NVIDIA’s New CPU Makes Me Excited Again - WAN Show July 24, 2026

Summary

The WAN Show: NVIDIA’s New CPU Makes Me Excited Again

Podcast: The WAN Show (Linus Tech Tips)
Episode: NVIDIA’s New CPU Makes Me Excited Again
Date: July 25, 2026
Hosts: Linus Sebastian, Luke Lafreniere, Dan

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Episode Overview

This week, Linus, Luke, and Dan break down the week’s hottest tech news and trends with their usual banter, insight, and digressions. The headline: NVIDIA’s deep dive on its new Vera CPU architecture makes Linus truly excited about the prospect of “big strong cores” shaking up the PC landscape—for both data centers and, eventually, PC gamers. Elsewhere, the hosts get into the state of memory upgradability, Microsoft’s big move on Xbox-PG backward compatibility, the state of Xbox/Bethesda/Bethesda Game Studios, Framework’s RAM snarl, anti-user hardware support apps, rising PC build costs, AI copyright settlements, and more.

Throughout, the show delivers its trade-mark energy: a blend of deep-dive geekery, practical consumer advice, nostalgia, and sharp hot takes.

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Headline Topic: NVIDIA Vera CPUs and a Return to Big Powerful Cores

[02:39] Linus Explains NVIDIA Vera CPUs

• NVIDIA’s new Vera CPUs use their first true custom “Olympus” core, rather than off-the-shelf ARM designs seen in Grace.
• Vera’s compute die is monolithic: 88 cores, 176 threads, using a new “spatial multi-threading” technique.
• NVIDIA’s targeting massive per-core performance, not just more cores—a break from the industry’s trend towards many, smaller, lower-power cores for hyperscaler cloud deployments.

Key Insight:

“For the last 20 years, everything has been okay, we’ll give you some single-threaded improvements, but really what we’re building is better power efficiency and better multi-core for the data center... For my Counter-Strike framerate, big fat deal! NVIDIA’s coming in and going: No, what the market actually needs is big strong cores and not as many of them.”
– Linus, [04:27]

Why does this matter to PC gamers?

• Linus expects a “trickle down,” paralleling the path from Grace (data center) to DGX Spark (desktop/workstation): Vera’s design may make it to consumer devices, workstations, and eventually gaming PCs.
• NVIDIA is uniquely positioned (vs. Qualcomm) to get studios to support gaming on ARM CPUs.

Anecdotes:

• Linus saw NVIDIA running real games (Fortnite, Alan Wake) on ARM at Computex.
• “Qualcomm did a lot of work on gaming, but nobody but NVIDIA has the weight behind them to make studios support this.” – Linus, [07:33]

Industry Implications:

• If NVIDIA succeeds, it could finally force Intel, AMD, and others to focus on per-core performance and higher IPC design again, “like when Apple moves first—everyone follows.” – [08:28]

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The Trade-offs: Memory Upgradability & Soldered RAM

[08:28–11:50] The Memory Bandwidth Problem

• Vera uses LPDDR5X with ECC and full telemetry, roughly 3x more bandwidth per core than current platforms.
• This could mean future high-performance CPUs need either soldered memory (bad for enthusiasts/repairability) or new approaches like “CAM” style memory—with tradeoffs in raw performance.

“If you could get, like, actually for the first time in many years, a generational performance increase on your CPU, would you consider a motherboard with soldered memory?”
– Linus, [08:28]
“As of right now? No.”
– Luke, [09:30]
“But there is a vision of tomorrow where the answer is yes.”
– Luke, [09:37]

Community Practice & Nostalgia

• Luke and Linus reflect on the flexibility and community habit of shuffling RAM between systems and the loss of that—a value that’s now waning as both hardware and socket specs diverge.

[17:47] Tech Nostalgia Highlight:

“I remember the first person I knew got one gig. It was like, whoa, that’s crazy.”
– Luke

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Xbox Backward Compatibility Comes to PC

[20:09–23:30] Microsoft Announcement

• Xbox introduces a backward compatibility program that enables select original Xbox games to run on PC (via Game Pass, by purchase, or free for current digital-license owners).
• Launch titles: Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Crimson Skies, Fusion Frenzy.

Luke's Reaction:

• “Fusion Frenzy is great... If they had online multiplayer, I would play the heck out of that.” – [20:46]

Discussion:

• PC compatibility is welcomed, but confusion arises over Game Pass perks, pricing, and online support.
• The hosts note some minor technical issues (frame timing/judder), but Linus is impressed by the $2.49 sale price.

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Is There Hope for Xbox/Bethesda? The Fallout and Elder Scrolls Reality Check

[24:37–31:56] State of Xbox, Bethesda & Game Output

• Xbox is alternating between genuinely cool news and “they’re doomed” vibes.
• The hosts lament the extreme bloat, management layering, and resulting slow output at studios like Bethesda.

“The gap between Morrowind and Oblivion is short, but now we’re looking at just enormous gaps. Someone won’t have been alive when Skyrim came out and be old enough to enjoy the next game.”
– Luke, [27:41]

“It has been almost the entire duration of the Elder Scrolls series since we got another Elder Scrolls. That doesn’t work.”
– Linus, [29:11]

Underlying Point:

• Even iconic studios can grind to a halt due to dysfunctional management. Layoffs may be necessary to break inertia—but come at a real cost to morale and creative output.

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Linus & Luke on the State of the Industry and Their Own Business

[31:55–38:00] LTT’s Own Upheaval

• Linus parallels industry-wide “painful, chaotic change” with changes inside LMG, expressing cautious optimism.
• “Getting scrappier again” is helping classic LTT content shine: “It’s not because there’s different people... but the processes are changing. We’re more scrappy.” – Linus, [33:55]

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Side Topics & Tech Tangents

Framework's RAM Shortage & TSMC Price Hikes

[177:08] Framework pre-orders for the Laptop 13 Pro see RAM allocations slashed due to doubling supplier prices; TSMC announces further 5–10% wafer cost increases for 2027.

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Hardware Support Apps – LG/McAfee Windows Update Outrage

[93:10–99:06]

• LG is found using "hardware support apps" deployed via Windows Update to push pop-up ads and even McAfee antivirus—without clear user permission or consent.
• Microsoft steps in after user complaints; LG claims McAfee is never installed “without user consent,” but the community and Linus call the practice unacceptable.

“What I don’t like is when it’s allowed to have a parasitic payload.”
– Linus, [97:07]

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PC Building: Still a Luxury Hobby?

[182:53–191:04]

• With RAM, wafers, and GPUs all rising in price, is custom PC building now only for the wealthy?
• Linus and Luke argue it’s not: even with price hikes, used market deals and pragmatic builds (ex: refurb Optiplex + used GPU) offer accessible entry.

“It was so much cheaper and more accessible than cars... You can enter with no tool costs.”
– Luke, [185:40]

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AI Copyright Lawsuits: Anthropic’s Huge Settlement

[163:13–166:17]

• Anthropic settles a class action for $1.5B, paying ~$3K per pirated book used as AI model training data.
• While not enough, Linus sees it as a small (but incomplete) win for authors and the publishing industry; warns precedent is not set as other lawsuits (vs. Google, Meta, OpenAI) linger.

“As a publisher, it feels a bit like robbery where they got to keep what they stole. I was offered market value. I was still robbed.”
– Viewer comment, [167:17]

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Microsoft: Ads for “Free” Xbox Cloud

[201:26–204:31]

• Microsoft is testing ad-supported free tiers to stream owned Xbox games.
• Claim: ads will appear before gameplay, not during, and should “add value.”
• Panel is highly skeptical; no one can imagine an ad they’d actually consider value-add in this context.

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Standout Banter & Quotes

• “If someone wants to go in and change how their computer works, I think they should be able to.”
  – Luke, [108:09], on Windows automatic updates vs. user control
• “If the corporation commits a crime that would have resulted in a six-month prison sentence, they have to get their one phone call a day for six months. All of a sudden, they’d be so adherent to the law.”
  – Linus, [169:45], on corporate accountability
• On Old School PC Building:
  • “Anything’s removable if you pull hard enough.”
    – Linus, [11:04]
  • “Anything can fit in anything.”
    – Luke, [189:32]
• “We’re all witnessing the PC space hurt because it’s so expensive, the hobby is very difficult to be interested in right now, and the stuff coming out isn’t all that interesting or new or crazy.”
  – Luke, [227:53]

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Tech Community & Education: School System, AI, and the Next Generation

[75:11] Canadian Education System:
Linus advocates for:

• Return of letter grades for clarity.
• Reducing union deadweight in teaching system.
• Better tracking for both struggling and gifted students—argues for more vocational (practical skill) streams in high school.

“I think, in our desperation to make sure nobody gets left behind, we actually hold back the brightest pupils and waste the time of people that don’t need advanced algebra where it will literally never... something else might help them a lot more.”
– Linus, [83:51]

[237:36] On the Next Coding Generation:

• Professors are encountering students who can’t type, navigating course assignments via AI and pecking with two fingers.
• Luke: “Going to university for software development not knowing how to type is... crazy, man.”

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Real-World Tech Woes & First World Problems

• [218:27] Linus’s home theater drama: TCL TV with no discrete on/off IR remote codes, forcing hours of automation misery and clunky workarounds.
• [245:28] Cannot connect new laptop to Falcon in-flight Wi-Fi without first linking through his Z Fold 7...
  “The panic and the stress is part of the fun, is what makes the payoff so worth it.” – Linus, [190:12]

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3D Printing, Open Source, & Maker Culture

• The community instantly recreated (and improved) DBrand’s Valve IP-violating Companion Cube PC case as a free print, post takedown.
  “I love the maker and 3D printing community, the way people so selflessly give of their own time so others can have more joy.”
  – Linus, [148:30]

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Unique Tech Highlights

The “Phantom Twist” Stealth Drone

[149:54]

• New design: rotates at 15–25 times/sec, makes itself 10x less visible to the human eye.
• Linus is impressed: “If it was up in the sky, in the sunlight, I do not know how you could see it.”
• Possible applications: wildlife monitoring, infrastructure inspection—but must become much quieter first.

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Gaming News, Hot Takes & Community Questions

Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and… Copium

• Fallout 5 and New Vegas remasters are in development, with Obsidian’s return to Fallout being the real bright spot.
• Cautious optimism all around: “Maybe Todd can sit in a sensory deprivation tank and come up with a good game again.”
  – Luke, [173:29]

Steam Desk (PC) vs. Console

• Due to skyrocketing PC component prices, the hosts recommend PlayStation 5 as the best value for a general gamer right now.
  “Don’t buy a Steam Machine, just buy a PlayStation 5 for half the cost.” – Linus, [234:09]

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Notable Moments & Fun Digressions

• [76:43] Linus's rant on BC school grading: “That’s what the fucking letter grade was for.”
• [164:36] Anthropic copyright lawsuit settlement: “If this was a person, they wouldn’t have to pay $3,000 per book—they’d go to jail.”
• [208:06] Dan accidentally calls it “Star Trek: The New Generation,” triggering Linus in epic meme fashion.
• [126:01–128:33] Open Sauce convention: knives, tasers, NASA booths, moon rocks, VR CRTs, and candy made from declassified nuclear documents.

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Product Launches & Sponsorships

• LTT Forever Socks ([61:57] onward): After years of development, a premium, copper-infused, merino wool sock drops—complete with a limited lifetime warranty.
• Sponsors: Shokz, Squarespace, XSplit, AMD.

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Quick Links: Key Timestamps

• NVIDIA Vera CPU Deep Dive: [02:39] – [14:07]
• Memory Upgradability/Bandwidth/Trends: [08:28], [11:50], [14:32]
• Xbox PC Backwards Compatibility: [20:09] – [23:30]
• State of Bethesda/Xbox/Elder Scrolls Fallout: [24:37] – [31:56]; [170:38] onward
• LG/McAfee Hardware Support Apps: [93:10] – [99:06]
• Framework RAM/TSMC/Hikes: [177:08] onward
• Phantom Twist Stealth Drone: [149:54]
• Anthropic AI Copyright Settlement: [163:13]
• PC DIY as Luxury Hobby: [182:53] – [191:04]
• Steam Deck vs PS5 Discussion: [234:09]
• Open Sauce (Makers/3D Printing): [119:06], [121:55]
• Education System Tangent: [75:11]
• Tech Nostalgia (RAM, HDDs, etc.): [17:47]
• Adblock is piracy? [253:38]

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Final Thoughts

This episode encapsulates WAN Show’s best qualities:

• Fun, energized dives into complex hardware trends and real-world implications
• Nostalgic reflection on how tech culture and habits have changed
• Honest, unfiltered (often hot!) takes on industry, education, and business
• Wild anecdotes and unscripted banter that keep even the longest show engaging.

Standout Quote:

“The risk of many, many, many unsecured devices is very scary... but I want to control my computer. There’s bad everywhere.”
– Linus & Luke, multiple segments

Transcript

[Luke Lafreniere]

This episode is brought to you by Facebook.

[Linus Sebastian]

So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for, from a browse to a bike ride this summer. Find more on Facebook Friday and welcome to the WAN show. We've got a great show lined up for you guys this week, actually. There's lots of fun stuff. Nvidia has provided new details on their vera Data Center CPUs, and this raised Luke's eyebrows just a bit. Yeah, see, like, he did it. You couldn't see it because it was the one that was closer to me, but he did it. He did it again. I am really, really excited about them and what they might mean for the future of CPU micro architectures that will. I will lay out a case for this, hopefully make their way to gamers and be a major benefit. In other news. Ooh, Framework had a bit of a rough week. Investment disclosure with respect to pricing of memory modules in their laptops. We'll get into that a little bit more later. What else we got?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Microsoft introduces Xbox backwards compatibility program on PC. Exciting, interesting for Xbox games. Kind of confusing. We'll get into it. Also, Fallout 5, Fallout 3, New Vegas remasters. Also a new Obsidian, Fallout. All of this stuff was announced. Maybe Bethesda will use an IP for the first time in, I don't know, over a decade, I think. Cool. I heard you're supposed to do that as a company.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I heard you're supposed to IP freely. Oh, I pressed the wrong one.

[Dan]

What the.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, good, the foot cam is there.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I just got jump scared by my own feet.

[Linus Sebastian]

My feet are so touching the floor. The show is brought to you by Shokz, AMD, Squarespace and XSplit, alongside our rap partner, dBrand, our laptop partner, Razer, and our chair partner, who is also Razer. Why don't we jump right into our headline topic for the day, which is, of course, I actually forget which one we picked.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nvidia cpu.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, yes, I want to talk about that. Okay, so the original source here was actually some analysis from my old buddy, Mr. Ryan Shroud, who used to run PC Perspective and then was working at intel for a little while and then now is kind of doing this whole, like, analyst thing. And so I was looking at his analysis and he Kind of laid out a bunch of the details that Nvidia is providing about their new Vera CPUs. Vera is built on the Olympus Core, which is Nvidia's first custom core. So while Grace was a custom designed CPU, it was a partnership between Nvidia and MediaTek. The actual cores themselves were off the shelf, pretty much ARM cores. It's a matter of laying them out and figuring out all of your I O and how to integrate it into your bigger system. This time around, we're looking at a custom core. This is an Nvidia design from the ground up. And this is what gets me excited. It's 88 cores on a monolithic compute die running 176 threads using what Nvidia calls spatial multi threading. Okay, where is he going with this?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Meanwhile, companies like amd have upcoming EPYC CPUs that are going to have as much as 256 Zen 6C cores. What could possibly make me excited about 88 cores on some ARM CPU that is destined for the data center? You still don't know where I'm going with this?

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is still the question I had.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wonderful. Okay. What I'm excited about is that for the last 20 years, okay, everything has been okay, we'll give you some single threaded improvements, but really what we're building is better power efficiency and, and better multi core for the data center so that they can take all those cores and they can slice them all up into cloud instances for all of their customers. Big fat deal. For my counter strike frame rate, Nvidia is coming in and going. No, what the market actually needs is big strong cores and not as many of them. Now the reason is not one that's likely to excite you guys. The reason is, is that Nvidia is looking for huge performance uplifts in agentic AI. And right now what the data centers, what the hyperscalers are running into is they've got these super, super expensive GPU farms. And for agentic workloads, you actually need a ton of CPU to coordinate work or those GPU farms are sitting idle. And Nvidia's solution is, hey, we need not only a ton of CPU cores, but we actually need an absolute butt ton of performance per core. Now why does this excite me as a gamer? Because again, this product is not for me. Vera is not for me. I'm getting there. Grace already made its way into a desktop PC in the form of the DGX Spark. True, the DGX Spark chip was repurposed Already announced. Coming in Q4, I think Nvidia announced. I forget, I forget the details. But coming this year, they already announced, I think RTX Spark, which uses those same gray CPU cores that were in the data center and then made their way to a workstation and then to a desktop and then to laptops. I think we can draw a pretty straight line to Vera is going to be in the data center, is going to be in workstations, is going to be in desktops and laptops from what I saw at Computex. Did you see the Nvidia demos?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

They were just like running Fortnite and like running Alan Wake and like running the software that you would want to run on arm.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's what it is. Nice that Qualcomm did this for everybody.

[Linus Sebastian]

Don't kid yourself. Nvidia is putting in the work too. On the gaming side in particular. Like that was the first slide they brought up, at least for me, was hey, we have more gaming relationships than quite literally anybody ever.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Qualcomm did a lot of work on the gaming side.

[Linus Sebastian]

They did.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think they opened the door. I'm not saying Nvidia is not doing anything. That's not my point.

[Linus Sebastian]

Depending on how far back you want to go, Nvidia opened the door first. Actually, you want to talk Tegra 2.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay. Yeah, I know.

[Dan]

That's fair.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's clear that Qualcomm has been putting in a lot of work. That's very clear. But it's also clear that nobody but Nvidia has the weight to throw behind the major gaming studios and go, no, but actually you will support this. Yeah, period.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think that's valid. Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And so there I was looking at real, actual games that real, actual gamers want to play running on arm. Now with this custom core, somebody finally, after all these freaking years is going, you know what would actually be pretty great? If somebody made a CPU that, that had a more powerful core instead of more and more and more of them. And so in response to your excuse me, wtf, that's why I'm excited.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And it still sounds like a lot of cores, but it's clearly not the primary. Just going for just more cores is not the primary focus.

[Linus Sebastian]

Correct. Yeah. And when Nvidia does it, it's like Apple. It's like how I'm always industry follows bemoaning when Apple does something horrible and, and applauding when Apple does something great. Regardless of whether I'm going to buy the product, everybody else is going to do it. When Nvidia does it. Everybody else is going to start looking at ipc. Everyone else is going to start looking at. Okay, okay. Can we boost clock speeds? Can we make a more powerful core? Because we got to compete with that now, so I'm really excited. Vera uses LPDDR 5x memory with ECC and full telemetry. Nvidia claims roughly 3x the memory bandwidth per core. So here's some bad news. This could mean that either we need to go like CAM style memory on the desktop, or we could be looking at soldered memory on the desktop. I know, right? But tell me something. If you could get like a real, like. Like actually, for the first time in many years, generational performance increase on your cpu, would you consider a motherboard with

[Luke Lafreniere]

soldered memory on it as of right now? No.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, as of tomorrow, then, like, like, still feel like.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I feel like there. There is a version of tomorrow where the answer is yes. Like there. There's a way where I could see that happening.

[Linus Sebastian]

CAM would be a more ideal scenario.

[Luke Lafreniere]

CAM is a lot more ideal.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's still a compromise, though. I was looking at. So. Oh, yeah.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

I give. Hold on. I just need to make sure that I'm not saying something that I'm not supposed to know. Okay. Well, I've been working on a review of a product that involves CAM memory anyway, which is why I was looking more closely at the exact specs of it. And when I'm comparing it to other products that don't use CAM style memory, it still doesn't run quite as fast as soldered memory. It just plain doesn't.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't actually know what the answer to that is, but I have multiple ideas and I'm very curious.

[Dan]

Curious?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. I don't know. So my reason for that is what am I using the individual core performance for right now?

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, what I assume. What I assume you want to use it for is gaming.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Right. But then I look at the games that I'm playing and it's like we're

[Linus Sebastian]

a number of years off of this mattering.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm on it. That's. So that's where my current stance is. Why would I give up the. The, you know, the flexibility. The flexibility of memory, the repairability and the repairability of memory being removable. Easily removable. It is removable either way, but. But easily removable?

[Linus Sebastian]

Sure. Anything's removable if you pull hard enough.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm not that guy. Right. So, like, it's not removable for me, so be careful. So it's like I. And I Look at what I'm doing. Honestly, I've been playing less and less competitive multiplayer. It's just too unk a cesspool out there. Ah, that might be part of it. To be honest. I do think there's just the, the ease of access to cheating is insane. The fact that I have received YouTube ads for game cheats is just crazy. So it's, it's.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, you are unk. You need all the help.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I wonder, I wonder if they do target people that are in like their mid, mid-30s plus because you know, your gaming performance is starting to decline and if they're like, you know, you could

[Linus Sebastian]

just take one of these.

[Luke Lafreniere]

UNK Bot 9000.

[Linus Sebastian]

Just take one of these.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

So, so hear me out. Here's what, here's where I think we're going to land there because we know that the next cycle of consoles is going to be based on like currentish CPU architectures. Now because it's just the way the development cycle works. So we're going to get. I think it's, I think it's planned to be Zen 4 or Zen 5. PS 6. Zen 4 or 5, what's it going to be? Blah blah, blah. Oh, is heavily rumored to use Zen 6. Okay. So the best case scenario is that the PlayStation 6 uses Zen 6. Did I see PS5 before? Sorry, PS5 uses like Zen 2 or something like this. Zen 2, Zen 3, I can't remember. The point is that PlayStation 6 apparently is heavily rumored to use AMD's Zen 6 architecture. So what that tells us is that we are not getting, you know, a paradigm shift in per core performance on the next line, on the next family of consoles. What that tells us is that every game developed for the next six, seven years after the PlayStation 6 launched. Stop it. After the PlayStation 6 launches. Is going to be targeting modest CPU cores. But the next one, assuming Nvidia is releasing Veer and now assuming that CPU companies have a two to three year development cycle that it will take them to catch up, that means more performance. CPU cores could be coming around PlayStation 7 time. Just in time for your early 40s. You could be looking at. Okay, it may be worth considering that I need more CPU performance on my desktop. That would be the most sort of makes sense, big picture timeline that I could put forward for when it would actually matter.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And like really matter.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Until then I think you'll see motherboard options with cam. I think you might even see desktop platforms that, that use soldered memory, but they might not feel Necessary for if you're not trying to squeeze every last frame out. Yeah,

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know. I don't know where I'll be at in that many years. I do know like looking at what's happening in the industry right now, it is a pretty freaking big nerf not being able to move your memory around. I have heard more and more. There was a. There was a panel at Open Sauce. It was building a PC in 2026 and there was a lot. It was a. When we were prepping for the panel,

[Linus Sebastian]

were there veils and, and. And handkerchiefs that everyone could get on their way into?

[Luke Lafreniere]

There was a discord thread of the. Of the panelists and the host prepping for the panel. And my first post was like, I can just like cry in the corner if you want. I don't know what you want us to cover. I think the panel ended up actually being pretty good. There was some repetition to it though. But one of the things that was mentioned was just moving memory around is like a thing that people are actually doing condensing. You know, you have, you have. You had maybe two systems. You condense the memory into one to get more capacity into one of them. Maybe you had one system that when RAM was really cheap, you're just like, I don't know, 64 gigs sounds pretty neat. I'll just get that. It's pretty cheap anyways now that maybe turns into two systems that are at

[Linus Sebastian]

32 because it's probably fine or whatever else. I used to, on a semi regular basis back before we even had like a digital inventory system. I would write down. I actually have a notebook that has pages of me doing this in it. I would write down all of our inventory so that I could balance all of the specs across all of our various workstations in the company and make sure that the people who needed things the most had the best stuff and that everyone else kind of got the hand me downs. And I was constantly balancing against the hardware that we needed to make our videos so that that would be free. Like back when we were in the Langley house. I would do that on a fairly regular basis.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And to your point, how now I can't even move. Like DDR5 is the first generation that I can think of. Actually there might have been something before before, but it's the first generation I can think of where the registered DIMMs have a completely different notch. So literally you cannot use them in the same motherboards as an unbuffered DIMM. On DDR4, you could. And there were certain platforms that would allow like ECC and unbuffered. And then were there any that did registered and unbuffered that I'm not sure that I'd have to like go and look up. But there's definitely less flexibility now even in the socketed stuff than. Than we had before.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. So like I. That is a very significant, you know, damage to the value proposition of the thing that you're buying, in my opinion is you can't part it out as easily. You are. You are losing there. It feel. It feels kind of like the whole physical media thing. You buy a digital version. Yeah. You can play it just fine while you have it. It will probably be okay as long as you're using it for the thing you want to use it for. You're probably good. But then once that's over, if someone bought a physical one, they can resell it or do something else with it. Memory is something that is. I mean, especially when I was kind of first getting into computers, people would always talk about how much memory you had. I remember when the first person I knew got one gig. It was like, whoa, that's crazy.

[Linus Sebastian]

A gigabyte? Yeah, like a billion bytes wild.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Incredible. I remember the first time. I think I've even told you this story before. The first time I ever saw one terabyte hard drive was at Pax. And someone stood up on top of a thing and held it up above their head and was like, I bet you've never seen a terabyte before. And everybody was like, whoa, it's crazy. Anyways, I'm frickin old. This is why I'm bad at video games anyways. But yeah, I don't know that that. That would seriously affect the calculation being made on the value of the product. And I could definitely see myself taking a slightly lower performance CPU if it came with memory that I could more easily remove. But I could also see myself in a situation where there's some form of.

[Linus Sebastian]

Linus gives you all your computers anyway, so it'll use whatever's in it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's kind of fair. I was explaining that to someone recently. They asked like, how much something cost? And I was like, I don't know. And they're like, what do you mean? I was like, I don't. Like I haven't built. I haven't bought the components from my own personal computer in a very long time. And they're like, what do you mean you haven't refreshed in a while? I was like, no, I Mean, I haven't refreshed since high school. Like, you don't understand.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's what I peaked.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Well, yeah, there was. I remember the last time I technically bought PC components was Intel. Retail. Extreme.

[Linus Sebastian]

Retail Edge, but Retail Edge.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure. And they had Extreme editions.

[Dan]

Yeah, and.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, they did.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's the one that went in the mineral oil tank. That's the last one I bought. Nice, because even before we had our agreement thing, you had me with different parts. I think. So I could do, like, editing better at home or something.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, because it was sad. What he was trying to edit on it was out of pity.

