00:00SPEAKER(sighing)
00:01SPEAKER- Uh oh.
00:03SPEAKERResigned to sigh?
00:04SPEAKER- I, my Google Drive, since I started using Google Docs
00:08SPEAKERin like 2007 or six or something like that,
00:11SPEAKERI had just been saving everything in the root
00:13SPEAKERexcept for the stuff that we work on together.
00:15SPEAKER- Uh oh, wait, so are you kidding?
00:18SPEAKER- No.
00:19SPEAKER- Everything in the root?
00:20SPEAKER- I mean, unless it was in a shared folder
00:22SPEAKERfrom somebody else, yes, everything was in the root.
00:24SPEAKER- Wow, okay, go on.
00:26SPEAKER- It was bad, like I realized I'd made an error
00:29SPEAKERwhen I looked at how many files were in there
00:31SPEAKERand it was like 36,000 or something.
00:32SPEAKERIt was an insane number of files.
00:35SPEAKER- Dude, what?
00:36SPEAKERHang on, I'm looking at mine right now.
00:38SPEAKERI would estimate the number of files
00:40SPEAKERin my Google Drive root at maybe three dozen.
00:44SPEAKERCould you say that number again?
00:46SPEAKER- It was in the thousands.
00:48SPEAKER- What?
00:49SPEAKER- It was a lot.
00:50SPEAKERIt took a good two hours of copying them
00:52SPEAKERin the biggest chunks that the browser would accommodate.
00:55SPEAKER- What are you putting in your Google Drive, if I may ask?
00:58SPEAKERI mean, it might be private.
00:59SPEAKER- It's everything I've written for the last like 12 years,
01:03SPEAKERlike all the tested stuff,
01:05SPEAKERall the stuff I wrote at Maximum PC
01:06SPEAKERfor the last four years I was there.
01:08SPEAKER- Why wouldn't you make a folder called documents
01:13SPEAKERor writing or, you know?
01:16SPEAKER- It started out as, in the old days,
01:19SPEAKERin the beginning, Google Docs,
01:20SPEAKERGoogle Drive was the place for documents, see?
01:23SPEAKER- Sure, yes, okay.
01:25SPEAKERI guess that is the default save location.
01:27SPEAKER- Yeah, so I just was saving in the default.
01:29SPEAKERSo it's like, I can search and find whatever I want,
01:31SPEAKERbut then that became unwieldy for a bunch of reasons.
01:33SPEAKERAnd it turns out you can only copy 200 files at a time.
01:37SPEAKER- Wow.
01:40SPEAKER- In the browser.
01:41SPEAKERI didn't install the local copy
01:43SPEAKER'cause that seemed like it would make it much worse.
01:44SPEAKERThe problem would suddenly get worse
01:46SPEAKERand be multiplied onto my hard drive.
01:48SPEAKERSo after several hours of copying files
01:51SPEAKERin chunks of 200 to 250, they're all gone.
01:55SPEAKERI just moved everything into a folder called archive.
01:58SPEAKERAnd now I have a nice folder structure
01:59SPEAKERfor the projects I'm working on.
02:01SPEAKER- On the drive, not locally.
02:03SPEAKER- It's still in Google Drive.
02:04SPEAKERYeah, no, I'm not building my hard drive.
02:05SPEAKERI'm not a maniac.
02:06SPEAKER- So are you saying all, however many thousands
02:07SPEAKERof those files are now just all under the archive folder?
02:10SPEAKER- Problem solved.
02:11SPEAKER- What?
02:13SPEAKER- What is that?
02:14SPEAKER- What happens when you go into the archive folder?
02:16SPEAKER- I have to search if I want to find it.
02:18SPEAKERIt's probably in there.
02:20SPEAKERYou look very disappointed in me.
02:22SPEAKERDo we need to talk about my Dropbox next?
02:24SPEAKER(upbeat music)
02:28SPEAKER(upbeat music)
02:53SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made at TechPod.
02:55SPEAKERI'm Will.
02:56SPEAKER- I'm Brad.
02:57SPEAKER- And I'm Will.
02:58SPEAKER- Good morning, Brad.
02:59SPEAKERHow are you doing?
03:00SPEAKER- Hi.
03:00SPEAKER- I'm doing well.
03:01SPEAKER- For a Saturday?
03:02SPEAKER- You look lovely and lovable.
03:03SPEAKERYeah.
03:04SPEAKER- Wait, what does that mean?
03:05SPEAKER- I don't know.
03:06SPEAKERIt's what my father always used to say.
03:07SPEAKERDad say weird shit.
03:09SPEAKERThis is one of the Saturdays
03:10SPEAKERwhere I considered maybe not using the webcam.
03:14SPEAKERLook, I'm wearing, I found in my,
03:16SPEAKERI cleaned up my closet the other day.
03:18SPEAKERI'm in my cleaning jag right now.
03:20SPEAKERI cleaned up my closet the other day.
03:21SPEAKERI found my old, my hooded sweatshirt
03:24SPEAKERfrom back when I used to be into poker.
03:27SPEAKERAnd I bought it.
03:27SPEAKERIt's a champion and it has like the biggest,
03:29SPEAKERmost ridiculous hood I've ever seen.
03:32SPEAKEROh, I can't get it on over these headphones.
03:34SPEAKER- Those are very thick headphones.
03:35SPEAKERIt's a big hood, but.
03:37SPEAKER- It's like a hood that you can hide under
03:39SPEAKERwhile you're playing poker
03:40SPEAKERso nobody can see your face at all.
03:43SPEAKERAnd it's very cozy.
03:43SPEAKER- Wait, do people do that?
03:44SPEAKER- Huh?
03:45SPEAKER- That feels like cheating.
03:46SPEAKER- I mean, look, shield's up, man.
03:47SPEAKER- I guess.
03:48SPEAKERI don't know.
03:49SPEAKERIt feels like if you're gonna play a game
03:51SPEAKERthat relies on kind of social manipulation,
03:55SPEAKERyou should just put it,
03:56SPEAKERyou should put it all out there.
03:56SPEAKERLike, I feel like that is almost like
03:58SPEAKERoperating from a position of weakness
04:00SPEAKERto have to hide your face.
04:01SPEAKERThat's just tacitly admitting
04:03SPEAKERthat you can't bluff very well.
04:05SPEAKER- No, look, man, if you're playing,
04:07SPEAKERif there's millions of dollars on the line,
04:09SPEAKERlike there were in my home poker games clearly,
04:12SPEAKERthen you take every advantage you can.
04:15SPEAKERYou wear a pair of big chunky sunglasses,
04:17SPEAKERyou put the hood, the shield's up,
04:18SPEAKERand then nobody can get a tell off of you.
04:21SPEAKERLike you can do whatever you want with your face
04:22SPEAKER'cause nobody can see it.
04:24SPEAKER- I guess that's a good point.
04:25SPEAKER- I'm good at, I'm bad at tells.
04:26SPEAKER- I see, okay, that's, I see.
04:28SPEAKERI have not gotten past the phrase cleaning jag.
04:32SPEAKERWhat is a jag?
04:34SPEAKER- It's spring.
04:34SPEAKERIt's, you know, jag is like when you go on a bender,
04:37SPEAKERbut not for the hooch.
04:39SPEAKER- You know, listen,
04:40SPEAKERI am familiar with the judge advocate general.
04:43SPEAKER- No, this isn't another fine CBS product, Brad.
04:48SPEAKERThis is a jag.
04:51SPEAKERI feel like Millhouse used to talk about jags on Simpsons
04:54SPEAKERin the olden times. - A jag.
04:55SPEAKER- It's like a 40s thing, probably.
04:57SPEAKER- I got a lot of 40s.
04:58SPEAKER- Let me see.
04:59SPEAKER- Look, I don't know what's going on with me.
05:00SPEAKERIt's been a weird week.
05:01SPEAKER- I was, you know,
05:02SPEAKERI thought about going to the urban dictionary,
05:04SPEAKERbut I think maybe that might be a little old, even for,
05:08SPEAKERoh no, you mean for that site?
05:09SPEAKER- The thing called Friday dictionary, probably.
05:11SPEAKER(laughing)
05:12SPEAKER- Is that like a tear?
05:13SPEAKERLike you're on a tear?
05:14SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like a tear. - Like a cleaning tear, okay.
05:16SPEAKER- All right. - I'd say roughly analogous.
05:17SPEAKERYeah, that seems fair.
05:18SPEAKER- Sure, all right, that's fair.
05:19SPEAKER- It's spring, you know, cleaning is in the air.
05:21SPEAKER- Yes, you're right.
05:22SPEAKER- My allergies are blown out, so like adding more dust
05:25SPEAKERto the house is gonna make anything worse.
05:27SPEAKER- Oh my God, oh my God, we should.
05:30SPEAKERThat just reminds me of the moisture situation in California,
05:34SPEAKERthe dry foliage kind of wildfire fuel situation.
05:40SPEAKER- We're gonna go visit my parents this fall.
05:42SPEAKER- That sounds like a smart idea.
05:43SPEAKERNot being in Northern California in the fire season
05:46SPEAKERthis year sounds like a good idea.
05:47SPEAKER- We're gonna fucking leave.
05:49SPEAKER- Yes.
05:51SPEAKER- Please remind me of that in like August
05:53SPEAKERwhen I'm like, ah, it seems like a real pain in the butt
05:55SPEAKERto drive across the country
05:55SPEAKERand go spend two months with my parents, but.
05:57SPEAKER- Two months?
05:59SPEAKER- I mean, look, remote learning, you know, whatever.
06:02SPEAKER- Sure, it'll be fine.
06:04SPEAKER- Yeah, sure.
06:05SPEAKER- Get out.
06:06SPEAKER- Get dad to get Starlink before then probably.
06:07SPEAKER- Get out while you can.
06:08SPEAKER- Yeah.
06:10SPEAKERBut yeah, no, here, it's email month, it's email time.
06:14SPEAKER- Email, email, yes, email, but that time has, yes.
06:17SPEAKERSpring has sprung, emails have escaped, I'm trying to.
06:23SPEAKER- When this is done, I'm gonna go hang a rug up
06:25SPEAKERin the backyard and beat the shit out of it with a broom.
06:27SPEAKERIt's gonna be great.
06:28SPEAKER- Wow, you are on a jag.
06:29SPEAKER- Look, man, these rugs won't clean themselves.
06:32SPEAKERBut yes, if you wanna turn emails into podcast topics,
06:35SPEAKERyou can by sending them to techpod@content.town.
06:38SPEAKERThat is techpod@content.town.
06:42SPEAKERAnd we will attempt to turn your Qs into As.
06:44SPEAKER- There's a fun fact people might not know.
06:46SPEAKER- What's the fun fact, Brad?
06:47SPEAKER- That I was reminded of this morning
06:48SPEAKERas I logged into this Gmail inbox,
06:50SPEAKERthat's not actually the email address.
06:53SPEAKER- Look, man, it's a perfectly chromulant email address.
06:56SPEAKER- The real email address is much more awkward
06:58SPEAKERthan techpod@content.town.
07:00SPEAKER- I think we put that in the first few episodes
07:02SPEAKERbefore I was like, you know, I could just put an alias up
07:04SPEAKERfor a dollar a year on hover for our domain.
