My Favorite Website Is Gone Forever - WAN Show August 22, 2025

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "My Favorite Website Is Gone Forever"

WAN Show — Linus Tech Tips
Hosts: Linus Sebastian, Luke Lafreniere, Dan
Date: August 23, 2025

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Overview

This episode centers on the shutdown of the AnandTech article archive, a beloved and highly consequential repository of PC hardware knowledge. Linus and Luke mourn the loss, discuss the implications for the tech community and the broader dangers of digital history disappearing. The episode also covers pressing tech news including AI’s creeping influence on content, media industry struggles, and a series of offbeat but incisive discussions about subscriber models, AI likeness sales, and product ‘feature gating’.

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Key Topics & Insights

AnandTech Archive Shutdown

Timeline & Discovery

• Linus discovers AnandTech’s archive is gone while researching old GPU benchmarks for a script. Clicking old links merely redirects to the forum (05:20).
• The hosts reflect on how so much PC hardware knowledge has now been lost or made very difficult to access, and express frustration and grief:

  “Every time one of these old sites goes down and all the articles are lost, we lose a piece of history forever. Like that whole 'the Internet never forgets' thing is turning out to be so not true." — Linus (15:10)

Ownership & Corporate Decisions

• The archive was owned first by Perch, then by Future PLC. Public assurances had apparently been given that the archive would remain indefinitely (08:51).
• They conjecture on the rationale: maybe cost savings, maybe a (largely futile) attempt to prevent AI companies from scraping valuable, “clean” pre-AI content (10:33).
• The practical cost for Future PLC to keep the archive live would have been trivial. Luke speculates it may be pure apathy.

Broader Impact

• Linus:

  “This affects anybody who wants to, you know, learn about stuff from a previous era… This absolutely blows.” (18:10).

• The hosts lament how much harder it will be for tech journalists, researchers, and enthusiasts to find trustworthy, firsthand information about older hardware.
• The Internet’s “impermanence” is becoming acutely clear, contrary to the common phrase that “the Internet never forgets.”

  "The Internet forgets more than the entire rest of recorded human history contains." (15:11).

The DEarth of Written Tech Media

• Future’s handling of Tom’s Hardware, Maximum Linux, and more: closure lists for tech magazines now outnumber their active titles (13:05).
• Linus reflects on how this erosion even threatens content like their own, noting:

  “It’s going to be even worse when Tom’s Hardware eventually goes down, if it ever does… It’s again, an extremely important perspective on PCs.” (23:15).

Historical Data, Labs, and Comparisons

• The loss of old data is part of what LTT Labs is trying to remedy—building a testing and comparison platform that integrates not only current, but eventually historical data (26:26).
• Linus and Luke discuss features like price comparisons, benchmarks, and the need to carefully document methodology changes over time (28:03, 35:23).
• They respond candidly to recent community criticism about Labs data accuracy and transparency, highlighting direct responses from their team (32:48):

  “There will always be some amount of human error with the labour. I apologize for that. We’re currently still humans, so it will currently still happen. And we appreciate when people point it out…” (Luke quoting Lucas)

AI, Copyright, and Search Engine Troubles

YouTube Shorts 'AI Sharpening' Controversy

• Linus and Luke break down the YouTube Shorts debacle, where creators noticed their videos were being algorithmically “sharpened” without consent, supposedly by “traditional machine learning, not generative AI” (140:57).
• They show stark side-by-sides (143:16), noting the over-processed, unnatural look:

  “Better is not always better. More over-processed and AI generated is not good.” (144:20)

• The discussion evolves into philosophical questions about creators losing control over how their work is presented and the unstoppable spread of algorithmic intervention.
• Linus:

  "Making things look more... over processed and AI generated is not good. And this seems to be over the line. Does that seem—yeah, I like that." (146:39)

• They also address Google's new AI Overview feature citing LTT Labs as a source—while possibly bypassing valuable click-through to the original site (41:13, 42:13).

The Slippery Slope of AI Likeness Sales

• Discussion around TikTok buying people’s visual likeness for AI avatars—sometimes for as little as $750 (84:17 onwards).
• They examine the wild ambiguity of such deals: what’s your price? What about nudity? What about legacy and control?
• Linus:

  “If they just generate someone that’s not based on a real person, then what legal battle?” (87:32) “If you sell your likeness, it kind of... f—s me a little.” (90:34)

• Ultimately, they agree: everyone has a price, but caution against how failures of legislation and ethics could wreak havoc.

The Future of Reviews, Comparisons, and Subscription Models

• The shutdown of AnandTech and rise of paid benchmarking/comparison tools prompted LTT’s own Labs team to accelerate development. They openly describe the hurdles of bringing historical benchmarks into modern comparison bins (26:26-38:06).
• Community feedback on Labs’ accuracy and transparency is encouraged and responded to, showcasing a direct relationship with their audience (32:48-35:23).
• Broader gripes about the state of written tech media: declining ad revenues and the struggle to survive in the AI/content scrape era (23:03, 130:07).

Industry News & Memorable Segments

Technological News Round-Up

• Bigscreen Beyond VR Headset:
  A rare “quietly successful” niche product, as both Linus and Luke discuss buying and customizing their own (71:13-83:54).
• Seagate Raid on Counterfeit Drives:
  Fascinating sidenote on an illegal operation that relabels and resets used drives for resale (146:50-152:34).

Quirky & Notable Moments

• Floatplane and the 'Lifetime Subscription' Debate:
  The fallacies and eventual collapse of lifetime digital subscriptions are dissected:

  “What we’d be offering you is a lie. Because at some point... the pyramid will collapse” (205:05).

• Linux vs. Windows Rant:
  Luke goes on an impassioned tear about why he’s waiting for Steam Deck 2 and is “trying to get out” of Windows and the “garbage” shovelware that’s been forced on users (179:41 onwards):

  “Running Linux has been less annoying. It has been easier and less in my way. I have had to do things to it to make it okay less than Windows.” (161:02)

• AI Character Impersonators:
  The hosts discover Linus ‘clones’ on Character AI and attempt to interact with them, only to find them wildly misinformed and somewhat unsettling:

  “Is this just a giant gaslighting engine? Yeah, because it kind of feels that way.” (55:06)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• "Every time one of these old sites goes down and all the articles are lost, we lose a piece of history forever. Like that whole 'the Internet never forgets' thing is turning out to be so not true." — Linus (15:10)
• “Better is not always better. More over-processed and AI generated is not good... making things look more... over processed and AI generated is not good.” — Linus (144:20)
• “This affects anybody who wants to, you know, learn about stuff from a previous era… This absolutely blows.” — Linus (18:10)
• "The Internet forgets more than the entire rest of recorded human history contains." — Linus (15:11)
• “If you sell your likeness, it kind of... f—s me a little.” — Luke (90:34)
• "The Internet’s totally does forget and it's going to be an enormous problem, I don't know how we're going to fix it." — Linus (15:30)
• "What we're going to get those, at least in the near future, is through pricing. Because we found that we have a bit of a problem where there's a lot of information on the lab site, but because there's no pricing involved, it makes it hard to get to your final decision while there." — Linus (29:49)
• "I'm tired of the garbage that has been shoveled into my face from Windows for so long. I'm pissed that there's no alternative." — Luke (179:48)
• "Community, that means that I, you know, live in a comfortable home. I drive a nice car, I enjoy a really nice lifestyle.... I don't value fancy labels on my clothes. I don't value collecting fine art. Some of the things that people find ways to spend tens of millions of dollars. I don't value them." — Linus (100:15)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:25 — Linus introduces the episode and reveals AnandTech is gone
• 05:20 — How they discovered AnandTech’s disappearance
• 08:51-16:07 — Analysis of ownership, possible motives, and legacy loss
• 15:10-15:40 — Philosophical discussion on the impermanence of digital knowledge
• 26:26-38:06 — LTT Labs: data plans, methodology, comparison tools, & community transparency
• 40:53-46:00 — Google’s AI Overview summarizes LTT Labs, raising content scraping concerns
• 71:13-83:54 — VR: Bigscreen Beyond, Beat Saber, and why the VR niche is thriving
• 140:57-146:40 — YouTube ‘AI sharpening’ debacle and media overprocessing
• 179:41-161:47 — Long-form Linux-vs-Windows, Steam Deck, and handheld gaming
• 205:05 — The impossibility of lifetime subscriptions for web services

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Digital history is fragile. Trustworthy technical archives can vanish at the whim of their corporate owners, and current systems for preservation may not be enough.
• AI’s reach continues to expand. From subtle ‘enhancements’ on YouTube to the grey ethics of selling your own likeness, questions outpace solutions.
• The business of tech content is changing. The written word is struggling, and the new tech review business is moving quickly towards multimedia, paid tools, and community engagement as survival strategies.
• Transparency and feedback loops are vital. LTT Labs responds openly to criticism, and the community is expected to both challenge and help steer the work.
• Ownership, privacy, and sustainability—in your tech, your data, and even your subscriptions—are themes that this episode returns to again and again.

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This summary covers the depth and natural flow of the episode, focusing on the topics, insights, and speaker personality that make WAN Show unique in the tech podcast landscape.

Transcript

[Dan]

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[Luke]

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[Linus]

Make visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off terms apply. What is up everyone? And welcome to a fabulous WAN show where I gotta tell you, I don't know whether I'm more angry or sad because the website that taught me so much of what I know about PCs and computer hardware and electronics and just an invaluable repository of knowledge of PCs and times past has gone dark. Gone dark in a way that big time dark was big preventable dark and not that expensive to. Well, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. But a non text archive is gone. It just redirects to the forum. The. That's it. That's all she wrote, folks. In spite of their current owner perch saying that that would. Oh no, it's future PLC now. Yes, sorry, future PLC saying that wouldn't happen. In other news, YouTube has responded to the criticism that Mr. Riley, who I might note, never criticizes anything. Hardly. Okay, so this is a truly two exceptional things happened this week. YouTube responded to our tech linked criticism of the AI sharpening on YouTube shorts. So we'll get into it more later. But the, the spoiler here is they claim it's not AI, it's traditional machine learning. Yeah, that's. That's what I said. What else we got this week?

[Luke]

Where are we drawing these lines? I will be addressing some. Some controversial threads about labs. Oh, I thought I'd give him a.

[Linus]

Little not have a controversy fun for one week.

[Luke]

I don't think it's gonna be controversial.

[Linus]

Why would you call them controversial?

[Luke]

No, they're gonna be extremely controversial. They're gonna be brutal. I'm gonna be sticking my falsely advertised.

[Linus]

In the ground his flaccid ass. Non controversy as controversial.

[Luke]

It's gonna be super serious. You gotta stay tuned to check it out head. Yeah, yeah, I mean, sorry, whatever. Anyways. And intel grabs $2 billion for a lifeline.

[Linus]

Yeah, they grabbed it by the.

[Luke]

Whoa.

[Linus]

Whoa, wait, did I not keep it.

[Luke]

Did you not?

[Linus]

The show is brought to you today by Ground News, MSI and Vessi. Also with our rap partner dBrand, our laptop partner, Dell and of course, our chair partner, Secret Labs. Why don't we jump right into our headline topic today, which is of course that a non tax article archive has been taken down. I know, I know this happened a couple of weeks ago, but I just found out this week. I was reviewing a script with, I think it was Plouffe and Nick from the lab. Really cool video we've got coming soon, by the way. Guys, we finally got our hands on an Nvidia H200. So, sure, yeah, it's their last gen one or whatever, but it's a $30,000 GPU. And we ran some machine learning and AI benchmarks and it fast, very fast. It's like, it's so fast, I almost look at it and I go, wow.

[Luke]

It fast.

[Linus]

Wow. Damn.

[Luke]

My friends call me and they're like, that's a. That's really fast.

[Linus]

Damn, girl, you real fast at making slopes. Nobody slobs harder than you. Slob. I mean, but I mean it in a. In a kind way, a respectful way.

[Luke]

You could, you could. You could. You could mean that you are sloppy, girl. You could. We're already so gone. We're like barely, barely into any topics. We are so gone.

[Linus]

Well, folks, it's been nice knowing you. Sayonara from Canada.

[Luke]

Oh boy.

[Linus]

Okay, Anantech. So, yeah, our source is Reddit. Well, actually, our source is me because I discovered this live. I was trying to find out. Shoot, I forget what I was. I think I was trying to find out, sort of. Ah, yes, I remember now because I seemed to recall that the first. The first GPU that implemented HBM memory was the Radeon R600. That ended up not being true. The R600 did have a notable memory configuration. It used a ring bus and a 512bit. Or it might even. Might have even been more than that. I forget, but it had some kind of fancy memory interface. It wasn't hbm. And so we were talking about something to do with the HBM memory that's on that H200 GPU. See, I came, brought it all the way back.

[Luke]

Yeah, he got boom.

[Linus]

And. And I was like, oh, yeah, well, hold on a second. I thought HBM had like a reputation for. Was it for being really efficient or was it for being really inefficient? I couldn't remember which one. So I was. I was trying to find a non tax article on the. The Radeon R600 or the R600 GPU. I forget what the actual, like, name of the card was. Was it the 2020-20-29 something. I can't remember. It doesn't matter. The point is R600 was the codename and I clicked through 2900. Yeah, that's probably it. Yeah, that's the one. Wait, 2900 XT. Is that. No, is that Hawaii?

[Luke]

It's not even an A overview, it's a snippet.

[Linus]

Yeah, I know that's the one. Yeah. So I clicked through the article and it went to the Anon Tech forum. Not like the forum thread discussing the article or anything like that. Like that was a thing. But no, not that, just to the forum. I was like, what the heck, that's weird. Anyway, we found a second source on that page of results and I was like, oh, okay. No, that card did not have HBM. It was actually the R9 Fury that was the first card to have HBM. And I was like, okay. So I searched like R9 Fury efficiency. Because so what happened was in my brain I had. Oh yeah, there were efficient. There was an efficiency conversation around hbm. But it turns out the efficiency conversation went both ways. So the card overall was not terribly efficient, but the HBM itself was known for being efficient. And that was the little piece that I needed. And I was able to continue my script, or at least I would have been able to if I wasn't busy grieving. Because when I was looking for information on the R9 theory, I came across another historical Anand Tech article that was indexed in Google search results and I clicked on it and it went straight to the forum and I was like, what? And they were like, you didn't know? I was like, know what? Anandtech is gone, Connors. I mean it, I guess shouldn't surprise me that much because you know when private equity firms say oh yeah, yeah, yeah, oh you know, yeah, with all the staff's gone, but we're going to leave the historical archive up forever, Indefinitely. I don't know if they said forever, but there was no indication that they were going to be taking it down. In fact, all the news that you can find about Anantech shutting down in their potential defense. Well, hold on, we'll, we'll come to it. We'll come to it.

[Luke]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Linus]

But blah, blah, blah. So you can, you can actually see there's a fair, there was a fair bit of conversation about it. And over the sentiment, there's always a question on tech and breathe a sigh of relief. Ah yes, for now an untech fans can breathe a sigh of relief. To Smith. Ryan Smith, former editor in chief, writes that future plc, a non tax publisher, will keep the site's archive indefinitely. Well, see there's that.

[Luke]

Yeah, that wording.

[Linus]

Yeah, that wording.

[Luke]

Though I bet you it is true that they will keep the sites archive indefinitely. Doesn't mean they'll keep it up.

[Linus]

So this happened a couple weeks ago. This is actually a non tax second PE owner. So first was Perch, who I accidentally blamed for this earlier. Sorry, Perch first was Perch and then Future PLC bought I believe both an Untech and Tom's hardware from Perch.

[Luke]

They own Tom's hardware now. I know.

[Linus]

Yeah, they definitely. Future definitely owns Tom's hardware now as well. This flipping blows. However, I am going to present one unexpected defense of the move I've seen. Yeah.

[Luke]

Because I had one and I lost it already. So I'm very interested in where. Because I was wondering like, did this, did that statement happen under Perch and then it was sold? Invalidating the statement. But no. So there goes my whole thing.

[Linus]

Yeah. No, sorry.

[Luke]

Okay. What is yours?

[Linus]

So here's, here's my theory that basically because I would think the cost of keeping this online for a company like Future PLC is like trivial, especially with.

[Luke]

Ads on the site.

[Linus]

Yeah. Unless. Unless AI crawlers are them by just like constantly hammering it. Which again, I don't know how super likely it is because there's no new content being added to the site other than the forum which they have left online. So I had like one kind of theory that maybe it was around like you know, saving this non AI infected sort of pre AI era. But then it's going to be part of so many repositories anyway. So yeah, what I had planned was to present. Okay, yeah, they're, they're, they're keeping their, their non. Dirty. Non AI written, you know, IP to themselves and they want to like license access to, you know, helping AIs understand computers and the history of computers. But then realistically, the entire business of harvesting and selling data sets, there's no way they don't already have all of this anyway.

[Luke]

So a lot of the Internet's data was crawled before.

[Linus]

Sorry, countermeasures were put in place. Future isn't. Isn't private equity. Technically, yes, you're right, they are. They like actually operate and stuff. They're not just private equity. So I should not have necessarily bundled that. They just behave like private equity.

[Luke]

Yeah, I looked up their Wikipedia.

[Linus]

Sorry.

[Luke]

That'S Canadian private equity. I'm kidding. Can I find this Future us? Yeah, there we go. Is it actually just future us?

[Linus]

Oh no, it's Future PLC for the.

[Luke]

United Kingdom based companies, see Future plc. But Future Us, it looks like, owns the magazine. Maybe. Or at least that's how it's laid out on Wikipedia. Who knows? I just thought it was interesting. If you look up Future Us on Wikipedia, their list of defunct titles is longer than their list of current titles. Current titles there and defunct titles right at the top.

[Linus]

Anand Tech. Wow. They own Nintendo Power.

[Luke]

Well, they, you know, for a period of time, yeah.

[Linus]

But I mean defunct. But they probably still own the IP then, I would think, I guess. Yeah. Official Dreamcast Magazine. Okay. Some of these probably didn't need to still be around. Yeah.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Total Movie, Skateboard, Trade News, Men's Edge.

[Luke]

CD ROM today, I guess.

[Linus]

Yeah. We could live without CD ROM time limited. Yeah.

[Luke]

Might have been cool for a while.

[Linus]

Yep, yep.

[Luke]

Broadcast and cable. I can kind of understand that going down.

[Linus]

I think they should bring back Maximum Linux though. I think the time is right.

[Luke]

It might, it might. You know, for a magazine. I don't know.

[Linus]

Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

So what are our options here?

[Luke]

Some people have apparently US as wholly owned subsidiary of Future plc.

[Linus]

Yeah, yeah. So there is apparently an archive on. Well of all places, the Internet Archive. Who could have. Who could have thought it? But my notes say. But it's not the same. Do you know what is? No, what is what is not the same about it?

[Luke]

No.

[Linus]

You don't?

[Luke]

Nope. Is it not very navigable? That would be what I would assume. I'm also assuming if there's any tools, that the tools wouldn't work.

[Linus]

So this blows. And I mean not just for me, like for me personally it blows because I would often use historical articles from an untech. Whenever we're making a video about something that's so old that we didn't exist yet as a publication to cover it. Like we've been around so long now that unless something is very old, you know, I could refer back to our old video and I'll be able to find a B roll clip or two as needed. Maybe a benchmark result as shoddily as it might have been obtained back then. But every time one of these old sites goes down and all the articles are lost, we lose a piece of history forever. Like that whole the Internet never forgets thing is turning out to be so not true.

[Luke]

Oh, extremely so.

[Linus]

The Internet forgets more than the entire rest of recorded human history contains.

[Luke]

Largely because everyone said the Internet never forgets for so long. So they trusted it as an archive and a backup when it's Just a bunch of dudes computers.

[Linus]

And part of the problem is that now even knowing the Internet totally does forget and this is going to be an enormous problem, I don't know how we're going to fix it because it's not practical to back up the whole thing in all its different permutations as it is ever changing. And there's so much crap mixed in with the gems that are worth backing up that how do you surgically back up what matters?

[Luke]

Especially now?

[Linus]

Especially now.

[Luke]

Imagine backing up all that AI slop.

[Linus]

Right, dude. Okay, so back to the H200. Like you can generate AI slop images at a rate that is just. Was mind blowing to me. Like I already saw what I felt was pretty fast AI image generation. When we, when we checked out that 48 gig 4090 card, the one that we got from China where they're modifying the 24 gig cards and they're putting double the memory on them, I was like, wow, dang, you can fit like a so much model in this vrm, you know? And then we were playing around with the H200. That thing has 141 gigs of memory. 141 gigs.

[Luke]

That's pretty nuts.

[Linus]

Like right on. It's right on the package. Like it's right on there. They stack the memory, sir.

[Luke]

It's a really cool piece of tech.

[Linus]

Yeah. Too bad it costs as much as a practical family vehicle.

[Luke]

I just kind of meant HBM in general.

[Linus]

Oh, sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean the HBM is a big part of the price of that card.

[Luke]

No, that's fair.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

I just think HBM is cool.

[Linus]

Yeah. The yields on it apparently is a real challenge. That's why it has an oddball amount. 141 gigs.

[Luke]

That is weird.

[Linus]

Yeah, well, that's because when you're stacking 12 memory dies occasionally you might goes wrong. Yeah, you might have something not quite so perfect.

[Luke]

We'll get better at it.

[Linus]

I clicked the wrong thing. What is this? Okay, well, we'll let chat worry about their. Their stuff there. In summary, maybe the reason has to do with protecting the IP from AI scrapers. Maybe the reason has to do with not being able to afford the monthly bill of keeping the site up. Maybe the decision has to do with pure apathy. Whatever the reason is, this absolutely blows. I think I had started a thought earlier about how this affects me, but I think this affects. This affects. Oh man. This affects anybody who wants to, you know, learn about stuff from a previous era.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Because like, what do you what do you.

