I Can’t Believe I’m Still Talking About Honey - WAN Show January 3, 2025

Summary

Detailed Summary of "I Can’t Believe I’m Still Talking About Honey" - WAN Show January 3, 2025

In the January 3, 2025 episode of "The WAN Show" by Linus Tech Tips, hosts Linus Sebastian and Luke Lafreniere engage in an extensive discussion covering a variety of current topics in the technology and gaming industries. The episode is rich with insights, debates, and personal anecdotes, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of significant happenings and issues affecting creators and consumers alike.

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1. Ongoing Honey Controversy and Legal Implications

Key Points:

• Sponsorship Termination: Linus discusses the decision to cease sponsoring Honey three years prior due to concerns over their link hijacking practices. Initially, the impact on users seemed negligible, but recent revelations have exposed more severe misdeeds (Timestamp [04:25]).

• Creator Community Backlash: The termination led to a broader movement within the creator community against Honey. Many creators stopped collaborating with Honey around the same time, influenced by negative news cycles and peer sharing (Timestamp [07:08]).

• Legal Actions: Legal Eagle announced a class action lawsuit against Honey on behalf of affected creators. While the majority of creators are impacted, Linus expresses reluctance to join, citing a general aversion to litigation and skepticism about the lawsuit's efficacy (Timestamp [10:33]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “If I told everybody, uninstall Honey... do you really, honestly, think that would have gone good for me?” ([04:25])
• Linus Sebastian: “We didn't shout it from the rooftops every time we stopped working with a sponsor.” ([07:08])

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2. Managing Past Sponsorships and Content Integrity

Key Points:

• Historical Sponsorship Mentions: Linus emphasizes the importance of maintaining content integrity by avoiding the deletion or alteration of past sponsorship mentions. Altering old videos poses technical challenges, such as disrupting closed captions and timestamps (Timestamp [08:57]).

• Transparency and Consistency: The hosts argue that transparency about past partnerships is crucial for maintaining trust with the audience, even when those past sponsors are no longer aligned with their values (Timestamp [08:27]).

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3. PayPal's Role in the LTT Store

Key Points:

• Financial Impact: PayPal remains a critical payment method for the LTT Store, enabling transactions for users without credit cards. Linus underscores PayPal's role in maximizing sales and minimizing cart abandonment (Timestamp [12:09]).

• Technical Integration: Implementing PayPal involves complex backend integrations. Recent issues during the Hexos launch highlighted challenges in scaling payment systems, leading to temporary activation in response to high demand (Timestamp [13:25]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “PayPal absolutely enables us to make money as creators in that context.” ([12:09])
• Linus Sebastian: “If you buy a Tesla, you can basically just, like, have your car taken over by Tesla.” ([01:31])

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4. Half-Life 3 Speculation and Valve's Future Projects

Key Points:

• Half-Life 3 Debate: Luke brings up the long-anticipated Half-Life 3, sparking a debate. Linus remains skeptical, suggesting Valve might focus on other projects like Project Deckard or continue enhancing Half-Life: Alyx instead (Timestamp [44:46]).

• Valve's Hiring Spree: Speculation about Valve's extensive hiring for new projects implies potential developments in the Half-Life universe, yet concrete evidence remains elusive (Timestamp [46:22]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “I dodge from participating in class action lawsuits... it's not my style.” ([10:30])
• Luke Lafreniere: “Signs point to the possibility of Valve working on the long awaited third entry...” ([44:47])

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5. AI-Generated Profiles on Meta and Privacy Concerns

Key Points:

• Meta's Removal of AI Profiles: Meta has removed 28 AI-generated Instagram profiles following public backlash over inappropriate content, specifically concerns about "blackface as a service" (Timestamp [110:30]).

• Ethical Implications: The episode delves into the ethical issues surrounding AI-generated identities, emphasizing the potential for cultural insensitivity and the challenges platforms face in distinguishing AI bots from real users (Timestamp [112:40]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “It's really, really dumb.” ([111:50])
• Luke Lafreniere: “These are huge conservative and cultural issues being mishandled by AI.” ([113:33])

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6. Net Neutrality and Regulatory Changes

Key Points:

• California's Ban on Addictive Feeds: A federal judge upheld California's law restricting addictive feeds to minors unless parental consent is obtained. This law also limits notifications to minors during specific hours (Timestamp [100:00]).

• Legal Challenges: The decision was influenced by the Supreme Court's overturning of the Chevron doctrine, which previously allowed more deference to regulatory agencies like the FCC (Timestamp [100:36]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “This was meant to be just kind of like a quick update, but yeah, they're finally regulating addictive social media for kids.” ([100:36])
• Luke Lafreniere: “Do companies even enforce robots.txt anymore?” ([112:49])

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7. Development of Russian Game Systems

Key Points:

• Russian Console Projects: In response to major game makers ceasing sales to Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin has initiated the development of homegrown stationary and portable game consoles, along with proprietary operating systems and cloud-based distribution services (Timestamp [73:28]).

• Technical Specifications: Early leaks suggest that these consoles utilize older Samsung SoC technology, raising concerns about their competitiveness with modern gaming systems (Timestamp [74:51]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “This is interesting, but not competitive.” ([73:51])

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8. Incident Involving Tesla Cyber Truck in Las Vegas

Key Points:

• Bombing Incident: A bomb was detonated at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas using a Tesla Cyber Truck as the delivery mechanism. The explosion caused minor injuries and sparked debates about Tesla's vehicle security and data access (Timestamp [104:18]).

• Law Enforcement Cooperation: Las Vegas police credited Elon Musk for providing valuable data from Tesla's Supercharger network, which aided in the investigation. This raises questions about the extent of automakers' access to user data and privacy implications (Timestamp [107:28]).

Notable Quotes:

• Las Vegas Police: “…he sent that directly to us, so I appreciate his help on that.” ([107:28])

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9. Community Engagement: Q&A and Merch Messages

Key Points:

• Audience Questions: The hosts address various community-submitted questions related to building a NAS, managing a career in IT, and optimizing PC builds. They provide practical advice based on personal experiences and industry knowledge (Timestamps [151:38], [155:47], [163:08]).

• Humorous Interactions: The episode features light-hearted banter and jokes, enhancing the engaging and relatable atmosphere of the show (Timestamp [156:11]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “If you can do it better than that, then great.” ([152:43])
• Linus Sebastian: “How do I approach my boss?” – Advice on career progression and negotiation (Timestamp [156:44])

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10. Vacation Tales: London and Edinburgh Experiences

Key Points:

• Theater Experiences: Linus recounts his trip to Edinburgh to watch the final performance of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" featuring Donny Osmond. He shares observations on production quality, memorable performances, and the emotional significance of the event (Timestamp [16:02]).

• Cultural Observations: The hosts discuss other cultural experiences, including visits to iconic landmarks and attending various theater productions, providing a personal touch to the episode (Timestamp [16:43]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “It was utterly unforgettable.” ([18:53])
• Linus Sebastian: “Being able to be there for the last one was so cool.” ([22:39])

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11. Heat Pumps and New Tech in Homes

Key Points:

• Heat Pump Adoption in Germany: The discussion highlights challenges in Germany's adoption of heat pumps due to political resistance and misinformation. Linus advocates for their benefits, acknowledging technical limitations in extremely low temperatures (Timestamp [137:05]).

• Geothermal Heat Pumps: The hosts explore the advantages of geothermal heat pumps in overcoming standard limitations, though noting their impracticality for widespread individual adoption (Timestamp [137:27]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “Heat pumps are amazing. [...] It's a permanent installation, you know, in the front yard of a detached home.” ([137:23])

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12. Product Discussions: Mod Mats and Upcoming Merchandise

Key Points:

• Mod Mats Review: Linus introduces the LTT Mod Mat, showcasing its comprehensive features including wiring diagrams, component size guides, and durability against soldering stains. The hosts discuss its practicality for PC builders and potential market reception (Timestamp [32:51]).

• Merchandise Development: The episode covers upcoming products like the Long Sleeve Hooded T-Shirt and the Scribe Driver Mechanical Pencil, highlighting design elements and encouraging community participation through merch messages (Timestamp [36:27]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “It is as solder resistant as any other mod mat that we have compared it against.” ([35:22])
• Linus Sebastian: “You just make a variation of that game called 'Who Will Make Me Feel the Most Unwelcome'.” ([114:29])

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13. Net Neutrality and Future of Internet Regulations

Key Points:

• FCC's Defunding and Net Neutrality: The episode touches on the FCC's barred efforts to reinstate net neutrality rules following a court decision that limited agency regulatory power. Linus expresses concern over the implications for equal Internet service access (Timestamp [116:57]).

• Public Impact: The hosts debate how these regulatory changes affect both consumers and service providers, emphasizing the importance of maintaining unbiased Internet access (Timestamp [117:00]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “Technically, when you do things like that, you're fooling people.” ([116:59])
• Linus Sebastian: “Net neutrality is a really, really, really good thing.” ([116:59])

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14. Future Tech and Industry Predictions

Key Points:

• Emerging Technologies: Linus discusses the influence of AI on content creation and the potential future of video platforms like YouTube in the age of AI-generated media. He speculates on the necessity of human creativity versus automated content production (Timestamp [126:39]).

• Gaming Hardware Leaks: The hosts review leaks about the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2, analyzing the implications of using older manufacturing processes like the 8-nanometer Samsung SoC and discussing community reactions to these leaks (Timestamp [117:00]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “If AI can just crap out cats in a field or like Cat Christmas, I just... what?” ([126:57])
• Linus Sebastian: “This is one of those videos where you're gonna see a lot more.” ([146:44])

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15. Closing Interactions and Future Show Teasers

Key Points:

• Upcoming Content: The episode concludes with teasers about future episodes, including plans for a comprehensive Linus Media Group financial overview and new merchandise releases like the mechanical pencil and updated mod mats (Timestamp [155:18], [167:07]).

• Audience Engagement: Linus and Luke encourage continued community interaction through merch messages and engagement on their platforms, fostering a sense of connection with their audience (Timestamp [172:38]).

Notable Quotes:

• Linus Sebastian: “We've survived enough scandals to know we'd have to have an actual scandal to drum up new hate.” ([65:33])
• Linus Sebastian: “Let's do after dark.” ([118:23])

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Conclusion

The January 3, 2025 episode of "The WAN Show" provides a thorough exploration of the Honey controversy, its repercussions for creators, and the broader implications for online sponsorships and legal actions. Additionally, the hosts navigate through diverse topics ranging from gaming industry leaks, AI profile ethics, regulatory changes in net neutrality, to personal vacation stories and product innovations. The blend of technical discussions, community engagement, and personal anecdotes ensures that listeners receive a well-rounded and engaging insight into the current state and future directions of the tech and gaming worlds.

Notable Quotes Recap

• Linus Sebastian: “If I told everybody, uninstall Honey... do you really, honestly, think that would have gone good for me?” ([04:25])
• Linus Sebastian: “PayPal absolutely enables us to make money as creators in that context.” ([12:09])
• Las Vegas Police: “…he gave us quite a bit of additional information in regards to how the vehicle was locked after it exploded.” ([107:28])
• Linus Sebastian: “Heat pumps are amazing. It's a permanent installation... in the front yard of a detached home.” ([137:23])
• Linus Sebastian: “Net neutrality is a really, really, really good thing.” ([116:59])

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This structured summary captures the essence of the episode, highlighting the major discussions, insights, and memorable quotes while maintaining clarity and engagement for those who haven't listened to the full episode.

Transcript

[Linus Sebastian]

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going Cha ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are. Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. What's up, everyone?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Hello.

[Linus Sebastian]

Welcome to the WAN show. We've got a great WAN show lined up for you guys today. I went on vacation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's how you know it's gonna be a great show.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, no, I went on vacation. I'm talking.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That might make it one of the better shows.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm gonna talk about my vacation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

I also can't believe I'm still gonna be talking about Honey. Yeah, but there are actual updates, some pretty exciting updates. So we'll be talking about that. The creator community, they're coming after Honey. They believe you can catch more Honey with vinegar. Yeah, fly, you magnificent creators. What else we got today?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Switch to motherboard leaks maybe? There's a bit of a debate. We'll see what's going on there. Also, Half Life 3, it's for sure a thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Really? You picked that? There's no way.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What other one?

[Linus Sebastian]

I just don't.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Forum traffic. Well, the addictive feeds thing, that is, like, not going to be applied to anyone.

[Linus Sebastian]

How about if you buy a Tesla, you can basically just, like, have your car taken over by Tesla.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think that's more than just Tesla, but that apparently is proven true for Tesla.

[Linus Sebastian]

The show is brought to you today by Squarespace, Notion, and Lexar, and of course, our usual laptops partner. Laptops partner. Laptop Spartan. Sorry. Our laptop partner, LG, our rap partner, dBrand, and our chair partner, Secret Lab. Wow. It's gonna be a show today. Why don't we kick things right off with I can't believe I'm still talking about Honey. Yes, I honestly did a terrible job of this segment last week, which is, you know, par for the course for me, which is great. The reality of it was I hadn't slept very much. And the reality of it is I didn't sleep much this week either. I went to Europe this week. Yeah, I left and came back from Europe this week. So that should give you some idea of where I'm at right now. Anyway, we dropped Honey as a sponsor three years ago because we learned about the their link hijacking. Link hijacking sucked for us, but as far as we knew then had no Impact on the user. We had no idea about the alleged other misdeeds until that story broke last month. In hindsight, it is possible that if we had made a video three years ago, it could have saved creators some money, given that the vast majority of creators, however, stopped working with them around that same time. I don't know that for sure. What I do know is that if we'd made that video, it might not have gone very well for us.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like, for instance, I'm going to interject here. This isn't in the notes.

[Linus Sebastian]

What you're referring to as honey is in fact B shit plus Honey. Sorry, go ahead.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, it's like, at that time. Yeah, okay. We could have made a video. We were being inundated with links and shares and whatever about this from other creators at the time.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, I know, I know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It didn't get a crazy. I'm talking to them.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It didn't get a crazy amount of views. It didn't blow up like this.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think probably because it wasn't set.

[Linus Sebastian]

To ominous music that time.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Well, and it was. It was anti creator, not anti user at that time. Sure. So most of the creators that I knew knew about it and were also getting spammed about it because, like, it was tweeted to me back then.

[Linus Sebastian]

The bigger issue is that if we had made a video, it may have actually been a really bad look for us. Think about it. If I made a video imploring our audience to uninstall an extension that purportedly. Remember, this is. We have. We have to look at it in terms of the information we had at the time. At the time, if I told everybody, uninstall honey, an extension that supposedly gets them a better deal because I wasn't making enough money from it, do you really, honestly ask yourself, truly think that would have gone good for me?

[Luke Lafreniere]

The. Going to interject again. Another weird thing. Like when we first started, if you monetized anything to any degree, even if you turned on ads on YouTube at all, which you could turn them off back then and it would actually work.

[Linus Sebastian]

You would be flamed now, four years ago, that wasn't the case anymore. But I think the point Luke's trying to make is this.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's changed over time.

[Linus Sebastian]

This perception, this. This acceptance of, you know, creators needing to make money. I mean, the number of comments we'd get in the early days, like, get a real job, you know, that doesn't happen anymore at all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Now people ask for ads on Facebook.

[Linus Sebastian]

Get that bag girl. Yes.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And It's a very, very different mentality. We have to put ourselves in the frame of mind of what things were like four years ago. And four years ago, if I'd said, uninstall this extension that gets you a better deal so I don't get my affiliate revenue, I'd have gotten destroyed. Look how much flack I take if I remind people that ad blocking is piracy in that it circumvents compensating the creator. Watch how predictably the chat is going to blow up saying that. That's totally different. It's not totally different.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a little different. It's related, though.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's very closely related. And everyone's mad at me. It's that simple. The I'm spreading the word for the smaller creators. That argument doesn't save me there. And it's not going to save me if I tell people to uninstall this extension that gets them a better deal so that smaller creators can get their affiliate revenue. Are you kidding me? There is just no way that I make that video and I don't end up hanging from the nearest tree. I mean, now that we found out that Honey is harming the consumer, obviously them, like, obviously. But again, we didn't. I don't know how many times I have to say this. We didn't know about that. We didn't say anything because we didn't know about that. And we had no reason to like. And that's another thing. Like, we don't shout it from the rooftops every time we stop working with a sponsor and neither does anybody. That is such a weird, bizarre expectation that some people seem to have.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We've stopped. Well, that's a very modern thing too on YouTube. The, like company expose thing, I think is fairly different.

[Linus Sebastian]

Do you expect the NFL to like, replace Monday Night Football with a three hour special about not using Surface tablets anymore when the sponsorship ends? Of course not. That would be spectacularly unprofessional.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We've stopped working with a bunch of different sponsors because of getting customer reports from our viewers about how they had bad experiences with them. We didn't, you know, we didn't show from the rooftops. We just stopped working with them.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. And if they clean up their act, we might start working with them again.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Hopefully that's the case, to be honest.

[Linus Sebastian]

And again. And oh my God, this piece is so important for everyone who somehow missed it before. It turns out we didn't need to make that video because plenty of other creators stopped working with Honey around the Same time we did. Just because nobody else or some people didn't notice. There was a big news cycle around this and it spread like wildfire in the creator community. No, obviously.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But it was a big deal. I remember.

[Linus Sebastian]

But creators knew. We found out. We found out multiple times by being bombarded. That's how we found out.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There was also a lot of creators individually sharing it between each other, but not like with links through texts or whatever. Not. Not as videos.

[Linus Sebastian]

Another major thing that I missed last week is that. Yeah, as. As we said in our response to Mega Leg, obviously this situation raises the question of should we look at our policy of leaving our sponsor spots in our videos in perpetuity? That has been what we've done traditionally because, as you know, I've always been a bit of a, well, once it's out there, it's out there kind of person. I don't believe in deleting our. I don't believe in deleting our history. I don't believe in revising our history.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, Evergreen's also less of a thing now.

[Linus Sebastian]

However, that's true. And also this situation where it turns out it was harmful is clearly. Is clearly something we haven't really had to tackle before. Yeah, like, at worst, our sponsor spots have ended up, like, outdated. Right. But. Yeah, that's. But that's a decision. That is not the kind of thing that we just do immediately.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You also have to work with YouTube on that.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, no, that can be done.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, you can trim it.

[Linus Sebastian]

You can trim it. But it's. It's very manual. It's very tedious. It screws up things like closed captions sometimes.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So timestamps.

[Linus Sebastian]

So it's. It screws up timestamps. So it's not cut and dried either. Yeah, so it'll like. It'll. It'll screw up the timestamps on every single WAN show that Honey ever sponsored. Which, this may surprise you, but a lot of people go back and watch old WAN show. I don't get it either, but they do.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'll never understand.

[Linus Sebastian]

Our discussion question. Are we joining the class action started by Legal Eagle? The TLDR here is that Legal Eagle has posted a video announcing a class action lawsuit against Honey on behalf of any creators that may have been impacted by Honey's actions. As far as I can tell, that would be basically any creator that ever used affiliate links. Um, and, I mean, I know the answer to this, but what. What are your thoughts on that? Should we join the class action?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Uh, well, there's actually a line Here that says impacted creators can visit honey lawsuit.com to join, but maybe talk to a lawyer before you do. And I would lean on that.

