317: Schrödinger's AirPod

00:00SPEAKER- How many apartment fire alarms would you say

00:02SPEAKERyou've heard go off in your life?

00:04SPEAKER- When I was a freshman in college,

00:06SPEAKERit was very popular for kids to yank the fire alarm

00:10SPEAKERand then run down the stairs.

00:12SPEAKERAnd usually about three o'clock in the morning,

00:16SPEAKERthere was one two-week period

00:17SPEAKERwhere it went off like seven times, I think.

00:19SPEAKER- Wow.

00:20SPEAKER- Yeah, then they started putting cameras up on them

00:22SPEAKERand put the little explodey dye packs in there.

00:24SPEAKERSo the next guy who did it had his arm turn blue.

00:27SPEAKER- I was gonna wait, did somebody actually do that?

00:29SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

00:31SPEAKER- Was he identified?

00:33SPEAKER- I mean, look, there was one smurf-looking motherfucker

00:36SPEAKERat the bottom of the stairs

00:37SPEAKERand he had some real stuff to explain

00:40SPEAKERand got to talk to the dean, as I recall.

00:41SPEAKER- Yeah, and I'm sure the authorities track him down.

00:43SPEAKERI was thinking more like mob rule.

00:46SPEAKERDid the mass of disgruntled sleepy students identify him

00:49SPEAKERand perhaps tear him limb from limb?

00:51SPEAKER- I feel like if anybody knew that their friends

00:54SPEAKERwere doing that, their friends were told

00:56SPEAKERto cut that shit out because it was funny the first time

01:01SPEAKERand then it was really annoying after that.

01:03SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

01:04SPEAKERYou know, I guess a dorm is basically

01:04SPEAKERjust a giant apartment, so it fits this discussion.

01:07SPEAKER- Yeah, kind of.

01:08SPEAKER- We've talked about the fire alarm situation

01:10SPEAKERin this building before, right?

01:13SPEAKER- No.

01:14SPEAKER- Did I never bring that up a year or two ago

01:16SPEAKERwhen I discovered because the fire alarm box

01:19SPEAKERin the entryway is quite visible downstairs

01:21SPEAKERand has the name of the company that installed it on it?

01:23SPEAKER- Okay, no, I never heard this before.

01:25SPEAKERDid I not mention to you that I discovered,

01:27SPEAKERI don't remember why I Googled this person

01:29SPEAKER'cause the company is just named after the guy who runs it.

01:32SPEAKER- Yeah, Steve's Fire Alarm Company.

01:34SPEAKER- And found an article that this person

01:36SPEAKERwas being investigated by the city of San Francisco

01:38SPEAKERfor a fire in the mission and for having been working

01:42SPEAKERfor quite a few years unlicensed.

01:45SPEAKER- Wait, he's working on both the supply and demand side

01:47SPEAKERof the fire alarm business?

01:48SPEAKER- This doesn't seem to be the case.

01:50SPEAKERAnyway, he uses like no license, questionable work,

01:53SPEAKERa fire- - On your home.

01:57SPEAKER- Not a great scene.

01:58SPEAKERNot a, you know, it was one of those things that you're like,

02:00SPEAKERwell, I'm probably powerless to change this.

02:03SPEAKERI'm just gonna try not to think about it.

02:06SPEAKERAnyway, this past Sunday, boy, did that fire alarm go off

02:10SPEAKERand just keep going off for a large chunk of the afternoon.

02:14SPEAKER- Oh, no.

02:15SPEAKER- And boy, is that fire alarm, I mean, a lot of them are,

02:17SPEAKERI guess, just electronic these days, right?

02:20SPEAKER- I have no idea.

02:20SPEAKERI have no idea how fire alarm,

02:21SPEAKERlike I know how smoke detectors work,

02:23SPEAKERbut fire alarms, who knows?

02:24SPEAKERIt's impossible to say.

02:25SPEAKER- This is the classic metal on metal bell type fire alarm.

02:28SPEAKERIt's not like an electronic sound.

02:30SPEAKERIt is literally just a hammer impacting a giant bell.

02:33SPEAKERAnd that thing is mounted about,

02:36SPEAKERas I sit about 15 feet away from me right now,

02:38SPEAKERbut it's 'cause I sit in a room right across from the entry.

02:42SPEAKER- Yeah.

02:43SPEAKER- You know how this apartment is laid out.

02:44SPEAKERI sit basically right across

02:45SPEAKERfrom the front door of this apartment

02:47SPEAKERand about another eight feet past that is that bell.

02:50SPEAKERAnd boy, I straight up put earbuds in

02:53SPEAKERbecause it was the closest thing I had to ear plugs

02:54SPEAKERbecause it was just going.

02:57SPEAKER- So why did it go off?

02:59SPEAKERWas there a fire?

03:00SPEAKER- I think it was a false alarm or a malfunction maybe.

03:02SPEAKERI think it was probably less a false alarm

03:04SPEAKERand more it just was maybe not working anymore or somehow.

03:07SPEAKER- Oh my God.

03:08SPEAKER- But fire department showed up.

03:09SPEAKERI assume that's protocol.

03:10SPEAKERI assume any time a building fire alarm goes off,

03:13SPEAKERthe fire department presumably is duty bound to go.

03:17SPEAKER- I have no idea.

03:18SPEAKER- Yeah, okay.

03:19SPEAKERI thought maybe as a homeowner,

03:20SPEAKERyou might have insight into this,

03:21SPEAKERbut I guess the whole homeowner fire situation is quite,

03:24SPEAKERI guess that's all on you, right?

03:25SPEAKER- Yeah, like if there's a fire, the smoke,

03:27SPEAKERif there's smoke, the smoke alarm goes off

03:29SPEAKERand then somebody calls 911 after they leave the house.

03:32SPEAKER- Yeah, but I guess, I mean, in seriousness.

03:34SPEAKER- Automated system.

03:35SPEAKER- Right, I guess in seriousness,

03:36SPEAKERlike individual houses are not hooked up

03:38SPEAKERto some fire department alert system, right?

03:42SPEAKER- You can do that.

03:43SPEAKERThat's the thing you can do,

03:44SPEAKERbut there's a tax, at least in my town,

03:48SPEAKERif you have like a monitored alarm

03:50SPEAKERor a monitored fire alarm,

03:52SPEAKERyou have to pay the city so that they'll come

03:56SPEAKERwhen you call, basically.

03:57SPEAKER- Okay.

03:58SPEAKER- 'Cause they have to be licensed and inspected

03:59SPEAKERand all that stuff.

04:00SPEAKER- Sure, yeah.

04:01SPEAKER- Most people don't bother, I think.

04:02SPEAKER- I don't know what the law is here.

04:03SPEAKERI don't know if this building, you know,

04:05SPEAKERit's not a big building,

04:06SPEAKERbut it's got like five units in it,

04:07SPEAKERmaybe six or something?

04:08SPEAKER- Yeah, it's big enough.

04:09SPEAKERWell, I think more importantly,

04:10SPEAKERit's attached to the buildings on either side too.

04:13SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's fair points.

04:14SPEAKERAlso, you know, like we're in the dense enough

04:16SPEAKERpart of the city.

04:17SPEAKERI mean, there's fire stations every six or eight blocks,

04:19SPEAKERit seems like, or that maybe that's a little excessive,

04:22SPEAKERbut there's a lot of fire stations around.

04:23SPEAKERSo dudes in fire suits showed up.

04:26SPEAKER- Yeah, did they go door to door?

04:29SPEAKER- No, I just heard them out in the hall talking

04:31SPEAKERand the fire alarm finally went off.

04:33SPEAKERAnd then I heard one of them go,

04:36SPEAKER"Boy, that's an old one."

04:38SPEAKER- Oh, that's not what you want.

04:39SPEAKER- As I heard them tinkering

04:40SPEAKERwith that fire alarm downstairs.

04:41SPEAKERAnyway, as of like two hours before this podcast,

04:45SPEAKERit's all good because new technicians,

04:47SPEAKERand I emphasize new technicians, not that other company

04:50SPEAKERthat's under city investigation, showed up.

04:53SPEAKERShowed up to install a new fire alarm.

04:55SPEAKER- So did you think about like jamming a piece of cardboard

05:01SPEAKERbetween the bell and the clanger or anything

05:03SPEAKERon Saturday when it was going off?

05:04SPEAKER- I made myself scarce out there, honestly.

05:08SPEAKERI thought maybe it was better not to interfere.

05:11SPEAKERI think the bigger question I had was,

05:13SPEAKERshould I get out of here?

05:14SPEAKERMy girlfriend was not here, she was at work.

05:16SPEAKER- Usually when there's a fire alarm,

05:17SPEAKERyou should leave the building.

05:18SPEAKER- I thought briefly about leaving,

05:21SPEAKERbut there sure wasn't anybody else leaving.

05:23SPEAKER- Death Stranding 2 won't play itself, man.

05:25SPEAKER- So I just sat here eating my leftover stuffing instead.

05:31SPEAKER- Brad, do you ever have a good nap

05:32SPEAKERthat ends up being a bad nap?

05:36SPEAKER- Might have to define what makes a good nap or a bad nap,

05:39SPEAKERbut I think like tentatively, I'm gonna say yes, I have.

05:42SPEAKER- Like a good nap is, you know, you lay down,

05:45SPEAKERyou're a little tired, feeling a little run down

05:47SPEAKERat the end of the day and you close your eyes

05:48SPEAKERand you're like, oh, I'm gonna close my eyes

05:49SPEAKERfor like 25, maybe 40 minutes at the outside

05:52SPEAKERand I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna feel so refreshed.

05:55SPEAKER- A cat nap.

05:55SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like a brand new me

05:57SPEAKERready to take on the day, the rest of the day.

06:00SPEAKER- Is that a power nap or a cat nap?

06:02SPEAKER- I think a power nap is that.

06:03SPEAKERI think a cat nap is like if you lay down on the sofa,

06:05SPEAKERwatch a football game and fall asleep

06:07SPEAKERlike my grandfather did every Sunday.

06:08SPEAKER- Sure.

06:10SPEAKER- So a bad nap is when you sleep too long

06:13SPEAKERand your body's like, did you just sleep a whole night

06:15SPEAKERthat wasn't long enough or what's even going on here, man?

06:19SPEAKERI don't know.

06:20SPEAKER- Is it morning now?

06:22SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, so I did one of those the other day.

06:24SPEAKERI came home from work at like 4.30

06:25SPEAKERand I was like, I'm pretty tired, it was a long day.

06:28SPEAKERI got up real early for some East Coast calls

06:31SPEAKERand then I'm gonna, you know,

06:34SPEAKERjust close my eyes for like 20 minutes.

06:36SPEAKERI'm gonna set a timer for 35 minutes so I'm good.

06:38SPEAKERGive myself some time to fall asleep,

06:40SPEAKERsleep for like 20 minutes

06:41SPEAKERand then power through the rest of the night

06:43SPEAKERand then I slept for two and a half or three hours.

06:45SPEAKER- That's a long nap.

06:46SPEAKERThat's like, I guess three hours still counts as a nap

06:50SPEAKERbut that might be pushing into.

06:53SPEAKERLook, what is in between a nap and a night of sleep

06:55SPEAKERbecause it's that?

06:57SPEAKER- I feel like three hours is a respectable Saturday afternoon

07:03SPEAKERmaybe it's the winter time, it's kind of crappy weather

07:06SPEAKERso you're not gonna do anything outside

07:09SPEAKERbut it's still like too early to watch a bunch of movies.

07:12SPEAKERYou're like, I'm gonna take a nap on Saturday afternoon.

07:15SPEAKER- Three hours no harm, no foul.

07:17SPEAKER- Man, I don't know.

07:18SPEAKERThat's like most of the afternoon gone.

07:21SPEAKER- Well, I mean.

07:21SPEAKER- It's like, you know, look, if you like sleep, that's fine.

07:24SPEAKERMy bigger problem is I think like it would have,

07:26SPEAKERit would start really taking a chunk out of my night of sleep

07:29SPEAKERby the time I'm getting that much sleep during the day.

07:32SPEAKER- Well, so yeah, it's weird foreshadowing there

07:34SPEAKERbut yeah, so I took the three hour nap

07:37SPEAKERand then I woke up, I went to sleep at the normal time

07:40SPEAKERand then I woke up at like three o'clock in the morning,

07:41SPEAKERcouldn't go back to sleep.

07:42SPEAKER- Yup, well, I mean, that's kind of every night for me

07:44SPEAKERbut yes, that will happen.

07:46SPEAKER- But I was, I just, I looked at that nap

07:48SPEAKERand I was like, this nap did this to me.

07:49SPEAKERThis was the nap, this was a bad nap.

07:53SPEAKER- Well, you thought it was a good nap at the time.

07:54SPEAKERIt's only in retrospect, do we find that our choices

07:57SPEAKERsometimes come back to haunt us?

08:00SPEAKER- Damn you choices.

08:04SPEAKER- Okay, so I've been directed to this Mastodon post

08:06SPEAKERby grumpy_website@mastodon.online.

08:11SPEAKER- Find Mastodon handle.

08:14SPEAKER- I can't vouch for the veracity of the screenshot

08:17SPEAKERor the provenance of it.

08:18SPEAKERI tried to find the source of this and couldn't

08:22SPEAKERbut it seems legitimate.

08:23SPEAKER- You should paint a word picture here.

08:25SPEAKER- Yes, how UI degrades over time is the first line

08:28SPEAKERof this Mastodon post and there's a screenshot

08:31SPEAKERof the windows run dialogue.

08:33SPEAKERYou know, when you hold it and you hit Control + R.

08:35SPEAKER- Yeah, or you just go to start and then go to run.

08:37SPEAKER- Do they still have that, I was going to say,

08:39SPEAKERthere's no way, there is no button for that anymore,

08:41SPEAKERis there?

08:42SPEAKER- If you right click the start menu, you can still go to run

08:43SPEAKERand it's still there and it looks exactly like this picture.

08:46SPEAKER- Yeah, so I'm sorry, it's actually Win key R now,

08:49SPEAKERit's window R, I guess it was probably Control + R

08:51SPEAKERin the Windows 95 days, if I remember.

08:53SPEAKER- I think of that Windows key as more of a super these days.

08:56SPEAKER- Yeah, I bet you do, weird.

08:59SPEAKER- Wow.

09:00SPEAKER- Anyway.

09:01SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, what do you got?

