00:00SPEAKER- Okay, I don't do this often,
00:01SPEAKERbut I have brought a fine beverage to this podcast.
00:04SPEAKER- Ooh, I've never seen a can.
00:07SPEAKER- Wait, really?
00:08SPEAKER- I don't think so, I've only seen bottles before.
00:10SPEAKER- The regional classic.
00:11SPEAKER- Drink Cheerwine established in 1917.
00:14SPEAKER- With apologies to Warbird, it's Cheerwine.
00:17SPEAKER- Yeah, I did some real good husband business the other day.
00:21SPEAKERWe were at a fancy candy shop down in Half Moon Bay
00:25SPEAKERand I was looking, as my daughter was perusing
00:28SPEAKERthe regional candies from around the world,
00:33SPEAKERI noticed a cooler in the side
00:34SPEAKERwith frosty grape soda and Cheerwine.
00:37SPEAKER- Wait, Cheerwine on the West Coast?
00:39SPEAKER- Cheerwine on the West Coast is gettable.
00:42SPEAKER- That seems impossible.
00:43SPEAKER- Three places now I've found it.
00:44SPEAKEROne is a convenience store out on Sloat
00:47SPEAKERall the way out at the zoo.
00:48SPEAKERThey also have like frosty root beer,
00:50SPEAKERwhich is my all-time favorite root beer.
00:52SPEAKERThe Half Moon Bay candy shop and Andronico's
00:56SPEAKERhas Cheerwine sometimes.
00:58SPEAKER- All right, okay.
00:58SPEAKERIt's like an exotic foreign delicacy come to the Bay Area.
01:01SPEAKER- It really is.
01:03SPEAKERIt's like, the thing is it's a level of sweet
01:07SPEAKERthat Western palates just can't handle.
01:09SPEAKER- Oh, it's bad, man.
01:10SPEAKERThis whole trip has been,
01:13SPEAKERI've had trips out here where I was good,
01:16SPEAKERwhere I kept myself in check.
01:18SPEAKERI exercised every morning.
01:19SPEAKERYou know, I was like, all right,
01:20SPEAKERI'm gonna have a salad every night.
01:22SPEAKER- Yep.
01:23SPEAKER- This has not been one of those trips.
01:24SPEAKER- This trip, you exercised your right to drive to Bojangles,
01:26SPEAKERget a steak biscuit every morning?
01:28SPEAKER- So I have not been to Bojangles yet,
01:29SPEAKERbut it's on the agenda for tomorrow morning.
01:31SPEAKER- Oh, hell yeah.
01:32SPEAKERWhat about Crystal?
01:33SPEAKERDo you have crystals in North Carolina?
01:34SPEAKER- I don't know.
01:35SPEAKERI don't think we have crystal anywhere near here.
01:37SPEAKER- Oh, man.
01:38SPEAKERI love, Crystal is the South's answer to White Castle
01:41SPEAKERand it's a magical place.
01:42SPEAKER- I believe that.
01:43SPEAKERI would have thought that was maybe
01:44SPEAKERthe Dairy Queen or something.
01:45SPEAKER- No, no, no.
01:46SPEAKERCrystal makes the small square steamed burgers.
01:48SPEAKERThey grill them on the onions and the whole deal.
01:51SPEAKER- Oh, you mean that's specifically analogous to White Castle?
01:54SPEAKER- It is literally White Castle, but also they have
01:57SPEAKERlittle tiny chicken sandwiches with pickles and mayonnaise?
02:00SPEAKER- Is this the type of situation where you find out
02:02SPEAKERthat Crystal is actually owned by
02:03SPEAKERthe White Castle Corporation,
02:04SPEAKERkind of like Hardee's and Carl's Jr.?
02:06SPEAKER- Look, if you suggest that Crystal is owned
02:08SPEAKERby some goddamn Yankees.
02:11SPEAKER- Yes, okay.
02:12SPEAKER- We're gonna have a problem, Brad.
02:13SPEAKER- I get it.
02:14SPEAKERYes, I've been among such people for the last two weeks.
02:17SPEAKER- The thing about Crystal is you get
02:20SPEAKERa couple of little gut bomb burgers
02:21SPEAKERand you get like maybe a little chicken sando,
02:24SPEAKERskip the fries, although they're good.
02:26SPEAKERAnd then instead of fries, you get a side of chili,
02:28SPEAKERlike a little thing of a light bean chili.
02:31SPEAKERIt's just there to dunk the burgers in.
02:34SPEAKERYou just dunk those burgers in that.
02:35SPEAKER- Instead of burgers on a side, that's like two entrees.
02:38SPEAKERBurgers and chili. - Three entrees, technically.
02:40SPEAKER- Well, okay, fair.
02:41SPEAKER- Yeah, it's not good.
02:42SPEAKERIt's not good, but it is real good,
02:44SPEAKERif you know what I mean.
02:45SPEAKER- You know what, that really sums up
02:47SPEAKERthe Southern lifestyle about as well as I have ever heard.
02:50SPEAKER- Yeah.
02:51SPEAKER(upbeat music)
03:19SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made of Tech Pod.
03:22SPEAKERI'm Will.
03:22SPEAKER- I'm Brad, hello.
03:23SPEAKER- Hello, it's Thursday afternoon.
03:25SPEAKERWe don't often record on Thursday afternoon.
03:26SPEAKERUsually it's Thursday morning or Friday morning.
03:29SPEAKER- Well, yeah, time difference this week.
03:31SPEAKERIt's like Thursday dinner time for me, almost.
03:34SPEAKER- Yeah, that's true.
03:35SPEAKERYou're in bear country out there.
03:37SPEAKER- Bear country?
03:38SPEAKER- Yeah.
03:39SPEAKER- Did I tell you? - Did you see bears?
03:40SPEAKER- No, I didn't see any,
03:41SPEAKERbut I mean, there are absolutely bears around.
03:43SPEAKER- Yeah.
03:44SPEAKER- Did I tell you back when I was here in October
03:46SPEAKERduring the hurricane, the deep power outage phase
03:50SPEAKERof the hurricane, so we had no AC,
03:52SPEAKERso we had the windows open every night.
03:54SPEAKER- Yeah.
03:55SPEAKER- And I was sleeping in a bedroom
03:57SPEAKERnear the deck on this house.
03:58SPEAKERI may have mentioned this.
04:00SPEAKER- I don't remember this.
04:01SPEAKER- I woke up in the middle of the night one night,
04:03SPEAKERI heard something large moving around on the deck.
04:05SPEAKER- Not good.
04:06SPEAKER- And it had the sound of like, every time I took a step,
04:09SPEAKERthere was like a little bit of a claws clacking
04:11SPEAKERon the wood sort of sound.
04:13SPEAKER- Yeah.
04:14SPEAKER- And I talked to my parents about it the next day
04:15SPEAKERand they were like, "Yeah, that was probably a bear."
04:17SPEAKER- Look, you know the saying, right?
04:18SPEAKERIf it's black, fight back.
04:19SPEAKERIf it's brown, lie down.
04:20SPEAKERIf it's white, you're completely fucked
04:22SPEAKERand you're gonna die.
04:22SPEAKER(laughing)
04:24SPEAKER- It's a little long for an episode title,
04:25SPEAKERbut I'll see if I can make it work.
04:27SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know.
04:28SPEAKERThey say something else about,
04:30SPEAKERI don't know, polar bears are scary, man,
04:31SPEAKERbut black bears are pretty,
04:33SPEAKERI've seen black bears when I was backpacking and stuff,
04:35SPEAKERand they are, unless you make really poor choices,
04:38SPEAKERthey are generally pretty chill.
04:40SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, my mom has seen a black bear out hiking before
04:43SPEAKERand she just kind of regarded it and then moved on.
04:46SPEAKER- Yeah, the biggest problem with black bears
04:47SPEAKERis you have to upgrade your trashcan game
04:49SPEAKERpretty significantly. - Sure.
04:51SPEAKER- And the bear-proof trashcans are real expensive.
04:55SPEAKER- Wait, hang on, so are black bears
04:57SPEAKERjust the raccoons of the bear world then?
04:59SPEAKER- I mean, all bears are the raccoons of the bear world.
05:01SPEAKERIt's just some will murder you
05:02SPEAKERbecause they don't like people at all.
05:04SPEAKER- Sure, but they do like their trash.
05:06SPEAKER- Look, bears are equal, they'll eat anything.
05:09SPEAKERScavenged, they'll eat carcasses, they'll eat honey.
05:13SPEAKERThey'll eat berries.
05:14SPEAKEROne time when I was backpacking,
05:15SPEAKERwe walked through a patch of wild blueberries.
05:20SPEAKERThey're not like your cultivated blueberries.
05:22SPEAKERThey're very, very small, but intensely sweet,
05:24SPEAKERalmost like a, I don't know, they're caper-sized almost.
05:28SPEAKERThey're real small.
05:30SPEAKERAnd we were in there and it was pretty obvious
05:33SPEAKERwalking around that there were bears in the general vicinity
05:36SPEAKERand then we saw a bear at the other end of the sticket
05:38SPEAKERwith all these blueberries in and we were like,
05:39SPEAKER"Okay, you can have the rest of them, buddy.
05:41SPEAKER"They're all you."
05:42SPEAKER(laughing)
05:44SPEAKER- Was it already eating the berries?
05:45SPEAKER- It seemed to be enjoying berries, yes.
05:48SPEAKER- Had you been eating the berries?
05:49SPEAKERWould you eat those when you just found them?
05:51SPEAKEROkay.
05:51SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
05:52SPEAKER- There used to be wild strawberries that grew down the hill
05:56SPEAKERand field below this house
05:57SPEAKERand they were similarly tiny little things.
06:01SPEAKERAnd we gobbled those right up.
06:03SPEAKER- There are a couple of berries where I grew up
06:05SPEAKERlooked like strawberries, but were real bad.
06:07SPEAKERThere were wild strawberries for sure,
06:09SPEAKERbut there were also other red berries
06:10SPEAKERthat looked exactly like the wild berries
06:13SPEAKERthat would give you the scours, something fierce
06:16SPEAKERis what our scout master would have said.
06:18SPEAKER- Interesting, the scours?
06:19SPEAKER- Yeah, it means you had real bad diarrhea, Brad.
06:21SPEAKER- Hey, okay, I don't remember that ever happening,
06:23SPEAKERbut who knows?
06:24SPEAKER- Yeah, blackberries, we ate a lot of wild blackberries
06:26SPEAKERwhen I was a kid.
06:27SPEAKERThose were pretty safe and they grew like weeds.
06:30SPEAKER- Yeah, can't go wrong.
06:31SPEAKERReal quick, I'll mention, you've seen this happen
06:33SPEAKERsince we've been on this video call.
06:34SPEAKER- Yeah.
06:35SPEAKER- Speaking of being in this house,
06:37SPEAKERthis was also happening during an Ex-Lander recording
06:39SPEAKERearlier today, how power's getting a little flaky here.
06:42SPEAKERLike it's just kind of been flickering
06:43SPEAKERin a weird way this afternoon.
06:45SPEAKER- Look, America's infrastructure is hearty
06:47SPEAKERand definitely not crumbling.
06:48SPEAKEREverything's going great here, guys.
06:50SPEAKER- Well, and I mean, there are still occasionally
06:53SPEAKERlike tree crews around doing work around here
06:56SPEAKERas I've been driving around.
06:57SPEAKERThe weird thing is it didn't take down
06:58SPEAKERthe internet connection during either of these recordings.
07:02SPEAKER- Are you on cable there?
07:04SPEAKER- It is a cable modem, yes.
07:05SPEAKER- So for a while, I don't know if they still do this,
07:07SPEAKERbut for a while when cable companies
07:10SPEAKERwere just starting to roll out a digital phone service,
07:13SPEAKERthey included, their cable modems
07:15SPEAKERincluded a big old lead acid battery
07:17SPEAKERthat would keep the phone running while the power was on.
07:20SPEAKER- Okay.
07:21SPEAKER- Usually only, like that wasn't in the aftermarket modems
07:24SPEAKERthat you'd buy at like Best Buy or whatever,
07:26SPEAKERbut that was just the one that came from the service
07:29SPEAKERthat did your TV and then you'd plug it into the POTS line
07:34SPEAKERand you'd get phone service as well.
07:35SPEAKER- Interesting.
07:36SPEAKERAnd also it's a separate router,
07:38SPEAKERit's just an off the shelf router here
07:39SPEAKERand that didn't go down either.
07:40SPEAKERI mean, it was like you saw how quickly the lights flickered.
07:42SPEAKERIt was like, it was a split second,
07:44SPEAKERbut it made me think about like,
07:45SPEAKERI guess every device just has its own individual tolerance
07:48SPEAKERfor kind of brown out like very, very brief
07:50SPEAKERpower interruption, right?
07:52SPEAKER- For computer stuff that does an AC to DC conversion,
07:55SPEAKERoften the power bricks can absorb a fair amount of,
07:58SPEAKERa fair amount of sag, right?
08:00SPEAKER- Like an interruption, okay.
08:01SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, but, or overage too for that matter.
08:05SPEAKERBut yeah, I mean, my guess is you just didn't go out
08:08SPEAKERlong enough for the thing to crash.
08:10SPEAKER- Right, okay.
08:11SPEAKERYeah, like this is, I mean, I'm getting way,
08:13SPEAKERway over my skis as far as my understanding of electricity,
08:15SPEAKERbut I was talking to some people on the Discord
08:18SPEAKERabout tiny UPSs a few weeks ago.
08:20SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:21SPEAKER- 'Cause I mean, I was gonna put like a Raspberry Pi
08:23SPEAKERand like a UniFi access point and some stuff like that
08:25SPEAKERon one and it was one of the ones that,
08:28SPEAKERokay, there are two terms.
08:30SPEAKERThere's line interactive UPSs
08:31SPEAKERand I think standby is the other term.
08:33SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:34SPEAKER- And line interactive means that it conditions the power
08:37SPEAKERas it comes out of the wall and goes to the devices.
08:40SPEAKERThe standby type is the cheaper type where if there's a sag
08:43SPEAKERor whatever, it just goes straight to battery power.