[Linus Sebastian]

We're not going to be joining.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Maybe we should talk to a lawyer before we do. Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, I, I, I've talked about this before, but I'm, I, I'm not particularly litigious. It's not really my way. I tend to see lawsuits, and in particular class action lawsuits as a mechanism to enrich lawyers and really not much of anyone else.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's very true. You're going to get like five bucks from this.

[Linus Sebastian]

You might get more. There are class actions where the payout is like a thousand bucks and maybe even more. I don't know. What I can tell you now though is that I doubt that's going to happen. What I suspect is that this is, this, this could very well end up just being for show. Like, I kind of doubt that this is going to go anywhere. But if it does go somewhere, hey, you know what? PayPal sideways, this whole thing totally sucked. And especially now that we know so much more of what they're doing with Honey. It's obviously lame, but it's just, it's not my style, guys. I, I have never had to sue anybody and I would like to keep, yeah, I would like to keep it that way as long as possible. I've been put in uncomfortable positions before in the past where it seemed like it was kind of an inevitability. But every time we have been able to find a resolution, which is always the way that I would prefer to go. And so, yeah, this is, this is just not really my, not really my stoil.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Drop PayPal on the LTT store. I don't think that's viable. I think that would be too much.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yep.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Self damage.

[Linus Sebastian]

Thank you for the suggestion. I will file it away with all of the other suggestions.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I would love if PayPal stopped really being a thing though. I would love if that I, as someone who has to.

[Linus Sebastian]

Let's take crypto.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, no. As some, as someone who has to deal with taking PayPal payments, it's not awesome. There are better credit card processors these days. They used to be a big problem. Another reason why people argue for PayPal is often because it's a easy way to have your card saved. But there are other ways to do that. You can save your card in password managers. You can do other things like that where it can still autofill and be easier for you.

[Linus Sebastian]

Judge says we will still support PayPal because it makes us too much money. PayPal absolutely enables us to make money as creators in that context, taking payments on the store. But what it also does is it enables people who don't necessarily have credit cards to purchase from LTT store.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Right.

[Linus Sebastian]

When we have PayPal disabled and actually people rage.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is like the community would be very mad.

[Linus Sebastian]

More. More recently, we encountered this when the Hexos launched. Ashtech reached out to me. They were like, yeah, we had no idea how important PayPal was.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's very important.

[Linus Sebastian]

We didn't really have. We didn't really have all the reconciliations figured out on the back end for like how the money was supposed to flow and how to account for it and everything. It's a thing. It's a thing because you might get money in like different currencies and stuff. Like it's a whole. It's a whole thing. Accepting a new payment method is not just turn on another payment method. It's not that simple. So they, they just like, they hadn't figured out some of the back end stuff for themselves, but they were like, it, we'll turn it on. Because so many people were inundating them with requests.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Accounting.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Not that, not that back.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. I was like, no, no.

[Linus Sebastian]

Accounting. Yeah. Because they're still a really small company.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

So anyway, they, they were being inundated with requests to turn it on. They turned it on like immediately, like floodgates open. Because there's a lot of people who just.

[Luke Lafreniere]

People are completely die hard.

[Linus Sebastian]

PayPal use PayPal.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We've tried to get away from it before and people were very unhappy. Like it says, if, if you want a really fast way to piss your users off, it's like, do that. But I mean, if you independently stop using it and start shifting to other things, hey, nice. Not gonna be unhappy about that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Backend requests? Asks crusty trombone. Whatever did happen to the only fans Anyway? In summary, honey, Bad, obviously. LTT bad, I guess.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sure, whatever. I expect, I fully expect that to be Dick Certo's headline this time.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Linus says LTT Bad.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, I mean, it's one of those funny things where it's like, on the one hand they kind of try to be like real creator news or whatever and like kind of journalism, but on the other hand, they just like make obvious mistakes. Like I saw.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that journalism these days? Well, maybe they're legit.

[Linus Sebastian]

Their article from last week alluded to the Gamers Nexus video that prompted Linus to step down as CEO and Hire Taran Tong.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, wow. It's like that's not the series of events at all.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, no. I actually stepped down months before ye. But it's amazing how many people do think that because.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Well, more now.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, yeah, because they didn't bother to like, I don't know, fact check anything, which is ironic. I definitely appreciate the irony here.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, let's get Linus away from this topic.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You want to talk about vacation?

[Linus Sebastian]

No. Okay, sure. Actually, it was great. One downer. Remember the RGB coat?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. I couldn't find the right battery bank. I went to the Apple store. It needs a super high powered PD battery bank. So I went to the Apple store to try and buy the most powerful battery bank that they had in order to power it. Because I wanted to wear that light up RGB fur coat to Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dream coat in Edinburgh. Anyway, so I go to the Apple store and I'm like, okay, I need. Well, first things first. I don't see any products in here that are third party. Do you. Do you not carry accessories? They carry accessories at my Apple store at home. They're like, oh, we got a second floor for that. I go, oh, wow.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I don't see.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, so I go upstairs and it's. Yeah, it's all, it's all accessory land. I go and I find battery bank land. And I'm like, like, really? Oh, shoot. Who was the. Who was the bloody brand? Mophie. Mophie. So I pick up this Mophie battery bank which is like 200 pounds, not weight.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, I know.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Anyway, so it's 200 pounds, the same.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a lot of money.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's a lot of money. And I'm. I'm looking at the thing, I'm going. This doesn't even say like what voltages and amperages it supports. It just says. I think it said, that's pretty basic. Did it say 45 watts? I think it might have, but it didn't. But it didn't get into like, Exactly.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Break it down.

[Linus Sebastian]

And so I go to ask someone, I'm like, hey, this seems to be a demo box. Because it's like a shared box for 2 different capacities. And she's like, no, no, that's the box. Like, that's the box. I'm like, that. That doesn't really make any sense. Can you bring me this one? The like the non plus one, whatever, the smaller one. Because I didn't want to spend another £50, so. So she brings it to me. And no, it is not, in fact, the same box. It is a box for that product, but it still didn't have, like, the PD specs on it. And I'm like, okay. Like, I'm pretty sure this supports PD because it's like 45 watts or whatever, but. But I, like, I would like to know, like, exactly, like, it doesn't have a breakdown. She's like, well, do you need. Well, it's for Mac. And I'm like, no, no. I mean, it doesn't matter. It's really. It's really eye opening. Going shopping in, like, a normal store for normal people. Because literally you can be an accessory salesperson at the Apple Store and not know what power delivery. Like pd. Power delivery is usb, C. Pd because it's just for iPhone or for Mac. And if it's for iPhone, it doesn't have pd. And if it's for Mac, it has to have pd, right? In fact, did it even say how many watts? I don't even. I don't even remember. There was a reason that I needed more information about it. Anyway, I bought it and unfortunately, it wasn't enough. So it was, like, flashing, like, would have been seizure inducing potentially on one side of it. So I didn't get to wear it to the play. But the good news is it was.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Play was awesome.

[Linus Sebastian]

Amazing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Let's go.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. The set design and production values were like a high school musical. They were terrible. Like, actually, it was like we found a scrap, some scraps of cloth, and we kind of stretched them out. And that's a desert now. You know, we. Whatever. It was awful. But I didn't figure out until after I didn't actually know the history of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. So it was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who's known for, you know, small plays you may have never heard of, like Cats, Phantom of the Opera, things like that. But it was actually written as a high school musical. And it was written when he was very young. He collaborated with Tim Rice. It was only 20 minutes in its initial iteration. It was because someone, like, desperately needed a play that they could put on. They were like, I don't know, some Bible story. We'll just do that. That's how it started, which I didn't know. So the more I thought about it, the more I've gone. Maybe that was purpose. Maybe that was on purpose because they clearly did not cheap out on the production. Overall, the cast was phenomenal. I don't think you've Ever seen Joseph? Yeah. Okay. Well, if you have, you'll know that the narrator is actually, in some ways, the bigger star of the show than Joseph himself. And she was fabulous. She was absolutely incredible. She crushed it. She was so funny. She actually ended up playing Jacob, Joseph's father, as well, just with, like, a beard. So she'd, like, sing his part and then sing her part. And. And it. It sounds really bad. And at that point, like, very early in the play, I was still a little concerned about the, like, perceived production values and set design and, like, okay, so they didn't bother to cast anyone for Jacob. This is very interesting, but she absolutely killed it. Joseph was, like, pretty good, but it kind of doesn't really matter. And then the real reason that I was there, the real reason that I got off of my butt, got onto a plane, flew all the way to Scotland, to Edinburgh to see this, was that it was Donny Osmond's last performance. I actually didn't know until we were in the middle of his performance. He broke character. He broke the fourth wall and talked about, like, how emotional it was for him and, like, how much he loves this show. He did 2,000 performances as Joseph back in the 90s. I saw him as Joseph in the 90s. It was one of the first musicals I saw. It's like a core memory for me because it was so good. I, like, bought the album in the lobby, listened to it over and over and over and over and over again. Like, it was one of those things, right? So he, like, breaks the fourth wall, talks about how cool it is to be, like, back as Pharaoh now, not as Joseph. So he plays the Pharaoh, the older guy. He gives Joseph on screen. He kind of shows him. Okay, here's how I did that move, because there's, like, a little hip wag that Joseph's supposed to do, and then he does his number, and then at the end of it, he goes, you guys want to see it again? And obviously, the crowd. Look, I'll say this. One of the most fun live viewing experiences I've ever had was watching a hockey game at the Bell Center. Bell center is wild. That's the home of the Montreal Canadiens or the abs. Excuse me, Lays ab. So the crowds just. They're incredible. They're so into it. It's like. You see it like a big soccer game, except hockey. Okay? But I've never been to a soccer game, so I can't speak from experience. What I can say is Bell center, incredible atmosphere. This was like watching a theater production in the Bell Center. Because the audience, like, all gray hairs, like, gray beards and stuff, because it's like the theater or whatever, but they were so into it. There was, like six standing ovations throughout the play. Like, they would just do a great job of a number and everyone was.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like.

[Linus Sebastian]

Just losing it. Absolutely losing it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

So, yeah, so when. When. When Donnie, like, asked, okay, you guys want to see it again? The entire house just completely lost it. The guy is such a. Such an incredible performer. Yeah, it was. It was utterly unforgettable. That's amazing. And then the real reason that I even knew about this, so, yeah, I didn't find out that it was his last performance until the fourth wall break. Yeah, he said, like, yeah, this is. This is it, you know, so it was so cool. They brought him back to do Pharaoh for this production. And it was so cool that. That I was able to be there for the last one. And. Oh, man, where was I going with this? Anyway, it was awesome. Unforgettable anyway, though, right? The real. The only reason that I knew that this was on was because Yvonne signed up for, like, the Andrew Lloyd Webber play, you know, upcoming news bulletin or whatever. Because I've been to New York, like, I don't know, 10 times in the last decade because of work usually, but sometimes for pleasure. And I've never bothered to go see Phantom. I've been to tons of stage plays in New York. I saw Book of Mormon there. I saw Aladdin. I saw. Oh, more recently, I saw Great Gatsby. That was incredible. Probably the best stage production I've ever seen. If you're in New York, go see it now. Go see it now. Don't miss that cast. They're incredible. Anyway, so. But every time I'd be like, I don't know, Phantom will probably go for another 30 years anyway, so I don't. I don't really need to go see it. And then they finally closed it, so I was. Gosh, I've been meaning to see the bloody thing because it's, like, iconic, right? So anyway, the only reason I knew was because she found out about Joseph as like, a footnote on the, hey, Phantom's playing in London, like, thing. And so it just worked out that way. And then, so. So we left Edinburgh and we went to London to see Phantom. And Phantom was, like, totally overrated. It was completely, like. The cast did a great job. Like, the singing was incredible.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's not the first time you've seen Phantom.

[Linus Sebastian]

I've never seen it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So My parents saw Phantom forever ago and they really liked it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, if you're into opera, I imagine that would help a little bit.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know if they are, to.

[Linus Sebastian]

Be honest, but I just. I just didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't really. Yeah, I didn't. It didn't. It didn't really do it for me. Maybe it's just showing its age a little bit. Maybe part of it was coming off the high of, of seeing Joseph the previous day. Like I saw Hadestown in New York as well, and it's so well reviewed, it's so popular. But I saw it the night after I saw Great Gatsby and Great Gatsby just absolutely crushes it. Like it's not even close. So that. That may be. That may be a problem. Yeah, yeah. People are talking about like plays that they like. Yeah, I saw Wicked down in Seattle when they were touring. That was oh so good. I haven't seen the movie yet.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I saw lion the Witch and the Wardrobe as a kid and that. Yeah, that sold me. I had to read the books. I got into Turkish Delight.

[Linus Sebastian]

Just really.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Huh. Interesting. When we read lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in elementary school, like my teacher read it to us as part of just, I don't know, literature, I guess because people used to read books. She brought in Turkish Delight at the end so we could all try it and we universally thought it was kind of not very great.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Did you have rose?

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, well there's some that have like good flavors and then there's rose. And rose is like fairly traditional, but it's terrible.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, interesting.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Flavor it off of roses. I don't know who thought that was a good idea.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Some people are probably mad now, but like the rose one tastes like trash.

[Linus Sebastian]

Fair enough.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know. Rose water flavor. Yeah, like, I don't know, cool. Turkish Delight tastes like old ladies perfume. So that's the rose stuff. You gotta other stuff.

[Linus Sebastian]

Rose water is very common in old Ottoman cuisine. Fascinating Turkish.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Old Ottoman. Makes sense.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. All right, well cool. What else are we supposed to be talking about? Oh, Dan, that was topic to my day. Oh, should I. Is there anything else to talk about in vacation? Ed Murrow is amazing London.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Anything else than check out plays there for?

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude, I was there for two days. Oh, so we did check out the Christmas market.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Travel time, I guess.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, so we did check out the Christmas market. We did go see the big. The big castle in Edinburgh. That was it. We only saw the outside. They had, like, sold out for the day. But we. We walked the, like, royal mile thing and checked out some of the shops. Bought Yvonne a nice toque because the toque she brought with her was making her forehead itchy. And I was like, I mean, we're in the home of. We're in, like, Land of Cashmere. So, like, I don't know, get a nice.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Get a cool toque.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yeah. So we did that. Had some good food. Yeah. And we're amazing. London, I don't know. It's a big city. It doesn't do much. It doesn't do much for me, but I'm sure that I, like. I didn't go to Buckingham Palace. I don't really, like, care about the royals or anything. So it's all about, like, what you're into, you know? I was really surprised at how much Harry Potter there still is over there. Like, you cannot go anywhere without tripping over a bakery that's selling cupcakes with golden snitches on them.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Or, like, there's a lot of tourism for it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Is there still?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Because they have, like, the. I don't know, whatever.

[Linus Sebastian]

Isn't Harry Potter like, dead at this point? Like, didn't Voldemort kill him? You know?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, no.

[Linus Sebastian]

Right, right, right. Because he killed his own. He killed his own soul, which was in front of Harry or something. But it, like, made Harry dead for a bit and then. And then Dumbledore was there, but. But death is permanent. That's pretty well established in that universe. So how he's talking to Dumbledore. I don't know. Maybe it was a hallucination. It doesn't matter. That magic. Spoilers. Come on, you guys, stop it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, no. But, yeah. No, I don't think so. To be honest. I don't think it's over at all.

[Linus Sebastian]

But Fantastic Beasts was so bad.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. But then you look at, like, the. What was that game that no one's allowed to talk about that came out, like two years ago or something.

[Linus Sebastian]

Legacy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And it's. It sold, like, the most of anything that year, but no reported on it.

[Linus Sebastian]

And then it was, like, completely absent at the Game Awards.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But it sold like crazy.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, I know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like, absolutely like crazy.

[Linus Sebastian]

I.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We're still into the universe.

[Linus Sebastian]

I tried to play it. I didn't really enjoy it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't want to.

[Linus Sebastian]

I got a couple hours in creator. I think games have just gotten too complicated for me. Like, there's, like.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Because you want to be able to dive in and Dive out.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. There's, like. There's so many different controls. And I went, like, three weeks without playing it because that's. Yeah. And then I tried to get back into it. I was even just. I was trying to play Yvonne, and I started Unraveled two or Unravel two. And so far, in one native, like, gaming session, we managed the tutorial, and then now we're gonna go to jump back into it, and I'm like, oh, my God. So you can, like, hitch a ride, and you hold the trigger to, like, hold to the thing and to swing the thing and, like, oh, okay. What happened to, like, B is jump, A is spinny, jump, Y is run, and X is just like, kind of an extra button because we just didn't really need four buttons because our last console had two buttons. Like, I. I don't know, guys.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There's people debating. I didn't say it was fun or not. All I said was, it sold a lot. This is. Relax. This is why no one can talk about that game.

[Linus Sebastian]

Why do you hate hamburgers?

[Dan]

You poke to the bear. This is what you get.

[Linus Sebastian]

Why do you hate hamburgers? That became hot dogs. Let's go ahead and move on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Let's leave immediately.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dan, what are we talking about?

[Dan]

Why don't we do merch messages and some announcements and you get some more topics?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Come on. That's funny.

[Luke Lafreniere]

All I said was it sold a lot.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's funny, isn't it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

You can go the other way too.

[Linus Sebastian]

If I'm cancelled, like, you're out of work anyway, you might as well get canceled with me.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't think that's how that works.

[Linus Sebastian]

It doesn't matter at that point.

[Dan]

Proxy, cancel.

[Luke Lafreniere]

My goodness. Oh, man.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, merch messages. So the way merch messages work, if you guys want to interact with the show, the best way is a merch message. You head to lttstore.com, add something to your cart. You'll get a little box there that sends us a merch message. It goes to producer Dan, who will reply to it himself. Give him something to do. He was sitting there looking distinctly unbusy, forlorn. He'll forward it to someone who can help you. He'll pop it up down there at the bottom of the screen, or he will curate it for me and Luke to respond to on the show while you guys think of some good merch messages. Why don't I. Oh, why don't. Ooh, ooh. Why don't I tell you about a few announcements?

[Luke Lafreniere]

What are you getting?

[Linus Sebastian]

We Have a new product. It's the long sleeve hooded T shirt. Oh, he's wearing it already. Look at that. It's your favorite T shirt. Reimagined. All the lightweight comfort of our custom tees combined with the versatility of a hoodie. It's great for wearing on its own or layering under a T shirt like all the cool kids do at the skate park. And you know it's from lttstore because it even has custom. Oh, these are so cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They are pretty cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

It even has custom printing on the drawstrings that say do not drop. Very, very tre cute there. You can kind of make it out there. I mean it's our typical stealthy branding. Just got a cute little kind of retro pink and blue LTT logo on the bottom and that is about it. We like to keep things pretty stealthy around here. LMG gghoodedtee. But if long sleeve hooded tees aren't your thing, we just want to let you know that the LTD mod mat is coming soon and we mean it this time. You can sign up to be notified exactly when it drops at LMG GG modmat. There's a couple samples behind us. Oh. That we can show off if we wish. Dan, do you want to go ahead and copy the link to all of the various chats?

