93: Missives From the Void

00:00SPEAKER- Brad, I think my new favorite thing to stream

00:02SPEAKERinside the house is the PlayStation.

00:04SPEAKER- The stream is coming from inside the house?

00:06SPEAKERYou gotta get out of there, man.

00:07SPEAKER- So look, I got a PlayStation.

00:08SPEAKERGary, friend of the site Gary had a PlayStation Extra

00:12SPEAKERand I was like, "Hey, can I buy your PlayStation?"

00:14SPEAKERHe's like, "Yeah, sure."

00:15SPEAKER- He did a hand-off?

00:16SPEAKER- So I got a PlayStation.

00:17SPEAKER- Did you go to him or did he come to you?

00:20SPEAKER- Look, he was doing me a favor, so I went to him.

00:23SPEAKER- Okay.

00:27SPEAKER- It's too big to fit in my entertainment center.

00:29SPEAKER- Really?

00:29SPEAKER- It doesn't fit into the hole, it's too long.

00:32SPEAKERIt's a long boy.

00:33SPEAKER- A sizable piece of machinery.

00:35SPEAKER- It would have gone in diagonally,

00:36SPEAKERbut I didn't think that was a good idea.

00:37SPEAKERSo I put it in my office,

00:40SPEAKER'cause also that's where I stream games from

00:41SPEAKERand that's where it'll get used probably the most

00:43SPEAKERsince I'm the PlayStation user in this house.

00:46SPEAKERAnd I bet sometimes I wanna play games in the living room

00:51SPEAKERor in the bedroom, like when I'm laying in bed or something.

00:53SPEAKER- Okay.

00:54SPEAKER- So I bought this little clip that jams on a DualShock

00:57SPEAKERand you pair it with your phone

01:00SPEAKERand you use the PS4 Remote Play app on your phone

01:04SPEAKERand you play the game on the little tiny screen

01:07SPEAKERon your phone, like it's a Switch game,

01:09SPEAKERbut it's a PlayStation 5 game.

01:10SPEAKER- It's like an Nvidia Shield kind of situation.

01:12SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a little janky.

01:13SPEAKERLike, look, the balance, like, so there's good clips.

01:16SPEAKERLike I have one of those for the Xbox controller

01:18SPEAKERthat is like cantilevered, so the phone's kind of over,

01:21SPEAKERit's up and over the thing, so the balance is a lot better.

01:24SPEAKERYou're not like, it's not like tilting forward.

01:26SPEAKERThis one's okay, I don't think they've gotten

01:28SPEAKERto the cantilevered technology yet on the PS5 clips,

01:31SPEAKERbut it's frigging awesome, like the DualShock,

01:33SPEAKERthe DualSense stuff works and everything

01:35SPEAKERon the phone streaming.

01:37SPEAKERAnd like I have an AC router, it's nothing fancy

01:40SPEAKERand it works great, like no drop frames.

01:43SPEAKERIt seems like the hardware is fast enough

01:45SPEAKERto do the streaming stuff and it just works,

01:47SPEAKERit's really cool.

01:47SPEAKER- Over WiFi, 'cause I've had the worst luck

01:50SPEAKERwith PS5 Remote Play, even over a gigabit LAN connection,

01:54SPEAKERlike a network, I mean a wired connection.

01:56SPEAKERI don't know what's up with that.

01:58SPEAKER- Are you sure it's over?

01:59SPEAKERSo I've had, so streaming to PS4s, no problems at all.

02:04SPEAKER- So that may be it, because like PS4 Remote Play

02:06SPEAKERon the same LAN was kind of fine.

02:08SPEAKERIt was, I mean, well, none of it is fine.

02:10SPEAKERLet's say it was good enough, but the PS5 one,

02:12SPEAKERlike you said, maybe it is going through some remote server

02:15SPEAKERand coming back around, like that Remote Play app

02:16SPEAKERis very unclear about what it's actually doing.

02:20SPEAKER- So it's supposed to be going, just like I'd have to look

02:23SPEAKERat the network to see, but I'm not like, it is indistinguishable

02:26SPEAKERfrom playing on the TV in terms of latency and stuff.

02:28SPEAKER- Okay, I've definitely got something going on then

02:30SPEAKERwith the way it's routing that video, 'cause it is rough.

02:34SPEAKER- Yeah, it was like, it is literally better than Moonlight

02:38SPEAKERor Steam Link from my PC.

02:40SPEAKER- No kidding.

02:41SPEAKER- Yeah, like occasionally it'll drop for like half a second.

02:46SPEAKERLike if I'm walking around the house and like walk

02:48SPEAKERwith the refrigerator between me and the access point

02:50SPEAKERor something, but for the most part, it's pretty rock solid.

02:54SPEAKER- Okay, there's something bad wrong

02:56SPEAKERwith my Windows Remote Play app then

02:58SPEAKERwith the network configuration, but again,

02:59SPEAKERit doesn't tell you like when you pair it.

03:01SPEAKERDid you pair it with a numeric code?

03:03SPEAKER- I just logged into the Remote Play app

03:05SPEAKERwith my PlayStation account and it found it on the network.

03:06SPEAKER- And it just found it?

03:07SPEAKEROkay, I had to punch in that code that it gives you

03:10SPEAKERto pair them, so I wonder if I must be going

03:12SPEAKERthrough some Sony remote server.

03:14SPEAKER- Yeah, I bet you're going up to the internet

03:15SPEAKERand then back down.

03:16SPEAKER- Yeah, and that app is so kind of bare bones

03:18SPEAKERand featured light that I can't figure out

03:20SPEAKERhow to change that.

03:21SPEAKER- This is on Windows?

03:22SPEAKER- Yes.

03:23SPEAKER- So I haven't done the Windows one.

03:24SPEAKERI'm using the iOS Remote Play

03:27SPEAKERand the PlayStation 4 Remote Play.

03:29SPEAKER- Okay.

03:30SPEAKER- It's possible, look, I don't want to alarm you,

03:31SPEAKERbut that Windows app in my experience.

03:34SPEAKER- It's not good.

03:34SPEAKER- They don't really pay attention to it much.

03:36SPEAKER- It's bad.

03:37SPEAKER- Yeah.

03:38SPEAKER- I'm confident even in the cold open saying it's bad.

03:41SPEAKER- This is why I put the PlayStation on my desk

03:44SPEAKERso I don't have to remote play to my computer ever.

03:46SPEAKER- Is it, I mean, the most important question, is it vertical?

03:49SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

03:50SPEAKER- If you're gonna put it on a desk,

03:51SPEAKERwhy would it not be vertical?

03:52SPEAKER- It has, like, I don't, dude,

03:53SPEAKERI don't have enough desk space for the horizontal.

03:55SPEAKER- Right, the thing is bigger than your PC.

03:57SPEAKER- I, look, this thing is so big,

03:58SPEAKERI expected it to be an extra in a Resident Evil game.

04:01SPEAKERIt's enormous.

04:02SPEAKER- It's, yes.

04:04SPEAKERDisk?

04:05SPEAKER- Yeah, look, I took what I could get.

04:06SPEAKER- Which one is it?

04:07SPEAKER- Disk.

04:08SPEAKER- Disk, okay.

04:09SPEAKERIt's good to be prepared.

04:10SPEAKER- I don't think I own any PS4 disks, Brad.

04:13SPEAKER- Well, you never know.

04:15SPEAKERMaybe I'll get a UHD Blu-ray.

04:16SPEAKER- That's right.

04:17SPEAKER- I'll actually play instead of just rip

04:18SPEAKERand put on a server someplace.

04:20SPEAKER- I noticed that, I'm sure you've seen the,

04:22SPEAKERlike the dbrand dark plates going around, the replacement.

04:25SPEAKERSo no name aftermarket PS5 plates have now started to

04:32SPEAKERappear on AliExpress for a very small fraction of the price.

04:36SPEAKER- Can I get some with, like,

04:38SPEAKERmy favorite anime characters on them?

04:39SPEAKER- Not that I've seen yet, but it's gotta be coming.

04:42SPEAKERThey do have colors, like the dbrand ones, I believe,

04:45SPEAKERare only black right now, but I found red and blue ones

04:47SPEAKERon AliExpress for like 20 bucks.

04:49SPEAKERI'm really thinking about it.

04:51SPEAKER- I'm gonna tell you a secret, Brad.

04:52SPEAKERRight now, the PlayStation 5,

04:54SPEAKERif I didn't have object permanence,

04:56SPEAKERI wouldn't know it's here,

04:57SPEAKER'cause it's behind my portrait ultra-wide monitor.

04:59SPEAKER- Okay.

05:00SPEAKER- So it's like, I have one big thing,

05:02SPEAKERand then I have another even larger thing between it and me.

05:06SPEAKERI don't know it exists.

05:07SPEAKERIt might as well not be there.

05:08SPEAKER- Not so concerned about the aesthetics

05:09SPEAKERof the console you can't see.

05:11SPEAKER- No, I'm fine with it being white, probably.

05:13SPEAKER- PS5 is less of an object and more of a state of mind.

05:17SPEAKER(upbeat music)

05:41SPEAKER(upbeat music continues)

05:46SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.

05:48SPEAKERI'm Will.

05:49SPEAKER- I'm Brad.

05:50SPEAKER- Hello. - Hi.

05:51SPEAKER- Hello. - What's up?

05:52SPEAKER- Brad, it's been a couple of,

05:53SPEAKERthere's been big tech weeks,

05:54SPEAKERbig tech news the last few weeks.

05:56SPEAKER- Yes, a lot of stuff going on.

05:59SPEAKER- Windows 11 announced yesterday for us,

06:02SPEAKERlike four days, five days ago for you all.

06:05SPEAKERWe knew it was coming, it seemed like.

06:06SPEAKER- Yes, announced after a build had gotten out

06:09SPEAKERand people were running it.

06:10SPEAKERBut, you know.

06:11SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know, the corners are curved.

06:14SPEAKERWe'll...

06:16SPEAKER- Save it.

06:17SPEAKER- Okay, let's talk about it. - Just save it.

06:18SPEAKER- Well, this is the last episode of the month,

06:21SPEAKERwhich traditionally is our emails episode.

06:24SPEAKER- Yeah, I actually had a moment for a second yesterday

06:27SPEAKERwhere I was like, should we break with tradition

06:29SPEAKERand push the emails episode out a week

06:31SPEAKERinto the first week of next month

06:32SPEAKERso we can talk about Windows 11 when it's fresh?

06:34SPEAKER- Madness.

06:36SPEAKERI want us to let it, I want to let it bake a little bit.

06:38SPEAKERI want to think about it some.

06:39SPEAKER- I think you're right because I think more,

06:41SPEAKERlet's say journalism will take place.

06:43SPEAKERI'm guessing, I'm guessing more stuff will come out

06:45SPEAKERbecause like that announcement was relatively light

06:49SPEAKERother than the Android apps on Windows part, right?

06:51SPEAKERThat was the sort of big unknown.

06:53SPEAKERIs that not even that big?

06:54SPEAKERYou're making a face.

06:55SPEAKER- Look, there were, okay, there were big things.

06:58SPEAKERThe big thing was, hey, we're teaming up with Amazon

07:02SPEAKERto connect our app stores and also we're not gonna,

07:05SPEAKERif like you wanna put your own payment processor in,

07:07SPEAKERwe're not gonna take 30% off of the top.

07:09SPEAKERLike those two things are shots across Apple

07:12SPEAKERand Google's app store monopoly bows.

07:16SPEAKER- Yeah, you're right.

07:16SPEAKER- Yeah, those are both big.

07:18SPEAKER- Big business moves in that stream.

07:19SPEAKERBut the kind of stuff I'm thinking about

07:21SPEAKERis like in the wake of that stream,

07:22SPEAKERit became clear that you need a valid TPM,

07:27SPEAKERa trusted platform module installed in your PC

07:29SPEAKERto run Windows 11.

07:31SPEAKERThat's the kind of stuff I want to talk about.

07:33SPEAKERAnd I think--

07:34SPEAKER- To the tech breakdown thing,

07:35SPEAKERI haven't read anything about yet.

07:36SPEAKERSo I'm interested to see.

07:37SPEAKERThey also did a big, they did big pre-briefs

07:39SPEAKERwith like the major, you know, the typical,

07:43SPEAKERyou know, the verges and the New York Times tech pages

07:46SPEAKERand stuff like that.

07:47SPEAKERSo I'm interested to see what came out of that too.

07:49SPEAKER- And I think people will probably keep banging on

07:51SPEAKERthat leaked build.

07:52SPEAKERI don't know if there's like a legit insider build out yet.

07:56SPEAKER- That's next week I think is when--

07:57SPEAKER- Okay, yeah.

07:58SPEAKERSo yeah, yeah, all of that said, I think it would be--

08:01SPEAKER- I'll grab another SSD and install it

08:03SPEAKERon a second SSD in the computer.

08:05SPEAKER- That's bold. - And get in there.

08:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

08:08SPEAKER- Look, I'm approaching a Windows reinstall.

08:10SPEAKERIt seems like--

08:10SPEAKER- Yes, I am way overdue.

08:12SPEAKER- Per our conversation last week or the week before.

08:15SPEAKER- I kind of want to build a new PC

08:16SPEAKERbefore I reinstall Windows at this point.