[Luke Lafreniere]

System was getting a little old.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right, why don't we jump into another topic? You want to pick one?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Where's this? I want to figure out more about this. Where did it go? Oh, no. I lost it.

[Linus Sebastian]

He lost it. He's lost it.

[Dan]

Oh, no.

[Linus Sebastian]

Are we going to address the foot cam at all, or is it pretty?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know. It's strange. I think people are going to see how much I fidget. Microsoft introduces Xbox backwards compatibility program on PC for original Xbox games with more to come will be available for purchase on PC via Game Pass. This is one part that confuses me. Or for free, if you already have a console digital license. So I guess you log in with the same account and then you get access to it on the computer, which is actually. That's cool. That makes sense.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The initial offerings are Blinks, the Time Sweeper.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Conquer, Live and Reloaded. Heard of that one? Crimson Skies, High Road to Revenge and Fusion Frenzy. I love Fusion Frenzy. That's actually genuinely pretty exciting. Especially if they. Man, if they had online multiplayer Fusion Frenzy, I would pay that. I would play the heck out of that. The part that confuses me is they will be available for purchase on PC via Game Pass. What does that mean?

[Linus Sebastian]

It means that. Wait. Yeah, what does that mean?

[Luke Lafreniere]

What does that.

[Linus Sebastian]

So if you have Game Pass, then you can buy it, but Game Pass

[Luke Lafreniere]

is like a rental. No, no, no.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's a comma, Luke. They'll be available for purchase on PC. Available via Game Pass, or free if you already have a console digital license. Three options. Okay, that makes way more sense.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So how much are they? Are they available now? When do they become available?

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I want to see how much it'll cost me to buy Fusion Frenzy.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, so these are all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, these are all, like, original Xbox games.

[Linus Sebastian]

Some outlets have said the experience is mostly good with some minor frame timing and judder Issues and

[Luke Lafreniere]

dude, it's $2.49.

[Dan]

Really?

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's on sale, 75% off. Okay, so for the next like six

[Linus Sebastian]

days, included in Essential game Pass. Or you can buy it for 250.

[Luke Lafreniere]

250. Can I play this? Multiplayer? Not local, single player, shared split screen. Xbox One is. Okay, well, I could do the cuz like I'm thinking on Steam. Yeah, you could just remote play.

[Dan]

Is that what Xbox Play anywhere is?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Xbox?

[Linus Sebastian]

No, Xbox Play anywhere is playing your. Your Xbox games streamed to something.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I will probably buy this. Fusion Frenzy was a lot of fun. And I only had the. The trial disc that came with some, like, magazine. I never even got to play, like, the whole game.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, well, our discuss. That answers our first discussion question. Which of these four games are you most likely to play?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, Fusion Frenzy for sure. And I will like, actually probably buy it. I remember one time I was at Microsoft hanging out for something. I don't remember what it was, and they had like, all the media people that were visiting hanging out in this, like, random room for a while while they did something, and they had a bunch of Xboxes set up and they had Fusion Frenzy in the machines. And I like, that was one of the games that you could play. And I like, recruited some random media people that were there to start playing Fusion Frenzy on one of them. And people started watching, and then people naturally started playing on the other Xbox and then the whole room ended, just people playing Fusion Frenzy, this like, ancient game. And people were having a lot of fun. Fusion Frenzy is great.

[Linus Sebastian]

Cool.

[Dan]

I've never.

[Linus Sebastian]

I've never tried it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's like Xbox's take on like a Mario party.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

So like, lots of mini games.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Lots of mini games.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's been forever since I played it, but I remember having a ton of fun. They have like, I mean, the. The thing on the box art. There we go.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. That's not a great sales pitch, honestly.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nope, it's not. But it's like. It's like that. That, like, platform game. I don't know if they have it here.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, where you bump each other off. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know if one of these is actually gonna show it, but they're

[Linus Sebastian]

all right at the beginning there. Is that not to the right?

[Dan]

To the right.

[Linus Sebastian]

Everything you own in a box. Oh, no, that's something else.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Some burgers or something?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, sure.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I mean, so again, I haven't played

[Linus Sebastian]

the actual 45 minigames.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So this is a race thing.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

45 minigames?

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sounds good. Whatever it was, it was like, if I remember correctly, most people played it through the demo disc.

[Linus Sebastian]

Maybe that was their mistake making the game demo too good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It was actually like there was a few different minigames. There was enough minigames on it that you and your friends could like play Fusion Frenzy and then be done with it and it would be fine. It was a little bit too much.

[Linus Sebastian]

Way to go, guys. Our other discussion question is, do you think Xbox has a vision for the future? I feel like we go back and forth on this every freaking week because it's like, there will be some news will come out and you'll go like, okay, we're so back. And then some other news will come out and we'll be like, they're doomed. Clearly they're just gonna sell it or spin it off. And then the next week it's like, wait, they're actually doing really cool stuff. Can you handle this degree of whiplash, Luke?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I mean, that's life right now. I think as much like, obviously layoffs are bad, I think that can be universally just been like, okay, layoffs are bad. People losing jobs are bad. 14 layers of management also unacceptable, right? So, like, they might also be on a really brutal timer, right? They might not have a lot of Runway to like, figure this out. When you're doing layoffs at the scale that they're doing, you're going to end up like, this isn't even like, oh, big brain. This is just very obvious. You're going to end up taking people out that shouldn't have been removed. You're going to have mistakes with a layoff of that sale. And that is very sad. Really good people trying to do really good things are going to lose their jobs over this. That's a, you know, that's a 14 layers of management failure, which sucks. But it feels like something that really needed to happen. Halo Infinite, costing $800 million to make, is just not okay. It's not a good enough game for that output. They have to figure something out. They have these old ancient, legendary studios outputting just like, I don't know, in Bethesda's case, practically nothing. Like, something's gotta give when. Oh, man, I can barely even remember his name. Starfield. When Starfield came out, the conversation was largely around, like, this game failed largely because of management failure. Like, this stuff needed to get addressed. There was conversations about like, apparently Todd wasn't even happy about it because, like, it was structured where every single decision had to go through Todd. And Todd was basically like, this is nuts. Like, I. This isn't how Morrowind was made. This isn't how Oblivion was made. A lot of writers and creatives in the. In the creation of the game had more autonomy, which is one of the reasons why those games can feel kind of disconnected. Sometimes you can be in an area doing something and it has like a certain kind of tone and feel and

[Linus Sebastian]

then you go on another quest and

[Luke Lafreniere]

it's like very different.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, this is like, it went from like, oh, spooky scary to like, this is kind of funny and whimsical. Yeah, I remember. I never was able to put my finger on it, but I remember that from Oblivion.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Oh yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Where the.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, big time in Oblivion.

[Linus Sebastian]

I never ever put my finger on exactly what I was noticing or even. And because I didn't do that, I never thought about thinking about why old Elder Scrolls games so much sense.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The. The various developers around the company, I believe even Todd would talk about like after the game K out, they would play it and discover things.

[Linus Sebastian]

Right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like, it was a lot of very strong contributors.

[Dan]

Right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And that's one of the reasons why they're able to make them so fast. The gap between Moro and Oblivion is really short. The gap between Oblivion and Skyrim isn't even really that long. And then now we're looking at like just enormous gaps where like, I don't know, someone will have not been alive when Skyrim came out and be old enough to enjoy the next game.

[Linus Sebastian]

Elder Scrolls Arena 3-25-94 Daggerfall 9-20-96 Morrowind. That was a. That was a pretty big gap. Six years.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Morrowind was like the biggest map in

[Linus Sebastian]

a video game ever when it released May 1, 2002.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oblivion March 20, 2006, only four years. Then 2011 to Skyrim, November 2011, and then crickets.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Frickin crickets, dude. It's 2026, bruh.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's been 15 years. Okay, okay, put. To put that in context, to put that in context, from the Elder Scrolls arena to The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim was 17 years since the Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It has been almost been the entire duration of the entire Elder Scrolls series since we got another Elder Scrolls. Like, that doesn't work. I don't like. So something has to break. So some breakage there. As painful as it is, as brutal as it is for the people losing their jobs, as especially brutal as it is for the people that are really doing great work and are also losing

[Linus Sebastian]

their jobs, and as brutal as it is for the people staying behind 100%.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The level of demoralization has to be insane. And you have to try to figure out how to keep going on or else your job isn't going to continue to exist. And there's a lot of threat looming because there's another layoff coming soon and you don't know that there won't be more because something is going to have to change for there to not be more. But the management structures there, and I'm sure tons of other things are a problem. 14 layers of management doesn't work when you're trying to do a creative process, especially, oh, my God, way to get out the most bland, vanilla Starfield crap ever. That's how it's going to work. But, yeah, it's interesting. You watch, like, I don't know, how can you have a lot of the generally quite serious tones of a lot of the Elder Scrolls games and then also have Sheogorath in the world throwing cheese wheels at you for fun? Like, it's. It's. It's because it's a creative soup.

[Linus Sebastian]

Someone had lunch with Phil Schaefer or something.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, that's the only possible explanation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And he was like, you know, it'd be funny.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Let's make a cheese dimension. Yeah, it's there. Like, it's. I remember in Skyrim, I had no. I had no idea this was coming. I think it was in Winterfell, you. You do, like, a drinking competition with some dude, and then you wake up and, like, everything is just mess. You, like, blackout. And then you wake up and everything's just messed up. And it turns out the drinking competition was with Shio Gorath, and you have to uncover, like, what you did while you were blacked out. And it's just like, what just happened. It went from, like, Skyrim, I'm a Dragon Lord, to, like, hang over the moon in the middle of the game. But it was, like, actually really fun and engaging in the story of. It was really good. That was so great. And now it's, you know, what is the hue of this pot? I don't know. Better talk to Todd. And that. That doesn't work and makes it take 17 trillion years to make another game. So, yeah, something has to change at Xbox. It sounds like there's a lot of change. Change is really, really chaotic. I don't think we are even sort of close to the end of the painful, chaotic change. And I hope they find a way out of it because there's a lot of really cool IPs there and a lot of really cool people working there, I'm sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

You know what's really funny is we've had some painful, chaotic change here lately.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And I. Around the world right now, I actually, like, gave an impromptu kind of talk to the writing team like, an hour ago where I was basically just like you, I think, actually said it better than I did. So I kind of wish that I had said it better.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't even know what this is,

[Linus Sebastian]

but it was basically just like, you know. You know, am I stressed? Yes. Yeah, super stressed. But there's a difference. This is a. This is a stress that is not. It's not an external stress. It's a. Like, it's kind of an. It's kind of a. Like. Like, it's time to lock in and there's work to be done, and it can be really exciting. And it's. It's. It's stress about. It's stress about, like, a new opportunity. Because, you know, I think. I think internally we have a lot of things that we do really well, and I think we have a lot of stuff that hasn't been working as well. And. And. And I think that some of the upheaval that we've had is going to force us to reevaluate and do things differently. I've seen a growing sentiment over the last little while that the content is starting to feel more classic ltt. And it's not because there's different people working on it. In a lot of cases, it's some of our. It's some of our oldest timers that are working on a lot of that content. But the processes are changing, and we're getting out of necessity, slash out of. Because we're bored of being bored. We're getting scrappier again. Actually had a ton of fun today. Like, Elijah. Elijah was here before the show, and he was, like, exhausted because we shot all day, but we shot two ltts today that were both just. Just fun.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Amazing.

[Linus Sebastian]

You know, I.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's actually so important, and I'm very happy to hear that.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, one of them. One of them doesn't sound fun. Elijah and I were having a conversation and realized, separate from the video, that both of us needed a printer. Right now. Our reasons for needing a printer were completely different. So he's got a lot more, like, business administration that he's got to do because of his, like, streaming side hustle, and he needs a printer. And my kids are getting to, like, high school age, and they need to, surprisingly, stuff. They still need to hand things in whether it's like putting things on a poster board or whether it's like handing in an assignment, they actually still need to hand stuff in on paper more often than I expected. And so we kind of went, is that a video?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is us going shopping for a printer? Is honestly, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Is us going printer shopping a video? And we made the decision and it turns out that was easy. Yeah, yeah, it's a video. And so today, Elijah and I, having done zero research, neither of us having bought a printer. So to give you context, Elijah hadn't bought a printer ever. And my current, most up to date printer that I bought is made by Samsung.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They haven't made printers in a minute, I think.

[Linus Sebastian]

So how long do you think a minute is? Don't look at the chat, don't look at the chat. They're not going to help you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So when I worked at Geek Squad, they sold Samsung printers, so they definitely made them. As of when would that have been? 2011, I think. So I'm going to guess that they stopped in 2015.

[Linus Sebastian]

You're actually super close. HP announced the acquisition of Samsung's printer business in 2016.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That was pretty good, actually.

[Linus Sebastian]

So it's been almost 10 years since Samsung printers have even been a thing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And you definitely bought yours notably before they stopped being.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh yeah, brother.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm pretty sure yours was old by that time.

[Linus Sebastian]

It wasn't new. So, you know, yeah, so we, we basically went in like, oh yeah, we'll, you know, how about the eco tank? Is, Is that a, is that a good thing? And, and it's, it's really, it's really interesting getting a.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's actually got to be so much fun watching Linus and Elijah go into a store and just try to figure what the heck all the terms are on the label for a tech product actually sounds hilarious.

[Linus Sebastian]

And the most frustrating part is how many terms were not on the label. Like, there's a part in the video where I'm like, see, See, this is why everybody's turning to AI because instead of having standardized labels that all have the same specs so that I can easily compare them, they all have the different things on them. One of them says how many pages per minute? And the next one over says whether it has a fax function or not. But does this one have a fax function? How many pages a minute does that one do? I don't know. That wasn't easy. Okay, I'll ask the AI. And now I have to go and

[Luke Lafreniere]

cross check everything, verify everything it says.

[Linus Sebastian]

Bloody stupid thing. It Says, because I can't trust it at all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Especially the Google one. Well, especially the search integrated ones.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it's all low tier. It's very frustrating. And I actually also. It was another shopping video which was like they were both in the same place. So we shot Linus buys Yvonne a phone as well. And that was frustrating for a completely different reason. How many options do you think there were for buying a printer

[Luke Lafreniere]

these days? Like eight.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, dude, I kid you not. Like 50.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Whoa.

[Linus Sebastian]

Tons.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You're in.

[Linus Sebastian]

We're in Staples.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Ah, okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Tons. Okay. We got you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You did say the whole easy button thing. All right. Yeah, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

We got your Epson. We got your hp. We got. We. Hey, come on up here. We got your brother. We got your inkjet.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Are you including.

[Linus Sebastian]

Got your toner deco. T. Got. They got so many options. Multifunction. They got everything, man. Business grade, consumer grade. Do you want the free age?

[Luke Lafreniere]

So, okay, I didn't. I was basically only thinking, like, consumer grade, if that helps at all.

[Linus Sebastian]

They got everything.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They probably still had way more than eight.

[Linus Sebastian]

They got everything. Okay. Okay. How many options do you think Yvonne had for phones?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't shop for things. No. Okay. Is she excluding any?

[Linus Sebastian]

She is not buying an iPhone again.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, so nothing on the iPhone side of things. We gotta look. Probably a couple generations. 15.

[Linus Sebastian]

You're not even close. But the other way at the store, what there was, and I kid you not, There was the S25FE.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay?

[Linus Sebastian]

There are S26, 26 plus, 26 ultra. They had the Flip and both of the new folds. So we're up to seven. And then they had like the Pixel 10, a 10 and 10 Pro.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The flip and the two folds.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, they were just installing them today,

[Luke Lafreniere]

but not like a bajillion other things.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude, there was like.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That seems wild.

[Linus Sebastian]

It was an absolute desert of choice. Okay, okay. You know what? You're actually really close. No, I forgot there were two Motorolas as well. There was like two Motorola, so it was like there was like 12 phones.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

So actually you're close, but I was just.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Was that Staples again?

[Linus Sebastian]

No, that was Best Buy. So, like, where's the. You know, and I know LG doesn't make them anymore, right? But, like, where's the lg? Where's the Sony? Where's the Asus Rog? And to be clear, I know those also don't exist, but, like, where's the Xiaomi and Realme?

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's kind of your point, isn't it? They're all kind of falling off Everything's gone. One plus just left. North America markets.

[Linus Sebastian]

No oppo, no Vivo.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Xperia is.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, are they Japan exclusive now?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think you can get, like, international ones shipped to you, but I don't think they're in retail stores in North America. Yeah, Dan probably knows.

[Dan]

Just. This one that I have is the. What, the six or something like that? It was available in America. There's an American variant. The previous generation did not have a North American variant.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Do you have that cool new one?

[Dan]

Not the newest one? No, I just. I just upgraded this. I'm good with this one. But I still buy the Chinese variants because they have unlocked bootloader. They're locked in America.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The Xperia phones right now are like my favorite phones on paper. If you don't include the price as a line of item and then you include the price as a line item, and it's like, never mind.

[Dan]

I got to go and prepare the other one for you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's. It's.

[Dan]

I am so dumb.

[Linus Sebastian]

Anyways, fine. Anyway, I was just like. I was. I was blown away. Your options are pretty much Pixel, iPhone, Samsung, or go F K yourself.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And the difference between those these days, I think is also less than, like, ever before.

[Linus Sebastian]

So boring. Oh, Pete. Kinetics. Okay. Peak natics. In the chat, it's like, I miss when HTC made good phones. Dude, I found an HTC One Mini in, like, my seat cushions the other day.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Those were nice.

[Linus Sebastian]

And I was like, man, those felt good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Those felt really good.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, damn, that's nice. You know? Like, where are the freaking options, man? Yeah, so, yeah, it was disappointing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, there was. There was some phones from Best phone that era, plus or minus, like, three years, that were just incredible.

[Linus Sebastian]

I was a big Droid Turbo guy. I freaking loved the Droid Turbo with the ballistic nylon backing.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Actually, you know what? Yeah. They didn't have it at Best Buy today, so it wasn't an option for Yvonne's purchase. But Motorola has a really nice fold now. The razor. Check out the backing material.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was looking at the backing material before I even felt it. It looks really sharp. I don't know if you guys. Which one? That one?

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's not that close.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't think they're gonna be able to really see.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, they're not gonna be able to.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Really nice pattern. It feels great in the hand, actually.

[Linus Sebastian]

So I'm probably not gonna daily that just because the. I just got my hands on this and then, like, immediately the. The Z fold eight arrived. And I am very curious to see If I can get used to the form factor. I actually shot the short circuit unboxing of it like right before I came down here. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Of just like a normal. Oh, it's not normal. I see. Yeah, it's like super wide and kind of short.

[Linus Sebastian]

What did you call me right after I said it? The did you just say to me?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I said it and then just stared at the phone and was like, we're gonna just move on. Oh, my. Oh, yeah. That's kind of weird.

[Dan]

Oh.

[Linus Sebastian]

One of these days he will become the experienced on camera personality that he was born to be. And he will not hold the camera out of sight or the phone out of sight.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Let me, let me look. Let me look at this real quick. It's.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm dying.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was not born to be this. We shaped me into this weird amoeba. It's, it's, it's. It's a strange form factor. Okay, here's my 8 Pro, for example.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's very short. It's like very Luke Lin. Right up to where. Right up to where the camera bump is. But then if I open it up, it's enormous.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Flip. Flip it 90 degrees. No, no.

[Dan]

Oh, God.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, the other. You don't even. I'll. I'll wait. I can wait.

[Dan]

What?

[Linus Sebastian]

That's.

[Dan]

Stop.

[Linus Sebastian]

Good enough. There you go. Now you can see the height difference. Okay. Are you actually not going to hold it like that there?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I thought I had already shown that. Sorry.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, so it's got. It's like this.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. You could turn it to the side.

[Linus Sebastian]

So I was interested. When I was shooting the short circuit, I was actually like, I was doing the thing where I list all the positives about it so that I can ultimately go, yeah, but like, come on. And then I went. And I held it like this and I went, holy crap, they might be onto something. It's like, like that is. That's big, you know, and it's like. And it's light. It's only 201 grams. It's very like battery life holdable. I think as a. Don't quote me on this. It's in the short circuit. 46 or 4800 milliamp hours.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's a Samsung.

[Linus Sebastian]

I've gotten shockingly good battery life out of the fold 7. I've been extremely happy with it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Are they doing battery in each. Whatever you call it, I don't know section?

[Linus Sebastian]

Actually, not sure. Haven't done a tear down. Wouldn't surprise me if they did. But I'm not sure.

[Dan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

All. All yours for the low, low price of 2500 US dollars for the one terabyte model.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No longer interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I didn't think so.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yep.

[Linus Sebastian]

1900 for the. I think it's. Is it the 256 or one. I think it's a 256.

[Luke Lafreniere]

My old 8 Pro is still choo chin. I. I am planning on probably doing a battery replacement because the battery on at this point is brutal. It's.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, that's the 256 for. Yeah, 1900. Anyone want to pick a topic? How did we end up on this after Xbox backward compatibility. This show is. Can't even.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sometimes we do be doing stuff. Who isn't going to be doing stuff is. Under 15s in France are not going to be social mediaing unless they find a very obvious way around the law. French lawmakers approved a bill on Tuesday banning social media access for children under 15. The measure must still pass the Constitutional council before it can take effect. What's the right age for this kind of outright ban?

[Linus Sebastian]

That was pretty much all I had to say about it. I mean, I guess we could do the discussion topic.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's interesting. I mean, I think we've kind of talked this to death a little bit, but we can talk about the right age, I guess. I have no idea.

[Linus Sebastian]

Helpful. Yeah. I'm trying to think like, you know, what would, you know, like, what was my maturity level then? And. But the world was so different.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Very, very, very different.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, if you had told me at 15 or if you told me at 14 that I'm not allowed to have my MSN messenger to talk to my friends, I'd been like, you're crazy. Yeah, like, of course. Of course I should. And looking back at it, I don't, I don't think that was a problem. But the access to it, Access to

[Luke Lafreniere]

it was very different.

[Linus Sebastian]

Way more limited, had to be on your desktop and probably at that time you had a single shared computer for the entire household.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

So it was. Yeah, it was a. It was a. It was a different time. Yeah. I could see. I don't know. Crystal says under 13, I could, I could see that. I could see 13 as a. As a threshold. With that said, like 13 year olds are, no offense, 13 year olds. But like, they're not, they're not mentally mature yet, like at all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And social media, I guess social media

[Luke Lafreniere]

tends to assume that everyone is an adult.

[Linus Sebastian]

There's two different conversations here. Right. I think there's one conversation around what should be the age limit of social media. And then I think there's almost a separate conversation about what should be the age limit of the like hyper tuned, hyper addictive hook you forever like monster that social media morphed into. Because I don't think there's any reason that a 13 year old couldn't have been on say what Facebook was in the early days.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I would potentially even argue Discord now.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, Discord is somewhat monitored.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Discord now I think is more similar to old social media platforms in that you are the human connect server with your buddies. It's kind of like having an MSN messenger from back in the day.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. And so, and so I don't see a problem with that. But you know when you talk about like, like if one of my kids asked me, hey can I install Instagram? I'd be like no.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Or, or Twitter X, whatever.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, that's a hard no.

[Luke Lafreniere]

TikTok hard no. Yeah, those like infinite scrolling freaking billions of dollars spent in mind control type things is, is, is a different threshold and it like feels weird being like, yeah, Discord's the good one. I think there are obviously, as we saw when, when Discord did some not cool things recently, there are other similar alternatives. The line for me and the reason why I'm saying Discord is, yeah, it can be used poorly. You can end up on really bad communities on Discord. There's, there was some stuff in the news recently of some like really terrible things going through Discord that's going to be true for everything. But I think in general when, when used fairly appropriately, it'll be direct messaging with your friends. Very similar to msn.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yep.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And a potential like server thing that you could just have with your friends from school that should theoretically do a decent job of, of having some amount of wall in between, just the whole open Internet and thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

And our rule with our kids is hey, you're a minor and the deal is if you're allowed to use a platform that enables you to communicate broadly with the world, were allowed to look at it and we'll tell you we're going to come look at it and we'll do it together. We're not going to snoop on you. There will be no cloak and daggering in this relationship.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's nice, that's cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

But that's the deal.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And some people might look at that and go helicopter parenting. Knock on wood. My kids all seem like they're turning out really good so far. So no regrets. And there's I'll stay In my little helicopter.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You know, just like every single thing. If the. If the kids are. I like that. That's amazing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Not even what a helicopter sounds like.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nope. That's fantastic.

[Linus Sebastian]

Riding in the Linus copter.

[Luke Lafreniere]

If they really want to, if they're really motivated enough, they could just memorize the server ID and just leave it every time. Like, there. There is. If the kids really want to.

[Dan]

Yep.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Are super motivated. There will be a way around it. That's how I feel like with all of these laws too. It's like, yeah, okay, until I go on to like some realistic looking video game and make a character and then do some AI altering to the character and make it look like I create a Persona and then create that digital Persona online. And now I'm an adult who's able to get onto these social media platforms. Like, there are ways around it, but I think even putting up a little bit of a barrier to try to dissuade and effectively communicate to parents like, hey, this is dangerous for your kids, genuinely, I think can be a good thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

GLOW says, as someone that was raised by the Internet with no parental guidelines, thank you for watching out for them. All right. Okay. Maybe I'll pick the next one here.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Should we get all the Xbox stuff out of the way or. You know what? No, I'm gonna go with this one. The tariff saga continues. And I'm not talking about the most recent retaliatory tariffs for Wildfire Smoke, which is wild. No, I'm talking about Nintendo filing a motion to dismiss the class action from gamers who say that Nintendo would be double dipping by keeping its tariff refund after they passed tariff costs onto customers. Nintendo's argument, in its lawyer's words, is that buyers. This is a quote. Received exactly what they bargained and paid for when they bought this price hiked hardware. And this is another quote. Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs. In other words, Nintendo's version of events is the sticker said, $499 for one Switch 2, please. You paid $499. We gave you a Switch 2. The deal is now done. The reason this is coming up is that Nintendo raised prices actually on both the Original Switch and Switch 2 accessories, citing tariffs. The Supreme Court struck those tariffs down in February. Nintendo sued the government for its own refund in March. And then gamers filed the class action in April. Nintendo's filing argues that it has no legal duty to retroactively adjust prices on completed sales, saying that's not how commercial transactions work. Game Files. Steven Tatilo was first to report the motion. Our discussion question is Nintendo blamed tariffs for price increases. Then they sued to get their tariff money back while telling customers, a deal's a deal. Legally, they might be right. So why do some people feel that they are so wrong? And I. This is one of those ones. I think I both sides to this the last time we talked about it. And I'll let you talk first because spoiler alert, I'm gonna both sides it again. So get ready.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I mean, there are other costs involved as we talked about this last time. Thanks, Dan. It's not like, I mean, there's even legal fees with them trying to sue the government to get their tariff money back. Like there's. There are other costs involved. It doesn't just magically evaporate like that.