08:45SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:46SPEAKER- But there is a, every UPS that it's specs lists,
08:50SPEAKERI forget what the term is, but there's a fraction,
08:52SPEAKERthere's like a small number of milliseconds of interruption
08:55SPEAKERwhen it switches over to battery power.
08:57SPEAKERSo I was kind of talking to people about like,
08:59SPEAKERhey, is this, I think it's like eight milliseconds
09:00SPEAKERon the model I was looking at or something like that.
09:02SPEAKERI was like, is this enough to take all these devices down?
09:05SPEAKERLike, this is our discord.
09:06SPEAKERThis is what I love about our discord.
09:08SPEAKERPeople were like, people were responding by talking
09:10SPEAKERin terms of like fractions of a sine wave oscillation
09:13SPEAKERor whatever, you know, in terms of like, okay,
09:15SPEAKERthat's less than like one cycle of a 60 Hertz, whatever.
09:19SPEAKERYou know, you're probably gonna be fine.
09:20SPEAKERLike even a Raspberry Pi can probably tolerate
09:23SPEAKERlike less than one hump on the wave or something.
09:26SPEAKER- Yeah, it's 16 milliseconds is one wavelength, right?
09:30SPEAKER- Right, right.
09:31SPEAKER- So yeah, you're fine.
09:32SPEAKER- That's, I never thought about it like that,
09:33SPEAKERbut that makes a ton of sense.
09:35SPEAKER- That's what it was.
09:36SPEAKERThat was the revelation to me was to be able
09:38SPEAKERto fractionalize it in that way as like literally looking
09:41SPEAKERat like what the wave form would look like
09:42SPEAKERand how much of one cycle you were interrupting
09:45SPEAKERand whether, you know, a device could survive
09:47SPEAKERthat much interruption or not.
09:48SPEAKER- This is why you have all those big capacitors
09:50SPEAKERin your power supply and your AC/DC converters.
09:53SPEAKER- Yes, well, anyway, speaking of babbling about things
09:57SPEAKERthat we partially understand.
09:59SPEAKER- Oh boy.
10:00SPEAKER- You wanna take some questions?
10:01SPEAKER- Yeah, I think it's a good time for that.
10:02SPEAKERIf you have a question, you can send it to us via email
10:05SPEAKERat techpod@content.town.
10:06SPEAKERThat's email, electronic mails, people still do them.
10:09SPEAKERBut if you're a member of the Patreon
10:11SPEAKERand wanna post in the Discord,
10:12SPEAKERwe have a channel for that there as well.
10:15SPEAKERYou can join the Discord and support the podcast.
10:17SPEAKERThis is a listener supported show by going, as always,
10:20SPEAKERto patreon.com/techpod and you can sign up there.
10:25SPEAKER- Indeed, why don't we start, actually,
10:27SPEAKERI've got a couple of questions here.
10:28SPEAKERWhy don't we just stay on the electricity tip
10:31SPEAKERfor a minute?
10:32SPEAKER- It's what makes it, look, it makes it happen.
10:34SPEAKERElectricity is what makes it happen.
10:35SPEAKER- I suppose none of us would be doing this without it.
10:38SPEAKERHave you ever thought about what you would be doing
10:41SPEAKERin a pre-computing or even pre-electricity world?
10:45SPEAKER- I would be completely fucked
10:46SPEAKERbecause my vision is really bad.
10:48SPEAKER- Like, what would be your thing?
10:50SPEAKER- I would probably be a cobbler
10:51SPEAKER'cause I could rest my eyeballs on the shoes
10:53SPEAKERand whack the nails into 'em.
10:54SPEAKER- Okay, but like, I have no idea what I would be
10:57SPEAKERas passionate about as I am about computers and video games.
10:59SPEAKER- I think probably food, finding food.
11:02SPEAKER- I guess.
11:02SPEAKER- Not getting cholera.
11:04SPEAKER- I guess, yeah.
11:04SPEAKER- You know, the consumption.
11:05SPEAKER- Sure, like would I be a machinist?
11:09SPEAKERWould I be into like mechanical things?
11:11SPEAKERI don't know.
11:12SPEAKER- I bet I would be super into hunting rats.
11:14SPEAKERI would essentially live that Charlie Day life.
11:17SPEAKERI would be like, I think these rats are,
11:19SPEAKERlike every, you know, I went over to Bill's house
11:21SPEAKERright before he got the plague
11:22SPEAKERand there were rats everywhere, man.
11:25SPEAKERI bet if we get rid of all these rats, less plague.
11:28SPEAKER- Or amateur surgeon.
11:30SPEAKER- Okay, sure.
11:31SPEAKER- Yeah.
11:32SPEAKER- It's just trading one form of tinkering for another.
11:34SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.
11:35SPEAKER- That's right.
11:36SPEAKEROkay, all right, email from Aaron.
11:39SPEAKERI have a 4080 super and a be quiet 850 watt power supply.
11:44SPEAKERIn certain games like Expedition 33,
11:46SPEAKERit tends to trip my power supply to a power off,
11:49SPEAKERwhich I can only assume to be a transient power spike.
11:52SPEAKERI can work around this by capping frame rate,
11:54SPEAKERusually to get well below 300 watts.
11:57SPEAKERShould I just get another power supply
11:58SPEAKERor undervolt the GPU?
12:00SPEAKERIs this because it's a multi rail power supply
12:02SPEAKERthat transient power spikes are happening?
12:04SPEAKER- So the multi rail, single rail thing
12:06SPEAKERdoesn't really matter if you have a good power supply, right?
12:09SPEAKERThere was a lot of conversation about that a hundred years
12:11SPEAKERago and like it used to be a problem
12:14SPEAKER'cause it used to be that cheap power supplies
12:16SPEAKERwere multi rail and expensive power supplies
12:17SPEAKERwere single rail.
12:20SPEAKERThese days, it's probably fine.
12:22SPEAKERWhat that means is basically multiple circuits
12:24SPEAKERinside the power supply, right?
12:26SPEAKERUsually when this is a thing we talk about
12:28SPEAKERevery summer, when your computer is shutting off
12:31SPEAKERunder load, that means that your computer
12:33SPEAKERis expecting more power to come out of the power supply
12:35SPEAKERthan the power supply can deliver.
12:37SPEAKERAnd typically that's because when it's warm,
12:40SPEAKERthe efficiency of your power supply drops.
12:43SPEAKERAnd as a result, so your 850 watt power supply
12:47SPEAKERis then only providing 780 watts instead of 850
12:51SPEAKERbecause your room is 80.
12:54SPEAKERYour ambient temperature in your room is 75 degrees,
12:56SPEAKERwhich means the ambient temperature of your power supply
12:58SPEAKERis 90 degrees, which means the efficiency
13:00SPEAKERgoes down a certain amount.
13:03SPEAKERLooking at the power requirements for the 4080 Super,
13:10SPEAKERwhich are according to tech power up,
13:14SPEAKERit is 320 watts and the minimum suggested power supply
13:20SPEAKERis 700 watts.
13:21SPEAKERSo that to me says either it's really warm in your room,
13:25SPEAKERyou maybe have the little switch on the back
13:27SPEAKERof the power supply that turns the fan off
13:28SPEAKERunder all circumstances on.
13:31SPEAKERYou could try flipping that to on so that the fan
13:33SPEAKERwill spin up and give you a little more efficiency
13:35SPEAKEReven in the warm room.
13:37SPEAKERIt could also mean the power supply's getting close to dying
13:39SPEAKER'cause that's the other, that's a reduction in efficiency
13:42SPEAKERcan sometimes impact that.
13:44SPEAKER- Yeah, I just Googled the model of BeQuiet PSU
13:48SPEAKERthat he mentioned in here and it is an ATX 3.0.
13:52SPEAKERIt's been long enough since I built my current PC
13:53SPEAKERthat I can't remember exactly what the 3.0 spec adds.
13:57SPEAKER- It's 12.0, two by six.
13:59SPEAKER- Right, but isn't there also,
14:00SPEAKERI thought there was some kind of monitoring built
14:01SPEAKERinto that spec as well where like the power supply
14:04SPEAKERis supposed to detect spikes better in some fashion.
14:07SPEAKERIt's like I said, it's been a while, I can't remember,
14:09SPEAKERbut I guess he's got a 3.0 supply
14:11SPEAKERand it's still a problem, so.
14:12SPEAKER- Yeah, I might, you know, they have a long warranty.
14:15SPEAKERBeQuiet is a pretty good vendor.
14:19SPEAKERThis one actually isn't available in our country.
14:21SPEAKERIt says there's a big giant label on it.
14:25SPEAKERYou might call them, like I might hit their warranty
14:28SPEAKERand then say, hey, I'm, depending on what CPU you have
14:32SPEAKERand if you don't have like 12 spinning platter hard drives
14:35SPEAKERin there, you should be well under the limit for this.
14:40SPEAKERSo I would be surprised, like I think you might have a dud.
14:46SPEAKER- Yeah, like 480's super really not that demanding
14:47SPEAKERof a card, like you said.
14:49SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, so, but also capping the frame rate works.
14:53SPEAKERI actually need to test to see, for a while
14:56SPEAKERwhen they switched over from the GeForce Experience
14:57SPEAKERto the NVIDIA app, there's a feature in there
14:59SPEAKERthat lets you limit your overall wattage.
15:01SPEAKER- Yes, that was gonna be my suggestion.
15:04SPEAKERYou're talking about what they describe
15:05SPEAKERas just like a power limit, quote unquote,
15:07SPEAKER'cause undervolting is a different thing from that.
15:09SPEAKER- Yeah, it just throttles.
15:11SPEAKERIt basically sets the throttle to lower
15:13SPEAKERis the way it's supposed to work.
15:15SPEAKERNow, when we tested at PCWorld, right,
15:16SPEAKERwhen the NVIDIA app was still in beta, it didn't work.
15:19SPEAKER- So wasn't that a situation where like
15:21SPEAKERit just wasn't applying the setting?
15:23SPEAKER- Yeah, you could change the setting.
15:24SPEAKERIt looked like it was changing from inside the thing,
15:26SPEAKERbut when we put it up to the power meter,
15:27SPEAKERit didn't change anything.
15:28SPEAKER- Okay, but I will say, I mean,
15:30SPEAKERthat may no longer be the case.
15:32SPEAKERHopefully they fixed that by now,
15:33SPEAKERbut I will say that MSI Afterburner
15:35SPEAKERalso can do the same thing.
15:37SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
15:38SPEAKERMSI Afterburner is the other option for this.
15:40SPEAKERIt's a little more complicated.
15:44SPEAKER- The real solution is probably consider,
15:48SPEAKERlike I said, call BeQuiet,
15:50SPEAKERsee if they'll send you a new power supply.
15:52SPEAKERIf they won't, then you might wanna
15:53SPEAKERget a larger power supply.
15:55SPEAKER- Yeah, it's definitely worth looking into
15:57SPEAKERwhether you have faulty hardware or not,
15:58SPEAKERbut I like to power limit anyway
16:00SPEAKERbecause of the negligible loss in performance
16:04SPEAKERyou get by going down to like 90 or even 85%.
16:07SPEAKER- Yeah, I know. - Of your card's capacity.
16:10SPEAKERYou hit such diminishing returns,
16:11SPEAKERleaving your card at 100% power
16:13SPEAKERthat it's just really not worth the insane extra wattage
16:16SPEAKERto eke out like an extra three to 5% performance.
16:19SPEAKER- That's it, that's exactly it.
16:21SPEAKER- So I kind of would recommend everybody,
16:23SPEAKERat least on the Nvidia side.
16:24SPEAKERI don't know how Intel and AMD handle things.
16:27SPEAKER- Well, I was just saying, if you're on the higher end,
16:28SPEAKERit makes a lot more sense.
16:29SPEAKERIf you're on a $200 card,
16:31SPEAKERthey're already power limited out of the box.
16:33SPEAKERYou're fine. - Yes.
16:35SPEAKER- But if you're buying a 50/90 and you're not doing,
16:38SPEAKERlike there's very little right now
16:40SPEAKERthat requires the full horsepower of a 50/90
16:43SPEAKERor even a 40/90 and you can throttle those a little bit
16:46SPEAKERand be in real good shape.
16:48SPEAKER- Yep, I'm going to skip down to a Discord question
16:52SPEAKER'cause it's in the same vein here.
16:53SPEAKER- Whoa. - From Tactical Tug.
16:56SPEAKERI was helping a friend of mine build a new PC earlier
16:58SPEAKERand it got me thinking,
16:59SPEAKERwhat is one thing you absolutely won't
17:01SPEAKERand shouldn't save money on when specing a new build?
17:04SPEAKERFor me, it's the power supply.
17:05SPEAKERI always go for a high quality model
17:07SPEAKERand at least one or two capacities higher
17:10SPEAKERthan what I actually need.
17:11SPEAKERStorage is also another one where having too much
17:13SPEAKERis better than not having enough.
17:15SPEAKERAnd as a bonus, what are some things people often overspend
17:18SPEAKERon and can save some money on?
17:20SPEAKER- So I love a big C drive, big fast C drive,
17:24SPEAKERjust 'cause it's a pain to upgrade in the future.
17:27SPEAKER- Yeah, and at least in the Windows case,
17:30SPEAKERthere are so many things tied to your system drive now,
17:33SPEAKERlike your documents and desktop folders
17:35SPEAKERand places where large files might accumulate
17:37SPEAKERthat remapping those two other drives is kind of a pain
17:41SPEAKERand can get screwy.
17:42SPEAKERSo it's nice to just have a bunch of space
17:44SPEAKERright there on the system.
17:46SPEAKER- Yep, C drive is good.
17:48SPEAKERI'm a big fan of buying a nice power supply.
17:50SPEAKERPower supply is the last two or three systems usually.
17:53SPEAKER- Yep, yep, that is 100% my answer to this too.
17:57SPEAKER- Buying a high efficiency one
17:59SPEAKERwill help you avoid the problems before.
18:02SPEAKERThe difference between the 80 and the 90% power supplies,
18:05SPEAKERthey're fairly significantly more expensive
18:08SPEAKERto get the higher efficiency models.