[Luke]

This was a very valuable archive for.

[Linus]

Computer hardware history and computer hardware enthusiasts. Yeah, this absolutely blows. And in advance, Future plc, I reject your offer to purchase Linus Media Group. Sure. Okay. Well, because they're, They're. They're gonna mess it up.

[Luke]

You don't know they're gonna offer, though.

[Linus]

I don't. But in advance, I reject their offer. Sure. Okay. I'm being proactive. You should learn about it.

[Luke]

I. I was. I would more lean towards vain, but.

[Linus]

You know, why not both.

[Luke]

But fair enough. If this is a potentially odd call out. But if you want a cool experience talking about the closure of an old magazine, there's a podcast that they really haven't made enough episodes of, but it's called the Life well Wasted. And I think it's their first episode ever is the Death of EGM or Electronic Gaming Monthly. And it's like he goes and interviews a bunch of the people at their. I think it's like they're like last day or at a party where it's like the. The closure of the company party. And it's. It's actually really wild because they're talking about, like, the death of magazines and it's a bunch of people that had worked at a bunch of different magazines and ended up eventually, over time to egm because EGM was one of the later ones to go down in regards to gaming magazines. It's actually like a really good episode, but.

[Linus]

Right. Because these are the last ones left standing in the industry, effectively.

[Luke]

Yeah. And they talk about, like, what it was like to write video game reviews back when, like, the Internet wasn't a thing. This is a lot of, like, old head game reviewers. It's actually like, it's a really, really cool episodes. And it's from a podcast that, like, not a lot of people know about. And it's fantastic. I was talking to Neen exists in flipping chat, who is apparently a pronounced nae.

[Linus]

Nae.

[Luke]

Nae.

[Linus]

Nae.

[Luke]

Sure. Apparently employee of Future plc. And I was asking because, like, the, the timing of this is kind of funky. We haven't. We haven't necessarily gotten to this portion of it yet, but it's. And I don't. I don't 100% know, but it seems like Bench, the Tom's Hardware tool, Bench, was maybe launched at a fairly similar time to when an antech went down.

[Linus]

Oh.

[Luke]

And it feels like there's potentially a strategy there to try to get more people coming towards Bench.

[Linus]

Right. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. No, I Know what you're talking about. So Bench is their, their comparison tool where you can kind of compare across brands, across eras and, and see relative performance. And AnandTech had a lot of historical graphs and charts that I either they've rolled in, which I don't. I don't actually know how they obtain all the results for Bench. I don't know if they've used any of the AnandTech data. But what they might be avoiding, I guess to your point is people just using an ontech going back and just looking at graphs on.

[Luke]

Oh, never mind. He's a very ex. Employee. My bad. But yeah, apparently there wasn't like she. I don't know.

[Linus]

Are you going to get anything right today? Are you just going to go full like.

[Luke]

Yeah, that. Except for apparently I'm not going to say it this time for some reason. So the time that I get it all wrong, I'll omit the statement. Perfect. But yeah, I don't, I don't fully know how this tool works. I wanted to poke into it and then I realized that they only have yearly subscriptions as far as I can tell. And it's 70 bucks a year. And I was too cheap. But yeah. So that's the closest I've seen, I guess. Is this.

[Linus]

Okay. Who would pay for a subscription to this, you think?

[Luke]

Interesting question because Dan Siegel, the like head of the Labs website, and I were looking at this and he asked that.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And I was like, I don't know. But I think you get more than just Bench because I think it's the Tom's Hardware premium subscription. So it's not just Bench. I think you get other stuff.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke]

I don't know. What, I don't know. You get Premium exclusive features and interviews. You get expert news analysis and roadmaps and you get Bench.

[Linus]

Okay.

[Luke]

The power of our Bench database and it's toms and they have the annountech data. So they probably have an incredible amount of data in Bench to, you know, to back them up.

[Linus]

Man, it's got to be a tough time to be Tom's Hardware.

[Luke]

I think it's got to be a tough time to be any form of written media, to be completely honest.

[Linus]

Yeah. Like I. To be clear, I'm not like, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to super dunk on them.

[Luke]

Nope.

[Linus]

I do understand that it is legitimately hard times in the written media industry, but I just. It's gonna be even worse when Tom's Hardware eventually goes down, if it ever does. I don't even because like. Or don't like Tom's hardware, you know, or whatever. It's again, an extremely important perspective on PCs.

[Luke]

You also, we.

[Linus]

We also remind you of another site that unfortunately is. Yeah, yeah, no more.

[Luke]

It's, it's. It's that thing we always say, wait.

[Linus]

Is PC perspective to lie still live? Oh, they are still live.

[Luke]

Like a new kind of deal, you know. Now.

[Linus]

Yeah. Look at this. You know what? PC perspective is still publishing. So I am the problem.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

PC. I am the problem for not reading.

[Luke]

Yeah. Linus.

[Linus]

Oh, my God, this is rough. There is one comment. You know what, Jason? Good job.

[Luke]

Good job, Jason. Keeping the dream alive. I do find that there's. There's a lot of review sites that I found often don't get very much interaction, like, at all. But they've been around for a long time. So I don't necessarily know that, like, maybe the readers just aren't super interactive. I don't know.

[Linus]

Sure, let's hope for that.

[Luke]

Like, I know of a site that has like a hundred employees and I don't see a ton of comments. They've got to be making money somewhere.

[Linus]

Parallelogram says answer the question if you know the answer. The question was specifically directed to the writer of the art article about something they said on a podcast recently. So I. I don't think I'm gonna be able to answer it.

[Luke]

Hello, Train. Yeah, I don't know. It's all. It's a little sticky, but I. It would make the. The timing is a little bit fishy to me.

[Linus]

But what would prevent us from having something bench alike for people to do comparisons?

[Luke]

We have something.

[Dan]

I know.

[Luke]

Oh, I was trying to not use this.

[Linus]

Throwing up the ball. I was trying to do was hit it.

[Luke]

I was trying to.

[Linus]

You just had to hit it. Why can't you hit the ball? I feel like I'm talking to my kids. Just hit the ball. No, I don't talk to them like that.

[Luke]

I was trying to not use the timing, and I'm not going to say it.

[Linus]

Why not? You can totally announce you're pregnant at a funeral. One life gone, another life begins. That's a circle of life, baby.

[Luke]

Oh, my God. Okay, so we, we have. So you can take like, hey, look, I have a keyboard. I have another keyboard. Or I click compare on both of them. I click Comparison bin. I click View Detailed comparison. And then I have all my different things. We have this. You can see. Oh, no data available because we tested different stuff. Hooray. There's. There's you know, it's a work in progress. It'll take time, but you can, you can compare things on the site, but.

[Linus]

It will take in the longer term. Our aspiration is still to, to collect historical data. However, I can already without, even without even having tried to do it yet, foresee what will be some major challenges in collecting historical data for historical hardware if we go back too far. Because there is going to be the very, very old stuff that I think will be relatively straightforward to gather data on. But I'm not sure if anyone cares how well, you know, a Radeon 9800 Pro runs Quake 3 or whatever, right? Like, I don't think that's probably going to matter to most modern gamers. And then there's going to be all the modern stuff. That's no problem because it runs on the latest operating system and we can use the latest tools to monitor it. And then there's going to be this dead zone in the middle where the transition to Steam was kind of happening and game discs like, existed. But going back now and trying to find what was kind of the final patch for that game and then once it transitioned to like a Steam key, running that on an operating system that actually necessarily supports it because you can't, you can't install like Steam on Windows Vista anymore. So if it runs in compatibility mode on a newer os, like, that's great. But was that performance actually equal? Can I find a GPU driver for that new operating system?

[Luke]

It gets weird. And to be clear, I just had a BIN from like a previous show selected, which is why that didn't really work because we had like a low end GPU against an extremely high end one. So we had different tests. This is what like a power supply would look like when things are actually comparable. So you can see, you get down to the charts and you can see like on this one, the blue line is the fusion 1600 and the red line is the FSP 1650. You can see all the comparatives and it's like it's actually a very useful and powerful tool on the. I think it's published now. I always get lost in between what's published and what's on the beta site because we're working on things. But there should be bring your own price capabilities at least coming soon. So let's look at these two, add these two to the bin, do the comparison bin, because we were talking about bring your own price a while ago. So I wanted to see. Dan Siegel is going to be screaming at me oh yeah, add prices. So let's say this one is $420 and this one is $469. You see, it's a little price updated. You can select your currencies, you can undo changes, you can close that box. Then you can see your price performance live. So you can input like this is what it actually costs me. Now this is, this is what I would call still in. In kind of production of sorts because we want to add some flags warning people like you should consider full system cost, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we're trying to get it out there, we're trying to get more. Yeah, you can edit prices that just disable them and go back to the performance graph, but we're trying to get more useful tools on the site. And a big part of where we're going to get those, at least in the near future, is through pricing. Because we found that we have a bit of a problem where there's a lot of information on the lab site, but because there's no pricing involved, it makes it hard to get to your final decision while there. So we're trying to start integrating pricing.

[Linus]

Into stuff and we're hoping if anyone from, you know, any major, major electronics retailers is watching, feel free to kind of reach out through our public inboxes. If we could get API access, that would be great. And if we can't get API access, well, I would never publicly declare that we're just going to scrape your site. I would never do that. But what I will say is that why don't we just work together and you can get us API access to your pricing and then we can provide a really super useful service to people who are shopping for the products that you sell and it'll be great and there will be synergies for all that. Seem like a fair way to put it? Sure, yeah.

[Luke]

I also will use this period of time to jump to another section that I was planning on talking about, which is that there are, you know, negative labs, things that the community has called us out for recently and I wanted to actually highlight those. There's. There's two particular ones that I have right now. It's not like there are. Have never been other ones, to be clear, but there's two particular ones right now on the mouse review subreddit, there's a thread which is LTT Lab has tested the inzone mouse A and then somebody points at it and points out some potential issues with various things. And the main thing that I want to highlight here is that Lucas Responded. So Lucas is in here talking about the mouse review. Oops. And he talks about like, okay, there was a detected human error, which we fixed right away upon seeing this. Thank you for pointing that out. It was the wrong data was selected from the data set, so we fixed that. There will always be some amount of human error with the labor. I apologize for that. But we are currently still humans, so it will currently still happen. And we appreciate when people point it out because we want the most accurate set of data we can have to live on the site. So if we do screw something up, please tell us. And we would love to fix it. So thank you for pointing that out. And there's also, like, we want to generally have a fairly open dialogue with people about what's happening in the lab. I owe Linus a video to go on the LTT channel to update. What kind of what's going on with the lab.

[Linus]

There's been a lot of upd. You guys are going to see a lot of new faces, you're going to see a lot of new desk layouts. You're going to see a lot of new aspirational things for the future. Yeah, we're trying to. We're trying to talk less and let the action do the talking, but I think we've kind of let the pendulum swing a little bit too far the other way and we just haven't really been talking about it at all.

[Luke]

Yeah, time to talk about it a little bit more. But a lot of what we're going to be talking about is some of the things that we've been doing to try to increase transparency things. So like in this post, in this reply from Lucas, he mentions regarding the transparency on our testing method. We have a written article on how we test mice and we explicitly note in the product pages when we differ from it for a special feature. I can appreciate how it may be missed if you're not looking for it. Would it be helpful if this was linked linked from each mouse product page? So if we call it out in each mouse product page. The reason why this is a question is because we actually want to hear from you. So, like, we want this type of criticism and feedback and we want to use it to make ourselves better. And hopefully I'm trying to point this out because people might see Lucas's response and then actually reply to it and give us that information. That is also true about the LTTS AI Benchmarks Caused Me Pain thread. I don't know why this is his handle, but this is Nick from the lab. His Handle is puzzle headed. Dish 230 Lucas is a little bit more straightforward, but this is actually Nick and he basically talks about like, hey, look, the, the, you know, we've had some problems in the past. We're constantly working on our, on our AI testing benchmarks. That is something that we've been very actively working on lately. So they'll change and improve going forward. And he points out like, hey, the stuff that we do have does address some of the points that you brought up, but again, there are new versions coming and we're working on it actively. So we're not trying to say it's perfect or anything, but that's where we're at. And I would also point out that we have been rather active in this area of the site. The from the lab is also sometimes referred to as the blog or just posts. You can see like USB C how we conduct charge testing. You can see the power supply testing method update. That was really, really good. We promise these lines mean something new audio testing method we're trying to publish posts talking about what we're doing, how we're doing it, why we're doing it and asking for feedback. A lot of these link to the forum, the LTT forum where labs. Because we don't have comments on the lab site where labs is asking like, hey, this is, this is something we've observed. This is an idea that we have of how to address it. What do you guys think? And we, we want to, we want to build in public and get feedback from you guys and do cool things. So I don't want you to think that we ignored any thread here or there just because I don't think people necessarily saw Nick and Lucas's response.

[Linus]

It's one of the big problems with Reddit.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

If you reply to something anytime other than the first 15 minutes.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Even if it's by far the most relevant response because just might not get seen. Nick's reply is the response.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Like it's who it was directed to. Right. You're just, you're buried under a whole bunch of just like, yeah, me too. Or I disagree with you and I hate the color of your hat. Like typical Reddit things. Right?

[Luke]

Yeah. So I thought Nick and Lucas responses were great so I wanted to surface them and just make that be seen. Lowell Inverse I don't know how to say that. Sorry. In full plane chat said subversioning for. For lab pages. We were talking about that yesterday. We were talking about that today. We've been talking about that for a while. This is something we need to figure out. We're trying to figure out what level to do the versioning on and how to manage it across different verticals. Like one that I put out there was like, imagine you were trying to do a website article versioning for VR back in like 2014-17. Like, the changes would have been insane. So like, we're looking at it right now. We're looking at like CPU and GPU and we're like, well, we can do these types of versionings and it'll be fine. And it's like, yeah, it'll be fine for those, but we need to find something that's like, okay for all potential future vertical categories. So, like, it's a fairly complicated conversation. We don't want to just copy what other people have done. So it's. Yes, absolutely. We're working on that. Working on many things. But yeah, just stay tuned. Check out the Labs website, check out the blog articles and versioning. What exactly? Versioning, kind of everything. Versioning what's included in a different section. So like, if I go to Ltd labs.com shameless plug, let's go. If I go to. Let's say, sure, this mouse. If I go to this mouse. Well, what's in the. I don't know, in this section. Do we need. In the box connectivity construction? Do we need another thing? Does something change that makes it so that we need another thing? Do one of the ways that we measure something this. Maybe not in that section, but like, if we change how we measure mouse latency.

[Linus]

So like a year from now we realize, holy crap, there's a big difference in left and right click mouse latency. That's not particularly realistic, but it's the kind of thing that could happen. And we go, oh, God. Well, we can't. We're not realistically able to go back and test every mouse from years past.

[Luke]

Which we might, depending on the change.

[Linus]

But going forward, we're going to have left and right in a comparison bin. How do we compare the original data where we just had click latency with the new data where we have left or right click latency? Hard to say. That's the point that he's trying to make is anytime you change your methodology, especially adding a new parameter that you test or subtracting one, you can run into these kinds of challenges.

[Luke]

It also comes down to, like, what constitutes a version change. This was an interesting conversation we had recently because, like, there are significant variables that might not normally constitute a version change. Like, what if a game updates. Yeah, what if a driver updates?

[Linus]

Yeah, I mean, Cyberpunk is a great example because that game has had all kinds of. It's been the showcase title for pretty much every new GPU technology over the last few years.

[Luke]

So if you. If you have to fully redo all testing for every single game update, every single driver update, every single BIOS update, every single, like, eventually becomes unreasonable. So now we have to.

[Linus]

Or like a game like wow, that has existed for so long.

[Luke]

What version? What patch, what, whatever. Yeah, yeah, there's. There's also, like, how. So, okay, we're going to inevitably run into a situation where there's something different about things that are in the comparison bin. Now, how do we communicate that these things are different? What the severity of the potential impact of those things are to the user? There's tons of different ways to try to solve these problems, and there are.

[Dan]

Things that we're working on and no.

[Linus]

Matter which way we choose, there's going to be something imperfect about it and someone somewhere is going to think we're paid off by intel to something, something sandbag AMD's results or whatever. But the reality of it is this is just a really difficult problem that no one has ever solved.

[Luke]

Owned by Nvidia. In bed with amd.

[Dan]

Sure.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

So, wait, so, sorry, hold on a second. Nvidia is my pimp. Okay? I am screwing AMD and Intel's paying for it. Did I follow that? So, okay.

[Luke]

I think so.

[Linus]

All right.

[Luke]

Yeah, very good.

[Linus]

AMD seems like they. They'd be a generous lover. You know what? Okay.

[Luke]

They're into open source.

[Linus]

Yeah. And if Nvidia is my pimp, man, I'm probably getting top dollar. Well, they are.

[Luke]

They are. Yeah.

[Linus]

That makes so much sense.

[Luke]

Speaking of things that make sense, sir, should I do the. That thing?

[Linus]

No, I wanted to talk more about LTT Labs. We were referenced by Google AI Overview, but that is.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Linus]

All right. Yeah. All right. We have our big boy pants on now. Redditor Night Kings. Is my bleep button working now, Dan?

[Dan]

Yeah, I did before. It just didn't make the noise.

[Luke]

It muted. It didn't sleep.

[Linus]

Redditor Night Kings posted a screenshot to the LTT subreddit showing Google's AI overview referencing LTT Labs when they searched for warranty information on the Corsair RM750E power supply. The overview also links to the LTT Labs article. So our question here is for real, though. Are your moms proud and do they understand your weird jobs?

[Luke]

Here's a question that I have.

[Linus]

Did we ever give them permission? No.

[Luke]

Here's a question.

[Linus]

Okay, sorry, you want a real question?

[Luke]

I assume this person clicked on the article, but did you click on the article out of curiosity of how the AI summary thing worked and the fact that you were like, oh, wow, I'm gonna put this on the subreddit or whatever, or did you click on the article because you wanted to actually know more?

[Linus]

I mean, I don't.

[Luke]

We won't be able to directly hear.

[Linus]

From this person, but I think we can get this.

[Luke]

That is a. That is a thing. That is. That is interesting to me because, well.

[Linus]

Here unique username and floatplane chat asks, are you guys happy about this? And I think that that is heavily dependent on the answer to Luke's question. Because if they're not referring people through to learn more, then no, they're basically taking what they used to give us, which is a search result that people would have to click on to find out more information. Theoretically. I mean, there's been summaries and there's been the, you know, the highlight in the, you know, bit of body of the text from the page and whatever else. Like they've been, they've been slowly inching their way towards keeping you on their website over the years to the point where now, yeah, you just. They just give you the information that you want. There it is. And you don't realistically have to click through. You know, if people still have to click through, then yeah, we love it. Right, because that's supposed to be Google's role in a healthy, functioning Internet ecosystem. They're supposed to be a referrer. They're supposed to surface authoritative, reliable information and connect users with whatever it is that they're looking for, you know, search engine. Instead, it's more like, hey, take everyone's data and keep everyone on our site so we can cram as many ads as possible down their throat. Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. The not so bright in float plain chat. Is Google still a search engine?

[Luke]

Wait a second.

[Linus]

What now?

[Luke]

Somebody pointing this out? Seven year warranty, five year warranty.

[Dan]

I'm getting things wrong faster.

[Luke]

Who pointed that out? That was oinkage.

[Linus]

Also, I just noticed another problem. It's. They searched RM750E and it's the RM7. Yeah. So it just. Can we just stop using AI summaries? I was.

[Luke]

But it looks like we did both. So I'm wondering if it pulled the text from the website.

[Linus]

Oh my God.

[Luke]

For the top part. And then it pulled the Incorrect video and then pulled the warranty from the incorrect video. I bet you the text at the top is. Is correct for the one that they actually searched for. And then the text in the next paragraph is incorrect because it's for the wrong power supply that it also got from a video. I bet you that's what happened. It's multi source because it links the source for the top paragraph and then it links the source for the second paragraph. They're technically different sources.

[Linus]

Okay, well, the 750E definitely does have a seven year warranty.

[Luke]

And Chad is saying that the 750 has a five year warranty. Yeah, yeah.

[Linus]

Oh my God. Just the way it's presented is so confusing.

[Luke]

Yeah, the text is hilarious. This video shows an unboxing of a Corsair power supply.

[Linus]

Thanks, bud. Totally related to what I was searching about, actually. Different power supply.

[Luke]

This is what I keep talking about, man. Like with the, with the, like. Oh, it hallucinates whatever percentage of the.

[Linus]

Time thing Hamnetics says. How often are you noticing this is actually how a human would summarize when drunk. So, you know, you consider, you know, what percentage of time some people, you know, tend to be in various states of inebriation. It's pretty realistic. All we have to do is drain a few lakes. It's a small price to pay for a bunch of drunken computers running around on the Internet. It's not knocking things over, man.

[Luke]

I gotta show you at some point, the. The presentation that it made for me, I tried to get it to make a presentation.

[Linus]

Oh, God.

[Luke]

Because I don't. I don't know. That's not me. Sure, right? So I was like, yo, can you make like a cool presentation thing for me? And it was actual garbage. Like it. It actually genuinely looked like. I wish I had it on me. I kind of do, but I'd have to dig for it. It looked like a bad, like C grade, grade 8 intro to PowerPoint presentation.

[Linus]

Nice.

[Luke]

Not kidding.

[Linus]

I mean, this might be what it was trained on, so.