[Dan]

Sure thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Do you want to show the tube designed by packaging designed by the one, the only Ms. Sarah Butt, I believe. I'm pretty sure she did it. It looks like she did it. Now this is gonna be pretty embarrassing for me if she didn't do it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a fairly tight fit which is why I think they gave us one. Not in the tube.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes. Yes. Okay, I'll show that one. So it looks a little something. Alexis, note the note the high quality printing. This is truly a class leading product. We're really excited about this one. Let's just go to the wide cam because it's pretty big. It's got all the various information that you guys would want. We've got a nice little legend up here with or sorry, a legend for wiring diagrams. So you've got like resistor capacitor, fuse, microphone. We've got all the various resistance values and stuff like that. Color coding and there you go over there. Got a spot to put your LTT screwdriver. Got a spot to put your precision screwdriver. We've got a QR code. That's a mystery what that does. We'll figure that out later. We've also got a legend for Or a little guide for what size your motherboard is if you like. I don't know, don't know where your motherboard packaging is. And you can't tell. Radiator size guide. So you can store a radiator on there. See, you know how big it is. 120, 140. It's mostly just for. For fun or I mean maybe you don't know that. I don't know. Fan size guide. This one's actually very useful. It can't tell if it's a 120 or a 140. Boom. Put it down on there on the color coded dots and you will know for sure. We've also got wiring diagrams for all your various PC connectors. We've got a screw thread guide. This one's really. Man, we spent so much time on this one making sure that it is actually like very representative so you can really tell what screws you're supposed to use for what. That is such a novice PC building headache. It's figuring out exactly what screw goes into what. Tubing size guide, M2 size guide, including all the different keys, PCIe slot guide, CPU size guide, including thermal paste outlines as well as a RAM module guide which even includes LPCAM2 and CAM2. So we tried to make it as comprehensive as possible. Super high quality and very aggressive pricing. Pineapple asks solder proof. What we will say is it is as solder resistant as any other mod mat that we have compared it against. And we have compared it against many. Nothing is solder proof. I would say solder quite proof. Soldering iron. Watch your step. It is quite stain resistant too, which is something that is very, very exciting for us, especially when we compare to some of the competing products out there that honestly look like immediately if you get anything on them. So it's not going to be perfect. It still does have some texture to it because we want it to be nice and grippy, but it is much, much easier to clean. Etherplane asks Print comes off or no? Well, the print comes off of anything if you try hard enough. I don't think we would ever advertise something as the print never comes off, but it is quite resistant. Yeah, it's pretty resilient. All right, sweet. What else we got? Oh yeah, one last thing. How do you like your pencils?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, the cat's out of the bag. We're making a mechanical pencil version of the scribe driver. I definitely leaked this at some point. Oh, that's right. I think I did. But anyway, before we actually go to Production. We want to make sure we're making the pencil you want. Oh, no, we're letting them decide. Dan's not even reading along with us in the doc. I don't think.

[Dan]

No, I'll post it. Do you want me to post it?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, do it. The question is simple. Do you prefer 0.5 millimeter or 0.7 millimeter lead? Please. Only answer if you have an actual preference. Otherwise, maybe just don't. That would be great.

[Luke Lafreniere]

People are going to anyways.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, well, see, I knew this was gonna happen.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, well, is there a Firefox option?

[Linus Sebastian]

Stop.

[Dan]

I took it seriously for once, because this is important, Luke.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. All right. It looks like about 60, 44.5 mil. That. That makes sense. I. I always kind of. I was always a 0.7 millimeter kid, but I was, like, careless and would always break the 0.5 mils. So I always kind of had this perception that 0.7 millimeters for, like, careless children and 0.5 millimeters for, like, you know, writing finely and, like, you know, being an adult. So I don't know, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Maybe I'm 0.7. Voters are like, oh, excuse me.

[Linus Sebastian]

Did he just say what I thought he did? Cancel again. Cancel.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Careless child.

[Dan]

A child lead size.

[Linus Sebastian]

0.9 for life. I've never even heard of 0.9. Is that a thing? Go figure. All right. Linus breaking the lead is so in character for him. Yeah, well. All right. Dan, hit us with a merch message. Sure. Let's do this thing.

[Dan]

Oh, my gosh. Hi. DLL and the Funky Bunch. With games like Assassin's Creed Shadows and Cyberpunk coming to Mac and iPad, do you see a bright future for gaming on Apple devices?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes. As long as you don't want to play all the games. It's kind of like, I see a bright future for gaming on Nintendo.

[Luke Lafreniere]

As long as you're one of, like, four people that still buy Ubisoft games.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. As long as you like the games for that platform, then awesome. But I do not see an end to the x86 PC's dominance when it comes to gamer choice anytime soon. It just. It just doesn't seem like there's meaningful progress being made there. And there is progress, but when I say meaningful progress, you're not going to port the entire back catalog. You're not going to have that breadth of support from new titles.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Cyberpunk came out a little over four years ago, too. I was going to say five, because it came out in 2020, but it came out in December 10th of 2020. So.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, okay, whatever.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think that's. So to be a happy, confident Apple gamer, I think I would also want games to come out on my platform when they come out on other platforms.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. And not be like removed from my platform. Like, didn't Rocket League get straight up removed from Mac?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Was that when they got bought out?

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't remember. I don't remember what happened. Yeah, the Mac OS and Linux Steam OS versions are no longer updated or supported. You may still be able to download these versions, but some features. Etc, Etc, etc.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oof. Oof.

[Linus Sebastian]

Big yikes. So that's not, that's not great for, that's not great for gaming on Mac. League of Legends also dead. Yeah, that's probably a little bit more topical and relevant. Whoa. What's up?

[Luke Lafreniere]

League of Legends being killed. That's a huge player base.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it's huge.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Rocket League is pretty solid as well, but League of Legends is massive.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't think that you can, I don't think you can really make an argument that, you know, a platform, a mouse, keyboard, platform where you can't play. League of Legends is like highly relevant.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, that's rough.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know. Apple's got this bizarre relationship with like gaming and game developers and gamers. No, they haven't always have. Mac was the gaming platform for like desktops in the early days.

[Dan]

Halo.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It didn't come out.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it was supposed to though.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And dude, like so many. My friend had a Mac, his dad had a Mac when I was in like elementary school. And like they had so many better games. I was like, this is.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, did they?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I was like, this is awesome.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We had no real exposure to Mac, not just because, like, my parents didn't have any, but like, I didn't know anyone with one.

[Linus Sebastian]

No. Gaming on a Mac was like sick. And they like talked about gaming in their keynotes and stuff.

[Dan]

Wasn't. Myst was a big one because Mac was like the first CD drive. Right.

[Linus Sebastian]

And then now, now you go, you like, you watch their keynotes. You watch these like, these like old boomers trying to talk about gaming. They have no idea what they're talking about.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Having the biggest gaming base because of iPhone.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's bizarre. Yeah, it's bizarre. It's like they just see it in, in terms of like revenue numbers. They don't. I, I'm not convinced that any of them actually play video games. Yeah, dude, like people are talking like Oregon Trail was on Mac. Yeah. 100%. Let's play some Odell Lake.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is all.

[Linus Sebastian]

Let's go. There's a reference you wouldn't have expected.

[Luke Lafreniere]

To be clear. This is all like 30 years ago.

[Linus Sebastian]

I know, I know. But I'm just saying. You said always. We talked about this on wan show recently.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Words have meanings.

[Linus Sebastian]

Words have meanings. Always means always.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, fair.

[Linus Sebastian]

And it was not always the case.

[Dan]

Video games are for 0.7mm light enjoyers. That's why they're not automatic. We're still about 60, 40 pulls over.

[Linus Sebastian]

You'd probably have to be a lead enjoyer to buy a Mac for gaming these days.

[Dan]

It tastes so good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Dan wants the 0.9 because it has the most calories.

[Dan]

Gotta keep up my winter weight.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right.

[Dan]

How about another?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Hey.

[Dan]

Loot, Liar and Drums. That's a new one. I like that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice.

[Dan]

What's your best three person video game? I have two buddies that play frequently, but squads are almost always four people. Buying replacing screwdriver because I lost the first one in the woods.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Warhammer 40k is three people. Rocket League is three people.

[Linus Sebastian]

Be terrible if we didn't mention Trine. But that's.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Trine is old.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean there's four of them.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's good though.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, they're pretty samey.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They are pretty samey. But I wouldn't play them close together.

[Linus Sebastian]

There's lots of four player games you can totally enjoy as three players. Like Powerfall. Super Fun.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You can cue is three.

[Linus Sebastian]

Best three person video game.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Someone said overcooked. Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

There are five trines. Oh well. Shows you what I know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

My goodness. Again, just don't play them too close to each other. They're very samey. Yeah, they're good though. But just spread them out.

[Linus Sebastian]

Shredder's Revenge. Tmnt. Shredder's Revenge. Yeah, you could totally play that with three people. It was disappointingly not that hard.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Well you can turn it up to like hardcore mode though. Which we didn't do because we were playing with children.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Right.

[Linus Sebastian]

Ballers Gate 3. There's no real reason you couldn't do a three person playthrough. I wouldn't call it a three person video game.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yes, it's. In my opinion it's best with two or four. But you could totally do a. A three person playthrough for sure. Especially if you have like one person who knows the game and they run two of the characters and then two newer players play the other two. Four players is Helldivers. Yeah. But you could still do three just fine. I used to play Helldivers with two people. That's fine.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wow. I think you're just. I think you're just not being very.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But you. Okay, but you could pull in randoms as well. This guy, the two is like you.

[Linus Sebastian]

And his elite gamer privilege is showing like. Yeah. I don't know. You could just like solo like final end game raids and wow. Right? Like I just do it by myself so you can too. This guy. This guy. Apparently dream daddy. A dad. Dating simulator is a three player. No, this is single player. You guys don't even. Don't even.

[Dan]

Polygo Daddy Simulator.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure, that's the sequel.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know. This can't be that bad. It's from Game Grumps.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Look, if you soloed Vault of Glass, I don't even know what that is.

[Linus Sebastian]

So you play as a dad and your goal is to meet and romance other hot dads? No. This could be that bad. Okay, well anyway, let's move on. Yeah, sure. Let's do another topic. What do you want to talk about? You want to talk about how Half Life 3 is really totally definitely happening this time?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure it is.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, go for it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Signs point to the possibility of Valve working on the long awaited third entry to the second most influential FPS franchise in gaming history. Half Life.

[Linus Sebastian]

Hold on a second.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Who wrote this? I think David.

[Dan]

Are they.

[Linus Sebastian]

Is he. Is he just trying to troll people?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm not sure but he's got to.

[Linus Sebastian]

Be trying to troll people. There's no way. There's no way.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What's the most influential then?

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know. You could argue Halo. No Halo change.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Halo changed first person shooters forever.

[Linus Sebastian]

Doom. Yeah, maybe Doom.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Doom.

[Linus Sebastian]

I do see Doom.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Doom created first person shooters more effectively. They existed.

[Linus Sebastian]

But yeah, I don't know. There's. There's arguments to be made for a lot of the early stuff. Like Unreal definitely changed multiplayer.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

Quake changed multiplayer in a big way. Wasn't it? Quake basically created multiplayer arena shooter, didn't it? Trying to remember. I wasn't a gamer back then. So yeah, this is all just based on what I like know and remember.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Ricochet 2. Ricochet 2 is definitely the most influential first person shooter of all time. I do agree. Judge and flip my chat. Anyways, moving on. Before that it goes crazy. YouTuber and Semi Reliable source of Valve leaks Gabe follower has made a video claiming Valve is working on the Half Life universe again with some moderately convincing evidence. One undiscovered source, two engine updates that more fit a Half Life game than any current Valve game.

[Linus Sebastian]

2.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Pointing out new dev commentary in the 20th anniversary update that mentions fixing a problem in a future installment. Okay. And more importantly, three claims from an insider that Valve is actively play testing a new Half Life with friends and family.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, can I just. Can I interject for a moment? I mean you interjected a lot of times earlier, so I feel like I'm owed. 1. Is it not more likely that we're just going to get Project Deckard with Half Life Alex? 2. Because Valve needs to sell some VR headsets. Like, come on, we're not getting Half Life 3, you guys. Anyway, carry on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

G Man slash Barney Calhoun voice actor has pointed out his.

[Linus Sebastian]

Has also posted his first.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Has also posted his first non reply tweet. Thanks. Since the release of Half Life Alex, a cryptic video using the G Man voice referencing unexpected surprises in the future. The actor has previously told us gamer that he had recently worked on a blast from the past that he would announce on my Twitter feed when I'm allowed to.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is all sounding a lot more like a remaster or something than now.

[Luke Lafreniere]

After eight years, Valve has finished the TF2 comic series with a final installment with small references to the Half Life universe. Valve has been on a huge hiring spree for Project White Sands and has brought back ex staff who worked On Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead and Portal. Maybe the Aperture science story thread in Half Life 2 episode 2 can be paid off with a portal gun in Gordon Freeman's hand.

[Linus Sebastian]

This really. This. Who. Who wrote this story? Are you. Are you just fanficing like we're getting Artifact two?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, wow. Artifact two.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, this is gonna be sick. This is David. This is David.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I like this one.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is David. Here's our destination. Discussion. Question, Linus, why do you hate Half Life 2? And follow up, why are you so wrong?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, that's an interesting question.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't hate Half Life two. It's one of the few shooter games I've actually played all the way through. I played Half Life 2. I played episode one. I played episode two. The only one I've said I couldn't finish is Half Life one, because I didn't go back and try to play it until I'd already completed Half Life 2. And like, it didn't age particularly. Yeah, it didn't age particularly well. Like, okay, like I could probably. I could probably list first person shooter games that I've actually played an entire campaign on on two hands so far. Cry 1.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Great game.

[Linus Sebastian]

Doom. The lake. The lake around that time. Doom, Whatever that. Whatever that one was. I forget Half Life 2 Fear. I played that one that you made me play. Titanfall 2.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's a good game.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. What else is there?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Really solid game, but okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Portal.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Also, every time Steam has a sale, Titanfall 2 goes on sale for like $3. If you haven't bought it, just buy when it's on sale. It's a great single player game. Do it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Halo 1. Have I actually played through the single player campaign? I think so. Maybe. Possibly. Oh, it would have been. Yeah, No, I think I did. I think I did. What else we got? BioShock. Yes, I did play through BioShock. I may have even dragged myself through BioShock 2, but I'm not sure if I finished it. It was terrible. No, not Fire Crystal.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I wasn't that into two, but I liked Infinite.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh. I played one of the Deus Ex games all the way through. I think it was. It was like it was supposed to be one of the bad ones or whatever, but I. I came into it, into the franchise later, so I enjoyed it just fine. Maybe it. Maybe it was. That one is probably one of the Deus Ex ones. And I have never. I have actually never played a Battlefield or Call of Duty campaign all the way through. I just, like, didn't participate in gaming at that time, I guess. So we're at nine. We're at nine.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They're. They're good. Like Marvel. Marvel movie esque campaigns, if that makes sense. There's no real, like, substance to them.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't think I ended up beating Borderlands. I got bored of Diablo. First person shooter edition.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I don't think I ever. I think I've tried a couple of them. I've never beat any of them because, yeah, I get partway through it. I'm just like, all right.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yep. This is Diablo. All right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yep.

[Linus Sebastian]

Crisis. Yes. Oh, okay. We're over 10.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You beat crisis.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, wow.

[Linus Sebastian]

Crisis. Crisis two. I might have actually played all the way through Crisis three as well. Definitely Crisis one and Crisis two. I did very much enjoy those.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I know a lot of people that played it, but not that many people that actually, like, finished it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Why?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know.

[Linus Sebastian]

Actually, you know, I've said. I know I've seen that feedback. Whether it's one or two, I can't remember, but people are like, yeah, when the aliens show up, it like, gets stupid.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was gonna say when the enemies change, but I didn't remember what they changed to.

[Linus Sebastian]

I thought it was fine. Yeah, I Mean, you have the same problem in Far Cry. It's the exact same problem. Have you ever played the original Far Cry?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I've watched you play it, but no.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it's. It's the exact same problem. You start out fighting. Well, I don't know. You gonna play?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Probably not.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, whatever. You start out fighting humans and then you end up fighting like, these. This happens in, like, insufferable. Like. Like rocket absorbing monsters. Like, you can hit them in the face with a rocket, like, three times. It's like, okay, they're made of flesh and bone. Like, come on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Just to work. This is such a consistent theme, and I don't know why. I find it interesting that Warhammer, Space Marine, 40K2, whatever, it does it the other way around. You start fighting the weird aliens, and then you end the game fighting more humanoid things, and it starts weaker and ends stronger. It's like, what? Sure, okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't count Shadow of the Tomb Raider. That's third person, but I did finish that. Man, I really don't play that many games. Like, that's like every shooter game that I've played in the last 25 years.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Team told me that you bought Slay the Spire.

[Linus Sebastian]

I did. I haven't played it yet, though. I was busy beating you to the end of Final Fantasy 6. I haven't been it yet. It's. I don't know if this is because of some of the balance issues in the Pixel remaster. There are some significant balance issues, though.

[Luke Lafreniere]

In a makes it harder or makes it easier way?

[Linus Sebastian]

Both. I've noticed some stuff in the Pixel remaster, so I don't know if it's because of that or I don't know if it's because of my nostalgia glasses fading, but it may not be as good of a game as I remember it being. Like, there's. So the Pixel remaster has some. Some very serious issues. I don't know if it's caused by me setting the battle rate too fast and. But it seems like when I changed it, it didn't get fixed. And I also have it set to active because I like. I want a bit of a challenge, but I've noticed that there are certain effects. Like poison, for instance. The tick rate for it is obscene. So this probably won't spoil too much, but there's a boss at some point that can grab you and hold you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think it's already happened.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, it probably hasn't.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Really?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Doesn't the tentacle guy do that?

[Linus Sebastian]

Wait, where are you at?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I fought him like twice or something, I think.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh. Oh, him. Ultros. Okay, sure. Anyway, there's. There's some boss at some point who can. Who can grab you and hold on to you. And the tick for the. For the damage is like obscene. So I. I got. I got annihilated in that fight like four times in a row. Never even really getting a chance to even hit anything. And oh, Theola says maybe you need to cap your frame rate. But like really, a PC release in 2020, whatever.

[Dan]

You would be very surprised.

[Linus Sebastian]

Why? Because that.

[Dan]

It is so standard. It still happens.

[Linus Sebastian]

Because that is embarrassing.

[Dan]

Oh yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like that is. That is straight up embarrassing. If that's caused by. By higher. By the frame rate being higher, why wouldn't everyone use time always forever?

[Dan]

Because it's harder. It's very lazy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's not that much harder.