07:08SPEAKER- When I had to pull that email out of my password manager
07:10SPEAKERthis morning, I was reminded,
07:11SPEAKERman, this is an ugly email address.
07:13SPEAKER- I think it's funny that you don't, like I'm just signed in.
07:15SPEAKER- I'm signed into four emails at any given time
07:17SPEAKERin my Firefox browser.
07:18SPEAKER- I signed into that one in an incognito window
07:20SPEAKERjust to not be permanently signed into it.
07:22SPEAKERI guess I could do that.
07:24SPEAKER- You could just stay signed in and then not have--
07:26SPEAKER- There's no reason I couldn't
07:26SPEAKERjust stay signed into that account, right?
07:27SPEAKER- Every time you sign in, I know,
07:29SPEAKERI can tell when you're looking at emails.
07:30SPEAKER- I know, your name is all over it.
07:32SPEAKER- You get a security alert.
07:33SPEAKER- I feel like an interloper.
07:35SPEAKERI think the like from field has your name in it, right?
07:38SPEAKERSo when I reply to people from that email address,
07:40SPEAKERit's very strange.
07:41SPEAKER- Oh, I didn't know that.
07:42SPEAKER- Probably it's just from when I set it up
07:45SPEAKERwithout thinking about it. - It's fine.
07:46SPEAKERIt's fine, it's fine.
07:47SPEAKERAll right, shall we read some emails?
07:49SPEAKER- Let's read some emails.
07:51SPEAKER- I'm gonna start with this one
07:52SPEAKERsince we talked about cleaning.
07:53SPEAKER- Oh yeah, I like cleaning.
07:55SPEAKER- It's from Xander.
07:57SPEAKER- Yeah, hey Xander.
07:59SPEAKER- So I'm doing some forced rearranging
08:01SPEAKERand replacement of furniture
08:02SPEAKERand I've lost the storage solution that I used to have.
08:05SPEAKERI wasn't super fond of it, but the entropy was strong.
08:09SPEAKERBoth of you live in relatively small spaces,
08:11SPEAKERbut especially Brad as a fellow
08:13SPEAKERSan Francisco apartment dweller.
08:14SPEAKERI'm wondering what you use for storing tech items
08:17SPEAKERlike cameras, computer parts, and more
08:19SPEAKERin an organizational way,
08:20SPEAKERbut also in a way that isn't an eyesore.
08:24SPEAKER- And I'm the worst person in the world task for this
08:26SPEAKERbecause I just pile shit up and it's a disaster every time.
08:30SPEAKERAnd then eventually I'm like, this is too gross.
08:32SPEAKERI gotta clean it out.
08:33SPEAKERAnd then I put it in tubs,
08:36SPEAKERlike those big plastic rubber made tubs
08:37SPEAKERand then just defer the problem
08:39SPEAKERto the next time I clean the garage.
08:40SPEAKER- Yes, I always find it to be an incremental process.
08:44SPEAKERIt's like, how much can I get done
08:46SPEAKERto feel like it's out of the way,
08:48SPEAKERbut it's never actually organized, you know what I mean?
08:50SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:51SPEAKER- I just bought some rubber kind of,
08:54SPEAKERwell, they're not rubber made,
08:55SPEAKERbut they're plastic tubs myself for the first time,
08:58SPEAKERlike a month ago.
09:00SPEAKER- Feels bad, right?
09:01SPEAKER- Does it?
09:02SPEAKER- I don't know.
09:03SPEAKER- It's definitely an upgrade over the old,
09:04SPEAKERlike the 20 year old cardboard boxes that I was using.
09:07SPEAKER- Fair, fair, fair, fair.
09:09SPEAKERAnd those do store things better and keep moisture out,
09:12SPEAKERwhich is important where I live.
09:13SPEAKER- Do they?
09:14SPEAKERLike is there an actual moisture deterring component
09:17SPEAKERto those?
09:18SPEAKERLike I was thinking about maybe there's this topic
09:20SPEAKERcould go all over the place.
09:20SPEAKERLike I've been looking at bulk desiccant packs on Amazon.
09:24SPEAKER- Yeah, you do not eat.
09:26SPEAKER- I was not planning to.
09:28SPEAKER- Okay.
09:28SPEAKER- Thank you for that.
09:30SPEAKERAre those actually worth it though?
09:31SPEAKERDo you think in your experience?
09:32SPEAKERLike you can get them very cheap and I was thinking,
09:34SPEAKERwell, maybe I should step back a couple steps here
09:38SPEAKERand give context.
09:40SPEAKER- First off on the plastic tubs versus the cardboard boxes,
09:42SPEAKERthe cardboard boxes are definitely porous to water.
09:44SPEAKERSo over time, living someplace that's really foggy,
09:48SPEAKERthe cardboard boxes in our garage got soft in a way
09:51SPEAKERthat does not make me feel like their structural integrity
09:53SPEAKERis great.
09:54SPEAKER- Oh, you're talking not just through the cracks
09:55SPEAKERaround the openings, but actually through the material
09:57SPEAKERitself.
09:58SPEAKER- Yeah.
09:59SPEAKER- I did not realize that.
10:00SPEAKEROkay, that does make sense.
10:01SPEAKER- Well, and yeah, like if you have books or something
10:03SPEAKERin there and you want them to not be musty.
10:04SPEAKER- Yeah.
10:06SPEAKER- The plastic tubs plus those desiccant packs,
10:08SPEAKERprobably a pretty good idea, I think.
10:09SPEAKERI'm not an expert on this.
10:10SPEAKER- Yeah, so I actually posted a couple of photos of this
10:13SPEAKERon the Homeowner channel on the Discord.
10:16SPEAKER- Yeah.
10:17SPEAKER- A month ago or so when I started this process,
10:18SPEAKERbut we have a big walk-in closet that is at the far end
10:21SPEAKERof the apartment from the windows.
10:23SPEAKER- Yeah.
10:24SPEAKER- So I guess that's probably a place that moisture
10:26SPEAKERwould collect if you didn't do anything
10:27SPEAKERto counter the moisture.
10:29SPEAKER- Yeah.
10:30SPEAKER- And unfortunately I did not clue into that fact
10:32SPEAKERfor a number of years.
10:33SPEAKEROh, so a decent amount of these stuff,
10:36SPEAKERincluding three of my grandmother's old
10:40SPEAKERkitchen table chairs that were stored in there
10:43SPEAKERand a couple of boxes of old video game stuff
10:45SPEAKERhad accumulated some mildew.
10:47SPEAKER- Oh no.
10:48SPEAKER- Which really is a-
10:49SPEAKER- Were you able to get it off?
10:49SPEAKERI mean, mildew is not that big a problem.
10:51SPEAKERIt just kind of wipes off with a 10% bleach
10:53SPEAKERand water solution.
10:54SPEAKER- I actually went down the rabbit hole of like,
10:56SPEAKERwhat are the actual technical practical differences
10:58SPEAKERbetween mold and mildew?
10:59SPEAKERLike which one is more destructive?
11:01SPEAKERIt's definitely mold is what I've read.
11:03SPEAKER- Yeah, mildew is algae and mold is fungus.
11:06SPEAKER- They're both fungus,
11:07SPEAKERbut the mildew is a much less destructive version
11:10SPEAKERor strain, if I'm not mistaken.
11:12SPEAKER- The mold will put like tendrils into whatever material
11:15SPEAKERyou're in and leaves crevices, which is bad.
11:17SPEAKER- That's exactly what I read is that the mold gets
11:19SPEAKERinto whatever material it's on and it's basically ruined.
11:22SPEAKERWhereas mildew does not penetrate the surface,
11:24SPEAKERso you can wipe it off.
11:25SPEAKERUnfortunately, ended up taking quite a bit of the finish
11:29SPEAKERoff of those chairs and wiping them down,
11:32SPEAKERdespite using the-
11:33SPEAKER- Well you can refinish them easily though.
11:34SPEAKERThat's the good news.
11:35SPEAKERSo I guess so.
11:36SPEAKERI mean, they were not in the absolute best shape
11:39SPEAKERto begin with.
11:40SPEAKERSo it's not like complete tragedy,
11:41SPEAKERbut pulling some of my old like PS2 and Xbox
11:45SPEAKERand Dreamcast stuff out of the closet
11:46SPEAKERand finding stuff growing on there was a very rude surprise.
11:50SPEAKER- So we don't have walk-in closets,
11:52SPEAKERbut we do use chemical dehumidifiers
11:55SPEAKERthat are in the back of the closets.
11:57SPEAKER- Is that like a damp rid or something like that?
11:59SPEAKER- Yeah, damp rid is the brand that we usually get.
12:01SPEAKERIt's you get it at Amazon or the hardware store or whatever.
12:03SPEAKERAnd it's like a four quart, a three quart bucket
12:06SPEAKERor two quart bucket is how the size I usually get.
12:09SPEAKERAnd you just kind of put them in there.
12:10SPEAKERAnd then in a year they'll be full of water
12:12SPEAKERand you throw them out and buy a new one,
12:14SPEAKERwhich seems really wasteful when I say it that way.
12:16SPEAKER- You can actually, so we have not deployed them yet
12:19SPEAKER'cause I'm still in the middle of this cleaning process,
12:21SPEAKERbut you can buy like gigantic refills of the material
12:24SPEAKERthat goes into those.
12:25SPEAKER- Oh, I didn't know that.
12:26SPEAKER- And then you don't have to throw the whole thing out.
12:28SPEAKERYou can just, I don't know what that material is.
12:30SPEAKERIt's just some kind of absorbent.
12:32SPEAKER- It's probably very similar to your silica gel
12:34SPEAKERthat's in the desiccant packs.
12:35SPEAKER- You can just scoop that junk out and toss it
12:37SPEAKERand refill it with the refills
12:39SPEAKERrather than tossing the whole thing.
12:40SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like, it depends on which kind you get,
12:43SPEAKERbut sometimes it's like a jelly
12:45SPEAKERand sometimes it's just like a bunch of goopy water
12:48SPEAKERthat's not quite gelled yet.
12:51SPEAKERBut also those things are like a ticking time bomb
12:53SPEAKERif people go in the closet that don't know they're there,
12:55SPEAKERbecause it's really like inevitably they get knocked over.
12:58SPEAKERWe've spilled three or four minutes every time.
13:03SPEAKERBut yeah, so the storage, like I like,
13:08SPEAKERIKEA and Target both have these like,
13:11SPEAKERthey're like nylon collapsible boxes
13:13SPEAKERwith zipper Velcro ends.
13:15SPEAKERAnd they're really good for putting in like things
13:19SPEAKERthat are weird sizes.
13:20SPEAKERSo like I put VR headsets in those 'cause I'm,
13:24SPEAKERI have shitloads of VR headsets around
13:25SPEAKERfor reasons we don't have to get into.
13:28SPEAKERAnd it's a good way to like all of my PSVR stuff
13:31SPEAKERwill fit in one of those.
13:32SPEAKERAnd then that goes in a shelf on a set of IKEA shelves.
13:35SPEAKER- Are those stackable?