18:10SPEAKERYou do, like when you're talking about 300 watt machines
18:14SPEAKERand 300 watt power supplies,
18:16SPEAKERthe difference between losing 30 and 20 watts to efficiency
18:21SPEAKERwas less important than these days
18:22SPEAKERwhen you're putting a thousand watt power supply
18:24SPEAKERin your computer and a 20% efficient,
18:27SPEAKERyou know, that extra 10% is 100 watts, right?
18:29SPEAKER- Yep, yep.
18:31SPEAKER- Which if you, like I said,
18:33SPEAKERespecially if you're someplace where electricity
18:35SPEAKERis expensive,
18:37SPEAKERthen saving that 100 watts will really add up
18:39SPEAKERover the eight or 10 year life of that power supply.
18:42SPEAKER- Yep, for sure.
18:44SPEAKERYeah, I've become pretty maniacal about the system stability
18:48SPEAKERover the years based on past experience.
18:50SPEAKERAnd it's like power supply and maybe secondarily,
18:53SPEAKERI guess I would say RAM and then motherboard after that
18:55SPEAKERare places to pay attention to what you're buying.
18:59SPEAKER- I really, really like a nice case too.
19:01SPEAKERLike if you're, like you use,
19:03SPEAKERdepends on how much you're digging around in your computer,
19:06SPEAKERwhether it matters,
19:06SPEAKERbut having something that it's easy to take the filters off
19:09SPEAKERand clean and open up and blast the dust out of occasionally
19:14SPEAKERmeans that I actually do that
19:15SPEAKERversus just letting it accumulate under my desk
19:17SPEAKERfor years and years and years.
19:18SPEAKERAnd then it's like something exploded in there.
19:21SPEAKER- Yep.
19:21SPEAKER- So yeah, those are mine, I think.
19:24SPEAKER- I think the bellwether there is just stop at some point
19:27SPEAKERand ask yourself, like,
19:28SPEAKERam I annoyed every time I open up this case
19:30SPEAKERand have to tinker in there?
19:31SPEAKERIf so, it's probably time for a new case.
19:34SPEAKER- Conversely,
19:35SPEAKERthe thing that I think people spend too much money on
19:36SPEAKERis probably video cards.
19:38SPEAKERI think often- - Sure.
19:40SPEAKER- I think often you're,
19:42SPEAKERyou know, for a long time, the video card,
19:44SPEAKERthe difference between a cheap video card
19:45SPEAKERand expensive video card was not super substantial
19:48SPEAKERover the last few years that's changed.
19:50SPEAKERYou know, we've seen a high-end video card
19:52SPEAKERgo from $700, six or $700 to two or $3,000.
19:57SPEAKERAnd most people,
19:59SPEAKERespecially if you're playing like live service games,
20:02SPEAKERyou absolutely don't need a big, giant, beefy video card.
20:06SPEAKERIn fact, actually it's just gonna cost you more electricity
20:08SPEAKERand generate more heat and be kind of a pain in the butt.
20:12SPEAKER- Fair, fair.
20:14SPEAKERDid you know,
20:15SPEAKERcan I just go back to the case thing for a second?
20:17SPEAKER- Yeah.
20:18SPEAKER- I once moved the innards of a computer into a new case
20:20SPEAKERwithout actually upgrading the computer.
20:22SPEAKER- I've done that before.
20:23SPEAKER- That feels awesome.
20:24SPEAKER- Yeah, it's-
20:25SPEAKER- It almost felt like by having a new computer,
20:28SPEAKEReven though the guts and, you know,
20:29SPEAKERtherefore the performance were identical,
20:32SPEAKERbut just something about transplanting what I already had
20:34SPEAKERinto a much nicer, more modern case still felt,
20:37SPEAKEReven though it's kind of a lateral upgrade,
20:39SPEAKERit was still, it still felt great.
20:41SPEAKERI highly, highly recommend it.
20:43SPEAKER- I did that so it fit under the secret compartment
20:46SPEAKERin the bolt when we were going on a trip one time.
20:47SPEAKER- Yeah, sure.
20:49SPEAKER- It's good.
20:50SPEAKERIt's like getting a new pair of pants for your computer.
20:52SPEAKER(laughing)
20:54SPEAKER- All right, hang on, I have to write that down.
20:55SPEAKERThat's a pretty good one.
20:57SPEAKERLet's see, Adam writes in,
21:00SPEAKERI've kind of got a question about this too.
21:02SPEAKERI hope you have an answer
21:03SPEAKER'cause I run into something kind of similar to this.
21:07SPEAKERI've got AT&T Air, which is their 5G home internet product.
21:11SPEAKERIt does a reasonable job and it's cheap,
21:12SPEAKERbut I've run into a strange problem
21:14SPEAKERwith them over and over again.
21:16SPEAKERI'm based in Phoenix, but my internet thinks
21:19SPEAKERI'm based in Utah, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
21:22SPEAKERIt alternates between the three,
21:24SPEAKERsometimes with such frequency
21:25SPEAKERthat any sort of GPS verification security system
21:28SPEAKERwill get tripped over and over again.
21:30SPEAKERI get logged out of accounts,
21:31SPEAKERI often can't access certain adult websites
21:33SPEAKERdue to different state bans.
21:35SPEAKERMy wife has been IP banned from Google Scholar
21:38SPEAKERa few times too.
21:39SPEAKERMy bank called me to confirm
21:41SPEAKERwhy I made a purchase in Arizona,
21:43SPEAKERthen logged in from Tennessee 15 minutes later.
21:46SPEAKERMy Vizio smart TV outright refuses
21:48SPEAKERto connect to this wifi network as well,
21:50SPEAKERalthough that seems like a different issue.
21:53SPEAKERHow do I fix this while I wait for fiber
21:54SPEAKERto reach my neighborhood?
21:56SPEAKER- So this happens because cellular networks
21:59SPEAKERbuy huge blocks of IP addresses
22:02SPEAKERand the geolocation databases
22:04SPEAKERare bad about understanding that often.
22:06SPEAKER- Aha, okay.
22:07SPEAKER- Some cell providers in the old days,
22:09SPEAKERI don't know if they still do this,
22:10SPEAKERthere's probably somebody that's gonna respond
22:12SPEAKERand we'll run an update next month,
22:15SPEAKERbut some cell providers used to do a lot of VPNing,
22:18SPEAKERso they'd like, like in the early days
22:21SPEAKERof like 3G and 4G data,
22:25SPEAKERyou would, like they would run everything
22:28SPEAKERthrough essentially a proxy from one cell tower,
22:32SPEAKERand then that proxy might be in St. Louis
22:33SPEAKERor something, right?
22:34SPEAKERAnd so your IP address would,
22:36SPEAKERyour phone's GPS would say, "Hey, I'm here,"
22:39SPEAKERand your IP address would be a St. Louis one.
22:42SPEAKER- Do people really geolocate purely off of IP address range?
22:45SPEAKERI assume they were--
22:46SPEAKER- That's how every desktop computer does.
22:48SPEAKER- That's it?
22:49SPEAKERI figured, I assumed they were triangulating
22:51SPEAKERoff of multiple pieces of data at this point,
22:53SPEAKERbut that seems a little one note to me.
22:55SPEAKER- So if you're on Wi-Fi, there's databases
22:58SPEAKERof where SSIDs live in terms of geo IP,
23:02SPEAKERbut if you're on a desktop PC that's connected to internet,
23:05SPEAKERthe only thing it has is your IP address.
23:07SPEAKER- Yeah, fair, I guess you're not wrong.
23:09SPEAKER- So yeah, so this is, you know how I often say
23:12SPEAKERdon't buy VPNs 'cause they're a waste of money
23:14SPEAKERand they don't really do the thing
23:15SPEAKERthat they advertise for most people?
23:17SPEAKERThis is a situation where actually maybe buying a VPN
23:20SPEAKERthat is in your hometown, it would be useful for you?
23:23SPEAKER- Yeah, that was my first thought here as well.
23:29SPEAKER- You could also do like some reverse proxy business
23:31SPEAKERand set up a line note or something
23:33SPEAKERthat you run everything through that.
23:35SPEAKER- Yep, yeah, like when I got my VPS last fall,
23:37SPEAKERwhich I swear to God, I'm going to boot back up
23:39SPEAKERand actually configure at some point,
23:41SPEAKERbut they let me pick which data center
23:43SPEAKERI wanted it to reside in.
23:45SPEAKERAnd they had like, I don't remember,
23:47SPEAKERit was like Chicago, Dallas, yeah,
23:51SPEAKERI think maybe San Jose was one of them, stuff like that.
23:53SPEAKERSo like that, if you really want to get technical
23:55SPEAKERand set up your own VPN on a virtual private server,
23:58SPEAKERyou could do something like that
23:59SPEAKERand have some control over what state it'll show.
24:02SPEAKER- So there's two issues here, things like Hulu, for example,
24:06SPEAKERbecause they do local TV networks
24:07SPEAKERand there's rules about that.
24:09SPEAKERThey only allow you a limited number
24:11SPEAKERof location changes a year.
24:13SPEAKERSo like when we went down South to Palm Springs for a month,
24:16SPEAKERwe would switch our Hulu there
24:18SPEAKERand then we'd switch it back when we came back
24:19SPEAKERand that would eat all of our changes for the year.
24:22SPEAKER- Sure.
24:25SPEAKER- The problem here is that
24:28SPEAKERif this is happening multiple times a day,
24:30SPEAKERlike streaming stuff illegally
24:31SPEAKERis going to be a real pain in the butt.
24:33SPEAKERAnd like, honestly, I'm kind of surprised
24:36SPEAKERthat AT&T hasn't solved this issue.
24:38SPEAKERThis seems like something that they should have to deal with
24:41SPEAKERand you shouldn't have to fool with.
24:43SPEAKERSo I would actually call them and complain about it
24:45SPEAKERand see if they'll give you a fixed IP address
24:46SPEAKERthat at least stays in the same municipality.
24:50SPEAKERI can't believe I'm saying we now have two answers
24:53SPEAKERthat are yo, consider calling support.
24:55SPEAKER- Sure.
24:56SPEAKER- But this one is like, you can fix this.
24:58SPEAKERIt'll be a pain in the butt.
24:59SPEAKEREverybody will have to have all their devices connected.
25:03SPEAKERDid you talk about the Vizio thing?
25:06SPEAKER- Yeah, I mentioned that.
25:06SPEAKERAlthough he says in this email
25:08SPEAKERthat he thinks that might be unrelated.
25:10SPEAKER- I think that is a different issue.
25:11SPEAKERThat's probably because Vizio thinks
25:14SPEAKERthat you're connecting to a hotspot.
25:16SPEAKER- Sure. - Like a phone hotspot.
25:18SPEAKER- Yeah, I wonder if the problem
25:20SPEAKERwith complaining to AT&T might be that,
25:21SPEAKERI mean, I'm assuming a lot here,
25:23SPEAKERbut somebody who has to use 5G home internet
25:25SPEAKERmight not have a lot of options
25:26SPEAKERfor switching to other providers in the first place.
25:28SPEAKER- I don't think you do, but you can still wear them out
25:30SPEAKERand make them fix your problem.
25:31SPEAKER- Yeah, fair.
25:33SPEAKERI guess you don't necessarily have to threaten
25:34SPEAKERto leave the service to maybe get some traction.
25:37SPEAKER- No, you just have to call and ask for help and be nice
25:39SPEAKERand maybe keep calling back until you get somebody
25:42SPEAKERwho sounds like they know what they're talking about.
25:43SPEAKER- Yep, yep.
25:46SPEAKERBunch of emails about Whirly Ball.
25:48SPEAKER- We got so much feedback about Whirly Ball, Brad.
25:52SPEAKER- Whirly Ball still exists almost 30 years
25:54SPEAKERafter that issue of Wired we talked about.
25:56SPEAKER- So for folks who didn't listen to the episode
25:58SPEAKERa couple of weeks ago,
25:59SPEAKERWhirly Ball is a sport where you basically-
26:01SPEAKER- Wait, wait, wait, wait, let me stop you
26:02SPEAKERbecause the email I was gonna read
26:04SPEAKERhas a great description of what it is.
26:05SPEAKER- Perfect.
26:06SPEAKER- From somebody who's done it.
26:08SPEAKER- Perfect.
26:08SPEAKER- I'll just read this email from Brian.
26:10SPEAKERThanks to everybody who wrote in about Whirly Ball.
26:13SPEAKERI just wanted to weigh in that Whirly Ball
26:14SPEAKERis still going strong in the Chicago area.
26:16SPEAKERI thought it might actually be a Chicago only phenomenon.
26:19SPEAKERSo I was surprised to hear you mention it
26:20SPEAKERfrom other states in the 90s.
26:23SPEAKERThere are several facilities here
26:24SPEAKERand it's pretty popular for companies
26:25SPEAKERto take their teams out to play.
26:27SPEAKERIt's exactly what you think it is
26:29SPEAKERif you think it's a bunch of bumper cars
26:31SPEAKERin a small glass enclosed basketball court
26:33SPEAKERbanging into each other at full speed
26:35SPEAKERwhile drunk people try to fling a ball
26:37SPEAKERinto a basketball goal.
26:38SPEAKERIn between rounds they deliver wings.
26:42SPEAKERLater in my career, a back injury gave me an excuse
26:45SPEAKERto opt out, which is probably my actual recommendation.
26:48SPEAKERHave a few wings and just watch the mayhem.
26:50SPEAKER- Okay, so we got a lot of emails like this.
26:53SPEAKERA lot of blue sky posts from specifically,
26:57SPEAKERkind of surprisingly, a lot of ex-Microsoft
26:59SPEAKERand Valve people wrote in to say,
27:02SPEAKERhey, Whirly Ball was a really popular team building exercise
27:07SPEAKERat Microsoft for about 10 years.
27:09SPEAKERAnd then somebody got a serious enough injury
27:11SPEAKERat the Redmond one that they banned it for a while.
27:14SPEAKERAnd then somebody else wrote back to say, no, it's back.
27:16SPEAKERWe're all doing Whirly Ball again.
27:18SPEAKERSo still happening.
27:20SPEAKERI did not know about the wings though.