[Linus Sebastian]

You just go, it's really not that much harder. That's it. Anyway, I've. I've encountered. I've encountered a lot of stuff that's just. Just kind of. Kind of broken. Like we talked about some of it last week where Cayenne or Cyan or whatever his. His sword techniques or Bushido is what it's called now. There's supposed to be a penalty for performing the higher tier ones and they're just. Isn't. I don't know, man. Yeah, cool. Anyway, I don't want to spend a bunch of time talking About Final Fantasy 6 again this week, but I will beat you to the end.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I have.

[Linus Sebastian]

Made progress.

[Luke Lafreniere]

If you had to guess, how many hours do you think I have left? I have no idea.

[Linus Sebastian]

But like, well, where are you at?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Same spot.

[Linus Sebastian]

You haven't touched me with the family again.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Family games again. My brother and I beat Act 2 in Baldur's Gate 3. We beat Warhammer 40K. And we got from the Meadows to the Plains in Valheim.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is like when I ask my kids why they haven't eaten their broccoli and they're all like, well, I ate my rice and I ate my meat and I ate my. My bubble gum. It's like, I didn't ask about any of those things. I asked why I didn't treat your broccoli.

[Luke Lafreniere]

My current plan.

[Linus Sebastian]

Eat your gaming broccoli.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't like Las Vegas. I don't gamble. I don't bet. I don't do any of that kind of stuff. I have something going on.

[Linus Sebastian]

You're gonna end up socializing with who?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No one's even gonna be there.

[Linus Sebastian]

And there's Wendell going Not on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No. First of all, no.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Second of all, then you may actually.

[Linus Sebastian]

Get some gaming done, because on Sunday.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No one's gonna be there. I'm going down there to film something on Saturday, and then I just have to wait on Sunday. I don't like the city that I'm gonna be in, so I'm probably just gonna play Final Fantasy in the hotel room all day.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. I'll probably still be ahead of you, maybe. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that many hours ahead?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Put, like, 32 hours into it or something. Don't worry about it. And realistically, I, like, know the game better and can probably beat it in fewer hours than you, so that's, like, you know, gonna be a challenge, I guess.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I often don't know where the heck I'm going, and I don't want to look things up, like, as much as possible, so I'm. I'm often like, what?

[Linus Sebastian]

Without spoiling anything. That gets way worse. Okay. Way worse.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, no.

[Linus Sebastian]

Cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm having that problem literally right now. Like, the point in the game where I stopped was because I was looking around for, like. I think it was, like, 10 or 15 minutes. I could not, for the life of me, for what I was supposed to go when I.

[Linus Sebastian]

When. When. When you're supposed to go to the Imperial Camp to go to the. To go to the Sealed Gate?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

When I was a child and I didn't have the Internet or, like, a guidebook or anything like that, I spent literally hours, literally hours figuring that out. Hours and hours and hours. I went to every city on the entire map multiple times, trying to figure out what would trigger anything new to.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Happen when you get completely freed with the airship. And so I've gone to the gate thing. The thing happened, we're out. I'm supposed to do the next step, and then they just let you free. On the map with the airship, I literally had an immediate sense of dread because I was like, there's no. There's no bounds now. Like, you gave me one line of where I'm supposed to go, and I didn't recognize where that was. And now you're just like, good luck. Like, what does that mean? I also don't remember what you said, so.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. What, you can't replay cutscenes?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

Heaven forbid you be able to do that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like, sounds like you need some yellow paint. Yeah, to be honest, a little bit of yellow paint right now. I wouldn't mind a little bit of yellow paint anyways, so.

[Linus Sebastian]

Half Life three. Good luck, everybody. It's not going to be Half Life three, it's going to be Alex two or it's going to be like a remaster or something. Valve doesn't make new Half Life games.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Web dev says 70% of forum traffic is LLM training bots.

[Linus Sebastian]

We have any way of like corroborating that? Oh, like, what do you, what do you think? Like, LTT forum would almost certainly get crawled.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Is it worth it? We can try.

[Linus Sebastian]

What?

[Luke Lafreniere]

We can look into it.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, I'm just, I'm. I wouldn't spend resources on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm just exactly.

[Linus Sebastian]

Idly curious.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I just like, I don't even know. It probably wouldn't be that hard. But is it worth spending any amount of time?

[Linus Sebastian]

Probably not.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, exactly.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. I mean, I think, I feel like that's one of the things that happens when you become like sort of a medium sized larger company is you just like people ask a question, doing so many things and then you just like. Yeah, you just start just like asking questions and then like assigning resources to them because you just like kind of have all these resources and then you end up just like not actually doing anything. Because finding out if our forum is being crawled by training bots is like, what does that inform for our decision making?

[Luke Lafreniere]

What are we gonna do? Yeah, what are we gonna do about it?

[Linus Sebastian]

We're not gonna do anything.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Anyways, Diaspora developer Dennis Schubert was investigating.

[Linus Sebastian]

Diaspora.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Diaspora.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's fine.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's not Diaspora.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't think so.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I've heard it. Okay. Diaspora developer Dennis Schubert was investigating load spikes on a Diaspora project web infrastructure and on investigation discovered a significant majority of the 11.3 million web requests handed handled in a 60 day period.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, you're right. It's Diaspora.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nice. All right, good job.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Got em. The 11.3 million web requests handled in a 60 day period were from LLM training bots. The bots crawl and re crawl multiple times a day and aren't smart about what they crawl. At one point, ChatGPT and Amazon were crawling the entire edit history of Diaspora's wiki. Every single diff, every single page. Often more than 10 requests per second.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wow.

[Luke Lafreniere]

To compare responsible bots like those for Google or Bing, Search accounted for just 0.28% of diaspora's web. Now I think about every time I.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, sorry, I screwed it up for everyone. I ruined it all. I ruined it all. Step down, Adam. Because Linus ruins everything.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that a dated reference now? I don't even know. The bots ignore robots txt, which you can think of as the house rules for any web server that can ask web bots to honor attempts to slow or stop. And they generally did in the past. Attempts to slow or stop the bots just result in them disguising their user agents and taking other evasive actions. Diaspora is a decentralized social media platform that calls itself the online social world, where you are in control.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think our discussion question needs some help. But I mean, I think basically our discussion question here is.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What do we do?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Is Pandora's box just open at this point? It actually, it surprises me a little bit that anyone is bothering to sign licensing deals with platforms like Reddit. I think the only reason they're bothering is that Reddit has the financial resources to potentially fight them in court for years and years and win some kind of settlement.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Don't. Which is exactly the reason why we were discussing, like, do we look into this? No. Because what are we going to do?

[Linus Sebastian]

Nothing. Y. And trying to stop them just has them disguise their user agents and take other evasive actions. Realistically, they've gone up against more sophisticated administrators than us, no offense, who have more time to fight this stuff.

[Luke Lafreniere]

When we look at the cost of running the forum, the second we start investigating this, we have lost money.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh yeah. The forum is like, I'm not sure why we bother anymore at this point. Like, most of them seem to hate me anyway.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So it's just like, how's that feel, paying for the hosting of a community that generally doesn't like you? Moving on.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. At least Reddit's free.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Right. You don't. You. You don't have to pay to keep that going. Oh man. Amazing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Ah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Are we still doing more topics?

[Linus Sebastian]

I do. Just to be clear, I'm mostly being facetious. I do think that it is a. It is a small minority of active users that are drinking the Haterade. And I also think that there is an influx of new users who are just looking to participate. Anytime that there's something resembling a scandal, even if it's a complete nothing burger, and they tend to kind of show up at those times it was. It's been really interesting watching how much noise there has been about the Honey scandal. And I'm going to use that in finger quotes because it had nothing to.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Do with us, despite a lack of.

[Linus Sebastian]

Impact compared to the impact on sort of any other aspect of anything. Because a lot of the time if people. If people are legitimately upset about something, like if we. If we upload a. A video to float plane that accidentally left the sponsor Spots in, you know, like, we might see, like, a dip in float plan subscribers or if we upload a. Or if we upload a sponsored video to the YouTube channel that people think is just, like, too shilly or something like that. Because we've done stuff like that in the past. We were always trying to find the right balance, but we don't always. We don't always nail it. And I've been upfront about that. You know, you'll, You'll. You might see a reduction in engagement over the next couple of days or weeks or months or, you know, whatever. But this one, in spite of how broad and how loud and how angry people have been, it appears to be two perfect circles. The people who actually engage with us and care about LTT and Linus Media Group and. And all of those various things, and the people who actually think that this is, like, a scandal that reflects poorly on us in any way.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think it's a. A lot of people that just go from. From thing to thing that they can yell about, and they just. That's their entertainment when they get home.

[Linus Sebastian]

It seems like it. Yeah, it seems like it. And. And there have definitely been times when those circles have overlapped.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

When there's actually been people who are angry about it. Who. Do you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

When it's more real.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, no. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But this one seems like the most separated, connected. Like, we've maybe got, like, these lines, like, kind of touch. And there's, like dozens.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Right.

[Linus Sebastian]

Of people that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Because I'm sure there's some. Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

That are. That are newly. Newly hate us because of this.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

It just feels like everyone who was gonna hate us hates us already at this point. And it's. It's actually liberating. I think I've talked about this before a little bit lately where it feels like we've survived enough scandals that, like, we'd have to have an actual scandal, you know, like a real one for. For it to kind of drum up like, like new hate, you know, it's just old hate that's being. That's being sort of refreshed now. It's like, oh, he hates adblock. It's like, I don't. I don't. I don't care about it. You. I always told you guys, you use it. You don't use it. You make your choice.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's on. You just make your own.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Build your own priorities. Whatever.

[Linus Sebastian]

Cwp Linus is actually the mastermind behind Honey. Oh, I wish I'd thought of it. I'd be a billionaire.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude. Like, honestly. Oh, man. Dude, I.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Big mean guy.

[Linus Sebastian]

I had an idea, and you know about this already. I had an idea that literally would have made us a billion dollars. I think you. I think you know the one I'm talking. Look, the one I was talking to you and Taran about. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Finally. Jeez, we got there.

[Luke Lafreniere]

How does that. What is that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Don't worry about it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Maybe we might not do charades that well.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, that's fine. We don't need to do that. Anyway. Anyway, the point is, you know, whether it's like, you know, Linus, that's a.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, I forgot to tell you about this. There is absolutely a platform that does that, by the way.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, really?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

100%.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, good. Anyway, the point is, I wish them.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Luck and they're killing it, so you're completely right.

[Linus Sebastian]

So, anywho, like, we've definitely. We've definitely had ideas before that I think are. Are probably not as bad as what PayPal Honey is doing here, necessarily.

[Luke Lafreniere]

At least money would we have if we actually did that vpn.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I know there's, like, there's been plenty of opportunities, but I don't actually wish I'd thought of it because, like, there's been times when we've thought of stuff that would have made us, like, actually obscene amounts of money, and we have made the active decision that, no, we actually do make enough money and.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We need to not do that.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's. It's more important for the world that that is not done by us because someone will probably do it at some point anyway.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But.

[Linus Sebastian]

But, you know, whether it's hawk to a girl with her rug pull recently or thing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You're talking about Linus coins, rug pull would have been cooler. I don't know why.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, we wanted to call it. We wanted to call it drop coin because the value would drop. Yeah, we were going to be. I don't know if you guys are new. You won't. You won't remember this, Obviously.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is a pretty funny idea.

[Linus Sebastian]

You weren't there for it, but we talked about doing like, an ICO and like, being completely upfront, like calling it rug coin or calling it drop coin or calling it something like that, where we're just like, yeah, we're going to.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We're going to start going to the moon.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, we're going to spike the crap out of this thing. We're going to do an ico. If you guys are in at the absolute ground floor, you're gonna Make a killing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You probably won't if you sell fast enough.

[Linus Sebastian]

Because we're gonna be the ones that are gonna rug pull it faster than anyone else could possibly know because we're gonna keep 90% of it for ourselves, like every smart initial coin offering scheme does. And yeah, it's gonna be a disaster for everyone who buys into it. Let's go.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And we would have made so much.

[Linus Sebastian]

Money, people would have totally done it anyway because people would have just like bought $5 worth of equipment.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'd probably be the one that sells at the right time. It'll be me.

[Linus Sebastian]

Mashy. Sly Fox says it was and still is hilarious.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No bad things ever happen to me.

[Linus Sebastian]

Lt to a coin. Please. No, no, no, we shouldn't do that. It's a bad idea. It would be a heck of a way to retire though. Retirement coin. Like whose retirement? Mine or yours?

[Luke Lafreniere]

How much?

[Linus Sebastian]

Let's find out.

[Luke Lafreniere]

How much I. How much am I worthy of retirement? That's how much you spend on this coin.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh my God.

[Dan]

Put the entire company's pension plan into it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan]

Actual retirement.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. And there would, there would be no tech offerings, which I think people have given up on that at this point.

[Linus Sebastian]

Tech offerings?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Like at the beginning of ICOs, it was all like, oh, this one's going to be good because it'll have lower transaction fees because people are actually totally going to use it. Wink, wink, wink. And now no one cares.

[Linus Sebastian]

Right, right, right, right, right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Soldiers theme it around something fun and then try to convince people to go to the moon and sell before it does.

[Linus Sebastian]

You know what's crazy is my, my brother in law actually works for a company that actually had a value. Has a value to their coin. No, no, no, no. I'm.

[Luke Lafreniere]

How old is it?

[Linus Sebastian]

How old is it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

How many years have they been around?

[Linus Sebastian]

It's this thing, it's the, it's this like drone mapping thing. So you, so you fly your drone, which you want to do anyway, and you get, you, you get there like crypto coin or whatever for mapping stuff. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What can you.

[Linus Sebastian]

Is it worth it actually seems to be like doing pretty good because they have actual clients that pay actual money for.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, I hate this because. Yeah, this is actually probably pretty cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's really.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And there are legitimate uses for this type of stuff.

[Linus Sebastian]

They have significantly downplayed the crypto ness.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's probably a good idea.

[Linus Sebastian]

The blockchain ness. Probably a good idea, but it is using blockchain technology and it is achieving something actually valuable, which is extremely high Resolution imagery. They've got. They've got a really good. Where is it? It was actually a different news article. It wasn't on their site where they show like a. A side by side of like satellite imagery versus Versus their imagery. And it's like obviously way better because it's from people, it's from individual drone operators flying their drones around. And so it's like it's a win win because it's something these guys want to do anyway. People love an excuse to fly their drones around. These guys are getting this highly detailed mapping data and then companies and cities. Any organization that's willing to pay for this high resolution map imagery is winning as well. I won't talk about much of it because I have no idea what of what he's told me is in confidence or whatever else, but that's the high level of what these guys are doing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's kind of frustrating because blockchain tech is really cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But it's like hard to be excited about because there are so many scams.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. It's like not every blockchain project is a scam.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

But every scammer is in on blockchain.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Yeah. So which is rough because then when people do actually do cool things with it, which, I mean, that seems cool. I don't know. It's not endorsement. I've never seen it before. There's. There's so much negativity around it because they get associated with the incredible amount of the huge ocean full of scammers. I do hope one day we can get past that, but honestly, I don't know that we can. I think there will always be scammers in blockchains.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is pretty cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Too many of them.

[Linus Sebastian]

Property assessment. Situational awareness for fire and police. Disaster response. Yeah. Assessing infrastructure. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's super cool disaster response. Especially trying to figure out what something was supposed to look like.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Before it got swept away in a flood or something.

[Linus Sebastian]

100%.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. No, I'm super, super, super happy for him. Super, super proud of him. He's worked super hard to. To get. To get this to where it is. It's a long story. That's his story to tell. But yeah, no, no, definitely super cool. It's surely time. It's early time asks, okay, but is blockchain necessary for this to exist? No, but what it is is really elegant. Blockchain is super cool. It's like super, super cool. It's just that there's a lot of grifters in the space. Saw an Easy way to make a buck. That's all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

McBain says next scandal Tech influencer pushes family coin scam. No. All right, what are we doing?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sponsors.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, right. Yes. The show is brought to you by Squarespace. Do you want your online business to look brighter than this monitor in 2025?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, wow.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude, it looks so good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, my God, it's so good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Our sponsor, Squarespace is here to help your business shine like a diamond. It's an all in one platform. Oh, dude, I. Okay, well, we're sidetracking again. I was. We were. Sorry. Yeah, I'm completely sidetracking. You know what? No, I'll tell you about diamond shopping in London with Yvonne later. Okay. Our sponsor, Squarespace, is here to help your business shine like a diamond. It's an all in one platform designed to make it easy to build a website, create marketing campaigns, invoice clients, process payments, and more. Squarespace offers loads of layouts and styling options, making it super simple to use for anyone. No coding experience required. All you have to do is pick one that fits your needs and it will look great on any device. Plus, their AI tools can generate product descriptions, all with just a single prompt. And once your store is live, you can track how it's doing and level up your marketing with their seller, Analytics. It's so easy to use. We built our Linus mediagroup.com website with Squarespace too. So start building your website today and get 10% off your first purchase by visiting squarespace.com Wan the show is also brought to you by Notion. Sometimes your boss makes wild promises, like building you a Rivian R1s.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What's happening with that?

[Linus Sebastian]

Nothing. That was just pure nonsense.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You're bound.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's Linus for you. Always aiming high, even if it's with questionable thoughts. But our sponsor, Notion, helps you actually map out your plans and keep your projects running smoother than the Rivian that Linus might be forced to build legally has to. That looks pretty good. Yeah, I could build one like that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yep.

[Linus Sebastian]

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[Dan]

What might be a duplication thing. That's pretty.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh yeah, I could definitely do that. Hold on a second. I'm just going to double check something here because when I was looking at. Oh, okay, hold on. Come back to me for a second. Okay, I can do both. So you can use it as a card reader slot thing or you can put SSDs in it. So I was thinking of it for us making a video. I was thinking ingesting footage. But you can also load SSDs in it and you can back up to it. Okay, cool. So it features six bays allowing you to offload content or backup content to six drives simultaneously. Built for speed, it includes two 40 gigabit per second Thunderbolt 4 bays and four 10 gigabit per second bays for fast and efficient performance. The dock is customizable with a variety of Lexar professional workflow peripherals, including Micro sdsd, CF Express Card readers and more. With the ability to daisy chain multiple docks and connect to supported displays, you can edit in 8K or on two 4K monitors. Plus it includes a 140 watt GAN charger to power your setup. Right now you can get 20% off select Lexar Workflow series products by clicking the link in the video description. All right.

[Dan]

Kinda sick.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Kinda cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

So diamond shopping in London.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Why?

[Linus Sebastian]

Because Yvonne and I were having a conversation. She. She told me about this like jewelry slash like diamond brand that was a big deal called Harry Winston, like, they're. They're, like, the best or something, and they're the. The trendiest. And I was like, oh, are they, like, better than, like, Tiffany? Because that's the only sort of, like, upscale, you know, brand that I know. And Yvonne's like. Yvonne's like, oh, I mean, yeah, yeah, they're. Yeah, they're. They're like, you know, their brand perception is, like, higher. They're, like, more premium. And anyways, I was like. I was like, really? Because I thought, like. I thought, like, Tiffany's like, you know, kind of, like a huge deal. It's certainly very overpriced. Go ahead.