09:04SPEAKER- So this person has a screenshot here

09:06SPEAKERof the Windows 95 run dialogue,

09:08SPEAKERthe Windows 11 run dialogue as it currently exists

09:12SPEAKERand then what they describe as a Windows 11

09:15SPEAKERinsider build version of the run dialogue,

09:18SPEAKERwhich I assume this is in testing now?

09:21SPEAKER- That seems right.

09:22SPEAKER- This is the part I was not unable to entirely nail down,

09:25SPEAKERI don't know if these UI changes are coming

09:26SPEAKERto a future version of Windows 11 or what,

09:29SPEAKERbut it's really just an illustration of UI

09:31SPEAKERgetting shittier over time and in particular,

09:34SPEAKERflattening the contrast to the point

09:36SPEAKERthat it's borderline useless.

09:39SPEAKER- Yeah, so to paint the word picture,

09:41SPEAKERthe top one is the gray, the dark gray window bar

09:45SPEAKERwith light gray background and then there's a clear box

09:48SPEAKERthat says open and you can type something in there

09:51SPEAKERor pull a drop down down that gives you

09:53SPEAKERthe most recent things you've typed, right?

09:56SPEAKER- Hang on, sidebar here.

09:57SPEAKER- Yeah.

09:59SPEAKER- If we reached a state of advanced age

10:01SPEAKERsuch that we now have to describe

10:02SPEAKERwhat the Windows 95 UI looks like to people

10:05SPEAKERbecause I might just be done if that's the case.

10:09SPEAKER- It was 30 years ago, Brad.

10:12SPEAKERWindows 95 was 30 years ago.

10:14SPEAKER- If we could no longer just rely on everyone in the world

10:16SPEAKERto know what Windows 95 looked like,

10:17SPEAKERI might not be capable of doing this.

10:19SPEAKER- I believe that there is a significant portion

10:22SPEAKERof the audience that was not alive at a time

10:25SPEAKERthat a Windows 95 computer would have been state of the art.

10:27SPEAKER- Well, they should have been.

10:28SPEAKER- Well, I mean, anyway.

10:31SPEAKERSo the middle one is basically the same picture,

10:33SPEAKERbut instead of the dark gray and the light gray,

10:35SPEAKERit's like kind of a really, really, really light gray

10:39SPEAKERand white.

10:40SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, what it looks like is Microsoft's sort of,

10:44SPEAKERhalf assed is not the right word,

10:45SPEAKERlike sort of sloppy attempt or like inconsistent attempt

10:49SPEAKERto capture the Apple flat design trend.

10:53SPEAKERYou know, like it's like the bevels on the sides

10:55SPEAKERof the windows and buttons are gone.

10:56SPEAKERYou know, it's sort of edge to edge color.

10:59SPEAKERIt's a lot of like competing shades of gray.

11:02SPEAKER- There's no embossing.

11:03SPEAKER- Or not, yeah, or not super indistinguishable

11:05SPEAKERfrom each other.

11:08SPEAKERThey also added some text 'cause the initial one says

11:11SPEAKERtype the name of a program folder or document

11:13SPEAKERand Windows will open it for you.

11:15SPEAKERJust to be clear, only one of those things

11:17SPEAKERever really worked.

11:18SPEAKER'Cause if you open the, if you type the name of a folder,

11:20SPEAKERit's maybe the desktop or documents it can get.

11:23SPEAKERBut if you like type the name of a document in there,

11:26SPEAKERit's never gonna, that's never gonna work.

11:28SPEAKERBut type a program and then it'll run, works reliably.

11:32SPEAKERPretty good, consistently easy way to launch programs

11:35SPEAKERsince the dawn of time.

11:36SPEAKERThe Windows 11 one says type the name of a program folder,

11:39SPEAKERdocument or internet resource

11:40SPEAKERand Windows will open it for you.

11:42SPEAKERWhat's an internet resource, Brad?

11:44SPEAKER- I guess a URL is what they're getting at there.

11:47SPEAKERURI.

11:48SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess.

11:49SPEAKERAnd then the third one just says shell colon startup,

11:53SPEAKERtype the name of a command to run

11:54SPEAKERand then there's a little run button

11:56SPEAKERand another run button.

11:58SPEAKERFor some reason it has two run buttons.

11:59SPEAKER- The word run appears three times

12:02SPEAKERin the space of like, I don't know, 100 pixels.

12:04SPEAKER- Three words, like it's like run, run, run.

12:06SPEAKER- Yes, I'll read the Grumpy website's description here.

12:10SPEAKERWindows 95, great contrast, obvious shapes,

12:13SPEAKERinstantly readable.

12:15SPEAKERWindows 11, shapes are still self-explanatory

12:17SPEAKERbut contrast is gone.

12:20SPEAKERWindows 11 insiders, what am I even looking at?

12:22SPEAKERThe only shape I can understand here

12:23SPEAKERis the run button barely visible.

12:26SPEAKERThen on the left, there's another something that says run

12:29SPEAKERand has an icon, what is it?

12:30SPEAKERA window title, another button,

12:31SPEAKERwhy does it have to say run twice?

12:33SPEAKERAnyway, this is basically just a grim look

12:36SPEAKERinto what may be a possible future

12:38SPEAKERfor where the Windows UI is going.

12:40SPEAKERMaybe they're testing this in the insider ring

12:42SPEAKERand this will never actually roll out, I don't know

12:44SPEAKERbut like, I'm gonna tell you something.

12:47SPEAKER- Yeah?

12:48SPEAKER- This more than like any easily like opt-in

12:52SPEAKERdismissed AI features or occasional fucking Bing

12:57SPEAKERor Office 365 splash screen or whatever like this,

13:00SPEAKERif this is the direction Windows UI is going,

13:02SPEAKERthis would get me off of Windows

13:04SPEAKERmore than any of that other stuff.

13:05SPEAKER- Look, if it's as good as the task manager redesign,

13:09SPEAKERit's gonna be, it's gonna look like crap,

13:11SPEAKERit's gonna be less functional in almost every important way

13:13SPEAKERand it's gonna take a lot longer to load.

13:16SPEAKER- Great, sign me up, I guess, I don't know.

13:19SPEAKERAgain, maybe this is not real

13:20SPEAKERor I mean, I don't think that it's not real again,

13:22SPEAKERmaybe it's not actually coming out to users but.

13:26SPEAKER- This looks a little work in progress to me

13:28SPEAKERbut also I don't have a lot of confidence.

13:31SPEAKERYou know, there was a thread on I think my Discord

13:35SPEAKERthe other day where somebody was saying,

13:36SPEAKER"Hey, I'm on the insider track for Windows 11

13:41SPEAKER"and the right-click menu is not deterministic anymore."

13:46SPEAKER- Cool, wait, are you serious?

13:48SPEAKER- Yeah, like if you clicked it too fast,

13:50SPEAKERyou got different things appeared in different order.

13:53SPEAKER- Is it just like recently used commands or something?

13:56SPEAKER- It is, it was unclear to me exactly what it was

13:59SPEAKERand again, this is like a thing I saw on a Discord

14:01SPEAKERso who knows but yeah, like I believe anything at this point.

14:07SPEAKER- Yep, sure, yes.

14:08SPEAKERWell hey, what if you could choose

14:11SPEAKERany desktop environment you wanted

14:12SPEAKERand then spend half of your life tweaking it

14:14SPEAKERto exactly your specifications?

14:16SPEAKER- Oh, tell me more.

14:17SPEAKER- That's, I think there's a whole podcast about that.

14:20SPEAKER(upbeat music)

14:23SPEAKER- Remember way back in 2015 when we saw USB-C

14:26SPEAKERfor the first time, we were like,

14:27SPEAKER"Oh man, one connector that we're gonna,

14:29SPEAKERit's gonna be one USB connector to roll 'em all both ends.

14:32SPEAKERThey're all gonna be exactly the same."

14:33SPEAKER- Yep, it's small, it's reversible.

14:35SPEAKER- Yeah, it was a fucking scourge

14:38SPEAKER'cause you know what happened?

14:40SPEAKER- What happened?

14:40SPEAKER- You can't tell which cables are which anymore.

14:42SPEAKER- Yes, easily the worst part of USB-C.

14:44SPEAKERAlthough frankly, that was kind of always the case.

14:46SPEAKERI guess they did make 'em blue when they went to 3.0

14:49SPEAKERbut other than that, it was sort of,

14:51SPEAKERI guess the difference now is there are way, way more types

14:54SPEAKERof USB cables than there were then.

14:56SPEAKER- Yeah, you got USB 3, you got USB 3.2,

14:58SPEAKERyou got USB 4, you got Thunderbolt,

15:00SPEAKERwhich also is a USB-C connector, but not really,

15:02SPEAKERI mean, I guess it's also USB back compatible,

15:05SPEAKERbut not with USB 4, look.

15:07SPEAKER- Oh, don't forget, some of them have like, I guess like,

15:09SPEAKERI don't know how this works,

15:10SPEAKERlike double the number of lanes in there or something.

15:12SPEAKERThere's like USB 3.2, but there's 3.2 Gen 2 by 2,

15:16SPEAKERwhich is like two USBs in one, I think.

15:18SPEAKER- And then you also have the other direction

15:21SPEAKER'cause you have, oh look, here's a cable with two USB-C ends

15:24SPEAKERbut it's actually just USB 2 data transfer speed

15:27SPEAKERbut it's for charging your phone.

15:29SPEAKERSo it's just, it just works with power delivery.

15:31SPEAKER- Listen, that part I think is kinda interesting.

15:33SPEAKERI think it's, you know, the letter is the physical connector

15:37SPEAKERor the number is the data standard.

15:38SPEAKERI think USB-C cable that can be USB 2.0

15:42SPEAKERis kind of cool actually.

15:43SPEAKER- But here's the thing, they don't ever have

15:45SPEAKERwhich data standard they are on the cable.

15:47SPEAKER- Oh, well, I think it's worse than that

15:49SPEAKER'cause there's also power standards, right?

15:50SPEAKERLike don't you need specific cables for PD

15:53SPEAKERand things like that?

15:53SPEAKER- I think anything USB 2 and newer will do PD

15:56SPEAKER'cause it's in a handshake across the data bus.

15:57SPEAKER- Okay, and I wanna say there's even like some kind

16:00SPEAKERof like audio specific USB cable specification now

16:04SPEAKERor something, there's like weird little esoteric USBs

16:07SPEAKERfor specific audio type applications and stuff.

16:10SPEAKER- Well, and then this also applies

16:12SPEAKERto HDMI and DisplayPort too

16:13SPEAKER'cause at least DisplayPort has the common decency

16:15SPEAKERto not do new versions every like six months.

16:18SPEAKERBut HDMI, the cable looks the same

16:22SPEAKERwhether it's from like 2007 for your Xbox 360.

16:26SPEAKERAnd hey, maybe you can get 1080p out of that thing

16:29SPEAKERif you're close enough all the way up to today

16:31SPEAKERwhere you can do like 8K for 4,000 frames per second,

16:35SPEAKERwhatever, all the cables look the same.

16:37SPEAKERI think this is a hot take,

16:41SPEAKERbut I think I missed the USB hat.

16:43SPEAKERI missed the hat on top of the USB-A

16:45SPEAKERand like the little wide guy on the faster USBs.

16:50SPEAKER- You mean when they just built more connector

16:52SPEAKERonto the connector?

16:53SPEAKER- Yeah, it was like, hey man,

16:54SPEAKERthis doesn't have enough connector

16:55SPEAKERto do the speed that you want.

16:56SPEAKERSo we're gonna give you more connector

16:57SPEAKERand then you could look at it and be like,

16:59SPEAKERoh, this is the good one.

17:00SPEAKER- Okay, we don't have quite enough pins here.

17:01SPEAKERWhat if we just added a few more pins?

17:02SPEAKER- Yeah, hey, you could always, you know what I say?

17:05SPEAKERI say you can always, in Will Smith's America,

17:08SPEAKEReverybody deserves more pins.

17:09SPEAKER- I don't know, I go back and forth though

17:11SPEAKERbecause what's worse, like physical backwards compatibility

17:14SPEAKERwhere at least you can plug in your cable

17:16SPEAKEReven if the cable is not up to snuff

17:18SPEAKERand you might not get all the features

17:20SPEAKERor just having to buy a new cable.

17:22SPEAKER'Cause you know, previously it was just,

17:23SPEAKERhey, there's a full on new connector every five years.

17:26SPEAKERRemember FireWire giving way to USB

17:30SPEAKERand that sort of thing?

17:31SPEAKERLike what's worse, 20 years of HDMI

17:34SPEAKERor just not being able to plug your thing in at all?

17:37SPEAKERI'm not actually sure.

17:38SPEAKER- I got a better idea.

17:40SPEAKERInstead of the cable getting bigger,

17:42SPEAKERthe cables get smaller each generation.

17:45SPEAKERSo then you look at it, you know, the small one is the good one

17:48SPEAKERbut it's the same shape.

17:49SPEAKER- Hang on, are you saying that it's micro HDMI

17:52SPEAKERis time to shine?

17:53SPEAKER- No, nobody's ever said that.

17:55SPEAKER(upbeat music)

17:58SPEAKER- I got a switch too.

18:00SPEAKER- Woo hoo!

18:01SPEAKER- Yeah, is that your best Mario?

18:03SPEAKER- Oh no, no, you want a Mario?

18:05SPEAKER- Sure. - Woo hoo!

18:06SPEAKER- Okay, all right, okay, all right.

18:08SPEAKERPut the cadence down at least.

18:09SPEAKER- Woo hoo!

18:10SPEAKER- I got a switch too, I set it up, the dock is plugged in.

18:13SPEAKERThere are a million different ways this conversation

18:15SPEAKERcould go.

18:16SPEAKER- Did you update the firmware on the dock yet?

18:18SPEAKER- I didn't have to.

18:19SPEAKERIn fact, I was a little disappointed

18:20SPEAKERthat my dock was already up to date.

18:22SPEAKER- I don't know that it had a firmware update

18:23SPEAKERfor the dock actually, does it?

18:25SPEAKERThe Steam Deck does.

18:26SPEAKER- I mean, there is an option for it in system settings.

18:28SPEAKERYou absolutely, I did in fact check for dock update

18:31SPEAKERand found nothing.

18:32SPEAKER- Did you do the Nintendo Switch 2 welcome tour?

18:35SPEAKER- Not yet, I just set it up last night.

