337: They're 3D-Printing Shoes Now

00:00SPEAKER- So we have some friends who sometimes do things

00:03SPEAKERthat seem like they're gonna be a good idea and then aren't.

00:07SPEAKERAnd I think-

00:08SPEAKER- I feel like this could apply to a number of people

00:10SPEAKERin a number of contexts, but all right.

00:12SPEAKER- I don't wanna call anybody out by name,

00:14SPEAKERbut look, I was on the internet and I saw,

00:18SPEAKERhey, you can get mouse skates that are made of glass.

00:21SPEAKERThey're described as the slipperiest mouse skates you can buy.

00:24SPEAKERThey're made of aluminum silicate glass.

00:26SPEAKERThese are from a company called Super.

00:27SPEAKERI think I mentioned them before,

00:28SPEAKERbut I hadn't put them on yet.

00:30SPEAKER- Okay.

00:31SPEAKER- And they're called Super Glides.

00:35SPEAKERSo I got these for the Logitech Super Strike Pro X2 mouse.

00:42SPEAKERAnd I was like, you know what?

00:44SPEAKERThis mouse is really awesome.

00:45SPEAKERI bet if it moves easier, it's gonna be even better.

00:48SPEAKER- Okay.

00:49SPEAKER- But sometimes, Brad, sometimes it's too,

00:55SPEAKERsometimes too slippery is too slippery.

00:57SPEAKER- Did your mouse go flying off onto the floor?

00:59SPEAKER- No, no, but it does just,

01:04SPEAKERlike the cursor moves all the time.

01:06SPEAKER- Oh, oh, just like being near the desk basically?

01:10SPEAKER- Yeah, just do the movement.

01:12SPEAKERIt literally picks up every gentle movement of my hand.

01:15SPEAKER- Oh no.

01:17SPEAKER- So when I'm playing, say, a game like marathon

01:19SPEAKERthat requires you to long press things,

01:22SPEAKERI have to be unbelievably precise

01:25SPEAKERwhen I'm doing that long press.

01:27SPEAKERJust the mere act of clicking and holding

01:30SPEAKERcan move the cursor enough for it to break the spell

01:32SPEAKERof is this a hold or is this a click and a move?

01:35SPEAKERAnd then I have to do it again,

01:37SPEAKERand then I have to do it again,

01:38SPEAKERand then I have to do it again,

01:39SPEAKERand then somebody shoots me in the head and I'm dead.

01:41SPEAKER- Yikes.

01:42SPEAKERYou know, when you brought this up,

01:44SPEAKERI went and typed glass mouse skates into Google,

01:46SPEAKERand the third result is a Reddit thread entitled

01:49SPEAKERa warning for those considering glass mouse skates.

01:53SPEAKER- What is the warning?

01:53SPEAKER- With LGG and Super Glides.

01:55SPEAKERI have not read their whole, it's a big, long review.

01:57SPEAKER- Oh, I assume it's yo, clicking is hard now.

02:02SPEAKERI keep, I'm sticking with it for a little bit longer.

02:05SPEAKERI'm assuming my hope, my dream is that

02:09SPEAKERI will build the kind of precision,

02:13SPEAKERthe fine motor control that this is the fire,

02:16SPEAKERthe trial of a fire to come through that I need.

02:19SPEAKERBut this feels like, oh man,

02:22SPEAKERmy uncle left me really expensive speakers,

02:24SPEAKERand then all of a sudden, it's like having a Ferrari, right?

02:29SPEAKER- Sure.

02:30SPEAKER- It's like, oh yeah, hey, you have a Ferrari.

02:31SPEAKERThat's awesome.

02:32SPEAKERBy the way, oil changes cost $6,000.

02:34SPEAKER- So you don't consider all the maintenance upkeep

02:36SPEAKERand insurance overhead of that?

02:40SPEAKER- Yeah, so.

02:41SPEAKER- That was like a common thing.

02:42SPEAKERI feel like they don't give away cars in contests

02:44SPEAKERlike they used to, but like that was a common thing

02:46SPEAKERback in the day when somebody bought,

02:47SPEAKERor not bought, sorry, when somebody won

02:50SPEAKERsome kind of luxury sports car it would be

02:52SPEAKERto just turn around and sell the car

02:53SPEAKERbecause the burden of having the car

02:55SPEAKERwas too much for a regular person.

02:57SPEAKER- Yeah, the classic price is right problem.

02:58SPEAKERHey, I can't load all my showcase showdown prizes

03:01SPEAKERinto this camper and drive them home

03:03SPEAKERto Louisiana or wherever, so.

03:05SPEAKER- What did Thresh do with the Ferrari?

03:07SPEAKERWe've probably talked about that before.

03:08SPEAKERAlso, that is a real dated reference at this point, but.

03:11SPEAKER- Didn't he sell it, I think?

03:13SPEAKER- I don't think so.

03:15SPEAKERSo I touched it one time.

03:17SPEAKERIt used to be, remember,

03:18SPEAKERI think I've mentioned this before,

03:19SPEAKERhe founded gamers.com.

03:21SPEAKER- Yeah.

03:22SPEAKER- And the car was in the lobby.

03:23SPEAKER- Of course, yeah, why wouldn't it be?

03:25SPEAKER- The one time I visited their office,

03:26SPEAKERthe car was in the lobby.

03:28SPEAKERAnyway.

03:28SPEAKER- It was the Ferrari F38, F328, it wasn't his F40,

03:32SPEAKERwhich was the, like, look,

03:34SPEAKERif you're gonna get a free Ferrari, the F40,

03:36SPEAKERthat's a Ferrari right there.

03:38SPEAKER(upbeat music)

03:52SPEAKER(upbeat music)

04:06SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.

04:09SPEAKERI'm Will.

04:10SPEAKER- I'm Brad.

04:11SPEAKER- It's happy May Day.

04:13SPEAKERWe're recording this on May Day.

04:14SPEAKER- It is, yes.

04:15SPEAKER- Yeah.

04:15SPEAKER- Same to you.

04:16SPEAKER- My commitment to not buy anything

04:18SPEAKERand have support for labor remains, you know.

04:22SPEAKER- My credit card bill was $59 this month.

04:25SPEAKER- Wow, that's pretty good.

04:27SPEAKERMine is not that.

04:28SPEAKER- I bought nothing.

04:29SPEAKERI went, I had to pay yesterday and I was like, wow.

04:31SPEAKERI mean, granted, I had surgery on the 31st of March,

04:34SPEAKERso like half the month was sneezed.

04:36SPEAKER- You popped up on goofballs.

04:37SPEAKER- I had other things going on.

04:40SPEAKERThe painkillers were meeting my recreational needs.

04:43SPEAKERNo, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

04:45SPEAKERBut it wasn't kind of nice to see.

04:47SPEAKERI was like, man, I really didn't consume this month.

04:49SPEAKERLike, that's cool.

04:50SPEAKERI just kind of did stuff I already had.

04:52SPEAKER- I have a 13-year-old kid.

04:54SPEAKER- Yeah, of course.

04:55SPEAKER- So I consume.

04:56SPEAKER- Yes, of course.

04:57SPEAKER- I also put my, I put a lot of my day-to-day bills

05:00SPEAKERon the card just to generate points, which is high risk.

05:04SPEAKER- Yeah, this is the card that is purely

05:05SPEAKERfor discretionary purchases.

05:06SPEAKERLike the bills are paid through ACH and stuff like that.

05:10SPEAKER- Gotcha.

05:11SPEAKER- Actually, this isn't really tech.

05:14SPEAKERI don't know that we would cover this on this podcast,

05:16SPEAKERbut like the whole of the credit system.

05:17SPEAKER- It's a shisho.

05:19SPEAKERIt's a disaster.

05:20SPEAKER- Yeah, so I have, I've always been told

05:23SPEAKERthat your credit history is only as long

05:25SPEAKERas your oldest credit card.

05:26SPEAKERI don't know if that's actually accurate or not.

05:28SPEAKER- I don't, look, man, I'm not the person

05:30SPEAKERto ask about this stuff.

05:31SPEAKER- Okay, that was the common wisdom I received at some point.

05:34SPEAKERAnd my oldest card is a card I would have gotten rid of

05:36SPEAKERa long time ago were it not for that stipulation,

05:39SPEAKERassuming it's true.

05:40SPEAKER- I have a card that has lingered for 20 years

05:43SPEAKERfor similar reasons, yes.

05:45SPEAKERSo like bill to go on that card because the other side,

05:47SPEAKERanother piece of advice I've gotten about the credit system

05:50SPEAKERis having a card that you don't use

05:52SPEAKERis bad for your credit, apparently.

05:54SPEAKEROr again, this is what I've been told.

05:56SPEAKER- Of course, the people who issue the credit

05:58SPEAKERand make money off of the credit want you to use the cards.

06:01SPEAKERWhat a shocking coincidence.

06:02SPEAKER- Yeah, yet another thing I've always heard

06:04SPEAKERis that the credit industry term for people

06:06SPEAKERwho pay off their balance every month is parasite.

06:09SPEAKEROr maybe that's, I don't know if that's a little overblown,

06:12SPEAKERbut you can see how the people who run the credit industry

06:16SPEAKERmight see you that way.

06:17SPEAKERAnyway, having a card I don't really want

06:19SPEAKERand believing that I need to keep that card

06:22SPEAKERto not lose 10 years of credit history

06:24SPEAKERmeans that I just put a couple of auto-pay bills

06:27SPEAKERon that card every month.

06:29SPEAKER- I'm a big fan of putting the stuff

06:32SPEAKERthat's the most expensive on the card

06:34SPEAKERthat gives me the best points.

06:35SPEAKER- Oh yeah, totally, 100%.

06:36SPEAKER- So like, yeah, anyway.

06:41SPEAKERBut every once in a while you get one of those threads

06:43SPEAKERon the social medias where people are,

06:46SPEAKERnotorious dirtbags come right up to the moment

06:50SPEAKERthat they realize that the system is,

06:52SPEAKERthat there's a bunch of companies

06:54SPEAKERthat are extracting money from you at a high level

06:56SPEAKERwith shady business practices,

06:58SPEAKERand then they make the wrong,

06:59SPEAKERthey jump to the wrong conclusion right from there.

07:01SPEAKERAnd it's, anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this.

07:04SPEAKERThe point is we got a potpourri this week.

07:06SPEAKER- Yeah, kind of a hands-on.

07:09SPEAKER- Yeah, it's hardware biz we've been testing.

07:12SPEAKER- Yeah.

07:13SPEAKER- Do we want to start with the showstopper,

07:15SPEAKERdo we want to save the, yeah, let's just get into it

07:16SPEAKER'cause this is the big one.

07:18SPEAKER- This is not quite a bargo buster.

07:20SPEAKERWell, I think that the time- - What's a bargo buster?

07:23SPEAKER- Wasn't that the idle thumbs term for breaking embargo?

07:26SPEAKER- Oh, I didn't remember that, that's funny.

07:29SPEAKER- It's been a while, but I think that's the case.

07:30SPEAKERAnyway, we're recording this. - I miss idle thumbs also.

07:33SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, yes.

07:34SPEAKERI think it's only been like a day,

07:36SPEAKERwasn't it yesterday that the embargo lifted

07:37SPEAKERon the Steam controller?

07:39SPEAKER- Steam controller lifted on Monday or Tuesday.

07:40SPEAKER- Or maybe earlier, anyway.

07:42SPEAKER- Yeah, it was earlier this week.

07:43SPEAKER- Anyway, we're somewhat timely here

07:45SPEAKERwith coverage of the Steam controller because you have one.

07:47SPEAKER- Yeah, so it seems like they sent out in two waves,

07:49SPEAKERlike a handful of people like Norm over at Tested

07:53SPEAKERand Steve at Gamers Nexus and other folks got early access

07:57SPEAKERto the hardware like a couple of weeks early.

08:00SPEAKERAnd they did in depth, like Steve hooked it up

08:04SPEAKERto the latency, he put probes on the board

08:06SPEAKERso they could test latency, all sorts of stuff.

08:08SPEAKERSo if you're curious about that, look at that.

08:10SPEAKERThe TLDR on that is that it seems pretty good

08:12SPEAKERon everything but Bluetooth.

08:14SPEAKERBut the Steam controller-

08:16SPEAKER- I'm sorry, I think Gamers Nexus

08:18SPEAKERalso did a repairability breakdown.

08:20SPEAKER- Yeah, they tore it down all the way.

08:21SPEAKER- I mean, it's Valve, so you can kind of guess

08:24SPEAKERthat the repairability seems quite good.

08:27SPEAKER- Yeah, so let's see, the TLDR is that

08:29SPEAKERit's a normal controller.

08:30SPEAKERIt's basically designed to replicate

08:32SPEAKERthe Steam Deck controls pretty much one-to-one.

08:35SPEAKERSo it has the normal Xbox 360 style

08:38SPEAKERface buttons, bumpers, and triggers.

08:41SPEAKERIt also has the two big touch pads

08:43SPEAKERfrom either side of the Steam Deck

08:45SPEAKERas well as the four back buttons.

08:47SPEAKERAnd then it has a gyro and a Steam Deck equivalent rumble.

08:53SPEAKERAnd I think that's probably it.

08:54SPEAKERThat's kind of the high points.

08:58SPEAKERIt's a different goal and focus

09:01SPEAKERthan the first Steam controller.

09:03SPEAKER- Yeah, I came in here going,

09:06SPEAKERhow is this different from the first Steam controller?

09:07SPEAKER'Cause I feel like they're kind of solving the same thing.

09:10SPEAKERAlthough now that I pull up a picture

09:11SPEAKERof that 2015 Steam controller.

09:13SPEAKER- It only had one stick, man.

09:15SPEAKERIt turns out having two sticks is pretty important.

09:18SPEAKER- Yeah, and it didn't have a D-pad

09:20SPEAKER'cause it kind of had the giant touch pad/D-pad amalgamation

09:25SPEAKERthat looks awful.

09:26SPEAKERAlso, maybe they should have come up

09:28SPEAKERwith a slightly different name for this one, I don't know.

09:30SPEAKER- Well, so the first one, the first Steam controller-

09:34SPEAKER- They're both just called Steam controller, to be clear.

09:36SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a little confusing in the menu sometimes

09:38SPEAKERif you have both hooked up,

09:39SPEAKERbut I don't think that's a problem most people will have.