[Linus Sebastian]

The tariffs are also going away. The tariff cost is being taken or refunded to Nintendo because the tariffs were found to be illegal. There's nothing illegal about Nintendo putting a 499 price tag on something and you paying it. That's. That's legal.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's really nice.

[Linus Sebastian]

That sucks. Yeah, yeah. No one's saying this doesn't suck. It's just. It's not illegal there.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think the people suing Nintendo are gonna lose.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, yes, yeah. Yes, they will. Yeah. But what about the moral question? Morally speaking, do you think they're right? Should Nintendo pass the tariff refund back along?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think part of it would be nice. I think if. If they could somehow figure out what a reasonable portion is, because again, there's

[Linus Sebastian]

turning L's into W's. Sorry, I'm gonna let you finish, but I have a. I have an idea that I will pitch to Nintendo free of charge in a moment.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, cool. Is like, obviously the legal fees involved with this cost something pivoting the whole company the amount of wasted time that they could have been doing other cool things, trying to figure out what is an appropriate rate that we can set it at with these literally constantly changing tariffs. What are these countermeasures we can do to move manufacturing or do other things to dodge these tariffs? All of that has actually very substantial cost. So if you work that out and then figure out how much is remaining in the increased pot, then you could.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, here's my pitch. Here's my pitch to Nintendo free of charge. Okay. As a. As an act of. As an act of goodwill, you guys take your tariff refund, which is going to be all done out in Public, Right. So everyone's going to know how much tariff refund you get and you basically go, okay, here's the deal. Everyone who bought a Switch 2 or everyone who bought a Switch 2 so far, and everyone who bought a Switch 1 since you know, some date gets $5 off a game over some amount in the Nintendo Eshop. At the end of the day it actually costs you nothing because you are incentivizing a purchase. So you will make money on the transaction. You could think of it as a marketing expense and it's still an act of goodwill realistically, you know, in terms of what class action settlements ultimately end up being. Still giving something back to the entire Nintendo Switch customer base and Nintendo community. It's a way to, it's a way to kind of be a good guy and, and spend the money that, that you got after the fact, but on something that ultimately benefits you and your customers. We take a big L, we turn it into a W. Everybody wins.

[Dan]

You're welcome.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was also potentially thinking some like Nintendo online time or something like that. Yeah, yeah, something like that could be cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Some way to turn this crappy situation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Doing something for the customers makes sense. A full refund of the entire difference of the cost doesn't because Nintendo still incurred a lot of cost trying to deal with this situation. But, but yeah, there's something, some form of making the lives better of the people who bought it at the inflated price would be really cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, I don't even know if it has to be because. Okay, because if you make it the people who specifically bought at the inflated cost, then then that's basically, that's setting a really dangerous precedent for Nintendo because now all of a sudden you are opening the door to the conversation of like, you know, if there's ever like, like if Nintendo gets a rebate from their, their battery oem, like is everybody gonna get, is everybody who bought a Switch gonna get a refund? Like, come on, Ben.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It comes back down to what you were kind of saying though. The tariffs were illegal tariffs and they said that they raised the price specifically for that. So did they raise the price because of an illegal activity from their battery manufact that they got refunded for?

[Linus Sebastian]

We'd never know that's true. Maybe we would never know that. Right. So they're setting like a really weird precedent if they go and alter the deal after the fact. Whereas if they just say, hey, here's a windfall. We love our Switch community so. Very huggy. Muggy much. Here's Something then I think that defuses a lot of the anger and maybe even goes more broadly than just the people who paid more than they would have liked for a game console.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I think that's cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

I. And look, I'm not saying, you know,

[Luke Lafreniere]

$5 logistical, absolute freaking nightmare.

[Linus Sebastian]

Which, to be clear, which one?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Gift cards, refunding.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, that. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's insane.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Whereas like in like, like running a promo, basically saying, yeah, for the next

[Luke Lafreniere]

week, you know, I bought my Switch from Nintendo from Willow. Let's say I bought it during the tariff increase.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You think Nintendo is going to specifically talk with Willow to get in contact with me to give me money back? Like how any of this happens, I don't even know. Yeah, there's probably a simpler way. They could set up some site and you can try to like submit a receipt or something and then they have to do like OCR stuff on figuring out if the receipt is legitimate.

[Linus Sebastian]

And ain't any of that happening.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, probably not. So I like the idea of the something. I think that's pretty cool. Eshop gift card, free Nintendo online. Something like that would be pretty sweet.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right. Speaking of online shops, don't they do

[Luke Lafreniere]

this all the time with rebates? No, because the ones you're thinking of is a rebate that you get on the purchase of the product. So you would get some form of information that you then submit in order to get a rebate back. This is retroactive. Yeah, so it would not.

[Linus Sebastian]

So we weren't planning ahead for it

[Luke Lafreniere]

this time, which is actually a huge problem in this case. Case.

[Linus Sebastian]

They're finally here. The last socks you'll ever want to buy. The LTT Forever socks. Oh, dang it. It moved right as I tried to click available in. Well, sort of available. Some of the, some of the colors are already out. Man, we. One of these days we're going to nail our forecasting, but it is not this day. The point is on the. Is this the US Site? Yeah, on the US site we still have one color in one size. And I think the global site still has. Yes, the global site actually still has pretty decent socks stock. Socks, stock sock. They're pretty decent socks stock. The Forever Sock is finally freaking here. After six years, we have dropped our much anticipated Forever sock. We obsessed over everything from the premium merino wool blend to the copper infused odor control to the reinforced heel and toe construction. The result, a long lasting sock that I think is the last socks you'll want to wear. And yes, we are even backing them with Our limited lifetime warranty. So my notes here say, go make your feet happy at LMG GG Foreversock. And then it says, Note, high chance US site will be sold out by 4. Oh, okay. Well, that was a while ago. Cool. But the global site. Global site still has stock and US

[Luke Lafreniere]

site still has smalls.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think our forever sock is a great opportunity for you guys to send in a checkout message. We on the WAN show believe that if you're gonna throw money at your screen at live streamers, that you should get something great in return for that money. So we don't do twitch bits. We don't do super chats. What we do is comms a checkout message. All you got to do to send one is, while we're streaming, head over to lttstore.com, add something to your cart, and you will see in the checkout one of these. You click this button, and you can type a message. You can change the color. You can decide whether to display your name or not display your name. And then all you gotta do is go to the checkout, and your message will go to producer Dan. There he is. Who will, I don't know, pop it up here, or he'll reply to it, or he might curate it for me and Luke to respond to. So, producer Dan, do you want to show the folks what that might look like when you curate a message?

[Dan]

Yeah, I've got a bunch here. The first one here is actually about the socks, so that works great.

[Linus Sebastian]

That makes sense.

[Dan]

Hope you're swell. DLL, can you explain how you choose SKUs for your first items? For your items, why three colorways and not two styles for socks? It feels like variety should beat out colors to my novice noggin,

[Linus Sebastian]

that is a great, great question. We do our best. We actually.

[Dan]

We.

[Linus Sebastian]

We actually, like, agonize over this kind of thing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You're. You're.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Just genuinely trying to predict the future.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And in a lot of ways, because you're trying to predict the future of what colors people want, you're trying to predict the future of what sizes people want, and you're trying to predict the future of that in different geographical locations. Because now we have two stores.

[Linus Sebastian]

What styles they want, too. So we were going to launch with a half crew, and then we ultimately made the decision to launch with a full crew because we kind of figured, okay, well, the trend right now is that, you know, kind of like how hemlines rise and fall with trends, sock heights rise and fall with trends. Ankle socks are out and Longer socks are trending back, so we wanted to get out ahead of that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is where I'm. This is probably the thing I am most unk about. I can't do it. Which, the tall socks.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, you can't do it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Dry Drives me crazy.

[Linus Sebastian]

You're an ankle sock guy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, yeah. But literally always.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, that's crazy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. I have never once liked. Even when I'm trying to go, like, as warm as possible in a snow boot.

[Linus Sebastian]

You'll wear an ankle sock in a snowboard boot.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I believe I have done so.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's insane. Okay, so we can safely ignore him.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

You know what's funny is five years ago, I was the unk guy because ankle socks were in and I was wearing tall socks.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

So that was another thing that shifted us towards the full crew for the launch. And so. Right. So in response, why not two styles instead of three colors? So for one thing, two styles in two colors would have been four lines, which would have been 33% more. So four doesn't sound like a lot more than three. Except that four is 33% more. And already with the three, we have three sizes times three colors. So that's nine times two locations. So that is 18 discrete bins somewhere in order to have a sock. If we had gone with two colors in two styles, that would have been. What did I just. What number did I just say? 18. So it would have been 33% more. So it would have been another six. It would have been 24. It's insane.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Really, really fast. How many SKUs do you guys have? It's thousands.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I know it's thousands.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's thousands. I know it's thousands. I literally don't know exactly how many it is.

[Dan]

Yeah, I can check if you.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, no, no.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'd rather not know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Doesn't matter.

[Dan]

You do not want to.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, rather not know. Ben. Bob says, why not Excel size? Because we didn't. We had to start somewhere. This was our first foray into sox. We were pretty bullish on this. Clearly we were not bullish enough. We did not order enough. But we will. We will order more. And when we do so you can expect that we are going to be looking at over the next little while. Hey, do we do a half crew? Do we do an ankle? Do we do expanded sizing? Because to say that the launch has been successful would be an understatement. One of the things that we struggle with, though, and I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna Be real with you guys right now is maintaining momentum on our products. We will have these, like, amazing product launches, and we'll sell a few socks in a day, and then a couple months later, the buzz has kind of, like, died down, and we really struggle. We're doing better, to be clear. We're doing better at it, and we're always improving, but we kind of struggle with the ongoing marketing of our products.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There is. Yeah, yeah. And I'll go. I do think sometimes it's. We make such a varied set of things.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, we do that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It can.

[Linus Sebastian]

Minus lead development, actually. They're getting better about that too. The fashion team is really putting a lot of pressure on me to have a cohesive, you know, product roadmap rather than just like, like, okay, okay. I was in the middle of the meeting where they're literally going through the fall winter 27 plan with me, like, to give you some idea how far out ahead they are on this stuff, because they're, like, organized. Real, like, organized people. And. And I'm like, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I just had a. I just had a brainstorm. Okay, can we do a T shirt that just has, like, a PI symbol and then, like, a picture of a rat? Because I think our audience would just freaking love that. And they're like, yeah, well, yeah, we'll put it in the pile. So you got. You got to have a balance of both. You got to have just, like, the creative dragon energy, and then you've also got to have the, like, the structure. And so what you're seeing here is creative dragon energy. Hey, we need to make this thing. And here's all the cool stuff it should have, and it's gonna be awesome. And then it's like, okay, we need to start somewhere. So here's how we pare down the offerings to something reasonable. And here's how we kind of, like, go to market and then expand it. But then where Luke is going with this is like, okay, as we take that slow and steady approach in the background, how exactly is it that you can tell what kind of store this is?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Well, okay, here's my question.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Without the banner, how did I not

[Linus Sebastian]

wear that shirt for the video? Anyway, go ahead.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Without this banner. So let's pretend this banner is not in rotation. Let's go forward a few weeks, a couple months, whatever. Where are the socks?

[Linus Sebastian]

They are under apparel.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nope.

[Linus Sebastian]

Really? Oh, okay. Well, okay. I'll. I'll ask for that to be moved.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We make so many different things that sometimes the categorization of stuff gets kind of weird. Like if I go under tools and I click on screwdrivers. Oh, it has improved. Someone listen to me. Thank you very much. But it's, it's sometimes finding stuff on the store is, like, kind of hard. And part of that is because we just make so much stuff. I don't know that many stores other than like a freaking, I don't know, Target that sells, like, some of the variety of different things that we have. We have apparel, both tops, bottoms, loungewear, underwear, jackets, vests, hats. Everything you can imagine for apparel. We have screwdrivers, we have tape, we have the bit cases. We have bits. We have cables. We have cable management. We have thermal pads. We have hand slider things for mouse pads. We have cable management of keychains, pins, stickers, toys you haven't even mentioned. Water bottles, pet caves, water bottles, desk pads, stationary. What is happening?

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, it doesn't move and it just,

[Luke Lafreniere]

it just keeps going. So it's, it's difficult to. I sympathize with the problem, but it's difficult to, like, kind of decide where things are going to go and make them discoverable. But also, some people don't necessarily realize that these are clickable things that are categories. So, like, it's the whole thing. It's all very. It's very tough. See, like, backpacks is like that right now. There's no subcategory for backpacks. It's just the backpacks category. But then like screwdriver. There's screwdrivers. But then position and ratcheting.

[Linus Sebastian]

For what it's worth.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's so hard.

[Linus Sebastian]

Don't take this the wrong way. The team that works on the website, we, we know that it's a difficult challenge.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

And no matter what we do, it's not going to be perfect.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a very difficult problem to solve when you have this many different things.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, I think what I'm discovering is like, as much as, like, like, remember when, Remember when, like, Asus would get all butt hurt when we would say, when we would just call their ROG monitor an ASUS monitor. We'd be like, oh, my God, just relax.

[Dan]

Your.

[Linus Sebastian]

Your Asus, you. You make Rog just chill.

[Dan]

Right?

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's because they make so many things. They need their categorization.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm beginning to understand why you need sub brands.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's, It's. This is a big part. This problem is a big part of the reason why I gave so much props to the Forever Sock name and the truspec Name is. Because giving them something more searchable like that is like helpful. The search on the store is starting to become significantly more important.

[Dan]

Right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Because like just finding things is tough.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Simpleton says. I did not realize the title was of the categories that were like clickable. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So if that's true, how do you find a backpack? So it's like, it's.

[Dan]

Oh.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I'm very interested in. I was talking to Tarant about this the other day having like most behavior stuff on the site and trying to figure out like how. Yeah. How people actually use the site because I'm interested in what people click on and I wonder like how much of that, like recency bias in product releasement for releasement in product releases for sales is the banner. Because the banner is really effective at, you know, getting something out in front of you. The shop. Products down here, these, these categories, it all looks nice. Like the store looks great. But there's just so many different things. If we just sold T shirts it would be fine. But we don't. We also sell everything. It's like, where do we put all this stuff?

[Linus Sebastian]

Cable management. Yeah, yeah. Pens, Pens.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Where are pens? Accessories. Accessories. Nope. Home and decor.

[Dan]

We also do accessories for the screwdriver like grip tape extensions.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There we go.

[Dan]

We got it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Floppy disk, notebook. Notebook. And also children's toys. Mechanical pencil and pen. Yeah, yeah, I forgot about the children's toys.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Books, home of decor.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right, all right, Dan, we get it. We get it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Decor.

[Linus Sebastian]

What do we have under decor? Okay, we need to just blow Those away.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There's eight left.

[Dan]

There's eight left.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There'S eight small ones left.

[Linus Sebastian]

Can you guys do me a favor and just buy those, please? That would be great. Then we could get it off the site.

[Dan]

Yeah, then we can reprint them.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, we're not reprinting them. What are the reviews on this? People left reviews on this. This has five stars.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's all five stars. This product is perfect. What the. Go away. Will likely get sticker bombed.

[Linus Sebastian]

I just wanted something to fill some space on my wall. Once again, LTT delivered with this masterpiece. It's a damn good print creator. Warehouse seems to only be able to deliver at 110%. I can't wait to see what new products are released. Absolutely beautiful accent to my drab room.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It really, really should have looked at the specs. Thought the print would be way larger. But that's my fault for not paying attention. I will apply a thick epoxy coat the same way I coat my stickers and Other print based decor, Huh?

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know what that means.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Me neither.

[Linus Sebastian]

Did. Was that one comm.

[Dan]

Yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, hit me.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Dan, we're on one today.

[Dan]

You're still doing good for time.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay.

[Dan]

Dear Linus, what would you change about the Canadian school system? As a father and company founder, as the principal of a German primary school, I always enjoy looking beyond my own system. Cheers.

[Linus Sebastian]

Are you trying to get me in trouble? I feel like. I feel like you're trying to get me in trouble because I'm. Because I'm gonna like. There's no way that I'm gonna be able to talk about the school system without it there being a bunch of hot takes.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, I've probably got already in my mind, I've probably already got three things that like, could get me canceled.

[Dan]

Oh.

[Linus Sebastian]

So first of all, bring back letter grades at every state that got rid of letter grades.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What is it?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. You guys don't know about this?

[Dan]

No, no, we're old. Back in my day, one terabyte hard drive was cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, right now I have that in ram.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, my God. Do you?

[Dan]

Okay, I don't have a house. I just have the ram.

[Linus Sebastian]

So. So, yeah. So grade grades are done from emerging to developing, to proficient, to extending. That's how grading is done up until it depends on the exact school and the exact school district. But in the province of British Columbia, that's been the guidance for quite some time now. As long as my kids have been in school.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't like it.

[Dan]

So it's like, kids are wrong. It's all graded out of 5 instead of 100. It's also.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The kids fall.

[Linus Sebastian]

No.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Even though it's my generation, I blame the children.

[Linus Sebastian]

So you don't get. You don't get. You don't get a letter grade. You just get this, like, you get this word that describes your mastery of the material and the way that it was defended. I remember reading what to me, and again, this is to take this for my ignorant boomer take that. It is. You know, maybe. Maybe they're right. Maybe it's a better system. I am not a professional studier of this, but to me, I read what seemed like pretty much the most asinine possible defense of the system from some minister of something or some big wig of some sort in the newspaper to give you some idea how long ago I was reading about this. And basically they were like, this system is designed to facilitate communication between the school and the parents to really give them an idea of how their kids are doing. And I'm like, that's what the fucking letter grade was for.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I could actually see kind of both used in combination because I could see one being a trend line and one being the state.

[Dan]

Or how do you do, like, GPA? Like, everybody's like, I have a 4.0 GPA. Like, yeah, but I got exemplary, Luke.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's why we had work. That's why we had, like, the effort grade.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, so there were.

[Linus Sebastian]

When I was in elementary school, we had two grades for every subject. We had your. Your, like, your score on your assignments. Grade ABC or ABC plus C and C minus. And then like, like, like, basically, I forget what it was, like, incomplete or something. Like, we didn't have Fs already. They already. We'd done away with Fs because Fs are bad. And then we also had a G, S, N. So good, satisfactory and needs improvement for, like, your effort and your attitude. So we, like, already had that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't remember if that was a thing for me or not. My elementary school was also kind of weird.

[Linus Sebastian]

But so I'm just. So. Anyway, so first thing I would do is I would say, hey, why don't we just. Why don't we just keep giving everyone a letter? Because everybody just boils this new system down to letters anyway. Yeah, yeah. And then we just have a more granular system where within the letter, you also have an exact number. Okay, yay. We already had that. Cool, wonderful number two. And this is. This is one that's probably going to get me into a lot more trouble, but the BCTF is way too powerful.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Bc Teacher. Foundation.

[Linus Sebastian]

Federation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Federation.

[Dan]

The union.

[Linus Sebastian]

I was guessing I had terrible teachers. I had really good teachers, but I also had terrible teachers. And when you could get the good teachers, you know, talking and, you know, building rapport. Like, I had some. Some of my teachers, I was. Not inappropriately, but, like, I was. I was pretty close to. I was.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, me too.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, I. There were a couple of my teachers that I hung out with after I graduated and, like, you know, went to see and talk with and say, how are you doing? Here's how we're doing. And that was cool. It was like, not weird. Like, it was cool. And, you know, when you get them talking, they are as frustrated as anyone that terrible, terrible teachers are stuck in the system. And instead of being able to fire them because the union is so powerful, they just end up getting shuffled around from school to school or worst case, from district to district, and you can't get rid of them. You can't drain the sludge. And at the same time, you've got new, freshly trained, like freshly out of school with all the latest educational methods. Freshly educated. Want to teach. They're so excited to teach, teach young minds. And they can't get a freaking job because you've got this deadweight in the system that quite frankly shouldn't be anywhere near our youngest, our most valuable resource as a country. Like, if we're looking at it from a very macro standpoint, every hour of a student's time in the classroom that is wasted is such a squandering of the most important part of that person's young life that is laying the foundation of the rest of their time here on this earth. And it offends me there, period. It offends me. And this is one of those ones that's a tough conversation because I am not against worker protections either. An abusive employer should not exist. And unfortunately, that's why we have collective bargaining. Because the time before collective bargaining was bad. That was bad. That was not a good. That was not a good solution in the case of the bctf. Not a fan. To be clear, I've been out of the school system for a long time, but I have had kids in the school system much more recently than that. And I have certainly encountered similar issues. So I'm not convinced that it has been meaningfully changed. The other thing, the last thing, and this one. This one's probably the least. Andre. Andre B. Says the big positive of the BCTF is the fighting they do for class size and composition limits. That is absolutely true.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. He's not against all of it. I know. I don't think there's been any point in my life where I thought the level of tenure protections that they have there makes sense. And I thought that when I was in high school.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But I also thought in high school that some of the class sizes were a little freaking silly. So I don't know, there can be good and bad things about a department.

[Linus Sebastian]

Aquarius babe says me cracking up. Went to the same school as Linus and there were some horrible teachers. One was shuffled around and ended up setting fire to the science room at the new school. I did hear about that. And this is one of those things where, you know, someone's all mad at me. Anti union rhetoric again. Get over it. No system is perfect. Every system has flaws. Yes, even that one. And I've been up close and personal with some of the flaws of this specific organization in this specific region, which, by the way, you probably know nothing about get over it. I'm not saying this broadly and I'm not saying that they shouldn't exist.

[Luke Lafreniere]

He literally also said that they do good stuff as well.

[Linus Sebastian]

Absolutely. But not everything about it generates a positive outcome. And if you cannot handle that, then you're probably your, your view is probably too narrow. I'm sorry, you got to broaden your view.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What's your last point?

[Linus Sebastian]

Last point is I think that we focus too much on pure academics.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think that in our desperation to make sure that nobody gets left behind, we actually hold back the brightest pupils when it comes to academics and we end up completely wasting the time of people that don't need to be able to do advanced algebra where it will

[Luke Lafreniere]

literally never something else that might help them a lot more. I think this question came from someone in the, in the German program. I remember when I was in high school, I took, I took German and we would learn different things about Germany. I remember hearing about, I'm going to screw up a lot of these details. But I remember hearing about some of the details of how the German school system works. Where once you're at some grade, I don't remember which one. I remember thinking that it was like either really early high school or like kind of middle school, switch to a vocational stream, you would pick a road. And I remember thinking like, man, that's cool. And I. And I remember hearing some of the other kids in the class pushing back, being like, I don't know what I want to do yet. But in my mind I was like, damn, dude, I do. Like, if I could go down a path that was more tailored for that, like, my God, I would love that.

[Dan]

It's also tailored to your skill level,

[Linus Sebastian]

you know, and to be clear, some schools, some schools actually do a pretty good job of these types of programs. Like fourth, my school wasn't perfect, like to. I forget their username, but to their point, there were some really, really bad teachers in our school. But there were also some really cool programs. We had an incredible automotive shop, very well equipped and like we would actually work on people's cars. And so in much the same way that you'll have like a student dentistry at like the university or whatever. And like the, the high school students were learning real, real mechanic skills.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Awesome.

[Linus Sebastian]

In high school.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That is very cool, like support that.

[Linus Sebastian]

All that I know about, you know, changing oil and doing alignment and anything to do with cars was the one term I took of it and I was like, okay, this isn't for me, which is good for me. To know. But we were like, we were learning real shit.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And. And the theory. And it was. And it was freaking awesome. And the people who enjoyed that stream loved it and were bored senseless in English class.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

To be clear, I'm not saying that people should graduate high school without being able to read a book.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think you need certain minimums. I think you should take a certain minimum of math so you don't just get scammed for the rest of your life.

[Linus Sebastian]

But.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What. You should take certain minimums.

[Linus Sebastian]

But that math should be focused. It should be focused on like, practical skills. How to. How to run a small business.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure. That would be awesome.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like, dude, I wicked. I went all the way through to math 12 and I still don't know what practical application there was for most of what I learned.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, well, there isn't. And so unless you go down a. Like, if you. If you go down engineering, if you go to something else, there absolutely is. But if you.

[Linus Sebastian]

But what percentage of the population is that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But you do. I understand wanting to cultivate. Cultivate more people into STEM and all that kind of stuff, but if you're just forcing people down the line and they know they don't want to go

[Linus Sebastian]

that road anyways and they don't want to be there.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. And they're just going to fail out or struggle and just be pissed off anyways. I think allowing them to go do something else is totally fine. That being said, I don't think math 12 is required.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, math 12 is not required, but you have to do up to. I think it's like 10 essentials or something like that, or nine essentials.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I thought you even had to do

[Linus Sebastian]

11, but that may be true. I don't remember the words.

[Dan]

I don't remember either.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And it's probably changed by now.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's been a minute. But basically what happened was, and this was true at the time was you had to reach a certain level of math according to the grade level attached to it. So what they did was they created different levels of the class and I forget what it was if it was 9 or 10 or 11. But there was like, there was a. There was principals, which was the mainstream one. Oh, there was enriched at our school anyway. There was, I believe, enriched, which was the, like, more like University Prep 1. And then there was essentials, which was basically, from my understanding it was grade 8 math. But like you're taking it in grade 10 or grade 11 or whenever it was, and as long as it had that number on it, then like we taught them grade 11 math, but. But you didn't. So what are we even, what are we even all doing here?

[Luke Lafreniere]

What are we even thinking about if it's a business level thing or like, or, you know, how to not get bamboozled.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, it was just lower level math.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, that's a little sad. But I, I can definitely understand, like, okay, you know what? I'm in X course. I don't care about the English. Your example that you just gave was automotive. I don't care about English now. Okay, well, you're going to need to write sometimes. It's just a fact of life. So we'll get you to a certain point where you can like, write coherently. And, you know, you should be able to prove that you can do an essay so you can kind of bundle your thoughts and, and form an argument so that if, if, you know, if your automotive shop that you end up having ever gets in like legal trouble or something, you can organize your thoughts and defend your case. Cool. You don't need English 12 for that. But, but we'll get you to like some functional level. Sweet. I like the idea of at least getting people to these functional levels in a variety of different areas.