27:22SPEAKERThe wings are good.
27:24SPEAKERI also did not know that this was a drinking activity,
27:26SPEAKERbut although I guess that makes sense in retrospect.
27:28SPEAKER- That does seem a bit dangerous, but you know.
27:30SPEAKER- We should go to Seattle and play Whirly Ball, Brad.
27:33SPEAKER- Maybe, maybe.
27:34SPEAKER- I need better insurance first, I think.
27:35SPEAKER- Yes, that seems like a good precaution.
27:39SPEAKER- We got an insane number of people
27:41SPEAKERwriting in about Whirly Ball, really.
27:43SPEAKERPeople were talking about it at the Discord.
27:44SPEAKERThe entire thread in the Discord was about Whirly Ball
27:47SPEAKERfor the first three days.
27:49SPEAKERAnd I got probably 20 blue sky messages about Whirly Ball
27:52SPEAKERover the last week and a half or two weeks.
27:55SPEAKER- Passionate fan base.
27:56SPEAKER- I mean, it sounds fun.
27:58SPEAKERBumper cars and whacking into each other
28:00SPEAKERand throwing basketballs at a little tiny hole.
28:02SPEAKERThat sounds great.
28:03SPEAKER- Indeed.
28:03SPEAKER- And wings.
28:04SPEAKERWho doesn't love wings?
28:05SPEAKER- And wings.
28:06SPEAKERWhat situation is not improved by the presence of wings?
28:09SPEAKER- Can I, can I?
28:10SPEAKERGina stopped at San Tung in San Francisco the other day.
28:13SPEAKER- Okay.
28:14SPEAKER- Do you know about San Tung?
28:15SPEAKER- I've heard of it.
28:17SPEAKER- San Tung is like a Chinese restaurant in the inner sunset
28:21SPEAKERat Irving and Judah and 10th or something, 11th.
28:26SPEAKERAnd they do these ginger, scallion, pepper wings.
28:31SPEAKERThey're like sweet and molasses-y and gooey,
28:33SPEAKERbut like unbelievably crispy.
28:35SPEAKER- Okay.
28:36SPEAKER- And Gina brought some home the other day
28:38SPEAKERand they were really good.
28:39SPEAKER- Just get them to go?
28:40SPEAKER- You get them to go.
28:41SPEAKER- You might have to look into that.
28:42SPEAKER- You should go get something.
28:43SPEAKERYou could walk into there probably.
28:44SPEAKERIt's a, yeah.
28:46SPEAKER- Here's the question.
28:47SPEAKER- Yeah.
28:48SPEAKER- Flats or drumettes?
28:50SPEAKER- Oh, both.
28:52SPEAKER- Really?
28:53SPEAKER- Yeah, they mix.
28:54SPEAKER- You're not, no, no.
28:55SPEAKERI mean you, like what's your preference?
28:55SPEAKER- Oh, my personal preference?
28:56SPEAKER- Yeah.
28:58SPEAKER- Depends.
28:59SPEAKERIf the drums are good, I'll take the drums all day.
29:01SPEAKER- Okay, same.
29:02SPEAKER- But if they're bad, then I want the wings.
29:03SPEAKER- Wait, what defines a bad drum?
29:05SPEAKERLike not enough meat?
29:06SPEAKER- Yeah, if it's like more skin than meat
29:08SPEAKERand like there's that grisly weird thing on the end,
29:11SPEAKERdangling off.
29:12SPEAKER- Yeah, sure, yeah.
29:13SPEAKER- Yeah.
29:14SPEAKER- I'd just gnaw that thing off.
29:15SPEAKER- I mean, look, the thing we used to do
29:18SPEAKERwhen we lived down there,
29:19SPEAKER'cause we used to live in that neighborhood,
29:20SPEAKERis we would go stop and grab some wings
29:22SPEAKERand then we'd go sit in the park
29:23SPEAKERand take a bunch of wet naps and eat wings.
29:27SPEAKER- That's living.
29:28SPEAKER- The beard's not compatible with that anymore.
29:29SPEAKERUnfortunately, I need like a hose, basically.
29:32SPEAKER- I could see that, yeah.
29:34SPEAKERYeah, I'm with you, drums all day.
29:36SPEAKER- Yeah.
29:36SPEAKER- It's great, my girlfriend likes the wings better,
29:38SPEAKERso we get along well.
29:39SPEAKER- Like you get to do stunts with the wings though.
29:41SPEAKERLike I know people who can put a whole wing in their mouth
29:43SPEAKERand just spit bones out, that's incredible.
29:46SPEAKER- Strip the entire meat.
29:47SPEAKER- Yep.
29:48SPEAKER- Right on, yes, yes.
29:49SPEAKER- The thing where you push it down
29:50SPEAKERand like the bones come out and you just have a wing,
29:53SPEAKERthat's also delicious.
29:54SPEAKER- Like a little meat flour.
29:56SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, these are all good.
29:58SPEAKERDrums, you don't get that option.
29:59SPEAKER- Now I want some wings.
30:01SPEAKER- You put a whole drum in your mouth,
30:02SPEAKERyou look like as a psychopath.
30:03SPEAKER- Fair, fair.
30:04SPEAKER- Yeah.
30:06SPEAKERAll right, James wrote in,
30:07SPEAKER"You had a short discussion a month ago
30:09SPEAKERabout getting a good power brick for travel.
30:11SPEAKERI'm lucky enough to go to Japan semi-frequently
30:13SPEAKERdue to having some family out there,
30:15SPEAKERso I need a phone and laptop charger that will work there
30:18SPEAKERas well as here in the UK.
30:19SPEAKERTrick is to get a power brick
30:21SPEAKERthat has a removable mains input,
30:23SPEAKERusually a figure eight or even Mickey Mouse plug,
30:26SPEAKERwhich is IEC C5 or C7,
30:28SPEAKERand then make sure your brick is multi-voltage,
30:31SPEAKERsuch as 100 to 250 VAC, 50/60 hertz."
30:36SPEAKERSo now you have a brick that will work anywhere in the world
30:38SPEAKERwhen you get to the country you're going to.
30:40SPEAKERYou get a cable that has the local mains plug on one end
30:43SPEAKERand your figure eight or Mickey Mouse plug on the other.
30:45SPEAKERBoom, you can get locally flavored electricity
30:47SPEAKERinto your brick.
30:49SPEAKER- This is incredible.
30:50SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, like back when we were going to TGS
30:54SPEAKERin like 2003, four or five,
30:57SPEAKERwe have like a very early primitive version of this,
31:00SPEAKERwhich was just a giant fat brick transformer
31:03SPEAKERwith a bunch of like interchangeable plugs
31:06SPEAKERfor different countries
31:07SPEAKERthat you would bring in a little sack along with it,
31:10SPEAKERbut this sounds like a way better, more modern version.
31:13SPEAKER- Yeah, this sounds fabulous.
31:14SPEAKER- Yes, so.
31:16SPEAKER- Thanks, James.
31:17SPEAKER- I don't do a lot of international travel myself these days,
31:20SPEAKERbut I guess it wouldn't hurt to be prepared in case you do.
31:23SPEAKER- I keep threatening to.
31:26SPEAKER- But I'm all out there.
31:27SPEAKER- Like I try not to leave the house, Brad.
31:29SPEAKER- Yes, fair, yes, I'm kind of with you.
31:33SPEAKERAll right, let's see.
31:34SPEAKEROne more email from Joe.
31:36SPEAKER- Okay.
31:37SPEAKER- I'm in the process of setting up a home NAS
31:39SPEAKERfor the first time after finally axing Windows
31:41SPEAKERfrom all my machines
31:42SPEAKERto make the full-time switch to Linux.
31:44SPEAKERAfter some amount of research,
31:46SPEAKERI'm planning on using Unraid for the NAS OS
31:48SPEAKERand Tailscale to access it outside my network.
31:52SPEAKERAm I overlooking anything from a security perspective?
31:55SPEAKERAnd is there anything I can do on the ease of access side
31:58SPEAKERto make the less tech-inclined folks in my life
32:01SPEAKERwant to utilize it more?
32:03SPEAKER- I think, I mean, Tailscale is the general recommendation
32:08SPEAKERfor safe external access, right?
32:11SPEAKER'Cause it works like a reverse proxy?
32:13SPEAKER- Well, yeah, yeah, so Tailscale is built on WireGuard.
32:17SPEAKERIt uses WireGuard as the VPN protocol,
32:20SPEAKERbut it's basically a mesh network version of WireGuard.
32:25SPEAKER- Oh, weird, okay.
32:26SPEAKER- And I've never used it,
32:27SPEAKERbut my understanding is it's quite easy to set up.
32:29SPEAKERLike setting up manual WireGuard is pretty fiddly.
32:31SPEAKERLike you have to deal with copying public and private keys
32:35SPEAKERback and forth and setting up config files.
32:38SPEAKER- You can shoot the QR code in your phone too.
32:40SPEAKER- I mean, that helps, but it's still quite technical.
32:43SPEAKERMy understanding is that setting up Tailscale
32:44SPEAKERis dramatically more straightforward
32:46SPEAKERand doesn't need a lot of networking expertise to do.
32:51SPEAKERI'm trying to think, like as a security-wise,
32:53SPEAKERif you're running a Tailscale network into your house,
32:56SPEAKERlike that's probably all you need to worry about
32:59SPEAKERas long as you're not opening a bunch of other ports.
33:01SPEAKER- And make sure you keep your Tailscale stuff,
33:03SPEAKERlike whatever you use to get into the house,
33:04SPEAKERmake sure you keep it updated.
33:05SPEAKERLike don't run a three-year-old WireGuard instance.
33:08SPEAKER- Yeah, I think I would guess
33:10SPEAKERthat just having people set up whatever Tailscale stuff
33:13SPEAKERthey need to get into your VPN is probably enough.
33:17SPEAKERI guess you could maybe look into like a reverse proxy
33:19SPEAKERto make the addresses look friendlier, I don't know,
33:21SPEAKERbut maybe that's not even necessary.
33:23SPEAKERI'm actually, I would like to hear more
33:24SPEAKERfrom people on the Discord about this.
33:26SPEAKER- Well, so like, for example, for me on iOS,
33:29SPEAKERwhen I use WireGuard from outside the house,
33:30SPEAKERand I set it up for both Gina and the kiddo
33:32SPEAKERso that they can get ad blocking basically
33:34SPEAKERwhen they're anywhere, they just have a,
33:38SPEAKERthey have a switch that flips on,
33:40SPEAKERthat lets them flip the VPN on, right, when they're out,
33:43SPEAKERwhich works really well.
33:45SPEAKERI kind of thought the interesting thing about this
33:46SPEAKERwas the question about how I can get
33:49SPEAKERthe less tech-infined folks in my life to utilize it more.
33:53SPEAKERAnd the kind of killer apps inside our house are Plex,
33:58SPEAKERobviously, or, you know, some sort of media server,
34:00SPEAKERmedia and music, but also the ad blocking is incredibly,
34:06SPEAKERlike everybody in the house doesn't like using the internet
34:09SPEAKERwhen they're away from the ad blocker, so.
34:12SPEAKER- Sure.
34:13SPEAKER- Turns out, good feature.
34:15SPEAKER- Understandable, actually, since you said that,
34:17SPEAKERI'm just gonna jump straight to a related Discord question.
34:19SPEAKER- It's a nice transition there.
34:21SPEAKER- From BrettG102, see, this is what happens
34:23SPEAKERwhen I do some prep.
34:25SPEAKER- Yeah.
34:26SPEAKER- I actually read all these questions
34:27SPEAKERand think about a logical flow to them.
34:29SPEAKER- It's amazing.
34:30SPEAKER- BrettG102, you both come from industries
34:33SPEAKERwhich had or continue to have a large reliance
34:36SPEAKERon internet advertising and have to play the SEO game.
34:39SPEAKERAny dissonance in the lengths that you go to
34:42SPEAKERin order to block ads?
34:44SPEAKERLike, yeah, I have thought about that quite a bit.
34:46SPEAKERI used to not do it at all for that exact reason.
34:49SPEAKERThe things that changed,
34:51SPEAKERand I still feel a little weird about it,
34:53SPEAKERbut the things that changed are A,
34:55SPEAKERdisplay ads are dramatically less valuable
34:58SPEAKERthan they used to be.
34:59SPEAKER- Do display ads are just there to drive people
35:01SPEAKERto subscriptions at this point?
35:03SPEAKER- Right, like they, display ads do not,
35:05SPEAKERyou know, back 20 years ago when I was starting at 23 now
35:09SPEAKERat GameSpot or whatever, ads were it, like that was it.
35:13SPEAKERLike the whole site ran on display ads
35:15SPEAKERand big ad campaigns and stuff like that,
35:16SPEAKERbut like the value of those ads plummeted to such a degree
35:20SPEAKERthat they are not the primary revenue driver anymore.
35:24SPEAKERAnd the other thing is,
35:24SPEAKERwhich we've talked about a million times,
35:26SPEAKERis that the amount of malicious activity
35:29SPEAKERthat it now comes along for the ride
35:31SPEAKERwith a lot of the ads that you're letting through
35:33SPEAKERand tracking, you know, data tracking,
35:35SPEAKERthere's like so many other things now
35:36SPEAKERthat are far less palatable than just looking at ads
35:39SPEAKERthat also come along from those same sources
35:42SPEAKERthat it's gotten a lot fuzzier for me.
35:45SPEAKER- For me, there was a specific moment a few years ago
35:49SPEAKERwhen I turned off all the tracking cookies
35:53SPEAKERthat when they started letting you do that,
35:55SPEAKERI flipped the button on all the things
35:56SPEAKERto stop having the tracking cookies.
35:59SPEAKERAnd I started getting ads for toenail fungus
36:04SPEAKERwith horrible pictures in them.
36:06SPEAKERAnd I didn't need to see people's gnarly toenails all day.
36:10SPEAKERAnd I was like, I don't want that, I can't do this anymore.
36:13SPEAKERThis is terrible.
36:14SPEAKERThe security, like I haven't gone so far,
36:17SPEAKERwe know people who don't like run JavaScript
36:20SPEAKERin their browser, right?
