Hacker Public Radio

HPR Episode: Doomsday Perpetual Calendar Method What is it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_rule (due to John H. Conway, a mathematician born in Liverpool) * He's done other research that hackers might like to check out. * Look up the "Game of Life" and "cellular automata". * There may be episodes on these topics, but those should come with visualization software. John H. Conway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway Game of Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life Doomsday Rule lets you find the day of the week for any date * Dates in history, in immediate past or in future are all good. * Works for both the Gregorian and Julian calendar. - I'll only be looking at Gregorian dates for now. - Method should work well for dates from 1800 onward. - If dates for non-Gregorian calendars are converted to their (extrapolated) Gregorian equivalents, this method works. Wikipedia entry (includes recent optimization): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_algorithm Why do this? It came up in Episode Zero of my "N Days" show on calendar counting, where I used it without explanation. http://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=1143 Demos: Check these answers at www.day-calculator.com * Some listeners may now adjourn to the latest Linux Outlaws episode. Method: Get Century Anchor Day, calculate offset for the year to find Doomsday's reference location for current year, find closest reference date to target date, and count off to the answer. a) Isaac Newton's date of birth: - 25 December 1642 - 1600's Tuesday. Year 42 = 3*12 + 6 and (6/4) = 1. Hence 3 + 6 + 1 = 10 for an offset of 3. Tuesday + 3 = Friday. 12/12 is Friday, so 12/26 is Friday Newton was born 12/25, so that was a Thursday b) My grandfather's date of birth: - 20 January 1898 - 1800's anchor is Friday. Year 98 = 8*12 + 2, (2/4) = 0. So 8 + 2 + 0 = 10 gives an offset of 3. - 1898 wasn't a leap year, so 10 January was Monday - That means 17 January was a Monday, too. - So 20 January 1898 was a Thursday. c) A wedding anniversary that I like to remember: 15 May 2000 - 2000 has anchor day on Tuesday, and no offset. - Rule: "I work 9 to 5 at 7-11", so 9 May (16 May) are on Tuesday. - 15 May 2000 was a Monday. True. 'Twas the day after Mother's Day. d) My parent's wedding day: 19 May 1957 - 1900 has anchor day Wednesday. 57 = 4*12 + 9 and (9/4) = 2. - So 4 + 9 + 2 = 15 or an offset of 1. - 9 May is Thursday, as is 16 May. The 19th is 3 days later. - So 19 May 1957 was a Sunday. Plan: I'm going to reveal the magic behind this, and introduce some mental shortcuts to help you learn to do this in your head. If you can master the 12's row in your times tables up to 8 times 12, and the 4's row up the 20s or 30s, and you can tell time on a 12-hour clock, you should be able to do this. We're not in school, so paper and pencil to track the numbers, and finger-counting offsets to days of the week are all allowed. Explanation: 1. Certain memorable dates fall on the same day of the week as "Doomsday" = last day of February, whatever that is. 2. Dates recycle every 400 years, and Doomsday Anchor dates by Century are 1600: Tuesday, 1700: Sunday, 1800: Friday, 1900: Wednesday. 3. That's enough, but to simplify mental math notice 12-year cycles. - Every completed 12 years pushes the days of the week ahead by +1 - Each year within the current incomplete cycle adds +1 - Each leap year in current cycle adds +1 (including current year) 4. Doomsday dates are: a. January 10 and Doomsday (last day of February) b. Odd months: Add +4 through July, then subtract 4. 7 March, 9 May, 11 July 5 September, 7 November c. Even months are reflexive: 4/4, 6/

Nido is joined by dude-man, Epicanis, and artv61 to discuss how one could or should define "Hacker" and "Hacking", particularly in reference to the "Hackers" that Hacker Public Radio episodes are intended to be "of interest to". Unfortunately, all participants seemed to be largely in agreement with each other, so there isn't enough contention to make the discussion dramatic. Listeners may find the discussion insightful anyway, and we do come up with some suggestions and ultimately encourage everyone to be a lot more public about using the words "hacker" and "hacking" as much as possible outside the context of criminal and computer-programming activity until outdated dictionaries finally update their definitions. Although Nido deserves the credit for Saturday Sessions, recording, cleanup, and editing of today's session was done by Epicanis, so if the sound sucks it's all his fault and not Nido's. Same goes for these show notes. The XKCD comic that was mentioned may be found here: http://xkcd.com/242/.