09:41SPEAKER- No.

09:42SPEAKER- The first Steam controller, the pitch on that was,

09:46SPEAKERhey, we're gonna make a thing

09:48SPEAKERthat lets you play your PC games

09:50SPEAKERthat are designed for mouse and keyboard.

09:52SPEAKERAnd then they cited games like Civilization

09:54SPEAKERand stuff like that.

09:56SPEAKERStellaris, I think, was maybe out by then, I can't remember.

09:59SPEAKERAnd they said, this is the way that you can play games

10:02SPEAKERthat require mouse and keyboard in the living room, right?

10:04SPEAKER'Cause at the same time, they were also selling a box

10:06SPEAKERthat let you stream games in the living room

10:09SPEAKERand PCs that ran Linux that could run 18 Steam games.

10:15SPEAKERThis is a different model.

10:19SPEAKERThis is a different focus and goal.

10:20SPEAKERThis is literally to give you a way

10:22SPEAKERto control Steam Deck-style games,

10:25SPEAKERpresumably for the upcoming VR goggles

10:27SPEAKERand the standalone Steam machine,

10:31SPEAKERthe small form factor PC that runs Steam,

10:35SPEAKERwith the same input options as the Steam Deck.

10:39SPEAKERAnd at that, it is extremely good.

10:42SPEAKERLike, the Steam Deck controls,

10:44SPEAKERI don't know if you've ever actually spent any time

10:46SPEAKERwith a Steam Deck, have you, Brad?

10:47SPEAKER- I think finally, for the first time,

10:50SPEAKERI touched a Steam Deck last summer at Summer Game Fest.

10:52SPEAKER- Okay.

10:53SPEAKER- I played a demo of one game on a Steam Deck,

10:55SPEAKERand I think that's the sum total of my experience

10:57SPEAKERwith that hardware.

10:58SPEAKER- Yeah, it's pretty phenomenal.

11:00SPEAKERLike, in terms of like, hey, here's hardware

11:04SPEAKERthat is the min spec for playing a lot of games,

11:06SPEAKERespecially in a world where games like Civilization

11:09SPEAKERship with controller support now.

11:12SPEAKERIt gives you a really good balance between what you need

11:15SPEAKERand what you want and what feels good,

11:17SPEAKERand also supports like the more edge case modes,

11:21SPEAKERlike gyro aim for shooters and stuff like that.

11:25SPEAKER- And I, generally speaking, am really bullish

11:29SPEAKERon Steam input as a platform for controller input

11:35SPEAKERacross Windows and Linux, and presumably Mac.

11:37SPEAKERI don't really play games on Macs.

11:41SPEAKERJust because they, basically they provide

11:43SPEAKERa translation layer in the software that lets you

11:46SPEAKERuse whatever controller you have,

11:48SPEAKERwhether it's a PlayStation controller,

11:51SPEAKERSwitch Pro controller, an Xbox controller,

11:53SPEAKERa Steam controller, an 8BitDo controller,

12:00SPEAKERor something random like a fight stick

12:02SPEAKERthat just gives button inputs and lets you map.

12:04SPEAKERIt gives you a mapping interface that lets you translate

12:06SPEAKERall of those down to whatever the least common denominator

12:09SPEAKERon your platform, which is usually X input,

12:12SPEAKERso that you can use your PlayStation controller

12:14SPEAKERwith old X input games, and it just works,

12:17SPEAKERassuming you use their Steam input layer.

12:19SPEAKER- If you have a Steam Deck and like,

12:21SPEAKERare used to the feel of those controls

12:22SPEAKERand the way those touch pads work, I mean,

12:23SPEAKERis this like, just in terms of like the subconscious

12:26SPEAKERkind of brain muscle memory of using a controller,

12:28SPEAKERlike, is this a seamless transition from that?

12:31SPEAKERLike, does it just kind of feel like the Steam Deck control?

12:34SPEAKER- I think so, like the layout of the D-pad

12:36SPEAKERand the left stick are the weirdest thing

12:38SPEAKERabout the Steam Deck controller,

12:39SPEAKER'cause the D-pad's kind of, it's up into the,

12:42SPEAKERit's a symmetrical layout where both of the sticks

12:44SPEAKERare on the same plane, and then the D-pad is up,

12:47SPEAKERbut really close compared to say like a PlayStation controller

12:51SPEAKERor something like that.

12:52SPEAKER- Yeah, it, looking at the face of the controller,

12:55SPEAKERit does, I'm not gonna say jumbled,

12:56SPEAKERbut it does look a bit crammed to the gills with stuff.

13:00SPEAKERLike the D-pad is like right on the edge of the curve down.

13:04SPEAKER- So I played some Hollow Knight,

13:06SPEAKERor actually I played some Spelunky with the D-pad,

13:09SPEAKERand it's fine, it's, I think it looks awkward.

13:13SPEAKERSo the first, my first reaction on this

13:14SPEAKERwhen I picked it up was I thought it looked awkward

13:17SPEAKERin the pictures, it did not look

13:18SPEAKERlike a comfortable controller, it feels very good.

13:22SPEAKERLike the placement of the grips lets you hold the hand,

13:26SPEAKERthe way the grips are laid out lets you hold it

13:28SPEAKERin whichever configuration you need,

13:30SPEAKERwhether you're using the D-pad or the sticks.

13:32SPEAKERI find that I use those touch pads mostly for like UI stuff.

13:37SPEAKERSo for example, if I'm in Steam Desktop mode

13:40SPEAKERon my Windows, on the Steam Deck,

13:43SPEAKERI'll use the touch pads to control the mouse, right?

13:47SPEAKERIf I'm doing a game that has like a touch type,

13:52SPEAKERthat I need to type text into,

13:53SPEAKERinstead of trying to use the sticks to move the cursor

13:56SPEAKERand type something in, I'll use those pads

13:57SPEAKER'cause they're really fast for tapping out text.

14:00SPEAKERI don't play a lot of games with the pads,

14:02SPEAKERso I don't, I feel like they're there at this point

14:07SPEAKERbecause it gives you plausible deniability

14:10SPEAKERabout not ever needing a keyboard

14:12SPEAKERor mouse hooked up to the Steam Deck.

14:13SPEAKER- You're using a platform and software

14:15SPEAKERthat has an expectation that you will have access

14:17SPEAKERto a mouse, but it's just good in a pinch.

14:20SPEAKER- So, yeah, it feels really good, generally speaking.

14:25SPEAKERThe, there's a couple of places it feels a little shoddy

14:29SPEAKERin terms of manufacturing, which was a disappointment

14:31SPEAKERgiven that it's a hundred bucks.

14:33SPEAKERIt's not anything major and nothing that's actually real,

14:36SPEAKERbut like there's wiggle, there's more wiggle on the buttons

14:40SPEAKERthan I would expect on the shoulder buttons

14:43SPEAKERand the face buttons aren't super locked in place.

14:47SPEAKER- Interesting.

14:48SPEAKER- The materials feel really nice.

14:49SPEAKERIt's the same, the plastic coating,

14:52SPEAKERfor people who are Steam Deck aficionados,

14:55SPEAKERit is closer to the Steam Deck OLED

14:57SPEAKERthan the original launch Steam Deck

15:00SPEAKERin terms of texture and material.

15:02SPEAKERIt feels a little bit more pronounced

15:04SPEAKERthan my Steam Deck does,

15:05SPEAKERbut it could also be 'cause my Steam Deck's worn down.

15:07SPEAKERI'm not entirely sure.

15:10SPEAKER- They use nice sticks, they're using TMR sticks in this.

15:14SPEAKER- Yeah, I wanted to ask about that

15:15SPEAKER'cause we just did that episode a few weeks, months ago.

15:18SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like a month ago.

15:19SPEAKER- About a couple of months, like about,

15:21SPEAKERif people wanna go back and listen to it,

15:22SPEAKERabout magnetic input devices

15:24SPEAKERand TMR is the newest type of joystick.

15:26SPEAKERSo, but I get the sense you can't necessarily like feel that

15:30SPEAKERwith your thumb, right?

15:31SPEAKERIt's more of kind of a durability

15:32SPEAKERand power consumption thing over time.

15:34SPEAKER- Yeah, so it's definitely, you say power

15:37SPEAKERcompared to like Hall effect sticks.

15:39SPEAKERThey're more reliable long-term

15:41SPEAKERthan traditional potentiometer sticks

15:44SPEAKERbecause there's no like moving,

15:45SPEAKERthe moving parts don't touch, right?

15:47SPEAKERThere's nothing, it's just moving sensors

15:51SPEAKERand stuff through a field that picks up.

15:55SPEAKERElectrons tunnel across a small resistor

15:58SPEAKERand that's how the signal determines

16:00SPEAKERwhether the sticks have moved.

16:02SPEAKER- Right, but it's not like there's some obvious

16:04SPEAKERdifference in feel when you use them, I assume.

16:06SPEAKER- So the thing I'll say compared to like the 8BitDo sticks

16:10SPEAKERthat I've used that have Hall effect sensors,

16:13SPEAKERwhen I opened up the debug panel and looked at the input,

16:17SPEAKERlike the live input, not the kind of filter input,

16:19SPEAKERit seemed like there was a lot less jitter

16:22SPEAKERand dead zone movement than on the Hall effect sticks.

16:25SPEAKERBut also the 8BitDo stick is like three years old

16:28SPEAKERand this is brand new, so who knows?

16:30SPEAKER- Yeah, and the software corrects

16:32SPEAKERfor that kind of micro jitter anyway.

16:34SPEAKER- Yeah, the one thing I will say is a lot of people

16:37SPEAKERdo aftermarket stick replacements for the Steam Deck

16:41SPEAKERand for their other controllers

16:42SPEAKERand you don't have to do that with this

16:44SPEAKERif you want DMR sticks, so.

16:48SPEAKERIt has, like I said, it has all the normal buttons,

16:49SPEAKERit has a couple extra buttons, it has the Steam button

16:52SPEAKERwhich opens the Steam menu, like the left side menu

16:55SPEAKERin Steam, the one with the library and store

16:58SPEAKERand settings and all that stuff.

17:00SPEAKERIt also has the little three dot button

17:02SPEAKERfrom the Steam Deck controls which opens the right side menu

17:06SPEAKERwhich is like hardware settings basically,

17:08SPEAKERso it's like volume, brightness,

17:11SPEAKERwhich power profile you're on, all the decky loader stuff

17:15SPEAKERthat you install, all that kind of stuff.

17:17SPEAKERSo it's nice to have that 'cause that's not something

17:19SPEAKERthat a lot of controllers have and you end up,

17:21SPEAKERlike if you're playing a game with Moonlight

17:23SPEAKERor something streaming over, you have to switch over

17:26SPEAKERand do that with a button cord on like a DualSense

17:29SPEAKERor an Xbox controller, so it's pretty good in that regard.

17:34SPEAKERThe D-pad is definitely mushier than the best D-pads

17:39SPEAKERthat I've used, it is not as bad as a mushy D-pad,

17:43SPEAKERlike it's, in the world of bad modern D-pads,

17:48SPEAKERI think the Switch Pro Controller is my least favorite

17:51SPEAKERof all of them.

17:52SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean that one I think by default loses

17:54SPEAKERin the stack ranking because it generates wrong inputs.

17:57SPEAKER- Yeah.

17:58SPEAKER- Yeah, there's just no excusing that.

18:00SPEAKERCan I get your very quick ranking of D,

18:02SPEAKERlike what's your top three or five D-pads?

18:04SPEAKER- The 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller that I use

18:07SPEAKERhas a D-pad that I can play Tetris 99 with,

18:10SPEAKERwhich is like god tier as far as I'm concerned.

18:12SPEAKER- Tetris 99 is literally my barometer.

18:15SPEAKERIt's in fact, a new Maximus cup you just reminded me

18:18SPEAKERstarts today and I need to go get on that after this, but.

18:20SPEAKER- So I didn't, we should do a Tetris 99 stream sometime.

18:25SPEAKER- All right.

18:26SPEAKER- I didn't, I don't have a way to,

18:28SPEAKERlike this won't work with the Switch.

18:29SPEAKERSo I didn't have a way to test with Tetris 99.

18:31SPEAKERI did load up some old Tetris games.

18:32SPEAKERIt seemed fine.

18:34SPEAKERMy test on PC for D-pad is Spelunky

18:37SPEAKER'cause I'm a D-pad Spelunky player,

18:38SPEAKERwhich I know people are gonna probably yell at me for.

18:40SPEAKER- What?

18:41SPEAKER- I don't know, man.

18:42SPEAKERPeople play Metroidvanias with like side scrolling games

18:46SPEAKERwith sticks, now it's wild.

18:47SPEAKER- I know people who prefer sticks for 2D movement.

18:50SPEAKERDoes Spelunky have analog movement though?

18:51SPEAKERIt actually does, right?

18:54SPEAKER- I know, I don't.

18:54SPEAKER- Or is it just on/off?

18:55SPEAKERIs it just a binary? - I think it's on/off,

18:57SPEAKERbut it's, yeah.

18:58SPEAKER- Anything, any game where it is just you're moving or not

19:01SPEAKERand there's no analog movement speed

19:02SPEAKERis a thousand percent D-pad to me.

19:04SPEAKER- That's my, like I play Dead Cells with the stick

19:07SPEAKERbecause it has analog movement.

19:08SPEAKERI play Hollow Knight with the stick

19:10SPEAKERbecause I'd be insane not to.

19:12SPEAKERI don't play Spelunky with the stick.

19:15SPEAKERSo ranking D-pads, that 8BitDo one's really good.

19:19SPEAKERThe DualSense, the PS5, PS4 ones are both very usable.

19:25SPEAKERI don't like, I like having the buttons.

19:29SPEAKERThis is gonna sound stupid.

19:31SPEAKERThe buttons are connected underneath the faces on the PS5

19:34SPEAKERand the PS4 controllers.

19:37SPEAKERLike they're, you just can't see, you can't,

19:40SPEAKERI like to see that they're connected even if they're not,

19:42SPEAKERright, or like when they are

19:44SPEAKERand they just hide it on the DualSense.

19:47SPEAKERSo, okay, 8BitDo, PlayStation,

19:51SPEAKERthen the Xbox Series, the Xbox One controller

19:56SPEAKERthat has the plus style D-pad

19:57SPEAKERand then the Xbox Series controller that does not.

