Shows

1×70: Delicious Amorphous Tech Bubble

Posted by on 30th June 2016 in Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×70: Delicious Amorphous Tech Bubble

1×70: Delicious Amorphous Tech Bubble

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Bryan Lunduke bring you Bad Voltage, in which the wisdom of naming children for your favourite restaurant is debated, Stuart and his daughter Niamh Chipotle write the show notes from a New York cafe, and also:

  • 00:01:58 Is the tech industry in a bubble? is the tech industry ever not in a bubble? More importantly, what shape is the bubble? What can we do about it?
  • 00:17:20 Jeremy and Jono tag-team a further review of Google’s Pixel C laptop. Warning: contains gushing
  • 00:36:50 After discussing Nextcloud in previous episodes, we talk to Frank and Jos from the new project about their plans as a company and where they’re headed
  • 01:01:00 A catch-up on the current status of the Global Learning X-Prize

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1×69: Bill and Ted and Jeremy and Bryan and Jono and Stuart’s Excellent Adventure

Posted by on 16th June 2016 in Development, Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×69: Bill and Ted and Jeremy and Bryan and Jono and Stuart’s Excellent Adventure

1×69: Bill and Ted and Jeremy and Bryan and Jono and Stuart’s Excellent Adventure

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which none of us like each other’s books, this is actually a real actual show, and also:

  • 00:03:00 The Nextcloud project has been formed by people leaving the Owncloud company and forking the product. What’s this all about? What does it mean for {Own,Next}cloud, and for self-hosted file syncing?
  • 00:25:30 Bryan reviews the Dell XPS 13 developer laptop, 2016 edition
  • 00:40:42 Money and open source projects. As more projects start putting together ways to get money from donations or Patreon or funding, what should they do with that money? How do you decide how to parcel it out fairly?

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1×68: Nor is this

Posted by on 2nd June 2016 in Development, Gaming, Linux, News, Open Source, Politics, Shows, Technology, Ubuntu | Comments Off on 1×68: Nor is this

1×68: Nor is this

We rock the Unplugged format again. For reasons of complex logistics and global travel, we’ve not been able to get together for Bad Voltage, so we asked you, our listeners, for feedback on what questions you’d like us to answer, and then we’ve picked some and answered them! Thank you to everyone who suggested what they’d like to hear, and we hope you like hearing some of the things that come into the BV mailbag!

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1×67: This is not a show

Posted by on 26th May 2016 in Open Source, Politics, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×67: This is not a show

1×67: This is not a show

This is not a show. Think of this as “Bad Voltage Unplugged”. Various parts of the team went off to CLS and OSCON, and then there were various disasters, and so we didn’t have a show. So, instead, we’ve got this: Jeremy, Jono, and Stuart chatting about things — OSCON, and things that aren’t OSCON — to tide you over. Hope you enjoy this rather bare-bones Bad Voltage…

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1×66: Perchance to Dream

Posted by on 5th May 2016 in Open Source, Politics, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×66: Perchance to Dream

1×66: Perchance to Dream

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which we are all Satoshi Nakamoto, quoting the dictionary at people does not help because it never ever helps, and:

  • 0o:02:00 Is activism actually effective? A continuation of a previous discussion; does activism actually work? Although a more fundamental question seems to be: what _is_ it?
  • 00:52:38 Google Hangouts allows you to send pictures in your conversations, and it works with existing XMPP/Jabber clients such as Pidgin or Psi as well as its own web-based front end. But it won’t do both at the same time; there’s an XMPP-ish way to send images, but Google aren’t using it. Is this Google’s job to fix, or Pidgin’s? And what should open projects do when confronted with this choice: stand tall for open standards, or provide their users with the best experience?
  • 00:31:28 Jeremy reviews the Withings Aura Smart Sleep System, an Internet of Things Thing which acts as sleep monitor and alarm clock

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1×65: Soft Bricking

Posted by on 21st April 2016 in Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×65: Soft Bricking

1×65: Soft Bricking

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which we have now basically become a show about guitars, there is a great deal of argument and fighting about whether companies screw us because they’re incompetent or because they’re evil, and also:

