00:00SPEAKER- Okay, Brad, I gotta post Breaking Containment
00:03SPEAKERon the blue sky today.
00:04SPEAKER- It's reached the discover feed, the accursed land.
00:07SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm getting replies from people like,
00:10SPEAKERwell, you know, it started like Twitter in 2010,
00:14SPEAKERwhere like Alex immediately jumps in with a better joke
00:18SPEAKERthan the one that I wrote.
00:19SPEAKERIt's classic.
00:21SPEAKERAnd then everybody else piled on after there,
00:25SPEAKERand now it's starting to be random people
00:27SPEAKERwho don't understand the joke.
00:29SPEAKER- That's doing the Twitter thing,
00:30SPEAKERthe classic algorithmic sorting of people
00:33SPEAKERthat we both follow that replied to you
00:35SPEAKERare floating to the top, you know?
00:36SPEAKERSo it's like, also, should we mention
00:38SPEAKERwhat this post is about?
00:39SPEAKER- No, no, they were the first ones, just to be clear.
00:41SPEAKERLike, just to be clear, Alex, number one with a bullet,
00:44SPEAKERhe was up, he had something up to 30 seconds
00:46SPEAKERafter I made the post.
00:47SPEAKERHe was on it.
00:48SPEAKER- Then here's Austin, and then here's Ben replying to him,
00:51SPEAKERand then here's Danica, you know?
00:53SPEAKERIt's like, when I see this many people
00:55SPEAKERthat we mutually follow responding to your thing,
00:57SPEAKERI see that it is gaining some traction.
00:59SPEAKER- Look, I was walking down the street
01:02SPEAKERon the way to GDC last week,
01:03SPEAKERand I saw a sign on the side of the Market Street,
01:07SPEAKERas one does, and they're usually for startups.
01:11SPEAKERSo it's like crypto bullshit or AI bullshit.
01:13SPEAKER- Oh, dude, the number of AI-related billboards
01:16SPEAKERin this city is, it should be illegal.
01:19SPEAKER- Yeah, like, hey, hey, you know what?
01:21SPEAKERYou can fire your whole HR department
01:23SPEAKERand use our AI thing to give everybody HR
01:25SPEAKERthat's probably better for the company
01:27SPEAKERand worse for the humans than the existing process.
01:30SPEAKER- Okay, let's be real here.
01:32SPEAKERThey knew what they were doing
01:33SPEAKERwhen they chose the name post hog, right?
01:35SPEAKER- Wait, hold on, you can't just drop that.
01:37SPEAKERI had a story, I gotta build to this, right?
01:39SPEAKER- Go on, go on.
01:40SPEAKER- So I'm walking down the street on the way to GDC,
01:43SPEAKERand I've seen these signs all over the city
01:45SPEAKERover the last several months or year,
01:47SPEAKERand like I said, usually they're for some AI nonsense
01:52SPEAKERor some crypto bullshit or something skeezy.
01:55SPEAKERThis one is just something wholesome.
01:56SPEAKERIt's post hog.
01:57SPEAKER- Right.
01:58SPEAKER- But the new signs that they put up lately
02:01SPEAKERhave this guy who's like, Kilroy was hearing it
02:04SPEAKERover the edge of the bottom edge of the sign.
02:07SPEAKERAnd I think there's more text below that,
02:08SPEAKERbut I did a strategic crop to make it look extra creepy.
02:12SPEAKERAnd I took this picture of the sign
02:14SPEAKER'cause I thought it was funny on Wednesday
02:15SPEAKERthat said post hog experiments, period.
02:19SPEAKERPost hog does that.
02:20SPEAKERAnd I was like, you know, a lot of people
02:22SPEAKERdo experiment with posting hog.
02:24SPEAKER- I sure do.
02:24SPEAKER- Yeah, and I mean, I figured what place
02:28SPEAKERis gonna appreciate posting hog jokes more than Blue Sky,
02:33SPEAKERwhich was founded on a long, long history of hog posting.
02:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, their extended brand identity
02:39SPEAKERfeatures taglines like, we're a little hog wild
02:41SPEAKERabout helping you build successful products.
02:43SPEAKERAnd they appear to have a little cartoon hedgehog mascot.
02:47SPEAKER- Oh, I thought that was a bear.
02:48SPEAKER- No, no, no, it's got spines all over it.
02:51SPEAKER- Oh, I'm looking at the one that Austin posted, replied.
02:53SPEAKER- You're suggesting there are bears with hedgehog style
02:56SPEAKERspines on them, we are in worse trouble than I thought.
02:59SPEAKER- And that's some real annihilation business there.
03:02SPEAKER- It sure is.
03:03SPEAKER- So Austin posted the picture from what I assume
03:05SPEAKERis their website that said, why post hog?
03:08SPEAKERBecause it's literally designed to be a no brainer.
03:11SPEAKERAnd then it's a picture of a bear
03:12SPEAKERwho's very clearly not wearing pants,
03:14SPEAKERsitting at a desk in front of a computer with coffee
03:16SPEAKERand like a little cup of pencils.
03:18SPEAKER- So that's, I believe, I think the disconnect here
03:20SPEAKERis that's not a chair that that hog is sitting on.
03:23SPEAKER- It's its tail.
03:24SPEAKER- Oh, you think that's the hog?
03:26SPEAKER- Absolutely, 'cause there are other,
03:28SPEAKERgo Google the mascot of post hog.
03:30SPEAKER- Oh man, I didn't realize that the post hog,
03:33SPEAKERit's a hedgehog.
03:34SPEAKER- Plenty of other illustrations out there from other angles
03:37SPEAKERand you can see clearly that that is,
03:39SPEAKERyou know, I mean, it might be a built in chair, I suppose.
03:41SPEAKERIf your tail was big enough,
03:42SPEAKERyou would kind of have a chair with you at all times.
03:44SPEAKER- And I would love to, that would be amazing
03:46SPEAKERif you just had a chair with you anywhere you went.
03:49SPEAKERI am very curious.
03:51SPEAKER- Well, first off, I know every time I've joked about this
03:54SPEAKERwith people who are like front end engineer types,
03:57SPEAKERthey're like, oh yeah, we love post hog.
03:58SPEAKERThey help us get our analytics in order or whatever.
04:01SPEAKERAnd I'm like, oh, okay.
04:03SPEAKERBut everybody else is one for the childish joke.
04:06SPEAKERSo I appreciate that.
04:07SPEAKER- You might say naming that company was a master stroke.
04:10SPEAKER(upbeat music)
04:21SPEAKER(upbeat music continues)
04:38SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.
04:41SPEAKERI'm Will.
04:42SPEAKER- I'm Brad.
04:43SPEAKER- Like the funny thing about the post hog thing
04:45SPEAKERis that people, sorry, it's broken containment,
04:47SPEAKERis that people are in like,
04:49SPEAKERsomebody asked me if it implied that there's a pre,
04:53SPEAKERit's like postmodernism, it's like post hog.
04:55SPEAKERLike we're all living in a post hog world now.
04:58SPEAKERI hadn't thought about that.
05:00SPEAKERAnd then somebody else asked if it implies the existence
05:03SPEAKERof pre hog, which I guess also could be true.
05:08SPEAKERAnyway, I'm done talking about post hog now, sorry.
05:11SPEAKER- I'm just getting started.
05:13SPEAKERI'm stinger clicking around their why post hog page,
05:16SPEAKERtrying to figure out if they have any information
05:17SPEAKERabout where their name came from.
05:19SPEAKER- I assume it's like a ground hog type situation.
05:22SPEAKER- I guess so.
05:23SPEAKER- Like they really gonna dig into it.
05:25SPEAKERThey're gonna get the business done,
05:26SPEAKERbut I bet it's just a bunch of dipshits
05:29SPEAKERwe're sitting in a room,
05:30SPEAKERwe're like, you know what would be really funny
05:30SPEAKERis if we call this the post hog.
05:32SPEAKER- They don't have a Wikipedia page yet, actually.
05:36SPEAKER- This is shocking me.
05:38SPEAKER- That's the normally the type of place you would go
05:40SPEAKERfor some dumb little apocrypha
05:42SPEAKERabout where their name came from.
05:43SPEAKERThere is, I did end up on a Wikipedia page
05:46SPEAKERfor post hoc analysis.
05:47SPEAKERI don't think that's where they got their name from.
05:49SPEAKERI don't think it's a play on that, but I don't know.
05:51SPEAKER- I do have to shout them out
05:53SPEAKER'cause they picked up my dark mode settings
05:55SPEAKERfrom the desktop and I got a dark page
05:58SPEAKERinstead of a light page.
05:59SPEAKER- I mean, that's good.
06:00SPEAKER- Which I appreciate.
06:01SPEAKER- I might argue that that has gone from a nice you have
06:03SPEAKERto expected at this point.
06:05SPEAKER- I'm gonna tell you when you post a lot of newsletter
06:07SPEAKERwithout a dark mode, people let you know.
06:08SPEAKER- I bet they do.
06:10SPEAKER- Yeah. - I bet they do.
06:11SPEAKERHow do they let you know?
06:13SPEAKER- Well, it's funny you say that.
06:14SPEAKERThey'd match reply on the email that comes in and say, hey,
06:17SPEAKERwhat about a dark mode?
06:19SPEAKERAnd I was like, I'll see if I can do that.
06:20SPEAKERSo then I just made the whole, I like, look,
06:23SPEAKERthere was no dark mode light mode toggle
06:25SPEAKERon the hosts that I chose.
06:27SPEAKERSo everything's dark mode now.
06:28SPEAKERAnd you know what?
06:29SPEAKERNobody's complained.
06:30SPEAKER- I was just about to ask.
06:31SPEAKERI would love to see some market research
06:33SPEAKERon just going default dark mode.
06:35SPEAKERAnd is there a similar size contingent
06:37SPEAKERthat wants a light mode that wants dark mode?
06:39SPEAKERI bet not.
06:39SPEAKER- I think one person was like, hey,
06:41SPEAKERI liked the light mode better actually,
06:43SPEAKERbut it wasn't really a complaint.
06:44SPEAKERIt was more of a expression of preference.
06:46SPEAKERSo anyway, hey, you think your email is a good trade
06:50SPEAKERfor that free white paper?
06:52SPEAKERNo, no, that's what post hog.
06:54SPEAKERThis is, I don't understand this.
06:56SPEAKERIt is absolutely a hedgehog.
06:57SPEAKERI'm captivated by this.
06:58SPEAKERSorry, I'm going back.
07:01SPEAKERI'm opening a document that's called March, 2025
07:03SPEAKERbecause it is the last podcast of the month,
07:05SPEAKERwhich means it is that time that we turn all of the cues
07:09SPEAKERthat were sent in this month into A's.
07:12SPEAKERProbably not all of them because it was a lot this month.
07:15SPEAKER- We've got quite a few here.
07:16SPEAKER- I was surprised we only had one Star Wars related question
07:20SPEAKERdespite I got a lot of positive feedback
07:22SPEAKERon that Rob Zachney episode.
07:23SPEAKERBut I think it's just the people like Rob a lot.
07:25SPEAKER- Yes, even the one is only kind of tangentially
07:28SPEAKERStar Wars related.
07:30SPEAKERWe've got a lot of cues here.
07:31SPEAKERSome of them are bolded.
07:33SPEAKEROthers are highlighted in yellow
07:35SPEAKER'cause that's how we differentiate which emails
07:37SPEAKEReach of us wants to read.
07:39SPEAKERSee, I gave you the bold
07:40SPEAKER'cause you can just keyboard shortcut that.
07:42SPEAKERI have to click like three times to-
07:44SPEAKER- You could italics.
07:46SPEAKER- It's true.
07:47SPEAKERI don't think that's as eye-catching.
07:49SPEAKER- Well, I mean, I could, like if you want to be egalitarian,
07:51SPEAKERI'm happy to switch to highlighting.
07:53SPEAKERI often do this on my iPad though,
07:55SPEAKERwhich is not a good place to have to select.
07:57SPEAKERAnd like, it's a pain in the ass no matter what I do.
08:00SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm more annoyed that Google doesn't let you
08:02SPEAKERset keyboard shortcuts for colors in Google Docs.
08:05SPEAKEREverything should let you set keyboard shortcuts
08:06SPEAKERfor everything.
08:08SPEAKER- This is the first 100% fast mail emails episode.
08:14SPEAKERI took all of the emails that are my fast mail folder
08:17SPEAKERfor this, and I archived the entire month.
08:20SPEAKERAnd now that box is clean again, fresh start.
08:24SPEAKER- That's a good feeling.
08:25SPEAKER- I also use J and K to go up and down the email list,
08:28SPEAKERwhich I like a lot.
08:29SPEAKER- Really?
08:30SPEAKERWait a minute.
08:30SPEAKER- Yeah, I think Gmail does that too.
08:32SPEAKER- You know what this means?
08:34SPEAKER- What?
08:35SPEAKER- You know what J and K to go up and down are, right?
08:37SPEAKER- No.
08:38SPEAKER- You don't?
08:39SPEAKER- No.
08:40SPEAKER- Those are VIM keys, dude.
08:42SPEAKER- Fuck.
08:44SPEAKER- This is very exciting to me.
08:46SPEAKER- Oh no, I hate this.
08:48SPEAKER- You're getting there.
08:49SPEAKER- I hate this a lot.
08:50SPEAKER- You're getting there.
08:50SPEAKERI find myself now occasionally using VIM controls
08:54SPEAKERin regular processors and stuff,
08:57SPEAKERand it's becoming a problem for me.
08:59SPEAKER- No, not okay.
09:00SPEAKEROkay, so Gmail does up and down with J and K too.
09:03SPEAKER- Yeah.
09:04SPEAKER- I'm not accepting this.
09:07SPEAKERI'm gonna say that this predates VIM.
09:09SPEAKERI bet the VIM stole this from someplace else,
09:11SPEAKERand Chad's gonna let us know.
09:13SPEAKER- What if you were looking at a thing
09:14SPEAKERand you wanted to just copy the next four lines?
09:17SPEAKER- I never have ever wanted to do that in my life.
09:19SPEAKER- Without having to highlight exactly what you wanted?