08:18SPEAKER- You're definitely at that place.

08:20SPEAKER- This machine is six years old.

08:22SPEAKER- You can get 5,800 Xs now.

08:24SPEAKERLike they are available.

08:26SPEAKER- What about a 5,900 X?

08:28SPEAKER- The 5,800 X is better for what you do probably.

08:30SPEAKER- Oh, it's not, I need cores.

08:32SPEAKER- What do you need?

08:33SPEAKERYou play games.

08:34SPEAKER- This is not good media, dude.

08:35SPEAKERThis is a workstation.

08:36SPEAKER- But aren't you doing that on the server?

08:37SPEAKER- No.

08:38SPEAKER- Oh, well then you should get a 5,800 X for the server

08:41SPEAKERand a 5,900 X for the desktop.

08:43SPEAKER- You mean my NAS?

08:44SPEAKER- Yeah, your NAS.

08:45SPEAKER- Yeah, no, the NAS is older than this,

08:46SPEAKERlike it's a 6,700 K.

08:47SPEAKER- Well, it's time to do double upgrades then, man.

08:49SPEAKERIt's double upgrade season.

08:51SPEAKER- I have also been thinking about putting a 5,600 X

08:53SPEAKERin the NAS, but I don't need to spend that money right now.

08:56SPEAKER- Okay, okay, okay.

08:57SPEAKER- That's foolish.

08:57SPEAKER- Yeah.

08:59SPEAKERWhat are we here for this month?

09:00SPEAKERWhat right now, this week?

09:01SPEAKERThis moment in time, Brad.

09:03SPEAKER- I have some misgivings about saying this.

09:05SPEAKERNormally it would be emails.

09:07SPEAKER- I think this month it's just email.

09:09SPEAKER- Email.

09:11SPEAKERWe took one email from the inbox and the rest are...

09:15SPEAKER- We had an experiment.

09:16SPEAKER- What are we gonna call them?

09:17SPEAKER- Q and A's.

09:18SPEAKERThese are Q's.

09:19SPEAKERThese are Q's, we're turning into A's, aren't they?

09:21SPEAKER- Well, that's always been the thing, right?

09:24SPEAKER- It's called question seeking answers in the Discord.

09:27SPEAKER- That's the, yes, I made that channel.

09:28SPEAKERThese are Q's.

09:30SPEAKER- Yeah, we made a channel.

09:32SPEAKER- Yes.

09:32SPEAKER- We set up the channel and we did some novel stuff with it.

09:35SPEAKERWe set it up so that you can post things in there,

09:40SPEAKERbut then you can't see what happens after you post it.

09:43SPEAKERIt basically goes away into the ephemera.

09:45SPEAKERSo it's a place for people to ask questions into the void

09:48SPEAKERand we're answering the void questions.

09:49SPEAKER- So I set up the permissions for the channel

09:51SPEAKERand then it only occurred to me

09:52SPEAKERabout 30 minutes before we did this podcast this morning

09:55SPEAKERthat people can't actually read anything else

09:57SPEAKERthat is being said in there.

09:59SPEAKER- Well, the reason we did that

10:00SPEAKERis 'cause we figured people would just talk.

10:04SPEAKER- Yes, I mean, you know,

10:05SPEAKERthere's a bunch of Discord permission stuff you can set.

10:07SPEAKERI turned on slow mode so people can't just type at will.

10:11SPEAKERLike you have to wait and I forget what the cool down is,

10:12SPEAKERlike five minutes or something right now.

10:14SPEAKER- They can't actually type at will though, if they want.

10:16SPEAKERAnd then I get a notification, so please don't do that.

10:19SPEAKER- I mean, the big thing for me is

10:20SPEAKERI wanted all these questions to be a surprise

10:22SPEAKERfor people who didn't ask them, you know?

10:24SPEAKER- Yeah.

10:25SPEAKER- You don't want the server reading all the questions

10:26SPEAKERbefore the episode comes out.

10:27SPEAKER- No spoilers, bro.

10:28SPEAKER- What's the point of the episode?

10:30SPEAKER- Yeah.

10:31SPEAKER- So what's our first void queue?

10:34SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, it's like a,

10:36SPEAKERI like to think of it as a virtual comment box, right?

10:39SPEAKERIt's like, or it's like a mailbox, you know, a postal box.

10:41SPEAKERYou drop your, you drop the thing in the slot

10:44SPEAKERand then you never see it again.

10:45SPEAKER- Yeah, there are definitely some of those.

10:46SPEAKERLike here's somebody clearly screaming into the void

10:48SPEAKERthat just says, "What kind of bear?"

10:51SPEAKER- Some of these, yes, actually having said

10:55SPEAKERthat nobody can read these questions but us,

10:57SPEAKERsome of these are, I'll say,

11:02SPEAKERI'll say that lowering the barrier to entry

11:03SPEAKERfor people who submit questions was a double-edged sword.

11:07SPEAKERPerhaps it was both good and bad.

11:09SPEAKER- Yeah, like at some point, at some point we'll do a,

11:12SPEAKERthese are the bad questions episode.

11:13SPEAKERMaybe we should do a, maybe the patron episode this month

11:15SPEAKERshould be us doing the bad questions

11:18SPEAKERto teach them an important lesson.

11:19SPEAKER- Yes, what kind of bear?

11:21SPEAKER- Yeah, I think that's a response

11:23SPEAKERto a bear versus knight question in fairness.

11:26SPEAKER- Will I be able to get more RAM?

11:29SPEAKER- Probably not.

11:30SPEAKER- Post a fax number, you cowards.

11:32SPEAKER- I mean, I am, I did look at setting up

11:35SPEAKERinternet fax services just to see if anybody

11:38SPEAKERwould actually fax those questions.

11:39SPEAKER- Oh, I never considered that exist.

11:40SPEAKERI'm sure, of course that exists, right?

11:42SPEAKERThey just digitize it, right?

11:43SPEAKERI assume that it never, it never actually hits paper

11:45SPEAKERon your end.

11:46SPEAKER- I don't even think it hits a phone line.

11:47SPEAKERI think it just goes to a PBX

11:49SPEAKERand the PBX just absorbs the thing, yeah.

11:53SPEAKERSo yeah, we'll evaluate setting up a fax line.

11:55SPEAKER- I'm curious about the output of that.

11:57SPEAKERI think it would be a disaster.

11:58SPEAKER- I think they were joking, but I don't oppose this move.

12:02SPEAKER- Look, if it were easy for me to hang

12:05SPEAKERa ham radio antenna on the roof,

12:07SPEAKERI would set up a ham call-in node for the tech pod.

12:12SPEAKER- Do people close enough to ham radio as questions

12:15SPEAKERget special priority?

12:17SPEAKER- Oh, I think I'd pick my favorite call signs probably.

12:20SPEAKER- Okay, that's a good point.

12:22SPEAKERThat's a good one, okay.

12:23SPEAKERAll right, how about we read some actual questions

12:27SPEAKERfrom this Discord?

12:29SPEAKER- Yes.

12:30SPEAKER- How about we start with,

12:36SPEAKERthis question from Don Shingles.

12:39SPEAKERThese will be by and large Discord usernames

12:43SPEAKERthat these questions are coming from.

12:44SPEAKER- Perfect.

12:45SPEAKER- How do you feel about email signatures?

12:47SPEAKERShort, long, extra long?

12:50SPEAKEROver the years, I have reduced mine

12:51SPEAKERfrom damn near my entire resume

12:53SPEAKERto a simple name and occasionally my title.

12:57SPEAKERBrad once talked about his dislike

12:59SPEAKERfor those who keep the Outlook for iOS tag

13:01SPEAKERin their email SIG,

13:02SPEAKERand it has stewed within me for a while now.

13:06SPEAKERI often keep it in to let the recipient know

13:08SPEAKERthat I put such little effort into this email

13:10SPEAKERthat I didn't bother getting to a computer.

13:13SPEAKERThat's like just a weirdly agro or hostile

13:16SPEAKERI feel like for email.

13:18SPEAKER- Well, that depends on who you're emailing with.

13:20SPEAKERI suppose that not everyone that you write emails to

13:24SPEAKERis someone you actually want to be interacting with, right?

13:26SPEAKER- So, I mean, look, I think we all write emails

13:30SPEAKERto people we don't wanna be interacting with.

13:33SPEAKER- Fair.

13:34SPEAKER- Here's, okay, this is a two-part answer, right?

13:37SPEAKERLike, do we need to let people know

13:39SPEAKERthat the contents of this email are confidential

13:42SPEAKERand privileged, and if they sent it to the wrong person,

13:44SPEAKERyou should delete it immediately?

13:45SPEAKER- I mean, there are definitely lawyers at corporations

13:49SPEAKERwho think we do.

13:50SPEAKER- I don't think any of that stuff is legally binding.

13:53SPEAKERIt's just an idle threat, Brad.

13:54SPEAKER- I mean, isn't that most of the legal world?

13:56SPEAKER- Okay, fair, fair, but okay.

13:59SPEAKERSo I used to put my name, my phone number,

14:05SPEAKERmy Twitter handle, and a quote in the email address.

14:09SPEAKER- Oh, no, you did the quote?

14:12SPEAKER- It was a good quote.

14:14SPEAKER- Oh, it was one quote?

14:15SPEAKERIt was not like a rotating?

14:17SPEAKER- Well, I mean, no, it rotated, but okay.

14:19SPEAKERSo it was Douglas Adams.

14:21SPEAKERThe one that I started with was the Douglas Adams.

14:23SPEAKERThe only difference between something that can't fail

14:25SPEAKERand absolutely will fail catastrophically

14:28SPEAKERis that the things that can't fail,

14:31SPEAKERthere's no provision for what happens

14:33SPEAKERwhen they do fail, that one.

14:35SPEAKERI messed up the quote, but anyway.

14:36SPEAKER- I'm sure it was a little more succinct, but sure.

14:38SPEAKER- Yeah.

14:40SPEAKERI feel a lot of shame about this now.

14:43SPEAKER- Okay, I mean, I was waiting

14:45SPEAKERfor some extremely pretentious Renaissance

14:47SPEAKERphilosophers quote or something,

14:49SPEAKERso I think you're doing better than I.

14:51SPEAKER- Slightly offended, sir.

14:52SPEAKER- Ah, you know.

14:55SPEAKER- Okay, so the thing about the email signature,

15:00SPEAKERif somebody has taken the time

15:01SPEAKERto find my email address out now, they probably know me.

15:05SPEAKERThey don't need to know my Twitter handle.

15:07SPEAKERI don't want them to know my phone number,

15:08SPEAKER'cause if somebody called,

15:10SPEAKERthe most aggressive thing you can do

15:11SPEAKERto a human being right now is pick up the phone

15:13SPEAKERand call them.

15:15SPEAKER- Agreed.

15:19SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't need that.

15:20SPEAKERNow, on the mobile side, I don't,

15:25SPEAKERI think Adam had this, when I was at Tested,

15:27SPEAKERAdam had this theory that he should leave

15:29SPEAKERthe sent from my phone, like his signature

15:32SPEAKERon his phone was badly thumb typed

15:34SPEAKERfrom my phone or something like that,

15:35SPEAKERto let people know that if he fucked up

15:39SPEAKERand did bad typos, it wasn't 'cause he was an idiot,

15:41SPEAKERit was 'cause the phone was bad.

15:43SPEAKER- That's fair, that's utilitarian.

15:44SPEAKERThat actually has some value.

15:46SPEAKER- Yeah, but then also I feel like maybe

15:48SPEAKERjust don't send the email if you're gonna not proofread it.

15:51SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, who wants to actually write

15:53SPEAKERan entire email with their thumbs?

15:55SPEAKERHonestly.

15:56SPEAKER- I mean, I do it all the time, it turns out.

15:58SPEAKERI'm pretty fast at thumb typing these days.

16:00SPEAKERI can put at least 15, 20 typos per minute

16:03SPEAKERin a good 500 word email.

16:04SPEAKER- That's a pretty good rate.

16:05SPEAKER- Yeah.

16:07SPEAKER- I don't know, my signature over the years

16:08SPEAKERhas winnowed down to, let's see,

16:11SPEAKERI haven't used one at all since I've gone

16:13SPEAKERthrough two email system changes in the last six months.

16:16SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't think I've ever had one on Gmail.

16:18SPEAKER- Like we moved from Gmail to Outlook

16:21SPEAKERand then I've left the company that had the Outlook

16:23SPEAKERand now I'm back on in a different Gmail

16:25SPEAKERand I just haven't bothered to set up a SIG at all.

16:30SPEAKERThe last time I used one, it was like, it was name.

16:32SPEAKERI think I'd, yeah, I think I'd take the phone number out.

16:34SPEAKERI think it was like, I think it was like name, company name,

16:38SPEAKERemail address, mailing address, all on one line.

16:42SPEAKER- Well.

16:43SPEAKER- Like separated with pipes, but I had,

16:45SPEAKERbut I needed to put a mailing address out there

16:46SPEAKER'cause we got sent products for review

16:48SPEAKERand it was useful for companies to just pull that from there

16:53SPEAKERand not have to ask for it, but.