18:37SPEAKERMetroid is all I have played for the Nextlander podcast

18:40SPEAKERso far, so I've got a lot of catching up to do.

18:42SPEAKERBut again, there are all kinds of things

18:44SPEAKERI could talk about here, like for example,

18:46SPEAKEReven though that thing basically has the output of HDMI 2.0,

18:49SPEAKERdid you know that it actually uses HDMI 2.1 bandwidth?

18:53SPEAKER- What, really?

18:53SPEAKER- Apparently, like it doesn't do the advanced 2.1 features,

18:56SPEAKERbut it will use more bandwidth than 2.0 can deliver

18:59SPEAKERand you get better color depth and stuff, but.

19:01SPEAKER- Oh, that's wild.

19:02SPEAKER- We don't have to get into that.

19:02SPEAKERAnd like Digital Foundry has info about that

19:04SPEAKERif you wanna go find.

19:06SPEAKERI need to talk about virtual game carts.

19:07SPEAKER- Oh, I thought you were gonna talk

19:08SPEAKERabout your scanning strategy in Metroid Prime.

19:10SPEAKER- No, that's just making it hard to get through the game

19:13SPEAKERbecause all I do is scan things.

19:14SPEAKER- Always be scanning.

19:16SPEAKER- What is up with the,

19:18SPEAKERwe talked about virtual game carts, didn't we?

19:20SPEAKER'Cause I think--

19:20SPEAKER- Have you been on the internet

19:21SPEAKERin the last six or eight months?

19:22SPEAKER- Well, I mean, this was previously until this weekend,

19:25SPEAKERa one switch household,

19:26SPEAKERso I just never had to think about this.

19:28SPEAKER- Oh.

19:29SPEAKER- I seem to remember you talking at length about this,

19:32SPEAKERso you've probably explained this on this podcast before.

19:35SPEAKER- Yeah, this system is super shit.

19:37SPEAKER- Like, what is the point of this?

19:39SPEAKERIs this just to prevent you from playing your digital games

19:41SPEAKERon too many switches at one time?

19:43SPEAKER- So in the old days,

19:44SPEAKERbefore the virtual game card system was installed,

19:47SPEAKERyou could have one switch that was your primary switch

19:49SPEAKERthat always had access to games,

19:51SPEAKERregardless of whether you're online or not.

19:53SPEAKERAnd then every other switch on your account could log in,

19:56SPEAKERand as long as they were connected to the internet,

19:57SPEAKERyou could use the same game on those switches.

20:00SPEAKER- At the same time?

20:01SPEAKER- Up to two total, two max.

20:03SPEAKERYou have one that's online and one that's primary.

20:05SPEAKER- Okay, so that is the Xbox 360 standard.

20:08SPEAKERI'm calling it that because that's the first console

20:10SPEAKERI remember doing that,

20:10SPEAKERbut that's like kind of how console rights management

20:13SPEAKERhas worked since the 360.

20:15SPEAKERIt was your home console can play anything,

20:17SPEAKERand your other console that signed in.

20:19SPEAKERLeave it to Nintendo to finally decide

20:22SPEAKERthat was too generous.

20:23SPEAKER- Let me tell you the worst part

20:25SPEAKERabout the virtual game card thing.

20:27SPEAKERI see, I thought you were gonna talk

20:28SPEAKERabout the virtual game cards,

20:29SPEAKERmeaning the cards that are basically just a key

20:31SPEAKERfor the game that don't have the game on them.

20:33SPEAKERThose are key cards is what they're called.

20:34SPEAKER- The game key cards, I think, is the term for those.

20:36SPEAKERYeah, no, I'm talking about the system

20:37SPEAKERthey have now devised that is effectively

20:39SPEAKERyour rights management for your digital games.

20:42SPEAKERBut when you're, again, kind of a single Switch user,

20:45SPEAKERI mean, my girlfriend plays the Switch One

20:46SPEAKERfor Animal Crossing a little bit,

20:48SPEAKERbut it's basically just me.

20:49SPEAKER- Yeah, let me tell you, when they rolled this system out,

20:51SPEAKERI had to go buy one of those game voucher passes for my kid

20:54SPEAKERso that she could get another copy of Mario Kart

20:56SPEAKERand another copy of Animal Crossing

20:58SPEAKERso that we could, as a family,

20:59SPEAKERwho have bought now four total, five total Switch devices

21:03SPEAKERbetween the Switch One and Switch Two generations

21:06SPEAKERso that we could all three of us play together.

21:08SPEAKERThat was 100 bucks well spent.

21:10SPEAKER- Yeah, what you're saying is the system

21:11SPEAKERis working as intended, it sounds like.

21:13SPEAKER- I mean, look, what I'm gonna tell you

21:15SPEAKERis that they took a really kind of punishing DRM scheme

21:19SPEAKERand then they put some nice loot box animations on it.

21:22SPEAKERThe worst part of the whole thing

21:25SPEAKERis that you have to have a physical proximity

21:27SPEAKERfor the Switches to hand off one of the cards.

21:30SPEAKER- So that was one of my, actually, okay,

21:31SPEAKERso that was a question I had,

21:32SPEAKERbut I just, I haven't tested this yet,

21:34SPEAKERbut I read on Reddit this morning

21:36SPEAKERthat you can go into your user settings in your profile.

21:39SPEAKERI don't remember where this is,

21:40SPEAKERbut you're toggling on an option

21:42SPEAKERthat's something along the lines of use online licenses

21:45SPEAKERor something like that.

21:46SPEAKER- I don't know about that.

21:47SPEAKER- And apparently that frees you

21:48SPEAKERfrom having to have the Switches close to each other.

21:51SPEAKER- Well, that would be lovely

21:52SPEAKER'cause I was traveling last month

21:54SPEAKERor month before I went to Phoenix

21:56SPEAKERand I had the Switch with me and my daughter was like,

21:58SPEAKER"Hey, can you share me the card for this?"

22:00SPEAKERAnd I was like, "Yeah, sure, here you go."

22:03SPEAKERShe wanted to play Hollow Knight.

22:04SPEAKERAnd then I couldn't do it because I wasn't here.

22:06SPEAKER- So my understanding, if I was reading it correctly,

22:08SPEAKERmy understanding is if you have the same account

22:10SPEAKERon two Switches there, it'll just check online.

22:13SPEAKERIt'll check the Nintendo database online

22:14SPEAKERto see if you own the game rather than check

22:16SPEAKERif there's a Switch nearby that has the game on it,

22:18SPEAKERI think is how that works.

22:20SPEAKERIt's a very weird system that seems a little laborious

22:22SPEAKERif, again, you're just a person like me

22:25SPEAKERwith two Switches that you're trying to move stuff between,

22:28SPEAKERbut you already brought it up

22:29SPEAKERand I already planned to bring this up coming in here.

22:30SPEAKERI hate to say this,

22:32SPEAKERbut that kurchunk animation of watching it

22:34SPEAKERput the game card in on the screen is real fucking good.

22:37SPEAKER- I mean, look, it's the,

22:39SPEAKERnormally Nintendo is not this intentionally

22:43SPEAKERconsumer unfriendly in my experience.

22:47SPEAKER- Yeah, well, I can't say they're especially

22:50SPEAKERconsumer friendly in many cases, but sure.

22:53SPEAKER- This feels almost like malicious compliance.

22:55SPEAKER'Cause you're right, they did.

22:56SPEAKERThey made a real good animation

22:58SPEAKERand the little guy carries the thing out

22:59SPEAKERand you're like, "Oh man, this is a good,

23:01SPEAKERthis is like a loot box,

23:02SPEAKERbut for something I paid real money for, oh wait."

23:05SPEAKER- It makes a real nice kurchunk

23:07SPEAKERwhen you see that virtual card to go in the virtual Switch.

23:10SPEAKER- Yeah, but it's really complicated

23:13SPEAKERand it's really confusing, especially,

23:15SPEAKERand when you add the third person in the third Switch,

23:17SPEAKERit gets even worse.

23:20SPEAKERSo yeah, I don't have a good solution to this.

23:22SPEAKERWe buy, if we know we're gonna need two copies of a game

23:25SPEAKERbecause it's a multiplayer thing,

23:27SPEAKERlike I'm gonna go and tell you,

23:28SPEAKERI did not buy "Kirby Air Riders"

23:30SPEAKERdespite being interested in "Kirby Air Riders"

23:32SPEAKERbecause if it becomes popular in my family,

23:34SPEAKERit's not a $69 game, it's a $210 game.

23:39SPEAKERSo I'm just not gonna buy any multiplayer Switch 2 games

23:44SPEAKERunless it's stuff that I know

23:45SPEAKERthat we're all gonna be really engaged with

23:47SPEAKERbecause it's not worth it.

23:49SPEAKER- That seems like an outcome

23:49SPEAKERthat Nintendo would not prefer.

23:51SPEAKER- No.

23:52SPEAKER- That does not seem like the system working as intended.

23:55SPEAKERFor me, it's just like, and again,

23:56SPEAKERI was setting up a new Switch last night effectively,

23:58SPEAKERbut like downloading games

24:01SPEAKERand seeing them downloaded on my dashboard,

24:04SPEAKERbecause they have that little outline above each game now

24:06SPEAKERand it's just a transparent outline

24:08SPEAKERif you don't have the game card inserted.

24:10SPEAKERAgain, this is just a digital rights thing.

24:13SPEAKERThere's no actual card to insert,

24:14SPEAKERbut the idea that you can have games downloaded

24:17SPEAKERthat you own to your dashboard

24:19SPEAKERand not be able to play them

24:20SPEAKERwithout also transferring the digital,

24:23SPEAKERthe virtual game card is just like, why?

24:26SPEAKERLike what purpose is this serving here?

24:29SPEAKERDoes that mean I then can't play it on my Switch 1?

24:31SPEAKER- Yeah, when the virtual game card is in your Switch 2,

24:34SPEAKERit is inaccessible to your Switch 1.

24:36SPEAKER- Can I just say, hey, my Switch 2 is my main Switch now

24:40SPEAKERand all the game cards should be over here now?

24:41SPEAKER- You can do that.

24:42SPEAKERYou need to do that in the settings.

24:43SPEAKER- Okay, that sounds like the thing I should do

24:45SPEAKERand then just never think about this stupid system again.

24:47SPEAKER- I think if you transfer the Switch 1 to the Switch 2,

24:51SPEAKERit does that automatically.

24:52SPEAKER- So that's the thing.

24:53SPEAKERI skipped the full system transfer crucially

24:55SPEAKERbecause I wanted to make sure the Animal Crossing island

24:58SPEAKERstayed on the old Switch.

24:59SPEAKER- That's it.

24:59SPEAKERAnd that's why I skipped it too,

25:01SPEAKERbecause I wanted this Switch to be virgin ground

25:05SPEAKERfor whoever decides to dip into Animal Crossing on it.

25:08SPEAKERAnd I wanted the old one to stay on the old island.

25:11SPEAKERAnd yeah, anyway, it's a real problem.

25:14SPEAKER- Yes, hey, Nintendo and technology

25:16SPEAKERare a little bit like oil and water sometimes.

25:22SPEAKER- Okay, so last week on the podcast, I said some stuff

25:24SPEAKERand then I got about 50 people that responded,

25:27SPEAKER"Hey, you should try Nix OS."

25:28SPEAKER- Oh boy, oh boy.

25:29SPEAKER- And ironically, I had already started installing Nix OS

25:31SPEAKERby the time the episode...

25:33SPEAKERThis is, I guess, technically "Dual Blue Diaries"

25:37SPEAKERcross talk here.

25:38SPEAKER- Sure.

25:39SPEAKER- For folks who don't know, Nix is a package manager

25:42SPEAKERthat builds everything off of one giant text file

25:45SPEAKERand/or includes.

25:47SPEAKER- Hang on, I gotta stop you for a second here.

25:49SPEAKER- Yeah.

25:50SPEAKER- I was all ready to come in here and explain

25:51SPEAKERthe distinction between Nix and Nix OS,

25:53SPEAKERbut I think you've already got it.

25:54SPEAKER- Yeah, no, I've read the fact, man.

25:56SPEAKER- Okay, great, perfect, because it's like,

25:58SPEAKERhey, take it from me, you will get yelled at

26:01SPEAKERif you refer to Nix OS as Nix.

26:03SPEAKER- Oh yeah, no, no, no.

26:04SPEAKER- By Nix people.

26:05SPEAKER- So Nix OS is a Linux distro built around

26:07SPEAKERthe Nix package manager, is the TLDR.

26:09SPEAKER- That's exactly it, and this is, to be clear,

26:11SPEAKERthis is one of those refined is not a bootloader things

26:14SPEAKERwhere I'm not just explaining it to be pedantic.

26:16SPEAKERIt actually helps your understanding of the total stack here

26:19SPEAKERto understand what each thing is and what it's called.

26:22SPEAKER- I'm gonna say that the entire stack is ineffable

26:24SPEAKERand beyond human comprehension, Brad.

26:26SPEAKER- That was my experience using Nix OS,

26:28SPEAKERbut like you said, I think it's especially worth explaining

26:33SPEAKERin this case, because the first place I ever encountered

26:35SPEAKERNix the package manager was actually on Mac OS

26:38SPEAKERlike six or seven years ago, 'cause I didn't want to,

26:41SPEAKERlike, there was some FUD around Homebrew, excuse me,

26:44SPEAKERon Mac OS, and like Mac ports is pretty outdated,

26:47SPEAKERI think, these days, and like, people were like,

26:49SPEAKERhey, why don't you try Nix for Mac OS?

26:51SPEAKERAnd I did, and it seemed incredibly powerful

26:54SPEAKERand utterly inscrutable, and I never got very far with it.

26:56SPEAKERAnd now they have a whole Linux distro built around it.

26:58SPEAKER- So, Dual Boot Diaries listeners will know this,

27:02SPEAKERbut I have, as a benefit of being a PC World contributor,

27:05SPEAKERI have one laptop that has my main distro

27:08SPEAKERthat I use all the time on, which is cachey,

27:10SPEAKERrunning Neary and all that stuff, it's great.

27:12SPEAKERAnd then I have another older laptop that I've been using

27:15SPEAKERto kind of futz around with different things

27:17SPEAKERso that I don't jack up my main work laptop.

27:21SPEAKERFucking around with Linux, basically,

27:22SPEAKERfor lack of a better term.

