00:00SPEAKER- There's something on my system that when I launch it,
00:02SPEAKERresets the mic volume and I don't fucking know what it is.
00:05SPEAKERI think it might be Zoom.
00:07SPEAKER- What are you recording in?
00:09SPEAKER- I'm recording in Audacity.
00:10SPEAKER- In what?
00:12SPEAKER- What do you mean?
00:14SPEAKER- What's Audacity running in?
00:15SPEAKER- An application that runs on the computer.
00:17SPEAKER- In what operating system?
00:20SPEAKER- Oh, it's Linux.
00:21SPEAKERI'm running Linux almost all the time now, Brad.
00:22SPEAKER- Uh-huh.
00:23SPEAKERI was actually,
00:24SPEAKERthat was the first thing I was going to propose
00:26SPEAKERfor the cold open this week actually was,
00:28SPEAKERwhat are you recording in week to week now?
00:30SPEAKERBut we have something else to get into as well.
00:32SPEAKER- So yeah, there's an application that is,
00:37SPEAKERmost stuff is pretty well behaved,
00:38SPEAKERbut I do a lot of video calls for work.
00:40SPEAKERAnd I think one of the, either Google Meet
00:42SPEAKERor Zoom is doing automatic gain control
00:47SPEAKERand resets the system level microphone volume on Alsa.
00:51SPEAKER- I hate that.
00:52SPEAKER- Which is so annoying.
00:53SPEAKER- It's a problem in Windows as well.
00:55SPEAKERIn fact, we're constantly fighting it and everything.
00:58SPEAKERLike everything wants to adjust and I'm like, I get it.
01:00SPEAKER- Yeah, they assume least common denominator, right?
01:02SPEAKER- 99% of people using video call software
01:05SPEAKERare just doing it to like have meetings with people
01:07SPEAKERor catch up or whatever.
01:08SPEAKERLike most people are not using them to record podcasts.
01:11SPEAKERIn fact, there are specialized tools for that.
01:13SPEAKER- Zoom has a really good setting
01:17SPEAKERfor people who have real audio chains.
01:18SPEAKERThat's like, hey, just assume you don't do anything
01:21SPEAKERto this audio, don't process it at all.
01:23SPEAKER- That's cool, that's smart.
01:24SPEAKER- They added it during the pandemic
01:26SPEAKERbecause musicians were doing like Zoom strings
01:28SPEAKERwhere they played together.
01:29SPEAKER- Sure.
01:30SPEAKER- But yeah, I don't, it's frustrating.
01:33SPEAKER- It sounds like everything's a mess over there this morning.
01:36SPEAKER- Look man, so you know how sometimes
01:38SPEAKERwhen you have a piece of glass on top of a piece of metal
01:43SPEAKERand so I make coffee every morning.
01:45SPEAKERI have like an old Kalita glass brewer that it brews into
01:49SPEAKERand it sits on top of my Hario coffee scale,
01:53SPEAKERwhich has a metal top.
01:55SPEAKERAnd if I'm not careful, a little bit of water
01:57SPEAKERgets between those two.
01:59SPEAKERAnd if I do it exactly wrong,
02:02SPEAKERthen there's a little bit of a float there
02:03SPEAKERand it reduces the friction enough
02:05SPEAKERthat the Kalita slides on the glass.
02:08SPEAKERUsually I'm paying attention to it, it's not a problem.
02:11SPEAKERBut this morning we're watching Norm's dog,
02:14SPEAKERwhich I have a question about.
02:15SPEAKERAnd the dog was like, hey, yo man, I wanna go out.
02:18SPEAKERSo I turned around after I poured the water
02:20SPEAKERin the coffee pot, went to let the dog out.
02:22SPEAKERWhen I came back, I think it probably slid off.
02:25SPEAKER- Ooh.
02:26SPEAKER- And like the whole tower, one day the tower fell.
02:30SPEAKERThere was coffee and grounds everywhere.
02:34SPEAKERIt's on the coffee, the coffee station
02:36SPEAKERis right next to like the drying mat
02:38SPEAKERfor the stuff that doesn't go in the dishwasher.
02:40SPEAKERAnd so it's soaked into the drying mat for that stuff.
02:45SPEAKERIt's grounds everywhere, no glass broke.
02:48SPEAKERIt only fell like a quarter of an inch, so that was good.
02:50SPEAKER- That is, yes, small blessings.
02:53SPEAKERBut yeah, huge, I honestly,
02:55SPEAKERI almost would rather have had broken glass
02:57SPEAKERbecause then there's a reason to be upset
02:59SPEAKERas opposed to just like it being an enormous mess
03:02SPEAKERand now I have to go put the dish mat
03:04SPEAKERin the washing machine after I finish the podcast.
03:07SPEAKER- And maybe an excuse to buy something new.
03:09SPEAKER- Can I ask you a question though?
03:10SPEAKER- Sure, well actually yes,
03:11SPEAKERif I can first make yet another pitch to you.
03:15SPEAKER- Yes.
03:16SPEAKER- About what if you just had some instant coffee?
03:18SPEAKER- But I--
03:19SPEAKER- Do you know what my coffee making process is?
03:21SPEAKER- Do you even drink coffee anymore?
03:22SPEAKERI thought you were off.
03:23SPEAKER- No, no, no, I got back on.
03:25SPEAKER- Okay, what do you do?
03:26SPEAKER- I boil some water or not even boil.
03:28SPEAKERI heat some water to 160 F.
03:30SPEAKERI put one scoop, one teaspoon of instant coffee in the mug,
03:36SPEAKERpour in the water and stir.
03:37SPEAKER- Oh, yeah, my grandparents used to do that too.
03:39SPEAKERThey use Taster's Choice.
03:40SPEAKER- That was my grandparents' brand too.
03:43SPEAKERNo, no, actually, sorry.
03:44SPEAKERI think they were Nescafe Classico folks or Nescafe folks.
03:49SPEAKER- Taster's Choice, occasionally
03:50SPEAKERthey would have Folger's Crystals, I think,
03:52SPEAKERwould have been my grandparents' house, but--
03:54SPEAKER- We just buy the Nescafe Classico in bulk
03:57SPEAKERat Costco these days and it's fine, it's fine.
03:59SPEAKERIt's like, you know, it'll get you through,
04:01SPEAKERwhich is all I'm looking for.
04:02SPEAKER- I don't, see, I want coffee to taste good.
04:04SPEAKERI want it to taste something.
04:05SPEAKER- It's not bad.
04:07SPEAKER- I know, but--
04:07SPEAKER- I mean, I'm not gonna say it's up
04:08SPEAKERto your monthly voodoo, not voodoo, not voodoo.
04:12SPEAKER- Ritual, Ritual's Donuts, yeah.
04:14SPEAKERBut I get Ritual, I have two subscriptions a month.
04:17SPEAKERI get two bags of coffee a month, one's from Ritual,
04:19SPEAKERone's from this place called Yes Please,
04:21SPEAKERwhich is run by Tonks, the guy who started Tonks Coffee
04:25SPEAKERthat then got bought by Blue Bottle years and years ago.
04:28SPEAKERAnd they both do single origins,
04:29SPEAKERso it's a little bit different every time.
04:31SPEAKER- Okay, that's fair, I get it.
04:33SPEAKER- I like variety, it's a spice.
04:34SPEAKER- I mean, I've just been thinking, actually,
04:35SPEAKERin the last week or two, like, man, I miss cold brew,
04:37SPEAKERthat was fun, or it wasn't fun.
04:39SPEAKERSorry, let me rephrase that.
04:41SPEAKERIt was pleasant to drink, it was not fun to make,
04:43SPEAKERit was a ton of work, actually.
04:46SPEAKERMaybe I'll go back to it at some point,
04:48SPEAKER'cause it is very tasty, but man, it's a lot of work.
04:50SPEAKER- I think it depends on the brewery.
04:51SPEAKERWere you using a tahati, or were you using the,
04:53SPEAKERyou were using, like, mason jars, right?
04:54SPEAKER- I was using the biggest mason jar I could get method.
04:57SPEAKER- Yeah, see, that's way, that is a,
05:00SPEAKERthis is where, if you're doing something on the reg,
05:01SPEAKERget a specialized device for it,
05:03SPEAKERbecause it'll make it a lot easier.
05:04SPEAKER- And half the reason it was so much work
05:05SPEAKERis 'cause I really don't like the silt in cold brew.
05:08SPEAKERThat's why I was filtering it. - Yes, you were filtering.
05:10SPEAKER- Yeah, I was, like, filtering it through paper filters,
05:11SPEAKERwhich took, like, for the big mason jar,
05:14SPEAKERit took, like, basically the better part of a day,
05:16SPEAKERjust going in there every hour to pour a little more through
05:20SPEAKERand you have to change the filter, like,
05:21SPEAKERthree times through that process, it takes forever.
05:24SPEAKER- That's insane, so the, I use--
05:25SPEAKER- And the huge mess of grounds at the end of the process
05:28SPEAKERis just a nasty mess, like, it's just, ugh.
05:30SPEAKER- Well, so, I use, for, when I do cold brew,
05:32SPEAKERI use a Hario brewer that has a nylon filter
05:35SPEAKERthat's really fine mesh, so there's a little bit of grit,
05:38SPEAKERbut you just don't pour the very last little bit
05:40SPEAKERout of the pot, and it makes me, like,
05:43SPEAKERfour days' worth, basically.
05:44SPEAKER- Yeah, that's all right.
05:46SPEAKER- And then the coffee grounds go in the blueberry bushes
05:47SPEAKERoutside, which they love, so that's good.
05:50SPEAKER- Okay, all right, quickly, what's the question?
05:52SPEAKER- Do you change clothes in front of somebody else's dog?
05:55SPEAKERWould you do that?
05:56SPEAKER- Yeah.
05:58SPEAKER- She came in the bedroom last night
06:00SPEAKERwhile I was putting my pajamas on, this is Norm's dog,
06:03SPEAKERand she just was sitting there on the ground staring at me,
06:06SPEAKERand I was like, I don't, I don't, I feel uncomfortable
06:09SPEAKERgetting undressed in front of you, Ripley.
06:10SPEAKER- What level of cognition are we assuming of the dog?
06:13SPEAKER- She was, she was giving me the dead-eye stare,
06:15SPEAKERshe was just like, you know, like, just, like,
06:20SPEAKERcompletely focused on everything I was doing,
06:24SPEAKERnot just, like, lounging in the room,
06:25SPEAKERlike, lounging in the room, no problem,
06:26SPEAKERbut the stare, I was unnerved by, couldn't do it.
06:30SPEAKER- Not an expert in canine neuroscience over here,
06:32SPEAKERbut my understanding is that a dog would not even be able
06:34SPEAKERto recognize themselves changing clothes.
06:37SPEAKER- But dogs don't wear clothes, Brad.
06:38SPEAKER- But if they did, they also, okay,
06:40SPEAKERso they also don't have the sense of self
06:42SPEAKERto cover themselves up.
06:44SPEAKER- Dogs are smarter than you might think.
06:45SPEAKER- Have some decency, dogs.
06:47SPEAKER(upbeat music)
07:12SPEAKER(upbeat music)
07:15SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod, I'm Will.
07:18SPEAKER- Hi, Brad, hello.
07:19SPEAKER- Okay, I had another weird thing happen this morning.
07:21SPEAKERIt's been a, it's been a, sorry, I said.
07:23SPEAKER- It's been smooth sailing over here,
07:25SPEAKERso I don't know that you're absorbing
07:26SPEAKERall of the chaos in the Bay Area right now.
07:28SPEAKER- Yeah, welcome to the chaos magnet, my name's Will.
07:33SPEAKERI woke up this morning, my alarm went off at seven,
07:35SPEAKERjust like it often does, and I got up,
07:37SPEAKERand then at 7.05, my alarm went off again.
07:40SPEAKERI was like, oh, I must have snoozed instead of slept.
07:42SPEAKERI thought, that's weird.
07:43SPEAKERSnooze is usually nine minutes on my phone.
07:45SPEAKERI don't know if that's what, like, that's the,
07:47SPEAKERI don't know why that's the alarm.
07:50SPEAKERSnooze has always been nine minutes.
07:52SPEAKERLike, my first digital alarm clock was a nine-minute snooze.
07:55SPEAKER- Is this still an alarm clock, or are we talking phone?
07:58SPEAKER- This is phone, you know,
07:58SPEAKERlike, who has an alarm clock in 2026?
08:00SPEAKER- Well, there's like kind of,
08:01SPEAKERthere's still like this pervasive meme
08:03SPEAKERthat iPhones are terrible about alarms,
08:05SPEAKERlike that they'll sometimes play silently,
08:07SPEAKERpeople wake up late for work, et cetera, et cetera.
08:09SPEAKER- Well, okay.
08:12SPEAKER- I don't know how legitimate that is.
08:13SPEAKER- I've not had a problem with that,
08:14SPEAKERbut I usually just wake up naturally.
08:15SPEAKERIt's unusual that the alarm's a backup for me, usually.
08:17SPEAKER- Yeah, I always wake up earlier than I need to,
08:19SPEAKERbut I, to this day, I'm a little skittish
08:22SPEAKERabout just trusting the phone if I have, like, a flight
08:24SPEAKERand need to get up at three or something like that.
08:26SPEAKER- So I love, Gina has,
08:29SPEAKERGina is a little more of a night owl than I am these days,
08:31SPEAKERand I love wearing the watch to bed
08:33SPEAKERso that the watch can tap me awake
08:35SPEAKERso it doesn't wake her up necessarily.
08:37SPEAKER- Okay, well, I've got thoughts about the watch in bed,
08:40SPEAKERwhich we will, when we get to the kind of Apple wrap-up.
08:44SPEAKER- Have you opened the iPad yet?
08:48SPEAKER- When we get to the Apple.
08:51SPEAKERThis is a ridiculous situation.
08:52SPEAKERI mean, I'll talk about that on this episode too
08:54SPEAKERwhen we get to it, but I've got a new iPad
08:56SPEAKERthat's been sitting in the box
08:57SPEAKERbecause I cannot find a smart cover that I like,
08:59SPEAKERand I don't trust using it without a cover.
09:02SPEAKER- Dude.
09:03SPEAKER- Like leaving a bare iPad lying around the house.
09:06SPEAKERThat's what I do every day, five years I've had one.
09:08SPEAKER- Terrifying, so I'm still using my old iPad
09:12SPEAKERis about to fall apart.
09:13SPEAKER- Anyway.
09:14SPEAKER- Anyway, we'll get to that later.
09:16SPEAKER- So 10 minutes after that, I got another alarm,
09:19SPEAKERand I was like, what the hell's going on?
09:20SPEAKERI'm going through the questions,
09:21SPEAKERwell, this is questions week, by the way,
09:24SPEAKERgoing through the questions
09:25SPEAKERand marking the ones I want to answer and all that stuff
09:26SPEAKERlike we usually do on the morning of the recording,
09:29SPEAKERand every 10 minutes I kept getting alarms.
09:33SPEAKERSo I finally opened up my alarm app,
09:35SPEAKERand every alarm on my phone was turned on.
09:39SPEAKER- Whoa.
09:40SPEAKER- I didn't know, like I don't even know how to do,
09:42SPEAKERI must've done a Siri or something to it.
09:44SPEAKER- Like historical alarms here, to be clear.
09:46SPEAKERLike I don't love the way the iOS alarm app works
09:51SPEAKERwhere it saves every alarm you've ever made.
09:53SPEAKER- I delete them every once in a while.
09:55SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't like, you know, you open the alarm app
09:57SPEAKERif you haven't looked at it in a while,
09:58SPEAKERand there's like three dozen different times set.
10:01SPEAKER- Oh, I have way more than three dozen.
10:03SPEAKER'Cause I often will do like, hey, give me a,
10:05SPEAKERlike if I have to go pick up the kiddo
10:07SPEAKERat class or something, I'll set an alarm for 10 minutes
10:08SPEAKERbefore I need to leave, so I don't forget.
10:10SPEAKER- Interesting, so you set an alarm for that?
10:12SPEAKERI always set a timer instead of like a persistent alarm.
10:17SPEAKERI just kind of look at, I eyeball the time
10:19SPEAKERand be like, okay, 15 minute timer.
