89: Don't Mix the Soaps!

00:00SPEAKER- It's still there.

00:01SPEAKER- What's still there?

00:02SPEAKER- It says fr.

00:04SPEAKER- What?

00:04SPEAKER- Yeah, the sign is still there.

00:06SPEAKERThe chair is still here.

00:08SPEAKERHave you not made a commitment?

00:09SPEAKERHave you not made a promise?

00:10SPEAKERHave you not engaged?

00:12SPEAKERDo you not love your new chair?

00:13SPEAKER- Look, man, by God, this chair will go out on the curb

00:16SPEAKERwhen this chair is good and ready

00:17SPEAKERand not one moment before.

00:19SPEAKER- Brad, Brad, is this a monitor situation?

00:22SPEAKER- No.

00:23SPEAKER- Are you sure?

00:24SPEAKER- It's less, I will be blunt,

00:26SPEAKERit's less attachment to the old chair

00:28SPEAKERand more uncertainty about the new chair?

00:30SPEAKER- Is the new chair not more comfortable?

00:31SPEAKERIs your ass not happy?

00:32SPEAKER- Should we talk about butt memory?

00:34SPEAKER- Do you remember when everybody was wearing Birkenstocks

00:36SPEAKERand they were really popular

00:37SPEAKERand we would talk about how the soles

00:39SPEAKERwould mold to your feet?

00:41SPEAKERYeah, same thing happens with your ass in a chair.

00:43SPEAKER- Okay.

00:45SPEAKER- You are in a codependent relationship.

00:47SPEAKERYour ass has a codependent relationship with your old chair.

00:50SPEAKERIt's time to let it go, Brad.

00:52SPEAKER- I'm getting there, I'm getting there.

00:53SPEAKER- Does the old chair have adjustable arms?

00:55SPEAKER- It does not.

00:57SPEAKER- Can you camber them in or out,

00:58SPEAKERdepending on whether you're using a game pad

01:00SPEAKERor a keyboard and mouse?

01:01SPEAKER- I don't even know what cambering is,

01:02SPEAKERso I'm gonna say no.

01:03SPEAKER- It means going sideways.

01:04SPEAKER- Okay.

01:05SPEAKER- Sideways, like tilting, swinging in and out.

01:07SPEAKER- Lateral movement, I'm gonna say no.

01:09SPEAKER- Does it have an adjustable seat pan?

01:11SPEAKER- It doesn't have adjustable anything, actually.

01:13SPEAKER- Yeah, was it making your body happy at the end of the day

01:17SPEAKERor sad at the end of the day?

01:18SPEAKER- Not so much, not so much.

01:22SPEAKER- I'm gonna tell you what to do.

01:23SPEAKER- Okay.

01:24SPEAKER- You're gonna open the trunk of the car

01:26SPEAKERand dangle it out the back with the trunk bungee shut,

01:28SPEAKERand you're gonna drive up to the top of Folsom Street.

01:31SPEAKER- We've been through this, man.

01:32SPEAKER- And you're gonna huck it down the street

01:33SPEAKERand drive away as fast as you can

01:35SPEAKERbefore it damages somebody else's car and you get caught.

01:37SPEAKERThat's my, probably cover your license plate too.

01:39SPEAKERThis is not a legal advice podcast.

01:41SPEAKER- This large envelope has been taped to this chair

01:43SPEAKERwith the letters F-R-E-E written on it behind me

01:47SPEAKERfor like eight days now?

01:48SPEAKER- That's phase one.

01:50SPEAKERPhase one of the plan, F-R-E-E taped on the chair.

01:53SPEAKERPhase two, you gotta put it where there are people.

01:56SPEAKER- Yes, I know.

01:57SPEAKER- The foot traffic through your office

01:59SPEAKERis pretty thin these days, I'm guessing.

02:01SPEAKER- You're right.

02:01SPEAKERThese guinea pigs, I don't think,

02:02SPEAKERare gonna take this chair home.

02:03SPEAKERWhere would they put it?

02:04SPEAKER- It's a little bit large for them.

02:06SPEAKER- Honestly, to be completely real, this steel case,

02:09SPEAKERI got a refurbished steel case leap.

02:11SPEAKERIt's kind of a harsh taskmaster.

02:13SPEAKERIt's kind of a lot to get used to.

02:14SPEAKER- Look, a good chair demands a lot of you, Brad.

02:16SPEAKERIt demands everything that you put back into it.

02:18SPEAKER- I can't slouch.

02:20SPEAKERI'm trying to adjust myself here.

02:22SPEAKERThe lumbar support is ferocious on this thing.

02:25SPEAKERI don't know.

02:26SPEAKERIt's an adjustment period, okay?

02:28SPEAKER- You gotta get your,

02:29SPEAKERyou might have to adjust the seat pan forward.

02:30SPEAKERYou might have it too far back, 'cause you might-

02:32SPEAKER- Trust me, I've been doing that about two dozen times a day

02:34SPEAKERtrying to find the spot.

02:35SPEAKER- Okay.

02:36SPEAKER- I think I might have it dialed in, but-

02:38SPEAKER- Okay.

02:38SPEAKERIt took me a bit to get the gesture adjusted, right?

02:40SPEAKER- Okay.

02:41SPEAKER- Like the arms I got right away,

02:42SPEAKERthe headrest I got right away, the seat pan was a mystery.

02:45SPEAKER- Okay, that's good to hear.

02:46SPEAKERThat's what I need to hear because I've been teetering

02:49SPEAKERboth literally and figuratively a little bit on this thing.

02:52SPEAKER- So there was a video for my chair that was like,

02:54SPEAKERhere's how far forward the seat pan needs to be.

02:58SPEAKERAnd you have to get it right or else your legs fall asleep

03:00SPEAKERwhen you're sitting in the chair.

03:01SPEAKERAnd I even kind of wiggle it back and forth a little bit

03:03SPEAKERthroughout the day if I'm sitting a lot.

03:05SPEAKER- I suspect what will happen here is what often happens

03:08SPEAKERin situations like this, that my return window will close.

03:12SPEAKER- Yeah.

03:12SPEAKER- And the decision will be made for me.

03:14SPEAKER- My guess is that that chair is gonna be in your office

03:16SPEAKERfor the next three to six months

03:18SPEAKERbased on the monitor experience of 2019 or 2020, whatever.

03:21SPEAKER- Those monitors are still sitting here.

03:23SPEAKER- Are you kidding me?

03:24SPEAKER- About three feet away from me.

03:26SPEAKER- Oh, Brad, okay.

03:28SPEAKER- What if we wanna make a t-shirt out of those monitors

03:29SPEAKERor something?

03:31SPEAKER- We could fucking buy the monitors for $8 on Craigslist.

03:34SPEAKERSomebody has them.

03:35SPEAKER- Not these monitors.

03:36SPEAKERI feel like I should print some studio time,

03:37SPEAKERget some like nice high quality kind of shadowbox photos

03:41SPEAKERtaken just in case.

03:43SPEAKER- Don't memorialize the monitors.

03:45SPEAKEROh, my gentle jeebus.

03:47SPEAKERLook, new plan.

03:49SPEAKER- Okay.

03:50SPEAKER- You're gonna put the monitors on the chair.

03:52SPEAKER- Okay.

03:53SPEAKER- You're gonna put free signs on post-it notes

03:55SPEAKERon both of the monitors

03:57SPEAKERand you're gonna put them all out together

03:59SPEAKERby this time next week.

04:01SPEAKER- How about, okay, alternative plan.

04:03SPEAKER- Okay.

04:04SPEAKER- Strap the monitors to the chair.

04:05SPEAKER- Okay, I'm back in.

04:07SPEAKER- Take the whole thing down to Ocean Beach.

04:09SPEAKER- Uh-huh.

04:10SPEAKER- Push it out into the water.

04:11SPEAKER- That's pollution.

04:12SPEAKERI'm not, that's littering.

04:14SPEAKERThe thing you were describing,

04:15SPEAKERlike when you put it out there with the free sign,

04:17SPEAKERthere's a compact that somebody who wants the bullshit

04:19SPEAKERthat you're throwing away is going to want it.

04:21SPEAKERWhen you throw it in the ocean,

04:22SPEAKERthat is throw, that's not the compact.

04:24SPEAKER- What if a bow and flaming arrows were involved?

04:27SPEAKER- Then it's a Viking funeral, so I'm okay with that again.

04:30SPEAKER(upbeat music)

04:49SPEAKER(upbeat music)

05:00SPEAKER- Welcome to "Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod."

05:02SPEAKERI'm Will.

05:03SPEAKER- I'm Brad, what's up?

05:04SPEAKER- Hey, Brad.

05:05SPEAKER- Hi.

05:06SPEAKER- Before we recorded the show

05:06SPEAKERso that the weaking of the pigs

05:08SPEAKERwould not disturb the podcast recording,

05:10SPEAKERI told you that we have pigs coming this summer

05:13SPEAKERis my understanding.

05:14SPEAKER- I do, how many?

05:15SPEAKER- Two.

05:16SPEAKER- Two.

05:17SPEAKERThe four grade pigs from my daughter's school

05:20SPEAKERare gonna come live with us

05:21SPEAKERfor seems like an indeterminate period of time.

05:24SPEAKER- Oh, could that turn into a semi-permanent situation?

05:27SPEAKER- No, we don't have room for that.

05:29SPEAKER- Okay.

05:31SPEAKER- But we have been told that they have a pen,

05:34SPEAKERwhich they can stay in,

05:35SPEAKERor like we can take them out in the backyard

05:38SPEAKERand they can play in the backyard is what we've been told.

05:40SPEAKER- Sure.

05:41SPEAKER- We have a lot of prey birds here.

05:44SPEAKER- I was gonna say maybe evaluate the predatory avian

05:47SPEAKERsituation in your neighborhood

05:48SPEAKERbefore you let them roam uncovered.

05:51SPEAKER- Well, I was thinking we might,

05:52SPEAKERwe have like a little sun tent, sunshade thing.

05:54SPEAKERSo I might just put that up

05:55SPEAKERand let them hang out under that.

05:57SPEAKERAnd then they won't get sunburned too.

05:58SPEAKER- There's nothing they love more than eating grass.

06:00SPEAKERI can tell you that.

06:01SPEAKER- Oh really?

06:02SPEAKERWell, okay, so I--

06:03SPEAKER- Eat grass?

06:04SPEAKERWell, you should also maybe figure out

06:05SPEAKERwhat kind of grass you have there.

06:06SPEAKER- We have fescue.

06:08SPEAKER- I, sure.

06:09SPEAKER- Okay.

06:10SPEAKER- Maybe look that up.

06:11SPEAKER- I'll consult the experts.

06:12SPEAKER- Okay.

06:13SPEAKER- But I'm gonna come to you for pig advice

06:16SPEAKERfor the one to three week period while we have the pigs.

06:18SPEAKER- Yes.

06:19SPEAKERDoes guinea pig care fall under the tech umbrella?

06:22SPEAKERCan we just do guinea pig cast?

06:24SPEAKER- I mean, maybe it's a patron episode.

06:26SPEAKER- Okay.

06:27SPEAKER- A pig-trin episode.

06:29SPEAKERWhat are we talking about this week, Brad?

06:30SPEAKERIt's the last week of the month.

06:31SPEAKER- Well, we should probably get to the emails.

06:33SPEAKERI was about to say, I have via my girlfriends

06:36SPEAKERsort of started poking around

06:38SPEAKERin the world of guinea pig influencers.

06:40SPEAKER- Ooh.

06:41SPEAKER- I think we should just move on.

06:42SPEAKER- Ooh, pig fluencer.

06:44SPEAKER- There are some big channels out there,

06:46SPEAKERbut we should move on.

06:47SPEAKER- Look, there are a lot of guinea pigs on TikTok.

06:49SPEAKERI'm gonna go ahead and say,

06:50SPEAKERI see a lot of guinea pig TikToks.

06:51SPEAKER- I bet, I bet.

06:52SPEAKER- They're pretty good.

06:54SPEAKERWhat's our first email?

06:55SPEAKERBrad, if people wanted to send us an email,

06:57SPEAKERwhere would they send it?

06:58SPEAKERDo you remember?

06:59SPEAKER- Email time, techpod@content.town?

07:02SPEAKER- That is correct.

07:03SPEAKERIt's techpod@content.town.

07:06SPEAKER- So we're really doing ourselves as a service

07:08SPEAKER'cause that is not the email address we log into every week.

07:10SPEAKERLook, it was a lot more expensive

07:15SPEAKERto set up a proper Gmail with the email address there

07:19SPEAKERthan it is to just forward it to a free Gmail.

07:22SPEAKERSo here we are.

07:25SPEAKER- The actual email address is quite a bit uglier

07:27SPEAKERthan techpod@content.town.

07:29SPEAKER- It's on the first two episodes of the show, I think,

07:30SPEAKERbefore I was like, oh, wait,

07:31SPEAKERwe can just set up an email forward

07:32SPEAKERfor a couple bucks a year.

07:34SPEAKERBut you know, these things happen.

07:37SPEAKERWhat's the first email, Brad?

07:39SPEAKER- All right, yeah, here we are.

07:40SPEAKERMonthly email episode.

07:41SPEAKEREmail number one, Wesley from San Diego.

07:46SPEAKER- Hi, Wes.

07:47SPEAKER- I hope you have some insight into this question

07:51SPEAKER'cause I'm just flabbergasted.