13:36SPEAKERThey don't sound like they'd be the strongest
13:38SPEAKERfor bearing weight.
13:40SPEAKER- Usually I get them that are sized to fill
13:42SPEAKERlike an entire square of an IKEA Galax shelf or whatever,
13:46SPEAKERwhatever the shelf we have is, the new ones,
13:50SPEAKERthe not Galax, the one by one squares
13:54SPEAKERthat you can get in all sorts of different configurations.
13:56SPEAKER- Right.
13:58SPEAKERYeah, just to kind of generally answer this guy's question,
14:00SPEAKERI've got some old kind of Rubbermaid-ish drawers
14:05SPEAKERfrom an old shelving unit that I tossed the shelves on,
14:08SPEAKERbut I still got the drawers.
14:09SPEAKERSo I have like my audio equipment drawer,
14:11SPEAKERmy video equipment, my USB drawer, my power cable drawer,
14:16SPEAKERlike I kind of got all that stuff broken out.
14:18SPEAKERAnd then in the closet, like I said,
14:19SPEAKERkind of transitioning to plastic tubs for,
14:23SPEAKERI've got one for old computer stuff,
14:26SPEAKERgot one for old consoles, kind of stuff like that.
14:28SPEAKERI did wonder if there was like a static build-up concern
14:33SPEAKERwith those rubberized plastic bins.
14:35SPEAKER- I've never had a problem with it.
14:37SPEAKERI've been using them for 15 years.
14:39SPEAKER- Okay.
14:41SPEAKER- I bought some metal shelves, like metal drawers
14:45SPEAKERthat were the super cheap IKEA ones a few years ago,
14:48SPEAKERjust to see if I'd actually use them.
14:49SPEAKERSo I have like 10 or 12 drawers over here,
14:53SPEAKERright beside my desk.
14:54SPEAKERAnd those have, like there's one for USB cables.
14:57SPEAKERThere's one for audio cables.
14:58SPEAKERThere's one for video cables.
15:00SPEAKERThere's one for power cables.
15:02SPEAKERThere's one for controllers.
15:03SPEAKERThere's one for like assorted note,
15:08SPEAKERlike all my notebooks,
15:09SPEAKERlike the used notebooks with all my old notes in them.
15:11SPEAKERI don't know why I keep that shit.
15:12SPEAKER- Why not?
15:14SPEAKER- There's one for like pens and headphones,
15:17SPEAKERlike wired headphones and like whiteout and stamps
15:21SPEAKERand assorted crap like that, which has been really useful.
15:25SPEAKERAnd then there's one that's like stuff I keep,
15:28SPEAKERlike the program from Maker Faire
15:30SPEAKERwhen I was on the main stage speaking
15:33SPEAKERand stupid shit like that.
15:36SPEAKERBut yeah, it's not,
15:38SPEAKERlike I feel like there's always room.
15:42SPEAKERLike part of the problem with being in a small place
15:44SPEAKERis if you have, like I tend to collect a lot of things
15:48SPEAKERjust because there's always stuff coming in
15:50SPEAKERand stuff doesn't leave as much as it should.
15:52SPEAKER- Yeah.
15:53SPEAKERIt's hard to manage where everything goes
15:57SPEAKERwithout just piling it up onto shelves
15:59SPEAKERand making everything a nightmare.
16:01SPEAKERI wish I could be a minimalist, but I've given up on it.
16:03SPEAKER- Like I guess the actual real problem here
16:06SPEAKERis that it sounds like you, like me,
16:09SPEAKERhave a much harder time getting rid of things
16:10SPEAKERthan we should.
16:11SPEAKER- We're borderline hoarders.
16:13SPEAKERI think there's, Gina thinks it's a Southern thing.
16:16SPEAKER- Interesting.
16:17SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know.
16:18SPEAKER- I hadn't thought about that, but I guess that's possible.
16:21SPEAKERMy girlfriend who is not from the South, absolute minimalist.
16:27SPEAKER- I mean, she does like the cozies
16:28SPEAKERon the kitchen utensils though, so I don't know.
16:31SPEAKER- That's just preserving what we have, but--
16:34SPEAKER- Fair.
16:35SPEAKER- There's a fair amount of butting of heads around here
16:37SPEAKERabout what should stay, what should go.
16:40SPEAKER- Look, the solution, well, tell me about it.
16:43SPEAKERMy mom is cleaning out my childhood home now
16:46SPEAKERand she just keeps sending stuff and she's like,
16:48SPEAKERI'm not gonna throw this away,
16:49SPEAKERso I'm just gonna ship it across the country
16:50SPEAKERso it's your problem to deal with now.
16:52SPEAKERI'm like, damn it mom.
16:53SPEAKER- Yes, I too have that experience with my parents
16:56SPEAKERof constantly bugging me about the stuff of mine
16:59SPEAKERthat is in their basement.
17:00SPEAKERAnd anyway, I was gonna say, you at least have the
17:04SPEAKERkind of organizational superpower
17:06SPEAKERof possessing a garage at least.
17:08SPEAKER- It just makes it, look, it's a curse.
17:11SPEAKER- Is it just out of sight, out of mind?
17:14SPEAKER- It's not out of mind.
17:15SPEAKERIt's out of sight constantly weighing on me
17:17SPEAKER'cause it's just a ticking time bomb of pain in my ass
17:20SPEAKERto deal with in the future.
17:21SPEAKERAnd then every few years I pay somebody
17:24SPEAKERto come haul off a truckload of garbage
17:26SPEAKERand donate a couple, like a few,
17:29SPEAKERlast time I cleaned out the garage,
17:30SPEAKERI found video cards dating back to like the original voodoo
17:33SPEAKERand a rendition B1000 and stuff like that.
17:35SPEAKER- Oh my God, that's amazing.
17:36SPEAKER- And I looked at it, I was like,
17:38SPEAKERrealistically, this was before we started doing the podcast,
17:39SPEAKERI was like, realistically, were I ever gonna use this stuff
17:41SPEAKERor need this again?
17:42SPEAKERI was like, no.
17:43SPEAKERAnd I gave, I called the Computer History Museum,
17:44SPEAKERgave them the two cards that they wanted
17:46SPEAKERand the rest of them went into the electronics recycling.
17:49SPEAKER- Oh man.
17:51SPEAKER- And now of course, we're doing this podcast
17:54SPEAKERand I'm like, shit, this would be incredibly useful
17:56SPEAKERto have, I could fire up an actual 46
17:59SPEAKERwith like a V1000 in it and see what Vquake looked like
18:03SPEAKERand stream that and that would be really fun,
18:04SPEAKERbut here we are. - God that'd be awesome.
18:06SPEAKER- That hurts.
18:07SPEAKER- I know.
18:08SPEAKER- Since I've been organizing as well,
18:10SPEAKERI think the oldest card I have here is a GeForce 4.
18:13SPEAKER- Okay.
18:14SPEAKER- TI 4200.
18:15SPEAKER- It's like a 2003, 2004 era probably.
18:17SPEAKER- Maybe a tad earlier than that,
18:18SPEAKERbut that was the budget GeForce 4,
18:20SPEAKERbut I think unless my parents have gotten rid of stuff,
18:22SPEAKERthere should be like an original Voodoo
18:24SPEAKERand a TNT2 and some stuff like that in their basement
18:29SPEAKERand the, God, I hope they haven't gotten rid
18:33SPEAKERof our very first family computer,
18:34SPEAKERwhich was a 486 DLC 40,
18:37SPEAKERwhich I think we've talked--
18:38SPEAKER- What's DLC, is that no math coprocessor?
18:40SPEAKER- I think we've talked about it before.
18:42SPEAKERSo it was, it was a knockoff of,
18:45SPEAKERit was a Texas Instruments knockoff of a Cyrix
18:48SPEAKERwhich was itself a knockoff of the actual Intel 486.
18:53SPEAKER- Wow, that's gonna be a real, real POS, huh?
18:56SPEAKER- Second generation removed 486 knockoff,
18:59SPEAKERwhich I think was actually closer to a 386 in performance.
19:02SPEAKERYes, no other, I think it might've had
19:04SPEAKERan external math coprocessor.
19:05SPEAKERAlso, I'm pretty sure we've talked
19:06SPEAKERabout this exact subject on this podcast before.
19:09SPEAKERAnyway, I hope that was something of an answer.
19:12SPEAKER- Yeah, the solution is to buy a 4,000 square foot house
19:14SPEAKERsomeplace cheap.
19:15SPEAKER- Yeah.
19:15SPEAKER- Just fill that up and then live in your apartment
19:17SPEAKERin San Francisco.
19:18SPEAKEROr depending on where you live, maybe get a storage unit.
19:21SPEAKEROh, shaking your head.
19:23SPEAKER- I'm shaking my head, no, that's just deferring the problem.
19:26SPEAKER- Yeah, well, I was gonna say, there's got to be,
19:27SPEAKERthere is got to be some kind of like thermodynamics
19:30SPEAKERcorollary here of like clutter will always exceed
19:34SPEAKERavailable storage space by X percent or something, right?
19:38SPEAKERLike it is impossible to have less clutter
19:40SPEAKERthan storage space, right?
19:41SPEAKER- Just the mere act of having a PC
19:44SPEAKERthat requires 15 cables to operate
19:46SPEAKERis gonna add entropy to your house.
19:47SPEAKER- Yes, exactly.
19:48SPEAKER- I'm sorry.
19:49SPEAKER- Exactly.
19:50SPEAKERAll right, hopefully that was something of an answer
19:53SPEAKERto that one.
19:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I hope we didn't just trail off there.
19:56SPEAKER- Next, next email is from Aaron,
20:00SPEAKERalso known as visualizer in our discord.
20:03SPEAKER- Hello visualizer.
20:05SPEAKER- I was hoping you could answer a question for me
20:06SPEAKERthat I've been wondering about for years now.
20:08SPEAKERAfter I graduated college
20:10SPEAKERand started my first full-time job,
20:11SPEAKERI noticed that people would often end sentences
20:14SPEAKERin their emails with an ellipsis or dot, dot, dot.
20:17SPEAKERYou know, three periods.
20:18SPEAKER- I'm familiar.
20:19SPEAKER- Yes.
20:20SPEAKERSometimes every sentence would end in an ellipsis
20:22SPEAKERif it was brief.
20:24SPEAKERThis was very confusing at first
20:25SPEAKERbecause to me ending a sentence with an ellipsis
20:27SPEAKERhas a very different meaning
20:28SPEAKERfrom what I think they were trying to apply in their email.
20:32SPEAKERFor some context, I am 30 years old
20:33SPEAKERand when I see people around my age use an ellipsis in text,
20:36SPEAKERit's usually to insinuate some kind of sarcasm
20:39SPEAKERor dissatisfaction that normally wouldn't be possible
20:42SPEAKERto detect over text without the ellipsis.
20:45SPEAKERAs an example, when someone types that's great
20:47SPEAKERversus that's great dot, dot, dot,
20:50SPEAKERthe former I would assume to be sincere
20:52SPEAKERwhile the latter I would take to be sarcastic in tone.
20:56SPEAKERSo my question is why do people punctuate
20:57SPEAKERtheir regular emails like this?