16:57SPEAKER- The thing that, it's funny, the thing that changed,

17:00SPEAKERso one of the things that's changed over the last 15 years

17:02SPEAKERis I don't get cold called on email as much anymore

17:06SPEAKERas I do on Twitter.

17:07SPEAKER- Really?

17:08SPEAKER- My Twitter DMs have been open for years

17:10SPEAKERand as a result, like if people wanna reach me,

17:12SPEAKERthey just usually mash the DM button on Twitter

17:15SPEAKERand their filtering is pretty good

17:17SPEAKERbecause they know if people are like real humans

17:20SPEAKERbetter than I think email clients do at this point.

17:24SPEAKERThe, and also I'm on so fucking many terrible mailing lists

17:28SPEAKERthat email is useless.

17:29SPEAKER- Yeah.

17:30SPEAKER- Do you do a flourish on,

17:31SPEAKERyou don't do a flourish on your email.

17:32SPEAKERYou don't, like I do three slashes, three forward slashes.

17:35SPEAKER- I've noticed that, the rare occasion

17:37SPEAKERthat we're both on an email together,

17:38SPEAKERI've seen you do that and I thought it was quite stylish

17:40SPEAKERactually.

17:41SPEAKER- Thank you.

17:42SPEAKER- I don't know where it came from exactly, but.

17:44SPEAKER- My first boss out of college did that

17:47SPEAKERand I was like, man, that is cool.

17:48SPEAKERIt's like, it's like old Unix end of line.

17:50SPEAKER- Yes, that's literally what it looked like to me.

17:52SPEAKERIt was like, I bet this is some like seventies teletype

17:55SPEAKERthing that is held over or something.

17:58SPEAKER- When he quit that job, I immediately started doing it.

18:00SPEAKERI was like, this is cool.

18:01SPEAKER- That's pretty good.

18:02SPEAKERI will not lie, it caught my attention,

18:04SPEAKERbut that's just the kind of person I am.

18:06SPEAKERThat's why we do this podcast.

18:07SPEAKER- Yeah, that's why we do this podcast.

18:09SPEAKER- I, let's see, gosh, I was going to say two things.

18:13SPEAKERI registered a Google voice number at one point.

18:15SPEAKERI don't know if you've done that.

18:16SPEAKER- Yeah, I got one.

18:17SPEAKER- Because there are too many situations,

18:19SPEAKERat least working in media where you have to give somebody

18:21SPEAKERa phone number.

18:22SPEAKER- Yeah.

18:23SPEAKER- To register for things or something like that.

18:24SPEAKERSo like using that.

18:25SPEAKER- Like the DSA, for example.

18:27SPEAKER- Yeah, that's actually the E3 leak is the exact reason

18:30SPEAKERI got that number.

18:33SPEAKERBut 90% of anything that comes into my phone number

18:36SPEAKERat this point is just spam garbage.

18:38SPEAKER- Oh, it's way more than 90%.

18:40SPEAKER- Like I get so many, is it just me?

18:42SPEAKERI get so many text messages for like,

18:45SPEAKERlike I had people soliciting like web design services,

18:48SPEAKERlike political outreach, like porn, spam.

18:51SPEAKERLike it's the flood of, it's bad.

18:55SPEAKER- Do you get the messages in Cantonese that are like,

18:58SPEAKERhey, send us $1000 or we're going to report

19:01SPEAKERyour family members.

19:02SPEAKER- The voicemails?

19:02SPEAKER- The voicemails, yeah.

19:03SPEAKER- Yes, yes, I've gotten quite a few of those.

19:05SPEAKERQuite a few like robot voice claiming to be from the IRS

19:08SPEAKERand stuff like that.

19:08SPEAKER- Yeah, social security administration, all that.

19:10SPEAKERThe phone is--

19:11SPEAKER- It's useless.

19:11SPEAKER- It turns out not securing both ends of the phone network

19:14SPEAKERmaybe was a mistake.

19:14SPEAKER- Who knew?

19:15SPEAKERYeah, and also on the Twitter DM front,

19:18SPEAKERI've never had my DMs open.

19:19SPEAKERSo I guess I don't get, I'm not brave enough for that.

19:22SPEAKER- Look, I turned it on as an experiment ages ago.

19:25SPEAKERI am a middle-aged white guy.

19:27SPEAKERI'm not a woman and I'm not a person of color.

19:28SPEAKERSo my experience is probably wildly different

19:30SPEAKERfrom people that are under attack on the internet

19:33SPEAKERon the reg.

19:34SPEAKER- Sure.

19:36SPEAKER- It's been surprisingly positive for me.

19:38SPEAKERLike they do a real, like they have a two-tier filter thing

19:40SPEAKERthat's like people you follow and people who follow you

19:44SPEAKERand people who like have, are verified

19:47SPEAKERor have lots of followers or whatever,

19:49SPEAKERlike get bumped to the top of this first tier queue.

19:53SPEAKERAnd then there's the, here's the teenagers adding Will Smith

19:57SPEAKERto threads for Lowell's queue.

19:59SPEAKERAnd then there's one even below that that's like,

20:02SPEAKERhey, these might be actively malicious.

20:04SPEAKERSo probably be careful in here.

20:06SPEAKER- Sure.

20:07SPEAKER- And that's where all like the scammers

20:07SPEAKERand spammers go.

20:08SPEAKER- Okay, that's not bad.

20:09SPEAKERThat's more filtering than I expected.

20:11SPEAKERI will say, like I said, my DMs aren't open.

20:14SPEAKERSo I never get solicitations except for this very morning.

20:18SPEAKER- What?

20:19SPEAKER- Not more than about an hour and 10 minutes ago.

20:23SPEAKERI got it, excuse me.

20:27SPEAKEREarly morning recording again.

20:29SPEAKERWe got the frogs hanging around.

20:31SPEAKERI got a DM from the Iron Sheik.

20:34SPEAKER- Oh.

20:35SPEAKER- You know, the one.

20:37SPEAKER- The wrestler?

20:38SPEAKER- The star of the ring.

20:39SPEAKERYes, the '80s wrestler, the Iron Sheik

20:41SPEAKERwho I follow on Twitter.

20:43SPEAKER- This is a real, real,

20:44SPEAKERI thought that was a character account.

20:45SPEAKERI didn't realize it was a real account.

20:46SPEAKER- It's him.

20:48SPEAKERHere's this DM.

20:51SPEAKERSorry for putting the Iron Sheik's manager on blast.

20:54SPEAKERI'm not gonna say their name.

20:55SPEAKER- You don't.

20:56SPEAKER- Whatever, you know, I'm not gonna read the,

20:57SPEAKERthey were asking about co-marketing kind of stuff.

21:02SPEAKERI'm guessing it's just,

21:03SPEAKERI'm guessing it's just that I have

21:04SPEAKERa certain follower threshold

21:05SPEAKERand I'm verified to the point that it got them

21:08SPEAKERsending me a message, but they.

21:10SPEAKER- You also have a certain je ne sais quoi

21:12SPEAKERin the wrestling scene due to past associations.

21:15SPEAKER- I mean, with association, yes.

21:17SPEAKERI don't know a damn thing about wrestling.

21:18SPEAKER- You're wrestling adjacent.

21:19SPEAKER- Outside of osmosis, there are people I know

21:21SPEAKERwho are much more wrestling appropriate than me.

21:24SPEAKERThey did, I will say they did start this DM

21:26SPEAKERby calling me Brother Brad, which is very Iron Sheik.

21:29SPEAKER- Oh man.

21:30SPEAKEROkay, okay.

21:32SPEAKER- It got my attention.

21:33SPEAKER- Look, I'm gonna tell you, like,

21:36SPEAKERsometimes people reach out to me

21:37SPEAKERabout things I've posted about on Twitter

21:39SPEAKERand sometimes they're nice even.

21:40SPEAKERIt's not often, but sometimes.

21:43SPEAKER- Yeah.

21:46SPEAKERNext message, next question, next cue.

21:48SPEAKER- During those cues and days.

21:49SPEAKER- Oh man, maybe we should find another letter besides cue.

21:52SPEAKERI don't know.

21:52SPEAKER- Oh yeah, cue's probably bad.

21:54SPEAKER- It's a bit fraught these days.

21:55SPEAKER- Here's missives from the void, Brad.

21:56SPEAKER- Yes, missives from the void, that's a good one.

21:58SPEAKER- Here's another missive from the void.

21:59SPEAKER- I like that, that's good.

22:01SPEAKERThat's mysterious.

22:02SPEAKER- We can rename the channel to the question void.

22:05SPEAKER- Yeah. - Okay.

22:07SPEAKER- All right, here's a question from Lyra Nix.

22:11SPEAKERAm I expecting too much for,

22:13SPEAKERor to expect video conferencing to be better in 2021?

22:16SPEAKERIt's like almost all of the way there in some regards,

22:19SPEAKERbut also still feels so archaic in others.

22:22SPEAKERShould it be better or is this a product of good enough

22:25SPEAKERbeing good enough?

22:31SPEAKERI can tell you, I think between the two of us,

22:33SPEAKERwe have probably tried basically every video conferencing

22:37SPEAKERsolution on the market at this point.

22:39SPEAKER- I use them all on a weekly, like I use Zoom,

22:42SPEAKERI use Teams every day, both of those.

22:45SPEAKERWe use Jitsi once a week, I use Discord all the time.

22:48SPEAKER- I was going to say, how many can we name?

22:51SPEAKER- We used Skype yesterday, Wednesday for a little bit.

22:53SPEAKER- We tried out Skype a little bit.

22:54SPEAKER- Still sucks.

22:56SPEAKER- Yeah, like I don't want to go off on a tangent.

22:59SPEAKERSkype has one feature that nobody else has that is amazing.

23:02SPEAKERAnd yet the core functionality, the audio quality

23:05SPEAKERis terrible, so that feature is useless.

23:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

23:08SPEAKER- I don't know how they like,

23:09SPEAKERhow is your audio quality bad in 2021?

23:11SPEAKERLike that's, to answer, to touch on her question,

23:16SPEAKERlike the Skype audio is not good enough.

23:19SPEAKERIt's not even good enough.

23:20SPEAKERIt's like, it's bad enough that you notice it

23:22SPEAKERwhen you're a phone call with somebody.

23:24SPEAKER- Right, like we used it for one stream a few months ago

23:26SPEAKERand people like revolted instantly in the live chat.

23:29SPEAKERThey were like, this audio is terrible, you can't do this.

23:30SPEAKERLike, what are you doing?

23:31SPEAKER- Well, and like the thing about the audio,

23:35SPEAKERalso the Skype NDI implementation is only okay

23:38SPEAKERif you can figure out how to get Skype

23:40SPEAKERto not resize the windows on you dynamically,

23:42SPEAKER'cause then it changes your window,

23:44SPEAKERyour resolution that you're getting.

23:45SPEAKERAnyway.

23:46SPEAKER- We should clarify real quick,

23:47SPEAKERthat is the sort of killer feature that Skype has

23:50SPEAKERthat nobody else has,

23:51SPEAKERis that it can output each caller's window as an NDI feed.

23:55SPEAKER- Video and audio.

23:56SPEAKER- Yes, yes.

23:57SPEAKERWhich you can then take into OBS as a source,

24:01SPEAKERindependent of like every other one out there,

24:03SPEAKERyou just have to like window capture the window

24:05SPEAKERand then that comes with a whole set of its own problems.

24:07SPEAKER- Yeah, that literally means that you're like,

24:09SPEAKERyou're grabbing the window

24:11SPEAKERand then you're putting a frame around the part of the window

24:13SPEAKERthat you want with the person's head on it

24:15SPEAKERand you don't get independent audio feeds

24:17SPEAKER'cause you can't adjust levels independently,

24:19SPEAKERwhich is a pain in the butt.

24:20SPEAKER- So there's that,

24:21SPEAKERthere's if you accidentally mouse over it,

24:22SPEAKERyou get like, you might get the URL

24:24SPEAKERfor the video call showing up on your stream

24:25SPEAKERor like sometimes OBS will just black out the window capture

24:28SPEAKERor if you accidentally resize the window or minimize it,

24:33SPEAKERyou just lose your framing.

24:34SPEAKERIt's bad.

24:35SPEAKER- Or if somebody leaves the call.

24:36SPEAKER- Yes, it rearranges everything.

24:38SPEAKERIt breaks all your cropping.

24:39SPEAKERThere are no good solutions

24:41SPEAKERfor getting video callers into OBS,

24:44SPEAKERunless you're using vMix call.

24:45SPEAKERBut anyway, I think she kind of hit the nail on the head

24:50SPEAKERas far as I can tell.

24:51SPEAKERI think that most people don't care

24:55SPEAKERas long as they can communicate

24:56SPEAKERin close to real time with people.

24:57SPEAKERThey don't really care that much how it looks.

24:59SPEAKER- So from my rarefied position with a enormous computer

25:03SPEAKERand like good lighting and a real camera

25:06SPEAKERand super fast internet,

25:10SPEAKERI would say Zoom's pretty good.

25:12SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean tech-wise, you mean on the backend?

25:14SPEAKER- Like in terms of video quality

25:15SPEAKERand like how they do a blurring

25:17SPEAKERand cropping out the background.

25:18SPEAKERI mean, I have a green screen so that it helps,

25:20SPEAKERlike it knows what to do with that.

