Holiday Special: Abit, Are You Listening?

00:00SPEAKER- So how are things?

00:02SPEAKER- Well, Brad, I've had a week.

00:04SPEAKER- Have you?

00:06SPEAKER- Let's see, I had a little bit of a tummy ache on Monday

00:08SPEAKERand then I called my doctor on Tuesday morning

00:10SPEAKERand she was like, "You should go to the ER

00:11SPEAKERfor your tummy ache."

00:12SPEAKERAnd I was like, "Really?"

00:13SPEAKERAnd she said, "Yeah, you should definitely go to the ER."

00:15SPEAKERSo I went to the ER expecting to spend like a couple hours,

00:17SPEAKERmaybe get a CAT scan done, you know,

00:20SPEAKERthen sent home with a, you know, a referral to a doctor.

00:24SPEAKERAnd instead I got to spend Tuesday night, Wednesday night,

00:27SPEAKERand Thursday night in the hospital.

00:29SPEAKER- It was three, was it really three nights?

00:30SPEAKER- Yeah, right, that's what I said.

00:32SPEAKER- Do you know, do you realize in retrospect,

00:34SPEAKERokay, look, oh, Grant, you were in the hospital.

00:37SPEAKERYou probably, you know, keeping me abreast

00:39SPEAKERof the goings on was not top of mind for you.

00:41SPEAKER- I was extremely online whilst in the hospital.

00:44SPEAKERI had a lot of time.

00:45SPEAKER- You were so low key about being admitted to the hospital

00:47SPEAKERthat I talked to you steadily for the better part of two days

00:52SPEAKERand had zero idea you were in the hospital.

00:54SPEAKER- Well, I mean.

00:55SPEAKER- I think it came to light when I asked you

00:58SPEAKERif you wanted to hop on and record something real quick

01:00SPEAKERand you were like, well, I'm still in the hospital

01:02SPEAKERand I only have my phone on me.

01:03SPEAKERAnd I was like, wait, what, hospital, what?

01:04SPEAKERWhat are you talking about, hospital?

01:06SPEAKERBut what are you in the hospital?

01:07SPEAKERAlso, the way I read that sentence,

01:10SPEAKERyou correct me if I'm wrong,

01:12SPEAKERbut the way I read that was not you saying,

01:14SPEAKERhey, I'm in the hospital, I can't record.

01:16SPEAKERThat was, I only have my phone, I can't record.

01:19SPEAKER- Yeah, I would have done that on my phone

01:20SPEAKERif you were okay with it.

01:21SPEAKER- It's like, if you had had the proper recording set up

01:23SPEAKERin the hospital, you would have just gone for it.

01:25SPEAKER- It's a little noisy.

01:27SPEAKER- So yeah, so TLDR, I'm fine.

01:30SPEAKERThere were a couple of brief moments of excitement.

01:34SPEAKERI had a blocked bile duct and so normal gallbladder stuff

01:38SPEAKERdue to the American high fat diet

01:41SPEAKERand led to a blocked bile duct,

01:43SPEAKERwhich caused some pretty serious complications,

01:46SPEAKERbut everything's fine, I'm gonna make a full recovery.

01:47SPEAKERI have to have surgery in the new year

01:49SPEAKERand they just didn't want to let me go

01:50SPEAKERuntil my liver stuff was kind of settled back down

01:53SPEAKERa little bit.

01:54SPEAKER- Got the log jam and the old bile duct.

01:55SPEAKER- Turned a little yellow, Brad.

01:57SPEAKER- Oh my God, that will be someone I know

02:01SPEAKERwhen I described your condition to them

02:03SPEAKERimmediately said, "Is he yellow?"

02:05SPEAKER- The price of my eyes got yellow

02:08SPEAKERand the fairer parts of my already pasty complexion

02:15SPEAKERwere slightly yellow tinged.

02:18SPEAKER- The person in question will be very excited

02:19SPEAKERto hear that answer.

02:20SPEAKER- Good third party deduction there.

02:27SPEAKER- Yeah, so they went in, they scoped me on Wednesday,

02:30SPEAKERthey reamed out my bile duct,

02:32SPEAKEReverything's running nicely again.

02:33SPEAKERNo, no, no, it was great.

02:36SPEAKERI laid down on a table in a weird room

02:37SPEAKERwith a lot of instruments.

02:38SPEAKER- The word ream, it feels too violent.

02:41SPEAKER- No, no, no, he was very delicate.

02:43SPEAKERHe had very good hands.

02:44SPEAKER- I have a hard time hearing medical procedures

02:47SPEAKERbe described.

02:49SPEAKER- Look, I just assumed he was gonna get in there

02:51SPEAKERwith a brush and when he showed me the thing

02:52SPEAKERhe actually used, I was like,

02:53SPEAKER"Oh yeah, that looks much better than the way

02:55SPEAKERI would have done it."

02:56SPEAKER- Some steel wool pipe cleaner.

02:57SPEAKER- Exactly, exactly.

02:58SPEAKERSo, and I'm not, nope, I had a lot of pain on Monday.

03:03SPEAKERI haven't had any pain since.

03:04SPEAKEROccasionally like there's a singularly unique sensation

03:08SPEAKERwhen I eat something with any fat in it

03:10SPEAKERand my gallbladder contracts and like I can feel it

03:14SPEAKERbecause there's stuff in there that normally isn't.

03:17SPEAKERBut other than that, everything's cool.

03:18SPEAKER- Well, there's a lot of salads in your future.

03:21SPEAKER- I look, I've been eating a lot of fish and rice,

03:23SPEAKERthat's great.

03:24SPEAKER- I bet you feel better.

03:27SPEAKER- Like, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you.

03:28SPEAKEROkay, so here's the cautionary tale out of this whole thing.

03:32SPEAKERWhen you have pain, don't try to tough it out.

03:36SPEAKERI didn't do that this time.

03:37SPEAKERI did that with the appendectomy

03:38SPEAKERand that was almost real bad.

03:39SPEAKERBut like, you know, if you have pain that's bad enough

03:41SPEAKERthat like normal stuff doesn't make it get better,

03:45SPEAKERcall your doctor and when they say to go to the ER,

03:47SPEAKERgo to the ER 'cause it's important.

03:49SPEAKERIt's your body's way of saying,

03:50SPEAKERhey stupid, don't, you know, something's wrong.

03:52SPEAKERLike get the professionals involved here

03:54SPEAKER'cause if I had waited another day or two,

03:56SPEAKERI would have been in a real bad spot.

03:57SPEAKER- Yikes.

03:58SPEAKER- Yeah.

03:59SPEAKER- Well, we're glad you're back and on your feet.

04:01SPEAKER- It turns out also, Brad, if you drink enough water,

04:03SPEAKERyou can pee up to three liters in one 12 hour period.

04:06SPEAKER- That's too much peeing.

04:07SPEAKER- I did a lot of water drinking and a lot of measuring pee.

04:10SPEAKER- Wait, did you get a cath?

04:13SPEAKER- No, didn't get a cath for this.

04:14SPEAKER- Oh, no.

04:16SPEAKERCould you have?

04:17SPEAKER- I mean, like if you ever had a catheter before?

04:20SPEAKER- No.

04:21SPEAKER- It's not to be, it's not something you seek out.

04:23SPEAKER- You're probably right.

04:25SPEAKER- Yeah.

04:25SPEAKERSo I was under like light sedation for the scoping

04:29SPEAKERand I didn't have the surgery yet.

04:31SPEAKERThe surgery will happen next year, early next year.

04:33SPEAKER- Okay.

04:34SPEAKERBrace yourself.

04:35SPEAKERWell, hey, congratulations on your forthcoming weight loss.

04:38SPEAKER- I cheated death, Brad.

04:39SPEAKER- Yeah.

04:40SPEAKER- Cheated death.

04:41SPEAKER- Well, you're back.

04:42SPEAKER- Yeah, we're back.

04:43SPEAKERSo the TLDR on all of this is we don't have a new episode

04:45SPEAKERthis week because of the infirmities of my meat body.

04:48SPEAKER- Yes, it's been a challenging time.

04:51SPEAKERLook, and it's Christmas and we have,

04:55SPEAKEReverybody has a bunch of stuff going on.

04:56SPEAKERSo we did what every podcast does in this circumstance

05:00SPEAKERand dug deep into the archives.

05:01SPEAKER- Right, that's why I literally wrote that

05:03SPEAKERin the deck of this episode,

05:04SPEAKERexcept I called it the vault instead of the archives

05:06SPEAKER'cause look, Disney figured this out decades ago.

05:10SPEAKERThis is all about marketing.

05:11SPEAKER- Oh, so we sell this one again is what you're saying?

05:13SPEAKER- Yes.

05:14SPEAKER- If you're listening to this, PayPal, $5 to-

05:17SPEAKER- We're going into the vault.

05:18SPEAKER- No, this is one of our favorite patron episodes.

05:22SPEAKEROne of our early, like this was,

05:23SPEAKERI think this was the one of,

05:25SPEAKERI don't wanna say it was the first one that I was like,

05:26SPEAKER"Oh man, that was a good episode."

05:27SPEAKERBut this is like, this one's a banger.

05:29SPEAKER- It was a high concept patron episode, I'll say.

05:31SPEAKER- Yeah, and if you're not a patron,

05:34SPEAKERso if you're a patron, you've already heard this

05:35SPEAKERand we apologize.

05:36SPEAKERIf you are not a patron,

05:39SPEAKERwe do several different kinds of shows for the patrons.

05:41SPEAKERSometimes it's just a real loose chat

05:42SPEAKERwhere you and I sit down and we talk about

05:44SPEAKERwhatever's front of mind that day.

05:46SPEAKERAnd it's just like super loosey-goosey and kind of fun.

05:49SPEAKER- Stream of consciousness, you might say.

05:51SPEAKER- Yeah, sometimes it's like run over questions

05:53SPEAKERfrom the Q&A episode.

05:55SPEAKERSometimes they're planning episodes.

05:57SPEAKERSometimes it's something that we think is kind of cool

05:59SPEAKERbut aren't sure it's big enough for a full episode to do.

06:04SPEAKERSometimes we have a patron spotlight.

06:05SPEAKER- Oh yes, we've done a couple of great patron spotlights.

06:08SPEAKERWe have a lot of interesting patrons.

06:09SPEAKERWe should do some more of those.

06:10SPEAKER- We should do more of those, they're good.

06:12SPEAKER- Sometimes it's just like a project check-in

06:13SPEAKERon stuff we're working on.

06:14SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

06:16SPEAKER- But this one.

06:17SPEAKER- This one is the black sheep in the herd.

06:19SPEAKER- Perhaps the highest of high concept patron episodes.

06:22SPEAKER- What is this episode, Brad?

06:23SPEAKER- This one took research.

06:24SPEAKERI made at least eight bookmarks for this one.

06:27SPEAKERWe dug back into the archives.

06:30SPEAKERI availed myself of Google's Usenet archive

06:34SPEAKERto dig up a bunch of my old '90s Usenet posts.

06:37SPEAKER- Don't do, just, hey, if you're thinking at home,

06:40SPEAKERI should dig up some of my '90s Usenet posts, maybe beware.

06:44SPEAKER- Look, we embarrass ourselves so you don't have to.

06:46SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

06:47SPEAKER- Yeah, you pulled some posts

06:50SPEAKERfrom what, the Ars Technica forums?

06:51SPEAKERI think there might be some other stuff in there.

06:53SPEAKER- It's like Ars Technica,

06:54SPEAKERthere was a couple of early Shaq News posts

06:55SPEAKERI think we talked to.

06:56SPEAKERI was one of the first posters

06:57SPEAKERon what is the current iteration of,

07:01SPEAKERwell, what is what became the current iteration

07:03SPEAKERof the chatty thing.

07:05SPEAKER- It's not still jazz, is it?

07:07SPEAKERI forget.

07:08SPEAKER- No, it's something else now.

07:09SPEAKERBut I think it all goes all the way back.

07:11SPEAKERAnd Steve, and we were friends with Steve at Ars Technica,

07:14SPEAKERand he was like, hey, will you come check out

07:15SPEAKERour message board?

07:16SPEAKER- That's cool.

07:17SPEAKER- So we came and checked it out early.

07:17SPEAKER- Was it larynx?

07:19SPEAKER- It might've been larynx at that point.

07:20SPEAKER- Laryn.x.

07:22SPEAKER- Or it may have been chat.y at that point too.

07:25SPEAKERChat.ty, I can't remember.

07:28SPEAKER- Again, though, yeah, actual apologies

07:30SPEAKERto our staunchest supporters,

07:32SPEAKERthe patrons who have already heard this episode,

07:34SPEAKER'cause they don't get a new episode this week,

07:35SPEAKERand we do feel a little bad about that.

07:38SPEAKER- But you can laugh at us again, it's fine.

07:40SPEAKER- Yes, yes.

07:41SPEAKER- Yeah, and thanks to everybody who listens.

07:43SPEAKERWe will be back, I mean, I guess next week

07:46SPEAKERis the first episode of the new year.

07:47SPEAKER- Oh, you're right.

07:48SPEAKER- This technically, I guess next week we'll do questions.

07:50SPEAKERThis should have been a questions episode.

07:52SPEAKER- Oh, you're right, wow.

07:53SPEAKER- And we'll do patron thank yous next week as well

07:56SPEAKERfor all of our patrons.

07:58SPEAKER- I guess we could've banged out an episode then

08:00SPEAKERif we had a topic and everything.

08:02SPEAKER- I didn't have time.

08:03SPEAKERLook, I got back from the hospital

08:03SPEAKERlike five o'clock last, on Christmas Eve.

08:05SPEAKER- Dude, yes.

08:07SPEAKER- I'm a little booked.

08:08SPEAKER- No, no, seriously.

08:09SPEAKERAlso, I have to point out that you literally texted me

08:11SPEAKERyesterday and said, hey, they're kicking me

08:14SPEAKERout of the hospital, can I drop Nog off?

08:16SPEAKER- Well, look, Gina had been busy, it had been raining.

08:19SPEAKERIt's been raining really hard here.

08:20SPEAKER- All I'm saying is I would've been fine to wait

08:23SPEAKERfor like until next week for the Nog,

08:25SPEAKERbut you came straight here from the hospital

08:27SPEAKERto deliver the Nog.

08:28SPEAKER- Oh no, dude, we had to get the Nog out of the fridge.

08:32SPEAKERWe like, 22 quarts of Nog.

08:34SPEAKERTurns out we'll fill a normal American size refrigerator.

08:37SPEAKERSo we had no room for other food.