10:21SPEAKER- So it depends on whether there's an hour transition
10:24SPEAKERbetween when I need the alarm for and when I do it.
10:26SPEAKERIf it's like, if it's less than 45 minutes,
10:28SPEAKERthen I'll usually do a timer.
10:30SPEAKERBut if I have to go, if it's like three o'clock
10:32SPEAKERand I needed to pick her up at 6.15,
10:34SPEAKERrather than do that math in my head,
10:35SPEAKERI'll just say, hey, give me an alarm at six o'clock.
10:38SPEAKERAnyway, so I have dozens and dozens of alarms in my phone.
10:41SPEAKERAnd every single one of them is turned on.
10:43SPEAKERAnd I have no idea how that happened.
10:45SPEAKER- That's horrifying.
10:46SPEAKER- Yeah, it was bad, it was bad.
10:47SPEAKERI was surprised I didn't wake up last night.
10:49SPEAKER- Is there a way to turn them all off on mass?
10:52SPEAKER- You go down the line and just tap the little,
10:54SPEAKERit took like five minutes, it was annoying.
10:56SPEAKER- Siri is not, you didn't try telling Siri,
10:58SPEAKERhey, disable every alarm?
10:59SPEAKER- As I was doing this, I was thinking,
11:01SPEAKERhow could this possibly have happened?
11:02SPEAKERThe only thing I can come up with was
11:04SPEAKERthat I must have asked Siri to set an alarm
11:07SPEAKERand she instead turned on all the alarms,
11:09SPEAKERor he instead turned on all, I used boy Siri.
11:12SPEAKERAnyway, if you have answers for how this could have happened,
11:14SPEAKERplease send us an email to techpod@content.town.
11:17SPEAKER- Yeah.
11:18SPEAKER- Or if you have a question
11:20SPEAKERthat you want turned into an A, sir,
11:23SPEAKERyou can go to techpod.content.town.
11:25SPEAKER- Yeah, you sure could do that.
11:28SPEAKER- We are gonna turn some questions into answers today.
11:31SPEAKERIf you're in the Discord, if you're a member
11:32SPEAKERof the Patreon and would like to submit a question,
11:34SPEAKERyou can go to the questions seeking answers channel
11:37SPEAKERand you'll post it and it'll disappear,
11:39SPEAKERbut other people might see it,
11:40SPEAKERso don't put secret stuff in there.
11:41SPEAKERAnd then we'll, at the end of the month,
11:43SPEAKERwe'll dig deep into the pile of questions
11:45SPEAKERand pull out the, let's say five to 20
11:49SPEAKERmost interesting ones and go down the list,
11:53SPEAKERrun down the list.
11:54SPEAKER- To be clear, plenty of interesting ones
11:55SPEAKERwe just don't have time to get to as well.
11:56SPEAKER- Yeah, look, every question is unique
11:59SPEAKERand interesting in its own way.
12:00SPEAKERSome are just slightly more interesting than others
12:03SPEAKERor possibly we have a better answer for them.
12:05SPEAKER- Or they're just shorter.
12:07SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
12:08SPEAKEROften it's just like, hey man, this is a one paragraph,
12:10SPEAKERlike three sentence long question.
12:12SPEAKERThat's a winner in my book.
12:13SPEAKER- All right, speaking of this one is three sentences
12:16SPEAKERas a matter of fact.
12:17SPEAKERAll right.
12:19SPEAKERIt's signed Michael Transactions.
12:21SPEAKER- That was the email.
12:22SPEAKERJust to be clear, it was not signed.
12:23SPEAKERThat was the email address name, Michael Transactions.
12:27SPEAKER- Well, yes, the elusive Michael Transactions returns.
12:31SPEAKERI'm curious if you think the MacBook Neo
12:33SPEAKERis a better value proposition for the family member
12:35SPEAKERthat just needs a computer for web browsing, email
12:37SPEAKERand Netflix versus an iPad.
12:40SPEAKERI certainly think it would make more sense
12:41SPEAKERfor a child who might one day want to learn
12:43SPEAKERand do more with the computer than an iPad will allow.
12:47SPEAKERIt seems like this might have relegated the iPad
12:49SPEAKERinto a further niche specifically
12:51SPEAKERfor people that need its tablet capabilities.
12:54SPEAKERI think I would agree with that.
12:56SPEAKERWell, I guess one thing to note is that a lot of the iPads
12:59SPEAKERare more powerful than the MacBook Neo.
13:02SPEAKER- Yeah, like my iPad is faster than the MacBook Neo.
13:04SPEAKER- Yeah, like- - By a huge margin.
13:05SPEAKER- Like a significance number of,
13:09SPEAKERwell, actually, is it just the pros
13:10SPEAKERor doesn't the kind of high-end regular line
13:13SPEAKERalso use the M chip?
13:15SPEAKER- Yeah, everything uses the M chip except the cheapo.
13:18SPEAKER- Except for the iPad Air, I thought.
13:19SPEAKER- No, Air is a regular M1 now too.
13:22SPEAKERIt's just an M1 pro.
13:23SPEAKER- The branding on the iPads is terrible
13:25SPEAKERthat I can't keep straight which one is the budget one
13:27SPEAKERand which one is the mid tier.
13:28SPEAKER- So it's the plain iPad uses the A series processors
13:31SPEAKERlast I looked, but I'm not 100%.
13:34SPEAKER- Isn't that the inverse of the laptop line?
13:36SPEAKERAre you saying the iPad Air is superior to the iPad?
13:39SPEAKER- The iPad Air is superior to the iPad, yes.
13:42SPEAKERWell, there's no MacBook anymore, right?
13:44SPEAKER- Oh, that's right, there is no MacBook, period,
13:46SPEAKERat this point, you're right.
13:48SPEAKERAnyway, yeah, I mean, but also you probably know
13:51SPEAKERif you need the power of an M chip versus an A chip.
13:54SPEAKERAnyway, so it's not a huge deal.
13:56SPEAKER- So the iPad Air is an M4 now.
14:01SPEAKER- Okay.
14:02SPEAKER- They seem to get updated more frequently.
14:04SPEAKERThe iPad is an A16, I think still, iPad, iPad.
14:07SPEAKER- That's pretty old because I think the Neo is an 18 Pro,
14:10SPEAKERA18 Pro, there's like substantial, like to be clear,
14:13SPEAKERlike that is not a weak, like the Neo is crazy
14:17SPEAKERand how quickly it has sold out and like gained a reputation
14:22SPEAKERas being an amazing value and et cetera, et cetera.
14:25SPEAKER- It's also, the thing is it's a category that,
14:29SPEAKERlike there aren't a whole lot of nice $500, $600 PC laptops
14:33SPEAKERthese days, like that's it, you're in the kind of janky
14:36SPEAKERbudget territory where you're gonna make
14:39SPEAKERsome weird compromise and you're gonna be like,
14:41SPEAKERoh man, the trackpad on this thing sucks
14:42SPEAKERor there's no touchscreen or whatever.
14:45SPEAKERNow, to answer the question,
14:47SPEAKERI think depends on the age of the kid, right?
14:50SPEAKER- Yeah.
14:51SPEAKER- Like the nice thing about the iPad is
14:52SPEAKERif you put it in the right case for a young child,
14:55SPEAKERit's basically indestructible.
14:57SPEAKERLike you can get one of those big foam cases
14:59SPEAKERthat has a half inch of clearance on all sides
15:03SPEAKERand they can't do anything to it, right?
15:07SPEAKERI don't know, and also versus like a laptop
15:12SPEAKERwhere you have hinges and keyboards
15:13SPEAKERand there's holes that go into the thing,
15:16SPEAKERthere's all sorts of ways that can go bad.
15:19SPEAKERI don't, yeah, it's a more destructible device.
15:23SPEAKER- Yeah, you're right.
15:24SPEAKERI think we should probably seize on the phrase here though,
15:26SPEAKERneeds a computer for web browsing, email and Netflix.
15:29SPEAKERThat sounds a little bit older.
15:30SPEAKERLike email sounds like we're talking like school age,
15:33SPEAKERlike sixth grade, yeah.
15:34SPEAKERI don't know if this is my like aged gray beard tendencies,
15:37SPEAKERbut I would absolutely go real laptop
15:39SPEAKERfor like a school age child.
15:41SPEAKER- Well, so Grampy Brad, they don't,
15:45SPEAKERthe kids often get assigned Chromebooks now.
15:47SPEAKER- Yeah, oh, I know that.
15:49SPEAKER- They don't tend to use email too, too much.
15:51SPEAKEREmail is something that boomers use is my understanding.
15:54SPEAKER- Yeah, but I think email can also just be shorthand
15:56SPEAKERfor like writing papers or anything that is like a long form
16:00SPEAKERand requires typing.
16:01SPEAKER- Yeah, so I like this as this,
16:04SPEAKERI think in my head, Canon, this is Apple's step up
16:09SPEAKERfor kids who grew up with iPads and don't,
16:11SPEAKERand need a computer and don't be like,
16:14SPEAKERmost people aren't gonna spend $1,000 on a MacBook Air
16:17SPEAKERfor a 10 year old, that seems kind of crazy.
16:21SPEAKER- The Neo is 600, we should--
16:23SPEAKER- If you have an EDU address, it's 500.
16:25SPEAKER- Interesting.
16:26SPEAKER- Yeah, so yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense.
16:29SPEAKERI wish, the thing that you lose is the ability
16:32SPEAKERto run all those iPad apps.
16:34SPEAKERSo if you're literally transitioning a kid from an iPad
16:37SPEAKERto a laptop, then they lose the ability to run the apps
16:41SPEAKERthat they've grown up with and all that,
16:43SPEAKERso that you're still keeping them with two devices really.
16:45SPEAKER- It depends though, 'cause there's quite a few
16:47SPEAKERkind of universal apps that run on both now,
16:49SPEAKERbut I think that does--
16:49SPEAKER- I'm talking about the touch stuff in games.
16:52SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, that does have to be enabled by developers.
16:55SPEAKER- Yeah, and also, you lose the ability to use
16:58SPEAKERlike a pencil or stylus, which is like,
17:02SPEAKERthe number of hours my kid has spent in the back of a car
17:04SPEAKERon a long road trip drawing on my iPad is very high.
17:07SPEAKER- Yeah, there's obviously a use case.
17:10SPEAKERI'm just kind of excited about a device
17:11SPEAKERthat exposes a keyboard and a real file system
17:14SPEAKERand a terminal for like, I kind of feel like
17:17SPEAKERmore people should remember how to use real computers.
17:21SPEAKER- I agreed.
17:22SPEAKERI think for this market, like I still really wish
17:26SPEAKERthat Apple would do an iPad that runs Mac OS.
17:29SPEAKER'Cause the big problem with the iPad
17:31SPEAKERas a general purpose computer is that the browser
17:33SPEAKERis still essentially a mobile browser.
17:35SPEAKERAnd like, even though that machine has the horsepower
17:38SPEAKERto run a real browser, you still end up in weird situations
17:41SPEAKERwhere you get like, this browser is not supported
17:44SPEAKERor you end up in like weird null zone
17:48SPEAKERwhere you're neither phish nor foul
17:50SPEAKERin terms of a desktop browser.
17:52SPEAKERLike, it doesn't think that your mobile browser,
17:54SPEAKERyou're not as well supported as like the iPhone browser,
17:57SPEAKERbut also you maybe don't have a native app
18:00SPEAKERthat feels it fits the screen right
18:01SPEAKERto replace the browser based application.
18:04SPEAKERAnd you can't use, like my bank,
18:07SPEAKERI can't log in with the frickin' iPad browser.
18:10SPEAKERI have to use their app.
18:11SPEAKER- I mean, I think that same principle
18:13SPEAKERwould apply to the out of box experience generally though,
18:15SPEAKERin that situation, because like Mac OS
18:17SPEAKERis not designed for touch interactions at all.
18:19SPEAKERSo like, what does that look like
18:21SPEAKERif somebody doesn't buy a keyboard
18:23SPEAKERand pointing device for it?
18:24SPEAKERLike, they would have to like significantly rework
18:27SPEAKERthe Mac OS UI to make it work just as an iPad without add-ons.
18:32SPEAKER- I agree.
18:32SPEAKER- And at that point, we're kind of getting
18:35SPEAKERalmost back into territory, like maybe it's better
18:37SPEAKERto just make iOS, or excuse me, iPad OS, I guess now.
18:41SPEAKERIt's called like, making iPad OS more robust
18:43SPEAKERis probably a more seamless transition
18:47SPEAKERthan making Mac OS work with touch.
18:49SPEAKER- I mean, bringing the real browser
18:51SPEAKERto iPad OS would be nice, right?
18:53SPEAKER- Sure.
18:54SPEAKER- I don't know.
18:55SPEAKERI think the real answer to this question is,
18:59SPEAKERit seems like it's a much,
19:00SPEAKERand Brad Turcus over at the full nerd
19:02SPEAKERhas talked about this 'cause he bought one,
19:04SPEAKERbut it seems like a much nicer laptop
19:05SPEAKERthan you get in the PC space for five, six hundred bucks.
19:08SPEAKER- Yeah, even as reduced as it is in some ways,
19:11SPEAKERlike it doesn't have,
19:12SPEAKERit's just a mechanical track touchpad
19:14SPEAKERinstead of a multi-touch or, you know.
19:16SPEAKER- Any RAM, all of that stuff, it's still pretty good.
19:19SPEAKER- Even still pretty good.
19:20SPEAKERHave you seen, this is the common narrative around the Neo
19:25SPEAKERand I think this is backed by reporting,
19:27SPEAKERbut I don't think I've read an actual story on it,
19:29SPEAKERbut the general narrative is this thing is based
19:33SPEAKERon A18 Pro chips that were poorly binned
19:36SPEAKERfrom that generation of iPhone,
19:38SPEAKERlike a core didn't work right or whatever.
19:41SPEAKERAnd this thing has been such a runaway success
19:43SPEAKERthat they have burned through there
19:45SPEAKER'cause they basically were using this
19:47SPEAKERas a way to get rid of chips
19:48SPEAKERthat were not good enough for iPhones.
19:50SPEAKERAnd this thing has sold maybe faster than they expected.
19:54SPEAKERAnd now they're approaching a point
19:56SPEAKERwhere I don't think the tooling is still set up
19:57SPEAKERto make those chips anymore.
19:59SPEAKERSo now they're kind of in a tough spot
20:02SPEAKERwhere they have this runaway success,
20:04SPEAKERbut it might not be worth,
20:05SPEAKERlike it might need into the margins too much
20:06SPEAKERto be worth making new chips to make more of these things,
20:09SPEAKERlike there's talk that they might rush the next generation
20:12SPEAKERof the Neo out faster and move to like an A19.
20:16SPEAKER- I mean, it wouldn't surprise me,
20:18SPEAKERit wouldn't surprise me if they do that.
20:20SPEAKERI think there's a lot of that happening.
20:21SPEAKERLike we saw that last year with AMD and some of their,
20:24SPEAKERlike they were releasing AIM 4 processors
20:26SPEAKERin like the global south that were clearly like badly binned
20:30SPEAKERor 7,600s or something, right?
20:32SPEAKER- Right.
20:34SPEAKERI would love for that to be the truth.
20:37SPEAKERI also, like it wouldn't surprise me
20:39SPEAKERif they have M1s and stuff like that.
20:41SPEAKERLike I look at those Walmart $600 MacBook M1s
20:47SPEAKERthat they sold last year,
20:48SPEAKERMacBook Air M1s that they sold last year.
20:50SPEAKERAnd somebody's clearly looking at the stuff
20:53SPEAKERthat they have stockpiled and being like,
20:55SPEAKER"Oh yeah, we should figure out a way to move this."
20:58SPEAKERAnd like in the old days it was,
20:59SPEAKER"Hey, we're gonna put an A4 in the Apple TV," right?
21:02SPEAKERNow, I don't know,
21:05SPEAKERlike this is a new frontier for them, so that's cool.
21:07SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
21:10SPEAKERAll right, this is more of just a quick comment
21:12SPEAKERthan a question.
21:13SPEAKERIt's from Tucson Ted.
