This used the basic manual filter with high and low-pass filters. +This did nothing very useful in this case, as the signal was already filtered within +those limits by the recording hardware anyway. +The low sample rate of 8 kHz in the phone limited the upper frequency to 4 kHz. +The sample rate has to be twice the highest frequency that you want to detect. +Overall, this is not suitable for this sort of problem. +FFMPEG AFFT-DN. +With a high noise floor, background noise is reduced, but not eliminated. +There was not much distortion in the voice. +This is only slightly useful for this sort of problem. +FFMPEG A8. +With the high threshold, background noise is reduced, but not eliminated. +There was some distortion in the voice. +The background noise could be heard also heard when speaking, but because the frequency +of the background signal was similar to the louder voice signal, it was not as noticeable +as it would have been if the two were very different. +This is moderately useful for this sort of problem. +It may be more useful in situation where the background noise was not quite as loud. +FFMPEG A8-R-N-N-DN. +With high amounts of noise reduction, much of the background noise is suppressed, +but there is not a lot of distortion in the voice. +The background traffic noise is still present, but is significantly less. +This offers only a moderate improvement. +Socks noise are ED filter. +With small amounts of noise reduction, voice is clear, but traffic noise is present +as a very significant continuous warbling sound at the background. +This is no improvement on the original, and in fact, could be seen as making it worse. +With moderate amounts of noise reduction, traffic noise is mostly gone, but there +are still various squeaks present. +Voice is noticeably distorted. +With large amounts of noise reduction, traffic noise is gone, but voice is highly distorted. +This is moderately useful for this sort of problem, but requires careful adjustment. +FFMPEG A-R-N-N-DN followed by FFMPEG A8. +This combined two different filters. +First, it used AR-N-N-DN to suppress the background noise to a lower level without much +voice distortion. +Then it applied the A8 filter to suppress the noise levels between words still further. +This used the same amount of mix and threshold as was found to be most effective when +each of these filters was used on its own. +The background noise is almost completely gone, while distortion of the voice signal is +low. +Overall, conclusion for traffic noise. +The AR-N-N-DN filter combined with the A8 filter was the most successful at suppressing +background noise while limiting the amount of voice signal distortion. +Sample audio. +Here is an audio sample for what I felt to be the best overall results. +The AR-N-N-DN filter combined with the A8 filter. +First is the original audio with basic filtering. +This is followed by the same audio after being passed through the AR-N-N-DN and A8 filters. +This is a test. +This is a test. +One, two, three, four, five. +Another sample. +Here is a second audio sample showing the SOX noise AR-N-D profile-based filter. +I have included this to show how a profile-based filter can make things worse if you are +not careful how you use it. +This repeats the test audio for times. +The first is with basic filtering only. +The second uses low amounts of noise reduction. +The third uses moderate amounts of noise reduction. +The fourth uses high amounts of noise reduction. +The test is the test, one, two, three, four, five. +This is a test, this is a test, one, two, three, four, five. +This is a test, this is a test, one, two, three, four, five. +Spall fan noise with the anime microphone. +This was recorded using the anime condenser microphone. +The small fan was set up behind into the left of the microphone. +This is intended to represent situations where someone may have a fan or air conditioner running +in the background due to hot weather or has allowed computer fan. +A condenser microphone was used for this test as they are more prone to picking up unwanted +noise. +However, for practical recording purposes, this sort of microphone is unsuitable for this type +of environment. +This is a basic manual filter. +This uses the basic manual filter with high and low pass filters. +This did nothing useful as the fan noise was in the same frequency range as the voice signal. +This may be of more help in cases where the noise is below the 120 Hertz cut off used +in the low pass filter. +With high amounts of noise reduction, much of the background noise is suppressed, but +there is some distortion in the voice. +The background fan noise is still present, but is significantly less. +Overall, this is moderately effective. +FFMPEG A gate. +This was effective in removing noise between words, but noise can be heard while words are +being spoken. +However, this was a small voice sample and it is possible that more problems could occur. +With less fan noise than was in this sample, this technique may work much better. +FFMPEG A are NNDN. +With high amounts of noise reduction, much of the background noise is suppressed, but there +is not a lot of distortion in the voice. +The background fan noise is still present, but is significantly less. +Overall, this was fairly effective. +Socks noise are ED filter. +With small amounts of noise reduction, voice is clear, but fan noise is present as a slight +orbling sound in the background. +With moderate amounts of noise reduction, fan noise is gone, but voice is somewhat distorted. +With large amounts of noise reduction, fan noise is gone, but voice is very distorted. +In general, this method is fairly successful at dealing with this sort of problem. +However, there is a trade-off between background noise and voice quality. +Getting that trade-off correct takes experiment and judgment for each specific situation. +FFMPEG A are NNDN followed by FFMPEG A gate. +Discombined two different filters. +First it used AR and NDN to suppress the background noise to a lower level without much +voice distortion. +Then it applied the A gate filter to suppress the noise levels between words still further. +This got rid of virtually all of the background noise between words. +If you listen carefully however, there is a slight buzzing sound in the voice signal. +For all conclusion, for fan noise, with the NMA microphone. +Of the methods used, the AR and NDN followed by A gate filter seemed to offer the most improvement +for the least effort and the least voice distortion. +The AR and NDN filter on its own seemed to be the next most preferable to me, despite leaving +some fan noise in the background. +Audio sample +Here is an audio sample for what I felt to be the best overall results. +The AR and NDN filter combined with the A gate filter. +First is the original audio with basic filtering. +This is followed with the same audio after being passed through the AR and NDN at A gate filters. +This is a test 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. +This is a test 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. +Small fan noise recorded with headset. +The following is an observation, rather than a filtering technique. +When a recording was made using the Maxwell headset and listened to on the headset later, +or with speakers, the fan was virtually inaudible. +When the same recording was listened to with the extra headset, it was barely audible with +careful listening and only detectable as a fan because I knew it was there. +In situations where there is ambient noise, the best noise reduction technique is probably +to move the microphone as close to your mouth as possible, although not directly in front of it, +and reduce the gain if there is a gain adjustment in the microphone. +This will work far better than trying to remove the noise later. +If you are recording an HDR episode at a desk, then an inexpensive headset with boom mic +may do the job just fine with minimal effort and expense. +Conclusions I have tested three noise scenarios, electronic noise in the audio hardware +at specific frequencies, recording outdoors with an inline microphone in a noisy traffic +environment, a noisy fan creating background noise in an office, by conclusion on these +are as follows. Electronic noise in the audio hardware at specific frequencies. +If you can use audacity or some other means to find the frequencies which are causing the noise, +the best solution, assuming you don't just replace the hardware, is to manually construct +filters to remove those specific frequencies. This is a safest solution in terms of only doing +what you tell it to and not producing unexpected surprises sometime down the road when something +changed in the environment. If you are looking for a fairly automatic filtering method, +these socks noise RED profile-based filter seems to work fairly well. +There is the equivalent filter in FFMPEG, but I did not include that in my experiments, +as it is harder to use in a script because it does not use a separate noise profile file. +Recording outdoors with an inline microphone in a noisy traffic environment. +In this situation, the FFMPEG AR and NDN combined with A8 filters seem to be the most successful. +The socks noise RED filter may work, but at the cost of more distortion in the voice +that is seen in the other methods. An inherent problem with any profile-based noise reduction method +is that if the background noise is not constant, which it seldom is in that sort of environment, +the profile may not represent the background noise which is present later on in the recording. +This risks adding more distortion in the voice as the profile and later environments diverge. +However, for this application, a different microphone that provided a better recording +would appear to be advisable. A solution which brought the microphone much closer to the +and so resulted in a better ratio of voice signal compared to background noise +would appear to be necessary after which the question of what sort of noise reduction to use +would then need to be re-evaluated. A noisy fan creating background noise in an office. +The socks noise RED filter and the FFMPEG AR and NDN, AFFT DN, and A8 methods all work to some degree. +However, they all need correct selection of parameters to achieve the proper results. +When I compared all four methods side by side, I found the AR and NDN combined with the A8 +filter to be preferable in terms of the trade-off between background noise and distortion of the voice signal. +The AR and NDN filter on its own seemed the next post-prefable to me despite leaving some +fan noise in the background. However, that is a subjective judgment of a specific noise sample +when recorded using a specific microphone. Keep in mind though that many listeners will not +be listening in an ideal environment. They may be doing things where background noise is present +rather than in a very quiet room and so may find a small amount of background noise in the +recording to be less of a problem than distortion in the voice signal which may make some word +harder to understand. When I conducted the same experiment recorded with the X-TryCAD set, +I found that AR and NDN seemed to offer no noticeable improvement. This may be because the amount +of audible fan noise was far less with the X-TryCAD set to begin with. In other words, +there is no single best solution here and you may have to be prepared to try different +options to see which one works best in your situation. The important thing is to +avoid making things worse by applying filtering that is not appropriate for that situation. +The best method may be to use a recording method that doesn't pick up the fan noise to begin with. +This could include just using a gaming headset with boom mic. +I have one final observation on this point regarding headsets. The Maxwell headset has a foam +cover over the microphone, while the X-TryCAD set does not. There was some slight audible wind +buffeting noise picked up by the X-TryCAD set. There was not observed with the Maxwell. +This seemed to offer particular problems with these socks, noise, AR, ED, profile, +base filter, as this noise was irregular and after filtering would show up as a wobbling sound. +If you use a headset and plan to use it in conjunction with a fan, it may be advisable to apply +some sort of wind cover over it. Combining complex filters. In several cases, I found that combining +several complex filters offered better results than using any single one on its own. +The basic strategy though is to first use a method which is good at reducing undesirable noise +without introducing excessive voice distortion. Then apply a different filter which is good at +reducing small levels of background noise to an even lower level while affecting the voice signal +as little as possible. This uses the relative strengths of different filter types to compensate +for the weaknesses of the other. Different combinations of filters were most effective for different +types of problems. I did not try all possible combinations, however. Perhaps a further +exploration of this would be worth doing in a later podcast. K Study, noise in another HPR episode +audio. In the comments to my second episode on simple podcasting, which is HPR 4618, where I discussed +basic filtering a couple of listeners brought up an interesting point. Antoine mentions +deep clicking in a post, Vance replied. Antoine, thanks for mentioning the click removal capability +in Audacity. While I already knew about its noise removal filter, I wasn't aware that it also had +click removal. It might have helped me for HPR 4637, where some sort of electromagnetic signal was +picked up by my microphone and recorder, a Zoom H2. The tapping sound was not present in the room +where I recorded. While click removal does seem to distort speech when applied to it, +though to my ears it doesn't sound as weird as when noise removal is done with speech. I could +have applied the filter only to the pauses, where the tapping sound is most noticeable. I will +consider doing this in the event that I'm not able to eliminate the source of interference in +the future, which would be the best way to go. And of quote, I found this interesting as it sounded +like another audio problem that could be experimented with. I found a sample of the episode which +had the clicks and cut a copy of that segment out to experiment with. These sounds are like a series +of clicks or ticks, which would be another way to describe them in the quiet part of the audio +between sentences or phrases. Next, I use audacity to study the sound spectrum. I found a massive +60 hertz noise spike. However, my speakers won't reproduce sound that low, and filtering this out +didn't reduce the clicks. The clicks turn out to be bursts of noise across the 100 to +800 hertz band, which is right where the main vocal band also is. This makes it difficult to filter +based on frequency. The most promising approach would seem to be to filter based on sound level. +I tried all of the individual audio filter techniques mentioned in the other experiments above. +None produced satisfactory results except for a gate, which makes quiet audio quieter. +This completely suppressed the clicks. However, when applied to the entire episode, +it also distorted the start of a few sentences which began with single short syllables. +The A gate filter has a number of parameters which could be adjusted to try to deal with these +cases, although I did not spend the time to do so. Another solution to this distortion problem +is to simply not apply the filter to those parts of the audio, which are affected. +If we record the audio as a series of small individual files, it would be relatively easy to +filter before concatenating the files together, while skipping those files which contained audio, +which is not suited to this method. Here are the results of the experiments. +FFMPEG, AFFT, DN. This reduces the size of the ticks, but they are still present. However, +they may be reduced to a level, which is considered acceptable. FFMPEG, A gate. This was very effective +in removing clicks with the right parameters. However, it can introduce some voice distortion +in the form of cutting out the start of a few sentences which began with single short syllables. +This can be corrected with a very short attack parameter to turn off the filter when a detects +sound above a set threshold. FFMPEG, AR and DN. This was relatively ineffective. +Socks, noise, AR, ED. This was effective in removing the sounds between phrases. However, +it introduces some distortion in the voice signal. I also tried combining filters. +FFMPEG, AFFT, DN, followed by A gate. This combined two different filters. +First, used AFFT DN to suppress the background noise to a lower level without much voice distortion. +Then it applied the A gate filter to suppress the noise levels between words still further. +This got rid of virtually all of the background noise between words. +Here is a short audio sample from HPR 4637. First is the unfiltered audio. +Second is the filtered audio using the combined AFFT DN plus A gate filters. +Since the clicks are very quiet, you may not hear them unless you are in a quiet environment. +Quite a few listeners would probably not be aware of the perceived audio problem in this episode +if it had not been discussed here. Nonetheless, it makes for an interesting experiment. Here it is. +But many desktops are not. If nothing is output, but many desktops are not. +If nothing is output, overall conclusion for noise ticks. The AFFT DN combined with A gate filters +seemed to offer the best overall results when used with the right parameters. +However, the author Vance speaks very clearly and evenly and so his voice is ideally suited for +use with this filter. Another author's voice may not be as suited to this filter. +These socks noise RED profile-based filter offers various degrees of trade-off between +suppressing noise and distorting the voice signal. As to whether this is an acceptable trade-off, +depends on the particular voice in question and how easily understood it is under normal circumstances +without additional distortion. The AFFT DN filter may be a fairly safe filter to use on its own +while producing acceptable if not perfect output. Overall conclusions. I have presented only a +few of the experiments that I conducted. By overall conclusion after all of this +is that there is no universal audio filtering method that works best in all circumstances. +There are instead a number of tools in the toolbox and picking the right one for the job +takes a bit of trial and error. However, if you have a repeatable recording environment, +then once you have decided what tool you need, use your creative script for it so that you +can have a repeatable processing set up. These conclusions apply to voice pod casting. +Music has a different set of criteria and techniques that work well with basic voice pod +casting may produce poor results when applied to music, which has a broader range of frequency +and just as importantly a broad range of loudness. If you are used using filters and effects +in audacity, many of the settings on those correspond to arguments in the command line version +of FFMPEG. It is worth learning how to use FFMPEG directly to automate your recording process. +The experiments that I conducted were greatly assisted by writing scripts, which created +multiple versions of audio files with different settings, thereby allowing me to try many +different alternatives relatively easily. It also allowed me to concatenate different audio samples +into a single audio file and so listen to different versions in quick succession, +making subjective listening judgments more reliable. It is important to keep in mind in all this, +but I am playing with audio filtering, mainly to have fun. It is not necessary to do any of +this if you think your podcast episode sounds just fine without it. So don't let any of what +I have talked about in all this discourage you from simply recording a podcast and sending it in as +is. I will include copies of the filters I have described here in the show notes. Related matters. +Hardware characterization using audio signals. I found it useful to characterize the hardware +that I had in order to understand its limitations better before starting the experiments. +This is involved playing a signal out through a set of speakers and then recording it through a microphone. +I use two types of signal for this. One is a type of signal known as a chirp signal. +This is a sine wave that steadily increases in frequency as it sweeps across the audio spectrum. +The standard audio range is 20 Hz to 20 kHz, but for my purposes I limited the upper frequency +to 15 kHz to save time, as anything beyond that is not very useful for voice podcasts. +By recording the chirps signal with a microphone and analyzing it with a Fourier transform, +I could quickly see what each device was capable of. +See my previous series on simple podcasting for an explanation of what a Fourier transform is +and what software to use to see the results of it. Here is the chirps signal. +In addition to a chirps signal, I also use these series of simple tones of specific frequencies. +By using these tones of known frequency, I could gain an understanding of the limitations +of my speakers and headphones and just as importantly my own ears. +By understanding these limitations, I was able to narrow the range of frequencies that I need to +deal with quite considerably and set the high and low-pass filters accordingly. +These tones are a series of flag files generated with FFMPEG. +Here is a sample audio tone at 2 kHz frequency. +Copies of the script to create the chirps signal and the tones are in the show notes. +A not a review of some of the hardware that I used. +I said that I would not do a review of the hardware that I used. +However, some of it deserves mention for either how good or bad it was. +I will report each section using the hardware being described. +Maxwell headset. This is my original recording hardware. This is a headset with boom mic and USB +connection. There is no model number on it so I don't know the model. +This probably costs between $10 and $25. The earpiece is set on the ears and do not fully +enclose them. This makes it lightweight and comfortable to wear for extended periods of time. +It has a problem, however, with electronic noise consisting of a noise spike everyone +killer hurts. I was able to fix this with a series of filters using FFMPEG. +Fixing this problem is what got me started in understanding audio. +I will probably continue to use this headset to make podcasts. +Extra Headset. Model GH510. This is also a headset with boom mic and USB connection. +I purchased this headset for the purpose of experimentation for this podcast episode. +It cost $12.88. I've owned it to be surprisingly good for surprisingly little money. +It is fully enclosed earpiece, however, which may make it uncomfortable to wear in hot weather. +I may try doing some of my future broadcasting using this headset. +Born earpiece and in line microphone. This is a set of earplugs that go in your ears +and connected by wires and a very small microphone built into a small bolt in the cable. +It could actually be using a 3.5mm jack. The model number seems to be BUD250BL. +It costs approximately $3. I bought several sets of these and use them for listening to podcasts +when MP3 player. The earpieces are pretty good for listening with. A microphone works reasonably +well when used in a quiet location. It is less good when in a noisy environment. +It is very important, however, to secure the microphone to your lapel or other location +reasonably near your mouth and to point the microphone that is the small hole outwards +and not let it simply dangle freely. If you let it just hang, you will get poor quality +and inconsistent audio. Jan May condenser microphone model SF-910. I purchased this microphone +for the purposes of experimentation for this podcast episode. It cost $3.88. +As a condenser microphone, it is prone to picking up background noise more +and as such is probably not a good choice for podcasting by a single person sitting at a desk. +However, it is nonetheless a surprisingly good microphone for surprisingly little money. +I can't USB microphone model M306. I purchased this microphone for the purposes of experimentation +for this podcast episode. This has a USB connection. This is also relatively inexpensive at +$7.99 or roughly twice the price of the N-May microphone. Unlike the N-May, however, +it is absolutely rich. There was such a high degree of distortion when recording through it +that I found it could not use it in the fan experiment which I had bought it for. +I ended up buying the N-May microphone for that instead. +Easy effects software. The techniques described so far all involve recording audio files +and then processing them later to produce the desired result. This is probably the simplest +and most straightforward way of doing things if you are making a typical podcast. +However, there may be instances where you wish to apply filtering or other effects +on the live signal immediately and not after the fact. There is audio software which can hook +into your computer's audio system and do this with a live signal. For Linux, there is a package +called Easy Effects. This is free software and comes under a GPL V3 or later license. +I installed it from the Debian repository under Ubuntu 2404. You can create various filters +and even chain them together to combine them. I played with it a bit but do not know enough about +it to discuss it seriously at this time. However, I thought it would be worth mentioning +for the sake of those who bear wish to try it out themselves. Episode conclusion. +After having had some fun with audio and listening to other HPR members talk about audio, +I thought it would have some more fun by playing with noise reduction filters. +I have no intention of becoming an audio professional, but by doing some experiments, I learned a +few things and had some fun doing it. I hope that the rest of you found this of interest as well. +I will see you all again later in another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4659.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4659.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0dbb444 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4659.txt @@ -0,0 +1,156 @@ +Episode: 4659 +Title: Command Line Fun - Recording a show +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4659/hpr4659.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:07 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4659, for 2026-06-11 +Today's show is entitled, "Command Line Fun - Recording a show" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:13:19 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Kevie uses FFMPEG tool to record an episode of HPR" +Hello, hello. This is Kevy and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +Now, today I'm going to take a wee break from the beer garden and I'm going back to one of the other things that I've spoken about quite a bit in the past. +And that's what I had dubbed command line fun. Now, what I'm going to do today is go through recording an episode and trying to upload it, +using only the command line. Now, before we do this, there are two things you are going to need to have already installed. +So, please go double check that you have got these. So, first of all, you are going to need FFM peg. +Right, that is really important. That's a tool we're going to use. Yes, there are other things you could do, but I'm going to focus purely on FFM peg. +And the other thing you're going to need is a command line browser, because we're going to go hardcore here. We are doing everything on the command line. +So, we're going to attempt to upload this. Now, for this, I am going to use the links browser. Now, that's the LYNX, not to be confused with the one that's L-I-N-K-S. +So, but I'm sure that'll work as well, but just links is my preferred browser on the command line. +So, before we continue, please make sure you have these installed. +Now, the second preparatory thing that you need to do, that it's not in a setting necessarily, but I would highly recommend it is to make your own folder for this, +because you'll probably end up with a pile of tracks here, and you really don't want to be when searching for them. +So, what I would recommend you do is type and make the MK-D-I-R an end space, and then the folder whatever name you want. +So, keep life simple for just now, and this example, make the space podcast. +So, then we're going to switch to that directory by going CD space podcast. +Now, we can start actually recording. What I would highly recommend is, you record your podcast in many sections, and then we'll put them all together at the end. +Now, there's a reason, that's not the way I would do this if I was creating a podcast normally. +I would record the whole thing, this is myself, and then edit an audacity. +However, we don't have audacity as a command line program at present, not that I'm aware of anyway, and we want to limit the editing of this. +So, to do this, what we're going to do is, we're going to start with the command, I'll give you the whole command then I'll break it down. +So, the command is, F-M-Pig, +H-F-F pulse, I-F-N-I default, and then the file name dot-flac. +So, I would actually recommend, for this, you use something like record 0-1 dot-flac, and then every time you make a new one, just go up a level, that makes life much easier. +So, let's go through that. So, F-M-Pig's the tool. +Now, the minus F just tells you, or it tells F-M-Pig what mode it's going to be in. +Because, remember, F-M-Pig can deal with both video and audio. +So, I use pulse audio, it's got, it's all set up, I know what the defaults are, and there are multiple inputs attached. +So, I don't want my webcam, for example, record in this, because the audio will suffer. +So, I'm just putting down, then, so, H-F and then I'm putting pulse, that may be also, that may be pipe wire, whatever you're using. +And then the minus I is just purely what input device is going to be used. +Then, again, default is fine for me. You might want to have to check that out. +And then, maybe I would actually recommend for the very first one, is just create one called test dot flag. +And what that'll do is, you can record a simple message just to make sure your audio levels are fine. +It's picking up the right input, because as I said, you really don't want to be editing this. +Now, when you're done recording, press control C, because on the desktop, and on a graphical interface, that will call be something. +Control C, on a term, real, if you're not used to, kills the current command. +So, when you want to stop recording, just press control C. +Once you have all of your audio files recorded, I would recommend, given them a wheel listen. +Now, again, we don't need to leave the command line, just type an F-F play, all one word, and then a space followed by the files. +Now, unfortunately, F-F play only allows one file to be played at a time. +You can't but join them together, sadly, so you're going to have to go and play that for each one. +So, F-F play, record or one, F-F play, record or two, and you can just listen out. +This will give you an idea of, have you left big spaces at the start, big spaces at the end, because if you have, we can clip these. +But we can do this after we get it together. +Now, to put your file together, you should have all your files now. +I'm hoping you've named them nicely, so like podcast one, podcast two, podcast three, something along those lines, +because it's going to make this section so much easier. +So, to put them together, to F-F-F-M-Peg, space, and then, H-F-N-I, and then a space followed by your first file. +So, podcast one, dot flag. +And then, for every file you've got and you want to join together, you need to put the space and then, +H-F-N-I, and then the file name, and you need to keep on going. +Now, the biggest issue with this is that you need to put, you need to kind of note over how many you have. +So, if, for example, you had four MP3 files, flag files, whatever your audio file choices, I'm going to stick with flag for this. +Then, that's fine. You need to do name each of them individually, having H-F-N-I before them. +Then, after you've named them all three of them, or all four of them. +However, when you have more money you've got, you need hyphen, filter, underscore, complex, +and then a space, and then you need to put in the double quotation marks. +And then, for every file, you need to do open square brackets. +And now, this can be a way of confusing, because you're starting the count from zero, not one. +So, zero, colon A, closed square brackets. +So, you need to do that for each one, because you need to tell it, it's an audio file, and not to create a video of this. +So, if you have four, for example, you would need to do this as open square brackets, zero, colon A, closed square brackets. +And then, open square brackets, no space learning in between. +And then, one, colon A, closed square brackets. +And then, open square brackets, two, colon A, closed square brackets. +And then, open square brackets, three, colon A, closed square brackets. +So, you need to do that for as many as you've got. +So, the actual last number you use will be one less than the actual number, because you've started coding from zero. +Then, again, no space, Concart, CON, CAT equals N. +Not just space space, tell you not to put the video in, that the number, the video in just. +And then, equals, and then, you need the number of files. +So, whatever your last number was, I had one to it. +So, if you had four files, put four in here. +Then, colon, and then, once again, you're putting V equals zero for no video. +And then, a colon A equals one for audio. +And then, you're putting in your another double quotation mark. +And then, a space. +And then, whatever you want to call this. +So, just podcast, dot, flag, whatever it is. +And that will combine them all together. +In order to trim off all any silent parts. +Now, I have to confess, with FFMPIG, this has proved a bit hit or miss. +So, I am going to plea warn you over that. +So, if you really want to be pernicated here with this. +What I would actually recommend is you go and trim the audio. +If there is silence on the start or silence at the end. +Then, I don't think I want to go into this particular episode, +because it will cause quite a bit of an extra length discussing this. +However, what I can maybe do is put it onto the show notes. +And I will actually explain the problem with it is you have to do it. +A one command for the start, one command for the end. +You have to know how much you're going to take off it of each one. +And you're going to do it for each individual file, not the whole file. +So, I think to do that is maybe going to bit above and beyond what we're going to do here. +So, instead, we're going to use the silence removed filter. +As I said, this can be a bit flaky. +Sometimes it works well, sometimes it leaves big silence. +There's actually, if you find there's a big silence in the middle of this, +that's the reason why. +So, the command is FMPEG and the end space. +And then, hiphon i and then you're filed. +Now, this is the file that you created when you combine them all together. +So, this is your podcast.flac file or whatever you've called it. +And then space, and it's hiphon if, and then space, silence remove all one word. +And what this is going to do is this is going to. +Check the whole file, right? +And so, after silence removed, it equals stop, underscore, +pdids equals minus 1, colon, stop, underscore, duration equals 1, +colon, stop, underscore threshold equals minus 45, +and then give the new file a name. +So, podcast, done, don't flag, something like that. +Whatever you want to call, doesn't really matter to be on as long as you can remember what you've called this. +Now, at this point, I was hoping to actually take you through uploading this, +using links or some other command line browser. +The problem is, yeah, I forgot about this, with hpr using the new, +what you see is what you get, show notes. +And, obviously, you don't get that on a terminal browser, then you've got to do everything by html coding. +Now, I don't have an issue with that, but it has been a wee while. +I can do basic html coding, and I probably could have done enough for this. +But at the same time, I also didn't want to mess up and make a lot of extra work for the janitorial stuff. +So, actually, I'm tricking out at this point. +We've got the file just simply could be a browser and do it that way. +If anybody actually does take the next step and doesn't get an angry email from Kner, +one of the other janitors, then let me know, but you're a braver person than I am. +Okay, so hopefully, that has gone through everything. +As I said, I've left a wee bit of extra editing notes in the show notes that they're all done, +and they are hopefully, this is going to be clear enough to follow. +Not necessarily the easier things. It's just another way to show how you can edit, +and how you can record audio files. +I mean, to be honest, the simplest way is probably just recording an episode on your phone, +but hey, since when did geeks ever like the simple way? +We like doing things, and we seem to especially like doing things on the command line just because we can. +Okay, so this is only one way. +I've shown you one tool, yes, that are plenty of other tools you could use. +I wasn't going to go through each and every one. +But the FM peg was the one that I thought this would be available on the majority of your people's computers. +Probably already pre-installed, but again, always double check just to make sure before you start typing in any of these commands. +So signing off now, student tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker, public. +Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4660.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4660.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e21935 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4660.txt @@ -0,0 +1,176 @@ +Episode: 4660 +Title: Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 1 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4660/hpr4660.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:08 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4660, for 2026-06-12 +Today's show is entitled, "Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 1" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:13:57 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We start looking at the works of Robert A. Heinlein." +Hello, this is Huka, welcome to you to Hacker Public Radio, and another exciting episode in our ongoing look at science fiction and fantasy. +And we're continuing with Robert A. Heinlein, and we're going to take a look at his future history. +And that's sufficiently detailed that this is going to break into two episodes. +So this is part one of the future history. +Now one thing Heinlein became well known for was his future history. +This placed many of his stories in a common framework of a future environment and allowed events from one story to influence events in other stories. +Now here's what he had to say about it, in a post I found on the Heinlein Society Facebook page. +And he said, +I never created or invented a future history. On April Fool's Day 1939, I started to write commercially. +By the middle of August, I had written eight shorts and a serial. +As five of these items were more or less to the same fictional background, +I found that I was continually having to check back to keep from tripping over my own feet. +So I took an old navigation chart about three by four feet. +Turned it over, made the time scale vertical, then set up five columns. +Stories, characters, technical data, sociological, and remarks. +Then I checked those first five stories, filled data into proper columns at the proper height for the fictional date, +and continued to do this with other stories later. +The chart was on the right-hand wall near my elbow and was unusually messy, +as I never took the chart down to add to it, just reach over and scrolled on it. +And I'll put a link in the show notes to the source for that quotation from Heinlein. +Now, one thing that became clear as his future history developed is that he was not looking at our future exactly. +He was very clear in his mind that he was writing fiction, not issuing prophecies. +If you are reading it today, it is best to think of this as a kind of alternative timeline, +and this is something that holds true through a lot of his work. +Even in his later novels, which were never formally part of his future history, +he would mention events from that past group of works, which may implicitly incorporate them. +But this is an area where scholars are in disagreement as to which of the later novels, if any, should be incorporated. +And there were unwritten stories that appeared on the chart that would have given further background to the stories that were written. +They were stories Heinlein seemed to have intended to write at some point, but never got around to writing. +Now, you can get more information about this in his book, Revolt in 2100. +Now, the future history stories were initially collected primarily in three books. +The first being the man who sold the moon, published in 1950, the Green Hills of Earth, published in 1951, +and Revolt in 2100, published in 1953. +Each of them fleshes out this hypothetical world in different ways. +The first one, the man who sold the moon, introduces us to a businessman named D.D. Harriman, +who was obsessed with going to the moon, but he thinks it should be done by private enterprise rather than by government. +So he can cox a scheme to do this. +He promotes a legal theory that the rights to the moon belong to the countries that directly flies over, sort of like air rights taken to infinity. +Then he uses the chaos of competing interest to throw this into the United Nations, then gets the UN to give him the rights. +He finally gets to launch a mission to set up a moon base, but cannot join the expedition because the corporation considers him too valuable to risk. +In a sequel story, Requiem, he does get to the moon just in time to die there. +The Highline was never above writing a tear-jerker. +Of course, the book has other stories not linked to D.D. Harriman. +Highline's first story, Lifeline, is also collected here. +And his second story, let there be light, anticipates the development of solar power panels, +but similarly to Lifeline, this earns the enemy enmity of corporate interest in the form of the power syndicate. +The roads must roll, postulates moving roadways in the future, but the story really is about the sociology of technology in the future. +And blowups happen, originally from 1940, anticipates nuclear vision as a power source, but it proves to be dangerous. +They claim that the craters on the moon were really caused by a series of explosions to reactors that wiped out an earlier civilization. +So they move the reactor into space for safety. +And this feeds back into the man who sold the moon when this reactor in space blows up. +Now in these early stories, we can already see that Highline has a complex view of society. +In lifeline and let there be light, corporate power is the villain of the story. +And some of this also shows up and blowups happen. +But in the man who sold the moon, we see that private enterprises prefer to government action. +I think the way this can be reconciled is to see that Highline is always concerned with individual personal freedom, +and opposed anything that might endanger that, whether from too much government or too powerful corporate interests. +Now the book The Green Hills of Earth contains the story of the same name, which concerns a former space engineer, recently, +now blinded by radiation and unemployable, and he's also a poet. +And one of his poems has that title The Green Hills of Earth. +The crew of Apollo 15 named a crater on the moon recently, and they plan to read a bit of it at the crater, but those trips could get very busy. +Still as they were getting ready to leave the moon, there was this exchange. +Now note here that Alan is the Capcom, and Scott and Jones are the astronauts. +Alan, as the space poet recently, the blind poet blind poet in Robert Highline's The Green Hills of Earth would say, +we're ready for you to come back again to the homes of men on the cool Green Hills of Earth. +Scott. +That's from The Green Hills of Earth. That's the one we talked about before the flight. +Have you read that one? +Jones. +Oh yeah, that was a favorite when I was a kid. +Had you read it? +Scott, sure. +And then quoting from memory, +we pray for one last landing on the globe that gave us birth +to rest our eyes on fleecy skies and the cool Green Hills of Earth. +Although two of the stories in this collection were older from 1941, +most of them are from 48 and 49, and there's a reason for that. +On December 7th, 1941, the United States found itself at war with Imperial Japan, +and a few days later, Nazi Germany. +Coming from a family that had fought in every American war, +you would expect timeline to get involved somehow. +He could not enlist due to his medical retirement from the Navy. +But since he had an engineering background, he became a civilian employee at the Philadelphia Navy yard, +where he was joined by fellow science fiction writers, Isaac Azimov, +and El Sprague to Camp. +A nice retelling of this can be found at Kirchus Reviews, +and I put a link in the show notes, +and Azimov also discusses this in his biography. +The upshot is that there's a gap of about five years when Heinlein did not publish anything. +It's also notable that Heinlein, by this point, had escaped from the pulp science fiction magazines, +and gotten published in what were called the Slicks, +so-called because the paper they were printed on was slick and higher quality than the pulp's. +His stories began to be published in places like the Saturday evening post, +Argusy Magazine, and Town in Country. +And these outlets paid higher rates than the pulp's, +a significant matter for any writer. +Heinlein always maintained that the only reason anyone would write was to make money. +And the stories were getting to be quite good as well. +Delilah and the Space Rigger, from 1949, +tells the story of a woman who joins a construction crew on a space station, +and faces discrimination, but wins out in the end, +which was pretty progressive for the time, but not a typical for Heinlein. +Space Jockey is a fairly pedestrian story about a rocket pilot dealing with his everyday life. +But the long watch is an important story to Heinlein's view of the important things in life. +A young officer is assigned to duty on the lunar base +where there are nuclear weapons stored. +His superiors want to stage a crew using those weapons, +which can threaten the Earth while being beyond the reach of retaliation. +The young officer sacrifices himself to prevent their plot from succeeding +and becomes recognized in death as a great hero. +And this becomes part of the background to a later juvenile novel, Space Cadet, +as well as being referenced occasionally in other stories. +So you can see that he regarded it as an important statement. +Gentleman B. C. did, is a cute little story about a man who saves people +when a leak happens in the tunnel on the moon by plugging the leak with his rear end. +The black pits of Luna is a little thing about a boy scout who is able to rescue his little brother, +but foreshadows the juvenile novels that he later wrote. +It's great to be back is about a couple who have moved to the moon, +but continually find fault with the living arrangements. +They finally decide to go back to Earth, but discover it's not really the place they had remembered, +and they then return to the moon, which they now realize is their home. +We also walk dogs is a gem of a story concerning a company called General Services +that basically does things for their clients. +Their advertising slogan is, +want somebody murdered, then don't call General Services, +but for anything else, pop it pays. +They deal with a few different problems in this story, +but the main one is the development of anti-gravity, +and it features a Chinese porcelain bowl. +Ordeal in space is about a space man who has an accident that gives him a fear of heights +and watched him out of space, +but he has to face his fear when he needs to rescue a kitten from the 35th floor. +One thing about Heinlein is that he was a firm and devoted cat fancier, +so it is no accident that a kitten is the one that has to be rescued. +And the final story, logic of Empire, +he discusses the development of slavery in the Venus colony +as a natural consequence of machinery being expensive and humans being cheap. +And in this story, there is a background referenced in the MIS cutter +who will soon be important in the future history. +Now one of the things that is worthy of a brief discussion at this point +is exemplified by the story logic of Empire, +and that is the reference to the Venus colony. +We now know that Venus can best be described as hellish, +with crushing air pressure and temperatures high enough to melt metals. +The best designed lander can last no more than minutes before being destroyed, +but this was not known when Heinlein was writing these early stories. +The prevailing view at that time was that Venus was shrouded in clouds +because it was very wet and swampy, so that is what Heinlein went with. +Similarly, his Mars had canals and was inhabited. +You just have to go with it in these stories, +as you have to do with so much of golden age science fiction, +let alone pre-gold an age. +Well, I think that's enough for this episode, +this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio signing off, +and as always, encouraging the support free software. +Bye-bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4661.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4661.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7ee25f --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4661.txt @@ -0,0 +1,263 @@ +Episode: 4661 +Title: Laptop Computer Woes, or How I Learned to Love My Tech Hoarding +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4661/hpr4661.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:10 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4661, for 2026-06-15 +Today's show is entitled, "Laptop Computer Woes, or How I Learned to Love My Tech Hoarding" +The host is Claudio Miranda and the duration is 00:26:10 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Claudio rambles on about problems with his two laptops and how his tech hoarding came to the rescue." +Hey, Hacker Public Radio, this is Claudio M. And on this episode, I'm going to talk to you about some issues that I have with my two main laptops that I use on a daily basis. +One more so than the other. My main laptop, my daily driver, is as you all know, those of you who follow me on my BSD.network, MasterDonicount. +I have what's branded as an EVO EVC141-12, that's the model number. +laptop, it's the Elite 14-inch, the layman's term, the name for it. +And it is sold, it was sold by Walmart, came out in 2020, comes with a Ryzen 5-3500 view, the Radion Vega 8 graphics, I believe it is. +It's not a bad laptop. It has some issues, as I said, some cons, it's only got one ramp slot on it, so a single channel memory. +But otherwise, it wasn't a bad laptop, didn't be well. +And then the other is my older, which I call my workforce, really, the HP ProBook 4540S. +This one has a Core i53320M, it's got eight gigs of RAM, and it has actually dual graphics. It has the Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics, +and the Radion HD7650 graphics. +So, when that one was sold to me, I don't think they realized that it actually had two graphics, but the sticker on it said otherwise, there was a radion sticker on this. +So, I had asked the seller about it, and he said, nope, just the one that shows in device manager, because it was running, it had a hard drive that was running Windows 10 at the time. +But when I got it, I actually did a test on it, booted up in Linux, and it did show that it had also a radion HD7650. +So, that was a good thing for me, and that I actually purchased before the, but both of them were starting to give me some problems as a link. +And unfortunately, the AMD one, the EVU, was having issues with the power, where it would have difficulty charging. +And that was with the original charger some time ago, and I was like, well, maybe it's a charger. +So, I went ahead and I replaced it with another one that I had for a while now, and I found a connector that worked with it, and that met the power requirements for the laptop. +And it worked fine with that for a good while, and then that one started out problem. +And so, I started testing with a few others, checking to make sure that that wasn't overloading the circuit. +And it worked for a little bit, and then it finally gave up to go. +I just turned off, I would not turn on at all, neither from the battery, neither from the AC port. +So, I decided to open this up, and to my dismay, I see that one of the two capacitors that is for the power, it's just completely destroyed. +So, it was damaged, not sure why, but well, I probably overloaded who knows, might have been my fault. +But yeah, so that one's dead. +And then I'm like, okay, well, I have to see what I can do about that one, but I'll talk about that one in a minute, I'm just going to give you a little brief. +Some brief summary of the HP, the Pro Book. +That one I use usually at work, or when the other one's charging, when the evil is charging, I would use the Pro Book, which is running Fedora. +The evil is running OpenBSD. +So, the Pro Book actually was starting to show some problems with the screen, it would start to glitch out whenever I moved the LCD screen. +It would glitch out and flash a bright white on the screen intermittently as I moved it. +So, it seemed like it was an issue with a connection of some sort, but it just got progressively worse. +So, it got to the point where it really started becoming an issue when I was using it, and it was frustrating. +So, going back to the evil, I said, okay, well, I don't have the capability or the equipment to be able to perform this, this solder job, because the factors that are used in spaces C8 and C16, C16 being the one that actually blew out. +There's surface mount capacitors, and you kind of have to have a certain equipment for that to do some micro-sodering, and I don't have it. +However, my eldest son, who is studying Electrical Engineering, and his grandfather, who is an Electrical Engineering, they both have experience with this. +And so, I reached out to them to see if they can actually fix this for me, and they said it shouldn't be a problem. +It's possible that his grandfather will be able to do the job. +So, but all they needed was the schematics on the laptop, so it's okay, great. +Let me go do a search on Google, and on Dr. Go, and on Ecosia, and on every search engine that I can think of, and none of them came up with the schematics for this evil laptop. +Now, the main board does have a stick around it with a serial number or a part number, and it shows as a long string of letters and numbers. +I'm not going to read it out here. +It is actually, I have a blog post about this, which I'll be posting in the show notes, and it has all the links to everything that I'll be talking about today. +So, I couldn't find anything with that whole jumble of alpha numerics. +But I did notice when I started doing some searches that part of the beginning of that part number was give me some hits. +So, I ended up finding some information on what is the PF4, PU1F. +Now, there's a number of laptops that are based on this, and the reason that is the case is because this laptop, as well as those other ones listed on the search, +are made by Clevo. Clevo is a Taiwanese company that makes manufacturers generic laptops, and sells them three sellers who they rebrand it, +and they sell them in different names like EVU or Motile or X&G or whatever, and I think there are some Linux based, +the ones that come with Linux pre-installed, that actually use Clevo as their model. +So, I did, after doing a search with just the PF4, P1F, I did come across schematics for the tongue-fang brand of laptops, and most of them seem to fit the design of what my EVU is. +So, I started looking, I found a site that had the, that had the PDF files of the schematics for various, for variations of this device, +and I noticed that all of them had the same under the DC and entry. They had the same markings for the capacitors for C and C16, +and that was one U-25, that 06R-K. So, I took that information, and I sent it to my son, and he says he believes that kind of identifies what, +what the specs of the, of the, of the surface mount capacitor is, but he's not quite sure. So, I sent him all the files, +and I told him to give it to his grandfather, and we'll see when, you know, if they're able to find it, and be able to repair it for me. +So, at least I have somewhat of a solution, but it's not a quick solution, meaning I am without that laptop for now, and my OpenBSD system is unusable. +So, I decided to pull everything out, I pulled out the SSD that, and not to SSD, which was running OpenBSD. The SSD, the SAT SSD that came with a laptop that's running Windows, +that came with Windows 10, now to running 11, because I've rid it, and the RAM. +And I decided to plug in my subrent external USB external SSD and H hard drive rally, spending hard drive, docking station, to the, to the, to the pro book. +And I was able to boot up off of the M.2 SSD, because the dock has a slot for that, and I was able to perform a snapshot update on the installed OpenBSD system on that SSD. +Which is great, because if I need to keep it up to date, I can do so that way. If I need access to my files, I can access that way it's bootable through the USB port, which is great. That works for me, that's a partial solution. +I was trying, I may eventually look at getting a Lenovo, much newer Lenovo, probably a Gen5 or Gen64 team in the base, but we'll see. If I don't have to spend money, I won't, if they can fix it, I'll stay with this one for a while until things get better. +But on that topic, yeah, so I was able to get my files, but like I said, this laptop was starting to have some issues, so I needed to dive into the pro book and see what was wrong with it. +Like I said, this screen, whenever you move the LCD cover, towards the closed or open position, it would just completely glitch out, flicker, and it would just be a problem. +Very distracting, very frustrating to work with that, because even when it got to the point where even without moving it, it would start doing that. +So I took it to work, wow, I always taken it to work with me, but I said, let me go ahead and open this up and see what I can do. +Now, I did plan to upgrade the screen on this from the 13666.768 resolution LCD that it has to something like a 1920 by 1080. +I wasn't sure if it could be done, but I did come across a blog post, not a blog post, I'm sorry, forum post on 20 Mac x86, which is a forum for hackintosh enthusiasts. +And they have a post regarding the 4540s LCD screen and replacing the 1080p on it. +Now, the reason why this is possible is because the 4000 series has, they're basically the same design, just different processors. +And there is the 4540s, which is what I have, there's also the 4440s, which is this in this blog, that also uses the same LCD display from LG. +And the LVDS cable part number is, well, not the same one, they're off by a couple of it, but nothing the same. +You have to excuse that I'm here work in recording here at work, so the dismissal about just went off. +But anyway, there's also the 4740, that one comes with a Core i7 CPU, and that one actually has a 1080p option. +And I believe there are some 4540s that do also have the 1080p option. +But what you need is a dual link LVDS cable in order to make a work. +So there is a possibility of me upgrading this down the road. +But right now, just like I said, I can't even replace this, that evil laptop, so I am, there's no way I'm going to be able to replace a screen. +So I have everything safe for when it's possible to do so. +But for now, I just wanted to see if I can get in there and figure out what's causing this. +And see if maybe I can fix it, something that I can fix easily. +So I found also a video that takes this same model, 4540s Probook. +And the person in the video is actually replacing the screen and doing the 1080p upgrade on it. +Which is great because when they come, come the time that I have to actually upgrade the screen, I can do so with a video. +But he does a great job of just going through the entire countdown of the device. +So what to expect, where to loosen things, where the screws are, everything, because some of the screws are well hidden, you wouldn't think that would be there. +Very important. So I just want to make sure I didn't damage this Probook. +I was able to tear it down. I was able to loosen the screen from the back case of the LCD cover. +And now there is a ribbon cable that runs to the screen from the inside of the computer to the back of the screen, back of the LCD screen. +And that is a very delicate cable. +So I did my best to just re-seat that cable. It has a little lever that you really have to lift very carefully without tearing anything. +It's funny because there is a piece of plastic in the back with red letters that says, do not touch in double what's connection points. +And yeah, they were going to stop me because I needed to fix this. +I went ahead and I carefully and gently disconnected the LVDS cable and placed the back end just receded it. +And once I had that all set, I said, okay, let me go ahead and connect this to power. +And just to make sure that the screen still turns out. And it does. +Screen turned on and I said, let me go ahead and move the LCD screen. +And let me move the hinges and see if it starts doing the same thing. +And thankfully, I was successful in resolving that issue. +So the screen, I had to put everything back the bezel back in everything. +So I was able to move it without energy, anything and inside. +And as I moved the LCD screen, +I wasn't having that issue anymore. +The screen was still viewable and it was still stable, no flickering, no glitching, nothing at all. +And I tested it a bunch of times all the way almost closed before the this. +It will go into sleep mode. +And all the way, you know, just to the extremes as much as I could. +And it was fine. It was fine. It was like a brand new laptop. +So I was very happy with that. +That I didn't have to actually spend money on a replacement screen. +Be it the 1366 by 768 or the upgrade. +I can actually wait on the upgrade. +So I went ahead and I started closing it up. +But I did notice as I was about to put the hinge covers back on. +That one of the Wi-Fi antenna cables was severed. +And this is what I find to be a defect on this laptop. +Everything is great about this laptop. +It is actually very user serviceable, the 4540. +And all the other models similar to it. +There's some that actually have a socket CPU like this one. +This one I can actually replace the CPU if I was. +But some haven't soldered in, but this one thankfully is socketed. +So I can upgrade it to a Core i7 if I wanted to. +But for now the Core i5 is fine. +So I saw that and I tried to see if I can use that kind of tucked it in. +The second cable both of the cables really were in bad condition. +But the the one for the right side. +That was going towards the right side of the LCD cover. +On the inside was completely severed. +So I said let me see if I can use it. +This was on a Friday. +Let me see if I can use it over the weekend. +As is. +It was a miserable experience because I had to be very close to the access point to get any connection. +I couldn't be outside like I usually am. +Like if I decided I wanted to be outside. +Grilling and have my laptop while I was grilling. +Not possible. +So I said all right. +I'm going to have to search eBay and see if I can find the replacement. +Wi-Fi antenna cables for this. +But then I remembered. +I actually have another 454. +Yes. +It was my previous one, which this one had a Core i3. +It was the first one that I got about 10 years ago. +It was a, I purchased it from an acquaintance from then. +And it only has a Core i3. +It has a Core i3. +It has a Core i3. +3110N. +This probe, the dual graphics one, is Core i5. +3320N. +And it all, and the Core i3 one only has the Intel graphics. +But other than that, all the components are pretty much the same. +So I set to myself if I can open this older one up. +And the Wi-Fi antenna on in this laptop is in good condition. +I can replace it with that, and I don't have to purchase anything. +So I decided on Monday to take both probe books with me. +And I started tearing them both down using the video that I had down a little bit. +Toward down the Core i3 probe book and removed the Wi-Fi antenna cables. +Which thankfully were in great condition. +They were not damaged. +However, there's an issue with this screen. +Why stop the reason why stop using is that there was also an issue with the screen. +Which I also blame on the hinge covers. +The hinge covers are the defect in my opinion because they are very sharp. +Very sharp. +And trying to get them out and put them back in is very difficult. +So there is the possibility of causing damage to the cables because of how sharp they are. +Especially those very thin, delicate Wi-Fi antenna cables. +But I do believe the wear and tear of opening and closing the screen may have caused some damage to the NLVDS cable for the LCD screen on the i3 probe. +It just stopped displaying. +But one of the things I didn't notice when I put it back together after I removed the Wi-Fi antenna cables from it was that the backlight on the screen stopped working. +So the screen still works just the backlight doesn't work. +However, I don't know if that hinge caused damage that would have affected the backlight on the screen. +So the only way to test would be to do the 1080p replacement on the i5 probe and then put the screen, the old screen from the i5 to the i3 probe. +So that might be a future HDR episode. +So we'll see about that. +But anyway, back to the top again hand. +I went ahead and I was able to remove the Wi-Fi antenna cables from the i3 probe. +And I proceeded to feed them through the i5 probe. +Remove the old ones, put in the replacement ones. +But this time, I said let me be, let me be intelligent about this. +Because of how dangerous it is to sever those little cables. +I'm going to put some layer of protection around those cables by the hinge area. +So I decided to cut off a piece of the sheath of a cat 5 ethernet cable. +One that was flexible enough to be able to fit in there and be able to close it up. +And then not have it interfere with the opening and closing of the screen. +So I did that. I fed it through. +And it looks to have done the job. +So it has that extra layer of protection. +I was able to put the hinge cover in without a problem. +Everything closed up properly. +And I ran the rest of the rest of the antenna through through the path that it goes to to lead up to the wireless card. +And got it connected. +Close everything back up. +And decided to test booted up into store. +Check the network, the network icon on KDE plasma. +And connected to the Wi-Fi here at my work. +And all was good. +Wireless is working perfectly. +It had a very strong signal. +So I basically repaired this laptop. +I think that I haven't spent any bit of money. +And thanks to my tech hoarding, which I'm very grateful for. +And I think you should learn to love your tech hoarding. +Because as I put in my blog, +you never know when it might come in handy to paraphrase mobile. +It's done me a lot of good to have that replacement or hold on to it for so long. +That previous IP version of the pro look. +And I'm going to continue to hold on to it because there are other parts that I may need to use from it as well. +So there's a reason to always, to never throw away at your old tech. +All right. +Let's make things sustainable. +Let's try and make them less as long as they can and prevent e-waste. +So I now have a working fully functional pro book 4540S with the dual graphics. +And the screen is working wonderfully. +Wi-Fi is working wonderfully. +But I do hope that either my son or his grandfather can repair the power on the evil laptop. +So I can use that. +If not, I'll have to look at purchasing a newer laptop. +And as I mentioned, it would be a ThinkPad T14 Gen5 or Gen6. +Don't remember which one it was, but that'd be sizable. +So yeah, that's my story. +That's my story of how in spite of the laptop walls that I had. +I learned to love my tech hoarding because I was able to repair. +My current one was some old stuff. +And that's great. +So I think you should keep that in mind. +Keep your stuff. +And be sure to share stories like this if you have them. +Or anything that's of interest to hackers. +Be sure to share it in an episode to hacker public radio because we always need shows. +This will be my first one for this year, 2026. +I'm recording this on May 22nd of 2026. +So this will come out maybe a few weeks later in the feed. +So just putting a date on this right now. +It could go into the reserve queue, but I have some other things. +I want to put the reserve key for that. +But I figured I put this out now. +So Ken, I've met my requirement of one show for the year. +But there will be more to come. +Anyway, thanks everyone for listening. +This has been Claudio M. +And tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker public radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4662.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4662.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f09aca --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4662.txt @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +Episode: 4662 +Title: “What Are the Answers I Need, To the Questions I Don't Know Enough to Ask?” +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4662/hpr4662.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:11 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4662, for 2026-06-16 +Today's show is entitled, "“What Are the Answers I Need, To the Questions I Don't Know Enough to Ask?”" +The host is Antoine and the duration is 00:03:50 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is ". Aswers in need of a question. A podcast on an HPR suggestion" +Hello you, yes, you. +Wondering along the suggestion of topics and hacker public radio, we come to this. +How to obtain the answer to something that I don't even know how to ask? +My opinion is you can't get an answer without the desire, be it represented by a question or a quest. +So how to pose the correct question? +There are a few steps. First is interest. Get motivated to know. +Even if you don't know exactly what you want specifically. +A teacher can help, some theory is even put the teacher as someone that first helps the student to want to learn. +Back on, be open to the construction. +To learn is to recognize you didn't know before self pride has to give place for learning. +And when confronted with the new, things you thought you knew, even once you relied on before, may need to be now rejected. +If incompatible with the truth, you only now receive. +Third, when the barriers are down, it is possible to study the thing, because at the moment you don't know what you don't know. +While one ignores something, he's all ignorant. +One has to listen to others to practice and or reflect on the subject, until he reaches something specific. +And not easily or promptly answerable, worth being the object of his quest or question. +Fourth, with the question at hand, go for the answer. +If it's valuable for you more time or less time, you are definitely going to get it. +If it's too broad or if you lose interest, or if you need more after getting the initial answer, no problem. +You can reformulate and start from the beginning. +Great part of the necessary questions, only come after the answer already came by a long curse of inquiries. +The questions that are the natural consequence of studying with the desire. +There is the end credits, program, the article on the description of the show. +What are the answers I need to the questions I don't know enough to ask? +As I requested topic at HPR, +My teacher, Ruth Veltaheis, a curse coordinator of a post-graduation at School of Paranayansi, +did you read to Law School of Paranayansi? +That ministered about the end of curse paper. +Jim and exercises, because doing like curse, seated, is difficult and give strange sensations to many men. +As thinking, it is a strange feeling, and one can even be certainly needed if it's good, bad or only odd. +Thank you. +Bye-bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4663.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4663.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eef9f4e --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4663.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1467 @@ +Episode: 4663 +Title: The hallway track at T-DOSE +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4663/hpr4663.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:12 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4663, for 2026-06-17 +Today's show is entitled, "The hallway track at T-DOSE" +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 01:19:58 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken talks to the hosts at The Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) booth village." +I'm at the Tido's event in Eindhoven, outside Eindhoven in Keldorp. +Remember a few weeks ago we had an interview with Peter Verginneke and oddly +enough I'm talking to Peter Verginneke here at the Tido's event second day. +This is the 20th anniversary of the event, I did not realise that. +Yeah it is, it started in 06, I didn't hear of it for a couple of years. +I took over with a couple of other people and we're still here. +So if you want to go back and actually listen to the interview that I did, it'll be linked +in the show notes. +So fantastic event so far, this is the beginning of day two, we had day one yesterday, it's +on Saturday and Sunday. +The facilities are fantastic, you found a nice spot. +So how has it been going so far, any hiccups? +Nothing we couldn't control, there's always a few fires to put out but it wouldn't be +fun without them. +I had a weird thing with my laptop not wanting to go into the right resolution yesterday during +the presentation but other than that. +So what has the attendance been like compared to other years? +It felt busier but there's no admission, no one has to register so we definitely can't +predict it was here but we can't really tell either. +We can do a head count in some rooms and get a fair indication but that's about it. +Is there anything that, have you been able to get any of the talks at all yourself? +I got two samples of the first one and I got most of the last one. +Are those talks going to be online at all? +All talks will be online, they are streamed today and yesterday on YouTube, probably on +Peertube too but I'm getting signals there, still some technical hiccups there. +But starting in a few weeks they will appear on YouTube, about one a week. +Very good, Al, but keep our community up to date on when those happen and thank you very +much for organizing everything else and thanks for the free cup, we got free cups and we got +free dinner last night which was absolutely awesome. +Yeah, thank you for being here because we feel rather silly without any stands or speakers +or audiences so. +Well, for us it's fantastic, you're just sitting there and you're not bored, people are coming +up and they're talking to you and the conversations are not just please explain free Libra and open +source, they are, I have this idea for something and I've been working on this thing, do you really +think somebody would be interested in that? +Yeah, most people get the concept of open source here, that's, that's a good thing and yeah, +you tend to meet people who know what they're talking about and some have, some don't, but +most do and some are, know very well what they're talking about, much better than I do because +I'm a civil engineer, I'm not a software guy at all. +Show me the concrete. +Oh, you've seen it on the way here, I know you have. +Very good, well thank you very much for putting on such a fantastic event and really hope to +see you next year when we do this again. +Please, keep coming back and also yeah, if you heard about us, you can manage to get +here. +It's free! +Yeah, well, entrance is free. +Entrance is free, exactly, yes. +Okay, thank you very much and enjoy the rest of the show. +We're at TDoS, right? +And I'm at the Infobooth and I'm talking to? +I'm Nick Hipmer, I'm the financial administrator for the TDoS Foundation. +By day, but by night you apparently sell fuel geeks with coffee. +Yeah, something like that, but yeah, I have other hobbies too. +Excellent. +So, how did you end up being involved with TDoS? +Well, it's a long story, I've been in open source for about 20 years I think, since FreeBSD, +2.2.2 and at some point I lost open source as a hobby and I gained it again a few years +back and I thought I'd participate in some organisation that actually does some good work. +So, I sent them a mail saying like, can I help? +And they immediately put me in the organisation and said like, yeah, sure. +You sucker! +So, obviously you're very important because you've got a big yellow t-shirt, very clear +that you're involved in TDoS. So, what are you doing here today? +I'm manning the booth where we sell our little products, our T-shirts and we help people +who have questions and, well, that sort of stuff. +So, over here we have a range of T-shirts going on, how much of those? +The T-shirts are 25 euros for the new ones and 15 euros for the old ones and we can give you a discount +if you buy more than one because many of them are really old and collector's items but we would like to sell them +and get some money for our organisation to get next year's event on the road. +And all the money goes back into the organisation but, as was mentioned earlier, like there's no charge for people coming in here. +It's a free event, everybody can come in and participate. Also, the participants, the stands and the speakers, they pay nothing. +We try to fund a bit of extra things for everyone, so it's fun to be here. +But mostly sold on by our sponsors. I have to mention Adfinis, which is a big sponsor this year, +and other sponsors which you can find on our website. So, we're very happy with them +because they make it possible that we do this event every year. +Very impressed. What is this stuff? +Yeah, well, that's a good question. +So, I'm looking at a crate of bottles. I happen to know what this is because I've been at Fostem. +And I am alerted. +Well, we have this thing with Hackalot. It's an organisation within Eindhoven which does hacking all sorts of stuff. +And they have this habit of drinking a lot. With them it comes in with a pallet. +And our president, he's very involved in Hackalot, so he thought it would be a good idea for us to sell this stuff as well. +But it's, as he says, well, it's sort of an iced tea, but it's an acquired taste. +That is for sure. And not in a good way. +So, we sell it for a little margin, so everything else goes back to Hackalot, so we will see what that gives. +So, yeah, it's a fun thing. +And then we have the magic cups. They're never empty. They remain filled with coffee at all times. +We actually, we have this thing where we sell them a cup and it's 20 euros. And you can have, today it's 12 and a half. +But, yeah, you get free refills for the whole weekend with tea and coffee. So, and that works well. We sell a lot of coffee. +We give away a lot of coffee with the mugs. So, that works really well. People drink a lot of coffee here. +Well, we are geeks. So, there you go. And then we've got the info desk. Then we've got a PIN contactless payment session. +And we're over here. And the little gimmicks. What are these? +If you refuse to be photographed, you can fetch a lanyard. And a photographer will take this into account and remove you from any pictures which you happen to be on with this lanyard. +Okay, that's a good idea. Yeah, I like that. We're very conscious of people who are looking at their privacy and at their personal space. +So, we try to accommodate that for that as well. Simple solution. And we've got our selection of teas, coffees, fruit and the endless coffee and more tea. +Excellent. Well organized. A nice little event. If people wanted to help out remotely, what can they do financially? +They can always promote our site. We can also promote our event. Next year is going to be again around this time. I don't know exact dates, but it's going to begin beginning of June. +It's going to be mentioned on the T-Dose website, www.t-dose.org. And yeah, you can always promote it, look at it, see what speakers are and try to help us out with mentioning us everywhere. +So, on the socials, that's always good. You can always send an email if you want to help out in a more substantial way by sending us an email at info at T-Dose.org. +T-Dose.org. Yeah, just try to get in contact and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. We're always happy to talk to people and have more speakers, more stands. Yeah. And talk to people in any way. I mean, we're hackers ourselves, so we enjoy that a lot. +And English, I've noticed, is the common denominator language around because people are coming from various different countries. People just switched to English. It's not a problem. I'm not talking to you, you know this. But just for the people listening, don't be embarrassed. It's fine. +I speak German and Netherlands, so any language really is good. And we're also happy to accommodate if different languages are needed. So we're happy to have people here who want to be here. +Speak the language of hackers. Yes, excellent. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to show us through your booth. There'll be a picture in the show notes. +Okay, thank you for being here and enjoy yourselves. +I'm here at the Hackalot Eindhoven booth and I'm talking to... +Hi, I'm Booker Worm, also known as Crystal. +Oh, you're Booker Worm? +I'm Booker Worm. Hi, nice to meet you. +I follow you in Mastodon. You're probably one of the reasons I'm here because I didn't know about this event until I started reading your posts. +Okay, nice to meet you in person. +Nice to meet you too. +Very good. And you're here at the Eindhoven Hackerspace booth? +Yes, I'm part of the Eindhoven Hackerspace. It's a place where people come together and work on their projects, both software and hardware, which means there are people doing open source development, there are people looking into security issues, there are people who are building things and building things are nice because you can show them. +Yeah, yeah, yeah. +And we are here showing some of the things we have built, we are working on, and we're here to tell people that there is this awesome place in Eindhoven where you can go to, where you can find other like-minded people, where we have some tools, where we have some spaces to work at, we have decently fast internet. +You just come there, you sit and work on your projects, and then at the end of the evening you had a nice social evening, or an evening where you worked on your projects. Either way, I'm happy at the end. +And you don't need to clean up the mess, you don't have to deal with the mess at home, you have to clean it up over there. +Yes, the idea is that we keep the tables clean and everything, and that we have everything in nicely labeled boxes at the site, in a nice metal rack. +So the idea is that there is space to work and you don't have to do the laundry, you don't have to do your cooking, it's just a place where you go to. +Do you have 3D printers? +Yes, of course we have a 3D printer. We have the mandatory one broken 3D printer, we have the mandatory old 3D printer, and we have a modern printer. +Very good. So do you want to walk me through what you have on the, what's going on on the desk? +I see you had a skill scope doing the cool demos thing yesterday, but above that I see a butterfly on what is possibly a speaker. +Butterfly wings about the length of your arm, I guess. What is that? +The butterfly wings is one of my projects that I wanted to do, to get my feet wet into robotics. +I had no idea where to start, and I knew there was this awesome tutorial on adafruit.com, and I also found when I had to add like a tiny bit to some order to get the minimum order number, +I found these cheap children's butterfly wings, and I thought, I'm going to robotize that. +So I did that, I bought some of, I bought the wings, then I repainted the wings and enforced them, and I made them fit on the adafruit frame, +I put on slightly different hardware, and now I have butterfly wings that flutter. +Awesome, awesome, awesome. +And they are, and they are on top of an oscilloscope with indeed a speaker. +We have some oscilloscope music on a mp3 player that plays Rockbox, and that whole setup is, the music has encoded some images in the oscilloscope, +so you get awesome images. +God, you're really, you're really hitting all the buttons here now with the Rockbox and oscilloscope images and stuff. +Moving down, what have we got? +There'll be photos of all of these in the show notes. +Good. +We have a small, in Dutch it's called a flipper display, it's a display with little flaps. +Yeah, the ones that go t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t, or used to go t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t. +So they are very easily 3D printed nowadays, and with about a day of printing you have a complete clock with letters and numbers, +and it makes a nice noise. +Cool. +And next to that? +This is a... +Examples of 3D printers and stickers. +We've got a worm, made out of LEDs, RGB LEDs that the light flutters from head to toe. +It's kind of nice, I like that. +Yes. +Very zen. +We've got a PCB with all the hackerspaces in the Netherlands, I guess? +Yes, that's all the hackerspaces in the Netherlands, well at least it was five years ago when it was made for 15 years hackerspaces in the Netherlands. +Nice, yeah. +And it shows with an LED if an hackerspaces open or closed. +Well, that is handy. +And, okay, that brings up a whole buttload of other questions. +However, I'm not wanting to preempt anything because, yeah, okay. +We'll talk about that later. +And we've got the requisite, the time clock with words. +Anything else back there? +Oh, there's lots of interesting things now, but I can't, I can't, I can't go into them. +So, you're not just involved, what else are you involved in? +What's your background? +How did you end up being involved in the hackerspace? +Oh, there are very different questions. +I've been, out of high school I decided I wanted to become a physicist, so I did that. +And after I was done with my studies, there was a big recession. +So, I had a spare time and I was missing some of the hardware I had at my school. +So, I bought an Arduino kit. +Yeah. +And then I found a local hackerspace, but it wasn't a perfect match. +I moved to Amersfoort, to BitLair. +Oh, yes. +And there I found, like, this is an awesome community with amazing people who do exactly +the things I like at BitLair, the hackerspace. +Yeah. +So, I became a member there, active, and then I had to move away. +Yeah. +And in Eindhoven there was nothing of that caliber, so I decided to start that. +You started the hackerspace? +Well, not on my own. +Yeah. +Well, I mean... +But we were with a group... +Well, you did say, I decided to start it, so like... +Yeah, well, I kind of decided to start it. +Yeah. +But it was very easy to find other people who wanted that too, because it was a good goal. +Yes. +Absolutely. +Yeah. +And that was a good start. +Apart from that, there were some hacker festivals that were happening at that time, +and I decided to do the infodesk there. +And I did that well enough that they asked me to get into the project lighting. +Yeah. +Which event was that, Pre? +With SHA 2017, I did the infodesk. +With MCH 2021 and 2022, I did the project lighting. +And with YI 2025, I also did project lighting. +Yeah. +Okay. +So, this is like the... +We've been... +We've covered one of those events, a few of those events. +Why do you keep changing the name of the Dutch ones? +So, the Dutch event was one of the first in Europe. +It was the first one that happened in Paradiso. +That was not a camping event. +So, when they moved, they wanted to do a camping event. +And then you need a new name, because it's slightly a new event. +Yeah. +Uh... +But then they were not allowed to go back to the same place in four years, +because there was some negative publicity, which can happen. +Yeah. +So, they decided, let's change the name, because, well, the name they had in mind +was mostly harmless, and that's maybe not the best name. +Uh... +They kept in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy team. +So, they changed the name, and then a tradition is born, you know? +Yeah. +You do anything three times. +You have to change your name three times, then you keep doing that. +A few years ago, there was a community vote. +Do we want to keep our name, or do we want to keep changing the name? +And then it's keep changing the name. +The name is community proposed. +There is a small community who chooses the actual name, because choosing in a group is hard. +But, uh... +It's community proposed. +No, I love the names and all. +It's just, when I want to refer to, like, that Chaos Computer Club event in Germany, +you know what it is, because it's that event in Germany. +And with this, the disadvantages, I'm trying to look at the hashtag, +but I don't know what the hashtag is going to be, because I only find that out after I've missed the event. +Yeah, that is a problem, and we should try to fix that. +Okay. +But we try to be in events like this. +Why was at Tito's last year's? +Yeah. +Yeah. +So, we try to get it out there, but it is a thing. +Yeah, yeah. +You have to start from scratch every time. +But, no, I get the idea, I get the idea. +Anything else that I missed here that you would like to bring to our attention? +Ooh, yeah. +Well, if you cannot see the booth, we have a lot of flashing LED lights, and that works. +We also have some flyers about the hackerspace in Eindhoven, but also the international, +of the hackerspaces in the Netherlands, because there are more. +And they have kind of the same problem as the hacker events, because we're all giving them different names. +Yeah. +But they're findable with hackerspace with City. +Yeah. +That's helpful. +And apart from that, Tito's is a very nice event. +How have you found it, actually? +You've gone to other events, obviously, but how would you compare it to other events? +Well, I found it because it was happening next door to me, when Hackerlot was still in its +infant phase. +Yeah. +And then I decided, well, event next door. +You have to go. +It's not next door anymore. +It's now in Geldrop. +Yeah. +And it is, it is a mid-sized event. +No, yeah. +Small to mid-sized event with two rooms with talks. +Impressive talks, and also the wide array of talks. +Yeah. +And apart from that, there's a big room with boots. +So not really a hallway, but more... +Yeah, no, but I like this, because like the restaurant is over there, across and that +is tables, and then across from that is us. +So it's, the natural flow is that you amble in, and... +Yes. +Amble around. +Heel gezellig. +Yes, it's absoluut gezellig. +And there is things like fruit, and there are sandwiches to buy, and you can buy a mug, +and then you have free coffee and free tea. +That's just awesome. +Yes, I really like it. +That's a brilliant idea. +I'm sure people will be stealing that idea, and rightly so. +And like a social event after the first day, which is food with nice people sitting on +table. +Yeah, and I thought like, oh no, we're going to have to trip to the other side of town, +but it's actually over there in the restaurant, literally 10 meters away. +You just walk over and sit down, and then that was it. +I was wrecked. +I just watched the film and went to bed. +It was awesome. +Yeah, so I really liked the scale of Tito's. +Yeah, it's lovely. +And you can talk with most people, you can talk, you can take your time at the booths, +because there are a decent amount, but an amount that you can spend time there. +And for Hegelot, it's amazing that you can really take the time to talk to people. +Yeah. +And they come from all over the Netherlands, some parts of Germany. +We even have French visitors today, I believe. +So it will be, it's an amazing conference. +Yeah, it's cool. +It's cool what you can do if you put your mind to it. +Absolutely. +Yeah. +Absolutely. +Well, thank you very much for taking the time. +No doubt you will be hearing more about this later on. +Yes, I will show, but we'll talk about that later. +Thank you very much. +It was my pleasure. +I'm always happy to talk about things that are interesting, and I think more people should +know about. +Hi everybody, and I'm here at the Laptop Revive project, and I'm talking to... +Alex. +Alex, what is Laptop Revive? +It's a volunteer organization that gets donations of laptops from people that don't use them anymore. +For instance, because they're not usable with Windows 11. +And we wipe them, carefully, and install Linux Mint on them. +And we give them to, for instance, students who can't afford one. +Well, that's it. +Thank you very much for listening. +Short, sweet, and to the point. +How did that start? +That seems like a brilliant idea. +I have questions. +Namely, how did it start? +Where do you get your laptops? +How do you know who to give them to? +Where did it start? +Probably would be a good beginning. +It started with a guy called Rinus, who thought it a good idea at the time. +And he set up an organization and some software things for forming a community. +And he just started by asking around for laptops from people. +And we found a way that works. +We make publicity, like an interview like this. +And people think, hey, that's a nice idea. +I have some laptops in that cupboard somewhere that I don't use anymore. +They can contact a volunteer they know, like me. +Or they can use our website to help donate them. +And they are then contacted by the nearest volunteer of the organization, +who gets a laptop and takes care of wiping the data and installing Linux Mint. +And the central organization, Winus and one other guy, they also have contact with organizations +that have contact with students countrywide. +Like people who are asylum seeker center inhabitants and they want to do a Dutch course +for which they need a laptop, which they usually don't have, just a phone. +But that's not very handy for that kind of stuff. +So I've handed out several laptops to people like that and they were extremely grateful. +Super. +Well, lots of questions. +The first question would be, if you're getting random laptops from people, +you're going to be getting random versions and random sizes and random amount of memory. +How do you deal with that sort of variation? +And what if you can't get Linux Mint installed? +What happens then? +Well, the oldest one I got was about 30 years old. +It was certainly unusable for Linux Mint or any modern operating system. +So in that case, we take care of making sure that the data is unreadable and we just scrap them. +And most of them are quite usable. +I personally have taken care of installing Mint on laptops that were more than 12 years old +and they run just fine. +Chug-along. +Why did you pick Linux Mint? +I didn't. +That was Rinus who did it. +Because, well, it looks more or less a bit like Windows, which most people are used to. +It's open source. +It's free. +And it installs everything. +I know. +Because you turn it on and it even finds the printers on the network. +It's a fantastic... +It's a great choice. +So, are you looking for volunteers? +Say, I live in the Netherlands. +I could sign up. +People could donate laptops to me. +And then how I upgrade them. +And then what happens to the laptops? +As in physically, I now have a stack of Linux Mint laptops. +What then? +We tell the central organization about those and they get laptop requests centrally, which +they allocate to a volunteer who has laptops available and who is near to the person needing +them. +So, would I need to bring them to that person physically? +Absolutely. +So, the physical point of there's a laptop in Jan's desk over there and Anamika is over +the other side and needs a laptop. +It has to come through me. +Do I have to go and pick it up from Jan and deliver it to Anamika or does somebody come +in a big truck? +All ways of getting to the one who needs it are used. +Sometimes I come and pick them up. +Sometimes I go to, for instance, the public library or to railway station where we meet +and we hand it over and everybody is happy. +Super. +And do you put in a login information or...? +They get login information, of course, and if they want a short explanation of how things +work. +Super. +Very, very simple. +How can we help the project? +That's one of our mottos. +Keep it simple. +Yeah. +Great. +I love it. +Alerting people to our website, which is laptopprevive.nl, and encourage them to look +in covers and other blankets to find laptops that are not used anymore and are not too +old. +Like, if they were made from Windows XP, it's probably better to find another destination +for a laptop, but any laptop that is less than 12 years old is probably fine. +And what about Chromebooks? +We don't do Chromebooks. +Okay. +So, have you had any discussions with businesses about recycling old laptops? +We certainly have. +I recently heard from a volunteer that a small company was willing to donate 15 or 20 old +laptops. +Nice. +So, could I go and volunteer to be part of your organization? +If I did that, then how much work is it? +It depends entirely on the amount of laptops you get donated. +I did an interview for a local newspaper once and we had lots of new laptops then, but we +also got lots of new volunteers. +So, on average, it's a few hours a month that I spend on it. +So, a few laptops and then pick them up, install them in, drop them off. +How difficult is it? +Well, we have a very good little booklet that tells volunteers how to install Linux, how to +wipe it first and how to get to the hardware settings, BIOS stuff and so on that you need +to change sometimes. +It's all documented so, well, most people who have little knowledge of computers can do it. +Do you do any refurbishment on the laptops at all? +No, the laptops need to be in good working order. +They also need to come with an adapter so that they can work on mains power in case the battery +is not very good anymore, which is usually the case with old laptops. +But we don't repair and they must be in good working order. +So, no broken screens, no missing keys, that kind of stuff. +Okay, very good. +And links will be in the show notes, but it's laptoprevive.nl. +Super. +Thank you very much. +Was there anything else that I didn't mention that you wanted to talk about? +It's okay, like this, I think. +Okay, very good. +Thank you very much for the interview and enjoy the rest of the event. +Thank you. +And I'm here at the TDoS event and yes, a little bit of deja vu I'm talking to. +Geert-Jan. +And Geert-Jan, what hats are you wearing today? +Ah, I'm wearing a lot of hats today. +But probably you know me from a previous podcast episode number 4000 something something something. +That I work for the Coalition for Fair Digital Education. +But today you have a different subject because we as a society have a huge big fucking problem. +And it is, the glass holes are back. +And by that you mean? +By that I mean the smart or not so smart glasses that are being pushed by Meta. +And they contain cameras and microphones and AI. +And that's it. +Lovely, that could possibly go wrong. +But okay, so obviously you're concerned about that. +But wasn't there a huge backlash when Google did that a few years ago? +So should we not expect the same now? +Well that backlash did not came out of nothing. +You need to campaign for that. +And some people or rather a lot of people need to start doing that right now again. +Because if we let this happen and we wait for a year, then they've sold a million pieces in like only the Netherlands. +And then it becomes normalized and everybody thinks, oh, it's just glasses with a camera. +What are you complaining about? +Exactly. +What are you complaining about? +I mean, everybody has smartphones. +Everybody's got cameras outside of the house. +When you break it down, what is the problem with it? +They're the most creepy devices that there are imaginable. +Well, isn't it useful to know, to walk up to somebody and be able to remember who they are? +And yeah, I met you at the link. +You're connected to me via LinkedIn and I met you searching your kids names or whatever. +Is that not useful? +Yeah, very useful. +Except that it's not only for the user. +It's also Meta that's collecting everybody's biometric information and facial profile. +Meta as in Facebook? +Meta is the mother company of Facebook and of WhatsApp and of the Meta glasses that are sold by Ray-Ban and some other brands. +Well, surely if you're walking around in public, you're allowed to be photographed in public here in the Netherlands at least. +Unless you're the main subject of the movie and unless there's a biometric analysis behind it. +Because that's something you can only do if there's explicit and informed consent. +But that's not possible to obtain because probably the wearer has not even read the terms and conditions +and is not even aware of what is actually happening because the wearer probably bought it because it's a nice handy gadget that remembers recognizing faces. +Super, okay. +But we have the GDPR in the Netherlands, so obviously I can fix that by contacting the regulatory authorities. +Yeah, I have some experience contracting the regulator about privacy violations. +As do I. I'm still waiting to hear back. +Of some complaints I'm still waiting for an answer. That's not gonna work. +We should as a society now be very clear and just reject them. +And how do we do that? +Well, if you're starting a campaign, first of all, check out the website banray.eu. +So, I repeat, banray.eu. +Yeah. +Link in the show notes. +Ray-Ban. +Ray-Ban, Banray. +And why are you targeting Ray-Bans particularly? +They're the biggest and most visible brand that makes the most commercials and advertisements everywhere to sell these devices now. +Okay. +And I also heard online that places like Pearl and stuff are selling these. +So, if you are a customer of these, no harm to mention that you don't appreciate the fact that they're selling these surveillance devices as part of their catalogs. +Yeah, please. +If you're a customer at one of those opticians that is selling those devices, please complain about that and ask them to stop selling those devices because they're partner of a crime. +Because it's not possible to use these devices in a legal way. +Super. +And where can I get more information about this? +Well, on the banray.eu website and here at Tidos, of course. +You can drop by at the stand if you're present. +That'll be a bit late now. +So, banray.eu and you'll have more information. +Is that just limited to the Netherlands or does that allow action across Europe? +That will allow action across Europe. +But we're now forming an action team in the Netherlands to really push this campaign through. +And hopefully other countries will follow suit. +But the banray campaign initiative comes from Sweden. +So, yeah, we're very happy with that. +And now we're setting up a local campaign team. +So, if you want to join, please reach out. +That can also be done via the banray.eu website. +So, reach out and we'll provide you with stickers, example letters that you can send to. +And we'll probably file a petition at Parliament. +And we'll ask as many establishments as possible to be very clear that these glasses are not allowed. +Because if you have a pair of glasses, what you want to achieve is that you cannot visit the library. +You cannot go to the bar. +You cannot go to the swimming pool. +Because every time you're asked, hey, is there a camera in your belt? +Can you please take that off right now? +Otherwise you can go out. +Yeah. +So, contact your congress critter or the equivalent as well. +And push it. +Also tell your swimming pool. +Make them aware that this isn't allowed. +Make your library aware. +Make your local rape crisis center aware that it isn't allowed. +And generally make people in your community aware this is what to look out for and this is what's happening. +Yeah. +And start the debate about it. +Absolutely. +We have some stickers. +Provide them to start as a topic starter. +To start talking about it. +And make people aware of what is happening behind the glasses. +Because we really don't want to have a society where if you have a face-to-face conversation, +you think that meta is in between and analyzing everything. +Yeah. +Yeah. +Okay. +Thank you very much for taking the time. +Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about? +Maybe. +That's enough for today. +For today, let's be specific on one subject. +And next time that we'll meet, we'll talk about kicking Big Tech out of the classroom again. +Yes. +I thought you had that already fixed to me. +It's been four weeks. +So, I mean. +Oh, yeah. +That's true. +That's true. +Okay. +Thank you very much for taking the time. +And enjoy the rest of the show. +Yeah. +Thanks for having me on the show. +Have a good day. +Yeah. +And we forgot to mention something. +Hold on one second. +What is this? +Yeah. +Today in the Netherlands, there's another fantastic campaign that's called Doei Dag. +So, on the first Sunday of every month, you say goodbye to a particular Big Tech service. +Nice. +And so, check out Doei Dag.nl. +And then you can find easy recipes how to migrate from WhatsApp to Signal or from Google Docs to Proton or from Gmail to Sovereign or whatever. +Whatever. +And it's only once a month. +So, it's presumably if it's a hard one, you can take a month or two. +But the idea is that every month, you get rid of one. +Yeah. +You can really take an approach step by step and in your own pace. +But every month, do something. +Perfect. +Okay. +Thank you very much. +Continue on. +Hi, everybody. +Another table here at the TDoS event. +And I'm talking to? +Joost van Baal Iliets. +And what table are you at? +I'm with my colleagues, friends, running the Debian boot. +And what is Debian for people who have never listened to Hacker Public Radio before? +Ah. +Debian is a Linux distribution. +It's an operating system to run on your computer. +Yeah. +Smartphone is a bit tricky, but on the computer it works. +And if you're used to running Microsoft Windows or Apple, you can also probably install Debian or another Linux and have more control over your system. +Super. +And we run Debian on our content distribution network as it's one of the most oldest distributions and one of the most stable and quite conservative, but yet up-to-date patches. +So that's why we picked Debian. +So why are... +Go ahead. +Go ahead. +I have something to add to this. +Another thing about Debian is that it's not backed by a commercial entity like Red Hat or Suzo or the other well-known Linux distributions. +So it's really community driven distribution. +And old indeed. +Yeah. +How is that even possible to survive as an organization without the backing of our corporate overlords? +We shall never know. +Yeah. +Indeed. +It's a... +I think it was... +What's the name? +The guy who... +I can't think of the name now. +Forget it. +Okay. +Not to worry. +I can cut that out if you want. +No, it's fine. +Okay. +The thing about... +I go around to a lot of conferences and when I come to a Debian booth, there always seems to be lots of people. +How is that possible? +Yeah. +Yeah, that's true. +I'm also very frequently at the Fosdam conference in Brussels and the Debian booth is where all the people hang. +It's... +I don't know why. +We just do our thing. +And yeah, maybe it's... +I'm a volunteer for the Debian project myself and I'm also running the Debian booth. +So, people running the Debian booth are like geeks, like technical people. +They're not... +Their main thing is not running booths. +The thing is they like Debian and are part of the community. +So, I think that it's a kind of atmosphere and I think people are sensitive to that and that's why they hang out. +Yeah, it's probably the official town halls and stuff. +As you're not a corporate entity, you know, this is where you guys meet up. +Always very well. +So, what do you need to do on a Debian booth? +Yeah, I think the mode... +It's like a meeting place. +I think that's actually the main thing. +I thought it was selling t-shirts. +Yeah, yeah, yeah. +We... +We... +We... +We... +It looks like you're here for t-shirts and flyers and demo systems, but people are not really interested in that. +Well, some are, but people like to meet Debian people and meet other people who like Debian. +And so, yeah, that's the way it works. +What did you think of the TDoS conference? +It's awesome. +I really like it. +I very much appreciate that you don't have to sign up or register upfront or you don't have to pay anything. +You can just walk in. +So, it's very open. +And, yeah, and they've been doing it for 20 years now, which is really amazing because it's also a very volunteer driven organization. +So, yeah, applause for them. +Yeah, I'm very impressed. +It's my first time, oddly enough, because I've been living here for 25 years. +It's the first time I've been here. +It's like, my bad. +It has the feel of Fostem, but with a nice, more comfy, more intimate sort of feeling. +Yeah, it's like Fostem, but then micro, micro, micro scale. +So, more gezellig. +And, yeah, but the atmosphere, I think the feeling about it is very much, very similar. +And I've noticed from the people going past, like, you're not, everybody has their thing. +They're deeply involved in a particular project. +You don't need to explain what Free Libre Open Source is. +It's like straight down to the heart. +They're high quality attendees at it. +Yeah. +Yeah. +So, a lot of people have been part of the community for a long time, but they're also newcomers. +They're, like, retired people who think, yeah, now I have some time to try out this Linux stuff. +Oh, good. +So, and they're newcomers to the community. +But, of course, they're very welcome and we like it. +Cool. +And anything coming up in Debian that we need to be aware of, new announcements or stuff like that? +Now you're the official Debian spokesman for the entire project. +Oh, God. +This is where you go, yes, we have an announcement page. +If you go to Debian.org, you'll find all the news up there. +Yeah. +Yeah, yeah. +I didn't prepare this interview. +Well, in fairness, we haven't had our coffee yet. +And I came over and said, we're doing this now. +Yeah. +Well, we have a new project leader since pretty recently. +Oh, yeah? +A lady from India, which is awesome because she's not a white, straight, male, Western European person. +So that's, I like that very much. +And in the platform, she also very much put an emphasis on stimulating more diversity in the project. +So we're struggling with that and it would be awesome if we can achieve something there. +Super. +Super. +Thank you very much for taking the time and enjoy the rest of the event. +Thank you. +And here we are again at TDOS and we're at another booth and I'm talking to... +Birgit. +Hi, Birgit. +Hi, Birgit. +What booth is this? +I have to say, it's up there with the Hackalot Eindhoven has been the most interesting booth. +So tell me what I'm seeing. +Well, what you're seeing is a model train, our free model train project. +Free model train project. +So there, if you imagine that there's a double sized table, kitchen table, and around that you have a circular track. +Inside of that, there is another track. +And inside of that, there is a smaller track. +And there are three junctions, there are junctions connected to all of those. +On the smaller circular track is only about half the table. +And there's an offline junction. +And there's a tiny station house and there's other buildings knocking around. +In the middle of it, we have pictures in the show notes for everybody. +In the middle, we have QR codes and boots, bootlets. +We have a piggy bank. +Just describing what I'm seeing. +We have various different business cards and such. +We've got some adorable cute knitted penguins, which we'll talk to you about in a while. +And we have at the back some banners and posters. +So let's walk me through all of this. +Okay. +Well, for your model train, what you can see here is our project that attracts, of course, a lot of people because model trains. +Because model trains. +So what we're seeing is two trains running around. +And at the back, there is an 18650 battery being carried, probably to the scale of like a big petrol tanker, if you saw that on there. +So they're carrying hazardous fuel around. +Yeah. +But the purpose is that with the different firms of model trains, normally you can't run the train of one firm on the tracks of another firm. +And with these, well, as we have freed them, you can run any train on any track as long as they're the correct width. +So that's our purpose. +And of course, for us, it's a symbol for how important open standards and free software is. +Absolutely. +And if you so that so long as the different gauge is the same. +So if you've got something from Hornby, it doesn't necessarily work with other train trains because they've got proprietary protocols for how the tracks are signaled. +So how are you breaking all of that? +Well, we cut the connection between the motor and the track. +Normally, the electricity comes from the tracks. +And then we just put a solder on new cables and connect the cables to the power bank and then they run. +So how is control done? +What sort of control do you have over the trains? +Sorry. +I'm warning. +I am a train nerd. +I'm not that big into it, but I can see this is a cavern I could go down onto. +So I'm asking for my nephew, obviously. +I'm asking for my nephew. +Well, the most simple one is just if you switch on the power bank, the train runs. +If you switch it goes around and around and around and around as long until you switch it off and then it stops. +There's one of the trains running here. +And the other train, it has an ESP 32 in there. +The train has its own Wi-Fi and then you connect to the Wi-Fi and you have a web page and you can slow down or accelerate the train and steer it via web page. +Somebody has to integrate this with Home Assistant. +This is a project for somebody. +Please. +Can you just imagine that? +Like you're leaving work and then the train starts going around. +Well, if someone can do this, do it. +It's free software. +It's all documented. +It's all open. +It's all open. +So if you want to improve it, just do it. +Where do I get information about that project? +Well, of course, on our web page, we have linked it there. +And there's in GitHub, there are all the things of the ESP 32 stuff. +There's another one of the many QR codes there. +Okay. +So would I be able to get it? +By the way, all links will be in the show notes, obviously. +So it's free-software.org as in the German version of free software. +So Foxtrot Romeo Echo India Echo-software.org. +Okay. +Cool. +So ESP 32, but trains are expensive. +My nephew spends hundreds of euros on trains. +Well, I've got my first freed locomotive there, train there, and it was five euros on eBay. +Okay. +Five euros on eBay. +And a vape, the battery from a discarded vape, and you've got yourself a train that runs around. +And then we bought those. +Okay. +Yeah. +Just two or three euros or so. +Some cables, some soldering, and that was it. +Yeah. +Fantastic. +Okay. +But that's not all of interest on this table. +Tell me about these two adorably cute sewn... +No. +Not knitted. +Knitted. +They are knitted tuxes. +One with a little hoodie, and the other with a cap. +So, imagine the tux, the penguin, which I have over there in our booth, but knitted. +Who did that? +I did them. +Okay. +Okay. +Well, that's... +The end. +Obviously, all my questions stop there. +I'm going to tune in tomorrow for another... +It's my very personal project called Strict Tux, and it's an open source project. +So, I publish the source code under Creative Commons, and you have to compile it on your +own. +And how do you compile it? +Knitting. +By knitting. +But oops. +I walked into that, yeah. +And they say the Germans don't have a sense of humor. +So, I have been long trying to get people to do a knitting course on HPR because it's +something that I really would like to get into. +It seems to be something that's right up our alley. +So, I look forward to continuing to encourage people to send in knitting episodes. +Okay. +No commitment, no comment. +But you've got business cards for other things. +I was talking to you yesterday about what sounds like the coolest bus journey ever. +Yeah. +For more than 15 years now, there is a bus going from Düsseldorf to Chemnitz. +Because in Chemnitz every year, I think it's the biggest open source conference in Germany, +community conference in Germany. +Chemnitzer Linux Tage. +It's always in the end of March. +And it's quite hard to get there because it's right on the other end of Germany. +And so, we are organizing a bus going from Düsseldorf starting on Friday. +So, we have prolonged the event for one day. +So, we're traveling together to Chemnitz and stay there for Saturday and Sunday for the event. +And in the night to Monday, we return home. +And well, it's the bus journey together. +So, we are talking about free software and there's a lot of chatting on the way to Chemnitz. +On the way back home, it's a lot of sleeping and very, very... +Very tired hackers, yes. +Very tired everyone. +And well, of course, there are hotel rooms. +We can book hotel rooms via this project. +And we are organizing dinner together on Friday and Saturday. +So, it's a whole and all. +And how do you get from the hotel to the event then? +Well, the bus is a shuttle bus at that moment. +So, he brings us to the event in the morning and takes us back to the hotel in the evening. +Yeah. +So, rather than going by yourself to some event, you sign up for this and you're with a team of people, hackers, like-minded hackers for the whole event. +Yeah. +Like this. +Sounds awesome. +And if you have got an idea, well, we want to have also a bus. +So, just ask us and we can give you hints and tips and perhaps help you to organize this bus. +Because we now have an experience of more than 15 years and know how to do it. +Super. +Fantastic. +What else have I forgotten? +Well, we also support other projects like we're a Germany-wide club, not only situated in Düsseldorf. +And for example, in Saarbrücken, we have got a project that puts Linux on old computers and collects old computers and gives them to people who can't afford an own laptop. +And so, you can give your old laptop. +There are many projects like that in Germany, I think in the Netherlands too. +And, yeah, we also support one of these projects. +And, well, and if you have a project, a free software project that thinks, well, I need some help in promotion or just to get some ideas, just contact us. +And, yeah, we can see if we can help you to promote your project. +And, yeah, perhaps we get in contact with that. +Cool. +Fantastic. +So, how has it been to come to Tidos? +Why did you come to the Netherlands? +Well, it's nearby. +For us, at least. +We just live close to the border. +And, well, the Tidos is a very, very nice event. +We know it also for years now. +I've been here private before and now with the club and, yeah, presenting our club. +And, well, it's a very cozy event. +It's a very nice event. +You meet a lot of very, very nice people here. +And so, yeah, we love to come here. +Love it. +Gesellig. +That's the important word we're learning today. +Gesellig. +Gesellig. +Well, thank you very much for taking the time and enjoy the rest of the show. +Thank you very much. +Hi, everybody. +This is Ken again here at the Tidos conference. +And I'm at the Ubuntu Touch booth and I'm talking to... +Sander. +Hi, Sander. +Can you tell me what Ubuntu Touch is? +Ubuntu Touch is a Linux-based operating system for your phone. +That's short and sweet. +Okay. +Thank you very much. +Tune in tomorrow for... +No. +So, tell me. +So, it's on your phone. +I remember this was out years ago, but didn't Canonical drop it and it's gone by the wayside? +Yeah. +In 2017, Canonical dropped the project. +And then there was the beautiful Ubiports foundation. +And these days, it is a foundation. +And the community of developers picked up the operating system and it continued its development. +So, it just continued on and life continues without Canonical. +Yes. +Yeah. +Actually, a lot of the project is done by volunteers today. +So, it lives on without Canonical. +Yeah. +Okay. +And as people who are following the world of Android and stuff, okay, why would I run this +instead of Android? +Let's get that out of the way. +Well, the fun thing is that Ubuntu Touch isn't Android. +It's not Android. +A lot of options you'll hear when you try to de-Google your phone. +Yep. +You'll end up on one of the open source Android variants. +Yep. +And Ubuntu Touch is Ubuntu in its basis. +So, it's different than all the Android spin-offs. +But, okay, that's great. +And now, as Google appears to be doing weird stuff attempting to lock down Android, at least +Android development, it would be nice to have an alternative path. +So, how useful is an Ubuntu Touch phone? +Should I say Ubuntu Touch? +How should I refer to the project on my phone? +I'm running... +Ubuntu Touch. +Ubuntu Touch. +But if Ubuntu is not... +Yeah. +So, that's separate from Canonical. +And are they cool with you using the name? +Yeah. +Yeah, they are. +We actually have quite good relationships with Canonical. +They like what we're doing. +Because they still love to see Ubuntu on phones, of course. +And although they don't develop it by themselves anymore, they are quite happy that the project +is still alive. +Okay. +So, obvious next question. +I have a Pixel 6a. +Can I run Ubuntu Touch on it? +I don't believe the 6a is in the supported devices list. +Because it isn't as simple as you would install Ubuntu on your desktop. +That just all machines are supported. +But every device needs to be ported. +The installation needs to be adapted to run on your phone. +So, you need someone with a spare device. +Who doesn't care if the device turns into a brick when trying to port Ubuntu Touch to it. +And also someone who has the time to make a port for it. +And currently there are 31 devices that run the latest version of Ubuntu Touch. +And besides that, there are a lot of devices that are an older version or are in development +to make it possible to be fully supported. +So, there are options. +But not on the 6a, unfortunately. +No worries. +Other phones are available. +And where would I get this magic list of phones that are supported? +You can look on the ubiports.com site. +Link in the show notes. +We also have ubuntu-touch.io and there is a device list with supported devices. +Super. +So, what does the Ubuntu Touch phone look like when you install it? +What sort of apps can I run on it? +I've been using it for 10 years now. +Okay. +Since the canonical time. +And still I'm daily driving Ubuntu Touch. +And sometimes... +You can make phone calls. +You can get SMSs. +Yeah, those are the main features. +Well done. +And you can get an SSH terminal. +Yeah, yeah, yeah. +But without jokes, besides that, sometimes you need to be creative while using mainstream +things like WhatsApp or your banking app. +But for example, for WhatsApp, we have what's new now in the open store. +The open store is the app store for Ubuntu Touch. +And it is the WhatsApp web app packaged for Ubuntu Touch. +With some adaptions to really use it. +And there's also a green line in development now. +And that is a WhatsApp client using what's meow on the back. +And it runs in a daemon. +It has a nice Ubuntu Touch QML interface. +So, yeah, sometimes cool people come along and they make these things possible. +So, it isn't really a pain for me to daily drive it. +And does it have something like OSM Android or map navigation? +We have UNF. +It was developed specifically for Ubuntu Touch. +And it's quite a good navigation program. +And also we have Pure Maps, which has origins in Sailfish. +And it was ported to Ubuntu Touch. +And it's a fully featured navigation app. +Browsing works? +Yeah, it does. +We recently upgraded from Qt 5 to Qt 6 on the browser end. +And there are works going on to make the whole operating system upgrade from Qt 5 to Qt 6. +And with the upgrade to Qt 6, we have a more recent Gromium version. +So, browsing works okay now again. +Yeah. +Okay, fantastic. +What am I forgetting on my app list? +That actually I think covers it. +Can you do a hotspot and stuff like that? +Yeah, we can. +Yeah. +Okay. +I'm done. +The phone that's supported by Ubuntu Touch. +So, tell me. +Do you go around to a lot of these booths and stuff? +Do you go around to a lot of conferences? +I'm an end user from the Netherlands. +So, whenever there is an event I can attend in the Netherlands or nearby, I'm here to talk about Ubuntu Touch. +Cool. +And how have you found the TDoS event? +I found it through Ubuntu Touch. +I heard that we would be here and I was asked to get behind the stand. +So, that's why I'm here today. +And have you been enjoying it? +What's been the interactions with the community like? +Yeah, it's lovely. +Because of Ubuntu Touch I have been at more events in the Netherlands here. +And it feels really cozy. +Gezellig is the word we're looking at. +Exactly. +Gezellig in Dutch. +It feels really good to see familiar faces here. +And also learn new people about our project. +But also make, yeah. +You make connections with the other people and the other projects. +You're nodding and I know exactly what you mean. +We're having the same on the HPR booth today. +The quality of the attendees is quite high, is what I would say. +Even people who are new to us, they come from a technical background and they're openly, you can skip a lot of stuff. +Yeah. +Okay, so what are you showing off here at the table? +We have a couple of devices. +Right now there are still some missing, but they will be here in half an hour. +The armored transport is on its way from town. +I understand how it can be. +But we've got a couple of devices to test. +A couple of phones. +New phones from Vola. +It's a German company that sell phones with their own de-googled Android, but also provide phones with Ubuntu Touch. +I'm liking this. +Yeah, you can buy it now in the store. +How much would that be? +And this is where you go, five million dollars. +I believe their tablet is around 700 euros. +And the phones range from 500 to 700. +But in the meantime, you're sponsoring open source development. +Well, that's what this is. +If you're buying a new Pixel 10, for example, you're in that ballpark. +It's a lot of money, I think. +But then again, you're back in my day. +But then there also is here a Nothing Phone. +Nothing Phone 1. +It was recently ported to Ubuntu Touch. +And it's quite a nice device. +And it was bought for 90 euros secondhand. +So it's also possible to buy a cheap secondhand phone and just have it as your Ubuntu Touch phone. +Okay, cool. +A photo of that will be in the show notes, just by the way. +And of course here, through the magic of me describing what he's doing with his hands. +Yeah, we could do it live here. +I've got a Fairphone 5 in my hand and the Fairphone 5 has HDMI out support. +So what you're looking at is a dock connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. +And when I... +It's just a regular old boring... +Well, probably not a regular old boring USB dock, but installing USB dock. +And then suddenly... +And suddenly we have Ubuntu Touch on the desktop. +So that's like regular boring Ubuntu. +It isn't. +It isn't. +No, no, no. +It's Ubuntu Touch with the Lomiri desktop environment, but it's just scaled up. +That's the convergence part of it. +I remember that word from years ago, yeah. +But can I drop to a shell here and do my daily work? +You could. +Yeah, yeah, yeah. +Remember folks, it's not about the power of the computer you have. +It's about the power of the computer you control. +It scales up quite sexily now, I must say. +But then again... +And the side menu pops out and all the apps are there. +The radar application's been opened up. +Vaudenberg, giving away your hometown probably. +No, no. +It's just random people I've been stalking. +That is kind of handy. +Open it. +Yeah. +And the weather site for... +What was it? +Radar NL. +Where we all go to to find out when it's going to rain in our backyard. +And we have a shell. +Ladies, this is Unix. +I know this. +See, oh, we've got the GIMP on there. +We've got Firefox. +Oh, hold on. +Go back, go back. +Go back to the menus. +Let me see. +What have we got? +We've got the GIMP opening 100 thingies. +So nothing's changed there. +And we've got the demo doing its demo thing. +KeyPassX. +Oh, cool. +That's handy. +Offline Translator. +I use that as well. +Check. +Boring Telephone. +InstaPhoto. +FreeTube. +CitySim. +You've got a lot of stuff on here. +Barcode Readers. +Good. +Actually, that's important. +Addback Plus. +UNAV. +Webber. +Ubuntu Touch. +Tiedit. +Radio NL. +Tippi's Needle on there, eh? +Oh, actually, that's important. +Addback Plus. +UNAV. +Webber. +Ubuntu Touch. +Tiedit. +Radio NL. +Tippi's Needle on there, eh? +Cool. +All the applications that you could shake a stick at are available on this. +And you can then just use this as a more ergonomic device, I guess, then. +Yeah. +And the fun thing is, if you're looking at GIMP or LibreOffice, it's also possible to install +via Snap. +Because the Open Store recently got Snap support on devices that supported to install Snap. +Yeah. +But the fun thing is, if you connect it to a monitor and a keyboard and a mouse, it really +feels like you're using a desktop computer. +Yeah, but it kind of depends on the power of the phone then at that point. +Yeah. +But the Fair phones, those are, to my knowledge, the only phones that support HDMI out. +Yeah. +They are more powerful enough to run basic desktop apps. +Yeah. +Cool. +Fascinating. +I will write this. +Sorry, I'm getting distracted now because I'm thinking, do I have a phone that will be +able to run this? +Yeah. +And I desperately want to run over and see if your list of supported devices. +So thank you very much for taking the time and I hope you have a really good show. +And thank you very much. +Yeah, thank you too. +Hi everybody. +It's Ken again here. +I'm at the T-Dose event and I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for these guys. +They are the Adfins team and they are premium sponsors of the event. +And I'm talking to? +Koen. +And? +Robert. +And Annabella. +So, who wants to start? +What is Adfins? +Yeah, Adfins is an open source system integrator. +We do everything with open source and we make sure that open source goes to the companies +and we help them with managed services. +And when you say managed services, what do you mean? +Now for example, OpenBouw is something that we do that's a secret management tool and we +make sure that they have support. +So we help the companies that they have support if they need something for the open source +tool. +For example, when you use OpenBouw, it's open source. +Who are you going to call on a Sunday morning? +That's Adfines. +Ah, I see what you're doing here. +Okay. +And why are you here? +Yeah, we are a gold sponsor and because Adfines is really a technical club, we find it very +important to give back to the community. +So that's why we're here today. +So you're a premium sponsor of this event, hence why you're here. +So what sort of background? +How did the company start? +Well, the company is originally Swish. +In Switzerland they exist 26 years old. +26 years. +And we started the Dutch entity six years ago. +So we exist now in the Netherlands for six years. +And the Swish group is bigger. +So they have also more the traditional Linux workload. +And in the Netherlands we are more oriented on cloud native workloads. +So more Kubernetes infrastructures code and also how to secure that. +And yeah, that's what we do. +So in this age of digital sovereignty, I imagine those are nice words to hear. +Yeah, we always say we have a great new sales guy with the orange hair from the US. +No, but I mean, it's a very important topic and it only empathizes already that the open +source thought that is already there for decades. +But you can see now more from the practical point of view how important it is. +So this, we all know that as an IT guy myself, I've struggled trying to get tools that I know +are going to be better, more secure, more open into an organization. +And I think you mentioned that there in passing that the problem that you come up to is you go to, +they want guarantees. +It's all about risk. +It's all about managing risk. +And as you say, who are you going to call in the middle of the night? +So I have developed something and it's all based on free Libre open source software. +And then I come to you guys and I want you to do the support for it, +even though I know I probably never need to call you. +But at the same time, that's what I can arrange. +Who do I go to? +Who do I call? +Well, then you can call Annabel or another salesperson that we have. +But it's like you said. +And we also, I think what's important, it's not only open source is alive. +But what's important is the vendor lock-in. +And where you also always should watch is that they have a kind of an open source core or whatever. +But at the end, you stick to the company and you bring all the money to the US +instead of innovation or everything that you can do else with the money. +So we really believe that it should always be open. +And OpenBow is a great example. +For example, it's HashiCorp Vault. +HashiCorp decided in 2023 to close to make it a business license, not open source anymore. +We are an open source company. +So we had troubles with that. +And there was a fork of the HashiCorp Vault code. +That's OpenBow. +So it's basically the same. +But it doesn't have all the enterprise features that the enterprise version has. +So what we did is six full-time developers. +We made the enterprise functionalities. +But we gave it back to the community. +So open source. +But we also tell the customers that we have, who are you going to call on a Sunday morning? +It's our code. +So that's, of course, we share it. +You can do whatever you want to do. +But in a production system, and it's really important if you use it in the correct way. +It's very nice that you can also call somebody that can help. +Absolutely. +Because I do like to go on vacation from time to time. +And I guarantee you, as soon as you step on that plane, that's when the phone goes off. +So I'll just pass you over to my colleagues there in advance, and they'll take care of it. +Yeah, exactly. +And that's what we do. +And that's really working great for us. +But we also tell our customers, and I think that's very strong. +If you want to do it without us, you're able to. +And we also tell customers, we need to do our best to make you happy. +Because if you're not happy with us, you can go to somebody else. +And we also invest in long-term relationships with customers, and not just throw the software at them. +And, hey, thank you for the money, and good luck with it. +No, it's an investment, it's a relationship, and we really believe in that. +I just want to make a note there about the digital sovereignty thing. +That is an initiative now where Europe wants to have more control over its own software. +But if you go down the road of free, leave, and open source, that's not being exclusive of all the countries. +There's no reason why other countries can't take that code, improve it, and give back. +So everybody can have digital sovereignty, even if you happen to be in a small state, in a farmyard somewhere, in a small province somewhere. +So it's a great idea all around, public money, public code. +I think we're all behind that. +Okay, now I have an embarrassing question. +And that is, are you guys profitable? +Are you making money? +Can you make money? +Yeah, yeah, and we can even sponsor this event with the money that we make. +Oh, that is actually fantastic. +And some people will say, well, you're taking the code from other people, and you're just using them. +And do you not feel, how do you sleep at night? +Well, what we think is, and that's a little bit of dirty world in the open source area, +it's you need to have business sense. +You also need to understand, because the companies, they also talk a different language. +So if you, from your political point of view, whatever, you know, if you really think, you know, money, big companies, and whatever, +it's up to you. +Everybody has his own opinion. +But at the end, you also need to, you need to do business. +You need to have business sense. +And that's, that's about money. +And, but I think Adfinis is a great example where those two cultures can really work together. +Because if you go to the Techiesync days, for example, it's like Tito's. +It's the same thing, and et cetera. +But at the end, we also need to make money. +And then, of course, it's also what you do with the money. +Do you invest it? +Do you give it back to the community? +Do you share it with the people that work with you? +Or is it just only for one owner and filling his pockets? +Yeah. +Yachts and space. +You don't have a rocket program by any chance? +No, no, we don't. +No, not yet. +No, no, no, no, no. +Maybe when a rocket would be electric, we would invest in it. +So where are you guys based? +Well, we don't have an office. +Because we, the engineers and people, also the salespeople, they work from everywhere in the Netherlands. +Because there are, it's a little bit shattered all over the Netherlands. +But once a week, we rent an office and then we work also to have that colleague feeling. +And, but mostly we work from home. +Oh, cool. +So what do you do because you haven't spoken at all? +I, well, it's a small company, so any title can be used. +I'm a Linux DevOps engineer. +No, architect. +Yes. +Yes. +Yeah, exactly. +Are there any people that you can mention? +Any contracts or any names that I might know or that we're not allowed to say? +Some, some. +You're right. +So this, the products we use are quite sensitive. +So most organizations will not be open to that. +I think we've got NXP that you can mention, right? +Yeah. +Semiconductors. +They, NXP, for example, had Volts, which we helped them with a couple of years ago. +But they want to change to OpenBow. +So we help them migrate it and install it and set it up, basically. +And our intent is there also to help them and say goodbye once it's done, right? +So we don't want to, well, I mean, probably Kuhn and Bell here, the commercial people, +would love to be there forever. +But from an operational perspective, we like it if a customer themselves can operate the +product or the service themselves. +Fantastic. +I'm liking this. +Okay. +Is there anything else that I missed in this discussion or I should have covered? +Well, if companies do need somebody for their OpenBow support, just call us. +We are happy to help. +Excellent. +You're doing your job. +You're doing exactly what I told you to do. +And is that just limited to the Netherlands or does that extend? +The whole Europe. +I mean, everybody can call us because it's also important for us to keep open source alive. +So what we do, we reinvest our money also in our engineers who are developing also new open source tooling +and also contributing. +So let's keep open source alive. +Super. +Do you have any open jobs at the moment? +Always. +Always. +And where would I go to see those? +I guess the website at finis.com. +I don't know where it exactly is, but if you look at jobs, it will be there. +Super. +I'll put links to all of you guys into the show notes. +And thank you very much from everybody here for supporting this event and enjoy the rest of the show. +Thank you very much. +Thank you very much. +Thank you. +Oh yeah. +Bye. +Bye. +You'll be free, Eggers +You'll be free +If you want to be free +From the dirty middle of the meeting +Come to our side +You won't believe it, you see +We got everything you need +For your canu station +Take it from me +With no manipulation +Tighten up, no ploy +Down, no end joints +Easy to say +We'll come on the roof of the lake +Youngin is as a well +You can put the weight from the back +You see the light, my friend +And I know you do that +Come on, join us now +And we share the software +You'll be free, Eggers +You'll be free +Join us now +And we share the software +You'll be free, Eggers +You'll be free +If you want to be free +From the dirty middle of the meeting +Come to our side +You won't believe what you see +We got everything you need +For your canu station +Take it from me +With no manipulation +Tighten up, no ploy +Download, enjoy +It's easy to say +From coming to the roof of the lake +All you need is a well +You'll break it with the back +You see the light, my friend +And you'll be fine +Join us now +And we share the software +You'll be free +Yeah, cause you'll be free +Join us now +And we share the software +You'll be free +Yeah, cause you'll be free +They'll be free +Yeah, cause you'll be free +Join us now and share the subway +You'll be free +You'll be free +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4664.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4664.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2467b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4664.txt @@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ +Episode: 4664 +Title: No Input Mixing Tutorial and How to Build a Drone Box +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4664/hpr4664.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:13 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4664, for 2026-06-18 +Today's show is entitled, "No Input Mixing Tutorial and How to Build a Drone Box " +The host is TheDUDE and the duration is 00:13:20 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A tutorial on some of the techniques used in Noise, Industrial, and Experimental music" +Okay, hello, hacker public radio, this is the dude here, it's been a long while since I had a chance to podcast for hacker public radio here, but I noticed that a lot of the shows that have been popping up are from the reserve to you, and I figured, well this is a set of for me to get off my ass, +and actually record something, so today I'm kind of doing not so much like a music theory thing, but more so like a tutorial, and the tutorial I'm doing is kind of like on like, I guess on the experimental side of music, this technique stuff that I'm kind of doing tutorial on is a no input mixing, +and that's for common and like shall we say, noise music and in some forms of industrial music like death industrial power electronics, which you know both are forms of noise music as well, +and other forms of experimental music also use the input mixing, and what no input mixing is basically you take mixing board, and you're more or less turn it into a synthesizer, and how you end up doing that is actually something very, very simple, you take like a mixing console, +and you take a patch cable from one of like the outputs, this particular one that I have is the Yamaha MG06, which has two stereo outputs that are quarter inch jacks, +there's also a separate headphone jack, which is quarter inch, which really really helps. +also have two XLR or stereo outputs, a land for line ends, I got a quarter inch, two quarter inches, slash XLRs for channel 1, same with channel 2, +and channel 3, slash 4, or like the line, or quarter inch, same with 5, slash 6 line, and both of them have various knobs and buttons that change different things, also a button for mono stereo, +there is a button for the fan power, you do not, and I repeat, do not use the fan power for no input mixing, because you will fry your board if you do that, so instead, whatever that, do not press the fan power, but what you basically do for no input mixing, if you can hear what I'm doing kind of the background, you take the output, you put a patch cable in there and patch it into an input, +and you create a feedback loop, and you can do that with numerous different patch cables to like patch in the different parts, and there you can also get like white splitters, that way you can run multiple patches and different combinations to shape the feedback loop and create different sounds, that's one way to do no input mixing. +Another way is to basically do the same concept, but have it just be like a chain of different tar pedals, especially like reverb and distortion, that's actually the cheapest way to really do it, she can get like barrens your pedals for real cheap, and you kind of more or less the way you're doing that is actually kind of like a cheap form of a +modular synthesizer, especially if you get like a tremolo pedal or a vibrato pedal, because then you can change the rhythm, a little bit, there's that, and also if you have like a graphic EQ, you can change the pitch of the feedback loop, +but at least have more control of the rhythm and control of the pitch of the feedback loop. +Like you can change the pitch with the mixing board and also like the pedals without a graphic EQ or a drum or vibrato pedal, but it's going to be more so random as opposed to predictable, +which comes to the last thing that I will say that you can do with a no input mixing is create a drone box. +Now how do you do that? Well you get a rack case and what I mean by a rack case is a case for like audio effects for like a pretty much kind of like a rack guitar, +like a rack amp or stuff for like a PA, but more or less you get like a you know, and audio effects rack, you know, not a Euro rack, which has to do with modular synth, +and we're not talking modular synth racks, we're talking like PA audio or different like guitar effects, you know, mixing racks, you get that. +I recommend getting a sort of like power supply where you can plug multi multiple power plugs into, +you should start with that because it'll make things a lot easier, especially if there isn't many outlets at like a venue that you're performing at, but you want to get one of those. +I want to get a graphic EQ because like I said, a graphic EQ, well, if you move the volume knob or slide, like the master volume knob or slide, it will change the pitch of the feedback loop that you're doing, and then you want to add two rack effects. +I mean you get away with one, but two will give you a little bit more variety, typically what people use for like, for like a drone box is that you have a one sets of delay and the other one set to like a reverb, +but you can probably have like two delays, two reverbs, or like one with like a distortion effect, like you can get like a rat pedal racks for pretty cheap on the used, same with like when it comes to like a graphic EQ and different rack effects, +typical places to get that stuff used is eBay and reverb. The most expensive thing is honestly that I found is probably the rat case itself, but, +regardless, you get all that you have the output of the graphic EQ or at least one of the outputs into connecting into one of your effects rack modules, +and then you have the other one connected to the one effect module, it's output into the input of the other effect module, and when it comes to the graphic EQ, typically you're going to have like two outputs and two inputs, you just put one input into one output into the input, +and you create a feedback loop that way, just like the no mix, sorry, no input mixing board or mixing console, but when you do that, you basically have like a droning sound that will echo, and you can basically make some like experimental weird ambient stuff that way, or if you add like a distortion effect to it, +you can get a really really low droning heavy distorted bass sound, that's like in like a do metal record or stuff like, +some of like the harsher like throbbing gristle songs, for those that are unaware of who throbbing gristle is, throbbing gristle is the band that started like industrial music, +and they were very, very noisy and experimental and intense band that basically used the same like no input mixing techniques, like that I'm talking about not to mention they also made like the written synthesizers and different instruments and shit, +as for do metal as I was saying prior before I think black Sabbath and other bands that try to mimic black Sabbath, and typically it's like you know slow low heavy heavy metal is what do metal is, and you can basically kind of make like a electronic version of that with a drone box if you so choose to, +but the main thing is to use all these things is to basically experiment have fun as someone that pervert that creates like noise music, I basically like doing like these different like no input mixing techniques and feedback loop techniques, +to really like basically experiment with like different noises and soundscapes as like some sort of like mad scientist type of thing, +where everything's chaotic, everything is basically for the most part random, and nothing gets predictable and boring, and I really recommend other people to really experiment with stuff like this, +because you can get really creative with different things and there are no, there's really like no particular rules within these genres and how to adapt these techniques, +I actually even if it comes to like semi input which means like you have like no input like mixing techniques along with like adding like a synth like an actual synthesizer and there like or an oscillator generating like a noise that gets some adapted and shaped through like you know different feedback loops, +or in one case what I actually kind of plan on doing is running a CV radio through like a set of like distortion pedals and refer, +been seeing what kind of sound I get from that, haven't tried it yet but I'll be sure that let you guys know like how noise he if that is when I get around to doing that, +but anyway this is what I have so far hopefully I can add something that's a little bit more structured and well thought out to contribute to what's happening, +but I could contribute to shows with hacker public radio, but I figured I could do this one really quick so that way, you know the reserve queue isn't getting used up quicker than shows or being made, so that being said I'll see everybody later. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4665.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4665.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ddac21e --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4665.txt @@ -0,0 +1,167 @@ +Episode: 4665 +Title: Pokémon GO +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4665/hpr4665.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:13 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4665, for 2026-06-19 +Today's show is entitled, "Pokémon GO" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:13:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Benno talks to Lee about an augmented reality mobile game" +Hi, this is Lee, and today finally I'm with Ben A, who I Ben A? +Hi, Lee, how are you doing? Are you good? +We're out in the nature reserve called How Hill, and I think today we'll get a talk +a bit about Pokemon Go, let me stop asking you this Ben A, how long have you been playing Pokemon +Go? +Well, that was a good question, I don't know, a few years ago, yeah, I start playing in 2016, I guess, +when I was a bit hit, because my in-fuse and my niece, gold and 2016, I already met him. +Well, they were much younger now, my niece is now a celebrity, so he was 20, so he was all-est, +and then I played it, yeah, also because I, yeah, what I liked about it, because you +really have to go out and go places, and I had been living in 2016, yeah, for quite a while actually, +but yeah, it really gives you good opportunity to go places, right, so, and then I played it for +2016, 2017, yeah, and I think even 2018 maybe, so that's been all we met before we met, +so that I'm actually quite surprised, because I don't remember mentioning it before about a year or so, okay, +is it before we met? Yeah, we met actually then, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, actually, +because yeah, it also saved, and then every time you catch a Pokemon, it's, yeah, there's +you even the location and the date, yeah, so has it evolved since you started playing it? Yeah, +no, massively, massively, so it'll be nice, because I probably stopped, yeah, I don't have +anything to do with it, so I think I stopped playing in 2019, and yeah, but I think you would +be in on the walking craze, you like to count on your steps, and then at some point, that +seemed to transition into playing bike. Yeah, well, actually, actually, well, so I've actually, +because I played Pokemon before that, yeah, so, and yeah, that is actually nice, yeah, the steps, +oh, that was the 10,000 steps, yeah, that was because of my work, specifically, yeah, because +you're a support worker, you're taking clients, so, yeah, and then I got a bit or not really +obsessed with that another step, yeah, and then I should have actually played Pokemon more, +imagine, yeah, but I never, I never did, and then I never even thought about it, so it was only +last October, I think, yeah, then I went back to Holland, that nice nephew, yeah, he started playing +it again, and then I also opened it up, and then right now it has massively changed, really, so +and it has been much more engaging, and there's so many more features, and yeah, this is also +so many more, because yeah, what is the goal of the game, what is the end game, and nobody can tell, +and the catchphrase, of course, you have to catch them all, but yeah, so now you can focus either +or yeah, or you can do all, but yeah, some people are really trying to find something, +but there's many different kinds, as they can, some people trying to get points, yeah, yeah, +you know, because now what really may open up and what I really like, you can now pee, pee, +play your first player, so now you can really use your Pokemon, and battle, and the +something about this is, I think, if you remember the Tamagotchi, yeah, a lot, it feels a little bit +like that, right, once you start playing, then he really get to know the Pokemon, that abilities, +and then it gets more fun actually, yeah, so could we step back a bit, what the hell actually +is a Pokemon in the story? I'll go to question, I mean, it started on Japan, I think now +exactly, I've heard of Pikachu, exactly 30 years ago, did I guess, for now, not a bit longer, +and then what was the card game, yeah, card game, and then, because, yeah, actually, +also we didn't bought a few cards, and it's a big rage, and now the thing is, also it was on YouTube, +because it was very popular for a little while, and then, in the 2000s, you could buy +set, and it was worth nothing, and those same sets now ridiculous amounts seriously, and it will +collapse most certainly again, and I'll go up it, yeah, just like the stamp collection or whatever, +but, so I'm not that, yeah, I'm not in it for the money, but I still haven't played the Pokemon card game, +but I did buy a set, I really would like to play the card game as well, yeah, eventually, +but okay, I'm just now focusing on that Pokemon goal itself, yeah, and so, what I gather, +the actual gameplay is you'll walk around and you'll discover things in the physical world, +that geo-located in the physical world, that also in the virtual world, and then you all have a +little tournament or competition, just to try and beat the other monster, and then, if you beat it, +then it gets added to your collection, is that the general, the main mechanic of it? +Yeah, they're just spawn, and in the world, and they're the game itself, that is separate, +and actually, but I also saw now, because for augmented reality, you now have classes, +that you can also play with, they are now still, they're like 200k, yeah, and of course, +you can also do it on your phone, but yeah, then, it would be even more engaging here, +we're sitting in this open nature reserve, in your in South London, in Surrey, and there's no +one around, and presumably, if you switch on your app, and you look to around, you see monsters, +like wandering around or just floating around, that you'd be able to +answer, and answer, and answer, well, they're literally animals, +cute little creatures, I think monsters, generic terms, from role playing. +Yeah, but unfortunately, I did mean my chartch, that was on, but yeah, +but when you don't have to play with augmented reality, you don't do use your own +camera, you can just play it on fire, yeah, yeah, that's in general, you can't play that, yeah, +I mean, because that, to me, the augmented reality is a little bit of a gimmick, +It's not really same but also they have also integrated that much more in the game now +Right because if you do augmented reality then you can feed them berries and then you can get the gift on them or +a try to encourage you to do that right the main sequence of the game is you have this red and white ball +And you fruit you twirl it and you throw it you know using a motion on your finger on them +My well-fine and it goes and hits the monster and +There's not just a wet and white ball, but okay, yeah, so you have the wet and white balls those are the basic balls +Yeah, then you have to blue and white that's a little bit better and then you have to yellow ones and then a special tournaments +You have even better balls as well and then also you can feed them a raspberry and or a pineapple +So raspberry makes easy to catch and our pineapple kiss you extra points +So that what you call modifiers they influence the success of your +Yeah, so I have to make an extra choice. Yeah, if you if you've got a use dose or not +Yeah, well, they might make it more rewarding if you win or that kind of thing +Yeah, yeah, yeah, so in advance you have them then you also have the gyms the gyms are also very important +So the gyms are certain places there are a bit sparse but that they're here and there +And when you go to them you can either leave a monster behind or you can well you have to conquer the gyms +Yeah, so you have three different teams. Yeah, they are ready yellow and blue +So yeah, you can put six in and in the past so that's also because now if you put the Pokemon in the +Real high that goes down quicker and people don't have a 3000 then doesn't go as quick +And it will passively earn points for you for example if some other monsters have a fight in your gym and you're once just win that gets you points doesn't it +Yeah, though it's like in the gym you can't you can't really win your or yeah +Yeah, or that they lose +So yeah, you have to conquer gym. You also +Yeah, someone needs to attack the gym because that's what you get the points. Yeah, because then +Depending how long you have stayed in the gym. Yeah, you can get a 15-boke +Max for free if you put it in a gym each day. Yeah, and then poker coins you can buy +Things like incubators for the X because you have X you can walk can buy so many things and also in the menu itself +Yeah, you have different things if for evaluation you need yeah, it's really quite integrated and yeah +And also now you also have power sports and you can also put them on this play and that +Yeah, you didn't use to be there and I think that one thing that you found good was from your apartment +You seem to have access to how loud of different +Even a gym there's a gym within rates of your apartment +Yeah, I have to go out to yeah, but it's really really near again. It's not that I can +Control upon my apartment, but yeah, no, it's easy to get some +Boke stops because you have to turn the boat stops to +And to get the balls +Yeah, so and what I now also really like so you can also walk roots right for the gyms also +You get batches a lot of batches a little and just to clarify we're talking about walking +We're talking about physical walking. We're not like walking like in the on the game. You're physically wondering around the streets +Your hometown and +Doing these things. Yeah, yeah, and also yeah, so and if you do new roots that is also specific batch or something so they really encourage you +Oh look what a cute dog +Hey, how are you? +Yeah +Yeah, and now and now you can also make your own roots. So that's my next challenge actually +I'm gonna make roots specifically for cycling actually +Hello, hi there. So I discovered the sort on cemetery actually it is on a hill +That actually gave me the idea so I was cycling and I know all at the surrounding area and I know +That I'm really quite well because yeah, I can cycling a lot and also walking a lot +That yeah, I still discover a new path sometimes and specifically for cycling now all the episodes that you can make roots or yeah +This is part of the game and yeah, so +Once a month I would like to set a new improved and then just the roots. We're not showing game mechanic +So you can yeah, you can make moves. Oh, yeah, you can follow it them yourself +Yeah, you can also create yeah, yeah, now they have many pre-made other people follow the roots that you've made +Well, the road I made yeah, it's followed. I made it like a month ago. Yeah, only by two people so far +I think that they did but did give a five star race +So this is kind of a social game as well. I think if tell me before you did actually meet up with people +Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, you can definitely although I'm not that knit that because you can also trade and now also on a new future +Yeah, you can even re-emote trade that +Yeah, if people thought that would never come yeah, so you have to because yeah, you can exchange gifts and all the part of the game +And then you can compare the fence and text by the effort +After so many weeks actually then it become best fence and then you can trade also remotely +I do know some people I don't have any specific close fence that that I know that play it so now +I'm very much more ready to start trading because by trading +Yeah, and you can get a little lucky Pokemon and because you have to power it up and it is lucky Pokemon +You only need half the startups to something or I think it's half so that's also one of the features +So now actually I'm hoping that I will find someone I can trade based more on a more regular base +Yeah, no, like I said so I really like the play versus player +And then you have three different get or you even have more with mainly sometimes. Yeah, you can +Play with Pokemon and then the limit is 1500 or or 2500 or over and then you even have a little cup as well +But that is for on-brush special occasions or something. Yeah, okay +All right, well, thanks very much for telling us all about Pokemon guy +I mean, would you recommend it to other people or who would you recommend it to? +Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, especially yeah, does it cost anything to can ask that? +Yeah, no, no, no, no, that cost anything. Yeah, it was cost time and effort and energy +Yeah, but yeah, yeah, I can really recommend it especially if you want to explore a new place or you just move to a new place +And it's a it's a very good way to +Have a reason to go out. I like you just came along and had a dog to walk +But if you don't have a dog to walk and you have a mobile phone walk your mobile phone +Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it seems like a silly game and it is but every game is silly, I guess +But yeah +It is not as silly as people think it is maybe and yeah, and also it's not as silly as it used to be not that it was +I mean, yeah, there's so many more options now and yeah, and different status. Yeah, like I said +It is you can focus on if you really like +To harm them. Yeah, so yeah, or play the play versus play or yeah, yeah, everyone has his own +Game. Yeah, it is quite fun, I guess. Okay. All right, that's all for today. Good bye from Lee and then oh, yes +Goodbye +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4666.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4666.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed6cdd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4666.txt @@ -0,0 +1,273 @@ +Episode: 4666 +Title: How I got into tech +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4666/hpr4666.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:15 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4666, for 2026-06-22 +Today's show is entitled, "How I got into tech" +The host is Lennart Benschop and the duration is 00:19:00 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lennart describes the computers he used, what he ran on them and what he liked about them." +How I got into tech. I'm Leonard Benzgrub and I live in the Netherlands and I'm an embedded software engineer. +I arrived late at the party. Our first home computer we got in 1984 when I was 17 years old. +And that was a used Texas Instruments T999 for a. +Before that I was exposed to home computers. +ZX81 with a flight simulator. It really blew me away. That was at all possible. +Primitive as it was at that time. +And then the T999 for a. We had some very cool games on it. +Like Porosheck, Munchman, Beckman Klohn, TI invaders. +We had basic in Rome, but the basic didn't give access to all features of the hardware. +So there were hardware sprites in the video chip, but there was no way to get at them. +There was no peek and poke. You could poke machine code programs. +If you printed it always printed on the bottom of the screen and made the screen scroll up. +So you couldn't move the cursor to the top line of the screen on half-way the screen and print something there. +And that was very annoying. You could print single characters via some cool commands. +But not complete strings. So you had to split those strings into characters. +And that was too slow to be usable for flashy games. +You could really find the shapes of the characters. You could find colors. +So you could make some very cool looking screens. +But it was just not fast enough for really interesting games. +And then you knew there were hundred sprites. +And you could buy extended basic with the sprite support built in. +You could buy a mini memory module that allowed you to poke machine code programs into memory. +What the other machines like the set X81 or the fake 20 could do out of the box. +You could do that when you bought an expensive module. +But no money for either of them. So the fun was over a rather soon. +And a year and a half later in 1995 I started my study at the Ain'thoven University of Technology, Electrical Engineering. +And there we had Pascal on mainframes. We learned programming in Pascal. +And soon I was able to buy a zedic spectrum. +That has a rubber keyboard that 48 kilobytes of RAM. +It worked with set tapes, television, just like the old. +The I machine did. But it had Z80. +And you could really program that thing in machine code. +You could poke everywhere in RAM you like. +And it had some better commands in basic to do interesting things on the screen. +You could draw lines, you could draw circles, you could print strings anywhere on the screen. +You wanted that was not so limited. +But the basic was indeed very slow on that machine. +What you could add some machine code routines to make that faster. +It was a very nice machine. +I already had master basic on the TI. +I mastered spectrum basic. +I mastered assembly language. +There was that book. +The complete spectrum from this assembly that told you what every line of code in the ROM. +The basic ROM did. +How it did it. Why it did it. +It was better reference manual for computer than anything you could think of. +So if you wanted to know how to load a block of data from cassette, +you knew where to jump it to ROM. +What register should you have to set and what to expect from it. +That was really nice for programming stuff in machine code. +Early 1986, we had a course with an 80, 85 single board computer. +That 80, 85 is basically an 80, 80 instruction set. +This is the 80 of the set of spectrum. +As a superset of the 80 and instructions set. +So I was already familiar with those instructions. +I only had to use different assembly language manuals +because they differ between the Z80 and the 8080. +But I already got a good start. +It was already familiar with those instructions. +So I enjoyed that course. +One of the few. +In 1987, I wanted to run fourth on the ZX Spectrum. +I read about fourth in some magazines, in some books. +I really liked the idea of that language. +And I ended up writing my own fourth for the ZX Spectrum. +Not once but twice in 1988. +I wrote a second fourth for that ZX Spectrum. +Using a true meta-compiler, compiling it from the first fourth. +I compiled a second fourth and it had a build in a sembler. +And all the good stuff that a good fourth should have. +And at that time, I already had the 128k model +with hard keycaps, not the rubber keyboard +that your original set of Spectrum had. +And 128k RAM. +And I had micro drives for you. +Micro drives are tiny tape cartridges with an endless tape loop. +You can use them like a floppy disk. +You can list the directory, you can open files, etc. +Sequential read and write speed is quite good. +Comparable to real floppy disks. +You don't have a sick time, but your rotational delay is very long +because you have that single long tape loop. +The reliability and media cost are terrible. +In August 1988, I bought my first PC, +and 88 based PC in XT class machine. +With no hard disk at the time, just to floppy drives. +But the thing had a monochrome monitor, +green screen long afterglow. +It was very pleasing to read from that screen. +Very stable picture. +And you had gorgeous text quality compared to anything else +on the market at that time. +And that was a real good thing. +Real floppy drives, real, real keyboard. +Basic, you couldn't use graphics commands because GW-based didn't know +how to do circular graphics. +I ran four on the PC as well. +First, F83 by Lexington and Perry. +Later, FPC by Tom Zimmer. +FPC had a great editor built in. +A great text editor, I used it for other text editing as well. +I am a matrix printer with that machine. +I even used it with latte, the word processing system for scientific papers +that uses ASCII as input files. +You run it to a compiler. +And then you get the DVI file that you can either view on the screen +or convert to post script or sense to a printer. +A nine pin dot matrix printer. +It's very slow. +It has to pass three times over each line to get something that looks readable. +It's still ugly. +That was latte in those days. +If you didn't have laser printer. +And on the PC XT, it was really, really slow. +I did have a hard disk at that time. +1990. +I had that hard disk. +In 1992, I bought my first 386 machine. +Four whole megabytes. +25 megahertz. +386. +DX. +VGA screen. +Tape provide screen. +Still monochrome. +A 100 megabyte hard disk. +And that machine got to run Linux. +At that time, I worked as a research assistant at the I.D. +University. +I could download the floppy images from the FTP site of Manchester University in England, +MCC interim lilies. +What was later to be called the first Linux distro. +The word distro didn't exist yet. +It didn't have a graphical user interface. +No XV in those systems. +But it did have great terminal support. +It had a real seconfiler. +The GNU utilities. +They were quite good already at that time. +Several text editors via I clone Joe, +which was roughly like the +word star or turbo to skull editor that everybody used at that time. +And I really liked Linux already in 1992. +A few months later, I replaced that system with SLS, +which did have the XV in those systems. +At that time, it meant 640 by 480 pixels. +Strictly monochrome bitmap. +That was the only thing my video card supported. +And I only used it for the DVI viewer or to view the output of ghost script. +I had Latak on Linux at that time. +I've used it ever since. +Programmed for that machine. +I contributed to some forts that were being developed for Unix. +There was GNU Fort G Fort. +There was a PIV written by German. +Portable Fort environment. +I also had a 6809 simulator that I originally wrote in FPC. +FPC on the PC. +XT was really slow. +Then I forwarded it to the simulator to see. +And then it was lot faster but not nearly as fast as the real CPU would be. +I really liked the 6809 architecture. +I never had owned a machine that had one. +But I still liked that 6809 CPU. +In 1995, I bought Pentium with 8 megabytes of RAM. +That didn't stay 8 megabytes for long because 8 megabytes was too little. +I had one gigabyte of hardest space. +The decent video card and a column monitor. +So I could run a graphical desktop. +And of course the Pentium machine was way faster than the 3806 was. +Especially with floating point. +Floating point was terrible on the 3806 by any standards. +Originally the Pentium ran slacker. +Slacker 3.0 from a CD ROM drive. +That was also a new thing in that Pentium machine. +And I tried reddit on it. +Debian. +In 1998, I got a Pentium 2 machine with way more memory like 64 meg. +And bigger hardest. +And a CD recorder. +So I could burn my own CDs. +It was only in 2001 that I got cable internet broadband internet. +Before that, I had been on dial-up. +When I still worked at university, I had access to the network there. +But in the home, I only had dial-up. +And that was too slow to download Linux distribution CD images. +That wasn't possible. +But now we dial up and with cable internet it was possible. +So I didn't have to mail order this CD ROMs. +I could just burn my own. +So I could try out 3BSD. +And any other distros I liked to test like reddit. +But I came back to Debian several times. +In 2003, I started to use Gen2 Linux. +I bought a Pentium 4 at that time. +And I also had a Pentium 3. +And I ran Gen2 Linux on both these machines. +Later I got a Mac Mini. +The first one with PowerPC. +That also had Gen2 Linux. +And in Gen2 Linux, you have complete control over how you compile your programs. +You have to compile all your programs. +You can specify what options you want for them. +It gets your great control. +But it also requires a lot of your time. +I really spent a lot of time when I had those Gen2 systems running. +But I wasn't Gen2 for many years. +In 2006, I got my first quarter to dual machine. +The first 64 bit PC. +I had 64 bit Gen2 on it along with 32 bit PowerPC. +And 32 bits X86. +A few years later I switched back to Debian. +I used Debian a lot, 2012. +I bought a new I-Fee Bridge generation Core i7 machine. +The first year to run Ubuntu because Debian didn't have to drive us. +I needed for sound and for ethernet and stuff. +And Ubuntu had that out of the box. +But when Debian advanced, got a new version. +I switched back to Debian on that machine. +That one also got an SSD. +It was only 120 gigabytes. +I had a spinning rust hard disk of two terabytes alongside it. +But the SSD was only 120 gigabytes at that time. +But yeah, it was real speed of boot times and start-up times through programs. +That really made a difference. +From spinning rust hard disk to a SSD. +At the same time, I had also an EPC the very first generation. +At the only 512 megabytes of RAM. +4 gigabytes of internal flash storage. +I still have it. +Earlier this year, I ran out by Linux on it. +Everything works except for the Wi-Fi chips. +I have to connect it to the internet network. +And of course you can't run serious web browsers like Firefox or Chromium on it. +So it's pretty useless for internet browsing or for much else. +But yeah, it's still cool that you can still run it on a modern operating system. +I've got the first Raspberry Pi. +I've got the Raspberry Pi 400 to 400. +It's built into a keyboard. +And it runs a Bluetooth and it's quite usable even. +And in 2022, I bought an Intel Note 12th generation Core i5 CPU 32 gigabytes. +At that time, it was a no-brainer. +You just just a few tenths of bugs more. +And now it's solid gold prices. +So you wouldn't buy 32 gigabytes of RAM for such a machine. +That run Ubuntu at first too. +Later I switched to Debian. +Really like Debian. +For a daily job, I have Windows 11 laptop for the office. +And for logging into the remote machines to remote machines. +Some of them do run Linux. +I really use Linux at my daily job too. +That was it for today. +That's all I had to say. +See you next episode. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4667.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4667.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fe1cc0 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4667.txt @@ -0,0 +1,198 @@ +Episode: 4667 +Title: UNIX Curio #9 - printf +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4667/hpr4667.