09:21SPEAKERDid you know you can do that in like three keystrokes?
09:23SPEAKER- I hold down control and shift
09:25SPEAKERand press down three times to do that.
09:27SPEAKER- What if you could just hit the number of lines?
09:29SPEAKERWhat if you just hit three YY and it's in your buffer?
09:31SPEAKER- Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
09:34SPEAKER- If you want to delete the next three lines-
09:36SPEAKER- Look, this is a wholesome family podcast, Brad.
09:38SPEAKERDon't bring your weird perversions here.
09:40SPEAKERWe're here to talk about post-hog and answer questions.
09:42SPEAKER- Did you know that I can delete
09:44SPEAKERfrom the position of the cursor to the end of the document?
09:46SPEAKERI can delete with two key presses.
09:48SPEAKER- I mean, that sounds dangerous actually.
09:50SPEAKERWhy would you want that?
09:51SPEAKER- You just hit D capital G.
09:52SPEAKERWe'll delete everything from the cursor down to the bottom.
09:57SPEAKERIt's great.
09:58SPEAKER- I don't like this.
09:59SPEAKER- It's great.
09:59SPEAKER- I don't like this.
10:00SPEAKER- All right.
10:01SPEAKERCan we, have you played Utopia Must Fall yet also?
10:04SPEAKER- Yeah, the game's awesome.
10:06SPEAKER- Okay, good.
10:07SPEAKERI was going to say, everybody should check out
10:08SPEAKERUtopia Must Fall, that game rips.
10:09SPEAKERIt was part of the IDGA stuff.
10:11SPEAKER- Yeah, I think did that come up on last week's podcast?
10:13SPEAKER- Did we talk about it?
10:14SPEAKER- It may have, or we may have talked about it off air.
10:16SPEAKERIt's been out for a little bit.
10:17SPEAKERIt's been out for actually a few months.
10:19SPEAKER- Yeah, but it's-
10:20SPEAKER- It came out last year sometime.
10:21SPEAKER- It's like a vector game and it simulates
10:23SPEAKERand it runs really well on OLEDs is what I will say.
10:27SPEAKER- It's like, yeah, man, I would love to see that on OLED.
10:28SPEAKERIt's like a hyperkinetic missile command roguelike.
10:33SPEAKER- Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
10:35SPEAKERIt's like missile command with a skill tree.
10:37SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, it's very cool.
10:39SPEAKERYou know what else is cool is answering some questions.
10:41SPEAKER- Yeah, if you have a question,
10:42SPEAKERyou can send it to techpod@content.town.
10:44SPEAKERIt'll show up in my fast mail where I'll read it, copy it,
10:46SPEAKERpress J to get the next one and paste both of those
10:48SPEAKERinto the letter section at the same time.
10:53SPEAKERAnd we do these every month, so send them in.
10:56SPEAKERI think we have an overflow on the patron episode this month
10:59SPEAKERwould be my guess judging by the quality of questions.
11:03SPEAKERYeah, well look, the podcast never stopped, Brad.
11:05SPEAKER- True, it's very true.
11:07SPEAKERAll right, let's start with emails.
11:10SPEAKERThere are a lot of them.
11:11SPEAKERDave and Sheffield, I used to hear some developers citing
11:14SPEAKERthat porting their games to Stadia's Linux environment
11:17SPEAKERwas not worth the return in revenue.
11:19SPEAKERIn a post Steam Deck world and the big improvements
11:22SPEAKERin Proton, would Stadia have fared better
11:24SPEAKERif there were an easier route to Stadia via a compatibility
11:27SPEAKERlayer instead of a full native port?
11:29SPEAKEROr was it always doomed due to the subscription
11:31SPEAKERand game purchasing model?
11:33SPEAKERI think it is very much the latter.
11:35SPEAKERFrom my perspective, they were just a little bit ahead
11:39SPEAKERof the Game Pass model, a little bit ahead of realizing
11:42SPEAKERthat, hey, people aren't gonna want to pay full price
11:44SPEAKERfor games they can't install locally on their machine,
11:47SPEAKERlet alone hold in their hand as a hard copy.
11:49SPEAKER- Well, there was also the problem that as I understand it,
11:52SPEAKERthey didn't actually give anyone, they didn't,
11:56SPEAKERso they had a platform with no users and no way
11:59SPEAKERto project revenue and substantial porting costs.
12:02SPEAKERSo hundreds of thousands of dollars for big games
12:06SPEAKERand still like a couple months run rate probably
12:10SPEAKERfor smaller games.
12:11SPEAKERAnd they didn't help subsidize that.
12:13SPEAKERSo typically when you have a new platform that has no users
12:16SPEAKERand no installed base, you say, hey, we're gonna subsidize
12:22SPEAKERthis and we'll recoup that when you start selling the game.
12:25SPEAKERBut if you don't, if the game doesn't sell
12:26SPEAKERbecause our platform sucks, then it's on us, right?
12:29SPEAKER- Right.
12:30SPEAKER- It's what Oculus did to get games on the Oculus headsets
12:33SPEAKERfor the, on the Quest and the Oculus headsets
12:35SPEAKERfor the first few generations.
12:36SPEAKERAnd Google was like, no, man, you're gonna be,
12:38SPEAKERyou're gonna have a billion user installed base.
12:40SPEAKERAnd meanwhile, gamers were like, I don't know about that.
12:43SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, that's the thing from the user perspective,
12:45SPEAKERthey did nothing to build a user or an audience
12:48SPEAKERby A, charging you to get into the service,
12:51SPEAKERthen B, making you pay full price for the games.
12:53SPEAKERThat seems crazy in retrospect.
12:55SPEAKERLike these days, if you're launching a service like that,
12:57SPEAKERit would probably be, get in the door for free
12:59SPEAKERand here's a free to play game.
13:01SPEAKERLike here's a Fortnite-esque thing.
13:04SPEAKERLike you need something for people to just try
13:06SPEAKERat this point, like charging an entry fee
13:08SPEAKERand then all the cards, game B is just a non-starter
13:13SPEAKERfor what people expect these days,
13:14SPEAKERwhich is to try a thing for free.
13:16SPEAKER- And the broadband situation is still not great
13:18SPEAKERfor streaming, like if you live someplace that's not
13:21SPEAKERon a coast or near, has good internet,
13:24SPEAKERlike Xbox game cloud is rough.
13:27SPEAKERI just, I don't, it was hubris on Google's part
13:31SPEAKERto think that they could spend money on this
13:34SPEAKERand then have it work.
13:35SPEAKER- Yeah, better middleware might've helped though.
13:37SPEAKERI mean, it might've enticed them a few more games.
13:40SPEAKERWould it have helped the service succeed?
13:41SPEAKERProbably not, but they might've had
13:43SPEAKERa slightly more robust launch lineup
13:45SPEAKERif stuff like Proton had been in place at the time.
13:48SPEAKER- The thing I've heard, and this is all like third hand,
13:51SPEAKERso I don't know if it's true or not,
13:52SPEAKERbut the thing I heard was that they hired a bunch
13:55SPEAKERof really smart people from games
13:56SPEAKERand then didn't listen to any of them
13:58SPEAKERand treated it like a tech product,
14:00SPEAKERwhich doesn't work because you have like,
14:02SPEAKERyou know, the difference is in the world of tech,
14:05SPEAKERyou build something that's good and you have measurements
14:09SPEAKERthat you can show that it's like,
14:10SPEAKERif you are the company that Posthog is competing with
14:14SPEAKERand you're Posthog, you're like,
14:15SPEAKERhey, we're 3% faster than Posthog and we run it
14:18SPEAKERand our costs are 25% lower.
14:20SPEAKERThat's an easy decision and you can put those numbers
14:23SPEAKERin a spreadsheet and then look at how long
14:25SPEAKERit's gonna take you to move your stuff over to Posthog
14:27SPEAKERand you're like, oh, okay, so this is gonna cost us
14:29SPEAKERa little bit of money upfront, but we'll make
14:30SPEAKERthat money back, we'll save that money in the next six months
14:32SPEAKERso it's totally worth doing.
14:34SPEAKERVideo games don't work that way.
14:36SPEAKER'Cause like, you can make a game that looks great
14:39SPEAKERand it runs 60 frames a second really solid
14:42SPEAKERand just is no fun at all and nobody will fucking play
14:44SPEAKERthe game and often tech people don't understand that
14:48SPEAKERhaving straddled both worlds over the last two decades.
14:51SPEAKER- Unsurprising, also pretty clear who won out
14:54SPEAKERin the power struggle there.
14:56SPEAKER- It was not Google.
14:58SPEAKER- Ah, since we're talking about Steam related stuff
15:00SPEAKERkind of, sort of, Jason in Central Wisconsin,
15:03SPEAKERhave you seen this program on Steam
15:05SPEAKERcalled Lossless Scaling yet?
15:07SPEAKERI'm half convinced it's magic, it provides upscaling
15:10SPEAKERand frame generation from an easy to use program
15:12SPEAKERthat runs in the background with minimal performance hit.
15:15SPEAKERThere is some input lag, but that's frame gen, right?
15:18SPEAKERIt's not perfect, but it's made previously unplayable games
15:21SPEAKERplayable on my laptop and they're selling it
15:23SPEAKERfor 350 during the Steam sale.
15:25SPEAKERI feel like there has to be a catch,
15:27SPEAKERbut unless I unknowingly sold my soul
15:29SPEAKERin the terms and conditions or something,
15:30SPEAKERI can't figure out what it is.
15:32SPEAKER- So all this does is a different kind of,
15:34SPEAKERit provides different levels of upscaling for,
15:38SPEAKERworks, seems to work really well on pixel games,
15:41SPEAKERbut it taps into Nvidia and AMD's super resolution stuff,
15:48SPEAKERnot the DLSS, but the DLAA and FSR super resolution.
15:54SPEAKER- Is this like a post-process thing?
15:55SPEAKERDoes this work on any game?
15:57SPEAKERI'm not seeing.
15:58SPEAKER- So yeah, it works on most games is my understanding.
16:04SPEAKERIt does it without, like DLSS gets information
16:07SPEAKERfrom the game, so like it doesn't upscale UI elements,
16:12SPEAKERfor example, it doesn't use DLSS to upscale UI elements
16:15SPEAKER'cause they get corrupted and weird when you do that.
16:17SPEAKERSo when you have a native implementation,
16:21SPEAKERit renders the stuff that's like,
16:23SPEAKERit just renders the stuff that you want rendered upscaled
16:26SPEAKERand everything else gets rendered the traditional way
16:28SPEAKERwith like a nearest neighbor or length source
16:30SPEAKERor whatever upscaling.
16:32SPEAKERI think that this is probably gonna work best
16:34SPEAKERon pixel art games.
16:35SPEAKERI think they show FTL in their promo.
16:38SPEAKER- Although they also show cyberpunk,
16:39SPEAKERso it's kind of a spread.
16:40SPEAKER- Doom Eternals in here.
16:42SPEAKERI would not use this if you have a game
16:45SPEAKERthat natively supports your cards upscaling,
16:50SPEAKERlike a DLSS or FSR.
16:53SPEAKER- Yeah, or maybe if you're playing anything competitive
16:56SPEAKERas well that is very latency dependent.
16:58SPEAKER- Absolutely would not use it
16:59SPEAKERfor anything that's competitive.
17:01SPEAKER- I'm sorry, I'm laughing because I'm looking
17:03SPEAKERat scaling options and it's got usual suspects,
17:06SPEAKERyou know, fidelity effects, some Nvidia stuff,
17:08SPEAKERnearest neighbor, anime 4K.
17:12SPEAKER- That's for anime stuff, Brad.
17:13SPEAKER- You don't say.
17:15SPEAKER- Look, anime requires its own special.
17:19SPEAKERThis is in, what do you call it too?
17:23SPEAKERHandbrake has anime settings for anime image upscaling.
17:27SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I think it would be even funnier
17:28SPEAKERif there were a scaling algorithm called anime 4K
17:31SPEAKERthat had nothing to do with anime, but anyway.
17:36SPEAKER- So I flagged this because West Fenland's
17:40SPEAKERemulation upgrade, emulation newsletter,
17:44SPEAKERa couple of weeks ago, the first March one,
17:46SPEAKERhad a thing about, what's it called?
17:50SPEAKERShaderglass, I think is what it's called.
17:52SPEAKERHave you seen that?
17:53SPEAKER- No, I've got to subscribe to that newsletter.
17:56SPEAKERI don't subscribe to a single newsletter if,
17:58SPEAKERWes, if you're listening to this in my defense,
17:59SPEAKERI don't subscribe to any newsletters.
18:02SPEAKER- I'm sitting right here, man.
18:03SPEAKER- Yours will be the first, okay, sorry,
18:05SPEAKERWill's will be the first, yours will be the second, Wes.
18:08SPEAKERIt's just not part of my workflow.
18:09SPEAKERLike reading things in my inbox is just not something
18:11SPEAKERthat I do by nature.
18:14SPEAKER- So, well, you need to see, this is why I'm,
18:17SPEAKERnow that I have fast mail and I'm excited about email again.
18:21SPEAKERSo Shaderglass.
18:22SPEAKER- Yes, okay, I'm looking at Shaderglass, it's on itch.
18:24SPEAKER- Yeah, it's an itch thing.
18:26SPEAKERAnd it's basically, it's the same idea.
18:28SPEAKERIt's basically a window that you put on top of your display
18:31SPEAKERand it applies different retro arc kind of state shaders on.
18:38SPEAKER- And you literally drag this window around
18:39SPEAKERand it just automatically--
18:41SPEAKER- It's fricking rad.
18:42SPEAKER- Refracts whatever's underneath it.
18:43SPEAKEROkay, I have to try this.
18:44SPEAKER- It is very good.
18:45SPEAKERSo I was playing this with Utopia Must Die.
18:49SPEAKERUtopia Must, is that what it's called?
18:51SPEAKERUtopia Must Fall.
18:52SPEAKERWith Utopia Must Fall the other day
18:54SPEAKERto get even more phosphor glow from the edges,
18:58SPEAKERit's very good.
