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Hacker Public Radio is an podcast that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday. Our shows are produced by the community (you) and can be on any topic that are of interest to hackers and hobbyists.
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HPR4554: How I do todo

HPR4554: How I do todo

2026-01-1518:21

This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. References in order of first mention Daytimer - https://www.daytimer.com/ PalmPilot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmPilot Gina Trapani - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Trapani Todo landing page - http://todotxt.org/ Todo file format - https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt Dropbox - https://www.dropbox.com/ Simpletask - https://github.com/mpcjanssen/simpletask-android/ QTodoTxt - https://github.com/QTodoTxt/QTodoTxt Synology DS220J NAS - https://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/Hardware/DataSheet/DiskStation/20-year/DS220j/enu/Synology_DS220j_Data_Sheet_enu.pdf Ice_recur - https://github.com/rlpowell/todo-text-stuff Py_recur - https://github.com/TASpinner/py_recur Microsoft todo - https://to-do.office.com/tasks/ Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. 02 Less Common Reactor Types In this episode we discuss some of the less common historical reactor types. These are a mixture of less common commercial types and some experimental or research reactors. I will cover advanced or future designs in another episode.  03 Minor Successes 04 Magnox 07 AGR - Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor 10 LWGR - Light Water Graphite Moderated Reactor (RBMK) 14 Historical Oddities or Dead Ends 15 Organically Cooled Reactors 16 Organically Cooled and Moderated 18 Organically Cooled and Heavy Water Moderated 24 HTGCR High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor 28 HWLWR - Heavy Water Light Water Reactor or SGHWR - Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor 31 Reactors Making a Comeback 32 Pebble Bed Reactors 33 AVR 35 THTR-300 36 South Africa, China, and the US 39 Making a Come Back? 40 MSR - Molten Salt Reactors 41 Slow or Fast Neutron Reactors 42 Fuel 43 Salts 44 Why Some Variants Use Dissolved Fuel 46 History 47 Types of Molten Salt Reactor 48 Pros and Cons 52 Overall 53 Conclusion In this episode we discussed some of the less common historical reactor types. As we have seen, there have been a number of different reactor designs which were less commercially successful for one reason or another.  Some of them may make a come back however, particularly as the basis for a small reactor. In the next episode we will describe fast neutron reactors. Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Explicit by the host. Background I have a very old EPSON R300 inkjet printer It has served me well for many years. I thought it was at least 10 if not 15 years old. I got it before I even became interested in Linux. For many of those years now I have been using this printer extensively on Linux. It has been a really good printer and has been incredibly cheap to run. Many years ago I got a number of sets of ink for it. I think they only cost me £15! A colleague at work later on gave me more sets of ink. I ended up with a large bag full of ink cartridges which I have been working my way through ever since. I used the printer infrequently for many years. This is far from ideal for an ink jet printer as doing so tends to cause the ink jet nozzles to clog up. Unsurprisingly in later years it has become somewhat temperamental. The problems consisted of paper mis-feeds (Probably down to the rubber take up rollers going hard over time) and missing bits of print (This I assume due to infrequent use of the printer and age of ink jet cartridges all of which were well out of their expiration date). The mis-fed paper could be solved by individual feeding each sheet through the printer. The poor / missing print could be solved by a combination of running the print head clean routine or by replacing the offending cartridge. Latterly I had print problems again and as per usual after cleaning the heads and then finally changing the cartridge the printer resumed printing normally. Shortly after this I bought myself an Apple iMac mini and thought it could be useful to be able to print from it. I visited the EPSON website downloaded and installed the EPSON print driver for my trusty R300 printer. I tried printing from my iMac and received a warning stating something like some of the components within your printer are worn and may need servicing. I’d never seen a message like this before as I normally print using open source print drivers on Linux which never report such things. When I tried printing on my Apple Mac no black text was visible on the page. I tried running the head cleaning routine and this made no difference. I eventually had to resort to changing the colour of the text within the LibreOffice document. This allowed me to print text that was at least legible. At the time I was a little suspicious of all this as the printer had been working so well just a few days previous. I plugged my trusty printer back into my trusty PC running an old version of Ubuntu using the open source printer drivers. Fired up LibreOffice and tried to print a document. To my surprise the printout was very good. While it was not as good as when the printer was new the quality of the black and coloured text was actually very good. My suspicion though I can’t prove it is that the EPSON print driver has worked out that the printer is 10 plus years old and needs to be returned to EPSON for servicing (or to purchase a new printer). To ensure this the driver is crippling the output from the printer. The Open Source print drivers have none of the nefarious nonsense and allows the printer to operate. As I said I cannot prove any of this however I’ll leave this up to you decide what you think is going on here. At this point I was going to end the podcast however the story didn’t end there. The story continues My mother wanted me to print out some holiday insurance documents for her. She sent me a copy of her documents as I told her my printer was working again. The first page printed out slightly faintly but was readable the other pages seemed to print using invisible ink. I tried cleaning the heads but it made no difference. It’s looking a bit like my printer or at least the cartridge is past its expiry date. Clearing out our loft I found the original box for my EPSON R300 printer and discovered that it was purchased in May 2005. This means the printer is now over 20 years old! At this point I decided that it was maybe about time that I replaced our ageing printer. We use the printer very infrequently and rarely need colour. For this reason I decided this time to buy a laser printer since I believe these don’t tend to dry out like ink jet printers and are less likely to suffer with infrequent use. Only time will tell though I don’t expect this one to last 20 years! Finally after all this I am not sure if using the EPSON driver had anything to do with the final demise of my printer though who knows. As Klaatu would say I leave that up to you dear listener to decide. Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Explicit by the host. A two-part conversation about what it’s really like being a woman in tech for almost three decades. Content Warning: The F word probably makes an appearance multiple times. In this episode, Lee sits down with Elsbeth to talk about her long, winding, sometimes ridiculous, often inspiring journey through the IT industry — starting all the way back in 1997. If you’ve ever worked helpdesk, ever had a customer say “my cup holder broke” (yes, the CD tray)… or ever felt underestimated in a room full of engineers, this one’s for you. Because we throw around some tech terms in the conversation, here are a few friendly definitions so everyone can follow along. Terms We Mentioned (in plain English) QA (Quality Assurance) Think of QA as the people who try to break things on purpose so regular users don’t break them accidentally . They test software, hardware, websites — you name it — to catch bugs before they cause chaos. If it’s glitch-free, a QA person probably saved the day behind the scenes. Content Moderation This is the work of keeping the internet from turning into the Wild West. Moderators review posts, comments, images, and videos to make sure they follow community rules and don’t harm users. It’s a mix of tech tools and human judgment — and yes, it can get intense. Building PCs Where many IT careers start! Building PCs is basically grown-up Lego: picking parts assembling them hoping you don’t zap anything with static electricity praying the cable management gods smile upon you It’s one of the most empowering skills in tech and often the first time someone realizes, “Oh hey… I can actually do this.” Gender Equality & Inequality Gender equality means giving everyone the same chance to succeed — no matter who they are. Gender inequality is what happens when that doesn’t happen. In tech, inequality often looks like: being talked over being paid less being assumed “non-technical” having to prove yourself twice as hard being the only woman in a room… again Elsbeth has seen all of this firsthand since 1997 — and she’s got stories. End-User The end-user is simply the person who actually uses the product. Not the engineer who built it. Not the manager who approved it. Not the QA who tested it. The end-user is the human at the end of the chain who clicks the button, pushes the key, taps the app… and finds entirely new ways to break things no one expected. Understanding them is the secret superpower of tech. Neurodivergence Neurodivergence means brains come in many beautiful varieties — like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and more. Neurodivergent people often bring incredible strengths to IT, including creativity, pattern spotting, hyperfocus, and out-of-the-box problem solving. They can also face misunderstandings in workplaces that weren’t designed with different brains in mind — something Elsbeth talks about openly and honestly in this episode. Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. In our next look at the game mechanics for Civilization V we examine the topic of Science and how to win a Science victory. This is something that has been in Civilization from the very beginning, but in Civilization V there are some changes worth addressing. Playing Civilization V, Part 7 Science In most respects this is not all that different in Civ 5. Most of the techs are the same, there is a tech tree that is pretty similar, and you need to keep up in Science for any victory condition you are seeking. You may want to just beat your enemies into submission, but if you are using Chariots while they have Tanks, you aren’t going to have success. But also it is obvious that if you are going for a Science victory, you need to really focus on this. So many of these tips should be followed for any victory condition, but should be mandatory if you are going for a Science victory. The mechanics of researching technologies is that you have to accumulate a certain amount of Science to discover a new technology, but this amount goes up over time, so you have be continuously looking to increase your output of Science to keep up. for instance, one of your first Techs would be Pottery, which has a cost of 35 Science. But in your Capital city you get 3 Science from your Palace, and let’s say you have a population of 2, so you are generating 5 Science per turn. That means you will research Pottery in 7 turns. But the Education tech costs 485 Science, Astronomy costs 780, Scientific Theory costs 1650, Plastics 4700, and Particle Physics 6000. These are all key techs to advance your Science to a Science Victory. So you can see that you need to be continually increasing your Science. To start with, Population=Science. You get one Science for every one point of population. That does not, however, mean that you need to have a lot of cities to get there. 4-5 well developed cities are quite sufficient, and adding more cities can cause Unhappiness problems. Since higher population itself can cause Unhappiness there is no good reason to add to the problem. Buildings The next boost you can give to Science is by building city improvements. The first, which comes early in the game, is the Library, which is available once you research Writing. A Library boosts the Science output of a city by one Science for every two citizens (roughly a 50% boost, rounded down), so building those early pays off. Because advancing through the tech tree is a process of accumulating Science, the earlier you can get these boosts the better. The other population-based boost is the Public School (available when you research Scientific Theory), which also boosts Science by one for every two citizens, and also offers a Specialist slot for a Science Specialist. And since more population means more Science, the Granary (available when you research Pottery) is a good building because it helps to grow your population. There is one other building worth mentioning which is the Observatory (available when you discover Astronomy). It