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:16 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4667, for 2026-06-23 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #9 - printf" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:20:39 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Displaying text without the echo" +Hi there, I'm Phance and welcome to Unix Curio number nine. +This series is dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking +in the dusty corners of Unix-like operating systems. +Instead of having an echo, why don't we talk about the echo utility a little bit? +The echo command is very useful. +It prints the arguments given to it, followed by a new line character. +The new line is sometimes also called a line feed character, depending on who is writing +or speaking, and it has the ASCII decimal value 10. +Also has many uses either in a script or interactively on the command line. +This utility can be used to display text, the value of variable, or the result of a path +name expansion. +It can also feed text to another command in a pipeline. +As useful as echo is, it should come as no surprise that it first appeared early on +in Bell Laboratories' second edition Unix in 1972. +This initial version accepted no options. +Although the manual page doesn't explicitly say output is followed by a new line character, +the description of writing as a line seems to imply it. +In seventh edition Unix, the manual page makes that clear and also features the addition +of the hyphen and option that's November in the phonetic alphabet, which causes echo +to print the arguments without a trailing new line character. +Eight edition Unix's echo gained the hyphen E option. +Coincidentally, that's echo in the phonetic alphabet, which allows the use of certain +escape codes from the C programming language to be used. +These variations cause differences in behavior between different versions of echo. +We'll running echo, hyphen N, something on your system, output the text, something without +a new line, or the text, hyphen N something followed by a new line. +These get even trickier when the command arguments include parameter or pass name expansions. +If there are files named hyphen N and something in the current directory, what does echo +asterisk output? +Like the previous question, that depends on whether or not your version of echo treats hyphen +N as an option. +You can't get around this ambiguity by quoting or escaping the asterisk because that +just causes echo to print a literal asterisk. +The solution was to create a new utility, which is the first Unix Curio for today, print +F. +This command allows a user to print text similar to the way the identically named function +works in the C programming language. +You run print F followed by a format string followed by zero or more arguments. +No new line characters are printed unless specifically indicated by the format string or +the arguments. +To use print F to print the word something without a new line, that would just be print +F something. +This demonstrates that you don't need any arguments. +In this example, the format string is just a set of regular characters to be displayed. +If you wanted a new line character at the end, print F double quote something backslash +n double quote would give you that. +In this case, the format string needs to be quoted so the backslash n isn't interpreted +by the shell. +In addition to backslash n for a new line, you can also use backslash a for an alert, which +rings the terminal bell, backslash b for a backspace, backslash f for a form feed, backslash +r for a carriage return, backslash t for a horizontal tab, backslash v for a vertical tab, +and backslash backslash to get a literal backslash. +In addition to these special characters, any arbitrary bite can be included using a backslash +followed by one to three octal digits. +However, it might be difficult to predict what will be output because it can differ +based on the character set the terminal is using. +It is safer and more portable to stick to the predefined characters if possible. +The real magic of the print F utility comes from using conversion specifications in the +format string. +Probably the simplest of these to explain is the percent sign S conversion specification. +It represents a string of any length. +The command print F double-quote high percent sign S, how are you backslash n double-quote followed +by a list of names as arguments would print the greeting on a separate line for each name, +putting it in the place occupied by the percent sign S. +The format string is reused as many times as needed to consume all of the arguments. +Take for example the command print F double-quote high percent sign S, have you met percent +sign S, backslash n double-quote? +If this is run with two name arguments, it would print the sentence on one line using both +names. +If run with four name arguments, it would print the sentence twice once with the first two names +and again with the second two names. +If you only gave it three names, the last percent sign S conversion specification would +be replaced with a null string. +Three other items can also be given in each conversion specification. +Flags the field width and the precision. +The exact meanings of these depend on which type of conversion specifier character you +are using. +For percent sign S, using a hyphen as the flag causes the text to be left justified instead +of the default right justified. +A field width causes the printed field to be at least as long as the number given and +a precision limits the number of bytes written from the string to the number given. +Some examples to illustrate these are included in these shown notes. +While percent sign S is probably the most commonly used conversion specification, others +are available. +A whole set of them are dedicated to printing integer values as a sign decimal and unsigned +decimal and unsigned octal or an unsigned hexadecimal number. +These can also take flags a field width and a precision. +I think the details and nuances of all this are two complex to clearly explain here, so +I will just refer you to the POSIX file format notation specification linked in the +shown notes. +Be aware that unlike the printf function in the C programming language, the printf utility +is not obligated to accept conversion specifications for floating point numbers. +While some implementations might support this, scripts intended to be portable, should +limit themselves to the restricted set required by the POSIX standard. +To more conversion specifications are worth mentioning, the first is only required by the standard +for the printf utility, not the C function and is percent sign B. +This is the same as percent sign S, except that certain backslash escape sequences in the +arguments will be treated specially. +This includes all the ones described above, except for the one using octal digits to represent +a byte. +In an argument, this is instead represented by backslash 0 followed by one to three octal digits. +An additional backslash escape sequence accepted is backslash C. +This does not print anything itself, but causes printf to immediately halt output. +The final conversion specification is percent sign percent sign, which just outputs a literal +percent sign. +You can't use a bare percent sign in the format string because printf expects that to introduce +a conversion specification. +Be careful not to get tripped up by this when trying to print some value as a percentage. +Let's go back to the situation I was describing with echo. +We have files named hyphen n and something in the current directory and want to print all +their names separated by spaces. +We could do that with printf double quote, percent sign S, space double quote, space +asterisk, which would not treat the hyphen n as an option. +However, the output might look a little weird because there wouldn't be a new line character +at the end. +We could insert that new line by using percent sign B instead of percent sign S and following +the asterisk with a second argument, backslash n backslash C as noted before that would +have to be quoted to prevent the shell from interpreting the backslashes. +The backslash C is there to prevent the final space in the format string from being printed +after the new line. +Using the percent sign B conversion specification can therefore solve one problem but it also +introduces another. +Since which include a backslash can be interpreted as escape sequences and many systems +are fine with allowing backslashes in file names. +I've included an example of this in the show notes. +In cases where you're just using the printf utility to display text, it's usually not a big +deal if the output looks a little wonky. +Where you really need to be careful is when the text is being piped to another program +as control characters and other oddities might cause unexpected results. +And can potentially even create security problems if processed by a script or utility running +as a privileged user. +The printf utility looks to have shown up first in 1986's 9th edition Unix, though +the earliest manual page I could find is from the 10th edition. +Its first appearance in BSD seems to be from 1990 in the 4.3 Reno release. +Two years later it was added to issue 4 of the open groups CIE specification. +From what I can tell the printf utility did not seem to be in AT&T's system 3. +Presumably it did make it into system 5 at some point but I found it difficult to track +this down. +While echo is still suitable for use where you know for certain that you want a new line +character printed at the end and none of the arguments will start with a hyphen, consider +using the printf utility instead for displaying text. +It offers more flexibility and features than you are guaranteed to get with echo, although +it does require a bit of forethought in constructing a proper format string and arguments. +That is not necessarily a bad thing because a script's author should be thinking about what +might happen if it is called with quote strange unquote text or file names. +This episode also provides a good case for being careful when naming files. +Many file systems will allow you to use hyphens, control characters, quotation marks and +potentially any character other than a slash or a null byte in a file name. +As we've seen some of these characters can create problems for standard utilities. +While it can feel limiting, especially for people not using English, the safest file +names to use on a unix-like system consists only of characters in the portable file name +character set as defined by posics and where the first character is not a hyphen. +This set includes the lower case and upper case letters a through Z or Z as some people pronounce +it. +The numerals 0 through 9 and the period underscore and hyphen, notably it does not include +the space character. +That leads me to another unix-curio that I only just now discovered while researching +this episode. +This is the path check utility spelled PA THCHK or in the phonetic alphabet Papa Alpha +Tango Hotel Charlie Hotel Kilo. +It can be run with one or more strings as arguments, checks each one against a set of rules +for path names and outputs an error message for each problem found. +By default, it checks against the following limits on the system where it's being run. +There are some number of bytes in the full path, maximum number of bytes in any component +of the path, all byte sequences must be valid in the given directory and the user running +the program must have access to all directories referenced. +If run with the hyphen lower case P option, that's Papa in the phonetic alphabet, instead +of those limits, it checks against POSIX limits, a maximum of 256 bytes in the full path, +a maximum of 14 bytes in each component of the path, and each component must only include +characters from the portable set. +The hyphen uppercase P option adds warnings if any component starts with a hyphen or if +the path name is completely empty. +While the exit status will tell you if the check succeeded or not, I don't feel like the +path check utility is well suited to be used in an automated fashion. +As the exact wording of its output is not specified, and checks cannot be selected individually. +However, it can be used interactively to validate path names you aren't sure about. +See the linked specification in these show notes for full details. +Thanks for listening, and keep an eye out for the next Unix Curio, which will be about +check sums here on hacker public radio. +If you have a question or a suggestion for a future topic, please comment on this episode +on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4668.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4668.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ecec86 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4668.txt @@ -0,0 +1,354 @@ +Episode: 4668 +Title: Nuclear Power Technology Follow Up on Safety +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4668/hpr4668.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:17 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4668, for 2026-06-24 +Today's show is entitled, "Nuclear Power Technology Follow Up on Safety" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:36:06 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Response to a question posed by a listener on the comparative safety of different energy sources" +This is the second follow-up to my eight-part series, a nuclear power. +In this episode, I will attempt to answer a question posed by Brian and Ohio in a comment +on HPR 4583. +In that comment, he said, loving this series, maybe Whiskey Jack could give some cost comparisons +between large and small reactors. +He could also give us a realistic look at nuclear plants, safety, and accidents compared +to conventional power production. +Looking forward to the episode on fourth-generation reactors. +And of quote, the first question I answered in my previous follow-up, which was HPR 4628. +In this episode, I will attempt to answer the second question, which was about the safety +of nuclear power, compared to other sources of electrical power generation. +One of the HPR janitors encouraged me to make this episode, so I think we can thank him +for getting another HPR episode made. +Defining the scope, first, let's define the scope of the question. +This will cover electrical power generation only. +Within that scope, I will consider only the following sources of energy. +Coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, solar. +I won't cover geothermal, wave, or tidal power, as these are only used in very small amounts, +and so there simply isn't enough literature on them to base a discussion on. +I should mention right away that I cannot provide absolute answers to this question in the +form of a nice, neat ranking table based on numbers from peer-reviewed scientific sources. +The reason for this will become apparent, but to put it briefly, the data on which to +base such a ranking simply doesn't exist. +I will, however, provide context within which people can think about the issue. +Wherever possible, I will provide links to references that I use in the show notes so +that you can read further on this yourself. +Energy catastropheism versus energy-uniformitarianism. +First of all, I need to go off on a slight geological detour in order to explain an important +analogy that I will use. +In the 19th century, there was a great debate among geologists over what is known as catastrophe +ism versus uniformitarianism. +In seeking to explain the origins of the Earth and the landscape that we see around us, +there were two points of view. +One was catastrophism. +This is the belief that the mountains, valleys, and planes that we see around us were formed +as a result of great catastrophes which occurred relatively recently in Earth's history. +This explanation was necessary in order to fit geological features into an Earth that +was believed to be only a few thousands of years old. +This view was heavily influenced by religious belief. +In this view, Noah's flood was the great catastrophe and the fossils of dinosaurs were +where there remains of animals which had not been saved on the ark and so had died in +the flood. +The other point of view was uniformitarianism. +This was the hypothesis that the landscape we see around us can be explained by the very +slow accumulation of very small changes over a very long periods of time. +For this to be true, however, the Earth had to be far older than the few thousand years +that a literal reading of the Bible would suggest. +The Earth, in fact, had to be many, many millions of years old. +Eventually, the uniformitarian view won out and people understood that while some catastrophe +can take place, the shape of the landscape is overwhelmingly due to small changes over +very long periods of time. +How is this relevant to this episode you ask? +How this is relevant is that I will use a analogy to explain how we need to think about +energy and safety. +Very small numbers of deaths and injuries multiplied over many occurrences could add up +to big numbers, comparable in scale or possibly even larger than a single catastrophe or +even several of them. +I don't know if anyone has ever used a analogy before, I've just thought of this while +writing the script for this podcast. +Nonetheless, I think it is a very useful way of helping to understand the issues. +As an example of this, think about the well-known case of the safety of flying versus +the safety of traveling at your car. +Other crashes or catastrophes that make the headlines. +Automobile crashes are sold a more than local news at best. +You have probably heard many times acclaimed that if you are making a trip somewhere, you +are safer to fly than to drive yourself in your car. +Example, Hydro versus Solar, and when I will present an example of this, Hydroelectric +Power has some notable large scale at catastrophes associated with it. +If top solar power does not have any notable catastrophes that I am aware of, however, +which is safer, Hydro-Catastrophies, here are three examples of hydroelectric catastrophes +in just one country, Italy. +The Vaisant Dam, which collapsed in 1963, +an estimated 1,917 to 2,500 people died. +The cellars or bino dam, which collapsed in 1935, +more than 100 people died. +The gino dam, which collapsed in 1923, an estimated 350 people died. +I haven't tried to compile a global list of the worst hydroelectric dam collapses, +as this sort of information is actually very difficult to find, +even on websites dedicated to dam failures. +An additional problem is that information a weathery dam was used for electric power generation +or not is often not available. +Dam failures were contradictory or insufficient information is available, +on whether there was an associated hydro plant, +including the 1975 bankian dam failure, where death estimates range up to a quarter of a million. +Solar panel slow accumulation, +contrasts with rooftop solar panels, +many small accidents could add up to big numbers as well. +Health and safety literature, discussing solar panel safety, +mentioned such things as falls from roofs, electric shock, +arc flash that is burns from electrical arcing, +normal electrical safety procedures, which are based around locking out sources of energy, +do not work with solar panels, which makes safety more difficult, and heat stress +due to working it exposed in the hot sun. +Why we cannot compare the two. +Hydro-catastrophies are not well documented, +but we can at least find records of some of the most notable ones. +However, even though it's have very large variations in estimates of deaths. +rooftop solar deaths, however, are largely undocumented. +The industry is largely unregulated. +There is no central authority which accumulates many individual deaths or injuries. +At best, there are worker and public safety bodies +who simply accumulate those statistics into general construction or household injuries. +Thus, we have no reliable means of comparing the two energy sources on a comparable basis. +We face the same problem with all other major electrical energy sources. +So far as I'm aware, there are no peer-reviewed scientific studies +which compare the relative safety of all of the major electrical energy sources we are +considering here based on actual numbers. +Safety risks. I will now try to list some of the major hazards for each of the energy sources +we are considering. +There is, however, limited data available. In many cases, we just have reference to worker safety +organizations as to what the hazards are. I will not attempt to put numbers to these here. +Coal, oil, and natural gas. The hazards are air pollution, +mining and oil field accidents, pipeline explosions, transportation accidents. +These move a lot of material so these are significant. +Hydroelectric. These include dam collapse and droning. +Nuclear. These include radiation exposure. +Wind. These include falls. +Confined space deaths. There is not much detail on this one. +Electric shock. Ice throws. That is, throwing of pieces of ice off the blades. +This technology has a significant problem with people working alone, +which greatly increases the risks associated with other dangers. +Solar. These include falls, electric shock, arc flash, and heat stress. +I have not tried to cover all possible risks associated with each category. +Just the ones which each industry considers to be the risks they concern themselves with. +There does not exist any beings by which risks of similar types are compared across different +industries. Reliability of supply is also safety. In a completely electrified net zero society, +reliability of supply is a safety matter. People will die in very large numbers in +cold climates if they do not have heat. If we have no fossil fuels, we need to also consider +how reliably does a grid based on any of the options work. I have not seen anyone attempt to +address this question and will not attempt to address here. However, it must be addressed in any +comprehensive attempt to rank safety. Studyter articles on estimates of relative safety. +Despite the difficulties of comparing the safety of different sources of energy, +some people have attempted this anyway. Different estimates done at different times had different +focuses, so unfortunately we do not have a nice set of studies that we can neatly use to cross +check one another. I will, however, this the names and the authors and summarize the results. +The health hazards of not going nuclear by Dr. Peter Beckman published in 1976. +The author of this book tried to address the relative safety of different sources of energy +in the bid 1970s, whoever it is all to this point, so I won't bother digging through +its pages to find his figures. He mainly focused on comparing electric power generated with coal +to nuclear. His conclusion was that if the goal was to prevent deaths or ill health in the process +of generating electricity, then the logical conclusion was to replace coal-fired power plants with nuclear. +The book was relatively well known at the time, at least as far as books on energy are concerned, +so I thought it was still worth mentioning. I happened to have a copy of this book, +which I bought back in that time period. It was the eighth printing of the book, +so it appeared to have had relatively good sales. The author did address the issue of what I have +turned catastrophism in his comparison of different energy sources, although I don't know if he +used that phrase. I don't know if he was the first to use this sort of analysis, but he certainly +was very influential in terms of popularizing it. Risk of energy production by Herbert Inhaber, +publication AECB 1119 March 1978. This study is a scientific paper from the same time period +as the book, the health hazards of not going nuclear. He based his risk estimates, +largely on estimates of the amount of material, which would be used in the construction and +operation of various power sources. We could argue over whether or not this is a valid methodology. +I think any such argument would be pointless, as I think the age of the study alone +renders it not relevant to today. Advancements and materials have changed the basis of the +results significantly by now. However, as it exists, I thought I would mention it to show that the +idea of comparing energy sources to each other is not a new one. The author compared a wider variety +potential sources than Beckman did. Here is his conclusions. He assumes equal amounts of energy +produced by each method. The numbers are normalized, such that the total sums to 100%. +You can think of it in terms of what proportion total deaths or injuries would result from each +source if each were equally used. Call 27.5%. Oil 25.6%. +Methanol 16.7%. Wind 10.8%. Solar photovoltaic 9.2%. +Thurble 8.1%. Solar space heating 1.5%. Ocean thermal 0.4%. Nuclear 0.13%. Natural gas 0.08%. +His natural gas estimate is drastically different from that of other authors. I'm not going to worry +about explaining it, however, as the study, as I said, is old enough to not be very relevant anyway. +I'm mainly including this here out of historical interest. As a footnote, +the Methanol he refers to would be synthetized from wood. This was a popular idea in that era, +as a means of providing liquid fuels for transportation. Practical battery electric cars in +those days were strictly science fiction. The ocean thermal category is a real blast from the past, +and I had forgotten all about that concept. It was a very popular idea at the time, +it was supposed to be the big and upcoming thing in renewable energy. It involved various +means of attempting to extract energy from differences in water temperature at different depths in the ocean. +It gradually faded away, however, as despite great efforts being put into it, +designs never proved to be practical. Electricity generation and health, +by annual markandia and Paul Wilkinson, published in the Lancet, volume 370, 15th of September +2007. This is more recent than the previous one, although it is still nearly 20 years old at this +point. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover winter solar, just fossil fuels in nuclear. However, +it is still useful, and the Lancet is a very reputable, peer-reviewed journal. +I will present just the results, rather than discussing the whole paper. +The authors break it down into death among the public, occupational deaths, +and air pollution related deaths, serious illnesses, and minor illnesses. +They break the energy sources down into Lignight, Cole, Gas, Oil, Biomass, and Nuclear. +Lignight is a type of very low-grade coal used mainly for electric power generation. +In this paper, biomass refers to energy crops and forest residues. +I will summarize the results by category, rather than trying to describe a table that has six +rows and five columns. All numbers are normalized in terms of deaths or cases per terror watt hours. +Occupational deaths from accidents. Lignight, 0.1, Cole, 0.1, gas, 0.001, oil, no data, biomass, no data, +nuclear, 0.019. Deaths among the public from accidents. Lignight, 0.02, Cole, 0.02, gas, 0.02, oil, 0.03, biomass, +no data, nuclear, 0.03, air pollution deaths, Lignight, 32.6, Cole, 24.5, gas, 2.8, oil, 18.4, +biomass, 4.63, nuclear, 0.052, air pollution-series, illnesses, Lignight, 298, Cole, 225, gas, 30, oil, 161, +biomass, 43, nuclear, 0.22, air pollution-miner illnesses, Lignight, 17,676, Cole, 13,288, gas, 73, oil, 9,551, +biomass, 2,276, nuclear, no data. Natural gas, edges out nuclear power slightly in terms of +occupational safety, but in every other category, nuclear is drastically lower in terms of +ill effects than any of the alternatives. 2020 fatalities for US roofers increased 15% as solar roof +installations increase. Published in the next big future, the 6th of July 2021, by Brian Wang. +This seems to be written by someone who has a popular science blog. I'm not familiar with it +personally, but he addresses a subject, so I'll list it. The title implies that it's all about +rooftop solar, but he provides comparative numbers for other energy sources of interest, so that +is useful for our purposes. However, he doesn't describe his methodology, so we need to treat them +with some caution. Here are his results. These are deaths per thousand terawatt hours. +Cole, 100,000, oil, 36,000, natural gas, 4,000, hydro, 1,400, rooftop solar, 440, wind, 150, nuclear, 90. +If we plot these numbers on a bar chart, Cole and oil are so large, that all of the others are +squished to the bottom of the chart, and are difficult to see at all. Let's therefore look at +these in terms of orders of magnitude. Keep in mind that this is a log-merithic scale. This means +that the difference between 4 and 5 is much greater in linear terms than the difference between +1 and 2. Cole, 5, oil, 4, natural gas, 3, hydro, 3, rooftop solar, 2, wind, 2, nuclear, 1. Each of +these numbers represents an order of magnitude, that is, a power of 10. We can see that with rooftop +solar, wind and nuclear, the numbers are close, and there are certain these are so great, and +their relative values are so small compared to say, Cole, that they can be seen as equivalent, +so far as safety is concerned. What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy? +By Hannah Richie, published in our world in data, first published in 2017, updated in 2022 and +2024. The author of this study addressed both deaths and greenhouse gas emissions, deaths from +accidents at air pollution are normalized to per terror water or electricity, while greenhouse +gas emissions are normalized to gigabodd hours of electricity over the life cycle of the plant. +Here are the deaths figures. Cole, 24.6, oil, 18.4, biomass, 4.6, natural gas, 2.8, hydro power, 1.3, +wind, 0.04, nuclear, 0.03, solar, 0.02, for greenhouse gas emissions the figures are, Cole, +970 tons, oil, 720 tons, natural gas, 440 tons, biomass, 78 to 230 tons, solar, 53 tons, +hydro power, 24 tons, wind, 11 tons, nuclear, 6 tons. If we take the death figures and rank them by order +of magnitude as we did with the previous article, we get the following. Cole, 4, oil, 4, +biomass, 3, natural gas, 3, hydro power, 3, wind, 1, nuclear, 1, solar, 1. +Keep in mind that the previous article covered only rooftop solar and not large industrial +installations and so is not directly comparable. Also, the units are different with the previous +article being in terms of 1,000 terror water and this one being in terror water hours. +If we exclude solar as the numbers are not comparable, Brian Wang's numbers are between 1.5 to +4 times higher than Richies, except for Hydro, which are almost identical. I think this ladder +is due to both such a numbers dominated by one exceptionally big hydro accident. +Overall, however, the relative rankings are quite comparable. Richies numbers for deaths from +Cole, oil, and natural gas appear to be directly from the study by Marquandia and Wilkinson +mentioned above. For the benefit of those who are wondering, Richies specifically states that +her numbers for nuclear include the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents. +Conclusion from studies. Remember that in engineering terms, when comparing groups of numbers, +which contain both very small numbers and one or more very large numbers, the differences +between the small numbers are often not significant. The differences between the small numbers +may be the product of our ability to measure these things rather than any real differences. +For example, in the article by Richie, Windpower would appear to be twice as dangerous as nuclear. +However, the difference between them is 0.02 compared to 24.6 for Cole. In other words, +the difference between apparently dangerous wind and apparently safe nuclear is equivalent to 0.08% +of the total for Cole. It is therefore meaningless and a red herring to even worry about. +With the above taken into consideration, generally the difference sources of energy fall into +two broad categories in terms of number of deaths, injuries, and illnesses. The fossil fuels and +biomass fall into one group, and wind, solar, and nuclear into another group. Hydro power +would seem to fall into the higher risk category, or at least somewhere between the two. +But this I suspect is mainly due to one exceptionally large dam collapse in China, the Ben +Kean Dam failure in 1975. This is mentioned as being specifically included in the article written by Richie. +This was a multipurpose dam, and information on this dam is difficult to find. It is not +clear to me whether it had a hydroelectric generator associated with either it or another dam +that was part of the same system. Some people, therefore, may argue for its exclusion from the numbers. +Of course, some people may argue for its inclusion anyway, as it was a dam, regardless of whether +it actually had an electric generator attached. If we exclude it, then I think the number for hydro +power would fall into the same range as for nuclear, wind, and solar. Most people would consider +hydro power to be safe and clean enough, regardless of this, and I will rank it as such in any +conclusions that I come to. As you can see, even if we have numbers, it can be a matter of opinion +as to how to interpret them. Taking a system's approach. Now let's look at the broader energy +picture today and into the future. Many countries, in many parts of the world, have committed to +the concept of net zero, which means eliminating carbon emissions on a net basis. +Net zero essentially means the complete electrification of society. We must therefore have +electrical energy on demand and at low cost. We must as a result of this, look at complete +electrical systems, rather than individual sources in isolation. At one time, many electrical +systems were entirely coal or entirely hydroelectric. This is no longer the case. There are now major +amounts of wind and solar involved in many countries. However, these are inherently intermittent. +This means that other sources of energy are inherently also required to have a functional +system. If any particular solution inherently requires fossil fuels to meet part of the demand +then the safety, pollution, and climate issues relating to those fossil fuels +have to be factored into that complete system when trying to come up with a relative ranking. +Talking about individual sources in isolation are therefore meaningless in those countries. +There are battery systems, but these are mainly used to stabilize and regulate the grid +plus to a lesser degree to smooth out short-term daily peaks in demand. +They do not have the ability to store large amounts of electricity on a large scale for entire +grid for days, weeks, and months to make up for inter-bitancy. +So a serious attempt to rank sources of energy would need to look at a variety of representative +and for each one come up with a plan that involves x-megawatts from source A, y-megawatts from +source B, et cetera, and total up the values for each. I am not aware of anyone who has studied +this larger issue. However, the problem has to be addressed from this perspective in order for any +answer to be useful. Not taking this into account is like ordering a diet soft drink to go with a +high-calorie meal and assuring yourself that your plans to diet are just fine. +This is not to imply that there is anything inherently wrong with wind or solar. +It does mean that if your goal is to achieve both net zero and a clean environment, +you have to look at your entire energy system as a complete system, +rather than focusing on what you feel are the most reassuring parts of it while ignoring the rest. +This does however add to their argument that is in fact inherently very difficult to come up with +a system of ranking energy sources for safety. Nuclear climate and clean air contrasting examples. +To give a tangible example, we will now look at two different places that followed two +divergent paths that roughly around the same time frame. These are the province of Ontario and Canada +and Germany. Ontario had a mix of coal, hydroelectric, and nuclear generating plants. +Germany had a mix of coal, nuclear, and natural gas plants. +Ontario shut down their coal-fired plants and kept their nuclear plants. +Germany, however, shut down their nuclear plants and kept their coal-fired plants. +The phase out of coal in Ontario. In 2003, Ontario decided to close all of its coal-fired +generating plants, which consisted of 19 units that is boilers and turbines, +totaling 8,800 megawatts. This phase out was completed by 2014. +Here are the figures for the amount of power generated by each energy source in 2003 and 2014. +Nuclear went from 42% to 60%. Hydro went from 23% to 24% gas went from 11% to 9% coal went from 25% +to 0%. Non-hydroenewable went from 0% to 7%. As you can see, the bulk of that replacement +came from increased use of nuclear power. Furthermore, this did not result in simply replacing coal +with natural gas. While gas is cleaner than coal, it still has emissions, and if you recall from +the studies that we looked at earlier, had an estimated death rate roughly two orders of +magnitude greater than nuclear, solar, or wind. To put this in more practical terms, at one time +Toronto, regularly had clouds of smog obscuring it to a large extent due to these coal-fired +power plants. With the phase out of coal, smog days went to 0 in 2015, compared to 53 +a decade earlier. The 2023 figures for Ontario show carbon emissions of 53 grams per kilowatt-hour +electricity generated. We can use this as a rough benchmark comparison for totally emissions. +The phase out of nuclear in Germany, until March of 2011, Germany generated one quarter of +its electrical power from nuclear. Starting in 2011, however, they began shutting down their nuclear +power plants. These were then phased out over the next decade. However, the coal plants were to be +kept until 2038. In 2026, Germany began talking about increasing use of coal in order to save gas. +In the same year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that the phase out of nuclear was a +quote, Sirius Strategic Mistake. EU Commission President Ursula Vandreland said that it was +a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low emissions +power. I won't go into the details of the phase out, but let's look at some emissions numbers +for Germany. If we look at the official numbers from the European Environmental Agency for 2024, +for Germany, the emissions were 298 grams per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. +We call that we are using emissions as a very rough guide to amount of air pollution, +and this has a direct effect on the safety of the overall electrical energy system. +So who actually made their people safer? Ontario who phased out their coal plants and kept +their nuclear plants, or Germany who phased out their nuclear plants and kept their coal plants. +If you want to comparison directly within Europe, then Germany has one of the highest rates +of emissions per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated, whereas France, who is mainly nuclear power, +have one of the lowest at 43 grams per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. +Again, who is making their people safer? Germany or France? +I don't want to make it sound like I am picking on Germany. +I am also not going to tell them how they ought to run their country. +However, they provide a good real-world example of how we need to look at things in overall +context when we are thinking about the choices that we make. +Conclusions, as we can see, they don't appear to be in abundance of peer-reviewed scientific studies +that we can simply point to in order to answer the question of safety of all possible major +different energy sources once and for all. Collecting the data to even attempt to answer +the question is inherently very difficult as we cannot readily conduct experiments to answer +that question, and sources of data are not collected or consolidated in a manner which can +answer this question adequately. The essence of the problem is that most energy industries +are not as tightly regulated and monitored to the same degree that say nuclear power or commercial +airliners are, so this data is simply not being systematically recorded. However, a number of people +have attempted to make estimates. Their conclusions were seem to be that nuclear, wind and solar +are roughly equivalent in terms of safety. All fossil fuels are much less safe than nuclear +wind and solar by as much as several orders of magnitude. We can, however, say with a reasonable +degree of certainty that if a country shut down their nuclear power plants and kept their fossil +fuel plants, particularly coal, then they probably made their people less safe than if they had +done things the other way around. I hope that I have provided some context in which to think about +the issue. Thanks again to Brian and Ohio for providing the question upon which this episode is based. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4669.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4669.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a86a9fe --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4669.txt @@ -0,0 +1,320 @@ +Episode: 4669 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 14 - Super Strong Lager +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4669/hpr4669.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:23 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4669, for 2026-06-25 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 14 - Super Strong Lager" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:32:39 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Dave, Kevie and Paul talk about the infamous range super strong lagers." +Hello and welcome to yet another incredibly exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio and this +is the HPR Beer Garden where we go through and review different kinds of beers and beer +styles so that you can enjoy them too. Can we have that as a slow-completionist for the +point? Anyway, my name is Dave and I've joined this time around as most times by young +Mr. Kevy, Kevy, how are you? +Hello, thank you young and I'm actually very pleased to get that now. That's it. I'm going +notes. I can't really go to go down hill from here. So enjoy the true gaze, bye-bye. +And we're also joined by a recurring guest and that's Paul. Welcome back, Paul. +It's good to see you here. Thank you very much. Dave, thanks Kevy and Hi, everybody. It's +good to be back. Yes, absolutely. We almost feel like it's long overdue. When was the last +episode? Can you remember what we covered? Was it just before Christmas? I think it was +one of the Christmas Belgian ones, wasn't it? I remember rightly. No, it wasn't the Christmas +Belgian one. It was the one before that. There was something else we did. Oh, the British +Christmas beer is one. It's just the Christmas beer. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. +That's right. So something slightly different in the offering today. Yeah, just slightly. Now, +we're not setting a precedent here. We have done this before. We're not actually going to be +reviewing what you would classify as a style per se. But I'm not going to go into too much detail +about this as I know that Kevy has got some fairly comprehensive information relating to this. +And that is the super strong Lager. So Kevy, tell us about super strong Lager and how we up +because my mind's getting more. So super strength Lager or super strong Lager. No, this is actually +a bit of a problem. As Dave's already pointed out, it's not actually a style in and off itself, +depending on where you are, actually. So if you are in the United States, then apparently I did +not know this in collaboration with this, anything that's 6% above has got to legally be called +not be a but malt liquor, which I did not know that until doing this research. So I'm hoping that +I was not lied to. So apparently if we're in America, this wouldn't be super strength Lager, +it would be malt liquor and then underneath it, super strength Lager. So if we're actually going to +go all the way back to the very first people that did it, I didn't actually realize quite how +all this was because it goes right the way back to the 16th century. And it was when Lagering was +first done in Germany, they went up in the very first to do the Lagering process. Now as I've +said before, we tend to call Lager a drink. Lager actually refers to the process it goes through, +where it is stored under ground traditionally to keep it cool. And it's fermented at a cold +temperature, which is kind of unusual because most the time fermentation should be done at a room +temperature and consistently as well. So it actually came from just at the time, obviously you +didn't have fridges available, etc. So higher alcohol was for the longer journeys, so the +thing wouldn't survive and wouldn't spoil. But that's going right the way back. Let's fast forward +away bit though. So it kept on going in Germany for many say years, except not under the term +super strong Lager that this was a relatively recent term. It wasn't consistently known as that +actually until the 80s and it wasn't Britain that seemed to coin the phrase super strong Lager. But +if we were to the ones that actually started the interest, we have actually Karl spoke to thank for +this. Now a lot of people know special brew. It's been around a long time. I was not aware +that until research in this, it was actually made for Winston Churchill on a visit to the Karl +Sprig Brewery. And the reason they made it was because apparently he was not a huge beer drinker. +However, he said he liked his cognac. So what Karl Sprig did was they tried to implement +a Lager or beer with cognac influences in it. And obviously with it being cognac, it had to be +quite a bit stronger. So this was where the kind of modern super strong Lager kind of descended from. +And it also appears that for quite a few years, Karl Sprig were the only ones producing it as +what we know as super strong Lager. They kept that recipe quite guarded. But however, as in +modern age, over time, people change breweries. And of course, somebody says, I know the recipe. +Let's modify it. The recipes go up and out somewhere. And of course, over the years, +you've had other ones producing quite a bit, actually stronger than Karl Sprig's special brewing. +A Karl's special brew used to be about 9%. It's now 7.2, they've taken it down. But generally, +most of these were between 9 and 10 was the standard. And these were available from generally +along the north coast of Europe, mainland Europe, and into Britain. Those were the ones that seem +to adopt these more so than anywhere else. And whilst they're not as readily available as they were, +they certainly are still available. Interestingly enough, you cannot walk into any supermarket +anymore. And by these, because the supermarkets in general, not everyone, the supermarkets in general, +have agreed not to stalk them due to their high alcohol levels combined with their relatively +low price points. Now, this has in recent times, led to them getting a really bad reputation. +And they've become known in the media as Trump juice. In doing the research, actually, one, +I think this subidover killed total extremist media journalism. One has said that it does +more damage than crack a cane. And I'm thinking, I think that's a bit alarmist. Maybe in terms of +how readily available it is, the number of people who have it. But I am not going to equate +drinking a can of this to the same as having crack a cane. That is just not logical at all. +Now, with the British government tightening up on the alcohol laws and the taxes on higher +high ABV, the earth especially, then a lot of the companies, so I believe skull, Carl'sburg, +and human missing, or tenants, ten super. They all agreed to reduce from nine to just over seven. +That's been in the last ten years. But they've kept their bears at consistent price. +However, the ones that have kept them at the ten percent, or nine to ten percent, +have actually up the price. So what the reason actually was quite keen to do this episode was +because is it fair to call it Trump juice, unlabeled that only problem drinkers have it? +Because there are plenty. I mean, imperial states go well into the teens. And yet, I've never heard +them call Trump juice. You know, so is this fair? So what I wanted us to do today is get a wee +a try of these and just see in their own right is there a good beer in there. So that that is what +I got. So sadly, not as in depth as how I like to have made it, but it actually was pretty typical +getting researched on on this type. Yeah, I did a bit of nosing into this myself, actually. And +it's interesting. You mentioned the reduction of ABV from nine to about seven. And there is a reason +for that. There was a financial reason for it. Because in 2011, the government introduced a new +duty for high strength beers, specifically targeting beers over seven and a half percent. And +that's why the ones that used to be nine percent, which you quite rightly have kept it there, +have actually up their prices because of this additional duty. So those the went down +to try and either reduce or eliminate this higher tax rate. So there had to be money involved +in there somewhere. Yeah, absolutely. But also, I actually managed to find a slightly different story +as to how these super-strength logos came about. Now, I cannot claim any form of validity on this +because I do not know this story's provenance. However, it says here, the by the mid-20th century +large commercial breweries realized they could save money in space by brewing their beer at a very +dense high alcohol concentrate and then diluting it with water just before canning to get down to the +standard 4% or 5%. But then the brewers then realized that they could simply not dilute that +concentrate. And then by selling that undiluted base, they could then market a premium or super-version +of their flagship brands with minimal extra effort. So I don't know how true that is, Paul. +Yes, that's a very good point. It actually brings to mind. I have a friend who used to work in +the Guinness Brewery in Liverpool and he would tell us two, by two things he told us. First +with the water for the Guinness that's brewed in Liverpool comes from Wales, comes from Lake +Vernway. And he said the beer is brewed twice double strength and is diluted as you said diluted +before canning. So that's first hand comments about that practice. There's certainly brewed +at double strength and then diluted before canning. Right, there we go. That's something I didn't +know. I didn't know that was the thing. So very interesting. But it's true or not. It's still very +interesting. Yes, well, we're going to take it that you've done your homework and you're not just picking +up some numb, some numb deshoting on Reddit too low to you. Yeah, you think that, that's one. +Right, well, I think it's about time to crack into these. What do you see? No, I would see +given given Paul is actually a guest. I think he needs to go first. Okay, so what I managed to find +so when we talked about this early in a couple of weeks back and you asked me to come and join you +a few things came to mind. First of all, I'm not really a larger drinker. I do drink +larger when I mean places like Germany and so on or Belgium. But I tend to drink the strongest +stuff in Belgium rather than kind of their you play or their standard stuff. I have probably had +tenants maybe 40 years ago and I haven't touched it since. So when you look at options, +I've gone for something called and I apologize to all our Polish listeners and people who understand +Polish, Puele, Mockner. So I'm not sure exactly how you're supposed to pronounce it. But this is a +Polish strong larger, 7.1% and I'm drinking it chilled kevy. I know you're not a fan of chilled +beer but I think it's supposed to be chilled. So let's see what we've got. Well, that hasn't +got all over the table which is a good start. What can I say? Looks like a larga. I've got a bit of a head. +It's some golden coloured. Yeah, that's quite nice actually. I could drink that. So I think I +prefer that to the type of larga you buy in a pub on a sastionite. Although as I said, I would normally +probably drink ale, IPA or whatever, rather than this or a porter or a Guinness or, you know, it definitely +has a strong, you can feel it's a stronger larga you can tell from the flavor is there's more body to it. +It kind of has, has hints of Belgian larga about it. Really, Belgian, you know, it's a Belgian +flavors but it's a nice, it's a nice beer I would drink that. It's a lovely colour. It's a lovely colour, +isn't it? Yeah, but I almost like covering this or is that just the way it's coming through? +It is a bit, yeah, it's darker than like a Karlsberg larga you see in, I mean obviously the glass +is starting to frost a little bit but it's a nice colour. Yeah, so definitely it's probably not +got the some of the sweetness you get in a Belgian larga. A Belgian, you know, a Belgian beer but +it's so, yeah, it's good, it's good. Now you're going to ask me that question now, I knew what would +I give it an intact. Oh, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Oh, that's good. Oh, it's just ruining the end +deal for us. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Okay, so yes, so Pearl and Mark, I'll take a picture +of it as well. Of course for the notes. Very nice writing. So while our camera man is at work here, +Dave, what do you have? Yeah, okay. Well, I have managed to bank myself a skull super +and I have never had this before and I am, I mean, I'm not going to say that I walked into the shop +and then walked out with this inside a brown paper bag. But you know, 8% and they sell this in a heavily +promoted half liter can. So I kind of came into this thinking, these are the kind of drinks that +people would consume in order to get themselves in e-reated. You know, that's its entire purpose. +I read somewhere that there are some strong larkers, super strong larkers you can get. The +effectively are a bottle of wine in a can in terms of alcohol content. Not my motivation at all. +But I've not had this one before. I've had Castro. I've had tenants. There's some other ones. +I can remember like shop branded super strength nets pee. But I've never had this one before. And +the fact that it's got a nice gold stripe on the front of it, it kind of, it did me to it's like +you. And so I'm maybe approaching this underforce pretenses. So let's crack this open. And what +I'm going to do this time, actually, I'm going to turn the gate off on my microphone. So you might +have to get a slight hiss coming through. So at least this way, you'll get a decent sound. +All right, let's try a poor. Not a lot of sophistication in that poor at all. It's quite golden. +It's quite nice. It's got a decent head on it. But there again, that's probably the +result of the poor than anything else. And quite frankly, it smells like a strong logger. There's +nothing really much to write home about. It's got a multi-obitone to it. I mean, just from my +bare with me, let me just read out the ingredients in this, because it is quite concerning water, +fair play, multi-barly, glucose syrup, and hops. And that's it. That is it. That's actually +quite promising, because you'd think actually with some of these, it probably quite a high chemical +content. But if that's all that's really that's good. You would expect it so, yes. But it's the +glucose syrup that kind of took me by surprise. No, that doesn't really taste me at all, but +probably trying to mask the alcohol to be honest. Probably. I think you find you need to put the +glucose syrup in to get the alcohol strength out of it. Right. Otherwise, your original gravity is +not going to be high enough to brew it to completion and have more than 4, 5 percent. Yes. Yes. +That's what the management is doing as well, I think. They put sugars in. Yeah, I know something +put sugars in. I read somewhere that some darker brewers put things like wheat notes in to +try and draw routes more of the strength from there. But, right, let's try this. That is really nice. +That is a lot nicer than some of the other, like, palaels I've had. I've got quite a bit of character +to it. It is sweet. It's incredibly multi as you would probably expect it to be. It is well around +it. The strength is definitely there. I wouldn't say it tasted particularly boozy at 8 percent, +but it's really, really pleasant. There's virtually no bitterness in there, which, again, you +would expect. Oh, that is very nice. Very nice. Let's see. I can tell from the face you pulled +when you put it up to your mouth, you weren't expecting that. No. No, not at all. Because I mean, +going, I think I might have mentioned this either last episode or the episode before. I was drinking +the stronger ails from mid teens, not recreationally, but, you know, with a meal or something. +And I don't remember them being this nice. You take your your common garden, +larga, four or five percent, and just make it taste rougher. And that's what you've got in +your, your supers and your extras. But this actually has character to it, which for for a skull, +and I apologize to the skull. Who was it now? As the master and sees that. I think it's, I think +it's, it's, it's, yeah. What I remember from from from from skull didn't taste as nice as that. +So thumbs up so far. No score. Kevin, why did you tell this what you've got? Well, +I've got two, but I was thinking which one. No, but I'm actually going to go with an old favorite +cestral super. And you'll still notice there. It's still the 9 percent. So cestral didn't +actually take down their EBV instead. They put up the price. However, they actually have gone +up mid a point. A marketing this more as an actual drink and not as what may be traditionally +was that regular market. Let's see. We'll just leave it at that. And they've actually brought out +a glass. I'm going to put some white on so you can see it. Is that focusing? No, not more pretty +well. But you can actually see it's a cestral. It's got a story running the back in white just to +make it really nice and easy readable. But it's actually a fairly small glass. And it says it's +designed to be sharing for the two bolts. So they've actually gone trying to make it a bit more. +They can say up market. And they have they actually said it on the website. It said it actually +if you look at it and it says it still uses the Holy Sabbath brewing method. Not sure what that +is. But crafted in Scotland using the Holy brewing method. Now on the website, it's a Sabbath method. +Cestral beer is fermented for a full 70s, including the Sabbath to deliver. It's rich taste, +tempting aroma and heavenly golden color. Along the edge, it's this glass is crafted in Scotland, +holy brewed beer, crafted in Scotland, holy brewed beer. Okay, just repeat to yourself. And +there's a tiny wee what looks like I kind of almost church window with the cestral logo with a +Scotland flag underneath it. It's like a stained glass window. So they have actually tried a wee bit +to up that image compared to the traditional tramp juice. But what this is like. So hopefully I won't +have any issues. And just for the record, I actually just took a set of the fridge right in. Here comes +the floor. So again, very similar to yours, slightly darker than quite a lively head. It's +going quickly. You can see this going front to your eyes. There you go. It's practically a full +under. So on the nose, you've got that multi and like an alcoholic toffee, or stiffness sweetness +there. Yeah, I mean, that's, there you go, that that head's gone completely. Multi start. Yeah, +that alcoholic toffee kind of comes through. I think that's their Damascus bitterness to be honest +that I will, you almost do expect with these. It's certainly no unnatural multi-sweetness, +but it's not unpleasant either. There's a slightly bit of bitterness in the back end. +Like a very mildly fruity, maybe sadist citrusy, but you know what, that's really nice. +Very nice indeed. I'm sensing a trend. Well, the thing is like I said, this was why I was so keen +to actually do this episode because if you went purely by media and public opinion, +these things should be avoided at the complete. But you know, you're thinking, is that an actual +real nice beer in there? And I'm going, yes, that's my apology. Yeah, mine too. This is definitely +a very drinkable beer. And I could happily sit in a bar and drink this in an evening. No problem. +Yeah, and yes, and as I said, just for the record, I also took mine into the fridge. I know I'm not +a big huge lover of beer ahead of the fridge, but I do believe laggers on these things. It doesn't +taste right when it's at room temperature. Yeah, I would tend to agree with that. So is it unfair +then to call this tramp juice? That's a trick question. I don't think so because if you look at +how the supers were used in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 90s, 90s, 90s, then I think they are still +favored. I mean, this is why the convenience stores stock them. They're in the fridge already, +because they know people are going to come along and they're going to drink them. Yeah. So +I don't think it's necessarily a misnomer. However, there is a light aside to it. And that is, +if you if you approach this with a blank slate and think to yourself, this is a beer, +I'm going to try it. What's it like without the stigma of it being a tramp juice? I think you +do look at it from a different angle. And I am surprised about how nice this this skull super +actually is. I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I do. And I've still got a handful of cans of +the banks is god label. And I would put that with this. I would say slightly different flavors, +but yeah, I would put it no longer the same lines. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Just for those who didn't +listen to that episode, we're talking about the barley wine episode. Yes. The only thing I would say +about it is, I really wish even after talking that up to give myself a wee more head, I just wish +some head would stay. It just dissipates immediately. Same with this one, yeah. I've still got some, +there's not a lot. Well, but it's there. It's on the meniscus around the glass, isn't it? It's not +actually a little bit of the beer. Whereas Kevin's has gone completely. There's nothing there. +Yep. Oh yeah, nothing. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's weird even for a lager to be honest. It's just +a standard lager. Normally it's not really something left behind. Yep. As I'm going, that fruit +developing more, as I'm going down. There's, I did say it was subtle, which makes it more difficult +to identify straight away. There is still the citrusy lemoniness, but there's peachy nice in there +now as well, which I didn't notice the first time. Okay. Don't even get anything fruit here, +others. I'm, yeah, there's definitely something there. Maybe it's that extra few days, you know, +with the, the Holy Brewing method? Dixon nothing to do with the core references in that description. +Wasn't there? Yes there was. Oh, I did not realize there was a complete novel on the canon, +but I, there's no way I'm reading that with a glass of salt. The whole canon it's actually +got a big novel the other. Right. She was even the glass on that's typically to read. +Yeah, there you go. See? Oh wow. You're seeing why I'm struggling to read that. +born in Scotland, Kestru, Premium Lager is a 9% premium beer from the award-winning +Kestru family. Her master brewer crafts a truly premium beer using the finest +selected ingredients, water from a nearby natural resource and Scottish +multid barley, which is crushed, not ground. As part of her unhurried 9 stage brewing of +Kestru, the crucial fermentation period, last a full seven days, including the Sabbath, +in a process known as the Holy Brewing Method, inspired by traditional monastic brewing, +this delivers Kestru's unique rich taste, tempting aroma. I disagree with the +tempting aroma, there's not that much on the aroma, and heavenly golden color. We take +immense pride in producing a strong character full and truly satisfying premium beer, +which is considered to be one of the world's greatest beers. I really don't that. +Maybe infamous beers, divine drinking pleasure. There you go. They're really milking this +aren't they? The whole biblical aspect. They seem to be. I've never noticed that before. +Yeah, we have another review about coming. There's three of them in the fridge, help yourself. +That was a definite thumbs up. Oh, good. Good. Like, yeah, he went straight for the fridge, but +no, he's taken out a soft drink. I've always got to go straight for the beer, but he didn't. +Right. All right. So I think it is time now, Paul. You've been holding on to this for a while. +So how would you score? I can't even remember how to pronounce it pop-pockly. +Perla muckler, I think. Perla muckler, I was close. The letters were there, just not necessarily in the +right order. I think before I score it, I should also explain where you can get it from, because +this is obviously not your average supermarket beer. We're very lucky here in North Wales, but we +have several shops that sell Eastern European products. And I actually went down to Queen's +ferry, our local Queen's ferry, and bought this in one of the local East European shop there. +And actually while I was talking to the lady behind the counter, she actually said, there's another +log, an extra-strong log, that's over 12%, that you could get in Colors' key, which is another +fairly close place. But I decided not to go for 7.1 is enough, and I might try the 12, +at some other points and report back if it's worth doing. You can also buy on that great big American +store that sells stuff online and rips the rest of the world off, but I would recommend you find +your local shop and do it there. In terms of score, I have to remember now how we saw how you +guys scored this last time, because I felt I over did it last time. I think this is a good drinkable +beer, and I would happily go and drink this in a bar. And I think according to the sort of scoring +calibration I had from last time, that would put it at about a 7, 7 out of 10 level, so maybe +3.5 on untapped, if we go for the untapped score, would that be something realistic? +Oh yes, it's dead to you, it's your scoring. Yeah, and I over did the last one, didn't I think I +would push it too high, but I give it 3.5, but I would say, as I said, I would happily go into a bar +in Poland and drink this, or in a bar in a UK and drink this, without hesitation, it's a nice beer, +a nice enjoyable drink. So, Dave, what would you give the skulls super? Well, as I said, this is +really taken me by surprise, and I'm actually in the process of writing out my untapped review at +the moment, and projecting the score to a score out of 10, this has half to come in as an 8 and a half, +8.5, despite the stigma associated with this kind of ale, and where it was and by the way, +Paul, your beer was next to the skull that I bought from the shop this afternoon. I knew you had it, +so I didn't. I have shocked myself with how I've reacted to this. So yeah, 8.5. +Well, I'm giving mine right in between the pierties. I'm going to go 8. I actually do think this +is actually a really good beer that's plenty of flavour. I was, in all honesty, I was expecting, +when I first had this, I was expecting it to be one of two ways. I thought would either be +very bitter from an overcompensation of hopes, just to kind of masks, like a flavour, or super sweet, +like fakely sweet, to mask the excess alcohol. However, it's neither of those, it does this really well, +and would I have this in the middle of the med, you know, in a 40 degree day, probably not, +for one simple reason, I think we would down far too easily in the heat. However, as a one drink, +and that's really all, I think, you know, 9% I wouldn't like to have too many of them. So as a drink, +on his own, on a, you know, okay, it may be a fishy spring, but it's still not warm, it's still +not pleasant idea. This is an ideal, coming into the lighted ale's season. So yeah, I'm +going to get this eat cheers. Oh, she has a skull, skull. Yes. Absolutely. I think I should say, +that's the Ravi. Very impressed. Oh, tell us about your glass pole. Well, it's nothing to do with +the beer. It's a station hop. So this is a beer that sold in Manchester, and my daughter works in a +bar there on a Friday evening. And station hop, they have these glasses in their bar. So I think they +sell the beer there as well. But, you know, Dave, an odd camp in a couple of weeks time, you and I can +go to the job station. Sorry, Kevin. Oh, very good. Just killing me off, just killing me off +so you're doing. Okay, so we don't appear to have any feedback. However, if you do want to drop +some feedback, then please leave a comment on the previous shows. However, if you want to get a hold +of us on MasterDone, type in beer garden when we're searching, produce an awful lot of posts. So +can I suggest that we have a new hashtag on MasterDone and just call it HPR beer garden. So that +makes it a wee bit easier if you want him. If you don't want to comment, but on the on page itself, +but you do want to give us a bit of feedback. That's a way that we can actually find that easily. +Right, so if you want to get a hold of us on an on tap, I will leave the link in the show notes. +If you want to join, and you want to see cheers to us as you join a beer, or as we are, +in fact, yes, you can give us a toast. Other than that, all I'd say to say is thank you very much +Paul for joining us and we hope you're joining us again soon. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very +much. Thank you. Yes, so and of course, we're to mention us well, what we're going to be doing +over the next few episodes. No, so for the next three, we've got a double IPA coming up, +we've got Belgian blonde, and then we've got double dry hot IPA. So may not say a theme here. +It is worth mentioning that on the list of things we have yet to add to our list of things. +I've got at least four different variants of IPA. The funny thing is we should probably +do an episode on just IPA, by the way, shouldn't we? And that's on there as well. +Yeah, because I was going to say we've gone through all these variations, and we have no +IPA. Yes, right then, so join us again tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4670.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4670.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d5eb5c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4670.txt @@ -0,0 +1,175 @@ +Episode: 4670 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 13 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4670/hpr4670.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:27 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4670, for 2026-06-26 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 13" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:15:09 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We continue a sample game of Civilization V" +Hello, this is Huka, welcome to you to another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio, +and we are continuing our look at computer strategy games in this case Civilization 5. +And last time we started with a sample game, and just to remind you, we're playing as Austria. +We're going for a diplomatic victory, that means winning the vote in the world Congress or United Nations. +And at the end of the last episode, we saw that in our game, we were running into a happiness issue. +You've got to be careful, because if your people become unhappy, they can turn on you. +Now, what that means is in the game. +First, they just get a little bit unhappy, and what happens is they stop working. +You know, your production starts to get down and stuff like that. +If they get even more unhappy, they even start rebellions. +And what that looks like is all of a sudden you have, you know, what looks like barbarians, in other words, read units, popping up in your territory and attacking everything. +And that is a big pain in the butt to deal with. +You know, it can basically deny you a victory if you don't handle it. +I prefer not to get into a problem in the first place. +So, take a look at this. +I'm going to put a link in the show notes to section of the civilization wiki that goes into this in a lot more detail. +But you have some options. +So what are your options to increase your happiness? +The luxury resources, that's the best way to get a quick hit of happiness. +And trade is the best way to do this quickly. +But to trade, you have to admit the other sieve or city state. +So, my drive to explore it pays off here. +Every luxury resource I can obtain adds plus for global happiness to my empire. +Now note that only the first unit of the resource adds happiness. +So if you have multiple copies of a luxury resource, you should keep one and trade the others if you can. +Now the next thing you can do, takes a little bit longer is to build buildings. +Buildings like the circus, which adds two to the happiness of the city that builds it. +Coliseum adds two to the city that builds it. +The zoo adds two to the city that builds it. +And the stadium adds four. +Now that still gets added to your total happiness number. +But the thing with local happiness, which is happiness for a particular city, +you can't have more happiness than you have population. +So if you have a city with say five population, building a circus, that's two, and a Coliseum, that's two. +It makes sense. You can get four happiness, and that's not greater than your population of five. +But building a circus and a stadium, now you've got six happiness, but a population of only five. +So, you know, some of the happiness would not count. +Buildings also take longer than trade deals. +So if you need a quick hit, start with trading for luxuries. +And next thing you can do, wonders, and that takes even longer than buildings. +In general, Chichenica is worth four, global happiness. +Notre Dame is worth ten. +So, real good one to get if you want to get some good happiness going. +Taj Mahal, plus four, life will tower, plus five. +Noise fronstein adds one for every castle you have. +So if you've built castles in your cities, building noise fronstein is a wonder. +It's going to give you some more happiness. +The prora gives you plus one, an additional plus one for every two social policies you have adopted. +And then there's the CN Tower, which gives you plus one per city you have. +Now wonders are even harder to build, and you may not get them since you're competing with other players. +But there is a national wonder worth getting the Circus Maximus that is good for plus five global happiness. +Now social policies is another way you can look. +In the policy tree, most of the policy trees, you're going to find policies that can add to happiness or decrease unhappiness, which is really just as good. +Natural wonders. +Each natural wonder grants plus one global happiness to each empire that has discovered it. +So for this, exploration is again the key. +So you've got a couple of reasons why exploration shows up here for natural wonders and for trade. +You just want to be exploring, don't let up on that. +Finally, mercantile city states will grant plus three global happiness to each empire that is at least friends with them. +And getting to be friends is not hard. +So you have a lot of options here, and they're listed roughly in the order of how you should pursue them. +Trading for luxury resources can be done quickly and provide an immediate boost so you should be actively trading on a long. +Buildings and wonders should definitely be pursued, but here you'll probably be balancing demands for other investments as well. +Natural wonders are nice, but you need to explore the whole map to max that one out. +I was able to trade one of my whales to putch a kudi for one of his ivory, which I'll push my app in this up. +Then with Oskia, I traded one spice for one copy, copper. +I also made a small gift to the city state of Manila to make them my eye. +Once five turns of elapsed, I can take them over via diplomatic marriage. +And I have started on Coliseum's in several of my cities to push up my happiness further. +Meanwhile, I continued my explorations, and became the first to discover all of the other empires in the game. +Now, that makes me the host for the world council, which is good for one additional vote. +I will keep exploring, since there are probably some natural wonders out there worth finding. +And indeed, on the next turn, I found Mount Fuji, pushing my happiness to 24. +Man, I puppeted Manila and over a couple of turns that dropped to 18. +But a Coliseum got built, I found a natural wonder, you know, back up to 21. +I'm still not the leader in this game, but I think I can afford to puppet another city state. +For now, I'm avoiding doing this to mercantile city states since they can add to my happiness. +But there's lots of city states in this game. +I picked Kathmandu from my next target, but also dropped 250 gold on Redusa to become friends with them. +You have to plan for the future sometimes. +I'm currently pulling on 144 gold per turn, so I can afford it. +Now, at turn 267, my happiness was up to 30, but as soon as I puppeted Kathmandu, it dropped to 22. +This is why you need to manage your happiness carefully. +Now, this pushed me another 100 points up on the leaderboard, so I'm in good shape. +But with 22 happiness, I can probably afford to start on puppeting Redusa. +At turn 272, I have 5,766 gold, and I'm earning 163 gold per turn. +My happiness is a 27, so I'm in pretty good shape. +I puppet Redusa, and my happiness falls to 18. +But my status on the leaderboard goes up another 100 points. +Now, firmly in the lead, and 200, ahead of my nearest competitor. +A few turns later, my happiness is back up to 24, so I'm starting the process to puppet boocharist. +At turn 280, I have 6,584 gold, I'm earning 179 gold per turn, and my happiness is 26. +Then I puppet boocharist and my happiness drops to 16. +But I'm nearly 300 ahead of my nearest competitor on the leaderboard, so not so bad. +Also, we're getting near to the first world council where I am the host. +I put a proposal on the agenda to enact a world's fair. +The number 2 player has put a proposal on the council to ban whales as a luxury resource. +And I have a lot of whale resources. +I suspect the world's fair will pass without my votes since many other players supported it. +So I will put my votes into denying the whale ban. +We'll see how it goes. +I have the most votes, but if everyone else gangs up on me, they can get it passed. +And as I expected, the world's fair passed without my votes, and the whale ban was defeated. +I tabled a proposal to enact arts funding for the next council. +It looks to be very popular. +Right now, I'm starting to snowball. +Snowball is what we call the process where you're just, you're in the lead, and you're lead just keeps increasing. +On turn 287, I now have 6476 gold. +I'm earning 231 gold per turn. +I've puppeted 60 states and my happiness is at 31. +I can now start to pop it another. +In the world council, I have 4 votes and every other player has 1. +My main strategy right now is to keep on friendly terms with the other players because everything is going really well for me right now. +But I'm also starting to build factories to improve my production capacity, which in turn will help me to update my military. +I picked up a great scientist and used him to construct an academy to boost my science output. +And every city next to a mountain has got an observatory which adds to the science. +Observatories can only be built in cities that are adjacent to a mountain. +Then I constructed the leading tower of Pisa and got one free person in my choice. +And I chose a great scientist and constructed another academy. +And I hit a golden age good for 10 turns. +Well 10 turns later my golden age ended, but on the very next turn I finished the Taj Mahal, which in addition to giving me plus 4 global happiness. +Just me another 10 turn golden age. +And I use some of my big cash balance to upgrade my military units. +Because in this game the best way to keep the pieces to have a strong military. +And one of the advantages of a strong treasury is you don't have to build new units. +You can simply upgrade the ones you have. +Now on the next turn I was able to choose an ideology. +So that also comes in the civics area. +I picked freedom for my ideology. +And for my two policies I chose universal health care and capitalism, each of which added happiness. +I have earned a couple of great artists. +And I plan to use them to create more golden ages. +Since accumulating culture is not part of my strategy at this point. +On turn 309 I puppeted Brata Slava and started on Wittenberg. +And now that I've explored the entire map I don't need my caravills any longer. +So I deleted them. +Then on turn 314 my closest competitor Japan denounced me. +But then Japan was denounced by Brazil. +I have been building up my military, so I'm not worried. +Basically Japan has realized I'm opening up a bigger lead. +And that is why they denounced me. +I'd like to win without going to war, but if he attacks me I can handle it. +Meanwhile I'm also building up my science to open up a lead there. +On the next turn I built the red fort, which improves my defensive strength. +Brazil approached me to join a war on Japan, but I declined. +I am not seeking a military victory in this game and I don't want to be distracted. +However I just puppeted two more cities. +And looking at the map I now have three cities on the border of Japan, so maybe there will be a war in my future. +I got another policy to choose and pick universal suffrage, which increases the length of golden ages since I plan to have a few. +And I'm starting to build more military units, starting with riflemen, which are good for defending cities. +If I'm given time I will ship them to my puppeted cities near Japan. +But if he attacks me before then they are still worth having. +And I think that's enough for this episode, so this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio signing off, +and it's always encouraging you to support free software. +Bye-bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4671.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4671.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9299355 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4671.txt @@ -0,0 +1,370 @@ +Episode: 4671 +Title: Protocal AI +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4671/hpr4671.