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Ben Hilburn

Ben Hilburn

bits, nibbles, bytes, and words

D.C. Metro Area •
62 posts •
podcast

Copyright Release Template for Podcasters

I'm releasing a template for a Copyright Release agreement for podcasters who have guests on their programs. When launching my own podcast, I found there wasn't something readily available for this purpose - I hope this is useful to other podcasters!

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
1 min read
Software Radio is for Everyone!
sdr

Software Radio is for Everyone!

Software radio is amazing, no matter how you slice it. It represents many different fields of science and engineering coming together to create a technology that sounds almost too sci-fi to be real. This post is about how there is something for everyone in SDR.

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
5 min read
Candidate-First Hiring
management

Candidate-First Hiring

Candidate-First Hiring is a philosophy that guides our hiring and interview processes based on our own experiences as candidates, interviewers, and hiring managers. It is a hiring process informed by an outlook that we believe is both stronger and kinder.

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
1 min read
Open Source Munitions
opensource

Open Source Munitions

Let's start with a short Q&A that might surprise you! Q1: You write a nifty program and share it with someone on the Internet. Is it possible for the government to

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
4 min read
gnuradio

Speaking at the DARPA Bay Area Hackfest

The DARPA Bay Area Hackfest is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I'm excited to spend the week at NASA Ames talking about great ideas and hacking on cool technology. This

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
3 min read
reference

Vortex Race 3 Quick Reference

I tried to post a shorter version of this as a review for the Vortex Race 3 Mechanical Keyboard on Amazon, but they rejected it because I linked to external (non-Amazon) sites. Anyway,

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
3 min read
opensource

Dear Non-Coders: Rescue OSS from Itself

This post is about how to find open-source projects that could benefit from your time and expertise, and then make meaningful contributions to them - even if you're starting from a blank slate.

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
11 min read
Engineering Mantras
workplace

Engineering Mantras

Like everyone else, I have a list of favorite quotes that have influenced me or that I have found especially compelling. In the technical world, these sometimes become mantras, guidance, or even best

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
3 min read
Storing Encrypted Data in the Cloud
crypto

Storing Encrypted Data in the Cloud

I recently decided to put some of my most critically secure data in the cloud. I spent time over several weeks researching how best to do this, and got advice from some of

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
8 min read
hiring

Update on Hiring: It's Still Hard

In early 2015, we decided to revamp the Ettus Research R&D hiring process. We had a lot of candidates coming through the pipeline, all the way through an on-site interview, that

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
4 min read
management

A Keystone of Success

I've recently found myself discussing what it means to be an experienced or senior engineer with a number of different groups. What's interesting about those two terms is that I don't think they

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
2 min read
opensource

Powerlevel9k

When I started Powerlevel9k on the evening of December 4th in 2014, my goal wasn't to create a large project, but really just to create a highly customized ZSH prompt with some features

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
2 min read
software

On the Recent GPL Enforceability News

Over the last week I've received daily links from colleagues excited about the recent GPL news, so I figured I would share my thoughts here. Of course, before we continue, I'm obliged to

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
5 min read
Workplace Sabotage
workplace

Workplace Sabotage

I recently stumbled across a declassified field manual first published by the Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to the CIA) in 1944. The manual describes simple methods that everyday citizens can use

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
1 min read
software

The Benefits of Upstream Compatibility and Upstreaming

So you've read the loads of articles about why Open Source Software (OSS) is good for business. Perhaps you've also read Tom Preston-Werner's superb article about why your company should open source as

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
4 min read
software

Installing REDHAWK on Fedora 24

At GRCon16 last month, there were a number of discussions about deploying GNU Radio applications to REDHAWK networks. REDHAWK has a lot of very compelling features, especially in the management & provisioning of

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
4 min read
gnuradio

Installing GNU Radio on CentOS 6.8

It's not terribly uncommon for someone to e-mail the GNU Radio mailing list, discuss-gnuradio, asking for help getting GNU Radio running in CentOS. CentOS is known for its long maintenance periods, which makes

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
3 min read
foss

Winning the Open Source Battle

Last month, the Chief Information Officer and Chief Acquisition Officer of the United States released Memo M-16-21, titled "Federal Source Code Policy: Achieving Efficiency, Transparency, and Innovation through Reusable and Open Source

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
2 min read
management

Halt and Goto Meeting

As a company grows, protecting the time of its employees becomes a perplexing problem. Bizarrely, almost everyone I know that isn't at a start-up doesn't seem to have enough time at work to

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
5 min read

Ubuntu on Windows 10

Like most of the rest of the world, I was pretty sure that Microsoft's announcement that they had partnered with Canonical to get Ubuntu on Windows 10 was an April Fool's joke. Especially

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
4 min read
gnuradio

Taking Over GNU Radio

Today we announced a big change in leadership for GNU Radio. Tom Rondeau, who has led GNU Radio for the last 5+ years, is stepping down and will be taking a position at

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
1 min read
writing

New Home, New Job, New Year

Welcome to 2016! It's been a few months since my last post - but with good reason! Time has been especially hard to come by since the new year - on top of

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
1 min read
hiring

Hiring is Hard

The tech sector's hiring process has become something of a hot topic in the last few years. For the most part, everyone seems to agree that the current methods of technical hiring are

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
5 min read
hiking

Visiting Lassen Volcanic National Park & Forest

For this year's fourth of July weekend, we took a trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is surrounded by Lassen National Forest. This turned out to be one of my favorite places

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
4 min read
writing

Land that Interview: Creating an Awesome R&D Resume

I read a lot of resumes as the R&D manager for Ettus Research. Resumes are very difficult to do well, and unsurprisingly most resumes are not great (to put it politely)

  • Ben Hilburn
    Ben Hilburn
16 min read
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