18:59SPEAKERLike it's stupid, just to be clear.
19:01SPEAKERIt's stupid in a lot of ways.
19:03SPEAKERBut if you're playing like upsampled Mr. Games,
19:07SPEAKERlike I actually plugged my Mr. into the capture card
19:10SPEAKERon the back of my PC
19:11SPEAKERand then ran this on top of the capture window
19:14SPEAKERand it gave me a nice kind of CRT representation
19:18SPEAKERthat really, really hit my GPU hard, so.
19:22SPEAKER- Maybe I should not be running it as we speak.
19:25SPEAKER- No, that's quite fine.
19:26SPEAKER- I'm running it as we speak.
19:27SPEAKERYou now look like you're on a CRT, this is rad.
19:29SPEAKER- Yeah, right?
19:30SPEAKER- This is actually shockingly effective.
19:33SPEAKERI don't know how much extra latency I'm introducing
19:35SPEAKERinto my recording by running this, but we'll see.
19:37SPEAKER- It's probably fine.
19:38SPEAKER- Yeah, you know.
19:39SPEAKER- I'm gonna make you a CRT too.
19:41SPEAKER- I might actually just sit here and let you be on a CRT
19:43SPEAKERfor the rest of this podcast.
19:44SPEAKER- Why wouldn't you?
19:46SPEAKER- I've got all these cores.
19:47SPEAKERI've got this big graphics card, why not?
19:49SPEAKER- Yeah.
19:50SPEAKER- Shader glass.
19:51SPEAKER- Shader glass.
19:52SPEAKERIt's on mousimus.itch.io/shaderglass.
19:57SPEAKERI'll try to remember to link this on the show notes.
19:59SPEAKER- Yeah, Brad, just your head is in a TV now.
20:01SPEAKERThe rest of your window is not so much.
20:03SPEAKER- Yeah, that's cool, that's neat.
20:05SPEAKER- So yeah, like I think there's interesting,
20:07SPEAKERthere's multiple applications like this being used
20:09SPEAKERfor different stuff.
20:10SPEAKERLike the upsampling one, I'm a little skeptical of.
20:13SPEAKERI haven't actually spent a lot of time with it.
20:14SPEAKERI installed it and played like 10 minutes of Doom 2016 on it
20:18SPEAKERand was like, oh, this feels okay.
20:21SPEAKERBut I don't know, I don't know beyond that.
20:25SPEAKERLike I probably wouldn't use that
20:26SPEAKERjust 'cause I have a video card that supports DLSS
20:29SPEAKERand FSR and all this stuff.
20:31SPEAKER- Yeah.
20:31SPEAKER- If I didn't, I might feel a little bit differently.
20:33SPEAKERLike if I was on an Intel machine, Intel card
20:35SPEAKERor an AMD card or something like that.
20:37SPEAKER- Sure, here's an email from Alex.
20:40SPEAKERThis is a good question.
20:41SPEAKERI'm someone who doesn't enjoy using social media
20:44SPEAKERbut I'm starting a new business
20:45SPEAKERand I think it'll be in my best interest
20:46SPEAKERto have some sort of social media presence.
20:49SPEAKERI like the idea of communicating directly with customers
20:52SPEAKERbut I'm worried about getting sucked in
20:54SPEAKERby the endless newsfeed.
20:56SPEAKERIs there a way to use technology
20:57SPEAKERto mitigate the bad parts of social media
20:59SPEAKERwhile reaping the benefits of it?
21:01SPEAKERPerhaps an intermediate layer that can act as a buffer.
21:04SPEAKER- Well, I mean, you could just always post
21:06SPEAKERand never look at replies.
21:07SPEAKER- Yeah, or just look at replies.
21:10SPEAKERYeah, like just look at replies to your posts
21:11SPEAKERand just never look at any kind of algorithmic,
21:13SPEAKERanything that's serving content to you.
21:15SPEAKER- Yeah, I was gonna say the other thing is
21:17SPEAKERthe reason I've been spending more time on Blue Sky these days
21:20SPEAKERis the lack of the algorithmic feed.
21:21SPEAKERI mean, they put one in 'cause some people
21:25SPEAKERneed the algorithmic feed.
21:26SPEAKER- Yeah, that discover feed is broken.
21:28SPEAKERIt does not work well at all.
21:30SPEAKER- You have to follow a fair number of people
21:32SPEAKERfor it to take over.
21:33SPEAKERIt works reasonably well for me,
21:34SPEAKERbut I just don't use it 'cause it's always bummers.
21:36SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, well, it works better sometimes than others.
21:39SPEAKEROccasionally it runs out of posts
21:40SPEAKERor it repeats posts constantly for me
21:42SPEAKERand it also clusters topics in a way
21:44SPEAKERthat's very painfully obvious.
21:46SPEAKERLike I'll get 10 posts in a row that are about
21:49SPEAKERlike the same relatively narrow Linux topic or whatever.
21:51SPEAKERYou know, like it's not the best discover feed.
21:55SPEAKER- But I mean, I guess my point is
21:57SPEAKERthe algorithmic feed is bad just in general.
21:59SPEAKERJust get a reverse chrono feed
22:01SPEAKERand when you run out of it
22:02SPEAKERand don't follow too many people
22:03SPEAKERand then you won't have too much stuff in there, right?
22:05SPEAKERLike that's the thing.
22:07SPEAKER'Cause if you run out, like the old days of Twitter,
22:09SPEAKERyou just run out of stuff
22:10SPEAKERand then you go do something else and that worked out well.
22:12SPEAKERAnd then we started following 2,000 people each
22:14SPEAKERand you never ran out
22:16SPEAKERand the brain was just constantly getting hit by dopamine
22:18SPEAKERand that feels nice.
22:19SPEAKERAnd then it feels not nice the more you do it.
22:21SPEAKERAnd then pretty soon you're posting 250, 350 times a day
22:27SPEAKERlike Elon Musk and you go completely bad shit crazy.
22:32SPEAKER- It's a bad way to be.
22:33SPEAKER- Yeah, it's not good.
22:34SPEAKERYou don't wanna have posters madness.
22:36SPEAKER- Let's dip into the Discord questions.
22:39SPEAKERMaybe we'll swing back up into emails.
22:41SPEAKER- Wow. - In a bit.
22:42SPEAKER- Okay.
22:43SPEAKER- I'll spread it around a little bit.
22:44SPEAKER- This is unprecedented.
22:45SPEAKERWe usually, it's usually strictly
22:47SPEAKERan email first then Discord.
22:49SPEAKER- Look, I could go every other if I wanted.
22:52SPEAKERMaybe I will.
22:53SPEAKER- Okay.
22:54SPEAKER- Bobby De Fish, what's your cutoff
22:56SPEAKERfor it's time to get a new phone?
22:58SPEAKERI have an S25G, they'll stop delivering security updates
23:02SPEAKERfor it this year and the USB-C port no longer functions.
23:06SPEAKERI charge using a wireless charger
23:07SPEAKERand the phone still works as well as ever.
23:09SPEAKERShould I wait until those updates stop sooner or later?
23:12SPEAKERI would, for how important and centrally located
23:15SPEAKERin a person's life a phone is these days
23:17SPEAKERand how subject to potential exploits
23:21SPEAKERand vulnerabilities it is, I would not use a phone
23:24SPEAKERthat is not getting security updates anymore, flat out.
23:27SPEAKER- Yeah, that's the hard line for me.
23:29SPEAKERBut the soft line for me is when the camera
23:32SPEAKERon the new one is significantly better than the,
23:35SPEAKERlike I didn't upgrade iPhones last year,
23:37SPEAKERpartly because it's more of a pain in the ass
23:39SPEAKERto upgrade than it is to, like the benefits seem less
23:42SPEAKERthan the upgrade.
23:45SPEAKERBut like when the camera does something new,
23:47SPEAKERespecially like types of things that I use,
23:50SPEAKERlike low light or like fast traction action in the daytime,
23:55SPEAKERI'll upgrade for that, that's kind of my big one.
23:59SPEAKER- Yeah, let me reiterate, don't skimp on security updates,
24:02SPEAKERwhether it's phone or tablet or your computer
24:04SPEAKERor whatever operating system you're running,
24:05SPEAKERlike don't run something that is not getting
24:07SPEAKERsecurity support anymore.
24:09SPEAKER- Yeah.
24:11SPEAKER- Things are too fraught these days.
24:12SPEAKER- I did some research on this 'cause I was talking,
24:14SPEAKERI wrote about a recent newsletter was about
24:17SPEAKERthe upcoming end of Windows 10 and 20 in October
24:22SPEAKERwhere they're not gonna do security updates for it anymore.
24:24SPEAKERThey're not doing updates at all for it anymore.
24:26SPEAKERAnd I was like, what's the average time to,
24:32SPEAKERlike if you put an unpatched system on the internet,
24:35SPEAKERwhat's the average time to own it?
24:39SPEAKERAnd it's still like 18 minutes for,
24:43SPEAKERI don't know about Windows 10.
24:44SPEAKERThe Windows XP and Windows 7 ones were less than 20 minutes.
24:48SPEAKER- Now you're talking about connecting the system directly
24:50SPEAKERto a WAN connection, right?
24:52SPEAKERNo firewall, no nothing?
24:53SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
24:54SPEAKER- Yeah, that's obviously making things
24:56SPEAKERway more vulnerable than real world,
24:57SPEAKERbut I wonder if 10 is going to present
24:59SPEAKERlike a real massive target of opportunity for people
25:02SPEAKERthat are looking to exploit computer systems out there,
25:05SPEAKERlike they're gonna know, hey, there's like how many,
25:08SPEAKER10 hundreds of millions of unsupported devices
25:10SPEAKERall on the internet at once all of a sudden,
25:12SPEAKERand they're just gonna be like, hey, it's like open season.
25:14SPEAKER- I mean, so I specifically looked at
25:18SPEAKERwhat the experience was like in,
25:20SPEAKERlike the last closest analog to this,
25:23SPEAKERthe Windows 7 uptick,
25:25SPEAKERpeople actually switched to Windows 8 or Windows 10
25:28SPEAKERby the time they killed Windows 7.
25:30SPEAKERWindows XP is the last time I could remember
25:34SPEAKERan enormous number of unsupported machines
25:36SPEAKERbeing on the internet.
25:39SPEAKERAnd it was also at a time before people had routers a lot.
25:42SPEAKERSo it's a little bit of a not fair example
25:44SPEAKER'cause most machines are behind a firewall now
25:46SPEAKERand that helps a lot.
25:48SPEAKERBut yeah, the Windows XP pre-SP2 thing,
25:53SPEAKERif you were on a raw internet connection pre-SP2 coming out,
25:57SPEAKERit took like 10 minutes before some worm infected you.
25:59SPEAKERUsually it was incredibly fast.
26:01SPEAKER- That's pretty frightening.
26:02SPEAKER- Yeah.
26:03SPEAKER- My iPad Pro is not getting updates anymore.
26:05SPEAKERI just discovered recently because I was like, man,
26:09SPEAKERseems like iPad OS, also I hate saying iPad OS.
26:12SPEAKERI liked it when it was all just iOS.
26:14SPEAKERI kind of understand. - You mean iOS for iPads?
26:16SPEAKER- I understand why there is some segmentation there now,
26:18SPEAKERbut still, anyway, at some point I was like, man,
26:21SPEAKERI feel like I should have gotten iPad OS 18 by now.
26:23SPEAKERWhat the hell is going on?
26:24SPEAKERAnd then I looked and sure enough,
26:25SPEAKERmy model of iPad Pro was dropped off the support list
26:29SPEAKERfor 18, so.
26:30SPEAKER- Oh boy.
26:31SPEAKER- I don't know how Apple,
26:32SPEAKERI mean, Apple is so security conscious.
26:34SPEAKERI wonder, do they still extend like some basic security
26:37SPEAKERupdates beyond like kind of iOS end of life?
26:40SPEAKERI tried to find that information
26:41SPEAKERand I could not find a definitive answer on
26:43SPEAKERif 17 would still get security updates.
26:47SPEAKERI want to say mine did pull a minor security update
26:50SPEAKERin the last couple of months, but I could be wrong.
26:52SPEAKER- Wikipedia says iOS 17 is no longer, is obsolete,
26:57SPEAKERno longer getting security updates.
26:59SPEAKER- Okay, I guess it's time for a new iPad then.
27:01SPEAKERThat's a bummer.
27:03SPEAKERTariffs in effect and it's a bad,
27:04SPEAKERlike it's a down year for iPad updates.
27:07SPEAKERSo I'm double screwed on buying a new iPad right now.
27:10SPEAKERBut anyway.
27:11SPEAKER- You have the first, the first iPad Pro?
27:13SPEAKER- It is, gosh, I lost track of them.
27:16SPEAKERIt's the last iPad Pro that had a home button.
27:19SPEAKERI want to say it's the last 10.5 inch one.
27:22SPEAKER- Probably the last non, it's probably the last A processor,
27:25SPEAKERnot M processor one too.
27:27SPEAKER- I think they still were using A's in the 11 inch
27:30SPEAKERfor the first year or two.
27:31SPEAKER- Yeah.
27:32SPEAKER- They're apparently revving the iPad Pro this year,
27:34SPEAKERbut keeping the same M4 in it for another year.
27:37SPEAKER- So I was going to say, I think that the secret,
27:39SPEAKERif I were buying an iPad and wanted pencil support
27:42SPEAKERthese days, I think I would probably buy an Air
27:45SPEAKERat this point, because I don't know that the Pro is,
27:48SPEAKERthe Air seems really good.
27:49SPEAKER- I'm so addicted to the Pro motion.
27:53SPEAKERLike it's literally the only reason I would get a Pro
27:55SPEAKERis because I want the 120 Hertz screen.
27:58SPEAKER- I think the iPad Airs have 120 Hertz screen now.
28:01SPEAKER- I'm pretty sure that's still iPad Pro, but.
28:03SPEAKER- Oh, it's liquid retina, not.
28:05SPEAKER- Yeah, that's just a resolution thing, not a refresh thing.
28:07SPEAKERI mean, it's a dumb reason to get a Pro,
28:09SPEAKERbut I use the iPad like a couple hours a day, every day.