20:59SPEAKERIt's something I've seen different people do
21:01SPEAKERat all different companies I've worked at
21:02SPEAKERover the last 10 years.
21:04SPEAKERI've noticed these people tend to skew older.
21:07SPEAKERIs there an origin or reason
21:09SPEAKERto why people use ellipsis like this?
21:10SPEAKERWhat are they trying to convey when they type like this?
21:13SPEAKERHave you ever been a person who's done this?
21:15SPEAKER- This question is one of my favorite things
21:19SPEAKERfrom Gretchen McCulloch, who is the host of Lingthusiasm,
21:22SPEAKERwhich is a fabulous post about linguistics,
21:24SPEAKERa podcast about linguistics.
21:26SPEAKERShe wrote a book last year or the year before
21:28SPEAKERcalled Because Internet Colon
21:31SPEAKERUnderstanding the New Rules of Language.
21:33SPEAKERAnd there's a chapter about ellipsis
21:35SPEAKERand the differing use between the split
21:38SPEAKERis like around Gen X or zennials to millennials.
21:42SPEAKERAnd it's because our generation, Brad,
21:45SPEAKERlearned to write on paper.
21:47SPEAKERAnd on paper, line breaks were expensive.
21:49SPEAKERSo like if you use too many line breaks
21:51SPEAKERbreaking up your thoughts, new paragraphs,
21:53SPEAKERthen you would run out of paper
21:55SPEAKERand you'd have to use the back of the paper,
21:56SPEAKERflip it around your typewriter or whatever.
21:58SPEAKERAnd so we tended to break up thoughts
22:01SPEAKERin casual communications with ellipsis
22:03SPEAKERrather than new lines or paragraph breaks.
22:05SPEAKERAnd when you grow up as a digital native
22:08SPEAKERand you're writing in texts or whatever,
22:10SPEAKERthen an ellipsis is three characters
22:12SPEAKERand a new line is one character.
22:13SPEAKERSo millennials and younger folk
22:16SPEAKERtend to use new lines for this purpose.
22:20SPEAKERZennials and Gen Xers and older people
22:22SPEAKERare not being passive aggressive.
22:24SPEAKERAnd saying, if an older person is using a lot of ellipsis,
22:29SPEAKERassume that they're using it
22:30SPEAKERas kind of a soft exclamation point
22:32SPEAKERrather than a passive aggressive trail off.
22:35SPEAKER- Yes. - Is what she says.
22:37SPEAKER- Yes, I would not tend to think
22:39SPEAKERthe average older person is savvy or ironic enough
22:43SPEAKERto be using it in a sarcastic way.
22:45SPEAKER- Yeah, think of it as like,
22:48SPEAKERhey, I'm not quite enthusiastic about this
22:50SPEAKERto use an exclamation point,
22:51SPEAKERbut I do wanna highlight it as its own complete thought
22:54SPEAKERand set it out on its own.
22:56SPEAKER- I tended to use a lot of ellipsis early on,
22:58SPEAKERlike in the early days of AOL and some messenger and stuff,
23:00SPEAKERwhen you were doing a lot of typing to people,
23:02SPEAKERI would always punctuate with ellipsis
23:05SPEAKERand I never thought about why
23:06SPEAKERand somehow I've lost that habit over the years.
23:08SPEAKER- Well, yeah, if you think about how like AOL,
23:10SPEAKERhow AIM works, it's like I tend to use ellipsis on Signal
23:14SPEAKERand WhatsApp a lot,
23:15SPEAKERbecause I know that those are popping notifications
23:17SPEAKERon people's phones.
23:18SPEAKERAnd I don't wanna like hit,
23:20SPEAKERlike if I'm writing four sentences
23:23SPEAKERand I can't do new lines in those formats,
23:26SPEAKERthen I don't wanna bomb them with four notifications.
23:29SPEAKERSo I do it at some ellipsis between,
23:31SPEAKERto kind of thread that conversation almost.
23:33SPEAKER- It's very, very thoughtful approach to your notifications.
23:36SPEAKER- Look, I'm always scared to send,
23:38SPEAKERlike I don't send texts to people in the morning,
23:39SPEAKEReven though they should,
23:40SPEAKERdecent people turn on do not disturb, right?
23:42SPEAKER- You and I just had that conversation a week or two ago.
23:44SPEAKERI asked you one day at like 7.30.
23:47SPEAKER- Three o'clock in the morning, yeah.
23:48SPEAKER- In the morning, I was like,
23:49SPEAKERis it all right for me to send you Discord messages?
23:52SPEAKERLike, I assume you of all people
23:53SPEAKERhave do not disturb set up to not wake yourself up,
23:56SPEAKERbut I just wanna make sure,
23:56SPEAKER'cause our sleep schedules are very different
23:59SPEAKERfrom what I can tell.
24:00SPEAKER- There's a point of contention,
24:02SPEAKER'cause Gina doesn't use do not disturb,
24:04SPEAKER'cause she's worried somebody's gonna try to call her,
24:06SPEAKERlike there's gonna be an emergency.
24:07SPEAKERI'm like, there's never a fucking emergency.
24:09SPEAKER- Also, can you,
24:11SPEAKERI forget what the-- - You have to call three
24:12SPEAKERtimes and nobody knows to do that.
24:13SPEAKER- I thought you could set up some kind of hierarchy
24:16SPEAKERof like crucial numbers could get through or something,
24:18SPEAKERor is it they still have to try?
24:20SPEAKER- So people in your favorites can call through,
24:22SPEAKERI think anytime on iOS,
24:26SPEAKERand if they text you three times,
24:27SPEAKERthen it starts notifying you.
24:28SPEAKER- Yeah, okay.
24:29SPEAKER- But like realistically people don't do that.
24:31SPEAKERAnd also it means you don't get like the,
24:33SPEAKERso like you get the Amber Alerts and the emergency alerts,
24:39SPEAKERthey'll blow through do not disturb,
24:41SPEAKERbut they don't like if you have an app
24:45SPEAKERthat gives you that same information,
24:46SPEAKERthen they don't come through.
24:48SPEAKERSo she, because we have wildfires and stuff here,
24:50SPEAKERshe's concerned about that.
24:51SPEAKER- Sure, sure. - Synonyms, earthquakes,
24:52SPEAKERwhatever.
24:53SPEAKER- Yes, that does make sense.
24:54SPEAKERAnd I would do an entire episode
24:56SPEAKERabout kind of linguistic and punctuation habits
24:58SPEAKERin sort of internet speech over time.
25:00SPEAKERI don't know if that would be like the dullest episode ever,
25:03SPEAKERbut I find that topic fascinating.
25:05SPEAKER- Look, Gretchen's podcast is fabulous for this.
25:09SPEAKER- I also love just linguistics in general,
25:11SPEAKERis that you vouch for that podcast?
25:12SPEAKERI have to check that out.
25:13SPEAKER- It is a fantastic podcast, yes.
25:14SPEAKER- I will absolutely check that out.
25:15SPEAKER- If you like a bunch of,
25:17SPEAKERif you wanna learn about words and nonsense
25:19SPEAKERand the origin of them in there,
25:21SPEAKERI would love to talk to her about lingo
25:23SPEAKERand why certain industries tend toward
25:29SPEAKERusing lots of acronyms and stuff like that.
25:31SPEAKERAnd the idea, she gets into really interesting deep topics
25:34SPEAKERin linguistics and is a fantastic podcast.
25:37SPEAKERSo everybody should listen to Lingthusiast.
25:39SPEAKER- Interesting, you know what, occupational jargon
25:41SPEAKERis a whole other interesting topic to get into there.
25:43SPEAKER- Oh yeah.
25:45SPEAKER- I don't know why this one comes to mind
25:46SPEAKERmore than anything else,
25:46SPEAKERbut when you look at movie and film production,
25:50SPEAKERa lot of the jargon that exists there,
25:53SPEAKERlike you see people that work on movies
25:55SPEAKERreferring to them as shows and stuff like that,
25:57SPEAKERyou know what I mean?
25:58SPEAKER- Well, and even stuff like the names of jobs
26:00SPEAKERlike grip and best boy and all that stuff,
26:02SPEAKERthose are rigid.
26:03SPEAKERA lot of those originated from like turn of the last century
26:05SPEAKERwhere the grip was the guy who had to hold on to things
26:09SPEAKERin specific places and stuff like that.
26:10SPEAKERAnd like those jobs have been replaced by clamps,
26:12SPEAKERbut the person who works the clamps
26:14SPEAKERis still called the grip, right?
26:16SPEAKERIt's like, there's, it's super fascinating.
26:20SPEAKERThe idea of shared ontologies,
26:23SPEAKEReither within small teams or within industries
26:25SPEAKERis really fascinating to me.
26:27SPEAKER- For sure, for sure.
26:28SPEAKER- Last thing I'll say about this, excuse me,
26:31SPEAKERbecause I don't know why this has come up multiple places
26:34SPEAKERthe last couple of weeks,
26:34SPEAKERbut various of my old user net posts
26:37SPEAKERhave floated out of Google groups in a couple of spots.
26:41SPEAKERIt's not, it's all very benign.
26:43SPEAKER- Brad, do we need, am I going to have to find a new host?
26:45SPEAKERAre you okay?
26:45SPEAKER- Nope.
26:46SPEAKER- Okay, good.
26:47SPEAKER- Unless you think of me freaking out
26:48SPEAKERabout "Final Fantasy VII" being on the PlayStation in 1996
26:51SPEAKERis offensive. - What?
26:52SPEAKERThat's a Nintendo franchise, Brad.
26:54SPEAKER- I do.
26:56SPEAKERIt was a shocking act of betrayal.
26:58SPEAKER- Well, you know,
26:59SPEAKERthe thing about that announcement for me that was shocking
27:00SPEAKERwas that it wasn't "Final Fantasy IV"
27:02SPEAKERthat was going to be on the PlayStation.
27:04SPEAKER- Yes, yes, there's also that.
27:05SPEAKER- Yeah.
27:06SPEAKER- Anyway, the thing I was going to say
27:08SPEAKERis that here is this post of mine from February, 1996,
27:13SPEAKERfreaking out about "Final Fantasy VII,"
27:15SPEAKERwhich is perfectly well capitalized, punctuated, everything,
27:20SPEAKERlike I could have submitted it as a school paper.
27:23SPEAKERAnd these came up on, these came up on the Discord again.
27:26SPEAKER- People got really upset on Usenet
27:28SPEAKERin the late, mid to late '90s
27:30SPEAKERif you didn't use proper punctuation and capitalization.
27:33SPEAKER- Right, so then you roll around to this other post
27:35SPEAKERthat came up on the Discord of mine from, let's see, 2002?
27:40SPEAKEROn alt.comp.pariffs.mainboard.abit.
27:45SPEAKER- Okay.
27:46SPEAKER- Where absolutely nothing is capitalized
27:48SPEAKERin this entire post, including my name.
27:51SPEAKER- Well, but was one on comp dot and one was on alt dot?
27:55SPEAKER- No, the alt dot comp.
27:57SPEAKER- Oh, I was gonna say the alt dot,
27:58SPEAKERanything goes out there, man.
27:59SPEAKERThat's the wild west. - I guess so, I guess so.
