00:00SPEAKER- Brad, the noggin-ing season is upon us.
00:02SPEAKER- Wait, hang on.
00:03SPEAKERDid you, you bumped your noggin and the noggin-ing
00:05SPEAKERdidn't take place. - No, no, no, no.
00:06SPEAKERThis is the bestowing of the nog upon the people.
00:10SPEAKERWe made the first round of deliveries.
00:11SPEAKERWe have another round of deliveries, maybe two to go, but.
00:14SPEAKER- There is a lovingly adorned jar in our refrigerator
00:19SPEAKERthat I'm excited to crack open,
00:20SPEAKERbut also every year I wait like,
00:23SPEAKERwell, it's close enough to Christmas
00:24SPEAKERthat I might not wait too long this time,
00:26SPEAKERbut it's like holiday ambrosia, man.
00:30SPEAKERI don't want to burn through it too fast,
00:32SPEAKERso I sit there and stare at it.
00:34SPEAKER- Well, I cracked my jar.
00:36SPEAKERWell, I tasted some, obviously,
00:38SPEAKERafter the process was done,
00:39SPEAKERbut I cracked a jar last night
00:42SPEAKERand put a little rye in it while we were building some Lego.
00:45SPEAKERAnd just a splash, you just want a taste.
00:47SPEAKERYou don't want to, it's not, it's.
00:49SPEAKER- Oh.
00:50SPEAKER- Look, okay, I don't drink the nog to get loaded,
00:53SPEAKERbut I have a history with the white Russians,
00:58SPEAKERthanks to Sega.
00:59SPEAKER- That's fair.
01:00SPEAKERWell, I mean, I'm doing two ounces.
01:01SPEAKERI'm doing a standard shot.
01:03SPEAKER- Oh yeah, yeah.
01:04SPEAKER- Hopefully that's regulation.
01:07SPEAKER- Look, any way you do it is right.
01:09SPEAKERYou can't do it wrong, that's the way I look at it.
01:11SPEAKERBut yeah, so we did the drive around.
01:15SPEAKERIt's funny, 'cause we took,
01:16SPEAKERI think the first day we took nine quarts,
01:19SPEAKERwhich is like two gallons and change,
01:21SPEAKERto people, mostly in San Francisco,
01:23SPEAKERbut also some people in town and some of our neighbors.
01:28SPEAKERAnd as Gina, we started at like 3.30 in the afternoon
01:32SPEAKERand I was like, Gina was like,
01:34SPEAKERI'm just gonna run this over to the neighbors real quick.
01:35SPEAKERAnd then she came back an hour and a half later.
01:37SPEAKER'Cause like, well, it's a nice opportunity
01:41SPEAKERto catch up with people that you like,
01:43SPEAKERwhich we don't get all that often these days.
01:46SPEAKERSo yeah, it was lovely to drive around and see everybody
01:50SPEAKERand say hi to people that we don't see often enough.
01:53SPEAKERAnd say hi to people that we see all the time
01:56SPEAKERon video calls, but never in person.
01:58SPEAKERBrad.
01:59SPEAKER- Say hello to some small animals.
02:01SPEAKER- Wait, but my daughter got to meet your pigs.
02:04SPEAKER- Wait, is that the first time she's met them?
02:05SPEAKER- It's the first time she remembers meeting her.
02:07SPEAKERI think she's, I think, well, like if you think about it,
02:09SPEAKERusually when I came, when we used to record the podcast
02:11SPEAKERat your house back in the early days,
02:14SPEAKERit was always like me coming over at eight o'clock
02:16SPEAKERon Saturday morning and she would be either asleep
02:20SPEAKERor couldn't sit still for the two hours
02:23SPEAKERit took us to record the podcast usually.
02:24SPEAKER- The idea of doing this podcast in person
02:26SPEAKERis impossible to comprehend at this point.
02:30SPEAKER- We were really worried about it if you remember,
02:32SPEAKERlike it was a real, like it was a thing we talked about
02:36SPEAKERat length whether we could do this,
02:38SPEAKERwhich is really funny in retrospect.
02:39SPEAKER- Yeah, we were still very much in the podcasts
02:42SPEAKERhave to be done in person mode.
02:44SPEAKER- I think one of us was more into that mode
02:46SPEAKERthan the other one was.
02:47SPEAKER- I mean, I still think it's the best way to go,
02:49SPEAKERbut there are trade-offs.
02:51SPEAKER- Oh, definitely, definitely.
02:53SPEAKER- But I have a question back to the Nog.
02:55SPEAKER- Yes.
02:56SPEAKER- Do we owe you jars?
02:58SPEAKER- No.
02:58SPEAKER- It occurred to me right after you left, I was like, man,
03:01SPEAKERwe probably have at least two or three of their jars
03:02SPEAKERthat we should have given back.
03:04SPEAKER- It's a gift.
03:05SPEAKER- Oh, well, okay, thank you.
03:06SPEAKER- So like we don't expect jars back.
03:08SPEAKERSo we have, well, okay.
03:11SPEAKERFirst off, we changed the way we made the Nog this year
03:13SPEAKER'cause usually it's hard to find liquid yolks.
03:17SPEAKERLike you can get liquid whites everywhere.
03:19SPEAKERI can't remember if we talked about this
03:20SPEAKERon the podcast already.
03:21SPEAKER- I think we talked about it on a patron episode
03:23SPEAKERthat is yet to publish, 15 pounds of egg whites.
03:26SPEAKER- Yeah, getting liquid whites, no problem.
03:28SPEAKERYou can do that at any grocery store
03:29SPEAKER'cause everybody likes egg white omelets
03:31SPEAKER'cause they think it's healthier.
03:32SPEAKERThe yolks, it turns out,
03:34SPEAKERyou have to go to a restaurant supply place to buy.
03:36SPEAKERBut we found that there's a couple,
03:40SPEAKERand most of the restaurant supply places
03:41SPEAKERrequire a business license.
03:43SPEAKERSo if you have a business license, fair enough.
03:46SPEAKERLike Restaurant Depot does, kind of.
03:48SPEAKER- Fair.
03:49SPEAKER- But one of our listeners pointed me
03:52SPEAKERto a restaurant supply place
03:53SPEAKERthat does not require business licenses.
03:56SPEAKERAnd I went there and they had yolks by the carton
04:00SPEAKERand it saved two hassles.
04:02SPEAKEROne is shelling 80 eggs, which is what we usually do.
04:07SPEAKERUgh, that's fine.
04:09SPEAKERBut the bigger problem is how do you dispose
04:13SPEAKERof like 12 pounds of egg whites?
04:15SPEAKER'Cause you can't make enough angel food cake
04:17SPEAKERand you can't make enough meringue
04:19SPEAKERand like nobody wants that many egg white omelets
04:21SPEAKERthat I know.
04:23SPEAKERSo yeah, so a less wasteful nog this year.
04:27SPEAKERAnd then the jars aren't expensive, so.
04:31SPEAKER- It just occurred to me,
04:31SPEAKERI don't think I've ever seen an egg white omelet in person.
04:33SPEAKERThere's something about eggs, like scrambled eggs,
04:36SPEAKERbut pure white seems very wrong.
04:40SPEAKER- They're still a little yellow.
04:41SPEAKER- Okay, all right.
04:43SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know.
04:43SPEAKERI find them wholly unsatisfying.
04:46SPEAKERSo it's not something I indulge in, it turns out.
04:49SPEAKERBut it was nice to see everybody
04:50SPEAKERand it was wonderful to bring the gift of the nog
04:53SPEAKERand it's one of those things that I love.
04:57SPEAKERNow, it took a long time 'cause like, I don't know.
05:01SPEAKERYou live in an apartment,
05:02SPEAKERso you don't know your neighbors probably,
05:04SPEAKERbut like out in the burbs, everybody brings cookies by
05:08SPEAKERor like a thing that they make around Christmas time.
05:12SPEAKERAnd like we didn't know, like I mean,
05:16SPEAKERI grew up in the country, we didn't have,
05:17SPEAKERlike people would just bring over a piece of their country
05:19SPEAKERham and stuff like that.
05:21SPEAKER- Oh yes, yes.
05:22SPEAKER- But we never had like a thing that we made.
05:25SPEAKERSo it took us over, like we tried some spiced nuts
05:27SPEAKERfor a while, we did cookies for a little bit,
05:29SPEAKERbut like people need more cookies,
05:31SPEAKERlike they need a hole in the head.
05:33SPEAKERI did little mini cakes one year, that was good,
05:35SPEAKERbut it's kind of not enough.
05:37SPEAKER- Man, I'm gonna have to come up with something.
05:41SPEAKERNext year, I'm gonna make the rounds, I'm gonna show up,
05:43SPEAKERI'm gonna, here is your artisanally appointed hard drive.
05:47SPEAKER(upbeat music)
06:13SPEAKERWelcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod, I'm Will.
06:16SPEAKER- I'm Brad, season's greetings to you.
06:19SPEAKER- Happiest holidays to you, my friend.
06:22SPEAKERAnd to everybody listening at home also.
06:24SPEAKER- This may be our last set of recordings for the year.
06:28SPEAKER- This is our first Christmas episode.
06:31SPEAKER- Is it?
06:32SPEAKEROh, you're like actually posting on Christmas.
06:33SPEAKER- This drops on Christmas, yeah.
06:34SPEAKER- Well, Merry Christmas and happy holidays
06:37SPEAKERand enjoy this gift to all of you.
06:40SPEAKERThis podcast is a gift we give to the world
06:42SPEAKERno it's not. (laughs)
06:44SPEAKER- Look, I had to talk to an adult who didn't know
06:49SPEAKERwhat I do for a living on Zoom the other day,
06:50SPEAKERand they were like, wow, you have a really cool microphone.
06:54SPEAKERI was like, well, I have a moderately successful podcast,
06:57SPEAKERI guess, I don't know.
06:59SPEAKER- You get that a lot when you do like business calls
07:02SPEAKERor any kind of video conference with somebody
07:05SPEAKERwho doesn't know you and probably doesn't really care
07:08SPEAKERabout their camera and microphone much.
07:10SPEAKERThey're like, oh, wow, are you in a radio?
07:12SPEAKER- Well, it's weird 'cause you get to a certain level
07:14SPEAKERof like executive and they spent like,
07:17SPEAKERwhen you reach a certain level of executive,
07:19SPEAKERthe ones who are good spent money on their Zoom setup
07:22SPEAKERin like mid to early 2000, right?
07:25SPEAKERAs soon as you could get microphones and backgrounds
07:27SPEAKERand lights and stuff again, they have good stuff.
07:30SPEAKERBut then anyway, we are, this is our first Christmas episode.
07:38SPEAKERSo yeah, happy holidays again to everybody.
07:41SPEAKERAnd we are, I think, probably biting off
07:47SPEAKERour most ambitious topic ever today.
07:50SPEAKER- I think you're right.
07:50SPEAKERI think this came together somewhat rapidly.
07:54SPEAKERFirst of all--
07:55SPEAKER- No, no, we've been thinking about it for a while.
07:57SPEAKERWe knew that we had a bad idea and we were like,
07:59SPEAKERlet's ride this one all the way down, okay?
08:02SPEAKER- I do have to give credit to ptown356
08:05SPEAKERfor the encouragement in the Discord.
08:07SPEAKERYou're never gonna need more than 356 kilobytes of RAM
08:10SPEAKERis what I understand, Brad.
08:11SPEAKER- That's right.
08:12SPEAKERLook, it's the end of the year.
08:14SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:15SPEAKER- There's only one thing to do on a podcast
08:16SPEAKERat the end of the year.
08:17SPEAKER- You gotta make lists and yell at each other, right?
08:19SPEAKER- You gotta rank.
08:20SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:21SPEAKER- It's time to rank.
08:21SPEAKER- I love a good ranking.
08:23SPEAKERWe've ranked, to date, I believe we've ranked
08:25SPEAKERgame controllers, we've ranked versions of Windows.
08:28SPEAKER- Yes, and then there was the somewhat amorphous,
08:33SPEAKERstill not quite sure how to define it,
08:35SPEAKERranking of like best developments in PC hardware.
08:39SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:40SPEAKER- It was like things that made PCs better, such as USB.
08:43SPEAKER- Things what we like from the world of PCs.