28:13SPEAKERAnd I've had this iPad for eight years, I think.
28:15SPEAKERI believe it's eight.
28:16SPEAKER- Spending too much time in the bathroom, dude.
28:19SPEAKER- It's a couch device.
28:20SPEAKER- Oh, oh.
28:21SPEAKER- It's a consumption device.
28:22SPEAKER- Okay, okay.
28:22SPEAKER- Like if I don't need to type,
28:23SPEAKERit's I'm probably going to just chill out on the couch
28:26SPEAKERand browse on the iPad.
28:27SPEAKER- I can see that.
28:29SPEAKER- I should probably get a new iPad.
28:30SPEAKER- How about, dude, this is crazy.
28:33SPEAKERIs this actually a thing from Bob the Cannibal?
28:37SPEAKERIs it just me or are Pay to Reject cookies
28:40SPEAKERthe ultimate form of intuitification?
28:42SPEAKER- I've never seen this before.
28:43SPEAKER- I had never seen this either,
28:44SPEAKERbut I started Googling around
28:45SPEAKERand apparently it is a thing that's starting.
28:47SPEAKERThere are starting to exist websites
28:50SPEAKERthat will let you reject their cookies,
28:52SPEAKERbut only if you pay them a fee.
28:54SPEAKER- That seems like it's not GDPR compliant.
28:57SPEAKER- That's literally the first thing that came up
28:58SPEAKERwhen I Googled this was, "Hey, are Pay to Reject cookies
29:01SPEAKERGDPR compliant?"
29:03SPEAKERDid not find a definitive answer for that.
29:08SPEAKER- Look, everything I do is not ad supported at this point.
29:12SPEAKERI guess the work I do at PC World is ad supported,
29:14SPEAKERbut I increasingly think that letting people
29:17SPEAKERrun arbitrary code on our computers
29:19SPEAKERin exchange for hot takes was a mistake.
29:21SPEAKERIt's a thing I've said for a long time.
29:24SPEAKERIt's just getting worse.
29:26SPEAKERThis is insane.
29:27SPEAKER- You should not be able to do this.
29:30SPEAKER- Yeah, totally agree.
29:31SPEAKER- This would just be a...
29:34SPEAKERLook, I'm gonna go and tell you,
29:35SPEAKERit took me about 10 minutes to figure out
29:36SPEAKERhow to block those Admiral,
29:38SPEAKER"Hey, we noticed you're blocking ads on our site" things.
29:41SPEAKERAnd now I don't see those anymore.
29:43SPEAKERWe're using my pie hole.
29:44SPEAKERNobody in the house does.
29:45SPEAKERYeah, it's great.
29:46SPEAKER- I should probably look into that too.
29:48SPEAKER- It was a fairly involved script
29:50SPEAKERthat I had to put on the thing,
29:51SPEAKERbut yeah, it works now.
29:54SPEAKERAnd I don't know, man.
29:57SPEAKERI think that that should be against the law.
30:02SPEAKER- Yeah, or in the EU, it may very well be.
30:05SPEAKER- Well, we have the CDPR,
30:07SPEAKERwhich is the California equivalent
30:09SPEAKERof the law that's modeled on the GDPR.
30:12SPEAKER- As we are learning rapidly,
30:14SPEAKERis the law still the law if nobody enforces it?
30:16SPEAKER- Well, that's a whole other problem.
30:18SPEAKER- Well, anyway, that sucks.
30:21SPEAKERThat feels like a real escalation in the shittiness wars.
30:26SPEAKERI think that really feels like a broadside on the user.
30:29SPEAKER- Look, on one hand, I'm sympathetic
30:33SPEAKERto the people who've built businesses around content
30:36SPEAKERbecause it increasingly feels like
30:41SPEAKERthe only thing big tech companies are good at
30:43SPEAKERis racing to the bottom in whatever market they're in,
30:46SPEAKERwhether that's ads or phones or video
30:49SPEAKERor any number of other things.
30:51SPEAKER- Media.
30:52SPEAKER- Media, yeah, streaming media in general.
30:56SPEAKERBut at the same time, like, I don't know,
31:00SPEAKERmaybe support sites that don't do that shit
31:03SPEAKERand just stop going to those places, 'cause fuck them.
31:05SPEAKER- Yeah, did you see the news, the Game Informer is back?
31:09SPEAKER- Yeah, I didn't get to the bottom of it, though.
31:12SPEAKER- Somebody, like a new parent company bought the IP
31:15SPEAKERfrom GameStop, God help me, I am--
31:18SPEAKER- Oh, you did it, you did the thing!
31:20SPEAKER- It's starting to happen in my head frequently
31:22SPEAKERin a way that really bums me the fuck out
31:24SPEAKERof somebody who worked at GameSpot for five years.
31:27SPEAKER- I always felt bad about it.
31:30SPEAKERJeff and Ryan used to give me shit about it
31:31SPEAKER'cause I did it all the time.
31:32SPEAKER- I mean, I always found it repugnant
31:34SPEAKERand now I'm doing it myself.
31:37SPEAKERAnyway, a new company bought the property from GameStop
31:40SPEAKERand hired everybody back that lost their jobs last year.
31:44SPEAKERBut the reason I bring that up, yeah, it is awesome.
31:46SPEAKERThe reason I bring that up, though,
31:47SPEAKERis that even they seem like they're pivoting
31:49SPEAKERtoward a more directly user-supported,
31:52SPEAKERI mean, a subscription always has been user-supported
31:55SPEAKERin a sense, but they're doing it in a more tiered way
31:58SPEAKERwhere they're saying like, hey, subscribe to the website,
32:00SPEAKERyou'll get these benefits, we're rolling out more tiers
32:02SPEAKERlater on that'll, in a more kind of like post-patreon style
32:07SPEAKERof tiered support thing, like even they are going
32:10SPEAKERmore kind of direct to audience.
32:11SPEAKER- Well, and the thing, so they're doing print too, right?
32:15SPEAKER- Yeah, later, they haven't detailed that stuff.
32:17SPEAKERI think that stuff is a lot more vague, like hey,
32:19SPEAKERwe're looking to bring back the print publication
32:21SPEAKERlater this year.
32:22SPEAKER- It's like, it's funny, I don't have a lot of,
32:26SPEAKERI don't have like nostalgia for fondness for Game Informer
32:29SPEAKERbecause like the entire time I was aware of it,
32:33SPEAKERit was kind of like GameStop's house brand.
32:37SPEAKERAnd that always felt weird to me.
32:39SPEAKERI get that they ran into editorial,
32:41SPEAKERlike I know a bunch of people who work there
32:42SPEAKERand like they're all good people and smart people
32:45SPEAKERand Jason and Dan, you know, all the folks that were there.
32:47SPEAKERSo like, I'm not, no knock against them, I just, like,
32:53SPEAKERI don't know, it just felt, it's weird.
32:58SPEAKERI think it's lovely that they're coming back.
33:00SPEAKERThat's all, that's where I'll leave it.
33:01SPEAKER- Yeah, it's just interesting to see
33:03SPEAKERa relatively large established kind of legacy media brand
33:06SPEAKEReven pivoting in this more audience supported direction.
33:10SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like, so I guess the origin
33:12SPEAKERof my complicated feelings is I worked at a video game,
33:14SPEAKERa publisher that predominantly did video game magazines
33:18SPEAKERand every single one of our magazines
33:20SPEAKERwas competing with Game Informer,
33:22SPEAKERbut it was like 800 pound gorilla
33:24SPEAKERversus a little tiny baby magazines.
33:27SPEAKER- Yeah, because they were at point of sale in the store.
33:30SPEAKER- Well, and it was subsidized by GameStop, right?
33:34SPEAKER- Well, it was two things.
33:35SPEAKERThey were sitting there by the register in stores
33:37SPEAKERand they were also pushing subscriptions on people
33:40SPEAKERthat have like the kind of GameStop Pro rewards program,
33:43SPEAKERwhatever.
33:44SPEAKER- Yeah, and if you bought two games a month,
33:46SPEAKERthe pro rewards thing made sense, so everybody had it.
33:49SPEAKER- So their circulation was huge.
33:50SPEAKER- Their circulation was enormous.
33:52SPEAKERLike we were doing 500,000 copy circ magazines
33:55SPEAKERand they were like 17 million or something ridiculous.
33:58SPEAKER- Good Lord.
33:59SPEAKER- Yeah, so part of my, like I said,
34:02SPEAKERthis is not a knock against the people who worked there
34:04SPEAKER'cause they were great people doing good work,
34:07SPEAKERbut like I'm a little raw still 'cause it was like,
34:10SPEAKERit was like, I don't know, it's like everybody else is,
34:13SPEAKERlike you're, hey, on one hand, you have Taylor Swift
34:16SPEAKERand on the other hand, you have like somebody
34:18SPEAKERthat's playing down under the hill at the, you know,
34:21SPEAKERfor 50 people and it, yeah, anyway.
34:24SPEAKER- Yeah.
34:25SPEAKER- But I'm glad they're back.
34:26SPEAKERMore independent media is a good thing.
34:28SPEAKER- Yes, here's a question from Feral Pug.
34:32SPEAKERGod, can you imagine a feral pug?
34:35SPEAKER- I mean, I'm pretty sure I've seen him.
34:36SPEAKERI think most pugs are feral in my experience.
34:40SPEAKER- Gigabit ethernet switches vary a lot on price.
34:43SPEAKERA lot of TP-Link stuff out there for about 20 bucks,
34:46SPEAKERbut then things like Ubiquiti switches that are like 80.
34:49SPEAKERAm I going to be sorry I bought the $20 switch?
34:51SPEAKERMy use case is putting a switch in my entertainment setup
34:54SPEAKERso my TV and consoles can all connect via ethernet.
34:57SPEAKERYou absolutely will not be sorry about that.
34:59SPEAKER- No, the only thing you get-
35:00SPEAKER- $20 switch, totally, totally fine for that use case.
35:03SPEAKER- Yeah, the benefit of buying the more expensive switches
35:05SPEAKERis that they're managed, which means you can log into
35:08SPEAKERa remote console and see what's connected to each port
35:11SPEAKERand turn off ports on and off and turn on things like power.
35:14SPEAKERSometimes they'll have power over ethernet built in.
35:15SPEAKERYou can turn that on and off.
35:17SPEAKER- Yeah.
35:19SPEAKER- You can reboot them and update firmware and stuff remotely,
35:21SPEAKERbut most switches are, like for home use,
35:24SPEAKERa $20 switch is totally fine.
35:26SPEAKERThe only thing you want to do is make sure you get it
35:28SPEAKERat a speed that lines up with your internet connection
35:32SPEAKERand your connection to your PCs, and also
35:40SPEAKERthat you're not, some, you want a switch and not a hub.
35:44SPEAKERIt's less of a problem these days than it used to be.
35:47SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know that you can really even readily
35:49SPEAKERfind a hub to buy at this point,
35:51SPEAKERso you're probably fine there.
35:53SPEAKER- I am, it's funny, I had this conversation a few months ago
35:57SPEAKERthere are some very, very cheap hubs.
35:59SPEAKERAnd the difference between the switch and the hub
36:01SPEAKERis that it's, the hubs have shared bandwidth
36:03SPEAKERacross the entire, all the ports.
36:05SPEAKER- Oh.
36:06SPEAKER- So it's like one gigabit shared across all five ports.
36:09SPEAKER- Yikes.
36:09SPEAKER- The switch will have one gigabit point-to-point
36:13SPEAKERfor as many ports as are active at a time.
36:15SPEAKER- Right.
36:16SPEAKER- Which for most people at home probably won't matter.
36:21SPEAKERThe thing that, I mean, especially since usually your hub
36:24SPEAKERhas an uplink to the place where the real internet comes in,
36:27SPEAKERthat's going to be the bottleneck anyway.
36:30SPEAKERYeah, so you're probably fine.
36:31SPEAKEREntertainment center, go nuts.
36:33SPEAKER- I am using a number of cheap TP-Link switches
36:36SPEAKERin my network here and have been for years.
36:37SPEAKERThey are a hundred percent fine.
36:38SPEAKERLike you know if you need a managed switch basically,
36:42SPEAKERand if you're just looking to connect
36:43SPEAKERsome home entertainment devices, you definitely don't.
36:46SPEAKER- The thing I do, I bought the expensive switches,
36:49SPEAKERbut it was just 'cause I wanted power over ethernet
36:51SPEAKER'cause my Ubiquiti access points
36:53SPEAKERare powered over power over ethernet.
36:55SPEAKERAnd I have a big switch in the garage
36:57SPEAKERthat provides power over ethernet.
36:58SPEAKERSo I power, like none of my switches
37:00SPEAKERare plugged into anything.
37:01SPEAKERThey all just run off downstream power over ethernet.
37:04SPEAKERAnd then like the switch that my home assistant
37:07SPEAKERis plugged into is powered off of power over ethernet.
37:09SPEAKERAnd so in that regard, it's really nice.
37:12SPEAKERIt does mean that my switch in the garage
37:14SPEAKERtakes so much power that I can't run it
37:16SPEAKERon a UPS anymore though, so.
37:18SPEAKER- They were making noise about banning TP-Link
37:21SPEAKERin the same way they banned some companies like Huawei.
37:24SPEAKER- Makes sense.
37:25SPEAKER- A while back, but I don't know what came of that.
37:29SPEAKER- Look, we're governing by Fiat over here, so.
37:32SPEAKER- I mean, I think this was even before
37:34SPEAKERthe current administration, I want to say,
37:36SPEAKERor I forget exactly when this talk started picking up
37:39SPEAKERand the main reason I pay attention to that
37:41SPEAKERon top of the switches being very cheap and quality,
37:44SPEAKERTP-Link was becoming a pretty big access point,
37:47SPEAKERwifi access point competitor to stuff like Ubiquiti.
37:49SPEAKERLike their model line is pretty popular.
37:51SPEAKERAnd I had been looking at maybe getting one of those,
37:54SPEAKERbut if they're going to get banned in three months,
37:56SPEAKERthat doesn't seem like the best idea, so.