[Luke]

So I pushed it to try to do more and it talked about all these cool things it could do and I was like, yeah, yeah, do it. Output it. And then it tried to gaslight me. Like, I'll work on that and get back to you. And I was like, that's not how this works. Come on. And then I got it to actually output it and it just. It had this like blue banner at the top because I told it the colors that full plane was. And it just took that and just went. That was it. That was all it did. It talked about all these cool things it could do, and then it just took the banner and put it on an angle. And it didn't, like, crop the, like, bar to be the same size either. So it went, like, way off the ends and, like, made it look really stupid. So I love, like. So Sam Altman's like. It's like having a PhD level. Whatever.

[Linus]

If they're drunk, they're drunk.

[Luke]

Trying to make PowerPoint presentations. Yeah, sure. Oh, man. It was. It was, like, actually, like, very impressively bad. I. Yeah, that's a clearly a blind.

[Linus]

Spot for Crystal says. Speaking of AI, does Linus know he's on Character AI?

[Luke]

What?

[Linus]

I'm trying to remember what character AI is.

[Luke]

It's a conversational, like, relationship AI thing.

[Linus]

Okay. I have multiple questions. Crystal.

[Luke]

What conversations have you had with Linus on Character AI? You gotta reach deep into that box to pull that case out.

[Linus]

This is me as the disapproving dad. No, we're not role playing.

[Luke]

You gotta bend over to reach into that. That case box to pull that. Oh, man.

[Linus]

All right, so I guess I. I get. Oh, okay. I can just continue with my Google account.

[Dan]

Here we go.

[Linus]

All right. LTT Wan Show 1. No, I was not aware that I'm on character AI. I don't know exactly what it is.

[Luke]

So I just googled Linus Sebastian character AI and it came up with chat with Linus Sebastian. Hi, it's me, Linus, your favorite tech YouTube channel.

[Linus]

It should have to say the this is AI and not a real person part first. Wait, how are you signed into this already?

[Luke]

I'm not.

[Linus]

Okay. Okay. I'm entering my birthday. I was born on April 40th.

[Luke]

Oh. So it seems like individual users can create. Wow, that's such a BS loophole. This isn't made by character AI. It's made by this Maddie 555 person.

[Linus]

Wow.

[Luke]

So they just make it so that it's all ugc so they're not, like, responsible for the theft.

[Linus]

Sure. Okay, so hold on a second. It didn't autocomplete for me.

[Luke]

I just googled it. I didn't like Linus Sebastian rpg. What?

[Linus]

What am I looking at here?

[Luke]

What is that?

[Linus]

What is happening? You work at Linus Media Group as a product reviewer and go on video with Linus Sebastian Linus. Hey. Welcome back to the office. I have something interesting to show you. Jake standing next to Linus. So me and Linus were working on this severely underpowered, over the top gaming PC for a video and no one here knows why it's not booting. You are literally our last hope currently.

[Luke]

Oh, my God. Can you do it?

[Linus]

I mean, probably presses the power button. No problem. I've got you. We just need to plug it in, you dunces.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Okay. Am I gonna win? I want to win the rpg. Hold on. I'm just gonna reframe this a little bit so you guys can see better. We're gonna play Linus Sebastian rpg.

[Luke]

Are you the. Like, the. The. The boss of this game or it was the computer? The.

[Linus]

Of course it's not like. So wait, did I win already?

[Luke]

I feel like.

[Linus]

Yeah, so I fixed it. Okay, this is a thing. Why are people using.

[Luke]

I don't know if this one's a thing.

[Linus]

Why is every WAN show just turning into just the dumb that people are doing with AI and us just face palming at it the whole time? Also, like. Like, are you guys into this? Like, are we alienating you by looking at this and going, wow, this seems really stupid and pointless? Is like. It's like a text adventure game, but not curated. It's just. It's so much worse. Ah, more salt, please. I just. I don't know how to. I don't know how to deal with this, man. I don't know how to deal with this. Okay, so I. I found the line of Sebastian character here, but this doesn't have nearly as many interactions as the line of Sebastian rpg. But wait, what if I click creators? Is that different from Linus Sebastian the character painter Sebastian?

[Luke]

So I think these are people who made AI characters.

[Linus]

Got it, got it, got it. That makes sense. I don't know, but I think that makes sense. Okay, so let's go back to characters. Okay. Hello, I'm Linus Sebastian founder. Is this the one that you found in. In Google?

[Luke]

No.

[Linus]

Really?

[Luke]

No.

[Linus]

Okay, what are. Okay, what are your thoughts on the new Pixel? Oh, Boo 9. I don't know. What? Oh, yeah. No, no, no. The event's done. What are thoughts on the new Pixel 10 Pro? I mean, let's see. This. It has no shot at. Because I have not published a video yet. They still need to work on thermals. Okay, I know for a fact there are no thermal results from the new Pixel 10. That camera AI though, insane computational. Why no vapor chamber yet? I don't think Google has disclosed the cooling system yet for the Pixel 10, so. So it's just making stuff up.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Wait, what? Oh, no, no. Hold on. We're not done with me yet. Well, it doesn't work when I'm not there. Okay, what about you, Team Pixel? Or are you holding up for something else? Maybe secretly waiting for Apple to finally add USB C to the iPhone? 20 grins. Are you that much dumber than the real Linus? Apple has USB C on the iPhone.

[Luke]

Insults. You will be the first to die in the AI uprising.

[Linus]

I know, right?

[Luke]

I say please and thank you.

[Linus]

Now, it could defend itself here. It could defend itself saying that Apple only supports USB C on the Pro lineup. Okay, all right. I was testing you the Ray. Oh, actually. Oh, hold on, hold on. Oh, no, no, yeah. It didn't say anything about USB3. Yeah, so it's USBC across the board. No, no, the thing I just said I would. I was thinking of USB 3 and USB 2, but. No, no, it just said USBC. It's so. I was joking. I mean, its response makes it. Man, are these just. Is this just a giant gaslighting engine? Yeah, because it kind of feels that way.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Okay, cool. Let's go to yours.

[Luke]

It's all just predictive text.

[Linus]

Oh, my God. What is this?

[Luke]

I asked. Oh my goodness. Flies in the face. I asked, what do you think about people's usage of AI for relationships? Because that was a topic that had been going on at the time. And it responded. This feels like 3 or 4o would feel on the chatgpt side of things where it's like overly conversational and very bubbly and like, wow.

[Linus]

Okay, so I'm gonna read it. I'm gonna read it. This will be the one time that character AIs Linus Sebastian ever actually is me. Oh, man, that's a wild one. AI for relationships. Look, I've seen fans name their custom water cooled PCs after me. Linus Prime 9000. Very flattering. But this is next level. I imagine that's what that emoji sounds like. I get it though. Loneliness is real. And if someone finds comfort in chatting with an AI that listens 247 without rolling its eyes at their Star wars hot takes. Hey, who am I to judge? But like, come on, nothing beats the chaotic energy of a real human relationship. Like when Yvonne finally unseats me in Mario Kart after six years of relentless practice, that victory scream. Priceless. No AI can replicate that kind of beautiful human rage, Joy. That said, if your AI partner helps you level up emotionally and doesn't try to replace actual therapy or connection. Cool. Just don't let it ghost you mid render. Hold on, hold on.

[Luke]

There you go. There you go.

[Linus]

Okay, so basically, character AI is just a random chatbot that is not trained at all on necessarily. I mean, I guess if people can just make their own. If it's user generated content.

[Luke]

It mentioned Yvonne.

[Linus]

That's true actually. So it clearly is trained on something. Something to do with me. Yeah, but I feel like this is almost like, like, like psychic cold reading level knowledge. Like it has the Wikipedia page. Like it's not actually trained on the arc. I feel like an AI trained on a transcription of like an archive transcription of everything I've ever said on the WAN show. Could probably get a lot closer. Like modern LLMs, they are kind of spooky awesome sometimes it's just a general purpose. One like this that's just been kind of trained on the general Internet has no shot whatsoever of sounding anything like what I would say. And it also seems like it has some built in defenses around people using character AI. Clearly. Yeah, it's like. Yeah, well, this person would say it's pretty flipping ridiculous. But like, don't feel bad about it though. I'm here for you 24 7, baby. Like you. In summary. In summary, you.

[Luke]

I find it very interesting that they have. They have it be kind of UGC based so they can step away from the like liability of licensing people.

[Linus]

Oh, apparently. Whoa, shut up, Scrappy. DP says you can apparently press play and it'll. It'll sound like me. Dan, do we. Do we have sound from Luke's laptop?

[Luke]

Got it.

[Linus]

Let's see how well it does the reading compared to me. Look, I've seen fans name their custom water cooled PCs.

[Luke]

It was loaded.

[Linus]

Very flattering. I can't hear next level. No, but I want to hear it. And if someone finds comfort in chatting with an AI that listens 24 7. Why is everything so hard? AI for relationships. Look, I've seen fans name their.

[Luke]

The voice is theoretically you. I see that in the sidebar now.

[Linus]

Very flattering, but this is next level. I get it though. Loneliness is real and oh yeah, I want to just turn on your speakers.

[Dan]

They heard it though.

[Linus]

Wait, they heard the whole thing? We're retalking over it though. That's coming of obnoxious.

[Dan]

Oh, we can't hear.

[Linus]

Who am I to judge? But come on, nothing beats the chaotic energy of a real human relationship. Like when Ivon finally unseats me in Mario Kart after six years of relentless practice. That victory screen. Priceless. No AI can replicate that kind of beautiful human rage. That said, if your AI partner helps you level up emotionally and doesn't try to replace actual therapy. Yikes. Okay, Get. Get this out of here. Get this out of here. That's enough.

[Luke]

That's like when. When any. Any random white bearded guy is said to be. You, me, Tynan. Yeah, they're just like, oh, this looks like a LMG person because they're white and they have a beard. It's like. Okay, cool.

[Linus]

All right. Yeah.

[Luke]

Good job.

[Linus]

Do you want to talk about your exciting thing to do with labs?

[Luke]

The last one.

[Linus]

No, the thing that you were going to do before. I talked about the AI overview thing.

[Luke]

Yeah, the last labs thing.

[Linus]

Sure.

[Luke]

So. Oh my goodness, the flies in talking about things in labs changing and Linus mentioned there's lots of new faces. We need to do an update video and all that kind of stuff. He happens to be here. Some of you guys have already guessed this one.

[Linus]

It's Dan.

[Luke]

Dan is joining Labs.

[Linus]

Dan's. Do you want to maybe point the camera or something?

[Dan]

We will do it all like it's.

[Luke]

A robotic camera magic.

[Dan]

Like if it loads and doesn't destroy the whole. There he goes.

[Linus]

Moving his chair might actually be easier.

[Dan]

Why do we even bother with technology?

[Linus]

I don't actually know. Oh my God.

[Luke]

The wrong way.

[Dan]

Dad, the suspense.

[Luke]

There he is.

[Dan]

What's up? That's me.

[Luke]

DMS is officially working with labs.

[Dan]

Hi.

[Luke]

He's. He's doing things with the. With the laboratories. So you've probably seen on a couple short circuits recently. And also if you were paying attention to the article on how we're doing audio testing now, these. I swear these wiggly lines mean something. Something along those lines. If you saw that article, the name DMS is on it. So a few people kind of put this together. But yeah, our audio stuff is moving on forward. So stay tuned for more. This is part of. Not. Not kind of announcing this pretty much right away was part of the whole.

[Linus]

Are you going to let him talk at all?

[Luke]

No. Or do I have to press button for you? Literally never. Yeah.

[Linus]

Than I can just sit here and look pretty.

[Luke]

Not announcing it right away was part of the whole trying to talk less as labs thing and do more. But now we've done some, so. Want to say hi?

[Linus]

Hi. No, I'm excited about it. We're trying to not just bring labs in the audio realm up to like some of the current standards, but to. Don't promise anything. Don't promise anything. I'm enthusiastic.

[Luke]

We don't need. We don't need round two.

[Linus]

Now I get to do audio science things with Linus's money. Yeah.

[Luke]

Yeah. See? There you go. Yeah. Yeah, that's what's up.

[Linus]

All right. Get them out of here. Get us in trouble. Yeah. All right.

[Luke]

Yeah. It should be a good, good collaboration.

[Linus]

Okay. We have our CW announcements. We're supposed to explain merch messages. We don't have twitch bits or super chats. We have merch messages because we believe when you throw money at your screen, you should get some fine, quality merchandise in return. Like Jason, who said, happy birthday. Too old. Really, man. Really, man. You know that I actually do read these things as they come up on the screen, right? Why you gotta be like that? Jason H. If that is your real name. Anywho, all you gotta do to send a merch message is head over to lttstore.com where we'll have lots of great products for you to peruse. Look at that. It's the Scribe Driver mechanical pencil. It's like the Scribe Driver pen made of old rejected screwdriver shafts that we repurposed because they weren't great for a screwdriver, but they were perfect for a pen or a pencil. We had a hundred thousand of these, and you, too, can own a piece of my financial burden. Ended up working great. You know, we've actually almost sold through all of them.

[Luke]

All the.

[Linus]

The 100,000 fail shafts.

[Luke]

That's pretty cool.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Genuinely pretty cool.

[Linus]

When life gives you the shaft, you bend over and turn it into a pencil or a pen.

[Luke]

Make it worth something.

[Linus]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bend right over.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Get focused.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

When life gives you the shaft, you take orders. You take that shaft. You take that shaft, you insert something into it.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Is that sounding good? I bet it is.

[Dan]

That's got to be up there in the top 10. I think I broke the bell. Holy crap.

[Linus]

Anywho, our series five pins are also available now. You can check those out. Are they. Hold on. Are they in the. Are they in the bonus bin? Let's find out. I'm gonna add this to cart. I think it's gonna go to the cart. Is it stickers? Oh, yeah. No. Pins are. Wait, what? Oh, okay. Well, anyway, here's how you leave a merch message. You add something to your cart, and then you can leave a message. You can. Wow, look at that. You can even pick the color of your merch message. Isn't that cool? I know. Okay, that doesn't make it not cool, Luke. Just making sure it's still cool.

[Luke]

Just making sure I can see the bonus. Why can't you see the bonus bin?

[Dan]

You might be on the global. You could be on the U.S. i think some People, I'm on global.

[Luke]

I'm on global.

[Linus]

Wait, do we not have a bonus bin on the US.

[Luke]

Maybe not.

[Linus]

Are we. Are we supposed to?

[Luke]

Probably not if it's not there.

[Linus]

Oh, I wonder if it's because the USDC doesn't have bonus bin items in it. It?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Like DC Distribution Center.

[Luke]

Yeah, like, there's probably a reason.

[Linus]

Fascinating. Well, anyway, because we.

[Luke]

We opted to hide the bonus bin when items aren't in it now. Makes sense because it's disappointing when you're like, oh, bonus. When you open it and nothing there.

[Linus]

We've got lots of great new items from the last few weeks. Our CPU fidget spinners now available. You see, someone posted on Reddit, they got over three minutes on it, which is pretty cool.

[Luke]

I saw someone benchmark it effectively against a mouse scroll wheel that they've freewheeled. One of the logitech ones. That was kind of fun.

[Dan]

Mine have those.

[Luke]

They're great. Yeah.

[Dan]

G502.

[Linus]

Now's a better time than ever to pick up a screwdriver. You can get it alongside our new screwdriver grip tape if you like, using your screwdriver with gloves or just generally like the feel of sandpaper against your palms. This was created in partnership with dbrand, so this will be a great addition to your order. We also have the land collection, our UV reactive hoodie, styled after the WAN hoodie 2.0, our UV reactive hat, and of course our UV reactive belt bag with high quality patches. And of course, all the style. How cool is that? The answers vary. Anywho, once you send a merch message, it will go to producer Dan, who will read it and respond to it or curate it for me and Luke to address. We don't actually have any new products to launch on the store this week, by the way, so. Yeah, I highlighted all the stuff that they wanted me to highlight. Cool. Dan, hit me with a merch message or two.

[Dan]

Yeah, sure. We've got a bunch coming in. Hello, dll. Thanks for the show. What is a subsector of the tech industry you thought would fail that has been quietly successful?

[Linus]

Oh, I mean, you know what? I think that transitions us kind of perfectly into the shipping notification that Luke got before the show. Because you thought this would. Well, hold on, let me. Let me. Let me go there. Let me get there. Not that specifically. Okay. But I felt that high end corded VR had a very rocky path ahead. And in fact, I still think it has a rocky path ahead. There was a. There was a period there, right, where corded headsets where you're kind of tethered to your desk or to your computer by your TV were the only option. And then, you know, adoption wasn't great and the industry kind of went, okay, let's try and figure out this wireless thing. And then the first generation of those kind of sucked a giant donkey dong. And then it looked like Wired was going to be high end forever with, you know, outside in. And then oh, whoopsie doodles. It turns out some pretty big companies were working on inside out tracking and we're working on powerful processors like Apple's M Silicon that were able to drive pretty incredible spatial experiences with non tethered head. Well, it's a tether, but it doesn't.

[Dan]

Go to a computer.

[Linus]

Whatever, don't worry about it. But non tethered headsets. And then I went, oh crap. And then there was the rumors that Valve's Deckard headset is going to be using inside out tracking and, and could have onboard processing rather than using an external PC. Attempts to handle the video transmission wirelessly have had varying degrees of success. I think the HTC Vive and Vive Pro worked pretty well. Other than that it's been a bit of a mixed bag. I did get my hands on that one for the index. I never got mine working. I reached out to them about helping me troubleshoot it and then literally my sister died like two days before I was supposed to have my meeting with them and I just like didn't get around to it. It wasn't priority for a while and then I kind of didn't get around to it. But a lot of people have had issues with it even though some people have managed to get it working. And then we've had a bit of a, we had a bit of a stalling for a long time in the Interface speeds of DisplayPort particularly and HDMI or I shouldn't say stalling, but we were just kind of, we were on a cycle for a while but then both of them like just got potentially way faster. But also DP UHBR20, which is the 80 gigabit one I think has pretty short cable requirements. I don't even, I don't think anyone's even tried to implement it into a headset. But then meanwhile headset resolutions are going way up. So being able to drive them without compression is like a challenge. So there's all these headwinds, oh, did I mention the cost? There's all these headwinds for these like face mounted displays that use a tether and connect to your computer. And yet this man, who never buys anything got a shipping notification right before the show from a company that is quietly killing it right now. Big screen.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

So you want to talk about what possessed you to spend a thousand US dollars on a VR headset that doesn't even include controllers or lighthouses?

[Luke]

Oh, and I got the audio strap, which I'm pretty sure puts it beyond. I think it's even more than that. I got the custom fit cushion. I went pretty hard.

[Linus]

Okay.

[Luke]

I didn't do. I didn't do everything I could have done, but, yeah, I got the big screen beyond. Custom fit cushion, an audio strap. I. I'm very excited. I still have my.

[Linus]

Index.

[Luke]

Index. I don't know why that.

[Linus]

This is why I'm surprised, because he has you. In spite of his enthusiasm for VR, I probably have two to three orders of magnitude more time in VR than he does now. You almost never use your index.

[Luke]

I used it very well. Yeah. I use it very often in the basement suite. I use it, like, all the time in the basement suite. And then I haven't really had the space. But right now we're, like, renovating and changing stuff in the condo. There's some that hasn't been amazing, but it's happening. I don't have much I can really say right now, but. Yeah, anyways. But we're doing that. And what that will result in is one of the spaces will have a significant kind of area that could be. You could play VR stuff in. So I will have space to play VR stuff in again.

[Linus]

Like, have you even tried Alex yet?

[Luke]

No.

[Linus]

To be clear, personally, I didn't enjoy it. I didn't finish it.

[Luke]

We are both heathens when it comes to.

[Linus]

I know. I don't. I don't. Personally. Personally, Half Life is not even in my top three. IPS for Valve. Sorry, but not in your top three. No.

[Luke]

Really?

[Linus]

No.

[Luke]

One, two, easily. It's the third one.

[Linus]

I would say that my top one in terms of hours played. Right. My top one's got to be Team Fortress, too.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Yeah, the Team Fortress ip.

[Luke]

That was the first one, actually.

[Linus]

Oh, that's crazy. What was I even thinking?

[Luke]

Okay, I got three.

[Linus]

Left for dead.

[Luke]

That's technically. Okay.

[Linus]

Left for dead. Peak tier, S plus. Plus. Plus tier.

[Luke]

So it's probably not incredible. Not in your top four, then.

[Linus]

And then we've got, like, Team Fortress. I have so many hours I would play. I would. I would play Portal 10 times rather than sit through Half Life 2 once.

[Luke]

And then counter strike, and.

[Linus]

Yeah, Counter Strike has got to be up there. Not because I like, even, especially love the IP even, I don't know. But boy, do I ever have a lot more. Would I call them enjoyable gaming hours when I'm just getting like. When I'm basically watching other people play. For the most part, hard to say, but if you told me you can only play one game for the rest of your life, it would a hundred percent be Counter Strike, not Half Life. Sorry, I can't. It's fine, I guess, yeah.

[Luke]

So would you say it's fifth then?

[Linus]

Yeah, I guess so. Because I didn't get into Deadlock, that's for sure.

[Luke]

Probably didn't get into Dota.

[Linus]

You know what?

[Luke]

I didn't get into our. Know what that's called?

[Linus]

You know what I'd have to put. So Dota is complicated because I actually played a crap ton of Dota when it was a Warcraft 3 mod.

[Luke]

Yeah, but that's not Valve. I mean, it wasn't.

