262: Mrs. Collier Was a Real One

00:00SPEAKERI cleaned my gutters twice already today.

00:03SPEAKERWild out there.

00:04SPEAKERIt's real moist.

00:06SPEAKERIt's, man, heavy rainfall everywhere these days, it seems.

00:10SPEAKERIt just follows you, man.

00:12SPEAKERYou gotta get the hell out of town.

00:13SPEAKERThat's right.

00:14SPEAKERThe thing Gina and I were talking about this morning,

00:15SPEAKERthe thing about it is it wouldn't be so bad

00:18SPEAKERexcept for the dirt where we live is like this

00:21SPEAKERgnarly clay that just has no capacity

00:24SPEAKERto absorb water whatsoever.

00:26SPEAKERThat helps.

00:27SPEAKERSo it just like, anywhere that it can't flow,

00:29SPEAKERit just stands and sits and seeps into everything.

00:32SPEAKERAnd it, I just, I'm, it's barely started raining

00:36SPEAKERand I already have PTSD from the last two rainy seasons.

00:38SPEAKERWater finds a way, usually.

00:40SPEAKERYeah, thanks, water.

00:41SPEAKERYeah, we are in the middle of, what is this,

00:43SPEAKERan atmospheric river, a bomb cyclone, all of the above.

00:46SPEAKERIt is a bomb cyclone that produced an atmospheric river.

00:48SPEAKERIt apparently hammered Seattle a couple of days ago

00:51SPEAKERand now it's down to us, so.

00:52SPEAKERYeah, yeah, I think Seattle probably got it worse than us.

00:55SPEAKERI'm not sure they got the rain that we're getting,

00:56SPEAKERbut they got like extreme winds and a lot of power outages

00:59SPEAKERand stuff, which have just come off of.

01:02SPEAKERNope, we're not gonna talk about this anymore.

01:03SPEAKERI'm done, we're done talking about weather.

01:05SPEAKERI'm happier, I'm happier.

01:06SPEAKERBrad, is that a fudge hog behind you?

01:07SPEAKERI'm happier that we got rain than power outages.

01:09SPEAKERYes, that is a fudge hog.

01:10SPEAKERI am, I am the most jealous I have ever been.

01:15SPEAKERDoing a little set dressing around here.

01:16SPEAKERHave you, have you had this?

01:18SPEAKEROkay, it hasn't been there forever

01:19SPEAKERand I just noticed it now for the first time.

01:21SPEAKEROh, I've had it since when did Rare Replay come out?

01:23SPEAKERBecause I think that's when they sent it.

01:24SPEAKERLike three years ago?

01:25SPEAKEROh God, dude.

01:26SPEAKERFive years ago?

01:27SPEAKERLike eight years ago or more.

01:29SPEAKERThat was an Xbone game, right?

01:31SPEAKERYes, that was probably 2015-ish.

01:33SPEAKERNo, it had to be after that.

01:35SPEAKEROh.

01:36SPEAKEROh man.

01:37SPEAKERHow much you want to bet?

01:38SPEAKERNone, none, zero.

01:40SPEAKERRare Replay came out in 2015, as a matter of fact.

01:44SPEAKERWow.

01:45SPEAKERI've been off this week and it's basically been nothing

01:48SPEAKERbut cleaning the house all week.

01:49SPEAKERI am so jealous, that sounds fantastic.

01:51SPEAKERYes and no, I mean, like I finally,

01:53SPEAKERliterally yesterday actually just declared like,

01:55SPEAKER"You know what, I'm not going to clean anymore.

01:56SPEAKERThis does not feel like a vacation."

02:00SPEAKERLike the house has been unlivable,

02:02SPEAKERlike basically with stuff scattered around all over the place

02:05SPEAKERlike we've pulled the contents of every closet out

02:07SPEAKERand spread it all across the house.

02:09SPEAKERSo it's like one of those, but anyway.

02:11SPEAKERHow many cans of sardines have you found?

02:13SPEAKERThey've all been confined to the kitchen at least,

02:15SPEAKERbut I did find a brick.

02:18SPEAKEROh, a whole brick?

02:19SPEAKERWhich by which a brick I define as 36 cans.

02:23SPEAKERThat is a buttload of cans, dude.

02:26SPEAKERI'm sorry, it might've been 30.

02:27SPEAKERThey're in little wrapped units of six.

02:31SPEAKERAnd I think there were either five or six of those.

02:33SPEAKERIt's like one Costco unit.

02:35SPEAKERYes, exactly.

02:37SPEAKERYou got to get a smart plug for your game frame back there

02:39SPEAKERso you can just flip it on when the stream starts.

02:41SPEAKEROh, well, man, my game frame's on my bulleted list.

02:43SPEAKERThat's podcast material, not cold open material,

02:46SPEAKERbut maybe we'll get to it, but in fact,

02:48SPEAKERI have a four pack of smart plugs.

02:50SPEAKERWell, as long as the fudge hog is off the ground

02:53SPEAKERso when the water comes, it stays paper macheed

02:56SPEAKERand completely dry, that's all that matters.

03:00SPEAKERWasn't only the best for fudge hog

03:01SPEAKERis the policy of this podcast.

03:03SPEAKER(upbeat music)

03:20SPEAKER(upbeat music continues)

03:31SPEAKERWelcome to Brad and Will Made of Tech Pod.

03:34SPEAKERI'm Will.

03:34SPEAKERI'm Brad.

03:35SPEAKERHi, hello.

03:36SPEAKERAnd he's fudge hog.

03:38SPEAKEROh, his name is fudge hog?

03:39SPEAKERHe doesn't talk.

03:39SPEAKERActually, I think they all have names,

03:41SPEAKERlike proper names, right?

03:42SPEAKERLike a fudge hog is a species, right?

03:44SPEAKERYou could name them, right?

03:45SPEAKERLike...

03:46SPEAKERFudge hog is the species.

03:47SPEAKERYes, I think you could name them.

03:48SPEAKERYou could feed them sour candy and make them evil

03:50SPEAKERin the sequel.

03:51SPEAKERI'm talking about "Viva Pinata"

03:52SPEAKERjust in case people don't know.

03:53SPEAKERI think you could name them.

03:54SPEAKERI should remember that.

03:56SPEAKERWhat an unjust world that we have,

03:58SPEAKERthat we have a new "Call of Duty" every year

04:00SPEAKERand we've only had two "Viva Pinata" games ever.

04:03SPEAKERYeah, I don't know.

04:04SPEAKERSometimes I think about whether I would actually want it

04:06SPEAKERto come back or not.

04:07SPEAKERLike I would, what if they just messed it up?

04:10SPEAKERI would love, no, no, I mean, here's the thing.

04:13SPEAKER"Viva Pinata" was kind of the original cozy game, right?

04:15SPEAKERAnd yes and no, actually.

04:17SPEAKERIt was very stressful.

04:18SPEAKERIt was things could spiral out of control very fast.

04:21SPEAKERYeah.

04:22SPEAKERYou know, like a sour infiltrates your garden

04:25SPEAKERwhen you're out looking and the next thing you know,

04:26SPEAKERlike half of your pinatas are screaming their death throes.

04:30SPEAKERI mean, look, to every season, every life,

04:34SPEAKERthere is a season, turn, turn, turn, winter comes.

04:37SPEAKERAnd this is how my, "Viva Pinata"

04:39SPEAKERis how my daughter learned about death.

04:42SPEAKERYes, nature.

04:42SPEAKERWe introduced the concept.

04:44SPEAKERYes, nature, red in tooth and claw.

04:46SPEAKERYeah, we didn't want to watch "March of the Penguins"

04:50SPEAKER'cause we didn't want to scar her

04:51SPEAKERwhen she was three years old,

04:52SPEAKERbut we played hundreds of hours of "Viva Pinata"

04:54SPEAKERover the first like four years of her life.

04:57SPEAKERAnd yeah, I don't know that she remembers any of it

04:59SPEAKERand I'm afraid to bring it up now

05:00SPEAKERfor fear that she'll have like PTSD from it.

05:03SPEAKERThat's probably a safe policy.

05:04SPEAKEROkay, I have confirmed, at least on the TV show,

05:06SPEAKERthey had names.

05:08SPEAKEROh yeah, that makes sense.

05:09SPEAKERHudson Horstaccio, for example.

05:11SPEAKEROh man, Horstaccio is a good name.

05:13SPEAKERI bet I can tell you how that,

05:15SPEAKERwhoever came up with the portmanteaus in "Viva Pinata"

05:18SPEAKERis a genius.

05:20SPEAKERIt's a British,

05:20SPEAKERBritish people are good at portmanteaus.

05:22SPEAKERThere it is.

05:23SPEAKERJust a racial trait.

05:24SPEAKERYes, for sure.

05:26SPEAKERI know we don't do racial traits anymore in D&D.

05:28SPEAKERI apologize in advance, but yeah.

05:30SPEAKERYes, I knew you were talking RPG, MMO type terminology.

05:34SPEAKERFergie Fudgehog is the character from the TV show.

05:37SPEAKERYou think it's named after Fergie from "The Black Eyed Peas"

05:40SPEAKERor Fergie the Duchess of Edinburgh?

05:42SPEAKERIt's with a Y, not an I-E, so I'm not sure.

05:45SPEAKEROkay.

05:47SPEAKERYeah, it's a pretty good,

05:48SPEAKERthat's a good ass video game, man.

05:49SPEAKERThey don't make them like that anymore.

05:50SPEAKERIt's pretty good.

05:51SPEAKERI don't think any of those are as good

05:52SPEAKERas Langston Lickitoad, though.

05:55SPEAKERWhat was your favorite pinata in "Viva Pinata"?

05:57SPEAKEROh, I don't know, man.

06:00SPEAKERI mean, partial to the Fudgehog.

06:01SPEAKERI like the way the tail bounces as they move about.

06:04SPEAKERI think Quackberry might be my favorite name.

06:07SPEAKEROh, Quackberry's pretty good.

06:09SPEAKERI don't know.

06:10SPEAKERNot a long time.

06:10SPEAKERI'd have to, ranking of pinatas, let's go.

06:14SPEAKERI mean, look, I'm opening the Wiki right now.

06:17SPEAKERHere's the species, "Viva Pinata" species.

06:20SPEAKEROh man, Fizzy Bear, Fizzly Bear, pretty good.

06:23SPEAKERI like the Flutterscotches.

06:24SPEAKERThe butterflies and the moths were pretty good.

06:26SPEAKERYep, yep.

06:27SPEAKERSend a monkey is not a bad one.

06:29SPEAKERMouse Mallow had those big ears.

06:31SPEAKERYep.

06:32SPEAKERPretty good.

06:33SPEAKERI like a Rayzant.

06:35SPEAKERYou know, if they were going to send one real pinata,

06:37SPEAKERI think Fudgehog was the one, though.

06:40SPEAKERYeah.

06:41SPEAKERYeah, I can't think of anybody

06:42SPEAKERI would want to have in maybe the llama.

06:45SPEAKERI can't remember what that was called.

06:47SPEAKERI can't tell you how vindicated I felt

06:49SPEAKERas we've been cleaning out closets

06:51SPEAKERand I came across this pinata.

06:53SPEAKERHow vindicated I felt putting it on the shelf behind me

06:56SPEAKERafter the years of grief I have gotten

06:58SPEAKERabout keeping things like that.

07:00SPEAKERLike, that's actually a good one, though.

07:03SPEAKERI was going through my closet the day I found

07:05SPEAKERfour different PUBG jackets and look,

07:08SPEAKERone of them is amazing 'cause it's a replica of,

07:12SPEAKERthere's two, actually, that are replicas of in-game items.

07:15SPEAKEROne is just like a black hoodie

07:16SPEAKERthat has PUBG written on the sleeve

07:18SPEAKERand it had my name on it 'cause it was a partner thing.

07:20SPEAKERThe other one, though, is like a purple members-only jacket

07:23SPEAKERthat has an airbrushed, screen-printed tiger on the back.

07:28SPEAKEROkay.

07:29SPEAKERIt's remarkable.

07:30SPEAKERIt's pretty good.

07:31SPEAKEREvery time I've worn it out, people are like,

07:32SPEAKER"I can't tell if you're serious about this jacket or not."

07:35SPEAKERIs it a literal members-only brand?

07:37SPEAKERDoes that even exist anymore?

07:38SPEAKERNo, it's not a literal members-only brand,

07:40SPEAKERbut it's like, I can go get it if you'd like to see.

07:43SPEAKERIt's just around the corner.

07:44SPEAKERI should get up and walk over there.

07:45SPEAKERI'll be back in two seconds.

07:47SPEAKERIt's great for an audio podcast.

07:48SPEAKERObviously, through the magic of editing.

07:51SPEAKERPrepare to experience time travel.

07:53SPEAKEROkay, I'm back.

07:54SPEAKERI'm back.

07:55SPEAKERI promise the people time travel

07:57SPEAKERand they have just experienced it.

07:58SPEAKEROh, it's amazing.

07:59SPEAKERSo look, one sleeve.

08:00SPEAKEROh, jeez.

08:01SPEAKERTiger, the right sleeve is all tiger pattern.

08:05SPEAKERYeah, I was expecting just kind of a graphic

08:07SPEAKERof a tiger on the back.

08:08SPEAKERI didn't realize half of the jacket is tiger.

08:10SPEAKERIt's purple and maybe it's not members-only.

08:12SPEAKERIt doesn't have epaulettes,

08:13SPEAKERbut it has that shawl collar that was of that time.

08:17SPEAKERThe other sleeve is tan with a black stripe

08:20SPEAKERand a zipper pouch on the side for,

08:24SPEAKERI assume, your ID or maybe you could put your weed in there

08:27SPEAKERif that's the thing you do.

08:28SPEAKERThere's some flowers,

08:30SPEAKERbut then the back is where the magic happens.

08:32SPEAKERLook at that.

08:33SPEAKEROh, wow, that's quite a tiger.

08:35SPEAKERIt is a blue-eyed tiger and it's across the face

08:38SPEAKERis like in the top right shoulder

08:40SPEAKERand it's facing down and looking real scary

08:42SPEAKERat some flowers on the other side.

08:44SPEAKERIs there a strong tiger association in PUBG

08:47SPEAKERthat I'm not aware of?

08:48SPEAKERI think that was tied to the,

08:51SPEAKERmaybe one of the Southeast Asian maps,

08:52SPEAKERI can't remember,

08:53SPEAKERwhen they launched one of the smaller maps.

08:56SPEAKERYeah, I've been thinking about PUBG

08:58SPEAKERa little bit again lately.

08:59SPEAKERI kind of have had an itch.

09:02SPEAKERI'll play PUBG with you sometime if you'd like.

