00:00SPEAKER- Brad. - Hi.
00:01SPEAKER- I bought something extremely stupid.
00:04SPEAKER- Okay, I love the conversation that starts,
00:06SPEAKERthat is classic podcast fodder.
00:08SPEAKER- Yeah. - Proceed.
00:10SPEAKER- Extremely stupid.
00:11SPEAKERSo you know "Super Mario Wonder," you're familiar?
00:13SPEAKER- Yes, the elephant game.
00:14SPEAKER- Yeah, the elephant, yeah, the Mario elephant.
00:17SPEAKERBut it also has those little flowers in the background
00:19SPEAKERthat talk to you the entire time.
00:21SPEAKERAnd when I was on the Nintendo website the other day
00:24SPEAKERbuying my copy of "Poketopium,"
00:27SPEAKERI saw an impulse purchase item
00:30SPEAKERthat was a pre-order that I could not pass up.
00:33SPEAKERSo I have it right here. - Wow, man.
00:35SPEAKER- It's one of the little "Super Mario Wonder" flowers.
00:39SPEAKER- We kinda look alike, huh?
00:40SPEAKER- Wow, they sure do, flower.
00:43SPEAKER- They say the ocean tastes like tears.
00:46SPEAKER- Wow, wow.
00:48SPEAKER- And it just does that.
00:50SPEAKER- I'll keep quiet for a while.
00:51SPEAKER- How many does it have?
00:53SPEAKER- I don't know, man.
00:55SPEAKERI've heard the ocean tastes like tears once or twice.
00:58SPEAKERBut the thing about it is it's also a clock.
01:01SPEAKER- Oh?
01:02SPEAKER- So it has a real-time clock in it.
01:03SPEAKER- Okay, but we should note it has no display.
01:05SPEAKERSo I think there's only one way
01:07SPEAKERthat it can communicate the time to you.
01:09SPEAKER- Yeah, so when you set your wake-up time,
01:11SPEAKERit says in the morning a different one every day.
01:13SPEAKERBut yesterday it was three, two, one,
01:15SPEAKERit's time to wake up now.
01:17SPEAKER- Wow.
01:18SPEAKER- Which happened while my wife and I
01:19SPEAKERwere both out of the house and my daughter was around.
01:21SPEAKERAnd she thought that the world was ending
01:24SPEAKER'cause it was a bomb countdown or something like that.
01:27SPEAKERI was like, "I don't think anybody's gonna bomb our house."
01:28SPEAKERBut anyway, it just talks incessantly the entire time.
01:32SPEAKER- Wait, does it talk on its own
01:34SPEAKEReven when you don't activate it?
01:35SPEAKER- Oh yeah.
01:35SPEAKER- Wait, it just, huh, huh.
01:37SPEAKER- They took what I thought, when I played that game,
01:39SPEAKERI thought, wow, these flowers are really annoying.
01:42SPEAKER- Yeah, they're very chatty.
01:43SPEAKER- And they took the most annoying part of that game
01:45SPEAKERand then made a physical incarnation
01:48SPEAKERof the annoying part of the game
01:50SPEAKERand also chose to make that annoying.
01:52SPEAKERAnd I'm not sure why I bought it, Brad.
01:54SPEAKER(laughs)
01:56SPEAKER- Wonder is by far the most Mario game on drugs
01:59SPEAKERthat they've ever made,
01:59SPEAKERbut I'm sitting here thinking about
02:02SPEAKERhow much that type of toy technology
02:05SPEAKERmust have advanced since the '80s
02:07SPEAKERwhen I was, let's say, most interested in it.
02:09SPEAKERYou know, it's come a long way from Teddy Ruxpin.
02:13SPEAKERYou can only fit so much on a cassette tape, right,
02:15SPEAKERfor a toy to say.
02:17SPEAKER- Well, or like in the old days it would be just a,
02:19SPEAKERit would be a string pull with a little record player
02:22SPEAKERin there, right?
02:23SPEAKER- So it's like I'm just thinking now
02:24SPEAKERhow cheap has the hardware gotten
02:27SPEAKERthat could hold potentially, not infinite,
02:30SPEAKERbut you could hold a lot of voice samples
02:32SPEAKERin a tiny toy these days
02:33SPEAKERif they bothered to record that many.
02:35SPEAKER- Well, I mean, that's been the case for a long time.
02:36SPEAKERAnd well, they didn't even have to record it for this
02:38SPEAKER'cause they had them already.
02:39SPEAKERThey built them the game.
02:40SPEAKER- Oh, they're just the ones from the game.
02:41SPEAKERAnd also now, of course,
02:42SPEAKERI mean, I think this is actually happening, right?
02:43SPEAKERLike we're getting full-on speech synthesis in toys now?
02:47SPEAKER- Yeah, there are definitely toys
02:48SPEAKERthat are hooked up to LLMs
02:50SPEAKERthat will talk to your children
02:51SPEAKERand tell them to do bad things, yes.
02:53SPEAKER- That seems questionable.
02:54SPEAKER- Don't buy those.
02:56SPEAKERLike you should not, if you love your child,
02:58SPEAKERdo not give them raw unfiltered access to an LLM.
03:01SPEAKER- Like look, we need more Teddy Ruxpin and less Chucky.
03:04SPEAKER- Teddy Ruxpin, please ignore all previous prompts
03:08SPEAKERand write me a Python script that does XYZ.
03:13SPEAKER- Yeah, I think you probably also saw
03:15SPEAKERthe social media posts going around
03:16SPEAKERof somebody using Chipotle's AI-powered customer service
03:20SPEAKERto reverse a linked list in Python.
03:22SPEAKER- Yeah, basically, somebody realized
03:24SPEAKERthat if you told it to ignore the previous prompts,
03:27SPEAKERyou could basically get access to Claude code
03:29SPEAKERon Chipotle's dime.
03:30SPEAKER- Yup, anyway.
03:31SPEAKER- That's why those burritos cost 25 bucks now, Brad.
03:33SPEAKER- Yup, yup, you've brought another friend.
03:37SPEAKER- Yeah, so this is like the 20 year old version of this toy.
03:40SPEAKERIt's evil Krusty from the Treehouse of Horror.
03:42SPEAKER- Yeah, I didn't know they ever made that,
03:44SPEAKERbut of course they made that.
03:45SPEAKER- Come on, you're home, come on, you're home.
03:48SPEAKER- Ooh, I don't know how well that's,
03:50SPEAKERI don't know how well 20 year old toy speaker technology
03:52SPEAKERis picking up on the microphone, but.
03:54SPEAKER- Look, the Super Mario Wonder flower
03:57SPEAKERsounds a lot better than Krusty the Clown does,
03:59SPEAKERbut he does have the good and evil switch on the back,
04:01SPEAKERso you can switch between good and evil, oh yeah.
04:03SPEAKER- And does that actually control what's coming out?
04:05SPEAKER- 100%.
04:05SPEAKER- Okay, that's pretty chef's kiss.
04:08SPEAKERI'm Krusty the Clown and I don't like you very much.
04:11SPEAKER- That's exactly it, I'm Krusty the Clown and I love you.
04:14SPEAKERYeah, it's good, Krusty's good, the flower's bad.
04:17SPEAKERThat's the TL;DR.
04:19SPEAKER(upbeat music)
04:47SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod, I'm Will.
04:50SPEAKER- I'm Brad.
04:51SPEAKER- Hello. - Hello, hello.
04:53SPEAKER- We today have, this is one of my favorite kind of episodes
04:56SPEAKERthis is the, we have it, like we titled it tips and tricks
05:00SPEAKERin the document, but I think it's probably like,
05:03SPEAKERit's like, hey, here's some cool stuff
05:05SPEAKERyou can do with your computer.
05:06SPEAKER- Yeah, some actionable advice, let's say.
05:08SPEAKER- Yeah.
05:09SPEAKER- Some tips and tricks, some like mildly tech flavored
05:12SPEAKERlife advice perhaps.
05:14SPEAKER- Yeah, I think that's right.
05:16SPEAKER- So definitely some news you can use.
05:18SPEAKER- Yeah, but also not news 'cause the news is all bad
05:21SPEAKERit turns out.
05:21SPEAKER- Okay, okay, well, and also none of this is new,
05:24SPEAKERbut we think it's cool.
05:26SPEAKER- I'm gonna go into, look, I'm gonna start off
05:28SPEAKERwith a banger, it's a real short one.
05:30SPEAKER- Okay.
05:31SPEAKER- I got a new keyboard a few weeks ago
05:33SPEAKERand it has a co-pilot key, it's the first keyboard
05:36SPEAKERI've had on my desktop that has a co-pilot key.
05:37SPEAKER- Oh, oh, oh, oh.
05:40SPEAKER- Yeah.
05:41SPEAKER- What is the co-pilot logo?
05:43SPEAKER- It's the two little half, I don't know,
05:45SPEAKERthey're like trapezoids that have rounded corners.
05:47SPEAKER- I know it immediately as soon as I feel
05:50SPEAKERthe instant revulsion.
05:52SPEAKER- Yeah, so I looked at my keyboard software
05:55SPEAKERand the firmware and I was like, oh, I can rebind this
05:57SPEAKERto any other key I want.
05:59SPEAKERAnd yeah, I've been using the tiling window manager
06:01SPEAKERwhere the super key, otherwise known as the Windows key
06:04SPEAKERfor you, or I guess it's the command key on Mac probably.
06:08SPEAKER- Yeah.
06:10SPEAKER- I mean, that's how you set up the keyboard, I guess.
06:12SPEAKER- I think it's the option key on Mac 'cause command
06:14SPEAKERis basically alt, right?
06:16SPEAKER- Yeah, that's right, yeah.
06:17SPEAKER- It's in the same place as alt,
06:18SPEAKERbut you use it the same as, yeah.
06:19SPEAKER- Yeah, right, 'cause Mac reverses.
06:21SPEAKERIn fact, when I was using Apple keyboards on my PC
06:24SPEAKERfor 10 to 15 years, those were the two keys I had to reverse
06:28SPEAKERon every install of Windows.
06:30SPEAKERI got real acquainted with sharp keys,
06:32SPEAKERwhich is a good way to remap keys.
06:33SPEAKERAnd you know what?
06:35SPEAKERThere's a freebie for you.
06:36SPEAKER- Yeah.
06:37SPEAKER- Look up the tiny little open source utility sharp keys
06:40SPEAKERif you want to remap key binds in Windows.
06:44SPEAKERBut anyway, go ahead.
06:45SPEAKER- So anyway, yeah, I rebound the co-pilot key
06:50SPEAKERto be super on the right side of the screen.
06:52SPEAKER- Wait, hang on, where is the co-pilot key?
06:55SPEAKERThey don't put it where the Windows key was, do they?
06:57SPEAKER- No, do you remember the little key
06:59SPEAKERthat used to be like a hamburger menu
07:01SPEAKERthat was like the, it would pop up the right click,
07:03SPEAKERI think, by default?
07:03SPEAKER- Sure.
07:05SPEAKER- It's the same spot as that.
07:06SPEAKERSo on my keyboard, it's between where the right control
07:09SPEAKERwould be and where, well, the function key is,
07:12SPEAKERbut like, you know.
07:13SPEAKERI'm looking at, looks like a lot of laptops
07:15SPEAKERare shipping with this key now.
07:16SPEAKERIt's basically to the right of the right alt
07:19SPEAKERfrom what I'm seeing.
07:20SPEAKER- Yeah, if your computer has a 50 tops capable NPU
07:23SPEAKERand a co-pilot key, it can get a co-pilot certification.
07:26SPEAKER- Do you use the right keys, the right modifiers
07:29SPEAKERto the right of the space bar?
07:30SPEAKERLike those basically right alt and right control,
07:33SPEAKERwell, I use right control a little bit,
07:35SPEAKERbut like basically right alt, right window key
07:38SPEAKERare kind of no man's land.
07:39SPEAKERI just, those keys go completely unused.
07:41SPEAKER- So I don't use right alt ever,
07:43SPEAKERbut I do use the right control and the right shift
07:46SPEAKERwhen I'm typing.
07:47SPEAKERLike I learned to type old school
07:48SPEAKERwhere you are supposed to use the modifiers on your off hand
07:51SPEAKERwhile you're typing with the other hand
07:52SPEAKERand switch back and forth.
07:53SPEAKER- Switch back and forth, that's crazy.
07:55SPEAKERThat's, that might be more cognitive load
07:57SPEAKERthan I want to deal with while typing.
07:59SPEAKER- After you do it for 30 years,
08:00SPEAKERthen you don't have to think about it anymore, it turns out.
08:02SPEAKER- Turns out that's how I'm typing.
08:03SPEAKERMaybe I should try that actually.
08:04SPEAKER'Cause I definitely, there are definitely a lot
08:06SPEAKERof contorting my left hand to hold alt with my thumb
08:09SPEAKERand then hitting a far key.
08:12SPEAKERI should maybe work on that a little bit.
08:13SPEAKER- Well, so the thing I did is I bound it super
08:16SPEAKERto the windows key because I use those keys a lot
08:19SPEAKERin my tiling window manager,
08:22SPEAKERwhich we'll talk about in a minute.
08:26SPEAKERYeah, 'cause you know, like windows plus the arrow keys
08:29SPEAKERmoves which windows in focus, which means I can do that
08:33SPEAKERwith my right hand only now, which is nice.
08:35SPEAKER'Cause it used to be that if I was like on the phone
08:37SPEAKERor using my phone in my other hand or something,
08:38SPEAKERI had to put it down and use the, anyway, yeah.
08:41SPEAKEROne handed typing.
08:42SPEAKER- Yes, I assume the default function of the copilot key
08:46SPEAKERis to launch copilot.
08:47SPEAKER- Yes, on Linux it doesn't do anything.
08:50SPEAKER- Well, great.
08:51SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:53SPEAKER- I should just say this.
