This Country Gave YouTube The Smack Down - WAN Show January 9, 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: The WAN Show

Episode: This Country Gave YouTube The Smack Down – WAN Show January 9, 2026
Date: January 10, 2026
Hosts: Linus Sebastian & Luke Lafreniere (with Dan and brief mentions of others)
Podcast: Linus Tech Tips (LTT)

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Main Theme/Purpose

This week, Linus and Luke dig into recent tech news with their signature banter, focusing especially on:

• Vietnam's new regulations targeting YouTube's unskippable ads and the wider implications for global video platforms and monetization.
• The potential consequences of aggressive data surveillance by TV manufacturers like Samsung.
• The poor (and sometimes alarming) use of AI in consumer devices, spotlighting a widely-mocked Disney presentation.
• A benchmarking battle to determine which version of Windows is actually the fastest.
• Discussions about CES 2026, with commentary on the event's low energy and the current state of tech innovation.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Vietnam vs. YouTube – Unskippable Ads Regulation

[02:33–11:56]

• Summary: Vietnam instituted rules limiting unpopular ad formats on YouTube (and similar platforms), such as capping the length of unskippable ads and disallowing certain intrusive ad features.
• Implications: Linus and Luke ponder how this benefits viewers but challenges the business models of platforms reliant on maximum ad revenue.
• Platform Sustainability: Linus questions if ad caps could make platforms like YouTube or Floatplane unsustainable in certain countries, aligning this with global issues around tax regulation and digital coordination.

  “Would you be willing to operate Floatplane in Vietnam? …The kind of ads that they're gonna allow are like not profitable in modern Internet.” – Linus [04:53]

• Global Coordination Unlikely: Linus brings up the failure of global corporate tax coordination as an analogy for why ad norms are unlikely to ever be harmonized internationally.
• Ads Get Worse With Time: They discuss how ad formats become more intrusive over time, as both users and advertisers adapt.

  “When ads evolve, they get more intrusive...” – Linus [08:23]

• Monopoly and Market Alternatives: They touch on how YouTube's monopoly makes it hard for dissatisfied users to “switch”—with a tangent into dailymotion, Vimeo, and forgotten attempts like Vine.

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2. Dailymotion's Persistence and the Question of Money Laundering

[11:25–19:08]

• Dailymotion still exists, baffling both hosts, sparking wild speculation about its business model (B2B services? Money laundering?).
• Discussions devolve into investigating the site’s ownership and feature set with amusing exasperation.

  “I keep like hearing that people will say anytime there’s something they can’t explain, ‘It's got to be a write-off or it’s got to be money laundering’ ...but what would be the money laundering purpose?” – Linus [15:09]

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3. Fastest Windows Version Benchmark

[20:27–28:37]

• Benchmark battle between every major version of Windows since XP, using a lineup of ThinkPads.
• Results:
  • Boot Times: Windows 8.1 wins, leveraging “fast boot.”
  • RAM Efficiency: Windows 8.1 and 7 open the most Chrome tabs before hitting 5GB (252 and 235, respectively).
  • Worst RAM Management: Windows XP and 11 (only 50 Chrome tabs).
  • Disk Usage: Windows 7 is the slowest.
• Nostalgia vs. Reality:
  • Windows XP is fondly remembered, but objectively performed far worse without Service Pack 2.
  • Windows 8.1 is surprisingly praised, despite the infamous Windows 8 Metro UI debacle.

  “Windows XP was a piece of [expletive] until Service Pack 2.” – Linus [20:44] “Vista... I genuinely liked Windows 9 [modded 8.1]. Deal with it.” – Luke [28:37]

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4. Disney’s Infamously Bad AI Creature Video

[30:07–41:31]

• Background: Disney/ILM showcased an AI-generated montage of “alien” creatures at a TED talk to tout AI in filmmaking. The results were widely mocked online for being low-effort mashups.
• Reaction: Both hosts express existential dread at the “future” Disney is pitching.

  “It’s a snail bird. We did it. …Really, Disney?” – Luke [34:11] “This is just a blue fawn.” – Linus [35:07]

• Context: Linus is baffled such work was presented as official Disney material, suggesting maybe it’s intentional backlash (“4D chess”) against executive AI demands.
• Serious Concerns: Broader implications for creativity, the risk of generative AI content diluting the legacy of practical and visual effects artistry.
• Discussion: Will audiences accept more AI-generated content in major media? Consensus: likely, but mostly through gradual creep, not revolutionary leaps.

  “If this is a high school project: okay. But from Disney, on a TED stage? It’s rough.” – Luke [36:04] “This is just... not enough.” – Linus [39:12]

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5. Samsung Smart TV Lawsuit – Mass Surveillance

[66:49–75:37]

• Overview: Texas sues Samsung and others for secretly running ACR (Automated Content Recognition)—capturing constant screenshots and usage data from smart TVs, often without clear user consent.
• Opt-out Complexity: Unsubscribing requires navigating numerous menus with no meaningful transparency. The lawsuit frames this as a serious privacy violation—especially when sensitive content viewed via HDMI is also potentially captured.

  “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has called ACR ‘an uninvited invisible digital invader’—I agree.” – Linus [68:46]

• Fines: Texas seeks substantial penalties per violation, especially when elderly consumers are involved.

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6. CES 2026: Lackluster Innovations & The Rise of the DIY News Model

[107:12–117:00]

• Low Energy Show: Linus and Luke agree CES 2026 was one of the most underwhelming ever; little truly new or “innovative” tech on display.
• The Evolving Tech Creator Role: LTT now focuses more on creating the news (“being the news”), e.g., collaborations for unique content, the “Tech House” idea, and less on just reviewing whatever is announced at industry events.

  “This feels like an additional inflection point... You have to push even harder to make the news.” – Luke [116:43]

• Upcoming Guest Spot: Linus will appear on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, bringing mainstream tech for a general audience.

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7. Other Noteworthy Segments

• AI, Generative Content, and Games (Larian, Disney, EA):
  Larian Studios’ nuanced approach to generative AI in game concept art (and their careful communication about limiting AI use); audience reactions to AI’s encroachment everywhere from gaming to culinary gadgets.
• AI in Consumer Products (Wanly Feud Segment & CES Recap):
  A tongue-in-cheek game where the hosts rate the actual utility of AI-powered everyday gadgets announced at CES: smart fridges, hair clippers, toilets, and the ever-worsening “AI Barista,” with strong skepticism about most use cases.
• Steam Machine Price Leak & GPU Market Realities:
  Debate over the leaked pricing of Valve’s new “Steam Machine”–style device, and how high end products now target only the wealthiest 10% of consumers, who account for half of US spending.

  “You can literally target the top 10% [earners] and hit half of the spending in the entire US market. ...Brands can just ignore 90% of Americans...” – Linus [97:03]

• Practical Tech Notes:
  Insights into archival storage (tape drives), the economics/performance of generational GPUs and Windows editions, and teasing upcoming LTT projects.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “When ads evolve, they get more intrusive.” – Linus [08:23]
• “This is just... not enough. Yeah, tell me that’s it. Tell me it’s 4D chess. Please, Luke.” – Linus, re: Disney’s AI video [39:12]
• “It’s a snail bird. We did it. …Really, Disney?” – Luke [34:11]
• “You can literally target the top 10% and hit half of US spending.” – Linus [97:03]
• “I want to leak it so bad, but I won’t. But we have something very cool coming for this whole Arc price check thing. That’s all I’m gonna say.” – Luke, joking about new LTT projects [106:15]
• “If this is a high school project: okay. But from Disney, on a TED stage? It’s rough.” – Luke [36:04]
• “How dumb are people at hiding these features?” – Luke, on hidden TV data collection [69:39]
• “I’m so easy to figure out. …I’m in my zero f***s left to give phase.” – Linus [121:17]
• “We need to make the content now. We need to become the news.” – Linus [116:02]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Vietnam YouTube Regulations: [02:33–11:56]
• Dailymotion/Monopolies: [11:25–19:08]
• Windows Benchmark Battle: [20:27–28:37]
• Disney’s AI Creature Video: [30:07–41:31]
• Samsung Smart TV Lawsuit: [66:49–75:37]
• CES 2026, Tech Content Evolution: [107:12–117:00]
• AI-in-Everything at CES: [138:31–152:03]
• Steam Machine Price Debate & K-Shaped Economy: [88:13–101:14]

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Language & Tone

As always, the show delivers major infotainment with:

• Conversational, self-deprecating humor
• Candid skepticism toward AI hype, big tech, and industry fads
• Technical explanations, peppered with relatable anecdotes and inside jokes
• Tangents that keep the banter flowing authentically

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Additional Notes

• The “Wanly Feud” and sponsor spots are omitted here, as per summary instructions.
• After Dark and merch message Q&A are likewise omitted for brevity but covered more informally later in the show.
• Linus and Luke’s perspectives continue to balance tech optimism with wariness, especially regarding user privacy, corporate priorities, and the creeping substitution of AI-generated content for genuine creativity and utility.

Transcript

[A]

Happy Friday, everyone, and welcome to the WAN Show. We've got a great show lined up for you guys this week. Samsung is under fire for watching what you're watching roughly twice every second and sharing that information with their partners. Yeah, yeah. Not great. Our headline topic is of course, though, that YouTube has met its match government regulation. That's right. Vietnam has laid the smackdown on YouTube, banning unskippable ads or at least limiting how long unskippable ads can run on platforms like YouTube. I'm sure that is welcome news to the people in Vietnam. What else we got this week?

[B]

The fastest version of Windows is probably not what you'd expect. And also, Disney undercuts decades of incredible filmmaking technology with one of the weirdest, worst videos I've maybe ever seen.

[A]

Why did you pick that?

[B]

Actually caused me a certain amount of existential dread because the person presenting it for some reason seemed to think that it was cool, which hurt my soul.

[A]

The show is brought to you by.

[C]

Delta Hub.

[A]

Delta Hub, alongside of course, our rap partner, dBrand, our laptop partner, Razer, and our chair partner, who is also Razer.

[C]

I remember now. I made it white for the reboot last week.

[A]

What a professional, professional show.

[C]

I'm competent.

[A]

Yeah. The new new and improved Wan Show. Now 50 50, owned by Linus and Luke. Already things are going downhill. How do you explain this?

[B]

This is my fault for sure. Someone tried to pin like an increased amount of. Or something. I was like, dude, what?

[A]

Try Colton.

[B]

Yeah, man.

[A]

Let's jump right into our headline topic today, which is, of course, Vietnam's new rules limiting how long unskippable ads can run on platforms like YouTube. Basically, they said they suck. And the rules are going to be targeting not only unskippable video ads, but also targeting static ads and even putting bans on delays before closing them. These new rules are aimed at helping the user experience, claiming that these invasive ads are harming the viewing experience, which is, I mean, interesting. Probably not, not, not untrue. I think there's. I mean, yeah, I don't think you could find anyone on the face of the earth. And oh, man, I'm bracing myself now. I'm sure someone is going to come crawling out of the woodwork from somewhere to say, actually, I love to be informed of quality products and services that could enhance my life, but I don't think almost literally anyone would say, yes, the ads on a platform enhance the user experience. Enhance my user experience.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, I think the bigger question here, though is what does this mean in terms of platform sustainability? I don't think it's any great secret that YouTube relies in a significant way on ads to make their platform profitable. Does it seem like a business decision how much and where to run ads and to find that balance between what users will put up with and what is sustainable in terms of profitably operating the platform? Would you be like, let's, let's turn it around and let's make it about our own stuff. Would you be willing to operate Floatplane in Vietnam? If for whatever reason they said, hey, your means of monetizing your platform, we're over it. It's not good for users to have to pay for floatplane. It just needs to be free to be fair.

[B]

Yeah, that's not quite what they're saying.

[A]

No, no, they're not saying that. They're saying you can run ads. But I can tell you right now.

[B]

What do you think?

[A]

I can tell you that the kind of ads that they're gonna allow are like not profitable. In modern Internet, when you account for video streaming bandwidth and storage, it's just not a thing. You think?

[B]

So this to me feels like they're going Back to like 5 second ad skips which YouTube had for a long time when they were profitable.

[A]

They did, but I mean we did. I don't know if you remember, we did that video on. It was. It was a very controversial topic of conversation which I don't seem to be able to resist. Why 4K should be a premium feature on YouTube. Storage has not continued to grow exponentially in capacity any. Or sorry, this one. It has not continued to grow exponentially in capacity anymore. It leveled off ages ago in terms of cost per gig. And the recent AI boom is not freaking helping with that. I forget who mentioned this to me recently, but they were telling me that like major, major players, like hyperscaler players are struggling to get enough hard drives right now.

[B]

Yeah, there's like envoys from people like Microsoft going to various countries trying to get hard drives and RAM and stuff in person. Trying to like show up at factories and be like, hey, we need stuff. So it's a pretty, It's a very interesting thing going on right now that isn't being. It's being talked about, but not like as much as I would necessarily expect considering the scale of what's currently happening, if that makes sense.

[A]

I think Mondez Mondesio on Floatplane has a really interesting take. You know what? If all ads on every platform had to be short, then advertisers would have to compete for having a really compelling ad. In a very short period of time. And theoretically that would impact the, you know, the pricing of ads across the board and it wouldn't really harm the platforms as much. And that is such a cool point that would require so much coordination and international cooperation that unfortunately it's just not going to happen.

[B]

I don't think so. I like it though.

[A]

A great example of that is it actually happened recently around taxation for the ultra wealthy and I think particularly for corporations, I think it was, I believe they were targeting a 15% minimum corporate tax rate globally and there was like a ton of countries signed onto it. And then recently, I think this was in the last week or two, the US basically went no. And the idea behind it was that it would make it much harder for major corporations to just dodge taxes by making their headquarters somewhere that they could pretty much avoid ever actually making a profit. And where they could, they could, they could shield their profitability. But it required everyone to agree on having these rules and expecting every jurisdiction all around the world to cooperate on something as don't take this the wrong way, but frankly unimportant as ads in front of a web video. Right. When they couldn't even agree on, hey, probably major corporations should be taxed, you know, for the good of.

[B]

There are, there are less billion and trillionaires involved in this one. So, you know, it has that going for it. But yeah, I agree with you.

[A]

Makerboy says, I saw a ticker ad across the bottom of a video today. The creator said they were trying something new. The ad did not interrupt the at all. I can tell you something though. Part of the reason that you noticed it was because it was new. Over time you will learn to tune out the ticker ad, which is why the advertising industry is always looking for novel ideas. That's why it's always changing. And I hate to use the word evolving because it has like a positive connotation. When I say that Bulbasaur evolved, you expect to get Vine Whip, you know, or Razor, whatever, whatever. The point is you expect Bulbasaur to be better. Whereas I feel like when ads evolve, they get more intrusive.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is a kind of better gain audio or.

[B]

Well, I guess. Yeah, that's more intrusive. Yeah.

[A]

Say something. What? Like, so they are, they are better in terms of being super effective at penetrating your ability to pay attention to what you actually want to be doing.

[B]

I'm trying to find an example, but I'm pretty sure garbage time. Mr. Mr. Dank Pods did this recently with, with some stuff on his Channel to promote, like, flow plane and whatnot. He did, like, kind of banner things, whatever those are actually called. I don't remember, but cool. It's interesting.

[A]

Thank you, Luke.

[B]

Interesting move.

[A]

I mean, and all of this ignore the fact that YouTube is able to function basically as a monopoly at this point, right? Like, in theory. In theory, I'm pretty pro free market, right? Like, you live or die by your ability to compete fairly. But that last part, right, the F word there, that's. That's sort of the critical part. And YouTube is at the point now where whether it's through their technological moat or whether it's through their regulatory moat or whether it's through their. Their business relationships moat, what would fair competition with YouTube even look like? So you could say, well, if users don't like how many ads there are on YouTube, then they should just take their business somewhere else. But, like, to what. What can compete with YouTube? Microsoft has tried. There's like, MSN video which, like, what's.

[B]

That, like, weird one that we uploaded to for dailymotion.

[A]

Dailymotion has tried. Vimeo, tried. Vimeo has completely given up on being an alternative to YouTube at this point, as far as I can tell, for years now. Does dailymotion still exist? This is an interesting question. Dailymotion, does your channel on Daily Motion totally still exists. Okay. Some of every piece has Vine. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah. Rumble. Sure. Wow. Dailymotion has shorts.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

And it's the first thing you see when you get to the site. Wow. It's almost.

[B]

Watch. Mojo's on there. Where's. Where's. Look up Linus Tech tips.

[A]

Hold on, hold on. I just want to. I want to see. Do they. Do they have view counts? Do they have view counts? Hold on.

[B]

If you click on one, maybe.

[A]

Yeah, let's check. Check.

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay. Okay. Player interface is a little different. So it's only up here. I can't. I can't interface with it down here. Is there. Are there. Do they have comments? Are there. Are there comments on Dailymotion here? Draper stunned by whatever 10 months ago. Let's see. Apparently not. Either that or there's content here that is getting literally zero views.

[B]

Yeah, I don't understand how these guys are still around.

[A]

There's a connect button on the top, right? I think. Yeah, that's just to log in. Let's see. Okay. Sorry, you wanted me to click on Mojo?

[B]

No, Linus, Tech tips.

[A]

Oh, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. We used to have a channel.

[B]

Dude, you've got some followers.

[A]

Whoa, buddy.357. Yeah. So we have.

[B]

It could be the. It looks like the last time we uploaded to this was wan show.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

August 4, 2017 yo, it's baby Luke.

[A]

It's Baby Luke. He's so cute.

[B]

Dude, I liked that. That logo with the planes. I thought that was cool.

[A]

Super cool.

[B]

Where was this? That's a thick laptop.

[A]

Oh, dude. Arc. Is that the Arkham Asylum?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, no, hold on. This might be Arkham City.

[B]

I don't. I don't know the differ change between the games at all, to be honest.

[A]

Yeah, I think this has got to be Arkham City.

[B]

I only ever launched them for benchmarking.

[A]

Nice. You really?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Oh, dude. Arkham Silence.

[B]

I heard they were good games. Yeah, I just never like.

[A]

Oh, it's apparently Arkham Origins. Okay, sorry. Sorry, guys. Which. That's the third one, I think, right? I did not get into that one.

[B]

Dude, look at you, looking like a rapper on stage.

[A]

What's this?

[B]

Unboxing the RX Vega.

[A]

Look at you. Yeah, buddy. Yeah, buddy. That was at the first LTX. So anyway, the point is, we uploaded to Dailymotion for years and managed to amass a total of 350 followers. So is that sustainable?

[B]

How do they have this many uploads and storage and everything? Who owns dailymotion? What is it?

[A]

I'm. I'm finding out. I'm finding out. French online video sharing platform owned by Canal Plus. Prior to 2024, it was owned by Vivendi. Like that. Vivendi?

[B]

What do you mean that Vivendi isn't.

[A]

It wasn't Vivendi gaming of some sort back in the day? Oh, no, wait, hold on. I must be thinking of a completely different thing.

[B]

I think so.

[A]

No. Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. That was a completely different thing. Oh, okay. All right, cool. So, yeah, no, this is Vivendi, okay? This is a French investment company headquartered in Paris. So, yeah. No.

[B]

Have they not cut off dailymotion?

[A]

Dude, I don't know. I have. No, they have. So they divested of it recently and now it is owned by Canal Group.

[B]

But why would. Why would Canal want it? I don't. I have never understood at any point in time what Dailymotion is supposed to even be.

[A]

The Warden 00 says it's gotta be money laundering. Okay? But that's the thing, guys. I keep. I keep like hearing that people will say anytime there's something that people can't explain. I feel like they just go Straight to. It's got to be a write off or it's going to be money laundering in B.C. it might be true, but I don't, I don't know. And in many cases here in B.C. in many cases I can definitely see how that might be the case. But what would be the money laundering purpose of this?

[B]

Why would they update it with like shorts?

[A]

Because I thought the whole. And correct me if I'm wrong, I've never engaged in criminal enterprise before. But my understanding of money laundering is the idea is that you have a functioning business into which you can mix both like the genuine proceeds of the business functioning as it does and ill gotten gains and mix them together in a way that they are hard to differentiate from each other. So like in Breaking Bad Walter White buys the car wash so that he has real revenues that could easily be cash revenues that he can put his ill gotten cash in with and mask the source of it. But if you have something that as far as I can tell could not possibly do anything other than lose copious amounts of money and would operate entirely digitally with no cash, what would be the, what would be the money laundering purpose of it? I. And, and it might be, I don't know, I'm not a crook, but I just, I don't understand that. So maybe Floatplane Chat could be happy to you know, help me out here.

[B]

But like they have, they have features. Conrad to my thing.

[A]

Conrad and Float Plane Chat. New on LTT store Cash payments. Cash. Cash. Cash for your bones. Too many bones. Not enough cash. Try Cash Bones. Sorry, it's a Futurama reference.

[B]

You can, you can tell they're trying. They have like the Infinity ads in the sidebar here and when you scroll they refresh.

[A]

God.

[B]

So they have, they have a full block of ads in the sidebar that refresh as you scroll.

[A]

One user is getting you like 20 friggin ad impression. Oh God. They refresh even when you don't scroll.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah. So the ads are crazy.

[A]

Also look at this. They have three of the same ad running right now. No dude, I'm so not allowed.

[B]

I watched a video that had three pre roll ads. They were all the same ad.

[A]

That is so not allowed. That is so gaming it.

[B]

And then they, they like have features like they have video transcripts. You can turn this on and it's, it looks like they have some form of like thing trying to generate a video transcript so that somebody had to make that you go back. They have shorts now. They like support the new format. They have an app that they're clearly keeping up to date to a certain degree. Like, someone's doing stuff. There are developers working on this and, like, keeping it alive.

[A]

Dan Vibes in floatplane chat. Dailymotion still has over 400 employees, according to Wikipedia.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And Lucky Drive 1984 says. I think many websites use Dailymotion's video player. So this is a B2B play. Maybe. But then why let random users upload to it? Or maybe they don't. I legitimately don't know. Legitimately have no idea. And there's honestly not a ton of information on their, like, Wikipedia page. It doesn't even say, like, how it works or anything like that. Think your Wikipedia page is probably longer than this.

[B]

Mine doesn't exist.

[A]

No, it does. It just is not easy to find. Hold on. We're gonna fix it, though. We're gonna fix it, though. Hold on. It's in draft form.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's kind of existence here. Here it is.