09:04SPEAKERIt's, they merged regions,

09:08SPEAKERwhich makes it a little bit,

09:09SPEAKERlike you're playing with people in South America now

09:11SPEAKERand the lag in a game where the high ping

09:14SPEAKERusually wins the fight.

09:16SPEAKERIt's a little gnarly.

09:18SPEAKERThe high ping wins the fight.

09:19SPEAKERYeah, look, the way UE4 networking worked

09:22SPEAKERand the way they set it up a million years ago

09:24SPEAKERwhen they started that game is not conducive

09:27SPEAKERfor a Twitch kind of shooter.

09:29SPEAKEROh, great.

09:30SPEAKERYeah, yeah.

09:30SPEAKERGreat, all right.

09:31SPEAKERWell, anyway, but the current season of Fortnite,

09:34SPEAKERvery much like old PUBG.

09:35SPEAKERIt's all about like area control and taking hills

09:37SPEAKERand getting hard cover and all that stuff.

09:39SPEAKERIt's very good.

09:40SPEAKEROkay.

09:41SPEAKERBut that's all we're here to talk about today, Brad.

09:44SPEAKERNo, it's not.

09:44SPEAKERWell, unless you're thankful for that jacket.

09:48SPEAKERI just threw it on the floor to the left of the desk.

09:50SPEAKERI'll hang it back up later.

09:51SPEAKERI would not describe this thankful behavior.

09:53SPEAKERI guess that's those at all.

09:55SPEAKERYeah.

09:56SPEAKERLet's, we are here to do is talk about things,

10:00SPEAKERtechnologies that we are thankful for.

10:01SPEAKERThis is the thing we do often

10:03SPEAKERaround the American Thanksgiving holiday season,

10:06SPEAKERwhich is next week.

10:07SPEAKERYes, or just very late if you're Canadian.

10:10SPEAKERYeah, yeah.

10:11SPEAKERHappy late Canadian Thanksgiving or American Thanksgiving

10:14SPEAKERis what we like to think of it

10:15SPEAKERis how I say this to everyone.

10:17SPEAKERBut yeah, so we picked a couple of things

10:19SPEAKERthat we both are like often,

10:23SPEAKERI guess this originated,

10:24SPEAKERthis is the thing Norm and I used to do at Tested

10:26SPEAKERback in the day, and it originated as a, hey,

10:30SPEAKERthese are the things that we like,

10:33SPEAKERthat are just quietly awesome

10:35SPEAKERin the backgrounds of our lives, right?

10:36SPEAKERLike it can be a product, it can be a technology,

10:39SPEAKERit can be a service, it can be a backend thing.

10:42SPEAKERIt can be just like a weird cable that you use.

10:45SPEAKERAnd it's like the one cable that if you don't have,

10:47SPEAKERthe whole thing falls apart.

10:48SPEAKERYep, yep, or in my case this year,

10:50SPEAKERlargely it can be trends or social phenomena.

10:54SPEAKERYeah, that counts too.

10:55SPEAKERSo you wanna just take turns, go down the list?

10:58SPEAKERYeah, sure.

10:59SPEAKERI, after many, many years,

11:02SPEAKERI have lived a dual life, Brad,

11:06SPEAKERwhere I have notes apps for work

11:08SPEAKERand I have notes apps for personal stuff.

11:10SPEAKERAnd then I have a checklist app that's like my to-do list.

11:13SPEAKERAnd then I have account, no more.

11:16SPEAKERSo I've switched and I've been using Notion for a long time.

11:20SPEAKERNotion is my notes app of choice for like detailed notes.

11:24SPEAKERSo like if I have projects

11:25SPEAKERthat are gonna have multiple pages,

11:26SPEAKERlike I have a whole folder in my Notion

11:29SPEAKERthat's just projects I'm working on at PC World

11:31SPEAKERand each project has its own page.

11:33SPEAKERIt's like, you can edit it with,

11:36SPEAKERit works like a Wiki where you can kind of edit it

11:38SPEAKERand make any text a new page

11:41SPEAKERand link out to the new page from there.

11:43SPEAKERAnd you can make a big snarl of it.

11:44SPEAKERBut you can also do things like have nested task lists

11:47SPEAKERthat filter up and like give you sub-tasks on sub-pages

11:51SPEAKERand stuff like that.

11:52SPEAKERSo it's a really powerful tool for like getting

11:55SPEAKERcomplicated things organized.

11:57SPEAKERAnd the price is very good for personal use.

11:59SPEAKERIt's free.

12:00SPEAKER- Oh, is that adequate?

12:01SPEAKER- Yeah, the free account is totally fine

12:03SPEAKERfor one person, I find.

12:05SPEAKER- Okay.

12:06SPEAKER- If you wanna do more stuff like you can also use it

12:09SPEAKERfor things like a software development team would use

12:12SPEAKERfor like Jira or Trello or something for like that kind

12:15SPEAKERof task management and like dependencies and all that stuff.

12:18SPEAKERYou have to pay to get access to those features

12:20SPEAKERand they're more expensive.

12:22SPEAKERBut then I also, for smaller projects and for smaller things

12:27SPEAKERI've been testing out some other stuff.

12:28SPEAKERAnd one of those is Joplin, which is a cross-platform,

12:33SPEAKERmore kind of lightweight Notes app that I use for,

12:39SPEAKERlike, I don't know, it's Markdown compatible

12:41SPEAKERso I can use it for like blog posts and stuff like that

12:43SPEAKERthat are gonna end up being in Markdown anyway.

12:46SPEAKERAnd it works on my phone and my tablet and my laptop

12:49SPEAKERand my desktop, which is my requirement for that notion.

12:52SPEAKERAlso it works everywhere, so yeah.

12:53SPEAKER- Yeah, actually I don't think I've heard of Joplin before.

12:56SPEAKERLike this topic for the last several years has just been

12:59SPEAKERlike, oh, I use Notion or I use Obsidian.

13:01SPEAKERIt seems like those are the two that you always hear.

13:03SPEAKERI don't think I've heard of Joplin before,

13:05SPEAKERbut if that's like more lightweight,

13:07SPEAKERis that what you would say is the main appeal

13:09SPEAKERversus the other two, like less committed?

13:12SPEAKER- It's a little more open, they provide multiple sync

13:17SPEAKERoptions, they'll sell you sync as a service,

13:19SPEAKERwhich is how they support development of the software.

13:22SPEAKERYou can also just hook it up to your Dropbox

13:24SPEAKERand it'll do that as well.

13:26SPEAKERAnd then the nice thing about it,

13:28SPEAKERI started getting a little nervous 'cause Notion

13:30SPEAKERis kind of starting to, looks like they might be starting

13:32SPEAKERto walk down that Evernote road where your data

13:34SPEAKERgets a little more trapped every year.

13:36SPEAKERJoplin just dumps a folder in your Dropbox

13:39SPEAKERthat you can access and it's like just a bunch

13:42SPEAKERof Markdown files, so it's pretty straightforward.

13:44SPEAKER- I like the sound of that.

13:45SPEAKER- Yeah.

13:46SPEAKER- I might have to try Joplin.

13:47SPEAKER- It is, I will say a little bit less powerful

13:50SPEAKERthan the Wiki anywhere, like it's great for personal stuff,

13:55SPEAKERit's good for like your personal notes,

13:57SPEAKERit's much harder to share stuff with Joplin

14:00SPEAKERif you're not, especially if you're not paying

14:01SPEAKERfor their synchronization service.

14:03SPEAKER- Got it, okay, good to know.

14:04SPEAKERI just felt like a basic to-do list and just sort of like

14:07SPEAKERtinkering with some open source server-y thing

14:09SPEAKERand it's like, you know, I should take some notes

14:10SPEAKERon how I did this or like some API keys

14:14SPEAKERor things I need to remember, like just for basic stuff

14:16SPEAKERfor yourself, that sounds pretty good.

14:18SPEAKER- Well, and the fact that I have Notion installed everywhere

14:21SPEAKERand it's really easy to use means that when I am doing this,

14:23SPEAKERwhen I am setting up like a new Docker container

14:25SPEAKERthat does some new service, I actually take notes

14:28SPEAKERabout which how-to I followed and what my variables were

14:31SPEAKERand I was setting up the Docker container

14:32SPEAKERand all that stuff and it makes it much easier

14:34SPEAKERwhen I have to replicate it later

14:36SPEAKERand instead of having to re-engineer the whole thing

14:38SPEAKERfrom scratch, I just can kind of like repeat my steps

14:40SPEAKERand be good to go.

14:42SPEAKERYou can even embed a whole webpage in the Notion,

14:44SPEAKERso like if you're worried about the blog

14:45SPEAKERthat you're reading this on going away,

14:47SPEAKERyou can just grab the whole blog and it's nice.

14:49SPEAKER- That is nice.

14:50SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

14:51SPEAKER- Yes, shall I?

14:53SPEAKER- Yeah, dig in.

14:55SPEAKER- I've written here Amazon without Amazon.

14:57SPEAKER- How do you do that?

14:58SPEAKERThat sounds great.

14:59SPEAKER- Amazon in quotes without Amazon.

15:01SPEAKER- Yeah.

15:02SPEAKER- Which I kind of am defining as sort of the Amazon,

15:05SPEAKERthe Amazon experience, although actually as I'm looking

15:08SPEAKERat the list of stuff I've jotted down here,

15:11SPEAKERI'm really talking about the Amazon retail

15:12SPEAKERshopping experience.

15:14SPEAKER- Yeah.

15:15SPEAKER- To some extent, not so much like AWS

15:16SPEAKERor Prime Video or whatever.

15:19SPEAKER- You mean when you buy things from Amazon.

15:22SPEAKER- Yes, yes, yes.

15:23SPEAKERAmazon really kind of sucks these days as an org

15:26SPEAKERI am finding in general for a lot of reasons.

15:31SPEAKER- It's challenging.

15:32SPEAKERI feel like they have a lot of bad working conditions

15:35SPEAKERfor the people on the front line

15:36SPEAKERof delivering things from Amazon.

15:38SPEAKER- That's one of the things I've written here.

15:39SPEAKERI mean, Jeff Bezos is kind of terrible

15:41SPEAKERfor an ever-increasing number of reasons these days.

15:44SPEAKERThey treat all their orders pretty horribly.

15:48SPEAKERThe experience of shopping on their site

15:51SPEAKERis just kind of like rife with danger it feels like

15:53SPEAKERthese days between like return scams and stuff like that.

15:56SPEAKER- Don't buy shoes 'cause there are a lot of knockoff shoes

15:59SPEAKERon Amazon these days.

16:00SPEAKER- Counterfeit stock in the channel.

16:04SPEAKERDubious stock getting intermingled with other retailers.

16:07SPEAKERIt's just like that whole thing is, yeah.

16:09SPEAKER- That to me is the one that's the real,

16:11SPEAKERif you just bought from Amazon first party and it was fine,

16:14SPEAKERI wouldn't be as upset.

16:16SPEAKERBut when you buy from Amazon first party

16:18SPEAKERand then they fulfill it from a third party

16:20SPEAKERthat's also fulfilled by Amazon,

16:22SPEAKERthat's really gnarly and feels bad.

16:24SPEAKER- Yes, ads on Prime Video are getting worse and worse.

16:28SPEAKERWe only do the subscription service,

16:31SPEAKERthe one that is combo with the shipping, the fast shipping.

16:34SPEAKERWe don't rent, like all the cart stuff.

16:36SPEAKERBut I've heard that, I saw recently somebody saying

16:38SPEAKERthey are starting to shove ads into rentals,

16:40SPEAKERall the cart rentals.

16:41SPEAKERLike you pay four bucks to rent a movie from Amazon

16:44SPEAKERand it still has ads in it.

16:45SPEAKER- Oh, hell no.

16:46SPEAKER- Like how close to the sun

16:48SPEAKERdo they think they can fly on this?

16:50SPEAKER- Just in general, if you wanna talk about

16:51SPEAKERhow things we're not thankful for,

16:53SPEAKERjust the overall gentrification

16:55SPEAKERof streaming video services as a whole, doesn't feel good.

17:00SPEAKER- Yes, and I've had like one too many experiences

17:02SPEAKERof not even getting a thing anywhere near

17:05SPEAKERwhen they said it would be delivered,

17:06SPEAKERwhich is the whole point of giving them

17:07SPEAKERhowever much money a year for faster shipping.

17:10SPEAKERLong story short, I have just been feeling them

17:12SPEAKERfor a long time, like it's time to ditch Amazon Prime.

17:17SPEAKER- Let me, well, so we do groceries through Amazon sometimes,

17:20SPEAKERwhich is the one reason we haven't ditched Amazon Prime.

17:24SPEAKER- So does that require Prime?

17:25SPEAKERI've never bought groceries from them before.

17:26SPEAKER- They charge you a delivery fee.

17:28SPEAKERThat means you, like that if you do it

17:29SPEAKERas one of your regular grocery stops,

17:31SPEAKERthen you're probably just cheaper to buy Prime

17:34SPEAKERand not pay the delivery fee.

17:35SPEAKER- Is that separate from Amazon Fresh?

17:37SPEAKER- Amazon Fresh is the grocery delivery,

17:39SPEAKERbut there's a delivery charge.

17:42SPEAKERMy understanding is there's a delivery charge for Fresh,

17:44SPEAKERand this might be different in different areas too,

17:46SPEAKER'cause I feel like when we were at my parents' house

17:48SPEAKERand we did some grocery delivery there,

17:49SPEAKERit worked differently 'cause they lived out in the country.

17:52SPEAKER- Yeah.

17:53SPEAKER- The big thing for me, I just stopped buying things.

17:59SPEAKERI read a thing earlier this year.

18:01SPEAKER- Oh, like at all?

18:02SPEAKER- Kind of, yeah.

18:03SPEAKER- I mean, that's been my life for the last 30 years,

18:06SPEAKERbut go on.

18:07SPEAKER- Yeah, I read a blog post that was like,

18:11SPEAKERhey, when you buy something,

18:12SPEAKERyou would think you would want to buy something,

18:14SPEAKERput it in your cart and then wait six days,

18:16SPEAKERand if you still want it at the end of six days,

18:18SPEAKERthen maybe consider buying it,

18:19SPEAKERbut otherwise just delete it from your cart.

18:22SPEAKERAnd it turns out you buy a lot less garbage.

18:24SPEAKER- I could co-sign that.

18:25SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm looking at my Amazon for this year,

18:29SPEAKERand since September, I bought some cake ring molds

18:33SPEAKERfor making souffle pancakes

18:35SPEAKERand a copy of "The Hobbit" for my daughter for class.

18:38SPEAKER- Okay.