37:58SPEAKER- So we tested some of those at PC World
38:02SPEAKERand I tested some of their mesh network stuff actually.
38:04SPEAKERAnd it's really nice, it was really good.
38:06SPEAKER- Yeah, I wonder if we're going to see
38:08SPEAKERtwo and a half gigabit ports on the new consoles.
38:10SPEAKERI mean, granted, that's like probably pushing three years
38:12SPEAKERaway before those are on the market, but.
38:14SPEAKER- That feels to me like a thing that it doesn't,
38:17SPEAKERlike there's probably no cost to have,
38:19SPEAKERgiven that there'll be in the chipsets.
38:21SPEAKER- You would hope, yeah, it almost certainly would be
38:23SPEAKERsupported at hardware level anyway,
38:24SPEAKERso why not just put the port on?
38:25SPEAKERI mean, I don't know, what are we talking to 10 cent savings
38:28SPEAKERor something on the port that you put in your box?
38:31SPEAKER- I don't, I don't actually know.
38:32SPEAKERI mean, I was going to ask if you think we'll have ethernet
38:35SPEAKERon the next gen consoles.
38:36SPEAKER- Oh God, please don't even say that.
38:37SPEAKER- Wi-Fi only, baby.
38:38SPEAKER- Fuck that, no thank you.
38:41SPEAKERThe fighting game community would not take kindly to that.
38:44SPEAKERI'll tell you that.
38:45SPEAKER- But Wi-Fi is, oh yeah, that's true, competitive games.
38:47SPEAKERBut if you're really competitive,
38:48SPEAKERyou're going to be playing on PC anyway, right?
38:50SPEAKER- Eh, maybe, I don't know.
38:51SPEAKEREh, there's plenty of people on console.
38:53SPEAKERI'm just spinning like eight different topics out
38:55SPEAKERfrom this one question, but what is up with smart TVs
38:59SPEAKERstill having a hundred megabit ports?
39:01SPEAKER- They don't use more data than that probably?
39:03SPEAKER- Practically every smart TV on the market
39:05SPEAKERthat I've looked at has a hundred and-
39:07SPEAKER- Really?
39:08SPEAKER- Yeah, they almost never have gigabit ports on there.
39:10SPEAKER- Oh, that's weird.
39:10SPEAKER- Which, I mean, you're not wrong for most use cases,
39:12SPEAKEReven streaming 4K from Netflix is not a big deal.
39:15SPEAKER- It's like 20 megabits, yeah.
39:16SPEAKER- Maybe if you're trying to play an extra high bit rate file
39:19SPEAKERover your LAN, that could be a problem, but anyway.
39:22SPEAKER- If you're doing that, you should have a dedicated box.
39:25SPEAKERBrad.
39:26SPEAKER- You're probably right.
39:27SPEAKER- Brad.
39:28SPEAKER- You're probably right.
39:29SPEAKERAll right, Chip Shirley has a question.
39:32SPEAKERPC hardware reviewers lately use the term uplift
39:36SPEAKERinstead of something like improvement.
39:38SPEAKERI've heard one Will Smith use this term as well.
39:41SPEAKERWhy the preference for uplift over more broadly used terms?
39:44SPEAKER- Often when you're saying, when you're talking about things
39:48SPEAKERand you're talking about a sequence of things
39:49SPEAKERand you're like recounting benchmark results
39:51SPEAKERover and over and over again,
39:52SPEAKERyou get tired of saying the same word every single time.
39:55SPEAKERSo we use different words to vary up the shapes
39:59SPEAKERthat our mouths make.
40:00SPEAKER- Yes, but yes, I guess that's one way to look at it.
40:02SPEAKERI mean, like the kind of specific term like that
40:04SPEAKERcan also sort of take on a connotation over time
40:08SPEAKERif you use it enough, right?
40:09SPEAKERLike it's kind of a meme right now, yeah.
40:11SPEAKERImprovement is a very broad word that is applicable
40:13SPEAKERin a million contexts.
40:15SPEAKERAnd you don't really hear the word uplift very often,
40:17SPEAKERexcept in the context of improvements in performance
40:22SPEAKERand stats in the PC review space.
40:24SPEAKERSo like you could kind of come to associate that term
40:27SPEAKERwith your mental model of whatever improvements
40:29SPEAKERyou're looking for in hardware.
40:30SPEAKER- Yeah, the other one that's happened
40:32SPEAKERthat I've noticed a lot lately is like the vendors
40:34SPEAKERwill describe the kind of meta uplift
40:39SPEAKERacross all the benchmarks that they test.
40:42SPEAKER- So it's like a truthy, like it feels faster.
40:45SPEAKER- Yeah, so they tack in a couple of games
40:47SPEAKERthat are real like stone cold,
40:49SPEAKERincredible performance boost bangers, like 300%.
40:52SPEAKERAnd then you'll have a bunch of like 2% lifts in there.
40:55SPEAKERAnd then your meta uplift,
40:58SPEAKERI can't remember the term they use is like 30%, right?
41:04SPEAKERBut not really, anyway.
41:06SPEAKER- Sounds like another attempt at obfuscation to me.
41:08SPEAKER- What is it?
41:09SPEAKERYou can use statistics for good
41:10SPEAKERor you can use statistics for evil, yeah.
41:13SPEAKER- All right, here's a question you flagged from James.
41:16SPEAKERI don't have a great answer for this.
41:17SPEAKERWhy in this age of laptops and small form factor keyboards
41:20SPEAKERdo alt codes still require a freaking numpad?
41:24SPEAKERI have a perfectly adequate series
41:26SPEAKERof number keys right here.
41:28SPEAKERSo if you are in a 10 keyless,
41:31SPEAKERI don't know why this is, I think it's goofy.
41:33SPEAKERBut if you are in a 10 keyless,
41:35SPEAKERthe thing you do is you make a new layer on your keyboard
41:38SPEAKERand you bind like the JKL, UIO, N comma period keys
41:45SPEAKERto be a fake 10 keyless, a 10 keypad.
41:49SPEAKERAnd that's how you do it.
41:50SPEAKERThat's how you get your problem.
41:51SPEAKER- That sounds like a lot of work.
41:54SPEAKER- I mean.
41:55SPEAKER- What if you just got a keyboard with a numpad?
41:57SPEAKER- I like having my wrist not jacked up
41:59SPEAKERand having the numpad hurts me.
42:00SPEAKER- Check this out.
42:02SPEAKER- That's too wide, dude.
42:02SPEAKER- Look at that numpad.
42:04SPEAKER- That is not an Apple keyboard.
42:05SPEAKERThat's wireless and it's black.
42:07SPEAKER- That's right.
42:08SPEAKER- Are you okay, Brad?
42:09SPEAKER- Is it black?
42:10SPEAKERCan't see the navy blue.
42:10SPEAKER- Oh, it looks black on camera,
42:12SPEAKERbut I believe that it's navy blue.
42:13SPEAKER- I just bought some new key caps for it.
42:15SPEAKER- Yeah, the Olivetti, Olivetti TTY key caps look nice.
42:18SPEAKER- Yeah, I like a numpad.
42:20SPEAKER- I have a removable numpad for spreadsheet days.
42:22SPEAKER- Yeah, that's probably fine.
42:23SPEAKERI use a numpad every day though.
42:25SPEAKERI use it all the time.
42:26SPEAKER- Really, does that how you play games?
42:28SPEAKER- Not often.
42:29SPEAKERI mean, like Caves of Kud used the numpad
42:31SPEAKERby default for a few minutes.
42:32SPEAKER- Oh God, oh no.
42:34SPEAKER- I did not become a Caves of Kud sicko.
42:37SPEAKER- I...
42:37SPEAKER- Only for what it's worth.
42:38SPEAKER- I have tried that game so many times
42:40SPEAKERand I always fall asleep.
42:42SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm fascinated by it in concept.
42:45SPEAKERI just don't know if it works for me
42:47SPEAKERin the way that I wish it did.
42:49SPEAKER- I need to start playing it sometime
42:51SPEAKERat like 10 o'clock in the morning
42:52SPEAKERwhen I can stream it
42:54SPEAKERand have people tell me how to do it for a little bit.
42:56SPEAKER- I think.
42:57SPEAKER- Stream it, yeah, actually streaming it
42:58SPEAKERsounds like the way to go.
42:59SPEAKERMaybe we should stream it sometime.
43:01SPEAKER- Maybe we should be Caves of Kud streamers, Brad.
43:03SPEAKERIs there multiplayer?
43:04SPEAKERIt's only single player, right?
43:05SPEAKER- I don't think so.
43:05SPEAKERI'm pretty sure it's single player only
43:06SPEAKERfor people who don't know.
43:08SPEAKERCaves of Kud is kind of like
43:09SPEAKERif Dwarf Fortress was a roguelike.
43:12SPEAKER- Dwarf Fortress is a roguelike.
43:13SPEAKER- No, no, no.
43:14SPEAKERDwarf Fortress is a sprawling empire building simulation.
43:18SPEAKER- But like it's different every time.
43:20SPEAKERIt follows all the rules.
43:21SPEAKER- What I mean is Dwarf Fortress is a literal management sim,
43:24SPEAKERwhereas this is a, this is an RPG.
43:26SPEAKERYou are controlling a character
43:28SPEAKERand moving around the world.
43:29SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess.
43:30SPEAKER- So it is a little bit, but it's the very same,
43:32SPEAKERit's the same kind of like very simplistic graphics,
43:35SPEAKERbut extremely deep simulation.
43:36SPEAKERIt's got a combat log you need to follow
43:39SPEAKERjust like Dwarf Fortress, like it's that kind of thing.
43:41SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a lot.
43:41SPEAKER- It's a very interesting game, but it's a lot.
43:43SPEAKER- It's the kind of game that you feel like
43:44SPEAKERyou have to watch like 10 videos before you start playing
43:46SPEAKERso you understand what's going on.
43:47SPEAKER- Uh-huh, 100%.
43:49SPEAKERAnyway, good game to have a numpad for.
43:52SPEAKER- Gross.
43:53SPEAKERQuestion from TJ, what are your thoughts
43:55SPEAKERon creating a separate partition on a large SSD
43:58SPEAKERthat is dedicated to a Windows install?
44:01SPEAKERShort of putting Windows on its own drive,
44:03SPEAKERI always thought this was a good practice,
44:04SPEAKERas if the Windows install corrupts,
44:06SPEAKERit won't take any other data with it,
44:08SPEAKERassuming personal files and games
44:09SPEAKERare on another partition or drive.
44:11SPEAKERBut searching around online, I see conflicting opinions
44:14SPEAKERon whether it's worth the effort.
44:16SPEAKER- Yeah, so that's kind of, that's kind of it.
44:20SPEAKERI've been, it's funny, I've been thinking about this a lot,
44:22SPEAKERbecause I'm working on another thing about it.
44:24SPEAKERBut remember the old days when you had to reinstall Windows
44:27SPEAKERlike once a year to kind of keep it running good,
44:29SPEAKERand then Windows 10 came out and we don't do that anymore?
44:33SPEAKERYeah, it's, I think this is a direction
44:37SPEAKERwe're gonna end up getting with Windows eventually.
44:39SPEAKERMy guess is that like OS 10 and a lot of Linuxes,
44:42SPEAKERWindows becomes immutable at some point,
44:43SPEAKERwhere the OS is essentially untouchable.
44:46SPEAKER- Yeah, we, I mean, this would be a tough subject
44:48SPEAKERto dig into because it's intensely technical
44:50SPEAKERand it's not something you can really put your hands on,
44:52SPEAKERbut immutable OSes has become a pretty interesting topic.
44:55SPEAKERThere is a site I follow, 'cause of course I do,
44:58SPEAKERfor every Mac OS release, they do the work
45:01SPEAKERand document exactly what Mac OS looks like
45:03SPEAKERunder the hood on a drive now.
45:05SPEAKERIt is insane, it is completely insane
45:08SPEAKERwhat a Mac OS install looks like now.
45:11SPEAKERLike it is so many, it is so many different little partitions
45:14SPEAKERand sub volumes and they are cryptographically signed
45:17SPEAKERand sealed and they're combined into snapshots at boot time.
45:21SPEAKERLike I could barely explain it to your looking glassy eyed,
45:24SPEAKERare you looking this up?
45:26SPEAKER- No, no, no, so I was doing research on this
45:28SPEAKERand I found the site that I think you're talking about,
45:30SPEAKERI can't remember what it's called.
45:31SPEAKER- Is it, does it have like a big block diagram
45:33SPEAKERof what the partition scheme looks like?
45:34SPEAKER- For each one, yeah, it's incredible.
45:36SPEAKER- It's mind bending, like what Apple is doing
45:39SPEAKERto keep anybody from tampering with the OS
45:41SPEAKERon your drive these days is like complete insanity.
45:44SPEAKER- Well, but I mean, so there's real benefit to it, right?
45:47SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not saying it's like a bad thing,
45:49SPEAKERit's just hard to understand.
45:50SPEAKERIf you're a lunatic like me and you want to make
45:52SPEAKERlike a bootable backup of your Mac OS install drive,
45:54SPEAKERfor example, like it's pretty tricky, tricky, not trippy,
45:58SPEAKERalthough both actually.
45:59SPEAKER- But also you don't have to because your OS 10 install drive
46:03SPEAKERis just the same as every other OS 10 machine out there.
46:06SPEAKER- So that's-- - Or OS 11, I guess.
46:08SPEAKER- Yeah, OS 15 or whatever they're on now.
46:10SPEAKERThat's actually, that's an interesting downstream consequence
46:12SPEAKERof the way Apple is doing things now.
46:13SPEAKERYou don't need to install, or I'm sorry,
46:15SPEAKERyou don't need to wipe and reinstall your Mac OS anymore
46:18SPEAKERbecause it is a, every Mac OS install
46:21SPEAKERis now a bit exact copy of every other Mac OS install.
46:24SPEAKER- Yeah. - So you just do
46:25SPEAKERa factory reset and it wipes all of the user data
46:28SPEAKERand you are back to a fresh, you know,
46:30SPEAKERexactly as if you had reinstalled anyway, it's crazy.