27:24SPEAKERAnd I had reached the end of my Cosmic adventure,

27:29SPEAKER'cause we had the Cosmic folks on the podcast

27:31SPEAKERthat I'll interview will be up in a week or two.

27:33SPEAKERAnd--

27:35SPEAKER- You were like, you were looking something,

27:36SPEAKERyou were looking for the next thing

27:38SPEAKERto pervert your Linux experience with.

27:39SPEAKER- Yeah, and I was like,

27:40SPEAKERwhat's the next most fucked up thing I can try?

27:42SPEAKERAnd somebody, and I was like,

27:43SPEAKERthis Nix OS thing looks weird.

27:44SPEAKEROh, they have a Cos, I'll do the Cosmic install on that.

27:48SPEAKERAnd then I was reading, trying to figure out

27:49SPEAKERhow to do the Cosmic install.

27:52SPEAKERAnd it was like, none of this makes any sense at all.

27:54SPEAKERSo I started reading and reading, and it was like,

27:56SPEAKERoh, oh, oh, oh.

28:00SPEAKERBecause the whole thing basically works off of,

28:05SPEAKERyou basically set this big giant configuration file

28:08SPEAKERthat has all the applications you run,

28:10SPEAKERall the stuff those applications have access to,

28:13SPEAKERthe places where the configuration files

28:15SPEAKERfor those applications live.

28:18SPEAKERThere's some mystery for me around

28:21SPEAKERwhether you do open source or closed source,

28:24SPEAKERor exclusively open source,

28:25SPEAKERor also do dirty closed source software.

28:30SPEAKERAnd then also things like,

28:32SPEAKERcan your browser access your webcam and things like that?

28:35SPEAKERIf you want to do a Zoom call or a Google Meet call

28:38SPEAKERor whatever.

28:38SPEAKER- Yeah, so to step back real quick,

28:40SPEAKERmy understanding of the Nix package manager, again,

28:42SPEAKERseems very powerful.

28:43SPEAKERIt is fucking a lot to understand.

28:46SPEAKERI don't super well understand it,

28:47SPEAKERbut my understanding is it is sandboxing

28:50SPEAKERevery single package you ever install.

28:53SPEAKERSo in a way that you can always roll back

28:55SPEAKERto previous versions of each package.

28:57SPEAKER- It's that, and also everything is built

28:59SPEAKERwith all the dependencies built into it.

29:01SPEAKERSo there's no like,

29:03SPEAKERoh, this application requires Electron 3.6

29:05SPEAKERand you only have Electron 3.5,

29:07SPEAKERso you have to update Electron,

29:08SPEAKERwhich is then gonna break every other Electron app

29:10SPEAKERon your machine.

29:11SPEAKER- Like the idea is basically like infinitely reproducible

29:14SPEAKERfunctional package installs.

29:15SPEAKERAnd so then they applied that to an entire Linux distro.

29:18SPEAKER- And distributable software.

29:20SPEAKERSo you can take, like if you build a package for say Firefox

29:23SPEAKERfor your Nix build,

29:25SPEAKERyou can copy that onto another Nix build

29:27SPEAKERand it'll just work.

29:28SPEAKERYou don't have to have all the dependencies for that thing,

29:31SPEAKERwhich like isn't super important for something like Firefox

29:34SPEAKERthat doesn't have a ton of dependencies,

29:36SPEAKERbut for something like DaVinci Resolve,

29:38SPEAKERwhich has a blue million dependencies,

29:41SPEAKERand when they get out of whack,

29:42SPEAKERthen the whole thing goes haywire.

29:44SPEAKERIt seems kind of nice.

29:45SPEAKER- Yeah, I'll just say real quick,

29:48SPEAKERlike I think the way I describe Nix OS to people,

29:50SPEAKERbecause even underneath the package manager,

29:53SPEAKERNix is also a language.

29:55SPEAKERAnd I think you said this,

29:57SPEAKERlike Nix OS effectively is a Linux distro entirely built

30:00SPEAKERand configured by one text file.

30:02SPEAKERI mean, there are ways to include other text files,

30:04SPEAKERbut effectively, and again, it's not just a config file,

30:08SPEAKERit's like you can use logic in there because again,

30:10SPEAKERNix is a scripting programming language.

30:12SPEAKERYou are effectively programming your own Linux distro

30:14SPEAKERconfiguration, like.

30:16SPEAKER- It's, the language isn't,

30:18SPEAKERthe language is more like a JSON drive.

30:20SPEAKERIt's not like.

30:21SPEAKER- It's not, it's not crazy.

30:22SPEAKERI mean, we're not talking about C here, you know what I mean?

30:24SPEAKERBut what I'm saying is like,

30:25SPEAKERyou can use conditionals and control flow

30:27SPEAKERand things like that to set up different ways

30:31SPEAKERof doing things in your config file.

30:32SPEAKERBut the real magic is that it's reproducible.

30:36SPEAKER- Yeah, so you grab that file and put it on another machine

30:38SPEAKERthat has Nix installed on it and load that config file

30:40SPEAKERand refactor everything.

30:42SPEAKERAnd it just changes the state of that machine

30:44SPEAKERand generates a new snapshot.

30:46SPEAKERAnd you can switch back and forth between them

30:49SPEAKERkind of at will, which is wild.

30:50SPEAKER- You can just rebuild that exact configuration

30:52SPEAKERon another machine with one command

30:53SPEAKERand that text file, basically.

30:55SPEAKERLike I thought for a while about running Nix on my,

30:57SPEAKERsorry, Nix OS on my VPS, my virtual private server,

31:01SPEAKERbecause that thing is not in my house.

31:03SPEAKERI can't control backups of it super well,

31:05SPEAKERor I mean, I kind of can, but like,

31:07SPEAKERit was just like, what if,

31:09SPEAKERwhat if that data center burns down

31:11SPEAKERand all the work I put into configuring that VPS

31:13SPEAKERgoes up in smoke?

31:14SPEAKER- It's just one text file.

31:15SPEAKERYou just save it from your shell and you're good.

31:16SPEAKER- If I'm just syncing that text file to GitHub,

31:18SPEAKERI can just spin up another VPS and run that text file

31:21SPEAKERand it's back to normal in five minutes.

31:23SPEAKERIt's a very cool thing that I think might not be for me.

31:26SPEAKERI'm not sure yet.

31:27SPEAKER- So the thing I will say is that it is a really cool thing

31:32SPEAKERthat I think might not be for me, but I'm not sure yet.

31:35SPEAKERDefinitely on the desktop side, I think it's not for me.

31:38SPEAKER- So I've spent some time,

31:39SPEAKERI've got it installed when I was doing my Linux desktop

31:42SPEAKERstuff earlier this year.

31:43SPEAKERIt was one of the distros I was playing with

31:45SPEAKERand it's very cool in a lot of ways.

31:46SPEAKERI think the thing you should know

31:48SPEAKERif you haven't used it before is they abstract basic,

31:51SPEAKERalmost every bit of the configuration that you're doing.

31:53SPEAKERLike you're not,

31:56SPEAKERI started to say you're not configuring

31:57SPEAKERthe underlying services, you're configuring Nix OS,

32:00SPEAKERbut I don't think that's entirely true

32:01SPEAKERbecause it is passing through the configuration you're doing

32:04SPEAKERto those services, but you're using the Nix syntax.

32:07SPEAKERYou're using the Nix way of configuring everything.

32:11SPEAKERSo effectively you're checking

32:12SPEAKERthe Nix OS reference constantly for like,

32:15SPEAKERyou want to do something with systemd

32:16SPEAKERor you want to set up some Samba shares,

32:18SPEAKERor you want to do just about fucking anything,

32:21SPEAKERyou need to go on the Nix reference

32:22SPEAKERand figure out the Nix way of doing that.

32:24SPEAKEREven though you can,

32:26SPEAKERlike once you know what the syntax looks like,

32:27SPEAKERyou can eyeball it and see,

32:28SPEAKERoh, I can see how this translates to the underlying smb.com

32:32SPEAKERfor whatever it is.

32:33SPEAKERBut like at a certain point, two things happened for me.

32:36SPEAKERAt a certain point, I started like,

32:38SPEAKERif I wanted to set up something in my home directory

32:40SPEAKERwith like your standard, like shell login files,

32:43SPEAKERI immediately started second guessing

32:45SPEAKERevery normal Linux habit I had of,

32:48SPEAKERshould I just put something in my .bashrc

32:50SPEAKERor should I do this the Nix way?

32:52SPEAKERAm I going to step on some Nix thing

32:54SPEAKERif I just do it the way I would normally do it?

32:56SPEAKERAnd then that led to me feeling like basically

32:59SPEAKERI'm not so much learning Linux now as I'm learning Nix OS.

33:02SPEAKER- Well, so it adds a level of complexity

33:04SPEAKERthat was well beyond what I was willing to deal with

33:06SPEAKERon the desktop.

33:07SPEAKERI think it makes a lot of sense for like my server.

33:10SPEAKER'Cause like, again, my server, I back it up,

33:13SPEAKERbut it's not like a super robust backup.

33:15SPEAKERI haven't tested that the backup works,

33:18SPEAKERbut the server is basically like a container

33:20SPEAKERfor four or five Docker containers

33:22SPEAKERand the underlying hardware and software

33:25SPEAKERreally, really doesn't matter

33:27SPEAKERoutside of like the thing that lets Plex

33:29SPEAKERget pass through access to the quick sync hardware

33:31SPEAKERand stuff like that.

33:33SPEAKER- So it's a good candidate for that

33:35SPEAKERbecause it would be lovely to have like

33:37SPEAKERfour Docker compose files and this Nix OS config file

33:41SPEAKERand then basically be good to go

33:43SPEAKERon whatever new hardware I switched to.

33:47SPEAKERFor the desktop, the other problem is

33:50SPEAKERin addition to having to figure out

33:51SPEAKERhow to do everything the Nix OS way,

33:53SPEAKERwhich is challenging 'cause the documentation

33:55SPEAKERis real uneven.

33:57SPEAKERSome of it's super good

33:59SPEAKERand some of it's basically non-existent

34:01SPEAKERand a lot of it, a lot of figuring out

34:04SPEAKERhow to do something is looking at a config file

34:06SPEAKERthat somebody else has posted someplace

34:07SPEAKERand then trying to reverse engineer what they've done,

34:10SPEAKERwhich I don't have time for.

34:12SPEAKERThe other problem is if the applications

34:14SPEAKERthat you need aren't in their package repository

34:17SPEAKERthat generates, that you basically use

34:19SPEAKERto do the includes and all that

34:21SPEAKERand knows to pull them from GitHub,

34:23SPEAKERit's hopeless getting software to run

34:24SPEAKERin the Nix OS way on that thing, at least for me.

34:27SPEAKERSo, anyway.

34:28SPEAKER- Yeah, Nix OS people, please don't be too mad at us.

34:32SPEAKERI think it's incredibly cool.

34:33SPEAKERIt's like something that is, I mean,

34:36SPEAKERthere are like a million different ways

34:37SPEAKERto solve this problem of reproducibility.

34:39SPEAKERLike you see, I'm sure you've seen the phrase

34:42SPEAKERlike declarative config in the DevOps world a lot,

34:44SPEAKERwhich basically just means reproducible

34:47SPEAKERand like, it means like text files basically.

34:51SPEAKERIt means like, hey, your configuration exists

34:54SPEAKERin some like hard-coded state

34:56SPEAKERthat you can reproduce a build off of

34:58SPEAKERor a container off of or whatever.

35:00SPEAKERLike the need for this is very apparent

35:02SPEAKERand this seems like a really cool solution for it,

35:04SPEAKERbut it might be beyond me in a way

35:07SPEAKERthat is just not quite what I'm looking for, I don't know.

35:11SPEAKER- So the Nix OS community has a reputation

35:14SPEAKERand a listener, I'm not gonna out them,

35:16SPEAKERbut they sent me a message, a DM that said,

35:19SPEAKERhey, I'm sorry to bother you,

35:20SPEAKERbut I've got a bet with a friend.

35:21SPEAKERAfter you commented about wanting to Gitify your dot files

35:25SPEAKERon toolbar diaries, how many people have reached out to you

35:29SPEAKERabout trying slash learning Nix OS?

35:31SPEAKERI set the over under at 30.5 and my friend took the under

35:36SPEAKERand I was like, your friend won,

35:38SPEAKERbut like it was more than, it was five or six at that point

35:41SPEAKERand there was another five or six after that, so.

35:43SPEAKER- Okay, that's respectable.

35:45SPEAKER- Well-deserved reputation and like, it's a cool thing.

35:47SPEAKERI think there's a future where I could spend more time

35:50SPEAKERwith this, but for right now, it's not for me.

35:52SPEAKER- No, that's about where I'm at.

35:54SPEAKER- Please don't be mad at us.

35:56SPEAKER- We love you.

35:57SPEAKERLook, you're the dreamers, the madman, the absolute,

36:01SPEAKERyou know, there was a bunch of Apple commercials

36:03SPEAKERabout folks like you in the eighties.

36:05SPEAKER(upbeat music)

36:08SPEAKERI kind of want to build a nightstand.

36:11SPEAKER- Like out of wood?

36:13SPEAKER- You know, materials, I don't know,

36:14SPEAKERwood probably makes sense.

36:16SPEAKER- Vinny, you just talked to Vinny,

36:17SPEAKERhe's building shelves as we speak.

36:19SPEAKER- Well, I built a bunch of shelves over the years.

36:22SPEAKERI like this one's in my dining room

36:23SPEAKERwhere I built when I moved in here

36:24SPEAKERand they've been good.

36:25SPEAKERI need some for my office

36:27SPEAKER'cause I always need more shelves in here.

36:28SPEAKERBut the problem I have right now is that there's like,

36:32SPEAKERI don't want a bunch of cables on my nightstand,

36:34SPEAKERbut I have like a watch charger and a phone charger

36:36SPEAKERand then a USB-C for like, you know,

36:40SPEAKERassorted iPads, Steam Decks and all that.

36:43SPEAKERBut I don't, like my nightstand's just a table.

36:45SPEAKER- Sure, my solution, sorry.

36:47SPEAKERMy solution for that on this desk, on the nightstand,

36:50SPEAKERkind of everywhere is just to situate all the devices

36:53SPEAKERright along the back edge of the surface

36:54SPEAKERso the cables kind of spill over the back

36:57SPEAKERwithout really being seen.