[B]

Apparently they updated it to include the WAN show stuff.

[A]

Okay. No, it's not longer than. It's not longer than dailymotion.

[B]

We got to get it longer. We got to pump those numbers up.

[A]

Those are. Rook.

[B]

I gotta do something. I gotta do something stupid.

[A]

Oh, yeah, that would be the way.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I think that would actually do it. Like, if you had, like, a borderline Darwin Award, like a major controversy, you could. I don't know, you could, like, it's the whole, like, get, like, a benchmark wrong on something.

[B]

Rise to power. Being in power fall execution.

[A]

You need an arc.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Crystal says dailymotion does let the public upload. There you go. Okay, well, good luck with that, everyone. Why don't we move on to our next topic? You want to pick it?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Note, I didn't tell him what he was picking. Could be my nose, could be my butt.

[B]

I guess it's. Oh, my God.

[A]

Let's talk about Windows, though.

[C]

Dan takes a screenshot.

[B]

Windows, the fastest version of Windows, probably isn't working what you expect.

[A]

Okay, hold on, hold on. Let's let the people post. Let's let the people post in the chat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What do you think is the fastest? Windows?

[B]

Well, the first person's definitely wrong.

[A]

Xp. No, I don't. XP is a funny one. XP is a funny one. Because people have so much nostalgia. Goggles for Windows xp. Windows XP was a piece of. Until, like, Service Pack 2 SP2 was goaded. SP2 was Windows XP in the early days. Kind of sucked. I think we were just Coming from Millennium Edition, which was like way worse.

[B]

This is what I was saying. I think it was good for the time.

[A]

Dude, my phone.

[B]

I had a lot of problems, but I think it was good for the time. And I think computing back then was very fun.

[A]

That's fair.

[B]

And you could have fun with Windows xp. Windows XP was fun, so it didn't really matter that it had problems. It was fun.

[A]

It is amazing how much of chat is totally wrong.

[B]

I don't know if I've seen. Pretty much. Okay. There's people in there who said it very definitively, which makes you think they just read the article.

[A]

There's. There's. There's some in there. There's some in there. Okay.

[B]

All right. Hackaday reports on a benchmark battle featuring every version of Windows since 2001. Which means XP, Vista, 7, 8.1, 10 and 11. Apparently not 8. I see those as different, but that's okay. Before we get into the results, which version do you think will win? I top of head, guessed 7. When I first looked at the. This whole thing happening, I knew the.

[A]

Answer, but only because we've benchmarked Windows editions before and because. Because of the whole. Okay, this is a bit of a spoiler, but because of the whole Windows 9 thing. Do you remember Windows 9? Yeah. So there's a reason.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That modded a tuned up version of that. The best Windows was the best Windows for like quite an extended period of time.

[B]

Now, did they get into modding?

[A]

No.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

No.

[B]

So that's why I.

[A]

That's why I knew.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because even not modded. So a lot of the mods for Windows 9 were less about performance actually, and more just about cleaning up memory usage and improving stability and making the user interface.

[B]

Windows 9 was so goated, that guy reached out and said he's working on one for 11.

[A]

I'm actually stoked.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Anyway, carry on.

[B]

YouTuber trigs triggers old.

[A]

Triggers old.

[B]

Triggers old. Nice. Loaded half a dozen ThinkPad X220s. So an i5, 2520M, 8 gigs of RAM. 25. 6, 200. Sorry. 256 gig SSD and Intel HD 3000 with the professional versions of the last six iterations of Windows. Got everything totally up to date, which is kind of impressive in its own regard in a few ways. And conducted a bunch of experiments to learn how Windows performance has changed over the last two and a half decades. Which is a brilliant idea.

[A]

Yeah. Super cool idea.

[B]

Fantastic work. Maybe go check it out instead of just listening to this. They did Boot to desktop times, disk usage times, and 5 gigabytes RAM. Test how many Chromium tabs can be open before we hit 5 gigs of RAM. That's interesting. For boot to desktop, fastest to slowest. 8.1 is the oldest version with fast.

[A]

Boot, so it has fast boot, but it's the lightest OS that makes sense of the ones with fast boots. So it's like wicked fast XP and.

[B]

10 tide, which is hilarious. Just have to say 7, Vista and 11 all had taskbar issues. Or is that just 11 had taskbar.

[A]

Just 11.

[B]

Yeah. So 7 and Vista were kind of slow, and then 11, the taskbar took forever to load, which sounds about on brand.

[A]

In fairness to this is not supported Hardware on Windows 11. But then that's like, I don't know, kind of people's problem with Windows 11.

[B]

Oh, a big part of it.

[A]

So, yeah, take the L. Windows 11.

[B]

Windows 7 was the worst at disk use. Is that just how big the operating system is? Yeah, yeah, it's not too surprising. And then the 5 gigs ram test for how many tabs you can have open. The best was Windows 8.1 and 7 at 252 and 235 tabs. Doesn't that. Okay, so Windows 8.11. Well, there was a huge gap between the other ones, I guess.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The worst was Windows XP. That makes sense. Oh, wait, really? Windows XP at 11? Yeah, 50 tabs for XP and 49 for 11. Really?

[A]

I mean, she's a hungry boy, Luke. She's got to get the telemetry data somehow.

[B]

Best overall was 8.1. Windows 11 is generally the slowest, actually.

[A]

What I suspect is that with XP, it's just inefficiently managing it. And then with 11, it's just a heavier OS overall, so you just have less RAM left to put Chrome tabs in would be my guess. Whereas, like, something like Windows 8. Like, dude, Windows. Okay. And to be clear, that was why Luke and I both raised an eyebrow when we were reading through every version of windows, because Windows 8 was a giant steaming dumpster fire.

[B]

We would all love to Forget that Windows 8 ever existed.

[A]

Yeah. But I think whitewashing the history of Windows 8. X and just referring to it as yes, only Windows 8.1, that was the only one that existed is not giving enough credit to how long Microsoft stubbornly stuck us with that horrible Metro UI that was not immediately obviously removable on the early versions of Windows 8 like it was. It was a long time. They didn't just launch this thing in early access. And go.

[B]

No.

[A]

Oh, wow, this sucks. Okay, well, we have a launch date to hit, but we're gonna get that fixed like. Like, right quick, fast for you guys. It was bad for a really long time, and then 8.1 came and just fixed it.

[B]

October 2012 was Windows 8's release date. Looks like it was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012. And then 8.1. I just lost one of my ears. I don't know if it.

[A]

Oh, did I?

[C]

Sorry.

[A]

I'll fix it, Maybe.

[B]

And then 8.1 was October. Yeah. So it took a year. That was a dark year.

[A]

That was a long. Working at a computer retailer. Yeah, that was a long year.

[B]

It was the only operating system that I ever didn't. The only modern. Okay, how do I define this? 8 is the only operating system since 2000 where I had a personal computer and never installed it. I had 8.1, but I think I only ever really dove into 8.1 with Windows 9.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

I think I held on to 7 and then went Windows 9, which is 8.1 solidly, for sure. I'm accepting that. But it was a modded version of 8.1, and I think that, to me means I kind of skipped one because I see 8.1 and 8 so differently.

[A]

I'm trying to remember if I went 8 or 8.1 on my desktop, because I don't think I figured out how good 8.1 was until Windows 10 was already out and, like, 8.1 had turned into, like, the sexy. Remember when Windows was way lighter and when search worked? Yeah, because I think 8.1 was the last one where the search didn't suck.

[B]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's true.

[A]

Yeah. So I actually picked up on 8.1 for, like, running VMs and stuff. And I don't. I don't know if I ever desktopped it. I. I don't actually, I don't. I don't. I don't remember. But I. I definitely don't, like, fondly remember using it like I did with Vista, for instance, which I know is.

[B]

A controversial take, but I genuinely liked Windows 9.

[A]

Deal with it.

[B]

I loved Vista, but I think part of the reason why I liked Windows 9 was because it was such a, like, fu.

[A]

Oh, yeah, nice.

[B]

To be honest, I was reminiscing over the weekend with a buddy of mine about Windows Vista Black Edition, which was another. Yeah, yeah. Which was another, like, Windows 9 style, like, community mod. And Black Edition was awesome. Actually.

[A]

I used to have my Windows XP boot logo Modded to. I'm trying to find the exact one. I think it was this one without the shine. I had it set up to load Windows XP pirated edition for the. Like the loading bar. Yeah, apparently that's been popular across many versions. Okay. I specifically searched for xp, but there are also some ones in here that are not xp. Like this one apparently was Vista. Is that an upside down? Nice. Spicy.

[B]

All right, man, I'll make it work. I can either have my left ear or my right ear active. It seems to be the cable day.

[A]

Anyway. Go check out. No, no, I leaned over. I probably bumped something down. I'm sorry.

[B]

We'll deal with it.

[A]

All right. What do you want to do?

[B]

Next topic. Yeah, should we do the Disney one? Are we showing it? Are we gonna get demonetized?

[A]

Show it. I don't care.

[B]

All right. Disney undercuts. This is at like. This one actually hurt. I don't know. Disney undercuts decades of incredible filmmaking technology with AI animals. VFX extraordinaire Rob Bredow, known for his work on Star wars through Industrial Light and Magic, which is owned by Disney, gave a. Mostly interesting is the notes 15 minute Ted talk about how technology has enabled artists to more. To more effectively tell their stories or something. Something their stories. However, it was punctuated by a one and a minute AI generated alien creature montage designed to get the audience excited about the future of AI tools for filmmakers. And to be clear, this is. If this is the one that I'm thinking of. It is specifically set up as an artist's vision of what Star wars worlds might look like if a. I think it was like a scout drone is visiting. Yeah, we'll see. Oh, yeah, yeah, there we go. Yeah, it is this one. Oh, hi, David. And yeah, this. Yeah, watch for yourself.

[A]

Okay. Before we do this. No, forget the audio. It doesn't matter. Before we do this. I didn't think this was real. I was in the car with. I think it was Adam. And who else was chilling with us was Glenn, our camera op, I think. I think Glenn was there and I think we had someone from the business team there. It doesn't matter. The point is everyone was like talking about it, which made me feel like it's real. And Adam insisted that it was cringe. And you won't believe what Disney did. Absolutely mind blowing. So I was prepared what I assumed he was talking about because he's like, yeah, you won't believe this Disney AI thing. And everyone was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, it's Weird that we're all talking about this right now. It sounds like real, but I don't understand why we're so upset. Because Disney announced their partnership with OpenAI recently. And so, so people could, you know, Sora Disney characters. Like, like, did someone fanfic something Disney? And you're like, just depressed for the future of storytelling because it was like the worst fanfic thing ever. Like, I got. I got kind of confused because I hadn't heard anything about it totally in this lead up conversation. And Adam's like, no, no, no, no, no. This is something else entirely different. And he showed it to me and it took me probably three or four slides to go. Wait, this is official. Like, this is not like cringe fan. Like, this came from Disney. So with that preparation in mind, this is an actual Disney employee talking about the future of human imagination of a brand new Star wars planet and the creatures that might accompany it or inhabit it. Excuse me. Oh my God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So what is this?

[B]

It's like a sloth with what looks like really poorly done water droplets on it.

[A]

Or something metal. Or something metal. Metal sloth, Sure.

[B]

A lot of this is like, you know, I don't know, 2006, Facebook, two animals hybrid together.

[A]

This is, It's a video. A zebra gorilla. A fish lizard.

[B]

Fish lizard. It's a snail.

[A]

This is. This is the first one Adam showed me.

[B]

Yeah, It's a snail bird. We did it.

[A]

A snail.

[B]

We.

[A]

Really. Disney.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is what it is. Very creative.

[A]

Let's go on.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Oh, wow. This time we hybrid a zebra with a polar bear.

[B]

Yeah. And put it in an environment that it will not survive in. Very good.

[A]

Can you imagine firing up a new Star wars film and seeing, you know, one of these attacking the reanimated corpse of Palpatine for some reason?

[B]

Another time.

[A]

Yeah. A flamingo iguana.

[B]

Let's blow up another really big space structure with Palpatine on it.

[A]

This is just a blue fawn.

[B]

It's. It's rough.

[A]

And it goes on for so freaking long. Guys, check this out. Like, Dan, can you get rid of me for a sec? Thanks, guys. It's like it goes on for way longer than. Haha. A funny joke. We were just kidding, you guys. Look at the. Look at this. It keeps going.

[B]

Like it goes on for a very long time. And like, if this was like some dude in the office and they're like, hey, look. And they just showed it to their buddy and they're like, yeah, I threw this together in a few minutes or whatever. I was just messing around. Like that's fine, I guess, but like showing this off at a TED Talk.

[A]

Like, ooh, man, you're a major multi billion dollar international.

[B]

I almost don't care if this isn't like a high school student project. It's rough.

[A]

Like what? Okay, the dumbest part or not the. No, this is actually far from the dumbest part. But I don't know. This felt especially ridiculous to me was one day or two days or something before I found out about this, before I had this conversation, I. I literally did this. And my whole point, My whole point in our AMD coverage at CES this year was that am, an AMD representative talked about how your AI could give you powerful financial advice. And I was like, lol. No.

[B]

Didn't they also say something about like, I don't know, change the world through infinite energy or some like, crazy claim? I thought they made some like mind blowing.

[A]

I didn't hear that part. But my point was this. Look, I don't think anyone's gonna be upset about having a decent NPU on your product, right? So that you can. And I literally used this as my example of like just dumb bull that people might want to do with their stupid crappy like NPU on their laptop. This was literally one of the two. Just stupid, ridiculous. Who cares? It's just for LOLs. Things that I could come up with.

[B]

I feel like a human made that in. In 2008 or whatever. It was funny. Zebrafish.

[A]

Ha ha ha. I used the Photoshop blending tools to look dad.

[B]

Zebrafish.

[A]

Yeah. How is this a credible conversation even from a major industry players like Disney?

[B]

Yeah, it's crazy. And. And ILM was like God tier for still is. Yeah. This makes me concerned. But yeah.

[A]

Well, yeah, right? Yeah.

[B]

I'm sure they still have the talent somewhere. It just wasn't on stage. Well, I don't know. Maybe that guy's good. But like, it wasn't shown on the big screen on stage. Is this during that section of the thing? I didn't watch the whole thing.

[A]

4D chess. Are they trying to generate backlash in order to rebel against top level executives who are demanding more AI? Please tell me that's it. Just tell me that's it. You know what?

[B]

I nuke their own entire career doing that. That is a move that happens. But it's not that common.

[A]

Is that. Tell me that's it, Luke. Give me hope. Give me a new hope, you might.

[B]

Say for a third time.

[A]

Ouch. 6. Star wars burn. That's a deep cut. Not a deep cut, but it cuts deep, which is, I guess, where I got confused.

[B]

Yeah, I don't believe it, but I hope so.

[A]

That's not enough. Yeah, tell me that's it. Tell me it's 4D chess. Please, Luke. Because otherwise it might result in the same thing. If it's not 4D chess, then I think I'm just gonna give up and I'm gonna apply to work at Disney because apparently my ideas are just as good as theirs.

[B]

If that got on stage, you'd be fine. You'd be. You'd be totally fine.

[A]

Tomorrow.

[B]

You can do what I did to get. To get here.

[A]

Just lie on my resume. Yeah.

[B]

Is it even lying anymore?

[A]

I created zebrafish.

[B]

Is it even lying anymore?

[A]

Trademarked it, patented zebrafish. Oh, I hate this. Okay. Just. Okay. We have some discussion questions here.

[B]

Some of them are. Are interesting. Do you see anything in the video that got you excited? No, not at all. How long before we're forced to watch generated content in a major motion picture? I just won't go watch it. I've been doing that for a long time.

[A]

Would we be surprised. Would you be surprised to hear that it has sort of already been used extensively or something? No, because, like, even if it's at the concept art stage, where, to be clear, there's a lot of people that are upset about that type of use for it, because concept artists are a thing. But what I'm. What I'm getting at here is if it were used at the concept art stage and a real artist went and took it from concept art to what you actually see, you probably would not have any way of noticing it. You wouldn't be able to tell from the pixels or whatever. So odds are that it's already been used extensively, even if it's just. Just at the concept art stage. Oh, man, there's.

[B]

There's some interesting stuff in here.

[A]

David threw this into the notes. This comes after Disney's big push into artificial intelligence that got an AI powered Darth Vader in Fortnite who was immediately tricked into saying racial slurs. And also after they continued to lobby the government to prevent Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain with one hand while investing in a billion dollars into OpenAI with the other. Yeah. Thanks, David. That really makes me feel better.

[B]

Yeah, it's tough. They're just losing. As far as I can tell, things like Bluey are just completely taking their lunch, so they're lashing out and trying to accomplish things. And.

[A]

This doesn't seem like it is.

[B]

One of them, which to me just means you're just losing way harder now.

[A]

It's funny because, like, they don't even really use a lot of the IPs that were so formative and foundational and iconic. Like, do you think kids today would not. I mean, I guess they did do a DuckTales reboot. I was just, I was trying to think, like, would they not like Donald Duck and Mickey? And like, it's funny because when you're, when you're at Disneyland, those characters are still so central to the brand identity. But, like, when I was a kid, I feel like there was so much media with Mickey Mouse. Like, you. Like, I remember I had one of those little, like, golden books that was like Mickey Mouse, but it was the story of the Prince and the Pauper. Like, like, you know, Disney's whole shtick where they, they steal folklore and fairy tales and then they just like put their IP and characters on it. Like, that seemed like a pretty good. That seemed like a pretty good formula. And then now they've gone like self referential where they just like remake their own movie, but in live action. And it, it feels like at a certain point you're gonna run out of that. Maybe you could, I don't know, just, look, I don't want to be in charge of Disney, but it seems like you could just, I don't know, do that.

[B]

They are releasing Toy Story 5.

[A]

Oh, God. This is not a popular opinion, but I felt Toy Story 4 was just so unnecessary. I felt like Toy Story 3 tied the whole arc up into a nice little bow and I felt like it was done. And Toy Story 4 just felt like one of those movies where. And then this happens and then this happened, and then this happened and then like this happen. Wasn't that cool? And then this happened. We'll see how it goes.

[B]

Yeah. I don't know. The original Toy Story trilogy is pretty legendary. I didn't, I didn't hate Toy Story 4, but it didn't stick with me like the other ones did.

[A]

You know, Toy Story 4 felt so unnecessary. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. There's. There's again more notes to this. There's an. There's another extra added. Do you think we will see a continued push for more practical effects in movies or is this another turning point towards the artificial? I don't know. I really liked the, the plane scene. Wow. Why can't I talk today? The plane scene in Airplane. What is that movie called? It's from the guy who made Inception, but it's about like moving forward or backward. Tenant. Yeah. The plane scene in Tenet was sick. And it was filmed by actually smashing an actual big plane into an actual big building, which was like, pretty sick.

[A]

That sounds really expensive.

[B]

It was. So they did it once and then.

[C]

They took like eight takes, you know.

[B]

And then they used that scene in like a bunch of different ways, which was probably to justify the expense of it. But it was really cool how they did. I actually really like Tenant, but.

[C]

But.

[B]

That movie didn't get the greatest reviews ever.

[A]

No.

[B]

So.

[A]

I was watching some older, like 80s 90s action flicks recently as part of my like watching older movies that I never saw. And I think the thing that stood out to me the most was the car chase scenes. It's like that semi truck, like dirt bike chase scene in Terminator 2 hits so much harder when I know, like, obviously it's not as spectacular as some CGI up the butt thing from Avengers.

[B]

Or whatever, but you know, someone's on.

[A]

That bike, but like they actually bashed a semi up. They actually like did those stunts with the bikes. They. They really did all that stuff. And it was. Maybe as a kid watching it, I would rather just have the CGI spaceship fight in New York City or whatever.

[B]

I think this is a very interesting.

[A]

Point that you're making, but as an adult appreciating the artistry of it, I find just the speed of the dirt bike, as slow as it is, far more engaging. Knowing that it's real.

[B]

Yeah, very interesting. That's a pretty good point, I think, because yeah, there's a lot of things that I'll try to fight for of like, the real is more interesting. But you're right. When you're a kid, it's just like, I don't know, goopy brain juice stuff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When you're, when you're older, it's like, how was this made? What's the investment in risk? What's the investment in funds? Like?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Like they, you can tell the care that went into the scene because they. There was so much spent on it. So you know that they must have of really invested and fought for this to happen and blah, blah, blah. And that all impacts your appreciation of the art.

[A]

The partnership that they must have had to forge with General Motors to get like 19 cars that are gonna be in like a giant pile up. Knowing that they have to convince them that they need them at a good price and that it's okay for their brand to be, you know, bashed. Cause like literally like bashed in Because a lot of the time and car companies in more modern times will not allow even a scratch on the car. And you'll notice that it's just totally immersion breaking. Once you notice it, once you're aware of it, that, like, oh, okay. So the hero's car is not allowed to have any damage or scratches because it's the hero's car. Even though it bashed into a bunch of stuff and drove through a burning building or whatever it is that it did.

[B]

Which, to be clear, is kind of silly because the, like, the coolest Toyota truck like, ever is this one, which they like, the marshmallow truck. The person who drove back and forth through the fires repeatedly to save people and their truck just, like, made it because it's a beast. Toyota.

[C]

Nice.

[B]

And then Toyota just gave him a new one. Like, the scars can be cool. If your car goes through some crazy stuff in the film like that, that can be cool. It's not a bad thing.

[A]

Does Plex have a, like, history of stuff you watched? Like, I'd be. I'd be curious to see. Oh, yeah, hold on. Let me. Let me dig through it. I'll see if I can figure out what I was watching recently. That was really good.

[B]

I can do an additional part of this topic if you want to.

[A]

Oh, hilarious. Nick Plouffe and I are friends and we can see what each other watch on Plex. I should probably let him know. And I should probably disable mine because I don't think either of us probably intended that. Hope you're enjoying that show you're watching, Ploufe. I didn't mean to creep on you, but quality selection.

[C]

They enabled it by default.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wait, really?

[C]

Yep. It just kind of came out of nowhere.

[A]

Yeah, we talked about it on one show at the time, but I don't blame you for not paying attention.

[B]

Is anyone coming for. I mean, I just don't really use it, so I probably just forgot. But is anyone really coming for Plex? Like I've heard Jellyfin talked about. About, but every time I bring it up, people kind of shrug and go like, yeah, Plex is still better. Is it? Is it? Is Jellyfin improving? Is it replacing?