08:46SPEAKER- Yeah, sure.
08:49SPEAKER- So rather than, I think the lesson from that ranking
08:52SPEAKERof things in the PC episode was we needed to make it
08:55SPEAKERreally specific from then forward
08:57SPEAKERso it would be a manageable task.
08:58SPEAKERSo this time we're gonna rank software, all of it.
09:04SPEAKER- Yup.
09:06SPEAKER- Well, hold on.
09:08SPEAKERWe suggested some framing for this
09:09SPEAKERto make it a little bit easier.
09:10SPEAKEROne was, do we do like, is this like from Windows,
09:15SPEAKERthe dawn of Windows on, is this from any time period,
09:18SPEAKERcan we run like the ENIAC OS, does it qualify for this?
09:22SPEAKERI don't know.
09:23SPEAKER- You know, I think if it's software
09:26SPEAKERyou can put your hands on and use.
09:28SPEAKER- Okay.
09:28SPEAKER- I think that counts.
09:29SPEAKER- Okay, so, curl.
09:32SPEAKER- Yeah, I have put my hands on and used curl many times.
09:35SPEAKER- Oh no.
09:36SPEAKER- As recently as yesterday.
09:37SPEAKER- This gets brought.
09:38SPEAKERI'd suggested quantum leap rules,
09:40SPEAKERanything that existed within our lifetimes?
09:42SPEAKER- I had never heard of that before.
09:44SPEAKER- I made that up yesterday.
09:45SPEAKER- Oh, I see.
09:47SPEAKERI mean, that shuts out things like Unix and Space War then.
09:53SPEAKERI think you might've been alive for those.
09:56SPEAKER- Wow, wow.
09:58SPEAKER- Unix was still an active development when you...
10:01SPEAKER- Unix was an active development until the '80s.
10:03SPEAKER- Well, yeah, yeah, yes, later.
10:05SPEAKERI mean, it's real.
10:06SPEAKER- '90s even, spark.
10:07SPEAKER- Yeah, its prominence was in the early '70s, but anyway.
10:10SPEAKER- I think Unix would count as being active
10:13SPEAKERduring our lifetimes.
10:14SPEAKER- I think anything even with historical significance
10:17SPEAKERcounts here.
10:18SPEAKER- Okay.
10:19SPEAKER- You know, but also like, I mean, okay,
10:22SPEAKERmaking lists is ridiculous.
10:24SPEAKER- It's an inherently stupid process.
10:26SPEAKER- It's as absurd on its face.
10:30SPEAKER- I just wanted to go all the way with that
10:32SPEAKERand pose the question, for example, what's better,
10:36SPEAKERDoom 3 or Office 97?
10:39SPEAKER- I think, look, I can get behind that.
10:41SPEAKERI think the one thing, I think you're,
10:42SPEAKERI think the one framing we came up with that I really liked
10:45SPEAKERis it should be person facing.
10:47SPEAKERSo like, it should be something that you,
10:49SPEAKERlike the TCP/IP stack, while incredibly important
10:53SPEAKERand an incredibly important piece of software,
10:56SPEAKERprobably doesn't qualify for this, I think.
10:58SPEAKER- You mean I have to delete Trumpet Winsock from my lists?
11:01SPEAKER- Oh God, I'm going to put Trumpet Winsock all, Trumpet,
11:04SPEAKERI'm still pissed at Trumpet Winsock.
11:06SPEAKER- I would not actually, I mean,
11:08SPEAKERI've never actually used Trumpet Winsock,
11:10SPEAKERbut I never heard good things.
11:10SPEAKERI always heard that getting internet working
11:13SPEAKERon pre-Windows 95 was a real hassle.
11:16SPEAKER- It sucked.
11:19SPEAKERYeah, so, okay, so I mean, but like TCP/IP is the,
11:23SPEAKERis the, is kind of like the, that's the wall for me, right?
11:29SPEAKER- Yeah.
11:29SPEAKER- On one hand, there's, on one side of that,
11:31SPEAKERthere's things that people use and are aware of.
11:34SPEAKEROn the other hand, there's a bunch of invisible software
11:36SPEAKERthat nobody knows about
11:38SPEAKERand is also doing a ton of heavy lifting.
11:40SPEAKER- Yeah, I think, okay, you tell me if this is too fiddly,
11:44SPEAKERthis is the Linux talking, but like,
11:46SPEAKERI think maybe specs are off the table,
11:48SPEAKERstandards are off the table,
11:50SPEAKERbut specific implementations are fine.
11:53SPEAKERFor example, SMB doesn't count, but Samba does.
11:58SPEAKER- Wow.
11:59SPEAKER- How about that?
12:02SPEAKERH.264, no, X.264, yes.
12:05SPEAKER- Okay, I can get, I think I can get behind that.
12:08SPEAKER- I think an encoder, a specific encoder you can download
12:11SPEAKERand use I think should count.
12:13SPEAKER- Okay.
12:14SPEAKER- I mean, really, this has just come down
12:17SPEAKERto how well can you argue something on there?
12:19SPEAKER- But then, okay, so then does like,
12:21SPEAKERdoes like, obviously Handbrake is a piece of software
12:25SPEAKERthat would be applicable, I'm putting that on my list right now.
12:28SPEAKER- Oh, okay.
12:30SPEAKER- Handbrake is a piece of software,
12:32SPEAKERbut like FFmpeg and VLC,
12:34SPEAKERthe things that it uses to encode video,
12:36SPEAKERprobably not so much.
12:39SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, you know, we'll talk about it.
12:41SPEAKERLet's say we'll cross those bridges when we come to them.
12:44SPEAKER- I think we both have FFmpeg on our list, I guess.
12:47SPEAKER- That is the most recent thing that I wrote down on here.
12:52SPEAKER- Okay, what about, so just as a hypothetical,
12:55SPEAKERI have on my list written,
12:57SPEAKERthe Linux kernel question mark hyphen,
13:00SPEAKERdoes this count question mark?
13:02SPEAKER- I have on my list written the Linux kernel
13:04SPEAKERand nothing after it.
13:05SPEAKER- Okay, okay.
13:07SPEAKER- I don't, you know, that one seems really obvious though.
13:09SPEAKERI don't know that I would actually,
13:10SPEAKERalso the more time I spend with Linux,
13:12SPEAKERthe less convinced I am that I would,
13:15SPEAKERI mean, look, it's very important, but boy.
13:18SPEAKER- So let's start there, let's start with Linux then.
13:20SPEAKER- Oh boy, okay.
13:21SPEAKER- So I think the Linux kernel is important,
13:23SPEAKERnot because of the stuff
13:24SPEAKERthat you and I use it for all the time,
13:26SPEAKERbut because it is driving a bazillion pieces
13:30SPEAKERof ambient computing that people use every day.
13:32SPEAKER- Oh, it is, I mean, we're gonna get really serious now
13:36SPEAKERand I actually take things seriously, but yes, like,
13:43SPEAKERif we were making a fully serious list here,
13:44SPEAKERthe Linux kernel probably is the actual most important piece
13:47SPEAKERof software on the planet.
13:48SPEAKER- Okay, so here, hold on, hold on, let's take a step back.
13:51SPEAKER- All right.
13:52SPEAKER- We are making a fully serious,
13:54SPEAKERwe're embarking on this stupid project
13:56SPEAKERwith full solemnity and seriousness.
13:58SPEAKERWe know, okay, also, this is gonna be at least two parts.
14:02SPEAKERPeople should know that going in.
14:03SPEAKER- Yes, at least this week and next week,
14:05SPEAKERbut there's a decent chance this will just be left open-ended
14:08SPEAKERand we will revisit as...
14:10SPEAKER- The never ending list.
14:12SPEAKER- Yes, I kind of like the idea of a living list of software
14:18SPEAKERon which Winamp continues to work its way upwards.
14:22SPEAKER- Wow, okay, I wasn't expecting you
14:24SPEAKERto live and die on the way.
14:25SPEAKEROkay, so the other thing with this
14:26SPEAKERis we can't agree on everything.
14:28SPEAKERSo I'm gonna take some contrary positions
14:30SPEAKERjust to, you know, just to keep it spicy, let's say.
14:34SPEAKER- Tease out some discussion.
14:35SPEAKER- But I think the Linux kernel is like,
14:37SPEAKERI think the Linux kernel is a fundamentally important part
14:41SPEAKERof computing and without it, we would have,
14:47SPEAKERlike, I don't know, I mean,
14:48SPEAKERsomething else would have risen to fill the void,
14:51SPEAKERobviously, right, but...
14:52SPEAKER- Yes.
14:53SPEAKER- But without Linux, would we have head units in the cars
14:58SPEAKERthat have maps that scroll?
15:01SPEAKERWould we have, you know, what saw,
15:03SPEAKERwould every router run the same software essentially, right?
15:06SPEAKEROr compatible software?
15:08SPEAKERWould we have things like Home Assistant
15:10SPEAKERand, you know, this world of, you know,
15:15SPEAKERbuying a $40 computer that you could put
15:17SPEAKERwhatever software you want on it
15:18SPEAKERthat becomes then a single purpose computing task machine.
15:21SPEAKER- Well, so it's interesting.
15:23SPEAKERI mean, I would love to do a whole episode
15:24SPEAKERon like history of Unix.
15:25SPEAKERMaybe that's a FOSS pod.
15:26SPEAKERWe should probably get a historian
15:28SPEAKERand talk about history of Unix stuff.
15:29SPEAKER- I think that is a good idea.
15:30SPEAKER- I do think if Linux hadn't happened,
15:33SPEAKERsomething else would fill that role.
15:34SPEAKERI think we would have all that stuff regardless,
15:36SPEAKERbut it's still significant that Linux
15:38SPEAKERis the thing that did it, right?
15:39SPEAKERLike, if you look at, I'll keep it brief,
15:43SPEAKERbut like there were lawsuits going on
15:45SPEAKERaround what became FreeBSD at the time.
15:47SPEAKERAnd like, Linus has said, basically,
15:50SPEAKERlike if it hadn't, like if 386BSD hadn't been
15:54SPEAKERlike tied up in court, he has said,
15:56SPEAKERlike maybe he would not have pushed so hard
15:59SPEAKERto create his own kernel for his own operating system.
16:01SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
16:02SPEAKERLike it's possible that some other Unix variant
16:04SPEAKERwould have filled that void instead,
16:05SPEAKERbut it's still significant that Linux is the one that did.
16:10SPEAKER- Yeah, and I think, I think, I think, okay, fair.
16:16SPEAKERSo let's talk about BSD next.
16:18SPEAKER- Oh boy, okay.
16:19SPEAKER- I'm gonna make a new document here
16:22SPEAKERand share it with you.
16:23SPEAKER- Oh, I've got one here.
16:23SPEAKER- Oh, you have one, okay.
16:24SPEAKER- Yes, it's in the drive, the Linux kernel.
16:26SPEAKERI've got a numbered bulleted list and everything.
16:28SPEAKERThe Linux kernel is currently number one.
16:30SPEAKER- Number one, you heard it here, folks,
16:33SPEAKERthe Linux kernel, the most important
16:35SPEAKERpiece of software of all time.
16:38SPEAKERDo you wanna jump right into free BSD now,
16:40SPEAKERor do you want to- - Sure, sure.
16:43SPEAKERHow do we wanna, man, there's so much to untangle there.
16:48SPEAKER- I think this is the bottom of the list, Brad.
16:49SPEAKER- Whoa, well, yes, inherently.
16:55SPEAKERIf we have two things on the list,
16:56SPEAKERthen the thing at number two is at the bottom of the list.
16:58SPEAKER- Yeah, look, BSD is cool and all,
17:00SPEAKERbut it's no Linux kernel, okay?
17:02SPEAKER- Well, I don't know, there are things I like better.
17:05SPEAKERThe thing I like better about free BSD
17:06SPEAKERis that it's a whole ass operating system.
17:09SPEAKER- Yep, that is it.
17:10SPEAKER- They put out an operating system
17:12SPEAKERwith a very detailed and robust manual.
17:15SPEAKER- But also- - Yes?
17:18SPEAKER- Also, people can't extend it and make it their own
17:20SPEAKERand do the things that they want with it
17:22SPEAKERas much as you can with something like, say, Linux.