[Luke Lafreniere]

These look stupid. I went to the website and immediately was like, what? Okay, sorry.

[Linus Sebastian]

So. So anyway, to tease her, because that's my actual favorite thing to do in the entire world.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

I was like, well, well, darling, would you like me to get you a Harry Winston then? And she's like, what? No, I'm just. I was just saying, like, like, that's the one that kind of gets, like, you know, they provide the diamonds for the, you know, the Royal Family and, you know, whatever else. And I'm like, okay. So. So you're saying now that we're here in London, you'd like to go get to Harry Winston then. Sorry, Dan, by the way, I'm butchering your native tongue. And anyway, so basically, I. We were just walking around in the city, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna find the nearest Harry Winston. And she's like, no, I don't. No, I don't want to. I don't want to go there. And I'm like, no, no, no. Okay, then in that case, we're not going there. We're wandering aimlessly. And I. Like, it makes sense. So basically, I. So we arrived there, and I was like, oh, look at that. There happens to be a Tiffany nearby. Why don't we go ahead and go in that one as well? I don't think that I have ever felt more unwelcome somewhere than I was in Tiffany or.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You were, like, wearing this, basically.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

I had. I had a pair of vessels on with, like, paint. Like. Like, spattered paint spatters on them. I was dressed in our, like, LTT cargo pants. No. Did I have. I know I had jeans on. And then I was wearing. Actually, you know what? No, my. My. I think my top layer was somewhat respectable. You know that. That white and black shell that we have. Yes, I was dressed in that. So I think that's, like, but it's not, it's not Tiffany.

[Dan]

Or Harry Winston walks into Tiffany with paint covered shoes and clothes he made himself.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, pretty much. So we, so, because, because basically we were trying to like, we were trying to sort of see like, you know, who's more, who's more upscale. You know that game that I've told you that I like to play at the airport, right?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

Or I. So I like to go into a store that has a brand I've never heard of before, preferably a person's first and last name.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

And then find an item and then take like bets with whoever my travel companion is for what the price is. And then you play Price is Right rules for, you know, how much it. How much it is. So you ask a salesperson how much it is because they almost never have price tags on them. Anyway, the point is I was doing kind of like a variation of that game called who Will Make Me Feel the Most Unwelcome. So, so we walk into. So we walk into Tiffany. You can't just walk in. First of all, you have to, like, knock on the door. This is their London store. Okay? It's London. All right? It's London. So, so you knock on the door and they like, they like open it. Because I think there's actual discrimination laws. Like, they can't not let you in unless there's an actual security concern. So I go in and she's like, oh, welcome to Tiffany. You know, what can I, what can I help you with today? And I'm like, oh, I'm just browsing. And she goes, what do you mean? Like, is there a particular collection you'd like to look at? Do you know which floor you need to go to? I'm like, no, I'm just looking around. And she's just like. Cannot fucking believe her ears. Like, has. Has never heard the word browsing. You mean, you don't, you mean you, you don't know exactly which of our fabulous creations you wish to go home with today? Like, you've never. Do you even know who I am? I am the salesperson at Tiffany London. How dare you? You waste my time. Like, dude, I could not believe it. So anyway, we go in and I'm pretty sure they had someone tailing us the whole time. I mean, yeah, I would. I probably would.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, why not?

[Linus Sebastian]

But dude, this store was so far up its own rectum, like, I couldn't even believe it. It was beautiful, obviously. I'm sure, like, they have this entire, like, sitting room where I guess you could I don't know, have a tea party or something like it. Oh, oh, I think I have a selfie. I can send it to Dan. We took a selfie in the Tiffany.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Store while you do that, because that's.

[Linus Sebastian]

The only thing Yvonne's getting from the Tiffany store.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You mentioned how you guessed the price because. And you have to ask someone because there's no prices listed. I found another watch that I laughed at internally and I decided to see how much it would cost. So I clicked on it on their website and their options where normally, like, you know, that would be our schedule, an appointment, request assistance, or learn more about pricing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Mm.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No two diamonds. Harry Winston once said, no two diamonds are alike, as each is a fine jewel from the house of Harry Winston.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead, go ahead. So here's what Yvonne got from the Tiffany store. So this is just. There's a bunch of, like, little chairs and couches like that. So she's got a jean jacket on under her, like, Aritzia, like, like winter coat. And yeah, we're both, like, not particularly put together because we basically haven't slept in days anyway. And, oh, yeah, I have a backpack on. If there's anything that's gonna sketch out a fine jewelry store, it's walking in with a backpack. Anyway, we. We looked at a couple things. We found a. We found like a. Like a choker that was like £148,000 or something. I asked Yvonne to guess the price. She said she thought it would be 70 or 80,000. I was like, oh, yeah, try almost double doubling it. Because that's the thing. Like this, like, brand name jewelry is not just like overpriced, like, like diamond cartel overpriced. It's like diamond cartel overpriced. And also they need to have their ludicrous markup on top of it. So you. You pay just an obscene amount. Anyway, after we walked out of Tiffany, Yvonne admitted that it was her perception of it as being like, not actually. She thought it was like fashion jewelry, basically, basically, but like premium fashion jewelry. She was like, okay, no, I'm pretty sure these guys are there, but I'm pretty sure Harry Winston is still like, a level above. And what I will say is that while I didn't feel quite as unwelcome at Harry Winston, I think that's only because they didn't really let us see anything or go anywhere. Oh, we were very welcome to stay in the foyer. So they had like an electronic lock. Like you. I had to, like, I had to like, get the guy's attention. It didn't help that Yvonne was trying to walk past the store because she was absolutely mortified after having gone into Tiffany and feeling so unwelcome there.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I have no surprise.

[Linus Sebastian]

So she tried to get past it. So I was like dragging her back toward the doorway and I was like, let us in. And so the guy lets us in. He's like, what can I help you with today? I'm like, oh, I just want to look around. He's like, okay. So they have like an electronic lock. It goes like, like opens up. He opens up the door. It's like this heavy door. So you go inside and they're like, oh, what can I help you with today? I'm like, oh, just looking around. And unlike Tiffany, where you can walk all the different floors and look around at all the different showcases and stuff, in this one, you go in and there's a handful of things on display. And there was another client there that was evidently planning some kind of event. Dude, her husband, or husband to be, was the most boredass looking dude that I've ever seen in my life. While she's discussing whether her hair will be up or her hair will be down and her Harry Winston diamond, whatever. Anywho, we were able to look at like a couple little things. There was a watch with no price tag on it, as you can probably imagine. And they were so talking to that, that lady that was in there working with them on something. They talked about, oh, going upstairs and seeing something. Well, no one invited us upstairs. And in fact, there was like three people between us and any further access to the place. So we just kind of did a loop in the little like, lobby area and then. And then we left.

[Luke Lafreniere]

As far as I can tell from their website, find a salon. They call them salons. As far as I can tell from their websites, you have to book appointments.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, really?

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's probably why they were like, what the heck? Also, they have a. I forgot to point this out. They have a ring the bell icon for assistance, which is just. That's just amazing. I don't know why I like that so much. Okay, so is it this one? Yeah. So let's just pick this random one. Yeah. Schedule an appointment or request assistance.

[Linus Sebastian]

Those are both the same thing. They know that, right?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But yeah, I think, I think the reason why they're asking you like, hello is because they're expecting people to show up with appointments.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, I guess, like their personal assistants would make an appointment for them, right?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, Mine must have forgotten to call. Sorry.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Way to go, Vance.

[Linus Sebastian]

He's not my personal assistant. I don't have a personal assistant. He's an executive assistant. He like, works for the company. Right. Anyway, I don't know. I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure. What happens?

[Linus Sebastian]

Don't hit the bell.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's just a link.

[Linus Sebastian]

There's a Rolls Royce outside. Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So what's the difference what's happening for inquiry.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, rich people don't have time to fill out this form, schedule an appointment, do their work for them. What do you think you're doing here?

[Dan]

This is advanced form.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wait, is it not the same?

[Linus Sebastian]

Is it the exact same thing? Whether you want to schedule an appointment.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Or it's formatted slightly differently, but like salon details, date your information, your preferences, request assistance. Okay, so request assistance is an online request thing. So you can get information online and schedule an appointment. Is scheduling appointment to go in person.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dan's Galaxy says, see this. This is in flipping chat says, see, this is what I would do if I were Linus Rich. Have something which very clearly indicates my wealth, but hide it. Go into places like this. Wait for them to treat you like crap. Go. Okay, well, I will take my, you know, I'll take my money to your competitor, flash the wealth and walk out. I'd get such a kick out of them realizing they lost a sale because of being snooty.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yvonne was telling me videos from 2009.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yvonne was telling me about this lady that. That got like, basically, like, treated rudely somewhere who walked in with cash, counted it in front of the staff, and then was like, actually, I changed my mind and then left. It's like, damn.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know, man. For me, I just don't value what they're selling.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like at all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The thing you do I think is fine. I think the, like counting the cash out and then leaving. I feel like the person who counted the cash out, oh, they're.

[Linus Sebastian]

They're. They're as far up their own ass as the hundred percent.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They're very ego hurt.

[Linus Sebastian]

A hundred percent.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like you just like kind of going in and be like, wow, lol. And then leaving is fine. In my opinion.

[Linus Sebastian]

Look, I wouldn't do it, but I think it's funny.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's all I'll say. That's all I'll say. I mean, this entire interaction, this entire world is funny.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Can we agree on that at least?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know. For me, I just. I don't. Yeah, I don't. I don't value what they. I don't value what they're selling at all. And for me, I don't, I don't need it. I don't need any of it. Like I just, I look at it and I'm just like, yeah, in some cases, right? Like, it's stuff that I. If I wanted to, like, it's not a secret what car I drive.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, you could.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's actually better for me to just be able to. To really honestly sincerely say I could, but I actually wouldn't because it's ridiculous. Dude, Diamonds have come down so much like compared to when I bought Yvonne her engagement ring, which was, you know, 14 years ago or whenever it was. I should know that. Yeah, no, I'm right though. So I got it. So we're good. So compared to when I, when I bought Yvonne her engagement ring 14 years ago, dude, we were just like at like a. More like regular jewelry store because I was like, okay. Have I just completely lost touch with the market, right? Because we were looking at some of the stuff at like Tiffany and Harry Winston. So we were, we were just like looking at some stuff. They've got like these huge lab grown diamonds that are like, you know, five grand. That would have been 25, $30,000, like even 10 years ago. It's crazy. I mean, it's a good thing because they were ridiculously overpriced. They're still ridiculously overpriced. But it seems like, you know, if you, if you just want like a gemological, you know, symbol of whatever. It seems like they're a lot more gemological. Yeah, no, I'm just.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that a thing?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, Gemma. Logical is a word, but I didn't use it correctly. If you just want like, if you just want like a, like a gem, like symbol of something, boy, are they ever more affordable. So that's, that's one thing that isn't affected by inflation so much, dude. Lab grown diamonds, apparently you can buy. Yvonne found a lab grown diamond machine on like Aliexpress or Alibaba or something.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You just make your own.

[Linus Sebastian]

You have to. I mean, you need like access to like, like seed, seed diamonds and you know, you need like super high power because you need like a tough freaking ton of power. So that's the thing. Lab grown diamonds are like not eco friendly, in case you were wondering. Oh, like, yeah, like, you know, mining the earth or whatever is like not eco friendly or whatever. But lab grown diamonds, also not eco friendly.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You have a lot of power at the lab. The lab building has tons of power.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Steel plant, maybe?

[Linus Sebastian]

No, it was sheet metal fabrication. So they didn't like make steel. They just. Yeah, they just like bent it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Still a lot of power needed for that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

A lot of power at the lab.

[Linus Sebastian]

LTT lab. Grown diamonds. Let's go. I'm gonna see if I can find it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

LTT Lab. Lab.

[Linus Sebastian]

Let's see if I can find this.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You do it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, here's a tester machine.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Not the same. Yeah, but it still requires a ton of power. There's a huge amount of power at the lab. Get over it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Lab Grown diamond tester. Oh, here it was. Maybe. Oh, maybe I'm the one who sent this to her. Yeah. ARS Technica Article 200 grant.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There's something on Alibaba. That's 200 grand.

[Linus Sebastian]

Why not? Dude, there's everything on Alibaba. Here it is. Synthetic diamond making machine.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Whoa. Big.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, dude. Yeah. No, it's like a whole thing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wow.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like actually for real. I don't know if we could power this thing there. Ultra high pressure press machine. Whatever. Because you need a ton of heat. You need a ton of pressure. And even then it's not. It's not instantaneous. Cool, huh? Should we do a review?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Widely used domestic super hard material industry. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I wonder how long it would take to get an ROI off something like that.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know. I mean, at the rate that diamond values are plummeting, probably a while. This is probably why Langleyman says LTT diamond encrusted gold Xbox controller. Let's go. Let's go.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like one in every ten. One in every. I don't know, 50,000 orders on LTT.

[Linus Sebastian]

Store is diamond encrusted Jerry rig everything. Apparently did a video recently on the process of. Of man made diamonds.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wow.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wild. Dude. Who's leaving reviews of this machine? Apparently there's a review of it. Hold on. I missed this. I don't. I don't see it, you guys. That's okay. I think we've probably exhausted the. The interestingness of this topic at this point.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

But yes. Diamond shopping at Harry Winston.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Amazing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yep. I. It's. It's wild to me, like, how much inventory there is in this stuff. Like not even at. Because I can understand having a bunch of inventory at your London, like, flagship store or whatever. Yeah, fine. But I was at the airport and there was like a. I think Citizen. I don't know, some. Some watch brand. And just like they're in the store. The $40,000 watch and sure A lot of that is just markup. Like it's not, it's not real, it's not real value. It's what hopefully someone will pay for it. But it's not actual, you know, they didn't pay that much for it. But in, in cases like that, that's probably a gold watch. Like it actually does have like actual cost of materials in it. And so that's just one location in one airport. You know, like the amount of inventory these companies have to, have to carry. It's, it's, it's flipping wild to me. Are that many people buying these things?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Do you think they self recycle? Because you could, you could pluck the gems, melt the gold and probably reuse the timepiece itself.

[Linus Sebastian]

I doubt it because I think if they did that, lose like the face, someone would leak it and it would come out that they like were melting them down and they couldn't sell them and it would like reflect badly on the brand. I totally don't think so. Someone says make as advised. I buy them secondhand as my full time job. I could even understand that though. Like I could almost. Okay, like almost even like the worst depreciating asset, you know, the worst money burning purchases like, you know, cars and jewelry or whatever else they can be. Appreciating assets. If you're an extremely savvy buyer for sure. And like I, I would have no problem. I wouldn't want to spend money on a watch, but I'd have no problem tying up some cash in a watch that would hold its value or whatever else. Again, it's, it's not a thing that has a ton of value to me. Like I just need to, I've got a unicorn on my watch, you know, Like I just need to tell the time. And also I have a unicorn on my watch.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And it moves.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, like, yeah, it like grins at me when I want to tell the time. Right. Like, it's. I don't know, man. Like, I just don't, I just don't really care. But if, if you're the kind of person that cares about that, then apparently Patek Philippe watches have unicorns on them. Says ether dark. Is that right?

[Dan]

I was gonna say that sounds like a petite Phillip complication.

[Linus Sebastian]

Really?

[Dan]

Those guys are crazy.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know, maybe I'd be into that.

[Dan]

No, it'd be analog.

[Linus Sebastian]

Entropy says buy pinball machines. Those feel like they've kind of peaked. I don't, I don't know, man. I feel like the nostalgia for pinball machines is Only gonna the generation from here. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think hit their peak purchasing.

[Dan]

What's pinball?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Is that a computer?

[Dan]

Does that come on Windows xp?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know what Windows XP is anymore, Dan.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I really don't know about that, guys. Okay, what else we got? I do want to. I do, I do want a pinball machine. But I wanted to play it. I don't want it to like have it appreciate.

[Luke Lafreniere]

One last thing. This is the most prestigious point of a page. Pretentious. Sorry, not prestigious. Most pretentious point of a page I think I've ever scrolled to in my life. Oh yes. I'm just lounging back in my chair evaluating my box of enormous gems. And also a tiara. Next to that is something that proclaims that I am the king of an expensive thing. Yes, Very good.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wow.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm a man of many brilliant facets. Much like the rare jewels that I built my life around. Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

In fairness to him, he didn't write that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, he probably thought it. I'm leaving now. This website just makes me mad.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know.

[Linus Sebastian]

Federal judge approves California's ban on addictive feeds for minors and notification restrictions A federal judge has upheld a law signed by California's governor that restricts serving addicted feeds to minors unless the platform obtains verifiable parental consent. The new law makes it unlawful for the operator of an addictive Internet based service to provide an addictive feed to a user unless the operator does not have actual knowledge that the user is a minor. It also restricts sending notifications to minors between 12 and 6am and between 8am and 3pm Monday through Friday, August through May.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice.

[Linus Sebastian]

The judge granted a preliminary injunction against the notification provisions, stating that NetChoice is likely to succeed on its First Amendment claim. However, he denied injunctions against all other provisions of the law. Tech lobby NetChoice, which represents Google, Meta and Snap, challenged the law on the basis that it violates the First Amendment. Opponents claim it could restrict non miners access to feeds. Okay, who cares? And means that platforms would need to gather more private information on their users. As if most social media does already know our age. This was meant to be just kind of like a quick update, but yeah, they're finally regulating addictive social media for kids.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sort of look at that. Because everybody's just gonna say they're not a kid.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think the only way this is actually gonna be maybe helpful is if your parent already makes it so that like your device is locked down. Or whatever.

[Linus Sebastian]

Right. But I mean that's not the state's job to make sure that parents parent. Yeah, but at least this is providing tools for parents to actually restrict access to this stuff. I don't know, I'm.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Would you prefer, as a parent, would you prefer that the options were available or that it's enforced by the law?

[Linus Sebastian]

Because like I prefer to have the tools. Nice, good granular tools, easy to use tools. I would love to see state money go into educating parents and making, making information about these tools available to me. Like if Meta was forced, it's a.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Lot of parents have no idea. This is a thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

If Meta was forced to advertise these tools to people who are likely parents, I'd be down for that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean it's, it's kind of like we've had media laws for a long time. There's like in Canada, for instance, there's. You've been required to have a certain amount of Canadian content if you broadcast in Canada. Like I could see social media platforms that have addictive features. You know, much like you force the cigarette companies to have warnings on their packages. You basically say, okay, look, 10% of your ad impressions are going to have to be, you know, warning parents about or like, you know, warning people about or providing them with access to tools like gambling too. Like they have to spend a certain amount of their proceeds on, or not a certain amount of their proceeds rather on their advertisements. They have to have like the, the helpline and stuff like that. Yeah. So basically I'd like to see a similar approach where you are sort of forced to build awareness for the tools to manage this addiction.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, it's not perfect because like you said, it's not the state's job to parent. It's like making this a, like, you know, making it a law that notifications can't come through between a certain time. It's like, okay, that seems cool, but I don't also necessarily want the government making that a law. I think making it a law that that has to be an option for the parent to select. I think that's like, okay, cool, nice. I don't know. Either way.