07:52SPEAKEROften I notice that when I buy a different brand

07:55SPEAKERof hand soap and proceed to refill one of my pump dispensers

07:59SPEAKERthat has some of the old hand soap remaining at the bottom,

08:02SPEAKERthat the old hand soap mixes with the new hand soap

08:04SPEAKERand they somehow cancel each other out.

08:07SPEAKERIn other words, it becomes a liquidy, less viscous,

08:09SPEAKERless soapy fluid that doesn't seem to clean my hands well.

08:13SPEAKER- What the hell?

08:14SPEAKER- Do you know why this might be happening?

08:16SPEAKERThanks.

08:18SPEAKER- Okay.

08:21SPEAKERThere are two things here.

08:24SPEAKER- Yes.

08:25SPEAKER- I realize as you're reading this question

08:27SPEAKERthat this person could have a reusable hand pump dispenser

08:30SPEAKERfor soap and they could be just pouring the old soap in,

08:34SPEAKERthe new soap in on top of the old soap.

08:36SPEAKER- That was my take on it.

08:37SPEAKERI thought, my first thought was that they're just taking

08:41SPEAKERthe canister, the plastic thing that the soap comes in

08:45SPEAKERand dumping the empty, almost empty old one in

08:49SPEAKERon top of the new one.

08:50SPEAKER- Ooh.

08:51SPEAKER- And I was like, that's madness.

08:53SPEAKERThat is not okay.

08:54SPEAKER- Those are the actions of a loser.

08:57SPEAKERYes.

08:58SPEAKER- But also, I don't think, like I rinse out.

09:04SPEAKERWell, first off, we don't, I like the foamy soap.

09:07SPEAKER- Okay.

09:08SPEAKER- Like the real runny stuff that has the,

09:10SPEAKERwhen you put pump, the special pump thing

09:11SPEAKERmakes the foam come out.

09:12SPEAKER- Yeah, the machine does the lathering for you.

09:15SPEAKER- You get the bubbles, you start with the bubbles.

09:17SPEAKERWhy not?

09:17SPEAKERWhy would I not start with the bubbles if given the option?

09:19SPEAKERSo with the bubble stuff, with the foamy,

09:22SPEAKERself foaming stuff, you're kind of tied to the dispenser

09:25SPEAKERit comes in.

09:26SPEAKERSo we don't really have, the only reusable dispenser we have

09:29SPEAKERis the one for like dish soap, for washing dishes

09:31SPEAKERand stuff like that, washing,

09:33SPEAKERlike stuff that doesn't go in the dishwasher.

09:35SPEAKERAnd that, every single time I finish with it,

09:38SPEAKERregardless of whether we're putting the same soap

09:41SPEAKERin on top or not, it gets a rinse out.

09:44SPEAKERI jammed the bottle brush down in there,

09:46SPEAKERclean out the soap.

09:48SPEAKERI don't know why, 'cause it's soap, it's already clean.

09:51SPEAKERAnd then I put it out to dry

09:53SPEAKERand I fill it back up when it's dry.

09:55SPEAKERI can't even imagine putting the same more soap

09:58SPEAKERin on top of the old soap, especially if it's different.

10:00SPEAKERWho buys different hand soap?

10:02SPEAKER- What is happening there?

10:03SPEAKER- What do you know about the molecular interactions

10:05SPEAKERof various soaps?

10:07SPEAKER- No, it doesn't matter, just don't do this, rinse it out.

10:11SPEAKER- The scientist man once said, don't cross the streams.

10:14SPEAKER- Don't cross the streams.

10:15SPEAKER- Don't mix the soaps, don't mix the soaps.

10:18SPEAKER- Probably they use, probably they use different,

10:20SPEAKERlike this, I don't even, if you're a chemist

10:24SPEAKERand you understand what's happening here,

10:26SPEAKERlet us know, I'm curious, but also don't do this, it's icky.

10:29SPEAKERI don't think there's anything wrong with it,

10:31SPEAKERit's gross.

10:32SPEAKER- It's very strange, I did some Googling around

10:33SPEAKERto see, try to find some other examples of this happening

10:35SPEAKERand you'll find like, oh, I mixed these two soaps together

10:38SPEAKERand one of them like balled up inside the other one,

10:40SPEAKERit turned into these weird strands.

10:42SPEAKERLike they, soaps seem to interact with each other

10:44SPEAKERin very strange ways.

10:45SPEAKER- You know, probably it's like a detergent soap thing

10:48SPEAKER'cause like detergents are one thing and soaps are another

10:50SPEAKERand it could be that the detergents are usually

10:54SPEAKERnot water-based and soaps are.

10:56SPEAKER- Sure.

10:57SPEAKER- So, you know, I have no idea.

11:03SPEAKERAlso try to use soap and not detergent if you can,

11:05SPEAKERgenerally speaking, soap is better for the environment

11:07SPEAKER'cause it goes away and detergent does not.

11:09SPEAKER- Really, I didn't know there was a distinction there.

11:12SPEAKER- Yeah, detergent is a synthetic product generally.

11:16SPEAKER- I see.

11:17SPEAKERI think we might've talked about this

11:18SPEAKERon one of the COVID episodes,

11:19SPEAKERbut there was some interesting literature out there

11:22SPEAKERat the beginning of the pandemic about why soap kills viruses

11:25SPEAKERat the molecular level.

11:26SPEAKER- Yeah, it's 'cause it breaks the lipid layer

11:28SPEAKERaround the outside edge of the cell.

11:29SPEAKER- Like it's like literally the shape

11:31SPEAKERof the molecular chains.

11:32SPEAKERLike it's kind of a spike sort of shape

11:34SPEAKERthat literally pierces the structure of the virus.

11:38SPEAKER- It doesn't denature proteins, it separates the lipids

11:41SPEAKERand it breaks the molecular bonds, yeah.

11:44SPEAKER- Right, like it is like kind of a mechanical action, right?

11:46SPEAKERIt's just at a molecular scale.

11:49SPEAKER- I don't remember if it's mechanical action or not, but yeah.

11:51SPEAKER- I believe that was the explanation, anyway.

11:54SPEAKERSo I feel like soap is like right there on the list

11:58SPEAKERbehind glue in terms of things

11:59SPEAKERthat are like sort of unknowable.

12:01SPEAKER- Well, no, no, soap is very noble

12:03SPEAKER'cause the way the lipid layer in the cell works

12:05SPEAKERis that there's a fat

12:06SPEAKERand then there's something on the other side

12:08SPEAKERthat I don't remember.

12:09SPEAKERAnyway, yeah, just don't fucking mix soap, man.

12:12SPEAKERThat's gross.

12:13SPEAKER- Yes.

12:15SPEAKER- Sorry for soap shaming you, Wesley.

12:16SPEAKERI apologize.

12:17SPEAKER- Be sensible, man, come on.

12:19SPEAKER- Yeah, do we not live in a society?

12:22SPEAKER- Let's not get into it. (laughs)

12:25SPEAKERAll right, next email is from Dave.

12:29SPEAKERWhen reviewers talk about video games,

12:31SPEAKERthey will throw around phrases

12:33SPEAKERlike it's locked to 30 frames per second

12:35SPEAKERor it dips down from 60 frames per second sometimes.

12:39SPEAKERThat part makes sense, but how exactly are they seeing that?

12:42SPEAKERIs there some debug mode in PCs or consoles

12:44SPEAKERthat spits out this info in real time?

12:46SPEAKERAre their eyes just that sharp that they can guess?

12:49SPEAKERSomething I've always wondered but never heard explained.

12:53SPEAKER- I mean, there are capture and software pipelines

12:56SPEAKERthat will just count frames for you, right?

12:57SPEAKERYou absolutely can quantify that

13:00SPEAKERwith the right hardware and software pipeline.

13:04SPEAKER- If you're playing a PC game and have an Nvidia card,

13:06SPEAKERyou can press Alt + R and it pops up stats

13:09SPEAKERand you see the frame rate in the top corner of your screen.

13:11SPEAKER- Yes, on PC, there are infinite ways

13:14SPEAKERto do that in real time.

13:15SPEAKERThere's all kinds of MSI EVGA type add-ons

13:19SPEAKERthat you can use to track frame rate in real time.

13:22SPEAKERBut also, I mean, for console where you're capturing footage

13:24SPEAKERand checking it after the fact, like you can--

13:26SPEAKER- So you can capture footage and like count frames

13:29SPEAKERif you captured a higher frame rate

13:31SPEAKERthan the thing is outputting.

13:34SPEAKERI think that depending on the platform,

13:36SPEAKERdebug and test consoles usually have some sort of frame rate,

13:40SPEAKERsome perfmon component.

13:42SPEAKER- Sure.

13:43SPEAKER- Or they should.

13:44SPEAKERSo I have, also people can detect this.

13:46SPEAKER- So it's very much, I think it's very much

13:48SPEAKERa case-by-case basis of how sensitive people are

13:50SPEAKERto the stuff to just see it by eye.

13:52SPEAKER- There was one of the things working on VR stuff,

13:55SPEAKERespecially in the early days when we didn't really know

13:57SPEAKERwhat made people sick and what didn't.

13:58SPEAKERWe were trying to figure it all out.

14:00SPEAKERLike when I did, when I started FU,

14:02SPEAKERwe did something like 500 demos of VR

14:05SPEAKERfor the first time for people.

14:07SPEAKERAnd it became very clear that there is a spectrum

14:09SPEAKERof experience where like five,

14:13SPEAKER1% of those people got sick no matter what.

14:17SPEAKERAnd 5% got sick if you did something that's bad,

14:19SPEAKERlike moving the camera when the person's head didn't move,

14:22SPEAKERstuff like that.

14:24SPEAKERIn my experience, frame rate sensitivity is the same.

14:27SPEAKERLike I, my dirty secret as somebody who reviewed

14:30SPEAKERand tested video cards for a really long time

14:32SPEAKERis that I fucking can't see frame rate

14:34SPEAKERunless it is abysmal.

14:35SPEAKER- Really?

14:36SPEAKER- So yeah, if it's below, I mean, it used to be below 30,

14:40SPEAKERI'm a little more sensitive to it now,

14:41SPEAKERbut like as long as I'm above 60,

14:44SPEAKERI don't notice a difference.

14:46SPEAKERLike I don't see a difference.

14:47SPEAKERI can, if I'm playing a game, I shoot better.

14:50SPEAKERLike playing PUBG, going to the higher speed monitor

14:53SPEAKERfrom the 60 Hertz monitor,

14:54SPEAKERmy average damage per round went up 30%

14:59SPEAKERor something ridiculous.

15:01SPEAKERBut I don't, I can't see it.

15:04SPEAKERAt Maximum PC, we had a house bet on this once

15:06SPEAKER'cause Greg Wiederman,

15:07SPEAKERwho was the editor-in-chief of PC Gamer at the time,

15:10SPEAKERhas always been, always claimed to be very sensitive

15:13SPEAKERto frame rate.

15:14SPEAKERAnd we, one of the other editors set up a double blind

15:19SPEAKERso that there were two PCs

15:21SPEAKERwith more or less identical hardware

15:22SPEAKERand one was locked at 60 and one was locked at 30

15:25SPEAKERand Greg could pick it every fucking time.

15:27SPEAKERAnd I never was able to see the difference.

15:30SPEAKER- No kidding.

15:30SPEAKER- Yeah, so, and that was on CRTs.

15:32SPEAKERSo it's a little different, but like,

15:36SPEAKERlike I firmly believe that as with most of humanity,

15:40SPEAKERthere is probably a wide spectrum

15:41SPEAKERof what people are able to detect and what they are not.

15:44SPEAKER- I have always wondered

15:45SPEAKERif there was just some fundamental cognitive variation

15:47SPEAKERbetween people that was behind that.

15:49SPEAKERI also am kind of shocked to hear that you are,

15:51SPEAKERI thought you would be a very hardline frame rate guy,

15:53SPEAKERlike 60 FPS or bust.

15:55SPEAKER- I mean, look, it's funny because when we,

15:59SPEAKERwhen I got that 360 Hertz monitor last year,

16:02SPEAKERI literally set up some tests and locked it at 60

16:05SPEAKERand I tracked my average damage per round in Pub,

16:08SPEAKERI played four hours of PUBG a night, five nights a week.

16:10SPEAKERIt's a pretty flat number.

16:12SPEAKERLike I was constantly 150 and I went to 200, 210, 220,

16:17SPEAKERimmediately on switching to the faster monitor.

16:19SPEAKERSo there's something there even for people like me

16:22SPEAKERthat are old and slow compared to like your shrouds

16:25SPEAKERand your Choco Tacos, but like, it's not,

16:29SPEAKERit is not something that I can perceive,

16:33SPEAKERlike front of mind.

16:34SPEAKER- Okay, 'cause I am that guy.

16:36SPEAKER- You can tell the frame rate.

16:37SPEAKER- I'm sorry to say, not across the board.

16:38SPEAKERI mean, there are definitely diminishing returns, right?

16:40SPEAKERLike the difference between 30 and 60 is night and day to me

16:44SPEAKERlike I can't not think about it

16:45SPEAKERwhen I see that side by side.

16:47SPEAKERBetween like, say, let's say like going between 60 and 90

16:50SPEAKERthough is not especially noticeable.

16:51SPEAKERLike it's a little, I can kind of tell the difference,

16:54SPEAKERbut it's not like profound, but 60 to 120, 144,

16:58SPEAKERlike literally doubling the refresh, like super obvious.