20:01SPEAKER- I agree.

20:02SPEAKERI prefer a distinctive plus to the disc shape.

20:05SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't like the disc shape.

20:06SPEAKERAnd then I haven't used the Pro 2 controller

20:07SPEAKERfor the Switch yet.

20:08SPEAKER- It apparently has the same D-pad phantom input problem

20:11SPEAKERas the first one. - No thanks.

20:13SPEAKERNever gonna pay 80 bucks for one of those then.

20:15SPEAKER- All right, well, we could sit here and go

20:17SPEAKER'cause I would say like, what about the SNES controller?

20:19SPEAKERBut let's move on.

20:20SPEAKER- Well, SNES controller's god tier, that's like S plus.

20:23SPEAKER- We'll revisit that at another time.

20:24SPEAKER- Yeah, ranking of D-pads, that's an episode right there.

20:27SPEAKERLet's get into some business.

20:28SPEAKERDreamcast, how do you feel about the Dreamcast, Brad?

20:31SPEAKER- Not amazing, it's okay, a little mushy.

20:33SPEAKER- Yeah. - Been a while.

20:35SPEAKER- They do some weird stuff with this.

20:37SPEAKERSo there's like touch strips, Brad jumped.

20:41SPEAKER- I'm sorry, I just started laughing.

20:43SPEAKERWe don't need to really get into this,

20:44SPEAKERbut I was looking at Pharonix the other day.

20:47SPEAKERI need to look this up.

20:48SPEAKER- I think somebody is trying to merge

20:51SPEAKERsome kind of VMU file system into the Linux kernel.

20:53SPEAKERThe VMU being the little Dreamcast save card slash--

20:58SPEAKER- Tamagotchi thing. - Tamagotchi like LCD screen,

21:02SPEAKERtiny Game Boy thing.

21:04SPEAKER- Oh my God.

21:05SPEAKER- There's some kind of like VMU,

21:07SPEAKERI hope I didn't hallucinate that,

21:08SPEAKERbut I'm pretty sure that's what I saw.

21:10SPEAKERAnyway, let's move on.

21:12SPEAKER- So yeah, they have these touch strips

21:14SPEAKERthat determine on the back.

21:16SPEAKERSo like the back is touch sensitive

21:18SPEAKERand it can tell when you have it in your hand,

21:20SPEAKERwhich you can use to trigger gyro aim somehow.

21:23SPEAKER- Sorry, can you hold that up again?

21:24SPEAKERThat's hard to visualize.

21:25SPEAKERTouch strips?

21:26SPEAKER- They're not, you can't tell that they're there,

21:28SPEAKERyou don't see them.

21:29SPEAKERThey're just plastic that has resistive

21:32SPEAKERor that has capacitive touch on it.

21:34SPEAKER- Interesting, okay.

21:36SPEAKERI know it basically just can kind of track your finger

21:38SPEAKERsliding up and down?

21:39SPEAKER- Nope, just that you're holding onto it seems like.

21:41SPEAKER- Got it, okay, just on and off.

21:43SPEAKER- So it's akin to like the Oculus touch controllers.

21:48SPEAKERHad touch surfaces on the top

21:50SPEAKERso you could see where your fingers were resting in VR.

21:53SPEAKERSome of this I assume is for the VR goggles

21:56SPEAKERbecause it does have the infrared lights

21:59SPEAKERburied underneath the plastic

22:03SPEAKERso that you can track the controller in 3D space

22:05SPEAKERwhen you're wearing the goggles.

22:09SPEAKERI didn't test the gyro controls because I can't.

22:11SPEAKERI'm just like, I'm too old.

22:15SPEAKER- Sure, the kids love gyro controls.

22:18SPEAKER- Kids love, like my daughter is all about gyro controls

22:21SPEAKERif she's not using a mouse and keyboard.

22:23SPEAKER- I get it, it's kind of mouse-like

22:25SPEAKERin the way that it's one-to-one movement.

22:27SPEAKER- Splatoon radicalized an entire,

22:29SPEAKERI mean, it is the best of both worlds, just to be clear.

22:31SPEAKERI'm not saying this is bad.

22:33SPEAKERI'm saying I would love to get into this

22:35SPEAKERand I'm just not capable.

22:36SPEAKERAnd also I don't play shooters really with game pad.

22:40SPEAKERBut for folks who don't know,

22:42SPEAKERwhat you do is you use the left stick for movement,

22:45SPEAKERthe right stick for kind of broad aim

22:48SPEAKERand then you can flip it into gyro mode

22:50SPEAKERwhere you tilt the face or the stick

22:53SPEAKERto kind of get more analog,

22:55SPEAKERlike more precise control over the precise aiming.

22:58SPEAKER- I don't think I realized that people

22:59SPEAKERwho are way into gyro are still doing a hybrid approach.

23:02SPEAKERI assumed they were all like gyro or nothing.

23:04SPEAKERI didn't realize they were still using the stick

23:06SPEAKERand then fine tuning with the gyro though.

23:08SPEAKERI guess that makes sense.

23:09SPEAKER- They usually reset is my understanding.

23:11SPEAKERI mean, I think it's probably in flux, right?

23:14SPEAKERLike this is a new control scheme

23:16SPEAKERthat is evolutionarily in flux.

23:18SPEAKERWe have not seen a time shift for...

23:23SPEAKERIs it time shift?

23:24SPEAKERThat was the first one that was good 3D or Halo.

23:27SPEAKERWe haven't seen Halo for gyro controls.

23:29SPEAKER- Time splitters?

23:30SPEAKER- Time splitters, thank you.

23:32SPEAKERTime shift's an arcade light gun game, I think.

23:39SPEAKERSo that's that stuff.

23:40SPEAKERThe stick precision was good in shooters.

23:42SPEAKERI played some open world games.

23:44SPEAKERI played Hollow Knight.

23:44SPEAKERI played Dead Cells.

23:46SPEAKERI didn't notice any latency.

23:50SPEAKERSteve's latency testing basically said

23:53SPEAKERthat the wired and the latency using the wireless puck,

23:56SPEAKERwhich we'll talk about in a second,

23:58SPEAKERbasically was equivalent.

23:59SPEAKERIt was like you get an extra two, three milliseconds

24:01SPEAKERof latency when you're using the wireless mode.

24:05SPEAKERI tried wireless in the office and in the living room.

24:09SPEAKERThe only time I had any kind of...

24:11SPEAKEROne of the things it does is it gives you

24:13SPEAKERthe actual signal to noise ratio

24:15SPEAKERin terms of decibels in the steam control panel.

24:17SPEAKERSo you can walk around with it

24:19SPEAKERand see how connected it is.

24:21SPEAKERThe only time it ever reported anything less

24:24SPEAKERthan an excellent connection in the space

24:26SPEAKERthat I could get away from it was when I had it sitting

24:29SPEAKERon top of my phone on the couch.

24:32SPEAKERSo I just set it down on the couch.

24:34SPEAKERMy phone was under a blanket and I was like,

24:36SPEAKERGod, why is it so bad?

24:38SPEAKERAnd then I looked and I was like, oh yeah,

24:39SPEAKERthe wifi Bluetooth thing is sitting directly underneath it.

24:43SPEAKER- Your phone is a radio dead zone.

24:45SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

24:46SPEAKER- Well, now hang on.

24:47SPEAKERIs the wireless puck the same as the charging puck?

24:51SPEAKER- Same thing, yeah.

24:52SPEAKER- And that's separate, right?

24:53SPEAKERYou have to pay several for that?

24:55SPEAKER- No, it comes in the box.

24:56SPEAKER- Oh, the puck comes with it, okay.

24:58SPEAKER- The puck comes in the box.

24:59SPEAKERIt's also built into the steam machine.

25:02SPEAKERIt's this thing, steam machine and the VR headset presumably.

25:07SPEAKERThe steam deck does not have it.

25:09SPEAKERSo in order to use this with the steam deck,

25:11SPEAKERyou either have to use Bluetooth,

25:12SPEAKERwhich seems like a bad idea,

25:14SPEAKERor you plug it into the dock, the steam deck dock

25:18SPEAKERand it shows up just like,

25:20SPEAKERit recognizes that it knows what's going on,

25:22SPEAKERbut it's not built in.

25:25SPEAKER- 2.4 gigahertz wireless has gotten very good.

25:28SPEAKER- It is, yeah.

25:29SPEAKERLike the 8BitDo 2.4 gigahertz wireless is flawless

25:33SPEAKERand shows up as a wired controller

25:34SPEAKERso you can use it in a bunch of places.

25:36SPEAKERThis, not so much.

25:38SPEAKERI mean, you can use this places that it understands steam.

25:41SPEAKERWe'll talk about that in a second.

25:42SPEAKERYou can navigate your UEFI with this thing's touch pads.

25:45SPEAKERActually I'm guessing you can't.

25:47SPEAKER- This shows up as a keyboard.

25:49SPEAKER- Well, okay.

25:50SPEAKERI mean, that brings me,

25:51SPEAKERare we ready to address the big question I wrote down?

25:53SPEAKERI wouldn't have thought of this

25:54SPEAKERif I hadn't seen some people touching on this.

25:56SPEAKER- Let's talk about the puck just a second more

25:59SPEAKER'cause the interesting thing,

26:00SPEAKERthere's a couple of interesting things.

26:02SPEAKEROne is that you pair with the puck.

26:03SPEAKERSo pairing the puck with the controller,

26:07SPEAKEReach puck can hold, I think, four controllers,

26:09SPEAKERcan pair with up to four controllers.

26:11SPEAKERAnd each controller can pair with two different pucks.

26:14SPEAKERSo you have like a key cord that you press

26:16SPEAKERwhen you start it up.

26:17SPEAKERIt's like you hold down A and press either L1 or R1.

26:22SPEAKERAnd that says, oh, I wanna pair with the puck

26:25SPEAKERthat's connected to my PC,

26:26SPEAKERor I wanna pair with the puck that's connected

26:28SPEAKERwith the VR headset or whatever,

26:31SPEAKERwhich seems, is thoughtful and unusual on a controller.

26:36SPEAKERMakes sense given that they're trying

26:37SPEAKERto ecosystem this thing.

26:40SPEAKERThe other thing about the puck is it,

26:44SPEAKERyou sync the device by just, you plug the puck in

26:47SPEAKERand then you magnet the puck

26:49SPEAKERonto the bottom of the controller,

26:50SPEAKERwhich also charges it, and you're good to go.

26:53SPEAKERNow, I kind of like the 8BitDo way of doing this better.

26:57SPEAKERWhen you buy a docked controller with 8BitDo,

26:59SPEAKERthe dock has a little USB-A port inside a door

27:02SPEAKERon the bottom of it, and you plug one

27:03SPEAKERof their 2.4 gigahertz transceivers into that,

27:07SPEAKERwhich is nice 'cause it means you can separate out

27:09SPEAKERthe charging and the radio functionality,

27:12SPEAKERso that, for example, if you have it in your living room

27:14SPEAKERand you wanna have the controller charged

27:16SPEAKERnext to the place where you sit,

27:18SPEAKERand the wireless dongle plugged into the console

27:21SPEAKERthat you're using, you can do that.

27:23SPEAKERNow, that's a minor complaint,

27:24SPEAKERbut it would be nice to have these things.

27:27SPEAKERI don't know that these had to be a unified device,

27:30SPEAKERand it's also very small.

27:32SPEAKERIt's smaller than a stick of gum in terms of space,

27:36SPEAKERand it's like smaller than a pack of Juicy Fruit or something

27:39SPEAKERin terms of thickness, so.

27:41SPEAKER- The universal measure.

27:42SPEAKER- Yeah, how many packs of Big Red is this?

27:46SPEAKER- That's right.

27:47SPEAKER- Thanks, Wrigleys.

27:50SPEAKERYou wanna talk about Steam Inputs?

27:51SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

27:52SPEAKER- This is the wild card.

27:53SPEAKER- That was the big question that I derived

27:54SPEAKERfrom seeing some people touch on this is that I,

27:58SPEAKERwell, I mean, the question is,

27:59SPEAKERdoes this work without Steam Input?

28:00SPEAKERBut I gather the answer is maybe not.

28:02SPEAKER- Kind of.

28:03SPEAKERIt seems like it shows up as a keyboard.

28:07SPEAKER- Okay, so you could use it in the UEFI then.

28:09SPEAKER- I think it depends on how it's bound by default,

28:12SPEAKERand I haven't, I literally have just had it

28:14SPEAKERfor like two days, so we didn't get this super early.

28:19SPEAKERI didn't try the UEFI.

28:20SPEAKERIf you'd asked that beforehand,

28:21SPEAKERI would have booted into it to give it a wild card test.

28:24SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm joking about that.

28:25SPEAKERBut I mean, the broader question applies here,

28:28SPEAKERwhich is if you're trying to plug this into something

28:30SPEAKERthat can't just run Steam to be the compatibility layer,

28:33SPEAKERis it still useful in that context?

28:35SPEAKER- Well, so the thing I don't know is,

28:39SPEAKERdoes it store the, hey, this isn't a game,

28:42SPEAKER'cause you know, Steam Input devices

28:44SPEAKERget profiles for not games too, right?

28:47SPEAKERLike if you have a DualSense controller

28:48SPEAKERplugged into a Steam Deck and you boot into KDE,

28:51SPEAKERit pops up with a menu and you can use that controller,

28:57SPEAKERthe sticks and the bumpers as like a mouse, right?

29:01SPEAKERAnd I don't know if that's stored on this device

29:03SPEAKERon the device or if that's still a software layer,

29:05SPEAKERand I haven't been able to figure that out.

29:07SPEAKERI need to fire up the mister and plug it into that.

29:09SPEAKERThat's the one thing I didn't get to before,

29:11SPEAKERthat I wanted to do before we did this.

29:13SPEAKERBut I did test some Epic Games.

29:16SPEAKERI tested some Microsoft Store games,

29:18SPEAKERlike Game Pass equivalent games.

29:21SPEAKERAnd the TLDR is if you have Steam running, it works,

29:26SPEAKER'cause Steam is like, oh, that's a full screen thing.

29:28SPEAKERIt's probably a game.

29:29SPEAKERI'm gonna make the controller work here.

29:31SPEAKERIf you launch it through Steam,

29:32SPEAKERlike if you make one of those

29:33SPEAKERadd a non-Steam game to Steam shortcuts and launch, say,

29:37SPEAKERlike I loaded up Untitled Goose Game on the Epic Store

29:40SPEAKERand launched that through Steam and it worked great.