21:15SPEAKER- You think he's related to--
21:17SPEAKER- Is he, do you think he is the more migratory cousin
21:20SPEAKERof Chicago Ted?
21:22SPEAKER- I mean, maybe it's the same guy
21:23SPEAKERand he just moved from Chicago to Tucson
21:25SPEAKERand M1s are much easier down there.
21:27SPEAKER- Wow, Chicago Ted skipped town?
21:30SPEAKER- I mean, it seemed like things weren't going great
21:32SPEAKERin Chicago from what I know about Chicago Ted.
21:34SPEAKER- Fair.
21:35SPEAKER- People are real confused
21:36SPEAKERif they haven't played Left 4 Dead also.
21:38SPEAKER- They should make another Left 4 Dead.
21:40SPEAKER- Let me tell you how many times
21:43SPEAKERI've had this conversation.
21:45SPEAKERHi, Chet.
21:47SPEAKER- All right, Tucson Ted writes in.
21:49SPEAKERThis is about like remote admin of mobile devices
21:52SPEAKERin the corporate world that we've talked about recently.
21:54SPEAKER- We talked about this a while ago.
21:55SPEAKER- I worked for a medium-sized business
21:56SPEAKERon a team managing company-owned laptops
21:58SPEAKERand access to company IM and email on personal phones.
22:01SPEAKERYour experience back in the day of IT departments
22:03SPEAKERhaving to wipe your whole phone to remove company data
22:05SPEAKERis 100% correct for that time.
22:08SPEAKERApple and Google have since added compartmentalization
22:10SPEAKERof company data to their respective OSs.
22:13SPEAKEREven Microsoft can now do it
22:14SPEAKERin bring your own device companies.
22:17SPEAKERNow mobile device management solutions
22:19SPEAKERcan selectively wipe company data
22:21SPEAKERwithout touching personal data.
22:22SPEAKERTools like Intune and other MDMs
22:24SPEAKERcan even block access to company data like email.
22:27SPEAKERIf your device doesn't meet company policy
22:29SPEAKERlike being jailbroken, behind on security patches,
22:32SPEAKERor physically in a non-approved location
22:34SPEAKERsuch as out of the country.
22:37SPEAKERAs long as your company's IT team is halfway decent,
22:39SPEAKERyou don't have to worry about company data
22:41SPEAKERon your personal phone anymore.
22:43SPEAKER- Okay, I realize that there's a difference
22:44SPEAKERbetween technical reasons that you can do things
22:47SPEAKERand how you can do things,
22:47SPEAKERand like morals is not the right word,
22:51SPEAKERbut reasons you as a consumer
22:53SPEAKERand a person who is an employee should do things.
22:57SPEAKERIt's good that they don't have to wipe the phone.
22:59SPEAKERThey still have the capability to wipe the phone
23:01SPEAKERif they want.
23:02SPEAKERAnd also, if they're not paying for my phone bill
23:05SPEAKERand/or giving me a device,
23:09SPEAKERI don't know why I should be subsidizing the companies
23:12SPEAKERhaving access to me in time
23:13SPEAKERthat I'm not supposed to be working.
23:15SPEAKER- Yeah, I agree.
23:16SPEAKERI agree.
23:17SPEAKER- This is why we both are indie, Brad.
23:19SPEAKER- That's right.
23:20SPEAKERThat's one of many like real, no joke.
23:22SPEAKERI mean, but also like, I don't wanna just blithely be like,
23:25SPEAKEReverybody should just work for themselves
23:26SPEAKER'cause that is a tall order, it's not easy.
23:28SPEAKER- Yeah, no, it sucks in a lot of ways.
23:30SPEAKER- Or what I mean is like everybody
23:31SPEAKERdoesn't just have the opportunity to jump ship
23:34SPEAKERif you've got a secure job and everything.
23:36SPEAKERBut that is genuinely one of the nice things
23:39SPEAKERabout self-employment.
23:40SPEAKERBut it's always one of the things I appreciated
23:42SPEAKERat Whiskey Media was they didn't give a shit.
23:44SPEAKERThere was no, half the company
23:47SPEAKERwas just using their own personal hardware
23:48SPEAKERand it was too small of a startup
23:49SPEAKERto care about any kind of like centralized management
23:52SPEAKERor whatever.
23:53SPEAKERIt was just like, hey, we'll buy you a computer if you want,
23:56SPEAKERor you can just use your laptop, just do whatever.
23:59SPEAKER- Do you know who managed all that stuff?
24:01SPEAKER- No.
24:02SPEAKER- It was me.
24:03SPEAKER- A little later, yeah.
24:04SPEAKER- Yeah, once I started, I did,
24:06SPEAKERI immediately started running all of the app login and stuff
24:10SPEAKERso that we could get real access to Google on our phones
24:13SPEAKER'cause that wasn't a thing that happened when I started.
24:16SPEAKERI was like, hey, why am I logging with IMAP here?
24:19SPEAKER- It was all, yes, it was all extremely DIY
24:22SPEAKERfor the first couple of years anyway.
24:27SPEAKEREmail from Lucas that is close to my heart.
24:30SPEAKERMicrosoft should sell a Linux distro
24:32SPEAKERthat looks like Windows 11 for $30.
24:35SPEAKERLinux has not nailed UX yet.
24:36SPEAKERIf Microsoft did this, it would ruin their mode,
24:39SPEAKERwhich is how hard it is to switch from Windows to Linux,
24:42SPEAKERbut they might stop the bleeding of users
24:44SPEAKERwho are tired of being treated like numbers on a spreadsheet.
24:46SPEAKERIf they don't get serious about Windows,
24:48SPEAKERthey won't make $30 per user,
24:49SPEAKERthey will make zero as everyone jumps to Linux.
24:53SPEAKER- So there's two different things here, right?
24:56SPEAKEROne is how it looks and how you interact with the computer.
24:58SPEAKERThe other is the software that runs.
25:00SPEAKERI would love to see Microsoft make a fork of WinBoat
25:03SPEAKER'cause WinBoat is the thing that basically runs emulation
25:05SPEAKERin the background and can do like virtualized instances
25:08SPEAKERfor a single application, basically.
25:10SPEAKER- Yeah.
25:13SPEAKERI would love what he is talking about,
25:15SPEAKERwhich is effectively like a POSIX compliant undercarriage
25:19SPEAKERwith the Windows UI on top
25:21SPEAKERand presumably all of the like Windows specific runtimes
25:24SPEAKERthat let you run the last 30 years of Windows software,
25:29SPEAKERwhich is exactly what I wish Windows was now.
25:31SPEAKERLike it's exactly, I've belly ached about this before,
25:33SPEAKERlike Microsoft's decision to go off
25:37SPEAKERand make their own kernel and their own OS
25:38SPEAKERand their own everything when everything else
25:40SPEAKERwas based on Unix across the computing industry
25:44SPEAKERhas led to some real friction.
25:46SPEAKERIt sucks because they're the only ones still these days,
25:49SPEAKERbut because they're so huge, you have to deal with it.
25:52SPEAKER- Yeah. - This actually, this touches
25:54SPEAKERon a really fascinating niche of like computing history.
26:00SPEAKERHave you ever heard of,
26:00SPEAKERlet me make sure I've got the name of this right.
26:02SPEAKERI've got a YouTube video saved in my watch later list
26:08SPEAKERthat I keep meaning to, yes, A-U-X, A slash U-X.
26:11SPEAKER- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Do you know what that is?
26:13SPEAKER- Yeah. - It's Apple's Unix
26:15SPEAKERthat like had a classic System 7 style finder on top of it.
26:19SPEAKERLike it was an alternative, you could buy it from Apple
26:22SPEAKERand run it on your Mac, but it was Unix underneath,
26:24SPEAKERbut with the Apple, with the then current
26:27SPEAKERlike System 7 interface on top.
26:29SPEAKER- Yeah, this was like mid '90s, right, early '90s.
26:33SPEAKER- '88 to '95 is- - Is when I was in college,
26:36SPEAKERI think. - Yeah, '88 to '95
26:37SPEAKERis the period they were selling that,
26:38SPEAKERwhich is crazy when you go back
26:40SPEAKERand read about how awful Mac OS,
26:42SPEAKERlike it wasn't Mac OS time. - Oh, Mac OS.
26:44SPEAKER- It was, you know, it was the Macintosh system software,
26:47SPEAKERI guess is what they called it, System 7, et cetera, et cetera,
26:49SPEAKERbut like- - It was terrible.
26:50SPEAKER- You know, I mean, famously,
26:51SPEAKERthat's the whole reason they bought,
26:53SPEAKERthey ended up buying NeXT, but almost bought B.
26:57SPEAKER- Yeah, there was a received battle.
27:00SPEAKER- Yeah, it was down to B and NeXT,
27:01SPEAKERbut the point is they had to buy a new operating system
27:03SPEAKERbecause the original one was so awful
27:05SPEAKERand they could not manage to replace it,
27:07SPEAKERbut it's crazy to think there was another,
27:09SPEAKERand I think AUX ran Mac software.
27:13SPEAKERLike, wasn't that part of the selling point?
27:14SPEAKER- I don't know about that.
27:15SPEAKERI think it was so you could connect to other Unix machines
27:18SPEAKERand like remote into them and stuff like that,
27:20SPEAKERbut I swear- - I never had any experience
27:21SPEAKERwith it. - Yeah, I never touched it.
27:22SPEAKERI'd swear part of the, we could follow up on this later-
27:26SPEAKER- We should do an episode about this.
27:28SPEAKERThat sounds interesting.
27:29SPEAKER- But like that idea of kind of older operating systems
27:31SPEAKERwith alternative kind of engines underneath
27:37SPEAKERis really fascinating to me.
27:38SPEAKER- Is there a Mac Mr. Core?
27:41SPEAKERThere isn't, is there?
27:41SPEAKER- I don't know.
27:42SPEAKERThere's definitely an Apple II Core.
27:44SPEAKER- Yeah, I knew there was an Apple II Core.
27:46SPEAKERI don't think there's a Mac Core, like a classic Mac.
27:48SPEAKER- I don't know.
27:50SPEAKERI wonder if anybody's bothered to do the work,
27:53SPEAKERthe FPGA work to make the,
27:55SPEAKERwhat was it, the Motorola processors work?
27:57SPEAKER- It looks like there is, in fact, a Macintosh Plus Core.
28:00SPEAKER- Oh, sick, okay.
28:01SPEAKER- I might have to mess around with that, actually.
28:04SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm kind of curious.
28:05SPEAKERI dated a girl who had a Mac Plus when I was in college,
28:08SPEAKERand like, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you,
28:10SPEAKERI was always like, "Hey, can I check my email
28:13SPEAKERon your computer?" - Sure.
28:16SPEAKERI've mentioned this, maybe we'll follow up on this later.
28:19SPEAKERLike, Microsoft made their own version of Unix
28:21SPEAKERcalled Zenix that was apparently pretty successful
28:23SPEAKERand quite good in the DOS era.
28:26SPEAKERLike, there was a proper multi-user,
28:28SPEAKERmultitasking operating system from Microsoft
28:31SPEAKERat the same time that DOS was starting to predominate,
28:34SPEAKERand it fucking sucks that DOS and then Windows
28:37SPEAKERare what took over instead of, like,
28:39SPEAKERit would be really nice if every operating system
28:42SPEAKERwas like kind of compatible at a basic level these days,
28:46SPEAKERbut they're not.
28:46SPEAKER- Look, man, if you're making computer software
28:50SPEAKERand you have the choice of making one computer
28:52SPEAKERfor a bunch of people or a bunch of computers
28:54SPEAKERfor one person each, which one's better for you?
28:56SPEAKER- Hmm, hmm.
28:58SPEAKER- Yeah. - Yup, all right.
29:02SPEAKERJonas writes in, "I believe this is a twofer?"
29:05SPEAKERYes, this is a twofer.
29:08SPEAKERThe first part, "I worked for Sharp Business Systems USA,
29:11SPEAKERa spinoff of Sharp Electronics Corporation.
29:13SPEAKERBefore I interviewed, I looked into Sharp
29:15SPEAKERso I could have some company knowledge to bring with me."
29:18SPEAKERIt's a good move.
29:18SPEAKER"I started by reading through their Wiki page,
29:20SPEAKERwhich is where I learned the following.
29:23SPEAKERIn 1912, Tokuji Hayakawa founded a metal workshop
29:27SPEAKERin Honjo, Tokyo.
29:29SPEAKERThe first of his many inventions
29:30SPEAKERwas a snap buckle named Toku Bjo.
29:33SPEAKERAnother of his inventions
29:35SPEAKERwas the ever-ready Sharp mechanical pencil in 1915.
29:39SPEAKERThe product became one of the first
29:41SPEAKERinternationally available mechanical pencils,
29:42SPEAKERwhile concurrent U.S. design replaced it soon
29:45SPEAKERand became a modern type.
29:47SPEAKERAnd due to this big success,
29:48SPEAKERthe Sharp Corporation derived its name from it."
29:51SPEAKERI did not know that the ever-ready Sharp
29:55SPEAKERwas the name of the product,
29:57SPEAKERand then they became the Sharp Corporation.
29:58SPEAKERThat's fun.
30:00SPEAKER- I had a Sharp calculator for a long time.
30:01SPEAKER- Hmm.
30:02SPEAKER- Like a solar digital pocket calculator.
30:05SPEAKER- Yeah. - It was very cool.
30:06SPEAKER- All right.
30:07SPEAKEROkay, so here's the other part of this email.
30:10SPEAKER"The podcast regarding File Explorer,"
30:12SPEAKERhe's talking about the Windows 11,
30:15SPEAKERwhat's wrong with Windows 11 episode we did last week.
30:18SPEAKER"I found some of the guys,
30:19SPEAKERsome of the issues you guys mentioned
30:21SPEAKERare solved by an app aptly called Files
30:24SPEAKERthat you can pick up for a one-time fee of $4.99.
30:28SPEAKERIt also defaults to local folders,
30:29SPEAKERnot the OneDrive garbage that you have to manually remove.
30:33SPEAKERIt has many other quality of life features,
30:35SPEAKERand they are constantly improving it."
30:37SPEAKER- So we've talked about Files before.
30:39SPEAKER- Yes, yes.
30:40SPEAKERI think you've used it.
30:41SPEAKER- I used it for a long time. - I got around to using it.
30:43SPEAKERI've looked at it and I've tried a couple other
30:45SPEAKERalternative File Explorer applications on,
30:47SPEAKERthere's some open source ones out there as well.
30:49SPEAKERI could have mentioned this on the Windows episode though.
30:52SPEAKERDo you remember years ago when people were mad
30:53SPEAKERthat iOS wouldn't let you set your own custom apps
30:56SPEAKERfor things like, oh, I wanna use my own default mail app,
31:00SPEAKERnot the Apple one.
31:01SPEAKERI want to use Google Maps, not,
31:02SPEAKERI wanna set my default browser.
31:04SPEAKER- Yeah.
31:05SPEAKER- Windows should have that for File Explorer applications.
31:08SPEAKER- Yeah, that was why I stopped using Files
31:10SPEAKERis because you'd have enough situations
31:12SPEAKERwhere you'd open something up
31:13SPEAKERand it wouldn't open the right thing
31:16SPEAKERand then you have to close it and open the right thing
31:17SPEAKERand it was just a hassle.
31:19SPEAKER- Too many cases where it's gonna spawn
31:20SPEAKERa File Explorer window anyway from some other application
31:23SPEAKERinstead of the one you want to use
31:25SPEAKERthat I just don't think it would, yeah, I don't know.
31:28SPEAKER- And it's been at least three years
31:31SPEAKERand maybe more than that since I used Trials last.
31:34SPEAKERI also found it was a little slower,
31:36SPEAKERwhich may not be the case anymore
31:37SPEAKERthanks to the efforts of the folks in Redmond.
31:40SPEAKER- Yes, fair.
31:42SPEAKER- On the pencil front, I got another pencil.
31:44SPEAKER- Oh, man, all right, that was quick.