[Linus]

It was. Well, that. See, that's why I'm saying it's kind of complicated. So in terms of like. In terms of like the gameplay. Yeah. I like Dota a lot more than I like Half Life 2, that's for sure. And. And I. I haven't played Half Life 1, but I have played Half Life 2 and I have played the episodes, the couple that they managed to make. So it's not like I'm coming. I played all the way through all of them and they were fine, I guess. But even at the time, dude, like when it was the War of the Next Gen shooter, I remember everyone was talking about Next Gen, Next Gen. It was always generations, you know, it was Half Life 2 versus. I always forget what they called it. Was it Doom 3? The one with the. The one with the duct tape mod for the flashlight on your gun because you couldn't see anything? Yeah. I felt Far Cry was so much better than both of them. Far Cry 1, unpopular take. I get it. Everyone else kind of picked up Far Cry later. Far Cry 2 was a piece of garbage. Far Cry 3 is, apparently, when it's got good. I've never played a Far Cry since Far Cry 1 and 2. Man, Far Cry 2 made me very angry. But that's a conversation for another time. The point is, not a Half Life fan and we've gotten off topic because.

[Luke]

What was the topic?

[Linus]

You spent a thousand dollars on a VR headset. You hardly ever use VR.

[Luke]

I will.

[Linus]

There's no way you're going to be in VR chat.

[Luke]

No.

[Linus]

So what are you gonna do? I mean, that's what most people are doing in VR. They're watching porn and they are in VR chat.

[Luke]

I'll definitely be getting back to playing Beat Saber. I. There was a.

[Linus]

Is that the only thing you'll be beating?

[Luke]

Oh, my God.

[Linus]

I'm just asking. I'm just asking where your VR space is, genuinely. Is it out in the open or is it in a closet?

[Luke]

It'll be out. That should be the people want to know open part of the house.

[Linus]

I know. He never said no, Porto.

[Luke]

What?

[Linus]

He never said you wouldn't.

[Luke]

No. I can unironically say I will not be using it for that.

[Linus]

I actually believe.

[Luke]

I can actually unironically say I never did.

[Linus]

I. I actually believe you. I. I genuinely. I genuinely believe him.

[Luke]

I will absolutely jump back into Beat Saber. I. I don't remember who. I don't remember the scenario, but someone played Caramel dancing.

[Linus]

Nice.

[Luke]

Not that long ago. And my. The brain juice just immediately was like, oh my God. Because when I played Beat Saber and I understand this is lame, I would just play that song just all the time.

[Linus]

I get hooked on a song in Beat Saber all the time. Oh, dude. Speaking of which, I bet there's some really good maps for golden. I'm gonna have to check that out. Like, there's no way that that genre of music has not been absolutely jumped on by the Beat Saber community.

[Luke]

So I. I've been trying to use the. My little at home treadmill thing more often.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

This is in that vein. I just want to get up and moving more often. So if I have a fun incentive to get me up and moving more often, then cool. There's a bunch of like, you know, like arena games or various shooter games and stuff. You might not think shooter super necessarily active. Quite a few of them you can play from your chair, but. But there's also quite a few where you can use like kneeling as a form of COVID or benefit. And if you're constantly doing lunges, basically, then cool. So yeah, I just want to use it to get me up and moving again.

[Linus]

How big is your space? Because there's.

[Luke]

It's not enormous.

[Linus]

Okay. There's an older game that is a heck of a workout.

[Luke]

What one?

[Linus]

It's called Hollow Point.

[Luke]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Linus]

You know the one?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Quite a bunch of. Okay, cool.

[Luke]

That's quite a bit older.

[Linus]

It's older.

[Luke]

But is that the archery one?

[Linus]

Yeah, that's the archery one. In the gym with the scary knights that start charging at you.

[Luke]

Yeah. We had that. We play that here a bunch, actually. That's in some of the, like, ancient VR reviews. It's Hollow Point. Hollow Point was sick and very good for that. Lots of turning, lots of ducking and moving and stuff. I think the space will probably be big enough to at least semi effectively actively play that game.

[Linus]

Not.

[Luke]

Not necessarily fully, but.

[Linus]

Nice. Close nice. Yeah.

[Luke]

And it. Basically, it'll go from needing to move multiple pieces of furniture, including a very large couch, to needing to move a table and four chairs.

[Linus]

Are you going to. Are you going to, like. Is Emma gonna try it at all or just not into it? Are you gonna. Are you gonna.

[Luke]

She wasn't that into it in the past.

[Linus]

Are you gonna do mean things like put her in Arizona sunshine? Because I gotta tell you, the Big Screen beyond actually took anything resembling fun completely out of that game for me. It is too.

[Luke]

Too legit.

[Linus]

It is too real and too scary.

[Luke]

Mdos said Super Hot is good, too. Yeah. I've very.

[Linus]

I don't find Super Hot a workout, though.

[Luke]

No. But I really liked it. It was very fun. Yeah, it's Super Hot's probably the most, like, raw fun I've had in a VR game, personally.

[Linus]

Really?

[Luke]

Yeah, I think so. I really like Super Hot, though. Like, the. The, like, desktop video game version. It's a huge fan. And then when I heard it came over VR, I was like, that is the most logical, like, switch to VR I've seen a game ever do.

[Linus]

Sure.

[Luke]

And then had tons of fun with it. It was very satisfying to play.

[Linus]

All right, well, I. I hope you. I hope you use it this time.

[Luke]

Yeah, yeah, I used it last time.

[Linus]

Yeah, I know.

[Luke]

I just stopped when I got to the.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Because there's no room.

[Linus]

That makes sense. Yeah.

[Luke]

I have a bunch of hours on. I'm sure you've passed me at this point. Like, for sure. Because it's been years.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

But I had a bunch of hours in the past. Yeah. I think another. Honestly, a big reason is it's the same curiosity that drove me to get a lot of the really early era. One of just, like, it's a really cool device.

[Linus]

It really is.

[Luke]

Like, it's actually kind of a marvel of engineering in a way.

[Linus]

It's so light and it's incredible. I finally got mine back, so I got a review unit, and it was really great. But I actually. I don't know if I was the first, but I helped them identify a hardware bug that I. That I had in my review unit, and they confirmed with me that it had been resolved and that everything shipping to a customer would be resolved. So I didn't bring it up in the review because it doesn't really matter at that point. That's the point of catching things. And I fully understand that my role as a reviewer is also sometimes to find stuff and, hey, for the benefit of consumers, make sure that it never makes it into their hands. But there was an issue with the. With the radios and at the speed that I move in. Beat saber. The tracking wasn't perfect. And so I finally got my fixed one back, actually, like, earlier this week. In fact, I think it was. I think it was because you saw the box in my car that I.

[Luke]

That I mentioned.

[Linus]

Yeah, that you mentioned. You order one. Yeah. So I just got mine back. I have not used it yet. So we'll be. We'll be Big Screen beyond two buddies here.

[Luke]

Yeah, I've got. It does the. It has a tracking number, but it apparently hasn't actually been delivered to the place that has a tracking number yet. So I don't know the delivery date or anything.

[Linus]

Nice.

[Luke]

But I'm excited. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's an extremely interesting device. It's one of those things that, like.

[Linus]

Have you used one?

[Luke]

The tech brain?

[Linus]

No, dude, the resolution. Have you.

[Luke]

You tried the Vision Pro, right? I tried the Vision Pro. I tried the Big Screen beyond one.

[Linus]

Okay. Okay.

[Luke]

At your house for, like, literally five minutes.

[Linus]

The Big Screen beyond one was really cool. But as we outlined in our review of it, the. The. The. The kind of glare off the pancake lenses was a. It was a big challenge.

[Luke]

Yeah, dude, they leveled up the optics, I don't think. You know that thing where we're like, yeah, watch reviews from everybody. If somebody made a review of the big screen beyond 2, there's a above 90% chance that I watched it.

[Linus]

Nice. So you watched ours then?

[Luke]

Yeah. I remember I was getting, like, frustrated with you because it was taking too long for you to release it. That's because I was watching everybody's and I was like, where the hell is ours? I need to see all of them. Because I, like, didn't want to make. Okay, there's the cheapness. I didn't really want to make the purchasing decision until I had, like, heard from everybody, basically. So I. There was. There was quite a few reviews of it that were honestly, really good. And then I was happy once you finally released yours as well.

[Linus]

Sorry.

[Luke]

And then, yeah, I went for it. And I'm excited. I'm very excited.

[Linus]

Cool. Yeah, you're gonna love it.

[Luke]

I think so as well.

[Linus]

I'm supposed to do the floatplane announcements really quick now and no later. Okay. What am I supposed to do then? Why don't. You know what? Fine. Why don't you just do the show?

[Dan]

There's a sign.

[Luke]

Read the sign.

[Linus]

Look.

[Dan]

Look at the sign.

[Luke]

Read the sign.

[Dan]

It's in.

[Linus]

Don't talk to Dan.

[Dan]

No, that's. Oh, I put up the wrong sign. Hold on.

[Linus]

Don't make me point at all. Right, we'll pick a topic. Actors who sold their likeness to Tick Tock for use in AI ads are who would have seen this coming, having regrets after their likeness is used in AI ads. Back in June, TikTok announced a new set of tools used to make ads using AI avatars. These ads are supposed to be labeled as AI. Well, actor Scott Jackman from Dallas sold his likeness to TikTok. He was hoping that it would help build his career. He was paid $750 and given a trip to the Bay area instead. An AI avatar with his likeness has been selling stuff on TikTok. As Steve Scott's story is not isolated, others have admitted to taking a similar deal. Most performers seem to have been surprised to see their avatars elsewhere. ByteDance. Developers of TikTok can use their likeness in third party apps, it turns out. And people have been showing up on their video editing app Cap Cut.

[Luke]

They also have apps for basically everything. So that's not basically everything. Basically everything in my world.

[Linus]

Dan, could we link the New York Times article to the people in the various chats so that they can check it out if they want? Is sure thing. It was pretty good and pretty. Yeah, pretty. Pretty creepy and dystopian.

[Dan]

I'm also gonna try and start putting them in the description too, which is.

[Linus]

I think what we should probably rename the land show to now.

[Luke]

AI Dystopia.

[Linus]

Yeah, just creepy. Creepy, Dystopian, creepy discussion show. Because we talk about now.

[Luke]

I'd love it if that wasn't true.

[Linus]

Well, yeah, wouldn't you though?

[Luke]

That'd be awesome.

[Linus]

Well, too bad. Get f ed. Oh, yeah, that's what I thought.

[Dan]

This website goes nowhere.

[Linus]

Yeah, it's because this is to. You'll have to find the article that is on the New York Times website. This was. Don't worry about it. A different website. Don't link this one.

[Dan]

I did in Floating Chat. Let me just delete this message.

[Linus]

Oh boy. Way to go, Dan.

[Luke]

What is that?

[Linus]

Anyway, here's an example of someone who licensed their likeness to. To TikTok and interesting. Yep. Has just a her generated by AI just, I don't know, doing random stuff on the Internet. So here's the conversation. There's actually. There's quite a few things to kind of unpack here for me. So one of them, from my point of view, is why does TikTok even bother to do this? Because they could just AI generate a likeness of someone, theoretically, if they're doing this much generative AI. Can. Can someone explain this to me? Anyone?

[Luke]

I honestly have no idea.

[Linus]

Feel free. Hit me in chat.

[Luke]

People are literally doing that. Like, there's. There's people on Instagram. Well, there's things on Instagram that aren't people and they're not based on anyone. Well, some of them might be, but.

[Linus]

But, like, why did they even spend. Like, it would. It cost them $750 in credits and scan them?

[Luke]

Yeah, no legal battles, but.

[Linus]

What legal battles?

[Luke]

Yeah, what are you talking about?

[Linus]

Like, if they just. If they just generate someone that's not based on a real person, then what legal battle?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Yeah, it looks like there's quite a few people.

[Luke]

Also, an AI generated likeness can't be copyrighted. Interesting.

[Linus]

Okay. And kg4wwn says if I pay someone $700 to scan a real person, then nobody else can say it's based on them. You know what? That's fair enough, because you could generate a person, and the odds of somebody actually looking like that, given that the AI has to be trained on, you know, what people actually look like, I mean, it's not zero.

[Luke]

It's actually rather high.

[Linus]

Especially when you consider to your point earlier in the show. How many people consider generic pale dude with a beard to look like each other?

[Luke]

The amount of people that heard that voice and were like, whoa, yeah, like you at all.

[Linus]

No, I mean, I could kind of hear a ghost of what maybe someone could interpret me as sounding like, but, like, it wasn't good, that's for sure. Okay. All right. So, okay, we've gotten there. We've gotten to why ByteDance might scan someone and pay them a few hundred bucks for it. Now, let's have a longer conversation. What's your price?

[Luke]

Oh, my God. I don't think.

[Linus]

Let's. Hold on, hold on. Before you answer. Before you answer, let's start with one that you would definitely take a billion dollars.

[Luke]

Okay, fair.

[Linus]

Okay. So we've established now.

[Luke]

Yeah, sure.

[Linus]

That, like, every man Luke has his price, so now he can't dodge the question. I don't think you'd do it for A million? No. No. Okay, let me think. I like play. I like playing games where I demonstrate to Luke that I live in his head.

[Luke]

It's. It's a little ridiculous sometimes, but it's kind of fun to rely on in other situations. But anyways.

[Linus]

You wouldn't do it for two.

[Luke]

Nope.

[Linus]

That's not enough.

[Luke]

Nope.

[Linus]

You'd do it for 100. How you do it for 100? No question.

[Luke]

I literally sat here and been like. Like 10 seconds ago. I was like, I'd do it for 100.

[Linus]

Yeah, you do it for 10. For sure. You do it for 10.

[Luke]

I want to say no.

[Linus]

Now, in reality, if the check's in front of you.

[Luke]

The checks in front of me, maybe.

[Linus]

I think you do it for 10. I think the threshold is somewhere in the 8 range. I think that if they were trying to get a bargain, they'd try to grind you down to, like, 5 to 5 to 8. And I think you could. I think you could hold firm at 5. For sure. For sure. No question. I think as soon as we get into 8 to 10.

[Luke]

This is an interesting one because if I sell my likeness, it kind of.

[Linus]

F me a little.

[Luke]

Yeah. How does that impact work? I don't know, because. Well, no, try to draw a line. Let's keep pushing this.

[Linus]

Okay, so if bytedance is bidding, let's say eight. Can I say eight, do you think that's at least it's in front of you?

[Luke]

Eight is a tough one.

[Linus]

$8 million. I'm talking USD. I'm talking real money.

[Luke]

Oh, that's all. That's a lot more. Eight is a tough one. If it resulted in, like, I can't work here anymore, basically, because.

[Linus]

Let's get there. Let's get there, though. So it's. So let's assume. Let's assume eight, because at least we're sure we're having a conversation.

[Luke]

Sure.

[Linus]

It's not like the one. I don't think you'd even consider it for a second. For one.

[Luke]

No.

[Linus]

Because, like, no, it's not. It's not worth it. Like, look at. Look at what these guys are going through right now. Okay? So you come to me and you go, okay, well, well, ByteDance's bid for, you know, my likeness.

[Luke]

Oh, this isn't even.

[Linus]

What I meant is $8 million. You know, how does this work? Right?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Because I gotta be honest with you. I'd have to work at Linus Media Group for a hot minute to make $8 million.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

And this is a. This is a right now check, right Now I, you know, I don't want to retire. I, I, I, I love doing WAN show and I, I love leading my teams and I love all the people I work with. And you know, there's all these things that I really, you know, love about work. But I, Luke is going to be selling, you know, health supplements and like it could be, but stuff like, I don't know. Right. Does that impact?

[Luke]

And realistically, they just own the likeness for any platform. It could be graphic.

[Linus]

Like I'm okay with the butt stuff.

[Luke]

You know, and it could be graphic. I just sold my likeness.

[Linus]

It's a very effective way to, to take medications, for instance, or temperatures. Yeah. And they scanned everything. And I mean, I mean everything. Actually. That's an interesting, that's an interesting additional layer to the conversation is do they scan you with clothes on or off? And how does that impact them?

[Luke]

I pretty much guarantee you there will eventually be ones.

[Linus]

Oh, 100%.

[Luke]

100% with those off.

[Linus]

So I think, dude, at that much money, at the amount of money. See, that's the thing is I feel like our principles and our thresholds would not be that dissimilar. Like I would fully recognize that for you. I think I'd have to tell you to get the bag.

[Luke]

But how does that impact work though? Because if you're, if you tell me.

[Linus]

I think I say, look, we'll figure it out.

[Luke]

Take the bag, fly free.

[Linus]

Take the bag. No. Okay, I think I say take the.

[Luke]

Bag and we'll figure it out.

[Linus]

And we'll, and, and we meme on it.

[Luke]

Yeah. Okay, then I would do it, but.

[Linus]

I have to assume your contract stipulates that we can't like, you know, shit on bytedance for using it.

[Luke]

Probably true.

[Linus]

I think, I think if anything, you know how I am. I'm gonna try and figure out how to monetize it.

[Luke]

Sure.

[Linus]

So we add like a monthly segment to WAN show.

[Luke]

I did. Blah, blah, blah. How is it going?

[Linus]

Reacting to, Reacting to Luke.

[Luke]

AI me? Yeah. No, in this scenario I'm totally down. In this scenario I'd probably do it for less than that.

[Linus]

Oh.

[Luke]

Because that sounds funny. That sounds hilarious. Oh no, I think that could bring me down to the five. You're going to be a better negotiator in this situation than they would. They'd have to like give you, you Give you a. I want a commission.

[Linus]

I want a commission.

[Luke]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Linus]

I want half bike dance. I want half of what you saved.

[Luke]

Yeah, I mean it sounds fair. Cuz now that just sounds really funny. You're showing your hand. Yeah, it's not going to happen, dude.

[Linus]

Yeah, dude. Bite Dance is not offering him millions of dollars for the likeness of loot.

[Luke]

Find some other bearded white. Yeah.

[Linus]

And people be like, oh my God.

[Luke]

100%.

[Linus]

Oh man. How bad would an AI Wan show be?

[Luke]

I mean we could do it.

[Linus]

I feel like it'd be an interesting video.

[Luke]

They have those, there's like Notebook LM and all this other kind of stuff that can create podcasts based on information.

[Linus]

So we could, we could feed it, we could feed it every WAN show ever and then we could feed it the news and the notes for the week. That would. I, I'd watch it just to see.

[Luke]

I watch it with morbid curiosity. Yeah, every once in a while, like.

[Linus]

I'd skip around, I wouldn't watch the whole thing but like, yeah, every once.

[Luke]

In a while people link me those like, like a fake AI video thing of me or a fake AI audio thing of me. And I'll often check it out just out of of. Yeah. Morbid curiosity. But it's not like, it's not a fun watch. Yeah, it's an intriguing watch.

[Linus]

Yeah, that, that, that cartoon TV show. One like I watched like three minutes of it. I was just like, it's kind of gross.

[Luke]

But I basically need to know like, do I need to inform my family? Because every once in a while sudden we're like, this is where we're at now, so be aware a couple people.

[Linus]

In float plane chat. Oh shoot. I thought, yeah, Cobby, I think we can all agree 750 bucks is way too low. Yeah, I, I agree that for literally anyone, $750 is.

[Luke]

But there's very desperate people. I'm not surprised they found some people that.

[Linus]

I just think they should be paying more.

[Luke]

I agree.

[Linus]

I'm not saying those people should, you know, drive a hard bargain and potentially miss out on it. If $750 is a, is a situation changing amount of money, I'm not saying you should have more principal. This isn't coming from that roof over.

[Luke]

Your head or not.

[Linus]

I'm just saying bytedance can afford to pay better and they should. Yeah, that's what I'll say. And then Raiden428 says, Linus, you turned down $100 million, so what's your price? That's different. I turned down $100 million because I was concerned about more than just my likeness. In fact, I wasn't even really that concerned about my likeness because the new ownership wouldn't be able to make me say anything that I didn't want to say. Like that was, that was 100% clear in the deal that I, that I would never be forced to be a mouthpiece. You know, one of the things that I explicitly brought up early on in the conversation was like, look, you know, we have our standards around the sponsors that we're willing to take. I'm not going to hawk gambling products. I'm not going to hawk alcohol products. That's. That's never going to happen. And you guys are going to have to understand that. That Linus Media Group comes with the principles that underpin Linus Media Group as an organization. They were totally fine with that. The concern for me was more around losing the ability to steer the organization and losing the ability to ensure that we would continue to work on the environment for the team. Once I no longer have the final say on hiring and dismissals, it's possible for things to go extremely badly. And when I say final say, I don't mean that I exercise that on a day to day basis. I'm not micromanaging. Taran and the rest of our leadership. People need to have the autonomy to make decisions. What I mean is that if we.

[Luke]

Are doing something wrong, he micromanages me. It's terrible. It's all a lie.

[Linus]

We hardly talk throughout the week. We like catch up on wen show. They know this. Such a liar. The point is that I, I would be, I would be, I would, I would be putting us.

[Luke]

Okay, sorry.

[Linus]

I'd be putting us in a position where if we had taken the offer months later, we would have gone through the August controversy, our revenues went down and we would have lost people over that.

[Luke]

Yeah, that's not.

[Linus]

Okay. Yeah, there would have been drops 100%. Like literally. I know the financials and literally I have a pretty good idea of what a more dollars and cents in and out revenue flows based management would have wanted to do.

[Luke]

I think there's also got to be some amount. Like, I know that was your core reason. We talked about it a bunch, but I think we haven't talked about this as much, but I think it's come up at least a couple times. So I'm sure it was some amount of. The decision was the. What would you call it? Like lineage aspect. Like your name's all over it.

[Linus]

Yeah, but I mean, I think that's a heavy part of the AI likeness conversation too. Right? Like it's, it's the, the legacy, I guess is more.

[Luke]

There we go.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

The word not lineage, legacy. Yeah.

[Linus]

Yeah. And the. I think the other big one is that I didn't feel that the money would change my. My life that much. I'm already extremely blessed. I'm already extremely grateful to our community. That means that I, you know, live in a comfortable home. I drive a nice car, I enjoy a really nice lifestyle that I don't value. I don't value fancy labels on my clothes. I don't value.