29:43SPEAKERI also launched it from the Epic Store

29:45SPEAKERwithout launching it through Steam, and that also worked.

29:49SPEAKERAnd I was surprised by that.

29:50SPEAKERI didn't expect that to happen.

29:51SPEAKERThe Microsoft Store games were less friendly on that.

29:57SPEAKERI'm not paying for Game Pass right now,

29:58SPEAKERso I didn't try a Game Pass game,

30:00SPEAKERbut I tried a game that I'd purchased

30:01SPEAKERon the Microsoft Store, and that worked

30:03SPEAKERwhen I launched it through Steam.

30:05SPEAKERI don't think it worked when I'd launched it

30:07SPEAKERoutside of the Steam without using the in-Steam shortcut.

30:11SPEAKER- Got it, okay.

30:12SPEAKER- If you can launch it through Steam, it will work,

30:15SPEAKERat least in Windows.

30:16SPEAKERI didn't test this in Linux,

30:17SPEAKER'cause Linux is a little bit of a mess on this stuff.

30:19SPEAKER- Sure.

30:22SPEAKER- I also, worth mentioning, works on Mac and Linux.

30:25SPEAKERI mean, I didn't test Mac.

30:26SPEAKERIt works on Linux great.

30:27SPEAKER- I don't, I need to, I should bone up on the state of

30:31SPEAKERmacOS Steam.

30:32SPEAKERI'm not sure where they're at with that stuff.

30:34SPEAKERI assume, I can't remember if there's an ARM Steam client

30:37SPEAKERyet or not.

30:38SPEAKER- I don't know if there's an ARM Steam client.

30:39SPEAKERThe big problem with PC, with Proton stuff on Mac

30:43SPEAKERis that there's no Vulkan on Mac, really.

30:47SPEAKER- I should look at that some more.

30:48SPEAKER- Yeah, I'd be interested to hear what that experience is.

30:52SPEAKERI don't really have a Mac that's capable

30:53SPEAKERof running games right now.

30:55SPEAKERLike the M5s are insane, I assume, I mean.

30:58SPEAKER- Well, if it works.

30:58SPEAKER- Of course, every, yeah, yeah.

30:59SPEAKERWell, I mean, I just mean in terms of raw horsepower.

31:02SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

31:03SPEAKER- Like they could do some real stuff with games

31:05SPEAKERif the compatibility is there, but.

31:07SPEAKER- Yep.

31:09SPEAKERSo let's see, I asked for some questions from the audience,

31:13SPEAKERfrom folks on social media last night.

31:15SPEAKERAnd the first question was,

31:18SPEAKERwill it wake up the Steam Deck if it's on the dock,

31:20SPEAKERor will it wake up your PC if your PC is sleeping?

31:24SPEAKER- The answer to both of those questions, not so much.

31:27SPEAKERMy guess is that the deck on the dock will come,

31:33SPEAKERbut the beta firmware for the Steam Deck

31:36SPEAKERseemed to not be the same as the beta Steam client

31:39SPEAKERthat I had to install to make this work.

31:42SPEAKERAnd also there was a patch note in the Steam Deck,

31:46SPEAKERpatch notes that was like re-re-re-enabling wake

31:51SPEAKERon Bluetooth for the Steam Deck LCD.

31:55SPEAKERSo like that seems to, that's a complicated,

31:58SPEAKERit turns out waking up devices with wireless devices

32:01SPEAKERremains complicated and a pain in the butt.

32:03SPEAKER- Yeah, worse early days for this thing.

32:06SPEAKERWho knows what they'll add over time?

32:07SPEAKER- Yeah, it also worked really well with streaming.

32:10SPEAKERI tried streaming a game from the PC in the other room

32:12SPEAKERusing both Moonlight and the default Steam client.

32:15SPEAKERThat was fine.

32:16SPEAKERThe no, for folks who do that a lot,

32:19SPEAKERthere's often like weird translation

32:22SPEAKERto translation to translation layer.

32:23SPEAKERSo you end up with like the wrong glyphs

32:25SPEAKERor like the PlayStation controller

32:27SPEAKERwon't do the reactive triggers or the touch pad or whatever.

32:30SPEAKERI didn't have any of those problems.

32:32SPEAKERIt just, it knew what it was

32:33SPEAKERand it passed that through on both devices.

32:37SPEAKERAnd let's see, people asked about the texture

32:40SPEAKERof the material.

32:41SPEAKERIt's basically the same as the OLED.

32:43SPEAKERI think I already talked about this,

32:44SPEAKERbut it's very similar to the Steam Deck OLED texture.

32:47SPEAKERThe stick tops, all that stuff feel the same.

32:49SPEAKERThe pads feel the same.

32:50SPEAKERThe buttons are relatively quiet.

32:53SPEAKERI'm gonna hold them up and click them right now.

32:55SPEAKERI don't know if it'll come through.

32:58SPEAKERThey're soft, not loud.

33:01SPEAKERIt's not like a mouse.

33:03SPEAKERIt's not like a keyboard click or a mouse click

33:04SPEAKERor something like that.

33:07SPEAKERAnd they aren't particularly mushy.

33:09SPEAKERI don't think I would play this

33:10SPEAKERwith my wife laying in bed next to me.

33:13SPEAKERBut I do that with the Steam Deck,

33:14SPEAKERso I guess it's probably okay.

33:17SPEAKERI think that's kind of the high points.

33:19SPEAKERThat's what I got on this.

33:20SPEAKER- That sounds pretty solid.

33:21SPEAKERI mean, $100 is not nothing for a controller.

33:24SPEAKERThat's pretty substantial,

33:25SPEAKEReven by modern inflated standards, but.

33:27SPEAKER- It doesn't feel hefty

33:30SPEAKERlike the Xbox Elite controller does, right?

33:33SPEAKERYou know how, I don't know if you've ever held one of those,

33:35SPEAKERbut that thing feels beefy. - I've got the first gen one,

33:37SPEAKERnot the second gen, but.

33:38SPEAKER- Yeah, I think a lot of people who bought the first gen one,

33:41SPEAKERI'm never buying another one after buying the first gen one

33:43SPEAKERbecause it kind of fell apart after a while,

33:45SPEAKERwhich bummed me out.

33:46SPEAKER- I actually got the sense the second gen

33:47SPEAKERis even worse about that somehow.

33:49SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.

33:50SPEAKERWell, then there's that PlayStation,

33:53SPEAKERI can't remember what they call theirs,

33:54SPEAKERbut they have an Elite equivalent that doesn't,

33:57SPEAKERit just has like,

33:58SPEAKERyou can change stick placement and stuff like that.

34:02SPEAKERI haven't spent any time at all with that.

34:04SPEAKERI have handled some Scuf controllers and some other things.

34:07SPEAKERThis doesn't feel premium

34:09SPEAKERin the same way that that Xbox Elite controller did,

34:12SPEAKERbut it feels better than trying to think,

34:17SPEAKERlike a PS4 controller in terms of like weight

34:20SPEAKERand stuff like that.

34:20SPEAKERAnd the rumble and all that stuff felt fine.

34:23SPEAKERIt's not like the HD rumble in the Switch

34:27SPEAKERor the more haptic-y rumble in a phone,

34:31SPEAKERbut it let me feel like something was happening

34:34SPEAKERwhen I got whacked in Hollow Knight,

34:35SPEAKERwhich is what I'm looking for, I guess.

34:37SPEAKER- Okay then.

34:38SPEAKER- So that's the Steam controller.

34:40SPEAKERYou can order it on the 4th,

34:41SPEAKERwhich is I think today when you listen to this.

34:43SPEAKER- They should piece of hardware.

34:45SPEAKER- Yeah.

34:46SPEAKER- I think it's telling that the one that they shipped

34:48SPEAKERis the one that doesn't have any RAM.

34:49SPEAKER- Yeah, or maybe I assume

34:51SPEAKERthere's like a tiny amount of RAM in there.

34:53SPEAKER- I mean, yeah, but it's not the difficult-to-get kind of RAM.

34:56SPEAKER- It's not fast.

34:57SPEAKERIt's not, I don't know, it's like 128 kilobytes

34:59SPEAKERor something like that.

35:00SPEAKERAnyway, what else have you got going on?

35:03SPEAKER- Well, so I picked up a 3D printer.

35:06SPEAKER- Okay.

35:06SPEAKER- After Norm came by and told me how good 3D printers were,

35:09SPEAKERI didn't believe him.

35:10SPEAKERI mean, I did believe him, but I got a Bamboo Labs P2S,

35:15SPEAKERand the last month has been about onboarding it

35:19SPEAKERand learning how to do things

35:21SPEAKERand learning how to use the tools that are there.

35:24SPEAKERLike, it's kind of wild.

35:27SPEAKERSo I got the P2S and I have the AMS2 Pro,

35:31SPEAKERwhich is the automated material system,

35:33SPEAKERwhich basically lets you put four spools of plastic

35:36SPEAKERin the top and then feed.

35:39SPEAKERIt can change those dynamically

35:40SPEAKERwithout me having to do anything, which is really nice.

35:43SPEAKER- Okay. - Turns out.

35:44SPEAKER- That's cool.

35:46SPEAKERAnd I've been experimenting

35:47SPEAKERwith different kinds of filament.

35:50SPEAKERI've done PTG, which is the plastic

35:53SPEAKERthat's in like a Coke bottle.

35:55SPEAKERI've done some, I've done a lot of PLA stuff.

35:58SPEAKERI have a thing of TPU, which is the bendy plastic

36:02SPEAKERthat people like print shoes out of.

36:04SPEAKER- What? - Yeah.

36:06SPEAKER- Huh.

36:08SPEAKER- I have not tried that yet, 'cause that's more,

36:12SPEAKERso the AMS handles like moisture control,

36:15SPEAKER'cause some of the filaments, some of the types of plastic,

36:17SPEAKERif they get wet, don't print particularly well.

36:19SPEAKERThey get poppy and bubbly.

36:20SPEAKER- I'm sorry, I'm on a gallery of 3D printed shoes right now

36:24SPEAKERand I'm not sure I can think about anything else.

36:26SPEAKER- Do you want me to print you something?

36:28SPEAKERYour feet might be too big for my printer, Brad.

36:29SPEAKERI'm sorry. - That's possible.

36:31SPEAKERThat is my wearing.

36:32SPEAKERDo you know your feet get slightly bigger as you age?

36:34SPEAKER- Yeah, I've found that out as I'm wearing a pair of shoes

36:36SPEAKERthat are a little bit more snug

36:38SPEAKERthan the last pair that were exactly like this.

36:40SPEAKER- Same, I have to, I wear a 14 now, apparently.

36:45SPEAKER- Yeah, that's also, I feel like working at home

36:48SPEAKERand not wearing shoes for most of the last 10 years

36:51SPEAKERhas changed my foot structure fairly significantly.

36:53SPEAKER- Probably not the best thing, but anyway.

36:56SPEAKER- But yeah, so I've been experimenting,

36:58SPEAKERI've been onboarding, I've been learning how to do it.

37:01SPEAKERThe first thing that struck me is how dimensionally accurate

37:03SPEAKERthe prints are on all three axes.

37:06SPEAKERThe last time I used 3D printers regularly,

37:08SPEAKERthat was absolutely not the case.

37:10SPEAKERAnd if you needed something that had the right size hole,

37:13SPEAKERoften the easiest thing to do is to print an area

37:16SPEAKERthat had a smaller hole than you needed

37:19SPEAKERand made sure that it was filled in around it

37:22SPEAKERand then just drill out the size that you need.

37:25SPEAKERBut I've printed things that are within

37:29SPEAKERlike five to 20,000ths of an inch precision

37:35SPEAKERand it's spot on.

37:38SPEAKERLike when I get the calipers out afterwards,

37:39SPEAKERit's spot on, it's wild.

37:41SPEAKERGetting some of those good multi-thou tolerances.

37:44SPEAKER- Well, look, man, here's the thing about tolerances.

37:46SPEAKEREverybody who, when I started,

37:50SPEAKERwhen I learned how to machine,

37:51SPEAKERthe machinist who taught me how to use the mill

37:53SPEAKERwithout killing myself said, hey,

37:56SPEAKER'cause I was like,

37:57SPEAKERhow many thou should I make this tolerance?

37:59SPEAKERAnd he was like, no, no, that's not how to do this.

38:02SPEAKERJust take whatever you have and add X number of thou,

38:06SPEAKER'cause if you make it too close,

38:07SPEAKERit's just not going to go together.

38:09SPEAKERLike it's going to be a pain in the butt to join

38:12SPEAKERand you're not in a place where you can do

38:14SPEAKERthe chamfers to like guide it in.

38:22SPEAKERSo anyway, so I do pretty loose tolerances

38:25SPEAKERusually on stuff like that.

38:27SPEAKERAnd for most of what I'm doing,

38:29SPEAKERI'm screwing like a quarter inch female screw mount in,

38:33SPEAKERlike the kind that's in the bottom of a camera

38:35SPEAKERor something like that.

38:36SPEAKERSo the tolerances on that are not particularly fine.

38:40SPEAKERYou don't want to have to push too much plastic

38:42SPEAKERout of the way.

38:43SPEAKER- Are the prints durable enough to make something

38:44SPEAKERthat you would mount an expensive camera on now?

38:48SPEAKER- So the first thing I printed was a mount

38:50SPEAKERfor my Elgato face cam so that it would mount on the back

38:53SPEAKERinstead of on the front, on the bottom rather,

38:57SPEAKER'cause it has a screw on the bottom

38:59SPEAKERand it's a pain in the butt to aim it where I have my cameras

39:01SPEAKERso I, yeah, like, I mean, that's a $150 webcam.

39:06SPEAKERI don't think I would put like a $3,000 SLR on it,

39:09SPEAKERbut it's actually, it's fine.

39:14SPEAKERAnd the interesting thing is if you print stuff on the right,

39:17SPEAKERyou have to be thoughtful about how the materials work

39:19SPEAKERin order to print like that, right?

39:22SPEAKERSo like the sheer between layers is really relatively weak,

39:27SPEAKERbut the compressive force when you're doing

39:30SPEAKERlike the smash together, like if you're putting force

39:33SPEAKERon layers that are stacked on top of each other,

39:35SPEAKERit's really good.