[Linus Sebastian]

And the other, the other thing that, you know, the best argument I think I could even give for why we should change, because I could see some people hearing, you know, what I, what I say. I'm actually, I'm actually pretty passionate about, about education in general. I. It's really funny. We had that exclusive on floatplane last week and people were like, whoa, Linus is a really good swimming teacher. It was like, yeah, Because I've basically spent my whole life teaching people stuff in one form or another. Whether it's about computers or aquatic exercise or painting houses or whatever. I've functionally always been a trainer or teacher in some form. It's something that I get joy from. It's something that I legitimately actually enjoy. And the best argument I can give for why we need to change this is not that, you know, I'm some elitist who's like, oh, yeah, only, you know, the smart kids deserve a chance or whatever. No, it's about giving everybody their best possible chance. And the current system is not working. Like, every, every, every year there's a fresh batch of articles with college professors lamenting the fact that kids are arriving at university and college don't know how to read. And it's like rubber stamping everybody through. This system is clearly not working.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think also, like, and this, this seems to Be a fairly obvious thing in, like, almost every realm, but like real feedback. So you can. And not, you know, mean punitive feedback, but real feedback can be really useful for people to try to kind of shape things. You might want to know if you're kind of capable of going down a certain path. Right?

[Linus Sebastian]

Or.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Or maybe you're capable, but how difficult will it be for you? And if something else feels natural and you're getting good responses, your grades are going well, whatever, that might be a good path for you to follow. But some of these courses that I'm hearing where people can't read when they get into it are like, yeah, maybe you should have known this wasn't going to work out for you before you got a massive student loan.

[Linus Sebastian]

Maybe if they had proper letter grades.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is what I'm saying. It feels like we're not only not necessarily setting them up for success, but then how the whole student loan system works and how important that part of your life is for setting up your future. You're not just not setting them up for success, you are specifically also setting them up for failure. I think both things are happening.

[Linus Sebastian]

I am starting to get very curious. Who exactly? Aquarius, babe. 86 is the 86 would seem to indicate not only we went to the same school, but we were the same age. And you say metal, art and jewelry was one of my fave classes ever. It turned into one of my hobbies. Did we take metal, art and jewelry together? Shout out, Mr. Russell. Or was it sour? I think Sourby taught mine anyway. Shout out Mr. Sowerby too.

[Dan]

Anyway, are you done with the merch question?

[Linus Sebastian]

Excuse me. Excuse me. What did you just call it? What did you just call it?

[Dan]

Merch question.

[Linus Sebastian]

Excuse me, I heard the question. What was it? There was a word he said that I don't understand.

[Dan]

Question.

[Linus Sebastian]

The product question.

[Dan]

That's not even what it's called either.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, it's not called that.

[Dan]

Okay. Are you done with the comp.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes, I'm done.

[Dan]

How about some more topics? Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

You want to pick one? Should we do the LG one?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure, sure.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

LG Abuses.

[Linus Sebastian]

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. The person in floatplane chat is upset. They did not say I was spewing anti union rhetoric. They were saying a lot of comments on floatplane were. Okay, all right, all right, all right. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I assumed because you did not address anybody that you were talking about what I was talking about, and I really. I'm not. I'm not trying to be anti it. There's really good things about it. It's just that I've seen bad outcomes up close, both through my involvement with one back when I was teaching lifeguard, back when I was teaching swimming and when I was a lifeguard and through just especially hearing my parents talk about it. My parents are both teachers and it's, it's really frustrating for your your star for your star team members when the losers get paid the same and you can't get rid of them. It's it's so demoralizing. Anyway. Okay Luke, carry on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Aquarius Babe Responded lol. Wouldn't expect Linus to remember me. I was a student aide for his grade eight computer class.

[Linus Sebastian]

We only had computers for a third of a term. I really don't remember that.

[Dan]

All right,

[Linus Sebastian]

well, was worth a shot. Yeah. Okay, carry on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

LG Abuses Windows Update Driver install to push McAfee after numerous user complaints on the LG OLED subreddit, a Gamers Nexus investigation found that LG has been taking advantage of a Windows feature that allows a hardware support app, in this case the LG Monitor app installer. Yikes. Wow. To be automatically and silently installed alongside the device drivers when a new device is plugged into Windows 11 machine and drivers are automatically installed via Windows Update. That blows. These hardware support apps are apparently granted significant privacy breaking permissions without any form of user consent or even notice. Why does Windows suck so much? Oh my God. In this case, the LG Monitor app, among other things, shows large pop up ads for for trials of McAfee antivirus. Some users report that this has been happening since 2024. Since this came to light, Microsoft stepped in and Windows chief Pavan told the Verge that LG has agreed to immediately disable the McAfee pop up and pledged that Microsoft will keep improving here with our ecosystem partners. No, you need. I think you just need to change the rules on that one. LG attempted to defend their behavior with an uncredited statement to Windows. Latest LG electronics reiterates that McAfee is not installed automatically and is never installed without user's explicit consent. The LG Monitor app installer is distributed through Microsoft's official Windows distribution process, which included McAfee as an option.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, we know. That's the problem.

[Luke Lafreniere]

McAfee will be installed only if a user actively chooses to proceed with the installation and provides consent. Under no circumstances is McAfee installed automatically or without user authentic authorization. The LG Monitor app installer does not access, collect or transmit any user. I don't want you to tell me that. I want it to not be possible.

[Linus Sebastian]

To be clear, I like drivers automatically appearing. So I'm actually just. I'm gonna push back on just that part. I like the idea of that I plug something in and it just works. What I don't like is when it's allowed to have a parasitic payload.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's my point.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Well, no, no, I just. I just want to be really clear that I. That if there is a monitor, like, driver that I need so that I can use a hotkey to change my brightness or, like, whatever. Right. Like, if there's something that enhances. Enhances the user experience. Yay. McAfee prompt. No.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And also to Luke's point, that shouldn't be possible. What are the punitive measures that someone like a Microsoft could take if somebody does this? Let's get creative here. What can Microsoft do to police this?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Make it so that violations have a huge cost.

[Linus Sebastian]

How could they. How can they enforce that?

[Luke Lafreniere]

What do you mean?

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, you send MSI a bill for a million dollars. What makes them MSI? Excuse me. No, LG. You send LG a bill for $1 million. Why would they pay it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Stop supporting their devices. That will hurt them.

[Linus Sebastian]

That will hurt the customer. Though I don't think any solution should hurt the customer.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Stop supporting their devices in this way. And I would give the users a flag, some type of notification that's like. LG was found to be distributing what is arguably malware. In order to get driver updates, please follow this manual process and then link them to some documentation.

[Linus Sebastian]

But then would that. I mean, in order to get LG drivers, presumably they would have to be linking them to an LG source. How would Microsoft then ensure that that LG source does not include a McAfee installer?

[Luke Lafreniere]

So how exactly is this Windows Update that it goes through? It's not.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it goes through Windows Update. I believe it happens silently in the background, though. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I mean, I think that's still worth it because at least you're flagging to the user that LG was, like, abusing systems and is not cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

Charge Nuclear goes, ha ha, ha, ha ha. Linus thinks they care about the customer. I didn't say that. What I said was the solution should not harm the customer. That's what I said. I didn't say that anyone agreed with me. I just said that I feel that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Mind Paradox says, how about a check that we must be notified before software is installed and only if we actively Say yes to install it. Okay, okay. Counterpoint, Counterpoint. Users will often, to their own detriment, put off installing updates. I mean that's a huge part of why actually it's fun. We just did a Windows tier list. We shot it earlier this week. We made a joke about the first Windows that introduced automatic updating and talked about how it's, hey, so Microsoft can break your computer every patch Tuesday. But also here's why it was necessary because in especially the early days of connected devices and the broader Internet just kind of coming online, people not updating their shiz was a big problem. It was a huge, huge vector. And any vector that the user refuses to patch is by definition an unpatched vector. Right. So automatic updates, I think in the modern world, I don't think you can get away from that. I don't, I don't think I would advocate for that. And if you give the user a choice, they're going to dismiss it some number of times out of 10. Okay, let's see if anybody else has a good idea.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know if you have to force automatic updates, I think you could make it up to the user.

[Linus Sebastian]

But then the more compromised devices there are, the worse everything is for everybody. More zombie devices is bad.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, but I should still be able to control my system like in Linux. I mean we're pushing everyone to go to Linux. You can do whatever the hell you want.

[Linus Sebastian]

You can.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't think either of my systems are running automatic updates. I just also update them. I also find updating in Linux to be like fun and rewarding and updating in Windows to be horrible and slow and not rewarding and scary. So generally bad. So like they're very different experiences. The Linux one is really fast for some reason, really fast. And then Windows 1 will genuinely take very long often.

[Linus Sebastian]

So what would your solution be if we didn't force people to update? Because like I think part of the reason it works so well for Linux is that Linux people generally skew more tech savvy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think I would be okay with it just being an opt out. Can you do that on Windows Update?

[Linus Sebastian]

Not forever. Eventually it will force you to install especially security updates. And so, so like what would be if Linux went more normie? Because that like it's, there's a, there's a selection bias in the people who are, who are running these operating systems. So I would actually agree with you that right now the approach on most mainstream Linux distros is not a problem

[Luke Lafreniere]

because there's something that that kind of fades over time.

[Linus Sebastian]

Exactly.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So let's imagine that it does happen. You want Linux to be forcing automatic

[Linus Sebastian]

updates now, so what? Well no, what I'm asking you is what's your solution then? Because I think everyone, I hope pretty much agrees that a massive army of unpatched devices is super, super mega bad. And I think you guys know from administering even a very tech savvy company that people will put off updates as long as humanly possible, as often as humanly possible once you get into the broader population. So what's your solution then? I guess is what I'm asking.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know that I necessarily have one. On a business level the businesses can enforce updates. We enforce updates. On a personal level though. Like I want control over my computer.

[Linus Sebastian]

I know you do but like my, my aunt I think lost her control over whether she's allowed to decide to update privileges when she dec. Decided not to update and, and her as like

[Luke Lafreniere]

the, the like family administrator as it were. I think you can make that choice. It's not that I don't want the option for automatic updates.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sure.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It could even be in my opinion default on which will mean that 90 plus percent of people are going to turn it off.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well then I mean that's.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I want the ability to control my computer.

[Linus Sebastian]

I know, but I'm not talking about you. So I feel like we're both kind of, I think we're both kind of talking past each other.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It could be default on though, is what I'm saying.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, no, I get it. Ah, like it's like, like there, like there's two angles here. Because the problem here is that I agree with you. I want to control my computer too. If I say no, I'm actually in the middle of something right now and you rip away control and take away my ability to do something for 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, sometimes a really long time. We were literally in the middle of that Windows tier list shoot and Jordan's computer forced him to apply an update and it was the computer that he was using for the web based like you can, you can run any version of Windows in a web browser like background that I had behind me that we were changing with every version of Windows and we had to pause the bloody shoot because of Windows updates.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We have this on WAN show all the time. Our like Google sessions will log us out because we only use these once a week.

[Linus Sebastian]

I can't agree with you more that I want to control my computer and I want to decide when I want to Update. But that is kind of separate from the conversation that I'm having, which is, what is the broader solution so that we don't have a giant army of insecure computers?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think the broader solution is default, default on.

[Linus Sebastian]

Default on. And we just. We hope that people don't get. They stay tech savvy enough to. They don't get tech savvy enough to disable that while not getting also tech savvy enough to understand that they should update. We hope that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I genuinely think over 90% of people will never even go to the control panel option to do anything with it in the first place.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think that's probably. I mean, look, 95% of statistics are made up.

[Dan]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Mine was extremely made up.

[Linus Sebastian]

Based on, however, stardust, I suspect you're not that far off.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think.

[Linus Sebastian]

So I just, I. I'm fretting because. For sure, because to me, the risk of. Of many, many, many unsecured devices is. Is very scary.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. The risk of malware being able to deploy that way is also scary, though. We just saw that with Linux. The AUR got compromised. If those updates were forced down my throat, I'd be pretty pissed about it. So, like, it's. It's the whole. I don't remember exactly how the phrase goes, but it's like, if you sacrifice liberty for security, you'll have neither. Whatever.

[Linus Sebastian]

So apparently that gets misquoted a lot. So I'm gonna make. I'm gonna. I'm gonna help us get it right this time.

[Luke Lafreniere]

See what it is.

[Linus Sebastian]

If you. Something. Liberty, freedom, etc.

[Dan]

Security. Security.

[Linus Sebastian]

You deserve neither. Like, I can remember enough of the words that I can kind of. Okay, here we go. Oh, okay, We've got an NPR article. Ben Franklin's famous liberty safety quote lost its context in the 21st century. So he once said, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor. Nor safety. And this often comes up. This is from npr. In the context of new technology and concerns about government surveillance. But Benjamin Witts, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and editor of Lawfare, tells NPR's Robert Siegel that it wasn't originally meant to mean what most people think Franklin was basically. And so he's paraphrasing here, basically said those who would trade privacy for a bit of security deserve neither. What is the exact. Oh, my. Okay, well, this is a lot longer, unfortunately. Then just like a conversation I can read right now, you know, there's all these quotations. Think of kill all the lawyers, right? From Shakespeare. Nobody really remembers what the characters in question were saying at that time. Okay, you know what? I'm gonna have to look at this again later. I'm not gonna take a stance on. On the quote for right now.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think either way is basically my. My point, whatever the heck the quote even is, is there are, as we're literally talking about right now, ways that. That can be used maliciously.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And I would like to be able to choose how to defend myself. I do think for the vast majority of people, the right approach is going

[Linus Sebastian]

to be automatically rip out the ethernet cord. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think. I think for the people, automatic updates is right over. I even think the annoying persistence that Windows have has might even be the right approach for most people.

[Dan]

Sure.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That being said, if someone wants to go in and try to do something manually to change how their computer works, I think they should be able to do so. And it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Good luck, everybody.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And there will be bad there. But there's already bad, dude.

[Linus Sebastian]

There's Luke. There's bad everywhere.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Like that insane worm that's out there that's controlling, like, a crazy amount of computers right now.

[Linus Sebastian]

Is that the one in our FK jr's brain?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Dan was so ready for that.

[Dan]

Well, because I had the same joke as soon as you started. As soon as you started with that worm, I was like, here it comes. See?

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. Mind paradox. Summarized it. Thanks. Mind paradox In Floatplane Chat from the article he was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The proprietary family?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Like. Like a proprietor.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

The legislature was trying to tax the Penn family land to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War, and the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly's acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it. So. Okay, he didn't mean it like, just like broadly, necessarily. He was talking about something very specific. I mean, it's a banger quote one way or another. And it's a sentiment that even outside of the context, I think resonates with a lot of people.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think sometimes it can be taken too far.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Pretty often, maybe. But. But I think in. Like, in. In this case, I think security vulnerabilities are gonna. Security Vulnerability. And it, it is what it is. Like the, the, the, that whole thing of like every lock can be picked is just more true than a lot of people are comfortable with. And every form of security can also be used as offense is another thing that people also need to be aware of. And it's just. Yeah, I don't know. I should. The, the Shai Hulud worm that was distributed through NPM is also like huge and terrifying. And the, the AUR hack was huge and terrifying. And these things are like very real

[Linus Sebastian]

and happening really fast right now. Yeah, say what you want and I

[Luke Lafreniere]

don't think it's gonna slow down.

[Linus Sebastian]

Useless, you know, AI search results or whatever, but AI is definitely making some stuff happen in terms of security right now.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You know how I said that I kind of like updating on Linux?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Part of that process right now is in Cashios. When I do the update, it will read Arch News. It will check Arch News to see if there's anything going on. And if there's nothing going on, I'll be okay. Cool update. I think it was yesterday. I checked like, yeah, I'm gonna do some updates. And it was like, there's some things happening in Arch News. I didn't even look. I was like, never mind, everything's fine. Close it. I'll wait for that to resolve. I'll come back soon, we'll figure it out. There are other times where I've read it and then decided from there if I want to move forward or not. But in this particular case I was like, I was gonna be leaving the computer shortly and was like, I could run an update real quick. And then it was like, nah, I'll just do that later. Like, that's really nice. Windows does not do that. There has been a lot of times where a Windows update has gone out and the Internet collectively has been like, oh my God, do not update to this.

[Linus Sebastian]

And it's been happening a lot.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And I really appreciate that. That level of safeguard is there on the cashy side where it's like, there's some news going on. Here's the ways you can find it. You can go read it, make your own decision and go from there. And the Windows side is just like, la, la la. Have fun. Here's your update. It might brick everything.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, yes and no. They do do them in rolling fashion so they don't actually just go to everybody at once.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So it's a dice roll of whether or not it's a laugh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sure is. I'm just, I'M just. It is better. It is better.

[Dan]

It's not perfect Russian roulette with production hardware.

[Linus Sebastian]

I just want to make sure that if we're gonna dunk on them, we are dunking on them accurately. They deserve the dunk. They just maybe didn't deserve that last little bit of razzle dazzle. Okay. That's. That. That's all I'm going to say about it.

[Dan]

It's extremely reasonable.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Cat OS linked this which is actually really cool. Windows Patch scanner, Windows Update regression feed for sysadmins. That's neat. This is probably. Dan, let me know what you think on this one. This is probably one of the most vibe coded looking websites I've seen in a while.

[Linus Sebastian]

I. Is that a Vista icon?

[Dan]

It is.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It is. It has all the like telltale design signs.

[Dan]

I don't really know anything about vibe coded websites.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's just different color palettes that they use. Different kind of like styles.

[Dan]

Yeah. That like orangey kind of.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yep.

[Dan]

This is like give ME a Web 3.0 Silicon Valley website.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Which is a hacker focused and use

[Luke Lafreniere]

terminal fund and Electrobot and chat said it's a nice design imo. I'm not even pointing out the design is bad. I think the design's great. If this isn't a vibe coded AI designed website then this website was trained upon. I guarantee it. Because it looks really good.

[Dan]

I love this style.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think it looks great personally. But it's just it. It immediately jumped out at me as like the. The way that they did the boxes the way they did. They chose the color palette and stuff like that. It's. It's either been heavily trained upon which is quite likely or it's vibe designed.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. We should probably do a couple sponsors first. Our float plane announcement. Luke gets canceled on float plane this week.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nah,

[Linus Sebastian]

it do. Is there any context for that or should do I just need to genuinely.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No idea.

[Linus Sebastian]

Do you have float plane logged in? Like. Okay. Do you want to do that? You want to show what I'm supposed to be showing right now because I can't read the notes and also screen share.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay. It's gonna take me a second so I gotta. But I can get there.

[Linus Sebastian]

He's cooking. Let him cook.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Because I'm logged into my account. Not that one but I can get there.

[Linus Sebastian]

Can't you just open up the exclusives tab?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, it's already released.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, my bad.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, that's what he's talking about. Okay. It's Sammy versus Luke where they fight with tasers. Which is not something that I personally would have approved on Worktime as a work activity.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is the same reason why I just think the Windows updates shouldn't be automatic. You know, sometimes you just need to improve some things yourself.

[Dan]

Is this what all the screaming was?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Maybe at Open Sauce they had taser knife fights. So Sammy and I had a taser knife fight. It was great.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know what part of the video it's in.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff at Open Sauce that would not have passed the safety checks to get into our office.

[Dan]

I thought Sammy had bought taser knives and you were doing this in, like, the lab. No, I would not put that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, yeah. There was also, like, a turret that would lock on to your. Your junk and try to shoot you in the junk.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Here.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

When does it go?

[Dan]

At least you're wearing goggles.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Anyways, where's the junk?

[Linus Sebastian]

Tracking junk.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Here we go. Here's the taser knife fight. You don't get to see the whole thing, but

[Linus Sebastian]

it's like you're not allowed to kick Sammy. That's not really the point.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's it. No more.

[Linus Sebastian]

And there. There's another. There's another one. You get the full. You get the. Is it full uncut? It's 36 minutes. Might actually be full uncut. Yeah. It ended up being a whole saga trying to figure out if we were getting high voltage, high wattage output, because in order to do 240 watts, the float plane power brick goes up to 48 volts. The float plane power brick framework.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

The framework power brick goes up to 48 volts. And we didn't have a voltmeter or any way to put an ammeter in line or even like. Like a kilowatt, like a wall mounted power meter. We had nothing. And the laptop itself was not reporting the power correctly, which we knew because we had like a total of. I think it was 150 watts of power consumption between the CPU and GPU alone. And it would say it was charging at 20 watts. And the total power coming over the power brick was 65 watts, which clearly does not actually add up. And so it was a whole saga determining whether or not an LTT true spec cable was actually working properly with nirav's laptop. So you've got. You've got the whole. And there's like. By the end of it, there was like 20, 30 people watching. And the pressure was.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I. I didn't actually. I ran into you a couple times, but I Didn't actually see you doing this video in particular, but I like heard about it in positive ways. But I just thought it was really interesting because we've been like, you know, passing ships at the night at events for years.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

We don't actually see each other at events almost at all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Not usually. We're usually working on other things. Even when we were both doing video stuff, we'd probably even see each other less.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, it was divide and conquer.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, exactly.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So like, but, and like I knew you were off doing things and we'd maybe meet up at night for dinner or something and check notes. But like other than that, I never really heard about what you're doing. I heard about what you're doing at this event. I heard other people talking about it, which was just very interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude, that video and the people that we went around and talked to was the, like I couldn't. If I went and I hired an amazing marketing firm and gave them a giant bucket of money and asked them to come up with use cases and customer testimonial like scenarios to help sell our product, they. They never would have come up with. Did you watch that video?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I haven't seen the whole. I've skimmed through a couple parts of it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Have you watched the end with the autonomous RC cars?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

Watch it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I heard about that.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's one of the things that I heard about it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like they're. We're. I'm trying to like close out the video and they're sitting there in the background going like are you guys seeing this? The latency so much lower. It turned out that not only did having a proper length cable, so having less loss, probably this is the hypothesis for now. But having less loss contribute to less voltage drop which contributed to the real sense camera running more stably. But also the data rate was higher and also, also that we expected. The part we didn't expect was when they switched to our cable, their wireless started working better because. And Buddy was talking about how a lot of the time like crappy unshielded USB can actually emit broad spectrum 2.4 GHz RF that can jam WiFi. And because of some other limitation in their little autonomous car platform that they were building, they had to use wireless for one of the communication links. And it turns out that they didn't realize that part of their problem was that the RF interference. Maybe this is the hypothesis. We don't know this for sure yet, but was jamming it because as soon as we put in our Cable. It just started working, and we're using a bit of a different style of construction. Not that it's not to spec. It's true spec. It's to spec, but it's like a more expensive coaxial cable rather than a traditionally constructed cable. That's part of why they're so thick.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. And we've been making an argument forever that they're not for every single application under the sun. But this is a. It's a cool argument of, like, there was a tangible benefit for it in that situation.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. So I already told the Shorts team and I told Dave from cw. I was like, like, y' all need to get that content. Y' all need to chop it up. Y' all need to get it out there. Because I literally. I couldn't write a better endorsement for the product than that. That's crazy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Here's a derailment for a second. What did you think? Because I've been singing open sauces praises for years. But you've never been before.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, super fun.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. It's amazing event.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. I was like, I am not sure if I understand the economics of it.

[Dan]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

And I hope that that's not a problem for them, like, sincerely, because it is like, maker Mecca, man. Like, incredible. If you are. I don't think I could endorse open source enough. If you are a creator type, like, tech. Tech curious, or you want, like, somebody to just take your kids, man, to get them inspired about STEM and creating and just building something.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Rocketry, robotics, Think textiles, clothing.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't think there's a better place that you could take them. I don't think there's a better place that you could go that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I've seen woodworking, metal working, hacking, everything.

[Linus Sebastian]

Everything. I mean, Buddy, you can make a thing. Buddy built a VR headset with CRT displays. Do you see that? You missed that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I missed a lot of stuff.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's tragic.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I missed a lot of stuff.

[Linus Sebastian]

You know Those little handheld TVs with the little antenna and everything? So those really old ones had CRTs in them?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

So Buddy took two of them, disassembled them, and made a VR headset. Why? Because he could.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I saw a booth where they. They took. What was it, like classified nuclear documents or something and turned them into candy.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sorry, what?

[Luke Lafreniere]

They. They would let, like, some form of mold, like, eat it, and then they. They just kept doing this, like, multiple chemical processes and then just eventually turn it into a sour candy. I don't remember the. Exactly how it works.

[Dan]

I think it's Like a Nile Red video.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I think it's in that full plane exclusive. I'm not sure that it is. I know we filmed it for that, but I don't know if it actually ended up in the video or not. But yeah, just. I don't know. Who knows? Just crazy stuff. They had, like, examples of what the candy was supposed to taste like there. They didn't have the. The actual, like, nuclear secret candy, but they showed how they did the process. And I talked to. Oh, it didn't end up in the video, unfortunately.

[Dan]

Damn.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay. I. I talked to them for a while about, like, Like. Okay, so it's. It's an inspiration of it that you did make yourself is here to try. I will try one of those. Cool. I will take unlabeled candy from a stranger. That was silly, but whatever. And I tried it and was like, all right, this tastes, like, slightly odd candy. Sounds good. How did the Nuclear Secrets candy taste? And he was, like, kind of terrible. It was really, really sour, like, right off the hop. And then it was just like, after that. It's like, yeah, okay, that makes sense.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's like mold, excrement, sour candy. Not exactly what you're probably aiming for, but they talked about, like, the stuff they had to go through to learn how to do that, and it's very interesting. They also had a VR headset that was like, AI powered IRL ad block. So you walk around with a quest on, and if it thinks the thing that it's looking at is adblock, it'll, like, blur it out or something. I don't remember what it actually.

[Linus Sebastian]

Tell me this. You're on the Vegas strip. There's a big van with girls, girls, girls on the side. Do you just not see it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, probably.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, just checking.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. They're also saying, like, I don't know, it's some crappy little model. So, like, the chick that worked at the booth had a shirt on. Then she was like, yeah, it thinks it's an ad for some reason. It, like, totally wasn't. It was just some pattern.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, a lot of shirts are ads.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This one wasn't though, right? You know, some. Some pattern. Very interesting booth to hang out at, man. There's a lot of really cool stuff. The taser knife fighting was, like, amazing. So much fun to watch. Just how everyone would fight in, like, different ways.

[Linus Sebastian]

And how much did it hurt compared to when?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know.

[Linus Sebastian]

The dog collars. Oh, did Sammy never even hit you? You didn't. You weren't Curious. You didn't try it on yourself?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I didn't bother.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm actually really surprised. I'm. I'm. I'm not. I'm actually a little disappointed.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I thought he was gonna get me.