17:01SPEAKERLike even in windows, I can't go back anymore.

17:04SPEAKEREven the animations of like moving windows around

17:07SPEAKERand animating UI stuff at 144.

17:10SPEAKERLike I don't want to go back from that at this point.

17:12SPEAKER- So it's funny 'cause I see the judder,

17:15SPEAKERlike if there's frame judder,

17:16SPEAKERlike if you're panning left to right or something like that

17:18SPEAKERand there's chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk,

17:19SPEAKERchunk, chunk, chunk as you go, I can see that,

17:22SPEAKERbut I don't see, like if you're driving in a car,

17:24SPEAKERI'd never know the difference.

17:26SPEAKERLike if everything, if the game is working right

17:29SPEAKERand its motions, it's smoothing between frames

17:31SPEAKERand all that stuff, I usually don't notice.

17:33SPEAKER- Yeah.

17:34SPEAKER- So.

17:35SPEAKER- Yeah, so as always, it depends on what you're doing.

17:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean.

17:38SPEAKER- Some games need it a lot more than others.

17:41SPEAKER- Yeah, it's always,

17:43SPEAKERit's why I think it's why I'm bad at fighting games frankly,

17:45SPEAKERis 'cause I can't ever see the frames and I have bad vision.

17:48SPEAKERSo it could have something to do with that too, but yeah.

17:53SPEAKER- And I think like, I want to say Digital Foundry

17:55SPEAKERhas been out there showing off some of the pipeline they use

17:59SPEAKERfor counting console frame rates.

18:00SPEAKERSo I think they do have a solution

18:01SPEAKERthat quantifies it very exactly, so.

18:04SPEAKER- Yeah, it's.

18:04SPEAKER- You can probably go find some of that material

18:06SPEAKERthey've put out if you want to know more.

18:07SPEAKER- They do good science over there, I'm a big fan.

18:11SPEAKER- Okay, next email is from Daniel.

18:13SPEAKEROkay, they're Swedish in this email.

18:16SPEAKERI might let you, I don't know if I'm brave enough to try it,

18:18SPEAKERbut here we go.

18:20SPEAKERI was listening to the episode

18:21SPEAKERabout the computer chronicles a while back

18:23SPEAKERand while reminiscing,

18:25SPEAKERsomething unrelated jogged loose in my memory.

18:28SPEAKERIn Sweden in the mid 80s, there was a program called.

18:32SPEAKER- Dator Aranis Varld.

18:35SPEAKER- Varold, Varold, Varold, Varold?

18:38SPEAKERTranslates to world of computers.

18:41SPEAKER- Okay, I should have said world of computers.

18:43SPEAKER- I know we have a few Swedish listeners.

18:45SPEAKER- Sorry, Swedish, look, we didn't do the Swedish chef thing,

18:48SPEAKERwhich is the offensive way to mess that up, I think.

18:50SPEAKER- Yes, I try to be respectful

18:52SPEAKERabout pronouncing other languages.

18:55SPEAKERIn Sweden in the mid 80s,

18:55SPEAKERthere was a program called world of computers

18:57SPEAKERthat straight up sent software and games

18:59SPEAKERover the radio waves.

19:02SPEAKERAnd this wasn't any small local station either.

19:04SPEAKERThis was on program one on national radio.

19:07SPEAKERI was 10 years old at the time

19:08SPEAKERand remember sitting up late,

19:10SPEAKERready with the record button on my cassette player

19:12SPEAKERto catch the goodies for free.

19:15SPEAKERI guess copyright laws be damned

19:18SPEAKERif they even existed for broadcasted software.

19:21SPEAKERThis program ran between 85 and 86

19:23SPEAKERand was aimed at the Commodore VIC-20, which I had.

19:27SPEAKERAnd the ABC-80, which we had in school,

19:30SPEAKERwhich was a Swedish made basic based computer.

19:34SPEAKERI'm wondering if this was a widespread thing.

19:37SPEAKERDid you have this in the US?

19:39SPEAKERI've never heard about it outside of Sweden.

19:42SPEAKERAnd I think outside of that time period.

19:45SPEAKERIn 1986, the Commodore 64 exploded in popularity.

19:49SPEAKERIt seemed everybody had one,

19:50SPEAKERat least among my nerdy friends

19:52SPEAKERand the BBS became more wildly available.

19:54SPEAKERSo the need for that kind of station just went away.

19:57SPEAKERNothing else I think you might find this interesting

19:59SPEAKERas a curioso.

20:01SPEAKER- Okay, so this is fascinating.

20:02SPEAKERI thought when you said radio waves,

20:05SPEAKERI thought you were talking about

20:06SPEAKERbroadcasting pirated software over ham radio.

20:09SPEAKERI didn't realize that this was over terrestrial radio.

20:12SPEAKER- And also a sanctioned thing.

20:13SPEAKERIt sounds like this was on national radio there.

20:15SPEAKER- I mean, look, copyright laws

20:17SPEAKERwere a little looser in the '80s.

20:18SPEAKER- It's true, what's a floppy disk?

20:20SPEAKER- But also making software was cheap enough then.

20:25SPEAKERSo we didn't have, at least where I was

20:27SPEAKERin Northeast Tennessee, where they didn't play Prince

20:30SPEAKERon the radio 'cause it was too outra.

20:32SPEAKERWe did not have any broadcasting computer programs

20:36SPEAKERon the radio that I was aware of.

20:39SPEAKERI did have a tape player hooked up to my TI

20:42SPEAKERthat we used to play Pirate Adventure and stuff like that,

20:46SPEAKERgames that were too big for the cartridges.

20:50SPEAKERGiven what a pain in the ass that was to get working,

20:52SPEAKERI can't imagine what a pain in the ass it was

20:55SPEAKERto ingest audio that was recorded over the air,

21:02SPEAKERin terms of if there was crackle or something like that.

21:05SPEAKERFuck, that was a modem signal.

21:06SPEAKER- I was gonna say, do you think there had to be

21:08SPEAKERa certain amount of error tolerance built into this, right?

21:11SPEAKERBecause you're taking an analog radio broadcast

21:14SPEAKERand trying to turn it into digital information, right?

21:16SPEAKER- Yeah, it's bonkers.

21:17SPEAKER- Over a medium that is incredibly subject to interference.

21:20SPEAKER- Well, I mean, you can do error correction.

21:21SPEAKERSo you just have to probably have

21:23SPEAKERa ridiculous error correction in whatever you're doing.

21:26SPEAKERBut it's really fascinating.

21:28SPEAKERMy bet is that the people who made this program

21:30SPEAKERjust paid people to write programs for them every week.

21:34SPEAKERI mean, if you think about it, computer magazines back then,

21:37SPEAKERwe talked about the Altair a few weeks ago,

21:40SPEAKERthe Altair, rather, a few weeks ago,

21:42SPEAKERand the computer magazine paid, the electronics magazine

21:46SPEAKERpaid somebody to develop that kit.

21:48SPEAKERBut I assume the same thing happened with software.

21:53SPEAKERIf you were getting byte in the '80s,

21:54SPEAKERthere were a bunch of basic,

21:56SPEAKERthere were versions of the same program written in basic

21:59SPEAKERfor the big computers of the time,

22:02SPEAKERand you would then take the back pages of those magazines

22:04SPEAKERand type those programs in,

22:05SPEAKERyou would have a weird Pac-Man clone or whatever.

22:09SPEAKERAnd I don't think that what they're describing

22:13SPEAKERis that out of the realm.

22:14SPEAKERI'm curious how long it,

22:16SPEAKERlike, I can't imagine it was broadcasting

22:17SPEAKERfor like 10 minutes.

22:18SPEAKERMy guess is that they ran it for like 45 seconds

22:21SPEAKERor a minute, three times, and then you played it,

22:24SPEAKERand then there was a break, and then you played it again,

22:26SPEAKERthen you took break, and then you played the same thing

22:27SPEAKERagain, so you had three chances to get it right.

22:29SPEAKER- That's why you gotta be there, tape deck at the ready.

22:31SPEAKER- I wonder, it's hard enough to get people to clap

22:34SPEAKERwhen you can talk to each other and get them to clap in sync.

22:36SPEAKERI wonder, do you think they had a series of beeps

22:38SPEAKERand you were supposed to press record

22:39SPEAKERon the third beep or something?

22:41SPEAKER- That's, I would almost expect recordings of this stuff

22:44SPEAKERto be floating around on archive.org or something.

22:46SPEAKER- I'm sure they are, yeah, guaranteed.

22:47SPEAKER- There've got to be examples out there.

22:49SPEAKERLike, there's probably some fun experiments you could do

22:51SPEAKERif you could get your hands on those recordings

22:52SPEAKERwith trying to kind of re-import that stuff over new media.

22:58SPEAKER- Well, so I was gonna say the other thing,

23:00SPEAKERthis led me, this question led me to look up

23:03SPEAKERlike sending data over shortwave,

23:06SPEAKERand like there's a whole community that does that,

23:11SPEAKERand there's even like publicly accessible shortwave radios

23:14SPEAKERthat you can download data,

23:16SPEAKERthat you can use to download broadcast data

23:19SPEAKERif you aren't like a ham radio operator

23:20SPEAKERand don't have a license or antenna or a radio or anything.

23:23SPEAKERSo it's pretty neat.

23:25SPEAKERPeople in the Discord were talking about

23:27SPEAKERsoftware controlled radios the other day,

23:29SPEAKERwhich is a weird, fascinating thing

23:32SPEAKERthat I didn't know existed and I wanna know more about.

23:34SPEAKER- Yes, that is on the list, actually,

23:36SPEAKERof things to look into.

23:37SPEAKER- Yes.

23:39SPEAKER- Yeah, I've always heard about that phenomenon

23:41SPEAKERof getting software over the radio,

23:43SPEAKERbut always in a European context,

23:44SPEAKERif they had it in the U.S., I never heard about it.

23:47SPEAKERI think the programs in the back of magazines

23:49SPEAKERthat you typed in manually is the closest analog.

23:52SPEAKER- Wasn't there a Nintendo thing for the NES in Japan

23:57SPEAKERthat you downloaded games on?

24:00SPEAKERWas that part of the disk system or something,

24:02SPEAKERor I think of something else?

24:03SPEAKER- Might be thinking of something else.

24:04SPEAKERI mean, there are various weird examples of that stuff.

24:06SPEAKERLike there was the Sega channel,

24:07SPEAKERwhich downloaded games over coax, over a cable connection.

24:11SPEAKER- Wow.

24:13SPEAKER- Famicom disk system obviously used

24:14SPEAKERthree and a half inch floppies.

24:15SPEAKERI don't know that it had any kind

24:17SPEAKERof telecommunications stuff.

24:19SPEAKER- Were they just normal?

24:20SPEAKERThey were weird floppies though, right?

24:21SPEAKER- I think they were three and a half inch.

24:23SPEAKER- I think they were three and a half inch,

24:24SPEAKERbut I thought they were some screwball Nintendo format.

24:28SPEAKER- There is so much weird hardware from Japan

24:30SPEAKERin the '80s and '90s that was kind of a marriage

24:32SPEAKERof computing and video game consoles

24:34SPEAKERthat we didn't get here.

24:35SPEAKER- Yeah.

24:36SPEAKER- Like we should look into that stuff at some point.

24:38SPEAKER- That is a great episode, actually.

24:39SPEAKERYou're absolutely right.

24:40SPEAKER- Like just, again, the fact that there was

24:42SPEAKERjust a frickin' floppy drive that you plugged

24:44SPEAKERinto a Nintendo, and he bit Nintendo.

24:46SPEAKER- They were 112K floppy disks,

24:48SPEAKERso they were smaller than the three and a half inch.

24:50SPEAKERThose are 1.5 meg or 1.44 meg.

24:52SPEAKER- Was it a custom form factor?

24:55SPEAKER- I don't see a picture.

24:58SPEAKEROh yeah, it's a weird form factor.

25:01SPEAKERIt looks more like, here, I'll...

25:04SPEAKERYeah, it's like they had a slide

25:08SPEAKERthat went back and forth either way.

25:11SPEAKERIt looks more like a zip disk, almost,

25:13SPEAKERwith the way it works.

25:15SPEAKER- Weird.

25:16SPEAKER- I think I might be conflating that

25:16SPEAKERwith the super wild card, have you heard of that, which...

25:19SPEAKER- No, I don't remember that one at all.

25:20SPEAKER- Literally, literally was a pirate

25:23SPEAKERSuper Nintendo piece of hardware

25:24SPEAKERthat was just a floppy drive

25:26SPEAKERwith a Super Nintendo cartridge connector on the bottom.

25:29SPEAKER- Really?

25:29SPEAKER- Yes, dude, if you've ever seen, oh, we've got to...

25:32SPEAKER- Oh my God.

25:32SPEAKER- We gotta take out some pictures.

25:33SPEAKERI wanted one of those so bad back in the day.

25:36SPEAKER- We should get somebody from

25:37SPEAKERthe Video Game History Foundation to come on

25:39SPEAKERand talk about weird shit

25:40SPEAKERthat you don't talk about anymore.

25:42SPEAKER- There's so much wild bootleg hardware

25:43SPEAKERthat enabled piracy and stuff like that back then.

25:46SPEAKERI knew people that had those things.