25:21SPEAKER- Yeah.

25:23SPEAKER- And I get better green screen on Zoom

25:25SPEAKERthan like I do on OBS often.

25:29SPEAKERThe video quality is pretty crisp.

25:32SPEAKERIt lets you turn off the audio filtering stuff

25:34SPEAKERif you wanna do music or something weird

25:36SPEAKERor you're doing actual audio mastery on your end

25:38SPEAKERand you don't have to have like them noise gating you

25:40SPEAKERand stuff like that.

25:43SPEAKERI feel like it's pretty good.

25:44SPEAKERI feel like Discord audio is really good.

25:45SPEAKERDiscord video is a little all over the place.

25:48SPEAKERThe latency on all of these isn't great.

25:50SPEAKERLike it's funny, I literally had a conversation

25:56SPEAKERwith CableLabs like 10 years ago-ish now, five years ago,

26:00SPEAKERwhere they were like, hey, what do you care about

26:02SPEAKERas a power user in terms of network performance?

26:04SPEAKERI was like, I care about latency.

26:06SPEAKERLike I had 250 megabit internet at that point, it was fine.

26:10SPEAKERI needed upstream and I needed better latency.

26:12SPEAKERAnd then they just rolled out the,

26:13SPEAKERhey, we're gonna reduce the 60 milliseconds of latency

26:16SPEAKERthat every cable modem gives you.

26:19SPEAKERIt doesn't report across the DOCSIS network a few months ago

26:23SPEAKERand the providers are rolling that out now.

26:26SPEAKERThis isn't my fault.

26:27SPEAKERI mean, I'm sure I was one of 50 people

26:28SPEAKERthat told them when they talked about this.

26:30SPEAKERBut like the video being on fiber

26:37SPEAKERgives you a different appreciation for latency than you get.

26:39SPEAKERLike we're using a Jitsi call right now to record this

26:42SPEAKERand our latency is going to be dramatically better

26:44SPEAKERbecause we're both on fiber than if one of us was on cable.

26:46SPEAKER- Yes, and we're both, we're what, eight to 10 miles apart.

26:50SPEAKER- We can run a fiber.

26:53SPEAKER- So I get back into that.

26:54SPEAKER- We can set up a microwave node, point to point.

26:56SPEAKERI think I have line of sight almost to you probably.

26:59SPEAKERI need to get a repeater.

27:00SPEAKER- To be fair, we care about latency way more

27:02SPEAKERthan people who just want to play video games

27:04SPEAKERand talk to people over the internet

27:05SPEAKER'cause we're actually trying to record conversations

27:07SPEAKERand put them out as content.

27:09SPEAKER- And not have to edit out all the pauses and talkovers.

27:12SPEAKER- Yes, talking over people is a real problem

27:15SPEAKERin this scenario, but we do our best.

27:18SPEAKER- Yeah.

27:20SPEAKER- Let's see, question from doomed somehow.

27:25SPEAKERHow is BIOS pronounced?

27:26SPEAKERI mean, I've already given--

27:27SPEAKER- Well, that answers that question.

27:29SPEAKER- I've given away my answer right there.

27:31SPEAKERBIOS or BIOS?

27:33SPEAKERI'm sorry for being an old man, but I have my preferences

27:36SPEAKERwhich will go undefined so as not to impact the results.

27:40SPEAKERI feel like this might be generational,

27:42SPEAKERbut sometimes it seems geographical.

27:45SPEAKER- I, it's basic input output system, right?

27:49SPEAKER- Yes.

27:50SPEAKER- I always assumed it was operating system

27:52SPEAKERwhen I was young, so I said, OS, BIOS.

27:54SPEAKER- Wait, I'm sorry, you said BIOS?

27:58SPEAKER- BIOS.

27:59SPEAKER- For a second, I thought you were saying

28:00SPEAKERthat you said BIOS.

28:01SPEAKER- No, no, no, no, I'm saying I thought it was short

28:04SPEAKERfor operating system, so I said it the same way I said OS.

28:06SPEAKER- I see, I see.

28:07SPEAKER- BIOS.

28:08SPEAKER- BIOS.

28:08SPEAKER- I've never heard anything but BIOS, I don't think,

28:11SPEAKERwhich kind of makes me wonder if he's got a point

28:13SPEAKERabout it being geographical, if he's heard BIOS.

28:16SPEAKERThe thing this made me think of though is BIOS, CMOS.

28:23SPEAKER- Silicon metal oxide semiconductor?

28:25SPEAKER- Complimentary metal oxide semiconductor.

28:27SPEAKERIt's the--

28:27SPEAKER- Oh yeah, silicon starts with an S.

28:29SPEAKER- It does, it does.

28:31SPEAKERI can confirm, I can confirm that silicon starts with,

28:34SPEAKERsilicon, let's not just get off

28:36SPEAKERon a giant pronunciation tangent.

28:38SPEAKERDo you say, you say silicon, not silicon?

28:40SPEAKER- Silicon.

28:41SPEAKER- Okay.

28:42SPEAKER- I was a chemistry major for a long time.

28:43SPEAKER- I do the same thing, but I always feel self-conscious

28:45SPEAKERabout it and I don't know why.

28:47SPEAKER- 'Cause we're from the south.

28:47SPEAKERI always worry about my pronunciation

28:49SPEAKER'cause I'm from the south.

28:50SPEAKER- Is that what it is?

28:51SPEAKER- So when people gave me shit for saying executable

28:53SPEAKERthe wrong way for like 12 years,

28:54SPEAKERdidn't wear my ass out at all.

28:56SPEAKER- I mean, all I get is shit for making an H sound after a W

29:01SPEAKERas in while, when that's just how everybody talks

29:05SPEAKERwhere I grew up, thank you.

29:06SPEAKER- Yeah, that's a North Carolina thing, huh?

29:08SPEAKER- Gee, imagine regional variations.

29:11SPEAKER- See in North Carolina, you guys add consonants.

29:14SPEAKERIn Tennessee, we just don't use them.

29:15SPEAKERIt's just all vowels.

29:16SPEAKER- Wait, are you just gonna continue subdividing?

29:18SPEAKER- While.

29:19SPEAKER- Cultural.

29:20SPEAKER- There's no H in while.

29:22SPEAKER- You're just gonna continue subdividing cultural regions

29:24SPEAKERnow, I thought we were in this together,

29:27SPEAKERbut apparently it is Tennessee versus North Carolina even.

29:29SPEAKER- No, no, no, no, I'm just saying,

29:31SPEAKERwe all have our weird quirks.

29:32SPEAKERDid you ever do that New York Times quiz

29:34SPEAKERwhere they asked, they did the regional dialect

29:38SPEAKERand pronunciation differences and like you,

29:41SPEAKERthey asked you a bunch of questions

29:42SPEAKERabout how you say specific words

29:44SPEAKERand they can tell you like where your family's from

29:45SPEAKERas a result.

29:46SPEAKER- I wanna look that up though.

29:47SPEAKER- Oh, it's very good.

29:48SPEAKER- That sounds fun.

29:49SPEAKER- Yeah, it turns out I spent a lot of time

29:52SPEAKERin Northern Virginia as a child.

29:53SPEAKERI spent a lot of time in Northeast Tennessee as a child

29:56SPEAKERand it fucking nailed it.

30:00SPEAKER- Okay.

30:01SPEAKER- My favorite is still when ASUS brought three people

30:06SPEAKERto our office for, like they were there for a press brief

30:09SPEAKERbut then they were like, oh, by the way,

30:11SPEAKERwe'd love to meet the staff and they wanted to meet the staff

30:13SPEAKER'cause they wanted to tell us how to pronounce the word,

30:15SPEAKERright, how to pronounce ASUS, right?

30:17SPEAKER- Okay, what year, what era, what year was this like?

30:19SPEAKER- Mid-2000s probably.

30:21SPEAKER- Okay, okay.

30:22SPEAKER- It was probably after we started the podcast with you,

30:24SPEAKERI guess.

30:25SPEAKER- Hmm, okay.

30:26SPEAKER- Before.

30:27SPEAKER- Once they realized people were gonna be mispronouncing

30:28SPEAKERtheir company name every week.

30:30SPEAKER- Yeah, 'cause we all said ASUS and it's ASUS.

30:33SPEAKER- ASUS, God, even ASUS, like I'm still,

30:37SPEAKERI'm still not out of ASUS territory 'cause like before--

30:40SPEAKER- Definitely not ASUS.

30:41SPEAKER- Oh, I know that, but like for years and years,

30:43SPEAKERI never heard anybody that would know say it out loud

30:45SPEAKERand it was just ASUS to me.

30:47SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, that's the problem.

30:48SPEAKER- In my mind, it's still that.

30:50SPEAKER- Look, this is an important lesson about making up a word

30:52SPEAKERthat nobody's ever heard before,

30:53SPEAKERcould be the name of your company.

30:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, you know who did it right?

30:56SPEAKERIt was Sony.

30:58SPEAKER- You mean Sony?

31:00SPEAKER- I was just about to say,

31:01SPEAKERI don't think anybody's ever mispronounced Sony before.

31:03SPEAKER- You're welcome.

31:04SPEAKER- That's the like apocrypha I've always read

31:07SPEAKERabout the naming of Sony was they literally made it up

31:09SPEAKERand they just wanted to,

31:10SPEAKERthey wanted to come up with a name

31:11SPEAKERthat could be universally pronounceable in every language.

31:14SPEAKER- Well, wasn't Iowa like their primary competitor

31:17SPEAKERat the time, like in the early '80s?

31:20SPEAKERAnd I don't know how you pronounce that right.

31:22SPEAKER- Iowa, if it's Japanese, I--

31:24SPEAKER- Iowa, A-I-W-A.

31:26SPEAKER- Oh, wait a minute, America.

31:29SPEAKER- Well, I don't need to get into the history of--

31:31SPEAKER- Look, yeah, the acronym is the one,

31:34SPEAKERlike Nvidia, when Nvidia was new,

31:35SPEAKERwe didn't know how to pronounce Nvidia at maximum PC,

31:38SPEAKERwe had to ask. - Really?

31:39SPEAKERWait, how else would you say it?

31:41SPEAKER- Well, it's too many vowels,

31:42SPEAKERtoo many consonants jammed together.

31:43SPEAKER- I know, but how many other pronunciations are there?

31:46SPEAKER- Well, I mean, that's the, like, look,

31:48SPEAKERit could be Invidia.

31:51SPEAKER- Sure.

31:54SPEAKER- Trying to think what some of the other ones were.

31:55SPEAKERThere were a bunch, there were a bunch of really,

31:57SPEAKERthe, I mean, radion is easy to pronounce.

32:02SPEAKER- Yeah, G4s.

32:04SPEAKER- Yeah, anyway.

32:05SPEAKER- The styling on Nvidia has always bugged me.

32:07SPEAKERLike, thankfully, I never really covered hardware enough

32:10SPEAKERto have to write it in articles.

32:12SPEAKER- They've gone all over the place,

32:13SPEAKERbut they used to be lowercase N, capital V-I-D-I-A,

32:16SPEAKERand it was all caps, and then it was like--

32:18SPEAKER- Like, I remember those lowercase N days,

32:20SPEAKERlike, remember the N-Force chipset?

32:21SPEAKER- Yeah, it was a great chipset, except for the caps.

32:24SPEAKER- Like, especially when you've worked at an outlet

32:26SPEAKERthat had very rigorous editorial standards

32:28SPEAKERaround styling and formatting and, like, you know,

32:31SPEAKERinter-capping was forbidden and stuff like that.

32:33SPEAKER- Oh, so our standard at Max PC was AP style,

32:36SPEAKERwhich is, unless it was an acronym,

32:38SPEAKERit didn't get full caps.

32:40SPEAKER- Yeah. - Nothing got full caps.

32:41SPEAKER- I think we were AP at GameSpot as well, I forget.

32:46SPEAKER- I had multiple, I had multiple conversations with vendors

32:49SPEAKERwhose names we wouldn't capitalize

32:50SPEAKERbecause they weren't acronyms.

32:52SPEAKERI wanna say I asked ATI what ATI stood for,

32:55SPEAKERand at that point, their official policy was

32:57SPEAKERit didn't stand for anything,

32:58SPEAKEReven though it started as Advanced Technologies Incorporated

33:00SPEAKERor something like that. - Oh, it did, interesting.

33:02SPEAKER- Yeah, LG, we ended up,

33:05SPEAKERthat's how I knew that LG is Lucky Gold Star.

33:07SPEAKER- Yes. - Yeah.

33:09SPEAKER- Lucky Gold Star, indeed. - Yeah, Lucky Gold Star.

33:11SPEAKER- A lot of people think it's life's good these days

33:13SPEAKER'cause that's been their tagline for a long time.

33:15SPEAKER- That's what they want you to believe, man.

33:16SPEAKER- Yeah, nope, nope, nope.

33:18SPEAKERThose of us who had a janky 13-inch LG TV in the '80s,

33:22SPEAKERknow for real the value of the Lucky Gold Star.

33:27SPEAKER- Look, I like the Lucky Gold Star.

33:29SPEAKER- Okay, how about, question from Sergeant Mustang.