  • 00:02:20 Nest decide to remotely shut down purchasers’ Revolv home hubs with minimal notice. The internet gets very cross. Nest begrudingly decide to give refunds. Is this a harbinger of bad things to come, where devices we buy require an online service for no reason and stop working because the company get bored? Or is this just the price we pay for having new stuff which can be controlled from anywhere and update on the fly? Where’s the consortium awarding “this doesn’t shut down if the company does” brand marks?
  • 00:31:55 Jono reviews the MOD Duo stompbox, a multi-effect guitar pedal funded on Kickstarter and based on Linux and open source software
  • 00:45:19 To answer our questions about the MOD Duo, we talk to company founder Gianfranco Ceccolini about the software and hardware inside the box and their views on openness
  • 01:02:15 How do we attract the next generation of open source enthusiasts? Do we need to, or are we beyond that now? What’s stopping this happening?

Also, Bryan is speaking at LinuxFest Northwest in Bellingham, USA on April 23rd/24th 2016, and Stuart is at Fosstalk in London, UK on August 6th with other Linux podcasters, if you want to buy them drinks or expensive laptops or something!

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1×64: Windows Subsystem for Podcasts

Posted by on 7th April 2016 in Development, Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology, Ubuntu | Comments Off on 1×64: Windows Subsystem for Podcasts

1×64: Windows Subsystem for Podcasts

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which there is a great deal of disagreement about Microsoft’s motives and Canonical’s motives and our motives, and some of us mock other podcasters because we hate the community, and also:

  • 00:02:01 Microsoft and Canonical release the “Windows Subsystem for Linux” at MS’s Build developer conference to provide the Ubuntu command line on Windows. What’s that all about, then? Bash in cmd.exe? This sounds like a good idea, right? What does it mean?
  • 00:32:17 Jono reviews the iRig Pro “all-in-one audio/MIDI interface for Apple products that fits in your pocket”
  • The OpenShot project have just released the latest version of their video editor in AppImage format; a single downloadable file which runs on every Linux OS and doesn’t need to be unpacked or installed. With tools like this and Gnome’s xdg-app in the wings, whither the old Linux model of “distributions” and packaging every app half a dozen times? Can this discussion get beyond complaints about static linking or the difficulty of releasing Linux software?

Also, Bryan is speaking at LinuxFest Northwest in Bellingham, USA on April 23rd/24th 2016, and Stuart is at Fosstalk in London, UK on August 6th with other Linux podcasters, if you want to buy them drinks or expensive laptops or something!

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1×63: Single Point of Weather

Posted by on 24th March 2016 in Design, Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×63: Single Point of Weather

1×63: Single Point of Weather

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which it is always sunny in California, we have the worst analogy ever, and:

  • 00:01:56 Trouble at the Wikimedia foundation? The executive director and a bunch of others have stepped down; it’s not clear whether their “Knowledge Engine” was a plan to make a rival to Google’s search, or just to improve Wikipedia’s own searching capabilities; and the accusations of them being secretive and avoiding their goals of transparent access to information are flying thick and fast. What’s going on here?
  • 00:19:25 Jeremy reviews the WS-1001 Wifi Observer weather station from Ambient Weather
  • 00:33:31 Josh Strobl talks to us about the Solus project, a Linux-based OS designed for the desktop
  • 00:49:51 Password managers: they seem a good idea for your personal security, but they’re all difficult to use or require you to store your data on their computers. Are there good ones? Is using a password manager a good idea for us?

