I talk about becoming a household hero by recovering my wife's files from her dead MacBook Air. Her laptop would not boot, shutting down seconds into the process each time she tried to start it up. I used an Ubuntu Live CD (DVD), with the commands fdisk and fsck to repair the damaged filesystem on the Mac. It still wouldn't boot even with the repaired filesystem, but I was able to mount the drive and copy her files to a USB drive.

Links

Blog post Howto: Repair/Fix MAC HFS+ Partition Using Ubuntu

Intro

Last time we built a weighted list, this time we’re using that to build markov chains. Wikipedia states that “A Markov chain is a stochastic model describing a sequence of possible events in which the probability of each event depends only on the state attained in the previous event.” and that they’re named after the Russian mathematician Andrey Markov.

Configuration

We’re after generic system, hence parametrized data types.

First part is Configuration a that lists possible starting elements of chain and elements that can follow a particular element.

data Config a = Config

{ configStarts :: ![Item a]

, configContinuations :: !(Map a [Item a])

} deriving (Show, Read, Eq)

Second part is Item a, that just holds single item that could appear in chain and relatively frequency for its appearance.

data Item a =

Item (Frequency (Maybe a))

deriving (Show, Read, Eq)

We’re using Maybe a as in some cases there’s chance of element being last element in chain. Thus, Nothing will represent end of chain.

In previous episode, we implemented choose, but later on I decided to rename it to chooseM. So when you see chooseM, it’s just different name for what we implemented previously.

Building a chain

Since building a configuration depends on the case quite a bit, we’re just going to assume that we have one at hand.

Our chains are built by chainM :: (Ord a, RandomGen g) => Config a -> Rand g [a]. Given a config, it creates computation that when run will return list of a, which is our chain.

Implementation is fairly straightforward:

chainM config = do

starter <- chooseM (itemToFreq <$> configStarts config)

case join starter of

Nothing ->

return []

Just h -> do

t <- tailOfChain config h

return $ h : t

First we select item from starting elements. In case there isn’t one, result will be a empty list. Otherwise we use tailOfChain to compute rest of the list and return a list of starter element followed by that tail.

For tail we need to figure out first what possible elements there are that can follow a given element. This is done by candidates function. lookup finds a possible list of elements in configContinuations. We use itemToFreq to turn this list into frequencies. Since items might be Nothing (in case where there aren’t any suitable continuations present) and any continuation in the list might be Nothing (in case where this is possibly terminating element), we have to use (fmap . fmap) to apply itemToFreq to each possible element. Moreover, concat turns our Maybe [Frequency (Maybe a)] into [Frequency (Maybe a)], if we have Nothing at this stage, result will be an empty list [].

candidates :: (Ord a) => Config a -> a -> [Frequency (Maybe a)]

candidates config x =

concat $ (fmap . fmap) itemToFreq items

where

items = lookup x (configContinuations config)

That concat part could have been written as:

case (fmap . fmap) itemToFreq items of

Nothing ->

[]

Just x ->

x

and the end result would be identical.

Now that we know how to figure our possible continuation elements, we can implement computing tail of chain:

tailOfChain :: (Ord a, RandomGen g) => Config a -> a -> Rand g [a

This episode is Part 9 of the Stardrifter role-playing game playtest. The series is composed of two playtest sessions, held earlier this year. They were recorded and chopped into manageable bites, then edited down into separate episodes.

This series is meant to give listeners some insight into the RPG construction process. Playtesting is not the final step, but rather, just another stage. The construction of an RPG can be convoluted, and feedback from players is absolutely vital.

In this part, the characters agree to join someone else’s treasure hunt, with the success (or failure) of their own mission in the balance!

Special thanks to my playtesters: Thaj, Mark (who was playing Brinn), and X1101!

Hi Everyone in HPR land this is Tony Hughes coming to you from Studio B at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham in the UK, where I am currently staying for a week of voluntary work.

The reason for this short episode is to talk about a community magazine that I have been reading since I started to use Ubuntu Linux back in 2007. Full Circle magazine actually produced a pilot issue in April of 2007 and issue one was issued in June 2007. All issues are published as a free pdf download and all the content is under a Creative Commons licence.