33:36SPEAKERIs there a particular computer or supporting technology

33:39SPEAKERfrom before the era of modern

33:41SPEAKERintegrated circuit-based computers?

33:43SPEAKERHe's talking about before the era of,

33:45SPEAKERbefore the era of the Apple II and the Commodore, et cetera,

33:48SPEAKERor I guess the Altair even.

33:50SPEAKERThe Altair technically had a microprocessor.

33:52SPEAKER- Yeah, it's an integrated circuit.

33:54SPEAKER- That you have a fascination with?

33:56SPEAKERFor example, for example, relay-based computers,

34:00SPEAKERwartime decoding machines like the,

34:02SPEAKERI'm not sure, the Bomba, B-O-M-B-E?

34:05SPEAKERI'm not sure. - Bomba.

34:06SPEAKER- Okay, I'm not sure. - I don't know how you say that.

34:07SPEAKERI'm just making that up.

34:08SPEAKER- Or delay-line memory?

34:10SPEAKERI don't know what relay-based computers

34:11SPEAKERor delay-line memory even are.

34:13SPEAKER- Relay-based computers would be tube-based stuff, right?

34:17SPEAKERI don't know.

34:18SPEAKERI just typed delay hyphen into Google,

34:21SPEAKERand delay-line memory is the second suggestion

34:24SPEAKERafter delay-tolerant networking,

34:25SPEAKERso I guess it's fairly common.

34:27SPEAKER- Is delay-line memory the stuff that's like all,

34:29SPEAKERit looks like woven,

34:31SPEAKERit looks like woven strands with wires attached

34:34SPEAKERto the strands?

34:35SPEAKER- I think you might be right.

34:36SPEAKERAccording to this Wikipedia page,

34:38SPEAKERit looks like it was used in the UNIVAC 1,

34:40SPEAKERI can tell you that.

34:41SPEAKER- Yeah, so, okay, so on the mechanical calculator front,

34:47SPEAKERlike the Curtis and stuff like that,

34:48SPEAKERmy grandfather was really into mechanical adding machines,

34:51SPEAKERso I got to play with them and help him take them apart

34:54SPEAKERand put them together a lot when I was a kid,

34:56SPEAKERas much as, more than I wanted, frankly.

34:59SPEAKERSo I'm probably good there.

35:00SPEAKERThe Curtis, I hadn't been exposed to Curtis in person

35:03SPEAKERuntil I started working at Tested,

35:04SPEAKERand Adam has a pretty good collection of those,

35:06SPEAKERand they're rad.

35:07SPEAKER- How do you spell that?

35:08SPEAKER- C-U-R-T-A.

35:09SPEAKERThey're these cylindrical, they look like they're like--

35:12SPEAKER- Oh yeah, look at that.

35:13SPEAKER- Like the size of a fat flashlight,

35:14SPEAKERand you basically could do different levels of precision

35:18SPEAKERdepending on how big it was,

35:20SPEAKERby rotating and twisting the knob,

35:22SPEAKERso it's kind of like a mechanical slide rule almost,

35:24SPEAKERbut with more, it's faster.

35:26SPEAKEROnce you get good at it, you can be really fast.

35:29SPEAKERMy grandmother worked for the Department of Defense

35:32SPEAKERon early ARPANET and pre-computing.

35:35SPEAKER- I did not know that.

35:36SPEAKER- Yeah, so she was English, and she was a shopkeeper,

35:43SPEAKERso she could do base eight math conversions

35:45SPEAKERin her head really fast,

35:46SPEAKERbecause the English currency system

35:48SPEAKERprior to the changeover in the '70s

35:50SPEAKERwas base eight and base six, I think,

35:52SPEAKERdepending on which denominations you were dealing with.

35:56SPEAKER- Boy, that's a lot.

35:58SPEAKER- And she was able to do it really fast,

36:00SPEAKERso she was a computer for,

36:04SPEAKERshe started out working as a clerk,

36:07SPEAKERand then they realized she was good at math,

36:09SPEAKERand she ended up doing math professionally

36:11SPEAKERduring World War II for the Army in the UK.

36:13SPEAKER- Yeah, that's wild.

36:14SPEAKER- And then came over here, and after the kids were born,

36:16SPEAKERshe went to work at the DOD doing the same thing,

36:20SPEAKERand she worked on punch card computers

36:22SPEAKERand vacuum tube and switch and that kind of stuff.

36:27SPEAKERShe was there, she said she was there when they connected,

36:32SPEAKERshe was in the room when they connected Carnegie Mellon,

36:35SPEAKERI think, and Stanford to the network.

36:38SPEAKER- The ARPANETs, like 300 BOD modems at the time.

36:41SPEAKER- Wow.

36:42SPEAKER- Which would have been pre-ARPANET, I believe,

36:44SPEAKERbut I don't know for sure. - Oh, no kidding.

36:46SPEAKERI mean, I guess, God, we should do an episode

36:48SPEAKERabout the ARPANET.

36:49SPEAKER- There's not a lot of, like--

36:50SPEAKER- I mean, I don't know how much was--

36:51SPEAKER- I need to find the book.

36:52SPEAKERThere's gotta be somebody-- - I don't know how much

36:53SPEAKERwas classified or if it's actually hard

36:55SPEAKERto come and buy information about it,

36:56SPEAKERI would assume at this point it's like fairly open.

36:59SPEAKER- You had to,

37:03SPEAKERI've never found a good book about that stuff.

37:05SPEAKERI've looked for it off and on over the years.

37:06SPEAKERI talked to Mary Robinette Kowal,

37:09SPEAKERwho writes historical fiction in that time period,

37:12SPEAKERmostly about NASA stuff, about this years ago,

37:16SPEAKERand she had recommended a couple of things,

37:19SPEAKERbut they're more about the NASA side

37:20SPEAKERand how they were using early computing

37:23SPEAKERand human computers to do this.

37:27SPEAKERAs she said, in the '40s and '50s,

37:30SPEAKERif you were good at math and you were a man,

37:32SPEAKERyou became an engineer.

37:33SPEAKERIf you were good at math and you were a woman,

37:34SPEAKERyou became a computer, which was basically

37:37SPEAKERa person who did math professionally.

37:39SPEAKER- Yes, not in a derogatory sense,

37:41SPEAKERbut in a pre-personal computer era

37:44SPEAKERwhen computer meant a lot of things, right?

37:46SPEAKER- We did, including-- - Computer literally meant

37:48SPEAKERone who computes. - Yeah, a person who computes.

37:50SPEAKER- Yeah, so for example, if you've ever watched,

37:56SPEAKERif you watched Apollo 13 or something like that,

37:58SPEAKERat some point, Ed Harris is like,

38:00SPEAKER"Get me the numbers on these orbital burns,"

38:01SPEAKERor something like that, and that literally

38:03SPEAKERwould have been somebody taking where they are,

38:06SPEAKERthe sextant shots and all that stuff

38:08SPEAKERthat the astronauts were using to figure out

38:09SPEAKERexactly their position in space, and the time,

38:12SPEAKERand taking it over to a room full of women

38:15SPEAKERwho would all run the math on the calculations,

38:18SPEAKERand then they would take the ones that agreed

38:19SPEAKERand use that as the math, as the number.

38:22SPEAKER- Yeah. - Bonkers.

38:24SPEAKERThe movie Hidden Figures,

38:25SPEAKERthe book Hidden Figures is about computers.

38:29SPEAKER- Yeah, I assume a lot of people listening to this

38:31SPEAKERknow this already, but the ARPANET is the predecessor

38:34SPEAKERof the internet, which was developed by the government,

38:37SPEAKERand for that reason, yeah, maybe it was kind of hard to--

38:41SPEAKER- I would assume it's all declassified now.

38:43SPEAKERI just don't know if anybody's written the book yet.

38:44SPEAKER- I mean, we're, let's see.

38:46SPEAKER- I'm sure that-- - Project started in 1966,

38:49SPEAKERso the declassification, I usually feel like,

38:52SPEAKERis a 50 to 75-year process for a lot of stuff, right?

38:55SPEAKER- Starts at 20, I think, but yeah, maybe 25.

38:58SPEAKER- More on average, anything that is tied up in defense

39:01SPEAKERusually takes a while.

39:02SPEAKER- Well, so the stuff that she worked on would have been,

39:05SPEAKERmy aunt is, would have been like 50,

39:10SPEAKERwould have been like 60 to 65 is when she started,

39:13SPEAKERand then she was there until like 1981, I think,

39:16SPEAKERis when she retired.

39:18SPEAKER- Man, this is fascinating.

39:20SPEAKER- Yeah, it was interesting.

39:21SPEAKERI wish I had known,

39:24SPEAKERshe was always really fascinated by computers.

39:26SPEAKERLike when we had a TI, she couldn't type

39:30SPEAKERbecause she, you know, she was using punch cards

39:32SPEAKERand physical switches for a long time to do the work.

39:37SPEAKERBut she eventually bought a, she bought a 486

39:41SPEAKERand I taught her how to use it.

39:42SPEAKERAnd she was like, this is amazing,

39:42SPEAKERjust as the internet was coming on.

39:44SPEAKERAnd I think she was the first person I knew who had DSL.

39:47SPEAKERShe was able to get DSL before anybody else in Bristol

39:51SPEAKERthat I knew of.

39:51SPEAKER- You have a really cool grandma.

39:53SPEAKER- She's a good grandma.

39:56SPEAKER- The only thing I would add to this question,

39:57SPEAKERwhich we kind of got into a little bit,

39:58SPEAKERis he even mentions this here.

40:02SPEAKERI'm pretty fascinated by the World War II era,

40:05SPEAKERmechanical cryptography, stuff like the Enigma machine,

40:07SPEAKERbut not as much from the internal design standpoint

40:10SPEAKERas more so the intrigue around it.

40:14SPEAKERLike the-

40:15SPEAKER- The story.

40:16SPEAKER- Yeah, like that's part of why I liked Cryptonomicon

40:18SPEAKERso much, like getting into the, you know,

40:20SPEAKERthe historical counterfactuals about like, well, shit,

40:23SPEAKERif they hadn't recovered a working Enigma machine

40:25SPEAKERfrom the submarine, I'm kind of making that up.

40:27SPEAKERI don't remember if that's exactly what happened.

40:29SPEAKERI know that like-

40:29SPEAKER- Yeah, they got it from the, it's the U505, I think.

40:32SPEAKER- Oh, did that actually happen?

40:33SPEAKER- It's in Chicago.

40:34SPEAKER- Okay.

40:35SPEAKER- It's a museum now, you can go to it.

40:37SPEAKER- Right, but also like-

40:38SPEAKER- A guy named Admiral Gallery captured his boat,

40:40SPEAKERcaptured it.

40:41SPEAKER- Okay, I mean, there's like, there's so much cryptography

40:43SPEAKERfrom that era about, you know, radio intercepts

40:45SPEAKERand cracking codes to figure out enemy movements

40:47SPEAKERand stuff like that.

40:49SPEAKERObviously, like Bletchley Park was big

40:52SPEAKERin cracking the Enigma.

40:53SPEAKERI think Poland, elements in Poland

40:56SPEAKERwere pretty heavily involved in that stuff too.

40:58SPEAKERBut anyway, like it's not so much the kind

41:01SPEAKERof electromechanical aspect of that stuff

41:04SPEAKERas it is the sort of historical context around it

41:07SPEAKERand what happened with it and it being an asset

41:09SPEAKERthat you could like both like physically recover

41:13SPEAKERand also sort of defeat in the abstract

41:15SPEAKERand how that may have influenced history.

41:17SPEAKER- It's interesting because, well,

41:19SPEAKERso there was a good Kickstarter a few years ago,

41:21SPEAKERsome people who made a mechanical replica

41:23SPEAKERof the Enigma machine.

41:24SPEAKERSo if you wanted one, they're out there now.

41:29SPEAKERBut like that and radar, it turns out math

41:32SPEAKERwas one of the things that won World War II.

41:34SPEAKER- Right.

41:35SPEAKER- Because like without radar,

41:37SPEAKERa whole swath of the world would have gone differently

41:39SPEAKERand yeah, like figuring out how to break

41:41SPEAKERthe Enigma encryption and then like knowing,

41:44SPEAKERlike the other part of that that always fascinated me

41:46SPEAKERis that they had to know not when not to use it.

41:50SPEAKERLike I can't imagine like knowing that your forces

41:55SPEAKERare gonna get a massive attack

41:56SPEAKERand the only way you could know about

41:57SPEAKERis if you'd cracked their encryptions,

41:59SPEAKERyou couldn't actually warn anybody in advance.

42:01SPEAKER- Right.

42:02SPEAKER- And like the human cost of that is kind of heartbreaking.

42:06SPEAKER- Yeah, the kind of gamesmanship there of like knowing things

42:09SPEAKERbut not being able to let them know that you know.

42:12SPEAKER- Yeah. - That's a lot.

42:13SPEAKER- I was always really fascinated by the post,

42:16SPEAKERby the kind of post, like the '90s IC stuff

42:20SPEAKERthat was unattainable at the time,

42:22SPEAKERlike Next and SGI machines and stuff like that

42:24SPEAKERuntil I had to work on them and then less enthusiastic,

42:28SPEAKERI'm gonna say.

42:29SPEAKER- I guess I could see that.