36:21SPEAKERLike they don't allow any JavaScript
36:23SPEAKERor any kind of code to be run in the browser
36:26SPEAKERother than just markup language.
36:28SPEAKERAnd I don't go that far just 'cause I need the web
36:31SPEAKERto be relatively usable and a lot of the sites that I use
36:34SPEAKERrequire a fair amount of JavaScript these days.
36:37SPEAKERBut yeah, like I think I subscribe to a ton of,
36:41SPEAKERlike I pay for a ton of newsletters and blogs
36:43SPEAKERand larger sites.
36:46SPEAKERI used to pay for multiple newspapers.
36:48SPEAKERI've stopped two of those
36:49SPEAKERbecause they kind of don't seem to be up to the task
36:53SPEAKERin the 2025 and have started paying
36:57SPEAKERfor more independent reporters as a result of that.
37:00SPEAKERSo I back a fair number of,
37:03SPEAKERlike I back people who write newsletters,
37:05SPEAKERI back people who write blogs,
37:06SPEAKERI pay for a couple of what would have been magazines
37:11SPEAKER10 years ago, like I pay for Wired,
37:13SPEAKERI pay for the Atlantic, I pay for the New Yorker off and on.
37:16SPEAKERI don't always pay for the New Yorker
37:17SPEAKER'cause it's kind of expensive.
37:19SPEAKER- Sure.
37:20SPEAKER- But yeah, like I would much rather,
37:24SPEAKERI would much, much rather pay somebody
37:27SPEAKERa couple of bucks a month for hot takes
37:29SPEAKERthan let them run arbitrary code on my computer.
37:31SPEAKER- Yes, for sure.
37:32SPEAKERI've been thinking about subscribing to Apple News actually,
37:35SPEAKERor actually is it Apple News Plus,
37:37SPEAKERI think is the name of the paid product.
37:39SPEAKER- Yeah, it's kind of like a bundle, right?
37:40SPEAKERYou get a bundle deal for a lot of big publications.
37:43SPEAKER- Yes, like it's actually kind of crazy
37:45SPEAKERhow many publications you get for,
37:47SPEAKERI mean, it's not nothing.
37:48SPEAKERIt's like 13 to 15 a month or something like that,
37:51SPEAKERbut it's a huge range of newspapers and magazines.
37:54SPEAKERI wonder what the split is though.
37:57SPEAKERI wonder if they're really taking a bath
38:00SPEAKERon what each publication is getting,
38:03SPEAKERhow they're slicing up that subscription fee.
38:06SPEAKERI wonder if that's actually like kind of a loss for them
38:08SPEAKERor a loss leader.
38:09SPEAKER- I think any revenue is better than no revenue
38:13SPEAKERfor a lot of them.
38:14SPEAKER- Yeah, sure, sure.
38:15SPEAKERI actually also to your point about arbitrary code
38:17SPEAKERand stuff like that, that couches all the content in an app,
38:20SPEAKERyou know, in like the news app on the iPad or whatever
38:23SPEAKERthat is obviously very sanitized and formatted with no ads
38:26SPEAKERand no concern about malicious tracking
38:29SPEAKERor stuff sneaking through.
38:31SPEAKER- For me, like when I was in a position to care
38:34SPEAKERabout the delivery side of ads a lot more than I do now,
38:38SPEAKERthere's a reason we don't run ads on this podcast, right?
38:42SPEAKERBut like I used to raise hell about all of those,
38:46SPEAKERthe rise of demand media was the first one, it's gone now,
38:50SPEAKERit's been bought by somebody and subsumed
38:51SPEAKERinto something else.
38:53SPEAKERBut they started making ads that looked like the kind of,
38:56SPEAKERhey, you might enjoy this content block on your website.
38:59SPEAKERAnd at that point, you're just lying to the users, right?
39:03SPEAKERWhen you're making ads that are indistinguishable
39:05SPEAKERfrom editorial content, then you've broken the contract
39:10SPEAKERwith me as a user and I'm okay cutting out ads on that.
39:16SPEAKERI think it's unfortunate that we're in this situation
39:18SPEAKER'cause like the same thing, the thing that's happening now
39:21SPEAKERis that Google is doing a lot less outbound traffic
39:24SPEAKERbecause they're sucking up all of the information
39:29SPEAKERon web pages into their AI results.
39:31SPEAKERSo what used to be a really good deal for publications,
39:37SPEAKERhey, we'll let you make a copy of our content
39:39SPEAKERon your servers in exchange for sending search results
39:43SPEAKERour way if our content is good,
39:45SPEAKERdrove an incredible amount of growth in publishing
39:48SPEAKERon the web.
39:49SPEAKERNow at the same time, Google was devaluing online advertising
39:52SPEAKERand Facebook contributed to that as well.
39:54SPEAKERNow the AI tendency to keep everything inside their silos,
39:59SPEAKERboth on Google and Microsoft and Chad GPD and OpenAI
40:02SPEAKERand everyone is making publishers reevaluate
40:08SPEAKERthe value of that contract, of that,
40:11SPEAKERhey, you can steal our stuff if you give us content back
40:13SPEAKER'cause the traffic is declining at a precipitous rate.
40:17SPEAKERAnd we're seeing things like Cloudflare a month or two ago
40:22SPEAKERrolled out a, hey, you can just block all the AI crawlers
40:25SPEAKERif you run all of your web traffic through us.
40:27SPEAKERIt's a free service.
40:28SPEAKERWe provide it for free 'cause we think it's important.
40:30SPEAKERAnd they do the thing that would be impossible
40:32SPEAKERfor us, any small to midsize publisher
40:35SPEAKERto manage on their own just because fuck AI.
40:39SPEAKERAnd that's the real, that's the first inflection point
40:45SPEAKERthat we're hitting with the AI stuff, I think,
40:47SPEAKERis that the publishers are gonna start blocking everything
40:50SPEAKERfrom Google and it's gonna completely change
40:52SPEAKERthe way we access stuff on the web.
40:53SPEAKER- Yeah, that move from Cloudflare,
40:55SPEAKERI looked at that and my first instinct was like,
40:57SPEAKERoh, that's like very altruistic of them.
40:58SPEAKERLike what a good move on their part.
41:00SPEAKERBut then, you know, like Cloudflare's business
41:02SPEAKERrelies on a healthy, thriving, robust web
41:05SPEAKERas much as anybody's, right?
41:06SPEAKERLike they need, 'cause the web is going to shrivel and die
41:10SPEAKERin a feed, like a negative feedback loop, right?
41:13SPEAKEROf the things that need to consume
41:16SPEAKERall the human generated content
41:18SPEAKERin order to drive their own automatically generated stuff
41:20SPEAKERare gonna run out of human content to continue absorbing.
41:23SPEAKERAnd then what's gonna come out the other end
41:25SPEAKERwhen they don't have valid inputs,
41:27SPEAKERwhat is the output gonna be anymore?
41:28SPEAKERLike it's gonna be-
41:29SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a content centipede.
41:31SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, basically.
41:35SPEAKERContent centipede is not a bad title.
41:37SPEAKERI have now forgotten the other thing you said
41:39SPEAKERthat was gonna be a good title.
41:39SPEAKER- Look, I'm on fire today, man.
41:40SPEAKERWe should do this in the afternoon more often.
41:42SPEAKER- Do you remember it?
41:43SPEAKERI didn't write it down, what was it?
41:44SPEAKER- Yeah, it was the, if it's black, fight back.
41:48SPEAKERIf it's brown, lay down.
41:50SPEAKERIf it's white, you're fucked and are gonna die, basically.
41:52SPEAKER- Sure, okay, I'll sift through there and find something.
41:55SPEAKER- Yeah.
41:57SPEAKER- Okay, since you mentioned newsletters,
41:59SPEAKERhere's one from Zella in Alaska
42:01SPEAKERthat since you write a newsletter,
42:02SPEAKERyou might be able to answer.
42:03SPEAKER- I have answers.
42:04SPEAKER- When writing a blog post about a project,
42:06SPEAKERdo you write it in parallel with the project
42:08SPEAKERor after you complete it?
42:10SPEAKER- So I've been writing posts and articles about projects
42:13SPEAKERfor a really long time now,
42:14SPEAKERand I always take notes as I'm doing it.
42:17SPEAKERAnd then those notes end up forming an outline
42:20SPEAKERthat then gets coalesced into an article almost always.
42:23SPEAKER- All right.
42:25SPEAKER- Hardly ever, usually you want the benefit
42:29SPEAKERof the completed project,
42:30SPEAKERbecause if you write it as you're going,
42:32SPEAKERthere's always dead ends and stuff
42:33SPEAKERthat doesn't work the way you would expect.
42:35SPEAKER- Yeah, then you just end up reworking more of the article
42:39SPEAKERthan you save time on by doing it in line.
42:41SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
42:43SPEAKER- Yeah, Taxical Tug asked,
42:45SPEAKERit's been mentioned a few times now
42:47SPEAKERthat you shouldn't listen to podcasts on Spotify.
42:50SPEAKERAs someone who exclusively uses Spotify
42:51SPEAKERto consume audio content, why not?
42:55SPEAKER- Because Spotify has built a parallel ecosystem
43:02SPEAKERfor audio podcasts that lives outside the RSS feeds
43:05SPEAKERand generates, I think they're not running ads anymore
43:09SPEAKERon top of other people's podcasts.
43:11SPEAKERThey did that for a little while.
43:13SPEAKERIt just means that we don't get data about your,
43:16SPEAKERlike we don't know, your listens don't count for us
43:18SPEAKERfor all intents and purposes there.
43:20SPEAKERIt doesn't matter for us 'cause we're not a listener,
43:22SPEAKERwe're listener supported, we don't run ads.
43:24SPEAKERBut if you're on an ad track podcast,
43:26SPEAKERit means that people have to jump
43:28SPEAKERthrough a whole bunch of hoops.
43:28SPEAKERAnd also, Spotify could just use RSS feeds
43:35SPEAKERfor their podcast platform and they choose not to.
43:37SPEAKERIt's just shitty.
43:38SPEAKER- Yeah, and consistent with their other business practices,
43:42SPEAKERbecause I mean, this isn't really relevant to podcasts,
43:44SPEAKERbut Spotify is well known
43:46SPEAKERfor dramatically underpaying musical artists.
43:49SPEAKER- I mean, look, the entire music industry
43:50SPEAKERhas a long history of dramatically underpaying artists,
43:53SPEAKERbut Spotify has really taken it to a whole new level.
43:56SPEAKER- Yeah, fair.
43:57SPEAKERAfter when Ozzy passed the other day,
44:00SPEAKERI was watching some interviews with him
44:01SPEAKERthat were running in the news
44:02SPEAKERand he was talking about how bad they got screwed
44:05SPEAKERby their management in the early days of Black Sabbath.
44:07SPEAKER- Yep.
44:08SPEAKER- The classic story of they were touring
44:10SPEAKERand pulling in huge amounts of money
44:12SPEAKERand then looking at their paychecks and going like,
44:13SPEAKER"Wait a minute, where is all this money going?"
44:16SPEAKERAnd, "Oh, it was the management."
44:18SPEAKER- I mean, they also had enormous drug problems
44:20SPEAKERback then too, so.
44:21SPEAKER- Well, hey, look, as long as these cereal boxes
44:24SPEAKERfull of cocaine kept showing up.
44:26SPEAKER- Look.
44:27SPEAKER- That was a direct quote, by the way.
44:28SPEAKER- Justin, you gotta eat your Wheaties
44:30SPEAKERto keep on the go, Brad.
44:32SPEAKER- Yes, yes.
44:33SPEAKER- Rip Ozzy, by the way.
44:35SPEAKER- Let's see, Sten writes in,
44:37SPEAKER"As both of you play Fortnite,
44:38SPEAKERwill you try and get the Fantastic Foreskins?"
44:42SPEAKER- You said Foreskin.
44:44SPEAKER- Yeah, I think they were trying to do something there,
44:46SPEAKERbut since it's a legitimate question,
44:47SPEAKERI haven't played Fortnite since the Star Wars stuff ended.
44:50SPEAKER- This season, they swung hard in the opposite direction,
44:54SPEAKERand it's like a complete mobility season.
44:57SPEAKER- Oh, what would you say characterized the last season then?
45:00SPEAKERI don't have the frame of reference since I don't play much.
45:03SPEAKER- Last season, the mobility stuff was relatively tame,
45:05SPEAKERso like, often they will have,
45:09SPEAKERso this season, they have five or six
45:13SPEAKERdifferent mobility items,
45:14SPEAKERso people are three-stacking mobility
45:16SPEAKERand just carrying a gun and maybe a little bit of utility.
45:21SPEAKERSo the final fights, the final small circles
45:25SPEAKERend up being absolute chaos
45:28SPEAKERwhere people are bouncing around like maniacs,
45:31SPEAKERand whoever runs out of mobility first loses, basically.
45:35SPEAKER- Interesting, that does sound quite different.
45:37SPEAKERI mean, so what would you say,
45:38SPEAKERwas it the guns that were the focus of the Star Wars season?
45:40SPEAKER- Yeah, so Star Wars season, there were no,
45:42SPEAKERwell, there was no ammo won.
45:45SPEAKERThe lightsabers don't really matter
45:46SPEAKERa whole lot in combat, right?
45:49SPEAKERYou maybe would use them to block or to close on somebody,
45:52SPEAKERbut you wouldn't use them to,
45:53SPEAKERit's like, you're not gonna beat somebody to death
45:55SPEAKERin a final circle with a lightsaber
45:57SPEAKERunless you're stunting on 'em.
45:58SPEAKER- Right.
46:00SPEAKER- The thing that they do really, really well with Fortnite
46:04SPEAKERthat I think all of the other battle royales,
46:06SPEAKERmost of the other big live service games have,
46:08SPEAKERis that each season has its own tenor
46:11SPEAKERbecause they have trained the player base
46:12SPEAKERto accept weapons coming in and going out constantly.
46:16SPEAKER- That's cool.
46:17SPEAKER- Yeah, and it keeps the game really fresh.
46:19SPEAKERIt's why that's the one that I play, honestly,
46:21SPEAKERis 'cause if we were just always using the same,
46:25SPEAKERyou know, drum shotgun and, you know, basic assault rifle,
46:30SPEAKERit would get tedious after a while, so.