39:36SPEAKERIf you're putting force on stuff that's sheer

39:38SPEAKERwith the layers that it's printed.

39:40SPEAKER- Pulling the layers apart.

39:41SPEAKER- It's a bad idea.

39:42SPEAKER- Yeah.

39:43SPEAKER- So yeah, it depends, I guess is the answer.

39:46SPEAKER- Okay.

39:48SPEAKER- But I started out by printing the same things

39:50SPEAKERthat I think a lot of people do,

39:51SPEAKERlike a lot of fidgets and a lot of crap for the,

39:54SPEAKERlike I printed a trash basket for the printer.

39:56SPEAKERSo it has a little hole in the back

39:57SPEAKERthat like all the little poops come out

39:59SPEAKERwhen it cleans off the bottom of the nozzle.

40:02SPEAKER- Sure.

40:02SPEAKER- And I printed a thing that collects all those.

40:08SPEAKERI've done a lot of like small plastic crap

40:12SPEAKERaround the house that I needed.

40:13SPEAKERSo like I have this poster,

40:14SPEAKERI think I've talked about this here,

40:15SPEAKERbut I have old maximum PC covers that are printed

40:18SPEAKERon like three eighths or half inch poster board foam core.

40:24SPEAKERAnd they're really hard to mount on the walls

40:26SPEAKERbecause like I don't wanna put holes through them

40:29SPEAKERand they're too heavy for like double-sided tape

40:31SPEAKERor nano tape or something like that.

40:33SPEAKERSo I just printed, I just made little corner cutouts

40:36SPEAKERthat are like three quarters of an inch long on each side.

40:40SPEAKERAnd they're exactly the right thickness

40:43SPEAKERto nestle up in there.

40:44SPEAKERAnd I hang them in.

40:46SPEAKERI've done some frame mounts for pictures behind me

40:50SPEAKERthat are gonna be a little less wobbly

40:52SPEAKER'cause right now, every time there's any kind of earthquake,

40:53SPEAKERI have to realign all the pictures

40:56SPEAKERon the background behind my wall,

40:57SPEAKERwhich is a pain in the butt.

41:00SPEAKERI made a toothbrush holder like that I can just hang

41:04SPEAKERthe little heads for my electric toothbrush on

41:07SPEAKERwhen I'm not brushing my teeth.

41:09SPEAKERI printed, the Kiddo's basketball goal in the backyard

41:13SPEAKERhas plastic bung holes that go in the weight on the bottom

41:18SPEAKERthat are like, it has a big giant tub

41:21SPEAKERthat you're supposed to fill with sand or water.

41:23SPEAKERAnd the plastic on those plugs has broken down

41:27SPEAKERand they got pushed down into the thing years ago.

41:29SPEAKERSo they've just been opened

41:31SPEAKERin a festering mosquito breeding ground.

41:34SPEAKERSo I printed cups to go over those.

41:37SPEAKERJust like stuff like that.

41:38SPEAKERI'm starting to move.

41:39SPEAKERLike I'm feeling confident enough in it now

41:41SPEAKERthat I'm moving into like bigger projects, I guess.

41:44SPEAKER- That's fun.

41:46SPEAKER- Yeah.

41:48SPEAKER- Such as a case for the Pi Maroni?

41:50SPEAKER- Yeah, so I'm working on a case

41:52SPEAKERfor the Pi Maroni right now.

41:53SPEAKERThe Pi Maroni is that LCD panel thing that runs a teensy,

41:58SPEAKERI think maybe it's a Pi, I can't remember.

42:00SPEAKERMaybe a Pico.

42:03SPEAKERI've got some Mother's Day related shenanigans

42:04SPEAKERthat I'll share when that's done and some other stuff.

42:08SPEAKERI've also, a couple of tools have been really useful

42:10SPEAKERthat I wanna talk about.

42:11SPEAKERIf you have a 3D printer and you did like,

42:13SPEAKERhaving a pair of cheap calipers, cheap digital calipers,

42:17SPEAKERI've had these for years.

42:18SPEAKERI use them way more now than I ever have before,

42:22SPEAKERbut they're just like a pair of $20 career

42:23SPEAKERprecision calipers that you can get a precise measurement

42:26SPEAKERon your, whatever you're picking out.

42:29SPEAKER- Specifically when you're talking about the caps

42:31SPEAKERfor the basketball base, I was just like,

42:34SPEAKERhow exactly do you measure to the precision you would need?

42:36SPEAKER'Cause that needs to be a pretty tight fit to be useful.

42:40SPEAKER- Yeah, so A, tapers are always your friend,

42:45SPEAKERso that then you just jam it in

42:46SPEAKERand it gets as far as you need, yeah.

42:51SPEAKERWith this, I used the, you know,

42:53SPEAKERcalipers have three ways you measure.

42:55SPEAKERThere's a depth gauge, there's the thing that you see

42:57SPEAKERthat you put your finger, you know, the pincher thing,

43:00SPEAKERbut then you can also use the top part

43:02SPEAKERto tell how big a hole is, and then there's a depth gauge

43:06SPEAKERon the other end that pokes out of the end of the slide.

43:09SPEAKERI don't know if you can see that probably.

43:11SPEAKERSo yeah, I use the hole side for that, which was useful.

43:15SPEAKER- You said those were like 20 bucks?

43:17SPEAKER- You can get, what would have been a thousand dollar pair

43:20SPEAKERof calipers 30 years ago is like 20 bucks on Amazon.

43:22SPEAKER- That's exactly why I ask now, because I was gonna say,

43:24SPEAKERI bet there were some extremely nice,

43:26SPEAKERexpensive calipers you can buy.

43:28SPEAKER- Oh yeah, like it, look, if you're working at JPL

43:31SPEAKERand you're machining stuff that's gonna go to Mars,

43:35SPEAKERyou're working on a level of caliper

43:36SPEAKERthat these are not suitable for.

43:39SPEAKERBut for, hey, I needed to 3D print some plastic crap

43:42SPEAKERaround my house, these are perfect.

43:46SPEAKERI have a set of Gunpla tools

43:48SPEAKERthat I think Austin recommended years ago that are,

43:52SPEAKERit's like round file, it's a pair of real flush cut nippers,

43:57SPEAKERit's a couple of other things.

44:01SPEAKERThere's like some emery board, like real fine emery boards

44:04SPEAKERto like smooth out the plastic when you cut it off.

44:07SPEAKERTurns out they are incredibly useful for this,

44:11SPEAKERlike incredibly useful for this.

44:13SPEAKERAnd having the three or four different shapes of file

44:16SPEAKERto get into the places that you need to smooth something off

44:19SPEAKERif there's like a hanging edge or whatever,

44:21SPEAKERis really, really good.

44:22SPEAKERAnd then various kinds of cyanoacrylate glue,

44:25SPEAKERcrazy super glue, whatever you wanna call it.

44:31SPEAKERI have both the fast set stuff, which is good,

44:35SPEAKERwhich basically instantly fuses two things together forever.

44:39SPEAKERAnd then I have some stuff that's,

44:40SPEAKERI think Loctite makes one that takes like five minutes

44:44SPEAKERto cure, that's really nice if you have something

44:46SPEAKERthat's a little fiddly to get in place

44:48SPEAKERso that you can wiggle it around a bit after you've stuck it.

44:51SPEAKER- This all sounds very useful, making stuff.

44:56SPEAKER- Yeah, like have I made anything that justifies

44:59SPEAKERhaving this giant thing in my office yet?

45:01SPEAKERNo, probably not.

45:02SPEAKER- Maybe you might.

45:03SPEAKER- But I think we're getting there.

45:05SPEAKERI'm excited about this Mother's Day project.

45:06SPEAKERI have another project after that that's gonna be fun too.

45:11SPEAKER- We will check back in.

45:12SPEAKER- Yeah, we'll talk about that later.

45:13SPEAKERI might do videos for some of these.

45:15SPEAKERI think there's some fun stuff in some of them.

45:17SPEAKERWhat do you got going on?

45:18SPEAKER- I've also been working with some printing.

45:20SPEAKER- Oh, really?

45:21SPEAKER- With slightly less dimensionality than yours.

45:25SPEAKER- Oh, 1D printing.

45:26SPEAKER- 2D, man, what would that even look like?

45:28SPEAKER- It's a line.

45:29SPEAKER- Yeah.

45:30SPEAKER- Right?

45:31SPEAKER- But isn't a line of any actual sufficient width

45:35SPEAKERtechnically two dimensional?

45:36SPEAKERLike you would have to have a line

45:41SPEAKERwith the width of one Planck length

45:44SPEAKERto really truly constitute one dimension, right?

45:47SPEAKER- What is a line really, man?

45:49SPEAKER- Is it Planck, Planck, I just assumed.

45:51SPEAKER- Planck is what the physicists and chemists always said

45:53SPEAKERwhen I was at college.

45:54SPEAKER- Is it German or?

45:56SPEAKER- It's German, but I think it's American.

45:57SPEAKER- It's probably actually Planck,

45:59SPEAKERbut everybody says Planck, right?

46:00SPEAKER- Look, we should get Katie Mack back on the podcast.

46:02SPEAKERWe'll just ask her this and call it a day.

46:04SPEAKER- I'm not versed in that stuff.

46:06SPEAKERIsn't that the smallest measurable unit

46:09SPEAKERin our universe or something along those lines?

46:11SPEAKER- No, no, no.

46:12SPEAKERIt's the constant that determines how close atoms are.

46:15SPEAKER- Oh, okay.

46:15SPEAKER- So if the Planck constant changes,

46:19SPEAKERplease don't write in.

46:21SPEAKER- Not physicists here, it turns out.

46:23SPEAKER- Yeah, but my understanding is the Planck constant

46:27SPEAKERis the, yeah, it has to do with how close things are

46:32SPEAKERto each other.

46:33SPEAKER- Right, anyway, okay, printers.

46:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I know if you change the Planck constant,

46:38SPEAKERthen the universe fundamentally changes

46:40SPEAKERand like matter and energy are not right anymore.

46:43SPEAKER- It's one of those starting parameters,

46:44SPEAKERlike big G and little G.

46:47SPEAKER- Yeah. - Right?

46:48SPEAKER- You could just change some values

46:50SPEAKERand our reality would be very different.

46:52SPEAKER- Have you ever read the Wernher Vinge books

46:54SPEAKERwhere different parts of the universe

46:56SPEAKERhave different core constants?

46:58SPEAKER- No, but I think that isn't that an actual idea

47:00SPEAKERin actual theoretical physics?

47:02SPEAKERI believe I have read.

47:03SPEAKER- I don't know about that, but he has a whole thing

47:06SPEAKERwhere like the closer you are to the galactic core,

47:08SPEAKERthe more accessible, like the Planck constant changes

47:11SPEAKERso you can do more computation

47:13SPEAKERand you have speed of light changes and--

47:15SPEAKER- That sounds like--

47:16SPEAKER- Yeah, Wernher Vinge is good.

47:17SPEAKER- That sounds like something I would enjoy.

47:20SPEAKERAnyway, printers, are we talking around everything

47:23SPEAKERbut the subject of 2D paper printers?

47:26SPEAKER- This is literally my least favorite technology topic

47:28SPEAKERin the world. - Yeah.

47:29SPEAKER- Like from the time I worked in the printer lab

47:33SPEAKERat the university in the '90s till now,

47:35SPEAKERprinters have remained my nemesis.

47:37SPEAKER- Well, the good news is not to bury the lead here,

47:39SPEAKERbut it sounds like that's not a problem.

47:41SPEAKERIt's like a solved problem now.

47:42SPEAKERIt's not something to worry about anymore.

47:44SPEAKERIf you have a modern printer--

47:46SPEAKER- What about if you're using Linux?

47:48SPEAKER- Okay, there's also, well, so no,

47:50SPEAKERactually even Linux is covered here.

47:51SPEAKERIn fact, I just read up on this right before this.

47:55SPEAKERI'll go in order here though.

47:56SPEAKERWe'll get to that at the end.

47:57SPEAKERBut also anybody who's bought a printer

47:59SPEAKERin the last like five to 10 years,

48:00SPEAKERprobably already knows this.

48:01SPEAKER- It's 10, yeah.

48:02SPEAKER- Or maybe even doesn't know this because it's so seamless,

48:04SPEAKERyou don't have to think about it, but we'll get there.

48:08SPEAKERThat one brother laser.

48:10SPEAKER- Yeah, the one that everybody bought.

48:12SPEAKER- There's that semi-famous Verge write-up

48:14SPEAKERwhere every year they just update it to say,

48:16SPEAKERget whatever the current black and white

48:18SPEAKERbrother laser printer is when you need a printer.

48:20SPEAKER- Yeah, I did that a few years ago

48:21SPEAKERand my old one crapped out.

48:22SPEAKERI bought a $75 brother laser, perfect.

48:24SPEAKER- I don't know if they're still building them

48:26SPEAKERto last like this now,

48:27SPEAKERbut I went and looked at my Amazon history.

48:28SPEAKERMy brother laser was purchased in 2008.

48:32SPEAKERMine is still going just fine.

48:35SPEAKER- I replaced mine because it had a fax machine

48:37SPEAKERand a scanner attached to it that I never used

48:39SPEAKERand it took a lot of space.

48:40SPEAKERAnd it started making a really loud squeaking noise

48:43SPEAKERso that nobody could use it if I was on calls

48:45SPEAKERor recording a podcast or something.

48:47SPEAKERAnd I decided the replacement,

48:50SPEAKERit was cheaper for me as much as we were printing

48:53SPEAKERwith the homeschool stuff going

48:55SPEAKERbecause the new one has cheaper toner.

48:58SPEAKER- Sure, yeah, that makes sense.

49:00SPEAKERAnyway, ours is small and reliable and it's still going

49:03SPEAKERand it prints my girlfriend's return shipping labels

49:06SPEAKERjust fine, which is about 99% of what it gets used for.

49:09SPEAKERBut she does like to print those labels from her iPad.

49:12SPEAKERThat's where I print all my stuff from my phone now.

49:15SPEAKER- Yeah, right.

49:16SPEAKER- That's the Linux way.

49:17SPEAKER- And boy, do those printers not have AirPrint support

49:19SPEAKER'cause that didn't exist back then.

49:21SPEAKER- Oh, mine does.

49:22SPEAKER- So yeah, so that's what we'll get to here.