25:47SPEAKERI knew people that I had hung out with some people

25:49SPEAKERfor a while who have stacks of Super Nintendo games

25:52SPEAKERon floppy disks that they loaded

25:54SPEAKERinto their dumb pirate piece of hardware.

25:57SPEAKER- I had a friend who had a modded PS1, I think,

26:00SPEAKERor Saturn, maybe, I can't remember,

26:02SPEAKERand he would just burn optical disks

26:04SPEAKERin his CD-ROM drive and play them.

26:08SPEAKERBut at the time, he didn't save all that much money

26:10SPEAKER'cause the CD-ROM disks were really expensive.

26:12SPEAKERThey were like five or 10, I mean, okay.

26:15SPEAKERHe saved a lot of money, but they were five or 10 bucks,

26:17SPEAKERand nobody had real internet,

26:19SPEAKERso it took forever to download anything.

26:21SPEAKERAnd as often as not, you would download it and burn it,

26:23SPEAKERand it wouldn't work, and then you would get pissed off

26:25SPEAKERand be like, it wasn't worth the hassle.

26:28SPEAKER- Yeah, that stuff obviously became rife in later years.

26:31SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, the Dreamcast, I think,

26:33SPEAKERis the classic example of how that went bad

26:35SPEAKERfor somebody in a famous way.

26:37SPEAKER- So I wish I could source this.

26:39SPEAKERI didn't save the link,

26:40SPEAKERbut I saw there was kind of a big game developer thread

26:43SPEAKERon Twitter this past week, along the lines of like,

26:47SPEAKERtell me how long you've been in game development

26:48SPEAKERwithout saying how long you've been.

26:50SPEAKERJust kind of tell some old stories,

26:51SPEAKERand there was a programmer on there who was like,

26:53SPEAKERI came up with a novel way to stop our Dreamcast game

26:56SPEAKERfrom getting pirated for a whole week after it came out,

26:59SPEAKERand that was considered like a victory

27:01SPEAKERtoo late in the Dreamcast cycle

27:03SPEAKERto actually get a week of sales

27:05SPEAKERbefore people busted it open.

27:06SPEAKER- Well, it's funny.

27:08SPEAKERI don't, it's something that you don't hear about

27:09SPEAKERall that often, but like, even modern games,

27:14SPEAKERthey get decompiled and like the packages

27:18SPEAKERthat you post in the store can get decompiled

27:21SPEAKERand essentially recreate the Unreal or Unity packages,

27:25SPEAKERUnity projects in practically no time.

27:29SPEAKER- Oh wow, I did not know you could reverse engineer

27:31SPEAKERin that way.

27:32SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know if it's still the case,

27:34SPEAKERbut I know with Unity for a long time,

27:36SPEAKERwhen we were working on one of the Fusho episodes,

27:38SPEAKERthe developer just was like, I was like,

27:41SPEAKERhey, here's what we need to do this.

27:42SPEAKERHe was like, I'm just gonna give you the whole project.

27:43SPEAKERAnd I was like, Jesus Christ,

27:44SPEAKERyou're gonna give me the project for your whole game?

27:46SPEAKERAnd they were like, yeah, it doesn't matter

27:47SPEAKERbecause the Russians will have it decrypted

27:49SPEAKERwithin three hours of us releasing the game.

27:50SPEAKERSo, you know, have fun, good luck, enjoy.

27:54SPEAKERDon't post it on BitTorrent, please.

27:55SPEAKER- Right, wow, that's crazy.

27:57SPEAKERI did not know about that.

28:00SPEAKERDid you look at that UE5 stuff that came out this week?

28:02SPEAKER- A little bit, it was a busy week.

28:04SPEAKERIt's neat, like the good game development circles I'm in

28:07SPEAKERare like, this is gonna be amazing

28:09SPEAKERwhen it's usable in like five point releases.

28:12SPEAKER- Sure, and then add three more years

28:14SPEAKERfor games to start coming out?

28:16SPEAKER- Yeah.

28:17SPEAKER- Okay.

28:18SPEAKER- Just so people, people probably don't realize this,

28:20SPEAKERbut like, if you're working on a game

28:22SPEAKERusing one of the big game engines, like Unreal or Unity,

28:24SPEAKERor even, I assume even like Game Maker and stuff like that,

28:28SPEAKERwhen the new version, like Unity posts and Unreal posts

28:32SPEAKERevery version and subversion that they've ever made

28:35SPEAKERon their site, because presumably there's somebody

28:37SPEAKERout there still using them.

28:38SPEAKER'Cause once you're on a project,

28:40SPEAKERit's a spectacularly bad idea to upgrade.

28:43SPEAKERLike upgrading a Unity project or an Unreal project

28:46SPEAKERis something you do with incredible carefulness

28:49SPEAKERand trepidation.

28:51SPEAKER- Probably only if you really need to, right?

28:53SPEAKER- Only if it is absolutely vital.

28:54SPEAKERAnd often it's easier to like backport.

28:58SPEAKERIf you have a fix that you need in a new version,

28:59SPEAKERit's probably easier to backport the fix

29:02SPEAKERinto your old version than it is to upgrade

29:04SPEAKERyour entire project and risk fucking the whole thing up.

29:08SPEAKERBecause it's like, yeah.

29:10SPEAKER- Yeah.

29:11SPEAKER- Dab it in bailing twine.

29:12SPEAKER- Dabbling in the open source world

29:14SPEAKERas much as I have the last few years,

29:17SPEAKERespecially as I've been like kind of toying

29:18SPEAKERwith different Linux distros and stuff like that,

29:21SPEAKERhas made me realize exactly how rickety,

29:24SPEAKERdamn near every software based system in the world is.

29:27SPEAKERLike I think the amount of work that Microsoft has done

29:30SPEAKERto make old windows stuff work on new windows

29:32SPEAKERhas sort of obscured the fact that like,

29:34SPEAKERevery one of these things is just a giant

29:37SPEAKERteetering Jenga tower.

29:38SPEAKERAnd if you touch one thing wrong,

29:39SPEAKERit's all gonna fall apart.

29:40SPEAKERLike, you know, it seems like most Linux distros

29:44SPEAKERare like hard to even upgrade between major releases

29:46SPEAKERwithout things breaking and forcing a reinstall, you know,

29:49SPEAKERlet alone going between distros.

29:51SPEAKERLike you said, like open source projects get released,

29:53SPEAKERbut then each one of them has to be like backported

29:56SPEAKERor packaged for each specific distro

29:57SPEAKERto make sure it works right.

29:58SPEAKERLike stuff doesn't just plug in, you know, like it,

30:00SPEAKERit requires an incredible amount of care

30:02SPEAKERto keep everything actually functioning together.

30:07SPEAKEROkay, let's move on to the next email from,

30:10SPEAKERfrom a software over radio waves to HDMI over code hangers.

30:16SPEAKER- Wait, what?

30:17SPEAKER- This is from Alex in Cleveland.

30:19SPEAKERLet's see, this email rules.

30:21SPEAKERI, we should at least include some of the photos

30:24SPEAKERhe sent along.

30:25SPEAKERI was almost thinking- - Holy crap.

30:27SPEAKER- Yeah, Alex in Cleveland, I was listening to episode 86,

30:30SPEAKERwhere you got on the subject of video cables over the years.

30:33SPEAKERAnd when Vinnie mentioned that you should just toss

30:35SPEAKERa broken HDMI cable, I knew I had to send this in.

30:39SPEAKERA few years ago in the wake of Best Buy representatives

30:41SPEAKERtrying to push $100 HDMI cables on unsuspecting people,

30:46SPEAKERa friend and I decided to put the old adage,

30:49SPEAKERit's just all, it's all just wires to the test.

30:52SPEAKERHere is a link to a Google photo album that documents us

30:56SPEAKERsplitting an HDMI cable, soldering each wire

30:59SPEAKERto contact points, and then running HDMI over a set

31:02SPEAKERof code hangers suspended between those contacts.

31:06SPEAKERPlease excuse the terrible cell phone pictures and video.

31:08SPEAKERThis was quite a few years ago.

31:10SPEAKER- This picture is unbelievable.

31:12SPEAKER- It's ridiculous.

31:14SPEAKER- Did it work?

31:15SPEAKER- He doesn't, he doesn't spell that out in this email,

31:16SPEAKERbut I believe it did.

31:17SPEAKERI mean, there are pictures in here of a monitor

31:20SPEAKERwith a perfectly legible signal on it.

31:22SPEAKERSo I have to infer that it did.

31:25SPEAKER- I love this so much.

31:26SPEAKER- Oh, actually it's a video.

31:28SPEAKERThey've got...

31:31SPEAKER- I'm gonna play the video.

31:32SPEAKER- Okay, people can't hear this, but I'm trying to,

31:35SPEAKERI'm trying to figure out what song is playing

31:37SPEAKERin the background of this video.

31:39SPEAKER- Oh yeah, it worked.

31:40SPEAKERHe's showing, well, hold on.

31:42SPEAKERThey cheated though.

31:43SPEAKERThey're using a VGA adapter on the monitor.

31:45SPEAKERSo it's an analog signal.

31:46SPEAKERIt's not a digital signal.

31:47SPEAKER- Well, it's still getting there though.

31:50SPEAKERIt has to come in cleanly into the HDMI

31:51SPEAKERto be converted, right?

31:54SPEAKER- This is a signal of lies.

31:56SPEAKER- What?

31:58SPEAKER- I think this counts.

31:59SPEAKER- This is an analog signal.

32:00SPEAKER- I think this counts.

32:03SPEAKER- It's still very cool.

32:04SPEAKERIt's still absolute insanity.

32:06SPEAKER- Yes, I give them credit for even undertaking such a...

32:10SPEAKER- Yeah, that's bonkers.

32:12SPEAKERIn a million years, I wouldn't have guessed that would work.

32:14SPEAKER- That's pretty great.

32:15SPEAKER- That's really cool.

32:16SPEAKERNice job, Alex.

32:17SPEAKER- Yes.

32:18SPEAKER- And friends.

32:19SPEAKER- I don't, a lot of coat hangers have a coating on them

32:21SPEAKERthat makes them non-conductive.

32:22SPEAKERDon't you have to strip that stuff off?

32:25SPEAKER- Well, I mean, they strip the end off

32:26SPEAKERand then it's good 'cause there's like 20 wires in there

32:29SPEAKERand they need those to not touch or bad things.

32:31SPEAKER- Yes, this picture is ridiculous.

32:34SPEAKERIt's great.

32:35SPEAKER- This should be the show art this week.

32:37SPEAKERThis is incredible.

32:38SPEAKERIf that's okay with Alex, we'll have to ask.

32:40SPEAKER- For sure.

32:40SPEAKER- They made a box for it that seals.

32:43SPEAKERIt's very good.

32:43SPEAKERThis is the biggest cable I've ever seen.

32:45SPEAKER- Yeah, it's good stuff.

32:46SPEAKER- And you'll love that.

32:48SPEAKER- All right, next email is from Jaira.

32:52SPEAKERQuestion, it seems like there's no upper bound

32:56SPEAKERfor how much money one could spend

32:57SPEAKERon a gaming PC and peripherals.

33:01SPEAKERSo why are even high-end headphones

33:02SPEAKERstill only doing emulated virtual surround sound?

33:06SPEAKERWhy can't I pay a ridiculously,

33:08SPEAKERwhy can't I pay for a ridiculously large set of cans

33:11SPEAKERthat would actually have seven or more physical drivers

33:13SPEAKERin them to provide true positional audio?

33:16SPEAKER- Hmm, it's interesting you asked this.

33:19SPEAKERIn the early days of Tested, way back in 2010 or 2011,

33:22SPEAKERwe actually had a couple of people send headphones

33:24SPEAKERin that do this.

33:25SPEAKERMost headphones use Dolby,

33:30SPEAKERlike a Dolby algorithm to basically mimic

33:33SPEAKERusing HRTFs in math and all this other stuff,

33:35SPEAKERpositional audio inside the headphones.

33:37SPEAKER- Okay, these people actually, sorry to interrupt.

33:39SPEAKERI wanted to clarify like, is that at least

33:42SPEAKERin the same family as the stuff the PS5 is doing?

33:44SPEAKERI think they mentioned HRTFs there too.

33:46SPEAKER- I believe the PS5 is using the same Dolby.

33:49SPEAKERThere's literally a Dolby technology

33:52SPEAKERthat is like, I can't remember what it's called

33:53SPEAKER'cause they have 50 million

33:54SPEAKERand the names are all very similar.

33:55SPEAKER- Okay, but the point is like this kind of

33:56SPEAKERacoustic technology has been around for some time or?

34:01SPEAKER- Since, I mean the first place I remember seeing it

34:04SPEAKERwas in like 1997 or '98 with the Ariel monster sound.

34:09SPEAKER- Oh God, I remember Ariel.

34:11SPEAKER- Yeah, so they used, back then they used DSPs

34:14SPEAKERand then later they had a dedicated accelerator

34:16SPEAKERthat would turn positional audio input

34:19SPEAKERfrom like direct sound 3D or direct sound 3D,

34:22SPEAKERI think was it.

34:23SPEAKERAnd they would position the sources in a 3D field

34:26SPEAKERthat was generated using HRTF stands

34:29SPEAKERfor head related transfer functions, I think.

34:31SPEAKER- Yeah, I think that's right.

34:32SPEAKER- There's a couple other ways to do positional sound.