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:28 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4671, for 2026-06-29 +Today's show is entitled, "Protocal AI" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:37:37 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "De-Centering Google: Local Note-Taking, the RAG vs. Ripgrep Debate, and Building a "Protocol AI"" +Hello everyone, welcome to that episode of Backup Public Radio with the host operator. +So I'm probably going to split this up, but we're talking about note taking and local +note taking and getting kind of away from some of the Google services and centralizing +some of my stuff internally so that I can use it without weird APIs or anything like that. +Just kind of get off the ecosystem so I can run my own thing, making simplifying things, +but making them more complex. So what I traditionally did use was Google Keep for my notes. +Probably Google Keep is it's limited by the means of the features of what you can do with it. +And it's kind of long in the tooth. I don't know if it has support for like markdown and fancy things. +So so hey, what do people are using? There's notation and Obsidian are to the two big ones. +And from what I understand, for my use case and most of what I've seen around programming +development, people are using Obsidian. Now, there are obviously I'm in security space, +and there are security concerns around all of this and you know, your mileage may vary, +but for me, I'm using planning on using Obsidian for non-passwords basically, authentication. +Things like that, I'm going to teach you up. Now, I will have sensitive things on there like +personal information. You know, addresses I'm going to use it to coordinate +things between different systems, right? And it's going to be plain text. Now, Daniel Measler, +the guy that runs podcast, I'm going to supervise learning is kind of a forward-thinking AI first thing. +The idea is for him is, you know, we, you have to think he's experimented with rag +across different use cases for him himself. And he's a big AI guy. And it's weird that he is decided +this whole, you know, anti not anti, but more of a local for localized set-up he's using no rag. +So, see if I can find it while I'm talking, you know, measler. So he's, um, and I also'm using +a local search instead of instead of Google. Um, unsupervised learning. Supervised learning. +Great podcast. Um, again, he, meas pretty, um, kind of forward leaning into the AI stuff. So it's +pretty aggressive. Um, that, that might not rub you. If you're an anti-AI person, he would probably +not be the right fit for you. Supervised learning kit hub or, uh, Dan, Daniel, Dan, Daniel Measler. +Daniel Measler has a kit hub. Um, I also have another, um, if you use open web UI, there's on my website, +dang it. On my website, there is a, um, there's a patterns, things. So Daniel Measler has a list of +patterns. He also runs the second, the second, the second, the second, the second, the second, +the second, um, well, he started it. I don't know if, well, it's it's using. But the second +thing is a big, bunch of list of like, uh, input, uh, fuzzing inputs, things like that. +There's a couple of other, like, fuzz DB, but cyclist is kind of the modern equivalent to that. +It's got like, oh, what's 71,000 stars and 25,000 forks. Like, it's, it's a big thing. +There's other things is he's, he's other big projects. And I want to say he's called it +personal AI infrastructure. Um, looking at his, uh, repose, um, he's probably got tons. +I'm pretty sure it's this one. I've sent it to another friend who's, and that's, yeah, +personal AI infrastructure. Oh, sorry, that's my, uh, that's my phone read. So, he's second. +Um, so his whole thing is, I'm going to read the statement about rag. So, +retrieval augmented generation to, to, to, to kind of, uh, catch everybody up is, uh, you know, +we have flat files. We have databases. We have, like, post-grads. You've got, +uh, blue text. You've got other forms of query languages, sequels, um, nodes, or, um, +you know, mom, mom goes and all those, all that stuff. People are moving, kind of, uh, between, +retrieval augmented generation, which, uh, that, that term, I'm not 100% sure how it works, +but rags can include things like vector storage. And I, I don't know if vector storage is above +rag, or rag is a type of vector storage. I think rag is a type of vector storage. I don't, I don't know. +Um, I did experiment with rags, and my findings were variable to, to say, release. I, I had very +good success dumping every single manual for infinity, and, uh, I, like, three other +car manufacturers from a website that has, uh, access to those. This is like the full manual. +Not the one that you get with your car. This is the one that costs, you know, $300, if you +want to buy it, uh, on paperback with a big huge thick book, um, to, like, how to replace everything. +So I, I did some testing, and I was, uh, fairly impressed with the ability for it to, +eat all of the documentation for my car, and I could ask you questions, and it was perfectly +fine pulling that back then information. Then I took transcripts from Daniel Neesler's podcast +for his entire series, transcribed them into text, and then, um, without prioritization, which +that's a whole other episode I need to do. Um, I'm, I'm, well, I'll talk about that later. So +the ideas that I took those transcripts, and fed it into the episode list for each file, and then +fed that into a rag, and I had very mixed results on impressive results for that, for that set up. +It was a lot of dialogue, and I would ask it specific things about very specific, um, categories. +So maybe he was talking about, you know, runway models, and what type of clothes they wear, +right? Um, and I could not get any hits on it. Um, I tried it locally again with my open +web UI set up for the rag. Um, I, I had it working with the car thing, and then it kind of broke, +and also the, I tried it with Amazon stack through my employer to do some testing, or it's like +200 rows of Excel spreadsheet, which doesn't need to be a rag. Whatever, that's a different story, +but the idea is, you know, using that system to try and test my rag, and I also had mixed results. +So it doesn't surprise me that, uh, Daniel needs to be there for a local setup for a limited +for a small number of files, essentially. I mean, we're, we're talking, you know, context size. +I don't know. Some people say it's 20,000, and then you start talking about these models. +Frontier models have, uh, 3 million size context. Okay. Well, that's not what we have, and that's +not our use case. Um, and I, I do know, when it comes to LNs, they, they do have issues around context, +and they start to lose the story, and start to lose focus, right? Over cubic longer periods of, +of time. And in, in my experience, um, I'm not an expert in coding, and I'm not an expert in LNs, +but I use them, and I have experienced that, and it's not terrible. It's much better than it was, +if you're not an AI person, and you heard that, you know, AI hallucinates, and I, uh, forgetstings, +and AI does this, and that there's patchwork in place. I will admit to work through some of that stuff, +and it is frustrating, and these people build these products with AI and vibe coding, and, uh, +now we're, we're figuring out that the, the ball is, is, is moving down the court, or whatever, +and, you know, you set up all this infrastructure, you set everything up, and then they change the model, +or they discontinue the model, and they do whatever, and I've heard that that could be nightmarish +for some of these development shops, or in our own use cases. So hopefully, we won't have to deal with that. +Issue, uh, with the stuff that we're building. So anyways, back to a brief change about, uh, +but rags and things. So I don't, I'm kind of quote him on his GitHub here. Files system has context, +no rag. Uh, P.A.I. personal AI has avoided using rags since 2025, June 2025, which is relatively +recently. It's now, thank you very much. It made June, 2022, six. So it's been a year. +Rich text with crawfish references, plus fast search, like rip grip, gives us everything, +people normally want from a rag without embedding complexity. The retrieval flakiness, which is +interesting, or loss of fidelity, which is also very interesting. So, um, your file system is the index. +So I started thinking about that. Look, if he's done the work, he's doing and using the stuff +every day, and he sounds like he got frustrated with the current state of rag, and, and maybe +vector storage, I'm going to do a dual approach. So why not? So I'm going to do vector storage with +postgres, uh, the vector, p s vector, something like that. Um, that's going to be a bug. Sorry, +pard is the lightning. You're still early this morning. So I'm going to do both at the same time, +why not? I can not contest both. Um, and if I decide that one's cooler than the other, or it's +easier to manage, um, whatever. Um, I might my goal is to use local, um, local models, which I don't +think this is necessarily geared towards that. So that might be some of why I might need to do a +a dual approach, meaning if I request, uh, if I run a query through the AI, it will do both. +Maybe, right? So maybe it does a rejects. Maybe it runs really for a rip grip to the plain text +for the lack of a better turn, uh, a file system as context, or, uh, why don't we do that to me? +It, um, will query the postgres vector storage. Um, and I have, uh, a friend that's also using, +not postgres, but I want to say some kind of vector storage with a, well, the frontier model, +which is not, that's not my use case. So everybody's use cases are different, but there's a lot of +these use cases where people are not running their own, um, AI, their own models, because it's, you know, +it's overhead, you have $600 for 24 gigs of use. So I can understand that, but when, um, there's +half of the internet, half of these videos are run your local, run your local, I'm ranting, but it's +very frustrating to me to look for a video or look for a tutorial and it's talking about running +or running your thing locally, and it's using frontier models, uh, so it's like great. Okay, +you run everything locally, but then you're using frontier models for the AI. What's the point? +There's no literally no point in doing that. You might as well put it on the cloud and not have to +pay anything for the storage and all that, and the CPU, the only thing that costs money is the actual +part that I'm running locally. So like, there's no point in running anything locally, but honestly, +that I don't see any use case to do any of that when you're just going to go use a frontier model. +Um, so it's very frustrating. The hype cycles, the moving of the goal posts, um, it's extremely +difficult for me to follow, and it's, it's, it's quite frustrating. So I'm going to go into my +obsidian set up after ranting for what feels like 15, 20 minutes, where are we at? Uh, yeah, 12 minutes. +Um, so I'm going to do a dual approach. And in that, in that effort, um, I'm going to the, the +flat file, because I can always go from rag, from flat file to rag. So I want to have everything in a +raw format, um, and I don't see any negatives in that space yet, because I can always use +use a rag. So I can always take the raw data and then push to a rag and then tell the rag to do things +and connect that data together, um, and even tell AI to maybe make a second place where my data +is in its original form. And then maybe that data and its original form gets copied somewhere else +for an AI to munch together and do linking and things like that. And then maybe there's a review +process to where I reviewed that linkage and say, okay, this looks, you know, 75% the way there, +go ahead and apply that to my original thing. And now I have, uh, all my internal +file system as context, uh, all happy. Now with that effort, I have used, I'm using Obsidian, +I chose Obsidian for this effort, um, because it seems like more of a fancier, uh, features +and more, uh, stack, more things in the stack. And so I have, no, here we, here's, I've now running +Obsidian locally on a, uh, Debian server is kind of the one that is the main sinker that I sink +to, um, and everything is over VPN. I have, uh, essentially pulling to myself. You can listen to an +over episode. Uh, I think it's called poem PW, uh, PWN, uh, where I pulling to myself essentially, +so I'm not trying not to externally face services, if, unless absolutely necessary. So I have services +that I offer for friends and family, and I'm like, and I have the VPN to, you know, hey, protected +network to do that. So I have a few services, I surely say, excuse me. But, um, with that said, +I have chosen to use Obsidian. And I'm still, I have no idea how to use it. I'm just varying +work down. I'm a Markdown idiot. I've played with some graphing things, like, uh, mermaid. I +think it's called for graphing. Um, and I've used AI with pretty consistently with, uh, Markdown. +So that's my, that's my whatever of Markdown. But Obsidian is this old thing. It's, you know, +got there's plugins and there's linkage and there's trees and it kind of does like linkage +through that. Um, so I'm going to experiment with AI kind of manipulating those things while I keep +original and kind of to help link things together. Um, you know, the guidance is don't do that. +Don't import all your stuff, uh, all your old notes. So I use Google PEEP. I exported all of my +results. Oh, my notes. I think Google PEEP. I think it's called like, there's a website for Google +it's called like my stuff dot Google dot com. And you go to that website and then you can request +to pull down like all of your data. Um, uh, more large portions of it. Um, I've freeed here. +I don't pay anything for Google. So it's like a max of like 15 gigs. Anyways, I pulled, I clicked +what scroll down to Google keep in that was an option. And I export that out. And you look at +it file and zip file contains basically all your Google keep notes imported that into Obsidian. +And now I'm going through it, you know, old notes. Um, I use the kind of ads as it to do. I've +settled to do lists. And I'm kind of going through that. And the idea is to get all that cleaned up +and merged and start using Obsidian across all of my devices. I have Android iPhone or an +Android phone and a desktop and a work computer. And, you know, there is some opportunity for +connecting a work device to a personal device. Um, but it's a push. It's a pull. So, um, my device, +my work device is not running any open services as far as I can tell. Um, I'm going to double +check it. But the idea is, you know, there won't be anything, uh, services running on my work computer +that are, you know, remotely accessible. It's only local. So anyways, um, so the syncing, you can do +pay obsidian for syncing for cloud syncing. And they say that it's zero trust. And they don't +even know how many users they have, which is absolute, a song computer's work is, is the phrase I'd +like to say. So they might even, might not be able to see the data, but they know how many people +are using their platform. They know what their, what kind of data they're putting on there. +Um, there's even just with, uh, with SSL, there's ways to tell what people are doing, uh, how +they're using the platform. Maybe not the actual data, but you can tell, you know, if you start +getting into forensics and people that do that type of stuff, open source intelligence, you'll +discover that it's, uh, you start putting things together and you can get an idea of what people +are actually doing even if it's all encrypted. So it's convenient. So anyways, that's kind of where I'm +at now. Um, I have everything synced with obsidian. I'm going to try this out, make myself not use +Google Keep. And the idea there is that I'm going to sync, um, start to, uh, use, uh, local AI, +locally and remotely, essentially. And that's going to, uh, sync into obsidian. Potentially. +There's size issues. So like, I obviously don't want, like, a 10-gib gig project being synced into +obsidian. So I'm going to have to try and figure out what the idea is that you can use obsidian to, +to plug into your local AI. So I'm using Pi agent and Pi agent has plugins for obsidian. And I don't +particularly know where I'm going with that, but I know that's just like a thing people are doing. +And I'm, I'm jumping on bandwagens and, and, and going with, you know, what the new +hotness is. So I tried eight or, um, it was very minimal. And I think it's more for, like, +front-tier models and big, big heavy coders that want to have, like, tons of context, but they want +to manage it themselves. Um, it's not like an idea-proof agent. I don't think it's to consider an agent. +Anyways, so I tried eight or that was not right. I started with, um, +FES code and VES code had plugins for +Kylo, like Kylo Rin, Kylo Rin's an open source, kind of competitor to open claw, +um, we're open, whatever. Um, so I didn't use either one of those. I tried Kyro for a second, +or Kylo for a second. We use Kyro for work, which is Amazon. So the idea there is, I'm now using, +I tried a root code, which is very context heavy. Um, so I switched from that because I kept +running out of context, because I only have 24 gigs. Um, what I, what I, the other piece I have is +a open source, uh, browser that sees, that's calling no driver. And the idea is no driver is not +a traditional hook, like the stealthy hooks, uh, that you have with other browser that basically +get detected by third parties. It's a browser hook that's not a browser hook. It hooks at a +different way, theory that, and theory that, um, not easily signature a rubble, or, I don't know, +this is something different. And the more stealthy I go the more, I get picked up by bots. So I'm +very going the legit route. I'm actually using my real browser, a real, a real browser that is logged +into like Google. Um, and I just use it, uh, leave it logged into Google so that it has some, um, +authenticity when it's doing it stuff. Um, so these anti bots, uh, the problem is my AI is not smart enough. +So what it does is it goes uses this MCP, that's a Kaji and CP. It requires a Kaji subscription, of +course. Uh, but the, the, the failure on the AI's running locally is one context size. Sure, +I can work around that with Markdown files and doing things like handoffs and skills and, +whatever. I can, I can work around that with, with minimal impact. The problem is, is there's an error, +it doesn't know how to fix itself. It doesn't know where it is. There's no context about actually how to +fix, uh, for example, an environment variable issue, or, you know, an environment issue, or a configuration +issue. Yes, it can, it's very good at coding, but it does, it's not aware of where it's at. Like, +it doesn't know. Like, I let it run off to go do something, and it had like four different versions of, +of like a particular application like Java or something. So it was doing tons and tons of, +you know, oh, I don't have this version of this. So, oh, well, this is actually doesn't run on Android. +I was trying to create a development Android app as a use case for the local AI to like test it. +When I gave it a horrible environment with like non-standard paths and told it, you know, +it had to figure itself out. I guided it in some, some way. But it took like 82 turns and the AI, +I had it frontier AI analyzed the results. And it said, you know, this is basically three turns with a +professional, uh, Android coder. This is not, this is not complicated app that you're writing is +basically a recording app, um, uh, a context aware, recording app. And the idea there is, +if I can get it to write an app, this is that complex, everything's pretty much downhill for +there. So when I developed it, I realized, okay, it's having problems with errors. It's going in circles. +It doesn't know what it's actually doing. Let's give it access to the internet. And you can pay for +internet access through, uh, basically these services that do proxies or they do, I don't know how they do it, +but they get around all that stuff. And they give you the data that you want. And that's what you pay +when you pay for the frontier models is essentially your paying for a, the context, and b, your paying +for internet access in real time and actual, you know, processing of that. So what I have is +basically a Chrome browser that's logged in two couple things, make it look legit with some, you know, +extensions installed. And it's like, it's not hiding. It's not trying to be anything else. It's using +no driver, which is not really supported anymore. But the idea there is that it's, it's, um, +stealthy in the fact that it's just a normal residential connection. And I'm not trying to do anything +crazy. Um, so what that said, uh, it uses Kaji. And then it takes the quick, um, quick answer. There's +like a quick answer, which is basically unlimited AI search. Um, it's very light. And the thing about it, +it will give you the quick answer, which I need to also process. I wasn't processing that at first, +but I actually need to process that, I'm moving forward because it's a very small piece of +rich text that might not be exactly what I'm looking for. But, uh, I feel like half the time that +little piece of quick answer is, is AI quick answer is actually useful. So I'm going to start, +I'm going to bring that back into the full, uh, the idea there is it takes those quick answers +and produces source for the quick answers, right? So once it creases the source for those, +those links aren't embedded. And it might be eight links. I've seen it as many as eight. You see, +usually around three, three to five or five to six. And it will, uh, we'll go to that quick link. +And it will open up six new windows, wait for a while, process all that information, +remove things like headers and footers, and it's supposed to at least, +minimize the amount of context that it takes up. Um, I also want to have it, um, +have it mushed all together. So basically use programming to get rid of as much noise +inside of the output, uh, so that it's not, uh, going to eat up a bunch of context for a reason. +Um, so the idea is that I can search for errors, get a bunch of information, squish it all together, +and mark down files, and then pass that over to, um, the AI to process. And then I can manage my +context myself. So when I have an internet search, then I basically have to compress the context +again, um, and then there's also opportunities for, like, practicing the context window. +And if, if you would see the frontier models and the frontier tools, you would be amazed at how +noisy they are. And I'm a very, like, minimalist person, um, in that, in that effort, uh, +you know, my coworker actually wrote a proxy. And, and I ended up doing essentially what he was +doing with the root code, and I wrote a, like, the proxy that would automatically compress +the stuff inside a root code. And it just, it just became like, this is stupid. Um, so, uh, I switched +again, back to Pi. And I think, um, even Pi, yeah, no, I actually, that was with, with Pi, I'm sorry. +So I wasn't using root code anymore. I knew it was too much context. And then I switched to Pi, +but because the way VS code works, um, is a VS code? No, that was actually with root code. So the +root code was very noisy. Every request it was sent the entire system payload, and it was sent +all the tool payload. And it was like 3000, uh, context every time. Um, so, what that said, you do, +you don't have to remind the model that it has tools, but also, it's just way too much over, overkill. +So anyway, so that's, that's when I started switching to like, either try to find something very +minimalist, and they sell it, and they sell it, and now say, Pi agent is kind of the way to go, +and now there's this, like, studio, not you, but, um, hermese open hermese has their own platform +for agent engine tick thing, and it's supposed to, like, automatically add skills, +which I'm going to skills with the ideas that like, as you're working through code or working through +a project, it, like, once you've reached a point where it's like, solved the problem, it will +automatically create a skill for that problem, so that you don't have to do it for you. And I don't +think that's necessarily what I need for my case. Like, I'm not, you know, I'm not, I don't have +context to, like, be automatically writing out skills. Yeah, like, when something gets fixed, +either, that's a one-time thing, or I say, hey, make a hand over document for this, +so that, you know, I don't have to worry about it next time, and I can just reference it next time, +I have it. So, like, I have to power someone's, and everybody has their skills, whatever, +well, we'll get into skills. Um, the idea there is, um, uh, I don't really need that proxy anymore. +I'd like to look at it again to see, and make sure that, you know, once I've got it, +it's shooting the way it needs to, I can look at that raw text, because being able to look at the +raw text and the raw, uh, JSON inside of your, uh, inside of your, uh, stack is extremely important. +So, I use own studio. Um, studio has its own weird stuff in there. Um, so a pie has its own +context, uh, own studio has its own context, and maybe VS code, like, puts extra stuff in there too. +So, you have to be cognizant of what's in your context when you're working with these models, +because if you only got 24 gigs of RAM, you only got, uh, I don't know, once the 55,000 tokens, +uh, to work with, and the 65, uh, 65,000 contexts, uh, window with, uh, queue quantization for, +don't even get me started with all that, but that's basically like the minimalist, uh, +KV cash, um, when you're working with like local models, um, I think they've kind of want you to use +eight, but I'm using four, and that might be some of why I'm having issues, but local models aren't +going to do everything anyway, so I might as well just kind of compress it as much as I do and get 80% of +my yield for, literally, no, uh, literally, no loss of quality, um, very low, uh, loss of quality. +So, that's kind of where I sit now, um, I'm using, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, to the Quinn, uh, it's three point six +just came out, um, uh, it has thinking and tooling and, uh, and it's processing, so I got +sitting images, um, I don't really know how to do that pie. The idea there is I'm going to start +building out this, uh, local model to manage, um, everything, uh, and I think I'm calling it, uh, +protocol AI, um, so it's going to be my communication. It's going to be a Google voice. It's +going to be, uh, Yahoo Mail, which is basically my spam. It's going to be my Gmail, all my Gmail +accounts, I have three different Gmail accounts, um, it's going to handle my social media, so +it's going to handle LinkedIn, it's going to handle Discord, it's going to handle Signal, +it's going to handle Blue Sky, it's going to handle Masked On, it's going to handle, uh, +InfoSec Exchange, uh, also it's going to handle events, so like, uh, calendars for, uh, +for, uh, cyber, information security calendars or information security events, they'll track that for me. +Um, it'll give me, uh, mutics, music, or things like like sunkicks, so we'll automatically actually +need to add sunkick in there. Um, it will manage all that for me. Um, also, kind of like, uh, I have +a prompt, this called remain like we get in prompt, and it will give you like Friday Saturday with an +alternate, and then the next Friday Saturday with an alternate, and it will do research, so we'll do, +um, have an API, uh, a JSON file that runs every day, and we'll pull down information from Ticket +Master, and um, I did to incorporate that into the stack, and then there's other things like personal +stuff like, uh, Boy Scout's calendars, all, all types of calendars, so a calendar, um, calendars +in here. And the idea is for basically to get a summary, you know, maybe communication, +is more important, so I get those more often, uh, social media, maybe at the middle of the day, +I get social media, and maybe events, I get, with the social who knows. I don't know how it's going +to work, but the idea is, I'm not doing any, um, really necessarily execution based on these things, +and it will be kind of in a jail environment, um, and it will be local, so I won't really be the +ideas. The way I'm going to mitigate the risk or minimize the risk is, yes, there is prompt +injection and things like that. Um, but I'm going to, everything's going to be playing text at the +end of the day anyways. There's not going to be any execution of code based on whatever. It's just +going to be pulling in content from the internet, consuming it, and then sending it to me. Um, +but, you know, there are ideas, you know, as long as you're dumping, playing text, and you're taking +that playing text and shipping it off as playing text, there's not as much as about the +fact surface there, even with the injection. So, um, I'm probably wrong, and that set up, but, +you know, you gotta start somewhere. So, that's kind of where I'm at, is I'm going to be eating +all these things, and it's going to manage my communication, social media events, because I don't +have time to search all the social media that I don't have time to search all these events and +keep track of what events are going on, and I'm time blindness with ADHD. So, we're going to +come kind of pro coli, AI is going to combine all that together that will manage my time for me +and help me stay focused on what's important on my to-do list, and kind of that start is kind of, +okay, well, Obsidian can kind of be a start there, so that the raw, like, simple, okay, here's +my to-do list. Here's how can I start managing that, and how can I prioritize that? Like, I've +needed glasses for three months, and I had contacts probably 10 years ago, and now, 15 years, +the, the site probably, I want to say probably all around, like, 5, 8 years ago, I got contacts +and glasses, and I've had, I've had to redo my prescription. So, I've needed to do that forever, +but I'm not doing it because other things come up, and nobody wants to do the stuff that they're supposed to. +So, the idea is pro coli is going to help me stay focused on personal work-life balance, things that are +important, instead of, you know, doing other things. So, the idea is, that's kind of where I'm at. +With that said, as I discover new things, as I discover what works, what doesn't work with this project, +I will keep you guys in the loop. The idea, within five years, two years, even, +everybody's just going to pay a monthly service for this, right? You're going to pay Google 30 bucks a month +for your personal AI assistant. It's going to, you just tell it what to watch, keep an eye on, +and it will, you know, summarize a lot of stuff for you, and it will summarize your convenience. +The next step, right, in the project, is human in the loop execution of tasks based on what +I've done. So, maybe I get a text, and my AI says, hey, you know, I'm going to do this thing. +I want to execute this thing and do some work. I want to, I want to do something with the input +that I've received. Right, right now it stands. It's going to be like a read-only. All I'm going to +do is pull it in and push it out. I'm not going to execute anything based on those. I'm not +going to do a task based on. So, the next step after I've collected everything and I managed how +to, how of what I want to do with it with all this data and summarizing it, then I can start +saying, okay, we'll based on, you know, all the social media stuff that I collect, you know, +execute some commands, pull some information and summarize it, whatever, and then send it off to +some other feed or maybe other party or maybe whatever. So, eventually, I would like to get into +the point where I execute stuff based on that. And especially now, human in the loop would probably +be the best setup for that, but I don't know if I'm ever going to get there before, you know, Google +or Microsoft gets there, which, to be honest, I don't really, I, you know, if, if it were that +that way, that's just Google eating more of my data and this effort is actually the opposite +of that. But for me, I would actually like to use a service like that to understand how it works +so that I can call it locally. Because these make-up corporations, they know how to do +develop software. So, the idea is take their ideas, take their framework, build it locally, and then +follow the community and how they do the same thing. And it's pretty much, the corporations come +up with thing, and then open source riffs it, or open source comes up with something, then corporations +commoditize it and combine it and make it a tool, turn key solution, and then open source comes +back around and says, oh, okay, well, you just took this and this, so I'm going to combine this +together and now we have this thing, and it's free, and open source, and you're not to be forced. +So, that's kind of what I've seen happen with tooling is that, you know, open source comes out, +it gets abused by corporations, and people eventually get used to it, and then, you know, +the certification of whatever the app is, or whatever the services happens, and then people switch +to a different service that don't know any better, or hackers, or teenagers, IT people will +make their own services to replace those services that are shitty. So, that's pretty much it. +I've boarded you guys long enough, I'm excited to help to have AI manage my time and help me learn +faster. I just haven't had time to do it, and hopefully coming up here, I've got some time off, +and things are kind of started slow down, so hopefully I'll be able to build this +pretty quickly with the way they are, it's that 10x multiplier deal. So, hopefully we'll be able to +have some conversations pretty soon here about how that's working, working out for us. +So, anyways, feel free to reach out for any questions. If you even want to use my GPU +for whatever you can, but that's pretty much it. Take it easy. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4672.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4672.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3277921 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4672.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1144 @@ +Episode: 4672 +Title: Hey Mum, I'm on Spotify ! +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4672/hpr4672.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:31 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4672, for 2026-06-30 +Today's show is entitled, "Hey Mum, I'm on Spotify ! " +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:37:29 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken gives a presenatation about HPR at The Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) " +Okay, finally. Hi, my mom. I'm on Spotify. So, my name is Ken Fallon. We'll skip all over that if you're interested. I went to a bar in Den Bosch. That's why I'm here. +So, let's see. So, today what I want to talk to you about is a project that I've been working on since a while. Last more or less 20 years or so. It's the Hacker Public Radio podcast. And the name is Terrible. It was more Terrible. It was today with a techie and the abbreviation of that was not so cool. +So, we changed the name. I'm going to talk to you about the podcast, about the subscription. But to be honest, I'm not here to get you to subscribe to the show. I'm here to get you to submit to the show. And in order for you to feel comfortable with that, I want to explain a little bit about our core values of the project. So, that's that. +So, Hacker Public Radio, if you've never heard of us, is our prime directive is sharing knowledge. It's an English language podcast and we release shows every weekday, Monday through Friday. +And, of course, the people who submit shows are random people on the internet. We have no restriction on how long the show can be. +And we have no restriction on what you talk about. So long as it's of interest to hackers. +We don't vet. We don't moderate. We don't censor. We expect you to do that for us. +And all our shows are released under a Creative Commons CC by SA license. More about that later. More about everything later, actually. +So, to give you an idea of what the topics are, these are from the tags. So, you tag your episodes. +You can QR code that. As you go through, you'll be brought to the main web page. So, that gives you an idea. +Mostly, it's who of you have been hacking on something or working on something. And then you come up to the living room and you go, +Oh, my God. I've got this thing. And I've been working on it for ages. And you won't believe what just happened. +And everybody in the house is going, That's nice, Dad. So, that's what HBR is for. +It's like you record your episode and you don't put it up there. And sometimes it's as simple as one that I have on my list to do is I was going... +This thing wouldn't charge. USB, right? And I tried different cables. I tried everything. And I was going to replace the USB slot. +And then I twigged that if you put the needle in, you could take out all the fluff. That's a HBR episode. +Just to give you an idea. That can be an HBR episode. +Additionally, an HBR episode can be more involved. So, you want to take a topic and you want to go full Monty on the topic. +So, interviews. That's what we do. We do a lot of those because we do the hallway tracks at conferences. +So, while I might be here, somebody in the U.S. might be going to Linux Vets Northwest or wherever in the States. +They'll have a booth there. They'll do interviews. And we try to promote other projects. +So, if you've got a new version of Debian, for example, and you want to tell us all new features that are in Debian and why people should upgrade, +then you should come on and do an interview with us. +We do the Community News Show. I'll talk to you a little bit about that. +We obviously do a lot about privacy and security because we've got the word hacker in our name. +The New Year Show. I'll talk to you a little bit about that. +And then LibreOffice. So, sometimes people take a topic and go to town. +So, this is one here done by Dave. And he takes the topic of SED and produces a series of shows. +First, do an introduction. Then goes through everything you possibly want to know about SED. +In the LibreOffice episode, a hookah went and opened up every LibreOffice application, +went to every single menu, and discussed and described everything and documented as he went. +But, brilliant, I still use that. So, that gives you an idea of the sort of stuff that we have going on. +So, what are my favourite shows? All of them. +What shows have had a personal impact on me? +These few I cherry picked. There's probably more, but... +Old Soldiers. So, HPR's been around for a while. +And there's such a thing as pod fading. +So, after about four or five years, the show started to wilt away a little bit. +So, Old Soldiers was the show that inspired me to get involved in the project. +The Internet is for Porn was, back in the day, episode 69, group of young lads doing podcasts. +You can imagine what that show was about. +This show, though, was a response to that. +And yet, the other side of the story. +And that's where we get the response episodes from. +So, you hear something on there that you don't like, you can do a response episode. +And shows that have a lot of response episodes, you can expect, if your stuff is not up to scratch, +you will get a response episode or two, describing what's going on. +Another one, then, was the start of our mental health series. +That had a... +That had a fairly... +Yeah. +Sorry, I get a little bit emotional about that one. +You know, you're listening to your podcast, and all of a sudden, somebody has a drawing of the unit they were in. +Okay, moving on. +Next, we had soldering. +So, I learned to solder on the HPR, and somebody said to me, +but how can you learn to solder on a podcast? +And I go, well, blind people solder. +Blind people have amateur radio... +They pass the amateur radio exams, so why can you not do it via a podcast? +Then we have wild water swimming in France. +So, this one, somebody put on a beanie, strapped an MP3 player to it, and went for a swim in France. +Now, I was thinking, okay, is this of interest to hackers? +Apparently, it was. +Then, introduction to Git using Post-it notes. +If you struggle with Git, listen to that episode. +And then, my home phone setup. +We have this thing on HPR where, for some reason, people think I don't like audio. +I love good audio. +I love good audio. +But good audio doesn't necessarily love me. +So, we have this show... +We have this meme, which is, any audio is better than no audio. +Yeah? +More about that later. +And this one was the same person who put in episode 961, and she had just hacked some old Cisco phones, and the quality is brutal, but the enthusiasm in it is awesome. +And then, of course, two of our hosts got married and recorded that as a HPR episode. +So, there you go. +Excellent. +Here's some of the stats. +We've been going for 20 years, 21 years this year. +We'll be hitting our 5,000th episode this year. +If you look at our site, we were renamed from Today with the Techie after 300 episodes. +So, whatever number you see there, plus 300 is our thingy. +Subscribers and uniquely downloads are important to people who care about that. +I'm not one of those people. +What is important to me is the 435 people who have contributed to the show. +And I hope that number goes up as a result of this presentation. +So, we're at the long tail. +So, we have, you would imagine that when you release a show, that the majority of the downloads are for the ones that are actually in your feed. +But as it turns out, 50% of our downloads are for older shows. +Why is that? +I don't know. +One of the questions I get asked is, okay, how long is the longest show? +How short is the shortest show? +16 seconds has been the shortest show. +And the 7 hour 29 minutes one has been our 3000th episode where I basically ran through this book of each of the lines in this book is one episode. +So, I did, I don't know, episode 260, Cups, hosted by Klaatu, Klaatu discusses cups printing, and just read that out. +That was seven and a half hours. +If I'm going to do that for episode 5000, it'll even be longer. +We have 3.2, probably more, amount of audio ready. +And the total playtime is three months, eight and a half days. +Now, a lot of people struggle with that as a concept. +So, if you take Star Trek, right, and you take all the original series, Next Generation, Voyager, blah, blah, blah, all the animated series, everything, all the movies, that's the Star Trek. +If you chuck on top of that all the Marvel, everything they've done, on top of that Star Wars, everything they've done, then you come up to more or less half of what is available on HPR, yeah. +All right, for old school people, do you know what a CD is? +If you took a stack of CDs and burnt audio CDs, it'd be up to this. +It'd be just over my head. +Or, if you had a cassette tape, and you put it end-to-end, it would get as far as London from here, or Hanover, or Paris. +So, we have a lot of content on there. +And who would be listening to that content, you might ask? +Well, say you're a bit of a hacker, and you happen to drive a truck, on a long-haul truck, for example, or you're a train driver somewhere. +That's the sort of people who subscribe to our shows. +We're on all these platforms. +I wonder why. +If you were starting off a platform, and you wanted to go to your investors and say, +gosh, we have a lot of content, look at the amount of hours of podcasts that we have freely available. +And, of course, they're entitled to do that, because we release under Creative Commons, CCYSA, license. +So, they're allowed to take it. +So, we're basically everywhere. +We, on the other hand, come from the RSS feeds. +And we have everything is available to you, except my SSH keys, obviously. +So, the second and the third one is a two-week audio feed. +So, there's only 10 shows in that. +And every day, you get a new one, and you can press download. +Back in the day, podcatchers were not so sophisticated. +If you put in a feed, they immediately downloaded everything. +And 64 gigs on a data connection would be a bad day if you had to pay by the gig. +So, be careful when you're downloading that. +There are better ways on the website of how to use R-Sync and W-GET to get all the audios. +If that's too much for you, and I can understand it is, right, because that's a lot of shows. +We do 12 shows a year, so once a month. +We do the host, janitors. +We describe the shows that have been on in the last month. +Positive feedback, and we read out the comments and stuff that people have had about that show. +So, you can decide then, well, that's interesting, or that's not interesting. +Delete it or not. +Download it or not. +It's entirely up to you. +And then we have this thing called the future feed. +So, we don't listen to the shows that we... +If you send in a show, I'm not going to listen to it. +It's just going to be posted. +Two reasons for that. +One is, the original reason was, we're all hackers. +Why should I determine what you're going to say is correct or not for HPR? +Yeah? +That's up to the community to decide. +However, we, after COVID, and after they started shutting down, +they're putting more... +Now that those restrictions have gone again, we haven't had as much problems. +But there was a while there when there was restrictions on freedom of speech, +and we were determined to be a freedom of speech platform. +So, we had a little bit of an issue with that. +So, I'll discuss more about that later. +So, we can check our future feed. +You want to be careful with that, though, because sometimes we will... +If the audio is bad or whatever, we just recently had one episode, the first episode ever, +where I had to reject it on the grounds that it was poor audio. +And the guy was recording on his phone. +He thought he was recording on his headset, but was recording on his phone. +So, it was fine for any time that he had the phone on the desk. +But when he put it in his pocket to move to other places, you couldn't hear it. +So, we fixed that, thanks to the future feed, and we didn't have to go back. +But anybody listening to that show got the old one because it doesn't automatically update. +And we have a comment comes out on every feed, +and we have our SQL database, which you can download, +is also updated on every change, +and our statistics are updated every 15 minutes. +So, we're moving on to how to post a show. +We try to lower the barrier. +If you are posting a show and you come across something that makes it too difficult, +then we will try and eliminate their burden. +So, you basically record a show, you pick a time that you want it, +you fill in the notes, that's it, we do the rest. +Couldn't be easier. +So, we like Flack. +Flack is best, but we accept the rest. +And boy, have we seen some weird audio coming in. +And also, we're taking stuff from random people on the internet. +So, we do go to extreme measures to make sure that what you're sending in is audio +and not something else. +So, Flack is best, but we accept the rest. +Any audio is better than no audio. +Procrastination, my friends, is the enemy. +Wherever you see it, you shall whatever, yeah? +And I'm as guilty as anybody else. +Do not forget to introduce yourself on the show. +And I want you to listen to podcasts, even from professionals, +where they do not introduce themselves on their show. +You must introduce yourself, especially on Hacker Public Radio, +because of the random jumping. +It's quite possible, even though you may have done 200 episodes, +it's quite possible somebody's just randomly jumping around the place +and has no clue who you are. +So, introduce yourself. +Avoid bedding and background music. +We mix down to mono, no need to add metadata, we do all that. +That's where everything that you put in the forum, +we automatically take care of that, +and we put the themes and everything in ourselves. +The background music is because quite a lot of people listen with one ear. +So, their supervisor is over there, +and their podcast, they have one earbud in. +So, moving on. +Stuff you need to know. +You will no longer be able to edit our Wikipedia page, +which it appears, and then it disappears. +Apparently, we're not novel enough. +That's fine. +We don't syndicate shows for other places, +and the reason for that is we have a sister site called... +Well, we don't syndicate shows, +so if you're doing a show, it has to be for HPR first, +and then you can release it anywhere else. +That's absolutely fine. +Creative Commons, we'll talk about that later. +You have permission to redistribute everything. +And that means we don't take copyrighted stuff at all. +Not even fair use, nothing like that, +because what's fair use in America, +that doesn't apply outside of America. +Yeah, so your show is not going to be monitored. +We moderated you. +It will be flagged as explicit. +You decide when it's scheduled. +With a lot of... +When we started, stuff went onto an FTP server, +and then it was posted randomly by date, +or posted randomly by alphabetical order. +I have no idea, but now we got a lot of... +It was difficult to come up with a mechanism, +but we've come up with a good mechanism now. +And your audio must be ready. +The only exception we make to that, +and you still need permission from the mail list, +is if you're doing an interview or something similar, +where there's some sort of action, +or the EU are putting a law out, +and you want to get a show rushed out, +then you're allowed to request a show, +and we more than likely grant that. +If you're doing a series, we ask for two weeks in between, +so that it doesn't get a bit boring. +We're not going to move out shows, +so you can't just go, +oh, I talked to Bob, and I'll swap the show. +No, we don't do that. +Your email's going to be public. +All the email you use. +Talk to us about that. +We can put aliases up if you don't want your real email address. +We do log your IP address until your show is posted. +After that, we delete it. +We use ETF8, and we do accessibility. +We'll talk to you more about that later. +So this is what you see when you go to the website. +You pick a boring date. +I want to post a show. +If you're a new host, +the first one you do is on the 17th, +because that's the first available slot. +If you were doing an interview or something time critical, +you'd pick that date. +Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. +Now the show is filling up, +so what I'd probably do is I'd put it down here +to leave slots, +because say we've had this presentation here, +and a lot of you guys are really anxious to post a show, +so why would the regular hosts be taking up slots +when you guys want to put them in? +So that's what we do there. +We also have the concept of a reserve queue, +or a reserve pool. +So if it happens that next week there's still one free slot, +we'll take a show out of the reserve pool +and pop it in there. +That's from hosts who really don't care, +or your topic, it's not that important. +Say that mobile phone one, +that would be an ideal one for putting into that queue. +So you'll get this thing when you press the button. +Type in your email address. +We'll tell you that we've sent you an email. +You'll get the email. +You'll click on the link, +and the link will bring you to this form. +Now don't panic. +Don't panic. +It's easy peasy. +There are two sides. +Your email. +The email's already populated. +You just put in your handle, +whatever that's going to be, +and you select your default license, +and then you press next. +Then you tell us about your show. +You put in a title, obviously. +So for this one, +it's going to be Hi, Mom. +I'm on Spotify. +And the description's going to be, +Ken gives a presentation about HPR +at the T-DOS conference. +Yeah. +And we use this on social media +and all over the show. +We also use it on the text-to-speech introduction +that we give at the beginning of the show. +And we do that so that if you're listening to, +you might not have access to a display +or you're visually impaired or whatever. +As you play the show, +we will tell you what the show's about. +So you can go, +oh, the show's from Ken. +Delete. +This show is one of Dave's, +and it's going to involve screenshots and stuff +or bash scripts, +and I want to work on it later. +So you might save it and skip it. +So that's why we do the intro. +You need to tell us if it's explicit +if you use the F word and stuff. +And mark it as explicit. +Our license, we'll talk about that later. +Show notes, pop in stuff. +It's your regular old stuff. +Try not to use styling +because we'll remove all that anyway. +And then your upload method, +you just press browse +and you select a file. +What we do is you can also upload +a subtitle file if you wish. +And once you've done that, +you get this message. +And we tell you it's only going to be allocated +once everything's hunky-dory. +But this is what you'll see on the calendar page. +So first of all, +it's locked when you click +and the email is sent out to you. +When you click on the email, +it'll change to email clicked. +Then it'll go to show submitted. +And at that point, +we will do the transcoding of the show. +So we'll take the audio. +We use Whisperer +and we convert it into SRT file. +Now, if you want, +you can run the exact same command +on your show before you upload it. +You can go in and change your name +from Ken Falloon to Ken Fallon. +And then you can make any other corrections +that you see fit. +A lot of our accessibility guys say, +it's fine. +We get the idea. +You don't need to worry about it. +If we talk about hacker, +public radio or whatever, +they know, +they're smart enough to know what's going on. +So it's usually fine. +And then the last one here +is distributing media +to the community content delivery network. +And once it's distributed, +then we will just flag it as a normal show +and it'll go into the future feed. +And it'll be on Spotify and Antenapod +and all the rest of the places +that you'll get your media +on the day it's released. +So immediately it'll be in the future feed, +but on the day it's released, +it'll come in there. +Okay, so that was a little bit about subscribing. +This is a bit about the HPR project itself. +So we call ourselves the janitors. +So hence the broom and stuff. +So who remembers phone free... +Who remembers paying for telephone calls? +Right. +Okay. +Who remembers doing reverse charge phone calls +where you would... +If you were calling from the train station, +you would say, +hey, dad, Thomas is here. +I don't know any Thomas. +And then he'd come and collect you +at the train station. +So, yeah, back in the day, +phone calls were expensive, right? +International phone calls +were even more expensive. +So this whole concept of freaking +where people would use the telephone networks. +So companies would have their London office +joined to the New York office +and in London you could dial a bridge +and then use some codes +and you get to New York +and then use more codes and you get out. +Well, these were kind of... +The security in these were very loose. +And then free... +Radio Freakers... +Freakers was a whole thing +of hackers who used to do that. +So they started this radio show +called Radio Freak America. +And it's radio +because what they used to do then +was join these bridges, +record them in MP3, +which had just been hacked at the time, +and then put them on FTP server. +So it's prior to podcasting. +So that ran up until 2004 +and then the very last episode +they said that they wanted +to record this hacker public radio. +And the name comes from... +If you know, like the BBC or the NOS, +in America, it's the NPR, +National Public Radio. +It's the... +So they wanted to do the same thing for hackers. +And Radio Freak America +is from Radio Free America, +the Christian spread democracy, +American way. +Radio... +That was on short left. +It's shut down now. +So... +At the time, +that project, +Binary Revolution, +the revolution will be digitised, +started during that, +inspired by Radio Freak America. +A lot of other shows +were inspired by Radio Freak America. +And they ran until 2007. +In the meantime, +Infoenomicon were really getting +into the whole concept of podcasting. +It was becoming a thing. +People had... +Were able to download MP3 files +onto their music players +and play them, +and it was awesome. +So today, +they... +They wanted... +They had a schedule +where people who were doing +other podcasts +could do stuff +that wasn't part of their podcast +on a general hacking podcast. +And that was today with Techie. +And that ran until 2007, +and then BINREV stopped +and they joined forces +and became Hacker Public Radio. +So is the story, +as I tell it anyway. +So everything was proprietary software +and we had plug-ins +and we had BSD, +blah, blah, blah, blah. +And slowly but surely, +we got burned so often. +So we came to free software +not because of freedom, +but because of the pain in the ass +it is when your Commons feed +gets completely overrun with spam. +You fix it, +and the following morning +it's completely overrun with spam +and you're blocked on Google again. +So all our code is published +in our GitG repository. +All the feeds are available. +And these are our priorities. +Flow is coming in. +Keep them coming in and going out. +If there's an accessibility issue, +we fix that +above anything else that we do. +Just... +I think it's important +to add that in black and white. +About the Creative Commons license, +people familiar with it, +presumably people are... +So this is a public domain, +BSD, GPL, +and then other licenses. +Very, very broadly. +Now, about the community itself. +So we are a welcome community +that offers positive feedback +and encourages respectful debate. +We trust you +not to do anything +that will harm HPR. +And in all those shows +that you've seen, +5,000 shows, +we've had a handful of incidents +where we've had to take action. +And most of them... +Half an hour? +Okay. +So most of them have been +debates. +You know, it's... +That music is a public domain. +Yeah, the music is, +but the performance +of the music isn't. +So therefore, +we can't do it. +Okay, well, +I disagree with you. +Okay, let's go to the mailing list. +And then we discuss +on the mailing list. +So swearing is allowed, +but general rule of thumb +is granny's listening. +And don't be belligerent. +So we use the idea +of a parental advisor. +You can say whatever you want +in your show, +but on the cover, +if you have, like, +fuck Google, +we're going to edit that +on the metadata, +but you're happy to say that +in your show itself. +We don't tolerate harassment, +trolling, et cetera, +particularly trolls. +We had one issue +with harassment reported +on our IRC channel, +which is odd +because I was on the IRC channel. +Contacted the guy +who reported, +wouldn't discuss it with me, +thought we as admin +should be aware of that. +Turns out, +though, somebody was running +a separate HPR IRC server +somewhere that we had +nothing to do with. +So if you find anything +on our thing offensive, +contact us +if you feel +that we're not doing it, +we have a separate team +called the auditors +who you can contact, +or you can contact +any of the other podcasters +here and have them contact us. +So mailing list +decides our policies. +That is, of course, +with the exception +of site security, +who is done by Josh +from anonymoushost.com, +great guy. +And then we have the janitors +who are responsible +for the day-to-day operation +of HPR. +They implement +the decisions made +by the mailing list. +So that means +that I have no say +over, +when I'm in contact +with you, +I have no say. +All I do is implement +the policies and procedures. +If I disagree +with what you're doing, +I can have you +or me +go to the mailing list +and then we can start +a discussion about it. +And if the mailing list +decides that I'm wrong, +then I'm wrong. +So we continue on. +And just to make sure +I do do that, +we have this team +called the auditors +who keep an eye +on that, +the communication. +Sometimes the communication, +we always leave it up +to the host to go, +there was a show recently +about somebody +sent in a religious sermon. +Now that can be +very sensitive +and I really appreciate +the way our community +handle that +because we have preachers +who are on our show +and we have people +who talk about +how they use FFmpeg +to record the church service. +On the other hand, +we have other people +who have had not such +a pleasant experience +with religious organizations. +So in order to be able +to, I was very impressed +at how the community +was able to balance that +and come up with +a agreement +without ruffling +people's toes. +The kill switch. +Yes, if there's not +enough shows, +we're going to stop +the project. +It's as simple as that. +If you like the idea +of a free open web +podcasting platform +that you can share +your ideas and hacking, +then great, +record a show. +But if you don't, +then we're going +to shut it down. +We're going to +post all the shows +that we have +and we're going +to close it down +with a party +to say thank you +very much, +goodbye, +and thanks for the fish. +That's our janitor's +covenant is +we will continue +to post the shows +until there are +no more shows. +How we can help out? +First thing, obviously, +is submission to a show. +You might have noticed +that was the theme +of this presentation. +You can comment +on a show. +That's a great thing. +There's nothing better +than getting a positive +feedback on the show, +particularly even an old one. +Commons are the currency +by which we pay our hosts. +You can spread the word +if you come up +with a topic +that you was interested +or that said series +and you can pass it on +to somebody else +and all other +various different things. +I'll just quickly +in time moves. +We have this. +Josh used to host +all our media +but it turned out +to be quite a lot +so then we moved it +to the Internet Archive +which we can do +because it's creative +commons content +and they hosted it for us +but last year +they had a continuous +denial of service attack +because apparently +people don't like +the fact +that they are +a nice organisation. +So what we're doing now +is we're mirroring +our network +on people's homes +ISP connections +so if you've got +a fibre connection +or a fast broadband +connection +24-7 +fixed IP address +and you don't mind +a 4 terabyte server +then we will add +a node there. +We're building +a Docker image +so that you don't have to. +The only thing +it'll serve +is our episodes +and anybody else +that tries +anything else +that tries to access it +will go into +fail to ban. +So this is our +developer information +which you might find +a bit odd. +HPR is dedicated +to sharing knowledge +and we try to make +everything so that +it'll be servable +locally +so somebody will dust off +a hard disk +after the apocalypse +and we'll find +the HPR site +and everything +that they need +should be on that hard disk. +We'll keep the flow +going and accessibility +we spoke about that. +Now sometimes +as a developer +we can do stuff +real quick +so I say to you +how difficult +would it be +to take +Mastodon comments +for example +and add them +to the comments +of an episode. +Technically +not that hard. +Problem arises +when you discuss +it with people +because some of the +is that content +Creative Commons +then? +Have they given +the permission +for me to store +that forever +and another day? +how do we get +around those +non-technical issues? +So those are the +if that's of interest +to you +then I definitely +want to talk to you +because you're thinking +like a janitor. +Everything is open. +We don't track +if it interferes +with our prime directive. +We try to use +redundancy +where we can. +Data is available +by default +so do not bother +scraping the website. +Talk to us. +You can take it. +Yes, you can use it +for AI. +All our content +is Creative Commons. +You can build +a large language model. +We'd be more than happy +to help you with that +so long as of course +it's ethical +and you release +your results +as CC by SA as well. +Hosting platforms +will change over time. +We will change over time. +Initiatification +has hit us too often +so we need to be +very careful. +We use conservative +choices. +So Debian +it's been around +for ages +it's going to be +around for ages +nice and stable +and we make sure +it's patched. +If we support +the hacker culture +down the years +we have been contacted +about security breaches +and we have given credit +we've fixed it +and given credit +where credit is due. +We're fault tolerant +because we've got RSS +so we have like +one transaction a day +let's face it +and even that +is only five days +of the week. +we're on different +providers +we have GitT +our database +everything is +on the +is downloadable +you're allowed to +without commitment +post patches +or comments +or fixes +or whatever +if you're coming in +with a new idea +for changes +then we want you +to stick around +for at least two years +because +when you leave +or whatever +I don't want to be left +I will have to learn +the technology +that you have just +left me with +so that was it. +This is the last slide +if you're not able +to get to the website +and you go to the +cyber site +Hobby Public Radio +can you get in touch +with me +and I will contact +their IT department +to explain +what Hacker Public Radio +is +and that maybe +they will want +to update +their filters +that if +a hacker +can be +so public +as to be +defeated +by one word +then you have +a serious problem +on your site +and that's it +for my presentation +anyone got any questions? +Thank you +Does anyone have a question? +Yes +I will bring the microphone +if I got it right +it's more than +20 years on the go +so that's a long journey +has community +or people +considered +into translating +to other languages +so that other countries +could also get access +to the same kind +of content? +It's all +it's all available +there +transcripts +for every show +is available +so you can +feel free to do that +if you want +to take +like +Hacker Public Radio +and turn it +into a Dutch thing +our code's available +we are +more than happy +to assist you +with that +we've had +some shows +in different languages +just to +to be +to give an example +of what another show +might be +but +it's an English +language podcast +so +yeah +in your slides +you give numbers +with TA +after it +is that terabytes +or +yeah terabytes +okay +yeah so like +about four or five +terabytes +well +the audio itself +is that +and then +then we have +like PDFs +with this +it's got +what Dave's show +we've got a PDF +associated with +that our people +put in scripts +and what we do +is we keep +the +we try and keep +the source audio +so if you've sent +in a FLAC file +we keep that +what we do +with audio +is kind of +interesting +because +it can +come in +as anything +so if we get +a FLAC file +we convert +well if we get +any file +we convert it +to FLAC +actually we convert +it to PCM +there's a FLAC +no +it doesn't much +matter +we +and we drop +everything +and then +re-encode it +unless of course +you have +a requirement +that you do +want to do +by oral audio +or something special +like that +I'll make +I'll make +everything manually +then and post it +but that's +more an exception +mostly +our stuff +is +somebody's talking +so +yeah +any other question +I do have a question +you mentioned +that you also +develop some +software yourself +what kind +of software +should we +think of +so we +have a +templating +engine +that's written +in Perl +that takes +the database +and creates +the website +so the website +static +we have +the PHP +stuff +that's on +the website +itself +we have +a cool +tool +that +you give +it the +metadata +and it'll +update +the WAV files +the MP3 +the AUG +all that +sort of +stuff +so we're +kind of +audio +audio +buffs +yes +thank you +no other +questions +anymore +then I'll +like to thank you +no problem +thank you +I'm sorry +for the delay +earlier +thank you +thank you +thank you +thank you +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4673.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4673.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1496e7e --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4673.txt @@ -0,0 +1,281 @@ +Episode: 4673 +Title: First contact conversation +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4673/hpr4673.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:32 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4673, for 2026-07-01 +Today's show is entitled, "First contact conversation" +The host is Archer72 and the duration is 00:30:04 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Archer72 talks with Keith (KO4BWJ) about first contact and general practices" +KD9VMW +Yeah, you're funny, how's that range? +Yeah, it's flooding a little bit over here by the trailer. +Oh, yeah, yeah, I think I never thought I'd be full of this out. +So it's real great growth in front of the house. They're up right across the sanctuary. +Back in the 90s, I didn't got a lot of conscious about what it was to say. +I mean, it was just a torrential range, but it came out once. +I hope I didn't receive out of here, but he'll stay in the more thick, strong, strong house in him. +But he'll probably soak it up pretty quick. +Luckily, we're at higher ground, so it's not in heart and arms. +I just, I do see some flooding in the roads. +Yeah, I've got to go to town, have to suffer as you're the one with this all. +Take a look at the street, the river, everything is there, I was like, okay, but I thought it was like a lot. +But, I mean, this is just a diet, I have this. +I think about our whole diet, this, which might not be as much or any range as something. +If there's everybody's going to want to find out more of that, it's like this, but it's basically all day. +Okay, forget that's coming up, but we have the sales of Walmart, so I should have figured. +I lose track of the days. +Yeah, yeah, forget. +I've got a great day at a better. +Thank you for the back of the aisle. +Thank you, better. +It's a bit too much. +I guess, very good. +Dude, I'll hold a brief bite called it. +I've been looking at payers, but you don't want you to start doing this stuff. +Here's kind of a plan. +You're going to have to travel with all kinds of sales and offers. +This is going to be how I drive beautiful. +Yeah, then you pop over to Facebook, and you get all the ads from everything you've been just looking for. +Yeah, that's going to be how it works, plan. +There really is. +Oh, well. +That's a well-wide form of a foundation. +I guess you could live in a cage for Apple. +It's a full range of ads that are still going to know where you are. +They don't know where we are right now. +Unless they want to do a locate our transmitter. +Well, you know, you're very true about that. +You're going to have to try and get light on us. +So, do that for a lot of people who can't celebrate the course. +Because there's a real plan on you don't have to worry completely, especially. +You don't get a punch for any arble on the edge of this. +You have to hike it if there's a frequency of 7.2 zero zero. +And just keep all of that down when you get it, hike it. +You don't even want to be there. +It's just fun to count. +I won't be there at all, though. +If they're there, they'll have to make each other a positive. +But one good thing about our radio, you can turn that thing into a positive, though. +Right on to that. +KD9 VMW. +I'm going to try to see if I have a yes for you. +Sorry. +You're in the house. +Are you going to be headed out soon? +Or do you? +I have a quick question or something. +And I want to do. +Oh, I've got time. +I'll go in there whatever I want. +Call, I have to get this note or else. +Then take it, find it, look. +It's an expert. +Package to the EPA. +You know, just a plant pack. +I've done it with this. +Have to get it to yourself. +But I'll do it any time. +Well, I put on a casual show on this place called Hacker Public Radio. +And it's a podcast. +And I was hoping to do an interview on how I, +guys, or how it was when I first transmitted it to you and +care for IPB. +You remember when I first started? +Because I think it was about the middle last month. +Now, I don't have a date. +I don't want me to play on Ph.A.J. +about this. +Thank you. +I keep walking. +Let's go around there. +You're all gone long. +But now, you're right. +You know, is it that if it's a area? +It would be better. +If I had no fun, you'll know the difference. +Just take it tight. +Do you mind if I record this? +Yeah, I don't get it right. +But it's all up to do it. +Whatever you want with this because I'm free. +We talking only our wife. +Yeah, there's some problem with that. +What's the way we're going to get asked? +I mean, what do you think, man? +I'm good. +Well, according to the log works. +Lee, I didn't log. +I don't log much, but I was, I think I started middle last month. +And I put out my sign and then I left it in after a couple minutes. +You know, that's one thing about. +For the whole time, I can walk away. +And even raise your legs. +Very awkwardly. +And if you're going along the top, you're 50. +If you're 50, you think range you can call flat. +And there's nobody. +But I have to, and that could be one of two things. +Well, they don't want to answer you. +Because they're doing something. +They just don't want to talk. +Or there's nobody left. +Because there's nothing. +There's nobody left. +And it's pretty rare, but it happens. +I think the case was that I said I was listening, but I, I guess I wasn't. +I didn't really know the protocol, but everything worked. +I think another, are you still there? +I'm sorry, ma'am. +I'm a battery dying again. +I want to watch you play in the case. +Or do we need to start over from? +I think when I first got on, I wasn't. +I said listening, and I probably shouldn't have. +And because I just didn't know what kind of what the protocol was. +Yeah, that's pretty common. +Well, you're not at the end. +And you're, you're general class operators. +That's great. +But nobody cares. +I'm around here. +I'm just going to help you. +There's some things that we don't say on hand. +It's like you don't speak me and GMR is. +Whatever it stands for. +We don't think it's for. +We say Roger or Terminated. +It's a little bit wrong. +There's a little more protocol. +It's fine. +And right now. +So the professional is. +It's a lot of us. +This GMR is. +It's really big. +That they don't recognize the likes. +Like we have to get to operate. +Like we are now. +But yeah. +It will help you all the way. +By any bite. +We all wait to. +And you might. +You've got. +You know what I'm saying. +That's the best thing. +All right. +And I think you when I picked up at home. +I couldn't transmit out because I just didn't have the right equipment. +So I couldn't answer back to you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Do you. +Can I not give up. +So now I'm sitting at the top of the hill without antenna on the outside and so it is +a common through pretty strong. +So I'm going to check all the platforms to be gay and then it will get you out further. +It is like five-cented up from what I understand and I think it's like a comment of some kind. +If they are confident or a dominant brand, then that has been donated to you by June of the 9th branch. +Oh, wow, thanks man. +That probably could put it on my shed. +Well, I'll tell you what you can say as you can. +I need to watch what you want to do. +And I'm not telling you what to do, but I don't know if it's not an engine diameter, that's that's all for your plan. +And if you're going to be a one-sectioner too, I've got one last thing. +If you strap it to me, you're not sure yet. +And you're going to really doubt it. +You'll be talking probably up in dialogue with some of the others. +But if you don't feel like I think you're changing your profile. +I'm coming to this question. +They kind of, they're not going to arrange it. +Or you can get some good and heavy things all the easy things. +Even get some damn thing about the shepherds would be great. +But yeah, that big y'all thought that would be a good place for me. +Should have thought of that shepherds with some like shepherds on to the market or something to help them have. +I was kind of looking around outside and where it secures the trailer down. +I could use that as a grounding for it. +I've seen those. +First I have to get feed. +seeing those first I have to get feed line out. I have some ideas about how to get +it to where it's a little neater. +I probably want to run a connector where it's close to where the peak of the shed is +and then run it over from there. +I think the direct burial actually would be a better route. I didn't realize it only had to go a little bit +down about three inches down. +That's great. If I just take it I won't disturb the grass too much if I just take a +little line. +You just have to water again to make sure that it takes back to the root. +If I go back to the buried there is no way to this. +If I look at all the hell from the corner it comes down from inside the hell. +KD9VMW. +I didn't get the mailing yet but I wonder if you could sign an email about what to do with the club. +If it was a mile you should get it from a point to say you're tomorrow. +Roger that. +I just got the mail this morning and I didn't get anything in it yet but I'll see. +It's hot, huh? +He's the secretary manager. +You know what I was saying? +He's just been flying. +He's a step up until they were going to attack him. +He works long hours. +He can't keep the kids. +I can go on it all the time. +He's going to grab his finger around and get the cars fixed. +He doesn't have anybody here anymore. +He's been pretty free as they need for all of that. +He has to buy it. +Don't worry about he's got a mail for them. +He's got a mail. +You're going to get your mail. +I'm going to get it from the club. +I could also set the name out so I'd have a little information too. +I can email to when I get back to the trailer and give you my phone number. +It's the full email is archer72aprotonmail.com. +It's a lot of years for me to see some things being attacked and I've got some things I don't +want to say to you one more is the other, but yeah, I don't even have your email in my directory. +Do you want my phone number over the radio? +Oh, looks like I just got ran over by the Morris Code. +I was just wondering if you wanted my phone number over here or an email. +I'll just email that's fine. +Most times I do it but it's not till evening. +Okay, I want to switch your copy of the invitation to my cabin on the 30th, which is not the 30th act. +You can operate on your own or you can operate under any money license that's in the cabin. +Sure, that sounds great. +Oh, you can look at the upper gone. +So, I mean, it's not because it's pumping it out for an hour or two and you can welcome to this slide with that shit. +If you care to come out for a little while, it shouldn't be able to come out. +You know, what's for a little while, I just want to do that. +Roger that. I might be able to be out for an hour. I think you usually start at four o'clock. +What time is it going to be? +Well, actually, it's probably Friday as I'm off. +Okay, if I don't get the mail and could you email me after address? +No, I don't, but I've seen the YouTube streams. +That's very sweet. +If you have the stuff to arrive, it doesn't arrive. +So, you know, first I have the meeting. +I'll try to make it. +Okay, I'll make myself a couple of times here. +It's KD9VMW. +If you're not the YouTube game in the address for the meeting, it's going to request it. +If you're not the YouTube game in the address, it's going to request it. +If you're not the YouTube game in the address, it's going to request it. +I'm going to head home and do a few things, but thank you for taking the time. +I'm going to head home and do a few things. +Roger. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4674.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4674.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a48438 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4674.txt @@ -0,0 +1,106 @@ +Episode: 4674 +Title: Audiobooks +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4674/hpr4674.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:34 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4674, for 2026-07-02 +Today's show is entitled, "Audiobooks" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:10:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A response to Lee about my own history with audiobooks." +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in November 2025 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hello, this is the Huka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio, and this show is being recorded for the reserve Q, so if you're hearing it right now, that means we are short of programs, and it'd be a good idea for you to record one. +I'm assuming if you're listening to this, you would like Hacker Public Radio to continue. +Now what I'm doing in this particular episode, I'm recording a response. +Something that was triggered by another show, and that's often a good way to come up with a show idea. +And in this case, what I'm thinking of is a show that was aired on November 17th of 2025. +It was show 45, 11, and the person who recorded it was Lee. +And so he was talking about audio books, and I have some history with audio books. +So I thought, well, I'll share a little bit of my own history here. +And the first thing that I wanted to mention, I Lee gave a long list in his show notes of all the audio books that he's enjoying. +There's some very good books in the area, many of which I have either read or listened to as the case may be. +It did his tend to focus on some things that overlap with me as the science fiction. +What I didn't see was history. +Well, not everyone is interested in that as I am, but there's a lot of audio books out there, and there are various ways you can get them. +So the first thing I would point out is there's a site called openculture.com, and I will have a link in the show notes for that. +And as the name implies, they're trying to make things freely available. +Now, in this case, it's stuff that is in public domain in the United States. +And they're very careful about stating that. +Librevox is similar. +I think that's the one that the HPR audio book club tended to use if my memory serves. +But you know, haven't heard from those guys in a while, which is kind of too bad. +You know, maybe pokey and some of the others will hear this and decide, you know, we should get that thing going again. +Another way you can get access to the obvious, you can go out and buy them. +I have done that sometimes. +But the other thing is, you know, they're very often available with your local library. +And I have, I go back to the days when everything was done on cassette tapes. +These days it tends to be more streaming. +But, you know, I could go into the library and pull out an audio book on cassette tapes. +You know, particularly when we had my wife and I would do a long 14-hour drive from our home in Michigan to visit family and Massachusetts. +You know, checking out an audio book to listen to on the way was often a good thing to do. +Well, nowadays it tends to be streaming. +And it check with your local library, but they usually have available things like apps like Libby, Hoopla, and Barrow Box to just name three that I found with a very long time. +I found with a very quick search, Hoopla is the one my local library uses. +I found these other apps doing a quick web search. +And that just means you can log into your library, local library website. +Pick a book that you want to listen to, download it to, you know, your phone or your tablet or whatever. +Listen to it. My wife does this constantly. +She, for some reason, she can't get to sleep without an audio book. +And, you know, great. So she does. She uses the Hoopla and downloads. She's big on mysteries. +So that tends to be most of what she downloads. +I listen to other things. And, and I did a little searching around. +I found interestingly, I'll put a link in the show notes to this. +There is a fairly extensive isic azimov audio book collection of his science fiction mostly at archive.org. +That you can download for free. +Another thing I found looking around is that there are a number of audio books on YouTube. +So you can just go there and listen. +I found some Arthur C. Clark audio books on archive.org. +Then, you know, I think Doc Smith is available at LibreVox. +And, you know, so those are some of the science fiction ones that I would mention. +Then there's history. +I have listened to the will and aerial Durant story of civilization. +This is 11 very large volumes. +So, you know, just volume one, I saw was listed and they said it was 36 hours to listen to it. +But the way I did it was that any time I was in the car driving, I would spend that time listening to an audio book. +And, you know, it did take a year and a half or two years to go through the whole story of civilization. +Yeah, but I did it and I enjoyed it. +Also, Winston Churchill's history of World War II. +That's six volumes that are pretty substantial. +And also Churchill's history of English-speaking peoples. +Now, those might not be things you would be interested in. +But I was interested in them and if anyone out there is interested in history, check some of that stuff out. +I saw at archive.org the volume one of the will Durant story of civilization seemed to be there. +So that would be another free download. +Now, another thing I wanted to mention is there's one, particularly with fiction. +There's a difference between reading a book and acting a book. +And until you've experienced it, it may not be entirely clear what the difference is. +But I'm going to mention one of to my mind the best examples of someone acting a book. +And that is the audio books for Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. +Those are absolutely fantastic. +And I think Terry Pratchett was, unfortunately, he's passed. +But he was a complete genius. +You know, if you saw, you know, they've put some of his works now. +He's been turned into television shows. +And so you get a chance to experience it that way. +So, you know, if you like fantasy with a humorous slant, and you want to hear it done very well. +Get check out the audio books for Terry Pratchett's Discworld. +So, let's just a few thoughts that I had on the general thing about audio books. +And I want to thank Lee for the recording the show that he did. +That was a very nice show. +And, you know, anytime you hear a show that you have something you want to say in response, record a show. +Sometimes I see people writing long comments. +And, sight will, you know, most people are never going to know about a long comment. +But if you record a show, which is pretty easy to do, you know, all you have to do is plug in a microphone and start talking. +And just say whatever you would have said in the comment. +And you get to get yourself a show. +So, this is Hoka for Hacker Public Radio, signing off, and as always encouraging you to support free software. +Bye-bye. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4675.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4675.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..782ee78 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4675.txt @@ -0,0 +1,159 @@ +Episode: 4675 +Title: Yard Inflatables +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4675/hpr4675.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:35 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4675, for 2026-07-03 +Today's show is entitled, "Yard Inflatables" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:11:20 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "modular inflatable systems, emphasizing durability and efficient design for lawn ornaments." +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in January 2026 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hello everyone, welcome to another sort of hacker public radio with the host operator +So today I'm talking about +You know Christmas sheet time after the holidays New Year's +My idea around modular and flatable stuff with the lights and +The problems so you buy these +lawn ornaments that are cheap and +They defense crap out or they get wet or +Any of the above usually what happens is that the little box +The little charging box plug-in box gets wet because it's been left outside +It's not really an outdoor charger or a adapter or +You know put it out there and it gets wet and then gets rusty and then the motor gets rusted and then the little crappy like PC van motor +Crips out +And I looked online for like more PC motors +And I realize kind of what does happen is +For a couple of reasons you can replace them +But then you know you have to take apart and it's annoying and you know +It's only gonna last maybe a season or two and then just gonna crap out again and like what's the actual problem? +Well the problem is we need to deliver air to these +nylon inflatables +That's not compromised by the elements as easily +What I purchased was the pretty big +Kind of industrial blow fan from like you know inflatable with that come I think about two of them +They're like 30 bucks a piece or something like that. I'm just a big huge turbine fan that blows will blow up like +You know a six foot seven foot by seven foot inflatable +And then it will to almost explosion so it's a series fan so +But that's that I've got that fan and now I wanted to deliver that to you know, maybe a tiny little +miniature you know +Dollar store inflatable. Well that's not gonna work as it's too too much. So the idea there's we have three or four at a time +Into my idea and what I've kind of had my white belt was a modular system. So +It's a bit of a mess, but the idea would be to have the main blower +Which is you know a serious like turbine blower this plastic and kind of weather weather resistant and that blower has a bigger has a big attachment to it, you know +I don't know maybe I don't like the size of a +tube for a firework +War is actually what I'm using for connections for connectors. So it's about that size and then it splits off three ways +Actually the the tube for the +For the thing is just a nylon so kept my wife sewed together like a nylon tube +She got some like nylon fabric or something and she made a big outlet and then that splits out into three different ways +One in the middle and two on each side +The middle one is larger +The other +Two outside ones because generally you know you have one or two big ones and then smaller ones after that whatever for us for our use cases at least +So she built that and you know what I ended up doing was using zip ties to +Make that put the pieces together +So I would kind of cut out the existing hole or use the existing hole in some way +zip ties some kind of fasten or fasten some kind of zip tie around and then I would use the cut outs of these kind of fiberglass +Launching tubes for fireworks and the idea would to be to make it modular like a click modular like I got a plastic clipping module or +Maybe even zip ties or whatever however, we want to make it module there. You can mine is not really modular +I just wrap it around and then zip tight and maybe flip it so what you can do is put the +Put the thing on the worthless and then take the fabric and flip it around the zip ties +And then leave a little hole and you'll see this in some of these setups leave a little hole so you can pull the zip cord +So you've put the fabric on its side so there's more than just like one layer +Protecting it to kind of keep it all together and it gives it a little bit of squirmy around where can move around +So anyways you put the zip tie on there and you flap it around you flip it around with the fabric while you've got like a little hole in there +And you can have like multiple layers +So anyways you've got that connected and you've got your you know three way below or it works +The problem there is eventually you've you've now you've screwed up the whole system because usually there's like some dumb lights +within the whole thing right +Which you have to think of is these things come with like a little crappy blower and then they come with some you know crappy +Lights to light up the inside so I actually had existing 12 volt +Ali deboves that were pretty bright +Honestly almost too bright and I built kind of a modular system similar to the other one where I had kind of just bare wires +Essentially and a 12 volt power supply that sits in like a plastic bag and then that plastic bags that's in like a +You know a little protective plastic a container deal for outside and it has kind of sort of modular +Where I have these little clip on deals +You can buy it like clip on wire connectors the various kinds in various ways +But you don't want to make it permanent because you want to be able to move around so like we have a +Spider that goes up on the second floor and +That has to be longer and it has its own blower and it hasn't failed me yet +But I don't know what I'm going to do once it fails because it can't connect to the main blower +So whatever +But the idea there is the the lights are coming off a single adapter +Dessing a 12 volt adapter pi ours any number of food me one ornaments. So it's kind of cool +It the wires are a bit of a mess ideally what my thought is to +Make the system modular in some way and it still have a cloth based of course +But have like nylon cloth and then have it so where you can attach +split and join multiple +Air feeds +And you can maybe like a little like a little gate +So you get a just amount of air bleeding out from it because sometimes there's too much air coming in +And then also with that you can have the lights +Kind of modular also so you would have this long piece of nylon tube with +lights inside of it +Or a long piece of nylon tube and that's the end you'd have maybe three lights and you could just unplug which ones you didn't want +Maybe there's space to feed a part or something right +So the idea would be you'd have this long +Overleave long tube of nylon and then inside of it would have the wire +I think you would plug that into the main pub +But that that's kind of you know kind of like a second step +That way you don't have the wires are all over the place and you're tripping over whatever +now you just have the tubes for the for the for the +For the lights for the air and then inside of the tube you have the wires and they're kind of sort of protected by the elements +Because they're inside of this nylon tube. So it's kind of my next approach is to +Combine it into one seamless sort of thing where you can +unplug and plug modules into it and +You know if you got something like this and you got it +Effectively cheap cheap enough to where people would be like oh, okay. I'm tired of buying new lawn ornaments +That would be something you could actually sell to people now once I started doing this +I started using it after about the third fourth year. I realized +Some of our original +inflatables were starting to split their cells in half +Start to split at the seams. So it's only it's only so gonna they're only gonna last so long and +And people will tell you that kind of do 10 repair you can buy like a spray can and it's like a spray it +He's a slash +Kind of just a slack that you put on your tent and that will help with the the word starting to split apart +And that really only lasts a long also I kind of made a DIY version of it like you mix +I don't know you mix something up and +Mix some epoxy up with the alcohol and you put in the spray can or something. I don't know what it did +But it's essentially made the same thing +I'd probably could have gotten a little bit more mileage out of one of the ones that we had but +I was pretty bad and our Halloween one is starting to get +After probably 10 years +a long time of usage it's starting to kind of thread rip itself apart +So I'm starting to kind of spray on like some slack or some kind of gooey adhesive kind of sort of thing to keep it goo together from leaking +So that's kind of one other thing is it you know you had to kind of buy a decent +Quality inflatable for it to last long because +With the system you know you're gonna last five years. I mean, it's gonna outlast any of your inflatable +So if you have it crappy inflatable, it's only gonna last you like three years before it starts +Meeting more and more and more air to fill up +What you can with the system you can just pump more air into it +And a lot of times I have to you know, I have the time I have to un-done sit them a little bit because they're too much air is coming in through +the main floor +But the idea the other is you can you know +You can a little bit of both you can kind of be energy efficient by +Sealing what you can and then when you can't you just let it blow a warrior into it and +That's kind of one of them we have is like that. It's one of the things that I like and I've been able to kind of repair a little bit +But you know, it's starting to show it's age and why not so anyways +I'd be interested in any thoughts of how to make it modular and +Make it so it's easy for people to use and connect +There's got to be some other examples of +Setting up something like this this modular and cost effective that we could like mass produce +3D print parts for you know 3D print +You know, movable connectable parts for it and then like you know have some kind of way to get the wires in there also and make that modular to where you just plug in +You know you've had the little the little module +The connector module female and male and the female and male would have a point where you put in the LED mount +The LED plug mount for each one or whatever you're plugging in out of it +But that's an interesting idea I've had and I've always been frustrated with all of lawn ornaments +Anyways, that's my little rant about lawn ornaments that's down here way on the bottom of my list of +massive amounts of +Hackerpope radio episodes. I should be doing take it easy +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4676.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4676.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..407c3cf --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4676.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1471 @@ +Episode: 4676 +Title: HPR Community News for June 2026 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4676/hpr4676.