hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2052.txt

Episode: 2052
Title: HPR2052: A Nerdy Conversation With Linden About Technology
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2052/hpr2052.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 13:47:22

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This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthos.com, get 15% discount on all shared hosting
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So I'm here with our friend Lyndon, who works with computers, databases specifically from an
understanding. Yeah, welcome. What exactly do you do with databases? I have no idea. I primarily work with
scientists who have data that they've collected in various ways out in the field as scientists do and this data is
in all sorts of different messy formats. And a lot of it has a visual component like camera images or
satellite images and then metadata about that. And I get spreadsheets, I get hard drives full of pictures, I get all
this mess and then my dad has determined it to a database that sounds so available on the browser. It's like, I get paid to make things
mace and need an orderly and not useless. Yeah, that sounds pretty good. So I ask everyone this, how do you get to
introduce in the first place? My dad was an electronic engineer. I actually, he's a big inspiration because he has
an associate's degree and just kind of managed to teach himself enough that now he's doing things that
the rest of his colleagues have at least masters. But he's very humble about it. And so my favorite story is that he decided I was playing
too much Tetris and other like DOS games. And so he hit my games folder. And so I had to learn the DOS
and basically command line or whatever it was. It was a hand and find it. And so then he came back like half an hour later and
there I was playing Tetris. Yeah, that's funny. And then I kind of didn't end up having that like, oh, starting playing with computers when you're
a little and then being a 14 year old with because a lot of people don't have experience. Yeah, it's a bit of a cliche. Yeah. And I started when I was really young.
And then I kind of fell out of it for a number of reasons. Until I decided what I kind of wanted to do for a career. And then that ended up needing
computer stuff. And then I got hooked again. Yeah, that's how you get hooked again. And I'm very glad I am. I did. So when you put together these databases,
do you use SQL, Postgres, SQL light, I think like that. Yeah, I'm mostly using my SQL or SQL, Postgres SQL.
When I'm doing kind of a lot of times when I'm doing stuff that involves embedded systems and stuff and eats to talk to you.
Kind of a lightweight. Cool database. I did use SQL. I say, so you also invent systems of some sort. Yeah. So I've worked with a lot of different remote sensing applications,
especially those that use visual data stuff, a lot of camera traps. I'm working on this project that has camera traps in the Serengeti.
Really take pictures of like, I'm looking at these pictures and all of a sudden there's this, there's like draft needs, the draft walk past or glowing eyes that I have no idea what it is.
And so I get, I get some of these are like surveillance cameras that have a little embedded Linux operating system.
Busy box or something like that. Yeah, busy box.
For my experience, it's security cams a lot around busy box. The ones that I like the most have something Linux, but it's basically a tiny Linux.
Something Linux. I want to write a, I want to write a district now. Something Linux. Yes, that's perfect. What do you run? Something Linux.
Speaking of Linux, you just installed Arch from what I hear. I did. I had my fancy name computer stopped working. So I had to resurrect a non-fancy old thing.
Yes. And I keep a list of stuff that I want to play with an Arch Linux is the next. It's kind of a cool to have a list of things to play with. I never did.
And it grows way faster than I will ever get through them. And it ranges everywhere from like a, I don't know.
A temperature sensor for my toaster oven because it sets off the fire alarm a lot. Yeah, to playing with data from the large agent and writer. Yes.
And also glasses.
So I feel about this, this whole internet of things that people are talking about.
Like anything, it's both buzzwordy. And I should know as somebody whose job could be described as a data scientist.
Which is not my favorite phrase ever, but really it sounds cool. It sounds cool. But it sounds like the thing that does what you want it to do.
And I do kind of research data or like mess around with it in the way that is a very scientifically based thing.
But I think that a lot of the stuff coming out of that that falls under the label of internet of things tends to come from this sort of classic Silicon Valley.
The venture funding start up sort of thing where a lot, it seems like a lot of the applications are solutions in search of a problem.
And so, and then also a good heavy dose of this because no it's cool. Well, what does it do? What problems does it solve?
It's cool. It's cool. There's a place for it. But there's also a lot of cool stuff that people have developed that are coming into their own now.
Because this networking technology is ensuring, especially in areas like helping the elderly and disabled stay in their homes.
So there's a, I wish I could remember who's doing it, but somebody has developed a mat that sits on the kitchen floor.
And so when somebody comes into the kitchen in the morning, it non-invasively can take some of the measurements like weight and that kind of thing.
And that's really cool.
And update basically a little checkup and then a doctor can look at that over time and see instead of the person going in every three months.