34:33SPEAKERYou can do binaural sound, which is where you,

34:36SPEAKERthat usually you do with recordings.

34:38SPEAKERSo you'll like physically put microphones

34:41SPEAKERinside some mimicked ears.

34:42SPEAKERSo you make like 3D models of ears

34:47SPEAKERand you put the microphones inside the ear canals

34:49SPEAKERand then because of the way that works,

34:51SPEAKERit actually records the sound in the same way

34:55SPEAKERit would be if it was hitting your eardrums

34:58SPEAKERand then they just blast that into your ear holes

34:59SPEAKERand you get really good positional sound.

35:02SPEAKERPeople use binaural stuff for 360 video for VR a lot.

35:07SPEAKERBut the HRTF stuff is pretty effective.

35:12SPEAKERLike if you're thinking about,

35:14SPEAKERlike if you have a game like PUBG uses this,

35:17SPEAKERthat does positional audio and you can hear above or below,

35:20SPEAKERyou're probably using HRTFs.

35:22SPEAKERThat's the way people generate that.

35:23SPEAKERAnd you can do it in real time on modern computers

35:26SPEAKERfor relatively low performance overhead.

35:30SPEAKERThe 7.1 headphones or 5.1 headphones that I tested didn't,

35:35SPEAKERI mean, they sounded okay.

35:36SPEAKERThey were unwieldy for a lot of reasons,

35:38SPEAKERmost of which had to do with putting four speakers

35:41SPEAKERin each ear of the headphone and then weighing a fuckload.

35:45SPEAKER- I was gonna say they have to be pretty bulky at that point.

35:48SPEAKER- They were really uncomfortable.

35:51SPEAKERSo yeah, you couldn't move your head very well

35:53SPEAKERand it wasn't a great experience.

35:55SPEAKERAnd it turns out the thing about humans is that

36:01SPEAKERin terms of senses that we're good

36:02SPEAKERat detecting differences on,

36:04SPEAKERour ears are probably tertiary or quaternary

36:06SPEAKERbehind vision and smell.

36:09SPEAKERLike if you think about smell,

36:11SPEAKERthe smelling parts of our brain are actually exposed

36:15SPEAKERto the outside world and when you smell something,

36:18SPEAKERit literally is hooked onto, it's touching your brain

36:21SPEAKERand then your brain is getting a signal.

36:23SPEAKERHearing, we're good at the language parts of hearing

36:28SPEAKERand then the rest of it's ended not getting eaten

36:30SPEAKERby big animals parts of hearing.

36:31SPEAKERAnd then the rest of it we're pretty thin on.

36:34SPEAKER- Like the fine detail gets lost.

36:36SPEAKERIt's just the, it's more of the loud noise type stuff.

36:39SPEAKER- Yeah, loud noise, language it turns out

36:41SPEAKERis the important thing I think for humans.

36:43SPEAKER- Right, so how many drivers are in your average

36:47SPEAKERset of headphones?

36:48SPEAKER- Like one on each side.

36:50SPEAKER- That's what I like per ear, it's just one?

36:52SPEAKER- Yeah, one per ear.

36:53SPEAKER- Okay, 'cause I would think like packing more in

36:55SPEAKERwould also mean each one had to be smaller, right?

36:57SPEAKERSo you're...

36:59SPEAKER- Well, and so like you're not,

37:03SPEAKERbecause the range at which the volumes at which you work

37:07SPEAKERfor headphones and the like you don't need to have like

37:11SPEAKERWolfers and tweeters and stuff like that

37:12SPEAKERbecause you can't put a 12 inch woofer on your headphones

37:17SPEAKERwithout having some ergonomic problems.

37:19SPEAKER- Maybe you can't.

37:20SPEAKER- Look, that's why you need the butt kicker, man.

37:21SPEAKERYou just bolt that thing on the bottom of your chair

37:23SPEAKERand it bolts.

37:24SPEAKER- That's right, that's right, don't hear your game.

37:26SPEAKERFeel it in your butt.

37:29SPEAKER- I kind of want a butt kicker, I'm not gonna lie.

37:30SPEAKERIt sounds like it'd be fun.

37:31SPEAKER- Wait, is that a new thing?

37:32SPEAKERIs that an actual product?

37:33SPEAKER- Oh, they've been around for years.

37:35SPEAKERThey were, so they make them,

37:37SPEAKERthey started out making them for like the SIM folks.

37:40SPEAKER- Sure.

37:41SPEAKER- So it essentially gives you like the D-box rumble feel

37:44SPEAKERon your office chair.

37:45SPEAKERAnd they started making it I think for racing games

37:48SPEAKERwas where they kind of kicked off.

37:50SPEAKER- Ah yes, here we are, the butt kicker gamer two.

37:53SPEAKERLooks like about 160, 180 bucks.

37:56SPEAKER- Yep, you just hook it on the post

37:58SPEAKERon the bottom of your chair.

37:59SPEAKER- I might trade up for the butt kicker advance.

38:02SPEAKER- Look, I don't, I'm,

38:05SPEAKERso I have some friends who have a butt kicker

38:07SPEAKERand I don't think you can over,

38:09SPEAKERhe is enthusiastic about the value of the butt kicker.

38:11SPEAKER- Okay, I can see it.

38:13SPEAKERJust kind of whole body force feedback, right?

38:15SPEAKER- But yeah, he's also real into like iRacing

38:17SPEAKERand does like five hours a weekend in the race car.

38:20SPEAKERSo yes, your mileage may vary.

38:23SPEAKER- Yes, if nothing else,

38:25SPEAKERI'm glad you have demystified here for folks

38:27SPEAKERwhy Mark Cerny was asking for people

38:29SPEAKERto send pictures of their ears last year.

38:32SPEAKER- He asked for people to send pictures of their ears.

38:34SPEAKER- Did you miss that?

38:35SPEAKER- No, did they have to sign their rights away or anything?

38:37SPEAKER- I don't know, it was at the very like chill

38:40SPEAKERkind of sedate tech talk he gave on the PS5

38:43SPEAKERfrom kind of virtual GDC early in the pandemic last year

38:46SPEAKERwhere toward the end he was talking about their 3D audio

38:48SPEAKERand soliciting pictures of ears.

38:52SPEAKER- The ears, everybody's ears are different.

38:54SPEAKER- It became like kind of a joke on the internet,

38:56SPEAKERyou know, how things like that do.

38:58SPEAKER- I mean, at least people's ears didn't turn out

39:01SPEAKERto be pancake bunnies or what's the bad one?

39:05SPEAKERI can't remember, milkshake ducks.

39:07SPEAKER- Ooh boy, yes.

39:08SPEAKER- Yeah, no.

39:09SPEAKER- No racist ears, please.

39:11SPEAKER- No racist ears, please.

39:14SPEAKER- Here's a little recommendation from Reed in Seattle.

39:18SPEAKERYou asked for books about Apollo 11 astronaut

39:21SPEAKERMichael Collins, rest in peace, in episode 85.

39:25SPEAKERI recommend the audio book version of "Carrying the Fire

39:27SPEAKERand Astronauts Journey," which is by Michael Collins.

39:31SPEAKERI haven't read the non-audio version

39:33SPEAKERso I can't compare them, but it's a funny

39:35SPEAKERand informative look at his life.

39:37SPEAKERThere are lots of self-deprecating astronaut details.

39:41SPEAKERHe seemed very humble and likable.

39:44SPEAKERI think there were a bunch of people on the Discord

39:46SPEAKERthat also recommended that book.

39:47SPEAKER- I got a bunch of Twitter messages from people saying,

39:49SPEAKER"Yo, you should read Michael Collins' book, it's good."

39:51SPEAKER- Like I've seen people saying like,

39:53SPEAKER"It's the best book by a moon astronaut."

39:56SPEAKER- It was recommended in the top of those lists, yes.

40:01SPEAKER- Yes, "Carrying the Fire" is the title again.

40:05SPEAKER- I added it to my Kindle queue.

40:08SPEAKERSo when I finished my current,

40:09SPEAKERI just finished Andy Weir's book, the new one.

40:12SPEAKERHe wrote "The Martian."

40:13SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

40:14SPEAKER- The new book is called "Hail Mary."

40:16SPEAKERIt's about interstellar travel and it's quite good.

40:21SPEAKER- Okay, is it similarly cheeky?

40:26SPEAKER- It is, I would say it is.

40:30SPEAKERI empathize with the character in a way

40:32SPEAKERthat I did with Mark Watney in "The Martian"

40:35SPEAKERto the point that I remember,

40:37SPEAKERlike usually I am bad about remembering characters' names

40:39SPEAKERif I don't really feel a connection with them.

40:41SPEAKERSo yeah, it is very much to the Martian form of,

40:46SPEAKER"Hey, there's some problems to solve.

40:49SPEAKERLet's work the problem NASA style."

40:52SPEAKERAnd it's a little more fantastical than "The Martian,"

40:56SPEAKERwhich is obviously based on a lot of the current,

41:01SPEAKERwell, current at the time, best thoughts

41:03SPEAKERfor how we would set up a Mars mission.

41:05SPEAKER- Okay.

41:06SPEAKER- But yeah, it's good, it's good, I enjoyed it.

41:07SPEAKER- I might check that out.

41:08SPEAKERI really enjoyed the engineering problem-tackling aspect

41:11SPEAKERof "The Martian."

41:12SPEAKERSome of the, a little bit of the internet humor stuff

41:14SPEAKERwas maybe a bit thick for me, the pirate ninja stuff.

41:17SPEAKER- It's a little, it's less of that

41:19SPEAKER'cause it takes place in a little bit further in the future.

41:21SPEAKERSo that stuff wouldn't make as much sense.

41:24SPEAKER- Okay, that's good to hear then.

41:26SPEAKER- But the problems are a little more fantastical

41:27SPEAKER'cause obviously interstellar travel,

41:29SPEAKERsignificantly more challenging than what we do here.

41:33SPEAKER- I might have to check that out.

41:36SPEAKERSpeaking of books, Kyle from Knoxville, Tennessee.

41:42SPEAKER- Hey, shout out to Knoxville.

41:43SPEAKER- Oh, how do you feel about Knoxville?

41:45SPEAKER- It's fine.

41:46SPEAKERI lived there for 10 years, I liked it, okay.

41:48SPEAKER- Okay, wait, is that, which part of,

41:51SPEAKERwhat's your actual hometown?

41:52SPEAKER- Bristol.

41:53SPEAKER- Bristol, okay. - Yeah.

41:54SPEAKER- There's not some rivalry there.

41:56SPEAKER- No, Knoxville's a real city,

41:57SPEAKERBristol's a 50,000 person town.

41:59SPEAKER- Okay, it's not some Springfield, Shelbyville.

42:02SPEAKER- No, like if you want Bristol beef,

42:04SPEAKERthen fuck Johnson City, we'll bring that place to the ground.

42:06SPEAKER- Okay.

42:08SPEAKER- No, really, Johnson City's okay,

42:09SPEAKERbut Kingsport, those people suck.

42:11SPEAKER- Never, never a bad idea.

42:13SPEAKERI guess some, some Intertown beef going on in the podcast.

42:16SPEAKER- Tennessee beef on the podcast.

42:18SPEAKERI'm gonna get a letter from the Chamber of Commerce.

42:20SPEAKER- Oh boy.

42:21SPEAKER- Dear Mr. Smith, you're no longer welcome in Johnson City

42:23SPEAKERor Kingsport, get fucked.

42:25SPEAKER- Kiss those two tri-cities.

42:27SPEAKER- Kiss those tax incentives goodbye.

42:28SPEAKER- Yeah.

42:30SPEAKER- Yeah, Kyle from Knoxville, Tennessee.

42:32SPEAKERI loved the Hitchhiker's Guide book club

42:34SPEAKERyou guys did a while back.

42:35SPEAKERI'm currently reading through Neuromancer

42:36SPEAKERfor the first time, and it occurs to me

42:38SPEAKERit would be a fascinating book to hear you discuss

42:41SPEAKERon a book club podcast.

42:43SPEAKERWilliam Gibson's view of what the future would be in 1984

42:46SPEAKERis impressively accurate in some respects

42:48SPEAKERand hilariously inaccurate in others.

42:50SPEAKERPlus it's apparent to me now how big an influence it had

42:53SPEAKERon other science fiction media that's come out since.

42:56SPEAKERSo did you wait for the first time or reread it?

43:01SPEAKER- No, I hadn't read it in 20 years though probably.

43:04SPEAKER- It may surprise you or may not to hear

43:06SPEAKERthat just like the Hitchhiker's Guide,

43:09SPEAKERI have a copy of Neuromancer in the nightstand drawer

43:13SPEAKERnext to the bed that's been there for years

43:15SPEAKERwhich I have never read.

43:17SPEAKERSo on the list, never gotten around to it.

43:19SPEAKERHave not read Hitchhiker's Guide or Neuromancer as a youth.

43:24SPEAKER- Having come back to this for the first time,

43:26SPEAKERlike Neuromancer was one of those things that I read

43:28SPEAKERin the mid 90s, maybe early 90s.

43:30SPEAKERAnd like as I was leaving college probably

43:33SPEAKERand somebody had been like, hey, you like computers,

43:35SPEAKERyou should read this, it's cool.

43:36SPEAKERAnd I was like, this is cool.

43:37SPEAKERIt is a very cool book.

43:39SPEAKERLike it has to put it in the parlance

43:41SPEAKERof your former workplace, it has a lot of style.