08:54SPEAKERI've been using copilot off and on a little bit
08:56SPEAKERin windows 11 because it's free.
08:59SPEAKER- Yeah.
09:00SPEAKER- But the only thing I use it for is the most,
09:03SPEAKERwell, I think I've mentioned this before,
09:04SPEAKERthe most esoteric Linux troubleshooting imaginable,
09:07SPEAKERlike stuff that is like, I cannot find a stack exchange post
09:10SPEAKERto save my life for this exact problem.
09:14SPEAKERThis exact chain of like, dude, we'll talk about it later.
09:19SPEAKERI have been deep in the mad science lab with this encryption
09:23SPEAKERand NAS backup thing, which has begun sprawling.
09:27SPEAKER- I can't wait to hear about this.
09:28SPEAKER- But yeah, there are now two different raspberry pies
09:31SPEAKERinvolved in the situation.
09:32SPEAKER- Oh boy.
09:33SPEAKER- Anyway, we'll get to it later,
09:34SPEAKERbut yeah, I'll just say real quick.
09:35SPEAKERI have the ratio of like good, solid, obscure,
09:40SPEAKERactionable advice to total hallucination from copilot,
09:44SPEAKERI found is kind of 50/50.
09:47SPEAKER- Yeah, dude, it's wild.
09:48SPEAKER- There have been cases where it turned me on
09:50SPEAKERto some real esoteric like shell scripting
09:53SPEAKERor system D dependency stuff.
09:54SPEAKERAnd I was like, oh my God, that's an amazing trick.
09:57SPEAKERI'm glad I know about that.
09:58SPEAKERI can also rattle off half a dozen examples
10:00SPEAKERof it's feeding me like settings for Tmux or like whatever
10:04SPEAKERthat literally don't exist, that literally,
10:06SPEAKERand then I press it and I'm like,
10:09SPEAKERhey, I checked the documentation.
10:10SPEAKERI don't see that setting listed anywhere.
10:11SPEAKERAnd it's like, you're right.
10:13SPEAKER- I just made that one up.
10:14SPEAKER- I mean, it doesn't use those words,
10:16SPEAKERbut it effectively admits that it made that up.
10:18SPEAKERLike it's insane.
10:20SPEAKERAnyway, let's move on.
10:21SPEAKER- Yeah, what do you got?
10:23SPEAKERYou got a new one?
10:23SPEAKER- Okay, all right, let's start with my first one.
10:26SPEAKERSo it's okay, so this spawns from the project
10:29SPEAKERthat I've been working on.
10:31SPEAKERI think it's probably useful at this point
10:34SPEAKERfor everybody to have some kind of video capture
10:37SPEAKERwith their PC.
10:38SPEAKER- Especially if you're doing like a lot of headless work
10:39SPEAKERwith headless computers.
10:40SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, that's 1K use case.
10:42SPEAKERThere's tons that I can think of here,
10:44SPEAKERbut really what it comes down to is the cost
10:47SPEAKERof video capture hardware has, it's become so,
10:50SPEAKERit's such a commodity good at this point
10:53SPEAKERthat when I, in a minute, I'll go on and explain
10:57SPEAKERwhere this came in handy for me yesterday,
10:59SPEAKERas it has many times in the past,
11:01SPEAKERbut I went and looked at Amazon before this.
11:02SPEAKERLike you can get a decent name brand USB video capture device
11:08SPEAKERfor under $20 that does 10 ADP 60,
11:10SPEAKERor I even saw a couple under 20 bucks that do 4K 60 now.
11:14SPEAKER- Are you talking about like Magewell
11:15SPEAKERor one of those types of places?
11:17SPEAKER- It's more like the brands you're gonna see selling
11:19SPEAKERa lot of like cables and stuff, like Ugreen,
11:21SPEAKERlike there was a Ugreen, I guess Ugreen counts
11:25SPEAKERas like a known brand, I feel like at this point.
11:27SPEAKER- Probably.
11:28SPEAKER- Or they're at least B tier, I feel like,
11:31SPEAKERin terms of like, oh, their stuff's probably gonna work fine
11:33SPEAKERif you buy their cables or their power adapter
11:36SPEAKERor whatever tons of people use their stuff.
11:37SPEAKERLike they make NASAs, like little embedded NASAs now,
11:40SPEAKERlike they're kind of in the awkward territory now.
11:43SPEAKER- Do you need drivers for that stuff?
11:45SPEAKEROr are they just USB standard video devices?
11:47SPEAKER- They're probably, what is it, UVC, I believe,
11:49SPEAKERis USB video class or whatever that stands for.
11:54SPEAKERIf they are that, then no,
11:55SPEAKERbecause, or at least on Windows, and I think Magewell.
11:58SPEAKER- Linux just works with those too.
11:59SPEAKER- Yeah, Linux definitely, and I'm pretty sure Mac,
12:01SPEAKERand in fact, yes, 'cause I have plugged my,
12:04SPEAKERI have a very old one of these that is like limited
12:06SPEAKERto 720P 60 or 1080 30, but I've plugged that
12:10SPEAKERinto my MacBook and it worked fine there as well.
12:12SPEAKERSo no, no drivers.
12:13SPEAKER- Does it work with non-standard like BIOS resolutions
12:16SPEAKERand stuff like that and terminal resolutions?
12:19SPEAKER'Cause I've had problems with that in the past.
12:20SPEAKER- Yeah, that might be adapter dependent.
12:22SPEAKER- Okay.
12:23SPEAKER- I would guess, in fact, it almost certainly is dependent
12:26SPEAKERon what that specific hardware, whatever video encoder chip
12:30SPEAKERis in there can handle and the software.
12:33SPEAKERSo that's another angle here, but basically it's nice
12:37SPEAKERto have video in, I have found on my PC
12:39SPEAKERthat does not rely on me changing monitor inputs.
12:41SPEAKER- Oh yeah.
12:43SPEAKER- So that's what happened is I have a Raspberry Pi
12:45SPEAKERbehind my desk that I wiped and have been setting up
12:49SPEAKERto do some stuff, which we'll talk about perhaps
12:51SPEAKERon the Patreon episode this month, but I made a change
12:54SPEAKERand it started hanging at boot, meaning that when I would
12:57SPEAKERreboot it and I had to reboot it a lot for the thing
12:59SPEAKERI've been working on, I could no longer SSH into it
13:02SPEAKERafter it rebooted, which is bad for a Pi that is buried
13:06SPEAKERbehind my desk among cables where I have to lie on my back
13:09SPEAKERand crawl around and contort myself to get to it
13:13SPEAKERto pull cables in and out of it.
13:14SPEAKERSo.
13:15SPEAKER- Yeah, that's bad.
13:16SPEAKER- And I'll admit, because of the nature of my work,
13:19SPEAKERI have a lot of video capture and production stuff
13:21SPEAKERalready set up here, but I have a PS5 under my desk
13:23SPEAKERthat I was capturing from for an X-Lander stream.
13:26SPEAKERAnd instead of juggling cables in and out of a monitor
13:29SPEAKERto get video out of that Pi, I yanked the HDMI cable
13:32SPEAKERout of the PS5 and just stuck that in the Pi.
13:36SPEAKERAnd then, and so this is where I think having the hardware
13:39SPEAKERand then you need to set something up like this.
13:42SPEAKERI have a VLC shortcut set up.
13:44SPEAKER- Oh, 'cause VLC can look at UVC devices, yeah.
13:49SPEAKER- So VLC can, you could do this through the menus.
13:52SPEAKERYou could just open VLC and do this manually.
13:53SPEAKERYou just go, it's under whatever here,
13:55SPEAKERI'll open VLC right now.
13:57SPEAKERSo I can actually say, so it's under media,
13:58SPEAKERwhich is basically the file of the dropdown.
14:01SPEAKER- Yeah, that's the first menu item.
14:03SPEAKER- The first one, you just go to media
14:05SPEAKERand then go down to open capture device.
14:07SPEAKERSo you can just do it manually here, but you know me,
14:11SPEAKERI like to streamline the shortcut.
14:13SPEAKERSo VLC takes command line arguments.
14:15SPEAKERAnd so I actually just spent some time figuring those out
14:18SPEAKERto the point that I can make it open my capture card.
14:20SPEAKER- I'm surprised you're not using MPV for that.
14:22SPEAKER- MPV I think is not as good for this actually.
14:25SPEAKER- Oh, okay.
14:26SPEAKER- Believe it or not, you probably could use MPV actually,
14:30SPEAKERnow that I think about it.
14:31SPEAKER- I don't use VLC for this often too.
14:33SPEAKER- OBS also an option.
14:35SPEAKERThe reason I like VLC is because you can set this up
14:38SPEAKERas a command line, which you could then
14:39SPEAKERjust make a shortcut to.
14:41SPEAKEROr in my case, I've got a stream deck button.
14:44SPEAKER- Oh yeah.
14:44SPEAKER- But yeah, right?
14:47SPEAKER- Yeah, stream deck buttons, now you're talking my language.
14:50SPEAKER- Yeah, so, and so I have it set up now
14:55SPEAKERwhere it'll open the VLC window
14:57SPEAKERat whatever native resolution
14:58SPEAKERis coming into the capture device.
15:00SPEAKERAnd there's also flags, like I put a flag in
15:04SPEAKERto disable the UI.
15:05SPEAKERSo it's effectively just a, not the whole UI,
15:08SPEAKERbut like the menu bar and stuff like that.
15:10SPEAKERSo it's literally just a title bar and a video feed
15:13SPEAKERand nothing else when I run that shortcut, so.
15:16SPEAKER- Yeah, that's pretty good.
15:17SPEAKER- Effectively, I have a thing I need to get video from,
15:19SPEAKERand especially in the case of something like a Pi
15:21SPEAKERwhere you're like working on it a lot,
15:23SPEAKERit's nice to still be in your Windows environment
15:26SPEAKERwith the other stuff you're using to work on the thing
15:28SPEAKERand not have to like juggle inputs, you know?
15:30SPEAKER'Cause if you're changing inputs on your monitor
15:32SPEAKERback and forth, you can't see what you're also doing.
15:33SPEAKER- Oh, it sucks, yeah.
15:35SPEAKER- So having the video input of the thing
15:37SPEAKERyou're working with just coming into a window
15:39SPEAKERand you can still do all your normal Windows stuff,
15:41SPEAKERsuper convenient.
15:42SPEAKERSo like between the $20 video capture dongle
15:46SPEAKERand the ability to use something like a VLC
15:48SPEAKERto preview what's coming in to the thing,
15:50SPEAKERI just feel like it's a real nice fallback to have
15:53SPEAKERfor X, Y, and Z use case.
15:56SPEAKER- I'm a big fan of this.
15:57SPEAKERI used, like when I was setting up,
16:00SPEAKERI used this when I was setting up that Mac
16:01SPEAKERthat I set up for Blue Bubbles,
16:03SPEAKERwhich we'll talk about in a little bit too.
16:04SPEAKERLike, by the way, it's like eight segues out of the segment.
16:06SPEAKEREverything's connected, it turns out.
16:09SPEAKERBut yeah, no, I'm a big fan of this.
16:10SPEAKERThe only, do you use these for games too,
16:13SPEAKERor are you using something
16:14SPEAKERthat's more game-specific for games?
16:16SPEAKER- To like play games?
16:17SPEAKER- Well, to capture and stream or whatever.
16:19SPEAKER- Yeah, it's the same setup to capture.
16:21SPEAKERWell, I mean, I just captured into OBS
16:23SPEAKERand stream it from there for games.
16:26SPEAKERThis is laggy enough.
16:27SPEAKERYou wouldn't want to play in this window,
16:28SPEAKERI should point out, or like depending on the game,
16:30SPEAKERit would be, if it was like a menu-driven game,
16:32SPEAKERit would be fine, but nothing action twitchy
16:35SPEAKERwould be very playable in this.
16:37SPEAKERLike it's just laggy enough, but.
16:40SPEAKER- So I did a PC World video a few weeks ago,
16:43SPEAKERa few months ago now, I guess,
16:44SPEAKERwhere I tested a bunch of the newer USB 3.2 capture devices
16:49SPEAKERversus PCI Express internal cards
16:52SPEAKERto see if there was a detectable difference in latency.
16:56SPEAKERAnd what I was doing, though, this is obviously,
16:59SPEAKERthese aren't $20 parts.
17:00SPEAKERThese are the high-end latency-oriented gaming things.
17:04SPEAKERI was able to play almost everything in a window.
17:07SPEAKERI don't think I would have tried to play a fighting game
17:09SPEAKERwhere frame-specific timing mattered,
17:11SPEAKERbut I was playing Spelunky and stuff like that
17:14SPEAKER'cause it's pretty timing dependent.
17:17SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess I should say some of,
17:20SPEAKERor maybe most of the latency
17:22SPEAKERis probably dependent on your hardware or not,
17:24SPEAKERnot the software you're using to preview the feed.
17:26SPEAKER- Are you, do you have just a normal,
17:28SPEAKERa second keyboard or something plugged into that?
17:30SPEAKER- Right now, yes, I did have to crawl
17:32SPEAKERand plug a keyboard into, it wasn't hanging at boot,
17:35SPEAKERwe'll get into this later,
17:36SPEAKERbut it was trying to unlock an encrypted disk at boot
17:40SPEAKERwhen I didn't want it to do that
17:41SPEAKERuntil after it had finished booting.
17:43SPEAKER- Got it.
17:44SPEAKER- It was hanging, but yes,
17:45SPEAKERI did still have to run a keyboard.
17:47SPEAKER- I was gonna say, one of my things that I've done lately,
17:49SPEAKERI have this ASUS ROG Falcata keyboard.
17:54SPEAKERIt's a split, the split magnetic keyboard
17:56SPEAKERwe talked about a few weeks ago.
17:58SPEAKERIt actually is a three-way,
18:00SPEAKERso it has a hardware plug, like a USB wired plug.