[Linus Sebastian]

Details have emerged about two sovereign Russian game systems. Russian President Vladimir Putin called for Russia to look at producing stationary and portable game consoles along with an operating system and a cloud based distribution system. Back In March of 2024, after major game makers halted official sales to Russia. The first console is based on the homegrown dual core Elbrus processor which uses a very long instruction word. Architecture. The Elbrus processor has previously been described as completely unacceptable for most tasks.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice.

[Linus Sebastian]

Hold on. Where's our first system? Here, hold on. Oh, no. Pictures. Do we. Are there any. Are there any pictures of these? Luke, do you want to check the sources while I keep doing the thing? Sure. The second system is a cheap gaming stick being developed by prominent Russian telecoms company mts. It includes an Xbox style controller and is based on low end hardware with just enough power to connect to a cloud based gaming service called mts. Fog Play.

[Luke Lafreniere]

One sec, sorry. Are you looking for the Elbrus processor or the consoles?

[Linus Sebastian]

Consoles.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Got it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Fog Play. I love that fog. It's not the cloud, it's the fog. All the heavy lifting is done in a data center. Neither of these is expected to have the power to compete head on with industry leaders. So Russian politicians are asking developers to create unconventional games. A third portable system is reportedly being developed by Rosa IT Research and Development Center. Though details are sketchy at best.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Not really getting pictures.

[Linus Sebastian]

Bummer. What am I looking at here, Jordan? His discussion question is, did you see that Tetris Minesweeper hybrid?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

What is this to do with this topic?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Tetris is from Russia.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And it's a video game.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, what am I looking at here? So you have to Tetris, but then.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You also have to play Minesweeper at the bottom. I don't understand. The only thing I don't get is what is the. How does the game work? Like how does the Minesweeper. I understand you're playing Minesweeper.

[Linus Sebastian]

Good lord.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But why does it matter?

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, well, you. Maybe it's a score multiplier. Oh my God. But like coming soon. Okay. Wow.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What happens?

[Linus Sebastian]

My brain.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay. Score two point something times. Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

My brain would hurt, so my brain hurts just watching that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, I would love that. That would work great for me. No, I think these are the only official photos. This.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Because this looks like it says Fog Play.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I think this is the stick.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And this thing probably interacts with the stick.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's a cheap Android streaming box remote. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The other console said that it had an Xbox like controller. So I think this is the only thing we get to see is that controller. So I think this is it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, good luck everybody. Yeah, here's a fun one.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sorry. Someone in. Someone in floatplane chat said Fog Play, question mark. Kinky. You need to get offline a little bit more often.

[Linus Sebastian]

On January 1st at 8:40am a bomb was set off at Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. The suspected bomber used a cyber truck to deliver the payload. Fortunately, most of the explosion apparently, like, went upward, and even the windows of the hotel were not broken. And I think there was only a couple minor injuries. So that could have been. Could have been a lot worse. Obviously. Never good. Could have been worse, though. Later that day, the Las Vegas police expressed their gratitude to Elon Musk. Quote, he gave us quite a bit of additional information in regards to how the vehicle was locked after it exploded. Due to the nature of the force from the explosion, as well as being able to capture all of the video from Tesla Charger stations across the country, he sent that directly to us, so I appreciate his help on that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This obviously raised extra questions about Tesla's control over their vehicles. It's no secret that the network Tesla built superchargers, the phone app, the remote access, et cetera, is a huge selling feature for the car. But people are bringing the concerns up about camera access, which is a recurring topic on the WAN show. Actually, this is similar to an incident that happened roughly in 2019-2022, where a group chat was being used to send invasive videos and images recorded by customers cars, which we also reported on. Cool. Discussion question. Features like built in dash cams are becoming more popular in vehicles. Should companies immediately have access to this footage, or is this something that customers should opt into? My car gets so much cooler, like, every day. I'm so, so okay with having the car that I still have. It's so great. Every time I get into it, I just feel a wave of appreciation for the fact that it just turns on and works and gets me where I need to go and there's really nothing else going on, and it's great.

[Linus Sebastian]

So all the Elon stands that, like, crap on me every time. I'm like, hey, the guy stands for nothing and has no principles whatsoever. Like, obviously. Are you guys done with that now?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, is this. Is this. No. No warrant, no nothing? Is this not, like, the least American thing ever?

[Luke Lafreniere]

It feels like it to me.

[Linus Sebastian]

Can y'all. Can y'all stop?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't. I don't think this is just Tesla. I would say.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, no, no, it's.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, no, make that point for sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's. It's just the. The way that. The way the defenders try to twist these actions is very. Is very difficult for me to stomach. When the red flags are not just red flags. They're, like, on fire, you know, they're burning. They're burning flags. Yeah. Wow, cool. Yeah, this is great. Oni Hike Edge says I have a 23 year old car and I want to convert the drivetrain to electric and keep it for another 23 years.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sick.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Next topic.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Meta kills AI generated profiles after uproar. Metta has removed 28 AI generated Instagram profiles that they first launched in 2023. This was today. I learned they have their own profiles. Had no idea.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. My discussion question for this was, aren't these platforms supposed to be actively working against.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

AI profiles.

[Luke Lafreniere]

When do they have their own? Anyway, so I was so weird to read this. The profiles were removed following widespread social media outrage and concerns about blackface as a service.

[Linus Sebastian]

So here's some context for that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What?

[Linus Sebastian]

This is. This is not real. Her kids are not real.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay. Is that relevant?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes. Hold on. Let me see if I can find the. Find her profile. Because basically there's a lot of.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What?

[Linus Sebastian]

It's bad.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, just.

[Linus Sebastian]

Just trust me. I'll find it for you. But it's really, really dumb.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Do I just keep going?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, you'll carry on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But Meta says that it will continue to push AI generated content in all of its platforms.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wow.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay. Meta planned to use the AI generated characters to drive engagement on its platforms and expect AI to coexist with human accounts on its platforms over time. The Internet is fake. The accounts were apparently not actively posting anymore but would still respond to interaction. So they were still like running, I guess, because they're bots. 404 Media's Jason Kobler stated that the currently viral Meta AI profiles are old and already inactive because they were such a colossal failure and were indistinguishable from AI spam. This inevitable future Zuckerberg is trying to shove down our throats is being completely rejected. And went on to give a rundown of some of the generated profiles.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, so here's. Here's one of the profiles for you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay. Oh, no. Got it.

[Linus Sebastian]

So you see what I mean now?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Wow. Can you imagine being in the boardroom where that seemed like a good idea?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wow. That's kind of epic. That's cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wow.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's cool. So. So. So wait, hold on. So our generated AI profiles have, like, very notable identities.

[Linus Sebastian]

Mm.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

And are. By assuming those identities, you know, that are. That seem to be very racially and culturally derived.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Are achieving something.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What exactly.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, my God. So cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, that's weird. Well, I'm happy those already lost.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. I mean, they lost the battle.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Isn't that representation of visibility though? But it's representation of an AI bot. It's not a person. So it being like, I don't even want to get into it, but it's.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it's probably not a safe space for you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's not the same as, like, you know, the CIS white male patrol here.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think that we have one beard white male guy, one non beard white male guy. Wait, we have two beard white male guys.

[Linus Sebastian]

One of our white guys is even blonde.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What are you. Are you not blonde?

[Linus Sebastian]

Brownish.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You're a little bit of blonde. There's a little bit of blonde in there.

[Linus Sebastian]

Please. That's gray.

[Luke Lafreniere]

All right.

[Linus Sebastian]

The point is just that, like, this ain't our place to get super deep into.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

Other than that this is clearly ridiculous and should be, should be laughed at, slash yelled at for the same for.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, I guess for me, what I would say is if there was a white bearded dude that was an AI profile and it was like, I'm straight. I'm a proud straight white guy, I'd be like, yeah, that's weird. Yeah, I don't want that. You're an AI thing. Just be that.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, that's just probably not an AI thing. That's probably a real profile, unfortunately.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm sure it exists somewhere, but just like, just don't have any of that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Just have none of that. Just be a little robot thing. It's fine. My goodness.

[Linus Sebastian]

Anyhoo, the FCC has been blocked from reinstating net neutrality rules. Just a reminder that voting matters. A US Appeals court has blocked the FCC from reinstating net neutrality rules, which require Internet service providers to treat Internet data and users equally, forbidding fast and slow lanes. For those of you who aren't up to speed on this, net neutrality is a really, really, really, really, really good thing. Such rules were initially implemented in 2015 by the FCC under the Obama administration, but were then repealed in 2017 under Trump. Biden's FCC voted to reinstate the rules in April of 2024, but they have not yet gone into effect. The 6th Circuit judges said a key factor in their decision was the Supreme Court's June 2024 ruling overturning the Chevron doctrine, which gave deference to government agencies on regulations allowing the fda, ftc, FCC and others to establish federally binding rules without going through the standard legislative process. So basically, the FTC and FCC have been defanged at this point. Judge Richard Allen Griffin wrote that broadband Internet is not a telecommunication service, but an information service which must be regulated differently under the communications act of 1934. Okay. So cool. Good job.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that good?

[Linus Sebastian]

No.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was like, did I read that wrong?

[Linus Sebastian]

Anyway, the Switch 2 motherboard has been leaked apparently. Maybe, we're not sure, potentially leaked photos. Do you want to pull them up? Purporting to be shots of the yet to be announced Nintendo Switch 2 appear to show a relatively large Samsung manufactured SoC, leading some to worry that the Switch 2 could be based on 8 nanometer technology from all the way back in 2018, rather than the 4 nanometer process that many Nintendo watchers were hoping for using. Such an old process would mean that if a Switch 2 were to launch in 2025, it would be running seven year old technology just like the Switch 1 was.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that surprising?

[Linus Sebastian]

Actually, it wasn't. The Switch 1 was running 3 year old tech at launch. Others from this almost 4000 page long thread on famiboards.com think that it could be anything down to 5 nanometer, depending which wild speculation you prefer. Realistically, we're just gonna have to wait for an official announcement to learn anything concrete, but from the number of leaks that have been going on lately, it's coming. It's clearly coming very soon. Very soon. All right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that it?

[Linus Sebastian]

I think that's it for the topics. Why don't we. Why don't we do some. Did we do everything in order today? Like, is this a proper WAN show? Did we. Did we do things properly?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think so.

[Linus Sebastian]

Cool. Let's do after dark.

[Dan]

Cool. I think it's that button.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nice.

[Dan]

I always got to make sure that I don't push the wrong one. And you guys want purple?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Talk about that.

[Linus Sebastian]

This was handed to me right before WAN showed it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm very excited.

[Linus Sebastian]

Who was here and showed it to me? Was it Artie who gave it to me?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think so.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I think it was Artie. I only had eyes for these.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm like, okay, already gave us the shirts and did everything else.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is my first look at a sample.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, and you're all like hip and young because they're tall.

[Linus Sebastian]

So what's funny is I never. I, dude, the number of like quote unquote, Gen Z things that like, they're killing that. Millennials did that. I'm like like, blah, blah, blah. Gen Z is like killing drinking alcohol and Gen Z is killing ankle socks and Gen Z is killing this and Gen Z is killing that. I'm like, dude, it goes to show. All you gotta do is just stay right in the same place and everyone's gonna come right back around to you. Yeah, no, crew socks are great because you get a little bit of that. I don't like the compression effect. Less blood pooling. I find I'm less likely to get shin splints with them.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't get shin splints. Maybe that's why. I don't care.

[Linus Sebastian]

Maybe that's why. Okay, so one of the things that I'm trying to check is if it weave is dense enough.

[Luke Lafreniere]

He's watching, evaluating. This is the first time you've seen this pair, I think, is that right?

[Linus Sebastian]

First time.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Are you trying to see if you can see the light through them or something? Yeah, that's why he's holding up to the light. There's a light right here.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, right there. Off camera, density could be a little bit better, but the cushion is really nice on the toe and the heel.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Whoa.

[Linus Sebastian]

And the last sample that I have from this supplier, while the density of the weave is not quite on par with the darn tufts, what I have noticed is that the shedding is much less, which is a solid indicator for, for long term quality. Interesting. They've gone with a really thick, they've gone with a really thick pad at the, at the back of the, of the ankle where that, what's that? That's your Achilles, I guess. Right. Interesting. Okay, well, I will be trialing these. I am very excited because not because they actually seem initially better than the darn toughs, but because the last sample we got from these guys, which these do seem improved over the last sample we got from these guys. Once I started actually wear testing them, really impressed me. The they are merino, by the way. People are asking if they're wool. The drying outstanding. Comfort outstanding. Shedding outstanding. And padding was, was quite good. So we've, we've, we've improved them a little bit and we will see how they go. Boosted asks why not collaborate with darn tough? We would be open to something like that. Top Gear asks lifetime replacement unlikely. I, I don't think you know, based on how quickly I've chewed through all my darn tough socks. And to be clear, they've lasted longer than any others I've had. But a lifetime warranty for socks is basically just telling people two for one. And so I don't know that we would necessarily do that, but I don't know where our pricing is going to end up. Right. We're going to have to figure out what our overall value proposition is.

[Dan]

I mean, I hope you were to get at least two.

[Linus Sebastian]

At least. Dang it. Ding. It Ding yourself.

[Dan]

I'm so sorry.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That was a little rough.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right, what are we supposed to be doing?

[Dan]

You want some merch messages?

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[Dan]

Hey, Wan ell. I recently received a promotion in my IT job with an obvious track for promotion. I'm feeling like I'm where I want to be in life. When did you feel that way and what markers were there?

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's cool that you recognize that. I feel like a lot of people don't until it's passed the whole good old days thing. I've caught myself there before, and I've recognized when I was in that time before. Both have been true. I don't know, though.

[Linus Sebastian]

My big I made it moment was on camera. I finally made it house, theater room build. It was sick. It was like, yep, I'm done. This was. This was such a huge. This was such a huge goal for me. It was so cool turning that thing on in terms of, like, financially. I would say that it was actually a lot more recent than that because we've. Yvonne and I have gone chips in many, many times on the company, and we did it for what I think was probably the last time on the lab on, like, the lab building, kind of like laying the foundation to build that out. And we are. We are not in sort of an amount of debt that I find overwhelming anymore, and we have no intention of. Of doing. Of going heavy into debt again. I would say is. Is. Is what gives. And. And you know what? The amount of debt that we were in at all those different stages wouldn't have stressed me out as much as it did if it wasn't for the industry that we were in. Like, if I was working a 9 to 5 in a. In a position where I. If something went wrong, I could, like, get a position at another company or whatever. Like, if I knew that my income was sustainable, I don't think it would have been a huge problem. But when you, like, you know, let's go way back, right to when we bought this office. When you buy an office building for a million dollars, which was an astronomical amount of money for the company at the time, and then you spend hundreds of thousands more building it out, and you're just like, oh, my gosh. We're like, will our channel be deleted tomorrow? Because I don't have the income to, like, pay my home mortgage. And this. If. If everything goes completely wrong, you know, so there's this, like. There's this period of. Of instability, you know, every. Every time because you don't feel like it's it's forever. And I think I've kind of. I think I've kind of gotten over that now. Like, it's like that, that constant. I mean, you remember the, the constant fear of, like, this could disappear tomorrow, right? Like, I don't, I don't think that. Okay, well, I don't think it's as much.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That'S. You. You have to consider that, like, this thing literally didn't exist in 2006.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, yeah. No. I mean, I always joke about how my career counselor in high school had no shot.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Literally impossible.

[Linus Sebastian]

YouTube wasn't a thing. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So, like, oh, man. And then, like, honestly, to make an assumption that an Internet company would even last this long back then was insane.

[Linus Sebastian]

Making an assumption that a web media company would last this long today.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, exactly.

[Linus Sebastian]

Is crazy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like, is YouTube.

[Linus Sebastian]

Are you trying to give me anxiety?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is YouTube? He works better when he's under pressure. Is YouTube still gonna exist in 10 years?

[Linus Sebastian]

I think so.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think so.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think so. YouTube has figured out the key. The key is to reinvest in your creators. That's what all the platforms that have come and gone never figured out. YouTube invests heavily.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Are they gonna be here in 20.

[Linus Sebastian]

Years, back in their creators? Well, someone else could figure that out. It hasn't happened yet. I don't know why, other than just greed.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Web video even still going to be how people consume content in 20 years?

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know. AI is going to change more than we think. Like, will there be any value to me making a video when an AI can just crap out, you know, cats in a field or like Cat Christmas? I came across some of this, like, Cat Christmas train AI video on Facebook at some point.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Of course it was on Facebook.

[Linus Sebastian]

Of course it was on Facebook. I don't know. But what I do know is that I stress out about it less because I'm not in one of those precarious chips, all in positions. So that helps. And I know that we have a good team and we have a creative team and we've diversified. We're actually working how does LMG make money 2024 right now. And the reason it's called 2024 is even though the video is going to come out in 2025, it's going to be based on our 2024 financial year. So Elijah has been tasked with it and he's been going around like, interviewing various people because in the past, like, I did these videos, but I actually thought this might be even more interesting if we have an outsider because he's not involved in the financial dealings of the company. He just gets his paycheck. Right. Like so he's like talking to Nick about, you know, Creator Warehouse and he's like talking to Colton about business. He's talking to like Josh from accounting about, you know, like Muddy just like kind of trying to piece it together and I might end up having to make some corrections to the script or whatever else. You might end up making some assumptions. But I think it's going to be really interesting to see that perspective instead of just the like. Because I, I sometimes forget what I know or I forget what I know that you don't know or don't know that you don't know or you like, like I have blind spots because I've been looking so closely at it for functionally like half of my adult life. Right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to doom and gloom, but like basically unless you like work in a trade basically because I don't see those going anywhere. Who knows what's gonna exist in 10 years, 20 years. Yeah, yeah. It is what it is. If you work for like any tech company, basically, like, do I think we'll be able to ride the wave? Yeah. Do I know we're gonna ride the wave? No, not technically.

[Linus Sebastian]

Bigger companies than us have failed.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Smarter people than us have failed like every day, basically. Like it's. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[Dan]

Happy holidays from France. Listening to 6 month old Wan shows on road trips is interesting. How often do y'all take a look back at what you've been doing to inspire what you do moving forward?

[Linus Sebastian]

Not very often. I feel like for.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was gonna say it's usually thrust upon me more than anything.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. I think the audience brings it back to us. They'll post like funny memes from older videos or. I mean, yeah, that's, I think the main vehicle by which old content is brought up to me or something. One that comes up for me often is I'll look at the, at the 60min real time viewership because it'll surface videos that like had a little spike and it'll be like, oh yeah, that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Was kind of cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like one showed up for me yesterday, the 500fps gaming PC. Allegedly a new GPU might be coming from Nvidia soon. So I sent that over to the content team. I was like, hey, next writer's meeting, let's schedule the thousand FPS gaming PC. Let's see if we can hit 1000 FPS and, and like, you know, some games and that'd be. That'd be fun. We did it as a live stream last time. I think we could do it as a live stream again. I think that'd be a blast.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. One thing that I actually do like is the. Like, I don't know if other Android versions do this probably, but like the pixel photo memories thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So, like, I, you know, we're talking about CES a bunch this week. I had a photo memory coming through my reel of like, Brandon, Taren and I gearing up for CES. And like, I think it was like 2016 or something and it's like, oh, wow. Yeah, cool. I guess like flight day. That year was today. This year it's interesting. I like stuff like that more. Yeah.