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:37 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4676, for 2026-07-06 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Community News for June 2026" +The host is HPR Volunteers and the duration is 00:34:53 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "HPR Volunteer Ken talks about shows released and comments posted in June 2026" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +This is the HPR Community News for June 2026. +It's just me on my own, I'm afraid. I've had some personal issues that just come up +and as a result, the people who had volunteered to host couldn't do it at that time. +So, sorry about that. Hopefully, next month things will work out a little bit better. +HPR is a community podcast that releases shows every week, Monday, Friday, +and any topic that is of interest to Hacker Disaster. +And this is the community news show put on by the HPR volunteers +so that we can give you up to date on what has been happening in and around the HPR community for the last month. +And the last month, in fact, was June 2026. +I get the privilege of introducing new hosts this month and our first new host was, +well, actually our only new host was Leonard Benshop, +who had the pleasure of not only meeting but attending his excellent lecture at the Teed Up event. +It was on the 4th. +Raised a few ears here, I have no doubt. +And if you want to check out that, the videos will be our online. +So, what we do here in the community news is we go over the shows that are posted +and then the comments that there were actually positive feedback. +Because, as you know, feedback is the currency we pay our hosts. +And the first show just so happened to be the community news from May 2026. +And there was one comment by Candy Clay Neater. +Busy weekend. +Hi, sorry I had to go before the recording started. +I was pretty busy over the weekday Friday volunteering at the convention. +And I had to go do something. +Hopefully, next community news, I can pop in. +Also, things are slowing down, starting to make a swing back to good, good again. +So, I may go and record a show soon. +Well, that is actually excellent news. +Not about that, but also that things are swinging back. +Always hear that. +Brian in Ohio had the show on the Arduino Unrelated Devices. +And this was about the Simon Sias game that he made for his grandson. +Which was an awesome thing to do. +And I really enjoyed this one. +He wrote it forth. +It would be very odd, as he has been known to record a few episodes on the topic. +So, I am assuming he and Leonard will be fast friends, if not in real life. +On a virtual sense, assured love. +No comments on that, I'm afraid. +Following day, we had Taj with Starting a Reading Habit. +And this one had two episodes. +It was about developing a habit of reading daily and the books he has read. +Antoine says, reading always been a lifesaver. +This alone makes the show very nice. +The other books on your list have beautiful covers. +About the cardio code, I was expecting some sharing of the specifics of the content. +So, we all could do with better cardio. +Nice to see you accomplish your audacious 20-a-year reading goal. +Thanks for the share. +And Kevi says, nice episode. +Thank you so much for posting. +I've never read any of the Battletech books, but I may keep an eye out for them. +I enjoy reading physical books. +I've tried e-book readers. +I really don't like the experience. +Although, I have found myself listening to audiobooks more. +Especially in the car or when being stuck on doing tasks. +Thanks for the tip and open reads. +I've never come across it before. +But I think we'll have a look for a review on upcoming episode next. +The next day, we had Mr. X with What's in My Component Box. +And this and the previous episodes were from the reserve queue. +Because this time of the year, the quantity of shows that we get are going down. +As is the amount of shows in the reserve queue as a result. +So, nothing to worry about as yet. +But we'll see if we're able to make it to the end of the summer without it becoming a real issue. +And in this one, Mr. X describes the contents of an old storage box. +Because, I must say, I'm rather guilty of this sort of thing myself. +Having component boxes. +Lots of stuff. +But very little time to do anything. +Kebby says, +Geeks are ahead of me, are ahead of their time. +In an age of recycling and repurposing, I find that geeks are always a step ahead of us. +We have been doing this for years. +I laughed out loud when you said that you weren't sure why you kept an item. +And thought, good, it isn't just an excellent show. +As always, Mr. X, keep up the good work. +Now that the EU has just, this month, introduced a 3 euro levy on every article coming from China. +We're going to find our components suddenly getting a lot more expensive. +And this one also came from the reserve queue. +Lots of gaps in the schedule, folks. +Don't feel guilty at all. +I mean, just sit back. +Let other people do all the work. +Why don't you? +Tips for glasses. +Cleaning glasses and mid-range progressive lenses. +This had three comments. +Yes, indeed. +Trey says, +Avoid hand soap. +Great recommendation. +I do avoid hand soaps as many include lotion residue. +I may check out some of the mid-range progressives. +I use dedicated computer glasses. +Great, but I need to remember to change back to prescription lenses when I get up and walk around much. +Jim DeVore says, +Geeks are lazy too. +After many years of experimenting, I settled out on clean 100% cotton washcloths and shampoo. +Before I get in the shower every day, I put a bit of shampoo on my glasses, wash them in the shower as it warms up, and then dry them on a fresh one. +I use it after cleaning my glasses to shower, and after drying it, goes into the laundry hamper on the next cycle. +Cheap, fast, easy, and I'm not managing any microfiber cloths and fancy eyeglass clean or chemical. +Operator says, +Glasses. +I want to thank you. +I'm glad the queue was empty because I recently bought a new glasses at Costco. +I feel like I overpaid for it, which makes sense since I have not worn glasses or contacts for 15 years. +My vision is changing as I age. +I'm now 46. +Even with large 49 ultrawide monitor, I use the font size to read comfortably. +I ordered two monitors today. +Wish me luck. +Well, that was actually a good tip there. +I use something like baby towels, cotton cloths that we got for the kids, and they're great at cleaning glasses, which is an ordinary dish soap. +The following day, we had a show from Swift 110. +I review my Musi Cozy Sleep and Exercise Bluetooth Health Band, and surprisingly enough, I have this exact same thing and will give the exact same recommendation. +So, well done there. +It just goes to show that even I can be outdone with topics to discuss, because this one has two comments. +Candy Caneater says, Wishlist, I often listen to podcasts and stuff when I go to bed, so using one of these would be very useful. +The only downside would be figuring how to use it with my MP3 player, since it doesn't support Bluetooth. +Interesting, Kevi says. +I have never heard of these before, but I think the concept is great. +My wife has recently been asking me to research a set of headphones for her to use in the gym. +I will suggest these. +Thanks for sharing. +And just to talk to Candy Caneater's one there, there's a USB devices that you can get with a 3.5mm jack, and you can plug that into your music player, and it'll take the audio from your music player and convert it into Bluetooth. +I have one here in the drawer doing nothing. +Drop me a line, and I'll send it over to you. +And another point on these is that they actually act as eye masks as well. +So if it's bright outside, you can put them over your eyes and actually go to sleep. +Awesome! +The following day, we had Unix Curio Part 8, Comparing Files. +Finding out the diff without using diff. +Again, Vance is doing an absolutely fantastic series here on this. +It's really engaging people, because there's five comments, but it's engaging me as well. +Every single time, he comes up with something that's really cool, and you kind of know, but kind of know some of the commands. +Some of the commands I use quite a lot, and sometimes it's really nice just to get the background history. +X-Man Monk says, great show again. +Another great show of these often forgotten commands. +Glad to hear you have more episodes in the work. +Look forward to hearing them. +Candy Caneater says, comparison. +CMP is, while not as useful as it may have been, still quite useful for testing whether two files are bit copies of each other. +Misty Jack says, HPR4657 uses COM. +COM is actually a very, very useful program in scripts, if you know how to make good use of it. +For example, Bash can be fairly slow when a classic Bing algorithm over large amounts of data. +Misty Jack is very close to an episode, just saying. +I continue. +However, as you can reformat the data so it can be compared with COM, you can then use COM as a filter without any loops. +As an example, it's an application, a simple loop, 3.7 seconds to work its way through the data, which is far too long. +However, using awk and sort to reformat one file, and the combination of find, cut, sort, and awk, unique and awk, and the directory structure, generate a second file, and then compare them with COM. +I was able to filter down the information to just the records that had relevant changes, and then use the slower looping algorithm on those. +That cut the time down to 0.150 seconds, more or less instantaneous from a user perspective. +Despite this mess appearing to have a lot more transformations in it, 25 times faster. +This is because there were actually fewer calls to commands in the second algorithm, even though more different commands were involved. +So COM is a very useful command to know, and if you have a lot of information to process, it should be one of those tools that you turn to when figuring out the best way to do it. +Actually, I have, right now, literally before the show, used that. +I went around to all my data on NAS, met MD5 sums of all the files, and then went to old backup disks, and did the same thing over there. +Awk'd the MD5, sorted and unique them, and then used the COM command to compare "-1-2", giving me the ones that are in common, +so that I know all those files that I found in common on the backup disk I could get rid of, +and it brought down my backup disk from 8 terabytes to 2 terabytes. +So I can now go through the 2 terabytes and figure out what it is in there that I need to backup, and what I need to save. +So a very useful command. +However I can, that should have been a show. +Yes, it should have been, but nobody's here to tell me otherwise. +Van says, appreciate the comments. +When I was uploading the episode, I started to feel like maybe I'm selling COM a bit short. +Nice to hear that it's useful, SkiJack. +While its functionality can easily replicate it with cut and awk, those utilities can certainly make use of the output COM. +Interesting to read that your experience in terms of runtime. +I have taken to using a single call tag, awk, in situations where I might otherwise call on several in the pipeline. +Your comments is a good reminder that if something will be better, instead of automatically assuming that one tool or sets of tools will be faster than other. +Whiskey Jack says, reply to Vance on awk in HBR4657. +awk is another extremely useful command to know in terms of improving performance, in case where you might otherwise need to use loops. +I don't have any relevant numbers at hand in this instance, but I know that I have increased performance very significantly by structuring an algorithm to allow use of awk. +The history of awk may be a good subject for a Unix curio episode. +Expect would be another good command to cover as well. +I have used this for scripts login to test VMs over SSH in cases where SSH wouldn't work for some reason. +Then the next day we had an episode by Whiskey Jack himself, audio revisited. +This is a follow-up to the series on Simple Podcast show with the result of filtering experiments. +Experiments responds to quite a bit of the feedback he got on other apps. +No comments there for that. +Command line fun, where Kevi uses FFmpeg record an episode for HBR. +Two comments. +Candy Canator says, FFmpeg encatenation is frustration-fusing. +But according to the wiki, with a link, you can just use FFmpeg-F, CONCAST-I, listoffiles.text, output. +For some reason, it forces you to use files. +That's a list of file names instead of being able to use a glob. +But it works pretty okay. +Whiskey Jack says, +When concatenating audio files using FFmpeg, you can create text files using the audio file with printf, space, or double-quote, file, space, single-quote, percent, s, single-quote, forward, slash, n, double-quote, space, asterisk, dot, flack, pipe that, or redirect that in a pod, seglist, dot, text, and then use FFmpeg.f, on cat, dash, safe, space, zero, dash, I, pod, seglist, space, full pod. +If you're using SOX, you can concatenate the files using the following SOX, it's asterisk, dot, flack, full pod, dot, flack. +I covered concatenating audio files using FFmpeg in HPR 4608 in my series on simple podcasting. +And these examples are in the show notes as reference for anyone who's interested. +The FFmpeg list file is probably useful for cases where you want to order the files manually rather than shell-globbing order. +If it turns out to be a double post for the subject, the electric power went out just as I was attempting to send it the first time, so I didn't think the first one went through. +It all got sorted. +The next episode has no comments, but it's from Ahuka in his series on science fiction about Robert A. Hyland and Future History Part 1. +And as always, excellent links in the show notes and the entire blog post from Ahuka's own blog has been copied over here for your reference. +Nice episode. +I'm really enjoying these. +Unfortunately, adding more and more stuff that I have yet to read to my list. +Not only that, all the Doctor Who episodes are piling up on me as well. +The following day, we had laptop computer woes or how I learned to love my tech hoarding. +There you go. +Another saves the day. +Claudio Miranda. +We're all guilty of it. +And this one base. +Claudio is able to repair his by basically grabbing parts from other laptops. +Candy Caneater says, uses smiley face. +I'm always nice seeing a repair when, especially if it's done with the parts. +We feel justified for refusing to get rid of any of my devices. +X-Man Monk says, great show. +Hey, Claudio. +Great show. +Enjoy hearing about BSD, even if it's hardware related. +Claudio replies to these guys. +Thanks for the comments. +Feel good to be able to use what I had left over parts in the repair device still in action. +By the way, the update on my Evo laptop. +My son's grandfather was able to find the problem. +A shorted MOSFET caused by a blown cap? +Interesting. +He tested with one E had on hand and it turned on and booted. +Once he finds a MOSFET with the correct rating, it should be back in action. +Yes. +We love this. +What are the answers I need to the questions I don't know to ask? +Antoine asking us the hard questions. +Nice little show. +I'm surprised there haven't been more comments about this, but it could be that it's approaching +some notifications here in the Northern Hemisphere. +But as always, an interesting life. +The following day, we had another episode where there are no comments. +It was on my journey to the hallway track at Tidos. +And I'd like to thank everybody there for putting on such a fantastic, welcoming event. +It was really, really, really enjoyable. +I was super tired after it. +I don't think I'm still over it, to be honest. +But it was absolutely fantastic and I really enjoyed it. +Definitely going back. +The dude responded to our not having a lot of shows by adding a show himself on the no-input +tutorial on how to build a drone box. +There were no comments on this, but I had seen episodes on what a drone box was. +I kind of knew of it in a roughish sense, but this was a good explanation of what it is +and how to build them. +With two YouTube video links there to give you more of an explanation. +Then we had Lee talking to Benno about Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game, +and how much he enjoys playing it and stuff. +Ironically enough, on the very day where it was announced that Pokemon Go training +was going to be used to train military drones. +Yeah, so there's no comments on that one. +How I got into tech, and this is the first one. +First Show by Leonard, describes the computers that he used, what he ran, and what he liked +about them, as he seems to have a love affair with Forth and Why Not. +Gen 2, IBM PCs, the Latte, Latte, language transforming techs, never heard of that. +Joe's own editor, I used that in college, actually, not a million miles from Nano. +Wendigo says, nice to meet you. +Thanks for the introduction, Leonard. +I really enjoyed hearing about your path through computing. +Although, it was very amusing that you thought you arrived to computing late, +as you predated my own introduction to computing by a decade. +Looking forward to hearing your next episode. +Candy Canator says, hello. +I like this episode. +It's nice to see other people's introduction to the hobby. +I agree with Wendigo. +That is amusing you got into it late, since I also got into computing much later. +Vance coming in here again with Unix Curios Part Printf. +I found this episode, personally, very revealing, because I had been following, +I had seen it coming up recently, and I started using Printf, +but explored a few gotchas in there about the use of the command +when it is and isn't safe to use it in comparison to Echo. +Brilliant show notes, as always, with these shows, +and lots and lots and lots of reference. +Candy Canator says, learned something I had no idea. +You could use percentes with multiple arguments, +the same line multiple times. +That would definitely be useful for some bash scripts. +I personally moved to using Ruby for my own scripts, +but I still really cool to... +Introduction to Ruby there. +Candy Canator, thank you very much. +Here, first episode. +Hi, I'm doing an episode on... +Don't forget to introduce yourself. +Tell us what Ruby is, why we might want to use it, +what platforms it's available on, +and a basic Hello World script. +Whiskey Jack, comments. +Oh, here again. +Whiskey Jack 467 Printf. +This is a very interesting series. +I hope that you will continue with it. +There are a few other very useful things +that you can do with Printf that I've made use of. +In a previous episode, you mentioned +that if you wish to concatenate several audio files +into one using FFM page, +create a file containing the names of the files, +plus the little text. +You could write a loop, +writing out each line of the file one at a time, +or you could use a single Printf command as follows. +Printf, colon, double quote, file, space, single quote, +present, S, single quote, forward slash, N, double quote, +Asterix, the flag, inter, pod, say, dust. +This will create a file consisting of multiple lines of text, +each in the form of the word file, +followed by the name of the file, +and then the no loop is necessary. +Another example came up with something +that I had worked on yesterday. +I need to print a floating point time value +by combining separate seconds and millisecond numbers. +However, the millisecond numbers is not zero padded on the left, +so this will give the incorrect value if used as is. +It is readily solved, however, by using Printf +with the zero pad the number. +Padsec equals dollar open bracket, +executing a command in there. +Printf, single quote, percent, zero, six, single quote, +and then the variable time sex, close, expansion. +So it would convert time sex and prepad it. +I was able to take the result +and append it to a string containing the time in seconds +followed by a decimal separator +and then the padded time in microseconds. +It is things like this that makes shell scripting fun to you. +X-Man Monks has another great show. +Thanks for all your work on these episodes. +Lots of good info about Printf. +I usually fuzz around with Echo +to get it to work on my machine, +but may not work on others. +There are good reasons for using Printf instead. +The next day, we had Whiskeyjack +with nuclear power technology follow-up on safety. +And this was in response to questions +posed by listeners on the comparative safety +of different energy. +This is an absolutely excellent episode +as he discusses in detail +the difficulty of comparing apples with apples, +apples with pears, +or in this case, +the different type of electricity generation. +And also brought into account +things that I hadn't considered +about the dangers of dams collapsing +and well worth a read +and a very interesting conclusion, +which I won't spoil for you here. +Then the next day, we had HVR Beer Garden. +Super strong burgers. +Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. +This, I love the fact, +hearing the history of these beers +and where they come from. +Great episodes. +It's nice to see Paul is joining along +quite often at these shows. +The next upcoming beers +that they're going to be doing +is a double IPA, +Belgian Blonde, +and double dry hopped IPA. +As far as I'm concerned, +the Belgian Blonde. +Not a big hop fan. +Although, interestingly, +we grow hops in our back garden. +On the 26th, +we had Playing Civilizations Part 5, +Part 13, +and of course, +by a hookah. +And this time, +he was playing +Diplomatic Victory Part 2. +Trades and luxuries, +buildings, +wonders, +social policies, +and merchant cities and stuff. +I find these interesting. +Not that I'm into gaming or anything, +but I really am enjoying this +as that I don't get the deal +or never sit down +and play that game. +On the 29th, +we had an operator +with Protocol AI, +decentering Google, +local known, +the RAG versus +the RIP prep debate, +and building a protocol AI. +And RAG is +Retrieval Augmented Generation. +This was a nice episode. +Good to see the show notes. +I strongly suspect +they're AI-assisted, +but it's actually quite good. +It's no harm. +It gives, +goes happy enough with it +and happy enough +to release it as Creative Commons. +So I think we'll go with that. +So a good episode here. +And I like, +I'd like to actually hear more +about local AI model. +Clearly, +this very thing. +Preferably free, +Libre, +open source ones +that we could run here +locally +on our own machine. +Time is not, +it's not the issue. +We're ruling off solar power +in the background, +so it's not an environmental waste. +And we could use that +to produce show notes +for older episodes +that have not as much attention +to the show notes +that we have today. +So, +get on that, folks. +Send me in some shows +on that time. +The next, +and possibly, +yes, +the last show of the month. +I just squashed there two +from Tidos. +Hey, mum, +I'm on Spotify. +It was either that +or a show from the Reserve Queue. +So I wanted to get this. +Thought you might be interested +in hearing my presentation +that I gave about HPR. +I wanted to have a template talk +about HPR as a project. +And this was an excellent opportunity +to give that +in a safe environment. +But it might be a template +that other people +who are giving presentations +on HPR. +I would love your feedback, +listeners, +to this show +if you could go back +and just listen to that presentation +and some tips and tricks. +Don't worry, +be constructive criticism. +I will hate you for it, +but I'll get over it. +But I do want to put +a presentation together +about what worked. +I found that at the booth, +this presentation, +I was able to answer +any of the questions +that I was given. +And that's from my experience +as at other booths as well. +So I was happy to see +that when people came +to the booth, +I could just simply +fast forward +in the presentation +to that slide +and be able to, +you know, +give people +the information +that I wanted +them to have. +Well, that was all +the shows +for this month. +So we, +there were some +comments on +previous episode. +One from +2024, +August, +and it was +by Bob. +No, +the show was +by Bob, +and Jan +sent a comment +to Bob was saying +downloading +out of copyright +music using +tour proxy +with YouTube +DLP, +YT DLP +to get +the movies. +And Jan +says subtitles. +If you want +the subtitles +as well, +you can add +a write, +dash dash, +write dash +subs, +space, +dash dash, +sub dash +format, +space SRT, +and then the proxy +bit. +That was that. +Then we had +on +ham radio +licensing +by Lee. +We had +RJ saying +very interesting +as always. +Very interesting +show as always. +I love your +podcasts. +I'm new to +HBR, +just found out +about it a +week ago, +a few weeks +ago, +and you've +been the one +I know I +can always +go to for +an interesting +show. +It's uppity +down thing, +a technical +term for the +test of +an aerial +smiley face. +And RJ, +don't be afraid +to send in +your first +introductory +show to +us. +We would +love to +hear that. +Lee, +of course, +responded +saying, +Aireals, +thankfully, +the foundation +exam is +multiple choice, +but this is +important to +recognize the +following terms. +Pointy signal +spiky bit, +long wire +dangly-doo, +metal linear +wave catch +amoebob, +bendy frequency +rubber stub, +wire stretchy-poo, +scrubbing prong +amoebentig. +He's cracking me +up. +Oh, +okay. +Next one, +we had +responses to +comments on +HBR4424. +And Archer72 +says, +not quite a +complete script. +If you guys +have gone off +on a debate +that could have +been a show, +I will get +very, +very annoyed +with a complete +script. +Six. +Last question. +Ken. +Hi, Ken. +I did some more +testing and the +script is not +quite ready. +Breaks on +some renamed +files leaving, +for example, +hbr1234.org +in Pogboat. +I'll try again. +Whiskey Jack +says, +in response to +this episode, +I have been +following the +saga on the +download podcast +violin. +I'm still +confused now +as ever when +it comes to +understanding +what this is +all about. +I still don't +understand why +Newboat needs +to come into +the picture. +I use a +crime job to +run a +bash. +Because it's +the podcaster +that he's chosen +to use. +We can't +all decide +to use +VI and +leave +Emacs +out of +the picture +or Nano. +Anyway, +back to +this comment. +I use +a cron job +to run +a bash +script to +automatically +download podcasts +and be +hbr. +They just +appear in +a directory +that I +have set +aside for +all the +new +podcasts. +When +some +podcasts +have +rubbish +audio +filenames +in their +RSS, +I have +that +have to +be +fixed. +HBR isn't +one of +them. +The URL +is just +fine. +What you +need to +do is +extract +the +audio +filename +from +the +RSS +fee +using +something +like +base +name +and +then +specify +the +name +to +wget +in the +dash +O +option +for +output +filename. +The result +is the +name +such as +hbr4644.mp3 +being saved. +No after +the factory +naming is +necessary. +I'll do +an episode +on a +simplified +version +of what +I use +for +hbr. +The next +dot I +can use +is in +July. +So you'll +have to +wait till +then. +You'll +also go +to the +future +feed +comes +in. +Whiskey +check +R272 +responds +to +Whiskey +jack +saying +I tend +to go +down +a rabbit +hole +and +this +is +one +of +them. +After +a quick +response +to +Ahmed +I +decided +to +try +a +fix. +This +is +further +proof +that I +am +not +a +programmer +and +should +not +be +asking +too +many +questions +AI. +Still +it +was +a +fun +endeavor +for +me +and +I +see +it +to +see +where +I +went +wrong. +Thank +you +for +the +constructive +critique +and +hope +to +hear +your +next +episode. +P.S. +A +useful +reason +to +rename +the +episodes +is +a +project +I +may +talk +about +later +when +use +rock +battles +on +an +iPod +classic. +Titles +show +as a +file is +easier +to +see +than +what +I +want +to +listen +to +than +HPO +122. +Sorry +about +that. +That +kind of +makes +sense +just +to +instead +of +the +HPO +with +the +episode +name +or +the +episode +title +which +I +get. +Whiskey +Jack +says +response +to +Archer +72. +If +you +want +to +get +the +episode +title +on +the +HPO +podcast +episode +and +use +it +to +modify +the +name +further +you +can +do +that +by +extracting +a +tagging +a +file +using +ID +on +Debian +derivatives +I +believe +comes +with +an +ID +package +this +hands +in +V1 +as +well +V2 +tags +I +will +add +a +script +I +am +currently +writing +Archer +says +ID3 +hi +Whiskey +Jack +cool +can't +wait +to +hear +that +I +will +also +say +that +guys +use +the +RSS feed +you get +the +RSS feed +there +you can +use +XML +Starlet +and then you +have the +file name +and the +actual full +path to +the file +you don't +need to +look in +the +metadata +you can +it's +interesting +to see +what +people +will do +about +that +did +I +just +sign +myself +up +for +a +show +there +I +think +I +I'm +not +surprised +if I +haven't +already +done +it +I +would +have +to +ask +our +personal +HP +bot +AI +bot +what +I +did +at +work +today +Ken +Fallon +says +this +is +a +show +from +Lee +part +section +love +PHP +said +I +great +episode +I +agree +with +your +views +on +how +nice +PHP +is +those +of you +drives +our +website +trying to +move +again +reference +there +Ruby +to +the +episodes +on the +topic +see what +I did +there +and +the +last +comments +in this +month's +show +R2 +playing +Civilizations +part +by +Ahuka +where +Antoine +says +tearing +and +happiness +if I +could +ask +why +puppeteering +other +states +reduces +internal +happiness +could +it +be +explained +by +the +perception +of +wasting +internal +power +without +the +benefits +of +the +population +if I +could +note +marvellous +building +for +Austria +the +coffee +house +25% +the +generation +of +grape +this +tells +a lot +about +the +reality +of +coffee +or +the +perspective +of +the +developers +here +is +a +non +player +the +size +of +a +cadence +make +them +pleasure +to +even +without +prior +knowledge +thanks +exactly +what +Antoine +says +thank +you +Kevin +replies +that's +the +algorithm +I think +the main +reason is +that the +algorithm +reduces +happiness +your +population +goes up +and the +number +of +cities +goes down +now I +can tell +a story +about how +large +sprawling +empires +tend to +not pay +attention +to desires +of the +average +citizen +and that +was +plausible +I +reckon +that Rome +did +reasonably +well +for a +few +centuries +nonetheless +Anton +says +number +two +thanks +that +helped +my +understanding +that +was +pretty +much +it +for +the +comments +and +the +only +feedback +was +from +moi +and +that +was +related +to +this +HBR +community +news +and +we're +just +saying +that +we +are +in +the +other +business +section +which +advantage +of +we +will +be +closing +open +the +repo +and +we're +also +putting +together +a +plan +for +a +Dockerfile +for +the +event +several +a +hosting +on +their +home +network +so +having +a +Dockerfile +for +that +so +I +put +an +architecture +note +together +I +wrote +it up +expanded +it out +so +there's +various +different +little +bits +to +it +people +want +to +contribute +to +that +field +too +and +that +of course +is +it +for +this +again +apologies +to +your +host +of +the +show +Kevvy's +on +holidays +waving to +you over +there +Kevvy +you're having a nice time +following my +master +cariously +through you +and +thanks to the +people who +volunteered +to the +apologies +again for +what happened +loved ones +is having +a little bit of +requires +drop of the +hat +action +on my +part +anyway +tune in +tomorrow +for +what no +doubt +will be +another +exciting +episode +of +Hacker +Public +Greed +Thank you. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4677.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4677.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f225f03 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4677.txt @@ -0,0 +1,142 @@ +Episode: 4677 +Title: UNIX Curio #10 - Checksums and Hashes +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4677/hpr4677.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:38 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4677, for 2026-07-07 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #10 - Checksums and Hashes" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:18:21 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Another way to compare files" +Hi there. I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number 10. This series is dedicated to +exploring little known and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of +Unix-like operating systems. In Unix Curio number 8, that's Hacker Public Radio episode 4657. +I talked about using standard utilities to compare files. Left unmentioned, however, was a +method commonly used today, the hash function. As I've stated in previous entries, +while I am an engineer, I don't have a background in computer science, so my understanding of the +mathematics is limited. But I can give a practical description of what a hash function does. +It takes an input, performs a set of calculations on it, and produces an output. +As hash functions are practically used, the input is a set of bytes, +such as a file or another piece of data like a password. The output is a numerical value in a fixed +range. Most often expressed as hexadecimal characters. Because this hash value +can always be represented in a certain number of bytes, its length as printed is usually a +constant number of characters, padded with leading zeros if necessary. +This episode will not cover the use of hashes in programming, focusing instead on using them to +validate data. A hash function, or more specifically, a cryptographic hash function, +has an additional property. It should be very difficult to predict what changes to the input +would be required to produce a specific change in the output. +An older related concept is called a check sum. While these are designed to vary, +when the input data is damaged, or digits are transposed, they do not necessarily +have that last property mentioned for cryptographic hashes. You have probably already encountered +a check sum, even if you didn't recognize it. On a 16-digit number assigned to a master card or +visa credit or debit card, the first six digits identify the card issuer, such as a bank, +the next nine digits are assigned to you by the issuer, and the last digit is a check digit. +The check digit is calculated using the values of the previous 15 digits, and it is a simple way +to avoid typos in entering a card number. In another example, every Ethernet frame that your +devices send or receive includes a check sum to help ensure that the contents weren't scrambled +in transit. This is 32 bits long and is called a cyclical redundancy check commonly referred to as a +CRC. A CRC is also used in many other places. For example, the zip file format includes one for each +archive member, and this allows a program extracting files from the archive to identify if any were damaged. +Our Unix Curio for today is another example, the CK sum utility. That spelled CKSUM or in the +phonetic alphabet, Charlie Kilo, Sierra Uniform, Mike. It generates a 32-bit CRC based on the Ethernet +algorithm. It operates on either a named file or standard input, and outputs the CRC value, +the length of the input, and the path name if a file was given as an argument. +Unlike most modern hashing programs, the check sum is printed as a decimal integer and is not +padded, so it can be anywhere from one to ten digits long. The length value is the number of bytes +in the input. Actually specified as the number of octets, as systems could potentially use a +byte that isn't 8 bits long, and this value is also expressed as a decimal integer. +There are two major ways that one could use CK sum to check the validity of a file. +First, if you are transferring a file from one Unix-like system to another, you could run +CK sum against it on both systems and check that the CRC and length are the same. +The utility can also be given multiple file names as arguments, which would generate a list that +can then be compared. The second way would be for someone publishing a file or set of files +to also publish the CRC values, lengths, and names so that people downloading them could verify +that they match. However, I don't think the practice of publishing lists like this +really started until more recent hash functions like MD5 and SHA1 came about, so it is unlikely that +anyone would publish CRC values instead. The advantage of these tools should be pretty obvious in comparison +to CMP, one of the utilities discussed in Unix-Curio number eight. To verify a file using CMP, +you need two files to compare. If you're trying to check a large file that you downloaded, +you would need to spend the time in bandwidth to download a second copy, and then if they didn't +match, you would have no idea which of the two if either was correct. By contrast, CK sum is +quicker to run, doesn't require downloading a massive amount of extra data, and if run against the +original file, makes clear what the correct value is. This utility is a follow-on from a program +called sum, which operated very much the same. I had a bit of trouble tracking down the exact +development history, but what seems clear is that two different variants were popular, a BSD version +and a System 5 version. Both output 16 bit check sums, but used different algorithms, so they didn't +give the same results. Also, the BSD version printed the length of the input data as the number of +1,024 byte blocks, while the System 5 version instead gave a count of 512 byte blocks. +Some sources claim that System 5 sum generates a 32-bit check sum, which could possibly be true +internal to the algorithm, but I have tested several independent implementations of the utility, +and all of them output a 16-bit value for both the System 5 and BSD algorithms. +From what I can tell, the BSD version came first. It was in 3 BSD, but probably appeared even earlier. +An identical copy of BSD sum was included with Unix-32V, which was AT&T's 1979 port of 7th edition +Unix to the Vax, and became one of the ancestors of System 3. The divergence seems to have +started with System 3 released in 1980. Its version of the sum utility changed to a new default +algorithm, though it could be made to use the BSD algorithm via the hyphen R option. +System 5 looks to have kept the same behavior as System 3. It's not clear to me why this +algorithm is universally called the System 5 algorithm, rather than the System 3 algorithm. +Perhaps it is because System 5 saw much more widespread use. +Instead of trying to reconcile these differences, the POSIX committee decided to create a new utility +with a unique name, use a separate algorithm entirely, and avoid the block length dispute by +printing the length in octets instead of blocks. I should point out that POSIX states that the CRC +algorithm for CK sum does not strictly meet the mathematical definition of a checksum. +I don't know enough to say exactly why it doesn't qualify, or to say whether either of the sum +algorithms do. However, in less formal usage, the term checksum has gathered the meaning of any +value used to represent or validate a set of data, so I am fine with using it no matter the +technical details of the algorithm. When two different inputs produce the same checksum or hash +value, this is called a collision. Because the output value has a limited range, +there are an infinite number of possible inputs that could produce a collision. +From a practical standpoint, the possibilities are more limited. The majority of these inputs are +larger than the number of atoms in the universe, which isn't going to be able to fit on any machine. +Unlike a cryptographic hash algorithm, the CRC is not specifically designed to resist and attack +or crafting a malicious input that would cause a collision. However, it should be sufficient to detect +accidental damage. Programs implementing more modern cryptographic hash algorithms are superior +to the checksum utilities in avoiding collisions, whether malicious or accidental, but there are still +three advantages that the older programs have. First, a system running a historical operating system +might not have the hash programs available, but is more likely to have CK sum or sum already included. +Second, the checksum values are much shorter than the hashes output by the newer programs, +making them easier for a user to compare by looking at them. This advantage is not as great as it +might appear at first because a common way to check a hash these days is to save a list of hashes +and file names. The hash programs can use that and do the comparison themselves, +sparing the user from having to validate it character by character. +The third advantage is that CK sum prints its input length in bytes. +This greatly limits the number of inputs that could be maliciously crafted to create a collision. +I did a moderate amount of research on implementations of modern cryptographic hash algorithms +and found that sum such as MD5, SHA1 and SHA2 do use the length of the input +often termed the message length in the literature as part of the material fed into the algorithm. +But none of the hashing utilities present this length to the user as part of its output. +There are two possible reasons for this that seem evident to me. +First, if one is hashing a password, you would certainly not want to give a clear indication of its length. +That would give any attacker a massive head start on guessing the password. +However, it doesn't explain why one would avoid printing the input length for a file that is made +publicly available. Second, it is convenient in many contexts such as database entries or in +software such as Git for the hash to be a fixed length, including an extra value +that can be a variable length would complicate those use cases. +However, the length value could simply be dropped and they would be no worse off than they are currently. +Historically on Unix, password hashing was treated differently from check summing files. +The crypt function was used for passwords while sum and later CK sum were used to confirm a +files integrity. So even rather early on, these two use cases employed algorithms with different +properties, but I haven't died into the history enough to know how intentional this was. +My discussion in this episode focuses on the file use case, so understand that I am largely avoiding +the topic of password hashing. Digital signatures are yet another use case, one that I am just ignoring +entirely. Every few years, some security researcher declares a particular hash algorithm to be broken +and that everyone should move over to a new one, which generally has a longer hash. +While the larger hash space certainly reduces the opportunity for collisions, +this disrupts workflows, such as publishing information about software releases by email, +which still tends to observe a 78 character limit on each line, making it harder to include +a list of hashes with file names next to them. This is in addition to the work of modifying +software and scripts to use the new algorithm and managing how to treat past data. +It seems to me that publishing the input length along with the hash would make it far more +difficult to craft a malicious input that matches both, but I haven't found discussion of that +during my investigation. Perhaps someone out there can record a response episode for +HPR explaining that. Thanks for listening. I haven't yet written the next Unix Curio, +but there are a couple topics I'm working on. Keep an eye out here on Hacker Public Radio for +them to appear. If you have an idea for a topic or want to ask a question, +please comment on this episode on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4678.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4678.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..36b3693 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4678.txt @@ -0,0 +1,441 @@ +Episode: 4678 +Title: High Resolution Elapsed Time in Shell Scripts +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4678/hpr4678.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:39 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4678, for 2026-07-08 +Today's show is entitled, "High Resolution Elapsed Time in Shell Scripts" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:28:49 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Surprises encountered when measuring elapsed time in shell scripts" +In this episode, I will describe how to calculate elapsed time in bash or other shell scripts. +Well, this may sound like a very simple and basic thing to do. +There's a slightly more complex aspect to it if you wish to calculate elapsed time +to a higher resolution than one second. +There are many reasons for calculating elapsed time in a shell script. +For example, you may wish to simply report how long an operation took to run. +Another reason may be that you're trying to speed up a script +and need to calculate benchmark data to see how different alternatives methods perform. +What may seem like a simple task gets a bit more complicated +if you want to do it for multiple different operating systems, +even if they are all unix-related as we shall see. +Operating systems tested. +For the purposes of this episode, I ran tests on the current version of the following operating systems. +Elma, Alpine, Debian, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Resbury Pi, OpenSouth, +Ubuntu 2604. +Elma is a close copy of Red Hat that we can take as representing Red Hat style distros. +Simple, low-resolution timing. +I will start with the simple and obvious method before describing the less obvious ones. +This uses the date command to get the current time in seconds since the Unix epoch. +This is simply date that's D-A-T-E, space, single-quote, plus percent, lower-case S, single-quote. +Save this to a variable using whatever method you prefer. +For example, start time equals dollar sign, left bracket, date, space, single-quote, plus percent S, single-quote, right bracket. +Next, do whatever operations it is you wish to time. +Use the date command to get the current time again. +End time equals dollar sign, left bracket, date, space, +Quote, plus percent S, quote, right bracket. +Now, simply subtract the start time from the end time using shell arithmetic. +This should be very obvious and basic. +Higher resolution timing. +However, suppose we wish to measure time to greater than one second of precision. +We need to do two things. +The first is to obtain the current time at a higher degree of precision. +The second is to conduct the calculations to a higher degree of precision. +Unfortunately, the standard time precision for posit shells seems to be one second. +Some shells offer a higher precision, but others do not. +Furthermore, standard shell arithmetic uses integer, which limits calculations to one second of precision. +Bash, high-resolution shell variable. +Fortunately, Bash is one that does offer a high precision date. +If you are using Bash 5.0 or newer, there is a shell variable called e-pock-real-time +that is capitals, E-P-O-C-H-R-E-A-L-T-I-M-E, +which offers time since the Unix-E-Pock that is since the first January 1970 at zero zero zero UTC +in seconds to six decimal of precision. +Example, echo, dollar sign E-Pock-real-time +will give the result of one seven seven nine six three four eight zero zero, +decimal one eight four nine two six. +This is related to the similar Bash variable known as e-pock-seconds that is capitals +E-P-O-C-H-S-E-C-O-N-D-S, which gives the number of seconds since the Unix-E-Pock. +Example, echo, dollar E-Pock-Seconds, +to should print out an integer number somewhere along the lines of +one seven seven nine six three four eight zero zero. +So if you're using Bash, measuring time is very simple. +Easier script, however, actually using Bash. +Debian and derivatives actually have two shells. +The first, the interactive shell is Bash. +The second, the non-interactive shell is Dash, which stands for Debian, +Almquist Shell. +If you open a terminal, you get Bash. +If your script starts with a bin Bash Shabangline, you get Bash. +However, if your script starts with a bin S-H Shabangline, +you get Dash that's D-A-S-H. +Some people find themselves getting caught out by this one. +When they try something out in a terminal, +but find that it doesn't work in their script, +which started with a bin S-H. +Many other, but not all, +Linux-Tistros use Bash for both the interactive +and non-interactive shells, so bin S-H +and bin Bash work the same with those ones. +If you intend to use Bash, +make sure your script calls for Bash in the first line. +The shell variable. +So how can a script tell what shell it is running under? +There's a shell variable called shell that's capital S-H-E-L-L, +which will tell you the name of the shell. +Well, sort of. +On Debian and derivatives, shell will say Bash, +regardless of whether the actual shell is Bash or Dash. +On some other operating systems, shell will simply say S-H, +even if it is something else entirely. +So we need to do some additional levels of checking +to see what we have. +To start with though, here's what each of the testistros reports for shell. +Alma says Bash, alpine says S-H, +Debian says Bash, free BSD says S-H, +open BSD says K-S-H, +Raspberry Pi says Bash, open Sous says Bash, +Ubuntu says Bash. +Bash versus Dash. +First, let's try to see which ones are Bash +and which ones are Dash. +The first thing we can check for is the shell variable Bash version +that is capital B-A-S-H underscore +V-E-R-S-I-O-N. +Example, echo, dollar sign, Bash version. +If the shell is Bash, that it will report a version string. +If the shell is not Bash, then it will return an empty value. +Using this test, we can see that alma +and open Sous are indeed using Bash. +We however need to check Debian, Raspberry Pi, and Ubuntu, +when running an S-H script. +To check this, we can use the which command +this W-H-I-C-H +to see what S-H actually is. +Example, echo, space, dollar sign, +left bracket, L-S, space, dash L, space, +dollar sign, left bracket, which space, S-H. +Right bracket, space, pipe symbol, space, R-E-V, space, +pipe symbol, space, cut that C-U-T, space, dash D, +double quote, space, double quote, space, +dash F-1, space, pipe symbol, space, cut, space, +dash D, slash, space, dash F-1, space, pipe symbol, space, +R-E-V, space, right bracket, which space, S-H +shows us the path to S-H. +However, this is a link, so we need to use +L-S, space, dash L to find the actual executable. +R-E-V reverses the string, cut, takes the first element, +separated by spaces. +The second cut takes the first element, separated by +the slash characters. +The final R-E-V takes that string and reverses it again +to get it in the correct order. +In the case of Debian, Raspberry Pi, and Ubuntu, +it tells us that this is dash. +Open B-S-D. Open B-S-D reports its shell as K-S-H, +which stands for cornshell. +It is indeed cornshell, so we can simply leave that one as is. +Alpine and free B-S-D. +Next, we have Alpine Linux and free B-S-D, +which both report as S-H. +In the case of free B-S-D, there doesn't appear to be any further we can go that I'm aware of. +It's simply S-H. +It is a basic posic shell, which seems to be similar to the original Unix shell, +the born shell. +Older versions of free B-S-D use a different shell, +known as T-S-C-H, or the C shell. +But I haven't tested that, so I will ignore that here. +With Alpine Linux, however, we can get the actual shell +using the same method that we use for Debian Linux. +This report is being busy box. +Busy box is a limited shell, intended for use in embedded systems. +Alpine was originally an embedded digital, +but some people started using it for containers. +Alpine is Linux, but it is not GNU Linux, +and there are a number of areas which can trip you up if you're not aware of them. +So be extra careful if you're using it for anything +and test everything. +Summary of actual shells. +Here is our revised list with the actual shell used, +when asking for S-H, so far as we can determine. +Alma uses bash, Alpine uses busy box, +Debian uses dash, free B-S-D uses S-H, +open B-S-D uses K-S-H, +Raspberry Pi uses dash, +Susa uses bash, +and Ubuntu uses dash. +There are other shells, +but none of them are the default shell +for any of the distros on our list, +so I haven't tested them. +Solutions for measuring time. +Now we need to find solutions for bash, +dash, K-S-H, S-H, and busy box. +Bash. +For bash, we can simply use apoc real-time, +as mentioned above. +Dash. +For dash, we can use the date command. +This is a very conventional method, +and it's probably the first answer +that anyone would give for this situation. +However, while it will work in most cases, +it will not work in all cases, +so it is not a universal solution. +To use date, we simply call it with the correct format string. +This uses percent lower-case S to get +seconds to see apoc, +and percent upper-case N, +to get nanoseconds of the current second. +If you put a decimal separator between the two, +it will appear in the output. +You can use the correct decimal separator for your local, +but it won't go into that here. +Instead, I will just assume a period or dot. +Example, date, space, single-quote, +plus percent lower-case S, dot, +percent upper-case N, single-quote. +This will output a number, +which is the number of seconds as apoc, +and then a dot, and then the number of nanoseconds. +Problems with date on alpine and open BSD. +Date will work for bash, dash, +and SH on free BSD. +However, it will not work for KSH on open BSD, +or for busybox on alpine. +With busybox on alpine, +it simply ignores the percent and format specifier, +and prints out the apoc in seconds only, +followed by the decimal separator. +With KSH on open BSD, +it prints the apoc in seconds, +followed by the decimal separator, +and then the percent N as a literal N. +Fortunately, we have alternatives for these two cases. +Open BSD. +Open BSD has the TS or timestamp utility, +installed by default. +TS prints a timestamp in front of every line, +it receives from standard input. +I won't go into details on all aspects of TS here. +I'll leave that to someone else. +Instead, I will focus on how to use it for our specific purposes here. +We need to provide a format specifier to TS, +which in this case is, +quote, +percent dot, +lowercase as quote. +We also need to provide something for standard input, +otherwise TS will simply sit there +and wait for input. +So what we need to do is to echo nothing through a piped TS, +or also giving TS the proper format specifier. +Example, echo, space, pipe symbol, space, TS, space, +double quote, percent dot, lowercase as double quote. +This will provide the apoc time in seconds to six decimals of precision. +TS is installed in OpenBSD and FreeBSD by default, +and can be used in either. +It can also be installed in many other distros. +Busybox on Alpine. +None of the methods discussed so far +will work for busybox on Alpine though. +However, there is a way, +but it's a bit non-obvious and somewhat hacky. +Busybox includes a command called +A-D-J-T-I-M-E-X, +which I will pronounce adjust time X. +This is normally used to adjust the time hardware. +However, if it is run without arguments, +it will report the current settings. +These include the current apoc time in seconds, +and in another field, the time in microseconds. +These are reported as key value pairs. +So what we need to do is the following. +Run adjust time X as A-D-J-T-I-M-E-X, +capture the output, +grip for time dot TV underscore, +SEC, grip for time dot TV, +underscore U-S-E-C, +use cut to extract the time value in each case, +use TR to get rid of excess spaces in each case, +combine the two in a string +with a decimal separator between them. +This takes a total of four lines of shell script. +I will just describe them briefly here. +See the show notes for details. +First, we want to capture the output +of adjust time X in a single operation. +Run adjust time X +and pipe the output through grip to capture lines containing +TI-M-E dot TV underscore +and save this to a variable. +Next, echo the contents of this variable +and pipe it through grip, cut, and TR +to get first the seconds and then the microseconds +will also removing excess spaces, +save these to two separate variables. +Adjust time X does not zero pass the microsecond time value +to provide dating zeros. +So we need to take care of this using printF +before we can append it to the second value. +We didn't need to do this with date +where the percent n format character does this automatically. +In this instance, the printF format string is single-quote +percent zero-six D single-quote. +Now, combine these into a single number +with a decimal separator +by using simple string concatenation. +Summary of methods. +Let's summarize where we are so far in terms of methods +that we can use to get the current time +as a high-resolution number for Alma +or Debian with Bash or Raspberry Pi with Bash +or Ubuntu with Bash +or Susa use apocryl time or date. +For Debian with Bash or Raspberry Pi with Bash +or Ubuntu with Bash use date. +For Alpine, use Adjust Time X +and Parsee output. +For FreeBSD use date or TS +for OpenBSD use TS. +Other alternatives, +through a few alternatives that we haven't discussed yet. +Bash with Bash. +In the case of Debian, Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu running dash, +since Bash is available, +it is possible to write a separate Bash script +which simply echoes apocryl time +and then call it from the dash script +and capture the output. +Well, this would work, +there's probably not a lot of point to it. +If you can rely on Bash being there, +then just change the first line to the script +and make it a Bash script. +Adding Packages to Alpine. +The TS or Time Stamp Utility +is a common unix utility +that can be installed if it is not present by default. +This does produce high-resolution timestamps on Alpine. +On Alpine Linux, this comes as part of the more utils package +to add the package used the following. +Suedu, APK, add more utils. +You can also add the GNU Core Utils, +which will provide a high-resolution date command, +which works like in the other examples. +To add the package, use the following. +Suedu, APK, add Core Utils. +If you can install more packages into your Alpine system, +either of the above two is probably going to be preferable +to parsing the output of adjust time X. +Custom Time Stamp Programs. +You could also write a very short program in Python, +Pearl, tickle, or some other language, +and have it output the current APK time. +I won't discuss that here though. +Calculating time differences. +Scholar arithmetic isn't a juror only. +If we wish to use high-resolution timing data, +we need to do something so that we don't lose a precision +we have work so hard to get. +There are several possible solutions. +Change the time base. +One method is to change the time base from seconds to +Billy, Micro, or Nano seconds. +This can be done by simply multiplying the time values +by the appropriate amount, say a thousand, or million, etc. +Before subtracting them. +This allows for integer arithmetic on high-resolution values +without losing precision. +Use the shell, BC, Herbatory Precision Calculator. +The BC command line calculator will perform calculations using real numbers +and is easy to use in scripts. +It is present by default in most districts. +For example, echo, space, double-quote, scale equals nine, +semicolon, space, dollar sign, end time, space, minus space, +dollar sign, start time, double-quote, space, pipe symbol, space, BC. +Where end time and start time are variables containing time values. +However, for some inexplicable reason, neither debion +nor open sues installed by default. +It is present in Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi which are debion derivatives +and it can be added to districts which lack it. +Use, oc. oc can also perform calculations using real numbers +and it is present in dearly all districts including +and all of the ones we tested here. +Here's an example. +echo, space, double-quote, dollar sign, end time, space, +dollar sign, start time, double-quote, space, pipe symbol, space, oc. +That's a WK, space, single-quote, curly bracket, +print-f, space, double-quote, percent, dot, six, f, +back slash, end, double-quote, comma, space, dollar sign, +one, space, minus space, dollar sign, two, right curly bracket, single-quote. +benchmarks. +And of course, no comparative evaluation would be complete +with a benchmarks where we can see how each method compares to another in terms of speed. +In the benchmark test, I ran each method in the loop through multiple iterations, +measured the laps time, subtracted out the time from an empty loop, +and then compared it to the alternate methods. +For anything other than apoc real time, the empty loop time is negligible +and has no really fact on the results. +Rather interestingly, I came across a bug which caused date to run very slowly +called immediately after using apoc real time in bash. +The effect of the bug was to make the date benchmark test run roughly 24 times slower. +This has been fixed in newer releases, but if you're using an older gesture release, +then be aware of this bug. +I was able to get around it by either putting a sleep delay between benchmarking apoc real time +and benchmarking date, or by simply testing date before testing apoc real time. +To be able to conduct additional tests, I installed TS in Ubuntu and Alpine +and the GNU version of date in Alpine. +Apoc real time versus date in Ubuntu 2604 bash. +The apoc real time method is 3100 and 3 times faster than just date. +However, when the same test is run on Ubuntu 2404, when the date test is run before +the apoc real time test, apoc real time is 1,240 times faster than date. +Other Linux test rows show performance similar to Ubuntu 2404. +It appears that a side effect of fixing whatever the bug is as the effect of slowing down date. +However, this is probably not a significant issue in normal circumstances. +Date versus TS in Ubuntu 2604 bash. +The date method is 3.7 times faster than TS. +Date versus TS in Ubuntu 2604 dash. +The date method is 4.9 times faster than TS. +Date versus TS in free BSD as H. +The date method is 2.5 times faster than TS. +Date versus adjust time X and Alpine busy box. +The date method is 6 times faster than adjust time X. +Date versus TS and Alpine busy box. +The date method is 20 times faster than TS. +B.C. versus Ock. It Ubuntu 2604. +I compare calculating the difference between the two numbers when using B.C. versus Ock. +The difference is negligible with B.C. being only 7% faster than Ock. +Conclusion for benchmarks. Based on these results, if you need to measure elapsed time to high resolution +and care about running the command with as little overhead as possible, +then the order preference should be the following. +If you're using a newer version of bash, then use a Pock real time. +If that is not available, then use date provided it allows for high resolution times. +If the above two cannot be used, then use TS. +If you're using busy box and cannot install either GNU data or TS, +then use adjust time X. +Date is a closest in terms of being the universal portable solution, +but it does not work in all cases. +I have not compared different platforms to each other in terms of performance, +as that would be a much more involved problem that is outside the scope of this episode. +However, different operating systems implement commands in different ways. +For example, on OpenBSD and FreeBSD, TS appears to be an elf binary. +That is, it is executable machine code, possibly written in C. +On Ubuntu, however, TS appears to be a Pearl script. +As a result of this, the advantage that date has over TS is much less in FreeBSD +than it is with Ubuntu and likely other Linux tutorials. +As on FreeBSD, it doesn't need to load a Pearl interpreter to run TS. +Overall, conclusion. +You know, don't thought that measuring elapsed time was going to be so simple +and how could someone get an entire podcast out of such a simple subject. +And yet here we are half an hour later, with just a basic overview of the subject. +I hope you found this interesting and informative. +Please let us know in the comments if you think that I have done anything incorrectly, +or if you have another way of doing things. +I hope to see you all again in another future episode of HPR. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4679.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4679.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..514be21 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4679.txt @@ -0,0 +1,282 @@ +Episode: 4679 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 15 - Double IPA +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4679/hpr4679.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:41 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4679, for 2026-07-09 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 15 - Double IPA" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:27:45 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Kevie, Paul and Dave talk about Double IPAs" +Hello and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio and this is episode 15 of The +Beer Garden and we're starting to fly through these and it's lovely where the outside +given this is probably going to be a recent October about the rate we're currently going +but anyway we're still on the springtime beer shop so yeah but before we actually get into +what beer we've got I have got some guests hmm actually I'm seeing I've got some guests not my +show that I've got a two co-hosts with me you're hosting so you will you're kind of driving us today +so yeah and you just spoil the surprise for the rest of them so because of the surprise you'll get +introduced second so I am joined once again by Paul how are you tonight Paul? I'm very good thank you and +I'm very pleased to be in this episode because we're going to try a beer out which I have never +actually tried before so I can be your man off the street complete novice with this one so it +be interesting to see what it tastes like excellent and thank you for coming back once again +thank you for inviting me and we in case you just didn't hear and didn't recognize that +for a voice that interrupted me I'm also joined by Dave as always how are you tonight Dave? +I'm very well thank you Paul you may have noticed actually in the 14 previous episodes +I don't think heavy has actually once thanked me for joining him so you are incredibly honored +well did to be feared it was a really too much retask but like myself to get you onto this +what are you saying? I don't think we need a little as an idiot in college but +no you absolutely right absolutely right I have no recourse to take offense to that judgment or +whatsoever right in so what is it then we're going to look at well so far in the IP +range we've looked at session which was utterly terrible for me I am not want to go back to that +in the slightest last just IP ever looked at the was a triple IP so we're counting down the ranks +and we are going for that double IP so this as apologies is something totally new +term so this will be interesting to hear but this is not my turn to do homework Dave what did you +find out why you were swarting for this episode? Well the first thing I found out is I couldn't +remember anything that you said two episodes ago about the triple IPA so I'm sure there there is a +direct correlation between double and triple IPA other than the obvious double IPA it's a +a style I I really enjoy as cabbage stress it is absolutely no draw at all to select double IPA +for this episode and unusually as what normally happens when trying to find beers for the beer garden +I had absolutely no problems choosing or if off-finding a double IPA they were literally +falling off the shelves for me so clearly it's a popular and prevalent style in these ear parts +so double IPA what is a double IPA? It says here a double IPA is an intensely hot forward +beer style featuring seven and a half to ten percent alcohol content and a massive hot character +balanced by substantial malt backbone you can tell these aren't my worst kind of +creating surprisingly drinkable beers despite extreme hop intensity. +Double IPAs are also known as imperial IPA an American craft beer innovation pushing +traditional IPA boundaries through increased strength hop and brewing complexity +hope you remembered all that I'll be testing you later. The story of the double IPA starts in +around the mid-1990s when American craft brewers were looking to create an ultimate hop experience +whilst also maintaining the drinkability and unlike traditional IPAs the emphasized +preservation or balance the double IPA represents the celebration of the hop and artistic +statement about American brewing creativity and hop cultivation excellent. It does seem a little +bit unfortunate that we are falling to our lovely American cousins for a beer style that I particularly +enjoy. However, having said that it is great that we're seeing this very recent revolution in +brewing and technique and style the we're able to talk about today so this is this is good. +So the creation of the double IPA is credited with the creation of the IPA is a Vinny +how do you pronounce that? Sillert so or killer so of the Russian river brewing company +who was widely credited with creating the first modern double IPA in 1994 with an IPA called +the Blind Pig IPA later perfecting the style with the legendary Pliny the Elder in 2000 so you +she can tell it's really quite recent. Can I dig a guess here before you continue? +Yeah go on is this is probably most likely either California or Portland uh Santa Rosa +where Santa Rosa California yes yes you're right as I'm saying this that you know perfecting +the style in 2000 thinking it's quite modern actually that's 26 years ago. So let that sink in how +old I am for a moment. The double IPA style was quite groundbreaking for its time demonstrating +that extreme hop intensity could coexist with drinkability which is not always the case it's +trying to find that balance between the two through how the mults are applied and also how +properly and precise the brewing technique is. So double IPA is part of the PLL family but within the +broader alcategory representing the strongest and most intensive subcategory of IPAs. +Now whilst regular IPAs typically range from about five and a half to seven and a half percent +with IPUs of between 40 and 70 which is okay reasonably reasonably hoppy reasonably bitter. +Double IPA pushes that boundary to about between seven and a half and 10 percent ABV and I +use between 60 and 100 or at sometimes even more. The brewing approach needs to be fundamentally +different to achieve that level of harmony between the hopiness, the strength, the intensity of the +flavour but also maintaining the drinkability of the AL. As we may have discussed in reasonable detail +on the triple IPA I wouldn't have said that a triple IPA is particularly drinkable. I very much +enjoy it but it's not a drinkable beer and I think that's one of the reasons why +a double IPA is in triple IPAs are fundamentally different. Triple IPAs they tend to push the alcohol +beyond the 10 percent in some cases quite harshly but with even more hop character but very often +at the expense of drinkability. Having a much more intense beer makes it less drinkable. +Doesn't mean I'll not try but it does make it less drinkable. The popularity of the style +exploded in the 2000s as craft brew has embraced the more extreme brewing style and philosophy +and hop enthusiasts over the world demanded ever more intense experiences but today double IPA +represents both technical brewing achievement and cultural phenomenon symbolising craft beers +willingness to challenge conventional brewing wisdom whilst also creating a genuinely +enjoyable drinking experience. So double IPA in appearance is typically a golden to a +deep amber colour ranging from bright orange to a rich copper depending on the mults +and the brewing approach that was used. The formation of the head in a quality double IPA +can be persistent. It could be a white-to-knoth white foam that often exhibits a light +tan colouration depending on the colour of the AL itself. Covidation moderate to moderate +high sets here creating a lively effervescence that carries hop aromas effectively while providing +textural interest. The recommended serving temperature which I have fallen very far off +is between 7 and 10 degrees Celsius that's 45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit for those of us across +the pond. I'm getting thumbs up from both of my compadries. This is probably closer to about +15 to 20 because I did not chill this. So whether that brings out more of the flavors or +actually reduces the experience for me, we shall see. I'd have to put it beside the fire to get +15 to 20 degrees. Yes, well you will live out in the spot. I'll say it on this stick. You don't +have any sticks out there on either. You live in the middle of nowhere. You're very exposed +to where you are. I live on the far north western tip of nowhere. I think it close to +the far west and you are to us. Fair play. So yeah, that's pretty much all I found for +double IPA. There were lots of different sources and resources of that were pretty much telling +the same story. So I don't know whether there is much more I can add to that. Kevin, have you got +anything else that I might have missed? No, actually the only reason that I actually said to you +was this from Portland or California is because it won't think in general up until about 20 +years ago, 30 years ago. Really America didn't know for much, but it seemed to be an abruer +from Portland and California away. They really do push the bow. So anytime you get something +that's experimental, it always seems to be from that region. Yes, you do get some more now that +are some, there's more people coming out. And of course it's a new England IP, which is always the +east coast. But generally we do have a lot of to thank for the, I don't know, it's almost +a little push-toed waste. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, it will stick to our bugs and the +literature would ever on the push the note. And once they hit that western coast, they start, +whatever it will actually just start, but yeah. Yeah, because yeah, both both Portland and +California are west coast online. So, yes, interesting times. All right, well, I'm going to +shut up for a bit. Which of you two, for lunch and lunch and lunch, we're like, it's a crack +there, open first. Again, I want to use one of my American glass packs. So that is an American +IP Eagle Last. Okay. This one I've got to thank my sister for reminding that pack. No. Oh, +actually, before you crack that open, I did have some notes on glassware. It does suggest here +that you use a two-bit, two-lip glass or a large wine glass to consume a double IPA. I could +but I'm not going to change notes. Can't be bothered getting up. Fair enough. This one is you can +see them the video and not good for the ones who listen to podcasts, but it's kind of ribbed on the +bottom. And it's like a tall, tulip glass, but it's the stem is actually hollow, so it's not stemmed +as such. Right. So, though that I have got is from the Chromoty Brewery. So, the Chromoty Brewery +is north of Inverness. And this one is a man overboard double IPA at 8.4%. So, I'm looking forward +to this. Actually, I had a slide issue with this because other than double joker, I was struggling +to find anything locally with it on the double IPA front print of IPA's press session IPAs. Couldn't +find any double IPAs locally. And then I was aware the weekend and while I was waiting for the +fairly went into the Highland Licker shop in Ollipul and there at Whiskey specialist, but they do +have beers. So, that's what I picked this one up. So, this is Chromoty Brewery and Man overboard. So, +so, straight away, there's from the can that is hobby-ness. And there's a faint citrusy note, +not strong, mostly hobby. So, let's give this a pour. So, there you go. I kind of quite a hazy +kind of light down nice. Oh, no, from the glass, this is like a double bat. It's like a sweet and +sour. It's a no, it's actually more sour than sweet. It's a hobby-ness. And then you get a multi +on the back end on the nose. No, the fruits aren't there in the glass, which supplies me because +not only important in the glass, the fruits come out a bit more. Actually, I like a thieving on this +can. Obviously, Man overboard, it's just a side of a railings of a boat with a life boy. +Right. So, that's it, all going to the glass? Cheers. Looks like a good head. No, there's an initial +bitterness, which turns quite sour, actually. And then becomes sweet. On the back end, it's like, +the finish isn't too dissimilar to the castro super from last time. It's quite an alcoholic +sweet, toffee-ish of almost flavor finish, much more bitter on the front end though. There's +fruitiness in there, but it's not as I was expecting it to be a slap in the face, lemon, +instead it's more a kind of mellow orange, but it isn't there, but it's certainly not +kicking me in the taste buds. So, it's a bitterness that I'm getting. That bitterly almost +souriness. Yeah, that's really pleasant. I quite like that. At 8.4%, I don't think I would want +to be to be chugging that all day. It would last a long time, but yeah, that's nice. Excellent. +Right, so Paul would know, let you, what do you, God for this, okay? So, I can tell you a story +about buying double IPA. I tried to buy some online and was promised it would be here and it isn't. +So, I popped out today and went to Chester and I discovered Beaver Town Rumble in +waitrose. And in fact, they had two different beaver towns at this one and they had a +a hazy deeper double IPA. But I decided I'm not big fan of hazy beer, so I decided to go for this one. +Interesting though, when you look on their website for Beaver Town Brewery, they don't have +this listed on their website. So, it seems like it's something they, I don't know if made a deal with +waitrose that waitrose have exclusive rights to sell it or I don't know, but like all of the +beaver town stuff, you probably can have a Beaver town neck oil is fairly well spread. So, +very colorful graphics on the tin, very distinctive style of this. I believe they're based in London +Beaver town. So, let's give this a, I'm just slightly concerned. I don't know if he's going to +come out the tin in a hurry or not. So, I don't want all of my keyboard. Let's see what we get. +Well, no, we've good, we've good. You can smell the hotness from the tin, very distinctive. +I'm probably a bit like yours, Kevin, is also a bit fruity. So, I probably bought that a bit hard, +but it's a nice colour. It's clear. Yeah, that looks more like a kind of coppery end, does it? +Yeah, yeah. So, honestly, to me, it smells like an IPA, but we stronger hop overtones, +and it looks like quite a stable head on this as well. So, I'm not quite got everything in +from the tin. Let's see what it tastes like. That's really nice. I mean, it's kind of, +it reminds me in a way of drinking some of the Belgian beers, obviously, 8% by the way, this +one, 8% alcohol by volume. And it has that kind of like deval type of feeling when you drink it, +you know, it's that, but actually very drinkable, very nice, very nice indeed, fabulous. +What did you bring, Dave? Well, I have selected the north brewing ultra phase 8.4% +double IPA. Now, I'm just reading the back of the can, and the black sheep brewery is mentioned +on the back of the can. I've just been spending the last five or so minutes trying to work out +with the black sheep brewery and northern brewery are actually the same organization. +And I can't see any evidence to that fact at all, but I have had beers from both north brewing +and the black sheep brewery before. So, hopefully this matches up to it. I'm just quickly read the label +on the description on the label. All right, and you tell me with this sounds amazing or not, +a Luscious double IPA made with USA and Australian hops saturated. I will say that again, +saturated in honeydew lemon, green grape and pink grapefruit flavor with a lasting citrus finish. +I mean, to me, that sounds absolutely marvelous, but very often with these, you tend to get +a promise rather than an actuality. So, let me open this up. Hopefully, it won't go everywhere +like the last one I had did. No, I think we're safe. Well, it smells very fresh. There's a lot of citrus +going on in there, which was part of the description, and getting some of those sweety +fruity eromas as well. So, let's give this a pour and see what it looks like. Whoops, +bit lively. That's definitely part of the course. Yeah, so it's a little bit lively. The head is +persisting quite nicely. It is just minutely hazy. There's just a tiniest amount of hazy in there. +Almost like sometimes when you pour tap water, it comes out just slightly hazy, +a little bit de chalky, and then it just clears out completely. It just does look very similar to that. +So, sticking the old who to into the glass, and I was going to use my BFS glass, +the one I mentioned on the last episode, but I felt bad with both Kevin and Paul mentioning +their glass choices. I went and got my island of Harris brewery glass instead, which I still +have not broken. Did I don't know if I've had told that story, maybe for another day? +You have told it. Yep, I have, thank you. There's not a lot more coming out of the glass than +came out of the can if I'm perfectly honest, which a little bit disappointing, but we'll see what +it tastes like, and I will let you know. All the first thing is that it's in no way as bitter as I'd +expected it to be. That is really quite sweet, which is great. Flavor-wise, I'm getting the lemon, +that the melon, sorry, the honey's you lemon is definitely there. That I so would say at this stage +is the prominent flavor, what did I say green grape and pink grape fruit? I'm getting the grape fruit +as well, and a lasting citrus finish. So, I think it's almost 100% too early on in its promises, +which is very nice. As far as drinkability is concerned, this is very, very nice, very drinkable +in-date. I wonder what would have happened if I had chilled this slightly, because I know that sometimes +when you chill an ale, it kind of loses some of its texture, some of its flavor profiles, +don't tend to come through quite as well. But at the same time, you don't want to, you don't want +to want to want to be, nobody wants to want to be. Yeah, this is really quite pleasant. It doesn't +feel like it's an 8.4% ale at all. It doesn't have that associated boosiness to it. So, +interesting. No, I think that actually that's something that's been consistent throughout +the three of us. It's the fact that it doesn't taste that boozey, and I think the danger could be +if you had this on a hot day, you could very easily chuck that back. Yeah, I think it's definitely +feels a little bit stronger than a session IPA. So, I think you can tell, but like you say, +it's not like it's twice the A-B-V. No, no, it's funny. This one actually I've said it on my bit, +where you can see if I have got half of it in the glass neck. But there's the more I'm drinking it. +Initially, I said it was bitter, almost sour, then it went to a kind of sweeter, +toffee, and the more I'm drinking it, the more I'm getting bitterness, which is actually +making it more pleasant. So, it's almost going like bitter, sweet, bitter, and it's a lingering +bitterness. It's a lovely actually. It's funny. I think just because of the nature of it, +I'm still expecting that kind of citrusy lemony thing to kick in, but it does it's not the +other. It's it. I'm looking for it, and it's not the other. I think that's just down to past experiences. +My taste buds are saying it should be there somewhere. Yeah, this is full of bitterness. It's very nice. +Full flavour. I'm just reading the tin. It says a big west coast IPA with robust bitterness, +a piney and resinous character balanced by a bright citrus forward hot aroma. +So, it doesn't tell you what the hops are. I've looked at the can, and I think I have +freaking microscope, no glasses. It's ridiculous. I hate to say it, caviar's our age. +Well, I don't know. Look at it. That's tiny. Yeah. Well, this is like black on dark green, +and you can hardly read it. Oh, yeah, that's email. Yeah. Yeah, that's not great. +I mean, this is this is surprisingly easy to read, being the autofocus that doesn't work on this, +but on white characters on a black background. So, this is very senior friendly. I am an IPA +for the person who just wants more. I think that's his dark, but I don't know. It's in a +darker dark, piney hops. Hopefully it's done with a dark corpse, doesn't seem right. Does it? +It is dark. Piny and dank can work together. Yeah. It depends on how, how dank it is. +Cook, because I can't help it. It's the temperature. Thank is not normally good, though, is it? +Not usually. Oh, it can't. No, it can be. It can be. Okay. I'll take your word for it, +it can be. To bombard the senses, throwing your taste buds overboard. There you go. That's +actually what it sees. Now, this one does actually see us well. The hops. It says the hops are Columbus, +Sincro, Centennial, and I'm on a loop. So four hopes. Oh, actually, I'm just looking at this. +I just noticed that it's how sticking my glasses off. It's not got it very obvious, +but it's written. Actually, I wonder why it's not got it very obvious. It's written on it. +Winner of the world be at our words, world double IPA, winner 2017. So, this is not an +hubby at all. I've never seen it before. You're drinking an award winning. Well, yeah, +award winning there, award winning beer, award winning beer. Why not? Absolutely. I'm really +regretting not chilling this nail, and I don't know whether that's going to have a negative impact +on my score or not. Do you have a second one? No, I don't. Put it in the freezer for five minutes. +I don't know work. You could drop a nice cube into it. I don't think I'll be doing it. +There's not as stupid as it sounds. I'll take your word for it. I don't want it. +And we have some feedback. And this is on HPR beer garden number nine, barley wine shoe. +And this was put on by Elman. So we've got beer garden. I've had HPR in my feed for a long time. +Always hope for something will spark with me. Then you two come up with beer garden. And you +like what I like. I'm writing from Oklahoma, where a state legislator funded her Senate campaign +with money from the liquor distributor's next change for a monopoly control over what we drink. +But I think before the law changed, I had actually had some scotch silly. Anyway, +really enjoying your shoe. Thank you very much. Awesome. Thank you for that. +This comment was quite some time ago. So we weak must have neglected to read it out for a couple of weeks. +We've, yes, we've, we've missed it. Yeah. Right. Oh, I missed it. But I think it's because that's +well, it is from an older shoe. We that was from a January shoe. So, and if it was from a January +shoe, we probably recorded an event, but that is entirely probable, entirely probable. Yes. So, +if you want to give us feedback, then you can do just comment on any shoe. Just please bear with us, +because we do tend to as we just find out, because it's actually not just in them at times, +but we will get there. I mean, of course, the best one of the feedback you can do is record a +show. And if you actually want us well to record your own episode of the Beard Garden, +please fire on. This is not a reshow. It is a community podcast. If you want to get a hold of us on +untapped, then you can link with us. I will put the links in the show notes. As usual. Yes. So, +thank you very much gentleman for helping us out and joining in. I know it's a struggle, +but we do this purely for research purposes. That has got to be said. +When we are pleased to carry out this level of sacrifice on behalf of the community. Absolutely. +Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you would like to join us with your blood, sweat, and tears, +then you are more than welcome. Just re-choked to us again, probably. I mean, it's probably +the easiest way and we'll organize something. But just be weirdy. I mean, Paul joined us for one +show. And that looks like I'm sure it's a cool. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Just be weird. It may +well be a commitment. Yes. Do look up the meaning of the phrase hotel California. Absolutely. +And just as a reminder of what we're going to be doing over the next couple of episodes, +we do have two episodes still planned. And we will be doing some more planning in the +near future as well. So our next episode in approximately two weeks time, whatever that is, +we'll be Belgian blonde. That'll be our next review style. And then the one after that will be +the double dry hop IPA. So definitely things to look forward to. I have both of those. I have them +ready and standing by. And I will make sure they are correctly chilled by the time we come to record. +Oh, you heathen. I said correctly chilled. So not chilled at all. It's a collectually. +Whoa. No. 7 to 10 degrees. I think it said no. Yes. +10 degrees for the for the double IPA. Yes. Not chilled at all. And that's what I say. That's standard +up here. Can I just remind you, we do both Paul and I live in slightly warmer claims than you. Yes. +Well, so you can put your beer outside and it'll be perfect. It's true in about six to seven seconds. +We do have slightly warmer claims here. We actually have refrigerators. I don't think you do do. +No, that's what the battle assaults for. Oh, it's the joys. Right then on on that silly note. +Join us once again tomorrow. For another exciting episode of Hacker public. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4680.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4680.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa28e63 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4680.txt @@ -0,0 +1,134 @@ +Episode: 4680 +Title: Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 2 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4680/hpr4680.