46:32SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, that's for sure.
46:33SPEAKERAll that said, I think I have discovered
46:35SPEAKERthat I am going to be a very fair-weather Fortnite fan.
46:38SPEAKER- I think there's a lot of you, right?
46:41SPEAKERAlso, there's a ton of really good games out right now.
46:42SPEAKERI wanna play more Night Reign, that game owns.
46:45SPEAKER- Yeah, Elden Ring, Night Reign is a sleeper,
46:48SPEAKERI'm not gonna say game of the year, but like it's up there.
46:50SPEAKERLike it's actually like shockingly high
46:52SPEAKERon my favorite games of the year list so far.
46:54SPEAKER- Brad asked me about Peak.
46:56SPEAKER- What's up with Peak?
46:57SPEAKER- I beat it last time.
46:58SPEAKER- Whoa, I mean, congratulations.
47:01SPEAKER- Yeah.
47:01SPEAKER- But also, I'm sad we didn't get to beat it together.
47:05SPEAKER- There's still time.
47:06SPEAKER- Yeah, well, but now you've seen it.
47:07SPEAKERNow you can, I wanna have the pure survival experience
47:11SPEAKERof not having a ringer on the team
47:12SPEAKERtelling us the best strategies.
47:14SPEAKER- Look, we will get to the top of the mountain.
47:16SPEAKERThey're adding more biomes, I think, probably.
47:18SPEAKER- Of course, yeah, I mean, there's no way
47:20SPEAKERthey're not gonna support that game, right,
47:21SPEAKERwith the way it's selling.
47:22SPEAKER- They made a lot of money with it.
47:24SPEAKER- Yeah, hey, what if they could make even more?
47:26SPEAKER- Good for them, there's my game of the year right now.
47:30SPEAKER- It's up there, it's like crazy that that thing,
47:33SPEAKERthat game they made in three months for 10 bucks
47:36SPEAKERis high up on that list, for sure.
47:40SPEAKERQuestion from Zed, with the somewhat insane news
47:43SPEAKERthat, sorry, I'll need to start that over,
47:45SPEAKERwith the somewhat insane news that a retro YouTuber
47:48SPEAKERhas bought the Commodore company and trademarks,
47:51SPEAKERwhat defunct brand would you rescue from Bolivian?
47:53SPEAKERDid you see the Commodore stuff?
47:55SPEAKER- I had no idea that that's what happened.
47:56SPEAKER- I had to look it up.
47:57SPEAKERI still, it seems like there's a whole story there.
48:00SPEAKERIt sounds like they may have paid
48:01SPEAKERlike low seven figures for it.
48:03SPEAKER- Makes sense.
48:04SPEAKER- I hadn't heard of this YouTuber.
48:05SPEAKERI don't know how big they are.
48:05SPEAKERI don't know if they presumably
48:07SPEAKERhad some outside investment, maybe.
48:09SPEAKERAnd I have no idea what their plans are
48:10SPEAKERfor the Commodore brand.
48:14SPEAKERI'm going to say, at least for my own part,
48:15SPEAKERI'm going to limit this question
48:16SPEAKERto other defunct computer companies of the past,
48:19SPEAKERjust to narrow the scope a little bit here.
48:22SPEAKERThe first one that came to mind was B.
48:26SPEAKER- Yeah.
48:27SPEAKER- I think it might, it would be kind of cool
48:27SPEAKERto own all of the B trademarks and stuff like BOS, B box.
48:33SPEAKERLike I just, I like the look of the B logo a lot.
48:36SPEAKER- Yeah.
48:38SPEAKER- Have you ever seen Serial Experiments Lain, the anime?
48:41SPEAKERDid we talk about that?
48:42SPEAKER- No.
48:43SPEAKERIt's, it's, it's a, it is from the late nineties.
48:45SPEAKERIt is like a very extremely, like ahead of its time,
48:47SPEAKERcyber, cyber surreal anime.
48:52SPEAKER- Okay.
48:53SPEAKER- But there's a bunch of,
48:53SPEAKERthere's a bunch of nineties computing stuff in there
48:56SPEAKERthat is like subtle enough
48:58SPEAKERthat if you don't know what you're looking at,
48:59SPEAKERyou won't notice it.
49:00SPEAKERBut at the end of every episode of Lain,
49:03SPEAKERwhen it says to be continued, they use the B logo.
49:05SPEAKER- The B logo?
49:06SPEAKER- In there.
49:07SPEAKER- Wow.
49:08SPEAKER- There are references to like other nineties
49:10SPEAKERkind of big iron computer companies in there and stuff.
49:12SPEAKERBut anyway, like B is one of those like computing,
49:17SPEAKERyou know, computing companies that wasn't,
49:19SPEAKERI guess I would say that I find really fascinating.
49:21SPEAKER- It's definitely one of the path less traveled.
49:23SPEAKERIt's probably what I would have picked.
49:25SPEAKER- Yes.
49:26SPEAKER- Maybe SGI, but like I'm here because of B.
49:30SPEAKER- Sure.
49:31SPEAKER- I wrote a nasty letter to the Ars Technica folks
49:33SPEAKERbecause I thought their BOS coverage was bad.
49:36SPEAKERAnd they were like, well, if you think you can do better,
49:37SPEAKERwhy don't you come on and write about it?
49:39SPEAKERAnd I, and I did.
49:39SPEAKERAnd 25 years later, here I am.
49:41SPEAKER30 years later.
49:43SPEAKER- Talking about this right now is kind of making me realize,
49:45SPEAKERI think my entire fascination with operating systems
49:47SPEAKERgrew out of Windows being so shitty in that period.
49:51SPEAKER- I mean.
49:52SPEAKER- You know, like everything about looking
49:54SPEAKERat operating systems, they could do more than Windows
49:55SPEAKERand fawning over them was just because
49:58SPEAKERthe Windows experience was so shitty, you know?
49:59SPEAKER- Well, it was, it was a weird,
50:01SPEAKERthat period of time in the late nineties was weird
50:03SPEAKER'cause both Windows sucked.
50:04SPEAKERI mean, Windows 95 was okay, but had huge problems.
50:08SPEAKERAnd Mac OS was terrible then too.
50:11SPEAKER- Yes, extremely.
50:12SPEAKER- So like the commercial options were bad
50:14SPEAKERand you had people like John Carmack talking about
50:16SPEAKERhow awesome Next was, and you had Nintendo building games
50:19SPEAKERwith SGI workstations and.
50:21SPEAKER- And I was even like, I was very curious about OS/2
50:25SPEAKERfor a long time, purely because like,
50:28SPEAKERespecially when computers were more limited
50:30SPEAKERthan they are now and you were upgrading constantly
50:32SPEAKERbecause they were so slow.
50:33SPEAKERLike you were trying to get as much out of your hardware
50:35SPEAKERas you could, right?
50:35SPEAKERAnd when you saw something like OS/2 that was like,
50:38SPEAKERyou know, hey, this has real preemptive multitasking.
50:40SPEAKERLike you can do so much more with the same hardware
50:42SPEAKERyou have if you run this way better operating system.
50:44SPEAKERI mean, there were some drawbacks to running OS/2,
50:48SPEAKERlet's say, but like, it was all of that was just,
50:50SPEAKERman, Windows really sucks ass.
50:52SPEAKERLike I wish I had something better.
50:54SPEAKER- Well, yeah, so OS/2, I ran OS/2.
50:56SPEAKERI bought a copy of OS/2 'cause it was warp.
51:00SPEAKER- Okay. - Which I think was four plus.
51:02SPEAKER- Okay.
51:05SPEAKER- I bought it at the school bookstore.
51:07SPEAKER- Oh.
51:08SPEAKER- Because it was $3 or $6 or something
51:10SPEAKER'cause we got like this student discount
51:11SPEAKERjust right off the top and it was bad.
51:15SPEAKERIt was, 'cause you only run Windows 3.1 software on it.
51:17SPEAKERYou couldn't run Windows 95 stuff.
51:19SPEAKERBut the point is like we're in that place again.
51:24SPEAKER- Yeah, yes.
51:25SPEAKER- Like Windows is bad, OS/10 kind of a mess, but better.
51:29SPEAKER- Is it?
51:30SPEAKERI don't have a problem with it.
51:32SPEAKERI mean, I use it pretty, I'm using it right now.
51:34SPEAKER- Well, congratulations.
51:35SPEAKERI mean, people complain about it a lot,
51:36SPEAKERbut I don't have a Mac currently, so I don't know.
51:39SPEAKER- I will tell you it is light years better than,
51:42SPEAKERwell, maybe that's not the right way to put it.
51:45SPEAKERIt is light years less bad than Windows is.
51:47SPEAKERLet's say that.
51:49SPEAKERLike whatever issues may exist with current Mac OS
51:52SPEAKERare absolutely nothing compared to where Windows is at.
51:54SPEAKER- I think my issue, so my experience with Mac OS right now
51:57SPEAKERis mostly due to setting up my wife's Mac,
51:59SPEAKERhelping her with the computer problems.
52:01SPEAKERAnd like, I'm still frustrated by how much Mac OS
52:05SPEAKERis trying to sell you stuff, right?
52:07SPEAKERLike this is, I think the fundamental problem
52:10SPEAKERwith computing right now is that once Microsoft and Apple
52:14SPEAKERbuilt large captive audiences, the focus went from,
52:19SPEAKERhey, we need to make this thing better and more usable
52:21SPEAKERand more impactful to people's lives to,
52:23SPEAKERhey, what if we could extract $5 a month?
52:27SPEAKERBut you know what would be better
52:28SPEAKERthan extracting $5 a month?
52:29SPEAKERWhat about 30 bucks a month?
52:31SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, Apple would love to sell you an iCloud
52:33SPEAKERsubscription or Apple One, isn't that the name
52:35SPEAKERof their everything under the sun?
52:36SPEAKER- Yes, that's what they call it now.
52:37SPEAKER- Speaking of Apple News Plus, when I was like,
52:40SPEAKERwhen I looked at the price of Apple News Plus,
52:41SPEAKERI was like, maybe I should just get the Apple One,
52:42SPEAKERthe all-in-one one, although there are tiers of that.
52:46SPEAKEROf course, the news product is only on the absolute
52:49SPEAKERmost expensive tier, which I don't need at all.
52:51SPEAKER- You can also get fitness though,
52:53SPEAKERand then you can get your workouts with your robot trainer
52:58SPEAKERand yeah, I don't know, man.
53:00SPEAKER- The thing I'll say about Mac OS,
53:01SPEAKERit absolutely does not hit you over the head with upsells
53:04SPEAKERthe way that Windows currently does.
53:05SPEAKER- It does not, like Apple is not yet at the point
53:09SPEAKERwhere they have a thing in Finder that says,
53:13SPEAKERhey, you need to use Windows Backup, a OneDrive service.
53:16SPEAKER- Right, right, like they are not commandeering
53:19SPEAKERyour login process every 25 boots
53:23SPEAKERand giving you a full screen splash upsell
53:26SPEAKERthe way that Windows does, you know, like,
53:27SPEAKERhey, what if you signed up for Office 365,
53:29SPEAKEReven though you just use this computer to play games?
53:32SPEAKER- Yeah.
53:33SPEAKER- Anyway, the other one I'll say real quick
53:35SPEAKERis Sun is the other old computer company,
53:39SPEAKERbut that's the thing.
53:40SPEAKEROracle actually owns Sun and the Sun name and Solaris,
53:44SPEAKERalthough actually Solaris I think is slowly being retired.
53:47SPEAKER- Yeah, Solaris, yeah.
53:48SPEAKER- Like Java still exists, I mean, like I think the Sun,
53:51SPEAKERthe Sun brand and trademark are still technically in use
53:55SPEAKERand Oracle would send assassins to my house.
53:59SPEAKER- Yeah, you don't want Larry Ellison upset with you, man.
54:01SPEAKER- No, definitely not.
54:04SPEAKER- All right, here's another Tactical Tug one.
54:08SPEAKER- Oh wow, this is a threefer for Tactical Tug this week.
54:10SPEAKER- Do either of you have a favorite,
54:11SPEAKERoh shit, I'm old thing that's your go-to?
54:14SPEAKERMine was probably that I've got a guy at work,
54:16SPEAKERa full-time adult employee drives his own car and all
54:19SPEAKERwho is younger than the PS3.
54:21SPEAKER- Oh.
54:21SPEAKER- I turned 33 later this month,
54:23SPEAKERbut when he mentioned that I felt at least 70.
54:26SPEAKERAnother fun one is that COVID started spreading
54:28SPEAKERalmost six years ago, where did all that time go?
54:31SPEAKER- It just goes faster and faster, man.
54:33SPEAKER- Is that like an acknowledged cognitive phenomenon?
54:36SPEAKER- Yeah.
54:37SPEAKER- It is, it's not just me.
54:39SPEAKER- No, it's 'cause each season percentage wise
54:41SPEAKERis less of your life than the previous one was.
54:44SPEAKER- Yeah, like that, I think I only really noticed
54:47SPEAKERthat kicking into high gear,
54:49SPEAKERmaybe late thirties at the earliest,
54:50SPEAKERbut definitely once I got past 40,
54:52SPEAKERlike the accelerating nature of the passage of time
54:55SPEAKERor your perception of the passage of time,
54:57SPEAKERlike it just feels the older you get,
54:58SPEAKERthe faster it feels like time is going, it really sucks.
55:01SPEAKER- Having kids really accelerates that process too.
55:05SPEAKER- Sure, I could definitely see that.
55:07SPEAKERI had a fun one of these on this trip.
55:09SPEAKER- Okay.
55:10SPEAKER- Which is that I've had my '94 Civic
55:12SPEAKERout driving around quite a bit.
55:14SPEAKER- I had no idea you had a '94 Civic still.
55:16SPEAKER- Wait. - That's incredible.
55:17SPEAKERHaven't we never talked about this?
55:19SPEAKER- Have we not talked about this?
55:19SPEAKER- Well, I saw it on the Discord the other day,
55:21SPEAKERbut I didn't know better than that.