43:44SPEAKER- Okay.

43:45SPEAKER- But it is not like the back half of that book

43:48SPEAKERgets inscrutable as shit in ways that is very real

43:50SPEAKERto people who are into cyberpunk fiction from the mid 80s.

43:54SPEAKERI would say probably Snowcrash is,

43:57SPEAKERI haven't read Snowcrash in a good 10 years

43:59SPEAKERbut I remember liking Snowcrash a lot more than Neuromancer.

44:01SPEAKER- So that's what I ended up with.

44:02SPEAKERLike I was just a tad bit younger than you.

44:05SPEAKER- Yeah.

44:06SPEAKER- I think I was just a little too young for Neuromancer

44:07SPEAKERbut Snowcrash was exactly timed perfectly for me.

44:10SPEAKER- Yeah.

44:11SPEAKER- I read that in college around 2000, 2001.

44:14SPEAKER- So I love Neil Stevenson and I've read all of his books.

44:19SPEAKER- All of them?

44:20SPEAKER- Most of them multiple times.

44:21SPEAKER- That is, wow, man, that is a serious time commitment.

44:24SPEAKER- I read fast, I'm a professional, professional Brad.

44:28SPEAKERThe thing about Neil Stevenson

44:32SPEAKERis he's usually a two thirds, one third guy.

44:34SPEAKERSo one third of the book is gonna be a little bit of a mess

44:36SPEAKERand two thirds are gonna be awesome.

44:38SPEAKERSo Snowcrash is I think the only one of the books

44:41SPEAKERthat he wrote that is maybe 80, it's like 90, 10,

44:45SPEAKER90% awesome, 10% real weird.

44:48SPEAKERSo I like Snowcrash.

44:49SPEAKERI think actually "Diamond Age" is incredible.

44:52SPEAKERI think maybe "Diamond Age" or an Anthem

44:56SPEAKERare my favorite Neil Stevenson books.

45:01SPEAKERSnowcrash remains incredible and I would reread Snowcrash.

45:04SPEAKERI would reread Neuromancer again, frankly.

45:07SPEAKERIt's worth engaging with and it has maybe

45:09SPEAKERthe best opening line of all time in the novel.

45:11SPEAKER- Holds up pretty well, you would say.

45:14SPEAKER- It's--

45:15SPEAKER- With some exceptions, I'm sure.

45:17SPEAKERThe thing that Kyle said about it being hilarious

45:20SPEAKERin some aspects, it's ridiculous to think about

45:24SPEAKERliving in the 2030s with no phones.

45:27SPEAKER- Sure.

45:28SPEAKER- Right?

45:29SPEAKER- Yes.

45:30SPEAKER- But other than that, yeah, he does an okay job.

45:32SPEAKERI don't know, it's weird.

45:33SPEAKER- I mean, I was explaining my love of Calvin and Hobbes

45:36SPEAKERto my girlfriend last night.

45:37SPEAKER- Yeah.

45:38SPEAKER- Which she did not read at the time

45:40SPEAKERand I pulled some strips up and there are

45:43SPEAKERall these rotary phones, there are references

45:45SPEAKERto Sears and Kmart.

45:47SPEAKER- Yep.

45:48SPEAKER- Which, I know Sears is gone.

45:49SPEAKERKmart also no longer exists, right?

45:51SPEAKER- Sears bought Kmart and then Sears went out of business.

45:54SPEAKER- Oh great, perfect.

45:56SPEAKER- 10 out of 10.

45:57SPEAKER- It's really weird to look back on some of that

45:58SPEAKERformative stuff you grew up with and see how

46:00SPEAKERanachronistic some parts of it are that make it

46:02SPEAKERmaybe kind of like a thing out of time at some point.

46:06SPEAKER- I remember going to Kmart and you checked out

46:09SPEAKERat one of the subsections, it was a department,

46:12SPEAKERlike it was Macy's or Parks Belk style department store

46:16SPEAKERand when they added all the registers at the exit

46:18SPEAKERlike a grocery store, it was controversial,

46:21SPEAKERpeople were upset.

46:23SPEAKERLike my mom did not like that, she liked going

46:25SPEAKERto talk to the person in the women's clothing department

46:29SPEAKERto check out.

46:29SPEAKER- Yeah, you wanna feel pampered.

46:31SPEAKER- Yeah.

46:32SPEAKER- You wanna put it?

46:33SPEAKER- Like it wasn't ever a nice store.

46:35SPEAKER- Yeah.

46:37SPEAKER- It was still the blue light, did you have pills?

46:39SPEAKER- I was just going to say there was a blue light

46:41SPEAKERspecial reference in that strip and what does that

46:43SPEAKEReven mean to anybody in 2021?

46:46SPEAKER- Yeah, right, like.

46:48SPEAKER- Right, and I'm sure Neuromancer is full of stuff

46:50SPEAKERlike that, right?

46:52SPEAKERMaybe not as much.

46:54SPEAKER- So the thing that's cool about William Gibson

46:56SPEAKERis that his grasp on what the capital C culture

47:01SPEAKERis doing at any given moment, especially in like

47:04SPEAKERthe weird edge spaces where like experimental artists live

47:07SPEAKERand stuff like that, he's always really on point on that.

47:10SPEAKERLike if you wanna read a William Gibson book

47:12SPEAKERthat's incredible and has aged unbelievably well,

47:15SPEAKERpattern recognition is the one to pick up.

47:19SPEAKERLike the protagonist's job is to be a cool hunter

47:22SPEAKERwhich is unfortunate, but is entirely in the influencer

47:28SPEAKERdriven world that we live in today is prescient

47:32SPEAKERand is fascinating.

47:33SPEAKERBut like, yeah, I think that book has aged,

47:39SPEAKERlike it's understanding of art and honestly,

47:42SPEAKERNeuromancer's understanding of what art looks like

47:44SPEAKERin a post, you know, post modern world is really interesting.

47:53SPEAKERAnd that's where I think William Gibson

47:55SPEAKERis the most interesting to me is like as a filter

47:59SPEAKERthrough which his understanding of art and culture

48:01SPEAKERand the intersection of that and commerce live.

48:04SPEAKER- Okay.

48:05SPEAKER- I like, I love William Gibson books.

48:08SPEAKERI don't always enjoy reading them.

48:10SPEAKER- Fair.

48:11SPEAKER- I would be willing to loop around to Neuromancer

48:13SPEAKERdown the line for sure.

48:14SPEAKERI feel like that is a gap I should fill in.

48:17SPEAKERMaybe we should put a, why don't we let the people decide

48:20SPEAKERwhat we should hit next and you and I can pick up

48:22SPEAKERlike a list of like maybe four or five potential books

48:25SPEAKERthat we would like to read and discuss as a group

48:29SPEAKERand then we'll make it, let the people vote

48:32SPEAKERon the Discord and we'll either make it a patron episode

48:35SPEAKERor a mainline episode, whichever makes more sense.

48:38SPEAKER- Not to turn this just into the books for nerds hour,

48:41SPEAKERbut real quick, one last question.

48:43SPEAKERWhere does Cryptonomicon rank on the Stevenson scale?

48:46SPEAKERBecause that was the only other one of his I read,

48:48SPEAKERI think like straight after Snow Crash

48:49SPEAKERand I remember like completely devouring it.

48:52SPEAKER- Yeah, so Cryptonomicon is a slow start.

48:54SPEAKERI like, I tried to read Cryptonomicon probably three times

48:57SPEAKERbefore I actually made it through the first chapter or two.

49:01SPEAKERI like Cryptonomicon a lot.

49:03SPEAKERI haven't, I reread it in the early 2000s,

49:06SPEAKERmost recently probably.

49:11SPEAKERIt's like, it's top five.

49:13SPEAKER- Okay.

49:14SPEAKER- It's probably the best of his novels,

49:15SPEAKERlike from a construction and like,

49:18SPEAKERwell, how it's written standpoint.

49:20SPEAKER- Right, like when you mentioned

49:21SPEAKERthe kind of one third mess rule, it made me think back,

49:23SPEAKERlike I remember that thing being quite a breezy,

49:26SPEAKERlike a page turner, you know?

49:27SPEAKER- Well, so, but the first few chapters are slow

49:30SPEAKERand there's a lot of math and it is like,

49:32SPEAKERit immediately is like, if you don't want to learn

49:34SPEAKERabout the math of World War II era cryptography.

49:38SPEAKER- That's what it was.

49:38SPEAKERIt was like all the Enigma machine stuff

49:40SPEAKERis what really got me about that thing,

49:41SPEAKER'cause Blutchley Park, was Blutchley Park in that novel?

49:44SPEAKERI can't remember if they get that close to that stuff.

49:47SPEAKER- Well, Alan Turing's a character.

49:49SPEAKER- Right, I thought so.

49:50SPEAKER- And then they make up a fictional character

49:52SPEAKERthat's his friend who becomes one of the protagonists

49:55SPEAKERfor the book, but that book jumps through timelines

49:57SPEAKERand it's a little bit confusing until you get it.

50:02SPEAKERAnd it is definitely a book that I finished

50:04SPEAKERand then immediately went back

50:04SPEAKERand read the first two chapters

50:05SPEAKERso I understood what was happening

50:07SPEAKERin the first two chapters.

50:08SPEAKER- Sure.

50:10SPEAKER- Like, an anthem is definitely the same way.

50:12SPEAKERThe first third of an anthem is a,

50:14SPEAKERuntil you understand,

50:15SPEAKERuntil you can piece together what's going on,

50:17SPEAKERit is a fucking death march, is really hard.

50:20SPEAKERThere's terrifying math, there's like weird monastic orders

50:23SPEAKERand you're like, what is even going on here?

50:25SPEAKERAnd then when that book opens up for you, it's magical.

50:28SPEAKERIt's really good.

50:30SPEAKERAnd the audio book version of that is great

50:32SPEAKER'cause there's Gregorian chants.

50:33SPEAKERLike, they make the music that's described in the books

50:36SPEAKERand it's exceptional.

50:38SPEAKER- That sounds like a radio play almost.

50:40SPEAKER- So, yeah, it kind of is.

50:43SPEAKERLike, there's a thing that Stevenson does really well though

50:45SPEAKERwhere he explains how a machine,

50:46SPEAKERsome sort of machine works in like a really intimate detail.

50:51SPEAKERLike, he does it with the organ that water,

50:53SPEAKERthat the protagonist in Cryptonomicon figures out

50:58SPEAKERto do cryptography, like to use as a basic computer.

51:03SPEAKERIt's a thing that actually Tom Clancy, of all people,

51:06SPEAKERdid incredibly well.

51:07SPEAKERThere's this, I think we've even talked about

51:08SPEAKERin the pod before, but like, there's a scene,

51:11SPEAKERthere's a chapter in "Hunt for Red October"

51:14SPEAKERwhere a nuclear submarine's reactor is going critical

51:17SPEAKERand he tells the story of that reactor going critical

51:20SPEAKERfrom like the atomic view and like how the water is heating

51:26SPEAKERand then the water heats up and turns it, flashes into steam

51:29SPEAKERand the boiler is not designed to work with steam.

51:31SPEAKERIt's designed to work with water.

51:32SPEAKERSo all of a sudden, like the heat transfer stops working

51:35SPEAKERand the neuron load goes way up.

51:37SPEAKERAnd as a result, the reactor goes super critical

51:40SPEAKERand then the rods start to melt.

51:41SPEAKERAnd then next thing you know, the rods are melting

51:43SPEAKERthrough the bottom of the titanium hull of this submarine.

51:47SPEAKERAnd it's like, it's maybe four pages, but it gives you,

51:53SPEAKERin order to write that, you have to understand

51:55SPEAKERhow that reaction works at such a high level.

51:58SPEAKERAnd it's accessible to anybody and it's incredible.

52:01SPEAKERI've referenced it many times over the years,

52:04SPEAKERbut it's one of my favorite pieces of technical writing.

52:06SPEAKERAnd it's something that Stevenson does really well as well.

52:08SPEAKER- Yeah, nuclear physics in narrative form

52:10SPEAKERis not something I expected to be talking about today,

52:12SPEAKERbut here we are. - Hey, look,

52:13SPEAKERthat's the tech pod.

52:14SPEAKER- That's this podcast.

52:16SPEAKEROkay, a couple more emails real quick here.

52:18SPEAKERThis one is from Tomo.

52:21SPEAKERYou were talking about old tools recently

52:23SPEAKERand their durability and longevity.

52:26SPEAKERThe hot rod shop I work at as a machinist and welder

52:29SPEAKERhas two World War II era lathes

52:31SPEAKERthat we still use on a regular basis.

52:34SPEAKERThey are incredibly overbuilt, much better quality

52:36SPEAKERthan later production machine tools.

52:40SPEAKER- So this is the thing that the old people

52:42SPEAKERin machine shops always will stand around

52:44SPEAKERand talk about how the old stuff was better.

52:47SPEAKER- Like I don't say.

52:49SPEAKER- I'm curious for the people who are machinists

52:52SPEAKERin our community, I'm curious if the feeling is

52:57SPEAKERthis is like the first one you learn to use

52:59SPEAKERis always the best one type situation.

53:03SPEAKERLike I know working with Adam on Tested,

53:06SPEAKERlike he definitely liked his old,

53:08SPEAKERlike he liked to buy that stuff old.

53:10SPEAKERHe wouldn't have bought a new one.