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1×62: My District Wins

Posted by on 10th March 2016 in Linux, News, Politics, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×62: My District Wins

1×62: My District Wins

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which we knock over our equipment, workstations can have a terabyte of RAM in, and:

  • 00:02:16 What’s going on with the United States;s upcoming presidential elections? Do the prospective candidates have decent policies on technology? Since the US’s political leadership affects pretty much anybody, we examine how we feel about the upcoming elections, what it might mean for the world of technology, and who we’d be voting for
  • 00:37:20 Review: the Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Aria wristband and scales, whether fitness equipment with batteries in is a good idea, and what the deal is with having to store your health in their cloud
  • 00:53:28 Interview: we speak to CEO of Pogolinux, Erik Logan, about their hardware, where they see server vendors in the age of the cloud, and their brutally powerful workstations

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1×61: Head Boiling

Posted by on 25th February 2016 in Linux, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology, Ubuntu | Comments Off on 1×61: Head Boiling

1×61: Head Boiling

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which we ask, to distro or not to distro? We are also apparently twonkles, we don’t fit inside the case, and:

  • 00:02:03 KDE Neon is a new distribution from some of the KDE team designed to show off the latest and greatest KDE, based on Ubuntu. Or maybe it’s just a technology showcase and not intended to be your actual main OS. It seems to not be very clear exactly what KDE Neon is for, either within or without the KDE project; what might this all be about?
  • 00:23:28 Jono reviews the Bluesmart suitcase: a piece of luggage with Bluetooth and a battery and more technology than the USS Enterprise
  • 00:34:10 Karen Sandler and Bradley Kuhn from the Software Freedom Conservancy talk about what the SFC is and enforcing GPL compliance in a world of violating Internet of Things devices
  • 01:00:00 Rachel Roumeliotis from O’Reilly and organiser of OSCON follows up on a previous discussion about tech conferences and talks about how OSCON is changing to stay fresh

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1×60: New Again

Posted by on 12th February 2016 in News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×60: New Again

1×60: New Again

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which Bryan wants to be Benjamin Disraeli, it’s not worth spending twenty minutes to get free money, and:

  • 00:02:00 Brave is a new web browser focused around privacy and micropayments by blocking ads and trackers. We discuss what it’s like to run and what we think of it!
  • 00:20:54 Jeremy reviews the Moto 360 Gen 2 smartwatch, and we discuss it being pretty and actually good at its job
  • 00:37:53 Project Ara is a Google initiative to build a modular smartphone. Are we convinced by it as a concept? Would we buy one?
  • 00:54:35 Conference review: SCaLE and linux.conf.au

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1×59: Bad Voltage Live at SCaLE 14x

Posted by on 1st February 2016 in Development, Linux, Open Source, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×59: Bad Voltage Live at SCaLE 14x

1×59: Bad Voltage Live at SCaLE 14x

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge travel to SCaLE 14x in Pasadena, California to perform Bad Voltage Live on stage in front of a packed ballroom. Hear Bryan and Stuart argue about the notion of free software for everything (and the loser get forcibly waxed), the contestants in Wrong in 60 Seconds compete for a Pogo Linux workstation, a golden ticket holder win a ZaReason laptop, and Bad Voltage Family Feud in which we survey a hundred people and then nobody guesses their answers. Watch the show at badvoltage.org/scale2016!

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1×58: Nappy Hue Year

Posted by on 14th January 2016 in Development, Linux, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology, Ubuntu | Comments Off on 1×58: Nappy Hue Year

1×58: Nappy Hue Year

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which all your credit cards still have magnetic stripes on, there is a disturbing level of coincidental alignment in views of the future, and:

  • 00:03:05 The Bad Voltage team give their predictions for what will happen in the tech world in 2016!
  • 00:31:29 Jono reviews Coin, a credit card which replaces all your other credit cards… in theory. In practice, not so much…
  • 00:46:45 Jorge Castro talks to us about Ubuntu’s Juju, software for managing and deploying things on cloud services

The next show will be Live Voltage at SCaLE 14x! See you in Los Angeles!

