HPR

Posted at 2026-09-08 20:13:53 relating to the show hpr4722 which was released on 2026-09-08 by Trollercoaster entitled Show and tell: AI tropes

Beautifully written reply, Trey. Ideal length, too.

Posted at 2026-09-08 10:57:10 relating to the show hpr4722 which was released on 2026-09-08 by Trollercoaster entitled Show and tell: AI tropes

Thank you Trollercoaster.

You have highlighted an issue I deal with daily in higher education. It used to be that my students' discussion posts would struggle to address the topic of a question. I could see progression over the course of the class as students would begin to grasp ideas. Poor grammar, missing citations, and incompletely presented ideas were all common. And I would grumble about it to myself.

But today, every post is near perfectly written. Every response is three paragraphs of virtually the same length, using language at or above college level. There are citations for the most obscure references.

And my students are not learning anything. The few times I get to speak with them, I can tell that they do not have a clue. They cannot think on their own, and they hide it well behind an AI generated mask of text.

Posted at 2026-09-08 08:15:24 relating to the show hpr4709 which was released on 2026-08-20 by Kevie entitled Peertube: my two penneth

The links that I forgot to include in the show notes are:
https://social.growyourown.services/@FediVideo
https://fedi.video/a/fedivideo/video-channels

Posted at 2026-09-07 21:15:48 relating to the show hpr4719 which was released on 2026-09-03 by number9 entitled How to use a multimeter, introduction and basic usage

I am not an EE, but have been using meters casually since the 70's and still own Radio Shack analog meter. While I avoid working with mains, I was unaware of the probe ratings. This alone was worth the listen, but not the only thing I learned. Thanks!

Posted at 2026-09-06 14:25:11 relating to the show hpr4719 which was released on 2026-09-03 by number9 entitled How to use a multimeter, introduction and basic usage

I just want to add my +1 to the comment by brian-in-ohio.

Posted at 2026-09-06 12:54:51 relating to the show hpr4719 which was released on 2026-09-03 by number9 entitled How to use a multimeter, introduction and basic usage

Welcome, good show. I think a show about your early years working in electronics repair would be quite interesting.

Posted at 2026-09-03 22:39:30 relating to the show hpr4719 which was released on 2026-09-03 by number9 entitled How to use a multimeter, introduction and basic usage

This was a very good episode, and I hope we hear more from you.

I have a Fluke 73 Series III multimeter. It is a bit old at this point, but it has what I need.

I still have the box that it came in, including the accessory brochures.

I don't know what is in their current product line up, but they have or had both "industrial" and "electronics" lines of test probes. The industrial probes are bigger and more heavy duty, while the electronics probes are smaller and with much finer tips that are only exposed at the very end.

They also have a variety of hook and alligator style leads. It is pretty common in industrial troubleshooting, or in check out and test of new equipment, to use a hook or clip lead on the negative or neutral side, and then probe around with a regular probe on the other side.

Some other types of probes in the brochure include high voltage probes, clamp-on AC current probes, AC/DC Hall Effect current probes, pressure sensor probes, and a variety of different temperature probes.

Simpsons were very highly regarded analogue meters in the days before digital. At one time industrial electricians would sometimes get their hands on an old Simpson analogue meter just so they could show off that they were driving a "classic" meter to the admiration of their friends, but they always used a Fluke DMM for anything practical.

Posted at 2026-09-03 19:14:51 relating to the show hpr4719 which was released on 2026-09-03 by number9 entitled How to use a multimeter, introduction and basic usage

Great show! As a fellow electrical engineer, I have a lot of experience with multi-meters, and I've been using electronics since I was a kid as well. Enjoyed the show! Thanks so much for sharing!

Posted at 2026-09-03 16:05:35 relating to the show hpr4718 which was released on 2026-09-02 by Whiskeyjack entitled Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 2

I actually cover OpenPLC and Beremiz, the latter of which is a fork of OpenPLC, very briefly in episode 8 of this series, which I have just uploaded today as soon as a slot opened up for it. This should go out as HPR4778 on the 25th of November.