42:30SPEAKERI mean, everything loses its mystique

42:31SPEAKERwhen you have to do it for a job, right?

42:32SPEAKER- Yep.

42:33SPEAKER- To be fair, I had thankfully maintained enough distance

42:36SPEAKERfrom that stuff to maintain my fascination with it.

42:39SPEAKERSo now it's all just museum equipment basically.

42:43SPEAKER- Yeah.

42:45SPEAKER- Let's see here.

42:47SPEAKERHow about, I don't know if you have an answer

42:52SPEAKERfor this or not.

42:53SPEAKERWe didn't really talk about it too much before this

42:55SPEAKERfrom Roland Stazak about battery management.

43:00SPEAKER- Oh.

43:01SPEAKER- You wanna take this one?

43:02SPEAKER- Yeah, we can take this one.

43:03SPEAKER- Okay.

43:04SPEAKERYou've discussed before how you don't want

43:06SPEAKERrechargeable batteries and devices to drain all the way

43:08SPEAKERbecause it's not, and I'm sorry,

43:10SPEAKERand that it's not good to have them charged constantly

43:12SPEAKEReither, he's talking about preserving the lifespan

43:15SPEAKERof your battery.

43:16SPEAKER- Yeah.

43:17SPEAKER- What do you do with a device

43:18SPEAKERthat has a rechargeable battery in it,

43:20SPEAKERbut that you use very rarely?

43:22SPEAKERFor example, I have some backup Bluetooth earbuds

43:24SPEAKERthat I never use, but keep just in case

43:25SPEAKERI lose my current ones.

43:27SPEAKERIs it safe to stick them in a drawer somewhere

43:29SPEAKEReven for a few months?

43:30SPEAKEROr is it better to have them permanently plugged into power?

43:34SPEAKERI don't need to do the 100% optimal charging strategy,

43:36SPEAKERbut I don't want them to become completely useless either.

43:40SPEAKER- So generally speaking,

43:43SPEAKERyou don't want to leave stuff plugged in all the time.

43:45SPEAKERMost things now are smart enough to know

43:48SPEAKERnot to continue dumping electricity.

43:50SPEAKERMost things with a lithium ion or lithium polymer battery,

43:54SPEAKERyou're gonna know not to keep charging.

43:55SPEAKERYou have to put, there has to be some charging logic there

43:58SPEAKERor else you'll destroy the battery in no time.

44:00SPEAKER- I mean, do you think that, does that even apply to,

44:01SPEAKERI've got a couple of pairs of very cheap

44:04SPEAKERlike $30 Bluetooth earbuds.

44:07SPEAKERDo you think even at that commodity level--

44:09SPEAKER- What's the battery life on those?

44:11SPEAKERLike eight hours? - Gosh, I would have

44:12SPEAKERto guesstimate, yeah, I would guesstimate

44:14SPEAKERsomething like eight.

44:15SPEAKER- They'll have, like, there has to be charging logic

44:19SPEAKERto balance the cells and all that stuff.

44:21SPEAKERIt may be bad. - Yeah, but there's something.

44:25SPEAKER- So the place that you find batteries

44:27SPEAKERthat don't have charging logic is like in drones.

44:30SPEAKERThose batteries are usually just naked chemical cells

44:32SPEAKERand then the charging logic lives in the charger.

44:35SPEAKERBut on something that's integrated and is not removable,

44:38SPEAKERand that is specifically because you don't,

44:42SPEAKERyou don't wanna have to, like, it doesn't make sense to,

44:46SPEAKERlike, on something that you might have 10 batteries for,

44:48SPEAKERit doesn't make sense to put the logic on 10 batteries.

44:51SPEAKERIt makes sense to put the logic,

44:52SPEAKERbuild the logic once and put it on the charger.

44:54SPEAKER- Yes, yes.

44:56SPEAKER- The official, as most recently as I looked,

45:02SPEAKERguidance on how to make your batteries last in storage

45:05SPEAKERis to make sure the device is all the way off.

45:08SPEAKERIf you can't turn it all the way off, charge it to 50%.

45:13SPEAKERSomewhere between 20 and 80% is kind of

45:15SPEAKERwhat you're looking for, but 50 is the safe spot.

45:17SPEAKERYou can always, if you think it's gonna be in

45:19SPEAKERfor a really long time, charge it to 70 or 80

45:21SPEAKERand then it'll trickle down over a long period of time

45:23SPEAKERif you can't turn it all the way off.

45:25SPEAKERMost of my audio devices, like wireless earbuds

45:29SPEAKERand stuff like that, you can't actually turn

45:30SPEAKERall the way off.

45:33SPEAKERThe good ones, when they go below 20%,

45:36SPEAKERwill just turn all the way off themselves

45:37SPEAKERand then you'll have to do a long press

45:38SPEAKERor charge them to turn them back on or something like that.

45:41SPEAKERBut yeah, I don't know, I have an Apple Pencil

45:45SPEAKERthat I killed because I let it discharge all the way.

45:49SPEAKER- No kidding.

45:49SPEAKER- Yeah, it was a freebie I got at a conference,

45:52SPEAKERwhich is a weird thing to give as a freebie

45:53SPEAKERwhen you don't have an Apple Pencil,

45:54SPEAKERbut then I finally got an iPad that supported

45:56SPEAKERthe Apple Pencil and I was like, well shit,

45:58SPEAKERthis doesn't work.

45:59SPEAKER- Killed as in it doesn't hold a charge anymore?

46:01SPEAKER- Killed as in you can't charge it and can't connect it, yeah.

46:03SPEAKER- Jeez.

46:06SPEAKER- I'm not super upset 'cause it was free,

46:07SPEAKERbut also now there's one extra battery

46:10SPEAKERthat's gonna go in a landfill someplace.

46:12SPEAKER- It's e-waste.

46:13SPEAKERThat's really the frustrating thing about this to me

46:15SPEAKERis how small and integrated and unrepairable,

46:18SPEAKERunreplaceable everything is.

46:19SPEAKERSo when these things stop working,

46:22SPEAKERthey just go in a drawer or in the trash, right?

46:24SPEAKERIt's so wasteful and there's not that much

46:27SPEAKERyou can do about it.

46:28SPEAKER- I did see that there's a company that's doing AirPod,

46:33SPEAKER'cause I think AirPods are probably

46:35SPEAKERthe most egregious example of this.

46:40SPEAKERThose batteries, the case battery's relatively easy

46:43SPEAKERto replace by Apple, presumably,

46:46SPEAKERbut the ones in the AirPods themselves are tiny

46:49SPEAKERand are gonna be really hard to replace.

46:51SPEAKERThere's a company that's doing it.

46:54SPEAKERI saw somebody recommend it the other day,

46:57SPEAKER'cause I don't know if you've ever bought AirPods.

47:00SPEAKERMy first gen AirPods are getting a little bit janky now.

47:11SPEAKERYeah, it costs six bucks, I think,

47:14SPEAKERif you do it with Apple.

47:15SPEAKERIf you have AppleCare for our headphones,

47:18SPEAKERa PodSwap is the AirPods battery replacement.

47:22SPEAKERAnd it costs 60 bucks.

47:23SPEAKERHoly crap, that's a lot.

47:25SPEAKER- That's kind of a lot.

47:26SPEAKERI mean, compared to the price of new AirPods, not so much.

47:31SPEAKERNew AirPods are like 120 bucks now.

47:32SPEAKERThey're not so expensive. - Are they?

47:34SPEAKERWow, they were still like 250.

47:35SPEAKER- No, no, that's the pros.

47:38SPEAKER- Okay, I have always very much gone for good enough

47:41SPEAKERon stuff like that, 'cause I always feel like,

47:43SPEAKERI mean, I'm, granted, not commuting anymore,

47:45SPEAKERbut you'd be commuting downtown,

47:47SPEAKERwalking around with headphones in,

47:50SPEAKERand there's construction in every other block

47:52SPEAKERand cars all over the place.

47:54SPEAKERAnd it's like, I don't need these to sound amazing,

47:56SPEAKERbecause I'm in such a noise-polluted environment already.

47:59SPEAKER- Yep, it's probably the better option.

48:04SPEAKERI'm not a huge fan of...

48:09SPEAKERI miss the headphone port.

48:10SPEAKERI know that it's a common refrain,

48:12SPEAKERbut I feel like not having a headphone port is unfortunate.

48:16SPEAKER- I get it.

48:17SPEAKERI just ended up leaving the adapter attached

48:18SPEAKERto the headphones that I would use with the phone.

48:21SPEAKER- Yeah.

48:22SPEAKER- And it kind of solved itself?

48:23SPEAKER- Sorry, they're 200 bucks, I was wrong.

48:25SPEAKERNo, no, they're 159 bucks with the normal charging case.

48:28SPEAKER- It's still pretty pricey compared to a lot of the stuff

48:30SPEAKERyou can get out there now.

48:33SPEAKERAlthough less so, I don't know if you saw

48:35SPEAKERthat Amazon has started pretty aggressively delisting

48:38SPEAKERsome of the more well-known consumer electronics brands,

48:40SPEAKERlike the kind of mid-tier ones, like Mpow,

48:43SPEAKERhave you heard of them?

48:44SPEAKER- Really?

48:45SPEAKER- And RavPower was the one that really caught my eye.

48:47SPEAKER- Wow.

48:48SPEAKER- I would assume if they've been restored to Amazon,

48:51SPEAKERI would have heard about it by now.

48:52SPEAKERThis was a couple of weeks ago.

48:53SPEAKER- Why did they get rid of them?

48:54SPEAKER- They caught these companies soliciting user reviews

48:58SPEAKERfor money, like they were contacting people

49:01SPEAKERwho bought their products and literally saying like,

49:03SPEAKER"Hey, we'll send you."

49:04SPEAKER- You mean like this?

49:05SPEAKER- Yeah, kind of like that.

49:06SPEAKER- Hey, two steps to get Amazon gift card,

49:08SPEAKERshare your experience about this item on Amazon page,

49:10SPEAKERcontact us with your order number and submitted screenshot.

49:13SPEAKER- Yes, they were essentially buying five-star reviews

49:15SPEAKERfor their products.

49:16SPEAKER- Well, add OIvo Games to that,

49:20SPEAKERbecause the people that made my PS4 clip are doing that.

49:24SPEAKER- So you gotta do it like the, you gotta do it.

49:26SPEAKERYeah, I mean, RavPower is like a pretty decent brand for,

49:29SPEAKERI've got a couple of their power bricks

49:31SPEAKERthat have been quite good.

49:33SPEAKER- They are not on Amazon anymore, you are correct.

49:35SPEAKER- Yeah, like that has got to be catastrophic

49:37SPEAKERfor those companies, I can't imagine.

49:40SPEAKER- I mean, also don't cheat.

49:42SPEAKER- Yeah, do it right.

49:43SPEAKER- Amazon search results are a cesspool.

49:45SPEAKER- Yes, they're god awful.

49:48SPEAKER- Impossible to find anything.

49:50SPEAKERAnd it used to be maybe the best search on the internet

49:52SPEAKERfor a really long time.

49:54SPEAKER- It's bad, it's bad.

49:55SPEAKER- They should have done it right,

49:56SPEAKERlike the people who made my multimeter.

49:59SPEAKER- Who instead of your multimeter?

50:01SPEAKER- I thought it was.

50:02SPEAKER- Is that valid?

50:04SPEAKERLook, don't ask me.

50:05SPEAKERI'm not the person to ask for this sort of thing.

50:07SPEAKER- I was told it was multimeter.

50:09SPEAKER- I was told it was biopic too,

50:11SPEAKERbut those people are clearly insane.

50:12SPEAKER- Wait, what?

50:14SPEAKER- It is biopic.

50:15SPEAKER- It's biopic.

50:16SPEAKER- What?

50:17SPEAKER- We can't keep talking about this.

50:19SPEAKER- Okay, okay.

50:20SPEAKER- I thought it was multimeter and was corrected,

50:21SPEAKERbut I don't know, now I really don't know.

50:23SPEAKERAnyway, the people who made my one of those,

50:27SPEAKERinstead of sending me a free gift card,

50:29SPEAKERthey sent me a free headlamp.

50:31SPEAKER- Oh, that's nice.

50:32SPEAKER- That's the way to do it.

50:33SPEAKERAlso, it showed up here from Amazon.

50:36SPEAKER- Yeah, of course, they just send it from there, yeah.

50:39SPEAKER- Like they've, yes, it's all very strange.

50:42SPEAKER- I wonder if they're doing it as like a make good

50:43SPEAKERon a returned product or something.

50:45SPEAKER- It's possible.

50:46SPEAKERI don't wanna think about how all of that stuff works.

50:52SPEAKERIf I can help it.

50:53SPEAKER- Yeah, me either.

50:55SPEAKER- Let's try to avoid it as much as I can.

50:57SPEAKERAll right, should we do one or two more real quick?

50:59SPEAKER- Yeah, let's bang out a couple more.

51:01SPEAKER- How about...

51:06SPEAKERGo to this question from Wedge

51:07SPEAKERabout some kind of personal internet stuff.

51:10SPEAKER- Yeah, sure.

51:12SPEAKER- Question from Wedge.