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1×57: Deck the Blockchains

Posted by on 31st December 2015 in News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×57: Deck the Blockchains

1×57: Deck the Blockchains

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which Bryan has no voice and is thus not with us, Jono has a cold and yet manfully overcomes this to be with us, the future is made of steel-sheathed blockchain-based arguments about the GPL, and:

  • 00:03:17 We review the predictions we made a year ago in shows 33 and 34, and see how we did in our role as Cassandras. The tl;dr here is, don’t give up your day job, Nostradamus, although the world would look a lot nicer if it was what we predicted
  • 00:35:17 The Linux Foundation is shepherding a new collaborative effort to advance blockchain technology between lots of major tech and financial firms: Cisco, Deutsche Borse, JP Morgan, Intel, IBM, Accenture, and the like. Is this going to actually accomplish anything? Is a distributed ledger going to provide any benefits to we consumers?
  • 00:49:05 Stuart reviews Titan: “the toughest cable on earth”, a steel-sheathed phone charging cable and asks: is this useful?
  • 00:59:22 There’s a love triangle, except without much love, going on between the Software Freedom Conservancy, the Linux Foundation, and VMWare around alleged VMWare GPL violations and Linux Foundation accusations of conflict of interest; what’s it all about? What’s going on here?

Have a good New Year, everybody. We’ll see you in 2016 (possibly at Live Voltage at the end of January!).

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1×56: Moon Pigeons

Posted by on 17th December 2015 in Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Space, Technology, Ubuntu | Comments Off on 1×56: Moon Pigeons

1×56: Moon Pigeons

Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which there is an accidental oversupply of buzzwords, there is no podfading, and:

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1×55: Faster than Lightning

Posted by on 4th December 2015 in News, Politics, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×55: Faster than Lightning

1×55: Faster than Lightning

Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which there is a sad absence of Jeremy Garcia and we suffer for it, we beg for a new economy, and:

  • 00:03:10 Is begging the new economy? The New York Times asks about gofundme and kickstarter and whether people are now internet beggars. What’s the deal with these sorts of things?
  • 00:16:30 Stuart has a new OnePlus X phone and has some thoughts; the rest of the team ask questions while marvelling at its greatness. And if you want one, you need an invite… and we have one to give to you. Listen to the show to find out how!
  • 00:32:55 The American Department of Justice is claiming that Apple must unlock an iPhone for them because Apple own the software on the phone (since software is not sold, only licensed) and the DoJ don’t want to compel the owner to unlock because of the right to avoid self-incrimination. Apple, are entirely to their credit, fighting back. A very interesting case. Schadenfreude plus privacy… whose side are we on?

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1×54: The Trolley Problem

Posted by on 13th November 2015 in Development, News, Open Source, Politics, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×54: The Trolley Problem

1×54: The Trolley Problem

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which we are curmudgeonly, we are ethical philosophers, and:

  • 00:02:00 Are developers learning libraries and not learning the actual programmnig languages they’ve chosen? And is this a problem? Are JavaScript hackers just using jQuery or PHP hackers just using Laravel when they shouldn’t? Or is this greybeards complaining about the kids today?
  • 00:16:47 Review: the Blue Yeti USB microphone. Almost by coincidence, the whole Bad Voltage team have purchased the Yeti USB mic from Blue Microphones, and so we all review it together
  • 00:27:20 The rise of self-driving cars brings up the question of algorithmic morality; how should the car be programmed in the event of an unavoidable accident? Protect the driver at all costs; reduce loss of life overall even if the owner gets the short end of that stick; what? This is a big decision that needs to be made: how do we think this should be handled?
  • 00:39:50 THe UK government have recently started making more noises about banning encryption from being used by ordinary people, to prevent terrorists from being able to communicate without security services reading it. It’s the Crypto Wars and the Clipper chip, all over again. Meanwhile, Apple have made a big point of how they work hard to protect their customers’ privacy by ensuring that iMessages are end-to-end encrypted and so forth. Clearly, these proposals are in opposition. The question is this: if Apple declared that these government proposals were incompatible with their customers’ privacy and so threatened to pull out of the UK market… who would blink first? And would Apple do this? And is it OK that they might have this level of power?