[Linus Sebastian]

I. I just. I'm. I'm. I'm a little disappointed that you didn't

[Luke Lafreniere]

hit yourself to the point where I got him in the leg one time. When you get someone in the leg, you have to start hopping on the other leg.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And he was like, oh, you should make it fair. And I, like, sacrificed my own legs.

[Linus Sebastian]

But you didn't touch yourself.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, I'm.

[Dan]

I'm.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I should just.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm kind of let down.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I wanted. I wanted the surprise of getting hit, and then I just.

[Linus Sebastian]

Just.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You'll have to watch the footage. The guy running the thing said we were one of the most entertaining duo he had the whole event. And that was, like, later on on the Sunday, I think. Is that accurate? What day were you there? Saturday.

[Linus Sebastian]

I was there Saturday.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Later on on the Saturday, I. I

[Linus Sebastian]

found out that I wasn't on the site. There was a while when there, like, people were lined up to do selfies.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't think you were, like, a speaker or anything.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think. I think you go on the site if you're doing, like, a panel, because then there is, like, a meet and greet thing and stuff. Oh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Because I. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be. I was like, well, I. I don't know. I, I, I, I have a badge. I'm here. But I. I was just standing in. In one of the halls, and there was, like, a lineup to get selfies or whatever. And, like, there was a point. There was, like, a period. Two out of every three people were like, I didn't know you were gonna be here. I'm like, did you not hear the last part? You were standing right there when the last person said that to me. But people, they just walked up and said exactly the same thing every time, like, well, here I am. I just thought it was funny, honestly.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I'm a little disappointed, too. I think after we were done the fight, I had gotten him in a particular way that I was busy apologizing for, which you'd have to watch the video to go see.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nice. But it was the balls. Balls are taint.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think I was. I think. I think I was focused on apologizing for that and just never really thought about it. But, yeah, I wanted it to be, like, kind of a surprise. I didn't want I didn't want to just because I think he had. Had he demoed it before?

[Dan]

No.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know.

[Dan]

I don't remember.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But yeah, I was expecting it to be a surprise. Yeah, it was fun. Also really cool. NASA was there. NASA had an actual full booth. They brought heat shield samples from Artemis 1 and Artemis 2 to show the difference between, like, the entry skip versus this, the through and through, and how that affected the. The heat shields. They had an actual moon rock.

[Linus Sebastian]

What?

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I said, like, wow, this is the closest I've ever been to the moon. And then I got corrected is the closest the moon has ever been to me. Interesting thinking.

[Linus Sebastian]

Hold on, I'm gonna get there.

[Dan]

Oh, secondhand embarrassment. It's really cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The argument was that in this scenario, I was the one with more mass.

[Linus Sebastian]

Right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That makes sense because it was just a little rock, not the whole thing. They also had a wind tunnel model of the Orion capsule. And they talked about, like, the difficulties of doing scaled models and wind tunnels because the smaller you get, the tighter the tolerances get and, like, how insane that can get.

[Linus Sebastian]

And, like, I mean, is there a certain point where the size of the model relative to, like, the size of an air molecule matters?

[Luke Lafreniere]

It didn't sound like it. Okay, there's a couple questions going back and forth. I hope I didn't get that wrong. But there was. So NASA gave Luke a massive correction. That's pretty funny. That's a good one.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's a pretty good. They also moved him,

[Dan]

but.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, no, like, one of the things he was saying was they had done up all these different wind tunnel tests, and then on Artemis 1 it was fine, but there was anomaly detected during the launch, and they were surprised by it. They took it back to the wind tunnel, tried to recreate that exact scenario, were able to recreate the problem, came up with a solution, tested it a bunch, implemented it for Artemis 2. Problem solved.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's pretty cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Pretty sick. Pretty sick.

[Linus Sebastian]

Pretty cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I. I learned about an. They have an arc jet that they test the heat shielding for, of course. And hearing some of the, like, specs for the arc jet was crazy. It's like a plasma cutter, but instead of like a little.it's like a freaking pipe. It's just wild. He was talking about, like, the air intake that they use for it, which is apparently, the way he was describing it, it sounded like it was basically the side of a building. Crazy. I don't know. I want to look more into that stuff. Okay, let me see if I can Find.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. Anyway, there are a ton of other booths like Hot Dog Racing and Real Steel the movie irl. All of which are exactly what they sound like. You can go Cancel Luke at LMG, GG, FPWAN, or over on our YouTube members. Now I'm supposed to do sponsors. Dan wants me to do all four. I'm gonna leave it up to floatplane chat.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

You guys can tell Dan if that's okay or not.

[Dan]

Yeah. Do you want an uninterrupted rest of the show or do you want me to break it up later?

[Luke Lafreniere]

By the way, I think I'm mistaking the intake for the arc jet and the intake for the wind tunnel.

[Dan]

All right. Wing tunnel integration.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. Most afloat plane is saying get all four out of the way. Now all four, do three. Ooh, I like that. That's pretty funny.

[Dan]

Oh, that feels gross. Why don't I like that?

[Linus Sebastian]

All right. Okay. All right.

[Dan]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Most of floatplane chat says do all four. Okay, let's do it. The show is brought to you by shocks. You shouldn't have to choose between listening to the new Madonna album or hearing your boss invite your you to the company bbq. With Shokz, you don't have to their open dots too clip over the ear canal clip or their open dots too clip over the ear canal rather than going directly in or covering your entire ear. So you get a comfortable fit that keeps you in tune with your surroundings, whether that's at the gym or at work, while still providing clear quality audio. This is thanks to Shokz's Bassphere 2.0 with Dolby, a spherical acoustic system that's built around two custom 11.8 millimeter drivers that perform like a single 16 millimeter one. And because they've been designed to essentially clip onto your ears, there's no dedicated left bud or right bud. They're totally interchangeable. And the open dots 2 will automatically detect left from right when outputting sound. Oh, that's kind of cool. You'll get 10 hours of playback on a single charge, or up to 40 hours with the case. And with fast charging, five minutes plugged in will net you two whole hours of music. That that's roughly into the groove on repeat 30 whole times. Use our link to go grab yourself a pair just in time for that company BBQ. Use code when at checkout to get $15 off as well. So that's that QR code right there. The show is also brought to you by Squarespace. Whether you're trying to start a business, promote Your music or start up an underwater hockey club.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What? What is this? Is it real?

[Linus Sebastian]

It doesn't look like AI.

[Dan]

I think it's underwater polo. Or is that something completely.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, that's definitely a hockey puck.

[Dan]

Really?

[Linus Sebastian]

Almost certainly. Look at it. It's like a green hockey puck. Okay, that's crazy. And they're playing with like butter knives or something. What am I looking at here? Okay, the point is, you gotta get some of this. An easy to navigate website is important. With Squarespace, you'll have everything you need to build a great website without the fuss or confusion. You don't even need to know how to code, you just need to know how to drag and drop. You can piggyback off of one of several templates or use Squarespace's design intelligence tool by answering a couple of prompts to create something unique. They even help with things like SEO to ensure that your website is easier to discover. If something isn't working, you can use data that they provide to make any needed adjustments to your page. On top of that, you'll get real time updates about website traffic, revenue sales so you can make better decisions for your business. And as I'm sure that our listeners know well, we've used Squarespace for many years for our linusmediagroup.com website. So if you're ready to dive in, build your website today and get 10% off your first purchase by virtual visiting squarespace.com Wan the show is brought to you by XSplit. Streaming can seem like a lot of fun, even if the field feels heavily saturated, but there's no better way to learn than by, well, just jumping in. Our sponsor Xsplit gets you right into it with tools for recording and streaming on the most popular platforms like YouTube and Twitch. And if you want to add a little more character to a stream or a presentation, you can choose from several preset languages, layouts and transitions to keep your audience engaged. They use a customizable drag and drop interface too, so you can resize gameplay or camera footage based on what you think is most important to your video. And Premium offers a ton of extra tools like watermark removal, multi platform streaming and higher resolutions. There's even beginner friendly editing and mixing tools that are built right into the platform. So go to LMG ggxsplitwan or use our link in the description or scan this QR code to get 30% off your first purchase or subscription with code WANSHOW30. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? You have some fun and make Some friends. Actually, that does sound terrible. Do I have to make the friends?

[Dan]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nice.

[Dan]

You're okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Finally, the show is brought to you by amd. It's AMD Ultimate Tech Upgrade Time. And this month it was our product designer Robert Lau's turn. Not only was there a secret prototype in the video, but for his upgrade he got a new espresso machine, floor mats, a new seat for a Spike PC that can play Excel at 60fps, and even a welding lesson. That's right. We got to weld something, Luke. It was pretty cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice.

[Linus Sebastian]

And if you want a giveaway of your own, check out the link in this week's video or on tonight's show for a chance to win one of two power color red devil amd radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs. Luke, as you know, AMD always gives us a topic to discuss. And so here it is. With modern GPUs leaning harder into features like upscaling and frame generation to deliver smoother gameplay, are we entering an era where the best GPU is defined more by software versus raw performance alone?

[Luke Lafreniere]

This was AMD's question.

[Linus Sebastian]

I doubt it, but I guess that's where we're at. I don't make the rules. That's what's in there. And as you know, I'm not going to tell you to say anything you don't want to say, so.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, I know.

[Linus Sebastian]

Luke, what do you think? How should people weigh native performance versus the real world experience with these features enabled?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wow. I think it somewhat depends on.

[Linus Sebastian]

Keep in mind, AMD is never going to give you an upgrade, so what do you owe them?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, true.

[Linus Sebastian]

Are you eligible? I can't remember.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Technically, yes.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, are you now? Okay, well then they might.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I.

[Linus Sebastian]

So tread carefully.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, no, sorry. I think it depends on the type of games you're playing or the applications you're using it for.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, Dan, Someone said the AMD link is broken. Do you mind dodging?

[Dan]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Thanks, Dan.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But yeah, I mean, it depends. If you're trying to play some game that super highly benefits from, just like, you know, frame gen 4x, whatever, then you're going to want the software features. If you're not, then maybe you won't.

[Linus Sebastian]

How would you define a game that benefits from that? Because no matter what game it is, if you're running frame gen at 4x for instance, you. You will be generating a lot of frames that do not come with the. The latency benefit of actually rendering more frames.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know I would assume, you know, I don't know. Train simulator.

[Linus Sebastian]

Train simulator. Oh, okay. So you're talking games where there actually is straight up less real time interactivity and you could benefit from just much smoother animations, even if it does come at the cost of some latency. Yeah, okay. And then I'm gonna throw in on the other side. If you have a pretty decent base frame rate already, adding a little bit of frame gen, I generally don't do it. I'm still not doing much, but it's not that bad.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm 40, 80, I'm still not doing much. Pretty strong card, not really needed.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think that's, I mean, I think the answer is. I think the answer is simple. It's like both. Both. Both, yes, both.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's what I kind of said. Like it depends on your games, depends on what you're playing, depends on what you need it for.

[Linus Sebastian]

You're going to need RAW performance. I mean we're seeing this as depends

[Luke Lafreniere]

on operating system to a certain degree, they said. I think the question was specifically around software, but I think compatibility and ease of use comes in under the software umbrella. If I can throw AMD a bone, most of the people I know that are having a better time switching to Linux right now are running AMD cards. A lot of the problems that I've had switching to Linux is the fact that I'm running a 4080. It's directly tied into the Nvidia drivers and the issues that come with that. I know this was a problem for Forza where I was trying to figure out why the heck I couldn't play Forza on Linux very easily. And then I was talking to multiple other people that were all having no problem with it and ended up figuring out that all of those people running AMD cards and it seems to be a consistent problem. So that might play into it. A lot of people are moving over to Linux at the same time. The software solutions on the Nvidia side seem really strong right now. And if you want frame gen, if you want dlss, if you want that stuff, that stuff is really strong.

[Linus Sebastian]

On Green Team, the latest FSR is getting better, but I also think that that's one way that our discussion question was almost, almost incomplete because running the newest models of upscaling does require faster hardware. So you are going to need both. And not just compute units like your more traditional render cores. You are also going to need dedicated machine learning acceleration, dedicated ray tracing hardware. Say what you want about, you know, whether you like ray tracing or not. It's not going anywhere. It's here to stay. And you're going to need dedicated acceleration for that too. It's going to have to be a combination.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So rest assured, plane chat said, I got a 9070 XT and my issues went away on Linux. Last of us was unplayable on Nvidia. So, like, there's a lot of. It depends on your setup, it depends on your use case, it depends on the games, the applications, all that kind of stuff I face. I think it varies more right now than a lot of times. Whatever. Than a lot of times in the past because of Linux being much more viable for a wider amount of people. Depends on your mom. You know what else depends on your mom? Underwater hockey is totally a thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Really?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, yeah. Turkey beats Great Britain six years ago. So it's before this would have been generatable.

[Linus Sebastian]

800,000 views.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yep.

[Linus Sebastian]

Was that an ad?

[Luke Lafreniere]

That was an ad.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nice ad for Screwdriver.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Why did it just freeze? Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, they do be playing. There's a club in Vancouver called the Ninjas. Yeah.

[Dan]

No way.

[Linus Sebastian]

So you have fins, so you're like ripping really fast.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Actually, there's a bunch of people in the audience watching this as an audience in an arena. Must be nuts.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is crazy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Apparently there's like a decent amount of contact that's allowed. Even like. Yeah, they just ran into each other. Like, apparently it's like not. Not a super passive sport reading that. The 3D elements of it get really interesting because, like, you can be. You can think you're on a breakaway, but someone can come from like, above you and check you.

[Linus Sebastian]

Right. But can you strange. Can you juggle and if you flip, then can you touch it again and then be able to boost again? Like, is it rocket

[Luke Lafreniere]

underwater?

[Dan]

I don't know.

[Linus Sebastian]

My son was explaining it to me at some point. Like, you can do a reset or something so that you go again.

[Dan]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is crazy.

[Linus Sebastian]

I eat plastic. Says it's the closest thing we have to actual Quidditch.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Now you just need like, Like, I don't know, a tiny little, tiny little sea entity that one person has to go try to catch. And if they catch it, every single other thing that happened in the entire game is completely irrelevant.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

The whole Quidditch thing was very distracting for me. In the Harry Potter verse, someone told me at some point that Rowling, like, hated sports and intentionally made a sport that was stupid. Because, like, the point was that sports are stupid. I'm not sure. If I believe that though, I don't care. Is Quidditch intentionally stupid? Oh, yes. AI says J.K. rowling intentionally designed Quidditch to be frustrating and absurd as a direct subversion of logical sports culture.

[Dan]

Cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, good job.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You really stuck it to him. Nobody does a sport anymore.

[Linus Sebastian]

She wanted to create a sport that would deliberately infuriate men who care deeply about the rigid statistics and logical scoring systems of real world sports. And then.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And then the men made Quidditch in real life and gave it better rules. And get freaking owned. Get dunked on, el bozo. Anyways, Speaking of getting dunked on, India fined HP $14.4 million for rigging government bids and fixing ink and toner prices. Geez. Wow. India's competition commission hit HP India with that flying that we just mentioned across two separate ruling. One covering PCs, laptops, desktops, workstations, accessories, the other one covering printer supplies, ink, toner, consumables. The scheme ran on the government e Marketplace from 2017 to 2020, where HP coordinated with its resellers to pre arrange bids and submit fake cover bids, making tenders look competitive while a pre picked HP partner won and taxpayers overpaid. The strange part is that HP India reported the whole thing itself. It filed under India's leniency program, basically self snitching before regulators had any evidence, hoping to get full immunity. Really. The investigation that followed turned up WhatsApp chats, emails, and even a 2019 video from a reseller meeting laying out who would submit fake bids and who should win each contract. HP's defense was that it wasn't the mastermind just commercially forced into propping up the scheme because its own ink prices were so high that resellers were threatening to switch to cheaper counterfeit products.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, so hp, I think I found the part where you screwed up.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It even wrote in its filing that it humbly objects to being called, called the kingpin of the arrangement. The commission called it a cartel anyway and named HP India as the central architect. So it got a partial penalty cut for coming forward, but was denied the full immunity it wanted.

[Linus Sebastian]

This story is so funny. I just, I saw the headline and I was like, moderately interesting. And then I read even a couple minutes further into it and I was like, what? Meanwhile in India. What? Sorry, what's going on?

[Luke Lafreniere]

We object to be calling the kingpin, but I guess you can call us, you know, the central architect. That would, that would be fine.

[Linus Sebastian]

And cartel.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The central architect of the cartel. That's okay. We just don't want to be called the kingpin that's associated with a villain in the in the Marvel universe.

[Linus Sebastian]

Speaking of legal trouble, just weeks after DBRAND had to kill its complete companion cube case over the Valve intellectual property problem, a printables user named Jaron rebuilt the whole thing from scratch as a free 3D printable project. And it is already passed 10,000 downloads. He worked entirely off of photos of Dbrand's design, used none of Dbrand's files, and put up 39 files for assembly videos and a full parts list down to the screws and magnets. It is doable on a single extruder, a single extruder printer with filament swaps, and he has since added prepainted files for multi color printers. There's even a plain weighted storage cube variant if you just want the version without the heart. DBRAND got shut down for using Valve's IP without permission, and now this recreation is based on dBrand's design without dBrand's permission. That's pretty funny. That's it. And because there's no commercial endeavor here, Valve is extremely unlikely to do anything unless buddy starts charging for the files or something like that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Doesn't look like he is right now. I was wondering about that.

[Dan]

Are you.

[Linus Sebastian]

Are you on it right now? Yeah. Okay, here. Here you go, guys. You can have a look at. How cool is that?

[Luke Lafreniere]

It looks awesome.

[Linus Sebastian]

Looks freaking awesome. Yeah, it does. That's amazing, man. I just. I love the maker community and 3D printing community and just the way people so selflessly give of their own time so that other people can just have a little bit more joy. How cool is that? Yeah, like out of 10,

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think genuinely 10. What else would be a 10? What are we. What are some.

[Linus Sebastian]

Some puppies?

[Dan]

10?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Puppies are a 10.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. I think this is a 10.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's on par with puppies.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

That's why Open Sauce is so awesome.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Because everyone there is just this.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Yeah. Amazing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, but tell me this, though. What if Open Sauce had puppies? Can you exceed 10?

[Dan]

Did you miss the puppy room? Shut up.

[Linus Sebastian]

There's no puppy room. Was there a puppy room?

[Dan]

I don't think so.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, stop.

[Dan]

They're 3D printed.

[Linus Sebastian]

This guy. 3D printed puppies.

[Dan]

What if it was both? There you go. Open source puppies.

[Linus Sebastian]

You wouldn't download a puppy. Okay. This is cool. Speaking of makers and stem, Northwestern University engineers have unveiled Phantom Twist. Luke, do you want to bring up the video of it taking off?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sure, one sec.

[Linus Sebastian]

A drone that makes itself roughly 10 times harder to see than a same sized quadcopter by spinning its entire body 15 to 25 times per second. It debuted July 16 at the Robotics Science and Systems Conference in Sydney. And in flight, it kind of dissolves into a faint semi transparent smudge. And remember, guys, we're looking at it now against, like, dark, high contrast objects. This is like the worst case scenario. If this thing was in the sky, just like, up against the blue in the dazzling light of the sun. I do not know how you could see it. The way it works is the body spins, or, sorry, the body sits still while only the. Sorry. The way it works is it has one motor and one propeller. The prop spins one way and the entire rest of the aircraft counter rotates the other way, so no part of it ever holds still. It stays stable through the gyroscopic effect and steers by varying its motor thrust mid rotation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

People are commenting that apparently it's like, super loud.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's super loud, but. But if it was high enough, it wouldn't matter. According to the researcher's paper, the disappearing act works because of the persistence of human vision. Our eyes accumulate light over a window of roughly 50 to 150 milliseconds, sort of like a camera's exposure time. Anything spinning faster than that gets averaged into the background, which is the same reason that fan blades look transparent. The paper points out that the drone's spin rate is comparable to the 24 frames per second that movies are shot at. I don't actually know how relevant that is here, but sure, that's nice. The team did not design the layout by hand. They had a computational model generate around 20,000 stable configurations, then used AI optimization to shuffle the motor, battery, circuit board, and counterweight around until visibility bottomed out. That is okay. Something that's actually very cool. Use of AI. Before anyone gets too excited or worried, it currently relies on an external optical tracking system to fly, so it's indoors only for now. The thin carbon fiber rods and wires are still faintly visible up close, and it is just as loud as any other small drone, so your ears will catch it even if your eyes did. The team's pitch is wildlife monitoring. Okay. And infrastructure inspection, with future versions aiming for transparent materials and quieter props. It's going to have to be a lot quieter to be useful for wildlife monitoring, I think. But, hey, neat. Our discussion question is, do you have any uses for an invisible drone?

[Dan]

Maybe.

[Linus Sebastian]

Don't answer that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I know who does.

[Dan]

No, I don't. Talk to my lawyer.

[Linus Sebastian]

Who?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, you know, People gross.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm gonna move on. This one's just funny. Author Dave Eggers, best known for the memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the novel the circle, criticized ChatGPT directly to OpenAI employees. And this is especially funny because he was invited to speak to the OpenAI employees by the company's CEO, Sam Altman, after Eggers publicly criticized AI generated fiction. So he used the opportunity to challenge employees over AI's impact on education and creativity. And this is a quote saying, why don't you leave your house, leave the screen, meet some people, get yourself in a writing group. And also said, or also warned them that AI could be silencing an entire generation or two. And what he meant by that was that by making teachers jobs more difficult and preventing students from developing their own writing skills and authentic voices, that they would not have the skill set to tell their stories in an authentic, personal way.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I heard there was a. There was a teacher who put.

[Linus Sebastian]

I just thought this was badass, that's all.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There's a teacher who put some text in a assignment, like how to do this assignment thing that was, I don't know, transparent text or something. So when it was copy pasted, it grabbed it, but if you were just trying to read it yourself, you wouldn't see it. And it said something along the lines of like, I don't know, use this strange word in a context that wouldn't make any sense. It specifically says that wouldn't make any sense. And it was something like, these numbers gonna be wrong. But the scale, I think is pretty correct. Yeah, Madagascar. That was it. You use the word Madagascar in a way that wouldn't make any sense. And the assignment had nothing to do with it at all.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And maybe the person who said the word Madagascar will know, but if I remember correctly, it was like 40 students. Like two of them didn't do it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like two of them didn't have Madagascar in the final assignment.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Something like that. It was some insane ratio. But I. The numbers. Don't. Don't listen to the numbers. I don't remember exactly what the numbers were, but it was like some insanely high percentage of people. There was also another teacher who did

[Dan]

a

[Luke Lafreniere]

take home, do it yourself midterm and then an in person, no computer final.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, that one was a little while ago. I think we talked about that on WAN show.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, is that wan?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, that was, that was college, I think.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Very interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Where like everyone aced the midterm. And then when he said it was going to be an in person. Final, like a whole bunch of people dropped out of the class. And it turned out that, like, again, two of the students had consistent grades across the midterm.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And the final one of them was just, just an honest chad. Well, one of them was a chad who got like 98 both times or something. And then another one of them was just, just an honest person and got.

[Linus Sebastian]

And that's their redeeming quality.

[Luke Lafreniere]

60 something both times.

[Dan]

All right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice, Nice work.

[Linus Sebastian]

You know What? There's.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I, man, 32 out of 35 failed.

[Dan]

Apparently.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is gonna be. I don't know, this might ruffle some feathers, but I think I would rather have. In terms of who I'd rather work with day to day, I think I'd, I'm getting to the point where I'd rather work with someone honest with integrity than a genius.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I, I, I think LMG community said it well, though. Mr. Chewy.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, he's like, totally not our, like, community coordinator.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You should get a new.

[Linus Sebastian]

You really need a different tag, Chewy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, you do.

[Linus Sebastian]

Your job title has actually changed twice

[Luke Lafreniere]

since then and also quite significantly.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

He said, I just don't know how kids could possibly resist the temptation of using AI. And honestly, I agree.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's, that's an unfortunate but, like, pretty based take. I hate it. Thanks. I hate it. Basically. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think it's, I think it comes

[Linus Sebastian]

down to, would you have been able to resist?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, I would have used it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Your options would have been play Morrowind or sit and do tv.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm already cooked.

[Linus Sebastian]

See, that's what I'm talking about. As soon as I, as soon as, like, as soon as I put you back, I give, I give you a temptation that is irrelevant today. You wouldn't play Morrowind today if I was like, oh, Luke, here, I installed Morrowind on your computer. Are you gonna be able to focus on wan sh. You're like, what are you talking about? Of course there's no way you're gonna play Morrowind during WAN show. There's no way you will disrespect our viewers that way. See, now I've already turned him off it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm updating steam.

[Linus Sebastian]

You're not. Unbelievable. Actual child. You're an actual child.

[Dan]

I mean, that's why I have three monitors. You can't see what I'm doing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You can't see that he's playing Morrowind.

[Linus Sebastian]

But as soon as, as soon as I pull out the like, period appropriate temptation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, I think, I think I, I

[Linus Sebastian]

think it's an Easy choice. You play Morrowind.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm really trying to wonder. I definitely would have used it as a shortcut. I don't know if I would have used its output.

[Linus Sebastian]

There's different times in my life that I think I would have used it more or less.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And by using it at all, I think I might have stunted the growth that would have led to the higher probability of using it at other times. If that makes sense.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think especially with some of the really big problems I had in high school of the. Like grammar and punctuation and stuff.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, if you could have.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I wonder.

[Linus Sebastian]

The dangerous thing about being smart with a learning disability is that you're invisible. If you want to be, you can fake it and you'd have better tools for faking it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I would have found a way to hide that with that. So I probably would have used my own words, but I would have used it to give me the correct punctuation.

[Linus Sebastian]

Interesting.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But I probably would. I don't know. I'm looking at how I've approached it so far. And I believe very strongly in the you have to own the output thing. And I think I would have been informed enough to know that you could do things like hiding text. Maybe it was one point font or something. Hiding text somewhere or doing other little tricks. I would have known that there are ways for teachers to detect it like EM dashes and all this other kind of stuff. And I wouldn't have wanted to risk that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But I would have definitely used it as a proofreader and would have adjusted my hand ins based on it and would have used it as a shortcut. I'm fairly certain that would have happened. Especially when Morrowind is calling.

[Linus Sebastian]

I didn't really learn to enjoy writing until after high school.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The wacky thing for me was I enjoyed writing. I just couldn't get good grades because I would just butcher spelling, grammar, punctuation.

