107: The Kick-Ass Stamp of Approval

00:00SPEAKER- I've gone portrait.

00:01SPEAKER- I've gotten even more portrait.

00:03SPEAKER- What?

00:04SPEAKER- You can't be more portrait than this.

00:06SPEAKER- I've got double portrait.

00:07SPEAKER- What?

00:08SPEAKER- But wait, no.

00:08SPEAKER- I've got portrait, portrait, landscape.

00:11SPEAKER- Are you actually serious?

00:12SPEAKER- I'm dead serious.

00:13SPEAKER- God damn.

00:15SPEAKERI was all excited 'cause I've only got one portrait.

00:17SPEAKERThis is, you can always be more portrait.

00:21SPEAKER- I should, I should, yes.

00:22SPEAKERI should show up to this podcast

00:24SPEAKERexpecting to be one-upped, I suppose.

00:25SPEAKER- I'm sorry.

00:26SPEAKERI'm sorry, I didn't mean to do this to you.

00:28SPEAKER- It's okay, but such is my dedication to this podcast

00:31SPEAKERthat I have gone portrait on my main monitor

00:34SPEAKERin anticipation of this episode.

00:35SPEAKER- Wow, on the main monitor even?

00:38SPEAKERThat's a choice.

00:39SPEAKER- Yes, yes, the screen which was once 2560 by 1440

00:44SPEAKERis now 1440 by 2560.

00:47SPEAKER- Wow, why would you need a portrait screen

00:48SPEAKERfor an episode, Brad?

00:50SPEAKER- We'll get into that.

00:50SPEAKERThat's, the episode is, I don't think,

00:53SPEAKERwe can't talk about the topic of the episode

00:54SPEAKERin the cold open or that renders the cold open the episode.

00:57SPEAKER- That's true, I, so.

00:59SPEAKER- We have to talk about something else.

01:00SPEAKER- I came back from the desert and I was setting my stuff up

01:03SPEAKERand I had had my two monitors for my main computer

01:06SPEAKERside by side, like up and down, like vertical.

01:09SPEAKER- Mm-hmm.

01:10SPEAKER- And when I was putting it back together, I was like,

01:11SPEAKERwhat if I put the secondary monitor

01:13SPEAKERover on the left side over there?

01:16SPEAKER- Yeah.

01:17SPEAKER- I think it was a mistake.

01:18SPEAKER- Everything is fluid, everything is flexible.

01:21SPEAKER- It is, it's the 21st century, man.

01:24SPEAKEREverything goes.

01:24SPEAKER- Yeah, fit those monitors together like a Tetris puzzle.

01:28SPEAKER- Yeah, the problem, you know, honestly,

01:29SPEAKERthe problem is I'm going for a 1080p landscape monitor

01:33SPEAKERand the spot that I can hit to get the mouse to go over

01:37SPEAKERonto the little monitor from the big,

01:40SPEAKERfrom the 4K monitor in portrait.

01:41SPEAKER- Oh no, oh no, is that how it works?

01:43SPEAKER- It's itsy bitsy.

01:44SPEAKER- Oh no.

01:45SPEAKER- It's really annoying.

01:46SPEAKER- And there's a visual cue for where it is, right?

01:48SPEAKER- Nope, you just have to kind of keep hammering at it

01:51SPEAKERand sliding up and down until it goes across.

01:53SPEAKER- This is one of many reasons that I insist

01:55SPEAKERon using two of the exact same monitor.

01:57SPEAKER- Well, but that doesn't solve this problem

01:58SPEAKERif you do one portrait in one landscape.

02:00SPEAKER- Well, no, but I also would not live that life permanently

02:03SPEAKERlike a madman.

02:05SPEAKER- What?

02:06SPEAKER- This monitor is going back to the landscape

02:07SPEAKERthe second this episode is over.

02:09SPEAKER- Oh, so I guess I shouldn't talk about my ultra wide

02:11SPEAKERthat's in motion.

02:12SPEAKER- No, no, we have to talk about something.

02:13SPEAKERThis cult is too close to the episode to, hey,

02:16SPEAKERthe Nintendo 64 just turned 25.

02:18SPEAKER- You know, I think that's probably

02:19SPEAKERmy favorite Nintendo console.

02:21SPEAKER- Well, okay, look, I want to express my revulsion,

02:25SPEAKERbut it's not like that's an uncommon opinion.

02:28SPEAKERThere are plenty of people who could agree with you.

02:30SPEAKER- So I'm not saying it's the best, just to be clear.

02:32SPEAKER- I'm just not one of them.

02:33SPEAKER- Like, I think if you're looking just purely

02:36SPEAKERfor like the impact and like the most games that were good,

02:43SPEAKERyou got to talk about probably the SNES

02:46SPEAKERand maybe you could make an end run argument for the Wii,

02:49SPEAKERI think in there, like the ratio of good to bad games

02:52SPEAKERon the Wii was really bad,

02:52SPEAKERbut there were a lot of real bangers on the Wii

02:55SPEAKERas far as I'm concerned.

02:55SPEAKER- For sure.

02:56SPEAKERI mean, there were bangers on the N64 for that matter.

02:58SPEAKER- Well, that's the thing is like,

02:59SPEAKERthe thing I love about the N64 is that

03:02SPEAKEReverybody is figuring out 3D

03:06SPEAKERand everybody was figuring out analog controls

03:08SPEAKERand it was happening simultaneously

03:10SPEAKERand it was often really bad in really interesting fun ways.

03:13SPEAKER- Yeah, it was like a transitional thing, right?

03:15SPEAKERLike it was a paradigm shift, if you will,

03:19SPEAKERwas taking place, but like that's always messy, right?

03:21SPEAKER- Yeah.

03:22SPEAKER- Some incredible foundational innovative stuff

03:24SPEAKERcame out of that,

03:25SPEAKERbut it was also kind of a giant mess at the same time.

03:28SPEAKER- It turns out two sticks is the number of sticks you need.

03:30SPEAKER- Yeah.

03:31SPEAKER(laughing)

03:32SPEAKERWho knew?

03:33SPEAKER- Not one stick and four buttons

03:35SPEAKERin a two dimensional figuration

03:37SPEAKERthat kind of tries to approximate the function of a stick.

03:40SPEAKERWhat were they thinking?

03:41SPEAKER- Or like one stick and two D pads in different places.

03:44SPEAKERYeah, they're like, look, mistakes were made.

03:45SPEAKER- Like the fact that those four buttons

03:47SPEAKERall have one letter assigned to them is pretty telling.

03:50SPEAKERThe C buttons.

03:51SPEAKER- Oh, the yellow buttons were the C buttons.

03:53SPEAKERThat's right.

03:54SPEAKERThe buttons, you cannot have multiple buttons

03:55SPEAKERwith the same letter.

03:56SPEAKERThat's just the law.

03:58SPEAKER- It was the right D pad in my head.

04:00SPEAKERBut no, like Mario's, I remember,

04:02SPEAKERwell, first off, it's the only SGI hardware

04:04SPEAKERI've ever personally owned.

04:06SPEAKER(laughing)

04:08SPEAKER- That is the most tech pod thing perhaps

04:09SPEAKERthat has ever been said.

04:12SPEAKERI never thought about it that way.

04:13SPEAKERI too owned a piece of SGI hardware.

04:15SPEAKERI mean, that was a thousand percent in that era

04:17SPEAKERwhen I lusted after things like Next Workstations and SGI.

04:21SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

04:22SPEAKER- Like the boxes, like the Octane, the O2, the Irix,

04:26SPEAKERstuff like that.

04:27SPEAKERTo the point that when they came out and said,

04:29SPEAKERhey, we're working with Silicon Graphics Incorporated

04:32SPEAKERto make the graphics hardware and blah, blah, blah.

04:33SPEAKERAnd I got very excited about it.

04:35SPEAKER- I was take my money pleasing at a high level.

04:38SPEAKER- Like people, giant nerds like us knew about SGI

04:41SPEAKERfrom Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park,

04:43SPEAKERlike film special effects and stuff.

04:45SPEAKER- Well, yeah, and this was '96.

04:46SPEAKERSo I was not yet, like two years after this,

04:49SPEAKERI had a job that involved maintaining a couple of your Xboxs

04:52SPEAKERthat were all SGI workstations.

04:54SPEAKERIt was not a fun, like, just to be clear,

04:58SPEAKERkeeping those things running by that point was not trivial.

05:01SPEAKERIt was a bad time for that hardware.

05:03SPEAKERBut also it was still kind of the only stuff that was like,

05:07SPEAKERit was still kind of hard to get an OpenGL implementation.

05:10SPEAKERAnd in like an environmental context,

05:13SPEAKERif you were doing compute stuff,

05:14SPEAKERif you had bought software packages that were written

05:16SPEAKERfor SGI machines, you kind of had to keep using SGI machines

05:20SPEAKER'cause it's not like you could port that over

05:22SPEAKERor whatever to a next box or whatever else might be.

05:25SPEAKERAnyway, but yeah, like I remember looking at that

05:29SPEAKERand at that point I had played a lot of 3D games

05:32SPEAKER'cause like the 3D effects cards were available

05:35SPEAKERand we had had them, I think for a little while by then.

05:37SPEAKERSo it's not like 3D was new,

05:39SPEAKERbut I don't think GLQuake came out until that,

05:42SPEAKERlater that year.

05:43SPEAKER- Yeah, it was around.

05:44SPEAKER- Maybe earlier this year.

05:45SPEAKERI can't remember.

05:46SPEAKERI think it was around the beginning of '97.

05:48SPEAKER- Yeah, so like it was like Mario 64 and Wave Race.

05:53SPEAKERI like, I went, I drove to a bazillion Walmarts

05:55SPEAKERto find an N64 when it launched in the US in December

05:58SPEAKERor November, whenever it was.

06:00SPEAKERAnd I got N64 and Wave Race

06:02SPEAKERand they were both phenomenally,

06:04SPEAKERespecially Mario 64 and Wave Race,

06:04SPEAKERthey were both super expensive,

06:07SPEAKERbut like Wave Race was unbelievable.

06:10SPEAKER- It was, yes, mind blowing, those waves to this day,

06:12SPEAKERat least in my memory, 'cause I haven't gone back to it,

06:14SPEAKERbut in my mind it was the best water physics ever.

06:17SPEAKER- Well, it was, but I don't think it was physics.

06:19SPEAKERI think it was just, the waves were always the same.

06:21SPEAKER- We pondered this question before,

06:23SPEAKERwere the waves and Wave Race just prescriptivist waves?

06:27SPEAKERWere they preset patterns that were just being undulated?

06:30SPEAKER- Yeah, 'cause they were different.

06:31SPEAKERIt was different wave patterns on different,

06:33SPEAKERlike that was the other cool thing

06:34SPEAKERis like the track would change.

06:35SPEAKERThe track was the same,

06:36SPEAKERbut the waves changed when the difficulty changed.

06:39SPEAKER- Are you telling me that the power of Silicon Graphics

06:41SPEAKERcould not generate those waves in real time?

06:43SPEAKER- Look, it's not like it was a Sea of Thieves situation here

06:51SPEAKERwhere they have perfect multiplayer sync

06:53SPEAKERacross the wave system,

06:54SPEAKERwhich is also magic as far as I'm concerned.

06:56SPEAKER- Yeah, man, that Sea of Thieves

06:57SPEAKERdoesn't give enough credit for being a technical marvel.

07:00SPEAKERAnyway, we should probably start this episode.

07:02SPEAKERI just want to say happy 25th birthday

07:04SPEAKERto the best selling Silicon Graphics workstation

07:07SPEAKERever released.

07:07SPEAKER- Why do you hate the N64, Brad?

07:09SPEAKERThat's what I want to know.

07:10SPEAKERLet's start the show.

07:11SPEAKER(upbeat music)

07:42SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made of Tech Pod.

07:45SPEAKERI'm Will.

07:46SPEAKER- I'm Brad, hello, hi.

07:47SPEAKER- Hey, welcome to the show, notorious N64 hater,

07:49SPEAKERBrad.

07:50SPEAKER- I don't hate the N64, it had a lot of issues, okay?

07:53SPEAKERMario 64 and Zelda are Ocarina of Time, I should specify.

07:58SPEAKER- And Majora's Mask also had phenomenal entry

08:00SPEAKERinto the series.

08:01SPEAKER- Look, I didn't click with Majora's Mask.

08:03SPEAKERI understand it's wide ranging influence

08:05SPEAKERand it certainly has led to some games

08:07SPEAKERthat I do like very much.

08:09SPEAKER- Yeah, I think of Majora's Mask

08:10SPEAKERas the first rogue-lite, really.

08:13SPEAKER- I mean, I was thinking of it

08:14SPEAKERas kind of one of the first time loop.

08:15SPEAKERI mean, it's probably not the first,

08:16SPEAKERbut like, you know, when Outer Wilds got made

08:19SPEAKERand Deathloop and stuff like that,

08:20SPEAKERthey had to all have played Majora's Mask at some point,

08:22SPEAKERright, 'cause it's just that.

08:24SPEAKER- One of the best Zelda's,

08:25SPEAKERit's like that and Wind Waker for me, really.

08:27SPEAKER- But Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time

08:30SPEAKERare two of the most influential pieces of game design

08:33SPEAKERin history, I believe.

08:34SPEAKER- I think Mario Kart 64 is also maybe my favorite of those

08:38SPEAKERthat's not like the current one,

08:40SPEAKERwhich is incredible.

08:41SPEAKER- Oh, well, I mean, I observe the Mario Kart rule.

08:44SPEAKER- The newest one is always the best one.

08:46SPEAKER- No, your first one is your favorite.

08:48SPEAKER- Oh, wow, weird.

08:50SPEAKER- Yes, which means the Super Nintendo Super Mario Kart

08:54SPEAKERis forever the superior Mario Kart.

08:57SPEAKER- So honestly, I think the low key best thing

08:59SPEAKERabout the N64 is that it had four ports on the front

09:01SPEAKERand you could just sit down with four people,

09:03SPEAKER'cause people would come over to the house

09:04SPEAKERand bring their own controllers.