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1×53: They’ve Got A Flamethrower

Posted by on 29th October 2015 in Gaming, Linux, News, Open Source, Politics, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×53: They’ve Got A Flamethrower

1×53: They’ve Got A Flamethrower

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which Jeremy is unwell and yet battles on heroically, everyone is cynical about politicians and yet battle on heroically, and:

  • 00:02:14 The rise of inexpensive open source computers: the PocketChip and DragonBox Pyra are examples of new cheap open source computing devices, and everyone knows about the Raspberry Pi. Are these things cool for people who aren’t the Bad Voltage team? What good are they? Isn’t it great that these exist?
  • 00:12:22 “Vigilante malware” as a concept is in the news again; this time, there’s a real example, Linux.Wifatch, a network worm which infects Linux-based routers and embedded devices and then… turns off insecure options and makes sure they’re up to date with patches. It’s malware, but on the side of good. Maybe this is the way forward? Question mark?
  • 00:27:55 We’ve been asked about Owncloud quite a lot, and brought it up for discussion frequently: now we speak to project founder Frank Karlitschek about what Owncloud’s up to now and why it might be a good idea
  • 00:44:37 Why don’t the open source community continually introduce laws saying things like “all router firmware must be open source” so the enemy has to spend resources and time battling these things, much like they keep introducing laws saying “everyone must use DOCX” and we have to battle them? Why not fight fire with fire?

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1×52: Immensely Deft

Posted by on 15th October 2015 in Development, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×52: Immensely Deft

1×52: Immensely Deft

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you Bad Voltage, in which the legitimacy of colleges are called into question, nobody has a big enough backpack, and:

  • 00:01:52 Volkswagen was recently revealed to have written custom software for their diesel cars to make them cheat on government emissions tests: when the car is being tested it runs in a low-power mode to cut its emissions and so pass the test. What does this mean for a world controlled by software, and how have the company handled the reveal in public?
  • 00:18:42 Bryan reviews the System76 Serval Workstation, a beast of a “desktop-class laptop” with an alarming 6GB of video memory and weighing 8lb. We examine the use cases for this sort of and size of laptop, and whether the Serval is a good example
  • 00:35:35 The idea of a “Delayed Public Licence“: release your code under a proprietary licence now but it automatically becomes open source after a year. Useful, potentially, for people releasing mobile games for money but who also want to contribute to the commons? We see whether we think this idea would work and how useful it might be.
  • 00:51:45 Hack Voltage: email to SMS gateways provided by your phone carrier, so you can send an email and have it be a text message. Mostly outside the US these are all gone, but they’re perhaps very useful to US customers!

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1×51: Bad Voltage Live in Germany 2015

Posted by on 8th October 2015 in Linux, News, Open Source, Politics, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×51: Bad Voltage Live in Germany 2015

1×51: Bad Voltage Live in Germany 2015

This is not that show. Instead, it’s a pointer to that show, because it was videoed, and you’ll want to watch the video; live shows don’t translate very well to a pure audio podcast. So, go to badvoltage.org/fulda2015 or the Bad Voltage YouTube channel and you can watch us discuss how to stop cybercrime, that you are the biggest risk facing open source, and hear some truly gratuitous German insults. Thank you to the OpenNMS team and Tarus Balog for inviting us to perform, and we hope you like the show.

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1×50: Automated

Posted by on 17th September 2015 in News, Open Source, Politics, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×50: Automated

1×50: Automated

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you the wonderful world of Bad Voltage, in which you get a mat underfoot because your feet hurt, there is a small Lunduke on the scene, and:

  • 00:04:48 Mycroft, the open source “AI for everyone” home automation thing that you can put in your house and speak commands to, has achieved its Kickstarter goals and will happen. We like it. Here’s why
  • 00:24:48 Chris Waid from Thinkpenguin and savewifi.org speaks about the American FCC’s consultation which requires restricting wireless devices from using unapproved frequencies. Understandably, the SaveWiFi team are very concerned this will result in outright banning of open source router firmware and possibly open source wireless drivers generally. Today we discuss the issue with Chris, whether it’s quite as big a problem as is suggested, and what can be done about it
  • 00:48:17 Hack Voltage: Jeremy spends a minute recommending a cool thing. In this episode, a bathroom mirror which runs Android
  • 00:49:24 Unbiasedly leading on from Mycroft, one of the things it touts itself as is integrating with your home automation; Internetof-Things things around your house, whether thermometers or Dropcams or smart fridges. We’ve been getting into home automation to varying degrees, and it’s a big area; here we talk about it and open standards
  • 01:08:14 Jono reviews the LIFT standing desk conversion kit, and the idea of standing desks generally

We’re doing a live show, and you can be in the audience! See details of Bad Voltage Live, in Fulda, Germany on September 30th 2015, at badvoltage.org/live!