[Dan]

Interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

The only reason I learned to enjoy it was because I had a teacher who pushed me to become more proficient at it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

See, that's so interesting because I almost had the opposite. Mr. Thompson said that he actually really liked my writing. And I was getting just kneecapped by because my previous teacher would take a point away for every single mistake. So he liked the writing, but my punctuation would be weird. So I just get 50%, like all the time.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

We had my. Mr. Horn was exactly the same. I think it was 0.5 of a point off. And this was out of 10.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

So if you made a handful of Mistakes.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's just gone. So I just couldn't. I couldn't perform. So he capped it at 10%.

[Linus Sebastian]

Right.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So if I, like, wrote something really good, but the structure of it was bad, the punctuation was bad, stuff like that, I could still get 90, and then I got, like, very close to 90 in the course, and I started really enjoying it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Mr. Horn had no such accessibility mode that I'm aware of. But what we were allowed to do was we were allowed to a pick partner before we handed in our assignments and do a proofreading.

[Luke Lafreniere]

See, that would have helped a ton.

[Linus Sebastian]

So what he taught us.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I like that.

[Linus Sebastian]

I forgot about that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's actually really cool. I actually really like that.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's one of the reasons I'm so good at editing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I just realized that's a really, really cool solution.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's hilarious.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I really like that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Although it did. It did mean that the winners won more and the losers won and the losers lost more.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You get paired with someone who's.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, no, you picked your partner. So I would go and pick another ace in the class, and we would check each other's work, and we would both get nine and a half or ten out of ten.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That happened kind of naturally for me in university. There was a. There was a crew of people at BCIT that I'm still friends with the boys, and we would all help each other study with stuff. And I really think it, like, raised the whole group to another level. There's a lot of dropouts in that course. And that crew stayed together and didn't drop out the whole way through. I mean, until I did, I guess. Oops. But, like, that was for different reasons.

[Linus Sebastian]

Does school need to be fair?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nothing is fair.

[Linus Sebastian]

Nothing is there. But we should strive for fairness, if that makes sense.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Best we can.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I still think teaching people the value of editing and, like, caring about someone else's work and trying to help each other succeed is very valuable. I don't think there's necessarily a way you can possibly make that purely fair, because you can't make every single pairing perfect. Maybe you don't do the pick your partner. Maybe you rotate through somehow. I'm not sure. Yeah, that probably has its own flaws. Yeah.

[Dan]

What else.

[Linus Sebastian]

What else we got here? What's. What's something cool?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, that one's not cool. That one's not cool. That one's interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, I've got a pretty cool one.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Go for it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Do you want to do. Oh, I was. You know, I thought it was kind of your Turn. I picked a cool one for you, though.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'll do it, man. This whole. We stopped doing it for a while and we're back to it. The title is the same as the first.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I just stopped reading the titles.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay. I will stop doing that as well. A federal judge has given final approval to Anthropic's 1.5 billion dollar copyright settlement with authors and publishers, which the court called the largest copyright class action settlement in history.

[Linus Sebastian]

A billion and a half. Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I mean, that is massive.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's pretty big.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It covers. Yeah, it covers about 482,000 books that anthropic downloaded from piracy sites like Libgen while building training data for Claude and works out to roughly $3,000 per book before fees. I don't necessarily know what that means. Before fees. Legal fees.

[Linus Sebastian]

I assume so.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, God. Is it going to be like $3 at the end of it?

[Linus Sebastian]

No, no, no, no, no. The authors get $3,000 per book, I think. Oh, before. I hope not.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We'll see. Hopefully I'm reading that wrong. Over 91% of covered authors have already claimed their share.

[Linus Sebastian]

Tells me it's more than $3 if

[Luke Lafreniere]

people bothered to do it. Sure does. It sounds like a lot of them did.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's pretty sick.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And Anthropic is also required to destroy its pirated copies. Yeah, sure, sure. It's already trained on it. Judge Alup ruled last year that Anthropic buying physical books, scanning them and destroying the originals was fair use. Nice. We can buy Blu Rays and. And rip them and then. It's totally legal now. Thank you. And that training AI on books is legal. What wasn't legal was downloading millions of pirated copies to build a permanent library. And that's the part Anthropic paid to settle before a jury could set damages. Because it settled instead of appealing. None of this becomes a binding precedent.

[Linus Sebastian]

Damn it. No, that's actually maybe good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is it?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So the. Okay, we'll talk about that in a second. So the dozens of similar suits against Google, Meta, Midjourney and OpenAI are still live with judges free to rule differently. But wasn't this a good.

[Linus Sebastian]

Or rule the same? Because at least one of these is bound to go through and not get settled is kind of where my head's at on this.

[Dan]

I see.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay.

[Dan]

So.

[Linus Sebastian]

So what's nice is that this.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Don't want one to go a totally different direction. And sure, go through.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is true. But this is resolved for now and the authors get something which is not enough in My opinion.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't think it's enough.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't think it's enough. It's. Man, it's something.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's something, though.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's something.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I see what you're saying. You didn't want the precedent set with this because it might be too low.

[Linus Sebastian]

I. I just wanna.

[Dan]

I.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is. This is. This is a start. It's. It's a. It's a. It's. If. If these are my possible outcomes.

[Dan]

Right.

[Linus Sebastian]

And everything to this side of the middle is bad. And everything to this side of the middle is good. We're kind of like. We're like, here.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

You know, we're like, oh, it's. It's.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's good.

[Linus Sebastian]

I could hope for better still. Yeah, that's where I'm at, for sure.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So you're holding out hope for better.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm holding out. I'm holding out for a hero, man.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wendell's Turnstone video is still not up. Come on, Wendell. Come on.

[Linus Sebastian]

What's Turnstone?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Turnstone is cool. I. The. The answer to, like, all of this stuff for me is run stuff locally. I. I think that is the right way to get back at them.

[Dan]

Dude.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude. The latest. The latest Chinese models look crazy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They also look very hard to run, but they'll be quantized down and whatnot. But Turnstone is like Odysseus Pewdiepie's thing, but more tuned for enterprise.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And Wendell's building it.

[Dan]

Oh.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And he hasn't said a ton else publicly yet, but he has said publicly that there is a video on Turnstone that is coming, and I'm excited because it's very cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

That sounds very cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It is very cool. Next topic.

[Linus Sebastian]

8th and Immortal says, as a publisher, it feels a bit like robbery, where they got to keep what they stole. And I was offered a market value. I was still robbed. Yes.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes. Yeah, that's totally fair.

[Luke Lafreniere]

If this was a person, they wouldn't have to pay $3,000 per book. They would go to jail.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Which is crazy. Right?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Anyways.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, that was actually something that didn't make it into our notes about the. About the India, like, ink price fixing deal thing is that apparently their executives are actually like. Like, we're personally punished for this. Which is like, I can't believe I'm saying this, but, like, hey, maybe India has something to teach us about how to punish, like, antitrust stuff.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I'm trying to look it up. Reddit co founder Aaron Schwartz. Pirated stole. Whatever you want to call it. I Think it was like what I'm seeing here is 4.8 million JSTOR documents from MIT, which is I think like published papers and stuff. And yeah, Reddit co founder accused of stealing 4.8 million JSTOR documents from MIT.

[Linus Sebastian]

Repeated visits to access network and download documents for distribution. Distribution and file sharing sites.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, and this is like for context as far as my understanding goes, if you email the authors of a lot of these papers, they will just send it to you because in how their system works, they're probably employed by like a school or whatever else. They like have to publish these papers this way, but they don't actually want to charge people for it. So he's like trying to make it so these papers can get out more easily because that's scientific progress, open learning, all that kind of stuff. He did not get dealt with in the same way. Oh man, I just had it on screen and then lost it. Sorry. Here it is. The charges were filed in Boston on Tuesday by attorney district carried a penalty of 35 years in prison and a one million dollar fine.

[Dan]

What?

[Luke Lafreniere]

So we seem to be a lot harder on a random individual.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dude, float plane chat is being pretty based. Here's the deal. When corporations can go to jail, then they can be people.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, no, I agree.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's actually. How about they just have to. Dude, if you, if the punishment was that if the corporation commits a crime that would have resulted in a six month prison sentence. If they have to actually get just like their one phone call a day for six months, you man, we would. All of a sudden they'd be on it. They'd be, they'd be so adherent to

[Luke Lafreniere]

the law like it'd be wild. Speaking about a post corporate world, Fallout 5, Fallout 3 and New Vegas Remasters. And the most interesting part, the very most interesting part, that people have a lot of mixed opinions on. New Obsidian. Fallout is official.

[Linus Sebastian]

So I am amazed that you picked this topic as one of our headline topics at the beginning of the show. Usually I have a pretty good idea of what you're gonna pick. I know that you love Fallout, but I can't believe that after all the news that has come out of Bethesda and Microsoft and ID and all of that mess right now.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sometimes I'm just a dumb little boy who likes his old video games that

[Linus Sebastian]

you're not looking at this through a cynical lens going here's. This is obviously just a shiny distraction. Hey, ignore all the bad news right now. Fallout is it? I mean am I, am I just being too cynical?

[Luke Lafreniere]

The Part that is interesting to me is Obsidian's involvement.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, it looks like it's not me. I'll RFTW says Luke smoking that copium hard.

[Dan]

Hurt me again, Todd. I'm ready that I will get excited

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm ready for the pain Loviatar Take me.

[Dan]

Oh, it never goes away.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Obsidian is the interesting part to me.

[Dan]

Yeah, that's the good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a little questionable. It's been a hot minute. The obsidian of the now is not the obsidian of the then. So it's interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

Then isn't one of the glass like and now it's. It's black and glass like and older.

[Dan]

No, serve the second one. Isn't that like the main guy coming back?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I've heard, yes, but all the structure around him is changed.

[Dan]

No man is an island.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Maybe not completely gone. I can't claim to know. But it's interesting because, I mean, if you look at Fallout, I liked Fallout 3. Fallout 3 was all right. Fallout New Vegas was incredible. Has a lot of, like, the best quotes in games ever in it and is still a cult classic to today. Fallout 4,

[Linus Sebastian]

More like Fallout for the birds. I didn't play it.

[Dan]

I don't know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, Fallout 5 is. I don't know if Fallout 5 is the Obsidian Fallout or if Fallout 5 is Bethesda Fallout. If Fallout 5 is Bethesda Fallout. If they keep going down the path they have been going lately, it's probably gonna suck.

[Dan]

It's just all settlement building.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, something like that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Fallout 5 was Bethesda. Was. Is Bethesda.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is Bethesda okay?

[Linus Sebastian]

Excuse me.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. So whatever the Obsidian One is, is the one that I'm more interested in, but, you know, fool me roughly seven times or something. And maybe I'm the fool, but shame on Dan.

[Dan]

Maybe.

[Linus Sebastian]

Maybe catching strays.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Maybe Todd can sit in a immersion sensory deprivation chamber or something and become what he once was and revitalize all of Bethesda and give us a good

[Dan]

Elder Scrolls and good fallout maybe has a midlife crisis. Just goes like, wait, what if we made good games?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wait, what if they were fun?

[Linus Sebastian]

That'd be cool. Sounds stupid.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, probably.

[Dan]

Well, I got my tanks recharged of copium, so I'm all ready to go.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Let's go.

[Linus Sebastian]

I owe Sammy something. And I think he's expecting me to do this on my phone, but I'm not going to.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Huh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Weak. Okay, Dan, Sammy needs that timestamp.

[Dan]

Sure. We don't have. We don't have noki in the chat today.

[Linus Sebastian]

Hi. Hi. Mi. Do you mind filming a horizontal video of you saying weak? I forgot to ask. I was too stunned by the feet cam. Thank you.

[Dan]

Sammy. Sammy. Sammy. Sammy. 2:58:48:30. Can I get a clap? Thank you. Editor's note. Yeah, whatever.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right,

[Luke Lafreniere]

man. It's been a long week. Do we talk about the, the craziness now?

[Dan]

Yeah, sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Let's talk about the craziness.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Fallout 5 is currently in pre production and will use The Creation Engine 3. Also used for Elder Scrolls 6. Note from David.

[Dan]

Which. Which one had. Which one was Starfield?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Creation Engine 3. 2.

[Dan]

2 and a half with.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think that. What version of.

[Dan]

So does that mean also Starfield two.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Two. Yes, two.

[Dan]

Okay, so there's hope. There's more hope. Only I gotta talk to my dealer and order more copium.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, Maybe Creation Engine will save us. Maybe they'll scoop up all the people it just lost. I mean, it would kind of make sense.

[Linus Sebastian]

Their engine is so based on. Yeah, but then. Wait, but these are both under the Microsoft umbrella. There are no way. Yeah, okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Bethesda and ID are also extremely related.

[Linus Sebastian]

You are, you are not even sitting on.

[Dan]

And then they're gonna get all the

[Linus Sebastian]

Zelda right now and they're gonna get video games. That is your worst take.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

In all the many years that we have hosted this show together, you expected

[Luke Lafreniere]

good takes from here about Bethesda.

[Linus Sebastian]

Look, I take you. I take you seriously. I respect you as a friend and collaborator.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I can't be. But I can't be.

[Linus Sebastian]

That was.

[Dan]

You're as you're is.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh my God.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like it took me a second. I, I, I didn't manage to connect the dots for how stupid that was because I expect so much better from you. Hey, why are we pick another topic. My God.

[Dan]

No whimsy. No whimsy in this man. Your whimsy list.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You can't have magical pixie dust thoughts in there.

[Dan]

Let us dissociate. That's all we have left.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, now let's go into a insane whiplash of a topic. Framework cuts Laptop 13 Pro Pre Order Ram in half.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Investment disclosure. I'll let Luke do this one.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Massive increases in cost have forced Framework to alter pre orders for the upcoming Laptop 13 Pro.

[Linus Sebastian]

Laptop Pro 13 Framework Pro 13.

[Dan]

Whatever.

[Linus Sebastian]

KitKong, you could do your thing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it's written wrong in here. It's not Luke's fault.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The pre order holders report RAM allocations being cut in half and pricing for the pre orders being updated. The company announced in a blog post that their LP CAM2 supplier has more than doubled RAM pricing over their existing inventory framework. Chief exec and true spec cable enthusiast Nirav Patel wrote that this cost increase goes beyond, far beyond anything we had predicted and anything we're able to absorb without placing our ability to operate at real financial risk. Framework says they have enough LP CAM two modules on hand to cover existing pre orders, but not in capacities that match the pre order. So no they don't.

[Linus Sebastian]

So no, no. So LP CAM2 modules is one module per system. It's not like SODIMM where you would have two. So they have. In terms of the quantity of LPCAM2 modules, they have enough of them, but not with the right number of dies on them.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I see. So not the right.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, yes, I see. I get it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That was actually pretty good. The blog post breakdown breaks down the Pre order changes. TL Dr. If there aren't enough modules for your order, it's being downgraded to the next lower RAM configuration at the original price for that configuration. Okay, that's a little better than I thought. The blog also warns of cost increases on other hardware which will impact new orders as well.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I, I didn't put it in the dock for this week I think, but tsmc. It's rumored that TSMC is increasing wafer. Oh no, it is in here. TSMC plans chip price hikes in 2027 of baseline 5 to 10% with some AI and HPC customers facing effective cost increases of up to 25% through additional surcharges. These reported increases are tied to rising manufacturing costs, overseas fab investments and just plain old strong you pay me demand.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's honestly wild. They could be. This might sound like an insane statement. They could crank it so much more.

[Dan]

I know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So much more.

[Dan]

I know.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They literally came out and and pointed at like sk, Hynix and Samsung and we're like we're not doing that. They could though. And it's really kind of wild that they're not. And there's a lot of theories as

[Linus Sebastian]

to why is it just down to like Taiwanese culture? Like I. What are the other theories?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think it's down to the defense of Taiwan because if they crank it too high, you're incentivizing development elsewhere. Yeah, that's my theory. The same guy that brought to you. Maybe Bethesda should just hire the ID guys to make Creation Engine.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I mean the other part too as I could. I could see valuing the long term partnership. I mean you look at the way you can you can, like, okay, look at what's going on with.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Look at how hungry everyone is to switch to Chinese ram.

[Dan]

What's that.

[Linus Sebastian]

What's that thing, Oracle Bot that everyone's all mad about? Or. Hold on. No, no, no. I remember who owns VMware right now. Broadcom. That's right. Everyone's super mad at Broadcom because they bought. They bought VMware in 2023 and have just been, like, cranking the screws. In fact, did that not make it into wan. Show last week that it was a really cool article. I read. I think it was on Ars Technica about a company that found a solution. It was like a restaurant chain that found a solution to converting all of their VMs. Restaurant or retail? Retail. Sorry. Retail was a retail chain that converted all of their VMs off of VMware and just kind of, like, told the story of the very difficult, painful migration that they had to go through and how just. And just the comments was hilarious on this article because everyone was talking about how much they just hate what Broadcom is doing with VMware, but they feel so locked in and they can't wait to jump ship. And, I mean, maybe part of it is also just prudent business management. Just because you're on top today and you have all these partnerships today doesn't mean that. And you want to benefit from being a technology leader. So TSMC is clearly increasing pricing, but if you turn the screws too hard, you're incentivizing outside demand or outside competition. You are, you know, just, you know, I don't know. You're being kind of a jerk. And also, you're making your partners irate. You're making them look for the exit. So maybe it's a little bit of all of them. I mean, I don't sit on their board. I don't know. But, yeah, just guessing, just guessing. What else? While this is going on, Nvidia is reportedly raising GeForce GPU kit prices. Nvidia board partners are said to be paying more for both GDDR6 and GDDR7 GeForce GPU kits. However, the reports do not confirm whether these higher component costs will directly translate into higher retail GPU prices. But how could they do anything other than that? Okay, so GPU prices are going up. There you go. You heard it here first. Our discussion question is PC building feels like a luxury hobby right now, but has it always been this way?

[Luke Lafreniere]

No. I would argue no. The reason why I would argue no,

[Linus Sebastian]

I think it's cyclical, at least To a degree.

[Luke Lafreniere]

When's the last time it felt like a luxury hobby? Oh man, I really would like basically go to before I was functional as a human.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, I wouldn't say that. I'd say it felt, man, it felt very luxury hobby in like the early SLI days. Although it didn't have to be. I mean, I think that's the difference

[Luke Lafreniere]

is that premium options does not mean luxury hobby.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, that's true. But I mean working in the department that I was working in, I had a lot of exposure to the people who treated it like a luxury hobby. Like we had a. There was a player on the Vancouver Canucks who, I mean, I'm probably far enough removed from this now that I could just admit this. I would just, I would just search his name in our system once in a while just to see what kind of crazy shit he bought. Because he would just buy the highest end everything the second it came out. And like it, it was, it just really surprised me the first time he like showed up on my radar because he bought like an over thousand dollar high capacity ssd. And I was like, wait, that guy? Because I don't see that as like the, as like the professional athlete thing to do. I mean obviously he has the money, right? You know, guy had a nearly hundred mile an hour slap shot. He's getting paid for it. But like, sorry, he's super into like gaming and computers. He bought. No. And he would buy things one at a time. So he's clearly doing it himself. Yeah. Which is like based af.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's cool.

[Linus Sebastian]

He could obviously afford to have somebody else build him an extreme edition computer with a, you know, high capacity vertex 3 SSD. Whatever, whatever. The exact specs were.

[Luke Lafreniere]

My, my argument because someone, someone insomniac in chat said Luke taking the stance when Linus has refresh his computer lasts how much times. I understand where you're coming from. I don't think that's a valid argument at all. The reason why I would say that is looking at how I got into the hobby. A big part of the reason why I got into the hobby was because oh my God, it is so much cheaper and more accessible than cars. It was like can I go down one of these two paths? Cars or computers? And it was like, well one is hilariously expensive, requires tons of room, lots of kind of expensive tools or access to them and oh my God, things break all the time and they cost a lot and blah blah blah blah blah. And the other one, I can enter with no tool costs right at all.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, you could buy a bougie screwdriver

[Luke Lafreniere]

to do it maybe.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Or not.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Or just borrow your dad's, which he like, almost certainly has at least a like Phillips screwdriver. It's like the most common thing ever to work on computers. And then, and when I first got into it, like, my stuff wasn't nice, but it played games just fine. Dude, the entry level, I can play friend slop games. Computer right now is still very cheap.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I'm on here right now. One of our discussion questions that we hadn't got to yet, I was prepping for it is like, hey, how cheaply could you do just like it like an Optiplex build these days? And it's. It's still actually not that bad. I don't like this one. I don't like just 8 gigs of RAM.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Hold on.

[Linus Sebastian]

More expensive than another one I liked better. Well, okay. Remember though, I'm. I'm looking for 8th gen. Yep. So 8th gen, 16 gigs RAM. You got to watch out for the shipping, though. It's a hundred dollars shipping on this bad boy. But that's to us. That's to us. That's international shipping.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

If this was domestic shipping in the US it would be considerably cheaper.

[Luke Lafreniere]

$0 import. I wonder if part of the shipping is that the imports included.

[Linus Sebastian]

It is, It's. It's part of ebay's whole. They. They have depots that US sellers ship to and then they handle all of the paperwork so that the international shipping goes smoothly. It's a whole thing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

But anyway, it's 16 gigs RAM, 250 gigs SSD. So you're still going to need to prop. Probably pop a hard drive in there. You're gonna need a GPU. But we actually have a, like a 1080 retrospective coming soon. And we found that the 1080 Ti in particular is actually still very usable. So for probably around 250 bucks, you could, you could friend slop it with all your friends.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And that's just like grabbing a pretty quick ebay listing. There's a lot of the stuff that I got when I was first starting was helping people fix their computers. I don't know. A friend would want to build a computer, so I'd help them build the computer. They would want to upgrade the fans that came, that came with the case. So they'd replace the fans that came with the case. They have a few computer fans now. They don't have any use for it. Okay, those are my computer fans now. Just little, little things like that as you're going along, it's a hobby that is very effective for flipping parts. You have 100 bucks more than you had before. You can go on Facebook Marketplace, you can sell your GPU for some cash. Combine that with the 100 extra bucks you had and get a very significant increase in GPU and just plug that into the system you currently have. Most likely you can keep using things like your case for a very long time. Apparently Jeff Geerling still has like one of his first ones.

[Dan]

Nice.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It still uses it. Yeah. Even right now when it's like the worst. I was saying the. The. I think I slightly misspoke, which got people to dive on me immediately again, which is confusing to me. But whatever. I think I said something like I was surprised by that price. That isn't what I meant. I meant I was shopping for Dell optiplexes or Dell somethings during last scrapyard wars. And what I was trying to point out is that that is. Even those systems are significantly more expensive than they were. And still that's not a crazy amount to get into a fresh new hobby. No, I don't think I would put this in the. In the category of luxury hobby. I think that's a big jump.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, I think. I think that's actually fair. And Pankratz posted in chat, you're not fitting a 1080 in there law. To which I will reply. Got it. Not with that attitude. Not with that attitude, but with a bit of. With a bit of handiwork.

[Dan]

Anything.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Engage with the part of the hobby that's really fun.

[Linus Sebastian]

Anything can fit in anything.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, you can figure it out. I believe in you. Oh, man.

[Linus Sebastian]

And yes, I did not factor. I did not factor in an extra power supply though. So you will need a better power supply in order to run a 1080 or a 1080 TI or something like that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But the power draw of just that card isn't going to be super high. So you could get a fairly low cap power supply for not a crazy

[Linus Sebastian]

amount of money as long as it has the connectors. Or you can figure out a way to get conductors connected to. Which is fun, which is cool unless you break it. And a hundred dollars is a lot of money to you like it was in the early days of us pursuing this hobby.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, dude, the panic attacks. I had it.

[Linus Sebastian]

But. But the. The panic and the stress is part of the fun is what makes the payoff so worth it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And like, trust me, guys, I get it. I understand what you're trying to project. It sucks right now. It's expensive right now. Yeah, it's still a hobby that people can get into with not a ton of cash. No, you're not going to have some sick 50, 90 water cooled. Amazing. You know, it has that screen thing from Corsair that you can mount anywhere and all this other fancy crazy.

[Linus Sebastian]

But you know what? Nobody has that stuff. I think this is something that like.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think people really, really don't realize how rare the customers for this stuff are because it's all over like your, your, your Instagram feed or whatever.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Battle stations.

[Linus Sebastian]

But I worked at the computer store. Do you know how few people buy thousand dollar CPUs? Yeah, like that's rare. Do you know how few people are buying top of the line GPUs in the grand scheme of things? How. What a tiny, tiny percentage of the market they make up. Most people are just like running a regular computer.

[Luke Lafreniere]

When I was, when I was building a bunch of computers for myself, for my friends, all that kind of stuff, everybody was sitting on 60 series. It was bougie. If you got a 70, no one got an 80. 90s were absurd.

[Linus Sebastian]

Was 90 even a thing yet?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Probably not even. Yeah, I think they had other nomenclature

[Linus Sebastian]

for the 8 Ultra was a thing for a bit.

[Dan]

And then.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh yeah, no, no, hold on. There were 90. So I think a 590 was a dual GPU. Yeah. So 90.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was still building computers for friends in that era, so.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And it's like nobody got those cards.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. I'm trying to think of the first dual GPU was the 5950x2.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Was it?

[Linus Sebastian]

I. Oh man, I. Wow. I used to know this stuff. 5950X2 GPU. Is that right? Oh man. No, no, no. The 7950 something. 7950X2. What was it called? 7950GX2. Man, that thing was so cool. Look how cool it is. It's got the whole two stacked PCBs, two whole separate coolers, internal SLI bridge. There's PCB1, there's PCB2. You got the. Oh man, you got the. Hold on. Where's the bird? The bridge chip go. There it is. Look at it go. Why does it keep changing which picture I'm looking at? Can I zoom? Oh, come on. Touchpad. Don't let me down. It let me down. I'm over it. The point is very cool, very expensive. Almost literally nobody bought them.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, they're unheard of. It also depends on like the circles you're in. And if the only people you're hearing talk about computer stuff is dudes on the Internet that only get views on their videos when they show the super fancy expensive cards, then you're just going to see the super fancy expensive cards.

[Linus Sebastian]

And also that's. But that's what companies market too because it's halo marketing and it works. You don't. And you see it across so many industries. PCs fashion like the amount of effort and money and time that companies spend promoting their top of the line experience that almost nobody will actually buy. But because it's cool and sexy, it creates brand appeal and then you go in and you actually buy the thing you can actually afford. It's marketing 101.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I have talked on this show almost as many times as I possibly can since I learned this piece of information that a buddy of mine's son was using a 1080 to play on decently high settings at decently solid frame rates. Arc Raiders. Yeah, I've pointed that out like as many times as I reasonably can.