31:46SPEAKER- Well, the other pencil didn't have an eraser
31:49SPEAKERso I started looking at good erasers
31:51SPEAKERand I found the Tombow company,
31:52SPEAKERwhich makes the mono plastic eraser,
31:55SPEAKERa classic, you'll recognize the design,
31:57SPEAKERit's like a blue stripe, a white stripe and a black stripe
32:00SPEAKERwith the word mono in between them.
32:02SPEAKER- Seen it.
32:03SPEAKER- They make a mechanical pencil that's an automatic pencil
32:05SPEAKERand as you write, it kind of, like, the lead extends
32:10SPEAKERjust by the movement of your hand.
32:11SPEAKER- Oh, another automatic feeding mechanism.
32:13SPEAKER- Another automatic feeding mechanism.
32:14SPEAKER- And it was not $245?
32:16SPEAKER- It was not $245, it was $8, I think.
32:18SPEAKER- Wow, man.
32:19SPEAKER- So this is the mono, this one's fine.
32:22SPEAKERI still like the big fat lead one better.
32:25SPEAKERThis is the Tombow mono graph.
32:28SPEAKERAnd the big feature is it has the fancy
32:31SPEAKERmono plastic eraser in the back and it keeps, it extends.
32:34SPEAKERIt's really, really long.
32:35SPEAKERIt's not like a normal quarter inch eraser.
32:37SPEAKERIt's like a full inch and a half of eraser.
32:40SPEAKERNow, I don't make mistakes, so it's not really something
32:42SPEAKERthat I need all that often, but of course.
32:44SPEAKERIf you were a person who made mistakes, it seems good.
32:46SPEAKER- Fair.
32:47SPEAKERMaybe one more email before we do some Discord questions.
32:49SPEAKER- Yeah, sure.
32:50SPEAKER- Big head mode.
32:52SPEAKERDo you think 3D printers will be common
32:53SPEAKERin every home in the next decade?
32:55SPEAKERI've seen the material realities of the process
32:57SPEAKERand I think it's much more likely that 3D printers
33:00SPEAKERare found in libraries, maker spaces
33:02SPEAKERand homes of small businesses.
33:04SPEAKER- I think it makes much more sense for them
33:05SPEAKERto be in a shared space, except for the time
33:08SPEAKERit takes to print stuff is sometimes pretty substantial.
33:11SPEAKERAnd so Norm's the lonely printer he's not using
33:18SPEAKERand I've been printing stuff for the last two weeks now.
33:23SPEAKERIt's remarkable how much more reliable they are
33:27SPEAKERthan the last time I touched them,
33:28SPEAKERwhich was admittedly a decade ago.
33:30SPEAKERBut getting as much more of a device
33:34SPEAKERthat you can hit the button and leave
33:36SPEAKERwhen you have a print fail, the camera is watching
33:40SPEAKERand it sends you a message on your phone
33:41SPEAKERor an email or whatever.
33:43SPEAKERIt's like, hey man, your print's jacked up.
33:44SPEAKERYou should go look at it.
33:45SPEAKER- I wonder, is that using computer vision?
33:47SPEAKER- Yeah, it uses computer vision.
33:48SPEAKERI think they say it has AI.
33:50SPEAKERI don't know what that means.
33:51SPEAKERIt's actual LLM kind of image processing AI
33:54SPEAKERor just pattern recognition, but yeah.
33:59SPEAKERSo yeah, like that said, most of the stuff
34:03SPEAKERthat I printed so far, like I printed a bunch of fidgets.
34:05SPEAKERLike I did a big hexagonal testing out
34:09SPEAKERsome new filament yesterday.
34:10SPEAKER- Oh, that's neat.
34:12SPEAKER- It's a good fidget, right?
34:14SPEAKERIt's like nested hexagons, like 30 or 40 of them.
34:17SPEAKERYou can kind of wiggle them around using the slack.
34:19SPEAKER- It's got a real fluid quality to it.
34:21SPEAKER- Yeah, it's pretty good.
34:22SPEAKER- Did you see that toilet fidget
34:23SPEAKERthat I bought at the last flea market?
34:25SPEAKER- Yeah.
34:26SPEAKER- Yeah, that thing's rad.
34:27SPEAKER- Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can do.
34:31SPEAKERIt's funny, the rise of keyboard switches
34:33SPEAKERand fidgets has been real good for,
34:37SPEAKERhey, you have a thing that clicks
34:39SPEAKERand makes a noise beyond just the clicking.
34:41SPEAKERLike Adam has one at the office
34:43SPEAKERthat's a duck quacking sound that you just hammer it
34:45SPEAKERand he goes quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.
34:50SPEAKERSo I printed a ton of like little shims and stuff.
34:53SPEAKERLike I printed a hook.
34:56SPEAKERI use an electronic toothbrush
34:58SPEAKERthat's like an ultrasonic toothbrush
34:59SPEAKERand you take the head off every day
35:01SPEAKERwhen you finish using it
35:03SPEAKERor else crud grows in the gap
35:05SPEAKERbetween the toothbrush head and the toothbrush itself.
35:08SPEAKERAnd like, I'd just been setting that
35:10SPEAKERlike business side down in my medicine cabinet
35:14SPEAKERand I printed a little hook that I jammed a magnet or two in
35:16SPEAKERand hung it on the wall, right?
35:18SPEAKER- Yeah.
35:19SPEAKER- And it's like little stuff that you can make
35:21SPEAKERin Tinkercad in about 10 minutes has been really good.
35:25SPEAKERI printed some hooks that are like the right thickness
35:30SPEAKERfor poster board posters that I have in my office
35:32SPEAKERthat are old maximum PC covers that hang on the wall
35:34SPEAKERand like I didn't wanna put anything through 'em
35:36SPEAKER'cause they're kind of special.
35:39SPEAKERBut I also don't wanna, like I didn't wanna get 'em framed
35:43SPEAKERbecause it would be stupid expensive
35:44SPEAKERand just make 'em thicker.
35:45SPEAKERSo I printed little corner holders
35:48SPEAKERthat are exactly the right thickness
35:49SPEAKERfor the different thicknesses of poster board
35:51SPEAKERthat they're printed on.
35:52SPEAKERI made a thing that lets me, that right angles,
35:56SPEAKERlike my Elgato face cam normally mounts on the bottom
36:00SPEAKERand because of where the camera is in my setup,
36:02SPEAKERit would be really nice
36:03SPEAKERif I could mount it from the back instead.
36:06SPEAKERSo I just printed an L-shaped bracket
36:08SPEAKERthat has holes in the right places for the USB to go through
36:11SPEAKERand to put quarter inch screw mounts in
36:15SPEAKERso that it can be mounted on the back
36:16SPEAKERinstead of on the bottom.
36:18SPEAKERSo it's like a bunch of little goofy stuff right now.
36:22SPEAKERBut there's real value
36:23SPEAKERand most of that stuff is like a 20 minute print.
36:25SPEAKERSo it does kind of make sense.
36:27SPEAKERI think-
36:28SPEAKER- Like that stuff is rad to me from,
36:31SPEAKERI mean, there's this kind of like almost utopian idea
36:34SPEAKERof democratizing that kind of thing
36:36SPEAKERfor DIY home improvement and repair and stuff like that,
36:41SPEAKERwhich is rad.
36:42SPEAKERBut I feel like that collides with the like,
36:45SPEAKERnot just technical aptitude,
36:46SPEAKERbut also just the like energy level of the average person
36:48SPEAKERto go through everything you need to do to get to that point
36:51SPEAKERand I feel like the vast majority of people are probably,
36:54SPEAKERunless it gets way, way more turnkey and easier to access,
36:58SPEAKERI just don't see the average person
37:01SPEAKERmaking that huge investment for deferred payoff.
37:05SPEAKERYou know, like there's, it's a lot,
37:07SPEAKERit's still a quite a bit of equipment and know-how
37:09SPEAKERthat you have to build up
37:10SPEAKERfor something you were going to use later when you need it.
37:12SPEAKERI'm not right now.
37:14SPEAKER- It's, I mean, I think like anything else,
37:16SPEAKERit's that you don't buy that and then look for a project.
37:19SPEAKERYou buy it because you have a project
37:21SPEAKERthat you need that for.
37:22SPEAKER- Yeah, fair, fair, yeah.
37:23SPEAKER- I think about like my daughter's basketball goal
37:28SPEAKERhas a big water tank on the bottom
37:30SPEAKERand the cap for the tank that you put the water in
37:34SPEAKERgot pushed through a few years ago.
37:37SPEAKERAnd I was looking at it the other day and I was like,
37:38SPEAKERoh, this is something I can model in about five minutes
37:41SPEAKERand put the right size lip on,
37:43SPEAKERright size plug and all that.
37:44SPEAKERAnd so I got the right kind of filament
37:46SPEAKERthat won't break down in the sun to jam out the other day
37:49SPEAKERand I'm going to print one later this afternoon.
37:50SPEAKER- That's cool, it's awesome that that exists.
37:52SPEAKERLike it's cool for people who want to do it.
37:55SPEAKER- Yeah, and it's going to cost me like 35 cents
37:57SPEAKERand it's a thing that would have cost me 20 bucks
37:59SPEAKERif I ordered the replacement part from the company
38:01SPEAKERthat made the basketball hoop
38:02SPEAKERafter it was shipped and all that stuff.
38:04SPEAKER- The other layer to this ecosystem that I think,
38:06SPEAKERI mean, it already exists in addition to people like you
38:09SPEAKERwho are very motivated and are going to do this themselves
38:11SPEAKERand also the like putting it in shared spaces.
38:14SPEAKERLike there's also just the sort of like subreddit of people
38:17SPEAKERwho offer to print things for you
38:19SPEAKERor the Etsy makers, you know, they're like--
38:22SPEAKER- The library, the library is the answer.
38:25SPEAKERThere's a bunch of these bamboo printers
38:26SPEAKERat the South San Francisco Public Library
38:30SPEAKERthat you could just come in and check out
38:32SPEAKERand you can put a print on and come back two days later
38:34SPEAKERand it's done.
38:35SPEAKER- But I mean, for people to even,
38:35SPEAKEReither don't have access to that at their library at all
38:38SPEAKERor don't care enough to invest that time and effort.
38:41SPEAKERLike just the, you know, you need one thing
38:42SPEAKERevery three years, you can just go online
38:44SPEAKERand get somebody to do it for you.
38:45SPEAKERLike there's also like that capability
38:47SPEAKERis just going to get better.
38:48SPEAKER- Well, and then the other part of it
38:50SPEAKERis that each of these problems,
38:52SPEAKERassuming people upload their solutions
38:54SPEAKERto like Thingiverse or Printables
38:56SPEAKERor one of the places that Norm talked about
38:58SPEAKERon the episode a few weeks ago, MakerWorld, one of those,
39:02SPEAKERif you know, if you can search well for them,
39:05SPEAKERyou can often find somebody who already solved the problem.
39:07SPEAKER- Yeah.
39:08SPEAKER- So you don't have to do the actual Tinkercad work
39:10SPEAKERor whatever.
39:11SPEAKER- Yeah, it's not a one-to-one comparison,
39:14SPEAKERbut this kind of reminds me of the like hardcore AI advocates
39:17SPEAKERthat are basically like, ah, software engineering is dead.
39:20SPEAKEREverybody's just going to prompt their own custom apps
39:21SPEAKERfor everything in the future.
39:22SPEAKERLike, are you fucking kidding?
39:24SPEAKERLike really?
39:26SPEAKERLike, do you really think every single person out there
39:28SPEAKERis going to, especially once AI,
39:30SPEAKERwhen LLMs start charging what they actually need to charge
39:33SPEAKERto make money and not as like a VC driven loss leader?
39:37SPEAKERLike are people, do you really think people are going to pay
39:40SPEAKER20, $30 a month to have to mentally spec out
39:43SPEAKERthe apps they need, spend the time iterating on them
39:45SPEAKERto make them work right and then keep them up to date
39:47SPEAKERand like secure, like, come on.
39:49SPEAKER- Look, that's engineer logic, right?
39:50SPEAKER- It's like, come on.
39:52SPEAKER- Yeah.
39:53SPEAKER- Like it is just, it is just like so dismissive
39:55SPEAKERof the way that the average person uses technology.
39:58SPEAKER- I will say Harry McCracken, who is a friend
40:02SPEAKERand somebody I've respected for a long time
40:03SPEAKERwas the former editor in chief of PC World long time ago,
40:08SPEAKERhas been writing his own,
40:10SPEAKERhe's been vibe coding his own text editor.
40:13SPEAKER- Oh yeah, there are definitely people who can
40:14SPEAKERand will do that, like for sure.
40:16SPEAKER- It's been really fascinating to watch him
40:18SPEAKER'cause like he's gone through this whole process
40:20SPEAKERand as he said, like he has really specific requirements,
40:23SPEAKERhe has specific needs and then there's also a ton of stuff
40:26SPEAKERin most word processes that he absolutely doesn't need
40:29SPEAKERand just getting like it honed down to be like
40:32SPEAKERthe distraction free but exactly what he needs solution
40:36SPEAKERhas been, it's been fun watching him figure that out.
40:39SPEAKER- I think we all know how I feel about AI stuff in general
40:46SPEAKERbut I think that there's real benefit to people,
40:49SPEAKERto more people getting some product design experience
40:53SPEAKERby doing that kind of exercise.
40:55SPEAKER- Sure.
40:56SPEAKER- 'Cause I think just that the,
41:00SPEAKERand it doesn't have to be in this,
41:01SPEAKERit could be something else,
41:02SPEAKERit could be designing a new toilet paper holder
41:04SPEAKERfor your bathroom, right?
41:05SPEAKERWhen you start thinking like a product designer,
41:08SPEAKERwhen you start thinking like somebody who has to build
41:10SPEAKERsomething that tens or hundreds or hundreds of thousands
41:14SPEAKERof people are gonna potentially touch,
41:18SPEAKERit gives you a different approach and different focus
41:20SPEAKERand more understanding about all the other millions
41:22SPEAKERof things that you touch every day that are designed.
41:24SPEAKER- That is 100% true.
41:25SPEAKERI've actually, so I've, that is a super valuable
41:28SPEAKERlike mental discipline or exercise.
41:29SPEAKERI've actually done this a few times now.
41:32SPEAKERLike I've said before,
41:33SPEAKERI occasionally am using Co-Pilot a bit in Windows
41:35SPEAKERbecause it's free, I'm just gonna use it
41:37SPEAKERuntil they turn off the spigot for things
41:40SPEAKERthat are not easily searchable.
41:41SPEAKERBut I've done this two or three times where I like,
41:44SPEAKERI've gone to it and sort of proposed a piece of software,
41:46SPEAKERbut I have been incredibly explicit about,
41:49SPEAKERdo not write any code, do not show me any code.
41:51SPEAKER- Yeah.
41:52SPEAKER- Because I don't want it to write code for me.
41:53SPEAKERI want to do that myself because that's the fun part
41:56SPEAKERand the valuable learning part.
41:58SPEAKERBut there have been, there have been like, okay,
42:00SPEAKERA, it is actually really valuable in terms of making
42:04SPEAKERyourself think through what it is you need
42:06SPEAKERin a really like clearly delineated and like systematized
42:09SPEAKERway in terms of kind of like you said,
42:11SPEAKERbeing sort of an amateur sort of product designer
42:14SPEAKERor product manager.
42:15SPEAKERB, it's like turned me on to a lot of options
42:17SPEAKERfor implementing it myself that I would not have
42:20SPEAKERknown about otherwise.
42:22SPEAKERIt's like I, you know, I described this very generalized
42:24SPEAKERset of features I'm looking for and like I'm gonna do
42:26SPEAKERin Python 'cause that's what I've got the most skill with.
42:28SPEAKERBut then it goes and proposes some like obscure Python
42:31SPEAKERmodule I didn't know existed that I can go out and plug in
42:34SPEAKERand get a bunch of functionality out of, you know?
42:36SPEAKERIt's like, ah, here's this thing for watching directories
42:38SPEAKERand looking for file changes and here's this thing
42:41SPEAKERthat specializes in generating XML, you know?
42:43SPEAKERAnd it's like, oh, like, okay, you're proposing some like
42:46SPEAKERLegos that I can plug together that I would not have known
42:49SPEAKERabout to make this work better but you're not actually
42:51SPEAKERdoing any of it for me.