36:58SPEAKER- So it's too big, the stuff that I have to charge

37:00SPEAKERis too big and uneven for that.

37:02SPEAKER'Cause it's like an iPad has a completely different shape

37:05SPEAKERthan say a Steam Deck or a Switch.

37:06SPEAKER- Wait, oh, you're charging a lot of big stuff on there then.

37:09SPEAKER- Well, this is like where my,

37:11SPEAKERmy nightstand is where stuff goes to charge.

37:13SPEAKER- Okay, you need a charging station.

37:16SPEAKER- I do need a charging station.

37:18SPEAKERSo what I'm thinking about is what if I had a nightstand

37:20SPEAKERwith a drawer that pulls out and inside the drawer,

37:23SPEAKERthere's just some slots where stuff can lay down

37:25SPEAKERand charge and there's cables and then the cables are hidden.

37:27SPEAKERI don't have to look at them.

37:27SPEAKER- Okay, so we have something like that,

37:30SPEAKERwhich is, but it's made to sit on a table

37:32SPEAKERinstead of going to a drawer,

37:33SPEAKERbut it is kind of exactly what you're talking about.

37:35SPEAKERIt is, this one's made out of bamboo wood,

37:38SPEAKERbut it is literally just a little wooden box.

37:41SPEAKEROkay, the bottom is like a box with sort of a false bottom

37:43SPEAKERor whatever you want to call it.

37:44SPEAKERLike the top where the slots are lifts off

37:47SPEAKERand there are holes in the bottom

37:48SPEAKERthat you can run the cables up through.

37:50SPEAKER- Oh, okay.

37:51SPEAKER- And then, so basically at the top

37:52SPEAKERis just a cascading series

37:53SPEAKERof like three successively shorter slots.

37:57SPEAKER- Are they big enough to hold like a Switch 2 or Steam Deck?

38:00SPEAKER- This is definitely for tablets and phones.

38:02SPEAKERThis is definitely not for anything thick,

38:05SPEAKERlike a handheld game device.

38:09SPEAKERBut for tablets and phones, it's fantastic.

38:10SPEAKERWe can charge like, we charge like two or three tablets

38:12SPEAKERand three phones all at once in this footprint,

38:16SPEAKERsix by eight looking maybe sort of footprint or something,

38:19SPEAKERbut for the bigger stuff, I don't know.

38:22SPEAKER- Yeah, I need a drawer.

38:23SPEAKERI think I need a drawer.

38:24SPEAKERI mean, maybe I'll dig out the old Fusion 360 license

38:28SPEAKERand start designing furniture again.

38:30SPEAKERI haven't done that in a long time.

38:31SPEAKER- Start CADing.

38:33SPEAKER- Yeah, CADing up the place.

38:38SPEAKERBrad, the Apple TV remote is a real nag.

38:42SPEAKER- Really?

38:42SPEAKERWait, did that thing communicate?

38:44SPEAKER- Well, okay, we've talked about charging frequency

38:48SPEAKERand how like regular frequent charging is easy

38:51SPEAKERand regular infrequent charging is probably fine,

38:55SPEAKERbut the Apple TV remote is like a whole,

38:57SPEAKERwe don't use it very much.

38:59SPEAKERWe mostly use our phones to control the Apple TV.

39:02SPEAKERMy daughter uses it sometimes.

39:04SPEAKER- Really?

39:05SPEAKERInteresting.

39:06SPEAKER- Well, 'cause you just pull down from the top,

39:07SPEAKERit's in the control center and there's a button

39:09SPEAKERand it's just like right there.

39:10SPEAKER- I've done it in my parents a little bit.

39:12SPEAKERThe thing I don't like is having to look down at a device

39:14SPEAKERwhile I'm watching something.

39:15SPEAKERLike I still like the tactile feel of like,

39:18SPEAKERI like learning the surface of the remote

39:19SPEAKERand doing it by feel and not having to look down.

39:22SPEAKER- Okay. - Different strokes.

39:23SPEAKER- You're in a household with adults

39:25SPEAKERand when there's children in the household,

39:27SPEAKERthen the remote is a, like, I don't,

39:29SPEAKERif I'm sitting down to watch TV,

39:30SPEAKERit's usually for like nine minutes

39:32SPEAKERand I'm not gonna like spend seven of them

39:35SPEAKERlooking for the remote.

39:36SPEAKER- Yeah, I was gonna say in fairness, the remote.

39:38SPEAKERThe remote in this house never ever moves from one spot.

39:40SPEAKER- Yeah, and like the fact,

39:42SPEAKERI think they put Find My in the new one

39:44SPEAKERso it'll beep or something when you're looking for it.

39:46SPEAKER- I think we had to use that at my parents

39:48SPEAKERlast summer actually.

39:49SPEAKER- Yeah, but anyway, the problem is the remote in that thing,

39:53SPEAKERespecially the new aluminum ones last for like six months.

39:57SPEAKER- Really?

39:58SPEAKER- It lasts a ridiculously long time.

40:00SPEAKERIt lasts too long. - That's pretty good.

40:02SPEAKER- That's pretty good.

40:02SPEAKER- Nope, too long. - Oh.

40:04SPEAKER- Because A, it has a lightning charger on it

40:07SPEAKERand there's only one lightning cable

40:09SPEAKERin the house at this point

40:10SPEAKERand my daughter's from my daughter's tablet.

40:12SPEAKER- They're still putting lightning on those things?

40:14SPEAKER- Well, the one I have is not the brand new one.

40:15SPEAKER- Oh, you're not on the newest.

40:16SPEAKER- It's like a few generations, it's a generation ago.

40:19SPEAKER- Sure.

40:20SPEAKER- So I have to dig out a lightning cable

40:21SPEAKERevery time I have to charge the damn thing.

40:23SPEAKERAnd B, you charge it so infrequently

40:26SPEAKERI never can remember where the lightning cable is

40:28SPEAKERso I have to go into my drawer full of moribund USB cords

40:32SPEAKERand go past all the mini USBs and the micro USBs

40:36SPEAKERand the mini HDMIs and all the other nonsense

40:40SPEAKERand then I find the one USB to lightning.

40:43SPEAKERI'm like, is this the one that works?

40:44SPEAKERNo, that's the one for my old AirPods

40:47SPEAKERwhich also doesn't, they shipped some weird USB

40:50SPEAKERto lightning cables for a while there.

40:52SPEAKERAnyway, you plug it in, it's plugged in

40:54SPEAKERfor like eight minutes and it's charged.

40:57SPEAKERRight, and then you don't have to do it again for six months.

40:59SPEAKER- Yep.

41:00SPEAKER- But from the time it hits like 20%,

41:05SPEAKERevery time you turn on the TV it pops up a thing

41:07SPEAKERthat says, hey man, you should consider charging

41:10SPEAKERyour Apple TV remote 'cause it's getting low.

41:12SPEAKERAnd I'm like, man, you got 20% left.

41:14SPEAKERThat's gonna last me another two months.

41:16SPEAKER- I am very familiar with this phenomenon

41:18SPEAKERfrom the Roku actually and it is annoying as hell.

41:20SPEAKER- Yeah, it sucks.

41:22SPEAKERLike I'm looking at you and you're like 20%,

41:25SPEAKERdon't bother me at 20%, bother me at 3%.

41:28SPEAKERBother me when I'm gonna damage the battery

41:30SPEAKERif I don't plug you in.

41:31SPEAKER- Yeah, so bother me when it's going to die today.

41:34SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, I don't need to know

41:35SPEAKERthat it's gonna die in October.

41:37SPEAKEREverybody's gonna die in October, man.

41:38SPEAKER- Woof.

41:39SPEAKER- I mean, maybe not everybody,

41:40SPEAKERbut like, you know, the reaper comes for us all, man.

41:44SPEAKERThat's all I'm saying.

41:45SPEAKER- Yeah, that's, yeah.

41:46SPEAKERThat's, yes, that is annoying.

41:48SPEAKERThat's something to think about.

41:50SPEAKERWell, I think the new Apple TV remotes are USB-C.

41:53SPEAKER- Well, that's a fun improvement.

41:54SPEAKER- As I've said, I'm probably gonna get that new Apple TV

41:56SPEAKERwhen it comes out, but that'll be USB-C.

41:58SPEAKERIn fact, I think as of yesterday,

42:01SPEAKERmy iPhone is now the last Lightning device in this house.

42:04SPEAKERNo, I'm sorry, my iPad Pro, which is eight years old,

42:06SPEAKERis still also Lightning, but.

42:08SPEAKER- Look, they should put a key charger on there.

42:11SPEAKERJust let you put it on the pad.

42:12SPEAKER- Sure, yeah, yeah.

42:14SPEAKER- You don't need a wire for that thing.

42:15SPEAKERKeep it, close it up, seal it up, keep all the goo.

42:17SPEAKERLike, look, kid remote, it's bad.

42:21SPEAKERIt's, I need rubbing alcohol on the outside of that thing

42:24SPEAKERto get all the sticky shit off.

42:25SPEAKER- Mm-hmm.

42:28SPEAKER(upbeat music)

42:30SPEAKER- Okay, where to start here?

42:33SPEAKERWe both bought AirPods, Pros.

42:35SPEAKER- Both of the people who live in your house.

42:37SPEAKER- Yes, my partner and I both over the Black Friday,

42:39SPEAKERI think I mentioned Apple had some deals.

42:42SPEAKERThere's a lot of headphone stuff here.

42:43SPEAKER- I didn't know that you were both professionals,

42:45SPEAKERbut I'll allow it.

42:46SPEAKER- Well, we are professionals at getting mad at each other

42:49SPEAKERbecause one of us is listening to a podcast

42:51SPEAKERand not paying attention to the other.

42:53SPEAKER- Are you the victim here?

42:54SPEAKERAre you the person who did the bad thing?

42:57SPEAKER- It very much goes back and forth.

42:58SPEAKER- Okay.

42:59SPEAKER- This is a, I got it from her.

43:00SPEAKERShe was an early adopter in the listening to podcasts

43:04SPEAKERconstantly around the house while doing things.

43:06SPEAKER- Yeah, my partner does the same thing.

43:09SPEAKER- And I came to that somewhat later,

43:11SPEAKERbut like she's always had kind of a succession

43:14SPEAKERof like $30 earbuds that she was perfectly happy with.

43:17SPEAKERAnd then I told her on Black Friday, like,

43:18SPEAKER"Hey, they're giving $50 back on AirPods.

43:21SPEAKERThey've got this transparency mode on them."

43:23SPEAKER- Yeah.

43:24SPEAKER- What if we could still understand each other

43:26SPEAKERwhile we've got, you know,

43:28SPEAKERnot only are we listening to podcasts,

43:29SPEAKERbut most of your buds are made to block sound

43:31SPEAKERfrom entering your ears.

43:33SPEAKER- Yeah. - Right?

43:34SPEAKER- They're like earplugs with speakers in them.

43:35SPEAKER- I don't know about you, but it really stokes my anxiety

43:38SPEAKERwhen I have the earbuds in and cannot hear anything around me

43:41SPEAKERand somebody starts talking to me.

43:42SPEAKER- No, I love the blessed silence.

43:44SPEAKERI see their lips move and I hear nothing.

43:45SPEAKERI'm like, "This is working as intended."

43:47SPEAKER- 'Cause it's like a five plus second process

43:50SPEAKERto like pause everything and pull the earphones out

43:52SPEAKERto hear them anyway.

43:53SPEAKER- That's the best part about the AirPods.

43:54SPEAKERYou just take it out and it pauses.

43:55SPEAKER- Yeah, really?

43:57SPEAKER- Yeah, have you never done that?

43:58SPEAKER- So we haven't opened up yet.

43:59SPEAKERI haven't actually tried the AirPods yet,

44:00SPEAKERbut I'm very excited.

44:01SPEAKER- This is extremely Brad.

44:03SPEAKER- This is like literally the thing.

44:05SPEAKERI was gonna get some anyway

44:06SPEAKER'cause I needed some better noise canceling headphones

44:08SPEAKERfor airplanes and stuff,

44:09SPEAKERbut I've literally probably the thing

44:11SPEAKERthat pushed her over the edge to also get some is,

44:14SPEAKER"Hey, we can both listen to stuff around the house

44:15SPEAKERand still talk to each other."

44:17SPEAKER- The other part about the headphone etiquette,

44:18SPEAKERespecially with the independent ones,

44:20SPEAKER'cause the problem I have in my house

44:23SPEAKERis that one of us has,

44:25SPEAKERinstead of like she listens with one ear in

44:29SPEAKERand one ear out.

44:30SPEAKERSo if you're on the wrong,

44:31SPEAKERand she has hair that covers your ears.

44:34SPEAKERSo if I'm on the wrong side,

44:35SPEAKERshe's never gonna hear me.

44:36SPEAKER- Oh, wow.

44:37SPEAKER- If I'm on the right side,

44:38SPEAKERshe totally hears me.

44:38SPEAKER- Oh, the guessing game of that is.

44:40SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like Schrodinger's EarPod.

44:43SPEAKER- Sure.

44:43SPEAKER- But the other thing is,

44:46SPEAKERinstead of taking them out

44:47SPEAKERand putting them back in the case where they go

44:49SPEAKERso they get charged back up in four minutes

44:51SPEAKERor whatever it takes,

44:51SPEAKERlike 15 minutes you get like most of the charge

44:53SPEAKERback in one of those AirPods.

44:54SPEAKER- Really?

44:55SPEAKER- Yeah, they charge fast.

44:57SPEAKER- I already bought these things,

44:58SPEAKERbut they just get better and better.

44:59SPEAKER- But instead of doing that,

45:01SPEAKERshe just puts them in her pocket.

45:02SPEAKERAnd then we get to play the where's my AirPod game.

45:05SPEAKER- Right.

45:05SPEAKER- Which is a terrible game.

45:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

45:08SPEAKER- Because it should always be either in your ear

45:09SPEAKERor in the case.

45:10SPEAKER- I 100%.

45:11SPEAKER- Those are two places.

45:12SPEAKER- I have also only had cheaper,

45:14SPEAKERlike $30 earbuds.

45:17SPEAKER- Yeah.

45:19SPEAKER- Earbuds.

45:20SPEAKER- Yes, the transition between Earbud and AirPod

45:22SPEAKERis difficult for the brain.

45:23SPEAKER- It turns out.

45:24SPEAKER- But anyway, I 100%,

45:25SPEAKERI can't stand having loose ear,

45:28SPEAKERalmost did it again.