18:39SPEAKER- Some nitrile exam gloves for when Gina had the 'rona,

18:44SPEAKERa new bottle, a new tub of thermal grizzly cryonaut extreme,

18:48SPEAKER'cause I'd used my last one up,

18:50SPEAKERand the flash IC programmer that we talked about

18:53SPEAKERon last week's show for the monitor,

18:55SPEAKERand that's pretty much it.

18:56SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, actually I'm looking here

18:58SPEAKERoutside of the stuff I bought for the hurricane

19:00SPEAKERjust as like an emergency, I need stuff now.

19:02SPEAKER- Yeah.

19:02SPEAKER- I've placed four Amazon orders this year,

19:04SPEAKERand they were all for like little office supplies

19:06SPEAKERfor work that I needed quickly actually.

19:08SPEAKERSo like I'm kind of barely using it as is.

19:11SPEAKER- There are other options.

19:12SPEAKERThis is where we ended up when we were talking about this.

19:14SPEAKERThe only reason we kept Prime is because of the grocery thing.

19:17SPEAKER- Okay, so that's kind of where I've landed.

19:18SPEAKERLike it's starting to feel bad continuing to pay

19:20SPEAKERfor the service for all the reasons listed.

19:22SPEAKERPrimarily like they are just a kind of a crappy company

19:25SPEAKERthat treats their workforce horribly.

19:27SPEAKERI mean, have you seen they're part of this lawsuit

19:31SPEAKERagainst the National Labor Relations Board

19:33SPEAKERthat is pursuing- - Weird.

19:34SPEAKERWhat a weird coincidence.

19:36SPEAKER- Anyway, the thing I've realized

19:38SPEAKERas I've been thinking about this though

19:39SPEAKERis like that's kind of like as much as Amazon

19:41SPEAKERhas like kind of made a lot of things worse,

19:44SPEAKERI guess maybe the biggest upside of their prominence

19:47SPEAKERis that they have kind of dragged,

19:48SPEAKERI feel like most of the rest of the online retail world

19:51SPEAKERalong in their wake in terms of like shipping times

19:53SPEAKERand kind of overall customer experience.

19:55SPEAKERAnd like you can, the point is you can kind of get

19:58SPEAKERa lot of what you get with Amazon already elsewhere now.

20:01SPEAKER- I think that seems right, right?

20:03SPEAKERIn terms of like availability,

20:04SPEAKERlike free shipping is so much more common than it used to be

20:06SPEAKERlike if you think back to like 20 plus years ago,

20:09SPEAKERlike free shipping was basically unheard of, right?

20:12SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I remember if you wanted something in,

20:14SPEAKERlike when Amazon started doing two day shipping for Prime,

20:18SPEAKERit was such a simple $80 annual purchase.

20:22SPEAKERYou were like, yeah, I'm absolutely gonna do that

20:23SPEAKER'cause I was paying the rare occasions

20:25SPEAKERI didn't need something.

20:26SPEAKERIt was like three shippings to get two day shipping.

20:30SPEAKERAnd now, like as a result, the shipping infrastructure

20:33SPEAKERhas expanded dramatically.

20:35SPEAKERAnd like we have this weird situation

20:37SPEAKERwhere six people come to the house

20:39SPEAKERon some of the houses on our street every day.

20:43SPEAKERAnd it's maybe made it too easy.

20:47SPEAKERThe whole wait six days thing is,

20:51SPEAKERhey, if you have to get in the store

20:52SPEAKERand drive someplace to buy something,

20:53SPEAKERyou're gonna think about whether you really need it

20:55SPEAKERa little bit more than if you just click a thing

20:57SPEAKERon your screen and all of a sudden it's there the next morning

21:00SPEAKER- Yeah. - Right?

21:01SPEAKER- Yep. - So anyway.

21:02SPEAKER- I've kind of had the same thought for sure.

21:04SPEAKERBut, and also like another thing is,

21:06SPEAKERI think like weekend delivery has become much more common.

21:08SPEAKERLike that was another thing 20 years ago,

21:10SPEAKERlike getting something on Saturday was unheard of

21:12SPEAKERunless you paid $60 for the shipping.

21:14SPEAKER- And getting something on Sunday was never.

21:16SPEAKER- And then that was basically impossible.

21:17SPEAKERAnd now stuff gets delivered all the time.

21:19SPEAKER- Yeah.

21:20SPEAKER- Long story short, like I'm going out of my way

21:22SPEAKERto order most things I can from other retailers

21:24SPEAKERat this point.

21:26SPEAKERAnd like, I don't feel like I'm missing that much actually.

21:29SPEAKERI feel like a lot of the good, like the good qualities,

21:33SPEAKERa lot of the high points of the Amazon experience

21:34SPEAKERhave kind of proliferated out to other retailers now.

21:37SPEAKER- Well, so I will say having done

21:40SPEAKERa fair amount of retail purchasing lately,

21:43SPEAKERanytime I have to go into the store and then hit a button

21:45SPEAKERand wait for somebody to come unlock something,

21:47SPEAKERI'm probably just gonna stand there.

21:48SPEAKERAnd if it takes more than a minute or two,

21:51SPEAKERI order it from Amazon and then walk away.

21:53SPEAKER- Sure, I can see it.

21:54SPEAKER- Yeah. - I can see it.

21:55SPEAKERI mean, you know, I can't make any apologies

21:58SPEAKERfor rash decisions made in the heat of passion.

22:01SPEAKER- Yeah, it's, yeah, so anyway.

22:04SPEAKER- Yeah, but like even, like we'll kind of get to this

22:06SPEAKERin a little bit, one of my other things here,

22:08SPEAKERbut I had to buy a power supply from Digi-Key the other day.

22:11SPEAKER- Oh, like a little one?

22:13SPEAKER- No, like a full on, just a proper AC adapter

22:15SPEAKERfor a device that I inherited

22:16SPEAKERthat did not have an AC adapter with it.

22:17SPEAKER- Gotcha.

22:18SPEAKER- And like, I just feel like filtering mechanisms

22:22SPEAKERon retail web pages have also gotten way better

22:24SPEAKERand like, you know, that was not entirely

22:26SPEAKERan Amazon innovation, but like the ability

22:30SPEAKERto go stage by stage and say like, okay,

22:32SPEAKERI want the adapter from this region.

22:34SPEAKERI want it at this voltage.

22:35SPEAKERI want it with this size plug, you know,

22:37SPEAKERand just be able to filter down to what you want.

22:40SPEAKER- Very true.

22:40SPEAKER- Yeah, like I just, I feel like you can kind of,

22:43SPEAKERI started to say get by without Amazon.

22:45SPEAKERLike that might be a big claim, I don't know,

22:46SPEAKERbut it's starting to feel like maybe it's time

22:49SPEAKERto take a year off from Prime and see how it goes.

22:51SPEAKER- Yeah, but at the same time,

22:52SPEAKERlike we still don't have a good walking

22:55SPEAKERaround the store experience.

22:57SPEAKERLike I was talking about, there's a,

22:59SPEAKERI was talking about this with a friend the other day

23:01SPEAKERwho's like, hey, have you had these new potato chips?

23:03SPEAKERI was like, no, I never heard of these before.

23:04SPEAKERWhat's the brand again?

23:05SPEAKERAnd they're like, they've literally been on end caps

23:07SPEAKERin their grocery store for the last six months, right?

23:10SPEAKERAnd, I mean, we used to shop at the same grocery store

23:16SPEAKERand you don't get access to those things

23:19SPEAKER'cause there is no browsing experience

23:20SPEAKERfor a lot of the online retail stuff,

23:22SPEAKERwhether it's Amazon or Target

23:25SPEAKERor whatever your big box brand is, so still not perfect.

23:30SPEAKER- No.

23:31SPEAKER- Should we talk about the Stream Deck?

23:35SPEAKER- Sure, I like that thing.

23:37SPEAKER- I have gone in the last year from using the Stream Deck

23:41SPEAKERto set up my streams and like recording for our podcasts

23:45SPEAKERand stuff like that to just anytime there's an action

23:49SPEAKERthat I need to do and it's like three things.

23:52SPEAKERLike every day when I turn on the computer,

23:54SPEAKERI'm getting ready to get on calls.

23:55SPEAKERI hit the OBS and launch OBS

23:57SPEAKERand the virtual camera turns on and all that stuff.

24:00SPEAKERI just have a button for it now.

24:04SPEAKERI use mouse without borders to control the two PCs

24:06SPEAKERon my desk to switch back and forth between them.

24:08SPEAKERAnd I bound a button to toggle between the hot key for one

24:13SPEAKERand the hot key for the other.

24:14SPEAKERAnd I don't do the edge thing anymore

24:16SPEAKER'cause it turns out the one problem

24:18SPEAKERwith all of the software KVM switches,

24:21SPEAKERlike mouse without borders or input director or whatever,

24:23SPEAKERis that they're kind of janky

24:25SPEAKERwith borderless full-screen games,

24:26SPEAKERwhich is basically what I always use when I'm playing games

24:29SPEAKERis borderless full-screen 'cause I'm a multi-monitor setup.

24:32SPEAKERSo I just hit the button when I need to switch computers

24:35SPEAKERand it works perfectly, it's great.

24:39SPEAKERI got a Stream Deck Plus last year when they were on sale

24:42SPEAKERat Thanksgiving or New Year's.

24:46SPEAKERAnd I use the knobs to control the volume

24:49SPEAKERof the different people in Discord calls with me

24:51SPEAKERor Zoom calls, depending on which one I'm in.

24:55SPEAKERI can change scenes and sources.

24:57SPEAKERI can control the volume of OBS sources, which is amazing.

25:01SPEAKERLike it's incredibly nice.

25:03SPEAKERAnd really simple things like mic mute.

25:07SPEAKERHey, doesn't sound sexy, but having a hardware mic mute,

25:11SPEAKERor it's not a hardware mic mute button,

25:13SPEAKERbut a mic mute button that mutes the mic at a system level

25:17SPEAKERturns out is incredibly useful and super valuable.

25:21SPEAKER- But that mic mute button is the most important thing

25:23SPEAKERon my Stream Deck by far.

25:25SPEAKER- Yeah, I use it all the time.

25:26SPEAKER- I'm kind of surprised how much you do on there

25:29SPEAKERthat does not relate to software.

25:31SPEAKERLike it's not, like I primarily use it

25:34SPEAKERto control other physical devices in my house,

25:36SPEAKERlike turning the lights on and off in this room.

25:38SPEAKER- Yeah, I have hotkeys for OBS hooked up to control,

25:42SPEAKERlike it basically triggers different scenes

25:44SPEAKERthat change the lights in my office.

25:45SPEAKERSo I can, my lights go off and the overhead light comes on.

25:49SPEAKERAnd then I have like a low key dim.

25:51SPEAKERIf I'm working on something that I want to be able

25:53SPEAKERto see my desk and not be sitting in the dark.

25:55SPEAKERAnd then I have the full blast production lights, so.

26:00SPEAKER- Yeah, it's mostly, yeah, it's mostly lighting

26:02SPEAKERand audio and camera, mic control, stuff like that.

26:05SPEAKERI mean, obviously there is a lot

26:07SPEAKERof software related stuff you can do.

26:08SPEAKERIn fact, I probably should be doing more software automation

26:11SPEAKERlike you were talking about.

26:13SPEAKERI haven't really gotten into that.

26:14SPEAKER- There's two things that are really interesting

26:16SPEAKERabout the Stream Deck versus like there's other competitors,

26:19SPEAKERCooler Master makes one, there's the Loop,

26:20SPEAKERthere's a bunch of other things in this kind of space.

26:22SPEAKERAnd I think the thing that the Elgato solution

26:25SPEAKERhas going for it is that their plugin architecture

26:27SPEAKERis really good, or I don't know

26:29SPEAKERif the plugin architecture is really good.

26:31SPEAKERThe plugin architecture is really well supported.

26:33SPEAKERAnd all the way to the point that like,

26:36SPEAKERif the thing you want to use isn't necessarily supported,

26:39SPEAKERyou can also probably use a different plugin architecture

26:42SPEAKERand just expose that as a single button.

26:44SPEAKERSo I use this thing called Bitfocus Companion,

26:47SPEAKERwhich has an interface for my audio mixer

26:51SPEAKERthat I can access, that I can just make be a single button

26:54SPEAKERor a series of buttons inside the Stream Deck software.

26:57SPEAKEROr you can use it for the entire screen, whichever you want.

27:00SPEAKERIt's up to you.

27:01SPEAKERSo it's really powerful.

27:03SPEAKERAnd also if, like, I feel a little hinky about this

27:08SPEAKER'cause there's an ongoing cost for it.

27:10SPEAKERBut if you want to try it out with just your phone,

27:13SPEAKERyou can set up a phone and it's like a $5 a month

27:16SPEAKERor $2 a month application,

27:18SPEAKERdepending on which platform you're on.

27:22SPEAKERBasically the app is free.

27:23SPEAKERYou can set it up and try it.

27:24SPEAKERI think you get a few buttons for free.

27:25SPEAKERAnd if you want more, then you have to pay them.

27:27SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty low barrier way

27:29SPEAKERto see if this type of functionality

27:31SPEAKERis even something you'd use.

27:32SPEAKERAnd then if you want the physical control surface,

27:35SPEAKERthere it is. - Exactly, exactly.

27:36SPEAKERAnd the physical control surface is like,

27:38SPEAKERthey have a bunch of different sizes.

27:40SPEAKERThey have a 16 button one, I think is the kind of default.

27:44SPEAKERMaybe 12 button one, I can't remember.

27:46SPEAKERThey have a giant, I think the one that's on my desk

27:48SPEAKERis eight by, it's 32 buttons.

27:50SPEAKER- Yeah, 32 is the XL.

27:52SPEAKER- Yeah, and then they have the one with the knobs.

27:54SPEAKERApparently the one with the knobs,

27:56SPEAKERthey also released an XLR.

27:58SPEAKERI was talking to a friend.

27:59SPEAKERThey also released an XLR adapter

28:01SPEAKERthat you can kind of snap into the bottom of that one.

28:03SPEAKERAnd you can run VSPs and stuff on it.

28:06SPEAKERSo you can run like full on software,

28:10SPEAKERlike software plugins and things like that

28:12SPEAKERthat are like DAW plugins on the interface for that thing,

28:15SPEAKERwhich is really cool.

28:16SPEAKER- Yeah, it's neat.

28:17SPEAKER- Highly recommended.

28:18SPEAKER- Yes, all right.

28:20SPEAKERI am thankful that I have,

28:21SPEAKERI wrote leaving Twitter here on this list.

28:24SPEAKERI guess spending dramatically less time on Twitter.

28:26SPEAKERI have not deactivated my account.