And it's harder to get that kind of information.
That's cool.
And then of course there's all that security and privacy.
Oh yeah, yeah.
When you're when you're when you're when you're no carton.
Yeah.
For your box of cereal.
Yep.
And so it's one of us has to get re not reissued, but replenished.
Yeah.
I'm not real kind of a lot of that.
I am not either. I think it will push security though.
Yeah.
So that could be a good thing.
I built a RFID reader.
A number of years ago.
I am.
And it doesn't work anymore.
Did you build a little inductor and everything like that?
I got a commercial RFID reader that didn't work for my purposes.
I had to hack a lot to make it actually work.
Sweet.
And then I broke it almost as soon as I.
Yeah.
I made it of course.
Yes.
We all know about that.
But because the technology has advanced, it wouldn't work anymore.
And a large chunk of that is security, which is good.
Yeah.
But I think that there's a lot of really awesome ways that the internotive things concept could help people.
Yeah.
But we're getting to this.
I think it started with the cloud.
And I have the internotive things.
And we have exploits like.
It's also big.
It's somewhere in the cloud.
Somewhere in the cloud.
Yeah.
There's things in the cloud.
And they talk to each other.
There's a top level domain that cloud.
And so we should search for things.
This time is cloud.
Things in the cloud.
Yeah.
Before we continue with this.
I think I'll probably do that immediately afterwards.
And you all are on delay, aren't you?
This would live.
You could beat us.
And what's funny is that like I'm working with a scientist at the University of Minnesota.
Yeah.
And their database is hosted by the University of University Supercomputing Institute.
And so I spent hours.
It was great.
I was sitting in a coffee shop hooked up through the VPN to the Supercomputers.
Yes.
So it's awesome because it's like the way that networking started.
Yes.
That made terminals attached to Supercomputers.
And here I am on my Chromebook.
Basically using it as a terminal.
But who is it that's very comfortably in a coffee shop.
And of course, what am I doing?
I'm reading very large text files using less.
With my great power.
But the people that I talked to about this database, it's in the cloud.
Yeah.
Well, it's hosted at MSI.
It's a very specific, like the Supercomputers that it's hosted.
Yeah.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
I can do all sorts of.
You carry ethical and ethical things.
Very ethical and things with it.
Yeah.
Partly within the University of Minnesota's security and.
And there are agreements.
Cool.
Totally.
So very powerful statistics.
Rumor has that the computers, when they're not working, do what you tell them to do.
Wouldn't they're not working?
Yeah.
Do you remember that you were just telling me about how.
Oh, yeah.
So I, my Chromebook doesn't work very well anymore because it's old.
Eight months old.
And that's just ancient.
Yeah.
And.
But when I really need it to, and I give it that look.
Yes.
That I learned when I was five from watching the original series.
Yeah.
And, um.
And it usually shapes that pretty fast, which tends to you both impress an intimidated.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love the fact that Kurt, Kurt could.
Make a computer explode just by talking to it.
Yeah.
I think that was pretty awesome.
So you have a pile of technology?
I have several piles of technology of various sorts, which one in specific one that
contains the TRS80.
Oh, yeah, my amazing laptop museum, like make a little, I would, I would, I would get
a piece of screen song, amazing laptop museum, you can see the, the, the foldable TRS80.
Yes.
Behold the laptop with two screens only built with the one screen.
I don't even know what it is, but it's chunky, it's white, it's, and the actual screen
available screen area is about half of the size of the lid of the laptop.
Oh, geez.
So this is a laptop?
It's supposedly a laptop.
It's like a 3.86 or something like that?
You know, I would have to look at it, but it's, I thought the screen was so big.
Yes.
I can do all sorts of.
Oh my gosh.
Awesome.
I got my first TFT display laptop, oh my god, it was so amazing.
I remember it was like looking at a monitor, it was great, it was great, but I have, I
don't, I know that the TRS80 is in the bottom, yeah, I don't know what mysterious varieties
of things live above it, but when I needed to resurrect this thing that edge, I just picked
it off the top and I'm with it, all right, cool.
And I also know that the packing material is old, it's floppy desks and, did you say
the manual?
Yeah, around the, because the box is a little bigger than the, oh, okay, all right, contents,
so I, I, so floppy desks surround it and manuals for, who knows, yeah.
It might just be like, I don't know, a, like windows and 85 install, yeah, thing on,
kind of floppy desks.
So you have, you've been on BBS's before?
Yeah, when I was like, I mean, yeah, and probably not nearly old enough to, to remember
to the people I was actually talking to.