09:05SPEAKER- That was genuinely rad.

09:06SPEAKER- Yes. - It was really rad.

09:07SPEAKER- Especially in an era where everybody else

09:09SPEAKERwas selling you a pricey add-on

09:10SPEAKERto connect more than two controllers

09:12SPEAKERor even one looking at you in EC.

09:16SPEAKER- Yeah, oof.

09:17SPEAKER- Anyway, video games, old video games, they're pretty cool.

09:20SPEAKER- Speaking of old things, this week,

09:24SPEAKERwe've decided to do a little bit of a walk down memory lane

09:28SPEAKERin honor of the Windows 11, the imminent Windows 11 release.

09:32SPEAKER- Yeah, well, in honor of multiple things,

09:35SPEAKERthe Windows 11 release, your former editor-in-chief-ness

09:39SPEAKERof Maximum PC.

09:40SPEAKER- Yeah, so.

09:42SPEAKER- This is a little bit of a Will Smith,

09:44SPEAKERthis is your life episode.

09:46SPEAKER- Oh God.

09:48SPEAKER- We've been talking about doing one of these for a while.

09:50SPEAKERI think we've thrown this out there before,

09:51SPEAKERlike the idea of going and pulling an old PC magazine

09:54SPEAKERfrom the archives and going through some of the stuff

09:57SPEAKERin there and just kind of chatting about it.

09:58SPEAKERAnd then we were like, hey,

10:00SPEAKERwhy don't we get one of Will's magazines

10:02SPEAKERthat he presided over?

10:03SPEAKERAnd then we were like, hey,

10:04SPEAKERwhy don't we get one that covered one of the Windowses?

10:06SPEAKERSo it's all coming together.

10:07SPEAKER- Yeah, so the choice was between this one

10:09SPEAKERand the one where the Windows XP review was.

10:13SPEAKERAnd we ended up going with the Windows 7 one.

10:15SPEAKER'Cause I think that was, like Windows 10 has been good.

10:18SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

10:20SPEAKER- But I feel like Windows 7,

10:21SPEAKERmaybe Windows 7 was the last great Windows.

10:24SPEAKER- Well, hey, look, we did two whole episodes on this.

10:27SPEAKERThat topic has been settled,

10:28SPEAKERnot that I can call the list to mind right now.

10:31SPEAKER- Look, it was definitive.

10:33SPEAKER- Windows 7 definitely won that.

10:35SPEAKERI don't remember,

10:36SPEAKERbut I think Windows 10 was pretty close to the top.

10:37SPEAKER- Windows 10 seems fine.

10:39SPEAKER- You know what, before we get into this magazine.

10:41SPEAKER- Yeah.

10:44SPEAKER- The occasion of the Windows 11 release.

10:47SPEAKER- You mean Tuesday, October 5th, 2021?

10:49SPEAKER- Yes, two days hence.

10:51SPEAKERNumber one has made me realize it's been so long

10:54SPEAKERthat since we had a Windows release

10:56SPEAKERthat I forgot about the kind of hubbub and frenzy

10:59SPEAKERaround the Windows release day.

11:00SPEAKERLike it's been that long since we had one of those.

11:02SPEAKERWhat is it, like six years?

11:04SPEAKER- Oh, let's see, Windows 10,

11:06SPEAKERWindows 8 came out just after I left Maximum PC,

11:09SPEAKERso that would've been like 2010 or 2011.

11:11SPEAKERI feel like Windows 10 came out as quickly after that

11:14SPEAKERas they possibly could get it out

11:15SPEAKERbecause it was received so poorly.

11:17SPEAKER- 2015, so it's been over six years

11:20SPEAKERsince a Windows release day.

11:22SPEAKERAnd like, it makes me think back.

11:23SPEAKERI mean, you know, they were not...

11:25SPEAKERWell, I mean, look, Windows release day

11:26SPEAKERwas not what it was in 1995

11:28SPEAKERby the time they stopped having them.

11:30SPEAKER- I don't think any of them were.

11:31SPEAKERLike that '95, Windows '95 release was the first real one.

11:35SPEAKERAnd kind of the last big one.

11:36SPEAKER- Well, I think '98 was pretty big.

11:39SPEAKER- No, not like '95.

11:40SPEAKERPeople lined up for '95, man.

11:42SPEAKER- People lined up for, you can find videos

11:43SPEAKERof people at midnight launching Windows '98.

11:46SPEAKERThat's out there.

11:47SPEAKER- Look, people will line up for anything now.

11:49SPEAKERIt's not, it doesn't take,

11:49SPEAKERall you have to do is start a line outside a mall

11:51SPEAKERand it's like three hours later

11:52SPEAKERthere'll be 20 people behind you.

11:53SPEAKER- Just to set up a tent and people will be like,

11:55SPEAKER"Oh man, something must be going on.

11:56SPEAKER"I better stick around."

11:58SPEAKER- Yeah, they got some PlayStation.

11:59SPEAKERYou got them PlayStations?

12:00SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, yeah, like by the time,

12:02SPEAKERyou know, like it was Windows 7, I just mail ordered.

12:04SPEAKERBy the time like Windows 8 came out,

12:06SPEAKERthey were basically just giving it away.

12:07SPEAKERLike it's, but here we are again.

12:10SPEAKERLike it's just, it's been that long

12:11SPEAKERand now it's like, "Oh yeah, right, Windows Day."

12:14SPEAKERThat's kind of fun.

12:15SPEAKER- I was gonna say, just to be clear with Windows 8,

12:17SPEAKERif you clicked the wrong button,

12:18SPEAKERthey'd install it on your computer

12:19SPEAKERwhether you wanted it or not.

12:20SPEAKER- That's right.

12:21SPEAKER- You could fuck up and install Windows 8

12:23SPEAKERon your computer. - That's right.

12:25SPEAKER- And yeah. - Wasn't it a situation

12:27SPEAKERwhere like the wording was very unclear

12:29SPEAKERabout what it was actually gonna do

12:30SPEAKERif you clicked it or something?

12:32SPEAKERLike didn't they have like a very misleading dialogue

12:34SPEAKERthat you could like kind of fall backwards

12:36SPEAKERinto Windows 8 from?

12:37SPEAKER- No, it said you were gonna install Windows 8,

12:39SPEAKERbut I think it would convert your key to a Windows 8 key.

12:41SPEAKERSo then you couldn't go back to Windows 7 if you,

12:44SPEAKER'cause remember it used to be you had to pay for Windowses.

12:49SPEAKERYou know, now in the Windows 7 to Windows 8

12:52SPEAKERto Windows 10 transition, I know that there were multiple,

12:55SPEAKERlike there were quite a few people, I assume,

12:57SPEAKERwho had keys of questionable provenance

13:01SPEAKERwho were able to convert them into fully functional,

13:05SPEAKERlegal Windows 10 keys by using that key upgrade path

13:09SPEAKERthat Microsoft had for a while.

13:10SPEAKERSo anyway.

13:12SPEAKER- I'm still on my Windows 7 key,

13:14SPEAKERlike the one that came with my legitimate bought

13:16SPEAKERfrom mail order copy of Windows 7, I believe,

13:19SPEAKERhas carried all the way over

13:20SPEAKERto my current Windows 10 license.

13:21SPEAKER- That's what, I'm using a Windows,

13:23SPEAKERwhat is almost certainly a Windows 7 key, yeah.

13:25SPEAKERSo the thing that happened though,

13:28SPEAKERlike it was funny going back to these old issues

13:30SPEAKERof maximum PC, like Windows 2000 got a cover story, right?

13:35SPEAKERWindows 98 did not, Windows 95 was before the magazine.

13:39SPEAKERSo like XP got a cover, multiple covers actually.

13:44SPEAKERVista got a couple of covers.

13:47SPEAKER- Good and bad.

13:48SPEAKER- Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 7 got a tips cover,

13:51SPEAKERbut never a review cover.

13:52SPEAKERLike the review hit on this,

13:54SPEAKERlike where there's a multi-page review feature

13:57SPEAKERis Windows 7 reviewed,

14:00SPEAKERis it time to upgrade from XP, question mark.

14:02SPEAKER- Like, okay, so I don't speak magazine.

14:05SPEAKERMaybe you can help me out here.

14:06SPEAKER- Yeah.

14:06SPEAKER- But what the thing on the cover you just quoted,

14:10SPEAKERfirst of all, okay, let me stop myself.

14:11SPEAKERFirst of all, we need to tell people what issue this is

14:13SPEAKERin case they want to pull it up and look at us

14:15SPEAKERwhile we talk about it.

14:16SPEAKER- It's the November, 2009 issue of maximum PC.

14:20SPEAKERWe'll post a link in the show notes

14:22SPEAKERto a PDF that you can download

14:24SPEAKERand look at wherever you may be and wherever you meet,

14:26SPEAKERbut don't do it while you're driving, please.

14:28SPEAKER- So, yeah, you're right, actually.

14:30SPEAKERA lot of people do listen to podcasts

14:32SPEAKERwhile they can't be reading a periodical, don't they?

14:34SPEAKEROops.

14:35SPEAKEROh, well, onward.

14:37SPEAKER- It's fine.

14:37SPEAKER- So yeah, anyway, the thing on the cover

14:39SPEAKERthat you're talking about,

14:40SPEAKERthis Windows 7 reviewed kind of module takes up,

14:44SPEAKERI would estimate maybe like an eighth of the cover?

14:47SPEAKER- It's the secondary hit.

14:49SPEAKERThe main cover for this issue is the 2010 tech preview,

14:52SPEAKERwhich was one of our stalwart newsstand bangers.

14:55SPEAKER- Yes, this promises top secret chip sets,

14:58SPEAKERIntel's new CPUs, AMD's six head video card.

15:03SPEAKER- It had six DVI ports.

15:05SPEAKER- Okay, I assumed that was the meaning of head there,

15:08SPEAKERbut I wasn't sure anyway.

15:09SPEAKER- Oh, sorry, six display ports.

15:10SPEAKERThe thing is you couldn't do that with just DVI

15:14SPEAKERbecause the hardware required to drive the DVI ports,

15:17SPEAKERlike the graphics cards didn't have enough

15:20SPEAKERof the hardware to drive the ports.

15:23SPEAKERSo you had to do it.

15:24SPEAKERIt was a display port only feature.

15:25SPEAKER- That makes sense.

15:26SPEAKER- Now like every mid range card comes with,

15:28SPEAKERI think at least four ports, so anyway.

15:32SPEAKER- Anyway, yeah, like you said,

15:33SPEAKERby the time here we are at Windows 7 reviewed,

15:35SPEAKERit's just a tiny little blip on the cover of your magazine.

15:39SPEAKERLike Windows has gotten both better

15:41SPEAKERand less exciting over time.

15:43SPEAKER- Well, so the next issue was the big Windows 7,

15:45SPEAKERlike here's how to install it.

15:47SPEAKERHere's what to do with it.

15:48SPEAKERHere's a bunch of tips for learning

15:49SPEAKERto make it the way you want,

15:50SPEAKERkind of feature like Windows feature story.

15:53SPEAKERAnd that one was on the cover.

15:54SPEAKERThat was the one we built the big kite for

15:56SPEAKERand got the cherry picker and suspended the kite

15:58SPEAKERfrom the cherry picker at 60 feet in the air.

16:00SPEAKER- But that's still a tips feature though, not a review.

16:03SPEAKER- Okay, reviews as somebody in the games press might say,

16:06SPEAKERreviews it turns out don't really drive traffic.

16:10SPEAKER- Depends.

16:11SPEAKER- Well, the point of all of this,

16:15SPEAKERlike the maximum PC cover design was designed

16:19SPEAKERto sell newsstand copies.

16:21SPEAKERSo we, and everybody thinks newsstand and they're like,

16:25SPEAKERoh yeah, you mean like the guy down there with the cigars

16:28SPEAKERand the, all the magazines.

16:30SPEAKERAnd then there's like the special rack on the top

16:32SPEAKERof the magazines that aren't for kids.

16:34SPEAKER- And pulls the little metal gate down at night

16:37SPEAKERand closes up.

16:37SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

16:38SPEAKERBut really, or maybe airport newsstand

16:40SPEAKERis the other one you might think of,

16:41SPEAKERbut in the US what newsstand means is the row of magazines

16:45SPEAKERat your grocery store.

16:46SPEAKER- Yeah, or Walmart.

16:47SPEAKER- Most, yeah, or maybe Walmart,

16:48SPEAKERbut literally like grocery store sales was like 70%.

16:52SPEAKER- Oh, like literally like the cash register,

16:54SPEAKERthe rack by the cash register.

16:56SPEAKER- No, no, no.

16:57SPEAKERSo rack by the cash register is like people.

16:59SPEAKER- Oh, that's exclusively for like gossip and culture.

17:02SPEAKER- Gossip and soap opera digest and stuff like that.

17:04SPEAKERMost US grocery stores, see you don't realize this

17:07SPEAKER'cause you don't ever go in the aisle,

17:09SPEAKERbut like there's the row with the like greeting cards

17:14SPEAKERand maybe some balloons.

17:15SPEAKERAnd then there's usually mixers at the end

17:17SPEAKERand there's also usually 20 or 30 feet of magazine newsstand.

17:20SPEAKER- Do you think, do they still have that to this day?

17:22SPEAKER- 'Cause my grocery store does,

17:24SPEAKERor at last time I was there two years ago.

17:25SPEAKER- I was in, wow, I guess you're right.

17:29SPEAKERI was in Safeway yesterday

17:31SPEAKERand I don't remember seeing magazines,

17:32SPEAKERbut maybe I just didn't go near the pharmacy.

17:34SPEAKER- So urban Safeway's,

17:35SPEAKERurban grocery stores are the exception.

17:37SPEAKERIf you're in a suburban place where they're like,

17:40SPEAKERthere's a priority in terms of shelf space

17:43SPEAKERand at least when I was working in magazines,

17:46SPEAKERthe grocery store only paid for magazines

17:49SPEAKERthat actually sold.

17:51SPEAKERSo anything that wasn't sold at the end of the month,

17:52SPEAKERthey'd tear the front cover off, send the front cover back

17:55SPEAKERand the rest of them would get shredded

17:57SPEAKERand they didn't pay for anything that was shredded.