17:25SPEAKER- Well, you could rebuild it.
17:26SPEAKERI mean, the source is out there.
17:27SPEAKERYou could compile a new free BSD,
17:30SPEAKERjust like you could a new Linux kernel,
17:31SPEAKERbut the bigger problem is there's just not the support.
17:34SPEAKER- Yeah. - The numbers I've seen
17:36SPEAKERon free BSD installs are paltry.
17:39SPEAKER- Yeah, there's a thing with open source software in general
17:42SPEAKERwhere the more people use it, the better it gets.
17:44SPEAKER- That is, well, yes, Linux is a giant mess
17:48SPEAKERjust because it is so open
17:49SPEAKERand there are so many different interpretations
17:51SPEAKERof how to use it.
17:53SPEAKERAnd free BSD, to be fair, is used widely by Netflix
17:57SPEAKERand some other giant corporations,
17:58SPEAKERbut I've seen numbers on end user desktop-y kind of installs
18:03SPEAKERin the tens of thousands.
18:05SPEAKERIt's not big, and that smaller community
18:09SPEAKERleads to way, way, way less support for different things.
18:14SPEAKERAlthough, actually, it's kind of remarkable
18:15SPEAKERhow much it does work on it and run well
18:17SPEAKERand is ported to it,
18:18SPEAKERconsidering how small the community is anyway.
18:21SPEAKER- Yeah. - I don't,
18:23SPEAKERI have enjoyed my time with free BSD.
18:25SPEAKERI don't know that I would necessarily push for it
18:29SPEAKERto be on a list.
18:30SPEAKER- I think it should be on a list,
18:31SPEAKERbut I think it should be toward the bottom of the list.
18:33SPEAKER- Also, we start getting into things like,
18:36SPEAKERare there specific utilities we want to call out instead?
18:41SPEAKER- Well, I think we'll get there.
18:42SPEAKERI'm not, I'm confident that there's,
18:44SPEAKERlook, we have time.
18:45SPEAKERThis is the work of a lifetime, Brad.
18:47SPEAKERThis isn't something- - That's true, that's true.
18:48SPEAKER- This isn't something we walk into lightly.
18:50SPEAKER- Okay, well, let's not get too mired
18:52SPEAKERin operating systems yet.
18:55SPEAKER'Cause I think there's a lot here.
18:56SPEAKER- Okay, well, I'm not gonna suggest the next one,
18:58SPEAKERthen what do you got?
18:59SPEAKERWhat's your next, no, no, no, go for it.
19:01SPEAKER- No, I wanna know, actually, if your head was in OSes,
19:03SPEAKERI wanna know what-
19:04SPEAKER- I was just gonna say 16-bit Windows.
19:07SPEAKER- Oh, man.
19:08SPEAKERWait, so where does 16-bit Windows start?
19:09SPEAKERIs it like 1.0, it must have been 16-bit, right?
19:11SPEAKER- Well, it's like Windows, for all intents and purposes,
19:14SPEAKERI think Windows starts with 3.0
19:16SPEAKERand 16-bit ends with like ME, right?
19:18SPEAKER- Sure, have you ever even used Windows 1 or 2?
19:22SPEAKER- I used Windows 2 briefly, and I used Windows 3.0 briefly,
19:28SPEAKERbut most people are familiar with Windows 3.1 at that time.
19:31SPEAKERI should really spec out a, like,
19:33SPEAKERwhat did Windows 2.0 run on?
19:35SPEAKERLike 286s? - It's like 286s, yeah.
19:38SPEAKER- I should really just 86 a box, A286,
19:40SPEAKERand install Windows 2.0 and see what's up.
19:44SPEAKER- I think Windows 1.0 is almost like a DOS shell.
19:47SPEAKERIt's not, you know, I mean,
19:50SPEAKERarguably Windows 95 is also a DOS shell,
19:53SPEAKERbut you know, here we are.
19:57SPEAKERI think Windows, I think that 16-bit error of Windows
20:00SPEAKERfrom 3.1 on, really 95 on, is important for two reasons.
20:04SPEAKEROne is it became the interface
20:06SPEAKERthat most people equated with a computer in the '80s,
20:09SPEAKERlate '80s, or in the mid '90s, I guess.
20:12SPEAKER'90s, I guess, for all Windows.
20:14SPEAKERTwo, Windows 95 is responsible for the internet
20:18SPEAKERbecoming easy for people at home.
20:21SPEAKER- Wait, which Windows did you say?
20:22SPEAKER- 95. - Oh, 95.
20:23SPEAKEROh, so you're including everything up through me?
20:26SPEAKER- I think I'm talking about, for me,
20:29SPEAKERthis category is Windows pre-NT.
20:31SPEAKER- I see, I see.
20:32SPEAKEROkay, okay, I thought you were talking pre-95.
20:37SPEAKER'Cause there are 32-bit aspects of 95 and onward,
20:39SPEAKERbut it's a weird hybrid.
20:41SPEAKER- Yeah, but it's potentially running on top of DOS
20:43SPEAKERuntil you get to ME or 98 or whatever, so yeah.
20:47SPEAKER- Let's table that.
20:48SPEAKER- Okay, you wanna put that one on the back burner?
20:50SPEAKER- That might be a little broad for me.
20:52SPEAKERI think we might need to focus that one down.
20:54SPEAKER- You think we're gonna have multiple versions?
20:56SPEAKERLike, see, to me, okay,
20:58SPEAKERso to me, there's Windows through, I guess,
21:00SPEAKERthe other way you could differentiate, divide these
21:02SPEAKERis like saying pre-Windows 95, post-Windows 95,
21:05SPEAKERpre-Windows NT.
21:07SPEAKER'Cause essentially, Windows 95, 98, and ME, same thing,
21:10SPEAKERjust slightly different,
21:11SPEAKERjust like cosmetic and hardware support improvements, right?
21:15SPEAKER- Yeah, I might lean toward forcing us to pick
21:18SPEAKERwhichever one is the most important there,
21:20SPEAKERwhich might be 90, my new.
21:22SPEAKERWell, okay, also going to continue backfilling rules
21:26SPEAKERas we go here.
21:27SPEAKER- Yeah, no, no, that's fine.
21:29SPEAKER- I mean, I feel like any and all selection criteria
21:33SPEAKERare valid here, right?
21:34SPEAKERSo it's like historical importance is fine,
21:36SPEAKERbut also let's say usability.
21:38SPEAKERLike it might've been very important
21:40SPEAKERand also a complete nightmare in its day
21:42SPEAKERto mess with or deal with.
21:44SPEAKERAnd I feel like that also plays a role here.
21:48SPEAKER- I mean, the other way we could do this
21:50SPEAKERis that we could just include all of them.
21:51SPEAKERLike we could put Windows 95, Windows 95 OSR2,
21:55SPEAKERWindows 98, Windows ME, Windows Bob,
21:59SPEAKERdoes Windows Bob fall on this list someplace?
22:01SPEAKER- Microsoft Bob, oh, I thought about this.
22:03SPEAKERMicrosoft Plus, remember that?
22:05SPEAKER- Oh, the Plus Pack?
22:07SPEAKERYeah, the Plus Pack was how you got that sweet pinball game.
22:09SPEAKER- That's right.
22:10SPEAKER- And literally nothing else of value in there.
22:13SPEAKER- All those extra wallpapers.
22:14SPEAKER- Yeah.
22:16SPEAKER- Let's see.
22:17SPEAKERAll right, let's see what else we got here.
22:19SPEAKER- Okay, we can table Windows for a minute.
22:21SPEAKER- Here's one I wrote down.
22:22SPEAKER- Okay.
22:24SPEAKERNetscape Navigator 2.0.
22:26SPEAKER- Oh, interesting.
22:27SPEAKERI have an entry on my list that says a browser.
22:29SPEAKERIs it Chrome, Netscape, Navigator, Mosaic,
22:32SPEAKERor Internet Explorer?
22:33SPEAKER- I thought about that.
22:34SPEAKERLike Mosaic, if you were going pure historical,
22:37SPEAKERlike Mosaic is the one.
22:38SPEAKER- Yeah.
22:39SPEAKER- If you're going more modern,
22:40SPEAKERI mean, that's much more open to interpretation.
22:42SPEAKERLike Chrome, maybe.
22:46SPEAKER- They've become so ubiquitous.
22:47SPEAKERAnd honestly, like in the old days switching,
22:51SPEAKERlike in the Internet Explorer four days, four and five days,
22:54SPEAKERswitching from, like you had to have multiple browsers
22:57SPEAKERon your system 'cause some websites
22:59SPEAKERjust didn't work on other browsers.
23:01SPEAKERAnd that doesn't really happen anymore.
23:03SPEAKER- Yes.
23:04SPEAKER- Like I definitely have Chrome on my computer
23:05SPEAKER'cause there's some browsers, like for example, Jitsi,
23:09SPEAKERthe thing that we're using to talk to each other right now
23:10SPEAKERworks better in Chrome.
23:12SPEAKERSo I keep Chrome for Jitsi and Google Meets
23:14SPEAKERand a couple of other like things
23:16SPEAKERwhere I know Chrome will work better.
23:18SPEAKERAnd then the rest of the time I use Firefox
23:20SPEAKER'cause there's essentially no difference.
23:21SPEAKER- Fair, fair.
23:22SPEAKERSo, okay.
23:23SPEAKERI just pulled up the Netscape Navigator 2 Wikipedia page
23:25SPEAKERand I had put this thing on here.
23:27SPEAKERMy thought was, what was the first browser,
23:31SPEAKERnot that I used, but that I've like loved.
23:33SPEAKER- Yeah.
23:34SPEAKER- Like what was the browser of record the first one?
23:36SPEAKERYou know, like what was the first web browser
23:38SPEAKERthat was like, this is not a fun toy.
23:41SPEAKERThis is just a tool that I need to do things.
23:44SPEAKER- Yeah.
23:45SPEAKER- And now that I look at the Wikipedia page,
23:47SPEAKERI'm like thinking maybe this thing
23:49SPEAKERwas actually way more formative than I even remembered
23:51SPEAKERbecause-
23:53SPEAKER- Oh, it was the only browser for a long time.
23:55SPEAKER- Well, but also-
23:55SPEAKER- I mean, also then they went to three and whatever.
23:57SPEAKER- Oh yeah, I know it was the only browser to get,
24:00SPEAKERbut I'm looking at the features
24:01SPEAKERthat were introduced with 2.0 and JavaScript.
24:05SPEAKER- Uh-huh.
24:05SPEAKER- Java applets.
24:07SPEAKER- Frames.
24:08SPEAKER- So I was debating whether I should bring up frames or not
24:11SPEAKERbecause I thought frames were mind blowing at the time.
24:15SPEAKER- Look.
24:16SPEAKER- They're a little bit goofy now.
24:18SPEAKER- Frames are stupid in a world where you have a 4K screen
24:21SPEAKERor even a 1080p screen.
24:23SPEAKERFrames make a ton of sense in a world
24:25SPEAKERwhere everybody's running at 800 by 600.
24:27SPEAKER- Oh yeah, of course.
24:27SPEAKER- Right, like it was the right tool for the time,
24:29SPEAKEReven though in retrospect, very stupid.
24:32SPEAKER- Like I said, at the time, I was like, oh my God,
24:33SPEAKERthey can just keep a menu on the thing that doesn't move
24:36SPEAKERwhile I scroll the part that does move.
24:38SPEAKER- Yeah, these pages are dynamic as shit, yo, is what I said.
24:42SPEAKER- I am so not up on modern web design.
24:45SPEAKERLike, are frames even part of an existing spec
24:50SPEAKERat this point?
24:51SPEAKER- Well, so you can do iframes to embed the content
24:53SPEAKERof another page within the existing page,
24:55SPEAKERwhich is basically the same idea.
24:57SPEAKERBut like, if you wanna have like a nav element
24:59SPEAKERthat floats on top of a content window,
25:01SPEAKERyou do that with CSS now.
25:03SPEAKER- Or that's, actually, that's the thing I was gonna say
25:05SPEAKERis like, is the HTML5 spec even relevant
25:08SPEAKERor is it other specs on top of that
25:10SPEAKERthat are really defining how?