Word processors are overrated. Too often they are used instead of better alternatives. For example: to write a report, to describe a workflow or a vision, a lot of people just grab Microsoft Word. Which is a bad idea. Should you use LibreOffice Writer then? OpenOffice? Maybe Google docs? They are not much better. If the focus of your text is on its content, if the structure of your text is important, if the way the text is laid out is less important than the consistency of the lay-out, or if you want to collaborate with other people, you should not use a typical mainstream word processor. Read more on my blog http://www.johanv.org/node/204

Today is a special show to commemorate the passing of Aaron Swartz. Thanks to Thomas Gideon for publishing and allowing us to retransmit this audio. Links http://thecommandline.net/2013/03/13/doctorow_homeland/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow http://boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip-aaron-swartz.html http://craphound.com/littlebrother/

DeepGeek gets all emotional about changing web server's at his web co-op. "Hell, it's just a tool." Not for DeepGeek, who equates moving away from thttpd to the closing of an era! To him, "slick design" can take a backseat to feelings of camaraderie from your fellows on the intwebz any day of the week! A few well-placed links... http://www.links.id.au/150/90s-web-design--a-nostalgic-look-back.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thttpd http://acme.com/software/thttpd/benchmarks.html http://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/

Sigflup talks about her wearable computer constructed from a raspberry pi. She also releases a terminal emulator meant for wearable computers with low-res displays. http://www.theadesilva.com/cyborg.jpg http://www.theadesilva.com/cyborg2.jpg http://www.theadesilva.com/vt3.tgz

fightcodegame.com In this episode Mike Hingley highlights a potentially useful website for those learning Javascript - Fightcodegame.com uses github autehtication, and provides an arena where virtual robots can battle for ultimate supremacy. fightcodegame.com: http://fightcodegame.com/ Mike Hingley's fightcodegame.com profile: http://fightcodegame.com/profile/computamike/

This is the first of two or maybe three parts on the subject on Ingress, which was released into invitation-only beta-testing by Google in November of 2012. Ingress is a world-spanning location-based game set in a world somewhere between the real one and a fictional one that is almost exactly like the real one except with space-alien mind control conspiracies. This episode is purely about "playing the game". The follow-up episode will be more about the underlying technology and things you (and Google) might be able to do with it besides the core gameplay. There may be a third part if there is enough interest. A final note - the app version that I mention in the show was upgraded literally about 5 minutes after I finished editing and started to prepare this show for upload. (And, yes, I'm using "literally" correctly - I mean I finished exporting the file from audacity, went to check Google+, and within 300 seconds someone was mentioning that a new version was out). It does seem to resolve some of the problems I mentioned, just as I speculated that it might. I'll follow up on this and any subsequent updates in the followup episode. Comments and suggestions and demands for more episodes are welcome, nay, encouraged either on this episode's comments at hackerpublicradio.org or on my own blog at http://hpr.dogphilosophy.net . Thanks for listening!