53:11SPEAKERHe would find a new one,

53:12SPEAKERan old one on Craigslist and fix it.

53:15SPEAKERThere's a neat idea with lathes that they're the basics

53:19SPEAKERthat like a lathe is,

53:20SPEAKERwith the lathe, you can build every other machine.

53:23SPEAKERIt's like once you can make gears and shafts and plates,

53:27SPEAKERthen you can, you know, a lathe spins metal

53:30SPEAKERand you cut pieces off of it as it's spinning,

53:32SPEAKERand there's a metal, carves it away.

53:34SPEAKERLike with a lathe, you can build a mill,

53:35SPEAKERand with a lathe and a mill, you can build anything, right?

53:37SPEAKER- It's like this is just full on survival game,

53:39SPEAKERlike tech tree stuff at that point, right?

53:41SPEAKER- Yeah, straight up, like if you're,

53:42SPEAKERthe tech tree of modern civilizations,

53:43SPEAKERyou start with a shitty lathe,

53:45SPEAKERyou use that lathe to make a slightly more accurate lathe,

53:47SPEAKERand you make a more accurate lathe with that one,

53:49SPEAKERand then you make a mill,

53:50SPEAKERand then you use the mill and the lathe

53:51SPEAKERto make a more accurate lathe,

53:52SPEAKERand pretty soon you make like, you know,

53:54SPEAKERa hundred thou or five thou parts, right?

54:03SPEAKERAll the places,

54:06SPEAKERit's unclear to me if this is a status thing,

54:08SPEAKERwhere if you have money and you're building a shop,

54:10SPEAKERlike if you go to Carl Bass's, one of Carl Bass's shops,

54:13SPEAKERhe has a CNC lathe that's brand new and awesome,

54:18SPEAKERbut then he also has a 50 year old manual lathe

54:23SPEAKERthat he's put digital shit on

54:24SPEAKERto make the measurements digital,

54:26SPEAKERbut you're still cranking the hand turns

54:28SPEAKERthat are 60 years old,

54:30SPEAKERand I don't know if that's a status thing

54:31SPEAKERor if they're actually better,

54:32SPEAKERso I'm curious what people think.

54:33SPEAKER- Yeah, for sure.

54:34SPEAKERAlso, I guess if your lathe is not completely non-functional,

54:37SPEAKERyou can repair the lathe with the lathe, right?

54:39SPEAKER- My understanding is that you can use the lathe

54:41SPEAKERto fix the lathe.

54:42SPEAKER- As long as whatever's broken about it

54:43SPEAKERis not gonna stop it from functioning,

54:45SPEAKERit can be a self-healing device.

54:47SPEAKERLike you may have to make,

54:50SPEAKERyeah, because the neat thing about lathes

54:51SPEAKERis you can set them to turn at all sorts of different speeds

54:54SPEAKERand different torques and stuff like that,

54:55SPEAKERso yeah, it's, yeah.

54:58SPEAKER- Quite a versatile machine.

54:59SPEAKERYou can make a new chuck with your old busted chuck

55:02SPEAKERif you're careful.

55:03SPEAKER- That's right. - And smart.

55:05SPEAKER- Okay, last email.

55:07SPEAKERSave the most dire one for last.

55:09SPEAKER- Oh great, I love ending on a high note.

55:11SPEAKERThis is from Jerry.

55:13SPEAKERThis is in light of us talking about Gateway,

55:15SPEAKERor as I like to think of it, Gateway 2000.

55:18SPEAKER- Yeah, the cow box computer people.

55:19SPEAKER- I always thought, I was always really bummed

55:21SPEAKERwhen they dropped the 2000 from the name.

55:22SPEAKERI thought it was way less interesting.

55:25SPEAKER- I was bummed when they stopped shipping the computers

55:26SPEAKERin cow boxes. - Yeah.

55:28SPEAKER- And honestly, I was kind of bummed

55:29SPEAKERwhen I realized that the computers didn't look like cows

55:32SPEAKERwhen you took them out of the box.

55:33SPEAKER- Mm, I think that branding

55:35SPEAKERis kind of a less is more situation personally.

55:38SPEAKER- They were selling white computers before anybody,

55:40SPEAKERlike computers were mostly beige

55:42SPEAKERand Gateways were always like a kind of ivory off white.

55:45SPEAKER- Yeah, we talked about it before,

55:46SPEAKERbut I always thought their case design

55:47SPEAKERwas like kind of ahead of the curve.

55:48SPEAKER- It was really good, yeah.

55:49SPEAKER- For the era, it was pretty attractive.

55:51SPEAKER- They would still cut the hell out of you.

55:53SPEAKERWe had a Gateway contract when I was at UT.

55:55SPEAKER- Oh, can I digress for just a second?

55:57SPEAKER- Yes.

55:58SPEAKER- I don't know why this,

55:59SPEAKERthis just popped into my head the other day,

56:01SPEAKERand I don't know why this has not occurred to me

56:02SPEAKERover the last like 10 years

56:04SPEAKERsince they stopped putting case speakers in PC cases

56:08SPEAKERthat you can just go out and buy one.

56:09SPEAKER- Yeah.

56:10SPEAKER- But then I went on Amazon,

56:12SPEAKERyou get like 10 case speakers for like seven bucks.

56:15SPEAKER- Oh yeah, that's probably a lot.

56:16SPEAKER- I think I'm gonna just dangle it in the case someplace.

56:19SPEAKER- Yeah, most of them are very small.

56:21SPEAKERLike, so a lot of them look like

56:23SPEAKERthey only have like maybe one, two inch long wire.

56:25SPEAKERSo you would literally just be dangling it

56:26SPEAKERoff the motherboard at that point instead of mounting it.

56:28SPEAKERBut like, I don't know about you,

56:30SPEAKERbut I just miss the beep.

56:31SPEAKER- Are they the Paizo ones that make the grading beep

56:34SPEAKERor are they the ones with the speaker?

56:36SPEAKER- So that's the thing.

56:37SPEAKERI think they're all that, the former kind.

56:39SPEAKER- Okay.

56:40SPEAKER- The little button, little round button looking design.

56:43SPEAKER- It's like a cylinder.

56:44SPEAKERIt doesn't look like a traditional speaker.

56:46SPEAKER- Yes, so yeah, you will see a lot of user reviews.

56:48SPEAKERThey don't sound as good as the old school ones.

56:51SPEAKER- I mean, my first computer didn't have a sound card.

56:52SPEAKERThat was where the sound came from.

56:54SPEAKER- Oh yeah, for sure.

56:54SPEAKERThat's like, you know, you're playing your four color CGA,

56:57SPEAKERyou know, your King's Quest one or whatever.

56:59SPEAKERYou're getting some god awful.

57:00SPEAKER- Yeah, Wolfenstein.

57:01SPEAKER- Is that PWM?

57:02SPEAKERIs that what's coming out of those speakers?

57:04SPEAKER- I don't have any idea.

57:06SPEAKER- Pulse width modulation, I think,

57:07SPEAKERis how they are making sound out of those things.

57:09SPEAKER- Well, out of the piezos, yeah,

57:10SPEAKERbut out of the flat speakers,

57:12SPEAKERthe old school flat speakers,

57:13SPEAKERyou could make a slightly buzzier sound.

57:15SPEAKER- Okay.

57:16SPEAKER- But like the Wolfenstein sounds to me are forever

57:19SPEAKERthe sounds that came out of the PC speaker,

57:20SPEAKERnot really a sound card.

57:21SPEAKER- No kidding, I don't think I ever played Wolfenstein

57:24SPEAKERwithout, well, I didn't play Wolfenstein at all.

57:26SPEAKERIt was too, I was not quite old enough.

57:27SPEAKERWe didn't have a computer, but by the time

57:30SPEAKERI got my hands on computers,

57:31SPEAKERsound blasters were fairly ubiquitous.

57:33SPEAKER- Look, if you play violent video games

57:34SPEAKERas a young child, Brad, it'll mess you up.

57:36SPEAKERIt'll haunt you for the rest of your life.

57:38SPEAKER- Yes, I spent an entire youth being told that.

57:41SPEAKER- And here I am.

57:42SPEAKER- Yeah, look, you have a poster for Sin City

57:45SPEAKERand the best Star Wars behind you right now.

57:47SPEAKER- Let's not get into it.

57:49SPEAKER- All I know is that the booting of PC to me

57:52SPEAKERis just not the same without the beep.

57:54SPEAKERIt hasn't been the same for a long time.

57:56SPEAKER- I don't miss the beep.

57:56SPEAKER- Really?

57:57SPEAKER- No.

57:58SPEAKER- I got a booting PC question for you though.

58:01SPEAKERIt's not at all to do with this email.

58:03SPEAKERDo you replace the boot image on your BIOS?

58:07SPEAKER- No, we've talked about this before.

58:09SPEAKERI'm shocked 'cause that sounds like a very me thing to do

58:12SPEAKERand not a very you thing to do and yet you do it and I don't.

58:15SPEAKER- I have art that somebody made of me

58:19SPEAKERand it boots my face every time, makes me happy.

58:21SPEAKER- If you've got that, you might as well

58:22SPEAKERput it to use, I guess.

58:24SPEAKER- Yeah.

58:25SPEAKER- I mean, I assume it's the low resolution,

58:26SPEAKERlike low color, whatever format can be displayed

58:28SPEAKERat that point in the boot process.

58:29SPEAKER- It's like 800 by 600 now.

58:31SPEAKER- Oh, huh.

58:32SPEAKER- It's pretty good.

58:33SPEAKERIt looks okay, I'll take a picture.

58:34SPEAKER- Are you talking about like that goes in place

58:36SPEAKERof like the award BIOS logo or whatever,

58:38SPEAKERAmerican mega trends?

58:40SPEAKER- I have the graphic BIOS up on my computer.

58:43SPEAKER- Okay, okay, that's a different.

58:44SPEAKER- So instead of the SUSE logo or gigabyte or whoever it is,

58:46SPEAKERit pops up with my face smiling.

58:49SPEAKER- This just speaks to our boot preferences then

58:50SPEAKERbecause I also turn off the full screen,

58:52SPEAKERlike the splash screen, the high res splash screen.

58:54SPEAKERThat also seems wrong to me.

58:55SPEAKERI want the text mode post.

58:58SPEAKER- I want it to go straight from my smiling face

59:02SPEAKERwith this dots to Windows logo with the dots.

59:05SPEAKER- It feels like cheating to have a high resolution image

59:08SPEAKERbefore you get into an operating system.

59:10SPEAKER- Yeah, get in there, man.

59:11SPEAKER- Anyway.

59:12SPEAKER- What's Jerry's email about?

59:13SPEAKER- I'm sorry, I'm just close the loop here.

59:14SPEAKERI don't think I'm gonna order one

59:15SPEAKERof those crappy Amazon speakers.

59:17SPEAKERI think instead next time I am home

59:19SPEAKERor my parents have probably three old PC cases

59:21SPEAKERin the basement.

59:23SPEAKER- You're gonna steal?

59:24SPEAKER- I'm gonna harvest.

59:25SPEAKER- You're gonna harvest?

59:26SPEAKEROh, man.

59:27SPEAKER- I'm gonna harvest one of the good case speakers

59:28SPEAKERout of one of those old cases.

59:30SPEAKER- That's a choice.

59:32SPEAKER- Anyway.

59:33SPEAKER- Electronics recycling, that's what you're doing.

59:35SPEAKER- That's right, just putting old stuff to use.

59:36SPEAKER- Just like that lathe.

59:38SPEAKER- Yeah.

59:39SPEAKER- Old lathe is old PC speakers, it's all the same.

59:41SPEAKERAll right, last email from Jerry.

59:45SPEAKERI worked for a large aerospace company

59:46SPEAKERand made an offhand comment years ago to my manager

59:49SPEAKERthat our HR director lady seemed a bit cold

59:52SPEAKERor harsh sometimes.

59:54SPEAKERMy manager told me that previously she was the HR person

59:58SPEAKERfor Gateway during their decline

1:00:00SPEAKERand had personally laid off thousands of workers.

1:00:03SPEAKER- Holy shit.

1:00:04SPEAKER- It opened my eyes a bit to think through the toll

1:00:06SPEAKERthat could take on a person,

1:00:07SPEAKERalthough I'm hard pressed to decide how my opinion

1:00:10SPEAKERof her changed, a mix of respect, compassion,

1:00:14SPEAKERand above all, an absolute fear

1:00:15SPEAKERof getting on her wrong side.

1:00:18SPEAKER- Wow, that's intense.

1:00:20SPEAKER- That is a lot.

1:00:21SPEAKER- Did you?

1:00:22SPEAKER- It's like you were just the hatchet person

1:00:23SPEAKERat that point, right?

1:00:24SPEAKERLike you were being forced to,

1:00:26SPEAKERyou're the guillotine operator.

1:00:30SPEAKER- Did you guys go through layoffs?

1:00:31SPEAKER- No.

1:00:32SPEAKER- Like early 2000s media layoffs?

1:00:34SPEAKER- No, so I got, I guess I got really lucky.

1:00:36SPEAKERI was like sandwiched kind of right

1:00:38SPEAKERbetween rounds of layoffs.

1:00:39SPEAKERLike there were, when I started a game spot,

1:00:41SPEAKERthere had been like a pretty big round of layoffs

1:00:43SPEAKERlike six months prior, which I think.

1:00:45SPEAKERSo I started in 2003 and this would have been,

1:00:48SPEAKERI think middle two is when the last layoffs happened.