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1×49: The Tapas Of All Bananas

Posted by on 3rd September 2015 in Design, Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×49: The Tapas Of All Bananas

1×49: The Tapas Of All Bananas

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge bring you the wonderful world of Bad Voltage, in which it’s all about the money, it’s never about the privacy, and we disagree about:

  • 00:05:03 The Endless Computer bills itself as “a computer for emerging markets”; a unit with a priority on design, created to plug into an existing TV and pre-packaged with content so it doesn’t need an internet connection. We discuss whether it lives up to its lofty goals.
  • 00:21:26 At roughly the same time, Dustin Kirkland wrote an extremely angry “open letter” to Google about his horrible Nest smoke alarms, and meanwhile our own Jeremy found himself very happy with his Nests. We asked Dustin for a comment, and Jeremy reviews the Nest 2 and why he’s considerably happier
  • 00:37:52 Hack Voltage: Stuart has been playing with drawing app Gliffy
  • 00:39:15 Microsoft: friend or foe of the open source community? Every time they seem good they turn around and do something terrible to us, but then the open source community have finally moved beyond the “Micro$oft” years and we want to embrace them as being on-side. Are they OK now? Are they as bad as they ever were?

We’re doing a live show, and you can be in the audience! See details of Bad Voltage Live, in Fulda, Germany on September 30th 2015, at badvoltage.org/live!

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1×48: Say You Want A Revolution

Posted by on 21st August 2015 in News, Politics, Reviews, Shows, Ubuntu | Comments Off on 1×48: Say You Want A Revolution

1×48: Say You Want A Revolution

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge return from the brief summer hiatus to bring you Bad Voltage, in which what we want is not what Google want, we might be more outside the mainstream than was previously thought, and:

  • 00:04:25 Politics and outliers: the UK and the US are both seeing challenges to politics from people outside the establishment — Donald Trump for president of the USA, and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK challenging for leader of the Labour party. Are people sick of politics? And will this sort of outsider challenge shake up the grey consensus currently running the world?
  • 00:24:33 Stuart reviews the Meizu MX-4 Ubuntu edition, the latest smartphone running Ubuntu, and talk about this new handset and the Ubuntu phone software
  • 00:42:51 Lots has gone on over in Google world recently: the creation of the new Alphabet holding company, the release of the OnHub router, and a change in focus for Google Plus not least among them. What’s going on with G+, and what does Alphabet mean for all of us?

We’re doing a live show, and you can be in the audience! See details of Bad Voltage Live, in Fulda, Germany on September 30th 2015, at badvoltage.org/live!

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1×47: Box Of Frogs

Posted by on 28th July 2015 in Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×47: Box Of Frogs

1×47: Box Of Frogs

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which they battle through an army of gremlins and fail while it sounds like Jono has smoked ten packs of cigarettes:

  • 00:04:00 Reddit has been facing problems recently both in terms of management and views on freedom of speech. We delve into what is going on and what the future of Reddit might look like
  • 00:33:31 Bad Voltage Best Bits: a blast from the past where we blasted the Mars One project into space with a rocket made of cynicism and sarcasm
  • 00:43:07 Bad Voltage Best Bits: reminisce as we listen back to the quite righteous poetry competition in which the presenters demonstrate their literary aptitude (or not)

Also, we’re going to take questions. Send us a question you want to ask the team to [email protected]; it might be about something we’ve discussed on this show, or about anything else you want, and we’ll choose the best question and answer it in each show!

See details of Bad Voltage Live, in Fulda, Germany on September 30th 2015, at badvoltage.org/live, and go get your tickets to see the show!