[A]

At this point, I will have to give it another shot. It's been a long time since I've looked at it. I will.

[B]

People saying mb. We had three different people in a row say mb and then now people are spamming Jellyfin. Wow. Okay.

[A]

Trying to remember. I. It might have been Bad Boys one.

[B]

Now question. Spamming Jellyfin is amazing. Is Jellyfin open source and plex isn't. And you like it because it's open source or is it just good? Which one is it?

[A]

Why not both be real? Why not both be real? Why not both be real with me?

[B]

Because it being cool. Because it's open source is great. But that has to be in addition to it also being great. That, that, that is the. The cherry and the cream.

[A]

You know what? I think it might have been Last Action Hero. I think that's the one that I. That I was watching when I thought, oh my God, all this stuff is real. Because that was shot in 1993. So someone posted. You should watch a video that's like, no, CGI is just good CGI. Not in 1993. In 1993 when they crashed a car into another car, they got two cars and they basically did what every six year old boy does when he's got two cars in his hands. But just filmmakers on a much bigger budget.

[B]

Mm, no.

[A]

You can tell when it's a scale model, guys. Come on. Come on, be real.

[B]

You can tell sometimes it's pretty hard.

[A]

Cars. Cars probably.

[B]

Cars probably.

[A]

Yeah. The way that they bend. The way. Nah, nah, no, no, no. Especially when it's a low speed collision and they like you can. Can. You know those 80s cars, right? Like you can see the shocks and the weight of them. There's no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[B]

There's an additional part of this topic. Do you think Larian did the right thing by promising to no longer use generative AI even during conceptualization? And I was like, what? Because that isn't what I heard last time at all. And it sounds like.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Let'S see here. 13 hours ago There was. Why is it Swen instead of Sven? Are you supposed to pronounce it Swen? He just wrote it that way.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

13 hours ago he said this. Hi. Happy you enjoyed our game. So, first off, there is not going to be any Gen AI art in divinity. I know there's been a lot of discussion around about us using AI tools as part of concept art exploration. We already said this doesn't mean the actual concept art is generated by AI, but we understand it's created confusion. So to ensure there is no room for doubt, we've decided to refrain from using Gen AI tools during concept art development.

[A]

Refrain is not a commitment to never.

[B]

Yeah, that is. That way there can be no discussion about the origin of the art. Having said that, we continuously try to improve the speed with which we Try to get things out. The more iterations we can do, the better interaction. General the gameplay is. We think Gen AI can help with this. So we're trying things out across departments. Our hope is that it can aid us to refine ideas faster, leading to more focus, development cycle, less waste, and ultimately higher quality game. The important bit to note is that we will not generate creative assets that end up in a game without being 100% sure about the origins of the training data and the consent of those who created the data. If we use a Gen AI model to create in game assets, then it'll be trained on data we own. That is not the thing that was.

[A]

Yeah, we need to make sure that when we put notes in the thing, they are the right notes for the thing. I'm deleting that. So basically what they're saying, just like refrain from taking out your cell phones and taking pictures of the performance. That is not, you know, a hard never. That is alike. Please don't. Because they can't even guarantee that their own people internally will not use these tools. They cannot prevent a Larian employee from going home. Getting their laptop. Sorry, I mean this laptop from our laptop partner, Razer. Thank you. Getting their laptop, generating something, bringing it into work and using it as part of their.

[B]

Oh, that's not Sven. That's why it's not Sven.

[A]

Cool. They can't prevent anyone from doing that. And then the second part of this is, shoot, now I'm distracted.

[B]

Sorry. That was the game director. It's a different person.

[A]

Is that forever is a very long time. They would be completely bonkers at this point to say no generative AI forever. And they know that. Which is why that statement was basically, we're going to keep doing exactly what we're doing. Here's a statement we crafted that will hopefully let you guys settle down and touch some grass.

[B]

The most interesting part to me was that the important bit to note is that we will not generate creative assets that end up in a game without being 100% sure about the origins of the training data and the consent of those who created the data.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

That parts vary.

[A]

So basically we will use generative AI in the concept phases. We will generate assets that will end up in the game, but we will be sure of the origin of the training data.

[B]

That seems like maybe not for divinity.

[A]

Yeah, maybe not for divinity. But it's.

[B]

But they're exploring that.

[A]

That last bit seems pretty clear kind of the plan.

[B]

Yeah, but this is to be clear, man. Like they're talking about it but this is the plan for everyone. It's been fascinating to me how, like, Larian and the people behind Claire Obscure, I don't remember their studio name, are gaining so much flack for this and then embark. The people who made our creators are, like, super open about it and have been forever, and they're getting relatively little flack for it. There's been a couple big hits, but not that much. And then you see Battlefield out there. So obviously having used it to the point where I've seen, like, promotional images that have, like, very telltale signs of AI influence, and everybody's just like, whatever. I don't know. It's ea. They were going to do it anyways. We'll just leave them alone. It's like, oh, come on. Come on. Anyways, all right, moving on. Speaking of cool things, I'm going to do a random, like, aside thing.

[A]

Hold on. Oh, is Dan gonna have us do anything else?

[C]

Yeah, probably do the merch mess.

[A]

Your thing there. Says topic. We're on topic.

[C]

Literally about to grab it. Wow.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Nice quality. Wow. Oh, right. Hey. Oh, shoot. I got too warm and I finally took it off. Well, okay. Go to Luke Screen. If you're looking for something Valentine's themed without it being over the top, mushy, gushy, our Pixel Perfect Love collection is live now. It's clean, subtle, and wearable. Beyond February 14th, we've got the Pixel Heart T shirt, if you want to fire that one up.

[C]

Yay.

[A]

And the Pixel Heart hoodie, if you want to match with someone or just grab something understated that still feels special. The Pixel Heart T shirt keeps things simple with silicone heart patches on the sleeves. It's. I think it's just on one sleeve. On one sleeve. It's subtle, intentional, and inspired by the idea of wearing your heart on your sleeve. But also, you know, video game health bars, gotta be gamers. And the Pixel Heart hoodie keeps things subtle with a red on red raised 3D graphic so you get texture without it being too loud. There's also a small silicone patch with three pixel hearts near the pocket, which is a tiny detail, but helps to elevate the hoodie and keep it adorable. And did we bring people in for couple shoots?

[B]

Seems like it.

[A]

That's so cool. Hey, look, it's Adam and Shay.

[B]

I don't know if we brought them in. This isn't here.

[A]

Oh, really? Oh, okay, Cool.

[B]

It went somewhere.

[A]

And if you want something a little more office professional, our long sleeve polo is back in a new eggplant color with a pop of blue under the collar. Same clean look, just a little more put together without being, you know, formal. So whether you're buying for someone else or just adding some color to your professional wardrobe, the Pixel Perfect Love collection is available now at LMG GG PixelPerfect. And you can also check out the long sleeve polo shirt in a fun new color. Alright, now it's time to explain merch messages. If you want to interact with the show, we don't want you to throw money at your screen guys. We'd much rather that you throw [e-mail] and get some quality merchandise in addition to, you know, sending a message to Dan, who will definitely read it. He will though. All you gotta do is go to lttstore.com and add something to your cart. You'll see the little interface here for merch messages. You type a little merch message, decide if you want to be anonymous or show your first and last name and you pick a color scheme and you go ahead and place your order. It goes to producer D. Hey, we got a second wave today. Bonus. Oh, who's wearing the new eggplant?

[B]

Oh yeah, nice.

[A]

Looking good. A little flash of blue, a little flash of Italian in the summer. You're missing the gold chain though, Dan. And also we would need more buttons for you to go full, full Mediterranean.

[C]

Right down to the belly button.

[A]

Anyway, it'll go to producer Dan who will reply to it or pop it up here if you just have a shout out for someone or who will curate it and read it to me and Luke to respond to Dan, do you want to show us a couple curated merch messages?

[C]

Yeah, sure. Why don't I have one here about the pixel heart. Hey, Wan AI question for Luke. Is the pixel heart drop a celebration for your new 5050 loving relationship or just a Valentine's approaching?

[A]

Is this a joke I don't get.

[C]

For having owning half of win you're now tied together.

[A]

Yeah, it's funny. Business arrangements are actually like way, way more binding than like marriage. Turns out.

[B]

Fun time.

[A]

Yeah, like I remember Yvonne and I joking about it like when we bought a house together. Yeah, we were like, we actually, we bought a house together before we got married and we were like, oh well, I mean like this is way more complicated. And then when we started the business it was just like, oh, okay. So between owning a house together, having K kids together and the business, we're like full stuck. Which is good because I'd like her to not leave me. Okay, carry On.

[B]

I mean. Yes, that is why we did it. The creative people at Creator Warehouse were like, you know what? Valentine's Day. Ultimately unimportant. What really matters is the link between Linus and Luke. And this shirt just symbolizes that and nothing else.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

Two parter.

[A]

Totally not that Luke found out about this today.

[B]

Which is. Which is.

[A]

That's not what happened.

[B]

It's reality. I noticed it on my chair and was like, huh? And then put it on and then noticed that and was like, oh, neat. And then loaded up the store to be like, what's going on?

[C]

We only talked about the 5050 like last week. So we designed a shift and prepared a shirt in less than one week.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

We're so good.

[B]

Four days. Very impressed by that team.

[A]

More Wicked smart.

[C]

Absolutely incredible. Also, what class or spec did you play in? Wow.

[B]

Oh, Warrior Classic based. All the. All the classes, all the specs. Sorry. The best spec warrior ever is Fury Prot In Classic. Wow. Because wearing shields while tanking is boring. And not wearing shields while tanking is fun.

[C]

There's another one here for Luke as well. Also about wow. Thoughts on add on removals in WOW Midnight though.

[B]

I don't care. I don't play retail. Oh, gross.

[C]

Unbelievable.

[A]

Unbelievable.

[C]

Based display.

[A]

How dare you insult him by asking such a question.

[C]

Damn.

[B]

Damn. I don't know. I think they're gonna have a hard time changing their raid design because for many, many, many years raid design was done with the theory that people would be having add ons installed. And the add ons basically like tell you what to do all the time. There will literally be like audible cues of like move or whatever. Yeah. Like the add ons are really intense.

[A]

It's funny because like I actually, I've really been frustrated sometimes, but also enjoying how not Handholdy Clair Obscure is. On the one hand, it's modern gaming. Way too easy. Like when you die in a fight, you just fry it again. Like there's. It's like a four second penalty and you just go for it again. It auto saves like all the time. But on the other hand, like sometimes I'll get annoyed because I can't figure out where to go. Like there's no map in dungeons, so.

[B]

The difficulty is high, but the punishment is low, I guess.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you like, you really have to. You really have to try. And so, so sometimes I've been kind of annoyed, but I've also really appreciated and I found like the combat for instance, way more engaging when the timing is really hard to get and like they have these, they have these side challenges where you have to like parkour and I don't know if you've ever parkoured in a like, like, like third person view 3D game where frankly Assassin's Creed counts.

[B]

Cuz it just like does it for you.

[A]

Frankly. It's an RPG and is not Assassin's Creed. But I kind of had flashbacks to Psychonauts.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

Like some of them are really, really frustrating. But like getting to the top of like the tower one, I'm like like yeah. And I don't know, I felt like accomplishment in playing a game that I haven't felt in a while.

[B]

That's cool.

[A]

So I'm so I'm into that. That sounds like the opposite thing. And like they have. Okay they have kind of. They have a little bit of white paint like with the climbing things. But like the climbing things are gold and sometimes there'll be like strains of gold in the rock and they're actually kind of hard to spot sometimes. Yeah, I know. I like it.

[B]

I like there's. There's a. There's a lot going on in like. I don't know, I haven't played them but there's a lot going on in like modern WoW raids and before the add on removal. I guess. I don't know if it's already happened or not. And. And but, but yeah like there will be this mechanic where like say there's. There's a boss and he's hitting your tank, right. Fairly obvious MMO type stuff but he'll put a debuff on your tank and once the debuff gets to a certain amount of stacks. Yeah you need to swap which tank is currently tanking the boss because the, the main. The one tank will get to too many stacks and you need to swap and that guy gathers stacks and this guy stacks fall off and you swap back and forth.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Pretty normal. Very average thing to be on a boss.

[A]

Very average.

[B]

There will be add ons that when your stack count of the other guy.

[A]

Average size tank. Actually 6 inch tank. Average size tank.

[C]

That's way more like 8 inches. But okay.

[B]

When it's. When it's your turn to taunt and like take the boss over because the other guy has too many stacks, it'll just tell you what the add on will be like taunt. So like if you've played a bunch you'll just reflexively like hear that and just press the button. You don't even. Like there's no thinking and then. But. But like like, theoretically, there is a lot of other stuff happening in the encounter, so it's not like you aren't paying attention. You're still playing and it can still be really hard. But like, the add ons are managing things for you.

[A]

Right.

[B]

While you're playing around the other mechanics and like, they're. They'll. Certain fights will still be very difficult despite all that. But these fights have been built with knowing that these add ons exist and that people will make them.

[A]

Oh, so they're harder.

[B]

They're in a lot of ways way harder. Where if you didn't have the add ons, it would be like, incredibly difficult.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

No one's doing.

[A]

So is that.

[B]

So now if they're going to take the add ons out, which is in a lot of ways, it probably makes sense. It's kind of weird that the community has to constantly build things for your game.

[A]

Right, Right, right, right, right.

[B]

So by taking the add ons out, like, okay, cool. That kind of makes sense in some ways. But then your design philosophy for your game for so many years has had these things in mind and I suspect there's gonna be growing pains. Not that I'll experience any of them because retail, wow, sucks. But yeah. Oh, no. Adam plays.

[A]

Oh no.

[B]

Does he hate my opinions? We'll see. Importantly, they aren't banning add ons, they're just reducing their scope so they can't play the game for you like Luke is describing. Ah, okay, interesting.

[A]

Well, that. That sounds like it helps a little bit then.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

That's cool. Shout out. Adam, customer care supervisor for Creator Warehouse. Yeah. All right, Dan, what are we doing?

[C]

How about some more topics? We can do more topics to get through.

[A]

Let's talk about the Samsung Smart TV lawsuit. Samsung, Sony, lg, hisense, and TCL are all being accused of deploying surveillance technology without user consent. ACR Automated Content Recognition takes screenshots and provides other information about what you're watching on your TV to the TV manufacturer's headquarters. Allegedly, you are opted in to ACR when you consent during the TV setup process. To opt out, at least on a Samsung display, you must find the right opt outs across four or more separate, separate menus. Ars Technica figures it's roughly 15 clicks to complete. After analyzing the lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has called ACR an uninvited invisible digital invader. I agree. Texas has apparently secured a temporary restraining order against Samsung. Not the rest of them, but Samsung specifically, which prevents them from continuing to sell, transfer, collection, or share ACR data. Relating to Texas consumers, the district court found sufficient cause to believe that Samsung's actions violated the Deceptive Trades Practices Act. A similar restraining order was requested for lg, but a judge denied the state's request. And then Sony, TCL and Hisense are still involved in this legal battle alongside Samsung. The lawsuits argued that companies deliberately used digital use misleading labeling and non intuitive terminology when explaining ACR technology to consumers. According to SourcePoint's legal analysis, Texas prosecutors argue that each manufacturer also hides or obfuscates what ACR can record from its customers. And the answer is basically anything that is connected over HDMI as well as cable boxes. If it's on your screen, it can be recorded. This could even include confidential or sensitive information. If you were to hook up a laptop or a computer to your TV and view said info, there are no visual cues or warnings that content is being recorded. So this goes way beyond the data that they might need for targeted advertising. This is wild. Texas is seeking 10,000 to $250,000 per violation with higher penalties when persons aged 65 or older were affected. That, lastly, is a little confusing to me.

[B]

No, I totally get it. I think.

[A]

Really? Why not kids?

[B]

That would also maybe be fair. I, I, my thing was maybe susceptible more susceptible to scams and if they can target scams more easily because of certain data like that, because the, the people getting wrecked by online scams, it's like wildly vast majority really old people.

[A]

Is that, is that true? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. So is that who Bethesda was selling horse armor to? The Elder Scrolls? Based on your own logic, it's all for old people?

[C]

No.

[B]

Based on your own logic. That's not escape.

[A]

I know. It's not a scam. It's not a scam. I just thought it was funny because I thought of Elder Scrolls.

[B]

It was pretty funny.

[A]

I was just trying to find a way to.

[B]

I thought you were just calling me old. To be honest, I didn't even put the Elder Scrolls.

[A]

You're kind of an old soul, though.

[B]

A little bit.

[A]

Yeah. Like, there's things about you that are like, young, dude, but there's also things about you that are very like, I am, I'm like middle age and like, I'm more interested in exploring the world and, and having experience, sharing experiences, you know, like, you're just, you're kind of old.

[B]

I started the exploring the world thing right away.

[A]

Yeah, I know. I know, dude.

[B]

To be clear, I see what you mean.

[A]

Yeah, I know.

[B]

Okay. No, my bad.

[A]

Like, you were just, you were just Born like a middle aged man.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah. And to be clear, I totally get it. Like, I just, I was like, okay, well, I have flunked out of school. I am going to join the workforce and immediately settle down and have a family as quickly as humanly possible. You seem like a fantastic wife. Let's be, let's be husband and wife and have children. Like, I don't know.

[B]

I met someone recently about like, how can you know if you want to have kids or not? And I was like, I don't know. Some people do. And they were, Some people do. Sorry, I'm still a little bit sick. I'm having talking problems.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they were like, no. Like, nobody does. It just sort of happens. And I was like, no. Linus did for sure, like know if.

[A]

They wanted to have kids.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

I was like, no. Linus knew a hundred percent. Yeah.

[A]

There's no question.

[B]

And they're like, how? Whatever. I was like, I don't know. But he knew the whole time. Like, there was no, there was no gaps. This was, this was 100% knowledge.

[A]

That was, that was the path. Get education. Okay. We didn't manage that. Get job, get wife, get kids and then, and have a family path accomplished.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

There was no. Yeah, there wasn't wavering.

[A]

Yeah, no, no. Well, I don't know. I was talking to someone about this the other day, but I had kind of a unique upbringing because, you know, people will ask like, were you an only child or did you have a lot of siblings? And I'll be like, yes, because I was functionally an only child for most of the time up until I was 11. So that was every other weekend I was with my dad and most of the week. And then every other, other weekend I was with my mom and also Wednesdays after school. And so I was an only child at my dad's house, but then at my mom's house I was one of five. So after I was 11, I lived with my mom. So I had like only child childhood and then also like some childhood and my entire adolescence as, as one of many, including because I was the second oldest and there was a big age gap between number four and number five of my, of my genetic half siblings. But we don't really like see it that way. But it's a technical detail that maybe people care about. Get over it. So there was a pretty big, big age gap between number four and number five of us. So I like knew that I, I love little kids and I like knew how to change diapers. And I, like, I actually participated very actively in caring for a baby. And it's something that I feel like a lot of parents in my cohort seriously missed out on because it used to be that people had enormous families, like tons and tons of kids, to the point where by the time number five, number six, number seven, number eight, number nine are rolling in, the eldest, the eldest ones are very actively participating in, in the care of and the upbringing of these kids because otherwise it's just, it's a completely non viable situation. And I, I don't know, I, I felt like I just had more certainty and more confidence going into parenthood having had that experience that I feel like a lot of people, like, including Yvonne.

[B]

I laid that out too.

[A]

Yvonne was one of two and they were two years apart. She did not help in any way to raise a child before. She was just, here you go, handed one.

[B]

Yeah, like that. That was brought up as well. Like, oh, how could he have known? He, like, how could you know before you've done it? You've never had kids before. And I was like, well, he kind of sort of did because he kind of sort of took care of them.

[A]

I got to see a lot of it.

[B]

Yeah. So like, I don't know, that kind of counts in my opinion.

[A]

Like, I remember being in the hospital waiting for my baby brother to come out. Like I, I, like I, I can remember that. Whereas Yvonne doesn't remember that for, for her baby sister. Like, it just, you just can't. She was two.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Any memory that you have from when you were like two is, is probably heavily corrupted by that whole remembering a memory problem.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I don't, I do not remember how we got onto this topic of conversation.

[B]

No idea.

[A]

All right, cool.

[B]

Like at all.

[A]

We should probably get through some sponsor spots.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

All right. Oh, wait, no, we only have, we only have one. Okay.

[C]

If you want to do that now. Yeah, let's maybe do the float plane announcement.

[A]

Absolute mad la. They did the whole thing. Now we'll do the sponsor spot. The show is brought to you by Delta Hub. Long hours sitting at your computer desk can often result in a sore wrist, especially when you engage in certain activities. However, our sponsor Delta Hub has set out to help relieve some of those pains. They have recently dropped their Carpio G 2.0 LTT Edition. They took the core design of the their 2.0, but made one strategic change, a magnetic wrist strap. The strap's not there to restrict your movement though. It's there to help you move more freely without losing your support. So when you switch between keyboard, mouse, trackpad, you won't be asking, where the heck did my wrist rest go? And just like their previous models, the G 2.0 slides smoothly across your desk or desk pad without snagging or getting caught. Caught. And the pads to the wrist rests are perforated to help them breathe, meaning less sweat buildup after a long day of work or gaming. So go and grab your Carpio G 2.0 today by either scanning the QR code Dan on screen QR code or heading to the link in the video description and make sure that you use code WAN15 to save 15% on your order. Order now. So we have a special segment thanks to the Delta Hub WAN show sponsor Takeover. They apparently bought all the WAN show sponsor spots today.

[C]

So here's that QR code.

[A]

We're going to be playing a brief game of legally distinct Wanly Feud. Okay, the rules are simple. Earlier this week, there was a survey sent out to our team while we were away at ces. Oh, fun. Okay. Five questions were asked, and the top three answers for each question have been recorded for us to try to guess. To keep things moving, we will be given two guesses each per round. The answers are weighted and there will be up to 300 points up for grabs. Whoever has the least number of points at the start of each round will get to guess first. And somewhere off screen, a coin was flipped. And Linus will be guessing first for the first prompt. Oh, I see.

[B]

See, this is very. It's only mildly off topic, but I like their box. You open it and it. The info card comes out of the top.