doesn’t depend on population, but on location. You have to have a city that is located directly next to a Mountain to build this, but it adds 50% to the Science output of the city. Mountains are otherwise useless (unless you are the Incas), but if you want a Science boost and happen to see good location (the ideal spot is an isolated mountain that is not part of a mountain range so you don’t lose farming and mining production) this can be great boost. Scientist Specialists You can at a certain point take some of your citizens out of the farming and mining and turn them into Specialists, but you have to have a slot for them, and those slots come in buildings as well. We’ve already mentioned Public Schools providing one slot. Universities (available when you discover Education) provide 2 slots, as well as boosting the city output of Science by 33%. The other Science building, which comes late in the game, is the Research Lab (available when you discover Plastics) which adds another Specialist slot, plus 4 Science, and then adds 50% to the Science Output of the city. It comes too late to help much in most of the Tech Tree, but is essential to research the Space techs, which are very expensive. Wonders The first one to try for is the Great Library. It gives you a free Library in the city, +3 Science per turn, and a free tech. Use the free tech to get an expensive tech like Philosophy. Oracle provides 1 Great Person Point per turn towards a Great Scientist. Hanging Gardens provides +6 Food per turn (boosting your population), and a free Garden which boosts your Great Person Points by 25%. Leaning Tower of Pisa increases your Great Person Points by 25% in all cities, plus a free Great Person of your choice when you build it. Porcelain Tower gives you +50% from Research Agreements, plus a free Great Scientist. and Hubble Space Telescope provides two Great Scientists, a free Spaceship Factory in the city where it was built, and +25% production for spaceship parts. All of the above are World Wonders, which means you are in competition with other players to build them, and only one player can be successful in each case, so you won’t get them all. You can sometimes rush a World Wonder by “chopping”, i.e. using your workers to cut down Forests for added production, but you need to have high production cities to build Wonders in general. There is one National Wonder to focus on, though, the National College. Every player can build their own version of any National Wonder. The National College can be built only when you have a Library in every one of your cities. Your strategy should be to build it as soon as possible, so don’t build more than 3-4 cities before you get to this. It gives you +3 Science, plus an increase of 50% in the Science output of the city you build it in. Great Scientists As you work on your Science you will accumulate Great Person Points towards getting a Great Scientist. Some wonder produce Great Person Points, and all of your Science Specialists produce Great Person Points as well. As these add up you will suddenly see a Great Scientist appear. In the early game, the best thing to do is use this Great Scientist to build an Academy. Move the GS to any tile within your city and create the Academy there. It will yield at least +8 Science, bu there are also modifiers that can add to that. The alternative which is better later in the game is to use the Great Scientist to get a free Tech discovery. The reason is that early in the game that +8 Science is very significant, and it can accumulate over time. Combine that with things like an Observatory and a University that increase the city output and it can add up nicely over time. But by perhaps the Medieval Era, and certainly the Renaissance Era, you start running out of time for that accumulation. Meanwhile, the techs have gotten so expensive that a free Tech is the better option. Research Agreements These become available once you research Education. You have to have a Declaration of Friendship with the other player to create one. You each put a certain amount of gold into the pot to fund the research, and after a period of time (usually 30 turns) you each get an amount of Science from it. The way it is calculated is based on the partner that produced the least amount of Science during the agreement. From a science standpoint if you are ahead in Science it probably won’t benefit you to enter into the agreement. But it does build your relationship with the other player so I wouldn’t avoid them altogether. If you are behind in Science it can help you, of course. Policies and Ideologies Given that you should probably be building tall (4-5 cities) instead of wide (8-12 cities), it makes sense to start out with Tradition instead of Liberty. But once you get to the Renaissance you will want to enable the Rationalism tree to maximize your Science. When you get to Ideologies, you have a choice to make. Ignore Autocracy as that is not a Science-oriented choice. If you have 3-5 cities, Freedom is the best Ideology because Specialists require less food (Civil Society), and have reduced Unhappiness (Universal Suffrage). With a wide strategy (more than 5 cities) Order starts to look better. Getting Worker’s Faculties will give +25% Science from every Factory. Exploration and Techs Exploration is generally a good idea for a variety of reasons, but one to focus on here is the effect of meeting other players. In the first place, if you find other players who have researched techs you do not yet have, you can trade for them. You do this whenever possible. Remember, the other players will all be trading with each other anyway, so if you don’t participate you will simply fall behind. If you have a nice tech and can trade it to just two other players, you will jump up two techs along the tech tree, and that can be huge. If you hold onto it as a secret, some other player will research it, and they will trade it and get that boost instead. So trade whenever you can. Another advantage is that when you discover that another player has a tech you don’t have yet, your cost to research it goes down. Trade This is the next Science boost we will cover. when you set up a trade route with either another player or a City-State, one of the benefits can be an increase to your Science. The main benefit of trade routes is money, at least the way I play, so I will always start by looking for the best addition to my Treasury, but if I can choose between equivalent monetary rewards but one trade route offers more Science I might prefer that if I am going for a Science victory. Choosing an Empire There are many Empires you can play, and some of them are oriented to a Science victory. The two obvious choices are Babylon and Korea. Babylon gets a free Great Scientist when you discover Writing, which is very early, so you should use it to put down an Academy. And it earns Grea