08:39SPEAKER- Oh, I didn't think about it that way.

08:40SPEAKER- Until we dumped it, like the Nog had to go.

08:42SPEAKER- Okay, well, I'm glad to have,

08:45SPEAKERhappy to have made the sacrifice for your refrigerator.

08:47SPEAKER- Hopefully you react to it better than I did.

08:49SPEAKERI'm off the Nog this year, sadly, so.

08:52SPEAKER- Condolences.

08:54SPEAKER- I know, just tell me how good it was

08:55SPEAKERand I'll see you all next year.

08:57SPEAKER- Anyway, yes, henceforth some dramatic readings

09:01SPEAKERof some of our more embarrassing artifacts

09:03SPEAKERscattered around the internet.

09:05SPEAKER- Thanks for listening, everybody.

09:06SPEAKEREnjoy the Patreon episode.

09:10SPEAKER(upbeat music)

09:15SPEAKER- Dude, people are not paying us for bad Gollum impressions.

09:18SPEAKERI'm sorry.

09:19SPEAKER- I'm not gonna put that part in.

09:20SPEAKER- I'm sorry for the start here.

09:21SPEAKERNo, we've already started, that's.

09:22SPEAKER- Nope, it was too loud, I'll blow people's,

09:25SPEAKERI don't want people to have an ear bleeding because of me.

09:27SPEAKER- That's what audio editing is for.

09:29SPEAKER- Uh, hello Brad.

09:31SPEAKER- Hi, Will, how's it going, how's your fruit?

09:34SPEAKER- Our 13th consecutive patron episode.

09:37SPEAKER- Yes, 13th annual celebrating 13 years of excellence.

09:41SPEAKER- Yes, 10 to the negative 23rd years of,

09:46SPEAKERit's, the tree pollen here is so bad right now

09:49SPEAKERthat when I cut some branches off of a pine tree

09:51SPEAKERoutside my house yesterday,

09:51SPEAKERthere was like a cloud of yellow

09:53SPEAKERthat just hung in the air afterwards, so.

09:58SPEAKER- Excuse us, it is hard to talk right now.

10:02SPEAKERA lot of throat crud, which is really gonna do gangbusters

10:06SPEAKERfor this episode where we're probably gonna be doing

10:08SPEAKERa bunch of dumb nasally voices, I'm guessing.

10:12SPEAKER- Yeah, my throat crud is actually the name

10:15SPEAKERof my throat singing, yeah, I got nothing, okay, nevermind.

10:21SPEAKER- Your interpretive analogy or anthology

10:24SPEAKERof Ars Technica posts from the turn of the century.

10:27SPEAKER- Yeah, today I wanna, Brad, you suggested something,

10:30SPEAKERI was like, oh, this is gonna be fun,

10:31SPEAKERand then I started reading these old posts,

10:32SPEAKERI was like, oh, this is gonna make me feel bad, so.

10:36SPEAKER- It's too late, we've already committed.

10:37SPEAKER- Yeah, it's too late, yeah.

10:39SPEAKER- Welcome to the patron episode for the month,

10:41SPEAKERdid we say that?

10:42SPEAKER- Yeah, I did, I'm Will.

10:44SPEAKER- I'm Brad, hi, it's early in the morning.

10:48SPEAKER- Early in the a.m., which is not helping our throats either.

10:50SPEAKERAlso, I can't keep track of things, but.

10:53SPEAKER- So, people suggested this.

10:57SPEAKER- Yeah, Usenet came up on last week's podcast,

11:00SPEAKERand previously it had come up on the Discord

11:02SPEAKERand we were kinda digging around through our old posts,

11:04SPEAKERand then it was just like,

11:06SPEAKERwhy don't we spend a patron episode

11:08SPEAKERreading some of our old posts?

11:10SPEAKER- And talking about our thought process at the time,

11:12SPEAKER'cause I can go back to this, I can remember.

11:14SPEAKER- Are you, can you?

11:15SPEAKER'Cause I, I feel like I'm reading a different person almost.

11:20SPEAKER- Well, I mean, look, I'm probably,

11:22SPEAKERthe person that was me before I moved to California,

11:26SPEAKERand the person that was me after I moved to California,

11:28SPEAKERtwo, like, not wildly different,

11:31SPEAKERbut like, the experience of moving as a person

11:35SPEAKERwho grew up in a small town

11:37SPEAKERand then lived in a slightly larger but still smallish town,

11:41SPEAKERand then moving into, like, downtown San Francisco

11:44SPEAKERand living and seeing, like, living someplace

11:47SPEAKERwhere on any given day I'd hear six or seven

11:49SPEAKERdifferent languages spoken.

11:51SPEAKER- Sure.

11:51SPEAKER- Was a incredibly transformative experience

11:56SPEAKERfor my understanding of, like, what it means to be human.

12:00SPEAKERLike, the range of human experience.

12:02SPEAKER- Yeah, like, that'll happen to anybody

12:03SPEAKERwho moves to a major metropolitan area,

12:05SPEAKERbut I'm guessing the timing was also a factor.

12:08SPEAKERI don't know what age you moved out here, but I was--

12:10SPEAKER- 25.

12:11SPEAKER- Yeah, I was 23 when I moved out here.

12:13SPEAKER- Yeah, well, and so there's a thing that happened,

12:17SPEAKERI mean, look, I've gotten old and ossified

12:19SPEAKERand I don't make new friends now

12:20SPEAKERoutside of my daughter's school.

12:22SPEAKER- It happens to everyone.

12:23SPEAKER- Yeah, but like--

12:24SPEAKER- Just keep telling yourself that.

12:26SPEAKER- Well, but I mean, at that point,

12:27SPEAKERlike, I moved into this terrible apartment in Lower Haight

12:29SPEAKERwhere I had ready access to crack anytime I wanted it,

12:32SPEAKERand--

12:33SPEAKER- Okay.

12:35SPEAKER- I didn't want it, for the record.

12:37SPEAKER- Just wanted to clear that up, did you say Lower Haight?

12:39SPEAKER- Lower Haight, yeah.

12:40SPEAKER- That is, Lower Haight is the only place

12:41SPEAKERI have been mugged in this town.

12:43SPEAKER- Scott and Waller is where I lived.

12:45SPEAKER- Okay, yeah, all right.

12:46SPEAKER- One block off of Hayton to visit Arrow.

12:49SPEAKER- I got mugged right in front of Buena Vista Park

12:52SPEAKERat about--

12:52SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a good place to get mugged.

12:54SPEAKER- About 1.30 in the morning.

12:55SPEAKER- Yep, yep, I--

12:57SPEAKER- Somehow talked them out of taking my wallet.

13:00SPEAKER- Oh, that was nice.

13:00SPEAKER- They were a pretty small time, I think.

13:02SPEAKER- Did they have a knife, or were they just imposing--

13:04SPEAKER- They didn't have anything.

13:05SPEAKERThey threatened to use their fists.

13:07SPEAKER- That's enough.

13:08SPEAKER- And we gave them the cash that we had on us

13:12SPEAKERand talked them out of taking my identifying information

13:15SPEAKERand such.

13:16SPEAKER- My Buena Vista Park story was that I was walking back

13:20SPEAKERfrom a bar at like two o'clock in the morning

13:23SPEAKERon when the 2000 earthquake that killed the Sonoma one

13:27SPEAKERthat the brick wall collapsed and killed a couple people.

13:30SPEAKER- Oh boy.

13:31SPEAKER- It was a pretty good earthquake, didn't notice.

13:34SPEAKER- Wow, okay.

13:35SPEAKER- 'Cause that's how drunk I was.

13:36SPEAKERI just thought I was just, you know, having a worst.

13:38SPEAKERIt wasn't a good time.

13:40SPEAKERLook, I had problems.

13:41SPEAKER- Yeah.

13:42SPEAKER- This has changed my drinking habits pretty significantly.

13:45SPEAKER- Your 20s in a major city,

13:46SPEAKERespecially in a tech-related industry.

13:51SPEAKER- Yeah, it's funny, when I moved out here,

13:53SPEAKERI thought I was moving into a tech-related industry

13:54SPEAKERand then I very quickly understood that print magazines

13:57SPEAKERare even a print magazine about technology,

13:59SPEAKERnot a tech industry at all.

14:01SPEAKER- Yes, yes, fairly backward looking, I'm guessing.

14:05SPEAKER- Let's, you wanna jump in here?

14:07SPEAKERYou wanna pick out a dumpster guy?

14:10SPEAKER- I feel like I should start at the start,

14:12SPEAKEReven though I feel like I've brought this thing up

14:14SPEAKERhalf a dozen times.

14:15SPEAKERIn fact, this is kind of the genesis of this whole thing,

14:17SPEAKERis somebody on our Discord found a thread on reset era.

14:21SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

14:22SPEAKER- Where somebody, did you see that?

14:22SPEAKERWhere--

14:23SPEAKER- I saw it on the link, but I didn't dig into the thread.

14:25SPEAKER- Somebody posted on reset era,

14:27SPEAKERall excited about their new hobby

14:28SPEAKERof going through old, old, old video game posts

14:31SPEAKERfrom 20 plus years ago,

14:32SPEAKER'cause they were not old enough to experience that era

14:34SPEAKERand seeing people talking about, you know,

14:37SPEAKEReverything from the N64 to the PS2 to, you know, Zelda.

14:42SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

14:43SPEAKER- Stuff like that.

14:44SPEAKER- Hold on, were you anti-Zelda?

14:46SPEAKER- Oh.

14:47SPEAKER- Okay.

14:48SPEAKER- Twin Waker is--

14:49SPEAKER- Well, I mean, I know you're not now,

14:50SPEAKER'cause you're a human being.

14:51SPEAKER- A sublime work of, no, at the time,

14:53SPEAKERI was very excited about it.

14:54SPEAKERI thought it was rad.

14:56SPEAKER- See, this is the thing,

14:57SPEAKERI'm gonna be interested to see if this exercise teaches us

15:00SPEAKERthat we're drift compatible

15:02SPEAKERor that we were opposite children.

15:04SPEAKER- I mean, you read me a few samples before we started.

15:08SPEAKERThey sounded like they could have been written by me

15:10SPEAKERcirca the turn of the century, so.

15:13SPEAKER- These things happen, yeah.

15:14SPEAKER- Yeah, so anyway, that thread on reset era dug up this post,

15:17SPEAKERwhich I know I have also referenced multiple times

15:19SPEAKERon Giant Bomb, so I apologize if people have heard this one,

15:21SPEAKERbut let's just start at the start here.

15:25SPEAKER- Do it.

15:26SPEAKER- Here's a post that I wrote on February 8th, 1996.

15:30SPEAKER- Wow.

15:30SPEAKER- When I was 16 years old on alt.games.finalfantasy.

15:37SPEAKER- Okay, the number one Final Fantasy Usenet group?

15:40SPEAKER- Yes, yes, there was a news group on Usenet,

15:43SPEAKERif people are not familiar with Usenet.

15:46SPEAKER- Usenet was kinda like message boards,

15:47SPEAKERbut for the whole internet and with some really

15:49SPEAKERestablished rules, so.

15:51SPEAKER- Yes. - Yeah.

15:51SPEAKER- Yes, now people just use it to pirate movies.

15:54SPEAKER- Yeah, and TV shows.

15:56SPEAKER- Yes, okay, all right.

15:57SPEAKERHere's the post for February 8th, 1996, entitled

16:00SPEAKERFF7 question mark, exclamation mark, question mark.

16:05SPEAKER- Wait, is this when they said it wasn't coming out

16:08SPEAKERon Nintendo, it was gonna be a Sony game?

16:09SPEAKER- Dude, I scooped Usenet.

16:12SPEAKER- What, you were the deci, wow.

16:15SPEAKER- I've never done the research, and it seems like

16:17SPEAKERthe advanced search on Google groups has disappeared.

16:21SPEAKERI couldn't figure out a way to like sort--

16:22SPEAKER- Why would anybody need that?

16:24SPEAKER- Google groups, so also people, if you don't know,

16:27SPEAKERGoogle groups basically archived, I think,

16:28SPEAKERthe entirety of old Usenet or as much as they could get.

16:31SPEAKER- It started in like 2002 or whatever, yeah.

16:34SPEAKER- Right, so there are 30 years of Usenet posts on there.

16:38SPEAKER- I don't know if Fitz was around yet then,

16:39SPEAKERhe might've still been in Apple or something at that point.

16:41SPEAKER- We should talk to him about that.

16:42SPEAKER- We should find some early Googler and find out

16:44SPEAKERwhat the, like I'd love to know what that conversation was,

16:47SPEAKERlike, hey, we have all these computers,

16:49SPEAKERwhat can we do with them?

16:50SPEAKERI don't know, why don't we archive Usenet?

16:51SPEAKER- Let's just scrape Usenet just in case.

16:53SPEAKER- Yeah.

16:54SPEAKER- Thanks for preserving such gems as this one.

16:58SPEAKER- Okay, so were you upset about this, or are you excited?

17:00SPEAKER- No, no, but what I was gonna say is

17:01SPEAKERI haven't done the research, but I don't know

17:03SPEAKERif anyone ever posted about Final Fantasy VII

17:06SPEAKERon Usenet before me, it's possible.

17:08SPEAKER- Oh, you think you were the first post?

17:10SPEAKER- Not on the internet, like I got this

17:13SPEAKERfrom a PlayStation news website I was avidly following

17:16SPEAKERat the time, so somebody else, anyway.

17:19SPEAKER- You didn't translate it from Japanese or anything?

17:21SPEAKER- No.

17:22SPEAKER- Okay.

17:23SPEAKER- No, not quite.

17:24SPEAKERAll right, here's the post.

17:26SPEAKERI have a feeling this is not widely known yet,

17:28SPEAKERbut the Japanese magazine Jump has confirmed

17:31SPEAKERthat Square is releasing Final Fantasy VII

17:33SPEAKERfor the PlayStation in Japan this December.

17:37SPEAKERIt will cost 5,800 yen and will be on two CDs.

17:40SPEAKERIf you don't believe me, go to vidgames.com,

17:43SPEAKERand then go to news.

17:44SPEAKERI don't know what to believe anymore.

17:47SPEAKER(laughing)

17:49SPEAKERVery dramatic, it was very, dude, I mean.

17:52SPEAKER- That was the style of the time.

17:53SPEAKER- Well, not only that, I mean, like the idea

17:56SPEAKERof a Final Fantasy on the PlayStation was unthinkable.

18:00SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

18:01SPEAKER- At the time, it was a scandal.

18:02SPEAKERIt was like people were enraged.