42:52SPEAKER- And I think this is the reason that the engineer
42:56SPEAKERand valley types all think that AI is gonna eat the world
42:59SPEAKERis because it's really good at that stuff.
43:01SPEAKERLike if you say, hey, I wanna do this with an application
43:05SPEAKERand it says, okay, here's what we should,
43:07SPEAKERhere's the pieces you need.
43:10SPEAKERDo you wanna build them?
43:11SPEAKERDo you want me to build them?
43:13SPEAKERLike that is a tractable problem.
43:15SPEAKERThere's multiple right answers.
43:18SPEAKERThere's no dissemination 'cause it either works
43:21SPEAKERor it doesn't at the end of the day.
43:23SPEAKERAnd like it's a really, like I was talking to a friend
43:25SPEAKERwho's a developer yesterday and I was like, hey,
43:29SPEAKERdo you just tell it what you want it to do?
43:30SPEAKERHe's like, well, no, I sit down and I tell it
43:32SPEAKERwhat I want it to do and tell it to break it into sections.
43:35SPEAKERAnd then either I write those sections
43:36SPEAKERor I get it to write those sections.
43:38SPEAKERSo that A, I understand what's actually happening
43:42SPEAKERin the app and B, the code is manageable to the point
43:45SPEAKERthat I can actually review it and it generates it.
43:49SPEAKERBut also as he said, he didn't think he would have been able
43:53SPEAKERto do that if he hadn't spent 20 years writing software
43:56SPEAKERthe old fashioned way.
43:57SPEAKERThat's the ability to understand both what it's doing
44:00SPEAKERand the overarching systems architecture stuff is hard
44:05SPEAKERand is a skill.
44:06SPEAKERSo anyway.
44:07SPEAKER- But it definitely has introduced me some, I guess,
44:08SPEAKERlike patterns as the sort of coding appropriate jargon
44:12SPEAKERfor like different techniques, not algorithms as such,
44:16SPEAKERbut like it's kind of helping me understand
44:18SPEAKERlike how an event loop works and like what other approaches
44:21SPEAKERto that kind of thing are and stuff like that.
44:24SPEAKERI also this week, I got to have the experience
44:26SPEAKERof having to go back and add to something I wrote
44:28SPEAKERabout three years ago now, which had no LLM involvement
44:33SPEAKERwhatsoever, but that was a fun one.
44:35SPEAKERIt was the little tool that I used to process podcasts
44:37SPEAKERseveral times a week.
44:38SPEAKERLike I had need of some new functionality in that
44:40SPEAKERand had to go back and stare at what I did
44:43SPEAKERlike three years ago and try to make sense
44:46SPEAKERof all the uncommented stuff.
44:47SPEAKERSo I could add like six lines.
44:49SPEAKER- Should you put some comments in there?
44:51SPEAKER- Not really.
44:52SPEAKER- Future you will thank you.
44:54SPEAKER- Yeah.
44:55SPEAKER- I guess my point is code works that way
44:57SPEAKERand developing applications work that way,
44:59SPEAKERbut most other stuff doesn't, right?
45:01SPEAKERAnd that's where this breaks down.
45:03SPEAKERThat's where the whole thing breaks down.
45:04SPEAKERLike the writing doesn't work, art doesn't work that way.
45:07SPEAKER- Yep, all right, let's do some discord questions here.
45:10SPEAKER- Yeah.
45:11SPEAKER- Siradar, I find that my job of technical support man
45:14SPEAKERmeans that some things seep over into the world
45:17SPEAKERoutside of work, replying to personal emails
45:19SPEAKERwith the customer service tone, that sort of thing.
45:23SPEAKERDo you find that the job of talking to microphones man
45:25SPEAKERseeps over into your life outside of work?
45:27SPEAKERFor example, do you have an overwhelming urge
45:29SPEAKERto fill silence in conversations?
45:31SPEAKER- Well, that's my job on podcasts.
45:33SPEAKERLike every podcast has two, it's like law and order.
45:37SPEAKEREvery podcast has two parts.
45:39SPEAKEROne is the pensive, thoughtful question asker
45:42SPEAKERand one is the person who never stops talking
45:44SPEAKERto keep the silence from existing.
45:46SPEAKER- It's a good cop, bad cop situation.
45:49SPEAKER- Yeah, well, the criminal justice system,
45:51SPEAKERyou know, police and anyway.
45:56SPEAKER- My daughter and wife accuse me
45:58SPEAKERof professor willing occasionally,
46:02SPEAKERwhich is their nice way of saying, yo,
46:04SPEAKERyou don't have to explain everything.
46:06SPEAKER- Fair.
46:07SPEAKER- It's not that nice also, yeah.
46:09SPEAKER- I have gotten into the habit of occasionally
46:12SPEAKERtalking to my girlfriend and being like,
46:14SPEAKERokay, I'll only spend 30 seconds telling you about this,
46:17SPEAKERI promise and then I'll stop.
46:20SPEAKER- Look, everybody has stuff that they're interested in
46:24SPEAKERthat people around them maybe are less interested in, right?
46:27SPEAKERAnd like, you know, my wife watches some TV shows
46:31SPEAKERthat I just could give a fuck about,
46:33SPEAKERbut she's excited about them
46:34SPEAKERand I'll always talk to her about it.
46:35SPEAKERLike, it's always fun to like,
46:36SPEAKERI like the reason I liked doing Tested so much
46:39SPEAKERwas it's always fun to talk about stuff with people
46:41SPEAKERwho are really excited about the thing
46:42SPEAKERthat they're talking about, right?
46:44SPEAKER- Yep.
46:45SPEAKER- So yeah, I don't know.
46:47SPEAKER- There was, I don't know if you saw,
46:48SPEAKERthere was a TikTok going around the last couple of days.
46:51SPEAKERSomebody who, I mean, they're in character play,
46:54SPEAKERkind of play acting this,
46:55SPEAKERbut the idea was like, think about all the bullshit
46:58SPEAKERyou write in corporate emails,
46:59SPEAKERwhich is what he's talking about in this question.
47:01SPEAKERNow imagine like somebody in their eighties
47:03SPEAKERin 30 or 40 years with dementia who can only speak in,
47:08SPEAKERI'm gonna put a pen in that.
47:09SPEAKERCan everybody see my camera?
47:10SPEAKERI'll follow up with you.
47:11SPEAKERLike imagine when the current generation of Corpo drones
47:18SPEAKERstarts to age.
47:19SPEAKER- Oh no.
47:20SPEAKER- Can only speak in corporate email.
47:22SPEAKER- Oh, that's the most cursed thing I've heard in a long time.
47:24SPEAKER- Yeah, it's, it's dire.
47:28SPEAKER- So is that worse or is it worse when you get
47:31SPEAKERto like the brain rot Gen Z kids
47:33SPEAKERthat are like six, sevening in their dementia phase?
47:38SPEAKERThis is my dementia age era.
47:41SPEAKER- This was all too dire for this time of morning.
47:43SPEAKER- Yeah, no, why did you bring this hex upon us?
47:46SPEAKER- Let's just read another actionable question here.
47:49SPEAKER- I love this idea.
47:50SPEAKERThere's one from Figleby.
47:52SPEAKER- That's a good name too.
47:53SPEAKER- How do you guys feel about ultra wide monitors
47:55SPEAKERversus two traditional monitors?
47:57SPEAKERI'm considering making the switch
47:58SPEAKERto free up a little desk space.
48:00SPEAKERI usually have all my communication apps,
48:02SPEAKERoutlook teams, discord, et cetera, on the right screen
48:05SPEAKERand have my productivity applications on the left.
48:08SPEAKERHow do you guys handle your monitor setups and workflows?
48:10SPEAKERExactly like that.
48:11SPEAKERLike quite literally what you just described.
48:13SPEAKERI have two regular 16 by nine monitors.
48:15SPEAKERThe one on the right is exactly what you said,
48:17SPEAKERemail and discord and such and Slack.
48:20SPEAKERThe one in front of me is the main monitor.
48:22SPEAKERSo I don't know about you.
48:25SPEAKER- So I do top and bottom just 'cause if I do left,
48:27SPEAKERif I do stuff that I use all the time on the left or right,
48:29SPEAKERthen I end up with real sore neck.
48:31SPEAKER- Yeah, so that's something I really need to interrogate.
48:35SPEAKERI had my first followup after this surgery a couple days ago
48:39SPEAKERand confirmed with the surgeon
48:40SPEAKERthat the amount of time spent looking down
48:44SPEAKERwas definitely a contributing factor in the problem
48:47SPEAKERI had to have surgery for.
48:48SPEAKER- You're getting a hub?
48:49SPEAKERIs that the situation?
48:50SPEAKER- Well, it was stenosis.
48:51SPEAKERIt was, you know, the vertebrae grew extra bone basically.
48:54SPEAKERAnd like he called it tech neck.
48:56SPEAKERLike he said, yes, that's a huge problem these days.
48:58SPEAKERAnd he also said like, it's partially genetic.
49:01SPEAKERHe's like, there are people that can look down all the time
49:03SPEAKERlike this and not have this happen
49:04SPEAKERbecause some of it is predisposition,
49:07SPEAKERbut also keeping your head in that correct position
49:09SPEAKERfor too long is definitely a problem.
49:12SPEAKERThe thing I did not think to ask him though,
49:13SPEAKERis what about side to side movement?
49:15SPEAKERBecause the amount of time I spend with my head
49:18SPEAKERto the right looking at this right monitor
49:22SPEAKERis also questionable probably.
49:24SPEAKERBut I really, like some people are fine with this,
49:27SPEAKERbut there's kind of that orientation
49:29SPEAKERwhere you can have the two monitors and stare at the seam,
49:32SPEAKERlike orient your head at the seam in between them
49:34SPEAKERand look back and forth.
49:35SPEAKER- Well, it sucks if you play games.
49:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't like that at all.
49:39SPEAKERSo I'm not down.
49:41SPEAKEROf course, even with an ultra wide,
49:42SPEAKERyou're still having to turn your head back and forth, right?
49:44SPEAKER- Well, you just need to get further away from it.
49:46SPEAKER- I guess so.
49:47SPEAKERI really like 16 by nine monitors,
49:50SPEAKERlargely for things like games
49:51SPEAKERthat expect you to have a 16 by nine screen.
49:54SPEAKERLike I just don't want to deal with software
49:56SPEAKERthat doesn't know how to handle a non-standard aspect ratio,
49:59SPEAKERespecially for streaming.
50:00SPEAKER'Cause the amount of streaming we do in particular,
50:03SPEAKERlike it's really too much work to deal with cramming.
50:07SPEAKERLike what is the, is it like 32 by nine
50:09SPEAKERis probably the most common ultra wide?
50:13SPEAKER- Some are 21 by nine.
50:14SPEAKER- Right, sure.
50:17SPEAKER- That Samsung G9 is 32 by nine, I think,
50:21SPEAKERor 29 by nine or something.
50:22SPEAKERIt's enormous.
50:23SPEAKERIt's like 170 degrees or something when you sit in it.
50:28SPEAKER- Yeah, like if you're not streaming,
50:29SPEAKERthis is not a problem, obviously,
50:31SPEAKERbut it's much easier to just have a screen
50:33SPEAKERthat is 16 by nine and capture that
50:35SPEAKERinto a 16 by nine stream container.
50:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I was gonna say if I'm ever in a situation
50:41SPEAKERwhere I'm not streaming on the reg,
50:43SPEAKERthen, or don't have to capture video for work,
50:45SPEAKER'cause a lot of my stuff, like I have to capture video
50:48SPEAKERfor community and for game dev stuff fairly regularly,
50:52SPEAKERlike at least a couple times a week,
50:54SPEAKERand having the 16 by nine monitor
50:56SPEAKERmakes that much, much easier.
50:59SPEAKERI, switching to the tiling window manager in Linux
51:02SPEAKERhas made me pine for the days of the ultra wide,
51:05SPEAKERbecause it is made for that kind of like,
51:08SPEAKERlike Neary with its infinite scrolling panel
51:12SPEAKERmakes me think that the Samsung G9
51:14SPEAKERwith its huge field of vision,
51:16SPEAKERand like that would be amazing.
51:19SPEAKERBut also, so I do top and bottom because of the neck thing,
51:22SPEAKERso I'm always looking up to do the com stuff,
51:24SPEAKERand email and Slack and Discord and all that stuff
51:26SPEAKERlives on the top monitor.
51:28SPEAKERAnd it means that I kind of rock back in my chair
51:32SPEAKERa little bit when I need to do stuff up top instead of.
51:35SPEAKER- I will say, I will, based on recent experience,
51:38SPEAKERI will recommend trying to pivot at the waist
51:40SPEAKERas much as possible and not at the neck.
51:42SPEAKER- Yeah.
51:45SPEAKERSo I really, really, really like having monitor arms.
51:49SPEAKERI have clamp on arms for both of the monitors.
51:52SPEAKERThey're both on actually one arm,
51:54SPEAKERand there's just a pivot,
51:56SPEAKERlike there's a boom that kind of comes out of the arm
51:59SPEAKERthat both monitors are hooked on to.
52:00SPEAKER- I also have a dual monitor single mounts thing.
52:04SPEAKER- But you could probably just make that go vertical
52:06SPEAKERif you have the right size pole for it.
52:08SPEAKER- Yeah.
52:09SPEAKER- Yeah, I highly recommend the vertical.
52:11SPEAKERVertical's great.
52:12SPEAKER- I will never ever again have monitors not on arms
52:15SPEAKERfor the rest of my life.
52:16SPEAKERIt is just, it's just too convenient.
52:18SPEAKER- Yeah, I literally, I was looking at the monitor
52:22SPEAKERI bought earlier this year when my 4K monitor crapped out,
52:25SPEAKERand I just threw away the stand for it.
52:28SPEAKER- Wow, no kidding.
52:30SPEAKER- Like, there's no reason to keep it.
52:32SPEAKER- Yeah.
52:33SPEAKER- The other thing I'm thinking,
52:35SPEAKERlike right now I have the 4K on the bottom
52:37SPEAKERand I have an old 1080p 360 monitor up top,
52:40SPEAKERand I'm kind of thinking that I might switch to a 1440p
52:43SPEAKERfor the main monitor, 'cause like with the scaling,
52:45SPEAKERthat's essentially what resolution I'm running,
52:48SPEAKERand then scale the 4K, put that up top,
52:50SPEAKERand put that at 1440p as well
52:52SPEAKERfor when I need to capture a 4K video.
52:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I've, this is actually something
52:56SPEAKERwe should talk about sometime soon.
52:58SPEAKEROnce I go through this process as well,
52:59SPEAKERI'm gonna get some computer-specific glasses.
53:02SPEAKER- Oh yeah, I'm gonna do that too.
53:04SPEAKER- I can't see the monitor with my current progressive lenses
53:07SPEAKERanymore very well.
53:08SPEAKER- Oh no.
53:10SPEAKER- Which is a whole other thing.
53:11SPEAKERI think that might be interesting to talk through one side,
53:13SPEAKER'cause there's a bunch of different configurations
53:15SPEAKERfor correction at different distances
53:18SPEAKERand how that's laid out in the lens.
53:20SPEAKERYou know, how much three foot distance do you get
53:22SPEAKERversus how much far distance,
53:23SPEAKERhow much like, you know, 12 inch, anyway.
53:26SPEAKERBut--
53:27SPEAKER- I'm still good at three feet,
53:28SPEAKERbut I feel I'm finding myself having to move the phone
53:30SPEAKERfurther and further away when I use it, which is not good.
53:33SPEAKERI can't even read my watch.
53:35SPEAKER- Oh no.
53:36SPEAKER- Like I can't, I could just barely extend my arm
53:40SPEAKERaway from my face enough to kind of read the watch
53:42SPEAKERwithout pulling my glasses off at this point.
53:45SPEAKERBut--
53:46SPEAKER- So I dug out my old Zune HD this weekend
53:48SPEAKERand was, I had bought an $8 battery replacement for it.
53:52SPEAKERAnd I realized that I had to get,
53:54SPEAKERI have to get like a work,
53:55SPEAKERone of those work lights with the magnifier on it
53:58SPEAKERfor when I'm doing up close work like that.