[A]

My Luke cam button doesn't work.

[C]

Oh. Because I have it in takeover mode.

[A]

Okay. Oh, one sec. Cute.

[B]

I just think it's cool.

[A]

Good chat.

[B]

Neat.

[A]

All right, Dan, hit me.

[C]

One second. Sure thing. So, prompt number one. Name a piece of tech you could live without. Linus, you're up first.

[A]

Phone.

[B]

Wait, this is. This is Luke.

[C]

What is your guess?

[B]

What is my guess?

[C]

Or do I have to say that it's on the board or not? I have no idea. I've never watched Wanley Feud before.

[B]

Sorry. What do we talk? What is my guess? What am I guessing?

[C]

Name a piece of tech you couldn't live without.

[B]

Yeah, I'm guessing who it is.

[A]

You're guessing what everyone said.

[C]

Survey.

[A]

Well, you can't say the same thing.

[C]

No, you have to get something else.

[B]

But it's obviously phone.

[C]

Well, there's lots of responses. It could be something Else.

[A]

Got him, got him, got him, got him.

[C]

Do we do the survey says first? Probably should have done that.

[B]

Water filtration.

[C]

The hell is wrong with you?

[A]

He's just throwing. You can't throw. No, you have to have a real answer. That's so lame. You can't just look at chat.

[B]

I didn't get that from chat.

[A]

Okay, you said for either of us. You said you get, like.

[C]

You get two guesses.

[B]

We get to why I don't understand this game at all.

[C]

What is. What is happening?

[A]

It's Family Feud. You just have to guess what most people said. And the people who were responding were.

[B]

Our employees for sure. Answer that. You already.

[A]

Because I got to go first. But. But you'll get to go first if you're behind and there's, like, five rounds.

[B]

Okay, so I'll go first next time probably.

[C]

I think. I think that's it.

[B]

Camera.

[A]

Sure. Camera.

[C]

Camera.

[A]

Okay. And we have to say two each, apparently.

[C]

That's what it says here.

[A]

Okay. I'm gonna go with PC or, like, computer. Computer. Computer.

[C]

Computer. Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Some. Someone will have said 3D printer.

[A]

Oh. Oh, I like it.

[B]

At least someone.

[A]

I like it. Okay. All right, give us the result for the first one.

[C]

All right, response number three was computer or laptop, so that's 10 points to Linus. Response number two was headphones or earbuds. Oh, neither of you got that. And response number one. Phone.

[A]

Now, of course.

[C]

So that's linus leading with 45 points. Luke, nobody said water filtration, so, Luke, you got first.

[B]

They're all lying.

[A]

Didn't he have two. Two other guesses, though? I thought we didn't count that stupid water filtration. 1.

[B]

It was good, though.

[A]

You all.

[C]

No, he said it too earnestly.

[B]

Serious.

[C]

It was way too earnest.

[B]

You would all have very serious issues.

[C]

Drink it from the floor. Prompt number two. Name a sign that you've been sitting at your computer for too long. Luke, you're up first.

[B]

Numb legs.

[C]

Numb legs.

[A]

Dry eyes.

[B]

Dry eyes. Yeah, I don't get this problem.

[C]

Sore.

[B]

Someone asked me recently if I wanted eye drops, and I was like, for what?

[A]

And, Luke, you have another one.

[C]

Blink more.

[B]

Luke, Skill issue.

[C]

Skill issue. Luke, Guest number two.

[B]

Sun comes in.

[A]

Up.

[C]

Sun comes up.

[A]

Tired.

[C]

Tired.

[A]

All right, so sun comes up. You're so. Your answers are so revealing of yourself. You're supposed to guess for the other people. This is.

[C]

We surveyed LMG. Whatever number three survey says. Sore eyes. That's 15 points to LUS. Response number two is legs or butt going numb.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

20 points to Luke. And response number one was back or neck pain.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[C]

Definitely posture issue. What is wrong with my co workers? Problem number three. Name your favorite LTT store item. Luke, you're up first.

[A]

Okay. Luke goes first.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Screwdriver.

[C]

Screwdriver.

[A]

Damn. Internal people. Ooh. Oh, that's tougher. Trying to remember all the bloody stuff we make. We make so much. I'm gonna say scribe, driver.

[C]

Scribe driver for Linus.

[B]

You'll get some on that. I feel like backpack.

[C]

Backpack.

[B]

Everyone got one at the Christmas party, so it has probably the most internal exposure.

[A]

That's actually really smart gamesmanship.

[C]

And guess number. The last one.

[A]

This. I'm gonna go with water bottle.

[B]

That's got for sure. It's got to. It has to guess.

[C]

Number three is cargo pants.

[B]

Shoot, that makes sense.

[A]

The cargo pants are sick.

[B]

That makes sense.

[C]

Number two. Backpack.

[B]

Nice.

[C]

15 points to look number one. Do you know number one? It's screwdriver.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

Let's go.

[B]

Hold on.

[C]

I got to do some tabular speculation here.

[B]

Coming out of nowhere.

[A]

Oh, I should have gone backpack. You're right. Fudge.

[B]

When I went oh, it was like, backpack might be one. I'm still happy with screwdriver, but I was like, if he gets backpack, then he's getting number two.

[C]

Luke pulls ahead. Prompt number four. Linus, you're up first here. Name something you would use a magnet for. Linus, you're up first.

[A]

Something you would use a magnet for. Sticking to my fridge.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

That's pretty good. Picking up screws.

[C]

Picking up screws. Linus, guess number two.

[A]

Mounting a tool.

[C]

And Luke, final guess.

[B]

Cable management.

[A]

Oh, crap. That's a good one.

[C]

Look for cable management. Guest number three, picking something up like drop screws almost verbatim. Nice cheating. Guest number two, sticking something to a fridge. And guest number one is. Cable management.

[A]

Damn. Ah, such a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. I have no excuse for that one. That's so dumb.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

More LTT store answers. I feel like they almost answered like re. They almost reverse family feuded us here, like, trying to give responses that we would. And that's such an lmg. LTT store answer. Cable man.

[B]

Come on.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Cheap, cheap, cheap. And lastly, name something you're likely to leave at the hotel while traveling. Linus, you're up first because you're in last place.

[A]

Cable.

[B]

Okay, so is this like. Like you have left the hotel permanently? You've checked out? Yeah.

[C]

You've left It.

[A]

I'm going with cable. Cable. Okay.

[C]

Luke.

[A]

Oh, I don't like my guess anymore. Crap.

[B]

Yeah, like charger.

[C]

Linus.

[A]

Sock.

[B]

Oh, Sock.

[A]

Are you a kick your socks off in bed kind of guy?

[B]

Yeah, definitely.

[A]

I used to be, and then I left a lot of socks in hotel rooms, and now I just like. I'm like. No, no, not that. And I'll. I'll just take them and I'll put them in my pile.

[B]

I think been pretty good about my.

[A]

Last guest, so I'm going back to chat.

[B]

Toothbrush.

[A]

I don't.

[B]

It's not very good, but.

[C]

Toothbrush. Okay. Let's see here.

[B]

All right, I feel like this one's.

[C]

Gonna be quite number three. Headphones or earbuds?

[B]

They love headphones.

[A]

Really? How do you manage to leave your headphones?

[B]

I would definitely never leave my headphones.

[C]

Why?

[A]

Y. I would never leave my house.

[C]

Number two, toothbrush.

[B]

Oh, nice.

[C]

15 points to Luke.

[A]

How do you people lose your toothbrush?

[C]

How do you lose your toothbrush? That is insane.

[B]

I never left a toothbrush. But I was just trying to think of things, like, I just.

[A]

Oh, man.

[B]

I've definitely left socks. That one was good.

[C]

And number one, charger for 25 points.

[A]

GG.

[B]

GG. Your defense. I wasn't even sure Charger would catch count because it was so similar to cable.

[C]

I was gonna give Linus judgment on cable if nobody picked it. So that is 155 points to Luke. 85 points to Linus.

[A]

Yikes.

[C]

Obliterate. I was worried there at the start.

[B]

Dude. Purified water.

[C]

What is wrong with you?

[B]

People? Just never. They didn't really think about it. Yeah, I didn't think about it technically.

[A]

Technology, but, like, not in the way we're talking about it right now.

[C]

What is wrong with, like, floor water?

[A]

This guy. This guy. Massive shout out again to Delta Hub for sponsoring this fun little segment.

[B]

It was pretty fun.

[A]

Don't you dare do it again. I hate losing. Just kidding.

[C]

I mean, blame. Blame your employees for that one.

[A]

No, I blame Delta Hub. I blame my sponsor.

[B]

You blame the people with the cool box.

[A]

I will never take your money again. All right, why don't we jump into.

[C]

They will if you go to the QR code on the screen now. Goodbye.

[A]

They sure will. Steam machine price leak.

[B]

Yeah, I was kind of wondering if. Because on. At some point in time on WAN show, we said expected prices, didn't we?

[A]

We didn't we both Guess we've talked about it. I've guessed in a dedicated video on ltt.

[B]

So what did you get? Because I. I know I have guessed, but I don't remember what I said. So what did you guess?

[A]

I don't remember my guess.

[B]

There's also a note that I think you just flashed it on screen. People are saying this is all bs. It might be. We have no idea. It's a. It's a leak or a rumor or whatever. But there's also people that have noted that in. In Czechia the tax is included in the price. So this would be with tax.

[A]

Okay. So my guess. And yeah, this could be total. This could be.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

How did this comment get?

[B]

Oh yeah, it surprised me as well.

[A]

Top up voted on Reddit of all places. Yeah, you know what, that's fine. I. Okay. Anyway, the point is my guess, according to the AI overview, imagine using AI to find your own information. It does sound right though. My guess was apparently 6. 6. 99. However I did, I did pull the totally from 700. 800. Okay. Yeah, Vice says I believe 699. Apparently that's what I said. However I did p the totally BS move of saying barring any major changes in the market, which because DRAM was like looking like it was going to go parabolic.699us Yep.

[B]

Which it looks like their tax on electronics there, if I'm correct with the googling, is 21%.

[A]

Okay, so what's 699 times 21% but another 120. $130 or something like that. So 830 bucks. So I could be off by over a hundred dollars if, if it's just a straight conversion there's very likely.

[B]

So like usually when you have something come up here, it'll be like yeah, it's. It's price converted and then also rounded up to the highest, closest 99. So there's. There's also stuff going on. One going on like that miss me with that sales tax BS here in Oregon.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh right. Because they don't have it. Neat. Cool. But what we're talking about.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is why the listed price on this leak might actually be higher than you might expect even if the leak is true. Which is because the tax might be included in this price because they include tax in their price in this region.

[A]

JChrist O8 says people say the retailer adds 17% margin as well. Well, sounds like a credible person. Yeah, yeah, we already knew that part. But then also margin for this retailer.

[B]

So all of that combined.

[A]

Okay. I might be really close.

[B]

Pretty close. This is what I was trying to effectively get to yeah, that'd be kind of cool.

[A]

I wasn't expecting really to be right because I know there's so much volatility.

[B]

Plus tax being included, plus retailer markup not coming directly from Steam, all that kind of stuff. Stuff might land it pretty close to what was expected.

[A]

I think the conversation now is kind of the branching decision tree then. So if this is right and it actually ends up being like 900 to 1,000 US dollars, is it DOA to you?

[B]

No.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah, I don't think so at all.

[A]

I yield the floor.

[B]

One thing is I'm wondering about competing devices that include a Windows license if they will be priced competitively still, after some of these vendors update their prices to Reflex to reflect increasing DRAM prices both in the, you know, honestly across the system because a variety of different things use dram these days. GPUs are going up in price, everything else is going up in price. So like, is this actually not that competitive? It might still be cheaper because of no Windows. It might still be cheaper because of a variety of different reasons. Pricing is going through the freaking roof right now.

[A]

Correction. For people who are about to tell him that nobody buys Windows, they definitely.

[B]

Do, especially when they're buying pre builts, which this effectively is.

[A]

But then Windows also doesn't cost that much as a license on a pre built machine.

[B]

Don't you know how much it is?

[A]

I don't remember. It's a lot less than retail. But it also significantly depends on your agreement with Microsoft. Like at NCIX retail was like $100, $110 and our cost was like $90. Like it wasn't much lower. But we also weren't like a proper si. And I think a big part of the reason that we couldn't get proper SI pricing was that they knew that we would just sell OEM copies to regular retail customers. For sure, for sure. And so they like couldn't trust us with it. Essentially I'm trying to find, and that was true not just of ncix, but the retail sort of PC hardware channel in general. You just can't, you can't trust those guys to abide by a licensing terms thing, which from a consumer standpoint is pretty awesome and pro consumer. It's just that from Microsoft's hey, we'd like to get the money that we intended for this particular licensing terms agreement is not conducive to that.

[B]

I'm trying to figure out how much it cost. Oh, here we go.

[A]

While you're working on that, Amaker in Floatplane chat says but do you think Valve saw the reaction to your price estimate not being ridiculously angry and just went with with it? No, I don't, I don't think I have that kind of influence. Yeah, it's, it's so funny that my job title is, has literally become, you know, as the, as the terms have, have changed, has become an influencer and I legitimately like do not have nearly as much influence as a lot of people seem to think I do.

[B]

I think, I think you said this last show as well. I think you're absorbing that term in the wrong direction in my opinion. I think when most people say influencer, they don't mean of companies, they mean of the.

[A]

No, no, that's 100% true.

[B]

So they're not talking about your ability to influence Valve or Nvidia?

[A]

Well, a lot of people in the audience think it goes both ways though, right?

[B]

It for sure does.

[A]

I think there are a lot of, I think there are a lot of people in the online media influencer space who pretend that it does as well.

[B]

I think there's definitely the ability to influence rage within a company at certain employees for doing certain things. So like if something goes poorly, a high up that sees that thing go poorly might crush down on someone for it. But if that was literally what they were intending and you're like, I don't like it because price go up.

[A]

Yeah, I don't. We're not having any kind of real impact on the care high level decisions. I mean if, if online anger from, you know, influencers and fans or whatever could, could affect major decisions at large companies like Disney's Star wars leadership would not be what it is right now.

[B]

Yeah, but yeah, I still think this has viability. There's also that another aspect of this that you've talked about fairly extensively at this point, which is the top 10% of earners buying 50% of things.

[A]

Oh, the K shaped economy.

[B]

Does this really affect the top 10% of earners?

[A]

No, but I also don't think that they were necessarily going to be after such a mainstream product in the first place.

[B]

Level. Yeah, I don't know.

[A]

I think you can get a lot more PC for a thousand dollars.

[B]

Yeah, but I don't think being top or 10%, I don't think being top 10% earner means you're savvy.

[A]

Yeah, that's fair.

[B]

I think it's like, oh cool, Steam has more hardware. I really like the Steam deck.

[A]

Deck.

[B]

I'd be cool with more Steam stuff.

[A]

I'll just attach it to my tv.

[B]

I'll buy the Steam box thing that can play video games on my tv. That's awesome.

[A]

So next week we're going to be shooting me building my own Steam machine.

[B]

Hold on. 10% is still a huge market. No, it's 10% of income. Earners are 50% of the purchasing market.

[A]

Yeah. So the top 10% of earners are responsible now for 50% of US spending. This is specifically in the US which.

[B]

For a wide variety of reasons is super bad.

[A]

Is wild.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like absolutely mind blowing. Like you can literally Target the top 10% and you can hit half of the spending in the entire US market. And when you consider how much lower margin that other 90, the products you're selling to that other 90% are because they're going to be, you know, more entry level products there. All the lucrative opportunities, shouldn't say all, but many of the lucrative opportunities can be had by only targeting the very, very top earners in that market. No. So Bolster says it's bad, but it's still what, 35 million people they can sell to.

[B]

No, no, that's not what's going on.

[A]

That's completely not. That's completely besides the point. Point. The point is that when brands are targeting their product development and their marketing, they can just ignore 90% of Americans and you know, those 90% can go, hey, please, we're drowning and we can't afford this. And brands can be like, don't care because they can access 50% of the consumer spending, spending, the far more lucrative, far more profitable spending by only targeting the top percent of earners. That's the point.

[B]

Yeah, it's not. Yeah, the, the.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

When you're looking at amount of sales, it's 50% of sales are to 10% of people.

[A]

Nicholas Cage says Nvidia has entered the chat. Yeah, that's, that's a prime example. That, that was exactly what gave me the epiphany about this was like I was trying to put together how all gamers seemingly are so angry at Nvidia and yet Nvidia's gaming revenue keeps going up. And I was like, everyone's mad. They keep selling more GPUs, their market share keeps being over 90%. How do I reconcile these? Well, right, it's because those 90% are a very loud voice, but not a very powerful voice to people who, to whom the only language that matters is how much of my. You're buying. And, and that was how I kind of finally put it together. And I went, oh, right. So These angry gamers. I mean you might as well be. You might as well be someone who pirated the movie complaining that you didn't like the plot. Literally, you don't matter. You have no voice to a company whose only language is money. And, and that, and that's just, that's just the case. Once an organization gets large enough is everything boils down to. To a spreadsheet, to a finance document. Right. You literally have no voice if you're, if you're not exchanging money with this company. Dead Anti Social and Floatplane Chat says buy more money. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's rough.

[B]

Yeah. So I still think it'll be interesting for that 10% of people. Which means that if it is, if that is true, if it is interesting to those 10% of people, then it will probably be successful.

[A]

Chapper88 says is there a do your own Steam Machine video coming? Yes, I finally get to build it next week. I've been out of town so Justin and Jordan got to have some of the fun without me. But it's going to be in the original Steam Machine prototype case that Valve sent out completely overhauled hardware like cutting edge AMD processor for both CPU and gpu. Super fast machine. It's still going to use all commodity hardware. So unlike the official steam machine 2020 26, whatever year they attach to it, it will be upgradable in the future. And we tried to make it match the OEM Steam Machine experience in every way and we were not able to get there for reasons that we'll get into in way more detail in the video. But it's good enough. It's good enough for me and I'm pretty excited about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, too far gone says it's time for the weekly Intel ARC chat check. I'm actually worried because all the rumors that I've seen have been GPU prices going up in January. Let's see, has the ARC B580 gone up in price? Okay, that's not a good sign. The. Oh. Oh yeah, that's not good. Okay, you know what? No. 259 is within my margin of what I consider to be MSRP. There is still one ARC, the Onyx Lumi that is available for 259. Dan, do you remember? Can you post the link? Oh wait. There is the female audience in Floatplane Chat along with Noki, Mr. Nebby and some other people are reminding me of what our Newegg affiliate URL is. It's LMG GG Newegg. Feel free to use that link and then go and pick up an ARC B580 12 gig GDDR6 GPU with the Intel Holiday bundle, which I remind you includes Battlefield six. There you go. Or one of these other games if you prefer. Dying Light the Beast, Assassin's Creed Shadows or Civ 7 for some reason or other.

[B]

Yeah, you probably won't.

[A]

But yeah, you probably won't. Take that last one there. That's cool. Yeah, great. Great. High end, high detail, 1080p gaming card. Even can handle 1440p if you don't mind a little bit of, you know, XCSS upscaling.

[B]

Just.

[A]

Yeah, super quality card. I, I actually didn't realize this until I was chatting with him at ces, but David Gautier, who did the most recent ARC challenge and actually sold, I think he had a 30803090 or something like that.

[B]

So really solid. I don't know what it was, but it was really solid.

[A]

You know how at the end of the video he's like, I'm just staying on Ark. He's still on Ark.

[B]

That's cool.

[A]

And I was chatting with him about it and he's like, yeah, I've just, I've just disengaged from. Because, because we were talking about how I came across a comment on. I think it was on the. The amd, the AMD show coverage video video where I pulled a GPD Win five out of my backpack and was like, I've been playing Expedition 33 on this at 1080p. Like epic details, no upscaling required. It's incredible. To be clear, I'm not targeting 60fps at EPIC on it. I have to go down to like medium or high or use a little bit of upscaling in order to. If I wanted like 60 plus FPS. The point is just like it looks. I was like, this looks, looks so good. It's absolutely incredible. And I'm not using any upscaling. AMD's Strix Halo chips are absolutely incredible, but they're expensive. That was sort of the point that I was going through. So someone actually me in the comments and they were like, Expedition 33 is a piece of game because you actually can't run it without any kind of upscaling or gross TAA or whatever. I spent like several hours trying to fix it and turn all that stuff off and I couldn't. I returned the game and I was like, okay, first of all, brother, sorry, what I meant was I set my upscaling scale to 100%. If that still has some filters or whatever that bother you might be, then fine. But I think my. I think my meaning was clear. Number two, get over it. It's a great game. If it is even at all, even remotely a genre you enjoy or you just are looking for an adventure and a wonderful story with engaging characters, get over it and just play it. And so I was talking to David about that interaction. That was when he mentioned. Yeah, I'm just. I've just disengaged myself from needing to obsess over every pixel, and I'm so much happier. And he said it at the end of the arc challenge. I just wasn't sure if it would stick. But he's still running his B580, and Guy's a gamer. Don't kid yourself. It's not that. He just, I don't know, didn't really care that much because he doesn't play games that much. A gamer.

[B]

Definitely a gamer.

[A]

Confirmed. Verified. Actual gamer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I just. I don't know, man. I'm just like. Whenever I hear people freaking out about GPU prices, I'm like, hey, or hear me out. Buy the one that isn't unreasonably priced. Just buy it.

[B]

I want to leak it so bad, but I won't. But we have something very cool coming for this whole arc price check thing. That's all I'm gonna say.

[A]

Seriously, that's all I'm gonna say. You can't do that.

[B]

That's all I'm gonna say.

[A]

That's. That's. You don't have that power. Wait, he does now.

[B]

I do. He's drunk.

[A]

He's gone drunk with power. He owns half the WAN show for.

[C]

For two weeks.

[B]

It's not even WAN show stuff, though. It's. But, yeah, no, I really wanted to show it off this week and to use it this week. Yeah, but we won't. We will. We will use it in the future.

[A]

Oh, I think I know where you're going with this. That does sound very exciting, and I'm excited for it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. What are we supposed to be doing now? Oh, floatplane announcement. Yes, sir. Dan. I'm on it. Oh, my God. There's so many more topics still. That's fine. This is fun. I'm having fun. Wait, I was about to say, the show is brought to you today by floatplane. No.

[B]

Nice.