45:29SPEAKEREarbuds. - Earbuds.

45:30SPEAKER- No, AirPods should always be tied up.

45:32SPEAKER- Like when I got to the store or something

45:34SPEAKERand I've been walking and listening to stuff,

45:35SPEAKERlike having to just put the earbuds in my pocket

45:38SPEAKERfor five minutes is like,

45:39SPEAKER'cause you're gonna skip past,

45:41SPEAKERlike you're gonna accidentally make them

45:42SPEAKERstart playing the thing you were listening to again

45:44SPEAKERand you're gonna lose five or 10 minutes

45:45SPEAKERand you're gonna have to-

45:46SPEAKER- And you have to figure out which way is back

45:47SPEAKERand which way.

45:48SPEAKERYeah, look, that's what that inside jacket pocket's for.

45:50SPEAKERYou put the little case in there

45:51SPEAKERand then you put the AirPods back in there

45:52SPEAKERand you're good to go.

45:53SPEAKER- I should just start bringing the case with me.

45:55SPEAKERAlthough that case,

45:56SPEAKERlike the whole thing seems nice enough,

45:57SPEAKERbut losing that case seems like it would be a real problem.

46:00SPEAKER- They'll happily sell you another one for $80.

46:02SPEAKER- I bet, I bet.

46:03SPEAKEROkay, so okay, point two on the headphone thing.

46:06SPEAKER- Yeah.

46:07SPEAKER- I also, I just,

46:08SPEAKERthis is the season of upgrading Apple stuff apparently.

46:11SPEAKER- Yeah.

46:11SPEAKER- I think I'm just about convinced

46:14SPEAKERto probably get the new Apple TV when it comes out,

46:16SPEAKERbut it didn't make it out by the Christmas shopping season

46:18SPEAKERas all the analysts said it would.

46:21SPEAKER- It's almost like the analysts don't have any idea

46:23SPEAKERmore of what they're talking about than we do.

46:25SPEAKER- Yeah, well, or this was like based on some,

46:27SPEAKERwhat seemed like pretty good intel.

46:29SPEAKERThe current rumor is that they have delayed the,

46:32SPEAKER'cause it's not just a new Apple TV,

46:33SPEAKERit's also a new HomePod is rumored.

46:35SPEAKER- Oh, okay.

46:36SPEAKER- And supposedly they're going to ship

46:37SPEAKERwith new Siri AI features.

46:39SPEAKER- Just what I was hoping for.

46:40SPEAKER- Yeah, right, right.

46:42SPEAKERBut so the rumor is that they are maybe holding

46:44SPEAKERthose devices back until the AI stuff is-

46:47SPEAKER- Good?

46:48SPEAKER- In a better place, yes, which I'm not happy about.

46:50SPEAKER- That's gonna be a while.

46:51SPEAKER- 'Cause there's gonna be a fair amount of movie watching

46:53SPEAKERprobably over the holiday break.

46:54SPEAKER- Yeah.

46:55SPEAKER- And another, yet another selling point on the AirPods

46:58SPEAKERwas you talking about just hooking the AirPods

47:00SPEAKERstraight to the Apple TV and not having to deal

47:02SPEAKERwith any in-between sound delivery bullshit.

47:05SPEAKER- Yeah, it's fantastic.

47:06SPEAKERBut literally one of the top three things

47:08SPEAKERthat I like best about it.

47:09SPEAKER- So in the interim, thinking about dusting off

47:14SPEAKERsome crappy old Bluetooth headphones,

47:16SPEAKERor I guess I could use the AirPods for this,

47:17SPEAKERbut I've got some like full-size like cans.

47:20SPEAKERI've got a couple of okay sets

47:23SPEAKERof like bigger Bluetooth headphones.

47:24SPEAKERI was thinking about what if I paired those directly

47:28SPEAKERwith my television?

47:30SPEAKER- I have no idea if that's even possible.

47:31SPEAKER- Is that asking for trouble?

47:32SPEAKER- My TV's old enough that Bluetooth wasn't invented

47:33SPEAKERwhen it was made.

47:34SPEAKER- Sure.

47:35SPEAKERIt is possible on my TV.

47:36SPEAKERIt's a Google TV, which basically runs Android.

47:40SPEAKERAnd as far as I can tell,

47:42SPEAKERit is possible to pair headphones with your TV.

47:44SPEAKER- And you pair two sets of headphones,

47:46SPEAKERso you both have headphones at the same time?

47:47SPEAKER- It's, this is probably, in fact-

47:50SPEAKER- 'Cause that's an Apple TV feature.

47:52SPEAKER- That does sound useful, but it's actually not necessary

47:54SPEAKERbecause the only scenario where I need to wear headphones

47:56SPEAKERis where she has gone to bed first,

47:58SPEAKERwhich is every night 'cause she goes to bed very early.

48:00SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

48:01SPEAKER- So this is purely,

48:03SPEAKER'cause right now I just run a giant headphone cord

48:05SPEAKERacross the living room from the receiver.

48:08SPEAKER- That works too.

48:09SPEAKER- So anyway, like I'm gonna say everything on that TV

48:13SPEAKERworks just shoddily enough that I am not expecting

48:16SPEAKERa great experience out of pairing headphones

48:19SPEAKERwith, straight with the TV.

48:20SPEAKER- Can you do the, can you do it with the receiver?

48:23SPEAKER- No.

48:24SPEAKER- I think our receiver's only Bluetooth in, right?

48:26SPEAKER- Yes, yes, so this is,

48:28SPEAKERI think you have a pretty similar Sony.

48:29SPEAKER- I think we have the exact same Sony, actually.

48:31SPEAKER- It's the exact same, yes.

48:32SPEAKERSo we can take Bluetooth audio in,

48:34SPEAKERI don't think it can pair audio out.

48:36SPEAKERAnd also, that's a pretty old receiver at this point.

48:39SPEAKERI don't know that it would be,

48:41SPEAKERlike latency is the thing I'm mainly worried about

48:43SPEAKER'cause like, if there's like noticeable lag

48:46SPEAKERon people's lip flap versus their voices,

48:49SPEAKERlike that's not, that's a non-steward.

48:50SPEAKER- Yeah, that would make me crazy.

48:51SPEAKERSo I don't know, you should try it out and let it report back.

48:54SPEAKER- Yeah, you know, that sounds like a good trip

48:56SPEAKERreport for the future.

48:57SPEAKER- The thing that I,

49:00SPEAKERthe thing that I miss is the ability to pair consoles,

49:03SPEAKERlike to pair the Switch or whatever,

49:05SPEAKERwhile it's on the TV to the headphones.

49:08SPEAKER'Cause that's, you don't get that with Apple TV.

49:10SPEAKERThat's the one downside, is that you only get the things

49:14SPEAKERthat come through the Apple TV.

49:15SPEAKERIt's the same reason like we haven't replaced

49:17SPEAKERour big giant receiver and speakers

49:18SPEAKERwith just like a couple of home pods

49:20SPEAKERlike normal people do at this point, or a soundbar.

49:22SPEAKERIt's the same problem.

49:23SPEAKERSo that's why I thought to pair them with the TV,

49:25SPEAKER'cause the TV gets all the audio

49:27SPEAKERfor anything being played on the TV.

49:29SPEAKERIt's downstream of all the devices.

49:30SPEAKERYeah, well, I'll give it a shot.

49:31SPEAKERI don't have high hopes, but we'll see.

49:33SPEAKER(upbeat music)

49:36SPEAKER- Okay, I've talked about it before, but it's gotten cold.

49:39SPEAKERIt's been like, not just California cold,

49:41SPEAKERit's been like actually cold the last week or so.

49:44SPEAKER- What is going on?

49:45SPEAKERLike I heard that we had La Nina this year

49:47SPEAKERand I have no idea what the effects of that are,

49:49SPEAKERbut it is so cold here.

49:50SPEAKERLike it's in the, it's in the mid forties here,

49:52SPEAKERwhich is like bitterly cold by San Francisco standards.

49:55SPEAKER- Yeah, and I know that everybody from Wisconsin

49:59SPEAKERand like Minnesota is going like, oh, forties, ha ha ha.

50:02SPEAKERYou mean negative forties?

50:03SPEAKERThat's real cold.

50:04SPEAKERBut when you live in a house

50:05SPEAKERthat has single wall construction and no insulation

50:07SPEAKERand like single pane glass, 'cause it's California,

50:11SPEAKERforties is cold as hell.

50:12SPEAKER- That is always the thing.

50:13SPEAKERCool people don't roll their eyes

50:15SPEAKERat the travails of people in other climates.

50:18SPEAKER- Yeah.

50:19SPEAKER- Because cool people understand that typically,

50:21SPEAKERconstruction and lifestyles and infrastructure

50:23SPEAKERare adapted to the typical conditions of a given area,

50:26SPEAKERnot the extreme conditions.

50:28SPEAKER- And I was talking to a friend the other day

50:29SPEAKERwho's from Minnesota and lives here now and was like,

50:32SPEAKERyeah, no, I've never been cold like this.

50:33SPEAKERBecause in Minnesota, when you go into a house

50:35SPEAKERor a building or an office or a shop,

50:38SPEAKERit's warm inside in the wintertime.

50:40SPEAKER- Right.

50:40SPEAKER- And in here, it's just cold everywhere.

50:42SPEAKER- Right.

50:42SPEAKER- Everything's cold.

50:43SPEAKER- It's the same thing when it's like, you know,

50:45SPEAKERthe three days a year that it's 95 degrees here

50:47SPEAKERand we're talking about how hot it is

50:49SPEAKERand people roll their eyes at that.

50:50SPEAKER- And nobody has air conditioning.

50:51SPEAKER- Nobody has air conditioning.

50:52SPEAKERWe don't even have ceiling fans in this house.

50:54SPEAKERLike, yes, we have our little fans that we buy

50:56SPEAKERand plug into the wall.

50:57SPEAKERLike, there's no relief from it

50:59SPEAKER'cause people don't normally deal with it.

51:00SPEAKER- The solution to a heat wave in San Francisco

51:03SPEAKERis you buy AMC MoviePass and then you go set up

51:05SPEAKERat the Metreon and watch every movie that they have

51:07SPEAKERat least once or twice.

51:08SPEAKER- Now you're talking.

51:09SPEAKER- Anyway, it's cold here.

51:12SPEAKERSo I did two things.

51:14SPEAKEROne is that I took the duvet and I sat down on the bed

51:18SPEAKERand I put a movie on and put the AirPods on

51:20SPEAKERand I redistributed all the down from the baffles

51:25SPEAKERand the duvet so it's all nice and even again

51:27SPEAKER'cause, you know, over the year,

51:29SPEAKERit gets kind of redistributed and it gets lumpy

51:31SPEAKERand, you know, you need it fluffy.

51:33SPEAKER- You gotta fluff it.

51:34SPEAKER- But I also put the heated mattress pad back on.

51:36SPEAKER- Hmm.

51:37SPEAKER- Have we talked about the heated mattress pad before?

51:39SPEAKER- This is on the couch when you're still awake.

51:41SPEAKER- No, no, no, no.

51:42SPEAKER- When you're falling, this is on the bed?

51:43SPEAKER- This is, you know, a mattress pad,

51:45SPEAKERthe thing between the mattress and the sheets?

51:47SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

51:48SPEAKER- This is that. - Oh, oh, yes, yeah.

51:48SPEAKERSorry, I was envisioning like an electric blanket

51:50SPEAKERbasically like a portable thing.

51:52SPEAKER- No, no, no, this is an installation.

51:54SPEAKERSo this you turn on before you get in bed

51:58SPEAKERand when you get to the bed, it's all cozy, pre-warmed.

52:02SPEAKER- I've been having the experience of going to bed at night

52:04SPEAKERand the sheets are so cold, I almost can't stand to lie.

52:07SPEAKER- Yeah, no, you don't have to do the leg shimmy to warm it.

52:11SPEAKERYou're not like relying on friction to warm it up.

52:13SPEAKER- Yep, is this just electric?

52:15SPEAKER- Just electricity.

52:16SPEAKER- Okay, 'cause have you seen,

52:17SPEAKERthey're getting wild with some of this stuff.

52:19SPEAKERHave you seen these like whole bed contraptions

52:22SPEAKERwhere there's what looks like a tower PC

52:24SPEAKERoff to the side of the bed?

52:25SPEAKERIt's basically like a water pump

52:26SPEAKERand they circulate like warm water through.

52:29SPEAKER- So I'm a cold sleeper.

52:30SPEAKERI'm always cold.

52:31SPEAKER- So that's the thing I was gonna ask here

52:32SPEAKERbecause if I did the thing you're describing

52:34SPEAKERand I don't know if you even leave it on at night or not.

52:37SPEAKER- Very rarely.

52:38SPEAKERIf it's really, really cold, I leave it on,

52:39SPEAKERbut generally, no.

52:40SPEAKER- Okay, 'cause I am prone to waking up drenched in sweat

52:45SPEAKERno matter what I do.

52:46SPEAKER- Never a problem.

52:47SPEAKER- I have to be very careful

52:49SPEAKERabout how many blankets I pile on myself.

52:51SPEAKERSo this is probably not an option for me,

52:53SPEAKERbut it sounds pretty nice.

52:55SPEAKER- Friend of the show, Wes Penland was talking the other day

52:57SPEAKERabout buying one of those things that you were talking about.

52:59SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

53:00SPEAKER- The chiller, 'cause it's both a chiller

53:02SPEAKERand a heater is the thing.

53:03SPEAKERBut they're also like,

53:04SPEAKERthe heated mattress pad's like a hundred bucks,

53:06SPEAKERwhich is a premium over a non-heated mattress pad,

53:08SPEAKERbut it's not like outside the breath.

53:11SPEAKERThe chillers and heaters are like multiple thousand dollars.

53:14SPEAKER- Those things are a lot from what I've seen.

53:16SPEAKERIt's pricey, but the heated mattress pad,

53:18SPEAKERthat, the flannel sheets,

53:19SPEAKERthe redistributed down in the Dufay,

53:22SPEAKERgood sleeping right now.

53:23SPEAKER- Now you don't feel any of the wiring in there?

53:25SPEAKERIs there enough,

53:26SPEAKERis it not a princess and the pea sort of situation?

53:28SPEAKER- So there's a, the plug where it comes in

53:32SPEAKERis at either the foot or the head of the bed.