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1×46: A Target of Derision

Posted by on 9th July 2015 in Linux, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×46: A Target of Derision

1×46: A Target of Derision

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which a thing is hotter than the sun, the chap who now runs Microsoft is cruelly misnamed for comedy purposes, and:

  • 00:01:27 After Linus Torvalds asks kernel devs to take a break so he can too and articles start popping up about what Linux looks like after Linus, we ask: what would happen? Does this look like the changes that happen at tech companies such as Microsoft and Apple? Would we users be affected at all?
  • 00:21:28 Jono reviews the NXR Stainless Steel 7-Burner 80,000-BTU Propane Gas Grill
  • 00:37:20 Google. Everybody uses at least some of their services, and some of us use an awful lot of them. Bryan has been exploring what it takes to leave Google entirely, how to do the move, and what to use instead: how easy has it been so far? Why do this? And where does one go?

Also, we’re going to take questions. Send us a question you want to ask the team to [email protected]; it might be about something we’ve discussed on this show, or about anything else you want, and we’ll choose the best question and answer it in each show!

See details of Bad Voltage Live, in Fulda, Germany on September 30th 2015, at badvoltage.org/live, and go get your tickets to see the show!

Discuss this show in the community!

1×45: Tons Of It About

Posted by on 25th June 2015 in Design, Development, Linux, News, Open Source, Politics, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×45: Tons Of It About

1×45: Tons Of It About

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we argue about whether to wear socks, loads of festivals are interested in our technology, and:

  • 00:02:00 The Register recently revealed that the Download music festival will have automatic facial recognition cameras. In Bad Voltage Fixes The Fucking World we discuss the problem of mass surveillance and how to fix it
  • 00:26:41 Jeremy reviews the HTC One M9 mobile phone, HTC’s new flagship device
  • 00:42:55 Apple announce that they’re open sourcing Swift, their OS X and iOS app programming language, and that it will also be available on Linux. We discuss whether this is a useful thing, and what it means for large companies’ stance on open source
  • 01:11:08 In the previous show we discussed Sourceforge, their current path, and what they could do to make themselves a great service again; we speak to Ross Turk, the engineering and community manager for Sourceforge during the good years from 2000-2009, about how they reached their current position and the pressures that may have led to it

Also, we’re going to take questions. Send us a question you want to ask the team to [email protected]; it might be about something we’ve discussed on this show, or about anything else you want, and we’ll choose the best question and answer it in each show!

See details of Bad Voltage Live, in Fulda, Germany on September 30th 2015, at badvoltage.org/live, and go get your tickets to see the show!

Discuss this show in the community!

1×44: A Boot Goes In

Posted by on 12th June 2015 in News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Space | Comments Off on 1×44: A Boot Goes In

1×44: A Boot Goes In

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke (he returns!), and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which all books are signed from now on, we reveal that we are coming to Europe in September and you can come to the live show, and:

  • 00:01:39 In the last show, Bad Voltage fixed Mozilla, or at least proposed what we think they might want to do to fix themselves. We asked Mozilla PR for comment or a statement, and they declined. This leads into a discussion about Mozilla’s internal culture, and how their relationships with the community have changed
  • 00:18:14 Stuart reviews Seveneves, the new book by Neal Stephenson
  • 00:29:28 Bad Voltage Fixes the F$*%ing World: we pick a technology or company or thing that we think isn’t doing what it should be, and discuss what it should be doing instead. We look at a company who have been in the news recently, but maybe wish they weren’t: Sourceforge
  • 00:51:30 Does social media advertising work? We tried a challenge: we’d each spend fifty dollars on advertising Bad Voltage on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and the like, and see how we got on and whether it’s worth the money. Is it? Maybe you can do better?

Also, we’re going to take questions. Send us a question you want to ask the team to [email protected]; it might be about something we’ve discussed on this show, or about anything else you want, and we’ll choose the best question and answer it in each show!

See details of Bad Voltage Live, in Fulda, Germany on September 30th 2015, at badvoltage.org/live, and get your tickets to see the show!