[Linus Sebastian]

And, and it's worth, I'm trying to

[Luke Lafreniere]

promote the idea that you don't have to upgrade, you don't have to spend crazy amounts of money.

[Linus Sebastian]

And it's worth noting that compared to like our previous $69 gaming PCs that we've done in the past, this Optiplex was quite a bit more expensive. But that's because I went out of my way to pick something with a six core processor. Like I was going for something that wasn't, that's a decent machine that wasn't quite just, you know, barely usable today and unusable tomorrow like this. You could actually get a couple years out of this thing. It's worth putting a little bit of work into fixing it up. So I did that on purpose. You could get something cheaper. Hey, speaking of getting things cheaper, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is preparing an Apple upgrade leasing program with Klarna that wouldn't help you get things cheaper at all, but would let you pay a monthly fee for devices instead of buying them outright with the option to upgrade at the end of the lease. So, so what is Apple just a financial engineering company now? Like what are, what are we talking about here? Apple already offers an iPhone upgrade program that lets customers finance and eventually own an iPhone. But this new program is broader leasing program which would reportedly include iPhones, Apple watches, iPads and Macs. IPhones and Apple watches would have two year leases while Macs and iPads would be leased for three years before Customers could upgrade or return the device. The program is aimed at making Apple products more affordable upfront by spreading payments over time, while also encouraging customers to upgrade to newer devices on a regular schedule. Our discussion question. This is kind of funny is I'm not sure how they do this in, you know, America and the rest of the world, but how is this any different from a Canadian phone plan where you just slowly pay off your phone over the course of your plan? What makes this different slash special? I don't know. You get to give Apple the money. And Clarna, even though there's. Would you lease a piece of tech? I mean, I think we've talked about that enough on the show. I don't think. I don't think we have to do that particular discussion topic. But like, here's a crazy idea. Apple free of charge. What if. If you're reaching the point where your customers literally can't afford it anymore, what if you just like. And I mean, as someone who loves technology and loves progress, this might, this might be out of character for me, but what if you just chillax for a second? What if the new iPhone doesn't cost more than the last iPhone for one. Try it for one year just to see what it's like. You might like it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You know, as crazy as that sounds, they might have learned something from the Neo.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, they increased the price of the Neo.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But wasn't it like relatively reasonable based on memory prices going?

[Linus Sebastian]

It's still pretty reasonable. Yeah, maybe they.

[Dan]

Maybe they did.

[Linus Sebastian]

But then why do they need all. Why do they need a device Leasing partnership?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Its full name is MacBook Neo, right?

[Linus Sebastian]

I believe so.

[Luke Lafreniere]

IPhone Neo.

[Linus Sebastian]

IPhone Neo the one. But then what cut down processor would they put in an iPhone Neo? A watch chip. Like, what are we. What are we talking about here? Yeah, why not?

[Dan]

Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Thanks, Dan.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They got those.

[Dan]

No, I mean like, seriously.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, then what do they put in a cheap watch, Dan? What do they put in the Apple watch? Neo. Dan.

[Dan]

Time. Just. Just put the watch bit.

[Luke Lafreniere]

What? Your feet actually aren't touching.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sorry.

[Dan]

They are.

[Linus Sebastian]

They're hitting here. I'm hitting the floor.

[Dan]

You can look.

[Linus Sebastian]

You can verify if you'd like.

[Luke Lafreniere]

All right.

[Linus Sebastian]

For them to not be touching would look. Would look like this. I don't know. It doesn't look that different. But the point is, I think it's

[Luke Lafreniere]

the perspective of the camera.

[Linus Sebastian]

The point is they're definitely touching whatever's in a TI84.

[Dan]

Yeah, you could just get a Casio. You can write Apple.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. Hey, LTT Labs had some new articles this week. I haven't, I haven't read them yet, but you want to talk about it stuff.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, there's. There's multiple. I don't know if we talked about on the show last week, but There was the 1080 article and ever since then there's been three. We'd be pumping out articles right now. It's been really fun.

[Linus Sebastian]

I've been really enjoying this series. The quantization. I've read part one and two and all the supplementary material and videos has

[Luke Lafreniere]

really been running with this. It's been, it's been cool to see him do this. Yeah, it's been, it's been awesome. Labs article released from the LLM quantization series. That was 2.5, right?

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is that correct? Yeah. This is an unplanned part. Oh, right. The 0.5 is unplanned, I guess. Unplanned part slash article to focus on the floating point number format and how it works. This one has some Maya, but it's fun. You should go check it out.

[Linus Sebastian]

I found the math to be not too over the top so far. Like it's dumbed down enough that I

[Luke Lafreniere]

was gonna say that's. That's largely the. The writing baby. Yep, good job, Ukarsh. But also Labs article looking at Intel's intelligent bias control 3.5 announced with the Arc G3 series of chips. It advertises that it will not operate the p cores under 14 watts. We found that it is actually more complicated and interesting than that, turning off some of the E and LPE cores as well. There's almost zero information about IBC available online, so we thought we'd try to characterize it. We showed intel our results and they said that it is behaving as expected.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, Tom Peterson was very, very smug about Intelligent Bias Control. Even though it's something that on the surface did not really sound that different from what anyone else had been doing with sharing power budgets between CPUs and GPUs. But he seemed to be. And he would know, under the impression that this was quite differenter and betterer. And so apparently it's quite differenter, which is. Which is pretty cool to see. I wish they would have just communicated, you know, more of it more directly. But sure, yeah, I guess leaving it to us to discover is fun too. Finally, Microsoft is experimenting with ad supported Xbox game streaming. They're testing a free tier with Xbox Insiders allowing players to stream select owned games in one hour sessions without a cloud game subscription. Microsoft says that Ads will appear before gameplay, not during it. The test is meant to keep gameplay uninterrupted while paid cloud gaming options remain ad free.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's the most boil the frog thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

So they kind of contradict themselves here because it's in one hour sessions, after which time they will not put up an ad that interrupts your gameplay, but you will have to re authenticate and they will put an ad before you start a session, which presumably if you've been gaming for an hour, would be in the middle of your gameplay. Maybe I'm missing something here. According to the Xbox folks, ads should provide value, avoid interrupting gameplay, meet Xbox's quality standards, clearly identify what is being advertised, and fit player expectations on each platform. The goal is to make cloud gaming more accessible by giving more players a lower cost way to stream the games they own. Mm. So I think the most interesting discussion question we have here is Microsoft says ads should create value. In your experience, what does that look like? What ads might you like to see before a gaming session or before the next hour of your gaming session that could add value to you?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm trying to really genuinely.

[Linus Sebastian]

I can actually hear, I can actually hear the gears turning in his, in his head case right now. Like I, he's thinking so hard.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I was genuinely trying to find like, is there anything, is there possible, Is

[Linus Sebastian]

there some charitable interpretation of this?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I don't think so. I have to imagine the add value is like, to Microsoft. They don't mean to the. Do they mean to the user?

[Linus Sebastian]

They mean to the user.

[Dan]

Luke.

[Linus Sebastian]

They're not going to say add value to Microsoft. I mean that would be easy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There's. No, I don't. I mean there, there is. Oh man. I think that just means high success rate.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think so too.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Because if.

[Linus Sebastian]

Which highly targeted, carefully targeted.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Which obviously means beneficial for the company, beneficial for Microsoft. But they're just packaging it in a different way.

[Linus Sebastian]

And look, get ready for the 1800th hot take from me so far this Wednesday, but I believe that more of them. If we can get an ad for one of our products that we think is really great in front of someone who buys it and enjoys it, that's actually not terrible for them.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The primary holder of value in that scenario is not the consumer though.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, I'd say it's the ad serving platform.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think you could argue that they're like, if you genuinely see something and you're like, oh cool, that like solves a problem or looks like a Thing

[Linus Sebastian]

I've been wanting or saves me time

[Luke Lafreniere]

or inspires me in whatever way.

[Linus Sebastian]

And then you buy it or my feet not stink.

[Dan]

Sure.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And you're happy about the result, then. Sure, I can. Then I can say there was added value.

[Linus Sebastian]

We stacked 3W.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I still think the primary W holder is, you know, the. The ad. The person serving the ads. Oh, yeah, obviously.

[Linus Sebastian]

They're the. They're the. They're W Prime. They're the top W

[Dan]

Prime.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, man. What are some examples?

[Linus Sebastian]

It does W Prime is still a thing. That's so cool, man. When's the last time you went on Major Geeks?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, it's been 10 years. When's the last time this was updated?

[Linus Sebastian]

Ooh, yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, well, I was gonna say, I don't know if this is really a thing still.

[Linus Sebastian]

W Prime is a leading multi threaded benchmark for x86 processors.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sorry, is that a Black Friday ad here?

[Linus Sebastian]

What the what? Okay, I'm clicking it. Maybe it will generate value for me.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't know what that is.

[Dan]

Good luck, Sean.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Summer sale on iobit.com Driver Booster Pro keeps over 18 million drivers up to.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I need that many drivers.

[Linus Sebastian]

None of this is an endorsement.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

Just throwing that out there. Whoa, hold on. I have to order now. Luke, that in. It's 500 milliseconds. Wait. No, that. It's going down.

[Dan]

I've never seen milliseconds.

[Linus Sebastian]

I've never seen milliseconds on the counter.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Teen minutes.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's so much time.

[Linus Sebastian]

I have 15 minutes and 24 seconds. 23 seconds and 300 milliseconds. I'm gonna see what happens. Yeah, I will. 100%.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Thank you. Are both of these in sync? They're too far away for me to see them both with my gaze. Okay, well, we'll let them go. We'll let them go. Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So funny.

[Dan]

If they weren't.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think they are, though.

[Linus Sebastian]

Exxon Fang says no. You're gonna lose the discount if you leave it open.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Ad supported game streaming. Makes me want to die. Okay, next topic.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's it. It's time for After Dark.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

We made it.

[Dan]

Hooray.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I will choose to another WAN show. Consume less, but buy the things I own as much as possible. Hooray.

[Dan]

Hopefully soon you get to keep doing one of those and it just doesn't become impossible. Oh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, well. Yeah, that.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Womp, womp, womp.

[Dan]

All right, Comms lld. Any guesses on when we will see the Steam Deck 2? Amazing. It's not a question about the frame. I know. Valve will likely wait for components to get cheaper first. And Luke, has anyone told you you look a little like Will Riker from Star Trek the New Generation?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Is he white? And does he have a beard?

[Linus Sebastian]

Dan. Unacceptable. What? Unacceptable. Are you trying to trigger me? Star Trek the New Generation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I. I thought he said next.

[Dan]

No, I said new.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You said new. I think my brain.

[Linus Sebastian]

He knew what he did. Did you see? No. Get back on here. Did you see? Did you see what he did? Unacceptable.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They will be now that Linus has pointed out.

[Linus Sebastian]

Unacceptable.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Daniel Bester Autocorrect.

[Linus Sebastian]

Not okay. Not okay. No, no, no rebuttal. You're done. You're off. I don't even know what the question was anymore. I'm so upset right now. Star Trek the New Generation.

[Dan]

Yeah. What was it so easy. It's so easy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

They need to. They need to.

[Dan]

I gotta not do that. He gets upset. Any guesses on when we'll see the new Steam deck too? I'm sorry, Linus.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I do. I do feel like personally that Valve feels a little burned on hardware prices right now.

[Linus Sebastian]

I know, right?

[Dan]

They.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I think they are probably. Even if they were planning on releasing one like late 2027, which was an idea that I had in my brain a while ago. I suspect they might be pushing that plan back because I think they don't want to release anything in the hardware environment that we're currently in.

[Linus Sebastian]

Straight up. 100% agree. However, I do think that the pressure is going to build over the next couple of years. When the PlayStation 6 launches. What's going to happen is games that are targeting PlayStation 6 are going to start coming out and they're going to suffer. Straight up not going to run on this. On the Steam deck. Straight up not going to happen.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Hello. DLL question for Luke. Maybe tips on motivating developers on testing more and being proud of their work.

[Linus Sebastian]

I feel like our team is like so like takes pride in their work so much higher. Developers who take pride in their work maybe is step one, but I'll let you. I'll let you carry on.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I mean that's. That's tough. Testing war is interesting.

[Linus Sebastian]

I don't know if you can train people to take pride in their work.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You have to inspire, not train. It might be better for them if you let them do some like developer experience style stuff where you make sure that you're giving them cycles of time where they can make things that already exist better. Make them easier to maintain, improve the user experience. It's a little bit hard to tell without knowing what you're building. How many tests do you actually need if you do need?

[Linus Sebastian]

So it depends what you're doing. Is it an MRI machine or is it a fun little web game?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, you may still need a certain.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, like, I guarantee you this Wasn't tested at ZM.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Said 80% code coverage. And. And it's like. Yeah, I mean, I doubt it.

[Dan]

Damn,

[Linus Sebastian]

damn, damn.

[Dan]

I discovered this when I was doing an audit. I think I told you about this, Luke. I had no idea that this existed,

[Luke Lafreniere]

and I. Yeah, you told me how you found it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Don't get hit by the red cameras.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Crazy. Ah, crap. No, no, no.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You got owned. No, we should update this. We should update this to computer components and make it so that RAM is the really bad one.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'd be so down. Bring back a classic LTT reference.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I don't know. It doesn't. I don't think it comes down to convincing. I think it comes down to inspiring. MacBooks getting me set certain benchmarks. Find user feedback, show the impact of actions. Make sure that they understand, you know, what they're doing matters and why.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sorry.

[Dan]

So fast.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's an incredible answer. Honestly, without knowing the thing that you're building, it becomes a little bit more difficult. If I knew the thing you're building, I could probably answer more thoroughly.

[Linus Sebastian]

I have spent almost a million dollars.

[Dan]

Ah,

[Luke Lafreniere]

damn. Next question. He just got roasted by red camera.

[Dan]

Hi, Dll. What's a piece of tech you've trained yourself to work around rather than just replace?

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, okay. This is gonna be about the biggest first world problem ever, but the 115 inch TCL TV in my home theater does not have dedicated IR signals for power on and power off.

[Luke Lafreniere]

My steak, it's just so juicy.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, you know what? My lobster, when you're trying to eat

[Dan]

it out of the bowl, when you're

[Linus Sebastian]

trying to make a setup. That is so tender. My knife just.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't even need it. I bought this amazing knife. I can't even use it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Do you guys want to hear the answer or not?

[Dan]

Sorry. Sorry. I wasn't even listening.

[Linus Sebastian]

So the issue is that it doesn't have IR signals for power on and power off. It only has a power toggle signal. And the idea there is that, well, whenever it's off, you should press the power toggle button and it will turn on like you would want it to. And when it's on, you should press the power toggle button and it will turn off like you'd want it to. But many other TV manufacturers, even if their remote only has a toggle, and even if they do have an IR code for toggle, they also still maintain power on and power off. Now, in theory, in a perfect world, CEC is the solution. You just power on your other device and it passes through CEC commands and your TV magically powers on. But in the real world, if you happen to have more than a couple of devices, and especially if one of them happens to be a PC, CEC either isn't a thing or it doesn't work very well. I even have a $50 CEC dongle connected to my PC right now in that room that it just. So what will happen is the most recent version of trying to get this work is that any of the other devices with cec, if I'm using CEC to rely on it to turn on the tv, will create what's called a CEC storm, which can accidentally wake up the PC, which then, because it also has cec, will then grab the input and switch it over into the wrong thing. It's a whole fucking mess. And if TCL just had power on and power off IR commands, then I could just use my old Harmony remote and I could press one button and it would turn everything on in sync, turn everything off in sync and see the problem with the toggle. So you can use the toggle as well. But the issue is that if anybody is like standing in the wrong spot or does something or our command doesn't go through for whatever reason, they can end up out of sync. So your receiver and your computer will turn on and your TV will turn off. And then you press the button again and your TV turns on and your computer and your receiver turn off. And if you're trying to set up a setup that is family user friendly and that you want people to actually be able to use. Like we have a karaoke setup in there. And if my little kids can't figure out how to turn it on, they're never going to use it. And like, that sucks. Like, why, why even have it then? Like, I'm not here, it's Friday night, I'm not at home. If nobody can use it, if dad's not here, that's. That's stupid. That's not technology making our lives better. That's technology just, just being present and being a cost and taking up space. It sucks. And so figuring this out has actually caused me many, many lost hours because CEC is just such a nightmare. Like my Nvidia SHIELD actually has very granular controls of cec. So you can go and you can say, turn it on. And when the shield turns on, tell. Tell other things to switch the input, turn other things on. When other things turn on, do wake the shield. You do do the do do this, do do that. It's got like six different toggles for all the. Thank you for that. It's got six different toggles for all the different potential triggers from either side. Meanwhile, my AV receiver just has one thing. CED on, CEC off. That's it. Great, thank you. Not actually helpful. And then the same with this useless TV that doesn't have power on and power off commands, because so of course it wouldn't have proper granular controls in the CEC for it as well. So you'll end up with stupid stuff like one thing. Oh, and oh, don't even get me started on the deplorable mess that Logitech left Harmony in when they yield everything. Like, if I could just get the Harmony software to do exactly what I told it to do. Like I came up with this one crazy solution where I was going to use the shield. I'll turn on the shield first and have it turn on the TV and then turn on the PC, switch the input and then turn the shield off. And I could set the shield to turn things on but not turn them off. Or no, what was it? Turn things on but not be turned off by other things. And then I wanted to create a power down sequence that would actually power up the shield, turn off the PC and the receiver. No, turn off the PC, then have the shield turn off, which would turn off the receiver and the tv. Like I had like figured it out. This is the kind of stupid bull workaround that no one should have to do. But like, I was at the end of my. I was at the end of my freaking rope. And then that ultimately didn't work because the Harmony software doesn't allow you to just arbitrarily turn this on and then turn that on, then put a delay anywhere you want. You can only put delays in certain spots. And I'm like, if it just completely got out of my way and let me do whatever I wanted, then I would have automations that would work. And yes, I know that there are replacements to the Harmony, but none of them solve the underlying issue of that my TLC TV doesn't have dedicated power on and power off commands. And I don't want to replace it because to replace it would cost me like anywhere between 20 and $30,000. So, so, so that. And it still looks pretty good.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Will work.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, it's a pain in the butt.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, it's huge. You gotta haul it out of there and. Yeah, kind of a nightmare for me. I don't think I have an amazing answer. I think mine is more just that the Bluetooth in my car has become unreliable. I don't really want to do surgery on my car and replace the media console. So what I have done is I bought one of these things. Let me see.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm aware of the unfolded circle. I actually have one at home and I'm going to try it out. I don't know if it's going to help though. So the best case, the best solution I can come up with now is that I need to create a Jarvis at home kind of thing that uses the camera view in the, in the home theater to determine if the TV is on or off. And then you try to do that with Odysseus and then try to figure out some kind of an automation so that it will resync it if it gets out of sync. That's like, that's the, the only solution I can come up with right now.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's annoying that the problem exists, but that sounds pretty cool. But yeah, I bought one of these off of Ugreen's actual website because I didn't want to get off Amazon and I, you know, my phone can connect to two different Bluetooth devices. So while it's sitting there repeatedly trying to actually connect to my actual car and failing over and over and over again, I can just connect to the Ugreen adapter. It doesn't sound quite as good as just natural Bluetooth right to the car. I'm assuming because of the AUX connector, but it sounds pretty all right. It's not the end of the world or anything.

[Linus Sebastian]

Probably more to do with just like low quality Bluetooth.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I never really dove into it. I just assumed it was the ox. But yeah, I don't know. And I will, I will hear there's like a slight amount of lag that will happen when it finally connects the, the other Bluetooth connection to my car. So I'll hear the song just kind of like and then keep playing.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And I'll be like, okay, cool. I can switch to the Bluetooth my car now. And like usually it's not problem a problem. Usually the Bluetooth will just connect automatically, but every once in a while It'll take like 10 minutes and it's like, nah, I could have been listening to music or a podcast or whatever. That's just kind of annoying. This was like an 18 Canadian dollar. Plug it in once. It has worked every single time forever since then. Sure, why not?

[Dan]

Cheers. Dll Regarding our luggage weight chat six months back, it's OSHA limits for baggage handlers. That's why the cap is per bag, not total. It's like, I think it's 50 pounds per bag, which is the maximum single person carry.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes. So flair. Totally aware. So then why is it that what they actually wanted me to do was just pay more. If they're not allowed to lift the bag at the weight that I had? I'm aware of that. Maybe that was not. That was not why I. That was not why I lost it. Why I lost it was that my bag was well within the limit of what they are allowed to carry. It was just over the weight allowance before. You have to pay a bit more for it. And my partner's bag was like £20 under the limit while I was like £2 and a half pounds over it. They would have been fine.

[Dan]

Howdy dealo. Could we get a material cost breakdown for the socks? I'm an AV tech and these socks would have been magical, but $15 a sock is tough. Side note, the screwdriver has been a reliable tool.

[Linus Sebastian]

Material breakdown. I think it's actually right on the packaging. 33% polyester, 30% merino wool, 18% nylon, 13% acrylic, 6% spandex. They almost had 60% merino wool. But what we actually found was that there was a significant amount more pilling on the 60% merino wool due to the natural fibers and we have enough of it in the current composition to. This is. This is an area where we actually have to be really careful because we did independent third party testing and found that because of the thickness of it, which is due to the cushion, which is like a desirable thing that we don't want to get rid of because of the thickness, it doesn't actually dry very fast. Like, I will not, I will not advertise this as a quick drying sock, but what I can say subjectively, as the person who's been doing a lot of the wear testing for it, is that when and if my feet do get exposed to moisture, either through their own secretion of moisture or outside factors, they still do, subjectively, a good job of making my feet not feel super wet. So they still have that natural wicking quality. And that was something that we weren't really sure how to sell. So we don't so we just don't really talk about it in any of the marketing on the site or on the packaging. But what I found was that with the 30% merino wool you still get that benefit. And so not having the ugly pilling and having something that kind of looks a little nicer and feels more reassuringly quality after a few washes and still having all the benefits of the natural fiber as far as, you know, my wear testing goes, that was why we ultimately landed on this composition. As for why it's so expensive, I don't know if you notice, but everything has gone up in price. And we are not like outside of the price band for like a, like a, a high quality merino wool sock. And we've got the copper infusion that helps with odors. I'm not allowed to say antimicrobial, but what I can say is that everyone knows where odors come from and it reduces odors. Wow. I didn't say nothing stunning. So it's, it's a really cool, it's a really cool treatment. And I mean creator warehouse teams got to get paid. Limited lifetime warranty costs money. I mean that's something that I feel like I've kind of harped on before and people get mad at me for it sometimes. But like there is no free lunch. Ultimately the consumer pays for everything. And we felt that in terms of creating a total package around these, that was going to be competitive. It was going to be. We had to weigh the cost of what that warranty is likely to cost us against what our positioning is going to be in the market. And what we determined was that it's probably going to. If we didn't do it, we would still be so close to competitors who do offer it that the value proposition would not be as good as. So we're better off baking some warranty fulfillment into the cost. Understanding that, you know, that is going to drive the price up a little bit. Like it's all, it's like boring. It's boring business stuff. But why does it cost so much? Because things have gotten frickin expensive. We actually had a, we had a quarterly financial meeting. Luke was in it the other day and one of the things that came up is that due to tariffs and fuel surcharges and just general inflation, our cost of goods sold is up by deep into double digit percentage over the last, honestly not that long of a period of time. And we've done everything in our power to try to keep our external prices reasonable as much as we can for Customers.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This might sound weird and my God, am I old and lame, but it's actually been some really cool stuff that's been done to try to keep that stuff down. That team's been working.

[Linus Sebastian]

I know, and you know what, it's been really discouraging I think, both for the team and for and for ownership. To be very blunt with you guys right now we're deep in the WAN show, so you know, hopefully I'm not gonna, you know, say anything that's gonna get me into too much trouble here. But like everyone in an org working like harder for a worse result is super demoralizing across the board and especially when the whole thing is so unnecessary, it's really frustrating. And so yeah, I just want to take a moment I guess then to acknowledge the incredible work that the team is doing to make this less that's

[Luke Lafreniere]

happening actually across the board because CW's dealing with oil issues, costs of everything going up, largely related to oil issues, but sometimes not 100%. Tariff nightmares the LMG side is dealing with. From talking to a bunch of creators recently, it feels like all of VOD is slightly down. And one of the underlying assumptions is that it's just watch time going to shorts. Yeah, so all of VOD is slightly down right now and the PC space has hurt like most of anything because everything's just so expensive and the hobby is very difficult to be interested in right now because the stuff that's coming out isn't all that interesting or new or crazy or it's just for AI and it's all mind bogglingly expensive compared to how expensive it used to be. So it's, it's tough to make content in that realm that people want to watch and engage with. And then you get on the float plane side. We have a similar problem. When it's tough for people to be interested and watch and engage with this type of content, people are going to unsubscribe. And also we're dealing with AI pressures where if we're in a, in a data center, that data center rack space is going to have people that want to bid on it for way more. Also that data center who has to constantly buy and refresh their hardware is paying way more for it now. So they are going to be in some cases massively increasing their prices. And even just the services, the software as a services that we're using, they are running into the same problems with their bills, therefore they are going to increase the prices on us. So actually every single segment within the umbrella organization Is like under some form of like effectively attack.

[Linus Sebastian]

Want the kicker?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Badminton shuttles.

[Dan]

No way.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think you told me this.

[Linus Sebastian]

Mega inflation.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I never really thought about it. So yeah, I guess literally everything.

[Linus Sebastian]

So this one's fun because apparently it's a duck feather shortage that comes down to changing dietary habits in China.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

And you can only use the feathers from the left wing, which really doesn't help. And it's a whole thing. Yeah. Basic.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So somebody in Full Plane Chat said full plane is sinking. Question mark, question mark, question mark.

[Dan]

Kato.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I said. So I want to address. We are not going quietly into the night.

[Linus Sebastian]

I just mentioned we've got some cool ideas.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I just mentioned that the CW team has been moving and shaking and making things happen and doing some really cool creative stuff. Don't count Flow Plane out. We've got some strategies. AJ's been cooking up some stuff we can do that will likely make it into videos, I'll say that much. So far. I don't want to commit to plans because the plans are still being made. But we're not just sitting here going like, oh no, the bill's going up. I guess we're just screwed. We're, we're working on, on making a full plane's whole thing was that it was supposed to be defendable against sustainable and defendable against the bill changes that other companies might have. The idea was that we were supposed to be able to be free from lock in and all that kind of stuff. So this is just our biggest test

[Linus Sebastian]

rod posted in Floatplane Chat. You could just fill the Smash Champs building with water, play underwater hockey and call it Splash Champs. We wouldn't even have to make that many changes to the sign. Just the one letter. It's actually genius. One of two letters.