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:42 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4680, for 2026-07-10 +Today's show is entitled, "Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 2" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:13:03 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We continue our look at Heinlein's Future History." +Hello, this is Ahuka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode +in our ongoing look at science fiction and fantasy. And we're continuing with Heinlein +and we're going to do the second part of his future history. So the first part was in the previous +episode and we're just going to wrap up this particular thing today. Now there were a few key +themes running through Heinlein's body of work. One we have already remarked upon individual +freedom, which had to be protected from any source of power, including both government and private +corporations. Now this was essentially a libertarian perspective, but unlike many of today's libertarians, +he was equally averse to the corporate type of power as a threat. But he had a complex view of +the world, which has resisted some attempts to pitch and hold him. He started out as a socialist, +and while he didn't remain one, he never became an e-jerk reactionary either. In fact, he clearly +despised them just as much. One way of looking at his body of work is that he explored the ramifications +of different social policies through his stories. But in most cases, the needs of a good story +came first, at least in the early years. Now in his later works, he often surrendered to the temptation +to pontificate, which reduced the enjoyment of them somewhat for anyone who was not already +in agreement with his opinions. The second major theme you see throughout all his works is the +idea of the competent individual. He admired anyone who could do a job well, and clearly did not +care whether they were a man or a woman, nor a black or a white. As Alexei pension rights +in Highline in Dimension, Link in the Show notes, there is one unique and vivid Highline character, +but he's a composite of Jojim Gregory, Harriman, Waldo, Lazarus long, Mr. Kiku, and many others, +rather than anyone individual. I call the composite the Highline individual. It is a single +personality that appears in three different stages, and is repeated in every Highline book in one +form or another. The earliest stage is that of the competent but naive youngster. The second stage +is the competent man in full glory, the man who knows how things work. The last stage is the wise old man, +who not only knows how things work, but why they work, too. Now, Harriman, from that list, +we've already encountered in the man who sold the moon. The others appear later in various works of +Highline and we'll get to them. The Highline individual, as he has often referred to, appears in many +if not all of Highline's stories. A third major theme has to do with morality and religion. +Highline grew up in what he considered the heart of the Bible built in Missouri, +and saw firsthand how the evangelical Christians operated, and he despised what he saw, +as someone who believed an individual for him, he could never surrender to someone else's idea +of how he should live his life. He saw them as a danger to his ideal libertarian society, +and this shows up very early in his work. He personified the good, upright, church-going focus, +Mrs. Grundi, and while you might want to draw the drapes to keep her from knowing what you were doing, +you should never let her dictate how you would live your life. +Revolta in 2,100 begins the exploration of this in detail. Now, there's a chart of the future history at +Bang Books link in the show notes, and in it we see that the sixties, the 1960s, were what +Highline called the Crazy Years, remember he conceived this in the 40s and 50s. But in 2012, +the major thing occurred when Niemia Scutter, a backwards preacher, managed to get elected as president. +This would be the last election held under the U.S. Constitution as he established a religious +dictatorship that lasted a couple of generations. Now, is this plausible? Well, here's what Highline +had to say. As for the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a waiver of religious +hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable, +but there is a latent, deep strain of religious fanaticism in this our culture. It is rooted in +our history, and it is broken out many times in the past. It is with us now. There has been a sharp +rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs +theocratic and the extreme anti-intellectual anti-scientific and anti-libertarian. +Now, his background in the Bible belt is what informs a lot of his thinking. He goes on to +describe how this might happen. Throwing a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here +on earth had a dash of anti-semitism, anti-catholicism, anti-negroism, and a good large dose of +anti-fereners in general, and anti-intellectuals here at home, and the result might be something +quite frightening. Particularly, when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority +distributed as pluralities and enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington. +Now, as the science fiction author David Bren points out, Heinlein accurately predicted +much of what we are going through in the United States right now. There is an emerging dictatorship +in the United States promoted by right-wing religious groups. The material heaven here on earth +is represented by the prosperity gospel, prominent in the Trump movement and so on. +Where the profit used a restored Ku Klux clan as his muscle, we have the proud boys and so on. +It really does track very closely. Read David Bren's article for more oneness and there is a link +in the show notes for it. But nothing lasts forever. Empires rise and fall. Governments change. +And in this case, a resistant movement arises. The revolt is depicted in the novella +if this goes on, published in 1940, and it is set in the year 2100, giving the title to the book. +The main character is John Lyle, who is a young army officer assigned to the group, +protecting the profit in his capital of New Jerusalem. In the beginning, he is thoroughly +indoctrinated, but then begins to question his beliefs when he falls for one of the profits +virgins, sister Judith. He has an older companion in the military who is not only unshocked +when John confides in him about his doubts, but offers to help him. He turns out that this companion, +Zeb Jones, is a member of the underground group called the Kabald that is working to overthrow +the theocracy, in the end they are successful. And in the course of this, John Lyle does a lot of +growing up. In this we see another common characteristic of high-nine stories. A young naive boy +meets up with an older and wiser man who helps him grow. Now in 2016, that story, if this goes on, +won the retro Hugo Award for the best novella of 1940. And in a personal note, I happen to have a +t-shirt that says scutter for president 2012. This baffles most people, but I enjoy the end joke. +Now what is interesting in this book is that high-nine doesn't stop with a successful +revolution. He then goes on in a second novella to describe the government that arose following +the revolution. And this story is called Coventry, also published in 1940. +The new government that arises after the revolution is called the Covent. And it is an attempt +to make sure that what happened with scutter in 2012 could never happen again. It is a strongly +libertarian government based on an agreement to be non-violent. In this society, scientists +can cure criminal and violent tendencies, but any citizen convicted of such must agree to the treatment. +The alternative to treatment is that can be exiled to a place called Coventry. Coventry is +outside of the Covenant society and the Covenant society has nothing to do with them. +Now our protagonist in the story, David McKinnon, is convicted of assault and chooses to go to +Coventry instead of getting the treatment. He imagines it is a peaceful anarchy, but is +disabused of this notion when he has robbed of all of his possessions upon entry and then thrown +in jail. If fellow inmate, Fader McGee, helps him escape, and we learn he is an agent of the Covent +in government. They learn that two of the factions in Coventry have joined forces and have found +a way to break through the barrier that surrounds Coventry. They plan to attack and overthrow the Covent +government. David and Fader work separately to escape and get back to Warren, the federal government, +which they do successfully. And by doing this, David has demonstrated that he is no longer a +danger to the Coventry society and no longer subject to treatment. +Now this story won a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, which is awarded by the Libertarian Future +Society. And the Covent Society certainly has Libertarian features, but this is not the +Randy inversion of Libertarianism. As exemplified by the fact that David is restored to the society +because he demonstrated his concern for others. Heinlein always promoted individual freedom, +but also the idea that people have a responsibility toward others. Finally, revolt and 2100 +contains the short story, miss that, which we have looked at previously. +Now the past through tomorrow is a one-volume collection of most of the future history stories +and I put a link in the show notes for that as well. I say most because just which stories belong +in this group could change from time to time. It also has the last version of the chart of +the future history and a few stories we have not yet mentioned, such as Methuselus children +and the menace from Earth. And many of his other works contain back references to these events +that imply that they might be set in the same alternate universe. Heinlein gets the last word on this. +He said, I have never been sure whether or not publishing that chart was a good idea or a bad +mistake. Possibly it helped to sell some stories later, but certainly it caused me and still +causes me to receive a lot of nuisance mail from nitpickers. I have never felt bound by that chart. +He was to serve me not the other way around. If I found myself with a good story notion, +which fitted fairly well into the chart, but not perfectly, I shed no tears. I went ahead +and let the inconsistency stand. I want each story to be internally consistent, but I won't +myself be painted into a corner through trying to fit to that chart perfectly. I may start another +future history story tomorrow and find that to make it a good yarn I must violate some item on +the chart. I'll give it the nitpicker something to pick, for I will not hurt a good yarn for the +sake of logic. Logic is not involved as that chart is fiction, not holy written. +So with that, this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio. I'm going to sign off now and as always +encouraging you to support free software. Bye-bye. +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4681.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4681.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b104573 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4681.txt @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +Episode: 4681 +Title: My Disabilities +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4681/hpr4681.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:42 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4681, for 2026-07-13 +Today's show is entitled, "My Disabilities" +The host is Antoine and the duration is 00:04:06 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "(reading a story with more than two characters)" +Hello and to one, true HPR. +As a child, I was so fond of reading what I saw as beautiful, even when I above the understanding. +The perception of beauty came mainly from the cover and the fonts used, same thing today, +or from the place the book occupied on my father's shelf. +One of them was Twarak. +Furthermore, I took this classic from the home library, only to glance at the first page +with no interest. +It was only decades later, some years ago, that I saw the title again and read with pleasure +and no difficulties. +Not a hard read, even to a 12 year old, probably only the argument, the plot, didn't +catch me by them. +Anyway, I was attracted to the book, as if simply wanting to read it made me part of the classic +the intellectual. +I have less of this today. +Not the inability to read a lot of books, but the urge to be a consumer of certain +cultural product, maybe due to not greeting to build a personal image, content without +exposition. +Still, sometimes wanting to consume a piece of media and being unable to. +I wanted a story of robots, the book I thought was not available, so I bought one, one +of scientific fiction. +Some how it attracted me when I flipped the few pages of planet of exile at the bookstore. +An item that could lead me to a travel outside of this place, I'm scape. +At home, I immediately saw, I couldn't grasp it. +There were too many characters, too many equals to more than two in the first page, especially +when another atmosphere is invoked and new physics to grasp. +Too much information can't retain the minimum necessary in the way to the second, third, +fifth page by when more is being presented. +This was always a disability of mine focused on a little tiny thing, intensely for some +time, all lost in some weeks or months. +I know it happens to me because people are able to remember the names of the cards of the +movie cards. +Not an incredible feat for them, maybe they haven't paid attention, nor actively tried +to remember, only did, and something strange to me. +It was decided to register this today, because when I saw myself unable to read the Legans +book, I got nervous. +I've already been forgetting more, mutimately, take, confuses, steps, and now I can't +center on a book, what's happening? +But then, I took a breath. +Much can be going way too wrong, from current circumstances outside an inside, but your +limited comprehension of the road, and it's art, is very part of you. +This trace or frailty of her character is not your brain rotting, now, it's part of what +you have been since always. +Thank you. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4682.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4682.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b78cb5 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4682.txt @@ -0,0 +1,685 @@ +Episode: 4682 +Title: Behind the Keyboard: A Cybersecurity Operator’s Real-World Workflow +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4682/hpr4682.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:43 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4682, for 2026-07-14 +Today's show is entitled, "Behind the Keyboard: A Cybersecurity Operator’s Real-World Workflow" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 01:23:16 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "The presenter outlines a practical cybersecurity workflow, covering ergonomic setups, browser isolat" +Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of HectorPoke Radio. +It's going to be kind of another attempt at, I don't know if I've released the other one that I did or lost it, +but kind of what I'm doing at work and how what I'm not what my approach is. +So, today I have to check up on a test before I run it. +So, make sure connectivity works before I do it engagement. +I'm kind of going to start from the very beginning. +My feet are flat. My screen is actually too high. It's supposed to be at your eye level. +So, the top of the screen is supposed to be at your eye level. Mine's about the mid level. +So, my screen should actually be lower. Can I slam it down anymore? +No, so it's oddly too high. The reason it is too high is because my posture is so bad. +I have to put my elbows up almost shoulder length between my tip and my shoulder. +That's where my arms, my elbows are resting. So, I'm almost like a, my arms are out to the side. +I have a split keyboard. It's a freestyle. Free style too. I just bought another one because +maybe I've got an angry and banged on it and the Oki quit working. +Very soft keys, very nice. Kind of the higher end keyboard. +So, I'll keep already getting anywhere but this one lasted me four or five years, three or four, +five years, something like that. Then I have a curved monitor, 49 inch ridiculous thing. +And that's been great for games. Been good for work and productivity. +And I think I like it. So, I'm still trying to get you set. So, that's kind of my setup +ergonomically. I do want to do eventually. I'm still working on it. I need to take off quite a few days +to go full on. No keyboard, no mouse using an eye tracker and voice control. And I'm still working on beta +for testing for a GPU-based voice guidance. And once I get that, then I will have to worry about +CPU getting pegged and that will solve a bunch of other problems I've got. +So, anyways, what I have is I have talent voice running. I have a sync for my notes, which are +secure notes, which are insecure notes. So, plain text using Obsidian. And I've just did an +episode of Obsidian. I'm experimenting with getting off of Google Keep. So, trying to get +separating my notes and combining them to a more AI-friendly cloud-based fancy notes instead +of just plain text notes. So, I'm switching to Obsidian. Trying to try that to talk to +hopefully eye things. That's kind of my setup for notes. What else do I have running here? +AutoHackies, signal for personal messaging. And so, what we're doing here is I have +generally everything runs as its own user. So, I don't browse the internet as the user, the same +user I do my work stuff with. So, technically speaking, I'm using the work computer for personal things. +Like anyone does, I don't know if there's anybody that doesn't do maybe in a high security +environment. You might not have to do anything personal on your work machine, but they're kind of +one of the same sometimes. So, for me to mitigate risk, I have a single shared folder that +is called Delete actually. In that folder path, it's in a specific path, that folder is shared +between both the user, the normal work user, and the internet user that is a jailed essentially +user that doesn't have access to break anything, right? That is because I have, I don't know how +many plugins, I actually just posted them. And of course, I could do a show on this, but I will not +chat. The plugins I have, you can ask AI to give you a list of the plugins that you haven't +installed, which I thought was pretty cool. It's like, I don't know, whenever I tell anything to do +with the browser, I tell it to use this, the debug, the Chrome debug commands to do all of that, +and it'll basically have you run these crazy commands to debug to show whatever you want to show. +So, there's an about extensions, link, and then inside of that about extensions, you can run a +command, and it will give you all your plugins. So, let's see how many I got. It's not a time, +I'll just take a second. So, I'll have to belive, of course, let's usually cookies, usually I use +effort, deleting cookies, and deleting swords, cookies, things like that, and outside of the Chrome +debug, I could probably do it there. But I do it per bone domain, so it makes things a little bit +easier and kind of predates all the super fancy Chrome debug stuff. Both media downloader, excuse me, +that's a multi-threaded swarm, if you will, a downloader, a GRO, which is kind of, it makes titles +and thumbnails better for YouTube videos, instead of the shock and all, annoying ones. Their user created, +and you can tell at the picker random frame, I think, of course, read aloud, which is good. +It uses, I'm using, with read aloud, I'm using the super-tronic voices, which is kind of like +pocket voice, very lightweight, Texas, Texas, speech engine, great, very fast. Last pass, of course, +proxy switch. Wow, okay, sorry, my TTS is going off, because I click the button. +So, proxy switch, any kind of proxy switch, proxy switch or mega, that's kind of needed for +whenever you need to tunnel around. Things to get me as a free thing, I use Amazon's gift, +what was the Amazon's thing, a liquid letting you put random stuff on Amazon, so things to get me +having used in based on my voice. Ever seen for thinking bookmarks across multiple devices, multiple +user names, volume master, is great for amping in the volume on videos for whatever reason my volume +is always really low. Like YouTube videos or anything in the browser, for whatever reason, +global speed, video speed, controller, that one specifically is a very specific one, so +the plugin ID ends in I or end-to-go, no, I don't know what the phonetics are, well, +India, India, Fox, Fox, and I don't know what F is, Fox, try it. So anyways, global speed, +space, dash, space, video speed, control is phenomenal, because if you are doing corporate training, +or some kind of training that involves a video that you have to watch to the end, +about 80% of the time, I can click to make the speed like 16x, and I will get done with my training +16 times after. You can also download those, create a convert them to speech using whisper +and prioritization. I have a static binary on my site, it's under the scripts folder, it's called +like whisper diarization, if you want to try it out, it comes with all the, all the drivers, +bundled into it for Nvidia with CUDA Torch 12 in the support sector, so you can just run that zip +and extract it and you can do diarization and assign speaker names and stuff, and then you can convert +that to a summary and then you can do whatever testing you need to do. +Not that I encourage blasting through training things, but let's all be honest, I don't know +anybody that actually does any training and pay attention. So with that, I can get notes and actually +query those notes if I actually, an inquestion about a process or a specific compliance thing +that's that I'm questioning. And oftentimes, that is there, and you can't enforce it because +nobody wants to use the band hammer and nobody cares about security. So anyways, +security theater, as we go on, turbo download managers, classic version, and then I have turbo +download managers or third edition, which I think I need to get rid of the classic, if I'm mistaken, +and I know I've deleted their on one, so I have both of them on there. Rango, RANGO, RANGO is what I'm +using for voice based, voice based, clicking a button. So each element on the site has a little +monitor above it, and I can say a bit underground or whatever the words are, I don't know the +fanatics for talent voice, but you can say the fanatics for those, and talent and voice will pick it up +and it will click the button for you. I don't even know a fox, it sit, yeah, I think talent voice has +to be running for for this to work, because my mic is on. So anyways, that goes in the browser, +and it clicks, it's easy way to click button. So instead of using the IR tracker to click buttons, +I can just move ahead around a sponsored block for YouTube, of course, down a minute, again, +privacy banner, and a scrap fly, anti-bot detector, which I've been using to, I'm trying to make +it, but scraper slash AI error, checker tool, thing to help with this and that stuff. So the idea is, +I can use scrap fly to scrap fly to easily identify what sites the protections this site has, +and try and work around to work around those. So I've boarded you with all my stupid chrome +plugins, the reason I went through those is because that's a lot of chrome plugins, and that's a lot +of a text surface to worry about. So instead of worrying about that with my work account, +I run a jailed a normal user account on the system, and that user account only runs as the +browser, it doesn't do anything else, but run a browser. Technically speaking, if you had like a +VM escape, and you could like do a key log through that, or whatever you could technically cross those +bridges, but you know, that's not something I'm necessarily concerned about, I just don't do work +stuff with this browser. The other browser has three plugins, it has last pass, and that's pretty much it. +Brain goes on there, which I need to actually remove, that's not really secure, +so we remove that, and then pretty much other of the retail out text speech. Now, I also have a +script that will nuke the update servers. It's under fu.txt, frelo 101 GitHub. So if you look for +fu, that's fox, I don't know, unicorn. fu.txt, and then frelo 101 frelo 101. That's our own search. +I'm also playing with my own search that uses Google search, essentially, with open web +but I won't bore you with that. So we're going to go frelo 101 fu.txt, and it should pop up +up in the search. Yeah, and in here, there is a thing that helps you to help protect against +water and collect x. It also prevents the app from being updated, so it for like a better term +freezes the app. So it looks for a file called manifest.jjson, and that manifests.json defines a +lot of things, mainly where the upload URL, the update URL is. For that particular plugin, right? +So if and when these plugins get compromised, it won't matter to me because I'm sending it to +a nowhere place. Interesting enough, the first time I came up with this idea, I had so many plugins +installed when I ran it. I noticed very quickly that Google, all of a sudden, had like meet singles +in your area, I'm like, what? So basically one of the plugins I had that was to rip way back, +I think it was maybe flash or video content, some kind of video content, before I learned how to +do stuff with FFMPIG and different kind of packet numbers for the browser. Download the download +watcher that I use is called. Interesting enough, I didn't hear it in that list that I was talking +about. Yeah, but we did a downloader. I use for most of the URL stuff. Anyways, before I did that, +I use that and that particular plugin or extension had like if I can't phone home for updates, +just turn the plugin to spam addware. I was like, okay, that's kind of gross. That's, you know, +an interesting text surface to think about. So not only could these things get taken over, +they might have code in them to serve up ads, which is a problem in itself because a lot of these +ad companies are basically sleazy, dark corners of the internet. So that's an attack surface. +You have to also think about not only updates, servers can compromise. If these things are configured +to throw ads up, if they can't talk at home, those ad providers can possibly be compromised also. +So I mean, we're talking about extensions for browsers. It's pretty terrifying. So the amount of +power these things have and Chrome has done a lot of work to minimize that threat, but I'm not +going to ramble any more on that. Let's do something fun. So I've got, I've tested my access +to the thing I'm trying to do through using Hypervia, use Hypervia and Windows. I'm pretty much +all Windows now and all all into WSL and Windows virtual V Hypervia. The reason I am is because +you can pretty much do everything you need to do in WSL. It's a, there's some lag there, of course, +and you don't want to do like GPU stuff necessarily inside of a WSL thing, but it is possible +installing like, what is your tools? So what I'm going to do is I've already checked my VPN +access to make sure I can get to connectivity to work. What I didn't know or understand +is that I was supposed to check access to a particular host that I'm supposed to be doing testing +from. So I'm not doing testing directly from the VPN host. I'm doing testing from a +virtual machine inside of their infrastructure. So I'm looking for my notes, hopefully, +or in here somewhere, and there should be like a pad here. I don't think there is. So we'll go this way. +At a lot of these VPN clients won't let you split them up. They also won't let you connect to +using enhanced sessions in Windows. So the problem with enhanced session with virtual, the VM, +VM, virtual machine stuff for Windows is that they all want to use, you create a shortcut here. +I use Tera Copy and Windows for shortcuts and stuff. So I've been pretty happy with it and I +actually paid for it. It's good for copying lots of files and ensuring you can pick up where you +left off and it's a lot better manager. So I've got, I've guessed actually without the client telling +me I've done passive recon to figure out their VPN hosts. And unfortunately, there's a sell +areas, which is not particularly great, but we're going to just make that a finding when we're +doing our testing. So we've got connected to what looks like a VPN and then it disconnects me because +I did not uncheck enhanced session. The enhanced session is basically a RDP session to the local host +of the guest machine and I can't type my password. So now I have to re-connect to the VPN +because I did not, I did before I used the VPN client. I did not disconnect the essentially RDP session +to myself. So it's like a local RDP session to the client host. Now once I've connected +what I'll notice is that now my split tunnel is gone. I don't have access to the local machine. +I don't have access to anything. Now what you can do and I'll probably do this while I'm on the +form when I, I will use open connect. A lot of people don't block VPN access. So if you try to do +an SSH tunnel, it doesn't work. Try open VPN and that doesn't work. Try S tunnel. That doesn't work. +Try DNS tunnels. So there's a lot of, a lot of moving parts within these organizations and they +don't want to block third parties from being able to do their jobs. Nobody wants to do that guy. +So they might have the most secure system in the world but then they allow the +you to use open VPN to connect to any host. There's no whitelist thing. So there's like we +allow open VPN out and you'd be surprised at what types of places high security places allow you +to use open VPN to connect but basically negates the whole point of the whole thing. +So Windows and Cisco client does happen particular controls and it to force the client to do +specific things. But if you use a VPN and I'm getting a certificate error which is again, +okay. So now we have certificate from bubble block fail to trust this server in the future, +bubble block. Please complete authentication process in any connect login window, +no SSH tunnel or failed to complete authentication. Which I feel like means that they are enforcing +any connect stuff. So I'm going to take this and give it to AI and ask AI how I buy +it has it. So I say I get the Pintest prompt and I say how do I buy Pest? How do I buy this +this error? I want to make this a finding with the client. So the client gave me access to, +oh I can't. I'm just going to do a screenshot because the turn to copy and paste now I have to +do a bunch of stuff. So instead of doing that it's going to send it to a screenshot that is sanitized of +course because we do not want to be feeding the trolls. So I'm going to omit the the host name and +I am most of the key and I'm just going to give it that thing. So I say screenshot because I don't +feel like switching. How do I buy Pest? It's here. Miami, Miami do something in the background. +I also have local models I use if I'm going to do anything sensitive. I use local models because +my every time I start up my server the whole chat is wiped out. So basically anything that's +sensitive in my open web UI is going to get nuked every time I reboot. So there's no reason for +me to have any cash in there. I have no reason to go back and if I do want to keep notes I +you put them obviously and I'm sitting in. So I don't want chat history or any of that stuff +being in my thing. So here we go. It looks like it's going down the open connect rabbit hole +is which I want to do. I don't want to use any connect. It doesn't any connect to say what +it may be called fine. So VPN serves self-signed. Yeah that's fine. Whatever open is a +self-connect open. Love of a reveal it's first connect. Surfing a quick base since it's +before server hash. It says it only has an edge of the variety. No as a cell and saw open connect SSO. +Tell me to do like a pip install open connect SSO. So this is like a different thing. I wonder if +that's an app inside of here. Never heard of that. Open act SSO windows. Looks like a some open +source project. Installation. I don't really have pip necessarily. This is weird. Okay so +manual Sam, some will cookie injection works. P out protocol and you connect. Okay so open +connect V and then the host. So let's try to do that. Of course I can't copy and paste again. +Or so I have instances like this. I have a script that I can out of hockey. +Has a script if I do control Z. My controls my sorry. My control key is caps lock because +I basically have a couple at this point from doing control C control V control C control V for +18 hours a day. So now my control copy is control A, paste is control S or sorry. Copy is +caps lock A, paste is caps lock S. Some other hockey's are W and E and things like that. X I want +to use Z is to type what is in the clipboard physically right with a certain delay. So I press that +and I click and I hope that it happens. It does not happen which I've noticed with this. I killed the +I also have the same macro running on the virtual machine itself. So that's some of it on a test +of locally caps lock Z and we're going to see if it's typing what it's supposed to type. +Then it is it's typing it. So I would expect there's a delay after I so that I can click where I need to +click and it doesn't do it which is very odd. Usually that means you're not running as +administrator. You're not running auto hockey as administrator. So that might be it for this exercise at least. +I would say the easiest thing for me to do is I guess switch back to Enhanced Session. +Get the notes I need to put in there copied and pasted. So I switched back to Enhanced +mode so that I can copy and paste. So manual is cookie injection method combined one minor. +So I would bring all of this in and see if this works. Actually works with the host. +I take it back off of the problem with switching back and forth the Enhanced Enhanced Session +is that you have to, well again every time. Just kind of annoying. So I have my little command +that I might want to enable available off groups. Sure. Let's do what it says. +So I'm back on regular mode and I type things that is says the type or a copy and paste error +and handling command line, error and command line handling. I don't know if I click yes. +It might be just like a result of a result of the security enforcing of like this is +goes on something tells me that that might be problem. So I'm going to use dash protocol any +connect and dash server cert and use the hash that was given back to me. I don't want to hope +that works because this would be kind of a nice finding to have because when you can +that did not work at all. I got the ever popular when you put the command line in correctly. +It just dumps out the help. It doesn't tell you anything about the error message or what you screw +it up syntax. So I'm looking at no server specified. Well that's my fault because +I didn't put a server at the end. So that is my fault and actually gave me an error which is nice. +So copy and paste it again. I'm very anti type anything. I pretty much copy and paste every single thing +I can. So yeah it says no SSL handler which doesn't make any sense because there's no SSL built into +this just kind of strange. So once I'm, let me just keep going down this road. So jambri, jambri, +read or crazy.com. jambri is my little portable portable everything framework. +Wow really. jambri.com. It's a power cell script that gives you basically everything and one portable +thing and also it does not mess up your current environment. It resets all your current environment +variables mostly to just work. So I'm going to make a new folder for a client which is this guy +and I'm going to make a new folder for jambri. jambro, SSL because I'm trying to do this SSL something. +So from this power cell script I'm going to click it. I'm running the least one it checks +for the latest version. I'm going to click shell. Once the UI comes up it's a horrible UI that's just like +whatever. I'm going to click shell and it pulls down a number of things. It pulls down enter. +I can Android command line tools which you know you don't need that really. It pulls down java +and it pulls down hopefully the Python will come here in a second. The downloader I had to +fix here fairly recently because there's something weird with a specific website that was like +chunking weird. If you use the native downloader for Windows it's more for power cell. It's bad. +So I wrote or I had AI right one or I found one online and then I had AI right one when I had +problems with the downloader. So the downloader is pretty solid as it stands now. We got Python, +we got git, we got some extra libraries that we might not meet and we got we updated pip. +We are downloading npm and now I have a shell with java, git, pip, npm, node and +does it java? I'm missing one. Anyways so now I'm ready to go. So I can do pip install whatever is talking +about. pip install this open SSL open connect SSL. So I'm going to copy this +paste, can I not copy and paste, pip install, did I not, did I not unenhanced anymore? I'm not unhanced anymore +has my problem. I don't want to be unenhanced actually. So pip install open connect +SSL. So this is some kind of shim for open connect to handle any connect +single sign up. I had a guess. So I'm going to look here while it's installing. We're going to +educate ourselves. In the course I got a builder because Windows is awful at doing anything with +wheel, good.google.com. I'm using Google, I use these, I use these coggy, like 300 bucks a year for +their thing and you get a healthy amount of wrapper script exactly, wrapper script for open connect +supporting Azure, Sample 2, Authentication 2, Cisco SSL VPNs. Oh that's actually exactly what +Microsoft Azure's vizor creator is more required for this C++ build. So when we're +coming past this, we're going to go here, we're going to go to com and we're going to say AI mode +and we're going to get our free AI answer without even signing in. Right works, use to the installer. +So I'm going to pause and not bore you with this part and get this working first and then we'll go +over there. So I wanted to jump in here because I'm doing a someone posted to do a report review. +A problem with doing a report review and my current flow is that the text is speech engine +that uses supertronic for whatever reason doesn't like to run as +the just browser user. You might need admin to do the text, it just takes a really long time +exceptionally long time to do the text's speech. I'm thinking because it doesn't have, +I don't know, something about it running as a different user for whatever reason, +it's slower, I don't know why. So I have to actually, unfortunately log in with my regular browser +to do a report review and then I click log out when I've done. So I'm going to do a review of some +of the report, hopefully it's just a few findings so we should be good there. But I'll bounce back +and then we'll catch back up here and I'll tell you about some of the stuff I saw or didn't see. +Okay, so to give you an update, I'm kind of gone down, I have a whole like, helped the other +coworker. I went down a rabbit hole about memory and forensics, stopping a thing, and that was +about an hour, 30 minutes and provided some tools. I have on my website, a MimprokFS version +under the downloads folder that's for basically mounting in real time the Windows memory. They got +rid of some of the features and older versions of Mimprok. So the version I have is a statically +compiled version with the hash in the zip file name that has some extra stuff with some more +sensitive information in there. So getting around EDR and then also a MimprokFS and then when +PEMM dump, which is like a memory dumping tool that doesn't get picked up by EDR and then +Jamboree, which is my GitHub project, also has a button called Valtility3, which will +statically compile Valtility3 with you with a fancy packer so that it's nice and small. +That was the first change that I went on. Now, I'm on this sort of tangent to get this open SSL +thing to work with the test to kind of show that I can use a different +yellow wing here, so I can use a different tool instead of the Cisco tool so that I can +do split tonning tunneling. I don't necessarily, you don't necessarily need to do that. It's +most of the time you can do routing shenanigans with with an almost Cisco client, but I like to +show with OpenBVN, you can pretty much do whatever you want. So I always prefer an OpenBVP +in connection. Already Cisco connection because I know there's not going to be as many shenanigans +going on. So that brought me down the rabbit hole of my Jamboree with different pit versions and +the different pit versions. I only support, I think, 112, something 12 right now, my current +Jamboree. So it's kind of a problem because, you know, Jamboree needs to probably be updated. +Check, I thought it currently downloads possibly the latest. I don't know, check Python. +I got to find the actual script. It looks like it downloads. I use a new get +and you G, E, T. It looks like it uses just whatever the latest. Oh yeah. So it uses new get.org +for it's API for it's SV2 for it's package for it's Python. And that will give you the latest and +greatest Python inside of new get. So new get will support, it looks like really 510 to 26. So +it pretty much downloads the latest. Well, I don't want that all the time and this specific Open +SSL Open VPN desk single sign-on script wants an older version of Python. With that said, +the problem with all of my new get versions, some of them have pit binary concluded in them +and some of them do not. And I do not understand how to tell the difference between which one has it +and which one doesn't. So I'm working with AI to help me find all the possible combinations of +all the possible downloads of whatever. So now I've got a list of like, I don't know, 100 or so +different Python versions and I want to narrow it down to just the release builds. So right now I +have like pre builds, whatever. So I don't want all of the, there's filters that you can apply +in the version numbers, pre releases, pre, PRE releases, just the normal ones. +I'm using Kuro. I've survived to me by work. So technically speaking, this will go into my +personal project, but this is for work. So it's sort of, you know, kosher. So we have all the way from 3.5x +to 3.14x. So I have a big menu of choices here. So what I want to do is I also want to crawl +each link and get the final download path for the, for the download. So there's a download package link. +So I can say, right, a script to go to that URL, then pull the URLs, then go to each URL and the +list and pull the link, pull the link, um, oh man, I just messed it up. I don't want to +rather, this is just the normal ones. Yep, I'm going to dust group up and press it up there. So I want +to pull all the, uh, I want to not pull, go to all of, of the URLs in the list and then pull the, +see, pull the URL, download the, I want to copy and paste this, make sure I copy and paste +the, download package URL, paste, download package, link, list and pull the download package link +for all of them. So basically said, go to this URL, pull you all the different versions and then +you got, you get Python and then give me a list of all of the actual download URLs for each for each +one, right. So it looks like we got a, it found a way to pull the version numbers. +Yeah, it's using package 4 slash Python 4 slash version in a for loop and then it's pulling +down, it's doing curl to pull down the index JSON for each one and then parsing in real time +with, uh, with Python each, uh, download URL and then it gives me a full list of all the download +URLs. Now, the problem with each URL is I don't know which ones have, um, pip in them and which ones don't. +So I'm going to make it do all the work for me. There's like 200 downloads here. Normally, +I would download these and analyze them manually, but with AI and tokens, we don't have to do that. +So the AI, okay, for each download URL, download, download and extract the, uh, compressed +file and check for the binary, pip.exe and give me a list a table for each one that does not have a pip.exe binary. +Go, I used to go what the end is to understand what versions have a pip.exe and what +versions do not and why. Um, so now it's going to pull down a lot. These are actually small +like 15 megs. So each one of these is 15 megs. I mean, I am, I gather, I don't know how many there are. +There's a lot. So it's going to take it a minute to do this. Um, the reason I'm doing this is because +it wanted a specific version of Python. The problem with that is that you all know which versions of +Python are have pip in them already, statically compiled. The way these new get packages work is +there's um, Python you can get, which I haven't been able to trigger this out, but you can get +Python like embedded and that Python embedded has just Python in it, but doesn't have pip and I +don't know how to get pip working with just like the Python embedded that you get from like +Python.com. So I'm using these new get versions to get around it because they have pip already +built inside of them. So it's actually finding pip 3.exe instead of pip.exe. So that might be some +of why I can't find pip is because I'm looking for pip, pip.exe and that pip 3. So that might be one thing. +So we have it's dumping out to some trace logs. It looks like here. +It's using the API, which is what I should be doing. And when it's all said done, I'm going to tell +it give me a Python function to automatically bring up a menu and have the person select +versions of Python that we already know have the pip binary inside of them and exclude any of them +that don't have it that we know. And then then basically give me a list of all the Python's available +and exclude the ones that we know that we don't already have the pip binary inside of them. So that +way they can easily select whatever version of Python they want and know that pip is going to be +installed with it. So I have some weird, I have some weird shenanigans that I create a pip that +which basically calls Python and the pip binary inside of the scripts folder to get around +pip install whatever pip disk is. And seven have to do Python dash in module and call the pip module. +And then it's due in style that I just created a bad file and I put that in the same script folder. +So when you do call pip it just calls the command line which might actually break stuff because +if you just pass variables to pip. If you're a bad file you might lose extra parameters to +pip as you pass it. But it's in my knowledge I haven't found an issue with this. So we've got +so look at the table there for a second I saw something something knows something something +know. So it's still going to do it as thing. So I will put it on pause and then once this is +all done and I have the function ready then I will use that to figure out the closest version +I can find to the one that will this work for and then I'll go down the rabbit hole again +to try and get this Azure login working with open VPN which I probably don't even need to do +at this point. So I've complicated all situations. I'll probably just use the Cisco thing +and connect and then try to do my split tunnel stuff shenanigans to basically show clients that +hey you have essentially split tunnel disabled by default but all you have to do is do like some +routing commands and windows and as long as you have the network privileges user in windows which +is not normal usually most people just get the user or even more popular is the power user which +I think power user includes network operators but if you don't understand security the network +operators group is extremely powerful because that gives you the ability to manipulate +packets at the routing level and if you can do that then you can do a whole lot of scary things. +So just having a user that has regular user access but they have access to manipulate their own +packets essentially route their packets do whatever they want not whatever they want but certain +things you can change to redirect traffic route traffic you know potentially DNS I don't know the +extent of it but most of the work I've done with the network operators group is +changing my routing tables that I can do split tunnel or so that I can do weird shenanigans reverse tunnels +proxy things like that so it's all about that network layer so I'll shut up and then get back to you. +So before I forget I'm also adding my my power shell like steering file or skill file whatever +and I'm also telling it to use use add type assembly system when does system about windows.forms +as a menu to select the version to down do you know I'm asking it to do a lot here I wouldn't +normally do this in my local models this one is absolutely insane so I'm going to also include my +power shell power shell standardizer and it's a combination of of markdown files that I found on the +internet to do stuff correctly in power shell a lot of these things don't really do use my tricks +and a lot of them do like weird path stuff so it follows the rules of jambri essentially +and it also follows the rules of how to use power shell mostly correctly or at least the way +that I like to use it not so let's say also use the following guide to rate power shell +scripts and then I'm just paste this and hope 342 lines um at my current thing that would be +a line suddenly tokens that is but that would be a lot so I have an acknowledgement feedback +loops proper error analysts shaker file download using a dot net as a fallback batch processing +safe file division reading configuration files and about a bunch of things like don't use +all the cp and b r m cat p s grep curl would be get echo that those aren't power shell commands +I did hard code of user pests never use ckel and backslash users and b user program file +update so there's kind of a combination of my stuff in there and we'll see if it's doing +something um it looks like it added 221 lines and get python new get ps1 +yeah it pays at a bunch of stuff sorry make this a function +for me +there make a function for me for me make this a power shell so a function +all right so we got some vip coded garbage here we're going to go to our jambory folder +which I don't even see here we go and gonna make copy back up my old before I mess with this +I have a standard build script that I run that basically I run on any windows image that +gives me like chocolaty in all kinds of stuff so chocolaty is a package manager +source in layer to actually jambory so we're going to make a new button here just for temporary +sake and I'm going to have it call the clicks whatever this function is +the function is get python new get I'm going to have it run this command +and hopefully it will work I actually have it running already so I want to call this pypoc +and the command is going to be run this and then I'm going to save it and then I'm going to run +jambory again um technically speaking you can run jambories many times as you want so you can +have a bunch of windows open the problem is that it gets pretty complicated once things get weird so +I have a python zip and a python zip and I'm going to delete both of those just in case there's +no convictions that I'm going to use my pypoc on the concept my menu came up so I like that +python version to download all of this versions include pippyxie pip3.exie so +which is weird because I don't even see 12 in here um so +that's not good um I only see 3.5 to 3.7 which is weird we're going to +download and extract and see how it goes um python extract it successfully +pulls pip are a bit 3 yep okay so we're going to go back to here +we're going to close this python minimize our window we're going to go back to the +we're not going to save this okay looks like you are missing +I'm going to save latest python which um I don't even know how this is going to work here +let me close this so I have my jambory open jambory window open I'm going to click shell again +because um I'm going to delete the python folder again click shell again and figure out what +version of python I get because I know this version the latest version has in fact it's own +pip so I can say pip and it gives me help it so no pip is there so I can say python such as version +I say hey looks like you're missing the lot so um notch i'm not sure +how you missed a lot of versions but you are missing people 1 4 5 that has a pip +I'll actually make sure I'm typing the right thing +pip 3.exe pip.exe one on the same that's kind of weird pip start out xe +yeah there's a pip pit 3.14 and pip other things there's like symbolic links or something I don't +even know actually let me go to the folder and let's prove it so this weird python has a bunch of +pips um yeah it's the same it's the same binary copy three different ways with three different names +you would normally do a symbolic link to that pip binary and not have three of the same +pips in one thing um so that's not really whatever um so let me go back to my prompt and say hey +this has pip.exe and pip 3.exe help me understand why you miss so many +other versions of their versions um so here we are you know like an hour later into this +I've already spent probably 30 minutes on it um threes and I am doing kind of a little bit +more bugged beyond is that this scope is very limited for this engagement so any what I like to say +color I can add to a existing thing um it's good because a lot of people will just do a test +they'll run a scan they'll do the thing um but if I a good tester will have a spidey sense right +and my arm my arm chair my arm handles are usually all the way down but the kids come in here and +mess with it um so if you have arm rest and you have back issues try and slam your arm rest all the +bit out I have a used which they normally sell these anymore because I got sued out of their pants +I have a used um fancy was it called arrow or whatever the fancy chair um um arrow +I don't know what the brand is um I've fixed a I've done after market seat that I had to replace +palm and miller their home and miller chair I have an after market seat that I've had no problems with +to replace the seat that I had it was the bolts for kind of oh wonky so anyways +I'm hesitant to never use python pit use python m dash pit okay so here here's the +squish was you're right call me out I was wrong and I really let me explain what happened point +actually contained in print has a pit python package but it does not have a +tail on pit of me sitting right at the older versions and then had a literal pit 3 and a little bit +however this is a key pit is still fully functional and 314 you can run a be a python dash in pit +or you can generate that video okay so my thing is I guess I figured out that pit runs +with new versions of pit so I guess I'm wrong I guess I forgot so pre-built pit is all the way to +three seven and then neither neither pit not bundled at all must run pit not proper to +putt insure pit first okay so python dash m insure pit I don't know what that does so let me let me ask +so what does +insure pit does that install pit if it's missing so yeah I'm asking it +insure pit I don't know what that does module that does do but module what it +oh well it's searching the internet for my dumb question yes exactly there's a bootstraps pit +from a bundled wheel that ships inside the python and stalk it itself it looks for a pre-packaged +video file so when we start talking about wheel that's when things get weird so I guess +so the lack of whatever okay just gives so far new get package already have wheel at +blah blah running python insure pit creates a little bit locally or you skip that step +insure entirely and just he's pit by that directly since pit packages are already unpacked +in site packages the easy to get to have check check pit bython and verify insure pit +wheels and scripts which suggest the insure pit module may be present with a bundled wheel but I +need to verify each one bottom line so for your script person is any version that has either +is that made is or effectively has pit so you just need to run one command okay just make sure +every download has pit has pit thanks um so I'm telling it to make sure every download has +pep where it's been extracted I don't know might be in the temple it's been dumping a lot of +they've been dumping a lot of stuff inside a pit template which is depending on how you have your +Linux structure up this your Linux structure is set up your temp file might not be enough storage +to extract copious amounts of data I've had to extract terabytes of data to the folders +and if I was running some kind of AI slot I would not want it extracting everything to force +temp because usually temp on some of these vpss or maybe you're given a weird excuse me a weird +setup to the home or the route going to have to be like you know 20 gigs and that's for your OS +and everything else you have to figure out and then these installers start dumping stuff everywhere +or Docker starts putting stuff in var which I've seen also it's always the same problem with +managing your managing your mounted paths if you have them mounted correctly +is an nightmare but it does prevent things like you're just filling up with wags or something like +that but a lot of times people don't split those up anymore I've never really seen it save anything +does a lot of times I'm running small services and it doesn't really matter if I can't write +and read a bunch of disks stuff so here we go it's saying use python and pip he's python on pit +so it's kind of doing a full evaluation of all of these now I've not talked about +I just clicked exit multi execution mode that's something horrible idea I've never used that before +so I use moba in on my website my just my get up I have a script called +um moba portable and it does the same thing as +planberry does but it's just for moba and moba is a windows terminal and I +co-worker from back for way back said something about moba because I was using portable +port of putty which is a portable putty version if you're a putty person I sorry you are wasting +your time um moba is fully featured it has built in x-server you can disable it by default +you can do tunneling it has an SCP server it has w self support it has automatic syntax highlighting +it has a support for different fonts it has you know multiple execution you can do tunneling +and that will say the killer feature for this thing is the tunneling there is no other app that I +have seen Linux or otherwise that does tunnels like this one so I can essentially copy a dynamic +and a static tunnel in the i and i file and basically go from you know something that would take +normally forever to do I can just copy a dynamic and copy a regular tunnel and copy a dynamic +basically for reverse channel it's whichcraft i'm only going to but basically for reverse tunnel +dynamic tunnel so you can basically set for reverse connection back to yourself and then set +a dynamic tunnel to that reverse connection to tunnel all of your traffic through that tunnel so that +way it's a reverse shell and then you reverse shell that shell through a proxy and then everything +on that proxy goes through that reverse shell so that's why things start to get kind of hairy when +you start talking about getting a reverse shell and you can proxy all your traffic through that +reverse shell you can and even with apps that don't support proxy you can use when does has a +couple of them pry boxy i think called you can force a TCP based applications to run through a +proxy that don't have proxy support so even where there's no support for proxy you can +use something like proxy chains and Linux to do that there's other ones that do manual proxy no +there's proxy chains and look couple of them i've always used proxy chains windows i use +privacy i've never had to really do that except for like third party apps that might have +some kind of weird thing and i want to tunnel the traffic to see it and they don't have a subscription +i will use five oxy to force that traffic through a barbsweet because the app doesn't have +proxy support but moba is awesome it's great i don't know if i have any videos on it +on there's probably tons of videos out there but just the way it manages you can have about a +reconnect so that way you're not accidentally doing traffic from a bad place it will automatically +reconnect so if you change if you move around change IPs if you're connected with different wifi +it will force that connection and it will nag you to death if you're not tunneling through that +connection so that's some of why i've always used it since then okay so i'm gonna try this for a +bit more time i i'm actually at a time for today uh gotta get back to family stuff so down +great you python 3.13 or 3.12 safest worker so i have going to click my PIC POC +python thing i only have my whatever version so that's not great +um i go back and rerun take updates python pick yeah it's missing the list of URLs so +i'll go back to the AI and look at my function i'm pretty sure i copy and paste it in this function +um let's see um there's a brown context of it yeah so update the power shell to include all versions +versions sorry not to just ones with pip xe binary so i told it hey i messed up you know +it i told it to check everything i told it to update i told it to update because it did +say cat whatever um so i said you know all stable whatever it's okay me sure every download has +okay just make sure every download has pip thanks and then um said all of the +gen have pip i was completely wrong earlier there are zero versions without pip here are the actual +breakdown here's my earlier breakdown i said okay whatever so let's see let's just include all +versions version sorry not just ones with pip binary there's a two i just heard it does that +it would version two okay so maybe you had just missed it writing a different file name um that's what +will happen to my local who do the same thing all end up with like like 10 different versions to +Java and like multiple different versions of the same function it's really hard to follow when you're +vibe coding all that stuff so i will put this back in here i will leave this running because i do +have yeah i'm gonna close it actually so when i update that function one more time +i use no pet plus plus mainly for first stuff um +thought about switching to something more powerful like my portable vscode to do stuff because i do a lot +of stuff in power so so there's a lot of goodies and vscode that go work around power so i'm gonna +click my POC python POC i've got all the way to um 10 11 12 13 14 it's kind of in the non-logical +order so i'll have it fix that in the background um can the order is is um not human +read a bow make it sort proper the make it sort properly so they think it's see +the versions go up and down because right now it says 3.99 and then 3.8 7 6 5 4 and then 3.13 +3.1 2 10 10 so like 3.12 like it's looking for using to read so i'm gonna go back to this +to say 3.3.1 2 so i'm gonna click 3.1 2 3.1 see if i can't do this 3.1 2 with no +anything 3.1 2 0 maybe 3.1 2 3.1 2 9 3.1 2 0 +so maybe like if you want one 2 5 i don't know so we'll see you what happens there +uh extract successfully so i'll go to my shell and the five on version +five on is not installed so somehow oh i got the folder paths messed up so +this needs to go here so it extracted but it extracted the file name so there's a file called +Pythandesh 3125 blah blah blah so i need to also tell it to fix that so okay looks looks like you need to +extract to base um uh to remove the folder folder ex folder ex direction +i don't want a folder called five out of just Python p-y-ton so currently it installs to +currently it looks like Python looks like it's going back slash high-thon back slash +i want to want it all to go in the folder x-slash Python without the sub folder +minimize the code minimize the i's the in my eyes well and i'm i's the code and don't +uh provide comments um uh uh the jibbery is already 1.24 kilobytes +um it's pretty massive uh the problem with that is more code more problems we've got +2600 lines of code and that's after like a i got rid of half of it so um it used to be twice as big +and it's well a i minimize it and i ran through about 90% of the code base checking it +and make it sure that it's whatever so we have done blah blah blah there's no comments +actually directly to Python that was so fast like 21 seconds sit to that jesus um destroy +my local AI um these are front-to-ear models a cloud hope this 4.6 is absolutely insane so +of course that's temp we have our version two again we're gonna bring it up one more time +the uh there's also a default text editor inside of here you can tell it to use a different +default text editor um this is 143 lines it is following my paramed stuff that i told to do +it don't uh jibbery doesn't have a paramed uh basically doesn't have uh safe functions essentially +proper functions they're minimized so there's a lot of extra stuff in this function but you know +we're doing it live right now and i will add uh i will add it to the main repo what i'm +done here so i'm running paramed part running it again i'm gonna delete the Python folder +this is actually i think it cleans up itself pretty good let's see so Python concept +314 312 this is easier to read i'm gonna do 3.12.5 click extract and then we got a little +message it says whatever and we're gonna take my Pythat file and i need to add it into the repo +but i'll put it in the tools and the i guess put it in tools slash this folder because there's +no scripts folder at all so i'm breaking a few songs what's it is so Python and Python okay +yeah Python and so now we're back where we were several hours ago so Python install open connect +SSO the weird thing is i'm not sure what it's doing i'm not sure why it kind of froze out +when i finally did get the open connect dash this is a Python module to install it's said like +blah blah blah off into canny whatever and it's almost like it's supposed to bring up a browser +and never really did so i need to incorporate this new Python function with my Python +great function it upgrades it and then creates that Pythat file to make it say you can just type +Pyth and do something so anyways let's go down to the bottom here and i don't know what that is +somewhere here is my fancy stuff there's the basement you i don't need to bring up the +i want to bring up the UI for that at some point so that's why i kept seeing nothing when i +clicked things um so open connect open connect somewhere i have +somewhere i have the the open connect dash SSO server yep so we're gonna go here +i close our remote thing out i want to put notes back in my main notes here +so i have kind of two notes going now which is kind of annoying so level deep bug +so i'm going to try to call this open connect after installing it again +no novel no module named pkg resources so i'm going to just copy and paste this +um uh Python modules are weird because you can write you can try and guess the Python +module but at the time i get it wrong where there's like there's a dash and it it's a little annoying +to have to do that so i'm not sure what's going on here quick patch for Python now when you +just start all over with a new session because new thread um here's my ear i think some running +Python one two again again um so i'm going to do this command it's telling me to run +tell me to install set up tools then older version um is running from so maybe the tip the set +of tools version needs to match the Python version that you're running so it knows that set up tools +80.0.0 matches my version of Python maybe we'll see so okay now i've got looks like it did something +let's see what we ended up with um the weird thing about the console window it's like a better +turn i'm still on command line the cmd.exe a lot of people have moved to the straight +just power of shell the problem of power shells i can't do like the r4 such as like it's hard to search +for files there's a bunch of other stuff that's kind of annoying to do um uh check your official +company's ip documentation so there might be some stuff going on here that i don't quite understand +how to fix um that i caught i pasted the the errors at some point +python in the set of tools yep we did that i gave you the thing and then you said um certificate +because the mitch match yep yep um how do i bypass the i just want to bypass i just wants to +bypass the SSL errors um we'll work on this a little bit and i'll leave you alone for a second +all right so it's gonna go to Costco with my wife but she's i guess leaving it's now it's +24 minutes after five you know nine to five working i told her i'd have finished something +and instead of asking me it's going on uh she just gave up and left so you know that's the uh +disabled path link uh i give it up and then i actually installed python to the main environment +problem with jambree is it when you do calls like open browser or whatever with python they don't +work uh because you know it doesn't it's missing a bunch of stuff so i'm right now um +trying to see what version of python i have here are as i have uh three twelve five so i'll +save it to install um pippin stall whatever this thing is um do i go back one of these no no no no no +actually that was it um so let me let me let me try to get this work in nolsy let me go okay so +effectively given up now i managed to get uh open connect access is so working with the whole regular +normal windows environment um i hate installing anything on windows oh my you like to use jambree +but in this case it's a virtual machine i blow them up anyways after engagements so i installed uh +python the older version of python i told it to do whatever and it's doing the exact same thing +it's just sitting here at the authentication prompt so i'm not going to go crazy uh testing that +so i'm just going to use the regular VPN client so pretend how to say anything about open vpn +and open connect and doing routing exchange against we're not going to do that today because we were +only asked uh this is the problem being uh me we were i was only asked to test my credentials +and make sure they weren't not to go down the rabbit hole that i did so uh we're +going to put in the thing we're going to check enhanced session before we connect because if you +try to connect with the enhanced session again it will disconnect you because it's makes sense if you're +more on you don't know how a package worked you will get disconnected remotely and then you'll have +this session open on the other end and you'll be like oh every time i you know connect to the VPN +it just like disconnects me and then i don't know what's going on it's full of law so to make it +idiot proof Cisco's like all right we're just going to block anybody that's like doing an +RDP session or whatever uh to cave from stupid people saying like well i taught my arms off +because i connected to a you know no uh no whatever VPN so uh i taught my arms off because i connected +to a VPN that doesn't allow us with a toning which you're going to kick yourself offline unless +you have some kind of remote shell set up so my kit uh laughs about let me talk about +proxies and stuff all the time so uh mobile external portable power shell i run that it starts +power uh mobile with my portable settings so i can just kind of copy the files around there is a +master password that is encrypted with the uh encryption uh i don't know how it incorporates with +the tonaling aspect of it i think they're separate so if you take the tonnel i and i you're +basically screwed so it i think i don't know um it would i need to do some research to figure out hey +it all these credentials that i have uh for external sources are they part of they um +is that part of the whole certificate chain or is it you know is it a certificate store essentially +that's uh is in there and there's not any there's not any sensitive information is not protected by +my original password password thing so anyways what that said um you know keys keyless whatever +that's on on your own so if you have keyless this is a demeaning you can access agent to a computer +without any credentials at all you just provide a key um that's i don't know either way um you +want to have passwords no matter what so anyways i'm told to text this uh SSH on it tell on SSH +into this don't know the username i think i know the username and hopefully i copied and +pasted it somewhere there's host name i'm missing username so hopefully the i can find one of the +six places that my username could pass possibly be um oh cool the passwords completely different +for this uh machine so whatever um now i can't copy and paste since since i'm connected now +i can actually enable enhancement and i can um copy and paste stuff so i can actually remotely +mount my uh local system because that's how RDP works but i'm not going to do that because i need to +get going here so bureau it's a company work for the uh that's gonna be out of username +and i'm assuming the port is that and then we'll go and nothing of course not of course so we're +going to do um make sure we're on the VPN we're connected so we're going to do +and you know what and i i've found we're opting to not um i have issues with this so +and map and map and map out maybe it's not RDP maybe it's RDP or because i've turned so there's +client i'm going to put that IP address in there um because when they say remote access they don't +didn't know what people just assumed that you know what you're they know what you're talking +about so we're going to see what happens when i put in the IP for no either neither okay so +um a lot of times people give you VPN access you're not actually um a lot to hit any of you +can't hit anything sometimes so then you wonder what we're going to do reverse mode we're going +to do all ports so dash p dash sorry talking about in map is a port scanner so i'm doing in +map with dash p dash no spaces that does every port and then the IP address and then vvvvv which +is super verbose it'll basically tell me if there are any ports of been on this host so +it's doing DNS resolution which you can innate disable with dash d and this is not good um so we +don't have a connection we're going to show this in a uh in a screenshot i guess and show that you know +it's it's not it's not a thing so uh to connection refused and then we're going to show +we're going to wait for the 65,000 to pop out um same thing we're going to take a screenshot +and we're just going to paste it in the window here i'm not going to put the RDP up because that looks +that makes me look dumb um so something like that and i'll set this off to the client so we're +done for today um looks like it looks like i can can't reach but anyways i'll just go +that's kind of my my approach for today you know you go down rabbit holes sometimes you have +time for them sometimes you don't um anyways my wife didn't want to wait another 23 minutes but you +know these things take time anyways um i'll let me know in the comments if this is too long +if this is useless i don't know um it's a cool idea but when i'm doing work and it's not exciting +nobody wants to hear that but i don't know what percentage of this maybe what percentage of this +entire hour and basically 30 minutes of me hammering is actually useful um is it over your head +obviously maybe possibly and also you know not super useful i don't know but i i got the idea +from whatever his name is like hey this is my music me working i can't show you my screen but i can +talk about it and that's actually really powerful so anyways take it easy good luck um if you have any +questions about anything make a sure about it or maybe put in the comments if you're still +listening put in the comments if you want me to expand on any of these everybody but +janitors or whatever actual people uh each of our janitors um i'm not gonna a lot of time to make +shows out of all these but the idea is to as i'm working make a uh if i'm doing something +somewhat interesting make a uh episode about it because i'm here and i'm working so i might as well +be babbling babbling while i'm doing it anyways take it easy +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4683.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4683.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee00977 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4683.txt @@ -0,0 +1,229 @@ +Episode: 4683 +Title: Recording the hallway track +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4683/hpr4683.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:44 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4683, for 2026-07-15 +Today's show is entitled, "Recording the hallway track" +The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:21:16 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Ken gives tips on how to record interviews at events" +Hi everybody, my name is Ken Falon, you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio. +Today is one that's kind of behind the curtains, here at HPR and it is response to +crystals, request for some recommendations about recording at events and stuff. +And as this is something that I've done on many, many occasions, I promised him that I +get back with some feedback as to what so HPR has been known for a long time for covering +the whole way of tracking events. So while the talks and presentations may be streamed, +we go around and interview and chat with the people who are the heart and soul of the events, +the stands, the people on the whole way, anybody who's doing interesting stuff that we can +talk about to give you a sense of what it was like to be a event. There's proven to be +very rewarding from a lot of people, a lot of people are appreciated. We're in a unique ability +because we have people all over the world. So even if you're going to the smallest of events, +you can actually develop a remote note here in HPR. And the ideal package would be that when +the call for presentations comes out, call for papers comes out, that we would contact the +organizer at that point. So several months before the events that people have an ideal of +what the event is about and you interview the hosts of the event. So where when who what why +that whole typical journalistic response to the event and then where it is and when it's on. +And then when you're posting the show notes to that given idea of how accessible it is +from a point of view of planes, trains and normal bills and what the facilities are, what the foods +are going to be, what the cost is. Is the wheelchair accessible? Are there going to be recordings? +What are the code of conduct? So that's the typical interview that you'll notice here. The most +recent one I did was with the Tito's team for that. Now if you're going to the event itself, +if you have a booth, that's a different thing we'll be talking about that today. But if you're going +to be recording interviews for HPR, you're on your own, you're walking around. There's +several things that I recommend that you get. And don't be embarrassed about this. It's +important that you have. First of all, is aligned with your with a print-off scene, your HPR +and your name. Nice big, nice clear. On the back, you can have a QR code for people that you +can pass it to, that they know who you are, because it's important that you're recognized as being +a, you know, once you journal this, but you know, you're covering the event for the purposes of +spreading the word for the event. So you're not just a regular bystander who's trying to get to the +to the booth. I also have business cards with me, which has got my own email address on it, +and things about HPR, which I'll pass to the people at the event. If it's a small event, +they more than likely will know who you are, because they've already seen the +promotions that we've been done. We have already done for the event prior to it. If they don't know who +you are, it actually doesn't matter either. It's just you hand them the business card. You say, +somebody available for an interview. And this is what I typically do at first time. So, +Boston's huge, there are lots of booths, 50, 60 booths, so you really need to be gone round, +if you want to cover it. Somewhere like T-Dose, there was maybe 10 booths, so, yeah, loads of time there. +What I bring when I go to the event, as I said, is the Langer, but my name, +I've actually got one of the badges recommended, and then the HPR stickers, a pen, and a small +notebook that you can fit into your pocket. And of course, a mobile phone, what a camera, so I +use open camera, so main recording device that I use, and some one that I'm using now, +is a Zoom H2. Probably go with a H1. It's cheaper and probably more better for recording interviews, +whereas this tends to be a bit too much. The original Zoom H2 that I had was was good. It was +tier simple. This one was a little bit more for band recordings and rehearsal recordings. +Whatever device you have, make sure you set the format to the best. So, WAV and Flack, +what they hate with the Zoom H2, you want to be careful to pick something that isn't like broadcast +studio, just something normal. And such a did format, I also ate six or one, you will thank me +for that later. My Zoom takes alkaline battery, so I need to make sure I have replacement batteries for +that. And it's got a micro USB cable, which most people don't have anymore, so I've got to have +one of those, make sure it's a Daisy cable, and not just a transfer cable. Now, on the microphone that you +use, and it's important to have set headsets, ideally noise canceling ones that have got a cable +connection to the recording device, in my case, it's the Zoom. And that's got a line out. +You don't want the line in, but you want the line out one, so that, as you're recording, you hear +back what you're saying. I had a pair of Sony headphones, and they used three and a half inch jack +on both sides. These bosons that I'm using now have got a two and a half inch of one and three and +are two and a half millimeter or one and two and a three and a half millimeter on the other, +so especially careful. If you can't have that, at least the set area, both so that you can hear +what's going to be happening when you're recording. So that's your main recording device, +then you should have at least one preferably two backup devices. I have used in the past two +sons of lips, one, which is permanently on my lapel, and the other, which I hand to the other person, +and I put on a really before flight, a little keyfob take, but the length of your hands, +nice and red, so that they don't walk off with your device, which has happened a more than +one location. And more recently, I've been actually pressing record on audio recorder on my Android phone, +and I just give them that and have them hold, that's actually also, there are more familiar people, +I'm more familiar with talking into a mobile phone, and mobile phones are surprisingly good at picking +up audio in a crowded room, because let's face if they have dedicated hardware chips for that +purpose, because that's what they do. So that's it, that's what you need to bring. +Some of it, if you don't have HDR business cards, just print off a foreshasing +cut them off, a slip of paper, which your contact details is fine. But the land yard, yeah, you +can get them off supply shops, and it's no harm to do it. Don't feel embarrassed about it. You +are going there representing HDR, so it is just good. I'd say like a forestem, if there's a huge +booth, a forestem types of it, very, very busy, the huge booth, and you just walk up, and you've got +all these interviews to do, just make your way through the cloud, but your headphones on, +and recording, holding up the business card for HDR or the thing for HDR and go, +it's somebody available for an interview, and sometimes they'll go, oh yeah, well, you know, +call back then, and call back that, you don't have time for that. It's like, I like to be focused, +and just go, I have chosen you, you get to pick who's going to be interviewed. So it's either you, +or you did you dedicate it to somebody else, so they usually run away and grab somebody +and the person comes back and records. If it's a smaller venue, and it's going to be over two +days, don't worry overly about it, you know, they'll, they'll, they can get somebody, and then they'll +come back, they'll say, I, and you say, you can also tell them, look, I'll do my best to come back, +but I can't guarantee anything, so yeah, there you go. So that's it. I try, I get around the +pronunciation thing by having them introduce themselves, but let's get on to the interview itself. +Don't bother about going to a quiet place, or it just takes too much time, it's too distracting, +they will, if it's under stairwell, it's all echoey, you recorded in place, try and place them, +facing the loudest people so that you can pick them up and the crowd is behind you as the person +recording. If you, if they don't know who you are, you can, as you're setting the whole thing up, +you, you can say, HDR's Community Podcast, it really shows every week days, +Monday through Fridays, all their shows are submitted by HDR volunteers, all their shows are +released on to the creative comments, and all their offers released on to the flash, there's +over 400 contributors, and we specialize in doing the whole with track, just like this, where we +give people the sense of what's going on in the, thinking, are you okay with doing an interview? Yes, +I'm okay, if you just step out here, I'll place you there, if you can hold this, it's the back +up device, and then I will tell them, I'm recording with the zoom thing, which is very directional, +so I'll be pushing it into your mouth like this, so don't be afraid and don't shy away as I do that, +so I'm listening to the audio and recording it, don't panic, is that okay? Yeah, that's okay, +I'm not as I'm doing that, I'm putting the microphone into their mouth just as I would do, +because the zoom is very directional, which is good, good stone on the noise, and that's why +you won't have the headset on, so that you can get good recording, because if you're pointing +in the wrong way, all you're getting is crowd noise, so then you start recording, you hand them the +backup devices, hand them the phone ideally as well, and have that recording, and then you say, +you say to yourself, I'm at the Debian booth, taking one Debian, is usually everywhere or +I'm at the Debian booth, that's this event, and I'm talking to whoever young, and do you agree to +be recorded under a critic come and CC by a say, and if they say that's okay, and go and start now, +there's a bit of silence, I'm going to go hi everybody, I'm here at the Debian booth, +and I'm talking to, and then I'm trying to put the microphone in there, so tell me about +for those of us who don't know about Debian, tell us what Debian is, Debian is blah blah blah blah, +and who are you or what are you here? blah blah blah blah, I'm why did you come here? +what's the background? how did you get involved in the project? what is the most interesting +thing that you've seen today? have many years, you know, the usual stuff that we cover in the +interview, right? and go with the flow, sometimes it's fairly, you know, cooking dry, sometimes it's +more relaxed, you go around looking at stuff at the tables, but at the end of it, you go, well, +it was the wrong thing outside of the mist, no, thank you very much for doing the interview, +and enjoy the rest of the show, okay, and then you press stop on your main recording device, +then now you need to, there are now all hyper because they've been recording, but this is the most +important thing for the interviews as next is yet to come, and that is where you need to get their +contact information and get the photos of the booth and all that sort of stuff, so once you're +recorded, you take back the recording devices, and you make sure that they're saved, so +at the zoom is notorious for having a flashing red light, so you want to make sure that both +are recorded, or ideally all three, once you have those put in your pocket and you just say, +hold on one second, there are only four, I need to take a photo of you, so you take a photo of them, +and you say, then do you have a business card, some people will have that, will have other people +won't, you can just type it into the phone, as they're typing it into your phone, you +rice their name on a, on a thing, just say, Debian, and you put it on the notebook, and you have +them hold it up, and you take a photo of their pick face with the Debian note, so that later on, +you can associate that person with that interview at that time, yeah, this is incredibly important, +again, not so big a deal when you're at, as a small event, but if you got six years, 17 interviews, +all lined up, it becomes a huge race against time to get all the contact information in order, +and that's another thing, you should also request to a slot on the mailing list before the event, +so however long you think it's going to take you to do the editing of the stuff, then you should +record, you should add another day or two onto that, and then pick a date, so I would usually +try and get as soon as possible because you want to burn, you want to strike away while the +RN's hot, a lot of people are buzzing about the event, the hashtags are still active, so if it's +on a Friday and Saturday Sunday and you can get it out by Monday, well great, but that's a lot of +editing that you need to do to get it out on the Monday, so choose your Wednesdays more feasible to be honest, +in order to reserve a slot, you need to go to the mailing list, think that permission, usually +just say unless anybody objects, I want to reserve a slot for this, and we have fairly open +the one to be a good reason to reject it, to be honest with you, okay, and that also helps on the +day because you can say to the people this interview will be aired on this day, so you can listen +now for a bit, so one thing to give the whole thing some consistency, the first interview ideally +will be with the organizer, even if you don't actually record that first, that doesn't matter, +so the first interview should be with the organizer, and the last interview should be with an organizer, +if you can, or you know, one at the beginning or one at the end, whichever ideally one organizer at +the beginning and all the organizers at the end, you can also fake it, I don't like to do that +myself, you know, halfway through the second day, you can, or the first year, whatever you can +say, and the event was brilliant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but you always run the risk that +something horrible has happened to look like a council, so don't attempt to fake that way, okay, +as I said, now you're in racing against time, interview should be posted as quick as possible +in order to, as I said, strike with the iron's heart, so the issue is, you've got all this audio, +uncompressed huge files, you need to transfer them to your computer and what has really helped me +lately, as been that ISO 8601 trick because at least all the recordings are more or less in the +same time slot, and you know, on the day your tube is getting recordings to be worried about +too much organization, so that helps, and then I run whisper on the whole thing, so that the audio +transcripts are working, and when I was in Tito's, I was actually having the whisper +transcriptions working as I was doing the interviews on the, from the first batch was being +been more done while I did the next batch, so then you want to do your show notes, +your whole thing put together with an introduction, the first one, the second one, the third one, +the fourth one, and then necessarily in the order that you recorded, whatever makes logical sense to you, +you want a picture of the person in front of the booth, that if there, some people don't want to +be photographed, some people do, pictures of the booth, if that's allowed, and contact information, +and that's very important, that you have contact information to the project, contact information +to the person themselves, or whatever they, you know, they may give you the interview, but they, +the tour people are notorious for this, they will only redirect you to the main project, +and they are person X and person Y, I'm respect that as well, don't take photos of people on +this, they've given you a permission to do so, oh yeah, and I forgot to mention, after you've +done the recording, and before you think them, just have, let them have a look at all the photos +that you've taken and go, are you okay with this, and if they don't like anyone, +delieces straight away because that way you don't have to deal with that crap, so +when you're uploading the photos to HPR, you can leave, you don't need to be huge high quality, +you can leave them as 800 by 600 or something like that, even HD, don't make them +any bigger than that, but you don't have to make the thumbnails, you just post them relatively +large, but not too large, because we automatically do the thumbnails as we're doing it, +if you can, and what I like to do is, you're not going to be able to do that because +because the timing will be wrong, but I like to have under each section a direct link to where +you can jump to the episode, so when the show is posted, what you can do is you can fast-forward +to where the episode is, and then whatever that time is, there's like an audio factory equals +whatever, and if you can send those to me, I can add the audio play audio now in the show notes +itself directly, so that when somebody goes to the landing page and they just want to listen to +that interview, they can press the button and they will play that interview, you can also +we will also put in hashtags, IDs for like hashtag debion, so that you can go to this episode +index.html, hashtag debion, and you wrote down directly to the debion interview, +you should contact all the people and give them their shortcut link to the episode and where +they're audio is playing, and we do not like to edit the audio, if we kind of want to just +particularly, if you're doing this, you know, very, very fast, where you're going to be having +you have a reserve slot, and you're going to be putting it out the next day, it's impossible to fix that, +we will, if there's a real good reason for doing it, but you as they interview or make sure that +there is not anything in there that's going to cause us to have to do that, yeah, +expect to have to fix contact information and stuff, so that's that's fairly normal, +the more the more entries you do, the more likely it is that we need to change a photo or +though I give you the link to my project side or to my personal page, but I need to use my +the project page or I give you my work email and I want blah, blah, blah, and that's fine, +we'll change all that because this is stuff that we do for the community, okay, that's pretty much +it's about all the interviews, sometimes you'll get interviews if we're doing a booth, +that's that's something else maybe for another day, what we do there, but hopefully that kind of +helps, maybe it doesn't, it all depends really on the event, but make sure you've got a back +up recording, that's that's the main one, and get good contact information from the people, +100 notes are a normal, it's fine just to identify the person, but have them type it into your phone +or something, or laptop or tablet or something, because it is, this is honestly spent more time +doing the editing of shows of these interview event things than have gone around doing the actual +recording, it's about like three to one, and it can be really awkward because somebody constantly +wants changes and my audio sounds funny and then you have to edit it on stuff so it can be awkward, +okay, but remember if you don't have a back up recording then it's very possible that you lose +the interview and I've had this in Boston where I've had interviews and have had to fall back to my +second back up device for many interviews because the first one was a didn't record just clearly +to record on my other back up stuff, I forgot to press record or something, and locally +was able to solve it just using, you know, audio phonic to be able to pick out the audio from the +background noise, okay, just as a by the by, we're in the middle of the summer here and in order +to the hemisphere, which means we don't have a lot of shows coming in, so we would appreciate it if you +want to record a show, you don't have to wait too long before it comes out, that's not to say +people don't download and listen to them because they do, they're in the middle of holidays, +so there's a lot of people listening to podcasts, so throw us in a few shows, that's great, +and tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4684.