28:28SPEAKERI don't think, I did not even sign out of it on my PC,

28:32SPEAKERbut I did delete the app from my iPad,

28:33SPEAKERwhich is where I was consuming the most of it.

28:36SPEAKER- Yeah.

28:36SPEAKER- And crucially, the iPad is the place

28:39SPEAKERwhere I was sitting there at night

28:40SPEAKERdoing nothing but scrolling for like an hour after dinner.

28:43SPEAKERYou know, it was just the worst possible use of time.

28:46SPEAKEREven prior to the current.

28:48SPEAKER- The doom scroll.

28:50SPEAKER- Yes, even prior to the current state of things,

28:52SPEAKERlet's say that was not a great use of time for long periods.

28:55SPEAKERNow it is like a profound net negative in one's life.

28:58SPEAKERI'm firmly convinced.

29:00SPEAKER- The thing I like about Blue Sky,

29:03SPEAKERwe talked about this on the Full Nerd this week,

29:05SPEAKERand a handful of people got fairly upset,

29:07SPEAKER'cause I think there's a perception in certain communities

29:11SPEAKERthat the platform is unwelcoming to them,

29:15SPEAKERbut it's kind of choose your own adventure for algorithm.

29:18SPEAKERSo by default, you get reverse chronological sort

29:21SPEAKERwhere new is posted at the top

29:22SPEAKERand old is posted at the bottom,

29:23SPEAKERand you just scroll back in time,

29:25SPEAKERwhich is, it turns out, a lot less filtered

29:29SPEAKERthan anything that has an algorithm.

29:32SPEAKERBut you can also, there's also options to add other feeds

29:35SPEAKERthat users or Blue Sky themselves have created

29:38SPEAKERthat give you, there's things people you follow like, right?

29:44SPEAKER- Yeah, or there's one that's even just a follower's feed,

29:47SPEAKERwhere you can literally just see the posts

29:48SPEAKERof people who follow you, which is a fun inversion.

29:51SPEAKER- Yeah, I have a mutuals feed so that I see people

29:56SPEAKERwho are following me and I'm following them, that pops up.

29:58SPEAKERI have one that's just corgis.

30:00SPEAKERIt's people who post pictures of corgis,

30:03SPEAKERand you can flip a switch that dumps those,

30:06SPEAKERthose like latest input from each of those feeds

30:09SPEAKERyou subscribe to into your main feed

30:11SPEAKERwhen it like runs low on reverse chrono posts to show.

30:15SPEAKERIt's really nice.

30:16SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

30:16SPEAKERThe custom feed stuff is maybe the most exciting thing

30:20SPEAKERabout Blue Sky to me so far.

30:22SPEAKERWell, aside from the fact that it's just not ruinous

30:24SPEAKERto your mental health and people are generally polite

30:27SPEAKERand there's not constant bigotry and abuse

30:29SPEAKERin your face all the time.

30:31SPEAKER- Yeah, like for me, the thing that always surprises me

30:33SPEAKERwhen I post something on Twitter is how,

30:35SPEAKERI mean, we have both have reasonably sized accounts,

30:37SPEAKERwhich is a different experience than somebody

30:40SPEAKERwho's mostly just following and consuming gets,

30:42SPEAKERbut you get a lot of, I get a lot of crypto spam,

30:47SPEAKERa lot of shockingly hardcore pornography in my replies,

30:52SPEAKERand a lot of people who are just really, really abusive

30:55SPEAKERfor no apparent reason, anytime you post anything.

30:58SPEAKERAnd then also like six people look at the posts.

31:00SPEAKERSo why bother?

31:01SPEAKER- Yeah, so I mean, I don't think I've posted Twitter

31:04SPEAKERin six months or more probably, but to be clear,

31:07SPEAKEReven when you don't post actively,

31:09SPEAKERjust the experience of using it passively

31:11SPEAKERis still rife with that stuff.

31:12SPEAKERLike you can't look at other people's replies

31:15SPEAKERwithout coming across that stuff constantly.

31:16SPEAKERLike I just, I find myself feeling way less bad,

31:20SPEAKERwhich is not to say I don't feel bad.

31:21SPEAKERThere's still plenty to feel bad about,

31:23SPEAKERbut like there's a difference between being aware

31:25SPEAKERof what's going on and also just like marinating

31:28SPEAKERin negativity for hours every day.

31:32SPEAKER- And people, the community has decided

31:34SPEAKERthat they don't wanna like quote, dunk on people, right?

31:37SPEAKERSo when somebody has a bad take,

31:39SPEAKERinstead of quote, tweeting that

31:41SPEAKERand dumping into everybody's feed

31:42SPEAKERso that everybody else can enjoy the bad take,

31:44SPEAKERthey just don't, they just block those people and move on.

31:47SPEAKERAnd it's a healthier way to live, it turns out, so.

31:49SPEAKER- Yes, I'm curious to see more algorithmic types of feeds.

31:52SPEAKERI assume people will come up with ideas over time.

31:53SPEAKERLike there's a thousand of them or something now

31:55SPEAKERif you dig into the list.

31:56SPEAKER- Well, but what I mean is there are kind of two types

31:59SPEAKERof feeds right now.

31:59SPEAKERAnd a lot of them, the majority of them, like you said,

32:01SPEAKERare like a feed of cat pictures or a feed of people

32:05SPEAKERfrom this particular country or language speaking region.

32:09SPEAKERIt's like collections of types of content

32:11SPEAKERor categories of users or whatever.

32:14SPEAKERBut I'm talking more of the stuff you were talking about,

32:16SPEAKERlike posts only from people that you follow

32:18SPEAKERwho also follow you, or posts from your followers.

32:20SPEAKERLike more interesting ways of kind of like sorting

32:23SPEAKERand pulling out more unique types of categories of stuff

32:27SPEAKERthat we haven't seen a lot of yet.

32:29SPEAKER- So there's a handful of really interesting ones.

32:30SPEAKERLike there's a science feed that has a curated list

32:34SPEAKERof contributors who, when they post something

32:38SPEAKERwith a certain emoji, I think it's the test tube,

32:42SPEAKERthen it dumps it into that feed.

32:44SPEAKERSo it's like for people like Erin Biba,

32:47SPEAKERa friend of the show, Erin Biba,

32:48SPEAKERwho posts a bunch of science news,

32:51SPEAKERit lets her post about science news

32:52SPEAKERand get that in front of the people

32:53SPEAKERwho are interested in science stuff,

32:54SPEAKERbut also do her normal whatever she wants to post about

32:58SPEAKERwithout like crapping up that science feed with politics

33:02SPEAKERor where she ate lunch or whatever.

33:04SPEAKER- Right, well, come on now. - It's really good.

33:06SPEAKER- Let's be real though.

33:07SPEAKERWhere you ate lunch is the highest purpose of social media.

33:10SPEAKER- I mean, look, there's no higher reason

33:12SPEAKERto be on social media.

33:14SPEAKER- Remember when eating a sandwich,

33:16SPEAKERand I'm putting that in quotes,

33:17SPEAKEReating a sandwich was a valid tweet?

33:20SPEAKER- People, look, my first, I, so,

33:23SPEAKERI did a thing where I grabbed my Twitter archive

33:26SPEAKERand dumped all of my Twitter posts onto a burner account.

33:29SPEAKERI didn't, I haven't told anybody where it is,

33:31SPEAKERbut I think bots have found it.

33:34SPEAKERA lot of those early tweets are real cringy, man.

33:37SPEAKERI did a lot of buying pants.

33:38SPEAKER- It was, it was a simpler time.

33:40SPEAKER- Yeah, my favorite of the feeds right now

33:43SPEAKERis the gift links/gift articles one

33:45SPEAKERthat has somebody wrote a parser that detects

33:48SPEAKERwhen you've done a gift link.

33:49SPEAKER- Oh.

33:50SPEAKER- For big publishers like the New York Times

33:53SPEAKERand Washington Post and Saturday Paper

33:55SPEAKERand all the places that have pay walled content.

33:57SPEAKERAnd it is, it is like all the way down to like nature.

34:00SPEAKERAnd it just pulls those out and puts them in a feed.

34:02SPEAKERSo it's like something that somebody thought

34:04SPEAKERwas good enough to post,

34:09SPEAKERto use one of their 10 gift links a month

34:11SPEAKERor whatever it is.

34:12SPEAKER- I gotta, I gotta look that up.

34:13SPEAKERThat's, that sounds extremely useful.

34:16SPEAKER- It's very good.

34:17SPEAKER- I will add that feed.

34:19SPEAKERI've even been trying, there is no iPad app.

34:22SPEAKERI use the iPad for consumption.

34:23SPEAKERYou can tell like that's my main like browsing

34:26SPEAKERand reading social media device.

34:27SPEAKERThere is no iPad app official from them.

34:30SPEAKERIt's just the phone app blown up to iPad size.

34:32SPEAKER- It's weird sometimes, yeah.

34:33SPEAKER- Which is never grand.

34:34SPEAKERBut yes, it doesn't even know how to handle that well.

34:36SPEAKERBut there's like, there's third party apps

34:38SPEAKERspringing up left and right now because it's all open.

34:41SPEAKER- Yeah.

34:41SPEAKER- So I've tried pretty much every one I can find.

34:43SPEAKERI've tried Gray Sky.

34:45SPEAKERI've tried one called Open Vibe,

34:46SPEAKERwhich actually lets you sign into Blue Sky Mastodon threads

34:50SPEAKERand one other one.

34:51SPEAKERWhat's the other one on Twitter?

34:53SPEAKER- Well, it's not co-host, rest in peace.

34:55SPEAKER- Definitely, yes, RIP co-hosts.

34:57SPEAKERThere's one other service that one supports as well.

34:59SPEAKERAnd I think I only signed into Blue Sky with it.

35:01SPEAKERI think the idea is it will actually just kind of aggregate

35:04SPEAKERone giant continuous feed of all your services,

35:06SPEAKERwhich I certainly would not want.

35:08SPEAKERI could be wrong about that.

35:09SPEAKERIt might still segregate them.

35:10SPEAKERThere's another app called Skeets.

35:13SPEAKER- Nope, unsubscribe.

35:15SPEAKER- It brings me no pleasure to tell you that I think Skeets

35:17SPEAKERis probably the best of the Blue Sky apps so far.

35:22SPEAKERBut like, it's cool to see third party clients again.

35:24SPEAKERRemember third party clients?

35:26SPEAKER- Well, and the thing that I like is that for them,

35:29SPEAKERlike Twitter at some point realized that the openness

35:31SPEAKERfor them was a bug and having third party clients

35:34SPEAKERand having people extending their protocol

35:37SPEAKERand the thing that they'd built was not good

35:39SPEAKERfor their core business.

35:40SPEAKERThe folks here, it's like 25 people,

35:43SPEAKER20 people run Blue Sky right now.

35:45SPEAKER- Yeah.

35:46SPEAKER- And the whole thing has been built to run

35:49SPEAKERon not much hardware and for users to extend and embrace.

35:54SPEAKERSo like the feeds, you have to host the feed.

35:57SPEAKERPeople are hosting them like on their home labs, right?

35:59SPEAKER- Yeah, so like some of the feeds I had before

36:01SPEAKERthis gigantic influx in the last couple of weeks,

36:03SPEAKERlike feeds I had subscribed to six months ago or whatever,

36:06SPEAKERjust straight up don't work anymore.

36:08SPEAKER- Yeah.

36:08SPEAKER- Some of them straight up return a message saying like,

36:10SPEAKER"Hey, I've turned this off until this quiets down

36:12SPEAKERbecause this was killing my internet connection."

36:14SPEAKER- Yeah, but like the fact that you can do that

36:17SPEAKERand the fact that your data is portable,

36:18SPEAKERthe whole thing is designed to be portable,

36:20SPEAKERnot in the way Mastodon is where you're tied to an account

36:25SPEAKERlike you would be on a Discord server

36:27SPEAKERor something almost or a mail server.

36:30SPEAKERThis is more designed that you can host your presence

36:35SPEAKERon whatever server you want.

36:36SPEAKERYou can move back and forth between.

36:37SPEAKERThere can be different Blue Sky providers.

36:39SPEAKERPeople are building like viewers for Blue Sky

36:42SPEAKERthat are more like Instagram-y,

36:45SPEAKERso more photo first, more video first.

36:47SPEAKERBut yeah, there's all sorts of different things going on.

36:49SPEAKERSo things are in an interesting place

36:51SPEAKERand their monetization plans,

36:52SPEAKERthey just rolled out their first monetization plans,

36:55SPEAKERwhich are basically, oh, hold on, before I get to that,

37:00SPEAKERthings like verification are built in.

37:01SPEAKERSo instead of verifying with a check mark

37:04SPEAKERthat you have to go through a process to get

37:05SPEAKERor pay them money or something,

37:07SPEAKERyou just hook it up to your domain with a domain record.

37:09SPEAKERRight, so you can use a goofball domain like I do,

37:13SPEAKERor you can hook it to your business's domain

37:15SPEAKERand I could be Will at will.techpod.content.town, right?

37:20SPEAKEROr probably will.content.

37:21SPEAKERAnyway, it doesn't matter.

37:22SPEAKERThe monetization plans are to add extra features

37:26SPEAKERfor people who pay.

37:28SPEAKERSo things like you can post longer videos

37:30SPEAKERor higher resolution videos.

37:32SPEAKERYou can do things like that.

37:33SPEAKERThey're not promoting, there's no algorithm,

37:35SPEAKERso they're not promoting in the algorithm.

37:37SPEAKERIt's just, hey, do you want to do something

37:40SPEAKERthat requires more API calls?

37:42SPEAKERHere you go, you can pay us five bucks a month

37:44SPEAKERand we'll let you do that, so.

37:45SPEAKER- They're also taking money to sign up domains

37:47SPEAKERfor people who don't know how or want to deal

37:50SPEAKERwith that themselves.

37:51SPEAKER- Yeah, which makes sense.

37:52SPEAKER- I've been kind of happy to see people that I know who,

37:55SPEAKERI mean, this is no shade or anything,

37:57SPEAKERbut people I know who I assume would barely know

38:00SPEAKERwhat a domain is, probably couldn't tell you what DNS is,

38:04SPEAKERare still out there getting their own domains.

38:05SPEAKERPeople are embracing the domain as username feature

38:08SPEAKERin a way that I, like more broadly than I expected,

38:11SPEAKERI guess is what I'm trying to say.

38:12SPEAKERLike people I never would have thought

38:14SPEAKERwould have cared about it are getting in on it

38:15SPEAKERand having fun with it, and that's fun.

38:17SPEAKER- Well, it makes a lot of sense.