53:34SPEAKERAnd if it's at the head,

53:36SPEAKERyour pillows are on top of it and you don't notice.

53:37SPEAKERAnd let's say, I guess,

53:38SPEAKERif you put your hand under the pillows, you might notice.

53:40SPEAKERIf it's at the foot, you might bump into it.

53:44SPEAKERWe put it at the head

53:45SPEAKERjust 'cause of where the plugs are in the house, so.

53:47SPEAKER- And is there not like a wiring

53:49SPEAKERjust kind of arrangement throughout the pad though?

53:51SPEAKER- There is, but it's like-

53:52SPEAKER- It's probably padded up.

53:52SPEAKER- It's under the sheets and under the padding.

53:54SPEAKERLike the mattress pad's pretty padded

53:57SPEAKERcompared to a normal one.

53:59SPEAKERSo it's almost, it's not quite like topper thickness,

54:01SPEAKERbut it's like, it's pretty beefy.

54:03SPEAKER- All right.

54:04SPEAKER- But, and like, it's also, it doesn't get hot enough.

54:07SPEAKEREven if you turn it on full blast that like,

54:10SPEAKERif you had the comforter off and you like turned it on

54:12SPEAKERand left it on for 20 minutes and came back,

54:13SPEAKERit's not gonna feel warm.

54:15SPEAKERLike that heat's just gonna radiate away

54:16SPEAKER'cause it's not a ton of heat.

54:17SPEAKER- Okay.

54:18SPEAKER- So it's not even as much as like an electric blanket

54:21SPEAKERor a heating pad or something like that.

54:22SPEAKER- Things keep going the way they're going around here.

54:24SPEAKERYou might be selling me on this.

54:26SPEAKER- Look, it'll ratchet up your cozy to a whole new level.

54:30SPEAKER(upbeat music)

54:32SPEAKER- Okay, I went on a little bit of a spending spree

54:34SPEAKERthis Black Friday, although it's kind of becoming the case

54:37SPEAKERthat I don't buy things outside of Black Friday these days.

54:40SPEAKER- 'Tis the season.

54:41SPEAKER- And also this most half of these are work purchases anyway

54:44SPEAKERbut I bought this external SSD that I mentioned.

54:46SPEAKERIn fact, you know, it's a Samsung 990 Pro

54:49SPEAKERwhich is just a bare SSD that goes in your PC.

54:52SPEAKER- Yeah, that might be the last SSD, a four terabyte SSD

54:55SPEAKERthat's ever manufactured the way things are going.

54:57SPEAKER- That seems distinctly possible.

54:58SPEAKERThat's in fact what accelerated my plans to get one.

55:01SPEAKERAnd there was an okay Black Friday sale on it.

55:03SPEAKERAnd there was a sale on this enclosure,

55:05SPEAKERwhich I don't have the exact name in front of me.

55:06SPEAKERIt's made by Hyper.

55:07SPEAKERIt is the HyperNEXT USB four something, something SSD.

55:11SPEAKER- Yeah, it looks like a brick shit house, man.

55:13SPEAKER- It is made of entirely of aluminum.

55:15SPEAKERLike it's solid as hell.

55:17SPEAKERLike you could kind of chuck it at somebody

55:18SPEAKERand probably do some damage actually, but it's USB four.

55:22SPEAKERIt's theoretically it's 40 gigabits per second.

55:26SPEAKERAlthough it turns out I knew this from the user reviews

55:28SPEAKERbut I verified the cable they include

55:30SPEAKERis nowhere near USB four in speed.

55:32SPEAKER- Well, hold on.

55:34SPEAKERWhat USB is it?

55:36SPEAKER- I don't know. I can tell you, who could say?

55:39SPEAKER- How fast does the transfer go when you plug it in?

55:41SPEAKER- The transfer, I copied like a large movie file to it

55:44SPEAKERand got 700 megabytes a second.

55:46SPEAKER- Oh, so it's USB three two speeds.

55:48SPEAKER- Still pretty good to be clear.

55:49SPEAKERIt's still pretty good,

55:50SPEAKERbut it's not the multiple gigabytes per second

55:52SPEAKERthat a USB four cable would deliver.

55:54SPEAKERAnyway, I'm gonna need a cable.

55:55SPEAKERThey're 15 bucks, it's fine.

55:56SPEAKERThe real question is it's four terabytes.

55:59SPEAKERAnd what am I gonna do with all of that space?

56:02SPEAKER- So this is the problem.

56:05SPEAKERLike I have a big USB thumb drive that I have a Ventoy on,

56:09SPEAKERbut it feels a little bit gratuitous

56:11SPEAKERto have a one terabyte USB Ventoy thumb drive.

56:15SPEAKERSo I partitioned, I had another partition

56:17SPEAKERin these thick files on there, right?

56:19SPEAKER- That's the plan.

56:20SPEAKER- Drivers and stuff like that.

56:21SPEAKERBut like four terabytes is a whole other world.

56:24SPEAKER- It's a lot, and I have a MacBook Pro that I work on.

56:28SPEAKERI work on Windows on my desktop.

56:30SPEAKERI already have Linux server

56:32SPEAKERand intend to be doing some Linux desktop stuff.

56:34SPEAKERAt some point soon.

56:35SPEAKER- Are you doing exFAT?

56:36SPEAKERWhat are you-

56:37SPEAKER- So that's question number one is, okay,

56:41SPEAKERhere's the partition map I haven't bought.

56:43SPEAKER- Oh boy.

56:44SPEAKER- Here's what I'm thinking.

56:45SPEAKERI probably am going to make an EFI system partition

56:47SPEAKERat the front of it, just in case.

56:48SPEAKER- Just when you want to boot off of it.

56:51SPEAKER- Like just a one gigabyte EFI,

56:53SPEAKERa FAT32 partition that I can put boot loaders and stuff on.

56:56SPEAKERIf I say I ever want to install Linux to this thing,

57:00SPEAKERor you can use stuff like Rufus

57:02SPEAKERto gen up a portable Windows install as well.

57:05SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

57:06SPEAKER- Fuck, I might do that.

57:07SPEAKERI used to have one of those.

57:08SPEAKERI might, okay.

57:09SPEAKER- Hold on.

57:09SPEAKERYou also have a portable bootable Windows.

57:12SPEAKER- Yes, yes.

57:13SPEAKER- You could also do Ventoy

57:14SPEAKERand just do all those things in images

57:16SPEAKERand then put those images in a folder.

57:18SPEAKER'Cause that's much easier

57:18SPEAKERthan having to burn that stuff over and over again.

57:21SPEAKER- I'll make a one gigabyte EFI system partition

57:23SPEAKERjust in case.

57:24SPEAKERI'm thinking, so yes, like you said,

57:27SPEAKERgoing across all those OSs,

57:28SPEAKERI think exFAT is the only guaranteed

57:31SPEAKERcross-platform file system, as far as I can tell.

57:33SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, the other thing you could do,

57:36SPEAKERthis is the smooth brain solution,

57:39SPEAKERis have a small FAT32 drive

57:42SPEAKERthat has the drivers for whatever file system

57:45SPEAKERyou choose for everything for all of your OSs.

57:47SPEAKER- Sure.

57:48SPEAKER- But that seems like a lot more work

57:50SPEAKERand exFAT's pretty good.

57:50SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

57:53SPEAKERYou still see FUD about NTFS on Linux being a bit shaky.

57:57SPEAKER- It's fine.

57:58SPEAKER- Windows can't read any of the Linux file systems natively,

58:01SPEAKERlike who knows what's going on with Mac OS,

58:03SPEAKERlike exFAT is the lowest common denominator.

58:06SPEAKERSo I'm thinking like terabyte

58:07SPEAKERor terabyte and a half partition exFAT

58:10SPEAKERjust for it as a giant file dump.

58:12SPEAKER- That seems right, I love a file dump.

58:14SPEAKER- Like I said, I might put like a permanent Linux

58:17SPEAKERand Windows install after that on here

58:19SPEAKERjust to have recovery emergency.

58:22SPEAKERI like having a scratch Windows install

58:24SPEAKERfor like questionable stuff, you know?

58:26SPEAKER- So I was gonna say, the thing I do, I do VMs for that.

58:31SPEAKER- Yeah, that also, well, it depends on what you're doing,

58:33SPEAKERbut yes, that is an option.

58:36SPEAKERLike when we streamed black and white a year or two ago,

58:38SPEAKERif you have a black and white?

58:40SPEAKER- Yeah.

58:41SPEAKER- Like you have to do some weird dark sorcery

58:44SPEAKERto get black and white working on modern windows now.

58:47SPEAKER- Did you install the right version of Outlook

58:49SPEAKERso it could look at your mailbox file

58:50SPEAKERand name all your villagers after your people?

58:52SPEAKER- Wait, it didn't actually do that, did it?

58:53SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

58:54SPEAKER- Really?

58:55SPEAKER- Yeah, it would open your mailbox,

58:58SPEAKERit would open your Outlook mailbox file

59:01SPEAKERand pull names from the people you converse with.

59:05SPEAKER- That's fucked up, but also kind of amazing.

59:07SPEAKER- It's like, they would definitely get in trouble

59:09SPEAKERfor doing that now, but back then you're like,

59:10SPEAKERthis is really cool and definitely not at all

59:12SPEAKERa violation of my privacy.

59:14SPEAKER- Yeah, so, okay, case in point,

59:16SPEAKERyou can see why I pulled out my,

59:18SPEAKERthis was back when I had,

59:19SPEAKERthat SSD has now become a scratch Linux drive in my desktop,

59:22SPEAKERbut I used to have a old, like a scratch Windows install

59:25SPEAKERon an old external SSD.

59:28SPEAKERAnd I used it for exactly that.

59:29SPEAKERWhen I had to stream black and white,

59:30SPEAKERI booted my PC off of that scratch Windows install.

59:34SPEAKER- So you didn't jack up Windows?

59:35SPEAKER- Yes, but had nothing important on it,

59:37SPEAKERso that if all the weird fan mods I had to install

59:40SPEAKERto get black and white working did anything on question

59:42SPEAKERor, you know, untoward, not a big deal.

59:44SPEAKERAnyway, yeah, I might have Windows

59:46SPEAKERand Linux installs on there.

59:47SPEAKERI'm also gonna use this as a backup drive.

59:48SPEAKERLike this is full on, next time I need to reinstall Windows,

59:52SPEAKERmy Windows drive is just getting cloned to this thing.

59:54SPEAKER- Yeah, so that's the benefit

59:55SPEAKERof having the big giant drives.

59:56SPEAKERYou don't wanna make your partition smaller

59:58SPEAKERthan whatever your biggest SSD is.

1:00:01SPEAKER- That is exactly why I got the giant drive,

1:00:03SPEAKERis next time, either if Windows shits the bed

1:00:05SPEAKERor I'm just building a new PC

1:00:06SPEAKERand I just wanna back up my entire old Windows install

1:00:09SPEAKERso I can make sure I don't lose anything.

1:00:10SPEAKERLike it's really nice to just be able to image

1:00:12SPEAKERyour entire boot drive to an external drive

1:00:15SPEAKERand just not think about it.

1:00:16SPEAKER- It's funny, I keep thinking about running a fiber

1:00:19SPEAKERinto the NAS, into the office for the NAS,

1:00:22SPEAKERspecifically so that I can do high speed images out that,

1:00:26SPEAKER'cause it takes so long over gigabit,

1:00:29SPEAKERbut also just getting a four terabyte SSD

1:00:32SPEAKERis another viable alternative.

1:00:36SPEAKER- As you said, if you want a big SSD,

1:00:38SPEAKERit might be time to get one sooner than later,

1:00:40SPEAKERbut on the system cloning thing, before we end this here,

1:00:44SPEAKERI will say, Windows is still just a partition.

1:00:47SPEAKERThey're not doing any weird sealed signed system volumes

1:00:50SPEAKERor immutable containers or anything like that.

1:00:53SPEAKERIt's just a partition.

1:00:54SPEAKERYou can just use Clonezilla or whatever,

1:00:57SPEAKERpartition cloning thing you like.

1:00:58SPEAKER- Just DD it if you wanna take some time.

1:01:00SPEAKER- That's probably what I will do now.

1:01:02SPEAKERI like DDing partitions now.

1:01:04SPEAKERBut did you know, there is a,

1:01:06SPEAKERApple has written a command line utility

1:01:09SPEAKERto back up the insane immutable like sealed Mac OS volume.

1:01:13SPEAKER- Really?

1:01:14SPEAKER- It's called ASR, literally command.

1:01:16SPEAKERIt's a literal command line utility in Mac OS.

1:01:18SPEAKERCalled ASR stands for Apple Software Restore.

1:01:21SPEAKERIt has a man page.

1:01:24SPEAKER- Wow.

1:01:24SPEAKER- Like they wrote a man page for it.

1:01:26SPEAKERThat's how much of a Unix, as a Unix Mac OS is.

1:01:29SPEAKERThis is secretly one of the topics

1:01:31SPEAKERI'm very excited to come on to the dual view diaries

1:01:34SPEAKERand talk about sometime,

1:01:35SPEAKERbecause I kind of wanna blow Adam's mind

1:01:37SPEAKERwhen he finds out how much,

1:01:39SPEAKERhow many of the things that,

1:01:41SPEAKERhow many of the concepts he is coming to grips with

1:01:43SPEAKERin Linux actually also exist in Mac OS

1:01:45SPEAKERand other and some other operating systems.

1:01:48SPEAKERAnd like even for, even for software

1:01:51SPEAKERthat Apple is developing to this day,

1:01:52SPEAKERthey are still writing man pages for them because,

1:01:55SPEAKERlook man, it's a certified Unix.

1:01:57SPEAKER- Meanwhile, on the Windows side,

1:01:59SPEAKERtheir backup utility is just,

1:02:01SPEAKERhey man, consider uploading all your shit to OneDrive.

1:02:04SPEAKER- Yeah, fucking get me,

1:02:07SPEAKERwe should do a whole episode at some point

1:02:09SPEAKERabout the Microsoft that could have been,

1:02:12SPEAKERif they kept, if Microsoft had been developed,

1:02:14SPEAKERkept developing their Unix instead of moving to DOS,

1:02:16SPEAKERcan you just imagine what the computing world

1:02:19SPEAKERmight be like now?

1:02:21SPEAKER- It's a real testament that I'm looking back

1:02:23SPEAKERon the Ballmer days and like being like,

1:02:26SPEAKERit wasn't as bad as I thought it was back then.