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4684.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..adb03b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4684.txt @@ -0,0 +1,224 @@ +Episode: 4684 +Title: Sim Racing on the cheap! +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4684/hpr4684.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:44 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4684, for 2026-07-16 +Today's show is entitled, "Sim Racing on the cheap!" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:21:11 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Insights on sim racing costs, setup, and game choices, emphasizing time and investment." +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in January 2026 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hello everyone, I'm Lekotoo and another episode of HackerPokeGradior, the host operator. +Today I'm going to talk about my DIY cheapest sim rig I've got possible. +It's got force feedback, it's got pedal feedback, and it's a plastic kind of entry level +set up with pedals, the whole thing, probably calls, maybe $400, so I can win. +So anyways, I'll kind of go over the parts of the approach, whatever, I'd co-worker to +it played a truck racing sim, and us today looking to get rid of your stuff, because +I thought, hey man, if he hasn't been pounded on it, what do you do as a truck driver, +you're not driving crazy, so he probably took care of it, and it probably hasn't been +up used to that, we'll talk about that later, but anyways, he offered it to me, you know, +got like $100 off, basically got, you know, kind of some of it for free sort of. +So, brought a home, got to set up, and I went in hard with I racing, which is monthly service, +he paid like $15 a month, the tracks are extra, the cars are extra, sometimes the tracks +and cars are available, but then they go out of season or whatever, so like when I was driving +it was like the Mazda, and I guess maybe they do it with other cars, I don't know, anyways, +I went pretty hot heavy into that, and realized, hey, I don't know how to drive, I'm not good at it, +and I do not have enough time to dedicate to whatever, if you're a gamer, then you can probably +be a sim racer. If you're not a gamer and you'll have time to game, then you probably can't be a +sim racer, unless you're a prodigy and you're like that dude that went from you sim racing to like +racing real races, and one like, you know, first place or something. So anyways, it's a +time to think just like video games are, if you want to actually race, if you just want to have fun, +play arcades, it's also fun to my son, love just playing a forza, which is like a more arcade-based +different cars, and you can swap out the parts, and it's not super realistic. So there's an +extra cap that's borrowing for the, hello, this is Mojo, anyways, Mojo, so the idea there is, +I just have a sifter here, it's seven, and it has a reverse. It's mounted to my standing desk. +Problem with it is if you really want to get serious about it, you need to have a different space. +The problem with that is, you know, I've got a 42 inch, 49 inch curve, full for a wide +monitor or ridiculous, like I can't put that anywhere else, I can't, you know, use it for work, +I've used it for work, and whatever, so like I have to drag out the steering wheel and mount it, +and then when I'm done, I have to put it behind the monitor. Ideally what I would like to do is +get an actual setup with a seat and a proper seat and proper adjustments, but then what if I want +to play a nice game on my ultra wide monitor? Well, you can't, so I'd have to use my old monitor +and like remote into my gaming machine, you know, that's kind of one way to get around it, +is use sunshine and moonlight and nightlight, or late night, or night night, or whatever, +it's called the ultra platform, multiple launcher, which I think I've done a series on, or a episode +on. Play night is the multi-watcher, whatever, that will do steam and bunch of other ones. So +anyways, my idea would be if I did get into it, I would get a seat and if I got a new steering wheel +and direct drive, I would get that and put it in its corner, and then if I wanted to play games, +I would remote into that gaming system from another computer, like a laptop or some not gaming +machine. And you can get all your FPS, I do it downstairs, I play games downstairs, with the sunshine +and moonlight. So anyways, moving on to the start out with eye racing, I realize if you really want +to get into it, you're going to spend like $200 a year, just on tracks and cars. +You know, anywhere for $200 or $300 a year, if you're trying to chase every single weekend, +or week, you're going to spend like $20, $15 plus another $20, $40 every month, or every +other week, they get two weeks, their rotation, anyways, it's expensive. If you want to get into +it, it's expensive. Now you can buy a couple cars you like and then buy a couple of tracks you +like and wait till those tracks come around. So I ended up doing the alternative, the next step, +which is the other racing team people like to use a set of course. So ACC is a set of course, +a competition on the is like the online version, it's more arcadey, it's not quite as serious, +I got my license, it took probably 60 hours to 80 hours of racing to get my license and I racing. +And I think it was combined with that, it was probably another 80 or 60 to get my +set of course, the license. So I didn't even think I was going to get it to get that, +to get the whatever to be able to play in official races or whatever. So I think, +I don't even think I have a license for a set of course. I just, I just had the I racing license +and that's what took like a month or something ridiculous. But set of course has a system built into +where you can, you know, essentially if you drive dangerously or if you're in a ball of +an wreck, it's not perfect. None of these systems are perfect. But in general, if you play defensively +and you drive defensively, you're usually not going to get in trouble. But also if you just +play defensively, then people are going to run over you and you'll still get, you know, +half the time it's going to be your fault. So I would say don't play aggressively, but also don't +just like not take any risk at all because you don't want your, you know, your score to be +tainted. It's kind of getting messed up. It's going to get, it's going to take when somebody +like does a barrel roll in front of you and then you hit them or something like it's not perfect. +So keep that in mind. Same thing with I racing, it's, you know, people get all upset or whatever +you're bummed. But that's, I wasn't that into it. So then there's a force of, so that's I racing, +expensive, and there's a set of course, which is, you know, one-time payment, not as serious. +You still, I think you still have to get a license. I'm not sure. I can't remember. But I think +I have an ACC license for a set of course of, so that I can play. And then once you do that, +you can, like, actually go join real races and not just random ad hoc ones where you get +ranked races or whatever. Anyways, I did that in my son likes to play +forza, which is more arcade-based. And you can buy, like, lost or, lost accounts, +whatever, or hacked accounts. They have, like, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, uh, +about two of those. They got neutral Microsoft. So that's really the only time of the +overhead problems buying, resold, or hacked accounts. So I finally bought it. I ended up buying +it twice, and then three times illegitimately. So I bought it, like, a total of four times. +So anyways, a set of course, or forza, I play just for funsies. If I want to find an arcade, +I want to earn money to play, you know, buy a game. So we're all on the same account. This +is my real account Microsoft account. And we play, we'll play that one. If I just want to just +play and have fun, and where somebody comes over, I'll have them play a set of course, uh, +and, like, wreck like 15 times. And then I'll let them play forza because that's a lot easier to +play around with. Um, I do have a switch set up, but I've got about a USB switch, +because when you plug it in, it's the fans always on. That's kind of the crappy set. There's +no way to turn this thing off. Um, so I have a little switch here. So if I, I'm not going to click it +now, but if I turn it now, the steering will start calibrating and rotating and tearing everything apart. +That's the set up. I have, uh, it basically, I have the steering, the pedals, drill two, two pieces, +two boards, and those boards have a little, a knockout thing where they go, they push it forward towards +me. So I push it up against the wall, and then, um, it kind of mostly stays in place. +Uh, and I got comfortable with that. I do like, a little bit of force feedback, but not the realistic. +Uh, because it's too realistic. It's, it's not realistic, and then you're trying to fight force feedback. +Really the only reason you want the force feedback is to understand when the car is losing grip, +or you're turning too tight, or you're hitting a certain terrain type. Um, it's not made to be like +realistic, unless you want to do direct drive stuff. Um, and even then you don't want to like +pounding on you, and really have it to work for it. I mean, it's a sin. Uh, it's, you know, if you want +to drive, eventually, maybe you want that, that, whatever. But, uh, I've seen stories and people +go from sin racing to, you know, uh, real racing, and like, be really good at it. That might be just +a random, uh, random occurrence. But the general, uh, general ideas once you get in the car, +after doing sin racing, it becomes a lot easier. Because, say you have developed some bad +patterns or habits, but you have so much more input in a real car than when you do in a sin. +So, um, it's a lot easier to drive a car in real life than it is to drive a car in a sin, +because you don't have all the pushed feedback. Now, um, I looked at mods. I looked at, you know, +people buying whatever, you know, what other stuff can I buy? I waste my money on, um, +and I wanted the best bang for my book. And you can order, uh, base takers, small base takers to put +on the, uh, pedals. So, I have one on the break and one on the gas that will tell me, you know, +the ideas that will tell me when you're pushing, you have to withdraw or you're slamming on the +breaks too much. Um, it's, it's quite complicated. Uh, you can get, it's all, open free, not open source, +but, uh, uh, sin hub is how you manage all that. You can set up vibrations for different types of +games, as long as they support that data input. Now, I've had them all key around a little bit, +but it, sometimes it'll disappear and I have to read it and it's pretty clunky and a lot of these +people, you know, if you got your sim rig set up, you don't want to use it for anything else. Um, +if you're really serious about it, you want to have the sim rig set up, um, and you want to have it +on and working and configured and not messed with, um, because the last thing you want to do is, like, +get ready to take the sim rig, and then you've got to spend, like, 15, 40 minutes and an hour +setting up the, whatever, because the cable came disconnected or it's not connecting or it's not +vibrating or this isn't working or, you know, something, whatever. Um, so I look at this steering wheel +apart to upgrade it, um, because the, the, the belt drive had, like, these plastic things on it, +and you could turn when you turn the wheel it was, like, squeak, um, and it was not smooth. Um, so +I found a model online where you could buy these old bearings and you pull the plastic bearing off +and you replace it with a, uh, with bearings. You replace the, replace the plastic little +knob thing on the other side or whatever. Uh, you slide off this piece of plastic cylinder and you put +on an actual bearing and it makes it a lot smoother. Um, when I did that, uh, I took the main +drive shaft that's connected with all plastic and the whole thing had shattered at some point +time. It probably was me. Um, I had been frustrated at it before and maybe beaten on a little bit. +Um, so it's probably not, you know, uh, from a preexisting issue, probably from me getting angry +and beating at it or something. Um, so with that said, um, it was completely cracked and shattered. +So I had a hand mill, uh, by hand with a gentle tool. Um, I took a saw. I'll see how +I could put some pictures in the, uh, the show notes of that. Um, I took a saw and a saw blade +and replaced, uh, bits of pieces of it until, uh, until it actually worked. Um, so anyways, +all of this, uh, show picks of mine for four wheel and then wheel, uh, a link and also a base +shaker. Also, um, some hub, um, a set of course, uh, and I racing and maybe see a, um, the link for +forza keys. Uh, so that's some of the, for my notes, I'll go back and do. Um, it is fun. Um, +but it's a lot of work. I, I tried to get into the, the, to where I could actually race and just +come in last, uh, but it's hard. It's, it's very difficult. And some people, I've, I've talked to +people online where they're like, hey, out of the way, whatever, and they're like, they don't even +have a steering wheel. They just have like an Xbox controller and they're like destroying me, like, +like five seconds ahead of me on time. Like I, I don't even know how that's even possible. +Like it, I don't understand. So I'm, I'm not good at it. And or I haven't practiced enough, I guess. +Um, so for me, it was a lot of work to even get to the point where I could even be in a race. +So the whole like getting some racing thing is not for me, because I just do not have enough time, +uh, to dedicate to doing it. And I also don't want to play, simressing that much. It's fun, +to have the force to be back and race the cars and tune them and whatever, but +if you have to, you know, if every time a track comes out, you've got to spend 80 hours driving +it to get anywhere good, then it's, it's not really for me. Um, the idea there is, again, +like anything to get practice. And eventually you'll see a new track and you'll, you know, +watch a video and you don't even need to do anything. And you'll get good enough times to be at a race. +I just, I just never made it there. And after not playing for like four months, +I tried to play and it was awful. Like I was just completely, it was not like riding a bike. +Like it, it completely had to start all over almost. Um, I probably would have had to drive for +another 10 hours just to get back to where I was, you know, two, three months ago. Um, so it's a lot +of, it's a lot of work if you're not good at it, apparently. Um, so your mileage may vary, uh, +upon intended, but it's fun, but, you know, don't go out buying a bunch of, you know, +don't spend $3,000 worth of gear when you're not sure if you want to do this or not. +Because it does require a lot of time. Um, I will, I'll tell you that much. Um, but it, it's fun. +And, uh, I used, uh, the other one I'll play is dirt. Uh, dirt, 2.0, whatever. The, uh, the, uh, dirt, +dirt, uh, cold edition or something. It comes with a bunch of tracks or whatever. And then you can get that pretty +cheap. Um, that one's good for like drifting, uh, to learn how to do the rally stuff. I pretty much +had a pretty good amount of fun with that too. And, uh, other than that, uh, you know, the, +see, it's a, the way the base shakers work is you buy the two base shakers. And then you buy this +little USB powered amp thing. Um, I had a label everything, course label, break, gas, B and G. And it's +like a little speaker amp, like a mini Bluetooth powered. Or, or, uh, it does have a AC power, +like 12 volt. I don't know what, the 24 volt input. Um, it's a little tiny little, tiny brick. +And this little tiny brick powers the base shakers. And kind of will give you that feedback. And you +can dial them up or down. Um, and I've had to configure manually for the dirt. Thanks. And there's +not a lot of like pre-built configurations out there as far as I could tell for SimHub. +Um, I did the donate for everything. They also have another one called, uh, another kind of helper +script called, um, so there's SimHub. And also, I don't even know the name of it. It's called, uh, +like copilot or, uh, copilot or car guy. Basically, it's, uh, the, the guy that talks in your +ear when you're on the track or whatever. Um, it's like a track mod thing. So it'll tell you, +oh, you know, there's somebody 10 seconds behind you. You can turn off the native one and use this one +because it's to get a little bit more control when you can change a lot of voice models and add stuff and +remove stuff. Um, there's also mods for the visuals of the game, um, for a set of courses and also +erasing. And a lot of them were kind of paid a play. Um, let me see if I can bring one of them up. +Second. Yeah, and you can buy different setups for cars. I mean, honestly, I spent like, +not like 15 bucks on car setups. Um, if you're not really going to get into it, there's not +really a whole lot of point in paying for setups because you're only going to get like a second, +maybe off your time. Um, it's not going to make that big of a difference if you still suck +and driving a crew chief is the name of the thing that I'll send a link to, uh, for like, basically +an, uh, an automated crew chief deal. Kind of fun. There's other overlays out there. I used to +have one and I don't use it anymore. You see, I think, no, um, you see ours are doing something else. +Um, but there's, uh, you know, countless places to get the settings and who, what, who thinks +what settings or what, once you get it configured the way you want, take pictures, you know, +screenshots, do whatever you have to do to get the right, uh, to keep that information because it +will get reset at some point. Um, I do like one of the other overlays that I used to have for +um, I said of course, uh, that would change, uh, change stuff for you. But I, I've since just used +some hub, some hub has some overlay stuff in it and that's good enough for me. So I pretty much +roll with, I said of course, uh, and some hub and I've gotten rid of the crew chief thing. I don't +use that much. Um, because generally, like I said, I'm just playing it for funsies, um, but that +ideally, I want to get a drift car and that's not going to happen. So I'd like to get a direct +drive with a fancy steering wheel and learn how to drift and the sim racer so that maybe one day +I can have a middle-eyed crisis and get a drift car and then jump straight in and start doing +drifting. That's, that's the, uh, the fantasy that I've built for myself. Um, but it's fun and, um, +you know, you can get out from what you can get, you can get into it for, uh, offused, um, I buy all +my hardware used. I bought my, um, 3090. I've been using it for a year and a half, two, three years now. +I bought it used. Um, I put, uh, pad set on it. Uh, my, this monitor is a, uh, 49, it's ultra wide. +I got half price. It has one burn pixel, uh, green pixel and the, uh, per left that I can't see right now. +It only shows up on black on dark. Uh, yeah, it only shows up on dark, dark pictures, dark, uh, +images. Um, so you can get deals and I, I've been buying a lot of stuff used. I buy the games +essentially used, um, so that kind of helps. Uh, if you're not really serious about a game, I can +buy that, you know, the used version or the Hector version or uh, serial version of it or whatever. +And if I like it, then I'll buy it. I mean, that's why I set up a lot. I bought four stuff like +three, four times, uh, the total. Um, so anyways, uh, that, that covers most of like the set up and +kind of where I'm at. Um, Jesse Flawler is where I've got the set of course set ups. Um, +I drive that horse, 92 to 99 to GTR. Our GT, GT3R is what I like to drive. I'm not one of those +people that drives different cars. I just stick to one and I get really good at that one character +or device or whatever. Um, and uh, stick to the same track until you get good at whatever. Um, +I'll say that to you. Other than that, uh, that's pretty much it. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4685.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4685.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a57e97 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4685.txt @@ -0,0 +1,115 @@ +Episode: 4685 +Title: Listening to SSB stations in the early 1980s +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4685/hpr4685.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:45 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4685, for 2026-07-17 +Today's show is entitled, "Listening to SSB stations in the early 1980s" +The host is Lennart Benschop and the duration is 00:15:12 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Lennart tells how he could listen to SSB stations on shortwave on a radio without SSB capability." +Listening to SSB stations in the early 1980s, I'm Leonard Benschop, I'm an embedded software engineer in the Netherlands. +In 1980, I was 13 years old, and we had a grondic tube radio in the house that had a single shortwave range from 5.9 to 15.5 megahertz covering the 49 to +19 meter broadcast bands. And between those broadcast bands, you could hear all strange noises like heavily +distorted in intelligible speech, and number stations, and telek signals, and more signals of some +short, and then you had this very crowded islands, the shortwave broadcast bands that were +completely filled to the brim with signals. You couldn't have enough selectivity on a shortwave radio. +There were so many signals on the band. The 49 meter band in particular had a signal on every +multiple of 5 kilohertz, wherever you tuned. Whatever time of the day it was, 24-7, this band was +overcrowded. In 1980, they legalized CB radio in the Netherlands, and then I had a desire to own a radio +on which I could listen to those stations. I didn't need to have a transmitter for it, but I wanted +to be able to receive those things. And in 1981, I got the opportunity to buy a transistor radio +with 5 bands, made in 4 shortwave bands, covering the entire range from 1.6 to 30 megahertz. I think +the brand name was Silver. The radio had a fine tuning knob, which was very convenient. It was +all analog. It had an LED signal strank meter, which I think 5 LEDs to indicate. Signal strank +in a bar graph. It wasn't selective enough for shortwave broadcasting, but then you couldn't be +selective enough at that time. It didn't have a way to receive SSB. I could tune to the CB radio, +CB radio in the Netherlands was in FM, narrow band FM. The radio could only receive AM mode signals, +but if you off tuned a bit, you could still hear the signal. It wasn't as good as a proper FM detector, +but you could hear quite a few of those stations anyway. And then, of course, I had more broadcast bands. +16 meter band could be heard with radio South Africa on it. It was one of the few Dutch language +international stations outside of the Netherlands itself. Really nice to hear that from so far away. +That nothing to do with the apartheid regime in South Africa itself. That wasn't important. +The content of the program wasn't important, but you could hear a Dutch language stuff from +that long distance. And that was great. Then I wanted to hear radio emitters +and also marine traffic, like a scavening radio, marine telephony. And all these things were in SSB. +And they invented SSB as a way to save bandwidth and transmit a power. If you have an AM transmitter +and you look at the transmitted spectrum, it has two side bands, an upper N lower side band, +both contain the same modulation information. And then it has in between them carrier frequency, +with lots of signal power concentrated at carrier frequency. The carrier frequency itself contains +no information. You need it to demodulate the signal, but you don't convey information with it. +What were the professional users related radio emitters doing? They filtered out one of the +side band that saved a lot of bandwidth and they filtered out or just +constructed their modulator in such a way that the carrier signal wasn't transmitted. But what was +left contained one side band, all the information you need, but you couldn't demodulate it +without reconstructing the carrier frequency signal. And that was exactly what the proper SSB +receivers do. They reconstruct the carrier frequency with internal oscillator. But my radio didn't +I could have bought a different radio that had a BFO. The internal oscillator was called BFO +for Marscoat and SSB signals. But my radio didn't have one. Some radios were on the market, +way above my budget, like the Kenwood R1000, the JZFRG 7700. That was even a Sony portable radio, +the ICF 2001, that looks very nice in brochures. It got good reviews. It covered all the way from 150 +kilohertz longwaves to 30 megahertz and then FM from 76 to 108 megahertz, very desirable radio. +But maybe if I had one at that time, I wouldn't have liked it because it had no tuning knob. +I had that scale of precisely tuning in an analog dial, pushing buttons and then +there was muting all over the place while tuning. And I needed to hear the signal while you were +tuning. That was our radio was supposed to work. It's it's a bit like you don't put the blind +fold on if you start walking. You want to see what's going on while you're walking. And it's +like the same. You want to hear what's going on while you're tuning your radio. So muting is a very +deaf idea, but still many of those digital portable radios with the up and down push buttons +have excessive muting while tuning. That's not nice and nothing feels like a real tuning knob. +The one on our two radio even had a flywheel behind it. That feeling despite this being way too +white frequency range. My own new transistor radio wasn't much better in that respect. It also +had frequency bands of 10 megahertz wide, but you had true analog tuning and that was important. +But I didn't have a BFO in my radio. If I was better at soldering, I could have +constructed one to build into my radio. But there was another trick. And all radios essentially +that are made and factored commercially between the 1930s and early 2000s are super hetero-dine +receivers. They have a local oscillator that mixes the incoming signal with the oscillator and +then it produces the difference and some frequencies difference frequency. That's the one we +want to have. That's fed into a selective single frequency filter. The IF, the intermediate frequency, +and then you have a fixed bandwidth, selective filter and amplifier and detector. And that's how +the radios work. So if you tune a radio medium-wave radio to one megahertz, one thousand kilohertz +and you tune the local oscillator to around 1450 to 1417 megahertz. The IF, the intermediate frequency, +is roughly in the range for 50 for 70 kilohertz. You tune the local oscillator to that frequency. +If you put a radio nearby, you tune one radio to one thousand kilohertz and another radio to +something around 1450 to 1470 kilohertz, you were here the signal of the local oscillator. +And if there's station in that range, you can hear that local oscillator interfere with that station. +And I thought, well, if that happens, couldn't you use that signal to as a stand-in for the +carrier frequency? Yes, something like a BFO. And I wanted to hear the marine band, the lower part of +it between say 1800 and 2000 kilohertz and an ordinary medium-wave radio had its local oscillator +all the way up to 2050 kilohertz. So it could cover that range. And indeed, I could tune +to say 1850 kilohertz on my portable radio, tune a different radio to 450 kilohertz lower. And +low in the old, I could hear that interfering signal from the local oscillator. And I could tune it +to the missing carrier frequency and make intelligible speech out of that as a B signal. +Great. And if I used a tube radio as the second radio, the second harmonic of the local oscillator, +would tune to over 4 min. And then I could cover the 18 meter emitter band, the 18 meter emitter band +was a very desirable band for me to hear. It had some Dutch language stations in it. You had the +veron station every week in the 18 meter band in SSB, PI4AA, and Papa India for alpha, and it had +a bulletin and I wanted to hear that. And I could hear that. Great. And then, if I had not a radio +with short-wave range, I could use it as a BFO for the 14 meter hand band around 7 +megahertz and the 20 meter hand band around 14 megahertz. And that worked kind of. +Was a bit finicky and you had to vary the distance between the two radios to make the BFO signal, +the local oscillator signal just strongly enough that it makes properly with the signal you want +to receive. But that was doable. Until 1985, I didn't have anything else to hear as its base +stations on. In 1985, I got a communication receiver on non and R107. I had that radio for. I think about +a year or so alone. It's tuned from 1.2 to 18 megahertz in three bands. It was stone death +of 10 megahertz, so I couldn't hear the 20 meter emitter band on it, but 80 meter was great. Never had +such good 80 meter reception ever since. I only had an indoor antenna, but I had a ground connection +and the wires were laid out optimally for the 80 meter band. And yes, that was a great experience +to hear emitors in that band. Of course, in those days you had number stations, you had the +Russian wood packer that was an over the horizon radar that obliterated complete sections +of the shortwave spectrum. It was a Russian over the horizon radar. Everybody hated that one, +but you had to live with it. That trick, though I kind of discovered it myself, was kind of well-known +in the time. I read about it several times. It was especially widely used in countries where +SSB capable receivers were restricted or were like Middle East countries, or where they weren't +simply available to consumers, like the Soviet Union. It wasn't prohibited by law, but nothing +wasn't sale to mere consumers, emitors were supposed to build their own equipment. And +using two radios meant you didn't have to modify your existing radio, you didn't have any +illegal equipment in your house, and in some countries that made the difference. +This is all I want to tell for today. I hope to speak to you next episode. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4686.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4686.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d814c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4686.txt @@ -0,0 +1,336 @@ +Episode: 4686 +Title: Debugging Security Cameras: Firmware Updates, Python Scripts and Windows Workarounds +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4686/hpr4686.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:46 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4686, for 2026-07-20 +Today's show is entitled, "Debugging Security Cameras: Firmware Updates, Python Scripts and Windows Workarounds" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:41:52 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Debug a Uniview camera using Python scripts, firmware updates and Windows hacks." +Hello everyone and welcome to another episode. I have a pre-book video with your host operator +feeling a little under the weather so my voice is kind of we're seeing moody +I mumble so I'm going to try to announce heat especially if I'm 6 so we'll get through this +Anyways, a couple of things +I'm going to talk about fixing my front camera +and um before that I'm telling you how I'm doing my soup +I drop soup the trick to it is get it boiling +and when you um you can make your own broth you can use a beat broth cubes it's +sludge cheaper than buying the whole +stupid chicken broth you can buy the chicken +boolean cubes or whatever chicken boolean cubes do that same thing +can't really help +Anyways, he makes those up however much to want +I got to do one and maybe a couple eggs +the trick is to heat it up to like a rolling boil and then I start +real quickly and I get a little swirl going on +and then I pour the egg down in there from the the egg drop +and I pour it down and let it let's swirl around and that's how you get that rippony +rippony messed up +you'll actually want to have more broth than you really need +um as a ratio so like this is a little junky because +there wasn't quite as much broth but if you want to be perfect you have like tons of +broth and very little egg but I don't want to be wasteful so +uh when I had to move that so what I do is I do usually +once I get that rolling boil I turn off the heat and I spin it around circles +and then I pour the egg in there and I'll let it sit for a second and it's done basically +and then uh since this is actually kind of salty I shouldn't have +put my soy sauce in there usually on but soy sauce but that's kind of where I'm at now +this is my hot soup for my sickness I picked up some kind of something +oh I went camping with my son and uh +went camping and uh for scouts and apparently that's uh I picked up some kind of +crack red so first things first we're going to check the camera itself I have no +browsers um so the camera is a I'll actually tell you +cctvf I did vocal domain names so instead of remembering IP addresses +I put in the UDM device I put um we call that static DHCP basically +so that static IP I think it's like a when they put in like the MAC address and it +results back and that's how you get like a static DHCP I think how it's set up +so anyways um this is some trinysium actually it's not trinysium it's a very good brand +UVN um UVN is there to find the docs on it +UVN UVN you eat and no um UVN no of course not so anyways um this is a +hardware version from where version model number maybe I'll search for the +lot of number it'll come up model yeah look a thing with a good fig +this is a one of those ones is for like a pbpbr a a vansy um DVR or whatever they want you to buy their +stack so as a as a camera by itself it's kind of jeancy it's not kind of doesn't work +so I had to write my own API there's not really an API for it so this is uh the company is +univ you sorry it's an univ you uh why is that ISP warm light deterrent network camera +they're pretty high in cameras the optics are amazing with the past three or four years um you can +get really good optics on these cameras um for relatively low cost um you can find their reseller +for an Arnold like but I don't know how much I paid for this one I think I paid cost for it because +friend does stuff so he I showed him a picture of my horrible black and white mess and he sent me +one of these and and kindly sent me one of these so um now I have a crappy one of the back +and then the fancy one of the front the problem is she's not getting the alerts so +the way I have it set up is this kind of giant fat SD card on it +and that runs uh plugs in power of ether at POE and I think it's a lot of like 30 volts or +some crazy power of ether at some crazy amount of voltage under power of ether that by the way +so I'm going into the server because I think that's where everything lives +unfortunately when you have we are old you'll remember where anything is anymore +and that's why another project I'm working on is my own personal AI so I have a crontab +very crypt that's not it's my SL um CCTV FPY and unbeknownst to me I have a log here so +I can look at this log um it's a Python script that I will put in these +show notes I will do show notes so let me make a new thing here put Python script for API +camp in show notes and a model number I use the clipboard history which is the security +flop because as soon as you copy and paste a password you're screwed so whatever the +all right so we're going to take a look at this Python script first +extra make sure it runs as a current user so we're going to do this whole +it's a crontab entry that says it runs every two minutes well that's aggressive +I also want to put thrallion here so no recordings found in the past 24 hours +which is not great because uh they're definitely been something in the past 24 hours my +while I come home my flat whatever so that's a little weird oh look at the log here so it's a +a Python command followed by the Python script and then the pipe we call it listen or +or greater than greater than greater than in flex and then the errors out to itself +on standard and standard out I never really could understand it so there's no time +it's a time state of sign any of this 11 25 10 20 few is when I first started this script +and it looks like it started it was working this file is massive I use VI and you can press +colon and then a button like a bunch of numbers I'll just mash down the work and I'll take you to +whatever line number so if you do colon one we'll take you to the first line like so like that +so I met the end and it says no recordings in the past 24 hours so one thing this here is +missing is a timestamp me bullet my brains out here +all right so we have some exceptions next retry exceeded with URL +jailtreme streams offset blah blah blah fail a sourcing new connection error whatever +um that's a weird one so I'm going to cut out this file because everybody loves cat +recordings there's a bunch of noise in this file so I think it's called no recordings +and choosing tests recordings found no recording sound in the past 24 hours so we're going to +get rid of that it's going to cat this file so I'm counting the log file and I'm gripping out +grip minus V if you use e-grep it's basically an alias to the grip so I don't +I've gotten out of the habit of using that because it doesn't exist everywhere +what's the kind of one thing to keep in mind so um I've gripped out that no recordings +to an alias something crashed um found one recordings in the past 24 hours +no new recordings across this found record but fail to record fail to get recordings for 01 +almost like a off issue +and then there's really big error like a timeout type of thing +probably fire the power went out maybe next retries exceeded with URL blah blah blah +recordings begin time stamp and time stamp limit offset blah blah blah so I'm filtering out by date and time +it looks like so I'm going to go to the actual camera which sucks because again +these things are not made to be used I don't want to say it locally I have to download and +install this weird executable from China it's like a five-meg set up EXE it's like +super-shifty so whatever all these things are kind of scary say at least so I've installed this +little executable which randomly makes me reinstall it I don't know why because I'll install it +and then like two months later whenever next time I have to use it it has to be installed again +which just does make a sense so anyways um I believe there's no callbacks to try that in here +so I've installed this little setup EXE which I think like hooks a DLL so that it can do +whatever silliness needs to do I see a main stream in a substream substreams like the +traditionally a substream is a lower lower quality stream and it's loading like a poop poop poop poop +the local admin password is all the same pretty much my house is like the egg you know +the technology where we get it you're pretty much screwed anyway so if you got somebody on your +network you're kind of screwed anyway so I usually use leave credits default to most stuff +because it doesn't really matter um no it is random so pseudo random should dare I say +the math nerds we'll say that it's a pseudo random so anyways I can't get any playback at all +working it might even just need to be like unplugged and plugged back in because I can't even get a +stream going um I do have somewhere else a different URL which I don't know where it is probably +in my city in notes now um let me search I've been using it up sitting for a little bit +yeah this is a video too I'm still new to obsidian but it's it's the +the front end for my AI assistant that eats uh two three googles one yahu +male and a uh linkedin and google voice mail oh okay so you might be able to hear this +no I can't hear this I see crickets and a tire in her front yard whatever so it's it's working +as he's stuff um the real question is is why is it why is one the playback not working +which I'll close all this out closing on all my browser windows and restarting +maybe that'll help +I've always kind of had issues with the live view +with this camera again a lot of these are made to have like a DVR whatever and you know +they're like a hundred dollars or something who knows oh they have my life only put let me put +it outside gamers wow this is saltiest says hell anyways um yeah I can't even get +upstream or mainstream I can hit it via RTSP but for whatever reason there's no captures in here +I mean it's possible it could have been reset somehow um I don't know but this view eyes +does it say at least take a photo take a photo I have no idea what I'm looking at +let's see free space so there's kind of two ways to do this I had uh a there's like two different +kinds of answers like motion events which I used to have enabled motion detection is off right now +this is like your standard better regular motion detection and it has I don't have to think +it has boundaries like the other thing does I don't think it has boundaries I can't even remember +but that's the more traditional method the one you want is this intelligence thing that's called +intrusion and the intrusion let's see do like these rules and yeah see I still can't see anything +going on with this with this setup try not a coffin your ear let's see try and load it again +that's the thing with this camera it's just like not designed to be managed with a client +um so I don't know it's kind of frustrating I'm gonna do a tale of the +tail tail minus in 10,000 third in 2000 found 15 recordings no no it's like it found 15 recordings +and then through up maybe maybe it needs to be like you know reset because it's trying to pull +in 15 recordings that once and it can't do that right so we're gonna just assume something like that +happened all right now I'm starting to cauff getting um see +content I'm I don't know I the whole crime tab thing there's user +crime tabs and there's root crime tabs and you can have the root crime tabs basically the user +and I feel like I just want to put everything in root but that's not what you're supposed to do so I +have user crime tabs but it's very confusing um because I have different users with different +crime tabs and it's hard to see them all I'm sure it was like me and I can run to see them all but +it's quite I'm not just to throw it back up this first cp like cp my um +either auto hockey that will um it makes paste and copy and paste uh caps locks a and caps like s +but when it's not on I just end up typing caps like s and that caps like a capitalating +capital S um so it's kind of annoying I turned it off because I was going to be near game +so we have some kind of resets out yeah fx file sent sent events is the is flag is a it's like a +placeholder cat oh my god I'm hitting the cast on all the time now so I'm going to go to +go to my user folder start up this thing oh my god what is going on so going on my user folder +I'm going to start up a auto hockey because it drives me insane not to be able to copy and paste +it does much of other stuff things too it's like I'm pretty defined can't um +get don't get something get something send events +all right um and it's like a bunch of timestamps um maybe if I just heard it or echo +I don't know just one the last one two +sent events it's also weird that like sometimes when I copy and paste it's like got +extra characters in it and it's so weird if I use the clipboard history and then I paste +what's in the clipboard history the first time it has like carrot left bracket left bracket 200 +uh squiggly and then the paste it version and then squiggly but then if I do it again +it works perfectly fine so don't understand what happens it's weird it's really weird the way uh +the way it works like it doesn't make any sense clipboard Canadians so anyways that sent events +I completely cleared out which I think five eight nine eight four three some kind of time stamp +or right you ID I have no idea that's from with the vibe code it should is it you have no idea +what anything is doing what it does stuff so I'm going to do my contact I'm going to run this +run the script it's who happens so no recordings found the past 24 hours um which might be true +because I can't tell if anything is running anyways so yeah it's proving not to be fine at all +and that's that's the uh the fun of it Jesus um I guess I can turn off my at blockers and my +privacy battery and you black origins that might be it +when every time I refresh at the log in it's like +1990 style session management all right I turn off all the uh at blockers maybe I'll get an +actually stream I'll get an actual stream for this no yeah give it I don't know man um +yeah this is just waste time so I'm about to see what happens okay so I'm about to both the computer +and the camera and I do not see any events for today at all I want to check yesterday +interface for this thing is potato all right so let's do this stuff it's uh 12 523 that was +so long time ago I'm not gonna do a 523 doing 623 6 2019 okay so it hasn't been doing events for +a while not even locally so this is their stupid camera app it's oh my god it's not even now +you know you you you you think um so now I'm uh it's it's now 623 the date I'm going back to +619 I see nothing I want to go back to 523 I see stuff let's go to 615 so the events aren't happening +at all there's no events being generated meaning something's wrong with the the ability +for it to capture events for some reason so we're gonna go with that um I doubt there's any kind +of troubleshooting or any errors or log is there anything with this thing um that is really weird +now can I force a record record you would do like to access storage and you can save images +oh no I'm not that kind of record I want to record on that for server and so this web app thing is +still piece garbage let's see if we don't have Firefox somewhere want to stay up at Firefox on +here anyways it's super exciting obviously let me put jump off for a second okay so a bit of a tangent +I got it working with I found a Firefox executable for a playwright which is for automation +of stuff so I'm I have Firefox running with the viewer and I can actually see the camera +but I noticed that my windows directory is still exists and it's really hard to delete that +windows old the folder what you can't do is a program called there's other ways to do it you can +do the run as okay let me back up there's users in windows there's system and trusted +installer and a lot of people think that admin is admin no it's not admin system is more or less +sort of admin and trusted installer is more like a root if if I had to put them in a bucket +a lot of people do not know how windows permissions work and how that magic is I don't even know +but I know I do know that you can use a trusted installer kind of bypass you think where you +replace the binary of the trusted installer executable or the the trusted installer +command line and replace it with whatever you want see you basically take the trusted installer +service and replace the command to run the trusted installer service with whatever you want it to +actually do as trusted installer and then and then you hopefully revert it back if not all your +adder move add all that stuff having to do the software it's going to get all one key and you will +be able to install stuff but I had a hack that would basically forcefully delete stuff or +forcefully run a specific process using the trusted installer hack by replacing the admin you +have admin rights to replace the trusted installer service binary to run whatever you want and +that's kind of how you hack around the problem with that there's no easy way to do an interactive +trusted installer instance now there's an executable that's been around forever called +exact EXETI.exe exact TI exact trusted installer.exe and this lets you bring up a +windows you you take them run dialogue but you can run whatever command you want as trusted installer +so I type C&D hit enter and I have set and I see compact layer app health installer the +row with the system path is home path is still user internet which is quite interesting +I'm looking at the environment variables for this thing so it's compact layer detectors +app health installer does compatibility window windows compatibility layer I wonder if there's +something there if that's like a way I can be just installer I don't know so there's some other +some other weird chocolate you last update not just okay so we're going to try to delete this +mood directory versus this windows it windows old and I guarantee you it will work with +falsely because trusted installer has writes that not even system has if you try to do see yeah +which system is being used by other process I don't know how this is like how how long I'm +supposed to delete the stuff except do it in dice yeah it's saying like users all users in video +messaging message bus log is being used by another program I hope I'm not actually delete my real +windows folder that would be hilarious I don't think that's the case let me double check +windows directory SQL Microsoft does sure system root SQL Microsoft Windows okay but it says it's +being used by another process which doesn't make any I think sense that's kind of terrifying +so the auto boot links to get rid of this uh that's really the only way to delete stuff +in windows to like won't let you delete um you can do chamada type of stuff and just to complicated +whereas windows or Linux will let you just melt what what what you want and then delete what you want +without having to do take ownership of entire folder and like take ownership of all the files and +all that bullshit um Linux you just go now in a fsmout whatever god um you know there are +some very rare edge cases that that could be a problem but anyways that was a bit of tangent +it's on my website it's uh under actually I'll make a show that's for it trusted installer +exact TI right as where's my notes I started some notes they and then I rebooted +so anyways card drives by the problem with that is it'll trigger every time inside whoa what is that +dude I just saw something purple and glowing what was that +that I was creepy anyways the I buy house lights on so there's a little bit of weird +colors going on so there's a rule that has a compounding box of my driveway and all in +way out to the street but not the street itself motion technically gets picked up by +cars driving down and that motion gets activated and once the motion is activated it looks for an +object such as a motor vehicle or pedestrian and I have sensitivity thresholds whatever +it works good it used to trigger a lot and that was why I switched it from +the regular motion to this intelligence smart thing but the problem with the intelligence smart thing +is that the email alerts we're not working the intrusion detection email it's we're not working +so I had to make my own that's kind of where we're at now I don't know what the problem is +I did go out there and move around and do stuff I read I formatted the storage +so it says total capacity 230 gigs geez man what how much 230 gig micro SD is right now +how much did I buy that for Jesus Christ why did I buy such a massive card +250 250 micro 250 on to say 250 I don't even know where I bought it from +like I see R. I'm looking at my Amazon history I probably bought it through them +with the storage yeah it'd be careful here's a 32 gig 250 and why that's it +okay how much did I buy this for I bought it for 49 dollars +what you can buy 200 if you can see it for 49 bucks I guess it's just like the memory the +ECC or the fancy ram is really expensive this is cheap 450 bucks I'll probably pay more than that +what did I pay let's see I pay 38 okay whatever anyways +yeah that's that I put the just a dollar thing in there I I'm going to try one more thing +and try to trigger it and then I'll come back okay well we got something in how did the date the +system to I got close this other window I looked at the date it says it's November 1st 2011 at 1500 +hours is this system time on New York is the right time zone the NTPs NTP server is an IP address +of I don't know where the hell that is so let me ask a I top NTP servers for Linux +didn't even type it correctly it's like deviant what's a deviant one I pulled that NTP +network sure North America pool US pool dot NTP dot org who's an 80 on these test NTP check +failed that's interesting what about it about to +NTP check failed we're okay we're actually get the IP address and put that in maybe that's why +I had an IP address in there is because the IP address is it doesn't take a host name oh that's +fucking weird it doesn't take a host name so that's weird I said so with the computer sync with computer +system time that's not I don't want to do any of that I don't want to do any of that so let me go back +back to cc cc tv fn what's definitely one problem is it thinks it's it thinks it's 2011 for whatever reason +that I wipe it out or something I don't know so I click the download I search for the model number +and I click download firmware and I get this weird as this is the weirdest download I've ever seen +in my life it's at 7% it's dog slow when I click the download button and there's no actual it's +not using the browser it's download but it's using like some Java bullshit so I am just because I'm +crazy I use bolt media downloader that's like a sniffer sort of sorts um so we got this weird +140 mags file that it's downloading it whatever speed so not going to copy and paste this +copy this link it downloads like some json from Lenovo and then it it's files.com wow really +you can even host your own shit you got to use some third party whatever before minutes two minutes one +minute um yeah that's the fastest it's going to get so I can do stream to downloading too so +I'm going to take that link and take it to download manager send to download manager which +can do three threads at a time also download links see if I get three or four threads going +I'm going to be fair it is a like secure link it's got like my IP address in it and like all +kind of stuff um yeah any ID token the token is blank of course off key so it's definitely +some kind of you know temporary thing and the hilarious thing is that it says client IP equals +in my home IP which that's going to be in there it walks anyway so it doesn't make a ton of +sense to put that somewhere um I guess you can deny the download based on somebody else's +if you put their own remote IP in there I don't know I've never heard of files if I LZ.com to +fucking malware why these guys don't support their own downloads is terrifying they got Facebook and +YouTube and all that stuff but I guess that these things are all shady Chinese and whatnot like +what why why why do you have the outsource here your downloads that's kind of gross +so we're almost done 66% so it's not any faster with multi threaded the thing I use from +multi threaded is called turbo download manager and that's for chrome and along with both +media downloader and turbo download manager I can pretty much download almost anything +and then URLs that I can't download directly I'll send to FFNP or YouTube deal +um I have a oh my get up I have a YouTube downloader script that will use RSSC2 to multi threaded +download any video you send it um so you can set it a list of like you know 16 different videos from +the same site across 16 other websites you'd have like 16 times 16 and it would download all those +at the same time I think how I have it set up anyway so here's a file that is a bin which it's supposed +to be I think as a file because the way I downloaded it it's not so let's see what happens when I +click this yeah it's supposed to be blah blah blah does it so I'm gonna copy and paste this weird as +message I'm gonna rename it to a zip file thank god it opens so I have this zip file and +I'm gonna extract it you'll see that it's okay it has a cloud upgrade button which yeah that sounds +terrifying um click the image debug I'm gonna turn that off while I'm doing this I can go ahead and +export my config um file encryption I don't want to encrypt anything can that be empty +that's gonna weird +is it file or something how is it encrypted it's just like this is encrypted like it's a +dot config file I don't understand so I use seven zip which is the mother of all +decompression tools yeah I don't know how to read this I don't know how to read this it's a +weird file um I use bash for a lot of stuff bash I can I bash here they kind of slow bash everywhere +yeah sort of works um IPs IPc it just says data um the file can be just calls it data I have no +idea what this is but we're gonna back it up put it on the uh Google I guess it's just my +config drive like keep like documentation and small things like things I want to be able to search for +essentially in um in Google Drive because it has that kind of index feature +or I can search for stuff so I'm gonna call it the call it some +was it CC TV CC TV CC TV F is it F new I can't remember I'll try to drop it in here +I think it's there so now I have backup of the config the new version is detected no +okay we'll take a while please do not disconnect power that no idea what it's doing it just says it's +gonna take a while oh look the data right so it says 2026 that might be why it's not working because +there's nothing to collect from 2011 maybe the data's so far off you know who knows so we'll go +pop back into the thing and delete that date file maybe that'll help kind of jumpstart it +um or into the no dot to these files +lesson video yeah so that's blanked out and then also we're gonna +I go test to the log file so I need to log file and I look new to the timestamp trigger +think so that knows so that it knows where it's at and then we'll go from there see what happens +at the update all right well uh I guess it says the upgrade will take a while please do not +disconnect power wish me like um looks like the family's heading back here so I do not have +any more time and you know more of the same take it easy +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4687.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4687.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbbfb86 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4687.txt @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@ +Episode: 4687 +Title: UNIX Curio #11 - Merging Files +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4687/hpr4687.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:46 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4687, for 2026-07-21 +Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #11 - Merging Files" +The host is Vance and the duration is 00:11:21 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Bringing your data together" +Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number 11. +This series is dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking +in the dusty corners of Unix Lake operating systems. +I frequently find myself reaching for the cut utility when rating scripts to extract +one piece of data from a line or to select specific fields from a log file. +While I am familiar with its counterpart, paste, I don't employ it very often because I don't +typically need its functionality. +This perhaps has to do with the fact that I rarely work with text files containing lists. +For shorter lists, I usually end up using a spreadsheet and for larger ones a relational +database. +Both are valuable tools with their own strengths and weaknesses, but it is good to also +know about standard utilities for working with lists. +After uploading Unix Curio number 8, that's Hacker Public Radio episode 4657, I felt +like maybe I had been too dismissive of the commutality in that episode and should +talk more about tools that are useful when managing lists. +I don't often find myself using paste, but can explain how it works. +Briefly, it is a rough opposite of cut. +Given multiple files as arguments, it assembles the first line from each one separated by +tabs, then the second line and so on. +Instead of tabs, a different delimiter can be chosen with the Hifendee as in Delta option. +Another option is HifendS as in Sierra, which swaps rows and columns so that the content +of each name file would appear on one line. +While paste itself doesn't qualify as a Unix Curio in my opinion, there is one feature that +does. +A Hifend can be given as an argument multiple times. +In this special case, the output is taken line by line from standard input, but is spread +across as many columns as there are hifens. +You can find an example of this in the show notes. +The paste command has limitations. +The files you give it must all be already arranged in the same order, and if any file +is missing a value, it must have a blank line so that subsequent lines will match up correctly. +The files do not necessarily have to be sorted alphabetically, but whatever order they +are in has to be the same. +Check out Hacker Public Radio episodes 962 and 4201 for some more background on the paste +utility. +Our second Unix Curio for today is a command called Join, which has a bit more sophistication. +It operates on two files, which can have multiple columns, and combines them using the +Join field. +By default, the first column or field in each file is the Join field, and only entries +that exist in both files are printed. +The Hifen 1 and Hifen 2 options can be used to join on a different field, and Hifen +O, select specific fields to be output. +To make it so lines with missing entries also appear, you need to use the Hifen A option +but an actual empty string with a separator won't be printed unless Hifen O is also present +and includes the field. +The default field separator character is one or more blanks in the current locale. +For the POSIX locale, this means a space or a horizontal tab. +The Hifen T option selects a different character, and also removes the treatment of multiple +occurrences as a single separator, making it possible to have an empty field in one or +both of the files. +By default, a single space is used to separate fields in the output. +If Hifen T is given, the same character is used for separating fields in both input and +output. +You would need to use another tool, like TR, if you wanted to have a different separator +in the output. +The join utility might be an improvement over paste in some cases, since the join field +makes it a little easier to identify which entries match up across files. +It is limited to operating only on two files, one of which can be standard input, so combining +more than that requires either creating temporary intermediate files or chaining together +join commands in a pipeline. +Another requirement is that all files must already be sorted in the current locale. +The full details of using join are a bit too involved to explain in this episode, so +I will refer you to the show notes, for an example, and a link to the utility's documentation. +The brief description for join is relational database operator. +I won't dispute that, but in my view it offers far fewer capabilities than people would +expect from today's relational databases. +I would imagine that when most people think of those, they have structured query language +or SQL in mind, which offers a lot more flexibility and functions to operate on data. +However, I can see how join could be suitable for simple operations. +Our last Unix Curio for today relates to the sort utility. +While, as you might expect, it is well known for its ability to sort data, it has another +feature that is more obscure. +When used with the hyphen M as in mic option, instead of sorting the files given as arguments, +it merges them together. +All of the files are expected to already be sorted. +Once combined, the list that is output will also be sorted. +The order in which the files are named does not matter. +It is not required for the contents of the first file to start before the second, just +that both are sorted. +Imagine that you organize an annual event and have a separate pre-sorted list of attendees +e-mail addresses for each of the past three years. +You are planning this year's event and want to send out an announcement to all of these +people as they will probably be interested. +The command sort, hyphen M, hyphen U, followed by the names of the three files, would spit +out a combined list that you can use for your e-mail blast. +Because it is likely that some people would have attended in more than one year, I included +the hyphen U option. +It removes any duplicate entries. +It is probably no surprise that the sort utility appeared early on. +It was in 1971's first edition Unix, though it didn't gain the merging functionality +until 5th edition in 1973. +What did come as a shock to me is that both cut and paste didn't show up until 1980 with +system 3 and were actually preceded by join, which was in 7th edition Unix from 1979. +I assume that at least cut would have been around far earlier, given it's usefulness +and how firmly established it seems to be, but I suppose it just seems to have been with us forever. +As mentioned, I don't typically manage data as text files containing lists, and I probably +won't start using the join utility, or these features of paste and sort very much. +But it is still useful to know that they exist and how they work. +Hopefully this episode has taught you a bit about them. +Thanks for listening. +There are a few topics that I'm working on for the next Unix Curio. +A couple of these will require more research than normal, so be advised that it might +take more time than usual before they are uploaded. +Keep an eye out here on Hacker Public Radio for them to appear. +If you have an idea for topic, or want to ask a question, please comment on this episode +on the HPR website. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4688.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4688.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d70015f --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4688.txt @@ -0,0 +1,401 @@ +Episode: 4688 +Title: Downloading Podcasts with a Shell Script +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4688/hpr4688.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:47 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4688, for 2026-07-22 +Today's show is entitled, "Downloading Podcasts with a Shell Script" +The host is Whiskeyjack and the duration is 00:30:19 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "The basic principles of downloading podcasts using your own shell scripts." +In this episode, I will describe techniques for downloading podcasts using basic shell commands +such as WGet. +I will illustrate this using a bash script that can be used to download HPR Podcast. +Even if you do not have any interest in downloading your podcasts using this method, you +may find some of the methods useful or interesting. +It is the principles that are discussed here that are important, rather than the implementation. +I realize that there are already a number of different podcasts download programs available, +including at least one written in bash. +However, you may feel that none of these suit how you wish to do things and want to create +your own system tailored to your specific needs. +If so, then I hope that the following is of some use to you. +If not, then you may still find some of the things discussed here to still be of interest. +Some of the subjects I cover include using WGet to a user-defined file name, parsing XML +with XMLLint, using I notify weight to trigger an action when a file is created or modified, +using notify send to send a message to the notification area, and a way of allowing +a Cron job to send a message to the user interface. +Background There has been an ongoing discussion in comments to some HPR episodes about +problems downloading HPR podcast episodes. +Apparently some people have been experiencing problems with the way the episode URLs are structured. +I am afraid that I don't fully understand the nature of these problems, so I will be addressing +that problem directly. +Instead, I will present a bash script that I have written which can be used to download HPR +podcasts. +This bash script can be run using Cron to automatically fetch new HPR podcasts and save +them to a designated directory. +This is a simplified version of a script that I have used for years to download HPR +and other podcasts. +I won't try to read the full bash script out in this podcast, as that would be a bit +dull to listen to. +I will instead describe what each section does and why I chose to do things that way. +Perhaps other people can offer suggestions of better ways to do things. +I will post the full bash script in the show notes. +Fetching podcasts. +The standard way of distributing podcasts is to publish an RSS feed containing URL links to the +audio files. +RSS is a very long established and widely supported mechanism for this and other purposes. +An RSS feed is basically an XML document which can be accessed over HTTP. +These URLs contained in the RSS XML document can then be used to download the actual audio +files such as MP3 or Ag files. +Basically, what we need to do is the following. +Download the RSS XML document. +Extract the URL links to the audio files. +Compare the lists of these links to a previously saved list and see which ones are new +and which ones are ones that we previously downloaded. +Make a list of the new URLs. +Go through this list of new URLs and download each of the new audio files. +Check to see that we actually received the new audio file. +Add the URLs of the files we successfully downloaded to our saved list of podcasts URLs. +In addition to this, we would like to have the above-happened automatically in the background +without our having to take any action on our own. +We may wish to receive a notification of one new podcast has arrived however. +We would probably also wish to receive notification of any errors or failures. +Fetching podcasts, the preliminaries, our desire to be able to run the script automatically +imposes some requirements on our solution. +Dischedual the script, we will use Cron. +Cron is a Linux facility to run scripts on a schedule. +One of the side effects of using Cron however is that we need to specify the full path to +locations where we intend to keep any data files plus also the full path to where we intend +to put the downloaded podcasts. +So the first thing we need to do in our script is to specify a number of different values +for things like file locations as well as things like the URL for the HPR RSS feed and several +other things. +I will skip over the details of these, although I may make reference to them later. +Get the RSS data. +The first thing of real substance to do is to fetch the Cron RSS feed data. +I have put this in a bash function called, get RSS URL data. +The contents of this function are a one-liner but with a number of elements chained together +through pipes. +Now loading the RSS XML document. +First we use WGet, which is a standard command on most Linux distros. +We specify four things. +First we set a timeout, I have chosen 20 seconds. +Next we set a retry limit, I have chosen 3. +Then we specify the output of WGet is sent to standard out rather than saved as a file. +This is done by using the dash capital O option followed by a space and then a dash. +The capital O option is usually used to specify a file to save the output to, but when +used with a dash causes the output to go to standard out. +Then we specify the URL of the HPR RSS feed, contents of the XML document. +This gives us the HPR RSS XML document. +There are about 5,000 lines in this RSS document. +Most of these lines are the show note, which are also included in the feed. +Extracting the podcast episode URLs. +There are only 10 lines of the document to contain information that we are interested in +however. +These lines are enclosed in and closure XML tags. +We just need to find those lines and separate out the URLs. +Standard command line tools. +There are two ways that we can do this. +One is to use a combination of grip, said, and cut. +Grab can find the lines containing the enclosure tags. +Said and cut can extract the URL from the surrounding extraneous data. +However, this method does not discriminate between real enclosure tags in the data portion +of the RSS feed and enclosure tags in the show notes which are included in the feed from +episodes such as this one. +This may be an acceptable problem in practical terms, but we can do better. +Using an XML parser. +The other method is to actually parse the XML document. +There are at least two command line XML parsers that I am aware of. +These are XML lint and XML starlet. +I have used XML lint in this example. +I have not used XML starlet, so I can't offer any comment on how easy or difficult to use +it is. +I won't give a detailed explanation of all the things that XML lint can do. +It has many features, most of which, as the name suggests, have to do with finding formatting +problems with the XML itself. +Describing everything it can do would be at least one episode in itself. +I will instead just give the particular command used and explain each element of it. +In this example, assume that we are piping the output of WGET directly into XML lint. +The complete command is XML lint that is XML lint that is XML lint. +Space--X-Path that is XP-A-T-H space double quote slash slash channel that C-H-A-N-N-E-L slash item slash +enclosure slash ampersand URL double quote space-space pipe symbol space cut that C-U-T space +dash D single quote double quote single quote space dash F2. +In this example, XML lint is the name of the command. +slash dash X-Path tells it to parse the document according to the string which follows. +slash slash channel slash item slash enclosure slash ampersand URL tells it to find a series +of tags in the hierarchy of channel followed by item followed by enclosure and then extract +the URL attribute from the enclosure tag. +The dash which follows it tells it to look for input from standard in rather than from +a file. +The result is a string which has the URL attribute name and equal sign and the URL that we want +enclosed in quotes. +To get just the URL itself, we pipe the output from XML into cut using the double quote +characters as the limiters. +We then save the result in a temporary file. +Finding the new episodes. +Next, we wish to find the new podcast episodes. +Each H-Pierre episode is identified by a unique URL. +This means that if we save the URLs of episodes that we have already downloaded, we just +have to look for the URLs that do not appear in this saved list. +The easiest way to do this is to take our two lists of URLs, sort each into temporary +files and compare the sorted URLs using the Com command. +This is simple but has a drawback. +Some podcasts occasionally change distributors. +When they do this, the old podcasts are republished with new URLs and you end up downloading +a lot of old episodes over again. +With H-Pierre, we could get around this by extracting just the file name and looking for +that instead of the full URL. +I will however leave that problem as an exercise for the student and just accept that if +the URL format changes, we may end up downloading old episodes over again. +Since the feed has a maximum of only 10 episodes in and however, that isn't really that big +of a problem. +It would be more of a problem with podcasts which have very large numbers of episodes in +their feed, but the solutions of those will be feed specific. +Downloading the new podcasts, we should now have a list of URLs for the new podcasts we +do not already have. +Typically, this should be only one file, but there could be several, or even as many +as 10, if we have not turned on our computer in a while. +Therefore, we need to iterate through the file of new podcasts URLs and download each +one. +Before we do that however, we should check to see if there is in fact anything new to download. +To do this, simply use WC-L to count the number of lines in the list of new URLs and +saves a resulting number. +If this number is zero, there is nothing to download and we can skip the download step. +As an additional check, we should see if the number of downloads exceeds some threshold +value that we wish to set. +This is not a major problem with HPR, but some podcasts have hundreds of files in their +RSS feed rather than just the most recent ones. +If we do exceed our download limit, then we need to log in error and skip downloading. +Assuming there are no problems so far, however, the first thing we need to do is to extract +the name of the audio file from the URL. +We can do that using the base name command. +We will use this to specify the name that we use when we save the audio file. +HPR has a very well-formed file name. +Some podcasts do not however, and for those you would need to construct some sort of suitable +name using either information found in the URL or simply creating a name using a timestamp. +Next, we download the audio file using WGet. +This is similar to how we downloaded the RSS feed, but with a few changes. +One is that I have increased the timeout to 90 seconds. +This may not have been necessary, but it seemed like a good idea. +The next is that when specifying the output file name using dash capital O, we use the +file name we extracted from the URL. +The third is that we specify a destination directory using the dash capital P option. +After WGet has finished, including any retry said it had to do, we next check that the expected +new file is both present and not empty. +We can do this using an if statement, wished with the dash S option. +If the file was found and not zero, that we add that URL to a temporary list of downloaded +URLs. +If the file was not present or with zero length, we output an error message to an error +log. +I will come back to this point later. +Next, if there is more than one podcast to download, we sleep for three seconds. +While not strictly necessary, it is considered to be polite to not hammer a server repeatedly, +but rather to put a small delay between file downloads. +After we have downloaded all the audio files in our list, we can add the list of URLs +for the files downloaded to the permanent list. +While we are at it, we should use tail to trim the permanent log to keep it from growing +indefinitely. +This limit should be several times bigger than the number of files in the RSS feed. +In this case, I selected 50. +Finally, we write any errors to the permanent error log and also write those same errors +to another file used to signal errors for display to the user. +We have now successfully downloaded, at least one HPR podcast. +To notify the user of events, it would be convenient to be informed of new podcast downloads +when they occur and also to be notified of any errors. +One of the limitations of crime jobs is that they cannot access user interface. +This means that we cannot readily send a message directly to the notification system to inform +the user of the presence of due podcasts or of errors. +I notify wait. +The solution to this is to use I notify wait to monitor particular files and directories +for changes. +The man page for I notify wait states the following. +I notify wait efficiently waits for changes the files using Linux's I notify interface. +It is suitable for waiting for changes to files from shell scripts. +It can either exit once an event occurs or continually execute an output events as the occur. +End of quote. +In many Linux test rows, I notify wait is provided by the I notify tool package that is +I and O T I F Y dash T O O L S. +I won't go over all the features of I notify wait. +Instead, I would just describe how to use it for our purposes here. +I notify wait modes. +I should point out first though that I notify wait operates in two different modes. +In the normal default mode, it exits after being triggered by an event and it must be +reestablished again in order to resume monitoring. +In monitor mode, which is enabled by using the dash M option, it runs indefinitely, responding +to events. +I will use the default mode here. +The man page for I notify wait provides a simple example that we could copy and modify +for our purposes. +A great minute examples that you will find are based on this example. +However, it doesn't quite do what we want, so we need to change a few things. +Pod fetch notify. +The first shell script is one which monitors for the arrival of new podcasts and sends +a notification to the user. +I will call this Pod fetch notify. +The complete scripts are in the show notes, I will just provide a brief description here. +Setting up event watches using I notify wait. +Descript is enclosed in a while loop, which runs indefinitely. +In the first line inside the while loop, we call I notify wait. +I notify wait will then block until the event it is told to look for occurs. +In short, execution of the script will wait there until an event occurs. +The names of the events are listed in the man file. +In this case, we are looking for modify, create, and move to. +The latter one being spelled M-O-V-E-D underscore T-O. +Each of these does pretty much as you would expect, reacting to modifying an existing file, +creating a new file, or moving a file to that directory. +Problems when using text editors, I should point out that if you are testing a script +which uses I notify wait, then modifying a file with a text editor may not produce the +results that you may think it would. +Instead, it treats us as a new file with the same name with the original file being erased. +Since I notify wait, attaches itself to the I node rather than the file name, it sees +the file that the text editor changed as being a new file. +If you wish to test this realistically, then use echo to overwrite the file by using I-O +readirection, capturing output. +In my example, I captured the output from standard out into a variable, but I don't do anything +with it. +If you wish to, for example, display the name of the newly downloaded podcast file, then +use the dash dash format option along with an appropriate formatting code. +There are details about this in the man page. +On the next line, we captured the exit code using dollar sign question mark, responding +to exit codes. +If the exit code was zero, then a monitor event was triggered and there should be a new +podcast in the directory. +In this case, we display a message indicating that a new podcast has arrived. +I will describe how to send notifications shortly. +If the exit code was not zero, then an error occurred. +An example of such an error would be if the directory were not present when monitoring +was started. +In this case, we display a message indicating that a fatal error has occurred and then +exit. +Delay for more podcasts. +Finally, we use sleep to wait for some arbitrary period of time to prevent notifications +from being triggered multiple times if several podcasts were being downloaded in succession. +In this case, I chose to wait for 60 seconds. +We have now completed the process and can return to the top of the loop and resume waiting +using I notify wait. +Sending notifications to the user. +I mentioned above about sending notification messages to the user. +In the Nome desktop, notification messages appear from the center of the top bar in a list. +Other desktops or operating systems may have something similar. +To send a notification message to the notification area, you use the notify send command. +This is n-o-t-i-f-y-s-e-n-d. +Simply follow notification send with a quoted string and it will be displayed in the notification +area. +What fetch error notify? +The second shell script is one which notify the user of errors. +I will call this pod fetch error notify. +With this shell script, we set up a watch on a file which contains any error messages from +pod fetch. +This script is very similar to pod fetch notify. +The exceptions are, with I notify wait, we only monitor for modify. +There is no sleep command at the end of the loop. +Instead, we sleep for a few seconds just after getting the exit code from I notify wait. +This helps prevent problems caused by race conditions. +Next, we check the I notify wait exit code. +If it was zero, then we read the error report file and send notification message to the +user containing that error message. +If it was not zero, then we check to make sure that the directory that should contain +the error log exists. +If it does not exist, then we send a notification message to that effect to the user and +terminate the script. +If the directory exists, then we check to see if the error message file used for signaling +exists. +If the file does not exist, then we create it. +One of the reasons for an I notify wait error is that if this file that it is told to monitor +it does not exist, it cannot set up a watch condition. +By creating the file, we correct the cause of the error and allow I notify wait to operate +normally. +Finally, we increment an error counter and check to see if the limit is exceeded. +If there are excessive errors, then sending notification message to the user and exit. +The reason for this is to give the user an indication that the error notifications are +not working for some reason, and there may be a problem that needs looking into. +The error counter is reset every time the I notify exit status is okay, so occasional unexpected +glitches should be something that is ignored. +Of course, podcast fetching errors are something that will probably happen only very rarely +if at all. +So this final step may be seen as an unnecessary embellishment, installing the scripts. +Next I will describe how to install and prepare the scripts to run. +We need to perform the following steps. +First, we need to create a directory to hold the scripts and their associated data files. +Next, we need to create a directory to hold the downloaded podcasts. +Then we must copy the scripts to these directories and make them executable. +Then we must edit the scripts to have the file path in the script, match the locations +of the new directories that we created. +Then we need to install XMLLint or alternatively modify the download script to comment +out the use of XMLLint and enable the alternative method using Grip and set instead. +Then we need to run each script manually from the command line to check for errors. +If podfetch ran correctly, it should download the most recent 10 podcasts during this test. +Adding podfetch to the content. +The above describes how to run the scripts manually. +In order to fetch podfetch cast automatically, we need to add the podfetch script to the +Cron schedule to do this open a terminal. +Type CronTab that CR-O-N-T-A-B-Space-E and then press Return. +A text editor should open up containing the CronTab file. +On to Buntu, this editor is GNU-Dano. +Enter the appropriate Cron parameters. +I will provide an example here for running at 12 pass the hour every three hours. +This is one, two, space, Asterisk, rash, slash, three. +Space, Asterisk, Asterisk, Asterisk, space, Asterisk, +space, Asterisk, Space, Slash, Home, slash, your user name slash the path to where you're +putting the files slash podfetch.sh. +I won't explain Cron in detail here. +The example that I have just given +should be good enough for most people. +The Asteris slash three parameter +will cause it to run every three hours. +The one-two parameter will cause it to run +12 minutes past the hour when it does run. +Checking every three hours should be good enough +for most people, but you can adjust that as you see fit. +I would recommend, however, +that you don't check more frequently than once per hour. +Checking more frequently than necessary, +puts extra load on the distribution servers. +It is very unlikely that you really do need each new podcast +the moment it is available. +I would also recommend changing the 12 parameter +to some other random minute value. +I would suggest avoiding on the hour or on the half hour +as a lot of other people are probably checking at those times +and it would be better to spread the load out more evenly over time. +The file path parameter should, of course, +match the actual path to wherever you have located +in the script, including the correct user name. +Making the notification scripts start automatically. +The two notifications scripts can be made to start automatically. +The exact method to do this may vary according to distribution +or desktop. +On Ubuntu, this is done using the start-up application +preferences GUI program, which should come already installed. +I won't go into details on this here. +As it should be fairly self-evident, how to use it once you see it. +What this program does is to create dot desktop files +in the dot config slash auto start directory in your home directory. +These dot desktop files are all run automatically on startup. +Once you have added the notification scripts, +you will need to log out and then log back in to make them active. +Conclusion. +In this episode, I explained how to write a set of simple shell scripts +to automatically download each new episode of HPR +as it comes out and to notify you of its arrival. +The download script described here is tailored specifically +for use with HPR only. +However, it was derived from a larger script +that downloaded other podcasts as well, +based on information read in from a text file. +If you are feeling ambitious, +you can add those features back into this +to handle all of the podcasts that you listen to. +In a comment to another episode of HPR, +I had said that I would cover ID3 tags in MP3 files, +but this episode is long enough now, +so I will leave that subject for later. +I look forward to seeing you again later +in another episode of HPR Public Radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4689.