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. lrest=0; while true; do echo refreshing project list; tsk=$(task +PENDING _unique project | shuf); for x in $tsk; do echo proj:$x; dispmd="task proj:$x ready || task ready"; [[ $lrest -eq 0 ]] && dispmd="task ready"; timeout 1500 watch $dispmd; ((lrest=lrest+1)); echo "begin break with enter..."; read; resttime=5; if [[ $lrest -gt 3 ]]; then resttime=15; lrest=0; fi; while [[ $resttime -gt 0 ]]; do echo $resttime minute rest; sleep 60; ((resttime=resttime-1)); done; echo "break over, enter to continue..."; read; done; done Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. I am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you. Links: https://www.youtube.com/@civilization https://www.youtube.com/@sixtysymbols https://www.youtube.com/@SophieAlloway https://www.youtube.com/@SpaceRocketHistoryChannel https://www.youtube.com/@StamFine https://www.youtube.com/@Stubagful https://www.youtube.com/@Suibhne https://www.youtube.com/@talkmoretalksolobeatles https://www.youtube.com/@TTBFromTheRoad https://www.youtube.com/@theark2544 https://www.youtube.com/@TheBeatles https://www.palain.com/ Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. Hello, again. This is Trey.    Welcome to part 6 in my Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) Project series. Thank you for hanging in there with me on this rambling series. If you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my HPR profile page https://www.hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0394.html      To review, my project is to build a portable morse code "Keyer memory" which can be connected to any of my amateur HF transceiver radios by simply plugging it in to the code key input port. This is based around an ESP32 platform which comes prepackaged on a yellow PC board with a color touchscreen display, WIFI, and Bluetooth. We fondly call this contraption the Cheap Yellow Display.      So far, I have defined the necessities, collected the required hardware, and failed miserably building the graphical user interface (GUI).     While I sort out the technical challenges getting my GUI code to play nicely with the CYD's touchscreen, it is important that we spend some time discussing Morse code itself, and the timing standards we will need to follow.    I am not going to dive too deeply into the history behind telegraphs and Morse code, but it is very interesting. If you want to learn more, Wikipedia has the origins and evolution written out quite nicely at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code      For our purposes, we will fast forward from the year 1820 (When telegraphy began) all the way to 1865 when the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)  standardized, what it called "International Morse Code". When I say Morse Code for the remainder of this podcast, I am referring to this ITU International Morse Code.      Morse code typically includes the following characters:  The 26 letter basic Latin alphabet  The Indo-Arabic numerals 0 to 9    There is also a single accented Latin letter (É), which is written as an E with an accent mark, and a handful of punctuation marks.    These characters are encoded using a sequence of short and long signals. Each short signal is referred to as a dit . Each long signal is referred to as a dah . At a young age, I began to refer to them as dots and dashes, as this is how they are usually written. For example, the letter "A" consists of a single dit followed by a single dah. When written out this would look like a period followed by a hyphen (what some might call a minus sign)   .-      This encoding method allows messages to be sent by turning on and off an electrical signal. This could result in a light flashing or a tone sounding to the pattern of the signal. The timing of a dit and dah, along with the spacing between them is carefully defined.       Morsecode.world does a great job explaining the timing, and you can find their explanation at https://morsecode.world/international/timing/      It all starts with the dit, or more accurately, the amount of time the dit signal is turned on. We will call this length of time 1 unit. We will get to the actual length of time for a unit later in this episode. For now, it is just one unit.     So, if a dit is 1 unit long, a dah will be 3 units long, so there is an obvious and consistent difference between a dit and a dah. Also, empty space between elements of the same character is 1 unit long. The space between characters should be 3 units long.        Let's demonstrate using the letters H, P, & R.      An "H" would be 4 dits ….   A "P" would be 1 dit followed by 2 dahs and ending with 1 dit  .--.   An "R" would be 1 dit followed by 1 dah and ending with 1 dit   .-.     Remember when we send these grouped together like a word, we need 3 units of spacing between each character. You can hear this now. This is Morse code for the letters "HPR" at 15 words per minute  .... .--. .-.    That is the perfect segue to the next section, words per minute.    The speed of morse code is measured in "words per minute". But how do you calculate this when some characters are short (Like the letter "E" which is only a single dit long), and other characters are long (Like the letter "J" which starts with a single dit and is followed by 3 dahs)?     And that's just letters. What about words? We have short words and long words. How can we standardize on words per minute with so much diversity of length?    Well, thanks to the French, we have a quite elegant solution to this problem. Well, not the French in general. Just PARIS.    PARIS is the standard word which has been agreed upon to be used for determining the speed of Morse code. The word PARIS is 50 units long.    "P" = dit(1) + (1) + dah(3) + (1) + dah(3) + (1) + dit(1) = 11 units   {Space between letters} = 3 units  "A" =  dit(1) + (1) + dah(3) = 5 units   {Space between letters} = 3 units  "R" = dit(1) + (1) + dah(3) + (1) + dit(1) = 7 units   {Space between letters} = 3 units  "I" = dit(1) + (1) + dit(1) = 3 units   {Space between letters} = 3 units  "S" = dit(1) + (1) + dit(1) + (1) + dit(1) = 5 units  {Space between words} = 7 units    11+3+5+3+7+3+3+3+5+7 = 50 units    Here is the word PARIS sent at 15 WPM  .--. .- .-. .. ...    