Initial commit: HPR Knowledge Base MCP Server
- MCP server with stdio transport for local use - Search episodes, transcripts, hosts, and series - 4,511 episodes with metadata and transcripts - Data loader with in-memory JSON storage 🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Lee Hanken
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hpr_transcripts/hpr0457.txt
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Episode: 457
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Title: HPR0457: automatic car
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0457/hpr0457.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-07 21:03:01
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---
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.
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Hello, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tom Fallon.
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Today's episode I'm going to tell you the story of my first trip to the States.
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And bear with me, there's a reason for this.
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I learned an awful lot.
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The first thing I learned was that you should always travel with your own travel artillery,
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with your own plane tickets, with the address of the hotel that you're going to be in.
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Now, when you're in the States, just because it looks like a movie set doesn't necessarily mean it is.
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A construction worker might actually be a construction worker and not an undercover FBI agent.
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And I also learned that there's more the wrong way of driving a car, vis-à-vis I don't like automatics.
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The first, I've been to the States a couple of times since then and I have adjusted to these things.
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But the first time I arrived I landed in Kansas City and the person I was traveling with was stopping over in New York.
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So I had two days in Kansas City to kill basically.
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And we were going to be taken out in Kansas City by work colleagues.
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So I didn't see there was a whole lot of point in me going down town myself.
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So I took out the map after breakfast, which was early because I had jet lag.
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And I looked on the map and I saw two things, one was Tulsa.
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And you all know this song.
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Money 24 hours from Tulsa.
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And Oklahoma, one of my father's favorite musicals.
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So I decided, well it's only that far on the map.
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I should hire a car and go down that far.
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And that was another thing I learned that day was that far on the map is relative.
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Anyway, I picked up the phone contact reception.
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I asked them if they could put me through to the local car hire place, which they did.
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I asked the car hire dude, was there any problem?
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Renting a car with an international driver's license.
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He answered, do you have a major criticard, sir?
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I said, vis-à, he said, I foresee no problems.
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And indeed there was no problems.
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When I got to the car hire place, he had, well it was really simply early in the morning.
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And there was no one around.
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So he also had upgraded me to some nice car, the real sporty type car.
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No idea what the model was now.
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Whenever it was parked, right outside the big bay window of the car hire place.
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And so I did my thing, driver's license, bought a copy of everything, signed old forms, got all the insurance.
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Everything was honky-dory and he gave me the keys and said, okay, there's cars right outside.
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So sat in the car, put my Rucksack in on the seat and proceeded to turn it on.
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Now I hadn't fallen for the old steering wheelers on the wrong side,
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because I had driven left and right cars before around Europe.
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So this, that wasn't anything new to me.
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So I looked in and I saw the steering wheel, under the steering wheel that there was only two pedals.
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It was either somebody stolen a pedal or this is an automatic.
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So figured it was an automatic.
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Had a look, PDN, okay, I can get all these things.
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Park, drive, reverse, neutral, I guess.
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The one, two, and three probably means, you know, first, second, and third gear if you want traction.
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Okay, fair enough.
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Sat down.
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This could be too difficult.
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Turn on the ignition.
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Doing, doing, doing.
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Which on a side note is incredibly annoying.
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So, okay, I'd seen enough movies to know seat belt on.
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Click.
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Grant.
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Turn on the car.
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Nothing happens.
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Okay.
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I think it's supposed to be in P.
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Okay, so put it in P. Try it again.
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Nothing happens.
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So I put it into N.
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Perhaps you have to have it in neutral.
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Okay.
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Turn the key.
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Nothing happens.
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So try all the gears.
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Nothing happens.
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Begin to get a little bit flustered.
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Because I've done this, took the key out.
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Maybe there was a burglar alarm thing that I needed to turn on.
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All these thoughts come through my head.
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Meanwhile, time is passing.
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More people are coming into the shop.
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Are into the car hire place.
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And they're right in front of me.
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And sort of after a while, people are looking out.
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And you can hear them.
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It's gone.
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You can see them gone.
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Is that guy okay?
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So I take out the map.
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Put it over the windscreen so that nobody could see me.
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And I got really lost my temper.
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And during that, I put my foot on the brake.
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And the car started.
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So, the minor simple thing.
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You have to have it in neutral or park.
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I think.
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And you have to foot on the brake.
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Is the thing that starts the car.
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Now, there are probably millions of people listening to this.
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Who are...
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There are millions of people in the States who know that.
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They just know that.
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I didn't.
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Because I had not.
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I was not accustomed to that.
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Now, you might say there's not a major difference between driving a stick shift and driving
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an automatic and there isn't.
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So, why was I having so many problems with this?
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You know, especially when I'm, you know, qualified engineer and relatively technical.
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In, you know, since then, my brother has a hydraulic digger.