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4689.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0754a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4689.txt @@ -0,0 +1,185 @@ +Episode: 4689 +Title: Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 8: Writing the code +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4689/hpr4689.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:49 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4689, for 2026-07-23 +Today's show is entitled, "Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 8: Writing the code " +The host is Trey and the duration is 00:19:33 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "How we wrote the code to make this whole thing work" +Hello again, this is Tre. Welcome to Part 8 in my cheap yellow display project series. +If you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my HPR profile page, +and I'll post a link in the show notes. It is hard to believe that I started this project +and the HPR series to document it more than a year ago. Time flies. Life happens. I spent the last +eight months or so focused on work-related activities that I had to set aside the project. +And once I set it aside, it was difficult to get back to it again. The one time that I tried, +I found my son's old Windows laptop, which I had come and dared to use for this project, +was once and truly dead. We live in a different world now, though, then we were when I began this +project. Today, everything is about AI. How it is changing the world, increasing efficiencies, +and even displacing certain types of jobs. Vibescoding is transforming the way we make software, +and now everyone is a developer. Within my organization, we are all being strongly encouraged +to learn more about AI and apply it to our daily work. We are blessed to have access to a wide range +of training and to powerful tools which support the process. Several colleagues within my organization +and outside my organization have recommended Claude code for development, for organization, +for brainstorming, and for so much more, every time I turn around, you should use Claude code +for that. Now, my role in my organization is not that of a developer, so I have not had the need for +Claude code at work. There are plenty of other AI tools for me to use there. But at home, I thought +I could install Claude code at home to experiment with and to learn, and then it hit me. +I wonder if I could use Claude code to help me with my stalled, cheap yellow display project. +Hello, my name is Tray, and I'm a fraud. Okay, I don't think that I'm a fraud, but having never +used such a powerful tool to help me code, I feel a little bit like a fraud, and with Claude doing +the work for me, let's talk through the process of what we did. As I mentioned, I was unable to +use the laptop on which I had created the original GUI code, but no worries, because it was all on +GitHub, right? Right? So I began trying to install Claude code on one of my Ubuntu machines, +that failed miserably, and all the instructions I found online recommended running it on Windows. +So I transitioned to installing Claude code on a freshly built Windows 10 system, +using some old hardware, which will not support Windows 11. Surprisingly, it seems that Claude wants +to run within Ubuntu 4 Windows subsystem for Linux. Go figure. +Once I went through all the hoops for installing and setting up my basic subscription to Claude, +I got to work. I created a new directory to use for all of my project files, and another one +for Claude to write all its output files to. This way I had some protection on what it could +manipulate and what it could not. Everything I read about or heard about using Claude code +for projects like this recommended beginning by using Claude to create the project plan itself. +So my first prompt was as follows. Quote, I'm building a project using an ESP32 cheap yellow display. +The final goal is to have a device with a graphical user interface, which will allow me to store +several text messages. Each assigned to their own specific button. Then, when one of the buttons +is pressed, the message will be converted into Morse code, and the message will be sent by blinking +the onboard LED. I already have the initial design for the GUI coded into my GitHub repository. +Please construct a detailed step-by-step plan for building this application, unquote. +I wanted to keep it simple at the beginning, so even though we planned to use an +opto-isolated relay for the output, I'm starting out using just the built-in LED. +Claude asked me for the URL for my GitHub repository, and I provided it. +After thinking for a bit, it produced a project plan. I'll give you just the headers here +and some of the basic information, but you can read the full project plan in the show notes. +Cheap below display Morse code center, step-by-step build plan. What you already have. +Three, fully designed LVGL screens, send config, and keyboard. Seven send buttons with green +styling on the send green, a speed slider from 30 to 50 words per minute, and a program slot +drop down on the config screen. Text area and LVGL keyboard widget on the keyboard screen, +display driver and touch screen hardware initialized, but touch read was stubbed out. +Phase one. Fix touch screen input. Phase two. Persistent message storage. Phase three. +Config screen slot selection and speed. Phase four. Keyboard screen capture and save text. +Phase five. Morse code engine. Phase six. Non-blocking LED transmission. Phase seven. +Wire the send buttons. Phase eight. Integration and polish. Wow. That's a lot. +This was wild. Cloud determined exactly how far along in the project. I was and also alerted +me to the fact that the touch read was stubbed out. This means that the files that I uploaded +to GitHub were my original GUI files that you can hear about in episode five. HPR4532. +And they were not the ones that I finally got working properly in episode seven, which is HPR 4624. +That was my own fault. Did I mention that I don't get git? I really need to learn to properly use git. +But we have a plan broken down into eight numbered phases and they seem to address all the functionality I wanted +with a few additional things that I had not even thought about. Interestingly, even though these phases were sequentially numbered, +Cloud recommended that we approached them in a bizarre order. Phase one, then phase two, then phase seven, +partial. Then phase five, then phase six, then phase seven, full. Then phase three, then phase four, then phase eight. +All right. Let's see what we can do. The first phase is to fix the touch screen input. +Cloud took me through it, step by step, asking as it needed to read specific project files. +Finally, it wrote a new UI.ion.code file to my specified output directory for me to test. +I copied it to the correct file location, set a quick prayer compiled in the Arduino IDE and +downloaded it to my cheap yellow display. Well, that is interesting. +The display looked nothing like it was supposed to. There were vertical green bars with smaller +dashed green vertical stripes in them. I'll include a picture in the show notes so you can see exactly +what it looked like and why it was so difficult for me to describe here. And I spent the next +hour or so trying to explain what it was that I was seeing to a chatbot. That is thunder and +lightning. Very close. We'll continue recording. I spent the next hour or so trying to explain +what I was seeing to a chatbot. Cloud recommended potential fixes with either did nothing or made the +situation worse. I began questioning whether this really was a good idea. How people actually +gained efficiencies by talking to a bot and even several other life choices. +And then I had a thought. I prompted Cloud. If I were to take a picture of the screen on the +cheap yellow display and copy it to the output folder, would you be able to analyze it to better +determine what is wrong and how to fix it? Shockingly, Cloud answered in the affirmative and told +me to copy the picture to the output folder. And then it let me know when to press or then to let +it know when to proceed. Sorry, I was distracted by the clocks chiming. If you listen to any of my +previous recordings about clocks, and you heard both the kuhu clock and the shifts bell clock, +I bet you could determine exactly what time it is where I'm recording. Back to the recording. +Cloud analyzed the picture and more of the supporting files it had copied from GitHub, +asking me each time if it could access that file. It determined that my original code was written +for a flavor of LVGL version 8. And I was now using LVGL version 9.5, which was not completely +compatible. It recommended changes and then asked permission to make those changes. +File by file. h files and dot c files. Finally, I succumbed and I gave it permission to edit +all the files in the project folder without asking me for specific permission for each file each time. +Cloud was still explaining each change and showing me exactly what would be changed and asking +for permission to make the change so that I could review them. But now it was not asking additional +permission to write to each of the impacted files. Next, I compiled the code and downloaded it +to the cheap yellow display. Alright, it was a different screen but still not right. +Again, I took a picture of it and gave it to Cloud to analyze. So, Cloud paused and altered the code +to generate a specific test pattern over top of the GUI. The test pattern was supposed to cover +the entire rectangle screen. You can see the the test pattern in the show notes. +Parts of the pattern were in a square on the screen and parts were not. Another photograph +and analysis told Cloud that there was some rotation and screen size issues. We repeated this several +times. Some resulted in improvement and others did not. This is the point where I noticed something +extremely interesting. Not about Cloud specifically and not about the app. But I noticed something +interesting about myself and about the process. Previously, when I was working through some of +these challenges without Cloud, I found myself becoming more and more stressed, frustrated and angry, +until I found a solution. Then another problem would repeat the cycle. Success in the end was +great but the emotional extremes during the process were not always pleasant. +Now, I was effectively managing the project and relaying information to the resource responsible +for fixing the problems. This was a very different experience. But I also ran into another issue. +Cloud became absolutely certain that the problem revolved around the device not accurately +knowing where the four corners of the screen were. But in reality, the output of the test pattern +was rotated 90 degrees out of phase from the actual screen orientation. It took several iterations +of me insisting that the problem had to do with screen orientation and not corner coordinates. +It was interesting to experience the tool doubling down on an obvious mistake. But we finally +resolved that. Again, while it was frustrating, it was much less stressful. We proceeded to phase +2. This is the persistent message storage phase where we insured that the button labels on the +send screen were stored in the device's persistent storage so that when they were edited to contain +the messages they would send, that information would survive a reboot. I had not even thought +about this in my original ideas about this project. Next, we combined elements of phase 5, which is +the Morse code engine, phase 6, the non-blocking LED transmission, and phase 7, the wire and +send buttons all together. Building the Morse code engine was a night and area that I'd been thinking +about for a while. I already had working parts of something similar in the Arduino practice oscillator +I have referenced a few times in this series. The code for the practice oscillator may be found on +my GitHub, but it was all based on original code by J.M. Harvey 1, my only contribution being +making pin assignments variables so that the code could easily be ported to different devices. +So I was happy that we were building the Morse code engine directly. The code for it may be found +in the Morse.h file, which uses a constant character look-up table to define each character +without any specific direction for me, plot use the Paris timing methods I've already described +within episode 6 of this series. It defines timing for dot and dash and letter gap and word gap, +and all are based on a simple calculation of 1200 milliseconds divided by the number of words +per minute we wish to transmit. Along the way, we discovered that if we tried to use a delay function, +it would crash the program due to a conflict with the LVGL timer used for touch screen inputs. +Cloud altered all the delays accordingly. Then we worked on phase 6, which is the config screen +for slot selection and speed. This allowed us to actually configure the word per minute we wish to +use in addition to selecting a specific send button to configure. It also forced us to work on phase 4, +which is our keyboard screen, specifically the Capture and Save Text portions of it. +And these are used to type in the entries for each send button. At this point, I also decided +that I want to use the keyboard sent the keyboard screen to send ad hoc Morse code as we typed on it. +This was an additional thing that I added to the project plan. During this phase, we discovered +several bugs, which seemed to cause random freezes. Careful trouble shooting with the messages +output of the Arduino IDE's serial console helped us narrow down the causes and remedy them. +Finally, all the tests worked and I was able to merely pre-configure macro buttons with custom +messages and use the cheap yellow display to send Morse code for those messages to the onboard +LED at whatever rate I specified. I've noticed in my presentation of this narrative that I +repeatedly slipped into the first person plural terms we and us instead of the first person singular +terms I and me along with an impersonal it for Claude. I have unconsciously personified Claude +and recognized it as an integral part of my formerly one-person development team. +I finally configured Claude to connect to my GitHub repo and uploaded all of the files and documentation. +We additionally created a CYD-narrative Markdown file which describes in more detail all the work +that was done in this project. I still do not 100% get get but we are successfully using it. +You can find all these files on my GitHub repo where I've shared them under a GPL 3.0 license +and there's a link in the show notes. There are several additional steps I plan to complete in the +next few months. One, I will be integrating an optimized-related relay which will allow me to plug +the device into a straight key input for any amateur radio. This will require a battery power source, +a charge controller, and some more hardware. I, all right, make that Wii, Claude and I will be +modifying the code to support an audio side tone through an attached speaker when sending code. +We will add an output selection switch to the configuration page to choose any combination of +speaker, relay, and or LED as output. We will develop a downloadable firmware which I hope to +share on the cheap yellow display community. If you can think of any additional features you would +like to see integrated, please drop me an email using the email address in my HPR profile. +I may also work with a friend to attempt a 3D printed case for this entire contraption +and I will be sure to record additional episodes sharing that process. +I have learned so much throughout this project about the cheap yellow display, about ESP32, +about graphical user interfaces, about Claude code, about GitHub, and most of all about myself. +Does using AI to develop this code make me a fraud? I still, it still feels like it in some ways. +Does it make me more productive? Absolutely. I made consistent forward progress when I only had +30 to 60 minutes each day to work on it and everything discussed in this episode was completed within +less than a week. If I had been able to work on it uninterrupted, it may have taken me 3 to 5 hours. +Does using AI empower and inspire me to do more projects like this? 100%. I feel like I had +support working with me the whole way. I was less stressed overall and it had less of an impact +on the amount of and quality of time I spent with my family. I will be wrapping up this series soon +without any more six-month gaps I hope. Until next time. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4690.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4690.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e876b20 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4690.txt @@ -0,0 +1,78 @@ +Episode: 4690 +Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 14 +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4690/hpr4690.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:51 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4690, for 2026-07-24 +Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 14" +The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:05:48 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "We conclude a sample game of Civilization V" +Oh, this is a hookah welcome you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode in our ongoing series on computer strategy games +and we're wrapping up the sample game of civilization five in which we are playing as Austria and +trying to get a diplomatic victory +We've already done a couple of episodes about the earlier part of this game +and just to refresh your memory, I made a mistake and +the mistake was to think that puppeting city states was going to help me get to the diplomatic victory +In fact, it pushes me further away from it, but let's see what happens +So now I'm at turn 340. I just puppeted another city state and I have one more on the way +I have sent a large number of military units both land and sea +to the city states that are on Japan's border +If he tries anything now he will likely regret it +Now I'm starting to build things I had not bothered with before like granaries and amphitheaters +I got a couple of great engineers and used them to rush build a couple of wonders +I'm nearly finished puppeting all the city states and my happiness and income are both quite healthy +I am in such good shape that I started to build the world's fair which I initially proposed then ignored +Now at this point I only have one more city state to puppet and then I will have puppeted every city state in the game +So it's time to put my large income to use in other ways by giving gifts to the other players +I may want to get a few more votes on my side to help get over the top and the world leader vote when it happens +On turn 357 I completed the puppeting of all the city states in the game +Meanwhile I'm building up my science and building wonders as they become available +I didn't build any in the early game because I had other priorities +And we've talked before about how I typically tend to do that in Civ Games +Because the early game I really want to get out my cities and develop them +And I find wonders to be a distraction from that +But you know at this point I've got a strong military, a high income and no other pressing needs +My scoring leader board is now double that of my nearest competitor which is still Japan +And there's denunciation of me just expired with them taking no action +Now I used a great engineer to rush build the porcelain tower earning me another great scientist +I then used to build another academy +Now at this point it is mostly a slog to the finish +Since I was so dominant and so wealthy I could afford to pursue a couple of other options just in case +One was a science victory which looked like a possibility though it would be close at this point because I had not been focusing on science from the beginning +I had to be very focused in my science research to do this I couldn't afford to spend time researching every possible technology +The science victory is built on launching a spaceship so I had to focus on things that would get me to that goal +Now the other thing I could try for was a culture victory +Now I'd already dominated two other empires culturally without half try +And I was generating great artists, great musicians and great writers pretty rapidly +So I built museums and then archaeologists and grabbed every artifact I could find to stuff into the museums +But the final victory came when I researched globalization +Now globalization is a tech that allows you to get an extra vote in the world council +For every spy you send to another empires capital and designate as an ambassador +Now I had a bunch of spies by this point which I had mostly kept in my own cities to do counter espionage because I had a big tech lead over everyone +So I didn't want them stealing all my tax +But the fact that I had all of these spies handy meant I could basically put one in each of the other ships +All of the other empires +Doesn't make them as ambassadors +A few turns after I did that a vote for world leader came up and I won +So I did get my diplomatic victory after all +Now this was my first time using Maria Teresa of Austria as my leader and it was fun +But in the end, puppeting all of the city states actually made it harder to win a diplomatic victory +And other games I've played every city state that was an ally was an extra vote in the city council +And I assumed that making them puppets would mean I would get that many votes, but apparently not +Of course if I'd read more carefully in the civilization wiki, I would have realized this because it says they're very clearly +That Austria is one of the worst empires to pick if you're going for a diplomatic victory +So the fact that I managed that anyway is nice +I think I actually could have done a science victory as I had my spaceship half built when I won the diplomatic victory +But I hope this analysis of how I actually played this game will be helpful to someone else +So this is a hookah for hacker public radio signing off and it's always encouraging you to support free software. Bye-bye +You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link +to find out how easy it is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive, +rsync.net, and our mirror network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons +Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4691.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4691.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..24fca3b --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4691.txt @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@ +Episode: 4691 +Title: Viva la Coda +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4691/hpr4691.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:52 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4691, for 2026-07-27 +Today's show is entitled, "Viva la Coda" +The host is Lee and the duration is 00:08:51 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "or C++ and all its friends" +Hi, I'm Lee. I started attacking C in my early teens, especially encouraged by seeing +C programming jobs advertised on either C-facts or what Oracle would have salaries over +50K per annum. C-facts in Oracle were static pages transmitted as terrestrial TV signals +in the UK which displayed on the rotation. When I went for my first programming job and +was asked if I knew of Oracle that was my response. They told me Oracle was also the +name of an enterprise relational database management system. I didn't know what +SQL was though because my parted copy of visual basic included references to that. +That was rather convoluted by the driver layer used to interface between Microsoft's programming +language and the actual database. By new it could do cool things like data binding between +say a tabular control and rows of data in a Microsoft access database. +As I was getting into C, I found a book in the local library by Kerningham and Richie all +about this language. The first thing I learned was to include the standard IO header file +in every program, then to start with a function called Main and output things to the screen +with functions called either printf, puts or put char. Then I started trying to input text +into a variable with a function called scanf but this was hit and miss because you had +to remember to give a pointer to a variable to this function rather than the variable itself. +I didn't grasp why at the time but the reason was that C functions cannot directly modify +the parameters and give it but if the parameter points to a place in memory then it can +overwrite what was stored in there. Unlike a language like basic, we get an exception or +error when you make a misstep. C is unforgiving. C programs are not interpreted one line +at a time. Instead, they compiled down into the very DNA of computers known as machine code. +When it is cutable machine code goes wrong, it can either crash the program or even crash +the entire operating system requiring you to restart the whole computer. This was especially +true of non-multi-tasking OS as like DOS. I did a lot of my C hacking in ballancy plus plus, +which came on 7 floppy disks I bought rather than pirated and could go far beyond simple input +text output text programs. If you use correctly, you could produce fully fledged windows programs. +What is C plus plus in my ask? Well, the name is kind of a plan words. In the C language, +if you post fix a variable with two plus signs, it increments the variables value by one. +So if it was 41 before, it would now be 42. So in effect, we're saying this language is what +C would be after drinking a double express so. But what is C plus plus? The answer is +deceptively simple. It is C with classes. Classes help you structure code better. We've seen +everything structure as functions. That's pretty useful, but not always intuitive when +trying to describe real world things that have both state and operations that modify that state. +With classes you can create objects that are composed of both functions and data. +With objects being what you call a concrete instance of a class. Your class might be hacker, +your object based on that class might be lead. When I was at university, they're not necessarily +during the lectures. I came across other languages that syntactically were very close to C or C plus plus. +These were Java and later Java script, and these are still around today. +In today's day and age, not so many people program in C and C plus plus directly, +unless you're creating embedded systems or high performance systems libraries, +we need to be close to the metal, as they say. C plus plus, at least as it was all those years ago, +as I said, is incredibly unforgiving and as the extreme levels of crash ability. +Modern C plus plus is somewhat a different kettle of fish because of both language extensions +and standard class libraries that allow an efficient idea to program more safely and reliably. +No one, if they can help it, really uses what we now call raw pointers anymore. +Smart pointers are various kinds. His operation is itself written in whatever ecosystem of C plus plus +you're using, a pretty much necessary to ensure developer sanity. I learnt this when I started +hacking around with an independent project I came across on YouTube called SerenteOS. +Watching Andreas Kling, building his own new tire operating system, akin to windows of the +90s but with a Unix twist, one line of code at a time was completely hypnotic and absorbing. +It's not an exaggeration to say this is something that rekindled my raw enthusiasm for +Serious coding and help me towards becoming a fully fledged professional in this field, +once again. Although admittedly, little of my paid work deals directly with low level +languages like C plus plus. I'm not afraid to go there if the job demands it. Most recently we've +giving device native functionality to the mainly high level more forgiving web stacks on mobile devices. +I've tried contributing a little to SerenteOS. I've been working for some time on an +orgio editor basically a very cut-down version of Audacity for this OS. In order to get this done, +I did end up contributing some tests and a minor bug fix to the orgio format processing library. +But so far my orgio editor has been understandably too big appeal to swallow to get code review +and be merged after all everyone on the project is a volunteer and I can't expect my +particularly interest necessarily align to other peoples. At the time of recording this project +remains an unmerge poor request, now closed due to inactivity. Interestingly, a lot of the +Linux kernel, the engine which drives GNU Linux distributions, is codenously or sees low level +companion assembly language. Times they are changing though because there is a new kid on the +block called Rust. Rust is a low level systems language, a lot like C or C plus plus. It has a +radical view on making every aspect of what we loosely term memory management completely explicit. +At all times it's completely defined what bit of code is responsible for what variable +or bit of memory for how long who else can access it and most importantly when and by whom +it is freed up and destroyed when everyone is done with it. This prevents a very high proportion +of crashes memory leaks and in particular makes programs a lot more resilient against low level +security exploits where a malicious process or bit of code stills and modifies what's in memory. +I have to admit I may get some of these concepts now, but to me this is difficult stuff. +I prefer to rely on languages that have some form of garbage collection. That is where the +system makes intelligent guesses about what gets tidied up and when. And yes this introduces overhead +and is less efficient at least for the OS. It is a difference between elsp of telling me to +prepare food in a way that produces no crumbs versus me doing things in my own sloppy way +but then cleaning up afterwards. That's fine if I actually do follow through with cleaning up afterwards. +Thankfully I guess generative AI systems probably are able to understand the +proper use of memory strict languages like rust so would be of help if I wanted to improve my +repertoire in that direction. My interest in operating systems and low level coding has led me +down some interesting paths. During the New Year's Eve show 2025 I learned that some copies of +the original Unix source code were now available and get up. I found the source for Unix system +five revision four one of the more populated connections of Unix. Being fascinated to understand +what it was doing I started making detailed notes a divided by various LLM programs. +What I thought was going to be an afternoon's idle investigation turned into a month long +study absorbing much of my spare time and what had started as a handful of notes was now an +entire book along with illustrations code snippets and cartoons and printed copies six of my book +shelf and I presented to talk about it at our camp 2026. My biological father-in-law even asked for +a copy since he collects any such thing offered by anyone in his near or distant family and I was told +he may even have read some of it. Anyway this has been a rambal through some of my experiences with +C++ and what it means to me. All that's left for me to do is issue the statement return semi-colon. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4692.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4692.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2b947f --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4692.txt @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ +Episode: 4692 +Title: Noise Music Tutorial 2: Using Audacity to Make Noise +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4692/hpr4692.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:53 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4692, for 2026-07-28 +Today's show is entitled, "Noise Music Tutorial 2: Using Audacity to Make Noise" +The host is TheDUDE and the duration is 00:08:48 +The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "A tutorial and explainging different ways to make Noise music using audacity" +hello hacker public radio this is the dude here and I'm here with another +tutorial on make noise music again doing these so that way the reserve to +just not get drained and also like everybody's saying there needs to be you +know more people doing shows so this is being you know trying to get off my butt +to really do something plus also when it comes to like noise music +tutorials this is something I can pretty much do right off the cuff and kind of +low effort to really you know record a show so that being said we're gonna +talk about two different things that we can do on audacity to make noise +music this is more so about like a recording as opposed to like live +performance although you could do creative things for like a live performance with +just audacity and the way that we are gonna pretty much do this is two methods +one is the harsh noise wall method which comes from like a genre of noise +music called harsh noise wall which is harsh noise which is a shabjo +genre of noise music that basically is highly improvised and just basically +making just like really really loud distorted feedback and dense composition of +electronic stretches static you know abrasive sounds and and harsh noise +wall is that combined with the production technique known as the wall of sound +and so basically what you do to make that is you can open up audacity hit the +generate tab click on noise and you have a three different varieties of noise +that you could do and you can pick whatever duration of how long you want the +noise to be but you can go with white noise pink noise and brown noise or +brownish noise or brownie and I can't remember what it was off the cuff but +anyway you do that and then you just layer a whole bunch of different tracks of +that and voila you got harsh noise wall is that really like a troll genre of +music properly I mean like the genre according to Russell Williams described +that music jurors discuss a Russell Williams that it is a literal consistent +on flitching and enveloping wall of monolithic noise which is fricking true +because you're basically just getting a wall of static and the noise artist +familiar describes the genre as no ideas no change no development no entertainment +no remorse and yes I am reading this off a Wikipedia on that but to be honest +like that's a real good thing to describe it I've seen not live performances I've +seen videos of performances and it's basically people just pressing play on their +computer which is funny for like the first like five minutes but it's kind of boring +which is kind of an unfortunate thing you're just doing this just from audacity alone +which is kind of why I talked about like the previous about the because you could actually +really do something with that live and actually have like a performance +that being said you can actually do something with the next bet that would just like a music +concrete method and that is you basically take a few recordings of various sounds +and you cut them up and edit them and just put them into like a different sound collage +so you could do that with like power tools you could do that with like your neighbors that are +just like yelling at each other or you could do that with like you know traffic +construction sounds if you work at a factory you can do field recordings of the machine that +you're running and you can just add like reverb you can reverse the track you can +stretch the track and all these have different like things with like effect which has you know +compression you can add compression to it you can filter different filters delay reverb +distortion modulation let's see let's see some other things that try to see what's +different but you know you have the effect tools and you also like I said you have like +generate tools but you can actually actually do that you can actually combine both you can +really have like the generate noise static you'll add everything else later there and then also +edit the tracks as well now what you could cool thing that you can do and the hip-hop group +clipping has done this as like a way of like releasing a live album was that they literally +did it show and then they had contact microphones and like audio microphones throughout the entire venue +including like inside like bathroom sinks so that way you got like the sound of like the faucet +just like hitting the microphone and that was blended all together and you literally had like you +know that was like their live studio album and what I think you could probably do for like a set +is that while someone's going on before you you can like record the different noises that are +throughout like a concert venue and outside the venue and then you edit them in real time +and then you showcase that to the audience and I think that would be something that's kind of neat +that you could probably do during performance because what it comes to noise like you could +literally just like sit there press play or scream into the microphone and just like make like +you know various noise things you can basically do anything but it's really really nice what you +have like a performance art to it as opposed to just you know standing there and hitting play on a +a on a computer laptop but you know nothing against guys that do that it's just to me it's like +I'd personally would get bored doing it but that being said that's all that I have today a very +short episode here but I think I'm going to do more of these I might actually try to explore like +different genres a little and also maybe like talk about like different techniques that other +like noise musicians do and maybe more tutorials on that but I think I'm going to stay on the +topic of noise music with this because it's something that no one else is really doing at least on +hacker public radio there are a couple like noise music podcasts that have been around in the +past I'm not sure if there's any that are still going on but this seems to be something that I can +actually consistently go on so that being said I will see you guys later and don't forget to +contribute to me show please I all right later +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4693.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4693.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7983797 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4693.txt @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +Episode: 4693 +Title: Amateur Radio Field Days +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4693/hpr4693.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:54 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4693, for 2026-07-29 +Today's show is entitled, "Amateur Radio Field Days" +The host is Archer72 and the duration is 00:11:14 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Archer72 talks briefly about the worldwide Amateur Radio Field Days" +article and it's an annual amateur radio contest widely sponsored by the IARU regions and +member organizations encouraging emergency communications preparedness among radio amateur +operators. In the United States it is typically the largest single emergency preparedness +exercise in the country with over 30,000 operators participating each year. Field Day is always +the fourth full weekend of June beginning at 1,800 UTC Saturday and running through +259 UTC Sunday. Since the first 8 o'clock RL field day in 1933 radio amateur is throughout North America +have practiced the rapid deployment of radio communications equipment and environments ranging from +operations under tents and remote areas to operations inside emergency operations centers. +Operations using emergency and alternative power sources are highly encouraged since electricity +and other public infrastructures are often among the first to fail during national +the first to fail during a natural disaster or severe weather. To determine the effectiveness +to determine the effectiveness of the exercise and of each participant's operations +there is an integrated competitive component and many clubs also engage in concurrent +leisure activities or example camping in cookouts. Operations typically last at continuous 24 hours +requiring scheduled relief operators to keep the stations on the air. On the day additional +contest points are rewarded for experimenting with unusual modes making context be a satellite +and involving youth in the activity. International field day events i.a. are you region one +sponsors and amateur radio field day for Europe and Belgium the Royal Union of Belgium +amateur radio amateurs organizes the field days in Belgium. In the United Kingdom the Radio Society +of Great Britain holds its field days with the region one schedule but has its own awards +independent of the rest of the I.A. R.U. region. C.W. is the first full weekend of June from Saturday +1500 UTC to 1500 UTC June 1st and 2nd has 2019 as of this reading. Single side band first +full weekend of September from Saturday 1300 UTC to Sunday 1300 UTC September 7th through the 8th +2019 as of this reading. The Doitser amateur radio club refer at DXU H Funk Sport hold this +field days with the region one schedule. C.W. is the first full weekend of June from Saturday +1500 UTC to Sunday 1500 UTC June 1 to 1st to the 2nd 2019 as of this reading. Single side band +is the first full weekend of September from Saturday 1300 UTC to Sunday 1300 UTC from September 7th +to the 8th 2019 as of this reading. In Greece the Radio Amateur Association of Greece +organizes the National Field Day with region one SSB Field Day first weekend of September. +It issues its own awards for the highest scoring Greek stations who participate in submit contest +logs. In Italy the associate Zione Radio Amateur Italiano holds its field days with region one schedule. +C.W. is the first full weekend of June from Saturday 1500 UTC to Sunday 1500 UTC +UTC on June 4 to the 5th 22 22 as of this reading. Single side band SSB is the first full weekend +of September from Saturday 1300 UTC to Sunday 1300 UTC September 3rd to the 4th 22 as of this +reading. I.A. are you region two United States and Canada. The American Radio Relay League +slash radio amateurs of Canada Field Day is held annually during the first full weekend in June +beginning at 1800 UTC Saturday and running through 25 29 UTC Sunday. +Sponsored by the AA WRL and RAC but organizes primarily by AA WRL. Field Day is open to all +amateur radio operators covered by these two I.A. R.U. member organizations. +In Brazil the scout movement in Brazil also participates in scout field day with the participation +of amateur radio scouts during the second week of June. Scout field day like what happens around +the world takes young people to the countryside squares, grounds and public places other than scout +headquarters so they can assemble their equipment. If possible in a sustainable way to work +with a short time to work during short time in emergency mode safely learning details and +prepared preparing to save or help lives. Scouts field day is a camp or excursion with the same +preparations as any other scout activity however with the use of radio stations in BHF UHF and HF +transmitting and receiving signals via phone and even telegarvy. I.A. R.U. region 3. There is currently +no organized field day for all of region 3 all there is a proposal to create one similar to +that of region 1. In Taiwan there is a bay annual field day held in Taiwan by the Chinese +Taipei amateur radio league. In New Zealand the New Zealand association of radio transmitters +holds in HF National Field Day as of 2015 which is archived in the way back machine. +It's a contest every February and a VHF field day each December. +The Korean amateur radio league holds a field day for two to five days at a regional branch +during summer every year. In Australia the wireless institute of Australia holds the +John Moelle Field Day in March every year. Emergency preparedness field day stresses +emergency preparedness frequently radio clubs get involved and assemble a portable radio +station in a field or park. Some might use quickly deployable portable antennas while others +might erect more elaborate radio mass and towers supporting several antennas generators or solar +power provide electricity to amateur radio receivers which may be located in tents, cars, +recreational vehicles or other portable shelters. Contest rules and activities +officially field day in the US is an operating event in not a contest. However it does operate +exactly like a contest without awards. The competitive aspect of a field day operating event +is to contact as many stations as possible in a given time period 24 hours during a weekend. +If setup commences before the contest starts or 27 hours if setup commences at contest start time. +Using the portable station each station will exchange information with the other participating +stations. For the North American field day the exchange consists of the station call sign. +The name of a double RL recognize section from which the station is operating and a class +designator which indicates the number of transmitters concurrently used at the station and +information about the type of electrical power and source being used. The contest portion of +field day has two purposes. The primary purpose is to test the group's ability to plan operations. +They can be effective for an entire 24 hour period including operator and dorms and adequate +number of operators for shift operation. The secondary portion is to demonstrate the technical +proficiency of the station that has been hastily constructed for the purpose. +In theory a better station will be capable of emergency operations in dire conditions. +Such a station will also be capable of making more contacts during the contest portion of +field day. Point systems are structured to motivate emergency preparedness activities such as +designating a safety officer for the station or incorporating auxiliary power capabilities. +The rules governing this activity are published by the sponsor of the particular field day exercise. +Promotion of amateur radio. Field day is frequently used to attract significant +publicity for amateur radio and some clubs simultaneously demonstrate technologies using single +sideband voice. Morse code commonly called CW digital mode such as RTTY PSK31 and Winlink among others +and communication via amateur radio satellites. As of July 16th, 2026 this is my first amateur radio +field day that I had participated only as an observer in the past month. This has been +archer 72 and I'm encouraging anybody listening to get out and participate in either your +hand radio club or any other type of club just and we'd like to hear about it on hacker +public radio. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4694.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4694.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..662e7a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4694.txt @@ -0,0 +1,334 @@ +Episode: 4694 +Title: HPR Beer Garden 16 - Belgian Blonde +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4694/hpr4694.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:58 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4694, for 2026-07-30 +Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 16 - Belgian Blonde" +The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:34:22 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Kevie and Dave talk about Belgian Blonde Ales" +Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio, and this is the HPR +Bigard, your semi-regular and semi-frequent, this hit down different kinds of beer styles, +which we sacrifice ourselves to do so you don't have to, although we'd like you to try +as well. Anyway, I'm going to shut up. This is episode number 16, and I am joined this time +around just by heavy this time. Hi, Kevin. How are you? +I'm very well. Thank you, Dave. Yes, we were due to be joined by Paul this evening, but +he's not well at present. I think the cold demons have caught up with him, and essentially +an accurate voice. We do hope we'll be back with us for the next episode, and we wish him all +the best. Absolutely. Now, I think he was originally planning to take part, so hopefully he has got +one of the style that we are going to be reviewing today, so that he can then drink that whilst he +is listening to, when we've, as she publish this episode, which will probably be in about two +months, the way things are at the moment. Yes, so if you're listening to this, it doesn't mean +that we're now going to cut off and come back in two months. It just means it's been two months +recorded. Yes. That's because we have four episodes in hand, which we need to make sure that +we space them out according to the rules of HPO, which says one episode of it two weeks. If we could +force plus this one, and that's three, two and a half, this is the thing I'm sorry, this is what +right, okay. Yeah, I was going to see that's actually two and a half months, but okay, yeah. +Yeah, I think episode 12 came out last week, the week before, maybe? Yeah, there was one last +week of those, yes. Yeah, so yeah, the next one is episode 13, which I haven't seen +what the gaps are like at the moment, but hopefully we'll be able to to get that in fairly soon. +Absolutely, yes. Anyway, so the beer style that we are going to be looking at today +is Belgian blonde, and I'm going to pass over to Kevy to tell us all about the Belgian blonde beer +style. Yes, now there's just one that actually, it was really interesting when I started reading +up on. I actually thought to myself, let's have a wee nosey here, and just ask duckstuck +go, what is the history of Belgian blonde? I'm just interested in this, let's see how bad the +sea I report is, and the AI report came back. It's a blonde beer from Belgian. Well, no poop +sure, I'm looking at the clove is in the name. Yeah, yeah, so after consuming probably +about 1.21 gigawatts of electricity used to answer that part of the question, it then went on to +burn the rest of the US's nuclear resources, telling me then that it was from the mid-20th century, +and it was compatible to laggle, but not laggle. And I'm thinking, this is a really rubbish report. +It's compatible to laggle for because it's a blonde beer, that's the better. There's no other +similarities. So, I went to my traditional, you know, these things and they're called books, +and no, for those you kids out there, I'm not talking about any reader, I'm talking about physical, +paper, copies of books. My main goal to actually that I do for starting references to beer +bible, and it had very, very little actually on the Belgian blonde. The hardly said anything on it. +Quite disappointed. It said it existed, but gave me next no information. Then I went into +Roger Proz's book, and I got quite a bit from there, and then I went into Michael Jackson's +beer companion book, no, not the singer, don't ask. And he had quite a bit to actually say about this. +So, that's where my two sources have come from. We have to go back actually, it's not the mid-20th +century. We have to go back to the early 20th century. Now, this is before Pilsner Brewing was established +in Belgium. The consumption of beer was actually boosted in the form of the government, +because there was a prohibition that banned distilled spirits in Belgium, not entirely, but from +sale in bars and cafes. They were not allowed to sell distilled, strong spirits. The Belgian +Brewers responded by producing a series of strong blonde deals that had an average ABB of 8%. +With the arrival of Pilsner's in Belgium in the 1920s, many brewers jumped on the bandwagon +and were actually producing their own Pilsner's in greater quantities than the traditional Belgian +deals. However, it was Palm Brewing, which began life in 1747 as a tiny brewery in a tavern called +de Hürn, which translates as the coronet in English. And in 1908, the brewery was bought by Arthur Van Roy. +And when the Pilsner Boomer arrived, he increased production, but also stayed through to the Belgian +Ale styles, rejecting the imported laggers that were becoming very popular in trendy. +The brewery itself was damaged during World War I. However, a new plant was built +and the brewery lost a special palm. This used the palm logo and they declared the palm logo +as a defcembal of defiance, firstly to the German Kaiser and then to the upstart lagger, +which I thought that was brilliant, really epic. The beer and brewery prospered locally, +but it wasn't until special palm won the top prize in the ANCN Belgium class at the Expo 58. +Now, ANCN Belgium, just with three chances, has all the Belgian. But Expo 58, +I didn't know this, I had to look this up. I thought it must be a beer festival, +a food and drink festival. No, no, no, there's a reason. This is where it took off. +It gained national and international notoriety at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. +So slightly more than a beer festival. Of course, demand soared and by the early 1970s, +special palm accounted for 20% of all beer sold in Belgium. And of course, with success, +brings notoriety and other brewers had started then to make their own versions of the +blonde Dale, which of course, as we all know, it's available now from the majority of Belgian brewers. +You name a brewery, they've got a blonde Dale. Now, please note, I'm not saying that palm +created the Belgian blonde style, but it was their defiance dance against prisoner and this +winning of the award that led to the beer's growth and also expansion into the national market +and beyond. So Belgian blonde deals are typically no surprise here, fairly light and color +and golden. They are refreshing to drink, however, they are also known for considerably higher ABVs +compared to other light beers. They are typically six to eight, however, some go up to 12 and there +are a few very silly ones, which will go beyond that. The strongest I've personally had was a Belgian +one by Reeze called High Voltage, and I think it was 17%, which was, um, it was actually horribly drinkable +to be honest. I remember having it with a bit of trepidation against 17%, no, it wasn't fiery at all. +It was lovely and drinkable. Wow, the flavour profiles tend to be fruity, spicy, weedy and yeasty. +So there, so that is my research, and I do want to give a shout out in the negative context +to shops and store and away, not in place at all. I was able to find one blonde Belgian locally, +fairly disappointed. No, no, sorry, sorry, that's not entirely true. There was, there was +duvella as well, which is available everywhere, but I just didn't want to cover one that's just +so readily available. Right, right, right, so do you have anything to add to that, Eve? +I do not. I didn't manage to find too much information beyond what you really said, so +yeah, it's all good. Actually, the one thing the internet was really at a +disappointing sort of, I know I'm checking the internet and also along with my book, +so I've got here, and the internet was surprisingly light and very inconsistent on what it said. +So that was my, and a lot of the websites I did find something that clearly AI generated +websites because they didn't read. They were just almost restating fact, so that's where I +went back to my own trusted sources. That's really interesting because I know that when you're +looking at the individual beer styles, it can, it can be quite difficult sometimes to find +some useful information around it that, well, put it this way, you can look up some things +about a particular beer style, and you'll go to one place, and you'll say one thing, +you'll go to another place and say something completely different. And whilst the researching +I've done so far on the beers that we have covered up to this point, there's usually been quite +a large amount of information relating to it, but as, as you said, I think with the Belgian +blonde style, there's only very limited factual information about what it is, rather than where +it came from, and how it came to be. And I think that's the first, first one, I think I've found +with this particular beer style to have a distinct lack of historical information. +This is where another windfall old school, I was like I said, I was really happy that I had the +books. Now, the reason I actually wanted to look at this was because I found something, I didn't +write it down so I'm going to read this. Michael Jackson here in his book, Beer Companion, +goes into the actual process, for a traditional Belgian blonde, two rose summer barley, +melted in France and Belgium, to a colour of between 2.5 and 5.5 EBC. I'm not really sure what that +means. Well, I mean, I get what it means more to a colour, but I don't get what those numbers are. +After an infusion mash, hops are added to the boil three times. The varieties used produce +a beer with 29 to 31 units of bitterness. These two classic hops make a very important combination +to the bouquet and flavor. The original gravity of 14 Plato is effectively upgraded to 17 Plato +by adding a measure of dextrose before the primary fermentation. This increases the +bruise alcohol content and attenuation. The original symbiosis of yeast has over the years +been narrowed down to just two strains and both are used in primary fermentation. The bruise +divides into two unequal batches, one for each yeast, at the primary fermentation stage. The bruise +spends five or six days in the vessels at temperature between 16 and 28 degrees. This is followed +by secondary fermentation of three days in cold vessels, during which the temperature is gradually +lowered to minus one degree. The process of cold maturation is then continued for three to four +weeks before the temperature is dropped to minus three to achieve the final precipitation and +compaction of the yeast. The next stage to filter the brew and add to it a dose of one of the +two original yeast together with a dextrose priming that lifts the original gravity on the equivalent +of 18.4 or 18.3 Plato. The brew is then bottled and left for 10 to 14 days during its third fermentation, +and for this the temperature is set 22 degrees. When it is given, although this is perfectly +drinkable, it is not released from the brewery until it has been stabilized at temperature of four +to five degrees for a period of five to six weeks. Landlords who receive this will then take the +beer and store it in their own cellars for at least three months before serving it. So there you go, +I thought that was quite interesting. That is really interesting. And that was a heck of a lot, +just show it to the difference though. Modern brewers will try and push bruise out in what 24 hours. +They're thinking, that's a combination of six months from start to finish. That's a lot. +It is a lot, but it's it's set a quite a high expectation. Absolutely. And that's for this +sale. But the other thing it is, it explains as well why so many Belgian deals are rather +pricey. I mean, you have you invest that much time into it. You can't invest as pounder canstuff. +Yes, and one last thing, I've always been guilty of drinking from a goblet, any Belgian beer. +However, a blonde deal should be in an, what was clustered and shouldn't have been oversized +brandy glass. And the design is to get a large head and maintain it. So this one is very much +out of like a bell shaped one. You see, bell shaped. It goes out like the goblet, but then +gets much narrower as it comes up to the top. Yeah, it's almost like a wide tulip. +Yeah, yes, I like that. They're in a exaggerated tulip. Like a tulip on a bum. Yeah. +My beer then is a lot of truth. I do not believe I have had this before. I think the first +truth I ever had was the muck tube, which we reviewed when we went back to do the +the Belgian Scotchill. Belgian Scotch, that was it. Again, the clue was in the name. +So yeah, this is a 8% ABV. And I was looking to see if there was any actual +gobbins on the on the bottle to explain a bit more about what it is or how it's +how it's presented. And there is absolutely nothing written on the bottle at all about that. +Those of, well, if you want to read the ingredients of this beer in what looks like 17 different +languages, then you can do this. But other than that, it doesn't seem to be much else to read. +And that doesn't peel off to say, no, it doesn't. So anyway, it's presented in a lovely +brown bottle with a kind of a staged neck, which I'm going to guess is something to do with the +pouring experience. So let me open this and let's see what the nose has got. Hello, there's a really +interesting aroma coming out of the bottle, which is neither hoppy normalti. I mean, that could +that could be yeast quite a sharp fragrance to it, a sharp aroma to it, which is a little bit +citrusy, but not not amazingly so. Smells nice. Right, let's go for the poor. That was a bit aggressive. +Whoops. Okay. Well, now you guys wanted support. You did say. Yeah, you did say that the +head should be there and it should stay there. And I actually fear this is going to be the case. +Because I've only put half the beer in the glass and the glass is full. So it's literally +50, 50 beer in the head. The beer itself is a light golden ale. It's quite clear. There's like +a the slightest amount of haziness in there. And what I'm getting from the, and again, I think +this is what happened to be a lot there, not on a pre-versocation where the head is actually preventing +some of the fragrance getting through. But there's definitely a sweet and multi-ness coming from +the, from the glass along with this, what I presume to be yeasty fragrance as well, aroma. +It's not unfamiliar, which to say I've not had, I don't, I've not knowingly had a Belgian +blonde style before. I've had blonde beers before, but you can't, as I understand it, you can't +really compare them. They're not quite the same thing. So let me, let me see if I can get a decent +taste out of this and see, see what that yields. Oh boy, that is nice. That is very nice indeed. +So yeah, it's, it's multi. It's definitely a yeasty flavour. It's not a huge amount of bitterness in +there at all. I expected more bitterness, but it seems as though the sweetness has, as cancelled, +most of that out. The notes I'm looking at here suggest that there should be a moderate +hot aroma intensity. I'm not really getting much in the way of hops from it. +Possibly the citrus drops when you say there was a side bitterness there, that's the only +day I could think of. Yeah, potentially. But what I am noticing now is being a good +30 plus seconds inside, I took that taste. I've still got that sweetness. It hasn't gone anywhere, +and that is really, really, really pleasant. So the head's gone down now to probably, +I don't know, an inch quite a light head, but it hasn't noticeably changed the aroma at all. +This is really nice. For an 8% beer, it doesn't taste like it. Very often when you have your +stronger IPAs or your stronger Aels in general, you will tend to get a bit of a boozeiness coming +from the strength from the alcohol. That is not present here, which actually makes this quite +dangerous because this is drinkable. This is this is chug-able, which I don't think is, I don't +maybe that is the intention around the flavoring. But whilst this is incredibly nice, it's +going to forge not only have one of these, because if I had two of them, the first one would be +finished. I would be opening the second one about it now to enjoy it more. But yeah, this is +incredibly nice. What have you brought? Well, I actually, to be honest, that's actually the +one I went for looking for that was Edestock. So very well known one, Alif Blond, nice, straight away, +sweet, but I had a, oh, fruity, not overly citrusy. Oh, it's like I'm gleepe, oh, that's like a sweet +wine. Yeah, that's, oh, that's just lovely. So let's see how this one pours. Yep, just like yours. +Oh my goodness me. Yep, so this tulipsed-style design is, it says it's designed for the head. +No, more fruit, more gravy. There's something else in that's not a fruit in there. I'm just +trying to get that. Still the sweetness, there's a sweet, not so much moldy. I think we're Brady, +Easty, but yeah, lovely. Like you said, just want to dive in and, you know, with a majority of +beers, I know, you know, you just wouldn't have much of a head, but there's still a good kind of +two-ish kind of head. Right, so let's go in. The notes carry on through, oh, there's a new fruit in there. +It's like a berry, the grapes are there, but there's more like a berry flavor in there now. +My little tartiness on those berries, but not much, not anything like a black berry or a raspberry +or anything, more melodon. Yeah, again, Brady, sort of slight bit of molteness in there. It is sweet. +It's like a sweet bread, actually, with the sweet bread with two jams on it. Okay, yeah, sounds +quite intriguing. Yeah, there's definitely two layers of fruit in this, which is quite odd, +but lovely, because after you get past the initial sweetness, there's a grape, and then you've +got this, and what is it? I can't actually make it out of what it is. Like I said, slightly tart, +but not overly tart. But it probably to be honest, without that, would probably become quite +sweet, very quickly. It just, it balances it out well, so that's absolutely lovely. That's beautiful. +Now, I don't think if I, my memory serves, I've taken my glasses off, and I don't think this is +as strong as your one. No, no, who are near six percent. So, but given it to 750 mill bottle, +that's probably a good thing. It was either a choice, my local supermarket, where either by one of +the 750s or by a four pack of cans, and I'm going, now I'm going for the 750 bottle. Fair enough, +and yep, topping up in straight away, I barely poured, and it's only a really slow pour, and the +head does just short, right the whip. Oh wow. There's my top up. Do you want to flake with that? Yeah, +I think so. Some hunters and thousands, please. Yes, maybe a bit of a bit of strawberry sauce, perhaps. +Yeah, just looking at my glass here, even after having topped it up and even had quite a bit out of it, +there's still quite a decent amount of head on there. If I just swirl that to bring that down. +Yeah, there's still a dead head on there. Oh yes, head on there. Could be that's one thing that, +yeah, you for that is hazy. It's almost like you've got all that something I didn't comment on, +not mine's got no he's at all. Mine's crystal clear. Completely clear. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you +the head, but yeah, I mean, I can see you through that. Oh yeah, I can see that. Yeah, that's that's +totally clear. It's interesting you mentioned earlier about the balance of the AL, making sure +that all the all the different flavors are there to complement each other and balance it out in general. +The bit of this there to take away it being ending up being too sweet. And I think that that is a +big thing. There are some beers that I've had. Thankfully none of the ones that we've reviewed here, +but certainly a large quantity of ones that I've got stacked up there that I've still got to go through. +They have a lot of something that almost nothing of something else. Yeah. So they're either +incredibly bitter or they're incredibly sweet or they're incredibly hoppy. You don't +tend to get a good balance of everything to give you something to talk about basically. +A beer that has few assets, few parameters to it. It quite simply lacks character. +And I've found certainly, and I think this may be to be quite honest with some of the stronger +rails where you've got really robust flavoring, really robust mouthfeel to it, where it's +got that character. It's got something you can chew on. It's got something that your +all of your senses are enjoying. Those are the beers I tend to go back to. And I think that the +last shoof, the blondler shoof, I bet I presume that is just a blond isn't it? Do they do other +the last shoofs? No, no, the last shoof is the form. It's the wee bit of the front. That is +right. Okay. That will make it to my regular purchases. Now thankfully, unlike you, +I was able to get this really easily in my local supermarket. So it's a supermarket. I go to once +a week. So if I'm other mind, I'll water down the beer aisle or last shoof, you're making +one of those. It's a really nice, I was about to say general purpose beer, but I think that's +quite offensive. It's a nice, it's a repeatable beer. A beer I can go back to again again. Yes. +Well, to be fair to my local supermarket or one of them, it did have it there. It was just empty +on the shelf. Cherry shoof was there, but the last shoof wasn't. And I was like, nah, and I couldn't +use cherry shoof for my blonde, yet that's a fluke beer. That's that's what I haven't tried. In fact, +well, like I said earlier, I've only tried a few of the shoofs now, but I know there is a good number +of different styles of shoofs. Yeah, and it's quite a few you can't get here. You can get them +on the inspecialist beer shops. So the ad was looking out for. Yeah, no, definitely. Absolutely, +this one. So I can't remember exactly what the yarners will live, but I remember speaking to +somebody from Belgium before. I have a horrible feeling, then maybe owned by Haynick and not in +beer or something like that. I think left I've been bought over, because I remember the general opinion +was why you drinking that. I'm going, well, it's the only brown beer I can get, Belgium, +balloon that I can get regularly. Yeah, so left is owned by Inbev. It's in Bev as a deer. +And you was born in Belgium, yes. Yeah, so Shane, there are very few actual, like, independent breweries +still around that haven't either been or are in the process of being or are in the sights of +places like Inbev and Uh, behind Icon and the other big ones, which is a bit of a shame. +I dare see the one thing that I never realized was, a little this has all the markings of a +trappist. It doesn't call itself trappist. It would look sick one, but it isn't. And I was asking why +and they said trappist is a protected thing. It's a bit of a deacornish pastier store and we're black +who didn't. It's got to be done in a trappist. There's a special special license they give out. +Apart, it's only like 10 of them in the whole world. England has got it in a tint may do. +That's an official trappist beer. Okay. And I think the majority of race tomorrow didn't bear. I +think maybe it should be like one in Germany and one hole under something. I'm not sure, but +but I know the vast majority are in Belgium. So, like to call a trappist, it has to actually be +done by the trappist monks. So that's why the big breweries can't touch other bigger. No, I'm +not even going to call them breweries. That's an insult. The big conglomerates. If they were to buy it, +they're not actually buying anything other than the name. They can't even buy the proper beer. +You know, they can't call a trappist of its north, meet by the monks. I can't imagine it +and be able to be too happy to employ monks. Yes. Right, no, before we forget what you're scoring this. +Right. I'm actually in the process of writing up my a devigate sake of photograph by the way. I've already +I'm going deep down it. That's good. I'm going through my untapped check-in right now. And I've given +it an interim score, which I will probably, if I'm going to do that now. I originally gave it a four +out of five, which I think is mightily wrong. I'm going to make that a 4.25, which is going to +equate to an 8.5 out of 10. I am really impressed by this sale. It's incredibly nice. Like I said, +it's got lots of character. There's lots going on in there. And the experience of this beer +has made an impression on me. As I've said a number of times before, it is the experience that I'm +interested in. I want to be able to open a beer, try it and think, oh, and if I don't get that, +then it's not going to get a fiber. If I go score from me. But yeah, 8.5 for this one. +Good. Good. I think I'm enjoying it. What are I rated? It's very good. I'd say it falls short +of greatness here. But it's very good. I'm just going to confirm. I just need that wee +是不是 just you can confirm. And I think the confirmation, I'm going to say a good 8. Maybe even +8 and a quarter. That kind of idea. No, you're just pushing it. Maybe it's about the, you know, +yeah, that kind of area. So yeah, I'll go a very good 8. I'd say if it was a student and I was +creating it, I'd say a minus. That kind of wee. So it's definitely not in that kind of absolute +elite. But at a certain point, my favorite Belgian beer I've had. Actually, if I'm being +Beverly Hills, I don't think it's my favorite. The blonde Belgian I've had. And that's +where, of course, you get the danger of if you've never tried something before, you might go, +oh, that's really good. And then you can go, oh, but that's actually better. And it's the same +style when you try them on. So this is why I'm always said to people, don't be afraid to the first +time you have something you might think, wow, this is totally amazing. And then at the more you +have the more you raise, okay, this one isn't as good as the other ones. So, you know, we reach, +score your things if you have to, nobody's going to see anything about that. +Hmm. Right. Absolutely. So nice. Okay. And we have some feedback. No, we have actually two types of +feedback. We have would feedback from the Fediverse and feedback from the comment section. So +Dave, what Fediverse feedback do we have? Yeah. So we had a piece of feedback from our episode 11 +that we released back in March. That was the Belgian Scotch-Ael episode. That's twice +your pension. I in this episode. And it was Mark, Artur 72, who responded to that on the Fediverse, +saying, there is a history lesson in here. Thanks, guys. Short but simple, but thank you +for watching, Dave, for that feedback. Absolutely. And that's all we're aiming for. Not just to +exclusively talk, sit here and talk about the taste of beer, but also give a wee bit of back. +And so if somebody who's not a big drinker, I fact I'm not sure, Mark seem much more drinker. +I think he's appeared on podcast before and he wasn't. He was not partaking of the alcoholic +beverages. So yeah, if we can get to somebody and join that then that's good. Now we had a comment +on the Baltic Porter. One which was released on the 16th of this month, it's a 26th at time of +recording. And on the next day, we have Gan, Adam, sorry if I said that name wrong, but it's +stir tobacco, because he says the same sound as Kevys, uh, beer. That's that's that's that's it. +Once had an Nordic Porter at 9.5% which was an Icebox, which is Icebox, made from their +Stark beer at 7.5% which is at Doppelborg, a strong often dark German lagger, which might be +mentioned in the upcoming episode about strong laggers. Spoiler, that's sorry it was. Oh no, +not spoiler, that's it done. It wasn't mentioned. The multi Nordic Porter came in 0.5 +liter bottles and had heavy coffee and espresso notes and was really the perfect drink for a long +cold winter evening. However, it's not available anymore, but they know offer Grand Marner and +whisky cast matured versions in 333 mil bottles, which I have not tasted yet, I like the yet +part. Yes. So yes, thank you very much Gan for leaving that comment, really good. Yeah, +absolutely. And yeah, please do leave comments on either the HPR website for the episode that you +are listening to or anywhere on the Fediverse. And please, if you've got to leave us a comment on the +Fediverse, please do use the hashtag HPR Beer Garden. I did look on the Fediverse under the hashtag +Beer Garden, but actually that is so generic. There are tons of posts on there. So if you use HPR +Beer Garden, you've got a better chance of catching your comments. Yes, right. And coming up in the +next three, we have got double dry hopped IPA. Then we're going to amberales, then bitter, +painted, old English bitter. And we get up. No, we're going to have to this life from a bar because +surely a bitter is definitely, and it has to be served in a mug at a bar. So we'll have to +forget how to live broadcasting for that one, I think. Are you talking about like a proper +drug proper? One of these? One of those? Yes, I've got, I've got a bunch of them over there as well. +Yeah, the traditional dimpled beer jugs from the the 19, well, 1900s. +Yes, they are timeless. I don't know what you're talking about, Nick. They are timeless, yes. +But you don't tend to see them these days because whatever you go into a pub and order a +pint of beer, you normally get it in a gel. Yeah, because that's the modern way of doing it. +I will actually ask for it if they've got them. Because I will look to go and see and I'll say give +it to me in that jug. And of course, then you get some of the young ones going to look +and you can let you see what you want to pitch up. No, that's the tip of the mug over there, that thing. +Yes, yes. There is something to be said from for drinking beer out of a proper beer jug. +They're really good. Absolutely. Yeah, so. Right. So unless there's anything else to add, +I don't think so. Right. So join in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker, +Poblake. +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. diff --git a/hpr_transcripts/hpr4695.txt b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4695.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3272f8c --- /dev/null +++ b/hpr_transcripts/hpr4695.txt @@ -0,0 +1,157 @@ +Episode: 4695 +Title: Try not to buy a phone +Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4695/hpr4695.mp3 +Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:59 (official HPR transcript) + +--- + +This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4695, for 2026-07-31 +Today's show is entitled, "Try not to buy a phone" +The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:10:11 +The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA +The summary is "Phone setup alternatives, SMS solutions, and challenges with VoIP numbers." +You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue. +This show was submitted in January 2026 to cover occasions like this +where there are gaps in the schedule. +Hello everyone. I'm looking through another episode of Echo Public Radio with the host operator +They'll be talking about my solution +For no phone, which ended up not being a thing because now I actually have a phone +This will be the first phone I've purchased in 15 years +So I've most of my phones are I've been from employers or in between employers. I've used my wife's phone or some phone +I had laying around or whatever +so +My solution to no phone was actually using an old phone and I had a SIM card in there +Where they very cheap plan that had no minutes almost no data and +Kind of unlimited texting so that's how I would get my SMS messages now you're carriers +Your voice doesn't really work on some of your things like your banks just depending some will walk +We'll sit or miss sometimes make America won't send me the MFA sometimes it will +They wouldn't before and now it works +So it just depends on the provider, but I would say +One out of five is gonna want an actual carrier number and you can't use your point number +So I used to have a phone sitting here on the table +It was charged and it was set up with a SIM card +The cheapest plan it's like three dollars a month. There's something like like $20 a year +Something really good. So it's really cheap +I've said to move from that to an unlimited plan only because I got a deal on a phone and it basically gave me a year about limited for a year +I only use like five gigs +At max I'm always on Wi-Fi and if I'm not on Wi-Fi +I can hop on Wi-Fi pretty much anywhere the only time you're gonna have problems is it if you're in the middle of nowhere +With no signal +But you still have no you're just off the problem with no signal anyways, but if you're not anywhere +Where there's Wi-Fi and you need to download maps or something if you're lost. That's my only use case +Other than whatever. I mean, there's always 911 for emergencies +So like I don't really need data wherever I go. I don't need unlimited data +I don't stream a whole lot and if I do I +Download it before I use it using flex so I don't really have any use cases for using more than like five gigs +Sometimes I'll accidentally download a bunch of music when I'm traveling or in the car +That's from my server so +I'm a different kind of animal. I don't I don't stream a whole lot of stuff. I usually download it +But anyways before I had just a phone that's plugged in and I had the only thing I could find it to work +for SMS across devices that was free was called mighty text now +You'll say oh, I don't want a third party having access to my SMS messages. Yeah, sure whatever who cares +But I mean from a security standpoint threat landscape whatever +I have a shared we have a shared count and I've probably gone a podcast on this before if not +Let me know and I will do one but I'm pretty sure I've done one and if I haven't let me know +And I will do one but the idea is you have a shared Google account that shared cool +Google account is attached to a Google VoIP number that Google VoIP number is validated by this +phone +Also, it is also validated by it's self sort of so the void +Validates the phone and the phone validates the void +Vice versa, so we have a shared account that we put our stuff on so that way you don't have to call your spouse +to log in to some insurance thing or whatever and they're rotating almost +yearly now whether or not I'm working for a different company anyways so the fear I have of +tangent town is +New managers new cool workers and new red tape with insurance guess what I've +No control over any of that so I might as well get a new job every six months to here +Because I don't have any control over that anyways and it's always a dumpster fire so anyways +If you're looking for something I'm looking for something in +Offensive security +Let me know +But I'm looking for something you know full-time road or +Hybrid here at Atlanta for +Pintesting stuff so I'm pretty hot and heavy in that space right now doing lots of improvements and jambree +Anyways, back and to the point of my solution to the phone it was brief relived +I used my mom's old phone which is now a S9 +Which the problem with that is +Last pass wouldn't work so I had to linearly log into last pass for the browser because they're app +They removed from the app store for reasons security reasons mainly +That that iOS version or the firmware for Android is old +And even if you push a new +Whatever to it, you're still not going to be able to really and I don't really want to download a +APK from random town for my pass revolting +I've already given myself shut myself on the foot with that one once already +With that kind of thing letting people in the front door like an idiot +But what I do have now is I use the mighty text on this phone now this phone is +New phone +And the only thing I need to do is make a wallet work +Like baking app doesn't care about route or +Or my baking app doesn't care about route and my +Other FMMFA apps don't seem to care about route so it just kind of your mileage may vary +And that regard +Anyways, I have to install a lot of these MFA tools for doing bintesting work +So I might run into an situation where I have to do some shenanigans to hide it +From from these from these types of systems, but +It's kind of a dumpster fire is ready to get that will go well to work and it's a little shifting some of the tutorials out there +But anyways +The main the main idea is you use +mighty text it's free you get those +Text messages those voice messages those SMS messages for +All that it tasted through it and you can share it so +The number that I use for I try to use +That for everything and then not then I have mighty text set up on my actual phone and my wife can view +those text messages +For whatever needs to if I had to physically attach it because I'd never had a phone number before +And now I have a real phone number and then I pour that over to +Mint which they're all the same they're all gonna get their money +You just wait for a deal during Christmas and you'll get something and then you can hold on to that phone by a good case for it by +By a good screen protector for it and just take care of it when you're walking around with nine or dollars and you're probably good whatever +Take care of it +That's pretty much it I know it's I just kind of rambled and went all over the place +but it set up was +is +Is it this phone now is rooted and I have kind of access to delete or freeze whatever apps that I don't have been freezing apps instead of deleting them just in case they call +a boot loop and I can go on the back end and unfreeze them +Because if you do that at large, especially a carrier phone like Samsung or whatever +This Google phone is pretty vanilla +there is some +Stuff on here that's not Google mainly like drivers and stuff for for their parties. It's like same +Some drivers for like important stuff so it's it's pretty minimal phone and +I'll say I haven't had any problems with it so far +I'm unable to siloed whatever apps. I want to load and +I don't really need to do an episode other than other than that but for +For what it was worth you know the the solution to not having a phone was basically +Have a phone with a really cheap plan on it and then set up mighty text so I can share those texts +Through the shared Google account to log into that shared Google account +To do any MFA stuff that needs to be done +I'm through the actual phone it was kind of sitting there and that's kind of how I did I had it set up +That's +Pretty much it's pretty short episode kind of all over the place +But just be wary that you're gonna start seeing void providers getting blocked more and more +I've looked at the other solutions out there like rolling numbers and like you could buy a number for SMS and it's +You know anonymous and Bobby Bobba and they want to charge like 15 dollars a month for ethical for that much +I can buy like four lines. I can have four +SIM cards for the price of one +You know anonymous number quote unquote +So I don't I don't really understand what any of that stuff is for and if you know any other methods to have a number that's a void number +Or something you can receive SMS text son. That's relatively cheap +It would be nice to have one that's not carrier blocked and it's not picked up by white +I just want to press a mess mainly +Maybe a voice call it to everyone as well +But the cheapest way to do it is to buy it just to cheapest you can't carry your plan from mint or whatever +And do your MFA stuff through it +I haven't found any service +It will be reasonable if it's attached to a carry number +That's not blocked by void +Not blocked by these banking apps or whatever +Anyways, that's pretty much it +But I when I had it set up I would keep it charged and +Really that's kind of it +Take it easy and this is a short one, but if anybody has these solutions again for like +non blocked SMS +verification that's like carry or a tester and we'll get blocked. Let me know because I'm looking for a solution for that +Permit more permits solution. Oh +You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org. +Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. +If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is. +Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network. +Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.