WHYcast transcript episode 31
Disclaimer
This is the full transcript generated using with AI tools and some human oversight. This transcript was generated using local running Whisper and Diarization, and some prompting to generate a readable transcript. The transcript was carefully transcribed, however these models do make mistakes (just like humans do). Before publishing it on the wiki read the transcribed episode to correct the obvious errors. But just as AI models, mistakes are not always correct before publishing. So you are more than welcome to correct the transcript based on the WHYcast episode out there. Please feel free to help out to make the content transcription even more accessible.
Transcript 31
Nancy: And welcome to the WHYcast episode 31. I’m Nancy. Ad: I’m Ad Nancy: And we are the hosts of the only podcast about a hacker camp in the universe. This volunteer-run event will take place this year in the Netherlands, approximately 42 kilometers north of Amsterdam. North is hard when you’re having a bad cold. From August 8th to 12th, 2025. So Ad, what are we talking about today?
Ad: Well, as always, we have news, a cool interview, some “where to hack” tips, the vacancies of the week, and a listener question. Nancy: Perfect. Let’s start with the news.
Nancy: Hay fever season has started, as you can hear. Ad: That’s the most important news of this episode. Yes. Nancy: Sorry about my sound quality at the moment.
Nancy: The CFP closes in one month—it’s April 25th right now, and it closes on Towel Day, May 25th. Also, only 105 days left until the start of WHY. Ad: Oh my goodness, and still so much to do. Nancy: But also, a lot has been done. Thanks again to all the amazing volunteers who are putting so much love and energy into making everything happen.
Nancy: I did some interviews at Field Day, but sometimes I forgot to turn on noise cancellation on the mics, and there were a lot of people nearby. So those interviews aren’t usable for the WHYcast, which is a shame—but it’s a good reason to do a shout-out right now. We would love to interview more people about their plans with their villages. If you’ve organized a village and it’s on the wiki—there are roughly 72 villages right now—we’d love to hear your ideas and what you’re going to do. Like the ones we did with NelusTheNerd on ZCert and Milliways, we would like to hear your plans for camp. Please reach out to whycast@why2025.org and let us know; we’ll schedule an interview.
Ad: Or if you prefer, you can record a short clip of yourself in front of a mirror, or with your entire team, and send that in—that’s fine too. There are over 80 villages on the list now. Nancy: Oh, no way. Ad: So that’s cool. Nancy: If you have no clue what villages are about, please listen to episode 30, where it’s very well explained by Marijn, IcyPalm. Over 80 villages is great news. We should have plenty to feature on the show.
Nancy: We’re nearing 3,000 tickets sold. Ad: Oh yes. Just a couple more to go. Nancy: I hope we’re sold out by my birthday—though that’s very quick. Still, I think we’ll be sold out soon-ish.
Nancy: Also, this is the last week for limitless merch ordering. After this week, you can still order merch, but with limited availability—it all goes to the manufacturer by the end of this month or early May. If you haven’t ordered your merch yet, please do so at tickets.why2025.org. You can only order merch if you have a ticket, and you can only pick it up at the event itself. We’re not shipping anything in advance, so get your merch now.
Ad: Definitely very cool designs—there’s stuff for everyone, from simple to… well, more elaborate.
Nancy: Another piece of news: the people from Phrack Magazine reached out to us. We’ll have a page in the next issue of Phrack Episodes Magazine. Team Promo is working on that, so look for it and check the show notes for a link once it’s live.
Ad: And we have a great interview coming up.
Nancy: Can you tell us a little about that? Ad: We’ll be talking with Robert “Number3” who co-hosted episodes 25 and had an interview in episode 26. Now Nancy had an interview with Robert about the WHY transcripts—so we’ll get a meta-level conversation: an interview about a question he asked and an idea we had, which led to a tool that transcribes the WHYcast automatically and turns it into a blog.
Nancy: Robert told me he wanted to make the WHYcast more accessible to people who prefer to read. He thought we could repurpose our content on the website. He said, “Trust me, I’m an engineer; I’ll handle this.” So Robert, please tell us what you did with the WHYcast.
Robert: The simple version is: we transcribed it, then converted it to blog posts. But the reality is there are open-source tools you can use now—lots of people know about Whisper, the OpenAI speech-to-text model, but I wanted to find a fully open-source workflow. I started with “faster_whisper,” a fork of the original. I used the example code, and within five minutes I had a proof-of-concept to transcribe an MP3. Then I wanted more: I played with GitHub Co-pilot and spent an hour or two building a tool that fetches the RSS feed, downloads the latest episode, transcribes it, cleans it up with OpenAI, summarizes it, and builds a blog post.