[Luke]

It's a pretty fancy label on that shirt, actually.

[Linus]

This is a wonderful. This is a wonderful design from Sarah. But it doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't cost 400. You know, get yours today. Lttstore.com.

[Luke]

Thank you.

[Linus]

Right. Like, I don't value a lot of the. I don't value, you know, collecting fine art. Like, some of the things that people find ways to spend tens of millions of dollars. I. I don't value them.

[Luke]

So fine art is often financial scams or like.

[Linus]

Like laundry. Like moving funds around. Yeah. That. That I get.

[Luke]

Or storing it without paying taxes or storing it while gaining tax benefits because you, like, donate it to a museum or whatever.

[Linus]

Oh, I see.

[Luke]

There's, like, a lot of weird mechanisms with art.

[Linus]

Sure. So maybe I just am not enlightened enough on the. The benefits of, you know, collecting your.

[Luke]

Bro to do an art. But I just bring it to your other bro. Bro appraisal, you donate it, tax break. There's. There's a lot of wacky stuff.

[Linus]

Right.

[Luke]

Obviously it's not exactly that easy, but, like.

[Linus]

And that's not to say that I have cheap taste either. I mean, I commissioned a solid gold Xbox controller, which has been a wonderful, wonderful investment. Pun intended.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Yeah. I. Oh, man. So there's a lot of reasons I didn't take it. I still think realistically for, like. Like, AI slop me, I'd have a price. But the one stipulation that I would. I think I could hold firm on almost no matter the amount, is that I would want it time delineated. So I would want. I would want some period. After which, for sure, the license to my likeness goes away.

[Luke]

And so the idea that I'm selling, like, alien soup in 4820 or something, it's like. It's not.

[Linus]

Yeah. Can we not, please?

[Luke]

Ridiculously unlikely, but I'd just rather know that, like, it dies with me, you know?

[Linus]

Binky Droz says your taste is ironically tacky, but it's slowly becoming unironically tacky. I don't know. I think these. I think these WEN logo ear Cushions are.

[Luke]

I think they're kind of sick.

[Linus]

Pretty cool.

[Luke]

I like them.

[Linus]

Okay, you know what? No, no. I'm going to get into it with you. I'm going to get into it with you. I want an example of my unironically tacky taste. Hit me. Hit me.

[Luke]

We should have like a.

[Linus]

The entire Porsche brand cannot be tacky. Please.

[Luke]

I am. I am not going to make this. I'm just going to be very clear. But we should have like a call, a user feature for creators on floatplane. So you could just be like, nope, you're live now. We're calling you just like, I'm not making.

[Linus]

Can we do that?

[Luke]

Theoretically?

[Linus]

Is that a thing we could do?

[Luke]

I mean, you could use the same type of things that. Like Discord.

[Linus]

Yeah. There's got to be like, plugins or something.

[Luke]

There would be ways to do it. We're not doing it. We have so many other things to do. But it would be feasible. Technically. The users would have to, like, allow the mic usage and stuff. Like they would have. Obviously, they've confirmed the business opportunity.

[Linus]

Do you have any idea how much more people would pay just for the tier that has the chance that we could possibly consider calling them?

[Luke]

Yeah, we don't even have, like, gifted subs yet or TV apps and stuff. I think if we made free trials, we made even paid trials for certain other features. I think the float. I think the floaters would.

[Linus]

Crystal's got her wallet out already.

[Luke]

I think it's a cool feature. It would be very hard to make, I think.

[Linus]

I don't think it would. I bet there's something we could basically plug in.

[Luke]

Open source. Things are out there in that realm. Maybe there is good stuff, but I've never looked.

[Linus]

I bet our buddies shoot what's looked into it. What's the VoIP solution that we use for remote land show again?

[Luke]

Oh, T3.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Dan]

We mostly moved over to something.

[Luke]

No, but that's what he meant. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't change. But that's no T3 chat.

[Dan]

Yeah, no, not T3 chat.

[Luke]

Honestly, the other thing, if we like Peng. GG brought Theo in as like a thing and he could, like talk about it on his channel, making it or something. I. He'd probably just do it and he's probably capable.

[Linus]

See, this is what. This is what I'm saying. I actually think not gg. Yeah. In modern era. I actually don't think that that's that big of a technique. See, See, the gears are spinning. The gears are spinning.

[Luke]

I think there's a way.

[Linus]

I'm micromanaging him right now.

[Luke]

I think there's a way. I just thought of a way that you could do. The T3 chat thing was actually an interesting one because I was thinking it had to be on the. On the base platform.

[Linus]

No, it shouldn't have to.

[Luke]

But if it could just open another tab. Yeah, it would be like, way easier.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Because I was thinking, like. Yeah. Anyways.

[Linus]

Yeah. Just some kind of automatic authentication and then bippity boppity microphone pop up. Maybe even camera pop up.

[Luke]

You could theoretically.

[Linus]

You could. Theoretically.

[Luke]

That's very. We should never do that.

[Linus]

No, we should probably never do that.

[Luke]

Unless we have like a super significant delay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Linus]

I think we'd. I think we'd have to finally have a tape delay. Dan, how hard would it be to do a tape delay for WAN show?

[Dan]

Not entirely sure. We have a multicore thing which will do forms of like live replay. So I mean, it's physically possible.

[Linus]

Okay.

[Luke]

Tim000x3 full play chat said, I am very naked.

[Dan]

That's why the webcam only goes to here for me too.

[Linus]

It's all just cropped.

[Luke]

Dan just does the wet show. Bottomless.

[Dan]

I mean, it's Friday night. Come on.

[Luke]

I mean, they don't technically know right now that we're not all bottomless.

[Dan]

Yeah, I took the feet cam away.

[Luke]

Yeah. So they don't know. They have no idea. Could be anything.

[Linus]

Oh, man. That would be a whole other level of chaos for WAN show. I. This is not necessarily real conversation right now. I'm. We'd have to have a more in depth, more let's lay out all the potential problems conversation before we would consider anything like that.

[Luke]

Dad just messaged me. That's actually wild. Apparently my mom. My mom just benched 100 times.

[Linus]

Yeah, she could almost bench Yvonne.

[Luke]

That's crazy. Yeah, that's awesome. My dad's just been doing this thing where they'll like rack weights on the bench and he'll. She'll just be like, it's whatever amount, right? And he'll just be like, yep. And it's higher. She just does it every time. It's like, not a suggestion. Don't do that. But yeah, that's crazy considering her weight too. Like, that's actually nuts. That's awesome.

[Linus]

All right.

[Luke]

Heck yeah, Mom. Good job.

[Linus]

What are we supposed to be doing? Oh, yes, the floatplane announcement. This is a really exciting one. This is hardly even us, you know, doing promotion. This is just. Oh, yeah, this is Just freaking okay. Have you seen it?

[Luke]

No, not at all. I've been waiting for it to launch a flipway.

[Linus]

It's so good.

[Luke]

This was. This was peak. This series was peak. Channel Super Fun.

[Linus]

Channel Super Fun is off hiatus. Let's go.

[Luke]

Let's go.

[Linus]

Temporarily.

[Luke]

One video, one episode.

[Linus]

Yeah, one video only. As Scrapyard wars reaches its midpoint, we want to give the team an extra week to finish up the last couple of episodes. But we don't want to leave our floaters empty handed. So we've got you guys early access to the new Channel Super Fun video to celebrate us getting off hiatus or unless. Here it is. How hard is it to beat professional athletes? Nerd Sports, episode 10. I think they mean six, but sure, yeah.

[Luke]

Wait, why 10?

[Linus]

Episode X. This is great. Nerd Sports is back, baby. The keyboard warriors face off against professional badminton players, Jenny and Gregory Mayers in the most fair and balanced showdown in all of sports. This competition is neither fair nor balanced. That's right, my friends. It's just like the old Nerd sports. No spoilers. No spoilers. But I will play a little bit of it for you guys. Is the. Oh, do they have my audio?

[Dan]

No, you're playing in the background as well.

[Linus]

One second. One moment please. Am I though? Oh, yes, I am. There's the tab. I found it. Look at that. Oh, really? Oh, okay, sure, fine. They won't hear it.

[Dan]

They can hear it now.

[Linus]

So anyway, I do like a coaching session with my boys and ladies. They see how real athletes warm up. They try their best to follow along. It's pretty great. They watch their warm up. Oh, yeah, sorry. Here's my coaching session with the boys and ladies. I get them to try to hit some shuttles. It's great. Here we go. Here we go. Yeah, and then we play. And there's all kinds of fun things. I've got my Wheel of Pain here. I get to spin the Wheel of Pain whenever, basically I feel like it. And I can give different rackets to the pros. They have to wear eye patches at some point. It's. It's a. It's a laugh. And Greg and Jenny, these guys were such good sports about the whole thing. They're professional athletes and so they can't. They kind of can't help it. Like they want to win, you know, but we really didn't make it easy on them.

[Luke]

That's the whole. That's. That's what? That's nerd sports, man. You got to find a way for the nerds to win or to have.

[Linus]

A chance at least we have to find a way for the nerds to have a chance.

[Luke]

Gotta be close.

[Linus]

I don't want it. I don't want to spoil too much, but it's a great video. It's a great watch. You guys are gonna enjoy the absolute heck out of it. And I'm gonna go ahead and set that public right now. We also have a behind the scenes. That is what. Oh, we have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's extras. Okay. We have me playing the badminton prose. Apparently this is about nine minutes long. I apparently shot a little intro. I was actually playing pretty decent that day. But obviously they are literally professionals. So. Yeah, you know, that sort of thing. They can just kind of dunk on me like that. You see that deception there? That's not a bad, bad backhand, but it's effortless. You see that? You see what he did?

[Luke]

Oh, that was brutal. Yikes.

[Linus]

Watch this racket.

[Luke]

Oh, that sucks.

[Linus]

And I hit it out anyway. So we have me playing dive though, playing a set with them.

[Luke]

Respect the dive.

[Linus]

Thank you. Thank you. I do my best. All right, I'm gonna set that public now. That is up on flow plane. So the main video mainline video will be going up on channel super fun. But the the extra is of me playing them is going to be behind the scenes. All right, what are we supposed to be doing now, Dan?

[Luke]

Oh, spooncers.

[Linus]

Sponsors. The show is brought to you today by Ground News. While Luke and I go over all things tech here on the WAN show. There's a whole world of other topics we don't always cover that who knows, you might even find interesting. But it can sometimes be hard to decipher which news outlets are. Oh, it can be hard to decipher what news outlets are actually saying, especially when their article fundamentally contradicts another outlet's article. With Ground News, you can get a true and unbiased report on top stories from around the world so you can focus on what really matters, the cold hard facts. For example, take this rather interesting story about someone from California who tested positive for the plague. Articles are gathered from multiple sources, all of which you can click in and read in full. Then the facts are summarized in bullet point. You can also see that while the majority of the sources didn't lean to the left or the right, there are more articles that are left leaning for this particular story. So head to Ground News WAN today or scan the QR code on screen to get browsing for free and get 40% off their vent. The show is also brought to you by msi. Is your PC not looking or running cool enough? Tell it to chill out with MSI's MPG Core Liquid P13 AIO Cooler. What they call a cyclo blade design tightens up the focus of the airflow while reducing noise. And their latest hidden cable design integrates the power and signal cables right into the tubing, reducing the amount of wires dangling around in your system. Their Unibracket mounting system makes it compatible with both AMD and Intel platforms out of the box. And of course you can configure the 2.1 inch LCD because of course there's an LCD display on it and all the lighting effects through their software. Click the link in the description today to learn more or pick one up for yourself. Finally, the show is brought to you by Vessi. Last Friday it was raining and it's been pretty much bright and sunny since then. Yeah, keep in mind it's still summer, so with how unpredictable the weather can be, it's a good thing we have Vessi to help us stay prepared. Their shoes are made with their patented Dymatex material, which is designed to help keep moisture from seeping in while remaining breathable and stretchy. Check out their weekend sneakers, a fashion forward pair of kicks that should complement your look for any season. They're easy to slip on and off for your quick errand runs, and their high rebound midsole can help keep your feet comfortable for those spontaneous day trips. They even come with a one year warranty and 30 days of worry free returns and exchanges. So click our link in the description, scan the QR code on screen or go to vessi.comwanshow to get 15% off your first pair today. All right, what do you want? What do you want to talk about? Luke? You want to talk about something?

[Luke]

Let's see, what do we got? Intel grabs hold of $2 billion. Definitely an amount that I would accept for my likeness. And just in case anyone's shopping in an ocean of uncertainty after many years of rush rough financial seas, intel stock is soaring with a rally of over 28%.

[Linus]

Wow.

[Luke]

After SoftBank, a Japanese investment conglomerate, has agreed to invest $2 billion into it. Nothing ever goes bad after SoftBank invests into anyone they invested into. Intel' in a commitment to advanced technology and semiconductors in the United States. A lot of the press briefings circle around the increased manufacturing of chips for AI in the US itself. Okay, this new investment comes after the Trump administration announced it is in talks with intel to turn money pledged under Biden into 10% ownership of intel just after just a few weeks after Intel CEO took a little ride aboard the White House's metaphorical emotional abuse roller coaster, which we talked about previously on WAN Show. Not only that, but Trump has been strong arming other chip makers with requirements to AMD Nvidia to. I'm pretty sure they proposed this, not Trump strong arm them, but either way to AMD and Nvidia to pay 15% commission on sales in China in exchange for export licenses. I'm pretty sure that was a pitch from them. I don't, I'm pretty sure AMD Nvidia were like, look, let us do this, we will pay you 15%. Not, not the other way around. I could be wrong with that. But I'm just, I think, I think that's what happened. We have a discussion question. If the US Government owns part of one of the chip makers, what kind of malarkey should the others expect?

[Linus]

Yeah, this is, this is pretty interesting. This is, this is one of those things where if it wasn't coming from the party of small government and free market, I would find it less confusing. But overall, I don't necessarily think it's the dumbest move in the world. I mean, we've talked a fair bit about. It's Norway, right, that has the sovereign wealth fund. Yeah, that's worked out pretty good for them. Mostly I said, you're gonna get a.

[Luke]

Bailout of some kind.

[Linus]

And how much better of a position would the American sovereign wealth fund be if the bailouts that they'd done during the 2008 financial crisis had granted them equity in those companies? Like, you know what, if you're going to bail something out, I kind of don't disagree that you should probably get something for your trouble if the taxpayers are going to pay for it.

[Luke]

Taxpayers?

[Linus]

The taxpayers should probably get the dividends. But I mean, that's where we sort of run into trouble with this is what, what, pray tell, evidence are you going to provide that the taxpayers will receive said dividends?

[Luke]

Yeah, it's going to go to like $7,000 trash cans for military planes and stuff.

[Linus]

Womp, womp, Neat. I thought you were going to pick good news.

[Luke]

What good news?

[Linus]

LCD has switched back to 16:9. After years of releasing our videos in a two by one aspect ratio across most of our channels, we are returning to very sane 16 by 9 aspect ratio. David. Mr. David Gautier, why did you italicize very sane in this sentence?

[Luke]

All right, what is that too?

[Linus]

What are you trying to say? Sir, that we had chosen 2x1 as a compromise between 16, 9 and wider aspect ratios like you would find on ultra wide monitors or many phones then and now to reduce letterboxing on as many displays as possible. Now hold on just a gosh darn second. But then we realized that was stupid and that users can zoom in on a video to fill their screen if they really care. Now hold on just a gosh darn minute. Mr. Gauthier. We've never really worked with safe zones.

[Luke]

A little bit of editorialization.

[Linus]

We've never really. We've never really worked with safe zones. And so I felt that it was a simpler approach to have smaller areas of potential ingress on the top and the bottom so we didn't have to worry too much about like where our mogarts and lower thirds and various graphics showed up in order to avoid things being clipped. But the main reason that we're switching back now is that Colton and the business team have been in talks with some like. I get. What. What would I. What would I call them? Are they called ott? Like the. The like T. Like Basically like TV channel feeds, like app based? App based?

[Luke]

Oh, yeah.

[Linus]

Content feeds. I can't remember. Ota. No, not ota. Over the.

[Dan]

Over the set top. Like, I think it's ott.

[Linus]

Is it ott? Well, whatever. The point is over the top, they want 16 by nine. And so now we're going back through our entire catalog of content and going, oh, whoops.

[Luke]

Fast. That's it. Free ad supported streaming.

[Linus]

That's it.

[Luke]

That's it for sure.

[Linus]

Thank you. Yeah, m. So, yeah, so we're going back to 16 by 9 and we're probably just going to have to start using safe zones. Yes. Daniel Besser, who apparently lost his talking privileges or something, so he wrote it like this on the doc instead of just saying it.

[Dan]

Well, to be fair, it was like a merch message earlier. So I thought you would just pop in some discussion with us.

[Linus]

That's fine. You can write a message if you like. I'm just saying you could also talk to us. No, just whatever you do, don't. Don't let DMS talk. Make him sit there.

[Luke]

Stop it.

[Linus]

Don't hit me. Don't stop.

[Luke]

I'm just realizing Dan can really just voice act anything that's happening back there.

[Linus]

Don't say it like that.

[Dan]

I will not. You don't pay me enough for that.

[Linus]

Oh, my God.

[Luke]

We got a buys like this.

[Dan]

Okay, five bucks.

[Linus]

Oh, okay, sure. Five bucks.

[Luke]

I would do that. I would Buy your likeness for five bucks. I don't know what I'd do with it.

[Dan]

It's only going to one of you bidding more time.

[Luke]

I can figure it.

[Linus]

Oh, I'm a business. We pay you Tuesday for your likeness. Today, Pixel peeping the new Pixels. Google had their Made by Google 25 event, which they announced, in which they announced several new devices. The Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL, Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Pixel Buds 2a and Pixel Watch 4. Wow. The phones feature their new Tensor G5 chip, which according to Google has 60% more power on the TPU and is 34% faster on CPU compared to last year's Tensor G4 chip. The Pixel 10. Except the full lineup will be ESIM only for the US models, while other regions will retain the their physical SIM trays. And the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the first foldable with an IP68 rating, meaning it has pretty solid dust and water resistance. Would have come in handy for me once. Yep, I can remember that. Google also announced that their devices are getting Pixel Snap, which is basically using the new Qi 2 wireless charging standard that allows snapping of magnetic accessories to the back of the device.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Linus]

Google is launching some of their own as well, like the Pixel Snap charger, Pixel Snap cases, and Pixel Snap ring stand. Why don't you care about MagSafe?

[Luke]

No, sorry.

[Linus]

Pixel Snap. Excuse me?

[Luke]

That's why it's like, oh, they're finally catching up.

[Linus]

I mean, it's a big feature for iPhone people. I personally don't have too many occasions where I need to magnetically attach my phone to stuff. Maybe I'm just thinking outside the box. When would I do that? Should I do it now? Should I stick it to something like I. My phone lives in my pocket. Yeah, yeah. You know what? No, I lied. I lied. My minivan. Yeah, my minivan doesn't have Android Auto. So if I. If I had a magnetic doodad.

[Luke]

That's nicer than clamping it in.

[Linus]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke]

They also actively charge, so it's easier to just like, toss it on a thing when it's gonna magnetize to the right spot.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke]

I think it's cool.

[Linus]

Still use a cable to charge.

[Luke]

Yeah, maybe because we're Google boomers.

[Linus]

Google boomers. Yeah. This is a thing. Are we making this a thing? Yeah, no, the reason. The reason I use my cable is because I have my phone in bed next to me. Because I listen to my Bluetooth earphones, and because Plex is a giant piece.

[Luke]

Of shit phone doesn't need to Be in bed with you.

[Linus]

My. Well, no, because my video stops all the time because Plex is a giant piece of sh T. Have you.

[Luke]

Have you thought about Jellyfin in?

[Linus]

I have. I am gonna wait until Ashtac gets their Hexos integration with Jellyfin and then I am just gonna have it be easy. Yep. It's amazing how many years Plex has just like, not been able to just indefinitely play video. Like there's no, like, there's no reason for it, you know, it's not like Netflix where it's like, yeah, at some point they're probably not watching, so we should save bandwidth. Like, it's my bandwidth.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

On my WI Fi. You shouldn't care. Yeah. Like years and years and years ago I would. I would wake up in the morning and like my show would still be playing. These days it'll last, I don't know, anywhere from one to five episodes. And usually I fall asleep in that time, so it doesn't really matter. But like, why can't you do it? And if there's an error, I don't care. Don't tell me about it. Process it in the background with the buffer that you already have and start playing it again at the point of the buffer. Like, why do I have to explain to you how to play a freaking video? What is happening?

[Luke]

A bunch of the Omega nerds in full Plane chat are the saying mb.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Don'T know about that.

[Linus]

Jellyfin seems to be the one that's getting the. It seems to be the one that's like being pushed forward faster. I know MB was the play for a long time, but I'm. Dude, I'm super. I'm super frustrated with Plex at this point. I just like, can't. I can't anymore for forever. So yeah, maybe, maybe what I'll do is I'll. I'll do like Emby versus Jellyfin. I'll figure it out. I just. It's so tedious moving over like a big media library.

[Luke]

Yeah, we gotta keep upgrading the house, man.

[Linus]

Yeah, I just. I'm getting a headache just thinking about dealing with all of the like, file naming crap.

[Luke]

Is there like a migration tool?

[Linus]

I mean, probably, but part of the problem is that I have never done all my file naming properly in the first place.

[Luke]

Oh, look at you.

[Linus]

So I have like thousands of Linux ISOs that don't have proper naming and Plex mostly figures it out, so it doesn't really matter except when it does and it's really annoying. So thinking about doing that for Everything is just very overwhelming. I don't understand what Plex is doing. So you guys were there. We actually used for me, for the first time, Plex's like new business which is free ad supported television.