54:00SPEAKER'Cause I don't have, like it used to be,
54:02SPEAKERwell, A, I don't like soldering and stuff
54:03SPEAKERwith my glasses off 'cause it's dangerous.
54:06SPEAKERYou don't want solder flicked into your eyeball.
54:09SPEAKERBut like I just don't have,
54:12SPEAKERlike if it's far enough away to see clearly,
54:15SPEAKERI can't, the pieces are too small.
54:17SPEAKERAnd if it's up close enough,
54:19SPEAKERI have to take the glasses completely off.
54:20SPEAKERAnd that's, anyway, it's a disaster.
54:22SPEAKER- Yeah.
54:23SPEAKER- Getting old sucks, you shouldn't do it.
54:24SPEAKER- Yeah, it's not great.
54:25SPEAKERWell, it beats the alternative.
54:27SPEAKER- Probably, yeah.
54:29SPEAKER- The reason I brought the glasses thing up though
54:30SPEAKERis that like that, notwithstanding,
54:32SPEAKERI think I've really settled on 1440p at 27 inches,
54:36SPEAKERa really nice sweet spot of pixel density and size
54:39SPEAKERwithout having to do UI scaling.
54:42SPEAKER- Yeah, if I didn't have to capture 4K on the reg,
54:46SPEAKERlike PC World posts everything in 4K.
54:48SPEAKERSo for them, I'd capture it in 4K.
54:51SPEAKER- If you've got actual 4K like job requirements
54:54SPEAKERthat doesn't work, but just for gaming
54:57SPEAKERand like basic productivity, I think it's good.
54:59SPEAKER- I think for, there's this,
55:02SPEAKERlike I realized when I was setting up this near machine,
55:05SPEAKERI tried a bunch of different scaling factors
55:07SPEAKERand the one I ended up at was the one
55:10SPEAKERthat landed me at 1440p, which I think is 1.5.
55:13SPEAKERAnd it's a really nice balance.
55:16SPEAKERLike I can have a lot of windows open if I want,
55:19SPEAKERif I want to make something big, games run great.
55:21SPEAKERLike it's, yeah, it's a good setup, good way to go.
55:24SPEAKER- Yeah, and then, you know,
55:26SPEAKERnot having to deal with the scaling is nice.
55:28SPEAKERI mean, also the other thing is it makes monitors cheaper.
55:31SPEAKER- Yeah, 'cause that's the fat part of the market right now.
55:33SPEAKER- I think it was Dell or Alienware recently put out
55:37SPEAKERa 1440p 27 inch OLED monitor for like 350.
55:40SPEAKERLike the OLED monitors at that set, at that configuration
55:45SPEAKERare starting to get like commodity level pricing almost.
55:48SPEAKER- That's pretty revolutionary.
55:49SPEAKERLike that's a big, that monitor is a pretty big deal.
55:52SPEAKERBut yeah, like it's wild that that's where we're at now.
55:56SPEAKER- Totally, like I've held off on an OLED monitor
55:58SPEAKER'cause I will run into burn-in,
56:00SPEAKERlike I just use too many UI elements
56:02SPEAKERin the same place all the time.
56:03SPEAKERLike it will burn in eventually,
56:04SPEAKERbut once it starts getting maybe a little cheaper than that,
56:07SPEAKERit starts to get a lot easier to swallow the, yeah, anyway.
56:13SPEAKER- Yep.
56:14SPEAKER- All right, Fortune has a good question.
56:16SPEAKEROn April 1st, 2026, Apple turned 50.
56:20SPEAKERIt feels like it's been a very muted anniversary
56:22SPEAKERfor such a big company.
56:24SPEAKERDo you think Apple doesn't really care about
56:26SPEAKERmarking milestones or is pointing out
56:28SPEAKERthat a company seen as cutting edge is 50 years old now,
56:31SPEAKERsomething they would want to avoid?
56:33SPEAKER- Do you think Apple's seen as cutting edge?
56:35SPEAKER- I think so.
56:37SPEAKERI, okay, well that, as with many things in technology,
56:40SPEAKERthat question can be approached from many angles.
56:42SPEAKERI think like at the low level of technology
56:46SPEAKERthat most people don't, who use their products
56:47SPEAKERdon't care about or don't think about, absolutely, 100%.
56:51SPEAKER- Probably individual products are like,
56:53SPEAKERthis year's iPhone is a,
56:55SPEAKERpeople look at it as a cutting edge thing.
56:57SPEAKERI mean, the goggles are kind of cool.
56:58SPEAKER- I'm just, I mean, again, this is like not the category
57:01SPEAKERmost people are thinking about
57:02SPEAKERwhen they ask a question like this,
57:03SPEAKERbut I'm thinking about like their approach to security
57:05SPEAKERof their operating system,
57:06SPEAKERall of the like crazy seamless interoperability
57:09SPEAKERthat's enabled between their products,
57:11SPEAKERyou know, like the handoff of AirPods between devices,
57:13SPEAKERlike they put a lot of low level architectural work
57:17SPEAKERinto their stuff that is absolutely bleeding edge
57:20SPEAKERin a way that most companies can't
57:22SPEAKERif they don't manage the entire hardware
57:24SPEAKERand software stack top to bottom.
57:26SPEAKER- That's true.
57:26SPEAKER- Like Microsoft can never do that stuff
57:28SPEAKER'cause they don't control hardware most of the time.
57:30SPEAKERBut in terms of like their product offerings,
57:34SPEAKERlike in fact, Tim Cook being outgoing now
57:36SPEAKERhas triggered a bunch of like retro reflection,
57:39SPEAKERretrospectives on his tenure.
57:41SPEAKERAnd a lot of people are like,
57:42SPEAKERyeah, it kind of sort of stagnated under like the,
57:46SPEAKERlike the watch was kind of the one major new
57:48SPEAKERand I guess AirPods were the only real.
57:50SPEAKER- AirPods are a big deal.
57:51SPEAKERI mean, they're great, like they're excellent products,
57:53SPEAKERbut like there has not been anything
57:55SPEAKERon the level of an iPhone or iPad under his watch.
57:58SPEAKER- I mean, I think, I don't know that you can expect that.
58:01SPEAKERI don't think the iPad,
58:03SPEAKERI don't think the iPhone and iPad are in the same category.
58:06SPEAKERThe iPad's neat, but it's not a generational product.
58:08SPEAKERAnd the iPhone is a generational product.
58:10SPEAKERI would argue that the Apple Watch and the AirPods
58:12SPEAKERare probably in the same kind of tier list as the iPad.
58:16SPEAKER- Yeah, sure.
58:17SPEAKER- In terms of impact.
58:21SPEAKER- I think, so I saw a picture the other day
58:24SPEAKERthat Microsoft, Xbox posted when Matt and Asha did their,
58:28SPEAKERhey, we're talking to the people who work at Xbox
58:31SPEAKERwho still remain.
58:33SPEAKERAnd they had everybody in the lobby
58:34SPEAKERof one of those buildings in Redmond.
58:36SPEAKERAnd I looked at that picture
58:37SPEAKERand I didn't see very many people under 50.
58:39SPEAKER- Huh.
58:40SPEAKER- Like it was all old people.
58:42SPEAKERAnd like, you know, I'm not one to be ageist about stuff,
58:47SPEAKERbut I think that a lot of the current large tech companies
58:51SPEAKERhave a problem,
58:52SPEAKERespecially as they've laid off a bunch of people
58:55SPEAKERand probably a lot of the junior people
58:58SPEAKERthat these workforces are aging in a way
59:02SPEAKERthat they don't, they definitely, it's definitely a problem.
59:07SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, I can see it.
59:09SPEAKER- Yeah, Apple, I would bet,
59:13SPEAKERlike we never see pictures of Apple's workforce
59:15SPEAKERfor good reason.
59:17SPEAKERI wonder if they have a similar problem.
59:21SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess that's possible.
59:23SPEAKER- Yeah.
59:24SPEAKER- And also like all of the, I don't know,
59:27SPEAKERall the energy, all the youth,
59:28SPEAKERall the VC is going into AI companies at this point.
59:31SPEAKERSo there's like, there's nobody,
59:32SPEAKERnobody is out there founding
59:33SPEAKERnew traditional technology companies.
59:35SPEAKERThey're all chasing that.
59:37SPEAKER- You can't get money if you don't have AI
59:39SPEAKERpart of your pitch these days is the common wisdom.
59:41SPEAKER- Yup.
59:42SPEAKER- I can't imagine at the college job fairs
59:47SPEAKERkids are going to the Microsoft booth.
59:49SPEAKERI assume the Microsoft booth has similar vibes
59:51SPEAKERto like the IBM booth when we were kids, right?
59:54SPEAKER- Sure, sure.
59:55SPEAKERAnd where does that put IBM then relatively?
59:58SPEAKERLike IBM's 100 and something years old now.
1:00:00SPEAKER- I mean, they're in the GE section now.
1:00:02SPEAKER- Yes, like they're basically just B2B at this point.
1:00:06SPEAKER- Yeah, well, they do, they're almost like consultants,
1:00:10SPEAKERright, they do, if you have a computing problem,
1:00:13SPEAKERthey can come fix it.
1:00:14SPEAKER- Yup, a question from Frangus.
1:00:18SPEAKER- Frangus is a good name.
1:00:19SPEAKER- Yup, is the Windows 11 experience different
1:00:22SPEAKERdepending on what country you're from?
1:00:24SPEAKERI live in Norway and find Windows 11
1:00:25SPEAKERto basically be the same as 10, no co-pilot push,
1:00:28SPEAKERno ads anywhere, listening to the podcast
1:00:31SPEAKERand the general hate for Windows 11
1:00:32SPEAKERmakes me think there must be a difference.
1:00:34SPEAKER- The EU has a little bit of a different Windows experience
1:00:37SPEAKERbecause of antitrust regulation.
1:00:39SPEAKER- The other thing is if you have different versions
1:00:42SPEAKERof Windows, it's different.
1:00:43SPEAKERSo if you're on an enterprise version of Windows,
1:00:45SPEAKERit is much more like Windows 10.
1:00:47SPEAKERIt's challenging for consumers
1:00:49SPEAKERto get the enterprise version of Windows.
1:00:51SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:00:52SPEAKER- And just to be clear, I'm not talking about Pro,
1:00:53SPEAKERI'm talking about the actual enterprise version of Windows.
1:00:56SPEAKER- Sure.
1:00:57SPEAKEROkay, I'm gonna read a question about home automation.
1:01:01SPEAKERI don't wanna try to pronounce the username.
1:01:02SPEAKERDo you wanna give it a shot?
1:01:04SPEAKER- Arnesis LeCaw.
1:01:06SPEAKER- Yeah, okay, sure, I'll accept that.
1:01:08SPEAKERCan you give an update on your home automations
1:01:10SPEAKERyou currently use?
1:01:12SPEAKER- Yeah, so I have, my stuff's relatively straightforward.
1:01:15SPEAKERIt's basically lighting that turns on
1:01:17SPEAKERand then there's home and away.
1:01:19SPEAKERSo when anybody's at home, then the house is in one mode
1:01:23SPEAKERand when everybody goes away,
1:01:24SPEAKERthen it changes into like away mode,
1:01:26SPEAKERwhich turns off the lighting automations,
1:01:31SPEAKERor actually sets them to away automation.
1:01:33SPEAKERSo like the front porch light still comes on,
1:01:35SPEAKERit stays on until somebody comes home, basically.
1:01:39SPEAKERThe bedroom lights,
1:01:40SPEAKERwhich are on the street side of the house turn on,
1:01:42SPEAKERso it looks like people are home, even if there aren't,
1:01:44SPEAKERbut the rest of it stays the same.
1:01:46SPEAKER- In Home Assistant, can you kind of define home
1:01:48SPEAKERand away globally and the specific automations
1:01:51SPEAKERfor those things fall under those umbrellas,
1:01:54SPEAKERor do you have to go into each one and give it to version?
1:01:56SPEAKERLike, how do you manage that state?
1:01:58SPEAKER- The way I have it set up,
1:02:00SPEAKERand I think that this is one of those things
1:02:01SPEAKERwhere there's a whole bunch of different ways to do it,
1:02:03SPEAKERand I think they probably have a better system
1:02:04SPEAKERthan what I'm using, 'cause I did this
1:02:06SPEAKERbefore they added the new system,
1:02:08SPEAKERis when everybody's away, it turns off certain automations,
1:02:12SPEAKERand when everyone's home, it turns on certain automations,
1:02:15SPEAKERor when anyone's home, it turns on certain automations.
1:02:18SPEAKERNow, there have been some hilarious fuck-ups
1:02:20SPEAKERwhere like a babysitter, my sister-in-law was here
1:02:23SPEAKERwith the kiddo, and the kiddo didn't register as a person
1:02:26SPEAKER'cause she didn't have a phone at that time,
1:02:28SPEAKERand then all the lights turned off at six o'clock,
1:02:29SPEAKERand they were just sitting in the dark
1:02:30SPEAKER'cause they couldn't figure out how to turn them on.
1:02:32SPEAKER- Yeah, that's fun.
1:02:34SPEAKERI was gonna ask, 'cause that's how it's tracking.
1:02:35SPEAKERIf somebody's home,
1:02:36SPEAKERit's purely based on the presence of phone.
1:02:38SPEAKER- Yeah, the phone location is the thing.
1:02:41SPEAKERNow, once the kiddo got a watch,
1:02:42SPEAKERit wasn't a problem anymore,
1:02:44SPEAKER'cause I just tied it to that, and it's geofenced.
1:02:47SPEAKER- I don't know if support,
1:02:49SPEAKERsurely support for this exists in some form in there.
1:02:51SPEAKERYou could probably also set that up
1:02:53SPEAKERbased on movement detection,
1:02:55SPEAKERmotion detection as well, in some fashion.
1:02:57SPEAKER- So I stopped doing that
1:02:58SPEAKERbecause all of my motion sensors are battery-powered,
1:03:01SPEAKERand that meant as soon as the battery died,
1:03:04SPEAKERthen stuff stopped working in unpredictable ways
1:03:06SPEAKERthat, like, if I was traveling for work,
1:03:08SPEAKERmy wife couldn't figure out.
1:03:09SPEAKER- That maybe seems like an actual productive application
1:03:12SPEAKERof the technology where you can track human movement
1:03:14SPEAKERthrough Wi-Fi disturbance in the future, maybe.
1:03:17SPEAKER- Yeah, well, you have that.
1:03:19SPEAKERThat exists.
1:03:20SPEAKERYou can buy those for like 40 bucks a pop.
1:03:21SPEAKER- You can do that now?
1:03:22SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:03:24SPEAKERThey're called millimeter-wave sensors,
1:03:25SPEAKERand they use existing 2.4,
1:03:28SPEAKERI think 2.4, maybe it's five gigahertz.
1:03:29SPEAKERI can't remember, radio noise to infer.
1:03:32SPEAKERAnd the resolution you get on that
1:03:34SPEAKERis all the way down to, like,
1:03:35SPEAKERis this person sitting on the couch
1:03:37SPEAKERor are they laying on the couch?
1:03:38SPEAKER- It seems like you could do some pretty specific detection
1:03:41SPEAKERto say, hey, if you recognize human shapes moving around,
1:03:43SPEAKERthen somebody's home.
1:03:44SPEAKER- You can detect if people are asleep, theoretically.
1:03:48SPEAKERSo I don't have that.
1:03:50SPEAKERI'd have to climb up in the attic to wire that stuff in
1:03:53SPEAKER'cause it requires hard wire,
1:03:54SPEAKERand you usually put it in the ceiling.
1:03:57SPEAKERThe big stuff that I do is just lighting.
1:03:59SPEAKERSo I have lighting automations that turn on at dusk
1:04:04SPEAKERbased on latitude, longitude,
1:04:06SPEAKERand then the fact that there's a giant mountain
1:04:09SPEAKERin the southern exposure that blocks the sun
1:04:11SPEAKERmost of the year.
1:04:13SPEAKERAnd then I have another automation
1:04:15SPEAKERthat runs at like 10.30 at night
1:04:16SPEAKERthat starts to dim the lights a little bit.