49:25SPEAKERI'll just say it now instead of talking around it.

49:26SPEAKERLike driverless printing seems like it's just

49:29SPEAKERthe standard now.

49:30SPEAKERIt's kind of amazing that we've gotten there.

49:31SPEAKERAnd again, I don't have hands-on experience with this.

49:35SPEAKERYou obviously do, but I read about it at least.

49:37SPEAKERLike it sounds like if your printer supports AirPrint

49:40SPEAKERor IPP everywhere, internet printing protocol everywhere,

49:44SPEAKERwhich sounds like probably basically every printer

49:47SPEAKERthat rolls off the line does these days

49:49SPEAKERhave one or both of those.

49:50SPEAKER'Cause I mean, all printers are network printers now, right?

49:53SPEAKERI would assume.

49:54SPEAKER- Kind of, yeah.

49:55SPEAKER- I mean, I guess maybe there are still

49:58SPEAKERsome USB only models selling.

50:01SPEAKER- Wow, okay, so yeah, mine just works now.

50:04SPEAKERWhen I print from Google docs, I don't have to do cups.

50:06SPEAKER- And Linux.

50:07SPEAKER- Yeah, well it says getting printer information.

50:09SPEAKERThat's what all the documentation for cups

50:12SPEAKERand the Debbie and Wiki and a bunch of stuff I looked at

50:14SPEAKERis that because these driverless standards

50:18SPEAKERwere made for mobile devices,

50:19SPEAKERthat just kind of covers everything, including Linux now.

50:23SPEAKER- I don't feel great about this if I'm being real.

50:25SPEAKER- Why not?

50:26SPEAKER- Well, 'cause it's not working.

50:27SPEAKERIt's just saying getting printer information.

50:29SPEAKER- Okay, well.

50:30SPEAKER- This could be a neary problem though.

50:31SPEAKER- That's possible.

50:32SPEAKER- Some of the underpinnings of the tiling window managers

50:36SPEAKERare a little thin compared to like KDE or GNOME.

50:38SPEAKERAnd we don't need to get into it too much

50:39SPEAKERbecause I didn't do a ton of research on it

50:41SPEAKERbecause I don't have this capability,

50:42SPEAKERbut these work pretty much exactly like you would expect.

50:45SPEAKERThey use standard communications protocols

50:47SPEAKERand they expect the documents being submitted

50:49SPEAKERto the print queue to be in some kind of standard format

50:52SPEAKERor they were converted to a standard format

50:54SPEAKERin that process, you know?

50:55SPEAKERLike you can envision how this pipeline would work

50:58SPEAKERwhere there are these standards now

51:00SPEAKERand all printers that abide by the standards

51:02SPEAKERare expected to speak the language

51:04SPEAKERand format the documents and et cetera.

51:07SPEAKER- The workflow on Windows at least

51:11SPEAKERis that you press to print something

51:14SPEAKERand it pops up the print dialogue

51:16SPEAKERand it's like, "Oh, hey, do you wanna add a printer?

51:18SPEAKERWe found this printer.

51:19SPEAKERDo you wanna add it?"

51:20SPEAKERAnd you hit the button and it downloads

51:21SPEAKERsome stuff with the printer

51:22SPEAKERand then you press the button and it rips out

51:24SPEAKERjust like always.

51:25SPEAKERAnd it also supports all the features.

51:26SPEAKERLike it supports the dual-sided printing

51:28SPEAKERand all that stuff.

51:29SPEAKER- So my 2008 printer is from the in-between space

51:32SPEAKERwhere it is network connected and supports like MDNS

51:35SPEAKERso it can be discovered over the network

51:37SPEAKERbut still needs a driver.

51:39SPEAKER- Does this support a Wi-Fi?

51:41SPEAKERI bet you have it plugged into ethernet.

51:42SPEAKER- No, it's on Wi-Fi.

51:43SPEAKER- But is it on like G or something from that era?

51:46SPEAKER- I think it is G.

51:47SPEAKERYes, I believe it is G.

51:48SPEAKER- So it's bringing down your whole network

51:49SPEAKERis what I'm hearing.

51:50SPEAKER- Yeah, well, it's not the only G device in here.

51:51SPEAKERAlthough actually, maybe I should do an audit.

51:53SPEAKER- It probably is at this point, yeah.

51:54SPEAKER- I should do an audit.

51:55SPEAKERWell, but it also doesn't stay on.

51:57SPEAKERIt gets turned on when we use it

51:58SPEAKERand then turned off again.

52:00SPEAKER- Okay.

52:01SPEAKER- I will say real quick though,

52:02SPEAKERit's gotten real janky in Windows 11.

52:05SPEAKERLike Windows 11, it's not the printer's fault,

52:07SPEAKERit's Windows 11's fault

52:08SPEAKERbecause Windows 11 keeps breaking the printer entry

52:12SPEAKERwith some kind of like driver not available error.

52:14SPEAKER- Let me tell you about K2.

52:16SPEAKER- K2?

52:17SPEAKER- Yeah, it's Microsoft's internal code name

52:19SPEAKERfor their initiative to make Windows not suck.

52:21SPEAKER- Wait, is that really what they're calling it?

52:22SPEAKER- That's what they're calling it.

52:24SPEAKERAccording to Windows Central, yeah.

52:26SPEAKER- That seems a little dire.

52:28SPEAKER- Look, man.

52:29SPEAKER- Is it really?

52:30SPEAKERLike are they even there?

52:31SPEAKERIt's gonna be that hard?

52:34SPEAKERAnyway.

52:35SPEAKER- Oh, you think it's because of the mountain.

52:36SPEAKER- Yeah, what else would it?

52:38SPEAKERThat has to be what it is, right?

52:39SPEAKER- Oh, I just assumed it was like the K-th object

52:43SPEAKERin the list. - Oh, no.

52:44SPEAKER- Oh. - No, I think--

52:45SPEAKER- Wow, so you're saying it's harder

52:46SPEAKERthan climbing Everest to fix Windows?

52:48SPEAKER- Is it harder?

52:49SPEAKERI mean, I guess it's, well, with all the--

52:50SPEAKER- K2 is way scarier than Everest,

52:52SPEAKERis my understanding. - Yeah, absolutely.

52:53SPEAKERWith all the, it is not as tall,

52:55SPEAKERbut with all the assists that exist on Everest these days,

52:58SPEAKERI think K2 absolutely would have to be the--

53:01SPEAKER- It's not as tall by like 80 feet, dude.

53:02SPEAKER- Yeah, okay, sure.

53:03SPEAKER- Like an inconsequential amount.

53:05SPEAKER- And way more treacherous is my understanding.

53:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

53:08SPEAKER- K2 is nicknamed the King of Mountains.

53:11SPEAKER- Yeah.

53:12SPEAKER- And the Mountaineers Mountain.

53:14SPEAKER- Yeah, it's for the--

53:15SPEAKER- And the Mountain of Mountains, apparently,

53:17SPEAKERaccording to this Wikipedia page.

53:19SPEAKER- Yeah, Everest is the tourist mountain

53:22SPEAKERand K2 is where the real hardcore go.

53:24SPEAKER- Anyway, I don't know how that bodes for their--

53:25SPEAKER- Mountain maxing.

53:26SPEAKER- I don't know how that bodes for their

53:27SPEAKERlet's make Windows better project,

53:30SPEAKERif that's what they're calling it, but anyway.

53:33SPEAKERLook, we'll talk about this in the,

53:37SPEAKERthey're saying, like the Windows Central report

53:40SPEAKERabout that K2 thing was basically,

53:43SPEAKERhey, man, we've set up benchmarks for tasks

53:46SPEAKERthat people do in Windows that are bad now

53:48SPEAKERand their benchmark for games is

53:51SPEAKERrunning Windows games on SteamOS.

53:53SPEAKER- I saw that, I saw that, they themselves are saying,

53:56SPEAKERhey, games run better on the compatibility layer

53:59SPEAKERthan they do on our own operating system.

54:01SPEAKER- I don't think it's benchmark in terms of performance,

54:03SPEAKERI think it's benchmark is in what the experience is.

54:06SPEAKERI think people are misinterpreting that part of it, I think.

54:08SPEAKER- Yeah, that would make sense.

54:09SPEAKERAnyway, all I was gonna say is my driver to printer

54:12SPEAKERkeeps breaking in Windows 11 and I think that's more,

54:15SPEAKERI think that's a sign of Windows 11 getting worse or--

54:17SPEAKER- Consider Linux.

54:18SPEAKER- More to the point, in this case,

54:20SPEAKERI think it's probably because like driver to printers

54:22SPEAKERare just getting less attention by platforms generally

54:25SPEAKERbecause every printer in the last 10 years

54:27SPEAKERdoesn't need a driver anymore, that's kind of the, yeah.

54:30SPEAKER- Well, asterisk though,

54:32SPEAKERlike when you get to big industrial printers,

54:33SPEAKERlike you find it in an office place,

54:35SPEAKERthen those need hella driver stuff.

54:37SPEAKER- I'm just, you know, I'm talking your standard consumer

54:39SPEAKERprinter that you're buying for your house

54:40SPEAKERwill just print from your phone or your PC or whatever now.

54:44SPEAKERAnyway, I've gone through this process several times

54:46SPEAKERover the years, you can add AirPrint support

54:49SPEAKERto your old printer with CUPS, I should double check,

54:53SPEAKERI always assume it's common Unix printing system.

54:56SPEAKER- That is what CUPS stands for, yes.

54:58SPEAKER- Okay, but it was always really janky to do that,

55:01SPEAKERlike it involved a bunch of user hacks,

55:04SPEAKERlike I think you and I both did it years ago

55:06SPEAKERor it was, I thought I remember talking to you about it.

55:08SPEAKER- You did it, you told me about it and I was like,

55:09SPEAKERand when my wife asked if we could get AirPrint

55:12SPEAKERon our printer, I was like, no, that's impossible.

55:14SPEAKER- Right.

55:15SPEAKER- So, your description of it made me never want

55:18SPEAKERto consider implementing that.

55:19SPEAKER- It was always pretty annoying, I mean, it was doable,

55:21SPEAKERbut like it involved like user-made Python scripts

55:24SPEAKERthat you had to run to generate certain files

55:26SPEAKERand like you could kind of bolt it on to CUPS

55:28SPEAKERin a way that was really annoying.

55:30SPEAKERAnd then over time, like as Docker came about,

55:32SPEAKERyou could get a Docker image that would just kind of do

55:34SPEAKERall of it for you, you know, you could just run the image.

55:36SPEAKER- That sounds better.

55:37SPEAKER- But you were still configuring CUPS,

55:39SPEAKERwhich remains a nightmare, but we'll get to that.

55:41SPEAKER- Hey, what's your CUPS password, Brad?

55:42SPEAKERThat's always the question, so you'd like log into CUPS

55:45SPEAKERand it's like, hey man, you have a password for this,

55:46SPEAKERI'm like, what the hell is the password?

55:48SPEAKER- In this case, the configuration I finally fumbled

55:50SPEAKERmy way to, apparently you just log in with the name

55:53SPEAKERand password of the user on the system,

55:55SPEAKERany, whatever, we'll get there.

55:57SPEAKERWe'll get there.

55:58SPEAKERThe big news here, news for three people.

56:01SPEAKER- Hot CUPS news, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

56:04SPEAKER- For three people listening to this

56:06SPEAKERwho will be excited about this like I was.

56:08SPEAKERCUPS was maintained by Apple for a long time.

56:10SPEAKERI don't know if you knew that, it's a weird thing.

56:12SPEAKER- It's been the underpinning of OS X's print system

56:15SPEAKERsince almost the beginning.

56:16SPEAKER- Oh, did they, I guess I should go back and look.

56:18SPEAKERI don't know if Apple created CUPS.

56:20SPEAKER- No, CUPS has been around for a hundred years.

56:22SPEAKER- Way before Apple was the first,

56:26SPEAKERApple was the corporate entity that was like,

56:28SPEAKERwe will devote resources to this.

56:30SPEAKER- I bet that's a legacy of their next acquisition, I bet.

56:34SPEAKER- I don't know.

56:35SPEAKERI feel like Mac heads will correct me on this.

56:39SPEAKERI feel like there was no printer support

56:41SPEAKERin early versions of OS X.

56:42SPEAKER- Oh, actually you're okay, yes.

56:44SPEAKERCUPS was, CUPS started being developed

56:46SPEAKERaround the time that OS X was being made, actually.

56:48SPEAKERNot by Apple, but they brought it under there.

56:51SPEAKERAnyway, long story short,

56:52SPEAKERthe main guy who maintained CUPS worked for Apple

56:55SPEAKERand they, like I think CUPS was actually part of Apple's

56:58SPEAKERlike GitHub repo or whatever for a long time.

57:00SPEAKERAnyway, CUPS never supported AirPrint under Apple.

57:05SPEAKERBut then at some point, like five years ago,

57:07SPEAKERthat dude left Apple and forked CUPS

57:09SPEAKER'cause they basically stopped supporting it.

57:10SPEAKERThey basically kind of like sealed it in ice

57:13SPEAKERand stopped adding to it.

57:15SPEAKERAnd so he left Apple and forked CUPS

57:18SPEAKERunder the open printing group.

57:20SPEAKERAnd now it's been back under a very active development.

57:23SPEAKERAnd the exciting part is they have just added

57:25SPEAKERnative AirPrint support to CUPS.

57:27SPEAKER- Oh, wow.

57:27SPEAKER- So like that's the news.

57:29SPEAKER- That is hot news.

57:30SPEAKER- You don't have to jump through all the hoops anymore.

57:34SPEAKERIf you have a- - That's amazing.

57:35SPEAKER- If you have a functional CUPS install

57:37SPEAKERand on Linux at least you need Avahi running.

57:39SPEAKERAre you familiar with that?

57:39SPEAKER- Oh yeah, Avahi is the-

57:42SPEAKER- It's the MDNS.

57:44SPEAKERIt's the multicast advertisement service.

57:46SPEAKER- Bonjour, the post-bonjour, bonjour.

57:48SPEAKERIt is kind of the equivalent of bonjour from Mac OS

57:52SPEAKERor zero conf occasionally you'll see that referred to

57:54SPEAKERwith other operating systems.

57:56SPEAKERSo effectively if you just set up CUPS

57:58SPEAKERand you have Avahi running and most distros

58:00SPEAKERjust have it running out of the box, I believe,

58:02SPEAKERmine certainly did.