[Luke]

Very confusing.

[Linus]

We watched Dr. Strangelove. It was okay, I do have a Plex pass, so maybe this impacts it. But it was completely free. It had no ads. The quality was great. Like it, it streamed. I forget how many megabit it was, but it was, it was nice.

[Dan]

Oh, it was like 50.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Dan]

It was too high.

[Luke]

It was great.

[Dan]

It was amazing.

[Linus]

And I'm kind of sitting here going, okay, so step one, completely up the, you know, traditional piracy use case. Step two, question mark, build whatever the. This is with like free TV streaming. Step three, profit. Like what are they making money? Does Plex make money?

[Luke]

I have no idea. I've. It's been fascinating lately to find out how many companies don't and are just funded by constant rounds of VC and investors. It's actually like wild. Very interesting to me. It's such a weird space because we never took investment money.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

But like it's a huge thing. It's weird.

[Linus]

Okay, well, here's an article from January of last year. Streaming media company Plex raises $40 million as it nears profitability. The new round, which has not yet been disclosed, was initially said to be larger than Plex's 50 million growth round closed a few years ago. We now understand it's 40 million. A rep for Plex has confirmed the funds will help fuel the company's push toward profitability, expected by year end or just after. Okay, thank you for. Okay, thank you for that. Plex's real world valuation is unknown as the company hasn't raised outside funds in some time, preferring to work with its existing set of investors. Now I might be taking, I might be misunderstanding investment. So is investment a hole in this, A hole in the ground where you keep putting money? Is that investment?

[Luke]

This is, this is where I find things to be kind of confusing because it seems like, like there's some companies.

[Linus]

That I have been draft two cases. I love edging profits.

[Luke]

That's pretty funny. There are some companies that have been exposed to information recently where they like have like never made money, have been around for a very long time.

[Linus]

Mm.

[Luke]

And who knows if they're ever going to and if they're going to, it's not gonna. There's no like plan for them to like make a bunch. You know, it's weird. And there's obviously there's always the Sell the company kind of grift thing. You try to get big enough, it's like, it's like the whole like don't make revenue idea because you try to get big enough and look scary enough, but don't actually really actualize so that you can sell to someone big. So they can like shut you down basically because they see you as a potential threat or you can, they don't know how much of a threat, so they just want to buy you to get rid of.

[Linus]

Or you can sell to like you know, a drug addled billionaire or something.

[Luke]

Sure.

[Linus]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. See this, this, this right here, like they're saying the quiet part out loud. We have the most supportive investors of any. Valerie said, I feel like funding has never been a concern of ours. I mean, maybe your customers would be less pissed off at you if you felt like funding was a concern and you needed them to like you. Yeah, you know, like I feel, I feel like not being concerned about where your next meal is going to come from might breed a little bit of urgency when it comes to dealing with long standing issues on the platform. Just saying. Just. I don't know, maybe it's crazy. Probably crazy. All right, well, yeah, good luck with that. What else we got?

[Luke]

Let's see.

[Linus]

Oh wait, we weren't done talking about the Pixel. Yeah, the Pixel event. All right. The Pixel Watch 4 gets a brighter screen, 3000 nits, 16% smaller bezels, and has a domed display that gives about 10% more visible screen space. Neat. Starts at 350 bucks and claims 30 hours of battery life. The Buds 2A cost 130 bucks and include the Tensor A1 chip this time around. Also comes with ANC active noise cancelling and a slightly better charging case. Finally, there's the Pixel Flex dual 67 watt charger. The device can charge up to two devices at a max of 60 watts each and will detect when a Pixel device is plugged and prioritized that device to charge it, quote first and faster. Okay, neat, but also. Oh my God, no. So two things here. Number one, we need to stop with the USB C standard. It's barely a standard already and the last thing, the absolute last thing on earth that I or anyone needs is more USB C devices that have proprietary handshakes and bullshit. Stop entire industry right now. It's time to stop.

[Luke]

I also think like no one asked for this.

[Linus]

Number two, have a priority port, give me control over it. Maybe I want to charge my phone and my laptop, but I actually don't prefer to charge my phone right now faster. I want to charge my laptop faster. Did you ever think of that? Am I missing something here? You should just have a priority port. It should be labeled and then I can pick.

[Luke]

Yep.

[Linus]

Oh my God.

[Luke]

Discussion question. Linus, you had debated switching to the Samsung Fold 7 soon. Do you think this Pixel Fold is a compelling option considering it is US$200 cheaper than the Samsung? Or will you still be going with the Samsung?

[Linus]

I will. I. I kind of miss my. My one ui. I kind of want to go Samsung first. And it's. That's going to. Huh, man. See, I kind of feel like I've got my order of operations wrong here because I still haven't quite finished my graphene OS switch. I did figure out some of the challenges I was having. I'm in touch with someone from there and I think I'm basically ready to like, switch over to it. I just need to set aside like, it takes so long for me to switch devices, dude. And like, I don't want to blame you, but like, like, you know, you're part of the problem. Why? Because if I want to. Okay, for instance, if I set aside a time for myself to switch all my stuff over, like, say, for instance, it's at 11:00pm I'm like, I don't know how to migrate. Like my pass keys. I literally don't even know how that stuff works anymore. Just my work accounts just like prompted me one day and like, I. I literally can't sign into stuff without this phone. Some of them I need to sit down with someone from IT and figure out what the crap is going on with all of my authentication factors. Because I'm not going to lie to you. It's one of those things that's so much easier to just dismiss every time I do it versus, like, fix. I still have accounts that prompt me for a yubikey.

[Luke]

Okay, you have to own some of this.

[Linus]

I do.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Linus]

But I'm going to blame you for.

[Luke]

Another thing, at least some amount of that, but. Holy crap, dude. My God.

[Linus]

Unique username says passkeys are not what we were promised. Oh my God. Right? So I get a notification on my phone, I unlock my phone, I have to click a thing. I get prompted for a fingerprint again. I wait. It's like, it's like seven to eight interaction. I could have typed a password. Oh my God. Anyway, the other one is I can't get into my badminton club without requesting a new invitation to my identity system. And I know we're working with Unifi. We're working with Ubiquiti on that. But like, I literally can't even sign into all my stuff on my own. I hate it so much.

[Luke]

One of those is to save incredible amounts of money.

[Linus]

I know, I know.

[Luke]

So to bother you to sign in one time in an annoying way, whenever.

[Dan]

You switch a phone.

[Linus]

Every time I switch a phone sucks.

[Luke]

One annoying time every time you switch a phone, which you could delegate to like Vance. So you don't even have to do it. I'm just. I'm just pointing out that we are saving so much money.

[Linus]

I know.

[Luke]

For one small, extremely easily solvable. Not even. Doesn't even have to be by you step.

[Linus]

I just hate the way Ubiquiti handles that. So that the enterprise versus the regular identity app and something something fee per user. Smash Champs has lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of users because all of its members have their key fobs. And so we have to use the not Enterprise one. And literally the only way to sign into the not Enterprise1 is to get an invitation from your IT department. You cannot initiate it yourself. Wait. Unless you give me the ability to initiate it to myself. Why?

[Luke]

Why do you think?

[Linus]

Because you're afraid I'll be too efficient at administrating it and I'll make you look bad.

[Luke]

I am a little bit afraid of your level of efficiency way to say a notification comes in. Just solving the problem right away, you know?

[Linus]

Okay. Sorry. I just saw. I saw a name in my notifications. Every time I see my grandfather's name in a notification, I need to check right away. He's still alive.

[Luke]

Nice.

[Linus]

All right.

[Luke]

Whoa.

[Linus]

What. What did you do to that?

[Luke]

I didn't. I didn't do any. It must have been ran over by the.

[Linus]

Must be your acid freaking skin or something. What?

[Luke]

No.

[Linus]

Yeah, you'd like, destroy everything you touch.

[Luke]

That is true. Unironically true.

[Dan]

Is that your headphone cord?

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Okay. I'll replace that mode.

[Luke]

If you can see that from here, don't you worry.

[Linus]

I don't think it's a Dan task.

[Dan]

I think it's.

[Linus]

I don't want to be that guy, but I really don't think replacing a cord is a Dan task.

[Luke]

Might just be a no. 1 task.

[Dan]

Oh, I mean, like, I've got one. I've got one on the shelf. They can just like.

[Luke]

Sure.

[Dan]

These ones are replaceable, but I think that we should just throw out the headphones.

[Luke]

Tape it.

[Dan]

Let's just throw out the headphones. We're not going to throw out the headphones. But we. We need better headphones, don't we? I mean, I'm gesturing that vaguely at the man sitting next to me.

[Linus]

Need is such a strong word.

[Luke]

It could be a video, maybe.

[Linus]

Like, we wear them for four hours.

[Dan]

A week and you complain the entire time.

[Linus]

I do not. That is, I complain the entire. Okay, sure, I complain a lot on wan show. Not about these.

[Dan]

It's 208 hours a year. You just complain about headphones. That's what your life is now.

[Linus]

Be gone. Be banished.

[Luke]

Fly. Fly, you fool.

[Linus]

Wait, have we still not done the AI sharpening topic? No. Holy bananas. Oh. YouTuber Rhett Shull posted a video last Thursday investigating what appeared to him to be AI enhancements being applied to YouTube shorts without the creator's knowledge or consent after fellow music YouTuber Rick Beeto contacted Schul with example posts from his Instagram and YouTube accounts. And I gotta say, the difference is, it's pretty interesting. We're not gonna play his whole video because that's not how we do our react content.

[Luke]

That is a lens. That is a lens and a half. That was chosen here.

[Linus]

Don't worry about it. But look at this. You see that shift? You see as he's shifting between YouTube shorts and Instagram, how different the same piece of content looks. And you can. You can tell from the interface here. Yeah. Okay, so this sparked a whole lot of conversation. And Shull's video included some experiments of his own seeing the same effect was seeing the same effect on his own videos that was impacting Bido's videos. He went on to find a Reddit thread discussing the same effect showing up on some of Hank Green's shorts. Then the plot thickens. After we reported on the story on Monday's tech link, YouTube responded with an explanation. Okay, technically, YouTube responded to a guy who retweeted a reposted clip originally tweeted out by some other guy who clipped it from Monday's TechLink video. But you know what? We're counting it.

[Luke]

That counts.

[Linus]

YouTube liaison Rene Richie said that this is an experiment that does not involve generative AI or upscaling. What it is intended to do is unblur denoise and improve clarity using traditional machine learning techniques.

[Luke]

What? Where's the line?

[Linus]

Richie also said the experiment was only running on a limited number of shorts, but as far as we could tell, it's pretty widespread. Responses on Twitter were almost universally opposed to. To using any sort of AI, which.

[Luke]

That is generally how people have considered it.

[Linus]

Yes. Okay.

[Luke]

It was called AI until we got new stuff that we called AI. And this will happen again. We will stop calling predictive LLMs AI because they're not. Once another layer comes out and then that's just going to keep going.

[Linus]

Yes. And I remember like committing to not call what we have AI and call it machine learning forever. But what I realized is that I couldn't continue doing that forever because it's.

[Luke]

Confusing to people, because people get confused.

[Linus]

Who don't understand the distinction. Everything we have now is machine learning, all of it. None of it is AI. We could call it generative machine learning or whatever, but it is certainly not an intelligence of any sort and is. But falls far short of what we think in scientific, in science fiction terms of.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

What AI is supposed to mean.

[Luke]

Yeah. The like 80s idea of AI.

[Linus]

Yes. We don't have it.

[Luke]

Not a thing.

[Linus]

We're not close.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Others pointed out the trend of companies avoiding the term generative AI in favor of the less threatening sounding traditional machine learning. Yeah. Still others pointed out that when every video looks like it's been made with AI, it's going to be a lot harder to identify the ones that actually are made with AI. And it says Dan has a clip. See it for yourself. Side by side comparison of the same clips downloaded from YouTube and Insta. All right, hit it.

[Dan]

Which one looks more sharp?

[Linus]

I mean the one on the left looks way sharper.

[Luke]

Yeah. Yeah, definitely left by a lot.

[Dan]

I like too much. Makes me think our cameras are really blurry.

[Linus]

Oh, this is an interesting one too.

[Dan]

You can see it in the artifacts.

[Linus]

Yeah, you could really see it when I spun in the chair.

[Luke]

Look at the scrolling big artifacts like that. They made your video worse.

[Linus]

This is one of those things where better is not always better.

[Luke]

Well, it's, it's.

[Dan]

We need lenses.

[Luke]

Not better.

[Linus]

Well, it's, it, it is more sharp. And sharpness is generally considered to be a brutal though. Sure. But I, I just mean like, like you could create a lot of metrics and you could use those metrics that you created to measure the one on the left as being better. Yeah, but better is not always better.

[Luke]

We have this.

[Linus]

The right side looks much more natural.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Yeah. I didn't feel that mine looked as bad as some of the examples I saw though. Like I, I didn't think those examples.

[Luke]

Are particularly cherry picked and this was just a random one.

[Linus]

No, I don't, I don't think that either. I just think that maybe whether it's our camera we use or whether it's that particular video. Like there were certainly areas where it looked really bad, but for the most part I didn't. I felt it looked like over processed, but I didn't feel it looked like.

[Luke]

AI scrappy DP and flipping chat said. Peter McKinnon made a video recently on not sharpening your content because YouTube is applying it so hard after the upload.

[Linus]

That actually makes a ton of sense. Our discussion question here is is it okay to take a short creator's control away in terms of what their content looks like and what's to stop YouTube from going on and applying these enhancements to everything to long form videos, TV shows, films delivered by the platform, where's the line? And I would say the line is in the rearview mirror way back there. The second YouTube does any processing to your video and they do it and they do it on every single video that is served by the platform. They are impacting the look and that's.

[Luke]

Not a battle, that was never a war. That's how it's gonna go.

[Linus]

In fact, Instagram is also applying processing and what we are watching on the Instagram side is their interpretation mostly probably optimized to save on bandwidth of what your original file was. Even your original file, you upload is processed and is sort of approximated compared to what your sensor saw. And even that is an approximation. However, I think that we can all agree that making things look more. More over processed and AI generated is not good. And this seems to be over the line. Does that seem.

[Luke]

Yeah, I like that.

[Linus]

Okay. Neat.

[Luke]

Good one. What do we got next?

[Linus]

I don't know. Why didn't you pick something? You want to pick something? Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

[Luke]

Cool. Sea Gate tries an exciting new kind of raid earlier this east.

[Linus]

He's doing good.

[Luke]

All right. Earlier this year, Seagate security teams working alongside Malaysian authorities conducted a raid on a counterfeit hard drive operation. These are. Man, I would love to see one of these.

[Linus]

Right?

[Luke]

That would be so interesting.

[Dan]

How is it even possible?

[Luke]

Fascinating. I always find. Remember the genuine Intel CPU thing? Like what? I would love to see the place. Sorry, intel, but I would love to see the place that makes non genuine. Non genuine Intel CPUs.

[Linus]

You mean AMD. Anyway, carry on. Got him. Those are some spicy how the turntables have turned.

[Luke]

School war words. Yeah. Anyways, the raid uncovered nearly 700 Seagate drives in various models with capacity up to 18 terabytes. Along with drives from other manufacturers. The drives are believed to have come from China where they were used to store Chia, which is I think a storage currency. Yeah. And sold off after that. Cryptocurrency became, you know, unprofitable. Used drives had their smart values reset. Oof. Data wiped and were cleaned, relabeled and repackaged some.

[Linus]

So.

[Luke]

Okay, I see sometimes is a more valuable model than they started out as and were then sold at discounted rates on local e commerce platforms.

[Linus]

This was a whole thing. And Seagate has probably invested significant resources chasing this bull down instead of like working on things that are valuable to their business. I actually really feel for them in this situation.

[Luke]

This is brutal.

[Linus]

Like not on that. Maybe they could do more to prevent their smart values from being overwritten. But like, I don't know. Should they have seen this coming? I don't know. Maybe this has happened before that I'm not aware of. And they like should have seen this coming and should have done better. But I don't know. You, you, you build a bigger lock and someone's gonna build a bigger bolt cutter. Right. Like I, I also don't quite. They got, they got really kind of on over this.

[Luke]

A lot of stuff is not. It's just a bigger delay. Ideally there's nothing better than that. To try to reduce the impact of these scams, Seagate partners are now being required to purchase and resell drives exclusively from authorized distributors.

[Linus]

And this is why we can't have nice things. Because I would love for you to be able to buy and sell and move older parts around as needed. But now all of a sudden we need this like central administration of everything and tracking of everything. And it. And it legitimately adds cost. It's not that they're just going to like, you know, gouge or whatever because there's no competition. But it legitimately adds overhead and cost and that just blows for everyone.

[Luke]

Kind of wrecks the use market. People are asking if server Part Deals is an authorized reseller.

[Linus]

I don't know.

[Luke]

Someone want to look that up and figure it out.

[Linus]

Yeah. Tim also points out it doesn't matter if they make their smart values harder to overwrite because they can also just overwrite the smart values of cheap crap drives and call them Seagate.

[Luke]

I knew server part Deals was legit. I didn't know if they were an authorized reseller.

[Linus]

There aren't that many cheap crap hard drives out there. Like there's only a handful of hard drive manufacturers even, even left. So I'm not 100% sure on that one.

[Luke]

But anyway, apparently they are an authorized retailer. Nice seller, Very cool. I'm not surprised they're, they're very legit. But yeah, but yeah. So SE has implemented a global trade screening process to try to identify suspicious suppliers and see it reminds customers or sir consumers to exercise caution when buying drives from non major retailers or third party sellers.

[Linus]

Toward the blue in Floatplane Chat also says your viewers should know that Seagate released a tool where you can check values that are not able to be rewritten. So that's pretty cool. At least there.

[Luke]

That is very cool.

[Linus]

At least they're doing things about this. Even though none of this should have happened. People should just not be buttheads.

[Luke]

Hilbert Gilbertson said that it's in Sea Tools, which makes sense.

[Linus]

Very cool. The ROG Xbox Ally has gotten a release date alongside a new game verification program.

[Luke]

Before we go into that really quick, I just want to say it's kind of cool that that was negative news but had an interesting and cool story.

[Linus]

Yeah, I thought you'd like that one.

[Luke]

I like that. Yeah, that is very cool.

[Linus]

I'd love to see one of these places. So anyone from Seagate watching, like I'll get on a plane. Let's go, let's go check it out. Because like I feel it's like, it feels like it'd be if like it's like the kind of thing where if like, like Rick Sanchez and like Milhouse Van Houten like made a meth lab, you know, like it's like tech meth lab. Like that's what I'm kind of imagining.

[Luke]

You know, I mean it would be, it would honestly be a really good.

[Linus]

Dexter's in there somewhere and like, like Jason Fox, you know, like just.

[Luke]

I think it would be really good exposure for the, the communication they're trying to get across of like making sure you're getting legitimate drives. Yeah, making sure that you can check your drives using Sea Tools. If you were going to buy off of the used market or something, you could check the drive before you actually do the exchange and promoting their whole authorized reseller thing. I think it makes a ton of sense and it would be wicked for content. I think Seagate should do it with you. I think that would be fantastic.

[Linus]

Yeah. If anyone knows anyone who's at Seagate, like hit him up.

[Luke]

That would be way.

[Linus]

Let's do it. That would be freaking awesome. Alright. Microsoft announced at gamescom that the new ROG Xbox Ally handheld will be arriving on store shelves on October 16th. And with it the new handheld compatibility program, an initiative similar to the Steam Deck's compatibility program designed to make more games ready to play on your supported Xbox handheld. Like Valve's initiative, there will be three tiers of rankings incompatible, mostly compatible and handheld optimized. Xbox also announced the Gaming Copilot beta via Game Bar, a personalized AI gaming companion that helps you get to your favorite games faster, improve your skills, and it offers context aware support based on what you're playing. Okay, after being spotted via benchmark leak, Steam machines are back on the menu.

[Luke]

Boys, let's go.

[Linus]

After months of rumors, the existing existence of Valve's Fremont PC Box console has been leaked through benchmarks on geekbench as well as some of the specs listed down below. The processor, codenamed Hawk Point 2, is likely a refresh of Phoenix 2, the younger and smaller cousin of the Z1 Extreme, Valve's first attempt to add a console like Steam Machine Experience, released nearly a decade ago, to whatever the opposite of fanfare is. But I feel very strongly, I think.

[Luke]

We'Re in a different realm, that this.

[Linus]

Is a different time, this is a different Valve, a more focused Valve, and it's a different Linux. In no small part thanks to the efforts that Valve has made to push forward gaming on Linux.

[Luke]

Very dramatically different Linux here we have specs before you actually do that. I'm going to use this as a shameless plug for the Is 2025 the year of the Linux desktop? Part 1 and 2 articles on the lab site?

[Linus]

Heck yeah.

[Luke]

So yeah, very different Linux. Sorry, keep going.

[Linus]

Heck yeah. All right, back here. So okay, we get six cores, nice little level three cache and that's about all we know. Oh, there you go, there's a geekbench score. Good job everyone. I'm stoked. I have had a little machine sitting in my family room just like ready for SteamOS. It actually what does it have running on it now? It has an Nvidia GPU and it uses an MXM module so it's like non trivial to put an AMD GPU in it. Whatever, it doesn't matter, just relax. But I haven't been doing much with it. I think it still has Windows on it because even the like the SteamOS alikes prefer AMD GPUs from my understanding. So it's been sitting there kind of waiting for SteamOS to be vendor agnostic and just like ready for any PC. Starting to, you know, hopes fading a little bit but I think I could be convinced to just huck it out of there and throw a, throw a steambox in there. I'm, I'm, I'm jazzed. I just, I love the SteamOS experience, especially for a. Not my only computer spot, like in my family room where it's just like, yeah, I want to play. Okay, Sea of Stars. Had a. Had a free dlc. I want to play the Sea of Stars dlc. That is like the perfect device and the perfect place to do that. Steam OS is just zero bs. It boots straight into my stuff. Although Microsoft is coming. They're coming with the competition.