25:12SPEAKER- They're just extending HTML,
25:14SPEAKERwhat you can do with CSS and HTML at this point.
25:16SPEAKERI feel like tables were a Netscape Navigator 2 feature too,
25:22SPEAKERweren't they?
25:23SPEAKER- Really, maybe?
25:24SPEAKER- Yeah, maybe, I can't remember.
25:25SPEAKER- I don't know, remember Netscape Now?
25:27SPEAKER- No.
25:28SPEAKER- You don't remember the little badge?
25:30SPEAKER- Was it the thing that I,
25:32SPEAKERlike, I remember the thing in the top right corner
25:33SPEAKERanimating when the page was loading.
25:35SPEAKER- Well, that was the little throbber.
25:37SPEAKER- Yeah.
25:38SPEAKER- They have a good throbber, right?
25:39SPEAKERLike, there's something about like the arrangement
25:43SPEAKERof neurons in my brain that when I think back on that time,
25:46SPEAKERlike I just get all tingly
25:47SPEAKERbecause it was my first real experience with the internet.
25:50SPEAKER- It's 'cause you spent so much time
25:51SPEAKERlooking at that throbber, Brad.
25:52SPEAKER- That's, well, it was magical.
25:53SPEAKERThere were little stars flying.
25:55SPEAKERThe end was like on a little, was that a hill or a moon?
25:58SPEAKER- It was a hill with a moon rising on it.
26:01SPEAKERDid you mod your throbber?
26:02SPEAKERI replaced my throbber.
26:03SPEAKER- I might've done that once briefly.
26:05SPEAKERI don't think I've really bothered too much.
26:08SPEAKERI like the default one.
26:09SPEAKER- I had a little Doom guy head
26:10SPEAKERthat popped up in the throbber.
26:12SPEAKERLittle stars flying by the end.
26:14SPEAKERI thought, anyway, just thinking back on that whole time,
26:17SPEAKERlike discovering the internet
26:19SPEAKERas a young nerd in the '90s was pretty magical.
26:26SPEAKERI'm gonna say Netscape is pretty next,
26:28SPEAKERagain, Navigator 2.0 in particular.
26:31SPEAKER- Yeah.
26:32SPEAKER- Both great in its day and also historically significant.
26:35SPEAKER- So now here's the important question.
26:37SPEAKERDo you think it is better or worse than the Linux kernel?
26:39SPEAKER- Oh man, hmm.
26:41SPEAKERThat's- - 'Cause I have thoughts.
26:43SPEAKER- That's perhaps a question for later.
26:46SPEAKER- Oh, oh, that's an interesting idea.
26:48SPEAKERWe could just get stuff on a list now.
26:51SPEAKERWe could make this not a bulleted,
26:54SPEAKERwe could make this a bulleted list
26:55SPEAKERand not a numbered list for right now.
26:58SPEAKER- The first step of ranking a list is building the list.
27:01SPEAKER- That's true.
27:01SPEAKEROkay, so I am gonna note for listeners,
27:04SPEAKERfor audio listeners, which is everyone but us,
27:07SPEAKERyou did put Netscape Navigator 2.0
27:09SPEAKERsquarely between the Linux kernel and FreeBSD.
27:12SPEAKERSo I feel like there's a little bit of bias there.
27:15SPEAKER- I did.
27:16SPEAKERI, look, again, there are a lot of things
27:18SPEAKERI really like and admire about FreeBSD.
27:20SPEAKERI don't know that it will make a final list here.
27:22SPEAKER- Oh, hey, so here's another new rule for people.
27:26SPEAKER- All right.
27:27SPEAKER- I think that even if we finish what we think of
27:30SPEAKERas the list for this first round of rankings today,
27:36SPEAKERI think we need to have a beginning period
27:39SPEAKERof the next show where we can take
27:41SPEAKERwhat we've learned today, what we've talked about today,
27:44SPEAKERthink about it, and then add some more stuff.
27:47SPEAKER- Oh, of course.
27:47SPEAKER- Yeah, okay.
27:48SPEAKER- That's crucial.
27:49SPEAKERI think things could be added any time
27:51SPEAKERbecause we're gonna,
27:52SPEAKERthis is gonna jog a lot of memories, right?
27:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, look, I spent a lot of time
27:59SPEAKERon Wikipedia last night and archive.org and other places.
28:03SPEAKER- Oh, that's a good idea, yeah.
28:06SPEAKER- Okay, so here's a wild card for you.
28:09SPEAKERSuper Mario Brothers.
28:10SPEAKER- Whoa, oh man, I didn't even think about console software.
28:14SPEAKERI mean, that is software, huh?
28:17SPEAKER- I mean, Super Mario Brothers is essentially,
28:19SPEAKERlike arguably Atari 2600, Coleco, all that stuff, the video.
28:24SPEAKERLike I thought about, I wasn't gonna put Pong,
28:27SPEAKERbut thanks to the time I spent
28:28SPEAKERwith the Atari 50th collection,
28:29SPEAKERI've realized now that Pong isn't really software,
28:31SPEAKERit's just a collection of circuits on a board.
28:35SPEAKER- I have some other arcade games on here.
28:37SPEAKER- Those ROMs or those ICs could be described in software.
28:42SPEAKER- That's true, they can,
28:43SPEAKERbut they weren't software originally.
28:45SPEAKER- They're kind of a hardware form of software,
28:47SPEAKERwhich I guess is an oxymoron.
28:49SPEAKER- Yeah, but for this question, Super Mario Brothers,
28:54SPEAKERI think Super Mario Brothers
28:55SPEAKERis an incredibly important piece of software.
28:57SPEAKERLike it drove adoption of the NES in an early period
29:01SPEAKERbecause it was the same as the arcade game, right?
29:05SPEAKERYou see this thing, you see it at the arcade,
29:07SPEAKERthey're exactly the same for all intents and purposes.
29:10SPEAKERAnd also it had like things like smooth movement,
29:14SPEAKERleft to right.
29:15SPEAKER- Yes, scrolling tiles, scrolling graphics
29:18SPEAKERare the thing about that game that is significant.
29:21SPEAKERI'm trying to think, were there any side scrollers before?
29:25SPEAKER- There were, but it was stuff like Defender
29:27SPEAKERand like limited, like you didn't, it wasn't like,
29:32SPEAKERI mean, Mario, Super Mario Brothers
29:34SPEAKERobviously is an infinite scrolling,
29:35SPEAKERbut it was Defender would scroll like three different screens
29:38SPEAKERand they were all variants of each other.
29:40SPEAKERSo presumably it was simpler or something like that.
29:44SPEAKER- And also Defender is not a whole screen scrolling
29:46SPEAKERsituation like, you know.
29:48SPEAKER- It's like a handful of pixels on the bottom and top, right?
29:51SPEAKER- Right, like most of the screen in Defender is black.
29:54SPEAKER- Yeah.
29:55SPEAKER- Like the thing about Super Mario Brothers
29:56SPEAKERis the entire screen is taken up with graphics
29:58SPEAKERand they all move in unison and that was a pretty big deal.
30:02SPEAKEROh, you know, okay, sure, I'll allow it.
30:04SPEAKER- Okay, what you got?
30:06SPEAKER- Hmm, I mean, I have written some,
30:08SPEAKERI jokingly wrote down notepad.exe.
30:12SPEAKER- Oh, wow.
30:13SPEAKER- I don't know.
30:13SPEAKER- I used to use notepad.exe
30:15SPEAKERto hex edit stuff back in the day.
30:17SPEAKER- Oh, wow, okay, all right, you know.
30:19SPEAKER- Go to the right line and right column.
30:20SPEAKER- I wrote this down as a joke, but then I think like,
30:22SPEAKERoh, it's very simple and straightforward
30:26SPEAKERand does exactly one thing well,
30:28SPEAKERbut then I thought, does it actually do things very well?
30:30SPEAKERIt's terrible at opening large files.
30:33SPEAKERI'll say that.
30:34SPEAKER- It's better now.
30:35SPEAKER- It's better, but like, if you end up with,
30:36SPEAKERlet's say like 100 meg log file or something
30:39SPEAKERand accidentally open that in notepad,
30:42SPEAKERyou're still gonna sit there and look at a frozen window
30:45SPEAKERfor a very long time.
30:46SPEAKER- Just alt-F4 that notepad.
30:47SPEAKER- And then probably kill the process, yes.
30:50SPEAKER- I'm gonna say, huh, notepad's interesting, right?
30:54SPEAKER'Cause like it is a really crucial piece of software, right?
31:00SPEAKERLike it was a thing that came with Windows
31:01SPEAKERfrom the very earliest days.
31:03SPEAKER- Yes.
31:04SPEAKER- You always had a text editor.
31:06SPEAKERThat was a novel thing back then.
31:07SPEAKERSo you just remember at that time,
31:10SPEAKEReverything costs money if you wanted to.
31:12SPEAKERThere was no freeware for all intents and purposes.
31:18SPEAKERI don't know, man.
31:19SPEAKERI feel like you could make ASCII art in it.
31:21SPEAKERIt was an image editor in that sense.
31:23SPEAKER- They still allow you to change the font to fixed sys,
31:25SPEAKERwhich is the only fonts, notepad font of record.
31:29SPEAKER- I think on this,
31:30SPEAKERI think for all intents and purposes on this list,
31:32SPEAKERthere is no unimportant software.
31:35SPEAKERI think there's only lower ranked software.
31:38SPEAKER- Okay, all right.
31:39SPEAKERWell, in that sense, I'm gonna write notepad down here.
31:40SPEAKERI think there's a decent chance
31:42SPEAKERit'll get scrolled off this list, but.
31:44SPEAKER- Brad, I've got a weird one.
31:46SPEAKER- Okay.
31:47SPEAKER- What about the video toaster?
31:49SPEAKER- Wow, is that software?
31:50SPEAKERI thought that was, so that's an Amiga thing, right?
31:53SPEAKERIsn't that, I thought that was a hardware add-on.
31:55SPEAKER- It was software plus hardware.
31:57SPEAKERSo it was a software bundled
31:59SPEAKERwith some video capture hardware
32:01SPEAKERthat basically let you do fancy video editing stuff,
32:05SPEAKERincluding green screening and stuff like that.
32:07SPEAKERAnd it was notable 'cause you could do that before,
32:10SPEAKERbut it was for analog video.
32:11SPEAKERIt was notable because you could do it
32:13SPEAKERon a relatively inexpensive workstation.
32:16SPEAKERAnd it's what NDI, it was NDI's first product.
32:19SPEAKEREventually.
32:20SPEAKER- Yeah, like every time I Google video toaster,
32:24SPEAKERI'm reminded that, oh, right, that was made by New Tech,
32:26SPEAKERwho was very much still around making TriCasters and NDI.
32:29SPEAKER- Well, yeah, the TriCaster eventually ended up being
32:32SPEAKERlike their whole system, you know,
32:35SPEAKERtwo video toaster plus hardware plus PC bundle.
32:38SPEAKER- I think I've mentioned this before.
32:39SPEAKERI became aware of a video toaster back in the nineties
32:41SPEAKERwhen the local news ran a report on some 12 year old
32:44SPEAKERwho had gotten ahold of one and was making a killing
32:47SPEAKERdoing video editing and motion graphics
32:49SPEAKERfor local TV stations.
32:51SPEAKER- Well, and that was the thing.
32:52SPEAKERLike it was a thing that prior to that point
32:56SPEAKERwas phenomenally expensive to do
32:58SPEAKERand required really expensive like analog editing bays
33:01SPEAKERand stuff like that.
33:01SPEAKERAnd they came in and it was one of the first times
33:04SPEAKERI remember that a computer plus some other stuff
33:08SPEAKERcompletely upended an entire business, entire industry.
33:12SPEAKER- Hmm, now this does require hardware to use.
33:17SPEAKER- But the software was the thing
33:19SPEAKER'cause the software ran on any computer.
33:21SPEAKERYou didn't need anything special, was the big deal.
33:23SPEAKER- It was, it looks like it was just an add in card
33:25SPEAKERwas the hardware component.
33:26SPEAKER- I think it was just all it was was giving you an input
33:30SPEAKERfor analog video 'cause it went at the time.
33:32SPEAKER- Okay, all right.
33:33SPEAKERYou know what, any software is valid.