28:01SPEAKER- The standards they had on comp dot psi dot,
28:03SPEAKERyou know, blah, blah, blah.
28:04SPEAKER- Sure, fair, fair.
28:05SPEAKER- Those were serious, serious for grownups,
28:08SPEAKERnot children over in the alt stuff.
28:10SPEAKER- This 2002 post apparently is that I, let's see,
28:13SPEAKERI had ordered an 8-bit KX7.
28:16SPEAKERI had enough, an Athlon Thunderbird 1.4,
28:19SPEAKERbut then I was gonna get a thoroughbred of whatever.
28:22SPEAKERIt's not worth getting it.
28:23SPEAKERAnyway, so people on the Discord took issue
28:25SPEAKERwith my terrible lack of capitalization in that post.
28:29SPEAKERAnd that made me realize that I was like a,
28:31SPEAKERI was a very obstinate and all lower-caser
28:33SPEAKERfor a number of years around there.
28:36SPEAKER- And you still got jobs?
28:37SPEAKER- I can't, well, not at work.
28:39SPEAKER- Oh.
28:40SPEAKER- Obviously, but anyway, it's just like, whatever.
28:42SPEAKERIt's just an interesting like data point
28:44SPEAKERof looking back and saying like,
28:45SPEAKERI typed one way in the '90s in a different way
28:47SPEAKERthe next decade, and the internet is weird.
28:50SPEAKERYour habits, the way your habits evolve on the internet
28:52SPEAKERis weird and fun to look back on.
28:54SPEAKER- It's funny, 'cause in the 2000s,
28:56SPEAKERwhen I was at the magazine,
28:56SPEAKERI was a very conscientious punctuator and capitalizer.
29:00SPEAKERAnd like, even in IMs, I used the grammar
29:03SPEAKERI would use in a proper missive.
29:05SPEAKER- So that's the real litmus test, right?
29:07SPEAKER'Cause like when you're writing professionally,
29:08SPEAKERyou have to write well, but IM is so casual
29:11SPEAKERand like noncommittal, that's where it really matters.
29:14SPEAKERDo you actually bother to capitalize
29:15SPEAKERand punctuate there or not?
29:17SPEAKER- Well, and then as soon as I quit the magazine,
29:19SPEAKERI went online, I was like, look,
29:20SPEAKERthere's no fucking standards on the internet.
29:21SPEAKERI can do whatever I want
29:22SPEAKERand just stopped using complete words even.
29:25SPEAKERI just took out vowels.
29:28SPEAKERI want nothing to do with it.
29:29SPEAKER- Yep, yep.
29:33SPEAKERThat podcast sounds great.
29:34SPEAKERI have got to check that out.
29:35SPEAKER- Yeah, it's super good.
29:37SPEAKER- Okay, here is an email from Patrick.
29:40SPEAKERIt's a long one.
29:40SPEAKERI might try to condense parts of it a little bit.
29:46SPEAKERI'll just start at the start though.
29:47SPEAKER- It's a little bit of a bummer, but you know.
29:50SPEAKEROn the cold open episode,
29:51SPEAKERWill disparagingly referred to the McDonald's coffee lawsuit
29:54SPEAKERwhere some chucklehead did something
29:55SPEAKERthat was really damaging to them
29:56SPEAKERand hurt them badly, quote unquote.
29:59SPEAKERThis case is generally thought of as an example
30:02SPEAKERof frivolous lawsuits, but it is in my belief,
30:04SPEAKERa case where corporate propaganda
30:06SPEAKERand the desire to call someone an idiot
30:08SPEAKERwho takes no personal responsibility
30:10SPEAKERhas outrun the fact that corporations are always
30:12SPEAKERand forever pieces of shit.
30:16SPEAKER- I don't disagree with this.
30:17SPEAKERI think we got a lot of emails about this
30:19SPEAKERand Patrick's was I think the probably
30:21SPEAKERthe most well-researched.
30:22SPEAKER- Yes, let me just keep going.
30:25SPEAKER- Go ahead.
30:25SPEAKER- In Liebeck versus McDonald's restaurants,
30:28SPEAKERa 79 year old woman ordered a coffee while at a drive-through
30:31SPEAKERand while sitting in a parked car,
30:33SPEAKERplaced the coffee between her thighs to add cream and sugar.
30:36SPEAKERIn the process, she accidentally spilled the cup of coffee
30:39SPEAKERin her lap, causing third degree burns to 6% of her skin,
30:42SPEAKERrequiring skin grafts and ongoing medical treatment
30:45SPEAKERfor about two years.
30:47SPEAKERThe plaintiff's case was not simply
30:49SPEAKERthat coffee should not be served hot.
30:51SPEAKERIt was that McDonald's required franchises
30:53SPEAKERto serve coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit
30:57SPEAKERor 88 degrees Celsius, which was about 20 C higher
31:01SPEAKERthan every other coffee place in the city.
31:04SPEAKERThird degree burns at that temperature
31:06SPEAKERoccur in less than three seconds,
31:09SPEAKERwhile at the recommended 160 degree
31:11SPEAKERFahrenheit serving temperature,
31:12SPEAKERburns take closer to 20 seconds to occur,
31:15SPEAKERwhich is usually enough time to avoid immediate injury.
31:19SPEAKERAdditionally, at that time,
31:20SPEAKERMcDonald's had routinely received complaints about burns
31:24SPEAKERon the order of about 700 over 10 years
31:27SPEAKERcaused by their coffee and they had done nothing.
31:31SPEAKERIn essence, the jury found that the evidence showed,
31:35SPEAKERnumber one, McDonald's serves coffee dangerously hot
31:37SPEAKERand they knew it.
31:38SPEAKERNumber two, McDonald's coffee was served hotter
31:40SPEAKERthan coffee served elsewhere,
31:42SPEAKERbut did not adequately warm the consumer
31:44SPEAKERof how much hotter and more dangerous it was.
31:46SPEAKERNumber three, McDonald's had decided that higher sales
31:49SPEAKERfrom serving hotter coffee
31:51SPEAKERwas maybe worth burning people very badly.
31:53SPEAKERI'm gonna stop there for a second
31:55SPEAKERand maybe query why hotter coffee would increase sales?
32:00SPEAKER- 'Cause if you add cream to it, then it gets colder
32:03SPEAKERand you're like, "Man, my coffee's cold."
32:05SPEAKERPeople complain and people like to bitch about everything.
32:07SPEAKERI think that's my theory on that, I don't know.
32:09SPEAKER- Yeah, or maybe they notice it stays hotter longer,
32:11SPEAKERbut like, I don't know, like hottest coffee in town
32:14SPEAKERon their signs under the 60 billion hamburger served
32:19SPEAKERor whatever, I don't know.
32:20SPEAKER- Sure, I don't know.
32:20SPEAKERI mean, for my part, I don't buy a lot of hot beverages
32:22SPEAKERfrom restaurants these days, but I hate it.
32:24SPEAKERThere's nothing I hate more than buying a hot beverage
32:27SPEAKERand it being too hot to drink right off the bat.
32:29SPEAKER- Well, like I was old enough to drink coffee at this time.
32:32SPEAKERLike I was right on the edge
32:34SPEAKERand I remember getting McDonald's coffee on a road trip once
32:36SPEAKERand never doing it again 'cause it was so fucking hot
32:39SPEAKERthat like I couldn't drink it for, like it hurt my teeth.
32:42SPEAKERIt was so hot when I had that first sip.
32:45SPEAKERSo yeah, anyway.
32:48SPEAKER- Yeah, I'll finish the email here.
32:50SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, there's a lot more email,
32:52SPEAKERbut that's the gist.
32:54SPEAKEROh, do you wanna read?
32:55SPEAKERDo you wanna keep going?
32:56SPEAKER- I can actually just flip through the rest of it
32:57SPEAKERif you want to.
32:58SPEAKERI actually was kind of surprised at how this concluded.
33:00SPEAKER- Okay, yeah.
33:02SPEAKER- 'Cause I have not heard that.
33:03SPEAKERIt's worth noting that the jury found 80% responsibility
33:06SPEAKERfell on McDonald's and awarded $160,000 to the plaintiff
33:09SPEAKERfor the specific injuries and 2.7 million in punitive
33:12SPEAKERdamages, although that amount was reduced to 410,000
33:16SPEAKERon appeal and then the party settled for an unknown amount.
33:22SPEAKERAnd then he, excuse me, he goes on to talk about,
33:25SPEAKERyou know, where he reinforces that view of, you know,
33:28SPEAKERthe public narrative about this kind of shifted
33:30SPEAKERto, you know, the person wins a ton of money
33:34SPEAKERfor doing something dumb as opposed to, you know,
33:37SPEAKERcorporation was negligent in their practices
33:41SPEAKERand knew it and didn't care and caused actual risk
33:46SPEAKERto their customers, so anyway.
33:48SPEAKER- Yeah, and so I said this without thinking about it
33:52SPEAKERand immediately realized I'd made a mistake
33:53SPEAKERand meant to end it out and forgot.
33:54SPEAKER- You know what, I have to say just in general,
33:57SPEAKERlike if you talk into a microphone for enough hours,
34:00SPEAKEReventually you will do that,
34:01SPEAKERwhere you will occasionally say something
34:03SPEAKERand immediately realize, you know what,
34:05SPEAKERI didn't actually mean it that way or something,
34:07SPEAKERyou know what I mean?
34:08SPEAKER- Yeah, but Patrick's point is 100% correct.
34:12SPEAKERThere's a really good "Adam Ruins Everything" episode
34:14SPEAKERabout the McDonald's coffee lawsuit
34:17SPEAKERand it gets into everything from like,
34:20SPEAKERI think the "Adam Ruins Everything" episode about this
34:22SPEAKERis the one that talks about how the late night talk show
34:24SPEAKERhosts like Letterman and Leno made this a big punchline
34:27SPEAKERfor years and years and years and as a result,
34:30SPEAKERpeople didn't understand A, the three second thing,
34:33SPEAKERwhich is hard, like if you pour coffee
34:36SPEAKERthat's 160 degrees on yourself,
34:38SPEAKERby the time you would have burns,
34:40SPEAKERit's cooled down enough that it's just uncomfortable
34:42SPEAKERand not actively damaging.
34:44SPEAKERBut at 190 degrees,
34:45SPEAKERwhen you're wearing like a pair of jeans or something,
34:47SPEAKERit sticks right on your skin
34:48SPEAKERand like you can't get it away from you fast enough.
34:50SPEAKER- That 20 seconds versus three seconds figure
34:53SPEAKERwas absolutely the takeaway from this email for me
34:55SPEAKERof just like that's unacceptable and unavoidable.
34:59SPEAKER- Yeah, so anyway, I apologize.
35:01SPEAKERI'm sorry I used the bad punchline
35:03SPEAKERthat fucking Jay Leno does.
35:05SPEAKER- It happens.
35:07SPEAKER- It was not something I'm super proud of,
35:09SPEAKERbut the "Adam Ruins Everything" episode
35:11SPEAKERis worth watching about this.
35:12SPEAKERI thought it was really good.
35:13SPEAKER- Any idea where this is at these days?