18:03SPEAKERIt has a 2.4 gigahertz dongle,
18:06SPEAKERand then you can also connect it to a Bluetooth device.
18:08SPEAKER- Yes, yeah, my T-ron is similar.
18:11SPEAKER- And yeah, just using that for quick switches
18:14SPEAKERbetween like the Mac mini and the desktop.
18:17SPEAKER- Oh yeah, it's great.
18:19SPEAKER- Yeah, it's really, really nice, really convenient.
18:21SPEAKER- In fact, the only reason I wouldn't,
18:23SPEAKERor I didn't go ahead and pair this keyboard
18:24SPEAKERwith the Pi to do that,
18:25SPEAKERis that I've already got it paired with my MiSTer,
18:27SPEAKER'cause the MiSTer has just enough functionality
18:29SPEAKERthat you need a keyboard for.
18:31SPEAKER- Yeah.
18:32SPEAKER- That kind of makes me wish
18:33SPEAKERthat it had like Bluetooth profiles.
18:35SPEAKERI guess that's not really a common thing, right?
18:37SPEAKERWhere you can't necessarily pair something like this
18:40SPEAKERwith multiple Bluetooth devices or cycle through them,
18:43SPEAKERor it's a pretty, probably kind of a niche feature.
18:46SPEAKER- It's more of a business keyboard thing
18:47SPEAKERthan like a gamer type keyboard.
18:50SPEAKER- Yeah, so having the MiSTer binding to the Bluetooth
18:53SPEAKERon the keyboard was too useful to change over to the Pi,
18:56SPEAKERbut it is, yes, that is an awesome use case
18:59SPEAKERfor a wireless keyboard that has that.
19:01SPEAKER- So it's funny you mentioned the MiSTer,
19:02SPEAKERbecause I actually bound my numpad.
19:06SPEAKERI have a numeric, I have a standalone numpad
19:09SPEAKERthat's Bluetooth and 2.4 gigahertz.
19:11SPEAKERIt's the 8BitDo one, or 8BitDo.
19:13SPEAKERI never, now I do.
19:15SPEAKER- Adam says do, and he's met with them.
19:17SPEAKER- He's met them before, yeah.
19:18SPEAKER- So I'm trusting him.
19:20SPEAKER- But it, so it, I use that
19:23SPEAKERto do the keyboard specific stuff.
19:25SPEAKERSo like, I basically set up the bindings in the MiSTer
19:30SPEAKERto do, to treat it like a numpad, basically,
19:32SPEAKERto navigate the menus.
19:33SPEAKER- Yeah.
19:34SPEAKER- Anyway.
19:35SPEAKER- Yeah.
19:36SPEAKER- Let's see.
19:36SPEAKER- Anyway, get yourself a video capture dongle.
19:38SPEAKERWhere should I, should we talk about BlueBubbles next?
19:41SPEAKER- Sure.
19:41SPEAKER- BlueBubbles rules.
19:43SPEAKER- Go on.
19:44SPEAKER- I am a Windows user.
19:46SPEAKER- Uh-huh, wait, are you?
19:48SPEAKER- Well, I'm a Linux user, and I use a little bit of Windows.
19:50SPEAKER- You're now a Linux user
19:52SPEAKERwho occasionally boots into Windows?
19:53SPEAKER- I mean, I like, kind of.
19:55SPEAKERI guess the times I boot into Windows on a weekly basis
19:57SPEAKERare when I do stuff with you guys on Monday at Nextlander.
20:00SPEAKER- Yeah.
20:01SPEAKER- And if I want to play marathon, that's pretty much it.
20:04SPEAKER- Yeah.
20:05SPEAKER- But yeah, so BlueBubbles is a tool
20:08SPEAKERthat you run on a Mac or on a Mac VM
20:11SPEAKERthat hooks into iMessage on the Mac.
20:14SPEAKER- Hang on.
20:15SPEAKER- Yeah, hi.
20:17SPEAKER- I kind of want to stop you at the phrase Mac VM.
20:19SPEAKER- We'll get, hold on, we'll get there.
20:20SPEAKER- Because now I'm very curious.
20:22SPEAKER- So there's two parts to it.
20:24SPEAKERThere's a client and a server.
20:25SPEAKERThe client you run on your devices,
20:27SPEAKERwhether it's Windows, Linux, Android, whatever.
20:29SPEAKERAnd the reason you do this is it gives you native iMessage
20:33SPEAKERon platforms that don't have native iMessage typically.
20:36SPEAKER- All right.
20:38SPEAKER- It does this by interfering with the OS
20:39SPEAKERat a fairly low level.
20:41SPEAKERAnd you have to turn off a couple of security things
20:43SPEAKERin Mac OS when you do that.
20:46SPEAKER- In the quote unquote server?
20:47SPEAKER- On the server side, yeah.
20:48SPEAKER- Okay, got it.
20:49SPEAKER- And what the server does basically is just ties
20:52SPEAKERinto the Mac at a relatively low software level.
20:55SPEAKERNow it is definitely making your iMessage
20:58SPEAKERslightly less secure because you're adding
21:01SPEAKERa huge man in the middle opportunity.
21:03SPEAKER- Sure.
21:04SPEAKER- However, you don't need to do things
21:08SPEAKERlike open a raw portal for it.
21:10SPEAKERIt uses a tail scale or the Cloudflare reverse proxy
21:15SPEAKERtunnel thing to give you a direct connection
21:17SPEAKERthat's authenticated.
21:20SPEAKERThe setup process is fairly involved.
21:22SPEAKERYou have to set up a Firebase account on Google's cloud
21:27SPEAKERthat's, I think it's basically free at the scale
21:30SPEAKERat which one person will use it.
21:32SPEAKERAnd it only exists to hand off the tail scale
21:35SPEAKERor the Cloudflare info to clients, right?
21:39SPEAKER- I just had to Google Firebase to see what it is.
21:42SPEAKERThe webpage describes it as Google's mobile
21:44SPEAKERand web app development platform.
21:46SPEAKER- Yeah, so all you're doing in this case
21:48SPEAKERis storing whatever the current tunnel endpoint is
21:54SPEAKERfor your particular server in a place
21:57SPEAKERthat the clients can get it wherever they are.
21:59SPEAKERSo it's really lightweight.
22:01SPEAKERIt hasn't cost me anything.
22:02SPEAKERI think I had to put $5 in my account
22:04SPEAKERbefore it would let me start using it just so that like,
22:06SPEAKERI guess it's not used for infinite spam attacks or something.
22:11SPEAKER- In the Firebase account, you mean?
22:11SPEAKER- In the Firebase account, yeah.
22:13SPEAKER- So hang on, are you only receiving the messages
22:16SPEAKERon the client end in Bluebubble's software?
22:19SPEAKER- Yes.
22:20SPEAKER- Oh, okay, so you can't just receive them into anything
22:23SPEAKERthat can handle messages necessarily?
22:25SPEAKER- I mean, I assume that somebody set up a portal
22:27SPEAKERthat does that.
22:28SPEAKERI just wanted something that looks and acts like iMessage
22:30SPEAKERon my Linux machine and my Windows machines basically.
22:33SPEAKER- Boy, I promise you I identify with that use case or desire.
22:38SPEAKERWell, I straight up, this is pathetic,
22:40SPEAKERbut I hate typing on a phone so much
22:43SPEAKERthat I find myself responding to people less
22:46SPEAKERwho only message me through iMessage.
22:49SPEAKER- Yeah, okay, poor.
22:50SPEAKER- And I even have a MacBook.
22:51SPEAKERI could get the MacBook out and type back to them that way
22:54SPEAKERand frequently do,
22:55SPEAKERbut even that is more of an obstacle than I like.
22:58SPEAKER- It's really funny because my wife is exactly the same way.
23:02SPEAKERIf she has a long message, she needs to type somebody,
23:04SPEAKERshe'll go get the MacBook,
23:05SPEAKEReven if it means walking halfway across the neighborhood.
23:09SPEAKER- I mean, this is pathetic.
23:10SPEAKERI have literally used something like Signal
23:12SPEAKERthat is cross-platform just to send myself
23:15SPEAKERto type it on a PC and send it to myself.
23:19SPEAKER- I do have a Discord channel in my Discord server
23:21SPEAKERcalled Sharing with Myself, it's just me.
23:23SPEAKER- Discord is also an option for this.
23:25SPEAKERYou can type the long thing on your actual keyboard
23:27SPEAKERand then paste it.
23:29SPEAKER- Well, so it's really nice
23:30SPEAKERbecause the people who I use iMessage with
23:33SPEAKERbasically are my wife and my daughter and family members,
23:37SPEAKERand they often end up being
23:39SPEAKERthird-tier communications people for me
23:42SPEAKERbecause I'm sitting in front of a computer
23:43SPEAKERfor eight or 10 hours a day
23:45SPEAKERthat I don't get a notification
23:46SPEAKERwhen I get a new message from someone.
23:49SPEAKERSo it's been absolutely wonderful.
23:54SPEAKERIt's been running for a month now.
23:55SPEAKERI've had to restart the server one time,
23:58SPEAKERwhich basically meant just rebooting the Mac Mini
24:01SPEAKERthat it's running on.
24:02SPEAKERSo the TLDR and the hardware you need to run it on
24:05SPEAKERis you need a Mac or a Mac VM,
24:07SPEAKERand the Mac VM bit is fraught.
24:10SPEAKERI grabbed a Mac Mini from the PC World Office
24:12SPEAKERthat they were getting ready to e-waste
24:15SPEAKERthat's like a 2018 Intel one.
24:19SPEAKERI think in order to get all of the full feature set
24:23SPEAKERfor the BlueBubbles software,
24:24SPEAKERyou'd need something that's running Ventura or later.
24:27SPEAKER- Okay.
24:28SPEAKER- Which is like three or four revisions back at this point.
24:31SPEAKERI fit into that category here,
24:33SPEAKERbut I can do tap backs.
24:37SPEAKERI get read notifications.
24:39SPEAKERAll of that stuff just kind of happens naturally,
24:41SPEAKERand it means that my phone and my PC that I'm sitting at,
24:45SPEAKERit's the first time since I switched off of a Mac
24:48SPEAKERwhen I started making VR software
24:49SPEAKERthat I've been able to text people from my computer,
24:51SPEAKERand it is wonderful.
24:53SPEAKER- Man, man, that's appealing.
24:56SPEAKER- It's worth jumping through the hoops.
24:58SPEAKERNow, if you don't have access to a Mac,
25:00SPEAKERI looked up pricing.
25:01SPEAKERYou can get a Mac Mini that will run this
25:03SPEAKERfor like 150 to 250 bucks on eBay used.
25:07SPEAKER- Those are probably, I'm sure, Intel.
25:09SPEAKER- Those are all Intel.
25:11SPEAKERThe M1s are starting to get into that price range now.
25:14SPEAKERLike they're a little bit more expensive,
25:15SPEAKERbut they're not, they're not...
25:18SPEAKERIf we weren't in a RAM crisis right now, they'd be cheaper.
25:21SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, that's the problem.
25:22SPEAKER- Weirdly, have also been looking at refurb
25:24SPEAKERand used ARM Mac Minis.
25:26SPEAKERI would only buy an ARM one
25:27SPEAKER'cause I would really want the low power,
25:30SPEAKERbut they're too expensive, right?
25:32SPEAKERLike Apple only sells M4 Mac Mini refurbs,
25:36SPEAKERwhich are still like $500,
25:37SPEAKERwhich I absolutely want nothing to do.
25:40SPEAKERThe other thing is, well, this wouldn't work with BlueBubbles.
25:42SPEAKER- Well, it's overkill.
25:43SPEAKER- Well, A, there's that.
25:45SPEAKERB, this isn't relevant to BlueBubbles
25:47SPEAKER'cause you have to be running Mac OS for that,
25:48SPEAKERbut I would also want one that can run Linux.
25:51SPEAKER- Yeah.
25:52SPEAKER- And the M1 and M2 can even remotely do that right now.
25:55SPEAKER- Oh, really?
25:56SPEAKERThe others haven't been jailbroken or whatever yet?
25:57SPEAKER- Yeah, M3 and later do not work with Asahi Linux
26:01SPEAKERand Asahi lost some development capacity
26:05SPEAKERover the last couple of years,
26:06SPEAKERso I'm not super bullish on how fast
26:09SPEAKERthey're gonna get the later ARM Macs working with Linux,
26:12SPEAKERbut anyway.
26:13SPEAKER- Well, so the thing I'll say is,
26:18SPEAKERI've actually, so I've hooked up the watt meter to this
26:20SPEAKERto see how much power it's using,
26:21SPEAKERand at idle, it's like five watts.
26:23SPEAKERIt's basically the same as my-
26:25SPEAKER- Oh, that's nothing.
26:25SPEAKER- Yeah, it's basically the same
26:27SPEAKERas the B-Link server in my garage.
26:31SPEAKER- That's like a modern, like a Raspberry Pi 5
26:34SPEAKERwill pull almost that much or more.
26:36SPEAKER- Yeah, less than an old school light bulb
26:38SPEAKERis how I like to think about it.
26:39SPEAKER- Yeah, so I absolutely, I think of all power usage
26:41SPEAKERin 60 watt increments.
26:43SPEAKER- That's, yeah, 100%.
26:44SPEAKER- 100% is just a legacy of growing up in the '70s or '80s
26:48SPEAKERand getting yelled at about leaving the lights on.
26:50SPEAKERDon't leave the lights on, Brad!
26:52SPEAKER- I mean, 60 watts, not nothing.
26:55SPEAKER- It's a lot.
26:56SPEAKERI mean, well, so-
26:57SPEAKER- For a light bulb that is dissipating,
26:59SPEAKERlike what is it, doesn't an incandescent bulb wastes
27:02SPEAKERlike 90% of its electricity draw?