46:34SPEAKERI will say before we move on,
46:35SPEAKERjust 'cause I'm rambling about the things
46:36SPEAKERI spend my free time on.
46:38SPEAKERApple has a tool for backing up
46:39SPEAKERa modern ARM Macs system drive, it's called ASR.
46:44SPEAKER- Oh. - You might wanna look up.
46:46SPEAKERIt's a command line, it's a command line utility
46:48SPEAKERwith a full-on man page, like it's that level of low level,
46:52SPEAKERbut there does exist the capability to properly back up
46:55SPEAKERa Mac OS drive now with that tool if you want to,
46:59SPEAKERyou really want to spend the time doing that,
47:00SPEAKERlike I probably will at some point.
47:02SPEAKERI need to wipe my laptop and I just wanna
47:04SPEAKERmake sure everything's backed up anyway.
47:05SPEAKER- It's the Eclectic Light Company
47:07SPEAKERis the site that I was talking about.
47:09SPEAKER- That sounds right.
47:11SPEAKER- I'm gonna send you a link to the post and you can--
47:13SPEAKER- That is them, yes, absolutely.
47:15SPEAKERI'll put a link to that in as well.
47:17SPEAKERIt is a lot to wrap your head around.
47:20SPEAKER- Yeah, so to answer your question about the Windows thing
47:24SPEAKERis the benefit of doing a separate partition
47:28SPEAKERin the old days was it made it easy to image your C drive
47:31SPEAKERand then restore your C drive from an image
47:34SPEAKERwhen something got crufted up, right?
47:37SPEAKERI don't know that you have to do that work anymore
47:40SPEAKERand you don't get an easy way.
47:44SPEAKERLike if you reinstall on top of that,
47:45SPEAKERit's not gonna be any different than if it's on the partition
47:48SPEAKERwith everything else.
47:50SPEAKERIf the drive fails, that problem is gonna be the same.
47:54SPEAKERIf your drive is corrupting regularly,
47:57SPEAKERyou have a larger problem with your hardware
47:58SPEAKERthat is not related to Windows.
48:01SPEAKERLike you have something jacked up with your memory
48:02SPEAKERor overclocking your CPU too much or something like that.
48:05SPEAKERYour Windows install should not get corrupted regularly.
48:09SPEAKERThat is where we're at with Windows at this point.
48:12SPEAKERIf you're on Windows 10 or 11, it should be pretty good.
48:14SPEAKERAnd if it is, you can do the SFC space slash scan now
48:19SPEAKERto find the corrupted files and restore them
48:22SPEAKERfrom the restore partition,
48:24SPEAKERwhich is like a hidden 700 meg partition
48:27SPEAKERon the backside of your drive or gig, 70 gig.
48:30SPEAKERI can't remember.
48:31SPEAKERIt's a relatively small partition
48:32SPEAKERon the back end of your drive.
48:34SPEAKER- Yeah, so it's the little add-on partitions like that
48:37SPEAKERthat actually make me still fairly distrustful
48:39SPEAKERof the Windows installer based on past experience.
48:41SPEAKERLike it's funny, like all the work I have been doing
48:43SPEAKERwith UEFI and Linux and stuff over the last couple months
48:46SPEAKERis around trying to just finally understand
48:50SPEAKERlike modern partition schemes and bootloaders
48:52SPEAKERand how like a modern PC works once you press power.
48:57SPEAKERSo the point that like I'm installing new Linux
48:58SPEAKERis by just like dropping into a command line
49:00SPEAKERand G discing the partition layout on the disk
49:03SPEAKERhowever I want it and doing like a CH root install
49:06SPEAKERor whatever.
49:07SPEAKERBut I would never do that for Windows
49:08SPEAKERbecause I don't trust what it does
49:10SPEAKERwhen it runs the installer.
49:11SPEAKER- Oh, I think he's asking something different than that.
49:13SPEAKERI don't think he's saying keep the installer on the drive.
49:15SPEAKERI think he's saying--
49:16SPEAKER- No, no, no, I'm just offering that as a preamble
49:19SPEAKERto say like I feel very comfortable now
49:21SPEAKERworking with manual partitioning
49:22SPEAKERand manually putting OSs on different partitions
49:25SPEAKERlike he's describing.
49:26SPEAKERWhat I'm saying is that the Windows installer
49:28SPEAKERis opinionated enough about what it wants to do on its own
49:32SPEAKERthat once you hit install,
49:34SPEAKERlike I can't predict what it's gonna do to the point
49:35SPEAKERthat I don't think I would actually bother
49:37SPEAKERtrying to do something like this
49:38SPEAKERbecause I've had the Windows installer
49:40SPEAKERput that recovery partition on a whole separate drive
49:42SPEAKERfrom the one it was putting the system install on before.
49:45SPEAKERThat's the kind of point that I'm trying to make.
49:47SPEAKERI'm inclined to just give Windows a whole drive
49:50SPEAKERand let it do what it's gonna do.
49:52SPEAKER- And just work around it, yeah.
49:53SPEAKER- Yes, because it wants to do what it's gonna do anyway
49:56SPEAKERand I would just be worried about unsupported behavior
50:00SPEAKERif you try to install it away
50:02SPEAKERother than Microsoft expects you to.
50:03SPEAKER- Well, and post UEFI Windows
50:06SPEAKERalso has some really specific requirements
50:08SPEAKERabout what the last partition on the drive is.
50:10SPEAKERSo if you change that stuff around,
50:16SPEAKERfor example, I have two SSDs, two two terabyte SSDs
50:19SPEAKERand I needed to image one onto the other
50:22SPEAKERand the new one is 75 megabytes smaller than the old one.
50:28SPEAKEROh, that's no problem, you just shrink the partition
50:29SPEAKERand then you move the old partition back
50:32SPEAKERand you do an image across and it works, right?
50:35SPEAKERNo, it won't boot 'cause then the end of the back partition
50:38SPEAKERis in the wrong place
50:39SPEAKERand you have to do a bunch of boot repair stuff
50:41SPEAKERand it's an enormous pain in the ass.
50:43SPEAKERJust use Windows, let Windows manage itself
50:46SPEAKERand like I said, if your C drive
50:48SPEAKERis getting corrupted regularly,
50:49SPEAKERyou need to figure out what's wrong with your computer
50:51SPEAKER'cause something is jacked up.
50:52SPEAKER- Right, all right, question from Lovik.
50:55SPEAKERLong ago in a console generation a long time away,
50:58SPEAKERthe heyday of a voice chat in video games
51:01SPEAKERwas centered on Xbox Live.
51:02SPEAKERI know I personally haven't used it myself
51:04SPEAKERsince the 360 in favor of things like Discord,
51:07SPEAKERTeamSpeak or Skype, but game developers keep including it.
51:12SPEAKERIs there secretly a large portion of users that still use it
51:14SPEAKERor is it a feature that's included to check a box?
51:19SPEAKER- Well, okay, so cross-play games,
51:22SPEAKERa lot of players on the console use the default voice chat
51:25SPEAKERthat's built into the console.
51:26SPEAKERSo they'll voice with their party if they're in a party,
51:29SPEAKERbut people who play solo often use the in-game chat
51:33SPEAKERto speak to other people in their party, all sorts of stuff.
51:36SPEAKERAnd for cross-play, you really need it
51:41SPEAKERuntil fairly recently.
51:42SPEAKERYou need in-game voice chat for games to support cross-play
51:45SPEAKERbecause if, Brad, if you're playing on a PlayStation,
51:47SPEAKERI'm playing on an Xbox,
51:49SPEAKERwe would have to have some sort of weird phone
51:51SPEAKERor external-based solution to use Discord
51:53SPEAKERon both of those platforms until fairly recently.
51:58SPEAKERThe PC space has mostly moved away from in-game.
52:01SPEAKERHowever, the other exception is games that use ProxChat,
52:06SPEAKERthat kinda came on, I feel like Lethal Company
52:09SPEAKERwas the first thing that I saw
52:10SPEAKERthat really used ProxChat recently.
52:12SPEAKER- Yeah, I can't think of anything before that.
52:13SPEAKERIt's becoming a thing.
52:14SPEAKERIt's surprisingly common all of a sudden.
52:17SPEAKER- Well, hold on.
52:18SPEAKERIt was a thing a long time ago too.
52:20SPEAKER- Look, I know it's always been.
52:21SPEAKERIt's been a thing since the first "Halo"
52:23SPEAKERwas being demoed right on the Macintosh,
52:26SPEAKERbut it's never caught on in the way it is now,
52:28SPEAKERis what I'm saying.
52:29SPEAKERLike it's, I don't know. - Oh, it was great
52:31SPEAKERon "Halo 2" on the Xbox.
52:32SPEAKERWhen you sneak up behind somebody and shiv 'em,
52:34SPEAKERyou're like, "Hey man, I got you."
52:36SPEAKER- Wow.
52:37SPEAKER- And then they hear that in their ear
52:38SPEAKERcoming out of their speakers.
52:39SPEAKER- I must have played the wrong multiplayer games.
52:41SPEAKERI feel like people have never really cared
52:43SPEAKERabout Proximity voice chat that much
52:44SPEAKERuntil the last year or two.
52:45SPEAKER- So I played "Halo 2" with a group
52:48SPEAKERof other magazine editors and Xbox people
52:51SPEAKERand OXM editors and stuff like that for years.
52:54SPEAKERAnd we all used the ProxChat because it was super fun.
52:58SPEAKERWhen you're playing with somebody,
52:58SPEAKERyou jump in the back of their car
53:00SPEAKERand then you start whacking 'em.
53:02SPEAKERYou're like, "Oh, you can give 'em some grief
53:04SPEAKER'cause you know 'em."
53:05SPEAKERI would never do it in the wild internet
53:07SPEAKERbecause, no thank you.
53:09SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I think what's different now
53:11SPEAKERis that there are very good both gameplay
53:13SPEAKERand atmospheric reasons to constrain the voice chat like that
53:16SPEAKERlike people are coming up with design reasons
53:18SPEAKERto include it and feature it in a way
53:21SPEAKERthat they never did before.
53:22SPEAKER- There was an "Among Us" mod that was popular
53:24SPEAKERduring the pandemic for the PC version of "Among Us"
53:27SPEAKERthat added ProxChat.
53:29SPEAKERSo when you'd sneak up behind somebody and kill 'em,
53:32SPEAKERyou could talk to 'em a little bit beforehand.
53:34SPEAKERAnd that was incredible 'cause it went from being a game
53:37SPEAKERwhere everybody had to be silent
53:38SPEAKERwhen they were out doing their tasks to,
53:42SPEAKERthere's table talk and some kind of smack talk.
53:45SPEAKERBut yeah, I think to your point,
53:46SPEAKERthe games like, what's the ghost hunting game?
53:51SPEAKER- Phasmophobia.
53:52SPEAKER- Phasmophobia and Lethal Company and Content Warning
53:55SPEAKERand Void Crew and like those have taken,
54:00SPEAKERI think what, honestly, I think what happened
54:02SPEAKERis that Vivox started doing in-game chat
54:07SPEAKERand letting you hook it into your main audio system
54:10SPEAKERinstead of just being its own thing that lived outside.
54:12SPEAKERAnd then you can add like filters
54:14SPEAKERand make it a gameplay element
54:16SPEAKERrather than just a way to talk to your friends.
54:21SPEAKER- Vivox is a middleware for audio communication, right?
54:24SPEAKER- Yeah, shout out to ChromeHounds, the OG in this space.
54:28SPEAKER- Yes, like ChromeHounds is a very early example
54:30SPEAKERof a game that used voice chat in a clever way
54:32SPEAKERto enhance the gameplay and was criminally underappreciated.
54:35SPEAKER- Well, I mean, the thing that you're referencing
54:38SPEAKERis that when you started the game,
54:40SPEAKERyou didn't have voice chat unless there was a specific,
54:43SPEAKERlike a goal captured on the map by your team.
54:47SPEAKERSo you had to go and capture the antenna.
54:48SPEAKERSo, and then you'd only have voice chat
54:50SPEAKERin a bubble around that.
54:51SPEAKERIt was amazing.
54:52SPEAKER- Right, yep, cool idea.
54:54SPEAKER- But that wouldn't work in Discord
54:55SPEAKER'cause people would just cheat now, right?
54:56SPEAKER- Right, yeah, that's fair.
54:59SPEAKERLet's see, how about I'll go back to the emails
55:01SPEAKERfor a minute as promised.
55:03SPEAKERDavid from Holliston, Massachusetts.
55:06SPEAKER- Okay.
55:07SPEAKER- Will recently floated the idea of using a NUC,
55:09SPEAKERthat's the little tiny--
55:11SPEAKER- Nuclear unit of computing. - X86 box.
55:13SPEAKERYes, the formerly Intel, I guess now owned by Asus, right?
55:17SPEAKER- MSI also makes things that they call NUCs, so.
55:19SPEAKER- Oh really, maybe it's just a generic term now?
55:21SPEAKER- I don't know what happened there, but yeah.
55:23SPEAKERI thought Asus bought the NUC name, but I guess not.
55:25SPEAKERBut it's a little tiny X86 boxes.
55:28SPEAKER- Yeah, like Apple TV sized things.
55:29SPEAKER- Yes, yes.
55:30SPEAKERWill floated the idea of using a NUC as his daily driver
55:33SPEAKERand reserving the power hungry high-end PC for gaming.
55:36SPEAKERI'm also interested in this kind of setup,
55:38SPEAKERbut how would you do it?
55:40SPEAKERThe KVM is the first thing that comes to mind,
55:42SPEAKERbut is there any KVM on the market
55:44SPEAKERthat can handle your average enthusiast system?
55:47SPEAKERI have a 1440p 144 hertz G-Sync monitor
55:50SPEAKERplus two other displays, wired USB input devices,
55:53SPEAKERa USB headset and webcam,
55:56SPEAKERand all of the other connected bits on my desk
55:58SPEAKERthat I want to continue to use on both PCs.
56:01SPEAKERSwitching monitor inputs alone isn't practical for all that.