[C]

No.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

It's brought to you with floodplain.

[A]

Heck, yeah. Where is the float plane? Oh, there they are. Luke, did you know that CES happened This week. Look, I'm just reading Sammy's thing here. I take no responsibility for this. I didn't know because nothing eventful happened. Okay. That is actually. That is actually legit.

[B]

This is why I kind of opted to not go. Sort of saw it coming.

[A]

This. This was the lowest energy CES that I think I have been to, maybe the recovery year, the first year after Covid, because it was pretty slow, but there was at least tech that year. But, like, in terms of people, it was pretty slow.

[B]

I asked a lot of brands, like, look, level with me here. I'm not leaking anything. You know that I've been around for a while.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do you really have anything what shape?

[A]

Bacon?

[B]

No.

[A]

Not even bacon.

[B]

No. And there's a lot of people that are like, you know, I can't say, but I'd be like, well, I'm considering, like, not going. I'm trying to figure out if I need to go. And they'd be like, yeah, okay.

[A]

For the first time ever, I don't know if you know this, I came back a day early.

[B]

I didn't until like, like half an hour before the show. Someone mentioned you got here Wednesday or whatever. And I was like, whoa.

[A]

I got here. I got here yesterday afternoon. I was in office yesterday. I was supposed to be. I was supposed to be flying back this morning. And I came back. I came back a full day.

[B]

It's not even that normal for you to still be there on Friday. Yeah, like. Like doing the show from Vegas. We've done that.

[A]

Not abnormal. He means. Yes. Like that would be normal to. To be there all week. Yeah, but like, we got some stuff done ahead of time. So MSI sent over their. That monitor with their 5th gen QDO led panel. So we were able to talk about like, hardness improvements and magenta. Whatever. That was a sponsored video, full disclosure, but it was still cool new tech that was coming at ces. What was another one we did early? We did. We did Dell's like 6k monitor early. Also sponsored. We. And then once I got there, I. I got briefed on the new DLSS stuff like the night we arrived, which was on the weekend, which is still before the show. So I had all the information, but then of course, you know, with any brand, and no offense to Nvidia, but particularly Nvidia, what I'll do is I'll write branching versions of the script. One where everything they tell me is totally true and one where there's a little bit of bull mixed in with it.

[B]

So you always go with the one on the left. Left.

[A]

And this time, no. Oh, dude. Have you tried DLSS 4.5? No, we'll get to that in a second.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

First, so I got briefed on that. I think I wrote and shot the AMD coverage because we had a pre briefing on that. And then intel I was able to do on the very first day of the show because I had that sponsored thing for MSI's laptops. They wanted to show off their prestige laptop and their store stealth, and both of them contain Panther Lake. And I was like, okay, listen, guys, here's what we can do. I can do a dedicated sponsored LTT on these two laptops, and you can have 300,000 views or hear me out. Panther Lake is kind of a big deal. I really want to talk about Panther Lake. You can be the vehicle through which I talk about Panther Lake. That will get. Get probably closer to a million views. And by the time I start talking about your laptop, probably half of those people will have tuned out. That is still more than you will get.

[B]

That is still a w. If I.

[A]

Make the video just about your laptop. And they were super understanding about that and were basically like, okay, go ahead. So I pretty much got my entire Panther Lake coverage, which I had all the slides from. From the way better presentation that was like the architectural dive rather than the keynote. I didn't even see the keynote. I heard it was trash.

[B]

I've heard some very bad things.

[A]

And I'm actually super glad that I ended up taking that approach rather than even. I didn't even go to the keynote. Keynotes are so dumb. Because there was actually a spontaneous post on the subreddit, like the LTT subreddit, that was just like, hey, thanks, Linus, for providing, like, a really balanced take on Panther Lake. And I was like, I didn't even really feel like, like I had a particular.

[B]

Oh, it's because you didn't see the keynote.

[A]

It's because I didn't watch the keynote. So I literally just looked at the Panther Lake, like, architectural brief, and I looked at the. At the lineup and I looked at what they're claiming in terms of, like, GPU and efficiency improvements. And I was like. And then I was able to game on it at the MSI booth, and I was like, yo, this thing's sick.

[B]

What games do they have available?

[A]

I didn't ask for more than just Cyberpunk because I've seen it on so many different platforms that you just. You get a feel. You get a feel for it. And I was able to feel enough that I was like, I am justified in being enthusiastic about this. That was all I needed to know. Right. It's show coverage. It's not a full review.

[B]

At the event that we went to for Panther Lake a bit ago, they had a laptop there that you could game on, but they had one game. It was already loaded in. You couldn't open the settings.

[A]

Oh, I was allowed to.

[B]

You could see the frame rate. And it was a unreleased game.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So I gave feedback, being just like.

[A]

Guys, you got to be slightly more useful than this meant.

[B]

Actually nothing like, yeah, please. And they seemed receptive. So that was cool.

[A]

Anyway, so, yeah. So by like day two, I think it was. Was it Tuesday or Wednesday? It was whatever. Was the day of the robot fight.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

UFB5 here, hold on, let me find it.

[B]

Where's that, by the way?

[A]

We're gonna have a video and then also I think they're gonna have their own things. Okay. So January 6th. So by Tuesday, because that was so Sunday.

[B]

Monday, you were like done by Tuesday.

[A]

I had nothing booked for Tuesday morning. Yeah. So that's where finally coming all the way around to Sammy and his float plane announcements. Sammy pings me. He's like, yo, do you want to just go hang out on the show floor?

[B]

I really like doing these.

[A]

So, yeah, Sammy and I hung out on the show floor. We went through the. Was this the north hall or the central hall? I forget which one it was, but we just did. We did one of the halls together and it was cool. We found some cool stuff. I found some cool contacts. I found, I found a company that makes like a really cool competitor to conformal coding. That's like, you can rework, you can apply it without masking. Right. So we're gonna, we're gonna hopefully collaborate with these guys. I found, I found a company that does like flight sims, but like professional ones.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

But also a cut down educational version that's still like pretty legit, but doesn't have the motion controls and stuff. And they're down to collab on like a ten dollars versus hundred thousand dollar flight sim.

[B]

That's cool.

[A]

So I'm super excited about that. So it was like, it was great. I actually got to attend the show floor as like a networking event for. For a day. And then I had the, I had the, the bot fight thing, which was something. It was quite the experience.

[B]

We've talked for a long time. I actually had, I had a conversation with Emma about this this morning. She was asking me about CES and like, why Didn't I go, yeah. And I gave this spiel of just like, there's. I just knew there was nothing this year. Like, I just. I just. It was in my bones. I knew there was nothing this year. I also tried to. To get suss out feelings from these different companies, and no one was really giving me anything. And usually you can kind of see in the eyes of somebody when you ask them, like, is there really going to be anything? And you can see the, like, the, like the. The competitive spirit a little bit when they're like, I can't tell you, but you can just see it. They're like, oh, I've got something.

[A]

Feel the energy. It's like when I guess pricing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, you can tell if you're close, you know?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And I was just like, there just wasn't anything.

[A]

And Salmo asks, did you get anything good for the Tonight Show? I did. There was like, gimmicky stuff that I think is gonna. Is gonna sell really well for, like a TV audience. And there's like, wow factor stuff. But it's not an LTT video. It's not something you should buy, you.

[B]

Know, so this, this was my next point necessarily.

[A]

Some of it's pretty cool. Some of it's pretty cool.

[B]

This feels like an additional inflection point because we had the original, you and me working together. We walk into the little thing at NCX and there's a mountain of products and you just film f. F film and then you're done. And then there was partway through. I don't necessarily know the exact year, but there was partway through, through when we started having discussions about, like, we need to make the content now.

[A]

We need to become the news. I think is what I used to say.

[B]

Yeah, there isn't enough interesting, automatic news. There isn't enough products coming out. This feels like another dip in that. Where, like your show floor walk where you're saying, oh, I networked and I found these interesting video ideas. Oh, we can make this video idea on this, this flight sim thing. That makes a ton of sense to me personally.

[A]

We can't just wait for it to come to us.

[B]

We have to do now.

[A]

Yep. And that's where the tech house. That's where the tech house comes in.

[B]

Emma brought up the tech house. Emma was like, the tech house makes a lot of sense now because you guys have to take an additional step forward to push even harder to make the news or whatever. Whatever. However you want to define it.

[A]

Yeah, we will.

[B]

And it's. It's it's not necessarily a doom and gloom time. It's just adapting with the times. And now we're in kind of a. A two year cadence almost. We're like, I bet you next CES will be decently interesting.

[A]

I think so. I think Computex is actually going to be pretty sick too.

[B]

Computex will probably be pretty good because next CES will be interesting.

[A]

I guess I just kind of like casually dropped that, by the way.

[B]

Yeah, we should talk about that.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

It's up somewhere.

[A]

Yeah, I know. I just don't know how it works. I. I'm like Boomer, trying to navigate this. I'm going to guests. I don't understand tickets, request tickets. Something posted on Instagram. I mean, it's got to be. Okay, shows, come on. Okay. The Tonight show with Jimmy Fallon. Okay, come on. Here we go, here we go, here we go. I think I got it. I think I got it. Here we go. Just need to. I might meet Jason Momoa. That'd be pretty cool.

[B]

That's pretty sweet.

[A]

I. Okay, this is gonna be embarrassing. I have to look up this guy.

[B]

Oh, I think he's snl, comedian, writer.

[A]

Known for his work on Saturday Night Live. Okay, that's cool. Super cool. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, Thursday, Thursday, put it in your calendars. Thursday, January 15, gonna be on the Tonight show with Jimmy Fallon. We've actually got a bunch of really cool stuff that's gonna. It's more mainstream because, you know, we're, we're talking to a very different audience from the LTT audience.

[B]

And you got to be able to kind of hold it there. There's limitations.

[A]

Yeah, Like, I saw a really incredible chocolate 3D printer printer that it's like on demand. So it takes only. I think it only took about 30 seconds. No, no, it was more than 30 seconds. So it's about two minutes to like poop out a chocolate, like about this big, like a chocolate 3D printer. And so you basically go, yeah, I want this one. I want it in this shape. And it prints it for you. And then it comes out and it's like ready to eat. And I was like, that'd be super cool. How on earth would we get it there?

[B]

Yeah, it would make a lot of sense. But if it was, if it was there and that's difficult, how fun would.

[A]

It be to start the segment being like, okay, okay, Jim, Jimmy, pick what shape of chocolate you want. And he goes like, doo, doo, doo. And then we get a little bit of footage of it starting Shape and.

[B]

Then try this piece of chocolate and then give him the piece of chocolate in that shape or something.

[A]

While we wait for this to go, let me show you some other cool stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Hey. Feels like we've waited long enough for our chocolate. Is it done? It's done.

[B]

And then there's chocolate. Jimmy.

[A]

And then he eats it. Exactly right. Like that kind of thing. But just the. The logistics of getting something like that on a short time frame just seemed like they just weren't really gonna happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, yeah, there was lots of stuff. We had lots of options. We actually gave them a menu that was like a dozen plus items long. And I think we've narrowed it down to about half a dozen now.

[B]

You guys do the, like, writer hunt again.

[A]

We actually had.

[B]

Or procurement hunt.

[A]

Yeah. Who was it? Who was on that? We had someone who was basically dedicated for a couple of days. Days to finding things for the Tonight show, which makes no financial sense because. No, not. Because they didn't try. But I wasn't compensated in any way for the last appearance, and I doubt that I am this time because it's. It's. I'm Canadian, and so it's, like, harder for them to pay me or harder for me to accept the funds for some, like, tax or production reasons. I don't remember. It wasn't their fault. But it's like. It's not. It doesn't make. It doesn't make any like. Like, like money sense. But it's fun. Yeah, it's just fun. It's like.

[B]

It's neat.

[A]

It's like. Like someone. Someone made an offhand comment to me about that. That UFB robot fight thing. They were like, oh, I assume they just threw, like, a big bucket of money at you.

[B]

And I was like, no, just sounds fun.

[A]

If they did, I would have disclosed it, so you would have known. But also, I was just like, I don't know. Fuck it. I'm gonna do a robot fight. Like, come on. I keep telling people.

[B]

Why wouldn't you?

[A]

Dude, I'm so. I feel like I'm so easy to figure out. Like, I'm telling people I'm in my zero given phase in my career. So when I decide to just, like, realistically spend a lot of money to go and, like, I don't know, be on TV and meet Jason Momoa. Because that sounds pretty cool. And also Fallon's super cool, too, by the way. From. From the limited interactions I've had with them. We're not like, BFFs. Or if I want to, like, be in a robot fight. I don't know, man. I'm just. I'm just gonna do it. I don't care anymore.

[B]

Yeah, sweet.

[A]

I don't care anymore. I'm just gonna go for it.

[B]

Do you want to leave CES early? Because it's just kind of boring. Yeah.

[A]

Then I might just do that too.

[B]

Yeah, whatever.

[A]

Let me check. Let me check the Jimmy Fallon leads chats.

[B]

There is a point in time where that would not have been an option.

[A]

Shout out Jake Bellavonte for all the cool stuff that he posted. I think Sean Caldera might have been our guy. Or was it. Was it Nolan? I can't remember who was assigned to. That might have been Nolan, but yeah, we. We put in the work. We put in the work. Oh, right. What was I supposed to be talking about? Oh, yeah. Okay. Other exclusives. Over at LMG GG Floatplane, we have LMG's favorite tech of the year, featuring the one and only Mr. Riley Murphy. Doc. But that's all you get to see. If you don't want to subscribe over on Flowplay, our discussion question is, what was Linus, Luke and Dan's tech of the Year? What was your tech of the year?

[B]

I would love to stay big screen beyond two if I've tried it yet.

[A]

You still haven't tried it.

[B]

I have not.

[A]

You haven't tried it?

[B]

No.

[C]

I need to know if I'm going to get one or not. It's all hinging on you.

[B]

I told you you could borrow it.

[C]

Yeah, I forgot.

[B]

Yeah, you should have just borrowed it also.

[C]

I can't do that. It's your. It's your unboxing experience.

[B]

I already unboxed it.

[C]

It can't come used it, can you?

[A]

You.

[C]

You paid for it.

[B]

I unboxed it. I put it on my face. I just never turned it on.

[C]

Did you get a little can for it?

[B]

No, I didn't.

[A]

You know what the worst part is? I was at like.

[B]

Those are cool, though.

[A]

I was at pimax's booth. Their new ones might be a better beyond than the beyond. There's trade offs. There's trade offs. They don't have the custom fit gasket.

[B]

Are they like huge, like the pimax or. Okay.

[A]

They have a new one actually. Is that. Is that video up yet? There's a. There's a short circuit. Short circuit.

[B]

I'm not. I'm not that worried about it. I'm happy that the space seems to be moving right now. It does.

[C]

They're pushing it forward.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I purchased something that I was really excited about, and that's okay. I'm not like, if there's. If the. If the Steam frame is really cool, great. If the new pimax is really cool, great. That's not a problem. I think it's great. I don't want that space to die. And competition is good. And I'm not gonna be frustrated about my purchase because something happened to me that delayed my ability to use it.

[A]

So are you just trying to show off how much more mature you are than the average consumer? Right now? I'm trying to figure out your motiv for giving the spiel.

[B]

I think it's just, like, I don't. I don't love that. Like, see, I'm just above that. Oh, my God.

[A]

I just.

[B]

I don't love that. Beyond Big Screen beyond has been put in this, like, position, right? Like, does everyone regret their purchases now that there's competitors? And it's like, whatever, dude. They made a cool thing.

[A]

Like, the pimax one is not as light.

[B]

Is it the Crystal Light? Is that what we're looking at?

[A]

No, it's the Dream or Air or something. Something.

[B]

Dream Air.

[C]

Dream Air.

[B]

SE maybe.

[A]

Yeah, there it is. There. That's the one. Okay, so here it is. It's pretty small, so it doesn't have the custom gasket. It's not as light, but they do have a number of options for the. Wait, is this the se?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

That is not the resolution that they told me. Okay. Check the Dream Air, not se. Okay.

[B]

Because they told me it might just look really similar.

[C]

38. 40 by 3552 for the non SE.

[A]

Okay, good. The non SE is the one that I was covering at the show.

[B]

Okay, so should we check that one out?

[C]

The FOV seems way higher than the. I mean, they've always been FOV heavy, haven't they?

[A]

That's kind of their.

[C]

Kind of like their thing.

[A]

Yeah. So these are. These are 4K per eye, up to 90Hz.

[C]

Do they come in clear, though?

[A]

Clear.

[C]

Like the.

[B]

The. The. The big Screen beyond comes in clear. Dude, it's so sick.

[A]

It is so cool.

[C]

So cool.

[B]

Like, that has a value. Yeah, it actually does.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

I think they're. I think their cable management is a little better. They did a cool cable that splits the display port and the other data, and it actually plugs in on both sides, so it doesn't. And their rationale for it was that very lightweight headsets, if they're being tugged from one side, are more susceptible for sure.

[B]

That makes sense.

[C]

It's inside out though.

[B]

Did you get a clear one? I got the orange.

[C]

It's both.

[A]

So that's pretty cool. There's two versions of the Dream Air, one that uses lighthouse tracking and one that uses slam, which is pretty cool. They can't be unlike pimax's other ones that have like swappable modules and stuff. It's not modular. You can't like can't just turn one of them into the other one. But it looks pretty good. It looks pretty darn good. Very impressive. I am going to to be take a total cop out path here and I'm going to say Steam frame.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It's not out yet.

[B]

Yeah, that doesn't seem fair.

[A]

Is that a hack?

[B]

That does seem like a hack.

[A]

I'm so, I'm so excited for it.

[B]

That is sick. I think, I think for this answer it has to be stuff that came out this year.

[A]

It's for reasons that are so specific to me. Like I have that weird fanless cooled machine in my rec room room that I use for VR and specifically the bigscreen beyond two's like breakout box, like doesn't really work to get into where the IO is in that case. And their cable's a little shorter than the index. So like the cable management kind of sucks. And I can't really like I can't really put that cool machine up on a little pedestal where I want it without putting a hole in the side of my media console. So it's just been like kind of janky and annoying me. And being able to switch to wireless is going to make it all look so much nicer. It's like so specific to exactly how I want to use it. Although I am going to have four holes in my ceiling now for where my base stations used to be and I will not need those anymore. Unnecessary. But hey, anyone looking for some base stations? All right. Okay, so pick something for this year. You know what? Okay fine. I'm going to go with something that is out this year even though it kind of sucks so far. And I'm going to go with Micro rgb, RGB backlights, mini, sorry mini RGB mini, not micro but, but RGB backlighting. That, that new Hisense TV, the 116 inch that we looked at earlier this year. Not there yet. Because you get when you have a dimming zone that isn't just a glow, when it's like a colored glow. Not great whenever you spot it. And the, and the motion response on it was not Good. The pixel to pixel transition times are just too long, but I can see where they're going with it, and it's, like, really cool, really exciting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. How'd we get on this subject?

[C]

I mean, that was the subject, so you can go back to topics now.

[B]

Yeah, that was a merch message.

[C]

No, that was a full plane announcement. Talking about ces.

[B]

Oh, was it?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Whoa. My job is just to talk.

[C]

So, like, well, you did it correctly and then second guessed yourself.

[A]

Thanks, Dan. Wait.

[B]

Classic.

[C]

You don't have to. You're great.

[B]

Something I want to throw out there really quick was that I got my Reddit account back.

[A]

Oh, hooray.

[B]

I don't remember which day it was. I think it was, like, Tuesday or something. I got a text message when I was still asleep because time zones and stuff, I guess. Guess never noticed it. And then got a quick call. Probably one of the fastest calls I've literally had in my life.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

From a robot at dbrand, which is how they will be referenced. I didn't even know that this robot had my number, but they called me and I recognized the robot and was like, okay. I picked up the phone and they were like, hey, I have a contact. Do you want me to sell velvet? And I was like, yeah, that'd be sweet. They're like, cool. Loop you in. Bye. Click. Gone. I was like, whoa.

[A]

What?

[B]

And then, like, literally, like 10 minutes later or something, I got an email from somebody being like, yeah, I can solve that. Just do this thing real quick. I did that thing real quick. Account back.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Died. That was crazy. That was pretty cool. Not gonna lie.

[A]

Ragatos in floatplane chat says, thanks, robot. It's good to be the king.

[B]

That was pretty sick.

[A]

Pixel Cat. Now that's influential.

[B]

That was pretty cool.

[A]

Where is this man's Wikipedia page?

[B]

That should be on the Wikipedia page. Aided by a robot.

[A]

Got his Reddit account back.

[B]

But, yeah, thanks, dbrand. I. I appreciate it. And thank you, robot.

[A]

How much you want to bet that your Wikipedia page is already better?

[B]

Better than what?

[A]

Better than it was when we looked at it earlier in the show today.

[B]

Oh, maybe it's never gonna happen.

[A]

I mean, I said that about myself. Wait, why can I? I can't even find it anymore.

[B]

Isn't you go into that Reddit thread and then click on it, Right?

[A]

Was that where. Oh, yeah. That is how I found it before.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, let's see. Let's see if it's improved. Oh, come on, guys.

[C]

Get it together.

[B]

Oh, come on. Oh, man.

[A]

All Right. What else do we have here?

[B]

At least you should call them Brobot. But their. Their specific, like, branding around it is robot though. So I'll be. I'll be nice. But I do like robot.

[A]

This is cool. Cool. Co founder of both CD Projekt Red and GOG has acquired GOG from CD Projekt Red reiterates philosophy of freedom, independence and genuine control. It's cool that CD Projekt Red wanted to divest of this asset to focus on other things and didn't sell it to private equity.

[B]

Yeah. I dove into this a decent amount.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it just actually seemed totally fine, wholesome and chill. Yeah.

[A]

Love it.

[B]

I was like, where's the badness in this? And it never showed up.

[A]

Isn't it cool when CD Projekt Red just like, behaves all cool?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They don't always get things perfectly right. Nope, nope.

[B]

Nobody does.

[A]

No, they don't. But I see. I think that's important. I think that. That at this point, it is just such a bad faith bull take to talk about, you know, how crappy Cyberpunk was at launch. Anyone who was upset about it got a refund. And they made the game good.

[B]

And a lot of those people just bought it again.

[A]

What more can they do?

[B]

I don't know why this made me think of it, but they will never solve Starfield.