18:04SPEAKERIt was a shocking act of betrayal.

18:07SPEAKER- Well, the idea that, I mean, you're absolutely right.

18:10SPEAKERLike the fact that, it's funny, this was a time

18:12SPEAKERwhen I wasn't paying too much attention to console stuff

18:14SPEAKER'cause I was in college and I had a gaming PC

18:17SPEAKERand I was mostly just playing Quake, like for four years.

18:22SPEAKER- Of course, yes.

18:25SPEAKER- But yeah, it was a weird, that was a weird,

18:27SPEAKERthat was a weird, weird time.

18:30SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, like I said, like the post said,

18:34SPEAKERJump was a Japanese only magazine, right?

18:36SPEAKERSo this was like, this was like people in Japan

18:39SPEAKERor somehow getting their hands on that magazine

18:41SPEAKERfrom import shops and like scanning it

18:42SPEAKERand putting it on their websites.

18:44SPEAKERLike that's how the information was getting out there.

18:46SPEAKERBut that was, as far as I know,

18:48SPEAKERJump, that Jump magazine was maybe the first place

18:50SPEAKERthat ever said it was jumping shipped,

18:53SPEAKERpun super intended, to the PlayStation.

18:56SPEAKER'Cause prior to that, everybody, like they had put out,

18:58SPEAKERI don't know if, you probably don't remember this

19:00SPEAKERsince you were keeping up with that stuff back then,

19:02SPEAKERbut Square had put out footage, test footage

19:04SPEAKERfrom an SGI workstation of what Final Fantasy

19:07SPEAKERwould look like on a Nintendo 64.

19:09SPEAKER- Oh, I remember seeing that.

19:10SPEAKER- Or Ultra 64, or I don't even know if it had that,

19:13SPEAKERit might've been Project Reality,

19:14SPEAKERI think was the code name at that time.

19:15SPEAKERBut the point is they had put out literal media

19:18SPEAKERimplying they would make the next Final Fantasy

19:19SPEAKERon the, what would become the Nintendo 64.

19:22SPEAKERAnd then this happened.

19:23SPEAKERAnd as I said, I didn't know what to believe.

19:26SPEAKER- I wonder if it was originally gonna be one of those disc,

19:28SPEAKERone of those, one of those disc games,

19:31SPEAKERthe, you know, the Susnes disc, the Phillips slash Sony.

19:37SPEAKER- The Super Nintendo CD-ROM.

19:39SPEAKER- Yeah.

19:40SPEAKER- The Nintendo PlayStation, you mean?

19:42SPEAKER- Yeah, the Nintendo PlayStation.

19:43SPEAKER- That's possible.

19:44SPEAKERWell, you know, they flat out said

19:46SPEAKERthat's why they jumped to the PlayStation

19:48SPEAKER'cause the cartridges were too limiting, so.

19:50SPEAKER- Yeah, well those cartridges were hella expensive.

19:52SPEAKERWe were talking about this in the house last night.

19:54SPEAKERI remember in that, the one console I did buy

19:57SPEAKERthat generation was an N64 because I wanted Super Mario 64.

20:01SPEAKERLike Super Mario 64 was the kind of game

20:03SPEAKERyou bought a console for,

20:04SPEAKERwhether you were gonna play anything else.

20:05SPEAKER- Yes, absolutely.

20:06SPEAKER- And Gene and I were talking about Wave Race,

20:09SPEAKERwhich we literally drove, we drove to every Walmart

20:13SPEAKERin the greater Knoxville area, which I mean,

20:16SPEAKERthere were a lot of Walmarts in Knoxville at that point.

20:18SPEAKERThey were all over the place after work one day

20:21SPEAKERand eventually found a copy of Wave Race

20:23SPEAKERthat I think was $80.

20:25SPEAKER- That sounds right, yeah.

20:26SPEAKER- It was so expensive.

20:27SPEAKER- Yes.

20:29SPEAKER- In 1996, $80 could buy you like a used Honda, so.

20:33SPEAKER- That's right.

20:34SPEAKERMoney went a lot further back then.

20:36SPEAKER- Yeah.

20:37SPEAKERThe water physics in Wave Race 64 blew my mind.

20:42SPEAKER- You wanna hear my first one, my first post?

20:46SPEAKER- Yes, wait, is this your literal first post on ours?

20:48SPEAKER- On the ours boards?

20:50SPEAKER- Ever?

20:51SPEAKER- Well, I mean, I posted content on the site

20:54SPEAKER'cause the forums we added after the site

20:56SPEAKERhad been up for a while.

20:57SPEAKER- Okay, so this is a forum thread,

20:59SPEAKERnot a comment on a news story.

21:01SPEAKER- We didn't have comments.

21:02SPEAKERThere were no comments on, are you kidding?

21:04SPEAKER- Wait.

21:04SPEAKER- Look, at that point in time,

21:05SPEAKERours was a front page website where we had to get in ICQ

21:09SPEAKERand message everybody else to say,

21:11SPEAKER"Hey, I'm editing the front page,

21:13SPEAKER"nobody else opened it up."

21:15SPEAKERBecause if two people were working on the same time,

21:17SPEAKERthe last person who saved

21:18SPEAKERwould erase the other person's changes.

21:21SPEAKER- Let me tell you about a content management system.

21:23SPEAKER- Look, nobody had, at that point,

21:26SPEAKERwe had talked to people

21:28SPEAKERabout buying content management systems.

21:30SPEAKERAnd I mean, we were on like,

21:32SPEAKERI think we were getting ads from UGO or somebody

21:34SPEAKERat that point.

21:35SPEAKER- Okay, that sounds right.

21:35SPEAKER- And we were making a little bit of money,

21:37SPEAKERbut our hosting costs were pretty substantial

21:39SPEAKER'cause we didn't really understand that.

21:42SPEAKERAnd it was, we did not have budget

21:46SPEAKERfor a content management system.

21:49SPEAKERIt also was before,

21:50SPEAKERit was before blogger and movable type and all that stuff.

21:53SPEAKERSo there was no,

21:54SPEAKERit wasn't like there was a cheap, free,

21:56SPEAKERopen source alternative to an expensive monolithic

22:00SPEAKERdeveloped just for UCMS.

22:02SPEAKER- Familiar with that phenomenon, for sure.

22:04SPEAKERI didn't realize that ours was such a startup-y startup

22:06SPEAKERat the beginning.

22:07SPEAKER- So ours started with five, four,

22:10SPEAKERthree or four guys who were in Harvard Divinity School

22:12SPEAKERand one person who was a friend of one of those guys.

22:17SPEAKERAnd they started it running on a Windows NT machine

22:20SPEAKERin the Divinity School IT closet

22:23SPEAKERthat was just leeching bandwidth from Harvard.

22:28SPEAKER- What else do the theologians need bandwidth for?

22:30SPEAKER- Look, they don't, they didn't, they were fine.

22:35SPEAKERSo yeah, and I started about four months, five months

22:39SPEAKERafter they started the site.

22:40SPEAKERSo we had, I think the first month I was there,

22:43SPEAKERwe had like 10,000 visits and we were like,

22:45SPEAKERman, we've really hit it, this is going great.

22:48SPEAKER- You know, late '90s, turn of the century.

22:50SPEAKER- Yeah, then we got linked on Slashdot the next month

22:52SPEAKERand like that immediately exploded our audience, so.

22:55SPEAKER- The rest was, hey, you know,

22:56SPEAKEReverybody's gotta start somewhere.

22:57SPEAKERSuch as with this forum thread,

22:59SPEAKERwhich I guess was your first, ours forum thread.

23:02SPEAKER- Yeah, so the forum, well, it wasn't my forum thread,

23:04SPEAKERI'm just responding on this one.

23:05SPEAKER- Okay, okay.

23:06SPEAKER- So this one, the forum thread is ATA66,

23:09SPEAKERknockin' on the door, 'cause you know, late '90s.

23:14SPEAKERHere's my two cents.

23:16SPEAKERI am currently using a Quantum Atlas 6.4 gigabyte drive

23:19SPEAKERwith my 2X SCSI CDR and a SCSI Plextor 1220 Plex.

23:23SPEAKERI also have an IBM Deskstar 14.4 GXP,

23:28SPEAKERwhich totally blows the doors off the Quantum drive.

23:32SPEAKERBefore I start rambling,

23:33SPEAKERI'll tell you what the practical upshot is.

23:37SPEAKERUDMA66 does nothing for drives under 7,200 RPMs.

23:41SPEAKERDefinitive fact.

23:42SPEAKERThat's mine, the definitive fact is me right now.

23:45SPEAKERMy 14.4 gigabyte Deskstar doesn't saturate the IDE bus.

23:49SPEAKERIt bursts up to about 27 megabits per second.

23:52SPEAKERThis is important because only one device

23:53SPEAKERcan use the bus at any given time,

23:55SPEAKERso you don't have to worry about multiple devices

23:56SPEAKERsaturating your entire bandwidth like you do with SCSI.

23:59SPEAKERIf you have two cheetahs on one SCSI channel,

24:01SPEAKERyou are wasting your money

24:02SPEAKERbecause they will be able to send data to the bus

24:04SPEAKERfaster than it will be able to accept it.

24:06SPEAKERI'm not sure that that was true.

24:08SPEAKERTotal balls to the wall bandwidth is nowhere near

24:11SPEAKERas important with IDE as it is with SCSI.

24:13SPEAKERI buy IDE, cause, C-O-Z.

24:16SPEAKERI would rather have bad-ass video and sound cards

24:19SPEAKERand plenty of room to store all the games I play

24:21SPEAKERand apps I use than the fastest hard drive.

24:23SPEAKERFor what I do, 20 pretty fast gigs

24:27SPEAKERbeats nine fastest in the world gigs any day.

24:31SPEAKERThe only other thing to worry about

24:33SPEAKERis most IDE drives are built with a shorter MTBF

24:36SPEAKERbecause they are consumer level parts rather than pro parts.

24:41SPEAKERThis was on March 1st, 1999 at, I don't know what,

24:46SPEAKERprobably 10 o'clock, it looks like.

24:50SPEAKER- The more of these that I hear,

24:51SPEAKERthe more I have to wonder like there was this specific

24:54SPEAKERlike verbose, like kind of swaggering nerd style

24:57SPEAKERof posting that I can't tell if it was an artifact

25:01SPEAKERof the era on the internet or our age

25:04SPEAKERor our interests category or all of the above.

25:07SPEAKERYou know what I mean?

25:08SPEAKER- Like we talked about early gaming news sites

25:12SPEAKERa few months ago when we did a retrospective

25:15SPEAKERon something else.

25:16SPEAKERBut like the language that we used at ours early on

25:20SPEAKERwas entirely informed by sites like Shaq News,

25:23SPEAKERwhat Steve Gibson did at Shaq News

25:25SPEAKERand Billy Mitchell at Voodoo Extreme.

25:28SPEAKERAnd I don't remember what Blue's real name is,

25:31SPEAKERbut Blue at Blue News and Redwood at Stomped.

25:33SPEAKER- Stephen Heeslip, I think.

25:34SPEAKER- Yeah, that's it.

25:35SPEAKER- I can't believe I remember that.

25:36SPEAKER- But it was kind of a like, it was a weird,

25:40SPEAKERit was a weird patois that kind of lifted stuff

25:46SPEAKERfrom like hip hop culture and like old Unix nerds.

25:51SPEAKERAnd I don't know, it was a very specific thing

25:54SPEAKERfor that period of time.

25:56SPEAKERMaximum PC, Boo was responsible for a lot of that too.

25:58SPEAKER'Cause like they called everything mobos

26:00SPEAKERand like they were aggressive abbreviators

26:04SPEAKERbecause they only had 150 words to write

26:06SPEAKERlike as an in-depth review as possible.

26:08SPEAKERAnd it turns out if you have to put motherboard

26:10SPEAKERin a review 18 times, having M-O-T-H-E-R-B-O-A-R,

26:16SPEAKER10 characters versus four added up.

26:18SPEAKERSo I don't know, man.

26:21SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know.

26:23SPEAKER- This is one of the least cringy things

26:24SPEAKERthat I wrote during that time period.

26:26SPEAKER- So I don't, dude, I don't know how many of these

26:27SPEAKERI can get through.

26:29SPEAKERAll right, here's a post of mine, September 13th, 1996.

26:35SPEAKERThis is right around the time the N64 was coming out,

26:37SPEAKERI believe, on rec.games.video.nintendo

26:43SPEAKERin a thread entitled "TRU Better Sell N64s on the 29th."

26:47SPEAKERI did not write that thread title, just to be clear.

26:51SPEAKERAlso, TRU is Toys R Us for anybody who does not know.

26:54SPEAKERThis is from some guy complaining

26:56SPEAKERthat he wasn't going to get his pre-ordered N64

26:58SPEAKERuntil the 30th, the day after release.

27:02SPEAKER- Wow.

27:02SPEAKER- And he's very mad about it.

27:04SPEAKERAnyway, several posts down the thread, here's me.

27:08SPEAKERI don't know if I can do this.

27:11SPEAKERThis is my favorite TRU experience.

27:15SPEAKERI went a couple of months ago

27:16SPEAKERto ask about pre-ordering an N64.

27:18SPEAKERThe woman answered vaguely that it would be out

27:20SPEAKERin mid-August, even though Nintendo had been advertising

27:23SPEAKERSeptember 30th since February.

27:26SPEAKER- Oh, no.

27:27SPEAKER- She also told me with confidence that it would be $500,

27:30SPEAKERalthough, again, the price had been known for some time.

27:35SPEAKERShe then proceeded to compare it to her Packard Bell,

27:38SPEAKERgroan, and concluded that the N64 could not compare.

27:44SPEAKERDespite the fact that she had never seen it,

27:46SPEAKERI left with a general feeling of disgust.

27:50SPEAKER(laughing)

27:52SPEAKER- Oh, there's your episode title,

27:53SPEAKERI left with a general feeling of disgust.

27:56SPEAKER- I can't, dude, I want to die.

27:58SPEAKER- We were all the fucking comic book guy.

28:00SPEAKER- I want to die.

28:04SPEAKER- I mean, look--

28:05SPEAKER- Also, I'm sorry, can I say one more thing real quick?

28:06SPEAKER- Yeah, no.

28:07SPEAKERI just noticed this scrolling down, two posts later,

28:10SPEAKERreplying directly to me with somebody else telling

28:13SPEAKERa bunch of, you know, complaining about Toys "R" Us

28:15SPEAKERthemselves, a prominent, someone who would go on

28:18SPEAKERto be a prominent editor at EGM.