56:03SPEAKERAnd KVMs seem squarely targeted
56:06SPEAKERat other markets like data centers, AV setups,
56:09SPEAKERor business home offices where latency is less of a concern.
56:13SPEAKERPi KVM doesn't seem quite up to the task yet.
56:15SPEAKERAs a Pi KVM owner, I can attest
56:17SPEAKERit absolutely is not suited for this use case.
56:20SPEAKERDoes a proven reasonably priced
56:22SPEAKERenthusiast-friendly solution exist?
56:24SPEAKERSomething that acts as a proxy
56:26SPEAKERfor almost every important peripheral to PC connection
56:29SPEAKERhas to be rock solid and practically invisible.
56:32SPEAKER- Yep, the thing you want is called a USB switch,
56:34SPEAKERand it's just a stupid switch that connects the USB devices
56:38SPEAKERfrom one computer to another one,
56:40SPEAKERand then you're gonna change the input on the monitor.
56:42SPEAKER- Okay, so that is two steps,
56:44SPEAKERwhich maybe a little bit of extra management,
56:46SPEAKERbut probably not that big a deal.
56:47SPEAKER- What if you had control your monitor
56:49SPEAKERto change the input for you?
56:50SPEAKER- That's true.
56:52SPEAKERI mean, you still gotta press a button to do that, but--
56:54SPEAKER- It's true.
56:55SPEAKER- It's not so bad. - It's not so bad.
56:56SPEAKER- You could just make a desktop shortcut for that
56:57SPEAKERor put it on your stream deck or something like I do.
57:00SPEAKER- Yeah, so the problem is the KVM is a translation layer,
57:02SPEAKERso it takes the input from one thing
57:05SPEAKERand splits it out to the other,
57:07SPEAKERand typically they don't play well
57:08SPEAKERwith high refresh rate monitors
57:10SPEAKERor things like HDR probably would be my guess.
57:12SPEAKERSo, and at the same time,
57:14SPEAKERthey also add latency in the input side,
57:17SPEAKER'cause it basically is showing up.
57:20SPEAKERIt takes, a KVM traditionally would show up
57:23SPEAKERto your mouse and keyboard as a device,
57:26SPEAKERand then it translates those inputs out.
57:28SPEAKERSo if you have a bunch of weird buttons on your mouse,
57:31SPEAKERor if you have media keys or something like that,
57:33SPEAKERthey may or may not get translated and passed on.
57:36SPEAKERAnd things like your Logitech G hub controller
57:39SPEAKERwon't be able to, software won't be able to change the DPI
57:42SPEAKERof your monitor from the software, stuff like that.
57:45SPEAKERSo, so yeah, your instincts are good here,
57:48SPEAKERbut a Belkin makes dumb USB switches
57:51SPEAKERthat have you just stick a little button on your desk
57:54SPEAKERand you hit the button
57:54SPEAKERand it switches between the two computers
57:56SPEAKERand you're good to go.
57:57SPEAKER- Yep, yep, sounds like a nice,
58:00SPEAKERI like a good, dumb, cheap workable solution like that.
58:04SPEAKER- Yeah, they're like 40 bucks.
58:05SPEAKERThe only trick is, there's a cheap one that's USB two,
58:09SPEAKERthere's a more expensive one that's USB three.
58:12SPEAKERIf you're using USB-C keyboards that draw a lot of power
58:15SPEAKERfor lights, you probably need the USB-C one,
58:19SPEAKERotherwise the USB two one will probably work fine.
58:21SPEAKER- Sorry, I don't know if you mentioned,
58:23SPEAKERare these typically powered?
58:24SPEAKER- Unpowered, typically.
58:26SPEAKER- Okay.
58:26SPEAKER- Or I think, I think technically the one that I have
58:29SPEAKERhas a micro USB power in that I power from a five amp,
58:35SPEAKERa 500 milliamp USB plug.
58:39SPEAKER- Yeah, let's do a couple of quick questions about,
58:43SPEAKERI don't know, DRM authentication.
58:45SPEAKER- Oh, I love DRM.
58:47SPEAKER- Trying to think what bucket these fall into exactly.
58:49SPEAKERYou'll see what I mean when I read the questions though.
58:52SPEAKERHere's one from Flip Triples, which is a good username.
58:54SPEAKER- That is a good username.
58:56SPEAKER- I recently started studying for the CISSP
58:59SPEAKERto access the official study guides online content.
59:02SPEAKERYou're met with a DRM prompt.
59:04SPEAKERAnswer the following question to validate your product.
59:06SPEAKERIn chapter 11, what is the fifth word of the caption
59:10SPEAKERfor figure 11.3?
59:12SPEAKER- That is some eighties video game nonsense.
59:15SPEAKER- Are there any other products out there still using
59:17SPEAKERthis kind of MS-DOS era DRM?
59:19SPEAKERWhen was the last time you encountered it?
59:22SPEAKER- I have not seen something like that
59:24SPEAKERsince I was playing like Leisure Suit Larry games
59:26SPEAKERin the nineties probably.
59:27SPEAKER- Yeah, like 100% like Sierra games
59:29SPEAKERor games of that nature in that era.
59:31SPEAKERProbably the last time I saw something like that,
59:33SPEAKERpretty easily defeated.
59:34SPEAKER- Do you ever have one of the ones
59:35SPEAKERwith the red decoder thing
59:36SPEAKERthat you had to put over the manual and it popped up?
59:39SPEAKER- I don't think I ever had anything
59:40SPEAKERother than exactly what's being proposed here,
59:42SPEAKERwhich is just the like eighth word
59:45SPEAKERof the fifth page type stuff.
59:46SPEAKERI never had any of the fancy ones.
59:48SPEAKER- The fun part about that was as soon as I got access
59:50SPEAKERto the internet, I realized that all you had to do
59:52SPEAKERwas search for the...
59:54SPEAKER'Cause like when those games were popular,
59:57SPEAKERI lived in a dorm and people would come by
59:59SPEAKERand borrow games and stuff all the time, right?
1:00:02SPEAKER'Cause it's basically like a casual piracy ring
1:00:05SPEAKERover in the freshman dorms.
1:00:07SPEAKERAnd somebody would grab the manual
1:00:10SPEAKERand then I was just like,
1:00:11SPEAKER"Well, I'm gonna go look and see if this is on Usenet."
1:00:13SPEAKERAnd I went and looked and it wasn't just the manual
1:00:15SPEAKERthat was on Usenet, 'cause that would have been
1:00:16SPEAKERa big download.
1:00:17SPEAKERIt was like, here are the 20 different prompts
1:00:20SPEAKERthat it gives you in the passcode.
1:00:21SPEAKER- Of course.
1:00:22SPEAKER- And I was like, "Oh man, this is the saddest piracy
1:00:26SPEAKERI've ever participated in."
1:00:28SPEAKER- That's pretty good, yeah.
1:00:30SPEAKERI don't know why this question made me think of this,
1:00:32SPEAKERbut I went and looked it up right before this.
1:00:34SPEAKERHave you seen FreeDOS?
1:00:36SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:00:37SPEAKER- Okay, are you familiar with it?
1:00:38SPEAKERI might start tinkering with FreeDOS a little bit.
1:00:40SPEAKER- FreeDOS is the open source disk operating system
1:00:44SPEAKERthat's compatible with like DOS 6.2 or something?
1:00:46SPEAKER- Yes, yes, it is a new open source implementation
1:00:49SPEAKERof MS-DOS.
1:00:50SPEAKERLike it not emulates, but it re-implements
1:00:53SPEAKERall of the system calls of DOS and stuff.
1:00:55SPEAKERSo it's fully compatible with basically everything,
1:00:59SPEAKERlike every, I think more or less every DOS program
1:01:01SPEAKERand only Windows up to 2.0, unfortunately.
1:01:03SPEAKER- It's fun because it's the same,
1:01:05SPEAKERthey're doing the same thing with open source
1:01:07SPEAKERthat Microsoft did to IBM or Compaq did with IBM, right?
1:01:12SPEAKERMicrosoft did with IBM, I guess, yeah, anyway.
1:01:14SPEAKER- But you can install it on a modern computer.
1:01:16SPEAKERSo you could like, you could boot FreeDOS
1:01:19SPEAKERon your 9800X3D and play X-Wing that way natively.
1:01:23SPEAKER- I don't have a floppy drive anymore.
1:01:25SPEAKER- You can boot it off a USB stick or whatever as well.
1:01:28SPEAKER- Have you tried to play X-Wing on the DOS,
1:01:31SPEAKERon the F486 core for the MR?
1:01:33SPEAKER- No.
1:01:34SPEAKER- I'm kind of curious,
1:01:35SPEAKER'cause I think it's a little slow, right?
1:01:36SPEAKERIt's like 25 hertz or something, 25 megahertz.
1:01:39SPEAKER- I think that, I think the 486 core is like,
1:01:43SPEAKERtechnically actually like a high end 386
1:01:45SPEAKERin terms of performance, or maybe a 486 SX25,
1:01:48SPEAKERsomething like that.
1:01:49SPEAKER- Yeah, that was not very fast.
1:01:51SPEAKER- You'd be much better off with something like FreeDOS.
1:01:53SPEAKERI kind of want to mess with that thing.
1:01:55SPEAKERI'm kind of, I'm kind of becoming fascinated.
1:01:57SPEAKERThis is maybe, this might be an episode topic.
1:01:58SPEAKERIf maybe we get our hands on FreeDOS
1:02:00SPEAKERand pull up a couple other things.
1:02:02SPEAKER- I found a guy on GitHub
1:02:05SPEAKERwho was writing modern drivers for Windows 3.1.
1:02:08SPEAKER- Why, why wouldn't you?
1:02:09SPEAKERYeah, clearly.
1:02:10SPEAKER- He wrote a modern video driver
1:02:12SPEAKERthat will work on modern graphics cards
1:02:14SPEAKERand let you run Windows 3.1 on a modern machine.
1:02:16SPEAKERAnd there were screenshots on that GitHub repo
1:02:19SPEAKERof the Windows 3.1 program manager at 1080p and up.
1:02:24SPEAKER- Wow.
1:02:25SPEAKER- And it is mind blowing to look at.
1:02:27SPEAKER- I bet that's really, really small.
1:02:29SPEAKER- That's like usable, but pretty small, sure, yes.
1:02:32SPEAKER- We need to get different glasses.
1:02:34SPEAKER- There's all kinds of weird stuff going on
1:02:35SPEAKERand people trying to get old OS's
1:02:37SPEAKERworking on new computers stuff right now.
1:02:40SPEAKER- I love it.
1:02:40SPEAKER- Yeah, it's neat.
1:02:42SPEAKERThe other question in that vein is from Fernando.
1:02:44SPEAKERHow do the new I am a human button prompts work?
1:02:47SPEAKERI get the ones that make me pick motorcycles
1:02:49SPEAKERand hieroglyphics, but what's the deal with the ones
1:02:51SPEAKERthat just make me check a box, think for a bit
1:02:53SPEAKERand then deem me a soul vessel or a human?
1:02:58SPEAKER- If they can tell them, if they can tell
1:03:00SPEAKERthat I'm me just by me clicking a box,
1:03:02SPEAKERwhy not just make the check automatic?
1:03:04SPEAKER- Typically they look at the cookies,
1:03:06SPEAKERthey look at the cookies that they have access to
1:03:08SPEAKERand they can profile you as a human based on that.
1:03:13SPEAKER- Not sure, does that, where does the checkbox factor in?
1:03:16SPEAKERI'm still not sure what purpose that serves.
1:03:18SPEAKER- I think you have to, I think the machines
1:03:20SPEAKERhave a hard time checking the box.
1:03:22SPEAKERI don't know.
1:03:24SPEAKERThe point is if you're running not a,
1:03:27SPEAKERlike a lot of the things that are not humans
1:03:29SPEAKERare not running like a graphical interface
1:03:31SPEAKERso the checkbox won't even show.
1:03:32SPEAKER- Oh, you're saying the checkbox is just one last line
1:03:35SPEAKERfor like fully automated scraping or whatever?
1:03:38SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
1:03:40SPEAKER- I see what you mean.
1:03:41SPEAKER- Yeah, so.
1:03:42SPEAKER- I'm surprised that there is not some automated way
1:03:44SPEAKERfor scrapers to check boxes, like visually identify them
1:03:47SPEAKERat this point and you can like use computer vision
1:03:49SPEAKERor something.
1:03:50SPEAKER- Well, it's like the, if you wanna rule out bot answers
1:03:54SPEAKERto a survey for a contest survey,
1:03:56SPEAKERyou make the first question a yes answer, default to,
1:04:01SPEAKERyou put two questions in and one is a yes and one is a no
1:04:04SPEAKERand the things that always answer the same thing
1:04:06SPEAKERto everything will be ruled out by those two questions
1:04:09SPEAKER'cause you say, hey, are you a bot?
1:04:10SPEAKERNo, and it's like, are you sure you're not a bot?
1:04:12SPEAKERYes, and then you rule out like 90% of the bots
1:04:15SPEAKER'cause most of them are really lazy.
1:04:16SPEAKER- Yeah, fair.
1:04:18SPEAKERAll right, I'm gonna say we wrap this one up
1:04:20SPEAKERwith a cake batter lightning round, what do you say?
1:04:22SPEAKER- I love it, I love, it's my favorite time of the month
1:04:24SPEAKERis this cake batter lightning round.
1:04:26SPEAKER- Yes, all right, some quick hits here.
1:04:28SPEAKERIf I were to introduce myself as quote,
1:04:31SPEAKERbeing born in the late second millennium,
1:04:34SPEAKERdo you think that's a good opener
1:04:35SPEAKERfor a PowerPoint presentation?
1:04:36SPEAKER- Okay, so the first millennium is from zero to a thousand
1:04:40SPEAKERand the second millennium is from a thousand and one
1:04:42SPEAKERto 19 to 2000, that's a weird way to put it, man.
1:04:46SPEAKER- I think that's a pretty cool way to describe yourself.