35:14SPEAKERI assume that this was enough of a flashpoint
35:17SPEAKERthat they all kind of changed their ways.
35:20SPEAKER- I mean, I think this is why we started seeing,
35:22SPEAKERremember McDonald's used to use
35:23SPEAKERthose really flimsy styrofoam cups too.
35:25SPEAKER- Yes, it's terrible.
35:27SPEAKER- I mean, now we get the cardboard cups,
35:29SPEAKERwhich A, are better for the environment,
35:31SPEAKERI think, although they're waxed still
35:32SPEAKERwith the lip that gives them more structure around the top
35:34SPEAKERso they don't collapse as easily.
35:38SPEAKERI don't know, yeah, it's a super sad story.
35:40SPEAKER- Yeah, speaking of beverage practices,
35:42SPEAKERI went to a Jamba Juice last week
35:44SPEAKERfor the first time in probably 10 years.
35:47SPEAKER- Yeah, did they sell the big fat straw?
35:49SPEAKER- The cardboard straw?
35:51SPEAKER- Yeah, oh, they have a cardboard straw?
35:53SPEAKER- That's what I was gonna bring up,
35:54SPEAKERand that might be a San Francisco thing,
35:55SPEAKERnot a Jamba Juice thing, if I had to guess.
35:56SPEAKER- It is, that's a San Francisco thing.
35:57SPEAKER- It was like, I don't mind it, it's fine.
36:00SPEAKERObviously, it is better for the environment,
36:01SPEAKERand I'm certainly willing to sacrifice some convenience
36:04SPEAKERfor environmental concerns.
36:06SPEAKER- Man, this is like tree law,
36:08SPEAKERin that you've just opened a can of worms in this podcast,
36:11SPEAKER'cause straw politics are real and terrifying.
36:13SPEAKER- I know, dude, yes, I know.
36:14SPEAKER- I have no stance either way,
36:16SPEAKERexcept for that I love the environment,
36:17SPEAKERand I hate straws and baby seals' noses.
36:21SPEAKERWe use reusable straws in this house now.
36:24SPEAKER- I mean, yes, honestly, the image of one aquatic animal
36:27SPEAKERchoking on a straw is worse than a lifetime
36:30SPEAKERof using cardboard straws to me.
36:32SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like the videos of the six-pack holders
36:35SPEAKERbeing pulled out of dolphins' noses,
36:37SPEAKERand stuff like that in the '90s.
36:39SPEAKER- I can't, I can't, but that said,
36:42SPEAKERby the end of my 22-ounce Jamba Juice,
36:45SPEAKERyeah, the straw was starting to lose
36:47SPEAKERits structural cohesion, let's say.
36:51SPEAKERGina bought some stainless steel straws
36:53SPEAKERwith silicone tips a few years ago,
36:55SPEAKERthat she has a little holder that goes in her purse,
36:58SPEAKERand is that part of your EDC now?
37:01SPEAKER- It is part of her EDC.
37:03SPEAKERI just don't drink anything that requires a straw ever.
37:05SPEAKER- Roll around with your own straw, huh?
37:08SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
37:09SPEAKERI mean, look, yeah, roll around with your own straws,
37:11SPEAKERroll around with your own utensils.
37:13SPEAKERI sometimes, I used to carry my own chopsticks
37:15SPEAKERfor a little while.
37:16SPEAKER- Wow.
37:17SPEAKER- When I was eating a lot of ramen.
37:18SPEAKER- That's impressive.
37:19SPEAKER- You know.
37:21SPEAKER- God, oh man, there's nothing worse
37:22SPEAKERthan those cheap restaurant chopsticks
37:24SPEAKERthat never break evenly.
37:27SPEAKER- So those are bad.
37:30SPEAKER- I don't like the plastic ones, the square plastic ones.
37:33SPEAKERI'm incapable of using those.
37:35SPEAKERYou know, the ones that are just like,
37:36SPEAKERthey're not tapered on the end.
37:37SPEAKERLike the shiny plastic ones that are just too--
37:39SPEAKER- Oh, you're talking about the reusable ones.
37:41SPEAKERI thought you meant--
37:42SPEAKER- Yeah, those are, I'm hopeless with those.
37:44SPEAKER- I thought you meant disposable plastic chopsticks.
37:46SPEAKERI was like, who would do that?
37:47SPEAKERThat's terrible.
37:47SPEAKER- No, the disposable bamboo ones are fine.
37:49SPEAKERI'm capable of using those.
37:51SPEAKERBut like, if you go to like the,
37:53SPEAKERlike there's a couple of like Chinese restaurants,
37:55SPEAKERlike at 19th and Mission.
37:57SPEAKER- Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about.
37:57SPEAKERThe big blunt end, like thick plastic ones.
38:01SPEAKERI know exactly what you're talking about.
38:02SPEAKERThose are, yes, those require
38:03SPEAKERa certain extra layer of skill.
38:05SPEAKER- Yeah, like I just get in there
38:06SPEAKERand I'm like, everybody's laughing at me
38:07SPEAKERfor my inability to use these chopsticks.
38:09SPEAKER- I have a hard time.
38:11SPEAKERLike slippery noodles with that type of chopstick
38:13SPEAKERis like, just like your food is taunting you.
38:16SPEAKER- It's like minus three to eating.
38:18SPEAKERI can't get that in my face.
38:20SPEAKERI just pick up the bowl and slurp.
38:22SPEAKER- Well, I think that's also acceptable.
38:25SPEAKERBut you just watch, you pick up the noodles
38:26SPEAKERand just watch them slide back into the bowl
38:28SPEAKERover and over.
38:29SPEAKER- Noodles of sadness.
38:30SPEAKER- It's like the noodles are laughing at you.
38:32SPEAKER- Well, and it's always those,
38:33SPEAKERthe places that have those in San Francisco
38:34SPEAKERare always places that are like full lit
38:36SPEAKERwith just like cafeteria style seating
38:39SPEAKERand like fluorescent lights on a drop ceiling.
38:41SPEAKERSo it's right as hell in there.
38:43SPEAKER- Yes.
38:44SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, anyway.
38:46SPEAKER- All right, next email is from Steve.
38:50SPEAKER- Thanks everybody for calling me
38:51SPEAKERon my bullshit on the McDonald's thing.
38:52SPEAKERI appreciate that.
38:53SPEAKERI got a lot of tweets and I'm sorry, I apologize again.
38:56SPEAKER- Yes, thanks everyone for calling Will on his bullshit.
38:59SPEAKER- Thanks, Brad.
39:02SPEAKER- Steve writes in.
39:04SPEAKERHey guys, you recently mentioned early 2000s capacitors
39:07SPEAKERand their propensity to die early.
39:10SPEAKERAt that time, I worked for a company
39:12SPEAKERthat thought it would be a good idea
39:13SPEAKERto resell gateways that came with a one-year warranty
39:17SPEAKERand then cover two additional years of warranty in-house.
39:20SPEAKERWe ended up replacing a lot of motherboards
39:23SPEAKERas they always died after about 18 months
39:25SPEAKERand re-soldering customer equipment wasn't allowed.
39:28SPEAKERFirst of all, I'm gonna stop here.
39:30SPEAKERDo you think we need to give context for what a gateway is?
39:33SPEAKERIs that where we're at yet?
39:35SPEAKER- Once upon a time, there was a computer company
39:37SPEAKERin I think Minnesota that-
39:39SPEAKER- Is that where they started?
39:41SPEAKER- It was someplace in the Northern Midwest.
39:42SPEAKER- That'll explain the cow thing.
39:44SPEAKER- Yeah, maybe Iowa, I don't know.
39:46SPEAKERBut anyway, they shipped,
39:48SPEAKERyou could do build your own computers from them
39:49SPEAKERover the internet or over the phone.
39:52SPEAKERAnd when they shipped the computer to you,
39:53SPEAKERit came in a box that was black and white
39:55SPEAKERand looked like a Guernsey cow or the black and white cows.
39:59SPEAKERI don't remember what brand they are, but anyway.
40:01SPEAKER- Yes, originally called Gateway 2000,
40:04SPEAKERwhich I always thought was a way better name,
40:06SPEAKERbut I think once they got past 2000, oh, they didn't.
40:09SPEAKER- They didn't make it past 2000.
40:10SPEAKER- I don't think they did, you're right.
40:12SPEAKER- They got bought by somebody.
40:13SPEAKER- Yes.
40:14SPEAKER- Dell ended up destroying them, I think,
40:16SPEAKERprobably would be my guess.
40:17SPEAKER- I guess probably number two to Dell back then,
40:20SPEAKERat least in my perception of the mail order,
40:23SPEAKERbill to order computer makers, it was Dell and Gateway.
40:26SPEAKERThose were kind of the two standouts in my mind.
40:28SPEAKER- They were incredibly prevalent from like,
40:31SPEAKERthey were the first chain build your own computer places
40:33SPEAKERand they were prevalent from like '96 to 2000, '99.
40:38SPEAKERWhen I left the University of Tennessee in 2000 was about,
40:41SPEAKERwe had a contract with them and then they went under
40:43SPEAKERand our contract went to Dell 'cause Dell bought them.
40:45SPEAKERI can't remember. - Interesting.
40:47SPEAKERThey were kind of like in my mental hierarchy back then,
40:49SPEAKERit was like, well, I was already building PCs,
40:51SPEAKERso I wouldn't have ordered a pre-built,
40:53SPEAKERbut like if I had gotten one,
40:55SPEAKERthat probably would have been a Gateway.
40:56SPEAKERLike in my head, it was like Packard Bell
40:58SPEAKERwas at the very bottom, Compaq.
41:01SPEAKER- E-machines.
41:02SPEAKER- E-machines, definitely E-machines.
41:03SPEAKERLike, and the Dell was above that, but like, maybe not.
41:07SPEAKERLike I feel like the dude you got a Dell campaign
41:10SPEAKERactually hurt Dell's image for me.
41:12SPEAKER- The problem with Dell was that they were doing
41:13SPEAKERenough scale that they could do custom parts.
41:15SPEAKERSo if you wanted to replace the case
41:17SPEAKERor something on a Dell, you couldn't.
41:19SPEAKER- Right.
41:20SPEAKER- 'Cause their motherboards had holes in the wrong place.
41:20SPEAKERIt was exactly what warned me away from their stuff
41:23SPEAKERwas not being able to tinker and upgrade.
41:25SPEAKER- Yeah.
41:26SPEAKER- But Gateway to me was like, okay,
41:27SPEAKERthey're the sensible, like decent, pre-built company.
41:30SPEAKERIf I had to get one of those, I would go to them.
41:31SPEAKER- And they were buying like normal cases
41:33SPEAKERthat they just put different fascia on and stuff like that.
41:35SPEAKERSo it was, and they looked nice.
41:36SPEAKERThey were decent computers.
41:37SPEAKER- Yes, pretty decent case design, stuff like that.
41:40SPEAKERAcquired by Acer, ultimately, is who ended up with them.
41:45SPEAKERBut anyway, Steve goes on here
41:50SPEAKERabout the great, I don't know if,
41:52SPEAKERdid we give a lot of context to that?
41:53SPEAKERThe kind of great capacitor kerfuffle,
41:56SPEAKERI don't know what else to call it.