28:21SPEAKER- Really?

28:22SPEAKER- At Electronic Gaming Monthly, yes.

28:25SPEAKEROld username was full of people who popped up

28:27SPEAKERall over the game's press.

28:27SPEAKER- I was gonna say, was it Derek Smart?

28:29SPEAKER- No, no, no, no.

28:30SPEAKER- Don't say the name again, but like, yeah, no.

28:33SPEAKERIt's, that kind of stuff, like, the number of things

28:37SPEAKERI found, I'm not gonna read, like, the number of things

28:40SPEAKERI found complaining about bad retail experiences

28:44SPEAKERwhere some poor bastard was in there just making

28:46SPEAKERfive bucks an hour and trying to answer questions

28:49SPEAKERfrom the horrific nerds, like, that was the first time

28:52SPEAKERthat the internet graded up against the real world,

28:55SPEAKERwas like, when, like, we had information about shit

29:01SPEAKERthat did, like, I remember, I distinctly remember

29:03SPEAKERgoing into Electronics Boutique or Babbage's,

29:05SPEAKERwhichever one was the current owner of that spot

29:10SPEAKERin the mall, and asking when they were gonna get

29:13SPEAKERthe Quake 1 disc, which, if you recall,

29:16SPEAKERwas a shareware disc that you paid, like, $8 for.

29:19SPEAKER- Yep.

29:20SPEAKER- And then you went to their website and put in

29:22SPEAKERyour credit card, I think without SSL, probably, and--

29:25SPEAKER- Oh, definitely.

29:26SPEAKER- And they would give you a code to unlock the game

29:28SPEAKERon your disc.

29:30SPEAKER- Was the whole game on the disc?

29:31SPEAKERI bought, I ordered the just, like, full-on unlocked

29:34SPEAKERretail copy straight from id in the mail.

29:36SPEAKER- So, I went in and they were like, well, we have this,

29:39SPEAKERand it was on the counter, it was, like, $10.

29:40SPEAKERAnd I was like, I don't want that.

29:42SPEAKERDo you have the one that's the full game?

29:44SPEAKERAnd they were like, oh, no, that's not a real thing.

29:46SPEAKERThis is the only way you can get it.

29:47SPEAKERI was like, no, dude, there's absolutely one

29:49SPEAKERthat's the full unlocked disc.

29:51SPEAKERThey're like, that's, whoever told you that is a liar, man.

29:53SPEAKERIt was probably from that bullshit internet, right?

29:55SPEAKERAnd it was, you know, some, it was literally some kid

29:58SPEAKERwho was, like, 22 years old and was wearing, like,

30:00SPEAKERone of those knit ties with the flat bottom.

30:02SPEAKER- I remember in a blue short-sleeve dress shirt

30:05SPEAKERas the manager at the Babbage's.

30:07SPEAKER- Oh, dude, I worked in electronics boutique for a while.

30:09SPEAKERI am well, well- - You know that guy.

30:13SPEAKER- Our assistant manager used to just lie to people

30:15SPEAKERabout the products knowingly and didn't care.

30:18SPEAKERIt was a real piece of work.

30:19SPEAKER- I've got another one if you want, if you want a gaming one.

30:22SPEAKER- Sure, sure.

30:23SPEAKER- This is in the gaming extra strength caplets forum

30:26SPEAKERon the Ars Lykaon Messiah dash dash dash.

30:33SPEAKERWorst gaming disappointment, question mark?

30:37SPEAKERThe people are bitching about Messiah being bad,

30:39SPEAKERand then I get to, remember Messiah, Dave Shiny's Messiah?

30:42SPEAKERDave, Dave, Dave Shiny Dave's Messiah.

30:47SPEAKER- Dave Perry? - Dave Perry, yeah.

30:49SPEAKER- I thought it was Messiah really that bad?

30:51SPEAKER- Messiah. - Or just disappointing.

30:53SPEAKER- So here's the thing.

30:54SPEAKERIf you played Messiah on the consoles, I think it was fine.

30:56SPEAKERIt was a bad PC port, as I recall.

30:58SPEAKERIt had, like, bad control issues

31:00SPEAKERfrom mouse and keyboard or something.

31:01SPEAKER- Also, I think it had, it just had, like,

31:03SPEAKERa tremendous amount of hype around it too, didn't it?

31:05SPEAKERAnd then, yeah, and then did not deliver.

31:08SPEAKER- I mean, it's possible that the hype was our fault.

31:10SPEAKERWho knew?

31:11SPEAKERBrad was in Usenet posting about how awesome

31:14SPEAKERMessiah was gonna be,

31:14SPEAKERand then immediately stopped talking about it.

31:18SPEAKERGood concept, poor execution, compounded by massive delays.

31:22SPEAKERIf Messiah had come out last summer or Xmas '98,

31:25SPEAKERit would have been revolutionary ellipsis.

31:28SPEAKERPlus, the interface sucks.

31:30SPEAKERI can think of one other game

31:31SPEAKERthat I was anticipating this much and was so disappointed.

31:35SPEAKERFirst one to get it gets a cookie.

31:37SPEAKER(laughing)

31:43SPEAKERI wanna die.

31:44SPEAKERI don't know which- - The next response

31:45SPEAKERis from Moody Allen, and he says, "Trespasser!"

31:48SPEAKERYou haven't reviewed any bad games yet.

31:51SPEAKERThere's so many ellipses in this too.

31:53SPEAKERBaldur's Gate, question mark, Treadmarks, question mark.

31:56SPEAKERHmm, who wants to be a millionaire, question mark?

31:59SPEAKERMoody Allen wins.

32:01SPEAKERTrespasser it is.

32:02SPEAKERGod, I'm so predictable.

32:05SPEAKERThe problem is that game companies

32:06SPEAKERdon't send shitty games to me,

32:07SPEAKERand I refuse to shell out my own cash

32:09SPEAKERfor stuff I know sucks.

32:11SPEAKERI don't know, I did just buy Messiah,

32:12SPEAKERso maybe I'll have to introduce it to my rapier-like wit.

32:16SPEAKERLaugh, with two Fs.

32:18SPEAKER- Wait. - Oh, man.

32:19SPEAKER- Laugh? - Laugh.

32:20SPEAKER- Like instead of an emoticon, just the word laugh?

32:23SPEAKER- There weren't emoticons then, are you kidding?

32:24SPEAKER- No, emoticon, not emojis.

32:25SPEAKERI'm like straight up, you know, colon, colon, parenthesis.

32:29SPEAKERLike, remember roots, man.

32:33SPEAKER- It's possible at ours we had some sort of problem

32:37SPEAKERwith emoticons, 'cause I'm scrolling through these threads,

32:39SPEAKERand I do not see any emoticons.

32:41SPEAKER- Interesting.

32:42SPEAKER- I think emoticons were later.

32:43SPEAKERI think emoticons were like early 2000s.

32:46SPEAKER- I was definitely using them on the IRC.

32:47SPEAKERThey were very prominent on IRC in the late '90s,

32:51SPEAKERbut maybe not on forums as much.

32:52SPEAKERLike that's kind of what I was getting at before.

32:54SPEAKERThere's like something formal about the way

32:56SPEAKERthat people wrote on message boards back then.

32:59SPEAKER- It was definitely a different style than the IRC.

33:02SPEAKER- It almost seems like it's similar

33:04SPEAKERto what we were talking about on the episode last week

33:05SPEAKERabout like, you know, writing habits from letters,

33:09SPEAKERfrom physical hard copy communication

33:11SPEAKERkind of trickling down to the internet.

33:13SPEAKERLike that's kind of, the way people would write letters

33:15SPEAKERis kind of how they posted on the internet for a long time.

33:17SPEAKER- Yeah, it's very true.

33:21SPEAKERWell, and I signed them all.

33:22SPEAKEREverybody signed up with their name,

33:23SPEAKERbut we didn't allow signatures on our forums

33:26SPEAKER'cause they were a plague.

33:27SPEAKERLike every, right, like using that has a lot of that too.

33:30SPEAKERJust the idea of writing your name

33:32SPEAKERat the bottom of every post is so ridiculous.

33:34SPEAKER- But you don't sign your Discord messages?

33:36SPEAKER- At this point, I should start doing that.

33:39SPEAKER- I, you know, it's funny.

33:40SPEAKERI still do slash, slash, slash,

33:42SPEAKERlike the end of line thing on my email signatures.

33:44SPEAKER- Really?

33:45SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know why.

33:47SPEAKER- That's just like a neat, like kitschy affectation

33:49SPEAKERat this point.

33:50SPEAKERIt's like retro.

33:50SPEAKER- It is, I didn't realize.

33:51SPEAKERI've been doing it apparently for 22 years at this point

33:54SPEAKER'cause I do it in all of these posts.

33:56SPEAKEREven, also, I was not Will.

33:58SPEAKERWe didn't use names on ours.

33:59SPEAKERThis is worth mentioning.

34:01SPEAKERWe used handles.

34:02SPEAKER- Oh, I was gonna ask when you were posting on those forums,

34:04SPEAKERdid people know you as R's editor, Will,

34:06SPEAKERor did you, were you just incognito

34:07SPEAKERas a member of the forums?

34:08SPEAKER- Oh yeah, no, I was R's editor, Gonzo, not Will.

34:11SPEAKER- Got it, got it.

34:12SPEAKER- I wanted to be Dr. Gonzo

34:13SPEAKER'cause I was really into Hunter S. Thompson

34:15SPEAKERin the late '90s, in my early 20s, as people often are.

34:18SPEAKER- Oh, is that where the,

34:19SPEAKERI just thought you were a big Muppets fan.

34:21SPEAKER- I also love the Muppets, but like,

34:23SPEAKERI mean, and it's funny, anyway,

34:26SPEAKERI've gotten to meet Dave Grohl a couple of times

34:28SPEAKERthrough Tested Stuff, the guy who plays Gonzo.

34:32SPEAKER- Wait, I'm sorry.

34:33SPEAKER- Yeah. - Back up.

34:34SPEAKERHis name is Dave Grohl?

34:35SPEAKER- Dave, Dave Gulls.

34:37SPEAKER- Oh. - G-O-E-L-S.

34:38SPEAKER- I'm sorry, you said, you said Dave Grohl.

34:40SPEAKER- Did I say Grohl?

34:42SPEAKER- Yes.

34:42SPEAKER- Yeah, Gulls.

34:43SPEAKER- I was like, is Dave Grohl really into science?

34:45SPEAKERWhy were you meeting him?

34:46SPEAKER- No, no, no.

34:47SPEAKER- Wait, Dave Grohl played Gonzo, what?

34:48SPEAKER- I'd hang out with the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl, anytime.

34:50SPEAKER- Okay, okay. - He seems okay.

34:51SPEAKER- But yeah, the handles,

34:57SPEAKERthey stopped using the handles right after I left

34:59SPEAKERto start to go work at Maximum PC.

35:00SPEAKER- God, even that is such an early internet thing

35:02SPEAKERof using your internet handle as your byline

35:05SPEAKERon the editorial site.

35:06SPEAKER- If you think about it, like all those early news sites,

35:08SPEAKERpre-IGN and GameSpot and all that stuff

35:11SPEAKERwere all handle sites, except for Voodoo Extreme,

35:15SPEAKERwhich was, I think he bylined Billy Voodoo Extreme Mitchell

35:19SPEAKERor something like that for a long time, right?

35:21SPEAKER- Right, like Shaq News,

35:23SPEAKERwhich was not even called Shaq News at that time.

35:25SPEAKER- You mean Scary's Quake Holio?

35:26SPEAKER- Like Scary was the byline on all those posts, right?

35:29SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

35:31SPEAKER- God, the internet was so weird.

35:35SPEAKERIs it my turn?

35:35SPEAKER- Yeah.

35:36SPEAKER- What do I wanna read here?

35:37SPEAKERI don't think I'll read this whole one.

35:39SPEAKER- What's the most embarrassing one you have, Brad?

35:41SPEAKER- Oh gosh, I feel like that Toys R Us one was maybe the one.

35:49SPEAKERLet me see, oh, please tell me I didn't close the one.

35:52SPEAKEROh, here it is, okay.

35:55SPEAKERAnother alt.games.finalfantasy.

35:56SPEAKERI really liked Final Fantasy in the '90s.

36:01SPEAKER- Having just played Final Fantasy VII last year,

36:02SPEAKERI understand why.

36:03SPEAKERThat game's pretty amazing.

36:04SPEAKERThe graphics back then would have been incredible.

36:06SPEAKER- Yeah, it was weird how it held up so well.

36:09SPEAKER- It's just like I remember seeing the screenshots.

36:11SPEAKER- Yeah, of course.

36:12SPEAKER- I never, I didn't have a PlayStation,

36:13SPEAKERso I didn't play it at the time.

36:15SPEAKER- Really?

36:16SPEAKER- Final Fantasy VII Remake was my first exposure

36:18SPEAKERto the Final Fantasy VII Oov, I'm sorry.

36:22SPEAKER- The what?

36:23SPEAKER- Oov.

36:24SPEAKER- Okay, great.

36:25SPEAKERI was in community college at the time that game came out.

36:28SPEAKERI remember driving straight from math class to the mall

36:31SPEAKERto pick up my pre-ordered copy.

36:32SPEAKER- There you go.

36:34SPEAKER- Vivid memory.

36:36SPEAKERHere's this thread is on alt.games.finalfantasy entitled,

36:38SPEAKER"This NG is doomed."

36:41SPEAKERNG being news group, of course.

36:43SPEAKEROnce again, I did not write that.

36:47SPEAKERAs I said, this is somebody freaking out,

36:49SPEAKERfreaking the fuck out about square jumping

36:52SPEAKERto the PlayStation.

36:53SPEAKERLike people were not having it,

36:56SPEAKERbut I don't need to get into that other than--

36:58SPEAKER- People were pissed.

36:59SPEAKER- This person used P-H instead of F

37:02SPEAKERthroughout their entire post.

37:03SPEAKER- That was the thing people did.

37:04SPEAKER- Did it, was it?

37:05SPEAKER- Yeah.

37:06SPEAKER- Really?

37:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

37:08SPEAKER- Like four, the preposition F-O-R, I spelled it P-H-O-R.

37:11SPEAKER- That might be an English as a second language

37:13SPEAKERsituation or something.

37:14SPEAKER- I mean, it's the--

37:16SPEAKER- This is just a dipshit.

37:17SPEAKER- The post is entirely legible.

37:19SPEAKERI mean, their username is cyberfreak

37:23SPEAKERwith cyber spelled P-S-Y and freak spelled P-H.