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You know, one of these caterpillar things with the arm that goes up and a mechanical digger.
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And I sat in that thing.
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And I had no problem driving that thing.
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I had no clue.
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I had never experienced this before.
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You know, there's joysticks and there's pedals on the ground.
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And there's pedals, handle pedals that you have to have.
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And I had less problem driving that than I had driving an automatic car.
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And you would think that there was, you know, there was a bigger change.
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And, of course, the reason for this is that when I was driving the digger,
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I had no perception of what it was going to be like.
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So, I asked my brother, okay, what do I need to do?
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How do I make it go forward and backward?
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How do, you know, revolve us left and right?
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How do I make the shovel work?
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So, I asked these questions.
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And, you know, if we look at, if we take this user experience thing,
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what people perceive from a desktop or from an interface,
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and we take that to say Linux, for instance,
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then, you know, that sort of goes a long way to explain why a lot of people
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don't have problems with the Linux interface.
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Take my wife, for instance, my, all my kids use Linux every day without problem.
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My mother-in-law, her partner passed away,
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and I switched her from Windows to Linux.
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And, you know, that's been months I haven't, I haven't heard from her.
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I see her, you know, her name come up on the instant message thing.
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So, she's using it every day, we get emails, she checks her websites,
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she does her tax online, and she's, she's just choosing Linux.
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Okay, now, completely on technical user.
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Why is this possible?
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And the other hand, my wife has gone from using whatever desktop I happened to be in at the moment
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or whatever distro, she's, she's used, she's probably used more distros and desktops
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than Linus Torvalls has.
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And yet, you know, if I ask her who Linus Torvalls is,
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her answer is, he's that Linux dude.
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And, from her point of view, I know this was discussed on the Linux link tech show,
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but from her point of view, Linux is just, the computer is just a two.
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She'll go, and she wants to know where her email is, and her, and the web is.
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Now, I have since then switched to Debian, and of course, forgot that, you know,
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it's now I stole the nice weasel, so I went off to work and I came back
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and then I realized that I hadn't older.
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And she, I said, oh, you're in your email and the web browser.
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She's, yeah, I had a, I had a look around to see if I could get a gone.
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I said, oh, you've already printed.
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Yeah, I had a, I had a look around to see how I could get a gone and just come up by itself.
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So that was fine.
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And, you know, that to me means, yes, the desktop is absolutely 100% ready.
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And, you know, this is for somebody who could care less, really could care less.
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And, you know, to Bethlyn, I would say, yes, there are definitely people out there who could care less about Linux.
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I'm, I'm of course happy that she is running Linux, but from her point of view,
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she is into other things like handicapped kids, people with hearing disabilities,
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the whole social thing.
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And, yeah, I'm glad she is.
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So, why then do we continue to hear from people that Linux isn't ready for the desktop and Linux is too complicated?
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Now, I'd like to hazard, to hazard a guess at this one.
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Taking my experience from driving that automatic car in the States,
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I have the feeling that I brought to that the perceptions of how it should work.
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And, I got frustrated when it didn't work exactly like I thought it should,
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or it didn't act like I thought it should.
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Which is why I think power users, windows power users are coming to
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the Linux environment or the Unix environment have a lot more problems
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because you're bringing all this baggage with you.
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And, I say this because I have been a Windows admin,
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and I know how tough it is.
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So, if there's one thing that I'll say as the airplane goes overhead,
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is be prepared to ask questions.
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Don't be ashamed that you don't know everything.
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So, is that all we can learn from this experience?
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Ken's first trip to the States?
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Well, no.
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For one thing, the auto industry is a fantastic analogy for us to explain
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some of the more complex, more difficult to grasp concepts
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to new people.
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For example, you can say that the kernel is like an engine in your car.
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You've got a diesel engine, free BST for instance,
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you've got a gas turbine engine,
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it might be open to the RS and you've got a Linux engine,
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turbo power jet engine or whatever.
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The GNU tools are the auto manufacturer,
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the mix of nuts and bolts, the brakes, all the boring bits
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that help to assemble the car.
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The distros themselves are just a brand name of the car.
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So, for instance, it's essentially a car with a petrol engine.
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So, a VW car is the same as an old car,
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in that it's got an engine, a steering wheel,
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but the indicators might be on the different side,
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the brake pedal might look different, dash might look different,
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seats might be a little bit different.
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So, essentially it's the same concept,
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but a distro is the car.
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And just to finalize all of that,
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wouldn't it be a very, very sad world that if now,
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over 100 years after the automobile has been invented,
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if we were all still driving a Model T.
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With that, I leave you.
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Thank you very much for listening,
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and tune in tomorrow for another exciting,
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absolute H such a popular year.
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Thank you for listening to H such a popular radio.
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HPR is sponsored by caro.net,
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so head on over to C-A-R-O dot-N-T for all of us here.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you.
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