Yes.
Oh, you were, you were, I was, yeah, I was in Seattle, yeah, it's going to be a different
completely, and just, I don't, I can remember names, okay, so kind of, but I, there was a,
I do know there was a girl in some tiny town in Eastern Washington that I talked to a
lot, and I actually ran into her at the Strange Loop conference, which is a very eclectic
programming conference in St. Louis, who were amazing and gave me a diversity scholarship
a couple of years ago.
That's awesome.
We can attend, because I'm very diverse.
But I ran into this girl, who had grown up together, and we were both really happy that
the other one was still picking along in technology, and, yes, it's awesome, it's kind
of the power of that kind of thing.
Yeah.
That's cool.
There, there, I think there's this narrative when it comes to computers, this, this sort
of stereotype of people saying, oh, yeah, I had a computer back when I was eight years
old.
I was in the program.
I've seen that.
It was great.
And basically, rather, mostly basic, like, have you had that experience where you, the,
sort of, the early person with a computer, or would you, did you, like, how exactly did
you get a computer work out for you?
Yeah, I am.
I was, and then, by, I don't know, middle school, I really fell out of it, and I was a lot
of it.
Well, middle school is not great for many people in the American term, educational, and
yeah.
The system, although there's always exceptions, but also, I think, I don't know, I just
didn't have a lot of peer reinforcement for that, and a lot of other stuff going on.
And I, I do know that in high school, I tried to get involved in the robotics club.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm kind of got pushed out of that by the robotics click, and, but I always wanted
to be a biologist.
Yeah.
So when I got to college, I was very, very fortunate to, and completely unexpectedly,
I expected to go to the same state school as my entire family.
Yeah.
I got to go to a women's college in Massachusetts, not Holy Oak, and they had a very strong
and very, very well-run computer science department, and with a great legacy of supporting
women in their science and really important, sort of providing a safe space that we weren't
supposed to, a lot of the things that, that women decide they just want to deal with
the shit from the environment, and while also giving us a lot of the skills to withstand
that once we got out into the, that's awesome.
That's awesome.
Yeah, that's awesome.
And we had a lot of really cool projects there, and that sort of wakened this latent
trend, and then also I wanted to be a biologist, and most scientists today are self-taught
in R, in Python, in databases, because they need to be.
And so people who can either learn that quickly or teach other people or have that background
really have an advantage.
Yes.
So that kind of both necessity and passion combined to get me to the point where I can make
a living off of databases, and make a lot of hobby, but I spent a lot of my free time
doing cool stuff on the computer too.
Yeah, that's right, and I remember kind of going back to grade school or middle school
rather.
I wasn't taught programming in school, just not at all.
It was all me with my Atari ST, and I remember I got detention, and they're like just going
to the library and came out for a while, that was my detention.
And so I found this, this computer, and I found logo on it, and I'm thinking like these
computers have logo on them.
Why are we being taught logo?
I get, I don't know, it kind of made me a little bit upset.
I remember teaching myself Boolean Logic in elementary school, because the interface to the Seattle
Public Schools library, computer, whatever it was, you could search for books using Boolean
Logic.
So I just sat there and figured out, and or not, and just by plugging things in and seeing
what it gave me.
That's cool.
And then I taught all the rest of it, or grade, or whatever, how to do Boolean Logic,
but that was never, that was what we were learning in math, ever, and have that formally
until literally discrete math in college.
I remember, before I got on the internet through Compusur, we were a Compusur family.
What, before I continue, like how did you first get online?
Uh, no idea, but my dad had some modem rigged up.
I don't think we ever used it, but I do remember having somewhere in some box.
One of those early phone handset couplers, so you would literally, like, section cut to
the phone.
I'm leaving right now.
I'm going into my room, and I'm banging behind the door, and I'm narrating you going
into your room and banging around and coming out with, oh my gosh.
It's key shifting for telephone communication, indirect, connect, press, spacebar.
Yep.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
I had a separate thing that you, like, actually connected, you put onto the headset, and
then it was connected to the device, speeds.
I have an issue where I don't remember monolacons, I don't remember models, I don't remember
company names, I called, if you asked me about, like, old computer systems, at one point
I called it a DEX VAD, VAD, DEX VAD instead of a DEX VAD.
Yeah.
That's funny.
I didn't tell you what we had, but that's, like, exactly, but you had a DEX VAD?
No, I'm sorry, one of the, it gets most to connect, the other phone handset, I see.
What?
Oh, that is cute.
That modem noise is embedded in my memory.
It's beautiful.