33:35SPEAKERWe're still just building a list here.
33:37SPEAKERI'm just gonna put down video toaster.
33:39SPEAKERAnd I'm having such a hard time not digressing
33:41SPEAKERabout something I found out about recently,
33:43SPEAKERwhich is that people, it started with laser discs,
33:46SPEAKERbut it has now expanded to VHS.
33:48SPEAKERPeople have found ways to capture old analog video
33:52SPEAKERby busting these things open.
33:54SPEAKERAnd maybe you're nodding like you might've already heard
33:56SPEAKERof this, like they're sampling the signal straight from,
33:59SPEAKERI don't know what this hardware is.
34:01SPEAKERLike the RF taps in the laser disc player or the VCR.
34:04SPEAKER- I think they're sampling it before the ADC conversion.
34:06SPEAKER- Yes, they're sampling it before it hits
34:08SPEAKERany of the individual decks, like video output hardware.
34:11SPEAKERSo it is the raw signal off of the tape or the laser disc.
34:15SPEAKERAnd some of the captures I've seen out there are just like
34:18SPEAKERoff of VHS tape look clearer than DVD in some cases.
34:22SPEAKERIt's insane, like it's crazy.
34:25SPEAKER- I knew that Jason Scott over at the Internet Archive
34:27SPEAKERhad been doing that with VHS for a little bit,
34:29SPEAKERbut I didn't know that they could do it with laser disc too.
34:31SPEAKERThat's cool.
34:31SPEAKER- So there's, and this is really getting off topic here.
34:34SPEAKERThere's a device called the Domesday Duplicator
34:36SPEAKERyou should look up.
34:38SPEAKERA Domesday was some kind of BBC thing.
34:40SPEAKERI'm not super clear.
34:41SPEAKERThis all came out of the UK, but it was an attempt
34:44SPEAKERto like capture a bunch of old BBC stuff.
34:46SPEAKERAnd anyway, it's like 300 bucks of parts.
34:50SPEAKERPart of it is a DE0 nano,
34:53SPEAKERwhich is I guess in the same family as the DE10 nano
34:55SPEAKERthat the Mr. is based on.
34:57SPEAKERBasically it's like you need an FPGA board
34:59SPEAKERand like a little video capture thingy
35:00SPEAKERand some other weird stuff and you bolt it all together.
35:03SPEAKERAnd then there's these open source utilities
35:05SPEAKERyou run on the signal that you capture off of like VHS tape.
35:08SPEAKERBut like, I keep thinking about trying to build
35:10SPEAKERone of those things and capture all of our old home movies
35:12SPEAKERoff of VHS in like the highest possible quality.
35:15SPEAKER- That's really cool.
35:17SPEAKER- It's very cool, but it's expensive and seems very hard.
35:19SPEAKER- But that seems like hardware
35:20SPEAKERand that's not eligible for the list.
35:22SPEAKER- No, definitely not, sorry.
35:23SPEAKERWell, the VHS, what is it?
35:24SPEAKERVHS decode is the open source utility part of this.
35:29SPEAKERAnyway, maybe we'll get back to that
35:31SPEAKERin some months or a year.
35:34SPEAKERSorry, I just needed a moment to ramp up
35:37SPEAKERsomething that seems exciting to me.
35:38SPEAKERHow about I add some more software?
35:43SPEAKERI wrote down Steam.
35:45SPEAKER- Oh, wow.
35:46SPEAKER- Like Steam is, I don't think we need to talk
35:49SPEAKERabout the significance of Steam in multiple arenas.
35:53SPEAKERSteam is also kind of a pain in the ass
35:55SPEAKERand like feels weirdly stagnant in some ways.
36:00SPEAKER- But like as a person who worked at a PC magazine
36:04SPEAKERprior to Steam and post Steam,
36:07SPEAKERthere was a period of time before Steam
36:08SPEAKERwhere the conversation around video games on the PC was,
36:12SPEAKERoh, this is an afterthought.
36:14SPEAKERLike the vibe around the Xbox One GameCube era
36:19SPEAKERfor the PC was grim.
36:21SPEAKERAnd then Steam came out and all of a sudden
36:22SPEAKERthere was a way for people to measure their PC game sales
36:26SPEAKERand also an easy way for everybody with a gaming PC
36:28SPEAKERto get games.
36:30SPEAKERAnd all of a sudden, like the PC became
36:34SPEAKERnot some bastard stepchild of the games market,
36:37SPEAKERbut like in a lot of genres, the dominant place.
36:43SPEAKERIt's, I mean, maybe some of this is inflated
36:46SPEAKERin my memory a little bit,
36:47SPEAKERbut like, I feel like we were getting to the point
36:49SPEAKERwhere people were basically talking about the death
36:52SPEAKERof the PC as a gaming platform.
36:53SPEAKER- Yeah.
36:54SPEAKER- Like people were, and I think sales maybe reflected that.
36:57SPEAKERI think there was some truth to it, right?
36:58SPEAKERThat like distribution had gotten so bad on PC
37:02SPEAKERthat people were just like,
37:04SPEAKERwell, PC gaming isn't a thing anymore.
37:06SPEAKERIt's just gonna be consoles from here on out.
37:07SPEAKERLike people were predicting the straight up death
37:09SPEAKERof the platform and then Steam happened.
37:11SPEAKER- I can't remember if we did it or PC Gamer did it,
37:13SPEAKERbut there was a segment in one of the magazines that had,
37:16SPEAKERthat was like, hey, send us in pictures
37:18SPEAKERof the sad PC gaming section at your local stores.
37:21SPEAKERAnd it was like, Walmart and Target
37:23SPEAKERand GameStop and all that.
37:25SPEAKERAnd like, there'd be a mixture of stuff from the nineties
37:28SPEAKERand like one or two new releases
37:30SPEAKERand then a bunch of Barbie Dreamhouse stuff.
37:32SPEAKERAnd it was a-
37:33SPEAKER- A bunch of like Doom map collections,
37:35SPEAKERthird-party shovelware crap.
37:37SPEAKER- Yeah, it was weird.
37:38SPEAKERIt was a weird time for PC games.
37:39SPEAKERSo I think Steam ranks some spot on the infinite list.
37:45SPEAKERYeah, sure. - Yeah, sure.
37:46SPEAKEROkay, all right.
37:47SPEAKERAgain, though, like there are things about the client
37:50SPEAKERthat I wish had evolved a little more.
37:51SPEAKERIt feels like they've certainly done a lot of stuff to it
37:54SPEAKERand they still add things to it and stuff.
37:55SPEAKERBut like, I don't know.
37:57SPEAKERSome things about it feel a little clunky.
38:00SPEAKER- Yeah, I can agree with that.
38:01SPEAKER- Maybe like a whole UI refresh that wasn't,
38:04SPEAKERlike they're weird, like bespoke kind of window chrome
38:07SPEAKERand styling is a little janky.
38:10SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I feel like for a long time,
38:12SPEAKERwell, yeah, I mean, look, I opened Steam
38:15SPEAKERand about half the time the pop-up menus on top of Steam
38:17SPEAKERare some completely unpredictable number of pixels
38:23SPEAKERoffset from where they're supposed to be.
38:25SPEAKER- It's stuff like that, or like a right-click menu
38:27SPEAKERrefusing to go away after you try to dismiss it.
38:31SPEAKER- It's janky in the way that like mid-2000s Linux software
38:36SPEAKERthat was ported to Windows was.
38:38SPEAKER- Yes.
38:39SPEAKER- So yeah, I'm excited.
38:40SPEAKERThe new, the stuff that they've done for,
38:42SPEAKERanyway, stuff they've done for the Steam Deck is good
38:44SPEAKERand it should roll out to the main Steam version
38:48SPEAKERas soon as they can.
38:49SPEAKER- That's exciting.
38:50SPEAKER- What about the LAMP stack, Brad?
38:55SPEAKER- Oh wow, oh man, that's an interesting poll.
39:00SPEAKERSo that's off the top of the head, that's Linux.
39:02SPEAKERI'm sorry, go ahead.
39:03SPEAKER- Oh, go ahead.
39:04SPEAKERLinux, Apache, MySQL, I never had to say it, is it?
39:09SPEAKEROh, actually I just looked it up.
39:10SPEAKERI thought it was Postgres, is that how you say that?
39:12SPEAKER- No, no, no, Postgres would replace the MySQL side
39:15SPEAKER'cause that's another database.
39:16SPEAKER- Okay, those are both databases.
39:17SPEAKER- So it's PHP or Perl, depending on who you ask.
39:20SPEAKER- Or apparently now Python also.
39:22SPEAKER- Yeah, but it makes sense.
39:23SPEAKERSo basically it is the framework required to,
39:29SPEAKERnot so much anymore 'cause other stuff we've kind of,
39:31SPEAKERother things we've kind of supplanted at this point,
39:34SPEAKERbut for a really long time LAMP was what all the web apps
39:38SPEAKERfrom Sirius People ran on, right?
39:40SPEAKERSo it was like, it was the core framework for the,
39:45SPEAKERI think probably up until the, again,
39:47SPEAKERthe last 10 years or so, what you made the web server,
39:51SPEAKERthe web server infrastructure that gave you
39:55SPEAKERa way to send pages, a way to store information,
39:59SPEAKERa way to do a dynamic page generation
40:03SPEAKERand a way to like a OS to run the whole thing together.
40:08SPEAKER- Like definitely in the whiskey media era, right?
40:10SPEAKERLike in the kind of early web 2.0 era, that was the thing.
40:14SPEAKER- Yeah, it wasn't until like the modern frameworks
40:17SPEAKERkind of came on that we moved away, moved to,
40:20SPEAKERlike they pulled some of the stuff out
40:22SPEAKERand the web serving part just became part of the main,
40:24SPEAKERtheir app, a low level part of their app.
40:26SPEAKER- Oh, there are so many of these now.
40:28SPEAKERLike I'm looking at like what replaced the LAMP stack
40:32SPEAKERtype web pages and lists.
40:34SPEAKERThere's the mean stack, the LAMP stack, the LAP stack.
40:38SPEAKERI mean, it's just a big mix and match, right?
40:41SPEAKEROf different databases, different web servers.
40:44SPEAKER- But I mean, there's two things that were notable.
40:47SPEAKEROne is that it was, I don't wanna say it was easy
40:50SPEAKER'cause it definitely was not,
40:51SPEAKERbut it was relatively straightforward to set up a web stack,
40:55SPEAKERa fully featured web stack with LAMP.
40:58SPEAKERAnd two is a free, it was all open source software.
41:01SPEAKER- That's the one for sure.
41:02SPEAKER- Right, you could download a copy of Debian long-term
41:05SPEAKERand apt-get install.
41:08SPEAKERAll four of these are all five of these pieces of software
41:10SPEAKERand be up and running in relatively short time.
41:12SPEAKER- Yeah, and it's interesting if you think back historically,
41:15SPEAKERlike Linux started around what, '91, '92?
41:18SPEAKER- Yeah, but not-
41:19SPEAKER- And like we're talking kind of '04, '05, '06
41:22SPEAKERis when like the sort of web 2.0 era began in earnest.
41:25SPEAKERSo like, if you think about it, that's like,
41:28SPEAKERthat's about 15-ish years from the beginning
41:30SPEAKERof modern open source to this stuff being so robust
41:34SPEAKERand widely available that people could build
41:36SPEAKERbillion dollar companies on it.
41:37SPEAKER- Well, yeah, and it was all the way through.
41:39SPEAKERAlso, it's also worth mentioning
41:41SPEAKERthat this is what killed IIS,
41:43SPEAKERwhich was Microsoft's NT-based web server,
41:48SPEAKERwhich was a good thing for the world.
41:51SPEAKER- Sure.
41:52SPEAKER- Yeah, so Microsoft still had imperial ambitions.
41:55SPEAKER- You're totally right that, God,
41:56SPEAKERI, we talk about that in other contexts,
41:59SPEAKERlike we talked about it with the Blender folks,
42:01SPEAKERhow like in the '90s, when Blender started,
42:03SPEAKERyou had to buy a compiler for a lot of money.
42:05SPEAKER- Yeah.