Free Circle Magazine initially started as an Ubuntu (and official spins of Ubuntu) magazine but over the years while still being officially about Ubuntu or Linux Distributions based on Ubuntu, many of the articles are applicable to those across the Linux community.

Over the years, as well as printing one off articles about individuals’ journey to using Linux, reviews and letters from readers, there have been regular series on topics such as Inkscape, Python programming, Open/LibreOffice, Virtualisation and much more.

Sadly after over 12 years of producing a regular monthly magazine for the Linux community some of the regular article series are coming to an end and due to ill health at least one regular writer is not able to contribute at the moment, and this is leaving the magazine short of content and in danger of possibly coming to an end.

As a podcast community that is used to the idea of crowd sourced content, many of whom are also Linux users, could I ask that some of you that have read Full Circle, but never contributed, consider sending in some content. It could be an article on how you started using Linux, about some Linux software that you think the readers may be interested in learning more about, or just a letter to Ronnie to say thanks for all his efforts putting out a magazine every month for the last 12+ years.

Like many things we often don’t miss them until they are gone, and I would hate to think that Full Circle Magazine is one of those things that I will miss in the future. I have put my money where my mouth is and in coming issues you may see me in print, talking about podcasting. You could even use any writing you do as the base for a HPR show, and achieve two goals in one go.

All the best for now.

Links

https://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/

https://fullcirclemagazine.org/

https://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-149/

LinuxLugCast Memorial

We are here tonight to share memories of our friend Donald Grier aka FiftyOneFifty

Fifty was involved with many podcast over the years

Obviously LinuxLugCast http://www.linuxlugcast.com

https://archive.org/search.php?query=linuxlugcast

Hacker Public Radio http://hackerpublicradio.org/

http://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents.php?hostid=131

/dev/random http://devrandomshow.org/

http://devrandomshow.org/shows/?f=all.html

Kernal Panic Oggcast https://archive.org/search.php?query=KernelPanic+Oggcast&page=2

Shared thoughts and memories:

Ken Fallon

I was in the back room pottering away when espeak notified me that 5150

had passed away. I went back to the computer and read the announcement

in the IRC Logs and confirmed the news. Some dude I had never met, never

seen in my life, and didn’t even know his real name, was gone and I was

in the back room crying my eyes out.

Crying for the loss of a friend.

When had he become a friend ?

People have been socializing since the dawn of humans, be it at the camp

fire, the forge, pub, hairdresser, sports club, church, or wherever.

For us it was via Linux podcasting. You are there because you share a

common interest. If you were into Linux podcasting then you could not

help but get to know fiftyonefifty. The guy turned up everywhere if not

on the podcasts themselves he was commenting on them. I have 619

messages from him about HPR alone.

He submitted his first show back in 2010 and has been a regular since

then. At some point after that I knew that he was on my “special list”

of people who I could rely upon to fill the queue if needed.

And as I sat there crying I realized that he had also sneaked onto my

list of friends.

I’ve not always been a fan of the New Year Show, but now I am glad for

it. While I may never get to share a beer with him any more, or take him

up on his promise to let me fire off some rounds on his farm, I did at

least get to shoot the breeze with him for many a happy hour.

Goodbye old friend you will be missed

Anonymous

A Ramble for FiftyOneFifty: King of Ramblers

I am writing a Ramble for a man I knew only as FiftyOneFifty.  I never knew his real name,

nor do I know if he knew mine.  In many things, Names do not matter, People, Actions, and

feeling do.   We podcasted together off and on, over several years.  I don’t recall exactly

how many.   It doesn’t matter now, since they are all that there will ever be.  We grew to be

good friends.  I never met him in person, online life is like that.  I only know my life would be

much poorer, if I had not known him.  Hearing he died, shattered me.  This Ramble is my try

at putting most the pieces back in place.  Of course, nothing can replace the largest piece,

the Man Himself.  My heart and prayers go out to those friends and family dealing with his loss.