1:00:49SPEAKERSo that would have been probably the end

1:00:51SPEAKERof the dot-com bursting, right?

1:00:54SPEAKERThe bubble bursting.

1:00:55SPEAKER- So I started.

1:00:56SPEAKER- There were not more layoffs for the five years

1:00:58SPEAKERthat I was there until after I left.

1:01:00SPEAKER- So I started at Maximum PC in 2000, in the middle of 2000,

1:01:03SPEAKERand we had layoffs in February of 2001

1:01:06SPEAKERwhen the dot-com bubble burst.

1:01:07SPEAKERLike they shut seven magazines on one day,

1:01:11SPEAKERwhich was a wow.

1:01:13SPEAKERIt was all, they launched seven magazines in 2000

1:01:16SPEAKERand they shut them all down in February of 2001.

1:01:18SPEAKERIt was not great.

1:01:19SPEAKER- They were really in it for the long haul, huh?

1:01:21SPEAKER- Look, this is why media companies

1:01:23SPEAKERshould not be publicly traded.

1:01:27SPEAKERAfter that, we had, I think seven rounds of layoffs

1:01:30SPEAKERthrough the total through 2001, 2002,

1:01:33SPEAKERto the point that it was just like, it got normal.

1:01:36SPEAKER- I was gonna say, that's a pretty harsh

1:01:37SPEAKERand also steady cadence at some point.

1:01:39SPEAKER- It was horrific.

1:01:41SPEAKERIt ended with the guy who was the layoff guy

1:01:44SPEAKERgetting laid off on the last one.

1:01:46SPEAKERAnd that's when everyone was like,

1:01:47SPEAKERwell, maybe it's gonna be okay now.

1:01:48SPEAKERAnd then there were still a few more

1:01:49SPEAKERover the next few years.

1:01:50SPEAKER- Good Lord.

1:01:51SPEAKER- I can absolutely see how it would mess you up.

1:01:54SPEAKERI can't imagine, like I've been lucky enough

1:01:57SPEAKERthat even though I've managed people for a long time,

1:01:59SPEAKERI've only had to fire a couple of people.

1:02:01SPEAKERAnd it's not like it is, I still think about it

1:02:04SPEAKERand I'm not happy.

1:02:05SPEAKERIt's not like don't fucking cry for me, Irene.

1:02:08SPEAKERLike I was the person removing someone's livelihood.

1:02:11SPEAKER- Right.

1:02:12SPEAKER- And usually it wasn't without cause,

1:02:16SPEAKERbut I can't imagine having to lay off thousands of people.

1:02:19SPEAKERThat would be horrific.

1:02:22SPEAKERSo yeah, this is kind of a bummer, Brad.

1:02:24SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:02:25SPEAKERSorry, maybe I shouldn't put this one right at the end,

1:02:27SPEAKERbut here's to steady employment.

1:02:32SPEAKER- Yeah, steady employment.

1:02:33SPEAKER- Oh, wait.

1:02:35SPEAKER- You know what we should toast though?

1:02:38SPEAKER- What's that?

1:02:39SPEAKER- The wonderful patrons who make the TechPod possible.

1:02:41SPEAKER- Absolutely.

1:02:42SPEAKER- This is, in case you don't know,

1:02:44SPEAKERthis is a listener supported podcast.

1:02:45SPEAKERWe have more than 2,300 wonderful people right now

1:02:50SPEAKERwho support the show and support the TechPod

1:02:53SPEAKERevery single week.

1:02:54SPEAKERAnd as always, we wouldn't be here without them.

1:02:57SPEAKERSo thanks to everybody, whether you're,

1:03:00SPEAKERyou know, no matter what level of the Patreon you're on,

1:03:04SPEAKERor if you're just telling your friends about the show,

1:03:05SPEAKERwhen we talk about something interesting

1:03:07SPEAKERthat you think that they'll enjoy,

1:03:08SPEAKERwe definitely appreciate it.

1:03:09SPEAKER- Yes, thank you so much.

1:03:10SPEAKERYou make this all possible.

1:03:11SPEAKERI know that sounds trite, but it is a hundred percent true.

1:03:14SPEAKER- I mean, we don't take ads.

1:03:16SPEAKER- We're not taking ads.

1:03:18SPEAKER- We're over 2,400 now, actually.

1:03:19SPEAKER- Holy cow.

1:03:20SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:03:21SPEAKER- We owe a scene drama podcast.

1:03:24SPEAKER- I was gonna bring up scene drama.

1:03:25SPEAKERI hope I have this right.

1:03:26SPEAKERI think, are we looking to get a guest for that?

1:03:29SPEAKERIs that the case?

1:03:30SPEAKER- We should talk about it offline.

1:03:31SPEAKER- Okay.

1:03:32SPEAKER- We should come up with a plan.

1:03:33SPEAKER- Okay.

1:03:34SPEAKER- 'Cause I don't have a good vision of what this episode is.

1:03:36SPEAKERI kind of threw that out as a joke,

1:03:37SPEAKERand now it's a thing that got real, so.

1:03:39SPEAKER- There is such an, it's more than real at this point.

1:03:42SPEAKERThere is such an embarrassment of riches

1:03:43SPEAKERin the scene drama category lately.

1:03:45SPEAKER- Look, there's always scene drama, Brad.

1:03:47SPEAKERThere's a scene.

1:03:48SPEAKER- It almost feels like this is like a mini series

1:03:50SPEAKERwaiting to happen at this point or something.

1:03:51SPEAKERLike this Free Note stuff over the last week or two

1:03:54SPEAKERis like practically a whole episode unto itself.

1:03:57SPEAKERHave you not seen this?

1:03:58SPEAKER- No, I haven't.

1:03:59SPEAKER- Okay, we should not get too deep into it.

1:04:01SPEAKER- When we pitched, when we were talking about scene drama

1:04:03SPEAKERbefore I, or you, I can't remember which of us,

1:04:05SPEAKERone of us threw it out on the podcast

1:04:07SPEAKERas like the 2000 Patreon goal was,

1:04:12SPEAKERI was like, we should just do a spinoff series

1:04:14SPEAKERthat's nothing but scene drama,

1:04:17SPEAKERwhere it's like six episodes or something like that.

1:04:19SPEAKERAnd I feel like that's probably possible.

1:04:21SPEAKER- Yeah, like when you said that,

1:04:22SPEAKERmy first thought was my worry was like,

1:04:24SPEAKERhow there's surely there's not enough material

1:04:25SPEAKERto keep that going.

1:04:26SPEAKERBut I think at this point there is more,

1:04:28SPEAKERthere's too much material.

1:04:29SPEAKER- I feel like we were thinking about the Mr. Stuff

1:04:31SPEAKERwith like the Ram at that point, but I can't remember.

1:04:34SPEAKER- I forgot about that one.

1:04:35SPEAKERThat one, even that one is on the list.

1:04:36SPEAKERLike that's number eight or something.

1:04:38SPEAKERThere's so many of them now.

1:04:39SPEAKER- There's a lot of scene drama.

1:04:40SPEAKERAnywhere there's a scene, there's drama.

1:04:42SPEAKERSo it's coming. - That's for sure.

1:04:44SPEAKERAnd the nerd, I've learned the nerdy scene drama

1:04:47SPEAKERis just as messy as every other kind of drama.

1:04:49SPEAKER- Oh yeah, yeah.

1:04:51SPEAKER- Anyway, I worry about the psychic toll

1:04:53SPEAKERof making a series that's just about scene drama.

1:04:55SPEAKERBut anyway, that's coming.

1:05:00SPEAKERWe're doing it, we're gonna do it.

1:05:01SPEAKER- Yes, we're getting there.

1:05:03SPEAKER- I think we're gonna do it.

1:05:04SPEAKERI wanna do another book club.

1:05:05SPEAKERI think that was fun.

1:05:06SPEAKERSo we'll do that for the patrons

1:05:07SPEAKERand we'll let them decide what book we do.

1:05:10SPEAKERI mean, we're gonna give you a list of stuff to vote on.

1:05:13SPEAKERI mean, you can suggest stuff, but anyway.

1:05:17SPEAKERThanks as always to our executive producer,

1:05:19SPEAKERto your patrons, Andrew Slosky, Jacob Chappell,

1:05:21SPEAKERJames Kamik, The Bunny Fiend, and Twinkle Twinkie.

1:05:25SPEAKER- Yeah, thank you so much.

1:05:26SPEAKER- And as it's the end of the month,

1:05:27SPEAKERthank you also to our associate producer level patrons,

1:05:30SPEAKERAlejandro Navarro, Andre Burke, Arthur Gies,

1:05:34SPEAKERBen Golmey, Brad Van Orman, Brian Rabe, Dan Brockman,

1:05:38SPEAKERDave Ullian, Donato Cinico III, Grant Banks, Jacob Wilson,

1:05:43SPEAKERJad Rita, Jason Neland, Jorge Pereira, Josh Klein,

1:05:48SPEAKERJulian, Louis Sankowski, Matt Walker, Sanchit Kumar,

1:05:54SPEAKERTerry Cox, and Thomas Shea.

1:05:55SPEAKERThank you all so much.

1:05:56SPEAKERWe have a lot of new faces in here this month.

1:05:57SPEAKER- Yeah, thank you.

1:05:58SPEAKERThank you so much.

1:05:59SPEAKERAnd again, I think we said it last week,

1:06:00SPEAKERbut welcome to the community and thank you to everybody

1:06:03SPEAKERwho has already been here for a while

1:06:04SPEAKERfor making it such a welcoming place for new people to join.

1:06:08SPEAKER- It's been really fun.

1:06:09SPEAKERI think we need to, I wanna expand some channels

1:06:11SPEAKERbecause we added some secret channels.

1:06:15SPEAKER- Yes.

1:06:16SPEAKER- We talked about this last week.

1:06:17SPEAKERI can't remember.

1:06:17SPEAKER- I think we did.

1:06:18SPEAKER- Yes, we talked about the crypto channel.

1:06:21SPEAKER- They're secret channels.

1:06:23SPEAKERWe don't talk about what they are, what they talk about,

1:06:25SPEAKERbut they got some of the noise out of the main channel.

1:06:28SPEAKERAnd if we feel like we need to move some of the noise

1:06:30SPEAKERout of the main channel, then we can.

1:06:32SPEAKER- Is that a recursive channel?

1:06:33SPEAKEROur crypto channel is itself crypto?

1:06:36SPEAKER- It's not really encrypted.

1:06:37SPEAKERI mean, I guess it is encrypted

1:06:38SPEAKER'cause Discord's encrypted, right?

1:06:39SPEAKER- Kind of.

1:06:40SPEAKER- Yeah, anyway.

1:06:43SPEAKERThank you all.

1:06:44SPEAKERAnd if you want to support the podcast

1:06:46SPEAKERand join the fabulous Discord community

1:06:49SPEAKERand the tech pod community,

1:06:50SPEAKERyou should join now 'cause we're gonna change

1:06:51SPEAKERthe patron tiers very, very soon.

1:06:55SPEAKERYou can get in for two bucks a month,

1:06:57SPEAKERwhich gives you access to the Discord.

1:06:59SPEAKERAnd for five, you get the patron exclusive episodes

1:07:01SPEAKERof which we have one coming very, very soon

1:07:03SPEAKER'cause it's the end of the month.

1:07:04SPEAKERAnd we will be back next week with more tech pod.

1:07:09SPEAKERIf you are listening to this,

1:07:10SPEAKERyou probably already figured out the Apple podcast stuff.

1:07:12SPEAKER- Oh gosh.

1:07:13SPEAKER- If you don't know about it, I'm so sorry,

1:07:15SPEAKERbut there's fuck all we can do to fix it.

1:07:17SPEAKERApple has jacked this up at an incredible level

1:07:20SPEAKERand I'm sorry.

1:07:21SPEAKER- It's kind of astonishing to me.

1:07:24SPEAKERFor people who don't use iTunes or Apple podcasts

1:07:26SPEAKERor just don't know what we're talking about,

1:07:28SPEAKERour show is essentially no longer exists

1:07:30SPEAKERon the Apple services,

1:07:32SPEAKERwhich is the only one that matters

1:07:33SPEAKERfor all intents and purposes.

1:07:34SPEAKER- For about a week running now, right, roughly?

1:07:37SPEAKER- I don't know when it started,

1:07:38SPEAKERbut last week's episode did not show up

1:07:39SPEAKERfor Apple podcast users unless...

1:07:42SPEAKERIf you want to get back on Apple podcasts

1:07:44SPEAKERand don't want to download it manually,

1:07:45SPEAKERyou can add the RSS feed

1:07:47SPEAKERfrom techpod.content.town manually.

1:07:51SPEAKERBut yeah, I'm incredibly,

1:07:53SPEAKERI'm sending a support ticket every single day.

1:07:55SPEAKERI haven't had one response yet, assholes.

1:07:58SPEAKER- Some day they'll get the message.

1:08:00SPEAKER- Anyway, patreon.com/techpod.

1:08:02SPEAKERThank you all so much for your support.

1:08:03SPEAKER- Yes, we will be back next week with more.

1:08:05SPEAKERSee you, have a good week, Brad.

1:08:07SPEAKER- You too.

1:08:08SPEAKER- Bye.

1:08:08SPEAKER(upbeat music)

1:08:14SPEAKER[BLANK_AUDIO]