17:59SPEAKERSo like a really good sell-through rate on a newsstand,

18:03SPEAKERon a computer and newsstand magazine at that point

18:04SPEAKERwas like 40%.

18:07SPEAKERSo 40% of the issues that you put out in the world

18:10SPEAKERactually sold.

18:10SPEAKER- That's pretty wasteful.

18:13SPEAKER- At airports, like some different venues would sell better.

18:16SPEAKERLike airports sold a really high percentage,

18:18SPEAKERbut it's a relatively low volume

18:19SPEAKERcompared to like the number of great,

18:21SPEAKERlike there's fewer airport newsstands

18:23SPEAKERthan there are grocery stores in the United States.

18:25SPEAKERSo grocery stores is what you were targeting.

18:27SPEAKERSo anyway.

18:29SPEAKER- I guess you're saying there's such a premium

18:31SPEAKERon urban square footage that they're not gonna waste space

18:34SPEAKERon a magazine rack of magazines

18:37SPEAKERthat sell 20% of their copies.

18:39SPEAKER- It's much more likely that they will have

18:41SPEAKERa larger booze aisle than a larger magazine aisle.

18:44SPEAKER- I can attest there's a very large booze aisle

18:47SPEAKERthat leads up to that pharmacy.

18:48SPEAKER- Yeah, there you go.

18:50SPEAKERSo how-to stuff did really well in grocery stores

18:54SPEAKER'cause people wanted to know

18:55SPEAKERhow to get viruses off of their computer

18:57SPEAKERand how to like organize their digital photos

18:59SPEAKERand stuff like that.

19:00SPEAKERAnyway.

19:02SPEAKER- All right, should we crack into this magazine?

19:05SPEAKER- Yeah, this is, like I said, November, 2009,

19:09SPEAKERthe 2010 tech preview.

19:11SPEAKERThis was one of the last issues I edited

19:12SPEAKER'cause shortly after this I left to start testing.

19:15SPEAKER- Wait, so you were still beardless even when you left?

19:19SPEAKER- I grew the- - I-

19:20SPEAKER- Did you literally grow the beard

19:23SPEAKERin between leaving Max PC and going to test it?

19:25SPEAKER'Cause I don't ever remember you being there

19:26SPEAKERwithout a beard.

19:28SPEAKER- I was never tested without a beard.

19:30SPEAKERI grew the beard toward the,

19:32SPEAKERover the probably holiday break at maximum PC in December.

19:35SPEAKER- That would have been like a month or two after this

19:37SPEAKER'cause-

19:38SPEAKER- Probably five 'cause we usually were like three months,

19:41SPEAKERthis issue would have probably come out in like August.

19:43SPEAKER- Okay.

19:44SPEAKER- Would be my guess for August or early September.

19:45SPEAKER- Oh, hit stands in August?

19:46SPEAKER- Yeah, hit stands in August.

19:47SPEAKER- For November?

19:49SPEAKER- Wow. - For November cover.

19:50SPEAKER- Interesting, okay.

19:51SPEAKER- Yeah, they were always at least two months

19:53SPEAKERand usually three months ahead

19:54SPEAKERdepending on what time of year it was.

19:55SPEAKER- Huh, okay.

19:56SPEAKER- And remember, we also did 13 issues a year.

19:58SPEAKERSo we did a November, a December,

20:01SPEAKERand then there would be like a January, December issue

20:04SPEAKERthat was at the end end of the year

20:06SPEAKERthat came out in like November.

20:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

20:08SPEAKER- Well, regardless, here you are above this,

20:12SPEAKERdo you just call this an editorial?

20:13SPEAKER- Yeah, this is just this editorial.

20:15SPEAKER- The Ed word, according to this.

20:18SPEAKER- We almost hired an editor named Ed

20:20SPEAKERso that it would be an even funnier.

20:22SPEAKER- That would have been, yeah, good stuff.

20:24SPEAKERWell, here you are without a beard.

20:27SPEAKERDeclaring I am not nor have I ever been a fan boy.

20:31SPEAKER- It's true.

20:31SPEAKER- So, okay, there's a couple of things here.

20:34SPEAKERFirst of all, you list out the genus and species

20:40SPEAKERof what you see as the common groups of fanboys.

20:43SPEAKER- This is a common editorial trope.

20:46SPEAKER- Uh-huh, so I thought maybe we could revisit,

20:49SPEAKERyou could revisit your categorizations here.

20:51SPEAKER- You're gonna make me do this?

20:52SPEAKER- Tell me what you think about how they've aged.

20:53SPEAKER- Oh man, okay.

20:54SPEAKER- The other thing, before we get to that though,

20:56SPEAKERI just wanna make sure I understand.

20:58SPEAKERSo reading the first couple of paragraphs of this,

21:01SPEAKERyou're talking about backlash from fanboys

21:03SPEAKERto your Windows 7 review.

21:06SPEAKER- Yeah, so-- - Just to be clear,

21:07SPEAKERto be clear, you are talking about the same Windows 7 review

21:09SPEAKERthat appears in this very same issue, right?

21:11SPEAKER- I am, it was a weird time.

21:15SPEAKER'Cause we would do things like actually publish

21:19SPEAKERtimely content earlier online

21:22SPEAKERthan it would appear in the magazine.

21:24SPEAKER- Right, so you basically spell that out in here.

21:25SPEAKERI just wanted to make sure I understood

21:27SPEAKER'cause that is like kind of a strange, not common practice

21:30SPEAKERor back then I guess it wasn't, but like, yeah,

21:32SPEAKERyou're literally saying here,

21:34SPEAKERyou'd already posted that magazine review of Windows 7

21:36SPEAKERon the website and had time to receive

21:39SPEAKERa bunch of complaints from people

21:41SPEAKERbefore this issue went to print.

21:43SPEAKER- So one of the things,

21:45SPEAKERone of the challenges of running a tech magazine

21:47SPEAKERat this time and also having the website,

21:49SPEAKER'cause at the time the website

21:50SPEAKERwas growing at a spectacular rate.

21:52SPEAKERLike Norm, we had built a small team to work on the website.

21:55SPEAKERWe had a bunch of freelancers writing for us

21:57SPEAKERand it was a lot of the model that we brought over to Tested,

21:59SPEAKERyou know, like having a couple of people on staff

22:02SPEAKERmanaging a large team of freelancers

22:03SPEAKERwho were generating a lot of good stories for us.

22:07SPEAKERThe trick was we would often write stuff for one side

22:14SPEAKERand then put it on the other as a,

22:17SPEAKERso like if you packaged it a little bit differently

22:19SPEAKERon the web, then it would do really well.

22:21SPEAKERIf you just put it up as a rip of a magazine article,

22:23SPEAKERit would be goofy and nobody would go for it.

22:26SPEAKERBut yeah, so like the Windows review basically,

22:29SPEAKERas soon as it was copy edited, it went up on the website.

22:32SPEAKERAnd this editorial was usually near the last thing

22:36SPEAKERthat came in, 'cause we would leave,

22:40SPEAKERlike there were certain sections that we would leave

22:42SPEAKERuntil the very last minutes,

22:43SPEAKERjust so they could be as timely as possible.

22:45SPEAKER'Cause you know, it was usually after you wrote

22:49SPEAKERthe last of the copy,

22:50SPEAKERthere's usually at least two or three more days

22:51SPEAKERof copy editing and production where you're making

22:53SPEAKERlike the proofs that go to the printer and stuff like that.

22:56SPEAKERAnd then there would also, then there'd be two weeks of,

23:00SPEAKERa week of printing and two weeks of distribution.

23:02SPEAKERSo the earliest you could possibly see,

23:05SPEAKERlike the first issues that went off the line

23:07SPEAKERwould go out to places usually about two weeks

23:09SPEAKERafter we pressed send on the,

23:12SPEAKERwhere it would arrive at like, we'd get the first boxes

23:16SPEAKERand then the first distributors would have the first boxes

23:19SPEAKERto the nearest grocery stores

23:20SPEAKERabout two weeks after we published.

23:23SPEAKER- So in other words, plenty of time

23:24SPEAKERfor what you described here as Windows XP fanboys

23:27SPEAKERto get in touch with you before print.

23:30SPEAKER- The shocking thing about the Windows 7 review

23:33SPEAKERwas not that there were Windows XP fanboys,

23:35SPEAKER'cause I knew that.

23:36SPEAKERLike, look, realistically,

23:38SPEAKEReverybody at this time was a Windows XP fan

23:40SPEAKER'cause Windows Vista was bad.

23:43SPEAKER- Well, sure.

23:44SPEAKER- Except.

23:45SPEAKER- Okay, sorry, I don't wanna get ahead of you.

23:47SPEAKERI think I know where you're going with this.

23:49SPEAKER- Yeah, except like the number one complaint

23:51SPEAKERwe got about this review was from the people that were like,

23:53SPEAKERI can't believe you slagged Windows Vista.

23:55SPEAKER- Right, that's what I couldn't prepare myself for

23:58SPEAKERwas the Windows Vista fanboy is what you say here.

24:01SPEAKER- It's shocking.

24:02SPEAKER- Like, well, but yes, but okay,

24:06SPEAKERI'm starting to see a method here.

24:09SPEAKERThe very first type of fanboy you identify

24:12SPEAKERis exactly the type of person

24:13SPEAKERwho would stand for Windows Vista.

24:16SPEAKER- Yeah, look, looking back at this now

24:19SPEAKERwith an extra 11 or 12 years of time

24:23SPEAKERbetween when it was written and now,

24:25SPEAKERlike there's been multiple phases

24:28SPEAKERof this kind of like tech tribalism or brand tribalism

24:33SPEAKERgetting real ugly and like legitimately bad

24:36SPEAKERinstead of just kind of like annoying and funny.

24:38SPEAKERSo this feels really naive at this point.

24:43SPEAKER- Yeah, sure, I can see it.

24:46SPEAKERI feel like I'm ready for some PlayStation 5

24:49SPEAKERor Xbox Series X fanboy to like track somebody down

24:52SPEAKERand beat them up at some point.

24:55SPEAKERLike, I don't know if you've seen the sniping

24:56SPEAKERbetween console fanboys on Twitter these days

24:59SPEAKERis like getting a little bit disturbing.

25:02SPEAKER- I mean, look, the point of all of this,

25:06SPEAKERokay, so part of my take at this period in my life

25:09SPEAKERwas the best way to know you'd done something right

25:12SPEAKERwas if everybody was complaining about you.

25:15SPEAKERLike if people were complaining

25:16SPEAKERthat you were too easy on the product

25:17SPEAKERand that you were too hard on the product,

25:19SPEAKERyou'd probably done a pretty good job.

25:20SPEAKER- I guess so, yes, I can't disagree with you philosophically

25:23SPEAKERI was never able to actually internalize that lesson though.

25:26SPEAKERWell, like to this day, it's tough.

25:31SPEAKER- It's, yes, I mean, it was weird

25:36SPEAKERbecause like the magazine, the feedback,

25:38SPEAKERwhen we were only working on the magazine

25:40SPEAKERbefore we did the website,

25:41SPEAKERthe feedback cycle was so kind of like separated

25:47SPEAKERfrom the actual process of making the magazine.

25:51SPEAKER'Cause like you wouldn't get people

25:52SPEAKERreally complaining about stuff

25:53SPEAKERfor like a month or month and a half

25:54SPEAKERafter you finished the issue.

25:56SPEAKER- Right.

25:57SPEAKER- That like, it was easy to just say, yeah, okay, whatever.

26:01SPEAKER- Right, like that issue is so far

26:02SPEAKERin the review at this point, it's like, ah, whatever, fine.

26:05SPEAKER- Yeah, but when we went to the web, it was immediate

26:08SPEAKERand it was a little bit of an adjustment.

26:10SPEAKER- Yeah, okay, so the first type here, the underdog.

26:13SPEAKER- Yeah.

26:14SPEAKER- The underdog throws his weight behind the long shot

26:18SPEAKERas a self-described hopeless romantics.

26:20SPEAKERUnderdogs shift allegiances with nearly every product cycle.

26:25SPEAKER- That seems right.

26:26SPEAKER- It's pretty spot on.

26:27SPEAKERThere are always those products

26:30SPEAKERthat are like so hopelessly out of the running,

26:34SPEAKERbut yet still have their incredibly devoted fans, right?

26:37SPEAKER- Chumby fans.

26:38SPEAKER- I'm sorry, what?

26:39SPEAKER- The Chumby fans are a strange group.

26:41SPEAKER- Chumby?

26:42SPEAKER- Chumby was I think Bunny Huang's post Xbox hacking startup.

26:48SPEAKERIt was like a little digital console

26:51SPEAKERthat was like an ambient information display.

26:53SPEAKER- Sure, like somebody loved the Ouya to death.

26:57SPEAKER- Yeah, people love the shit out of the Ouya.

26:59SPEAKERDon't say anything bad about the Ouya.

27:00SPEAKERWe don't want those people here, Brad.

27:01SPEAKER- I mean, so I almost want to suggest

27:05SPEAKERlike a subcategory here.

27:07SPEAKER- Okay.

27:08SPEAKER- People that continue to support underdogs

27:11SPEAKEReven after they have like been buried.

27:13SPEAKERLike the people that are still out there

27:15SPEAKERtrying to get relatively modern games

27:17SPEAKERrunning on old 3D effects cards and stuff like that.

27:20SPEAKER- Yep, those are historians I think.

27:22SPEAKER- Oh, sure, we'll get, okay.

27:23SPEAKER- Yeah, we'll get there.

27:24SPEAKER- I don't want to spend too much time

27:25SPEAKERon this one editorial, but yeah.

27:26SPEAKER- The funny thing about this is probably something

27:28SPEAKERI literally wrote like the night before it was due

27:30SPEAKERin about 45 minutes and I was like, this is pretty funny.

27:33SPEAKERLike this is a good way to kick off the issue.

27:35SPEAKER- I get it.

27:37SPEAKERWho was the investor?