Episode 28 of Linux in the Shell talks about extended attributes and how to view them with lsattr and change them with chattr. Attributes are discussed in some detail and those that are mutable by chattr are noted. http://www.linuxintheshell.org/2013/04/23/episode-028-extended-attributes-lsattr-and-chattr/

Here is a news review: Storage Pits Leaking at Embattled Fukushima Nuclear Plant Military Court Raises Burden for Manning Prosecutors; Internet, Phone Access Curbed Guantanamo hunger strikers in lockdown after secret, pre-dawn cell raid Wall Street Hides from Regulators in “Dark Pools” Uruguay Adopts Same-Sex Marriage Law New Pirate Bay Greenland Domains (About to be) Seized File-Sharers Will Not Be Held Liable For Piracy, Russia Says Can Police Read Text Messages Without a Warrant? Huffington Post Credits Internet Activists With "Major Victory" In Stopping Bad CFAA Bill, But Good Reforms Still Needed Police Search For Mugger For 3 Weeks, Internet Finds Him In An Hour Other Headlines: Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, During Visit, Describes Being Targeted by US Government Birgitta Jonsdottir: Cyber Poet RFK Assassination Legal Case Update WikiLeaks Strikes Again: Website Publishes 1.7 Million Documents on US Foreign Policy Athens Indymedia has been shut down – Repression in Greece ensues Staffed and produced by the TGTM news team, Editorial Selection by DeepGeek, views of the story authors reflect their own opinions and not neccesarily those of TGTM news. News from "techdirt.com," "rawstory.com,"  "havanatimes.org," and "allgov.com" used under arranged permission. News from "torrentfreak.com," and "eff.org" used under permission of the Creative Commons by-attribution license. News from "democracynow.org," used under permission of the Creative Commons by-attribution non-commercial no-derivatives license. News Sources retain their respective copyrights. Links http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/9/headlines#492 http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/11/headlines#4117 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/13/guantanamo-hunger-strikers-in-lockdown-after-secret-pre-dawn-cell-raid/

Here is a news review: British Forces Recount Abuses at Secret U.S. Prison in Iraq Election Campaigning Officially Begins in Venezuela, Micro-Missions Announced The BRICS Bank and World Dominance: How Real Is This? Star Tickets Worker Files Unfair Labor Charge Fast food workers stage surprise strike in New York City Judge Rules Reselling of Digital Music Is Copyright Infringement Swedish Police Promise More Resources to Catch File-Sharers The Pirate Bay Becomes #1 File-Sharing Site as Cyberlockers Collapse FTC Awards $50,000 Prize For Ideas On Killing Robocalls Can Commercial VPNs Really Protect Your Privacy? Other Headlines: "RIP our new constitution - Written by the nation, for the nation" Official Tally of Guantánamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike Continues to Rise Interview with Nicolas Maduro: "Until the Last Day, Chavez Wanted to Live" How Capitalism Conquered the Internet-And how we can take it back. Massive leak of emails and records reveals identities of rich politicos who hide wealth in offshore accounts Staffed and produced by the TGTM news team, Editorial Selection by DeepGeek, views of the story authors reflect their own opinions and not neccesarily those of TGTM news. News from "techdirt.com," "iww.org,"  and "rawstory.com" used under arranged permission. News from "torrentfreak.com," and "The South African Civil Society Information Service (www.sacsis.org.za)" used under permission of the Creative Commons by-attribution license. News from "venezuelanalysis.com," and "democracynow.org,"  used under permission of the Creative Commons by-attribution non-commercial no-derivatives license. News Sources retain their respective copyrights. links http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/2/headlines#4216 http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/8462 http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/1620 http://www.iww.org/en/content/star-tickets-worker-files-unfair-labor-charge

Today's show we start a new series on Modern Survivalism where you do everything you can to make your life better now by lessening dependency, trying to live debt free and learning basic skills.

In today's show FiftyOneFifty shares his review of the PodioBook by Jake Bible's "Dead Mech" and Reflections Upon Podcasting from the Bottom of a Well http://podiobooks.com/title/dead-mech/ http://jakebible.com/

In today's episode, jezra shares the story of how he got into Linux.

Episode 27 of Linux in the Shell continues on with looking at some mathematical commands. Four programs are discussed: factor - which will give you the prime factors of a number primes - which will list all the prime numbers between a start and option stopping number seq - sequence will list all the numbers given a stopping point or a starting and stopping point. You can also specify an increment or decrement value. arithmetic - Arithmetic is a game from the bsd games package that will quiz you on arithmatic problems.