58:03SPEAKER- That's wild.

58:04SPEAKER- It just works.

58:05SPEAKERLike you just set up CUPS and the printer

58:06SPEAKERand then the AirPrint part just works automatically.

58:11SPEAKERNow that assumes you can configure CUPS correctly

58:13SPEAKERin the first place to get there, which is,

58:16SPEAKERand I am deep in some open source shit.

58:19SPEAKERSo maybe the worst experience I've had

58:21SPEAKERtrying to configure a thing ever.

58:24SPEAKER- The third or fourth episode of Dual Boot Diaries,

58:26SPEAKERAdam asked me if I could print something,

58:29SPEAKERsome like we print benchmark charts at PC World

58:34SPEAKERfor when we're doing a stream about benchmarks.

58:37SPEAKERAnd he was like, hey, can you set up the printer

58:40SPEAKERon your laptop?

58:41SPEAKERAnd I was like, oh yeah, sure.

58:42SPEAKERHow hard can it be?

58:44SPEAKER- Well, two weeks later, I finally got it to print and...

58:49SPEAKER- It's a nightmare, man.

58:51SPEAKERIt's crazy.

58:52SPEAKER- I mean, in fairness, this is a big giant, like Xerox,

58:56SPEAKERlike it looks like an old photocopier size printer.

58:58SPEAKERLike it has like 25 trays.

59:00SPEAKERIt has, it can do staples.

59:02SPEAKERIt, you know, it does color.

59:04SPEAKERI don't know.

59:05SPEAKERYeah, it's a highly functional printer, but also damn.

59:09SPEAKER- It's a lot.

59:10SPEAKERIt's weird to see how it's spec'd

59:12SPEAKERagainst what have to be like corporate

59:14SPEAKERand kind of like academic needs.

59:16SPEAKERLike it's locked down to an insane degree

59:20SPEAKERin terms of security.

59:21SPEAKERAnd I assume that's because they expect it to mostly be used

59:24SPEAKERin like corporate environments where you really want

59:26SPEAKERto make sure people don't have access to network resources

59:29SPEAKERthat they shouldn't have access to.

59:31SPEAKER- Yeah, cups is for real printing perverts

59:32SPEAKERis the way I look at it at this point.

59:34SPEAKER- Anyway, we don't need to get too into the weeds

59:36SPEAKERon how hard that was to set up, but man, it's insane.

59:39SPEAKERLike out of the box, you can't access it over the network.

59:42SPEAKERYou can only access it on the machine it's running on,

59:43SPEAKERwhich if you're running it on the machine, problematic.

59:48SPEAKERAlso, every time you make a change to its global settings

59:50SPEAKERor to the printer that you're configuring in there,

59:53SPEAKERit overwrites the configuration file with its default,

59:56SPEAKERwhich then disables again, network access.

59:59SPEAKER- Does it not have a configuration file

1:00:01SPEAKERthat you can just go in and edit still?

1:00:02SPEAKER- It does, but that's what I'm talking about.

1:00:04SPEAKERThat's what gets overwritten every time you make a change

1:00:06SPEAKERin the web interface.

1:00:07SPEAKERLike you kind of can't use, like you kind of have to,

1:00:10SPEAKERwe don't need to go on, anyway.

1:00:12SPEAKERThe point is, if you can wrangle CUPS itself to work

1:00:15SPEAKERlike it's supposed to, then you now just get

1:00:17SPEAKERAirPrint support for free, which actually is kind of rad.

1:00:19SPEAKER- That's where that's fantastic.

1:00:20SPEAKER- For an old printer.

1:00:22SPEAKER- I wonder if I, I wonder is the CUPS,

1:00:24SPEAKERis this the new recommended CUPS in most distros?

1:00:26SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, like the, I did it on a Raspberry Pi,

1:00:30SPEAKERwhich runs basically Debian Trixie and that's just,

1:00:32SPEAKERin fact, it's gotta be every distro at this point,

1:00:34SPEAKERbut even the very conservative Debian stable

1:00:37SPEAKERhas got a very recent--

1:00:38SPEAKER- The fork rather than--

1:00:39SPEAKER- Yeah, it seems like the open printing version

1:00:41SPEAKERis the standard now.

1:00:42SPEAKER- That's rad.

1:00:43SPEAKER- Yeah, it's cool.

1:00:44SPEAKERBut also, you know, if you're in the market for a printer,

1:00:48SPEAKERjust buy a new printer

1:00:49SPEAKERand you won't ever have to think about this.

1:00:50SPEAKER- I mean, this, I'm gonna go and tell you,

1:00:52SPEAKERthe 75 bucks I spent, if I spend 75 bucks every 10 years

1:00:55SPEAKERon a new Brother laser printer,

1:00:56SPEAKERI feel like I get my 10 years worth out of that.

1:00:59SPEAKER- So the one rub, I mean, this is not totally impossible

1:01:04SPEAKERto deal with, but they're like twice that now.

1:01:07SPEAKERI went and worked and like the base model,

1:01:09SPEAKERthe one that, you know, the cheap Wi-Fi Brother laser

1:01:12SPEAKERis now 150 bucks.

1:01:13SPEAKERSo they are creeping up.

1:01:15SPEAKER- So here's, so I bought mine right at the start

1:01:18SPEAKERof the pandemic 'cause I was like,

1:01:19SPEAKERoh, we're gonna be stuck at home for a little bit.

1:01:21SPEAKERI need to get a printer so the kid can do schoolwork.

1:01:23SPEAKERAnd it turns out that was a good move

1:01:26SPEAKER'cause they were almost impossible to get

1:01:28SPEAKERlike three weeks later.

1:01:29SPEAKER- Yeah, I kind of wish I had just had a newer one,

1:01:31SPEAKERbut this one's still good.

1:01:32SPEAKERWe've only replaced the toner at once in 18 years.

1:01:34SPEAKERIt's still going fine.

1:01:36SPEAKER- I print a lot more than you, it turns out.

1:01:37SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:01:38SPEAKER- I was gonna say the other thing people are doing for,

1:01:41SPEAKERif all you print is labels,

1:01:43SPEAKERif that's the main thing you print,

1:01:45SPEAKERone of those little thermal label printers

1:01:48SPEAKERlike they have at FedEx and UPS is perfect

1:01:50SPEAKER'cause then you can print it on stickers

1:01:53SPEAKERand you just smack it on your package and you're good to go.

1:01:55SPEAKER- Yeah, here's another little life hack for you.

1:01:58SPEAKER- Okay.

1:01:59SPEAKER- This is my experience.

1:02:00SPEAKERI've only tried this twice, but in both cases,

1:02:02SPEAKERit worked without a hitch.

1:02:03SPEAKERIf you, at least for UPS, I can't speak for,

1:02:06SPEAKERor wait, no, this was FedEx, I take that back.

1:02:09SPEAKERIf you're doing return labels and it's FedEx,

1:02:12SPEAKERif you can just learn the email address of your local FedEx,

1:02:15SPEAKERwhichever one the location you're going to,

1:02:17SPEAKERjust email them the PDF or the whatever the form

1:02:20SPEAKERthe return label is in like 10 minutes

1:02:23SPEAKERbefore you get there.

1:02:23SPEAKER- And they'll do it for you?

1:02:24SPEAKER- And they will just go pull it up and print it for you.

1:02:26SPEAKERThey don't give a shit.

1:02:27SPEAKERI think technically, like by the letter of the law,

1:02:31SPEAKERthey might be supposed to charge you for that,

1:02:33SPEAKERbut in both experiences I've had,

1:02:34SPEAKERlike when I didn't print it out ahead of time

1:02:37SPEAKERand did that instead, they were like,

1:02:37SPEAKER"Yeah, we'll just run it off."

1:02:38SPEAKERAnd they just print one of their nice ones

1:02:40SPEAKERand slap it on there and you're good.

1:02:41SPEAKER- Most of the stuff I've had to print lately,

1:02:44SPEAKERI've had to return lately.

1:02:45SPEAKERI just go in and show them a QR code

1:02:47SPEAKERand then they hand them a thing.

1:02:49SPEAKER- This is for cases where you don't have that integration

1:02:53SPEAKERwith, I mean, Amazon is taking over everything else

1:02:55SPEAKERin society, but you know.

1:02:56SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:02:58SPEAKERDo we have time for one more quick hit

1:03:00SPEAKERon one last thing I've been testing?

1:03:02SPEAKERVery rapid, yeah, let's do lightning round here.

1:03:05SPEAKER- So I have the Razer Viper Pro 4,

1:03:08SPEAKERwhich is the fourth iteration of the Razer Viper.

1:03:11SPEAKERIt's their e-sports mouse, basically.

1:03:12SPEAKERIt's a two-button, well, it has two side buttons,

1:03:17SPEAKERnot ambidextrous 'cause the buttons are only on one side,

1:03:20SPEAKERbut 49 gram professional kind of gaming mouse.

1:03:27SPEAKERThey've updated it to have the 8,000 hertz

1:03:32SPEAKERsample rate on the dongle on the radio connection

1:03:34SPEAKERbetween the mouse and the system,

1:03:37SPEAKERor I guess wired do if you want that.

1:03:39SPEAKER- What's ballpark average for those two?

1:03:41SPEAKER- 1,000 is the default for-- - Really?

1:03:43SPEAKER- Well, 1,000 is the default highest you can go

1:03:46SPEAKERon most systems for the polling rate.

1:03:50SPEAKERThe 8,000 requires driver support

1:03:52SPEAKERand I think it only works in Windows right now.

1:03:54SPEAKERI haven't tried it in Linux

1:03:55SPEAKER'cause it adds a kind of shocking amount of overhead.

1:04:00SPEAKER- CPU overhead? - CPU overhead, yeah.

1:04:02SPEAKER- I kind of, I believe that.

1:04:04SPEAKER- I mean, the people who care about this

1:04:06SPEAKERdon't care about CPU overhead

1:04:08SPEAKER'cause they're playing games

1:04:08SPEAKERthat are absolutely not CPU bound.

1:04:10SPEAKER- Sure.

1:04:12SPEAKER- It has optical switches

1:04:13SPEAKER'cause Razer's moved most of their stuff to optical

1:04:16SPEAKERjust to avoid having to deal with debounce

1:04:18SPEAKERon the mechanical switches.

1:04:20SPEAKERIt doesn't include, it's not an analog optical though,

1:04:23SPEAKERso it's not like the super strike

1:04:24SPEAKERwhere you can kind of set your trigger points.

1:04:26SPEAKERIt's just to avoid debounce on the switches

1:04:30SPEAKERand they also have it on the scroll wheel,

1:04:32SPEAKERwhich is quite nice.

1:04:34SPEAKER- Oh, interesting.

1:04:35SPEAKERThe click as you scroll the wheel?

1:04:36SPEAKER- No, no, the scrolling part.

1:04:37SPEAKERYeah, the scrolling is optical as well.

1:04:39SPEAKERAnd maybe the click is as well, actually,

1:04:41SPEAKERwhen I think about it.

1:04:41SPEAKER- That's interesting.

1:04:43SPEAKER- And they said they did that to reduce wear

1:04:45SPEAKERand make the wheel last longer.

1:04:47SPEAKER- Yeah, I was gonna say though,

1:04:48SPEAKERI think the wheel seems like the biggest point of failure

1:04:52SPEAKERas far as collecting dust and wearing out and stuff.

1:04:54SPEAKER- Well, yeah, 'cause especially in these light mouses,

1:04:56SPEAKERthey hollow out the wheel so there's a gap

1:05:00SPEAKERthat you can actually get inside your mouse on.

1:05:02SPEAKERThe other thing is having debounce on the wheel,

1:05:05SPEAKERthey specifically said was not having to deal

1:05:09SPEAKERwith debounce on the wheel 'cause people use that

1:05:11SPEAKERto switch guns in Fortnite and games like that.

1:05:14SPEAKERAnd being super precise on that is much more important now

1:05:17SPEAKERthan it was when people were all using one, two, three,

1:05:19SPEAKERand four to change their guns, like decent human beings.

1:05:23SPEAKER- Yeah, this G502X Logitech that I have is three,

1:05:29SPEAKERtwo, three years old now.

1:05:29SPEAKERLike occasionally I will get a double input

1:05:31SPEAKERon the scroll wheel and I always wonder

1:05:33SPEAKERif it's the application or the mouse,

1:05:35SPEAKERbut it's never consistent enough to say it's the mouse.

1:05:37SPEAKER- Almost certainly the hardware.

1:05:39SPEAKER- Okay, is that just a debounce failure?

1:05:42SPEAKER- That's a debounce failure probably, yeah.

1:05:46SPEAKERThe neat thing that they're doing,

1:05:47SPEAKERwell, there's two things that they're doing that I love.

1:05:48SPEAKEROne is that they have web interface,

1:05:50SPEAKERa web interface for configuring the mouse.

1:05:52SPEAKERSo you can just log into their website basically

1:05:56SPEAKERand configure the mouse without having to install software

1:05:59SPEAKERif you're on another computer.

1:06:01SPEAKER- Where does that live?

1:06:02SPEAKERThat's on their server?

1:06:03SPEAKER- It's on their server, yeah.

1:06:04SPEAKERSo it's there as long as they continue to support

1:06:07SPEAKERthat web end point.

1:06:09SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm of two minds.

1:06:10SPEAKERI think we've talked about this before.

1:06:11SPEAKERI'm of two minds on that stuff.

1:06:12SPEAKERLike web interface for hardware configuration

1:06:14SPEAKERis awesome to give you cross-platform,

1:06:17SPEAKERnot having to have like a Linux version

1:06:19SPEAKERand a Mac version of our software to do your stuff.

1:06:21SPEAKERBut yes, also having it be remote on a server

1:06:24SPEAKERthat might go away at some point

1:06:25SPEAKERis also a little terrifying.

1:06:27SPEAKER- Well, I mean, you could still install the software locally

1:06:30SPEAKERif you want.

1:06:31SPEAKERThe nice thing about the remote install

1:06:33SPEAKERis I don't have to have the TSRs,

1:06:35SPEAKERa million TSRs running on my computer,

1:06:36SPEAKERwhich I do appreciate.

1:06:38SPEAKER- Sorry, I don't mean to laugh.

1:06:39SPEAKER- I'm sorry, I'm 100 years old.