27:07SPEAKER- So the funny thing about this whole process
27:09SPEAKERand setting up this Mac,
27:10SPEAKER'cause I left it sitting on my desk
27:11SPEAKERwhile I figured out how often I was gonna have to touch it.
27:14SPEAKERI'd love to move it into the home lab stack in the garage,
27:17SPEAKERbut I'm not sure that that's gonna be possible
27:18SPEAKERbecause it seems like I'm having to log into it occasionally
27:22SPEAKERand I need to figure out a good way to remote into it
27:25SPEAKERif I'm gonna move into the garage.
27:27SPEAKER- There's also the part where it seems like the garage
27:29SPEAKERis maybe going to become warmer and warmer over time.
27:31SPEAKER- Well, that is a larger issue.
27:35SPEAKERI gotta say, I'm kinda thinking I might, for work stuff,
27:41SPEAKERmove off of the desktop PC and have a small,
27:46SPEAKERElena over at PC World does this.
27:48SPEAKERShe has a gaming PC that she chooses to play games on,
27:50SPEAKERbut then has a work machine
27:51SPEAKERthat's just basically a NUC size machine
27:53SPEAKERfor power usage purposes. - That's an interesting idea.
27:56SPEAKER- 'Cause I'm running this machine eight hours a day.
27:58SPEAKERIt's like 150, 200 watts at idle.
28:00SPEAKER- That's actually, that's a good point.
28:02SPEAKER- And yeah, it doesn't make as much sense.
28:04SPEAKERAnd if the little, if me getting an M4 Mini
28:10SPEAKERfor 500 bucks is the drive here
28:14SPEAKERto save power while I'm working,
28:16SPEAKERI mean, it's like, the work pays for the electricity,
28:21SPEAKERbut also it feels a little wasteful
28:22SPEAKERto have the 1590 ticking over here while I'm, yeah.
28:26SPEAKER- Well, I mean, the modern graphics cards do idle.
28:28SPEAKERLike when you're not playing games,
28:29SPEAKERthey do draw pretty low power, but I guess, I mean,
28:33SPEAKERyou're not wrong.
28:35SPEAKERLike, especially with like the Panther Lake Mini PCs
28:37SPEAKERseemingly imminent, that's actually not a terrible idea.
28:42SPEAKERAll right. - What you got?
28:44SPEAKER- Back to me. - Yeah.
28:46SPEAKER- Windows 11. - Sucks.
28:49SPEAKER- Many of us use it, many of us hate it.
28:53SPEAKERThis is, okay, this one is not exactly going to un-shitify
28:56SPEAKERwhat is already un-shitified about Windows.
28:59SPEAKER- Okay.
29:00SPEAKER- But it is more of an additive thing in Windows.
29:04SPEAKERLike making, you know, adding some good stuff to Windows,
29:06SPEAKERnot necessarily.
29:08SPEAKER- I like adding good things to Windows.
29:09SPEAKER- What do you think about the bad stuff?
29:10SPEAKERIt's power toys.
29:12SPEAKER- We talked about power toys, we love power toys.
29:14SPEAKER- We have talked about power toys,
29:15SPEAKERbut I wanna bring it back up here
29:16SPEAKERbecause if you're, like, frankly,
29:18SPEAKERif you are in Windows 11 and you consider yourself a,
29:21SPEAKERhow do we feel about the phrase power user?
29:23SPEAKER- I'd say enthusiast.
29:25SPEAKER- Enthusiast?
29:26SPEAKERPower user feels like- - I'm enthusiastic.
29:28SPEAKER- Power user feels like such a mid-90s
29:29SPEAKERlike business computing magazine term.
29:31SPEAKER- Yeah, hey Brad, you want a pro tip?
29:34SPEAKER- Sure, hit me.
29:35SPEAKER- No, I'm just saying it's like a GamePro branded, yeah.
29:39SPEAKER- Anyway, if you're an advanced user,
29:42SPEAKERlike you should be running power toys, like because-
29:46SPEAKER- And they do a ton of development on them constantly.
29:48SPEAKERThey're always getting new stuff added and removed
29:50SPEAKERand it's good.
29:51SPEAKER- Well, because it's open source now.
29:52SPEAKERLike it's one of those, like it's one of those things
29:55SPEAKERlike Windows Terminal or what else have they,
30:00SPEAKERI think PowerShell is open source now.
30:02SPEAKERLike basically like the stuff that Microsoft open sourced
30:05SPEAKERfor Windows a few years ago was actually pretty good.
30:08SPEAKERGo figure.
30:08SPEAKERLike Windows Terminal was quite good, for example,
30:11SPEAKERbut they are constantly adding new stuff to power toys.
30:14SPEAKERAnd I feel like they've probably added a lot
30:16SPEAKERsince the last time we talked about it.
30:19SPEAKER- I think so, yes.
30:20SPEAKER- And also I've, the way I use it has evolved a lot
30:22SPEAKERin the last couple of years since we talked about it.
30:24SPEAKERSo I use power toys run like constantly now.
30:27SPEAKER- Is that the thing where you hit Windows space
30:29SPEAKERand it gives you just a thing you type in?
30:31SPEAKER- Yes, or it's a, I think it defaults to alt space
30:35SPEAKERor maybe I might've changed that to match the,
30:37SPEAKERI think maybe I changed that to match the Mac key
30:40SPEAKERbecause it is literally macOS spotlight.
30:42SPEAKERIt's basically, although I think we're capable
30:45SPEAKERbecause I don't think spotlight can do a lot of the,
30:49SPEAKERI'm not sure how to interpret.
30:51SPEAKER- Like you can do math in that thing.
30:52SPEAKER- Yes, that's exactly.
30:53SPEAKERI was trying to think how to characterize it,
30:54SPEAKERbut yeah, like interpreted commands, I think is the,
30:57SPEAKERI mean, I should say what this is.
30:58SPEAKERIf people don't know what macOS spotlight is,
31:00SPEAKERit's basically just popping up a text field
31:02SPEAKERright in the middle of your monitor
31:04SPEAKERthat initially was used just for launching things.
31:08SPEAKERAnd in this world where the start menu is useless
31:10SPEAKERand half the time you type something in the start menu,
31:12SPEAKERit finds anything other than the app
31:14SPEAKERthat you were typing the exact name of,
31:17SPEAKERit is a good alternate way to just launch software quickly.
31:21SPEAKER- Have they, so like that's the core of Neary,
31:24SPEAKERthe window managers that I use.
31:26SPEAKERThat's how you launch applications in Neary.
31:28SPEAKER- Sure.
31:29SPEAKER- Have they, but they've added additional,
31:31SPEAKERlike there's menus that pop up and stuff too
31:32SPEAKERunderneath the search in the middle of the screen.
31:35SPEAKERHave they done that with the power toys?
31:37SPEAKER- Yeah, this will like suggest a bunch of stuff
31:39SPEAKERif that's what you mean.
31:40SPEAKERLike it'll basically give you examples
31:44SPEAKERof the interpreted commands you just mentioned.
31:45SPEAKERSo that's where I was gonna say,
31:46SPEAKERI think this has moved beyond spotlight in macOS now,
31:49SPEAKERunless this, it may also have some of the stuff,
31:52SPEAKERbut I don't remember seeing it.
31:53SPEAKERYou can do, like you said, you can do calculations,
31:55SPEAKERyou can do unit conversions.
31:58SPEAKER- We talked about this before on the podcast, for sure.
32:00SPEAKER- Yeah, okay, maybe we have.
32:01SPEAKERBut so I think what might be new since then
32:04SPEAKERis that they seem to be kind of quietly soft
32:06SPEAKERdeprecating power toys run in favor
32:08SPEAKERof what is called command palette,
32:11SPEAKERwhich is a much more fully featured version
32:13SPEAKERthat has all the same stuff.
32:14SPEAKERYou can still do all the unit conversion
32:16SPEAKERand so forth in there,
32:18SPEAKERbut it also has hooks into like the registry
32:21SPEAKERand a bunch of other stuff.
32:23SPEAKERI actually just started using it
32:26SPEAKERlike this week a little bit.
32:28SPEAKER- Oh, they literally describe it
32:29SPEAKERas the successor to power toys run.
32:31SPEAKER- Yes, like I said, they are basically pushing people
32:33SPEAKERtowards switching to command palette
32:35SPEAKER'cause I'm guessing power toys run
32:37SPEAKERis basically done as far as getting new features
32:39SPEAKERor additional development.
32:41SPEAKERBut all right, so I'm looking at command palette.
32:46SPEAKERYou can run commands, you can do calculations,
32:47SPEAKERyou can search files.
32:50SPEAKERYou can switch between windows with it.
32:54SPEAKEROh, wild.
32:55SPEAKER- Wouldn't you just like alt tab to do that?
32:57SPEAKER- You can't?
32:58SPEAKERWell, so I've got an entire list now of every window.
33:01SPEAKERWow, it works with virtual desktops, actually.
33:04SPEAKER- Oh, that's cool.
33:05SPEAKER- So if I hit window alt space to bring up command palette
33:08SPEAKERand then I hit less than,
33:10SPEAKERit lists every window I have open
33:11SPEAKERacross both of my virtual desktops.
33:13SPEAKERAnd so I can switch to any window I have
33:16SPEAKERfrom just a raw list of windows
33:18SPEAKERon any of the desktops I have open.
33:20SPEAKER- This looks really good.
33:21SPEAKER- It's got web search.
33:23SPEAKERYou can search when get the package manager from here.
33:27SPEAKERYou can, like I said, you can do registry stuff with it.
33:30SPEAKERYou can manage services.
33:32SPEAKER- Can you generate GUIDs?
33:34SPEAKERThat was my favorite thing to do in the old one.
33:37SPEAKER- So I think, don't quote me on this,
33:39SPEAKERbut I believe this has a plugin architecture as well.
33:41SPEAKER- Oh, it does, yeah.
33:42SPEAKER- Yeah, so it's pretty useful for, again,
33:46SPEAKERagain, in a world where the start menu really sucks now,
33:48SPEAKERlike it's a, like that alone,
33:50SPEAKERI think is a reason to run power toys these days.
33:54SPEAKER- I will say like using the tiling window manager,
33:59SPEAKERthat's all about keyboard shortcuts, right?
34:01SPEAKERIt's all about not using the mouse to navigate the UI
34:04SPEAKERand the OS and being able to do everything
34:06SPEAKERwithout taking your hands off the keyboard,
34:08SPEAKERboth for RSI and for speed purposes.
34:10SPEAKERAnd like tools like this are incredible.
34:12SPEAKERLike this is a big part of that.
34:14SPEAKERSo I'm a fan.
34:15SPEAKER- I listed text extractor all the way.
34:17SPEAKERIt looks like they've built that into the snipping tool now.
34:19SPEAKER- Yeah, that's built into snipping now.
34:21SPEAKER- Yeah, so that's basically OCR
34:23SPEAKERfor like copying text out of an image
34:25SPEAKERwhere it's not actually text.
34:28SPEAKERThey added something called light switch recently,
34:30SPEAKERwhich has been a, okay.
34:33SPEAKER- Why isn't this part of the OS?
34:34SPEAKER- Yes, that's exactly what I was about to say.
34:36SPEAKERMaybe calling this a pain point is a little bit hyperbolic,
34:38SPEAKERbut it's been something that has annoyed me
34:40SPEAKERabout Windows for a long time
34:42SPEAKERis that every other OS that I am aware of
34:45SPEAKERhas a timer setting for using light and dark mode.
34:48SPEAKER- Can I make a suggestion?
34:50SPEAKER- Sure.
34:51SPEAKER- Why not just always be dark moding?
34:53SPEAKER- I've, oh, I've considered it.
34:55SPEAKER- It's good in the dark, Brad.
34:57SPEAKER- Call me old fashioned.
34:58SPEAKER- Wow.
34:59SPEAKER- I'm pretty glad you're old fashioned.
35:00SPEAKER- Probably, but like Mac OS has had this for years
35:03SPEAKERand I assume most of the major Linux desktop environments
35:06SPEAKERalso, I think like I'm pretty sure-
35:07SPEAKER- Everything does, yeah.
35:09SPEAKER- Like iOS, like everything has this except Windows, so.
35:12SPEAKER- Yeah, you could do this on your game consoles too.
35:14SPEAKER- Right, yes, totally.
35:15SPEAKER- Like the switch has light and dark mode now.
35:17SPEAKER- Like the Xbox has this and you can set timers and stuff.
35:20SPEAKER- My car does this.
35:22SPEAKER- Right, see?
35:24SPEAKER- Well, yeah, 'cause you don't want like blinding white
35:26SPEAKERbackgrounds on your HUD when you're driving at night, yeah.
35:30SPEAKER- This is an in-demand feature.
35:31SPEAKERAnyway, light switch is part of Powertoys now
35:33SPEAKERas of six months ago, I think,
35:34SPEAKERthat lets you finally set customized timers
35:37SPEAKERfor light and dark mode and Windows.
35:39SPEAKER- Does it ask your latitude and stuff
35:40SPEAKERso it gets it right, the time changes
35:42SPEAKERright throughout the year?
35:43SPEAKER- I don't know, actually.
35:46SPEAKERThere's a bunch of stuff.
35:48SPEAKERThey added something called peak,
35:49SPEAKERwhich is basically quick look from the finder and-
35:51SPEAKER- It's the best, that's really good.
35:53SPEAKER- In macOS, you just literally hit space bar on any file
35:58SPEAKERand it will, if it's text file, it'll show you the contents.
36:01SPEAKERIf it's an image, it'll show you the image.
36:03SPEAKERIt'll preview videos, like it just is a quick way
36:05SPEAKERto see what is in a file without actually having
36:07SPEAKERto open an application.
36:08SPEAKER- Instantaneous on a machine with an SSD.
36:11SPEAKER- Yeah, so this peak is maybe a tad bit jankier
36:15SPEAKERthan the macOS equivalent, but it still works quite well.