[A]

Starfield. That's Bethesda, though.

[B]

They will. I know.

[A]

Oh, okay. I thought. Sorry, I thought you were. I was like, what does that have to do with CD Projekt? Nothing.

[C]

Your base gamer status is removed immediately. I don't care about. We tell you. Wow. They're different companies.

[A]

You're done. Wait, you're a Starfield fan? No, no, no, no.

[C]

That he thought that they never.

[B]

I'm thinking like, of the great comebacks. It's like they were fairly similar time. Right. It was cyberpunk and no man's sky. And I know a lot of people have looked at Starfield and been doing the meme of like, poking it with a stick and being like, hey, do the thing. It's not gonna happen.

[A]

Okay. So Binky draws says the most they can do is not let that situation happen again. Again. No, people, they were human and they made a mistake. And they're gonna still be human and they will still make mistakes.

[B]

Ideally, it's not the same mistake, but.

[A]

They might be different humans.

[B]

But it might. And it might be different humans. That's the thing, actually. Not might. It will be different.

[A]

We're talking about a corporate entity. It's not all the same people.

[B]

I can more or less guarantee that people have been hired, people have been fired, and people have quit in that period of time.

[A]

Of course.

[C]

I mean, it's a gaming studio, so just layout.

[B]

Have they done that?

[C]

No, I don't think so.

[A]

I don't know if. Yeah, CDPR has done that.

[C]

Infinite Money.

[B]

This isn't Microsoft, Dan.

[C]

Oh, I'm so sorry.

[B]

What are you talking.

[C]

Could you say any other company?

[B]

Yeah, pretty much.

[A]

I think that's something that, that in our. In our fandom and in our passion, sometimes even we. We. We get. I don't know, we. We get just sort of emotional about sometimes and we go, well, like. Well, like doing better should mean being perfect going forward. And that's not gonna happen. That's never gonna happen for me. I promise you that. It's never gonna happen. For Linus Media Group or Creator Warehouse, we had a thing show up on the subreddit earlier this week where someone ordered, I think it was an extra large hoodie and they got a small and then they contacted customer service and we offered to send a replacement and they got a small again and they contacted customer service for a third time and asked for a new hoodie and we sent them a small. A third time.

[B]

That sucks. That's so rough.

[A]

Nobody would do that on purpose.

[B]

We need to, like, hand deliver them the right size or something. That is brutal.

[A]

There's no malice, you know, but sometimes. Sometimes communication errors happen. Sometimes somebody didn't get their coffee when they pick an order and it was the same person who skipped their coffee like a week later. Sometimes, sometimes an entire batch gets mislabeled. And I legitimately don't know what happened with that yet. We will find out. Fortunately, it was a U.S. customer within the U.S. and so, like, we can get it back to the DC maybe and find out if it was a mislabeling on the packaging or a misspick. Like, things happen. I mean, it's not good. Obviously it would be better if everyone just, you know, bought a game that was perfect out of the box or bought a product and got the right thing in the mail at the third time at least. But, like, you know, I think what's more important is that you move forward in good faith. You try to fix things. And I think that's like, that's such a. That's like my corner. That's my cornerstone these days. That's the thing that I'm kind of clinging to is the concept of good faith engagement. As long as Someone is engaging in good faith, which means with a genuine shared interest in reaching a mutually acceptable solution. Right. They actually want the problem resolved. Because sometimes you have people who don't actually want to resolve the problem. Yeah, they just want to be angry. You know, they just wants to watch the world burn. Master Wayne.

[B]

How's. How's triple small shirt guy doing?

[A]

They basically. I haven't checked back in, but what they said was, at this point, I think I just want to refresh, which we'd be. We'll be happy.

[B]

Totally fair.

[A]

Totally fair. We'd rather get you your shirt. But if we can't, then we'll settle for just, you know, a refund.

[B]

We should fix it by sending them the correct size and also a small in the same box.

[A]

What are you. What is What. Dan and Adam. What are you guys talking about? In the chat? Dan says we should hand deliver us small the fourth time. No.

[C]

I also said he was trying to move the dead stock.

[A]

Oh, my God. Did Adam actually. Did he. Did he comment on this?

[B]

Everybody gets.

[A]

If someone would let me, I would hand deliver it. Lol. Yeah. No, Adam, that's not. I think you should let things work.

[B]

That would be really funny, too. Take the XL label off an XL and put a small on it. Even though it is an XL shirt.

[C]

Hand deliver it. Here's your. Here's your small.

[A]

Yeah, buddy. Wow, you've really put on above and the beyond.

[B]

Jeez, it's a bunch of sizes up.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

You know, it end up being two smalls if you try to send the correct smell. That's funny.

[A]

No, no. All right, what else we got here?

[B]

CES of wacky stuff?

[A]

Oh, yeah, we could do that.

[B]

CS 2026, they put AI in all sorts of. Sorts of wacky stuff.

[A]

Okay. And so we're supposed to rate out of five.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

How appropriate we think the AI is. Okay, why don't we start with the AI Barista from Bosch?

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Bosch debuts Alexa plus for coffee. Are you laughing, Dan? This is serious. This is serious coffee here. Dan Best, sir.

[B]

Is it just like.

[C]

I mean, coffee does that to you, but yeah.

[A]

Bosch's new. Jesus.

[C]

Amazon button to order more toilet paper.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Stick that right on the front.

[A]

Bosch's new AI powered personal AI barista for its 800 series espresso machine, built on Amazon's Alexa plus brings conversational control to coffee brewing. But apparently the AI struggled a bit with simple tasks its predecessor handled with ease. All right, out of five, with five being the most appropriate.

[B]

I don't drink coffee. But I think I'd give this like a 2, because I feel like it's just going to select from, like, I don't know, six different options that it can do. And it looked like there was a screen on. On it, so you could just poke the thing. And I feel like people have this whole thing of, like, don't talk to me before I've had my coffee. And now they made up. No, it's a one. People have a thing that says, don't talk to me before I've had my coffee. And now they're making you talk to your coffee machine. I think it's a one. I'm giving it a one.

[A]

A one.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I. I feel like the whole saying.

[B]

Is, don't talk to me before I've had my coffee. And then they're like, hey, you actually have to talk to things before you've had your coffee.

[A]

I don't disagree with you. I'm just worried that you're painting yourself into a corner a little bit.

[B]

I might be.

[A]

Because they're of kind. Could be something else. So much dumber.

[B]

It's a two. All right, It's a two.

[A]

I'm going with one.

[B]

I think. I think it's a two because it looked like you could kind of override it.

[A]

I think it's a one because of how much. How little I would need to change. And to be clear, I don't drink coffee.

[B]

What's the bottom of the scale?

[A]

But how. One to five.

[B]

Okay, so one is the bottom.

[A]

Yeah. How little. How little I would need to alter what my, like, morning coffee experience would be. Be. So I'm comparing this to how much better it would be to just have a preset, like.

[B]

No, that's what I'm saying. Just press the button.

[C]

You saw me using the super automatic that we have in the writing lounge or the writing department area.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You just push a button.

[A]

Yeah. But, like, there are different, like, versions of coffee it can make. I assume.

[C]

I was looking at a super automatic. You know, I'm in the market. There's some of them can do 30, 40 types of coffee.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And most of them just do espresso plus some form of milk, which is basically all you need.

[B]

Like, if it could do.

[A]

It does.

[C]

It does that. But you don't have to talk to it.

[B]

Yeah. Little art thing they put on top of the coffee.

[C]

They're not going to be able to do that.

[A]

Yeah, they won't be able to do that.

[B]

But if it could.

[A]

Yeah. Well, but then it wouldn't Need AI for that anyway.

[B]

Okay, so it's a one then.

[A]

Put up.

[C]

Put a bird on it. Alexa coffee machine.

[A]

You know what? I'm going with two. I don't want to paint myself into a corner.

[B]

I'm sick of one. Then I'm just. I'm just. I think it's just actually stupid. I don't think anyone wants this. I think it's dumb.

[A]

I was messing with you. I also think it's a one. All right, let's move on. Do you want to bring them up and then I'll do the. I'll read the things.

[B]

Sure, yeah.

[A]

Samsung showcased AI OLED concepts.

[C]

What?

[A]

Why? Like a cassette player and a turntable, where the cassette uses AI to provide interactive display features and music recommendations. And the turntable integrates AI driven visuals on its circular OLED display.

[B]

This one. One.

[A]

I'm gonna go with two.

[B]

One.

[A]

I think this is a solid two because unlike the coffee maker, where it serves absolutely no purpose that anyone has ever asked for, ever, they're actually attempting to do something is kind of remind. It kind of reminds me of like a laser rock show, but way dumber. So that makes it not quite a one. All right, do you want to bring up the next one?

[B]

Yeah, sure. I'm trying to figure out what this thing even is, but.

[A]

Go the govee life. Smart Nugget Ice Maker.

[B]

That's a big ad.

[A]

That is a very. That is a very. Hey, English isn't my first language word to use to describe anything to do with food nobody wants other than chicken nuggets. Nobody wants a nugget of anything anywhere near any food. So the Smart Nugget Ice Maker Pro introduced at CES 2027, uses AI noise guard trained to detect freeze ups and automatically defrost so the machine runs more quietly and efficiently.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

I think, I think this is a 4 for me. Imagine how much more ice cream McDonald's would have sold if they had an AI to detect when their ice cream machine isn't working. Imagine it. Now imagine that. Probably that wouldn't work anyway because that wasn't really the issue.

[B]

The thing for me is like, if this is. If this is just modern branding stuff and it's really just, you know, there's a little bit of machine learning in there. All right, it might be cool. I think if they're like trying to slap LLMs in this thing, it's stupid, but I think, I think it might actually just be okay, we need the stupid trendy words, but there's actually just like A little bit of machine learning in here, which is like pretty all right. But if you, if, if you want me to talk to my freaking ice maker.

[A]

No, I don't think there's.

[B]

Which I don't think they're doing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, like, I think this might actually just be a branding thing.

[C]

Thing.

[B]

Because, like, their actual name for it is the Govee Life Smart Nugget Ice Maker Pro. They didn't throw AI in the name.

[A]

They did put smart in there. Although admittedly, that's more Iot era.

[B]

I'll take smart right now over AI. I didn't like smart when it was around. It's like Windows 8.1.

[A]

It's amazing how good the phantom menace looks in retrospect. Yeah.

[B]

Now that the new things exist, Jar Jar Binks.

[A]

You know what? Not that bad.

[B]

Maybe he was okay.

[A]

All right, next up, GE's new smart refrigerator with kitchen assistant combines a built in barcode scanner that automatically adds groceries to a digital list with an AI powered camera system for tracking contents and reducing food waste waste alongside voice and touch controls to help manage shopping, meal planning and inventory. What do you got?

[B]

I wouldn't buy one because of data tracking, data invasion, all that kind of stuff. If I'm purely. If I completely ignore all of those very valid, very large, large concerns. It's probably like a five.

[A]

I give this one a three.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because I would want something that does all of that stuff, but this one won't.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's fair. So I was going on the assumption that all of the insane privacy concerns are not a thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was going on the assumption that it worked. Both of which are not.

[A]

No way.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

There's no way. If I had a fridge that legitimately was like, hey, here's everything that's in here. You could make this.

[B]

If it was doing all of this locally, which it's for sure not. I don't even care if it was doing all this.

[A]

I don't care.

[B]

Why. You could just list those things out.

[A]

Give it to Grok. If it wants to make porn of my celery stalks, then let it do it. If I never. If I never had to. I don't care. I still don't.

[B]

Okay. There's like big problems with this. I can detect illnesses and sell that data and like, there's lots of issues.

[A]

I would be over it if it simplified meal planning. That's my line. Meal planning sucks. It's like my least favorite thing in my entire life.

[B]

You can already use LLM systems For meal planning.

[A]

But I won't because it's not built into my fridge.

[B]

That's dumb.

[A]

If this actually worked. If this actually worked and I just. It would just like crap out like a thing that I could make and just give me instructions. And I made it and it was delicious and nutritious.

[B]

You know what? You know, you know how you've talked about how you. You don't have like a cook?

[A]

Yeah, I don't.

[B]

You should almost have like someone come in and just look at what you've got and make you recipes and then have them leave.

[A]

But that would be. That would be. That would be the most unhinged thing ever.

[C]

Well, we could get Vanced on this.

[A]

What are you guys even talking about? That's not Vance. His job. He's an executive assistant, not a personal assistant. They are not the same thing.

[C]

Are you not an executive?

[B]

If you. If you had.

[C]

Then it's his job.

[B]

This be a thing.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Anyway, yeah, it's not gonna. I mean, it honestly might be able to suggest recipes.

[A]

I don't think so. Because it would have to have. It would. It would have to properly track age of this. It would have to properly track what's in it. That stuff is concerning the age of it. The age and date stuff is concerning consumpt of it.

[C]

What about the stuff you don't put in the fridge? Like, does it know you have rice?

[A]

Yeah. Or beans?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Like it's.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So it just sucks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So if it could do its claim and it wasn't obviously, obviously making a decent amount of money selling all of your data, then I think it's really cool actually. Yeah, but it is making a bunch of money selling all of your data, which is like a hard stop for a lot of people and mostly for Dan's reason, to be completely honest. It's not going to work anyways.

[A]

No, it's not going to work.

[B]

So like.

[A]

So I'm averaging my scores.

[B]

The theory.

[A]

Okay. Yes.

[B]

Okay, sure. Then, yeah, it's. I think it's like a two.

[C]

All right.

[A]

All right, next up, Lepros AMI desktop AI companion. Uses an 8 inch curved OLED screen and an integrated AI to display a 3D character that tracks your eyes, senses, gestures and expressions, interacts contextually to offer an empathetic presence on your desk and is marketed, and I kid you not, is marketed as an AI soulmate. I've got my score ready.

[B]

Can we like break the scale? I don't know. It makes me so sad, man. It's so Dark. It's so dark for humanity. It has to be a one.

[A]

My God, I'm a two. And the reason. The reason I am averaging. I am averaging the usefulness of AI in this product, which is that that's the exercise. And I think that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Did it need to be like an interactive desk? Soulmate probably would need some kind of LLM integration to be even remotely interactive. With the negative 4 of how much I feel this product should exist and anyone should use it, I ended up at a two. Got it. Well, one and a half, which I rounded to. To following rounding rules. It is worth pointing out, by the way, that Razer, just because you sponsor the WAN show doesn't mean we aren't also going to bring up your cringe desktop AI assistant.

[C]

Oh, I was talking to Mark about this before the show.

[B]

I heard about this. What is it called?

[C]

He suggested that we get them for the editors instead of putting in the satellites.

[B]

Razor's making an A.

[C]

But like, yeah, Razer, can you send 15 of them?

[A]

People will buy that the marketing is slightly less cringe, but the fact that it's. It's a wife slightly more cringe.

[C]

So.

[A]

And apparently one thing that's cool is you will apparently be able to use whichever LLM you want. A thing that's a little less cool is right now, the one that it works with is Grok, which has had some problems lately, to put it mildly.

[B]

It might not be problematic for the people that are buying this.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Which is why it's a one.

[A]

Put it away, Dan. Oh, my God. Luke. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. I can't anymore. Wow. Get rid of it.

[C]

I'm doing it.

[B]

I'm doing it.

[A]

Okay, moving on. Want to bring up the glide?

[B]

Yeah, it's up.

[A]

Glide has unveiled a smart hair clipper with an integrated AI stylist that uses your smartphone, camera and app to map your head coach you step by step and adjust both blade length and motion in real time to guide haircuts and prevent mistakes disrupting the 50 billion dollar grooming market.

[B]

Oh yeah, all those not extremely highly paid barbers. We definitely need to disrupt them. That's. That's very valiant of you. Good job. I. I think it does definitely okay if we go with the assuming it works angle. You're selling the data on your skull, I guess, which doesn't really matter. Weird. But probably doesn't matter. Matter if we go with the angle that it works. I think it has quite a bit of utility. Is it going to work? Would the errors with it be really hilarious.

[A]

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so.

[B]

There's a funny factor.

[A]

I think that I'm going to go with a one.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. I'm a one on this.

[B]

Why is that?

[A]

Because the AI in the case of the frame, there's a real value to the AI being built into the fridge with this.

[B]

Yeah. It really does not need to be in the clippers.

[A]

It does not need to be in the clippers.

[B]

Really be your phone. Especially with like depth scanning with an iPhone. Yeah, yeah. So it should really be in your phone.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. The clipper is like actually too close to interact with in any meaningful way to provide any kind of instruction.

[B]

Yeah, it was just like a. You know, you buy the app and you put a phone mount on your mirror. Mirror. And you put your phone there and then it like guides you. That would probably be fine.

[A]

Adam from from CW says in floatplane chat, I would like to ban Silicon Valley bros from saying the word disrupt.

[B]

Yeah, it like kind of was fine. And then now when they're going after industries like that, it's like, I don't know, leave it alone.

[A]

All right, next up, multiple AI smart toilets, Samsung's. These are devices that use hem cameras, optical and acoustics acoustic sensors.

[B]

There will be pictures of my. What it was.

[A]

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

[C]

I'm thinking.

[B]

Hold on.

[A]

Let me get, let me, let me get there, let me get there. Okay, okay. These devices will use cameras, optical acoustic sensors.

[B]

Acoustic sensors.

[A]

I was waiting for him to hear that.

[B]

They want to hear my farts, dude. I want a database of my farts now.

[A]

And machine learning to analyze urine and stool samples or stool patterns, detect health related changes and provide insights or alerts via companion apps.

[B]

You should have the poople. And you know how divers have that whole thing about how they're supposed to make a very small splash. It should be. They should be.

[C]

Why would I need that?

[B]

5.

[C]

It's a 5.

[B]

It's a 5. 5.

[C]

Definitely.

[B]

Just for the chance that we could have the poop Olympics. It is totally worth it. Sell pictures of your butt. Not even sell it. Give pictures of your butt away to toilet companies. We need the.

[C]

This needs to be like social media. There needs to be like leaderboards.

[B]

Yeah. Fart book from Letterkenny.

[A]

Yeah. This one. This one is more complicated for me than the fridge. Because with the fridge, I don't think that for me personally, I don't think there's much that you would glean from my eating habits that would tell you much about my predispositions I think that the. The capacity to use.

[B]

I totally would, by the way.

[A]

It would tell us some stuff.

[B]

It would talk about when you're in various emotional states and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they target you with advertising.

[A]

Like, it's super a thing for most people, maybe. But I make fun of you a lot for eating nothing but, like, chicken breast. I am a very predictable eater as well. You will learn, basically.

[B]

If you're having a rough day, would you have extra cereal?

[A]

No, I'm serious. I'm actually serious right now.

[B]

I've seen you binge on some pickles.

[A]

Pickles, sure. But, like, then I will go a year without eating a single pickle, which has nothing to do with my emotional state. Like, I just, I. I promise you that. And I know that everyone would say.

[B]

This and maybe that's a personal thing and maybe you're right.

[A]

I promise you it would tell you nothing.

[B]

But for a huge amount of people.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Which is, I think, more what we're judging this.

[A]

And that's fair. No. Well, no, not necessarily.

[B]

So this is for the self, I'm saying, for.

[A]

You're right. In general. But for me personally, the fridge thing is way less of a concern for me because. Because you would. You would not learn that I'm about to.

[B]

For your family.

[A]

This is true. But by the time any of this works, my kids will be moved out.

[B]

No. Oh, what if. What if they're having cranberry juice? What if one of your daughters is having cranberry juice?

[A]

Well, like, by the time my daughter is drinking from my fridge, like by the time these AI Fridges work. Work, my daughter's going to be drinking cranberry juice out of her own fridge. There's no way it's happening in the next, like, five to ten years. No. No shot either way. My point is, I think that's bold. You think so?

[B]

I think that's bold.

[A]

You think it. You think it'll work in the next.

[B]

Few years for literally just that scenario that I described of person of certain gender consuming certain thing, lining that up with certain types of advertising.

[A]

I just don't think.

[B]

I wouldn't be that surprised if that's, like, soon.

[A]

You think so?

[B]

You think it'll actually look like cranberry juice? It's a specific reference.

[A]

Yeah, it's like, to indicate that you have a urinary tract infection probably. Unless you normally happen to drink cranberry juice. And for men, too, by the way. Cranberry juice.

[B]

Cranberry juice is also just good. Yeah, but like, it's also associated with.

[A]

Certain things, but also it's good for UTIs. Okay, you're making me come around on a little bit. However, However, I do stand behind that. The, the poop is going to have information about your diet and also the functioning of your body.

[B]

The poop one is very egregious. We've talked about this on Wham before.

[A]

That the fridge will not totally. The fridge bothers me still a lot less. Yeah, so. So this one. However, however, however, this one still ends up being a three for me because the necessity of it actually being included in the toilet for it to function to me is very high. However, how much I wanted in my life is a one. Because this one. Yeah, this one, I'm like deeply concerned that if you, you take like one poop that has blood in it or something and you're somewhere where there's poor legislation governing this and your insurance company can like before you even know there's a problem, like cut you off if it can.

[B]

If it can tell you are super sick and you open the Uber app.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

And it charge you more for a car.

[A]

Yep, yep. All right, what else we got? Ah, yes. Last one, last one. And then we're. And then we're over this. Okay. Samsung has a whole lineup of AI kitchen appliances, including a fridge and a wine cellar. So for the vino files, which apparently the more correct term is actually we know files. Oh, we know files. Whatever. It doesn't matter. The point is Sam's Samsung has got the bespoke AI wine cellar, which uses AI vision with built in cameras to recognize wine labels, track each bottle's location, and update a SmartThings AI wine manager. The notes say. Sheesh. I just wanted to get a little drunk. I actually think this one assumption that it works seems like a 5 or a 4.

[B]

If it doesn't work now, this one will work a lot faster than the general fridge one we've been talking about because it's way more specified.

[A]

Yeah. If it knows its own layout and everything you're putting into it is a particular shape, this seems like it could pretty much be like Amazon just walk out, go store technology. But like way, way, way easier. Speaking of which, there is a further correction to our correction on the Amazon Go Store. Store.

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

Yeah, last week.

[B]

I feel dumb. I should have noticed this.

[A]

Yeah, just walk out is totally still a thing. They're just deploying it differently. So when I said cancel, I just meant that like particular implementation of it. Oh.

[B]

I meant the other thing.