1:04:49SPEAKERThe problem is that just about everybody with,
1:04:51SPEAKERI mean, obviously there are an increasing number
1:04:53SPEAKERof exceptions as we get deeper into the 21st century,
1:04:56SPEAKERbut a large number of people can make the same claim
1:04:59SPEAKERto fame, so not super unique at the moment,
1:05:02SPEAKERbut it still sounds very cool.
1:05:04SPEAKER- I think about those people that were born in like 1998
1:05:06SPEAKERor 1999 that might get to see the next century
1:05:09SPEAKERafter this one, probably not though,
1:05:13SPEAKERprobably not, let's be real.
1:05:14SPEAKER- Let's maybe not dig into what we expect
1:05:17SPEAKERlife expectancy trends to look like in this century.
1:05:20SPEAKER- Yeah, well, okay, yeah, I guess I've started referring
1:05:25SPEAKERto things as the turn of the century now
1:05:27SPEAKERfrom like the 1990s to the early 2000s.
1:05:29SPEAKER- Sure, I think that's totally valid.
1:05:31SPEAKER- Well, but like for the first 20 years of my life,
1:05:33SPEAKERthat was the last turn of the century, right?
1:05:36SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:05:37SPEAKER- If you're gonna do the millennium thing,
1:05:40SPEAKERyou gotta grandiose it a little bit,
1:05:41SPEAKERyou gotta make it in the waning days
1:05:43SPEAKERof the second millennium or something like that.
1:05:45SPEAKER- Yep, next question.
1:05:47SPEAKERHow often do you clean your headphones or earbuds?
1:05:50SPEAKERI find if I don't regularly wipe them down
1:05:52SPEAKERwith some isopropyl alcohol, my ear bits get irritated.
1:05:55SPEAKER- I can't use the soft, the rubbery tips on my AirPods
1:06:00SPEAKER'cause they irritate my canals.
1:06:02SPEAKER- Oh, that's a bummer.
1:06:03SPEAKER- Yeah, I think there's something in there
1:06:05SPEAKERthat my skin doesn't like.
1:06:06SPEAKERSo I buy Comply foam tips, I have for years
1:06:10SPEAKER'cause it's always been a problem within years for me
1:06:12SPEAKERand they only last about five months
1:06:15SPEAKERprobably on the outside.
1:06:17SPEAKER- Jeez.
1:06:17SPEAKER- Well, you get, it's a three pack for like 10 bucks.
1:06:19SPEAKER- Eh, that's all right.
1:06:20SPEAKER- So, you know, they go to the ocean, I'm sure,
1:06:22SPEAKERwhich feels bad.
1:06:23SPEAKERI actually, realistically, they age in my office
1:06:25SPEAKERfor a long time and then I throw them all out at once.
1:06:29SPEAKERBut they're very comfortable
1:06:30SPEAKERand they isolate the noise a little bit better.
1:06:32SPEAKER- Sure.
1:06:33SPEAKER- But usually like every two,
1:06:37SPEAKERlook, they come in colors is what I'm saying.
1:06:40SPEAKERThey're not white, so they come in colors
1:06:42SPEAKERand if I take them out and I go ew,
1:06:45SPEAKERthat's when I clean them.
1:06:46SPEAKER- Fair, I think that's probably the standard.
1:06:48SPEAKERI have a decent little like $30 pair of sound cores
1:06:52SPEAKERthat I use for exercise.
1:06:53SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:06:55SPEAKER- That I probably went like a year, year and a half on
1:06:58SPEAKERbefore I thought to clean them.
1:06:59SPEAKER- Gross, dude, gross.
1:07:00SPEAKER- Maybe about a year.
1:07:02SPEAKERAt some point I looked at them and was like,
1:07:04SPEAKERyeah, basically what you said.
1:07:06SPEAKER- I'm gonna say you wanna get like one of those,
1:07:09SPEAKERA, it's nice to have a plunger to go down in the stick hole
1:07:11SPEAKERif you're an AirPod person.
1:07:13SPEAKERSo you'd like where the sticks go in the case,
1:07:15SPEAKERyou can jam down there and clean all the gunk out of there.
1:07:17SPEAKER- Yes, I've noticed that the case actually is perhaps
1:07:20SPEAKERmore problematic than the earbud.
1:07:22SPEAKER- Yeah, you need to pick a pick thing to get the goop
1:07:24SPEAKERout of the hole where the sound comes out.
1:07:27SPEAKERAnd then there's like, I have this other little,
1:07:28SPEAKERnice little side brush for getting in like the wire
1:07:31SPEAKERmeshy places.
1:07:33SPEAKERAnd we talked about my AirPod slash keyboard cleaning thing
1:07:37SPEAKERa few years ago, but it's pretty good.
1:07:39SPEAKER- Clean your headphones.
1:07:40SPEAKER- I'm gonna go and tell you, or maybe don't,
1:07:42SPEAKERbecause my AirPod started getting janky,
1:07:44SPEAKERwhich I think was probably iOS 18's
1:07:46SPEAKERBluetooth stack being bad.
1:07:48SPEAKERAnd when I was down at GDC one day,
1:07:50SPEAKERI had a couple hours in between meetings,
1:07:51SPEAKERI was like, I'm gonna go up to the Apple Store
1:07:52SPEAKERand see what I can do about this.
1:07:54SPEAKERSo I went up to the Apple Store,
1:07:55SPEAKERwhich is like two blocks away, and I was like,
1:07:58SPEAKERhey, I have two different problems.
1:08:00SPEAKERMy right ear charges sporadically,
1:08:03SPEAKEReven though there's no gunk in the case,
1:08:06SPEAKERand the left ear drops all the time when I'm on the subway.
1:08:08SPEAKERAnd he's like, oh, let me see.
1:08:09SPEAKERAnd he took him back and tested him for like 10 minutes.
1:08:10SPEAKERHe's like, well, I couldn't get it to replicate,
1:08:13SPEAKERbut I did see some weird stuff in the logs on them.
1:08:16SPEAKERAnd also you're 20 days away from your warranty expiring.
1:08:20SPEAKERSo here's three new, here's two new AirPods in a new case.
1:08:23SPEAKER- What? - Yeah.
1:08:25SPEAKER- Oh my God. - Yeah.
1:08:27SPEAKERSo two years, I'm at two years or three years,
1:08:30SPEAKERI guess, on those, I can't remember.
1:08:31SPEAKER- Well, now that was, to be clear,
1:08:33SPEAKERthat was the paid AppleCare+ warranty?
1:08:35SPEAKER- So yeah, I paid the 50 bucks for the AppleCare+,
1:08:37SPEAKERor whatever it was when I bought them,
1:08:39SPEAKERbecause I tend to drop them and step on them.
1:08:41SPEAKER- Sure.
1:08:42SPEAKER- But I'd never used anything before.
1:08:44SPEAKERAnd he was like, you haven't used the warranty at all.
1:08:46SPEAKERAnd like, it's about to expire, so let's go.
1:08:49SPEAKER- 50 bucks to get a brand spanking fresh new pair
1:08:52SPEAKERright at the end of the warranty period is pretty good.
1:08:55SPEAKER- Especially since they haven't updated them.
1:08:57SPEAKER- Yeah, man, score.
1:08:59SPEAKER- Yeah, I was like, shout out to Tony
1:09:02SPEAKERat the Union Square Apple Store.
1:09:05SPEAKER- Yeah. - He's a band.
1:09:06SPEAKERHe's a DJ too.
1:09:07SPEAKERIf you need a DJ in the sunset, he's got you.
1:09:09SPEAKER- I've made some small talk, huh?
1:09:11SPEAKER- We had conversations.
1:09:13SPEAKER- Yes, all right, last cake batter.
1:09:15SPEAKERGreen onions as a garnish.
1:09:17SPEAKERDoes anyone like green onions?
1:09:18SPEAKERDude, what the fuck?
1:09:19SPEAKER- Dude, green onions are the best onions.
1:09:21SPEAKER- Green onions are definitely up there.
1:09:23SPEAKER- I literally, yeah, I literally was like,
1:09:25SPEAKERhey, Gina, we need to play this.
1:09:27SPEAKERI saw this email and I was like, Gina,
1:09:28SPEAKERwe gotta put green onions in the garden,
1:09:30SPEAKER'cause I forgot when we were playing
1:09:31SPEAKERin the garden the other day.
1:09:32SPEAKERSo yeah, green onions, everything.
1:09:36SPEAKER- You know what's cool?
1:09:37SPEAKERIf you buy some like living green onions at the store
1:09:39SPEAKERand chop off the tops, you can just kind of set them out
1:09:41SPEAKERand let them keep growing for awhile.
1:09:42SPEAKER- Harvest them.
1:09:43SPEAKER- Get some more.
1:09:44SPEAKER- Keep getting more onions.
1:09:46SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:09:46SPEAKER- Do you eat the whites too?
1:09:48SPEAKER- Whites.
1:09:49SPEAKER- The white part of the green onion?
1:09:51SPEAKER- Like kind of partially like-
1:09:54SPEAKER- Fried rice or something maybe?
1:09:55SPEAKER- Yeah, like a little ways into the bowl,
1:09:57SPEAKERbut like maybe not the whole thing probably, but.
1:09:59SPEAKER- Oh, see, when I was a kid,
1:10:01SPEAKERwe used to grow those in the backyard
1:10:02SPEAKERand I would just pick them out of the garden
1:10:03SPEAKERand just chomp them and eat the whole thing.
1:10:05SPEAKER- Yikes.
1:10:06SPEAKER- Like Bugs Bunny.
1:10:08SPEAKER- I mean, I don't think there's an onion I don't like,
1:10:10SPEAKERbut that might be a little far even for me.
1:10:12SPEAKER- Well, they're pretty sweet when they're little.
1:10:14SPEAKER- Okay, fair.
1:10:14SPEAKER- Like it's not like a Vidalia sweet,
1:10:17SPEAKERbut they're not like, it's not like gonna hurt you.
1:10:20SPEAKER- I'm very pro onion.
1:10:23SPEAKER- Yeah, love an onion.
1:10:25SPEAKER- All right, well, there you have it.
1:10:27SPEAKER- So if you have questions,
1:10:28SPEAKERyou can send them to techpod@content.town
1:10:31SPEAKERor alternately, be a part of my fast mail,
1:10:34SPEAKERor alternately, you can go to patreon.com/techpod
1:10:38SPEAKERand join the TechPod Discord and the TechPod community,
1:10:41SPEAKERwhere you can post in the question seeking answers channel
1:10:44SPEAKERand your question will go in there
1:10:46SPEAKERand then it'll disappear to the ether
1:10:48SPEAKERand sometime in the next 30 days,
1:10:49SPEAKERone of us will look at it, probably Brad,
1:10:51SPEAKERand copy it into a Google Doc,
1:10:53SPEAKERwhere it will become one of the questions
1:10:54SPEAKERas a candidate for being answered on the podcast.
1:10:58SPEAKERAgain, it's patreon.com/techpod.
1:11:00SPEAKERIt's a listener supported show,
1:11:01SPEAKERso we wouldn't be here without you all.
1:11:02SPEAKERThere's 3,212 of you as of today right now,
1:11:06SPEAKERwhich is really nice, it's lovely.
1:11:07SPEAKERWe appreciate every one of you.
1:11:09SPEAKER- That's a fine number, I think.
1:11:11SPEAKER- I think it's a pretty,
1:11:12SPEAKERit's a surprising number to me
1:11:14SPEAKERevery time I look at it, honestly.
1:11:17SPEAKERBut we've reached the part of the show
1:11:18SPEAKERwhere we thank our patrons,
1:11:19SPEAKERso thank you to all of our patrons.
1:11:21SPEAKER- Thank you.
1:11:23SPEAKER- But a very special thank you
1:11:24SPEAKERto our executive producer tier patrons,
1:11:26SPEAKERincluding Andrew Slosky, Bunnyfiend, David Allen,
1:11:30SPEAKERJames Kamik, Jason Lee, Jordan Lippett, Twinkle Twinkie,
1:11:34SPEAKERand Pantheon, makers of the HS3 high-speed 3D printer.
1:11:38SPEAKERIt's also the last episode of the month
1:11:40SPEAKERwhere we thank all of our associate producer tier patrons,
1:11:43SPEAKERincluding Alejandro Navarro, Andre M. Burke, P.E.,
1:11:48SPEAKERAndrew "Dicey" Sholdice, Arthur Gies, Ben Tallman,
1:11:51SPEAKERBrutal Kerfuffle, Eric Klein, Felix Kramer,
1:11:55SPEAKERGraham Banks, Jad Rita, JustAssociateRed, Wedge, Kerp,
1:12:01SPEAKERMatt Walker, parentheses Walkman8080, close parentheses,
1:12:04SPEAKERMike Etheridge, Nathan Phelps, P.Tibbs, Sanchik Kumar,
1:12:09SPEAKERSteve Lin, Thomas Shea, Tom Fuller, Tom Hilton,
1:12:13SPEAKERand Xbox Play Dates.
1:12:16SPEAKER- Whoa.
1:12:17SPEAKER- I don't know who Xbox Play Dates is,
1:12:18SPEAKERbut shout out to Xbox Play Dates.
1:12:20SPEAKER- Sure.
1:12:22SPEAKER- So that's it.
1:12:23SPEAKERThanks everybody so much for supporting the show,
1:12:25SPEAKERand we will be back next week with another one.
1:12:27SPEAKERPatron episode, we had so many good questions this month.
1:12:30SPEAKERWe barely dipped into them.
1:12:32SPEAKERSo if you want more questions in your life,
1:12:34SPEAKERyou may be signed up for the Patreon.
1:12:36SPEAKERGet that question out, get that Patreon episode,
1:12:38SPEAKER'cause I bet there's gonna be more questions this month.
1:12:43SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess we'll probably stick to Discord questions
1:12:46SPEAKERfor the Patreon episode just so that people who ask them
1:12:48SPEAKERcan hear the answers.
1:12:49SPEAKER- Typically, yeah, that's what we do, yeah.
1:12:51SPEAKER- Yes.
1:12:52SPEAKER- But anyway, that'll be it for us this week,
1:12:55SPEAKERand as always, please consider the environment
1:12:59SPEAKERbefore printing this podcast.
1:13:01SPEAKER(upbeat music)