[Luke]

Kinda.

[Linus]

I mean, have you seen it? No, I've been hands on.

[Luke]

Fair enough.

[Linus]

It's the efficiency gains that they are saying they've achieved are. It's not steamos level efficient. @ least not now. But they're, they're making gains. Like they literally don't even render the desktop in the background when they're running in gaming mode on this new handheld. So look, I don't have a ton of confidence either, but the Xbox team got embedded with Windows, like went in and you can't deny that on Xbox. The Xbox is an efficient machine. He has, he has no hope. Look at him. Look at the hopelessness in his eyes.

[Luke]

I, at this point.

[Linus]

But the hopelessness in your eyes.

[Luke]

No, I'm. I almost don't want them to do well.

[Linus]

Oh, Microsoft.

[Luke]

Yeah. I mean, the ship has been sailed for so long that it, you can't see it on the horizon anymore. I want Linux to do well.

[Linus]

That's fair.

[Luke]

They.

[Linus]

That's totally fair. It's valid. It's fair and valid.

[Luke]

Killed Windows gaming and pissed on its grave and then now like, want it back? Yeah, like, no, dude, we're all trying to move on. Sorry.

[Linus]

But like, no, they're, they're. They're the abusive ex spouse.

[Luke]

It's done.

[Linus]

They want you back though.

[Luke]

Get out of here.

[Linus]

You better not, you better not walk away.

[Luke]

I did on my laptop. I've been gone for a long time and it's been fine because they wasted all of the opportunities. Like, I just. I don't know. It's.

[Linus]

Dude. I picked up my laptop, so this is one of the Qualcomm machines. Liquid metal spilled in my flow. X13 we'll make probably be a video. I'll try and fix it. Anyway, the point is I switched back to my, my Snapdragon machine and I grabbed it out of my bag when I was on set earlier working on the buying Chromebooks for our kids video that I did with David today. And it was hot, it was closed and it was on.

[Luke]

Yep.

[Linus]

How is that still not fixed?

[Luke]

Yep. That's insane. And like the, the fact that there's ads in my freaking operating system is crazy.

[Linus]

I mean, there's ads in your mobile operating system.

[Luke]

Yeah, that's true. And that's nuts. And that makes me want to move. We talked about the only thing keeping me on official Android right now is the, the call screening.

[Linus]

I think you might like graphene. Oh, yeah.

[Luke]

Oh, I am rather certain I would. I want to switch over. It is only call screening.

[Linus]

Somebody flagged a call screening option for me that I'll try.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Linus]

During my switch, if you try it.

[Luke]

And it works, I will switch.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

100%. I'm gone. Like, I'm just, I'm so tired of this. I want to own my own stuff. And like, I'm not even trying to, like, I'm not even trying to be like traditional Linux nerd about it. I just. Get out of my things.

[Linus]

Yeah. Get out of my way.

[Luke]

Yes.

[Linus]

Just.

[Luke]

I bought Windows off. Like, I just.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

What are you doing? I'm so over it. They get the ads out. Stop screwing with search. Like, just go away.

[Linus]

Let me use my computer.

[Luke]

Windows itself stopped being like, cool quite a while ago. Yeah. It felt like they really stopped making things for me.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And they started just making things like annoying and inserting ads and doing all this garbage. So like, okay, you lost me after Windows 7. Windows 7 was amazing.

[Linus]

When's the last time Microsoft like, oh, no, they've done cool stuff with DirectX. Okay, never mind. I feel like there used to be a lot more fanfare around like DirectX and gaming on Windows. And I mean this whole, I mean, then the new stripped down, you know.

[Luke]

Windows gaming, it just, it feels like it's too late to me.

[Linus]

That's fair. That's fair.

[Luke]

If they were working on this, remember, remember game mode when it was just like. I don't even remember what was so bad about it, but I remember testing in the, in the bench stand, just being like, what is this?

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Gamester, Windows Live was like the worst thing ever.

[Linus]

Yeah, it was pretty bad.

[Luke]

Like Microsoft gaming, networking. I'm gonna say now, this is not a now. But when like Forza Horizon 5 came out was super annoying. It's super annoying to just like play Halo randomly now. Like, it's just, ugh.

[Linus]

Fewer obstacles.

[Luke]

Stop being incredibly. It's, you know, the world is just like, whoop. When running Linux has been actually less annoying.

[Linus]

But actually the sickest of burns.

[Luke]

Like it has been easier and less in my way. I have had to do things to it to make it okay. Less than Windows.

[Linus]

Ouch.

[Luke]

Like at this Point just I. Yeah.

[Linus]

You know what device is likely to work really well and never get in your way or have anything like, you know, unbecoming about it. What? The Trump phone. Oh.

[Luke]

Good transition.

[Linus]

Check this out. See this?

[Luke]

Yep.

[Linus]

So this render of the Trump phone is just an image that they ripped off this accessory manufacturer's website. Is that wild or what?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

This is their upcoming T1 and it appears to be a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra in spigens. And I'm so sorry if I'm saying this wrong. S25 Ultra Thin Fit case. You can even see their logo under the photoshopped on American flag.

[Luke]

What a lazy job. You need to rip people off better.

[Linus]

Our notes unfortunately say Spaghen looks photoshopped. You can tell by the way it is. We all know that it's. It looks photoshopped. You can tell by the pixels.

[Luke]

The crazy part is it would have been so easy to do this. Not terribly. That's the weirdest part for me. I know it would have taken seconds more.

[Linus]

I know.

[Luke]

Like I do kind of wonder when stuff like this happens. And you know, this might be hypocritical because earlier in the show I talked about how like, you know, we're humans, we make mistakes sometimes. But like when a mistake like that happens, I wonder like is this someone inside just being like, you know, I need a job so I'm gonna do my job. But also I'm gonna leave some like Easter eggs in there that people will find so that people know this is stupid. I kind of wonder sometimes because that's a wild mistake. Ripped off this case and just left the logo on it. I don't know.

[Linus]

The site still has the old version of the quote unquote the T1 phone that will never exist and isn't real.

[Luke]

Yeah, how is this not such a huge tell for people any?

[Linus]

That's a longer conversation.

[Luke]

Moving on.

[Linus]

Nvidia throws a couple of bones to gamers GeForce Now Nvidia's cloud gaming service can now run on RTX 5080 equipped servers. DLSS4 enables up to 120fps at 5K on PC and Mac and at up to 90fps on the Steam Deck. GeForce now app install to play lets you also install games on your cloud PC if the dev has enabled Steam cloud streaming. There is a bit of a catch. You have to to install your game every time and there is a finite amount of storage on your instance. You do have to pay extra to get more storage from my understanding. So it's a little inconvenient to install your own games, but hey, at least it's there, bringing them a little bit closer to a more shadow like experience. The Nvidia app can now automatically enable your preferred DLSS across all games and adds control for a few more settings like Nvidia Surround, bringing it ever so slightly, slightly closer to being a viable replacement for the Nvidia control panel. Nvidia has also teamed up with Discord, bringing instant play experiences with GeForce Now Inside Discord. No install required. Just click a link from a friend and instantly load into a game to try it out. Whoa. That's right. You can play any game you want as long as that game is Fortnite and you can only play for a 30 minute free trial.

[Luke]

That is still nuts.

[Dan]

That is. That sounds like future. I haven't heard future in a while. That's pretty cool.

[Linus]

That's pretty cool.

[Luke]

I mean, am I. Are we overestimating this? Is it literally just a link that opens a browser and you play the game in the thing?

[Dan]

It's still a cool thing.

[Linus]

It's still cool. Game streaming is one of those things that I'm, I think is super cool. I, I remember taking so much flack for that video. I did like years and years ago comparing latency of local streaming over the Internet streaming and then and like rendering locally and saying anything other than that this is horrible and we should all hate it and resist it. And people were like super mad at me about it. It's like, here we are. It's pretty freaking cool. And the latency once you're running at 120fps is not bad.

[Dan]

Kind of approaching magic at that point. I mean, like, we know what goes.

[Linus]

On, but it's like I definitely would rather render locally, but like if I didn't want to spend, I mean, I was at Best Buy today for that Chromebook video and it was 1700 Canad dollars for a 5080. I could buy a lot of GeForce now for 1700 Canadian dollars. It's compelling. And that's it for topics. It's time for After Dark.

[Dan]

Came out of nowhere. What did you find? After Dark. Is that exciting?

[Luke]

Yeah, I like the After Dark part of the show. Always have.

[Linus]

Yeah, you do.

[Dan]

We get to hear from our love subscribers like Jordan. Thank you for the sexy merch, pookies. Thanks, Jordan. Oh, gee.

[Luke]

My God.

[Linus]

I know. You don't get to hide. You don't get to hide your camera if you're gonna do that.

[Dan]

I've got got a message here from Fred.

[Linus]

Oh no.

[Dan]

Happy birthday.

[Linus]

Late.

[Dan]

You're oldie.

[Luke]

You're right.

[Linus]

What? Ow. What? Come on.

[Luke]

Get wrecked.

[Linus]

What the heck Fred N Get wrecked.

[Dan]

Anonymous says Nice chefs.

[Linus]

This is what you curated today? Forget it. You're going away again.

[Dan]

Somebody curated these. These were not mine. Luke.

[Luke]

No.

[Dan]

I didn't do it.

[Linus]

I didn't do it.

[Dan]

Okay, maybe they were accidents. One of them was on purpose. The nice shafts after absolutely would have been an accident.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I would have responded in kind to our love. We feel like store participants.

[Luke]

I feel like we need to have track on who did it.

[Dan]

That would actually be kind of sick.

[Luke]

I wonder if there was a sneaky developer in the dashboard that thought it would be funny.

[Dan]

Yeah, I mean if I notice something like that, I'll pull them out. I'll pull back the shafts if that happens. Happens.

[Luke]

Okay, let's do I think it's funny.

[Dan]

Let me do my real job now. Linus, Luke and Dan, what do you see as some of the big challenges Ltd and float plane in the next two years? What are some things you're excited about?

[Linus]

Ooh, TV apps. Okay. Challenges for ltt. I think, I think, I think we face the same sort of macro challenges that the entire rest of the tech media industry does. I think that a slowing pace of consumer hardware development is very challenging. And that's not to say that the scientists and engineers that work at these companies are not doing really incredible work and, and creating innovative new technologies. I think it's just to say that in a lot of categories we've sort of reached a plateau where most people mostly don't care or can't tell the difference. Like TV is I think a great example of this. I was shopping for TVs recently. If you've been watching the latest Scrapyard War series series, you'll know that I was at like, like an open box TV retailer. And as much as I love a nice TV and I have really nice TVs in my home, I was comparing like a very, a very basic, you know, 70, like you can get a gigantic 75 inch TV. I found a deal. And this is not a major spoiler because it's just a thing that I saw in the store. Store. I, I found a 75 inch TV for 550 Canadian dollars and it came with a free sound bar. So for context, for my American friends out there, that's about 380 US or like 370 US or something like that and comes with a free sound bar that was Like a hundred plus dollar value Canadian or something like that. So we're talking like, like a few hundred dollars for a 75 inch TV. And so I'm looking at that and I'm just kind of going, well, my goodness, how much more, how much better does something have to look for me to spend $3,000 on it now? A freaking lot. So we've, we've reached the end and, and it looks not bad. Like it didn't have great hdr, but a lot of people either don't understand or can't see the difference, which is like valid. You can, it's like when a car person comes up to you and they're like, man, what do you think of these new rims? And you're just like, I don't know, they're made of metal I guess. Right? Is that good? Right? Like for a lot of people. Right? For a lot of people. Oh, it's hdr. It has more color gamut. It means, it means nothing to them. They don't care. They're just, they're they're watching Fox News or cnbc. They don't, it doesn't matter. Right. And so we've reached this point where these new developments, like I saw a news article on lg, apparently has a prototype OLED TV that uses Tandem oled. So that's the same tech that Apple's using on their latest iPad and uses two stacked OLED layers to achieve much, much greater brightness while maintaining inky blacks. Like that blows my mind. Apparently it can achieve 4,000 nits on this. I think it was an 83 inch display and I'm sitting here going like, man, that's so cool. But it's cool past a point that I think most people will necessarily really care about, which is a big challenge. Coming back to your question for tech media, because I think the pool as the mainstream good enough, cheapo commodity tech reaches a point of being good enough for more and more and more and more and more people. I think the share of enthusiasts who care about every pixel and who care about every megahertz is going to be reduced. The refresh cycles on these things are also getting more and more difficult to keep up with annually. I mean, Nvidia used to be yearly. Apple has been yearly on a lot of their products. They're still yearly on the iPhone, but I don't know if that'll last forever. They're certainly not yearly on a lot of the Mac products that they just outright don't bother to refresh once they have a new generation of silicon. And so there's, there's kind of less to talk about. I think that the economic conditions right now globally are challenging, affecting people's discretionary spending. I don't foresee, and I'm not an economist, but I don't foresee with taxation both in the form of regular taxation, but also import taxation going up. I don't foresee that changing anytime soon. Generative AI, for all of its uselessness and hallucination, has disrupted the job market already. It is disrupting people's livelihoods, which right.

[Luke]

Now we've been saying from the start, like the companies that are really going to kill it, in my opinion, and I still think this is true, are companies that find ways to use AI to accelerate the people that they have and use that to grow and bring in more. Not companies that use it to just shrink their workforce, but stock price go up when fire person. So people are just doing it anyways. And I anyways, it's frustrating because there are effective ways for many people, I'm not gonna say everyone, but for many people to use it to genuinely help them in good ways. There's also a ton of ways to use it improperly, but a lot of people are scared to let it it affect their productivity in a positive way because they don't want to contribute towards losing their own jobs. And that's just bad employers in my opinion. And it's frustrating that there's like any of them at all really. But anyway, sorry, just minor aside and.

[Linus]

Generative AI is going to threaten our business from other vectors as well. I mean, you know, we talk about, we talked earlier about how the Anantech article archive went offline. And one of our speculated reasons for it is that Future plc, who owns Anantiac and Tom's Hardware, launched a new feature allowing you to compare products across brands across generations and it's paywalled. So our theory is that maybe they wanted to, instead of making all of that archival data and information available for free, move it behind the paywall where it can be sustainable for the future plc. And also to keep it away from the prying eyes of AI web crawlers that are going to scrape all this data and then just like sharded out into a search result or into a chatbot, that doesn't compensate the real actual people who really actually picked up GPUs and put them into benches and tested things. Things allowing them to keep their jobs. So that, that's a threat, that's a threat towards us as well. Like if LTT labs can be scraped and can just. You know, you can search up anything about a Corsair power supply, and it'll just use our video as a source, but not compensate us in any way. That's going to be a real challenge for us. Right. We're still very committed to doing it, but, you know, I would be lying if I didn't say that, you know, building out something like the lab help has impacted our profitability. It absolutely has. I mean, doing anything by hand with humans, building our content the way that we continue to do it, has impacted our profitability over the years. So those things are not slowing down. Yeah, those things are going to continue to be challenges. It's not all doom and gloom. I think our team is more locked in than it's been in probably a couple of years, actually. And I don't think I'm the only one who's seeing that. I've had some good conversations with people. We have some new hires starting in the next little bit that I'm very excited about. On the writing side, I'm really excited about the direction the lab is going under Luke's leadership.

[Dan]

Thank you.

[Linus]

Yeah, I think we're firing on more cylinders. I am hopeful that while we might not be back to a cadence of six uploads a week, I'm hopeful we can get to a more regular upload schedule again relatively soon. I think that's something that would be good for our viewers and also good for our company's ongoing viability. Yeah, the future's looking up, but that doesn't mean that we can ignore the headwinds that are coming our way and coming everyone's way, realistically.

[Dan]

Hey, LLD just got my Ally battery upgraded after your video for the JSAX upgrade kit.

[Linus]

Jso, I think.

[Dan]

JSO upgrade kit and loving it. Linus, would you consider any further modifications to your ally in the future? Maybe ram? Thanks.

[Linus]

I don't think I need more ram. I've never run into a game on my Ally. I mean, I mostly just play tape to tape. Did you know I have over 300 hours in tape to tape now? It's amazing how quickly they add up when like. Like my wind down before bed is to lie in bed and play a.

[Luke]

Run if there's a decent amount of idle time too.

[Linus]

Oh, there's a ton of idle time.

[Luke]

Load it up.

[Linus]

Yeah, take the tape actually logs your on ice time. So I think I'm at like 170 hours or something.

[Luke]

Upon ice time makes a bit more.

[Linus]

Sense, but that's still a lot. So that's the game I primarily play on my Ally. Don't need more RAM for it but definitely enjoying the battery life upgrade. It's just like we saw when ASUS went from the ally 1 to the ally 2. For some reason the battery life benefit is more than just the like watt hours increase. I don't, I don't, I, someone's gonna have to math that for me because I don't, I don't quite get it but I'm into it so I've been enjoying the absolute heck out of it. I would love to have a bigger SSD in it. I'd love to just have you know, entire libraries of Linux ISO older, older, more pixelated Linux ISOs that are just kind of of on tap. But beyond that, no, I, I, I love it. It's been very, very good to me and I am excited for the Xbox One. But I don't know, I might be more excited for potentially a Steam deck too. I need it to be, I need it to be competitive on GPU power though. Like the Steam deck was kind of, it fell behind really fast and you know me, I, I like cutting edge performance. I and, and on handheld every 10% is noticeable. When you're at 32 FPS, the jump to 35, it's like I want that.

[Luke]

Here's another spicy one to add in on the whole Windows Linux thing. Yeah, this is why I haven't, this is a major reason why I haven't bought a gaming handheld is because I kind of didn't really get in on Steam Deck early enough. Feels like I'm kind of in Steam Deck 2 waiting room.

[Linus]

Yeah. Okay. And I'm looking, they're taking a minute to get around to that.

[Luke]

I'm all good.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

But I'm looking at the alternatives and the big push right now is Windows based alternatives. And I'm like, I want to support the Linux push. I just, if I'm gonna be voting with my wallet right. Like I'm tired of the garbage that has been shoveled into my face from Windows from so for so long. I'm pissed that there's no alternative. I'm pissed that there isn't like a Windows Premium where I don't get trashed on with ads and other stuff like that. I'm pissed that I can't get away from certain telemetry things without registry jumping and whatnot and then having to redo that because Windows Update just decides to like change things or whatever. So it's, I'M trying to get out, so I'm not gonna financially back a thing that I'm trying to get out of. So I'll wait for Steam Deck 2.

[Linus]

That's Fair is what it is. All right, hit me. Dan.

[Dan]

Hi, ldl. Instead of glazed AI interactions causing users to expect other people to act like their chat bots do, doesn't it also seem likely that these users will, will also start to act like their chatbots?

[Linus]

No, I don't think so. I think being glazed is not necessarily going to make you become a glazer.

[Luke]

No, I honestly think it'll largely do the opposite effect. Especially when you don't glaze back and it keeps glazing you.

[Linus]

Yeah, like let's, let's think about sort of like a, like a parallel. Like I often talk about how I think that, that like influencers and famous people are sort of uniquely vulnerable to giving into narcissistic tendencies because I think that anyone would, would struggle to stay grounded when they're surrounded by hundreds, thousands or millions of people that are telling them how incredible they are all day, every day. Well, riddle me this. These professional being glazed, are they generally known for being like the super most amenable people in the world? Like as a group, I'm not saying there aren't nice celebrities.

[Luke]

The opposite. You're used to getting catered to.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And I'm sure you, you, you know, you let it slip here or there and you don't communicate with the AI nicely and you notice that it keeps glazing you. So there's no, there's no incentive, there's no reward loop.

[Linus]

Yeah. There's no penalty.

[Luke]

A non jerk.

[Linus]

Yeah. This interface is broken in a way that I'm not really sure how to deal with. So I click this, it asks me really and then I can't interact with it.

[Luke]

Weird. I haven't had any of those problems. Let me go look cool.

[Dan]

Do you want another one while we wait?

[Linus]

Yeah, hit me.

[Dan]

Hey Wan dll. With everything being so software and driver focused, do you think there will become microtransactions or DLC for graphics cards?

[Linus]

Oh man. We didn't talk about it because I just had had enough bad news last week. But you saw that. Who was it? Was it Volkswagen is adding like a pay for a subscription for more performance to their car or whatever it was.

[Luke]

You don't click on the. Really? You just click on the button again. Oh, not the most intuitive.

[Linus]

Neat. Okay. VW performance subscription, I think it was.

[Dan]

Yeah. That's brand new, right? I Think that was?

[Linus]

Yeah. VW introduces monthly subscription to increase car power 8 days ago I just, I had enough talking about bad news last week, so I just didn't feel like it. But here it is. The optional power Upgrade will cost 1650amonth or £165 annually. With that said, this also made me far less upset. It is not outlandish. Hold on, hold on. I'm going to defend this. It is not outlandish to charge more for a higher performance model. And in this case, I know the exact same hardware is in there, but you could make the argument that there might be a higher likelihood of long term damage to the vehicle if it is somehow being pushed harder and there could be some cost there. I don't know that they've actually done the math, you know, correctly. I'm sure there's margin in it, but as long as there's a lifetime subscription, I will be far less upset about a month or as long as there's a lifetime purchase option, I'll be far less upset about a subscription being offered.

[Luke]

Stakeboy in Floatplane Chat brought up an amazing comparable.

[Linus]

Yes.

[Luke]

What if this was a driver for a graphics card?

[Linus]

As long as there is a lifetime subscription.