1:06:41SPEAKER- I was gonna say, is TSR a term that anybody,

1:06:44SPEAKERbut you and I, I mean, of course people on our Discord

1:06:46SPEAKERare gonna get it, but.

1:06:47SPEAKER- You're not talking, people aren't familiar

1:06:49SPEAKERwith terminate and stay resident programs, Brad.

1:06:51SPEAKERI don't know what world you're living in,

1:06:53SPEAKERbut I believe that the audience will understand

1:06:56SPEAKERthe TSRs are bad, okay.

1:06:58SPEAKER- Seems like a pretty well-practiced comic book guy.

1:07:02SPEAKER- Maybe, I don't know, I haven't done it in a while.

1:07:04SPEAKERBut the other neat thing is they do frame sync.

1:07:08SPEAKERSo with the 8,000 hertz polling rate,

1:07:10SPEAKERthey only sample when a frame is being rendered somehow.

1:07:15SPEAKERSo you get frame, they're saying you get frame precise input

1:07:20SPEAKERfor the moment that the frame is being drawn.

1:07:22SPEAKER- I'm trying to figure out what hook

1:07:24SPEAKERinto the video output they would have to determine that.

1:07:27SPEAKER- I asked the PR guy and he was like,

1:07:29SPEAKER"I'll get back to you."

1:07:29SPEAKERAnd then he never got back to me, so I don't know.

1:07:32SPEAKERThey had a really nice infographic for it.

1:07:34SPEAKERI couldn't tell the difference,

1:07:35SPEAKERbut that's a thing that they said that they had on this.

1:07:37SPEAKERSo I figured it was worth talking about.

1:07:40SPEAKERAs to how it plays, it's really nice.

1:07:42SPEAKERIt's a really nice mouse, it's lightweight.

1:07:44SPEAKERYou don't have the analog controllability

1:07:46SPEAKERthat you have with the Super Strike,

1:07:49SPEAKERbut the click is really, really well defined.

1:07:52SPEAKERIt's a little louder than I like for a mouse, I think.

1:07:57SPEAKERBut generally speaking, oh, the other thing is

1:07:59SPEAKERtheir switches, their side switches are mechanical as well,

1:08:02SPEAKERrather than being soft presses like on most other mice.

1:08:06SPEAKER- Also 49 grams out of the box, I'm seeing.

1:08:09SPEAKER- 49 grams out of the box,

1:08:10SPEAKERwhich is a little bit less than the Super Strike.

1:08:12SPEAKERI think that was 63 maybe, I can't remember.

1:08:15SPEAKER- So that's just like the quest for the Super Flimsy's mouse

1:08:19SPEAKERhas just infiltrated every product line now?

1:08:23SPEAKER- Something like that.

1:08:24SPEAKER- I'm sure there are still some hefty mice out there.

1:08:27SPEAKER- The other thing that they do that I like

1:08:28SPEAKERthat Logitech isn't doing these days

1:08:30SPEAKERis they have a button on the bottom

1:08:31SPEAKERto let you switch profiles.

1:08:32SPEAKERSo if you have multiple onboard profiles for the mouse,

1:08:34SPEAKERyou can switch between them or you can power it off

1:08:37SPEAKERif you want to press that button, so.

1:08:39SPEAKER- Can you tell a difference?

1:08:41SPEAKERLike realistically, the 8,000 hertz and everything, like?

1:08:44SPEAKER- The 8,000 hertz, I don't play the kind of games

1:08:47SPEAKERwhere I think that matters, like that's,

1:08:48SPEAKERyou're talking about people who are playing Counter Strike

1:08:50SPEAKERat 700 frames a second, they care about that.

1:08:54SPEAKERAnd I do play Counter Strike, but 700 megahertz,

1:08:57SPEAKERlike I'm not that skilled a player.

1:09:01SPEAKERI tried the 8,000 hertz mode on both the Viper

1:09:05SPEAKERand the Super Strike and I couldn't tell a difference,

1:09:07SPEAKERso I turned it back down to save CPU, basically.

1:09:09SPEAKERI don't know if I can find it in the time we have left here,

1:09:12SPEAKERbut I'm trying to figure out like what this mouse,

1:09:13SPEAKERwhich again is like two, three years old,

1:09:16SPEAKERis doing both on the mouse and at the dongle.

1:09:19SPEAKERLike you're saying at the dongle is where?

1:09:20SPEAKER- So that's the light speed one.

1:09:21SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a light speed.

1:09:23SPEAKER- It's the USB polling rate is what's 8,000 hertz.

1:09:25SPEAKER- Okay, that's what I was trying to establish.

1:09:27SPEAKERAnd also I just wanted to kind of see how much mice,

1:09:29SPEAKERhow much these numbers are going up in what timeframe?

1:09:32SPEAKER- This is the first time they've gone up in my recollection.

1:09:35SPEAKERWe've been at a 1,000 hertz

1:09:36SPEAKERfor like 15, 20 years at this point.

1:09:38SPEAKER- So that leads me to my actual question,

1:09:40SPEAKERwhich is in software when you're setting like,

1:09:42SPEAKERoh, I want this mouse to poll at 3,600 or whatever,

1:09:44SPEAKERlike that's just on the mouse, right?

1:09:46SPEAKERLike it's still getting filtered down

1:09:48SPEAKERto a 1,000 or whatever at the point at the dongle.

1:09:51SPEAKER- There's two numbers.

1:09:51SPEAKERThere's the DPI of the sensor that you're using,

1:09:54SPEAKERwhich determines the sensitivity.

1:09:56SPEAKER- That might be what I'm thinking about actually.

1:09:57SPEAKER- I want to say this one goes up to like 50,000 DPI,

1:10:00SPEAKER32,000 DPI, something insane.

1:10:02SPEAKER- Wow.

1:10:03SPEAKER- Realistically, most players aren't going to get

1:10:06SPEAKERto the top mark of the DPI on these mice these days.

1:10:10SPEAKERI think I run it like 3,500

1:10:12SPEAKERwhen I did a straw poll on Twitter 10 years ago

1:10:15SPEAKERwhen I switched to that.

1:10:16SPEAKERI was definitely in the top two percentile of respondents.

1:10:20SPEAKER- Sure.

1:10:22SPEAKERSo they're probably not exposing a polling rate

1:10:24SPEAKERon the mouse then for most of these, I assume.

1:10:27SPEAKER- Most mice will be either default USB

1:10:30SPEAKERor you can crank it up to 1,000 hertz.

1:10:32SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:10:35SPEAKERThe thing I'll say is, generally speaking,

1:10:38SPEAKERI use the mouse at...

1:10:40SPEAKERI do a really high DPI on the mouse

1:10:43SPEAKERand then turn the in-game and OS sensitivity way, way down.

1:10:46SPEAKER- That's about what I do.

1:10:47SPEAKERWell, what's your definition of really high DPI?

1:10:50SPEAKER- Like three, 4,000, 5,000.

1:10:53SPEAKER- I'm at 3,800, so yeah.

1:10:55SPEAKER- And then that means that you're at like 1%

1:10:57SPEAKERif you want to do big movements on the mouse pad.

1:10:59SPEAKER'Cause the goal is to have each pixel of movement

1:11:03SPEAKERon the screen be represented by at least a couple

1:11:06SPEAKERof pixels of movement on the mouse, right?

1:11:08SPEAKEROn the mouse sensor.

1:11:10SPEAKERBut anyway, another thing...

1:11:12SPEAKEROh, so they have a dongle for this.

1:11:13SPEAKERThe puck that is the radio sensor has three lights

1:11:17SPEAKERthat tell you the connection strength,

1:11:19SPEAKERthe battery, how your battery's doing.

1:11:22SPEAKERAnd I don't remember, oh, I think it's the polling rate

1:11:25SPEAKERor sensor, you can set it to like show different colors

1:11:28SPEAKERfor different DPI configurations, I think.

1:11:30SPEAKER- Everybody's doing a puck these days.

1:11:32SPEAKER- Everybody loves a puck.

1:11:33SPEAKERI like their puck, it's really heavy.

1:11:35SPEAKERIt weighs more than the mouse and it stays really nicely

1:11:37SPEAKERin place on the desktop.

1:11:38SPEAKERI don't think I'm gonna switch off

1:11:39SPEAKERof the Super Strike for this, but it's a nice mouse.

1:11:44SPEAKERRazor Viper Pro, I think it's 150 bucks.

1:11:46SPEAKER- There you go, that's some stuff

1:11:48SPEAKERwe have put hands to recently.

1:11:50SPEAKER- Yeah, things what we have tested.

1:11:53SPEAKERAnd I guess that's as good a place as any

1:11:55SPEAKERto wrap it up for this week.

1:11:57SPEAKERBrad, always a pleasure.

1:11:58SPEAKERI'm desperately looking for the Patreon window,

1:11:59SPEAKERwhich I had open.

1:12:00SPEAKERThere it is.

1:12:01SPEAKEROh, I found it, I'm there.

1:12:02SPEAKERI have too many tabs.

1:12:03SPEAKERI don't wanna tell you how many, 'cause you'll judge me.

1:12:07SPEAKERBut if you, Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod

1:12:09SPEAKERis a listener-supported show,

1:12:10SPEAKERso we wouldn't be here without you all, the listener.

1:12:12SPEAKER- True.

1:12:13SPEAKER- And we appreciate everybody who supports the show.

1:12:15SPEAKERYou can go to patreon.com/techpod.

1:12:18SPEAKERWe're for $5 a month.

1:12:20SPEAKERThat's five, but less, way less than a cup of coffee.

1:12:24SPEAKER- Way less? - Even way less.

1:12:26SPEAKERIt's way less than a matcha.

1:12:27SPEAKERIt's way less than a loaf of bread.

1:12:30SPEAKERIt's soon to be way less

1:12:33SPEAKERthan the national average gallon of gas.

1:12:36SPEAKER- How much does a banana cost?

1:12:38SPEAKERSo we picked up groceries the other day

1:12:42SPEAKERand did the pickup thing where you order them in advance

1:12:46SPEAKERand then they put them in the car.

1:12:47SPEAKERAnd there was a miscommunication

1:12:49SPEAKERbetween whether we wanted six bananas

1:12:52SPEAKERor six bunches of bananas.

1:12:54SPEAKER- Oh no.

1:12:55SPEAKER- Yeah, so we got six bunches of bananas.

1:12:58SPEAKERIt was on their end, not on ours.

1:13:01SPEAKERI have a lot of bananas in the freezer

1:13:02SPEAKERfor banana bread making purposes.

1:13:05SPEAKERBut I was like, why do we have $30 of bananas in here?

1:13:09SPEAKERHow much does a banana cost?

1:13:10SPEAKER- You paid for the extra bananas to be clear.

1:13:11SPEAKER- Well, they refunded it when we complained, but yeah.

1:13:13SPEAKER- But you kept the bananas.

1:13:15SPEAKER- Well, they didn't want them back.

1:13:16SPEAKER- Of course, that's not bad.

1:13:18SPEAKER- We did those bananas, so yeah.

1:13:21SPEAKERAnyway.

1:13:22SPEAKER- That's a nice banana fall.

1:13:23SPEAKER- Yeah, so it's less than the price of six bunches of bananas.

1:13:26SPEAKERYou can support the show.

1:13:29SPEAKERAgain, it's patreon.com/techbod.

1:13:32SPEAKERWe really appreciate everybody who supports the show,

1:13:33SPEAKERbut we want to give a special shout out

1:13:35SPEAKERto our executive producer, to your patrons,

1:13:37SPEAKERincluding OpenAI Delenda Est.

1:13:40SPEAKERI kind of look up and see what that means at some point.

1:13:41SPEAKER- Oh, it means OpenAI must be destroyed.

1:13:43SPEAKER- Oh, perfect.

1:13:44SPEAKERYeah, I agree with that.

1:13:45SPEAKER- Yes, but also it's like Mark Zuckerberg's favorite

1:13:48SPEAKERlike rallying cry for the troops.

1:13:50SPEAKER- Wasn't that inside the hoodies

1:13:52SPEAKERthat they used to give away to employees?

1:13:54SPEAKER- That's very possible, that's very possible.

1:13:57SPEAKERAndrew Slosky, Jordan Lippett, Octothorpe Bunny for work,

1:14:02SPEAKERDavid Allen, James Kamik, and Pantheon,

1:14:05SPEAKERmakers of the HS3 high-speed 3D printer.

1:14:07SPEAKERThank you all so much.

1:14:08SPEAKERWe appreciate each and every one of you.

1:14:10SPEAKER- Thank you.

1:14:11SPEAKER- That'll do it for us this week.

1:14:13SPEAKERPlease, if you have feedback, drop it in the Discord

1:14:15SPEAKERor which is one of the things you get

1:14:18SPEAKERwhen you subscribe to the Patreon,

1:14:21SPEAKERas well as the monthly Patreon exclusive episodes

1:14:23SPEAKERwhere Brad and I talked about how much I love Vim.

1:14:27SPEAKER- Yeah. - Recurring theme.

1:14:28SPEAKER- We talked a lot about camera lenses, new and old.

1:14:30SPEAKER- Camera lenses, yeah, how optics never die.

1:14:33SPEAKER- People were excited on the Discord about lens talk.

1:14:36SPEAKER- We haven't had lens talk before.

1:14:37SPEAKERThat was maybe a deep well of content we can dig into.

1:14:40SPEAKER- Yeah, I would love to talk more about film production tech

1:14:43SPEAKERbut I feel like we might need some experts

1:14:44SPEAKERfor that kind of thing.

1:14:45SPEAKER- We can get some experts for that.

1:14:47SPEAKER- I would love to talk to some people

1:14:49SPEAKERabout like visual effects and also like on set

1:14:52SPEAKERcamera technology and that is a deep well of stuff

1:14:55SPEAKERif we can start plumbing it at some point.

1:14:58SPEAKERWe also talked about the single worst instance

1:15:01SPEAKERof AI hallucination I have encountered to date

1:15:03SPEAKERon that episode yesterday.

1:15:05SPEAKER- Yeah, that one was bad.

1:15:06SPEAKERBut anyway, that'll do it for us this week.

1:15:09SPEAKERThanks everybody for supporting the show.

1:15:10SPEAKERWe appreciate y'all.

1:15:11SPEAKERAnd yeah, please consider the environment

1:15:15SPEAKERbefore printing this podcast.