27:40SPEAKER- The investor is somebody who researches a product greatly,

27:44SPEAKERspends their, before they spend their money

27:46SPEAKERand then once they spend their money,

27:48SPEAKERthey are devoutly committed to defending that product

27:53SPEAKERagainst all comers, new and old for all eternity

27:56SPEAKERuntil they buy the next thing.

27:57SPEAKER- Yes.

27:59SPEAKERThis, okay, I see here, yes, that you say this person

28:02SPEAKERhas invested both their money

28:03SPEAKERand their self-worth in the product.

28:05SPEAKER- Yeah, this is a little grim

28:07SPEAKERnow that I'm reading this again.

28:08SPEAKERThat is absolutely the core, the backbone of fanboyism

28:13SPEAKERto me has always been people integrating their self-worth

28:15SPEAKERinto their purchasing decisions.

28:18SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like, it's weird for me to be judgy

28:20SPEAKERabout this though, 'cause especially at this time,

28:22SPEAKERlike I hardly spent any money on hardware ever.

28:26SPEAKERLike we would have like the lab,

28:28SPEAKERwe had lab budget to buy stuff and we would just,

28:32SPEAKERwhen stuff got retired or we didn't need the lab anymore,

28:34SPEAKERit would just leak out to people's systems at home,

28:39SPEAKERwhich was fair 'cause we did use them to test hardware.

28:41SPEAKERLike we were testing stuff all over the place,

28:43SPEAKERbut like, yeah, I get it, but also buy what's good

28:48SPEAKERand then just stop caring about what you bought

28:51SPEAKERafter you bought it, it's fine.

28:53SPEAKER- Yeah, and if somebody else comes along

28:54SPEAKERand makes something better, then get that instead.

28:56SPEAKER- Or get that, yeah, you have like, it's good

28:58SPEAKER'cause the next time there'll be something nicer

28:59SPEAKERthan what you have already, anyway.

29:01SPEAKERAnyway, all right, let's just whip through the last couple,

29:05SPEAKERthree of these, who was the contrarian?

29:08SPEAKERJust, well, that's pretty self-explanatory.

29:10SPEAKER- Yeah, they just like stuff 'cause I don't.

29:12SPEAKER- They're trolls.

29:13SPEAKER- Yeah, shit posters.

29:14SPEAKER- Yes, okay, I'm just gonna say this right now,

29:17SPEAKERI am not an antiquarian.

29:19SPEAKER- Brad, I got bad news for you, but-

29:20SPEAKER- Dude, I am not.

29:21SPEAKER- Okay, yeah, I think you're, look, I don't,

29:27SPEAKERA, I don't think you're a fanboy.

29:28SPEAKER- Okay.

29:30SPEAKER- B, I don't think, I think you are a careful purchaser.

29:35SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, I mean, dude, trust me,

29:37SPEAKERI do mountains of hardware research for that, I think.

29:41SPEAKER- I am aware.

29:42SPEAKER- I mean, I like knowing about stuff, I like researching.

29:45SPEAKERMore than anything, though,

29:46SPEAKERespecially when it comes to PC stuff,

29:48SPEAKERI like for things to work.

29:50SPEAKERI like for everything I buy to actually work together

29:52SPEAKERand be compatible and have a stable PC,

29:55SPEAKERand doing a bunch of research up front

29:58SPEAKERhas served me very well over the years

30:00SPEAKERin terms of PCs that last and are very stable.

30:04SPEAKER- Well, so the thing about the antiquarian was,

30:06SPEAKERat Maximum PC, we were a print magazine,

30:08SPEAKERso our audience skewed a little bit older.

30:10SPEAKER- Okay, now I see where this is going.

30:12SPEAKER- And we would get a lot of, man,

30:15SPEAKERthis Windows 7 is overpriced crap.

30:17SPEAKERIt just doesn't run on my 386 SX25, man.

30:21SPEAKERLike, Windows was so much faster in the 3.1 days

30:24SPEAKERbefore they added all that taskbar nonsense.

30:27SPEAKERAnd to be honest, like, I can do everything I need to do

30:29SPEAKERfrom the command line to the DOS, it's all there.

30:33SPEAKER- I mean, their preference for the command line,

30:35SPEAKERI think, has been vindicated in recent years, but--

30:38SPEAKER- Your proclivities aside, like, this was a,

30:43SPEAKERlike, these people, I was thinking about specific people

30:46SPEAKERon the Maximum PC forums when I was writing this article.

30:48SPEAKER- Okay, that's fair.

30:49SPEAKERI mean, the operative line here is,

30:51SPEAKERantiquarians can frequently be found dumpster diving

30:53SPEAKERbehind fries looking for, quote, perfectly serviceable parts

30:56SPEAKERthat are, quote, just 10 years old.

30:59SPEAKERI don't seek out old things, it's just,

31:01SPEAKERif I have something old that is still working fine,

31:03SPEAKERsuch as a pair of speakers.

31:05SPEAKER- Yeah, you're a part antiquarian.

31:08SPEAKERThe sneer quote's there, I apologize for.

31:10SPEAKER- Okay, and then the historian.

31:13SPEAKER- Yeah, this is, everybody knows folks like this.

31:17SPEAKER- That's the retro enthusiast.

31:19SPEAKER- Yeah, Jeff Bacalar is in this category.

31:21SPEAKER- Okay, sure.

31:22SPEAKER- Right, you got your--

31:24SPEAKER- There's a whole cottage industry

31:25SPEAKERon YouTube now of historians.

31:27SPEAKER- You got a record player and you got a Sony reference

31:31SPEAKERmonitor with SCART cables.

31:33SPEAKERMaybe you're an antiquarian, maybe a historian.

31:35SPEAKER- Retro computing enthusiasts, let's say.

31:39SPEAKER- Yeah, and then I closed this one.

31:41SPEAKERI often would write two outs to see if it was too smarmy.

31:45SPEAKERI was going through old Google docs while we were preparing

31:48SPEAKERfor this and I found one that was like,

31:50SPEAKERhey, I think this outro might be too smarmy,

31:52SPEAKERso I'm gonna give you another alternative just in case.

31:57SPEAKERI think I closed the tab unfortunately,

31:59SPEAKERbut yeah, it was weird writing that.

32:03SPEAKER- I just had a really weird time compression dilation moment

32:05SPEAKERhearing you say that because in my mind,

32:08SPEAKERI mean, we are sitting here looking at a PDF

32:10SPEAKERof a print magazine that we pull off of archive.org.

32:13SPEAKER- Yeah, that is correct.

32:14SPEAKER- So in my mind, this magazine is a bajillion years old

32:17SPEAKERand yet here you are sitting here telling me

32:20SPEAKERyou are going into like still extant Google docs

32:23SPEAKERthat you have from when you were working on this magazine.

32:26SPEAKERBut like, does that make sense?

32:28SPEAKERLike in my mind, a print magazine is way older

32:30SPEAKERthan Google docs and yet here you are.

32:32SPEAKER- Oh yeah, no.

32:33SPEAKER- You know what I mean?

32:34SPEAKERThis magazine might as well be from the mid nineties

32:36SPEAKERas far as my brain is concerned.

32:39SPEAKERSo the idea that you were already using Google docs

32:40SPEAKERto make this thing that we are looking at

32:42SPEAKERthat's now very old is upsetting.

32:46SPEAKER- So here's the one, the one that I found,

32:50SPEAKERI can't, I don't know what it was from.

32:51SPEAKERIt was from, I don't know when, doesn't say,

32:56SPEAKER'cause Google docs was weird back then.

32:59SPEAKERBut it said, oh, it was me talking about how hard it was

33:04SPEAKERto work at Maximum PC.

33:05SPEAKERThis one's terrible, I apologize for this one too.

33:08SPEAKERAnd I was complaining about having to go out

33:10SPEAKERand buy new hardware, not for me, but for the readers,

33:13SPEAKERwhich is maybe the worst thing.

33:14SPEAKERThis is maybe the worst thing I've ever written.

33:17SPEAKERAnd like, I talk about how there's this ultra thin,

33:20SPEAKERone inch thick Toshiba, three pound laptop,

33:23SPEAKERwhich before the MacBook Air was a real novelty.

33:25SPEAKERAnd I had to send the review sample back.

33:28SPEAKERI was like, I'm gonna have to go buy a new one of these

33:30SPEAKER'cause I can't go back to a 10 pound laptop

33:31SPEAKERafter using this thing.

33:33SPEAKERAnd the ending that I was like,

33:36SPEAKERthis is probably too smarmy is,

33:38SPEAKERso as I sit back on the couch,

33:39SPEAKERwatching my high def streaming video

33:41SPEAKERand barely noticing the weight of this new laptop,

33:43SPEAKERdon't feel sorry for me, just know how much I care.

33:45SPEAKER(laughing)

33:49SPEAKER- To be clear, that's the one you did not run?

33:51SPEAKER- I, you know, I was afraid to go look, I'll be honest.

33:54SPEAKER- Okay, well, you see, you seem to have survived, but.

33:57SPEAKER- It was fine, I was an asshole.

33:59SPEAKER- Yes, I appreciate your willingness to prostrate yourself

34:03SPEAKERon the altar of podcast entertainment.

34:06SPEAKER- Look, I think this is no worse

34:07SPEAKERthan when we dug through your Usenet history, so.

34:09SPEAKER- Yes, I suppose that's true.

34:10SPEAKEROkay, I'm sorry, I didn't,

34:11SPEAKERI did not mean to spend like a 10th that long

34:14SPEAKERon that editorial 'cause we've got some actual content

34:17SPEAKERin the magazine here to talk about.

34:19SPEAKER- Yeah, this was a kind of interesting issue

34:21SPEAKERbecause it had the tech preview for 2010.

34:25SPEAKERI mean, do we want to do that first

34:26SPEAKERor do we want to do Windows 7 first, I guess?

34:28SPEAKER- Yeah, we could kind of go in order here.

34:30SPEAKERLike, I looked through, I mean, like there's,

34:32SPEAKERthere's a news story here that's like the,

34:34SPEAKERkind of the news out of SIGGRAPH.

34:36SPEAKER- Mm, is that the Opti-X thing?

34:38SPEAKER- Yes, Opti-X, yes, that was a,

34:40SPEAKERthat was like an offline ray tracing renderer from Nvidia.

34:43SPEAKER- So offline means it's not running at real time.

34:45SPEAKER- Yes, offline as in like it pre-renders all the stuff out.

34:48SPEAKERLike the end of this article,

34:49SPEAKERdon't expect to see ray traced games using this engine.

34:52SPEAKERLike I thought that was kind of ironic

34:53SPEAKERconsidering how fast Nvidia got to ray traced games.

34:56SPEAKER- Well, it took 12 years.

34:58SPEAKER- Yeah, but that's like, we've talked about it before,

35:00SPEAKERbut like I knew people who knew what was going on

35:03SPEAKERwith graphics 20 years ago, who said like,

35:06SPEAKERwe will never see, we will not see ray traced games

35:08SPEAKERin real time in our lifetimes.

35:09SPEAKERLike they were convinced of that.

35:11SPEAKER- Yeah.

35:12SPEAKER- And granted the current, you know,

35:12SPEAKERthe current ray tracing takes a lot of shortcuts,

35:15SPEAKERbut it is ray tracing.

35:17SPEAKER- Yeah, it's, so this is pretty cool.

35:21SPEAKERI was surprised, like, I mean,

35:25SPEAKERthe thing that this ends with that I think is true

35:27SPEAKERand Jason Cross wrote this piece, Jason's a smart guy.

35:30SPEAKERHe was at Extreme Tech at the time, I think.

35:32SPEAKERIt's not hard to imagine consumer applications

35:34SPEAKERlike games incorporating a few ray tracing effects

35:36SPEAKERin the not too distant future when we have GPUs

35:39SPEAKERwith even greater general computation capabilities

35:42SPEAKERalong with programming standards,

35:43SPEAKERlike OpenCL and DirectX compute shaders,

35:46SPEAKERwhich were relatively new.

35:47SPEAKERCUDA, I don't think was there.

35:49SPEAKERMaybe CUDA was just starting.

35:50SPEAKERThis was around the time too,

35:52SPEAKERwhen we were starting to see support

35:54SPEAKERfor GPU accelerated video encodes.

35:59SPEAKERLike prior to this point, all that stuff ran on the CPU

36:01SPEAKERfor the most part,

36:02SPEAKERor you had to have a dedicated hardware encoder.

36:04SPEAKER- Right.

36:06SPEAKER- So yeah.

36:07SPEAKER- This was before we all realized that NVIDIA

36:08SPEAKERwants to cover every single function in your PC.

36:10SPEAKER- Exactly.

36:11SPEAKER- Not just graphics.

36:13SPEAKERAnyway, like a lot of these little news tidbits here

36:15SPEAKERare like new lithium ion batteries

36:19SPEAKERand kind of DVD copy protection.

36:23SPEAKERThey're like a lot of very antiquated news stuff

36:25SPEAKERthat I don't know is super interesting here.

36:28SPEAKER- It was a lot of copy protection stuff then still.

36:31SPEAKERIt was before, this was before streaming was a thing.

36:33SPEAKERIf you recall, like Netflix was still sending DVDs

36:35SPEAKERto everybody all the time.

36:36SPEAKER- Yes.

36:37SPEAKER- So weird time.

36:39SPEAKERAnd there also weren't really any end points for video.

36:44SPEAKERLike there were no common platforms

36:46SPEAKERyou could install like a Netflix app

36:48SPEAKERor something like that on.

36:49SPEAKERSo there was no,

36:50SPEAKEReven if you could watch Netflix on your PC,

36:52SPEAKERwhich I think they maybe had rolled out by this point,

36:55SPEAKERthere was no way to watch it on the TV

36:56SPEAKERunless you literally built a PC

36:58SPEAKERand plugged it in there into your TV.

37:00SPEAKER- I'm trying to think what the first thing

37:02SPEAKERI watched Netflix on was.

37:03SPEAKERWas it probably an Xbox 360?

37:06SPEAKER- Could have been the Wii.

37:07SPEAKERI feel like that one may have been even before the 360.

37:10SPEAKER- It must've been a game console.