42:06SPEAKER- But I forget that that extended to kind of everything
42:08SPEAKERand mostly because of Microsoft that running servers,
42:12SPEAKERbuilding software, like doing anything heavy with computers
42:15SPEAKERwas going to be hundreds or thousands of dollars
42:17SPEAKERto Microsoft.
42:18SPEAKER- Every year.
42:19SPEAKER- Yeah.
42:20SPEAKER- Yeah.
42:22SPEAKER- I think the LAMP stack is actually
42:24SPEAKERa pretty strong entry here based on this argument.
42:28SPEAKERI like it.
42:32SPEAKER- Do what you got.
42:33SPEAKER- I said Winamp earlier and I wasn't joking.
42:37SPEAKER- See, I was never really a Winamp user.
42:39SPEAKER- Are you kidding?
42:40SPEAKER- No, no, I mean at the very beginning,
42:42SPEAKERbut I switched to using library software almost immediately.
42:46SPEAKER- Sure.
42:46SPEAKERWell, Winamp had some, well, maybe Winamp's organization
42:49SPEAKERstuff came a little later.
42:51SPEAKER- Yeah, but Winamp, Winamp, you could generate playlists
42:53SPEAKERand stuff like that, but like you couldn't.
42:55SPEAKER- Huh, okay.
42:56SPEAKER- You used a folder structure to load stuff into Winamp.
43:00SPEAKER- Well, that's the thing, I was a staunch like,
43:03SPEAKERI don't want to deal with metadata and library software.
43:05SPEAKERI'm just going to name my files and put them in directories
43:08SPEAKERand then play them that way.
43:10SPEAKER- The whole point of having these things in files
43:12SPEAKERwas so you could use that metadata and use it
43:14SPEAKERto make playlists based on genre or mood.
43:17SPEAKER- Fair.
43:19SPEAKERI mean, these days, I know there are people out there
43:21SPEAKERthat still use Winamp to this day.
43:23SPEAKERIn fact, I want to say it's getting updated again.
43:26SPEAKERSomebody, yeah, somebody posted it on the Discord.
43:28SPEAKERI was shocked.
43:30SPEAKERI didn't care enough to download it though, I'll be honest.
43:32SPEAKER- But these days, something like a VLC
43:34SPEAKERis way more sensible to me.
43:38SPEAKERBut in its day, Winamp was both very awesome
43:43SPEAKERand very significant.
43:45SPEAKER- Yeah, look, yeah, I mean, Winamp--
43:47SPEAKER- Stins, visualizers, llamas.
43:51SPEAKER- I mean, look, it did bring the llama
43:53SPEAKERinto the common vernacular.
43:55SPEAKER- I also think, I mean, it also popularized the MP3 format.
44:00SPEAKER- Yeah, for sure.
44:02SPEAKER- And it played a ton of stuff at the time.
44:04SPEAKERYou could play everything from Waves.
44:06SPEAKERYou could play those MP2s.
44:08SPEAKER- Yes, I'm trying to think.
44:09SPEAKERIt was not my first MP3 player.
44:13SPEAKER- Really?
44:13SPEAKER- I've said this before.
44:15SPEAKERMy first MP3 was an MP2.
44:17SPEAKERI downloaded an MP2 somewhere around '96, '97-ish.
44:22SPEAKERAnd there was only one piece of software for Windows
44:25SPEAKERthat could play MP2s and MP3s
44:27SPEAKERand I cannot remember what it was.
44:29SPEAKER- I don't, I would have heard about that
44:31SPEAKERon like Redwood's stomped page or something like that.
44:34SPEAKER- It might've been made by Fraunhofer.
44:37SPEAKERI can't remember the people behind MP3.
44:40SPEAKER- Yeah.
44:41SPEAKER- Anyway, like that's, I mean,
44:42SPEAKERbut it's actually case in point,
44:43SPEAKERlike whatever player that was,
44:45SPEAKERnow it's gonna kill me
44:47SPEAKERuntil I figure out what that player was.
44:48SPEAKERAnyway, it was super bare bones.
44:51SPEAKERIt was incredibly slow.
44:53SPEAKERLike until Winamp playing MP3s kind of sucked, right?
44:56SPEAKERWell, I don't know of anything before Winamp
44:58SPEAKERthat actually made the format usable.
45:01SPEAKER- I wanna say I couldn't play MP3s.
45:03SPEAKERMy computer wasn't fast enough to play MP3s
45:06SPEAKERuntil I had like a Pentium 2, 266 or something like that.
45:09SPEAKER- Yeah, I think so.
45:10SPEAKERI think I was, I was either on a Pentium 75
45:14SPEAKERor a Pentium 200 around the time
45:15SPEAKERthat I was trying to play MP2s.
45:17SPEAKERBut I remember like you were not using your computer
45:20SPEAKERfor anything else while you were playing that file.
45:21SPEAKERLike it was, it took every bit of horsepower
45:25SPEAKERthe computer had just to decode and play the file.
45:27SPEAKER- Yeah, the first time I encoded on MP3, a CD,
45:31SPEAKERwas like 14 hours.
45:33SPEAKER- You're waiting all night.
45:34SPEAKERYou're running that overnight.
45:36SPEAKER- Yeah, it was bonkers.
45:38SPEAKER- I think Winamp was a pretty big deal.
45:41SPEAKERThere's clearly, there's a huge fandom around it.
45:43SPEAKERLike you go on Twitter and post about Winamp
45:45SPEAKERand you just get like thousands of likes on things
45:48SPEAKERbecause Winamp is squarely in that,
45:50SPEAKERlike people love to be nostalgic about it, territory.
45:52SPEAKER- This isn't a popularity contest though.
45:53SPEAKER- I know, I'm just saying, Winamp is very meaningful
45:56SPEAKERto a lot of people.
45:58SPEAKER- I, so here's my question is,
46:01SPEAKERdoes this mean that Music Match Jukebox lands on here?
46:03SPEAKER'Cause that to me...
46:05SPEAKER- Is that, is that the one that became iTunes?
46:08SPEAKER- No, that was the...
46:10SPEAKER- Raps, not Rhapsody.
46:11SPEAKER- Rhapsody became a real music or something.
46:15SPEAKER- What was the name of iTunes before it was iTunes?
46:18SPEAKER- They bought, Apple, if I'm not mistaken,
46:20SPEAKERApple acquired somebody and turned their software into...
46:25SPEAKEROh, SoundJam MP.
46:27SPEAKER- Yeah.
46:28SPEAKER- Released by Cassidy and Green,
46:31SPEAKERwas acquired by Apple and renamed to iTunes, weird.
46:34SPEAKER- So Music Match Jukebox was notable to me
46:36SPEAKERbecause it was the first one that included an MP3 encoder.
46:42SPEAKER- Okay.
46:42SPEAKER- They, I don't know how they paid for it,
46:45SPEAKERand I should find this out
46:46SPEAKERbefore we start making an ordered list,
46:48SPEAKERbut you could, you could put a CD in, in the,
46:51SPEAKERI think maybe we actually, it might've been paid software.
46:55SPEAKERIt may have been something I paid 20 bucks for.
46:57SPEAKERYou put the CD in the, in the tray
47:00SPEAKERand it would turn it into MP3s for you
47:03SPEAKERwith whatever settings you chose.
47:04SPEAKERAnd this was at the time still when Fran Hoffer
47:06SPEAKERwas going after software that was using...
47:09SPEAKER'Cause for people who don't remember,
47:12SPEAKERMP3 was a proprietary algorithm.
47:14SPEAKERLike it was, it was a proprietary codec
47:16SPEAKERand you had to pay this, this company Fraunhofer,
47:19SPEAKERthe company that developed the, the codec licensing uses,
47:24SPEAKERlicensing every time you've recorded or created
47:28SPEAKERor played an MP3 theoretically.
47:30SPEAKER- Right, like they wanted to sell the encoder, the encoder.
47:32SPEAKER- And the decoder, both.
47:34SPEAKER- Right, like they wanted to sell all the software
47:35SPEAKERin the MP3 chain.
47:38SPEAKER- Right, Windows Media Player didn't play MP3s
47:40SPEAKERfor a long time because Microsoft didn't want to pay
47:42SPEAKERFraunhofer for every single Windows user to play MP3s.
47:46SPEAKER- Right, like I think that was the genesis
47:48SPEAKERof WMAs and WMVs, right?
47:49SPEAKER- It was, yeah.
47:50SPEAKER- Microsoft wanted to just come up with their own format.
47:53SPEAKER- Well, also Microsoft at that point wanted to own,
47:55SPEAKERlike they were like, we have a monopoly on Windows.
47:57SPEAKERWe should, we should transfer that
47:58SPEAKERinto a monopoly on all software.
48:00SPEAKER- Yes, it was, it was not, it was not altruistic in any way.
48:03SPEAKER- Yeah, it was when the S in Microsoft
48:05SPEAKERwas still a dollar sign, so.
48:08SPEAKER- Huh, that is pretty significant.
48:10SPEAKERThe Music Match Jukebox came out in '97,
48:13SPEAKERwhich I don't know if it had an MP3 encoder on day one,
48:16SPEAKERbut like that's pretty early because again,
48:19SPEAKERyou were, you were either buying or pirating
48:21SPEAKERan MP3 encoder before that.
48:23SPEAKER- Yeah, and realistically at that period of time,
48:25SPEAKERmost people, like broadband penetration,
48:27SPEAKERat least in the U.S. was so light that hardly any,
48:31SPEAKERlike it was hard to pirate music.
48:32SPEAKERIt was time consuming and exhausting.
48:34SPEAKERIt wasn't like, it wasn't like those heady early 2000s days
48:38SPEAKERwhen my next suggestion was popular.
48:40SPEAKER- Huh, uh-oh.
48:42SPEAKER- Yeah, you know what, you know what's coming.
48:44SPEAKER- Hang on, let me guess.
48:47SPEAKERIs it, I'm gonna say it's either Nutella or Napster?
48:54SPEAKER- It's Napster, I think.
48:55SPEAKER- Napster, interesting.
48:56SPEAKER- I think Napster is the, is the one of those I would pick.
48:58SPEAKER- Really?
49:00SPEAKER- Yeah, Napster, Napster reshaped the music industry.
49:03SPEAKER- Yeah, oh yeah, you're absolutely right.
49:05SPEAKERLike in terms of, I'm sitting here thinking about like,
49:07SPEAKERwhich one was cooler in terms of what it could do,
49:09SPEAKERbut obviously, obviously Napster is the one
49:12SPEAKERthat made all the cultural waves.
49:13SPEAKER- Nutella was interesting 'cause you could put stuff
49:16SPEAKERother than music on it, right?
49:17SPEAKERLike there was, it had software and videos
49:21SPEAKERand all that stuff.
49:21SPEAKER- Yes, and it, it was true peer to peer.
49:25SPEAKERI don't remember if Napster was fully-
49:27SPEAKER- Napster had a centralized server.
49:29SPEAKER- That's, that's, okay, yeah.
49:30SPEAKER- I thought Nutella had a central server too.
49:31SPEAKER- Oh, actually I'm looking right now.
49:34SPEAKERIt starts with a G for people who aren't familiar with it.
49:36SPEAKERIt's, this is, it's from around the time of Napster
49:38SPEAKERaround turn of the century.
49:40SPEAKER- Yeah.
49:41SPEAKER- Nutella, it's probably Gnutella
49:42SPEAKER'cause it's from the Gnu group, I think.
49:44SPEAKERBut this says it was the first decentralized
49:47SPEAKERpeer to peer network of its kind.
49:48SPEAKERSo it's kind of a precursor to BitTorrent.
49:52SPEAKER- Well, BitTorrent has to have the central,
49:54SPEAKERthe central file on the server someplace.
49:55SPEAKER- Tracker or whatever, sure.
49:57SPEAKER- Yeah.
49:58SPEAKER- So maybe Gnutella's even more distributed than that.
50:00SPEAKER- The problem with Nutella was it immediately showed,
50:04SPEAKERI mean, maybe both of these should be on the list actually,
50:06SPEAKERbut the problem with Nutella was that it immediately showed
50:09SPEAKERthe problem with completely unregulated networks
50:12SPEAKERwhere there's no moderator or any kind of central authority
50:16SPEAKERthat can determine what is and isn't there
50:19SPEAKERbecause it became the easiest way
50:20SPEAKERto get malware on your computer.