1:02:29SPEAKERDon't write in, if you worked at Microsoft

1:02:30SPEAKERduring the Ballmer days, don't send us letters about this.

1:02:33SPEAKERWe know I'm joking, this is a joke.

1:02:34SPEAKER- Yup. - Yup.

1:02:36SPEAKER- But also, damn.

1:02:38SPEAKER(upbeat music)

1:02:40SPEAKERHey Brad, if three ghost visited Satya Nadella

1:02:45SPEAKERon Christmas Eve, who would they be?

1:02:49SPEAKER- Oh man, okay.

1:02:51SPEAKERI mean, Gates has to be one of them.

1:02:54SPEAKER- I think it's Gates, Ballmer and Jay Allard.

1:02:56SPEAKER- Oh man.

1:02:57SPEAKER- I think Ballmer is the ghost of Christmas future,

1:02:59SPEAKERthe old one.

1:03:00SPEAKER- Man, I was, sure, I was editing a photo

1:03:04SPEAKERof Jay Allard this very afternoon.

1:03:06SPEAKERI mean, don't ask.

1:03:08SPEAKER- Tip of the tongue.

1:03:10SPEAKER- Man, I'm trying to like.

1:03:14SPEAKERJay Allard's gotta be ghost of Christmas past, right?

1:03:16SPEAKER'Cause like he's back when Microsoft was good.

1:03:18SPEAKER- Is that the split?

1:03:19SPEAKERLike past is like the glory days, the salad days,

1:03:23SPEAKERlike the, I'm trying, I haven't seen Christmas,

1:03:24SPEAKERor read Christmas Carol in a very long time.

1:03:26SPEAKER- Okay, first off, there are two,

1:03:29SPEAKERjust three actually really good Christmas Carol adaptations

1:03:32SPEAKERand they're all worth watching.

1:03:34SPEAKERMickey's Christmas Carol is the best

1:03:37SPEAKERof that era of Disney animation.

1:03:38SPEAKER- Watched it last year, quite short.

1:03:40SPEAKERIt's like a half hour.

1:03:41SPEAKER- It's 23 minutes, it's fantastic.

1:03:41SPEAKER- With commercials. - Yeah, yeah.

1:03:44SPEAKER- The George C. Scott one from like 1972, incredible.

1:03:47SPEAKER- Like my dad has maintained forever,

1:03:51SPEAKERthat is the only Christmas Carol.

1:03:52SPEAKER- I would say that my answer

1:03:54SPEAKERto what is the only Christmas Carol

1:03:55SPEAKERis the Muppet Christmas Carol.

1:03:57SPEAKER- Okay, sure, yes, okay, yes, I agree on all points here.

1:04:02SPEAKER- But yeah, so past is showing how things used to be

1:04:06SPEAKERand when it was kind of good

1:04:07SPEAKERand like how before you were a real dill hole.

1:04:10SPEAKERPresent is like the nightmare world

1:04:12SPEAKERthat you've created today for people

1:04:14SPEAKERand future is your unfortunate end.

1:04:17SPEAKER- Yeah, future is where people spit on your grave

1:04:21SPEAKERand crush your memory.

1:04:22SPEAKER- Yeah, how you end up being the worst person in the world.

1:04:24SPEAKER- Yes, man, okay, in that light.

1:04:27SPEAKER- Maybe Bill Gates has passed.

1:04:30SPEAKER- Maybe, I don't know.

1:04:32SPEAKER- Bill Gates' future.

1:04:33SPEAKER- Reading about the way, yes,

1:04:35SPEAKERreading about the way that he conducted business doings

1:04:37SPEAKERback in the day, I don't know.

1:04:39SPEAKER- He didn't seem like a nice guy.

1:04:41SPEAKER- No, not especially.

1:04:42SPEAKER- No.

1:04:43SPEAKER- Hmm, man, this is a tough one.

1:04:46SPEAKERWe're gonna have to spend some time,

1:04:47SPEAKERwrite a whole screenplay out of this.

1:04:49SPEAKER- Yeah, maybe write in, write in with your guesses,

1:04:52SPEAKERtechpod@content.town

1:04:53SPEAKERor post them in the chat for the Discord.

1:04:59SPEAKERI really miss Simpsons Fortnite.

1:05:00SPEAKER- Dude, when I saw that you had put this on the notes,

1:05:03SPEAKERI was very excited

1:05:04SPEAKERbecause I don't know if you listened to every,

1:05:06SPEAKERprobably not every episode of the Next Lander podcast,

1:05:08SPEAKERbut I literally said this last week.

1:05:09SPEAKERWe talked about the chapter finale.

1:05:12SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:05:13SPEAKER- 'Cause that thing wasn't so insane

1:05:15SPEAKERthat as soon as it was over,

1:05:17SPEAKERI hit the record that button on the PS5

1:05:19SPEAKERand sent them my footage.

1:05:21SPEAKERI was like, hey, we're gonna talk about this anyway.

1:05:23SPEAKERYou should probably see this beforehand

1:05:25SPEAKERbecause this is absolutely beyond.

1:05:27SPEAKER- Had you never seen one of those before?

1:05:29SPEAKER- No, and I don't know if they're all

1:05:31SPEAKERsuch unbelievable like IP slop farms.

1:05:34SPEAKER- I mean, there's usually a little bit of celebration

1:05:38SPEAKERof what came before and a little bit of foreshadowing

1:05:41SPEAKERof what's coming in the future.

1:05:42SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, the way I put it,

1:05:44SPEAKERthis was basically a deleted scene from Ready Player One.

1:05:46SPEAKERI mean, it's completely chock-a-block

1:05:48SPEAKERwith every property they have licensed for that game

1:05:51SPEAKERin the past 12 months, just absurd.

1:05:53SPEAKER- Yeah, this one was more of that than the past ones.

1:05:55SPEAKERLike some of the past ones were like,

1:05:57SPEAKERyou got into a giant mecha

1:05:58SPEAKERand just fought a monster and stuff like that.

1:06:01SPEAKERAnd there were definitely IP tie-ins with those,

1:06:03SPEAKERbut it wasn't quite as,

1:06:05SPEAKERit wasn't as overt as the bride from Kill Bill

1:06:09SPEAKERdriving up Godzilla's back to motorcycle off

1:06:12SPEAKERinto a monster or whatever it was.

1:06:13SPEAKER- While Superman is hovering over you,

1:06:15SPEAKERlike holding a boulder so you can drive.

1:06:17SPEAKERYeah, it's a lot.

1:06:19SPEAKERAnyway, in the course of that conversation,

1:06:22SPEAKERI then said, okay, then I turned around after that was over,

1:06:25SPEAKERplayed one match of the new season

1:06:27SPEAKERand had a violent, not my island reaction.

1:06:31SPEAKERLike it's basically how I felt about it.

1:06:32SPEAKERLike I got in there and did one match

1:06:34SPEAKERand was just like, this feels wrong.

1:06:36SPEAKERLike, is this the experience everybody has

1:06:39SPEAKERat the beginning of a new season in that game?

1:06:40SPEAKERLike this just is, I really liked that Simpsons Island

1:06:43SPEAKERand this is not my Fortnite and I haven't played it since.

1:06:46SPEAKER- Well, so as somebody who's played a fair amount

1:06:48SPEAKERof these kind of big, long running,

1:06:51SPEAKERlive service multiplayer games,

1:06:54SPEAKERthere are kind of multiple strategies

1:06:56SPEAKERfor how you manage it, right?

1:06:57SPEAKERAnd one of them is that the meta never changes

1:07:00SPEAKERand like the gun that's good now will be the same,

1:07:03SPEAKERthe gun that's good three years from now

1:07:04SPEAKERand that's the kind of PUBG and I think Apex way probably,

1:07:08SPEAKERI don't play a lot of Apex these days.

1:07:11SPEAKERThe other end of the extreme is what Fortnite does,

1:07:15SPEAKERwhich is just like, they lean real hard into meta

1:07:19SPEAKERand then they completely change it up at the season turn.

1:07:21SPEAKERLike, you know that no matter how bad

1:07:23SPEAKERyou don't like the current season,

1:07:24SPEAKERyou know it's gonna be completely different

1:07:25SPEAKERat the start of the next season.

1:07:26SPEAKER- Yeah, so I like that for weapons.

1:07:28SPEAKERLike I found, like even that one match I played,

1:07:31SPEAKERI was like, oh, these are new guns.

1:07:33SPEAKERThat's fun to discover some new guns,

1:07:34SPEAKERbut it was, I think it was more of the setting and layout

1:07:37SPEAKERand like, you know, like I had learned the previous map

1:07:40SPEAKERand now I, A, I didn't know where anything was,

1:07:42SPEAKERB, I kind of just don't love the aesthetic

1:07:44SPEAKERof this one compared to this.

1:07:46SPEAKERGranted, it's hard to beat the look of The Simpsons.

1:07:47SPEAKER- I was gonna say like, The Simpsons is a gamble, right?

1:07:51SPEAKER'Cause you're coming off of something that was really fun

1:07:55SPEAKERand novel and new and then you're going back

1:07:58SPEAKERto something that's completely different.

1:07:59SPEAKERAnd so like, I actually quite like the whole learning

1:08:03SPEAKERnew map knowledge part of the game,

1:08:06SPEAKER'cause I think that's, like that was the part of early PUBG

1:08:08SPEAKERthat I really loved was like having good map knowledge

1:08:11SPEAKERfor that first PUBG map gave you a huge advantage in combat

1:08:14SPEAKER'cause you knew where the cover was

1:08:16SPEAKERand you knew where the outs were

1:08:17SPEAKERand like it made you more survivable

1:08:20SPEAKERand you knew where to do good ambushes and stuff like that.

1:08:23SPEAKERAnd you know, it's nice that that changes in Fortnite.

1:08:27SPEAKER- I'm really bummed and I realize it's like

1:08:30SPEAKERa giant business conversation licensing deal,

1:08:34SPEAKERbut they have had things that stayed forever.

1:08:36SPEAKERSo like the Daft Punk experience that they did last year,

1:08:39SPEAKERthat if you, I don't know if we've talked about this here,

1:08:41SPEAKERbut it's basically they recreated the Alive 2007 tour

1:08:47SPEAKERand played the entire set list for that tour

1:08:51SPEAKERin like an arena style thing.

1:08:53SPEAKERIt is maybe the coolest music thing they've ever done.

1:08:55SPEAKERAnd they've done a lot of cool music things.

1:08:57SPEAKER- That's pretty good.

1:08:59SPEAKER- So like that, you can still go play right now,

1:09:01SPEAKERas far as I know.

1:09:01SPEAKERI haven't looked at it since the season started,

1:09:02SPEAKERbut it was there like the last day of the last season.

1:09:05SPEAKERAnd it's really exciting.

1:09:07SPEAKERThe other thing that happens with Fortnite new seasons

1:09:09SPEAKERis they change technology.

1:09:10SPEAKERSo usually a chapter is a new major or minor branch

1:09:15SPEAKERof Unreal 5 at this point.

1:09:16SPEAKER- Interesting, okay.

1:09:18SPEAKER- So I don't know which one they're on.

1:09:19SPEAKERI think it's maybe 5.6 or 5.7,

1:09:21SPEAKERbut the Lumen and Nanite changes rolled out one season

1:09:29SPEAKERand it's on down the line.

1:09:31SPEAKERSo yeah, I don't know.

1:09:33SPEAKERI just want to go back to Springfield.

1:09:34SPEAKERThis is where I'm at.

1:09:35SPEAKER- Yeah, honestly, I was pretty sad by the end of that season

1:09:38SPEAKERthat there is no mode that lets you just explore that map

1:09:40SPEAKERat will without people shooting at you.

1:09:42SPEAKERI really, I would have loved to spend an hour

1:09:45SPEAKERjust looking through everything they built for that

1:09:47SPEAKER'cause they put a lot of art into that.

1:09:48SPEAKERIt was a really, really cool thing that it's...

1:09:53SPEAKERThe only bummer is that it was behind the live service thing

1:09:55SPEAKERand it went away after a while.

1:09:56SPEAKERI'm sure it will come back next year or whatever.

1:09:58SPEAKER- But if they make it an annual thing, that would be fun

1:10:00SPEAKERbecause I'm sure I'll be back for the Star Wars season

1:10:03SPEAKERin May if nothing else.

1:10:04SPEAKERBut I would absolutely come back for Simpsons as well.

1:10:06SPEAKERI mean, just looking around in Bart and Lisa's bedroom

1:10:09SPEAKERand seeing the things, I don't treat it as like,

1:10:12SPEAKERoh, I'm finally seeing the Simpsons house.

1:10:14SPEAKERIt's just their interpretation of that.

1:10:17SPEAKERThat's not necessarily what the animators from the actual

1:10:19SPEAKERshow would have put in there, but it's still an interesting

1:10:21SPEAKERenough facsimile that you can kind of take it seriously

1:10:25SPEAKERand be like, oh, that's what Bart has on his shelves.

1:10:27SPEAKERLike, that's cool to see.

1:10:28SPEAKER- Yeah, it's funny 'cause we have that Lego Simpsons house

1:10:32SPEAKERthat I bought years and years ago and has been built

1:10:34SPEAKER'cause my daughter played with it a lot as a kid.

1:10:38SPEAKERAnd it's the same layout, like the same layout, Lego house,

1:10:41SPEAKERsame layout in the Simpsons Fortnite house, so yeah.

1:10:46SPEAKER- Yeah, they made a cool thing.

1:10:47SPEAKER- They made a cool thing.

1:10:48SPEAKER- And then they took it away.

1:10:50SPEAKER- I guess that's as good a place as any to wrap it up.

1:10:52SPEAKER- Speaking of taking things away,

1:10:54SPEAKERwe're gonna end this podcast now.

1:10:55SPEAKER- Disgusted sigh.

1:10:58SPEAKERThis is another cold open episode.

1:10:59SPEAKERThank you for bearing with us and hopefully you enjoyed

1:11:02SPEAKERand weren't too, too confused.

1:11:04SPEAKER- Yes, perfect time of year for a cold open episode.

1:11:07SPEAKER- It is cold as hell out.

1:11:09SPEAKERFor folks who aren't around, we don't do this very often.

1:11:12SPEAKERThis is a special treat, but we have a big giant list

1:11:15SPEAKERof cold open topics, and when it gets too full