[A]

Oh. Which Other thing.

[B]

Oh, done this. Yeah, we might as well transition into that.

[A]

We're done that.

[B]

The. The viral Reddit post about food delivery apps was just AI slop.

[A]

Yeah. I'm annoyed with myself.

[B]

I should have noticed this.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

We. We talked about a. And I usually pride myself on noticing these things decently well. And this was. I'm. I'm upset with myself. We talked about a viral Reddit post last week. On Wednesday, the post claimed to be from a developer for a major food delivery app, claiming that priority fees and driver benefit fees go 100% to the company. The driver seeing none of it. Turns out, even though this Post got almost 90,000 updates, 4.8,000 comments, and even a thousand pieces of Reddit gold, it was AI generated. When a reporter had reached out for further comment to find out more information, the original Reddit poster sent back more information, including their photo ID and documents, but those were AI generated. When questioned about it, the Reddit user blocked and eventually deleted their accounts they used for the. The. The Reddit user blocked that person and then eventually deleted their own accounts that they use for communication. Rough. There was a lot of signs that this was kind of bs. I think it had nuggets of truth that I wanted to be true, so I fell for it, which is exactly.

[A]

How this whole thing works.

[B]

So, you know.

[A]

Yeah, I feel dumb, too.

[B]

Constant vigilance. I slipped up, need to be more on top of it because this is just the world we're going to live.

[A]

In now and we're going to slip up again and we're going to do our best to put, put, put better safeguards in place so that we don't.

[B]

We will correct when we can and we'll.

[A]

Well, we're just gonna, we're just gonna have to power through it, boys, because that's all we got.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

We just got each other and powering through it.

[B]

Yep. Yeah, but. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, oh, speaking of having each other, want to hang out in person?

[B]

Oh.

[A]

The first whale land of 2026 will be on February 20th. 21st. Ticket Sale Ticket Sales SART ticket sales start on Monday, January 12th at noon [e-mail].

[B]

Dude, the wizard whale looks so cool. Is this the first time?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

That's the theme. The last one was Astronaut Whale and now we have Wizard Whale.

[B]

Yeah, that's sweet.

[A]

All BYOC tickets will include full access to the event, along with a land lanyard enamel pin and a keychain unique to this event. And we now have two tiers of BYOC. Tickets with slightly different desk sizes. A 3 foot by 30 inches desk space or a 4 foot by 30 inches desk space. These tickets will be available for $95 and $1,000 respectively. Just kidding. It's a hundred bucks. So it's an extra $5 for a little bit more space. For those who are looking to level up the experience, we are offering a limited number of whale VIP tickets for 5,000 Canadian dollars. VIPs will receive a high powered custom built gaming PC, an all over print hoodie, a Prismagic transparent screwdriver, and a studio Labs tour. All you got to do to learn more is head to wailand.com. we recommend creating your account ahead of time so that you are ready the moment that tickets hit sales start.

[B]

That's a good tip.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Cool. It shows the future dates too.

[A]

It does.

[B]

Yeah, it does.

[A]

Oh, do we have all the dates set for this year?

[B]

We do. I showed it on screen.

[A]

Actually didn't know that we'd finalized those.

[B]

Let me go all. There's an upcoming lands button and it shows these.

[A]

All right.

[B]

All the way through 2026.

[A]

Okay. Oh, it says they're tentative. Okay, good.

[B]

Oh, I didn't read that line.

[A]

Cool. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad someone did.

[B]

Cool. There's a no notes. Discord is confidently filed for an initial public offering or ipo Confidentially. Confidentially. What did I say?

[A]

Confidently.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

Dan, were you live when you also.

[C]

Said no, normally I. I don't. Correct.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I mean, you know, if we're just wrong, it's probably not a terrible idea.

[C]

I fixed it for you and now it's truth.

[B]

You changed the the topic title.

[C]

See, Luke is my boss. So. So Luke is never wrong.

[B]

That is a good. Yeah, I like that line. That will be how I manage from. From here forth.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

You can do no inter.

[A]

Huh?

[B]

If I do, it's like Kim Jong Un. If I do something wrong, it's just the right way to do it now. Yeah, I like that. It's a good, good strat.

[A]

We're all rocket science.

[C]

We're all about dictators here in the west.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you think of an example of a company that's.

[A]

What does a penis potato have to do with anything, Dan?

[B]

What?

[C]

Everything.

[A]

What he said. We're all about dictators. Oh.

[C]

Sorry.

[B]

Can you think of an example of a company that serves a niche or loyal fan base, then became publicly traded and actually had its regular customers benefit as a result?

[A]

Chat, you're gonna have to help us out with this.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. Gonna need help with that.

[A]

Okay. That serves. That serves a niche or loyal fan base.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Then became publicly traded and its regular customers benefited. Syphilis says Amazon. No, you got it. Long term. It's got to be long term, buddy. Dude, Amazon is so inside now.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think we're gonna come up with anything. The next discussion question is, what do.

[A]

Should we do? Should we do a dictator's shirt and it's just like a potato in the shape of a penis with like a Hitler stache? Would that be on brand for us?

[B]

How do you get across that? It's potato. I guess you can show, like.

[A]

Yeah, it could look like a potato.

[B]

Root growth or whatever.

[A]

Probably not. Probably for the best that we don't. Okay. Anyway, sorry.

[C]

Would do well as a sticker or an enamel pin, though.

[B]

Look at Noki in full play.

[A]

Chat stop him.

[B]

He was so fast. Sorry you guys had to. Noki's just like, I, I. And then chat help.

[A]

Noki has to put that in the timestamps. Now Noki has to type penis, potato. Penis, potato. Conversation. We have to have it. There's no way to avoid it because that's what we're talking about.

[C]

Noki.

[B]

That is. That is true.

[C]

Would it be flaccid?

[A]

Look, the answer is.

[B]

It would probably look better if it was.

[A]

The answer is boiled. The answer is that I don't. I don't have to do it. I choose to do it to you. Riley told me off for doing bad chapters.

[B]

That's also funny.

[A]

I don't think I could imagine Riley telling off anyone. Come on.

[B]

Does the. Just to keep the topic going long enough that it has to be its own section. Yeah. Does the. Does the penis potato. Is it. Is it veiny? Oh, because you do get some potatoes that'll have, like, a bit of a thing going on.

[A]

Yeah, I could.

[C]

Healed or not peeled?

[B]

Well, not peeled.

[A]

I think not. Yeah, not peeled for sure. So, like, European potatoes, but, like, should it have, like, like a hole in the end or like, could it have a couple turnips at the bottom?

[B]

There's potato eyes. Oh, interesting. So it's like a cornucopia that makes.

[A]

A majestic potato schlong. Hmm. Okay, I think that's enough.

[B]

I think this section of the show.

[A]

What do you expect? Shareholders desired changes for discord. Might be more money or just more users. Get some of that Internet money. Yeah. All right. We kind of talked about Panther Lake already earlier. I like Panther Lake. That was one of our topics. We haven't really talked about CES much or AMD much from ces. Did you pay attention to what they were up to?

[B]

Nope.

[A]

Yeah. So the rumored 9950x3D2 did not get announced. Oh, yeah. So instead we get a 9850x3D, which is a quad core, but 400 MHz maximum boost faster. Cool. And if you compare to like what 9800x3DS could do with like PBO, the gap gets even smaller. Yeah, no, I. No, no pricing, which is ominous. There's one thing I'm pretty excited about. Strix Halo got some new SKUs. So that chip that no one can get, that no one can get supply of and even fewer people can afford now has SKUs that have fewer CPU cores but still the full GPU. Okay, so for the, like, dozen people who want that, of which I happen to be one of them, that's pretty cool because I've really enjoyed. I. I'm, I'm. I'm like deep into Claire Obscure now on my GPD Win five. And it's just.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think you've mentioned it like 12 times for the last two shows.

[A]

It's such an outstanding gaming experience. It's like a 4060 mobile, but, like in a handheld form factor, it's like. Oh, love it.

[B]

It's really cool.

[A]

Yeah, it's super cool. Cool. That was it.

[B]

Nvidia stuff. Should we talk about that?

[A]

Oh, right, yeah. I was going to talk about DLSS four and a half. Okay. So this was like the first time that I can remember that Nvidia has undersold something when they. So when we were talking.

[B]

They've oversold literally everything since the 1000 series launch, in my view.

[A]

Really, 3000 series was pretty sick.

[B]

You don't think it was. They fibbed some stuff in their keynotes.

[A]

3,000. I think the one thing that you could go after them for 3000 series was that 8k gaming on the 3090, while technically true, we've. We tried it. It worked. It was like, unnecessary. And I don't think that's a fib so much as a misread of the direction the market was going to.

[C]

Like.

[A]

There's a lot of games that you could game at 8k on a 3090. 3000 series. Pretty sick. I don't know, man.

[B]

All right, fair enough.

[A]

Chad. If you guys, like, they're still just talking about, like President Richard Tater, maybe.

[B]

I'm conflating the price jumps around that.

[A]

Time well, right, but that was MSRP stuff that was partially Nvidia's, you know, participation, but also a larger.

[B]

Is that I was frustrated with every.

[A]

One of them at launch. It was pretty great.

[B]

Okay, cool, fair enough. So DLSS 4.5.

[A]

So DLSS 4.5. So when we're doing the pre brief, they're walking us through it and they're basically like, yeah, so we think this is as big a leap forward as DLSS 4.0 was in terms of image quality compared to what came before. And it's trained on like five times the data. It's five times the computer compute with something, whatever metric they're using. And it is in many cases closer to ground truth than what we call native rendering these days, which is actually not compared to the many, many, many, many, many samples that they're taking for their reference images that they're using for comparison to benchmark the image quality of their model. And our first question was, okay, if I'm to believe any of this that you're saying, then why did you not call it DLSS5 with the second gen transformer model? And they basically went, well, it's a second generation of the transformer model. We're not actually adding anything new. We have more multi frame gen, but it's just more multi frame gen.

[B]

So that's actually quite logical.

[A]

We arbitrarily pick 4.5.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And that kind of got me going, okay, well then there's no way that it's going to be as big of an improvement as they claim that it is, because there's no way that Nvidia would have missed an opportunity to market something as the best thing ever. You need more green in your life. Like, there's no way. So I get into the booth and I'm like shooting my intro and I'm kind of of, you know, dunking on AI a little bit. We have stupid AI cartoon Jensen holding a bubble wand. And like we're kind of, you know, we're kind of teasing them a little bit. And then I, I get in front of the system and I'm like, holy. Like this looks really good. And I saw, I saw a fair bit of criticism on the video that I didn't move the character in Black Myth Wukong. That was only because they had the character in like exactly the same spot on both systems. And I told them I wouldn't. But I could pan the camera, like, I could move the scene. And then the other one where they, they didn't just not want me to mess up their demo. I was allowed to do whatever I wanted with it. That. That wasn't Nvidia hiding anything. What's up?

[B]

Sorry. The top comment on this video. The, the. This Nvidia video that you did. The top comment. How long before fake frames become real frames? Nvidia has to make fake frames. Fake frames out of fake frames.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I just, I don't know. Just reading that and then can't wait for 5090 performance on a 6050. Both of those just got me giggling.

[A]

They hit pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I got in front of it and I'm switching between the two models. So Nvidia had set up for their demo so that you could switch between old dlss and new dlss. You could just have a hotkey to toggle the models. It's like, wow, the boiling is so reduced. The general sharpness and clarity is so much better. And when they told me in the pre briefing that it was going to help with hdr, I was like, what are you even talking about? That doesn't even make any sense to me. But then once I saw it in action, I was like, oh, okay.

[B]

So.

[A]

It doesn't make your monitor brighter, obviously, but it does a better job of detecting glowing objects and particle effects and things in motion that are supposed to be bright. So yeah, it doesn't make your monitor brighter, but it does make the HDR effect more impactful. It is a marked difference in image quality to the point where, where I was looking at it going for the first time, I would just turn this on. No brainer in any game that it looks this good in and like multi frame gen, obviously latency is still going to be a thing. Right? But Nvidia actually, to their credit, mind blown, had their demo set up for shoot. What's that, what's that game called? The like the Space exploration. The sequel. Help me. What game? What game was that?

[B]

Space Exploration sequel.

[A]

Yeah. Outer Worlds 2. Thank you. So on Outer Worlds 2, their frame gen demo was running on I think it was like 5060 ti's or something like that. Like they didn't just. Just show the top end. The top end card. They weren't showing. Here's a card that doesn't even need 6x frame genning 6x frames and getting 700fps or whatever. They could have done that demo but they chose instead to do Outer Worlds 2 which was using up to 6x frame gen and delivering, yes, high latency because it's generating more frames than it's actually rendering. But a very Smooth animation experience. And it's important to understand what. What the point of the demo was. The point of the demo wasn't this is how I would play this game. I wouldn't. I would turn down the details.

[B]

Even the Nvidia people and you know, I trash on their communication sometimes. But even the Nvidia people very openly admit. Yeah, they wouldn't always even run it on at all. And when they do, they would run it at various settings and this is why they offer you those things. I do respect that.

[A]

So the point of that demo wasn't this is how I would run this game with 50 plus milliseconds of latency. The point of that demo was how good do these generated frames look? Look. And they look shockingly good for how many of them are fake frames are generated frames. I am dark. Guy 2 says pretty sure Jensen and other top people just don't care about gaming anymore and leave it to the lower teams. I don't know. Everything I've heard about Jensen is. He's like sort of a mark, sort of a micromanager with everything and like very involved. But I don't know. I don't know how true that remains. He's been doing a lot of more like priority, like, like being a face of the company stuff lately, like interviews and things like that. So I don't know. I've met the guy but I don't like know him. So it's hard for me to speculate on that. Anyway. Yeah, DLSS 4.5, the new model and, and you can try it for yourself. You don't have to take my word for it. You can just, you can just go. And if you go in the GeForce app, if you have an Nvidia card, fairly recent gen, the older cards have a bigger performance hit on it from my understanding. But you go into the Nvidia app and then you have to find the option to opt into beta and experimental features and then you just wait. As far as I can tell, they might have a check for updates now button. I couldn't find it when I was trying to set this up at a booth and I was in a hurry but I couldn't immediately find it. But I just waited a while and eventually it prompted me to restart the Nvidia app. Just make sure you got the latest drivers and then you select Model L or Model N depending on your use case and you can go find information on which one is best. I turned it on in the MSI booth in Borderlands 4 and it was just like, wow, this is really good in this too. So I've seen it in Outer Worlds 2. I've seen it in Black Myth, Wukong and I've seen it in Borderlands 2 and it just looks really, really good. For the first time I'm like, okay, well this is just the future then.

[B]

It's interesting to me because like, you know, I don't, I don't love the. I can understand it, but I don't necessarily love the like, ah, developers just suck and need to do better argument.

[A]

Such. That is such a just lazy but broad strokes.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But nonsense argument.

[B]

You look at Arc Raiders and Embark and you look at 1080s running that game north of 60fps.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And it's like, oh man.

[A]

Well, it comes down to what you're trying to do. Some games are about lighting and ambiance and some games are about making sure that looks great. There's different ways to make a game.

[B]

Look great and it's not the best looking game.

[A]

Yeah. So like, okay. Yeah.

[B]

And it's just, it's just, it's. We're in an interesting, it's such an interesting crossroads roads because on the competitive side you don't want that input latency.

[A]

No, I wouldn't use any of this stuff for a competitive title.

[B]

But then it is super interesting actually.

[A]

Upscaling. Maybe that's a longer conversation, but frame gen. Absolutely not.

[B]

And there's always been different settings depending on if the game is competitive or single player, whatever. But this is like a very deep divergence in like how your computer is going to feel deal depending on how you set things up, in my opinion.

[A]

Well, I mean, again, that's where GeForce app comes in, where it's supposed to. You just click a button and it gives you the optimal settings.

[B]

There was a crazy thread where a buddy and I were playing a game and he was having some performance issues and we were trying to figure out what the heck was going on because it was like, it was weird. He had like 25% GPU utilization and was getting 40 FPS.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Like, just odd.

[A]

Oh boy, here we go.

[B]

Googled it. Brought them to a Reddit thread. The top voted comment was click Optimize in the Nvidia app. Top voted comment. Not, not like everybody's just like, yeah, duh, do that. Not, not a debate really. Just click the Optimize button.

[A]

No like, you know, conversation or anything. Just like what it could be, what it couldn't be. What you might prefer versus what you might not prefer.

[B]

Nope, just click the Optimize button and did it work?

[A]

Yeah. Cool.

[B]

Crazy.

[A]

Jeromer and floatplane chat goes DLSS will become like the lossless slash compressed debate in audiophile.

[B]

I've seen I. It might have been Dromer the previous time too. I saw this earlier in full plane chat and honestly if we're looking years in the future I could maybe see that. Especially if they out figured figure out the latency thing I'm talking like well that'll be. That's tough.

[A]

Theoretically reflex too is the solution.

[B]

We'll solve it or reduce it.

[A]

Reprojection. Yeah, solve it. Like be better than native. Like it's already used in VR and they've. They're clearly working at it. If you want to. If you want to familiarize yourself with the. With the. With the idea behind it here we did that. We actually did a video on this a number of years ago now. I think Linus Reprojection thought of this here. Hold on. It's called. I'm embarrassed I didn't think of this. Asynchronous Reprojection. It's super cool tech and the original source is actually what was. What was. But yeah, yeah, here we go. So there's Comrade Stingers original video and download links so you can like play around with it and then two clicks for. Philip did a video about Async Reprojection as well. Oh hello. Hold on a second. YouTube. That's interesting. My browser tab just like stopped working. Anyway, the point is what it does is it.

[B]

Couldn't you still be shooting at a Phantom?

[A]

You could, but there's already latency between you and your opponent. Opponent. Anyway, we just compensate for it in the same way. We compensate as much as we can. So what Async Reprojection does is it decouples your inputs from the game's frame rate so it moves opponents and other objects based on the updated data. But your interaction with the engine is completely decoupled and battery smooth. So theoretically there should be no downside as long as. Wait for it. As long as you're still running at like a reasonable frame rate. But it will feel so much better.

[B]

That sounds like it's great for input lag, but I still feel like you might have issues with the whole shooting at Phantom thing. I don't know if this solves competitive gameplay. I might be misunderstanding something or just not very familiar.

[A]

No, there will still be. There will still be disadvantages to having a low. Hold on. I'm actually just trying to think. No, no, hold on a Second, because like if you're trying to snipe like a, like a pin sized head on a, on a hill away. Far away from you. Yeah, they could move enough that it could be a problem. But if you're in like, like a close quarter shotgun fight or something. Something. I. Yeah, I kind of doubt it. I think you, I think you could be not shooting at Phantoms. There will, I think there will always asterisk like functionally always be purists and very, very high performance. Like esports athletes who will just Simply need a 9090 Ti Titan or whatever.

[B]

The thing that I'm trying to ask isn't even necessarily for myself, like is this going to make a difference for me? Realistically, no. But like is Shroud going to turn this off on is probably insert other name. I don't know, whatever. But like. Yeah.

[A]

So here, here we go. Okay, I've got my, I've got my stuff fixed. So with just a few clicks, asynchronous reprojection demo takes 30fps and makes it feel like 240fps and it's kind of hard to tell, but man, we have often done a pretty bad job. There we go. So this is what's happening. It's taking each one frame that you get and it is decoupling your inputs from those updates.

[B]

No, yeah, I get that.

[A]

So at 30fps it's. What is that, 33 milliseconds at 60fps that's 16 milliseconds. That is freaking not a lot of time. So if you're running the game at some reasonable refresh rate, 16 or let's say you can get 100 FPS. So now we're talking about more like 10 milliseconds or whatever. Would you rather have your inputs at a thousand hertz on like a thousand hertz monitor? Even knowing that, you know, the objects could be 100 milliseconds out of data or whatever, but probably not if you tried it. Pretty much everyone we put in front of it was like, holy crap, this is amazing. I would love this so much more.

[B]

Yeah, my prop. My problem with the thing that I'm describing is you wouldn't really be able to tell super easily without like analyzing individual like in a first person shooter game or something where if you're fighting with like blades and it's, it's physics based or whatever, you wouldn't be able to tell without analyzing.

[A]

But there's already so much slop in any kind of multiplayer game because of network latency anyway. Way that I just be tough to. I just don't see this. Again, the main issue. Me.

[B]

Does this really. Nah, it's probably fine. Whatever. I didn't have a desktop for a long time. I have a desktop again. I was quickly reminded that I am now older and slower than I used to be. It is what it is.

[A]

Also rusty.

[B]

But yeah.

[A]

Also the other thing.

[B]

Yeah. And you know, like, I do. Okay. But like it's not. I'm not. I'm not a competitive gamer and I. I have long accepted this and that's fine.

[A]

Me too. Even more than him. Not that it's a competition, but I have hardcore accepted being non competitive more than he has.

[B]

Yeah. I still try.

[A]

Yeah. There's no point for me.

[B]

But yeah. I'm wondering about like the super optimized situation for someone who is genuinely in that level of competition trying to do that thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is this viable? That's. That's the part where I'm wondering.

[A]

I don't know. I don't think we're gonna know until we actually get Reflex 2 or 3 or 5 or who. You know, who knows? Right. Because clearly this was working well enough that someone was able to put together a very compelling, very exciting demo years ago. It's already working in VR game games and used very actively. And Nvidia has been cooking on this for us, presumably this whole time. And they're not. They don't think it's ready yet. So.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. It'll just, you know, we'll have to.

[A]

We'll have to try it because.

[B]

Because my. The reason for bringing this up is the whole lossless versus compressed audio thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is like effectively universally used in my opinion. Except for. I wonder what DMS would say. I wonder if he uses lossless or not. I'm actually not sure he does use lossless. Okay.

[A]

I'm not convinced that he actually thinks it matters, though. I think it's one of those. I can.

[C]

So if your equipment's good enough, you can hear it, but there's diminishing returns.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Compare. Can hear it compared to what, though? Compared to like, you know, not high quality. Yeah. Compared to streaming or like, compared to a cd.

[C]

Well, CD is pretty much indistinguishable. Right. Red Books. Redbrook's pretty damn high.

[A]

Well, so that's compared to an MP3. Sure.

[C]

Definitely.

