Hacker Public Radio

Epizode

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  HPR4740: Robert A. Heinlein in the 1960s 02.10.2026

  The 1960s were when Heinlein produced some of his most famous works. And they started to bring him fame outside the Science Fiction community, which was most unusual. Heinlein in the 1960s Heinlein had interests that he tended to keep hidden in the early years while he was establishing himself as a writer, particularly as he was feeding the lucrative Juvenile market. These included things like sex, nudism, and unusual political and religious views. But when Scribners rejected Starship Troopers he not only abandoned writing Juveniles, but decided he could be a lot more open about his views. And this resulted in his most famous novel. This is the one novel that people who are not science fiction fans are likely to have read, particularly in the 1960s. Stranger In A Strange Land (1961) This novel won just about every award possible: Hugo, Locus, Prometheus. It was the first science fiction novel to crack the New York Times Best Seller list. And the Library of Congress named it as one of 88 “books that shaped America”. And it even introduced a new word to the English language: grok.The stranger in the title is Valentine Michael Smith, an infant born to one of the astronauts, and then raised by Martians. He is brought back to Earth by a later mission, and his adventures in this strange land are what the book is mostly about. But in so doing, Heinlein writes a satire on religion and also espouses very different approach to love and sexuality than was considered proper at the time. And this attracted the hippies of the 1960s, for whom it became a Bible, much to the annoyance of Heinlein who did not appreciate them knocking on his door. The book had the original title of “The Heretic”, and was intended to challenge social norms about religion and monogamy. Heinlein’s own take on the reaction to the novel was that he was surprised that some readers thought the book described how he believed society should be organized, explaining: “I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers … It is an invitation to think – not to believe.”The book also exemplifies the characters that Heinlein managed to put into most of his stories. Michael is the naive young man who needs to learn better, and Jubal Harshaw is the wise old man who becomes his mentor. Podkayne of Mars (1963) The heroine of this book, Podkayne, is a teenage girl who is invited along with her younger brother on a luxury cruise with their uncle Tom from their home on Mars to go to Earth. We learn along the way that Mars was once a prison colony (echoing Australia), and that Podkayne’s family are of Maori ancestry. In the United States, at least, this would count as “colored”, and reflects Heinlein’s subversion of racist ideas in his works. Much of the travelogue on the luxury liner reflects Heinlein’s own experiences as depicted in his non-fiction book Tramp Royale which covers his own world cruise. But old uncle Tom is actually a diplomat using the kids as cover, and they get kidnapped by people who want him to take a certain position at talks to held at Luna. Podkayne’s brother Clarke is portrayed as a genius but lacking certain qualities of empathy, and in the end he manages to get her killed. The publisher rejected this ending an insisted on one where she lived. Later Heinlein published a version with both e
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  HPR4739: Happy by shower # 3 01.10.2026

  We focused, until now, on things external as examples. Let’s proceed to internal. Before, I want to note that any of these is a formula. It’s not like we can repeat a past experience we ourselves or someone lived, and feel the same thing. It’s not a guarantee, and not even the idea in sharing. It’s only this: to share and to provoke reflection. I was abused as a child. Hard as it is, and unerasarable, also hard was to tell someone important and do not be trusted. Child abuse is associated with multiple disorders further in life. Remembering what I passed is a relief in what gives respect to where I am now. Not to authorize me to feel anger, or as a free pass to throw everything to the air without feeling guilty — that would make something, but not good after all —, but to recognize better what is real and what is important now, and that’s much more relevant, and influential to my being in the world, than that past experience. Coincidences sometimes make me “wow”. When I ask, and even when I don’t directly ask, specific direction in choices, or in what to trust, it’s not rare to receive something that I see as very clear. Even when it comes as a reproach, remembering me about what I should and could be doing, but am not because of many excuses, even then, I’m still impressed, and feeling loved, because someone cares specifically – about – me . In general, remembering something that gave me a bad taste when thinking about before, and then, as of now, feeling differently about that event, gives me a sense of maturity. Like, what a child I was to pay so much attention to this, or to that, and now those things, unimportant as they are, don’t matter any more. I find myself trying to remember a word, or a concept or memorized Bible verse. Sometimes I forget, and then I go to a chain of thoughts about and end up remembering, or forget about and it comes to mind minutes or hours later. Those are “aha!” moments, as discovering something, very beautiful, for the first time. Some people have a wrong notion of memory, as if it was created once and evoked latter. No, every moment one evokes a piece of information, he is reworking that piece, and every experience after the creation of the memory potentially affects that bit of information we call a part of the memory. It’s not static, it’s dynamic. And so it’s not objective, is it? Yeah, that’s it. Thank you and bye bye.
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  HPR4738: Programmable Logic Controls - Episode 4 30.09.2026