Morsecode.world again does a great job explaining the maths for how many milliseconds long a dit should be for a specific WPM of code ( https://morsecode.world/international/timing/ ) But, no... We could not keep it that simple. Some guy named Donald R. "Russ" Farnsworth had to complicate things and increase the gaps between letters and words to make interpreting code much easier. There are even more maths for Farnsworth timing...     Wait a minute. When did I start saying "Maths" instead of "Math" like a normal North American? What is the reasoning around pluralizing "Math" anyways? Which way is more original English, "Math" or "Maths"? This sounds like a show idea for someone other than me. If you know or are interested in researching it, I look forward to listening to your show in the future.     ANYWAYS, there IS much more MATH about Farnsworth timing on another page on Morsecode.world. ( https://morsecode.world/international/timing/farnsworth.html ). But I don't want to get into all of it in detail here. Not when there is a shortcut we can use in our code. Simplified, we can take 1,200 and divide it by the WPM we desire, and it will give us a close enough approximation of the number of milliseconds long a dit should be.     For the 15 WPM messages you have heard throughout this episode, a dit was 1200/15 = 80 ms in length. If I speed it up to 20 WPM (The speed at which I try to practice) a dit will be 1200/20 = 60 ms long.     This will be an important calculation for us as we develop the code we will later be using to construct our messages using the CYD.      And this is also a good stopping point so that I can get back to trying to build that infernal GUI.  Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Explicit by the host. New hosts There were no new hosts this month. Last Month's Shows Id Day Date Title Host 4521 Mon 2025-12-01 HPR Community News for November 2025 HPR Volunteers 4522 Tue 2025-12-02 Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop event Elsbeth 4523 Wed 2025-12-03 Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 1 - Nuclear Basics Whiskeyjack 4524 Thu 2025-12-04 Living the Tux Life Episode 3 - Automating the Install Al 4525 Fri 2025-12-05 Using mail merge in thunderbird Ken Fallon 4526 Mon 2025-12-08 Baofeng and SDR++ Lee 4527 Tue 2025-12-09 Overly Complicated Media Ripping setup Archer72 4528 Wed 2025-12-10 Photography software Henrik Hemrin 4529 Thu 2025-12-11 yoga370 review Brian-in-Ohio 4530 Fri 2025-12-12 Playing Civilization V, Part 6 Ahuka 4531 Mon 2025-12-15 HPR Beer Garden 6 - Imperial Stouts Kevie 4532 Tue 2025-12-16 Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 5: Graphical User Interface Trey 4533 Wed 2025-12-17 Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 2 Nuclear Fuel Whiskeyjack 4534 Thu 2025-12-18 Reviving My Kawai K4 Synthesizer Claudio Miranda 4535 Fri 2025-12-19 Living the Tux Life Episode 4 - Various software I have been using Al 4536 Mon 2025-12-22 Welcome to the Linux Community Deltaray 4537 Tue 2025-12-23 “Elsbeth in IT: Since ’97” (Part 1) Elsbeth 4538 Wed 2025-12-24 HPR Branding Ken Fallon 4539 Thu 2025-12-25 YouTube Subscriptions 2025 #11 Ahuka 4540 Fri 2025-12-26 Arthur C. Clarke: Other Novels, Part 1 Ahuka 4541 Mon 2025-12-29 HPR Beer Garden 7 - UK Christmas Ales Kevie 4542 Tue 2025-12-30 Can Haiku Mumble? Claudio Miranda 4543 Wed 2025-12-31 Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 3 Reactor Basics Whiskeyjack Comments this month These are comments which have been made during the past month, either to shows released during the month or to past shows. There are 27 comments in total. Past shows There are 2 comments on 2 previous shows: hpr4424 (2025-07-17) "How I use Newsboat for Podcasts and Reddit" by Archer72. Comment 5: Ken Fallon on 2025-12-02: "Checking for أحمد المحمودي to see if there are issues." Comment 6: أحمد المحمودي on 2025-12-03: "download-filename-format for HPR podcasts" hpr4520 (2025-11-28) "Arthur C. Clarke: Rama and Sequels" by Ahuka. Comment 1: morhook on 2025-12-30: "programmer and content creator" Comment 2: Kevin O'Brien on 2025-12-30: "Glad you liked it" This month's shows There are 25 comments on 11 of this month's shows: hpr4521 (2025-12-01) "HPR Community News for November 2025" by HPR Volunteers. Comment 1: Archer72 on 2025-11-30: "Silent key"Comment 2: Trey on 2025-12-01: "Silent Key Archive"Comment 3: Trey on 2025-12-01: "TuxJam CYD Episode"Comment 4: candycanearter07 on 2025-12-12: "thoughts"Comment 5: Archer72 on 2025-12-19: "Re: thoughts"Comment 6: candycanearter07 on 2025-12-21: "Re: Re: Thoughts" hpr4522 (2025-12-02) "Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop event" by Elsbeth. Comment 1: candycanearter07 on 2025-12-13: "peek into the community" hpr4523 (2025-12-03) "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 1 - Nuclear Basics" by Whiskeyjack. Comment 1: bjb on 2025-12-04: "Love your show/series, thank you"Comment 2: Kevin O'Brien on 2025-12-04: "Looking forward to more"Comment 3: Trey on 2025-12-09: "Looking forward to this series" hpr4526 (2025-12-08) "Baofeng and SDR++" by Lee. Comment 1: Trey on 2025-12-09: "SDRs" hpr4529 (2025-12-11) "yoga370 review" by Brian-in-Ohio. Comment 1: Paulj on 2025-12-31: "Thanks - great show" hpr4532 (2025-12-16) "Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 5: Graphical User Interface " by Trey. Comment 1: norrrist on 2025-12-16: "starting small " hpr4533 (2025-12-17) "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 2 Nuclear Fuel" by Whiskeyjack. Comment 1: bjb on 2025-12-18: "Thank the host for interesting series" hpr4535 (2025-12-19) "Living the Tux Life Episode 4 - Various software I have been using" by Al. Comment 1: candycanearter07 on 2025-12-19: "cool setup!"Comment 2: Archer72 on 2025-12-19: "Tmux" hpr4536 (2025-12-22) "Welcome to the Linux Community" by Deltaray. Comment 1: Archer72 on 2025-12-21: "Brilliant!! "Comment 2: Torin Doyle on 2025-12-22: "Deltaray did a fine job in covering GNU/Linux aka Linux, here."Comment 3: Ken Fallon on 2025-12-22: "Agree"Comment 4: Deltaray on 2025-12-26: "Thanks"Comment 5: Morhook on 2025-12-30: "Good talk CliMagic" hpr4538 (2025-12-24) "HPR Branding" by Ken Fallon. Comment 1: candycanearter07 on 2025-12-24: "interesting peak of behind the scenes!!"Comment 2: Steve Barnes on 2025-12-24: "Merci!"Comment 3: Archer72 on 2025-12-29: "Re: candycanearter07" hpr4543 (2025-12-31) "Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 3 Reactor Basics" by Whiskeyjack. Comment 1: L'andrew on 2025-12-31: "Praise for this series" Mailing List discussions Policy decisions surrounding HPR are taken by the community as a whole. This discussion takes place on the Mailing List which is open to all HPR listeners and contributors. The discussions are open