38:18SPEAKERIt's hard in larger organizations where, you know,

38:22SPEAKERlike say you work at National Geographic

38:25SPEAKERand your online ops people have been running the domains

38:30SPEAKERfor a long time and you want to get all your reporters

38:33SPEAKERto have bob.nationalgeographic.com domains

38:37SPEAKERis gonna be harder and it's gonna, you know,

38:39SPEAKERlike there's an uphill battle there

38:40SPEAKERand they need to get something

38:41SPEAKERthat's a little bit more straightforward,

38:43SPEAKERbut it's still pretty cool.

38:44SPEAKER- Yes, yes.

38:45SPEAKERAnd also, I mean, Blue Sky has helped with this,

38:47SPEAKERthe upswing in users, having another place to go

38:50SPEAKERthat feels like old Twitter has helped,

38:51SPEAKERbut even Blue Sky notwithstanding,

38:53SPEAKERjust spending less time staring at the raging dumpster fire

38:57SPEAKERon Twitter all the time.

38:58SPEAKER- Yeah, it turns out-

38:59SPEAKER- It's a real boon to my daily mental health.

39:03SPEAKER- Do something constructive with your time.

39:04SPEAKER- Yes.

39:05SPEAKER- Make a nice meal.

39:06SPEAKER- Very much. - You deserve it.

39:07SPEAKER- Very much so.

39:08SPEAKERI think I was looking up spatchcocking the other day.

39:10SPEAKER- Oh.

39:11SPEAKER- Think about that.

39:12SPEAKERJust think about that.

39:13SPEAKERSpend less time on Twitter.

39:14SPEAKERThe next thing you know, you were roasting a turkey.

39:15SPEAKER- There you go.

39:16SPEAKERLet's talk about AirPod Pros and their integration

39:20SPEAKERwith the Apple TV and Apple ecosystem,

39:23SPEAKERbecause I have to say,

39:26SPEAKERI think this was on my list last year,

39:28SPEAKERit still friggin' rips.

39:30SPEAKERLike the ability, I can get up in the morning

39:31SPEAKERand if I wanna watch TV

39:33SPEAKERand I wanna watch something that's loud,

39:34SPEAKERI just put my AirPods in and I listen to it

39:37SPEAKERand it connects to the Apple TV

39:39SPEAKERand I don't have to think about it.

39:40SPEAKERThen when I plug in my phone and listen to music later,

39:43SPEAKERit just switches over and it sounds good

39:46SPEAKERand it does noise counseling

39:48SPEAKERand it sometimes boosts the volume of things around me

39:51SPEAKERif I want that.

39:52SPEAKERThey're really unbelievable devices

39:56SPEAKERfor the what, $200 that they're like,

39:58SPEAKERI think the MSRP is 250 bucks

40:00SPEAKERthat they're often on sale for like 189

40:03SPEAKERand they even do the stuff that Apple's doing now

40:07SPEAKERbetter across everywhere

40:08SPEAKERwhere they manage the charge speeds and stuff like that

40:10SPEAKERso you don't torch your batteries

40:12SPEAKERlike you did on old first and second generation AirPods.

40:16SPEAKERSo yeah, highly recommended

40:18SPEAKERand it's literally a thing that I always have with me.

40:24SPEAKERIt's like one of the pieces of technology

40:25SPEAKERI always carry with me

40:26SPEAKER'cause whether I'm on the train

40:28SPEAKERor I have 20 minutes and I have to sit in a cafe someplace

40:30SPEAKERand I don't wanna hear a bunch of people

40:31SPEAKERtalking about nonsense,

40:33SPEAKERI just pop them in and put on all the music and it's nice.

40:35SPEAKER- Yeah, I think I've got to give in on those at some point,

40:38SPEAKERalthough probably--

40:39SPEAKER- You gotta be close to a new gen at this point.

40:41SPEAKER- Yeah, that's it.

40:41SPEAKERI'm probably gonna try to hold out

40:43SPEAKERuntil there's a refresh at this point.

40:45SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, it's been two years and change.

40:48SPEAKERThe AirPod Maxes, the big headphone ones,

40:50SPEAKERwent a long time and then got the saddest refresh of all time

40:54SPEAKERso I don't know, it's weird.

40:56SPEAKER- Sometimes timing the Apple upgrade cycle

40:59SPEAKERis less about the new features you're getting

41:00SPEAKERand more just a sense of satisfaction.

41:03SPEAKER- While we're talking about Apple stuff,

41:04SPEAKERcan I shout out Apple Intelligence

41:06SPEAKER'cause I signed up for it

41:08SPEAKERwhen that beta rolled out with 18.1 a couple of weeks ago

41:11SPEAKERand there's one thing that it does,

41:13SPEAKERit's a lot of really dopey stuff

41:15SPEAKERand one thing that's really nice,

41:16SPEAKERwhich is that it summarizes notifications for you.

41:19SPEAKER- Yes, I've seen that going around.

41:21SPEAKER- Sometimes it's hilarious.

41:22SPEAKERLike the other day, it took a conversation

41:25SPEAKERthat some friends of ours were having on Discord

41:27SPEAKERand did a really funny thing.

41:29SPEAKERBut like it said, logging in and preparing for another round,

41:34SPEAKERBIOS update requested for two benches on my Discord.

41:38SPEAKER- Wait, hang on.

41:39SPEAKERWhat kind of hooks into Discord does it have

41:41SPEAKERto give you a notification about something like that?

41:42SPEAKER- It's just seeing the notifications

41:44SPEAKERthat pop up in the DMs and like,

41:46SPEAKERit's only pulling from notifications that iOS sees.

41:50SPEAKER- That's what I was, okay, so it's just stuff

41:52SPEAKERthat people were sending to you already?

41:54SPEAKER- Yeah, so for example,

41:57SPEAKERsomebody commented on one of my posts on Blue Sky.

42:00SPEAKERI got some emails.

42:04SPEAKERThere's deals on Best Buy for Black Friday starting soon.

42:08SPEAKERMy washer and dryer have both been running constantly today.

42:11SPEAKER- Oops.

42:12SPEAKER- Multiple people were detected by the front door camera.

42:15SPEAKERAnd yeah, my watch battery is sufficiently charged.

42:19SPEAKERSo yeah, like it's, but the summary is really convenient.

42:24SPEAKERIt turns out that the rest of it's kind of useless,

42:26SPEAKERbut the summary on the notifications is very nice.

42:29SPEAKER- I thought that like handwriting equations

42:31SPEAKERand having it solved them thing was kind of cool.

42:33SPEAKER- I don't think I've gotten,

42:34SPEAKERI don't think that's rolled out yet.

42:35SPEAKERIt's still a staggered rollout.

42:36SPEAKER- I mean, I don't know how many equations

42:38SPEAKERmost of us are solving day to day, but you know.

42:41SPEAKER- Fewer than you might think.

42:42SPEAKER- Yes, indeed.

42:43SPEAKERAll right, my next item.

42:45SPEAKER- Yes.

42:45SPEAKER- I have written, "Poppy projects are so good now."

42:49SPEAKER- Just to be clear, the game frame's pretty old

42:50SPEAKERat this point.

42:51SPEAKER- I know, it's new to me, okay.

42:54SPEAKER- It was good a long time ago is what I'm saying.

42:57SPEAKER- One of the other things I unearthed

42:59SPEAKERalong with the fudge hog was a friend of the show, Xander,

43:02SPEAKERgave me a game frame a couple of years ago

43:04SPEAKERand I'm gonna start using the game frame.

43:06SPEAKER- It's great.

43:07SPEAKER- Yes, I mean, the broader point here

43:09SPEAKERis there are just like so many damn things out there

43:11SPEAKERbeing made by like one or two or three or four people

43:14SPEAKERthat rely on some combination of like programming

43:17SPEAKERor electrical knowledge or woodworking or you name it,

43:21SPEAKERlike just little like hobby disciplines

43:22SPEAKERthat people are coming together

43:24SPEAKERto make like rad little things.

43:26SPEAKER- It's easier to do now than ever before.

43:28SPEAKER- Yeah, and like obviously that's not a new phenomenon.

43:30SPEAKERLike that's kind of the maker movement in general,

43:32SPEAKERwhich is certainly what, 10, 15 years old.

43:35SPEAKER- Yeah, it's been around for a minute,

43:37SPEAKERmore than that, 20 almost.

43:39SPEAKER- There's just so much damn stuff that is so cool.

43:41SPEAKERLike I'm pretty excited about the game frame.

43:43SPEAKERThat's what I was buying the power supply for on Digi-Key.

43:45SPEAKER- Did we talk about that project?

43:47SPEAKERSo like there's a bunch of really amazing projects

43:49SPEAKERand this maybe overlaps with your next thing too,

43:51SPEAKERbut like the game frame, we talked about a project

43:55SPEAKERI think you and I did in our discord conversation

43:57SPEAKERthe other day that somebody made a Raspberry Pi bridge.

44:03SPEAKERLike it's like a Samba to USB thumb drive bridge

44:08SPEAKERthat uses a Raspberry Pi with wifi.

44:10SPEAKER- Yes.

44:11SPEAKER- And like the game frame is perfect for that

44:13SPEAKER'cause mine doesn't have a wifi adapter.

44:14SPEAKER- Oh, I didn't even think about that.

44:16SPEAKERBut you know, it'd be nice for people

44:17SPEAKERto dump new stuff onto the thing.

44:19SPEAKERI think it uses a micro SD card,

44:20SPEAKERso it might not actually be a good fit for this.

44:21SPEAKER- Yeah, the game frame does.

44:23SPEAKERYeah, I like to be clear what you're talking about.

44:25SPEAKERAnd then the thing that you showed me is like,

44:27SPEAKERit's extremely, that's the word I'm looking for,

44:31SPEAKERgrassroots, like very cobbled together.

44:33SPEAKERLike it's not a nice, like tidy little device

44:36SPEAKERyou can buy yet, and I don't know if it'll ever will be.

44:38SPEAKER- Probably won't ever, there's no need for it to be.

44:39SPEAKERIt's just a, but it's like a thing you plug a Raspberry Pi,

44:44SPEAKERlike you basically just plug a Raspberry Pi

44:46SPEAKERinto your, like, I think the person did it

44:48SPEAKERfor their embroidery machine.

44:49SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what that was for.

44:50SPEAKERTo be clear, when you say Raspberry Pi,

44:52SPEAKERyou're not talking the full single board computer,

44:54SPEAKERyou're talking like, what is the absolute smallest

44:55SPEAKERwith the Pico? - I think they were doing

44:56SPEAKERa Pi Zero or something.

44:57SPEAKER- Pico even, wasn't it?

44:58SPEAKER- It might've been, I don't remember.

45:00SPEAKER- Like it's a tiny thing.

45:01SPEAKERWhat we're talking about here is basically a replacement

45:03SPEAKERfor disposable USB thumb drives,

45:05SPEAKERwhere anything where you need to get files onto a device

45:08SPEAKERwhere you would plug a thumb drive in

45:10SPEAKERto get those files onto that device,

45:11SPEAKERinstead you can transfer them wirelessly to this thing

45:15SPEAKERand it will act like a thumb drive.

45:16SPEAKER- Well, it was just an interesting,

45:18SPEAKERI hadn't really thought about,

45:20SPEAKERI hadn't really thought about like a Samba to USB

45:25SPEAKERstorage bridge before as a concept.

45:27SPEAKERAnd it's really interesting to me.

45:30SPEAKER- When you think about it, it's so obvious though,

45:31SPEAKERlike those technologies are all so well understood

45:35SPEAKERwhen you combine them in an interesting way

45:37SPEAKERand you get a whole new thing.

45:38SPEAKER- And like, one of the other things

45:39SPEAKERthat's happened to me recently is I have this old,

45:42SPEAKERit's one of the first big digital picture frames.

45:44SPEAKERIt's in my dining room and it was the electric objects

45:48SPEAKERwas a company that got bought by Jiffy.

45:52SPEAKERAnd then the, like with the promise

45:54SPEAKERthat the service would run forever

45:55SPEAKERand then you're never gonna believe what happened next.

45:59SPEAKERThe service didn't run forever.

46:01SPEAKERBut the Reddit community for the EO frames

46:07SPEAKERhas come up with a Raspberry Pi based project

46:09SPEAKERthat lets you basically just re-invigorate

46:12SPEAKERyour old busted 19 inch picture frame.

46:16SPEAKERAnd that's amazing, that's really cool.

46:17SPEAKER- That's rad, that's rad.

46:19SPEAKERThe game frame like the head of the fudge hog

46:21SPEAKERis going to become set dressing behind me.

46:23SPEAKEROf course, I'm just biting your style at that point

46:25SPEAKER'cause you got one.

46:26SPEAKER- You're just cribbing for me, man.

46:27SPEAKERI need a fudge hog.

46:28SPEAKER- But in my defense, I have got some ideas

46:31SPEAKERfor some sprite sequences I'm going to make myself

46:33SPEAKERthat I think will be fairly unique.

46:35SPEAKER- That's been on my to-do list now for 10 years.

46:38SPEAKERFor people who don't know, the game frame

46:39SPEAKERis a pixel art frame that our friend at the show,

46:42SPEAKERJeremy Williams, made a decade and change ago.

46:45SPEAKERAnd it's a 16 by 16 pixels.

46:48SPEAKERHe built a really neat little grid that goes inside it

46:51SPEAKERso there's no bleed through between the pixels.

46:54SPEAKERAnd you get a really nice bright pixel art display

46:58SPEAKERthat's great for showing like it's mostly,

47:01SPEAKERI have mostly like 8-bit and old arcade sprites

47:03SPEAKER'cause those are the ones that are limited to 16 by 16.

47:06SPEAKERWhen you get into the post kind of NES in SNES days,

47:10SPEAKERpeople started doing bigger sprites

47:12SPEAKER'cause the machines were more capable.

47:13SPEAKER- Yes, yes, I'll say the Final Fantasy VI characters

47:16SPEAKERare all 16 by 24, which is tragic to me.

47:21SPEAKERAnyway, I'm excited to set that thing up.

47:23SPEAKERLike the open source cartridge reader

47:24SPEAKERis another one that comes to mind.

47:26SPEAKERLike we've talked about that before.

47:27SPEAKERI borrowed one of those from a good friend of the show

47:30SPEAKERthat I've been slowly using.

47:32SPEAKERI found my copy of Final Fantasy Legend

47:34SPEAKERwhen I was home last month,

47:35SPEAKERwhich is an original Game Boy game.

47:38SPEAKER- Wow.

47:38SPEAKER- Like '89 or '90, it might've come out in '90.

47:41SPEAKER- So when you rip carts with that,

47:42SPEAKERyou get both the cart ROM

47:44SPEAKERand then also your save files that are saved on there?