50:22SPEAKER- Fair.
50:23SPEAKER- Within about three weeks of me hearing about Nutella,
50:26SPEAKERlike it was like, you have to scan everything
50:28SPEAKERwith three antivirus scanners
50:31SPEAKERif you download shit from Nutella.
50:33SPEAKER- Yes, that's fair.
50:34SPEAKER- Also truly horrific pornography on Nutella.
50:37SPEAKER- I'm sure.
50:38SPEAKER- It's very disturbing.
50:40SPEAKER- This was such a heady time for me and from thinking back
50:43SPEAKERbecause it was also around the time I got to college,
50:46SPEAKERlike around '97, '98 is when I first got like broadband
50:50SPEAKERand was in a dorm and stuff.
50:52SPEAKERAnd all these file sharing services were on the rise,
50:55SPEAKERlike right around the same time.
50:56SPEAKERAnd like, it was truly lawless.
51:00SPEAKER- I can't imagine what it was like to be on a college campus
51:02SPEAKERwhen Nutella was popular.
51:04SPEAKER- Oh yeah.
51:05SPEAKER- And like just opening it up in any software
51:08SPEAKERin the world was there for you.
51:09SPEAKER- I mean, this is about FTP,
51:13SPEAKERwhich is obviously a prior standard and much older,
51:15SPEAKERbut like one of my very first memories of being in the dorm
51:18SPEAKERwas like going to my friend's dorm room
51:20SPEAKERand him showing me how he was downloading RAR files
51:23SPEAKERof the just released Metal Gear Solid.
51:25SPEAKER- Oh God.
51:26SPEAKER- Japanese version that hadn't even come out in the US yet.
51:29SPEAKERLike downloading RAR files of a PlayStation,
51:31SPEAKERa Japanese PlayStation game from FTP on the dorm broadband
51:35SPEAKERand then later burning it and playing it on a PlayStation,
51:37SPEAKERa modded PlayStation.
51:38SPEAKERIt was a wild time.
51:40SPEAKER- Yeah.
51:40SPEAKER- And then, yes, like Nutella and Napster and LimeWire
51:43SPEAKERand God, Kazaa, like all that stuff started popping up.
51:47SPEAKER- You think about all the sketchy software you installed
51:49SPEAKERbecause of LimeWire and Kazaa and, anyway.
51:51SPEAKER- I tried to, I avoided those for the most part.
51:55SPEAKEROnce stuff like LimeWire and Kazaa started happening,
51:58SPEAKERI was like, this seems sketch, I might just not.
52:01SPEAKER- I was old enough by that period that like I had,
52:04SPEAKERI was probably working at Maximum PC by then, honestly.
52:07SPEAKERSo it's like software, we just had software available.
52:10SPEAKER- Right, I think those were a little later, weren't they?
52:13SPEAKER- Yeah, those were like early 2000s.
52:15SPEAKER- Oh yeah, actually I was, yes, I was.
52:17SPEAKER- Nutella and Napster were early 2000s as well.
52:19SPEAKER- Those are the ones that I messed with
52:21SPEAKERand were prevalent on the campus that I remember.
52:25SPEAKER- Back when I was in college,
52:26SPEAKERpiracy sites were just like an empty FTP file.
52:29SPEAKERLike there was an empty FTP folder buried deep
52:33SPEAKERin some server with some escapable characters in the path.
52:37SPEAKER- Were you the one that was telling me
52:38SPEAKERor I've heard the stories about like, yeah,
52:41SPEAKERback like even earlier than what I'm talking about,
52:43SPEAKERlike people getting on like open,
52:45SPEAKERlike anonymous login government FTPs
52:48SPEAKERand just creating hidden directories like that
52:49SPEAKERand using them for like piracy dumps.
52:52SPEAKER- Like you would, what you would do is go to,
52:55SPEAKERI guess Usenet or message boards
52:58SPEAKERand there would be a list of like,
52:59SPEAKERhey, somebody would post, hey, I found an open FTP.
53:03SPEAKERAnd then they'd post where in the directory structure
53:06SPEAKERto go to find the stuff that they uploaded.
53:08SPEAKERAnd it would like for 36 hours,
53:11SPEAKERthat would be like a,
53:13SPEAKERit would be the equivalent of a whale carcass
53:15SPEAKERsinking to the bottom and all the crabs finding it.
53:19SPEAKERAnyway.
53:19SPEAKER- Usenet obviously also noted for binary distribution,
53:22SPEAKERbut at the time.
53:23SPEAKER- Well, now.
53:24SPEAKER- I don't, well, no, no, it absolutely was back then.
53:26SPEAKERThe thing I was gonna say though is that like,
53:29SPEAKERI don't use modern Usenet.
53:31SPEAKERI know a ton of people do for downloading things.
53:34SPEAKER- My understanding is it's very popular for piracy as well.
53:36SPEAKER- Well, the thing I was gonna say is
53:37SPEAKERif you didn't use it in the nineties,
53:38SPEAKERretention was not then what it is now apparently.
53:42SPEAKER- Oh no.
53:43SPEAKER- My understanding is now,
53:43SPEAKERlike most of the major new servers out there
53:45SPEAKERhave like years and years long retention.
53:47SPEAKERBut back then, like.
53:48SPEAKER- It's like 30 days maybe.
53:50SPEAKER- Back then posts just disappeared constantly.
53:53SPEAKERSo you could never actually complete anything.
53:55SPEAKER- 65 of 66.
53:59SPEAKERHey, can somebody repost file 64 of.
54:02SPEAKER- First time I learned about par files
54:04SPEAKERand read this first time I understood the concept
54:06SPEAKERof rebuilding from parody was broken Usenet downloads.
54:10SPEAKER- Hey Brad, should we put Usenet on this list?
54:12SPEAKER- I literally was about to say,
54:13SPEAKERwell, God, that opens the flood gates though,
54:16SPEAKERbecause like if we put Usenet,
54:17SPEAKERthen I'm immediately gonna type IRC.
54:19SPEAKER- Is Usenet software or protocol?
54:21SPEAKER- Oh yeah, definitely.
54:22SPEAKERIt's absolutely a protocol and NTP is the protocol.
54:25SPEAKER- So then I think Usenet does not go on this list,
54:27SPEAKERbut maybe net news wire, whatever your news Usenet reader was
54:31SPEAKERI can't even remember.
54:32SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, we did that patron Usenet episode
54:36SPEAKERa year or two ago.
54:38SPEAKER- Dear Abit, I believe is how that one started.
54:40SPEAKER- Yes, Abit, are you listening?
54:42SPEAKERI would give anything if I could remember
54:44SPEAKERwhat my news reader of choice was back then.
54:46SPEAKERI don't remember.
54:47SPEAKER'Cause I actually, again, if you listen to that episode,
54:49SPEAKERI actually posted on Usenet for discussion.
54:52SPEAKER- Most of my Usenet time was spent in shell accounts.
54:57SPEAKERI did Usenet before I had a real login.
54:59SPEAKEROkay, I'm taking Usenet off the list.
55:01SPEAKER- God, that makes me wonder like,
55:03SPEAKERwhat was the classic like Unix Usenet client
55:07SPEAKERor reader of record?
55:08SPEAKERLike what utility were you using for Usenet?
55:12SPEAKER- God, I couldn't remember.
55:13SPEAKERI was probably using a VAX at that point
55:14SPEAKERwhen I was using Usenet 'cause I was still in the dorms.
55:18SPEAKER- Huh.
55:18SPEAKER- I don't think I had a Unix account yet.
55:20SPEAKER- God, now I've got some immediate craving
55:23SPEAKERor urge to go read about the history of Usenet.
55:25SPEAKER- Make a note and this can go into the bonus,
55:28SPEAKERthe bonus time tomorrow when we record the second episode,
55:31SPEAKERsecond part of this episode.
55:32SPEAKER- Should we just start doing historical episodes
55:34SPEAKERon different protocols?
55:36SPEAKER- I kind of, I'd be into that.
55:37SPEAKER- I would talk for an hour
55:38SPEAKERabout the history of Usenet for sure.
55:40SPEAKER- Okay, I'm gonna pull us back on track here.
55:44SPEAKERI'm gonna say, what about Photoshop, Brad?
55:46SPEAKER- Oh man, I mean, God, yes,
55:49SPEAKERit's enormously significant.
55:52SPEAKERAlso kind of an asshole.
55:54SPEAKER- I mean, it wasn't an asshole from the beginning.
55:56SPEAKERIn the beginning it was kind of okay.
55:58SPEAKER- Fair.
55:59SPEAKER- And also gave you the ability to manipulate images
56:02SPEAKERand resize and do a bunch of things
56:03SPEAKERthat were previously impossible.
56:05SPEAKER- Yeah.
56:06SPEAKER- Outside of having like a complicated photography studio.
56:08SPEAKER- For sure, for sure.
56:09SPEAKERLike its origins and its importance at the time
56:12SPEAKERare indisputable.
56:13SPEAKERIt was really fun watching.
56:14SPEAKERDid you ever get around to watching that ILM documentary
56:17SPEAKERon Disney+?
56:18SPEAKER- No, I haven't watched it yet, actually.
56:19SPEAKER- Dude, you have to watch that.
56:20SPEAKERI would watch it again.
56:21SPEAKERWe should do an episode about that as well.
56:23SPEAKER- Okay, I would do that.
56:24SPEAKER- It was really fun watching that with my girlfriend.
56:26SPEAKERShe really liked it.
56:26SPEAKERI mean, it's just a bunch of old people reminiscing,
56:28SPEAKERwhich is always fun.
56:30SPEAKER- Yeah, I love that.
56:32SPEAKER- Not that John Knoll is that old,
56:33SPEAKERbut some of them are getting up there, but.
56:35SPEAKER- He's like 15 years older than we are, so.
56:37SPEAKER- It was really fun watching that with her
56:41SPEAKERand how much time they focused on his ILM stuff
56:44SPEAKERand how much he did at ILM.
56:45SPEAKERLike the range of his accomplishments at ILM
56:48SPEAKERin the effects department,
56:51SPEAKERin the effects sphere already mind blowing.
56:55SPEAKERAnd then when they randomly, like 20 minutes after that,
56:57SPEAKERthey get to the point where like,
56:58SPEAKERoh, by the way, he also created Photoshop.
57:00SPEAKERShe like fell out of her chair.
57:01SPEAKERShe was like, oh my God, this man is like a true polymath.
57:05SPEAKERLike this guy is insane.
57:07SPEAKERLike he did so much.
57:08SPEAKER- Yeah, in his free time,
57:10SPEAKERwhile he wasn't working on special effects for the movies,
57:12SPEAKERhe went and made Photoshop, yes.
57:14SPEAKERAnd he wasn't redefining the state of the art
57:16SPEAKERof special effects.
57:17SPEAKERHe created Photoshop with his brother.
57:20SPEAKER- 'Cause wasn't he the one that came up
57:21SPEAKERwith the motion controlled cameras too?
57:23SPEAKEROr was that somebody else?
57:24SPEAKER- I don't think he invented them.
57:25SPEAKERI believe, in fact, I think it was one of the things
57:27SPEAKERthat got him in the door at ILM
57:29SPEAKERwas that he designed his own motion control system,
57:32SPEAKERif I'm not mistaken.
57:32SPEAKERHe, if I remember, he was this Spielberg type figure
57:37SPEAKERof like, was just basically like writing letters to ILM
57:39SPEAKERand showing up when he was like 13 type stuff.
57:42SPEAKER- Yeah. - Like he was just relentlessly
57:44SPEAKERtrying to get in the door.
57:46SPEAKERYou really have to watch that thing.
57:47SPEAKERIt's so good.
57:49SPEAKER- He kind of reminds, his story is very similar
57:51SPEAKERto Rick Baker's, who Rick Baker did as a effects artist
57:55SPEAKERwho did like American Werewolf in London,
57:58SPEAKERwerewolf makeup, the transforming makeup,
58:00SPEAKERwhere you'd, among a bazillion other things.
58:03SPEAKERBut Rick Baker sent a bazillion letters
58:06SPEAKERinto studios and directors and was like,
58:08SPEAKERhey, I would love to work on special effects.
58:09SPEAKERHere's my, here's the stuff that I've made.