51:13SPEAKERWhat thought process, if any,

51:14SPEAKERwent into deciding what parts of your personal life,

51:17SPEAKERfamily, politics, et cetera,

51:18SPEAKERare put into your online persona?

51:21SPEAKERIf you could have started over, what would you change?

51:25SPEAKER- Huh, well--

51:27SPEAKER- Yeah, that's a heavy question.

51:30SPEAKER- Yeah, I feel like, I don't know.

51:34SPEAKERI wasn't thoughtful about it at all in 2000

51:37SPEAKERwhen I started writing for the magazine.

51:39SPEAKERAnd then I really wasn't thoughtful about it

51:41SPEAKERwhen I started at Maximum Tested.

51:44SPEAKERAnd then my daughter was born

51:45SPEAKERand I immediately got more thoughtful about it.

51:47SPEAKER- Yes, it's really, for personal reasons

51:50SPEAKERand societal reasons, I feel like everyone

51:52SPEAKERhas started thinking about this stuff

51:53SPEAKERa lot more than they used to, right?

51:54SPEAKER- Yeah, and then Gamergate happened and Jesus Christ.

51:59SPEAKERFor me, I was always a don't put politics

52:02SPEAKERin your public persona 'cause it's going to hurt your,

52:05SPEAKERno matter which way you went,

52:07SPEAKERit was gonna hurt your professional outcomes,

52:11SPEAKERopportunities, and then 2016, 2015 really happened.

52:16SPEAKERI was like, you know what?

52:17SPEAKERI don't want people to think I'm on this team.

52:19SPEAKER- Right. - This is a bad team.

52:21SPEAKER- That's fair.

52:21SPEAKER- So I became much more vocal about that.

52:26SPEAKERBut yeah, my wife and I used to do a podcast together,

52:30SPEAKERso she's public-ish, I'm small.

52:34SPEAKERBut I don't talk about my,

52:36SPEAKERI let my daughter control her own fate.

52:38SPEAKERShe wants very much to be extremely online right now.

52:40SPEAKERI'm like, you're not old enough to decide that.

52:42SPEAKER- Yeah, she doesn't understand what she's getting into.

52:44SPEAKERWhy would you do this to yourself?

52:46SPEAKER- Yeah.

52:47SPEAKERI have always been really intent

52:50SPEAKERon protecting the privacy of my family members

52:52SPEAKERand loved ones.

52:53SPEAKER- Yeah.

52:54SPEAKER- Like I'd make a point of not getting any information

52:57SPEAKERabout them out there because they didn't ask for this.

52:58SPEAKERYou know, like they didn't sign up for-

53:01SPEAKER- It's not their job.

53:02SPEAKER- Yes, they didn't sign up for people knowing who they are.

53:06SPEAKER- I think it's interesting

53:07SPEAKERthat you don't even use your real last name, Brad.

53:10SPEAKER- You're not supposed to talk about that.

53:11SPEAKER- Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

53:13SPEAKER- No, if I was using a pseudonym,

53:15SPEAKERI would have picked something less.

53:17SPEAKER- Maybe less easily Googleable.

53:19SPEAKER- Yes, or less easily mockable, I guess.

53:23SPEAKERI don't know.

53:24SPEAKERThe other thing for me is like this really paints me

53:26SPEAKERas having chosen poorly in my line of work.

53:30SPEAKERLike just, I don't know.

53:33SPEAKERThe being in the spotlight is very uncomfortable for me.

53:36SPEAKER- Well-

53:37SPEAKER- The more people to share the spotlight with me,

53:39SPEAKERthe better I feel.

53:41SPEAKER- Okay.

53:42SPEAKER- Which was like, which is why I always enjoyed

53:44SPEAKERlike the bigger group streams we did the most,

53:46SPEAKERlike the fewer people that there are

53:47SPEAKERto subdivide the attention,

53:49SPEAKERthe more anxious I get about things.

53:52SPEAKERSo-

53:53SPEAKER- It's funny though, 'cause like when you did stuff

53:55SPEAKERlike the Call of Duty, the Call of Duty 4 airplane level,

54:00SPEAKERlike you seemed super cool on that,

54:01SPEAKERbut I guess you were probably just focused on the game

54:03SPEAKERand weren't paying attention to the fact

54:04SPEAKERthat you were training nationwide on Twitter

54:06SPEAKERor whatever it was.

54:07SPEAKER- That's the thing is that like,

54:08SPEAKERif you have enough of an intense like singular focus

54:10SPEAKERon something that doesn't matter

54:11SPEAKERbecause it crowds out all the anxiety

54:13SPEAKERthat's rattling around in your brain, right?

54:15SPEAKER- Yeah.

54:16SPEAKER- Like it's very much,

54:18SPEAKERit's very much a matter of how much are you thinking

54:19SPEAKERabout the fact that you're anxious?

54:21SPEAKER- Oh yeah, no, I understand that.

54:23SPEAKER- And it's like, it's just a feedback loop, right?

54:24SPEAKERIt's like every dumb death I've ever had in a video game

54:27SPEAKERwas directly preceded by me thinking I'm about to die

54:30SPEAKERin a really dumb way, right?

54:31SPEAKERAnd then sure enough, like seriously,

54:34SPEAKERlike the less you think about, you know,

54:36SPEAKERhow hung up you are on something,

54:37SPEAKERthe less the thing you're hung up on is a problem.

54:40SPEAKER- Look, I've played PUBG at differing levels

54:44SPEAKERover the last four years.

54:45SPEAKERDefinitely on the downward trend these days.

54:47SPEAKERBut like when I would play,

54:50SPEAKERthere were people that I played with in the early days,

54:51SPEAKERespecially that were like, not that would,

54:54SPEAKERthey didn't, it wasn't like yelling at you

54:56SPEAKERwhen you fucked up,

54:57SPEAKERbut like you're making moment to moment decisions

54:59SPEAKERin a game like that that are like, you know,

55:01SPEAKERyou have a fraction of a second to decide what to do

55:04SPEAKERand often you make the wrong choice

55:06SPEAKERjust because of the,

55:07SPEAKERyou don't have complete information ever.

55:08SPEAKER- Right.

55:09SPEAKER- And like, if you play with people who are yelling at you,

55:12SPEAKERmaking you feel like shit,

55:13SPEAKERthen you're gonna start playing worse

55:15SPEAKERand you're gonna start playing worse

55:16SPEAKERand start playing worse.

55:16SPEAKER- Yes.

55:17SPEAKER- If you're playing with people who are like,

55:18SPEAKERoh, it's no big deal, supportive, you know,

55:20SPEAKERyou did like, I really like this other thing that you did.

55:22SPEAKERIt makes you feel good and you don't think about it.

55:24SPEAKERYou get out of your head and you play better.

55:25SPEAKER- Yes, being in your head is the worst part

55:27SPEAKERof being online.

55:29SPEAKER- Yeah.

55:30SPEAKER- And it's really hard to stay out of there for me.

55:32SPEAKER- Yeah, I can see that.

55:33SPEAKERSo, I don't know, for what it's worth,

55:37SPEAKERI enjoy watching you play games, Brad.

55:39SPEAKER- Thank you, thank you.

55:40SPEAKERThat's nice of you to say.

55:43SPEAKER- All right, last email real fast, from The Moon Room.

55:48SPEAKER- Ooh.

55:50SPEAKER- I don't remember when I said this,

55:52SPEAKERcouple of weeks ago, maybe?

55:54SPEAKER- You said it after, either right before

55:56SPEAKERor right after you launched the next line

55:57SPEAKERor I can't remember.

55:58SPEAKER- Yes, I think you might be right.

55:59SPEAKERBrad, you mentioned that you feel like you can be yourself

56:01SPEAKERthe most on this podcast.

56:03SPEAKERCan you elaborate on what that means

56:04SPEAKERand why you don't feel the same elsewhere?

56:07SPEAKERI guess the short version of this,

56:09SPEAKERand I don't mean to, hopefully this isn't insulting

56:11SPEAKERto anybody who's listening to this podcast,

56:12SPEAKERbut I always feel like the stuff

56:15SPEAKERI am the most passionate about

56:16SPEAKERis probably very boring to a lot of people.

56:19SPEAKERLike, you know what I mean?

56:22SPEAKERLike, I don't think it's boring, of course,

56:24SPEAKER'cause I think it's interesting.

56:25SPEAKERLike, that's paradoxical, right?

56:27SPEAKERLike, I can't, it's the most invigorating stuff to me,

56:30SPEAKERbut you can't go pull a random person off the street

56:32SPEAKERand start blabbing to them about next workstations

56:34SPEAKERand expect them to care, right?

56:37SPEAKERLike, it's a niche, it feels like a niche podcast.

56:40SPEAKERLike, it feels like a niche need in the market, I guess,

56:44SPEAKERlike for people, you know, babbling about Enigma machines

56:47SPEAKERand the ARPANET and the electromagnetic spectrum.

56:52SPEAKERAnd you know what I mean?

56:53SPEAKERLike, I'm very conscious or very paranoid

56:58SPEAKERabout boring people with like deeply technical stuff

57:01SPEAKERthat they don't want to hear about.

57:02SPEAKERSo this is the place where I feel,

57:04SPEAKERand that's kind of how we've envisioned this thing

57:05SPEAKERfrom the beginning, right?

57:06SPEAKERIt's like, hey, let's-

57:07SPEAKERLet's just make the show we want to listen to.

57:09SPEAKERLet's just talk about the stuff

57:10SPEAKERwe would want to talk about off air

57:11SPEAKERand are talking about anyway.

57:13SPEAKERLet's not hold anything back in terms of worrying

57:16SPEAKERabout people being bored by the stuff we're passionate about.

57:20SPEAKERLet's just let the people who are also passionate

57:21SPEAKERabout those things come along.

57:23SPEAKERLike, I remember, I think the first time I met you

57:25SPEAKERwas probably at QuakeCon when we were talking to maybe Rob,

57:29SPEAKERI can't remember.

57:31SPEAKERThat sounds right.

57:31SPEAKERBut we were at a, it was a weird bar party

57:34SPEAKERthat they think they charge tickets for

57:36SPEAKERand somebody had asked us to come.

57:38SPEAKERSo we were like, trotted over there.

57:39SPEAKERAnd I was like, oh, hey, I know Gamespot.

57:41SPEAKERI didn't like that.

57:42SPEAKERIt seemed like a good site.

57:44SPEAKERI mean, we might have even been a giant bomb at that point.

57:45SPEAKERI can't remember.

57:46SPEAKERBut like, the things we always talked about

57:52SPEAKERin the whiskey basement were always good.

57:53SPEAKERIt was always like, hey, let's talk about

57:55SPEAKERsome weird video card stuff.

57:57SPEAKEROr like, it's my theory on media,

58:01SPEAKERand it's, I mean, it's been up and down.

58:02SPEAKERSo maybe I'm a bad, maybe I'm bad at this,

58:05SPEAKERis that theoretically I have good taste.

58:08SPEAKERAnd if I'm interested in something,

58:11SPEAKERother people will be interested in the same thing.

58:14SPEAKERIf I can find the right people, right?

58:15SPEAKER- Yes.

58:16SPEAKER- And I think like, honestly, in a lot of ways,

58:20SPEAKERthis is the thing that we've done,

58:21SPEAKERwe've done a really good job finding the right people.

58:23SPEAKER- Yes, very much.

58:24SPEAKERYes, I am very appreciative, but also a little surprised

58:28SPEAKERthat they have found us as well as they have.

58:30SPEAKERBecause I mean, for one thing,

58:31SPEAKERwe've done not the best job of marketing the show.

58:34SPEAKER- I mean, look, we're not great marketers.

58:36SPEAKERI think this week might be the first time

58:38SPEAKERI've ever tweeted about the show before.

58:39SPEAKERI'm not sure.

58:40SPEAKER- I think you did one a few weeks ago, but yeah.

58:42SPEAKER- That might be right.

58:43SPEAKER- But like, the thing that's,

58:48SPEAKERthe thing that's good is,

58:51SPEAKERif you make the thing that you like,

58:52SPEAKERyou're never gonna be unhappy

58:53SPEAKERmaking the thing that you like.

58:55SPEAKER- Yes. - Right?

58:56SPEAKERAnd, you know, I've been lucky to do that multiple times,

59:00SPEAKERbut like, there's always,

59:02SPEAKERthere've been parts of like,

59:05SPEAKERthere's large swaths of Tested that are like,

59:09SPEAKERI'm like, that's cool, but it's not my thing.

59:11SPEAKERLike Norm likes to do all the,

59:13SPEAKERI'll make models and stuff like that.

59:15SPEAKERI like making models is fun,

59:16SPEAKERbut it's not something I really have deep passion for.

59:19SPEAKERSame thing for photography.

59:20SPEAKERAnd the thing that was interesting about Tested,

59:22SPEAKERit was a combination of all of the things

59:23SPEAKERthat we kind of liked, you know,

59:25SPEAKERinto a delicious melange that was discreet,

59:29SPEAKERbut also occasionally overlapping.

59:30SPEAKERAnd that was really fun.

59:33SPEAKERAnd I think we have the same thing here.

59:34SPEAKERLike there's stuff that you're more into

59:36SPEAKERand there's stuff that I'm more like,

59:37SPEAKERyou're definitely a Bash guy and I like.