  -------------------- 01 Introduction This is the fourth episode in an 8 part series. 02 In the previous episode we looked at the Allen Bradley PLC2, one of the very early successful Programmable Logic Controllers. In this episode we will look at another early PLC, the Siemens S5 series, and use it as an example of both how PLCs became more sophisticated, as well as an example of a different approach to the overall software architecture. Again, I will only touch on this topic lightly, this is not a course on how to program PLCs. However, I will give you enough technical detail to give you are rough idea of what they were like. -------------------- 03 S5 Historical Background Siemens are the largest PLC vendor on a global basis, and have been since the early days. Their first PLC was the S3, released in 1975, two years before Allen Bradley released the PLC2. There seems to be almost no information available on the S3, so I can't say much about it. In 1978 or 1979, sources are unclear about the exact date, Siemens released the S5 series. This was a huge step forward in capability and was the foundation of their PLC product line until replaced by the S7 series in the mid 1990s. In this episode I will focus on the U series, which were an upgrade to the original S5. -------------------- 04 A Complete Family of PLCs Fully developed, the Siemens S5 series was a complete family of products covering the entire size spectrum from smallest to largest. Siemens covered the entire industrial control market, and there was almost nothing they didn't have somewhere in their catalogue. You could spend an entire career using nothing but Siemens products for everything. 05 At the lowest end were the S5-100 series, consisting of the S5-100, 102, 103, 90, and 95. These covered everything from the small "shoebox" all in one form factor to ones which overlapped the mid range in terms of capability except for their compact I/O cards which were smaller and slower than the full size models. The S5-115 formed the mid range, coming in a "full size" form factor in terms of packaging and rack size. The S5-135 and S5-155 extended the S5-115 in terms of speed and memory. 06 In this episode I will focus on the lower end S5-100 series for the sake of simplicity, and will not make any reference to any additional capabilities of the larger models. It will be much too time consuming and confusing to try to cover everything, and there wouldn't be much point to it. -------------------- 07 Data Memory Types If you recall the previous episode, the Allen Bradley PLC2 had a data table, or memory system, that was a single linear range of memory with all I/O and internal capabilities mapped into fixed numerical addresses. Allen Bradley were to abandon this approach in their later PLC5 series introduced in the mid to late 1980s, but we won't cover that here. The Siemens S5 series however took the approach of having different types of memory addresses for different purposes. I will describe those for the S5-100 series now. 08 Input and Output Addresses The standard I/O modules for these compact PLCs had 8 inputs or 8 outputs per I/O module. These module plugged into a flat bus (as opposed to an enclosed rack) with slots numbered from 0 through 31 in decimal. Each of these slots had an asso
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  HPR4737: Keep spare parts for Ethernet run 29.09.2026

  Quick show on what I used to run 25 feet of Ethernet cable Amazon Cable Matters 10Gbps Snagless Cat 6 Ethernet Cable, 25ft, Blue 24 AWG Bare Copper, Gold-Plated RJ45, PoE++, 550MHz Other supplies • 1/2 inch length of blue pex tubing from local hardware store Leftover from previous project • Electrical tape • Extendable pole which has a clamp and a trigger mechanism for use with wasp spray • Hyper Tough 3/4 inch Hex Shank Spade Drill Bit • Random Hyper Tough (maybe 3/8 inch) drill bit All purpose • White silicone sealant Reference hpr4654 :: What's in my component Box? Images First part of cable run, internet router side. Ethernet cable, with electrical tape to pex pipe. Extension pole with pex pipe attached by electrical tape. Angle cut on pex pipe. Taped pex pipe with cable, ready to feed to other side. Extension to other side of the mobile home. Success! Fed through the other side. 8 foot extension, suitable to hang an antenna. Silicone to seal the holes.
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  HPR4736: How to replace the battery in a car key fob 28.09.2026

  Replacing battery Remove the emergency key Pry open the fob around the seam with a blunt knife or similar Note the polarity of the battery, ie which way up the battery is. Replace the battery and close. Emergency usage Use the emergency key to enter the car. Hold the key fob to the Start/Stop button Press the Start/Stop button Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Micra#Fifth_generation_(K14;_2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-field_communication https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBP5EEm1oSI
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  HPR4735: hpr4715 :: friedcamp interviews part 5: Yvon Masyn 25.09.2026

  https://www.instructables.com/member/masynmachien/ https://www.masynmachien.be/ https://www.instagram.com/masynmachien/
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  HPR4734: HPR Beer Garden 20 - TuxJam Half-cut Special 24.09.2026