55:22SPEAKER- I could've sworn I had, maybe not, maybe not.
55:25SPEAKER- This is incredible information also, by the way.
55:28SPEAKERIt's not just a Civic, it is a red '94 Civic hatchback,
55:32SPEAKERmanual transmission, it's an SI model,
55:34SPEAKERso it's like the sporty one with the VTEC engine.
55:36SPEAKER- Yeah.
55:37SPEAKER- I think that's all the attributes of it,
55:39SPEAKERbut the magic part is it's got 100,000 miles on it.
55:42SPEAKER- Wow, really?
55:43SPEAKER- Yeah, so I've been out to three fast food places
55:46SPEAKERsince I've been here, and they were all the type
55:49SPEAKERwhere somebody will walk your food out to you.
55:51SPEAKER- Yeah.
55:52SPEAKER- In two of those three instances,
55:54SPEAKERand these were two different kids,
55:56SPEAKERthe kid who brought the food out
55:57SPEAKERwho looked like they had to be
55:59SPEAKERmaybe barely out of high school,
56:01SPEAKERprobably still in high school,
56:03SPEAKERboth flipped out over the car.
56:04SPEAKER- I bet.
56:05SPEAKER- Like, just lost their minds,
56:07SPEAKERlike, oh, there's this kid came out with braces
56:10SPEAKERcarrying my food, it's just like, dude, I love this thing.
56:13SPEAKERLook at this thing, it's spotless.
56:14SPEAKERLike, oh man, and it's a manual?
56:15SPEAKERLike, dang, bro, just losing it.
56:18SPEAKER- That is really funny.
56:20SPEAKER- It made me really happy to still have the car,
56:21SPEAKERbut also made me think, like, man,
56:23SPEAKERthis car is almost twice as old as this kid.
56:26SPEAKER- Well, yeah, and like, you couldn't drive that car here
56:27SPEAKER'cause it would get stolen in like 15 minutes, right?
56:30SPEAKER- So that exact thing came up on the Discord.
56:32SPEAKERWhen did I talk about this,
56:33SPEAKERthat this got discussed on the Discord?
56:35SPEAKER- Was it in one of the, I think it was in the thread.
56:37SPEAKER- Oh, we talked about the gasoline last week.
56:39SPEAKER- Oh, that's it. - That's what it was.
56:40SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah. - That's what it was.
56:41SPEAKERI still need to go deal with that gasoline, but.
56:43SPEAKER- Somebody suggested you should get a rental car
56:45SPEAKERand just deal with it that way.
56:46SPEAKER- Now, most people, let's say the majority of people
56:48SPEAKERon the Discord actually said you should,
56:50SPEAKERmy cousin, who is super into classic cars,
56:52SPEAKERlike, works on cars constantly,
56:53SPEAKERalso was just like, it's nine months old, it's fine,
56:56SPEAKERjust put a gallon or two at a time
56:57SPEAKERinto the various cars around the house
56:59SPEAKERon top of a fresh tank and just run it down.
57:02SPEAKERBut that exact thing, somebody like jokingly,
57:04SPEAKERI don't think they were super serious,
57:05SPEAKERbut they were like, they were like,
57:07SPEAKER"Come on, you know, you wanna just drive that Civic
57:09SPEAKERacross the country and have it with you
57:10SPEAKERin San Francisco, right?"
57:11SPEAKERAnd I was like, man, that car would not last a week
57:14SPEAKERin San Francisco, it would be gone.
57:18SPEAKER- Yeah, you'd need to get a real good club.
57:20SPEAKER- It would be gone. - The one that like,
57:21SPEAKERsticks out of both windows and is bolted onto the thing.
57:25SPEAKER- Like, I would never park it on the street full-time there.
57:28SPEAKERI would kind of be afraid to even park it on the street
57:31SPEAKERin the middle of the day there,
57:32SPEAKER'cause my understanding is like,
57:34SPEAKERthat type of mid-90s Civic is like,
57:36SPEAKERway up there on the list of the most stolen cars.
57:39SPEAKER- It's highly desirable and fairly easy to steal,
57:41SPEAKERis my understanding.
57:43SPEAKER- Yeah.
57:43SPEAKER- Yeah, I think my, so we have an intern at PC World
57:47SPEAKERwho was born in 2005.
57:49SPEAKER- Okay.
57:50SPEAKER- And I was told the other day
57:54SPEAKERthat playing battle royales was a Gen Z thing.
58:00SPEAKER- Okay.
58:01SPEAKER- And I was like, I don't know if I agree,
58:04SPEAKERI feel like Fortnite probably is a Gen Z thing,
58:07SPEAKERbut like, there was a period of time in 2017
58:09SPEAKERwhen you opened up Steam and everyone you've ever been
58:11SPEAKERfriends with on Steam was playing PUBG.
58:13SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
58:15SPEAKER- So I think it's just, it might've been the last
58:18SPEAKERwide cultural phenomena.
58:21SPEAKER- You might be right about that.
58:22SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know.
58:23SPEAKERI like, look, having a 12 year old kid
58:28SPEAKERmakes everything you do feel very old.
58:31SPEAKER- Yeah, I can see that for sure.
58:32SPEAKER- It's just a constant reminder of youth grinding you down.
58:37SPEAKER- Well, all right, speaking of the youth, one more question.
58:41SPEAKERParallax 55, I'm transitioning from teaching science
58:46SPEAKERto computer technology in my high school this year.
58:48SPEAKERAnd while I have some ideas,
58:50SPEAKERI'd love to get your guys' thoughts on some projects
58:52SPEAKERI could do with my students.
58:53SPEAKERWe've got a bunch of Arduinos handy.
58:55SPEAKERAnd I also ordered some Raspberry Pi zeros that just arrived.
58:59SPEAKERI have access to a suite of components, sensors, LEDs,
59:02SPEAKERand breadboards, but I'm fairly sure they won't allow us
59:05SPEAKERto solder anything in the classroom setting.
59:07SPEAKERAlso projects that could be broken down
59:09SPEAKERand the components reused would certainly be a plus.
59:13SPEAKERYou both seem to happily tool the way
59:14SPEAKERat a number of projects, so I value any input you may have.
59:18SPEAKER- So, okay, two things.
59:19SPEAKEROne is that you can get solderless breadboards
59:22SPEAKERthat are basically like breadboards
59:24SPEAKERthat instead of having solder points,
59:26SPEAKERthey just have a bunch of holes
59:27SPEAKERthat you jam jumper wires in with little pins on the end.
59:30SPEAKERAnd you can do those, you can get hats, solderless hats
59:34SPEAKERfor Arduinos and Raspberry Pis and stuff like that.
59:38SPEAKERI wanna say Adafruit or their blog that goes with Adafruit
59:42SPEAKERhas a really great curriculum for starting out with Arduino
59:46SPEAKERthat starts with, hey, you hook up to a breadboard,
59:50SPEAKERhere's how a breadboard works by doing a buzzer
59:54SPEAKERor an LED or something like that
59:55SPEAKERand turning it on and off with a simple C program.
1:00:00SPEAKERThe neat thing about Arduino stuff is it teaches you,
1:00:04SPEAKERit's a good way to learn C programming
1:00:06SPEAKERand the basics of stuff like loops and pointers
1:00:09SPEAKERand arrays and all that kind of business.
1:00:12SPEAKERAnd you also get to learn
1:00:15SPEAKERhow to do a little bit of electronic stuff.
1:00:18SPEAKERBut it turns like hardware,
1:00:20SPEAKERit turns like changing the real world
1:00:21SPEAKERinto a software problem,
1:00:22SPEAKERwhich is the, like that's the key to using this stuff,
1:00:26SPEAKERfor me at least, to learn how to do this stuff.
1:00:29SPEAKER- Yeah, like manipulating something physical with software,
1:00:32SPEAKERwhich is non-tangible.
1:00:34SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:00:35SPEAKER- This is kind of a magical thing.
1:00:37SPEAKER- So projects that I've done,
1:00:39SPEAKERlike I started out by doing, hey, here's a flashy light
1:00:42SPEAKERthat blinks every second
1:00:43SPEAKERand makes a buzz every second to sync.
1:00:46SPEAKERAnd then that, it turns out clock drift on Arduinos is bad.
1:00:49SPEAKERSo I had to get a special,
1:00:50SPEAKERI had to get a crystal with a timing crystal on it
1:00:54SPEAKERto get more accurate time.
1:00:56SPEAKERAnd then I changed over to doing a clapboard style timer.
1:01:01SPEAKERAnd like, if you have a project
1:01:02SPEAKERthat you can escalate over a period of time,
1:01:04SPEAKERthat's really good.
1:01:05SPEAKERIf you have to tear everything down every week
1:01:07SPEAKERafter the project,
1:01:07SPEAKERthen you need a series of individual one-offs
1:01:10SPEAKERthat you can then start from scratch and go on to the end.
1:01:14SPEAKERI also would investigate the soldering
1:01:16SPEAKER'cause it's worth learning,
1:01:17SPEAKERit's worth teaching the kids how to solder.
1:01:19SPEAKERYou can do it with no lead exposure now, which is important.
1:01:23SPEAKERYou wanna use non-leaded solder with kids especially,
1:01:25SPEAKERbut everywhere really.
1:01:28SPEAKERAnd you'd have to get like few muds and stuff like that
1:01:33SPEAKERor smoke filters or whatever.
1:01:37SPEAKERBut maybe that's more of a, hey, here's the class
1:01:39SPEAKERand then there's a club afterwards
1:01:41SPEAKERthat does projects that go...
1:01:43SPEAKERLike, I think there's a really interesting pairing
1:01:45SPEAKERthat I've seen some folks do where they do the club,
1:01:48SPEAKERwhich is the intro to,
1:01:49SPEAKERand then for people who are interested in doing
1:01:52SPEAKEReither their own projects
1:01:53SPEAKERunder like an independent study site situation
1:01:55SPEAKERor longer projects that can't be done in an hour a day,
1:02:00SPEAKERthen that's a good option for that kind of stuff too.
1:02:04SPEAKER- Sure.
1:02:04SPEAKERI endorse everything you just said.
1:02:06SPEAKEROne thing I might add,
1:02:07SPEAKERlike I'm definitely not going to go down the road
1:02:09SPEAKERof like, oh, Gen Z has no idea how to use,
1:02:12SPEAKERor Gen Alpha has no idea
1:02:13SPEAKERhow to use traditional computers anymore,
1:02:15SPEAKERbut it might be worth assessing the skill level
1:02:18SPEAKERof your students
1:02:19SPEAKERand like just teaching some basic modern computing skills
1:02:24SPEAKERat a really core level.
1:02:25SPEAKEROr maybe like a lot of the stuff you're describing here
1:02:27SPEAKERis very hardware centric.
1:02:28SPEAKERLike maybe getting a little more time in
1:02:30SPEAKERon the software end as well,
1:02:31SPEAKERwhether that's like exploring the nature of file systems
1:02:34SPEAKERor I don't know, help me out here.
1:02:37SPEAKERYou get the kind of thing I'm talking about though, right?
1:02:38SPEAKERLike just the basics of the underpinnings
1:02:41SPEAKERof an operating system
1:02:42SPEAKERand like the types of things that the average person
1:02:43SPEAKERdoesn't really interface with so much anymore.
1:02:46SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, the nice thing
1:02:47SPEAKERabout doing these kinds of projects
1:02:50SPEAKERis you have to learn how to,
1:02:52SPEAKERlike you kind of have to learn how to do file structure stuff
1:02:54SPEAKERand some real basic stuff.
1:02:56SPEAKER- Sure.
1:02:57SPEAKER- Just because your thing won't compile
1:02:59SPEAKERand you won't have a way to get it onto the,
1:03:00SPEAKERto burn it onto the Arduino otherwise.
1:03:03SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
1:03:04SPEAKERAnd maybe you'll do some of this in line
1:03:05SPEAKERwith working with Arduinos.
1:03:07SPEAKERAnd if you've got Raspberry Pis,
1:03:08SPEAKERthe like kind of Unix basics, maybe a little bit,
1:03:11SPEAKERlike kind of basics of the standard Unix shell
1:03:15SPEAKERand like kind of like how to build software.
1:03:17SPEAKERI mean, you definitely would do that with Arduino.
1:03:20SPEAKER- Yeah, for- - Like coding type stuff.
1:03:22SPEAKER- For me, the thing, the Arduino is,
1:03:26SPEAKERhey, I want a switch that's smart, right?
1:03:28SPEAKERYou're not, you shouldn't, generally speaking,
1:03:30SPEAKERdo a bunch of computing stuff on our new Arduinos.
1:03:33SPEAKERYou can, but that's more advanced and more difficult.
1:03:35SPEAKERGenerally you want, hey, here's,
1:03:38SPEAKERI want to monitor some condition
1:03:39SPEAKERand I want this thing to happen when this condition changes.
1:03:42SPEAKERAnd that's pretty straightforward.
1:03:43SPEAKER- Right, but you'd be doing that
1:03:44SPEAKERon something like a Raspberry Pi or a PC, right?
1:03:48SPEAKER- Well, no, so you'd be doing that on an Arduino,
1:03:49SPEAKERbut it's like, it's a little computer
1:03:52SPEAKERthat has like a hall effect sensor that you,
1:03:55SPEAKERlike if you want to make a,
1:03:56SPEAKERif you want to trigger something that triggers
1:03:57SPEAKERwhen you open a door, right?
1:03:59SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, no, I know what the Arduino does.
1:04:00SPEAKERWhat I mean is like,
1:04:01SPEAKERwhere are you writing the software for the Arduino?
1:04:03SPEAKERLike you're not doing that on the Arduino, right?
1:04:04SPEAKER- Well, you're doing that on a computer.
1:04:05SPEAKER- That's what I meant, that's what I meant.
1:04:08SPEAKERWhat I meant is the development environment
1:04:09SPEAKERfor the Arduino is going to be on a Pi or a PC or something.
1:04:12SPEAKERAnd so you'll probably get some like shell experience
1:04:14SPEAKERand some compiling,
1:04:16SPEAKERwriting and compiling software experience there
1:04:17SPEAKERin the course of doing that.