[Dan]

Hi. Wayne Dll. Been a fan for 12 years and I'm now in the midst of a PhD studying GAN and an transistors.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think that's an L. AEL.

[Dan]

Yeah. Lowercase. I've not heard of those ones.

[Linus Sebastian]

So gallium nitride and probably aluminum, nitrogen, something. No, no, nickel is Ni.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's.

[Linus Sebastian]

It doesn't matter. It's okay.

[Dan]

Oh, they're the. They're the periodic symbols.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, you got it.

[Dan]

What is the coolest chip level tech you've seen demoed that didn't catch on? HBM, octane, etc.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, HBM has caught on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Has that HBM. Big news in the data center, even if it's not really a big deal for consumers. Optane, though. Yeah. Dude, 3D cross point. So cool, man. If I had to. I don't know about chip level tech, but I would say that the coolest tech that I wish had caught on. Even though it doesn't matter now that we have OLED is sed. These things looked so flipping cool, man. Who was it? Canon. Canon was working on this. Canon's sed. Hold on. Images, man. Where would I even. Where I even find this? Here. Here you go. Dude, this stuff looked flipping wild. It was like crt. Everything that's good about a crt, but this flat. Whoa. Yeah. And this was like back in the mid-2000s or whatever.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Surface conduction electron emitter display.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh. Oh, so cool. Was supposed to bring the best of both LCD and crt, but it didn't work out. Oh, this stuff looked so cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Do you know why it didn't work out?

[Linus Sebastian]

I think it was expensive or there was like, patent disputes. 2004, Canon and Toshiba announced they had the answer. Toshiba predicted that by 2010, at least a third of TVs over 40 inches would be sed. It was supposed to be easy. They can be printed with an inkjet type device. However, report the companies are having trouble with yields. Canon announced it was still working to bring down production costs. Blah, blah, blah. Cost five times as much as LCDs to produce. So yeah, there you go. It's a shame as SED was by far the best quality of all the flat panel displays like this. It. From what I saw, it looked like it was going to be absolutely bananas. Awesome.

[Luke Lafreniere]

As far as I can tell it was patents applied. Nanotech, a subsidiary of Nano Proprietary, holds a number of patents related to Fed and SED manufacturing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh anyway, bummer. No, nobody's still working on it. It's, it's well dead and buried.

[Dan]

Work as a carpenter building new houses. Love using new tech in the trades. Is there any tech that you think should be standard in new homes or to be used by tradesmen.

[Linus Sebastian]

Standard in new homes? I mean a lot of the, A lot of stuff that I would care about is already happening. Like they're wiring houses up for Ethernet now, which is, which is good with conduit. Well, okay. Conduit. Yeah, sick.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's not new tech though.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, conduit is king.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's not new tech though.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. Jack Logan says heat pumps. I read an article today that blew my flipping mind. Apparently they're like having a really hard time getting heat pumps to take off in Germany because like it's become a politicized issue or something because some of the previous messaging around it was that it's more environmentally conscious and so people, certain people are just having like a knee jerk, you can't take away my natural gas like reaction to it or something. And I'm just, I was reading this and you know when you just like are reading an article and then you just, your brain hurts and you like, you immediately get a headache and you're like, what are you stupid? Like, are you actually a fucking idiot? Like you like, do you have a functioning brain stem? Like so, so it's like talking about how like heat pumps, I mean they've been around freaking forever and they're just, they're just obviously a good idea.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The only thing I've heard negatively about them, obviously I have no idea if this is true or not, but I've heard, I have no idea. Yeah, but I've heard that some cities, the combination of EVs and, and heat pumps taking off and all this kind of stuff, their electric delivery infrastructure is starting to be very taxed.

[Linus Sebastian]

I could see that being kind of challenging, but I need to just figure it out. At the rate of penetration in Germany, I'd say that's probably not the issue. It's just that they're not being adopted at all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Did the sick move of just shutting down all their, their nuclear plants and then buying power from Russia.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Or, or, you know, they have to go around the loop. Then they buy energy that is sold from Russia to India and then repackaged in India and then sold to the States and then repackaged in the States and stole to sold to Germany. That. That's another. That works too. It's definitely. That's good.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude. He. Heat pumps are amazing. The one drawback, and this is quite overcome with current generations, one generation ones. But the one drawback is that in very low outside temperatures they can have a hard time heating because there just isn't enough heat to, to, to pump into the house. But like, oh my God. Heat pumps are just obvious. If you can like look at, at a. At one number be like more better than other number. Like I. Oh, dude, I just. Oh, it made my. It made my brain hurt so, so much.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Geothermal heat pumps are awesome. And overcome that problem. That's not going to be available for everyone.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes. Yeah, that's not, that's not something you can just do at home necessarily.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I haven't heard of that though, and it sounds sick.

[Linus Sebastian]

Although I would, I would love to see something like that become mainstream. Okay, sure. There. That's gonna be, that's gonna be. The thing that I'd love to see become mainstream is just right before you. Before. Because anything can be economical if it's, if it's. So build like a Geo, scale up.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Enough, pump it for the apartment building.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, no. Apartment buildings. Yeah, you could do that relatively easily. Linus doesn't use a heat pump. Sure does. Got him. So. So what you could do though is if you, if you have it, if you have the, if you have the machinery just like ready to go easily enough. Like if it's just something you can rent, you know, bring on a truck on the back of a truck to construction site. It like drills down deep enough that you get to. You get below the point where the temperature stays basically the same. Just kind of like goes down, like hollows out of things. And then you just like embed the thing, fill it up, and then boom. Like that's it. It's like a permanent installation, you know, in the front yard of, you know, a detached home or, you know, to Your point about apartment buildings, like in sort of the, like the front area or accessible through the basement, you know, whatever. Because you got to have access at some point potentially. Yeah, I could.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's.

[Linus Sebastian]

Someone says that's already starting to happen, which is freaking awesome. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sick.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Love it here. Larry underscore de says German here. This discussion sucks ass here. Yeah, like that dude. That dude. That's wild.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Kind of funny.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's wild, brother.

[Luke Lafreniere]

At least a little bit funny.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I wish it was funny. I wish. I wish it was. Like, how do things like this end up politicized? I don't get it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Too many things lately have been politicized.

[Linus Sebastian]

I feel like math is not political.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, way too many things have been politicized. It's like politics are wrapped into like every single conversation these days. And it's. It's really, honestly very exhausting.

[Linus Sebastian]

RM RenF Renfield Linus. LOL. Linus literally installed his own heat pumps with a bit of help. Yes. Now those are in my old place, but I do actually have.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They're not geothermal, which is what we're just.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, they're not geothermal. I do actually have two heat pumps at my current place. I just only use the heat during the like kind of changeover period because it is still more economical on our bill to use the in floor radiant heating. Or not. Sorry, not radiant, whatever the. In floor water circulating. Boiler. There you go. Boiler.

[Dan]

Hello. Sorry. Yeah, go for it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, I was just gonna tell you to go. Go for it.

[Dan]

Oh, yeah, sure. Hello, parasocial friends. I'm feeling directionless in my career. I only have experience with video production, but I want to expand into my company's leadership roles. How do I find fresh footing?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Ask your. Ask your current leader if you can take some. Something off his shoulders. Their shoulders. Can I? Hey, I've been working really well with this group of people doing this thing. What do you think if I manage them? Pick like two people, make it.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Or ask what it would take.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, that.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's the other thing too is like start a conversation. A really good characteristic of a leader is their ability to have an open and frank conversation. And so showing that you can do that, I would say would be step one. And then from there, you know, if they say like, hey, here's what it will take. You work toward that and then you have another conversation in six months. If they say, no, we're not open to that. Well, hey, that's good for you to know too. So that if that's your goal you know, not to waste too much more of your time there.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

It is the second time I get something from lttstore. First was a mouse mat, a humongous one, and it stuck with me. Never ever gonna replace it unless it breaks. Any more science behind the smoothness?

[Linus Sebastian]

No, it's just. It turns out that making a good mousepad is just a matter of using good quality materials. If you use a bad mouse pad, it's because they didn't pay for the better materials. I don't know what to tell you. It's amazing. It's amazing how many things are like that.

[Dan]

I was gonna say it still makes me angry, the lanyard thing. Every time you go into it, every time you rant about it, I just get more and more angry.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The lanyard thing bothers me so much.

[Dan]

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Yo. As a teacher in game development space, more students haven't played the zeitgeist games, like we refer to Half Life, Deus Ex, etc. Any modern games you suggest fit the bill for industry shifters. Modern.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Baldur's Gate 3.

[Dan]

Baldur's Gate 3.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Elden Ring.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's a good one.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know if this was an industry Fortnite.

[Dan]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

You don't have to like it, but you do have to respect it.

[Dan]

The MOBAs are pretty huge.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yeah. League of Legends, Bejeweled. What?

[Dan]

Peggle.

[Luke Lafreniere]

How's it an industry shifter?

[Linus Sebastian]

Luke.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What do you mean? And it's not modern?

[Linus Sebastian]

It's literally modern game, like King. Activision Blizzard.

[Luke Lafreniere]

How old are you?

[Linus Sebastian]

I agree with the jeweled. Not gonna lie.

[Luke Lafreniere]

25 years old.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, all right, all right, all right. Okay. I'm. I'm talking Candy Crush. Iteration. Oh, sorry. Oh, that's the one I meant.

[Dan]

You meant Candy Crush?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry. I meant Candy Crush. I don't play either of them.

[Dan]

I figured you might have meant. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Linus Sebastian]

Candy Crush. But people are actually backing up Bejeweled. They're like, it's 25. It said modern games. Candy Crush. Yeah. Candy Crush is literally King Activision Blizzard. That's why I said that, because I was thinking of Candy Crush. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I brain farted. It happens from time to time. Happens a lot.

[Dan]

This is the new controversy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We can't. We can't. We can't say modern things.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't think World of Warcraft counts as modern.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, it doesn't, because it's also incredibly old.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

In that case, you'd probably say Roblox.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, you could say Roblox. Is Minecraft modern?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

When did Minecraft come out?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm guessing 15 years ago.

[Linus Sebastian]

No way.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a guess.

[Linus Sebastian]

2009. Bloody hell. 16 years ago.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was close.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Is that. Yeah, Hard to say.

[Dan]

Don't think about it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't think that's modern, man.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, but Roblox is almost. I see it as kind of derivative. Like Minecraft was more of a shifter, you know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't even know because.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Is Roblox even modern? When the devil did Roblox come out? 2006 Minecraft.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wow.

[Linus Sebastian]

I had no idea. That's hilarious.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's wild. I never heard about it until, like a few years ago.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right, well, definitely a shifter. Definitely not modern then.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, fair enough. Fall guys. I don't think fall guys was a shifter.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, it was. It was a flash in the pan. But I feel like things being a quick flash in the pan is in. In some ways a shift that the industry has undergone. Like, look at how quickly pal world, other than the biggest thing ever. And then I don't remember them.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I mostly remember pal world, but around.

[Linus Sebastian]

Time and then, like, it's.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

A big one, I think would be concord just as a case study.

[Linus Sebastian]

Big.

[Dan]

A case study for all time. You know what I mean?

[Linus Sebastian]

It's definitely gonna shift the way the industry invests in their gaming projects. That's not wrong.

[Dan]

No one's gonna play it. You see what I mean, Dan?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Pointing out the, like, you should play this game so you can understand why spending, like, whatever, 400.

[Dan]

Well, you can't even play it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, right, Right.

[Dan]

But just as a case study of like, yeah, Industry shifting.

[Linus Sebastian]

Who's off? Yeah. One says GTA 5. I think that's actually. There's a solid argument to be made there. GTA Online, more accurately, I would say, is the. Is the industry shifter.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I agree. Does it. I think it only counts as modern because it is still so actively played, though, because it is also like 11 years old or something.

[Linus Sebastian]

12. Shoot. Was it? I think it was. Steve, summary for this year. I think it was like 25% of all playtime in 10 years or something like that. I meant to add that to the WAN document, I think.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think, however, you might still be able to count that because of specifically GTA 5 online RP.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Because that is not that old.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's a relatively new thing and it absolutely was a game changer.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Skull and Bones.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It may be an interesting case study. I don't think you need to play it though. I think it's much more interesting if you look through the development history.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right, Dan, feel free to jump in when we're petering out. By the way, don't be shy.

[Dan]

Yeah, sure. It's always a bit difficult. Dear Dan, Luke and Linus, I recently got a 7900X XTX Mercury magnetic GPU. Are you going to give high end Radeon 9000 a try? Do you think you'll play through Indy and the Great Circle and any thoughts on AMD rtx?

[Linus Sebastian]

I. From the rumors that I've seen, there isn't going to be Radeon 9000 and from the rumors I've seen, there isn't going to be high end Radeon next gen, whatever they end up calling it. Will I play through Indy in the Great Circle? I want to. It actually looks really good. It looks really fun. As for thoughts on AMD's ray tracing, I think the closest thing we have to a representation of AMD's what will be AMD's current gen ray tracing allegedly very soon is the PlayStation 5 Pro. And it looks like they've made some strides. Although even there I think all we saw was next generation AI. So next generation, like AI upscaling. I don't think it actually had next generation ray tracing yet, did it? I don't. I don't recall. It might have anyway. Yeah, it was kind of like a mishmash of their. Of their last gen and their like upcoming gen in the PS5 Pro. Let's see if. Let's see if Chat can jump in and correct me here because I'm not sure if I can remember the exact details there, but as for whether we do a Radeon challenge again, I'm not sure. I feel like AMD's driver situation has been resolved well enough for me. I haven't really had any issues with mine, but as I said last week, my intention is to get a 5090 at this time to.

[Luke Lafreniere]

To play Slay the Spire.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And Dredge.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. And don't forget Unravel two Balatro.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Unravel two. Yeah, I've never heard of that.

[Linus Sebastian]

I just started it with Yvonne. Oh, you're two yarn creatures and you're raveled.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Unravel two.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh yeah, it looks. Well, I shouldn't say it looks fun because we started it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This graphic looks like Pikmin. Recent reviews mixed.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it just seems to be not actually that useful.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I see.

[Dan]

Disappointing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, what really I was able to. I didn't notice any of this when you start playing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

These are from early December. Two days ago, mid December. Yeah. So a lot of it's like my save got screwed up because of this.

[Dan]

That's sad.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I think you just didn't experience it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Cool.

[Dan]

Hey, dll, seems we can never be surprised. And all hardware leaks. When was the last time you were truly surprised by release? And why do you think everyone leaks? Will we ever be able to control it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was surprised by how good battlemage was. Yeah, that's pretty recent.

[Linus Sebastian]

Was I surprised, man? Well, certainly not by a Pixel phone. They're the leakiest of leaky things left at bars. Man. When is someone just like completely blindsided everybody? If you guys, if you guys can think of any, I'm. I'm absolutely open to. Open to suggestions here. And I can, I can tell you if. I mean I was very surprised by Apple M1, but everyone knew it was coming. We just didn't know how good it was gonna be. You're truly surprised by a release. Like I like, like had like a. Wow. I can't believe they kept that under wraps.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That. I have no idea. The performance things. Like I think the M1 example is really good. Battle Mage worked for me, but Nintendo.

[Linus Sebastian]

Has up until this most recent one, I feel like been pretty tight lipped. Like the Switch I think was pretty surprising.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The Switch, that's a long time ago though.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I know, right? As for why do you think everything leaks? Well, it's because humans are human and they're, they're. They're flawed and messy and weak and. Yeah, yeah. What do you. What do you. What do you want? And they're conflicted. Valve keeps things pretty tight. Yeah. Steam Deck was a big surprise theme that came out of nowhere.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, very true.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think that's kind of it though. In the spirit of what you said last time. Should we move on?

[Linus Sebastian]

13 Lou says wasn't the Apple M1 a serious surprise? It was a serious surprise. In the same way that like the Apple car would have been a serious surprise. Like everyone knew they were working on it. They have literal listings for like, we needed someone to run the Apple car department. We're not working on it though. Right? Like everyone knew they were working on ARM CPUs. Same, same as like their, their 5G modem. Like, yeah, it'll be a surprise when it comes out finally. Because no one thought they were not going to give up on it at this point. But no, everyone knows what they're working on.

[Dan]

So there are two holes in the mod mat. What is it for? Thanks guys.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, aren't they like static wrist rest things?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes, and we have kind of a clever attachment mechanism for it, but they're the little. The little button things for attaching an ESD thing.

[Dan]

Hey, Wan Dll. I'm currently building a YouTube title and thumbnail a B testing tool, but I'm not sure how to make it unique. What do you recommend for such a tool? Also, hey, from Ottawa, Ontario.

[Linus Sebastian]

I have no idea. Because the truth is even YouTube's own tools are sort of fundamentally flawed and very difficult to glean useful information from because they don't, through the dashboard or through the API, provide certain information that you would need. Like they don't actually tell you the click through percentage and how they compare without knowing that you don't really know how effective it is at drawing clicks. I don't. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what our team would even ask for other than.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Go look at Mr. Beast tool that he already made.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, if you can do it better than that, then great.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Find some value add. Yeah.

[Dan]

Linus, do you think you'll talk to a lawyer in case you were forced to testify in the Honey trial? Also, sometimes class action lawsuits will auto opt in. Like how Sony sent out checks for leaking customers data. Lucas left the building.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I just like. I don't think people understand what happened.

[Linus Sebastian]

Honey's not going to trial, by the way.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Was he gonna testify? Someone told us through some video that not as many people watched that it was bad. So we stopped using it.

[Linus Sebastian]

What?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like what do you want?

[Dan]

Greetings lld. I'm moving on. Greetings lld. Have either of you tried Balantro yet? I got it a few days ago and I cannot stop playing it. Please send help.

[Linus Sebastian]

Help.

[Dan]

It's one of the few good games for mobile, but it's also on PC. Thanks. I would say the other way around, but okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude, you tried it, right? Yeah, I haven't tried it yet. I heard it's really good though.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a good game. I. I beat the. The highest difficulty thing with a couple decks. That was fun. It feels more rng heavy. Then Slay the Spire does. I think. Yes, Guy, I got it. Dude, I got it. Well, I mean this guy I've also beat. I've also had a every single highest possible difficulty mode and have every single achievement for Slay the Spire. So there's that.

[Dan]

Maybe you're just good at Rogue Lights.

[Linus Sebastian]

But I have three beautiful children. Got him.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Darn it. I can't believe I can collect his achievements.