41:57SPEAKER- I mean, that capacitor stuff is why like Nvidia
41:58SPEAKERstopped making motherboards, chipsets, right?
42:00SPEAKER- Like, really?
42:01SPEAKER- Yeah, all the Enforce boards died
42:03SPEAKERbecause of the capacitor thing.
42:04SPEAKER- Dude, I was like-
42:05SPEAKER- And it cost him a ton of money.
42:06SPEAKER- I was weirdly excited about Enforce back in the day.
42:09SPEAKERI had- - It was, yeah.
42:10SPEAKER- I had, around that time, it was around 2006,
42:13SPEAKERI bought a DFI Athlon board that had an Enforce chipset.
42:17SPEAKERI got the first aluminum MacBook that had an Enforce chip
42:20SPEAKERin it, I was like, I was all excited 'cause I was like,
42:22SPEAKER"Oh, they make great GPUs, I bet they will also
42:24SPEAKERmake great system controllers and stuff like that."
42:27SPEAKER- Well, the chipsets were good and they had audio,
42:30SPEAKERthey had support for like 5.1 audio out of the motherboard
42:33SPEAKERin a way that nobody else did at that time.
42:35SPEAKER- Especially 'cause like, you know,
42:36SPEAKERthey were also making that stuff for the original Xbox.
42:37SPEAKERSo I was like, okay, they've got a lot of experience
42:39SPEAKERdoing graphics and audio and all that stuff.
42:41SPEAKERLike how awesome is it gonna be for them to integrate
42:43SPEAKERall that into a system?
42:44SPEAKER- And it was really awesome until it ended up
42:46SPEAKERbeing a huge boondoggle for them and they stopped doing it.
42:48SPEAKER- I did not know that.
42:49SPEAKERAnyway, yeah, just if people don't know,
42:51SPEAKERit was a span from what, like 2000-ish to 2004, 2005,
42:56SPEAKERsomething like that, there were a ton of the capacitors
42:58SPEAKERin electronics were actually very faulty.
43:01SPEAKER- Faulty, yeah.
43:02SPEAKERAnd basically what happened was they'd pop and they'd leak
43:05SPEAKERand then they'd spill acid and stuff on your motherboard
43:07SPEAKERand jack everything up.
43:08SPEAKER- Yeah, we talked about that recently
43:09SPEAKERwhen I was taking my old Xbox apart
43:11SPEAKERto pull some of those out.
43:13SPEAKERAnyway, so he continues here.
43:16SPEAKERThe story I heard back then was that one Chinese company
43:19SPEAKERstole the "recipe" for capacitors from another
43:22SPEAKERin some industrial espionage incident,
43:25SPEAKERbut they missed a step.
43:27SPEAKERThen a bunch of other companies stole it from that company.
43:30SPEAKERI'm wondering if there's any truth to that.
43:32SPEAKER- So it's like a game of telephone
43:34SPEAKERwith industrial espionage?
43:35SPEAKER- Maybe, maybe.
43:36SPEAKER- Maybe, I don't know.
43:37SPEAKER- It's possible.
43:39SPEAKER- My guess is that there's somebody in the discord
43:41SPEAKERthat knows the answer to this question.
43:43SPEAKERI would love to get a letter that tells us
43:45SPEAKERthe actual truth of what happened
43:46SPEAKERand we'll be happy to protect your anonymity if we have to.
43:49SPEAKER- Yes, yes, for sure.
43:50SPEAKER- Brad has said he'll go to jail for anonymous sources.
43:53SPEAKER- That's right.
43:54SPEAKERYes, I will totally make that sacrifice.
43:58SPEAKERI find that whole world, and I'm sure by its very nature,
44:02SPEAKERit would be very hard to track down details on, right?
44:04SPEAKERBut that whole world of gray market electronics manufacture
44:08SPEAKERis fascinating.
44:10SPEAKERWhen I bought a host bus adapter for my NAS
44:13SPEAKERa year or two ago, you know what that is?
44:15SPEAKER- No.
44:16SPEAKER- It's basically, it's like a PCIe card
44:18SPEAKERthat sort of trickles down.
44:18SPEAKERIt's one of those things that trickles down
44:20SPEAKERfrom like data centers, like the enterprise world
44:21SPEAKERinto like kind of hobbyist prosumer home lab people's houses.
44:26SPEAKERIt's just a PCIe card that has a SAS interface on it
44:30SPEAKERthat lets you hook a ton of drives up to it.
44:32SPEAKER- Oh, okay.
44:33SPEAKER- So instead of using motherboard SATA ports,
44:34SPEAKERyou can hook basically like eight SATA drives
44:37SPEAKERup to one PCI card.
44:38SPEAKER- Okay.
44:40SPEAKER- Just a drive interface card.
44:43SPEAKERBut anyway, when I was buying them,
44:45SPEAKERlike there's a bunch that have been pulled from servers,
44:46SPEAKERlike on eBay, that actually came out of data centers
44:49SPEAKERover the last like eight years or something.
44:51SPEAKERLike LSI, have you seen that brand?
44:52SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:53SPEAKER- Yeah, so it's LSI makes the chip on those cards.
44:55SPEAKER- It's Lucky Star International, I believe.
44:57SPEAKER- Is it really?
44:58SPEAKER- I think so.
44:59SPEAKER- You know, a bunch of them will be rebranded
45:01SPEAKERSuper Micro or Hewlett Packard or IBM or whatever.
45:04SPEAKERBut anyway, long story short, when I was buying a card,
45:08SPEAKERI kept seeing all these warnings from people saying like,
45:10SPEAKER"Hey, be careful where you buy one of those from
45:11SPEAKERbecause there are a bunch of counterfeit cards out there."
45:14SPEAKERAnd I was like, "How can a card be counterfeit?"
45:16SPEAKERLike it either is the hardware or it's not, right?
45:18SPEAKERBut like what was described on forums, like Serve the Home,
45:23SPEAKERare you familiar with that forum?
45:25SPEAKER- Yeah.
45:26SPEAKER- Are you okay?
45:27SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm just typing.
45:28SPEAKER- You're looking up.
45:29SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm looking at what LSI stands for.
45:31SPEAKER- I keep forgetting that you have monitors
45:33SPEAKERlike very high in your room.
45:34SPEAKERSo occasionally like you appear to be looking at the ceiling.
45:38SPEAKER- Yeah.
45:40SPEAKER- It's very strange.
45:41SPEAKERAnyway, the story I saw circulating on a bunch of forums
45:44SPEAKERwas that basically companies that make those cards in China,
45:50SPEAKERthere will be situations where like the employees
45:51SPEAKERwill continue to run the production lines after hours,
45:55SPEAKERbut that they might be subbing in like cheaper components
45:59SPEAKERfor capacitors and sort of the generic components
46:01SPEAKERthat go on a card like that.
46:02SPEAKERLike the chip, the actual controller on the card is genuine,
46:06SPEAKERbut the rest of the card might be substandard in some way.
46:09SPEAKER- So I feel like that stuff used to happen
46:12SPEAKERa lot more 20 years ago than it does now.
46:14SPEAKER- That might be true.
46:15SPEAKER- I feel like Foxconn and the people that are Acer
46:17SPEAKERand all the places that are doing the big manufacturing,
46:20SPEAKERit's a different situation now than it was then.
46:23SPEAKERAnd there's a lot, it feels to me like there's a lot less
46:26SPEAKERof that, but I also, there's also a lot more
46:30SPEAKERkind of garage fab type places where like,
46:34SPEAKERlike the thing that's changed is pick and place machines
46:36SPEAKERhave gotten really inexpensive.
46:38SPEAKERAnd because like Apple is trying to make a billion phones
46:41SPEAKERa year and Samsung's making a billion phones a year,
46:43SPEAKERlike getting an extra, you know, 10 seconds,
46:46SPEAKER10 milliseconds per place on a pick and place
46:50SPEAKERis worth upgrading and billions of dollars of hardware.
46:52SPEAKERAnd then that trickles down.
46:53SPEAKERSo like, yeah, there's like,
46:56SPEAKERif you look at what's on AliExpress right now,
46:58SPEAKERthere are knockoffs of so many like cards like that,
47:02SPEAKERlike weird, weird SCSI cards and like,
47:05SPEAKERlike multi-drive RAID arrays that are host based.
47:09SPEAKERAnd it's always tricky to know that what you're buying
47:14SPEAKERis real. - Right, right.
47:15SPEAKERAnd then like, you know, it may work just fine.
47:17SPEAKERLike it may work for years without any issue.
47:19SPEAKER- Yeah. - It's just,
47:20SPEAKERit's just, you don't know, you know,
47:21SPEAKERwhen you're buying like that.
47:23SPEAKER- Yeah, and like on boards,
47:25SPEAKERthe setup cost is so low for boards now.
47:28SPEAKERLike if you're making something,
47:29SPEAKERif you're making keyboard switches
47:30SPEAKERthat require injection molded plastic,
47:32SPEAKERand like the tolerances are really thin on those things,
47:36SPEAKERthen like, that's a harder thing to knock off
47:38SPEAKERunless you have access to the original molds.
47:41SPEAKERBut like boards is just like, if you have the board design,
47:44SPEAKERif you have the board CAD files and stuff like that,
47:46SPEAKERthen you can feed it into the machine,
47:48SPEAKERit'll cut them and do the traces and all that stuff.
47:50SPEAKERAnd like, it's, yeah, it's a different situation.
47:53SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, it's kind of the downside.
47:55SPEAKERWe talked about this recently,
47:56SPEAKERthe upside of the situation is that like, you know,
47:58SPEAKERyou can go on like PCB way and get your custom,
48:01SPEAKERget your custom PCB printed for next to nothing.
48:03SPEAKERThe, but the downside is yes,
48:05SPEAKERthe market has kind of been flooded
48:06SPEAKERwith sort of hardware of suspect origin.
48:09SPEAKER- I mean, it's one of those things that like,
48:11SPEAKERif I'm looking for like a weird LED light
48:14SPEAKERor something like that,
48:15SPEAKERI go to AliExpress and see what the situation is first.
48:17SPEAKERIf it's something I'm not sure I actually want,
48:18SPEAKERif I just want to try it out,
48:20SPEAKERthen you can usually get like something
48:21SPEAKERthat would cost a couple hundred bucks on Amazon
48:23SPEAKERfor 20 bucks on AliExpress.
48:25SPEAKER- Absolutely.
48:26SPEAKER- If you don't mind waiting a month, so.
48:27SPEAKER- And you don't mind it maybe being a little bit unreliable.
48:30SPEAKER- Yeah, janky.
48:31SPEAKERIt's gonna be janky.
48:32SPEAKERMight even be a fire hazard.
48:33SPEAKERIt's really exciting.
48:35SPEAKERThis is why everybody should have a fire extinguishers also.
48:37SPEAKER- Yes, indeed.
48:38SPEAKERAll right, let's do one last quick email here.
48:41SPEAKER- Okay.
48:42SPEAKER- It's from Matthew.
48:45SPEAKERHe says simply, I'm thinking it's a splash of cold opens.
48:50SPEAKERWhat do you think?
48:51SPEAKER- I like the cube.