Robert: I also tried CursorAI, which is an agent-based coding assistant that felt like peer programming. I added features like a vocabulary list to correct mis-transcribed words—like “WHY2025” or “Ad” only showing up as letters. CursorAI placed code in the right spots and turned a simple script into a full-blown program with options to regenerate blogs, switch prompts, and handle vocabulary fixes.
Nancy: It was so weird to read my own podcast back!
Robert: Another advance: speaker diarisation. A model can tell who’s speaking and tag transcripts with Speaker 0, Speaker 1, etc. Now I’m experimenting with an OpenAI model to identify those speakers by name. It could say “Nancy says… Ad says…” That raises security and privacy questions—models can recognize your voice—but it also improves accessibility.
Nancy: We’re living in an interesting time: every new technology brings responsibility. These tools use a lot of energy and water, though hardware will get more efficient. Privacy is a concern too—if you’re worried, maybe avoid social media. Big tech giants have been training models for years on our data.
Robert: At DEF CON last year, I saw an AI social-engineering challenge: AI vs. humans in phone-based flag capture. The AI performed shockingly well—nearly tied with humans. Imagine scaling that in the cloud for thousands of calls. It’s a double-edged sword: we need to explore these tools to defend against them.
Robert: That’s why we need CFPs on adversarial AI and ethics at WHY this year. Artists, creators, journalists—please share your perspectives. Governance is lagging; we need these discussions.
Robert: And back to the original question: is it worth automating transcription and blogs? I think yes—it makes content more accessible. But let’s keep the human in the loop and use AI as a tool where it helps.
Nancy: I hope people will propose CFPs on these topics. We’ll share Robert’s GitHub link in the show notes—he’s open-sourced everything.
Robert: Thank you, see you next time.
Nancy: We could have talked for hours, but we have a five-day camp for it. Let’s continue this conversation there.
Nancy: Now let’s talk about “Where to Hack.”
Nancy: Each week we share where you can find wide-minded people. Where to hack?
Ad: April 30th to May 1st, OpenSearchCon at the Mövenpick Hotel Amsterdam City Centre. It’s a annual conference bringing the OpenSearch community together to learn, connect, and collaborate—if searching is your thing, go search them in Amsterdam.
Nancy: It’s organized by the Linux Foundation; they’ll make some noise for WHY as well. Let’s return the favor by going to OpenSearchCon.
Ad: On May 2nd, B-Site Groningen hosts a meetup at the Puddingfabriek. It’s currently sold out, but there’s a ticket-swap link if you really want to go. I managed to get in. Big shout-out to B-Site.
Ad: Also May 2nd to 4th in Istanbul is the Wikimedia Hackathon 2025—the software behind all the Wikis. Registration is now closed and they’re at capacity, but we appreciate everyone improving MediaWiki.
Ad: A few days later is CFPizza Night—organized by WHY, WICCON and OrangeCon—to help you get your CFP ready with tips and tricks. Twenty-seven people signed up so far; there’s room for more. It’s in Amersfoort, and you can join online. Whether your CFP is for WHY, OrangeCon, WICCON, or anywhere else, come ask your questions. Check the meetup page linked in the show notes.
Ad: With that, let’s go to the vacancies of the week—plural, as Nancy reminds me. They might get predictable: we still need parking and merch coordinators. Bas says both are great fun—parks is like a puzzle, and merch is like running a shop.
Nancy: Team Info and Team Promo (that’s us on the WHYcast) could also use help with writing copy: we have lots of ideas and not enough time to write them out. If you like writing, interviewing, or helping promote events, please reach out to Team Info or Team Promo. We really need your help.
Nancy: And if you’re at events where people haven’t heard of WHY, slip them a sticker or chat to them. I recently spoke at a customer event and someone came up to me afterward saying, “I’m going to a hacker camp for the first time now that you mentioned it in your presentation!” WHY is spreading everywhere.
Ad: One of those WHY-minded people, Pink, sent in a question: at a previous event you had special bar payment card—how will that work at WHY?
Nancy: Cheers, Pink. I asked Team Finance—Henry tells me we’ll have regular card payments on site just like MCH2022. Cash can be exchanged into a preloaded MiFare card at the Info Desk, which you can use to pay throughout the event. We’re looking at options for village payments, but that’s still in development. Keep an eye on the wiki for updates.
Ad: We’ve got feedback and lovely remarks on the bleeptrack logo generator, and ideas for improvement. Keep responding on social channels—it helps our visibility. Send questions or feedback to whycast@why2025.org, and don’t forget to like and subscribe.
Ad: That brings us to the end of episode 31. Thank you all for listening, and hope to see you next Friday. WHYday!