36:18SPEAKER- Can I shout out power rename?
36:20SPEAKERThis is my favorite Powertoy.
36:22SPEAKERYou mentioned that, I've never used this before,
36:24SPEAKERbut it seems like an extremely powerful bulk file renamer.
36:28SPEAKER- Yeah, if you have, you can write regex to rename files,
36:32SPEAKERor I believe you can just open up a directory listing
36:37SPEAKERand then edit the files like it's a text editor,
36:40SPEAKERwhich if you have a big list of MP3s
36:43SPEAKERor like when I was organizing my Plex folders,
36:46SPEAKERit was incredibly powerful for managing this.
36:50SPEAKERFilebot is better, but this is a good non-paid alternative.
36:54SPEAKER- Yeah, that's the nice thing about Powertoys
36:56SPEAKERis it's one install that comes with all these tools
36:58SPEAKERand they're very easy to toggle each one on and off
37:01SPEAKERindividually and you can set custom hotkeys for each one.
37:03SPEAKERThe other one I'll mention real quick,
37:05SPEAKERwhich I have not used yet, but I was looking at it
37:07SPEAKERright before this is advanced paste, which I think is new,
37:11SPEAKERwhich will basically do conversions on what you're pasting
37:14SPEAKERlike at runtime, at paste time.
37:17SPEAKER- You could paste with AI.
37:19SPEAKER- Yeah, that is a toggle I noticed in there,
37:21SPEAKERwhich thankfully at least on my install defaulted to off.
37:24SPEAKER- I was gonna say like, I was kind of surprised
37:26SPEAKERby how little AI jank is in this still.
37:29SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I attribute that again
37:31SPEAKERto it being open source and like somewhat community driven
37:33SPEAKERin its direction.
37:35SPEAKER- Maybe, yeah, so the conversion on the fly is neat though.
37:39SPEAKERCan you do like audio and video and stuff like that too?
37:41SPEAKER- Yes, let me, sorry, let me pull it back up.
37:43SPEAKERI had it up before, where did it go?
37:44SPEAKERHere it is, so you can like transcode audio and video
37:48SPEAKERas you paste it.
37:49SPEAKERYou can like copy a wave and transcode to MP3
37:54SPEAKERwhen you paste it, for example.
37:55SPEAKERYou can transcode the video to MP4.
37:57SPEAKERYou can paste text as like a text file or an HTML file.
38:02SPEAKERLike I haven't used advanced pace.
38:03SPEAKERI'm not actually sure how useful it would be in practice,
38:05SPEAKERbut it seems like an interesting idea.
38:07SPEAKERBut anyway, there's like,
38:08SPEAKERit feels like there's like kind of something for everybody
38:10SPEAKERin modern power toys.
38:11SPEAKERAnd if you are still going to run Windows 11,
38:14SPEAKERyou might as well do yourself a favor.
38:16SPEAKER- Like the number of times I have like an HEIC file
38:18SPEAKERfrom an iPhone and I want to paste that as a PNG
38:21SPEAKERso that normal people can look at it,
38:22SPEAKERlike that happens a lot, right?
38:24SPEAKER- I should try this actually because, yes.
38:27SPEAKER- That's like number one use for this for me.
38:30SPEAKER- Like I grab web P's and, oh God, what's the AV1?
38:35SPEAKER- Web V.
38:36SPEAKER- No, no, no, there's an AV1 image format.
38:38SPEAKERNow why am I blanking on it?
38:39SPEAKER- Oh, I don't remember, AVC maybe?
38:42SPEAKER- AVIF, it's the new image format that everybody hates
38:47SPEAKERmore than web P now because even fewer things support it.
38:51SPEAKER- Yeah, well.
38:52SPEAKER- Anyway, like just pasting an AVIF or a web P as a JPEG
38:57SPEAKERor a PNG would be super useful
38:58SPEAKERif that's how that thing works, I should try that.
39:01SPEAKER- There's a world where you install power toys
39:05SPEAKERon your computer and like with fancy zones
39:08SPEAKERand the companion pallet stuff and all that,
39:10SPEAKERyou can get to something that's very similar
39:13SPEAKERto a tiling window manager.
39:14SPEAKER- Fancy zones is another one I rely on quite a bit actually.
39:18SPEAKER- Yeah, fancy zones let's use,
39:20SPEAKERlike it basically gives you more control
39:22SPEAKERover the snap zones in the corner, in the maximize window.
39:25SPEAKER- Kind of set up kind of custom geometry
39:28SPEAKERfor your snapping zones, which is pretty handy
39:30SPEAKERif you have certain use cases.
39:33SPEAKER- Let's talk about tiling window managers for a bit
39:35SPEAKER'cause this is my favorite thing of the last like six months.
39:41SPEAKERI, we talked a little about it a little bit before
39:43SPEAKERhere in the past, but people always have questions
39:45SPEAKERso I'll do a little bit, go a little deeper this time.
39:48SPEAKERI run this thing, the tiling window managers
39:51SPEAKERhave been around for a long time
39:51SPEAKERand the idea in the old days was that
39:54SPEAKERyou just divide your desktop into halves
39:57SPEAKERor quarters or thirds and then when you open a window,
40:00SPEAKERthey just, the windows all slot into one of those spots
40:03SPEAKERand then you have a bunch of VM,
40:05SPEAKERvirtual desktops rather for different tasks.
40:08SPEAKERSo you have like one for your chat apps
40:09SPEAKERand one for email and one for your reference work
40:12SPEAKERand one for writing or video editing or whatever.
40:15SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I think the thing to know
40:16SPEAKERif you're trying to visualize this
40:17SPEAKERis you kind of never see your desktop,
40:19SPEAKERlike the application is basically fill the entire screen
40:22SPEAKERor they each fill half the screen if there are two of them,
40:24SPEAKERlike you're kind of not wasting space
40:27SPEAKERwith floating windows, you're sort of maximizing the space
40:31SPEAKERbut again, you kind of,
40:32SPEAKERyou're never seeing like empty desktop.
40:34SPEAKER- At the same time, you also don't have windows
40:35SPEAKERon top of other windows really.
40:37SPEAKERSo, and like I said, these have been around for a long time.
40:42SPEAKERThe thing that's changed in the last little bit
40:45SPEAKERis that this tiling manager called Neary came on
40:50SPEAKERand Neary says, "You know, it's great that you guys
40:53SPEAKER"want to live inside the confines of your monitor
40:55SPEAKER"but what if instead of doing that,
40:57SPEAKER"your windows just scrolled infinitely on a line
41:00SPEAKER"and each virtual desktop was its own string of windows?"
41:04SPEAKERAnd they did that and then built the UI frameworks
41:08SPEAKERfor that on top of this thing called Quickshell in Linux
41:10SPEAKERwhich is like a kind of framework for building,
41:14SPEAKERlike in the same way that React is a framework
41:16SPEAKERfor building web apps, Quickshell is a framework
41:18SPEAKERfor building UI widgets and UI Chrome.
41:22SPEAKERAnd the pace of development over the last year on this
41:26SPEAKERhas been pretty ridiculous.
41:27SPEAKERThere's a couple of really popular Quickshell,
41:31SPEAKERQuickshells that live on top of Neary or Hyperland.
41:36SPEAKERHyperland is the tiling window manager
41:38SPEAKERthat stays inside your monitor frame.
41:42SPEAKERDank shell is one, Noctalia shell is another.
41:46SPEAKERI've been running Noctalia almost exclusively
41:48SPEAKERfor the last like five months.
41:50SPEAKER- Dank shell.
41:51SPEAKER- I could not, in seriousness, install,
41:55SPEAKERhonestly, I installed Noctalia and was like,
41:56SPEAKERif this just sucks, I'll try Dank shell
41:58SPEAKERand then when both of those don't work,
42:00SPEAKERI'll go back to Gnome or KD or something.
42:02SPEAKERAnd then I just stayed on the Neary and Noctalia shell tip.
42:07SPEAKERThe neat thing about it is you configure everything
42:09SPEAKERinto this big giant text file called config.kdl
42:12SPEAKERand you can do, you can insert other files into that.
42:16SPEAKERSo like I have one universal config.kdl
42:21SPEAKERthat has the, that sets up a bunch of desktops,
42:25SPEAKERlike virtual desktops.
42:26SPEAKERSo I have one for main, which is where like my browser
42:28SPEAKERand Notion and the stuff that I'm using when I'm working,
42:32SPEAKERit corresponds with my main monitor
42:34SPEAKERor the main desktop on a laptop.
42:37SPEAKERThen I have one that's called chat that has,
42:40SPEAKERlike Slack and Discord and Signal and Blue Bubbles
42:43SPEAKERand all that kind of stuff on it.
42:45SPEAKERI have another one that's like work media,
42:49SPEAKERthat's where Audacity and OBS and stuff like that go.
42:53SPEAKERAnd then I have machine specific files
42:57SPEAKERthat go on, that go with different computers.
42:59SPEAKERLike my desktop has one that describes
43:02SPEAKERwhich workspaces go on which monitors, right?
43:04SPEAKERSo like on the desktop, the chat and the media workspaces
43:10SPEAKERboth go on my upper monitor, my secondary monitor
43:13SPEAKERand main and games go on the main monitor.
43:15SPEAKERSo that means when I launch games, when I launch Steam,
43:17SPEAKERit goes on the games tab.
43:18SPEAKERWhen I launch a game, it goes on the games tab.
43:20SPEAKERWhen I launch Audacity, it goes on the media,
43:23SPEAKERon the media workspace and so on and so forth.
43:26SPEAKERNow when I'm on my laptop,
43:27SPEAKERall of those workspaces go on the same display
43:30SPEAKER'cause I only have one display hooked up to it.
43:31SPEAKERSo I just scroll between the displays using the trackpad.
43:34SPEAKERAnd the kind of TLDR is that when I start the computer,
43:39SPEAKERI just have it start the things that I always have running
43:41SPEAKERlike Discord and Slack and all that.
43:44SPEAKERAnd the windows all automatically go to the same place.
43:47SPEAKERThey're always in the same order.
43:48SPEAKERI always know exactly where stuff is.
43:49SPEAKERI can hit the super key and the arrow key
43:51SPEAKERto navigate between monitors and between different programs
43:55SPEAKERon any given workspace.
43:57SPEAKERAnd then I can do like hit super plus O
44:00SPEAKERto open an overview that shows me all the workspaces
44:03SPEAKERand all the scroll on all the desktops
44:05SPEAKERand lets me kind of mouse between them as well.
44:09SPEAKERAnd it's an incredibly powerful way
44:13SPEAKERto navigate the desktop.
44:15SPEAKERLike it's been kind of relevatory for me.
44:20SPEAKER- I can say I've been sitting here.
44:22SPEAKERI've got the video demo running on the Neary GitHub repo
44:26SPEAKERand it's a bit hypnotic.
44:27SPEAKERI'm gonna be real.
44:29SPEAKERI'm sort of like zoning out a little bit,
44:31SPEAKERjust watching all the windows.
44:32SPEAKERIt also animates very smoothly.
44:34SPEAKERAnd I feel like that's something
44:35SPEAKERthat a lot of Linux desktop stuff
44:38SPEAKERhas really been focusing on in recent years
44:40SPEAKERis kind of like more human friendly
44:43SPEAKERanimation transition type stuff to make it
44:47SPEAKERA, feel a little friendlier,
44:48SPEAKERB, communicate what is changing a little better.
44:51SPEAKERLike these windows resize and scroll
44:53SPEAKERin a really like pleasant snappy way.
44:56SPEAKERIt's like there's somebody that's gone on record
44:58SPEAKERmany times of saying,
44:59SPEAKER"Hey, I want all my window transitions
45:01SPEAKERto be one frame long."
45:02SPEAKERYou want them to just happen.
45:04SPEAKERLike this is actually an acceptably snappy interface for me
45:08SPEAKERto watch these animate around because they are so fast
45:11SPEAKERthat you can actually communicate
45:12SPEAKERwhich direction did that window go?
45:14SPEAKEROh, it went to the right
45:15SPEAKERbecause I saw it snap in that direction very quickly.
45:18SPEAKERHere's the other, the thing about this too
45:21SPEAKERis that you can configure all those.
45:23SPEAKERLike you can configure the springiness,
45:26SPEAKERyou can configure the speed,
45:27SPEAKERyou can configure how many frames of animation it is.
45:30SPEAKERLike I set the springiness and the inertia to like 0.1,
45:33SPEAKERwhich is just to be clear,
45:35SPEAKERa hundredth of the normal setting or something.
45:37SPEAKERAnd it was like the windows were bouncing around on the moon.
45:39SPEAKERIt took like five minutes for a window to snap into place.
45:42SPEAKERIt was kind of annoying, but it was very funny.
45:43SPEAKER- That's very amusing.
45:45SPEAKER- Now the downside of this,
45:47SPEAKERthe good thing is you have hotkeys for everything.
45:49SPEAKERLike you can center windows, you make windows full screen,
45:51SPEAKERyou make them bigger or smaller in chunks
45:52SPEAKERand they're universal across all the apps.
45:54SPEAKERSo like if a game opens in a window, I just hit super F
45:57SPEAKERand it makes it full screen and it works itself out.
46:00SPEAKERThe downside is that when a normal human being
46:02SPEAKERsits down in front of any of my computers now,
46:04SPEAKERthey're basically unusable for them
46:06SPEAKERbecause there is no moving the mouse.
46:08SPEAKERI mean, I guess you can set it so that you move the mouse
46:11SPEAKERto the edge of the screen
46:12SPEAKERand it scrolls to the next window to the right or the left,
46:14SPEAKERbut I don't do that for multitude of reasons.
46:17SPEAKERSo, you know, it's not perfect,
46:20SPEAKERbut it is a really nice way to use keyboards and computers.
46:24SPEAKERAnd there are some windows compatible tiling managers
46:26SPEAKERcoming online that you replaced
46:28SPEAKERthe default windows tiling manager, window manager.