37:27SPEAKERI think it was just a stupid gimmick.

37:31SPEAKERIn fact, he referred to F-F

37:32SPEAKER'cause people would refer to Final Fantasy as F-F a lot.

37:34SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

37:35SPEAKER- He referred to Final Fantasy as P-H-P-H.

37:39SPEAKER- That's the most profoundly weird affectation

37:43SPEAKERI think I've ever heard.

37:44SPEAKER- I need to move on.

37:45SPEAKER- Anyway, this is a long thread

37:46SPEAKERand it was just kind of rambling all over the place

37:48SPEAKERand somebody at some point brought up Chrono Trigger

37:50SPEAKERand the character Magus and the spell dark matter

37:54SPEAKERthat Magus uses.

37:55SPEAKER- I've never played Chrono Trigger, Brad.

37:57SPEAKER- Oh dude, what?

37:58SPEAKER- I know, I have gaps.

37:59SPEAKER- You should play that game.

38:00SPEAKER- I should do it, I should hook up the Mister

38:03SPEAKERand play some old games on the stream.

38:05SPEAKER- Dude, you should play Chrono Trigger.

38:06SPEAKER- Is it, does it, okay.

38:08SPEAKER- I would like to think it holds up.

38:09SPEAKERThat game does some really interesting stuff that--

38:12SPEAKER- I'm familiar with how it works, yeah.

38:14SPEAKER- Like the time travel mechanic is wild.

38:16SPEAKERThere's like 20 endings in that game

38:17SPEAKERand you can kind of do stuff out of order

38:18SPEAKERand you can like, because you can time travel

38:21SPEAKERto the end of the game at any time,

38:22SPEAKERyou can finish the game like if throughout different points

38:25SPEAKERin the story, which dramatically changes

38:28SPEAKERhow the ending plays out.

38:29SPEAKER- Huh, that's interesting.

38:30SPEAKER- Like you can go beat the last boss halfway through the game

38:32SPEAKERif you're able to do it

38:33SPEAKERand like you'd get a totally different ending.

38:35SPEAKER- I wonder if somebody's made a pack that lets you not,

38:37SPEAKER'cause it's a little grindy too, right?

38:39SPEAKER- I don't remember, maybe a little bit.

38:40SPEAKER- I see all the RPGs from that era were grindy, right?

38:43SPEAKER- Overall, they were all a little grindy, yes.

38:45SPEAKERBut anyway, in response to somebody saying,

38:50SPEAKER"That reminds me, does anyone know what dark matter

38:52SPEAKER"is for certain?

38:53SPEAKER"I'm not talking about Magus' spell.

38:55SPEAKER"I mean the real dark matter in the universe."

38:57SPEAKERHere's my response again at the age of 16,

39:01SPEAKERjust shy of my 17th birthday

39:03SPEAKERabout what I thought dark matter was.

39:06SPEAKERDark matter is, if I'm not mistaken,

39:08SPEAKERthe amount of various elements in the universe

39:10SPEAKERthat can't actually be found, but is known to be there.

39:14SPEAKERIn other words, due to the known makeup of the universe,

39:17SPEAKERthere should be a certain amount of certain elements

39:19SPEAKERto make up the rest of it, but it can't be seen anywhere.

39:22SPEAKERI may be wrong, so correct me if I am.

39:25SPEAKER- Were you wrong?

39:26SPEAKERDid people correct you?

39:27SPEAKER- I don't know, I don't know.

39:28SPEAKER- Oh man.

39:30SPEAKER- Just to be correct, you were wrong.

39:33SPEAKER- This is not like completely off the mark.

39:34SPEAKERIt's like sort of in the general vicinity.

39:38SPEAKER- Yeah, the big one to me though, again,

39:40SPEAKERis the correct me if I'm wrong.

39:42SPEAKERLike it's this weird formality to some of these.

39:46SPEAKER- But I mean, it's weird,

39:46SPEAKER'cause like now if you posted something like that,

39:49SPEAKERsomebody would be like, "Hey, dumb ass, go Google this,"

39:51SPEAKERor "Look it up on Wikipedia."

39:52SPEAKERBut like there was no Google and there was no Wikipedia.

39:55SPEAKERAnd like the search engines of that time were so limited

39:58SPEAKERthat if you tried to search for something

40:00SPEAKERthat was two generic words like dark matter together,

40:04SPEAKERyou might actually have a hard time

40:05SPEAKERfinding something useful.

40:06SPEAKERLike it was not like a you can go look this up

40:10SPEAKERfor yourself type situation in like 1996.

40:13SPEAKER- Yes, say what you want about algorithms and their misuse,

40:16SPEAKERbut they have made search results usable at least.

40:20SPEAKER- Yeah, hey, shout out to DuckDuckGo.

40:21SPEAKERI've been using it for like three months now

40:22SPEAKERand haven't noticed a difference really, which is nice.

40:27SPEAKERSo were there a lot of responses to that?

40:32SPEAKERPeople praised you.

40:33SPEAKER- I don't think anybody weighed in on the nature of--

40:35SPEAKER- What news group was this?

40:38SPEAKER- This was all dog games about final fantasy.

40:40SPEAKERThat was just a little aside.

40:41SPEAKERThis is mostly people raging about the Nintendo 64.

40:44SPEAKERHere's another one.

40:45SPEAKER- We were in the OT section there, huh?

40:47SPEAKER- This person has a long Kefka quote

40:50SPEAKERand then their signature.

40:53SPEAKER- Always a good time.

40:55SPEAKER- Here's this person said,

40:56SPEAKER"I always thought that dark matter was a form of matter

40:58SPEAKER"that was so dense it sucked in light,

41:00SPEAKER"but I'm probably wrong

41:01SPEAKER"as I always sucked at physical science."

41:03SPEAKER- There you go.

41:05SPEAKERThat person was definitively incorrect.

41:08SPEAKER- Yes, more incorrect than me in my defense.

41:13SPEAKER- I've got another one if you wanna go.

41:16SPEAKER- Oh, wait, I'm sorry.

41:17SPEAKERI scroll down to the very bottom of the thread.

41:19SPEAKEROne last person posted about dark matter

41:21SPEAKERin this mess of arguments.

41:23SPEAKER- Probably, what was the post date on this, like 2009?

41:27SPEAKER- Oh, actually it's still 96.

41:28SPEAKER- Okay.

41:30SPEAKER- This person responded to that last person

41:31SPEAKERabout matter that sucks in light

41:33SPEAKERand said, "That's a black hole emoticon."

41:35SPEAKER- Oh.

41:36SPEAKER- They did the equal sign parenthesis.

41:39SPEAKER- Wait, are you an equal sign parenthesis or two colon?

41:42SPEAKER- I was always a colon parenthesis.

41:44SPEAKER- I was a colon and then a small O

41:46SPEAKER'cause I like having a nose.

41:47SPEAKER- Oh, wow.

41:49SPEAKERI always thought that looked like a clown to me.

41:51SPEAKER- I mean.

41:52SPEAKER- The big round nose just looked like a clown.

41:54SPEAKER- What's friendlier than a clown?

41:55SPEAKER- Let's not get into that.

41:58SPEAKER- Literally everything.

41:59SPEAKER- Anyway, this person said,

42:01SPEAKERbut anyway Brad's right except it's not necessarily elements

42:03SPEAKERas elements are atoms and most scientists believe

42:06SPEAKERthat dark matter are subatomic particles like neutrinos.

42:09SPEAKER- Oh, really?

42:10SPEAKER- Also like there's a weird aside about this.

42:12SPEAKERThis is, you know, this is 25 years ago.

42:15SPEAKERLike I assumed that the theoretical science

42:18SPEAKERabout things like dark matter has evolved

42:20SPEAKERat least somewhat in the last 25 years.

42:22SPEAKER- There was a thing a few weeks ago where they're like,

42:24SPEAKERwhere somebody came up with an exploitation

42:26SPEAKERfor why the universe behaves in the way.

42:27SPEAKER'Cause you know, dark matter is one of those wedges, right?

42:30SPEAKERIt's like an idea.

42:31SPEAKERIt's an idea to fill in our--

42:33SPEAKER- It's a band-aid.

42:34SPEAKER- Yeah, it patches where the math doesn't work out

42:38SPEAKERon our understanding of the universe.

42:39SPEAKERAnd somebody else came up with another solution

42:41SPEAKERthat doesn't involve dark matter a few months ago

42:42SPEAKERthat like is in that who knows whether it'll be real or not.

42:46SPEAKERBut you know.

42:47SPEAKER- It could be completely wrong.

42:49SPEAKERWho would know?

42:50SPEAKER- This is in a thread called all praise to the God.

42:55SPEAKER- Oh boy.

42:56SPEAKER- It's in the gaming section.

42:57SPEAKERGaming comma extra strength caplets.

42:59SPEAKER- Wait, did you start this thread?

43:01SPEAKER- This is not my thread.

43:02SPEAKERShin Gukai started this thread.

43:06SPEAKER- I really want to know who the God in question is here.

43:08SPEAKER- Well, so I mean, this was started

43:11SPEAKERby a bunch of divinity school guys

43:13SPEAKERand we had a lot of Latin in the forum back then

43:15SPEAKER'cause it was Ars Technica.

43:16SPEAKER- Oh wow, that's where all the Latin came from.

43:20SPEAKERI mean, these guys were all in like seminary school.

43:24SPEAKER- Oh yeah, of course.

43:25SPEAKERThey all spoke Latin and Greek.

43:26SPEAKER- I had no idea that's why there's so much Latin on Ars

43:28SPEAKERbecause it was founded by a bunch of people

43:30SPEAKERin divinity school and they were working with Latin

43:33SPEAKERin their education.

43:34SPEAKER- Like half of them spoke,

43:35SPEAKERhalf of them were able to have Latin.

43:37SPEAKERLike I took four years of high school Latin, right?

43:39SPEAKERWhich is essentially useless except for my vocabulary

43:42SPEAKERis good.

43:42SPEAKERThe, and my understanding of English grammar

43:46SPEAKERis really, really well-defined because Latin,

43:48SPEAKERyou know, everything is defined, of course.

43:51SPEAKERBut they were able to speak in like Koine

43:53SPEAKERand shit like that.

43:54SPEAKERLike it was nuts.

43:55SPEAKER- That's ridiculous.

43:56SPEAKERDid any of them ever finish their theological education?

43:59SPEAKER- A couple of them did, yeah.

44:00SPEAKERA couple of them stopped working on the site eventually

44:02SPEAKERand like finished their school.

44:06SPEAKERI mean, here's the thing.

44:08SPEAKERIf you wanted to be a philosophy major at Harvard

44:11SPEAKERat that point, I think divinity school

44:12SPEAKERwas the way you did it,

44:13SPEAKERwas why most of them were philosophy guys.

44:15SPEAKERThey weren't like joining the priesthood

44:17SPEAKERor anything like that.

44:18SPEAKERThey were philosophers and thinkers,

44:22SPEAKERwhich is why this site ended up the way it is.

44:24SPEAKER- More of a means to an end.

44:25SPEAKER- Yeah, so,

44:30SPEAKERsomebody, this thread started with a picture

44:33SPEAKERand a MIDI sound that was embedded in the page

44:36SPEAKERand auto-played.

44:37SPEAKERAnd then it was edited by one of the mods,

44:40SPEAKERI think by this Bacchus account,

44:41SPEAKERwhich I think was our like catch all mod account.

44:44SPEAKERSo like we would have to log out and log back in

44:45SPEAKERif we wanted to mod something or moderate something.

44:48SPEAKER- Sorry, what was the date on this?

44:49SPEAKER- This is February 15th, 2000.

44:53SPEAKER- Okay.

44:54SPEAKER- This is a lot later than yours.

44:55SPEAKERI posted in the late night, in the mid nineties,

44:57SPEAKERI was on like IRC and Mudds mostly.

45:00SPEAKERSo I didn't, there's no record, thank God,

45:02SPEAKERthe things I was posting in my early twenties.

45:07SPEAKERSo it's a picture that's dead.

45:09SPEAKERThe link is dead.

45:10SPEAKERIt's just some uky.edu site.

45:12SPEAKERSo Kentucky, I guess.

45:15SPEAKERProbably on somebody's shell account as a student.

45:18SPEAKERAnd then it was edited and the audio was removed.

45:23SPEAKERAnd apparently then for a while,

45:26SPEAKERthe thread, the start of the thread was just empty,

45:28SPEAKERbut there were a bunch of people saying word after it.

45:31SPEAKERAnd then Bacchus says, sorry about the goof up guys.

45:33SPEAKERI removed the sound and reopened the thread.

45:34SPEAKERI apologize for not posting a reason.

45:36SPEAKERShouldn't do stuff like this at work.

45:37SPEAKERAnd then there's a emote, a smile icon GIF.

45:42SPEAKERAnd then I get down here at the bottom.

45:48SPEAKERI have no idea the color.

45:49SPEAKERSo Shin Gukai says, let me tell you what I miss

45:53SPEAKERin 3D shooters and why Doom 2 is still my favorite.

45:55SPEAKERRemember that stage?

45:56SPEAKERI forget the level number where you hit the switch

45:58SPEAKERor something and literally hundreds of enemies

46:00SPEAKERstart teleporting in front of you.

46:02SPEAKEROr do you remember in tricks and traps,

46:03SPEAKERwhen you walk into a room and you see all these imps

46:05SPEAKERlooking the other way, when you shoot them,

46:06SPEAKERyou don't realize that they are teleporting behind you.

46:09SPEAKERI miss fighting hundreds of dumb, weak enemies.

46:11SPEAKERAnd I'm sure it'll be a while before 3D accelerates

46:13SPEAKERwill be able to throw dozens and dozens of enemies

46:15SPEAKERon screen at once.

46:16SPEAKERGL Doom makes things interesting.

46:18SPEAKER3D stage sprites, stages with sprites for enemies.

46:21SPEAKERI would love to see a Doom sequel that used that format

46:23SPEAKERinstead of all 3D.

46:26SPEAKER- This was you?

46:27SPEAKER- No, no, that's Shin Gukai.

46:28SPEAKER- Oh, right, right, right, okay.

46:29SPEAKER- So now my response is absolutely right.

46:32SPEAKERWe are just beginning to recover from the conversion

46:34SPEAKERto 3D rendered games.

46:36SPEAKERI think that T&L, transform and lighting,

46:39SPEAKERshould give developers the opportunity to have bunches

46:42SPEAKERof enemies on at a time, but we will see if people

46:44SPEAKERtake advantage of it.