His death is a harsh, unchangeable, fact.  I shall focus on his life, and things better remembered

than the wall we all will hit one day.  Fifty was a man if Life, Joy, and passions.  That is how I shall

write of him.  I

The alarm clock on my bedside table had a very loud alarm—so loud that it scared me and made my heart race when it went off. I know you're thinking I should just use an alarm on my phone, but for whatever reason I wanted to use the alarm clock. In this episode I talk about installing a resistor in the speaker wires of the alarm clock so that it won't be so loud when it goes off. It's all good now. Loud enough to wake me up, but not so loud that it scares everyone.

Below are examples of messages shown on the screen during operation

System Up (Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of this message)

Shows the unit waiting to get a wi-fi connection and get given an IP address.

Unit goes to the HPR site and gets the number of days to free slot in the show queue. At the time when I took the picture the queue had a healthy 22 shows!

Links to three previous shows I did that mention the Blinkstick

Solving a problem I had with my Blinkstick

http://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=2089

Tracking the HPR queue using python and a Blinkstick

http://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=2340

Follow on to HPR2340 (Tracking the HPR queue in Python)

http://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=2344

Link to Moc, Music On Console

https://moc.daper.net/

Menu 0 Podcasts screens

0 [PODCASTS]

0 1 <|| PLAY/PAUSE (Toggles moc between play and Pause)

0 2 << INFORMATION(Displays information about the current track)

0 3 << (Move to previous track in playlist)

0 4 << (Move to next track in playlist)

0 5 LIGHT (Toggle back-light on LCD screen)

PUSH IN TOP TOGGLE BUTTON (Seek forward or back in current track)

Menu 1 Audiobooks screens

1 [AUDIOBOOKS]

1 1 <|| PLAY/PAUSE (Toggles moc between play and Pause)

1 2 << INFORMATION(Displays information about the current track)

1 3 << (Move to previous track in playlist)

1 4 << (Move to next track in playlist)

1 5 LIGHT (Toggle back-light on LCD screen)

PUSH IN TOP TOGGLE BUTTON (Seek forward or back in current track)

Menu 2 System screens

2 [SYSTEM]

2 1 Sys Information (System information)

2 2 WiFi (Displays WiFi inofrmation such SSID & signal strength)

2 3 HPR (Displays the number days to the next free slots on FPR que)

2 4 Not shown, (Not in use)

2 5 LIGHT (Toggle back-light on LCD screen)

PUSH IN TOP TOGGLE BUTTON (Shut-down the Raspberry Pi)

Infra-red Sensor

Example of my Samsung TV remote control

Lirc Article from Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIRC

Infra-red sensor turned on

Infra-red sensor turned off

This episode is Part 8 of the Stardrifter role-playing game playtest. The series is composed of two playtest sessions, held earlier this year. They were recorded and chopped into manageable bites, then edited down into separate episodes.

This series is meant to give listeners some insight into the RPG construction process. Playtesting is not the final step, but rather, just another stage. The construction of an RPG can be convoluted, and feedback from players is absolutely vital.

In this part, the characters reevaluate their life choices, and decide that negotiation is the better part of valor!

Special thanks to my playtesters: Thaj, Mark (who was playing Brinn), and X1101!

In this episode, Dave and his family wander the paths of Sandall Beat Wood in Doncaster to participate in the game of Geocaching. During this time, which demonstrates an unusual level of failure in us playing the game, we try and explain what the game is all about.

No, not The Game...

As I explain at the beginning of the episode, this is a fairly long episode which hasn't been edited down much, so there are a lot of ambient pauses and heavy breathing to be enjoyed.

Recorded in the field on my Olympus DM-3 voice recorder.

Caches explored

Cache 1 - GC7F8ND - not found

Cache 2 - GC50TVW - not found

Cache 3 - GC7KRHH - found!

Links

Link to photos and screenshot

geocaching.com

Official Geocaching App: Google Play | App Store

c:geo Geocaching app: Google Play

MeWe is another platform that was advertised to users left high-and-dry by the closure of Google Plus. It is not federated, but does make strong claims of privacy protection, and is the slickest alternative I have seen to Google Plus. So when Google Plus disappeared, many people moved over to this platform. https://www.zwilnik.com/?page_id=1030

Links:

https://mewe.com/

https://mewepro.com/

https://mewe.com/store

https://mewe.com/#

https://www.zwilnik.com/?page_id=1030