  The usual trio of Dave , Kevie and Paul meet up for the first time in person and are joined by Al , Andrew , Joe and Rainy. The meet up was for the TuxJam Half-cut live event in Manchester. Rather than the usual style of show this is a (mostly) unedited recording of the beers that we are trying and general yarns around the table. We were interrupted by a yelling numpty, a middle-aged boy racer and a tram (these were edited out), but otherwise the recording is pretty much as is. The show was recorded outside the Sureshot Brewery Taproom . 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/ Upcoming beers: Mild Bitter Pale Ale
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  HPR4733: Static Adict Episode 1: Pulse Demon 23.09.2026

  Sources (yes I used wikipedia, I am a hack, what else do you expect) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merzbow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_Demon Band/Artist website https://merzbow.net/ Where to listen to or buy the album Original Release (stream) https://merzbow.bandcamp.com/album/pulse-demon Remaster Release (stream) https://merzbow.bandcamp.com/album/pulse-demon-remaster-reissue Link to buy a physical copy new https://www.relapse.com/products/merzbow-pulse-demon-reissue-2x12 Next album I'm reviewing, Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music https://tidal.com/album/50021
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  HPR4732: Webp 22.09.2026

  Webp is meant to replace GIF, JPEG, and PNG. Its features include: Lossy compression Lossless compression Metadata, including Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) and Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) Transparency (an "alpha channel") Embedded ICC (International Color Consortium) profile Multiple frames (animation) The typical expectation is to achieve equal or better visual quality as a JPEG or PNG or GIF, but with a savings of 25% to 35% on file size. This is famously difficult to measure, because if you concede to an equal file size, then the quality ought to be better, but there is a "ceiling" to quality that can be detected by the majority of human eyes. So the metric is the unmeasurable: How good does it look to you? If it looks as good or better, and the file size is smaller, then it can be said that the format is superiour. The best and most common test is to look at an image compressed with JPEG or PNG compression, and then look at the same image compressed by WEBP. If you can't tell the difference, and the file size of WEBP is smaller, then it's an improvement for disk space and bandwidth. WEBP is an 8-bit format (based on the VP8 video codec) and lacks support for 10-bit, 12-bit, or 16-bit colour. Specifically, WEBP is YUV420, where Y is Luma (brightness and darkness), and U and V are Chroma (colour). Each 8-bit pixel in the UV (Chroma) corresponds to a 2-by-2 block of 8-bit Luma pixels, or in other words, Chroma gets half the resolution of Luma. This is not uncommon, because how sharp an image appears to the human eye is mostly (not entirely, to be fair) influenced by Luma. Our eyes differentiate bright from dark better than our eyes perceive subtle shifts in hue. The ICCP chunk starts with a 4-byte declaration (the ASCII string "ICCP"), then a 32-bit integer representing the length of the payload, then the payload (the ICC profile specification according to the International Color Consortium), and then optionally a byte to pad the header. The embedded ICC profile can define any old colour space you want. If none is defined, sRGB is assumed. The libwebp library only parses the ICC profile, it doesn't actually handle conversion. That's left to the client application, which is why you might get a notice sometimes in GIMP or a similar application about a colour space mismatch. (It's generally safe to convert to your current colour space, and if it's not then you'd know it because you're working in a multimedia production house where colour spaces and colour profiles are significant.) Converting to WEBP is available in most applications, at this point, including Image Magick and the cwebp command. Image Magick: $ convert foo.tiff foo.webp Or using cwebp with -q for a quality 0 (low) to 100 (high), and -o for output: $ cwebp foo.tiff -q 60 -o foo.webp Test images are available from a Mozilla test suite. Or you can test on a Hacker Public Radio image, such as the screenshot of the upload
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  HPR4731: A Website Hacked 21.09.2026

  [WP2Shell is] a pre-authentication RCE in WordPress Core . The attack has no preconditions and can be exploited by an anonymous user in a stock install of WordPress with no plugins. - from wp2shell.com Wordpress.org - https://en-gb.wordpress.org/ Searchlight WP2Shell Website - https://wp2shell.com/ CVE-2026-63030 - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-63030 CVE-2026-60137 -