46:46SPEAKERI loved the Doom 2 suburbs map where hundreds of bad guys,

46:49SPEAKERall different types, kept teleporting in as you came

46:51SPEAKERto different areas, till finally about 80 came in

46:54SPEAKERat one time in a big open area.

46:56SPEAKERTricks and Traps was pretty cool too.

46:57SPEAKERTook me two deaths to figure out that they were coming in

47:00SPEAKERbehind me.

47:00SPEAKERView image, emoticon.

47:05SPEAKER- This is how you know that we are horrible nerds

47:06SPEAKERor were back then, probably still are.

47:09SPEAKER- I think we probably are, yeah.

47:10SPEAKER- All we could do was nitpick the downsides

47:13SPEAKERof the 3D accelerator revolution.

47:17SPEAKER- I mean, we're not wrong.

47:19SPEAKERThe number of enemies on screen was quite limited

47:22SPEAKERfor a while.

47:24SPEAKERAfter I got a voodoo, after a few months,

47:25SPEAKERI went back to software quake

47:27SPEAKERbecause I got a higher frame rate there.

47:29SPEAKER- Oh yeah, absolutely.

47:31SPEAKERI mean, for multiplayer for sure, you always play software.

47:33SPEAKER- Yes.

47:36SPEAKER- There's a lot of, yeah.

47:38SPEAKER- So wait, so we don't know who the god in question is here?

47:42SPEAKER- I think the GIF was a GIF of like a bazillion enemies

47:47SPEAKERzooming in, in front of you in Doom.

47:48SPEAKER- Interesting, okay.

47:49SPEAKER- And then maybe it was probably the Doom music

47:51SPEAKERif I had to guess.

47:52SPEAKER- Okay.

47:53SPEAKER- 'Cause people in the thread are talking about

47:54SPEAKERhaving their stereo hooked up to their computer

47:56SPEAKERwatching The Matrix the night before.

47:58SPEAKER- Of course.

47:59SPEAKER- And like opening that page in the forum

48:01SPEAKERand having it blow out the music and they're like,

48:03SPEAKERoh man, that's too loud, oh, fuck yeah.

48:05SPEAKER- Because The Matrix, the DVD of The Matrix

48:07SPEAKERwas perhaps the most like trialed sort of tech demoed

48:12SPEAKERpiece of media in the history of existence, I think.

48:15SPEAKERLike for people getting their first DVD players

48:18SPEAKERin their living room, people getting their first

48:20SPEAKERlike big AV set up home theater,

48:23SPEAKERgetting your first DVD rom on your computer,

48:25SPEAKERlike anywhere that The Matrix could show up

48:29SPEAKERas a piece of demo content, it was showing up.

48:31SPEAKER- I'm gonna tell you, you probably weren't going

48:32SPEAKERto trade shows at that point, but the first trade show

48:34SPEAKERI went to was Comdex in '99, which was in the fall.

48:38SPEAKERAnd when you were walking around the floor of Comdex,

48:41SPEAKERwhich was like, Comdex was like CES, but only for computers,

48:43SPEAKERnot, there were no refrigerators and like limited

48:45SPEAKERcar stereos and stuff like that.

48:47SPEAKERYou would walk around and every monitor had the trailer

48:51SPEAKERof The Matrix on it, right?

48:52SPEAKERLike, and then the next year, when I went back in 2000,

48:57SPEAKERit was just the movie playing on DVD on it

49:01SPEAKERat every single booth, like, you went to whoever,

49:04SPEAKERI can't remember, Panasonic or somebody had the TV deal.

49:07SPEAKERSo you'd go in and they'd have the giant wall

49:09SPEAKERof flat screens, which at that point was kind of

49:11SPEAKERunderwhelming because it was like 2000, you know,

49:14SPEAKERearly times, but every screen would be playing The Matrix

49:18SPEAKERand they'd all be synced.

49:19SPEAKERAnd like, you just see Keanu Reeves going arms

49:22SPEAKERover his head, waving.

49:23SPEAKERAlso that movie has aged really well.

49:25SPEAKERI watched it a few months ago and it still is awesome.

49:28SPEAKERIt still rips.

49:29SPEAKER- That's good to hear.

49:30SPEAKERI'm assuming the sequels have aged.

49:33SPEAKER- What sequels?

49:34SPEAKER- Poorly, similarly poorly.

49:35SPEAKER- There were sequels?

49:36SPEAKERI didn't know they made sequels.

49:38SPEAKER- I don't know.

49:39SPEAKERThere's some, okay.

49:40SPEAKER- There's one good movie in those two movies.

49:42SPEAKER- They should have just stopped.

49:44SPEAKERHow great would it have been if they had just stopped?

49:46SPEAKERWhat if they had just made one Matrix movie

49:48SPEAKERand left it alone and like, think how,

49:50SPEAKERnot that it's not still a great movie in its own right,

49:52SPEAKERbut think how iconic, like, just like a thing of myth

49:55SPEAKERThe Matrix would be if they had just made the one.

49:59SPEAKER- So, A, oh, hey, my car finished charging.

50:02SPEAKER- Oh.

50:03SPEAKER- My car texts me, Brad.

50:04SPEAKER- What?

50:05SPEAKER- Yeah, we'll talk about that later.

50:08SPEAKER- I want to go back to the 90s.

50:09SPEAKERThe, the, I firmly believe that there's one good movie

50:14SPEAKERin those two movies.

50:15SPEAKERLike if you, if you did like a super cut

50:17SPEAKERand took the good bits out of those two movies.

50:20SPEAKER- Okay.

50:20SPEAKER- You can tell a coherent story in like two and a half hours

50:24SPEAKERthat is compelling and good and not full of bad nonsense.

50:27SPEAKER- Oh.

50:28SPEAKER- And has some, like, 'cause like those,

50:30SPEAKERlike that car sequence that they shot in Oakland

50:32SPEAKERis still incredible.

50:33SPEAKER- Yeah, for sure.

50:34SPEAKERLike it's a lot of the action, well, most of the action,

50:36SPEAKERlike the, what did they call the Burley Brawl,

50:38SPEAKERI think was the name for that bad,

50:39SPEAKERlike that CG has really not held up,

50:41SPEAKERbut that, but the car chase is, is yeah.

50:43SPEAKERLike I know people who were extras in,

50:45SPEAKERI know somebody who was a driver,

50:47SPEAKERlike an extra driver of a car in that,

50:49SPEAKERin that car chase sequence.

50:50SPEAKER- I worked with a couple of people who really, did they,

50:53SPEAKERlike, were they like a stunt driver?

50:54SPEAKERWere they just like on the, in the background driving?

50:56SPEAKER- I don't, I don't know what capacity

50:57SPEAKERthis might've been very,

50:59SPEAKERI would assume they're just a person in the,

51:01SPEAKERin the worst game.

51:02SPEAKERSo I would assume it's pretty limited capacity.

51:04SPEAKER'Cause if you had any action involvement whatsoever,

51:08SPEAKERyou'd probably need real training.

51:09SPEAKER- Well, they, I had a couple of friends

51:11SPEAKERthat I worked with at Future who took the days off

51:13SPEAKERand went and were in the dance,

51:14SPEAKERlike are in the background of the dance sequence

51:15SPEAKERand stuff like that. - Wow, really?

51:16SPEAKER- Yeah. - Like can, like, can they,

51:18SPEAKER- In the cave.

51:18SPEAKER- Can they spot themselves?

51:19SPEAKER- I, I, um.

51:20SPEAKER- 'Cause there's a lot of people in that scene.

51:22SPEAKER- So you couldn't see them,

51:23SPEAKERlike they, they were able to point out and be like,

51:25SPEAKERI was standing over here behind this pillar.

51:27SPEAKER- Okay. - But like, they,

51:29SPEAKERyou couldn't see them on the DVD releases.

51:31SPEAKERSo you maybe can see them on the 4Ks.

51:33SPEAKERI don't know. - Okay, that's cool.

51:34SPEAKER- I have no idea what they're gonna do with the new one.

51:38SPEAKERI don't necessarily need another "Matrix" movie,

51:39SPEAKERbut I am pretty curious what they do with it,

51:42SPEAKERconsidering how they wrapped up that trilogy

51:44SPEAKERand who's in it.

51:45SPEAKER- I, um.

51:46SPEAKER- Considering there are like multiple people

51:47SPEAKERthat died in the third movie or cast in this one,

51:50SPEAKERbut I mean, whatever, it's cyberspace, right?

51:51SPEAKERLike they can do whatever they want.

51:53SPEAKER- I, um, I really liked, for what it's worth,

51:56SPEAKERthe "Animatrix" stuff was really good that they did

51:59SPEAKERbetween the first movie and the second movie.

52:01SPEAKERAnd I thought what the way they handled

52:04SPEAKERthe "Matrix Online" stuff was really cool.

52:06SPEAKERLike, I think that that thing as a,

52:09SPEAKERwhat the post "Matrix" looks like,

52:10SPEAKERI'm sure they're gonna throw all that canon out,

52:11SPEAKERbut like, that was a cool ass thing at the time.

52:15SPEAKER- Didn't they kill Morpheus in "Matrix Online"?

52:18SPEAKER- I mean, they probably killed all of them

52:19SPEAKERin "Matrix Online," right?

52:20SPEAKERAnybody who survived.

52:22SPEAKER- Maybe, I just wanna say that that was a big promoted event

52:25SPEAKERof like, Morpheus is gonna die, you need to play this game.

52:27SPEAKER- Death of Morpheus.

52:29SPEAKER- Also, you know, everybody knows

52:30SPEAKERif you die in the "Matrix Online," you die in real life.

52:32SPEAKER- That's true, that is fact, yeah.

52:35SPEAKER- Um, let's see, uh, I've got a few posts

52:40SPEAKERabout computer hardware on here, not a ton.

52:43SPEAKERI was apparently pretty obsessive

52:45SPEAKERabout that stuff back then. - Shocking.

52:47SPEAKERThis is shocking to me.

52:48SPEAKER- I was specifically, I badly wanted

52:51SPEAKERan 8-bit IT-5H revision two.

52:53SPEAKER- Oh, that was a good ass motherboard.

52:54SPEAKER- Well, you know what I'm talking about?

52:55SPEAKER- Yeah, that's a BH-7, BH-6, BH-7 board.

52:59SPEAKERI looked it up, I actually found the non-tech review

53:01SPEAKERof that board from, uh, from 1998, I wanna say?

53:08SPEAKERYes, January, 1998, where they say that apparently

53:13SPEAKERthe revision 1.5 of that board actually had

53:15SPEAKERlike voltage regulator problems,

53:17SPEAKERand there were reasons not to get it.

53:20SPEAKERIt was an HX-based motherboard, does that ring any bells?

53:23SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a socket seven board, right?

53:24SPEAKER- Intel HX chipset, yes, socket seven.

53:28SPEAKER- Wow, yeah, actually this is...

53:30SPEAKER- This is the last of the socket sevens, I think.

53:32SPEAKER- This was written by Anand himself,

53:34SPEAKERwho I guess was probably writing most of the content back then?

53:36SPEAKER- He was probably the only person writing back then, yeah.

53:40SPEAKER- Yeah, he says the final revision of the IT-5H revision two

53:42SPEAKERwill be the last ever HX-based motherboard made by 8-bit,

53:46SPEAKERand most likely the best HX-based motherboard

53:49SPEAKERyou can get your hands on.

53:50SPEAKERThat is, if you can get your hands

53:52SPEAKERon one of the limited quantities of 2.0s produced.

53:54SPEAKERI bet, I guarantee that sentence may be what pushed me

53:59SPEAKERover the edge to wanting that board.

54:01SPEAKERHim saying, "Oh no, I take that back.

54:04SPEAKERMy Usenet post is from six months before that review ran,

54:07SPEAKERso I guess I'm wrong."

54:08SPEAKER- Oh, I was a TX guy.

54:11SPEAKERI got a TX motherboard chipset for a socket seven

54:14SPEAKERfor my last socket sevens.

54:15SPEAKER- I don't remember the TX.

54:17SPEAKER- It was after the higher letters.

54:20SPEAKER- That was...

54:22SPEAKER- It was the next version of the chipset, basically.

54:24SPEAKER- I'm trying to think, that was a Pentium chipset, right?

54:26SPEAKERLike original Pentium, I believe?

54:28SPEAKER- Yeah, that was original Pentium.

54:30SPEAKERSo socket seven would have been original Pentium, yeah,

54:32SPEAKERand K6 also.

54:34SPEAKER- Wait, what do you mean?

54:35SPEAKER- 'Cause socket seven was compatible across.

54:37SPEAKER- Oh God, right.

54:38SPEAKER- The socket seven was the last open socket.

54:40SPEAKER- I totally forgot that AMD chips

54:42SPEAKERused to work in Intel motherboards.

54:44SPEAKER- Yeah, so you could take up to like a K6-2-300

54:47SPEAKERand jam it in a TX motherboard.

54:48SPEAKER- God, I completely forgot about that.

54:50SPEAKERThat sounds so foreign at this point.

54:52SPEAKER- Really? - Yeah.

54:52SPEAKER- Right? - Which I guess is like,

54:54SPEAKERthat's kind of like how they built their business, right?

54:56SPEAKEROriginally it was just like, hey, here is a cheaper CPU

54:58SPEAKERthat works in hardware that's already available.

55:00SPEAKER- Yeah, hey, but even more than that, hey,

55:02SPEAKERyou have this expensive ass computer and it's too slow now.

55:05SPEAKERYou don't have to throw the whole thing out.

55:06SPEAKERYou can just buy this new thing and put it in

55:08SPEAKERand it'll be faster.

55:09SPEAKER- Take it down to the screwdriver shop

55:10SPEAKERand pay 'em what, 150 bucks?

55:13SPEAKERMaybe 200 bucks?

55:13SPEAKER- The K6-2s were pretty expensive, I think.

55:15SPEAKERThey were, I feel like they were 200 bucks

55:18SPEAKERfor the high-end one.

55:19SPEAKER- By comparison, it was still a nice budget upgrade, right?

55:21SPEAKER- Yeah, you'd spend four or 500 bucks

55:23SPEAKERand get something really nice

55:24SPEAKERinstead of having to spend another two, $2,500.

55:26SPEAKER- Yeah, and then that was back when the CPU upgrade

55:28SPEAKERmade a huge difference in just the basic usability

55:31SPEAKERof the computer.

55:31SPEAKER- Oh yeah, oh yeah.

55:33SPEAKER- That was not just like 10% higher frame rate in games

55:36SPEAKERor something, like the whole thing was better.