37:11SPEAKERThat's the only thing I can think of

37:13SPEAKERunless...

37:14SPEAKER- Well Roku had boxes out prior,

37:16SPEAKERbut that was...

37:17SPEAKER- Did Apple TV exist?

37:19SPEAKER- Apple TV existed.

37:20SPEAKERThe white Apple TV didn't have a Netflix client,

37:23SPEAKERbut the first Pucky one did.

37:26SPEAKERThe one that doesn't run the Apple TV OS.

37:28SPEAKER- Yeah.

37:29SPEAKERThis whole magazine is a trip

37:30SPEAKERbecause it's like, it's old enough to feel antiquated.

37:34SPEAKER- Yeah.

37:35SPEAKER- But new enough to feel like it wasn't that long ago.

37:37SPEAKERLike, does that make sense?

37:38SPEAKER- Yeah, I know.

37:39SPEAKER- It just sounds like a basic contradiction,

37:40SPEAKERbut like this feels both like recent and old

37:42SPEAKERat the same time.

37:43SPEAKER- Well, so like the CPU and the tech preview

37:46SPEAKERis the first post Nahalem chips from Intel.

37:51SPEAKER- Right.

37:51SPEAKER- Which we're talking about Core i7.

37:53SPEAKER- Right.

37:54SPEAKERWe're talking about Core i7s for CPU.

37:55SPEAKERI guess that's really what it is,

37:56SPEAKERis like, we still use Netflix.

37:58SPEAKERWe still have Core i7s, you know,

38:00SPEAKERlike a lot of the foundational stuff in here,

38:04SPEAKERyou know, Twitter, you don't mention Twitter in here,

38:06SPEAKERbut like Twitter, we were already on there at this point.

38:08SPEAKERRight?

38:09SPEAKERAnd we still are.

38:10SPEAKERLike a lot of these brands and platforms

38:11SPEAKERand companies have lasted for kind of a long time

38:14SPEAKERat this point.

38:15SPEAKER- Well, and this was the beginning of the,

38:18SPEAKERwhat is the current, still the current Intel architecture

38:21SPEAKERwhere like Northbridge stuff is all brought into the CPU.

38:24SPEAKERSo you have, you know,

38:26SPEAKERyour number of PCI express lanes is determined

38:28SPEAKERby the CPU you buy and like the socket,

38:31SPEAKERit determines whether you have the enthusiast i9 part

38:34SPEAKERor the low middle range i7 part.

38:38SPEAKER- Yeah.

38:39SPEAKERAnd they kind of backed off of that stuff

38:41SPEAKERand then made it much more confusing,

38:43SPEAKERlike a couple of generations down the line.

38:45SPEAKERBut like this talks about PCI express three,

38:48SPEAKERwhich is still current on Intel

38:51SPEAKERand has just been resplanted on AMD.

38:53SPEAKERIt talks about DirectX 11 being the next thing

38:58SPEAKERand talking about tessellation,

38:59SPEAKERwhich every game you played last year uses tessellation.

39:03SPEAKERAnd like most unreal engine games on PC,

39:05SPEAKERunless they use ray tracing or something

39:07SPEAKERthat's DX 12 specific are still probably

39:09SPEAKERshipping DX 11 renderers.

39:12SPEAKER- Like sure, like for sure.

39:14SPEAKER- It's just shocking.

39:16SPEAKERIt's talking about the Xbox 360 GPU being tired,

39:21SPEAKERbut this like adding tessellation to DX 11

39:23SPEAKERwas basically the last of the 360 GPU features

39:25SPEAKERthat we didn't have on windows in DirectX

39:27SPEAKERat that point as I recall.

39:29SPEAKER- I mean, a lot of the stuff plateaued, right?

39:30SPEAKERLike, I mean, not that there's not,

39:32SPEAKERnot that there isn't more to do in graphics,

39:34SPEAKERbut like a lot of the stuff hit a good enough point

39:37SPEAKERwhere like, like now we have a base

39:39SPEAKERof very workable technology that like we can add on to,

39:42SPEAKERbut it doesn't need to change

39:44SPEAKERlike from the ground up anymore.

39:45SPEAKER- It's feature complete.

39:47SPEAKER- Right.

39:47SPEAKER- Right, like the compute shaders became,

39:50SPEAKERlike the changes to shader models and stuff like that

39:52SPEAKERbecame incremental rather than kind of evolutionary.

39:56SPEAKER- Right, like that's why we haven't seen a new DirectX

39:59SPEAKERin a very long time, right?

40:01SPEAKER- Yeah, it is.

40:02SPEAKERAnd it probably won't until something major changes.

40:05SPEAKER- But we have been continuing to extend,

40:07SPEAKERlike there's ray tracing extensions for DirectX

40:09SPEAKERthat weren't even a sparkle in somebody's eye at this point.

40:12SPEAKER- Right, but there's no need to roll out a DirectX 13

40:14SPEAKERor a, well, until recently I would have said a Windows 11,

40:18SPEAKERalthough here we are.

40:21SPEAKER- But there are places where there's big change.

40:23SPEAKERLike at this point we're talking about

40:25SPEAKERlike people building game,

40:27SPEAKERbuilding machines with 64 gig SSDs as the C drive.

40:30SPEAKER- Yes, that's one of the big things in this tech preview.

40:35SPEAKERI guess we're officially on this tech,

40:36SPEAKERoh, sorry, I meant to be throwing out page numbers

40:38SPEAKERfor all this stuff.

40:39SPEAKER- Oh.

40:40SPEAKER- The tech preview starts on page 22.

40:45SPEAKER- 22, 23, okay.

40:47SPEAKER- Spread, Brad, give the picture it's due, sir.

40:49SPEAKER- Sorry.

40:50SPEAKERThat's a--

40:52SPEAKER- You took a lot of time to take that,

40:53SPEAKERthat's my, that boom arm there is my soldering iron.

40:57SPEAKER- Oh, wow.

40:58SPEAKER- We're building the dummy CPU.

40:59SPEAKER- That's cool.

41:00SPEAKERMan, I bet taking pictures for magazines is fun.

41:02SPEAKER- Like, I'm gonna go and tell you the best part

41:04SPEAKERabout working on magazines was getting to figure out

41:06SPEAKERcool art ideas for opening spreads and stuff like that.

41:09SPEAKER- That sounds like a lot of fun.

41:10SPEAKER- 'Cause like that, like the shots for this thing

41:12SPEAKERwe would have spent a few hours,

41:14SPEAKERwe would have spent a half a day at least on probably.

41:16SPEAKER- For the whole magazine?

41:17SPEAKER- No, for this--

41:18SPEAKER- Or for one picture?

41:19SPEAKEROr for one set of pictures, one feature?

41:20SPEAKER- Yeah, this feature.

41:21SPEAKER- Okay.

41:23SPEAKERBut yeah, yeah, so this is the tech preview on page 22,

41:25SPEAKERbut yeah, like one of the big things in here

41:27SPEAKERis SSDs getting fat, like SATA three is big in here.

41:31SPEAKER- Six gigabit per second SATA, SS bigger, faster,

41:35SPEAKERsolid stadier drives.

41:37SPEAKERLike this is kind of when SSDs first happened, right?

41:40SPEAKER- So SSDs had been around for a little bit,

41:42SPEAKERbut they were very, very small

41:44SPEAKERand they were really expensive.

41:45SPEAKER- I guess by happened, I mean went mainstream,

41:47SPEAKERlike it got to the point where a lot of people

41:50SPEAKERwere starting to buy them for their boot drive,

41:52SPEAKERwhich to this day is one of the,

41:53SPEAKERmaybe the best PC upgrade that's ever happened.

41:56SPEAKER- Oh, it's easily the best PC upgrade that's ever happened.

41:58SPEAKERAnd at this point, just to be clear,

42:01SPEAKERreviewed later in this issue is the Intel X25M

42:05SPEAKER160 gigabyte MLC SSD.

42:07SPEAKERSo it's there at that point, Intel was a market leader.

42:12SPEAKERIt was $440 for 160 gigabyte SSD.

42:16SPEAKER- Oh, yeah, that's a lot.

42:19SPEAKER- But like, it was something you saw

42:20SPEAKERan immediate improvement on.

42:22SPEAKERAnd that was a big SSD for the time, just to be clear,

42:24SPEAKERlike 64 gig was pretty standard

42:27SPEAKERif you were spending money on SSD.

42:31SPEAKER- We talked a little bit about hybrid drives,

42:32SPEAKERwhich has already kind of come and gone.

42:35SPEAKERAnd it was unclear that the SSDs at this point,

42:38SPEAKERwere gonna connect directly to the PCI express box

42:40SPEAKERwith NVMe.

42:41SPEAKER- Yes, there is no mention of that.

42:42SPEAKERI mean, like I said, SATA3 is brand new in this thing.

42:46SPEAKER- We're talking about like serial attached SCSI

42:47SPEAKERand fiber channel and stuff like that

42:49SPEAKERto make them faster at this point still.

42:52SPEAKER- Speaking of AMD, you were talking about Intel stuff.

42:56SPEAKERThere are new AMD cores in here based on Bulldozer,

42:58SPEAKERwhich is a name I sure as hell haven't heard in a long time.

43:02SPEAKERPeople don't look back too fondly on that era of AMD, right?

43:05SPEAKER- Kind of a bad time for AMD as I recall.

43:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

43:10SPEAKERAlso like 32 nanometers CPUs are seen as advanced here.

43:16SPEAKER- Yeah, like it's funny how much process tech improved

43:24SPEAKERover the last 10 years when we've been hearing

43:26SPEAKERthat we were up against the wall for a really long time.

43:29SPEAKERLet's see, there's mentions of Larrabee in here.

43:32SPEAKER- Right.

43:33SPEAKER- Larrabee was Intel's x86 based GPU

43:35SPEAKERthat was rumored for a long time then kind of announced

43:39SPEAKERthen just disappeared.

43:40SPEAKER- Sorry, I have to read the line from the graphics page

43:43SPEAKERof this tech preview.

43:45SPEAKER- Okay.

43:45SPEAKER- Both AMD and Nvidia are racing to get their new GPUs out

43:48SPEAKERbecause the 900 pound gorilla that is Intel

43:51SPEAKERis readying its own GPU code named Larrabee.

43:54SPEAKER- Yep.

43:55SPEAKER- Was it unlikely to ship until Q1 or Q2 of 2010?

43:59SPEAKER- Yeah, it sure was unlikely to ship.

44:01SPEAKER- Unlikely to ship it turned out.

44:02SPEAKER- Was it really seen as like the GeForce and Radeon killer?

44:06SPEAKER- So Intel, the problem with Intel, I'd say problem

44:11SPEAKERbut I mean, it's also the good thing about Intel.

44:13SPEAKERThe problem with Intel is when they came into markets

44:15SPEAKERthey usually just utterly dominated them.

44:17SPEAKERSo like the assumption was that Intel wasn't going to enter

44:21SPEAKERinto GPUs again unless they could come in

44:23SPEAKERand just absolutely stomp the shit out of everything

44:25SPEAKERthat AMD and Nvidia had.

44:28SPEAKERAnd because they were doing modified x86

44:30SPEAKERthere was this assumption that there was also gonna like,

44:33SPEAKERlike presumably could have accelerated.

44:34SPEAKERAnyway, they were a bunch of like little baby x86 cores

44:38SPEAKERrunning massively parallel in like 1000, 800 and 1000

44:44SPEAKERcore widths was my understanding.

44:48SPEAKERBut yeah, it wasn't, it didn't,

44:50SPEAKERit ended up not being released ever.

44:52SPEAKER- Did not pan out, yes.

44:54SPEAKER- Well, we'll see how they do this time.

44:55SPEAKER- Yeah, probably better, right?

44:59SPEAKER- The thing sounds pretty good.

45:00SPEAKERThat's probably most of the big stuff in this tech preview

45:03SPEAKERof USB 3.0 is in here.

45:06SPEAKER- Yeah, USB 3.0 turned out to be important.

45:08SPEAKER- It's pretty good, honestly.

45:09SPEAKERI mean like, you know, standard USB caveats apply

45:12SPEAKERbut I would say 3.0 was one of the better USBs.

45:15SPEAKER- Display port was like, was rising at that point.

45:19SPEAKER- Yes, yes.

45:20SPEAKERWell, you needed the bandwidth, right?

45:21SPEAKER- Yeah, man, it's still better than dual link DVI.

45:23SPEAKER- Yes, that's for sure.

45:25SPEAKER- And touchscreens, people were starting

45:27SPEAKERto sell touchscreens for upcoming computers.

45:32SPEAKER- Yes, although this preview posits that tech,

45:37SPEAKERI mean, touch, excuse me,

45:38SPEAKERtouch interfaces are going to be a big deal

45:41SPEAKERperhaps on the PC.

45:44SPEAKER- I think they are, like, I don't think you and I use them

45:46SPEAKER'cause we don't really use laptops all that much,

45:48SPEAKERbut I don't know, I feel like the surface

45:51SPEAKERhas been a real thing.

45:52SPEAKER- Yes, you're right, I was not considering the surface here.

45:54SPEAKERLike that is kind of its own, its whole own ecosystem, right?

45:57SPEAKER- So the funny thing is this touch thing

46:00SPEAKERspecifically mentions the surface computer,

46:02SPEAKERbut we're not talking about what you think of

46:03SPEAKERas a surface computer.

46:05SPEAKERWe're talking about that big thing

46:06SPEAKERthat looked like a cocktail arcade machine.

46:08SPEAKER- God, that's right.

46:09SPEAKER- That had a rear projection display underneath

46:13SPEAKERand you could put things on top of it

46:14SPEAKERand it would read like a QR code or something on the bottom.

46:17SPEAKER- That totally is the genesis of the surface brand, isn't it?

46:19SPEAKER- That is where the surface brand started.

46:21SPEAKER- I had completely forgotten about that nonsense.

46:23SPEAKER- People were upset when they called the tablets

46:26SPEAKERsurface devices because they liked those giant.

46:31SPEAKERI think the only place I ever saw one in real life,

46:33SPEAKERnot at a trade show, was at a Marriott.