It's a beautiful noise.
Yeah, I wonder how many, how many geeks have that as their ringtone?
I should get on that.
I have a person dialing as my ringtone, it's kind of confused as people.
So my partner has the X-Files theme song, and it's pretty wicked.
Shoot, what am I, I was going to ask you something.
David.
Oh my God.
Well, I can talk about my pet topics that I always try to push whenever I can.
So I hear that you have something that you like a topic, your pet topic that you like
the most.
Yeah, I do.
And that pet topic is citizen science, and the concept of citizen science is that there
are some things that humans are really good at that computers aren't.
Yes.
But in science, there aren't enough grad students to chain in the basement and make them
slip away for 80 hours a week to do all this stuff.
So give the grad students a break and go look up citizen science projects like Zooniverse,
which is like the word zoo, COO, NIV, ERSE.
Okay.
And this is a project that lets scientists put data, mostly visual data, things like
these camera traps or pictures of plankton or originally it was pictures of galaxies where
computers are actually not that good at identifying what kind of a galaxy.
Imagine not whether it's a globular cluster or a spiral or whatever.
A great problem with computer science is you can figure out what a cat and a dog looks
like.
You can't distinguish the two.
Right.
Humans, brains are optimized for pattern recognition.
I am.
And computers, we haven't really gotten there, which is why like taps does work.
And actually recaptures is a citizen science project where a lot of it has historically
been used to digitize books and other data.
And but Zooniverse, so it's different kinds of basically pattern recognition tasks.
And it also kind of hooks into the same part of your brain as like little clicking flash
games.
So it's really fun to spend a couple hours like identifying there are two lions eating
a gazelle.
That's cool.
That's a picture.
Yeah.
Or there are three wildebeest and holy crap.
I have no idea what that critter is, but it's big.
And that specific project is one that I work on called snapshot certain getty.
And it's just, it's really cool stuff and it really does help researchers figure out
what's going on in the natural world, which can impact conservation in Africa or climate
science in the US or.
And I think it's just, it's really, it's a really cool way for people to get involved
with science in a fairly easy way.
And I think the tech behind it is pretty cool too, but I'm fine.
Cool.
That's pretty rare.
I forget who it is, but someone has this theory of artificial intelligence.
We have like a hierarchy of neurons, each neuron can predict a little bit like, oh, I'll
be on if on is on when I'm on or something like that.
And so it's this hierarchy of memory, where the top, the top neuron, thank you.
I don't know, it's, it's an interesting, if it explodes, you're talking about Trump.
If it explodes, you're talking about Trump as things tend to explode, Trump, Jesus fucking
Christ, you're a mean one, Mr. Trump, yeah, I feel about that.
I, instead of the stuff that you max versus Vi religion here, we're going to talk politics.
Uh-huh.
Then, by the way, then is the answer to that?
No.
All right, cool.
Me too.
Which just, I wish I had some sort of like, deep philosophical reason, but really it's
just what my, um, Professor Barbara, Barbara, Barbara learner, it's all your fault.
Mm-hmm.
I meant to read in college.
I see.
Yes, I started because it was the only editor, or Vi was the only editor, like I hope you
have a, ran disk of an installation of installation media for OpenBSD, like Vi is there and, uh,
I think it's there.
If it's not there, Ed is there.
But yeah, it's, it's been for me.
It's just what I, at some point, something I've learned getting older that's weird is that you
do end up specializing a little bit.
Oh, yeah.
And I've learned, especially as a freelancer, this is my old wise freelancer advice, is that it's
really important to say, no, I'm not interested in that to stuff.
Yeah, so I do not do JavaScript script.
Oh, yeah.
I can, if you give me some JavaScript, I can, like, read it.
Maybe vomit a little, but I'll, I can.
You know what, you know what the JavaScript does?
If you, if you don't have a semicolon, it stops the parser, it goes back a little bit and adds a semicolon.
So like, insert a semicolons for you.
That's kind of neat.
Yeah.
I don't know.
And, and it does some, some stuff.
And I know that nobody really uses raw JavaScript, because there's so much.
I do.
Well, I like it.
Oh, I love JavaScript.
Okay.
I'm done with this interview.
I'm done.
No, but it, you know, that's really a married.
I just thought I should tell you that.
All right.
This conversation scandal, but we're off into the alternative future.
Yeah.
You know, you know, the theory of alternate or what are those called points where,
where universe is separate, like decision points.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know, but there's one universe in which I storm out of the house right now.
Yeah.
The many universe theory.
Multiverses.
Multiverses.