55:37SPEAKERAnyway, September 24th, 1997,

55:43SPEAKERhere is me on alt.comp.pariffs.mainboard.abit.

55:47SPEAKER- Oh, that's a good one.

55:48SPEAKER- That's a good one.

55:50SPEAKERBy now, it's become apparent to me

55:52SPEAKERthat asking when on this product is moot,

55:55SPEAKERbut does anyone have any new information at all

55:57SPEAKERon when the IT5H revision two will be available?

56:01SPEAKERAbit, if you're listening,

56:02SPEAKERplease fill us in with any news, thanks.

56:05SPEAKER- Abit, if you're listening, that's my favorite.

56:08SPEAKER- I've got the better part of a computer

56:10SPEAKERin my closet right now

56:11SPEAKERbecause I don't have a motherboard to put everything in.

56:13SPEAKER- Oh no.

56:14SPEAKER- Frowny face.

56:15SPEAKER- Oh no. - Frowny face.

56:17SPEAKERThat would have been the Pentium 200 that I built in 1997.

56:20SPEAKER- So there's two things here.

56:23SPEAKEROne, it's really funny that you said,

56:25SPEAKERAbit, if you're listening,

56:26SPEAKER'cause I bet they weren't paying attention to Usenet,

56:28SPEAKERbut like-

56:29SPEAKER- Oh, definitely not.

56:29SPEAKER- The fact that, we say that like it's definitely not,

56:32SPEAKERbut now like if you bitch about Comcast on Twitter,

56:35SPEAKERthen they're like, hey, can we help you with your,

56:37SPEAKERcan we help you with your customer service issue?

56:39SPEAKERWe'd be happy to get in here

56:40SPEAKERand do whatever we can to make this right.

56:43SPEAKERLike what a fucking weird, like that,

56:46SPEAKERlike I know in 1997, you would have said Abit,

56:50SPEAKERare you listening as like a meme,

56:55SPEAKERlike as a rhetorical device, not a literal,

56:59SPEAKERI think this brand is going to be monitoring communications

57:02SPEAKERabout itself.

57:03SPEAKER- Right, I was just screaming into the void.

57:05SPEAKER- Yeah, but like also here at 20 years later,

57:08SPEAKERthe idea that a brand would have access to a world,

57:11SPEAKERlike the idea that Abit isn't paying,

57:13SPEAKERI mean, not that Abit exists,

57:14SPEAKERbut the idea that ASUS isn't paying attention

57:16SPEAKERto the r/Asus subreddit on Reddit, it was insane.

57:20SPEAKER- Right, they employ an entire team of people

57:22SPEAKERto monitor stuff like that, right?

57:23SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, like what a shift, right?

57:28SPEAKER- Some things are better, some things are worse,

57:29SPEAKERyou know, the internet is a land of contrast.

57:34SPEAKER- So did you end up getting the board eventually?

57:35SPEAKER- I did, I got one response to that post.

57:39SPEAKERNo, I'm sorry, I got two responses to that post.

57:42SPEAKERI talked to the distributor today

57:43SPEAKERand he told me that October he would have the Rev2.

57:46SPEAKER- Oh, there you go.

57:48SPEAKER- So from what I've heard,

57:49SPEAKERwe should be seeing the Rev 2.0 boards here

57:51SPEAKERwithin the next two weeks.

57:52SPEAKERI was so obsessive about the motherboard

57:54SPEAKERbecause the previous computer we had in my house

57:56SPEAKERwas insanely unstable.

57:59SPEAKER- Oh.

57:59SPEAKER- Like it would just blue screen randomly like daily.

58:02SPEAKER- Do you have like a Cyrix or something?

58:04SPEAKER- It was a Pentium 75.

58:05SPEAKER- Oh.

58:06SPEAKER- But I overclocked it to 90.

58:08SPEAKER- What, that shocked the blue screened.

58:11SPEAKER- The guy at the screwdriver shop

58:13SPEAKERwho sold us that computer,

58:15SPEAKERliterally as we bought the computer

58:17SPEAKERright on the way out the door, his name was Mac.

58:20SPEAKERHe was a very kind, like slight little guy

58:23SPEAKERwith spiky hair, like very 90s.

58:25SPEAKER- Yeah.

58:26SPEAKER- He was just like, "Hey, let me show you something."

58:27SPEAKERHe was like, literally like,

58:29SPEAKERbefore we took it out of the store,

58:30SPEAKERhe was like, "If you just take this jumper

58:31SPEAKER"and you move it from here over to here,

58:35SPEAKER"you can make it go faster."

58:36SPEAKER- Mine went, my Pentium 60 went from 60 to 66 hertz.

58:40SPEAKER- That's--

58:41SPEAKER- 10%, straight up.

58:42SPEAKER- That's six megahertz.

58:43SPEAKERAnd yeah, so it sold as a Pentium 75.

58:48SPEAKERThe motherboard could also push it to 90 and 100.

58:51SPEAKER- Wow.

58:52SPEAKER- Super not, it would not get past post at 100,

58:54SPEAKERbut it totally booted and worked at 90 for some months

58:57SPEAKERuntil it started blue screening all the time.

59:01SPEAKER- The, I was gonna say like the idea

59:08SPEAKERthat you wouldn't know when the motherboard is coming out.

59:11SPEAKERLike when it wasn't gonna be available

59:13SPEAKERand get into the channels is really interesting and weird

59:16SPEAKERbecause like that stuff now is so fast

59:18SPEAKERthat like they don't announce it unless they have a date

59:21SPEAKERand you can order it and Amazon tells you

59:23SPEAKERwhen it's gonna get there or Newegg

59:25SPEAKERor whoever you buy it from is gonna tell you

59:26SPEAKERwhen it gets there.

59:27SPEAKERIt's really weird.

59:27SPEAKER- Totally, but also to be fair, this was not a new product.

59:29SPEAKERThis was just the third revision of an existing product.

59:31SPEAKERRight, like that was a level of minutia

59:33SPEAKERthat like almost nobody besides Anand was keeping track of.

59:36SPEAKER- Well, and it was funny 'cause like,

59:38SPEAKERI think the difference between HX and TX,

59:40SPEAKERthe big one was that the TX had the ATA 66 stuff

59:43SPEAKERand the other one was only a 33 mega or so ATA bus I think.

59:48SPEAKER- Interesting, but I'm sorry.

59:51SPEAKER- No, no, that's it.

59:52SPEAKER- I mean, just we can move on,

59:53SPEAKERbut the experience of having that super unstable computer

59:56SPEAKERis absolutely what informed my obsessive research

59:59SPEAKERof computer parts forever after.

1:00:01SPEAKERLike that's why starting with this build,

1:00:03SPEAKERI was like eyeballing every single thing

1:00:05SPEAKERthat went into that machine

1:00:06SPEAKERbecause like I never wanted a computer

1:00:07SPEAKERthat crashed all the fucking time again.

1:00:10SPEAKER- Did you ever consider undoing the overclock?

1:00:12SPEAKER- No, I did, like I immediately,

1:00:14SPEAKERlike I immediately brought it back to 75

1:00:16SPEAKERafter it started getting unstable,

1:00:17SPEAKERbut it was whatever damage was done was already done.

1:00:20SPEAKERIt was too late.

1:00:21SPEAKER- The electrons were leaky.

1:00:22SPEAKER- It never recovered.

1:00:23SPEAKERI mean, that thing had no cooling.

1:00:25SPEAKERLike there was no, I might be wrong.

1:00:27SPEAKER- My 16 was a bare chip, a bare titanium chip.

1:00:29SPEAKER- There might've, it might've been one of the ones

1:00:31SPEAKERwith like a ceramic package.

1:00:33SPEAKERThat was kind of a heat sink of sorts, right?

1:00:35SPEAKER- No, no, no, that was just,

1:00:37SPEAKERso mine had the ceramic cover, the chip cover,

1:00:39SPEAKERbut it was no fins.

1:00:41SPEAKERThere was, it was just like a big ceramic thing

1:00:43SPEAKERon top of it that was kind of like a,

1:00:44SPEAKERthat you could have glued a heat sink to,

1:00:46SPEAKERbut there was no mount even for a heat sink in that case.

1:00:48SPEAKER- I think that's what ours was as well,

1:00:50SPEAKERwas just the ceramic package on there.

1:00:52SPEAKER- Like remember the ads, the old Intel ads

1:00:54SPEAKERwhere you would zoom through the computer

1:00:55SPEAKERand you'd see all the lights and stuff,

1:00:56SPEAKERand then on the chip, there would be Pentium,

1:00:59SPEAKERIntel, Pentium, and it'd have the logo.

1:01:01SPEAKERThat's literally what it looked like at my computer

1:01:03SPEAKERminus the cool lights.

1:01:04SPEAKER- Right, it's just a bare chip just sitting there,

1:01:07SPEAKERnowhere for that heat to go.

1:01:09SPEAKER- So I've got one.

1:01:10SPEAKERThis is about PDAs, not public displays of affection,

1:01:15SPEAKERbut this is a Poltechnica thread,

1:01:18SPEAKERhandheld longevity of use by the Imperator,

1:01:22SPEAKERKen Fisher, who started ours.

1:01:24SPEAKERSays, after buying a slash obtaining your handheld palm

1:01:28SPEAKERslash win CE, this was in May of 2000,

1:01:32SPEAKERhow long did you actually use it?

1:01:36SPEAKERAnd then there's a bunch of people that reply.

1:01:38SPEAKERHe puts his response in,

1:01:40SPEAKERand midway through the second page, couple of days later,

1:01:44SPEAKERoh, we had a lot of activity, okay.

1:01:47SPEAKERI am an unabashed palm fiend.

1:01:50SPEAKERI love my pro, my three, and my five equally,

1:01:53SPEAKERalthough the five is the only one I carry regularly.

1:01:57SPEAKERMy main problem with the five

1:01:58SPEAKERisn't the two megabytes of memory,

1:01:59SPEAKERbut the fact that the leather cover thing

1:02:01SPEAKERhas split off from the shaft slash holder thing,

1:02:04SPEAKERand I can't find one that isn't

1:02:05SPEAKERthe funky alligator skin stuff, ellipses.

1:02:09SPEAKERI wouldn't mind having the OmniSky service either.

1:02:11SPEAKERMm, precious wireless.

1:02:15SPEAKER- Was this after "Lord of the Rings" came out?

1:02:17SPEAKER- This was in May of 2000,

1:02:18SPEAKERso it was before "Lord of the Rings."

1:02:20SPEAKER- Okay, wow, okay.

1:02:21SPEAKERNot a-

1:02:22SPEAKER- That was a Homer Simpson, not a Gollum.

1:02:23SPEAKER- Ah, yes, of course, okay.

1:02:26SPEAKERBecause everything on the internet

1:02:27SPEAKERwas a reference to something nerdy back then.

1:02:29SPEAKER- You could not reference things.

1:02:31SPEAKERIt was-

1:02:32SPEAKER- It was the only way people knew how to talk.

1:02:33SPEAKERLike PDAs, yeah, I wore the cover for my,

1:02:37SPEAKERI used to have a holster that had a pivot.

1:02:40SPEAKERWhen I worked at the university,

1:02:41SPEAKERI carried a Palm 5 for work

1:02:43SPEAKER'cause we carried our database and stuff on it.

1:02:45SPEAKERAnd I had like a quick release holster

1:02:47SPEAKERthat had a little button on the side,

1:02:49SPEAKERbut the palm would spin,

1:02:51SPEAKERso I could sit there and spin it on my hip.

1:02:53SPEAKERIt was like-

1:02:54SPEAKER- You were the fastest palm in the West.

1:02:55SPEAKER- I was an incredible nerd.

1:02:58SPEAKER- That's amazing, that's incredible.

1:03:02SPEAKERWe'll see, is that the end of that one?

1:03:03SPEAKER- That's, well, thank God.

1:03:05SPEAKER- That's okay.

1:03:05SPEAKERI've got one more here that I'll throw out.

1:03:08SPEAKERI mean, there are some others

1:03:09SPEAKERthat are too embarrassing, I think, to read.

1:03:11SPEAKER- Oh, people will find them, don't worry.

1:03:12SPEAKERYou've given enough information

1:03:13SPEAKERfor them to find all of this.

1:03:15SPEAKER- Oh, God.

1:03:17SPEAKERThe last one I was gonna bring up is,

1:03:18SPEAKERthis is actually from last year.

1:03:21SPEAKERThis is maybe kind of an unwelcome surprise

1:03:25SPEAKERthat I found that apparently,

1:03:27SPEAKERso I emailed the maintainer of the FFmpeg port on FreeBSD.

1:03:32SPEAKER- In 1996?

1:03:34SPEAKER- No, no, last year.

1:03:35SPEAKERThis is last year.

1:03:36SPEAKER- Gotcha.

1:03:36SPEAKER- People on the Discord were involved in this situation.

1:03:39SPEAKER- Okay.

1:03:41SPEAKER- The FFmpeg build on FreeBSD

1:03:43SPEAKERdoes not have libsrt support enabled.

1:03:45SPEAKER- Oh, yeah, yeah.

1:03:46SPEAKERNo, I know, it's a problem.

1:03:48SPEAKER- Yeah, so I needed that

1:03:49SPEAKERfor some video experimentation stuff I was doing.

1:03:52SPEAKERI emailed the maintainer of that port

1:03:54SPEAKERasking if maybe the next time they built it,

1:03:58SPEAKERthe next version, if they could enable libsrt.

1:04:02SPEAKER- That's awesome.

1:04:03SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:04:04SPEAKER- And so first of all,

1:04:08SPEAKERI thought I was just emailing a person

1:04:09SPEAKER'cause you're just emailing a mailing address.

1:04:11SPEAKERIt did not occur to me that this,

1:04:13SPEAKERI didn't say anything embarrassing at all.

1:04:14SPEAKERI was just asking like, "Hey, I'm not a developer,

1:04:16SPEAKER"but is there any chance you could enable a Slack?"

1:04:18SPEAKER- We just ended up on Usenet?

1:04:20SPEAKER- Yeah, so I don't think it's Usenet.

1:04:21SPEAKERI think it's just Google Groups

1:04:22SPEAKERis pulling other things into it besides old Usenet.

1:04:25SPEAKERLike it's listed where the Usenet

1:04:28SPEAKERor the news group name would normally be.

1:04:29SPEAKERIt just says free BSD mailing list.

1:04:31SPEAKERSo I assume this went out on a public mailing list somewhere.

1:04:34SPEAKER- Oh, it's a public, yeah, they're using Google Groups

1:04:36SPEAKERto archive their mailing list would be my guess.