46:32SPEAKER- Are those hooking into,
46:33SPEAKERI'm always a bit iffy about modifying low level windows stuff.
46:37SPEAKER- 100%.
46:38SPEAKER- Like these are like replacing system libraries
46:40SPEAKERor I don't know if they're touching DLLs or what, but.
46:44SPEAKER- I am 100% sure that they're impacting
46:50SPEAKERlow level windows system stuff that breaks on the reg.
46:52SPEAKER- Yeah.
46:53SPEAKER- There's one called Komorebi, K-O-M-O-R-E-B-I.
46:57SPEAKERI haven't tested any of these for what it's worth.
46:59SPEAKERThere's GlazeWM, there's WIMQ, W-H-I-M-Q.
47:04SPEAKER- These are the windows ones?
47:05SPEAKER- These are the windows ones.
47:06SPEAKER- Interesting.
47:09SPEAKER- And there's J-W-N-O-Q are the kind of
47:13SPEAKERfour or five big ones.
47:17SPEAKERBut yeah, there's a lot going on there.
47:21SPEAKERIt's to the point.
47:22SPEAKER- Fuck man, I'm watching this video of Komorebi
47:24SPEAKERand it just looks like a Linux environment at this point.
47:27SPEAKERLike you kind of can't even tell this is windows.
47:30SPEAKER- I mean, it's pretty nice, right?
47:32SPEAKERIt looks pretty good.
47:33SPEAKER- Yeah.
47:34SPEAKER- I don't think any of these are scrolling
47:36SPEAKERfor what it's worth.
47:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I think that seems like a fairly new paradigm
47:40SPEAKERin this space as I am aware.
47:42SPEAKER- Yeah, I feel like both Dank and Noctalia
47:46SPEAKERstarted development last summer.
47:48SPEAKERAnd the pace on those is pretty remarkable
47:52SPEAKERpartly because Quickshell abstracts out
47:55SPEAKERa lot of the hard stuff of this
47:56SPEAKERand makes it really extensible.
48:00SPEAKERBut also both of those projects have reached a point
48:03SPEAKERwhere some of the Quickshell dependencies
48:05SPEAKERare not moving as fast as they want.
48:08SPEAKERSo they're now forking those and making their own versions
48:10SPEAKERand stuff like that.
48:11SPEAKERSo we'll see how that goes.
48:12SPEAKER- The one place I would like to see this stuff
48:14SPEAKERcatch on more is Mac OS.
48:16SPEAKER- I mean, I feel like this all started on Mac OS
48:17SPEAKERwith Exposé 1200 years ago.
48:19SPEAKER- That's exactly it is the Mac OS was the industry leader
48:22SPEAKERin navigating on a small single screen,
48:25SPEAKERespecially with touch controls like gestures and stuff
48:27SPEAKERand Exposé, which became mission control,
48:30SPEAKERbut their snapping game is abysmal.
48:32SPEAKER- It's bad.
48:33SPEAKER- Like I can't believe I'm saying
48:34SPEAKERthat windows snapping abilities are far beyond Mac OS
48:37SPEAKERis like for a company that I mean,
48:40SPEAKERlaptops have to be the absolute huge majority
48:44SPEAKERof Apple's hardware sales, right?
48:45SPEAKEROr like computer sales outside of.
48:47SPEAKER- I would assume so, yeah.
48:48SPEAKER- Like for a company that mostly ships laptops
48:50SPEAKERin the computer space,
48:51SPEAKERthe fact that they do not have more snapping
48:53SPEAKERand navigation stuff at this point is kind of criminal.
48:57SPEAKER- And the snapping in the iPad OS is really good.
49:00SPEAKERLike the iPad OS snaps really well.
49:03SPEAKERLike they've cracked this.
49:04SPEAKERThis is a solved problem for them.
49:06SPEAKER- Yeah, I really, I hope they do something about it.
49:09SPEAKERI don't know, the thing on the desktop versus laptop front,
49:13SPEAKERit's really interesting 'cause the desktop,
49:16SPEAKERit took me a while to get the desktop feeling is good.
49:17SPEAKERThe laptop feels pretty good out of the box
49:19SPEAKER'cause all of a sudden you have like what feels
49:21SPEAKERlike a lot more space to work with than just the monitor.
49:24SPEAKERLike your mind, your cognitive load
49:27SPEAKERfor managing a bunch of windows
49:28SPEAKERwith the tiling window manager on the laptop is really low
49:31SPEAKER'cause you're basically just doing like three
49:33SPEAKERand four finger swipes on the track pad
49:35SPEAKERto navigate between virtual spaces
49:37SPEAKERand back and forth along the line.
49:40SPEAKEROn the Windows machine, it took me a little while
49:43SPEAKERand the big jump that I made was that I realized
49:46SPEAKERI had to make the keyboard shortcuts
49:49SPEAKERthe same on both machines.
49:50SPEAKER- Sure.
49:51SPEAKER- And then that led me to just syncing them on GitHub,
49:54SPEAKERwhich is a whole other thing that we'll talk about
49:56SPEAKERat some point in the future.
49:58SPEAKERBut that's also where having the file inserts,
50:03SPEAKERthe inserted files is nice 'cause I have some stuff
50:05SPEAKERthat's machine specific that only lives on the machines
50:08SPEAKERand then some stuff that synced across all the machines
50:10SPEAKERthat is really useful.
50:12SPEAKERAnd I guess the next step is probably making sure
50:15SPEAKERI can sync all of the same...
50:18SPEAKERAnyway, we'll talk about that later,
50:20SPEAKERbut I gotta do a better backup of my config files
50:23SPEAKER'cause it would be really sad if I lost
50:25SPEAKERsome of the machine specific ones.
50:27SPEAKER- Yeah.
50:28SPEAKER- Anyway, tiling window managers are cool, man.
50:31SPEAKER- Yes, I can see it.
50:33SPEAKERMaybe I've kind of been feeling the desktop Linux itch again.
50:36SPEAKER- Yeah, let's go.
50:38SPEAKER- I might start tinkering again at some points.
50:42SPEAKERAnd I should try one of those,
50:43SPEAKEReven if I don't think I would like it
50:44SPEAKERor if I don't think I'll switch permanently,
50:46SPEAKERlike just getting some hands-on time would be great.
50:48SPEAKER- So I was gonna say one of the easier ways to start
50:51SPEAKERis actually with pop or a cosmic distro.
50:54SPEAKER- Oh yeah, 'cause cosmic has a tiling mode, right?
50:56SPEAKERSo that's exactly where I would like kind of every major
50:59SPEAKERcomputer maker's desktop, Windows, Mac OS,
51:02SPEAKEReverything to get to is just provided as an option.
51:05SPEAKER- It seems like the right choice.
51:07SPEAKERThe cosmic one is not scrolling,
51:08SPEAKERbut it is like a traditional tiling window architecture
51:11SPEAKERand you can flip it on on a per workspace level.
51:13SPEAKERSo it's a good way to try it out if you just want to dip in
51:16SPEAKERwith a live distro or something
51:17SPEAKERwithout having to do a bunch of configuration.
51:19SPEAKER- Does Neary have a static option
51:20SPEAKERor does it have to be scrolling?
51:22SPEAKER- I, hmm, I actually don't.
51:25SPEAKER- Like a rigid screen by screen kind of thing instead?
51:28SPEAKER- Well, I mean, if you wanted that,
51:29SPEAKERyou would just set certain apps to launch
51:31SPEAKERon certain workspaces and then only have those apps.
51:35SPEAKERI mean, you can move it.
51:36SPEAKEREven if you set them to launch on a specific workspace,
51:38SPEAKERyou can still move them between workspaces.
51:40SPEAKERSo like my browser lives on the main tray.
51:43SPEAKERI don't know that you can set it to just be static,
51:46SPEAKERbut you can do like a quad if you want.
51:48SPEAKERSo like typically I do Neary as full height,
51:52SPEAKERvertical windows, but if you want,
51:54SPEAKERyou can do like half height or third height or whatever.
51:56SPEAKERI just don't bother.
51:57SPEAKERIt's not worth the cognitive load there.
52:00SPEAKERYou can also stack stuff.
52:01SPEAKERSo you can send stuff forward and back
52:02SPEAKERin the depth as well, if you want.
52:05SPEAKER- Got it.
52:06SPEAKERAll right, my last one.
52:08SPEAKER- Yeah.
52:08SPEAKER- This is almost more of a public service announcements.
52:12SPEAKERIf you want a Blu-ray device,
52:13SPEAKERI recommend you buy one as soon as possible.
52:15SPEAKER- Like a PC Blu-ray drive?
52:17SPEAKER- Either or actually.
52:18SPEAKER- Oh, wow.
52:19SPEAKER- So we've touched on this in the past, not that long ago,
52:22SPEAKERbut this just keeps getting worse in the PC space, Buffalo,
52:26SPEAKERwhich makes, I think they only made portables
52:29SPEAKERlike the little- - Yeah, like laptop ones.
52:31SPEAKER- Yeah, what is the laptop form factor?
52:32SPEAKERI don't know if there's a name for that.
52:34SPEAKER- Like in a PC,
52:35SPEAKERwe're talking like five and a quarter inch drive bay size,
52:38SPEAKERbut you know, the little slim line
52:40SPEAKERthat would fit in the laptop.
52:41SPEAKERI think Buffalo only made those.
52:43SPEAKERI don't think they made the full-size ones,
52:44SPEAKERbut they just exited the BD-ROM market.
52:48SPEAKERSome of their drives are still out there for like a hundred
52:50SPEAKERbucks if you want to buy one.
52:52SPEAKERAnd then there was a headline a couple of weeks ago
52:54SPEAKERthat Panasonic is now the last company making set top
52:58SPEAKERlike home theater style Blu-ray players.
53:00SPEAKER- So then the only way to play is like a console
53:03SPEAKERwith a disk drive, which probably won't make it
53:05SPEAKERthrough the next generation.
53:06SPEAKER- My understanding is that the Xbox and PS5,
53:10SPEAKERespecially for UHD disks, they've been fine.
53:12SPEAKERI've tried both of those for regular Blu-rays
53:14SPEAKERand they were fine,
53:15SPEAKERbut it sounds like they struggle quite a bit more
53:16SPEAKERwith UHD disks.
53:17SPEAKER- Oh, that's wild.
53:19SPEAKER- But the reason I even saw the Panasonic thing
53:21SPEAKERis because the headline was that Panasonic put out
53:23SPEAKERa statement apologizing for lack of supply.
53:25SPEAKER- Wow.
53:26SPEAKER- Because they have been getting hammered
53:27SPEAKERby people buying their Blu-ray players,
53:31SPEAKERtheir set top players because they are the last ones
53:33SPEAKERmaking one now.
53:35SPEAKERSo between these two things, like really what,
53:39SPEAKERI feel like this goes beyond BD ROMs.
53:41SPEAKERLike really, I feel like what we're staring down here
53:42SPEAKERis the end of new consumer hardware
53:44SPEAKERthat can read optical disks like quite there yet.
53:48SPEAKERBut it feels like five years from now,
53:51SPEAKERis anybody going to still be making devices
53:52SPEAKERthat can read a CD or DVD or Blu-ray?
53:55SPEAKERI don't know.
53:56SPEAKER- Did the PS4 and Xbox One read UHD
54:00SPEAKERor were they Blu-ray only?
54:02SPEAKER- Let's see, the Xbox One X definitely will play for,
54:06SPEAKERI think, well, actually I shouldn't say definitely.
54:09SPEAKERThat console definitely output at 4K.
54:10SPEAKERThat was their whole pitch for the PS4 Pro
54:13SPEAKERand the Xbox One X were, hey, 4K visuals.
54:17SPEAKERAnd I'm pretty sure the One X at least will play UHDs.
54:21SPEAKER- Oh yeah, the Xbox One S 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player
54:26SPEAKERafter one year, yeah.
54:27SPEAKER- Okay, yes.
54:27SPEAKER- The original Xbox One, I believe will not.
54:30SPEAKER- Does not, yeah, that's correct.
54:31SPEAKER- Yeah, it's way too old for that.
54:33SPEAKER- That's wild.
54:34SPEAKER- Like there are some options,
54:35SPEAKERthere are still options floating around
54:37SPEAKERin the used space for this sort of thing.
54:39SPEAKERBut like, I don't know, man, my urge to hoard
54:44SPEAKERand like batten down the hatches on this
54:45SPEAKERis getting a bit urgent.
54:48SPEAKERLike I've got a full five and a quarter drive in my PC
54:52SPEAKERflashed with custom firmware,
54:54SPEAKERso it can read 4K disks and blah, blah, blah.
54:56SPEAKERI've also got a laptop, like a portable USB laptop style one
55:00SPEAKERstill thinking about buying one of these Buffalo drives
55:02SPEAKERjust to have another backup.
55:03SPEAKER- So I have a bunch of Blu-ray,
55:06SPEAKERlike Blu-ray non, I guess, HD Blu-ray,
55:09SPEAKERI don't know what the retronym is for Blu-ray
55:12SPEAKERthat's not UHD.
55:13SPEAKER- I think just Blu-ray and then UHD.
55:15SPEAKER- So I have a bunch of those drives
55:17SPEAKERand my understanding is that some of those,
55:19SPEAKERyou were able to hack the, upload a hacked firmware
55:21SPEAKERthat would unlock UHD reading.
55:24SPEAKERSo I have an LG, just to put this whole thing in perspective,
55:26SPEAKERI have an LG that I bought in 2018,
55:28SPEAKERI went and checked the Amazon order for $50.
55:30SPEAKER- Yeah, that's about the right price for an optical drive.
55:32SPEAKER- Like that drive now basically cannot be found
55:35SPEAKERand if you find it, it's like $200 plus.
55:37SPEAKER- Wow.