46:35SPEAKER'Cause like the Marriott kiosk things

46:38SPEAKERwere all using that surface OS.

46:41SPEAKERAnd they were like, you had to stand above them

46:43SPEAKERand look down.

46:44SPEAKERSo they weren't accessible to people in wheelchairs.

46:47SPEAKERAnd then like a year later, big touchscreen TVs came out

46:51SPEAKERand all that stuff just disappeared.

46:53SPEAKERIt was very stupid.

46:54SPEAKER- That's ridiculous, that's ridiculous.

46:57SPEAKER- Surface seems to have found itself.

47:00SPEAKER- I feel like surfaces are pretty good these days.

47:02SPEAKERPeople seem to like them.

47:03SPEAKER- Yeah.

47:05SPEAKER- Should we talk about Windows 7?

47:06SPEAKER- Yeah. - 'Cause redemption.

47:08SPEAKER(laughing)

47:10SPEAKER- Yes, we should, yes, very.

47:13SPEAKER- We had a lot of weird Judeo-Christian language

47:14SPEAKERin maximum PC at this time, I apologize.

47:16SPEAKER- Interesting.

47:18SPEAKER- Finally, Microsoft makes up for the sins of Vista.

47:21SPEAKER- Huh, I hadn't thought about it that way.

47:22SPEAKER- Windows XP.

47:24SPEAKER- I really hadn't thought about it that way,

47:25SPEAKERbut that is kind of, yes, now that you mention it.

47:28SPEAKER- Look, there's only-- - Comes across.

47:29SPEAKER- Yeah, there's only so many ways

47:30SPEAKERyou can make Microsoft sound a little bit evil,

47:32SPEAKERbut maybe not all that bad, I don't know.

47:35SPEAKER- Are we still getting a lot of mileage

47:36SPEAKERout of making Microsoft sound evil at this time?

47:38SPEAKER- We never, we had an explicit rule

47:40SPEAKERagainst putting dollar signs in place of Ss in brand names.

47:45SPEAKER- Hmm, okay. - Because of Microsoft.

47:46SPEAKER- I mean, come on, I mean,

47:47SPEAKERyou've got to show some professionalism.

47:49SPEAKER- Yeah, no, I know.

47:52SPEAKERSo yeah, it was a weird time,

47:55SPEAKERbut it's funny 'cause like looking at this review,

47:57SPEAKERI haven't looked at Windows 7 in a really long time now,

48:01SPEAKERand it's all, like the current underpinnings for the OS

48:05SPEAKERare all Windows 7 stuff.

48:07SPEAKERLike the modern taskbar that's like half shortcuts,

48:11SPEAKERhalf what's running, and is like the Windows version

48:14SPEAKERof OS X's dock is straight Windows 7.

48:17SPEAKERLike the Chrome around, it's all different now,

48:20SPEAKERbut it's there.

48:21SPEAKER- Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of,

48:23SPEAKERthat's why Windows 7 won our ranking,

48:27SPEAKERyes, our ranking of Windows is,

48:29SPEAKERwas that it has became the basis

48:30SPEAKERfor like good modern Windows, right?

48:34SPEAKERSo yeah, that's kind of mostly

48:36SPEAKERwhat this review is about here,

48:37SPEAKERexcept that you complain a lot about activation.

48:40SPEAKERActivation's a problem when you're a PC enthusiast user.

48:46SPEAKER- Especially if you're like, you have a bench

48:48SPEAKERand you're moving installs

48:50SPEAKERbetween different motherboards constantly, right?

48:52SPEAKERDo they still enforce that?

48:53SPEAKERDo they still enforce license?

48:54SPEAKERI mean, do they still like hash like a hardware ID

48:56SPEAKERoff of like a motherboard and stuff like that,

49:00SPEAKERand tie your key to that?

49:02SPEAKERIt sounds like they've gotten a lot looser about that stuff.

49:04SPEAKER- It seems like I haven't had to call somebody

49:06SPEAKERin a really long time.

49:07SPEAKERIt used to be that if you did it too much,

49:09SPEAKERwith XP and Vista especially,

49:11SPEAKERand I think even Windows 7,

49:13SPEAKERI remember having to call regularly in the lab

49:15SPEAKERwhen we would change motherboards or CPU's out.

49:19SPEAKERWe ended up just subscribing to TechNet,

49:21SPEAKERwhich gave us keys that didn't have to deal with that stuff,

49:23SPEAKERand then they canceled TechNet, so that was great.

49:26SPEAKER- Well, that did it back then, yeah.

49:28SPEAKERThis Windows 7 cheat sheet here,

49:30SPEAKERthis matrix of different SKUs and features and prices

49:34SPEAKERis kind of eye-opening.

49:36SPEAKER- Yeah.

49:36SPEAKERI was gonna say, man, I mean, I started to say

49:39SPEAKERthis can't be right, but I guess it was.

49:41SPEAKERLike, according to your chart here,

49:43SPEAKERthe cheapest possible way to buy retail Windows 7,

49:46SPEAKERwhich was a home premium upgrade version, was $120, really?

49:50SPEAKER- Well, so we posted retail prices and not OEM prices.

49:54SPEAKER- No, of course, of course, I am talking about--

49:55SPEAKER- You could get the gray box OEM for 90 bucks

49:57SPEAKERfor a full version.

49:58SPEAKER- I am talking retail.

49:59SPEAKERI just could not remember it being that expensive.

50:01SPEAKERThat's wild.

50:02SPEAKER- If you went to Best Buy and got the weird curved box

50:04SPEAKERthat they sold Windows 7 in, it was 120 bucks

50:07SPEAKERfor the upgrade version.

50:09SPEAKER- That is harsh.

50:10SPEAKER- And the ultimate full version was $320.

50:15SPEAKER- That's obscene.

50:16SPEAKER- So the one thing--

50:17SPEAKER- That is obscene for an operating system.

50:19SPEAKER- I was gonna say the one thing, so this is also,

50:21SPEAKERit's also important to remember that Windows 7

50:23SPEAKERis the first move to 64-bit that was real.

50:26SPEAKERLike, there was a 64-bit version of Vista.

50:28SPEAKERThere was a really janky 64-bit version of XP

50:31SPEAKERthat realistically no one should have used.

50:33SPEAKER- Yeah, I think we covered that in the ranking, right?

50:35SPEAKERLike, 7 was the first one where you could just install

50:37SPEAKEReither version from the same media, right?

50:39SPEAKER- Yeah, with Windows Vista, you had to choose 64 or 32

50:42SPEAKERwhen you were buying, and the 64-bit version

50:44SPEAKERwas kind of poorly supported, as I recall.

50:46SPEAKER- I actually just dug into my Amazon order history.

50:49SPEAKER- Mm-hmm.

50:50SPEAKER- So I bought a, I don't think this is,

50:54SPEAKERoh, this is an upgrade.

50:55SPEAKERSo I bought a Windows 7 home premium upgrade

50:58SPEAKERfrom Amazon for 50 bucks, which I think must've been

51:00SPEAKERlike a very limited Amazon aggressive promotion kind of thing.

51:03SPEAKER- That was probably some sort of deal, yeah.

51:05SPEAKER- But then apparently, let's say July 11th.

51:08SPEAKERApparently I also spent $100

51:10SPEAKERon a Windows 7 professional upgrade.

51:13SPEAKER- So if you wanted to connect to the domain

51:16SPEAKERor get remote desktop, you needed a professional.

51:18SPEAKER- Sorry, that might've been for work,

51:19SPEAKERnow that I think about it.

51:20SPEAKERI might've bought that professional upgrade

51:22SPEAKERfor a work machine.

51:24SPEAKERAnyway, there's a little window in 2009.

51:26SPEAKERIt was 50 and 100 for these upgrades.

51:29SPEAKER- That's pretty good.

51:29SPEAKERThat's a good deal.

51:30SPEAKERI guess it's cheap by this, according to this chart.

51:35SPEAKER- The one thing that we said that I said here

51:37SPEAKERthat I really like, 'cause I wrote this.

51:38SPEAKERWhich is weird to be coming back and revisiting this.

51:42SPEAKER- Are you saying you don't like everything you wrote?

51:44SPEAKER- Look, I wrote, when I was at Maximum PC,

51:46SPEAKERI wrote a lot every month.

51:48SPEAKER- No, trust me, I did.

51:49SPEAKER- We all did, yeah.

51:49SPEAKER- Yes, thousands of words a week at GameSpot, for sure.

51:53SPEAKER- The thing that we hit them on about the activation stuff

51:58SPEAKERis it's the same problem with DRM in general,

52:02SPEAKERwhich is that if you're a paying customer,

52:03SPEAKERyou shouldn't have had to,

52:04SPEAKERlike you shouldn't be harassed if you're a paying customer.

52:08SPEAKER- Yeah.

52:09SPEAKER- Because their process fails, right?

52:11SPEAKER- Yes.

52:11SPEAKER- And the nice thing is they actually changed over time.

52:15SPEAKERLike the Windows 10, like as you alluded,

52:17SPEAKERthe Windows 10 reactivation process is much more gentle

52:21SPEAKERand less onerous for the user.

52:23SPEAKERAnd it doesn't involve calling a phone number

52:25SPEAKERand dialing in a 32 digit hash

52:27SPEAKERand then typing in a 64 digit hash back, you know,

52:31SPEAKERto reactivate, so.

52:33SPEAKER- I'm sorry, yeah, props to Tom.

52:36SPEAKER- No, just props to Microsoft.

52:37SPEAKER- I'm looking forward to putting that to the test

52:39SPEAKERbecause I have a Windows 10 license

52:41SPEAKERtied to a Core i7 860.

52:45SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

52:46SPEAKER- That I built in 2010.

52:47SPEAKER- Yeah.

52:48SPEAKER- Like it's, I had, I just had two Windows licenses

52:50SPEAKERand that one is still attached to that motherboard

52:52SPEAKERfrom 11 years ago.

52:54SPEAKERAnd like, I, you know, at some point I would like to put

52:56SPEAKERthat on another modern PC and I wonder how easy it'll be

52:59SPEAKERto move.

52:59SPEAKER- Should be able to just do it.

53:01SPEAKERIt should just work.

53:02SPEAKERI mean, the nice thing is that now it seems like

53:03SPEAKERthe licenses are attached to your Microsoft ID,

53:05SPEAKERwhich is a weird--

53:06SPEAKER- Yes, that's how I know that I still have that license

53:08SPEAKER'cause then it says what motherboard model

53:09SPEAKERit's attached to.

53:10SPEAKER- Yeah.

53:11SPEAKER- I see that in the account stuff, so.

53:13SPEAKER- I, the, the, the other thing that struck me

53:16SPEAKERabout this Windows feature is that the wallpaper

53:18SPEAKERwas so buck wild for Windows 7.

53:21SPEAKER- Is that, is this weird man in a jumpsuit

53:23SPEAKERjumping with feathers?

53:25SPEAKER- Yeah, the feather, the feather jumpsuit claymation guy.

53:28SPEAKER- Is that a built in wallpaper?

53:30SPEAKER- Default wallpaper.

53:31SPEAKER- Weird.

53:32SPEAKER- I always use default wallpaper for these.

53:33SPEAKERAll of these ones on page 40, 50 and 51.

53:37SPEAKER- Yeah.

53:38SPEAKER- Like the creepy, creepy plastic heads

53:41SPEAKERand the one that looks like Hohokum

53:43SPEAKERand the turtle with the city on its back.

53:45SPEAKERThose were all built in.

53:46SPEAKER- Those are a little out there by Microsoft standards,

53:49SPEAKERespecially this Microsoft.

53:51SPEAKER- I think they hired, I want to say they hired artists.

53:53SPEAKERI feel like, I feel like there were conversations

53:56SPEAKERabout this in the process where they were like,

53:58SPEAKERwe've hired some really great artists, blah, blah, blah.

54:01SPEAKERAnd you know, it was, I don't know, it was weird.

54:04SPEAKERIt was a weird time for Microsoft.

54:06SPEAKER- You gave Windows 7 a nine, which equates to a kick ass.

54:11SPEAKER- Well, kick ass was our editorial,

54:13SPEAKERlike our editor's choice award.

54:15SPEAKER- Stamp of approval, the kick ass stamp of approval.

54:17SPEAKER- Kick ass, we had little Lucite blocks

54:19SPEAKERthat we would send to people who won.

54:23SPEAKERThat said you won a maximum PC kick ass and the nine,

54:25SPEAKERor that you could only,

54:26SPEAKERyou were only eligible for a kick ass award.

54:28SPEAKERSo basically kick ass was like a 0.5 on top of the verdict.

54:32SPEAKER- I see.

54:33SPEAKER- You're like, we didn't have a spreadsheet

54:34SPEAKERor anything like that.

54:35SPEAKERWe just, we just sat down and we were like,

54:36SPEAKERhow does this compare to the other stuff in the category?

54:39SPEAKERAnd the kick ass would make it basically like a 9.5

54:43SPEAKERor 10 was always a kick ass.

54:45SPEAKERSo you could have a nine that was no kick ass.

54:47SPEAKER- I see.

54:48SPEAKERCould you help me understand your version

54:49SPEAKERof the pros and cons here?

54:51SPEAKER- Double hung and bay. - Double hung,

54:53SPEAKERand for pro and bay for con.

54:56SPEAKER- Types of windows, Brad.

54:58SPEAKER- Okay.

54:59SPEAKER- Double hung are great 'cause you can pull them down

55:01SPEAKERfrom the top or open them from the bottom

55:02SPEAKERso they're easy to clean.

55:03SPEAKER- Okay, I've never heard of them.

55:04SPEAKER- Bay windows, if you've ever cleaned a bay window

55:06SPEAKERand it's on the second floor, you need a real big ladder

55:09SPEAKERand a strong lack of sense of self preservation.

55:13SPEAKER- They're a real pain.

55:14SPEAKER- Yeah.

55:15SPEAKER- Whole lot of bay windows in San Francisco.

55:16SPEAKER- Whole lot of bay windows.

55:18SPEAKER- All right, couple more things here

55:20SPEAKERas we whip through the end of this issue

55:23SPEAKERof the very next page.