and available on the HPR server under Mailman. The threaded discussions this month can be found here: https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2025-December/thread.html Events Calendar With the kind permission of LWN.net we are linking to The LWN.net Community Calendar. Quoting the site: This is the LWN.net community event calendar, where we track events of interest to people using and developing Linux and free software. Clicking on individual events will take you to the appropriate web page. Any other business Thanks to all 57 HPR contributors in 2025! Ahuka, Al, Antoine, Archer72, beni, Brian-in-Ohio, candycanearter, Celeste, Claudio Miranda, Daniel Persson, Dave Hingley, Dave Morriss, Deltaray, dnt, Elsbeth, folky, FredBlack, gemlog, hairylarry, Henrik Hemrin, Honkeymagoo, HPR Volunteers, iota, Jerm, Jeroen Baten, Jezra, Ken Fallon, Kevie, Kirbotica, Klaatu, ko3moc, Lee, Lochyboy, Major_Ursa, Manon, Marc W. Abel, mightbemike, Moss Bliss, MrX, murph, norrist, operat0r, oxo, Paulj, Reto, Rho`n, Shane - StrandedOutput, SolusSpider, Some Guy On The Internet, Swift110, thelovebug, Thibaut, Trey, Trixter, Trollercoaster, Whiskeyjack, Wojciech Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. I am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you. Links: https://www.youtube.com/@RickStevesTravelTalks https://www.youtube.com/@RickStevesEuropeOfficial https://www.youtube.com/@ringostarr https://www.youtube.com/@RBReich https://www.youtube.com/@RobWords https://www.youtube.com/@rockhall https://www.youtube.com/@RowanJColeman https://www.youtube.com/@RoyalCaribbeanBlog https://www.youtube.com/@SabatonHistory https://www.youtube.com/@sassygamerlady https://www.youtube.com/@ScienceNewsMag https://www.youtube.com/@NASAScience https://www.youtube.com/@sciencium https://www.youtube.com/@scifri https://www.youtube.com/@SciShow https://www.youtube.com/@SciShowPsych https://www.youtube.com/@scishowspace https://www.youtube.com/@securitynow https://www.palain.com/ Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. Refs: https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=2BSD/man/last.u https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Util-linux&oldid=271104508 https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux/+/612721dba838fe37af543421278416bb7acf770c/login-utils/README.admutil https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-haardt-9087023/details/experience/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterorbaek/details/experience/ https://flameshot.org/ commands: ping yahoo.com traceroute -m 100 bad.horse mtr www.yahoo.com scrot flameshot zless messages.1.gz bzless messages.1.bz xzless messages.1.xz last -10 last reboot last $USER -10 People involved: mtr: Matt Kimball Roger Wolff scrot: Tom Gilbert zless and related commands: Paul Eggert last command: Howard Katseff Michael Haardt Peter Orbaek Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. 03-Reactor-Basics 01 Introduction In this episode we will describe the basic features and characteristics of reactors together with descriptions of the most widely used commercial reactor types. 03 Fast Versus Slow Reactors 04 Slow Neutron Reactors 06 Fast Neutron Reactors 08 Reactor Moderators 10 Light Water 11 Heavy Water 13 Graphite 14 Unmoderated 15 Coolants 16 Common Coolants 17 Alternative Coolants 18 Primary and Secondary Coolant Loops 20 Steam Generation 23 Brayton Cycle Gas Turbines 24 Refuelling Method 25 Main Commercial Reactor Types 26 PWR - Pressurized Water Reactor 28 BWR - Boiling Water Reactor 29 PHWR - Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor 33 Conclusion We have covered the main reactor characteristics.  These characteristics can be mixed in various ways to give different reactor types. The characteristics also affect the types of fuel that can be used. We also covered the three main commercial power generation reactor types. In the next episode we will describe some of the less common historical reactor types. Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. Haiku: https://www.haiku-os.org/ BeOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS Mumble: https://www.mumble.info/ HPR NYE Show: https://hackerpublicradio.org/new_year.html How to Connect to HPR Community Room using Mumble: https://hackerpublicradio.org/mumble-howtoProvide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. With Christmas approaching (and actually gone by the time this is posted), Kevie, Dave and Paul try out a variety of Christmas ales from the UK. Dave opts for St Peters Christmas Ale , Kevie samples Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale and Dave supports his local brewery, Purple Moose, with a mug of Merry X-Moose . Connect with the guys on Untappd: Dave Paul Kevie The intro sounds for the show are used from: https://freesound.org/people/mixtus/sounds/329806/ https://freesound.org/people/j1987/sounds/123003/ https://freesound.org/people/greatsoundstube/sounds/628437/ Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. This brings us to a look at some of Arthur C. Clarke's other stories, The Sands of Mars (1951), The Deep Range (1957), and The Fountains of Paradise (1979). These are just a few of his well-regarded stand-alone novels. Links: https://www.sffworld.com/forum/threads/the-clarke-asimov-treaty.46067/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sands_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islands_in_the_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deep_Range https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_Island_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_from_the_Grand_Banks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon https://www.palain.com/science-fiction/the-golden-age/arthur-c-clarke-other-novels-part-1/ Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. I am subscribed to a number of YouTube channels, and I am sharing them with you. Links: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorofRock https://www.youtube.com/@ProgAxia https://www.youtube.com/@quill18 https://www.youtube.com/@RachelFlowersMusic https://www.youtube.com/@RadioFreeSkaro https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvpxXoojGDRVA7zLYlY-48g https://www.youtube.com/@ralphtownermusic412 https://www.youtube.com/@RandyRainbowOfficial https://www.youtube.com/@realfastspanish https://www.youtube.com/@realtimehistory https://www.youtube.com/@RealLifeLore https://www.youtube.com/@pickupchangetoe https://www.youtube.com/@RichieCastellano https://www.youtube.com/@RickBeato https://www.youtube.com/@rickbeato2 https://www.palain.com/ Provide feedback on this episode.