1:04:18SPEAKERSo it goes from full bright daytime transition
1:04:21SPEAKERto evening transition.
1:04:24SPEAKERAnd then I have another one that runs at midnight
1:04:26SPEAKERthat turns almost everything off
1:04:29SPEAKERbecause usually that's one person is up
1:04:31SPEAKERand they're kind of in the living room.
1:04:35SPEAKERI also have an automation that sets the color
1:04:40SPEAKERof an RGB bulb by the front door
1:04:43SPEAKERwhen the air quality is above 50,
1:04:46SPEAKERthe PM 2.5 is above 50,
1:04:51SPEAKERthat lets me know that maybe you should start thinking
1:04:53SPEAKERabout having a breath mask on you if it's fire season.
1:04:56SPEAKER- Does that bulb just stay off
1:04:58SPEAKERif it's below the threshold?
1:04:59SPEAKER- It's white if it's below the threshold, if it's on.
1:05:02SPEAKERIf it's during the daytime, it's off.
1:05:03SPEAKERIf it's on during the daytime, it's red.
1:05:08SPEAKERAnd so we ended up with this
1:05:12SPEAKERbecause it ended up being like the easiest,
1:05:14SPEAKERlike you wanted things like the exterior lighting
1:05:17SPEAKERat the holiday season to turn off at like 10 o'clock
1:05:19SPEAKERand my front porch lights turn off at 10 o'clock
1:05:22SPEAKERand the backyard lights turn off.
1:05:24SPEAKERI have a couple of other automations
1:05:26SPEAKERthat are like the back door opens
1:05:28SPEAKERand the light that goes that's right beside that turns on,
1:05:32SPEAKERstuff like that, but that's the main brunt.
1:05:34SPEAKER- That's cool.
1:05:35SPEAKERI was just thinking yesterday,
1:05:36SPEAKERthere's wildfires in Georgia right now
1:05:38SPEAKERand it reminded me of the,
1:05:41SPEAKERthere was that period here in the Bay Area
1:05:42SPEAKERin like 2019 to '20 where it was like,
1:05:45SPEAKERall of a sudden it was like, oh my God.
1:05:47SPEAKER- Or in the sky.
1:05:48SPEAKER- Is this just gonna be like every summer,
1:05:50SPEAKERthe whole state's gonna be covered in smoke now?
1:05:52SPEAKERHas this just become wildfire country?
1:05:53SPEAKERBut it turns out instead,
1:05:56SPEAKERit's just everywhere is wildfire country now
1:05:58SPEAKER'cause it seems like there are always bad wildfires
1:06:00SPEAKERsomewhere, but it's not any one place.
1:06:02SPEAKER- There are no individual climate related disasters.
1:06:06SPEAKERIt's all the same disaster.
1:06:07SPEAKER- Yeah, anyway, upbeat.
1:06:10SPEAKERMy home assistant situation is way more simple,
1:06:13SPEAKERway simpler than yours even.
1:06:15SPEAKERLike I basically just use it as a bridge
1:06:17SPEAKERbetween different brands of smart plugs.
1:06:19SPEAKER- Can you do it all manually, right?
1:06:20SPEAKERFor the most part?
1:06:21SPEAKER- Which, what do you mean by manual?
1:06:23SPEAKER- Like you used to turn on light off lights
1:06:25SPEAKERwith the app on your phone?
1:06:26SPEAKER- I do have some on timers,
1:06:27SPEAKERlike the lights in this office go on and off.
1:06:31SPEAKERLights in the bed, like I have a,
1:06:33SPEAKERwe have like a red light or an orange light bulb
1:06:35SPEAKERin the bedroom that is timed to the sunset.
1:06:37SPEAKERSo like-
1:06:38SPEAKER- Rocks, eh?
1:06:39SPEAKER- Yeah, sure.
1:06:40SPEAKERLike basically like an orange light turns on in the bedroom.
1:06:43SPEAKER- Okay.
1:06:44SPEAKER- Whenever it thinks is sunset every day.
1:06:47SPEAKER- Okay.
1:06:48SPEAKER- Just so there's not like a dark room
1:06:50SPEAKERwhen you're walking around at night.
1:06:51SPEAKER- Okay, I like that.
1:06:52SPEAKER- And it goes off at like 9.30 or whatever,
1:06:54SPEAKERbut yeah, it's super limited.
1:06:56SPEAKERIt's all just lighting and smart switches.
1:06:57SPEAKERAnd again, it's, I mostly just use it, like I said,
1:07:00SPEAKERto be able to use the same interface
1:07:02SPEAKERfor different brands of smart plugs
1:07:04SPEAKERand not have to use all their individual apps
1:07:06SPEAKERor like connect them all to like Apple Home individually.
1:07:09SPEAKERIt's been really interesting to see
1:07:11SPEAKERhow much some people are using Home Assistant
1:07:14SPEAKERas like the center of everything they do in their house now.
1:07:17SPEAKER- It's definitely capable of that
1:07:19SPEAKERin a way that it hasn't really been before.
1:07:21SPEAKERLike I know it's a really robust ecosystem,
1:07:23SPEAKERbut you see people out there using it for everything
1:07:25SPEAKERfrom like their home VPN to like 3D printing stuff
1:07:27SPEAKERto like audio airplay type playback and stuff.
1:07:31SPEAKERAnd like, that's just not the way I like doing things.
1:07:33SPEAKERLike I like much more of a distributed,
1:07:37SPEAKERyou know, like everything is doing one job kind of thing
1:07:39SPEAKERand not putting too much load bearing on one application.
1:07:43SPEAKER- So my VPN runs on it, but like the one into the house.
1:07:49SPEAKERI have music assistant running on it right now,
1:07:51SPEAKERwhich is amazing by the way,
1:07:52SPEAKERif you haven't tried music assistant and you have like,
1:07:55SPEAKERlike I have multiple, I have Google speakers,
1:07:57SPEAKERI have Sonos speakers,
1:07:58SPEAKERI have a bunch of different stuff in the house.
1:08:00SPEAKER- I think I've heard of that recently.
1:08:02SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a Home Assistant fork spinoff project basically.
1:08:06SPEAKER- Okay, oh, does that not run in Home Assistant?
1:08:09SPEAKER- It can, yeah, it can.
1:08:10SPEAKERIt will run as a plugin or whatever.
1:08:14SPEAKERBut the neat thing it does is it kind of unifies,
1:08:16SPEAKERif you have like, for example, like my wife has Spotify,
1:08:20SPEAKERbut we also get Apple Music as a family
1:08:22SPEAKERand it lets us both interface with those products
1:08:25SPEAKERand across all the different devices
1:08:27SPEAKERthat we have in the house
1:08:28SPEAKERin a way that really makes sense and is easy.
1:08:30SPEAKERAnd it also unifies with like your local library
1:08:33SPEAKERand stuff like audio bookshelf and all that.
1:08:35SPEAKERIt's super good.
1:08:37SPEAKER- This sounds like, sorry,
1:08:38SPEAKERI'm just looking through it real quick.
1:08:39SPEAKERThis sounds like basically what I use Onetone for,
1:08:42SPEAKERexcept this probably does way more.
1:08:44SPEAKER- Yeah, I think this supports stuff that goes beyond,
1:08:47SPEAKER'cause Onetone's Airplay, right?
1:08:48SPEAKER- It's just for sending, I mean, it'll take, oh God,
1:08:52SPEAKERSpotify, like your local library, Spotify,
1:08:55SPEAKERand like a few other services as input and then,
1:08:57SPEAKERbut it's mostly just for streaming to Airplay devices, yeah.
1:09:00SPEAKER- So the thing that this doesn't do
1:09:02SPEAKERthat I would love for it to do, I think,
1:09:03SPEAKERis it doesn't show up as a Spotify endpoint.
1:09:06SPEAKERSpotify is a neat protocol that like speakers can,
1:09:09SPEAKERyou can connect speakers to your Spotify account,
1:09:11SPEAKERlike Sonos or Google or whatever.
1:09:13SPEAKERAnd then in the Spotify app,
1:09:15SPEAKERjust like with an Airplay endpoint,
1:09:17SPEAKERit'll pop up the speaker as an output.
1:09:22SPEAKERSo you don't have to do any kind of
1:09:24SPEAKERshenaniganry to configure it.
1:09:27SPEAKERBut yeah, the problem with music assistant
1:09:29SPEAKERis a little heavy for the CM5 and my Raspberry Pi
1:09:33SPEAKERin my own assistant yellow box,
1:09:36SPEAKER'cause it's like a CM5
1:09:37SPEAKERand I just don't have enough RAM for it.
1:09:38SPEAKERSo I think I'm gonna move it over onto the Beelink server.
1:09:44SPEAKERJust to be fair to own tone, it'll stream to iTunes,
1:09:46SPEAKERwhich is D-A-A-P Roku,
1:09:48SPEAKERwhich I guess has its own streaming protocol,
1:09:50SPEAKERwhich is RSP, Airplay devices and Chromecast.
1:09:52SPEAKERSo it does do a decent number of devices.
1:09:54SPEAKERThere's one other thing I'm trying to find here real quick
1:09:56SPEAKERbefore we move on.
1:09:58SPEAKERCan't find the name of it.
1:09:59SPEAKERDid you know there is a,
1:10:01SPEAKERthere's basically an open standard kind of version
1:10:04SPEAKERof Airplay, not version of Airplay,
1:10:05SPEAKERbut an equivalent Airplay that has come up
1:10:08SPEAKERin the last like year.
1:10:09SPEAKERI forget the name of it.
1:10:11SPEAKERLike it's effectively-
1:10:11SPEAKER- Microsoft was pushing, right?
1:10:13SPEAKER- This is like fully kind of open source
1:10:15SPEAKERfrom the ground up.
1:10:16SPEAKERIt basically functions like Airplay
1:10:18SPEAKERwhere it can do multi-room streaming.
1:10:20SPEAKERIt's just a different protocol for streaming audio devices,
1:10:24SPEAKERbut it's like fully open.
1:10:25SPEAKERAnd like, I can't remember the name of it right now,
1:10:28SPEAKERbut it's cool that that's happening in case, you know,
1:10:31SPEAKERApple ever decides to kill off Airplay or whatever.
1:10:35SPEAKERLike there's now an open version of that.
1:10:37SPEAKER- That's cool.
1:10:39SPEAKER- And I'm hopeful that maybe that'll,
1:10:41SPEAKERthat kind of thing will come in handy
1:10:42SPEAKERfor resuscitating Sonos devices one day,
1:10:44SPEAKERbecause as somebody who has a couple of Sonos devices
1:10:49SPEAKERthat I'm worried or constantly worried
1:10:51SPEAKERare going to be end of life or whatever,
1:10:54SPEAKERand you just want people to do anything with them,
1:10:56SPEAKERlike I'm hoping for jail breaks or something
1:10:59SPEAKERon those things at some point,
1:11:00SPEAKER'cause they're like very high quality speaker
1:11:01SPEAKERor reasonably high quality speakers.
1:11:03SPEAKER- Yeah, I have a couple of old play threes
1:11:05SPEAKERor something that I use just as like ambient music
1:11:08SPEAKERin a couple of rooms.
1:11:10SPEAKER- The music assistant is really good for that,
1:11:12SPEAKERfor what it's worth.
1:11:13SPEAKERYou should look at that.
1:11:14SPEAKERIt might replace own tone, 'cause it'll do Airplay as well.
1:11:17SPEAKERIt'll do all the things that you want.
1:11:20SPEAKER- Okay, last question, probably.
1:11:22SPEAKER- Sure.
1:11:24SPEAKER- DC Actual.
1:11:26SPEAKERDo we know if the Orion capsule runs on Linux?
1:11:29SPEAKERI know they use Windows Surface devices,
1:11:30SPEAKERbut that stuff isn't controlling a rocket engine.
1:11:33SPEAKER- So the acm.org blog had a really good post
1:11:39SPEAKERcalled How NASA Built Artemis II's Fault-Tolerant Computer.
1:11:42SPEAKER- Yeah, that piece, I will link that piece in the show notes.
1:11:45SPEAKERIt is fascinating.
1:11:47SPEAKER- The TLDR is that they use a thing called Realtime OS,
1:11:50SPEAKERwhich is made by Green Hills Software, I think, right?
1:11:54SPEAKER- I believe that's the case.
1:11:55SPEAKER- That runs--
1:11:56SPEAKER- Yeah, they put out a press release.
1:11:57SPEAKERGreen Hills Software congratulates NASA and Lockheed Martin
1:12:00SPEAKERon the successful first crewed flight
1:12:02SPEAKERof the Orion spacecraft.
1:12:04SPEAKERLooking for...
1:12:08SPEAKEROkay, the Orion spacecraft runs the Integrity 170...
1:12:11SPEAKEROh, oh, oh, RTOS is not the name of their product.
1:12:14SPEAKERThat's a generic term.
1:12:16SPEAKER- Oh, generic term, okay.
1:12:17SPEAKER- Integrity 178 is the name of the operating system
1:12:20SPEAKERthat they make, but it is an RTOS.
1:12:23SPEAKER- Got it.
1:12:27SPEAKER- I'll just put it this way.
1:12:28SPEAKERWhen I click through to the Integrity 178 page,
1:12:32SPEAKERthe kind of banner at the top is full of rescue helicopters
1:12:36SPEAKERand fighter jets and cargo planes.
1:12:39SPEAKERThis seems like a product very much sold
1:12:42SPEAKERto kind of aerospace.
1:12:44SPEAKER- They're a military contractor, yeah.
1:12:46SPEAKERSo the interesting thing about the way
1:12:50SPEAKERthe flight control software on the spacecraft work,
1:12:53SPEAKERat least NASA spacecraft, is they...
1:12:58SPEAKERWell, starting with the shuttle, I guess,
1:13:01SPEAKERthey looked at having triple redundancy,
1:13:05SPEAKERwhich is what most avionics stuff does,
1:13:07SPEAKERisn't sufficient when you mess up
1:13:09SPEAKERand you're gonna go into outer space
1:13:11SPEAKERfor the rest of your lives, however short that may be.
1:13:15SPEAKERSo with the shuttle, they had four computers,
1:13:18SPEAKERor they had eight computers
1:13:19SPEAKERthat were all running simultaneously
1:13:22SPEAKERthe same calculations in sync,
1:13:24SPEAKERand they were designed to no-send a fail, basically.
1:13:29SPEAKERSo if they got a bit flip because of a cosmic ray burst,
1:13:34SPEAKERif some high-energy particle hit the RAM
1:13:36SPEAKERand jacked something up,
1:13:38SPEAKERthey would just say, "I'm out of this calculator."
1:13:40SPEAKERBasically, they're all racing to do the calculation
1:13:42SPEAKERand they fall off one by one
1:13:43SPEAKERuntil hopefully three or four agree with each other.
1:13:47SPEAKERAnd then they also had an extra computer,
1:13:49SPEAKERa single computer that was running a completely different OS,
1:13:52SPEAKEReverything different, that also was supposed to agree
1:13:54SPEAKERwith the output of the main cluster of, I think, eight.
1:13:58SPEAKER- Yeah, so it sounds like that's kind of exactly
1:13:59SPEAKERthe setup they've gotten on Artemis as well.
1:14:02SPEAKER- Yes, so the shuttle computers were based
1:14:04SPEAKERon IBM tiny mainframe boxes
1:14:09SPEAKERthat were originally built for the military
1:14:11SPEAKERfor B-52s and B-1Bs, B-1 bombers.
1:14:16SPEAKERThis new one is a newer,
1:14:18SPEAKERit's not, I don't know that there's any direct lineage,
1:14:20SPEAKERbut it's the same idea on seemingly newer hardware.
1:14:25SPEAKER- I don't think they've come out and said
1:14:26SPEAKERwhat the hardware is that Artemis is using.
1:14:29SPEAKERI mean, there's a list of supported processors
1:14:31SPEAKERon the Integrity 178 page,
1:14:33SPEAKERso we could certainly get an idea of,
1:14:36SPEAKERit's one of about a dozen, roughly.
1:14:38SPEAKERThere's a bunch of arms, a few Intel chips,
1:14:41SPEAKERand some power PC that it's supported on.