[Dan]

I suck at Balacho, and I don't have a girlfriend.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What does that say?

[Dan]

Like, I got nothing. God damn.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You'll figure it out.

[Linus Sebastian]

And you still can't beat Final Fantasy 6. Yeah.

[Dan]

Double skill issue.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But, no, I find it. I find it's a little bit. A little bit rng heavy for me.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But it's a good game, and I might. I'm not hating on it, to be clear. I liked it. I'm very happy with the purchase. I bought it, I had really good fun, and then I was done with it. I'm surprised by the people that are like, I literally can't stop playing. And they play it for, like, months. I'm like, I.

[Linus Sebastian]

Why are you hating on our audience?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't get that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Are you hating on them? Because, you know, there's a ton of them out there that are, like, playing Balatro right now.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like, the fact that people thought it was a genuine Game of the Year competitor. I was like, whoa, whoa.

[Linus Sebastian]

You are making so many enemies right now.

[Luke Lafreniere]

100%. So many people. It's a great game. It's a fantastic game. If you like roguelikes, if you like card games and roguelikes, and I'm a slay the Spire guy, so, yeah, it was, like, a guaranteed purchase for me. I bought it, I had a really good time with it, and then I was done.

[Dan]

But it's too easy. It's too rng heavy. Doesn't deserve to be Game of the Year.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. What a hater. What a hater. Such a hater.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a great.

[Dan]

Such a hater.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I just don't understand playing it forever. Like, there's. I don't know. I played it. I had a really fantastic time. I got to kind of what I decided was the end for me, and then I was like, cool. Then I moved on.

[Dan]

You're being such a wheel of fortune right now.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think you should get it. It's a fantastic game. It's a great game. Didn't come out in 2004, which hurts it, but it's a fantastic game.

[Dan]

Greetings, Lemur, Dino, dingo. I'm an IT company. I have 10 years of network experience, and a newbie got hired and is making slightly less than me with no experience. How do I approach my boss?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Hey, I'm going to go shop around unless you fix this. I don't know.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I mean, I would. Hmm.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I would check to try to figure out, depending on the position that you're in, you've been there for 10 years. Are you in the same role? Should you be in a higher role? Because certain roles can have like a salary cap effectively. So if you're. You said a newbie got hired. If you're still in a junior IT.

[Linus Sebastian]

Role, then is it possible you're not that good?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like, maybe you should.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm not saying that's the case, but I'm saying it is a possibility.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a possibility or you're just not. You're. You're stuck in a capped role and are not getting a promotion. And either that means you need to go somewhere else or you need to talk about why you're not getting a promotion potentially. Or like, it could be just a salary band in the.

[Linus Sebastian]

To Luke's point, like, you could be captain that. Any. Anywhere above that, you have to start taking on like supervisory or management.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Absolutely.

[Linus Sebastian]

Responsibilities. Like, I. I can tell you that in pretty much any organization, your compensation as an. An individual contributor is going to reach a level that can only be broken through if you can manage. Because the only way to scale as an organization is to have people who can. Who can manage other people like you. A flat structure works great in theory, and if your Valve works great in practice. But I think Valve is literally a free money trick. The exception that proves the rule. Right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oops. Millions of dollars.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Infinite money hack. So. Man, that's. That's a tough one. How do you start the conversation though? What's the question? Like, how do I start that conversation? How do I approach my boss?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Hey, I feel like I. My role has become a little bit stagnant.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. What. What is. What would it take for. For me to have my compensation increase? They're probably going to ask you questions like, you know, what prompted this? Or, you know, what are you. What difference are you expecting? It is never a bad idea to just shop around on the market either with. Before you approach your boss, what you might find out is like, oh, crap, both me and this newbie are actually doing like, way better. We're both doing way better than industry average. Because I don't know, like, I don't know what. You know, it's possible. What numbers we're talking about. It is possible. And maybe that's part of the rationale at your company is like, we already like, pay really well. That is what it is. That's if you want to hire, you know, if you want higher pay, you need to be in a managerial role or Whatever the case may be, it also, it also is quite possible based on that, if you're, you know, not really getting increases in compensation over the last 10 years, that, you know, you're not, your company is not taking care of people very well and that you would be better off just kind of going out and seeing if there's greener pastures out there. And so that way you could decide at that point, do you want to pursue those greener pastures or do you want to take a picture of those greener pastures, you know, to your boss, and basically go, hey, like, are we able to have a conversation about my compensation? And if they say yes, then you have an open and frank conversation where you basically just say, like, look, I feel like with my level of experience, I should, I should be, I should be due for a compensation increase. You know, here's what I think it should be. You don't have to disclose that you have an actual offer, for instance, but if they're not open to the conversation, well then, hey, maybe it is time to move on to somewhere that you're valued.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I would also the. I have 10 years of network experience, that thing. That's an interesting line too because, you know, make sure that what you're doing is giving you experience in a thing that you want to do and a thing that has growth potential. Yeah, because if you have 10 years of experience doing sorting thimbles at the company, you said network experience was probably quite valuable, but I'm speaking more generally, not necessarily you specifically, but if you have 10 years of experience sorting thimbles, let's say, and nobody needs thimble sorted anymore, then you have 10 years of experience in nothing. Unless you can find a way to, to adapt that experience to something else and, and make an argument for why it still counts. But that's one of the reasons why Linus is mentioning the whole management track thing again. Management is one of the easiest things to cross over.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, it's not easy. People try and fail all the time, but it's one of the most obvious yes there. Yeah, I'll agree with that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So if you have, if you have years of experience managing, that can often help you cross over into other fields.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, a good manager is invaluable. Which unintuitively, in English means very valuable.

[Dan]

Right, Luke? Read a book, huh? Oh, hey, all. I just got a full tower case and I realized that both front fans were backward and the only intake for four years has been my power supply fan. What's the biggest long term PC build mistake that You've made Not as big.

[Linus Sebastian]

As yours, Rob, because your only intake for four years was nothing. Your power supply fan is not an intake, it's an exhaust. Yeah. So good job, Rob. You win long term PC build mistake that you've made. Gee, I don't know. Most of them become obvious fairly quickly. Pretty quick we had. Do we ever have.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I bricked the heck out of a board, like right after we became an actual official company. That was cool. That's the only motherboard I've ever killed.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, but I feel like this is like long term. Like it was running for a long time.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't. I can't think of anything like that. Most. Most computer problems are genuinely.

[Dan]

They work or they don't.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, it'll turn on or what?

[Dan]

To avoid the ding. They're pretty binary. But like, that did not avoid the ding.

[Linus Sebastian]

How did that avoid the thing?

[Dan]

No pun intended.

[Linus Sebastian]

Ugh. You intended it.

[Dan]

I'm not doing it.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, you intended it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, no.

[Dan]

Otherwise it wouldn't have qualified.

[Luke Lafreniere]

He's gonna come ding.

[Dan]

All right. Come ding. There you go, Linus. Got a ding.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that satisfying? Does it feel good?

[Linus Sebastian]

Actually, yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice. Hey, that's how you get people's attention at that fancy jewelry store.

[Dan]

Diamonds, please. Yeah, take my money.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, but when you. When you do that, you know, you're kind of a dingus. Cuz you're always ding us. Get it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's pretty good.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, that's not good. Don't tell me that's good. All right, what else?

[Dan]

Why we have the ding. They're not. They're not good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I enjoy them.

[Dan]

Anyways, the ding is for the bad ones.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I still like the idealo.

[Dan]

First merch message and I finally get a screwdriver.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nice.

[Dan]

Buying one for my birthday tomorrow.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nice.

[Dan]

What is Luke's favorite? Star Wars Episode.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Episode?

[Dan]

I can't remember if you.

[Linus Sebastian]

The movies are called Episodes. Just trying to help you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Because even though you're named after the main character, you're just woefully ignorant. Oh, what do you mean?

[Dan]

Jar Jar Binks.

[Linus Sebastian]

Jar Jar?

[Dan]

Yeah, Jar Jar laughing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I listen to that list.

[Dan]

Works pretty well.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's.

[Dan]

That's a space character name.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Both of you. I listened to a Star wars audiobook on the way here today.

[Linus Sebastian]

Cringe. Why? Because it used to be cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, no, I listened to the old EU ones.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, all right. What were you listening to?

[Luke Lafreniere]

This one wasn't very good, actually.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, what was it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Cestus something. I can look it up.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nah, I Don't care anymore.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It wasn't very good.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. I wasn't the one right before it. Yikes. What was the book I read before? The book I listened to technically, before that was a Timothy Zahn book. All of his are fantastic, and it was the first book that MJ is in. The Cestus Deception. Yeah, that was it. I wasn't a huge fan. I normally really like any. Any book that features, like, Clone wars era, Obi Wan, but I was not that into it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Is Heir to the Empire, the first one with Marajade.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That sounds.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's the Thrawn trilogy, right?

[Luke Lafreniere]

That sounds potentially right.

[Linus Sebastian]

Thrawn trilogy is so good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Anyways, favorite Star wars episode.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, that was. That was Timothy Zahn's first Star wars book too. I didn't even know that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Great book. Really fantastic.

[Dan]

If this has been a contentious show, you could just say One.

[Linus Sebastian]

Phantom Menace. Are you kidding me?

[Dan]

I told you a contentious show.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Genuinely didn't really like one that much. There it goes.

[Dan]

There goes the Internet. Good job, Luke.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, go ahead. Favorite episode. Come on, let's go.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm trying to. I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't even remember the name. Most recent. Three.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, I don't. Oh, there's no shot.

[Dan]

They don't count.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, no, no.

[Linus Sebastian]

Force Awakens 79, Last Jedi, Return of the King. I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Return of the King.

[Dan]

Star wars marathon, but you just. Oh.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, man.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think it might be five.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, wow. That's the, like, the safest pick. How could you. Yeah, Empire. That's, like, literally the, like.

[Dan]

I like the good one.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. I don't want to get crapped on by the Internet. I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna say the safest place possible thing and go hide in my hidey hole. Like, at least. At least pick, like, Revenge of the Sith or something.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What do you pick?

[Dan]

Revenge.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sure, I'll take Revenge of the Sith. Yeah, It's. It's modern Star wars with cool fight choreography and is mostly pretty.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Three. Yeah, three is pretty good. I was gen. You're not even gonna believe me. I was genuinely debating between three and other ones because one actually sucks. Two is not that interesting right now, but I like. I like representing the prequels a little bit. 3 is pretty good.

[Linus Sebastian]

4. Sorry.

[Luke Lafreniere]

4.

[Linus Sebastian]

Did they catch any of that, Dan?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, yeah, I'm sure they did. Four, I don't think has all that much going on in a modern context.

[Linus Sebastian]

Attack of the Clones Are you kidding me? It has, like, whirly Yoda 4. I'll try. I was thinking, too.

[Dan]

Spinning's a good trick.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, A New Hope. Yeah, but A New Hope is just.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's such a. I thought that was the safe one.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's so digest. No, Empire is the safe one.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Because A New Hope is generally regarded as groundbreaking and what, like, started the whole thing, but not a particularly innovative or interesting film. Whereas the whole idea of, like, the bad guys win and stuff and, like, how. How Dark Empire was and, like, it's. It's widely regarded to be a way.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I genuinely thought four was the safest option.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, okay. Well, one thing's for sure, you would not win the Internet with, like, my favorite childhood one, which was Return of the Jedi. I loved Return of the Jedi. I loved the Ewoks. I loved. That was the best lightsaber duel at the time.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's so much better than what came before.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, the original duel in A New Hope was like, like, old man fight. Right. Whereas we're seeing, like, you know, Luke in his prime kind of thing until they completely, you know, changed what lightsaber dueling is, which, you know, you eventually kind of come around to because it's pretty cool to watch, you know, spinny CGI Yoda, you know, fight things or whatever.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Empire is hoth in Cloud City, right? Is it? Is it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Are you trying right now to, like, upset me?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that the one?

[Dan]

I'm still going with number one. I don't care.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's the one where they crawl on the animal to stay warm. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that that one?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that the one where the guy runs around with the ice cream maker?

[Linus Sebastian]

Ice cream maker?

[Luke Lafreniere]

You don't even know that one.

[Linus Sebastian]

What are you even talking about?

[Luke Lafreniere]

A week? Yeah, See, someone said yes. Yeah. Because it is ice cream maker week. You know nothing.

[Linus Sebastian]

What are you talking about?

[Luke Lafreniere]

You know nothing?

[Linus Sebastian]

What is this, a meme?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, it's not. Actually, in Cloud City, one of the guys who's evacuating runs around a corner, and he's holding what's supposed to look like futuristic technology, but it's literally just an ice cream maker from, like, the. The crafty department, I'm assuming. And somebody asked George Lucas about it in an interview, so he gave him a name, so now he has, like, lore and stuff, but it's literally just some extra running around a corner holding an ice cream maker.

[Dan]

And it's canon.

[Linus Sebastian]

I love it. It's canon.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

I did not know this. Wow. I mean, it looks like futuristic tech.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It does, actually. And it matches, like, the general aesthetic of the station and everything.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, for sure.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I think there's a subreddit about that.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's called.

[Dan]

It's a book light.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, really?

[Dan]

Yeah, they just find things that are just off the shelf to look futuristic.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like Big Luke.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that another reference you guys don't know?

[Linus Sebastian]

Probably Big Luke. No, I don't know Big Luke.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Big Luke. Star Wars. The Bigger Luke theory.

[Dan]

That's a book light.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Bigger lukewiki.com Luke prime and Bigger Luke.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sorry, what is this? I don't see anything about Bigger Luke here.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Bigger Luke, commonly abbreviated to bl.

[Dan]

What lore is this? We're on Star wars nerd levels? I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nowhere. Yeah, you guys know nothing.

[Linus Sebastian]

I got a Wikipedia and whatnot. What is this? What even is this site?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wiki dot.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude addict. What is this?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Bigger luke.wikidot.com bigger. It's pretty straightforward.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, but what is it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

The Canon Luke hypothesis. Sometimes simply the Bigger Luke hypothesis, in which it is theorized that within the Star wars universe and canon, there does indeed exist a version of Luke Skywalker that is slightly larger than a positive regular Luke Skywalker or Luke Prime.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sorry, what?

[Luke Lafreniere]

And then they have examples of where their height changes.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, a little short for. This is not even. This is not even trying Luke. This is not even trying to be credible.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I mean, that's pretty good theory.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I like Dark Jar Jar theory much more.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, Sith Lord Jar Jar.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That would have been sick if that actually ended up becoming.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, that would have been really stupid.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Would have been kind of.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, we would have.

[Dan]

That's a little higher on the iceberg than bigger Luke. That's like center Earth.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, okay. All right.

[Dan]

Can we get this show done?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Keep telling me you don't know anything about Star Wars.

[Dan]

Yeah, I am.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I am.

[Dan]

You?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I'm never saying it's not knowing things. You're allowed to know the wrong things. Hello, Sen. I love portable handheld consoles. What is your favorite computer form factor or the strangest one you've ever seen?

[Linus Sebastian]

My favorite computer form factor?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Laptop.

[Linus Sebastian]

Laptops are pretty convenient.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Laptops, your favorite computer form factor.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, if they were more reliable and more performant. I guess if they were. They asked my favorite form factor. They didn't ask.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But you said it. They would be if they were something that they're not.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, because you could. Well, sure, but you could use them as a desktop. They're versatile. You can take them with you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They're not Things that you said.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, yeah, sure, but like, I don't know. Sure, fine. Okay. How are you costumes for this coming here? Okay. Jamal Taylor suggests we go as Luke and bigger Luke.

[Dan]

Oh, that's great.

[Linus Sebastian]

And moving on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, my goodness.

[Dan]

I'm looking to build a high end PC, but I'm also not in a hurry. Is it better to fight it out with resellers or wait six to eight months and hope scarcity and terrorists aren't a thing much later this year?

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know, man. I don't have the answers. I mean, we did that video a little while back where I basically said, sorry, I don't know the answers. I mean, we know there's new, allegedly rumored GPUs coming very soon, so that's really good to know because it will tend to have an impact on the secondhand market and on the, you know, current product pricing. Beyond that, we don't really know what's coming. Good luck, everybody.

[Dan]

Hey, DLL, trying to decide on an upgrade path for my 10850K and RX6900XT. God, these naming conventions. Currently 1440p.

[Linus Sebastian]

Ain't seen nothing yet, Dan.

[Dan]

I know, it gets worse. Also interested in trying a. I guess this is a Thunderbolt display, but don't.

[Linus Sebastian]

Try a Thunderbolt display. That's like completely unnecessary. Why would you do that?

[Dan]

How does a GPU interface with a Thunderbolt card?

[Linus Sebastian]

It doesn't. Don't bother. Okay, hold on. Okay, well, okay, so some Thunderbolt cards have a DisplayPort in. So they will inject that DisplayPort into your Thunderbolt connection. So you are effectively just using your GPU, but then you're just using DisplayPort. So there's no reason to use a Thunderbolt display. The only reason you would want to do that is if you want to use optical Thunderbolt like I do to carry Thunderbolt over some great distance. Then you use a dock to go DisplayPort out to your monitor and then just use your Thunderbolt dock for Thunderbolt for, you know, connectivity or whatever else. There are so few Thunderbolt displays that. And none of them offer the most compelling mix of price and features and performance that you just shouldn't bother at all. There's just no real reason to do it that I can think of.

[Dan]

Last one I've got for you today. I'm the tech dad that has been waiting for Hexos. I am researching building a NAS for the first time and finding it daunting, but fun. Any suggestions on where to start?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wendell has some good videos.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sure. There level one techs. Yeah.

[Dan]

I also built our Jonsbo nas. We did a video on that. That was phenomenal.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice. Is that short circuit?

[Dan]

No, that was a full ltt.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh.

[Dan]

It was the first time I've ever like built a computer with a video and it just happened to be ours.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yeah. This one. So this is actually a pretty good video on like building a nas. So you built this one?

[Dan]

I built almost exactly that one.

[Linus Sebastian]

Cool.

[Dan]

I couldn't get a cheaper cpu, so it has an expensive CPU and I couldn't get a cheaper CPU that had a built in gpu. So when I want to use it, I just stick a riser card and a 1080 into the motherboard. I need to upgrade that eventually, but it's been phenomenal. It runs all day, every day.

[Luke Lafreniere]

When I need to diagnose this thing, I actively make it more complicated and also significantly change variables.

[Dan]

Yeah, but I haven't needed to because it just works. Thanks Todd Howard. That's all I got. Oh, there's one in.

[Linus Sebastian]

There's one in.

[Dan]

Incoming. Do you want to touch that?

[Linus Sebastian]

Den Lennis and Lake. How can chit GPT, Right. Box slash pez. The bar exam. But me auto correct is merely functional. And then they translated it for us. How does chat GPT, write books and pass the bar exam? But my autocorrect is barely functional. It's a good. Good question.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Good question.

[Linus Sebastian]

Good question. See you later.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Solid question.

[Linus Sebastian]

Thanks for watching the WAN show. See you again next week. Same bad time, same bad channel.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Bye.

[Linus Sebastian]

It.