I installed Beremiz as a snap package and very briefly give an overview of it as well as describing my opinion on it.

I then go on to describe what I thought a hypothetical ideal open source PLC or soft logic system that is suitable for use in industry would look like.

In that episode I talk about editing with OpenPLC and Beremiz only very briefly and didn't try to run the resulting program. I think it would make for a great episode or even several if you would like to talk about either or both of them yourself.

Posted at 2026-09-03 15:24:51 relating to the show hpr4708 which was released on 2026-08-19 by Whiskeyjack entitled Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 1

If you are familiar with IEC 62443 security, then I think that talking about it would make for an interesting episode or even more than one episode.

What would probably be a very good approach would be to contrast and compare industrial cyber security versus cyber security in the conventional IT industry in places such as offices or data centres. What is different in terms of the operating environment or the solutions used? What things are the same in terms of principles, approaches, and actual practice? If you are familiar with office IT cyber security, how would you prepare yourself if asked to help out with security in industry? Is IEC 62443 actually useful, or is it a box ticking exercise with little practical utility?

In episode 5 I don't actually cover how to provide cyber security for industry. Rather, I go over my reasoning as to why it isn't a safety concern in the context of the equipment safety systems that I describe in the same episode. I state that security is however a concern in terms of avoiding property damage and loss of money.

The preceding covers most situations in factories, but doesn't cover cases where a programmed shutdown is required for safety, such as may happen in the chemical or power generation industries. If anyone can provide some practical advice in these cases, it would I imagine prove to be very fascinating.


I don't think that I am able to answer these questions adequately, but I know that I at least would be very interested in hearing about it from someone who is and I imagine that other people would be as well.

Posted at 2026-09-03 12:52:57 relating to the show hpr4719 which was released on 2026-09-03 by number9 entitled How to use a multimeter, introduction and basic usage

Hello Number9,

Excellent episode. I have been playing with electricity and electronics since the '70s, and I still learned from your episode.

Do you follow Mr. Carlson's Lab (Youtube) at all? Very educational. I plan to build his capacitor leakage detector sometime in the future.

Keep up the great work.

Posted at 2026-09-03 09:49:32 relating to the show hpr4719 which was released on 2026-09-03 by number9 entitled How to use a multimeter, introduction and basic usage

Hello number9,

I see you are a first time host to HPR, and this was a great one to start out with. The detail of each type of meters' function was intriguing.

Looking forward to hearing more.

Cheers!
Archer72

Posted at 2026-09-03 07:43:52 relating to the show hpr4719 which was released on 2026-09-03 by number9 entitled How to use a multimeter, introduction and basic usage

This is great and will fit nicely into the HAREC HAM series !

Posted at 2026-09-02 22:40:23 relating to the show hpr4718 which was released on 2026-09-02 by Whiskeyjack entitled Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 2

Thank you for another amazing episode.

I don't know if you will be covering this in a future episode or not. If so, SPOILER ALERT!!

For those who are interested in playing with programming PLCs, there are tools available.

OpenPLC Editor (https://autonomylogic.com/download) is "The open-source PLC programming environment for industrial automation. Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux."


and OpenPLC Runtime (https://autonomylogic.com/runtime ) is "A headless industrial Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) runtime that transforms standard computing hardware into a powerful automation controller. It executes IEC 61131-3 programs created in OpenPLC Editor, supporting IEC 61131-3 languages (Ladder Logic, Structured Text, Function Block Diagram, etc) and also Python, C, and C++."

I have only played with these a little bit several years ago, but what I did was fun.

I am sure someone out there is just itching to download these tools, give them a try, and record an episode all about their experience!

Posted at 2026-09-02 22:31:51 relating to the show hpr4708 which was released on 2026-08-19 by Whiskeyjack entitled Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 1

Hello WhiskeyJack,

Thank you for your response. I will wait and listen to Ep 5 when it comes out. It feels like I am cheating if I do otherwise.

After which, I may consider recording an episode, though I am fairly certain that me blathering on about IEC 62443 and engineering grade solutions to cyber problems would probably put 90% of the audiance to sleep while the remaining 10% would be screaming into their media player how incredibly wrong I am.