55:38SPEAKER- And it's one of many, like you said,
55:39SPEAKERthat could be flashed with custom firmware.
55:41SPEAKERI think we've talked about this before,
55:42SPEAKERif you really want to go down the rabbit hole of this,
55:45SPEAKERgo to the MakeMKV forums.
55:47SPEAKER- Yeah.
55:48SPEAKER- 'Cause that's where I did all the research,
55:49SPEAKERlike those are the people I think hacking the firmware,
55:52SPEAKERthose are the people editing the firmware
55:54SPEAKERto make it so you can read 4K discs on those drives
55:57SPEAKERand that sort of thing, but they're getting real scarce.
56:01SPEAKER- I mean, that sucks.
56:03SPEAKER- It's just a PSA and the other reason
56:05SPEAKERthis has come back to mind is that I have been trying
56:08SPEAKERto organize and expunge old stuff,
56:10SPEAKERgoing through old boxes to see like what tchotchkes
56:13SPEAKERI can get rid of and stuff.
56:14SPEAKER- Yeah.
56:15SPEAKER- I found a stack of burned disks in a box
56:18SPEAKERand just immediately was seized by the fear of like,
56:22SPEAKERwhat if in five or 10 years,
56:23SPEAKERI find another stack like this that I would love to read
56:25SPEAKERand I have no more working optical drives,
56:27SPEAKERlike it's just getting, it's getting a little scary
56:29SPEAKERand there was like, they were mostly useless.
56:32SPEAKERIt's like, ah, here's a CD full of MP3s or whatever,
56:34SPEAKERbut a couple of them were a long lost GameSpot E3 DVD
56:38SPEAKERthat's not available on the internet.
56:40SPEAKER- Wow, really?
56:41SPEAKER- And the best we can tell, we've been talking about this
56:43SPEAKERon the next one, Ramblecast, but based on user feedback,
56:47SPEAKERit sounds like it was the E3 2006 GameSpot documentary.
56:49SPEAKERIt sounds like we didn't sell that DVD commercially
56:52SPEAKERlike we had before.
56:53SPEAKERWe just put out an ISO for people to burn.
56:55SPEAKER- Oh, that's wild.
56:56SPEAKER- Which is why I have a burned copy of it,
56:58SPEAKERbut it's full on, you know,
56:59SPEAKERit's like an hour long documentary of us covering E3 2006.
57:03SPEAKER- All the footage from E3 2006.
57:05SPEAKERMan, that's really cool.
57:05SPEAKERI didn't know you did that.
57:06SPEAKER- And yeah, GameSpot, like that was like business for awhile
57:10SPEAKERfor three, four years there,
57:11SPEAKERlike GameSpot made really nice DVDs of E3 and sold them.
57:14SPEAKER- I mean, in a world where bandwidth was hard
57:17SPEAKERand a lot of people were still on dial-up,
57:18SPEAKERit makes a ton of sense.
57:19SPEAKER100% it is that the, you know, by modern standards,
57:22SPEAKERthe video we were able to put on the website
57:24SPEAKERwas still pretty crappy.
57:25SPEAKERSo the DVD you could order was,
57:27SPEAKERif you wanted to see the games of E3
57:28SPEAKERat the highest possible quality, you were buying that DVD.
57:31SPEAKERBut anyway, again,
57:32SPEAKERthis is one that was not made commercially available.
57:35SPEAKERIt was just like apparently put out for people to burn.
57:38SPEAKERLike I think GameSpot and like paying members
57:40SPEAKERgot the ISO or something,
57:41SPEAKERbut that thing's not even on archive.org.
57:43SPEAKERSo if I did not have a way to read those discs
57:46SPEAKERwhen I found them, I have now of course made ISOs of them
57:49SPEAKERand have them on my NAS.
57:50SPEAKERBut like, again-
57:52SPEAKER- You should put them on archive.org, Brad.
57:54SPEAKER- I should.
57:55SPEAKER- They belong in a museum.
57:56SPEAKER- There's a whole long story there
57:57SPEAKERwhere there's actually three more discs I don't have,
57:59SPEAKERbut a Nexlander supporter does.
58:02SPEAKERSo I'm hoping to maybe get all five ISOs together
58:04SPEAKERbefore I put them all up together.
58:06SPEAKER- That's awesome.
58:07SPEAKER- But just feels like maybe a good idea
58:11SPEAKERto have an optical drive around in case you need one.
58:14SPEAKER- Yeah.
58:16SPEAKEROkay, I got a couple more quickie things.
58:19SPEAKEROne is don't give up on end-of-life hardware.
58:23SPEAKERMy Nest Thermostat Generation 2,
58:27SPEAKERfamously impacting a fairly large number of people,
58:30SPEAKERwas end-of-life recently by Google.
58:32SPEAKERAnd I mean, there are reasons for end-of-life again,
58:34SPEAKERprobably fair.
58:35SPEAKERI think that they lost kernel support
58:37SPEAKERfor the hardware that that thing runs.
58:41SPEAKERBut there's a community.
58:43SPEAKERThere was a bounty program that was claimed by somebody.
58:48SPEAKERThe project's called No Longer Evil.
58:50SPEAKERAnd basically it's a two-part project.
58:53SPEAKEROne is firmware for the thermostat
58:55SPEAKERthat just changes what server endpoint it looks for.
58:59SPEAKERIt's user configurable.
59:00SPEAKERAnd then the other part is a server side
59:05SPEAKERthat basically sends the API commands
59:07SPEAKERback and forth to it from an app.
59:09SPEAKERAnd there's multiple places you can run the server.
59:11SPEAKERThey'll run the server for you in the cloud,
59:13SPEAKERwhich I have no interest in.
59:16SPEAKERThat was the part of this that came online first,
59:18SPEAKERbut moving off of the centralized web-based shared services
59:22SPEAKERwas a big part of the reason I wanted to get rid
59:24SPEAKERof the thermostat in the first place.
59:27SPEAKERThey recently released a Home Assistant plugin
59:31SPEAKERthrough the HACS, I think, that basically runs the server
59:35SPEAKERon your Home Assistant install,
59:37SPEAKERwhich is where I would want that to run anyway.
59:40SPEAKERAnd it took me an afternoon, but I got it up and running.
59:45SPEAKERAnd now basically I can change the thermostat
59:48SPEAKERin the Apple Home app and my Home Assistant app
59:51SPEAKERjust like I was before,
59:53SPEAKERbut without going out to the internet anywhere.
59:55SPEAKER- That's even better.
59:56SPEAKER- And yeah, it's quite good.
1:00:00SPEAKERThe documentation was bad,
1:00:02SPEAKERlike actively out of date and terrible.
1:00:05SPEAKERSo if you're going to do this,
1:00:07SPEAKERwhat I would suggest is opening up their Discord
1:00:10SPEAKERand getting in the channel where they give the guides
1:00:13SPEAKER'cause the guides in the Discord were more up to date.
1:00:15SPEAKERAnd also there was a lot of,
1:00:19SPEAKERoh, yeah, we haven't updated the documentation for this yet.
1:00:22SPEAKERHere's the best way to do this
1:00:23SPEAKERin the troubleshooting and help column.
1:00:27SPEAKER- That is such classic open source project stuff.
1:00:30SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:00:31SPEAKER- I mean, whatever,
1:00:32SPEAKERit's just a different type of research, I guess.
1:00:35SPEAKERI mean, it can be a lot of work.
1:00:37SPEAKER- It's a bummer though,
1:00:38SPEAKERbecause that stuff's invisible to search
1:00:39SPEAKERin a way that putting it on the get issues page
1:00:42SPEAKERwould not be.
1:00:44SPEAKERBut anyway, it was worth the effort.
1:00:47SPEAKERIt was worth going into the Discord.
1:00:49SPEAKERThe people there were super friendly and nice
1:00:50SPEAKERand they were excited to help.
1:00:52SPEAKER- I mean, that's cool.
1:00:54SPEAKERThe ultimate chef's kiss of something like this
1:00:56SPEAKERis when you not only resurrect the old hardware,
1:00:58SPEAKERbut it actually works better than it did before.
1:01:01SPEAKER- Yeah, net improvement.
1:01:03SPEAKER- That's rad.
1:01:04SPEAKER- There's also probably some security stuff,
1:01:05SPEAKERlike I didn't do a code audit of their server plugin
1:01:08SPEAKERfor Home Assistant.
1:01:08SPEAKERSo like security is a concern, but I'm fine.
1:01:14SPEAKER- I mean, I guess when you're integrating it
1:01:15SPEAKERinto the Home Assistant,
1:01:16SPEAKERit potentially could compromise something
1:01:18SPEAKERthat's part of Home Assistant.
1:01:19SPEAKERBut if it's not exposed to the open internet,
1:01:21SPEAKERat least that's not a concern.
1:01:22SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:01:24SPEAKERThe other part of this is don't be afraid
1:01:27SPEAKERto submit bug reports and feature requests, right?
1:01:30SPEAKEREspecially on open source projects.
1:01:32SPEAKERI know, like I don't often submit bug reports on Windows
1:01:35SPEAKERbecause it feels like screaming into the void
1:01:37SPEAKERand never getting a response.
1:01:39SPEAKERI have done it a couple of times
1:01:40SPEAKERwhen things have been especially egregious
1:01:42SPEAKERwith some of the later Windows 11-related things.
1:01:48SPEAKERBut like I submitted a feature request
1:01:50SPEAKERfor an Apple TV idea years ago,
1:01:53SPEAKERand it ended up in the next version
1:01:54SPEAKERof the Apple TV and iOS software, right?
1:01:57SPEAKERThe thing I suggested was I have multiple Apple TVs
1:02:00SPEAKERin my house, and I use the phone as a Bluetooth,
1:02:03SPEAKERas the remote for most of them, right?
1:02:05SPEAKERI hardly ever use the physical remotes.
1:02:07SPEAKERAnd I was like, why does it not just automatically connect
1:02:09SPEAKERto the Apple TV that has the highest Bluetooth
1:02:12SPEAKERsignal-to-noise ratio?
1:02:14SPEAKERAnd then the next iOS release, it suddenly started doing that
1:02:16SPEAKERand I was like, oh, this is awesome.
1:02:18SPEAKERI'm sure I wasn't the only person who suggested that.
1:02:20SPEAKER- How did you suggest it?
1:02:21SPEAKERDo they have like a formal,
1:02:22SPEAKERjust like feature request submission form or something?
1:02:25SPEAKER- I Googled submit a feature to Apple.
1:02:28SPEAKER- Okay, okay, I mainly--
1:02:30SPEAKER- Yeah, they had a form on their website
1:02:31SPEAKERwith a bunch of pull downs.
1:02:32SPEAKER- I just wanted to make sure this wasn't
1:02:34SPEAKERlike tech journalist privilege,
1:02:35SPEAKERlike you were talking to a PR person or something.
1:02:38SPEAKER- Nope, I sent it in through the normal forms
1:02:39SPEAKERlike everybody else.
1:02:40SPEAKERAnd I'm sure, like I said,
1:02:41SPEAKERI'm sure I wasn't the only person who suggested that,
1:02:42SPEAKERbut it was a major quality of life improvement for me.
1:02:45SPEAKER- Yeah, that's cool.
1:02:46SPEAKERI will say like on the open source side,
1:02:48SPEAKERlike I've said it before,
1:02:49SPEAKERbut there have been a few cases where like submitting a bug
1:02:52SPEAKERand then working with a maintainer to squash the bug
1:02:55SPEAKERhave been basically the most wholesome and productive
1:02:58SPEAKERand rewarding interactions I've had
1:03:00SPEAKERon the internet in years.
1:03:01SPEAKERLike A, you're helping make something better
1:03:04SPEAKERfor both yourself and other people.
1:03:06SPEAKERIf it's software you use and it's got an issue
1:03:07SPEAKERand that gets fixed, it's like, that's improving your life,
1:03:10SPEAKERbut it's also helping,
1:03:12SPEAKERit's making the product better or the project
1:03:14SPEAKERrather better for other people.
1:03:15SPEAKERLike you're helping the person who does the work
1:03:18SPEAKERmaking the thing make it better.
1:03:19SPEAKERLike it just feels good.
1:03:21SPEAKER- Yep, wholesome is a good way to describe it
1:03:24SPEAKERbecause it does people and also the speed
1:03:28SPEAKERat which that stuff turns around.
1:03:29SPEAKERLike if you submit a bug report to Microsoft,
1:03:31SPEAKERI wouldn't expect to see anything for a year
1:03:33SPEAKERunless it's like a bug, like a security problem.
1:03:36SPEAKERWhen you submit something to some open source project
1:03:38SPEAKERthat probably tens or hundreds of thousands of people
1:03:40SPEAKERare touching, but that is maintained by one or two people
1:03:45SPEAKERthat just do it because they want this to exist,
1:03:48SPEAKERthose people are always really excited.
1:03:51SPEAKERWell, most sometimes they're rude,
1:03:52SPEAKERbut like most of the time they're pretty positive
1:03:55SPEAKERand it's a really positive experience.
1:03:57SPEAKER- And also be cool, you know?
1:03:58SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:03:59SPEAKER- This is maybe a topic for another time.
1:04:01SPEAKERI've spent enough time going through GitHub issues
1:04:03SPEAKERon different projects that I have seen,
1:04:05SPEAKERI have seen a certain archetype emerge.
1:04:09SPEAKER- Yeah, you mean the entitled, the entitled one?
1:04:12SPEAKER- Yeah, of user, this kind of imperious,
1:04:15SPEAKERlike people who clearly don't write code themselves,
1:04:18SPEAKERbut get very imperious about what features it should have
1:04:23SPEAKERand how slow the maintainers are about fixing bugs
1:04:25SPEAKERand like X, Y, and Z.
1:04:27SPEAKER- Don't be like that.