47:47SPEAKER- Yes, you can dump both if you want, obviously.

47:49SPEAKERWell, actually I have been dumping all the ROMs

47:52SPEAKERbecause there's so many different revisions

47:53SPEAKERof ROMs out there that it's actually kind of easier

47:55SPEAKERto just be like, you know, I'm just gonna dump the version

47:57SPEAKERthat I had with the save to absolutely guarantee

47:59SPEAKERthat it'll work, that I could play a ROM,

48:02SPEAKERthat it will load it and not like get revision two

48:04SPEAKERof the game and not have the save work or something.

48:06SPEAKERBut like that's another like cobbled together

48:09SPEAKERfrom parts type of project that people

48:11SPEAKERwith Arduino programming and soldering skills

48:14SPEAKERjust came up with, you know?

48:15SPEAKERLike there's just so many damn cool little things out there

48:18SPEAKERthat are letting you do so much

48:21SPEAKERthat you couldn't 10, 15 years ago.

48:23SPEAKER- I mean, when we had Aaron on the podcast

48:27SPEAKERtalking about Raspberry Pi and the FOSS pod,

48:31SPEAKERlike I distinctly remember being at Maker Faire

48:34SPEAKERand having people come up to me and be like,

48:36SPEAKERhey, have you seen this $30 ARM system on a chip, right?

48:40SPEAKERLike you should check this thing out, it's amazing.

48:43SPEAKERAnd it's a slow burn 'cause it took a long time

48:46SPEAKERfor people, A, for infrastructure to build daughterboards

48:50SPEAKERto happen, right, at least inexpensively.

48:54SPEAKERAnd B, it took a long time for people to figure out

48:57SPEAKERall the weird stuff that you're gonna use these things for.

48:59SPEAKERBut now we're there, we're in it hot and heavy

49:02SPEAKERand it's like, it's good stuff out there.

49:05SPEAKER- Yeah, there's more cool little projects

49:06SPEAKERthan you could ever have time,

49:08SPEAKERlike one person could ever have time to build and use.

49:11SPEAKER- Yeah.

49:12SPEAKER- Like it's just an endless supply of neat stuff.

49:14SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm a big fan.

49:16SPEAKERLike all the way up to like the NUC size computers,

49:19SPEAKERlike there's, like you can get things

49:24SPEAKERthat will run your weird projects in all sizes

49:26SPEAKERand shapes these days and I'm here for it.

49:29SPEAKER- Yeah, for sure.

49:31SPEAKER- Okay, so in the realm of things

49:34SPEAKERthat I never think about, but have made my life easier

49:38SPEAKERand in aggregate saved me, let's say,

49:41SPEAKERdozens to hundreds of minutes over the last few years,

49:45SPEAKERI've had this Logitech Powerplay mat sitting on my desk

49:48SPEAKERsince like 2017, 2018 and I don't think

49:51SPEAKERI've ever talked about it on the podcast,

49:53SPEAKERbut it's basically one of their light speed

49:56SPEAKERwireless transceivers and it has a big inductive charger

50:01SPEAKERand then you put a special disc in the bottom of your

50:04SPEAKERLogitech mouse, it only works with Logitech stuff,

50:06SPEAKERunfortunately, but it just basically always keeps

50:10SPEAKERthe battery charged somewhere between 30 and 60%

50:12SPEAKERin your wireless mouse and you never, ever, ever worry

50:17SPEAKERabout plugging the mouse in and the mouse is always charged

50:20SPEAKERand it always runs at full speed and it is a seamless,

50:25SPEAKERlike literally the entire time I've had this thing,

50:27SPEAKERthe only problem I've had is that there was an open RGB

50:32SPEAKERupdate a few months ago that if you installed

50:35SPEAKERthe Logitech driver when you were doing the open RGB update,

50:38SPEAKERit would crash the open RGB plugin

50:42SPEAKERand crash open RGB as a result.

50:44SPEAKERSo I disabled the Logitech plugin and everything's creepy.

50:46SPEAKERIt's really, really good.

50:48SPEAKER- Does the charging surface span the entire surface

50:51SPEAKERof the mouse pad or are there like dead zones

50:52SPEAKERwhere it doesn't charge if you leave it in the wrong spot?

50:54SPEAKER- You know what the best part of it is?

50:56SPEAKERIt doesn't matter because you have enough battery overhead

51:01SPEAKERon the battery. - Well, yeah, of course.

51:02SPEAKER- But no, my understanding is that the charging,

51:04SPEAKERit doesn't tell you when it's charging,

51:05SPEAKERwhen it's not charging.

51:06SPEAKERThat's how like lo-fi the charging is.

51:09SPEAKERYou just basically, as long as it's on the pad,

51:12SPEAKERthere's a pad underneath the mouse surface

51:16SPEAKERand you can use whatever mouse surface you want.

51:17SPEAKERLike I'm using, I think, a steel series,

51:20SPEAKERa steel case mouse mat with a cork underpinning

51:24SPEAKERto keep it at the same level as the charging surface.

51:27SPEAKERAnd as long as it's on the charging surface

51:29SPEAKERfor some percentage of the day,

51:31SPEAKERit charges enough that I've never run out of battery.

51:33SPEAKER- Sure. - Yeah.

51:33SPEAKER- Now that all sounds great.

51:36SPEAKER- Yes.

51:36SPEAKER- It does necessitate a cord on the desk.

51:39SPEAKER- Yeah, but I never have to plug anything in.

51:42SPEAKER- Oh, I know, I know. - Yeah.

51:43SPEAKER- I just, I'm being slightly--

51:45SPEAKER- I realize you have issues with cords.

51:46SPEAKER- Slightly flip about my new found

51:50SPEAKERzero tolerance anti-cord policy.

51:52SPEAKER- Look, if you drilled a little hole

51:53SPEAKERand dropped your micro USB down through the hole,

51:56SPEAKERthen you could actually have a right angle plug

51:58SPEAKERinto the back of the charge mat and you'd be fine.

52:00SPEAKER- Oh, does it have a plug in the mat,

52:01SPEAKERnot a pre-attached cord?

52:04SPEAKER- So there's the mat area,

52:06SPEAKERand then there's a little like brick

52:08SPEAKERthat's about the size of like a Wrigley's pack of gum,

52:10SPEAKERa little bit bigger than a Wrigley's pack of gum.

52:12SPEAKER- Right, but that doesn't work on it.

52:13SPEAKER- It has the radio and stuff in it,

52:15SPEAKERand that's where the USB plugs into.

52:16SPEAKER- Oh, so you could get a right angle or something.

52:18SPEAKER- Yeah, you could get a right angle plug

52:19SPEAKERand drill a hole and put it through.

52:20SPEAKER- That's really where I'm going with this

52:22SPEAKERis you should do that.

52:23SPEAKER- I don't care that much, my desk is really messy, dude.

52:26SPEAKERI like a clutter.

52:27SPEAKER- That's fair, that's fair, that's fair.

52:31SPEAKERInput devices, I didn't put them on my list,

52:34SPEAKERbut wireless input devices I am all in on

52:36SPEAKERafter being like an extreme wireless input skeptic

52:39SPEAKERfor a long time.

52:40SPEAKERThey've gotten so good.

52:42SPEAKER- See, the mouse I'm good with, the keyboard I can't,

52:45SPEAKERlike the benefit of having no wire on the keyboard is not,

52:48SPEAKERI'd rather have bright RGB on the keyboard.

52:50SPEAKERI'm vain and shallow.

52:52SPEAKER- Fair. - What else you got?

52:54SPEAKERYou got another one?

52:54SPEAKER- This I guess kind of follows on from my last one

52:57SPEAKERa little bit 'cause of some of the stuff

52:58SPEAKERI've been working with this week.

53:00SPEAKERCheap, small, efficient compute.

53:02SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

53:03SPEAKER- I've got a Pi 4 here that I have doing a lot of things.

53:05SPEAKERI wiped that thing yesterday

53:07SPEAKERand have been setting it back up.

53:08SPEAKER- What are you gonna, oh, this is like

53:10SPEAKERa multi-purpose Pi 4.

53:11SPEAKER- The host name is literally multi-berry

53:14SPEAKER'cause it does multi things, let's say.

53:17SPEAKER- That is a lot of things.

53:18SPEAKER- It runs Home Assistant, Pi hole.

53:21SPEAKERIt's my wire guard, like it's a Pi 4 is fast enough

53:23SPEAKERto be the thing that does your wire guard.

53:25SPEAKER- Yeah. - Coming into the house

53:26SPEAKERso it does stuff like that.

53:28SPEAKERTurns out there is no way, there's no supported I should say,

53:31SPEAKERno supported way to update the version of Linux

53:34SPEAKERon a Raspberry Pi, the one provided by the Pi Foundation.

53:37SPEAKERLike you can try, but they explicitly say,

53:40SPEAKERhey, we do not support operating system upgrades.

53:42SPEAKEROur official recommendation is wipe it

53:44SPEAKERand install the new version.

53:46SPEAKER- Wait, so you can't just like do like the app

53:48SPEAKERget install update?

53:50SPEAKER- Yeah, you can't do like an apt dist upgrade or whatever.

53:53SPEAKER- Wow, I didn't know that. - I mean, you can try again.

53:54SPEAKERAgain, you can try and it might work,

53:56SPEAKERbut like the literal official messaging

54:00SPEAKERfrom the Pi Foundation is to update your Raspberry Pi OS,

54:03SPEAKERyou should wipe it and put the new one on.

54:05SPEAKERAnyway, it might, whatever, it's old and crufty enough.

54:08SPEAKERAnd I'm moving over to Docker style containers

54:11SPEAKERfrom LXC on there anyway.

54:13SPEAKER- Yeah. - So I was just like,

54:14SPEAKERyou know what, fine, I'll just wipe the thing, it's time.

54:16SPEAKERIt's been years, it's time to just start fresh anyway.

54:19SPEAKERBut you know, like setting that thing back up again,

54:20SPEAKERbringing it in here and like looking at what you're getting

54:22SPEAKERin this tiny little thing.

54:24SPEAKERI've been thinking about getting one of those fanless

54:27SPEAKERX86 boxes to make it to be a router again recently.

54:31SPEAKERThe older like end chips when we've talked about before,

54:33SPEAKERthere's a little refresh coming on those.

54:35SPEAKER- Ooh. - Like not a big deal.

54:36SPEAKERIt's like a slight clock speed bump.

54:38SPEAKERIt's basically the same chip that's just gonna be

54:39SPEAKERtwo, 300 megahertz faster from the sound of things.

54:42SPEAKERBut like the point is like ARM X86, like whatever,

54:45SPEAKERlike the like small but increasingly shockingly powerful

54:49SPEAKERcompute is so prolific these days.

54:52SPEAKER- It's so, so prolific, it's everywhere, yeah.

54:56SPEAKER- Like, you know, you've talked about your B-Link

54:58SPEAKERa million times, like you don't need a full size,

55:00SPEAKERlike ATX size NAS like I have anymore.

55:03SPEAKERYou can absolutely get a Synology

55:05SPEAKERor even a little USB enclosure like I've got

55:06SPEAKERto put hard drives in and hook a B-Link style,

55:09SPEAKERwhat used to be called a NUC up to it.

55:11SPEAKERAnd like, there's your NAS now, you know.

55:13SPEAKER- They're still called NUCs, but now Intel sold them

55:15SPEAKERto ASUS and MSI, I think, I can't remember.

55:18SPEAKER- Wait, the actual name is still in use?

55:19SPEAKER- Yeah, like if you search MSI,

55:22SPEAKERI think sells a thing called a NUC.

55:24SPEAKER- Oh, you're right, here it is.

55:25SPEAKER- And I think ASUS also sells a thing called a NUC.

55:27SPEAKERI don't understand how both companies ended up

55:29SPEAKERwith the rights to the name, but maybe it's just.

55:31SPEAKER- Yeah, right here on asus.com, NUC mini PCs,

55:34SPEAKERthe next unit of computing is still next.

55:37SPEAKER- I mean, look, it's always the next unit.

55:40SPEAKER- It lives on.

55:42SPEAKERAnyway, you know, there's just like,

55:43SPEAKERthere's so many cool little things, again,

55:45SPEAKERkind of like the hobby project stuff.

55:47SPEAKERLike there's just so many little things you can do

55:48SPEAKERaround the house with a tiny little computer

55:51SPEAKERthat only uses three to five watts of power

55:54SPEAKERand only cost you 50 bucks or something.

55:57SPEAKERAnd that's awesome.

55:58SPEAKER- Yeah, and I mean, shout out to Alder Lake too,

56:00SPEAKER'cause like it's, that's 12th gen Intel

56:02SPEAKERfor people keeping score at home.

56:04SPEAKERIt's the last of the good,

56:06SPEAKERit's the last of the pre-problem Intel CPUs.

56:09SPEAKER- Yes.

56:10SPEAKER- Not counting, obviously, the Aero Lake stuff

56:12SPEAKERthat came out earlier this year,

56:14SPEAKERbut those machines, especially when you get down

56:18SPEAKERto like the i3 and the Celeron level,

56:20SPEAKERare so inexpensive now.

56:22SPEAKERSo if you want to have like a Minecraft server

56:25SPEAKERfor your kid to play on with their friends

56:26SPEAKERand not pay five bucks a month to Microsoft,

56:31SPEAKERlike you literally will pay for that

56:33SPEAKERin a year's hosting of Microsoft Realm, right?

56:35SPEAKERThey're like 90 bucks or a hundred bucks often.

56:38SPEAKERAnd if you get them on sale, they'll be even cheaper.

56:40SPEAKERLike an Alder Lake N100, I've been looking at them

56:42SPEAKERon AliExpress with no RAM or storage,

56:45SPEAKERyou would have to add that,

56:45SPEAKERbut literally $90 for a full computer

56:49SPEAKERwithout, and the RAM and storage is not that expensive.

56:51SPEAKER- You can get the RAM and storage model

56:52SPEAKERfor 30 bucks more typically.

56:53SPEAKERSo let me get 110, 120 bucks if you don't,

56:56SPEAKERif you don't have the RAM and the SSD around.

56:58SPEAKERSo yeah, really good.

56:59SPEAKER- The N100, those mobile chips, they're just e-cores,

57:02SPEAKERlike Intel's got P and e-cores now.

57:04SPEAKERLike these low power fanless chips are just some e-cores

57:08SPEAKERfrom the current design, more or less.

57:10SPEAKERI'm sure there's like nuance there that I'm missing,

57:12SPEAKERbut it's basically the e-core design

57:14SPEAKERfrom whatever generation.

57:15SPEAKERSo we've talked about it again,

57:17SPEAKERlike the e-cores in Lunar Lake, like the newer-

57:20SPEAKER- The Skymont cores is what those are called I think.