Though... THAT might inspire some of them to record a rebuttal episode! Hmmmm.... :)

Posted at 2026-08-31 20:52:55 relating to the show hpr4716 which was released on 2026-08-31 by TrumpetJohn entitled PocketMod

its easy to forget the simplicity of paper :P thanks for sharing this!

Posted at 2026-08-31 17:35:43 relating to the show hpr4716 which was released on 2026-08-31 by TrumpetJohn entitled PocketMod

I was happy to see an episode covering PocketMods, today. I've used them for a couple of years for everything from day-to-day note taking, to trip itinerary planning, and as reference books.

Posted at 2026-08-30 20:15:40 relating to the show hpr4706 which was released on 2026-08-17 by Lee entitled Quirks and Customisations

its always super cool to hear about how other peoples systems are set up!

Posted at 2026-08-30 12:06:31 relating to the show hpr4707 which was released on 2026-08-18 by Vance entitled UNIX Curio #12 - expr

id argue that that is more of a internet thing than a command line thing at that point?

Posted at 2026-08-30 04:14:01 relating to the show hpr4707 which was released on 2026-08-18 by Vance entitled UNIX Curio #12 - expr

Vance - I have done two 8 part series and one 4 part series so far.

I find that researching, writing, and recording several closely related subjects at the same time is much less work than an equal number of unrelated episodes. To put it another way, my series are much less work on a per episode basis than the same number of unrelated episodes done sequentially.

I also try to target a length of about 20 minutes at most, although I find myself going over that sometimes. If it gets longer than that, then I look for ways to split it up.

By writing, editing, recording, and reviewing in batches, I can have several months worth of material recorded ahead of when it is released. For example, my current series runs until the end of November, which gives me plenty of time to research a couple of more related episodes that I have planned.

I'm not sure how it would work out with your Unix Curios, but if you can try to plan out working on related subjects together at once (e.g. X Window oddities) and then split the material into separate episodes, you may find that to be much less work than preparing and recording them one at a time.

Of course you are doing this for fun and so will do whatever you wish whenever you wish, but perhaps the above will give you some ideas that can help.

Posted at 2026-08-30 00:56:59 relating to the show hpr3708 which was released on 2022-10-19 by TrumpetJohn entitled Insomnia as a Hobby

Your story resonated with mine. I always made jokes about how my parents never got to boast the baby finally slept through the night. Always a light sleeper, I changed to a full blown insomniac several years ago, and I took the route you did: roll with it and enjoy it. A voracious reader, I did much of my reading overnight. My doctor disagreed when I said I wasn't suffering for it. Insomnia plus several other symptoms and a few lab tests showed I have Hashimoto thyroiditis. He put me on thyroid hormone and there went my hobby.

Posted at 2026-08-28 16:39:28 relating to the show hpr4707 which was released on 2026-08-18 by Vance entitled UNIX Curio #12 - expr

First off, I just want to give fair warning that the future cadence is likely to be closer to one a month rather than one every two weeks. Someone else has already submitted hpr4717 so there will be some extra time between episodes. That will be true for other future episodes as I have mostly exhausted subjects I am familiar with, so these will need more research than past ones.

I appreciate the value in adding some more levity, but it's difficult as my nature tends to be more serious. The next episode (still being written) is a bit more frivolous, but not really humorous so far - will think about how I might re-write it to bring that in.

Good point about looking in different places - it recently occurred to me that I should be more open to utilities outside POSIX. I have identified a few that came from BSD and gained widespread use despite never being standardized, which might be interesting.

I'm surprised to hear that "xeyes" is even present on a system using Wayland. Of course the design of Wayland means "xeyes" cannot track the mouse pointer when it's outside the "xeyes" window, kind of defeating the point. Like with BSD, I'll start looking more into X-related programs to see if there are any that would be a good fit.

Very much appreciate the input, glad you are enjoying these!

Posted at 2026-08-28 10:07:31 relating to the show hpr4707 which was released on 2026-08-18 by Vance entitled UNIX Curio #12 - expr

ASCII Star Wars is another.