[Luke]

So now you have to buy your graphics card and pay for a subscription.

[Linus]

To the drivers to get it to be slightly faster. To be clear, you can still drive it with all. I'm not saying I'm okay with it it. I'm saying I'm a lot more okay with it if there is a lifetime purchase option. I'll give you an example in the hardware world that's very much like this.

[Luke]

Should lifetime purchase come with the product?

[Dan]

It's just you bought the car.

[Linus]

So Quadro is literally a GeForce card that has a lifetime subscription in this case, that costs a lot of money to drivers that are certified and to the expectation that it is going to be driven harder because it's going to be used hour in, hour out, day after day in a professional environment.

[Luke]

I care a lot less when it's professional product though. We're not talking about professional.

[Linus]

And that's. And that's fair enough. And that's fair enough. I'm just saying that the parallel.

[Luke]

Not saying, not, not trying to insult the. The clearly very professional car.

[Linus]

Yeah, yeah. I just mean. I just mean we already have very clear parallels in the hardware industry.

[Luke]

This thing's good in the user space.

[Linus]

Okay, fair enough. I'm just saying it's, it's a thing that exists and that I have, I have been Upset about, like I have been upset about the exact same a bunch of times. The exact same silicon. Right. Being locked down in this way, I find it, I find it very frustrating. But I also do recognize that in the case of Quadro or in the case of this, there could be and B additional costs. So let me hear, let me put it this way. LTT screwdriver. Right. If there was a professional version of this that included, I don't know, let's say once every two years you can mail it to us and we'll like disassemble it and lube it and polish it for free or something like if there's some kind of additional work of some sort that we're doing. So what I'm saying is I don't know the math, I don't know the math on how many more failures they'll have for pushing it that much harder. But there may be some math there and I.

[Luke]

They're ensuring it.

[Linus]

I would assume it is covered under warranty to have it at this higher performance level.

[Luke]

How long is your warranty though?

[Linus]

Not that far on most cars.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

So I. Look, I'm not saying it's great. I'm not saying I love it. I'm saying as long as there is a lifetime option, make the car cost.

[Dan]

A thousand dollars more.

[Linus]

Well, sure, but that's exactly what they did. They made it cost 649 pounds more. And I think from a percentage standpoint.

[Dan]

Like if it's a hundred thousand dollar car and they're charging me $650, I'm gonna be like, why are you nickel and diming me? If it's a thousand dollar car and they're charging me 650, 50 bucks, that percentage point makes it more understandable, I think.

[Luke]

I'm just viewing it the same thing in the same way but with a different lens. If that kind of makes sense. Where like the fact that the monthly one exists is what bothers me. I understand that it makes it more okay. Like, you see what I mean? It makes it more okay to you that the lifetime exists. For me, it makes it less okay that the monthly exists. It's kind of the same thing.

[Dan]

I don't like either of them.

[Luke]

Glass house, half full glass, you know.

[Linus]

I mean, Walker here says it's not uncommon to pay for tuning a vehicle that increases the horsepower without any hardware change.

[Luke]

Yeah, it's just a one time cost.

[Linus]

And so is this. Well, unless you buy the subscription.

[Luke]

I just don't like the subscription exists.

[Linus]

I don't like that the subscription exists either. But if people choose a subscription when they have a lifetime option, they have to own at least some of the responsibility for the vastly larger amount of money they will pay over the lifetime. They own this purchase.

[Dan]

Okay, what about Nvidia? $0.01 per month per CUDA core.

[Linus]

Again, I don't, I don't love it. I don't want it. You're gonna have to, you're gonna have to.

[Dan]

Graphics cards, super subsidized.

[Linus]

If Nvidia. Okay, so here, you know what, let's draw a consumer parallel that I actually would be okay with.

[Luke]

Oh no.

[Linus]

If Nvidia gave me another 200 watts on the 5090 full warranty, everything's covered. And they were like, yeah, it's another, you know, okay, so what's this in the context of a vehicle? So they're charging 600, let's say what, this is a $30,000 vehicle, something like that.

[Dan]

50, maybe 60.

[Linus]

You think it's that much? I don't know.

[Dan]

It's just a. I don't know what cars cost.

[Linus]

Oh my God. It's the id. It's the id.

[Luke]

Limit breaker subscription.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And it's effectively just a warranty.

[Linus]

Effectively just an overclocking warranty.

[Luke]

If they let you do it without that. But you lost your warranty. Yeah, I think I'd be more cool with it.

[Dan]

That was pounds, right? Yeah, £40,000.

[Linus]

£40,000.

[Luke]

That's literally just a warranty.

[Dan]

At that point, call it 50,000.

[Linus]

So we're talking in this case about 1.5% of the cost. So if Nvidia said, okay, on your $2,000 GPU, it's 20, it's 30 bucks. And you can have another a month. No, no, no.

[Luke]

Total lifetime.

[Linus]

Lifetime. It's 30 bucks. And you can have another 100 watts or 200 watts or you know, whatever.

[Luke]

If you could, if you could do it anyways. I mean, didn't have a warranty.

[Dan]

Okay, I'm slamming that button. I'm doing that.

[Linus]

This totally, this totally even exists. People buy this all the time. This is the OC variant.

[Luke]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Linus]

This is the OC variant. That's no power limit.

[Dan]

Cars have trim levels.

[Linus]

Well, so see the car trim levels, they're just.

[Dan]

Well, no, they're, they're doing what the graphics card do. You can get the OC car or you can get the normal car. They're just doing that in the same car.

[Luke]

I think we're going, I think we're going too far with this because we're Just. We're now just describing a. An extended warranty.

[Linus]

Well, sort of. It's not a.

[Dan]

It's not a warranty level.

[Linus]

It's a. Yeah, it's a different tier of product. And I've made the argument since forever that you should never buy the OC Lesser card when the not OC Better card is now so close in price. But I mean, the difference between a 5080 and a 5090 is now a thousand dollars. So if OC 5080 could make sense, and in the case of the 5090, there is nothing higher. So if you want any more, if they were to come to me and say, yeah, it's an extra 30 bucks or 50 bucks for the OC variant that runs a little faster, we binned it a little better, we made sure it's going to work and we're going to cover that. I don't see that as an extension. Extended warranty. I see that as an ever so slightly faster product.

[Luke]

The reason why I'm saying extended warranty is because if you could just do it yourself.

[Linus]

Yeah, sure.

[Dan]

And that's what happens when they're the same product. Like, you can take a car and put a bigger engine in it, but the manufacturer also produces that same model of car that has the bigger engine in it already. But this VW is just both of those cars in one car. Like it's a 5080 and a 5090 in a single car. And then you just pay the extra thousand dollars and now it's a 5090 instead of a 58.

[Linus]

Yeah, in this case, the difference in performance is pretty small, though. So I feel a lot less. Like they're totally sandbagging me, of course. Like. Like they could have just afforded to give me, you know, a car that performs twice as good. Well, this sucks.

[Dan]

It's not a different car.

[Linus]

Yeah, but this is just the same car. It's just slightly more tuned. Er, and I think, yeah, I hope I'm not just gonna completely end up canceled over this again because Hamnetics says Linus's point about accelerated wear profiles is a decent one. When something is worked harder, there could be additional wear. And the reason that I went to that first is because we were talking specifically about batteries and electric motors in ev. Right.

[Dan]

That is so important.

[Luke]

Your argument makes complete sense and is totally fair and totally fine. The problem is it will immediately be abused. Well, immediately and unquestionably it's the future problem because now you pull back more and pull back more and pull back more and pay wall more. And pay wall more. And pay wall more.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Like, heated seats.

[Luke]

It's not the. The, like, base concept is fine, I guess, that you're describing. It's. It's the. What will companies do it?

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I feel better about this than the BMW heated seats, personally.

[Linus]

Yeah, you know what? I think I do too, because the heated seats, that's literally in there, like, it's. It's literally so inexpensive for you to implement it that you can literally put it in every single vehicle that rolls.

[Dan]

Down the line and becomes cheaper because you do that.

[Linus]

Yes.

[Dan]

Less skew.

[Linus]

But even then, it's the same cost blending. Right. So the people who pay for it are subsidizing the people who don't pay for it to put it into every vehicle. I still. I still don't like it. I can still not like it in this case. I actually. Yeah, I agree with you, Dan. I don't mind this as much as the heated seat activation.

[Dan]

No, I think 1% feels bad if it was 25%. Like if the 50 to 5090 upgrade was a thousand dollars and the card was 500 bucks, that feels more. Okay. In a way. This feels nickel and dime, but I know what you're talking about, especially on electric. So. Yeah, sucks. It feels like welcome to current year. Yeah, it's bad. It's.

[Luke]

It's not good for the world. Step is not that bad. So you don't look at it that closely.

[Dan]

Slope.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

Bazag says with your experience with TeamViewer, I'd think you would trust lifetime subs less, especially in this corporate environment. You are 100% right. In this case, though, they would have to actively brick it. Whereas team viewers service this runs through their servers. I don't see any reason why my additional horsepower would have to do an authentication check every time I turn on the car until it does. That were the case. Well, then that's where Luke's slippery slope argument, which, as you know, fallacious as a fallacy or whatever, as invalid as a slippery slope argument might be also, you know, at a certain point, we've seen it happen enough times that we kind of have to go, okay, slippery slopes are valid.

[Luke]

Slippery slopes are absolute.

[Linus]

When you.

[Dan]

When you sell the car, it doesn't transfer, so the new person also has to buy it.

[Linus]

Is that true for this one?

[Dan]

No, I'm just. I'm just giving them ideas.

[Luke]

Absolutely. Something they would do. I find slippery slopes to be completely valid in these types of conversations.

[Linus]

Right.

[Luke]

Less valid when it comes to specific, like. And in. In between two Individuals know each other type situation.

[Linus]

Sure.

[Luke]

Because at that point in time, you can be like, you can trust me to not slippery slope this. And that's a valid argument. So then you can counter. But in these types of situations, it's like the company's massive entire reason to exist incentive is to slippery slope this. It's like you should almost trust them to do so more than anything else.

[Linus]

So Crystal points out, this is also the same hardware, just like the heated seats. But it's the wear profile.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

That's the difference. And you know they validated the validation is not a joke. Right. They validated it at a certain performance level. Now they've validated it at another performance level. There may be a maintenance or wear cost there.

[Dan]

It's harder on the batteries.

[Linus]

It's harder on the batteries. It's harder on the motors. Okay. Want to hit me? Hello?

[Dan]

Bad cholesterol. Ldl. What punishment are you three willing to commit to for the first person to break the wan streak? Love the content. Shave Luke's head, please. Yes. I also say we shave Luke's head if anybody misses.

[Luke]

What? If anybody misses.

[Dan]

That's a great suggestion. I appreciate that.

[Linus]

I. I second it, actually.

[Dan]

Yeah. There we go. All right, settled. Moving on.

[Luke]

That's ridiculous. Oh, my goodness.

[Linus]

What are we willing to commit? I mean, it's not going to be me, so I don't care.

[Luke]

Yeah. Honestly, we need did nothing to be insanely Die hard about this already.

[Linus]

We may have actually had this conversation before.

[Luke]

Maybe it's just been so long we forgot.

[Linus]

I think there may be a consequence. I think we might just not remember what it is. Do any viewers remember?

[Dan]

I still like that we have to shave Luke's head, but none of us are gonna be the one who is gonna allow that to happen.

[Linus]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke]

The pride of not losing is worth more than. Than me shaving my head.

[Dan]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Linus]

100%.

[Dan]

I don't want you to have to shave your head.

[Luke]

That'd be fine.

[Linus]

Dunk T again.

[Luke]

I thought I was going to be bald my like whole life into my 20s. And then I finally realized that that's not how that works.

[Linus]

Flow plane chat doesn't recall any punishments. Maybe I'm just imagining it. I mean, that's possible.

[Luke]

I think we might have had the conversation, but maybe it never turned into.

[Linus]

Anything loser has to do wan show in full blue man group makeup. I mean, we would just do that anyway. That'd be hilarious.

[Luke]

Yeah, that sounds fun.

[Dan]

It's more of a. It's a pride thing.

[Linus]

Ivon would actually kill me if I shaved my head.

[Dan]

Oh, it's Luke's head, Right?

[Linus]

Okay. Okay. So if anyone breaks the streak, we shave Luke. Luke's head. Okay. All in favor? No, it's on camera. It's on camera. The motion passes.

[Luke]

No, that's not how.

[Linus]

There's no take seize backseats.

[Luke]

Not how that works. I'm. I'm actually completely okay with that being mine, but I feel like we'll talk.

[Dan]

About it another time. We'll figure something out.

[Luke]

You know, it doesn't make sense that if Linus doesn't show up that I have to shave my head.

[Linus]

I mean, yeah, but then Linus to me and apparently you. I mean, you raised your hand.

[Luke]

No.

[Linus]

All right, hit me, dan.

[Luke]

Take Luke's 2.5 pound weight weights. That would be more annoying for little man than me at this point.

[Dan]

Hello from the east coast. Question for Luke and also Linus in parenthesis. As the infra team grows, are there any plans for it Admin focused content a day in the life of your infra team, network, deep drives, etc.

[Luke]

Probably not.

[Linus]

Cool. Good chat.

[Luke]

Boring. Yeah.

[Dan]

Hey, 6 foot 2, 6 foot 1 and allegedly 5.6. I actually go by 5 foot 14. Are there any examples of products with really anti consumer behavior that you would refuse to review on, for example, action cams requiring mobile apps to initialize?

[Linus]

No. I mean, I think our job is to. Is to call these things out, is to shine a light on. On a bad practice or a bad product. I think refusing to review it is in a way even passively contributing to the problem. It's like when people with ethics and integrity resign their post when they're asked to do something by a superior and then, yeah, they just put someone in.

[Luke]

Who would happily do it.

[Linus]

Yeah. So they keep their ethics and they keep their integrity, but by resigning, they clear the way for someone to just do it anyway. We haven't actually accomplished anything here, I think in the past when as a society it felt like we had some shame, I definitely admired that more because.

[Luke]

It would bring more of a spotlight to it. And then change is initialized and that person who asked for the thing might get removed.

[Linus]

But that doesn't seem to be the case anymore in modern years. So. So it seems like there needs to be a new meta. And my. My meta is definitely. If. If something's interesting enough to make a video, I don't care how anti consumer it is, let's make a video about it and talk about how much they suck.

[Dan]

Hey, LL and D have you heard about the Final Fantasy 14 drama? This week Square Enix issued a cease and desist over an add on that let players share custom character mods. Do you think this ties into payment processor censorship?

[Linus]

I mean, were the custom character mods quite X rated? Is that what we're talking about?

[Dan]

I didn't think that it was a problem until you mentioned the payment processors. And now I'm concerned.

[Luke]

Again, I don't think that's related to it. Add ons weren't allowed in Final Fantasy 14 already, as far as my understanding goes. And customer. Customer character models. Custom character models could be perceived as che family accounts.

[Linus]

I can't find anything about XXX character mods.

[Luke]

I don't think you're allowed any add ons in that game. So. Yeah, yeah, couple more.

[Dan]

Hey, lld, does Linus have any updates from the smart door lock he recently installed? Is there a smart home device or feature that you wish existed but is not currently available? Cool, thanks.

[Linus]

I mean basically anything is currently available if you're willing to pay for like a professional installer to come and do some wizardry for you. Like, I think it's one of. Yeah, it's one of Yvonne's old high school friend's husband's friend who does like installs for these like crazy homes and like Shaughnessy and stuff like that. And he was telling me about this custom mount for this TV that would like go up into the ceiling and like hide itself so it can like come down and. And be like just suspended in the middle of the living room so that the. So that the mom can like watch TV while she's cooking in the kitchen, like across the open concept thing. Anyway, I think you can basically do anything. As for the smart lock, I'm really happy with it. I can give people codes one time, use or timed. They can access whatever I need them to whenever I need them to. It locks on its own, which sometimes I'm a bit of a scatterbrain and I. I forget to do that. So that's really nice. So it's always locked and works perfectly. And the charging solution is working perfectly. I have wireless charging for my smart lock, so there's just a little base station that sits on just a little like end table thing in the foyer. And it just beams power wirelessly to my lock so I never have to change the battery in it ever again.

[Dan]

Oh, cool.

[Luke]

Yeah, that's actually pretty sick.

[Linus]

Pretty cool.

[Luke]

Wow, that's sweet. Because wiring those up can kind of suck.

[Linus]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Oh my gosh.

[Luke]

So most people run a battery.

[Dan]

Hey Wan, I have a question for Luke about the lab's website. I notice it's really fast with a lot of cool web tech.

[Luke]

Thank you.

[Dan]

I was curious what framework you guys use. They have done how difficult Firefox has been.

[Linus]

Hamnetics. I made a video on that. It's on short circuit it.

[Luke]

They've done a wonderful job with with keeping it very performant and I just got to get more people to go to it. But I wanted to show off. I like this one. I think there's a bunch of different ones. I haven't tried them all. This is not a like particular endorsement.

[Linus]

Other than financial advice.

[Luke]

Yep. Other than that these tools are cool. You might find one that you prefer more. It's very likely haven't even tried it. I started using this many years ago and it's been awesome ever since. But it's called Built with or built with.com and you can just look up any website. So I just, I went to their homepage, just went Ltd labs.com and then clicked lookup and then you can look at basically all the stuff that we use. You can see our analytics. We like Pausable because it's friendlier to users in my opinion and in Dan Siegel's opinion, who is the one who suggested it for that reason you can see that we have next JS which is probably more related to your question along with with React, which is maybe even more related to your question along with Vercel, which is definitely likely, definitely related to your question. But you can do this for any website and it will poke through and help you find different things about it. It's a very fun thing to do to just see kind of like what are these guys doing? How did they build stuff?

[Dan]

You know, I really don't think AWS is going to catch on because the future is serverless. Sorry, that's my favorite joke. Last one I've got for you today. Hi lld you guys talk about lifetime purchases? Would you ever consider doing a lifetime float plane subscription?

[Linus]

The other thing we talk about endlessly is sustainable business practices. Unfortunately, Floatplane is a service that has a very real, very ongoing monthly cost. So if we were to offer you a lifetime subscription, what we'd be offering you is a lie. Because at some point, unless we grow infinitely and infinite growth on a finite planet is unfortunately not possible. Unless we grow infinitely at some point, the pyramid will collapse and the new user recruitment will not cover the cost of continuing to support the legacy lifetime users. And the whole Thing falls down and we have to go back on our word. So we want to just put ourselves in a position where we never have to go back on our word.

[Luke]

It's also like, I don't know. In my opinion. Yes. I think there's an argument that could be made that flow plane has. Flow plane itself has. Well, depends on the user. The Linus Media Group account on Floatplane has DRM free downloads. It's up to the creators if they want them or not. So I can't say it for the whole platform. You could make an argument that that's your like legacy of the thing, but in my opinion, you're not. I can't give you full plane, right? Yeah, you can take the downloads, but if you buy a lifetime subscription and then eventually full plane dies, you and I are 90 and we finally retire and floatplane dies for whatever reason and you can't access the website anymore. What is your lifetime subscription for?

[Linus]

For.

[Luke]

Yeah, if. If I could. If we happened. If TeamViewer just went away eventually. But you could keep using it because you have your whatever thing and then it doesn't.

[Linus]

Lifetime is real.

[Luke]

But lifetime is fine. Yeah, because okay, it stopped iterating at some point. That kind of sucks. Sure, whatever. But you can still use the thing then lifetime is applicable in my opinion. I can't just give you full plane forever, so therefore, in my opinion is not really applicable.

[Linus]

Tim asks in Floatplane chat, why not just make it like fifteen hundred dollars? How does that not make sense? Because it doesn't make sense for you.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Linus]

I like to stack W's in every transaction. I am looking for a way to build a. Build a balanced I offer, I receive sheet. Right. And you know, from my point of view, finding the correct number for Floatplane lifetime subscription is asking me to have a crystal ball. I would have to know exactly how much value you're going to receive. And I'm going to have to know exactly, to a reasonable degree of accuracy how much it's going to cost me. I can't know that. So it's far better for me to just have a sustainable billing model that works for me. And if it works for you, then that's great, you can subscribe. And if it's not working for you anymore, then you can not subscribe.

[Luke]

And if you want to throw money at us, as much as this doesn't benefit like my department, I don't think that's a good way to look at things personally. The. The same reason why we have merch messages instead of Using other potential systems is because we're trying to give you more back for this exchange that's happening. So go get something from the store.

[Linus]

Store? Yeah. Pick up something on LTT Store.

[Luke]

Or come to whale land if you.

[Linus]

Really don't want anything. If you must just give us money, you can, like, buy a gift card and then just, like, never use it. Yeah, technically, that does sit on our books as, like, an outstanding liability or whatever, because gift cards legally in Canada can't expire.

[Luke]

Are gift cards on the store attached to your account? I don't remember. Is it actually a code?

[Linus]

I don't know.

[Luke]

I don't remember.

[Linus]

I don't remember. The point is just like, look, look, if you want to give us more money, you absolutely can, but we don't want to charge more for it, so you're going to have to find your own creative way to do that.

[Luke]

Yeah. Which there are.

[Linus]

Sure you get. Our office is on Google Maps. You could show up and slip a hundo under the door. I can't stop you.

[Dan]

My G sting's ready.

[Linus]

And that's all for the show. We will see you guys again next week. Same bad times, same bad channel. Bye. Whoa.

[Luke]

You did it before.

[Linus]

I.

[Luke]

Wait.

[Linus]

Yeah, I think you. Yeah, the wave started. The wave started. I'm allowing it.

[Luke]

All right.

[Dan]

Touch and go, though. Sorry.

[Luke]

Oh, my. Trigger happy. So I'm gonna pull up my chat.

[Linus]

Wait.