1:14:44SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:14:45SPEAKER- But I'm like pretty safe to assume
1:14:48SPEAKERit is not like bleeding edge, fast hardware.
1:14:50SPEAKERIt is something very old and hardened and reliable.
1:14:54SPEAKER- Yeah, that's it.
1:14:56SPEAKERSo it's like the arm, the newest thing here,
1:14:58SPEAKERthey have like Cortex-A9s on the processor list,
1:15:01SPEAKERwhich is kind of crazy.
1:15:02SPEAKERThat's a relatively new processor.
1:15:03SPEAKER- Yeah, actually there is 13th gen Intel Core i7
1:15:07SPEAKERis listed here.
1:15:08SPEAKERBut I mean, I would assume NASA
1:15:10SPEAKERis probably using something more,
1:15:12SPEAKERprobably don't wanna put Raptor Lake in.
1:15:15SPEAKER- I hope they updated the BIOS
1:15:17SPEAKERbefore they launched this thing, if they did.
1:15:20SPEAKERSo yeah, the interesting thing is
1:15:22SPEAKERthere's a whole bunch of work that they did.
1:15:24SPEAKERLike the article that is gonna be in the show notes
1:15:27SPEAKERtalks about how they had like a network redundancy
1:15:31SPEAKERbetween the computers,
1:15:32SPEAKERhow they keep everything in sync
1:15:33SPEAKERacross the slow network buses, stuff like that.
1:15:37SPEAKER- That's the craziest part to me.
1:15:39SPEAKERIt is, what is it?
1:15:40SPEAKERIt's basically, it's two flight computers,
1:15:41SPEAKEReach containing two identical flight control modules.
1:15:44SPEAKERAnd then each of those modules has two independent
1:15:47SPEAKERerror correcting CPUs.
1:15:49SPEAKER- So it's eight total processors running in parallel.
1:15:52SPEAKER- Like a farm of eight.
1:15:54SPEAKER- Plus the one that's running something
1:15:55SPEAKERcompletely different.
1:15:56SPEAKERWhat would they call that, the BFS,
1:15:59SPEAKERthe backup flight software,
1:16:00SPEAKERwhich like you said is a completely different system
1:16:03SPEAKERdoing the same thing just in case.
1:16:04SPEAKERAnd this article goes into like some very quick,
1:16:08SPEAKERvague talk about like what happens
1:16:10SPEAKERin a total disaster situation in terms of recovery.
1:16:13SPEAKER- Yeah, I feel like after the shuttle program ended
1:16:17SPEAKERand they did the, they declassified some of the stuff,
1:16:21SPEAKERthey talked about how they designed that stuff.
1:16:25SPEAKER'Cause the space shuttle was fly by wire, right?
1:16:27SPEAKERSo there's no, like the computer mediated the input
1:16:30SPEAKERby the astronauts to turn it into translation control
1:16:33SPEAKERfor the aircraft, for the spacecraft.
1:16:37SPEAKERAnd they talked about how they got all that stuff synced up
1:16:42SPEAKERand how they designed the software.
1:16:44SPEAKERI wanna say there's a,
1:16:45SPEAKERI'll see if I can find the article about it
1:16:47SPEAKER'cause it was fascinating that talked about
1:16:49SPEAKERhow they ended up with this scheme of having the cluster
1:16:53SPEAKERplus the one thing that was running something
1:16:55SPEAKERcompletely different so that if there was a failure
1:17:00SPEAKERin the cluster, like if there was a software bug
1:17:02SPEAKERin the cluster that caused an error,
1:17:04SPEAKERthen hopefully that essentially fault tolerant machine
1:17:07SPEAKERwould pick that up.
1:17:09SPEAKERThey also talked about in the article,
1:17:11SPEAKERin the CSM article.
1:17:15SPEAKER- Or ACM. - ACM article, sorry.
1:17:17SPEAKER- This publication is called "Communications of the ACM"
1:17:19SPEAKERwhich basically seems like kind of a academic level
1:17:24SPEAKERcomputing industry sort of trade publication.
1:17:26SPEAKERI'm gonna have to keep an eye on the site
1:17:27SPEAKER'cause it's like some real deep computer science nerd shit.
1:17:32SPEAKER- Well, I think ACM is the society of computer.
1:17:34SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what I assume.
1:17:36SPEAKERBut this seems like they're sort of like trade publication.
1:17:39SPEAKERLike some of the headlines,
1:17:41SPEAKER"We must teach computer science in prison."
1:17:44SPEAKERAmazon's quiet overhaul of the trademark system.
1:17:49SPEAKERAnd there were a couple others that really caught my eye.
1:17:50SPEAKER"The golden rule of big memory, persistence is not harmful."
1:17:54SPEAKERLike, and the credits just sound like
1:17:56SPEAKERacademic white paper credits.
1:17:57SPEAKERLike I may have to dig into some of this stuff.
1:18:00SPEAKERIt sounds pretty interesting.
1:18:02SPEAKER- Well, so they talk a little bit about
1:18:04SPEAKERhow they use supercomputers to introduce novel faults
1:18:07SPEAKERin the programs when they were testing this stuff.
1:18:10SPEAKERAnd they did things like mimic solar flares
1:18:13SPEAKERand high energy particles hitting different parts
1:18:16SPEAKERof the processor to do that.
1:18:21SPEAKERAnd then also it has to be fault tolerant
1:18:23SPEAKERto the point that if power goes out completely,
1:18:25SPEAKERit has a recovery process that can get the capsule going.
1:18:28SPEAKER'Cause this is the computer that controls everything
1:18:30SPEAKERfrom when the rocket fires and when the thrusters fire
1:18:34SPEAKERand how the input from the controls
1:18:36SPEAKERjust translated to the thrusters
1:18:39SPEAKERto the positioning of the solar panels
1:18:41SPEAKERand all that kind of stuff.
1:18:42SPEAKER- Yeah, there's like 800 lines of interesting conversation
1:18:45SPEAKERkind of come off of this.
1:18:46SPEAKERWe probably could do a whole episode
1:18:48SPEAKERif we had the expertise,
1:18:49SPEAKERbut the network determinism is the really crazy one to me
1:18:53SPEAKERbeyond the redundancy in the processing.
1:18:57SPEAKERLike that they have to,
1:18:59SPEAKERI mean, this stuff is like mostly over my head,
1:19:01SPEAKERbut they have to like chop up the network traffic
1:19:03SPEAKERand keep it all in sync in a real time way.
1:19:06SPEAKERAnd basically like they are constantly
1:19:07SPEAKERlike up to every second,
1:19:09SPEAKERresetting the clocks on the individual modules
1:19:12SPEAKERas they talk to each other over the network,
1:19:14SPEAKERbecause it all has to be in sync in real time,
1:19:16SPEAKERwhich is just crazy.
1:19:19SPEAKERI guess the answer to the actual question,
1:19:20SPEAKERdoes it run Linux?
1:19:22SPEAKERLinux just got real time support like a year or two ago.
1:19:26SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:19:27SPEAKER- I don't remember exactly when that was,
1:19:27SPEAKERbut I remember it was like a big forensics headline
1:19:29SPEAKERwhen they finally got that in.
1:19:31SPEAKERI guess they'd been working on it for like a decade or more,
1:19:34SPEAKERI think, but at any rate,
1:19:36SPEAKERyou can see why something that is open source
1:19:38SPEAKERand just became capable in that way
1:19:41SPEAKERwould probably not be appropriate in this setting.
1:19:43SPEAKER- I think that the Green Hills people
1:19:45SPEAKERhave a reputation as being pretty strongly
1:19:47SPEAKERagainst open source software.
1:19:48SPEAKER- I'm sure, 100%.
1:19:50SPEAKER- Probably because of their situation
1:19:53SPEAKERin the military contractors.
1:19:54SPEAKER- Those defense contracts are extremely fat, I am sure.
1:19:59SPEAKERThere's one other thing I was gonna mention here.
1:20:00SPEAKERDo you know the YouTube channel, Laurie Wired?
1:20:03SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:20:04SPEAKER- Are you familiar with her?
1:20:05SPEAKER- Yeah, did she do the RAM thing a few weeks ago?
1:20:08SPEAKER- Possibly, she puts out so many videos.
1:20:09SPEAKERI think it's hard to keep up, but I,
1:20:11SPEAKERokay, there's two things here.
1:20:12SPEAKERI wanna say, generally, I feel like people
1:20:15SPEAKERare way too willing to assign authority
1:20:19SPEAKERto people on social media
1:20:20SPEAKERwho just sort of talk a lot about a thing.
1:20:23SPEAKERI think, generally, people should be more discerning
1:20:26SPEAKERabout who they consider experts on places like social media
1:20:30SPEAKERjust because they address things a lot.
1:20:32SPEAKERThat said, I think she is the exception
1:20:34SPEAKERthat proves the rule here.
1:20:35SPEAKERI think she might be one of the smartest people
1:20:37SPEAKERon the internet doing computing stuff.
1:20:39SPEAKER- She did a video that popped up on my feed the other day
1:20:42SPEAKERabout RAM having a 60-year-old design flaw.
1:20:44SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, I saw that one.
1:20:45SPEAKER- She wrote the code hack to, yeah, work around it.
1:20:47SPEAKER- I think her day job is security researcher at Google,
1:20:50SPEAKERif I'm not mistaken, but just the breadth
1:20:53SPEAKERand the depth of material she puts out
1:20:54SPEAKERon different very deep computing subjects
1:20:57SPEAKERis just kind of astonishing.
1:20:59SPEAKER- That's cool.
1:21:00SPEAKER- Anyway, I say that as mostly a layperson
1:21:02SPEAKERwho is not in a position to be judging that kind of thing,
1:21:06SPEAKERbut she seems incredibly smart about this stuff.
1:21:08SPEAKERAnyway, she's done some videos on aerospace coding
1:21:14SPEAKERin the past, and apparently the military
1:21:16SPEAKERand NASA have, there's a C standard
1:21:18SPEAKERfor military aerospace coding in the US.
1:21:22SPEAKERLike there's a handbook that basically forbids
1:21:25SPEAKERall kinds of things you would do with C,
1:21:27SPEAKERthe language in less critical contexts.
1:21:30SPEAKERAnd I know she's done at least one video
1:21:32SPEAKERthat goes really deep on what that standard is
1:21:35SPEAKERand why they forbid so many aspects of the language
1:21:38SPEAKERor so many patterns that you could use in language
1:21:40SPEAKERbecause there's not a lot of fault tolerance here.
1:21:45SPEAKER- I was gonna say, so I found the space shuttle
1:21:48SPEAKERavionics system software guidelines document,
1:21:52SPEAKERwhich I'll put the link in the show notes as well,
1:21:56SPEAKERbut they go into why they have,
1:21:58SPEAKERhow they came up with this plan
1:21:59SPEAKERand how it evolved from the NASA and Skylab stuff,
1:22:02SPEAKERwhich is interesting.
1:22:03SPEAKERBut yeah, like the whole point of that article
1:22:07SPEAKERis that normal software,
1:22:11SPEAKERI feel like this came up in a budget situation
1:22:14SPEAKERis why does the software for the space shuttle
1:22:16SPEAKERtake cost so much money to make?
1:22:17SPEAKERAnd it's because the cost of failure is enormous.
1:22:21SPEAKERAnd it's a different, if your airplane software fails,
1:22:25SPEAKERgravity will still get the people in it on the ground.
1:22:28SPEAKER- You could maybe still glide it in.
1:22:30SPEAKER- Yeah, if your Apollo guidance module software fails,
1:22:36SPEAKERthen either your three people in that capsule
1:22:39SPEAKEReither miss earth on the way home
1:22:41SPEAKERor miss the moon on the way out
1:22:42SPEAKERand just fly off into space forever.
1:22:45SPEAKER- That scenario is so stomach turning,
1:22:47SPEAKERI don't even wanna think about it.
1:22:48SPEAKER- Yeah, it's bad.
1:22:49SPEAKER- Like we have never had a lost in space incident yet.
1:22:52SPEAKERAnd like, I don't want to think about that happening.
1:22:55SPEAKER- Be better, yeah, anyway, bad way to go.
1:22:58SPEAKER- Last thing I'll mention really quick here,
1:23:00SPEAKERand we talked a lot about this,
1:23:01SPEAKERbut they talk about a fail silent mode
1:23:05SPEAKERto these flight modules where if they return a bad results,
1:23:07SPEAKERthey just don't return anything, which is what that means.
1:23:11SPEAKERBut it makes me think of the term fail safe,
1:23:12SPEAKERwhich has become very like just adopted
1:23:14SPEAKERin everyday language.
1:23:16SPEAKERLike people know what that is intuitively,
1:23:18SPEAKERbut I can gather there's this whole other,
1:23:20SPEAKERthere's this whole like list of similar modes
1:23:22SPEAKERthat people don't know about
1:23:23SPEAKERthat are only probably used in
1:23:25SPEAKERlike specific discipline type situations.
1:23:29SPEAKER- It's gonna shock you,
1:23:29SPEAKERbut some people value computers that don't lie to you.
1:23:33SPEAKER- Sure, yeah, I know, but what I mean is like,
1:23:35SPEAKERthis makes me think about like,
1:23:36SPEAKERoh, what other failure modes are there
1:23:38SPEAKERthat I don't know about besides fail safe, fail silent.
1:23:41SPEAKERThere's another one I heard about
1:23:44SPEAKERor I read about in some context a few months ago
1:23:46SPEAKERthat I cannot remember right now,
1:23:47SPEAKERbut they're all basically just like what happens in a failure
1:23:50SPEAKERand it's like something to think about in the future
1:23:54SPEAKERor something I should read about at some point, but anyway.
1:23:58SPEAKER- Building intentionality into your failure modes
1:24:00SPEAKERseems important when you're going to outer space,
1:24:02SPEAKERbut what do I know?
1:24:04SPEAKERI'm just a frog sipping tea.
1:24:06SPEAKER- Also, it's impossible to Google things like this
1:24:08SPEAKERat this point, like this is the kind of place
1:24:09SPEAKERwhere actually sometimes you have to turn to an LLM
1:24:11SPEAKERbecause like when I had Google fail safe alternatives,
1:24:15SPEAKERthere are too many products named fail safe now
1:24:18SPEAKERthat it's like impossible to find generalized information
1:24:21SPEAKERabout failure modes because it's all just going to be
1:24:23SPEAKERcomparing different pieces of software
1:24:27SPEAKERcalled fail safe and stuff like, anyway, anyway.
1:24:30SPEAKER- Everything's great, Brad.
1:24:31SPEAKER- Yeah, this is a great bunch of questions.
1:24:34SPEAKERThanks, everybody, for sending them in.
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1:26:39SPEAKEROctothorpe Bunny for work, Jordan Lippett, Andrew Slosky,
1:26:44SPEAKEROpenAI Delenda Est, and Pantheon,
1:26:48SPEAKERmakers of the HS3 high-speed 3D printer.
1:26:50SPEAKERThank you all so, so much.
1:26:51SPEAKER- Thank you.
1:26:53SPEAKER- We will be back next week
1:26:55SPEAKERwith another edition of the TechPod.
1:26:56SPEAKERI think, so a couple of notes,
1:26:59SPEAKERI think I wanna talk about that practical,
1:27:03SPEAKERit's not practical reality.
1:27:04SPEAKER- Practical magic.
1:27:05SPEAKER- Practical, no, practical magic's a different thing.
1:27:08SPEAKERI'm talking about the documentary,
1:27:09SPEAKERI'm not talking about the Sandra Bullock movie.
1:27:10SPEAKER- It's an iPhone documentary, right?
1:27:13SPEAKER- It's about the technology that led to the dawn of--
1:27:16SPEAKER- General magic.
1:27:17SPEAKER- General magic, thank you.
1:27:19SPEAKERWould be a good thing to watch in the coming weeks,
1:27:21SPEAKERbecause I think we're gonna talk about that
1:27:23SPEAKERin the same way that we did "Pirates of Silicon Valley."
1:27:25SPEAKERAnd thanks everybody for listening.
1:27:28SPEAKERAs always, please consider the environment
1:27:30SPEAKERbefore printing this podcast.
1:27:31SPEAKERBye everybody.
1:27:32SPEAKER(upbeat music)