[A]

That's what I'm. That's what I'm. That's what I'm. That's what I'm talking about here. It's like when we say, can you hear the difference from lossless? I think what Luke was getting at lossless compared to any kind of lossy.

[B]

Compression, decently high quality.

[A]

And I. I am personally not convinced and I don't want to put words in DMS's mouth, but I'm pretty sure we've talked about it. And high quality compressed audio is pretty darn good.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

He was talking about the.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Does it make sense to mention video ideas that might be like, pretty far out. Yeah.

[A]

All right, I won't. Cool.

[B]

Sounds good. Was there anything else in the Nvidia CS keynote? I don't actually think we talked about it at all.

[A]

There was other stuff. Who cares?

[B]

Okay, sounds good. Goodbye.

[A]

This is cool. Prusa Pro AFS was actually the BattleBots guys that brought this to my attention. It's like just ready to go. Print farm that just automatically loads and unloads your plates and just does print farm things.

[C]

Cool, right?

[B]

That's pretty sweet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Cool, right? I think they just announced this. That's it.

[B]

Crazy neat, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Screwdriver video. What's this?

[A]

Absolute mad lads. I don't know. It says, check out this cool LTT screwdriver video.

[B]

Courtesy Jake Redditor Bradley Doyle modeled, textured and animated our screwdrivers in blender to make this cool product video. Oh, I did see this. Yeah.

[A]

I have not seen this.

[B]

This is pretty sweet.

[A]

Oh, that's cool. Whoa. It even like, looks like it's made of zip.

[B]

Think.

[A]

Okay, that's pretty cool. Wow. All the bits and everything.

[B]

Dude, I've seen this already and it's so cool.

[A]

Good lord.

[B]

It's so sick what you did.

[A]

All the different colors.

[B]

So sick, dude.

[A]

Wow. What? Wow. Okay, that's pretty cool. Oh, hold on. I accidentally went away when it was still saying what Bradley does. Hold on, hold on. There were two things. 3D generalist and motion designer.

[B]

Motion designer.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So sick. BradleyDoyle CA Genuinely fantastic.

[A]

Canadian bro, too. Oh, yeah, you love to see it.

[B]

Sick. He has five subscribers on YouTube.

[A]

Oh, that will probably go up.

[B]

Yeah, Change that.

[A]

Okay. Is that it for topics. Oh, okay. Hey. Bose has Open sourced the SoundTouch API. Hi. After previously announcing the end of cloud support for SoundTouch, Bose is taking steps to ensure that their owners aren't left. Sol. Our discussion question is, do you think Bose is getting it right? Should they be doing more? Obviously, in our perfect world, when you sell something that has a function, it just has the function forever. This is the acceptable compromise that we have laid out. So it would be pretty hypocritical for us to now say that Bose needs to do more and do better. Better. This is obviously not ideal, but it is better than nothing. So I'm going to take the small.

[B]

L. Yeah, I. I think without diving into this way too much, this seems like to a te what we've asked companies to do if they're going to shut something down, which again, ideally you don't shut it down.

[A]

But we also are realists and recognize that you can't just keep everything going forever.

[B]

So I think that that's really awesome. Makes me think more positively of both.

[A]

Straight up Mark Dick T69 asks if we've talked about the clicks communicator. People in the community are hyped af. No, I. Yeah, I could. I could try it, I guess. I mean, I did recently try a phone with a. With a keyboard again and what I discovered is that, wow, I use a lot of special characters these days. And that's. That's good. I like it. Autocomplete is really good. And screens are actually legitimately faster than I ever was with a full keyboard. I definitely have more to learn about this one. There's things about it that look better than previous keyboard phone. Modern attempts at bringing back the past.

[B]

I heard. I heard rumor that like, one of the original BlackBerry designers is on the team.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

Well, that worked out great for BlackBerry.

[B]

Well, it did originally.

[A]

Yeah. Right. I don't know, man. I. I would love for this to be like the Logitech G class where I go on wan show and I go, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Seems dumb. And then I use it and it totally changes my opinion. Sure. I'd love for that to happen. Probably not, but I bet I'd love for it to happen.

[B]

It would be cool.

[A]

That's gonna be my attitude. I would love for. I would love. I'd love for that to happen.

[B]

More topics. More topics.

[A]

But like, I'm the kind of guy who wants like even more screen, not even less screen, which might make that tough.

[B]

I don't. I think one of the reasons why I said I don't think it's gonna happen isn't because I'm like, oh, the clicks is doomed or whatever. I think it's not for you.

[A]

Yeah. I'm just not the guy.

[B]

Yeah. Should this be hosted by someone else?

[A]

No, I think I can be fair to it. I don't think there's anyone here who would want a keyboard on their phone, quite frankly. Frankly, like, it seems like.

[B]

Is there More going on.

[A]

With what?

[B]

Like are they. Are they doing something more? They said a phone for people who want to like do stuff. Not doom scroll. And then their thing says tools for taking action, not distraction or whatever. Are they doing more than just put keyboard on phone?

[A]

I'm pretty sure it's just the keyboard. Yeah. All right. I think it's time for after dark, Mr. Dan.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Hit me. Sure thing. Yeah, we got a few here today.

[B]

Oh, it comes out of the. The things like a case. It can just be a normal phone. I just watched a little mini video.

[C]

Oh, neat.

[B]

There's just a USB C plug in the thing that gives you the keyboard. Watch this. This replay.

[A]

Oh, that's their cases though.

[B]

Click.

[A]

That's a different product. Oh, the clicks communicator is a phone.

[B]

Click communicator. And okay, so I didn't click on that. I just scrolled down and then it's no longer that. All right, sure. That was a little bit confusing. My bad.

[A]

Cool. Good chat.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Hello, Ltd Linus, how is FFT evalis going?

[A]

I am on the second last fight and it's a giant load of bullshit and at this point I would either have to undo the last few also bullshit, but I made it through them fights and grind a bunch of stuff and get some equipment that I need to bring with me specifically to make this fight winner vulnerable because I need to be able to absorb some stupid element. Otherwise I will just immediately be one hit every time any of them hit me or grind a bunch of levels or I need to go back out of this dungeon. So undo those three fights and then admit defeat and go off of tactician difficulty and go back to the standard difficulty in which case these last fights will just be a breeze because. Because I've been playing at tactician difficulty so I'm. I'd be like ludicrously overpowered to play against normal opponents in which case I don't even really care about finishing it either of those two ways enough. So I'm on like the second last fight and I gave up but I beat the game already so I don't really care and I got almost to the end at tactician and the only reason that I can't get through it is cuz I like, I. I got like two of my shields broken in the previous fight so I like didn't bring enough. I. I think it's. Yeah, I shields. I didn't bring enough ice shields with me and a couple of them got like broken by stupid knights so I like don't have enough to keep my opponent, to keep my team from getting just sniped across the map by that bullshit guy in the second last fight that just has an ice gun that just destroys you. And then I didn't grind break weapon on Mustadio and just like cheese it like that. So it's just. I don't know, man. I don't know, man. It's one of those things where I know that tactician is for experienced players of the game, but when the only way to beat a fight is to have like done a very specific build or like have a very specific item that you've got equipped, that's not super fun for me. I like being able to build a somewhat rounded party and I'm. I'm over it.

[C]

Got a question here from Cody. Is WI fi driver drunk? What happened to Wi Fi 7e?

[A]

I mean Wi fi has been WI fi has been drunk for a while. I mean, remember 802.11 B and then 802.11. We went all the way to G and then 802.11. What, what was the next one? Was it AC? Was that the next one? And then. Yes, and then we went to Wi Fi 6 I think. Hold on.

[C]

Did they drop the letters after ac?

[A]

Oh yeah. N. I forgot about N. No, no.

[C]

It was N. AX is when they were calling them like both G, then.

[A]

N, then ac, then ax, then we retconned all of that and called it all WI fi to Wi Fi 5 and then came Wi Fi 6, then 6e and now 7 and then. Yeah, Magic.

[B]

No, you linked it.

[A]

Yeah, there you go.

[B]

11, 11B, 11A, 11G, 11N, 11AC, 11AX, 11BE, 11BN.

[A]

No one really used 802.11 though. And then A and B existed at like kind of the same. Yeah, there you go. Kind of the same time A I think was 5 gigahertz rather than 2.4 if I recall correctly. But literally, quite literally nothing consumer facing used it. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Am I remembering that correctly? Oh yeah. Oh, there's a table right there to the right. Yeah, Yeah. A was 5 gigahertz. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Cool. Good chat.

[C]

Hi, DLD on your comment about hard drives. IBM is trying to strategically position tape, IBM Diamondback for long term storage due to data center boom. Do you think the bubble will pop on them?

[B]

No, tape's been around. Around.

[A]

I don't think the whole time is ever going to die.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's it has not.

[C]

That's the whole point of tape.

[B]

It has not left. Tape has been around. It hasn't been around at the consumer level, really. Although there's been a couple attempts. It. It's. Yeah, the problem is the drives are so freaking expensive. But if I remember correctly, the tapes are pretty cheap, right? Yeah, yeah, the drives are cheap. Just out of reach of consumers, realistically.

[A]

Good timing. What you said that they were out of reach of consumers, right. As the price popped up in the.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, but the, but the tapes are fine and like genuinely a lot of big enterprises have been using them for the whole time.

[A]

They're very reliable. They're slow af, but for long term archival storage until we get like DNA storage or like storing data in, in crystals or something. This is pretty awesome.

[C]

Aren't some of the sizes that you can get like obscene? Like 512 terabytes and like, they're massive. Like crazy.

[B]

Yeah, it's honestly my favorite part about.

[C]

Tape is like the robots, like the tunnels and the tape grabbing robots and the. It's just so neat.

[A]

Oh, this was cool. I dropped by Frore Systems. We didn't end up making a video, but their new cold plate looks amazing. I was kind of, I was kind of skeptical because I was like, okay, I mean, we've pretty much gotten to the point where you, you've made copper fins as small as they can get. You know, how much better does it get? It turns out, oh, this is not a great, it's not a great shot. Oh, shut up. They don't have the, they don't have the geometry on their site. Come on, you guys. Okay, well, whatever. It turns out that if you use deposition manufacturing like they do with their air jets, you can create shapes through very similar to how you would manufacture like silicon, like semiconductor products. You can deposit much more complex geometries that dramatically improve the heat exchange and you can do it really cheaply, which is probably the coolest part about it. They weren't quoting pricing publicly, but someone slipped up and told me a number which I won't disclose because I said it was wouldn't. But it seems like basically my next question was, oh, interesting. Can we have consumer ones? And they were like, we haven't considered that. And I was like, okay, can we have consumer ones? And then they didn't commit anything. So that was neat for our systems. There you go.

[C]

I've got one here for Luke. Hey, lld Question for Luke. What's been your overall experience with OVH as a hosting platform? Hello from. From the OVH DC team.

[A]

Oh, no pressure.

[C]

Which is why I wanted to make sure I read the whole thing.

[B]

I mean, with anyone that you will have had a business relationship for this long. There's been bumps, but I think it's been really good. Realistically, the bumps that we've had, they have cared about them and sought resolution fairly quickly. And this includes when we've had account handlers that like, did not know or care whatsoever about all of this. They're just, they're OVH people dealing with an OVH customer that has a problem and they cared and dealt with it. And like, some people have pointed out certain things that are kind of a little bit bumpy about the OVH experience. And it's like, yeah, they're also show me the price competitor, bruh. I'll show you the similar bumpy experience. Like, it's fine, dude. I've been pretty happy with how things have generally gone. I don't have bad things to say. There's a reason why we've been working with OVH for a very long time.

[A]

And I know there was certain stuff that we like relied on very heavily in the early days.

[B]

Like the DDoS protection back in the day was like a pretty big deal.

[A]

And the OVH to OVH super high speed links that were like practically free, if I recall correctly.

[B]

Yeah, pretty big deal.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, we've been, we've been quite happy. I don't have bad things to say. I mean, okay, I could drum some stuff up, but like, if I'm being realistic, I'm. I'm quite happy. And I'm sure if, if this question was asked in reverse, I'm sure there's things they could draw up as well because we, we definitely message them a lot about things, but yeah, they're cool. Come say hi in our French office. I have technically twice. Both times were great. Both times were not for.

[A]

For.

[B]

For flow plane, which is the majority of the usage that we have of ovh. Yeah. Which was kind of funny because both times I went, I had to tell them like, by the way, we actually use your stuff. And they were like, huh? Which is like, yeah, okay, maybe we should work on informing them about that. I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't. Who knows?

[C]

Hey, ltt, I am doing a degree in special education and looking into working at a nonprofit for people with disabilities. I was wondering which teacher or professor inspires you.

[A]

Got a couple answers for this one. My parents were my mom and My stepdad were both teachers and my aunt on my biological father's side is also a teacher. So I had a lot of teachers in my life growing up. And I always thought that it was a very honorable thing to do. I thought it was really cool. I wanted to be a teacher until I couldn't get a degree. You need a degree to be a teacher, at least here anyway. But I'd say, like, the teachers that I had in school that were very inspiring. I mean, Madame Baldasso made me care about French. Al Horn, outstanding English teacher who made me able to write and do my job that I do today.

[B]

Yeah, I have three primary ones. Mr. Traddle, who's. I know he's still in the. In the school system. I think he's a. A principal now. He showed me that, like, with effort you can accomplish a lot. And he enabled me to push really hard. Like, he noticed really early on that I was, you know, I'd be done the class assignment in four minutes or whatever and you're supposed to sit there for the class duration. And he'd give me the next one and then I'd finish a bunch of them in a day. So he'd give me the next years and be like, just sit in the corner and do all these by yourself, basically. I'm not going to teach you how to do them. Here's the information. I have to teach the normal class, but you can just go. And I did that and finished all of the grades of computers in like the first year or two that I was in high school. A lot of teachers wouldn't do that. Like, that was. He's going above and beyond. And he kept going above and beyond a bunch of times. I remember one year he took this. I probably told this on my show before, but he took a summer class at BCIT on 3D game programming and then distilled it down and created a new course at our high school just called 3D game programming just for our year. Because, like, a bunch of my friends and our group of people in my grade were all really interested in this, this. And I don't even think he kept it going for future grades because none of the other kids had a lot of interest. But I think we had two terms of it or something. I don't remember all the details, but like, that was so unnecessary and so incredibly amazing and inspiring at the same time. I remember again, a bunch of us had interest in hardware. So he did this whole thing. I've definitely told him Wencho before where he got Us a bunch of hardware that we could zombify together, which was amazing. He was awesome. Mr. Mr. Thompson. I would get really bad grades in English every single year.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because I would just get torched for, you know, issues. And he put a cap on that and then tried to cultivate the, like, you know, you seem to like, care about stuff and have ideas and whatnot. So let's focus on that for now and grow your writing. And then out of his course, I went from, from like bottom of the barrel grades to doing really well and getting into AP English 12 and then being fairly successful in AP English 12 because it inspired me to try harder, which was great. And then Mr. First Again, just very inspiring about caring about things and pushing hard regardless. And he was my physics teacher. And it's great. Those three were like huge inspirations for me.

[A]

I'm going to shout out Mr. Russell too, for teaching me that not all teachers are going to give a about you. It wasn't that he didn't care. It was that he projected how it's going to be.

[B]

Yeah. Mr. First showed that, like, you know, it, it matters if things are like, hard, but you still have to do them. That was like a very important lesson from him of, like, here, look, I'll help you, but at the end of the day, you're going to be out there on your own and you're going to need to just be able to do it. So, like, let's figure this out together.

[A]

I just found out that my AP English teacher published between nine and six months ago, a series of five talks at the Merritt BC Library on the history of life on Earth.

[B]

What?

[A]

And I pretty much guarantee you, even though this only has as few as one view per video, that it is going to be very entertaining and very educational.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

So there you go.

[B]

That's actually really cool.

[C]

Hello, dot dll I'm having all of my teeth, including wisdom teeth removed on Wednesday.

[A]

Holy crap.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Is that a thing?

[C]

Sometimes all of my, my teeth. Sometimes that can happen.

[A]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[C]

Linus, when you had your wisdom teeth removed, how long did it take for you to not be in pain?

[A]

I think not in. Okay. Well, it depends. For the top ones, it was pretty quick. For the bottom ones, man, I don't remember. I, I, I had those out like, I don't know, seven, eight years ago. I remember it taking a while. And it really depends. I mean, it'd be better to talk to, I imagine. Is it like an oral surgeon that would do it at that point? If you're getting everything out.

[B]

I wonder. What? What? I wonder.

[A]

I mean, I don't want to ask personal questions.

[C]

Yeah, but that, that, I mean, sometimes you do it for dental implants and stuff like that too.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[C]

It's very big in the Hollywood community.

[A]

Oh, Crystal.

[B]

You get new.

[A]

What?

[B]

Huh?

[C]

Oh, it might be. Oh, it is.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

Why? Or don't tell us.

[B]

Well, we don't.

[A]

Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. You don't have to tell us why. But hopefully that goes all right. Yeah, I hope. Hope that goes all right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Next.

[C]

DLL should games cater to whales or masses? For example, here. EAFC 2026.

[A]

Wow. Are you going to let them finish or what? Nope.

[B]

Yeah, sorry.

[C]

Go for it. They've been altering between reducing the meta based on feedback annoying the pros and increasing it annoying the casuals. Can following feedback be bad?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I guess that's. Well, Luke was way ahead of you. I think that for a game like, like, I think for a company like EA with a mass market product like a soccer game. Yes, yes, yes, yes, Luke. Yes.

[B]

Yes, yes, yes.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's tough because you are. You're trying to appeal to everyone all at once and that's, that's tough. And if you don't, you know, if your game doesn't do 100 million, 200 million, a billion dollars in sales or whatever, then for, for some reason, even though you were profitable, your entire team might get laid off. You kind of, you have to take feedback, but then you also have to at some point grow a spine and make a game that has some kind of artistic intent to it or not, and just deal with that. There's always going to be someone who's mad at you because just like running a YouTube channel that is watched by millions of people, if even 1% of people don't like the direction that you're taking it, that's going to be like from a million, right? That's 10,000 people that are going to be mad about whatever it is that you did. And when you upload every day or when you publish a patch every week or whatever it is that per that part of that audience or that player base that is mad is going to shift around and you're just going to feel like, well, I'm listening to you guys and now you're telling me I didn't do the right thing and it's just a lose, lose place to be.

[B]

Yeah. When I first heard the question, it was like, do you think it's better for slop to be generated in flavor A or flavor B. That's basically just how I interpreted that. I think sometimes when you receive feedback you gotta analyze what the root of that feedback is. And sometimes with Linus's example, when you have this public thing that lots of people interact with, interact with some of the feedback that you're going to receive when super negative, you might read it and just be like, yeah, okay, working as intended to be completely honest. Maybe the thing that you made just wasn't for that person. And if they're like I hate that it does this and you're like well it doing that is the point, then that's okay, that's all right. If you make a horror game and somebody's like I hate this game. 0:10 it was scary. Scary. It's like cool, nice. Maybe that person will ask for a refund and they'll get it and that's all right. But that was also sort of the point. So no problem.

[C]

Up next. Hello. LLD USB cable testers range from 15.

[A]

To over a hundred to over 10,000. But yes, carry on.

[C]

Yeah, I mean accurate and I have no idea if any of them are any good. Any advice? Treedix vs Caber Q U Possible video topic after your new USB cables launch.

[A]

I don't know that we would get into that to be honest with you.

[B]

For the like 12 people that it would affect.

[A]

I looked very briefly at Treatex and it seems like it's sort of of fairly basic and or kind of very diy like in terms of the information that they're providing. Like they're not looking at the shape of the eye, you know, they're just kind of like yes, no, no, yes, no, yes, no. What I suspect is that for very basic testing. Does this cable work? It might tell you. It would. It would almost certainly be able to tell you no, it's broken. But I don't know that it's. Yes would be particularly meaningful to me. It might be amazing but I have no experience with it and I don't know that I have the interest in going to a level of depth that would be required to find out if it's any good. When we'd rather just use professional level tools and make sure that our cables are good with those and focus on that for now. Speaking of cables, by the way, now is a great time. Thanks Nick. To head over to lttstore.com and sign up for a notification for when our true spec cables are going to be launched. Purpose built lengths so we Want you to get the right length cable for you. So we'll have more than just the sort of main sizes clearly labeled speeds and feeds just like that. And they won't come off because they are embossed and UV resistant silicone style cables which are nice and flexible and feel just not style.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They're just satisfying. Yes, they are. Hit me, Dan.

[C]

Last one I've got for you. Hey. LLD had two packages swapped and it did not appear like an innocent mistake for both.

[A]

Oh, bummer.

[C]

Got any fun stories about stolen or swapped packages at LMG or stories about suffering from retail fraud at ncix?

[A]

Man, I don't. I wasn't really involved in that department. Like I'm sure if I could get in touch with like Ruji or something, he would be able to tell me all kinds of fun stories. But what I will say is that Corsair's side of the story on some of the stuff that's been going on, returns or whatever. Yeah. Is a little more nuanced than some of the public. Public discourse about it. I know, right? We're still waiting to get a little bit more information and whether or not the people there can even really talk to us. But you know, hint, spoiler. Apparently in some of these cases, like it's pretty obvious based on the volume of orders that one individual is trying to place for, for items that have price errors that, you know, they're not acting in good faith. They're just trying to get a lot of stuff so that they can flip it for profit. Which, you know, you're not really the victim anymore at that point. It's certainly not black and white. I don't really have. I've actually had really good luck in terms of my packages generally arriving when I order them.

[B]

I've had, I mean I've had delays and stuff, but I've. I don't think there's only one time I had a major issue with a package and I had to drive to like the shipping depot and get it from them at the depot. And it was because of some. There was like a bunch of issues with the package and they wanted it to be like much more officially handed off to the point where I went to the depot for it and they like gave me a shipping refund or something. I don't remember what happened, but it was like very strange.

[A]

I've definitely had some. Got my stuff like that, that scorpion chair. They just like dropped it off.

[B]

Oh, dude. Okay. Yeah, I've had one problem. I had a chair just left in the freaking lawn.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

Stupid.

[C]

All right.

[A]

Nice. Dan, please tell me you had your mic on.

[C]

No.

[A]

What? He said lawn chair. That's funny. You have to ding yourself. I won't have the show until you ding yourself. Nice. And we'll see you again next week. Same bad time, same bad channel.

[B]

Bye.

[A]

All right.