HPR4538: HPR Branding

HPR4538: HPR Branding

2025-12-2411:14

This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. HPR Branding This episode refers to the initial release of https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_documentation/src/branch/main/branding.md The Intro Duration It will always be 30 seconds long and in some edge cases may be slightly longer. The following table will help put that into context. It gives the percentage of the show the intro takes related to the length of the shows. 1.7% of an average show (29 minutes 30 seconds) 0.1% of our longest show (7 hours 27 minutes) 187.5% of our shortest show (16 seconds) Breakdown Generation The intro is generated by the  process_episode.bash  script and uses the  say.php  file to generate the data. The text is  created  using  piper test to speech . It was previously created using  espeak , and we are open to  suggestions  on how to improve it. The text is played over the HPR Theme Music Theme Music Credits The background is an arrangement by  Maestraccio  which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)  license, of the HPR Theme, composed by  slick0  which has  No Copyright  applied. Message To effectively communicate an event it’s important to convey the answers to  Who? ,  What? ,  When? ,  Where? , and  Why? The Five Ws is a checklist used in journalism to ensure that the lead contains all the essential points of a story. As far back as 1913, reporters were taught that the lead should answer these questions about the situation being reported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws What?, When?, Where? The first sentence is always  This is Hacker Public Radio episode (show id) for “(day of week)” the “(day number)” of “(month and year). Saying the name of the show at the beginning of an episode is called establishing  brand recognition . It is standard for podcasts, TV and Radio shows as well as on broadcast networks, not to mention the pre-rolls in a movie. We started to do it because some of our Visually Impaired users appreciated knowing what show is playing. Now the same reason can be applied to everyone as the use of visual controlled  User interfaces  have diminished. Most people control the playlist with headset or voice controls. Saying the show id, and date is common where there are a lot of episodes eg: news or weather shows. It is often skipped where the content is sufficient to identify the episode, eg “the last episode of the foo bar baz podcast, or the last Saturday Night Live” We include the show id and date to allow the listener to refer to the episode easily. As we have literally thousands of shows, we need to help people identify which show they are now listening to, so that it can be easily shared, or commented on. What? Why? We always include  Today’s show is entitled. (title) . If the episode is part of a series then we also include  It is part of the series (series name) . We always include the show  (synopsis) . This tells the listener what the show is about. It allows them to skip the episode if they wish. They may wish to do this for many reasons, for example: because they are not interested in the topic, they wish to listen to it while in front of a computer to reference the accompanying show notes, they are listening in public and the topic might not be appropriate. Who? The next part will either be  It is the first show by new host (host name) ,  It is the (multiple of 10)th show of (host name) , or  It is hosted by (host name) We are required by the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)  license to credit our hosts, so we do. We think it’s important to highlight new hosts especially, so our community we encourage them to continue to contribute. It’s also nice to call out hosts who have been contributing a lot by highlighting each 10th show they send in. Where? We always include  and is about (minutes)minutes long  to give people an idea of how long the show is. Normal broadcasts have to fit neatly into a standard TV/Radio Broadcast schedule. Many podcasters now follow the same tradition of having episodes of a predictable length. Eg: 30 minutes or an hour. On HPR,  there is no restriction on how long the show can be  so it’s desirable to give the listener a way to know how long the episode is so they can plan accordingly. Warning We always include either  It carries a clean flag  or  It carries an explicit flag . This is also common for broadcasts where they are dealing with a topic that may be disturbing to some people. What We always include  The summary is. (summary) . As this also tells the listener what the show is about. License In the event that the show is not released  CC-BY-SA  we include  Todays show is licensed under a (license_long_name) license. Outro Theme Music Credits The background is an arrangement by  Maestraccio  which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)  license, of the HPR Theme, composed by  slick0  which has  No Copyright  applied. Over the music is the following text recorded by  Manon  which has  No Copyright  applied. You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at  hackerpublicradio.org . Today’s show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself. If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then click on our contribute link to find out how easy it really is. Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by  anhonesthost.com , the  Internet Archive  and  rsync.net . Unless otherwise stated, today’s show is released under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)  license. Discussions about the HPR Theme 2023-04 intro 2022-03 Great Intro 2022-03 TTS 2022-03 The TTS voice 2021-11 Theme - was “Possible cause and solution to subscriber attrition(trying again without encryption)” 2020-08 the voice 2019-11 Ken’s Voice Is Better Than espeak 2018-09 HPR Branding 2018-09 Accordion outro 2018-10 Intro volume 2018-10 TTS over intro music 2016-02 speech synthesis during intro 2015-12 How to check if the intro and outro are added 2015-02 Intro and Outro 2014-12 Outro Theme 2014-12 Bug Fix HPR Intros 2014-11 MaryTTS, clipping 2014-11 An HPR Theme Question, And First Time Member 2014-02 What’s the word on intro and outro clips? 