Discuss this show in the community!

1×43: Got The Om On

Posted by on 28th May 2015 in Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology, Ubuntu | Comments Off on 1×43: Got The Om On

1×43: Got The Om On

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which Bryan is sadly unavoidably absent, we discuss relationships between the Ubuntu and Kubuntu community councils, we ask you to tell us which bits you like, there are once again accusations that eating yoghurt is a bad personality trait, and:

  • 00:01:57 Bad Voltage Fixes the F$*%ing World: we pick a technology or company or thing that we think isn’t doing what it should be, and discuss what it should be doing instead. In this first iteration, we talk about Mozilla
  • 00:28:40 Meditation is reputedly a good way to relieve stress and stay centred, and we look at HeadSpace.com who offer a purchasable digital set of meditation tapes and guidebooks, as well as some brief diversions into the nature of relaxation and the voice of Jeff Bridges
  • 00:44:45 Rick Spencer, Canonical’s VP of Ubuntu engineering and services, talks about Canonical’s focus, the recent announcements around phones and “internet of things” devices, and how community feelings about Ubuntu’s direction dovetail with Canonical’s goals
  • 01:06:12 We’ve talked about 3d printers in the past, in the context of you owning one, but there are online services which allow you to upload a 3d design and then will print it in a variety of materials and send it back to you in the post. Could this be the way that 3d printing really reaches the mainstream?

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1×42: The Tee-Remover Machine

Posted by on 14th May 2015 in News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology | Comments Off on 1×42: The Tee-Remover Machine

1×42: The Tee-Remover Machine

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which the word “keynote” is officially declared to be meaningless, and:

  • 00:01:49 Tesla have released a new product, the Powerwall, a “home battery that charges using electricity generated from solar panels, or when utility rates are low, and powers your home in the evening”. Elon Musk is happy to solve the world’s energy problem by selling six billion of them to everyone; but is the Powerwall actually a useful thing? Can we all go solar now?
  • 00:18:37 LibreOffice have announced that they’re working on an online version of their office suite, and have in the past announced that they’re building a mobile version as well. But are LibreOffice falling behind on all their promises? Can we expect this to work?
  • 00:33:33 Amber Graner from the Open Compute Project talks to us about what OCP is all about, whether you need to use its stuff in your new datacentre, and how to fit twenty-one inches of rack in nineteen inches of space
  • 00:47:47 Jono reviews Zeetings, an online service which promises to add interactivity and audience participation to your presentations. We talk about whether the thing itself is useful, the art of public speaking, and their properly annoying introductory video

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1×41: Second Lunch is my Favourite Lunch

Posted by on 30th April 2015 in Development, Linux, News, Open Source, Reviews, Shows, Technology, Ubuntu | Comments Off on 1×41: Second Lunch is my Favourite Lunch

1×41: Second Lunch is my Favourite Lunch

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, Bryan Lunduke, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which hell may be slightly chillier than previously. Featuring the uses for abundant graphical power, the nature of what “cross-platform” really means, and:

  • 00:02:15 Google announce Google Fi, a new MVNO-style mobile network joining together wifi, Sprint, and T-Mobile for US customers and allowing international roaming and a pay-what-you-need rate for data. Is this actually a good idea? What about how it only works on the Nexus 6?
  • 00:18:00 We speak to Mashable senior tech correspondent and podcaster Christina “@film_girl” Warren about the Microsoft Build conference announcement that the Visual Studio Code editor is newly available for Linux as well as other platforms, and MS’s apparent increasing friendliness to open source. Is it real? Is it good?
  • 00:37:16 Bryan reviews the NVIDIA Jetson TK-1 development kit, a Raspberry-Pi-style small board but with 192 GPU cores
  • 00:51:12 A blog comment from Glyph suggesting that “Linux is not, practically speaking, more tweakable” than alternative desktop OSes starts a discussion about whether that’s the truth and why Linux desktop automation tools aren’t (or are) as good as AppleScript and Windows COM automation

Discuss this show in the community!