57:22SPEAKER- Skymont is, the current Alder Lake N's are Gracemont,

57:25SPEAKERwhich was the previous generation.

57:28SPEAKERThe Skymont ones are insane.

57:29SPEAKERAnd I'm like dying for those to start hitting

57:31SPEAKERin this form factor,

57:32SPEAKERbut it sounds like that's probably another year or two away.

57:34SPEAKER- And they'll be expensive too for a long time.

57:36SPEAKER- Yeah, especially-

57:37SPEAKER- Alder Lake has the benefit of being old.

57:38SPEAKER- Right, and on a bigger process,

57:40SPEAKERI'm assuming if they do a smaller process

57:43SPEAKERfor these newer ones,

57:44SPEAKERthat'll probably jack the price up quite a bit.

57:46SPEAKERAnyway, I'm probably once,

57:48SPEAKERlike they're bumping the model number by 50.

57:50SPEAKERSo like the N100 is going to become the N150

57:52SPEAKERfrom based on the leaks, from the sound of things.

57:55SPEAKERSo assuming all that all pans out,

57:56SPEAKERI'll probably wait till that small refresh hits

57:59SPEAKERand then get one.

58:00SPEAKERBut it's crazy to think that those things are like faster

58:04SPEAKERthan the 60, they're around the speed of a 6,700K

58:07SPEAKERfrom a few years ago.

58:08SPEAKER- It's really funny to me that in the early days

58:13SPEAKERof the internet, you used to have to run your own router

58:15SPEAKER'cause routers didn't work, right?

58:17SPEAKERAnd then that ended up being a horrible mistake

58:19SPEAKER'cause it was a huge pain in the ass

58:20SPEAKERto keep a always on machine secure.

58:22SPEAKERAnd Linux wasn't really a thing

58:23SPEAKERthat most normal people were using at that time.

58:25SPEAKERSo you were doing something stupid,

58:26SPEAKERlike running a Windows 2000 or Windows XP machine.

58:29SPEAKERAnd here we are again where it's like,

58:32SPEAKERoh yeah, maybe the thing to do is to run my own router.

58:34SPEAKERI don't know.

58:35SPEAKER- It's kind of wrapped back around, I'm afraid.

58:37SPEAKERLike routers, I started to say routers and shitified,

58:40SPEAKERwhich maybe is a little harsh.

58:41SPEAKERI don't know if that's quite accurate,

58:42SPEAKERbut they have definitely gotten way too expensive

58:45SPEAKERfor what you're getting.

58:46SPEAKER- So I've been testing some mesh stuff at PC World,

58:51SPEAKERwhich is like, it's one of those technologies

58:53SPEAKERthat for a long time,

58:55SPEAKERthe idea of a wireless extender was really bad.

58:57SPEAKERAnd now if you have somebody who's non-technical

59:00SPEAKERand doesn't have wired internet in their house

59:02SPEAKERand they have like dead spots in their house,

59:04SPEAKERtell them to buy a three set mesh

59:06SPEAKERand just help them set it up so it overlaps really well.

59:08SPEAKERAnd if you're not playing games,

59:10SPEAKERit's indistinguishable from one really fast,

59:13SPEAKERreally, really good node.

59:16SPEAKERAnd like, I'm really stoked.

59:18SPEAKERLike, I'm glad that that exists.

59:19SPEAKERI'm glad that that exists as a category.

59:20SPEAKERIt's not something I'm gonna probably buy,

59:22SPEAKERbut it's technology that is easier for everyone involved.

59:29SPEAKERAnd it's good that that exists, right?

59:32SPEAKER- To be clear, I'm talking about a router

59:33SPEAKERin a discreet sense, which means not the wireless part,

59:36SPEAKERjust 'cause, you know, I'm a big advocate

59:38SPEAKERfor separating the wireless out to a separate device,

59:40SPEAKERbut yeah, absolutely like good,

59:42SPEAKEReasy out-of-the-box mesh systems that just work are great.

59:46SPEAKERAnd I'm talking more like you're kind of

59:48SPEAKERfour to $500 now gaming router, for example.

59:51SPEAKER- Well, yeah, I think that's a-

59:53SPEAKER- Your crown of Sauron looking sorts of devices, you know,

59:58SPEAKERlike wrapping those back around

1:00:00SPEAKERto just building your own again,

1:00:01SPEAKERI feel like is starting to become appropriate.

1:00:05SPEAKER- I think the mistake there is that we often,

1:00:09SPEAKERfor a lot of people, we think that, oh, your router

1:00:11SPEAKERand your Wi-Fi access point are the same device, right?

1:00:14SPEAKERAnd the benefit of building your own router

1:00:17SPEAKERis you replace that every once in a long while,

1:00:21SPEAKERand you replace your access points every time

1:00:22SPEAKERit makes sense to update your Wi-Fi to a newer spec.

1:00:26SPEAKERAnd I think the thing that is actively terrible

1:00:30SPEAKERin this category are those crown of Sauron access points.

1:00:34SPEAKER- Those have gotten very expensive.

1:00:35SPEAKER- Yeah, 'cause they're 400 bucks

1:00:36SPEAKERand they're the worst of both worlds.

1:00:38SPEAKERYou get the latest Wi-Fi standard, which is great,

1:00:41SPEAKERbut you have to replace them every two or three years

1:00:43SPEAKERwhen there's a new Wi-Fi standard if you need to keep up.

1:00:45SPEAKERAnd also you don't get as good coverage

1:00:47SPEAKERas if you had a mesh.

1:00:49SPEAKERYou may have really nice performance on your one wired node,

1:00:52SPEAKERbut your wireless nodes are gonna suffer

1:00:54SPEAKERand the bathroom in the far side of your house

1:00:56SPEAKERisn't gonna have coverage when you're in there

1:00:57SPEAKERtaking a bath and wanna, you know, doom scroll on Twitter.

1:01:00SPEAKER- And you are dealing with vendor embedded software,

1:01:03SPEAKERyou know, like whatever operating system,

1:01:05SPEAKEReven if it's like Linux based or whatever,

1:01:06SPEAKERyou're at the mercy of whoever makes that router

1:01:08SPEAKERto update it frequently

1:01:10SPEAKERto make sure everything works on there

1:01:11SPEAKERand that it's kept up to date from a security perspective.

1:01:14SPEAKERLike that's not always a guarantee

1:01:17SPEAKERdepending on who makes it.

1:01:19SPEAKER- Yeah, often the goal on those

1:01:21SPEAKERis to dump the most possible features

1:01:23SPEAKERon the back of the box.

1:01:25SPEAKERAnd so they'll be poorly supported or janky

1:01:29SPEAKERor you'll have something really weird.

1:01:30SPEAKERLike there's no DNS loop back.

1:01:31SPEAKERSo you can't connect to an external DNS entry from internal

1:01:36SPEAKERand you have all sorts of weird problems as a result of that

1:01:38SPEAKERand you're stuck with it when you have it set up.

1:01:40SPEAKERSo yeah, separate your router and your access point.

1:01:44SPEAKER- Yeah, anyway, all that is to say it's awesome

1:01:46SPEAKERthat there's so much cheap hardware out there now

1:01:47SPEAKERthat you can do stuff like that on.

1:01:49SPEAKER- Okay, so I have a couple of quick hits

1:01:51SPEAKERon hardware stuff that I really like

1:01:54SPEAKERthat we don't need to get into.

1:01:56SPEAKERM2 SSDs this week, especially are unbelievably cheap.

1:02:00SPEAKERI'm seeing good M2 SSDs that are four terabytes

1:02:04SPEAKERfor like 200 bucks and like smoking fast

1:02:07SPEAKERone terabyte SSDs for $59.

1:02:10SPEAKER- Huh, okay.

1:02:11SPEAKER- If you don't have a nice SSD in your computer,

1:02:14SPEAKERyou know, splurge, get yourself something good this week.

1:02:17SPEAKER- That's good to know.

1:02:17SPEAKERI will, I'm gonna look out for those actually.

1:02:19SPEAKERI've been thinking for a while now about getting one

1:02:21SPEAKERto plug into the back of my PS5 to put PS4 games on.

1:02:24SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:02:25SPEAKER- PS4 games do not really need to be on the fast,

1:02:27SPEAKERthe super fast internal storage,

1:02:29SPEAKERbut I don't wanna put them on a hard drive

1:02:30SPEAKER'cause who wants to play games off a hard drive

1:02:32SPEAKERat this point?

1:02:33SPEAKER- But I mean, so would you plug it

1:02:35SPEAKERinto the PS5's SSD NVMe?

1:02:37SPEAKER- No, no, no, the...

1:02:39SPEAKER- Just a USB port.

1:02:40SPEAKER- USB port on the back or the front you could use,

1:02:42SPEAKERbut it would be cleaner to put it in the back,

1:02:44SPEAKERbut it's got USB three ports.

1:02:46SPEAKER- I'm just talking about plugging a four terabyte SSD

1:02:48SPEAKERinto your NVMe slot.

1:02:50SPEAKER- Oh, well, yeah.

1:02:50SPEAKER- You have a five terabyte SSD.

1:02:52SPEAKER- Oh, I have that.

1:02:53SPEAKERWell, I have a two terabyte in there.

1:02:54SPEAKERSo now that I've got the pro,

1:02:55SPEAKERI already have four terabytes of very fast storage

1:02:59SPEAKERin that thing.

1:02:59SPEAKER- Well, la-di-da.

1:03:01SPEAKER- But I want something for PS4 games.

1:03:03SPEAKERI thought about getting one for the Xbox as well,

1:03:06SPEAKERbut I don't play old Xbox games that much.

1:03:08SPEAKERAnyway, like cheap NVMe drives and from what I've seen,

1:03:13SPEAKERpretty cheap enclosures these days as well.

1:03:14SPEAKERIt seems like you can get a pretty nice NVMe enclosure

1:03:17SPEAKERfor 15, 20 bucks now.

1:03:19SPEAKER- Yeah, like you can get one with a metal frame

1:03:22SPEAKERand all sorts of cool stuff for 50 bucks.

1:03:23SPEAKER- Massive cooling and yeah.

1:03:25SPEAKER- Yeah, or you can just do it like I do in raw dog it.

1:03:28SPEAKER- Yeah, that's sure.

1:03:30SPEAKERAlso an option.

1:03:31SPEAKER- It's just hanging out there on a stick.

1:03:33SPEAKERIt's always a little scary plugging that thing in.

1:03:35SPEAKER- Actually, I've been thinking about getting one of those.

1:03:36SPEAKERI mean, people couldn't see it.

1:03:37SPEAKERThe thing you just held up

1:03:38SPEAKERis basically just an exposed interface board

1:03:41SPEAKERwith a USB connector on it.

1:03:42SPEAKERSo the NVMe drive is exposed to the environment.

1:03:46SPEAKERI've been thinking about getting one of those as well,

1:03:47SPEAKERbecause that would make it a lot easier

1:03:48SPEAKERto switch drives in and out for testing and stuff like that.

1:03:51SPEAKER- It's great if you need to move stuff

1:03:53SPEAKERoff of like a NVMe you've used inside of a computer

1:03:58SPEAKERor something you're swapping computers

1:03:59SPEAKERor upgrading or whatever.

1:04:00SPEAKERIt's not ideal, especially if you use the software

1:04:04SPEAKERthat's provided with the drive

1:04:05SPEAKERand it requires it shows up as not the brand drive

1:04:08SPEAKERthat you have necessarily because of the USB mass storage.

1:04:11SPEAKERAnd if you have a fast drive that is using high speeds

1:04:15SPEAKERor gets hot, you have to actually have cooling

1:04:18SPEAKERto put on it when you plug it in,

1:04:19SPEAKER'cause it can overheat.

1:04:21SPEAKERBut yeah, it's handy to have for backing up old stuff.

1:04:26SPEAKERSo I bought, when I got my PineSil,

1:04:31SPEAKERthe USB-C soldering iron from the Pine people,

1:04:39SPEAKERI bought a silicone USB-C cord,

1:04:44SPEAKER'cause it was kind of recommended

1:04:46SPEAKERso that you don't accidentally light your cord on fire

1:04:48SPEAKERif you cross over and touch the hot tip to the cord.

1:04:53SPEAKERI love the silicone USB cords

1:04:55SPEAKER'cause they bend really easily.

1:04:57SPEAKERThey're pretty indestructible.

1:04:59SPEAKERLike I ended up there my cord of choice

1:05:01SPEAKERfor using with the game pads

1:05:02SPEAKERwhen I'm sitting in front of the PC.

1:05:04SPEAKER- Interesting.

1:05:05SPEAKER- Often do wired game pads on PC games

1:05:07SPEAKERjust so I don't have to worry about charging and stuff.

1:05:10SPEAKERAnd the added benefit of doing wired,

1:05:12SPEAKERlike with the DualSense, when I unplug it

1:05:15SPEAKERand I hit the PlayStation button,

1:05:16SPEAKERit turns on the PS5 that's sitting here.

1:05:18SPEAKERIf I have it plugged in, it just is hooked up to Steam.

1:05:21SPEAKERYou get in weird spots if you turn on the PS5

1:05:24SPEAKERand then plug it in

1:05:25SPEAKERand you're controlling both at the same time

1:05:27SPEAKERand mistakes can be made that way.

1:05:29SPEAKERBut incredibly useful and they coil nicely

1:05:33SPEAKERand they're great.

1:05:34SPEAKERThey're a little bit more than like a braided USB cord,

1:05:37SPEAKERbut the ones I've had are now two years old at least

1:05:41SPEAKERand I use daily, so.

1:05:43SPEAKER- That's cool.

1:05:44SPEAKERAlso, I bought the silicone one with my Pinesol,

1:05:45SPEAKERbut I didn't realize those were starting

1:05:47SPEAKERto just kind of get out in the channel more broadly.

1:05:49SPEAKER- Yeah, Anker has a line of those.

1:05:51SPEAKERI've seen generic ones at this point too,

1:05:54SPEAKERor non-Anker ones, but yeah, the Anker ones are great.

1:05:58SPEAKERI have put almost all of the USB cables

1:06:01SPEAKERthat are in my travel kit are now the silicone ones.

1:06:04SPEAKERI don't use them in the car

1:06:05SPEAKER'cause I worry that if it gets hot in there,

1:06:06SPEAKERthey'll get that tacky feel on them, but anyway.

1:06:09SPEAKER- Sure.

1:06:10SPEAKER- And then the last thing is the Steam Deck,

1:06:16SPEAKERwhich we've talked about at length.

1:06:17SPEAKERWe don't need to get into it,

1:06:19SPEAKERbut it is so nice to sit in the living room

1:06:20SPEAKERand play like little indie games locally.