58:11SPEAKERAnd it was all stuff he was just baking
58:13SPEAKERin like his mom's oven, stinking up the entire house
58:17SPEAKERwith foam and latex masks and stuff like, anyway.
58:19SPEAKER- Right.
58:21SPEAKER- Yeah, so Photoshop for sure.
58:23SPEAKER- Photoshop then, absolutely.
58:25SPEAKERLike, you know, there are things
58:27SPEAKERabout what Photoshop has become
58:29SPEAKERthat are maybe a little distasteful.
58:31SPEAKER- We could argue that this should be Photoshop.
58:33SPEAKERIf I had to pick one, I would say it should be Photoshop 3.0
58:35SPEAKERbut that's a, that was the moment that it became,
58:39SPEAKERthis is the first one I used,
58:41SPEAKERwhich is, I think, you know.
58:42SPEAKER- Sure, it's probably the first version
58:44SPEAKERthat a lot of people pirated.
58:46SPEAKER- But yeah, it was the Windows 3.0 version, 3.1 version.
58:49SPEAKER- Sure, I love the inherent absurdity of these lists
58:54SPEAKERthat we get into such minutia and specificity
58:57SPEAKERas saying no, not Photoshop, Photoshop 3.0.
59:00SPEAKER- Well, I mean, and I would argue that Photoshop in general
59:03SPEAKERis a transformative piece of software
59:05SPEAKERand should probably be on this list.
59:06SPEAKER- You're not wrong, yes, it absolutely belongs here.
59:09SPEAKER- Should we do like one more each
59:12SPEAKERand then wrap it up for today and move on to tomorrow?
59:15SPEAKER- That sounds good.
59:19SPEAKERI was avoiding doing this
59:20SPEAKER'cause it feels trite almost for me at this point,
59:22SPEAKERbut it has to be done.
59:24SPEAKERAnd I think there are a lot
59:25SPEAKERof actual very good arguments for it.
59:27SPEAKERQuake.
59:31SPEAKER- Yeah, it was the dawn of the metaverse, Brad.
59:32SPEAKERIt was, everybody hosted their own Quake server
59:35SPEAKERand you connect them with portals.
59:37SPEAKERYou go through those portals into other people's worlds.
59:39SPEAKER- And also you can be anybody you want.
59:41SPEAKERYou can look like Homer Simpson.
59:42SPEAKERYou can look like Henry Rollins.
59:44SPEAKER- Barney the Dinosaur.
59:45SPEAKER- Barney.
59:45SPEAKER- Yeah.
59:47SPEAKER- Yeah, we won't belabor it now,
59:48SPEAKERbut like Quake as a game was hugely important,
59:50SPEAKERbut also Quake in terms
59:52SPEAKERof a lot of the technology it ushered in.
59:54SPEAKER- Well, even stuff that is, it's kind of funny now,
59:56SPEAKERbut like the ability to put modded maps on the server
1:00:00SPEAKERand then let people download them and play them themselves.
1:00:03SPEAKERLike there's a lot to Quake.
1:00:05SPEAKER- Client side prediction.
1:00:07SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:00:08SPEAKER- You know, all kinds of stuff there.
1:00:10SPEAKERLike for me personally, being able to pull down the console
1:00:13SPEAKERwas like probably my first like glimpse behind the curtain
1:00:16SPEAKERof a video game and realizing like, oh wow,
1:00:19SPEAKERthere's like a lot of technology back here making this go
1:00:22SPEAKERand you can just type stuff in and make it do things.
1:00:24SPEAKERThat's cool.
1:00:25SPEAKER- Can change CVARs live.
1:00:26SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess.
1:00:27SPEAKERAnyway, we'll get back to it.
1:00:29SPEAKERThis list is probably just going to keep growing, but.
1:00:31SPEAKER- I think, I think Quake is pretty good.
1:00:34SPEAKER- As games go, it's like one of, it's probably,
1:00:37SPEAKERto me it's the number one game where it's not just the game
1:00:39SPEAKERthat matters, it's all the stuff around it technologically.
1:00:42SPEAKER- In the same, in the same vein as that,
1:00:44SPEAKERI'm going to say Mario 64.
1:00:46SPEAKER- Okay, all right.
1:00:48SPEAKER- Because it was the first, for a lot of people,
1:00:50SPEAKERit was the first 3D thing they saw,
1:00:52SPEAKERreally like real 3D thing they saw probably.
1:00:54SPEAKER- Fair, fair.
1:00:55SPEAKERYeah, I wonder how many games are actually going to factor
1:00:57SPEAKERon this thing.
1:00:58SPEAKER- Does World of Warcraft land on this list, Brad,
1:01:00SPEAKERor does EverQuest land on this list,
1:01:01SPEAKERor does Ultima Online land on this list, or does Rogue?
1:01:05SPEAKER- Where else can you hear people debate
1:01:06SPEAKERthe relative merits of Super Mario 64 versus the LAMP stack?
1:01:10SPEAKER- Yeah, this is what we, this is a,
1:01:12SPEAKERthis is yet another service we provide.
1:01:14SPEAKER- That's right.
1:01:16SPEAKER- Okay, so we'll, to be continued next week
1:01:18SPEAKERon our very special New Year's episode.
1:01:20SPEAKER- Yes, I like where this is going.
1:01:22SPEAKERThis is fun, even if this is stupid.
1:01:24SPEAKERJust talking about old software is very fun.
1:01:27SPEAKER- I am, I am quite enjoying myself.
1:01:29SPEAKERSo we should run down the list so people know
1:01:30SPEAKERwhere we ended up on day one of this, the infinite list.
1:01:34SPEAKER- All right, here we go.
1:01:35SPEAKER- These are no particular order.
1:01:36SPEAKER- Yes, again, not ordered.
1:01:38SPEAKERThe order we thought of them.
1:01:39SPEAKERThe Linux kernel, Netscape Navigator 2.0,
1:01:42SPEAKERSuper Mario Brothers, FreeBSD, Notepad, Video Toaster,
1:01:46SPEAKERSteam, the LAMP stack, Winamp, Music Match Jukebox,
1:01:51SPEAKERNapster, Nutella, I don't think we actually said this,
1:01:54SPEAKERbut MIRC snuck its way on here.
1:01:56SPEAKERI'll entertain that for sure.
1:01:56SPEAKER- But you put IRC and then I put the M in front of it
1:01:58SPEAKERand you didn't notice, I think.
1:02:00SPEAKER- That's, you know, that's fair.
1:02:01SPEAKERThat's what everybody was using.
1:02:02SPEAKERWell, unless you were a cool person
1:02:03SPEAKERin a shell account with IRC too.
1:02:04SPEAKER- Bitch X, man.
1:02:05SPEAKER- Bitch X or IRC too.
1:02:07SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:02:07SPEAKER- Photoshop, Quake, Super Mario 64.
1:02:10SPEAKER- Look, I think this is so far an unassailable list.
1:02:13SPEAKER- It's pretty solid.
1:02:14SPEAKER- I would probably put some stuff
1:02:15SPEAKERin slightly different orders,
1:02:17SPEAKERbut this is where we're starting.
1:02:20SPEAKERWe're gonna continue adding more stuff to the list
1:02:22SPEAKERand then at some point we'll probably put them
1:02:24SPEAKERin some sort of order, I don't know.
1:02:25SPEAKER- Maybe we'll start ranking by next week, I don't know.
1:02:29SPEAKER- Look, this, I was sitting here,
1:02:32SPEAKERlike I literally last night sat looking at my computer,
1:02:35SPEAKERI was sitting in the living room,
1:02:37SPEAKERI had a holiday movie on and I had my iPad in my lap
1:02:41SPEAKERand I was like, and all I had on my list at the beginning
1:02:45SPEAKERwas the Linux kernel and then, oh wait, no, no, sorry.
1:02:49SPEAKERI had, I think I put Windows 95
1:02:53SPEAKERas the first thing on my list.
1:02:55SPEAKERAnd then I was like, well, okay,
1:02:56SPEAKERis it more important than Windows 95?
1:02:58SPEAKERI don't know 'cause without Windows 95,
1:03:00SPEAKERa bunch of other stuff wouldn't have happened
1:03:01SPEAKERand I was just paralyzed for a long time
1:03:03SPEAKERand then I just started writing stuff down, so.
1:03:04SPEAKER- Yes, the enormity of this task really gets on top of you
1:03:08SPEAKERif you stop and think about it.
1:03:10SPEAKER- We didn't make it easy for ourselves, so.
1:03:13SPEAKER- That's why it's fun.
1:03:14SPEAKER- But you know what is easy, Brad?
1:03:17SPEAKERSupporting the TechPod, which is 100% listener supported
1:03:19SPEAKERand you can do that by going to patreon.com/techpod.
1:03:25SPEAKERWe like to thank our patrons every month.
1:03:26SPEAKER- That's right, that's also easy.
1:03:28SPEAKERThank you very much.
1:03:29SPEAKER- Thank you, patrons.
1:03:30SPEAKERIt's easy to feel gratitude and admiration
1:03:33SPEAKERfor the support we receive.
1:03:34SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, it's been a lovely, lovely year so far.
1:03:38SPEAKERWe're more TechPod, one more TechPod.
1:03:41SPEAKEROh, this is the last TechPod of the year.
1:03:43SPEAKER- Oh, you're right, yes.
1:03:44SPEAKERIt'll technically be next year when you hear the next one.
1:03:48SPEAKER- Yeah, so thanks for another wonderful year for your folks.
1:03:51SPEAKERWe really appreciate you all.
1:03:54SPEAKERA special thank you to our executive producer,
1:03:56SPEAKERto your patrons, including Nick Johnston,
1:04:00SPEAKERPaddle Creek Games, Makers of Fractured Veil,
1:04:02SPEAKERAndrew Slotsky, Bunny Thorpe Stay Healthy Crimes,
1:04:04SPEAKERJust Wedge, Joel Krauska, Twinkie Says Happy Holidays,
1:04:09SPEAKERand James Kamik.
1:04:10SPEAKERAnd since it's the last episode of the month and the year,
1:04:14SPEAKERwell, since it's the last episode of the year,
1:04:15SPEAKERwe should just read all the patron names.
1:04:16SPEAKERThere's only like 3,000 of them.
1:04:17SPEAKER- Sure.
1:04:18SPEAKER- Make it a very special episode.
1:04:20SPEAKERWe also support, thank our associate producer,
1:04:22SPEAKERto your patrons on the last episode of the month.
1:04:23SPEAKERSo thank you to Jay Mabey, Andre M. Burke,
1:04:26SPEAKERNathan Phelps, Arthur Gies, Jason Rooney the ref,
1:04:30SPEAKERSteve Lin, Dave Ullian, Travis Rosner,
1:04:32SPEAKERJad Rita, Eric Klein, Thomas Shea, and Graham Banks.
1:04:35SPEAKERThank you also so much.
1:04:36SPEAKER- Yes, thank you.
1:04:37SPEAKER- We do appreciate everybody.
1:04:38SPEAKERI think at some point we've been kicking it around again,
1:04:41SPEAKERso I'm gonna warn people.
1:04:42SPEAKERWe're kicking around the idea of getting rid
1:04:44SPEAKERof the $2 tier again, because Patreon changes
1:04:47SPEAKERthe way they bill us at the start of next year.
1:04:50SPEAKERAnd it is increasingly not a great tier for us.
1:04:56SPEAKER- Pretty soon we're gonna have to start paying them
1:04:58SPEAKERto have people at that tier.
1:04:59SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
1:05:01SPEAKERBut we're keeping it for the next at least week or so,
1:05:06SPEAKERwhen we'll give people a little bit of heads up.
1:05:07SPEAKERBut consider this heads up that if you have not subscribed
1:05:09SPEAKERand you would like to get into the Discord at the $2 tier,
1:05:12SPEAKERnow is your time.
1:05:14SPEAKERAlong with that, we might flip on things
1:05:16SPEAKERlike Mastodon server for people who are interested in that.
1:05:19SPEAKERSo anyway, that'll do it for us this year, Brad.
1:05:22SPEAKER- Yeah, happy holidays to everyone.
1:05:25SPEAKER- Yeah, happy holidays, happy new year.
1:05:26SPEAKERWe'll see you next week.