1:04:19SPEAKER- Kind of the way, the way you start with Arduino generally
1:04:22SPEAKERis by writing these little sketches
1:04:23SPEAKERthat are basically like C-esque programs.
1:04:28SPEAKERAnd you can, you can invoke libraries and stuff like that.
1:04:31SPEAKERSo, so like there's a really good argument
1:04:34SPEAKERfor learning C by doing a series
1:04:37SPEAKERof escalating Arduino projects.
1:04:39SPEAKERIn the same way that like the farmer was replaced,
1:04:41SPEAKERteaches you Python by solving a series
1:04:43SPEAKERof like onscreen computer problems.
1:04:45SPEAKERIt's the same basic idea.
1:04:47SPEAKERThe, when you want to do something that's more complicated,
1:04:49SPEAKERthat is like a server that runs some software,
1:04:53SPEAKERthat's when you get into the Raspberry Pi stuff.
1:04:55SPEAKERAnd, and it's, it's generally much more complicated
1:04:59SPEAKERand a little more like you have to have
1:05:01SPEAKERa pretty good understanding of how to write software
1:05:03SPEAKERto do the Raspberry Pi stuff in my experience.
1:05:05SPEAKER- Sure.
1:05:06SPEAKER- Now, the other interesting thing about Raspberry Pi though
1:05:09SPEAKERis there's a lot of off the shelf applications,
1:05:11SPEAKERstuff like Pi holes and things like that,
1:05:13SPEAKERthat you can, that you can run on a Raspberry.
1:05:16SPEAKERLike you can, it's relatively easy
1:05:18SPEAKERto build a Raspberry Pi powered emulation machine.
1:05:22SPEAKERAnd like, that's an interesting,
1:05:24SPEAKERthat's an interesting electronics slash computing project.
1:05:28SPEAKERYou're like, if you want to make a machine
1:05:29SPEAKERthat plays Donkey Kong in the, in your lab.
1:05:31SPEAKERSo like, you know, like there's,
1:05:34SPEAKERthere's a lot of different opportunities.
1:05:36SPEAKERThe thing to look for, there's on the explore
1:05:38SPEAKERand learn tab on Adafruit's, on learn.adafruit.com.
1:05:43SPEAKERThey have a ton of stuff, including a whole section
1:05:46SPEAKERfor educators that runs you through,
1:05:49SPEAKERlike there's a bazillion lessons that you can use.
1:05:52SPEAKERAnd, and there's, I can't find it out while we're recording,
1:05:56SPEAKERbut there, if I recall, there was an escalation
1:05:58SPEAKERthat's like, hey, if you want to do an Arduino program,
1:06:02SPEAKERhere's 20 lessons for your weekly class for this,
1:06:05SPEAKERfor a year's curriculum or whatever.
1:06:07SPEAKER- That's cool.
1:06:08SPEAKERThat sounds like a good resource.
1:06:10SPEAKERI started to say, I really wish I had been able
1:06:12SPEAKERto take this class when I was in high school.
1:06:14SPEAKERAlthough frankly, I have to actually shout out
1:06:16SPEAKERlike the level of computing education
1:06:19SPEAKERthat I was able to get in this relatively small town
1:06:22SPEAKERpublic school system is like pretty shockingly good
1:06:25SPEAKERfor the eighties and nineties.
1:06:26SPEAKER- So we didn't have that Tennessee funded,
1:06:30SPEAKERfunded slightly better than Arkansas.
1:06:32SPEAKER- Yeah. Yikes. Okay.
1:06:35SPEAKERYou were right there across the border,
1:06:37SPEAKERbut it was like a world of difference, I guess.
1:06:39SPEAKER- Yep. Yeah.
1:06:40SPEAKER- We had a few, we had a few Apple IIe's
1:06:42SPEAKERin our, in our grade school.
1:06:44SPEAKER- We had, we had one Apple IIe in our grade school.
1:06:46SPEAKERIt was in the teacher's like workroom where,
1:06:49SPEAKERwhere the mimeograph and the paper cutters were.
1:06:52SPEAKERI got, I annoyed my sixth grade, fifth grade teacher enough
1:06:55SPEAKERthat he talked to the principal
1:06:57SPEAKERand the solution for getting me out of the classroom
1:07:00SPEAKERand telling him when he was fucking up science education
1:07:03SPEAKERwas that I got to go fuck around on the computer
1:07:05SPEAKERfor a couple hours, twice a week.
1:07:07SPEAKER- That's pretty good.
1:07:08SPEAKER- It worked out.
1:07:09SPEAKER- Wait, so that computer was just for teacher use officially?
1:07:11SPEAKER- Teacher use only and also me sometimes.
1:07:14SPEAKER- Okay. We had, we had a little lab of like 10 IIe's
1:07:17SPEAKERor something that we shared.
1:07:18SPEAKERWe got to go do like once every couple of weeks or something.
1:07:21SPEAKER- We had TI 99 4a's in every classroom.
1:07:24SPEAKER- Okay.
1:07:25SPEAKER- So you would get to go play hunt the wumpus or hangman
1:07:27SPEAKERif you, if you, that was a reward for good behavior.
1:07:30SPEAKER- Yeah. Granted this, to be fair,
1:07:31SPEAKERthis was when the Apple II was like over 10 years old
1:07:34SPEAKERby the time.
1:07:35SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:07:36SPEAKER- By the time I was old enough for that stuff.
1:07:37SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:07:38SPEAKER- But then like I had a, I had a programming class.
1:07:42SPEAKERWe learned like basic and Pascal when I was in 10th grade
1:07:45SPEAKERor something, I think.
1:07:47SPEAKER- We had a Pascal class, but I did not.
1:07:52SPEAKERI, at that point I evaluated whether I wanted to learn
1:07:54SPEAKERPascal and it didn't seem super useful.
1:07:58SPEAKERIf only I'd taken Fortran.
1:08:00SPEAKER- Somebody's angry hearing you say that about Pascal.
1:08:02SPEAKER- Sorry, Pascal people.
1:08:04SPEAKER- Yes.
1:08:05SPEAKERAnyway, shout out to, shout out to computing educators,
1:08:07SPEAKEReducators and education, stuff can be quite formative.
1:08:12SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:08:13SPEAKER- So I learned, I learned to type on a gigantic ass,
1:08:15SPEAKERlike IBM model M or what's the other one, model F.
1:08:18SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:08:19SPEAKER- Like the, the, the one you could brain somebody with.
1:08:22SPEAKER- That sounds nice.
1:08:23SPEAKER- The typing class had typewriters with no labels
1:08:26SPEAKERon the keys.
1:08:27SPEAKER- Man.
1:08:28SPEAKEROh, hey, they were just really testing your metal.
1:08:30SPEAKER- I mean, we were pretty hardcore.
1:08:32SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:08:33SPEAKERAll right.
1:08:34SPEAKERThat's it for questions.
1:08:35SPEAKER- That's what you got?
1:08:36SPEAKER- I kind of could sit here and reminisce for another 10
1:08:38SPEAKERminutes about my public school computing experience,
1:08:40SPEAKERbut let's wrap it up there.
1:08:42SPEAKER- I feel like we took, like I had a basic class
1:08:46SPEAKERin middle school that the entirety of it was learning
1:08:48SPEAKERhow to make a bitmap that was like a 16 by 16 bitmap.
1:08:52SPEAKER- Man, in basic, that's pretty advanced.
1:08:54SPEAKERThat's cool.
1:08:55SPEAKER- And then drawing, navigating a maze,
1:08:57SPEAKERlike falling, falling all the right walls.
1:08:59SPEAKER- But I think that's probably a little more advanced
1:09:02SPEAKERthan what we did, which was like,
1:09:04SPEAKERprobably mostly building your like average text-based
1:09:06SPEAKERlemonade stand program and so forth.
1:09:08SPEAKER- That seems right.
1:09:09SPEAKERYeah.
1:09:10SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:09:11SPEAKER- Anyway, that'll do it for us.
1:09:12SPEAKERIf you have questions,
1:09:13SPEAKERyou can send them to techpod@content.town
1:09:15SPEAKERor if you're in the discord,
1:09:16SPEAKERyou can post them to the question seeking answers channel.
1:09:19SPEAKERIf you aren't in the discord,
1:09:20SPEAKERwhat the heck are you even doing?
1:09:22SPEAKERYou can get in there by joining the Patreon
1:09:24SPEAKERand supporting the listener supported tech pod
1:09:26SPEAKERfor as little as five bucks a month.
1:09:28SPEAKERYou get access to the discord.
1:09:29SPEAKERYou get the monthly patron exclusive episode
1:09:32SPEAKERwhere we talk about like,
1:09:34SPEAKERit's like Ramblecast is a registered trademark
1:09:37SPEAKERof another brand.
1:09:38SPEAKERSo we're not going to say that,
1:09:39SPEAKERbut it's a Ramblecast, okay?
1:09:41SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:09:42SPEAKERWhat are some synonyms for ramble?
1:09:44SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:09:45SPEAKER- Praddle?
1:09:45SPEAKER- Praddle.
1:09:46SPEAKER- It's our Praddlecast.
1:09:47SPEAKER- I don't, people might think that's a Chris Pratt fan cast.
1:09:49SPEAKERI'm not okay with that.
1:09:51SPEAKER- Fair.
1:09:52SPEAKERBut anyway, you can get access to the discord.
1:09:54SPEAKERAgain, it's patreon.com/techpod.
1:09:56SPEAKERThat is patreon.com/techpod.
1:09:58SPEAKERAnd I'm told you have to say things three times.
1:09:59SPEAKERSo I'm going to say it one more time.
1:10:00SPEAKERPatreon.com/techpod.
1:10:02SPEAKERIf you're in the car,
1:10:03SPEAKERset yourself a reminder to go sign up later.
1:10:05SPEAKERThat's my tip.
1:10:07SPEAKERAnd as always, we appreciate every single one
1:10:09SPEAKERof our patrons,
1:10:11SPEAKERbut a very special thank you goes out
1:10:12SPEAKERto our executive producer, to your patrons,
1:10:15SPEAKERincluding Octothorpe Bunny Crimes, Andrew Slosky,
1:10:18SPEAKERDavid Allen, James Kamik, Jason Lee,
1:10:21SPEAKERJordan Lippett, Pantheon, makers
1:10:23SPEAKERof the HS3 high-speed 3D printer, and Twinkle Twinkie.
1:10:26SPEAKERAnd it's the end of the month,
1:10:28SPEAKERwhich means we do shout outs
1:10:30SPEAKERto our associate producer to your patrons,
1:10:32SPEAKERincluding Alejandro Navarro, Andre M. Burke, P.E.,
1:10:37SPEAKERAndrew Dicey Shovise, Arthur Gies, Ben Talman,
1:10:40SPEAKERBrutal Kerfuffle, Eric, Felix Kramer, Graham Banks,
1:10:44SPEAKERChad Rita, Just Associate Wedge, Kerp, Matt Walker,
1:10:49SPEAKERparentheses Walkman8080, Nathan Phelps, P. Tibbs,
1:10:54SPEAKERSanchik Kumar, Steve Lynn, Thomas Shea,
1:10:57SPEAKERTom Fuller, and Tom Hilton.
1:11:00SPEAKERGotta, we got some Toms growing in the-
1:11:02SPEAKER- Got a good run of Toms in there, yeah.
1:11:05SPEAKER- Thank you all so, so much for supporting the show.
1:11:07SPEAKERWe appreciate it, everybody,
1:11:08SPEAKERand wouldn't be here without you all, so thanks.
1:11:11SPEAKER- We do, and we wouldn't.
1:11:13SPEAKER- I saw a long time,
1:11:18SPEAKERsomebody I used to play on the future US,
1:11:21SPEAKERback in the Maximum PC days on our TF2 beer league clan,
1:11:29SPEAKERpopped up in the Discord the other day,
1:11:30SPEAKERand I was very excited.
1:11:32SPEAKER- That's fun, that's very fun.
1:11:34SPEAKER- Yeah, we played in a CPL feeder league, 5v5 and 7v7s.
1:11:41SPEAKER- Man, CPL, that's a throwback.
1:11:44SPEAKER- Yeah, but it was very clearly a fun league, right?
1:11:47SPEAKERIt was not like, there was no chance
1:11:49SPEAKERwe were gonna go to any real tournaments, but it was fun.
1:11:51SPEAKERWe played like twice a week
1:11:52SPEAKERand had practices and everything.
1:11:54SPEAKER- What was CPL, Cyber Professional League?
1:11:56SPEAKER- Cyber, cyber-
1:11:58SPEAKER- Is that right?
1:11:59SPEAKER- Cyber Game Professional League, or yeah.
1:12:01SPEAKER- What was the other one?
1:12:03SPEAKERIt was CPL, and there was another one
1:12:04SPEAKERwith an acronym at the same time.
1:12:05SPEAKERThere was like the competing league.
1:12:06SPEAKER- And there were a bunch.
1:12:07SPEAKERThe Angel Munoz one is the other one, right?
1:12:09SPEAKER- Yes, that's exactly the one I'm trying to think of.
1:12:12SPEAKER- Oh no, Cyber Athlete Professional League, it was his.
1:12:15SPEAKER- Oh, that was his?
1:12:16SPEAKEROkay. - Yeah.
1:12:17SPEAKER- I don't remember what the other one was though.
1:12:19SPEAKERIt was a weird time.
1:12:20SPEAKER- Everybody was trying to get in
1:12:22SPEAKERon that land grab of Proto Esports.
1:12:24SPEAKER- Yep, who knew?
1:12:25SPEAKER- Just about 20 years, 20 years ahead of their time.
1:12:27SPEAKER- Who knew it was just gonna take Blizzard
1:12:29SPEAKERowning everything with the Overwatch League?
1:12:32SPEAKER- No.
1:12:33SPEAKER- The only Esports, what matters?
1:12:36SPEAKERThat'll do it for us this week.
1:12:36SPEAKERThanks for listening everybody,
1:12:37SPEAKERand we will see you next week.
1:12:39SPEAKERAs always, please consider the environment
1:12:41SPEAKERbefore printing this podcast.
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1:12:47SPEAKER(dramatic music)