1:06:23SPEAKERBeen playing a lot of Loop Hero and UFO 50

1:06:25SPEAKERand Wilmot works it out.

1:06:27SPEAKERBut then when I want to play something big,

1:06:29SPEAKERlike a big AAA thing, I just stream it

1:06:30SPEAKERfrom the PC in the other room

1:06:32SPEAKERand that works incredibly well over a Wi-Fi 6.

1:06:35SPEAKER- Yeah, I can see it.

1:06:37SPEAKER- I might have to look at the Steam Deck

1:06:41SPEAKERwhen they refresh it finally.

1:06:42SPEAKER- When you, I mean, you're traveling enough

1:06:44SPEAKERnow that it makes sense.

1:06:45SPEAKER- Well, yeah, but I mean,

1:06:46SPEAKERwe're pretty deep in on this one at this point.

1:06:49SPEAKERI feel like it could still be another year or two

1:06:51SPEAKERprobably before they roll out a new one,

1:06:53SPEAKERbut I'm fine to wait.

1:06:54SPEAKERBut once there is actual new hardware in that thing,

1:06:57SPEAKERI might, utility of it seems too great to deny.

1:07:01SPEAKER- Well, I was gonna say the other thing that's happening

1:07:03SPEAKERis the OEMs are really innovating at a high radius,

1:07:07SPEAKERradius speed. - True, true, actually.

1:07:09SPEAKER- Yeah, the new AMD Z process, Z2, I think,

1:07:11SPEAKERis the new kind of handheld-focused chip that'll,

1:07:15SPEAKERthat, can't remember if it's been, anyway.

1:07:20SPEAKERAnd like the Homebrew Linux distros

1:07:26SPEAKERthat roll up the stuff that Valve has done

1:07:28SPEAKERwith the Steam Deck OS are really great.

1:07:31SPEAKERLike Bizite running on a rogue, on a Asus ROG LI-X

1:07:36SPEAKERis a phenomenal experience.

1:07:37SPEAKER- Oh, I didn't even, I hadn't even considered,

1:07:39SPEAKERof course you could do something like that.

1:07:40SPEAKERI didn't even consider putting the Steam OS-like thing

1:07:44SPEAKERon the competing hardware that doesn't normally

1:07:46SPEAKERrun Steam OS.

1:07:47SPEAKERThat's cool. - Let me tell you

1:07:48SPEAKERabout a site called PC World over on YouTube.

1:07:51SPEAKERThere's a whole video series where we've done,

1:07:54SPEAKERwhere we tested out HoloISO and Bizite

1:07:56SPEAKERand some of the other stuff that's out there in that space.

1:07:59SPEAKER- That's cool.

1:08:00SPEAKERI didn't think the hardware support would be there

1:08:01SPEAKER'cause I know sometimes driver support is a little dicey,

1:08:03SPEAKERbut also those competing devices are always just presented

1:08:06SPEAKERas running Windows and being intended for Windows.

1:08:08SPEAKERSo I just kind of considered

1:08:09SPEAKERthat the Steam OS knockoffs would work.

1:08:12SPEAKER- Well, so most of the other devices in that category

1:08:14SPEAKERare running APUs as well.

1:08:16SPEAKERSo they just use the same AMD drivers,

1:08:19SPEAKERwhich is the hard part.

1:08:20SPEAKER- Yes.

1:08:20SPEAKER- There's a MSI Claw, which uses an Intel CPU

1:08:24SPEAKERand Intel integrated graphics,

1:08:26SPEAKERwhich is not particularly well supported by those things.

1:08:30SPEAKERAnd then there's some weird Nvidia bugs

1:08:32SPEAKERwith the Steam Deck OS front end

1:08:34SPEAKERand Nvidia's current drivers.

1:08:37SPEAKERSo that does not work great right now.

1:08:39SPEAKERBut if you're using an AMD machine,

1:08:42SPEAKERif you have an AMD GPU, especially on an AMD CPU, it's great.

1:08:46SPEAKERThe experience is really, really good.

1:08:47SPEAKER- You just made me wonder,

1:08:48SPEAKERI wonder if Intel is gonna start getting

1:08:50SPEAKERa little more competitive in that space.

1:08:51SPEAKER'Cause like Lunar Lake, as we've talked about,

1:08:53SPEAKERis killer from a power efficiency standpoint

1:08:55SPEAKERand it's got the most recent arc graphics on it,

1:08:57SPEAKERwhich also are, as integrated GPUs go, pretty good.

1:09:00SPEAKERLet's understand.

1:09:01SPEAKER- Yeah, the most recent graphics are XE2 stuff

1:09:04SPEAKERthat's in Lunar Lake is actually the same cores

1:09:08SPEAKERas Battlemage, which theoretically is launching.

1:09:11SPEAKERRumors are soon.

1:09:13SPEAKERI would guess before Nvidia does anything.

1:09:16SPEAKERBut yeah, it's pretty good.

1:09:19SPEAKERI'll be interested to see.

1:09:20SPEAKERI think the big problem there will be Linux drivers.

1:09:23SPEAKERBut MSI was early on supporting Intel stuff.

1:09:28SPEAKERI think, I wanna say the claw was Aero Lake,

1:09:30SPEAKERbut I might be wrong about that, so don't quote me.

1:09:33SPEAKER- Yeah, and Intel does pretty good Linux support.

1:09:35SPEAKER- Sorry, Meteor Lake, Meteor Lake, not Aero Lake.

1:09:38SPEAKER- I don't know how they are on graphics,

1:09:39SPEAKERbut I think I read at one point,

1:09:41SPEAKERIntel was actually the biggest contributor

1:09:42SPEAKERto the Linux kernel for a time, or maybe still is.

1:09:45SPEAKERI mean, that's mostly for server stuff,

1:09:46SPEAKERbut I would hope they would be there

1:09:48SPEAKERwith support for graphics.

1:09:49SPEAKER- So on Bizite, the Intel graphics support

1:09:52SPEAKERis good for ARC and post-ARC stuff.

1:09:56SPEAKERIt's iffy for pre-ARC stuff.

1:09:59SPEAKERIt doesn't really work for pre-ARC stuff for Steam Deck OS.

1:10:01SPEAKERYou can still run the normal desktop.

1:10:04SPEAKERIt's not a great experience on a handheld, obviously.

1:10:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:10:08SPEAKER- You got anything else?

1:10:09SPEAKER- Yes, last thing.

1:10:10SPEAKERI guess this is more perspective

1:10:11SPEAKER'cause I haven't actually done it yet.

1:10:13SPEAKERWhat I have written here is rapid, affordable eyewear.

1:10:17SPEAKERI'm in a bad glasses situation.

1:10:20SPEAKER- Those are bad glasses.

1:10:21SPEAKERI didn't want to say anything.

1:10:22SPEAKER- Come on, man, come on, man.

1:10:23SPEAKERThat hurts.

1:10:24SPEAKER- No, no, they're fine.

1:10:26SPEAKER- These were never intended to be seen by people.

1:10:28SPEAKER- Look, we all, as a former exclusive contact wearer,

1:10:32SPEAKERI've had glasses like that as well.

1:10:35SPEAKER- I'm wearing like a very tall pair, let's say.

1:10:37SPEAKERI mean, I referred to them at the eye doctor the other day.

1:10:39SPEAKERI referred to them as grandpa glasses.

1:10:41SPEAKER- Yeah, they look like-

1:10:42SPEAKER- Very large frames, very large lenses.

1:10:45SPEAKER- They look like something that what's-his-name

1:10:47SPEAKERfrom news radio would wear.

1:10:49SPEAKER- Oh, Phil Hartman?

1:10:51SPEAKER- No, Steven Root.

1:10:54SPEAKER- Hang on, was Phil Hartman even on news radio?

1:10:56SPEAKERHe was on-

1:10:57SPEAKER- Yes, yeah, no, Phil Hartman famously was on news radio.

1:10:59SPEAKERHe was on news radio when he passed.

1:11:00SPEAKER- I'm not sure I've ever seen news radio,

1:11:02SPEAKERso I couldn't tell you for sure, but-

1:11:05SPEAKER- News radio might be the thing.

1:11:07SPEAKERAnyway, news radio is a lot,

1:11:09SPEAKERbut Steven Root's the guy who played,

1:11:13SPEAKERhe played the millionaire owner of the radio station,

1:11:16SPEAKERbut also famously played, what's-his-name,

1:11:19SPEAKERthe stapler guy in office space.

1:11:23SPEAKER- Sure.

1:11:24SPEAKER- You know Steven Root, you don't know his name,

1:11:26SPEAKERbut if you saw a picture of him,

1:11:27SPEAKERyou'd recognize him immediately.

1:11:28SPEAKERYou'd be like, "Oh, right, Steven Root."

1:11:30SPEAKER- I mean, these glasses sort of look like what,

1:11:32SPEAKERlike some, I don't know, '80s Texas oil tycoon might wear

1:11:36SPEAKERkind of thing, maybe.

1:11:37SPEAKER- Yeah, that's right, they're very practical.

1:11:39SPEAKER- They're large.

1:11:40SPEAKERThe reason they're so big is these are,

1:11:42SPEAKERthis was my first pair of progressive lenses

1:11:44SPEAKERthat I got like three years ago, four years ago.

1:11:47SPEAKERI just wanted the tallest lenses I could get

1:11:48SPEAKERto see, to give myself like the maximum range

1:11:51SPEAKERon the refraction, you know what I mean?

1:11:52SPEAKERAs the, you know, for people who don't know,

1:11:56SPEAKERprogressive lenses are one, are a refractive,

1:11:59SPEAKERwhat's the term?

1:12:00SPEAKER- It's one prescription at the top

1:12:01SPEAKERand a different one at the bottom.

1:12:02SPEAKER- Yes, it's one prescription that segues

1:12:05SPEAKERinto the other down the lens.

1:12:07SPEAKERI just wanted the maximum range of gradation there,

1:12:10SPEAKERwhich is why I've got these giant lenses,

1:12:12SPEAKERwhich again, nobody was ever supposed to see.

1:12:14SPEAKER- You're doing great, Brad.

1:12:14SPEAKERDon't tell, don't let anybody give you any grief

1:12:16SPEAKERabout your lenses.

1:12:18SPEAKER- I don't even know if you want to hear about this.

1:12:19SPEAKERIn the intervening years, I lost my main pair of glasses

1:12:22SPEAKERand then my backup pair is what I've been wearing

1:12:24SPEAKERfor the last three years.

1:12:25SPEAKER- Oh no.

1:12:26SPEAKER- And have never bothered to go back to the eye doctor

1:12:28SPEAKERdespite having insurance to get an exam.

1:12:31SPEAKER- Oh no, Brad.

1:12:34SPEAKER- The, what I assume has to be the anti-reflective coating

1:12:39SPEAKERstarted coming off of those glasses,

1:12:40SPEAKERmy daily wear ones a couple of months ago.

1:12:42SPEAKER- Oh no.

1:12:43SPEAKER- Like rapidly to the point that I can barely

1:12:44SPEAKERsee through them.

1:12:45SPEAKERSo here I am on these gigantic grandpa progressive lenses

1:12:49SPEAKERaround the house now, which only you get to see.

1:12:52SPEAKER- I do appreciate you sharing with me.

1:12:54SPEAKER- I have gone to the eye doctor and gotten an eye exam

1:12:56SPEAKERand actually just went back yesterday

1:12:57SPEAKERand picked out frames, nice frames.

1:12:59SPEAKER- Okay.

1:13:00SPEAKER- Good frames.

1:13:01SPEAKER- What'd you get, some of the little cat eye?

1:13:03SPEAKER- Ah, they're, I mean, they're kind of, you'll see,

1:13:05SPEAKERthey're pretty modest, standard, rectangular,

1:13:08SPEAKERsomewhat fashionable, I would like to think.

1:13:10SPEAKERAnyway, the point is those are gonna take like upwards

1:13:12SPEAKERof a month to get here 'cause they're progressives.

1:13:14SPEAKERThey've got a high index, whatever.

1:13:17SPEAKERAnd in the meantime, it's kind of crazy how cheaply

1:13:21SPEAKERand quickly you can just get a pair of glasses these days.

1:13:24SPEAKERI don't know how recent an innovation that is.

1:13:26SPEAKERI mean, I know like some of these services

1:13:27SPEAKERhave been around for years, but like the last time

1:13:30SPEAKEReven I checked in on them, they were nowhere near as cheap

1:13:32SPEAKERas they are now and how, and, you know, same thing

1:13:35SPEAKERin terms of the speed, like a place like,

1:13:37SPEAKERand I'm not shilling 'cause I haven't even bought

1:13:39SPEAKERfrom this place, but like Zenny, for example,

1:13:41SPEAKERI was looking at, it's like 30 bucks.

1:13:43SPEAKER- Yeah, it's crazy. - Or a pair of glasses,

1:13:45SPEAKERand you can have them in like a week, right?

1:13:47SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:13:48SPEAKER- It's like, I might as well buy two or three

1:13:49SPEAKERin case I lose them again or sit on them or something.

1:13:52SPEAKER- Well, like, so I was early on Warby

1:13:56SPEAKERjust because at one point I was getting really,

1:13:58SPEAKERI started getting really bad headaches

1:13:59SPEAKERand I needed a new prescription

1:14:00SPEAKERand they could do it in like four days or something.

1:14:02SPEAKER- Right.

1:14:03SPEAKER- And I have a large prescription,

1:14:06SPEAKERbut not a difficult prescription, if that makes sense.

1:14:08SPEAKERLike it's just like straight correction.

1:14:11SPEAKERThere's no weird shit about it.

1:14:13SPEAKERAnd so it was great.

1:14:15SPEAKERAnd they did a good, like,

1:14:16SPEAKERunlike almost every optician I've ever been to,

1:14:19SPEAKERthey actually lined up where the glasses fit on my face

1:14:21SPEAKERwith where the center of the lens is,

1:14:24SPEAKERwhich when you have a strong correction is really important

1:14:27SPEAKER'cause otherwise everything's distorted and weird

1:14:29SPEAKERwhen you're looking through the edges of the lenses.

1:14:31SPEAKERAnd yeah, so anyway,

1:14:34SPEAKERI was doing internet glasses a long time ago,

1:14:37SPEAKERbut stuff, but there's still like 150 bucks, 200 bucks

1:14:40SPEAKERwhen you get all in on a pair of glasses.

1:14:43SPEAKER- And the new ones,

1:14:45SPEAKERthe new online places that are,

1:14:47SPEAKERI assume manufacturing in China

1:14:48SPEAKERand then air mailing them here are basically free.

1:14:51SPEAKER- It's crazy. - Like crazy, yeah.