55:25SPEAKER- Yeah.

55:26SPEAKER- Maximum PC interview, Randy Pitchford.

55:28SPEAKER- Okay, I don't know if I can tell this story,

55:32SPEAKERbut I'm going to, so here we go.

55:33SPEAKER- You just started.

55:35SPEAKER- We were at, I was at QuakeCon in 2009.

55:41SPEAKERThe folks who make Borderlands Gearbox,

55:44SPEAKERI had written a really favorable preview

55:45SPEAKERafter they showed it at E3 the previous year

55:47SPEAKERwhen it didn't have the cel-shaded stuff.

55:50SPEAKER- I remember that.

55:51SPEAKER- Diablo plus shooter, I'm in, this sounds great.

55:53SPEAKER- That was the first time, if I remember,

55:55SPEAKERbut when they showed it at that E3

55:57SPEAKERbefore the cel-shading came in,

55:58SPEAKERthat was when they first showed off the gun that shoots guns.

56:00SPEAKER- Yes, yes.

56:02SPEAKERIt's like, I was like, when they were doing that pitch,

56:05SPEAKERI was like, this game sounds awesome.

56:07SPEAKERI would like to go explore and get a bunch of guns.

56:08SPEAKERThat sounds real weird.

56:09SPEAKER- It did look really generic at that time though.

56:11SPEAKERLike it did not have much of an art style to it.

56:14SPEAKER- It looked thin, but the game looked, anyway.

56:18SPEAKERSo I was at QuakeCon, I bumped into the PR person

56:21SPEAKERfor Gearbox at that time.

56:22SPEAKERThey were like, "Hey, do you want to come up

56:23SPEAKER"and play the game?

56:24SPEAKER"We're doing some demos on Saturday."

56:25SPEAKERI was like, "Yeah, sure, I'll come over."

56:27SPEAKERAnd I was having such a good time.

56:29SPEAKERI played through the demo area like three times

56:32SPEAKER'cause they had a bunch of stations set up

56:33SPEAKERand it wasn't like I was holding space for anybody.

56:35SPEAKERIt was just press.

56:36SPEAKERAnd at the end of that,

56:40SPEAKERI was there with like one or two other people

56:42SPEAKERand they were like, "Hey, you want to go

56:44SPEAKER"on the tour of the office?"

56:45SPEAKERAnd I was like, "Yeah, sure."

56:46SPEAKERWe walked around.

56:47SPEAKERAnd then the other two people broke off

56:50SPEAKERto talk about something else.

56:51SPEAKERAnd Randy and I were just sitting in the demo room

56:52SPEAKERplaying Borderlands and I was like,

56:54SPEAKER"Hey, do you mind if I do a quick interview?

56:55SPEAKER"We can put it in the magazine if you want."

56:57SPEAKERAnd he looked around, there was nobody else in the room,

56:59SPEAKERno PR people or anything, which never happens.

57:02SPEAKERAnd we just started talking.

57:03SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, you know, owner of the company,

57:06SPEAKERtechnically he can do whatever he wants,

57:07SPEAKERbut I can back you up.

57:11SPEAKERIt never happens that the PR person is not there to stop it.

57:15SPEAKER- As I recall, so Randy had some feelings about,

57:20SPEAKERthis is on page 58, I think,

57:23SPEAKERif you're following along with us.

57:24SPEAKERYou should just read the interview.

57:25SPEAKERIt's interesting.

57:26SPEAKERRandy's not wrong.

57:27SPEAKERHe caught a lot of grief for some stuff he said about Steam,

57:29SPEAKERas I recall.

57:30SPEAKER- As a guy in this industry, I don't trust Valve,

57:32SPEAKERhe says here.

57:34SPEAKER- Yeah, and his point is he doesn't trust

57:37SPEAKERthat the person who owns the platform

57:38SPEAKERfor distributing PC games also is making PC games

57:42SPEAKERand competing with people on their store.

57:43SPEAKERHe's not wrong.

57:44SPEAKER- I get it, I get it.

57:45SPEAKERHe argues in here that Steam should have been spun off

57:48SPEAKERfrom Valve.

57:48SPEAKER- Yeah, and he says that they're exploiting

57:51SPEAKERa lot of small guys with their 30% take,

57:54SPEAKERwhich was like, just to be clear,

57:56SPEAKERexactly what Epic just sued Apple over.

58:00SPEAKER- Sure, but also Gearbox, Epic,

58:05SPEAKERnot what I would describe as the little guys at this point.

58:08SPEAKER- Well, compared to Valve,

58:09SPEAKERGearbox was the little guy, but yes, but still.

58:12SPEAKER- Remember, before Borderlands came out,

58:14SPEAKERValve, I mean, Gearbox wasn't like,

58:17SPEAKERGearbox had made critically reviewed games

58:18SPEAKERthat did really well

58:19SPEAKERand games that were probably commercially pretty successful,

58:21SPEAKERbut not like, they hadn't had a blowout.

58:23SPEAKER- Yeah, you're right, you're right.

58:24SPEAKERI mean, they were not gigantic.

58:26SPEAKERBorderlands was that blowout, I think.

58:27SPEAKER- Borderlands was, yeah,

58:28SPEAKERwas the thing that made them gigantic.

58:30SPEAKER- Yeah.

58:31SPEAKER- The other thing about this trip is,

58:33SPEAKERI'm pretty sure this is the first time

58:34SPEAKERyou and I ever hung out.

58:35SPEAKER- I think you're right.

58:37SPEAKERI don't exactly remember, but I think that's right.

58:40SPEAKERI think that one of the nights of QuakeCon,

58:45SPEAKERwe went to a party, we ended up at the same,

58:47SPEAKERit was like a special person party

58:49SPEAKERor press party or something, I don't know.

58:51SPEAKERAnd we were there hanging out

58:53SPEAKERwith a mutual friend introduced us,

58:56SPEAKERand I think that was,

58:57SPEAKERit was before I had started talking to anybody

58:59SPEAKERabout doing tested at Whiskey.

59:01SPEAKER- Interesting.

59:02SPEAKER- 'Cause that came later that year.

59:03SPEAKERThis would have been, like, QuakeCon's in what, July?

59:05SPEAKER- Yeah, usually August, I think.

59:07SPEAKER- Yeah, so I didn't start talking to Tatum and Dave

59:10SPEAKERand Shelby and all those folks until, like,

59:12SPEAKERNovember or December. - Interesting.

59:15SPEAKER- And so yeah, we were hanging out and I was like,

59:18SPEAKER"Oh man, I love Giant Bomb, you guys do awesome stuff."

59:21SPEAKER- It was entirely possible that that happened.

59:22SPEAKERAlso, unless they had multiple sessions,

59:26SPEAKERlike Saturday, Borderlands sessions,

59:27SPEAKERlike you're talking about.

59:28SPEAKER- Yeah.

59:29SPEAKER- I was at that same session, like, absolutely.

59:31SPEAKERI absolutely also went to a, like,

59:33SPEAKERweekend Borderlands play test for press at Gearbox.

59:37SPEAKERLike, you can go to Giant Bomb and search for,

59:39SPEAKERI think it's called the best office

59:40SPEAKERin the video game industry or something like that.

59:42SPEAKERA little video tour of Randy's office

59:44SPEAKERthat I did on that tour.

59:46SPEAKER- What did you shoot that with, just out of curiosity?

59:48SPEAKER'Cause it was just you, right?

59:49SPEAKERYou didn't have, like, any-- - Yes, I was by myself.

59:50SPEAKERNo, no, no, I was by myself on that QuakeCon trip,

59:52SPEAKERso, like, everything I did out of that trip was all me.

59:55SPEAKERI think, oh man.

59:58SPEAKER- Was it like, this was before FlipCameras, I think,

1:00:00SPEAKERwasn't it? - Yes.

1:00:01SPEAKERI wanna say it was, like, some kind of Sony Handycam.

1:00:03SPEAKER- Oh man. - Does that sound right?

1:00:04SPEAKER- Tape?

1:00:06SPEAKER- I had, like, a DV tape or something, maybe?

1:00:07SPEAKER- Probably tape, yeah, right?

1:00:08SPEAKERLike, it's decent enough quality.

1:00:10SPEAKERI just went back and watched it right before this.

1:00:12SPEAKERLike, it's decent enough quality.

1:00:13SPEAKERHis mic is blown out to hell,

1:00:14SPEAKERwhich makes me crazy to listen to at this point.

1:00:18SPEAKERBut I am almost positive I shot that

1:00:20SPEAKERon, like, some kind of Handycam,

1:00:22SPEAKERand then I'm pretty sure I put it together in iMovie.

1:00:24SPEAKER- I probably recorded the interview on my phone,

1:00:28SPEAKERI had to guess on, like, voice memo on my iPhone.

1:00:30SPEAKER- We were very grassroots, catch-as-catch-can back then.

1:00:34SPEAKER- You were scrappy.

1:00:35SPEAKER- Yeah. - I mean,

1:00:36SPEAKERthat was the cool thing, is that you were scrappy, yeah.

1:00:37SPEAKER- Yes, yes, like, going on that trip with GameSpot.

1:00:39SPEAKERNot that it was a bad thing,

1:00:40SPEAKERbut, like, that would have been, like,

1:00:41SPEAKERmultiple video producers hauling, like,

1:00:43SPEAKERnice camera gear around.

1:00:44SPEAKERLike, certainly turned out a better quality of product,

1:00:47SPEAKERbut it was a lot of overhead.

1:00:48SPEAKER- It turns out, people who do a lot of work

1:00:50SPEAKERwith people who do video stuff,

1:00:52SPEAKERlike, we were interviewing somebody once

1:00:54SPEAKERwho had done a lot of press,

1:00:55SPEAKERand he was like, "You guys are so fast."

1:00:57SPEAKERHow is that possible?

1:00:58SPEAKERHe was like, "We can't afford to be slow, man.

1:01:00SPEAKER"We gotta keep moving."

1:01:01SPEAKER- Yes, also, when you lower your quality threshold,

1:01:04SPEAKERyou can move a little quicker, it turns out.

1:01:07SPEAKERBut, yeah, I remember playing that game

1:01:09SPEAKERand just being like, "This is friggin' incredible."

1:01:10SPEAKERThey only let us play,

1:01:12SPEAKERI feel like they let us play through the end

1:01:13SPEAKERof the first area in Borderlands 1, maybe.

1:01:15SPEAKER- I think that's right.

1:01:16SPEAKERBut, yes, I do remember thinking like,

1:01:18SPEAKER"Oh, this seems pretty good.

1:01:19SPEAKER"It seems they might be onto something here."

1:01:21SPEAKER- But, yeah, we got to the end,

1:01:21SPEAKERand they were like, "You can play one of the other classes,

1:01:23SPEAKER"too, if you want," and, like, half the people left.

1:01:24SPEAKERI was like, "I'll play another class."

1:01:26SPEAKERI have nothing to do.

1:01:27SPEAKERLike, it's either that or walk around QuakeCon

1:01:28SPEAKERenjoying the musk.

1:01:30SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

1:01:33SPEAKERLet's see. - Yeah, Borderlands.

1:01:35SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:01:36SPEAKER- Do you wanna skip ahead to,

1:01:39SPEAKERcan I just read what you wrote

1:01:40SPEAKERthe last bullet point in the stock?

1:01:42SPEAKER- Yeah, you can read that.

1:01:43SPEAKER- The shit on page 91 is hilarious.

1:01:46SPEAKER- Yeah, so, like, one of the things about making magazines

1:01:48SPEAKERis you always have these pages that are like,

1:01:50SPEAKERyou wanna connect with the audience,

1:01:52SPEAKERand then you also want an easy page to fill

1:01:54SPEAKERat the end of the month when everybody's out of gas.

1:01:58SPEAKERSo, we had this section called Lab Notes

1:01:59SPEAKERthat was, like, what everybody's,

1:02:01SPEAKERlike, a place for people to talk about stuff

1:02:02SPEAKERthat, like, maybe wasn't worth doing a full review,

1:02:05SPEAKERor, you know, kind of like the stuff

1:02:07SPEAKERthat would have fallen through the cracks otherwise.

1:02:08SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:02:10SPEAKER- So, this one was called What Would Gordon Do?

1:02:11SPEAKERThis is a friend of the show, Gordon Wong.

1:02:13SPEAKER- Yeah, we've had him on.

1:02:14SPEAKER- Yeah, he's been on.

1:02:16SPEAKERHe says, "I'm one of the last editors

1:02:19SPEAKERwho hasn't pulled the trigger on building an i7 machine."

1:02:24SPEAKER- Do I take the path of the budget badass core i5

1:02:27SPEAKERon an LGA 1156?

1:02:29SPEAKER- Yes.

1:02:30SPEAKER- Or plan for the future with a more expensive core i7

1:02:33SPEAKERon an LGA 1366?

1:02:35SPEAKER- So, the question is, do you want dual channel memory

1:02:37SPEAKERor tri-channel memory?

1:02:38SPEAKERAnd that's gonna determine what CPU you buy, basically.

1:02:41SPEAKER- This alone, that alone was a trip

1:02:43SPEAKERbecause I forgot there was a time

1:02:44SPEAKERwhen Intel was selling multiple different socket types

1:02:47SPEAKERsimultaneously.

1:02:49SPEAKER- Oh, God, they did that for,

1:02:50SPEAKERthey've done that for almost the entire core line.

1:02:52SPEAKER- Do they still do that?

1:02:53SPEAKER- It is not, it's different chipsets now.

1:02:55SPEAKER- Like, it's not as prevalent these days.

1:02:57SPEAKERThat's what I mean is, like,

1:02:58SPEAKERyou're almost certainly going to buy the same socket

1:03:01SPEAKERno matter what chip you're getting at this point.

1:03:02SPEAKERUnless you're, unless you're like going way out of spec

1:03:06SPEAKERwith some like crazy Xeon or something like that, right?

1:03:08SPEAKER- Well, but for a long time, it would like,

1:03:10SPEAKERif for a long time, the high end stuff

1:03:12SPEAKERdidn't have integrated graphics on the CPU.