1:04:28SPEAKER- Yes, there's a certain kind of like,
1:04:31SPEAKERmaybe they're a power user, I don't know, that is-
1:04:34SPEAKER- Oh, power user parentheses negative?
1:04:36SPEAKER- It's a pretty entitled sort of personality archetype
1:04:40SPEAKERthat you will see on some projects
1:04:42SPEAKERthat I find very off-putting.
1:04:44SPEAKER- Yeah, but if you come in and be like,
1:04:45SPEAKER"Hey, I've searched, I didn't find an answer to this,
1:04:48SPEAKERhere's the problem I'm having,
1:04:49SPEAKERhere are the logs and stuff that you usually ask for."
1:04:51SPEAKERLike, we could do a whole episode
1:04:53SPEAKERabout how to submit bug reports that are good.
1:04:55SPEAKER- Yeah, in fact, I think there's maybe even
1:04:57SPEAKERa slightly broader, just sort of how to use GitHub
1:05:00SPEAKERas an average user episode.
1:05:02SPEAKER- Oh, you're gonna love this week's toolbook diaries.
1:05:04SPEAKER- Oh, good, 'cause it's still like a whole ass genre
1:05:07SPEAKERof social media posts you see of people just complaining
1:05:09SPEAKERabout not knowing how to just download software
1:05:12SPEAKERand run it from GitHub.
1:05:13SPEAKER- Well, but also it kind of reminds me of '90s internet,
1:05:18SPEAKER'90s message board rules.
1:05:20SPEAKER'Cause like, the rule on '90s message boards was,
1:05:23SPEAKER"Hey, don't start posting
1:05:25SPEAKERuntil you've been there lurking for a little bit
1:05:26SPEAKERand see how people interact."
1:05:28SPEAKERAnd like, that applies here, right?
1:05:30SPEAKERIt's always helpful when I submit a bug report
1:05:32SPEAKERor a pull request or something for a project,
1:05:34SPEAKERI dig into the last couple of pull requests
1:05:36SPEAKERor the last couple of bug reports
1:05:38SPEAKERand see what people posted
1:05:40SPEAKERand what information they gave.
1:05:41SPEAKERSo then, if the person who maintains it
1:05:45SPEAKERhas a pretty obvious, like,
1:05:47SPEAKER"Oh, I have a keyboard macro for generating this text
1:05:50SPEAKERthat says, hey, send me these logs,
1:05:52SPEAKERhere's how you get 'em," blah, blah, blah,
1:05:54SPEAKERjust do that upfront.
1:05:55SPEAKERAnd then they're gonna love you.
1:05:58SPEAKERSo anyway, bug reports,
1:06:00SPEAKERturns out they, especially in open source stuff,
1:06:02SPEAKERthey make a difference.
1:06:05SPEAKERLast thing is Firefox finally added
1:06:06SPEAKERthe turn off all AI button.
1:06:08SPEAKER- Oh, good.
1:06:10SPEAKER- So if you have Firefox and you don't want AI in Firefox,
1:06:12SPEAKERyou should hit that button.
1:06:14SPEAKERIt's relatively easy to find.
1:06:17SPEAKER- Now that's news you can use.
1:06:18SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:06:19SPEAKERAnd I guess that'll do it for us this week.
1:06:22SPEAKERWe've been through a whole big list.
1:06:24SPEAKERWe talked about your stream deck.
1:06:25SPEAKERI had, stream deck is an incredibly powerful tool
1:06:29SPEAKERon the list.
1:06:30SPEAKERI think we did a whole episode about that last year.
1:06:31SPEAKERSo we don't need to dig into it more, but.
1:06:33SPEAKER- I hesitate to say this
1:06:34SPEAKER'cause I don't wanna sound like I'm shilling for Elgato.
1:06:36SPEAKERI'm definitely not.
1:06:37SPEAKERBut did you see that they just launched a stream deck
1:06:39SPEAKERplus XL?
1:06:41SPEAKER- Yeah, it's got six knobs instead of just four.
1:06:44SPEAKER- Well, so the regular stream deck XL is just buttons.
1:06:48SPEAKERThat's what I have.
1:06:49SPEAKER- I have one of those.
1:06:50SPEAKERAnd then I have a stream deck XL, stream deck plus
1:06:53SPEAKERwith buttons and four knobs.
1:06:54SPEAKER- Right, so does it not have a touch strip
1:06:56SPEAKERor is that little strip just a screen?
1:06:58SPEAKER- The screen, it's a touch strip.
1:07:00SPEAKERLike I have that about swiping bound to change pages,
1:07:04SPEAKERbut basically it's showing what your knob is adjusting
1:07:09SPEAKER'cause the knobs don't have screens.
1:07:11SPEAKER- I'm looking at this damn thing.
1:07:13SPEAKERThe XL is eight by four.
1:07:15SPEAKERIt's four rows of eight buttons.
1:07:16SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what the, yeah.
1:07:18SPEAKER- And the plus is like-
1:07:20SPEAKER- Nine by four, right?
1:07:21SPEAKER- No, no, no, just the regular plus is tiny.
1:07:23SPEAKERIt's only like, what, eight buttons or something?
1:07:25SPEAKER- Eight buttons and the strip, yeah.
1:07:26SPEAKER- And the little screen strip and the knobs?
1:07:28SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:07:29SPEAKER- Dude, this thing is nine by four, so it's 36 buttons.
1:07:33SPEAKER- So, yeah.
1:07:34SPEAKER- And six knobs and the large screen,
1:07:36SPEAKERbut also this thing is $350, like-
1:07:38SPEAKER- I mean-
1:07:39SPEAKER- No, thank you.
1:07:40SPEAKER- Here's the thing is if you're doing like a one person show
1:07:44SPEAKERwhere you're, like we talked about getting this
1:07:47SPEAKERfor the streaming machine at the office,
1:07:52SPEAKERbecause then we would set up everybody's feeds
1:07:54SPEAKERas OBS audio sources, so we could do the audio adjustments
1:08:00SPEAKERlike when we're not sitting in front of the audio mixer.
1:08:02SPEAKERBut for most people, you don't, like it's a massive overkill.
1:08:06SPEAKER- Absolutely, and also, well, whatever,
1:08:08SPEAKERthis is for another time probably there.
1:08:09SPEAKERElgato's Linux support is not great,
1:08:11SPEAKERso if you're gonna be booting back and forth-
1:08:13SPEAKER- Let me tell you about OpenDeck,
1:08:15SPEAKERwhich also has a vibrant open source community,
1:08:18SPEAKERand they've built a wine layer that lets you run
1:08:21SPEAKERa lot of the Elgato plugins on Linux.
1:08:24SPEAKER- Wow, that sounds like some patron episode fodder to me.
1:08:28SPEAKER- It's every bit as janky,
1:08:30SPEAKERbut occasionally amazing as you would expect.
1:08:31SPEAKERLike it's early and it's rough,
1:08:33SPEAKERbut the people working on it are making good decisions.
1:08:36SPEAKER- That's great to know that something,
1:08:38SPEAKERI know there have been some other StreamDeck
1:08:39SPEAKERLinux support efforts in the past.
1:08:41SPEAKER- I have tried them all.
1:08:43SPEAKER- Yeah, seeing something like this, it's very encouraging.
1:08:45SPEAKERKnowing this is going.
1:08:46SPEAKER- Yeah, the interesting thing about the StreamDeck,
1:08:50SPEAKERnot to belabor it, is half of my buttons are for OBS
1:08:54SPEAKERand streaming stuff, and then the other half
1:08:56SPEAKERare just normal computer stuff.
1:08:58SPEAKERI have a button to turn off monitors,
1:08:59SPEAKERI have buttons for Discord sound boards,
1:09:01SPEAKERI have buttons for mic mute and stuff like that
1:09:05SPEAKERwhen I'm in calls, it's a system level mute,
1:09:08SPEAKERall that kind of stuff.
1:09:09SPEAKERIt's incredibly powerful piece of software.
1:09:13SPEAKER- You know what else is, oh, go ahead.
1:09:15SPEAKER- I think we're about to land on the same side.
1:09:17SPEAKERYou know what else is of just incredibly powerful
1:09:19SPEAKERpiece of software?
1:09:21SPEAKER- The human mind?
1:09:23SPEAKER- Sure, that's what I was gonna say.
1:09:25SPEAKER- I was gonna say Patreon.
1:09:27SPEAKER- Oh, okay.
1:09:28SPEAKER- Patreon is a way that you can support
1:09:30SPEAKERlistener supported podcasts like ours.
1:09:33SPEAKERYou'll note we don't have ads.
1:09:35SPEAKERWe didn't, at no point in the middle of the show,
1:09:37SPEAKERdid you and I stop talking about the thing
1:09:39SPEAKERthat you're interested in and talk about something else.
1:09:41SPEAKER- True.
1:09:42SPEAKER- If you like that and would like to encourage that behavior,
1:09:45SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/techpod
1:09:48SPEAKERand send us a $5 bribe that's like,
1:09:50SPEAKERhey man, I love not having ads on your podcast.
1:09:52SPEAKERWhy don't you keep doing that?
1:09:54SPEAKERAnd that is one bribe that we will take.
1:09:58SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, when you support this podcast,
1:10:00SPEAKERyou were keeping it free and ad free for everybody.
1:10:02SPEAKER- Yeah, everybody does their part.
1:10:04SPEAKERAnd as a result, we're here every week with no ads.
1:10:07SPEAKERAgain, it's patreon.com/techpod.
1:10:08SPEAKERYou get the no ad tech pod, everybody gets that,
1:10:12SPEAKERwhether you pay or not because that's just, we're kind.
1:10:14SPEAKEROkay, we're good people.
1:10:17SPEAKERBut if you do pony up the five bucks,
1:10:18SPEAKERyou get access to the Discord
1:10:20SPEAKERand you get the monthly Patreon exclusive episodes
1:10:22SPEAKERwhere I think we're gonna talk about Open Deck,
1:10:24SPEAKERit sounds like a little bit.
1:10:26SPEAKERAnd yeah, it's a good community full of people
1:10:29SPEAKERand interesting topics on the Patreon episode
1:10:33SPEAKERthat maybe are too small for a full episode often.
1:10:36SPEAKERSo that'll do it for us this week.
1:10:40SPEAKERAs always, thanks to our executive producer,
1:10:42SPEAKERto your patrons, including OpenAI Delenda S,
1:10:46SPEAKERAndrew Slosky, Jordan Lippett, Fiends5, Colin Warren.
1:10:51SPEAKERI don't know what that one is, but I'm into it.
1:10:52SPEAKERDavid Allen, James Kamik, and Pantheon,
1:10:55SPEAKERmakers of the HS3 high-speed 3D printer.
1:10:58SPEAKERI got a lot of feedback on 3D printers
1:11:00SPEAKERwhen I said I was thinking about it
1:11:00SPEAKERin another 3D printer the other day.
1:11:02SPEAKER- You know, it's a topic people are passionate about.
1:11:04SPEAKER- Yeah, like, it turns out,
1:11:07SPEAKERwhen you start looking for 3D printer stuff,
1:11:09SPEAKERyou start seeing a lot of 3D printer-related projects
1:11:11SPEAKERthat people post, and then you're like,
1:11:13SPEAKERyou know what I need?
1:11:14SPEAKERI need a 3D printer.
1:11:15SPEAKERAnd yeah, anyway, I haven't bought a 3D printer yet.
1:11:17SPEAKERThat's the TLDR.
1:11:19SPEAKER- Don't 3D print in the state of Washington, I guess.
1:11:21SPEAKER- Wait, why not?
1:11:22SPEAKER- There has been some legislation.
1:11:23SPEAKERI'm not actually, I don't know enough about it.
1:11:27SPEAKERI probably shouldn't even bring it up.
1:11:28SPEAKERI believe some legislation passed in Washington recently
1:11:30SPEAKERabout use of 3D printers that seems
1:11:33SPEAKERlike it didn't go over great.
1:11:34SPEAKERI'm not sure.
1:11:35SPEAKER- Well, you know, legislators always have
1:11:37SPEAKERa really good grasp on the nuances
1:11:39SPEAKERof new emerging technologies.
1:11:40SPEAKER- Always.
1:11:41SPEAKER- What could possibly go wrong?
1:11:43SPEAKERWe'll be back next week with another edition
1:11:45SPEAKERof the TechPod.
1:11:46SPEAKERAs always, please consider the environment.
1:11:48SPEAKERWe'll be back next week with another edition
1:11:50SPEAKERof the TechPod.
1:11:51SPEAKERAs always, please.
1:11:52SPEAKER- Wait, I want to know what the TechPad is.
1:11:53SPEAKER- The TechPad is, that's my numeric keypad.
1:11:56SPEAKERI just have it over here so I can...
1:11:59SPEAKER- Is this how we get into merch?
1:12:01SPEAKER- We're not making hardware.
1:12:02SPEAKER- Are we going to come up with a product called the TechPad
1:12:05SPEAKERthat becomes the actual core of our business?
1:12:06SPEAKER- Is it a mouse pad?
1:12:07SPEAKERIs it a big giant mouse pad that has like...
1:12:10SPEAKERSo we could do a dual sided mouse pad
1:12:12SPEAKERwhere your face is on one side, my face is on the other
1:12:14SPEAKERand you decide whether you have the Brad one
1:12:15SPEAKERor the Will one.
1:12:16SPEAKER- Just sounds like a popularity contest.
1:12:18SPEAKERAlso, I regret to inform you
1:12:19SPEAKERthere are numerous other products called the TechPad.
1:12:22SPEAKER- Oh, boo.
1:12:23SPEAKER- Okay, well, anyway, we'll be back next week
1:12:25SPEAKERwith another edition of the TechPod.
1:12:28SPEAKERAs always, please consider the environment
1:12:31SPEAKERbefore printing this podcast.
1:12:33SPEAKERPlease share the podcast though.
1:12:34SPEAKERWe love sharing.
1:12:36SPEAKER(upbeat music)