1:04:37SPEAKER- So I did not, it did not occur to me

1:04:39SPEAKERthat this would be public when I emailed this person,

1:04:44SPEAKERbut I was trying to be very diplomatic

1:04:47SPEAKERand like grateful for their work and all this stuff.

1:04:52SPEAKERLike I ended it by saying,

1:04:53SPEAKER"Thanks for your work!"

1:04:54SPEAKERBut at the end of my email, and this is public again,

1:04:57SPEAKERthis is very embarrassing.

1:04:59SPEAKERThe end of my email says,

1:05:00SPEAKER"This is a bit over my head as I'm not a developer,

1:05:01SPEAKER"but if I can help, please let me know,

1:05:03SPEAKER"or if I'd be better off trying to build this

1:05:04SPEAKER"from source myself, let me know that too."

1:05:07SPEAKERThe response from the maintainer of this port,

1:05:10SPEAKER"Yeah, sorry, not interested."

1:05:12SPEAKER(laughing)

1:05:16SPEAKER- I'm sorry, Brad.

1:05:18SPEAKER- That was a good, fun, gray beard experience

1:05:20SPEAKERof just like- - No limits RT for you, sir.

1:05:22SPEAKER- So also, I mean, people on the Discord, I apologize.

1:05:28SPEAKERThis is one of those usernames I never quite know

1:05:30SPEAKERhow to pronounce.

1:05:31SPEAKERY-Cross, E-Cross. - Yeah, Y-Cross is it.

1:05:33SPEAKER- You know, that's how I say it in my head.

1:05:35SPEAKERI bet that's not right. - Y-Cross is a regular

1:05:36SPEAKERon my Twitch stream.

1:05:37SPEAKERI've said Y-Cross for four years,

1:05:39SPEAKERso I assume Y-Cross is correct,

1:05:40SPEAKER'cause I have not been corrected.

1:05:41SPEAKER- Apologize if that is not the correct pronunciation.

1:05:44SPEAKERBut anyway, he did a ton of work helping me.

1:05:46SPEAKERLike we actually dug into the source of the port ourselves,

1:05:51SPEAKERand like he'd help me make a bunch of changes

1:05:52SPEAKERto the make file to enable that stuff myself.

1:05:55SPEAKER- Oh, really?

1:05:56SPEAKERIt works. - Actually got it,

1:05:57SPEAKERit took ages, took like eight hours of work,

1:05:59SPEAKERbut it finally, we finally got it to build

1:06:01SPEAKERwith that flag enabled.

1:06:02SPEAKER- Oh, that's awesome.

1:06:03SPEAKER- And it totally worked.

1:06:04SPEAKER- Y-Cross rips.

1:06:05SPEAKER- Yes, he is awesome.

1:06:08SPEAKERAnyway, but I did not expect that to be

1:06:11SPEAKERa matter of public record, but here we are.

1:06:13SPEAKER- I've got something contentious.

1:06:15SPEAKER- Okay.

1:06:17SPEAKER- This is in the Gaming's comma

1:06:19SPEAKERExtra Strength Caplets Forum again.

1:06:22SPEAKERIt's called The Gamer's Debate colon,

1:06:24SPEAKERare you an invert from M. Petty?

1:06:27SPEAKER- Oh boy.

1:06:28SPEAKER- And midway down the first page to my great shame,

1:06:33SPEAKERit says, this is on 13 June, 2000.

1:06:38SPEAKERThis is four days before I moved to California.

1:06:40SPEAKER- Nice.

1:06:41SPEAKER- All the real players invert ellipses,

1:06:44SPEAKERat least the ones I've met, ellipses.

1:06:47SPEAKERInversion gives you better control of vertical movement.

1:06:52SPEAKER- This is you?

1:06:52SPEAKER- That's me.

1:06:53SPEAKER- This is you?

1:06:54SPEAKER- I don't want to talk about it.

1:06:56SPEAKER- I thought I knew you.

1:06:57SPEAKER- I was an invert back then.

1:06:59SPEAKER- It's not just that, you're like a,

1:07:02SPEAKERI don't even know what to call that.

1:07:04SPEAKER- It's an asshole move.

1:07:05SPEAKER- A very, a very bossy inverter of like a, hmm.

1:07:08SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:07:09SPEAKER- That's, wow.

1:07:11SPEAKER- The next response is from Oz, who is correct,

1:07:13SPEAKERand they say, um, wrong, it's close,

1:07:15SPEAKERbut just a hair more popular to invert.

1:07:17SPEAKERWhat about Thresh, Fatality, or Machiavelli?

1:07:19SPEAKERDo these guys invert or not?

1:07:21SPEAKER- I do believe the people who invert are in the minority

1:07:23SPEAKERof about 50 or so fellow gamers I know personally,

1:07:26SPEAKERonly two invert their mouths.

1:07:28SPEAKER- Oh man, it's really hard not to call this episode,

1:07:31SPEAKERum, wrong.

1:07:32SPEAKER- It's really funny.

1:07:33SPEAKERIt's really funny because like so much,

1:07:35SPEAKERbecause we weren't really online super a lot at that point,

1:07:38SPEAKERlike so much of what I knew about how to play those games

1:07:40SPEAKERwas because of the people I played.

1:07:42SPEAKERLike the Linux lab in the CS department

1:07:45SPEAKERhad ATI rage pro cards.

1:07:48SPEAKERWe could play Quake, GL Quake on them.

1:07:51SPEAKERAnd like most of what I knew about early FPS play

1:07:56SPEAKERwas from playing games with like 20 nerds

1:07:59SPEAKERwho were in the CS department,

1:08:00SPEAKERwho were really into playing Quake.

1:08:03SPEAKERAnd so, yeah, like everything I knew about the,

1:08:06SPEAKERlike all of our tricks about bindings and all that stuff

1:08:08SPEAKERin that time period were very much,

1:08:12SPEAKERhey, this is all communal information shared

1:08:15SPEAKERor stuff that we all like filtered through Redwood

1:08:18SPEAKERand Shaq News and Blues and Voodoo Extreme and those places.

1:08:22SPEAKERIt was a weird time.

1:08:24SPEAKER- If I can say one thing confidently,

1:08:25SPEAKERif you came by all that knowledge,

1:08:26SPEAKERplaying Quake in the Linux lab in the nineties,

1:08:29SPEAKERthen you came by your nerdy assholery, honestly.

1:08:33SPEAKERSo that's all I can say.

1:08:35SPEAKERI, dude, we have to stop.

1:08:36SPEAKERI can't do this anymore.

1:08:37SPEAKER- Hold on, I've got, I've got one more.

1:08:39SPEAKER- Okay, this has to be the last one.

1:08:40SPEAKER- To not share yet, this is the last one.

1:08:41SPEAKER- I'm going to jump out the window.

1:08:44SPEAKER- This is after I was at Maximum PC.

1:08:46SPEAKERSo this is in October of 2001.

1:08:49SPEAKERRadeon 80, this is a thread titled,

1:08:51SPEAKERRadeon 8,500 receives a perfect 10 rating,

1:08:54SPEAKERexclamation point, large image warning.

1:08:57SPEAKERAnd they just ripped the magazine page

1:08:59SPEAKERand posted it on the, on the...

1:09:01SPEAKER- You verbally typed large image warning?

1:09:03SPEAKER- No, no, no, somebody typed it.

1:09:05SPEAKERThis is not my thread.

1:09:06SPEAKER- Oh, this was not you, okay.

1:09:07SPEAKER- They're pissed off about my rating.

1:09:08SPEAKER- But they, but they said that it was not built

1:09:10SPEAKERinto the forum or something.

1:09:11SPEAKERThey, they manually gave a large image warning.

1:09:13SPEAKER- They scanned the page and it was a big image, yeah.

1:09:16SPEAKER- 56K beware.

1:09:18SPEAKER- So it said, "Maximum PC reviewed the 8,500

1:09:21SPEAKERand awarded a kick-ass rating and a perfect 10

1:09:23SPEAKERusing the relatively old drivers.

1:09:24SPEAKERIt was still the fastest card they've ever tested."

1:09:27SPEAKERSo then I'm going to call out somebody who says,

1:09:35SPEAKERlet's see, hold on, where is it?

1:09:36SPEAKERThere's my response.

1:09:40SPEAKEROh, wow, this is bad.

1:09:41SPEAKEROkay, here we go, I'll read this.

1:09:42SPEAKERShit, I apologize in advance.

1:09:44SPEAKERHey guys, didn't know that I still lurk

1:09:46SPEAKERaround the forums here, did ya?

1:09:50SPEAKERI've been using the 8,500 for a while now.

1:09:52SPEAKERIt's much faster than the Nvidia cards and some stuff,

1:09:54SPEAKERbut not in others.

1:09:55SPEAKERAt the time I wrote that review,

1:09:56SPEAKERNvidia wasn't even talking about Detonator XP.

1:09:59SPEAKERAlthough I'd heard rumblings from some of my inside sources

1:10:02SPEAKERthat Detonator XP was a driver release.

1:10:04SPEAKER- I have not thought about Detonator in like 20,

1:10:06SPEAKERoh my God, there was so much hype

1:10:08SPEAKERaround the Detonator driver release.

1:10:11SPEAKERJust wait till the Detonator is here.

1:10:13SPEAKER- The TI 500 is a little faster than the 8,500

1:10:16SPEAKERin our heavy duty Quake 3 benchmark,

1:10:17SPEAKERbut a little slower in most of the 3D Mark test games.

1:10:20SPEAKERGame four being the notable exception.

1:10:23SPEAKERDrivers are my main concern with the board.

1:10:25SPEAKERThe hardware is nice and solid,

1:10:26SPEAKERbut ATI has notorious driver problems.

1:10:29SPEAKERI ran through the RC2 drivers that they sent me

1:10:31SPEAKERwith a fine tooth comb and tested it

1:10:33SPEAKERwith literally dozens of games

1:10:34SPEAKERand wasn't able to find any major problems.

1:10:37SPEAKERJust to be clear at this point in time,

1:10:38SPEAKERdriver problems meant like you'd be playing a game

1:10:41SPEAKERand there'd be holes between polygons in the world, right?

1:10:45SPEAKERIt wasn't like, maybe it's a little unstable

1:10:47SPEAKERor maybe the frame rate's a little micro stutters.

1:10:49SPEAKERIt was like, literally you could see through to space.

1:10:51SPEAKER- Yes, like a game did not function correctly.

1:10:53SPEAKERLike entire features were not enabled.

1:10:54SPEAKER- Yeah, like you wouldn't render grass textures or something.

1:10:56SPEAKERAnyway, the problem with having multiple pixel shader specs

1:11:00SPEAKERis that unless you're running a game

1:11:02SPEAKERthat uses the 1.4 spec, the extra features of the Radeon,

1:11:05SPEAKER10 additional instructions per cycle is the main one.

1:11:08SPEAKERThen the Radeon is functionally identical to a GeForce 3.

1:11:10SPEAKERThe analogy I use is with enhanced CPU instruction sets.

1:11:14SPEAKERIntel supports SSE2 in the P4.

1:11:17SPEAKERDoes SSE2 make stuff faster?

1:11:18SPEAKERYes, but only if that app supports it.

1:11:21SPEAKERSure, the R200 chip is theoretically faster

1:11:23SPEAKERdue to the new features,

1:11:24SPEAKERbut since devs aren't using the 1.4 spec,

1:11:26SPEAKERthen there's no way they'll be exposed

1:11:28SPEAKERand consumers won't see a benefit.

1:11:29SPEAKERAlso, if our lawyer types see

1:11:31SPEAKERthat you're posting scanned images directly from our mag,

1:11:33SPEAKERthey'll probably be pissed.

1:11:35SPEAKERSlash slash slash Will Smith, AKA Gonzo.

1:11:38SPEAKER- All right.

1:11:39SPEAKERSo now Spanky says, "Nothing, and I mean nothing ever,

1:11:42SPEAKER"deserves a 10 out of 10 rating.

1:11:44SPEAKER"Nothing is ever perfect, and neither is this,

1:11:46SPEAKER"and the reviewer even mentions it.

1:11:48SPEAKER"If there is problems, colon, didn't run Aquamark,

1:11:51SPEAKER"has fractured pixel shader specs,

1:11:54SPEAKER"then how can it score perfect?

1:11:55SPEAKER"Perfect is perfect, that's all there is to it,

1:11:57SPEAKER"and this card ain't it.

1:11:59SPEAKER"No card is it, and no piece of hardware nor game is it.

1:12:03SPEAKER"Nothing should ever be scored a 10."

1:12:06SPEAKER- Dude, my entire life is flashing before my eyes right now.

1:12:09SPEAKER- I knew this would give you flashbacks.

1:12:11SPEAKERSo a couple of days later, I respond.

1:12:14SPEAKER"One last thing, 10 isn't a perfect product.

1:12:17SPEAKER"There are no perfect product."

1:12:19SPEAKERI forgot the S.

1:12:20SPEAKER"10 is the best product in its class,

1:12:22SPEAKER"in a class that's awesome and useful

1:12:23SPEAKER"and has no major flaws or even annoyances.

1:12:26SPEAKER"For example, the Radeon got a 10

1:12:27SPEAKER"because I couldn't find anything wrong with it,

1:12:29SPEAKER"and it is as fast or faster than a GeForce 3.

1:12:32SPEAKER"A USB 1.0 external hard drive would never be eligible

1:12:36SPEAKER"for a 10, even if it was flawless,

1:12:38SPEAKER"simply because USB isn't fast enough

1:12:40SPEAKER"for the hard drive to perform well.

1:12:42SPEAKER"A FireWire external hard drive could conceivably get a 10,

1:12:45SPEAKER"but only if it fulfilled all of the other criteria."

1:12:49SPEAKERFireWire hard drives.

1:12:50SPEAKER- Oh boy.

1:12:51SPEAKER- "I used XP."

1:12:52SPEAKEROh, they were bitching about my XP review too.

1:12:54SPEAKER"I used XP for close to six months in different forms.

1:12:58SPEAKER"The main complaints I've heard about it

1:13:00SPEAKER"are that the interface sucks

1:13:01SPEAKER"and that product activation is lame.

1:13:03SPEAKER"I did a lot of testing on the activation stuff,

1:13:05SPEAKER"and while I don't particularly like it,

1:13:07SPEAKER"there's nothing fundamentally bad for the consumer with it,

1:13:09SPEAKER"unless you pirate Windows."

1:13:11SPEAKERWow, that was some real shade I threw there.