Episode: 1861
Title: HPR1861: Cool Stuff pt. 4
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1861/hpr1861.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 10:19:02

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This is HBR episode 1861 entitled, Cool Stuff BT4.
It is hosted by Curtis and Kin, C-Prompt and in about 17 minutes long, the summer is.
C-Prompt talks about some more cool stuff for you to enjoy.
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Hey everybody, this is C-Prompt North Carolina for Hacker Public Radio.
Want to pop on real quick and do another episode of some cool stuff that I found recently.
Recording this on a new, well new to me, laptop.
So, trying to make sure I got everything working right, so hopefully it sounds okay.
So the first thing that I wanted to talk about that I found recently was a new music player for the computer.
Since I spend a lot of time in a terminal, I wanted something that I could play in the terminal.
I wanted to see if there was actually something like that.
I was sure there was, but I wanted to find something really cool that I could use within terminals
since I always have one of my screens, always has a terminal session running.
So, before I was using stuff like Banshee or not Banshee.
Rhythmbox, Amorock, what was the other one?
I can't remember what it was, but I don't know.
It was just too cumbersome to pop back and forth and they kind of started to become resource hogs,
especially Amorock, it was just really kind of bogging down my computer.
So, I mean it was just playing music, geez.
So, I found a music player that runs through the console and it is actually really good.
It's called CMUS and I'm guessing that stands for like command line music or like CMUS command line music player.
I guess, put a link to the show notes for the home page and I was also going to put in a link to a guide on how to use the software.
A lot of the commands that it uses are VIM like, which I love.
I've actually taken most of my programs that I use quite frequently like Firefox
and Chrome because there's a few websites that work better in Chrome than they do in Firefox.
And there's some Windows programs that I use at work that have plugins that simulate VIM bindings and stuff.
So, that's really helpful.
More programs should have options for VIM bindings.
It just would make everything so much easier for me at least.
And actually, I think we were talking about that on the broadcast planet IRC the other day.
The last name God actually mentioned something about that and I totally agree.
Everything should just have an option for VIM bindings would make my life much easier.
But at any rate, so CMUS, it is just what it is.
It is a command line music player.
Since I run a terminal session with screen, so I always have a VIM session and a bash session.
And I keep IRC running and now I added CMUS to it.
Go through the guide that I'm linking to and kind of just get an idea for it.
It's actually pretty simple.
It uses the home row like VIM does for the up and down.
It uses the space bar to actually go into the directory.
So, if you have your music files labeled by artist and then inside of artist you have the album name and then inside of the album folder you have each individual track.
You just kind of hit the space bar until you go through it and then tab between the one column that has the folder structure and the next pane.
There is like a split down the middle of the screen and that will show you the tracks.
You can also make playlists.
You can make what I call like an NQ, E-N-Q-U-E-U-E-N-Q-N-Q-N-Q something.
So, you kind of put it like an temporary playlist, I guess.
You can make those.
There is also some other key bindings instead that you can use to filter by genre.
So, if you want to just look up everything that you have of jazz or fusion or Swedish death metal or whatever.
It reads the ID3 tags in the genre field to grab that information.
So, if you don't have your ID3 tags set very well then the program is actually going to be kind of useless to you.
You can use the number of keys at the top to go back and forth between like a tree view.
You can do a folder browse type of view.
You can view your playlist.
You can see just every file that you have as far as MP3s, Black, Og, whatever.
So, there are different screens that you can go through and sort through the music, whichever way best fits your needs.
So, that's CMUS.
So, give that a shot and see what you think.
If you're looking for a new music player, it might be worth it.
Most Linux-E people love the command line.
So, if there's one more reason to stay in the command line then there's your music player to do so.
All right. So, the second thing that I have that I wanted to share with you is a podcast.
And it seems that I've become such a fanboy for the broadcasting company.
I want to know what you call them.
It's the production company, I guess, of podcasts.
They do 99% invisible, which I think I've talked about.
They do quite a few different shows.
It's called Radio Topi.
And I think I've talked about this in the last cool stuff that I did.
But Radio Topi has another podcast that came out not too long ago called Song Exploder.
And this is simply a, it's like maybe 15 minute podcast where a musician or a group or, you know, where musicians will take apart a certain song.
And just kind of tell you about their progress of how they came up with the song and what started it, maybe their writing process.
And they just kind of goes bit by bit through the song.
And it's like, you know, I did this because, you know, this was reminiscent of this person.
And this, you know, feel made me think of it's just really interesting.
I always like to hear how people come up with things, what drove them to do something, and what kind of brought it out.
So it's very interesting.
It's only about maybe 15 minutes long.
And the first chunk of it is them talking about the music and dissecting the writing process.
And then at the end of it, they will play the song in its entirety.