59:40SPEAKER- Jesus. - Look at that.

59:41SPEAKER- Bash is just a tool, like everything else.

59:43SPEAKER- Give me the graphical user interface, please.

59:47SPEAKER- Oh, you were talking to his command lines in general.

59:49SPEAKER- Yeah, no, I mean like, I'll use the command line,

59:51SPEAKERbut I always have to look everything up

59:52SPEAKER'cause I never remember.

59:53SPEAKER- I love to type.

59:57SPEAKER- But yeah, I feel like,

1:00:02SPEAKERthere's 7 billion people in the world, right?

1:00:07SPEAKERThere's probably a few hundred

1:00:08SPEAKERthat are interested in listening

1:00:09SPEAKERto like us talk about old Enigma machines.

1:00:11SPEAKER- Yes, you don't need 7 billion people

1:00:13SPEAKERto listen to your podcast.

1:00:14SPEAKER- Yeah, no, like I'm comfortable.

1:00:16SPEAKERI don't need to have,

1:00:17SPEAKERlike I don't need to have

1:00:18SPEAKERa 50 million subscriber YouTube channel.

1:00:21SPEAKERI'm thrilled to have 2,000 people or 10,000 people

1:00:24SPEAKERor 30,000 people or whatever it is

1:00:25SPEAKERthat listen to the podcast

1:00:26SPEAKERand are like excited to hang out with us on Sundays.

1:00:28SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:00:29SPEAKER- So, yeah, it's, you know,

1:00:33SPEAKERkind of get in, get out of your head.

1:00:35SPEAKERIt's all, that's the--

1:00:36SPEAKER- I try, it's the constant struggle.

1:00:38SPEAKER- I've said this on the PUBG stream.

1:00:39SPEAKERI said it in marketing materials for PUBG Corp.

1:00:41SPEAKERThe reason I started playing PUBG

1:00:42SPEAKERis 'cause the game required such a massive cognitive load

1:00:46SPEAKERthat it let me not think about anything else

1:00:48SPEAKERfor three or four hours a night.

1:00:49SPEAKER- That's exactly it.

1:00:50SPEAKERThat's exactly what I was getting at earlier

1:00:51SPEAKERis those are the easiest streams to do

1:00:53SPEAKERbecause you can't think about anything else.

1:00:55SPEAKERYou have like Tetris 99 is a good example of like--

1:00:58SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:00:59SPEAKER- Tetris 99, you don't have time to think about

1:01:00SPEAKERwhat people are saying in chat

1:01:01SPEAKER'cause all you can think about is playing the game.

1:01:03SPEAKER- Brad, let me tell you,

1:01:04SPEAKERI streamed Quake World the other night.

1:01:05SPEAKER- Uh-huh.

1:01:07SPEAKER- I didn't even know I was on a stream

1:01:08SPEAKERafter about five minutes.

1:01:09SPEAKER- And I gotta get in on some of that.

1:01:11SPEAKER- Look, we gotta do some Quake World.

1:01:13SPEAKER- We should.

1:01:14SPEAKER- Speaking of, Quake World Frenzy

1:01:16SPEAKERhas taken over Discord in the last week.

1:01:19SPEAKER- It's really spiraling out too.

1:01:20SPEAKERPeople have been playing a lot of Quake One.

1:01:23SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:01:23SPEAKER- In the evenings or some in the daytime.

1:01:25SPEAKERBut now I've seen people talking about

1:01:27SPEAKERsetting up a Quake 3 server.

1:01:28SPEAKERPeople are buying the Unreal Tournament bundles

1:01:31SPEAKERthat are out there.

1:01:32SPEAKERThere's a lot of classic deathmatch happening.

1:01:35SPEAKER- I'm like, I remembered Quake One being fast.

1:01:38SPEAKER- It's fast.

1:01:39SPEAKER- But I've forgotten how unbelievably fast,

1:01:41SPEAKERlike it is fast.

1:01:43SPEAKER- It's very fast.

1:01:44SPEAKERIt is very fast.

1:01:45SPEAKERAlso, I was reading a thing this morning

1:01:47SPEAKERtalking about the movement speed in Quake

1:01:49SPEAKERand it's not even as fast as Doom was.

1:01:50SPEAKERLike it got slower after Doom.

1:01:52SPEAKER- Oh, they had that conversation in chat the other night.

1:01:55SPEAKERLike that was the, is the Doom guy faster

1:01:57SPEAKERthan the Quake guy?

1:01:58SPEAKER- He was like, here's the math.

1:01:59SPEAKERNo, the Quake guy's slower.

1:02:00SPEAKERDoom guy runs at like 75 miles an hour.

1:02:02SPEAKER- Yes.

1:02:04SPEAKERIt's pretty fast.

1:02:05SPEAKER- It's been very fun going back.

1:02:07SPEAKERI still remember the route on DM4

1:02:10SPEAKERto like keep armor and rocket launcher and everything going

1:02:13SPEAKERso that you can just really be an unstoppable

1:02:15SPEAKERkilling machine on the big laps, so.

1:02:19SPEAKER- You know what?

1:02:20SPEAKEROne of the fun little tidbits that has come back to mind

1:02:22SPEAKERas I've been messing around with the Quake client

1:02:24SPEAKERis that all of those deathmatch maps had names.

1:02:26SPEAKERLike we just, we remember them as DM3, DM6, whatever.

1:02:29SPEAKER- The abandoned base.

1:02:30SPEAKER- Yes, yes, the abandoned base.

1:02:31SPEAKERWhen you load them, yeah, and the client,

1:02:32SPEAKERit'll say the actual name of the map

1:02:34SPEAKERand their names like the place of two deaths

1:02:38SPEAKERand my favorite, if I can, I hope I can get this right,

1:02:42SPEAKERclaustrophobopolis.

1:02:44SPEAKER- Claustrophobopolis is six, isn't it?

1:02:46SPEAKER- That might be right, claustrophobopolis.

1:02:48SPEAKER- My favorite is discovering like they did,

1:02:52SPEAKERI still can't believe that they did gimmick maps in Quake

1:02:54SPEAKERand it worked.

1:02:55SPEAKERLike the one where there's the two little side rooms

1:02:58SPEAKERwhere you can hit the button and the floor opens

1:02:59SPEAKERfor everybody in the big fighting area

1:03:00SPEAKERand they fall into the lava and die.

1:03:02SPEAKERBut then also there's buttons on either edge

1:03:04SPEAKERof that big room that smash the person in the,

1:03:08SPEAKERit's so stupid and good.

1:03:08SPEAKER- Oh, it's great.

1:03:11SPEAKER- Like the sequence of events where everybody's like,

1:03:13SPEAKER"Oh man, I just killed like five people, that's awesome."

1:03:15SPEAKERAnd then smush, very good every time.

1:03:18SPEAKER- It's a good time.

1:03:19SPEAKER- So yeah, if you're a patron, you can play,

1:03:21SPEAKERcome play with us, please.

1:03:22SPEAKERIf you wanna find out more about the Patreon

1:03:24SPEAKERand join, help support this 100% listener supported podcast,

1:03:31SPEAKERyou can by going to patreon.com/techpod.

1:03:34SPEAKERAs always, this is the part of the show

1:03:36SPEAKERwhere we thank our producers and executive producers

1:03:40SPEAKER'cause it's the end of the month.

1:03:42SPEAKERSo thank you to Andrew Slosky, David Allen, Jacob Chapel,

1:03:47SPEAKERJames Kamik, Joel Krauska, The Bunny Fiend

1:03:49SPEAKERand Twinkle Twinkie at the executive producer level.

1:03:52SPEAKERAnd it's the end of the month.

1:03:53SPEAKERSo thanks to Alejandro Navarro, Andre Burke, Arthur Gies,

1:03:57SPEAKERBen Ghoulmy, Brad Van Orman, Brian Rabe, Dan Brockman,

1:04:01SPEAKERDave Ullian, David Fan, Donato Sanico, The Third,

1:04:07SPEAKERGraham Banks, Jacob Wilson, Jad Rita, Jason Nieland,

1:04:12SPEAKERJay Mabey, Jorge Pereira, Josh Klein, Julian, Matt Walker,

1:04:17SPEAKERSanchik Kumar, Terry Cox and Thomas Shea.

1:04:20SPEAKERAnd thanks to everybody else as well.

1:04:21SPEAKERWhether you're, you know, whatever level you're at.

1:04:25SPEAKERAnd even if you can't chuck in two bucks to the Patreon,

1:04:30SPEAKERwe appreciate links, shares, tell your friends, you know.

1:04:34SPEAKER- Yeah. - All this stuff.

1:04:35SPEAKER- Thank you to everybody who supports us.

1:04:36SPEAKERYou are the reason we are still here.

1:04:38SPEAKERWe also have been not a ton.

1:04:41SPEAKERWe just started experimenting a little bit

1:04:43SPEAKERwith stuff on the Discord.

1:04:43SPEAKERWe did a little Discord stage thing

1:04:47SPEAKERaround the Windows 11 stream.

1:04:49SPEAKER- Ephemeral content.

1:04:50SPEAKER- That's right.

1:04:51SPEAKERAnd now it's there and now it's gone.

1:04:53SPEAKERSo we might, maybe we'll start messing with some more stuff

1:04:55SPEAKERaround the Discord for patron benefit stuff soon.

1:04:59SPEAKER- Like I like the idea of doing some stage stuff

1:05:01SPEAKERat different time zone friendly times

1:05:03SPEAKERso that people can,

1:05:04SPEAKERso we can have like live chats and stuff like that.

1:05:07SPEAKER- Yeah, we got a lot of time zones

1:05:08SPEAKERand I think time zones has become a greeting on our server.

1:05:11SPEAKER- I love time zones.

1:05:12SPEAKERI stole that from John Lonnie on Twitch.

1:05:14SPEAKERHe does time zones as a greeting.

1:05:15SPEAKERIt's very good. - I see.

1:05:17SPEAKERPeople in Europe, people in Australia.

1:05:19SPEAKER- I was gonna say, so back to the thing

1:05:21SPEAKERthat we were talking about a minute ago,

1:05:22SPEAKERbut like I remember,

1:05:24SPEAKERso Maximum PC tried to recruit me to come out

1:05:27SPEAKERfor an associate editor job before I actually came out

1:05:30SPEAKERand started as a technical editor.

1:05:32SPEAKERAnd they flew me out to do interviews

1:05:33SPEAKERand to meet people and hang out in San Francisco

1:05:35SPEAKERand see the whole place.

1:05:37SPEAKERAnd I remember going into that office the first day

1:05:39SPEAKERand like meeting Gordon and Josh and Catherine and John

1:05:44SPEAKERand all those folks and Kristen

1:05:46SPEAKERand having a conversation about computer hardware

1:05:49SPEAKERthat I'd never had before,

1:05:51SPEAKERlike being in a place where there were 10 people around

1:05:54SPEAKERand they were all interested in the same thing

1:05:56SPEAKERand having that sense of comradery

1:05:58SPEAKERand like the thing that you're talking about,

1:06:01SPEAKERthe people, hey, there are people here

1:06:04SPEAKERthat are interested in talking about

1:06:05SPEAKERthe thing that I'm into.

1:06:07SPEAKERAnd I hope, I know that not everybody's lucky enough

1:06:11SPEAKERto have worked in those environments

1:06:13SPEAKERand had that or had a friend group even,

1:06:15SPEAKERlike a real life friend group that has those same interests.

1:06:18SPEAKERSo it's a place that people can,

1:06:20SPEAKERyou can talk about your weird shit, it's fun, so.

1:06:24SPEAKER- That's the good thing about,

1:06:25SPEAKERthat's the good side of the internet

1:06:27SPEAKERis finding like-minded people to talk about cool stuff

1:06:29SPEAKERthat you couldn't necessarily do,

1:06:30SPEAKERespecially for people like us

1:06:31SPEAKERcoming from small rural towns in the South,

1:06:34SPEAKERnot a lot of people around

1:06:35SPEAKERthat were interested in that stuff out there, so.

1:06:38SPEAKER- Even in my screwdriver shop,

1:06:39SPEAKERthey looked at people who wanted to play games

1:06:41SPEAKERon their computers as like weird perverts, so.

1:06:43SPEAKER- Right, right.

1:06:44SPEAKERFinding those communities online,

1:06:46SPEAKERsometimes the internet is, can be a force for good.

1:06:49SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

1:06:51SPEAKERSo I guess that'll do it for us this week.

1:06:52SPEAKERAgain, it's patreon.com/techpod.

1:06:55SPEAKERIf you wanna tell your friends about the show,

1:06:56SPEAKERit's techpod.content.town.

1:06:58SPEAKERAs always, if you have more cues

1:07:00SPEAKERthat you would like to be turned into A's,

1:07:01SPEAKERyou can post them in the question and answer channel

1:07:03SPEAKERon the Discord.

1:07:04SPEAKER- Yes.

1:07:05SPEAKER- Or you can send them to techpod@content.town.

1:07:09SPEAKERFred, always a pleasure, sir.

1:07:11SPEAKER- Thank you.

1:07:11SPEAKER- See you next week.

1:07:13SPEAKERBye everybody.

1:07:14SPEAKER(upbeat music)