48:52SPEAKER- Did we settle?
48:53SPEAKER- I don't.
48:54SPEAKER- I think cube's got the alliteration going forward.
48:56SPEAKERI think it's quite good.
48:58SPEAKER- Yeah, and they're cold, cubes are cold, right?
49:00SPEAKER- Yes.
49:01SPEAKER- I guess they're not all cold,
49:02SPEAKERbut a splash of cold opens just makes me envision
49:05SPEAKERbeing doused with a bucket of freezing water,
49:07SPEAKERwhich is really not pleasant at all.
49:09SPEAKER- No, I don't want that.
49:11SPEAKERI don't know, people seem to like that.
49:12SPEAKERI think we're gonna, we are not going to do it on the reg,
49:15SPEAKERbut we will do it as a special occasion.
49:17SPEAKER- I feel like that's maybe an every six months-ish
49:20SPEAKERsort of thing.
49:21SPEAKER- At most, yeah.
49:21SPEAKER- Yes, I feel like, we already serialized the email episode.
49:25SPEAKERI think like having two repeated episodes a month
49:28SPEAKERmight be really pushing it.
49:29SPEAKER- You never know.
49:30SPEAKERAlso, I don't know that I'm interesting enough
49:32SPEAKERto have enough cold opens to do an episode
49:34SPEAKERof those every month.
49:35SPEAKER- Anything can be content if you try hard enough.
49:38SPEAKERLet me tell you.
49:41SPEAKER- Yeah, as always, thanks to everyone for listening
49:45SPEAKERand thanks for supporting the show.
49:47SPEAKER- Yes, yeah, I really was kind of shocked, actually,
49:51SPEAKERat the very positive response to that episode,
49:53SPEAKER'cause I was, I think you tweeted it, right,
49:55SPEAKERthat it was gonna be a very love or hate kind of thing,
49:57SPEAKERand I don't think anybody really hated it.
49:59SPEAKERWe were not expecting the, yeah,
50:01SPEAKERwe were hesitant right up until the moment we posted it,
50:04SPEAKERand people were like, "Oh, this is really funny," so.
50:06SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
50:07SPEAKER- And I like a potpourri episode occasionally, right?
50:11SPEAKERLike it's nice to have a mixture of stuff, so.
50:13SPEAKER- Yes, can't talk about information theory every week.
50:17SPEAKER- I mean, I can't do a whole episode on information theory
50:19SPEAKERunless we get a real good guest, I don't think.
50:20SPEAKER- Yes.
50:21SPEAKER- But as always, thank you to all of our patrons,
50:24SPEAKEReverybody on the Discord and everybody who supports the show,
50:27SPEAKERwhether by signing for the Patreon at techpod,
50:30SPEAKERpatreon.com/techpod, or by just telling your friends
50:35SPEAKERabout the show, that's how we get new listeners.
50:37SPEAKERAnd like we've, in the last couple of weeks we've gone,
50:40SPEAKERwe made up 2,000, we said we do scene drama
50:44SPEAKERat the 2,000th patron, and we're at 1,862.
50:48SPEAKER- I've got a list of like four different instances
50:50SPEAKERof drama right now.
50:52SPEAKER- Good, good, good.
50:54SPEAKERBut as always, it's the last episode of the month,
50:56SPEAKERso we want to make sure we thank all of our patrons,
50:59SPEAKERall of our executive and associate producer level patrons.
51:03SPEAKERSo thanks first to our executive producer patrons,
51:05SPEAKERJacob Chappell, James Cammack, and The Bunny Fiend.
51:08SPEAKERAnd also thank you to our associate producer patrons,
51:11SPEAKERAndre Burke, Arthur Gies, Ben Gulmi, Brian Robb,
51:16SPEAKERRabe, Dan Brockman, Dave Ullian, Graham Banks,
51:20SPEAKERJad Rita, Jorge Pereira, Sean Talon,
51:24SPEAKERTerry Cox, and Thomas Shea, thank you all so much.
51:26SPEAKER- Yeah, thank you, I mean, it cannot be overstated
51:29SPEAKERthat you all make this possible.
51:31SPEAKERLike none of this would be happening without you.
51:34SPEAKER- I wouldn't have gotten up at seven o'clock this morning
51:35SPEAKERto start recording a podcast if people weren't
51:38SPEAKERcontributing to the Patreon, I'm gonna be perfectly blunt.
51:40SPEAKER- Yeah, that's fair.
51:42SPEAKER- Yeah, so we mentioned before,
51:45SPEAKERthe pricing on the Patreon is gonna change very soon.
51:48SPEAKERSo if you want to get into the Discord at the $2 level,
51:51SPEAKERnow is the time, 'cause once that changes,
51:53SPEAKERwhen you sign up, you're locked in
51:54SPEAKERfor as long as you keep paying.
51:56SPEAKEROnce that changes, then you will have to pay the new price
51:59SPEAKERif you want to get access to the Discord.
52:01SPEAKER- Important to note, not just the pricing,
52:03SPEAKERlike we're not, it's not like we're just going to
52:04SPEAKERjack the prices up on the current tiers,
52:06SPEAKERwe're also, I think, looking to rethink those.
52:09SPEAKER- Yes, we want to do more interesting,
52:11SPEAKERlike there are things that we think we can do better
52:13SPEAKERand there are things that we would like
52:14SPEAKERto be able to do more of and stuff like that.
52:16SPEAKER- So it's not just make what we offer more expensive,
52:19SPEAKERit's like try to offer something better, hopefully.
52:21SPEAKER- I mean, look, I've been doing product stuff
52:23SPEAKERfor a really long time.
52:25SPEAKERThat's a big part of the strategy in corporate America
52:27SPEAKERis just to do something and then make it more expensive.
52:30SPEAKERIt works.
52:30SPEAKER- Yeah, it seems to be doing quite well with that strategy.
52:34SPEAKER- But we're not gonna do that.
52:35SPEAKERSo yeah, we had, this month on the TechPod,
52:40SPEAKERon the Discord, we've had some really good conversations.
52:45SPEAKERLike the other day I came in and people were talking about
52:47SPEAKERlift disk force on helicopters.
52:50SPEAKER- What?
52:51SPEAKER- How an Osprey landing on a hospital helipad
52:56SPEAKERbecause of the force of the,
52:58SPEAKERlike I hadn't thought about this before,
52:59SPEAKERbut you know, the downward facing propeller,
53:02SPEAKERthe one that makes the helicopter stay in the air.
53:05SPEAKER- Yes.
53:07SPEAKER- There's a circle around that blade
53:09SPEAKERthat supports the entire weight of the helicopter,
53:12SPEAKERwhich makes total sense.
53:14SPEAKERYeah, and that amount of force is pushing down
53:17SPEAKERwhen the helicopter lands and it can do damage,
53:21SPEAKERit turns out.
53:22SPEAKERSo yeah, like I learn all sorts of weird stuff every day.
53:26SPEAKERIt's a fantastic place and I love it.
53:28SPEAKER- Hang on, I almost want to quote from conversation
53:32SPEAKERon here real fast.
53:34SPEAKEROh, you were a part of this conversation.
53:36SPEAKERIt was after the ultra wide band episode
53:38SPEAKERwhere we have like actual people working in,
53:42SPEAKERyou know, very low level fundamental bandwidth capacities.
53:45SPEAKERWe have, like, we have some physicists on the,
53:49SPEAKERthis is where you mentioned something about
53:50SPEAKERFourier transform, Fourier?
53:53SPEAKER- Yeah, Fourier.
53:55SPEAKER- I assume is Fourier transforms.
53:57SPEAKER- You said it and then I immediately couldn't remember
53:58SPEAKERhow to pronounce it.
53:59SPEAKERI was like, no, that seems right, yeah.
54:00SPEAKER- People were dropping equations
54:03SPEAKERfor the Shannon capacity for communication.
54:07SPEAKER- Which is the theoretical limit for amount of data
54:09SPEAKERyou can pack into a certain bandwidth, I believe.
54:11SPEAKER- Right, and how it is pre-log
54:13SPEAKERin that it scales linearly rather than logarithmically.
54:18SPEAKER- There's also normal people talking
54:19SPEAKERabout normal people stuff in there too,
54:21SPEAKERjust for the record.
54:22SPEAKER- ENT, my favorite physicists chimed in
54:24SPEAKERand said he was more familiar with Gibbs expressions
54:26SPEAKERwhere bandwidth behaves like the Boltzmann constant.
54:29SPEAKER- Oh yeah, the Boltzmann constant.
54:30SPEAKERI love that one.
54:31SPEAKERIt's my favorite.
54:32SPEAKER- You know, of course, the base dimension
54:33SPEAKERof stat-neck entropy.
54:34SPEAKER- Yeah.
54:35SPEAKER- I, you know, I'm very out of my depth
54:38SPEAKERon some of these conversations,
54:39SPEAKERbut I find them fascinating to try to parse.
54:42SPEAKER- Look, I also have enjoyed the food channel
54:44SPEAKERwhere people have been making pizza
54:45SPEAKERand are sharing their, like how to make pizza
54:48SPEAKERin the oven tips, which has been really good.
54:50SPEAKER- Yes.
54:53SPEAKER- Yeah, it is sort of really, yeah,
54:54SPEAKERit is just a, it is an amazing resource
54:57SPEAKERto just be able to drop into a channel
54:58SPEAKERand draw on some very smart people's expertise.
55:02SPEAKER- I love it so much.
55:03SPEAKERAnd if you want to be part of that,
55:04SPEAKERyou can at patreon.com/techpod.
55:07SPEAKERAs always, send your email questions
55:08SPEAKERto techpod@content.town.
55:11SPEAKERShare the podcast with your friends if you like it.
55:13SPEAKERAnd I think last week's episode was a good jumping in point
55:16SPEAKERfor a bunch of people.
55:17SPEAKERSo if you have people in your life
55:18SPEAKERthat have questions about the Rona vaccines,
55:21SPEAKERmaybe point them at that one.
55:22SPEAKER- Yeah, thanks again.
55:23SPEAKER- That's a good starting point.
55:24SPEAKER- Thanks again.
55:25SPEAKER- Thanks to Kishore for that.
55:26SPEAKER- Kishore, yeah.
55:27SPEAKERAlways love talking to him.
55:28SPEAKERHe showed up on the Discord after that episode
55:31SPEAKERand dropped a tremendous amount of additional knowledge
55:33SPEAKERabout where things are at.
55:35SPEAKER- Yeah, it was super good, super useful.
55:39SPEAKERI guess that's it for us.
55:40SPEAKERWe'll be back next week with more TechPod.
55:43SPEAKERHave a good week, Brad.
55:45SPEAKER- I can't.
55:45SPEAKER- And I guess everyone else.
55:46SPEAKER- I can't remember.
55:47SPEAKERDude, I can't remember.
55:48SPEAKERYou have to be the last one to say anything
55:50SPEAKERor the audio ducking doesn't work.
55:52SPEAKER- Okay, okay.
55:53SPEAKER- Bye, everybody.
55:54SPEAKER- Have a good week.
55:54SPEAKERSee you all next week.
55:55SPEAKERBye.
55:56SPEAKER(upbeat music)