So you kind of get a feel for the entire song as it is on the recording, actual recording.
So it's really cool.
If you're a musician of any sort, not all the music might be something that you really dig.
Sometimes it's poppy, sometimes it's, you know, it's just really obscure, I guess.
I don't know. It's just kind of, yeah, it's a lot of the music they've talked about.
I haven't really heard of before, a lot of the groups.
But I don't listen to radio, so they might be playing on the radio.
So I just don't know.
They did have a YouTube song.
They did have Bono and the Edge on there.
A few episodes back talking about one of their songs, which was really interesting.
But for the most part, you know, the writing processes are really interesting to hear.
And even if you don't like the music, it might be something that you're, you know, like,
oh, that's kind of interesting.
I want to kind of delve into that a little bit and see if that's something that I can use.
So if you're a musician, check it out.
The last thing that I wanted to share with you is not something that I really,
I talk a lot about, but I don't watch TV a whole lot as a lot of you probably don't either.
But I kept hearing all these things about this TV show that was really cool.
And it's like, oh, this is the best thing since sliced bread or whatever.
And I don't like to buy into the hype of things.
But when it has to do with like computers and stuff, I kind of had to at least kind of check it out.
So USA has a TV show called Mr. Robot.
And it is a lot like, you can, I mean, there's elements of hacker stuff in it like very true hacker stuff.
I mean, I'm not a hacker. I can't, I can't break into a network and stuff.
But the things that they do are very similar to the things that I read on security websites and stuff like that.
About, you know, they actually one guy rooted a phone and you actually saw screenshots of a super user app and stuff.
You know, he was loading it and then rooting the phone and then popping on a APK that, you know, let him track the phone or whatever it did.
They have things and they were actually can see code and stuff.
And it actually looks like code and it's not just some screenshot of a terminal saying, you know, press one for installation of a Ubuntu or whatever it was.
But it actually shows code and it looked to me like it was maybe C++ or C or something like that.
They showed one episode.
There was an episode of, you know, the main character sitting at his desk at his company and it had a screenshot of their ticketing system and it was actual ticketing system.
But the episodes, they follow a programmer and he has a serious anxiety disorder.
And he's a very odd cat.
He's got a drug problem.
So there are some scenes if this is, you know, something that you might be wanting to watch with your children or whatever.
You know, I would probably watch a couple episodes before you let them watch it unless you just don't care.
It's whatever. It's up to you.
But this young hacker who was played by Rami, Rami, Rami, Rami, Rami, Rami, Rami, Rami, Rami, Malek.
Never heard of him.
Rami Malek, it seems that he is recruited by this anarchist group.
And this guy, this group is led by this man who calls himself Mr. Robot.
And I want to give it away too much, but you find out in the road why he calls himself Mr Robot.
And the story and stuff, but it there was a few episodes where it was going like, man, this is kind of boring.
I just don't dig this anymore or whatever this episode
I don't know whatever but then you watch the next episode and it's like I'm like, man
This is that was such a twister. You know, I really enjoyed that. So it's kind of like pulls you in pulls you out
Who's pulled me in pull me out but the the pilot for the show was actually directed by the same guy that directed
Girl the dragon tattoo. So if you ever ever seen the girl with the dragon tattoo
It's the same the same. I think it was a producer actually he produced or directed the first the pilot of it, I guess
but the
The show is actually written and directed by a man named Sam
Smell is male
Again, I've never heard of him. I don't watch TV. He's a whole lot so he might be really famous
But there's actually
Christian Slater plays Mr. Robot and I do know him from some of the movies I've seen
earlier in life I guess but
so
If you are in the US or maybe not in the US and have other means of obtaining shows that are played in the US
I don't know if it's actually can be found international or not, but
Mr. Robot is actually a pretty good show. I don't know if it's going to be on for
I guess it's on for a second season
The first season I think just ended
But it's it's pretty good. There are some scenes in it
That might not be appropriate for a younger audience
so just
FYI
Be cautious
It's not like well just check it out and see what you think
But it is actually pretty cool to to see a show where they talk about
Computers and hacking and network and stuff like that where they actually get it pretty right, I guess
To me they get it right
Again, I'm not a hacker
So I don't know, but it seems right to me
um
But at any rate those are my three things that I have found and wanted to share with you
We got a really cool command line music player CMOS
Some Vimbidings that is really really nice
A cool podcast that you can add to your feed catcher
song exploder
Even if you're not a musician it might be interesting to hear how some of your songs if you
Like this like these bands you might be interested in seeing how they kind of with the writing process and
a TV show for you
in case you're
Late night watcher like I am
Take like an hour 45 minutes or whatever and check out a TV show that has some computer stuff in it
All right, that's all I got for you. I hope you all do well and thank you for listening this far
Thanks a lot. Have a great day. Bye-bye
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