There is a command to telnet to towel.blinkenlights.nl

Here Star Wars plays in a terminal.

Posted at 2026-08-27 18:13:51 relating to the show hpr4707 which was released on 2026-08-18 by Vance entitled UNIX Curio #12 - expr

the train one is called "sl" (steam locomotive) and is specifically designed to prank you for typing ls too fast

the go-to silly program that theres a million articles about is "hollywood", and "genact" is another silly one that infinitely outputs garbage that looks productive, but at that point thats straying from the built in programs so it probably wouldnt be covered in THIS series. maybe you could make a secondary series about interesting non-standard packages that may or may not be useful

Posted at 2026-08-27 16:16:15 relating to the show hpr4707 which was released on 2026-08-18 by Vance entitled UNIX Curio #12 - expr

Don't forget the obscure X Window programs as well. People did a lot of silly things with the X Window system that seem to have faded away and been forgotten. I'm not sure it is even possible to do some of these things with Wayland.

Here's a few:
XEyes
XNeko
XRoach
XSnow
GLXGears

I notice that XEyes is installed on my PC running Ubuntu 24.04, but I have no recollection of installing it, so perhaps it comes by default. I had no idea it was there until I just tried it now.

It doesn't seem to work quite correctly with Wayland, as it is confined to a single window.

Some of the others can still be installed, but I haven't tried that.

Where these things came from and why they were created could be an interesting story if someone were to research it.

Posted at 2026-08-27 10:42:43 relating to the show hpr4707 which was released on 2026-08-18 by Vance entitled UNIX Curio #12 - expr

I've been enjoying your episodes of Linux Curio - and they're on my favlist.

But you are way too serious. Maybe an episode on the fun gems of the linux terminal could be cool. I'm pretty sure we all know cowsay already, but I once remember I saw a choo choo train too.
Maybe there are other perfectly useless but fun linux commands out there?

Posted at 2026-08-26 23:18:33 relating to the show hpr4712 which was released on 2026-08-25 by Kristoff entitled friedcamp interviews part 1: Wim van Gool

When I initially glanced at the description, I assumed this was about a single badge design (either for a production run or a workshop-session-style assembly). Hearing that this is a REPEATED process with a new full development cycle (from design and prototyping through to sourcing and production) for EVERY event added a whole new layer that I found very interesting. Thanks so much for getting this interview!

Posted at 2026-08-26 23:11:49 relating to the show hpr4712 which was released on 2026-08-25 by Kristoff entitled friedcamp interviews part 1: Wim van Gool

Good interview.

Thanks for taking the time to break this into several shows, it was enjoyable to hear about the different parts of the design and debugging.

-Archer72

Posted at 2026-08-24 22:22:11 relating to the show hpr4711 which was released on 2026-08-24 by TrumpetJohn entitled Second-Hand Phone

I have a TCL Flip phone that is just over a year old. Different carriers will change the manufacturer model names, so I'm not sure what this equates to where you are.

I believe there are two different product lines with the TCL Flip. One uses KaiOS, and the other uses the AOSP version of Android. The one I have is the AOSP version, although it doesn't actually say "Android" anywhere on it.

Overall I would rate it as a very good phone, except for the SMS client. Unfortunately, what I mainly use it for is SMS.

The problem with the SMS client is that it doesn't allow me to save drafts or have a library of standard replies, features that I had with my previous phone (Huawei). It also resets to a simple "abc" keyboard instead of kt9 (predictive text) whenever I turn the phone off, which is annoying, as it doesn't make sense to use anything other than kt9.

As for the camera, it is just fine for a phone camera. If I need to take good pictures then I have a DSLR, and there is no phone camera in existence that comes close to even a low end DSLR.

If it had a better SMS client, then for what I want out of a phone, it would be the perfect phone.

Posted at 2026-08-24 19:17:44 relating to the show hpr4711 which was released on 2026-08-24 by TrumpetJohn entitled Second-Hand Phone

i always wanted to get a flip phone for daily use, so hearing about your experience was interesting