2011-09 HPR Theme 2009-06 my eps for HPR and intro Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Explicit by the host. A two-part conversation about what it’s really like being a woman in tech for almost three decades. Content Warning: The F word probably makes an appearance multiple times. In this episode, Lee sits down with Elsbeth to talk about her long, winding, sometimes ridiculous, often inspiring journey through the IT industry — starting all the way back in 1997. If you’ve ever worked helpdesk, ever had a customer say “my cup holder broke” (yes, the CD tray)… or ever felt underestimated in a room full of engineers, this one’s for you. Because we throw around some tech terms in the conversation, here are a few friendly definitions so everyone can follow along. Terms We Mentioned (in plain English) QA (Quality Assurance) Think of QA as the people who try to break things on purpose so regular users don’t break them accidentally . They test software, hardware, websites — you name it — to catch bugs before they cause chaos. If it’s glitch-free, a QA person probably saved the day behind the scenes. Content Moderation This is the work of keeping the internet from turning into the Wild West. Moderators review posts, comments, images, and videos to make sure they follow community rules and don’t harm users. It’s a mix of tech tools and human judgment — and yes, it can get intense. Building PCs Where many IT careers start! Building PCs is basically grown-up Lego: picking parts assembling them hoping you don’t zap anything with static electricity praying the cable management gods smile upon you It’s one of the most empowering skills in tech and often the first time someone realizes, “Oh hey… I can actually do this.” Gender Equality & Inequality Gender equality means giving everyone the same chance to succeed — no matter who they are. Gender inequality is what happens when that doesn’t happen. In tech, inequality often looks like: being talked over being paid less being assumed “non-technical” having to prove yourself twice as hard being the only woman in a room… again Elsbeth has seen all of this firsthand since 1997 — and she’s got stories. End-User The end-user is simply the person who actually uses the product. Not the engineer who built it. Not the manager who approved it. Not the QA who tested it. The end-user is the human at the end of the chain who clicks the button, pushes the key, taps the app… and finds entirely new ways to break things no one expected. Understanding them is the secret superpower of tech. Neurodivergence Neurodivergence means brains come in many beautiful varieties — like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and more. Neurodivergent people often bring incredible strengths to IT, including creativity, pattern spotting, hyperfocus, and out-of-the-box problem solving. They can also face misunderstandings in workplaces that weren’t designed with different brains in mind — something Elsbeth talks about openly and honestly in this episode. Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. Below are some links to help you find related software and resources: Beginner-Friendly Distros https://linuxmint.com https://ubuntu.com https://fedoraproject.org https://pop.system76.com Help & Community Linux Questions — https://www.linuxquestions.org Reddit r/linux4noobs — https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs Stack Exchange Unix/Linux — https://unix.stackexchange.com Ask Fedora — https://ask.fedoraproject.org Ubuntu Forums — https://ubuntuforums.org Local & Live Community https://www.linux.org/forums/ https://freegeek.org/ https://mastodon.social https://fosstodon.org Software Alternatives GIMP (image editing) — https://www.gimp.org Krita (digital painting) — https://krita.org Inkscape (vector graphics) — https://inkscape.org Blender (3D modeling & animation) — https://blender.org LibreOffice (office suite) — https://libreoffice.org Ardour (audio workstation) — https://ardour.org LMMS (music production) — https://lmms.io Kdenlive (video editing) — https://kdenlive.org Linux Gaming Steam for Linux — https://store.steampowered.com ProtonDB compatibility reports — https://www.protondb.com Lutris game launcher — https://lutris.net Provide feedback on this episode.
This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. Show Notes System Monitoring & Metrics Prometheus Open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit for collecting and storing metrics. Documentation :  https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/installation/ Prometheus Node Exporter Hardware and OS metrics exporter for Prometheus. Guide :  https://prometheus.io/docs/guides/node-exporter/ Grafana Open-source analytics and visualization platform for monitoring metrics. Docker Installation :  https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/setup-grafana/installation/docker/ Featured Grafana Dashboards Power Information Dashboard :  https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/12542-power-information/ Node Exporter Full :  https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/1860-node-exporter-full/ Power Management & Battery Tools TLP Advanced power management tool for Linux that optimizes battery life. Installation Guide :  https://linrunner.de/tlp/installation/index.html Battery Uptime Timer Script Custom script for monitoring battery usage and uptime. GitHub Repository :  https://github.com/mralc/Battery-uptime-timer Setting Battery Charge Threshold Limit battery charge to extend battery lifespan: echo 90 | sudo tee /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_stop_threshold Note: Adjust the value (90%) and BAT0 according to your system. Caffeine Prevents your system from going to sleep or activating the screensaver. Project Page :  https://launchpad.net/caffeine Backup & File Sharing LocalSend Open-source cross-platform alternative to AirDrop for sharing files locally. Website :  https://localsend.org/ Déjà Dup Simple backup tool for GNOME desktop environment. GNOME Apps :  https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/DejaDup/ FOX Clone System backup and cloning tool for Linux. SourceForge :  https://sourceforge.net/projects/foxclone/ Terminal Utilities Tmux Terminal multiplexer that allows multiple terminal sessions within a single window. GitHub Wiki :  https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki Provide feedback on this episode.
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Comments (2)

Robert Naramore Jr.

awesome

Oct 29th
Reply

Denise Wiesner

Its an interesting topic you bring up. personally I am appalled by scarecrow tactics. I'd like to offer a different view. There is lots wrong with capitalism. First thing is that capitalists believe their system is the only answer. The hangover after our last industrial revolution gave us shorter working days, safety rules and employee rights at work. Currently there is lots of demand out there for sabbaticals or people taking a break. so hell yeah, give me a robot who does my job so I can recover from stress, spend time with my children or travel, do volunteer work. Why do we doubt Basic income? currently those breaks are only available for the rich or singles or childless. Have you seen a happy cashier? Have you heard a mine worker shouting: yes - let's continue ruining my lung instead of giving me proper training so I can work in a solar panel farm. and for the doctors! I have met so many who were an utter waste of my time. yes, give me the Watson system. I had to retrain in my job

Oct 19th
Reply