Um, but, uh, well, that's because that's the thing is that I don't do JavaScript,
but I can give you the name of half a dozen awesome developers who can do that for you.
It's just not, it's not something you like.
Yeah.
It's the same thing with me for something.
I don't know.
Like, um, interpretive languages.
I don't really use that much.
Yeah.
I heard you really like interpretive languages.
Yeah.
Well, once I was introduced to, um, the Java, um, runtime environment,
time environment, uh, that made my life.
Ten times easier.
Yeah.
I mostly work on Python, which is just pleasant.
Yeah.
It's just nice.
It's like a comfy couch.
Okay.
And just you can read it easily.
You can read what other, you can read the laziest programmers.
Oh, yeah.
Craft code.
Um, and the other thing I use a lot is Pearl, which you can, can not read in, um,
but it's really good for its applications.
Yeah.
Um, and then the third language I write in the most is R, R,
which is it's a open source statistics language that start that's based off of S.
I see.
Um, and it's used extensively by scientists.
Cool.
Because it's, and it's the first language of many scientists, which causes a lot of problems,
because in R, um, the data structures are very, are excellent.
It's, it's really good for if you're trying to get a spreadsheet into an actually usable
form.
Um, so I use it a lot when I'm building databases, but indices start at one.
Okay.
So you try to turn a self-taught R programmer into a fully-fledged, um,
like programmer developer who can do a wide range of things.
Yeah.
And once they're like able to do all sorts of things and they keep, keep getting indexed out of
bansers because they can't rock this whole starting at zero thing.
I see.
Um, it causes many problems.
I imagine that one caused a lot of problems.
I don't know why that does that, but yeah, interpreted in languages.
I like writing scripts.
I don't actually write, right now.
I don't really write a lot of, yeah, sort of full-fledged applications.
I was thinking about one, one thing, you know, guerrillas.bas.
The guerrillas.
It's a basic, Q-basic program.
Yeah.
Oh.
Yeah, these two guerrillas.
And they're in a city.
They're in a big concept of this.
I'm like, hey, I don't really have Q-basic on my, on my Open BSD or Linux machine,
but it would be cool to write an basic interpreter and then try and play it on top of that.
I think that would be a fun, that would be a fun project.
That?
Yeah.
I got, can you use for a second because I use a program called Q-base.
Oh, use Q-base.
Use Q-base.
Yeah.
Audio.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My dad was, this is the reason why we had an Atari STU's go by that.
My father liked to do musical stuff and so you like, it has two, it has a mini interface
to it.
Right.
And so that was the reason why we had it.
Yeah.
I had a mini keyboard that somebody bought me to, so I could learn how to play piano.
Cool.
I had this program that came along with it that was learning how to play piano program.
Yeah.
And it had these little, this little game where if you hit the note, instead of notes,
there were ducks flying across the screen.
Okay.
And if you hit the right note, the duck quacked and disappeared.
And so I wanted to, I never really got it working, but I wanted to extract the MIDI file for the
quack.
So I could turn the quacks into a track.
There is my keyboard and play things entirely in quacks.
That's good.
That was my first encounter with MIDI.
Yeah.
Mine was a Roland DS1, which is a pretty cool keyboard, I suppose, but I had a, yeah, that
was my first experience with many.
Somebody traded so many of those, not really actually all that long ago.
Hey, Fiona, do you want to see my DSS1?
I'm getting to learn this, this, um, uh, looking, hey, hey, there's this disc sitting over there
and the, yes, little coupler.
You narrate while I go inside and get it.
And now she's going to disappear back behind the door and see how much banging and it's too heavy.
Oh, that's okay.
This is how I socialize.
Yeah, um, that's pretty much what I do to accept it off that would involve more going down
to the storage unit around the storage units here and stuff.
All right, do you want to conclude the interview?
Do you have a Twitter account or an email account or any way you can be?
So, um, I'm on Twitter a lot.
It's at Tessha Rista, which is T-E-S-H-E-R-I-S-T-A.
Okay.
And I am building up things under, under the handle, lend and more.
Okay.
Yeah.
But, um, I don't have a website right now because, you know, like JavaScript, I don't like JavaScript.
I'm kidding.
That's as good of an excuse as I have.
Actually, no, it's because, um, I'm rebuilding a WordPress framework using my own website.
Which I realize is kind of dumb, but, um, I'm too far in now.
Yeah.
I'm thinking about it.
Yeah.
I know how that's like.
All right.
Well, thank you.
Well, keep in touch.
Yeah.
And, uh, take care.
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