1:03:14SPEAKERSo like it was completely, yeah, it was,

1:03:16SPEAKERit was Intel made something that should have been

1:03:18SPEAKERvery simple, very complicated.

1:03:20SPEAKER- Yes, they've done a lot of that.

1:03:22SPEAKERThey've done a lot of that

1:03:22SPEAKERas they have had like no competition, which yeah,

1:03:25SPEAKERis obviously coming to an end, thank God.

1:03:28SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:03:29SPEAKER- So we talked about like,

1:03:33SPEAKEReverybody just wrote a little blurb here.

1:03:35SPEAKERAnd like Norm wrote this bit about,

1:03:39SPEAKEReven though I now have my entire music collection

1:03:41SPEAKERbacked up on a Windows home server,

1:03:42SPEAKERI still find myself hesitant to delete the original files

1:03:44SPEAKERfrom my PC, color me paranoid,

1:03:47SPEAKERbut I don't think you can ever have enough backup copies

1:03:49SPEAKERof your favorite trance and country tracks.

1:03:51SPEAKERI'm pretty sure I added the bit about the trance

1:03:53SPEAKERand country tracks there 'cause it was too short.

1:03:55SPEAKERSorry, Norm. - That's amazing.

1:03:57SPEAKER- And also Norm is a man after my own heart.

1:04:02SPEAKER- Yeah, but like this is where opportunities

1:04:06SPEAKERfor us to drag our fellow editors.

1:04:09SPEAKER- Or you to drag your employees.

1:04:11SPEAKER- Or for us to plug the website and or the podcast,

1:04:13SPEAKERlike Alex Castle, who was our associate editor wrote

1:04:18SPEAKERabout building a main cabinet,

1:04:19SPEAKERwhich we built this awesome cocktail main cabinet

1:04:22SPEAKERthat we ended up having to put it in a locked office

1:04:25SPEAKERbecause it was interfering with the workflow at the shop.

1:04:29SPEAKERIt was good times.

1:04:30SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:04:31SPEAKER- Good times. - Yeah.

1:04:33SPEAKER- Also, I have to say the end of Gordon's little thing here.

1:04:39SPEAKER- Yes. - As much as I hate

1:04:40SPEAKERthe thought of ripping out a motherboard

1:04:42SPEAKERto upgrade to six cores, it's hard to say no to LGA 1156.

1:04:45SPEAKERAt $285, the core i7-860 is cheap,

1:04:50SPEAKERit's fast and pretty tough to beat.

1:04:52SPEAKERLike I just said, the following year,

1:04:55SPEAKERI built an i7-860 machine.

1:04:56SPEAKERI just, if I made the same choice that Gordon did,

1:04:58SPEAKERI feel pretty special.

1:05:00SPEAKER- You did well. - If I did what Gordon

1:05:04SPEAKERwould do, then I feel pretty good.

1:05:08SPEAKER- The one thing I love about this page

1:05:09SPEAKERis you can never go wrong by asking yourself,

1:05:11SPEAKERwhat would Gordon do?

1:05:12SPEAKER- That's kind of my feeling after having him on

1:05:14SPEAKERand hearing him talk about PC hardware.

1:05:17SPEAKERIf I do what Gordon does, I'm probably okay.

1:05:20SPEAKER- It's funny because we used to have three letter sections

1:05:23SPEAKERin the magazine 'cause we had the normal

1:05:25SPEAKERlike letters to the editor.

1:05:27SPEAKERWe had a, hey, yo, I need help,

1:05:31SPEAKERdoctor, ask the doctor kind of problem,

1:05:33SPEAKERsolve my problems column.

1:05:35SPEAKERAnd then we had a consumer advocacy column

1:05:37SPEAKERthat Gordon wrote called The Watchdog.

1:05:39SPEAKERAnd I guess we must've killed The Watchdog by this point.

1:05:42SPEAKERI'd forgotten that 'cause it took

1:05:43SPEAKERan incredible amount of time 'cause it would involve

1:05:46SPEAKERlike people sending letters into him

1:05:47SPEAKERand then he would have to call the companies

1:05:50SPEAKERthat were trying to hose the people.

1:05:54SPEAKERAnd like sometimes it involved,

1:05:55SPEAKERlike we spawned multiple class action lawsuits from now.

1:05:58SPEAKER- No kidding, really?

1:06:00SPEAKER- Yeah, like it was, if you ever need to know

1:06:03SPEAKERa class action lawsuit guy, call Gordon.

1:06:05SPEAKERHe's good and he's got you.

1:06:08SPEAKER- If you ever need your $3 and 18 cents

1:06:12SPEAKERfour years after the suit is launched.

1:06:14SPEAKER- Exactly.

1:06:15SPEAKERWell, I mean, the lawyer made a bunch of money, I'm sure.

1:06:17SPEAKER- I'm sure somebody did.

1:06:18SPEAKER- I also think it's funny that there's

1:06:20SPEAKERa Wolfenstein review in here

1:06:21SPEAKERand I have no idea which Wolfenstein this is

1:06:23SPEAKER'cause the game is just called Wolfenstein.

1:06:25SPEAKER- That was exactly my reaction to seeing that column was,

1:06:30SPEAKERis this the Raven one?

1:06:32SPEAKER- No, that's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, isn't it?

1:06:34SPEAKER- Yes, but I think this is, oh yeah,

1:06:37SPEAKERthis is that 2008, 2009 era Activision one.

1:06:40SPEAKER- Oh yeah, it says it's a credit to Raven's effects artists

1:06:43SPEAKERthat operating these overpowered guns.

1:06:45SPEAKER- Yes, that is the Raven one.

1:06:47SPEAKER- Yes, that was kind of, that was a weird one 'cause

1:06:50SPEAKERthey just called it Wolfenstein,

1:06:51SPEAKERbut I don't think it was intended to be a reboot.

1:06:52SPEAKERI think it was, I think it wasn't like portrayed

1:06:55SPEAKERas being in the continuity of Wolfenstein, right?

1:06:57SPEAKER- It's something like that.

1:06:58SPEAKER- It was a weird one, yeah.

1:07:00SPEAKERI never played that one, yeah.

1:07:01SPEAKER- Anyway, yeah, so if you like this, please let us know.

1:07:04SPEAKERThere's an infinite supply of old computer magazines.

1:07:06SPEAKERI hope we won't do this always for game magazines

1:07:10SPEAKERthat I worked on 'cause it's a little weird.

1:07:12SPEAKER- I find it very entertaining.

1:07:13SPEAKERI can see how you might not be a big fan.

1:07:16SPEAKER- I wanna go back, like there's a whole history,

1:07:19SPEAKERperiod of history before like I had any exposure

1:07:22SPEAKERto computer magazines that I'd like to dig into.

1:07:25SPEAKERLike I'd like to look at something like 1994 bytes

1:07:28SPEAKERand stuff like that.

1:07:28SPEAKER- Yeah, that would, yes, I would also like to look

1:07:30SPEAKERat some stuff from before I was into computing.

1:07:32SPEAKER- Yeah, I think that'd be really fun.

1:07:33SPEAKERBut anyway, I hope you all enjoyed.

1:07:36SPEAKERWe, again, if you didn't download the issue already,

1:07:39SPEAKERwe posted a link to the PDF on archive.org in the show notes

1:07:44SPEAKERso you can grab it there.

1:07:46SPEAKERAnd I think it's also on books.google.com,

1:07:49SPEAKERbut I'm not 100%.

1:07:50SPEAKERIt's the November, 2009 issue.

1:07:53SPEAKERThis has been a fun walk down memory lane

1:07:55SPEAKERif occasionally slightly cringy.

1:08:00SPEAKERBut now-- - We all thank you

1:08:02SPEAKERfor your self-flagellation.

1:08:04SPEAKER- Well, you know, if we don't learn and grow,

1:08:10SPEAKERthe other thing, hold on,

1:08:11SPEAKERthere's a lot of unfortunate language in this magazine

1:08:13SPEAKERand I apologize.

1:08:15SPEAKERWe've all learned a lot since 2009, but Jesus.

1:08:20SPEAKERAnyway, we've reached the part of the show

1:08:22SPEAKERwhere we thank our patrons.

1:08:23SPEAKER- Yeah. - Thanks, patrons.

1:08:25SPEAKER- Thank you, thank you, patrons.

1:08:26SPEAKERThank you.

1:08:28SPEAKER- Thank you.

1:08:29SPEAKER- So you should remember, we have to say it three times.

1:08:30SPEAKER- Oh, thank you, patrons.

1:08:32SPEAKEROr three times.

1:08:34SPEAKERIf you would like to know how to join

1:08:37SPEAKERthe 2900 wonderful people who are supporting

1:08:42SPEAKERthe 100% listener supported tech pod,

1:08:45SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/techpod.

1:08:48SPEAKER- That's right.

1:08:49SPEAKER- Patreon.com/techpod.

1:08:51SPEAKER- Oh, do you mean patreon.com/techpod?

1:08:54SPEAKER- That is the URL that I was speaking of

1:08:56SPEAKERand find out how to chuck in as little as two bucks a month

1:09:01SPEAKERto help support the show.

1:09:03SPEAKERAt that $2 level, you get access to the tech pod discord,

1:09:06SPEAKERwhich is I think maybe my favorite community on,

1:09:10SPEAKERwell, I can't say that

1:09:10SPEAKER'cause I'm part of a bunch of other communities,

1:09:12SPEAKERbut it's a real good community of great people.

1:09:15SPEAKER- It is a fine community that I am very fond of.

1:09:17SPEAKERThe range of things you can go on there

1:09:19SPEAKERand talk to people about who are knowledgeable

1:09:21SPEAKERabout the thing is functionally endless, I find.

1:09:25SPEAKERJust in the last 24 hours,

1:09:27SPEAKERI've, we were talking about this somewhere, I think, maybe.

1:09:31SPEAKERDid we talk about this on the patron episode this week,

1:09:34SPEAKERthat I wanted to make a little like

1:09:35SPEAKERRaspberry Pi powered DVR for over the air and send a TV?

1:09:40SPEAKER- Yes.

1:09:40SPEAKER- So I could DVR PBS stuff?

1:09:42SPEAKER- I was gonna say--

1:09:43SPEAKER- That came up in there

1:09:44SPEAKERand there were people on there who do that

1:09:45SPEAKERand they gave me some tips about different software packages

1:09:47SPEAKERand like which ones have,

1:09:49SPEAKERwhich USB antenna adapters have Linux drivers

1:09:51SPEAKERand stuff like that.

1:09:52SPEAKERLike there's, somebody on there knows about everything.

1:09:55SPEAKER- Well, they talked about the HD home run too,

1:09:57SPEAKERwhich is like a standalone box

1:09:58SPEAKERthat connects over the network.

1:10:00SPEAKER- Yeah, I just, I've got these,

1:10:01SPEAKERI've got all these Pi's lying around.

1:10:03SPEAKERI've already got this antenna adapter.

1:10:04SPEAKER- You're already halfway there.

1:10:05SPEAKER- I gotta, I gotta use the stuff I have.

1:10:06SPEAKERI just have to.

1:10:07SPEAKER- So see, you might be able to hook it into Plex

1:10:09SPEAKERwith the Pi and then there's probably a project

1:10:11SPEAKERthat does that.

1:10:12SPEAKER- I was thinking, I was thinking that very thing.

1:10:13SPEAKERI've talked to, I talked to people about

1:10:16SPEAKERcustomizing my PowerShell prompt yesterday,

1:10:19SPEAKERstarted fiddling around with Powerline.

1:10:21SPEAKERI can tell you, I can tell you which Unicode codes

1:10:24SPEAKERcorrespond to which Powerline glyphs now.

1:10:27SPEAKER- Okay.

1:10:28SPEAKER- Like E0, B0, is that little pointy--

1:10:31SPEAKER- The triangle.

1:10:33SPEAKER- Yes, I'll leave it to the listener to discover,

1:10:35SPEAKERbut you can make your prompt look pretty cool

1:10:37SPEAKERand the people in the coding channel

1:10:39SPEAKERsure did know about that stuff.

1:10:41SPEAKER- Yeah, I just find it's really lovely,

1:10:44SPEAKERget it, like I actually pulled,

1:10:45SPEAKERI pulled some people into beta test yesterday.

1:10:47SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:10:48SPEAKER- 'Cause we wanted to get,

1:10:49SPEAKERwe wanted to get a little bit broader audience

1:10:52SPEAKERto test the game that I'm working on.

1:10:53SPEAKERAnd we had three people jump in from the TechPod discord

1:10:56SPEAKERand it was great.

1:10:57SPEAKER- It was cool.

1:10:58SPEAKER- So yeah, there's, there's, you know,

1:10:59SPEAKERit's good stuff happening in there.

1:11:02SPEAKERAnd you can join it by going again to patreon.com/techpod.

1:11:06SPEAKERAs always, thank you to all of our patrons,

1:11:08SPEAKERbut especially our executive producer tier patrons,

1:11:10SPEAKERincluding Paddle Creek Games,

1:11:12SPEAKERthe makers of Fractured Veil,

1:11:13SPEAKERAndrew Slosky, The Bunny Fiend,

1:11:15SPEAKERJacob Chappell, Joel Krauska, Twinkle Twinkie,

1:11:17SPEAKERDavid Allen, and James Cammack.

1:11:19SPEAKERThank you all so much.

1:11:20SPEAKER- Yes, thank you everyone.

1:11:23SPEAKER- I think that's as good a place

1:11:24SPEAKERas any to wrap it up this week.

1:11:25SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm gonna go install Windows 7 in a VM.

1:11:28SPEAKER- I'm gonna go install Windows 11 in a VM.

1:11:30SPEAKEROr maybe just on my SSD, who knows?

1:11:33SPEAKER- We got both ends of the spectrum covered then.

1:11:34SPEAKER- Yeah, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

1:11:36SPEAKERI don't know which ones are which.

1:11:38SPEAKERHave a lovely, lovely week, folks.

1:11:39SPEAKERWe will see you all next Sunday.

1:11:42SPEAKER- I know.

1:11:43SPEAKER(upbeat music)