[Dan]

Sorry.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean you could take an M. Hold on. M. You could make the L out of part of the M. So you just buy one more P and then you're in good shape.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, this is interesting. Raiden428 says Hawaii also imports lots of Chinese feathers for making cloaks, etc. Same shortage. We use the entire bird though. Price is up and can't get some types at all. I guarantee you it's the left wing you can't get any, get any of for making cloaks. They said, yeah, I, I don't know what a Hawaiian cloak looks like. But what I do know is that we need to drop in on this timer and find out if I can still get my $3 off. Get it before it's gone. It's. Oh my God.

[Dan]

That.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is so like early 2 2000's web. Look at it. Turning my cursor into a popsicle.

[Dan]

And look, it's 310 bucks. I don't.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wait, I don't want 92% off. Expired. Okay, so if I actually lose it, I mean, can I just refresh it?

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's $30 now. So it's just.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's crazy. There's no way. Hold on. There's no way. Okay, bye now. Hold on. Can I still get my $3 off? I want my $3 off. Where's my $3? Off.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Dude. Scammer get scammed. You took too long.

[Linus Sebastian]

I got red.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's actually crazy. I can't believe they actually followed through.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wow. They're committed. They commit. Commit to the grift.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I'm also surprised by just refreshing. You can't like get through it. That's wild.

[Linus Sebastian]

Everyone's like, clear cookie, clear.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Guys, we know.

[Linus Sebastian]

There's ways we know it's a cookie.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, it's just, it's. I'm just surprised they actually like did it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, me too.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I thought it was going to hit zero and they're going to be like, we're gonna be nice to you this time.

[Linus Sebastian]

Last chance. Last chance.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yes. Conrad, we know. All right. Dan, hit me.

[Dan]

Sure. Would you recommend the Steam Cube for people that are moving off consoles and looking for their first PC?

[Linus Sebastian]

It's hard for me to recommend the Steam Machine at the price that it's at.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

And right now I would say that you just shouldn't move off your console. Like I think the timing is so bad.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Okay, here's a question. When do you think the timing would be better?

[Linus Sebastian]

It's hard for me to say because I don't know what PlayStation 6 pricing is going to be.

[Luke Lafreniere]

TSMC's going up. Yeah, but like Marie is not signaling that it's going to down.

[Linus Sebastian]

Right now. I can buy a PlayStation 5 for like under $500. This is literally half the price.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Way better. Deal.

[Linus Sebastian]

This is half the price of a steam machine.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Dude. PC's so cooked right now.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. 400 and $470. I mean, the last Scrapyard wars, I literally won it by buying a used PlayStation 5.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And it wasn't even that bad then. Wow, that equation just got way better.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

How much was yours? Do you remember?

[Linus Sebastian]

I want to say $325.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I remember it being like a crazy deal.

[Linus Sebastian]

$375 even back then.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Meaning that those prices are probably decently similar to where they used to be.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I mean, this is. This is not a bad deal.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Linus Sebastian]

425 bucks plus $35 shipping. You get a controller, an HDMI cable, a USB charging cable, and a PlayStation 5. 98.6% positive ratings out of 9.2 thousand ratings. Like just. This is the disc edition. To just buy it. Like, no, don't buy a Steam machine.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Kind of depends what console they're on.

[Linus Sebastian]

And, and, and you'll be able to play GTA 6, which you will not be playing on a Steam machine. This is a. This is a more performant computer. Like for the. For the difference. You could buy this PlayStation, you could buy a $500 PC, do all your computing on the PC, do your gaming on the PlayStation. Like, look, I'm. Obviously I'm. I'm a very pro PC guy. I freaking love PC. I love PC gaming.

[Luke Lafreniere]

But PlayStations are a ripping deal.

[Linus Sebastian]

I'm also not out here to give you bad advice.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, Rod rosenberg. Okay. Rod is forwarding a message from the guy who. Yeah, thank you, Jill. The guy who made the Linux migration tool we talked about on WAN last week. It helps you migrate from Windows over to Linux. Supports a whole bunch of distros. Does some really cool stuff. I'm currently doing a quadruple dual boot test because this tool was originally not built to install multiple Linux distros. Also, kudos for getting the first. First part of my name correct. Good job, Linus. The second part is Dutch for pigeon sick.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice.

[Linus Sebastian]

Keep up the good work.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's awesome.

[Dan]

That's a.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's a cool tool, man. Hell yeah. Sweet. Thanks for forwarding that, Rod.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dan hit me.

[Dan]

Hi, dll. I am a university professor and I'm getting.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, speaking of. Dan hit me. I ran into the guy who made the thing.

[Dan]

Me too.

[Linus Sebastian]

At open source.

[Dan]

Yeah, yeah. Specifically requested that I come and find it.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, it's. It's over there. Let's grab it. Let's do it again.

[Dan]

Yeah, I.

[Linus Sebastian]

So he just.

[Luke Lafreniere]

He made a little thing plugged in right now.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, I told him.

[Dan]

I told him that I. That I kept it on a shelf behind me and he assumed that we had thrown it out immediately.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No.

[Dan]

And I was like, no, Shut up.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You're wrong, dude. It's so funny.

[Dan]

It's amazing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This is art, man.

[Dan]

Oh, yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Why would we throw it away? This is one for the archive.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

We're keeping this forever. I'm so sorry.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's fantastic.

[Linus Sebastian]

Anyway, sorry. Hit Me, Dan.

[Dan]

Hi dll. I'm a university professor and I'm getting iPad kids in my first year programming.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We were talking about this earlier.

[Dan]

One couldn't even type. Just two finger pecking. With AI tools, will the next generation. I mean. Oh gee, I can't. What they don't understand as well as file systems are a big one, Right. Yeah. With AI tools, will the next generation even need keyboards?

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, they'll need them, but will they know how to use them? That's the question.

[Dan]

Can't they just talk to like copilot Siri, Google.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There's a meme. I'm pretty sure it's just a meme, but there is a Silicon Valley meme where programmers are getting rid of their keyboards because they're just speaking to their agents.

[Dan]

I don't, I don't see that as, as too much of a meme, honestly. Give it another six months.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't want to sit there and freaking talk all the time. I want to type. Does that make me. All the kids are wrong. Boomer.

[Linus Sebastian]

Boom.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Sometimes you just want to relax. It's not relaxing.

[Dan]

Yeah, but you can sit on the couch with your eyes closed and just go like. It's also enter me a div.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's always funny to me how obviously forever alone, certain developments are like the fact that you can be talking and not disturb anybody tells me so much about you jabbering at your computer all day. Like, okay, tell me you don't share a space with someone without telling me you don't share a space with someone.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That's a good point. Oh man, I'm stunned.

[Linus Sebastian]

Unintentional self own

[Luke Lafreniere]

going to university.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

For software development, not knowing how to type is.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's crazy, man. And the fact that nobody at any point told this kid, maybe don't go into software development.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Or like spend a weekend. Yeah. On. On. What is it called?

[Dan]

A lot of. A lot of people I think just go into software development because they think it's got good money in it. And I think one of.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Still one of. I don't know.

[Dan]

Yeah, I mean it's, it's like, it's what you read about. I think maybe one of the reasons why it's so nice working here and maybe why your developers are so good is because they like, like it. It's kind of like fun and it's their hobby and they just happen to have gone to school for something they enjoy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Some of them, some of them didn't go to school. They just skip that part.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Started working professionally.

[Dan]

Yeah, I think a lot of. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't go to school for this really, which is, it's interesting. What are they gonna do? What are they gonna do? Are we cooked?

[Linus Sebastian]

Like as a species? I think quite literally like we're past the 1 1/2 degrees threshold, right?

[Dan]

Yeah, quite, quite far.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Yeah, cooked.

[Linus Sebastian]

But that's okay. The solution is to turn on more air conditioning, right? Yeah, that's how it works.

[Dan]

Oh, we just had a record of power use for all time in bec.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Just build more nuclear power. What are you guys talking about?

[Linus Sebastian]

I said to my actually kind of pro nuclear power. But no, I know everybody should be.

[Dan]

I said like I'm more green than both of you. I said we should out another ocean.

[Linus Sebastian]

Could you maybe virtue signal harder.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Just make another ocean.

[Dan]

Yeah, because we're hydroelectric. We don't use stinky buildings.

[Linus Sebastian]

But hydroelectric only works.

[Dan]

So just build another mountain. We're just import Mount Baker.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think this is before your time. Did you know you're post Banff, right? We did a company workcation to Banff.

[Dan]

I'm five.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I wasn't allowed. So I also don't.

[Dan]

Yes, I'm posting.

[Linus Sebastian]

So we did an LMG workcation to Banff and we went to see a glacier and they showed us like, like in actual walking, stepping up the hill, the like spikes in the ground for how much it was receding every year. And we were like, oh well that's not good. What's the solution? And they're like there isn't one. And we're like okay, so what's the outcome? And they're like, well, this glacier has water runoff which is, you know, how it like melts and stuff that fills these bodies of water which powers all this hydroelectricity. When it's gone, there will be no electricity. And I was like, oh,

[Luke Lafreniere]

time for nuclear enrichment.

[Dan]

Well, I mean if we're already over 1.2, then can we just like go back to dirty coal? No, we just give up.

[Luke Lafreniere]

We just need. We just need to make an air conditioner for the earth.

[Linus Sebastian]

So giant mirrors.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Just put what I'm hearing just put

[Linus Sebastian]

the heat data centers in space.

[Dan]

Yeah, well, we'll just get a big ice cube and then put it in the ocean.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Maybe we should cool the data centers in space with ACs that dump the data centers and space heat on Earth.

[Dan]

Put a big peltier outside in geosynchronous orbit.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, watching the data centers in space debate has been fascinating. I don't know if I can remember the last time that both sides of an argument were so effectively arguing past each other. It's like you've got the one side that's like, they did the math. It's totally possible. They have a ton of experience with building satellites and cooling things in space. And then you've got the other side saying, there's a lot of practical problems, like how do you swap a RAM stick? And also like the costs of the launches, which, by the way, fuel's not getting cheaper. And also like, it's f Cking impractical and stupid. Not that it's impossible. Not that the math doesn't work, but the real world is not just math. And they're just going, what we really

[Luke Lafreniere]

need to do is not use. Use traditional launching mechanisms. What we really need to do is just spin stuff. Really? Really.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay. That thing's cool.

[Dan]

I hope.

[Linus Sebastian]

If it ever works. It's really cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

If it ever works. Sure.

[Linus Sebastian]

Do you guys know what this is? Basically you just rip it around this, like, thing, you spin it and then it goes boom.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Theoretically, it's like a throwing space.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I think it makes a lot more sense on the moon to launch things away from the moon.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

On earth, I don't know, just push stuff to Mars.

[Dan]

If you were on the moon. I mean, compared to here, you know, you give it a hard kick.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Okay, let's see. ILD I recently helped someone connect to Wi Fi 8th gen intel laptop and it couldn't find the. Couldn't find any of the wireless bands from the newer router and could only connect to the stock

[Linus Sebastian]

router. AT&T. Stop. AT. Stop pretending.

[Dan]

I'm not pretending. This one's actually really difficult. Ever heard of this before?

[Linus Sebastian]

At&t.

[Dan]

At&t. There's no ampersand.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, it's a Mars attacks reference.

[Dan]

God, I love that movie.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, Wireless is black magic. One of my. One of my ongoing problems. Boy, am I ever leaning into the first world problems on this stream is that this laptop, my Strix Halo laptop, cannot connect to the WI FI access point on the Falcon. It's pretty annoying, actually. I should have gone with that for my workaround. So what I have to do is I have to connect my Z Fold 7 to the Wi Fi in the air and then I have to enable my mobile hotspot and then I have to hotspot to my laptop at 38,000.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Can we add more things? Can we add more things?

[Dan]

Oh, no.

[Luke Lafreniere]

My fruit is too vibrant. My. My steak is too juicy. My lobsters, My tubs too high.

[Linus Sebastian]

My Internet not.

[Dan]

I don't want to come down here.

[Linus Sebastian]

Is actually not on my. My fruit is too delicious. Problem.

[Luke Lafreniere]

My whiskey's too oaky.

[Dan]

My booble has to. No, my Lacroix has too much fruit flavor.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, that would be a problem. It's supposed to be basically unpleasant.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, man.

[Linus Sebastian]

But, yes, I've heard of randomly wi fi things that supposedly are interoperable, just not working with each other. Yes, I've heard of. That sucks, basically. Yeah. Sorry to hear that.

[Dan]

Hi.

[Linus Sebastian]

Llc. John says my heavy dick drags on the floor.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, man. Okay.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, no. Did I say Lacroix is Lacroix? I don't know.

[Dan]

I think I said Lacroix. I don't know.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think it's Lacroix.

[Dan]

I don't buy TV static. Oh, man. Do people even know what that is anymore? Oh, my God, I am old.

[Luke Lafreniere]

TV static. Yeah, you're probably old.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right, hit me down.

[Dan]

Hi. LLD Darn Tough socks aren't available in Australia, so I've been waiting for the LTD socks forever.

[Linus Sebastian]

Why not?

[Dan]

Luke, what does a typical leg day look like for you? I can't wait to work out and travel in these good socks.

[Linus Sebastian]

You really have been waiting for them. You bought five pairs. That's crazy. Four black, slash gray. And then just to spice it up, that one day a week, you got the magenta. Very nice.

[Dan]

I like that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Very nice. That's a. That's actually a pretty base calendar.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That kind of makes sense to me.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yep. Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Business in the lots and party in the few.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right, tell us about leg day.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So I have knee problems, so I start mine by reverse walking on a treadmill.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wait, wouldn't you start by waiting a bit? Oh, my God,

[Dan]

That. That reverse walk is awesome. Okay. I really, really liked that. Yeah, I've never. You look like.

[Linus Sebastian]

How do you keep the food in it, though? Oh, that's good.

[Dan]

I like that one. That's like a top 10, 20, 26 right there.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It is. It is. It is tough on the. It is tough on the social anxiety scale because you look psychotic.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan]

Okay. If you have a buddy and you're both doing it.

[Luke Lafreniere]

If you have a buddy Helps a lot.

[Linus Sebastian]

That's easy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Even if the buddy's just, like, chatting with you while you do it or something, it helps a ton.

[Linus Sebastian]

You could be doing any stupid thing in the gym, and if someone else is doing it, you feel totally fine about it. I've totally experienced that exact same thing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't think you've done Stupid things on the level that some people do.

[Linus Sebastian]

No, that's. And that's totally true. But I'm also very shy, and I worry about pictures of me on Reddit. So I definitely have anxiety about doing stupid things in the gym. And if someone else is doing it, it, like, goes away.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah. Unless it's CrossFit. Okay. So the. The thing is that you're fighting the resistance of the treadmill, so you actually don't want to turn the treadmill on. You leave it off, and you. You face backwards on the treadmill and you kind of brace yourself on the arms of the treadmill and then push the treadmill away like the right direction. Yeah. But yourself with it unpowered, and then that can help warm up your knees. You'll feel it in your quads a little bit as well, but that can help warm up your knees. For me, that's very important. If I don't start my leg days with that, the chance that I end up with some form of injury, like, genuinely skyrockets. This is very important for me. Depending on the day, I will also do these weird lunges that I don't know the name of, where the goal is to get your knee kind of like as far over your toe as you can without bringing your heel off the ground on your lead leg. And then your back leg goes, like, very, very far back. I also. I don't know if you're supposed to do this. I allow myself to go a little wide with the stance on that so I don't fall over. But, yeah, I will often do those things maybe while I'm, like, waiting for someone to do something from there. Once I'm warmed up again for knee stuff for me, I will go and I will do a bunch of quite low weight hamstring curls to. To kind of wake the hamstrings up and stuff. Once I'm done those, I will go and bang out just a bunch of squats, because, hell, yeah. And then I will go and torture my quads in some way by either doing lunges until I can't, or do

[Linus Sebastian]

you do weighted lunges or both? Like, like usually start low weight and then work your way up. Or.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I really have. So traditionally I would. I would do some pyramid thing where I'd start on lower weights and work my way up. What I've been enjoying lately is the bags, because the bags are kind of, like, weird to hold. And one of the things I like from lunges, it's just the stability aspect of, like, moving with weight. So I'll carry the bags and usually the bags are kind of more annoying to deal with. So I'll, I will stay fixed but I'll carry a decently heavy bag. So it's either that or leg extensions. And again I'm just like trying to burn down my quads basically. So I'll just go really hard and then I'll end it again with light hamstring curls because heavy hamstring curls have a tendency to really wreck my knees. So a lot of leg day is like dodge the knee problems but train the legs.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sounds like the biggest ones is the squats and lunges.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Okay.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I really like squats and lunges. Squats and lunges are good.

[Linus Sebastian]

Cool.

[Dan]

Yeah. Hey wham people. What a hot take one.

[Luke Lafreniere]

One quick second. Sorry. Gas racing said bags help with balance. Chain shoulders too. Yeah. I'll carry the bags in a variety of ways. Kind of like zercher by holding it like this or go on one shoulder or go go on the other shoulder. I will tend to move them around a decent amount because I am trying to shift how the balance works. It's interesting that it said help with balance. Maybe with training balance. I found dumbbells or kettlebells to be the best for balance for me. But I don't actually know what like the answer to that is. One of the reasons why I went to bag was actually because I found it was less stable.

[Linus Sebastian]

I can, I can tell you that the only person professional badminton players who have ever showed me how they practice weighted lunges used dumbbells.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

So that's the only piece of information I can provide.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I don't think you guys have weighted bags though.

[Linus Sebastian]

No. But that's what they do.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh yeah.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

In their own gym shirts. That would be what they.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Weighted lunges are fantastic.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah. And I like I started doing it. He's like no, no. You have to push off explosively with the weight.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And I'm nice. Oh well that's cuz you guys are trying to go for like python plyometric movement and stuff.

[Linus Sebastian]

Sure.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Which is awesome. That's very cool. I like that type of training.

[Linus Sebastian]

Hit me Dan.

[Dan]

Hey wan people. What hot take of yours from the past five years turned out to be totally on the money or turned out to be totally wrong?

[Linus Sebastian]

Adblock is fundamentally piracy. I have seen the. I've seen the conversation dramatically change as people have developed more of a relationship with the creators that they follow and understand the economics of the creator economy better as people just have become more familiar with the idea. It's not so shocking anymore. There's still people who are like super offended by that. And that's nice. Doesn't really matter. I mean, at the end of the day, I never said don't pirate.

[Luke Lafreniere]

You're drawing your own line.

[Linus Sebastian]

What I said was decide what's right for you, but understand the impact that that's all I ever said. And one of the funniest, and it's been interesting watching the way the die hards who have not given in on this have kind of moved the goalpost. Like one of the big arguments at the beginning was Google doesn't define it that way on the YouTube platform. And then it was like shortly after that, YouTube did update their terms of service and was like, yeah, doing anything that counters our, our ad delivery mechanisms is against tos. And like, yeah, it's like super against tos. It's the form of payment for the content that you are consuming. And if it's not worth it to you, then the not pirate version of that is you don't consume it or you do consume it, or option number three, conveniently in the shape of a hat, is you just own it. And I never said don't do it. Don't own it. I never said don't do it. I just said own it. That's all. And as for ones that turned out to be totally wrong, I mean, I always go back to this one. Back when that first guy bought a house with bitcoin, I was like, this is stupid. This will go absolutely nowhere. And now I wish I had had bitcoin at that time.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, I forgot about the wrong side. So I'll kind of steal similarly from that. I remember very early days when we were Both still at NCIX. We were looking around at a bunch of GPUs in the room and I was like, maybe we should put these on benches and mine coins. And then just kind of like shrugged and didn't bother.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, we both were like, maybe we should. And we both just didn't bother. Yeah, we looked at like how much it took to mine a whole coin

[Luke Lafreniere]

and we were like, that would take too many weeks.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Or days even, because this was.

[Dan]

You only get 10. Yeah. Oh, no, it was way more than that in a block, wasn't it? It's like 50 to 100.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's crazy.

[Luke Lafreniere]

So that's, that's. I think about that surprisingly often because we had so much access to hardware we could have and free power.

[Linus Sebastian]

We could have just left it running there. Nobody cared.

[Luke Lafreniere]

No, not at all. Thing that Ended up being true.

[Linus Sebastian]

I mean, I think the most. The most like Luke just crystal balling the future has was probably drone warfare. But I don't know if that was on when.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Maybe not on when. Like I've been talking about that for a long time.

[Linus Sebastian]

Like really long time. Like basically going back like years before the Russia Ukraine conflict. Like talking about how, like when is everybody going to figure out that swarms of cheap drones with C4 on them is going to completely, completely invalidate any kind of. At the time, modern air defense. This is a huge problem. How is nobody paying attention to this? We had like a ton of conversations about it. Do you see the. Do you see. Do you see Britain's laser gun? Yeah, that's pretty cool. Very interesting because rate of fire is now however much power you can feed it. That one's pretty cool. The range looked actually pretty decent on it. But like, I mean it's only. It's literally an arms race.

[Luke Lafreniere]

I wonder how a really rapidly spinning drone that you can't really see will apply to that.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, but it wouldn't be able to. What kind of a payload could it carry?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Tiny.

[Linus Sebastian]

Tiny, Right. But then how big of a payload do you need to assassinate a person?

[Luke Lafreniere]

If you're shape charging a single person, you might be able to get away with it. It's, it's. The whole thing is very interesting, but it's. My argument, and this was a very, very long time ago, but my argument was that the industrial might has always been an incredibly important part of war. Especially going back to like the origins of total war with Napoleon and stuff. And if you look at industrial. Right. Might right now it's pretty centralized, bruh. And that centralized place is really good at making what, batteries, lots of small cheap motors. Yeah, all of those things. Plastics, like pretty much everything involved. Cameras, Honestly, like, Like, honestly everything.

[Dan]

Chemicals?

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah, yeah, literally everything.

[Linus Sebastian]

Critical minerals. They want us to keep listing things

[Luke Lafreniere]

particularly really good at making.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Luke Lafreniere]

And I'm looking at the, the, the equations for how something would go with what kind of volume they could output if China went on a total war path and was just like, okay, every single factory in the country is now doing this. Like,

[Linus Sebastian]

cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Nice laser, bro. I don't know, man. I think, I think we would all be lucky little people if the Russia Ukraine war is the end of it's. I mean, it's literally not even the end we saw. We've been watching this with Iran. It's. Anyways. Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Do you see that Ukrainian drone that's just like made out of plywood. You knew the one I was talking about immediately.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

That thing is sick.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That is wild. It's the second rev of it that

[Linus Sebastian]

had the like way extended range and is crazy. Yep.

[Dan]

The climate wars are going to be nuts.

[Linus Sebastian]

Jamon says China's building a dozen nuclear reactors. I don't maybe 10x that number. I have no idea how many they're actually building. But China's working on some really cool like small modular ones that look sick. And I guarantee you they're building more than a dozen of them. You might be right about the like large scale ones though.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There was some interview. I think it was between Zelinsky and Trump but I actually don't remember. I didn't really care about who he was sitting next to the quote.

[Linus Sebastian]

Oh yeah, yeah. Do you want to go to Moscow to meet with Putin?

[Luke Lafreniere]

I won't go to Moscow. Too many Ukrainian drones there. So funny, dude. Oh my God. And it was fast.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Well, it's almost like he was a comedian in another life.

[Dan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Linus Sebastian]

Dudes sharp.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That was. That was like. Oh my God. Will you. Will you go to. Yeah. Anyways.

[Linus Sebastian]

Wild.

[Dan]

Last one I got for you today.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah.

[Dan]

Also for Luke. I know you're not super impressed with your Switch 2 but was just wondering if you're going to pick up Splatoon Raiders seems to be Nintendo's take on looter shooters. Really? Platoon Raiders by Nintendo in current year.

[Luke Lafreniere]

It's out now already. Is this. I actually really enjoyed the first platoon. I actually I genuinely thought it was a good game. If it's multiplayer only. Honestly I'm not interested at all. And honestly if it's single player scour the Spiralite islands. Search for treasure. Fighting big. Okay so there's PvE stuff involved. Interesting. Salmonoids gather salvage and uncover mysteries of the islands. Is this PvP? How does this work Tink with your gear man Tarkov but you're actually Squid

[Linus Sebastian]

is single player in this single player focused game. Play as a mechanic.

[Dan]

Huh.

[Linus Sebastian]

Can you play co op though?

[Luke Lafreniere]

If you can play co op this

[Linus Sebastian]

seems like it would be super fun Co op.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Probably just gonna get it. If you can play a co op with your gear.

[Linus Sebastian]

I think something speed tank. Power tank. Tactical tank.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The gameplay looks pretty fun. Moving Swim Soar Inc.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay okay okay. The mechanic.

[Dan]

Anyone? Anyone?

[Linus Sebastian]

Dealers co op. Anyone? Going with chat because this is not telling us nothing.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Calling friends for help. You can also join up with up to three other players online or via local wireless if you not need like the Nintendo thing.

[Linus Sebastian]

The game will scale power automatically to make sure everyone has a good time. Okay, that looks pretty fun.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That genuinely looks really fun.

[Linus Sebastian]

Very cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

There was a double asterisk on the. Okay. Additional games and systems required for multiplayer mode sold separately. It doesn't say that you need.

[Linus Sebastian]

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

That is so wicked.

[Linus Sebastian]

Every once in a while, Nintendo does something pretty cool.

[Luke Lafreniere]

This genuinely looks sick. I will probably get this. I didn't know this existed. Thank you for the heads up.

[Linus Sebastian]

All right, I think that's pretty much it for today.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Wicked.

[Linus Sebastian]

We will see you guys again next week. Same bad time, same bad channel.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Bye. Not doing it.

[Dan]

Not doing it. Oh. Oh no.

[Linus Sebastian]

Okay, I guess the show goes forever now.

[Dan]

Oh, no. We gotta wait another week.

[Linus Sebastian]

The.

[Luke Lafreniere]

The physical version being so much more expensive is so lame.

[Linus Sebastian]

What do I do? 15 Canadian dollars.

[Dan]

A 10 US

[Luke Lafreniere]

it's worth the reflux.

[Linus Sebastian]

Let's go watch him panic.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Be able to get at least $10 off flipping the physical version.

[Linus Sebastian]

What I do. Oh, there it is.

[Dan]

Bye.

[Luke Lafreniere]

Oh, now he's stuck. There

[Dan]

I. I had it.

[Linus Sebastian]

It's an invisible.

[Dan]

This is all invisible over it. And I had it disabled because of the feet cam, so.